Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [41]
She had no idea how she got through the next forty-five minutes of polite questions and answers, but she supposed she must have because they smiled at her as she left and one lady said, “I’m having a little tea for my daughter tomorrow, dear. Why don’t you come along and meet some other girls your age?” It was kindly said but the thought of meeting girls her own age filled Francie’s heart with dread and she knew it would be awful.
It was worse. Oh, she looked like them in her rose-pink silk dress with the puff sleeves and the bows on her shoulders; like them, she sat with her ankles neatly crossed; like them, she spoke quietly and politely. But she didn’t know what they knew, she just had no idea of what or who they were talking about so merrily. She didn’t know about the schools, the resorts, the houses, the friends, the parties. She felt like a visitor from another planet and she knew they thought so too; she could see it in their surreptitious glances and their half-hidden, supercilious smiles and she burned with humiliation at the secret whispers whenever two young, shining, well-coiffed heads bent together.
Still, there were no refusals to the supper and dance given by Harmon Harrison for his daughter Francesca a week later, because by then the whole of San Francisco, except Francie, knew that the millionaire was looking for a husband for his errant daughter.
The house had been in a turmoil of preparation for days; the parquet ballroom floor had been polished a dozen times and scattered with French chalk, the enormous crystal chandeliers had been cleaned and their hundreds of candles lit, garlands of pink roses were looped around the marble pillars and walls and piled in great bouquets on every possible surface. Buffet tables groaned beneath carved ice swans mounded with glistening black caviar, and giant ice cornucopias were filled with fresh pink lobster. There were dozens of shiny silver platters of baked meats, small mountains of fresh asparagus, towers of enormous hothouse grapes, peaches, and figs, and tier upon tier of gâteaux, tortes, pastries, wobbling iced soufflés, and colorful jellies. There was a champagne fountain eight feet high and dozens of extra waiters to supplement the normal household staff.
Fifteen-year-old Harry had been summoned home and he stood next to his father and Francie as they waited to greet their guests in the domed marble hall. He was already as tall as Francie, broad shouldered and a younger version of his father. And, like his father, he did not speak to her.
Francie’s dress was made from yards and yards of fragile white lace over half a dozen swirling pink taffeta petticoats threaded with narrow pink velvet ribbon. Her stockings were pure white silk, her shoes embroidered white satin, and her gloves the very softest white kidskin fastened with dozens of tiny satin buttons. Her blond hair was piled on top and fixed with a glittering diamond tiara and she wore a corsage of pink roses.
Josh Aysgarth thought she looked like a princess in a fairytale. He was one of the extra waiters hired specially for the night and his job was to offer the guests champagne, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Miss Francesca Harrison. She was an unobtainable dream for a lad like himself, fresh off the boat from England without a penny in his pocket.
He and Sammy had been lucky to get this waiting job tonight because without it they would have gone hungry, and that wasn’t something either of them liked. He just couldn’t take his eyes off the girl, though, and he was puzzled because he could swear she was frightened; her face was so pale and her blue eyes enormous. He wondered what she’d got to be scared of—she had everything anyone could ever wish for: beauty, wealth, a wonderful home, and a devoted family.
“Better get your eyes off her,” Sammy Morris whispered jealously as he walked past balancing a silver tray laden with glasses. “She’s too rich for your blood.”
“A cat can look at a queen, can’t he?” Josh retorted, but he knew Sammy was right.
Those who attended the Harrison ball