Chapter Four

April, Present Day

By April, Elodie seemed much happier. She told Cassie she was delighted because she looked properly pregnant now and nobody could think she was just fat. Cassie thought ‘happy’ was a slightly odd thing to be when, even at this point, you could barely see your toes and had to walk in a very strange fashion to accommodate an enormous bump.

However, despite her positive outlook, Elodie’s health meant she was still being forced to slow down – but that didn’t matter too much, because as far as Cassie was concerned, she was well on the way with organising the Country House Party weekend herself. She could be in charge for a little longer. The conversation she’d had with Delilah and Margaret hadn’t curbed her enthusiasm and she had made even more lists. It was going to be simple enough to work with Elodie on what was left – no problem. Because there wasn’t going to be much left.

So Cassie invited Elodie, Margaret and Delilah over to her little cottage on the estate, for another companionable cup of tea and a discussion on how they could progress it all.

And that was when Elodie threw her a curveball.

‘You’re doing so well. I’m going to let you get on with this without my interference. I’m not going to take it away from you. It was your idea. You’re more than capable. And you’ve clearly done so much already. This has to be your glory. You deserve it.’

‘Seriously?’ She had to be joking. She just had to be.

‘Believe me,’ Elodie told her. ‘If I didn’t think you could pull it off, I wouldn’t let you loose on one of our weekends. They’re far too important to Alex to make a mess of. Yes, I think this one’s over to you. I’ll find some resources for you, though. I’m fairly sure I know where they are.’

And for once, Cassie was speechless. Elodie was trusting her with one of her precious weekends? Single-handedly? Well, apart from Margaret and Delilah and even Kate’s input. That couldn’t be right. In her mind, happy as she’d been to offer assistance, she’d only been temping. Elodie was going to sweep back in, as efficient as ever, and pick it right up, and then Cassie would be free to concentrate on her costume.

But it didn’t seem as if Elodie had thought the same way. It was going to be her weekend. Cassie’s weekend. At that point – and she could almost time it to the second – the panic began to set in.

She basically had four months to organise everything else? Herself?

Help!

True to her word, Elodie came back half an hour later with a box full of photographs, by which time Cassie had switched on her iPad and was staring at it again. She had realised if she had to sort all this out for real, by herself, to truly make it her weekend, she would need to start sourcing out marquees and bunting. The marquee they had at the hall dated back a decade or more ago to Alex and Elodie’s prom night, and Alex had told her she should absolutely forget about using it, as it was in an appalling state of disrepair. And she knew she would definitely need a company to come and clear the old tennis courts. She felt a little sick.

‘Do tennis court clearers have a proper name?’ she asked Margaret and Delilah. She looked up from the iPad. ‘Do you think that’s why I’m not getting very many hits on the web?’

They shook their heads in unison.

‘Gardeners?’ suggested Margaret.

‘Landscapers?’ suggested Delilah.

‘Never mind.’ Cassie sighed and pressed a few more buttons aimlessly.

At the moment, the tennis courts were cordoned off – the general public could look, but they couldn’t explore. The courts were in what they had always called the Spa, the part that would have been bursting with activity between the wars, when the young Aldrichs invited all their friends over for wild parties – at least, Cassie assumed they must have been wild, although she didn’t know that for sure.

The tennis courts were smothered under weeds and the squash courts were being used for storage, and the old outdoor swimming pool was long disused. But the Art Deco steps leading down to the bottom were still visible, and the old diving board hung over the deep end.

‘The whole Spa area is a health hazard.’ Cassie shook her head. Thinking about that, and carried away by the hazy idea of a pool the visitors could paddle or swim in if they wished, she started to look up pool restoration instead of tennis court clearers.

Elodie entered with her box. Margaret jumped to her feet and relieved her of it all before dumping it on the table.

‘Next time, ask one of us to come with you and carry it.’ Margaret began fussing as usual. ‘It’s too much for you.’ Margaret’s heart was in the right place, but Cassie saw Elodie colour and, despite Cassie’s rising panic, she had to stop herself from laughing at Elodie’s expression. Elodie was the sort of person who would try to pretend she was absolutely fine until it was hugely obvious she wasn’t. It drove Alex to despair at times.

‘It’s fine,’ Elodie replied in a sort of strangled little voice as she eased herself back into her seat. ‘It wasn’t that heavy, but thank you.’

Margaret nodded, satisfied, and looked expectantly at the box. ‘So are we allowed to know what treasures you brought for us?’

‘Of course!’ Elodie brightened up. She leaned over and grabbed a handful of the box’s contents, spreading them across the table for them to see.

Black and white photographs and pieces of paper fluttered in the slight breeze, and the women all made a dive for them, grabbing what they could and examining them.

‘They’re all from the exact period we’re looking at!’ Cassie exclaimed. ‘God, what awful clothes. So drab and dreary and those nasty fitted suits.’ Her heart sank at the thought of what she’d have to dress in. She really needed to start Googling vintage clothes instead of looking for pool restorers.

Elodie laughed. ‘There are all sorts of styles here. Remember, we’re spanning two decades. You’ve got the pictures of the 1940’s stuff, I think. Yes. Here are some 1920’s pictures. You’ll prefer those.’ She pushed them across to Cassie. This was more like it.

‘Wow. Just wow. Those are incredible. Hey, do you think I could be a flapper? Maybe I should bob my hair?’

Cassie circled her hands in front of her in a vague copy of the Charleston and then grabbed her long plait and held the braid up behind her head. She moved her head from side to side. ‘What do you think?’

‘Very Chicago,’ said Elodie. ‘But cutting it just for the weekend is a bit radical, don’t you think?’ Elodie had cut several inches off her hair when she first moved back to Suffolk and had soon come to hate it. It had now grown to the middle of her shoulder blades and she was much happier with it. And she was right of course – it had taken Cassie ages to grow her own dark hair, and she didn’t want to be that much of a slave to fashion, just for a weekend.

‘I guess. But I want to do something appropriate with it.’

Elodie was studying her with the look that told Cassie she was deep in thought. ‘Hmm. I think what we could do is roll it up at the back, pin it through and put a headband on you. Yes. That would work. Or you could go for the long, sleek, wavy look. It’s up to you. Pinned up is more flapper though. You strike me as more of a flapper, Cass. More Louise Brooks than Maude Fealy.’ Elodie had worked in the London theatres as a costume designer and she knew her stuff.

‘I strike me as more of a flapper.’ Cassie pulled the old pictures towards her. ‘But the later evening gowns are actually quite lovely.’ She picked a photograph up which had caught her eye.

Parts of the picture had been hand-coloured with inks and it showed a girl, possibly a little younger than Cassie, with long, carefully styled hair. The hair, parted on one side and falling in deep waves either side to her shoulders, had been coloured a deep, rich auburn, and she was wearing a long, fitted emerald-green dress and long gloves to match. Cassie recognised that she was standing in the hallway of the Hall, one hand on the banister and one hand on her hip. One knee was slightly bent and she was most definitely posing, her mouth pursed as if she was blowing a kiss to the cameraman.

‘I thought you’d go for that one.’ Elodie twisted around so she got a better view of the girl. ‘She’s pretty.’

‘I think that’s Stella,’ Cassie said. ‘Although one could be forgiven for thinking it’s Rita Hayworth. Stella was a bit of a beauty in her time. I’ve only ever seen formal pictures of her in black and white in the Library. The family often despaired of her, or so the story goes. There were the usual whispers of an unsuitable man, of course. My grandfather was her nephew. Where did you get this one?’

‘The archives.’ Elodie sighed. ‘Why do your family have such a history of finding unsuitable men?’

‘Maybe they were all ahead of their times. Us girls have never enjoyed being bullied into anything. And it seems that every time the family tree throws up an overbearing Earl we rebel. I say it’s a good thing.’ Cassie grinned at Elodie. ‘Alex had better watch out if either of those two is a girl. Anyway, we don’t have archives. Do we?’

‘I think we’ll both find it interesting when the babies are here, that’s for sure. I’ve a feeling we needn’t worry though.’ Elodie grinned back. They all knew how much Alex had hated the way his father had been with him and Cassie, even though that Earl was never overbearing. He’d just never been a brilliant parent and constantly seemed to be at a loss as to how to respond to any creature that didn’t have four legs and a tail. Their mother had left them all when Cassie was six months old, and Alex and Cassie had grown up on the goodwill of people like Margaret, Delilah and Elodie’s family. Elodie’s father had been the Estate Manager before he retired a few years ago.

‘And we do sort of have archives,’ continued Elodie. ‘I found Stella’s picture in the attics. I had a good poke around a little while ago – everything was so disordered up there. There were boxes and boxes of pictures, all mixed up. It’s a huge job. So much to go through.’

‘And I bet nobody forced you to do it.’

‘Well, no, they didn’t,’ admitted Elodie. ‘But aren’t you glad I did?’

‘Very glad.’ Cassie pulled some more pictures towards her and decided she could easily get lost in this time of posed photographs, horses, parties and champagne.

‘Oh, look at this one!’ said Delilah. ‘It’s the pool. How wonderful. See those bathing costumes? This must be the early thirties.’

‘We’ve got the tennis courts here.’ Margaret fanned out a selection in front of her, the photographs populated by brylcreemed young men and leggy women in sharply pressed tennis whites. ‘It’s like another world.’

‘That’s the thirties again,’ Elodie confirmed. ‘I indexed what I could, but obviously I don’t know names and neither does Alex. I did it in time period instead. See, there’s a number on the box and if you go on the computer in Alex’s study, I set up a database. Each box is numbered and the contents listed. It should help with the Living History weekends if nothing else. There’s still quite a bit to do, unfortunately.’ She rubbed her tummy and looked down at it. ‘I don’t know if I’ll get much more done any time soon though. There’s quite a bit of bending involved.’

‘You’ve done well to get this far,’ said Margaret. ‘It gives us so much more to work with.’

‘Now, do you think we have enough resources here, or do we need to cast the net a little wider?’ Elodie’s voice broke into Cassie’s thoughts. How the hell was she so practical? All Cassie really wanted to do was look at appropriate clothes, but she’d have to do that in her own time.

But for once, she was ahead of the game: ‘I’ve already put out an advertisement. It’s always good to have a community focus on these things, isn’t it?’

‘Most definitely. Focus away.’ Elodie hid her face behind a photograph of a man on horseback, but Cassie was sure she saw her smirk.

Cassie nodded, and turned back to her iPad resolutely. She’d also decided that she might just have to use her full title to get the results she hoped for.

“SUFFOLK NOW” MAGAZINE

A COUNTRY HOUSE PARTY PLEA

In respect of the successful Hartsford Hall Living History weekends, Lady Cassandra Aldrich is inviting anyone who may have mementoes of the Hall from the Between the War years of the early twentieth century to exhibit them at Hartsford Hall for a Country House Party Weekend. This event will take place over Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August, and Lady Cassandra has expressed an interest in photographs, letters, artwork or any relevant stories, in order to bring the history of the Hall alive.

“We will be displaying the artefacts in the refurbished Edwardian squash courts,” advises Lady Cassandra. “We are exceptionally proud of our squash courts, as we understand they were designed and built along the lines of the squash court in First Class on the Titanic. We will also be opening the Victorian tennis courts to the public for the first time and serving traditional afternoon teas in our vintage tea tent, along with champagne and strawberries for the more adventurous. It is also anticipated that we will be rebuilding and refilling the Art Deco swimming pool to complete the Spa area of the Hall. I do hope that we will enjoy a gloriously hot weekend and that visitors will be able to wallow in the pool and bask in the ambience as my ancestors and their friends did so many years ago.”

Aidan smiled at the notice in the magazine. Dear old Lady Cassandra sounded quite enthusiastic about her Country House Weekend. He wondered whether she had been around at the time and was trying to relive her youth. Well, good luck to the old girl. There was a nice photograph of the Hall swimming pool from that era as well and Aidan examined it closely.

He looked across the room at the old trunk which held Robert’s belongings. He remembered the stories about his great-great-uncle and a big country house in Suffolk and he knew exactly where to look to check it out.

He made his way over to the trunk and opened the lid. Moving the photographs out of the way, he found the little sketch book Robert had carried around with him when he decided he wanted to be an artist. The problem had been, so the stories went, that he was never very good at drawing. And there was plenty of evidence to show that here.

Aidan flipped through the yellowing pages carefully, passing pictures of hunting dogs and cartoons of young men and women Robert had been friends with at Cambridge. There were some bad pen and ink sketches of the university and a couple of vignettes on the riverbank; but the picture Aidan wanted was right at the back – hidden away on the very last page.

It was a charcoal drawing of a girl on the side of a swimming pool. It looked extraordinarily similar to the pool in the magazine. There was even a diving board in the same place and the corner of a building which was possibly the squash courts shown in the photograph. There were some figures playing tennis in the background, dreadfully out of proportion and rather wonky, but the idea was there. Those old courts might still exist, if the couple he’d seen on his previous trip were off to play a match or two.

Aidan’s heart began to beat a little faster and he fingered the corner of the page. He wondered if it was time to pay another visit to Hartsford Hall and see if they were interested in his mementoes. Or at least, Great-Great-Uncle Robert’s memorabilia.

Yes, why not?