by Amy Myers
In the ladies’ withdrawing room they found Isabel and Eleanor, the former enthusing about Eleanor’s dress – which was strange, firstly that Isabel should notice and second because the dress, Caroline surmised with practised eye, was Lady Hunney’s choice: black net over a terrible biscuit-coloured taffeta. Wonderful for her ladyship but hardly for Eleanor. The dress looked as if it had a mind of its own, and Eleanor was not to its fancy. Eleanor winked at her. ‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ she said mournfully. ‘You should have seen the one she really wanted me to have, though. Even a zebra would have balked at it.’
‘Mrs Swinford-Browne wouldn’t.’
‘Really, Caroline.’ Isabel drew herself up, offended. ‘You are a bad influence on Eleanor.’
Caroline tried to feel contrite, as Isabel, followed by a giggling Eleanor, left them alone. ‘It’s not like Isabel to stand on her dignity.’
‘I expect she’s envying you,’ Tilly put forward.
‘She doesn’t know about me. And I didn’t know you did.’
‘The Rectory walls leak more than damp.’
‘Phoebe, I suppose,’ Caroline said, resigned. ‘What she doesn’t know is that Lady Hunney has put her elegant kid-shod foot down.’ Would Aunt Tilly guess the reason?
‘Are you sure you want to become another Lady Hunney?’
‘I’m going to be the first of the Free-Thinking Lady Hunneys.’
‘A suffragette squire’s wife?’
‘Look at the Countess of Warwick. She’s become a follower of the Socialist cause.’
‘Only now gentlemen have stopped following her.’ Notably his late Majesty, King Edward, Tilly might have added, but as usual, refrained. The less you spoke about inessentials, in Tilly’s view, the more you would be listened to on matters of importance.
‘If Reggie and I truly love each other, as we do, we can carve life in our own ways and find a meeting point. There is an answer, there always is.’
Tilly said no more.
Isabel slid her hand into Robert’s. ‘We must entertain like this.’
Robert looked round at the gracious surroundings of Ashden Manor, mentally compared them with The Towers, and laughed uneasily. ‘Mother and you could do it together.’ It wasn’t the best of efforts on his part and it failed miserably. He longed to talk of Wimbledon, but Isabel never seemed interested.
‘That will be nice, of course,’ Isabel replied after a moment. ‘But on our own would be even nicer. Not so many people, of course.’ She was trying to analyse just what it was about Ashden Manor and the crowds here this evening that differentiated them from her own engagement ball. She gave up the struggle, deciding there was no difference and she had merely been tired on the evening of her own ball. She’d make up for it after she was married. It would be wonderful. And it would be just like this. How about a Michaelmas ball? She couldn’t possibly wait until Christmas.
Phoebe pirouetted in the garden, happy with herself and the evening. She was feeling as though she wanted to cry and laugh both at the same time. It was so still out here it felt as if the evening were holding back, waiting for her to join it. She supposed she was restless because this was almost the last time she’d see Christopher Denis, and although it was satisfactory to think his precipitate action might possibly be due to her charms, it was annoying to think he did find her resistible. Now there’d be a new curate, Father said, someone known to Sir John was coming. That was bad news for a start, for he would be sure to be a lot older than her. On a night like this someone in the world must be waiting for Miss Phoebe Lilley. If only, if only, she could reach him, tear through the garden, the fields, the woods, and rush into his arms. But what if those bushes, so still and mysterious, hid a Len Thorn, just waiting, waiting, for her? Ever since their encounter in the stables she had been half fearful, half intrigued at the idea of seeing him again. Sometime she would bump into him again and he’d look at her, his eyes watching her, roving over her from top to toe. What for? She could see that look on his face now, the half smile, a knowing smile. But what could he know, he of the powerful rippling body and the strange, scary eyes?
‘Knossos hasn’t long been discovered, of course. Evans only started digging around the turn of the century, and then there were lots of delays with the Cretan authorities. They were too busy having wars to care about the past. But when they did, there it all was – is rather – and I’m going to see it. A labyrinth, just as the myth relates, and pictures drawn on the walls of a whole civilisation no one knows much about. The Minoan, gone in a flash in an earthquake – or the roaring of the bull monster, however you like your myth –’ Daniel broke off, aware that lectures on Greek mythology were not what most eighteen-year-old girls would want to hear on a sultry June evening. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’ He threw a pebble into the pond and a moorhen, disturbed from sleep, squawked in protest.
‘I like to know,’ Felicia said somewhat indignantly, upset he treated her as just another girl.
‘You’re surprisingly easy to talk to.’
‘Why surprisingly?’
‘I’ve never been sure what to talk to you about. Or what you’re thinking.’ Tonight Felicia had acquired a mystery together with beauty.
‘I’m not thinking, I’m absorbing,’ she told him seriously, ‘so that when you’re away I can imagine where you are.’
‘I’ll be somewhere else by then.’
‘Where, for instance? Tell me where.’
‘All right, Desdemona.’ He gave in. ‘I’d like to go to Turkey. I want to stand where Schliemann stood at Hissarlik, look down and say, “This is Troy. Helen’s Troy. Priam’s Troy.”’ He looked at Felicia’s dark hair, her pale oval face, the eyes fixed on him so intently, and continued, his voice a little husky now. ‘I’d like to fasten the golden necklaces around your neck, the diadems on your hair, and say as Schliemann did: “These are Helen’s jewels.”’ Then he hurried on, afraid: ‘I want to go to Greece, to see Mycenae –’
‘Agamemnon?’
‘Yes. His tomb, at least. Go to Mount Athos. Perhaps I’ll enter a monastery and become a monk.’ He shot a sideways look at her.
‘I would think God might turn you away and say, “Go, my son, there is work for you in the world.”’
And women, he thought. He summoned in his imagination lines of dark Greek maidens to sway in grace before him, French soubrettes danced to ensnare him, black Africans beckoned, dusky Polynesians laughed, and when all was done then English roses should put forth their perfume. So much time, plenty of time. Out there waiting for him were old civilisations, new emerging countries, and the lure of the East; each had their own way of life, their own culture. He had to know his own was best, that Felicia was best; that the promise of her lips as he kissed her was no illusion and would last. After all, he had not yet set out on his long journey. Odysseus was half-way home when he heard the sirens call.
‘You’re tired of me.’ Reggie felt Caroline flinch away from him.
‘No. Your arm was hurting me – you’re holding me too tight.’
Reggie released her, horrified. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t get over how differently I see you now. I’m afraid you’ll disappear. Did I bruise you?’ He kissed her arms in penitence, secure in the knowledge that they were far enough away from the Manor to escape attention.
‘There’s one advantage in having been friends for so long. No one seems to think I need a chaperone.’ There was satisfaction in her voice.
‘They’re wrong.’ He flicked the lace of her bodice absently, his fingers rubbing though the holes on the bare flesh beneath. ‘Very wrong.’ His lips followed the fingers. ‘Do you want a chaperone?’
Thump went her heart. ‘No. I want to know –’ she continued with difficulty – ‘what comes next.’ There was a silence and she had a sudden fear she had said something irreparable.
‘When we’re married?’ He sounded puzzled.
‘Yes – no. I mean, just to be alone with you.’ She floundered. Her
body seemed to be racing on and leaving words far behind, yet surely he must be feeling what she was feeling?
He was. He embraced her again, his voice hard against her face. ‘To hell with my mother. I want to marry you tomorrow. Then in fifty years’ time we can wobble through these gardens on our sticks, and kiss in this same spot.’ He let her go, and looked round at the large rhododendron bank that divided the formal gardens from the rest of the park. ‘These same gardens. That’s the glory of England.’
‘I shan’t use a stick,’ Caroline declared, glad the tension was broken.
‘I’ll be too feeble to carry you. I’ll get the children to do it. Shall we say six?’
‘We’ll say nothing of the sort.’ Children, children born of her and Reggie? Another enormous thought to consider. ‘The gardens don’t have any hop-bines.’
‘Plenty of gooseberry bushes.’
‘Mother used to say –’ Caroline’s tongue ran away with her and she could not draw back – ‘under the hop-bines was where babies were found.’ His hand was very heavy resting on her shoulders, and he was looking at her intently again. Had she embarrassed him? ‘I was joking. I do know about babies,’ she managed to say.
‘Soon, Caroline, I must marry you soon. Look, I’ve an idea to outwit Mother. Isabel’s wedding is only just over a month away. After Isabel and Robert have gone to Paris in the evening, we’ll just announce our engagement! Mother won’t be able to say a word if the whole of Ashden knows.’
‘She’ll blame me.’
‘No matter. It will be done and Father won’t let her undo that!’ He caught her to him again, kissed her in a lengthy embrace, but as a tremor of feeling shot up through her body, he let her go. ‘I’m sorry. My hands seem to have a mind of their own.’
‘Why sorry? It was –’
‘Because I’m going to marry you.’ He seemed surprised she should ask.
‘But I liked it,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Shouldn’t I have done?’
‘Yes, but not yet.’
Flabbergasted, she stared at him until he saw the funny side. He gave a hoot of laughter, and caught her as she thudded into his arms again. ‘Kitchener never had this problem with his dervishes.’
‘Maybe he never had time to kiss like you.’
‘He’s all the time in the world, and so have we.’
CHAPTER SIX
Harriet felt as though she were suffocating. How could old Dibble work in this stewpot of a kitchen? The range emitted great belches of warmth all day long, because the Rector had to keep his strength up with good hot meals, praise the Lord. The windows and doors might be open, but that only let a fresh blast of heat in from outside. Mrs D. looked like a turkey with her thin neck red with heat sticking out from her high black collar. Greatly daring, Harriet had undone the top button of her print dress, only to have the sainted Miss Pilbeam yell at her. Now old Dibble was, judging by her expression, about to do the same thing. The Rectory, Harriet admitted grudgingly, wasn’t a bad situation, but any position in service meant long, back-breaking hours whether the sun was scorching or Jack Frost was freezing you. Perhaps she could go and work in a factory; some girls did. Or be one of them typists? She was good with her hands. She wondered vaguely how she would go about this, and when no answer was forthcoming, dismissed the idea. She could always marry Bert Wilson if things got too bad here. No, on second thoughts, she might end up with a tray on her head like his Auntie Gwen.
Old Dibble had had it in for her ever since the affair of Fred. Harriet still felt aggrieved. There had been a shadow outside the window, she was almost sure, and who could it have been if not Fred? Percy had no interest in women, only his blessed garden. How Fred and his brother and sister ever got born, beat her. Old Dibble must have lain down and covered herself with compost to lure Percy into digging in her with his dibber. No, it must have been Fred peering in, and she was righteously offended that his word had been taken against hers.
‘Did you order them raspberries, Harriet?’ Old Dibble’s querulous voice broke in upon her thoughts and her dinner.
‘Course I did,’ Harriet lied indignantly. She hadn’t exactly forgotten, but who was going to walk out to Grendel’s Farm half-way to Withyham in this weather to order raspberries? She’d been expecting to see Uncle Seb, who farmed it, in the village but must have missed him. Plenty of time. She’d see him at the flower show on Saturday.
‘White ones, mind.’ Old Dibble was looking at her suspicously.
‘If he can,’ Harriet hedged.
‘Drought.’ Mrs Dibble’s teeth clicked together after delivering this judgement. ‘You mark my words, we’ll have trouble with them raspberries. I’ll have ’em straightaway, tell ’im, if there’s any danger of ’em being finished early. I’ll do ’em up with sugar in bottles. They’ll keep ready for the ices.’
‘I’ll get them,’ Harriet said shortly, stirring her tea viciously.
‘Mind you,’ Mrs Dibble sat down gloomily. ‘I say if this weather keeps up we’ll be lucky if there’s enough ice left in the Manor ice-house to keep the butter firm, let alone keeping that there champagne cold. Seems to me I’d best get the freezing-machine out and the ices done quick and into the refrigerators. Or back in the ice-house if there’s no room. Covered, against the dust.’
Harriet grinned involuntarily. She had a sudden vision of Percy going into the old ice-house at a crouch like you had to, carrying tray after tray of ices. Mrs Lilley had arranged with Lady Hunney to use the ice-house, provided Percy did all the work. The Manor never used it now, only filled it each year from Stickleback Pond as an emergency, and sometimes stored blocks of ice from the ice-man there too. She supposed Mrs Lilley hadn’t liked to ask The Towers for the use of their freezing machines to help out, after Miss Tilda shouted out that way. Harriet hadn’t heard her, but she’d been told all about it by Myrtle, and the implication had been breathlessly discussed in whispers in Myrtle’s bedroom. Harriet didn’t know what to think; it had been pleasant to know Agnes Pilbeam’s carefully laid plans for marriage were spoiled, but if it had really been Swinford-Browne then he shouldn’t get away with it. Or should he? He couldn’t be all bad. He was going to give Ashden a cinema once they’d moved that stubborn old fool Ebenezer Thorn out of the way. Harriet had only been to the cinema twice, to see Sixty Years a Queen – who hadn’t – and later to see a funny film about the Keystone Cops. What she remembered about that most was the heady excitement of sitting in the dark next to Len Thorn, the warm sensation of his hand moving up and down her thigh – and what had come after that, in the hop-field, taking the short way home from the station. He hadn’t given her the time of day since, though, the bastard. Lucky she hadn’t had a kid in the basket as a result of that.
‘The speed everyone’s moving around this house you’d think we’d turned into snails. Time you were in your black and laying luncheon, Harriet. It’ll be me and Myrtle doing all the work at this wedding, that I can see.’
Harriet’s eyes flickered. ‘You’ll have Fred, Mrs Dibble. He’s all right, is he? Hot weather does funny things. You ought to keep your eye on him.’
‘Any more of that and I go to the Rector,’ Mrs Dibble warned.
Her inimical eyes made Harriet aware she’d stepped over the agreed line. So what? ‘I’m sure we’re all fond of Fred. Perhaps it wasn’t Fred I saw. But there was someone, Mrs Dibble. There was.’ The horror of it. She was quite sure now that the shape had been a face staring in through the window, seeing her with no clothes at all, in the bath. No one saw her like that. Not Len Thorn. Not even herself. She’d been brought up properly and always covered herself like she should. And there had been someone at the window. And Fred had meant to lurch into her in the garden that day. She didn’t make mistakes.
‘And you keep a watch on them raspberries. If this heat keeps up, we’ll all be hunting for blackberries instead.’
Caroline propped herself up with cushions on the rug in the garden. There was no escaping the heat inside or out
(for St Swithin had obliged on July 15), but outside she could at least escape the word ‘wedding’ for a time. She pulled her sunhat firmly over her head, and rejoiced that she was alone. Phoebe had taken to riding one of the horses from the Manor, George was at school, Felicia was out with Daniel, and Isabel was as usual at Hop House or The Towers, anywhere where she would not get involved in tedious detail. Caroline regretted this, for she had looked forward to these last months when they would all be together as a family at the Rectory. Irritating though Isabel often was, she added a spice of drama to daily life, and Caroline knew she would miss her.
She picked up her books, but somehow neither Mr E. Phillips Oppenheim nor Miss Phyllis Bottome succeeded in gripping her today. She began to feel guilty at abandoning her mother to the now daily Dibble debates about The Wedding. She lay back on the cushions and decided to contemplate life – or herself. First she thought of Reggie, hugging their secret to her, then tried to think what her future would be like as the next chatelaine of Ashden Manor. That thought brought the question of Lady Hunney rushing back into her mind again, so she firmly switched back to Reggie. If she closed her eyes, this was a delightful way of passing the time, and entirely compensated for the indisputable fact that in the Rectory her sole role appeared to be as Solver of Minor Problems, Producer of Alternative Solutions and Chief Scribe and Clerk to the Grand Vizier and the Sultan of the Domain of the Wedding. If it wasn’t the wedding under discussion in one or other of its hydra heads, it was what had happened at the flower show, what would happen at the fête tomorrow, the Sunday School treat, or Phoebe’s departure to Paris, or the new curate Charles Pickering, a most humourless gentleman, whose attitude implied he was doing Ashden a great honour by joining their community.