In the nineteenth century large parts of Headingley, and indeed Burley and Kirkstall, were owned by Lord Cardigan – of the Charge of the Light Brigade fame. His main residence however was at Deene Park in Northamptonshire. You will also find references to his family name in the roads named Brudenell and, of course Cardigan, in the Headingley area. His second wife, Adeline Horsey, also came from an old landed gentry family. Both had reputations for a succession of sexual liaisons with others. Lord Cardigan died in a hunting accident and she subsequently married a Portuguese aristocrat, Don Antonio the Count de Lancastre. After his death she was described as a ‘colourful widow’.
Despite what you may come to think, this author asserts that other characters in this story bear no resemblance to real people, either dead or living …
Fancy dress
The café was as far as she could walk in her black court shoes, even with her stick. It was reminiscent of a small French bistro she frequented during her year in Paris but hardly had the same distinction here in Headingley where cafes were two a penny. If she was going to walk the whole way back to Weetwood she would need a reviver, a cup of proper coffee.
Nowadays she was never sure of the protocol. Should she sit and wait for service? Or did one go to the counter, order, then sit and wait for the waiter or waitress to bring it to the table? She did not want to contemplate standing at the counter then taking the coffee herself while one hand would have to hold her stick and the other the neat leather handbag she carried everywhere. Relieved to find a small queue she followed other customers to order her filter coffee, and was further reassured when the cheerful young woman serving said, “Would you like to take a seat and I’ll bring it over?” A rhetorical question.
Unless she chose to sit on the high stools at a side bar, which she would have found impossible to negotiate with her stiff hip, she was left with a small, round wooden table and a bentwood chair in the centre of the room. She arranged her long, wool coat over the back of the vacant chair, while her matching hat with fur trim had to lie on the seat of the chair, next to her handbag. A solemn man with a neat goatee beard sat to her right immersed in a modern-looking art book. Two men and a woman, probably students, crowded round a table and a laptop nearer the window. They were involved in an intense discussion centring on someone called Baudrillard. She supposed it must be a new French literary author. The coffee machine and voices from the kitchen could just be heard behind the piped music of a lazy jazz piece that Margaret knew but couldn’t put a name to.
Her coffee stretched to forty minutes after which she set off back towards the main Otley Road. She had barely gone a few yards when with her stick she hooked a rogue paper cup rolling along the pavement in the wind and flicked it out of her way. Before reaching the library she repeated this with a ragged pizza box, a chocolate wrapper and a greasy piece of paper decorated with dirty chips. Anyone passing might have discerned a low mutter and hissing sound from the thin line of her lips even while she looked ahead as though nothing were amiss.
Advancing towards her, as she passed the bookmakers, was a group of six or seven youngsters dressed from head to foot in white bandages all looking at their feet as though apologising for not lying prone in a hospital in a Carry On film. Margaret refused to step out of the way – they could move much more easily than she could – so they were forced to sidestep her. Close behind another large group of young men strode towards her, kitted out in nothing more than loin cloths. They looked cold and pasty-skinned - hardly Tarzans seeking their Janes. Just behind them was a girl, presumably another student, wearing an old-fashioned oyster-silk gown. She was displaying conspicuous cleavage providing a distraction from an elaborately embroidered bodice. So vulgar. Yet she had to proceed through them.
Margaret slowed down once she reached the old stone buildings at the far end of the main shopping centre, thankful for the cleaner pavements, fewer people and a better class of restaurant. It all had a more familiar feel, just like the Headingley she used to know. God knows, there were no shops now like Grococks where you were served at a counter by assistants who knew the correct balance between servility and civility, where they knew you had come to buy your regular six ounces of Gorgonzola or half a pound of sliced ham for supper. Where you could choose your pheasant from the selection hanging outside the front of the shop.
She crossed the junction at Shaw Lane, then paused to lean against a wall. When she had balanced herself she then stood leaning on her stick and watched the spring light between tree branches, naked after the long winter. After several minutes she pushed on again, putting one foot in front of the other despite herself, despite an unwillingness.
Once she was home and through the large hall and even more spacious kitchen (that she hardly used) she could imagine Hugh in profile, the light on in the summer-house as always, intent on reading a book. Retired as Professor in the Classical Studies department he had continued reading and studying to ‘keep the mind alive’. It had not, however, kept his body alive for many more years – a succession of strokes had meant Margaret was to nurse him until the last one killed him. A friend, Joan, spoke of trying to keep her husband alive through the force of her own will when he had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. At his funeral Margaret reflected that it had not worked. And she did not seem to possess such a will with Hugh.
Just once, years ago when the twins were in their teens and out with friends, he had looked up from his lunch and his concentrated expression to propose, “You should go along to the library and read novels in French again.”
Taken unawares by his showing even this smidgeon of interest in her activities she came back with, “I haven’t read or spoken French for over fifteen years. I’ve forgotten how to.” Hugh set about eating his lunch again.
When they first met as undergraduates she felt obliged to listen to his enthusiasms for whatever was the subject in the latest Classics seminar but her curiosity quickly waned when she realised that his fervour did not depend on hers. She took for granted that his one-sided conversation was a normal – so acceptable - masculine trait.
Had anyone she knew been concerned enough to ask her what she had done with her time she supposed she would have answered … well, she didn’t have an answer. It was years passing, that was all. The twins came to see her now and then spilling out their worries over jobs, boyfriends, girlfriends. Perhaps their father’s self-absorption was genetic?
Margaret did not define herself as a ‘walker’. Yet the next day she felt a tug to don her coat and make her way again towards Headingley. It was as though someone behind had a hand on her back, coercing her.
By the time she reached the Arndale Centre there was no choice, she had to sit down. The weather was just warm enough so she lowered herself onto one of the outdoor seats. She had not caught her breath before a young woman sat down next to her. Margaret turned to look properly at her. She looked very like the young woman Margaret had passed the previous day, but older, nearer middle-age even. Again there was the disquieting décolletage, the main fabric a patterned yellow gauze dotted with small white taffeta bows, the sleeves decorated with gathered bands of dark tape and which reached only just beyond her elbows. The dress was overlaid by some kind of waistcoat in a matching dark material, with frills at the bottom edge. With her heavy make-up, and dark hair elaborately gathered away from her face she inclined her head towards Margaret:
“I can see that your clothes are inadequate but I hope you do not feel the need to beg. My tenants are well cared for.” The voice carried authority with little concern for an answer and Margaret was, in any case, confused by this introduction. “Have you no husband or children to care for you?” the woman continued.
Margaret thought afterwards of many things she could or should have said, such as “How dare you!”, or “What business is this of yours?” However her discomposure had taken her wits so she countered: “I am a widow but I don’t need my children to ‘care for me’, as you put it.”
“There are some griefs that are too deep to speak of, even after time's soothing touch has taken away the first deadly pain of a great
“After my husband’s - Lord Cardigan’s - death I remained quietly at Deene Park for some months. I felt quite overwhelmed by my loss, for as I had known his lordship nearly all my life I mourned for a dear friend as well as for a beloved husband. My two friends, Miss Hill and Miss Hunt, stayed with me a great deal, but I sank into such a state of apathy and depression that they became alarmed, and begged me: ‘Go up to town, Adeline, and see what result a change of scene and society will have on your shattered nerves.’
Turning to pick up her stick and handbag Margaret pushed herself up into a standing position. Intending to say, “I don’t need your advice” she turned back to find Adeline had gone and there was no sign of her in either direction. Typical of such riff-raff, leaving in the middle of a conversation.
Margaret staggered back to Weetwood. When she did arrive home the house looked dowdier; she could not find the tea caddy at first though it had always stood in the same cupboard above the kettle. Instead of taking the kettle to the sink she had grabbed the milk jug. After topping that up with water she had to throw out the now diluted milk, find a clean jug and empty the bottle of milk into it. What had she been thinking of going down into Headingley with its bad manners and filth?
Her neighbour Judith called in the next morning, ostensibly to borrow an egg for a cake she was making. Judith was the kind of person who would tilt towards an open front door, clearly expecting to be invited in for a coffee. Today Margaret did not want to refuse her – she felt the need for some company and, once they were installed comfortably in the sitting room, it was only too tempting to describe the previous day’s encounter with the woman in fancy dress.
Judith was indignant on her behalf and Margaret did feel gratified. Later, in the darker corners of the evening and her own company, Margaret knew that Judith always ingratiated herself at the least opportunity. So continuing uneasiness gave her a poor night’s sleep and the next day she resisted the urgent impulse to repeat her walk to Headingley, sticking to routine chores – putting clothes in the washing machine, mopping the floors, dusting and polishing. Distractions.
The next morning Margaret was once again loathe to go out. The grey clouds and a cold, fine drizzle were unwelcome but it was as if a hidden presence had already made the decision for her. She scrabbled about in the hall cupboard for a mackintosh that she hoped would keep her dry, fastened on a headscarf, seized her stick, unlocked and opened the front door, and re-locked it from the outside.
Despite her muttered intentions to herself as she walked, she reached the bistro-like café. This time, it had only just opened and was empty so she chose a less prominent seat in the corner, by the window, and settled herself to read the menu before ordering. She was rewarded (that is how it felt) by an older man coming across and asking her what she would like to eat or drink. He had the air of being the owner yet it was he who brought her a coffee a few minutes later. Goodness, she had even begun to feel relaxed in here; she could even ignore the lack of a suitable newspaper she decided.
That evening Margaret phoned Joan telling her that she knew no one else had come in to the café, since the door made such a racket when it opened. However as she put her coffee cup on the table she was aware of an elderly lady, again in Victorian costume. The café owner had disappeared from view.
“No, not again,” Margaret’s voice was loud and unequivocal. “This is intolerable!” She could not fathom what a woman of her own age was doing in fancy dress at this time of the day.
Margaret looked at her again. Surely this was the same woman but twenty years or so older, her wrinkled skin showing through the make-up. This time she wore a blonde, curled wig adorned with an incongruously large pink rose which had obviously been too long out of water or the earth. She was clad in a flame-coloured satin dress, the neck cut very low, and this time to reveal sagging flesh.
“Really!” Adeline was obviously in a huff. “Why has the carriage brought me to this hovel? Don Antiono, the Count de Lancastre, and I are to provide a grand dinner at Kirkstall Forge. I am to address my assembled tenants there.”
Despite her own anger Margaret did not want to voice her opinion that this apparition had been drinking. Instead she said, “This is a café only patronised by decent Headingley residents and for your information Kirkstall Forge closed down some years ago.” Tenants? Margaret knew delusion when she met it.
Without a scruple Adeline looked straight at Margaret. “I can only think that you are the nun at Deene Park, inhabiting the spirit world yet grown old and disheartened.”
A nun? Margaret wondered if her headscarf had confused the woman.
“You don’t comprehend that I am acquainted with everyone worth knowing. His majesty honoured me with constant visits to my houses in town. You cannot know the pleasure I experienced from his agreeable visits and his kind friendship. We often discussed Art together.”
Uncharitable notions came to Margaret’s mind. Was Deene Park a local mental hospital? (Her daughter told her to call them psychiatric hospitals but Margaret could not see why.) Should this woman be locked up? Perhaps she was in ‘community care’ and was allowed out – while this was a vague concept to Margaret she snatched upon it as the explanation.
Meanwhile the owner had appeared at the table to ask for the woman’s order.
“Are you the owner of this establishment?” Adeline’s voice became both softer and coquettish.
“Yes.” The man looked puzzled at her turn of phrase, yet arranged his smile to reflect a tolerance of any unusual behaviour, and amusement at her flirting.
“Do send a message to Don Antonio to return my carriage, my good man.”
As Margaret excused herself by asking to use the toilet facilities behind the kitchen, she heard him say, “Would you like me to call a taxi for you?” She did not hear the reply as she wanted the chance to withdraw from this absurd situation.
As she returned to her seat the owner was busy at the counter but there was no sign of Adeline.
“Has she left?” Margaret expressed both surprise and relief.
“I went to the kitchen to pretend to get someone to take a message to ‘Don Antonio’ and when I came back she was gone. Is she a friend of yours?”
Margaret was vehement, pursed up her lips in disdain and signalled ‘no’ by nodding her head. “Do you know she called your café a hovel?”
The proprietor chuckled. “Do you think it’s a hovel?”
“Good heavens, no! I was only telling my friend Joan that we must come and have lunch here one day soon. I do dislike any kind of snobbery.”
*************
Acknowledgments:http://www.headingley.org/node/1275 where you can find the transcript of a talk given by Janet Douglas, local historian
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