by Caron Allan
‘She could have come here,’ Flora pointed out. Mrs Gascoigne, with the skill of the true socialite, managed to turn a gasp of dismay into a light tinkling laugh.
‘Oh no, dear, quite unsuitable. The traffic, the pollution. No, she needed to go to the coast, I’m afraid. And in any case, she could still have some remnant of infection which could so easily be passed to you. And through you to Precious Baby.’
Dottie felt nauseated by Flora’s mother-in-law’s gushing way of talking. Thank goodness she only had to put up with them once or twice a year. And as if Mrs Gascoigne wasn’t bad enough, her husband was an absolute pig. No manners, no conversation, and clearly he couldn’t care less for his own family members. How very sensible Flora was to have insisted on remaining in London when she and George had married, thus avoiding George’s family for the greater part of the year. And how wisely she ignored the worst excesses of the in-laws’ behaviour. Not for the first time, Dottie felt she had a lot to learn about diplomacy from her sister.
It felt like a very long Good Friday, and Dottie wished it over and then it would be her birthday and the day of her party.
Around her conversations rose and fell, whilst Dottie stared into space and thought about William Hardy’s warning. Should they really have cancelled? Her mother had been adamant that they shouldn’t. But what if something terrible happened?
She shivered.
‘Cold, Dorothy?’ her mother immediately enquired. Before Dottie had a chance to respond, her mother was on her feet.
‘George, dear, we’re going back into the house. It’s growing cooler, and I can’t risk Dorothy or myself catching a chill, not with the party tomorrow.’
George had little option but to gallantly assist them to carry their belongings and glasses and plates into the house, Greeley his butler and Cissie the maid running to help.
The evening dragged by, with Flora and George, Mrs Manderson and Mrs Gascoigne carrying the weight of the conversation, and Mr Manderson and Mr Gascoigne contributing little, and Dottie, practically bored to death, nodding here and there, and thinking alternately about William Hardy and her party.
The morning of the party brought rain.
When Dottie came down to breakfast, a year older but feeling as petulant as a five-year-old due to the weather, there was a stack of cards and envelopes beside her plate.
She began to read the cards, making an effort to smile and thank her parents for their good wishes and their own birthday card to her. Her father presented her with a little jeweller’s box, and kissed her cheek.
‘Happy birthday, my darling. We hope you will like these.’
She pulled off the pink ribbons and opened the box. Tiny sapphires set in gold twinkled at her from the pale velvet bed. She gasped, and for a few seconds was frozen in position, then with trembling fingers she took the earrings from their case, and one at a time, put them on. Her mother handed her a small mirror.
‘Oh, they’re beautiful, thank you! Thank you both so much!’ She leapt up to give them both a hug, noting that her mother seemed surprised but pleased by her reaction.
‘I’m glad you like them,’ her father said, ‘and if you’re a good girl, you’ll get a matching bracelet for your twenty-first.’
‘Oh I shall be good, I promise,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’ll put them back in the box for now, but I’ll wear them tonight.’
When she went back to reading her cards, at the bottom of the pile she found one in an envelope addressed by what at first seemed an unfamiliar hand and bearing a Derbyshire postmark. But when she opened the envelope and took out the card to read the greeting, she felt she had known the writing all along. It read, ‘To dear Miss Manderson, with sincere good wishes for a very happy birthday, yours truly, William Hardy.’
She didn’t know, of course, how long he had agonised over the choice of words, unable to say what he really wanted, yet unwilling to be completely conventional and bland. He had practised on a separate sheet of paper over and over again until he simply gave up and wrote the only thing he felt he could say. Yours. Truly.
But the simple sentiment lit a glow in her heart that carried her on through the long, anxious day and into the evening, and the arrival of the first guests.
Though in spite of Hardy’s words, Dottie was on edge the whole day, and it was never more clearly brought home to her than when she fumbled as she attempted to fasten her necklace with fingers that trembled and refused to work the tiny clasp.
For practically the whole day she’d been telling herself they had been fools to ignore William’s concerns and go ahead with the party. Yet her common sense asserted itself, making her feel it was ridiculous to think that they—of all the households hosting dinner parties across the vast expanse of London—should be singled out as targets by the robbers.
Still a tiny voice insisted that it was going to happen. It was with great trepidation that she went downstairs to greet her father’s business associate, Sir Montague Montague, the first guest to arrive, as always—and the last to leave.
She accepted his whiskery kiss on the cheek and his hearty good wishes for her birthday, exclaimed with delight over the gift he gave her, wrapped neatly and tied up with tartan ribbon, no doubt by his mother as usual. As she unwrapped it, and smiled, and thanked him sincerely for the lovely scarf ring with a sleek black-enamelled cat on the front, she seemed to be in two halves. One half was functioning conventionally, smiling, chatting, just as she should. The other half of her seemed to be standing in a corner, watching each new arrival with large terrified eyes, wringing her hands and wishing that William was there.
The acid test, if it could be so called, came when they all moved into the dining room for dinner. There were twenty of them in all, including Dottie, her parents, Flora and George, and the table had been extended as was customary on such occasions.
The doors to the drawing room had been pushed back to create more space, and the little orchestra her father had hired for the evening had set themselves up in there. The furniture had been pushed back against the walls, or removed altogether, and the carpets rolled back to create an impromptu dancefloor for later in the evening. As the guests took their seats and began to chatter and laugh, the orchestra struck up a soft waltz.
Every time the door opened, Dottie’s eyes turned that way, her heart seemingly in her mouth. She knew, absolutely knew, that it was only a matter of time. Mrs Gerard whispered something to her neighbour and left the room. After the incident with Melville at the afternoon tea, Dottie felt a slight reserve had grown between herself and Mrs Gerard, whom she now thought of primarily as her mother’s friend. Dottie thought Mrs Gerard would be likely to miss her appetiser if she didn’t hurry back, but the lady always left it rather late to pop to the convenience whenever she was out to dinner.
They had borrowed Flora and George’s maid Cissie and their butler Greeley to assist at the table as the Mandersons’ had only a small staff of women. Mrs Manderson was still old-fashioned enough to believe that a truly important occasion warranted the additional gravitas that could only be supplied by a man-servant, and it didn’t matter a jot that all their guests knew that he was the Gascoignes’ butler.
The door opened, and Dottie felt as though everything within her halted. But then she saw it was just Janet coming in and she relaxed once more.
Frank Maple was hugely enjoying himself down in the kitchen of the Mandersons’ residence. Hardy’s instructions to him had been to keep his eyes open and be ready for anything. He was making sure he complied with his boss’s wishes by keeping his eyes either on Janet’s pleasing form, or the food the cook was passing to him to ‘try’.
Opposite him, young beat copper Danny Paige was learning as much as he could from Sergeant Maple, who had opened his mind to hitherto unrealised possibilities. Maple had been on the beat for more than ten years before his promotion just before Christmas. Danny felt he could get a lot out of this evening—and not just the free food or the pleasure of bein
g in a nice warm kitchen instead of out walking the beat in the chilly rain of the last day of March.
‘Get your great feet out of the way, will you, Frank Maple!’ Janet said, squeezing past him with two large baskets of hot bread rolls. She nudged him with her hip as she went by, and he had to remind himself he was still on duty and not give in to the temptation to slap her on the bottom.
Margie, the young between-maid, who had stayed on that evening to ‘oblige’, cast a shy smile at Danny, who blushed to the roots of his hair but still managed a shy smile in return. Cook caught the two and smiled to herself, shaking her head indulgently at the prospect of young love.
‘See Danny,’ Maple was saying, ‘when you’re on the beat, it’s vital to get to know the staff in all the houses on your patch. That way, if anythink happens, they already knows they can trust you, and they tell you stuff you can’t find out no other way. It’s vital,’ he added again, mainly because he liked the sound of it. Danny nodded earnestly, and made a mental note. Then Margie went by and he forgot everything Maple had said.
They could hear Cissie talking to someone in the rear lobby, then she came into the kitchen. ‘They’re ready, Mr Greeley,’ she said, and Greeley set aside his newspaper, got up and yawned and stretched and fastened his waistcoat. He waited a second whilst Cook gave the silver tureen a last wipe to get rid of a smear of soup on the rim, then he picked it up and left the kitchen. Margie followed behind him with a tray of chilled meats, and Cissie brought up the rear. Dinner had begun.
Dottie saw it was just Janet coming into the dining room carrying baskets of bread rolls. She relaxed back into her chair and turned to reply to M’Dear Monty. He was halfway through one of his interminable—and grisly—shooting anecdotes. But a sudden gasp from further along the table claimed her attention, and everyone at that moment appeared to freeze in their places.
Dottie turned back to look towards the door, knowing exactly what she would see, not that it was any less frightening. A man had come in right behind Janet, shoving her ahead of him so that she stumbled and bread rolls tipped out of one of the baskets and bounced under the table. The gunman seemed not to notice that he stepped on one, crushing it beneath his heavy boot. He held a small black gun.
Then Dottie realised there were two more men—also holding guns—standing in the doorway, and beyond them, two others stood at the foot of the stairs in the shadows of the hall. Above the frightened commotion, from the centre of the room she heard a man’s voice say loudly, ‘This is a robbery. No one will be harmed if you do as you are told. Everyone to the far end of the room. Now!’ He was standing on a chair, looking around at everyone.
The robbers’ appearance struck her as frighteningly alien. It wasn’t just the boots and rough clothes they wore, unfitting for an evening dinner and dance, or even their weapons, but it was the knitted masks they wore over their faces. Their heads were completely covered apart from the eyes, which peered out from two small round holes in the masks. Four of the men held firearms, small black pistols that looked as if they were just plastic, almost like a child’s toys and yet, Dottie knew beyond doubt, perfectly lethal.
As no one moved, the ringleader waved his pistol above his head in a menacing manner and shouted, ‘I said, now!’
With shrieks and gasps, the guests pushed back their chairs and began to hurry across the room to stand in front of the window overlooking the rear garden. A few male guests appeared ready to attempt to take on the robbers, but a pistol levelled at their chests soon persuaded them to fall into line.
‘And you lot,’ the man said, jerking his pistol in the direction of the band who sat petrified in their seats in the corner of the drawing room. As one, they laid aside their bows, sheets of music and instruments, walking over the improvised dancefloor and across the room to join the party guests. At the same time, the dining room door opened again, and the remaining staff were marched in by the two men from the hall: Greeley carrying a huge, steaming soup tureen, Cook still clutching a dripping wooden spoon, Cissie with Margie and her platter of meats, with a shamefaced Sergeant Maple and Constable Paige bringing up the rear. The staff set down their burdens and came to stand beside Mr and Mrs Manderson, and Dottie saw that Janet held the hand of the weeping young tweenie Margie who was barely fifteen, and at that moment looked closer to eleven.
Once the guests were all herded by the window, one of the men came to stand in front of them, his weapon trained on the crowd. The man on the chair stepped down. He signalled to the unarmed man who brought over a pair of leather doctors’ bags. Another man placed himself in the doorway, his gun trained on the group. Dottie thought she saw the two from the hall go upstairs, but it was dark out there now, and she couldn’t be sure. They were gone for what seemed like an eternity, and she prayed they would not happen upon poor Mrs Gerard and frighten her or hurt her in any way. Eventually they returned, mercifully without the old lady, who was clearly still sensibly hidden in the W.C. The men had nothing in their hands, and even their pockets sat neat and flat against the material of their jackets. So what had they been doing, Dottie puzzled.
‘Now this is what’s going to happen,’ the first man said, ‘you are all going to hand over your valuables. No one will try to be a hero, heroes don’t live very long. Make no mistake, we will shoot anyone who doesn’t do as he—or she—is told. Don’t try and hide anything, we shall shoot you. Don’t try and stop us, we shall shoot you. Am I making myself perfectly clear, ladies and gentlemen? You are to co-operate with us fully if you want to live a long and happy life.’
Two of the robbers then took a doctor’s bag each in addition to the guns they carried. They then forced each guest in turn to remove their jewels and other valuables, and place them in the bags. Dottie could see one or two gentlemen were becoming angry and heated, protective of their womenfolk. Surely sooner or later, one of them would lose his head and do something rash? Dottie felt her stomach lurch with fear and her breaths were coming in rapid little gasps. One of the robbers was coming nearer, laughing to himself. Dottie caught the sound of it and hated him for revelling in the terror he and his cohorts inflicted.
Flora was first, and Dottie felt a tense moment of horror as she watched Flora with trembling hands peel off her bracelets, her wedding and engagement rings, the ring their parents had given her for her twenty-first birthday, and the dainty little eternity ring George had given her for their first anniversary—not merely jewellery but memories and emotions—then she pulled off her earrings and dropped them into the bag the robber held out in front of her. George added his signet ring, his watch, silver cigar case and his wallet then stepped back to put his arm around Flora’s shoulder and draw her close against him, his eyes smouldering with impotent rage. Flora put her arms around his waist and hid her face against his shoulder.
It was like being stripped bare.
Lady Fraser, that poised, glittering socialite, was once more a gauche, shivering ingenue, standing there in front of Dottie wearing just her shoes and a simple frock—that no doubt cost the earth—for all the world like she was naked but for a petticoat, her long and lovely hair cascading about her shoulders now that she had no combs or tiara to hold it on top of her head.
Montague Montague was relieved of his silver-filigree cigar case, and the heavy gold ring that had been given to his father for his twenty-first birthday, some fifty years ago before coming to Monty on his father’s death. The robber took forty pounds in treasury notes that he found neatly folded in the inside pocket of Monty’s evening coat. They left him standing there, his monocle dangling loose from his waistcoat, a look of deepest misery etched on his usually amiable face.
Then, ‘Your necklace, if you please, Miss.’
This was addressed to Dottie. And suddenly furious, Dottie couldn’t help retorting, ‘I don’t know why you said please, it’s not as though I have any choice in the matter.’
His blue eyes flashed with temper and he moved a little closer, placing the cold muzzle of th
e pistol at her throat. ‘Oh, but you do have a choice, my dear young lady. Feel free to decline at any time,’ he told her softly. There was a long pause. Dottie, almost too scared to move, was convinced she would be sick, or faint. A hard jab from the pistol recalled her to what she was supposed to do, and her fingers trembled on the clasp for the second time that night as she began to undo her necklace. He laughed at her terror, whilst she heard a number of ladies gasp and at the same time, her father’s voice came to her, ‘You swine!’ and he took a step forward, but was held back by one of his guests. Over the gunman’s shoulder she could see her mother’s face, frozen in fear, a white mask that made her almost unrecognisable. The Reverend Trent whispered an earnest prayer, his lips moving, his hands folded in front of his chest.
The man held out the bag and Dottie dropped the necklace in, hearing the soft clink as it landed on top of the other valuables: poor old Monty’s ring and banknotes. Mrs Fry’s pearls, Lady Fraser’s diamond brooch with the matching earrings, Mr Fry’s antique watch that had been in his family for four generations and which had so delighted Dottie when she was a little girl and he used to come to afternoon tea and she’d sit on his knee to play with his watch. All there in the bag, still warm from the heads, throats, bosoms, the fingers and the pockets of their owners.
The robber prodded her again with the pistol. ‘Now the ring and that rather charming bracelet, and your lovely earrings,’ he rasped. Trembling, she pulled off the ring and holding her hand out over the mouth of the bag, allowed the ring to fall inside. She tried to undo the catch of her bracelet, but her fingers were stiff and she couldn’t seem to make them work. The robber grew impatient and transferring his gun to the same hand as the bag, he snatched at the bracelet, wrenching it from her arm and it too was thrown into the bag, although several small gold beads dropped and rolled across the floor. One became a tiny glint of light next to the heel of Montague Montague’s shoe. She carefully unhooked the new earrings given to her only that morning—a lifetime ago—by her parents. She dropped the earrings into the bag with everything else.