Teena Thyme (5 page)

Great Aunt Amelia's (I'll leave out the interim 'greats' from here on) valuable jewellery was still in a deposit box in one of her three banks, but there were still treasures galore here, even if their value was more intrinsically historic than monetary. I won't bore you with the details, save to say that if you were a collector of antiquities and novelties I'd have needed a crowbar to get you out of that cottage.

I found two boxes of clothes - they actually were trunks, rather than boxes - in the smallest bedroom. Mostly the contents were quaint and old-fashioned, dresses from the twenties and thirties, mostly now looking a bit faded and singularly sad, probably unworn and neglected for at least forty years. I did find one dress, carefully wrapped in sheets of tissue paper, which had survived better than most. It was blood red, velvet and right out of the 'Flapper' age.

How I would have loved to try it on, but the moment I held it up against myself I realised it was far too small. Not that I'm big, you understand. Tall, maybe, but not particularly big, but Great Aunt Amelia had obviously been quite a tiny person and her former glory was at least three sizes too small to accommodate my hips, I was certain. I carefully rewrapped it and placed it in an empty drawer in the chest beneath the window, determined that I'd find a suitable home for it eventually. It was far too good to throw out.

Third day and it dawned bright and sunny, if a little chilly, so I ventured out to explore my garden. The clouds began to gather immediately and I was soon venturing back inside again, beating the sudden squall of sleet by seconds.

'Rats!' I said, to the empty parlour. I sat down on the Edwardian chaise and gazed into the flickering flames in the hearth. Out in the back parlour was a huge mahogany cased valve radio, but there was no television and, worse still, no telephone. How's a girl supposed to exist without a telephone? It was just so uncivilized.

'Never mind, Teena,' I said, standing up and walking over to the door that led out to the back rooms, 'the man said you'd get your telephone inside two weeks.' How the hell had Great Auntie managed without a phone? I'd looked everywhere and there was no sign of there ever having been one in the place before, even though the telephone lines ran past the front gate, suspended from their towering poles.

I managed to tune the antique radio in to my favourite station and was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. It was only mono, true, but then stereo radio broadcasting had only just about got started in England anyway, so I didn't miss what I'd never really had and I set about preparing a few vegetables out in the kitchen, with the connecting door wedged open, so that I could sing along with all the hits.

One vegetable casserole went into the rather utilitarian gas cooker. The oven control numbers had been long worn away, if they'd ever been on the knob in the first place, so I guessed, erring on the side of caution and wandered back through to the front room, where I gazed out through the leaded windows at the rain that had now taken over from the earlier sleet. Ho hum.

How I hadn't seen the loft hatch before, I don't know. It was actually in the ceiling of the second bedroom, in a corner where the pale winter daylight didn't quite penetrate, but it was visible enough. I stood below it, pondering. There couldn't be much of interest up there, surely, I reasoned. After all, there was no window through the thatch, so it would be pitch black up there.

On the other hand, what else did I have to while away a bit of time? And, empty or not, dark or not, it
was
part of my new domain, whatever it was.

A ladder. I needed a ladder, or a big pair of steps. Tall as I was and low as the first floor ceilings were in
Rose Lea
, that hatch was annoyingly just out of reach. I paused, thinking, and then remembered the overgrown shed about twenty yards from the back door. If there was a ladder to be had, it would be there, I reasoned.

I reasoned correctly. It was there. In fact,
they
were there - two ladders and a pair of steps and, although they were a bit ancient looking, they all seemed sound enough. I did a quick guesstimation and decided upon the shorter ladder. It was longer than the stepladder, but lighter and short enough for me to manoeuvre up the stairs inside.

A torch. Aha. The kitchen cabinet. I remembered seeing the chunky old flashlight there earlier, but did the batteries still have anything in them? They did. Hallelujah! And almost new, to judge from the powerful beam the thing threw out. Up the stairs I went again, up the ladder, pushed against the hatch with my one free hand and lifted it easily, bringing down only a slight cloud of pale dust.

Pausing long enough to sneeze just the once, I ascended further and peered over the edge, raising the flashlight and aiming it into the darkened depths of the roof space. A floor! Yes, a floor: boards neatly nailed, a bit dusty, but solid looking. Gingerly I pulled myself up and sat with my legs still dangling down into the bedroom below and once again used the flashlight to good effect.

Oh-ho! What was this I saw? More trunks, similar to the ones down in the small bedroom, but possibly a bit older and there were more of them. I counted. Six in all, plus a suitcase that was so ancient looking that I wouldn't have been at all surprised to find that Noah had taken it with him on the Ark.

'Well, well,' I said, to the empty space. 'More treasures to explore.' I climbed right up, until I was standing on the floor itself and found I could do so without stooping, so long as I kept somewhere near the middle and away from the sloping eaves. I hesitated again, listening carefully. Not that I hate mice, well, not exactly, but anything that scuttles in the dark tends to make me twitch a bit and, as I've subsequently learned, it pays to be wary of
anything
that scuttles in the dark, particularly the things with only two legs.

But that can wait for the moment, which was more than I could do back then. I approached the nearest trunk, which also appeared to be the largest, set the torch down so that its light shone towards my quarry and reached for the lid, my pulse quickening. After all, I'd already realised, the dust up here showed that I was the first person to venture thus far in a good few years, so anything I found now was a bonus. Nothing in any of these trunks would be on the inventory, so who knew what surprises I was about to find?

Well, I didn't for one, that's for certain, but the surprises that were to follow from my latest discovery were nothing I could possibly have imagined, not even in my wildest dreams!

Early on the morning of the fifth day, the two maids appeared together and Angelina knew that her enforced solitude and the welcome respite it had brought, were over. She struggled up into a sitting position, the bedcovers drawn protectively over her knees and held tightly to her bosom, for she had now divested herself of her original underwear and wore only a thin shift to bed.

'Time to have you up and out of there, missy,' Meg announced brusquely. 'Master reckons you've had plenty of time to reflect and now it's time you started to learn how to behave properly around here.'

'I care little for what your master thinks,' Angelina replied defiantly, 'and furthermore, whilst he may be your master, he is certainly no master of mine and I shall tell him so in no uncertain terms!'

'Well, is that so?' Meg said. She placed her hands on her hips, threw back her head and laughed out loud. 'Well, I do believe I've heard everything now,' she continued, suddenly reverting to her normal stern composure. 'You listen to me, girlie, and you listen good.

'I may be just a servant and you may think yourself to be high and mighty and better'n the likes of me, but you're as much a chattel of Sir Gregory as me and Polly here is. Way I heard tell, your ma and pa died a good few years ago - out in India, wasn't it? - and now there's just you and you're a burden on the poor old fool who's had to bring you up since.

'The master made a contract with his lordship and that contract ain't gonna be broke, no matter what you say or do, so you'd better get used to that. In fact, you oughta count yourself lucky, getting yourself a fine man like Sir Gregory for a husband and you nothing but a slip of a thing. Huh, you ain't even got titties worth a fumble and a man likes a woman to have a decent pair of udders, I can tell you.'

Angelina stared at the maid, open-mouthed at her sheer impertinence, despite everything that had already happened. And, in that same moment, she realised the truth, saw through the disdain and the unbecoming arrogance. Sir Gregory Hacklebury was bedding this coarse creature, maidservant or not, and Meg was not going to stand idly by and see her favoured position eroded by the presence of his intended wife, whoever she might have been.

'Up now, missy,' Meg ordered. 'Up now, 'cos we have to get you dressed and the master has given precise instructions on that matter.'

'And if I refuse?' Angelina pouted stubbornly and Meg's dark eyes flashed.

'It'll happen all the same,' she retorted. She turned to her companion. 'Polly, go along to the yellow room and wheel the lacing frame in here. I think her ladyship needs a demonstration and the frame will settle her nonsense at the same time.' As the younger maid put down the small bundle she had been holding and turned back towards the door, Meg grinned maliciously.

'I was hoping you might still have a streak of rebelliousness in you,' she said softly. 'Now I see you have and that's going to make this all the more enjoyable - for me, anyway!'

Clothes!

Clothes, clothes and more clothes. Oh, how I love clothes, especially new ones. Well, these clothes weren't new, far from it - quite the opposite, in fact. At a guess, the newest item in that first trunk had to be at least sixty or seventy years old and most of the garments were much older even than that. Like I said, I know my history, so I knew a trunk load of Victorian costumes when I saw it. And, although these things were old in terms of when they were first made, they were actually like new and the colours, so far as I could tell by the light of my torch, seemed as strong and as vibrant as they must have been when they were first worn.

Not only that, I realised, as I held the first dress up, but these things had not belonged to Great Aunt Amelia, not unless she had shrunk considerably over the years. No, whoever had worn these things had been bigger and taller - someone nearer my size. Someone
exactly
my size, in fact.

'Triple wow!' I breathed. 'Dress up time!' My mum always reckoned I was a frustrated actress and, apart from a couple of roles in school drama productions, she was right. I was frustrated and I did like the way I could become a totally different character on stage. Costumes and make-up. Hide behind the mask. Put on the motley, or whatever.

I scrambled back down the ladder and dragged the bed across the room, placing it as nearly underneath the open hatch as I could, without fouling the ladder. The bed was unmade and stripped bare, but there was still a mattress and it was clean. Perfect. Up I went again and very soon it was raining clothes down onto that bed: dresses, shoes, boots, stockings, underclothes, corsets...

Corsets! Wow, and what corsets they were! Black, red, white, frothy and frilly, boned, laced - someone had definitely had a penchant for this sort of thing and someone had definitely spent a lot of money satisfying it. Whether the two someones were one and the same person, or whether they were two entirely separate someones, I had no idea. Furthermore, I didn't really care. I emptied the first trunk, working like a demented windmill, decided against moving on to the other trunks, on the basis that the bed below had now disappeared beneath an avalanche of silks, satins, velvets and lace, and descended to have a closer look at my new treasures.

I sorted through everything carefully and carried my favourite items through into the main bedroom, grinning like a Cheshire cat. This was going to be great fun.

'Oh, Mr Darcy!' Okay, these things were from a later period, but you get the idea. Besides, I was much too tall to make a decent Elizabeth Bennett. However, a grand Victorian duchess, that was a different matter.

I quickly stripped off my jeans and T-shirt, both of which were now smeared with dust streaks and much in need of a spell in the washing machine that I didn't yet have here at the cottage. Never mind, I told myself, they can wait. Besides, what girl in her right mind worries about a pair of old jeans when she can have something like this instead?

I picked up the first dress, held it up against myself and looked into the dressing table mirror. No, if I was going to do this I was going to do it properly. I rummaged through the underclothing I'd carried through, made my choices and then quickly removed my bra, pants and the rather threadbare socks I'd been wearing under my jeans.

Now, I have a pretty good figure, or so I've been told. I'm a fair bit taller than average for a female, but everything else is in proportion.

There was a sort of shift thing; a chemise, creamy satin, which I knew had to go on first. Taking a deep breath I raised it over my head and lowered it again, wriggling my arms through the shoulder straps and smoothing out the fabric as it fell about me. It sent a shiver up and down my spine and I almost...

No, we won't go there - not just yet, anyway.

But it did feel wonderful and I found it hard to believe that this delicate and flimsy confection had probably been made over a century before and almost as probably not worn since much after that time. I shivered again and picked up the red corset, with its black piping and black lace trimmings top and bottom. It was surprisingly heavy for something that looked so frivolous and I quickly realised that the boning and sturdy seaming that had been so cunningly concealed by the seamstress were largely responsible for this unexpected weight.