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tennis court and a parquetry floor laid on the en-toutcas. The canvas awnings on the long western side of the tent had been raised to reveal the terraced garden and swimming pool. Lights were everywhere, and dotted amongst them were insect flares shooting a brilliant incandescence into the night sky. Rafts of flowers floated in the pool, ringlets of flowers graced the posts of the marquee, adorned the canopy, the tables, flowers so exotic – anthuriums and strelitzias flown in from tropical climes – and tuberoses as numerous as daisies.
    Diana Bainbridge had said from the beginning that it would be the wedding of the year. And it was. But richer than the flowers and brighter than the lights were the people in their satins and silks and laces and brocades and shining purses and glittering jewels. Such jewels! Gusts of jewels released from bank vaults just for the occasion coruscated freely in the radiant night. Jewels nodding and waving and gossiping, jewels in groups, jewels in couples. Never had there been such a spectacular display.
    ‘A magnificent evening and a beautiful bride,’ a woman daubed in diamonds and emeralds said.
    ‘Beautiful,’ replied her friend, raising hand to neck so the light caught her matching necklace and bracelet in baguette diamonds.
    ‘Although there’s a bit too much pink with all those attendants,’ another said who had chosen rubies for the occasion.
    ‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Mrs Warby’s diamonds flashed at the insult to her daughter.
    ‘Oh, no no!’ Rubies said quickly, ‘I don’t mean your Susie, she looks beautiful, I was referring to the more buxom girls.’
    ‘Yes, I have to agree,’ diamonds and emeralds said with a wave of a glinting green hand. ‘But it’s so difficult finding friends of similar shape. I know when our Debbie was choosing her bridesmaids – ’
    So much bubble and sparkle and catching the light, the flittering hands and fluttering eyes of those of infinitesimal concentration, then hors d’oeuvres were over and people moved to the tables for the meal: the ubiquitous smoked salmon but so elegantly presented, a lemon sorbet to cleanse the palate, followed by a choice of beef Wellington or fresh shellfish – a rhapsody in king prawns, oysters open on the shell and crayfish cradled among delectable accompaniments. And as the guests savoured the fine flavours and sucked on their cigarettes the opinion was Raleigh Price had surpassed himself. What would the master do next? they asked. What indeed? He would do the dessert, a
pièce de résistance
that warranted a knighthood, so the people said.
    Lights were dimmed, the band struck a march, and a phalanx of waiters appeared each carrying a silver platter of bombe Alaska lit by a sparkler. The applause was spontaneous, the admiration sumptuous. The waiters marched to the centre of the marquee where half turned to the left and the other half to the right and like prancing Lippizaners they circled the tables rearing and bowing to their audience. And before the sparklers were quite spent the waiters re-formed in front of the top table and raised platters in homage to those seated in the place of honour. Even when the performance was over the applause continued, never had there been anything like it. Although there would be again, the performance was repeated many times in years to come, but the first time was at the Bainbridge-Dadswell wedding and that would never be forgotten.
    What an evening! Uncle Freddy was drunk rather earlier than usual, but Robert his butler had the matter entirely under control, appearing at regular intervals to take Freddy to the toilet, therebyavoiding a repeat of the embarrassment at the Wadsworth party the previous month. And Martha Potter – people said she looked like a young bride herself – was ecstatic. Finally, after a twenty-two-year courtship, Hugh Nethercott had proposed. ‘It was his father’s fault it took so long,’ Martha said to Diana Bainbridge, ‘he always