Summer's End (6 page)

‘I said, have a cup of tea.' Mrs Dibble's voice rose with an authority granted under far older rule than those of staff seniority, and Agnes promptly sat down. ‘It's that young Jamie Thorn, isn't it? He doing things he oughtn't?'

Inside, Agnes shrank with horror. So Mrs Dibble had heard. The whole village must know then, and her life was in ruins. Jamie had only told her last night, and she hadn't slept a wink, going over and over it again and again. Not a word of truth in it, he swore, not a word. Just lies to get herself a husband. It was Agnes he loved and always had. She wanted to believe him, she
did
believe him, until night brought the niggle:
But
he
would
say
that,
wouldn't
he?
Why would he, day had answered? Marriage faced him, either to Ruth or her. So even if it were true – and it wasn't, it
wasn't
– it must mean he loved
her,
Agnes. Unless he were just playing with her, too, saying he'd marry her, just so as she'd go all daft and let him have his way.

Agnes's fingers trembled as she picked up the cup, but the first sips of tea began to steady her. This was Jamie she was talking of,
Jamie,
who needed her support to see him through. She forced herself to listen.

‘You young folks have too much freedom, you do,' Mrs Dibble was saying. ‘Tell him to keep his hands to himself.'

‘It's a bit late for that.'

‘You mean –' Mrs Dibble sat down heavily. This was worse than she'd imagined. ‘You're in the family way?'

Too late, Agnes realised that they were at cross-purposes. The gossip, if any, hadn't reached Mrs D. But how long before it did? And anyway, what she was thinking was bad enough.

‘No!' She looked shocked. ‘I never would. Jamie never would. We just had a bit of an upset, that's all.' She tried hard to smile brightly.

‘Men!' Mrs Dibble snorted companionably, feeling somewhat
disappointed that the olive branch she had with some effort thrust forward had proved to be unnecessary after all.

The story of the oaks at The Towers had by now entered village folklore. They were already young trees when the house was first built in the middle of the last century, although then its pinnacles, gables, and crenellations soared proudly above them. When the Swinford-Brownes arrived in 1909, the oaks had grown to such a height that William immediately decided to chop them down so that the full glory of The Towers could be appreciated. To a man, the tree-cutters of Ashden, and even of Ashdown Forest, flatly refused to wield an axe, and William's own staff promptly invented mysterious weaknesses of limb that prevented such exertion. The oaks had been planted time out of mind and were sacrosanct. Edith was all for dismissing the mutineers, but William, though equally incensed, knew when he was beaten. He forced himself to chaff his men heartily that if they were to show the same loyalty to him as to the Sussex oaks he would have no complaint.

As Tilly turned the Austin tourer into Station Road, with Caroline at her side and Felicia hunched up in the rear seat, the pinpoints of glowing light from its oil lamps were overpowered by the light from The Towers' driveway; at first it was a dull glare above and through the trees but as they drew nearer The Towers the brilliance of the acetylene flares not merely twinkled but burst through the oaks' dark forms. Edith had been proudly talking of ‘my lights' for the past week – ‘electricity is so vulgar now …' – and, like her own, their effect was somewhat overpowering. Nevertheless Caroline felt a rising excitement, even though something seemed to have gone amiss with Edith's weather order to heaven, for the day though dry was chilly and cloudy.

Coming to The Towers seemed almost like visiting a different village. At one time Ashden station, about a mile from the old village, lay virtually isolated. Now the coal merchants' and the premises of one of the carriers hugged close to it, and houses were springing up to fill the gaps between those erected in the first flush of the prosperity brought by the railway.

Dances were common enough in Ashden, ranging from village hops to full balls at Ashden Manor, with a fashionable fancy-dress ball last August to celebrate Daniel Hunney's twenty-first birthday. Sometimes
the Lilleys had informal dancing on the lawns of the Rectory or on the terrace, but the latter wasn't a great success, since cracked, uneven paving stones with tufts of buttercups and thrift growing in the crevices were hardly comparable to a polished ballroom floor, and the dances deemed suitable for rectories rapidly gave way to the Turkey Trot or the Huggie Bear, until the noise brought Father out to make a formal plea for respectability.

Caroline felt modestly pleased with herself tonight. The raspberry coloured silk, which had seen her stalwartly through three seasons, had been cleverly disguised to masquerade as a new gown by the simple means of drawing the skirt up into panniers and providing a new white underskirt, plus – and this was her pride – embroidery in raspberry silks to match the overskirt. That, and a feather discarded from one of the Ashden peacocks, stuck in a bandeau round her head, should do nicely. She smiled at her aunt, hoping perhaps that she would share her sudden enthusiasm for the evening.

‘Do you enjoy dances, Aunt Tilly?' she asked curiously.

‘No,' was the brief answer. There was silence from the rear seat too.

‘Why come then?'

Tilly laughed. ‘Because Ashden, Dover and England expect every lady to do her duty.'

‘And you don't approve of that?'

‘I do in practice. Where else are girls to find husbands? In theory, no.'

Surely, thought Caroline, there must have been a time when Aunt Tilly set out for an evening wondering whom she would meet, and what excitements – or disappointments – the evening might bring forth? ‘Girls like me?' she queried.

Tilly thought quickly. She had gone too far already. ‘Be thankful for Ashden dances, Caroline. Think of Dover.'

‘I almost think,' Caroline observed, glancing up as the Austin pulled up in front of The Towers, ‘that I prefer Buckford House.'

‘Kindly don't exaggerate,' Tilly said drily, climbing down from the motor-car and extinguishing the lamps. As she did so, Caroline noticed a familiar motor-car, Reggie's new Perry. She took a deep breath and took first Felicia's, then Aunt Tilly's arm.

‘Come on,' she cried cheerfully. ‘Let's tango with The Towers.'

When they reached the ballroom, she was amused to see that the tungsten lamps were not in use. For this occasion oil lamps and
candlelight were obviously deemed more suitable for flattering complexions. She was forced to admit the ballroom looked spectacular, with so many fresh flowers artfully adorning it that it smelled, from where she stood somewhat above the dancing floor level, more like the summer flower-show tent. A large ‘I' and ‘R' monogram was picked out in early roses amid a sea of lilies of the valley on the top of a large garlanded maypole at one end of the room, in honour of the date, the first of May. This afternoon had seen the annual May procession through the village, culminating in a somewhat artificial (in Caroline's opinion) maypole dance by the schoolchildren in their playing field. She'd spent hours coaching the quick and the clumsy through their paces, and organising flower garlands, and was relieved that the children had managed to skip through their paces with no worse disaster than a collision between Annie Mutter and Ernie Thorn (who engineered it).

Trust the Swinford-Brownes to make this a State Occasion. Only the Household Cavalry were missing. In front of them, Caroline saw, were: the entire male staff of The Towers (though true, she couldn't see the gardener) in full dress livery, complete with violet-powdered wigs; an unfamiliar pseudo-patrician face similarly clad to announce them in stentorian tones; in the far distance Father and Mother doing their best to live up to the occasion; Isabel resplendent in blue charmeuse standing with Robert (he
was
handsome at least); and at the head of the line – oh, joy.

‘What is it?' she hissed at Tilly.

Her aunt, clad smartly but dully in mole brown velvet, considered the question gravely. ‘I rather think it's the new lampshade look.'

Caroline peered at the bright blue taffeta overskirt that stuck stiffly out from where Edith Swinford-Browne's waist must be presumed to lie, and at the mauve tube that linked this area of Edith to her feet. ‘I hope someone turns her off soon,' she whispered. By her side to support the lampshade with his impressive tail-coated bulk was William, looking like a plump penguin with aspirations of being a sea lion. Then she sobered, remembering that these two were not the figures of fun of George's beloved caricatures but real people, who had just thrown their housemaid out in cruel circumstances. Moreover, this was the household where, presumably, Isabel would be living, at least at first. Would
she
turn into a Swinford-Browne by nature, as well as name?

She forced herself away from this unwelcome thought and back to the ball. She was surprised to see how many people here were strangers to her. True, most of what might be termed Ashden society was present, even the Minister, and she had to repress a desire to interrogate him then and there on his views of the plight of Ruth Horner. The Reverend Frederick Bowles and his wife had lived in Ashden only slightly longer than the Swinford-Brownes, having moved from somewhere in North Kent. Caroline rather liked him, but both of them seemed to behave like Martha and Moses, the figures in the Rectory weatherhouse that adorned their drawing-room windowsill – they popped out anxiously from their home from time to time and scuttled back inside for safety as soon as they could. Caroline decided the strange faces must be brewery staff, or Robert's friends. It underlined the fact that Isabel was entering upon a new and very different life. Then she saw Reggie. Her first impression was that he was dancing with another maypole, but perhaps that was simply the effect of the painfully (literally, it appeared) narrow yellow skirt, and tall sparkling bandeau doing its best to look like a tiara. The Honourable Penelope Banning, she presumed. She quickly turned away to see what her sisters might be doing, telling herself she must keep an eye on Felicia …

Felicia sat close to Aunt Tilly. If Caroline were nowhere to be found then Aunt Tilly was her natural choice, for there was little chance that Tilly would leave her on her own, exposed. She felt her feelings must be written all over her face. If
he
came over to her, she felt she might faint from sheer pleasure. Someone was coming, but it wasn't him. It was the schoolmaster Philip Ryde, for whom she worked two afternoons a week teaching religious instruction. He would ask Aunt Tilly for her permission to request Felicia to dance. She looked in alarm at her aunt, who ignored her plea, or did not see it for what it was. So Mr Ryde asked her to dance, although she knew perfectly well he'd rather be dancing with Caroline. She smiled, rose, and gracefully stepped on to the floor, realising with gratitude that it was a military two-step and she would not need to talk to him for very long.

‘You look very charming tonight, Miss Lilley.'

She instantly froze inside. She liked Philip Ryde, but she wished he wouldn't say things like that. It meant nothing, for everyone knew he adored her sister, so she never knew what to reply. She whispered the
only thing she could think of.

‘Thank you.' Then she was seized and clutched, pushed and pulled, as they marched up and down. Oh, that it were quickly over. Oh, that she were like Phoebe sitting out. Lucky, lucky Phoebe …

Phoebe sat scuffing the toe of her satin shoe crossly, in the happy knowledge that Mother could not see what she was doing under the pink satin dress. In fact, Mother was getting up to dance. A
tango
! That would set Ashden twittering for weeks. The doctor and the Rector's wife doing the tango. Phoebe didn't care as Felicia did about sitting on her own. To her, the women and girls looked like the chattering parrots in London Zoo, and the men like the penguins. Perhaps finishing school was going to be a mistake if it was merely lots and lots of dances, as Felicia had warned her. She had insisted on going there to escape from Ashden, but she could see it was going to be
just
as boring as home. Or, she amended, as boring as it had been till she started to tease Christopher. That at least was fun, especially when he went red and awkward. In some annoyance she saw Dr Cussed, as Father called him, though his name was Cuss, coming towards her. Martin Cuss. The vet was smug, opinionated and talked about animals all the time. Very well, if there was no getting out of it … Phoebe smiled welcomingly. ‘I'd love to dance.' She jumped up eagerly, gazing innocently into his eyes. ‘I remember exactly what you were telling me last time about that dear little litter of newly born pigs, and I wondered afterwards how little pigs get started in their mummy's tummy?' Phoebe thought of no one save herself, not even Isabel, whose evening it was …

What was wrong with her, Isabel wondered crossly. It was
her
evening, and she should sparkle like the champagne her father-in-law-to-be was so lavishly splashing around in the supper room. Instead she felt like a glass of champagne that had been left out overnight. It couldn't be anything to do with the way she looked. The blue charmeuse gown she had chosen, and Robert's mother had forced Jay's into making within the week, suited her delightfully, and she knew she was looking her best. It occurred to her that the reason might be that no one was asking her to dance. Of course. No one would until she had danced with Robert, and he seemed more interested in chatting to his friends. She decided to assert herself, left Edith almost in
mid-flow on the subject of the redecoration of their rooms to be (a subject on which Isabel had a few as yet unvoiced thoughts), and appeared at Robert's side.