Voyage of Innocence. Elizabeth Edmondson

       SIX

      They didn’t take their bicycles when they went to Balliol for John Petrus’s party, not in those clothes.

      Vee was surprised to get an invitation. ‘I’ve never met him.’

      ‘He’s a don at Balliol,’ Claudia said, her voice careless, her face alert. ‘Fearfully clever, and very good-looking. He knows Hugh quite well, and he wants to meet you and Lally.’

      Vee returned to the invitation. What did one wear to a don’s cocktail party?

      ‘Not tweeds,’ Lally and Claudia said together. Vee’s bristly Yorkshire tweeds, built to last, were a standing joke. Practical and warm they might be, but they were no more than a distant relation to the lovely American tweed that Lally wore, or Claudia’s even prettier and much softer ones, and Vee knew which she preferred.

      ‘Petrus is the most terrific dandy, frightfully dashing for a university fellow,’ Claudia said. ‘Such a shame that we don’t fit into each other’s clothes, Vee, and Lally’s far too tall for hers to be any use to you.’

      ‘I wouldn’t mind being able to wear your clothes, but I don’t think you’d want to borrow any of mine, even if you could fit into them,’ Vee said. ‘Not your style.’ She minded very much about how old-fashioned and frumpish most of her wardrobe was, but she wasn’t going to let Claudia know that.

      ‘No, I wouldn’t, although those tweeds do have a certain bizarre character to them.’

      In the end, Vee wore her green moiré frock for Petrus’s party. She’d thought it very elegant when she bought it in Leeds, but she knew she’d win no prizes for smartness with Claudia and Lally there. It shrieked ‘provincial’ beside their clothes: from Paris in Claudia’s case, and New York in Lally’s.

      Claudia wore a grey silk dress, cut on the bias, which made her look like a Norse goddess out for a good time. Lally’s frock was a cocktail in apricot silk, a demanding colour that suited her hair and eyes.

      They set off to Balliol, Vee feeling countrified and dowdy in her thick coat. Claudia had a fur wrap, needless to say, and looked fearfully glamorous.

      They arrived at the lodge at the same moment as Alfred Gore. His vitality swept over them as he waved the porter aside. ‘I’ll take the ladies up to Mr Petrus’s rooms,’ he said, and set off across the quad, brandishing a large black umbrella.

      He guided them to a dark entrance and up three stone steps. Inside, it was dark, with a kind of stuffy dampness in the air and a strong smell of urine.

      ‘It is a bit whiffy,’ said Alfred. ‘All the same, these Balliol men, they don’t know the meaning of the word drains, they’re far too clever to bother their heads about details like properly functioning lavs. We’re on the third floor, I’m afraid,’ he went on, bounding ahead up the stairs, then waiting on the landing for them to catch up. ‘In we go.’

      Vee was used to crushes, since the York clergy liked to gather together in small spaces with their wives and families, but her first impression was that she had never seen so many people crammed into one room. It was a large room, with three sash windows set in bays, a large fireplace, and a closed door, which must lead to a bedroom. There was a huge rolltop desk, pushed into a corner and stacked with papers. A grand piano took up a lot of space at the end of the room; its lid was down and it was draped in green baize, which was just as well, given the glasses set down on it.

      Alfred eased his way through the mass of chattering, smoking people until he came within reach of Petrus. Being taller than most of those there, he could look over their heads and catch the attention of their host. ‘Petrus!’ he cried. ‘Refugees from Grace.’

      ‘Hello,’ said Claudia, fixing Petrus with her most dazzling blue look.

      He was a slender man, quite tall, with very pale fair hair combed back from his forehead. He had a mouth that Vee found slightly disturbing, but the most remarkable thing about him were his dark grey eyes, watchful, clever, penetrating eyes.

      ‘Claudia, my dear, how lovely to see you.’ He gave her a brushing kiss on one cheek and then on the other, and made a little bow to Lally. ‘Our American visitor, I assume. Miss Fitzpatrick, isn’t it? I had the pleasure of meeting your father when last I was in Chicago. I’m sure he will win a seat in the Senate, and then we may expect great things from him.’ His eyes moved to Vee. ‘Ah, the Yorkshire cousin. Hugh Trenchard’s sister, I believe. Good evening Miss Trenchard. You honour us this evening.’

      Vee could feel a flush creeping over her face. Was he being ironic? She was infuriated to find herself both flustered and overwhelmed by this man. He wasn’t handsome in any film-star kind of way, but he made the other men around look diminished. Except for Alfred, who had his own energetic personality wrapped around him like a cloak.

      As for clothes, the two men couldn’t have looked more different. Alfred was wearing an appalling pair of grey flannel trousers, held up with an Eton tie, she noticed, and his usual shabby pullover. Petrus, in contrast, was wearing an immaculately tailored suit and a dashingly embroidered waistcoat.

      ‘Call her Vee, everybody does,’ said Claudia, manoeuvring so that she stood beside her host. ‘This looks as though it’s going to be a lively party.’

      Vee had no desire to stand there with Petrus’s sardonic eye upon her, so she edged backwards and slid towards the window.

      At first glance, although much more eccentric or dowdy or casual in their dress, she would have said the guests were the same as at any other party; people who knew one another extremely well and probably met each other every day, and who therefore had lots to talk and gossip about.

      Then her ears tuned in to the conversation. No, this wasn’t the desultory chitchat of York parties. Arguments were raging all about her; people were giving their opinions with an intensity and at a volume that was never found in the drawing rooms of Yorkshire. They were discussing politics. Or international trade. Or the rights of the workers.