Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus Read Online Free Page A

termorrer if ’er still ’as that lacy thing from Act Two, she said it were.”
    “But a
stage
costume!” protested Polly.
    “Oh, it’ll be same as the real thing. It waren’t the Hippodrome yer know. Edie did luvly work afore her arthuritis got ’er.”
    Gran surfaced from her cup of tea to say hoarsely, “Don’t you go dressin’ above your station, Pol. They’ll think you’re a tart, that’s wot.”
    “No they won’t,” snapped Polly. “No one knows I come from…” Her voice faltered.
    “No one knows yer comes from a dump like this,” her mother finished for her, with unimpaired good humor. “But ’ave a care, my girl. Gran’s right. Go careful.”
    “Of course,” said Polly, practicing a haughty stare.
    “What’s ’appened to your face?” asked Joyce, looking over the top of
Young England
.
    “It’s them pigs’ trotters,” said Alf Marsh. “I’ve bin belchin’ and fartin’ like a locomotive.”
    Polly rose from the table defeated. She would practice her haughty stare on young Mr. Friend in the morning.

CHAPTER THREE
    No matter how much Polly fretted, the months of April and May seemed to crawl along as they had never done before. The days grew longer and longer and the asthmatic old clock on the wall of Westerman’s office hiccuped and coughed and wheezed, reluctantly surrendering each minute up as if to belie the TEMPUS FUGIT written on its yellow face.
    At last the glorious day of the first of June arrived. It was a Saturday, of course, since frivolities such as staff outings were not allowed to take place during business hours.
    Bevington Chase lay ten miles outside Chelmsford in Essex. The office party was to take a special train to Chelmsford and then proceed by charabanc to the duke’s home. Polly had other travel plans. She meant to make a grand entrance. She had lied to Mr. Baines, telling him that she would be spending the night with an aunt in Chelmsford and that she would make her own way to the party.
    Polly had then traveled to Chelmsford on the Saturday before the picnic to arrange the hire of a smart brougham and pair to drive her in style to Bevington Chase. It had taken all her savings but she felt it was well and truly worth it.
    In her mind’s eye Lord Peter would rush forward to assist her from the carriage, his eyes gleaming with admiration.
    Saturday morning dawned sparkling and sunny. Polly carefully dressed herself in Lady Windermere’s tea gown (Act Two). It was a beautiful thing made of cobweb-fine blond lace over a rose silk underdress and—miracle of miracles—Lil’s stepsister, Edie, had produced a long pair of elbow-length pink kid gloves to go with it. Polly dressed her blond curls low on her brow in the current fashion and then placed an enormous hat of swathes of pink tulle on top. Her family had presented her with a pink lace parasol with an ivory handle, bought for surprisingly little money from Alf’s second cousin, who was in the rag-and-bone business, and who had collected it from a dustbin up in the West End. It had obviously been thrown away because it wouldn’t open, but a few delicate touches from old Solly, the clock repairer on the corner of Stone Lane, had made it as good as new.
    Her pink kid reticule had been lent for the day by Mrs. Battersby in the tenement next door, who worked fourteen hours a day to make leather goods for the West End stores. And Bernie’s fat, cheerful wife, Liz, who worked day and night behind the frier in the fish-and-chip shop, had lent a string of cultured pearls.
    Feeling very strange and quite unlike herself, Polly descended the narrow stairs to the kitchen, where her family were assembled to see her on her way. “Pwitty,” screamed little Alf, trying to grab her dress with jammy fingers and being seized in time by Joyce. Gran and Mrs. Marsh stared at her, their eyes filling with sentimental tears and even Alf Marsh cleared his throat. He was sweating in all the misery of his black Sunday suit and