Swallowcliffe Hall
3
Isobel’s Story
By Jennie Walters
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Jennie Walters
The Swallowcliffe Hall trilogy:
1: Polly’s Story
2: Grace’s Story
3: Isobel’s Story
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Simon and Schuster UK under the title ‘Shelter from the Storm’
Whilst we have tried to ensure the accuracy of this book, the author cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions found therein.
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Cover design by Amanda Lillywhite, www.crazypanda.com
Cover photographs copyright © Jennie Walters, 2011
Table of Contents
Swallowcliffe Hall 3: Isobel’s Story
One
We must hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on his return from meeting Adolf Hitler in Munich, September 1938
‘Better take every jersey you’ve got,’ Mum warned, dragging the battered leather suitcase off the top of her wardrobe. ‘You don’t know what cold is until you’ve spent a winter in that ice box of a place. And don’t forget your gas mask, for Heaven’s sake.’
I was going back with my granny to stay at Swallowcliffe Hall for a while so she could put some flesh on my bones and I could breathe fresh country air instead of London smog. ‘Look at the poor girl! She’s as pale as a ghost,’ Gran had exclaimed when she’d arrived to stay with us for the holiday and found me dozing in Dad’s old chair by the fire, wrapped up in a blanket. ‘Well, that’s tuberculosis for you.’
I’d only just got out of the sanatorium in time for Christmas. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one!’ the nurses had said. I didn’t feel so lucky, not after spending months in a hospital bed with no idea what was going on outside while my friends were all having fun without me. ‘You haven’t missed much,’ Mum had said. ‘The same old palaver about whether there’ll be a war and the Prime Minister going off for a pow wow with Herr Hitler.’
I didn’t like the idea of leaving Mum and my brothers, not with war on the horizon, but Swallowcliffe wasn’t so very far away - only down in Kent - and I could probably get back on the train in an emergency, or they could come down and join us. Besides, there wasn’t much choice. Mum had to go back to work in the new year and I still couldn’t manage by myself. My legs felt wobbly if I stood up for too long, and the thump of Stan and Alfie’s football in the back alley made my head pound like a roadmender’s drill. Gran would look after me and when I felt better, she said, I could start helping her with odd jobs in the kitchen.
‘Now then,’ Mum had interrupted, ‘you’re not turning our Izzie into a kitchenmaid. She’ll be back home and studying for School Certificate as soon as she’s well.’
‘I know,’ Gran had replied, ‘but she might as well keep herself busy in the meantime.’
You could see from Mum’s face that she still wasn’t happy. She can’t bear the thought of any of us going into service like she and her mother did when they were young. Gran had started working at Swallowcliffe Hall when she was my age and never left; she was cook/housekeeper now. We’d only visited the place once, Stan and me, around the time our father died (Alfie wasn’t more than a few months old so he’d stayed behind with Mum). It must have been ten years ago, but I could remember a few things: climbing up a narrow wooden staircase that seemed to stretch on for ever, looking out of an attic window across miles of fields and woodland, standing in a jungly greenhouse and biting into a tiny, warm tomato which burst into sweetness on my tongue. When I forgot to worry, going off to Swallowcliffe with Gran seemed a wonderful idea. It’d be quiet there, and peaceful. I was sick of lying in bed, staring at the same four walls or trying to read while Stan and Alfie fought downstairs and the buses rumbled along our street. If only it wasn’t for Hitler…
I watched Mum as she fiddled with the suitcase’s rusty catches. ‘Mum, if there is a war any time soon, you and the boys will come down as well, won’t you? It’ll be much too dangerous to stay in London.’
‘We’ll stick together one way or another, Izzie, I promise,’ she said, sitting down beside me on the bed and smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Try not to fret so much. Mr Chamberlain’s sorted things out for the moment.’
So why did we have to take our gas masks everywhere? Why were they still digging those mysterious trenches no one knew the reason for, and why were sandbags still piled up outside the town hall? Hitler wasn’t really backing down and nobody knew for certain what he’d do next, no matter what the Prime Minister said. I wanted us all to be together in the country where it was safe.
I felt suddenly shy, sitting opposite Gran in the chilly railway carriage as we set off for the Hall, but at least we didn’t have to talk. She had her knitting and I had my book - the latest in the Chalet Girl series. I’d grown out of the Chalet School books, really, but it was comforting to have something familiar from home in my haversack. Yet I couldn’t settle to reading and gazed out of the window as the backstreets of London flashed by, trying to imagine what lay in store.
Gran caught my eye. ‘Fancy a barley sugar?’ She snapped open the clasp of her handbag and started rustling about inside it.
‘If I bump into Lady Vye, should I curtsey?’ I asked Gran when we were sucking away at our sweets. ‘And what should I call her?’
‘You can call her Lady Vye,’ Gran said, ‘or “ma’am”, if you’d rather. And we don’t go in for curtseying these days. If I took to bobbing about at my age, they’d have to get a winch to haul me up again!’ And she laughed.
I hope I look like Gran when I’m old. She has smooth, nut-brown skin even in the winter, crinkled and worn like an old leather glove; when she smiles, her face lights up and the years fall away. She patted my knee. ‘Now don’t worry so much. You won’t be seeing a great deal of Lady Vye, anyway. The family aren’t back from Scotland for a few days and then I expect she’ll go straight up to London. She’s not much of a one for the country. The children will be about, of course, although Master Tristan’s due back at school soon so you may not even catch a glimpse of him.’
We knew something of the Vye children at home because Tristan, the oldest, was just a couple of years younger than Alfie, and my brothers always clamoured to hear the latest Master Tristan story whenever Gran came to visit. To us, he seemed like a cross between Little Lord Fauntleroy and Oliver Twist. He had two little sisters - twins of six, Miss Julia and Miss Nancy - but somehow they didn’t hold the same fascination, being only girls and having more ordinary names.
‘As soon as you’re up to it, you can start with some easy jobs like cleaning the silver or mending linen,’ Gran said, taking up her knitting again. ‘And you might like to spend some time reading to the twins. The nursery maid keeps them clean and fed, but she’s not got much imagination.’ She sniffed. ‘Sissy, her name is. You’ll meet her soon enough.’
I leaned my head against the grimy window and gazed out, wondering about this strange, old-fashioned world of silver and linen and nursery maids - a world as foreign to me in its own way as the Austrian Tyrol, where the Chalet School was set. Now the railway line was running between row upon row of terraced houses with tiny concrete backyards like ours, the odd piece of washing half-frozen on a line. Here was a garden with a patch of lawn, big enough for an Anderson shelter covered over with turf like a miniature hill fort. Mum said we didn’t need a bomb shelter outside anyway, not with our cellar, but what if the house was hit and we were trapped down there in the dark, with no one to hear us or know we were there? I picked up my book and tried to stop thinking. The next time I looked outside, the sooty landscape of cement and brick had given way to misty fields and oasthouses; we’d arrived in Kent.
We were met at Hardingbridge Station by the chauffeur and handyman at the Hall, Mr Oakes. He had a dour, craggy face with a smear of blood on the chin where he’d cut himself shaving, and was dressed in a flat cap and a tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows. Apparently he’d only wear uniform when the family were at home. I didn’t mind that at all, but I did feel horribly sick in the motor-car. It was only the second time I’d ever been taken out for a drive. If we went anywhere at home, we took the bus or a tram, and I wasn’t used to being shut up in a stuffy, jolting box. Luckily we’d only been going for ten minutes or so when Gran tapped on the glass partition between us and Mr Oakes in front, and he brought the car to a stop by the side of the road.
‘I won’t be long,’ she said, opening the passenger door. I got out too, partly for a breath of air and partly because I didn’t want to be left behind with silent Mr Oakes. We had arrived at a churchyard. I leaned against the car and watched Gran walk through the gate and down a path between the gravestones, clutching her bag with both hands. She has a bad knee and limps a little, so the glass cherries on her hat chinked together with every step. I don’t like cemeteries - they give me the creeps - but the sight of my granny standing all alone by one of the graves, head bowed, made me follow her down the path. She took a little bunch of mistletoe and Christmas roses tied up with ribbon from her handbag and laid it against the headstone while I hovered around behind, not sure whether she wanted company.
‘It’s all right, dear,’ Gran said, without turning round. ‘You can come nearer if you like.’
‘Iris Baker’, read the inscription on the stone, ‘1869-1890’. That was ages ago! ‘Was she a friend of yours?’ I asked, realising it was a stupid question as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Iris Baker must have meant a lot to Gran if she was still visiting her grave nearly fifty years later.
She nodded. ‘Iris took care of me when I first arrived at Swallowcliffe. She passed away around Christmas, so I usually pay my respects at this time of year.’
‘Is Grandad buried here too?’ I asked, looking at the neighbouring headstones.
‘No, he’s in the village churchyard at Stone Martin - much handier. I’ll show you on Sunday.’
We stood for a while longer without speaking. I was thinking how little I really knew about Gran and the life she’d led when she was young. Or the life she led now, for that matter. Was she lonely, all on her own? Grandad had died about six years ago and, out of their four children, Mum was the only one near by. (Aunt Hannah was up in Yorkshire, Aunt Ivy had married an Australian soldier and had her own family out there now, while Uncle Tom had been killed in the war.) Mum had gone down to Swallowcliffe for Grandad’s funeral - she’d left us with Mrs Jones next door for the day, saying it wasn’t the time or place for noisy children - but why hadn’t she visited more often since then?
I gave Gran’s hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t be too sad.’
‘I won’t,’ she said, ‘but it’s important to remember.’
She took my arm and we walked back to the car together. Mr Oakes started up the engine without a word and we set off again with a sickening lurch. I felt tired and low for the rest of the journey, as though the damp fog had seeped out of the graveyard and into my heart. Perhaps that was why the Hall made such an impression on me at first, looming out of the mist like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Several windows were boarded up, and the house stared blankly down as though determined not to show any interest in our arrival. The gravel drive sweeping up to the main entrance was studded with thistles, while bright green moss carpeted a flight of stone steps leading to an overgrown lawn. There didn’t seem to be anyone about, apart from a large black bird waddling stiff-legged over the sodden grass which took off with an irritable ‘caw’ when Mr Oakes slammed the car door shut. He lifted our suitcases down from the luggage rack and led the way through a blue-painted door at the side of the house.
‘We’ll go straight upstairs so you can rest after the journey,’ Gran told me as we followed him down the corridor inside. ‘At least you’ll have a few days to settle in before the family come back from Scotland. Your room’s next door to mine, so you won’t feel lonely, and when you’ve had a lie-down I’ll show you where everything is and tell you what’s what.’
By now we were climbing up a flight of stairs at the end of the hall. There was no carpet and they were quite steep. ‘Can you manage, Gran?’ I asked.
‘Of course I can, dear. One flight of stairs isn’t too much trouble. Mind you, I’d have a struggle getting up to the attic where we used to sleep when I was a girl - you’ll have to explore that on your own. I’ve got a lovely room now opposite the nursery, and there’s a bathroom we share with Sissy and the children. It’s all very comfortable, you’ll see.’
We had come to a bend in the staircase. A flight of three or four stairs on the right opened out into another, longer corridor with doors on each side. Mr Oakes strode off down it, deposited Gran’s case outside the first door on the right, and mine outside the next one along. ‘Thank you, Mr Oakes,’ she said. ‘And thank you again for meeting us.’
‘You’re welcome, Mrs S.’ They were the first words I’d heard him speak. ‘Miss.’ He tipped his cap and marched back down the corridor.
‘Here we are.’ Gran opened the door to my bedroom and I followed her inside with my suitcase. The room was large, with pale green walls and a swirly red carpet. There were a few pieces of furniture cast adrift in it: a chair covered in faded flowery cotton, a white enamelled bedsteads made up with sheets, blankets and an eiderdown, and an oak chest of drawers in the window alcove. It was also cold. Incredibly cold. You could see your breath in a cloud on the air.
‘Oh, that dozy Eunice! I wrote to tell her when we were coming back. She was meant to have had a fire going in here all day!’ Gran picked up the coal tongs and started struggling down on one knee by the fireplace.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, taking the tongs out of her hand and guiding her towards the door. ‘I think I will have that rest now, if you don’t mind.’
A wave of exhaustion and homesickness had suddenly washed over me. Not bothering with the fire, when Gran had gone I kicked off my shoes and climbed into bed under the blankets and quilt in my thick tweed coat, beret and gloves. So many empty rooms in that huge house, and only one of them filled by me! I felt like the beating heart in a sleeping, frozen body. Then I fell asleep myself, and dreamed about all sorts of extraordinary things. I dreamed Mum was running after me with my gas mask, but when I opened the cardboard box it was full of wriggling worms. I dreamed Mr Oakes came to fetch me from the station in a bus, but I didn’t have any money for the fare. I dreamed I was following two girls down a country lane in summer. I called after them, and one of the girls looked back. It was Gran. ‘Have you met my friend, Iris?’ she said, but when the second girl turned around, she had no face, only two deep black holes for eyes.
This was so terrifying that I woke up with a start, bathed in a cold sweat - and knew immediately that I was not alone in the room. It was almost completely dark by now, but somebody was watching me, I felt certain. Watching and waiting. Yes! There, by the door, the blackness had puddled into a square, solid shape. The breath caught in my throat and my heart thumped so heavily it hurt my chest. Then the shape spoke. ‘Who are you?’ it said. And another voice chimed in, ‘What are you doing in our house?’
So that was how I first met Miss Nancy and Miss Julia. The family had come home unexpectedly and, down in the kitchen, my granny was having kittens because none of the beds was aired.
Two
Make-up? Of course you must. Pale lifeless cheeks don’t give you glamour. Use Snowflake Blush Cream, and be radiant with the natural colour that men adore. In four very alluring shades – Blonde, Brunette, Medium and Tangerine.
Advertisement in Miss Modern magazine, January 1939
All I did for those first few weeks at the Hall was lie in bed all morning and then spend the afternoon sitting outside in a deckchair, wrapped in a moth-eaten fur coat from the dressing-up chest with a rug over my knees. As long as it wasn’t raining, Gran insisted on me getting plenty of fresh air and I didn’t complain because it usually seemed colder inside the house than out. The only warm room was the kitchen, with its huge black range that Mr Oakes stoked up with coke every day. As soon I started feeling stronger, I’d sit down there in the mornings and Gran would find me a few little jobs to do: peeling vegetables, kneading bread, polishing the odd piece of silver that Mr Huggins, the butler, hadn’t got around to. Sometimes I’d take Wellington, the Vyes’ chocolate Labrador, for a walk. My appetite had come back with a vengeance, and everything at Swallowcliffe was so delicious. Each morning we had crispy bacon or ham with Gran’s homemade bread, and later on Mr Oakes would bring through a trugload of vegetables from the kitchen garden. The butcher’s sausages tasted completely different from the flabby pink ones we ate at home (‘dead men’s fingers’, Stan and Alfie call them), and butter from the farm dairy was so creamy and sweet you could polish off half a pound all by itself.
By the middle of my second month, it felt as though I’d been living at Swallowcliffe for years. One Saturday afternoon, Gran sent me on an errand to the village shop and I decided to take Nancy and Julia with me for a treat since Sissy had the day off. Something about the shopkeeper, Mr Tarver, made me feel uncomfortable, so perhaps I wanted some moral support as well. He had cold eyes and a false smile, and he knew everyone’s business because he was an ARP warden. ‘Air Raid Precautions’, that’s what ARP stands for. I’d once seen Mr Tarver kitted out in an ARP armband and metal helmet, berating an old lady who hadn’t come to him yet for her gas mask. He’d even ridden up to the Hall and told Gran she should start criss-crossing the windows with brown tape in case they were blown in.
‘We must be prepared for all eventualities, Mrs Stanbury.’ He’d bared his teeth in a fearsome grin. ‘I trust you’ve begun measuring up for blackout material.’
To be honest, I wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere near the village shop if it hadn’t been for the boy who helped behind the counter. The first time I saw him, I dropped my change all over the floor. There was something so startlingly vivid about his black curly hair, pale skin and sharp cheekbones that you couldn’t help staring. Gran happened to let slip that he was German when he delivered our weekly order one day, and that was mysterious in itself. What was a German boy doing over here when his country was at loggerheads with ours? And how had he ended up in Mr Tarver’s dark Aladdin’s cave of groceries? I wasn’t very good at talking to boys, but looking at him made a trip to the shop a lot more exciting.
And then Julia spoilt everything. ‘We don’t like that boy,’ she announced in a loud whisper, pointing at him so there could be no confusion. ‘He’s a German spy.’
Just like that, right in the middle of the shop! I could have killed her, except that would have drawn even more attention to us and I was hoping by some miracle that no one had heard what she’d said. Mr Tarver was busy with another customer - Miss Murdoch, the vicar’s sister - and you can bet she did; she has bat’s ears. I knew that because, the week before, she’d turned around from playing the organ and glared at two girls who were whispering at the back of the church. So I settled for frowning ferociously at Julia to stop her saying anything else.
The boy was reaching down a packet of fancy tea with a long pole that had a hook on the end. Mr Tarver’s shelves were a work of art, with every tin, jar and packet arranged in intricate patterns, and the whole shop smelt rich and spicy as a fruitcake. It was even more crammed with goods than usual because the back storeroom had been cleared out and turned into a wardens’ post. There were maps on the walls, an electric fire and a kettle for Mr Tarver and Mr Williams from the garage to make tea when they were on official warden duty.
The boy turned around with the tea in his hand, put it down on the counter and gave us a look. My face grew hot.
‘Will that be all, Miss Murdoch?’ Mr Tarver asked, a faint sheen of sweat glistening on his double chins. ‘Shall I have your order sent round to the vicarage, or will you take the items now?’
The ‘order’ consisted of a paper bag of custard creams, weighed out from a large tin, and the tea. ‘I’ll take them with me,’ she said, stowing the shopping in her basket and getting up from the chair by the counter. ‘I only popped in because I happened to be passing. The body requires sustenance as well as the soul, Mr Tarver, and my poor brother is at home wrestling with a sermon.’
‘Oh, very good.’ He laughed as though she’d made the funniest joke in the world and reached for a large black book on the counter top. ‘I’ll add them to your account.’
‘When can we choose our sweets?’ Nancy asked in a piercing voice, tugging at my hand.
Both Miss Murdoch and Mr Tarver looked round. ‘Patience is a virtue, Miss Nancy,’ Miss Murdoch said - which was clever of her, since Nancy and Julia are identical twins. Sometimes I find it hard to tell them apart, even now. They have the same grey eyes, the same dusting of freckles and the same explosion of curly fair hair that takes Sissy ages to brush in the morning. Nancy has a chicken pox scar over her right eyebrow, and that’s the only difference between them, so far as I can make out.
‘See you on Tuesday, Isobel,’ Miss Murdoch said as she went by. Gran had volunteered me for a first aid evening class in the village hall, run by the Women’s Voluntary Service, and Miss Murdoch took the register. I enjoyed the bandaging but now we were learning about the effects of different gases and that was horrible. I was considering pretending to be ill next week and coughed hollowly, hoping Miss Murdoch would remember that later.
At last it was our turn to be served. ‘May I have two pounds of prunes, please?’ I could see the boy in the corner of my eye, wiping down the bacon slicer, and hoped he wasn’t listening. There was something embarrassing about prunes.
Mr Tarver waited until the door had closed behind Miss Murdoch with a jangling of its bell. ‘Cash or account?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Account,’ I answered, stammering slightly. Gran hadn’t given me any money; Mr Tarver came up to the Hall at the end of each month for the bill to be settled and we were well into February now. Why did he need to ask?
He made a great performance of flicking over the pages in the black book until he came to the right one. Then he ran one podgy finger down the line of figures, frowning, and shook his head. ‘Sorry, young lady. There’s money owing since before Christmas and I can’t give you any more credit. It’ll be cash only until this account’s paid off, I’m afraid.’
Now I was blushing to the roots of my hair. Mr Tarver straightened up and stared at us unpleasantly, the striped apron straining over his chest. Behind him, the German boy stared too.
‘So, do you want those prunes or not?’
‘How much are they?’ I asked, feeling for the purse in my pocket and wishing I could fall through the floor. I had sixpence of my own money to buy Nancy and Julia some ha’penny chews and a blank exercise book for myself. (I’d decided to start writing a diary.)
‘Fourpence a pound.’
‘I’ll have a pound and a half then, please,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster. Gran needed the wretched things; Lady Vye was throwing a dinner party that night and she’d suddenly decided to serve devils on horseback as a savoury (which was prunes wrapped in bacon, apparently). I couldn’t go back to the Hall without them.
Nancy pulled my arm again, sensing that something was wrong. ‘What about our sweets?’
‘Hush. We’ll buy some sweets another day,’ I told her, in a tone of voice that meant it’d be more than her life was worth to kick up a fuss. She narrowed her eyes and stuck out her lower lip but, thank goodness, nothing more.
The prunes lay glistening like plump black beetles in a glass jar on the shelf. Mr Tarver took the jar down, put a square of blue paper on the scales and tipped out a clump of them, adding one and then another with a pair of tongs until he reached exactly the right weight. Then he folded the paper into a neat parcel and pushed it across the counter to me. ‘Will that be all?’
‘For today, thank you.’ I gave him the money, took the prunes and dragged Nancy and Julia out of the shop. I was never going back there again.
‘Why couldn’t we have our sweets? Why was that man so horrid?’ Julia demanded, dragging her feet along the pavement. ‘We’ve walked all this way … ’
‘… for nothing!’ Nancy finished the sentence for her, which was a habit of theirs.
‘You always have a walk in the afternoon,’ I said, ‘and it’s not even raining, so cheer up. And don’t scuff your shoes or Nanny will be cross.’ (Sissy’s known to them as Nanny, even though she is no more than a ‘slip of a thing’, as my granny puts it.)
You might have thought my humiliation was complete, but worse was to come. I heard a call and turned around to see the German boy hurrying after us. ‘I don’t like - ’ Julia began.
‘Shh! We know that already,’ I hissed.
‘Excuse me,’ the boy began, slightly out of breath. ‘Excuse me, but the little girl must give back the sweets.’
It was an intriguing accent: soft, but very precise. I’d never heard a German person speaking English before. We’d seen newsreels of Hitler at the cinema, but of course he’d always been ranting away in his own language. (It would have given them all a shock if he’d suddenly started speaking English, wouldn’t it?)
Still, this was adding insult to injury. ‘She hasn’t got any sweets,’ I replied stiffly. ‘We spent all our money on prunes.’
‘No, she took them,’ he said, pointing at Nancy. ‘Now she must give them back.’
Nancy had turned bright red, but she didn’t say anything. ‘Nancy, tell him you aren’t a thief,’ I ordered. Not a word in response. And then I noticed that both her hands in their blue woollen gloves were clenched into fists. ‘Nancy?’ My stomach sinking, I gave her shoulder a little shake.
We were all staring at her. Slowly, slowly, she uncurled her fingers - and there in the palm of each hand lay three fruit chews, their pink and orange wrappers glowing against the bright blue wool. Most of the sweets were out of her range in glass jars, but there’d been an open box of chews on the counter; she must have raided it while Mr Tarver had his back to us, fetching the prunes.
I could hardly believe my eyes. ‘Oh, you naughty girl!’
‘I was going to share them with Julia,’ she said. ‘They weren’t all for me.’
‘That’s not the point.’ I took a deep breath, wondering where to begin.
‘You must tell her it’s wrong to take things,’ the boy said.
‘Don’t worry, I will.’ But that was only the start of it; Nancy would have to be marched back to the shop, made to hand over the sweets and say sorry to Mr Tarver. I could hardly bear to think how awful that would be.
The boy held out his hand. ‘I will take them back, if you like. Mr Tarver did not see. But you will tell her, won’t you?’
I hesitated, but only for a split second. ‘Of course. Thank you very much - that’s decent of you.’ He’d saved our bacon twice: once for not ratting on Nancy in front of Mr Tarver, and now this. But what must he have thought of me?
‘It’s all right. Enjoy your prunes.’ He smiled and suddenly the sun sailed out from behind a cloud, turning everything clear and golden.
‘You must know it’s wrong to steal,’ I said to Nancy as we trailed up the long drive to the Hall. ‘What do you think people will say? “There goes naughty little Nancy Vye, who takes things that don’t belong to her”?’
She was stomping along with a pixie hood buttoned under her chin and a gas mask slung in its cardboard box around her neck - quite unrepentant. ‘No, they won’t. They’ll say, “There goes poor little Nancy Vye, who never has any treats or nice things.”’
‘Listen,’ I said, squatting down to her level, ‘you’re a very lucky girl. You have plenty to eat, and warm clothes, and lots of toys to play with. There are children in London who don’t have shoes to wear, not even in winter.’ At the school where Mum taught, they collected spare pennies through the year to buy boots for the children who’d go barefoot otherwise. Nancy ought to realise how hard times were for some people. ‘Anyway, there’s no excuse for stealing. It’s wicked, and if you carry on like this you’ll get into very bad trouble and maybe even end up in prison. I shall have to tell Stanny, you know.’ (‘Stanny’ is what they call my grandmother - Mrs Stanbury being quite a mouthful for a six-year-old.) There was no point threatening to tell Sissy.
That hit home. ‘Oh, please don’t, Isobel! Don’t tell Stanny. I’ll never, ever take anything again, I promise - cross my heart and hope to die.’
They love Gran; being allowed to come into the kitchen and help her make a cake or biscuits is a huge treat. In fact I didn’t really want to tell my granny what Nancy had done because she worried enough about the twins as it was. ‘They’re turning into little savages and Her Ladyship won’t take a blind bit of notice. A proper governess is what they need, not some village girl they can run rings around. See if you can keep them on the straight and narrow while you’re here, Izzie.’
I think I’d managed to convince Nancy that a life of crime wasn’t worth the candle by the time we’d walked back from the village. We hung up our outdoor things in the downstairs cloakroom and I took the girls upstairs where Sissy was waiting with their nursery tea. Leaving the twins to their milk and bread and butter, I went back down to give Gran my shopping and tell her what Mr Tarver had put me through to get it.
‘The cheek of the man!’ She stared down at the parcel of prunes, lying innocently between us on the scrubbed wooden table. ‘How could he say such a thing? He was up here last week for Her Ladyship to settle the bill.’
‘Maybe she only gave him some of the money,’ I suggested.
‘Was there anyone else in the shop at the time?’ Gran asked.
I shook my head. ‘Miss Murdoch had gone by then.’
‘We should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose. Don’t tell Eunice, whatever you do, or it’ll be round the village quicker than greased lightning.’ Eunice was the house-parlourmaid, who went home at the end of each day rather than living in - much to Gran’s suspicion. She sank into a chair and pushed the blue-paper package away from her across the table. ‘Dear lord! That it should come to this.’
I wanted to tell Gran that Mr Tarver was a horrible old man and she shouldn’t take any notice of him, but she has firm views about young people respecting their elders and betters so I kept quiet, filled the kettle and put it on the hot plate to boil. Mrs Jeakes, the kitchen cat, glared at me from her warm basket next to the range. I picked her up, feeling her body stiffen in outrage at the liberty, but she consented to be tickled under the chin for a few seconds before struggling out of my arms.
‘The suppers and dances we used to have at Swallowcliffe before the war!’ Gran said, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘If only you could have seen the place then, Izzie, full of life and elegant conversation. All the ladies so beautifully dressed, and the gentlemen so handsome and charming: the very cream of society. Roaring fires in every room, and the dishes that came out of the kitchen would make your mouth water just to look at them. There’d be tradesmen queuing for hours to see the cook - it was a privilege to supply the Hall in those days. And to think that now we can’t even run an account at the village shop! Well, I shall have to speak to Her Ladyship about it tomorrow. No sense raising the matter tonight.’
‘Don’t worry, Gran, I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. Have you got time for a cup of tea?’
She looked at the clock. ‘I should have, if you’ll be a love and peel some potatoes for me. Mind you wash your hands, though. Goodness knows where that cat’s been.’
‘So, what’s for dinner this evening?’ I asked Gran when we’d had our tea and I was wrist-deep in potato peelings at the scullery sink.
‘Leek and potato soup to start, then scalloped oysters, beef with a red-wine sauce and queen’s pudding to follow. Not forgetting the savoury, of course. I could live without messing about with devils on horseback, I must say, but Her Ladyship’s determined everything has to be perfect.’
‘Because she wants to impress a certain person, that’s why.’ Eunice, the house-parlourmaid, had suddenly materialised behind us. She often turned up unexpectedly like that. Suddenly you’d turn around and there she was, but looking so bland and inscrutable that you couldn’t possibly accuse her of eavesdropping. She reminded me of one of those wooden Russian dolls that nest inside each other: black hair parted in the middle, dark button eyes set in a round face and a comfortable, plumpish body - full of secrets.
Gran refused to be drawn; she was made of sterner stuff than me. ‘Now then, Eunice, haven’t you got enough to think about without filling that empty head of yours with gossip?’
‘Who’s coming tonight?’ I asked, hoping for a clue, but Eunice was sulking so Gran answered my question.
‘Nobody much. A Dowager Duchess - she’s the only title - along with some artist friend of His Lordship’s, and a few other couples to make up the numbers. One gentleman “in business” apparently, whatever that means. Trade, I shouldn’t wonder. Oh, and Major Winstanley, so Mr Huggins had better make sure the whisky decanter’s full. Have you seen Mr Huggins, Eunice?’
‘He’s in the dining room, finishing off the table,’ she said huffily. ‘Well, I’ve done the fires and tidied the drawing room so I’m going to have a sit-down for five minutes. We shall be up late and my chilblains are giving me gyp already.’
‘Run and find Mr Huggins for me, would you, Izzie?’ Gran asked. She put a china jug in my hands. ‘Remind him the Major’s coming, and could you ask for some red wine for cooking? Nothing too fancy. Don’t worry, nobody’s about - the Vyes’ll be changing for dinner.’
I walked along the corridor past the butler’s pantry and servery, then scuttled out into the hall. Going outside the servants’ quarters usually made me nervous (it was the thought of bumping into Lady Vye unexpectedly around a corner) but the house was looking so beautiful in the gathering dusk that I couldn’t help loitering for a while to look around. The huge marble staircase seemed to float up through the gloom like some ghostly stairway to heaven and, far above my head, the round skylight window framed a circle of inky velvet. Daylight is too harsh for Swallowcliffe: all you can see is faded upholstery, dark shapes on the wallpaper where paintings used to hang, scuffed and peeling paintwork. When evening falls, lamps cast flickering shadows over cracks in the walls and the place becomes suddenly magical and mysterious.
Then a door slammed upstairs, and I remembered my errand. In the dining room, Mr Huggins was darting around the mahogany table like a humming bird, straightening cutlery and flicking away any specks of dust with a linen cloth. There were three crystal glasses at every place and enough gleaming knives, forks and spoons to last a week of meals. (Thank goodness it wouldn’t be me having to work out which ones to use!) A name card in a silver holder had been put beside each starched white linen napkin and two huge silver candelabra stood in the middle of the table, along with pots of white orchids from the greenhouse. I could smell their sweetness in the air, mixed up with beeswax polish and woodsmoke from the fire.
‘Quite something, isn’t it?’ Mr Huggins had noticed me during one of his swoops on the table. Usually he’s the very picture of dignity, slow and solemn, but that evening he was practically skipping about. ‘Reminds me of the old days. Dinner parties were nothing out of the ordinary then, oh no. Run of the mill, you might say. And how is everything in the kitchen? I trust Mrs S is performing her usual miracle.’
‘Yes, Mr Huggins. The menu sounds lovely. She’s sent me to beg some red wine for cooking, if you can spare any. And she says did you know that Major Winstanley’s one of the guests?’
‘Indeed I did, young lady. The decanters are brimming and I’ve fetched an extra bottle of single malt from the cellar in case of emergencies. We are prepared for everything! Now come along to the pantry with me and we’ll fill that jug.’
I followed Mr Huggins back to the butler’s pantry which he unlocked with a key from the pocket of his green baize apron, humming under his breath. Every surface seemed to be covered in bottles, and several cut-glass decanters stood about with silver name labels on chains around their necks. ‘Whisky’ was certainly full to overflowing, dribbling into a puddle on the tray. The cellar book lay open on a table, its pages splattered with a trail of purple droplets, while cloths soaked up another spillage on the floor.
‘Brigade headquarters,’ said Mr Huggins, sniffing up the winey air with great satisfaction. ‘The command centre of the operation!’ He reached for an unlabelled bottle beside the sink which had already been uncorked. ‘This should do the job.’ The wine splashed in a gurgling crimson stream into my jug. ‘And a couple of inches left over - criminal to waste them.’ In a second, he’d fetched two small tumblers from the cupboard and filled them too. I noticed his hand was shaking slightly. ‘Join me in a toast, my dear. We shall drink to the success of the evening!’
I’d never tasted wine before, but Mr Huggins seemed in such a jolly mood that it would have been a shame to disappoint him. ‘To the success of the evening,’ we chorused, and clinked glasses. Ugh! I’d sooner have drunk cough medicine.
Back in the kitchen, Gran was opening oysters with a silver knife. ‘Was everything all right out there?’ she asked as I handed over the jug.
‘I’ll say. You should see Mr Huggins!’ I told her. ‘He’s positively dancing on air.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, and looked worried.
Three
It isn’t clever to suffer cold feet in miserable silence. Natty ankle socks and stout brogues are very comfortable, they can be very smart and always look so intellectual.
From Miss Modern magazine, April 1939
‘I think that’s everything.’ Gran stood, hands on hips, surveying the table. The soup was made, the oysters sat in their scallop shells, waiting till the last minute to join the beef that was sizzling in the top oven, the potatoes were coming to a boil, and the carrots and cabbage were in saucepans ready to be cooked. ‘How are you getting on with the prunes, lovie?’
‘Nearly done. It was a good idea to cut them in half.’ I was wrapping the prunes in rashers of bacon and threading them on a skewer; a fiddly job, but good to sit in the toasty warm kitchen with something easy to do.
Gran looked at the baking tray and sniffed. ‘Hardly worth the effort. I might whip up a few cheese straws to bulk them out if there’s time.’ She reached for the flour tin. ‘The company should be arriving before long. Oh, where’s that Eunice?’
‘Here, Mrs S,’ she said, gliding into the room and making us both jump.
‘Good,’ Gran said. ‘Will you keep an eye on Mr Huggins for me? Something tells me he’s brewing up.’
‘What do you mean, Gran?’ I asked, when Eunice had gone. ‘Brewing up for what?’
‘Grate some cheese for me, dear, if you’ve finished the prunes,’ she said by way of a reply. ‘And don’t ask so many questions.’
‘But why does Mr Huggins need an eye kept on him?’ I persisted, coming back from the larder. ‘He seemed on top form to me.’
She sighed. ‘Oh, all right, then. You’ll probably find out soon enough anyway. Mr Huggins had a hard time of it in the war. His nerves aren’t what they were and sometimes he gets a little … over-excited, you might say. When that happens, he’ll come down to earth with an almighty bump and it’s the last thing we need tonight.’
In less than five minutes Eunice was back; I’d never seen her move so fast. ‘I can’t find him anywhere,’ she panted. ‘He’s not in the hall, the dining room, the drawing room or the pantry, and not in his room, neither. I think he must be … you know.’ She pointed downwards with a meaningful look.
‘Oh, good heavens above!’ Gran wiped her hands on a drying-up cloth and looked at the clock. ‘Well, we can’t leave him there. You’ll have to go and fetch him. Take Isobel - you won’t be able to manage on your own.’
Eunice seized my arm and pulled me out of the kitchen by the side door. She hurried me along the passage and then opened a door under the stairs that I’d never noticed before. A flight of steps stretched before us into the pitch black. ‘Mind you don’t fall,’ she warned. ‘It’s steep, and there’s no stair rail.’
How could I begin to tell her? This was my worst nightmare: being shut in a confined space in the darkness. I’ve the sanatorium to thank for that - or more particularly, the iron lung which stood in its own special room in the hospital. It was meant to help you breathe, though nobody ever explained exactly how. You lay in the thing and a close-fitting lid was brought down over your body with a mask and breathing tube attached to your face. I never had to be put inside it, thank goodness, but the girl in the bed next to me did and I can still hear her screaming as they dragged her off. It gave us all the heebie-jeebies.
‘Eunice, I’m sorry but I can’t go down there,’ I said, hating myself for being so feeble. ‘I’m afraid.’
She turned around and shot me an unsympathetic look. ‘Well, you’d better buck up and get un-afraid pretty sharpish. This is an emergency. Anyway, there’s a light burning at the bottom. Hold on to my apron strings and you’ll be all right.’
So that was that. She grabbed my hand, tucked it through the sash of her apron where it was tied at the back, and set off down the stairs with me in tow. There was no time to kick up a fuss; all I could do was cling on for dear life, fix my eyes on her broad back in front of me and try not to think about anything else. The air smelt fusty and stale, and somewhere near the bottom of the steps a strand of something damp floated across my face. I couldn’t help gasping and tasted it sooty in my mouth.
‘Nearly there,’ Eunice said over her shoulder. ‘Keep going. Look, there’s the light.’
We stepped out on to the level and I saw a couple of dim bulbs hanging from the cellar’s low, vaulted ceiling. The walls and floor were hewed from rough stone, and all along one side were stone cubbyholes: most of them bare but some containing a few cobwebby bottles that looked hundreds of years old. Three or four iron-banded wooden barrels lay against the other wall, one upended and empty.
‘You might as well get used to it down here,’ Eunice whispered (something about the place made you want to lower your voice). ‘This is where we’ll be if the German bombers come over - the Vyes and us lot all hugger mugger together. I wonder what they’ll make of that?’
I couldn’t speak. In the silence, we both became aware of a low keening sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Eunice stiffened, peering into the gloom. ‘There he is.’ She took my hand again; her own was clammy and I suddenly realised she was frightened too. It made me feel better, in an odd sort of way. ‘Come on, we’ll have to go and get him.’
I don’t know how we made it from one end of the cellar to the other, but we must have done somehow because suddenly there we were, looking down at a huddled shape on the floor that was Mr Huggins - although a very different Mr Huggins from the one I’d seen upstairs an hour before. It was as though someone had opened a valve and let all the air out of him. He was sitting against the wall, rocking his head against his knees and moaning quietly. ‘Can’t do it,’ I heard him say. ‘No use, no use at all. No use to anyone.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Huggins.’ Eunice bent over him. ‘You come along with us.’
She took one arm and I took the other, and together we hoisted him to his feet. He wasn’t a big man but a dead weight all the same, and it was hard work, half-dragging, half-carrying him back to the stairs. We stopped at the foot of them to catch our breath.
‘Phew!’ Eunice said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. ‘Now we’ll have to go single file.’
She hooked her arms under Mr Huggins’ shoulders and started heaving him up backwards, feeling gingerly behind with her foot for each next step. I carried his legs and tried to take as much of his weight as possible, to help her. We had to go slowly; Eunice stumbled once and nearly fell, which gave us an awful fright. Each time she hoisted Mr Huggins up, I could tell by the strain on her face and the noise she made that the effort was nearly killing her. He was silent now. All you could hear in the darkness was the two of us grunting and groaning, and the thump of his body against stone.
At last - at long, long last - we reached the top and staggered out into the light of the corridor. Between us we propped Mr Huggins against the wall, and Eunice straightened her lopsided cap with one hand. ‘Well, I’m not going back down there in a hurry. Let’s get him to his room for a lie-down. He won’t be doing any more work tonight.’
So what would become of Her Ladyship’s dinner party now?
‘Mr Oakes?’ Eunice stared at Gran. ‘You’ll never get him to pass for an indoor servant, not in a month of Sundays.’
‘We don’t have a choice,’ Gran replied sharply. ‘Somebody has to carve the beef and I should think he’s capable of taking everyone’s coats and telling them dinner is served.’
‘What’s he going to wear?’ Eunice asked. ‘He’ll never fit into Mr Huggins’s livery.’
‘I’ve found a tailcoat in the linen room that’ll probably do - he’s putting it on now in the pantry. There’s a clean apron here for you, too. I knew you’d get yours in a mess, down in that filthy cellar. And uniform for Isobel.’
‘Me?’ I asked, startled, as Gran handed me a neatly folded parcel of black silk with a white cap and apron on top. ‘But I’m going to be staying in the kitchen with you, aren’t I?’
‘Not tonight, dear. Eunice can’t manage on her own if she’s to wind up Mr Oakes and point him in the right direction. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No, I suppose not,’ I stammered. ‘But I probably won’t make a very good parlourmaid.’
‘Just do as Eunice says and you’ll be fine.’ Gran sent me off to wash and change with a gentle push. ‘And don’t tell your mother, whatever happens, or she’ll have forty fits. Quickly now! There isn’t a minute to spare.’
‘It’s all very well,’ Eunice grumbled as we hurried along to the drawing room a little while later. ‘Nobody asks me whether I mind all this toing and froing and rooting about in cellars. I shouldn’t have to put up with it and I won’t for much longer, that’s the honest truth. Everything’s topsy turvy - ’
This monologue was interrupted by a ring on the doorbell. ‘Oh no! Somebody’s here already.’ She shrank back against the wall. ‘Where’s Mr Oakes?’
We were overtaken by a tall figure loping past us down the hall. Mr Oakes was wearing evening tails but the trousers that went with them weren’t nearly long enough and flapped around his ankles, revealing a pair of scuffed black shoes. His hair had been brushed down flat with water and stood out around his head like nothing so much as a stiff black lampshade. ‘Look at him,’ Eunice whispered. ‘Frankenstein’s long-lost brother.’
Mr Oakes opened the front door, letting in a blast of cold air. ‘Yes?’ He seemed reluctant to let anyone through it.
‘Oh, good heavens,’ Eunice said. ‘Stay here, Izzie, while I rescue the company, and then follow me into the drawing room.’
Now my legs turned to water. Lord and Lady Vye would be sitting there, waiting for their guests to arrive. What would they say when they saw me dressed up as a parlourmaid, let alone Mr Oakes in his Frankenstein outfit? But Eunice was already discreetly tugging him back from the door by his tails, forcing him to open it wider - and our first couple for dinner stepped over the threshold.
‘Huggins not about?’ enquired the red-faced gentleman, shrugging off his overcoat and dumping it in Mr Oakes’ unresponsive arms while Eunice helped his wife out of her furs.
‘On holiday, Major Winstanley,’ she replied promptly, adding the stole to Mr Oakes’ load. ‘Would you care to come this way?’ And she started off towards the drawing room.
Straightening my cuffs, I took a deep breath and followed on behind the Winstanleys, trying to look as much like a proper parlourmaid as possible. The black frock smelt of mothballs and didn’t fit me very well, but Gran had hidden that by bunching up the silk and tying my apron extra tightly over the top. This was it! Despite my nerves, the tiniest flutter of excitement danced in my stomach. I was about to find out what happened at a posh dinner party.
Lord Vye was standing by the drawing-room mantelpiece with a glass in his hand, dressed in evening tails with a white bow-tie. I’d come across him a few times since arriving at the Hall and, while this might sound odd, he struck me as rather airy-fairy, somehow - too insubstantial to be a viscount. You could walk into the room and not even notice he was there. He had wavy light brown hair and kind eyes, and seemed to spend a lot of time painting in his studio (which Gran told me used to be the old servants’ hall, in a wing that was mostly shut up).
Her Ladyship was sitting in an armchair on the other side of the fire. Her eyes flickered over me for a second before she rose to greet the Winstanleys. ‘Barbara! Reginald! How delightful to see you, and how prompt you are, as always.’ An ivory satin evening gown, cut low at the front and with hardly any back at all, swirled around her feet as she walked, and a pearl choker with a diamond clasp circled her slim neck. She had thick, honey-coloured hair set in a Marcel wave and the same grey eyes as Nancy and Julia, but there was something cold and remote about the way she stared at the world down her long elegant nose, head tilted slightly to one side. Gran said it was because she was short-sighted, but then why didn’t she just wear spectacles?
Eunice nudged my elbow. ‘Ask the lady if she’d like a drink. I’ll see to the Major.’
Mrs Winstanley was a dumpy lady in a brown crêpe frock: a dull peahen next to her peacock of a husband in his scarlet hunting coat with shiny gilt buttons. ‘A small sherry, please,’ she ordered, which was easy enough because the decanter with its name label was waiting next to a tray of glasses on the side table.
I poured the sherry and was about to take it over when Eunice thrust a silver salver me. ‘On a tray,’ she muttered. ‘Nothing by hand.’
That was a close shave; I decided to trail Eunice from now on and take my cue from her. She approached Major Winstanley and hovered by his elbow with a glass of whisky on a tray, waiting for him to notice her when he felt like it, so I did the same with Mrs Winstanley. Eventually she took the sherry without a glance at me and without a pause in her conversation.
‘Will you excuse me for one second, Barbara?’ Lady Vye asked graciously, and I felt an iron hand in the small of my back as she took me off. When we were a safe distance away, three icy words were whispered into my ear.
‘Change your shoes.’
I was wearing brown lace-ups. They were the only shoes I had, apart from a pair of summer sandals, tennis pumps, wellington boots for outside and slippers for indoors, but I couldn’t start explaining that to Her Ladyship, could I? So I put down the tray and walked as unobtrusively as possible out of the room, then took to my heels and flew down the hall to the kitchen.