The scones were still giving off the heat of the oven and the smell was irresistible. No one else had yet come downstairs and Evangeline helped herself, adding a dollop of butter that was absorbed into the doughy surface. Her mouth was still full when Philip walked in and caught her eyeing the envelope.
“Is that for me?” Philip asked, trying to conceal his irritation, knowing Evangeline received little from the postman other than a forwarded copy of the American magazine Good Housekeeping.
“Oh I am sorry. It’s for Joan, actually, but of course it is for you to open. I was just struck by the unusual colour of the ink.” Evangeline began as a couple of half-chewed sultanas tumbled out of her mouth onto the white tablecloth.
“Not green ink is it?” Philip asked as he turned to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot sitting on the electric hotplate.
“More like emerald, I think you might say,” Evangeline replied examining the envelope more closely.
Philip came over to the table, raised a puzzled eyebrow at the sight of the scones swaddled in their snowy napkin, and took the envelope from Evangeline. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room struck nine times. Philip opened the envelope and read the contents. Only after he had swallowed a mouthful of coffee did he speak.
“Myrtle, damn it. I might have wondered when we would hear from her. And just when things were settling down, what with you here to cheer me up,” this last phrase inserted just in case he had upset his wife’s goddaughter by any earlier brusqueness. God knows Evangeline meant well, even if she got in the way sometimes. The other evening he had run into John Reith in their club. John wanted Philip’s view on a confidential matter. At a recent lunch at Claridge’s a mutual friend, Lady Reading, had suggested John would make a good ambassador to Washington.
“Excellent plan, my dear fellow,” Philip had exclaimed. “Although I sometimes wonder if there are any Americans left over there. They seem to have descended on this country in droves.”
They had both laughed a little at the eccentric ways of Joan’s American goddaughter.
“Expert in poison of all things, so it seems!” John had remarked, adding however that the beauty of her voice was an asset none could deny. Philip had been grateful to share a word with someone else about his houseguest’s strange and often infuriating ways. Worryingly, Evangeline had not spoken of any plans to return home to America and out of loyalty to his poor wife, who was so fond of this large bewigged woman, Philip felt reluctant to raise the subject.
“You know all about Myrtle, Joan’s elder sister, don’t you?” he said to Evangeline at the breakfast table. “Need I expand on the reasons why we always fear the arrival of a communication written in green ink?”
Philip was half smiling but Evangeline could see he was rattled. And from her conversations with Lady Cynthia Asquith she knew why. No one else on this earth was capable of unnerving Joan or Philip to the degree that Myrtle was. Unlike Joan’s younger sister, Grace, whose death and its consequences had at times blighted the spirits of the entire Blunt household, Myrtle had rarely been part of their family life either in general conversation or in bodily presence. Throughout her adulthood Myrtle had demonstrated her supercilious manners. She hated anything that smacked of “modern ways,” especially those adopted by people who should know their place. For example she could not abide “hatches” that linked a kitchen with a dining room.
“What’s the difficulty in carrying the plates through a door, I ask? Oh no. Nowadays people knock a hole in a wall instead and save themselves the effort. Typical newfangled laziness is what I call it.”
The foul-tempered Lady Myrtle Bradley had lived on her own in a tiny village in Yorkshire since her own tragedy of the war years had condemned her to spinsterhood. There had been a fiancé but his position at the controls of one of the new tanks had not protected him from the jagged fragment of shrapnel that had sliced into him from ground level. Joan had never felt her sister to be sufficiently distressed by the loss of Jack. In fact, Joan had always wondered if her sister was capable of feeling anything at all for another human being. An exchange of Christmas cards now formed the extent of the two sisters’ contact with one another. Goodness knows what Myrtle did with herself all day up there in Yorkshire. There had been talk that she was involved with a group of keep-fit fanatics, a current rage in parts of the country. Myrtle had always been an outdoorsy type. In her late twenties, before meeting Jack, she had been one of the first to adopt the bifurcated skirt in order to sit more comfortably astride her bicycle as she pedalled the lanes around their childhood home in Hampshire with a couple of like-minded young women. Her chief reading material consisted of Time and Tide magazine and printed lists of garden bulbs. Joan knew this because Myrtle had once asked Joan to save her any catalogues she no longer had use for at Cuckmere.
“Too tight to take out a subscription herself, you see,” Joan had explained to Vera when she asked her to make sure that any out-of-date gardening publications were sent on up to Lady Myrtle in Yorkshire.
“Certainly, my lady,” Vera had replied, before embarking on quite a correspondence with Lady Myrtle, comparing the fertility levels of the peaty soil in Yorkshire with the chalky earth down on the south coast. Last year this unlikely connection had encouraged Vera to take a few days of her holiday up in Yorkshire. She planned to visit the minster and perhaps call in on Lady Myrtle and make her acquaintance in person.
“Lady Myrtle was most accommodating and we spent a very enjoyable time together in her garden,” Vera reported on her return, her dry upper lip twitching as she spoke.
After Joan suffered her stroke, Philip had written to his sister-in-law. The letter was as friendly as he could make it, but he explained that medical advice cautioned against any new visitors until Joan regained consciousness. Even though Joan had recently been moved to the cottage hospital, a meeting between the sisters at this time would not benefit either Joan or Myrtle. Joan would be oblivious to Myrtle’s presence and the sight of her unresponsive sister would inevitably distress Myrtle.
It was therefore with surprise, alarm and displeasure that the letter in the distinctive green ink indicated that Myrtle would be coming down to Sussex this week. Myrtle fancied a spell near the south coast. She had been feeling a little anaemic of late and thought the sea air might invigorate her. Philip looked up from the letter, lowering his glasses onto the tip of his nose.
“She has no telephone. An unnecessary expense, she thinks. And of course she’s too mean to pay for a telegram. She is breaking her journey by staying in her club at Hyde Park Corner, an all-female establishment if my information serves me correctly. And then she will take the train from Victoria arriving at Polegate station on Friday afternoon. And that’s tomorrow.”
Philip put the letter down, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“She really is the giddy limit, Evangeline. A visit will not be at all convenient or indeed welcome at this time. The children are away in Berlin. I am spending several nights at Chequers in discussion with the PM and am not planning to return until after the weekend.”
Evangeline could feel his anger getting the better of him. She offered him a scone but he waved the basket away.
“Mrs. Cage and Florence leave for Bognor Regis tomorrow,” he continued, his voice rising, “and Hooch is already off for his annual break with his brother up in Holkham. Cooky is going to visit that strange vicar friend of hers in Winchester. Thank God, London Cook is on duty. I suppose I could spare her to come down here for a day or two while I am away but that only leaves the two daily cleaning ladies to hold the Fort at home and May to take Myrtle to and from the hospital.”
“Why not let me stand in?” Evangeline interrupted. “Explain to Myrtle that you are busy this weekend. It’s the truth, after all.”
Putting his glasses back on, Philip looked doubtfully at Evangeline.
“Trust me, Philip. I assure you May and I can manage Myrtle together. Don’t bother London Cook. Ma
y is perfectly capable of preparing the odd dish or two; she learned how on that sugary island of hers. Something that involves beans and rice I believe, and I daresay I could try and lend her a hand. What do you say?”
Philip looked at her, his cheeks doing that curious nervous thing of puffing in and out that she had seen him do when he was about to interview Rupert about some misdemeanour or was preparing for a difficult talk with a senior politician. The cheek puffing was Joan’s habit too. Strange how husbands and wives picked up each other’s little ticks.
“Well I don’t know. I mean I suppose it is an idea. Could you really manage? I mean Myrtle may well be more than even you can chew, if you get my meaning,” he added, feeling an explanation for the phrase might be called for.
Evangeline was insistent. “I have heard she can be a handful but I have handled more than one difficult woman in my time, believe me.”
“Well, you are certainly confident, I will say that for you,” said Philip, his acquiescence to the plan implicit in his air of relieved gratitude.
Evangeline took a bite from a tepid scone, filtering her words though flour-smeared lips. “After all that you and Joan have done for me, it is pleasure to be able to help.” And in a gesture that demonstrated her new sense of purpose Evangeline picked up the small brass hand bell that lay at Philip’s place and rang it.
A moment later Cooky put her head round the door.
“Could you be so kind as to find Miss May please and ask her to come in for a moment?”
Philip excused himself to get ready for Chequers and the smile on Evangeline’s face remained long after he had left the room. If she could not be appreciated by either Wallis or Julian then at least the kindly husband of her poor godmother understood her worth.
On the afternoon of Myrtle’s arrival things had not quite gone to plan. A taxi had been waiting at the front door when May returned from taking Sir Philip to Chequers, packed tight with Mrs. Cage and Florence’s holiday luggage, including the red bucket and spade that May had bought Florence from the little stand in the Cuckmere post office a few days earlier.
Evangeline had gone with May to post a card to her brother in Baltimore and meeting Mrs. Jenkins for the first time had been taken aback by the postmistress’s remark about May having a touch of the tar brush about her. May had ignored Mrs. Jenkins and bustled Evangeline out of the post office but not quickly enough to prevent her from hearing a comment about large sunhats failing to disguise overweight women.
Florence had been in a foul mood for a week, despite being allowed to wear shorts for the first time that summer. Shorts were her favourite article of clothing, their appearance from the drawer proving that the school term had finally come to an end. But Florence announced she hated making sandcastles so what was the point of the bucket? Sandcastles were for boys or sissies. And anyway there was almost no sand at all on Pagham Beach. It was covered in nasty pebbles. She had hated the pebbles last year and was certainly going to hate them again this time.
Everyone had noticed how Florence had recently been hanging around the kitchen, watching Cooky make junket. Florence had always made her hatred of junket clear, the slimy consistency reminding her that the only time she was forced to eat it was when she was ill. A freshly made bowl of the slippery pudding had become a familiar sight in the Cuckmere kitchen since Lady Joan’s illness and despite Lady Joan’s recent absence in hospital, Cooky had continued to make quantities of the stuff just in case her ladyship returned at short notice. On the day before her departure on holiday Florence had been helping herself from Cooky’s mixing bowl. It was as if she wished to behave in a manner as contrary to her true self as possible.
Mrs. Cage had already issued her daughter with a warning that if she did not pull herself together she would remove Florence’s swimsuit from the suitcase and there would be no swimming at Pagham. There were girls who would give their ruddy eyeteeth to be taken on holiday, Mrs. Cage told her sharply. Florence didn’t know what a lucky girl she was. This reprimand resulted in a sullen look and a sharp kick of the green baize-covered door. Florence’s sulky restlessness continued right up until the moment of departure when May stood by the taxi to see them off.
“Have a lovely time, darling,” she said, bending down to kiss Florence, whose curly hair was for once free of restraining elastic bands and ribbons. “Enjoy the swimming, won’t you?”
Florence looked down at the driveway, refusing to catch May’s eye. Threaded through the loops of Florence’s shorts was a belt with an unusual but somehow familiar buckle, marked with a circle and a line like a pictorial flash of lightning inscribed through the centre of it.
“What a lovely belt!” May said. “Is it your special holiday belt?”
But Florence said nothing, and with a low-slung wave of her hand got into the car beside her mother looking miserable.
May went to her room to change into her chauffeur’s uniform. On her pillow was an envelope containing a photograph. The note that accompanied it was short.
“This is where I have got to go, again.”
May picked up the photograph. Florence, looking a little younger than she had a few moments ago, was standing on a pebbled beach surrounded by a group of smiling women dressed in black. Florence was wearing her shorts and the unusual belt was looped through the waistband of her shorts. May turned the picture over. “Pagham, 1935” was written in pencil on the back. She looked back at the picture, studying it closely. All at once she recognised the symbol on Florence’s belt. She had seen the same one on the Blackshirt belts at Mosley’s meeting in Oxford’s town hall. May put the picture in her trouser pocket and went down to the garage to fetch the car. For a moment she considered showing the photograph to Mr. Hooch. And then she remembered his response to Sir Oswald Mosley’s visit to Cuckmere and decided against the idea.
May and Evangeline arrived on the platform at Polegate just in time to see the train from London draw into the station. It had been Evangeline’s suggestion that they face Myrtle together from the beginning to the end of her visit, although it did not seem quite right to May. The proper thing would have been for May to meet Lady Myrtle in her capacity as chauffeur and for Miss Nettlefold to stay behind to greet Lady Myrtle as the acting lady of the house. However, Miss Nettlefold had insisted on coming to the station.
“It’s the sort of things friends do together,” she had said firmly.
The tall woman who came towards them with the same lengthy strides as Lady Joan was unmistakably a Bradley. But the similarity in carriage between the two sisters was not replicated in their choice of dress. Instead of the elegant silk and wool femininity of the woman who lay in a coma in a nearby hospital, here was a figure dressed for an afternoon on horseback or for a spot of weeding, in her tweed jacket, knee breeches and sturdy brown lace-up boots. With a copy of Time and Tide magazine tucked under her arm, in one hand Lady Myrtle held a thick walking stick and a metal birdcage in the other.
“Nice suit,” was her opening remark to May as her eyes travelled the length of May’s willowy body. “Glad to see you take your professional duties seriously. And who on earth are you?”
Myrtle’s deep voice was directed at Evangeline and had a strong hint of the northern accent that May had heard used by the sailors on the sugar consignment ship to Liverpool.
“I am Evangeline Nettlefold, your sister’s goddaughter from America,” Evangeline began.
“Oh yes. The overweight charity case.” Myrtle spoke in short truncated sentences as if she was economising within a telegram. “Well, make yourselves useful. The reading material. Remove it, please. Now,” she said, indicating to May that she expected her to retrieve the magazine from beneath her armpit. “Difficult business with my sister. Mind you, hardly ever see her. What a chatterbox she is. Relief to know she has shut up for a while.” And then, sensing disapproval, she rather surprisingly corrected herself. “Mustn’t speak ill of the ill, I suppose.”
In no time they reached the long drivew
ay up to the house.
“Not a bad place. Typical of Philip not to be here to show me round. Hasn’t turned up to see me for years. And no sign of that stuck-up nephew of mine or his idiotic sister? Some things to be grateful for, I suppose. Hand me Dorothea,” Lady Myrtle said, indicating the birdcage on the backseat. “Don’t want her gnawing at the bars,” she added as she strode through the front door.
The canary was tossed from one side of the cage to the other, and May feared for its well-being within its hurdy-gurdy transport. Inside the hall Evangeline disappeared for a moment, only to reappear breathing heavily and pushing a trolley across the uneven flagstones. When Mrs. Cage was at home, the trolley was only used in the passages behind the kitchen baize door. But in the housekeeper’s absence Evangeline had laid it with cups and saucers on the upper level and a large cake on the bottom shelf and brought it upstairs.
“Good gracious,” cried the visitor. “A hostess trolley? Whatever next? Permission to dunk pieces of cake in the tea, I suppose.”
However she declared herself satisfied with the chocolate cake that Cooky had baked before her departure, and ate two slices before asking to be shown the way to the garden.
“Would you like May to take you over to the hospital to see Joan?” Evangeline asked. “It’s only a mile down the road.”
“No, thank you very much. That particular engagement can wait a while,” Myrtle replied. “It’s not as if my sister’s going anywhere, is it? No, I am going out to the garden. It’s no good waiting around inside a stuffy house all day. I will see you later.”
Lady Myrtle walked onto the terrace, leaving Evangeline and May staring after her. She seemed to know her way through the garden as if she had studied a plan of it. Ducking under the rose arch, and turning left at the red-tiled dovecot, she strode off in the direction of the pond and disappeared from sight. Inside the house, Dorothea began to weep in her stuffy cage. May longed to open the door of the cage and release her. She could not imagine why Lady Myrtle kept such a bird, unless it was to derive pleasure from its beautiful singing voice, and May doubted whether Dorothea had sung freely for a long time.
Abdication: A Novel Page 22
