Start your story with someone making a cup of tea - for themselves or someone else

“Come ON, girl!  Make that tea!  What’s taking you so long?”  I took a quick glance into the sitting room as I passed to go through to the kitchen to work out who was there and what their tea preferences were.

“Two sugars for Father and Tommy, none for the deacon, milk only for the secretary, milk and sugar for mother..so that makes six sugars and five cups. or is that five sugars and six cups?” I muttered to myself as I got the cups and saucers out.  Blast!  I’d almost gone out without the biscuits.  Better put them on the tray, too.  “Well, they’ll have to do with what they have.  I don’t have any other biscuits made.”

As I carried the heavy tray into the sitting room, the secretary smiled at me as she took magazines on the floor and Tommy moved the small table and put it in the one seat left in the room for me to serve it.  He knew what each person liked in their tea as well as I did. “ah.” he said, looking at the biscuit plate “I think we’d better have sort of half a biscuit each.”

“Ginny!”  Father thundered at me and I winced at the sound.  “How many times have I told you that you need to be prepared!  That’s what we learned with war, not to mention in the Scouts.  Yes, yes, I know she’s a girl. Millicent, but Guides are pretty much the same thing, aren’t they? You were here, learning with us, weren’t you?”

I knew better than to answer back, having tried THAT way too many times before.  I just slightly shook my head at Tommy who had been about to defend me.  There was no point.    He would only end up in Father’s bad books, too.

“Well then Ginny, get a move on, get a move on.  You’d better go and make those biscuits you seem to not be prepared to put out with people’s tea.  Surely you learned THAT at your expensive school?  They must have taught you something worthwhile in what was it called?” 

“Home Studies, Father.”  I said quietly.

As I stood up, Mother grabbed my wrist tightly and pulled me to her. I would have fallen but Tommy steadied ,me on the other side.  “Our little girl has LEFT school now, Gerald.  But I don’t know why she can’t get these simple things right.  I could do them all when I had my strength as a young teen.”

I knew that however long I stood there, things would continue to get worse but I had to be wise to judge my departure correctly!  Suddenly the secretary was overcome with terrible coughing and so, under the ruse of needing some water, she joined me in the kitchen.  I heard the sitting room shut and the coughing cease instantly.  My goodness, Bridget could make a show of things!

“Ginny, Ginny, don’t take it to heart so, my darling.  He doesn’t mean what he says when he’s cross.  We’ve known this for YEARS.”

“No Bridge, it’s different this time.  He really means it.  He and mother don’t stop carping on like this until bed….and even then……they have called me to go in there and continued it, night after weary night.  For someone who has bad nerves caused by the war, Mother can do pretty well when she wants things HER way.  I’m going to have take  possession of the cottage soon and today seems as good a day as any. ’’

‘I forgot, Sabine the “I don’t mess ANY part of my person up.”  “Sabine the Clean” isn’t around to take any of their time up, is she?  Where’s Annie?”

“Where’s Annie?  Bridge, sweetheart, she’s been sacked now that I am home from school to do everything.  She has left instructions on how to do all the things needed in the house, INCLUDING the cooking and everything else.  I wouldn’t have known how much meat to order from the butcher for example unless she had.  It’s been a godsend for me.”

As she spoke, Ginny dusted the wooden board with flour, in preparation for getting biscuits ready for the oven and slapped the dough on top.  “Three kinds of biscuits but luckily two of them can be done with mostly the same dough, just some changes at the end.  Best way to make some time for yourself.”

There was ringing from the sitting room “Ginny!  Ginny!  Where are you?  Your mother needs you to come pour the second cups and refill us before we get going.  Anyway, Bridge seems to have cleared off somewhere.  I hope she knows if she isn’t here I’m not going to pay her.”

“But you don’t have to do that as I AM here and you hadn’t yet started, isn’t that right, Mr Milkingham?”

Gerard sputtered and groaned into his tea.  “Oh here we go again.  Mighty suffragette ways.  Well, they won’t do round here, Miss Bridget.  You need to get yourself a man and HE will teach you your rightful place.”

“Oh Ginny, darling, Sabine says that when you finish here, should be about 10am, you can go round her house and clean it and get the meal ready for tonight as she is dining the local government representative and needs to make a good showing.  You’ll have Ethel to help you serve at 6pm and she can help you clean the kitchen after you are done serving..”

“No, mother.  I am not a chattel nor a slave.  Both Sabine and yourself are more than capable of doing the work you pile onto me.  Oh damn those ruddy biscuits!  They can burn the whole house down, for all I care.  Anyway, I am giving you notice that at 3pm I will be getting into my car and driving off to Muddesley to a small cottage I have rented.  This is no life for me and I refuse to live it.”

As she spoke she moved to the door and Bridget opened it for mouthing “good for you!  I’ll be up after the meeting.”

“SA-Bine!  SA-Bine!  You get back here now!  We want to talk to you.”

“Well, Father I have spoken my piece and if you don’t want to pay Bridget any more money than is her right while she is at the meeting, don’t you think you’d better get on with it?”

Sabine could hear the cackles of suppressed laughter from Tommy and Bridget.  They knew what was going on.  They both turned it into unbelievably false coughs, before turning and starting the meeting.

Once the meeting was over, Tommy said out the corner of his mouth to Bridget, “I don’t think they’ll let Sabine go at 3pm.  Tell her I will be here with my car just outside the gate and DRIVE her to Maddeley .  Otherwise, she’ll never escape.”  Bridget nodded as she ran up the stairs to Ginny.

“Ginny!  It’s me!  My goodness!  I didn’t think you’d be able to do it.  And what will you do in the cottage you are hiring?”  Ginny opened the door and Bridget could see just how carefully she had packed.  ANYTHING that could be argued was her parents she had put on one side and the two small suitcases on her side, containing her clothes and the certificate she got leaving school and the sheafs of notes Annie had left her.

As they sat down on the bed to chat, Bridge could feel that it wasn’t the comfortable bed Sabrine used to have.  “Bridge, at first I’m going to do nothing but pamper myself and have a real break.  Then I shall get involved in the community round there and do whatever I can to help others.  And I shall have tea parties so the ladies can taste my cakes and biscuits.  Then I know they employ me to make some for them.  And the main funds for my living will come from Aunt Abigail.  It doesn’t quite fit to buy everything I need, but I have worked it out and this way, my money will hold.    I didn’t want to have to open a shop or something and yes, ok, you can say the ladies won’t provide enough income for me, but they will!  I KNOW how good my baking is.  Promise me you and Tommy will come to a right good tea at 4pm a year from today!”

“Well, I’ll be there, even if Tommy won’t!”  Bridge laughed.  “You make excellent cakes and biscuits.”

The door opened suddenly and Ginny’s father stood there, taking everything in.  “Don’t you know to knock on a lady’s door, Mr Milkingham?” Bridge asked him.

“But she’s not a LADY!  She’s MY DAUGHTER!  I can walk into her room as much as I like and that’s final.”

“Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir, but that’s not the final word any more.  She could take you to court and you would be fined for not allowing her privacy which ANY lowly servant expects.”  Both Ginny and Bridget were now standing with their backs to the wall in solidarity.

“Ginny, your callous attitude has brought on an attack of the nerves.  Your poor mother is now very sick and needs you.”

“Father, she doesn’t need me anymore.  Nor do you or Sabine.  And I’m going away to have my own life.  I can’t live like this.”

“Well, if you leave now, you can never return.” her father retorted.  “But you will leave your car here, miss.  No easy start for you!  And you will leave everything that is ours, too.”

“Looks like we’re off, sir.” said Bridget as she picked up the certificate in her arms and the last little bag.  Sabrine had all the rest.  Father, Mother, I will leave the front and back door key on the bureau downstairs with a letter telling you where you can find me.”

This was a year ago and I smiled to think of the fact that Tommy had been waiting outside the gate of my parents’ house because he assumed they wouldn’t let her stay if she was going.

Tommy drove her to her new home, Bridget having “forgotten to do some shopping” her mother wished for.  He took her to the small village pub near her cottage for lunch and introduced her to the landlord.  They sat and ate, enjoying the lunch there which was of good quality.

‘A year ago today’ Ginny thought.  ‘And I couldn’t be happier.”  Tommy and she had married and lived at the cottage still.  She hadn’t told him she had gone to the doctor that morning, because she wanted to break the news to Bridge that afternoon and see their startled reactions.

And THIS would also be a tea party to remember as the one last year was.  The doctor had confirmed what she suspected and she wanted to tell the news to her two friends under a much happier tea party.