Page 40 of Lessons in Life

‘Well, glad to be back from Switzerland.’ Eloise nodded from the depths of the hug.

‘But finding it difficult to settle into being back at Hudson House? Back in this backwater of Yorkshire?’

Eloise nodded again.

‘Your mother being a pain in the arse?’

Eloise giggled at her grandmother’s language. Despite being brought up in the higher echelons of North Yorkshire society and, like Eloise, sent away to school and then to finishing school, Maude Hudson wasn’t averse to using the language of the lower orders. ‘Granny, what am I going to do with my life? Mummy’s insisting that I do the season.’

Maude cackled throatily, reaching into the pocket of the voluminous old tweed coat for her tin of roll-ups. ‘What season, for heaven’s sake? It’s 1968 and we’ve long moved on from all that nonsense, surely?’

‘No, it’s still being held,’ Eloise said gloomily. ‘And Mummy is determined I should be part of it, just like she was back in her day.’

‘Darling, your mother was never presented, was never a deb, though she likes to tell everyone she was. She married up when she married your father. Now,Ihad to go through the whole bloody circus when I was a girl.’ Maude inhaled deeply, blowing smoke rings up into the leaden sky. ‘Load of stuff and nonsense and, after all that rigmarole, I ended up marrying into West Yorkshire trade. My parents were not happy I was marrying and, not only moving to West Yorkshire from Harrogate, but marrying into a woollen textile family. Mind you, the Hudsons had the money. We Berkeleys had spent all our dosh on carousing, inheritance tax and trying to keep up appearances.’ She cackled again. ‘My mother might have looked down on the Hudsons, but she was jolly glad I was marrying into money and would eventually move into Hudson House.’

‘You didn’t marry Grandpa just for his money?’ Eloise was shocked. She was going to marry for love. When it happened. If it ever did.

‘Well, the Hudson trade money helped. Of course, it did. But no, luckily your Grandpa Frank was really rather delicious in his twenties. Thighs that could crack a nut with all that riding he did…’

‘Granny!’ Eloise giggled nervously.

‘Bloody good in the sack was your grandpa.’

Eloise put two hands to her ears, her face flaming with embarrassment.

‘Oh, deary me, what has that prudish mother of yours taught you? Nothing, I suppose? Listen, my darling, if I were you, I’d get out of here while you can. There’s London just two hundred miles down the A1.’

‘Mummy would never let me go.’

‘No.’ Maude shook her head almost sadly. ‘No, I don’t suppose she would. And, my sweet, if you were to head off by yourself, you’d be eaten alive.’ She was silent for a good few seconds. ‘Au pair, that’s it. You could be an au pair in London. I’ll bring you my copy ofThe Lady. France even… A year in Paris. That should toughen you up a bit…’

‘Granny, I’m no further on speaking French after a year in Lausanne than when I left school. “Je voudrais un gâteau, s’il-vous-plâit” is about all I managed. Mainly because I was always hungry. No one seemed to eat much at school. Probably because even an orange had to be eaten with a knife and fork.’

Maude laughed. ‘I remember it well. So, Eloise, what are you going to do with yourself, then? Because if you stand still, that mother of yours will have you married off to the highest bidder before you know it.’

‘I suppose that’s what she’s aiming for with the season. Mummy is chair of the Yorkshire Young Debutantes Association and is, “determined to uphold tradition”.’ Eloise air-quoted the words.

‘I bet your mother doesn’t know that Prince Philip considered the Queen Charlotte’s Ball “bloody daft” and…’ Maude broke off, laughing, ‘…Princess Margaret apparently said: “We had to put a stop to it… every tart in London was getting in”.’

‘I think Mummy is intent on it being local rather than in London. She’s planning a big ball at The Queen’s hotel in Leeds.’

‘Goodness, how utterly common.’ Maude turned back to the climbing rose she was determinedly tying to a trellis. ‘Mind you, I’m surprised she hasn’t considered having the whole of Yorkshire society in that great white monstrosity Frank’s father had built up beyond the orchard – it’s certainly big enough to fit them all in now she’s extended it.’

‘Actually, I think Mummyisplanning something in there. My coming-out drinks do at some point before the big bash in Leeds.’

‘So you can be picked over by every beady-eyed, fortune-hunting mama in Yorkshire?’

‘Suppose.’ Eloise sighed gloomily.

‘Come on, darling. Get stuck into a bit of deadheading and then I’ll drive you back down to my house for lunch. Cheese on toast with Branston and a little glass of sherry? And I can show you what I’ve bought you.’

* * *

‘It’s a late birthday present,’ Maude said handing over a rather untidily wrapped box. ‘I didn’t want to send it over to you in Switzerland – thought it might get smashed. And, it’s always nice to have an un-birthday present, isn’t it?’

‘Gosh, what on earth is it?’ Eloise glanced across at her grandmother.

‘Open it and see.’

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