by Amy Myers
Fifteen minutes later Caroline dashed downstairs, complete with wedding camisole, petticoat, knickers and stockings and her old yellow dress. She stopped short on the threshold of the kitchen, beheld its mountains of ordered chaos and tried to bite back laughter.
‘Mrs Dibble, it looks like the Carlton’s kitchens. Mr Escoffier himself couldn’t do better.’ Mrs Dibble visibly preened herself. ‘Master Dabb didn’t need to help you out,’ Caroline added for good measure, and was rewarded by seeing Mrs Dibble blush with pride.
Servants’ breakfast had been relegated to the servants’ hall in order to make as much room as possible in the kitchens where china, cutlery and the best damask table linen were all laid out to Mrs Dibble’s despair. Time after time she’d pointed out to those dratted girls sometimes to fold the napkins in three, sometimes four. That way linen lasted longer, for creases didn’t grow into holes. But would they listen? No. And it was she – or rather Agnes – who sat mending it with ‘flourishing thread’,
Trays of pattie cases were lined up, hard-boiled eggs lay cooling in preserving pans, the boiled lobsters were assembled for shelling and creaming, pies and canapés lay awaiting garnish and toppings. Bowls of pastry mix stood purposefully on the table for cheese straws and anchovy puffs.
Even as Caroline surveyed the scene, there was a thump on the tradesmen’s door, and Joey Sharpe staggered in with two huge buckets full of cream taken off his yoke. ‘Reckon the Ritz will have to do without till Sunday. Ashden do have it all, surely,’ he joked.
‘Be off with your cheek,’ Mrs Dibble replied automatically, eyes darting suspiciously over the cream to ensure it was a satisfactory colour.
Agnes hurried in from the servants’ hall, complete with tray for Isabel, decked with teapot and a rose.
‘Her favourite,’ Caroline said appreciatively. ‘Thank you, Agnes.’
‘When you gets married your trouble begins,’ observed Mrs Dibble without rancour. ‘That’s what they do say. Best enjoy life while she can, poor lass.’
Kidneys were unlikely to do much to alleviate Isabel’s problem, Caroline thought ruefully as she negotiated the staircase carefully and arrived with the tray relatively unscathed save for a minor slop of milk. She wondered if she too would be excused family prayers on her wedding day. This, she hugged to herself with excitement, was her own engagement day, though as yet only she and Reggie knew it.
‘Good morning, beautiful bride.’ Caroline set the tray down on a side table in Isabel’s room and drew it up to the bed.
Isabel, still fast asleep, awoke and struggled up, yawning and stretching her arms luxuriously. ‘Lovely. Just think, I can have kidneys for breakfast every day from now on if I like.’
‘Almost worth getting married for.’
‘It certainly is.’ Isabel tucked in with relish, all sign of her earlier nerves vanished. People, Caroline decided, were extraordinary, especially one’s own family.
‘Shall I come to help you dress?’
Isabel considered rather too long for tact. ‘Just you and Mother. I don’t want Phoebe jumping about or Felicia mooning around.’
Happy families, thought Caroline, in such a good mood she was amused rather than irritated on behalf of her sisters.
‘Come along in, Rosie, don’t be shy.’ Mrs Dibble waved the girl into the kitchen, neatly dressed in the Ashden mauve print, her black for this afternoon carefully tied in a parcel. She looked her up and down. Skinny, small little thing she was, yet a hard worker. ‘Servants’ breakfast is in the hall. Have you eaten yet?’
Rosie Trott shook her head, her great brown eyes looking round her in wonder. She’d never been in the Rectory kitchen before, and it was nothing like the kitchens of Ashden Manor. This looked so old-fashioned with its copper saucepans and pots hanging on the wall – those that weren’t over the two-ovened Hattersley range or on the table-tops. An old cabinet refrigerator, a tongue presser, meat screens – in Ashden Manor it was all seamless steel and smart black gas-stoves. It was a different sort of kitchen and she rather liked it; she felt comfortable here, for all she’d heard about Mrs Dibble being a terror.
‘That would be lovely, Mrs Dibble.’
‘You know Harriet, Myrtle and Agnes, of course,’ Mrs Dibble hurled at her as she bustled the girl along to the servants’ hall.
Rosie nodded. ‘I were at school with Myrtle.’
‘In with you then.’ Mrs Dibble decided not to overdo the friendliness. ‘There’s a lot to do here, and I’ve heard you’re not afraid of hard work…’
‘What is the news, Laurence?’
Elizabeth, unusually, went anxiously into the study where, again unusually, her husband was reading The Times before taking family prayers. Matins had been especially early today, a fact Ashden rewarded by leaving the Rector to recite to himself – to his great amusement. ‘The children must not be upset, but I want to know,’ she continued.
‘It is not good, Elizabeth. The Lutine bell was rung at Lloyds yesterday to announce that Russia had carried out its threat and mobilised. There is little hope now that Germany will not retaliate and declare war on Russia. Belgium has recalled its army, and fears German invasion naturally enough if –’ He broke off. ‘And in France, there is bad news also. Monsieur Jaurès, the influential French Socialist, who has done so much to try to avert war, has been assassinated.’
‘Then there is little hope for poor Europe,’ Elizabeth sighed. ‘It will once again be dragged into war. Thank goodness we are an island.’
‘There is worse news. The Stock Exchange in London was closed yesterday afternoon in response to the international financial crisis.’
‘But what has it to do with England?’
‘Let us hope nothing.’
There was a pause. ‘Then we might be drawn in? And France? Oh, Laurence!’
‘It cannot be coincidence that Winston Churchill has sent the British Fleet into the Channel on manoeuvres. We are rattling our own sabres, and Sir John has telephoned already to say he cannot be with us today. He is needed in Whitehall during the present crisis. He is close to Haldane, you know, the former War Minister, who did so much to restructure the army.’
‘Oh, but that’s terrible.’ Unable to grapple with the wider horror, Elizabeth seized on the particular. ‘Today of all days. I take it Lady Hunney is coming?’
‘Yes. I doubt if a mere international war would keep her from adding her lustre to our celebrations.’
‘That is not like you, Laurence.’ He must really be worried, she realised.
‘Exports of food from France and Germany will be stopped.’ Laurence was not listening. He was still reading on. ‘The bank rate has risen to eight per cent and the country has only a month’s supply of meat.’
‘I shall speak to the farm immediately,’ Elizabeth declared. ‘There may be a rush. We are fortunate in Ashden to be so near at hand to our supplies.’
‘The price of bread goes up one halfpenny a loaf next week. Gold is being called in –’ Laurence lay down his newspaper. ‘The situation is very serious.’
‘Any European war must be serious for our imports. Thank goodness we have the Empire to supply us. How can they take our gold coins away? That is our money.’
‘They will issue us with paper money instead.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ Elizabeth declared, then bravely came to the heart of her fear. ‘Laurence, Isabel and Robert are going to France tonight.’ There was a question mark in her voice.
‘France is a long way from Russia, my dear.’ But there was little to reassure her in the Rector’s voice. The Times had written of England’s duty, and that the Empire stood ready. Furthermore, what he had not told his wife was that although the Foreign Office had so far issued no formal instruction to travellers to stay at home and was reassuring those already abroad that there was no danger, merely possible inconvenience in countries that had mobilised, Sir John had privately suggested he advise the couple to stay at home. He must speak urgentl
y to Swinford-Browne and Robert.
Percy Dibble happily hummed down in the cellars as he carefully rearranged his treasured bottles, his moment of supreme happiness before him. A Frenchie had once come to see the Rector, and complimented Percy in person on his rhubarb wine. He was a sommelier, he said, and whatever that was precisely it was obviously a splendid thing to be, so Percy duly elected himself sommelier of the Rectory from that time forth. He never bothered to mention this to Daisy. He still called Margaret by this pet name even though seventeen-year-old sparkling, pert little Daisy was now forty-five and they’d three kids, two of them with kids of their own. But there was Fred of course. Percy carefully blew the dust off a bottle of Château Margaux that the Rector had been saving for something special. ‘Rest you there, my lovely,’ he crooned. ‘Today’s not special enough.’ Today, as well as his fruit wines, there’d be foreign wines, not to mention the cases of champagne lined up in martial order, the bottle necks sticking out like so many hens in a wire coop waiting for supper. Miss Matilda’s gift, so Mus Lilley said, and now Miss Matilda wouldn’t even be here. Not right a lady like her being in prison. Hardly bore thinking of what the world was coming to. Percy’s view was that everybody should know their place and stick to it, otherwise the world got in a valiant pickle.
‘Mr Dibble!’
That would be Daisy. Percy sighed as he went to the foot of the cellar stairs. Sometimes Daisy was a mite too formal, but then people was all different. He looked up, but the angle of the steep steps and the overhang meant all he could see was Daisy’s black boots and part of her skirt and apron. How could disapproval make itself so evident with so little?
‘The Good Lord may have to tolerate hard liquor today, but He don’t require us to drown in it, Mr Dibble. Time to get the crystal polished.’
He opened his mouth to say that was Harriet’s job, then remembered that as sommelier he was responsible, and that he had Jamie Thorn coming to help too. Sometimes the Rector stuck his neck out just like them champagne bottles, and one day, just like them something would go off pop.
Isabel reluctantly emerged from her bath. She told herself this was because it was the last time she would be enjoying this luxury here in the Rectory, but in fact it was to delay the moment when she would don the new lace brassiere and nainsook knickers she had so proudly bought last week. No one else in Ashden had ever worn a brassiere, she was sure of that, as she wriggled to fasten it behind her. Once done, she admired her own shape in the mirror, the way it divided her breasts, then sobered as she remembered that tonight, even if it was in a cabin on an overnight steamer, someone else would be admiring it too … She would keep her night-gown on. Surely he wouldn’t expect her to take it off? She had tried to ask her friends, for she wouldn’t dare ask Mother, and had comfortingly been told that no gentleman would ask such a thing of her. But she wasn’t so sure. The thought of that terrible man at her engagement ball, Frank Eliot, slipped into her mind for no reason at all, and she shuddered deliciously. Quickly she pulled on the girdle, which she had decided could be her ‘something old’. No new corsetry for her today, she thought practically; she wanted to be comfortable. She sat down on the stool and lovingly stroked the white artificial silk stockings on to her legs. Her very first pair. It belatedly occurred to her that perhaps she should have bought some for the bridesmaids too. Oh well, their legs wouldn’t be seen. Sensuously, she stretched out one leg after the other, arching her feet to admire them. Then she clipped the suspenders into place. Perhaps she should wear a pretty garter too? She quickly dismissed thoughts of the confined space in which she would be undressing tonight; perhaps they wouldn’t undress … not till they reached Paris and she had a dressing room of her own.
Mother would be here any moment to do her hair, and then it would all begin. There was nothing she could do to stop it, marriage would tick relentlessly nearer. Anyway, she didn’t want to stop it – did she? There was Paris to look forward to.
Phoebe searched impatiently for the white stockings Agnes had laid out for her. She couldn’t find them. Anyway, who needed to wear new stockings? She rummaged to find a respectable pair of old ones, then hopped around in a sort of Indian war dance she had concocted to assist in the lacing-up of corsetry and donning of hosiery, and suchlike fiddly things. Growing up had meant sacrifices, she had discovered. It was all very well putting one’s hair up, but having to bone your stomach and hips in after the comparative freedom of her earlier light corset and liberty bodice was no joke at all.
Nevertheless she drew in her camisole as highly as she could under the bosom. It made a satisfyingly large bulge of the latter, almost as good as Mother’s.
Hair next. Where was Mother? Phoebe debated her chances of escaping a wigging if she pulled the bell for Agnes to seek out Mother, and decided they were slim, so she pulled on the nearest old skirt and blouse and dashed out herself. After all, it was no use telling her she had to wear a silly transformation at the back to support the ridiculous lump of muslin and flowers deemed suitable for bridesmaids if Mother were not going to help jam the thing on. Or she could ask Caroline. She was almost as obliging as Mother. Someone must help. She couldn’t see the back of her head except by lying semi-spreadeagled over the stool, looking into her dressing-table mirror and, if she were lucky, catching a glimpse of the back of her head in the wall mirror opposite.
There was no sign of Mother; she must be with Isabel or old Ma Dibble-Dabble. And no Caroline either. Very well, she’d do it herself and then she could put her pink gown on, ready for the wedding. With great glee Phoebe contemplated the narrow skirt with its overtunic – how cross Isabel had been that they all had narrow skirts and she looked as if she were ‘wearing a crinoline’, she had moaned, her gown was so full. Phoebe was looking forward to the wedding, though she wasn’t sure why. She supposed it was because something was happening at last. Moreover, it was a something in which, though there was no Christopher to tease and the new curate was no Anthony Wilding, at least there could be no Len Thorns to distract her with thoughts of powerful bodies rippling with muscles over their firelit anvil.
Felicia was dressing almost absent-mindedly; unlike Phoebe, however quickly and with whatever lack of attention she dressed, she still looked graceful – not that she greatly cared, but she knew it pleased Daniel. She deftly braided up the long dark hair and slipped the cool satin over her head. She liked this shade of green and the matching silk gloves, carefully dyed from white. Soon she would be ready, and that would help make it come all the quicker. It was not only Isabel’s wedding, but seeing Daniel. He’d be leaving in two days’ time, and this might be the last time she saw him, yet it was impossible. What if she never saw him again? Suppose he married a dusky princess of the Nile, or a classic Greek beauty? No, God could not be so unkind. It was He had marked them for each other. Daniel still had to find that out, that was all. She was lucky, for she had known what she wanted all along: Daniel.
Agnes hesitated, then took the plunge and made an excuse to go by Rosie’s station where she was busy shelling eggs and creaming the yolks. ‘You’re friendly with Ruth Horner, aren’t you? I wondered –’
‘Not really,’ Rosie quickly interrupted. ‘I know her, that’s all, and, oh Miss Pilbeam, I’m ever so sorry.’
Agnes stiffened, then tried to relax. Genuine pity she must accept, and she and Jamie had few enough friends left, that was for sure. ‘Kind of you, Rosie. Mind, not too much curry powder in the eggs.’
‘No, Miss Pilbeam. I’m sorry – about Jamie, I mean.’
‘What for?’ Agnes said sharply. ‘It makes no difference, we’ll be wed anyway.’
‘Even after what I said I’ll have to say?’ Rosie stared at her.
‘What’s that?’ Agnes was bewildered.
‘Ruth asked me, you see, and I had to say yes, ’cos I did.’
‘Did what?’ Unconsciously Agnes clutched her wooden spoon like a weapon.
Rosie looked alarmed. ‘I thought you must know by now, t
hat Jamie would have told you. That’s what caused all the rough music, see.’
‘What?’
‘I had to say I saw them going into the old gentleman’s cottage, Ebenezer’s, I saw her and Jamie. ’Cos I did, going back after my evening off.’
‘You saw them?’ Agnes whispered, feeling as if she’d been hit in the stomach. No one could doubt Rosie. If Rosie said so, it was the truth.
‘My mum said speak the truth and you’ll never go wrong, Rose.’ Rosie looked anxious all the same. ‘Now look what I’ve done.’ Rosie tried to grapple with this ethical problem.
‘It isn’t your fault,’ Agnes managed to say. She’d never really believed it, not even after what Ruth had said. She’d told herself all the boys swam naked in the river, Ruth could have seen Jamie like that any time in the last ten years. But now that remaining strand of hope was broken too, and the rough music drummed incessantly at her heart.
Twelve o’clock. One hour to go. Late for a wedding, particularly since they were to receive Holy Communion. Laurence had disapproved when Elizabeth told him of the time being set back so that a full luncheon was not required. Our Lord should not take second place to household economics, he had pointed out, but Elizabeth, practical as always, pointed out that Our Lord had performed miracles at weddings to help supply the provisions, and this would be another one in its way.