by Amy Myers
CHAPTER THREE
There was a battle looming. Caroline watched uneasily as Mrs Hazel kneeled on the sheepskin rug beside Isabel, who was pirouetting before the full-length mirror in the fitting room – a grand name for the curtained-off section of the dressmaker’s cottage work-room. Her pinbox at her side, Mrs Hazel was ready for business but so, unfortunately, was Isabel. Caroline knew that half-smile, which to the outsider meant that Isabel was her usual charming self, and to her family was a warning that Isabel was about to dig in her heels. Now Caroline realised why her mother had insisted on her accompanying them. Elizabeth liked to have reserve troops at her disposal. Isabel had been moody since last week’s ball, which Elizabeth had interpreted, probably correctly, as a sign that her daughter was already regretting her choice of the Rectory for the wedding breakfast.
‘Lured by the violet-powdered wigs,’ Caroline had joked, but if they were going to have to endure Isabel’s moods until August, it was no joking matter. This first fitting of the wedding dress was going to be a good test.
‘You’re so clever, Mrs Hazel,’ announced Isabel admiringly to her own white silk reflection in the mirror, straining at the tacking stitches yet further as she twisted round to get the full effect. ‘But don’t you agree with me that the skirt could be just a little narrower, more elegant? Mother always thinks –’
Mrs Hazel removed three pins from their temporary lodging place at the side of her mouth. ‘Not for a wedding, Miss Isabel.’ She replaced the pins, discussion at an end.
‘A full skirt is much more flattering, Isabel.’ Elizabeth leafed placidly through Mrs Hazel’s pattern book. ‘That ball dress was far too restricting. You could hardly dance.’
Caroline stopped her mental applause. Mother did not usually set out to wave red rags in front of bulls. It must be part of her battle plan.
‘At least it had elegance. I didn’t look like a country bumpkin.’ Isabel galloped full tilt into the cavalry.
The pins were removed once more. ‘Don’t you worry, Miss Isabel. I’ve been dressing country bumpkins to pass as gentry for thirty years now. I’ll see you don’t let them Swinford-Brownes down.’ There was instant silence, and Mrs Hazel followed up her victory in ominous tones. ‘I’ll have to let this dart go. The tailor tacks are there, see? Grown you have, since I measured you. Too much of Mrs Dibble’s lemon pudding, I’ll be bound.’
‘Peach, I think,’ Elizabeth observed before Isabel could reply.
‘Never heard of peach pudding.’
‘For the bridesmaids,’ Elizabeth amplified.
‘Oh, no.’ Caroline hated peach, or rather peach hated her.
Isabel shot her a vicious look. ‘Lovely,’ she enthused. ‘That’s just what I want the bridesmaids to wear.’
A pin found a passing target on Isabel’s thigh as Mrs Hazel entered the lists again. ‘Blue’s best.’
‘Green, perhaps,’ Elizabeth said.
‘’Tis an unlucky colour, Mrs Lilley.’
‘Not in the Rectory, fortunately. One of the benefits of my husband’s calling.’
‘That’s as may be.’
Caroline’s head was beginning to ache. Who said weddings were happy affairs? So far Isabel’s had brought nothing but wrangling, albeit in subdued voices in case Father were disturbed. The Rectory seemed to be housing a flock of starlings, squabbling over guest lists, invitation cards, food, and now the Gown. The Gown was the prize morsel at stake, or rather, Gowns. Not the bridesmaids’ of course – today was the first time Isabel had mentioned them – but trousseau dresses, suitable for a Paris honeymoon. Caroline’s jet buckle had apparently formed an integral part of this trousseau and it had been with considerable effort and some guilt on Caroline’s part that it was recalled to its rightful home. How to ensure that she (rarely they) received suitable gifts to fit their home was another of Isabel’s favourite topics. This one had greatly surprised Caroline, since she’d thought the happy pair would live in The Towers, but Isabel finally drew breath to announce that the Swinford-Brownes were modernising Hop House for them. Her frequent hints to Robert on the virtues of being ‘together’ had, just at the right moment, swelled into a head-on appeal for ‘their own little nest’.
Hop House had stood empty since Swinford-Browne bought the hop farm five years ago, perhaps because he had considered it too large for any mere manager. Who did this new suggestion spring from, Caroline wondered? Isabel’s lazy nature would not make her over-eager to run her own household, but it would give her independence – of a kind – from Edith. It appeared her problem was that she still had to put up with Edith’s choice of decoration and furniture.
For Caroline and the Rectory this had proved to have one priceless advantage. It meant that Edith was otherwise occupied and could not add her relatively well-meaning contribution to the subject of food. Elizabeth had striven to keep them apart, but on one disastrous occasion Edith had met Mrs Dibble. Caroline had come into the kitchen just in time for the climax, as Edith demanded grandiosely, ‘And, of course, paupiettes,’ and Mrs Dibble had promptly crossed herself and declared this was a Christian household. ‘None of your Roman popery here, not over my dead body, never. “Halleluia, sing to Jesus.”’
A thunderstorm had broken out then, and it looked as though the same would happen now, both inside and outside, for the sky was dark. Caroline excused herself. Rain would be better than this heavy airlessness, and she might be back at the Rectory before it started. She wasn’t. As she skirted the pond and dashed across the road, narrowly avoiding Cyril Mutter’s butcher’s van, the heavens opened, lightning streaked across the sky, and the thunder that speedily followed it told her the storm was almost overhead. By the time she hurtled in the Rectory door she was soaked, her skirt and underskirts clung to her legs and her straw hat was a wet lump sitting atop dripping hair.
‘Oh, miss!’ Agnes took one horrified look as she hurried from the drawing room. ‘Here, give them to me.’ She took the hat and jacket Caroline had ripped off, and eyed the wet skirts. ‘You get them wet things off now.’ Caroline hesitated; clammy or not, she couldn’t let this opportunity pass. Agnes had one of those faces that expressed little, so it was hard to know whether to speak or not. Caroline couldn’t remember ever seeing her laugh, and she rarely permitted herself even a smile, at least ‘on duty’. She was an attractive girl, though, with her grey eyes, oval-shaped face and shining hair as straight as a yard of pump water, as Ashden would put it.
‘Leave them here for a moment, Agnes.’ She took the offending garments back and hung them on the stand used for visitors’ coats and vestments.
Agnes eyed her warily as Caroline led her back into the drawing room. ‘I’ve done your walking skirt. That Harriet doesn’t know a clothes brush from a broom.’
‘I don’t know what the Rectory would do without you, Agnes,’ Caroline said sincerely. ‘You’re happy here, aren’t you? You’d come to us if you were in trouble?’
A slight stiffening of Agnes’s shoulders told Caroline what she wanted to know. ‘Of course.’ Her voice was suddenly flat.
‘Even if it’s your private business?’
Agnes looked at her steadily. ‘There’s no one can do nothing save Jamie, me, that trollop and maybe the Rector. I’m sorry you’ve been told, miss.’
‘This is a small village. I’m afraid most people do know now. I heard talk about it in the stores yesterday.’ No point in hiding the fact that the village not only knew, but was rapidly taking sides. She was getting used to the low buzz that would stop as she entered and resume as she left. In the post office yesterday, as children hummed and hawed over important choices between humbugs and bull’s-eyes, their mothers had gathered in a consciously self-righteous group to gossip. They spoke of Jamie Thorn, and with disapproval. Unfortunately the disapproval had now spread beyond the Mutters, and into the ‘neutral’ third of the village. She knew the all-powerful Lettices at the general stores would come down against Jamie Thorn, since Mrs Lettice had been a
Mutter, but she was alarmed to find that so had the Wilsons at Lovel’s Mill. They were usually neutral, and respected by all. Cyril Wilson was the miller and baker; Elsie, his wife, served in the shop. Gwen, his somewhat eccentric sister, always clad in enormous baggy trousers, bright blue jacket and a man’s cap, was the delivery woman. All her life Caroline had listened for the distant tinkle of her bell in winter, followed by the haunting cry ‘Hot muffins’ floating across the Rectory gardens as she huddled by the fire: ‘Come and buy ’em.’ That cry seemed to reassure that all was right with the world. If the Wilsons had turned against Jamie, it was a bad day for him. His father, Alfred, had visited Father’s surgery yesterday and Caroline had little doubt what it was about. Business had been slacker than usual in the forge, and even slacker in the ironmongery shop next door, which Jamie helped his mother run. In normal times the Mutter–Thorn feud by unspoken agreement never interfered with Ashden trading. That it now appeared to be doing so was ominous indeed.
‘Mrs Dibble didn’t know,’ Agnes cried. ‘I only knew myself ten days ago.’
‘Ten days is a long time for gossip. But knowing isn’t the point, Agnes, it’s facing what will happen if Jamie has to marry Ruth.’
‘But he hasn’t done anything.’ The voice rose to a wail.
‘You can’t know that for sure, that’s the sadness.’
‘Suppose someone came to you, miss, and said the Rector had pinched the poorbox. You’d know he hadn’t, wouldn’t you?’
Caroline forced herself to play devil’s advocate. ‘The Rector isn’t young and –’
‘Jamie loves me,’ Agnes interrupted. ‘Make no mistake about that. We’re going to wed and live in the old gentleman’s cottage. ’Tis all arranged. Ebenezer needs someone to look after him, he’s got spare rooms and there we are. Why would Jamie do anything to upset that?’
‘That’s the cottage Mr Swinford-Browne wants for his cinema.’ Caroline was suddenly side-tracked.
‘What he wants and what he can have are two different things, begging your pardon, miss. That cottage belongs to old Master Thorn and that’s where we’re going to live.’ Agnes’s brave words were interrupted by a hiccup. ‘She’s lying, ’cos she needs a man to wed her.’
‘But she’s not been seen with anyone who could be the father.’
‘No, and not Jamie neither. If he ain’t done nothing, why should he be punished the rest of his life?’
The question was unanswerable. But it couldn’t rest at that. Village opinion could bring terrible pressures to bear, right or wrong. The divisions were growing more marked; the Mutters stayed in the Norville Arms tap room of an evening, the Thorns in the public bar. It did not bode well. The only thing that could stop the rift spreading would be proof. Jamie could not produce it, so Ruth must be made to, and Caroline must see that she did.
‘Something amiss, Harriet?’
It had penetrated even Myrtle’s mind that Harriet was looking tedious sour, as if she had some real quarrel with that doorknob she was polishing.
Harriet Mutter was torn between making a mere tweeny her confidante and her need for allies. She never ought to have come here, she ought to have known she’d be walking into a Thorn-bush, as her ma would call it, what with Miss High and Mighty Pilbeam walking out with that Jamie. Her nose had taken a tumble now all right, Harriet thought with satisfaction. It was almost worth Miss P. taking it out on her.
‘You’re all right, Myrtle. She’d have old Dibble to reckon with, you being shared with the kitchen, but me, she thinks I’m her slave. “Harriet, do the drawing-room fire”.’ Her voice rose in protest. ‘That’s her job. And me in my black, too. Look at me, just look.’
Myrtle did. Harriet looked her usual skinny but spick and span self. Since Myrtle was built on sturdy lines, with nondescript hair and a round face, she was humble about her own appearance, and kept an envious eye on Harriet’s tall, angular form. Not that she was envious of Harriet in any other way. Life, Myrtle considered, was a matter of day to day and presented both treats and disappointments; usually there were more of the former, so Myrtle had nothing to complain of, and was puzzled as to why Harriet was so bad-tempered much of the time. Her looks would be handsome if it weren’t for her sulky expression, and she could be a real grizzle-guts. Still, conscience told her that as Harriet was nearest to her in rank, she should take Harriet’s side, even though her mother had warned her to keep away from all those Mutters and Thorns.
‘That Miss Pilbeam can be a –’ Myrtle searched her vocabulary – ‘pig.’
‘I went to the Rector.’ Harriet swept on with her real grievance. Only very rarely did any of them go to the Rector. To Mrs Lilley, yes, but she hadn’t been here, and Harriet wasn’t going to wait. The Rector after all dispensed justice, he was God of the Rectory, and now he’d let her down by pointing out that Agnes was under a lot of strain, and Harriet should make allowances. Why should she? No one ever made allowances for her.
She knew why all right. The Rector was a Thorn at heart. Everyone knew he’d seen Jamie, but there was no sign of that skunk marrying Ruth yet. By doing nothing the Rector was as good as patting him on the back. He should exorcise him or something. A very faint memory of Sunday School came back to her.
‘But the Rector’s gone over to the Thorns,’ she continued darkly. ‘Everyone has. That poor girl.’ She sniffed loudly.
‘Not me, Harriet,’ Myrtle assured her quickly, wondering whether she should comfort her by putting her arm round her. She remained stock-still.
‘Harriet, you ain’t done that silver yet.’ Mrs Dibble marched in like she was Police Constable Ifield himself. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re paid for; it’s not chatting, that I know.’
Harriet smarted. Telling her off, and in front of Myrtle too! Old Dribble Dibble would pay for this. They’d all pay for it.
Caroline didn’t envy her father his job. Every evening he must hold Evensong whether anybody attended or not, and this was followed by Rector’s Hour, from which he always came in looking worried and preoccupied. There were few absolutes in human nature, he told her. Few all-good people, fewer all-bad. Every issue had two sides and the weighing of them demanded as fine an adjustment as the iron scales Mrs Dibble used. If Caroline were to help she must see Ruth Horner, she had decided, and made, as her preliminary gambit, an excuse to go to Aunt Tilly’s room next morning. The room looked impersonal even taking into account the dullness of morning light and the fact that Aunt Tilly was a visitor, not a resident. Caroline perched on the bed, watching Tilly brushing her hair back into its usual severe coil. She had rather nice hair, and it seemed a pity that like Aunt Tilly herself it was tidied back so severely that it could never boast its glories.
‘You never told me whether you enjoyed your dance with Mr Toby Jug at the ball.’
‘It was rewarding,’ Tilly said decorously.
‘Goodness,’ observed Caroline. ‘How dull.’
‘Dull?’ repeated Tilly. No, it had not been that, at least …
‘I hear you’ve turned poor Ruth Horner out on the street. Don’t you have a duty to look after your servants’ welfare?’
The jerk of William Swinford-Browne’s hot hand on her back was highly satisfying to Tilly. But he merely laughed. ‘I pay them well.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘You ladies are too soft-hearted. I have a duty to keep standards. If I keep her on, what kind of example is that to the housemaids of Ashden?’
‘A compassionate one. What is she to do? The Relief of Fallen Women Society has turned her away. There is nothing but the workhouse for her.’
‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Your wife sits on the committee, and you on the Union board.’
The hand scored into her back, the other crunching her hand till it hurt. He was not a man to march away from trouble. ‘Are you implying the decision was ours?’
‘I’m stating facts.’
‘Then I’ll state a few to you,
Miss Lilley. Ashden doesn’t want your sort.’ His hand moved up and down, caressing, threatening. She knew exactly what he meant. ‘Any more of this nonsense and Ashden will see you no more. You understand?’ He relaxed the grip, and drew her closer. ‘Good to see the young people enjoying themselves.’ He raised his voice heartily.
‘Provided they don’t look to you for help afterwards.’ She raised hers heartily too. The look on his face was worth the broken promise to Laurence.
Did plain costumes and dull hats necessarily go with being subservient in a household, as Aunt Tilly was to Grandmother, Caroline wondered, looking at Tilly’s navy blue skirt and mauve blouse – smart, but oh how plain. She plucked up her courage to tackle her aunt now. ‘Now that Toby Jug has turned Ruth out, do you think Jamie should marry her whether he loves her or not?’
‘I believe in men observing the same standards of purity as women, Caroline,’ Tilly answered after a moment. ‘Why should all the public censure fall on the woman?’
‘But if Jamie is not the father, why should he be forced by that public censure to marry her on Ruth’s word alone?’
Tilly chose her words even more carefully. ‘It’s becoming more and more possible for women to run their own lives, Caroline, but as yet most of us are dependent on men economically. And Ruth’s life depends on economics. How can she prove who the father is? Or live on the five shillings a week a magistrate would order the father to pay for the upkeep of his illegitimate child? It takes pressure to bring feckless men to a sense of their own shame.’
