The Magic Hour

by Charlotte Bingham

  He turned away to write to the village doctor at Knighton to ask for the necessary confirmation. As he sat down at the ornate writing table with its paper headed The Ritz, London, he remembered how kind the old village doctor had been to him, knowing as he must have done that so much depended on Tom being able to carry on working. He had calmed Tom’s mother, reassuring her that the painfully throbbing gland was nothing more than an adolescent condition that with fresh air and a warm summer would be sure to pass. And it had. But as he picked up the hotel pen and started to write his letter Tom found that what had not passed was his hatred for Jamie Millington. Just writing the word Knighton brought back the memory of his dismissal.

  Tom sealed the envelope and set it to one side as Florazel swept into the room wearing a white satin evening suit, the jacket and collar cuffed with plain white in contrast to the rest of the suit, which was lightly patterned. The skirt hung in soft folds that set off Florazel’s tall, slender figure, and her hair was caught back into a diamond slide, which winked in the light as, having kissed Tom lightly on the mouth, she happily turned to the drinks tray.

  ‘Time for you to change, darling. We are giving a dinner downstairs tonight, remember?’

  Tom went quickly to his own dressing room. A few months before he was certain that he could not have coped with hosting a dinner party, but now he knew he could, and had proved that he could over many evenings together, for not only had Florazel instructed him in the niceties of social behaviour, but he had been able to observe and absorb from other men. Nowadays he was at such pains to appear relaxed and at ease in whatever social situation he found himself, he did not think anyone would guess who or what he had once been.

  Mind you – he gave a wry look to his perfectly tailored evening jacket – no one could deny that clothes maketh if not a man, at least a gentleman. He stared in the mirror as he slowly and expertly tied his black bow tie. No, there was no doubt at all, the right clothes certainly helped.

  Later he followed Florazel downstairs to the private dining room, his heart singing. He was in love, he was correctly dressed, he was certain that he was no longer an oik, and no one would know that he had once been referred to as such by the Millington girls. He was certain of it, until he faced the last of Florazel’s dinner guests.

  These guests walked into the private dining room with all the ease and assurance of a couple who knew that they were rich. They walked in with all the confidence of a couple who were now accepted in the less straight-laced upper echelons of patrician Society. They also knew that their hostess, besides being brilliantly born, relished the society of pleasantly raffish company like themselves, and they could not wait to meet the handsome new young man that it was rumoured she had in tow. In common with the rest of the guests they could not wait to meet him for no better reason than that they could then say that they had done so, that they had given him their approval, admired or not admired his looks, and enjoyed or ridiculed his conversational abilities. It was an undeniable truth, after all, that Society was all about mixing with one’s equals, and sometimes even one’s far from equals, in order to be able to go away and ridicule them.

  Tom was talking to an Austrian Countess whom he had actually met before and been charmed by. He had just said something to make her laugh when Florazel touched him lightly on the arm.

  ‘Tom darling, new guests.’ She turned to the couple standing behind her. ‘Mr and Mrs Millington, may I introduce Tom O’Brien?’

  Tom turned and stared at the fabulously dressed new Mrs Millington – gold lamé evening coat worn with a straight, brocade dress.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, slowly. ‘This is a bit different from the last time we met.’ He looked coolly at Florazel and then back at the frozen faces of the Millingtons. ‘You know the last time I saw Mr and Mrs Millington, Florazel? They were in a barn, without a stitch on.’

  From behind him came the sound of the Austrian Countess laughing, but there was an altogether different note to the sound she had been making only seconds earlier.

  Sweet Sorrow

  Mrs Smithers was standing by the door that led to what she, and Alexandra, now both thought of as ‘Minty’s basement’.

  ‘Have you a young man down there, Minty?’

  Alexandra nodded gravely.

  ‘I am ver-ver-vastly afraid so,’ she said with simple truth.

  Mrs Smithers stared at her, vaguely astonished by her reply, since just for a moment it seemed as if it was Lady Inisheen speaking, not her maid-of-all-work.

  ‘You know the rules, Minty. No gentlemen callers, especially not after six o’clock in the evening.’

  ‘Yes, mer-mer-ma’am, I ner-know the rules, and if I could have shifted him from my kitchen some hours ago, ber-ber-believe me I would have der-done. If I could have kicked him awake I would have der-der-done, for a greater ner-ner-nuisance I have not come across in many a long day.’

  Alexandra folded her arms across her chest in the manner of a village woman by her back door, or a cook pausing to gossip in a grocer’s shop. It was, all in all, most definitely the gesture of an older woman, of a below-stairs sort of person, and she knew it would convince Mrs Smithers, who immediately stopped looking as if she was about to be cross and looked interested instead.

  ‘Who is it down there, then, dear?’

  Mrs Smithers gave a small hiccup and took a lace-edged handkerchief from her handbag with which she promptly covered her mouth in case it should happen again. She too, after all, had been to the wedding.

  ‘It’s Mer-Mer-Mrs Atkins’s nephew. Remember Ber-Ber-Bob Atkins?’

  Mrs Smithers nodded.

  ‘Of course I remember Bob Atkins, Minty. He is Mrs Atkins-that-was, Mrs Atkins-that-used-to-be, that is, the Mrs Atkins-that-was, he is her nephew, that was or is.’

  ‘Yes, and he arrived a sher-short while ago, from the wedding reception, and has fer-fer-fallen asleep at my kitchen table. His snoring is something ter-ter-terrible.’ She held the basement door open wider for Mrs Smithers to hear. ‘Ler-ler-listen.’

  Mrs Smithers gave a stifled hiccup.

  ‘Terrible,’ she agreed from behind her handkerchief. ‘Quite terrible.’

  ‘He arrived without a ser-ser-say so, and insisted on interrupting my baking afternoon.’ Alexandra looked and sounded indignant. ‘What der-der-do you think I should der-der-do with him, ma’am? I mean, just listen to that snoring.’

  ‘Do with him? I don’t know, dear, really I don’t. I’ve no idea how to deal with men who snore, I don’t think there’s a woman invented who has ever had an idea what to do with a man who snores.’ She started to walk away. ‘If I were you I should do what the rest of us have always done, just try and ignore it. In the end they do stop, you know. Really they do.’

  There was a small silence as Alexandra watched Mrs Smithers walking more than a little unsteadily up the stairs to her suite of rooms. Alexandra finally sighed, once she was safely out of sight.

  ‘It must have been a very liquid wedding,’ she muttered to the dogs as she returned to the basement.

  Happily perhaps for her sanity, Bob Atkins was now stirring from his collapsed position at the table.

  ‘Now is the hour for you to go away,’ Alexandra told him crisply as he slowly registered first her presence, then his own in her kitchen.

  Bob stared at her and he immediately assumed a lap-dog, sad, please-forgive-me expression.

  ‘Go? Oh no, surely not?’

  ‘Oh yer-yer-yes, surely yes.’

  ‘But I have only just arrived.’

  ‘You have nearly just had mer-mer-me sacked. Mer-mer-maids are not allowed visitors to their quarters, never, ever, not if it was ever so.’

  ‘You’re not really a maid, are you, Minty?’ Bob’s look was now conspiratorial. ‘And my aunt told me this is not really her house, just hired to impress, yes?’

  ‘I certainly am a mer-maid,’ Alexandra told him proudly. ‘And I’m a ger-ger-good one too, now be off with you, a
s maids always say in plays, be off with you, ber-ber-before I get handed my cards.’

  Bob stood up and smiled at her, his smile full of lazy charm, warmth and kindness.

  ‘You speak too well to be a maid,’ he announced with the confidence of a man who, on the strength of too much champagne, felt he could speak his mind.

  ‘There have been mer-mer-maids who speak with all sorts of accents, Mr Atkins. Now, as I say, be off with you, and no coming back, please, or I really will be given the ber-ber-boot. Luckily for me Mrs Smithers is in about the same state as you.’

  She handed him his top hat.

  ‘Is she?’ Bob looked intrigued. ‘Weaving all over the shop, is she?’

  ‘She certainly is, but any minute now, knowing her, she will be ringing the ber-ber-bell for her evening paper, her glass of sherry and her spectacles. So, be off with you!’

  Bob walked slowly up the area steps to the street, and then, leaning over the iron railings, his top hat set to the back of his head, he called down to Alexandra.

  ‘You have not heard the last of me, Minty. I shall be calling again, tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I shall be calling so often that in the end you will have to marry me, see if you don’t!’

  Alexandra shot up the steps with his perfectly rolled silk umbrella which he had left leaning against the back door and handed it to him.

  ‘Shoo, ber-ber-be off with you, Mr Atkins, please!’

  She glanced around the square, convinced now that curtains would be twitching everywhere, curtains owned by so many of Mrs Smithers’s long-time acquaintances and friends, older, genteel women who were jealous of her maid-of-all-work, and who would not be able to wait to tell her that the so-called always perfect Minty had been receiving a gentleman caller.

  ‘Look, I’m quite serious. I do want to marry you. I do want to call on you again, for just that purpose. So where can we meet?’

  He looked so pleading that Alexandra hesitated. It was a mistake, and she knew it. She knew in her heart of hearts that one hesitation can lead to a lifetime’s confusion, and yet still she allowed herself to hesitate, to look into Bob Atkins’s eyes and enjoy a few seconds of the warmth and sincerity that she saw there.

  ‘Ler-Ler-Look, I have Sunday afternoon off. I’ll meet you on Empire Road, and we’ll walk the dogs up on the Downs. That is all I will promise. See you outside Lyons, on the corner of Eastern Road.’

  ‘You have made me happier than I can possibly tell you. And after that, after we have walked your dogs, you will marry me, Minty, will you not?’

  Bob swayed forward, his eyes half closed, his lips mimicking a kiss.

  ‘That is my last offer, Mr Atkins, a walk with the dogs, not marriage,’ she added dryly. ‘Half per-per-past two tomorrow afternoon, outside Lyons Corner House. Ger-good evening to you.’

  Alexandra closed the basement door and leaned against it, sighing. What with one thing and another this particular Saturday had proved just a little tiring. Even so she smiled as she started to cook herself a small meal, a meal that she would hastily eat, before having to run upstairs and cater to Mrs Smithers’s needs. It would be nice to go for a walk on the Downs with someone else. It would be nice to have someone besides the dogs with whom she could talk about silly things. Nice to have a friend, really.

  Tom looked across at Florazel. She was undressing. She always wore the most exquisite underwear, but at that moment she could have been wearing potato sacks, her stockings held up with gardening string, for all he cared.

  ‘If you want us to go on being together, you will never ask those Millingtons here ever again.’

  He was surprised by the authority in his voice, as well he might be, since his announcement had been enough to see the Millingtons hurrying out of the private dining room, and had been the cause of a resetting of the dinner table, not to mention a crescendo of amazed conversation, swiftly to be followed the next morning, without any doubt at all, by a flurry of the most pulsating rumours, as everyone present telephoned each other in swift succession.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom. I never realised that there was something between you. I should have gone through the guest list with you.’ Florazel stopped before adding, ‘Never thought someone like you would know anyone that I knew, really.’

  ‘Never mind all that,’ Tom told her. ‘It is of no consequence to me who you ask to your dinner parties, they’re not my friends, but just remember if you ever see or hear from those Millingtons again, you will never see or hear from me again, and that is my last word on it, Florazel.’

  Florazel nodded with surprising meekness.

  ‘Of course I won’t ask them again. The last thing I would want would be to upset you.’ She sat down suddenly on the bed, and her head tilted forward into her long-fingered, ringed fingers, loosening her hair. ‘I never, ever want to upset you, darling boy. Never. You are the light of my life. I mean, to see Jamie Millington of all people looking as if he had just had a bucket of iced water from the wine cooler thrown at him. It was …’ Her shoulders started to shake, as she sobbed into her fingers.

  ‘Florazel!’ Tom knelt beside her. ‘Florazel!’ He parted her fingers with some difficulty only to see with relief that she was laughing. ‘You minx, you little devil!’

  They clung together, laughing hysterically, and moments later started to make love.

  At tea the following day, after a long, leisurely walk in St James’s Park, Florazel decided to dig a little deeper.

  ‘What exactly did Jamie Millington do to make you hate him so much?’

  Tom dabbed his mouth with his thick, white linen napkin, and lit a cigarette.

  ‘My mother was a cook to him and his wife, at Knighton Hall. I don’t know whether you know Knighton Hall?’

  ‘I know of it,’ Florazel replied carefully.

  ‘She was a very good cook. More than that, she was a brilliant cook, but she had a flaw. She was a perfectionist, so if things went wrong, she took to the bottle. Well, as it happened, at Knighton Hall it didn’t matter, because there was an under-cook, not as brilliant as my mother, but good enough; so if my mother collapsed she could take over from her. And that was how she came to last more than a few weeks in the position, because of this other woman. And I too had a good situation, general dogsbody, riding out, looking after the horses under old Westrup. We were fine, until that woman, until Jennifer Langley-Ancram came into the picture. Moved into Knighton village, looked round the neighbourhood for a likely victim, found one in the shape of James Millington Esquire, joined his hunt, set her cap at him, and …’

  ‘You found them in flagrante delicious, n’est-ce pas?’

  Tom looked momentarily amused at the memory.

  ‘Yes, I was bicycling to get old Westrup some linctus for his cough, heard something suspicious in the barn as I was passing and looked in. For my sins.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Well, soon as I saw them I knew I had to be for the chop – in case I went and told on them – but I didn’t want my ma’s position to be affected. She’d been so happy at Knighton Hall, for once she’d seemed so happy. First time I’d seen her settled.’ He shook his head. ‘James Millington was clever though, you have to give it to him, he was wily. He accused me, quick as that.’ Tom snapped his fingers. ‘Said he’d found me in the barn in flagrante delicto with a local girl, but Mrs Millington, the first Mrs Millington, she didn’t want to let her cook go, because she had guests that weekend, so the last thing she wanted was a social shambles. So I left to find a new position, and Ma stayed on. Eventually, as you know, I got a job working for your brother, and …’

  ‘And?’

  Tom fell silent. And.

  ‘And.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I fell in love with you,’ Tom stated, finally, a little flatly.

  Florazel smiled.

  ‘Now,’ Tom said slowly, ‘how about your husband, about your marriage? You’ve never really told me anything, except he was much older, and he died.’

  For the first
time since he had fallen in love with her Tom saw Florazel looking vulnerable; more than that he saw her actually looking emotionally raw.

  ‘We never actually married. Besides, you don’t really want me to tell you about him, do you, Tom?’

  ‘I want to know everything about you, Florazel. You know, I love you. When you love, you want to know everything about that person.’

  ‘I was very young,’ she began, after a short pause in which she lit a cigarette. ‘I had led, as the joke goes, a very sheltered life. I had not had the war to grow me up, free me, if you like, not like girls now. My father and mother died so young, both from typhoid – you know, the drains in those old houses are lethal, and no one had done anything about them at Brindles, where we mostly lived. At any rate, the end result was that my brother being much older, and a bachelor, there was no one to help me grow up. It was inevitable, I suppose, that I should fall in love with a much older man, a jokester, a man who seemed to light up every room when he went in, for it only to become darker when he left.’

  Tom looked puzzled, but said nothing.

  ‘I ran off with him. Not a good thing in our circles, to run off aged eighteen with a married man. He was in fact a monster, a master of charm in the drawing room, and a master of cruelty at home, and of course he had only ever been after my money, as everyone had warned me.’ She stopped, giving a wry smile. ‘No one will ever know, who has not experienced it, what it is like to be belittled day and night, night and day. I cried in every capital in Europe. He spent my money and of course he never did marry me. Why should he? Over and over again I tried to leave him, but something always held me back, some foolish idea that I could change; or he could. Finally I did run off, to Italy, to Venice, to Rome, to join large circles of people who did not know about me, or care, and so gradually I did rid myself of him. And finally, thank God, he died suddenly of a heart attack, and I came back to England.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, enough of that, Tom. I have said quite enough. The past is the past, and in my opinion should be locked behind a door, and the key thrown away.’