Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (3 page)

The businessman’s special turned out to be very good value. They had Scotch broth followed by mutton chops, and rounded it off with large slabs of treacle tart and custard.

Demolishing it all with a healthy appetite, Polly still managed to find time to pick Mr. Friend’s brain. “How many staff has Westerman’s?”

“Hard to say,” said Bob. “I have only been working several months in the labyrinth. But there are the company directors with their various offices and secretaries—men, of course—then all the people who deal with the goods that pour in and out of the warehouses down on the Thames, as well as Mr. Baines, the clerks, such as myself, the office boys, the messengers, the accountants, the bookkeepers, and… oh… one other female.”

Polly stiffened. She was just beginning to enjoy being alone in this man’s world. The female was a Miss Amy Feathers who operated the small switchboard, but one hardly ever saw her.

“What is she like?” said Polly.

“Well, small and… well, all right,” said Bob Friend, callously forgetting that until this glorious morning, he had found Miss Feathers quite attractive.

With all the aplomb of a true businessman Polly waited until the last crumb of treacle tart was gone before she presented her all-important question.

Resting her small chin on her hands, she leaned forward and inquired as casually as she could, “The Duke of Westerman, now. Is it quite a thrill when he comes to the office?”

“Oh, he doesn’t,” said Bob Friend cheerfully, unaware that he was plunging a dagger of disappointment right through the new serge dress and into Polly’s heart. “Westerman’s was started by some younger son… oh, about fifty years ago. Great scandal it was… one of them sort going into trade. He traveled all over the Orient, setting up deals and buying up merchandise—made millions by the time he was thirty, so they say. Meanwhile,
that
Duke of Westerman and his family were going broke. So this younger son takes to smoking opium, but by that time Westerman’s had its board of directors and was running very well.

“Well, now comes the big scandal.
This
here duke, he inherits the title back in the 1880s and it looks as if the family estate is going to have to go up for sale. But the younger son, he dies in a den in Limehouse and the Westermans all turn up their long noses and say ‘that’s what comes of going into trade.’ ’Course, they soon sing a different song when they find he’s left them the firm and all the millions. So they live in luxury and don’t trouble their heads about the firm. The directors know their jobs and Baines is a good manager. Why should they?”

“Why should they, indeed,” echoed Polly in a hollow voice. “And the duke’s sons?”

“Them neither,” said Bob. “The young ’un’s at Oxford and a bit of a rip, by all accounts, and the elder, the marquis, he runs the estates. Mad keen on aggericultoor and hunting and fishing and all that. Them’s not going to come near the office.”

The crowded chophouse had seemed a warm, romantic place, with its shining oak and brass rails and warm smells of food and beer, only a moment before. Now, to Polly, it seemed nothing more than a dingy, greasy tavern.

She had entered like a princess. Now, she left, very much like Miss Polly Marsh, stenographer—wages, ten shillings a week.

The March wind whipped along the City streets, carrying on its wings a faint balmy suggestion of daffodils on lawns and crocuses in hedgerows, and pale-yellow sunlight gilded the dome of St. Paul’s and glistened on the bobbing sea of tall hats as the City returned to its afternoon’s work. Polly plunged into the gloom of the office, feeling as if she had left the whole of the world behind.

She finished the rest of the letters quickly and took them in to Mr. Baines to sign. The fact that he seemed startled at her speed and accuracy and that he actually smiled at her did nothing to lift the gloom from Polly’s heart. How on earth was she ever going to find her rightful niche in society now?

Mr. Baines gave her an enormous pile of invoicing as if to prove that no matter how quick she was, work at Westerman’s was never done. As she turned around to leave, he called her back into his large, musty office, which was off the clerks’ room.

“Oh, Miss… ah… I have already informed some of the staff of the honor that has been conferred on us. His Grace, the Duke of Westerman, has suggested that the annual staff picnic—that is usually held on the first of June—take place on the grounds of his ancestral home, Bevington Chase. Us gentlemen of the staff are allowed to bring our wives. The bachelors, like Mister Friend, can bring a lady of their choice. No mention, however, has been made of any lady in the firm bringing a gentleman…”

“Oh,
that’s
all right, Mister Baines,” said Polly, her eyes shining like stars.

“Very well, Miss… ah… you may go.”

Polly’s feet barely seemed to touch the floor on her way back to her cubicle.

It was nearly the end of March—two whole months to go. She found she had neatly typed, “To one consignment of Dukes,” and tore up the invoice and concentrated on her work. It would never do to lose her job before the picnic.

Back in Stone Lane that evening Polly’s great news was received with infuriating calm. “I’m trying to finish this story,” said Joyce, clutching a tattered edition of
Young England
. “This ’ere cavaleer is trying for to get away from them roun’eads. Leave me alone, Pol.”

“Sit yourself down, luv,” said Mrs. Marsh. “I’ve got some nice pigs’ trotters saved for you. I’ll ’ear all about your dukes when you’ve eaten.”

Polly sighed. Would her family never appreciate the aristocrat in their midst? But Mrs. Marsh was waiting with her plump red arms folded until Polly finished the last of her meal. “The bread queues are getting wurst,” she said, shaking her frizzled hair. “If some of them poor souls could see you, Pol, a-picking at your food. Well, I dunno wot they would say.”

“Yerse. Eat up,” admonished her father, “or I’ll tear yer ’ead off.”

“Now,” said Mrs. Marsh, sitting down beside Polly. “Wot’s it all about?”

Trembling with excitement, Polly told her about the picnic, the stately home, the invitation, and the date. “Oh, Ma! Could I… could I have a tea gown to wear?”

Mrs. Marsh narrowed her small eyes thoughtfully. They had once been as large and as blue as Polly’s but rosy pads of fat had diminished their size and hours of needlework had faded their color.

Perhaps in a more genteel working-class environment Polly’s suggestion would have been greeted with horror. After all, she had two good dresses for winter and two for summer, not to mention the latest in long corsets. What girl could ask for more?

But among the traders of Stone Lane Market there was a good bit of the theater. When they emerged from their dark, cluttered shops on Sunday to sell their wares at the stalls outside, they competed for customers as hard as any circus barker. Everyone in Stone Lane knew that it was always possible to find what you wanted if you gave it a bit of time.

“Let me see,” said Mrs. Marsh. “I’ve got it! Lil’s stepsister, Edie, ’er wot ’as arthuritis, used to be a theater dresser. Went with the road production of
Lady Something-or-Other’s Fanny
.”

“
Lady Windermere’s Fan
,” corrected Polly faintly.

“Anyway,” pursued Mrs. Marsh, “Edie kept some of them there costumes for sentimental reasons, like, yer see. I’ll ask ’er termorrer if ’er still ’as that lacy thing from Act Two, she said it were.”

“But a
stage
costume!” protested Polly.

“Oh, it’ll be same as the real thing. It waren’t the Hippodrome yer know. Edie did luvly work afore her arthuritis got ’er.”

Gran surfaced from her cup of tea to say hoarsely, “Don’t you go dressin’ above your station, Pol. They’ll think you’re a tart, that’s wot.”

“No they won’t,” snapped Polly. “No one knows I come from…” Her voice faltered.

“No one knows yer comes from a dump like this,” her mother finished for her, with unimpaired good humor. “But ’ave a care, my girl. Gran’s right. Go careful.”

“Of course,” said Polly, practicing a haughty stare.

“What’s ’appened to your face?” asked Joyce, looking over the top of
Young England
.

“It’s them pigs’ trotters,” said Alf Marsh. “I’ve bin belchin’ and fartin’ like a locomotive.”

Polly rose from the table defeated. She would practice her haughty stare on young Mr. Friend in the morning.

No matter how much Polly fretted, the months of April and May seemed to crawl along as they had never done before. The days grew longer and longer and the asthmatic old clock on the wall of Westerman’s office hiccuped and coughed and wheezed, reluctantly surrendering each minute up as if to belie the TEMPUS FUGIT written on its yellow face.

At last the glorious day of the first of June arrived. It was a Saturday, of course, since frivolities such as staff outings were not allowed to take place during business hours.

Bevington Chase lay ten miles outside Chelmsford in Essex. The office party was to take a special train to Chelmsford and then proceed by charabanc to the duke’s home. Polly had other travel plans. She meant to make a grand entrance. She had lied to Mr. Baines, telling him that she would be spending the night with an aunt in Chelmsford and that she would make her own way to the party.

Polly had then traveled to Chelmsford on the Saturday before the picnic to arrange the hire of a smart brougham and pair to drive her in style to Bevington Chase. It had taken all her savings but she felt it was well and truly worth it.

In her mind’s eye Lord Peter would rush forward to assist her from the carriage, his eyes gleaming with admiration.

Saturday morning dawned sparkling and sunny. Polly carefully dressed herself in Lady Windermere’s tea gown (Act Two). It was a beautiful thing made of cobweb-fine blond lace over a rose silk underdress and—miracle of miracles—Lil’s stepsister, Edie, had produced a long pair of elbow-length pink kid gloves to go with it. Polly dressed her blond curls low on her brow in the current fashion and then placed an enormous hat of swathes of pink tulle on top. Her family had presented her with a pink lace parasol with an ivory handle, bought for surprisingly little money from Alf’s second cousin, who was in the rag-and-bone business, and who had collected it from a dustbin up in the West End. It had obviously been thrown away because it wouldn’t open, but a few delicate touches from old Solly, the clock repairer on the corner of Stone Lane, had made it as good as new.

Her pink kid reticule had been lent for the day by Mrs. Battersby in the tenement next door, who worked fourteen hours a day to make leather goods for the West End stores. And Bernie’s fat, cheerful wife, Liz, who worked day and night behind the frier in the fish-and-chip shop, had lent a string of cultured pearls.

Feeling very strange and quite unlike herself, Polly descended the narrow stairs to the kitchen, where her family were assembled to see her on her way. “Pwitty,” screamed little Alf, trying to grab her dress with jammy fingers and being seized in time by Joyce. Gran and Mrs. Marsh stared at her, their eyes filling with sentimental tears and even Alf Marsh cleared his throat. He was sweating in all the misery of his black Sunday suit and hard bowler hat, for he was to take Polly in a hansom to the railroad station.

“Come along, girl,” said Mr. Marsh, holding out his arm. “Cor, it feels like I was father of the bride!”

They made their way downstairs and out into Stone Lane, where all the friends and neighbors had gathered. They sent up a resounding cheer as Polly appeared on the arm of her father. And Polly, who had meant to be very
grande dame
indeed, felt her eyes filling with grateful tears, and smiled and thanked them all instead.

Alf saw Polly into a third-class compartment when they arrived at the station. “Don’t speak to any mashers, now,” he cautioned. “And ’ere, these are for you,” he added gruffly. He pulled a bag of bull’s-eyes out of his pocket.

It was a strange present to give such a well-dressed young lady but Polly remembered how, when she was a child, her father would always sneak up to her room when she was in disgrace and give her a bull’s-eye—one of those gigantic sweets that lasted for hours and changed all colors of the rainbow when you sucked it.

She gave him a fierce hug. The whistle blew and Alf climbed out of the railway carriage.

“Keep the window closed,” he said, as the train began to steam out of the station, “or you’ll get soot all over that dress.” The train gathered speed and she clung onto her hat as his last words faintly reached her—“And don’t damage that there dress o’ Edie’s or I’ll cut yer ’eart out.”

Polly was alone in the compartment. She had taken a later train than the rest of the office party. She gave the leather strap a jerk and pulled the window up and then sat back on the worn seat, watching with dreamy eyes as the houses of London Town swept past to be replaced by green rolling fields.

The train puffed on, belching a great column of black smoke that rolled and writhed across the summer fields.

By the time Chelmsford was reached, Polly of Stone Lane had been left somewhere along the line and that well-known debutante, Miss Polly Marsh, shook the dust of the third-class carriage from her French heels and moved along the platform to take her rightful place in society.

Soon she was seated in the open brougham with her pink parasol unfurled as the carriage clattered over the sun-dappled cobblestones of Chelmsford.

Shortly after, the carriage had left the old town and was traveling along a succession of long green lanes, their hedgerows so high that it was like plunging into cool green tunnels. The leaves still had the fragile, translucent green of spring. White bramble flowers starred the rough grass on the steep banks and the air was heavy with the smell of lime and lilac.

The carriage came to a stop before a square lodge house and the lodge keeper ran out to open the gates. Polly bowed her head in a stately manner and the gatekeeper touched his forelock. She settled back in the carriage with a sigh of pure pleasure.

The two glossy brown horses clopped up the long avenue of limes. An ornamental lake came into view with swans floating elegantly across its smooth surface. Then the trees disappeared and the driveway came to a fork. One road led to a huge mansion. Polly blinked. It was like a palace.