The Magic Hour

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘There you are, my dear, there is the Ladies Only carriage.’

  Both Bob and Mr Fudge the stationmaster stood on the still-deserted station platform and waved Alexandra off.

  ‘You sit there, my dear,’ the train guard told her, ‘and these good ladies will keep an eye on you all the way to Knighton, and I’ll be coming by all the time to make sure you’re not feeling train sick nor nothing, so don’t you fret about a thing.’

  Alexandra smiled around at the older ladies in the carriage, all of whom were knitting, but she said nothing because her grandmother had always told her not to dream of opening her mouth in front of someone she did not know unless they had said something to her first.

  As it happened, the ladies in the carriage must have all been brought up by people with similar ideas to her grandmother because not one of them exchanged a word with her all the way to Knighton. The train guard came by every now and then and with a kindly expression waved to her through the glass door. Finally he opened it and called, ‘Luncheon in the refreshment car is ready.’

  Alexandra had her lunch money in a special purse, also given to her by her monosyllabic father, so that while the other ladies remained seated, she was able to follow the guard down the swaying train to the refreshment car.

  She read the menu presented to her by the waiter, who she could see was trying to pretend that she was just as old as everyone else around her, and then pointed to the first set menu.

  ‘Than-k you. Thi-this one.’

  He whisked the menu back and smiled at her.

  ‘Gin and tonic to start with, miss?’

  The waiter’s face had assumed a mock-innocent expression, and Alexandra knew he was making fun of her, but did not mind in the least. In fact she responded in kind, pretending to consider the order, but finally deciding against it.

  ‘Ner-no – just an orangeade, please.’

  It was magical to look out of the window and see the towns and villages posed on the landscape and know that no one was going to come along and interrupt her thoughts, so that the daydreams of previous years when she had been growing up at Lower Bridge Farm were able to take on a reality that was almost breathtaking. No longer did the fields and trees, the hedges and the lanes serve only one purpose: to get to school and come back, to pass on the way to visit a friend. Now they lay scattered about the countryside with no evident logic, sometimes so near to each other that they might well have been embracing, at other times sprawling carelessly in a wanton manner, a cottage here, a house there. Everything was quite untidy, but so exciting, so new, so full of promise that it seemed to the fascinated Alexandra that each place, however small, must house someone or something that she had never seen before and yet (she was somehow completely certain) by which she might well become astonished.

  Her arrival at Knighton station filled her with a secret anxiety that she was keen not to show to the other much older passengers. Long before the train drew to a noisy, groaning stop and the porters pulled open the carriage doors for the passengers to alight, despite the fact that she had faithfully counted each stop – since she had been told by Mrs Chisholm that hers would be stop number ten – she nevertheless looked round anxiously for the name of the station before stepping carefully down, and leaving her suitcase behind her on the luggage rack. Realising her mistake she turned as the whistle was blown, flags waved, and the train drew away from the platform.

  I’ve left my suitcase on the train, I’ve left my suitcase on the train.

  As so often happened with Alexandra, the words would not come out, and she found herself staring dumbly into a strange face.

  ‘Anything the matter, miss?’

  The porter leaned so near to her that Alexandra could smell the tobacco on his breath and see that he still had a light white stubble under his nose where he had missed shaving that morning.

  I have left my suitcase on the train, I have left my suitcase on the train.

  Still the words would not come out.

  ‘Buck up, miss, can’t stand here all day.’

  Before Alexandra could finally speak she saw a board with her name on it being carried by a man in a peaked cap and long, pale rubberised riding macintosh that reached down well below his knees.

  ‘MISS ALEXANDRA STAMFORD’, the board read.

  ‘Th-th-that’s me!’ she finally spluttered, and ran towards the man with the board before he too, like her suitcase and the train, disappeared. ‘That’s me!’ she shouted from behind him, pulling at his arm as he started to turn away. ‘That’s me!’ she said again, pointing at his chalk board. ‘I-er – I am Miss Alexandra Stamford, from Lower Bridge Fer-fer Farm.’

  The man stared down at her from beneath his peaked cap.

  ‘Oh, so it is you. Good heavens you have grown up,’ he stated slowly, and then he smiled and took off his cap. ‘Welcome once more to Knighton,’ he said, shaking her hand slowly up and down. ‘It’s been so long, don’t suppose you could possibly remember me? I’m the estate manager, Douro Partridge. So glad you made it. Where’s your suitcase?’

  Alexandra stared up into his handsome face with its thick blond hair and kind blue eyes, and coloured furiously, for the good reason that she had, just for a second, thought it might be her Uncle Jamie, whom she could hardly remember.

  ‘It’s-it’s-it’s on the train, my suitcase. I left it on the train. I am so sorry, so very sorry,’ she managed finally.

  ‘And the train’s gone?’

  She nodded in an agony of embarrassment.

  ‘Don’t worry, Miss Stamford, we’ll soon fix that, really we will.’ He turned to the stationmaster. ‘Mr Blaize? Miss Stamford here has left her suitcase on the train. Telephone through to Gilcombe, will you? Ladies Only carriage, was it? That’s the ticket.’

  Alexandra nodded while at the same time shifting her weight from foot to foot. How could she have been so stupid? She had been so worried in case she would miss the stop, she had missed her suitcase instead.

  ‘Ladies Only carriage mind, Mr Blaize. Mr Blaize here will take care of everything. Your cousins are always leaving things on the train, he’s quite used to it, as you can imagine.’ He nodded towards the white-haired stationmaster and then smiled down reassuringly at Alexandra. ‘Your suitcase will come back to you via the station taxi at Gilcombe. Besides, you can always borrow some jim-jams from the other girls, can’t you?’

  Alexandra, who had only ever been allowed to wear nightdresses of the most formal nature, felt delightfully shocked – not just at the notion of wearing pyjamas for the first time, but also because Mr Partridge had mentioned them so casually. At Lower Bridge Farm no one mentioned underclothes, or night clothes, or anything like that. People went to the ‘aunt’ or ‘visited the cloakroom’ or had ‘unmentionables’.

  ‘Want to hop in beside me?’

  Outside the station stood an old battered pre-war motor car, very like that owned by Mrs Chisholm, although perhaps not so old as Mrs Chisholm’s, because this one started up first time, and they were able to sweep out of the station yard in splendid style, and so on to a country road, the first of many that finally led to the gates of Knighton Hall.

  ‘Nearly there!’ Mr Partridge nodded up at the two lead greyhounds that were poised on the stone gate pillars, before changing gear and shooting between them, and so up the beech-lined drive.

  Knighton Hall lay before them, its many windows reflecting the setting sun. To Alexandra it looked larger and even grander than she had remembered it, grand to the point of being daunting, whereas to Douro Partridge, who never confronted its façade without a feeling of being privileged to help look after it, it merely looked what it was: a beautiful gem.

  The house itself was set calmly against a backdrop of rich pastureland, of fields sprinkled with sheep, the distant acres beyond them finally ending with the sea, which on this particular calm winter’s afternoon looked as if someone had taken a brush and colour-washed it into the far horizon, especially for Alexandra’s coming.r />
  She stood and stared at the scene before her, and without realising it became so exalted by the beauty of what lay before them that she put both her gloved hands up to her face in an artless gesture of delight and joy. Douro glanced at her, smiling, but perhaps understanding how she felt, he too stood and stared at the loveliness before them, and it was a few seconds before he himself turned to go up to the front door, closely followed by the new visitor.

  ‘Hallo, Jeffryes,’ said Douro, as a black-coated butler opened the door to them.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Partridge.’ Jeffryes’s gaze slid from the estate manager’s face to Alexandra, who was now feeling nervous all over again. He walked towards her and bowed slightly, which made Alexandra feel both silly and awkward.

  ‘May I have the keys to your luggage, please, miss?’

  Alexandra went to speak, but Douro intervened.

  ‘Miss Stamford’s case was sent on in error by the porters at Knighton station, Jeffryes,’ he said, his hand moving to Alexandra’s shoulder to which he now gave an avuncular pat. ‘There’s hardly a day goes by at the moment without this happening.’

  Alexandra stared at the butler’s expressionless face, still overcome with shyness. She knew that Mr Partridge was lying on her behalf, so that she would not look stupid in front of the butler, and she felt so grateful to him.

  ‘May I take your coat, please, miss? And then perhaps you will care to follow me to the library, would you, please? Mrs Millington is taking tea there with Miss Jessamine and Miss Cyrene.’

  Alexandra made to step behind Douro, but he gently put his hand into the small of her back and indicated for her to be the first to follow the butler down the short, dark corridor lit only by a vast brass Gothic lantern, before he finally opened one of two double doors and announced them.

  ‘Miss Stamford and Mr Partridge, madam.’

  ‘Ah, Douro. Here at last, we have been waiting tea for you.’

  Tasha Millington nodded from the library fireplace where she was seated in front of an elegant silver teapot, hot water and milk jugs, a pair of King Charles spaniels at her feet, her two daughters seated opposite, seemingly sunk so deep into a button-back sofa that at first all that could be seen were their long white lacy-stockinged legs with silvered shoes. They were both wearing mauvey-silvery-coloured dresses that showed off their beautiful blonde hair, and holding plates with scones perched on them. Both also turned as one when Douro and Alexandra came into the room.

  ‘Girls, girls, look, here is your cousin Alexandra,’ Tasha cooed, and she patted her unsurprisingly immaculate hair, which she went once, sometimes twice a week to London to have styled, and which she was careful never to allow to become rain-sodden.

  Alexandra looked across at the fireplace and instantly became conscious that she was dressed in a jumper and skirt that she was well aware were far too young for her, not to mention heavy stockings and shoes; and that was all before it came to the hem on her skirt, which, although it had been let down some time ago, still showed the lines where the previous hems had been, and which their cook Mavis had said never would come out.

  Tasha stared at the new arrival, taking in the visitor upon whose shoulder Douro had once again placed a reassuring and avuncular hand. They had only once had Jamie’s niece to stay and that was many years before, when she was quite small. Now she could not help staring at the daughter of poor silly Laura who had married in such haste and never even, poor girl, had time to regret at leisure – since she had died in childbirth barely ten months after her wedding to John Stamford.

  ‘Hallo, Alexandra,’ she went on to Alexandra in as kind a voice as it was possible to use without sounding either accusing or patronising.

  Alexandra looked up at Douro as if to confirm that she was indeed the right girl, and then across at Tasha.

  ‘Ye-s.’

  ‘Come and sit down in front of the fire. I expect you’d love a cup of tea and a scone, wouldn’t you?’

  Alexandra walked across the old polished boards that led up to the cosy scene placed so securely in front of the chimneypiece. She was aware that her shoes were making a clumping sound and her thick lisle stockings looked as heavy as chain mail compared to the lacy white stockings of the other two, that her wool skirt and jumper were bulky and hot compared to their mauvey-silvery dresses, and her long dark hair pulled back under her black velvet Alice band, although washed and clean, was nothing compared to their perfectly ordered blonde hair drawn carefully back at the sides and tied at the back with matching mauvey ribbons, the whole set above ringlets tumbling down their backs.

  ‘Shake hands with your cousin, girls – do.’

  Two pairs of greenish eyes turned on Alexandra, and two white hands whose wrists were identically decorated with seed pearl bracelets were obediently extended. Alexandra held out what looked like a brown paw, for her hands were still tanned from helping with the harvest in the now long past summer.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Hallo, Alexandra, years since we met, isn’t it?’

  The taller one was Jessamine, and her sister, younger by two years, was Cyrene. Alexandra knew this all too well for whenever a Christmas or birthday card for Alexandra had arrived at Lower Bridge Farm her grandmother would say, over and over again until Alexandra could have screamed, ‘Did you ever hear the like? I mean, did you? I’ve had cows with more sensible names than those.’

  As if to make up for the girls’ high-flown names the next visitors to the teatime scene were the two Millington boys, Anthony and Rufus, the last named being inevitably redhaired.

  They were tall like their sisters, and judging by the sober cut and hue of their clothes undoubtedly older by a few years. In fact they were so tall that when they walked across to shake hands with her they seemed to Alexandra to be staring down at her as if they were two Irish wolfhounds, and she some sort of small farm terrier.

  ‘We’ve met you before, haven’t we, cousin? We’ve met her before, haven’t we, Douro? We’ve met Alexandra before.’

  Anthony Millington turned back to his father’s estate manager for confirmation while his brother stared in some fascination at their countrified cousin in her cumbersome clothes, so different from those of his sisters.

  ‘Yes, I believe you have,’ Douro agreed, carefully returning his teacup to the silver tray in front of the fire. He looked across at the two boys as if to say, ‘Behave yourselves, you understand?’ and then he said to Tasha, who was once more sipping a cup of tea with lemon and no sugar, ‘Alexandra’s suitcase was sent on by mistake to Gilcombe, so Mr Blaize at Knighton is having it sent back here. If the suitcase doesn’t arrive in time I think she will have to borrow some clothes for dinner tonight, and some night things too, of course.’

  There was a small silence lasting only a few seconds while all eyes seemed to Alexandra to have focused not just on her, which was bad enough, but on her woollen jumper and skirt, on her thick stockings and her chunky slip-on shoes.

  ‘How vexing for you for the suitcase to go on without you. Nevertheless, I am sure we can manage something for you, can’t we, girls? Yes, we can lend her some clothes,’ Tasha agreed, smiling with sudden relief at the idea that she could take what Alexandra was wearing off and replace the clothes with something a great deal more in keeping with her surroundings. ‘We will take her up to the day nurseries and find her something charming.’ She smiled effortlessly at her husband’s niece, hardly able to contain her impatience until Jamie came home, already imagining what she would say to him on the subject of ‘poor little Alexandra Stamford’. Meanwhile the four Millington children tried not to stare at their cousin and ask the question, ‘Why is she so different from us?’

  Later Tasha was able to attack her husband on the subject of his impoverished-looking niece.

  ‘It was just as I said it would be if we left her to be brought up at Lower Bridge Farm, just what I predicted. The poor girl has no clothes. She is in rags, Jamie darling, but rags. And as for her lisle s
tockings and clumpy shoes, well, it makes you wonder, really it does. I mean, the arrogance of the Stamfords in thinking that they could bring up your poor sister’s child in keeping with her Millington background. If it weren’t so tragic it would be funny, really it would. As it was I was in an agony of embarrassment all the time we were having library tea, in absolute agony thinking all the time that one or other of the children would come out with something appalling, but they were very good, I have to say, they truly were. Not that they could help staring. You can’t blame them. The poor girl looks so rustic.’

  ‘Well, that is only to be expected, after all.’

  They both enjoyed having these sorts of conversations every evening, usually as they were busy changing for dinner. When at Knighton and dining only with the family Jamie compromised, changing into a richly coloured velvet jacket rather than evening dress, one of three or four that he kept for informal dinners at home. Tasha’s choices were also informal, usually some sort of decorous evening skirt, worn, as on this particular evening, with a long-sleeved lace blouse underneath a black velvet waistcoat.

  ‘How are her manners?’

  A small silence followed in deference to the fact that Tasha was applying a softly pink lipstick. Finally, after staring at her upper and bottom lip solemnly and separately, she pressed them together, before turning to face her husband.

  ‘What did you say, darling?’

  ‘I asked how her manners are. Is Alexandra nicely mannered? We don’t want her infecting the other girls with bad ways.’

  ‘Oh. Her manners? Oh, they are fine. No, she seems really very well mannered, her manners are perfect, she is courteous to a fault. It’s just that she has a pronounced hesitation. Not a stammer, no, just a small hesitation, but still I can see it makes it difficult for her. She seems to find it hard to start up sentences but once she has she is perfectly all right, and she has certainly not gone feral like your poor cousin Ashton who, really, one would not know from the man who lives with a pig down the lane, would one?’