Read an extract from The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson.
In the lobby of the Meredith Hotel, Constance Haverhill paused, pretending to admire the flowers in the towering urn on a marble table at the foot of the grand staircase. The reception desk seemed busy with a large party arriving and two or three gentlemen chatting the-hazelbourne-ladies-motorcycle-and-flying-club-extractto the concierge. Her rejection from the dining room fresh, she felt too humiliated to push herself forward to the centre where the clerk would offer her the menu of the day and she would be forced to publicly decide between broth or fish paste on toast and then accept the plain dinner and one of the three rotating puddings, most of them custard. On their first night, she and Mrs Fog had dined together, but dinner had been taken in her room these last three days, and Constance was tired of the lingering smell of gravy and the awkward waiting for the used tray to be removed.
There would be plenty of time in the years to come to feel the limits of a life as a spinster. Lady Mercer, who fancied herself Constance’s patron and had sent her to the seaside to look after Mrs Fog, her mother, had been loud in her opinion that now, with the war over and women no longer needed in men’s professions, Constance would be well advised to take up as a governess. Joining the family once a week for dinner with the children, trays in one’s room when important guests came to dine, sharing one’s room on occasion if there were too many ladies’ maids at a weekend party. Constance shivered at the thought. As a young girl, she had seen the governesses come and go, for Lady Mercer couldn’t seem to keep one. And when one left, Constance’s mother would be called in to help during the transition. On those occasions, Constance would go with her mother to the big house and join in the lessons with Rachel, their daughter.
Her mother and Lady Mercer had been schoolgirls together, and though the former married a farmer and the latter a lord, they maintained the fiction of a lifelong affection of friends and equals by never allowing the crudeness of money to come between them. Constance’s mother had never received a wage for the many services she had provided under the guise of friendship and the patronage of the Clivehill estate. Instead there was always a small velvet bag of sovereigns at Christmas, the discarded dresses of prior seasons, a supply of preserved fruit that she and Constance helped the kitchen put up every summer. There were invitations to hunt balls and to fill out the numbers at some of the less distinguished dinners held in Clivehill’s magnificent dining room. Constance herself had plenty of training in working for, and being grateful to, the Mercer family, including having run their estate office for most of the war. But with the Armistice, it had been made clear she was surplus to requirements and her need for paid employment was now pressing. As a thank- you, she had been promised these few short weeks at the seaside, during which she might float in the luxurious anonymity of hotel life. But her rejection from the dining room made her uncertain future seem all the more immediate.
Her reverie was interrupted by the slightest ripple of tension in the lobby. There were no raised voices but only the urgent cadence of a disagreement being conducted discreetly by the open French windows.
The hotel’s undermanager, a shy youth of some relation to the hotel manager, was bent to converse with a woman about Constance’s age, who was sitting half- concealed on a settee, reading a newspaper. There seemed to be some issue regarding the woman’s ordering tea and Constance drifted closer with all the natural curiosity of someone fresh from her own humiliation.
‘Oh, don’t turn me out, Dudley. I’m having dinner here with my mother later,’ said the young woman. ‘Just bring me a tea table and I’ll promise to hide behind the tablecloth.’
‘But we cannot serve you, Miss Wirrall . . .’ said the undermanager, his face reddening at her familiarity. He seemed like a man on the third or fourth round of saying exactly the same thing. Constance could see that the young woman, though discreetly tucking her ankles under the seat and partly covered by the day’s headlines, was wearing slim brown wool trousers tucked into the tops of thick black knee boots. A green tweed jacket and white silk scarf completed the ensemble. A leather helmet and goggles lay abandoned on a low table. The woman’s chestnut hair was fuzzy and loose in its pins, no doubt from wearing the helmet, and gave her a slightly disreputable look.
‘Take pity on me,’ said the girl, but the undermanager shook his head.
She seemed to catch sight of Constance in that instant and grinned before tossing the newest of her long list of arguments. ‘I’m liable to die of thirst, Dudley.’
‘May I be of assistance?’ asked Constance. ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but if the lady needs a companion for you to bring her tea?’
‘We only serve ladies on the Palm Terrace,’ said Dudley, his face stiffening. ‘And afternoon attire is required.’ Constance was distracted by his Adam’s apple bobbing awkwardly above the too- large ring of his stiff shirt collar. Everywhere she looked these days it seemed that the people, at least those not swathed in the comforting blanket of rank and money, had become smaller than their clothes. Hollowed out perhaps by the rationing, the ravages of influenza, the usual ailments of the British damp.
But maybe it was just the long years of the war itself, which could not be sloughed off in a few days of Armistice celebrations. Everywhere, she saw the cinched- in belts and frayed cuffs, the stiff shoulders and old fashioned clothes. Everywhere in the gaunt but cheerful faces, the flickering ghosts of loss. The young undermanager’s face might have shown a hint of disdain at Constance’s interference, but she saw the war in his eyes too and could not resent him.
‘Bless you, but I’m unchaperonable,’ said the girl, laughing. Her cheeks were pink, but from fresh air not from blushing; her posture was relaxed and her blue eyes were clear and full of mischief. She really did not look as humiliated as the situation seemed to require, and Constance realised she was only playing with the poor youth. The girl was amused and Constance felt a slight indignation creeping inside her.
‘I shouldn’t have presumed,’ she said stiffly. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere.’
She turned on her heel, anxious to escape.
‘I say, is there any chance you would help me?’ said the girl, jumping up and extending a slightly oil- stained hand. ‘I’m Poppy Wirrall. I’ve been out all day on the motorcycle and damn it all if I didn’t leave my bag behind at home. My mother is still out visiting and the powers that be here have decided that after four years of war and pestilence they should still have the vapours over a woman having tea in trousers.’
‘I foresee no chance of either of us persuading them as to any softening of the rules,’ said Constance, shaking hands.
‘Yes, but could you be an absolute saint and lend me a skirt for an hour?’ asked Poppy. ‘Probably be a bit of a squeeze for me but I take it you have pins?’
‘Well, I . . .’ Constance paused, her mind racing. How was one supposed to respond to a complete stranger asking to borrow from one’s small stock of clothing? And when most of the clothing is not yours to begin with and the only good skirt left would be one’s best . . .
‘It’s too much, I know,’ said the girl. She began to cheerfully tidy up the newspaper and handed it to the young man. ‘Not to worry. My mother will be back for dinner and she’ll be only too delighted to stuff me into something frivolous of hers, perish the thought.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll just have to slowly dehydrate in the gardens until then.’
‘I’m very sorry . . . but we just cannot make exceptions . . .’ babbled young Mr Dudley, flushed and confused. He waved his hands as some sort of deflective protection. ‘I’m sure you understand.’
‘Yes, the floodgates will open and tea will become a bacchanal of oddly dressed bohemians and suffragettes.’
‘Exactly,’ said Dudley.
‘I’ll lend you something,’ said Constance, leaping in as much for the poor undermanager as for the strange girl. ‘I know something about how awkward hotels can be.’
‘Would you really? You are a lifesaver,’ said Poppy, as if the whole thing was Constance’s idea. She began gathering her helmet and goggles. ‘Shall we go to your room?’
‘Of course,’ said Constance, quailing at the thought, as she couldn’t quite remember if she had left the bedroom absolutely tidy. It was quite a large room in the back of the hotel but there might be books and papers on the bed and floor. There might also be stockings drying over a chair, slippers abandoned under the dressing table and a pear ripening on the windowsill.
‘While I’m dressing, could you arrange a late tea for two on the terrace, Dudley, and charge it to my mother?’ said Poppy. She stopped and raised an enquiring eyebrow at Constance. ‘Would that be all right? You will have some tea with me, won’t you?’
‘Oh, that’s not necessary,’ said Constance, though she felt suddenly desperate for the chance to talk to someone so interesting and of her own age.
‘Nonsense!’ said Poppy. ‘I insist you let me treat you. It’s the least I can do.’
‘Well, that would be lovely,’ said Constance. She did not look to see if the undermanager was raising his eyebrows at her.
‘As well as tea, we’ll have sardines on toast, some deviled eggs and two glasses of sherry,’ added Poppy to the undermanager. She tucked her arm beneath Constance’s as if they were old friends and added, ‘We wouldn’t want to faint from hunger before dinner.’
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
by Helen Simonson
A young woman's life is forever changed in the summer after World War I when she befriends a group of independent, motorcycle-riding women in a seaside town on the English coast
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