My Oxford Year(60)
“Thank you, Jamie. Thank you so much.”
Jamie adopts a princely affectation. “’Twill be my sincerest pleasure to escort you, madam.” Then he drops it, looks at me seriously. “But do understand, I may find it necessary to leave early.” I tilt my head at him. “If I’m not feeling well I won’t stay there making a spectacle of myself, providing grist for the gossip mills.” I can understand that. These are the things I need to start considering. Jamie tips his head back slightly, eyes thoughtful. “You know, it might be wise for you to bring along a companion, just in case.”
“Excellent idea!” I say, a bit too quickly and loudly.
Jamie looks at me, suspicious or confused, I’m not sure which. “Yes, a buffer of sorts.”
I bite my lip. It’s time. “Can there be more than one buffer?”
Jamie looks imperiously down his nose at me. “How many buffers?”
“I know three buffers that would make some seriously questionable, Faustian-level bargains to go.”
“I knew it!” he says with a smile, oddly triumphant. “I knew you had some ulterior motive.”
“No, I really do want to go, it’s just that—”
His smile broadens. “I’ll put the tickets on my parents’ tab.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. The shock of my attendance will cause them to buy everything at the silent auction just to gloat. A case of Rothschild, a chef’s-table dinner at the Dorchester, yet another round of golf at St. Andrews my father will never use. We’re single-handedly contributing to the prosperity of the foundation.”
I throw my arms around him.
He mutters into my hair, almost to himself, “I ought to see if Cecelia will be coming.”
“Cecelia?” Even now, after everything, her name still doesn’t sit as well with me as I would like. Which I’m not proud of.
“Yes. I’m sure my father took care of it, but I’ll ask.”
I pull back and look at him. “Why would your father take care of Cecelia?”
“He does whatever he can to be kind to her.”
“But why?”
Jamie quirks his head at me. “Because Cecelia was Oliver’s fiancée.”
Chapter 21
What is he buzzing in my ears?
“Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?”
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
Robert Browning, “Confessions,” 1864
Blenheim Palace is mind-bogglingly big. Trying to understand how the massive horseshoe-shaped structure used to be—and a portion of it still is—a home, makes my brain hurt. Yes, America has its great mansions, but they’re provincial by comparison. Cute colonial attempts. Summer cottages. Cabins in the woods. And we’re only twelve miles from Oxford. It was a fifteen-minute drive. A drive in a sleek, black Mercedes limo.
With Jamie’s family crest on the door.
Which he tried to block from view by standing in front of it and insisting, “No, please, by all means, after you.”
Today is a “good day.” He woke up feeling normal, much to his chagrin. I know he would have loved to have an excuse to cancel.
But damn, does he look good in his tux.
Everyone looks good. The gowns aren’t sparkly and flashy, they’re understated, the material thick and sumptuous, the cut impeccable. The suits are throwbacks to double-breasted days of yore. As we follow the crowd toward the front door, two giant braziers on each side dart firelight across the guests. Maggie slips her hand into mine and squeezes.
We were in Hall when I told Maggie, Charlie, and Tom that Jamie and I were officially together, and they were happy for me. When I told them I got us tickets to the ball, they had a collective psychotic break. Tom fell to the floor in a giraffe-like sprawl, Charlie stood and slowly ascended to the tabletop, arms outstretched, singing “Jerusalem,” and Maggie just started quietly weeping.
I look over at Charlie in his tails and the Salvador Dalí mustache he grew (or attempted to grow) for the occasion. Tom, in a top hat that adds an unnecessary eight inches to his height, bounces on the balls of his feet, and just misses bumping the little blue-haired biddy in front of him. His attentions are elsewhere. He’s eye-darting Maggie, glancing at her and then quickly looking away before being caught. She looks like Veronica Lake, decked out in a floor-length, cowl-neck, ruby satin dress. Her hair’s dyed platinum blond for the night and styled in long 1940s waves cascading over one shoulder. When Tom first saw her, his eyes goggled and he yelled, “Oi, Mags, you’re gorgeous! You look nothing like yourself!” Charlie and I both swatted him and he turned immediately silent. He kept an openmouthed stare going all the way to the limo before seeming to decide—after giving her a hand to help her into it—never to look at her again. Until now. He looks slightly repentant. And confused. I catch Charlie’s eye and we share a hopeful grin. So far, so good.
I’m in a vintage yellow gown that Charlie picked out for me and Maggie did my hair in some intricate pin-curl updo. She also did a smoky-eye thing that I would have never attempted on my own and can’t stop looking at in any mirror I pass. I definitely look nothing like myself.
We enter the palace and I have to remind myself to breathe.