The Quality Street Wedding

by Penny Thorpe

  ‘Do you like my new dress?’ She shrugged her shoulders in an odd sort of twitch which made the ruffled sleeves sparkle. It was an unusual choice of garment for a trip to the pictures and although a small ruffled sleeve had been fashionable a year or so ago, it had never been the done thing to attach eight ruffled sleeves one on top of the other. Dolly had obtained a length of gold lamé and the services of a seamstress who had no pity for her. The glitzy gold sleeves, which had been added to the already ugly blue knee-length frock, created an effect reminiscent of poultry preparing for a fight. The ruffles came up so high above Dolly’s ears that she would spoil the view of at least three of the people in the row behind her, if not more, but Dolly was clearly delighted with the effect, and Percy said: ‘Spectacular.’ He was absolutely convincing, but then he wasn’t really thinking about her dress; his mind was in the building behind her. Percy had given back the car, but he’d still said he’d walk round to her house and collect her because, truth be known, he wanted to get an appraising look at her father’s place.

  Percy Palgrave was not disappointed by the Stump Cross rectory. Whatever he had been expecting, he hadn’t, even in his wildest dreams, expected anything as magnificent as this. There was nothing fashionable about it – how could something so solidly, ornately, rudely Victorian be fashionable? – but it had clearly been expensive when it was built, and if there had been the money to build it, there must still be money somewhere. The grand front garden was professionally kept, the great bow windows, piled on more bow windows, and topped with gables were clean and bright, and the flagpole which competed for space on the roof with the weather vane, had evidently had a fresh coat of paint within the year. Some artistic soul had even made a spring garland the size of a motor car tyre to hang upon the broad front door, like a sort of Christmas wreath, but in celebration of spring. The garland comprised a tasteful mix of foliage and blooms in greens, whites, and the contrasting shades of bold pippin apples tied all around. Anyone who could afford to use good food to decorate their front door must have more money than they knew what to do with, so Percy Palgrave meant it when he said, ‘Spectacular.’

  ‘I like to put time into my appearance because it’s so important to make an effort. And tonight’s a special night because it’s exactly two weeks since we met.’ Dolly gave Percy an adoring grimace as they walked side by side down the hill in the direction of the tram stop.

  ‘Is it, by Jove?’ Percy was evidently pleased that she’d remembered and that she wished to mark the date. And well he would be; thoughts of Dolly’s father’s money ran through his mind all day long. Even when they weren’t together, Percy Palgrave was thinking about the smell of it, the weight of it, what it would feel like to the touch. There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted it, but he was mindful of Cynthia Starbeck’s words: so many young men have taken an interest in her when they’ve found out how much the father’s got tucked away. Percy did not want to appear too keen, nor fail to mark his territory clearly enough and risk her falling into the hands of another. He walked a tightrope and to tilt too far in either direction could result in a fall from her favour. He had decided to shower her with flattery on their way to the cinema, and then – if she was amenable – try for a squeeze of the knee in the darkness.

  ‘You know, Dolly, I do admire the way you manage these cobbles on your natty heels. You totter one way and then another and every time you lose your balance I think you’re going to take a tumble, but you always manage to right yourself again. Can’t be many girls who can do that.’

  ‘Well, I had deportment lessons at the grammar school, so that does make a difference.’ Dolly stumbled into Percy and he caught her by the elbow before she could land face down on the clog-polished granite.

  ‘Would you do me the honour of taking my arm?’ When Percy offered it he was not looking at her arms, but into her eyes – which were still as clear as a healthy collie dog. There followed an awkward tussle between Percy and one of the gold lamé sleeves which he would be forced to bury his face in for the duration of the journey to the cinema, but once Dolly had the offer of walking arm in arm she wasn’t going to allow him to let go. Between Dolly’s inappropriately high heels, and Percy’s obscured vision, they hit three lamp-posts, two dogs, and a policeman on their way to the new Odeon, but when they finally arrived a certain bond had definitely been cemented, and they were both glad of it.

  ‘I want to see you always dressed in gold, Dolly. You look like a film star.’ Percy settled into his seat while the slide advertising Rowntree’s Dairy Box was still casting its pale cream light over the big screen. He had to wrestle for a few moments with Dolly’s wing-like ruffle sleeves so that the scratchy lamé wedged behind his shoulder didn’t obscure his view of the picture which he had paid good money to see. Several people in the rows behind them did not appreciate his efforts, or the film-star quality of Dolly’s Frankenstein fashion creation. They complained loudly about the ‘bloody awful stuff sticking out everywhere. What do you want to go bringing a thing like that in here for?’

  ‘How dare you, sir!’ Percy was delighted to have the opportunity to play the knight in shining armour to Dolly and was on his feet immediately.

  ‘Sit down!’ someone called from higher up.

  ‘Usherette!’

  ‘Call the manager!’

  ‘Get ’em out!’

  It was inevitable that Dolly and Percy would attempt to stand their ground, despite the fact that Dolly was entirely in the wrong for wearing what could best be described as a strange fancy-dress angel costume to a cinema. It was also inevitable that the patrons of the Oscar Deutsch Picture Palace would begin pelting the obstructive couple with bread rolls and their rolled-up sweet wrappers.

  Dolly was visibly shaken by the experience and, as the usherette saw them pointedly out of the side exit, Percy took the opportunity to take Dolly consolingly in his arms – as best he practically could with the obstacle of the sleeves to contend with.

  ‘I hate this town!’ Dolly wailed into Percy’s starched shirt collar. ‘I want to go far, far away!’

  ‘This town doesn’t deserve a girl like you.’

  Dolly looked up earnestly, her thick, puffin make-up smeared into vampish streaks. ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Oh Dolly, I do! You must know how much I admire you.’

  Dolly croaked with delight and the pair prepared to deceive one another some more.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘I brought you back a paper from town because there was an extra edition about some people in the ’ospital.’ Kathleen threw down her satchel, school coat, a newspaper, two bags of sweets, and two armfuls of books bound together with her father’s borrowed belts.

  ‘And where have you been?’ Mrs Calder was wielding a wooden spoon dripping with batter the way a magistrate might wave his gavel at an accused man. ‘I expected you home from school over two hours ago. I’ve been worried half to death! And what’s all this you’ve brought home? Is this more things to take up space on my dinner table?’

  ‘I went to the public library. I told you I was stopping at the library. I’ve got the loan of another couple o’ library tickets, so’s I can borrow more books.’ Kathleen hung up her school coat and then went to warm herself by the fire while she warmed to her subject. ‘Did you know,’ she began, ignoring entirely her mother’s annoyance, ‘that Halifax’s first public library was in the crypt under the parish church? The priest who was there in the 1430s wanted a book room, so he went down into the crypt, gathered up all the bones, took ’em outside, dug two pits his’self, and bunged ’em all in. Hey presto! – he had somewhere to keep his books. That was the only public library we had round these parts until the eighteenth century. They’ve still got all his books from the fourteen hundreds. The Librarian at Belle Vue showed ’em me and they smell awful.’

  Mrs Calder put down her wooden spoon and the mixing bowl of batter while she cleaned her hands ready to look at the latest news from the Halifax
Courier. ‘You’ve got an obsession with library cards and churches and I don’t think I like it,’ Mrs Calder said.

  ‘I dispute that. I’ve got a passion for learning and an enthusiasm for ’avin’ a job. It just so ’appens that right now my best means of learning is getting the loan of a couple of extra library tickets, and my best chance of further employment is to show my employer that I appreciate his mouldy old premises, which happen to be a chapel. It could be the Park Road Baths for all I care; I’m going to look lively and make sure he takes me on full-time in the holidays.’

  Mrs Calder picked up the newspaper without looking at it; her eyes and her thoughts were still on her youngest daughter. ‘I’m pleased for you that you’ve found a job you like, but I’m really not sure about you keeping it on after the summer. Your father had talked about getting you some shorthand lessons at the college, wouldn’t you like a chance to—’ Mrs Calder didn’t finish her sentence. Her eyes had caught the headline of the extra edition of the Halifax Courier and she was motionless with shock. The paper carried a stark and urgent warning to all local people that they were now in the midst of a true epidemic: the cinemas, theatres, music halls, and mission halls would all have to close their doors. Children were being kept home from school wherever there had been contact with infection, whole families were being asked to quarantine, and the District Medical Officer advised people to avoid crowded places, like the market or the pub. ‘Kathleen! Why didn’t you tell me you’d brought this home! This is important!’

  ‘I did tell you I’d brought it home. I said to you there was an extra, so I’d got you one.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me it was an urgent warning from the authorities!’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have got you one if it wasn’t important, would I? I keep telling you, if you want your news straight away you need to get a wireless. You’re living in the past up here.’

  Mrs Calder sat down at the kitchen table with a thud, only narrowly avoiding the marmalade cat who leapt out from under her in the nick of time. ‘It says ’ere that the isolation hospital is nearly full up and the doctors and nurses have run out of masks!’ Mrs Calder became increasingly agitated as she read more of the growing tragedy. ‘There’s a quarantine order! My God, there’s a quarantine order!’ Mrs Calder threw off her apron and ran out into the farmyard, calling for her husband. ‘Arthur! Arthur! There’s an epidemic!’

  Mr Calder dashed out from the milking shed and followed his wife into the house the better to see the news for himself. ‘“The public is advised that any households in which a member is suffering from scarlet fever or severe tonsillitis, or shows any of the symptoms of the same must quarantine for a minimum of three weeks from the date of onset. Mild tonsillitis or sore throat: two weeks minimum quarantine. Persons with throat swabs which test positive for—” I can’t read that, what does it say?’ Mr Calder held the paper out to his younger daughter.

  ‘Haemolytic streptococci,’ Kathleen said easily.

  ‘What does that mean when it’s at home?’ Mrs Calder’s fear had turned to affronted anger that this illness which threatened her children should throw up technical terms and complicated ideas when it had no right to.

  Kathleen sighed. ‘It’s just the name of the bacterium everyone’s spreading between themselves, which gives you the scarlet fever. They can do tests nowadays to find out which kind of bacterium you’ve got. This one’s the same strain as they had in Doncaster last Christmas. It’s quite interesting really.’

  ‘Do you mean the one in Doncaster where people died?’

  Kathleen could see that answering in the affirmative wasn’t going to help matters, so she changed the subject. ‘They’ve said that if you think you’ve got it, or you’ve been near someone who’s got it, you can go and get a test done which means taking a swab from your throat. If the result of the test is negative you don’t have to quarantine. It’s a marvel of modern science, really, when you think about it.’

  ‘Well, where do you go to get this test?’

  Kathleen was reluctant to admit that the situation wasn’t as straightforward as she wished it was. ‘They don’t say. I looked through all the papers in the library reading room and none of them said.’

  ‘Right, that’s it!’ Mrs Calder began clearing the kitchen table ready to scrub away any trace of exotically-named bugs which might have crept into their home uninvited. ‘You’re not allowed to go back to that library until further notice!’

  ‘Oh, Mother! What’s wrong with learning about things? If I hadn’t learnt about it at the library I wouldn’t have known about it to buy you a newspaper, would I?’

  ‘I’m not worried about you learning about it, I’m worried about you catching it! If pubs and mission halls are dangerous, then so are libraries! And you’re not going back to that shop either. You tell her, Arthur, we’re not risking it.’

  ‘But this isn’t fair! I’m the one who warned you it was happening!’

  ‘Your mother’s right, Kathleen. You’ve never been strong and we can’t take any risks. If this is the bad one they had in Doncaster where those people died, then there’s no question of you going to the library, your shop, or your school. You’re stopping here, my lass.’

  ‘What?’ Kathleen’s casual confidence was all gone now and she was on her feet with indignation. ‘But you know I love my job!’

  ‘Not as much as we love you!’ her mother burst out, and then ran from the room. It was all too much for the generation that remembered the Spanish flu, and who still found the masks they’d worn in the pockets of old coats and saw names they knew in the churchyard.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Dolly Dunkley knew all about Hebblewhite’s Misshapes shop. She didn’t know that it had been built in 1490, she didn’t know that it boasted architectural embellishments unique in all England, and she didn’t know that it had been sold to the De Whyte family, who had gradually come to be called the Hebblewhite’s, because they owned that little disused chapel on the bank of the Hebble Brook. Dolly would not have shown any interest in these facts whatsoever – even if she had known how important they would later be to her – but would have dismissed them as ‘school stuff’. No, when Dolly talked about knowing all about it she meant she knew that they sold large quantities of sweets for very low prices and that old Mr Hebblewhite had barred her from entry after most unfairly accusing her of the triumvirate of crimes of theft, littering, and rudeness. Dolly had attempted to brazenly re-enter the shop a year or two later, but Mr Hebblewhite had remembered her, and turfed her out with cries of ‘Greedy little snaffler!’

  When Percy Palgrave took Dolly on a walk down to the river for ‘a surprise’ she thought – inexplicably, given the rowdy working nature of the Hebble Brook and the coldness of the morning – that he was going to take her on a romantic boat ride to some remote nook with a hot picnic. It came as an abrupt shock to find herself at the door of the place she had avoided for so long, and to be there with the young man who she wished to impress enough to make him marry her.

  Dolly had to think quickly of an excuse not to go in – and quick thinking had never been something she excelled at. ‘I can’t go in,’ was all she said shortly.

  ‘Why ever not? It’s a sweetshop, you love a good sweetshop.’

  ‘Not that one, it’s … it’s sacrilegious!’

  ‘Sacrilegious? Surely not. What are they doing, selling toffees in the shape of Moses?’

  ‘No, it’s the building. They’ve turned a good Christian chapel into a place where you buy things and I’m boycotting it. They should turn it back into a church.’

  ‘But surely it was never really a church? That’s a bridge chantry and they’ve got them all over Europe. They were never churches proper.’

  ‘But it could be used as one. They could make it a church. It could be used for funerals where there’s hardly any mourners and it’s not worth putting the heating on in the big parish church. Or for weddings under a quick licence.’

>   ‘Ah, that’s it! You have your heart set on being married in this little place one day, that’s why you want the shopkeeper turned out.’

  Dolly thought this sounded like an excellent excuse for steering Percy clear of the shop, while also putting thoughts of marriage in his head. She seized on it immediately. ‘I want to be the first bride to be married in the place after it’s been turned back into a church and I can’t go in because if I see it all decked up as a shop I’ll get upset.’

  Palgrave was inspecting the worn gargoyles, apparently lost in thought. ‘That’s not a bad idea, being the first couple to be married there. You’d certainly have your photo in the local paper, maybe even the regionals. Be a good story to tell, and the news clipping would look fine in a frame on the office wall. Something to talk about, make one memorable among the colonial set. Not a bad idea at all.’ Percy snapped his attention back to Dolly. ‘What would it take to get it done? The change back to a church for a wedding, I mean. Get up a petition for the Halifax Town Council, I suppose? Ask them to turf out their tenant and hand the keys over to your father?’

  ‘You’d just need a special licence from the archbishop – and that’s easy for me because he’s my godfather and I can ask him to grant me one.’

  ‘Truly? Is your godfather really an archbishop? Who is the chappy round here? Archbishop of York, is it?’

  ‘No, the Archbishop of Wakefield. He was at theological college with my father before they were both ordained. He doesn’t remember my birthday any more, but he’d certainly draw up a special licence for me if I asked him to.’

  ‘Godfather an archbishop, eh? You do have some connections.’ Percy Palgrave tried to hide his growing anticipation of all the money he was about to marry. Where some good souls dreamed of the day when they would meet their beloved, and in a summer haze of romance be wed with memories to treasure, Percy, had no interest in romantic love beyond the feelings of total adoration he felt for gold sovereigns. Percy loved money and the idea that this source of wealth might slip through his fingers if he didn’t act fast made him impatient to secure it. Dolly Dunkley was – as the American pictures might describe her – a cash cow, and Percy Palgrave didn’t like the thought that his gravy train might be derailed before he could secure her money for himself.