The Magic Hour

by Charlotte Bingham

  Jamie stared at himself in the mirror. He had to admit that he would have given up the fight to see his sister’s child long ago, if it hadn’t been for Tasha. She had been stalwart, to say the least, battling on, no matter what, determined to get her way, not letting up; above all not letting the Stamfords have it all their own way. It was quite something to have the poor girl under their roof at Knighton Hall, if only for a week.

  ‘I must go and find a dress for the poor young woman. She left her suitcase on the train. Not that it matters, because judging from her clothes it does not look as if the arrival of the suitcase is going to improve matters very much – I mean she would have had to borrow something suitable for dinner anyway. We’re going to have to buy her better clothes, Jamie. If it’s the last thing we do, we’re going to have to do that. Not to beat about the bush, she looks frightful.’

  ‘So you said, darling, so you said.’

  Jamie nodded again at himself in his dressing mirror and watched Tasha giving a final brush to her shoulder-length blonde hair. They were really very lucky, most especially compared to his poor sister Laura. Awful for her dying like that, just as she was having a baby too. If only she had not married on the rebound, which when all was said and done was one of the worst reasons for getting hitched. He sighed, and finally shut the intervening door between their two dressing rooms before going slowly down the shallow steps of the beautifully carved staircase to the library, where Jeffryes was waiting to mix him a perfect cocktail. He never did like to think of his sister being dead, but she was, and nothing to be done about it except try to bring her daughter more into line, make her more sophisticated, as Tasha had just indicated.

  Alexandra reappeared behind Jessamine and Cyrene wearing a black velvet dress that was one of Cyrene’s discards. She now also sported white stockings with gold pumps, all also discards. She felt strange, as if she were not herself, as if she had fallen down a rabbit hole and turned into someone or something else. She was also painfully aware that no matter what, she would never be able to display the sophistication of the other two girls, both of whom had declined to talk to her, except when their mother had appeared on the scene, at which point they had talked to their mother over Alexandra’s head.

  ‘Sit down over in the window and Jeffryes will bring you a drink, darlings,’ Tasha now commanded them. All three did as told, sitting demurely in the bay of the window on slim plum-coloured velvet cushions.

  Alexandra was grateful for the glass of iced lemonade offered to her by the butler, because she felt hotter than she had ever felt before and it wasn’t just because of the immense fire burning in the grate filled with vast logs from around the estate. It was because she was afraid that her Uncle Jamie would ask her a public question, and that because of her hesitation, she would take an age to answer it. Happily for both of them he seemed more interested in hearing about the girls’ recent trip to London, the play they had seen, the friends they had visited. Alexandra listened attentively, knowing that their conversation echoed a life that she might never know.

  Finally when her uncle did turn round he came straight across to her and said abruptly, ‘Hallo, Alexandra. Don’t get up, and don’t say a word.’

  He kissed her lightly on the cheek and stood back smiling, yet as he did so Alexandra knew at once that Aunt Tasha must have warned him that Alexandra had a hesitation. Her uncle was relieving her of embarrassment, and that was very nice of him, but at the same time it was terrible too, and made her feel hotter and more awkward than ever. Now she felt quite sure that she would never, ever be able to open her mouth again, that her hesitation was going to be all too evident for the rest of her stay at Knighton Hall.

  The Oik

  ‘Thomas O’Brien?’

  Tom looked up from sawing yet another log for their cottage fire, the only form of heating that he and his mother were able to allow themselves.

  ‘Yes?’

  Tom turned to see another, older young man standing watching him. He knew at once from his long white apron and striped trousers that he must be the new under-butler at the house.

  ‘It’s your mother, Mrs O’Brien. She’s fallen down again. Them up at the house, they wants you to come and collect her.’

  Tom flung down his saw and ran outside to the yard where his truest friend, his bicycle, lay propped against the water pump. It was only as he was standing up on his pedals cycling as fast as he could up the drive towards the great house that he realised he had nothing in which to bring his mother home.

  Crikey!

  Nevertheless, he pedalled on, circling the beautiful exterior of Knighton Hall and finally arriving at the entrance that served the servants. He flung himself down the steps, ignoring the elegant iron railings, bursting through the half-glassed oak double doors at the bottom, along the boot room, which always smelt of a pleasant mix of damp clothing and horses, through the gold-studded green baize door and into the large, well-lit kitchens, the main one of which was where his mother reigned supreme every day of the week, except Sunday afternoon.

  ‘Ma? Ma?’

  The other staff looked up from mixing bowls and drying cloths, and one of them nodded towards the door that led to the flower room. Slowing only so that he did not jog the arm of someone intent on whipping up a soufflé or drying a cut-glass decanter, Tom half ran, half walked through the door indicated, and finally into the relevant room.

  It was a room lit from above to enable the all-important matter of ‘flowers for the house’ to be done with maximum attention to colour. A pair of butlers’ sinks with old brass taps stood in the centre of one wall, flanked on either side by wooden draining boards; opposite these was a chair. In the chair lay his mother; her thin body sprawled against the headrests, her grey hair falling back, her eyes closed.

  ‘Ma? Ma?’

  Tom leaned over knowing all too well what to expect, and having had his expectations amply fulfilled, he went back through the doors to the main kitchen.

  ‘Black coffee, please, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  There was complete silence as one of the staff peeled away from the big wooden table and went towards the place where kettles were boiled and coffee and tea made all through the day, and sometimes, when the family were entertaining, part of the night.

  Mary, who acted as housekeeper as well as undertaking many other unofficial personal and domestic duties for Tasha Millington, passed Tom a large breakfast cup of black coffee.

  ‘Get that down her soon as you can, Tom,’ she told him in a kindly voice.

  Tom nodded and turned away. He would actually have liked to run back to the flower room, but the coffee made it difficult, so he walked as fast as he could, and as he passed through the far-end baize door using his backside in the accepted manner to propel himself through to the other side, he could hear his heart beating, a positive bongo drum of a sound in his ears. He had so, so hoped that this time, this situation at Knighton Hall would put an end to his mother’s drinking. It was not just for her sake, it was for his sake too. If she got the push from Knighton Hall, it would mean that Tom too would get the push, and God knows she would probably never get another position as good, and nor would Tom.

  ‘Ma? Ma?’

  The third time he bellowed ‘Ma!’ he put his hand into the small of her back, trying to force her to sit up, but to no avail. Ma was intent on remaining unconscious.

  ‘Passed out again, has she?’ asked a voice from the door.

  Tom turned slowly and, seeing who it was, he paled.

  ‘Look, sit her up. I’ll help you. If we can get her walking, walking, walking, it will start to bring her round.’

  Anthony Millington, the eldest boy of the house, was not as tall as Tom, who was already well over six feet, but with him on the other side of Ma, they were able to force her to walk, despite the fact that her head was sunk on her chest, and her feet seemed to be paddling the air rather than the floor.

  ‘Come on, Mrs O’Brien, come on!’

  Ant
hony stopped walking and yelled at her.

  ‘Black coffee time, that’ll do it. I swear I saw consciousness in her eyes.’

  They propped her up in the chair once more and started to try to pour the black coffee down her. Unfortunately most of it ran down into the collar of her prim navy-blue white-collared cook’s frock.

  ‘Stay there, I’ll get some more.’

  Anthony hurried off while Tom, taking ruthless advantage of his absence, promptly started to slap his mother gently round the face while yelling into her ear, ‘Ma!’

  Tom was not a coward and he did not lack grit, but as he sat back on his heels waiting for Anthony Millington to return with yet more coffee he could have burst into tears. He had so hoped that his mother would now be on the straight and narrow, that she would have taken note, finally and for ever, of the fact that she suffered from a medical condition that meant she must never, ever taste alcohol again.

  Anthony came back with not just a fresh cup of coffee but a whole tray laid with a full pot, and after patiently feeding the slowly galvanising Mrs O’Brien, it seemed that she was finally able to recognise not just Tom, but the room in which they were both crouched around her chair.

  ‘What am I doing here?’

  Anthony could not help feeling amused that Mrs O’Brien, in common with most cooks, spoke with a patrician accent, although unlike most cooks she was neither fat nor even plump, but alarmingly thin.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs O’Brien, you just passed out. All the heat in the kitchen, I expect. Best if you had the rest of the night off.’

  Anthony caught Tom’s eye, giving him a significant look as if to say, ‘Get her out of here quick if you know what’s good for either of you.’

  ‘Tom here’s going to take you home now, and he will tuck you up with a hot-water bottle and a couple of aspirin, and in the morning you will be quite back to your old self.’

  Tom stood up and walked with Anthony to the door. They hardly knew each other, and they would not expect to know each other, seeing that Tom was merely the cook’s boy, boot boy, lad of all work and heaven only knew what else.

  ‘Take her home, Tom,’ Anthony advised, ‘and no more to be said about it, eh?’ He leaned forward and whispered in Tom’s ear. ‘I shan’t say a word. Can’t do without Mrs O’Brien’s chocolate cake, let alone her haddock soufflé, know what I mean?’

  Tom smiled nervously, at the same time pushing his hand through the front of his thick dark hair.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Anthony.’

  Anthony patted him on the arm.

  ‘She’ll be fine in the morning, you’ll see.’

  Tom looked after him as he swung back through the gold-studded baize door and the look of longing in his eyes was speaking. What must it be like to be part of a family that never had to deal with a drunken mother? What must it be like to be upstairs laughing and talking, not trying, as he would be in a few minutes’ time, to hold his mother up as they walked home in the rain to the workman’s cottage that was their home, to a cold bare room that had few tokens of wealth, only a calendar, a brass vase filled with limp leaves, and a rug of indeterminate colour?

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom, there must have been some tiddly in the sauce. I had to taste it because Joan, who as you know normally does the tasting for me, was off with a cold. But, well, you know what Dr Bradley said the other day, it only takes a little bit, and I’m off again. I really and truly must be more careful.’

  It was the next morning and Tom was standing by the door that gave on to the small road up which he would now be bicyling to work once more. Pedalling up the long drive towards the Hall, pushing his bicycle round to the sheds where he would once again start chopping logs and clearing leaves, doing all the tasks that the other gardeners were in the habit of passing off on him, simply because they knew he depended so much on staying employed, seeing that he had no credentials, that, as everyone on the estate knew, he was only employed as a dogsbody and second groom because his mother had recently arrived as the cook at the big house.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma, you’ll be all right now, see if you’re not.’

  Tom turned and looked at his pale-faced mother. Sometimes he felt as if he knew what it was like to be St Christopher, fording an everlasting river of life with his mother on his back.

  ‘I must hurry, so much to be done – the stock for the soup.’ She rushed back to her own tiny kitchen where, from early dawn, she was in the habit of preparing stocks for the big house. ‘Mary will be calling in to fetch me and there’ll be nothing done, must hurry.’

  Tom cycled slowly up the long drive back to his workplace feeling strangely light without his mother. As he did so he gazed around him at the beauty that was Knighton. In the early-morning light, with the mist rising, it presented itself in a manner so magical that it made his young heart turn over. As he passed a bird sang out from some almost leafless tree, and a robin hopped near to the hard gravel of the drive. Soon the light would grow much stronger, and he would not need his bicycle lamp, but at the moment the small spill on the already visible road ahead of him was a warming sight. With his thin trousers and socks that nowadays reached only a little way up his legs, his chapped hands, and his icy-cold cheeks, just the sight of that yellowy-pinky-whitey light was a comfort, just as his breath on the frosty air was a signal that despite being half asleep and frozen, although his heart felt leaden after a night spent worrying about his mother, at least he was still alive. And, greatest of all good fortunes, there was a whole day of work ahead of him, a day when he would be paid, when he would be fed, when his mother would be paid, when his mother would be fed, and no more of that untamable animal known as hunger would be allowed to gnaw away at his insides.

  It was when she was passing their bedroom door as they were dressing to go for a ride that Alexandra overheard the girls talking.

  ‘Have you asked poor Alexandra to tell the oik to get the horses ready for us?’

  First she heard Jessamine’s voice followed by her sister’s gentler tone.

  ‘You know I did. I told you that. I asked her just now. She’s just gone. By the way, Jess, what is an oik exactly? And why do you always call the new boy that?’

  ‘An oik is someone who is not one of us, someone of the lower orders, someone just like Tom. They will never be asked to dinner by people like us because they are common.’

  ‘Oh poor oiks, how horrid. I should hate not to be asked, it would make me feel so—’

  ‘Oiky!’

  They both laughed and as they did Alexandra, who had doubled back to her own bedroom to snatch up a scarf and gloves, pelted down the stairs away from the sound of their mockery.

  Once outside she found herself running towards the discreet green-painted sign that indicated where the stables lay, as Cyrene had directed, feeling all too excited at the prospect of seeing the horses. As she ran through the archway that led to the yard she stopped, suddenly silenced, for if Knighton Hall was impressive, its stable yard was awe-inspiring, as beautiful as anything she had yet seen: a large cobbled square with stone-built boxes dominated by a clock tower. It seemed to Alexandra that it must be a paradise for both horses and riders. She gazed round her, momentarily forgetting that she was meant to be finding the unkindly named oik, and instead walked towards the thoroughbreds that were now turning their beautiful heads towards the sound of her footsteps as they echoed across the ancient cobblestones. Summoned by their interest Alexandra began to visit each one in silent reverence, and as she stroked their necks with tender care, a voice spoke from behind her.

  ‘’Im there, that’s Merryman, and ’im there, that’s Tobias.’

  Alexandra turned to find herself facing an old groom, tweed cap set straight on his head, small, shrewd blue eyes staring out first at her and then at the horse. Despite his great age and bowed legs he was dressed in excellently cut jodhpurs and half-boots, and a tweed jacket that even Alexandra knew was always described as ‘rat-catcher’.

  ‘Do you ride?’
he asked in a pleasant North Country voice.

  Alexandra shook her head.

  ‘No-o, not really, but I love horses.’

  ‘I’m Westrup.’ He held out a gnarled hand. ‘I’ve looked after ’orses ’ere, man and boy.’

  His expression was proud, which Alexandra could well understand. She turned back to the shining head and neck that was reaching towards her over the door breathing out smells of sweet hay, bran and corn.

  ‘The chestnut is such a lovely colour, I love liver chestnut. They want the lad to get them ready for them, Miss Jessamine and Miss Cyrene that is, and as soon as possible, please. They are going for a ride,’ she added quickly, and rather unnecessarily.

  ‘Oh aye.’

  Westrup turned quickly back towards the tack room, Alexandra following him. Here was another breathtaking sight: a large wood-panelled room, the sides steeped with racks of shining saddles and pegged bridles hanging alongside rows of brass-studded halters, leather lead ropes, and every other kind of tack, each item seeming to be beckoning to the people below to admire their shining rows.

  ‘Cou-could I help you?’

  It was back, the hesitation, but not so noticeable, she did not think, that Mr Westrup would be embarrassed by it, as so many people could be.

  ‘If you like – but our Tom should be ’ere any moment, probably running errands for one of those benighted—’ He stopped. ‘Doubtless ’e’ll be ’ere any moment, like, meanwhile we’ll get on with ’is job, shall we?’

  He nodded at the tack and then at Alexandra to stand closer to help carry the bridles, his expression disinterested, as if he was quite used to people coming into the stables to help him. After that she gave a little sigh of happiness and held out her hands to help carry the bridles and martingales.

  She stood behind Westrup as he laid the saddle on the back of each horse, sliding it carefully from the neck to the centre with tender care, noting how both horses seemed to open their mouths long before he proffered them their bits, bits which he had carefully pre-warmed between his two hands.