and got married. She moved away with her husband, and her sister never forgave her. Locked herself in her bedroom for decades and refused to see anyone. Hated people, she did, though evidently not your mother. Close, they were; Dolly was loyal to the old woman and a stickler for that rule. She had no difficulty breaking just about any other, mind you—no one like her for getting nylons and lipsticks on the black market—but she stuck to that one like her life depended on it.’
Something in the way Kitty put that last comment gave Laurel pause. ‘You know, looking back, I think that was the beginning.’ Kitty frowned with the effort of staring down the tunnel of old memories.
‘The beginning of what?’ Laurel said, presentiment tingling in her fingertips.
‘Your mother changed. Dolly had been such a lot of fun when the rest of us first arrived at Campden Grove, but then she got all funny about keeping the old lady happy.’
‘Well, Lady Gwendolyn was her employer. I expect she—’
‘There was more to it than that. She started on and on about the old lady looking upon her as family. She began acting more posh, too, treating us as if we weren’t good enough for her any more—she made new friends instead.’
‘Vivien,’ said Laurel, suddenly. ‘You mean Vivien Jenkins.’
‘I see your mother told you about her,’ said Kitty, with a caustic twist to her lips. ‘Forgot about the rest of us, sure enough, but not Vivien Jenkins. No surprise in that, of course, no surprise at all. An author’s wife, she was, lived across the street. Terribly snooty—beautiful, of course, you couldn’t deny that, but cold with it. She wouldn’t lower herself to stop and talk to you in the street. Terrible influence on Dolly—she thought Vivien was the bee’s knees.’
‘They saw a lot of one another?’
Kitty took up a scone and spooned a glob of glistening jam on top. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know the details,’ she said tartly, spreading the red preserve flat. ‘I was never invited to join them and Dolly had stopped telling me her secrets by then. I expect that’s why I didn’t know anything was wrong until it was too late.’
‘Too late for what? What was wrong?’
Kitty landed a dollop of cream on her scone and eyed Laurel over the top. ‘Something happened between them, your mother and Vivien, something nasty. Early 1941; I remember because I’d just met my Tom—that’s probably why it didn’t bother me as much as it might’ve otherwise. Dolly got herself into a terrible dark mood afterwards, snapping all the time, refusing to come out with us, avoiding Jimmy. Like a different person, she was—wouldn’t even go to the canteen.’
‘The WVS canteen?’
Kitty nodded as she took a delicate mouthful of scone. ‘She loved working there, was always skipping out on the old lady, ducking down to fill a shift—very brave, your mother, never frightened of the bombs—but all of a sudden she stopped. Wouldn’t go back for all the tea in China.’
‘Why not?’
‘She didn’t say, but I know it was something to do with her, the other one across the street. I saw them together the day they fought, you know; I was on my way back from work, a little earlier than usual due to an unexploded bomb that had turned up near my office, and I saw your mother coming out of the Jenkins’s house. Well!—The look on her face—’ Kitty was shaking her head—‘forget about the bombs—the way Dolly looked I thought she might’ve been about to explode.’ Laurel took a sip of tea. She could think of one scenario that might stop a woman from seeing both her friend and her boy-friend at the same time. Had Jimmy and Vivien become involved in an affair? Was that why her mother had broken off her engagement and run away to start a new life? Certainly it would explain Henry Jenkins being an- gry—though not with Dorothy, surely; neither did it account for Ma’s recent expressions of regret about the past. There was nothing regrettable about picking oneself up and starting again: it was a brave thing to do. ‘What do you think happened?’ she probed gently, setting down her cup.
Kitty lifted her bony shoulders, but there was something devious about the gesture. ‘Dolly really never told you anything about it, did she?’ Her expression was one of surprise disguising deeper pleasure. She sighed theatrically. ‘Well, I suppose she always was a one for keeping secrets. Some