by Mary Wood
‘Aye, that’s typical of Hattie. Look how she sorted me and Daisy out.’
‘And me, and she did her best for me mam,’ Sally chipped in.
‘Well, I could say that an’ all,’ Megan told them. ‘It was Hattie as first started me on the road to having a business. So I reckon young Freda should make a pot of tea and we’ll have a toast to our Hattie, eh?’
Freda, the latest apprentice and, to Megan’s mind, a good girl, jumped up without protest, though she did have a cheeky quip as she went towards the kitchen. ‘Glad to. It’ll take me away from you lot, as you sound like you’re going down memory lane again.’ Megan saw Freda just manage to dodge the pincushion that Sally threw at her. They all laughed at this.
The banter didn’t continue. Instead, the hum of the sewing machines resumed, leaving Megan looking at six bent heads, three of which belonged to women who were very dear to her.
How different their lives were now, she thought, as she carried on sorting through swatches of material samples. And yes, a lot of it was down to Hattie. Hattie had helped her through the worst of times, had given Megan her first chance to set up on her own and, after she’d lost it all, had encouraged her to start over again, once she had the means to do so. Now look at where she was; she had all of this: a dress shop and design studio, as well as this making-up room where all her drawings became a reality. It was just like Madame Marie’s place had been – the studio of the woman who’d taken her on as an apprentice from the age of thirteen until her marriage.
Part of Megan’s mind closed at the thought of her first marriage. She couldn’t dwell on any of that. It was all too painful, and a long time ago now. And as the world goes, some good had come out of it: her son Billy, for instance. Yes, there were bad times with the lad, but no matter what, she loved him. And then there was her being with Jack – not that she’d ever have been with him if Cissy had lived. Cissy had been Jack’s first wife and a very special person. The bond she and Cissy had shared had been strong. Megan had loved Jack all the time he was married to Cissy, but had never shown her feelings then. To have done so would have hurt Cissy badly. Oh, Ciss, lass, I still miss you. But thou knows, you live on in your Sarah. She don’t look like you – she looks like Jack – but she has your kind ways and bubbly nature.
The bustle of activity in the room around her reminded Megan of Madame Marie’s, as did the smell of the fabrics and cottons, though a new odour mingled with these familiar ones: that of warmed oil, as the electric machines whirred away and heated up. During the Madame Marie years there had been few machines, and those that there were had a treadle to work them. Eeh, if I spent a day on one of them, the backs of me calves knew it.
Those years had shaped Megan’s dream to own her own place, but what she had now wasn’t what she once wished for. She’d gone from wanting to design exclusives for the rich, as Madame Marie had done, to wanting to have as little as she could to do with any top-drawer folk. So now she designed everyday wear and Sunday best for the middle classes, and she was working on a new line for Hattie’s emporium – off-the-peg, affordable clothes for the working class. However, she still did exclusive designs for Lady Crompton and her daughter over at Hensal Grange, and their friend Lady Gladwyn. She owed that much to Lord and Lady Crompton, because indirectly it was their money that had given her this second chance to set up.
But then, they owed her, an’ all – owed her for all she went through at the hands of Laura Harvey, Lady Crompton’s sister. But no, she’d not think about all of that. She’d forgiven the woman as she’d lain on her deathbed, and that was how it would stay. She’d had to, or she and her Jack could never have moved forward.
Sally’s laugh echoed across the room, cutting into Megan’s thoughts and bringing her back to the present. Sally had stood up to help Freda, who teetered across from the kitchen bearing an overladen tray and looking as though she would drop it at any moment. The smile she’d lost came back to Megan’s face at the antics of the girls teasing and having fun at Freda’s expense, though she checked on her apprentice to make sure she was taking it all in her stride.
With the tray safely on the table, Sally turned and indicated that she would pour Megan’s tea for her. Megan felt sadness enter her as she looked at Sally – beautiful Sally, fragile, not in stature, but inside where it mattered, damaged by the horror she’d endured as a child when she’d been raped by a sex fiend. If only the tendrils of pain that clung to her would heal and allow Sally to seek real happiness. But she wouldn’t hear of looking for a husband, or even think of loving any man in that way. At twenty-one, she had carved out a place for herself on the shelf, as they described unmarried girls of her age, and that’s where she wanted to stay.
As she made her way across to Sally and Freda, Megan saw Phyllis and Daisy rise from their benches to join them. Their appearance demonstrated the changes that Hattie had helped bring about in their lives. Their hair – once permanent-waved into the latest fashion to increase their chances of attracting ‘customers’ – was now worn in a natural bob and tied up in a headscarf while they worked. As they no longer had to prostitute themselves, the make-up they had once used to plaster their faces was gone, as were their flamboyant clothes.
They lived a happy life together as a couple, though of course few knew their real status. Most thought they were just spinster-friends, no different from many others who hadn’t been lucky in finding a man, out of the few who came home from the last war. God! It’s hard to believe we are now at war again. Megan’s mind went to Billy. Somehow it felt like she was trading his freedom from that awful place for his life in trying to get him released to the army. This thought set a tremble running through her. Please, God, keep him safe if it works out that he does have to go to war.
Daisy lifted her cup. ‘To Hattie, for all she’s done for us all, and to the continued success of her and Harry’s emporium.’
Megan raised her mug and clinked it against the rest. Freda giggled. The girl didn’t really know what all the fuss was about, but Megan and the others did. They knew they were all the stronger for having Hattie in their lives. Suddenly Megan couldn’t wait for the evening to come. Hattie and Harry were coming over for their tea – a distraction she needed at the moment. Because although she’d let her mind wander around all sorts of events in the past, there were things in the present that were niggling at her – not that she could share them, but it was enough just being with Hattie, her friend from the moment they were old enough to make friends thirty-eight years ago. And even before that according to what they had been told.
Within weeks of their birth they’d been taken from St Michaels, a home for unmarried mothers, to a convent orphanage, and had often been told by Sister Bernadette, the nun who’d devoted herself to them, that they were much happier when together as little babbies than they would have been if she separated them. By, it beggars belief that me and Hattie are going on forty now. Where have all the years gone? And how did we weather it all? I don’t know.
Megan shrugged. One thing she did know: having a hug from Hattie would, and always did, make her feel better about everything.
3
Terence & Theresa
The Seeds of Revenge
Terence Crompton paced up and down the lawn, as boredom – his constant companion – made him restless.
The late-September sun warmed his back and bathed the stunning Hensal Grange in a soft light. He loved this place and always had done since, as a child, he’d visited his poor Aunt Laura, whose home this used to be.
Everyone always referred to Aunt Laura – the late Laura Harvey – as poor Laura. Dogged as she’d been by unhappiness, the description suited her memory, what with Laura losing her only child at birth and then losing her husband in the so-called ‘Great War’, before dying from TB at a very young age. Although, before doing so, Laura had rather blotted her copy book by committing the ultimate faux pas of falling in love with her stable groom!
That very groom was now t
he cause of most of Terence’s discontent, owning as he did the best stud farm in the county. And all courtesy of a very big slice of what should have been part of his inheritance from Aunt Laura.
‘That was a big sigh, Terence. You will become the master of sighs at this rate. For goodness’ sake, why don’t you do something with your life? Join the army, or something?’
‘Ha! You’re one to talk – lazing around, sunning yourself. I don’t see you, dear sister, engaging in useful employment.’
‘A privilege given to the fairer sex, dear.’
‘Oh, go away, Theresa. I can’t be doing with you at the moment. And your privileges should not be at the expense of Pater.’
‘And yours should, I take it? Anyway, that was not a kind remark. You know I can’t do anything other than rely on Pater, until my divorce from Raymond sorts itself out – at which time, half of what is owned by that wretched pansy I married will become mine.’
‘Have you heard any more on that front?’
‘Yes, his lawyers are trying for an annulment, as they are saying the marriage wasn’t consummated! And if they get it, that will be the end of that. So, would you have me out on a limb?’
‘You could live on your inheritance from Grandfather and Aunt Laura. You haven’t touched it yet.’
‘No. Unlike you, I let Pater invest it for the long term – which I am very happy about, because, with the money tied up, I can’t show that I have adequate means to support myself. If I could, I would lose most of what I stand to gain. Look, you know all of this, so why bring it up now? Mater and Pater are happy to have me home, so why can’t you be? You’re my . . . my soulmate – my twin, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Oh, sorry, old thing. Here, shift up and make room for me. We’ll snuggle up, like we always used to, and stop this fighting. We need each other, right now more than ever. Look, surely you could play the “Give me what I want, or I tell all” card?’
‘Yes, that is the next step – a quiet settlement and divorce, citing his adultery with a maid or something, within days of our marriage. Such a story will leave me embarrassed, but with my reputation intact.’
‘Your reputation! My dear, you haven’t had one of those since you were a youngster.’
‘Terence, don’t. I’m not in the mood.’
‘You never are, these days.’
‘Oh, shut up and get in!’
Theresa’s warm, delicious body welcomed him next to her in the ample-sized hammock. Slim and very pretty – in fact beautiful; the most beautiful woman he knew, and the female him, really – his twin had attributes that mirrored his own: he was tall and elegant, with dark hair and large brown eyes flecked with hazel and framed by sweeping eyelashes. They were both always at the centre of northern and London society, but they were lost, too.
At twenty-eight years old, they lived aimlessly from day to day and held a secret that burned into them both; but more so for Theresa, since her failed marriage. Thinking of which, fancy old Hawthorn – the school bully – turning out to be a faggot! Who’d have thought it?
Terence himself had suffered under the gang that the Honourable Raymond Hawthorn had accumulated around him. He’d taken him to task over it, too, when Hawthorn had stepped up as a beau to his sister. But then, as Theresa told it, Hawthorn had cried like a baby on the first night of their marriage, begging her to live a sham life with as many lovers as she wanted as long as she turned a blind eye to him having as many male partners as he wanted. It all beggared belief, as they said around here. But it pleases me, all the same.
As for himself, Terence had failed in his education and hadn’t taken up a position in the family bank – not that he couldn’t, as Pater would make a place for him, but he simply couldn’t face the humiliation of being unable to grasp the business. All those figures scared the hell out of him.
His only interest was racing horses. Riding them, breeding them and owning a top earner occupied all of his dreams. And that’s where that blighter Jack Fellam put an obstacle in his way. Pater wouldn’t hear of Terence starting a rival stud farm to Jack’s, even though Aunt Laura had run one from this estate that was in direct competition with Smythe’s Stud Farm, which Jack now owned.
All the stables Aunt Laura had built were still in good condition, but with Pater overseeing the business side of Fellam’s stud, he saw it as a betrayal of Jack Fellam’s trust if he funded Terence to run a similar business. His father’s objection was impenetrable. But, that aside, what stuck most in his craw was that Fellam had used the legacy Aunt Laura had left him to buy bloody Smythe’s Stud Farm in the first place. A legacy that should have come to me.
Aunt Laura’s affair with Jack Fellam had brought her nothing but pain, but she’d become riddled with guilt after she’d tried to stop Jack from marrying Megan, the woman he’d fallen in love with. And from what Terence had heard of the consequences of Aunt Laura’s actions, Megan Fellam had nearly been killed by the vicious man she was then married to, but had tried to escape from. All the same, Aunt Laura shouldn’t have tried to make amends by leaving Jack a huge slice of her wealth!
‘What are your plans, my little brother?’ Theresa often addressed him this way. She’d been born a full half-hour before him and thought it funny to emphasize the fact. He didn’t mind, as he adored her – when he wasn’t irritated with life, that is.
He pulled her closer to him. She didn’t scold him, but snuggled into him, as she knew he liked her to. ‘God knows. I know one day I will inherit all of this, but what is it, other than a beautiful country pile? I’ve no interest in administrating the estate side of things or running the farm, so I would employ a manager for that, as Pater does. And though I rue the proceeds going to Fellam, I’m jolly glad Pater sold the mine and that it took care of Fellam’s share of Aunt Laura’s legacy. Ugh! The very thought of being involved in mining repulses me.’
‘Yes, it was fortunate it fetched such a good price, otherwise we wouldn’t be living here, as there was very little money left once Aunt Laura’s estate was settled. At least the stinking mine did that for us. But, you know, sometimes I miss living in our own home in York. I wish the parents hadn’t sold our pile there. It would be lovely to go back in the winter for the party season.’
‘Oh, that doesn’t bother me. I prefer to go to London, and Christmas here is right up my street, with the house full of guests and the shooting parties and . . . Anyway, we digress. I am the topic of the conversation, and this isn’t helping me.’
‘Really, Terence, you can be so boring sometimes. Surely you can find something to do?’
‘Thank you for that. But no, finding a position in life is easier said than done. I have few options, sister dear. I can’t take up politics. Pater’s title – being an honorary one – doesn’t pass to me, so I don’t qualify for the House of Lords. And so I am stuck. That is, until I can do with my inheritance as I wish: a state of affairs that I am not looking forward to, as I don’t wish Pater’s demise, lovely old thing that he is. I am very fond of him, as you know, but it is Pater and his stubbornness that are stopping me doing what I want to do.’
‘Darling, there is a war on. Oh, I know – at only a few weeks old, nothing is happening yet, but it will. I have listened to conversations, and everyone believes it will be a long haul. Many lives will be lost, and much property destroyed. The economy will be a mess. There’s even talk that they will conscript all the young men. Racing and gambling will be the last thing on people’s minds. Shouldn’t you think about becoming an officer or a pilot, or something? Before all the best positions go, I mean. After all, if you don’t, you could find yourself having to take orders from the gardener’s lad.’
‘Heaven forbid! Besides, as you say, it’s early days yet, and I can’t see anything coming of it. It’s ridiculous: some screaming German chap bombing us! It ain’t going to happen, dear. Anyway, I fancy a smoke. Have you got yours on you?’
‘No, but I brought my bell out with me. I’ll ring for Frobisher. I thin
k the old thing could make it out here. He can organize us some tea and bring some cigarettes out for us.’
‘It’s time he was put out to grass, poor thing. He must be a hundred.’
Theresa laughed at this. Her brother loved to make her laugh. Although Terence had said she shouldn’t be here, he hadn’t meant it. He was jolly glad she was. In fact, he didn’t know what he’d do without her.
Terence climbed out of the hammock and helped Theresa out. She linked his arm in hers as they walked over to the summerhouse, where they ordered their tea to be set. She looked lovely in her calf-length white linen dress, with its flowing skirt. She had picked up her straw sunhat, trimmed with a yellow bow, and placed it on her immaculately cut, shining hair. The picture of innocence that she portrayed suited her. They matched rather well, he thought – he in his white slacks and shirt, and sporting a yellow cravat.
They didn’t speak, and he found that his mind wouldn’t let go of the Fellam question. He needed to do something. The conversation he’d had with his friends, Godfrey and Cecil, came to mind. During the shoot in August, he’d told them of his feelings and ambitions and Cecil had said, ‘Well, why don’t we fix it? We could make it look like an accident. What about a fire?’
The notion had shocked Terence – even more so when he realized that not only was Cecil being serious, but that Godfrey agreed! Oh, he knew they were a couple of wild things. Rich beyond imagination, they looked for any prank to amuse them, safe in the knowledge that their money and position would bail them out, but he hadn’t thought they would go that far.