Falling in Love with English Boys Read online

  I think Byron, on the other hand, would approve.

  July 19

  Sad Story

  He canceled on me.

  Unlike my father, at least he had the decency to do it over the phone. Well, he talked to my voice mail, but that’s not his fault. My phone was in fridge. Don’t ask; I have no idea.

  Cat. I’m so sorry. I’m not going to be able to see you tomorrow. I have to drive down to Kent and . . . anyway, ring me. We’ll arrange another day.

  No biggie, right? I mean, I think there’s a cricket test match on the telly.

  Sigh.

  I even had my Byron ready. So, we’ll go no more a-roving . . . Prophetic? Or just pathetic?

  GTG.

  6 June

  So today my breakfast tray arrived with a note from Papa.

  “We shall drive in the Park at four o’clock. Do not make me wait.”

  I did not. I was carefully dressed and ready and waiting in the hall by ten minutes to, as nervous as if it were my court bow to the King and Queen. My shoes were polished, my fingernails impeccable. He has been known to check.

  One goes to Hyde Park in the afternoon to see and be seen. The footpaths are filled, the roads clogged with fashionable carriages full of fashionable people. Sitting beside stern, silent Papa, I realised how I have liked coming to the Park with Mama. She laughs with me about the ridiculous hats on the silliest ladies, about the foppish young gentlemen whose cravats are so starched that they must keep their chins in the air, about the carriages full of laughing girls my age and their single, bored chaperones whose primary task is to keep their charges from tumbling excitedly into the road and being run over by an oncoming carriage full of laughing girls.

  Papa nodded to several acquaintances of his. They were all older and overly done up. The ladies were rouged and held rheumy-eyed pugs on their laps, the gentlemen in fancy coats and, I suspect, corsets. I knew them a little: all wealthy, all titled, all foolish. Then I spied Mr. Eccleston walking with his sweet younger sister and waved happily. “Do not make a spectacle of yourself, Katherine,” Papa growled.

  “Yes, Papa.” I stopped waving.

  “And do not sit on your hands! You are not a child.”

  I had not realised that I’d shoved my hands under my legs at his first command. It was habit. When I was first allowed at the adult supper table, he scolded me so for waving my hands about as I spoke that it became nature to slip them beneath me at the first sign of disapproval. I had just done it again. For a moment I thought of Winnie Stuart, and that she must have enjoyed family meals in a way I have never, all the Stuarts discussing Waverley and events of the world and arguing happily, inadvertently flinging bits of food at the footmen with their waving forks.

  Beside me, Papa cleared his throat. “I have come to a decision, miss, about your future. I have decided it is high time for you to be married.”

  Why do ideas that sound so marvelous in our voices suddenly sound so disagreeable in a parent’s? “But I am . . . I do not . . . I am only eighteen.”

  “More than old enough. You are finished with the schoolroom. I trust you are as capable of butchering Mozart sonatas and sewing nothing of usefulness as any girl of our class. What else is there for you to do? To be? A husband will give you value.”

  In that moment, everything surrounding me took on a startling clarity. I could hear each clap of the horses’ hooves against the hard path. We passed a young couple in the road. She had a mole on her chin. His heavy eyebrows met in the middle. There was sunlight glinting on the Serpentine, little diamonds that vanished into glassy ripples with the slice of a punter’s oar. Papa’s hands, where they crossed atop the gold lion’s-head crown of his walking stick, were pale and slack. He was utterly unconcerned with my thoughts on any of this.

  “I take it you have someone in mind,” I heard myself say dully.

  “I might, perhaps. And should I present you with a man I deem worthy, you will accept him.”

  I thought of Chilham and shuddered. “I will not.”

  His hands tightened then on his stick. I could not look at his face. “And I will pretend I did not just hear those words from you. Shall we try this again? When I decide to hand over responsibility for you, you will go, miss, and you will do so with a curtsey and respectful farewell!”

  “But I am to marry Thomas Baker!”

  Oh, the mortification! I had not meant to say the words aloud and would have given the world to take them back.

  “That ridiculous young fop? All hair and hot air. My daughter, married to a poet? I should sooner see you wed a pig farmer. The product is the same.”

  “But, Papa—”

  “Preposterous. God, how like your mother you are, surrounding yourself with poets and painters, and persons of no consequence whatsoever!”

  “He has consequence! He is clever and charming and—”

  Papa snorted. Then demanded harshly, “Has he declared himself to you?”

  “He will.”

  Something in my face made Papa smile slightly. “So that is how it is. He has not. And he will not. Stupid, stupid girl. Now heed me well, Katherine. If I hear you are making a spectacle of yourself with this poet, or with any other worthless young man, for that matter, you will have cause to regret it. I will have you out of London and back at Percy’s Vale before you can say ‘rusticate.’ Have I made myself clear?” When I merely gaped at him, he snapped, “Have I made myself clear?”

  This time, I nodded, thinking, for the very first time in my life, that I hated him.

  He said not another word to me on the drive home. Nor did he help me from the carriage. He waited, cold and silent, looking straight ahead, while the footman did. I was scarcely on the ground before he commanded, “White’s!” to the driver, and they rolled away.

  I stood in the street, watching as they turned the corner and disappeared. I will leave, I thought. I will run somewhere until I can run no more. I will go to Luisa. She will shelter me until I can send a message to Thomas. I will . . .

  I will do no such thing. I have a fortune men would marry me for, yet not a crown in my pockets. I could get to Luisa, but what then? I could just as easily send a message to Thomas from home. Saying . . . what? He has not declared himself.

  He will. Certainly he will.

  He must.

  I thought of Charles, so far away. I do not know what he could do, but it would be something. He always does. Or Nicholas. He would come, if only because he had promised Charles he would. I could summon Nicholas and tell him that I do not want to be an adult, if this is what it means. Tell him that I want to go back to the days at Percy’s Vale when it was enough to be pert and pretty, and when I informed everyone that I would marry a prince, they laughed, but not unkindly because, after all, it was vaguely possible . . .

  Stupid girl, indeed. Stupid, stupid girl.

  Lord Chilham, with his pudding head and spider legs? I will drown myself in the Serpentine first!

  I did not see Mama standing on the stairs when I entered the house. I could not see much of anything through my hated, angry tears.

  “Katherine?”

  She was there before I could say anything, arms around me, guiding me into the sitting room. She sat with me on the settee while I cried until I could cry no more. When she tried to move, I clung to her as I have not done in so very long.

  “I think he means for me to marry Lord Chilham” was all I could manage.

  “Yes, he probably does, the selfish wretch.”

  I have seen Mama bitter and cold and furious. I have seen her rail at Papa; I have seen her throw books and cushions, and even once a crystal decanter. I still do not know what he did to anger her so, but I do know he laughed at her when she missed by a yard. I have seen her turn pale and silent in his presence. I have never seen her go so completely, quietly hard.

  She cupped her hands around my face, heedless of the tears and blotches and of my dripping nose. “Look at me, Katherine. Look at me. I promise yo
u, as long as there is breath in my body,” she said fiercely, “that will not happen.Your father cannot force you to marry someone he chooses, just as he cannot stop you from someday marrying whom you choose. Not Chilham. Of course not Chilham.”

  Suddenly I felt just that little bit better.

  “No, but you cannot—” I hiccuped loudly. “You cannot stop Papa from wishing it, and from thinking so terribly ill of me!”

  “That is something lacking in him, the fool. Not in you. As for what he wishes . . .” She smiled slightly, but it was a hard smile. “He has long wished for a yacht, but he does not have one, does he?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Nor have I stopped writing.”

  I felt badly for wanting that, too. She must have seen it in my face. She laughed. “Not even for you, my darling. Like the tiara. You spent fifteen years wishing for a diamond tiara. Do you have one?”

  “No.” I actually laughed with her, and hiccuped again, remembering many arguments and several notable tantrums over the subject. “I do not.”

  “Then trust me, my dearest, my beloved girl, when I say there will be no marriage to Lord Chilham.”

  I believed her. I believe her.

  July 22

  Cannonball

  How it began, yesterday:

  HisText: 2moro ok 4u?

  MyText: Y

  HisText: H-Park?

  MyText: Y

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  HisText: Gr8. 11. Boathouse?

  MyText: CU

  Hyde Park. Yay. And at lunchtime, no less. Pick-a-Nick. I couldn’t quite manage the how of taking an entire three-course meal, including the proverbial loaf of bread and bottle of wine, in any of my bags. So I settled for one of Professor Fungus’s plastic tablecloths and a chocolate orange. They (the oranges) break into little sections—how cute is that?—just the right size for slipping into someone else’s mouth while they recline on the grass in the middle of Hyde Park. Nice prelude to a kiss, no?

  How it is, today:

  Nice day. I mean nice day. Birds singing in the trees, roses blooming, even the traffic seems pleasant. A taxi actually stops to let me cross into the park. London is in a splendid mood.

  I stop to let a chain of little kids bounce by on their ponies. Kids. Ponies. Little black velvet hats (on the kids), ribbons (on the ponies), Mary Poppins in jodhpurs on a white horse trotting along behind them. I check one of the Park’s excellent map boards. X tells me I am here; the boathouse is there.

  Then, I’m heading down one of the wide roads toward the lake and the boathouse and it hits me: this has to be the road Katherine drove down with her father on the day he told her she had to marry someone he chose. The same road. I confess, I shivered. But in a good way. Like, she was here. X .

  And, man, did she get a losing ticket when it came to the dad lottery. The saddest thing—after the fact that she might actually have to marry the creepy cousin—is that she’s figuring it out. The Bad Dad thing. Wising up, and I can actually feel how she’s feeling.

  Kinda, anyway. Maybe the fact that Dad bailed on me wasn’t exactly a shocker, but yeah, Alex (and don’t you dare feel smug; you all know me better than I know me), it hurt. It hurts. But hey, at least he isn’t trying to hand me off to the overdressed, dumb-as-a-post, marry-for-the-money earthworm. Oh, wait. He’s doing that to himself. Har har.

  I can still laugh. It just kinda stings a little. Me and my merde-y luck with men . . .

  But that’s getting ahead of myself.

  The Park is hoppin’. Duh. Beautiful summer day, lunchtime. Other than the requisite dazed-looking tourists, the place is full of rollerbladers and business types with BlackBerries in one hand and sandwiches in the other. Texting with one thumb, all of them. I could never get the hang of that. Then there are all the happy couples. Walking and holding hands. Sitting on the grass, holding hands. Young, old, really old, and I’m thinking about being a hundred and two and walking here with some guy. Okay, Will. And don’t you dare laugh, any of you, because you know you do the same thing after the first date, if you wait that long.

  As I get closer to the big part of the lake, I see couples in the water in rented boats, and even they’re holding hands. The ones with the foot-paddle-boats, anyway. Although there’s one pair of cute guys rowing together, one tucked with his back against the other’s chest, literally holding each other’s hand as they row. I sigh at them, too. Boy Love and Oldsters. Neither is me.

  And then I see Will. He’s leaning against a bike rack, looking totally hot in jeans and a T-shirt with a Buddha hand symbol on it. His hair is lifting in the breeze and he’s smiling, laughing. Wait wait. Laughing and smiling at this tall girl in a tiny, sheer dress who’s leaning next to him. And he’s not, like, “Oh, hey, how cool is it to run into you here, of all places? Me? Oh, I’m waiting for the love of my life to arrive.” Nope. This was, “I wanna hold your hand.”

  She says something. I can hear his laugh from a hundred yards away. Have I mentioned he has a killer laugh? It reaches me in deep places. Except this time it makes me feel kinda sick inside.

  He sees me, then. And waves. She looks up, sees me, and waves. She freakin’ waves. I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her before. She’s waving at me like we’re freakin’ BFFs.

  Will starts talking before I’ve even reached them. He’s introducing me to this other girl while I’m still across the path from them. Can’t even wait for me to get within handshaking distance. Like I wanna touch her. “Bella, this is Cat. Cat, this is Bella.”

  Yes, she is. Very bella. Yards of red-gold hair, yards of leg, lots of skin that looks like cream. I always thought that was just an expression they use in romances. Creamy skin. And I know, no question, that Will has firsthand knowledge of it. He’s had sex with this girl. Lots of it.

  “Cat. It’s really good to meet you. Will’s been telling me about your travels together.” To top it off, she’s as posh as he is. It’s probably Lady Bella. But of course, she would never let on. Because girls like that don’t have to.

  And of course, there’s me, “I . . . er . . . yeah . . .”

  “He’s a wonderful guide, isn’t he? Insufferable know-it-all, but manages to be completely adorable at the same time.”

  “Oh, um. Absolutely.” Me again.

  There’s Will, looking back and forth between us, looking almost-but-not-quite awkward, which for him is a major event. Will doesn’t do awkward, even almost. He’s smooth as silk. As cream. I don’t really want to look at him at that moment, but I really don’t want to have her imprinted on my brain any longer. My self-esteem can’t take it.

  I concentrate on her left ear. It sticks out. I feel marginally better. Until I focus on the pea-size emerald stud which just oh-so-perfectly matches her eyes.

  “I hope you don’t mind, Cat,” Bella trills, “that I invited myself along. As soon as Will said Hyde Park, I thought Apsley House, and I’ve never been there, if you can believe that. Well, to the museum anyway. I’ve been to the duke’s house, to the odd garden party. But I have got to see the Napoleon statue. I had a great-greatgrandsomething at Waterloo. Well, we all did, didn’t we?” The aristo inside joke. She laughs up at Will.

  No, actually, I wanna say, we didn’t. We had great-greatgrandsomethings who cleaned out stables in Philadelphia, then took their pitchforks and kicked your great-great-somethings’ posh English asses off the continent. Like she cares.

  “They all died, of course,” she says cheerfully, “there on that Belgian field. So terribly sad. Anyway, I’m dying for a coffee, but then let’s go!”

  Will, to his credit, asks me, “Coffee, Cat? Or tea? Maybe a kugel?” Our own little inside joke.

  “Absolutely,” I manage. “Coffee. No kugel.”

  So we sit at a table overlooking the lake and the happy boaters and have coffee, which burns its way down my throat and sits, bubbling in my stomach like acid. Bella talks. Will shakes his head a lot. Only I think it’s kinda fond-and-lovingly-exasperated bo
yfriend head shaking, instead of implying that she’s full of merde.

  They traveled together. I got Hatchards and an exhibit of Indian paintings. She got India. Didn’t go to Tibet with him (“All those monks!”). Only got back to London last week, after eight weeks in Greece (“Our friends”—obvious meaning hers and Will’s, not hers and her posh and permissive parents—“had this completely amazing villa on Kefalonia. My balcony literally jutted out over the Aegean . . . ”). She’ll be at Cambridge in the fall (“Can you imagine, Cat, wanting to spend winters in Scotland? What was our lad here thinking?”), studying comparative literature.

  Whatever that is.

  On this side of the table, ladies and gentlemen, we have English. Note the long vowels, the backstory, the titles, the wealth of descriptive experience. The experience. Ahem. Well. Think Shakespeare, Donne, Austen. And on this side, American. No history to speak of, no subtle theme or elegant verbiage. Cuteness, some charm, but still... Think Seuss . . .

  Then she touches the back of Will’s neck. She doesn’t leave her hand there. She doesn’t have to. Just a quick, soft pet, familiar and thoughtless (yeah, right) and possessive. Like peeing on things. And I just can’t do it. I can’t go anywhere with them, can’t walk back across the Park to the museum. Because even if they don’t hold hands, like all the other lovers around, I will be waiting for them to, walking a couple of paces behind them, so I will see it happen. I can’t.

  I can, however, be sneaky when I have to be.

  I pull my phone from my bag, as if it had vibrated, and flip it open. “Sorry,” I mutter, interrupting bella Bella as she starts a story about a punnet of strawberries on the banks of the Cherwell. “So rude. Sorry. But I have to answer this. Excuse me.”

  Then I walk away from all the tables, turn my back on them, and press the phone to my ear. I don’t pretend to talk; they can’t hear anything over the chattering tourists and happy punters anyway.

  My chest feels tight, like I can’t draw a full breath without it hurting. And the light around me seems extra white. I notice too many details (there’s a guy wearing acid-wash jeans and red-and-white suede Adidas at a table nearby, one of the ducks begging for food at the edge of the lake has a bent tail feather, the air smells like hot dogs) for being almost completely numb.