The Burning Issue of the Day Read online

  He reached out to grab me, but I caught his hand and twisted his thumb into a position it wasn’t designed for. He yelped.

  ‘Don’t do that, dear,’ I said sweetly. ‘You might get hurt.’ I gave the thumb just a tiny extra push in the wrong direction. ‘Now pay for your beers and sling your hook. And if I hear you slandering my pal again, I’ll do a sight more than sprain your thumb.’

  He glared at me, but wisely decided not to push his luck. I waited until they had taken their drinks to a table well away from the bar.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I asked Daisy.

  ‘I i’n’t sure,’ she said. ‘But they i’n’t the first to be sayin’ it. Someone’s spreadin’ rumours about me, I reckon.’

  ‘Any idea who?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘But when I finds ’em . . .’

  ‘Let me know if anyone needs a biff up the conk – I’ll not have people besmirching my best pal’s good name.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I might hold you to that. But go and sit down now and I’ll fetch you those sandwiches.’

  I finally made it back to Lady Hardcastle with our drinks.

  ‘Are you starting fights in pubs now?’ she asked as I sat down.

  ‘Just a couple of lads trying it on,’ I said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m sure you have it well in hand,’ she said. ‘What sort of pie did you order?’

  I explained the pie shortage and she harrumphed. ‘Even I could have made a cheese sandwich,’ she said. ‘Ah, well. It’s nice to be out, I suppose.’

  Daisy brought out the cheese doorsteps a few minutes later and we munched contentedly as we discussed our plans for the rest of the day.

  Back at the house, we prepared ourselves for the trip to the neighbouring market town of Chipping Bevington. Dressing for the motor car was as much of a palaver as dressing for riding, for sport, or for attending a society ball. Sitting in the unenclosed Rover 6 as it trundled along the road was bracing even in the summertime and always required a certain amount of specialist attire to protect us from the elements. In the bitter cold of an English January, that meant heavy waterproof coats, woollen mufflers, sturdy gauntlets, even sturdier boots, warm hats, and, to my eternal amusement, goggles.

  When we were finally ready, I set to work cranking the starting handle to bring the little motor car to life.

  ‘There needs to be an easier way to do this,’ I said as I heaved the heavy handle round for the third time.

  ‘Some sort of motor to start the motor?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘But what would start that? Another motor?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not beyond the wit of Man to devise a system that doesn’t require someone – usually a representative of the downtrodden masses, I might add – to get out and crank the stupid thing to life. What about some sort of spring?’

  ‘Or an electric motor?’ she suggested.

  ‘Anything that doesn’t involve me risking a wrenched back or a broken arm would get my vote.’

  ‘If only we had a vote, I’d cast mine with yours,’ she said.

  ‘You’re very kind, but it doesn’t inconvenience you in the slightest,’ I said as I clambered into the driving seat and engaged low gear. ‘I don’t remember the last time you started the engine.’

  ‘But I have to listen to you complaining about it every time we go out. I’d pay double for any system that would spare me from that.’

  I mumbled mutinously into my muffler and eased the little motor car out on to the road.

  The journey to Chipping (all the locals called it ‘Chipping’, having long since decided that ‘Chipping Bevington’ was altogether too much of a mouthful) was short and uneventful. We soon parked the motor car on the High Street outside Pomphrey’s Bric-a-Brac Emporium.

  ‘Can we go in?’ I asked as we dismounted and took off our gloves and goggles.

  ‘I bow to no woman in my admiration of the wonders of Mr Pomphrey’s delightful shop,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘but we have quite enough clutter about the house as it is. I think we’ll leave him for another day.’

  I took a last look at the assemblage of junk in the shop window, admiring – not for the first time – the stuffed moose head wearing a sola topi and smoking a hookah. One day, I thought.

  ‘And we’re never going to buy that moose,’ she said over her shoulder as she walked across the road to the stationer’s. ‘Where would we put it?’

  I hurried after her, slightly disquieted by her apparent mind-reading ability. This was a new and dangerous development.

  The ‘one or two sundries’ she had so casually mentioned turned out not to be quite so trivial as her offhand tone had implied. After a lengthy perusal of samples, the stationer was delighted to be given an order for a goodly quantity of card of various thicknesses, drawing paper, watercolour paper, writing paper, envelopes, several notebooks, and a rainbow assortment of inks and watercolours. She was also tempted by the new ‘Polychromos’ coloured pencils and ordered two sets.

  From the stationer’s we visited the haberdasher’s, where she purchased supplies for her model making. Following the enthusiastic reception of her first animated motion picture late the previous year, she had embarked upon a new project. She was irritatingly tight-lipped about the subject matter, but the production seemed to involve the making of a number of tiny costumes for its cast of model characters.

  I took advantage of the trip to restock the mending basket. It wasn’t nearly so exciting as buying the necessaries for clothing miniature moving picture actors, but with Lady Hardcastle’s careless attitude to her clothing it was no less important.

  The trip was saved by our final call. At the bottom of the High Street, its windows filled with all the imagined wonders of this world and all those yet to be discovered, was Boxwell’s Bookshop, proprietor Mr Dudley Boxwell. I had to be dragged out in the end, but not before I had persuaded Lady Hardcastle to buy an armful of new books.

  Most of the day’s purchases would be delivered over the coming days, but we still had to find room in the Rover for several small packages from the stationer’s and haberdasher’s as well as an impressive stack of books wrapped in brown paper. The smaller packages fitted into the lidded storage behind the seats but, try as we might, we couldn’t wedge the books into the tiny box.

  ‘I really must make an effort to ask Fishy to design us a more commodious motor car,’ said Lady Hardcastle as she stacked the books beneath her legs, leaving her feet crammed uncomfortably against the end of the footwell.

  ‘You promised that on Bonfire Night,’ I said. ‘Something with an enclosed cabin and a more powerful motor. And yet . . .’

  ‘I know, I know. I’ll write to him. But for now, homeward and don’t dilly. Nor should you dally – my feet are most uncomfortable.’

  I set off for home.

  While Miss Jones put the finishing touches to dinner, I took care of the mending. Then, once the other two servants had been sent home, Lady Hardcastle and I settled in for a quiet supper, and an evening in front of the fire with our new books.

  For reasons unknown to me, Lady Hardcastle had become fascinated by the French philosopher Henri Bergson and had bought three of his works, including Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Not to be outdone, I had bought Sigmund Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to enjoy it very much, but one likes to try to keep up with modern ideas.

  For light relief I had bought G K Chesterton’s new book, The Ball and the Cross, and something from an author I’d never heard of before, P G Wodehouse. It was called Mike, and Mr Boxwell in the bookshop had recommended it personally.

  ‘It’s terribly amusing,’ he had said. ‘I’m certain you’ll love it.’

  Lady Hardcastle, meanwhile, had opted for more reliable fare, sticking with G K Chesterton and H G Wells. The latter was a timely novel entitled Ann Veronica about the women’s suffrage movement. I made a mental note to read it myself when she w
as done with it.

  ‘Have you had any more thoughts about that arson case?’ I asked as I reached the end of a chapter.

  Lady Hardcastle put down her book, removed her reading glasses, and looked into the fire for a few moments before answering. ‘I’ve nothing more to go on than you have,’ she said at length. ‘If the facts reported in the newspaper are accurate, then it seems pretty much cut and dried. The suffragettes never shy away from taking responsibility for their actions – they rely on the resulting hullabaloo to draw attention to their cause, after all. And the scattering of their literature at the scene of the crime very much fits their modus operandi. If it weren’t for the inconsistencies, and Lady Bickle’s letter, I’d think no more of it.’

  ‘It certainly doesn’t seem to fit,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all. I don’t know much about Emmeline Pankhurst other than what I read in the newspapers, but I get the impression she runs a tight ship. I can’t imagine any of her followers disobeying her like that while still claiming to be acting in the organization’s name.’

  ‘And they’ve always been careful not to harm anyone.’

  ‘Very careful indeed. It seems most important to them that they’re the only ones to suffer, preferably at the hands of the authorities. They all hold that in common, so even a dissenter would have taken care to ensure that the building was empty before she set it on fire. And Lady Bickle insists that this Lily Wardle—’

  ‘Lizzie Worrel,’ I corrected her.

  ‘Lizzie Worrel, yes. What did I say?’

  ‘Something else.’

  ‘Did I? Oh, well. This Leonora—’

  ‘Unless you’re suffering from one of Dr Freud’s unconscious attempts to suppress troubling memories, you’re doing it on purpose now. I’m not going to rise to it.’

  ‘Spoilsport. But Lady Buckle . . .’ She paused for a reaction, but I just raised my eyebrows and stared at her. ‘. . . Lady Bickle,’ she continued, ‘is adamant that Worrel is innocent.’

  ‘Friends, colleagues, and acquaintances of the accused usually stand firm on the subject of their innocence,’ I said. ‘Often in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. No one wants to believe that their pal is a wrong-un.’

  ‘True, true,’ she said. ‘We shall have to go to our meeting tomorrow with our eyes and minds wide open. But for now I’m tired of reading and I rather feel that our mouths should be wide open for the drinking of brandy and the singing of songs. Fetch the booze and I’ll hunt out something cheering to sing us to bed.’

  Chapter Two

  By mutual agreement, Edna and Miss Jones always arrived a little later on Saturday mornings. Lady Hardcastle wasn’t much of a one for socializing now that we lived out in the country, but we still said that the late start was to allow her to sleep in after Friday-night shenanigans. The real reason was so that Edna – who with her husband, Dan, was the life and soul of Friday nights at the Dog and Duck – had more of a chance to sleep off her own Friday-night shenanigans.

  Lady Hardcastle had been introduced to what she insisted on referring to as ‘the jentacular delights’ of eggs Benedict by an American friend a few years earlier when we were living in London. It was all the rage in New York, we were told, and Lady Hardcastle had adopted it as a breakfast favourite. Making the hollandaise sauce was a bit of a faff so I didn’t cook it often, but I enjoyed her reaction enough to want to make the effort from time to time.

  I wasn’t disappointed.

  ‘Florence Armstrong, you little Welsh marvel,’ she said as I put the tray across her lap. ‘I haven’t had eggs Benedict for simply ever. You win today’s award for splendidness above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you.’

  I curtseyed exaggeratedly.

  ‘My pleasure, my lady,’ I said.

  ‘But what about you? Are you not eating with me?’

  ‘I had some toast downstairs,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to be too full in case Lady Bickle pushes the boat out for elevenses. No point in slaving away over a hot saucepan if someone else’s cook is going to fill my belly for me.’

  ‘Well, now I feel like a pig,’ she said. ‘Have half with me, then we’ll both have room for jam sandwiches and fat wedges of fruit cake.’

  It did look nice, so I accepted her offer.

  By the time breakfast had been eaten and cleared away, it was time to begin the robing ritual for the journey to Clifton. It was still bitterly cold so there was no possibility of taking shortcuts in our preparations.

  ‘I wonder if Lady Bickle is a stickler for fashion,’ said Lady Hardcastle as I laced her heavy driving boots. ‘Or gullible, perhaps. Do you think we might persuade her that our clodhopping great boots are actually the height of Parisian chic?’

  ‘A less risky stratagem might be to take more delicate footwear in a bag and change into it when we arrive,’ I said. ‘I’m no etiquette expert, but I’m not sure it’s considered good form to presume ignorance and stupidity in one’s host.’

  She sighed. ‘More fuss and palaver,’ she said. ‘Ah, well. It’s the price we pay for the freedom to come and go as we please, I suppose.’

  And so, eventually, we set off with our day boots in a bag stowed in the box behind the seats.

  It took the best part of an hour to drive the fifteen miles from Littleton Cotterell to Clifton. The journey passed without too much incident. A milkman shouted angrily at us on Whiteladies Road when the sound of the Rover startled his horse, but we were used to that sort of abuse by now. Lady Hardcastle smiled and waved.

  On Queen’s Road, I turned right at the City Museum and on to Berkeley Square. We pulled up beside the steps that led up to Berkeley Crescent.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Thank you.’

  I hopped out and rummaged for the bag containing our shoes.

  ‘We’re looking for number five,’ she said, and we set off up the steps on to the flagstone pavement that ran in front of the crescent of brick-fronted Georgian townhouses.

  The first door we passed bore the number six.

  ‘I shall never understand builders,’ she said. ‘Who on earth numbers a crescent of six houses from right to left? Madness.’

  ‘It was probably to confuse French spies during the Napoleonic wars,’ I said. ‘They could never invade if they couldn’t work out where we lived.’

  She tugged smartly on the bell pull of number five and the door was soon opened by a white-haired butler carrying a small silver tray.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Lady Hardcastle, placing her calling card on the tray. ‘I believe Lady Bickle is expecting us.’

  The butler glanced discreetly down at the card. ‘Yes, Lady Hardcastle, she asks you to wait for her in the drawing room.’

  He stepped back to allow us to enter.

  ‘Is there somewhere where we might change our boots?’ she asked.

  The butler looked down at our heavy boots. ‘Yes, my lady,’ he said after a brief pause. ‘Please follow me.’

  He took our coats, hats, gauntlets, and goggles and then took us to the boot room at the rear of the house. He waited outside while we saw to our footwear and then led us back to the drawing room. By the time we arrived, a beautiful, elegantly dressed lady was already waiting for us. She was a good deal younger than I had expected, but carried herself with a confidence that belied her years. She was tall, too. Why was everyone so tall?

  ‘My lady,’ said the butler, ‘Lady Hardcastle is here to see you.’

  ‘Thank you, Williams,’ said the lady. ‘We’ll take tea in here, I think.’

  The butler withdrew.

  The lady held out her hand. ‘Georgina Bickle,’ she said. ‘But do call me Georgie. Simply everyone does.’

  Lady Hardcastle shook her hand warmly. ‘Emily,’ she said. ‘And this is Florence Armstrong.’

  ‘How do you do?’ said Lady Bickle. ‘I’ve heard so much about you both. Simeon Gosling can’t stop talking about either of you.’

  I returned her ‘How-do
-you-do?’ with a slight curtsey.

  ‘I do hope Simeon hasn’t been over-egging it,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’re not nearly so exciting as you might imagine.’

  ‘I hope he hasn’t, too,’ said Lady Bickle. ‘I so desperately want his tale of being tied up in a deserted cottage to be true. And the chase through the dark in motor cars. He made it all sound so terribly glamorous and exciting.’

  ‘I’m sure he painted quite a picture,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘but don’t take him too seriously. It was all rather mundane and everyday, really.’

  ‘Everyday for you, perhaps, but when one is the wife of a surgeon . . . well . . . “mundane” takes on a special new meaning. Do sit down, both of you.’

  She waved us into chairs beside the fire.

  ‘What about your work with the suffragettes, though?’ said Lady Hardcastle once we had settled. ‘That sounds frightfully interesting.’

  ‘Oh, it is. And so important, don’t you think?’

  ‘Essential,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘What do you think, Miss Armstrong?’

  ‘I’m all for equal rights for everyone in everything,’ I said. ‘But my hopes aren’t high. Huge numbers of men don’t have the vote so I don’t rate my own chances even when Parliament does finally wake up. I’m not a property owner, after all.’

  Lady Bickle thought for a moment. ‘You’re quite right, of course. There are many, even within our own ranks, who feel that we should be fighting for universal suffrage, not merely votes for women. But I can’t help but think that if we can make a small breach in the wall with votes for some women, it won’t be long before our lawmakers realize the empty-headedness of disbarring any adult citizen from voting.’

  ‘I certainly think it would be a step in the right direction,’ I said.

  ‘Splendid. Ah, here’s Williams with the tea. You’re just in time, Williams. We were in danger of lapsing into a torpid state of contented agreement. But here you are with the tea, and nothing stirs Englishwomen to heated acrimony more quickly than the matter of pouring tea.’

  The butler set the tea tray on the low table in front of the fire. As well as the teapot, cups, saucers, and milk, there was a selection of dainty sandwiches and some extremely delicate cakes. If they were not made by a professional pâtissier, then the Bickles had a very accomplished cook indeed.