Episode Four

We reach the big house...

Claudette paused at the lych gate to St Augustine’s, noticed the fading papers fluttering in the breeze and walked on. The times of Mother’s Union meetings and the Parish Council were of no interest to her. She noted the name of the vicar and walked on. At the wrought iron gates of The Cedars she put her suitcase down and put her hat on, securing it with the hat pin she’d stuck in her lapel when she got on the bus in Marstock. She gathered her belongings, making sure that the case was in the other hand and her clutch bag firmly grasped and clattered up the drive to the old manor house.

Halfway up the drive Claudette felt a blister on her left heel. She tried to push her toes further into her shoe but there was no space for them. Cursing her choice of fashion over comfort she limped the last few yards to the porch, kicked off her shoes and stood in her stockinged feet. She placed the suitcase between her feet, rang the doorbell and picked up her kitten heels. Thus the first Mr Upton the butler saw of the new lady’s companion was a slightly dusty young woman in a spectacular picture hat, a clutch bag in one hand and kitten heels in the other.

“I’m Claudette. Mrs Howard is expecting me. Grab my suitcase, will you?”

She skipped into the hall, slid slightly on the polished parquet floor and turned 360 degrees scanning the whole panelled edifice in one twirl.

“Very nice, very proper. Where do I go? Mrs Howard is expecting me.”