Page 2 of Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure

Ellie waited in the kitchen until she heard the front door slam and then the crunch of car tires on the gravel driveway before she poured herself a cup of tea, pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sank on to it.

She looked around the kitchen, her kitchen for the past twenty years.

Her gaze swept over her striped Cornishware bowls, the faithful pots and pans hanging on the rack, the cheerful gingham curtains and geranium in the window with the view of the manicured garden beyond with its lovely rose arbour.

And now she was supposed to walk away from all this, move to some poky little place as a pathetic and lonely older woman, content with her crochet and good works at the local church?

“Over my dead body,” she said out loud.

“What did you say?” said a voice behind her, making her jump and spin around.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Her cleaning lady, Mavis Moss, stood in the doorway, her hair tied up in a kerchief and with a broom in her hand.

A small woman, all skin and bones with sharp features, she had always reminded Ellie of a Cockney sparrow, with her beaky nose and her little dark eyes that darted nervously.

“Oh Mavis. I’m sorry.” Ellie put her hand instinctively to her heart. “I had no idea. I didn’t hear you come in. Is it really nine o’clock already?”

Mavis propped up the broom and came over to her. “What’s up, Mrs E.? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I am the ghost,” Ellie said. “The ghost is me, apparently.”

Mavis went to scratch her head, then realized the kerchief got in the way. She put a tentative hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Is there something I can do? Make you a cup of tea?”

“I’ve already had two,” Ellie said.

“So his high-and-mightiness took the Bentley today, I see.” Mavis was already filling the kettle and then putting it on the stove. Her answer to everything was a cup of tea. “I thought you was planning to do some shopping in Guildford?”

Ellie shrugged. “I don’t think I feel like shopping at the moment.”

“Taken poorly?” Mavis asked. “I told you that sauce with the chicken was too rich.”

“It’s not that,” Ellie said. “My husband has just told me he wants a divorce.” She said the words as if she still couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“Blimey.” Mavis stared incredulously. “You could knock me down with a feather. Who would have thought that in a million years? What’s he want, the bachelor life again? Open-topped sports cars and letting his hair grow long?”

Ellie shook her head. “He wants to get married again.”

“Some girl must be desperate,” Mavis replied, now warming the pot before putting in three heaped spoons of tea leaves from the caddy. “He ain’t no oil painting, is he?”

“He seems rather smitten,” Ellie said.

The kettle shrieked and then there was a silence as Mavis turned off the gas and poured the boiling water into the teapot.

“And what do you plan to do about it?” Mavis put her hands on her hips defiantly.

“I told him I wanted the house,” Ellie said.

Mavis let out a whoop of laughter. “Good for you! What did he say to that? I bet he blew his top.”

“He did, rather.” Ellie allowed herself a smile. “I could hardly believe it myself that I’d said it. I just opened my mouth, and it came out.”

“And do you want the house? A bit big for one person, isn’t it?”

“You’re right. I only said it because I was so jolly angry and upset.

I’m not sure I’d want everyone around here feeling sorry for me.

But I’m not going to let him walk all over me either.

I’ve given him the best years of my life, Mavis.

If he wants to be free of this marriage, he’s going to pay for it. ”

“That’s it. You tell him, Mrs E.” She poured two cups of tea. “Anyway, maybe it’s a spur-of-the-moment thing. Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“I don’t think so. He’s gone to see his solicitor today.”

“Well then,” Mavis said. “You’d better go and see yours, hadn’t you?”

“I don’t have a solicitor, Mavis. Mr Endicott handled all those kinds of things.”

“Well, you’d ruddy well better find one sharpish, hadn’t you?” Mavis said. “There’s always old Mr Furniston in the village. Another lady I do for thinks highly of him, even though he’s half retired these days. And his wife is ever so nice, isn’t she? Bakes lovely things for the Women’s Institute.”

“I don’t know . . . ,” Ellie began.

“You could do worse. Better to be prepared when his la-de-da-ship comes back with papers he wants you to sign.”

“I suppose you’re right, Mavis.” She gave a big sigh. “Golly. I’m going to hate this. Leaving all that I love behind. My lovely house. My garden. It’s not fair, after all I’ve done.”

Mavis nodded. “You’ve put up with a lot for that man.

Like a spoiled toddler, he is. Tantrums if he can’t get his own way.

Between you and me, I don’t know why you’ve put up with him so long, Mrs E.

If you want me two pennies’ worth, you’re better off without him.

It’s about time you got to live your own life, have a bit of fun. ”

She plonked a cup of tea down in front of Ellie, who looked up with an incredulous smile on her lips. “A bit of fun? I’m fifty years old, Mavis. A little old for fun, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not at all. Life’s what you make it. That’s what I say.”

“I don’t suppose your life is actually a bed of roses, is it?”

A wary look came over Mavis’s face. “Well, that’s as maybe.

Some of us poor working-class stiffs are just stuck with the lot we’re given.

But you’ll have money. And you’re posh. That’s the difference.

You can go anywhere and be accepted. I’d move to the seaside if it were me.

Nice little bungalow. Meet a retired colonel . ..”

Ellie shook her head. “Oh no. You’re not suggesting I get married again? Once bitten, twice shy, I think. I don’t think I could face another Lionel and learning how he likes his shirts starched.”

“They’re not all like your hubby, you know. I bet there’s some nice ones out there—kind, considerate, funny, adventurous ...”

“You really think there are men like that?”

“Bound to be?”

“And also interested in women as opposed to other men?”

Mavis had to chuckle. “Who knows. But it’s worth a try, ain’t it? I know I’d be off if I had the chance.”

“Would you really?” Ellie looked up at her.

“You don’t think it’s been a laugh a minute with Reggie Moss, do you?

Never notices I exist unless he wants one thing”—she gave a knowing little nod—“or something’s been done wrong, or maybe to help himself to my earnings to go with his mates down the pub.

So maybe you’re right. Maybe they’re all the same.

But I can tell you this, Mrs E.: you’re better off without that one. ”

Up in her bedroom Ellie sat at her dressing table, her hand shaky as she attempted to put on some lipstick.

Her face, unnaturally pale today, stared back at her.

She hadn’t let herself go, had she? Her face was still unlined, no grey yet showing in her ash-brown hair.

She had not gone in for marcel waves like most women but instead still wore her hair up in a knot, and it accentuated her good cheekbones.

And she’d kept her figure. She was careful with the sweets and puddings, and she walked every day.

And yet she wasn’t good enough to keep her husband’s interest, apparently.

She looked away from her stricken face. The view from the bay window on to the lawns was perfect.

The manicured grass, the herbaceous borders with their riot of colour, the rose arbour beyond—they were all so lovely, so elegant.

And she was supposed to give all this up, walk away, live in a poky cottage, or in that flat she was now sure had kept his mistress?

Anger welled up, and she felt tears brimming in her eyes.

She could refuse to divorce him, of course.

The thought came to her. If she didn’t agree, then it would be too bad.

No divorce. He’d be stuck. But then so would she.

Did she really want that? Lionel could be vindictive; she had seen that in his business dealings.

He could make sure she was so miserable that she moved out.

He could bring his mistress to live here, under this roof.

And she found herself mulling over what Mavis had said: Would she really be better off without him?

She didn’t love him. She was sure of that.

Had she once? She tried to remember. She had met him at a cricket club dance.

He had come down to the village with another clerk from the bank in London, both of them fresh from qualifying as accountants and excited for prospects in the big city.

He had seemed witty and urbane and amusing.

She realized later that he had drunk rather a lot and that had lowered his inhibitions, because he was rarely amusing afterward, but she had been desperate at the time to escape from the confines of village life.

Her father was the vicar, the sort that loves to spout about sin and hellfire, and her mother was the frustrated daughter of landed gentry.

She had married Ellie’s father fully expecting him to be a bishop or at least dean but found herself trapped in a village backwater, taking out her frustration in finding everything wrong with her daughter.

Ellie had finished school with very good marks and could have gone on to university.

But according to her father, more schooling was a waste for a young girl who would only get married.

And so she was trapped. Not enough money or status to be presented at court as a debutante.

In those days girls didn’t move up to London and share flats.

In Edwardian England very few of them ever considered working outside the home, unless it was as a teacher or governess if you were middle class but desperate, or a servant if you weren’t.

Lionel had seemed like a good catch: he had come from a humble background himself.

His father owned a greengrocer’s shop. But Lionel had studied for his accountancy exams and been hired by a major bank.

He was ambitious and he needed a wife with class to make the right impression on business associates.

And so they married. They first lived in a humble house in Clapham, then, as he got promotion after promotion, to a nicer house in Wimbledon and finally to this detached gentleman’s residence in the Stockbroker Belt in Surrey.

Thanks to Lionel’s bank, they had come through the crash of ’29 and the Great Depression unscathed.

The requisite children had arrived: two boys, one after the other.

Lionel had insisted they be sent off to boarding school as was required of their station in life.

Ellie had enjoyed raising them and missed them horribly after they were gone but had had no say in this.

Lionel had made it quite clear. It was what the sons of the upper class did.

Surely she of all people knew that. She really hadn’t seen much of them since they left school and went into their respective professions.

Richard had gone into the army, and Colin was now working for a bank in Hong Kong.

Both far from home. She received the occasional letter, but all those years of boarding school had left them with no strong family ties.

As yet there were no marriages, no grandchildren.

And so there was nobody, she realized suddenly, as she stared back at herself in the mirror again.

Nobody close enough to care about her. No best friend putting an arm around her and saying, “Come and live with me until you sort this horrible business out.” Lionel had been right.

The people they entertained had all been his friends.

She had nowhere to go, or everywhere to go.

“I’ve lived his life,” she said to her reflection.

Serious eyes that had once been dark blue but had now faded to an indeterminate grey stared back at her.

How long was it since the sparkle and hope had faded from those eyes?

“His life,” she repeated. Oh, there were women in the village she had coffee with, worked with as a volunteer at church.

Nice enough women, but nobody she could describe as a real friend—the sort of person she could run to now and let out all her anger.

The closest to that was Mavis. Mavis had cleaned for her for the past ten years, always cheerful, willing and with no illusions about the character of Mr Endicott.

I’ll miss Mavis, she thought. Then she thought about what Mavis had said. She should get her own solicitor. That would shake Lionel. She finished putting on the lipstick, grabbed her hat and came downstairs.

“I’m doing what you told me, Mavis,” she said, passing her mopping the marble tiles in the front hallway. “I’m going to that solicitor.”

“That’s right, Mrs E.,” Mavis said. “You show that no-good husband of yours that you’re not going to keel over and play dead. You’re going to fight him tooth and nail.”

“Golly, you make me sound like a wild animal.” Ellie had to smile.

Mavis chuckled. “You show your claws, love,” she said. “You’ve let him walk all over you for far too long.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Ellie stared at the pattern of stained glass on the front door, now sparkling in a rainbow on the freshly mopped marble.

“He made the money and dished it out as he saw fit. He controlled everything, including me, and held the balance of power. I see that now. If he wasn’t happy, and his life didn’t run smoothly, then he wouldn’t do well in business, and we wouldn’t have this lovely lifestyle. He always let me feel that.”

“So now’s your chance, love,” Mavis said. “You open that door and go and live whatever life you want. Only make sure he pays you enough so you can enjoy it.”

Ellie looked back and gave her a beaming smile. “I will, Mavis. I bloody well will.”