Dancing the Charleston Read online

  Our cottage was tucked just inside the entrance. It was the old gatekeeper’s cottage. Lady Somerset didn’t have a gatekeeper any more. Sam, the head gardener, opened and closed the gates when he could be bothered. He used to have ten men under him, Aunty told me, but now he just had Poor Fred, who was simple, and Geoffrey, who had only just left school. He seemed a little simple too – he’d had to repeat a year to get his leaving certificate.

  When I got home Aunty was usually in her workroom (which was originally the front parlour), stitching away, her mouth full of pins. I could never work out how she managed not to swallow any. However, today she was standing on the doorstep, dressed in her Sunday black, looking agitated.

  ‘Where have you been, Mona? School finished an hour ago! Look at the state of you! You’ve got your frock all creased! And what’s that down the front? Is it grass stains? What have you been doing?’ She seized hold of me, pulled me into the kitchen and whipped my dress right off before I realized what she was up to.

  ‘Aunty! Don’t!’ I protested as she wet a corner of the tea towel and started scrubbing my face. ‘I can wash myself, for heaven’s sake! What’s all the fuss?’

  ‘We’re going to see Lady Somerset,’ she said.

  I could see her lying beneath the bedcovers.

  2

  I was astonished. Aunty went to see Lady Somerset to fit a new dress or repair a rip or replace buttons, but I only ever went on Boxing Day, when Lady Somerset held a special party for all the village children.

  It wasn’t the sort of party you read about in children’s books, with fairy lights and jelly and ice cream, and strange-sounding games like Blind Man’s Buff and Squeak Piggy Squeak. I rather dreaded it, because we had to wear our Sunday best and file into the grand hall and, unless you were lucky enough to be standing right by the fire, it was freezing cold.

  We didn’t play any games at all. We had to have a singsong, with Lady Somerset’s daughter-in-law, Barbara, playing the piano. We sniggered at her in secret because she looked so weird. She didn’t wear smart clothes. She wore odd bright velvets and trailing scarves and mad shoes, with her hair hanging loose down her back.

  She played carols, and we joined in half-heartedly, often forgetting the words. Miss Nelson would have been ashamed of us. The Somerset children sang loudly and confidently, holding their fair heads high. Aunty whispered their fancy names as if it was a magic spell: Esmeralda, Roland, Marcella and Bruno. She seemed especially impressed by them, though she winced at their scruffy clothes. They had long hair too, even the boys, which made my classmates nudge each other and whisper rude remarks. I actually preferred their long tangled locks to the bristles and raw red necks of the village boys.

  Barbara’s husband, Mr Frederick Somerset, the eldest brother, had died of influenza just after the war, but she had a new husband now – an artist called Stanley Barber. He was supposed to be famous, but no one in Rook Green had ever heard of him. He didn’t even bother to try to sing. He looked a bit of a ragbag too. He didn’t count as a proper Somerset.

  There was a second Somerset brother, Mr Eric, but he had died in battle right at the beginning of the war, like my father. Aunty said Sir William and Lady Somerset had never got over losing their two elder sons. Sir William died of a seizure a year or so later, which made it worse. However, she still had her two younger sons.

  The third brother, Mr George, sang in a hearty baritone, opening his mouth wide in a comical fashion. His wife, Mary, was the opposite of Barbara, stiff and proper in her tailored clothes. She kept dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief and looked mournful, though Aunty said she’d never got on with Lady Somerset. They had two children, a pug-faced boy, Cedric, and a little girl called Ada who looked like a Kewpie doll.

  I liked the youngest brother, Mr Benjamin, best. He sang too, but he sometimes copied Mr George’s singing, or Barbara’s habit of tossing her long waves, which had us all in fits. Mr Benjamin was dark, with a curly cap of black hair, and he wore the most exquisite clothes. Aunty sighed over the fine stitching on his shirts and the style of his suits, though she didn’t approve of his jewellery. He wore several big rings on his smooth white hands, just like a lady.

  After the sing-song we had tea, and that was a jolly affair – hundreds and thousands on thin bread and butter, iced buns and ginger pop. We were only given one slice of bread and the buns were small but, if we gobbled them down quickly, there was a chance of seconds.

  Then came the best part: the presents off the tall Christmas tree at the end of the hall. We had to line up in age order – boy, girl, boy, girl – while Mr George and Mr Benjamin climbed a ladder and unhooked parcels from the prickly green branches. They handed them to Barbara, who in turn gave them to Lady Somerset, sitting in a big gilt armchair like a throne. Several of the girls curtsied to her as they were given their presents.

  The wrapping paper was colour-coded: pale pink and blue for little children, red and navy for older ones. I’m still very small for my age, so last Christmas I was still given a pink parcel. It contained a white felt mouse with pink bead eyes. It didn’t even squeak. I’d have loved a real mouse to tame and feed on titbits. The older girls were given necklaces or bottles of violet scent or storybooks, all of which I’d have preferred. Maggie was a big, hefty girl, and was given a book called The Madcap of the Fourth. She wasn’t much of a reader, so she agreed to swap with me. Aunty saw us furtively exchanging gifts in the corner and was furious because she said it looked ungrateful.

  The Madcap book wasn’t particularly exciting anyway – just a story about some silly pranks played by posh girls at boarding school. They didn’t seem to do any lessons and spent their time playing a strange sport called lacrosse, which didn’t interest me at all.

  ‘Is Lady Somerset going to give me a present?’ I asked Aunty now.

  ‘Of course not!’ she said, shocked. ‘What a thing to say! Poor Lady Somerset is very ill.’

  How was I to know that? I badgered Aunty with questions as she threw my best daisy dress over my head and tidied my plaits. Aunty was proud of her embroidery, but I felt it was much too fancy.

  ‘Does Lady Somerset have measles?’ I asked. It was the only real illness I’d ever had and it had been awful. I’d had to stay in bed in a darkened room even when the rash had disappeared, and I wasn’t allowed to read in case it strained my eyes. I had never been so bored and fidgety in all my life. Aunty dutifully read to me for twenty minutes or so after lunch, and I knew she was doing her best, but she read in such a monotone that she even managed to make A Little Princess sound dull.

  ‘No, she doesn’t have measles, silly,’ said Aunty. She lowered her voice meaningfully. ‘She has pneumonia.’

  I’d never heard the word before. ‘What’s that, Aunty?’

  ‘It’s like influenza, but worse,’ she said, shaking her head in concern.

  ‘Won’t we catch this pneumonia if we go and see her?’

  ‘It’s a condition that elderly folk get,’ said Aunty. ‘Ella said she was very poorly.’

  Ella was the lady’s maid at Somerset Manor. She and Aunty were friends. They didn’t walk around arm in arm and tell each other jokes like Maggie and me, but they had cups of tea together, and chatted about the doings of the Somerset family. Ella sometimes slipped Aunty half a sponge cake or a plate of iced biscuits left over from afternoon tea at the manor, and every year Aunty made Ella a new dress and rejigged her hat with silk roses.

  I wondered if Ella would have to nurse Lady Somerset. But why had Aunty been summoned? She could hardly be wanting to order a new dress if she was very ill. And why me?

  ‘We’re going to pay our respects,’ said Aunty. ‘Now, you’re to be very quiet and well behaved. No fidgeting. And don’t lean on Lady Somerset’s bed.’

  I assured her that the very idea horrified me. ‘Is she going to die?’ I asked.

  Aunty nodded meaningfully.

  ‘But she won’t die in front of us, will she?’ I persisted.