More Tales of the West Riding (23 page)

She respected the Steads' consideration in this respect, but found its manner a bit chilly. Why not speak straight out?

Then Mrs Stead seemed not to want to have beer or port or any drink of that kind to be served at the reception. Mrs Parkin's eyes opened as wide as saucers. “Oh, but we must,”
she said. Ted agreed with her and the point was settled. But the Steads were cool.

However, the minister agreed to perform the ceremony, the banns were put in, the bridesmaids—a cousin on each side and a couple of tiny tots from colleagues and friends—selected. A friend of Lilian's, a considerable seamstress, promised to make the wedding garments. She was a joyful girl who liked clothes to be “with it”. Mrs Stead smiled at the styles chosen affably, but not with warmth. On the evening when a consultation had revealed this coolness, Lilian was observed to be looking downhearted; she even had tears in her eyes.

“What's the matter, love?” enquired Mrs Parkin tenderly, putting an arm round her daughter's shoulders. “It is Bob?”

“No, no. It's never Bob,” said Lilian, weeping. “It's just I'm a bit worried about the wedding.”

The truth was that while Lilian loved her mother heartily and knew her goodness and kindness of heart, she was not blind to her defects. Mrs Parkin's voice was often loud, her manner was sometimes abrupt and off-putting—she spoke her mind, as she often said—and her taste in colours was garish. Mrs Stead on the other hand was almost too quiet and retiring. If there was to be some awful clash about the wedding! Bob, who loved his mother dearly, would be upset… Oh dear!

“I don't think Mrs Stead likes those sleeves,” wept Lilian.

“If you don't want those sleeves, love, you shan't have them,” said Mrs Parkin emphatically. “I'll run round and tell Doreen. I'll take it on myself. I'll say I find, on thinking it over, you know, I don't like them.”

“Will you, mother?” murmured Lilian gratefully between sniffles.

The sleeves were altered.

When this incident was told to Ted, he mused a while, then said:

“Where are you getting
your
gear for the wedding, then, Lena? Eh?”

Mrs Parkin named a bustling establishment. “I haven't got round to it yet, with one thing and another,” she said, “I must go tomorrow.”

“I think you'd better go to Madam Darcy,” said Ted.

“What!”

“Aye. Why not? She's a good sort.”

“She's an old flame of yours, I know that, in her young days before she got so smart. But nowadays! The price, Ted! The cost! Madam Darcy! She's the best shop in town.”

“I'll bet Mrs Stead'll go there.”

“Well—”

“You've no need to worry, Lil love,” Mrs Parkin told her daughter, who, working every day, was not easily available for shopping. “I've got the most lovely pink outfit at Madam Darcy's.”

Pink! Lilian could have screamed, moaned, but settled for a laugh. Pink was a beautiful shade, discreetly handled. But her mother's views on pink! The outfit—horrid word—would be loud and awful. Well, all right, it'll be awful, said Lilian staunchly. Mrs Steed will be inexpensive and elegant, and poor old Mum will be costly and awful. The Steads and the Parkins have got to learn to put up with each other—Dad and Mr Stead manage well enough, choose how, and we've got to do the same. She faced the agony she would endure at the wedding, and fought it down, and said nothing about it to anybody, just kept it in her heart rather warmly. As the wedding approached, she looked a trifle pale—which was natural—but she had never looked more beautiful.

“Our Lil's a lovely lass,” said Mrs Parkin, tender.

“She's growing up,” said Mr Parkin with satisfaction.

“And what have you two fathers been nattering about, down at the Fleece together? I never heard of such a thing!”
Mrs Parkin rallied him, laughing. “I thought his lordship never went to a pub, ha ha!”

“Now, mother,” said Ted. “James Stead is a very fine fellow in his quiet way, and I enjoy talking to him.”

“But what do you find to talk
about
?”

“Oh, just a quiet natter,” said Ted mildly.

The wedding day arrived. There was the usual fuss and flutter. Mum ran about from floor to floor. Would the flowers come? Would old auntie turn up in time? (John Edward and family had arrived the night before.) The taxis! The taxis! They would be late! No, they were here, but mum and auntie were not ready! Yes, they were. Alison tucked them in. Where was Dad's buttonhole? Oh, he was wearing it. Where was the second baby bridesmaid? The first adult bridesmaid's dress was too tight round the waist. Scissors were used on a gusset. The second baby arrived crying, but recovered. Dad and Lilian set off too early—this was Lilian's fault. Bob had said the night before: “Don't keep me waiting, Lil. I couldn't bear it.” So they arrived at the chapel early. But what did it matter? There was a bustle of people in the porch. Bridesmaids and their mammas; John Edward, Alison, Baby; the headmaster, one or two other belated guests; Mr and Mrs Stead, Mrs Parkin and auntie.

“Well, you two ladies certainly harmonise most beautifully,” said the headmaster. “A delightful picture.”

Lilian, looking at Bob's mother and her own, almost fainted with astonishment. Mrs Stead, pale and slim, with beautifully groomed white hair, was deliciously elegant in palest pink. Mrs Parkin, glowing and bosomy, looked vividly handsome in deep dark rich rose. As the headmaster said, they harmonised. Their pinks were in the same “range” of colour. They made a delightful picture together.

“More by good luck than management, I'm afraid,”
boomed Mrs Parkin happily. “I just fell in love with this at…”

“It shows we have the same kind of taste basically,” said Mrs Stead in her light pretty voice, not listening.

They went off together into the chapel, smiling.

“Daddy,” said Lilian faintly. She put her hand within his arm and looked up at him.

He smiled down, squeezed her hand and gave her the biggest wink she had ever seen on a human face.

The wedding march sounded and they paced down the aisle together.

1971

“Well, here we are then,” said Mrs Thorpe in a tone of doom, proffering one of those official, close-typed, long-paragraphed letters which strike fear to the heart of the ordinary housewife. “This is what they're offering me. A high-rise flat, believe it or not.”

“Where is it?” faltered her employer, diffident about this matter, so important to her housekeeper.

“Ninth floor, Rutland Court. Fancy me living in a Court! But why Rutland? It's a very un-Yorkshire name, is that. Rutland, indeed!”

“It may be an improvement on your present home,” suggested Miss Ellis.

Mrs Thorpe lived in the middle of a terrace facing the long blank wall of a mill. The house was still sturdy, but having been built some hundred and twenty years, it lacked indoor sanitation and other amenities.

“I've lived there all my married life and some years after,” growled Mrs Thorpe. “I don't want to change. Of course,” she added, almost killing herself in the attempt to be fair, “Rutland is convenient for the bus, I don't deny. But what's the sense of this new road they're building? Knocking everything down! Do you see any sense in it?”

“Well, not much. When shall you inspect the Rutland flat?”

“This afternoon. If I don't like it I shan't accept it, choose what they say.”

“May I come with you?”

“Why not? Though you don't know much about housing,” said Mrs Thorpe frankly.

The caretaker of Rutland Court, who met them in the foyer, proved to be an active kindly man in his late thirties. He explained the mysteries of doors and lifts and keys.

“You've got a telephone here, I see,” said Mrs Thorpe, advancing towards the box.

“It's not installed yet,” said the caretaker hastily.

Mrs Thorpe snorted.

They ascended to the ninth floor.

“How beautifully clean!” exclaimed Miss Ellis, enjoying the white walls.

“The walls are clean but the floor isn't,” said Mrs Thorpe.

“That's easily remedied,” said the caretaker.

“What a superb view!” exclaimed Miss Ellis, gazing out of the large windows while Mrs Thorpe inspected the rooms.

The whole of Hudley lay on the sloping hillside below them; the cars and vans and buses seemed toylike and harmless from this height, their colours bright in the sunshine, with little coloured toy people skipping about safely between them. In the distance, across the valley, rose Awe Hill, on the crest of which a beacon pan had been erected in the days of Queen Elizabeth I, to warn the town of the coming of the Armada. Miss Ellis mentioned this.

“It didn't come, though,” said Mrs Thorpe at her side, with satisfaction. “The kitchen isn't bad,” she added, “and the bathroom is really rather sweet—neat, I mean,” she substituted hastily.

The caretaker beamed.

“But of course,” went on Mrs Thorpe, feeling, it was clear, she had been too easily pleased: “that narrow shelf over the
electric radiator, I don't like that. My cats won't like that, for sure.”

“Cats!” exclaimed the caretaker in horror. “You can't keep pets here, missis.”

“My cats are made of china,” Mrs Thorpe told him haughtily.

“Oh, well—that's different. China cats'd fit on that shelf nicely. Give it a homely look, like.”

“Bingo wouldn't. He's too big. His tail would hang over.”

“Put him on top of the Telly, love.”

“Bingo doesn't like the Telly. He scorns it.”

“Fancy saying a pot cat scorns T.V.,” murmured the caretaker to Miss Ellis, as Mrs Thorpe inspected the bathroom once again.

“I think that was meant as a joke,” hazarded Miss Ellis.

“I wondered at the time, but I didn't feel I knew her well enough to risk a laugh. Have you known her long?”

“About twenty-five years,” replied Miss Ellis, offhand.

The caretaker nodded and seemed pleased.

Two days later Mrs Thorpe burst in with Miss Ellis's breakfast tray, beaming.

“I've done it!” she announced.

“What?”

“I signed for the flat.”

“I'm sure you've been wise.”

“You don't think it was kind of cold and unhomely?”

“There's nothing in it yet to make it homely.”

“That's right. It'll be all right—”

“—when you get your cats in.”

They laughed together.

A period of some tension and anxiety followed. Papers had to be signed, fittings chosen. A few rails and hooks were necessary—but it appeared permission had to be asked before the sacred walls could be subjected to such invasions.

“I don't know what this country's coming to, really. If
you've to ask permission to put up a rail! Upon my word!”

The great difficulty was the divan. The Hudley furniture shops abounded in divans, but they all had three seats.

“But what is your objection to a three-seater, Mrs Thorpe?” pleaded Miss Ellis.

“It won't go in! Well, it would but there wouldn't be room for two chairs as well. And people
will
drop in, you know.”

However, all of a sudden the tide turned. Mrs. Thorpe was a member of a large and flourishing family, and had the crowd of friends her staunch and generous nature deserved. Every one of these relatives and friends turned up to help in the removal. A sister found a two-seater divan! (“The shop was having a sale, and she saw a lot of people going in.”) Another sister helped to choose and measure carpets. A niece made and hung matching curtains. A great-nephew arrived with tools to put up hooks and rails. (“He's quite handy with his hands, is our Thomas, though he's at University really.”)

Gifts poured in. From a biscuit barrel to a broom, from matching soap to an electric kettle, from cushions to a bedside lamp.

“I should like a pouffe, really,” said Mrs Thorpe in a wistful tone.

“A pouffe!”

“To sit on, you know. Or put your feet up. They take up very little room—you can put them away underneath a table.”

“I don't think I've seen one lately.”

“Some are leather—well, pretend to be leather—and some are silk, or chintz, you know.”

It turned out that our so-and-so who was leaving Hudley to live with a married daughter in London owned a pouffe; having observed Mrs Thorpe's admiration, she had it recovered and offered it with becoming diffidence.

And so at last everything was complete, and Miss Ellis went to Rutland Court for a cup of tea. Everything was really perfect; Bingo slept comfortably, tail out-curved, on a finely knitted blue mat on the Telly; mats, rugs, curtains, towels, upholstery, all matched in the most tasteful style; flowers decked a table in the hall, china gleamed, cushions were fresh and plump. Miss Ellis admired it all wholeheartedly.