‘Because I had to. Because I was going to be a deb.’
‘Deb?’
The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘A debutante. The point of the finishing school was to prepare a young lady for her “coming out”, when she would be presented to Her Majesty the Queen as a girl worthy of English society. And it wasn’t a matter of simply turning up and curtseying properly; there was a whole season of events, parties and functions where the proper young lady would be expected to behave impeccably in every situation. And by that, I mean behave impeccably around young men. Because of course that was the real point of the debutante system: to produce good little wives for the next generation of upper-class men.’
‘So is that what Madame Didiot taught you? How to talk to men?’ asked Amy, smiling. She wished they’d had a few of those lessons at Kelsey High in Queens, where she had been so painfully shy she had broken out in a neck rash whenever certain members of the football team spoke to her.
‘Amongst other things,’ Georgia said as she took a sip of her wine. ‘Deportment, place settings, flower arranging, grooming, musical appreciation, public speaking . . . it was endless. And I have to say, at the time I rebelled against it; I could see no point in any of it. But now? Well, maybe it’s just an old woman looking at the world with jaded eyes, but now I don’t think teaching young people manners is the worst thing in the world.’
‘Did you find him?’
‘Who?’ asked Georgia, sliding her knife into her lamb.
‘A husband?’
Georgia was silent for one moment.
‘I did marry. But not to someone I met during the Season.’
‘Are you still together?’ She chose her words carefully. She had been in Georgia’s almost constant company for over twelve hours, and yet she had found out very little about her.
‘It was a short marriage. Philip and I divorced many years ago, although we remained friends until he passed away two years ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Still,’ said Georgia more breezily, ‘there were things I learnt in Paris and during my season which were invaluable later on, certainly when I became chief executive of my own company in the seventies. In those days it was rather unusual for a woman to attain such lofty heights. There were times when I was patronised, ignored, belittled and even threatened just for being a woman. But because of my background, I knew that I could compete at every level. I was as educated, as cultured, as well informed as even the most pompous fat cat I came up against, and looking back, finishing school was one of the things that helped me fill up my arsenal.’
Ten minutes ago, Amy would have thought that learning how to curtsey was a relic best left in the past, but Georgia didn’t make it sound too bad at all.
‘Do they still exist? Finishing schools?’
‘Why, are you thinking of going?’ replied Georgia with a tight smile.
‘Course not.’
‘You’ll be hard pushed to find any around today. Traditional Swiss finishing schools were phased out years ago. I’m not sure it sits very well with the modern age, does it? Nowadays people believe in equality.’
‘You don’t?’
‘I believe in a meritocracy, not quite the same thing. Whoever’s best suited for a role, that’s who should fill that role. Now, some women are ideally suited to being surgeons, prime ministers and judges, but some are suited to being wives and mothers. I know it sounds old-fashioned to say so, but it’s the truth as I see it.’
Amy laughed.
‘I know some feminists who would go purple at that idea.’
‘And that is the tragic thing. Feminism was all about giving women choice – if they choose to become a brain surgeon, they should be able to. All well and good. But if a woman chooses to stay at home and raise children – or indeed, stand around at cocktail parties making riveting small talk – that should be equally acceptable, shouldn’t it? In my humble opinion, feminists can sometimes be too judgemental.’
Amy looked at Georgia more closely. She had clearly underestimated this woman on almost every level. Suddenly the trip had become much more interesting, and she found that she wanted to know everything that Georgia Hamilton knew.
‘And the Season. I suppose that’s finished too.’
‘I was the last crop, actually. Princess Margaret famously said, “Every tart in London is getting in,” which was rather the death knell for the institution, I’m afraid. There are still all sorts of formal balls for girls who want that kind of thing. Or more usually, if their parents do; it’s still about meeting the right sort of boy. The Crillon Ball in Paris, for example, that’s quite lovely – although I believe nowadays they are attended by lots of rock stars’ daughters. So yes, getting presented in front of the Queen was abolished in 1958, the year I came out. Quite a watershed year it turned out to be, in fact,’ she added, sipping her Sauvignon.
‘I thought the sixties was when it all changed. Miniskirts, the pill . . .’
‘The sixties was the start of the sexual revolution. I believe Philip Larkin once wrote that it started between the end of the Lady Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP. But society was changing long before that. At the start of the fifties your average young person dressed like their parents, but by ’58 there was rock and roll, Teddy boys, race riots, coffee bars – it was the birth of the teenager; certainly the first time anyone really thought of young people as being different.’
Amy started to laugh, thinking of her dad working in his garage, his old Elvis songs turned up so loud that it made the workbench shake.