‘Would you mind if we showed it to Emily?’
‘If you can find it, we shall endure the embarrassment. I’m sure Emily likes a chuckle.’
Miss Titmus scampered off in search of the photograph.
The next few minutes weren’t exactly awkward, but neither were they the most comfortable of my life. Lady Lavinia tried gamely to keep the cheerful chatter going, and Lady Hardcastle joined in with her customary effortless charm, but Mrs Beddows just stared into her brandy glass, saying nothing and looking like she’d rather be in any other company but ours.
It was something of a relief when Miss Titmus clattered back into the room clutching a photograph in a silver frame. She was not alone.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe as he followed her in. ‘Come on, chaps, they’re in here.’
Harry, Mr Waterford, Herr Kovacs, and Uncle Algy meandered into the library and began moving chairs to join our group.
‘Come on, girls,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe, ‘budge up. Make room there.’
We shuffled our chairs to accommodate the gentlemen, who had brought glasses with them and were helping themselves to brandy as they settled down.
‘We thought you’d all gone off to bed,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘We were waiting for you in the drawing room.’
‘You duffer,’ said his sister. ‘I told you we were coming in here.’
‘You say that as though you imagine I might listen to anything you say.’
‘That’s scarcely my problem, is it? We were sitting in here all along, having a chinwag.’
‘Us too,’ he said. ‘But in the drawing room. We could have wagged our chins together. I so seldom see you these days.’
‘Poor Fishy,’ she said. ‘But you’d have been talking about business or motor cars or some such inconsequential drivel, and we had much more important things to discuss.’
Mrs Beddows snorted so forcefully that it might have been possible to imagine that a horse had strayed into the library.
‘I bet I can guess what the “important things” were,’ said Harry, looking at his own sister. ‘I’d wager Emily has been yarning.’
‘A little,’ said Lady Hardcastle, poking out her tongue. ‘But that was ages ago. We’ve moved on to talking about school. Well, the ladies have. I wasn’t lucky enough to go to school, unlike other members of my family.’
‘I’ve told you, Emily, you really didn’t miss much,’ said Lady Lavinia. ‘Show her the photo, Helen. Let her see for herself what she was spared.’
Miss Titmus presented the framed photograph as though it were an object of worship, while Lady Hardcastle and I craned to get a better look. Around a dozen girls in dark skirts and white blouses were arranged around a large trophy. Those in the front were sitting cross-legged with cricket bats across their knees.
Lady Hardcastle laughed. ‘You were in the school cricket team?’ she asked delightedly.
‘Evanshaw’s School for Girls First XI, 1882,’ said Miss Titmus proudly. ‘Winners of the Japheth Fothersdyke Memorial Trophy.’
‘Japheth Fothersdyke, eh?’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘That well-known . . . ?’
‘A deceased local mill owner,’ said Mrs Beddows. ‘It seems our parents all decided that London would be too decadently metropolitan, Geneva too exotic, Paris too frivolous . . . and so they packed us off to some godforsaken granite fortress on the Yorkshire Moors, home of dark satanic mills and their long-dead, dark satanic owners.’
‘It was sandstone, dear,’ said Lady Lavinia. ‘And it was a former manor house, not a fortress. And Japheth Fothersdyke was a fair-haired church warden.’
‘Bleak, forbidding, and bally awful,’ said Mrs Beddows.
‘Be that as it may,’ continued Lady Lavinia, ‘much emphasis was placed by Mr and Mrs Evanshaw upon the value of healthy outdoor pursuits, among which was cricket, at which, by lucky chance, we excelled.’
‘Best days of my life,’ said Miss Titmus wistfully.
‘Doesn’t say a great deal for the rest of your life,’ said Mrs Beddows.
Lady Hardcastle produced her lorgnette and peered more closely at the photograph. ‘Let me see, then,’ she said. ‘What do you reckon, Flo? Who’s who?’
I leaned in and studied the faces. To me, they just looked like a crowd of anonymous posh schoolgirls, flushed faces padded with varying amounts of puppy fat. They wore their hair in the same style, and there seemed little to distinguish one from another, but Lady Hardcastle, as always, was able to see more than I.
‘That’s you, Lavinia,’ she said, pointing to a fair-haired girl at the back. ‘And Roz is next to you.’ She pointed again. ‘And . . . Oh, that one’s Helen,’ she said, triumphantly pointing at a third, plump, mousey-looking girl.
‘Spot on,’ said Miss Titmus with a smile. ‘You have a good eye for faces.’
‘It makes her quite the portrait artist,’ said Harry. ‘She has a wonderful way of seeing the essence of a chap. You should get her to sketch you before she goes.’
‘Oh, would you, Emily?’ said Miss Titmus. ‘And I shall take photographs of you all. We can show them together.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Let’s do that. And who’s this girl between you and Lavinia? She looks a formidable sportswoman.’
We all looked more closely at the photograph. Sure enough, between Miss Titmus and Lady Lavinia stood a rather beautiful girl with dark hair and the most beguiling eyes. For an uncomfortable while, no answer came.
‘That’s Katy Burkinshaw,’ offered Miss Titmus eventually. ‘She—’
‘That’s a story for another time, dear,’ interrupted Lady Lavinia. She took the photograph from Lady Hardcastle and passed it to Mr Waterford. ‘What do you think, Monty? Weren’t we just utterly utter?’
He laughed. ‘A formidable-looking team. What say you, Viktor? Do you think we could have taken them on?’
Herr Kovacs took the photo and examined it closely. ‘I’m not sure I could “take anyone on” at cricket, old chap. It’s not a game quite so beloved by the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire. To tell the truth, I’m a little surprised to find girls playing the game. I thought it was a sport for boys and men?’
‘It’s fallen out of favour with the ladies of late,’ said Miss Titmus, ‘but it was all the rage in the eighties. I wish we could bring it back. Did you play, Emily?’
‘I’m afraid not, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘A little tennis, perhaps, and I’ve been dragged into more than one game of croquet, but only socially.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Titmus deflatedly. ‘What about you, Miss Armstrong?’
‘Not me,’ I said. ‘I was more of a rugby girl.’
‘Good lord!’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘Rugger? Really?’
‘Really,’ I said with a smile. ‘Fastest wing three-quarter in the district, me.’
Lord Riddlethorpe laughed. ‘Well I never. But you’re so tiny.’
‘Don’t let that fool you,’ said Harry. ‘Swift and deadly, our Flo. I’d not want to try to take her on if she were coming at me at pace.’
‘They played ladies rugby in . . . Where was it . . . Aberdare?’ said Mr Waterford.
‘No, I played on the boys’ team until they banned me,’ I said.