Home for Christmas (22 page)

On hearing the door open, she looked over her shoulder, wearing a surprised expression on her face.

‘So what was it like? Did you see Master Robert land?’

When Agnes didn’t answer, she straightened and turned round and was alarmed to see her daughter looking pale as a waxwork mannequin, both hands resting on a chair back, eyes downcast.

‘Are you ill?’ asked her mother, while holding her wooden spoon as though she would smite whatever was afflicting her daughter.

Agnes shook her head and swallowed the lump that had been sitting in her throat.

‘Robert Ravening and Lydia are a ravishing couple, don’t you think?’

Sarah’s jaw dropped. So did the hand holding the spoon.

‘Oh my darling,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I won’t say I told you so. But I did, so there’s an end to it. Just be happy that it’s yer friend that’s landed him. Yes,’ said Sarah Stacey.

‘Yes,’ she said again with a resolute nod before briskly turning back to the saucepan. ‘They make a very fine couple.’

Something about the way her mother said what she did upset Agnes. She couldn’t help but feel that her mother was almost happy that Robert had fallen for somebody else.

‘You don’t like him, do you?’ she said petulantly, her fingers tightening around the chair back.

Her mother kept her face averted, the stirring of the stew now seemingly of great importance.

‘I like him well enough, Agnes, as the nephew of my ex-employer, but that’s as far as it goes. He just isn’t for you and never was. He’s of a different class.’ She looked away as though reluctant to meet the despairing look in her daughter’s eyes.

‘Sir Avis was right for you, wasn’t he?’

Cheeks bright red, Sarah Stacey rounded on her daughter. ‘How dare you …’

‘Mother!’ Agnes’s sudden shout brought her mother up short. ‘I am no longer a child. I know that you and Sir Avis were very close – too close to be just a cook and the master. There was more between you; anyone could see that.’

The slap was fast and fierce; Agnes hadn’t seen it coming and neither, by the look of it, had her mother.

Sarah’s expression was instantly regretful. ‘Agnes, I didn’t mean …’ she whined, the offending hand now clenched into a fist, so tight her fingernails were cutting into her flesh.

‘It seems I was right,’ Agnes said bitterly.

Her mother opened her mouth to protest that she had it all wrong, but no words would come out. Besides, Agnes only had it half right. Should I tell her the whole truth, Sarah wondered? She was tempted to, but something held her back.

Agnes, her cheek red and tears stinging her eyes, left the room, headed along the passageway and out of the front door. She didn’t look back, walking the streets without working out where she was going, not turning to left or right, not acknowledging anyone who cared to say good day to her.

Three days later, Lydia left the nurse’s hostel to take the tram to Myrtle Street. All the way there, she rehearsed what she would say, picking on phrases then discarding them as inappropriate.

She looked out of the window at the passing scene while telling herself that she had nothing to be ashamed of: she hadn’t purposely gone out of her way to fall in love with Robert; it had just happened.

Not even the street newspaper vendors shouting something out about an assassination could deter her from her mission. Although she loved Robert, she would not let it ruin her friendship with Agnes. She valued it too highly and she wanted Agnes to know that.

The dreadful Arthur was standing on the corner of Myrtle Street licking the end of a pencil before making notes in the little blue book in which he recorded rents due and paid. The moment he saw Lydia he stuffed everything into his coat pocket, blobs of red flush bursting over his fat cheeks.

‘How lovely to see you on this fine evening,’ he called, his feet swiftly covering the distance between them. ‘You are just the person I wanted to see.’

‘I’m in a hurry, Arthur. Perhaps some other time?’

Either he didn’t hear her or chose not to; he continued to head her way, his plodding footsteps hurrying to keep up with her.

‘I really think we could enjoy a little repast together. Shall we say Thursday night?’

‘I think not,’ returned Lydia without halting her pace.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that, though on reflection I am perhaps aiming above myself. Perhaps I should lower my sights and enquire of Agnes Stacey?’

Lydia came to an abrupt halt. ‘I beg your pardon?’ Her eyes were blazing when she turned to confront him. ‘My friend Agnes has had the benefit of a good education and her mother is a hard-working woman. How dare you consider asking her out to be a lowering of your sights!’

She hadn’t realised her voice was so loud and her manner so threatening until she saw Arthur take a step back, his expression alarmed.

‘I meant no offence … I … meant that she’s …’ His eyes rolled from side to side as though he were looking for the right word. ‘Different!’

‘Just as well for you that I’m in something of a hurry, Arthur, or you’d be getting the sharp side of my tongue!’

She turned on her heels and left him there looking as though she’d smacked both sides of his face. As she neared the house, she began to smile and then to laugh. It wasn’t like her to lose her temper, but in doing so a lot of the tension seemed to have floated away.

Thank goodness, she thought, and breathed a sigh of relief. She could speak to Agnes sensibly and calmly.

As was usual in most of the houses in Myrtle Street, the front door was open.

Lydia did what everybody else did. She went in. ‘Hello. Is anyone there?’

Her voice seemed to roll down the passageway to the room at the end, the kitchen and scullery where Agnes, her mother and her grandmother were enjoying a pot of tea, bread and butter and jam sandwiches seeing as it was four o’clock.

Agnes came out of the kitchen. She was wearing a darkcoloured dress with a white collar and cuffs. She touched her hair nervously, an action uncharacteristic of her; Agnes, Lydia thought, was never nervous. She was the bravest person she knew.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ said Agnes.

‘I thought I should come. I thought I should see how you were …’

Agnes shrugged. ‘There’s really no need, Lydia,’ she said with a brightness Lydia thought a little false. ‘I’m quite all right. Are you staying for supper? Ma’s done pigs’ tails. They’re a mucky meal to say the least, all that fat sticking to your fingers. She only cooks them ’cause Gran likes them, though it’s a wonder she manages to gnaw on them like she does seeing as she ain’t got many teeth.’

Relieved at her reception, Lydia smiled and said she would.

The kitchen smelled of cooked meat and potatoes. Globules of condensed steam hung from the ceiling and ran down the windows. Opening a window was the only way to dispel the moisture but it took time to get rid of all of it.

Sarah Stacey was picking up a pig’s tail from the roasting tray with two fingers.

She gave her mother Ellen Proctor a warning look. ‘Mother, I’m giving you the meatiest. And don’t suck on the bones.’

She looked up and smiled at Lydia. ‘Nice to see you, Lydia. Got a spare one if you want one.’

She held up a small pig’s tail. Lydia wasn’t keen, but decided it would be rude to refuse.

‘My, my. It looks good. I’ve never eaten one before.’

Ellen Proctor swallowed what she was chewing to ask, ‘So when’s the wedding?’

Lydia fidgeted nervously. ‘We don’t know yet. I favour next year, but Robert would prefer us to marry as soon as possible. He thinks we might have a war. I told him that if that were the case, nurses would be in short supply. I have to do my duty.’ Then, her eyes scanning the table, she said, ‘I don’t appear to have a knife and fork.’ ‘You use yer hands,’ said Ellen.

Somewhat defiantly, Agnes reached for a pig’s tail and proceeded to bite large pieces from the bone. Lydia knew she was being challenged. To her surprise, she found the meat tender and tasty.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said while chewing a small portion. ‘Better than I expected.’

She caught the amused smirk on Agnes’s face and noticed the grease on her chin. Presumably, her chin was just as greasy and shiny. She resisted the urge to swipe her hand at it.

‘Use the bread,’ said Agnes’s grandmother, swiping a chunk of bread across her chin as some might a linen napkin.

Seeing that it seemed to work on Mrs Proctor’s face, Lydia did the same.

‘Eat while you can, my dears,’ said Mrs Proctor. ‘Who knows what tomorrow might bring. So eat while you can.’

‘So it’s really war,’ murmured Lydia. She shook her head. ‘How foolish. How very foolish.’

‘You’re right there,’ said Ellen Proctor, puffing on her pipe. ‘I read that the Queen ’erself reckons it’s foolish. Worst thing ever to happen to this country if it ’appens.’

Lydia agreed that indeed it was; Robert would be flying into combat and her father would be regarded as an enemy alien. Things couldn’t be worse.

On her return from Paris, Eric told Kate Mallory all about Lydia’s engagement to young Robert Ravening.

‘A young man of good family, good prospects and property, Kate. I am very happy,’ he said as he laid down his outer coat, hat and cane.

They were at Kate’s house, a pretty place in Wimbledon with roses round the door and iron trelliswork forming a first-floor balcony.

Kate’s drawing room held more knick-knacks than Eric himself favoured, but it seemed to reflect her character. Stylised Chinese chrysanthemums in rich shades of deep pink and yellow blossomed against a dark background on the walls. Chairs and cabinets had clean lines except for a single tulip of minimal design on a chair back or a cupboard door, all of it totally lacking the over-elaboration of the Victorian years.

Kate paused in the process of pulling a pin from her hat to peer at him through her arched arms via her reflection in a copper-framed mirror.

‘Is your happiness for your daughter being in love or for the prospect of joining the landed gentry?’

Although she appeared to have returned to the process of removing her hatpin, she watched him carefully, noticing how he seemed to hold his breath as he considered what she’d said. As though I’ve punched him, she thought wryly.

‘What do you mean?’

After withdrawing the pearl-ended pin, she took her hat from her head with both hands, setting it down on the dressing table in front of her.

‘These people – the gentry as we so glibly call them – rarely marry for love. They marry for money and for alliances.’

‘Lydia is a very intelligent girl and it’s not as though we’re paupers …’

Sensing his hostility, Kate swung round on the stool. She eyed him seriously without even the hint of a smile on her lips.

‘I know you are not paupers, Eric. You are a very good doctor with an enviable reputation. You are well patronised by the wealthy, but you also treat the poor at that hospital. And what of Lydia’s mother’s family?’

‘They have a number of businesses in Wareham … very successful businesses … They are well thought of …’ He delivered the statement falteringly, knowing what she was getting at but loath to do the same.

‘They are in trade?’

Eric thought of the haberdasher’s, the grocery store, the factory bottling lemonade.

‘Yes. They are in trade. Good honest people working hard to make a living. Is that so bad?’

‘It might not be. Has nobody mentioned your relationship with me yet?’

‘No!’ He looked severely affronted, straightening his shoulders, consternation locking his jaw. ‘No. They have not.’

Kate stood up, cupped his face with both hands and looked deeply into his eyes.

‘They will check everything is to their liking; both your background and your personal behaviour – and that includes your relationship with me.’

Eric shook his head and smiled, as though the whole idea was too amusing to be true.

‘Kate, Kate, Kate. I believe your fears are groundless. Lydia will marry Robert. His family will raise no objections. I am sure of this.’

Kate’s lips, that seemed always to smile even when she had nothing to say, began to smile again.

‘Perhaps you are right and I am being foolish. Perhaps.’

Doctor Miller convinced himself that indeed he was right and pushed all fears to the contrary aside – until yet again he saw Rudolfo Credenza at the theatre, this time in the company of another very young woman. She had pale skin made even paler by the acid green of the silk dress she was wearing, the hint of adolescent bosom showing above the plunging neckline. Her hair was fair and baby fine, eyes blue and her lips were a Cupid’s bow of rosebud pink.

Eric and Rudolfo exchanged a respectful nod, yet Kate Mallory, well used to the behaviour and foibles of male machismo, saw the look in Rudolfo’s eyes.

‘He will make trouble,’ she whispered. ‘I am sure … I know … he will make trouble. I think we should dine elsewhere.’

‘You were less wary of him before. What makes it different now?’

‘That girl with him is the daughter of an old friend – deceased sadly. Once the girl turned twelve, she was left to her own devices. She wants to be an actress. Credenza is her sponsor – though there are many words to describe what he truly is. I warned the girl of him. I told her that what appeared to be kindness was really the worst kind of flattery and that there would be a price to pay. It appears young Flora is willing to pay whatever it takes for the pretty clothes and fancy baubles he gives her. I shall be glad when the man returns to America where he belongs.’

On seeing Kate, a mischievous smile twitched at Flora’s rosebud lips before she stood on tiptoe to whisper into her escort’s ear, her gloved hand held in front of her mouth.

‘I fear you could be right,’ Eric said quietly.

Kate attempted to smooth away his frown lines with her cool fingers.

‘I suppose we should look on the bright side. This Lady Julieta is hardly your only client, Eric,’ remarked Kate.

He shook his head. ‘The woman has influence. Although she does little entertaining herself, she does frequent many a social gathering of the rich and influential. She could ruin me if she had a mind to; that’s if her brother tells her he’s seen us together.’