Netherwood (36 page)

Meanwhile Anna, who by now had splashed out on a second-hand Singer to widen the scope of her dressmaking, had come up with their outfits for the occasion after finding inspiration from a fashion plate and its accompanying article in the London
Times.
It was a picture of a Gibson Girl, an American import that had, in her jaunty, liberated, independent outlook and outfit, captured the spirit of the modern young woman. Now, Anna fancied that she and Eve were the embodiment of this wonderful, emancipated creature, so, for the day of the opening of Eve’s new enterprise, she had fashioned a whole new Gibson Girl look for them both. Flared skirts, pin-tucked white blouses, floppy black bows at the throat and neat little hats, pinned securely into place at a jaunty angle. The hats had been the only real expense, but worth it, she felt, for the impact they had.

‘You must buy a proper looking-glass,’ she complained, as they attempted to see their reflection in a tin of liver salts. ‘We only see ourselves in parts. It’s like jigsaw puzzle.’

‘Well from t’pieces I can see, we look a bit full of ourselves,’ Eve said. She was worried particularly about the bow. It was meant to look artistic, and was undoubtedly up-to-the-minute, but Eve felt trussed up and more than a little frivolous.

Amos rapped on the back door and opened it simultaneously. He always did this; requested admittance then granted it himself. He was wearing an old suit, probably the one he – or perhaps his father, judging by its antique cut – got married in. The fabric strained at the shoulders and across the back, as if in spite of his good intentions he might break free at any moment. There were signs of strain around his eyes too, which looked bloodshot; he was working nights this week and should have been in bed at this hour, but he wanted to be at the opening. He had resolved, for one day at least, to demonstrate by deed that he’d accepted Eve’s capitalist adventure up at Mitchell’s Mill. He couldn’t stop calling it by its former name though and neither, for that matter, could Eve, even though there was tangible proof of the change in the form of a smart new fascia, black letters on a cream background: E
VE’S
P
UDDINGS
& P
IES,
Proprietor Mrs Eve Williams. Amos, in the kitchen now, clocked the two women and performed an exaggerated double-take.

‘Bloody Norah,’ he said, which hardly helped.

‘You see?’ Eve said to Anna. ‘We look ridiculous.’

Anna glared at Amos, who held up his hands in self-defence.

‘No, no, you look …’ – beautiful, he wanted to say, but didn’t – ‘… right smart. Professional, like. It’s just not what you usually wear, that’s all.’

‘You can say that again,’ she said, laughing. ‘Anyway, you can talk, all dressed up like a dog’s dinner.’ She thought he looked grand, actually. A suit always did something to improve the appearance of a man, she thought, somehow deflecting the
eye from other less-appealing features. He might have left the flat cap at home, though, just this once.

‘Dunt want to show you up, like,’ said Amos, grinning.

‘Got to go, come, come,’ Anna said, shooing them like chickens towards the door. The Hoyland contingent – the nobs, as Amos persisted in referring to them – were due up there at ten o’clock, and it was already just leaving half-past nine. Anna opened the stair door and called to the children to come down, which they promptly did, Seth first, followed by Eliza holding Maya, then Ellen looking put out as she always did when she felt she was playing second fiddle to the baby. They were all in their chapel clothes and looked a picture, except for Seth’s mutinous expression. The stiff collar always made him cross; it was ruining, for him, the novelty and freedom of a Monday off school. He cheered up, though, when he saw Amos. Amos winked at him, and Seth grinned.

Eve, while everyone’s back was turned, had picked up a damp cloth and started wiping away invisible crumbs from spotless work surfaces. It was the only sign that she was anxious about the day ahead. Anna prised the dishcloth from her hands and, taking her by the shoulders, turned her to face the door again.

‘Go,’ she said. She gave her a little shove. ‘Be gone.’

‘What about you?’ Eve said.

‘I follow with Maya in minute,’ Anna said.

‘No, come now, Anna. I need you up there with me.’ Because if you don’t leave with us, she thought, it’ll be happy families all the way through town for me, Amos and the bairns.

There was a brief, awkward hiatus with Anna inside dressing Maya in her hat and coat, while Eve, Amos and the children stood outside in the yard. It was cold, and there was a noxious smell of human waste because the middens had been emptied just a couple of hours earlier. There was no reason on earth to linger, yet linger they did. Lilly poked her head out of the door of number three and said: ‘No Daimler today then?’

‘She’s given t’chauffeur t’day off,’ Amos replied.

Eve wondered how it looked to Lilly, standing here with Amos and the children. She wondered, too, how long it took to put a hat on a baby’s head.

Amos, understanding, said, ‘Seth, lad, shall we mek a start?’

The boy said yes, always eager to put some distance between himself and Anna. Amos looked at Eve.

‘We’ve got some veg business to discuss,’ he said, smiling. Then he turned to Eliza: ‘Borin’ boys’ stuff. That alright wi’ you, missy?’

Eliza, happy just to have been consulted, nodded, so Amos and Seth took their leave, heads down, walking briskly down the entry into Watson Street. Eve, watching them go, suddenly felt ashamed of herself for hanging back. She should stop caring about the likes of Lilly Pickering, and start caring about the likes of Amos.

‘Wait!’ she shouted. Holding Ellen on her hip and Eliza by the hand, they jogged after the boys and walked together with them all the way to Mitchell’s Mill.

The convoy of Hoylands made its way from Netherwood Hall at a stately pace, attracting a mixed crowd of onlookers as they went, some ardent, some curious and some just plain underemployed. Lord Hoyland led the procession in a brand new Daimler – purchased on impulse after admiring it at the Crystal Palace Motor Show – with a frilly Isabella by his side. Tobias, newly returned from Scotland and cutting a dash in his cream linen motoring coat, drove his own little two-seater, with the permanently affable Dickie waving cheerfully from the passenger seat. The countess was closeted in the landau, though she occasionally popped out her head to enormous cheers. Henrietta, typically and much to her mother’s chagrin, was bringing up the
rear, driving her own little phaeton. Along they all came, smiling proprietorially at the crowds in a way that made Amos want to break something. There wasn’t room for all their various vehicles in the crowded courtyard at the back of the mill, so the motor cars and Henrietta’s phaeton had to be moored at the bottom of Mitchell’s Snicket, while Lady Hoyland was driven all the way in to preserve her dignity and the fine silk of her shoes.

Amos, forgetting his resolve, allowed a sneer of disdain to spoil his pleasant expression. ‘Is she goin’ to get out o’ that bloody carriage?’ he muttered to Eve. ‘Or will she stay inside, for fear of infection?’

It was an ill-advised remark, one that he should have kept to himself, and he instantly regretted it because he could see the displeasure on Eve’s face. She summoned her children and crossed the cobbled yard, well away from where Amos had positioned himself; this was no occasion, she fumed inwardly, to be rehearsing his rant at the establishment. He was a fool if he thought it was, a bigger fool if he thought she’d join in. Under the colonnade she found Ginger, Nellie and Alice, all in their chapel frocks and hats, smiling at her. Ginger said, ‘You look a right bobby dazzler,’ and Eve blushed because she’d forgotten, temporarily, what she was wearing.

The four women and three children were now in a line under the colonnade, looking out over the courtyard. It looked a picture now; Lady Hoyland had finally been galvanised, as the earl had known she would be, by a visit to the premises during the final stages of renovation, following which she had sent Hislop and a small team of under-gardeners to carry out her plans for the area. The gristmill had indeed been reincarnated as a fountain, the weeds were gone from between the cobbles, and there were stone urns and statuary artfully placed to further enhance the illusion that an Italian count might have once lived in Netherwood. Far from being reluctant to leave the brougham, Lady Hoyland seemed barely able to contain her excitement
as she was handed down by her coachman. Her appearance in full, rather than viewed through the carriage window, elicited a sigh of appreciation from the women among the crowd. She was a vision in dusky-pink, the embodiment of charm and femininity, a shining example of the rewards of the ceaseless pursuit of perfection combined with a limitless budget. She wore kidskin gloves in the palest cream, and a hat with a wide brim which dipped on one side to give her the appearance of always peeping coquettishly from under it. Eve, to her profound relief, suddenly felt positively under-dressed.

The Hoyland offspring assembled in an informal cluster around their parents and the crowd of friends and sundry locals gathered in front of them. Eve, scanning their faces, saw Samuel Farrimond and Wilfred Oxspring in deep conversation. Lilly Pickering and Maud Platt had walked up together, curiosity having got the better of them. They stood at the back whispering behind their hands, like overgrown schoolgirls. Percy Medlicott had come, and Jonas Buckle stood with him. The Ramsbottom sisters were right at the front and they gave her a wave, jigging up and down a little with the excitement of it all.

The earl cleared his throat, clapped for attention and started to speak, his theme being the inestimable merits of enterprise and industriousness. Tobias, who had behaved himself now for an unbroken stretch of three months, wondered indignantly if the old man meant it for him. In fact, there was no hidden message; it was a straightforward tribute to Eve, who was the one person not actually listening. She gazed about her as he spoke, marvelling at life’s unexpected turns. There was Anna, with Maya, standing next to Amos in the crowd. They made a lovely couple, Eve thought idly. Anna was so tiny she made Amos look almost tall. The straw hat had fallen victim to the baby, who had wrenched it off Anna’s head and was now waving it in triumph. They were both watching the earl, Amos’s expression a study in neutrality, Anna’s all concentration as
she struggled with his upper-class accent. She’d cracked the Yorkshire dialect, but this was something new. She leaned in a little further, watching the fractional movement of Lord Hoyland’s mouth.

‘She is an exemple of the indomitable spirit on which we built an empar, end I’m heppy and proud to be her becker in this exciting new enterprise,’ said the earl, to Anna’s mystification. ‘Ey hev every confidence in ha energy, ha telents end ha characta.’

Eve, still gazing rather than listening, suddenly realised everyone was looking at her.

‘I give you, Mrs Eve Williams!’ the earl said. There was enthusiastic applause and Eve joined in until Ginger said, right in her ear, ‘Go on, soft lass, ’e means you to join ’im,’ and she gave Eve a mighty shove, sending her down the steps and over to Lord Hoyland’s side in a sort of ungainly trot.

Lady Hoyland took her first real look at Eve Williams at that moment, and was rather startled to find her younger than she’d realised, and much more beautiful. She had imagined, if she’d thought about her at all, that Mrs Williams would be cut from the same doughty cloth as Mrs Adams; after all, they were both cooks, both widows, so it seemed reasonable to assume – to Clarissa, at any rate – that they would both share the same wide girth and grizzled appearance. But here she stood, a slip of a thing – too, too lovely – wearing a simply divine little get-up that couldn’t possibly have been acquired outside Bond Street. Lady Hoyland caught Henrietta’s eye and raised an elegant brow. Her daughter returned the look. And there and then, the countess decided to Take An Interest in this charming protégéé of Teddy’s.

Meanwhile Eve – too, too lovely though she might be – stood mute at the head of the pack of Hoylands, facing the assembled company, completely at a loss as to what she should do or say. The earl beamed at her then nodded supportively,
then finally understood that she was in some kind of fear-induced stupor. He leaned in: ‘Just a few words from you, m’dear,’ he whispered. ‘Anything will do, anything at all.’

Eve came to and realised what a fool she looked, so she started to speak.

‘I …’ she said, and stopped. She looked about her, and her eyes alighted on Anna, who smiled so warmly that Eve thought she might cry.

‘I …’ she said again, and the faces in front of her swam out of focus, then back again. And then Anna, propelled by a protective instinct, moved forwards in the crowd. She looked directly at Eve and nodded at her as if to say, ‘Go on then, I’m listening,’ and somehow this made the difference.

‘I’m so grateful to Lord ’oyland,’ said Eve, with an unfamiliar shake in her voice, ‘for showing such faith in my future.’ She paused, and took a deep, fortifying breath. ‘And I’m grateful too to Reverend Farrimond over there’ – she paused and pointed at the minister, who bowed theatrically – ‘for being a friend and writing all those little notices that made people come to my shop.’ She was finding her own voice now, the one she recognised, and her anxiety seemed to be leaving her, dissipating into the October sky like the smoke from a garden bonfire.