Oxford Blood by Antonia Fraser Page B

invited Fanny, to the extent that Jemima was led to expect he had actually done so himself at some earlier date, before seizing the opportunity to bring Jemima as well. It had to be said that the style of'Gilded Rubbish' did not suit Fanny's looks and perhaps it was for that reason, or perhaps she was generally discomforted by the company, but in any case Jemima found Fanny much less ebullient than on the famous occasion of the Lycee lunch. Tiggie Jones was exactly the sort of girl who shone at a party like this, and there was Tiggie - shining. Shining also was Poppy Delaware, a girl so like Tiggie (except for the colour of her hair, which was partially blue and partially orange) that Jemima wondered if they might not be sisters until she realized that the effect of the glittering tattiness of the costumes as well as the short-cropped hair-cuts of both sexes was to make everyone young look rather alike.
    All this made it very easy to recognize another surprising guest,  Daphne Iverstone, and wait - could it be? yes it was: Andrew Iverstone MP, Mr Rabblerouse himself. With his broad build and heavy shoulders, his pink face and fast-receding light curly hair, Jemima disgustedly thought that Andrew Iverstone resembled nothing so much as a big white porker; certainly his looks, arguably representing some kind of Anglo-Saxon stereotype, constituted no kind of advertisement for the sort of racial purity he was fond of advocating. And yet it was always said that he possessed the kind of charm which made the unwary overlook the precise import of his views until it was too late, and some kind of implicit approval had been given. Jemima however had never met him and did not wish to do so now.
    Only Jack of the Iverstone family was missing. But then the Chimneysweepers' Dinner was scarcely his form. He was after all in no sense an Oxford Blood.
    'Not one's bright idea, I assure you.' Saffron spoke in her ear. 'I can't bear him, the old Rabblerouse. Some other bright spirit invited him and Cousin Daphne. Almost as tactless as Bernardo Valliera inviting Muffe t Pember.' Saffron pointed to where a man, looking vaguely South American, was clothed in bonds of tinsel wound round the rather small base of a leopard-skin jock strap; he had his arm round a girl in a gold mask and high-heeled gold boots, with a skimpy leopard-skin bikini in between. From her russet-coloured hair which was left free, Jemima recognized Muffet Pember, sister of the aggressive Rufus.
    There was, Jemima had realized from the first, a certain amount of fairly discreet drug-taking going on. Discreet in the sense that no one had actually offered her some of the various little substances being shared around: cocaine presumably - another expensive taste like champagne. There appeared to be an unwritten law by which the 'adults' such as the Iverstones, Eugenia Jones and Proffy were ignored in this connection, and they themselves in turn ignored it. Bernardo Valliera, on the other hand, whether he thought his South American blood granted him some immunity, was not being particularly discreet in whatever it was he was pressing upon Muffet Pember.
    Saffron however seemed quite indifferent to that aspect of the situation and Jemima had to admit that she never actually saw him involved in it; as far as she could make out, champagne - and a great deal of it - was enough for him.
    'At least Muffet is pretty enough outside as you can observe for yourself,' he went on, 'if all venom inside. But Cousin Andrew is so terribly unaesthetic, isn 't he? I wish he would wear Muf fet's mask, which incidentally I take to be disguise from brother Rufus' righteous fury if he finds out she's come to the dinner. So likely Bernardo won't tell everyone in Oxford. As for Cousin Andrew's celebrated views, give me the West Indians any day. There's a fantastic black girl at New College unfortunately her radical prejudices make her reject all my advances. Looking at Cousin Andrew makes one realize all