Femmes Fatal (34 page)

“Start at the very beginning,” she would beg.

“Very well,” Grandpa would reply. “The original part of this house was built in the twelfth century by Thomas Short Shanks, a henpecked baron whose wife, Lady Normina, agreed to let him go off and fight in the Crusades on one minor concession. He had to build her a house that would turn her eleven sisters green with envy.”

“Lady Normina doesn’t sound a particularly nice person, does she, Grandpa?”

“That’s not for the likes of us to say, Flora,” he would reply firmly as his hands kept polishing away at a piece of silver. “The story goes that Lady Normina was tired of the way her less-than-loving kin looked down their knobby noses at her. All because her husband had provided fodder for every second-rate town crier in England, by being disqualified from a major jousting tournament (plus fined a purse of gold) for galloping into the arena before Queen Eleanor had time to drop her hanky.”

“Poor Thomas.” Flora’s tender young heart was always touched at this juncture of the story.

“Sir Thomas to you and me,” Grandpa would say reprovingly. “He may have been dead for close on a thousand years but that’s no reason not to pay him due respect.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Then we will continue.” This would be said with a smile. “Truth be told, Flora, Lady Normina’s sisters weren’t the only ones she wished to outdo. In those days, kitchens weren’t part of the main house. And, bent on keeping up with the Ostaffs who lived two castles away, Lady Normina insisted her kitchen be within easy distance of the house in order that she might spy on the shiftless cook; but not so close that were a leg of mutton to catch on fire her dream house would go up in smoke with it.”

“I think I would have been scared of Lady Normina.” Flora always hoped this did not sound too much like a criticism.

“By all accounts she was a masterful woman.” Grandpa had usually finished polishing two or three pieces of silver by this time. “She didn’t mind that the other ladies in the vicinity called her nouveau riche and terribly standoffish! Lady Normina thought them all pathetic creatures and understandably jealous that the rushes on her floors always stayed so nice and fresh. Her Ladyship had made a vow to her patron saint, Flora, that she would put a dent in the armor of any knight who didn’t remove his shoes before setting
foot inside her abode. And anyone who wanted to spit had to go outside.”

“Did Sir Henry tell you all this, Grandpa?”

“Quite a bit has been written down, my dear. The Gossingers have always been great ones for keeping journals. But don’t keep interrupting me, Flora, or I’ll never be finished before it’s time for Sir Henry’s tea.” Grandpa often picked up a clean polishing cloth about now. “It isn’t hard to believe that Lady Normina’s pride and joy was the garderobe.”

“What’s that?”

“An indoor toilet, something most people—even very rich ones—didn’t have in those days, and so called because it doubled as a storage room for clothing, on account of the felicitous chemical composition of the fumes doing a bang-up job of keeping out moths. The word
wardrobe
, Flora, comes down to us from the garderobe.”

“That’s interesting,” Flora would say dutifully, trying not to wrinkle up her nose.

“The sisters were beside themselves—with happiness we must hope—at their dear Normina’s good fortune.”

“Is the garderobe still here, Grandpa?”

“Of course it is,” he would reply as he glanced up at the clock. “But it’s locked up now. Do get down off that stool, there’s a good child, and fetch the chocolate cake from the pantry for Sir Henry’s tea.”

Flora understood from listening to Grandpa that Gossinger Hall had once been the last word in luxury, by the standards of its time. John of Gaunt was said
to have visited there on several occasions with his mistress Catherine Swinford. And, in this latter part of the twentieth century, the Hall still made for an interesting place to view on the days it was open to the public. The price of admission was modest, only two pounds per adult and fifty pence for any juvenile who made a sincere attempt to look short and sufficiently bored to pass for under the age of twelve.

Making even better value for the money was the inclusion in the tour of a pair of headphones and a hand cassette, which provided an audio guide to points of historical and architectural interest. However, the sad truth is that whilst it wasn’t a bad place to visit, especially on early closing day at the shops, very few people who appreciated the comforts provided by even the most modest semidetached house would have wanted to
live
at Gossinger Hall.

Little Flora, with the ghost of the twelfth-century Lady Normina looming larger than life over her shoulder, was very glad that Sir Henry, at nearly sixty, remained unmarried. She quite liked Mrs. Warren, who worked in the tearoom-cum-gift-shop. She was fond of Mr. Tipp, whose job description was stable boy even though he was close to the same age as his master, Sir Henry. And she adored her grandfather, even though she sometimes thought crossly that he loved the Queen better than anyone else in the world.

Her childhood had seemed to pass through her fingers like an enchanted daisy chain, all pastel colors and gentle fragrances. School in the village. Sir Henry giving her toffees and patting her on the head. Sunny
afternoons spent rummaging for cast-off finery in attic trunks, so she could dress up and pretend to be one of Lady Normina’s handmaidens. And Grandpa telling her other stories about earlier times at Gossinger.

There was the one about Queen Charlotte paying an afternoon visit that ended with a terrible stain upon the family honor, when it was discovered that the silver tea strainer Her Majesty had brought with her was missing. The Gossinger heir at that time was a wild young man, up to his powdered wig in gambling debts, and it was naturally suspected that he had pocketed the tea strainer to sell at the first opportunity.

Flora spent countless hours hunting for the strainer in all the nooks and crannies she could discover. It would have been so wonderful to have gone running in to Grandpa with her hands behind her back and say “Guess what I’ve found? Sir Rowland didn’t steal the tea strainer after all! It was here all the time!” It would have been Flora’s small way of repaying her grandfather for making up to her all the love she had missed by her mother’s untimely death. And for the fact she never seemed to have had a father.

Grandpa, she knew, would have been immensely pleased to have the Gossinger honor thus restored. But that wasn’t all. Holding the tea strainer in his hands would have been a magical moment for him. His great passion was the silver he polished for Sir Henry, which made it surprising, Flora always thought, that there was one story he would never tell her even though she was sure he knew all about it: how the superbly crafted silver collection he loved so
much had come into the Gossinger family’s possession in the first place.

Flora never did find that tea strainer. And suddenly, as if she had gone to bed one night a child and awakened the next morning a young woman, Flora was seventeen. And before she had time to turn around, a big change occurred at Gossinger Hall. Mabel Bowser appeared on the scene.

On the fateful day in question, Flora had been looking out the window of the sitting room she shared with her grandfather when she saw a woman in brown tweeds get off the sight-seeing coach and set foot inside the gift-shop-cum-tearoom that served as the public entrance to Gossinger. Why, she looks just like the reincarnation of Lady Normina, Flora thought, and a strange little pang of fear quivered up her spine.

Miss Mabel Bowser certainly had the ironclad look of a woman who would send her man off to the Crusades without first packing him a lunch. And no one, including Flora, could ever have suspected that her heart was beating fast under her forty-five-year-old bosom as she entered the gift shop/tearoom. It was a chilly day in October, and Mrs. Warren took her entry fee money by dint of inching the tips of her fingernails out of the sleeve of her cardigan. Or, to be accurate, cardigans. Mrs. Warren was bundled up in at least three, and did not appear to be joking when she declared the radiators that lined the walls were for neither use nor ornament. Unless, that is, you
happened to be a “bally” dancer and wished to practice your arabesque.

Undaunted, Mabel Bowser embraced the chill of centuries bearing down on her from the towering stone walls of the great hall. However, two women schoolteachers from her sight-seeing coach were less than enthusiastic. They groused that their headphones would have to do double duty as earmuffs. Mabel was able to hear their petty complaints because she had declined Mrs. Warren’s offer of a personal electronic guide. She hadn’t wanted any encumbrance to bring her down to earth. Being a woman of substantial build, she walked on air somewhat at her own risk. Besides, the device would have stamped her as a visitor, and Mabel Bowser wanted to pretend for one glorious hour that she dwelt in the musty splendor that was Gossinger Hall.

From her childhood days in the flat above her parents’ secondhand shop, Mabel had yearned to be part of Britain’s upper crust. With this commendable goal in mind she had taken to wearing dowdy tweeds, lisle stockings, and pudding-basin hats. She had applied herself to elocution lessons with a dedication that would have pleased Henry Higgins no end and gave her sister Edna, who still lived in Bethnal Green, a sad little pang. But what does a woman whose idea of personal fulfillment is an evening spent at the dog races know about bettering oneself? Shortsighted Edna would not have bet a fiver that on that visit to Gossinger her sister’s schoolgirl dreams of moving up a class would be amply rewarded. But fate has been
known to pull a few strings. For outside the garderobe, which was locked and had a “Keep Out” sign posted on the door, Mabel Bowser collided with Sir Henry Gossinger himself.

With a somewhat awkward bow, the baronet introduced himself. Sir Henry wasn’t a man designed by nature to bend at the middle. And being a true aristocrat, he spoke to her in a voice that sounded as though he had mouth full of hot plum tart.

“Frightfully sorry, m’dear. Shouldn’t be let out on m’own without a seeing eye dog.”

What address! What
savoir-faire!
Mabel couldn’t make head nor tail of what Sir Henry was saying, but she knew instantly that he was everything she had ever wanted in a man. Stout, balding, and three inches shorter than herself.

“It was my fault,” she assured him. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” A simple apology, but one elevated to operatic proportions by the throb of passion in her voice.

Sir Henry said something she couldn’t follow, to which she responded with a series of heartfelt nods. Within moments Mabel discovered that if she watched his lips closely she could understand his every other word. It was miraculous! Like going to France and realizing you didn’t need the phrase book to get off the ferry.

Smiling kindly at her, Sir Henry explained that the garderobe was kept locked because a shift in Gossinger’s foundation had enlarged the (Sir Henry got extra-mumbley here) seating area to the point of
making it dangerous. A toilet by any other name is not the same. Mabel Bowser was captivated by Sir Henry’s chitchat on the subject of his twelfth-century loo.

Perspiration bathed her face in dewy luminosity. For all she was a sizable woman, she felt herself grow fragile. Was she dreaming, or had Sir Henry just offered to personally escort her around his historic abode? She didn’t go so far as to imagine he had fallen in love with her at first sight, but she did wonder if the baronet recognized in her a person of his own kind. Mabel Bowser trembled in her brogue shoes when Sir Henry put his hand on her elbow to guide her across the great hall.

Less than half an hour later, Sir Henry showed her Gossinger’s remarkably fine collection of eighteenth-century silver, which was displayed in glass cases in the former buttery. He assured her that Hutchins, the butler, was responsible for the silver’s cleaning and of course she would not be expected to so much as dust this room were she to accept his offer and make Gossinger her permanent abode.

Admittedly, it wasn’t a lengthy courtship. But times have changed since Lady Normina was betrothed before she was fully out of the womb (she was a breech birth) to Thomas Short Shanks in 1172. Emotion may have wrought Sir Henry more than usually indistinct, but Mabel Bowser had no trouble making it crystal clear that she would marry him without waiting to get her best frock back from the cleaners.

The wedding took place several weeks later at St. Mary’s Stowe. It was a tastefully small affair with only Sir Henry’s nephew Vivian and Miss Sophie Doffit, a third cousin who strongly resembled the Queen Mother, in attendance. It didn’t do, of course, to count Hutchins, his seventeen-year-old granddaughter Flora, and Mrs. Johnson, the current housekeeper, seated respectfully at the back of the church. Mr. Tipp, the elderly stable lad, didn’t come because someone had to stay behind in case burglars stopped by and took the huff at the lack of hospitality. And Edna couldn’t come up from Bethnal Green to witness her sister’s triumphal walk down the aisle, because she was in hospital having an operation for piles, as she insisted on calling them. But that was all for the best. Edna would have had trouble saying the minimum and trying to look educated.

With nothing to cast a blight except a fleeting regret that she had not married Sir Henry when she was of an age to provide him with a son and heir, the fledgling Lady Gossinger had every anticipation of living happily ever after. In the ensuing years she grew ever more tweedy. No one would stamp her as nouveau riche, thank you very much! Lady Gossinger’s concept of life as lived by the gentry was based on certain novels written in the 1930’s and 1940’s—in particular, those by Dame Agatha Christie.