Page 2 of Searching for Mr Tilney

All that writing must have worn me out because I dropped off mid-thought, and spilt ink all over the sheets in my sleep, simultaneously dribbling over a half opened packet of fruit Spangles, managing to glue three of them to my pillow case. Mum didn’t seem to notice when she came up, she was far too excited to tell me about her visitor. Her friend Ellen Appleby who lives at the bottom of the road in the large house on the corner, came for a cup of tea earlier and was full of her news.

‘So, Ellen and Roger are going to Bath,’ she said.

‘Oh, I love Bath,’ I said, though I’ve only been once.

‘Yes, I knew you’d say that,’ said Mum, and then she suddenly stopped, and her mouth twitched like it does when she’s worried she’s going to say something to upset me.

‘What is it?’ I asked watching her face turn crimson. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

‘Not exactly,’ she said, ‘and I don’t suppose you’d have to go if you really didn’t want to, though it would be a little awkward going back on what I said.’

Since my father died, I’ve found it very hard to get annoyed with my mother, and looking at her sweet face I realised, whatever she’d done, it would be impossible to be cross with her.

‘Go on,’ I said, trying not to sound impatient.

‘Ellen thought you might like to go with them, and I said it was such a thoughtful, kind invitation, that it would do you the world of good, and you’d love the idea.’

It came out in a complete rush, which left me feeling stunned and not quite sure what to say. I know the Applebys quite well, but the idea of going away with them is something else entirely.

‘Oh, Mum,’ I whined, and then I felt ashamed when I saw her face crumple.

‘It’s just that I’d love to take you away,’ she said quietly, ‘but I can’t, not just now I’ve got a new commission, and it seemed the ideal opportunity.’

What she really meant was that she couldn’t afford to take me anywhere, and so I pushed back the covers and threw my arms round her slight form, told her that it had taken a moment, but I couldn’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than going to Bath with Ellen and Roger Appleby.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, of course, I’d love to go. Who wouldn’t want to be driven down to Bath in a fabulous Jag, and stay in a smart hotel for a couple of days,’ I said, trying hard to think of all the positives.

‘They’re not staying in a hotel,’ she said, ‘and they’re going for six weeks until Christmas.’

I felt time slow down. This was worse than I feared - a whole six weeks! At least in a hotel, I might have found someone my own age to talk to or go out with.

‘They’re renting a house on Pulteney Street. It sounds lovely, even if it’s not quite Ellen’s preferred choice of the Royal Crescent. Oh, Caroline, are you sure you’d like to go?’

Seeing her eyes were misting over, I tried my best to smile, and thinking of my beloved Northanger Abbey, I declared, ‘Well, if adventures will not befall me in my own village, then surely I must seek them abroad!’

***

It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you don’t want it to, but the day has come at last, and I’m waiting in the sitting room for the Applebys to come and collect me. Six weeks seems too long to be spent with people who are virtually strangers, even if Ellen keeps telling me she used to push my pram around the village and back again when I was a baby.

‘And such a fat little thing you were too, all dimples and double chins … what they used to call “bonny” in those days,’ she said. ‘Well, you’ve lost most of the puppy fat now, and having Glandular Fever has certainly helped. I could do with a dose of that myself … I’m on the egg and grapefruit diet now … have you tried it, Caroline?’

But, Roger is a nice man, even if he’s always telling awful jokes. He’s so kind, and doesn’t expect anything, like lots of conversation that involves being pumped for endless amounts of gossip, and he never mentions the past or makes backhanded compliments.

I wasn’t sure what to wear - the older generation sometimes think jeans are a bit scruffy, and I thought even my jeans skirt and waistcoat might be a bit much for Ellen, so I’ve decided to wear one of my own dresses. Mum said I look lovely, but she’s very bohemian, and anything goes, as far as she’s concerned. I’ve settled for a midi-length dress I copied from one I saw in Biba last year, my favourite shop of all time. It has a deco pattern on a black background, very gothic with a high Victorian neck and billowing sleeves. I’m wearing stacked-heel boots, not my nine-inch heels with four-inch platforms, which I’m leaving behind or no doubt I will be the butt of Roger’s jokes. So, I think even the Queen might consider I look suitable for a trip to Bath.

I hope Mum will be okay - we’ve not been apart for such a long time, and I will worry about her, even if I know she’s busy. She actually went to see a client this morning as if it was any normal day, which is probably better because if she were here we’d only cry all over one another as we say goodbye and end up embarrassing Ellen.

***

I’m now in the car with the back seat all to myself, and feeling quite like another person. Mrs Appleby has nodded off, which has given me a chance to pick up my pen again. It’s such a smart car, and has a wonderful smell of leather - I think I could get used to high living. We have a lovely house to live in and lots of beautiful antique furniture that Mum inherited, but we’re not used to spending money on things like cars and fur coats - Ellen is wearing her mink coat today, and she has matching mink-trimmed leather gloves. I don’t really approve of fur coats, but I know they cost the earth, and I suppose that’s what makes them so desirable for some people.

There was a time when my family didn’t worry about money. My grandmother Violet was the last female of the family to have been born at Charlcombe Hall, our ancestral home. It sounds very grand, but it’s very hard to imagine, though my grandmother used to tell me stories about it when I was a little girl. Anyway, the house was sold long ago and my grandmother was brought up in a smaller manor house just outside Bath in the countryside. My mother was born there, and left when she married my father. He was the young curate in their village, and he had ambitions to go and help people in the poorest parts of London. They started off in the East End where my mother spent many fulfilling but unhappy years trying to improve the lives of those who knew nothing but grinding poverty. Her portrait paintings of the local families are very revealing, and though her subjects are always smiling, several have an indefinable air of sadness. Mum’s always said she could never reconcile the fact that her life and theirs were so very different. In the end, my father was moved to Chawton, and we settled in the house my mother inherited from an aunt, instead of going to the modern rectory we were offered. Though my mother was happier, I think she felt guilty about leaving the people behind who loved and needed her.

The house wasn’t in good repair, and my father spent what money he had on having it rewired, and the cracked paint sanded down and decorated, but whatever improvements were made haven’t ever entirely removed the stale, dusty smell of the ancient carpets or stopped the draughts from whistling down the corridors. To this day there’s an air of faded grandeur, especially in my mother’s bedroom where the finest furniture lives and where her best diamonds glimmer forlornly from tattered velvet, on a mahogany dressing table adorned with discoloured scent bottles and silver topped brushes. There’s an echo of another time in the mottled looking glass that sometimes captures a lost image from the past reflected in its murky surface, when an old sepia photograph of an ancestor, clothed in black silk, stares with lifeless eyes from a tarnished silver frame.

I’ve grown up in beautiful, yet dilapidated surroundings for most of my life, punctuated with flashes of wild modernity when Mum has come into a small legacy from a forgotten relative. Then the drawing room has glowed with new loose covers on the sofa in sensuous psychedelia, at odds with the walnut chiffonier and buttoned back chairs, and we’ve celebrated with a cocktail party. I remember my mother looking very sophisticated in black at one of these parties, the diamonds glittering in her ears as she handed out hors d’oeuvres - devils on horseback and mushroom vol-au-vents. My father always said she reminded him of Princess Grace of Monaco, and if not quite a princess in her youth, I think she’d known a different life before she fell in love with my dad. It’s easy to imagine her in a ball gown, a long train trailing across a red carpet - in my mind’s eye I see her stepping from a sleek car with white Gardenias scenting her hair, as young men bow and hold out their hands to fill hers with saucers of pink champagne or twirl her across a polished dance floor.