Tara (13 page)

She wished too she didn't have to be chaperoned by Mrs Grey. The parson's wife was aptly named, everything about her was grey, from her clothes and skin to her conversation. She was already ensconced in the carriage with her picnic basket, smelling-salts and embroidery.

'You'd better be getting on now.' Polly reached into a little Dorothy bag and pulled out a couple of half-crowns. 'Buy yourself a little treat, but don't let on to your father. Now remember to act like a lady! Keep your gloves on and don't stare at people.'

For just a moment Mabel felt ashamed of herself. Her mother had to account to Papa for every farthing and she would have to sell a lot of extra butter and eggs to cover that amount. While Mabel was gone she would have all her daughter's tasks piled on to her already exhausting workload, yet still her smile was full of affection and pride.

'Thank you, Mother.' Mabel hugged her impulsively with real warmth. 'Don't try to do every thing. I'll catch up when I get home.'

Polly was still standing on the platform when the trained chugged slowly out. As it snaked round a bend Mabel glimpsed her again, a small, slim figure in a faded blue dress, one hand still raised in farewell, the other holding a handkerchief to her eyes.

It was a blessing Mrs Grey nodded off to sleep soon after Bath because Mabel didn't want to talk about needlework, favourite hymns, or Reverend Grey's last sermon on avarice. What she really wanted was to fling the window down, throw off her hat, let her hair down and whoop with joy.

A whole week with her friend Lucy in London! Parties, dinners and a whole new circle of people to enchant. Suppose she was to fall in love with one of Ralph's doctor friends?

'Clever Lucy,' Mabel thought as she took out the letter from her friend and read it yet again.

'Dearest Mabel, Would it be a terrible imposition to ask if you could help us out? I've been so poorly since baby arrived, I just can't seem to get back on my feet. Ralph suggested asking you to stay with us for a week to give me a little rest. London is awful during the summer months and I know you'd make me feel so much better.'

Mabel folded up the letter and put it back in her purse, not bothering to read the more boring details about Edward's weight and his sunny disposition. Her father had pursed his lips when she showed it to him and said something churlish about 'surely a doctor could afford a nursemaid', but her mother had been completely taken in by the winsome note.

What a job it was to keep a straight face as her mother packed a bag full of homemade preserves, honey, bottled fruit, cheese and butter for her ailing friend. She seemed to have forgotten that she once considered Lucy Meredith 'a little fast'. But marrying a doctor, especially one as stuffy and dull as Ralph Soames, seemed to wipe out her memory of Lucy flirting outrageously with a travelling salesman in her parents' post office.

'If Mother only knew,' Mabel thought gleefully, stretching out her legs so she could see her elegant little buttoned boots peeping out from beneath her skirt. 'I just hope my white organza doesn't look too countrified up there among all that high fashion.'

The white dress in her bag had been made in secret, away from her father's sharp eyes. He didn't approve of dancing or parties and he certainly wouldn't approve of a dress that showed her shoulders!

Mabel Brady was ten when she discovered a world beyond Bridge Farm. Her mother had taken her to visit an old friend who worked at Chew Court, a mansion set behind huge iron gates. In that one afternoon she knew she was going to be a lady or die in the attempt.

Not for her rising at dawn to milk the cows, to see her hands red from scrubbing, or blistered from haymaking. Someone else could muck out the stables, feed the hens and hoe round the cabbages. Mabel Brady was meant to wear beautiful dresses, take tea on the lawn and drive around in her own carriage.

Seeing how the rich lived had given her a whole new sense of direction. She was fortunate her mother had encouraged both her and her younger sister Emily to paint, to play the piano and embroider, and she had been able to ride since she was old enough to sit on a horse. But things like dancing and playing tennis were frowned upon by Papa, so she had to learn those in secret, away from the farm, with Lucy as a tutor.

Lucy had always been fortunate. The only child of doting parents, she'd been taught to dance and to play tennis just because such things were fun. On days when Papa was off to Winford market, she and Lucy would spend hours in the shop's storeroom with the wind-up gramophone, practising their steps for the day the right partner came along. On sunny afternoons it was down to the cricket field for tennis, hoping that soon they'd get to play on a real court.

Mabel knew her looks set her apart. She had skimmed from childhood into womanhood knowing she was beautiful. Her father's fiery hair was tempered with her mother's brown, creating a golden red that was likened to new pennies. Creamy skin and eyes like polished amber pebbles were combined with an enviably full bosom and tiny waist.

But however beautiful she might be, Mabel knew she could never break into society in the village. She had to work so hard accounting for almost every minute in the day, and the only people she mixed with were at the same social level as herself, or lower.

At church on Sunday she would watch the gentry's carriages roll up and disgorge their passengers. There were the Plowrights, father in a silk top-hat, mother and daughters in the latest London fashions. Lady Constance Harringer, who was said to have millions but always wore rusty looking black crepe. The Os-bournes, who were 'in tea'. The Averys, just back from India.

But her main disadvantage was her father. James Brady might own much of the land in Chew Magna, he might terrify most of the locals into doing his bidding, but even at an early age Mabel knew her father's violent reputation would prevent any gentlemen pursuing her, even though she would one day inherit the farm.

Lucy had met Ralph Soames when he was studying medicine in Bristol, through a family friend. They had a whirlwind romance and married just before he went into a practice in King's Cross. All Mabel clearly remembered was a thin, pale man with spectacles, rather shy, with an earnest expression. But then all doctors were romantic.

Mabel was exhausted by the time they arrived in London late in the evening. Her dress was crumpled, her face freckled with soot, and Mrs Grey had spent the last couple of hours of the journey talking about children.

Ralph came striding down the platform. Although he had put on weight since his marriage, grown a droopy moustache and developed a more confident air, Mabel was shocked by his dishevelled appearance.

'So good of you to come, Mabel,' he said heartily, sweeping off his hat and dropping a kiss on her cheek.

His dark suit was shiny with age, his chin had a thick growth of stubble and behind his spectacles his eyes were bloodshot.

'Now, Mrs Grey.' He turned to the older woman, ignoring Mabel. 'How are the children and where are you meeting your relatives?'

Mabel smarted at his obvious concern for the older woman. He took Mrs Grey's bags and left Mabel to trail behind them carrying her own. It wasn't until he'd seen Mrs Grey off in a hansom cab with her brother that he turned to Mabel and took her case.

'I thought you were only coming for a week!' He grimaced at the weight. 'You won't need much more than an apron staying with us.'

Mabel's face fell. Surely this was a joke in poor taste? But Ralph didn't laugh; instead his pale face looked drawn and anxious.

'I'm so grateful you could spare a week with Lucy.' He sighed deeply. 'She hasn't been herself since Edward was born. I would have packed her off home to Somerset, but quite honestly I don't think she could cope with such a long journey.'

'She's really ill then?' Mabel gasped. 'I thought –' She broke off, unable to admit to Ralph that she'd believed the plaintive letter to be a carefully thought-out ruse to get her old friend to London for some fun and excitement.

As their cab made its way through London, Mabel's heart sank even further. It was too dark to see clearly, but the shops, public houses and hotels didn't look at all like the London of her dreams. Maybe the smart people were all in the other cabs that milled through the narrow, dimly lit streets, but the people she had glimpsed sitting out on front steps, standing at street corners and thronging along pavements were all shabbily dressed, worse than farm labourers back home.

The warm air was thick with acrid fumes and unpleasant smells. She held her lavender scented handkerchief to her nose delicately and listened to Ralph, but everything he said depressed her further. It seemed he had no motor car, or even his own carriage as she'd expected. He talked of trams, the poor people who were his patients, and worse still he seemed to live above his practice.

She had imagined Lucy in an area like Clifton in Bristol – elegant townhouses with shiny painted doors and maids to polish the brass knocker and white-stone the steps. But although the cab whisked them through such an area, which Ralph called Regent's Park, immediately afterwards they were plunged back into mean streets.

The horses' hooves went from a canter to a trot, then a slow walk and all at once they were surrounded by light and noise.

'What's going on?' Mabel popped her head out of the open window to see a place heaving with people.

"This is King's Cross.' Ralph smiled at her surprise. 'That's St Pancras station next to it. It looks like a palace, doesn't it?'

Mabel merely glanced at the huge building with its gothic windows, intricate carvings and spires, her attention diverted by the scene in front of it.

It was like a huge market, with a carnival atmosphere. Cabs, buses, trams and automobiles milled around the congested crossroads in what looked like utter confusion. Stalls selling everything from boots to toffee apples were stretched along the pavements, their hurricane lamps boosting the gas lighting. People were strolling leisurely as if it were afternoon instead of ten o'clock at night.

Excitement fizzed up inside her. The closest she'd ever got to such a scene was Winford market on Christmas Eve, but this wasn't a safe meeting of family and friends. This had a distinct air of danger.

Young children in ragged clothes mingled with old ladies all in black; girls younger than her with painted faces held the arms of soldiers in uniform. Men in top-hats and winged collars jostled with others in cloth caps and working clothes. Street vendors yelled out their wares, tram bells rang, horse's hooves, music and laughter rose together in a cacophony of joyous sound.

She could smell fruit, beer and fried onions, mingling with horse manure. The music came from several different directions, a hurdy gurdy, an accordian and someone playing a spirited polka on a piano.

A group of soldiers lounged on kitbags. There were sailors clearly the worse for drink, and a policeman was vainly trying to get the traffic moving.

Even the public house was like nothing she'd ever seen before. This was a vast gin palace, lit up like a Christmas tree, and each time the doors swung open more music and laughter wafted out to mingle with the activity on the street.

'I've never seen anything like it,' she said in wonder.

'There's so much sadness, though, in all this gaiety.' Ralph frowned, his pale face yellow in the gas light. He pointed out a man sitting in a wheeled box, his legs missing and a row of medals across his chest. There was another on crutches with one trouser leg pinned up. 'They fought so bravely for their country and now they have to beg for food.'

The War had barely touched Mabel back home in Somerset. Aside from reading the newspapers and knitting socks and scarves for soldiers, it was a distant problem that hadn't affected their farm. Mabel had attended the memorial service for the men from the village who were killed, shed a few tears as all the girls did and put flowers under the roll of honour for them. But even when she went with her mother to take gifts of produce to the bereaved families, she had never considered the wider implications of war.

'So many women widowed, children forced out to work because their fathers are suffering from the effects of mustard gas and shell shock. We all thought it was the war to end all wars, but now, a year later, we're paying the real price.'

Mabel's smooth brow furrowed into a frown. 'I don't understand. What price?'

'The economy is at rock-bottom, homes gone in the Zeppelin raids.' Ralph shook his head sadly. 'On Armistice day we rejoiced, we looked ahead and believed in a bright new future. But here we are a year later still with overcrowded, insanitary housing, people dying for want of medical care. The class structure is as strong as ever. Factories are making enormous profits while they pay their workers a pittance. Is it any wonder people turn to the gin palaces or young girls sell themselves on the streets?'

Mabel's excitement at the display of London night life was dampened not only by Ralph's gloomy words but by the cab lurching round a corner into a narrow, dimly lit street overshadowed by a railway bridge. Garishly dressed women lurked beneath the arches, many displaying most of their breasts.

She was glad of the darkness now to hide her blushes; even in her innocence she guessed what they were. Here an overpowering smell of rotting refuse made her gag and a sense of menace in the soot-filled air made her flesh creep.

This wasn't the London she'd dreamed of, but a nightmare vision.

Her worst fears were realised when the cab stopped on the corner of a murky side street. She saw a dirty little shop, the windows painted dark green with 'Surgery' in white letters.

'Is this it?' she asked weakly. She could smell sewage, and a whiff of beer from an ale house on the opposite corner which provided the only light. As Ralph paid the driver, its doors burst open and two men came out fighting and yelling.

'Not quite what you expected?' Ralph took her bag and ushered her to the door. There was a slight hint of sarcasm, as if he were amused by her reaction. 'These people need my help far more than wealthy ones.'