Gertie Golden Girl Pt. 16

Chapter 16 ARRANGEMENTS

Gertie prepares for the new Lady Standhope

A week next Saturday, Gertie chaired the first meeting regarding the wedding arrangements of her grandson Jake and his fiancée Gill. Held at one of the small dining rooms at the Manor, over tea, coffee and biscuits, there were nine sitting around the round table that Mrs O'Reilly had recovered from storage for the purpose of this and future meetings, able to sit up to twelve around it comfortably. Present were Lady Standhope Gertie, Belinda Wheatier, Gill Moorhouse, Jake Nicholls, Sid and Janet Moorhouse, Mrs Clara O'Reilly, Charlie Wellborough and Ben Simon. Everybody who hadn't already met everybody had been introduced at breakfast some ninety minutes earlier.

Gertie turned to her immediate right to address one of her goddaughters, Belinda Wheatier, granddaughter of her late best friend and sister-in-law Evie, "Bee, can you start us off with the wedding venue itself."

"Thank you, Gran Gertie, as you all may know by now that the parish church of All Saints in the village of Standhope cannot be used for the legal marriage because the Rector's conscience will not allow it. Despite pressure from the diocese and the archbishop, he will not budge on principle. He has been the Rector here for forty-seven years and is much respected locally and no Rector of this church has been sacked since the time of the Civil War. The archbishop suggested using the church with another clergyman who is prepared to conduct the marriage service but Gran Gertie and I decided that using that option would undermine Rector Johnson. However, despite his feelings on divorced people marrying in his church, he is more than happy to hold the blessing there following the civil marriage."

"Besides," Gertie added, "the church only seats eighty and holds two hundred people with standing room only and there are many more guests that we need to invite."

"I would be happy with a simple, quiet wedding," Gill said, sitting immediately to Gertie's left and next to Jake, "I've had one big white wedding at my parents' expense and that didn't end so well for me. This time I would like it to be more about the intimate commitment of Jake and I to each other and less about the showing off to a lot of people I will probably only ever meet at the wedding."

"I endorse that, Gran," Jake agreed, "This may be my first wedding but I want it to be my only wedding, to stand in front of the family and the few other people I care about and swear to be honest and true to my bride."

"The Blessing, in All Saints' Church, could happily fulfil that quiet ceremony for both of you," Belinda nodded in response, "But the civil marriage ceremony of a couple with your social standing, is expected to be in front of more than just friends and family. The Lordship of the Manor of Standhope involves all of the tenants and staff of the Manor, the grounds and the tradesmen that rely on the produce of the Manor for their livelihood. As an Earl, an ancient appointment by the Kings of England, there are obligations to the religious, judicial and civil leaders and their organisations in the region, plus there will be interest from distant cousins, and anyone connected with the banking business who will want to attend, including the Perez-Winters from South America."

"Certainly the Perez family will want to come to the wedding," Jake confirmed with a smile, "Gill and I have already discussed this, because it was one of their unshakeable conditions of us getting back control of Winstone's, that we spend our honeymoon as the guests of our distant cousins."

"Well," Gertie laughed, "that covers the honeymoon, did they give you a date, too?"

"No," Gill laughed in turn, "I have already called them and thanked them for their generous gesture. They told me that the invitation to spend our honeymoon as their guests was an open one but advised us to not take too long, the formal days of long engagements was long past they said. It appears all the Perez family want to meet us and insist that we bring both the children along to our honeymoon too, as they will keep them occupied and out of our hair as well as give them the experience of a lifetime!"

"And they expressed a desire to attend enbloc to our wedding here in England, if only to meet you, Gran," Jake added, "They want to reassure themselves you are real and not a legend made up to make the Standhope Winter family look absolutely invincible!"

"Pish to that, but I would like to meet them too," Gertie agreed, "for far too long we have been at loggerheads. I am pleased that this attempted takeover of the banks has started a thaw between our two families."

"No-one there had a clue why there was a rift between the families, only that the old ones who insisted on maintaining the rivalry and isolation have all passed in recent years and everyone who is left want us to get back together," Jake said. "Another thing is that although we have always called them the 'Perez-Winter' or 'Winter-Perez' family among ourselves, they never used hyphens just call themselves Perez; they have never used the Winter name like we have, because they were never Weinsteins. They explained to me that they are related to the Standhopes whose surname was Winter and not the Weinsteins."

"Really?" Gertie asked, "That shows how little exchanges there have been between us and why we cannot understand why there was a rift. Did they tell you what was the family connection?"

"According to Miguel Perez, the current head of the family, his great-grandfather Jose Perez, who lived from the 1840s until around 1920, married the Honourable Mercy Winter, who was the youngest daughter of Lord Charles Winter of Standhope in the 1870s in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a merchant, trading in cotton at the time but then made their fortune in canned beef. Jose and Mercy lived in the US for twenty years or so and raised their family there before retiring back to Argentina where Jose was originally from. They maintain a large house in Charleston to this day and the current generation of the family use it as a base in the US. Nowadays the family mostly earn their income from owning hotels and resorts throughout the Americas."

"So they are Winters through Mercy," Gertie mused, "The Weinsteins conveniently adopted the surname Winter when the surname Weinstein became a liability when we were at war with Germany in 1914, we changed the name of the bank to Standhope Winter at Companies House immediately, and changed the family name by deed poll in 1915."

"So," Belinda said as she tried to get the meeting back on track, "the civil marriage will take place here, in one of the large ballrooms, followed by a small blessing at All Saints. The bridal dress is measured and ordered, as have two of the bridesmaids and Jake's suit and those of his groomsmen will soon be measured and ordered. Now we need to decide when the date will be, bearing in mind that we need three months to book everything. Any suggestions?"

Mrs O'Reilly spoke up at this point, "As most of you know, Standhope Manor is one of the biggest and best known wedding venues in the county and we have bookings for weddings on five or six days a week for almost every week for the next eighteen months, with even a few bookings over two years away. However, we are nowhere near fully booked, as we can simultaneously stage a wide variety of weddings from small intimate ceremonies inside the house or outside in the grounds up to large weddings of up to 1000 guests at a time. We can have had a maximum of four weddings taking place at the same time, of various sizes. Our main limitation is accommodation, if guests want to stay at the Manor overnight; we can let out a dozen bedrooms in the house for either bed and breakfast and we have another dozen former tied cottages in the grounds which can be let out for longer stays of bed and breakfast or self-catering. There are some twenty homes in the village who are prepared to take in overnight boarders, which adds up to another 60 bedrooms. There are several hotels and a couple of pubs with rooms within ten minutes' drive that can add to that capacity. Ever since Mister Jake left the Manor, just over thirteen years ago, we have always left Monday to Friday of the second week of August free of all weddings and also closed to day visitors, just in case the Manor was needed for the wedding of Lord Standhope. Members of the close family have taken advantage of that closed period to plan their own marriages; where there haven't been any plans to marry family, in the last twelve years, from the end of May we have opened those days on the wedding website for bookings and have often filled those dates without any problems, as well as opened the house and grounds to day visitors and always managed to get good attendance at the peak of the tourist season. This year we have left those dates still closed, in the hope that sometime that week would appeal."

Gill and Jake exchanged glances, "Any day that week suits me," Jake whispered, "the banks and other institutions will be quiet during mid-August, so all my relatives could take the time off without too much disruption."

Gill nodded her acceptance and turned to the table, "Yes, anytime that week would be fine, we could honeymoon through to the end of the month without affecting the new school year for the kids."

"Excellent," Belinda said, "now, does the bakers in the village still do those fantastic wedding cakes, Mrs O'Reilly?"

"They do, Miss Belinda," Mrs O'Reilly laughed, "and as it takes three months to properly condition a traditional wedding cake, I ordered five three-tier fruit cakes with a blend of brandy and dark rum six weeks ago."

"Why five, that's fifteen tiers!?" Gill asked.

"Because a single three-tier show cake would not be enough," Mrs O'Reilly replied. "The most elaborately decorated cake will be on display at the table and be cut by you both and the base layer cut and distributed among guests, along with slices from the other cakes in the kitchen. Basically, the other four cakes will consist of all bottom tiers and already cut, plated and covered ready for serving. The top two tiers will be saved, one to be used to celebrate your first wedding anniversary, the other will hopefully be kept to celebrate the christening of your child."

"That tradition of keeping the top tier for those events are not the only cake traditions," Belinda added. "A kiss over the cake brings good luck to the marriage and a slice of wedding cake kept under the pillow of a bridesmaid is as good as catching the bouquet is for the bridesmaid's future marriage prospects."

"Well," Gill said, "two of my bridesmaids are already married, my sisters Julie and Maureen, but my third bridesmaid will be Charlie, as she is already my maid, so I think she should be my bridesmaid as well." Gill turned to look at Charlie on the opposite side of the table next to Ben. Will you be my bridesmaid, Charlie?"

"Of course, Miss Gill, it will be an honour," Charlie replied, "After you asked me a few days ago and I asked for a stay until I checked whether I should accept, I have consulted with Mrs O'Reilly and Gran Gertie and have been informed that there would be no objection. I'm even allowed to try and catch the bouquet, although I am sure that regardless of their marital status your sisters will surely try to claim that honour!"

Jake said that "My Best Man with be Sir Michael Rahn, I'm paying him back for torturing me for so many years. My groomsmen, will be Jamieson, Fred Nicholls, my righthand man at SWN and my valet Ben, who will do his best to keep me looking dapper through the most important day of my life."

"Are we agreed then, that the second Wednesday in August, the 10th, is the wedding day?" Gertie asked the table.

All nodded or said yes.

"What about timing?" Gertie enquired of Belinda.

"'I would suggest 11 o'clock for the civil wedding here in the main ballroom," Belinda offered, "then the Blessing at the church for half past twelve and back here for the wedding breakfast at two o'clock, with the reception and dance at five in the second ballroom."

"That works," Mrs O'Reilly agreed, "Miss Belinda and I have already discussed the arrangements regarding the flowers, which will all be supplied by the gardening department. The meal will be cooked by the staff here, led by my grandson Seanpierre and the menu with vegetarian alternatives has already been agreed with Jake and Gill. The current guest list that Her Ladyship and I have assembled stands at 658, including the list of 39 from South America, but we will initially cater for 700 and adjust as invitation responses come in."

"As we have now agreed the date and timing," Belinda said, "'I will finalise the wedding invitations and send them out in the next week. I have tentatively booked the dance band and will confirm that in writing. The County Registrar and Rector are provisionally booked, and I will confirm the timings."

"I would just like to say," Gill's father Sid said, "that Janet and I are extremely grateful that Lady Standhope has undertaken to pay for this second wedding of our eldest daughter. Being the parents of three daughters who have all had white weddings, starting a second round of nuptials was not something we had bargained or budgeted for!"

"That," Gertie replied, "is why the family rely so heavily on family trusts that were set up many years ago to handle all the expenses without bankrupting any of us!"

***

Gertie regularly met with Jake and Gill's personal servants, Ben and Charlie, to catch up in general non-specific terms with her grandson and his new family. Their second such meeting was in London for a mid-week lunch at a quiet restaurant close to the city.

"You do know that both Mister Jake and Miss Gill are aware that we are meeting with you for these weekly updates?" Charlie opened the conversation after the waitress had taken their lunch orders.

"Of course," Gertie replied with a smile. "I have similar regular meetings with Gill and have done since I first became aware of her relationship with Jake, so naturally I informed her of our regularly meetings and hoped that she would ensure you were both free to attend them. Gill is perfectly aware that I'm grooming her to perform my role as soon as she is able and intelligence gathering is essential if she is going to have a grip on what is happening throughout her increasing field of influence. I expected her to share as much with Jake hence Ben's presence. Is that right, Ben?"

"Indeed Ma'am, your grandson asked me to pass on his best wishes to you and he will see you on Friday evening at the Manor," Ben smiled.

"Excellent," Gertie replied with her usual cheery smile, "We are all family and open honesty always pays off in both the short and long terms. Eventually I will bail out gracefully and Gill will no doubt enlist both of you in time to keep her aware of what is happening in the household in general and whatever you pick up from day to day interaction with people surrounding your two charges. So, how are you getting on with Gill and Jake after the first two weeks in your roles?"

Charlie and Ben exchanged chances and a nod of Ben's head gave Charlie the floor.

"As far as working with Miss Gillian is concerned," Charlie started, wearing a warm smile, "I find she's a pleasure to work with, especially considering that she'd never had a lady's maid before or even any domestic servants. She's very considerate of my job and keeps apologising for doing things automatically and forgetting I'm there. She is also very grateful to find everything laid out ready for her and only rarely changes anything. She's relaxed and quite chatty by nature, knowing that she can say anything in complete confidence and seems already comfortable that these meetings of the three of us are about generalisations of how things are evolving rather than specifics that might intrude upon her privacy. I feel that she trusts me and you by association, and trusts me with being around while her relationship with her fiancé continues to grow and develop as they get used to the situation, knowing that I am alert and ready to appear or disappear whenever she needs me to. I have always got on well with Mister Jake, after knowing him since I was about 8 when I helped my grandfather in the garden and he was a young adult, and have comfortably interacted with him later when we were both working at the bank. I guess I'm a little in awe of him how really nice he is, especially how fate has treated him, and I love Gill even more because she has recognised what a special person he is despite his scaring. I can see the love between them growing and working with them is a privilege that keeps on getting better. As for the children, while it was emotional seeing them say goodbye to their father a week ago, the fact that they are so comfortable with Jake already taking on a parenthood role, that the whole family vibe is healthy and heartwarming. They are a family already in my opinion."

"That's good, dear," Gertie said, patting the back of her hand, "are there any areas of concern, at home or in the office?"

"Not at home, certainly," Charlie considered, "both children are working very hard with their tutors. Jenny is very bright and doing well and I feel Clay is struggling a little but he's not too far behind. What they are both most concerned is about starting school in October and, while Clay is happy that he will be a day boarder for the first year and ferried back and forth by car to sleep every night at home, Jenny is not looking forward to boarding Monday to Thursday night from the start. I've tried to speak to her about it, to reassure her that she is not being abandoned, but this happening on top of the break-up of her parents' marriage last year has made her more fragile than Clay. I've brought my thoughts to Gill's attention and she is considering the possible alternatives. The tutors maintain a view that the boarding would be good for Jenny; they have a point in that it would help her growth as a young lady, but I think she is still a girl at heart and that even a transitional period of a term or even a half-term as a day boarder, might be best for her. But I'm not her parent."

"I'll speak to Jenny at the weekend and then Gill," Gertie said. She turned to Ben, "How are you getting on with Jake?"

"Surprisingly well, Ma'am," Ben smiled, "I know at our meeting last week I said that our relationship was a little clumsy, that we were both trying too hard to make it work, and you advised me to relax, hold back, and allow Mister Jake to do what he wants and just step in when clearly needed. I have done that this week and we have dovetailed in quite well. Unlike Miss Gill, Mister Jake is quieter, not chatty at all. I think that his condition and stubborn independence has made him more of a loner and, although he is open to converse with anyone who approaches him, he is not an instigator of conversations. So I have tried to bridge that gap by describing what I am doing or talking about our next itinerary event and trying to draw him into the conversation by asking his thoughts on his work or previous events. If I want to find out about his day or his relationships with the people he is meeting in business situations, I feel I have to keep questioning him to garner his opinions. He knows why I do this and we have discussed areas of concern to him which I believe he is finding useful. Although we have a twelve-year interruption in our one-on-one relationship, we were once friends as boys and I feel we can get back to something like that eventually, but it will take time."

"That is why we brought children of the staff into the home schooling set-up at the Manor, for Jake's benefit when he reached school age and was still undergoing continual medical treatment," Gertie said, "And I think that move was successful at a base level, in familiar surroundings with children he already knew. I think if he had gone to a boarding school, that he might have been singled out and bullied or isolated, but surrounded by adults and their children who knew his history and understood what he was going through made for a more relaxed and caring atmosphere."

"I think you're right, Ma'am," Ben observed, "I remember at the home school, we had small intimate classes of mixed age groups and everyone grew up knowing Mister Jake's story and he was much more relaxed with every one of his schoolmates seeing his scars, than he is now, when he is wearing business suits and they are completely hidden from view, but he knows those scars are there and that he has to carry them every day without a break."

"At home with Miss Gill, Clay and Jenny, he is comfy wearing short sleeve tees, but even if he goes out casually dressed, he still wears a jacket over the tee," Charlie added at this point, "and his relaxed attitude with his body includes Ben and I and people he knows well, like Barrington and Jamieson, but when Caroline for example visits Gill at home to discuss legal or financial issues, Mister Jake always covers up."

"That's because he doesn't know her very well as Barrington always kept his family private," Gertie explained. "His father was just the same... I didn't even know Barrington Senior had a son until he introduced Young Barrington as his successor!"

"Mister Jake is much more relaxed with Jamieson," Ben said, "quite often in meetings between the pair of them, jackets would be off and sleeves rolled up. I think Jamieson has been his private secretary for about five years and they are comfortable working together. I have not fully caught up with what is happening regarding Mister Jake taking charge over Winstone's, the children's father Jarvis seemingly exiled to Istanbul and SWN being run by Jake's cousin Freddie Nicholls. I haven't liked to ask Mister Jake and he hasn't said a word to me about it."

"Ah, I think we better get you up to speed," Gertie said, "Wayne Jarvis is Gill's ex, who worked for many years at Winstone's in new sales. Jake's company SWN running IT and communications at Winstone's noticed that someone was speculating in the bond market using Winstone's money but hiding the transactions and pocketing the profits. Their system allowed corrections to be made to the accounts by trusted staff and only recorded at close of business. If there were any losses, the loss was made up from dormant accounts. Jarvis was suspected because he had been doing something similar with his expense account, so he was promoted to CEO to make him feel more confident and his access to the accounts was changed so he only accessed a dummy copy of the accounts that only he had access to use and they hoped to get the evidence of fraud and at the same time protecting the bank's true accounts. Meanwhile, Jake's company SWN analysed past transactions revealed by back-up files and put right any losses using a trust fund set up to insure against such malpractice. Jarvis has since been reassigned to Winstone's in Istanbul working on new business and not having any access at all to the accounts."

"Ah," Ben said, "that makes sense to me now."

"Oh dear! What has Jarvis done now?" Gertie asked.

"Oh, it was clearly historical stuff as far as Jarvis was concerned, but still interesting, giving me a bigger respect for Mister Jake," Ben smiled.

"How so?" Gertie asked.

"I didn't know he was fluent, or at least seemed to me to be, in Farsi," Ben said, "I speak a little Farsi, I worked for an Iranian businessman for about eighteen months over a decade ago, so I studied the language online and even stayed on the course after leaving his employ, and to me Mister Jake sounded confident and quite 'chatty', speaking Farsi like a native to my unpracticed ear."

Seeing Gertie's eyebrows rise in an unspoken question, Ben continued. "Mister Jake was at Winstone's in conference with Jamieson the other day, who informed him that he needed to meet with this angry Winstone's account holder at his West End hotel over a mix-up on recent unauthorised withdrawals on his account. Jamieson said the account contained two billion US dollars and was in the name of the complainant's mother; the account had been started some five years earlier with the present balance deposited as a lump sum and there had been no additions or withdrawals, nor the usual maintenance bank charges applied to the account over the five years. However, checking back through the archive back-ups, a total of just under two hundred thousand dollars were withdrawn by Jarvis in September and October last year to make up for losses, as Jarvis used the account thinking it was a 'dead' account. Jamieson continued with saying that the SWK IT team had replaced the deficit seamlessly before any statements were issued to the holder but in addition IT added the usual monthly standing charge for maintaining the account and this was what the complainant was complaining about."

"So the complainant was Iranian?" Gertie asked.

"Yes, quite an elderly gentleman wearing clerical clothes, so I think using his mother's name on the account was so, e sort of ruse to perhaps hide a bribe, sale of a business, transfer from a compromised account," Ben said. "I accompanied Mister Jake and Jamieson to the meeting at a prestigious London hotel in order to take notes and we were shown into this grand suite. Here we were introduced and greeted in English by the complainant but the rest of the conversation was held in Farsi, with Mister Jake speaking with fluency and Jamieson in a slightly less confident tone. The gentleman was impressed by Mister Jake's accent and proficiency and explained that the problem was that when he deposited the large deposit on behalf of his mother, he stipulated that he wanted it in a current account where she would have instant access whenever she wanted it but on religious grounds she didn't want to earn interest, but neither was she expecting to pay monthly bank charges. As you know, Ma'am, while London Clearing Banks do not usually charge for maintaining accounts, London Merchant Banks usually do, but as this account was so large and the money just sat there until needed, the bank had agreed to waive all standing charges and transaction fees before the account was opened. Mister Jake explained away the introduction of the monthly charge as part of a routine audit, which had revealed the usual charges had not been made and simply reinstated the standing charges without backdating them. Mister Jake swiftly remedied the problem by offering the client to replace the withdrawals immediately and cancel the standing order so no further charges will appear. The client was pleased and we parted on good terms."

"Jake was always good at languages," Gertie said, "he started on German, learning it online when he was about twelve. As soon as he finished that, he thought that Dutch was so similar, he picked that up quickly. We often holidayed on the continent when he was younger, so he went on to learn Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. But not sure if he was fluent in all. I did hear from Gerald that he had learned Arabic and the bank used him on occasion for providing draft texts for the,."

"Well, we spoke in private later," Ben added, "when I complimented him on his Farsi and enquired about any other language skills and he told me that he has become fluent in seven languages, having added Urdu and Mandarin, and he is in the process of learning Korean."

"He's a remarkable young man," Gertie said, "our Lord Standhope."

"Indeed, Ma'am," Ben agreed.

***

The wedding date was set for the second week of August and Gertie was still meeting regularly in one-on-o new with Gill. In late July they met as usual for lunch on a Wednesday about two weeks before the wedding. Towards the end of the meal Gertie handed over to Gill a rather bulky and battered address book.

"What's this?" Gill asked.

"A little bit of history, my dear, I'm handing onto you my address book," Gertie said, "in two weeks' time you will be Lady Standhope and I will retire from my role as head of this family and become the Dowager Lady Standhope and I can stop snooping on everyone and trying to hold the family together songle-handed... that will be your job."

"Oh Gran, I'm not sure if I am ready to do that," Gill admitted.

"No-one ever is, Gill dear," Gertie said in an apologetic tone, "And I was lucky, I took over from my mother-in-law when I was in my fifties. Because Jake's mother has been gone almost thirty years, I've had to hold on for much longer that I should and you will be taking the job on much younger that I did but that is life, I'm afraid. Honestly, Gill, I think you are more than ready for it. I've done what I can to guide you and I will be around for a few more years to help where I can but it is soon time for you to become the lady I know you are."

"And this book contains all your contacts?"

"Yes, a full history, with lots of crossings out and replacements cross-referenced. I would suggest you start afresh, using one of your electronic devices instead of this old thing. I inherited a file just as dog-eared as this and started a new one. Actually, this is about the fifth address book I've used over the last thirty-five years or so."

"Are we going to stop our weekly meetings?"

"Only if you feel too busy, dear," Gertie laughed, "I may be retiring but I am still interested in hearing what is happening in my family and the businesses and how you are coping. Although I live at the Manor permanently now, I still enjoy a trip up to London midweek, hold my various meetings and avoiding the rush hour both ways."

"Good," Gill sighed with relief. "I remember only a few months ago when I dreaded those early meetings, wondering if you were going to try to put me off Jake or put a spanner in the works, but I have grown to enjoy our chats, so I am glad we are going to continue. I may still have to ring you from time to time between meetings if I need to."

"Of course you should, dear, always happy to help and, with me looking at things from the outside, might even help more. Anyway, now that we've got that out of the way, what are you doing for your 'hen night'?"

"Oh, Bee was talking about that the other week and until then I hadn't given it a thought," Gill admitted. "I'm not a young girl any more having to give up a feeling of freedom and irresponsibility with one last night of making a fool of myself, I'm a mother of teenage children, running not only a home but being in charge of a respectable financial institution and, very recently, been given the responsibility for the wellbeing of a respectable titled family as well as maintain the dignity of the family's place in society. A hen night involved burning up the town and getting rat-arsed seems inappropriate somehow."

Gertie chuckled. "Do you know, when I married for the second time I did a repeat of my first hen night when I was 18 and only just able to buy alcohol, so both of my hen nights were rather sober and innocent and yet still very enjoyable evenings. I spent both of them with my mother-in-law, Lady, later Dowager Lady Standhope who had told me from the outset to call her Mama Milly; my best friend and sister-in-law Evie, who was Lady Dorset; my other sister-in-law Mildred, who incidentally got me sloshed on martinis and vintage champagne in a posh bar at The Dorchester when I was only 17; my mother; and my lady's maid Maisie, the second time some fifteen years later when she was about to leave me to get married and have a family of her own."

"Where did you go?" Gill asked.

"The first time we started with a pint of porter each at my Mum's local in Limehouse, although Maisie only had a milk stout. The rest of us had pints. Being in the local gave a chance for my old friends and friends of the Thornton family to join us in a drink, of course Milde bought a round for the whole pub, handing over a roll of freshly-minted white fivers! The three Standhopes were brought to the pub by a vintage Rolls Royce with matching liveried driver."

"Who was Milde?" Gill asked.

"She was my husband Johnnie's eldest sister, the Honourable Mildred Marina Winter," Gertie answered. "What a one-off she was, a great character and dear friend who died just three years ago age 104. On my hen night, the first one, she discarded the crutch she was supposed to carry and replaced it with a fancy French 19th century cane that she showed us had a rapier sword inside. They broke the mould when Milde came into the world!"

"I hadn't heard of her at all, or much about Evie, except that Bee told me she was her grandma, Lady Dorset," Gill said, 'why was Milde on crutches?"

"She led one of the last failed assaults on Mount Everest, about 1949/50, about three years or so before Everest was successfully climbed. They had several attempts on the summit in teams of two or three from the highest camp, but the weather was the worst anyone had experienced there for years and she lost three or four toes to frostbite."

"Wasn't she sure how many she lost?"

"Oh, she knew, she was a very beautiful woman, built like a model, tall and slim but tough. Although she never really acted vain but she always said she had the most beautiful feet and was sorrowful about not being able to show them off painted and glossy in open-toed sandals any more." Gertie smiled in reminiscing, "the following year she tried to circumnavigate the world solo in a sail-powered boat and made it three-quarters of the way round until her boat foundered in the southern Pacific and she clung to a life-raft and fought off sharks for at least a week before she was rescued. She said she 'came this close to losing all my toes in the Pacific,' holding up a thumb and index finger just half an inch apart and laughed as calmly as if she'd just got her stockings splashed while punting in the Serpentine!"

"So you stayed all night in the pub or did you all pile into the Roller?"

"Oh we had one round in the pub, with a hokey-cokey in the street outside and a conger led by Milde around the block and back to the pub. We picked up more merrymakers from the streets on the conger so the pub was packed solid when we got back. Milde bought another round for everyone in the pub and the crowd outside that couldn't get in. We had G&Ts each and then we walked down the road to the bus stop to catch the bus to the theatre that I used to work in before becoming Johnnie's girlfriend, as a reverse celebration of my first 'date' with my intended." Gertie laughed and slapped both her knees. "As luck would have it, the theatre was playing 'The Importance of Being Ernest' and the cast changed the name of one of the pompous lady characters to 'Lady Standhope' just for this performance and, when we all stood up in our private box to say Lady Bracknell's immortal line, 'A handbag?!', it brought the house down and we had to bow through three repeats and three encores! And when by word of mouth the audience discovered it was my hen night and that I was marrying Lord Standhope, the son of the theatre owner, in a couple of days' time, the whole audience and cast stood and gave me three hip-hips and three cheers for luck. A magical night!"

"Wow, I can imagine how you must have felt."

"We had champagne during the interval and many staff members, the management and many of my old customers came up and wished me well, it was an emotional fifteen minutes. And after the play's final curtain, we caught another series of London Transport buses, all organised by Evie, who had worked out the route, we arrived at The Dorchester where Milde had her usual suite. We dined in the restaurant, indulging in fine wine and a number of strange cocktails as Milde directed. The Roller had brought our nightwear, so we all had baths or showers and changed into comfy clothes and lounged around Milde's suite's sitting room, drinking cocoa and snacking on biscuits simply talking in relaxed and comfortable company. Even Maisie, my sweet lady's maid, and my mother, who only slightly knew everyone and was slightly in awe of all of them, were easily drawn into the conversations which centred on all our hopes and dreams, peppered with so many hilarious anecdotes that we were all encouraged to contribute. Most of us woke up on those comfortable sofas at dawn, only Mama Milly and Mama Dot sought out bedrooms for comfort once the night tapered off and was over."

"And were the second and third hen nights just as memorable?" Gill asked.

"I didn't have a third hen do, Gill, dear, it didn't seem appropriate, but the second in 1965 was very much a repeat in essence," Gertie laughed, "the personnel was virtually the same, although we were all fifteen years older. It was the middle of the Swinging Sixties then and Mama Milly was 75, my mother 65, Milde over 50 and Evie 40. I was 34 with two children and Maisie was only a couple of years younger than me and already teaching her successor to take over from me, a cheerfully chubby girl called Alison, who I invited to join us. By then my parents had retired to a grace and favour cottage in the Manor's grounds and the Standhope Arms pub had become their local, so we started my second hen night there. The place was packed with well-wishers and was a fun evening, we even had chicken in a basket, which was popular pub grub at the time."

"Did Mildred lead everyone on a High Street conger?"

"She did, but it was touch and go for all the wedding arrangements in both 1950 and 1965. For my first marriage, in June 1950, the Manor was still being refurbished after being used as a hospital during the war and because of the priority of replacing bombed houses first, and skilled workers were hard to come by, we couldn't use the Manor. So we celebrated the wedding breakfast on the lawns under several marquees.

"In March 1965 we were going to use the main ballroom for dancing and the next biggest for the wedding breakfast, but we still wanted to use marquees on the lawns for the children's entertainment, but the weather had been awful at the start of the month with high winds and heavy snow and we thought it was going to be similar to the big freeze of two years earlier, where it was so cold we still had snow on the ground in May. Then in the middle of the month it brightened up and at the end of the month when the weather was mild and sunny and we hoped the lawn would be dry enough to erect the tents... it was touch and go. But for our hen night, the weather was pleasant outside and Mildred led the conger train all around the village green and the duck pond and back to the pub without losing anyone in the dark; we didn't put the street lighting in the high street until the 1980s! Great fun! When Jonathan and I married, my third wedding, we were both at an age where the marriage merely legalised a state that we had already accepted without the fuss and bother we'd endured in our earlier marriages."

"So," Gill suggested, "Jake has already suggested that he moves in with his best man for the last two nights before the wedding, and I will be at New Timber Lane at the start of my hen night, if I have one. I'm not really a pub person, I don't have a local, but if I gather the people important to me, like yourself, my mother, my sisters, my son and daughter, and Charlie, could the eight of us just go out for a nice meal and go back to the flat for a few drinks? We do have three spare bedrooms at the flat so no-one needs to drive anywhere."

"Sounds perfect to me," Gertie smiled knowingly, "So perfect that I have already booked a circular table for up to ten at Seanpierre's restaurant in Islington, my treat."

"As you said, Gran, sounds perfect to me too."

***

Sir Michael Rane met with Gertie on one of her visits to the hospital in East London and naturally the upcoming wedding was uppermost in both their minds. He told her how much he was touched and agreed immediately when Jake asked him to be his best man.

"His Lordship said, 'I don't think there's a man in the world who knows me as intimately as you,' His Lordship grinned after I accepted his request so enthusiastically. He continued, 'But seriously, although I kicked up such a fuss as a young man, knowing that even with your skills and monumental efforts and, even if you had made my outer skin as perfect as possible, I was so self-consciously scarred inside to ever feel I could appeal romantically to anyone and I just wanted to be alone; being on the cusp on adulthood gave me that power to do what I wanted for the first time in my life. Knowing I had to expose myself to you very six months or so to ensure that the biggest organ in the human body was still protecting me and not undermining my health was something I dreaded for years and that resentment was often unjustly aimed at you. Yet I couldn't bring myself to consult with anyone else as I knew deep down that you always had my best interests at heart. And Michael,' His Lordship told me quite sincerely, 'I really am grateful and I wouldn't want to go through the most important milestone of my life without you by my side.' And to think I once thought we would never be on speaking terms again after what I put him through!"

"I don't think there's anything my grandson would do that wouldn't surprise me or fail to make me feel more proud of him," Gertie said. "He always tries to be the very best person he can be."

"I told him as much, too. 'Honestly,' I said to him, 'with the extent of your skin damage at such a young age, my superiors and other consultants who I called on for advice all said that you shouldn't have survived.' I knew him better than they did. He was the bravest kid I ever knew, so I did take him as close to the limit of his endurance because I knew he could take it... because I wanted to do the best job I could do on him. I told him that techniques are now available that could do so much more than was possible almost thirty years ago but he said he was content now, having a beautiful woman who loves him just as he is and two children he wants to adopt who are not disgusted when they see him without my shirt, because they see him as he really is deep inside his damaged shell. He just wants me to keep an eye on him to ensure nothing is going south."

"He was such a brave boy, he cried over losing his parents, of course. But over his burns, he came close but he never cried over his treatment," Gertie said.

"Anyway, I need to thank you, or is it the Estate? For our formal clothing," Sir Michael said, "When I said I better get measured up for a suit, His Lordship told me that you had insisted on the proper formalities and one of the family trusts was budgeted to pay for everything, including my suit. Then he invited me to the regular wedding planning meetings at the Manor every other Saturday morning, led by Bee Wheatier."

"You always seem happy to come to the Manor," Gertie observed.

"Standhope Manor is one of my favourite places to visit. I was surprised when His Lordship told me that his wedding date had been set aside every year since he was 16 and the Manor closed to all visitors for that period."

"We left the second week of August blank every year, Michael but each year, as hopes of his marriage faded, the date was released from June onward, for day visitors, weddings and other functions."

"Well, I'm not sure that any other family but yours would do that."

"Oh it wasn't much of a financial burden," Gertie explained, "the funds had always been set aside for family weddings and that trust is reviewed and supplemented each financial year if required. That trust has substantial holdings, so is always well maintained, and will be used for the future weddings of Gill's children and any children that Jake and Gill have between them, including christenings. The weddings of the next Lord Standhope and Viscount Winter, when there will be one or both, are always much more elaborate than our average family weddings as expectations that the titles bestow must be maintained."

"Well, I am not an emotional person by nature," Michael commented, "so weddings and christenings don't affect me as much as they do to my wife, who loves weddings, but I am really looking forward to this one."

"Aren't we all, Michael," Gertie said as she squeezed his hand, "aren't we all!"

[To be concluded]