This is a huge step forward for the Ludlow Ladies’ Society and will not be forgotten. While we have not put it to the vote, we have asked Connie to be an honorary member of the Society and we are very happy she has accepted our kind invitation.
I think, if I may permit myself a level of coarseness, it is also two fingers to Jack Davoren.
Kathryn Rodgers,
Chairwoman
13
Eve’s front door was open and several boxes were stacked on the step.
“I thought I was bad with my two suitcases. This makes me feel much better,” Hetty said as Eve came out, locking her front door behind her. Together, they placed the boxes on top of the cases in the back seat.
“What do you think Connie will make of all this? I hope she knows what she is letting herself in for; it can get quite messy, threads and all. We don’t want to be watching ourselves too much.”
“I think, for her, it will be a nice diversion,” Eve said, as they turned up the avenue to Ludlow Hall.
Connie was in the kitchen in her dressing gown when they arrived.
“I thought the drawing room would be a nice spot, as it catches the sun nicely throughout the day. You can have the sun on your backs while you work.”
Eve, a little surprised to be offered such a grand room, did not comment. It was Hetty who said what they were both thinking.
“Are you sure? Eve here only ever used that room for special occasions; she said it was the best room in the house. I will be afraid to get a thread on the carpet there.”
Connie looked confused. Eve tugged at Hetty, telling her to stop her silliness.
“This is Connie’s house now, I am sure she has her reasons. We are just glad of the room.”
Connie tightened her dressing gown around her. “That room has the nicest view of the outside. I know it is special to Eve, and it is also beside the front door. I could give you a key and you could come and go as you please.”
Eve stepped forward.
“All very sensibly and sensitively worked out, and we are delighted to bring the Ludlow Ladies’ Society back to the Hall.”
“Of course we are, thank you so much,” Hetty said, reaching over, catching Connie into a tight hug.
Pulling gently away, Connie turned to the two women. “I have plans of my own. The big room opposite the drawing room, I have workmen coming to clear it and decorate it. Maybe it can be my dance studio.”
“Dance?” Eve asked, and Hetty clapped.
“Well done you.”
“I am thinking I might give dance lessons,” Connie said shyly, turning to face Eve.
Hetty, swinging her hips and throwing her hands in the air, called out to Eve. “Are you ready to salsa?”
Eve put her hand up to hush Hetty. “Connie, I admire your get-up-and-go, but I hope you are not expecting me to step out.”
“Dancing is so good for us, Eve. I am sure we can persuade you.”
Hetty, her hips swaying, began to move heel to toe across the kitchen, elbowing Connie to follow her. Eve giggled, her body rocking to the imaginary beat.
“Well, you are the right pair. But this won’t get the memory quilts done in time for the Obamas, and we have to set up before the others arrive,” she snorted, a smile creeping across her face.
Connie and Hetty finished with a flourish, holding hands, bowing low. Eve clapped and they laughed, the sound of their laughter echoing through the downstairs of the house.
Connie, her eyes bright, felt a quiet joy running through her, which she tried to hold on to for as long as possible.
“I have to go out this morning, so I will leave you to it. I will lock the back door on the way out, so please use the front door and make yourselves at home. There are cookies in the jar. Help yourselves to tea or coffee.”
Eve, savouring the lightness of the mood about Ludlow Hall, beamed at Connie.
“That dancing of yours sure makes us all a bit happier and I have not even taken a step yet.”
“I told you so,” boomed Hetty, who was filling the kettle at the sink.
Eve, clicking her teeth, pointed to the car. “I am going to dance out and bring the boxes of fabric in, if nobody minds.”
As Eve left the kitchen, Hetty loitered by the sink.
“You are very good to give us the room, for Eve. This is so lovely, to be back at Ludlow. It means a lot,” she said, placing a hand on Connie’s shoulder, before scooting after Eve, giving out that she was taking the lazy man’s load.
Connie slipped upstairs to get her coat, the chat downstairs wafting up as she sat at the dressing table applying her make-up. She did not have anywhere to go, but neither did she want to get caught up in the plans of the Ludlow Ladies’ Society. Instead, she decided to pay a visit to the auctioneer to find out exactly what her husband had had planned for this place. Pushing the perfume bottles out of her way as she placed her handbag on the dressing table, she thought she must ask Eve if there was anything else she wanted to take from the Hall.
Eve was nowhere to be seen when she got downstairs, but Hetty was brewing up a pot of tea in the kitchen.
“Eve went for a stroll down to the lake. I think it was her favourite spot, when she lived here.”
“It must be hard for her, coming back like this.”
Hetty poured the boiling water into the teapot. “I hope you don’t mind, I had a rummage, tea tastes very different when it comes from a teapot. I found it in a jiffy: everything is the same as the day she had to leave it.”
Connie noticed a kitchen chair had been moved. She put it back near the window.
“Eve automatically put the chair where she was used to it. She did not mean anything by it.”
“It’s okay, I understand.”
Hetty pretended to be busy fiddling with the cookie jar, but raised her head as Connie went out the door. “You have done a good thing, letting Eve back into the place. None of us will forget that.”
“I have to go,” Connie said, smiling shyly.
As she drove down the avenue, Connie saw Eve stroll around the front of the house from the yew walk, slowly treading across the grass, all the time her eyes on the house. So caught up was she, she never even noticed Connie drive by.
Eve wandered, the softness of the spent cherry blossom petals and rhododendron blooms a plush carpet under her feet. It had not changed one iota; neither did she want it to change. A robin flew low across her path. Pulling up, she watched as it landed on the branch of the holly bush. When Arnold was in the States, Michael came every day, helping out with this and that, chatting and often staying for lunch. How often had she and Michael wandered here, away from the gaze of the house, just talking, sometimes not even that. Sometimes, too, their hands had brushed against each other, making each stumble back. Often, they went as far as the lake, to sit watching the ducks and the two swans, side by side, gliding together.
She crossed the grass to the front of the house. The windows were clean and the door washed down, but it looked its age. She wondered what the American would do to the place. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Connie leave. Waiting until the car had cleared the house and turned the bend, Eve sat on the stone seat, breathing in Ludlow Hall, the call of a heron at the lake faint in the wind.
Hetty rapping on the window made her look around. Giggling, she stood up as Hetty, gesturing wildly, thumped on the glass once again. Slowly, she made her way to the front door, where Hetty was fighting with the lock. She heard her scurry off; next, the sash window in the drawing room was pulled up.
“I can’t open the front door, Eve, what will I do? She locked the kitchen door from the outside when she left.”
“Throw the keys to me, I will unlock it from this side.”
Hetty fired the bunch of keys. They landed two feet away from Eve.
“You will never be in the Olympics, Hetty,” Eve laughed, as she scooped them up.
Rarely had she used the front door to go in the house, preferring instead to walk arou
nd the back and in through the kitchen. But once Arnold’s body was found, she changed her routine, slipping into the house through the front door, to avoid the memories and the sadness that there was nobody, not even the sheepdog, to welcome her home.
After she freed the lock on the front door, she stopped to take in the fields. It was easy to think it was all hers again, too easy to pretend, even though the fields were mossed up and the fences were leaning. No animals had been there in years. There was a time when if she even opened the door for a few seconds, the geese strutted up cackling, fussing like a group of gossips.
“Do you think we should have a look around, while we have a chance?” Hetty was standing in the middle of the hallway, waiting for the word to go upstairs.
Eve swung around, her face angry.
“May God forgive you, Hetty Gorman. Connie has been nice enough to give us a room for our silly society meet-ups and you want to invade her privacy.”
Hetty marched off to the drawing room, her head down, her face upset. When Eve arrived after her, it took Hetty a few minutes to regain her composure and speak up.
“I was only thinking of you, Eve. You might want to look around the old place, see what she is doing with Arnold’s study.”
“Don’t I know every nook and cranny already? What good would it do me?” Eve’s voice softened, because she saw Hetty was upset.
“I don’t mean to pry. I was trying to help,” Hetty said, her voice shaky.
Eve bit the side of her lip and put her arm around Hetty.
“Let’s get some of the fabric out before the rest of the Ludlow Ladies’ Society comes in on top of us. We will need a few more mugs; no doubt they will all want tea,” she said, and Hetty, glad of the subject change, immediately volunteered to set up refreshments on the kitchen table.
Eve stood, surrounded by the boxes in the drawing room. Closing her eyes, she felt the old place talking to her, the house come in around her: the tap in the kitchen gushing too hard when Hetty turned it on, the fridge revving like an old car, the chirping and tapping of young birds in a nest in the chimney, because a fire had not been lit there in so long, the pile of the carpet deeper in the middle of the room than at the fireplace, where the indentations fitted her shoe size. Tears brimmed up, but she shook herself awake, pulling at the nearest box, dipping in and taking out carefully cut pieces of fabric. Taffeta in one pile, and the grey silk she had not dared cut all these years despite her grand ideas to make a shawl with a fringe.
Hetty knocked gently on the drawing room door.
“I have made you a mug of tea. I found your favourite china mug out there, I am sure Connie won’t mind.”
Eve took the pink flowery mug and smiled. “It is an awful long time since I had a drink from this. It was one of the few things I bought myself. Arnold hated it, never allowed it into this room.”
“Wasn’t he the fusspot?”
Eve looked at Hetty. “He was a good man, but a snob.” She held up the mug to the light. “This ‘beaker’, as he called it, offended him greatly.”
“Hadn’t he little to be worrying about,” Hetty said, bending down to lift a mountain of fabric from another box.
“As it turned out, you are right,” Eve answered, sitting into her armchair at the fireplace. She sipped the tea as Hetty worked quietly around her, emptying boxes, creating neat piles on the carpet based on fabric types. Cupping the mug, she examined the pink flowers, a cacophony of colour that could have been one of her flower borders at Ludlow Hall in its heyday. It was a simple china mug, stained brown inside, because she liked to drink her tea without milk.
The gold rim had faded over the years, rubbed white where she sipped. She had bought it at the Tinahely Agricultural Show. Arnold was on one of his trips to America, and Michael Conway persuaded her to accompany him to buy some sheep for the back fields.
The business done, they walked together looking at the stalls. Twice she went back to look at the mugs, but it was Michael who suggested she buy some.
“Arnold would never drink from a mug,” she laughed.
“I know that, but what about you?”
She moved off, but just as they were about to tramp across the fields to where they had left the car, she had a change of heart, running back to buy the mug for herself.
“Now, what will Arnold have to say about that?” Michael laughed.
“He can say what he likes, he won’t have to drink from it,” she said, wishing she was as brave as she sounded.
Two cars came up the driveway. Eithne Hall pulled into the front, rather than slipping around the back, as agreed with Connie.
“That Eithne is a cheeky one,” Hetty said, making for the front door to open it. She shouted back to Eve from the hallway, to help.
“You are going to have to learn, Hetty, I won’t be here all the time.” Pushing gently on the door, she turned the key and pulled back the door. Five women were waiting on the steps.
“Eve, it must be so strange to be back and not in charge,” Bernie said.
“It is just nice to be back. Now, let’s get to work, plenty of time to chat later.”
“Is the American joining us?” Eithne asked.
“Connie has the good sense to leave us be.”
Marcella leaned into Eve. “Have you had a gander about the place?”
Eve sighed loudly. “Why would I do that? I am the one person who knows the place inside out. It is all somebody else’s problem now.”
The women fell silent, concentrating instead on laying out the patches, helping to figure out the designs for Eve’s quilt.
Eve joined in, sifting through neatly folded good outfits, not yet cut up in squares. When her hand touched the turquoise silk, she rubbed the rich softness of it between two of her fingers. These days she had nowhere to wear a fine Chinese silk ensemble.
Arnold had travelled to China for a trade fair, bringing her back a bolt of the softest silk she had ever come across. It was the one present, bar the first piece of jewellery he ever gave her, that pleasantly surprised her. She was touched, too, that he had put so much effort into getting it right.
“I know you like to get outfits specially made, so I got the lot. Thought I could not go wrong with a whole bolt. It cost a fortune, so maybe go to one of the big fashion houses in Dublin, let them design something fitting for such expensive fabric.”
Unfurling the bolt, the silk shimmered in the light. Sometimes it appeared green, sometimes a deep blue flashed across the folds, and sometimes it appeared sombre until disturbed once again.
There was enough for a long dress or a long skirt and top. Deciding the fabric was too delicate for the type of jacket she liked, afraid that it would pucker if she strengthened it with iron-on stiffener, she opted for a dress gathered at the waist, long sleeves pulled into cuffs, a discreet neckline with a peplum collar, the simple design letting the fabric speak for itself. Tiny covered buttons close together ran down the bodice, fastened with tiny loops of silk: a nod, she thought, to the dress’s Chinese origins.
She bunched up the silk, letting the smooth softness caress her cheeks, and she knew she was not ready to let this dress go just yet.
Eve looked around. The other women were unusually subdued, whispering like they were waiting in church for the priest to come out. Never had the women dared to go into the Ludlow drawing room with their patchwork. “I suppose we could sit around the kitchen table and have a cuppa, discuss what we want to do,” Eve said quietly. There was a collective sigh of relief as the women jumped up, eagerly leading the way like excited children told they could have something nice.
“Do you think Connie will mind if we decamp to the kitchen?” Hetty asked.
“With any luck, we won’t have to tell her for a while,” Eve said, pulling out the chair at the head of the table: the same seat she always took when the Ludlow Ladies’ Society met. Each woman sat in her usual place, Hetty bustling about like normal, handing over plates of biscuits and cake for the middle of th
e table. Eithne Hall got down the mugs for the tea and coffee.
“She has spruced up this room nice,” she said, her voice begrudging.
“I still think she was high and mighty at the start,” Dana said, pulling out a chair and sitting at the table.
Kathryn Rodgers remained standing. “We have to put out an appeal for fabric and stories for the Rosdaniel quilt, otherwise it will just be the bits and pieces three or four of us can find.”
“What fancy piece are you bringing to the table?” Eithne asked.
Ignoring Eithne’s sarcastic tone, Kathryn beamed with pleasure and whipped a bag of cloth from her large handbag. “There are several pieces, of course, but my favourite is the dress I wore when I was elected town councillor. It was a very onerous job and only lasted a few years, but it was an exhilarating time for me personally and for the town.” She pulled the red silk fabric with blue flowers from the pile. “I loved the dress and it still fits me, but it is important to give our best to the memory quilt,” she said, and the others, not wanting to encourage her more, just nodded in agreement.
“It is like we have never been away,” Marcella piped up. Dana elbowed her, grimacing and pointing towards Eve.
“You don’t have to be on pins because of me,” Eve said, as Hetty slipped back to the drawing room for the flowery mug, rinsing it under the tap before placing it at Eve’s elbow. “I am glad Connie is here. I have a feeling she will have us all on our toes very soon,” Eve said, making Hetty stifle a laugh with her fist.
Eve, listening to the rise and fall of the conversation, thought maybe life was coming back to Ludlow Hall after all.
14
Connie was sitting in a coffee shop in Rosdaniel when her phone rang.
“Connie, it’s Bill.”
Pain coursed through her; blood drained from her face, making her go pale; her stomach turned sick; shock streaked across her brain as she heard him speak.
“How are you, Connie?”
Turning towards the wall, so that the woman sitting having tea across the way would not see her distress, she spoke in a low voice.
The Ludlow Ladies Society Page 12