Page 39 of Lessons in Life

‘Eloise, will you please get out from under my feet anddosomething?’ Muriel Hudson was irritable and Eloise knew it was because she, Eloise, was back at home. And this time for good. Thank God, she didn’t have to get through even one more day at that bloody awful school in Whitby. She’d never either managed to be invited, or been able to ingratiate herself, into the hierarchical tribes of girls who flocked together dependent on new or old money, academic ability or those, like her, who got through each day, each term, each year, always on the periphery. She had almost made it into Suzy Warrington’s little clique in the final term but had totally let herself down by throwing up over Annabel Bellingham’s burgundy velvet bell bottoms after downing too much of the vodka being passed round the dorm. The trousers were, as Annabel constantly reminded them all, a gift from some obscure cousin of Prince Charles. Apparently for services rendered. The trousers were ruined, as was her final attempt, after five years at St Bernadette’s, to infiltrate the inner circle.

Then, after school, the almost as bad nine months in Lausanne at Château Mont-Choisi where Muriel had insisted she go to befinished. ‘Actually,’ she’d heard her mother laugh in that put-on tinkly voice of hers over the table of one of her lunch parties withthe girls– spiteful old hags as far as Eloise could see – ‘Eloise needs a bomb under her to actually get herstarted.’

Oh, ha ha, Mummy, such a bloody wit.

‘But I’m not surewhatI should be doing,’ Eloise now said, trying to be logical as well as polite so as not to irritate her mother further. ‘I could walk around with several books on my head to show the world what superb posture I now have? I could lay the dining room table for you…’

‘Well, yes, that would be helpful,’ Muriel conceded. ‘Except we’ve no one round to dine until the Fairleys on the…’ She broke off as a movement in the garden made her stand and peer round the heavy damask curtains. ‘Whatisthat woman doing now?’

Eloise moved across the room to join her mother at the window. ‘Oh, good, Granny’s here.’

‘Granny? Goodness me, the woman could be taken for the village idiot in that get-up. What is she wearing and what’s shedoing?’

‘She’s got Mr Bower’s old gardening coat on.’ Eloise giggled. ‘And his hat as well. He’d put them on one side to donate to Fred Hargreaves.’

‘Fred Hargreaves?’

‘You know, the farmer down Blackley Lane? He’s always on the lookout for old clothes, especially hats, to make new scarecrows, but Granny said she’d have them instead.’

‘Your grandmother is wearing our gardener’s cast-off clothes? Intended for a scarecrow?’ Muriel pulled a face of pure distaste. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘I took the dog down there for a walk and ended up talking to Mr Hargreaves. He offered to show me his scarecrows.’

‘I’ll bet he did,’ Muriel retorted indignantly. ‘You keep away, Eloise. Daddy and I haven’t spent an absolute fortune on your education just so you can hang around with… with…farmhands. I thought there was a bit of a whiff around you yesterday, but I didn’t like to say.’

‘It’s never stopped you before…’ Eloise knew she was pushing boundaries with Muriel and stopped as her mother glared in her direction.

‘That farmer has areputation.’

‘What sort of reputation?’ Eloise was most interested.

‘Never you mind. What he gets up to down in The Green Dragon is no concern of ours.’

‘Well, it’s obviously a concern ofyours, Mummy.’

‘Enough, Eloise, go and tidy your room. And then, perhaps you could help Mrs Baxter in the kitchen. A cake maybe? Don’t forget Michael is back home from school the day after tomorrow. You know what boys are like. They spend any time not kicking a ball stuffing themselves with cake.’

‘I’m a hopeless cook.’

‘But we sent you to Switzerland to learn to cook. All that money and you still can’t whip up a Victoria sponge or a batch of scones?’

‘They taught us the basics of shorthand and typing as well. Very much the basics, Mummy. They were more interested in the correct way to address the Ambassador to Nigeria if we should ever meet him…’

‘Nigeria? Goodness, I hope not. Bad enough with all these… thesecolouredpeople from India working in Daddy’s mill. The place is getting quite overrun with them.’

‘We had two really lovely girls from India at St Bernadette’s,’ Eloise pointed out.

‘Goodness,’ Muriel repeated, ‘Bombay to Whitby? I assume they were the daughters of someone high up in India? They must have got the money from somewhere?’

God, did her mother never shut up about money?

‘I’m going out to help Granny with the roses,’ Eloise said, turning to watch as her grandmother made her way across the lawn and orchards towards the beautiful walled rose garden.

‘I thinknot, Eloise. She’s more than happy out there by herself. There are broad beans to pod in the kitchen – Mrs Baxter never does it properly and…’ Muriel broke off as the telephone rang and, hearing her mother safely ensconced with her friend and the town’s latest gossip, Eloise slipped out into the drizzle and grey skies of a West Yorkshire July morning.

* * *

‘Hello, my darling.’ Maude Hudson grinned a welcome across the rose beds whose extravagant blooms, now harbouring droplets of moisture, were worthy of any professional rose grower. ‘How’s it going? Glad to be home?’ Maude held out her arms and Eloise went into them, the earthy, wet-dog smell of the gardener’s cast-off coat strangely comforting.

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