Between Friends (36 page)

Yes, there was a lightness of heart in Mrs Whitley’s ramblings on the endlessly interesting subject of ‘her three’, just as there was in the whole of the country. Though there was misery and poverty endured in the cottages and dwelling places of the working class for unemployment was rife that year, high spirits marked the era of King Edward the seventh for he had given his people a unity and a pride in themselves which, though the nation had been wealthy then, had not existed during the reign of his mother. He loved ceremony. He was gracious and charming and his passion for pageantry resulted in parades and processions, bringing life and colour to a people who had just moved from the prim, widowed puritanism of Queen Victoria. He liked State occasions with all their pomp, giving a show to those who had none. He moved about the country, letting all those about him know where he was and what he was up to and he was much loved by those he ruled. He liked the theatre, opera and the music hall and he encouraged the nation to do the same.

Yes, there was an air of enthusiasm and hope in the air. They were a generation standing on the threshold of a new era and Mrs Whitley’s ‘three’ were to be amongst them.

The previous summer, just after she had begun working at the Adelphi Hotel, Meg had bought a cheap, second-hand bicycle from Mr Hale. He had let her have it for next to nothing since he still remembered the days when he and ‘that lad’, spoken with wistfulness in his voice, had worked side by side on the old tandem. He had shaken his head wonderingly when she called at the shop, saying he should have known the lad had something special about him, even then, tickled to death to have been a part of it. She could see it gave him immense pleasure to talk of his protégé’s exploits, ‘and if he should be up this way sometimes I’d be right glad to have a chin-wag with him,’ he said. Aye, he could sort her out a cycle right enough. He had one this very minute which would suit, hardly used for the young lady who had owned it had been bought a motor car for her twenty-first birthday by her
doting
father and no longer needed the cycle. Would she like to see it, he said, and perhaps a cup of tea might be welcome.

Overwhelmed at the notion of a ‘young lady’ being bought, and driving a motor car, even in these enlightened days, Meg could only nod and allow herself to be led through the familiar clutter of ‘Hale’s Modern Bicycle Emporium’.

Each Sunday afternoon she was free from two o’clock until six and clad in her sensible skirt and jacket, leaving her ‘best’ dove grey behind, her straw boater firmly pinned to her errant hair, she would cycle down to the Pier Head and, putting the machine in the guard’s van, board the overhead electric railway to Otterspool. From there it was but a few minutes cycle ride to Silverdale and by two-thirty she would be sprawled before Mrs Whitley’s pantingly hot fire, a cup of tea in one hand and a coconut macaroon in the other. If the weather was warm they would sit in the tiny square of garden at the back of the cottage beneath the canopied shade of an old Cedar of Lebanon whilst the fat bees bumbled, heavy laden, about the borders of crimson poppies and the daisy starred grass. The sun streamed in benevolent warmth through the branches of the trees and Mrs Whitley’s black cat hummed contentedly on her lap and Meg would feel the tension of her hectic week slip away. Her active mind and aching muscles, pushed to the limits of their endurance in her effort to cram three years’ learning into one and a half, would become hushed and languorous and Mrs Whitley’s voice would fade away to a pleasant drone. She needed this moment of complete inanimation to recharge the energy she used in the week as the old lady brought her up to date on the innocent gossip up at the house. What Mrs Glynn had said to Mrs Stewart when the housekeeper had criticised the cook’s excellent paradise pudding! How it was rumoured that Mr Ferguson had a ‘friend’ in Liverpool and what could it mean, did Meg think? Mrs Hemingway’s increasing quaintness and Mr Hemingway’s everlasting kindness and patience with her and the score of quite unremarkable happenings which made up Mrs Whitley’s contented life.

‘… and of course when Martin said to me that he meant to take part I said he was quite barmy, which you would, wouldn’t you? and where was he to get a flying machine I said and d’you know what he said? Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I’ll make one, he said, proud as a peacock. Well, you know what he’s like! If it moves or makes a noise our Martin will
put
wheels on it, or in this case, wings. It’s only forty odd miles to Blackpool, Mrs Whitley, he says, and I mean to show the old gentleman …’

The words drifted about Meg’s head, their humming refrain blending in a pleasant melody with those of the bees and the sharper call of the birds. A sentence here and there penetrated her cocoon of inertia and it might be said that her brain had almost come to a halt until, from the drift of trifling verbiage the words began to sharpen and make sense, to run cogently and she opened her eyes and sat up slowly.

‘What did you say, Cook?’

‘Pardon?’ Mrs Whitley was clearly confused for she had said a lot of things.

‘About Blackpool and …’

‘I thought you were listening.’

‘I was, but I missed the bit about …’

‘What?’

‘About the flying machine … and Martin.’

‘Well, he can tell you himself because here he is!’

He stood at the fence, his tall, broad-shouldered figure casually dressed in pale grey flannels, immaculately pressed and a long sleeved polo neck sweater in a shade of blue which accentuated the sun bronzed flush of his face. He was grinning and his warm brown eyes did not waver as they ran audaciously over her own reclining figure for though she was their Meggie, she was still a bloody attractive woman, they seemed to say. He pushed open the small gate and sauntered up the narrow path, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets.

‘Well, well, look who’s here and pretty as a picture, if I may say so though why you wear that drab grey I’ll never know. You should be in green or a vivid blue with that hair of yours, our Meggie.’ His eyebrows tilted and the corners of his mouth turned in an ironic smile and Meg felt the small glow of pleasure his first words had induced in her, dash away in irritation for she knew he was right. If she had known she was to see him she would have put on a smarter outfit. She had a new one in a beautiful shade of apple green but it was so lovely she was reluctant to wear it on her bicycle for fear she might spoil it … But why should she care what Martin thought? Her own confusion made her sharp.

‘Well, I can hardly wear my ball gown and diamond tiara on the bicycle, can I, though I would have done so if I had known
you
were to be here, my lord. After all, mixing with the posh and the privileged as you do all the time, you must expect it. But I’ll know next time!’

‘Now then Meggie. Don’t get your dander up though I must admit you look a treat with those eyes of yours flashing like golden guineas. My word, but it’s a little tiger cub when it gets going …’

‘You’re the one who gets me going, Martin Hunter.’

But the day was so pretty and so was Meg and Martin’s admiring eyes told her so and she felt quite inordinately pleased with herself somehow so she grinned to let him know there was no ill-feeling.

‘Now, what was it I was to tell you? I heard Mrs Whitley say …’

‘I was telling her what you said about that aeroplane meeting in Blackpool next week, Martin and …’

‘Ah-ha! and I suppose she wants to come with me?’

He grinned even more widely and Mrs Whitley regarded him fondly for had you ever seen such a charmer? Those lovely brown eyes of his and those strong white teeth and that air of knowing quite definitely that he was irresistible.

Meg straightened her long, supple back and her face became alight with excitement. Her eyes were as bright and glowing as Mr Hemingway’s new electric lamps and she put her hands together like a child in prayer. She had become more controlled during the months she had worked at the Adelphi, for in her position as head chambermaid on her floor she had duties which called for a clear head, an organised mind and the need to appear calm and unruffled in the most trying circumstances. The young maids who it was her responsibility to direct and supervise must be able to turn to her in the sure certainty that Miss Hughes could deal with any problem which might trouble them and she did! But beneath it all was still hidden the star-flash, joyously fun-loving Meggie Hughes who had liked, nothing better than an unexpected outing, a good laugh and the company of her childhood companions.

‘D’you mean it, Martin?’ Her voice was a reverent whisper. She had heard Martin enthuse, as who had not, on the marvel of Samuel Cody who only this year had flown an aeroplane from Laffans Plain to Danger Hill in Hampshire, a distance of just over a mile, the first man to do so in this country. Two months later, in July, the
Daily Mail
had offered prize money of 1,000 for the
first
pilot of any nationality to fly across the English channel. Martin had been in an agony of frustration since, if he had been able to get his hands on an aircraft, he said, he could have won it, certain in his youthful arrogance that even Louis Blériot, the Frenchman who had triumphed would not have done so had Martin been in on it! And in all this exciting time Meg Hughes had yet to
see
an aeroplane.

‘If you can get the day off,’ Martin said lazily.

‘It’s my monthly day off on Thursday.’

‘You’re on, then, our kid!’

‘Can Tom come?’

‘My God, you’ll want to take the whole damn kitchen staff next. I have only got a two seater, you know,’ but he was laughing indulgently for really she looked quite the prettiest thing he had seen for a long time. He met many attractive young ladies wherever he went, some of them from wealthy, good class families. They were all of them excited by what he did, for he had found there was something almost sexual in their response to the thrill of seeing him court death or maiming on the race track. They would cluster round him and the other drivers when the race was over, their smooth, well-bred young faces flushed, their breath quickened, their eyes wide and shining and promising all manner of delights. Most were strictly chaperoned by father or brother, but some who were married and did no more than accompany a husband, an enthusiast of the sport, to the track, were seldom reluctant to indulge in a flirtation and some to go even further! He was successful with women despite his youth for though he was single-minded about his career and would let nothing stand in his way, he had a masculine charm which allowed him the company, not just of the ladies with whom he mixed but their menfolk who respected his courage and clever mind.

He smiled his compelling smile, then turned to wink at Mrs Whitley. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come as well? You can sit on Tom’s knee, oh and don’t forget those oyster patties of yours. Motoring, not to mention flying, gives you a good appetite!’

‘Oh Martin!’ she gasped, then, relieved, ‘… you great daft thing!’ when she realised that he was only joking.

Blackpool! Mecca of the Lancashire holiday maker, it was called. Compressed like the fingers in a glove in the small motor car the three of them left Liverpool at six-thirty and at a spanking speed of twenty miles an hour which was all that was allowed,
made
for Ormskirk which they reached by seven-thirty. Another hour and they were through Preston and on round the coastal road through the villages of Freckleton, Lytham, the smart little seaside holiday town of St Annes-on-Sea and on to the outskirts of Blackpool and the Lancashire Aero Club where the meet was to be held.

‘My God, I’ve never seen so many people,’ Tom gasped, ‘not even in Liverpool on a Shrove Tuesday. Where the hell have they all come from?’

‘All over the place. There are excursion trains from at least a dozen places in Lancashire alone and then that doesn’t account for those who have come in their own motor cars and on motor cycles. They have been preparing for this for months, you know, Tom. It’s the first air meet in the country and this aviation ground has been built especially for it. Members from Aero clubs all over Europe have come, bringing their machines, and I heard you can’t get a bed to sleep in if you were willing to pay a fiver a night.’

‘But where are you going to leave the motor? There isn’t an inch of space to spare,’ Meg was looking about her, her head turning wildly from side to side for there was so much to see she was afraid she might miss some of it. There were more motor cars than she had ever seen in her life, jammed bonnet to tail along the road into the town, most illuminated in some splendid way and all the streets were decorated just as though royalty was expected. Indeed it had been hoped that His Majesty might honour the town with his presence but unfortunately he had been unable to attend.

‘Look, oh look up there.’ Meg pointed excitedly and taking his eyes from the road for a moment Martin, and Tom looked up to where Meg’s quivering finger pointed. ‘What are they, Martin? Oh will you look …?’

‘They’re hot air balloons, Meggie. There’s one on each of the three main roads into the town to direct motorists on the most direct route to travel.’

‘And look up there … on the tower …’ Meg stood up, nearly losing her balance in her wild exhilaration, for indeed the air was tense with a strange intoxication which was infectious and had Tom not held on to her it seemed certain she would climb up on the bonnet in order to get a better view. She looked quite glorious and each young man found his eyes wandering constantly to the
special
glowing beauty of her face. She wore a simple tailored costume of apple green cloth with a narrow skirt and a close fitting long ‘Russian’ jacket which had buttons of a darker green down the sleeves. The skirt just touched the arch of her foot and was also buttoned down one side. Her cream straw boater had apple green velvet ribbons two inches wide round the crown, tied in a flat bow at the back and the ends fell down her back to her shoulder blades.