“Alba’s always pushed the limits,” he said in response to Verity’s comment. “Mrs. Arbuckle’s long-suffering.”
“Oh, Alba’s just young. She’s enjoying herself, poor lamb,” said Hannah, who had the gift of seeing only the good in everyone. “I thought she looked lovely. She’s a beautiful girl and she has a nice new boyfriend.” She patted her gray bun to make sure it was all in place. She was a neatly dressed, full-bodied woman who liked to look her best on a Sunday. She was getting too old for bell ringing, she had decided; one or two more years and she’d be too doddery to climb the narrow staircase. “She’ll probably marry that nice young man and settle down. They all seem to in the end. My granddaughter…”
Verity wasn’t interested in Hannah’s granddaughter. She was bitter because she hadn’t had children, just a cantankerous old husband who was more work than any baby would have been.
“Oh, he’ll be out on his ear,” she said acerbically. “I know Alba’s type. She’s had more lovers than I’ve had hot dinners!”
“Verity!” Hannah exclaimed, appalled.
“Verity!” Fred repeated. Sometimes they forgot they were in the company of a man.
“It’s disrespectful to speak of her like that, in this place!” Hannah hissed in a whisper. “You know nothing about it!”
“I do,” said Verity, standing up and straightening her pleated skirt. “Edith hears everything that goes on up at the Park. Give her a little sherry and out it all comes. Not that I’d dream of asking.” She pursed her lips, irritated that she had been forced into betraying Edith, who had cooked at Beechfield Park for the last fifty-two years. Now, of course, she was unable to stop herself. “They’ve had some terrible rows, you know. Edith says that Alba and Mrs. Arbuckle are at loggerheads all the time and that Captain Arbuckle just sticks his head in the sand like an ostrich. He feels guilty, she says, that she hasn’t a real mother. It’s not his fault, of course, but he carries it all on his shoulders. He looks much older than his years, don’t you think? Mrs. Arbuckle is far more interested in her own daughters. After all, blood is blood, isn’t it? And her daughters give her no trouble. Not like Alba.”
“Edith should keep her mouth shut if she knows what’s good for her!” said Hannah in an unusually brisk tone of voice.
“She’s very discreet. She only tells me.”
“And you tell everyone else!” said Hannah, putting her arms through her coat sleeves. “Right, I’m off for lunch.”
“And I’m off to the Hen’s Legs,” said Fred, shrugging on his old sheepskin.
“Rev Weatherbone is lunching at the Park today. I wonder what he’ll make of Alba. I don’t believe they’ve met before.”
“Well,” huffed Hannah, making for the door. “If anyone will find out, Verity, it’s you!”
Back at Beechfield Park Margo was seating everyone for lunch. Cook had spent all morning sweating over roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, which were always especially crispy, and an array of vegetables cooked al dente. The gravy was thick and brown, her own recipe, which she refused to share with anyone, even Verity Forthright, who had begged for it on a number of occasions.
Cook was pretty unshockable. She had lived more than half her life with the Arbuckles and had seen everything, from Alba’s tantrums to the boys she had kissed behind the hedges in the garden when as a teenager she had profited from the tennis tournaments and pony club camps that her stepmother had held for Caroline and Miranda. However, the scrap of cloth Alba had worn to breakfast had managed to shock her. Beneath that excuse for a skirt, Alba’s legs were long and somehow awfully tarty in those boots. No wonder Mrs. Arbuckle refused to allow her to attend church without covering up. Therefore it came as a terrible shock when the good vicar arrived for lunch, making jokes about her wardrobe. Wasn’t he a man of God?
Indeed, as Cook was serving, pretending to mind her own business, she couldn’t help but hear the odd snippet of conversation while they helped themselves to beans and potatoes. The vicar was seated between Mrs. Arbuckle and Alba, a dreadful mistake on the part of the hostess, Cook thought, for when she was sitting down, Alba’s little skirt disappeared completely. She might as well have been sitting in her knickers. It wasn’t right for a man of God to gaze at a girl’s thighs. Let alone talk about them.
“When I was a young man one certainly didn’t see a woman’s thighs until one was married,” he said. Alba giggled that provocative laugh of hers. Low and husky like chimney smoke. Cook was appalled at her flirting.