by Anne Weale
“Yes, and one or two other small things which puzzle me. After lunch I’ll show you, if I may?”
But when lunch was over, Mrs. Wingfield seemed to have forgotten the bracelet, as she said, “Charles always takes the children for a ramble on Sunday afternoon. Why don’t you join them, Imelda? Mrs. Walsham and I will stroll leisurely round the garden.”
“When does Victoriana open?” asked Charles, as they set off across the park.
“Oh, you’ve noticed my new signboard,” she said, pleased at this unexpected proof that the blue and gold board was as eye-catching as she had hoped. “The parlour will be open tomorrow. I’m not sure when the shop - the original shop - will be ready. Probably not for some weeks yet.”
“I’m surprised you’re opening so soon, even in a limited way. You must have worked very hard.”
Imelda was about to say that she could not have managed without Sam’s help, when Sophie asked her, “May we come to see your shop when we spend our pocket money on Saturday?”
“If your grandmother has no objection - certainly.”
“Mrs. Otley doesn’t allow children or dogs in her shop in case they break something.”
“The things in Mrs. Otley’s shop are more valuable than my stock. I was once in an antique shop with another customer who had a very well-behaved dog. It sat quietly all the time its owner was looking round. Everything was fine until the very last minute, and then something terrible happened.”
“What?” asked Sophie, round-eyed.
“As they were leaving, the dog started to wag its tail. Before anyone could save them, two lovely pieces of porcelain were brushed off the top of a low table.”
“What happened then?”
“The dog’s owner had to pay for the damage.”
“How much? A hundred pounds?”
“No, anything as valuable as that is usually kept in a cabinet. Possibly ten or twenty pounds. I don’t know exactly.”
By now they were following a cart track which led to a five-barred gate at the edge of some woodland. The gate was padlocked, but this was no obstacle to the children who swarmed up the bars while Poppy pushed through the hedge.
“Can you manage this in a skirt?” asked Charles, as he and Imelda arrived at the gate.
“I expect so.” She mounted the bars, wishing she had on a trouser suit.
He swung over the gate with the practised ease of a long-legged countryman, and Imelda, had she been unobserved, could have managed the matter without much difficulty. But somehow Charles’s presence made her nervous and consequently awkward. Concerned not to snag her tights, and wishing the man would walk on, instead of waiting and watching, she clambered inexpertly over, then poised to jump to the ground. As she balanced there, Charles stepped forward and grasped her waist and lifted her down.
Imelda had not reached twenty without quite often being in the posture in which she was now. Usually, when a man held her by the waist and looked into her eyes, his next action was to kiss her. In varying degrees she had enjoyed these experiences, without ever being swept off her feet. In her view, being swept off one’s feet was something which happened rather rarely, and then only to emotional, dreamy girls, not to down-to-earth ones like herself.
So it was unnerving to find that, although Charles had no thought of kissing her, the thought of being kissed was in her own mind, with an effect which could hardly have been more disturbing had he actually done it. In the instant before he released her, and they resumed their walk, her heart began to thump. Her legs felt weak. Her mouth felt dry.
As he let her go, the children came running back to them, and she had time to pull herself together, and to start being annoyed with herself for responding to a man’s physical magnetism when, by all the important criteria, she did not like him.
The object of the walk was to gather primroses in a part of the wood where they grew in particular abundance. Presently, while Henry and Sophie were climbing a tree, and Imelda was picking flowers and listening to Fanny, they heard hoofbeats coming along a ride which led to the glade from another direction.
“Here comes Mrs. Otley,” said Fanny.
Imelda glanced towards Charles. He was lounging in the sun, with his back against the trunk of a beech tree. He seemed to be lost in thought, perhaps half asleep, and it was only when horse and rider came into view that he bestirred himself.
“What a glorious afternoon!” remarked Beatrix, in her high, clear voice, as she brought her mount to a halt in the centre of the clearing.
“Yes,” said Charles, strolling forward to stroke, with an accustomed hand, the animal’s velvety nostrils.
To Imelda, who knew nothing about horses, it looked a large and rather highly-strung animal, but probably Beatrix had been riding all her life. She looked wholly at ease, and very attractive in her cream breeches and amber jersey. Her hair was almost the same glossy chestnut as the horse’s coat.
She dismounted, and Sophie and Henry slithered down from their tree, and ran up to pat the horse.
“I don’t like horses,” Fanny confided to Imelda. “They’re too big. I like guinea-pigs better.”
“Haven’t you a pony?” asked Imelda. Had she given the matter any thought, she would have assumed that all the Wingfields rode, and were only refraining from riding this afternoon because they had guests who did not ride.
“No,” said Fanny. “We have stables, and two funny old carriages which were used instead of cars when Granny was little. But we haven’t any horses now.”
Beatrix, after speaking to the older children, looked round to see where Fanny was, and caught sight of Imelda.
“Oh ... Miss Calthorpe. Good afternoon. I hear in the village that your shop will be opening tomorrow.”
“Good afternoon. Yes, it will.”
“Well, I wish you luck with your venture, and hope you won’t regret it,” said Beatrix. “If ever you have anything brought in which you think might be genuinely antique, you’re welcome to ask my advice.”
“Thank you,” Imelda said meekly. She wondered if Mrs. Otley meant to be patronising, or if it was unintentional.
“Charles, the Fomcetts are coming in for drinks this evening. They’re bringing a cousin of Barbara’s who’s spending the weekend with them. He sounds one of those fascinating characters who’s been everywhere and done everything. Would you care to join us, and to meet him?” “I’m afraid I can’t tonight, Beatrix. I have to go out.”
“Oh, what a pity.” If she was more than mildly disappointed she did not allow it to show. There was nothing in her manner to support the gossip, spread by her daily help, that she had a matrimonial interest in Charles.
Changing the subject, she said, “I do wish you would let me teach this child to ride. She’s aching to learn, aren’t you, Sophie?”
The little girl nodded. “All the girls in my form ride. Couldn’t I? Please, Uncle Charles?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said quietly but with finality.
“Come on, Sophie.” Henry tugged impatiently at her sweater.
“Why are you so against riding?” said Beatrix, when they had run off to their tree. “It’s not only a healthy activity, but it teaches children so many valuable moral lessons.”
“It can also teach them to be thoroughly objectionable little pot-hunters,” said Charles dryly.
“Yes, sometimes it does, I admit - but not invariably. It isn’t necessary to go in for gymkhanas and show-jumping.”
“Even without that side of it, it’s still an expensive pastime, Beatrix.”
She smiled. “Are you pleading poverty? Oh, Charles! A pony for Sophie would cost much less to run than your car. However, I won’t argue with you, if you’re really opposed to the idea. Perhaps you think riding makes girls less feminine?” she added, with a touch of coquetry.
It seemed to Imelda that his mouth had tightened a little at the reference to his car. But perhaps she was mistaken, for he answered, “It would be difficult to hold that view
in the face of such striking evidence to the contrary,” and Beatrix smiled and looked pleased.
A few minutes later she mounted and rode away, calling to the children that she would see them at eight-fifteen the following morning.
“Mrs. Otley takes us to school in her car because she has to go to Norwich anyway,” Fanny explained to Imelda. “In the afternoon, Uncle Charles and Granny take turns to fetch us. Henry comes, home by himself on the bus, later than we do.”
Returning to the house by a way which avoided the high locked gate, they found Mrs. Wingfield and her other guest sitting on a sheltered seat against the mellow brick wall which enclosed the stable yard.
Imelda felt it was time to leave, and with unflattering alacrity Charles said he would run them home, and went off to get out his car.
Presently, sitting behind Mrs. Walsham, a position from which all she could see of his face was his temple and cheekbone, she wondered if it were possible that the Wingfields were no longer as rich as they had once been, and that Charles kept a rein on other expenses in order to indulge his own sybaritic tastes, of which the car was an example.
“That will give them something to talk about,” remarked Mrs. Walsham to Imelda, as the car slid away from her gate, watched by most of her neighbours who, on fine Sunday afternoons, mowed the grass in the front gardens and washed and polished their own cars.
Imelda smiled at her landlady’s satisfaction at giving the neighbours cause for conjecture for a change. Charles had been punctilious in escorting his passengers to their front door, but he had not accepted Mrs. Walsham’s invitation to come in and have a cup of tea.
“I had such a nice chat with her while you were out walking with him,” Mrs. Walsham went on. “Her life hasn’t been what you might call a bed of roses, in spite of them being moneyed people, and having that big house and everything. She was telling me that her husband was lamed in the First War, and when they lost both their boys in the last lot, it just about finished him, poor man. Funny the grandson isn’t married, specially now he’s responsible for the three kiddies. Some women in her position wouldn’t want him to marry, of course. But from what she told me, she’d prefer to give way to a younger woman. You’d never dream she was seventy-four, to look at her. I wouldn’t have put her at seventy.”
“Mrs. Wingfield is a darling,” said Imelda.
“He seems a nice young chap, too - well, young to me, but not to you, I suppose. I’d put him somewhere near thirty. There’ll be plenty of girls around here on the catch for him, I expect,” said her landlady, with a knowing chuckle.
“Possibly.”
Mrs. Walsham gave her a shrewd glance. “Don’t you like him?”
“He’s attractive. I can’t say I’ve noticed anything else in his favour. He hasn’t his grandmother’s qualities.”
Imelda was too excited to sleep well that night, and at half past six on Monday morning she crept out of bed and went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she wondered if Charles Wingfield had been right when, on the station platform five weeks ago, he had described her plan to open an antique shop, without any previous experience, as “Pure folly”.
Shivering slightly, in spite of being snugly clad in a blue and white quilted dressing-gown which her stepfather had
given her last Christmas, she thought: What if my customers are mainly browsers, with hardly any trade buyers? What if I can’t replace my existing stock? What if I make some appalling mistake, like paying far too much for something worthless, or selling something valuable too cheaply?
For a while she was stricken with misgivings. But soon after seven the post brought a letter from London, wishing her luck, and a flat package from Sussex. In it she found a silver-handled magnifying glass, and a note from Sebastian Ellough in which he said he had used the glass throughout his own career as a dealer, and wished her to have it as a useful memento of their friendship.
Imelda was delighted with this unexpected present, and before she dressed she wrote a letter of thanks to post on her way to the shop. Her confidence had returned and, at a quarter past eight, she set out from the bungalow. There were one or two finishing touches which she wanted to make before opening for business at nine.
It was a fine morning with the promise of a hot noonday, and to attract attention to the fact that Victoriana was ready for customers, she put a small table on the pavement outside her front door, and on it placed various oddments and shabby books, all for sale at ten pence or less.
The parlour was furnished in much the same way as she had found it, but with everything cleaned and polished, and with fresh white paint replacing the dirty varnish on the woodwork. None of the three parlour pictures had been of much interest, but Imelda had made use of the frames which she had washed and brightened with gilding wax. Now, one of the frames surrounded a remnant of padded red silk to which she had fastened several brooches, a Victorian campaign medal, a pair of jet mourning ear-rings, and a number of interesting buttons and Edwardian hatpins. With the help of Sam, the two other frames had been converted into doors for shallow display cases. In these she had put fragile or valuable objects such as the child’s china mug with a whistling-bird handle, found in the pantry, and a pair of ornate silver sugar nips discovered, black with tarnish, at the back of a drawer in the deal-topped table in the scullery.
At nine-fifteen, after a number of passers-by had peered through her shining clean window, the old-fashioned doorbell began to jangle, and Imelda entered the hall from the kitchen and smiled a welcome at her first customer.
By the end of the day she had made the acquaintance of three established dealers from other parts of the county, she had made friends with two private collectors - a farmer who collected desk seals, and a housewife in search of lace bobbins - and she had watched with concealed amusement while a number of local people who had nothing better to do that morning had come in to see the house which for so long had been a mystery to them.
At five, Mrs. Wingfield called, and Imelda was able to confide that not only had her sales been satisfactory, but two people had come in with curios they wished to sell to her.
Taking Mrs. Wingfield to the kitchen, she said, “I bought these spelter figures from an old lady who says she has some other things she doesn’t want, and a man brought in this stuffed owl.”
“Which I will buy for Henry’s birthday - if it’s not too expensive,” said Mrs. Wingfield. “Three things he has wanted for ages are an ostrich’s egg, a boomerang, and a barn owl.”
“He is rather an endearing bird. I was hoping he would
stay with me for a while,” said Imelda, when the sale was settled.
“I will leave it here for tonight, if I may? I’ll smuggle it home some time tomorrow. Henry’s birthday isn’t until next month. Before I pay for the owl, let me see what else you have to tempt me.”
Presently, in the parlour, she said, “Your prices seem very fair, Imelda. I thought perhaps, coming from London, you might be inclined to overcharge.”
“I hope not. What concerns me is that I have practically nothing which a child could afford to buy.”
“Yes, that’s one of my problems. Both Henry and Sophie are keen to start collecting, but everything which appeals to them is far too expensive for their pockets. Charles is the only member of the family who seems to lack the acquisitive urge. He buys a good many books, but they’re his only self-indulgence. I think he regards possessions as an encumbrance. Even his cottage in Menorca, where he was living when Piers was killed, has only the essential furniture.”
“He has a beautiful car.”
“Oh, that isn’t his car, my dear. It was Piers who was mad about cars. Charles decided to keep it because, although it is heavy on petrol, it won’t depreciate as rapidly as my little runabout.”
When, at half past five, Imelda was about to lock up, Sam Mutford drew up in his van.
“How did it go?” he enquired, as she crossed the pavement in
response to his beckoning gesture.
“Splendidly! Better than I hoped. Have you had a good day.”
“Not bad. Can I interest you in a good set of fire-irons for a fiver?”
She bought the fire-irons, a brass letter rack, and a biscuit tin in the shape of a book. As she counted notes into Sam’s palm, he said, “There’s a good film on in the city this week. We could have some Chinese nosh afterwards. Do you good to have a night out.”
“I’d like to, Sam, but I’d have to give Mrs. Walsham more than an hour’s notice She goes to a lot of trouble with my evening meals. I couldn’t dash in and announce that I wouldn’t be there to eat whatever it is she’s prepared for tonight.”
“Okay - how about Friday?”
Imelda hesitated. Without Sam’s help, Victoriana would not have been ready to open for some time yet, and apart from being graceful she liked him. Nevertheless she had an intuitive feeling that it might be wiser to keep their friendship within certain bounds, at least for the time being.
Sensing her uncertainty, Sam said, “Maybe you’re already booked. Some other time perhaps. See you ...”
As he turned away, she said impulsively, “Friday would be fine, Sam. Will you pick me up from my digs? What time should I be ready?” After he had driven away in the opposite direction, Imelda walked home, wondering if she had been foolish to accept his invitation merely because he had looked so hurt when he thought she meant to refuse.
Although Wednesday was early closing day throughout the county, Imelda decided to keep the shop open all week until experience showed which was the most suitable half-day for Victoriana. Remembering that Thursday was the slackest day at Mrs. Otley’s shop in the city, she was not surprised when, on Thursday afternoon, she had a visit from Beatrix.
“How are you getting on so far?” was her first remark.
“Fairly well,” Imelda said cautiously.
Beatrix looked round the parlour, but made no comment on the transformation since her previous visit. “Business usually is quite brisk for the first week or two. Then it tends to tail off.” She picked up an unmarked but good quality Parian figure. “Oh ... damaged!” she said, with a slight grimace.
