Goodbye Piccadilly Page 8

  ‘You never answered my first question…’

  ‘Which was – would I, ah… “dot” a man with my parasol? In a word, no.’

  A clear and angry voice rang out, ‘But I would!’ And a celandine-coloured parasol clouted the man across the head, sending his hat spinning underfoot and the man crashing down.

  Jack recognized both voice and weapon.

  It was the parasol which had been with them all morning. He had held it, retrieved it, hooked it on table edges and twice saved it from loss. The parasol was, unmistakably, the one covered in the same fabric as the skirt that was cut to sway provocatively.

  His heart sank as police dived into the little mêlée with relish, where they were then attacked themselves. He tried to push forward, but the crowd closed in and so barred his way. Anxiously, he skirted around and reached the front, where he saw Max talking to a policeman with the same comradeliness as he had used on the porter. But it didn’t work. The constable, firmly gripping Otis’s arm, marched her to where a sergeant and a contingent of constables waited beside a police van.

  His father would no more believe that he was blameless of the consequences of this incident than of the episode at Bognor.

  * * *

  The birthday celebration dinner – and Otis’s entry into the world of assembly-room dances – was not at all as had been planned.

  If there is one thing at which the English middle-classes excel, it is ‘putting a good face on things’. Had it not been for Max making light of the incident, Emily Hewetson would have made her excuses to Mrs Moth and dismissed the whole idea. But Martin Hewetson had said, ‘Don’t let us be too hasty, Em, not just now we have got a Clermont on our books.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Martin!’ she snapped. ‘You sound like a grocer.’

  He had shut up, knowing that Max could twist her round his little finger.

  ‘But twice, Max, first at Bognor and now here. That young man has no sense of responsibility. You are not going to tell me that he didn’t know what happens when there are suffragettes about.’

  ‘Be fair, Em, Jack Moth was no more to blame than I.’

  ‘He must have known that there are often scuffles there on Saturday afternoons… you could not be expected to know that.’

  ‘It was a quiet enough meeting, and most of this talk about mayhem is got up by the newspapers.’

  ‘So, what you are saying is that the meeting was quiet but Otis created a disturbance… is that what you are intimating, Max?’

  ‘Dear Em, not at all. The man was being an utter bore – we have free speech in this country and he would heckle. I think Otis was quite splendid dotting him one over the head.’

  ‘Max! How can you, a partner in Hewetson, Hewetson, Batt and Hewetson, sit there drinking tea and say such a thing?’

  ‘Look, my dear, what is done is done and no harm has come to anyone. If you are going to fret about it, then you will have worry lines by the time you are forty.’

  Max knew her age well enough, and he knew too that damage to her complexion would concern her quite as much as damage to Hewetson Batt’s reputation.

  ‘If you take my advice, Em, then you will let me give Otis and her friend their dinner and dance, and everyone will behave as though nothing untoward happened.’

  ‘We must say something, if only to show that young man…’

  ‘Em, Em. If you will go on about Jack Moth, then I shall think that you are having a sly dig at myself, for I was standing close by Otis and Esther.’

  ‘But you were not to know.’

  ‘It is no good you making excuses for me, Emily. I should have insisted that we all move on very quickly, instead of which we idled there looking for a bit of entertainment.’

  ‘Entertainment! Really, those women should all be locked up.’

  ‘I’m sure that would please them no end.’ He grinned at her and she succumbed as she always did, and agreed that they should have their social evening and try to enjoy it.

  ‘I don’t know what young girls of today are coming to. Otis is so irresponsible. I don’t know what will become of her if these women get their way and are given the vote. Things like the running of the country must be left to men who understand these things. Can you imagine Otis having a say in governing the Empire?’

  Martin, who had kept his head down, knowing that his half-brother had a way with Em in a state, said defensively, ‘What you say then, Em, is that the terrible Jack Moth is more suited to governing the Empire than say – yourself, for example.’

  Such a comment was unfair in a family wrangle, so she ignored it.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry, Em,’ Max said. ‘It won’t happen. And in any case, you women have enough to do with families and servants – and sorting out dolts like me.’ He smiled engagingly at her.

  Before he left her sitting-room, he broached the subject, as he had promised Otis and Martin that he would. It was a gamble whether this was the best moment, but he thought he knew his sister-in-law well enough. ‘I’ll tell you what I would do, Em, if Otis were my daughter. I would get her doing something that was so time-consuming that she had no time for idle hands, and so well regulated that there was always someone on the look-out for her welfare.’

  Emily Hewetson cocked an eyebrow at him quizzically.

  ‘I suppose you have come to plead her case for applying to Stockwell College. I dare say she has put you up to it, or Martin. Probably both.’

  ‘Well, not specifically Stockwell – but that is one possibility: there are other good colleges teaching degree courses. And she certainly wants to do it. That’s half the battle, isn’t it?’

  ‘But Max, Otis a teacher. Do you really wish to see your niece teaching sums in some grubby little school?’

  ‘No, Em. But I should not mind seeing my niece as head of one of these splendid Girls’ Trust Schools.’

  ‘And never marry! There is no question of both of course.’

  ‘Of course Otis will marry. But she does have this bee in her bonnet about education, so why not let her see what it is like? Sign her up, but make a pact with her that she cannot withdraw on a whim. She may well hate it after a month, but make her stay there. Let Martin draw up a document if you like – that will show her how serious you are.’

  ‘Three years. She will be twenty when it’s over.’

  ‘Right. A much easier age for a rumbustious young lady like our Miss Otis.’

  Fully aware that he had charmed her into it, she agreed that Otis should apply for a place at Stockwell College.

  * * *

  Before dinner, the Hewetsons assembled in a small lounge to await the arrival of their guests, and turn their good face to the world. Otis knew that she was again being tested and on sufferance. It was not too difficult for her to appear sedate, for the experience of the afternoon had been quite chastening.

  Nothing much had happened, except for being grabbed and hauled before a police sergeant. Uncle Max had dealt with the situation, saying that the heckler had been exceedingly unpleasant over many minutes, and that his young niece had been understandably annoyed at such disrespect.

  It had not been pleasant, having a uniformed police sergeant in full view of passers-by wag a finger and tell her that it was quite within his power to handcuff her, put her in the Maria, haul her off to the cells and threaten to lock her up until her case was heard. A power he adjusted slightly once he had read Max’s Hewetson, Hewetson, Batt & Hewetson, Attorneys-at-Law card. ‘I’m giving you a caution then. And if you’ll take my advice, young lady, you’ll steer well clear of that there lot. They’re trouble wherever they go.’

  Otis’s instinct was to contradict him by telling him that he was quite wrong, it was she who had made the trouble, the wonderful Miss Ruby Bice had not for a second let the man’s rudeness and taunts ruffle her – but she chose discretion.

  If it had not been for the fact that from experience Otis knew that things always got back to parents, she would have told them nothing of
what had happened. As it was, Uncle Max had related it as a funny story in which Otis appeared as the victim of a gross mistake and ended up being ticked off for it. They had not fallen for it entirely: there had been a lot said by both parents, and the Bognor incident had been mentioned. Otis appeared chastened before them, endeavouring to use Ruby Bice’s technique of not arguing, rising above a desire to answer back.

  Her mother had suggested that she wear a pretty new pink creation sent down from London, but when Otis arrived in the public sitting-room, she was dressed in a cream skirt, not intended for evening wear, and a white bodice with large sleeves. Emily Hewetson forbore to say anything, her own highly complicated creation of tucks, flounces, lace and piping being greatly to her satisfaction. Otis forbore to ask whether her mother knew that the girls who had sewn it may have earned not enough to buy a six-inch pudding basin.

  The surprises of the day were by no means over, for when the Moths arrived, there, tenderly assisting his wife, was Inspector Moth.

  Otis, having on the last occasion seen him only as Esther’s formidable father, was surprised to discover that he had metamorphosed into an older edition of Jack, and for the first time saw that a man did not necessarily lose his handsomeness or attractiveness when he became older than twenty-five. And she had been gratified when he had boldly and slowly let his gaze take in her own transformation. He had smiled and bowed over her hand. ‘I trust that this beautiful young woman does not change back into a barefoot urchin at the stroke of midnight?’

  Otis would have been furious had anyone suggested that she had learned much from observing Emily being provocative to attractive men, but she smiled and held his gaze and his fingers a second or two longer than was proper – as Emily would.

  Emily Hewetson had quite forgotten what a handsome man the inspector was and, as she had on that other occasion when she had met him, thought: He really must have been a man any impressionable young girl might easily have run away with. He took her hand, making it look very pale and delicate in his enormous one, and bent low and kissed it with a very old-fashioned courtesy.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I must ask your pardon for coming unexpectedly when your kind invitation was already declined on my behalf. But I could not miss my little girl’s birthday celebration, and I have only minutes ago arrived from London.’

  How Emily’s rose-buds tingled at the pressure of his warm lips, the outlines of which were not entirely smoothly shaven.

  ‘My dear Inspector, you have no need to apologize, this is entirely a family occasion. We are pleased to have the opportunity of renewing the acquaintance. Your family must be delighted to have you with them again.’

  ‘A flying visit only, ma’am.’

  Anne Moth, her eyes slitted with smiling, said, ‘He came down especially for me.’

  She and Mrs Moth greeted one another with the sweet politeness of two mothers who know that their children have been up to something and each hope that it is proved that they are not the one to be found wanting as a parent. ‘Mrs Moth, you are blooming. The ozone in Southsea must be of a very high quality.’

  Emily Hewetson had forgotten that she was cross with Jack Moth when he said in a low voice, ‘Mea culpa, does the lovely lady forgive me?’ and allowed herself to be as charmed by him again as she had been on her visit to Garden Cottage. For all their faults, this family was indeed a very interesting one, to say nothing of their extreme personableness.

  After dinner, Mrs Moth, pleading that she felt a little disturbed, no doubt because of the excitement of George coming and the heat of the night, decided to sit on the terrace where she would get the sea breezes. She insisted that George have at least a turn or two in the Assembly Rooms. Martin Hewetson insisted that he too would prefer sea breezes and an opportunity of sitting with Mrs Moth.

  Otis and Esther told one another how wonderful it was that, after expecting to be in disgrace for what had happened earlier, they were having the best party ever, with their two families behaving like old friends.

  Neither of the girls had previously attended what was to them a glittering celebration. Last year Esther had attended a police officers’ occasion, but it had been stuffy and no one had had any style. Here, where the high society of Southsea, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Marines had come to dance, the men wore immaculate formal dress or dress-uniform and the women had fashionable gowns with swooping décolletage.

  That she had not much inside her own prettily swathed and flounced bodice had not, until tonight, concerned her very much. Otis was fortunate, her bosom was already as full as a woman’s and strained against the white voile of her plain blouse. Well, thought Esther, perhaps this is all I am going to get. Perhaps she would be like her mother and only have any bosom to speak of when she was in that condition. Well, that wasn’t so bad, Esther quite liked babies. She felt vaguely sad. Until, that is, just as they were all walking through to the terrace, her father appeared with a young man whose back he slapped in hearty pleasure.

  ‘Anne, Anne, you will never guess who it is that I have discovered. In barracks in Southsea, but enjoying a spot of leave right here at The Grand.’

  Mrs Moth was sure that she never would guess, nor spoil George’s delight by doing so.

  ‘My life-saver! The young man who dragged me from the Thames when I was unconscious and bleeding from the wound dealt me by that villain.’ Turning the young man so as to include Emily Hewetson and the girls in his pleasure. ‘And only just in time.’

  Emily responded as required. ‘Goodness! How dreadful.’

  George Moth laughed loudly. ‘Why, ma’am? That he was in time?’ Again he slapped the young man’s shoulder.

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Esther, ‘you are Pa’s famous Lieutenant Blood.’

  The Lieutenant’s eyes alighted upon the pretty, fairy-like creature with pale golden hair and delicate figure, a porcelain doll of a girl he could have swept up in his arms and run away with.

  It was the dearest of all love stories. Love at first sight.

  To the nine people present at the moment when the young man took Esther Moth’s hand and said, ‘Lieutenant Bindon Blood, at your service, Miss Moth,’ there was, for ever after, a fleeting moment of strangeness whenever the noun ‘blood’ – proper or common – was uttered; for Anne Moth said a quiet, ‘Oh, George!’, and looked with astonishment at her white satin shoes into which rivulets of scarlet were running.

  * * *

  Several hours later, a dedicated and concerned obstetrician said that, no matter what, there was nothing that could have been done. ‘Mothers who are apparently perfectly healthy, die in childbirth. We do not know why.’

  What was done to Anne Moth in order to try to save her was not childbirth. But, in the face of the tragedy and grief of her death, to say so might be thought of as pedantic and cruel.

  Inspector Moth had the weakly, premature child christened Ninian within an hour of its birth. A name he did not like, but which was a Clermont name and one which Anne had wanted. When Esther first saw the tiny creature she felt as heartsore for it as she had for a motherless kitten she had once reared on milk given by dropper. Not only heartsore but as protective of it as though it were her own child. Because of the kitten, she had called her shrivelled little brother ‘Kitt’. No one, except Esther, expected the baby to survive; but it did.

  Part II

  —

  THE HILLS OF UAM VAR, TROSSACHS.

  Dear Ma & Pa. This is no artist’s fancy, it is a truly heavenly place. As much as I shall enjoy returning to Stockwell and my studies, I long for this holiday never to end. I am glad that I did not go to Berlin with the other girls, for springtime here is truly beautiful. I believe that I have found my spiritual home. Shall be returning to London on the noon train Sat. Father dear, if you would meet me with the trap and take my things round to the college, I shall be for ever grateful. Lovingly, Otis

  The Otis Hewetson who sat in purple shadow, resting her back against a tree overlooking
a valley flooded with spring sunlight, was a serene and more ladylike Otis than the one who had flung herself in gratitude at her father when he had agreed that she might attend Stockwell Teacher Training College. She had done so well in the entrance exam that she had been accepted into the college months before the usual age, and had proved to be an exceptional student.

  Martin was proud at the way his daughter was turning out. But not so Emily. What mother wished to confess to a clever daughter? Particularly a daughter who professed ambition. ‘It is not as though she is a plain girl, I am sure that there is not a bachelor in London who would not be eager to secure a wife with Otis’s looks. But she appears not particularly interested in young men.’

  Which showed how little mothers can know their daughters. What Otis was not particularly interested in was the type of eligible bachelor in front of whom Emily was inclined to dangle Otis as bait.

  The sun rammed a rod of gold down through the tree where Otis sat, and lit a gleam in her hair. Lively hair which attested to good health and frequent washing in natural herbs: natural herbs and Bach flower remedies being essential to the well-being of young women of her set. Although during term-time her fine complexion lost some of its colour, now that she had been a few days on this bicycling tour, she was blooming and slim-waisted. Ever since that time three years ago when she had copied Victoria Ormorod’s cream and white style, Otis had seldom worn any colour. Today she had on a divided skirt and a full-sleeved blouse suitable for bicycling.

  She was not alone on this hillside.

  Esther Moth too was enjoying what was for her the first break away from home in three years. She gazed blankly at the far distant range.

  Otis laid a hand on Esther’s hard clenched one.

  Esther breathed out heavily. ‘It is the anniversary that is always so hard to deal with, I dread its coming. It will be three years this year… People keep saying that time heals, but how much time? It goes away sometimes, I can go for days and not think of her; or if I do it is not miserably; but then comes a day when I wake up in the morning and it is as though she died only yesterday, and I hear her say, “Oh, George” – you remember how she did? It is my clearest memory of her… looking down at her shoes, it obscures all my nicer memories of her. “Oh George,” she said and there was all that blood in her shoes.’