“It must be strange for Reggie,” said Daisy, “to be back in England after so many years in India, to be cold and shivering again.”
“I think he’s used to it now,” Mabel replied.
“But why are they all coming back?”
“Coming back?”
“Yes, from the colonies . . . that new family, the ones who’ve only just moved into Westfield House and were in rubber—or was it tea?”
“Their name is Chapman. And it was tea, in Malaya.”
“So the Chapmans from Malaya, the Pritchards from Ceylon and the Williamsons and Reggie from India. Everyone who’s moved here recently seems to have come back from somewhere exotic.”
Mabel shook her head. “I’m not altogether sure why,” she said. “The world’s changing, and I suppose when change is afoot one returns home . . . to stability.”
“Like losing one’s nerve?”
“Yes,” said Mabel. “I suppose it is a bit like losing one’s nerve. Change is hard . . . to adapt to new circumstances, new ways, particularly when one is older or has a family to consider.”
“I don’t intend to get old,” said Daisy, as Nancy appeared and lifted away their plates of barely touched rissoles. She saw the housekeeper shake her head. As the baize door swung shut, she leaned toward her mother and asked, “How old do you suppose Nancy is?”
“She’s two years younger than me. She’s coming up to forty.”
“And she was never married?”
“She was engaged. He was killed in the war.”
Daisy nodded. The war still hung over them all, young and old. Like an ever-present but reticent guest, it stood alone, lingering in a shadowy corner. And how could it not? For so many, it seemed, had been robbed of husbands, children, a future. And yet it was hard to imagine Nancy engaged, with a man, with a family that weren’t the Forbeses, a family of her own. “She looks older than forty,” said Daisy.
“Her hair turned gray prematurely—and very quickly. She aged; she changed.”
“How sad,” said Daisy, trying to imagine.
“His name was John Bradley. He was a farmer. Nancy hardly ever mentions his name now, but she always used to say he was one in a million. And he was, literally; he was one of the one million men killed at the Battle of the Somme . . . She still has her trousseau,” Mabel went on in a whisper, staring at the candle. “An old pine blanket box up in her room, with her unworn wedding dress, her mother’s veil and the ivory silk nightgown I bought for her—for her wedding night.”
“And never worn.”
“No, never worn, never worn on a wedding night . . . John would have inherited the farm by now; she’d have had her own home, own family. I don’t suppose she’ll ever be able to forgive Germany or Kaiser Wilhelm.”
When Nancy reappeared with Mabel’s coffee, Daisy and her mother both sat up and smiled brightly. And as the baize door swung shut once more, Mabel said, “Oh, and I’ve invited Benedict Gifford to join us again this year. The poor man has no one, and I know you enjoyed his company last Christmas and in the summer.”
“Oh yes,” said Daisy. She’d forgotten all about Ben. “I don’t think Iris rates him,” she said after a moment or two. “She called him obsequious.”
“Iris can be rather cruel,” Mabel said, shaking her head. She took a sip from her coffee cup. “You know, I’ve always felt—had an inkling—that you might marry someone older,” she said. “Not Ben Gifford,” she quickly added, “but someone older.”
“Like you and Daddy?”
“Yes . . . yes, sort of like that.”
To have a marriage like her parents’, marry a man not dissimilar to her father—principled, honest and kind—was Daisy’s dream.
Chapter Four
It was five days before Christmas and Mrs. Christie’s story had slipped from front-page news to a small insert on page eleven, offering her fans an update on her well-being. Now the newspapers were predicting a white Christmas, and Mrs. Jessop was being difficult.
Mabel had gone to the kitchen with a conciliatory approach, an open mind—she hoped. But when Mrs. Jessop stared back at her across the kitchen table, her arms folded, Mabel quickly realized they had reached an impasse.
“Really . . . I think Lang is an English name,” said Mabel again.
Mrs. Jessop said nothing.
Ever suspicious of foreigners—or anyone new to the area; outsiders, she called them—Mrs. Jessop had said her piece and vowed that she could not buy any meat from the new butcher. She had told Mabel in no uncertain terms that she would prefer to take the number 18 to Farnham than “experiment” with a man she had no knowledge of, and who had—if she could be plain, and after all, that’s what she was, a plain-speaking, plain cook—what she believed could be the trace of a German accent.
“There is no need, no need whatsoever for you to take the bus to Farnham, Mrs. Jessop,” Mabel went on, knowing that reason was hopeless. She had gone there to plead one last time, but the woman was intransigent. “We don’t have an account at any butchers at Farnham, and I’m not sure they’ll make deliveries this far,” Mabel added.
Mrs. Jessop blinked.
“Well, if you feel you must . . .”
The antipathy toward Germany ran deep in some and was understandable, Mabel reminded herself as she left the kitchen. But the suspicion of foreigners that had begun during the war had left a lingering xenophobia. People still spoke about spies and about the likelihood of another war, particularly Mrs. Jessop and Nancy, whose imaginations seemed to know no bounds, Mabel thought, breathing in deeply as she walked toward the hallway.
There was the familiar aroma of lavender and logs; the scent of a house filled with flowers each summer and fires each winter; the smell of candles and dogs, and mud and the country; the fading sweet scent of fruit, and the warm, earthy smells of old leather and beeswax: the lingering fragrance of a quarter of a century.
The tree was newly festooned with baubles and illuminated by fruit-shaped frosted-glass lights: pale violet pears and yellow apples. Mesmerized for a moment, Mabel remembered other Christmases, before the war, before people had gone and everything changed, when the children had been small and the place filled with chaos and laughter—and her mouth curved up at one side.
Clambering on all fours—pretending to be a lion, a wolf, a wildly roaring but forgiving beast that only he and his children understood—Howard had chased his squealing girls around the tree and up the stairs for bath time and then, later, carrying Daisy in his arms, brought them back down, sweet smelling and pink.
The grandfather clock in the hallway struck five.
“I’ve unpacked my snow globe,” said Daisy, standing in the drawing room doorway clutching it in her hand. “I’m listening to Beethoven,” she added, turning away, humming.
Mabel followed her. She watched Daisy place the glass orb on a table by the oriel window, next to the Victorian taxidermy diorama. Mabel hated the stuffed birds, encased in glass, their tiny feet pinned, their lifeless eyes staring out. She wished her mother had sent the thing to the auction house with the others, but Noonie had made a gift of it to Mabel, along with various ornaments and china and once fashionable objets d’art: the term Noonie used for anything of no apparent use or beauty, but perhaps of some value.
When Noonie moved in to Eden Hall, she had brought with her the accumulation of a lifetime, albeit distilled, and the relics and heirlooms of other lifetimes before hers. The room, Mabel thought now, resembled an aging, overdressed woman no longer confident of her style, or of any one style. And yet there remained—here and there—the trace of some former discernment, a singular mind. But silks once vibrant were now sun bleached; velvets once sumptuous, worn and faded. The room was choked with too much of everything, and even Mabel’s cherished Meissen porcelain and Viennese glass were quite lost in the sea of clutter.
As the o
rmolu clock on the mantelshelf belatedly chimed five, Mabel noticed car headlights on the driveway.
“Someone’s here . . . looks like a station taxi,” said Daisy.
But no one was due to arrive, not yet. “Possibly a delivery,” Mabel suggested, turning to Mr. Blundell as he crossed over the hallway in answer to the bell. She heard the distant sound of the Dutch clock on the wall in the kitchen, the cuckoo clock down the passageway, and made a mental note to speak to Blundell about the clocks not keeping time. Then she heard the voice: “Hello, Blundy, how are you? Isn’t it bloody freezing?”
Dosia.
“Surprise?” repeated Dosia seconds later. “But I sent you a telegram to say I was coming earlier.”
“Oh yes, there was a telegram . . . I forgot to tell you,” said Daisy, turning to the hallway table.
Mabel took the telegram from Daisy’s hand: PLANS CHANGED STOP ARRIVING TODAY STOP ON THE FOUR TWENTY STOP.
The telegram had arrived that afternoon while Mabel was out delivering cards and had lain on the table, disappearing beneath a pile of yet more cards.
“I can’t believe it’s happened again,” said Mabel, throwing down the telegram and putting her head in her hands. The last time Dosia had visited there’d been a similar mix-up with train times and no one had been at the station to meet her.
“You really should have telephoned,” Mabel went on, helping her sister-in-law out of her moth-eaten fur and forgetting for a moment that Dosia had yet to have a telephone installed at her London flat, or rather, that Dosia refused to have a telephone installed at her London flat on grounds of its being a “completely unnecessary expense.”
“Now, where’s the rest of your luggage, dear?” Mabel asked.
“That’s it.”
Dosia pointed down to an unusually small suitcase, similar to one Daisy had once used for her doll’s clothes.
“That’s it?”
“You know me, Mabe. I’m not a fusspot when it comes to fashion. And I thought this should see me through,” Dosia added, running her large hands over her tweed-clad hips.
It was her usual garb, that tweed skirt—always slightly askew at the hem, a familiar brown sweater, woolen stockings and laced leather brogues. As ever, there was no trace of makeup on Dosia’s aging yet still innocent face, and her baby-fine hair, which she claimed to have had “done” especially for Christmas, stood up on end when she removed her battered cloche hat.
“Rather sweet, isn’t it?” said Dosia, swiveling the felt hat on her hand. “I got it at the Save the Children jumble sale. Sixpence! Can you imagine? Daylight robbery, really, but naughty old Beatrice has made a bed of my other,” she said, referring to one of her numerous cats.
Christened Theodosia Hermione Evangeline Forbes, Dosia was Howard’s only surviving sibling. Howard and Dosia’s two brothers had been killed in the war, along with Dosia’s fiancé, Hugh. Like her brother, Dosia was tall and broad shouldered and had a long stride. Unlike her brother, she was what Mabel deemed a free spirit and had, in her youth, been arrested a number of times for chaining herself to railings and throwing bricks through shop windows in support of Votes for Women.
It was still queer to think of Dosia in jail . . . A criminal? It was a ridiculous notion, Mabel thought, smiling and nodding to Blundell as he lifted the tiny and quite obviously weightless case. “The usual room, thank you, Mr. Blundell,” said Mabel.
As Dosia fell into an armchair in the drawing room, Mabel noticed the thick plumes of dust rise. She would need to speak to Nancy again about Hilda. And as Dosia went on to explain that her train had been delayed due to “some poor wretch” throwing herself onto the line at Woking, Hilda herself appeared with a tray of tea and her usual surly expression.
“Always happens this time of year,” said Hilda, bending over, slopping milk into cups. “My ma says it’s ’cause folk can’t face being stuck with their families at Christmastime. Makes ’em go a bit loopy.”
“Yes, thank you, Hilda,” said Mabel.
By the time the dressing bell sounded, Dosia had dispensed with her brogues and was stretched out on the sofa, her large feet—encased in darned stockings—resting on the padded footstool. The bell was ignored, and at Noonie’s request, Time for a Tune was put on the wireless. When the dinner bell sounded, the four women headed for the dining room, where a branch of mistletoe hung above the door from a blue velvet ribbon.
“Daisy,” said Dosia, taking her niece’s arm and looking upward. “Are you perchance hoping to be kissed this Christmas?”
Daisy shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Ah, first kisses,” murmured Noonie. “I still remember mine . . . with Samuel. I was so in love with him.”
Mabel’s mother, Daphne, owed her original nickname to Iris, who when she had first begun to speak had called her grandmother “Neenie.” But it had been Daisy who had changed this to Noonie.
A small woman, like Mabel and Daisy, Noonie ate very little and was painfully thin. She had had her only child, Mabel, late in life and had been a widow for almost two decades. But she had not wept at her husband’s funeral and, though she’d observed a short mourning period and worn the requisite black, she had not missed him, Mabel knew. For most of their marriage, Mabel’s parents—Daphne and Gerard Taylor—had led separate lives, and while Daphne had remained in the country, with Mabel, in a house not far from where Eden Hall would one day emerge, Gerard had resided in the city. Sometime after his death, after the reading of his will, in which a Mrs. Monica Sutton and two children were left a property in London and a considerable amount of money, Daphne had burned every photograph she could find of her husband. She had then dispatched every other reminder of him among various charities and a local auction house and used some of the money he’d bequeathed her to demolish his vast orangery.
Now in her mid- to late seventies (no one knew her exact age and, it seemed, neither did she), Noonie still took pride in her appearance, wearing her white hair piled up in a bun and favoring dresses over the new and more modern separates, but with hems never more than an inch or two above the ankle. And though the changing times and fashions fascinated her, she openly admitted that she could no longer imagine the future and preferred to revisit the past, specifically that time before Gerard.
“Are you still a communist, dear?” Noonie asked Dosia toward the end of dinner, which had consisted of oxtail soup, followed by pheasant, red cabbage, leeks and beetroot in a white sauce.
“I was never a communist, Noonie. But I am and will always be a socialist.”
“Ah yes,” said Noonie, nodding. “I always muddle those two. Of course, I’m not a political woman myself. Well, we weren’t brought up to be so in my day. But that’s all changed . . . like everything else,” she said, scraping the crystal bowl of vanilla cream. “And I forget now who the man is . . . the one in charge,” she added.
“The prime minister, Mr. Baldwin,” offered Mabel.
Conversations flowed simultaneously.
“So have you met anyone . . . anyone special?” Dosia asked, leaning forward, staring at Daisy.
“Mr. Baldwing!” declared Noonie.
Daisy shook her head. “I haven’t been anywhere to meet anyone.”
“Not Baldwing, Mother: Bald-win. Mr. Stanley Baldwin.”
“But what about you-know-who?” whispered Dosia.
“Baldwin?” repeated Noonie.
Daisy smiled. “No, I’ve told you—it’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“A big mustache . . . Yes, I can picture it now. He does have a mustache, doesn’t he, Mabel?”
“I’m not sure. It’s hard to describe,” said Daisy.
“No, you’re thinking of Mr. MacDonald, Mother.”
“But he does have something about him, doesn’t he?” said Dosia.
Then conversations merged.
“Mr. MacDonald?” said Noonie, turning to Dosia.
Daisy laughed.
“Yes,” said Dosia. “It must be that big mustache of his,” she added, winking at Daisy.
After dinner, the women returned to the drawing room, where Dosia played some of Iris’s records on the gramophone and danced with Daisy while Mabel and her mother looked on. But when Mabel got up and began to dance too, her mother swiftly followed. It was only when Blundy came into the room to check on the fire that Mabel realized how loud the music was, how ridiculous they might look to him—Dosia doing some strange ballet-type dance and leaping about the room, Daisy following suit, Noonie with her long dress hitched up and in a world of her own—and she quickly sat down.
Later, in her boudoir, after the other women had gone to bed, Mabel was relieved to find a note from Mrs. Jessop, in her usual telegraphic style: “MISTER LANG. SAYS. NO MORE VENISON TILL NEW YEARS. HAVE ORDERED PEASANT AND GINEY FOWL. INSTED.”
Hallelujah! Mabel thought, another small obstacle overcome. It was so very tricky with domestic staff these days, but no one wanted the unenviable task of having to replace them—particularly not a cook. They were without doubt the hardest to find. Like gold dust, she thought, kissing Mrs. Jessop’s handwritten note.
The Snow Globe Page 4