A Countess Below Stairs (21 page)

‘What is it? What’s the matter, Mother?’

The suffused blue eyes stared wretchedly up at him, the tears continued to flow silently down the raddled cheeks.

Mr Proom was appalled. His mother furious, unreasonable, mad, he could cope with. His mother unhappy and pitiful was more than he could bear.

‘I know … I’m … a nuisance to you, Cyril.’ The tears continued to well up, spill over. ‘But I’ll try to be better, Cyril … You’ll see, Cyril, I’ll be better.’ She stretched out a hand, clawed desperately at his arm.

‘Mother, what is all this about?’

Another spate of those heartrending and silent tears…

‘I won’t do nothing bad no more, Cyril, I won’t throw nothing. Only don’t send me away. Don’t send me to the workhouse.’

‘The workhouse! Are you mad, Mother?’

‘She said … as ‘ow I must be lonely. But I’m not, Cyril.’ The little speckled claw dug deeper into his arm. ‘I’m not lonely, I’m used to it here.’

‘Who said this?’ asked Mr Proom but already, sickeningly, he knew.

‘ ‘er that’s going to marry ‘is lordship, ‘er with the eyes that don’t blink. She said… ‘as ‘ow I’d be happier with people like myself. But I wouldn’t, Cyril. I wouldn’t…’

‘I’m quite sure you wouldn’t, Mother,’ said Mr Proom, trying for a little joke.

But the terrified old woman was beyond his reach. The sobbing was building up now, she was beginning to gasp and choke - she’d make herself ill.

He began to pat her hand, to soothe her, but as she gradually became calmer Proom’s own fears increased. Had anyone asked Proom what he thought about his mother, he would have said that the old lady was a nuisance the like of which had probably never been equalled. If Mrs Proom’s Maker had seen fit to take her to his bosom one night as she slept, Proom, after giving her a fitting funeral, would have regarded himself as the most fortunate of men.

An honourable release through death was one thing. Putting the old lady into a home for deranged old people was another. Proom knew he could have gone straight to the earl and been listened to, but making trouble between a man and his intended wife was not something he cared to do. No, it looked as though he too would have to leave Mersham. Only where, with a burden such as this, could he possibly go?

The problem of what to wear at the fancy dress ball at Heslop did not concern the Herrings, for they had not been invited. Indeed, the Herrings had expressly been bidden not to arrive until the day before the wedding, and had been informed precisely from which train it would be possible to collect them. Even so, nothing could damp the pleasure of that family of layabouts and spongers at the thought of being taken up again by their posh relations.

For the Herrings’ star, which had never been conspicuously high, had of late plummeted catastrophically. The Herrings owed rent to their landlord, their grocer had forbidden them his shop and they had been turned out of their local pub. The supply of suckers on which Melvyn relied to keep body and soul together seemed, in the weeks before his noble cousin’s wedding, to have mysteriously dried up and, in the proposed visit to Mersham, Melvyn saw a clear sign that Fate was about to smile on the Herrings once again.

‘Don’t worry, Myrtle,’ he said now. ‘Aunt Mary’s a soft touch, really. She’ll see us all right.’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Myrtle, who was standing by the stove in a mauve satin peignoir liberally sprinkled with grease, mixing the lethal concoction of peroxide and vinegar with which she dyed her hair. ‘But ‘ow the dickens are we goin’ to get there? There isn’t a hope in Hell of raising the rail fare for the four of us.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ said Melvyn.

‘Well, not that locking us in the lavatory one while the guard comes round, because that’s got whiskers on it,’ ‘ said Myrtle. ‘And what about clothes? I ain’t got a stitch to wear and the twins’ll have to have new trousers.’

Melvyn sighed and looked at his obese and pallid offspring, sitting on either side of the sticky kitchen table reading comics. Donald was methodically sucking a long, black stick of liquorice into his mouth. Dennis was licking at a dribbling bar of toffee. Like certain caterpillars whose short lives are dedicated to achieving simply the maximum possible increase in size, the twins seemed to have done nothing but eat and burst out of then-clothes since they were born. Watching them, Melvyn had to abandon another of his half-formed schemes -that of smuggling them to Mersham in a cello case in the guard’s van. Even a doublebass case would not take more than half of either of his sons…

‘Don’t worry, Myrtle,’ he said again, giving her shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’ll think of something. You’ll see.’

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Dr Lightbody, on the other hand, was one of the favoured ones who, at Muriel’s request, had been invited for all the festivities and therefore faced the problem not only of morning clothes for the wedding, but of acquiring a suitable costume for the ball. A hot afternoon just a week before his departure for Mersham accordingly found him standing in front of the long, fly-stained mirror in the dim, dusty shop of Nathaniel and Gumsbody, the theatrical costumiers in Drury Lane. An enormous tricorne hat with a cockade lurched over his left eye, he wore a blue military coat heavily braided in gold and his arm was folded in a characteristic gesture across his chest. Unmistakably, he was the Emperor Napoleon as immortalized in the famous portrait by David.

‘What do you think?’ he asked the pale young man in charge of rentals.

‘It suits you, sir. It suits you very well.’

‘I don’t like it,’ pronounced Dr Lightbody. ‘It’s the hat, I think.’ He removed it to reveal his high and intellectual forehead.

‘What about Admiral Nelson, sir? We do a very nice line in him. He comes in three sizes and the eye-patch is free.’

The doctor shook his head. To go as a person in any way injured or defiled, even in battle, was against his principles.

He allowed the young man to divest him of his uniform and, clad only in trousers and braces, began to walk along the rows of ermine-lined mantles and sumptuous velvet cloaks.

‘You don’t fancy a nice cavalier, sir? Those hats with the big feathers always go down very well with the ladies.’

Dr Lightbody shook his head. Though the ringleted Jacobean wigs were very flattering one never knew what went on underneath.

It was all so annoying, he reflected, pausing now by the leather jerkin and feathered head-dress of an Indian brave, Doreen still being in hospital. Doreen was a good needlewoman, he had to give her that - she’d always made his shirts. It would have been no trouble to her to have run something up for him. Instead of which she just lay there in that awful ward full of disgusting, wheezing old women and yellow people with tubes in them, staring at him with those big, grey eyes of hers as though he could help her. The sister had given him an odd look when he’d asked if it would hurt Doreen to do a bit of sewing while she was in there, so he supposed it was no good pursuing the subject. As a matter of fact, the hospital visits were an embarrassment altogether - the staff who talked to him about Doreen’s condition seemed to think that his title of ‘Doctor’ would make him understand their jargon. Whereas in fact his title was a courtesy one, the courtesy being one that he had, so to speak, bestowed on himself when, in the drudgery ofhis last year at the catering college, he had first glimpsed his vision of the perfectibility of man.

‘These are nice, we always think,’ said the assistant, holding up a Viking helmet and breastplate. ‘With a red beard, perhaps - and thongs?’

Again Dr Lightbody shook his head. He wanted something which would suggest what he saw as his threefold role: of teacher, of healer, of leader of men. Something in white and gold, possibly? A High Priest? A Zoro-astrian?

Suddenly he had an idea. ‘What about the Egyptians? Akhnaton, the Sun King - do you have him?’

‘I don’t know if we have him specifically, sir, but our Egyptian section is very well stocked. If you’d just come through here …’

Ten minutes later, in the many-layered, pleated linen skirts, the curved sandals and golden, cap-shaped crown, Dr Lightbody stood before the mirror again.

It was closer, much closer — but there was something a little bit effeminate about the whole ensemble. Not surprising, really - when all was said and done there was a touch of the tarbrush about the Egyptians.

Then, with the inner certainty of all visions, inspiration came.

Why go as a mere Sun King? Why not a Sun God?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said to the weary assistant. ‘I’d like to see the Greek costumes, please.’

It was obvious, really. He would go as Apollo.

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In the breakfast room at Fame Castle, a great turreted keep set on a wave-lashed shore which the Nettlefords’ ancestors, after centuries of bloodshed, had wrested from a doomed Northumbrian king, the Lady Lavinia was eating kedgeree.

She was well satisfied with life. Her bridesmaid’s dress had arrived that morning, her costume for the ball was waiting for her in Newcastle. This time, she was certain, all would go well. At the Ritz, Tom Byrne had been charming and attentive, there could be no possible competition from the goitrous Cynthia Smythe and she had been able, by certain feminine gestures, to show the best man that she found him pleasing. Meanwhile, the morning’s shopping trip to Newcastle would provide more immediate delights. Not that one would ever seriously demean oneself, but still…

Stretching away to her left on either side of the dark oak table, sat the Ladies Hermione, Priscilla, Gwendolyn and Beatrice, all of them sporting, in various combinations, the close-set eyes, haughty expressions and huge, beaked noses which had struck dread into so many subalterns and Lloyd’s underwriters in the ballrooms of high society. At the head of the table sat the duke, buried in The Times which he had scarcely put down since he’d discovered that his fifth child, too, was a girl. And opposite him Honoria Nettleford, his duchess, surveying, with some anxiety, her brood.

The season was virtually over and none of the girls had had so much as a matrimonial nibble. In three weeks it would be the twelfth and though they’d got up a good party for the shooting, it was singularly short of eligible young men, ail of whom seemed to have previous engagements. Which was a pity, for the girls, though thin, were strong, hardy girls and showed, the duchess considered, to better advantage jodhpured and oilskinned against the keening winds of a Northumbrian summer than in the tulle and feathers suitable for the overheated ballrooms of London Society.

What a problem it all was, thought the duchess, helping herself to kidneys. Where, oh where, in a world which the war had so cruelly decimated of young men, was she going to find anyone suitable? Because there was going to be no lowering of standards for the Nettlefords. Let other women bestow their daughters on fledgling curates or half-baked university professors. She, Honoria Nettleford, would never lower the flag!

So everything now depended on the wedding at Mersham and the ball at Heslop which preceded it. Lavinia herself seemed confident that Tom Byrne had grasped the advantages of marrying a Nettleford, but the duchess had seen too many best men scratch at the starting post to be certain. Should she give young Byrne a hint, perhaps? Mention Lavinia’s certificate for the 250-yards breast stroke? Or tell him what the vet had said about her when she delivered the Jack Russell of six puppies and one of them a breech? Lavinia was not only the eldest but - it had to be admitted - the bossiest and the plainest: once Lavinia was off her hands, the duchess was certain the others would quickly follow. Surely, at the ball, waltzing with Lawy (but here the duchessclosed her eyes for the waltz was not quite Lavinia’s forte) Tom Byrne would see her worth? He had a younger brother too - perhaps he would do for Beatrice?.

She was glad, really, that Lady Byrne had decided on fancy dress. It would give the girls more scope. Priscilla was going as Cleopatra, Beatrice as a Daffodil, Gwendolyn as Grace Darling, the local heroine. With Hermione (who had made rather a jolly severed head out of papier mache) as Salome, and Lavinia as the water sprite, Undine, they should make quite an entrance. Once Lavinia’s costume had been altered that is, because those tight-fitting, glittering scales had suggested something quite different when Lavinia had first tried them on. It was to add a gauze overskirt and some gauze veiling that she was taking her eldest daughter to Newcastle. This done, she was sure the effect would be all they hoped for: mysterious, subtle and marine.

‘Don’t forget to be ready on time, Lawy,’ she said now. ‘I told Sergei to bring the car round at ten.’

The Ladies Hermione, Priscilla, Gwendolyn and Beatrice stopped chewing in unison, and in unison put down their forks. Four pairs of pale eyes fixed themselves on Lady Lavinia. Here was treachery: naked and unashamed.

‘You said Hudson was driving you,’ hissed Hermione to her eldest sister.

‘I really can’t see that it matters which of the chauffeurs drives us,’ replied Lavinia, tossing her head.

‘Oh, can’t you just!’ muttered Gwendolyn under her breath.

‘Mother, can I come in with you?’ asked Beatrice, quickest off the mark. ‘I’ve completely run out of wool for my tapestry cushion.’

‘Me, too,’ said Gwendolyn. ‘I want to go to the library.’

‘Well, I’m not staying by myself,’ said Priscilla. ‘Can I sit in the front, Mother? I always feel so sick in the back.’

‘You never feel sick when Hudson’s driving,’ hissed Lavinia.

‘Girls! Girls!’ The duchess held up her hand. ‘Silence, please1. If you all want to come we’ll have to take two cars. Gwendolyn and Beatrice can go with Hudson in the Daimler and -‘

Wo, Mother, why should we? It isn’t fair, just because we’re the youngest!’

It was at this point that the duke, though he had trained himself never to listen to a word spoken by his family, subliminally heard the warning bell which caused him to fold his newspaper and quietly steal away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Anna had not given up her plan to cut her hair. She had received the earl’s message, duly delivered by Proom, and she had set it aside. She was leaving Mersham three days after the wedding and it was unlikely that she would see the Earl of Westerholme again. Nor did she believe that so busy and august a personage would have time seriously to concern himself with the length of a housemaid’s hair. Pinny was a more serious matter, but Pinny would be convinced when Anna swept into the little house in West Paddington, dazzling all who beheld her with her modernity and chic. And even had she felt inclined to hang back, she would have found it hard to do so in view of the support and encouragement she had received from the staff. For, one and all, the domestics of Mersham were convinced that Anna, with her dark hair cut softly to curve like a raven’s wing into her cheek, would provide a much-needed touch of below stairs glamour for the coming nuptials. It would also be one in the eye for the servants at Heslop when Anna, going over to help out at the ball, turned up with bobbed hair.