Hello and thank you for reading my story, I hope that you enjoy it. Love Mica xx Yorkshire England.
Mum and dad had tickets for an Edwardian Ball called the Good Old days. It was being held at the Alhambra Ball Rooms in town. They had managed to get a suite at the Grand Hotel next door. It was pretty much all they had talked about for weeks and now the day was here.
Dad, however was not, well, not exactly. He was in bed, covid or flu, who knew, he was just laid up and not going anywhere. Mum was so upset. I mean she was upset that dad was ill, but she was also upset that she couldn't go to the ball. It wasn't so much the money, it was the experience, it was going to be their highlight, a sort of renewing their vows, without all that fuss and rigamarole.
Their clothes, rather costumes, were delivered around two pm. It just made mum sadder that she couldn't wear the clothes, she had so looked forward to them having their photos taken by the photographer who had promised period photographs and prints to match the setting. It was all booked and cost them, from what little I overheard, rather a lot of money. After all, it was a once in a lifetime event for them
I went and checked on dad. There was no way he was going anywhere; I mean no chance. I went back down to mum who was doing her best not to cry.
"I'm the same size as dad, why don't I go in his place? At least then one of you can enjoy the evening."
Her face lit up for a moment, and then she said, "yes, yes that could work. Obviously it won't be the same without your father, we had planned a special ending to the evening that you and I couldn't do, but yes it could work."
Well, no prizes for guessing what the special ending that they had planned was, and no, that wasn't something I could entertain. The Uber arrived and we bundled all of our clothes and suitcases in and we were off. It was a bit of a journey, but the taxi fare was probably not to different from the cost of parking in town, without the hassle for us of driving. I paid the driver and he went, leaving us at the entrance to the Grand with a pile of bags and cases.
I was looking at them wondering where to start when a footman appeared.
"Leave this to me sir," he said, beckoning to someone out of my view.
"Thank you," I said passing him a five pound note. "come on mother let's check in."
Check in was easy, dad had already paid for everything, and I had the same surname as dad, so I just swiped my credit card for any incidentals we might incur, and two room cards were handed over. We went up in the lift, directed to the lifts by the footman who greeted us.
"Your luggage is already in your room sir, madam," he said as he pressed the lift call button, "top floor., press P for penthouse suites."
We got in the lift and pressed P. The lift creaked and groaned, and not in a particularly comforting way, but it slowly ground its way up to the top floor and then with a ping, we were there. I opened the inner lift door and then the outer, ushering mum through. I shut the inner lift door and then the outer doors. There were four penthouse suites, ours was to the left of the lift.
I took mother's arm, and we walked down the rather grand corridor to our room, it was all very art deco, and that was probably the last time the furniture was changed. I used my card on the room door, and it clicked green and in we were. Goodness, the room echoed the corridor, very art deco, and so very big, my God I thought we could hold a ball in the sitting room. Yes, the room had a sitting room, a large bath and shower room with twin wash basins, a bidet, separate walk-in shower, large freestanding bath and a plethora of gold coloured fittings and furnishings.
In the sitting room was a very large coffee machine, in stainless steel. It took very large Nespresso pods, catering only I guessed, a fridge with small bottles of milk, various soft drinks, mixers and large bottles of rum, whisky, gin and vodka. On the table in the sitting room was a bowl full of fruit and a silver cooler with ice and a bottle of champagne. Wow, dad had gone all out, no wonder mum was so upset at nearly missing out.
One very large bed, and I thought that at least we could manage to miss each other if we kept to our own sides.
"Champagne mother?" I asked, she was busy taking in all the details in the room, taking photo after photo on her phone, perhaps to send to dad, perhaps just for memories.
"Yes, please, let's sit on the sofa."
I poured two glasses of champagne and handed one to mum after she had sat, I took the other and sat next to her.
"Cheers mum," I said as we clinked glasses. "Dad pushed the boat out this time."
"Well, we chose everything together, it is just a shame he can't be here to enjoy it." She took a large sip of her champagne, almost finishing her glass. I topped her up. That went nearly as quickly as the first one, crumbs she would be squiffy before we even got to the ball.
After a few glasses of Champagne mum suggested that we get ready.
"You have the bathroom, I'll have the bedroom," she said, "I have to lay all my stuff out and work out how it goes together."
"Okay mum, call me if you need a hand with anything."
"Ha!" was her reply.
I grabbed my various hangers and bags of clothes and laid them out on the sofa trying to work out what was what. Underwear was the most confusing. It seemed to comprise of a left leg, a right leg, and then a sort of gusset that went underneath, it was all tied together with strings down the sides. Unfathomable to me, I was just used to pull on a pair of tighty whities, or boxers. But mum had insisted we did everything authentic. I wonder how she would get on as far as I knew they didn't have bras in Edwardian England. Downton Abbey had a lot to answer for in my book.
"Simon, don't look, but come in here," Mum called.
"Yes mother, but I need to look otherwise I will bump into things."
"Don't be facetious Simon. Now have I got these things on right, I need this layer right before I attempt the next layer."
I looked, mother was adorned in white cotton and lace. Not being an expert in women's' under things, especially Edwardian under things, I shall do my best. She had a camisole on, quite loose and from what I could tell was not in any way supportive. Below that was a petticoat, and as she lifted that I could see underneath were what I could only call bloomers. Real old fashioned knickers.
"Well it looks okay to me, what should I be looking for?"
"Well, can you see anything you shouldn't?"
"Mother I can hardly tell it is you in there, there is so much lace. You are fine."