Scarborough Ball (Scarborough Fair Book 2)

by Margarita Morris

  As soon as Billy started to film us, Mr Franklin put a firm hand on each of our shoulders and told us to smile and wave at the camera. He gripped my shoulder so hard that I found it difficult to act naturally, but Ruby laughed and waved as if she was having the time of her life. Then Mr Franklin wanted Billy to film us by the car so we posed for a shot with Mr Franklin in the driver’s seat, Ruby and I leaning nonchalantly on the bonnet. Ruby was in her element, smiling and pouting at the camera, turning her head to get a good shot, and artlessly tucking her bobbed hair behind her ear. I did my best to smile and look happy but I could tell that Billy wasn’t enjoying this. After five minutes of smiling at the camera until my jaw ached, I was glad when Billy said he was out of film and we’d have to stop.

  By now the sun was setting fast, it being the middle of winter, and Billy said we ought to drive back before it was completely dark. Fortunately Mr Franklin agreed and we set off down the hill, arriving back windswept but otherwise none the worse for wear for our little escapade.

  ~~~

  On the sixteenth of December, which was a Sunday that year, Mother, Aunt Ellie and I made our annual pilgrimage to Father’s grave in Scarborough Cemetery. Mother carried a small wreath of holly dotted with red berries because you couldn’t get flowers in December in the 1920s. I wished I could lay a wreath on Frank’s grave, but he was buried somewhere in France and I didn’t expect I’d ever have the opportunity to visit.

  With it being a Sunday Billy had to accompany his mother to Westborough Methodist Church. On Sunday afternoons she expected him to stay at home and read to her, so at three o’clock I made my excuses and went to Ruby’s house.

  Ruby lived in a boarding house on Queen’s Terrace. The landlady, Mrs Swindlehurst, had lost her husband and sons in the war and now made ends meet by renting rooms to respectable young ladies. Besides Ruby, there were two other women in the house: Betty, who worked at a milliner’s and Julia who was a typist at a law firm. Ruby didn’t talk much about her past but she’d once mentioned growing up in a two-up-two-down in Leeds with four siblings and a father who drank. For her, Scarborough was an escape.

  I enjoyed my visits to Ruby. The house was always full of chatter and laughter and I sometimes thought how much fun it would be to live in a house with women my own age, instead of at home with Mother and Aunt Ellie. Ruby and the other girls complained about Mrs Swindlehurst, saying she insisted on silence after ten o’clock at night and was penny-pinching, but she had gone to the trouble and expense of installing an upstairs bathroom which to me was the height of luxury. It had an enormous enamel bath against one wall, a sink and a WC with a chain flush. I dreamed of being able to take a bath in that room, with the door locked for privacy, instead of having to haul the tub in front of the kitchen stove as we did in the cottage, shielded only by the bedsheets drying on the clothes horse.

  I rang the doorbell and Ruby came downstairs to let me in. She was wearing a red silk dressing gown, so I wondered whether she had just taken a bath or whether she was extremely late getting up. Mother would have frowned at such decadent behaviour.

  “Lilian,” she exclaimed. “How lovely to see you.” She took my hand. “Goodness me, you’re frozen. Come and get warm, or you’ll die from hypothermia.” She pulled me inside and I followed her up the stairs to her room on the top floor of the house. The window overlooked the backyard, a narrow strip of ground with a coal bunker and an outside privy. Having spent so much money on the bathroom, it seemed Mrs Swindlehurst had nothing left for the bedrooms. The threadbare curtains in Ruby’s room didn’t quite meet in the middle and Ruby had hung an embroidered shawl over the curtain pole to make the place look a little more homely. The mantelpiece above the old Victorian fireplace displayed an array of pretty objects: a silk fan painted with a Chinese design, a lacquered jewellery box, an ostrich feather in a glass vase and a bronze statuette of an Egyptian goddess. Any remaining space was filled with assorted bangles and strings of beads. The bed was largely invisible under a pile of dresses and petticoats so there wasn’t really anywhere to sit. I looked for somewhere to put my hat and coat.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Ruby, taking my outer garments and depositing them on a chair that was already overflowing with clothes. “You must think me a terrible slob. Let’s go to the kitchen and make ourselves a hot cup of tea. You look like you could do with one.”

  We went to the shared kitchen that Mrs Swindlehurst had installed next to the bathroom. There was a modern gas stove, a wobbly table with four mismatched chairs and a shilling-in-the-slot electric meter on the wall. The tiny sink was, as usual, piled high with unwashed cups and plates. A smell of burnt toast hung in the air. Julia and Betty were sitting at the table giggling over the newspaper whilst a pan of minestrone soup bubbled on the gas hob.

  “What are you reading that’s so funny?” asked Ruby, fishing a couple of cups out of the sink and rinsing them under the tap. She filled the kettle and put it on the gas hob next to the soup.

  “It’s the classified ads,” said Julia. “With so many young men killed in the war, what’s a girl supposed to do these days to find a husband? But some of these are just too funny for words. Listen to this: Energetic sexagenarian gentleman seeks housekeeper. Must be able to pluck and stuff pheasants. I mean, does he shoot them or something? How many pheasants do you think the poor woman is expected to pluck and stuff?”

  Ruby and I both laughed. After the morning at the cemetery, I was glad of some humour.

  “Here’s another one,” said Betty. “Gentleman essayist and historian requires female assistant for proofreading and other duties.”

  “What other duties?” asked Julia, rolling her eyes. “Surely he doesn’t want her just to check his dates and punctuation?”

  “Here, let me see that,” said Ruby, picking up the newspaper. She scanned her eyes down the page. “This sounds more like it: Wealthy heir seeks female for mutual companionship.”

  “Sounds too good to be true,” sniffed Julia. “He’s probably lost an arm and a leg in the war. You’d spend all day pushing him up and down the prom.”

  The kettle let out a piercing whistle as the water came to the boil. Ruby poured two mugs of strong tea. Passing me one she said, “Anyway, Lilian and I don’t need to scour the newspapers for a husband, do we Lilian?”

  “Oh?” asked Julia, eyebrows raised. “Do tell.”

  “Lilian’s engaged to her sweetheart Billy,” said Ruby, patting me on the arm.

  Julia and Betty stared at me open-mouthed.

  “Well, aren’t you a dark horse,” said Julia, grinning at me. “You’ve kept that one quiet.”

  “Let’s see the ring then,” said Betty, taking hold of my left hand.

  “It’s beautiful,” gasped Julia. “The colour matches your eyes.”

  “Such a dainty little stone,” said Betty. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” I said, smiling.

  Betty turned to Ruby. “So why don’t you need the help of the classified ads to find yourself a husband?”

  Ruby cocked her head to one side and smiled “I’m working on Theodore Franklin, the American I told you about.”

  “Good for you,” said Julia, thumping her playfully on the arm.

  I stifled a laugh. I knew Ruby had been flirting with him, but did she really intend to marry him?

  “What’s so funny?” asked Ruby.

  There was a spluttering from the stove. “Oh my god, the soup’s burning,” said Julia, grabbing hold of the saucepan handle and turning off the gas. She stirred the liquid with a wooden spoon. “Bother, it’s stuck onto the bottom of the saucepan.”

  “You should place a classified ad for a cook,” said Betty to Julia.

  We left them then, scraping the burnt soup off the pan, and took our teas back to Ruby’s room.

  “Did you mean what you just said?” I asked. “About Mr Franklin?”

  “Why not?” said Ruby. “He’s the best prospect to have landed on these shores in a lon
g time. I might as well give it a shot.”

  “But do you think you could love him?” I asked.

  “What has love got to do with it?” said Ruby, waving her hand in the air. “He’s rich, good-looking, fun to be with and, as far as I can tell, unattached.”

  “Well, if you think that will make you happy,” I said a little uncertainly. I couldn’t argue with her logic though. “But what if he goes back to America?”

  “Even better,” said Ruby, adding, “as long as he takes me with him. Now, about this New Year’s Eve ball, let’s see what we can find for you to wear.” She lifted the lid off a blue and white striped hat box and started to rummage through a collection of accessories, pulling out a pink feather boa, a headband dotted with sequins, strings of beads and two chunky bangles painted with an African design.

  She tossed me the feather boa and it landed in my lap like a soft snake. “I couldn’t possibly wear this,” I said. “It’s just not me.”

  “Try it on though,” said Ruby, enthusiastically. “Go on.”

  I draped the feather boa around my neck and looked at myself in the mirror above the mantelpiece. It tickled my neck and made my cheeks glow with reflected colour.

  “It suits you,” said Ruby, looking at me approvingly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, taking it off and handing it back to her.

  “Well try the jewellery at least.” She hung the beads around my neck and pushed one of the bangles onto my right arm. “What do you think?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I like the beads and the bangle very much. But I still don’t have a decent dress to wear. Accessories won’t make the slightest bit of difference if I’m wearing some shabby old piece of rag.”

  “There must be something in your wardrobe we can alter.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “How about I come round tomorrow and we take a look at your clothes?”

  “All right then,” I said. Now that I understood how much the ball meant to her, I couldn’t let her down.

  ~~~

  As promised, Ruby came round to the cottage the very next evening and we went upstairs so she could look through my dresses. I watched with something approaching despair as she opened the wardrobe and pulled out one hanger after another. To my eyes each garment had some glaring defect: too old-fashioned, too worn, too drab, too small. I began to wonder how I managed to find anything to wear each day given the amount of tat that was clogging up my cupboard. I hadn’t been able to afford anything new for years. From the little that I earned working in the Futurist box office, most of it went towards helping Mother and Aunt Ellie with the housekeeping bills. I’d been saving for a new hat, but didn’t have anywhere near enough for a new dress.

  “What about this?” asked Ruby, pulling a sage green taffeta dress from the rack.

  “That old thing? It’s hideous.”

  “Well it would benefit from a few alterations.”

  “No, absolutely out of the question.”

  “All right. How about this then?” Ruby took a brown velvet dress off its hanger and held it up in front of me. “The colour suits you.”

  “Hmm...” I hadn’t worn that old thing for well over three years and had forgotten I still had it.

  “Of course it needs shortening, it’s way too long, and the waist needs dropping. I can add some lace to the neckline and put some tassels on the hem. The bodice needs livening up. What do you say?”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “If you’re sure you can do something with it.”

  “Absolutely. We’ll use your mother’s sewing machine if she doesn’t mind.”

  For the next few evenings the cottage was filled with the whirr of Mother’s treadle sewing machine as Ruby cut and tacked and sewed and hemmed. She was a deft hand with needle and thread and I watched with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation, wondering what the finished garment would look like. By the time Ruby had worked her magic, it would no doubt be the most fashionable thing in my wardrobe. I just hoped I would like it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the days following Ryan’s trial and conviction, Rose hardly heard from Dan. He sent her the occasional text, saying that he had to help his mum sort stuff out but he didn’t go into details. Ryan was going to prison and Rose could only begin to imagine how tough that must be for Dan. She sent him reassuring texts in return, wanting him to understand that, as far as she was concerned, it didn’t change anything between them.

  Rose spent most of her time in her attic bedroom, lying on the bed, listening to the rain pounding on the skylight and trying to make progress with The Great Gatsby, all the time thinking she’d rather be reading more of Lilian’s memoir. The notebook lay on her bedside table, a constant temptation, luring her away from the set texts she was supposed to be studying.

  Over the summer she’d read the letters that Mary, Lilian’s mother, had written home during her holiday in Scarborough in 1899 so she knew how Mary had come to be living in Scarborough, married to Walter the fisherman. Now she was discovering Lilian’s story. She didn’t know why her grandmother had felt the need to keep Lilian’s memoir a secret but she suspected it had something to do with the ball at the Grand Hotel.

  She picked up the notebook and ran her fingers over the smooth leather. The trouble was, the old-fashioned handwriting made reading it such a slow and laborious process. She pictured the pretty young woman she’d seen on the DVD at David’s house and imagined her dressing for the ball, hanging a string of pearls around her neck, maybe a bangle on her arm. Had the party at the Grand Hotel been as extravagant and exciting as one of Jay Gatsby’s parties? Probably not, Scarborough was hardly New York, but given the fact that this Theodore Franklin chap had ended up being murdered, then who knew what had gone on? She opened the leather cover, then stopped herself. She really did have to finish reading F. Scott Fitzgerald first otherwise she’d be in deep water when school restarted in a couple of days. She would just have to wait until bedtime before continuing with Lilian’s story.

  With a sigh, she picked up The Great Gatsby and turned to where she’d left off earlier. She hadn’t read more than a couple of pages when her phone rang. Seeing Dan’s name on the caller display, she tossed the book aside and answered the call.

  “Hi! How are things?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you know...” He sounded fed up. Then he brightened. “Look, do you want to come round for a pizza or something? We could watch a DVD. The weather’s crap so there’s no point going out anywhere.”

  Rose looked at The Great Gatsby lying accusingly on her bed. At this rate she’d never get the damn thing finished. But suddenly she didn’t care. It would do her good to get out. “Sure,” she said. “What time?”

  “Half an hour? I’ll order the pizzas.”

  Great. Can I have a Pepperoni please?”

  Five minutes later she was on her way to Dan’s house, dodging the spray thrown up by cars as they drove through puddles of muddy water at the side of the road.

  Dan must have been looking out for her because the front door opened as she walked up the driveway.

  “You’re soaked,” he said as she took off her coat. “Sorry for making you come out. I could have come to you, but you know...”

  “It’s fine,” said Rose, giving him a hug. She knew Dan was scared stiff of Andrea. “I needed to get out of the house. The English set texts are doing my head in.”

  “Come into the lounge,” said Dan. “The pizzas have just arrived.”

  As she followed him down the hallway, the lounge door opened and Dan’s mother appeared, dressed in leggings and a baggy sweatshirt, an uncorked bottle of red wine in one hand and a half-full wine glass in the other.

  “Hi sweetheart,” she said, waving the bottle at Rose. “I’m getting out of your way.”

  “Please don’t go on my account,” said Rose, feeling guilty for turfing Fiona out of her own sitting room. With his back to his mother, Dan gave Rose a warning look and shook his head.

>   “Don’t worry,” said Fiona, heading for the stairs. “You two enjoy yourselves. I’m going to read my latest trashy novel.” She stepped forward and caught her toe on the bottom step. “Whoops.” She gave a shrill laugh. Wine sloshed from the glass onto the carpet, staining it with red spots.

  “Steady,” said Rose, rushing forward to catch her by the arm before she fell and smashed the bottle of wine.

  “I’m OK,” said Fiona. She walked up the stairs, a bit unsteadily, and disappeared into her bedroom.

  Rose joined Dan in the lounge where he was opening the pizza boxes on the coffee table.

  “God, sorry about that,” said Dan, looking embarrassed. “She’s pissed already and it’s only six o’clock.”

  “It’s fine,” said Rose. She wished her own mother would chill out and get tipsy once in a while, but Andrea never allowed herself more than half a glass of wine and only then with a meal.

  Rose picked up a slice of hot Pepperoni and sat down on the sofa.

  For a while they ate in silence. Rose didn’t know if Dan would want to talk about his dad’s trial or not. She was nervous about saying the wrong thing. A cloud seemed to be hanging over Dan but she didn’t know if it was because of the incident with Fiona or if something else was bothering him.

  In the end Rose broke the silence. “So what was the trial like?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

  Dan shrugged. “It’s like you see on the telly with the lawyers and judge all wearing wigs and gowns.”

  “What about the jury? What were they like?”

  “Just a bunch of ordinary people. They had to find him guilty, they didn’t have much of a choice.”

  Dan was biting his lip as if he had something else he wanted to say.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He turned to look at her and suddenly he was animated. “He was there!”

  “Who?”

  “The motorcyclist. He was in the public gallery. I saw him.”

  Rose’s heart sank. She’d hoped the incident outside the Futurist had been a one-off and they’d be able to put it behind them. It was too ridiculous to believe that Dan was being stalked by a guy on a Harley-Davidson. But Dan’s eyes were flashing with an intensity that frightened her. She wished now that she hadn’t asked about the trial.