Fool's Gold by Glen Davies Page B

blue, flounced with lace and ribbons, which only emphasised its width, a width that could not possibly have been produced by the usual layers of starched and quilted petticoats.
    Miss Cooper stood quite overwhelmed by the sight, her usual polite greetings dying on her lips.
    ‘My dear Letitia, I can see you are quite bouleversée by my new toilette ,’ cooed the newcomer before Miss Cooper could recollect herself. ‘Splendid, is it not?’ She posed just inside the door, the focus of all attention.
    ‘Quite — splendid,’ faltered Miss Cooper.
    ‘But my dear Letitia, you must — yes, positively you must — have your doorways altered. One can scarcely pass through them. In San Francisco, everyone is having double doors put in.’
    ‘It seems a little extravagant!’ murmured Miss Cooper faintly.
    ‘But it is de rigueur , my dear, positively it is! For the crinoline, you know, is become all the rage. It will sweep from San Francisco even to this benighted backwater, I promise you.’
    ‘But … but … dear Mrs Lamarr … it is so wide,’ protested Miss Cooper. ‘However do you sit down?’
    ‘Certainly not in one of those antiquated armchairs of yours, my dear Letitia,’ said the newcomer crushingly. ‘But if Agnes or Gertrude or whichever of the dear Pikeman girls it is would be so kind as to exchange, I do believe I shall make do with her chair.’
    Overwhelmed by the confidence of Mrs Lamarr and unheeding of her mother tugging at her sleeve to try to keep her in her seat, Edith Pikeman stumbled to her feet and held the chair for the newcomer who subsided with a rustle of expensive silks on and all around the vacated chair.
    With a sniff that spoke more than any words, Mrs Pikeman rescued the quilt from beneath the sea of blue.
    ‘What, ladies, still at your endless stitching?’ enquired Mrs
    Lamarr, raising her eyebrows at the assembled group.
    Several of them looked daggers at her, but only Mrs Revel responded.
    ‘Indeed. And we were reading Pilgrim’s Progress .’ She didn’t say ‘Until you were so rude as to interrupt’ but it was implicit in her tone.
    Mrs Lamarr raised her eyes eloquently to the ceiling and folded her hands demurely in her lap. ‘Then, pray, continue.’

 
    Chapter Seven
     
    The gentlemen soon after began arriving in twos and threes, but Alicia read steadily on to the end of the chapter. Then she laid the book aside and helped Edith collect up the pins and needles while the sewing was carefully folded away.
    The maids brought in the tea trays and the connecting doors were thrown open to reveal buffets and side tables laden with vast arrays of some of the most mouthwatering little cakes and biscuits, cold meats and relishes, sweets and titbits that Alicia had seen for some time. Waffle cake, hoe cake, johnny cake and dodger cake all vied for her attention and out of the corner of her eye she could see Tamsin staring open-mouthed at the spread.
    The arrival of the tea was a signal for the little groupings of ladies to break up and circulate, exchanging greetings and news with the gentlemen who had arrived to join their wives and daughters. Miss Cooper’s receptions were unusual in that the entertainment was not planned to suit the gentlemen. There was no separate room set aside for them to talk of elections, governors and the price of produce while the ladies were reduced to look at each other’s toilettes till they knew each pin by heart, or talk of Parson Somebody’s last sermon on the day of judgement or Doctor T’otherbody’s latest cure until tea came to relieve their boredom. Here they could play their part in the conversations, which made it much more lively.
    Some of the men Alicia had already met, for a number of them had made a point of coming into Carsons’ store to cast an eye over the new assistant, but they greeted her politely enough now, under the watchful eye of the Reverend’s sister.
    Miss Cooper drew Alicia across the room to stand with her and hand