Knight To The Rescue

Now that she had put it up, suppressing the mass into a tight chignon, with only a few curls escaping, Audrey could see that a shorter, less bulky style would suit her heaps better. Maybe a lighter, softer colour would be better too. She resolved to do something about both as soon as possible.

The faint bong of the grandfather clock in the foyer striking seven filtered upstairs. Audrey swallowed, a burst of nerves fluttering into her stomach. Elliot would be arriving any minute, along with the other guests. She really should be going downstairs.

Still she dithered, terrified that someone would say something critical about how she looked. It wouldn’t take much to shatter her new and fragile confidence. Maybe she didn’t look as good as she thought. Maybe she was being deceived by a minimal improvement from her previous horror.

But it wasn’t just her own appearance that was making her nervous. Elliot’s would come as a bit of a shock, too. Both her father and Lavinia were probably picturing an effete and unprepossessing young snob, not the mature dashing figure Elliot would cut in a dinner suit. She hoped they wouldn’t appear too astonished, or ask too many awkward questions. Elliot had no idea he had been cast in the role of ardent admirer. No doubt he imagined he was coming merely as a friend.

Quelling another flutter of nerves, Audrey took one last look in the mirror for renewed confidence and reluctantly made her way downstairs.

‘Why, Audrey, my dear!’ her father pronounced in surprised tones when she finally appeared in the doorway of the huge living-room. ‘You look lovely! Doesn’t she look lovely, Lavinia?’

Audrey’s chest swelled, then tightened as Lavinia turned from where she was checking the glasses and decanters in the cocktail cabinet. Her black eyes narrowed as they travelled down then up the cream dress. ‘Yes...quite lovely,’ she agreed. But her eyes were angry.

Audrey was once again taken aback by her stepmother’s attitude towards her, till she decided Lavinia’s nose was out of place that her judgement about the cream dress had been wrong. No one liked to be shown up, but one would have thought she’d be pleased her stepdaughter looked nice for her own birthday party.

The front doorbell ringing distracted Audrey from her puzzled hurt.

Elliot! she thought breathlessly.

‘I’ll answer that, Maree,’ she called out, stopping the maid in her tracks as she hurried across the black marble foyer towards the front door. The young woman, who’d been hired just for the night, looked hesitant for a moment, before making a shrugging retreat.

Audrey’s heart was thudding loudly as she spun away from a sour-faced Lavinia and hastened to the front door. It wasn’t Elliot, however. It was Edward Hurley and his wife, Alice. Tall and fortyish, Edward was the sales manager for Modern Office Supplies Ltd, and Audrey’s boss. Her gaining the position as his secretary over Diane was one of the reasons behind the other girl’s jealousy. But Audrey knew she was a more efficient and better secretary than Diane and had never felt the position had gone to her merely through nepotism.

‘My, my,’ Edward murmured as his wide-eyed gaze ran over her, ‘you’re looking surprisingly soignée, Audrey. I hardly recognised you for a second.’

‘You do have a habit of giving backhanded compliments, Edward,’ his nice wife reproved. ‘But that dress does suit you, Audrey. I love your hair up. It brings attention to your lovely eyes and skin.’ Alice smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Happy birthday, my dear. I hope you like this little gift,’ she said, and pressed a small but beautifully packaged parcel into Audrey’s hands.

‘I’m sure I will,’ Audrey beamed, buoyed up by the woman’s warm and seemingly sincere compliments. Lavinia’s uncharitable reaction to her improved appearance didn’t hurt quite so much now. ‘Here, let me take your coat.’

She had barely done as much when the doorbell rang again.

‘That’ll be Dwight,’ Edward said. ‘He pulled into the drive just as we reached the top step. As you can imagine, we decided not to wait for him.’

Audrey conceded that mounting the front steps at the Farnsworth residence took some time, since there were thirty of them. The house was relatively new and, Audrey thought, far too ostentatious. Double-storeyed, but of no particular style, it had columns and curlicues all over the place, not to mention acres of Italian marble and huge open-planned rooms that gave no sense of privacy.

She infinitely preferred the older, cosier home that had been her mother’s family residence. But no sooner had Lavinia become the new Mrs Farnsworth than she had insisted on having a house built to her own taste. Audrey had come home one summer holiday from the boarding-school she’d been dispatched to, to find they had moved into this brand new edifice.

She turned again and opened the door a second time. Dwight Liston, Modern Office Supplies’ sleek yuppie marketing manager, and his attractive blonde wife, Frances, literally gaped when they saw her. Their reaction did wonders for Audrey’s growing self-esteem. But nothing could obliterate the underlying feeling of apprehension at Elliot’s non-arrival. She threw an encompassing glance over her guests’ shoulders at the driveway and the street beyond the garden wall. There wasn’t a black Saab in sight. Surely, oh, surely he wasn’t going to let her down!

Dwight and Frances were duly ushered inside along with Edward and Alice, their presents deposited on the special table alongside the very ornate birthday cake Lavinia had chosen. Audrey was vaguely conscious of several more lavish compliments on her appearance and a glass of champagne being pressed into her hands. But her smile was plastic, her ears straining to hear the thrum of Elliot’s car arriving. When the maid offered her an hors-d’oeuvre she took it and ate it without having any idea what it was.