Netherwood01 - Netherwood

by Jane Sanderson

  Flytton crossed the room, barely disturbing the immaculate line of her skirt as she moved. She gave the impression, Tobias once said, of having casters for feet.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ she added pointedly, as if to remind Lady Hoyland of her manners.

  ‘Don’t be petulant, Flytton,’ said Lady Hoyland. ‘The dovegrey chiffon, I thought?’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am. If you think so,’ said Flytton, with the inflection she used when she disagreed.

  Lady Hoyland sighed. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Wigmore Hall, ma’am?’

  Lady Hoyland blanched and brought her hand to her lovely mouth at the unwelcome reminder. She’d forgotten, though she didn’t quite know how, that it was indeed the dove-grey, with its modish train, that had been responsible for a most humiliating public come-down. In the very same gown, just this season past, Clarissa had swept into an afternoon recital carrying a banana skin and the stubs of two cigarettes in the folds of her trailing skirts. More unfortunately still, the famously spiteful Lady Aldney had been first witness to this.

  ‘Clarissa, dear,’ she had boomed in her carrying voice, her bosom already heaving with mirth. ‘How very public-spirited of you to clean the streets of detritus as you promenade.’

  She had flicked the offending items out of the chiffon and on to the floor of Wigmore Hall as she spoke, so that they skittered across the marble foyer and had to be collected by a menial. The assembled company laughed gaily at Lady Aldney’s great wit, and Lady Hoyland had been obliged to join in.

  It was an unwelcome memory but Clarissa, recovering her composure and still keen on the dove-grey, said, ‘Yes, but does anyone eat bananas in Netherwood?’

  ‘It’s not banana skins you need to worry about here,’ Flytton said, expertly lifting out of the wardrobe a selection of alternatives to the dove-grey. ‘It’s the blessed coal dust.’

  ‘Well I hope you’re not suggesting the black silk. That wouldn’t do at all. It’s super fun, this little pie-shop venture. I’m rather pleased with Teddy for getting involved.’

  She rifled through the dresses, which now lay on the bed. Her tiny nose, a Benbury family trait and a great asset to the girls who inherited it though not so fetching on the men, wrinkled charmingly as she sifted, and rejected, the eau-de-nil, the French blue and the moss green.

  ‘The ashes of roses, I think, Flytton,’ she said. ‘And please don’t bother telling me why I shouldn’t.’

  Flytton pursed her lips but held her peace. Averting another dove-grey disaster had been her only objective, and that, she felt, had been very satisfactorily achieved. The ashes of roses had no trailing train and was eminently suitable, which was why it had been among her selection. The countess would be lost without her; as long as both of them understood that, Flytton was content.

  Anna had started reading newspapers to improve her English and her knowledge of the world; not the Barnsley Chronicle, which she found – unfairly, given its remit – too narrow and parochial, but the London Times or the Telegraph, whichever she could get hold of. These were publications of sufficient weight and import, she believed, to properly enhance her programme of self-improvement. She felt wiser and more learned simply by opening them up. She would struggle through the leader columns and the international pages, scouring the difficult words for news from Kiev or any part of the Ukraine. She found a thrilling reference to the presence in London of one Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and imagined jumping on a train bound for the capital and seeking him out, not because she liked the sound of him but just for the relief of speaking Russian.

  ‘Would you spot ’im?’ Eve said. ‘London’s not like Netherwood, you know – they say it’s teemin’ wi’ folk.’

  Anna had seen London. She had never seen Lenin, however, or even heard of him before, but she was confident she would be able to pick him out in a crowd.

  ‘Of course I spot him,’ she said, passing the paper over to show Eve his unsmiling face, bald dome and natty beard. ‘See?’

  Eve looked at Lenin and sniffed. ‘Odd lookin’ bloke, ’e’d do well to wear a flat cap,’ she said. ‘Anyroad, never mind ’im. We’ve work to do. Fairy pies.’

  Anna rolled her eyes. Eve, having heard that the countess was to attend the opening on Monday, had taken the extraordinary decision – in Anna’s view – that all the food they prepared for the gathering would be in elegant one- or two-bite sizes. Not pies and puddings and pastries cut into morsels, but whole pies and puddings and pastries no bigger than morsels themselves.

  ‘I’m not ’aving Lady ’oyland wrestling wi’ a wedge o’ game pie,’ she said. ‘I doubt she could open ’er mouth wide enough. It’s grand for t’likes o’ you an’ me, but she’s used to summat different.’ Eve remembered the food she’d seen leaving the kitchen for dinner at Netherwood Hall the night before the party. Slices of chicken breast the size of florins; potatoes peeled away until most of their flesh was in the compost bin and the pale white spheres remaining weren’t much bigger than a knur; carrots peeled and cut into identical, tiny matchsticks. ‘She’s used to fairy food,’ Eve said.

  So fairy food it was, and though Eve had stuck to her guns, she’d had plenty of occasion to rue the idea once they got started. She roped in Ginger, Alice and Nellie to help, and they worked up at the new kitchen to give themselves some elbow room. The meat for the pies had to be minced, not chopped, and the hot-water pastry raised into thimble-sized cases. The toll it took on their fingers! Nellie, who was known for her remedies, came in with a poultice the day after their first session, a mixture of dried rose petals and rotten apple, which she promised them would ease the ache in the knuckles. It was curiously soothing but the cloying smell wasn’t easy to bear. Eve gave up after ten minutes; anyway, she found her aching fingers were more than compensated for by the sight of four trays of raised game pies, none of them bigger than a button mushroom. They also made miniature chicken-and-gravy pies, Anna’s pig parcels – they were tricky – and an old recipe of Ginger’s called potato pudding-pie, which called for mashed potato, whisked eggs and a splash of brandy – Ginger had some at home, to no one’s surprise – baked in puff-pastry cases. Alice, shy and pink-cheeked, brought in a recipe of her grandmother’s for a savoury pudding made with stale bread soaked in milk and water then baked with mixed herbs and eggs. It sounded unappetising, but the one they tried tasted just like a good sage stuffing; it came out of the oven a nice even brown, and turned out of the dish as obligingly as a sandcastle from a bucket. They added it to the repertoire, cooled and cut into delicate rounds.

  Nellie said they should have something sweet, to counter all the savoury, and Anna said it had to be Eve’s Puddings, but they didn’t work in miniature without a pudding bowl to bake them in, so they improvised by mincing the apple and stirring it into a sponge mix, then making tiny apple cakes in cases made from baking parchment and snipped around the edges to give them a frill. They waved in the heat of the oven like the fronds of sea anemones.

  All the dainties were ready and waiting up at the mill on the morning of the opening, arranged on silver platters borrowed from the Netherwood Hall kitchens. There were no formal invitations – it wasn’t a party, after all – but the people Eve wanted there had been asked and the whole Hoyland clan was attending, so there’d be a nice little crowd. The earl was to say a few words, the food would be handed around, those who wanted to have a nosey inside would be welcome to, then everyone would clear off and the real business would begin. That at least was what Eve hoped. Personally, she’d have gone about things with a lot less fanfare. It was Lord Hoyland who was all for the launch, picking the date to suit his diary and sending up crates of Netherwood Hall perry to toast the venture on the day. Eve hadn’t liked to point out that Monday was usually wash day in Beaumont Lane. She supposed the world wouldn’t end if it all got done on Tuesday, just this once.

  Meanwhile Anna, who by now had splashed out on a second-hand Singer to widen the scope of her dressmaking, had come up with t
heir outfits for the occasion after finding inspiration from a fashion plate and its accompanying article in the London Times. It was a picture of a Gibson Girl, an American import that had, in her jaunty, liberated, independent outlook and outfit, captured the spirit of the modern young woman. Now, Anna fancied that she and Eve were the embodiment of this wonderful, emancipated creature, so, for the day of the opening of Eve’s new enterprise, she had fashioned a whole new Gibson Girl look for them both. Flared skirts, pin-tucked white blouses, floppy black bows at the throat and neat little hats, pinned securely into place at a jaunty angle. The hats had been the only real expense, but worth it, she felt, for the impact they had.

  ‘You must buy a proper looking-glass,’ she complained, as they attempted to see their reflection in a tin of liver salts. ‘We only see ourselves in parts. It’s like jigsaw puzzle.’

  ‘Well from t’pieces I can see, we look a bit full of ourselves,’ Eve said. She was worried particularly about the bow. It was meant to look artistic, and was undoubtedly up-to-the-minute, but Eve felt trussed up and more than a little frivolous.

  Amos rapped on the back door and opened it simultaneously. He always did this; requested admittance then granted it himself. He was wearing an old suit, probably the one he – or perhaps his father, judging by its antique cut – got married in. The fabric strained at the shoulders and across the back, as if in spite of his good intentions he might break free at any moment. There were signs of strain around his eyes too, which looked bloodshot; he was working nights this week and should have been in bed at this hour, but he wanted to be at the opening. He had resolved, for one day at least, to demonstrate by deed that he’d accepted Eve’s capitalist adventure up at Mitchell’s Mill. He couldn’t stop calling it by its former name though and neither, for that matter, could Eve, even though there was tangible proof of the change in the form of a smart new fascia, black letters on a cream background: EVE’S PUDDINGS & PIES, Proprietor Mrs Eve Williams. Amos, in the kitchen now, clocked the two women and performed an exaggerated double-take.

  ‘Bloody Norah,’ he said, which hardly helped.

  ‘You see?’ Eve said to Anna. ‘We look ridiculous.’

  Anna glared at Amos, who held up his hands in self-defence.

  ‘No, no, you look …’ – beautiful, he wanted to say, but didn’t – ‘… right smart. Professional, like. It’s just not what you usually wear, that’s all.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ she said, laughing. ‘Anyway, you can talk, all dressed up like a dog’s dinner.’ She thought he looked grand, actually. A suit always did something to improve the appearance of a man, she thought, somehow deflecting the eye from other less-appealing features. He might have left the flat cap at home, though, just this once.

  ‘Dunt want to show you up, like,’ said Amos, grinning.

  ‘Got to go, come, come,’ Anna said, shooing them like chickens towards the door. The Hoyland contingent – the nobs, as Amos persisted in referring to them – were due up there at ten o’clock, and it was already just leaving half-past nine. Anna opened the stair door and called to the children to come down, which they promptly did, Seth first, followed by Eliza holding Maya, then Ellen looking put out as she always did when she felt she was playing second fiddle to the baby. They were all in their chapel clothes and looked a picture, except for Seth’s mutinous expression. The stiff collar always made him cross; it was ruining, for him, the novelty and freedom of a Monday off school. He cheered up, though, when he saw Amos. Amos winked at him, and Seth grinned.

  Eve, while everyone’s back was turned, had picked up a damp cloth and started wiping away invisible crumbs from spotless work surfaces. It was the only sign that she was anxious about the day ahead. Anna prised the dishcloth from her hands and, taking her by the shoulders, turned her to face the door again.

  ‘Go,’ she said. She gave her a little shove. ‘Be gone.’

  ‘What about you?’ Eve said.

  ‘I follow with Maya in minute,’ Anna said.

  ‘No, come now, Anna. I need you up there with me.’ Because if you don’t leave with us, she thought, it’ll be happy families all the way through town for me, Amos and the bairns.

  There was a brief, awkward hiatus with Anna inside dressing Maya in her hat and coat, while Eve, Amos and the children stood outside in the yard. It was cold, and there was a noxious smell of human waste because the middens had been emptied just a couple of hours earlier. There was no reason on earth to linger, yet linger they did. Lilly poked her head out of the door of number three and said: ‘No Daimler today then?’

  ‘She’s given t’chauffeur t’day off,’ Amos replied.

  Eve wondered how it looked to Lilly, standing here with Amos and the children. She wondered, too, how long it took to put a hat on a baby’s head.

  Amos, understanding, said, ‘Seth, lad, shall we mek a start?’

  The boy said yes, always eager to put some distance between himself and Anna. Amos looked at Eve.

  ‘We’ve got some veg business to discuss,’ he said, smiling. Then he turned to Eliza: ‘Borin’ boys’ stuff. That alright wi’ you, missy?’

  Eliza, happy just to have been consulted, nodded, so Amos and Seth took their leave, heads down, walking briskly down the entry into Watson Street. Eve, watching them go, suddenly felt ashamed of herself for hanging back. She should stop caring about the likes of Lilly Pickering, and start caring about the likes of Amos.

  ‘Wait!’ she shouted. Holding Ellen on her hip and Eliza by the hand, they jogged after the boys and walked together with them all the way to Mitchell’s Mill.

  The convoy of Hoylands made its way from Netherwood Hall at a stately pace, attracting a mixed crowd of onlookers as they went, some ardent, some curious and some just plain underemployed. Lord Hoyland led the procession in a brand new Daimler – purchased on impulse after admiring it at the Crystal Palace Motor Show – with a frilly Isabella by his side. Tobias, newly returned from Scotland and cutting a dash in his cream linen motoring coat, drove his own little two-seater, with the permanently affable Dickie waving cheerfully from the passenger seat. The countess was closeted in the landau, though she occasionally popped out her head to enormous cheers. Henrietta, typically and much to her mother’s chagrin, was bringing up the rear, driving her own little phaeton. Along they all came, smiling proprietorially at the crowds in a way that made Amos want to break something. There wasn’t room for all their various vehicles in the crowded courtyard at the back of the mill, so the motor cars and Henrietta’s phaeton had to be moored at the bottom of Mitchell’s Snicket, while Lady Hoyland was driven all the way in to preserve her dignity and the fine silk of her shoes.

  Amos, forgetting his resolve, allowed a sneer of disdain to spoil his pleasant expression. ‘Is she goin’ to get out o’ that bloody carriage?’ he muttered to Eve. ‘Or will she stay inside, for fear of infection?’

  It was an ill-advised remark, one that he should have kept to himself, and he instantly regretted it because he could see the displeasure on Eve’s face. She summoned her children and crossed the cobbled yard, well away from where Amos had positioned himself; this was no occasion, she fumed inwardly, to be rehearsing his rant at the establishment. He was a fool if he thought it was, a bigger fool if he thought she’d join in. Under the colonnade she found Ginger, Nellie and Alice, all in their chapel frocks and hats, smiling at her. Ginger said, ‘You look a right bobby dazzler,’ and Eve blushed because she’d forgotten, temporarily, what she was wearing.

  The four women and three children were now in a line under the colonnade, looking out over the courtyard. It looked a picture now; Lady Hoyland had finally been galvanised, as the earl had known she would be, by a visit to the premises during the final stages of renovation, following which she had sent Hislop and a small team of under-gardeners to carry out her plans for the area. The gristmill had indeed been reincarnated as a fountain, the weeds were gone from between the cobbles, and there were stone urns and statuary artfull
y placed to further enhance the illusion that an Italian count might have once lived in Netherwood. Far from being reluctant to leave the brougham, Lady Hoyland seemed barely able to contain her excitement as she was handed down by her coachman. Her appearance in full, rather than viewed through the carriage window, elicited a sigh of appreciation from the women among the crowd. She was a vision in dusky-pink, the embodiment of charm and femininity, a shining example of the rewards of the ceaseless pursuit of perfection combined with a limitless budget. She wore kidskin gloves in the palest cream, and a hat with a wide brim which dipped on one side to give her the appearance of always peeping coquettishly from under it. Eve, to her profound relief, suddenly felt positively under-dressed.

  The Hoyland offspring assembled in an informal cluster around their parents and the crowd of friends and sundry locals gathered in front of them. Eve, scanning their faces, saw Samuel Farrimond and Wilfred Oxspring in deep conversation. Lilly Pickering and Maud Platt had walked up together, curiosity having got the better of them. They stood at the back whispering behind their hands, like overgrown schoolgirls. Percy Medlicott had come, and Jonas Buckle stood with him. The Ramsbottom sisters were right at the front and they gave her a wave, jigging up and down a little with the excitement of it all.

  The earl cleared his throat, clapped for attention and started to speak, his theme being the inestimable merits of enterprise and industriousness. Tobias, who had behaved himself now for an unbroken stretch of three months, wondered indignantly if the old man meant it for him. In fact, there was no hidden message; it was a straightforward tribute to Eve, who was the one person not actually listening. She gazed about her as he spoke, marvelling at life’s unexpected turns. There was Anna, with Maya, standing next to Amos in the crowd. They made a lovely couple, Eve thought idly. Anna was so tiny she made Amos look almost tall. The straw hat had fallen victim to the baby, who had wrenched it off Anna’s head and was now waving it in triumph. They were both watching the earl, Amos’s expression a study in neutrality, Anna’s all concentration as she struggled with his upper-class accent. She’d cracked the Yorkshire dialect, but this was something new. She leaned in a little further, watching the fractional movement of Lord Hoyland’s mouth.