by Amy Myers
‘Are you all right, Aunt Tilly?’ she asked with concern.
Tilly opened her mouth as if to reply, then shook her head, not so much in answer to the question as in reproach at herself. ‘Quite, thank you, Caroline.’
‘You’re not leaving us, are you?’ Caroline asked, alarmed that Phoebe might be right. Aunt Tilly, with her quiet dry wit and observer’s sharp eye, was a tonic to Rectory life in Caroline’s opinion, though her younger siblings failed to agree.
‘I’m nearly better. Soon I must go.’
‘Not till the wedding, surely? You’ve got to stay till then.’
‘Mother –’
‘Can exist very well without you,’ Caroline interrupted firmly. ‘Grandmother is a tyrant and the more you tolerate her the worse she will be.’
Tilly’s eyes looked unusually moist, and, saying nothing further, she hurried past Caroline and up the staircase, muttering about changing for luncheon, a rare observance on her part.
Caroline hesitated for a moment, then walked into the study, a privilege she alone seemed to have, though there had never been a formal ban on others entering, so far as she knew. They just never did, and she rarely took advantage of her freedom either. ‘Father, Aunt Tilly seems upset.’
He was standing by the window looking out across to the shrubs that hid the coachhouse and stables. He’d chosen this room deliberately so that the view towards the distant forest should not distract him, but today the plan seemed to have failed. His face was grave as he turned to speak to her.
‘We disagreed, Caroline. It is of no great consequence.’
‘You won’t let her leave us, will you?’
He looked surprised and hesitated. ‘I may not be able to prevent it.’
‘You can’t let Grandmother win.’
‘If only,’ he said wryly, ‘it were as simple as that. No, we disagreed partly over a village matter.’
‘Nanny Oates?’
‘She is involved.’ Her father’s study and ears were a confessional as private as any to be found in the church, any judgement his alone, and so she was surprised when he continued, ‘It will be public soon enough. Am I right in thinking that our parlourmaid, Agnes, has an understanding with young Jamie Thorn?’
‘Yes, they’ve been walking out for two or three years, and they’ll be married soon, I’m sure of it.’
‘I fear not.’
‘Why?’ Caroline was alarmed. They were all fond of Agnes, and Jamie, younger son of the blacksmith, was well liked.
‘Ruth Horner, who as you know is one of the Swinford-Brownes’ housemaids, is to have a child.’
‘But she’s not married,’ Caroline said immediately, then awarded herself full marks for stupidity. Of course. That was the greatest shame even now in Ashden, though most young couples caught in such a dilemma marched themselves quickly enough to the altar.
‘No. She names young Jamie as the father.’
‘But how could he be? He loves Agnes.’
‘He denies Ruth’s claim, and has refused to marry her. As a consequence the Swinford-Brownes have thrown the girl out.’
‘That’s cruel and unchristian.’
‘That, as you must know, is the way of the world.’
‘Chapel-goers,’ she said fiercely. The village was divided in its religious attendance, between St Nicholas and the Wesleyan Chapel in Station Road which the Swinford-Brownes attended. ‘Typical.’
‘And often church-goers too, Caroline,’ he said gravely. ‘Nanny Oates has taken her in for the moment; Ruth is an orphan as you know. Nanny’s cottage is too small, however, so some place must be found for her save the maternity unit of the Union workhouse, and a dismal future thereafter.’
‘What is to be done, Father?’
‘Much as I would like to, I cannot unmake an unwanted child, or stop public opprobrium falling on the girl’s head. But I can diligently seek the truth, and lead the way to compassion.’
‘Surely Mr Swinford-Browne’s minister should take the matter up.’
‘His purse is too heavy for the Minister to feel eagerness at such a task.’
‘That should not weigh in the matter,’ Caroline cried fiercely. In inclination she sensed her father often felt as she did, but Ashden’s rules could vary from the Church’s, and the Church’s from his private convictions. The Rector walked a daily tightrope between leadership and respect with the chasms of alienation and compromise on either side.
‘Agnes will need our help, Caroline.’
‘But you can’t mean Jamie must be forced to marry the girl if he does not love her?’
‘He should have thought of that when he took advantage of Ruth’s innocence.’
‘Suppose Ruth is lying?’
‘Why should she?’ her father asked gently. ‘She needs to name the father if she is to obtain a magistrate’s order for support for a child born out of wedlock. But she prefers to wed him, naturally. She is not a bad girl, my dear. I will naturally talk to them both at length to be sure of the truth.’ He looked tired.
‘But why is Aunt Tilly so upset?’ Caroline asked.
Laurence Lilley hesitated, choosing his words. ‘She fears I may not use my influence strongly enough to force Jamie to marry the girl.’
‘She feels for Ruth, then. Is she right about you, Father?’
‘Naturally I will not press him if I can establish his innocence without question. If there is doubt, then bear in mind that villagers are slow to change. Not so long ago the Ruths of this world would kill themselves, and the village folk would not lift a finger to save her. Not far from here, not long ago, people stood and watched one poor girl drown herself. Nowadays their death would be slower. In towns they go on the streets, in villages they go to the Union workhouse and afterwards they have to live like lepers, scorned by the women and men too – in their own way,’ he finished diplomatically. ‘I would condemn no one to that life if words from me could change it.’
‘And what of Agnes’s life, Father?’
‘A broken life against a broken heart. Broken hearts sometimes mend, a life broken by social stigma never does. How would you weigh those, Caroline?’
The week before Isabel’s engagement ball was entirely given over to the coming occasion. The warm dry weather continued and Caroline imagined Edith Swinford-Browne having put in her order to God for twelve hours of sun per day along with her order to Fortnum & Mason’s. She hardly saw Father; he simply came and went on his daily routine of Matins, breakfast, church business, luncheon, parish visiting, his ‘surgery’, Evensong, dinner, reading and bed. Mother gave the impression of gliding over the trials and tribulations of the week, towing her brood of ugly ducklings, one of which was turning into a beautiful swan. Caroline wasn’t going to begrudge Isabel these few months of hectic attention before her marriage, though she could not understand quite why the present week should be proving so busy. The catering was very firmly in the darting, claw-like hands of Mrs Swinford-Browne, and the house was being decorated by the Swinford-Brownes (not personally, naturally). The Rectory girls had longed to help, but much to their annoyance had been refused. They had no role, yet the week was a ‘twittering one’, their father’s word for times when anything disturbed the measured order of his life.
They could not even discuss Isabel’s own toilette, for her first visit to Mrs Hazel for a new dress for the ball had been followed by her future mother-in-law’s swift intervention. She swept Isabel up to Jay’s at Oxford Circus in London for their models to be paraded before her and then to Maison Nichol in Bond Street for attention to her hair. Caroline suspected she now knew the meaning of Isabel’s sudden silence on the subject of Mrs Hazel. Edith had been egged on by Isabel who now spoke of ‘transformations’ and ‘Nestle’s permanent hair waves’ with assured nonchalance until they laughed at her, and then had to soothe her wounded feelings. Meanwhile Elizabeth had soothed Mrs Hazel’s feelings by assuring her the wedding dress would be hers to make, and those of the four bridesmaids (
the Rectory girls, together with, naturally, the beloved Patricia).
Caroline was waiting impatiently for word from her father that she should talk to Agnes. Not that she was looking forward to it, but gossip could sweep through the village like wind rippling through a cornfield, and who knew when Agnes might hear of it – and what she would hear?
‘What’s wrong with you, Agnes Pilbeam?’ Margaret Dibble’s voice was sharp. ‘There’s Master George’s clean boots still here.’ That wasn’t like Agnes. The sharpness disguised concern, not, it was true, entirely for the parlourmaid, but for the smooth running of the Rectory. Pale faces meant slack work, in her experience.
‘Nothing.’ Agnes straightened her shoulders and tried to look as if boots were all that concerned her.
Mrs Dibble eyed her. ‘Have a cup of tea.’
‘No thanks.’
‘I said, have a cup of tea.’ Mrs Dibble’s voice rose with an authority granted under far older rule than those of staff seniority, and Agnes promptly sat down. ‘It’s that young Jamie Thorn, isn’t it? He doing things he oughtn’t?’
Inside, Agnes shrank with horror. So Mrs Dibble had heard. The whole village must know then, and her life was in ruins. Jamie had only told her last night, and she hadn’t slept a wink, going over and over it again and again. Not a word of truth in it, he swore, not a word. Just lies to get herself a husband. It was Agnes he loved and always had. She wanted to believe him, she did believe him, until night brought the niggle: But he would say that, wouldn’t he? Why would he, day had answered? Marriage faced him, either to Ruth or her. So even if it were true – and it wasn’t, it wasn’t – it must mean he loved her, Agnes. Unless he were just playing with her, too, saying he’d marry her, just so as she’d go all daft and let him have his way.
Agnes’s fingers trembled as she picked up the cup, but the first sips of tea began to steady her. This was Jamie she was talking of, Jamie, who needed her support to see him through. She forced herself to listen.
‘You young folks have too much freedom, you do,’ Mrs Dibble was saying. ‘Tell him to keep his hands to himself.’
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
‘You mean –’ Mrs Dibble sat down heavily. This was worse than she’d imagined. ‘You’re in the family way?’
Too late, Agnes realised that they were at cross-purposes. The gossip, if any, hadn’t reached Mrs D. But how long before it did? And anyway, what she was thinking was bad enough.
‘No!’ She looked shocked. ‘I never would. Jamie never would. We just had a bit of an upset, that’s all.’ She tried hard to smile brightly.
‘Men!’ Mrs Dibble snorted companionably, feeling somewhat disappointed that the olive branch she had with some effort thrust forward had proved to be unnecessary after all.
The story of the oaks at The Towers had by now entered village folklore. They were already young trees when the house was first built in the middle of the last century, although then its pinnacles, gables, and crenellations soared proudly above them. When the Swinford-Brownes arrived in 1909, the oaks had grown to such a height that William immediately decided to chop them down so that the full glory of The Towers could be appreciated. To a man, the tree-cutters of Ashden, and even of Ashdown Forest, flatly refused to wield an axe, and William’s own staff promptly invented mysterious weaknesses of limb that prevented such exertion. The oaks had been planted time out of mind and were sacrosanct. Edith was all for dismissing the mutineers, but William, though equally incensed, knew when he was beaten. He forced himself to chaff his men heartily that if they were to show the same loyalty to him as to the Sussex oaks he would have no complaint.
As Tilly turned the Austin tourer into Station Road, with Caroline at her side and Felicia hunched up in the rear seat, the pinpoints of glowing light from its oil lamps were overpowered by the light from The Towers’ driveway; at first it was a dull glare above and through the trees but as they drew nearer The Towers the brilliance of the acetylene flares not merely twinkled but burst through the oaks’ dark forms. Edith had been proudly talking of ‘my lights’ for the past week – ‘electricity is so vulgar now …’ – and, like her own, their effect was somewhat overpowering. Nevertheless Caroline felt a rising excitement, even though something seemed to have gone amiss with Edith’s weather order to heaven, for the day though dry was chilly and cloudy.
Coming to The Towers seemed almost like visiting a different village. At one time Ashden station, about a mile from the old village, lay virtually isolated. Now the coal merchants’ and the premises of one of the carriers hugged close to it, and houses were springing up to fill the gaps between those erected in the first flush of the prosperity brought by the railway.
Dances were common enough in Ashden, ranging from village hops to full balls at Ashden Manor, with a fashionable fancy-dress ball last August to celebrate Daniel Hunney’s twenty-first birthday. Sometimes the Lilleys had informal dancing on the lawns of the Rectory or on the terrace, but the latter wasn’t a great success, since cracked, uneven paving stones with tufts of buttercups and thrift growing in the crevices were hardly comparable to a polished ballroom floor, and the dances deemed suitable for rectories rapidly gave way to the Turkey Trot or the Huggie Bear, until the noise brought Father out to make a formal plea for respectability.
Caroline felt modestly pleased with herself tonight. The raspberry coloured silk, which had seen her stalwartly through three seasons, had been cleverly disguised to masquerade as a new gown by the simple means of drawing the skirt up into panniers and providing a new white underskirt, plus – and this was her pride – embroidery in raspberry silks to match the overskirt. That, and a feather discarded from one of the Ashden peacocks, stuck in a bandeau round her head, should do nicely. She smiled at her aunt, hoping perhaps that she would share her sudden enthusiasm for the evening.
‘Do you enjoy dances, Aunt Tilly?’ she asked curiously.
‘No,’ was the brief answer. There was silence from the rear seat too.
‘Why come then?’
Tilly laughed. ‘Because Ashden, Dover and England expect every lady to do her duty.’
‘And you don’t approve of that?’
‘I do in practice. Where else are girls to find husbands? In theory, no.’
Surely, thought Caroline, there must have been a time when Aunt Tilly set out for an evening wondering whom she would meet, and what excitements – or disappointments – the evening might bring forth? ‘Girls like me?’ she queried.
Tilly thought quickly. She had gone too far already. ‘Be thankful for Ashden dances, Caroline. Think of Dover.’
‘I almost think,’ Caroline observed, glancing up as the Austin pulled up in front of The Towers, ‘that I prefer Buckford House.’
‘Kindly don’t exaggerate,’ Tilly said drily, climbing down from the motor-car and extinguishing the lamps. As she did so, Caroline noticed a familiar motor-car, Reggie’s new Perry. She took a deep breath and took first Felicia’s, then Aunt Tilly’s arm.
‘Come on,’ she cried cheerfully. ‘Let’s tango with The Towers.’
When they reached the ballroom, she was amused to see that the tungsten lamps were not in use. For this occasion oil lamps and candlelight were obviously deemed more suitable for flattering complexions. She was forced to admit the ballroom looked spectacular, with so many fresh flowers artfully adorning it that it smelled, from where she stood somewhat above the dancing floor level, more like the summer flower-show tent. A large ‘I’ and ‘R’ monogram was picked out in early roses amid a sea of lilies of the valley on the top of a large garlanded maypole at one end of the room, in honour of the date, the first of May. This afternoon had seen the annual May procession through the village, culminating in a somewhat artificial (in Caroline’s opinion) maypole dance by the schoolchildren in their playing field. She’d spent hours coaching the quick and the clumsy through their paces, and organising flower garlands, and was relieved that the children had managed to skip through their p
aces with no worse disaster than a collision between Annie Mutter and Ernie Thorn (who engineered it).
Trust the Swinford-Brownes to make this a State Occasion. Only the Household Cavalry were missing. In front of them, Caroline saw, were: the entire male staff of The Towers (though true, she couldn’t see the gardener) in full dress livery, complete with violet-powdered wigs; an unfamiliar pseudo-patrician face similarly clad to announce them in stentorian tones; in the far distance Father and Mother doing their best to live up to the occasion; Isabel resplendent in blue charmeuse standing with Robert (he was handsome at least); and at the head of the line – oh, joy.
‘What is it?’ she hissed at Tilly.
Her aunt, clad smartly but dully in mole brown velvet, considered the question gravely. ‘I rather think it’s the new lampshade look.’
Caroline peered at the bright blue taffeta overskirt that stuck stiffly out from where Edith Swinford-Browne’s waist must be presumed to lie, and at the mauve tube that linked this area of Edith to her feet. ‘I hope someone turns her off soon,’ she whispered. By her side to support the lampshade with his impressive tail-coated bulk was William, looking like a plump penguin with aspirations of being a sea lion. Then she sobered, remembering that these two were not the figures of fun of George’s beloved caricatures but real people, who had just thrown their housemaid out in cruel circumstances. Moreover, this was the household where, presumably, Isabel would be living, at least at first. Would she turn into a Swinford-Browne by nature, as well as name?
She forced herself away from this unwelcome thought and back to the ball. She was surprised to see how many people here were strangers to her. True, most of what might be termed Ashden society was present, even the Minister, and she had to repress a desire to interrogate him then and there on his views of the plight of Ruth Horner. The Reverend Frederick Bowles and his wife had lived in Ashden only slightly longer than the Swinford-Brownes, having moved from somewhere in North Kent. Caroline rather liked him, but both of them seemed to behave like Martha and Moses, the figures in the Rectory weatherhouse that adorned their drawing-room windowsill – they popped out anxiously from their home from time to time and scuttled back inside for safety as soon as they could. Caroline decided the strange faces must be brewery staff, or Robert’s friends. It underlined the fact that Isabel was entering upon a new and very different life. Then she saw Reggie. Her first impression was that he was dancing with another maypole, but perhaps that was simply the effect of the painfully (literally, it appeared) narrow yellow skirt, and tall sparkling bandeau doing its best to look like a tiara. The Honourable Penelope Banning, she presumed. She quickly turned away to see what her sisters might be doing, telling herself she must keep an eye on Felicia …