they pleased.
She would appear at midday, in a pink silk peignoir, all décolletage and déshabillé, then smoke her way through three cups of very strong coffee, opening her post, only paying any real attention to missives from fashion houses announcing their new collections, which she would annotate with a fountain pen, putting exclamation marks next to anything she really liked so her dressmaker could copy them. She rarely ate: the occasional piece of ham or triangle of bread, but her disinterest in food was evident.
At midday, she poured her first glass of champagne, a glass that stayed topped up to three quarters full for the rest of the day and from which she took tiny, delicate sips, as if it were the bubbles in the champagne keeping her oxygenated. She drank about a glass an hour, so was never drunk.
She bathed at one, was dressed and coiffed by two, then wrote letters until three. By then she deemed herself awake enough to start communicating with the rest of the world, and the whirlwind of organization for the evening’s social events would begin. Meanwhile, her guests would have made the most of the facilities at The Grey House – the huge drawing room overlooking the garden in which were laid out the day’s papers and the latest magazines, the tennis court, the terrace for sunbathing, the beach hut and, of course, the wide blue ocean beyond. Grown-ups relaxed in the knowledge that the children roamed in packs and looked after each other, all under the vaguely watchful eye of the Lewis’s good-natured and obliging only daughter, Elodie.
And although she had no interest in food herself, Lillie understood the importance of a good table for guests. So she sat with a towering pile of cookery books, making lists of recipes for the kitchen staff. Mousses and fricassees and terrines and jellies and blancmanges: anything with visual impact that took hours to prepare. Her favourite was a show-stopping fish mousse in the shape of a salmon, decorated with piped mayonnaise and wafer-thin slices of cucumber, wedges of lemon, curls of parsley and served with melba toast.
Lillie would smile at her guests’ gasps of admiration, as if she had applied all the cucumber herself, and would chain-smoke at the end of the table while she watched them devour it. After dinner there would be dancing in the drawing room with the latest records sent down from a shop in Carnaby Street, or moonlit croquet, or charades.
Lillie’s guest list was drawn up with military precision at the end of June and followed up with handwritten letters of invitation on lilac notepaper. Occasionally, just occasionally, Desmond asked her to invite a business associate or customer and his (invariably his) family. Lillie could hardly refuse, because no doubt the associate or customer had in some way contributed to the Lewis wealth, but it annoyed her because it upset the equilibrium.
This had been exactly the case with the Jukes. Desmond had asked her, at very short notice, to include them in the upcoming weekend, and Lillie was irked, because that particular Saturday’s dinner was centred around the Kavanaghs, who had bought the manor house in the next village, and Lillie wanted all her attention to go on making them feel special. As local royalty she didn’t want them to be overshadowed, but Desmond pulled rank, which he rarely did, because the Jukes were instrumental in his plan for world domination.
The Jukes owned a chain of upmarket grocery stores in strategic locations that Desmond had his eye on as a possible acquisition. It didn’t do to have all your eggs in one basket, or indeed all your jam in one jar, and he was eager to diversify. The Jukes had fallen on hard times since the founder had passed away six years ago. It was evident to anyone with half an eye for business that they now didn’t have a clue about running the shops. Desmond was keen to swoop in and take over – a substantial investment and his entrepreneurial eye would mean a
She would appear at midday, in a pink silk peignoir, all décolletage and déshabillé, then smoke her way through three cups of very strong coffee, opening her post, only paying any real attention to missives from fashion houses announcing their new collections, which she would annotate with a fountain pen, putting exclamation marks next to anything she really liked so her dressmaker could copy them. She rarely ate: the occasional piece of ham or triangle of bread, but her disinterest in food was evident.
At midday, she poured her first glass of champagne, a glass that stayed topped up to three quarters full for the rest of the day and from which she took tiny, delicate sips, as if it were the bubbles in the champagne keeping her oxygenated. She drank about a glass an hour, so was never drunk.
She bathed at one, was dressed and coiffed by two, then wrote letters until three. By then she deemed herself awake enough to start communicating with the rest of the world, and the whirlwind of organization for the evening’s social events would begin. Meanwhile, her guests would have made the most of the facilities at The Grey House – the huge drawing room overlooking the garden in which were laid out the day’s papers and the latest magazines, the tennis court, the terrace for sunbathing, the beach hut and, of course, the wide blue ocean beyond. Grown-ups relaxed in the knowledge that the children roamed in packs and looked after each other, all under the vaguely watchful eye of the Lewis’s good-natured and obliging only daughter, Elodie.
And although she had no interest in food herself, Lillie understood the importance of a good table for guests. So she sat with a towering pile of cookery books, making lists of recipes for the kitchen staff. Mousses and fricassees and terrines and jellies and blancmanges: anything with visual impact that took hours to prepare. Her favourite was a show-stopping fish mousse in the shape of a salmon, decorated with piped mayonnaise and wafer-thin slices of cucumber, wedges of lemon, curls of parsley and served with melba toast.
Lillie would smile at her guests’ gasps of admiration, as if she had applied all the cucumber herself, and would chain-smoke at the end of the table while she watched them devour it. After dinner there would be dancing in the drawing room with the latest records sent down from a shop in Carnaby Street, or moonlit croquet, or charades.
Lillie’s guest list was drawn up with military precision at the end of June and followed up with handwritten letters of invitation on lilac notepaper. Occasionally, just occasionally, Desmond asked her to invite a business associate or customer and his (invariably his) family. Lillie could hardly refuse, because no doubt the associate or customer had in some way contributed to the Lewis wealth, but it annoyed her because it upset the equilibrium.
This had been exactly the case with the Jukes. Desmond had asked her, at very short notice, to include them in the upcoming weekend, and Lillie was irked, because that particular Saturday’s dinner was centred around the Kavanaghs, who had bought the manor house in the next village, and Lillie wanted all her attention to go on making them feel special. As local royalty she didn’t want them to be overshadowed, but Desmond pulled rank, which he rarely did, because the Jukes were instrumental in his plan for world domination.
The Jukes owned a chain of upmarket grocery stores in strategic locations that Desmond had his eye on as a possible acquisition. It didn’t do to have all your eggs in one basket, or indeed all your jam in one jar, and he was eager to diversify. The Jukes had fallen on hard times since the founder had passed away six years ago. It was evident to anyone with half an eye for business that they now didn’t have a clue about running the shops. Desmond was keen to swoop in and take over – a substantial investment and his entrepreneurial eye would mean a
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