The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Marie Benedict
- Language: English
- Genre: Women’s Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Nancy
July 7, 1932
London, England
The mellifluous sounds of the symphony float throughout the ballroom.
Servants pour golden champagne into the cut-crystal glasses. The fabled
Cheyne Walk house exudes perfection down to the last detail, nowhere more
than in its hostess.
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There, at the center of the vast ballroom, stands the stunning, statuesque
figure in a floor-length sheath of platinum silk, a shade that echoes her
silvery-blue eyes. Her diamond-laden arms outstretched in welcome to her
guests, she radiates serenity and unflappable, irresistible poise. If she were
anyone else—someone I didn’t know as intimately as I know myself—I
would judge that sphinxlike smile a charade. Or worse. But I know she is
precisely as she appears, because she is Diana, my sister.
I wrest my eyes from her and glance around the gleaming gilt and marble
ballroom, expansive enough to easily hold the three hundred guests in
attendance. As the dancers begin to pair up and then organize themselves, the
revelers appear to emanate from Diana like the rays of the sun. It is a pattern
that has repeated itself since our childhood; she always dazzles at the center,
with us sisters fanned out around her like lesser beams. Never mind that the
press considers all six of us Mitford sisters the very essence of the so-called
Bright Young Things, she is the star.
The evening feels more like a celebration of the fashionable new home of
Diana and her handsome, kindly husband Bryan Guinness, than a ball
introducing one of our younger sisters, Unity, into society. Where has Unity
scampered off to? I wonder, as I scan the crowded space for the spectacularly
tall eighteen-year-old. Never one to abide by social dictates, she seems to
have disappeared into the background instead of lapping up the attention as
would be expected at an event in her honor. Finally, I spot her tucked into a
shadowy corner, deep in conversation with our sister Pamela and our one and
only brother, Tom, that golden boy of ours. Of my six siblings that leaves out
only Jessica and Deborah, but they’re too young to mingle in society.
Even though she pretends to be listening, Unity is clearly watching the
other partygoers rather than engaging with Tom and Pamela. At least here at
Cheyne Walk, she won’t be required to curtsy twice and retreat backward as
she’d had to do before the king and queen when she came out at Buckingham
Palace. Poor Bobo, as we call her among ourselves, is not known for her
grace, and we sisters had clutched one another’s hands and held our breath
until she’d completed the act without tripping and catapulting herself into one
of Their Majesties’ laps. Even then, she barely managed the feat without
several awkward lunges and an initial backward step where her heel caught
on her hem, sending a horrific tearing sound throughout the famous receiving
room.
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