“If you like to watch people, darling, you’ll adore tea at the Park Lane. The rich, the famous, and the fashionable are the usual clientele. I adore the place.”
“Are you the rich or the fashionable?” Evelyn asked.
“Aha, are you razzing me, darling?” Lilian grinned.
“Not really,” Evelyn replied, hoping she’d understood correctly.
“Well, I might be fashionable, but I’m certainly not rich!”
Evelyn tried to hide her astonishment. “I suppose it’s relative, really,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t mean to appear ungrateful for what I have. I know I’m not badly off at all. But compared to some of the folks who you’ll see at tea? I have nothing.”
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to have that sort of wealth,” Evelyn admitted.
“I know plenty of them, of course. Turns out no one really feels wealthy, from what I hear. Perhaps we should all be more appreciative.”
Lilian did not sound serious, while Evelyn found her flippant attitude to money rather distasteful. “We didn’t feel wealthy at home either, of course. Especially not when we had to save for things like winter shoes.”
Lilian was silent for a moment, clearly not missing the point of Evelyn’s remark. “Of course, I give money to several charitable societies,” she said in the end. “I do realise that there are people much worse off than me.”
Evelyn nodded, not wishing to create any bad feeling with Lilian, who was, after all, her only real friend in London and her hostess. Lilian could not really be blamed for her background and upbringing, certainly no more than Evelyn could be blamed for her own. The gulf of difference was just rather apparent to Evelyn, as they stood at the palace gates. And yet she felt a thrill at the idea of tea in the Park Lane Hotel, surrounded by opulence and glamour, so she could not hold Lilian’s lifestyle against her. There was a real allure to decadence and indulgence. She had first felt it at the Yellow Orchid and now she felt it again. Hypocritical though it made her, it was irresistible.
As though keen to change the subject, Lilian glanced at her enamelled wristwatch. “Well, what do you say we make our way back to the Park Lane now? If you like, we’ll walk up Constitution Hill and you can see the Wellington Arch and Hyde Park Corner. It’s only a little bit out of the way.”
“That would be smashing, thank you.” Evelyn was delighted at the idea of seeing more of the famous sights of London. She found it quite strange to imagine she was within walking distance of such places, even as she stood outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.
Lilian led the way as they walked to the right hand side of the Palace facade and along a wide avenue, lined with bare-branched trees. Several motor cars were travelling up the road. Evelyn had seen enough of them now not to find them remarkable, but to see so much traffic was still surprising. A double-decked motorbus advertising Schweppes Orange Squash on a large banner rumbled past.
“There’s so much traffic these days,” Lilian said, as the bus passed. “It didn’t used to be like this. And I don’t suppose you’re used to it.”
“Not at all,” Evelyn replied. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve never seen motor cars, or even charabancs—we got plenty of tourists in West Coombe with them. But nothing like as many as there are here.”
“We’ll have to take you on the Tube as well, of course. Filthy, stinking place that it is. But one simply must experience it, or you’ve not seen London.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Evelyn said, experiencing a new flush of anticipation. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“It’s only a train in a tunnel.”
“Still, it’s not like we have a Tube in West Coombe.”
“No, of course. Well, that’s the Wellington Arch up ahead.”
The memorial arch to the victor of Waterloo was as grand as Evelyn expected. A short distance across the grass, the colonnaded entrance to Hyde Park was just as elegant. Such architecture was at home in London, almost dwarfed by the buildings around it. In West Coombe it would have looked quite ridiculous, overly ostentatious. Evelyn wondered why she even made the comparison. West Coombe might as well be in a whole other world to London. London made her heart beat faster, it provoked her thoughts, it confounded and enthralled her. West Coombe had never done any of those things. With every new experience here, she knew her decision to be correct. She only wished she could tell Edward all about it. Perhaps the vivid details and colour would bring her brother back to her.
*
The walk to the Park Lane was a short one, along a broad road. Hyde Park was to their right, to their left the graceful buildings of Mayfair. After only a few minutes, Lilian caught Evelyn’s arm and they stopped in the street outside a tall, white-fronted building with grey granite columns either side of the revolving door entrance.
“Here we are, darling. Isn’t it simply ritzy?”
“It’s certainly very grand.” Evelyn was not sure if she was excited or intimidated by the sheer scale of the building. It seemed a rather grandiose place to simply seek afternoon tea.
“Isn’t it just?” Lilian smiled happily. Evelyn suspected that it was impossible for a place to be too ostentatious for Lilian’s tastes. “And so very modern too.”
“Of course.” That was important to Lilian. Evelyn had not yet established in her own mind if that was a good thing.
“Come on then, let’s stop dilly-dallying. You never know who we might find we’re seated next to!” Lilian led the way through the revolving door.
The interior, to Evelyn’s dismay, was just as grand as she had feared it would be. Of course, it was beautiful, there was no way to deny that. As they were led into the
