ANNE BENNETT
If You Were the Only Girl

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Anne Bennett 2012

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007359233

Ebook Edition © January 2013 ISBN: 9780007383702

Version: 2017-09-08

I would like this book dedicated to Judith Kendal in recognition of the many things she has done for me in our twenty-year friendship.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Aftermath

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

Keep Reading – If You were the Only Girl

About the Publisher

ONE

Lucy Cassidy saw Clara O’Leary for the first time that she could remember that dull Sunday morning in late October as they were leaving the Sacred Heart church in Mountcharles, County Donegal, after early Mass. Clara was her mother, Minnie’s, oldest friend.

‘Since we were girls,’ her mother had told Lucy. ‘Even after we married we were friends, and then when you were born just a fortnight after her daughter, Therese, we were so happy to be young mothers together.’

Then Clara’s husband, Sean, developed typhus. He was a strong man, however, and was fighting the illness, but Therese caught it from him, quickly grew very ill and died on Lucy’s birthday.

‘Every year I think of that,’ Minnie said. ‘Sean had got over the worst and was recovering, but at the death of his small daughter it was as if he had given up and a fortnight later he died too.’

‘And that’s when her brothers took Clara O’Leary back to England?’ Lucy would prompt, though she knew the story well.

‘After Sean’s funeral,’ Minnie said with a nod. ‘And she’s never been back until now. Of course, it was a terrible tragedy and I don’t think you ever really get over a thing like that.’

Lucy thought privately that Clara O’Leary looked as if she had got over it well enough, for she was so elegant. Only the few very rich in Mountcharles’s parish could afford such clothes as she wore. She even had fur mittens to match her hat. How Lucy, whose gloveless fingers would throb painfully in the winter months, envied her those. Clara’s grey melton coat had the same black fur around the collar and cuffs, and Lucy gave a little gasp when she caught sight of Clara’s warm-looking, snug-fitting boots. Any boots Lucy had were either too large or toe-pinchingly small, often leaky and always heavily cobbled. She looked down with a sigh at the battered boots that she had thrust her benumbed and stockingless feet into that morning before Mass.

Lucy could hardly believe that this woman was the same age as her mother. She looked years younger. She was a little plumper, and she had a kindly face with pink-tinged cheeks and bright blue eyes. Her hair wasn’t grey-streaked but dark blonde and caught up in an elaborately woven bun at the nape of her neck, fitting so tidily under the hat.

As Clara drew nearer, Lucy saw her blue eyes widen with surprise as her mother introduced all of them: Lucy herself, and Danny, who was two years younger than she was, her nine-year-old sister, Grainne, and her two young brothers, Liam and Sam, who were seven and five.

Clara, observing her friend’s eldest, wasn’t merely surprised, she was totally shocked because Lucy was so thin and small, the size of a child of ten or eleven. She had seen her standing with the others, but had assumed she was a younger sister to the child she remembered. Lucy’s tawny-coloured hair was thin and straggly, and her deep brown eyes stood out in a face that was so gaunt it was like looking at a very old woman.

Lucy shifted her feet a little at Clara’s scrutiny, well aware that though she was wearing the smartest clothes that she possessed, her coat was far too short, the sleeves barely reaching her bony wrists, and she had a struggle to fasten it across her chest. Beneath the coat was a thin dress, which was also far too short, and with all the goodness washed out of it, totally unsuitable for the weather, even with the threadbare, darned cardigan she wore over it.

Clara took all this in, noting as well how the arms and legs of all of the Cassidy children were stick thin, and pity washed over her. But she pushed it away before she addressed herself to Lucy in a cheery way. ‘Well, well, Lucy, I last saw you as a toddler, running and tumbling about the place, and here you are, almost a young lady. You will be fourteen now, won’t you, my dear?’

Lucy gave a little bob of her knee and tried to smile at the woman her mother set such store by, and it tore at Clara’s heartstrings as she said, ‘Yes, Mrs O’Leary, just last week.’

Clara knew that Minnie’s husband, Seamus, had died six months before, for the old friends wrote to each other often, and Clara knew too that she should have come home and not just sent a Mass card, but she never dreamt that the family would be reduced to such penury so quickly. She also had a sense of unease when she saw the shabby state of the sparse cottage, which was none too warm, though Minnie soon poked new life into the fire and threw on more turf, causing a flickering glow to develop under the porridge she had left cooking in a large double pan.

‘Take off your coat,’ she said to Clara, ‘or you’ll not feel the benefit when you go out – Lucy will lay it on the bed in the room – and then come up and sit here before the fire. I will have it ablaze in a moment.’

Clara did as she was bid and watched Minnie swinging the kettle above the heat of the fire as she took the porridge pan off the hook. Clara was shaken by how little of the thin porridge was ladled into the children’s bowls laid ready. Minnie had none herself but she made tea for them both.

‘And I have some soda bread too,’ she said. ‘It would be a poor day altogether when someone is offered a bare cup of tea in my house.’

Lucy’s mouth watered at the thought of soda bread spread with butter, for the porridge did little to fill her up. She knew that’s all there was, though, and she suppressed the sigh and watched her mother making tea and slicing and buttering the precious loaf.

Clara heard the slight release of breath and saw the children watching her, the younger ones, eyes alive with hunger, but when she tried to refuse the bread, Minnie turned from the fire and looked at her friend steadily.

‘Leave me some pride, for pity’s sake,’ she said. ‘God knows, I haven’t much else.’

Clara dropped her gaze as she mumbled, ‘I’m sorry, and you’re right. A cup of tea and some soda bread would be lovely.’

She said nothing more until this was set before her. Then she said, ‘First of all, Minnie, let me say how sad I was to hear of the death of Seamus. It must have been a heavy blow for you with five children to provide for.’

Lucy caught her breath. She still grieved for her father and her heart had an ache in it whenever she thought of him.

Her mother replied in a thin, watery voice, ‘It was, but, you know, in the end his death was a blessing because he was suffering so much. And he had been ill for such a long time.’

Lucy knew that only too well.

Casting her mind back while Clara and her mother spoke together, Lucy remembered that when she had been a small child, her father had seemed to be the strongest man in the world. He worked for Farmer Haycock and he was a hard worker and always gave of his best. He was made up to head cowman, and would have been given a cottage too, but Minnie had inherited one from her parents when they died and as it was only a couple of miles away from the farm they decided to stay there. Many times Minnie was thankful for that decision, for once Seamus grew too sick to work, they would have had to leave any farm cottage so another cowman could live in it.

Lucy was not aware of this at the time; she came to that realisation as she grew. As a young child she knew only that when her father came home from work the house became alive. She would fall upon him as soon as he was through the door, and in time Danny did too. Their father would toss the children in the air with ease and they would scream with delight. There was a lot of laughter in their house then, and a lot of singing. Both Seamus and Minnie loved the old songs they had learnt from their parents, and Lucy loved to hear them because it made her feel happy, safe and secure.

‘It was when I was expecting Sam that I first realised that the cough Seamus developed after a bad cold was still bothering him,’ Minnie said. ‘I didn’t take that much notice at first. Seamus always claimed he was fine and, as he said, everyone has a cough now and again, but his didn’t clear up and he would be grey-faced when he came home from work. The children were confused because he wasn’t able to play with them any more. All you could hear in the evening was the rasping sound of his chest and the relentless cough but we had no money to spend on doctors. I started to grow vegetables in the back garden because I couldn’t think what else to do. My priority was feeding the children and keeping the lot of us out of the poorhouse. By the time Sam was born, Seamus was too ill to work and in the end I had to find the money to have the doctor in.’

Lucy remembered the night the sounds from her parents’ bedroom wakened her and she had slipped out of the bed that she shared with her sister and ran across the landing, soon joined by Danny, still flushed from sleep, his hair tousled. Minnie was standing in the bedroom doorway, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock, and Lucy saw there were splashes of blood on her threadbare nightgown. Then she saw her father on the bed making guttural noises as the blood pumped from him in a scarlet stream. The spasm was over when the doctor arrived, but the evidence was there for him to see.

Lucy heard him tell her mother that her father’s first haemorrhage was unlikely to be his last because he had TB, which was highly infectious.

‘Keeping him at home any longer is madness,’ the doctor had barked. ‘You are risking your own life and that of your children. You must agree that Seamus is taken to the sanatorium immediately or you are risking your whole family being wiped out with it.’

‘Seamus said he must go when he heard what the doctor said,’ Minnie told Clara now. ‘None of the children saw him again and he lasted only six months after that.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Clara said in agreement. ‘It’s hard to see them suffer.’

‘Well, you would know about that, of course.’

‘Yes,’ Clara agreed, ‘and the memories were raw in the beginning, but I wasn’t the only one to suffer a loss. There is only one thing to do and that is to go on as you are doing and fulfill your intention of keeping the children alive and out of the poorhouse.’

‘Aye, so far,’ Minnie said. ‘Sometimes, though, I feel as if I’m balanced on a knife edge. You went to Birmingham and made a new life for yourself – made up from lady’s maid to housekeeper within three years.’

‘The aftermath of the Great War helped me there,’ Clara said. ‘The war had given women and girls greater opportunities and after it fewer girls were looking for “in service” work.’

‘Did you not mind going to live with strangers?’

‘Not really,’ Clara said. ‘My brothers were very kind to me but I knew I couldn’t be beholden to them and their wives for ever. By taking a job in service I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back and plenty to eat, and though the wages weren’t much to start with, they have improved with time. And that is where I can help you, Minnie, I am looking for a new scullery maid and your Lucy is of an age to work.’

‘In Birmingham?’ Minnie cried. ‘I could never countenance her being so far away.’

‘Now would I ask you to?’ Clara said. ‘I know how precious daughters are. But this is the beauty of it. The Master of the house where I work, Lord Charles Heatherington, was a general in the army and was recently badly hurt in a skirmish in India. He spent months in hospital and eventually insisted on being shipped home where he said he could be nursed just as well. I would say he was right, too, because he is cared for by his batman, a man called Rory Green, a taciturn Scot who is devoted to the Master. Anyway, the Mistress decided that a change of scene and peace and quiet are what her husband needs now and they have taken charge of a large house in its own grounds, a place called Windthorpe Lodge, just outside Letterkenny.’

‘Donegal Town is a long way from there.’

‘That doesn’t really matter,’ Clara said. ‘All the positions are “live in”, you see. I have a housemaid and a kitchen maid, both a bit older than Lucy, and I am short of a scullery maid.’

Clara knew that she didn’t need to be short of a scullery maid, that she could have filled the post ten times over, but though in her letters Minnie never moaned, Clara had known things would be tight after Seamus died and she often worried that she could offer her friend no help. Then Lady Heatherington started making plans to decamp to the North of Ireland for a while and Clara thought straight away of helping her old friend by offering Lucy employment.

‘I never thought of Lucy doing that kind of thing,’ Minnie said.

Clara hid her impatience and asked instead, ‘What had you in mind?’

Minnie shook her head. ‘You lived here,’ she cried, distressed. ‘You know there is little employment for young girls.’

Clara put her hands over Minnie’s agitated ones and said, ‘Please, listen to me, Minnie. Lucy’s job could lift you out of the extreme poverty you are in at the moment. You would have one less child to feed or find clothes for, and she will be paid eight shillings a week, a goodly portion of which I know she will want to send to you.’

Minnie cast an anguished glance at Lucy as if she could hardly believe what she was hearing. ‘But when will I see her?’ she cried.

‘Well,’ said Clara, ‘in Birmingham the scullery maid has two half-days a week off and one full day every month. It will probably be the same here. Not that she’ll be able to see you on her half-days.’

‘Not on her full day either,’ Minnie said. ‘Letterkenny is a fair step from here.’

‘But the rail bus goes all the way,’ Clara said.

Lucy knew what she was talking about: the little bus that ran on rails, which she had seen many a time, though she never thought that she would ever have the opportunity to ride on it.

‘Lucy’s never been on a rail bus,’ Minnie said. ‘None of us has.’

‘Well, that can be remedied,’ said Clara with a smile. ‘That’s how I travelled down and how I will go back in a day or so. And remember that while Lucy will be far from home, I will be there to look after her as if she were my own daughter. What d’you say, Lucy?’

Lucy knew what she wanted to say: that she didn’t want to go so far away from home to work. What Clara said was a shock and not just to her but to all her siblings.

Sam’s eyes had filled with tears because Lucy had done a lot of the rearing of him. ‘Lucy’s not to go anywhere,’ he cried to Clara in protest. ‘She’s not to. She lives here with us.’

Danny thought the same. He and Lucy were very close, but he knew when adults decided something that was that. Grainne was dismayed that she would be losing the big sister that she looked up to so much and left with just the boys for company, and even Liam felt a bit sniffy at the thought of Lucy going away.

Clara looked at the saddened faces around her, Sam’s still red with temper and Lucy’s eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and she said, ‘I see that wasn’t a very popular thing to say.’

‘You shan’t take Lucy away,’ Sam said belligerently. ‘You shan’t because I’ll not let you.’

‘That will do, Sam,’ Minnie said.

‘But—’

‘Enough, I said. You are being rude.’

‘Lucy must work someplace, you know, now her school days are over,’ Clara said to the children. She went on to describe the big house just outside Letterkenny and the benefits for them all if Lucy were to take a job there.

As Clara spoke, things became much clearer to Lucy too. She was no keener to leave home but she knew that for all their sakes she must go and be a scullery maid at this house and lift some of the burden from her mother.

For years Lucy had listened to Minnie in the garden from early morning till late at night, digging, planting, hoeing, weeding, watering and then harvesting. Any surplus was exchanged for oatmeal, flour and fats and candles at the shop, and Lucy knew that it was time now for her to contribute to the family. She nodded her head to Clara. The younger children stared at her open-mouthed, but Danny had known all along what the outcome would be.

Then Clara asked Lucy, ‘Is that your best dress?’ She knew the answer really. She had seen how the others were dressed.

Minnie’s face flamed with embarrassment but she answered firmly enough. ‘Sometimes there is barely enough money to put food on the table and there is none to spare for new clothes. St Vincent de Paul come round with a bundle of things sometimes, but ours is not the only poor family in Mountcharles. There has been nothing suitable for Lucy in the bundles lately.’

Clara knew that she would have to tread carefully. Minnie set a great store by pride. ‘Don’t fret about it,’ she said. ‘The family will provide Lucy’s uniform – a grey dress and various aprons – though they will have to be altered to fit.’

‘She’s handy with her needle,’ Minnie said. ‘I have taught her that much. But if her uniform is provided why does her normal dress matter?’

‘Lady Heatherington expects a certain standard of dress among her staff,’ said Clara. ‘So that if they should choose to walk about the town on their time off and certainly on Sundays when we go to Mass we shall not disgrace the house.’

‘Then I don’t know what is to be done.’

‘Let me buy Lucy a couple of dresses.’

Lucy caught her breath in a gasp of pleasure, for she could never remember having new clothes before. However, Minnie was shaking her head. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you do that.’

‘Why not?’ Clara demanded. ‘Stiff-necked pride again?’

‘As I said before, it’s all I have.’

‘You are denying Lucy a chance in life,’ Clara said angrily. ‘And denying all of them the opportunity to make their lives even the tiniest bit easier because of some crackpot notion you have. Have you the right to do that?’

Lucy saw her mother was wavering and so did Clara, and she went on more gently, ‘Minnie, you said you will miss Lucy sorely when she is gone from you and I am sure you will, but I would give my eyeteeth to be in that position and able to see my daughter every month. Now you are my dearest friend, and it would ease my soul to buy the clothes needed for your daughter. Surely we have been friends too long for you to feel awkward about it?’

There was only one way to respond to that, and when Minnie inclined her head, Lucy let out the breath she was unaware she had been holding.

‘But how will you get the things so quickly?’ Minnie asked. ‘You’ll have to choose the material and contact the dressmaker.’

‘There is no need for that now,’ said Clara. ‘You can buy things off the peg.’

‘Not in Mountcharles, you can’t.’

‘No, but we’ll probably be able to in Donegal Town,’ said Clara. ‘There is a large store called Magee not far from the Abbey Hotel where I am staying.’

The whole family looked at her, stunned. Though Donegal Town was only three or four miles away, none of them had ever been there. In fact, Lucy hadn’t been further than Mountcharles all the days of her life, and here was Clara talking blithely about a hotel in the town where she was staying and taking her to a big store to buy her clothes. It was totally beyond her understanding.

‘How will you get there?’ Minnie asked. ‘Walk?’

‘No,’ Clara said, ‘I thought we’d take the rail bus. They have really opened up the North of Ireland. We can pick one up at the halt in the village and be in Donegal Town in no time at all. Now,’ she said to Lucy, ‘I will be here bright and early tomorrow because I must leave on Tuesday. The family are arriving at the weekend and it’s my job to make sure everything is ready for them.’

Lucy knew Danny would have given his eyeteeth to be the one travelling on the rail bus the following morning. She would never admit it to him or anyone else, but at first she had been a bit worried that the rail bus would jump off the tracks and that she would be thrown out of it, especially as it seemed to go at such speed.

However, she soon got used to it and watched the countryside flashing past as Clara told her all about the people she would be working with.

‘It’s not a large household,’ Clara said, ‘and some have come with us from the house in Birmingham, like the General’s batman, and the butler and footman. Now, the footman goes by the name of Jerry Kilroy. He has a shock of ginger hair, and green eyes like a cat, and he usually has a large grin on his face, remembering some devilment he has been at. He is an impudent scamp, not averse to pinching the girls’ bottoms.’

Lucy’s eyes opened wider. Clara said, ‘I think we won’t tell your mother that and I’m sure you can deal with him very effectively. You may have to join forces with Clodagh Murray – she’s the new kitchen maid that I have engaged – or Evie McMillan, the housemaid. Between you all I’m sure you will teach him a lesson he will not forget in a hurry.’

‘Yes,’ Lucy said, but she said it uncertainly; then added, ‘So, Evie is new too?’

Clara nodded. ‘The parents of the younger girls didn’t want them so far away,’ she explained. ‘The cook, Ada Murphy, came with us, of course, and Norah Callaghan, Lady Heatherington’s personal maid. But come on,’ she said as the rail bus pulled into Donegal station, ‘we’re here.’

Lucy knew straight away that Magee was the type of establishment that wouldn’t welcome the likes of her through the doors. She saw one saleswoman’s sidelong look at another as Clara pushed open the big glass doors and stepped inside. Their attitude turned completely, however, when they realised that Clara was actually going to spend money. She soon chose two winter-weight dresses for Lucy. One was in a plaid design with fancy buttons up the bodice and what the assistant described as a Peter Pan collar, and the other was navy blue with a cream trim and the skirt pleated all the way round. To wear underneath she bought two flannelette petticoats and three sets of underwear, also three nightgowns and three pairs of stockings, and a navy cardigan because she said the attics in the big house could get very cold.

‘Oh, Mrs O’Leary …’ Lucy gasped, almost overcome with pleasure.

However, Clara wasn’t finished, for she bought Lucy boots made of the softest leather, which fitted snugly around her ankles, and a navy-blue coat and matching bonnet, scarf and gloves. She insisted Lucy wear the new coat and the bonnet, scarf and gloves while the assistant wrapped up the old shabby old coat and packed it with the other things into the new case that she had also bought. She had known that there wouldn’t be one in the house because the Cassidys would have had no need to buy one and, as she said to Lucy, she couldn’t go to her new place of work with her new clothes wrapped up in newspaper.

‘Now,’ Clara said, standing Lucy in front of one of the many mirrors in the shop, ‘don’t you look a picture?’

And Lucy did look a picture. In fact, she couldn’t believe that the figure in the mirror was her, and she turned to Clara with her eyes shining. ‘I … I don’t really know what to say,’ she said. ‘I mean, thank you, of course, but that doesn’t seem half enough for what you have done for me.’

‘All I’ve done is buy you a few clothes,’ Clara said as they left the store. ‘And I have enjoyed it probably as much as you have. Now, I don’t know about you but I am starving and so I say we find some place to have dinner. That all right by you?’

Lucy’s mouth had dropped agape, for she had never eaten out before. ‘You … you mean dinner in a café somewhere?’

‘That was the idea, yes.’ Clara’s smile was warm.

Lucy felt as if she had died and gone to Heaven a little later, after a meal of steak-and-kidney pie, with potatoes, carrots and cabbage and lots of gravy, followed by treacle tart and custard. Clara thought she had never treated anyone who was so appreciative, and she smiled with satisfaction.

Before they made for the rail bus, she bought a large cooked ham at the butcher’s, two loaves of bread, creamery butter, a pot of jam, a huge slab of cheese, proper milk and tea.

Minnie cried when she saw all Clara had bought – the bountiful food on the table and the clothes and suitcase – and when Lucy tried on the clothes for them all to see, she cried afresh and burnt with shame that she had not been able to dress her own daughter or any of them half as well.

‘Now, that will do,’ Clara chided Minnie gently. ‘I have no daughter of my own to spoil and it’s the God’s honest truth that I enjoyed every minute of the time I spent with yours. Now, are we going to sit here weeping, or eat this fine food, for the children’s eyes are standing out of their heads as if on stalks?’

The young Cassidys had never smelt, never mind tasted, such wonderful food, and they did give full justice to the meal.

‘Now remember, I return tomorrow,’ Clara said to Minnie as she prepared to leave. ‘And Lucy must be on the first rail bus next Monday morning. The other two girls are starting this Wednesday because we really want them licked into some sort of shape before starting anyone else new.’

Lucy nodded but, when Clara had left, she was filled with doubt that she would be able to do the job of scullery maid. But she also knew that she had do her best, for the family would be relying on her, and she sighed, suddenly feeling the burden a heavy one.

TWO

The last days at home seemed to fly past and at last it was Monday morning, bleak and icy. Lucy woke early as she usually did. She lit the stub of the candle that was stuck in a saucer and began to dress in the clothes Clara had bought her, which she had laid ready on the rickety chair by her bed. It was the first time she had worn them, wanting to keep them all nice for her first day at Windthorpe Lodge, and she loved the feel of the new vests and knickers next to her skin, and the delicious warmth of the flannel petticoats, followed by the plaid dress and cardigan. Then she donned the stockings and boots, brushed her hair with the old ragged brush with very few bristles and took the candle up to look at her reflection in the mirror.

‘You look lovely,’ Grainne suddenly said from the bed, and Lucy saw that she had woken and was staring at her with her large dark brown eyes. She sighed. ‘Those clothes Mrs O’Leary bought you are so beautiful. I wish I had something half as good.’

Lucy did feel guilty about being dressed so well, but to say so would not help. Instead, she said, ‘I know, but don’t fret. By the time it’s your turn, I will have been working some time and I will get your clothes together and I will make sure they are just as lovely as these.’

‘Will you, really, Lucy?’

‘I promise.’

Grainne sighed again. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go away, though. I’m going to miss you ever so much.’

Lucy crossed the room and gave her sister a hug. ‘I’m going to miss all of you, but, however we feel, all the moaning and whining in the world will make no difference. Now,’ she said briskly, ‘as you’re awake you may as well get up and I will go and help Mammy with the breakfast.’

‘I was going to anyway,’ Grainne said. ‘This is your last breakfast at home probably for ages and ages so I wanted to share it.’

The others felt the same, Lucy realised as she went into the kitchen to find the boys already there, Danny doing up the buttons on Sam’s shirt, which had defeated his small hands. When he saw Lucy he tore away from Danny, buried his face in Lucy’s dress and burst into tears. Lucy hugged the child tight, urging him not to get upset, though her own stomach had given a lurch when she had seen her case packed ready, and knew when she next opened it she would be far from home.

Minnie, coming into the kitchen at that moment, gently pulled Sam from Lucy as she said, ‘Now, now, you will mess up all Lucy’s good clothes with your carry-on. And dry your eyes, too, because she doesn’t want to remember a row of mournful faces when she thinks of her home.’

Lucy swallowed the lump in her own throat while Sam scrubbed at his face with his knuckles and made a valiant effort to stem his tears, but it was a dismal group that sat down at the table a little later. They were too miserable to keep any sort of conversation going, although as a treat for Lucy’s last morning, Minnie had made soda bread for the children to eat after their porridge, and they fell upon the extra food eagerly.

‘Have a slice,’ Minnie urged her eldest daughter. ‘I don’t want you arriving starving at the place.’

But Lucy shook her head. She had seen the faces of her siblings and she couldn’t take any of the bread, knowing they would have less, so she answered, ‘I have butterflies in my stomach, from nerves, I suppose, and couldn’t eat anything else.’ She didn’t know whether her mother believed her or not, but she didn’t press her again and Lucy knew she wouldn’t because she had allowed herself only a meagre amount of porridge and had no bread either.

There were many tears at the parting, and even Danny’s voice was choked as he submitted to a hug from his sister.

‘Look after yourself and don’t worry about us back here. I will see to Mammy and all,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Lucy replied. ‘Goodbye, Dan.’

Despite the cold they all stood at the cottage door, and the sorry sight of them brought tears to Lucy’s own eyes, but with great resolve she refused to let them fall. She shivered despite her good clothes because the thin porridge had done little to warm her.

She hadn’t long to wait for the rail bus. She was the only passenger to get on at Mountcharles and she was so glad of the trip to Donegal with Clara because she was able to board the rail bus confidently as if she had been doing it for years.

By the time Lucy reached the level crossing just before Donegal Town she was able to see the gates tightly shut because the gatekeeper, swinging his lantern, came out to wave as the rail bus passed. Clara had told her that just the other side of Donegal Town the track ran along the side of Lough Esk, but she could see nothing outside and the rail bus was approaching Barnes Gap before Lucy noticed the sky had lightened just a little. As the rail bus chugged its way through the Gap, the austere and craggy hills loomed upwards on each side like threatening, grey monstrosities. Lucy remembered the tales she had been told as a child, of the highwaymen who used to hide in the hills and swoop down on the coaches in bygone years.

The darkness receded further so the journey became less tedious as she was able to see more. When the track ran alongside Lough Mourne, Lucy could see the gleam of water. She knew that Letterkenny was still some distance away, and Clara had warned her that before that she would have to leave the rail bus at Lifford because it was a border post, and that sometimes they opened people’s cases.

‘Why?’ Lucy asked. ‘What are they looking for?’

‘In case you are carrying something you shouldn’t, I suppose,’ Clara said. ‘But you won’t be doing that, so there will be no problem.’

Although it was full daylight when they eventually pulled to a stop at Lifford station, heavy grey clouds made the day a gloomy one. There were not that many passengers, Lucy noted, and she followed the others to the customs shed, which was down the platform, next to the stationmaster’s house. The unsmiling customs officer asked Lucy where she was coming from and where she was going to and then whether she had anything to declare.

‘Like what?’ Lucy might have said. However, she thought it more sensible to say nothing and so she just shook her head, was signed through and was glad to get back to the relative warmth of the rail bus.

Clara had told her that Letterkenny wasn’t all that far from Lifford, and Lucy was glad because nerves had driven sleep away the previous night and she suddenly felt very weary. She leant back against the seat and closed her eyes, and when she opened them again the train was stopping. She sat up straighter and read the name: Letterkenny. She climbed out onto the platform.

It was a very busy station with many people milling around, but Lucy was intent only on following Clara’s instructions, which were to go up the hill she would see on leaving the station and then cross over Main Street and on down the road leading out of the town. She remembered Clara saying that Windthorpe Lodge was only about one and a half miles out. ‘Not far,’ she’d reassured Lucy, ‘and you won’t be able to miss it.’

As Lucy trudged along she reflected that places not far away seemed much further when a person was carrying a case, and she really hoped Clara was right about not being able to miss it.

Windthorpe Lodge was set back from the road, but the name was written on a plaque in huge golden letters attached to black-and-silver steel gates with spikes on top. These were supported by two massive honey-coloured stone pillars with a lion atop each one. Lucy knew she never would have the courage to walk through those gates, but luckily she didn’t have to because Clare had said that set into the wall on the right-hand side, but well away from the main entrance, was a door to the path the servants used.

She located it and stood for a moment in front of it. It was Monday, 4 November 1935 and she knew she was beginning a new phase in her life, that once through that door nothing would ever be quite the same again. She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat and she resolutely turned the handle. She was so glad to see Clara O’Leary there, waiting for her, wearing a thick woollen shawl over a shiny black dress, and she gave her a hug.

‘You got here all right then?’ she said unnecessarily. ‘And you made good time because I have just got here myself. Let’s away in, for they are all looking forward to meeting you.’

Clara led the way along the track to the house and Lucy, behind her, did her best to avoid the puddles caused by the recent rain, not wishing to arrive with excessively muddy boots. She thought she might catch sight of the house, but it was partially hidden from view behind a high hedge.

‘How do we get in?’ she asked, for the hedge seemed impregnable.

‘Well, not through the front door,’ Clara said. ‘Oh, dear me, no, that would never do. In houses such as these, Lucy, servants always go in to the back of the house and always use the back stairs.’

‘They have two sets of stairs?’ Lucy asked incredulously.

‘Oh, yes,’ Clara said with a wry smile. ‘You will find people like the Heatheringtons like to have everything done for them, but never like to see much of the servants that do it. Still, as long as they stay as lazy as that we all have jobs – that’s how I look at it, anyhow. Now here we are at the kitchen door and this is the way we go into the house.’

She swung open the door as she spoke and Lucy noted with surprise that only the bottom half of it was wood, while the top was two panes of frosted glass. However, when she stepped inside that enormous kitchen, where rows and rows of copper pots and pans gleamed on the shelves, welcome warmth enveloped her. So did delicious smells, and Lucy’s nose wrinkled in appreciation as she realised how hungry she was.

‘Leave the case here and it can be dealt with later,’ Clara said, pulling off her shawl. ‘And take off your coat or you will cook in here. There are hooks behind the door for the moment, though it must go up to your room later.’

Lucy nodded, laying down the case with a small sigh of relief and taking off her outer clothes. As she descended the three steps after Clara she realised that the warmth was coming from the long shiny black range that ran almost the entire length of one of the walls. There was a sink fitted in beside it, where a girl was washing pots, a huge, very solid-looking scrubbed table in the middle of the room, and a range of wooden cupboards along the side wall.

‘Now, Ada, here’s the help in the kitchen I was telling you about,’ Clara said.

The woman turned from the range where she had been stirring something. She still had the long tasting spoon in her hand, and Lucy couldn’t help feeling that if it tasted as good as it smelt it would be delicious.

‘This is the cook, Mrs Murphy, Lucy, and she will explain your duties to you.’

Cook’s eyes widened as she surveyed Lucy, but she didn’t speak, and Lucy was little unnerved by her stare and her stance because she was a hefty-looking woman. A stained apron was tied around her ample waist and the sleeves of the striped dress that she wore beneath it were pushed up to reveal forearms bulging like two pink hams. Added to that, her round and slightly podgy face was more than pink, and above her bulbous lips, brown eyes like two currants sank into her face. A white cap sat on the top of her mop of brown frizzy hair, which was liberally streaked with grey.

Clara went on, ‘Her name is Lucy Cassidy. Now, Lucy,’ she said, indicating the girl at the sink, ‘this is Clodagh Murray, and you will see a lot of her because you will be working together in the kitchen.’

Clodagh gave Lucy a tentative smile as Clara continued, ‘If you will excuse me, I must see her ladyship. I said that I would let her know immediately Lucy arrived.’

Barely had the door closed behind Clara than Cook almost barked at Lucy, ‘Are you sure you are fourteen?’

‘Yes,’ Lucy said.

‘Yes, Cook,’ Ada snapped. ‘That’s how you answer me.’

Lucy gulped. ‘Sorry, Cook.’

‘So when were you fourteen?’

‘Nearly a month ago, Cook,’ Lucy said. ‘The school said I could leave if I had a job, and I have brought my birth and baptismal certificate for you to see, er, Cook,’ Lucy went on, glad that Clara had advised her to bring these with her just in case. She wished wholeheartedly that Clara had not left her in the kitchen with this woman to go and speak with her mistress.

‘Well, I have never seen a child of fourteen as small as you are,’ Ada said to Lucy. ‘And Clara had no right to have it all signed and sealed you working here without me even being consulted. She might think she is in charge here, but let me tell you, I make the decisions as regards the kitchen and I’m not at all sure that a person so small would be capable of the work here, whatever age you are.’

‘I’m very strong, Cook,’ Lucy said. ‘Much stronger than I look.’

She knew that wasn’t true, strictly speaking, for she often felt weak and faint, but that was usually because she was so hungry, and she was suddenly apprehensive because she didn’t know whether the disapproving and formidable cook had more sway than Clara. Her eyes suddenly met Clodagh’s sympathetic ones across the kitchen.

In the few days Clodagh had been there she had learnt that Cook’s bark was far worse than her bite, as long as you were prepared to work hard.

Lucy, however, didn’t know that yet. She felt tears stinging her eyes just as Clara O’Leary opened the door she had gone out of at the opposite end of the kitchen and beckoned to Lucy.

‘The Mistress wants to see you,’ she said. ‘Come along.’ Lucy followed Clara through the first door, along a small corridor that she was to find led to the butler’s pantry and back stairs, and through another door covered in green cloth that closed with a sort of sigh. ‘This is the door that leads to the other part of the house where the Family live,’ Clara said, and she pulled out a comb she had secreted up her sleeve and set about tidying Lucy’s hair, retied the bow on her dress and pulled the bodice straighter. Her attentions made Lucy more nervous than ever.

‘What’s the matter?’ she cried.

Clara smiled. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘You’ll do.’

Lucy wasn’t at all sure if she was right, and she could feel her stomach churning as they walked along the corridor.

‘Lady Heatherington is seeing you in the library,’ Clara said.

‘Do I call her “Lady Heatherington”?’ Lucy asked.

‘No, you will just call her “my lady”.’ Lucy looked up at her apprehensively. ‘Now come on,’ Clara said. ‘That’s not so hard, is it?’

‘S’pose not.’

‘And she doesn’t bite,’ Clara said. ‘Well, not on Mondays, anyway.’

A ghost of a smile touched Lucy’s lips as she said, ‘I don’t think that cook, Mrs Murphy, likes me very much.’

‘Oh, I’ll deal with Cook,’ Clara said. ‘Now, I have recommended you to the Mistress and she values my opinion, but the final decision is hers and she wants to meet you as she does with most of the staff, the indoor ones, anyway. It’s not unreasonable.’

Lucy shook her head. No, none of it was unreasonable except for the fact that Lucy didn’t want to be here at all. And then Clara was knocking on a cream door with a shiny brass handle. They were bade enter and as Clara stepped into the room, Lucy, following behind her, felt as if a leaden weight had settled in her stomach.

‘I’ve brought the girl, my lady,’ Clara said, ushering Lucy forward, bobbing a curtsy and bidding Lucy do the same.

As she was doing this, Lucy had a swift look around. A great many polished wooden shelves were fitted floor to ceiling and filled with books of every shape and size, yet the room was light and airy with the light coming from the large windows at the back.

‘Thank you, Mrs O’Leary,’ Lady Heatherington said.

At her words, spoken in a languid, almost bored way, Lucy swung her eyes away from the books to study the woman in front of her, who sat in a black leather chair behind a gleaming wooden desk. ‘You can leave us,’ she said with an imperious wave in Clara’s direction and her eyes met Lucy’s as she looked her up and down.

For Lucy’s part, she saw a very beautiful woman, which surprised her because Lady Hetherington wasn’t young. Yet her dark brown hair was dressed beautifully with combs and ribbons, and though most of it was caught up, curls still framed her oval face, which was as white and smooth as alabaster. Her dark eyes matched the colour of her hair, her long nose looked quite haughty and her mouth was like a perfect rosebud.

Amelia Heatherington, on the other hand, saw an undersized, stick-thin girl who looked far younger than fourteen and far too frail to be of any use to anyone. She smiled at Lucy, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes, and she fingered the mother-of-pearl brooch at the neck of her navy-blue woollen dress as she said, ‘Well, Mrs O’Leary said you were small and I must say I agree with her.’

Lucy thought it better to agree with the woman. ‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Mrs O’Leary also said you have trouble at home. That your father is dead.’

Lucy nodded. ‘He had TB, my lady,’ she said. ‘But he had been ill a long time before he was taken to the sanatorium.’

Her eyes clouded suddenly at the memory of him and Lady Heatherington saw this. ‘I understand that things have been very difficult, but yours is not the only family to have hit hard times,’ she said.

‘No, my lady.’

‘And I am not running a charity.’

‘No, my lady.’

‘Mrs O’Leary has said that you come from a hard-working family and that you are respectable and honest.’

Lucy didn’t know how to answer this so she stayed silent and Lady Heatherington continued, ‘And while they are honourable qualities and ones I would expect of all those in my employ, I am worried that one of your stature would be unequal to the work in the kitchen. Are you not concerned about that?’

Lucy was very concerned, but for her family’s sake she had to have this job and so she answered firmly, ‘No, I’m not, my lady, because I am a lot stronger than I look.’

‘Hmm,’ Lady Heatherington said. ‘I am not at all sure.’ She sighed and stared at Lucy as if deliberating, and she then burst out, ‘Oh, all right then. For Mrs O’Leary’s sake I am willing to give you a trial, but I will be getting regular reports from our cook, Mrs Murphy, and if she’s not happy then you must leave.’ A faint smile touched her lips for a moment as she said, ‘I have learnt to my cost it doesn’t do to offend one’s cook.’

Lucy suppressed her sigh of relief and said, ‘No, my lady. Thank you, my lady.’

‘Now, you will take your orders from Mrs Murphy direct and you must do whatever she tells you. She is in charge in the kitchen and you are under her jurisdiction.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Yes, my lady.’ She had no intention of doing anything to upset the woman she was already nervous of.

‘Now, as for uniform,’ Lady Heatherington said, ‘you will be given a grey dress and apron that you will wear at all times, and any we have will have to be altered to fit you. Can you sew?’

‘Oh, yes, my lady.’

‘Good,’ said Lady Heatherington. ‘Then you will attend to your uniform immediately in your spare time, for I will not have anyone slovenly attired in my household.’

‘No, my lady.’

‘All right, Cassidy. You may return to the kitchen.’

‘Thank you, my lady,’ Lucy said, bobbing another curtsy before she made for the door. She was glad to find Clara outside ready to escort her back. Lucy told her what had transpired in the library and she nodded.

‘You’ll soon settle in,’ she said, ‘and if you work hard you and Cook will soon be the best of friends. Now, first things first,’ she continued as they reached the kitchen again. ‘Young Jerry here will take your case up to the attic you will share with Evie and Clodagh.’

Lucy remembered what Clara had said about Jerry Kilroy and so she wasn’t surprised when, catching her eye, he winked at her. A man had never winked at Lucy before and she blushed slightly and was suddenly glad she had a decent case for she would have hated to have been shown up in front of this cocky footman.

Clodagh, though, was different altogether. She was sixteen and Lucy thought she looked really pretty with tight brown curls framing her face and a smile of welcome shining out from her brown eyes, and she was glad that she would see a lot of her. She had come from Ballintra, outside Donegal Town, a place not that much bigger than Mountcharles, which made another thing they had in common.

Evie, who was seventeen, came from the Donegal Town itself and she was just as pleasant as Clodagh, and as pretty, with her dark blonde hair and eyes of deepest blue.

‘You won’t see quite so much of me because my duties are in the house, you see, and so I don’t need to come into the kitchen much,’ she explained to Lucy. ‘I came in today to meet you when Mrs O’Leary told me you had arrived.’

‘You’ll see her at mealtimes,’ Clodagh said. ‘All the servants eat together.’

‘Yes, and we will all share the attic, though I don’t suppose that will bother you.’

Lucy shook her head, for she had never had a room or even a bed to herself in the whole of her life. ‘No. Not at all.’

‘Well, there you are, then, and in no time at all I’m sure we will be the best of friends.’

Lucy hoped so, for she had never really had a friend before and after meeting both girls she felt far more positive about working in Windthorpe Lodge.

Even Cook spoke to her far more civilly when she said, ‘Clara was saying that your father died six months ago, but she said he had been bad for some time.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Ages. He had TB.’

Cook knew about TB, that insidious illness that could wipe out whole families. Clara had told her of the poverty the family lived in because Seamus hadn’t been able to work for some years before he died, and certainly, Lucy Cassidy didn’t look as though she had ever had a decent meal in her life. So Cook said, ‘Well, though we will all eat later, I will not put anyone to work on an empty stomach. So how about-you go to the attic with Clodagh and put your uniform on, for all it will drown you for now, and I will cook you some eggs and bacon to keep you going?’

Eggs and bacon! Lucy’s mouth watered at the very thought of it and she nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, oh, yes. Thank you.’

The cook smiled at Lucy’s enthusiasm, and Clodagh said, ‘Come on, then.’

She led the way up the back stairs and as she did so she said, ‘Your face was a picture when Cook mentioned cooking you bacon and eggs.’

‘That’s because I can’t really remember what either tastes like,’ Lucy said.

Clodagh stopped on the stairs and looked into Lucy’s face. ‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly,’ Lucy answered. ‘When Daddy was first sick, Mammy turned the garden over to grow vegetables, and we have hens as well, but the eggs are not for us to eat. Mammy needed them and the surplus vegetables that she barters at the shop in exchange for flour, oatmeal, candles and other things she couldn’t grow.’

‘Oh, that’s awful,’ Clodagh said. ‘Well, you needn’t worry here. Cook keeps a good table and now she probably sees it as her life’s work to feed you up because that’s the type of person she is. She is much kinder than she appears. But now we’d better get you dressed up properly for the kitchen or, despite what I just said, if we take too long we’ll get the rough edge of her tongue. She can’t abide slacking.’

Suddenly Clodagh stopped on a sort of landing. ‘Our bedroom is up those stairs,’ she said, indicating another flight. ‘This is the linen press where our overalls and uniforms are kept.’ She opened the door set into the wall as she spoke, and Lucy saw the overalls folded in piles and uniforms hung on hangers at the back. ‘Cook says the Mistress is a stickler about uniform if you are ever to be seen by the family, and even more so if they have guests for dinner, but I doubt we have a uniform to fit you.’ She held aloft a light grey dress as she spoke and went on, ‘This seems to be about the smallest. Let’s pop upstairs and you can try it on.’

Lucy was agreeable to that because she was anxious at any rate to see what the room was like, and in that, too, she was pleasantly surprised. It had whitewashed walls, which Lucy thought a good idea when the only light came from the skylight, and though the room was small, good use had been made of the available space, which housed four iron bedsteads, a dressing table, rag rugs on the floor and a small wardrobe behind the door.

The dress swamped Lucy’s frail frame and the skirts reached nearly to her ankles, as did the coarse apron that Evie tied around her waist. ‘You’ll have to turn them up, that’s all,’ Clodagh said, surveying her critically. ‘Can you sew?’

When Lucy nodded, Clodagh said, ‘And me. Mammy taught me. She said every housewife should be able to sew. So we’ll do it together. It would be quicker and it wouldn’t do me any harm to get some practice in.’

‘Oh, that is kind of you,’ Lucy said. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Course I am,’ Clodagh said. ‘Now, let’s put your hat on. We’ll need to put your hair up. You got any Kirbigrips?’

Lucy shook her head.

‘Never mind,’ Clodagh said. ‘I have tons, and a band to gather it altogether. You’ll have to have it piled up on top of your head somehow, see, or the hat won’t go on.’ She coiled up Lucy’s hair as she spoke. ‘Golly, Lucy, you have got lovely hair. It’s like a reddish-brown colour.’ In fact, Clodagh thought if Lucy were to put more meat on her she would be a very beautiful girl. Her eyes were large, a lovely colour and ringed by long black lashes, and she had a classic nose, high cheekbones and a beautiful mouth. Even her neck, she noticed with a stab of envy, was long and slender. It was a shame that the skin on her face was a muddy-grey colour and her pale cheeks sunken in slightly.

‘That will have to do,’ Clodagh said, stepping back from Lucy and surveying her handiwork. ‘Come on, let’s go and see Cook. I can almost smell the bacon and eggs sizzling.’

THREE

By Sunday, 1 December, Lucy had been at Windthorpe Lodge for four weeks and was ready for her first full Sunday off. She had hardly slept the night before because she had been too excited, but though she had the whole day to herself she had to rise earlier than anyone, as she did every morning, to clean the range, then light it, fill the large kettle with water and put it on the range to heat for the tea.

She would not be staying for the servants’ breakfast because she would be taking communion that morning and, if she caught the rail bus at seven, she would be at Mountcharles in plenty of time to make nine o’clock Mass, the one her family always went to. She was so excited to be seeing them all again and to tell them of her new life.

She wouldn’t mention the fact that there was always plenty of food because Cook always maintained that no one worked well on an empty stomach. She had porridge every morning with plenty of sugar and as much milk as she wanted to pour over it, followed by bread and butter and jam, and several cups of tea. On Sunday mornings she would go with Evie, Clodagh and Clara to early Mass in Letterkenny, and Cook would have porridge ready for their return, followed by bacon and eggs. Then at midday they would sit down to a meal of roast or boiled meat and vegetables, followed by something sweet, usually with custard, and there was similar fare taken just before the family dinner. Since she had come to work in the house the only time she had been the slightest bit hungry was before Mass on a Sunday morning.

Lucy wrote to her mother every week but she never told her any of this because she didn’t think it would help. It was enough for her mother to know that she was being adequately fed and she resolved she wouldn’t go on about it when she got home either. There were plenty of other things she could tell them about and she fair rattled through her jobs that morning.

Lucy only wished she had something to take to cheer the family, for she knew she wouldn’t get to see them over Christmas. She could spend hardly any of her wages because her mother needed every penny and she had retained only two shillings for herself, and one and six of that she spent on the fare home so she would have thirty shillings to give her mother. She had that ready, wrapped in a little cloth bag and pushed right down to the bottom of the big bag that Clara had loaned her.

Clara had called Lucy into her quarters just after she had finished scouring the pots used for the family dinner the previous evening, and asked her to wait a moment in the housekeeper’s snug and well-furnished parlour as she had something for her.

Lucy was pleased to be asked to wait because it gave her a chance to look around. She had never been asked in here before. She noted the brightly coloured rugs covering most of the floor, and the small beige settee and two chairs, covered with soft brown cushions, which were drawn up before the fireplace where a small fire burned in the grate. There was also a small table drawn up between the chairs, with a matching sideboard against the wall, full of pretty ornaments that she would have loved to examine.

Clara came in at that moment, carrying a big bag in one hand and holding a pair of boots in the other, a collection of garments draped over her arms.

‘Now,’ she said as she began to sort through the garments, ‘these are just some old clothes your mother might find a use for.’ Lucy smiled, for she had never seen Clara wear any of the things she was packing away neatly in the bag.

‘What’s wrong with the boots?’ Lucy said as Clara put them on top. ‘They hardly look worn. Mammy will go on about pride.’

‘Well, let her,’ Clara said. ‘Pride doesn’t keep a person’s feet warm.’ And then, as Lucy still looked apprehensive, she continued, ‘Look, Lucy, if the boot was on the other foot, your mother would be the first to stretch out a helping hand, I know she would. She is my oldest friend and if I can make life a little easier then I feel I should. I would think myself less of a person if I didn’t.’

Lucy couldn’t think of a reply to that and Clara added, ‘There is an envelope there, too, with a Christmas card in it.’

‘Won’t you get home at all before Christmas?’

‘It isn’t home to me now,’ Clara reminded her. ‘No one belonging to me lives there. I will go to see your family if I can, but if the weather worsens I wouldn’t go as far as Donegal by choice, that is, if the rail buses would be running at all.’

‘I hope the weather or anything else doesn’t stop me.’

‘It won’t,’ Clara assured her. ‘Not this time, anyway. It’s fine and dry, and the forecast is for more of the same tomorrow.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘It’ll be cold, though,’ Clara told her. ‘It always is when the night’s a clear one.’

‘I don’t care about cold,’ Lucy declared stoutly. ‘The thought of seeing the family will warm me, and I can’t wait to see Mammy’s face when she sees all this stuff.’

However, the clothes and boots weren’t all. After leaving Clara, Lucy found Mrs Murphy waiting for her as she packed a basket for her to take home. ‘Now, Clodagh was telling me that though you have chickens you don’t get to eat the eggs.’

‘No, we don’t.’

‘Well, in this box here,’ Cook said, opening it up, ‘see, I have put six fresh eggs and these are not for giving away. They are for eating.’ She placed the box in the basket alongside a loaf and butter wrapped in greaseproof paper. Now, you can have what was left of the pork joint the family had for their dinner last night, and some cheese, and I will put you in a twist of tea and another of sugar.’

‘Oh, Cook, Mrs Murphy, I don’t know how to thank you,’ Lucy said, very close to tears.

‘Then don’t try,’ Cook advised. ‘Your face says it all.’

‘It’s just that my mother … I mean, I can just imagine her face, and my sister and my brothers. They will all be over the moon, I know.’

‘Well, that’s all the thanks I want,’ Cook said.

Now that the bag and basket were standing packed and ready at the top of the stairs by the kitchen door, Lucy buttoned up her coat, pulled her hat over her ears, put on her gloves and wound the scarf around her neck so that only her nose and mouth were visible. The day was icy and there was no warmth in the winter sun shining in a pale blue sky. Lucy picked the bag up in one hand, held the basket with the other, stepped out into a frost-rimmed world and felt the ice crunching beneath her feet as she made for the rail bus.

The journey home seemed tedious because she was so anxious to be there. At Mountcharles station, looking anxiously through the windows, she was delighted to see all the family assembled to meet her. The rail bus had barely stopped before Lucy was out of it and, putting the bag and basket down on the platform, she hugged them all as if her life depended on it.

‘What you got?’ Danny said, indicating the baggage.

‘Oh, lots of stuff,’ Lucy replied.

‘Yes, but it will have to wait,’ Minnie said. ‘And so will any questions. We will just have time to put the stuff in at the cottage and then we will need to hightail it to Mass or we will be late.’ And so saying she caught up the bag, and Danny got the basket so that Sam and Liam could hold Lucy’s hands, and she swung the young boys along the road, Grainne hurrying along beside them. They arrived at the Sacred Heart church just a couple of minutes before Mass began. During the service, Lucy felt peace steal over her; she was so glad to be home again even if it was just for a few hours.

After Mass many greeted Lucy and said how much she had been missed and asked how was she liking the fine job in Letterkenny; and although she was polite she answered as briefly as possible. She was anxious to get home but no one lingered long because most had taken Communion and were ready for their breakfasts.

In the cottage there was the smell of the peat fire and the porridge cooking in the embers of it in the familiar double pan.

‘I have extra sugar in, and milk, for I thought you may be used to that now,’ Minnie said.

‘Yes, I am,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But that is what I’ll have tomorrow morning so today the others should have their share. And you can have the sugar without worrying too much about it because Cook has put some in the basket, and there is tea too.’

‘Oh, that was kind of her,’ Minnie said, ‘though I am careful with tea and often use the leaves twice, so I still have some left from when Clara was here.’

‘Mammy, you haven’t kept it all this time?’ Lucy cried in surprise, and remembered a trifle guiltily how many cups she consumed in an average day.

‘Like I said, I am careful, but now I can relax a little more, so, after we have cleared away after breakfast, I will make a big pot and we’ll all have a cup.’

‘Even me?’ Sam asked, and Minnie smiled.

‘Even you.’

‘With three sugars?’

‘Don’t push your luck, my lad,’ Minnie warned him grimly. ‘You are only having tea at all because of the kindness of the cook at the place where Lucy works.’

‘She is kind,’ Lucy said, ‘though she didn’t seem so that first day. She was worried because I was so small. She wasn’t sure that I was even fourteen. Good job Mrs O’Leary advised me to take my certificates with me.’

‘But she is all right with you now?’

‘She’s grand, Mammy, don’t worry. One thing she can’t abide is slacking. Not that you get much opportunity to do that, though Jerry Kilroy seems to have more time on his hands than we girls do.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A footman, and so under the jurisdiction of the butler, Mr Carlisle,’ Lucy said. ‘Cook said in most houses she has worked in the butler has more to do with the Master of the house, but his batman, a man called Rory Green, came to care for him.’

‘So the butler hasn’t that much to do either?’

‘No, not really, I suppose,’ Lucy said. ‘He looks after the Master’s clothes, presses them and things like that, but Rory helps him bath and dress and gives him a shave.’

‘Goodness,’ Minnie said. ‘They seem to take an awful lot of looking after.’

‘They do,’ Lucy agreed. ‘Lady Heatherington has got a personal maid as well, called Norah Callaghan, and she’s been with her years, so I heard. Anyway, she doesn’t sleep in the attics like the rest of us do. She has a little room close to the Mistress in case she needs her in the night.’

‘Why would she need her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lucy admitted. ‘They do proper daft things at times. And Mrs O’Leary’s right when she said that they want everything done, but they don’t want to see anyone doing it unless it’s waiting on or something, I suppose. Like, after I have cleaned the range, I have to light it and then boil water for the tea and take a cup to Cook and Mrs O’Leary. Then I have to get the steps to the front door scrubbed and all the brass polished before anyone would need to go in and out the door, and then make sure I have tidied everything away before I lay the table for the servants’ breakfast at eight.’

‘When do the family eat?’

‘Lady Heatherington comes down at nine and Rory carries Lord Heatherington down the stairs and they have a wheelchair for him to sit in. Anyway, talking of breakfast, has everyone had enough? There’s a large loaf and butter in that basket. In fact, Mammy, now that we’ve all eaten the porridge, you had better see what else there is.’

Lucy stacked the bowls while Minnie collected the basket from the settle, and as she uncovered one delight after the other there were ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s from the watching children. When it was all displayed on the table, Minnie said, her voice husky with unshed tears, ‘She is a kind and thoughtful lady, that cook. Tell her thank you a thousand times from me.’

‘I will, Mammy,’ Lucy promised, as Sam broke in with, ‘Is the bag filled with food as well?’

Lucy laughed. ‘’Fraid not, Sam. That’s filled with boring old clothes.’

‘Oh,’ said Sam. ‘Are they from this cook as well?’

‘No, they’re from Mrs O’Leary.’

‘Clara?’

‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘And for you, Mammy. But let’s decide what to do with the food before we see what’s in the bag.’

‘I’ve a good idea,’ Danny said. ‘Why don’t we just eat it?’

They didn’t eat it all, but Minnie cut all the children slices of bread from the loaf, which she spread with the creamy butter. The rest she put away: she said, so she could have something wholesome to make a good meal for Lucy before she would have to return to Letterkenny.

‘Don’t worry about me, Mammy,’ Lucy protested, as she poured water from the kettle above the fire into the bowl Grainne had got ready, and began to wash the bowls. ‘I didn’t come here to eat the food I brought. That was done to help all of you.’

‘You will have a good feed before you leave here,’ Minnie said determinedly. ‘God knows, I do little enough for you now.’

‘Ah, Mammy!’

‘No, Lucy,’ Minnie said. ‘Please, let me speak. When I saw you get off the rail bus I could hardly believe my eyes. In the short time that you’ve been away you have grown and there’s far more meat on your bones. I didn’t expect that. For all Clara said, I thought that they would have you run ragged.’

‘And let me tell you, Mammy, there are few minutes in the day when I can sit down,’ Lucy said. ‘I am on the go from when I rise in the morning till I go to bed, after I have everything washed up, cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed the floor. When I first went there, I found the days long and the whole of my body ached. I couldn’t lift the heaviest and biggest pots that I had to scour and Clodagh would have to help me. However, I am used to the hours now, and the work, and although the pots are just as heavy, I can lift them up with the best of them.’

She dried her hands, went over to the settle, picked up the bag and gave it to her mother. She said, ‘At the bottom of the clothes you will find a cloth bag and inside there are thirty shillings. I only wish it was more, but that is yours, and every month I will bring the same. But look at the things Clara has sent first. She said she had no use for them.’

Minnie lifted the things out one by one. The warm black boots on the top had hardly any wear, and there were two winter-weight dresses: one in navy with cream trimmings, similar to the one Clara bought for Lucy, and the other dark red with navy collar and cuffs. There was a cosy, woolly blue cardigan, a cream blouse and a brown skirt, and wrapped up in the skirt a pair of lisle stockings unopened. The children stared open-mouthed, but it was Lucy that Minnie was looking at. Her eyes were very bright and her voice choked as she repeated, ‘No use for?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘That’s all she told me, and she sent a Christmas card as well.’

‘I know,’ Minnie said, and she lifted out the envelope and slit it open to reveal a beautiful card with a snow scene on the front. When she opened it up, a five-pound note fell out and the children let out a gasp.

‘“Have a very happy Christmas, all of you. Lots of love, Clara,”’ Minnie read out, and she picked the note up from the floor and said to Lucy, almost angrily, ‘Is this something else Clara had no use for?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I truly didn’t know about the money. To be honest, when it first fluttered out I was a bit annoyed myself because it makes my contribution look so small and unimportant, and then I thought that that was a selfish way to think. She doesn’t know whether she will get to see you before Christmas – travel in the winter is so dependent on the weather – and she wanted to make sure that you didn’t go without at Christmas. Can’t you see it in that light?’

‘I don’t think she meant it as any sort of insult,’ Danny said. ‘You know her better than I do, of course, but from what I saw of her she was a sort of kindly person. Wouldn’t you say so, Lucy?’

‘Aye, I would, Danny, definitely.’

Minnie was thinking hard. She wanted to return the money because to her it was as if her friend was looking down her nose at her, playing the Lady Bountiful.

Lucy watched her mother’s face and guessed her thoughts. ‘You accept clothes from St Vincent de Paul for all of us,’ she said, ‘so what’s the difference to you accepting the clothes and money that Mrs O’Leary has given with a good heart?’

‘Things from St Vincent de Paul are different, and they have never given me money.’

‘You’ve had food vouchers, which is the same thing,’ Danny put in.

‘That’s right,’ said Lucy. ‘And just because there is plenty of wear in the boots and clothes and all doesn’t mean that Mrs O’Leary will ever wear them again. I would say that it’s wrong to have clothes just hanging in the wardrobe that you know you will never wear when others are in need. If she had given them to St Vincent de Paul and they had made a gift of them here you wouldn’t have found a problem with that.’

‘Yeah,’ Danny said enthusiastically. ‘This Mrs O’Leary is just cutting out the middle man.’

‘And as for the money,’ Lucy continued, ‘can you put your hand on your heart and say that you don’t need it?’

Minnie looked at the family grouped around her, their hollowed faces white and anxious, and she knew she couldn’t. For some time she had been worried about the children’s footwear and had known that unless St Vincent de Paul came soon with boots in their bundles, Danny and Grainne at least would have to go barefoot, winter or not, because their boots were so small they were crippling them. Grainne, anyway, was near walking on the uppers. With the money, Minnie could have her old boots soled and heeled for Danny, and get Danny’s fixed for Grainne. A knot of worry fell from her shoulders and she knew she had to accept the money, and with good grace. ‘You’re right, both of you,’ she said to Danny and Lucy. ‘This was meant to help us all.’

‘So is this,’ Lucy said as she withdrew the bag that she had put her money in and placed it in her mother’s hands.

Minnie held it out to her. ‘You must have something for yourself,’ she said. ‘I have no need of it all now I have Clara’s Christmas box.’

‘No, Mammy,’ Lucy said, closing her mother’s hand over the small bag. ‘I don’t want any back, for I need very little. I kept back enough for the fare to come here and I needed sixpence to put together with Clodagh and Evie so that we can buy some nice soap and shampoo for our hair.’

‘Is that what it is?’ Grainne said. ‘I have never seen your hair so nice and shiny.’

‘And it smells nice, too,’ Liam said. ‘I noticed that.’

‘Yes, that’s the shampoo,’ Lucy said. ‘I had been used to using soap, but Clodagh stopped me and gave me some of her shampoo and I saw the difference straight away, so now we share the buying of things like that because we all sleep in the attic – Clodagh, Evie and me – and we have our own bathroom with a flush toilet and a bath, too, when we ever get time to use it.’

‘Are they nice girls?’

‘Lovely,’ Lucy said enthusiastically. ‘And it helped to have them there when I was suffering homesickness.’

‘Were you homesick?’ Danny asked.

‘Course I was,’ Lucy said, and then grinned at her brother. ‘Missed seeing your ugly mug, for a start.’

‘We missed you, too,’ Sam said, before Danny had time to reply. ‘I cried loads, and Liam did.’

‘No, I never.’

‘Yes, you did,’

‘No, I never.’

Grainne raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Here we go again,’ she said.

‘Boys,’ Minnie cut in, ‘I am ashamed of you arguing the first time that Lucy has been able to get home to see us, and over nothing at all.’

Though Minnie told the boys off and they subsided and looked thoroughly chastened, Lucy had been pleased to hear her young brothers arguing because it was what they did and it was familiar. She realised then that that was what she missed most – just family life. Seeing them once a month was not going to be enough to be part of it. She would be the absent sister, the one they spoke about and remembered in their prayers but hardly knew. She realised, though, that she had to hide how she felt from her mother at all costs. The family’s survival depended on her.

Fortunately, Minnie’s attention was still on her obstreperous sons and so she didn’t see the shadow flit across Lucy’s face, and though Danny did, he said nothing.

Minnie continued, ‘We all missed Lucy a great deal – it would have been strange if we hadn’t – and every one deals with that differently.’ She got to her feet and added, ‘Now, I am going to make that tea I promised you while Lucy tells us more about the life she is living now.’

Lucy looked around at the family she loved, which she must leave again in another few hours, and for a moment couldn’t think of a thing to say. Danny, guessing her state of mind, prompted gently, ‘What about the other girl you mentioned that shares the attic? Evie, was it?’

‘Yeah, Evie.’

‘Well, what does she do?’ Danny asked. ‘Is she in the kitchen, too?’

‘No, she’s a housemaid,’ Lucy said. ‘She hasn’t to touch the Master’s room, though, unless she is asked to, because Rory does everything needed in there, as Norah does for Lady Heatherington, but she has to dust, polish and run a carpet sweeper over every other room in the house. As well as this she has to lay and light fires in all the rooms and keep all the scuttles filled up. She lays the table with a fresh cloth and napkins for every meal apart from breakfast, and often serves afternoon tea.’

‘Well, I’d say she’s kept busy.’

‘She is always at it,’ Lucy said. ‘And Jerry is supposed to fill up the coal scuttles for her in the morning and chop up the kindling, but often Evie has to fill the scuttles herself and search for Jerry to find out where he’s put the kindling.’

‘Is that all he does, this Jerry?’

‘Well, he cleans the shoes for the family as well,’ Lucy said, ‘though it’s only Lady Heatherington and the Master in the house at the moment. They put the shoes they want polished out at night and he has to see to them and replace them the following morning and he has to lay up the table for breakfast and then serve it later. I don’t touch any crockery or glassware used by the Family. That’s all stored in the butler’s pantry, and each day Jerry has to clean the silver before it’s used and wash it up afterwards. He sharpens the knives for Cook as well.’

‘And Clara, what does she do?’

‘Oh, she is sort of in charge of everything,’ Lucy said. ‘She wears a shiny black dress all the time with a white collar and cuffs. And she has always got a pile of keys attached to her belt because she is in charge of the storeroom, and the china, and the linen cupboard. Every day she discusses the menu for the day with Cook and then sees Lady Heatherington to check if it meets with her approval and if there is anything she needs to know, like people coming to dinner or to take afternoon tea, I suppose. Anyway, then Cook phones through to a big grocer’s and greengrocer’s or whatever in Letterkenny to order anything she needs.’

‘Phones?’ Minnie repeated with awe. ‘They have a telephone?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Cook finds it very handy.’

‘Have you ever used it?’ Grainne asked, as impressed as her mother.

‘No,’ Lucy admitted. ‘I’ve never had reason to, but I’m not as scared of it as I was when I went there first. Anyway, when all the stuff Cook ordered is delivered later that morning, I help Clodagh pack it away and Mrs O’Leary takes the receipts and enters the figures in a big ledger, or so Cook says. They send tons of stuff to the laundry, too, and Mrs O’Leary checks it out and the returned stuff back in again.’

‘She doesn’t do any of the cooking then?’ Minnie asked. ‘She used to like cooking, as I remember, but then I don’t suppose the cook would like that.’

‘Oh, she cooks most days,’ Lucy said. ‘But it’s all special stuff like little delicate cakes and pastries. She usually comes to cook after we have eaten our midday meal at twelve o’clock and Cook is usually pleased to see Clara because it takes the pressure off her and she can get on with preparations for dinner.’

‘So who eats the cakes Clara makes?’

‘People who call to take tea with Lady Heatherington,’ Lucy said. ‘Or some come to see the Master – army types, many of them – and Rory said they are all more than partial to the cakes and fancies made by Mrs O’Leary. We, of course, don’t get much of a look-in, but the odd one I have tried was delicious.’

‘She always had a light hand,’ Minnie said as she gave out cups of tea. ‘But I think it a lot of fuss and palaver to have all of you employed to cook and clean for two people who choose to live in a house far too big for them.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Lucy said. ‘But if I wasn’t there what would I be doing all day? And where else would I earn the money I do, and all found? As Mrs O’Leary is fond of saying, “Every cloud has a silver lining.”’

Far too soon after that they were all walking down to the station for Lucy to catch the rail bus back to Windthorpe Lodge. Mist swirled in front of them as they walked in the deepening dusk. ‘It will be full dark when you reach your place,’ Minnie said.

‘That’s all right, Mammy,’ Lucy said with a smile. ‘I’m not afraid of the dark.’

‘I forget how grown up you are now,’ Minnie said almost wistfully, and Lucy put her arms around her.

‘Not too big for a hug,’ she said, and Minnie hugged her as if she would never let her go.

‘Ah, my darling girl.’

Lucy fought for control as she broke from her mother’s embrace to hug Danny, Grainne and the two younger boys, quickly, as the rail bus was ready to leave. As it chugged out of the station, she watched until her family were like little dots before taking her seat with a sigh.

FOUR

Lucy felt even more homesick after her visit home, and Clodagh and Evie were full of sympathy.

‘I suppose it helps that we are kept too busy to brood much,’ Clodagh said one morning as they were getting dressed.

‘Yes, and set to get busier,’ Evie said, ‘because the Heatheringtons are having guests for Christmas.’

‘Are they?’

‘So it seems. I overheard Mrs O’Leary talking to Cook,’ Evie said. ‘Two couples: the Mattersons and the Farrandykes. People of importance around here, it seems.’

Lucy and Clodagh soon found out that Evie was right. Cook was complaining about it over breakfast.

‘It will mean extra work for all of us,’ she said. ‘And that’s the trouble with trying to run an establishment like this with such few staff.’

‘Well, they’re hardly likely to ask our permission, are they?’ Clara said.

‘Not likely,’ Norah said with a wry smile. ‘As far as I can see, we must like it or lump it, but I must say that it has perked up Lady Heatherington no end knowing that there will be company over the festive season.’

‘Oh, I suppose the poor lady must be fair lonely at times with Lord Heatherington keeping to his room so much,’ Cook conceded.

‘Well, that will soon be changed,’ Rory said. ‘When Master Clive is home for Christmas, the General intends to be much more active. He says he doesn’t want Master Clive to think of him as some old crock.’

Lucy knew Clive was the Heatheringtons’ only son. ‘The only one they have left,’ Clara had told her the the day she had bought Lucy the new clothes.

‘The only one left?’ she repeated.

‘Yes,’ Clara said with a sigh. ‘Their three elder sons were killed in the Great War. It was Cook told me about the tragedy of it not long after I started working in the Heatherington household. And, as you know, I’d had my share of tragedy and loss in my own life then, and I knew what they had been going through and felt some sympathy because money and influence cannot make up for the loss of a loved one.’

Lucy nodded. ‘I didn’t know that it hurt so much when someone you love dies,’ she said. ‘The night Daddy was taken to the sanatorium was the first time I faced the fact that he was dying. I knew I would miss him greatly and I did. But it hurt so much. I had an almost unbearable ache in my heart and sometimes was doubled over with the stabbing pains in my stomach. At times even now it catches me.’

‘I know.’ Clara nodded. ‘After Sean’s funeral, in November 1924, which my two brothers arranged, for I was in no fit state to do anything much, they took me back to England with them. They looked after me so well, and so did their wives, but I was like a zombie and the pain too deep for any tears to ease, though I shed many of them. For a time I really didn’t want to go on because I felt that I had no one to go on for. I think my brothers were aware of that for I was seldom left alone. Eventually, and slowly, as the spring of 1925 gave way to the summer, I knew I had to leave. Times were hard and my brothers’ families had little enough to eat themselves, without providing for me as well. I also found it hard to be around my young nieces and nephews. It wasn’t their fault but the sight of them was sometimes like a knife twisted in my heart.

‘When I applied to be lady’s maid to Lady Heatherington, in June 1925, I was initially dismayed to hear that there was a child in the house. Clive had just turned seven. I knew, though, that he would almost certainly be sent off to school before he was much older, and I was surprised when his mother was against the whole idea. It was Cook, who had been with the family since she was a child of twelve, who told me why. And she said the two eldest sons had been killed when the youngest, Clifford, enlisted, and shortly afterwards Lord Heatherington was invalided home, having been wounded in the arm. By the time he was drafted overseas again, Lady Heatherington found herself pregnant. For many that would have been an unwelcome shock, but Lady Heatherington was delighted.’

‘Oh, I can see that, can’t you?’

‘I can, Lucy,’ Clara said. ‘But Ada said Lady Heatherington was two months from giving birth in April 1918 when the telegram came telling her of her youngest son’s death and the shock of that caused her to go into labour. When Clive was born he was so small and puny the doctor thought he had little chance of survival. However, Clive did survive, but he was doubly precious to his mother. Cook said he was cosseted and spoilt and that was why she didn’t want him to go away to school. Lord and Lady Heatherington used to have up and downers about it. I heard them myself. She maintained Clive was delicate, not strong enough for the rough and tumble of school, and he would say that was poppycock and that the lad was turning into a mother’s boy.’

‘And was he?’

‘I think he was a bit,’ Clara said. ‘Lady Heatherington certainly pampered him more than was good for him. Anyway, Lord Heatherington won and the boy was sent away to school the following year.’

‘So where’s this Clive now?’

‘Still at school in England, sitting for his Higher Certificate,’ Clara said. ‘Then he will go to Oxford University where his brothers were all due to go. Mind you,’ she added with a smile, ‘he’s a cheeky young pup, and certainly has a way with him, but you’ll see that for yourself soon.’

Intrigued by what she had heard, Lucy looked forward to that.

It was time to decorate the house for Christmas. Clara told Lucy that the attics at Maxted Hall, the Heatheringtons’ proper home in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, had been filled with decorations, but they hadn’t thought of them when they had packed up to leave. So Jerry and Mr Carlisle had to travel to Letterkenny to buy more, and Lucy and Clodagh sneaked out to have a look in the sitting room when Evie told them how beautiful it was. Lucy stood at the doorway, entranced. Garlands of ivy, yew and laurel fell in swags around the room, interwoven with twinkling lights, and holly wreaths with bright red berries decorated the doors. The ceiling was festooned with streamers and paper lanterns that, Evie told them, spun round in the heat from the fires.

‘What’s that?’ Lucy asked, pointing to a rather mundane piece of greenery pinned to the ceiling.

‘That’s mistletoe,’ Evie said. ‘And Mrs O’Leary told me that if a girl stands under that a man can kiss her, and if a man stands under then he is inviting a girl to kiss him.’

‘Goodness,’ said Lucy. ‘If that’s true I would take care not to go near it.’

‘You wouldn’t get the chance,’ Clodagh laughed.

‘And that suits me,’ Lucy replied.

The kitchen became a hive of activity. Delicious spicy smells wafted in the air as Cook weighed, pounded and kneaded ingredients. The family still had to be fed, too, and Cook’s temper often got the better of her, especially when she was forced to forego the little snooze she often had in the chair after the family’s midday meal.

The Christmas cakes had been made weeks before and Cook kept dribbling sherry over them and promised they would look the business when she had them iced. They would all have to have a stir of the pudding, Cook told the staff, and when they did that they could make a wish.

‘What will you wish for?’ Lucy asked Clodagh.

‘Oh, you can’t say,’ Clodagh answered. ‘If you tell, it won’t come true.’

Well, Lucy decided, she wouldn’t risk that. She would wish for something to happen so that she could move back home again. As Christmas drew nearer she missed her family more than ever, and that was the only thing she really wanted.

They all heard the van chugging up the drive and drawing to a halt in front of the house on the evening of 22 December. As they sat down for tea, Mrs O’Leary told them all that Master Clive had arrived home, bringing with him from Letterkenny a huge tree and a big box of baubles and lights to decorate it.

‘What sort of tree?’ Lucy asked.

‘A Christmas tree, of course,’ Clara said. ‘You must have seen Christmas trees. They have one in the Diamond in Donegal Town every year, and in the church.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Yes, but I’ve never seen a tree inside anyone’s house.’

‘Well, they certainly have one here,’ Clara said. ‘I always think that once the tree is up and decorated then Christmas is just around the corner.’

The others began to talk about Christmases past. Though Lucy said nothing, her own memories were stirred back to the blissful time when her father had been alive and healthy, a time she had thought would go on for ever. He had made Christmas exciting then, taking her and Danny into the woods to search for holly with lots of red berries to brighten up the cottage, and he had shown them how to make streamers with scraps of coloured paper that he would string around the room. Their mother had laughed at his foolishness and said he was worse than any wean, but her voice had been soft when she said this, and her eyes would be very bright, and the smell in the cottage was fragrant as the goodies that Minnie cooked for the festive season overrode the smell from the turf fire.

On Christmas Day itself, Lucy’s toes would curl with excitement when she woke to find the bulging stocking hanging on the end of her bed. And there were such delights in store: always an orange and an apple, a small bar of chocolate, a bag of sweets and a toy or two. This might be a tin whistle, mouth organ or puzzle, and maybe tin soldiers for Danny and a whip and top for Lucy. One Christmas day, she remembered with a rush of pleasure she had a rag doll pushed into hers and she had been speechless with delight.

They would greet friends and neighbours on their way to Mass and ‘Happy Christmas’ seemed to be on everybody’s lips. Back home the cottage would be filled with the smell of the fowl roasting above the fire, and the plum duff that was bubbling away in its own pot above the smouldering turf.

If the weather was up to it after that delicious dinner, Seamus would take them all for a brisk walk, even Grainne when she was big enough to be swung onto his shoulders. They would arrive back with red cheeks and tingling fingers and toes, glad of the cocoa and gingerbread their mother would have ready. When they were thawed out, Seamus would play dominoes with them, and Snap with his set of playing cards, and end the day singing all the carols they could remember before it was time for bed. Lucy recalled how she loved the rounded tone of her father’s voice.

But now, for her brothers and sister, Christmas Day had just become a day like any other. If there was a hen that had stopped laying they might eat that as a sort of treat, but there was no money spare for fancy food and she wondered what her brothers and sister would make of the vast array of food in the kitchen in Windthorpe Lodge, and the tantalising and spicy smells that lingered in the air and made her mouth water.

Cook knew she would be judged on her dinner, especially with visitors in the house, and she had pored over the menu for the Christmas meal with Clara, relieved when Lady Heatherington declared herself pleased with it. Later that day, Clodagh showed it to Lucy.

‘So,’ she said, ‘after a full cooked breakfast at nine o’clock, they will be sitting down to Scottish salmon with lemon mayonnaise and beetroot dressing, followed by pheasant soup and warm bread rolls. Then they will be served goose, stuffed with apple, chestnut and sausage forcemeat, cooked in a red-wine-and-gooseberry sauce, roast potatoes and roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts, creamed baton carrots and lashings of gravy.’

‘Golly,’ said Lucy. ‘And plum duff after all that.’

‘Yeah, and served with brandy butter.’

‘I’m surprised they will have any room,’ Lucy said, and added in a low voice, ‘and I can just imagine the temper Cook will be in, ’til it has all been served.’

‘Oh, I’ll say,’ Clodagh said with feeling. ‘We’ll do well to keep our heads down. I tell you, we won’t be doing right for doing wrong that day. And she told me that she’s really glad that she is not responsible for any of the drinks, that Mr Carlisle will sort that out as usual, because there is mulled wine before the meal, champagne and red wine to serve with it, followed by coffee, and then the men have brandy and port. But that’s for the nobs,’ she finished with a laugh. ‘I doubt you and I will be fed so well.’

‘No,’ Lucy agreed. ‘Be nice to get a taste, though.’

‘Yeah, though we’re more likely to get the leavings,’ Clodagh said. ‘Cook said that if any of the goose is left she will make it into croquettes and serve it with mash for us the next day. That might be all of the goose we see.’

‘What are croquettes?’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ Clodagh admitted. ‘But we will find out. For both of us it will be a voyage of discovery.’

The following day, Evie enthused about the beautiful Christmas tree Clive had decorated in the hall.

‘Oh, I wish we could see it, too,’ Lucy said; and Clara, who had been to see the Mistress about meals planned for the day, said, ‘You can, Lucy. All of you can have a peep, but you must wait until the gong goes for the family’s breakfast.’

Never had the time passed more slowly, but eventually the clock ticked round to nine o’clock and Mr Carlisle sounded the gong.

The servants waited a moment or two until Mr Carlisle judged that Lady Heatherington, Master Clive and the General, carried down by Rory, had cleared the main stairs, because he said the tree was not far from the foot of it. When Lucy eventually saw it she gave a gasp of surprise because never in her life could she remember seeing anything so wonderful.

It was set in a smallish pot of earth and nearly reached the ceiling. Its branches were filled with glass animals and big balls that sparkled and spun in the flickering lights, sending a kaleidoscope of colours dancing on the wall behind it. These were interspersed here and there with gold and silver ribbons tied in bows, striped candy canes, small gingerbread men, white sugar mice and sugar plums. But at the top of the tree was the best thing of all: the star, which had a shimmering radiance all of its own.

‘You approve of my decorations then?’ said a young man who, descending the stairs, had been brought to a halt by the rapt expression on Lucy’s face.

Lucy turned and saw the handsomest man she had ever seen smiling down at her. Shafts of winter sun were spilling out of the window on the half-landing so that he looked as if there was a halo surrounding his blond hair, and when her eyes met his she saw that they were the most startling blue.

Clive descended another few stairs and saw that the girl was just a child. She was dressed as a scullery maid yet surely she wasn’t of an age to work. She looked about ten.

She still hadn’t spoken. Then Carlisle said, ‘We are all astounded, Master Clive. You have done a truly splendid job.’

‘Thank you, Mr Carlisle,’ Clive said. ‘High praise indeed.’

He smiled and it was as if someone had turned the light on behind his eyes, and Lucy felt it almost like a blow to the stomach. Clive’s smile, though, was for them all.

‘Now I must away for my breakfast,’ he said. ‘I will catch it from Mother as it is for being late,’ and with a wave of his hand he was off to the dining room, wondering why he had been so affected by an undersized scullery maid.

In fact, so affected was he that after he had greeted both his parents and apologised for his tardiness, he said to his mother, ‘I didn’t realise that we were employing children now.’

Amelia frowned. ‘What on earth do you mean, Clive?’

‘The servants were out admiring the Christmas tree as I came down the stairs and one of the girls there can be no more than ten.’

‘Oh, that’s Lucy Cassidy,’ Amelia said. ‘She is small, I grant you, but she is fourteen.’

‘Never.’

‘She is, I assure you,’ Amelia said. ‘She brought along her birth and baptismal certificates, and we also had the word of Mrs O’Leary, who grew up with her mother and has known Cassidy since she was born.’

‘Must be right then,’ Clive said. ‘But it is unbelievable.’

‘Why are you so interested?’ Charles asked.

‘I’m not really,’ Clive said. ‘It’s just that she looks like someone dressing up, as if for a fancy-dress party or something.’

‘I’d say she does more than look the part if she is under Mrs Murphy’s direction.’

Clive chuckled. ‘I’d say so, too.’

‘Well then, I suggest we stop worrying about maids, small or large, and attack the breakfast,’ the General said.

Clive gave a brief nod. He knew as far as his father was concerned the matter was closed.

In the early afternoon on Christmas Eve, the servants all heard the crunch of car tyres on the gravel path as the visitors arrived. Clara, Mr Carlisle and Jerry were summoned to stand beside Lady Heatherington, Clive and Lord Heatherington, to greet them in the hall.

‘What are they like?’ Cook asked Mr Carlisle when he returned to the kitchen.

He shrugged. ‘Just ordinary.’

‘How like a man,’ she said disparagingly. ‘I just hope they’re not a picky lot, that’s all.’

‘Nobody could be picky over any of the food you cook,’ Mr Carlisle said loyally. ‘They are much more likely to be impressed, I should think.’

Mr Carlisle was right. He and Jerry heard the enthusiastic comments as those around the table were served first the pea and ham soup, then the roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and vegetables. The butler told the kitchen staff as he returned the dirty plates. Cook was pleased and relieved, and loaded up their trays with a feather-light lemon sponge, which was to be served with cream, and would be followed by a variety of cheeses, biscuits and coffee.

Lucy and Clodagh exchanged glances as the delicacies were carried out of the kitchen. Neither of them had been able to eat or drink anything as they would be going to midnight Mass, where they would take Communion, and Lucy’s stomach was protesting audibly.

Her hunger was forgotten, however, when just an hour or so after the coffee had been served, and with everything done, Clive popped into the kitchen. Clodagh, Lucy and Evie sprang to their feet, and he lifted his hand. ‘Sit where you are,’ he said. Then, addressing Cook, he went on, ‘I’ve just come to tell you what a marvel the Mattersons and Farandykes thought your food was, Ada. And you should have heard me singing your phrases as well.’

‘Well, thank you, Master Clive.’

‘Oh, praise where praise is due,’ Clive said. ‘And I am also here to stir the pudding for tomorrow. Did you think I had forgotten?’ As he turned to the watching girls he saw the undersized scullery maid again – Lucy Cassidy, that’s what his mother said she was called – and he smiled at her as he said, ‘I always have a stir of the pudding at Christmas and I make a wish, don’t I, Ada?’

‘Yes, Master Clive,’ Cook said, as she fetched the bowl. ‘But I didn’t know whether you would bother this year, with you being seventeen years old and all.’

‘Oh, yes, Christmas is all about tradition, isn’t it?’ Clive said. ‘I bet the girls have had a go.’

His radiant smile flashed over them all and they all nodded and then he leant forward and said, ‘And what did you wish for, little Lucy Cassidy?’

Clara’s eyebrows rose and her eyes met those of Cook, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug as if to say that Clive was a law unto himself.

Lucy blushed to the roots of her hair being addressed in such a manner by the son of the house. Since her interview with Lady Heatherington the day she had begun work she had never seen her again, nor even caught sight of the Master, but Clara had instructed her how to address any of the Family she might meet, and also warned her that none of the Family would address her in any way but by her surname. And now here was Master Clive using both her Christian name and her surname, and in quite a teasing manner.

However, since she thought the rudest thing in the world was not to answer a person who asked a question, she said, ‘I am unable to tell you what I wished for, Master Clive, because it might not come true then.’

‘Just a little whisper?’

Again there was that smile, but Lucy’s shake of her head was definite enough. ‘No, I’m sorry, Master Clive.’

Clive was amused by her answer and couldn’t explain to himself why he was so drawn to the child, and she was a child, only fourteen, and yet her size made her seem even younger than that. ‘It might not come true anyway,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

Lucy nodded. ‘Oh, yes, Master Clive, I know that,’ she said. ‘But I must give it every chance.’

‘That’s important, is it?’

But before Lucy was able to answer this, Cook broke in, ‘Master Clive, leave the girl alone. You are embarrassing her, can’t you see?’

He could see and he gave a rueful smile. ‘Apologies, Lucy Cassidy.’

There it was again – her full name.

Cook said, ‘Are you going to give this pudding a stir or aren’t you, now I have got it out especially?’

‘Of course,’ Clive said. ‘That’s one of the main reasons I came.’

‘Really?’ said Cook. ‘I thought the main reason was to harass and tease my kitchen staff.’

‘Oh, Ada, you are very harsh …’

Lucy listened to them sparring with each other with only half an ear because Clive’s question about her wish had brought her family to the forefront of her mind and suddenly she so longed to be there with them all. A pang of homesickness hit her so sharply she gave a slight gasp.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

Lucy realised they were all looking at her in a concerned way and it was Clara who had spoken. ‘Nothing,’ Lucy said. ‘Just a sudden pain in my stomach.’

‘Hunger, I expect,’ Clara said.

‘Hunger?’ Clive asked.

‘Well, the girls will have eaten nothing since their dinner as they will be taking Communion at midnight Mass.’

‘Why can’t they eat anything?’

‘I don’t know why, Master Clive. That’s just the way it is,’ Clara said. ‘And I really think now that you should return to your guests.’

‘Are you dismissing me, Mrs O’Leary?’

‘No, sir,’ Clara countered, ‘I am making a suggestion. I don’t want Lady Heatherington to complain to me in the morning.’

‘Nor I, especially on Christmas morning,’ Clive said. ‘I will see you all in the morning anyway, but I will say it regardless. Happy Christmas to all of you.’

‘Happy Christmas, Master Clive.’

Clive, leaving, almost collided with Norah coming through the door at the same moment. Once in the kitchen, she collapsed into a chair. ‘Golly,’ she said, ‘they’re an untidy lot. I thought our ladyship bad enough but she doesn’t hold a candle to these Mattersons and Farrandykes.’

Norah’s job was to help the ladies dress for dinner and do their hair, and then, while they were at dinner, tidy up all the mess in the bedrooms, leave out their nightwear and, this time of year, put the pottery hot-water bottles in the beds to warm the sheets.

‘Point is,’ she said, ‘they can’t decide what to wear and so they pull one outfit after another out of the wardrobe, and all the accessories that go with them, and then just drop them on the floor.’

Lucy nodded sympathetically, along with the others, for she could just imagine the scene.

Norah went on, ‘And do you know what Mrs Matterson said to me while I was doing her hair this evening?’ Without waiting for a reply, she continued, ‘She has her own personal maid, and I should imagine Mrs Farrandyke does, too, and when they knew they were coming here for Christmas and all, she gave her maid leave so that she could have Christmas with her family. I ask you! I mean, wouldn’t we all like that?’

Everyone agreed with Norah but no one said anything because at that moment Mr Carlisle, with Jerry, came through to the kitchen. Mr Carlisle disliked anyone criticising the Family in any way, and Lucy supposed he would view criticising guests to their home in the same way. She had actually heard him say that it was not seemly for lower orders to find fault with their betters. Lucy hadn’t been at all sure that she had wanted to be known as ‘lower orders’. It didn’t sound a very nice thing to be, and what made the General and Lady Heatherington better than her? They might have more money and influence, but did that automatically mean that they were better people?

She had mentioned these concerns to Clara, but she said she wasn’t to worry about it. Mr Carlisle had been with the family since he had been a boy and he was very old-fashioned in his viewpoint. Lucy supposed she was right, for Mr Carlisle was very old, his face was lined and his hair sparse, and she could never imagine him ever being a boy.

Cook was quite concerned about Lucy, Clodagh and Evie, who would be going out that raw night without even a hot drink inside them. When they returned from re-laying the table, she said, ‘I have plenty of that pea and ham soup left over and some of the beef joint, and fresh bread and pickles, so make sure you make a meal for yourselves when you come in.’

‘Oh, thank you, Cook,’ Lucy said. ‘And we will all appreciate it, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, I’ll say,’ Clodagh said. ‘I’m as hungry as a hunter already.’

‘So am I,’ Lucy agreed. ‘So just think how righteous we will feel when we are up at the rails.’

‘Aye,’ Cook said with a wry smile. ‘And maybe you can say a prayer for the rest of the sinners while you about it. The Good Lord may listen to saints like yourselves.’

Evie gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Hardly saints, Cook.’ The girls knew that Cook had been brought up a Catholic, but she had lapsed mainly because of the Great War, which robbed the Heatheringtons of three sons. ‘And they weren’t the only ones, by any means,’ Cook had told Clodagh and Lucy when they asked why she never went to Mass. ‘That war was dreadful, thousands and thousands of young men killed, like the one I was sweet on myself. I want no truck with any God who allows that sort of thing to go on.’

But now she said to the girls, ‘Don’t think I’m laying this food out for you because I am going soft in my old age. It’s just that I want plenty of work out of you tomorrow, and you’ll need stoking up before bed. You’ll hardly sleep well on an empty stomach.’

Lucy and Clodagh exchanged glances, but were wise enough not to say anything. Cook was very kind-hearted but she didn’t always want to let that side of her show.

Lucy had never been to midnight Mass, and was looking forward to it, though the frost was so thick it was like snow on the hedgerows and lanes, and biting winds buffeted the three girls. They shivered as they scurried as quickly as they could, their scarves wrapped around their mouths because the air was so cold that it burnt in their throats. The church was only slightly warmer, yet they were glad to reach it and be out of the wind, and they sighed with relief as they stepped into the porch.

‘Golly, it’s cold,’ Evie said, unwrapping her scarf. ‘Cold enough to freeze a penguin’s chuff, as my father was fond of saying.’

‘So what’s a penguin’s chuff when it’s at home?’ Clodagh asked.

‘Not sure,’ Evie admitted. ‘But I can guess, can’t you?’

‘Yeah, I can, and it’s probably not a thing to talk about in the porch of the church,’ Clodagh said.

‘Maybe not,’ Evie said, totally unabashed. With a large grin, she went on, ‘It’s certainly not the sort of thing I would say to a priest’. As they made their way down the aisle, she whispered, ‘Jerry said that it’s only this cold because the skies are clear of cloud and in the morning, when it’s properly light and the mist clears, it could be a nice day.’

‘Oh, Jerry,’ Lucy said contemptuously. ‘What does he know about anything?’

‘Not a lot, I grant you.’

‘He knows a fair bit about skiving from work,’ Clodagh said as they entered a pew and knelt down on the kneeling pads in front of them.

‘Oh, yeah, he’s a past master at that,’ Lucy said.

No one said anything to this because they were suddenly aware of someone in the church eyeing their chatter with disapproval. Lucy bowed her head in prayer. Suddenly, the strains of the organ could be heard and the congregation got to their feet. The priest in his colourful vestments, and two young altar boys dressed in red with pure white surplices, came out of the vestry and Mass began. Lucy loved the Mass in Advent because of the expectation in the air and the age-old carols to sing instead of the dirgy songs the priest often chose. The Advent candles burning above the altar reminded people what it was all about.

The priest, no doubt feeling the cold himself, cut Mass short, and soon the three girls were hurrying through the dark again and were all mightily grateful to reach the kitchen when the welcome heat hit them as soon as they opened the door. They attacked the food Cook had left out with relish.

‘That’s lovely,’ Clodagh cried. ‘I’ll be able to feel my hands and feet soon, no doubt.’

‘Yes, I’m starting to feel a bit more human again, too,’ said Evie. ‘Oh, and Happy Christmas to you both.’

‘Happy Christmas,’ Lucy and Clodagh replied together. They raised cups of tea in a toast, and though Lucy regretted her Christmas wish was not to come true she felt blessed to have found such good friends in her new life.

FIVE

None of the girls wanted to leave her bed early the next morning, but on Christmas morning there was more to do than usual. Lucy, with a sigh, began to dress quickly, for the cold was so intense her teeth were chattering. The family and their guests were going to church that morning, but before that all the servants were summoned to the library. Clara, Mr Carlisle, Cook, Jerry and Norah seemed to be expecting this, but the girls looked at each other in surprise.

‘It’s when they give us their presents,’ Clara whispered to Lucy.

Lucy’s mouth dropped agape. ‘Presents?’ she echoed. ‘They give us presents?’

‘Don’t look so surprised,’ Clara said. ‘It is Christmas Day.’

‘I know,’ Lucy said, ‘but somehow, I never associated it with presents and certainly not from the Family. I mean, presents are not much a part of the celebrations at home.’

Clodagh’s eyes were sad as she asked, ‘Did you not ever hang stockings for Santa to fill?’

‘When Daddy was alive and well enough to work we did,’ Lucy said. Her eyes were bleak as she went on, ‘He used to make everything more alive somehow. I used to think Christmas was magical and there was always something just lovely in my stocking that Santa had brought.’

‘I knew your father well,’ Clara said gently, ‘because he and my own husband were great friends. I know how fine a man he was.’

‘He was, yes,’ Lucy maintained, ‘though the younger ones can barely remember a time before he was sick and there was no money. Mammy used to try really hard to put a good meal on the table and, believe me, that was treat enough. I didn’t look for presents as well. Here I get all that, anyway. I am warm and well fed and don’t really have a need for anything else.’

Clara was very moved by Lucy’s words. In the household, she was the bottom of the heap, she worked long hours and the work was hard, especially for someone her size, and yet she never moaned and usually had a smile on her face. Lucy was content as few people are and Clara was glad that in the little card she would give her later, when she might get her on her own, she had put in five shillings.

They walked past the magnificent Christmas tree in the hall and they were told to enter. Lucy had her first glimpse of Lord Heatherington and she suddenly felt immensely sorry for him. She imagined that once he had been a fine, upstanding man, before his injuries had robbed him of his health and stripped the flesh from his bones.

She was unaware how expressive her face was, or that Lord Heatherington was amused by the little maid’s scrutiny – and she was a little maid. In fact, he thought, he had never seen such a small girl in his employ before and realised that she must be the scullery maid his son had referred to when he had asked Amelia how old she was.

Lucy, embarrassed that Lord Heatherington had seen her regarding him, averted her eyes and looked instead at Rory Green, who stood behind him. Then she glanced discreetly round to take in the others. Lady Heatherington was seated beside her husband, and a smiling Master Clive was on the other side. In front of them on the table were a selection of gifts, which Lady Heatherington and her son proceeded to dispense. Lucy bobbed a curtsy as Evie and Clodagh, who were in front of her, had, as she accepted the package Lady Heatherington gave her, and shook hands with Lord Heatherington. He said to each employee, ‘I hope you have a very happy Christmas Day.’

Lucy was the only one who answered him. ‘I hope you do, too, sir,’ she said. ‘I hope all of you have a good day.’ She heard Mr Carlisle’s hiss of annoyance and knew that she shouldn’t have spoken, just accepted the greeting, but it had slipped out automatically.

They all returned to the kitchen to open their packages, and though the butler glared at Lucy, it wasn’t the moment to upbraid her among all the bustle and excitement of present-opening.

Lucy had a set of six soft cotton hankies with yellow flowers all over them and trimmed with lace at the sides. She had never owned hankies and thought that ones like these were far too good just to wipe a person’s nose. She also had two pairs of black woollen stockings, which she knew would keep her legs warm all winter. Clodagh and Evie had the same. Jerry had hankies and three pairs of warm socks, but Mr Carlisle was given sparkling gold cuff links as well as the hankies and socks. Cook was given a shawl with a pretty brooch to fasten it, and Clara had a pretty pearl necklace.

Lucy, while admiring the presents of the butler, Cook and Mrs O’Leary, was more than pleased with hers, and the morning seemed to fly by because there was so much to be done. The servants’ dinner that day was stupendous – that was really the only word to describe it, Lucy thought.

Mr Carlisle agreed. ‘Ada,’ he said, ‘you have excelled yourself.’

Lucy had never heard Mr Carlisle address Cook as anything other than ‘Mrs Murphy’ before, and her eyes widened, especially when she saw Cook’s cheeks look more crimson that they did when she bent to withdraw something from the range oven.

She looked across to Clodagh, who winked in response, as Cook, almost simpering, said, ‘It’s very nice of you to say that, James.’

‘I’m only saying what everyone around this table is thinking,’ the butler said. ‘Isn’t that right?’

There was a murmur of agreement to this. Then the butler got to his feet, for he had to see if the male guests needed help getting dressed for dinner, and Jerry followed him. Norah had to do the same, for her Mistress and the female guests, and Lucy had to start on the mountain of washing up.

‘What was up with old Carlisle at dinner?’ Clodagh whispered as she passed Lucy.

‘I don’t know,’ Lucy said. ‘But I have heard him praise Cook before. He likes his food, does Mr Carlisle.’

‘Yeah, but I have never heard him call Cook “Ada” before. He’s had a little bit of the Christmas spirit, if you ask me’ Clodagh grinned. ‘I think he has been on the bottle.’

‘No!’ Lucy said, shocked.

‘Well, he keeps a bottle of whisky in his pantry,’ Clodagh said, knowledgeably. ‘Jerry told me.’

Lucy couldn’t quite believe it. The butler was so prim and proper. ‘Huh,’ she said, ‘I would take anything Jerry said with a pinch of salt.’

However, both girls had forgotten to lower their voices sufficiently and Cook shouted across the kitchen in a caustic tone, ‘I hate to break up the conversation or anything, but there is work to be done and I have no intention of doing it on my own.’

‘Sorry, Cook,’ Clodagh said, crossing to join her, and Lucy resumed washing the pots, deep in thought.

The staff were more or less free for the rest of the day because Lady Heatherington said after such a dinner a cold buffet would be all they would need to eat later.

‘So, what shall we all do with our time off?’ Clodagh asked.

‘Well, it’s not the weather for the walk, that’s certain,’ Norah said, crossing to the window. The early morning sun had long gone and, despite Jerry’s predictions of a fine day, the rain was coming down in sheets.

‘Well,’ said Cook, sinking into her chair with a grateful sigh, ‘I can think of nothing nicer than a snooze.’

‘No, no, Ada,’ Mr Carlisle said. ‘We can’t sleep away Christmas Day.’

‘Don’t see why not,’ Cook said truculently, just as Norah said, ‘We used to play blind man’s buff and charades on Christmas Day in Maxted Hall, didn’t we? Jerry, you must remember?’

‘Do you always have Christmas afternoon off then?’ Lucy asked.

Cook nodded. ‘Yes, but then it was usually only the family for Christmas: Lady Heatherington’s parents and some elderly aunts. But the aunts died and then her ladyship’s parents, too, just a year or so before the Master was injured. I always used to think it was a pity it wasn’t the Master’s mother who died, and I know that’s wicked of me but she is one body’s work.’

‘She is,’ agreed Norah. ‘And so bad-tempered.’

‘So where is she now?’

‘She is in this sort of rest home,’ Cook said. ‘She wanted to come here with the family, but her ladyship put her foot down. She said that she had enough on her plate with his lordship so ill, and then when he was discharged from hospital and they said he needed peace and quiet she knew that he would get little of that with his mother about.’

‘Between me, you and the gatepost that was one of the reasons she came so far away,’ Norah said.

‘I don’t think we should be discussing Lord and Lady Heatherington in this manner,’ Mr Carlisle said. ‘And certainly not in front of the younger girls.’

‘Oh, don’t be so stuffy, James,’ Cook said sharply. ‘We are doing no harm, and it is as well to warn them. They may well come across her yet, for we will not be in Ireland for ever. Anyway,’ she said, turning to Lucy, ‘that answers your question. Because the Master and Mistress have guests this Christmas, I didn’t know whether we would be given the time off or not, but I made things that could be served cold just in case and isn’t it a good job I did.’

‘Yes,’ Norah said. ‘It means that we can play blind man’s buff.’

‘Oh, do it if you want to,’ Cook said resignedly. ‘I suppose we will get no peace else, but don’t anyone try and blindfold me. I’m too old for such things but I will watch the rest of you.’

And so she did, and Mr Carlisle and Rory Green sat with her while Jerry, Norah, Clodagh, Evie and Lucy enjoyed themselves so much so that in the end even Clara and Mr Carlisle took a turn. Lucy watched the butler playing the fool with the others and wondered if Jerry was right after all and he had taken a drop of whisky, for he was not acting at all like the butler she had become accustomed to. She remembered describing him on her visit home and saying that everything had to be just so, and he sat and walked so straight it was like he had a poker up inside him. Minnie hadn’t approved of the analogy but the children had been laughing so much she hadn’t had the heart to correct her. Well, Mr Carlisle’s poker had slipped somewhat that afternoon and Lucy stored everything up to tell them all on her next visit.

She felt a stab of shame as she realised that, despite her wish, she would rather be here in the servants’ hall, warm, dry and well fed and having fun with friends, than home in that cheerless cold kitchen trying not to eat too much so that the others could eat more.

After a huge supper, the evening ended with songs from the music hall that the Irish girls didn’t know, though they soon picked up the choruses, and then carols they all joined in with.

‘Been a good day, though, hasn’t it?’ Evie said later as they got ready for bed.

‘Oh, yes, the best,’ Clodagh replied.

Lucy agreed as well because though she had enjoyed Christmas when her father had been alive and well, those had been childhood Christmases and she knew she was fast growing out of childhood. Her toes curled in anticipation as she wondered what the future held for her.

Once the visitors had gone home, Cook said they would more than likely see more of Clive because, she told the three girls, Clive had hung about the kitchen since he had been a young boy.

‘Lady Heatherington didn’t like him doing it, didn’t think it suitable, and maybe it wasn’t, but to tell you the truth I often felt sorry for him. He lacked company his own age and when he was sent away to school, though he might have been homesick at first, at least there were boys there his own age, and he did settle to it in the end.’

She was silent for a minute or two and then went on, ‘I should imagine he didn’t like the holidays that much because the nanny left when he went to school and so in the holidays there was no one to see to him or take him places. His father bought him a pony and, when he’d learnt to ride it, he used to ride out with the groom every day, but there were still a lot of hours to fill and what he did most times was hang about the house.’

‘I can’t imagine what it would be like to be all on my own, especially in a great big house like this,’ Lucy said.

‘Well, the house in England is bigger than this one,’ Cook said. ‘So when he would sneak into the kitchen I would turn a blind eye and often found him a wee job to do, and I would always find him something tasty to eat.

‘Sometimes Lady Heatherington’s friend Lady Sybil Ponsomby would call with Jessica, her spoilt daughter. Master Clive would find himself landed with her, and a fine madam she was. Wanted her own way in everything and Clive, who always hated unpleasantness, would give in to her. He brought her into the kitchen a time or two, but it was obvious, though she was only a girl, that she thought us all beneath her and I was relieved when Clive stopped bringing her.’

‘Did Master Clive mind playing with her?’ Lucy asked.

‘Don’t think he was that fussed, to be honest, but course he couldn’t say anything,’ Cook said. ‘And the mothers were all for them getting on. But for all her mother is a good-enough-looking woman, by all accounts, the daughter, Jessica, has no beauty to speak off. Proper plain Jane, she is.’

‘Never?’ Clodagh said.

‘Yes, she is,’ Cook maintained with a definite nod of the head. ‘Of course I saw it myself when she was a child, but I thought she might have improved, but the housemaid used to serve tea to the Mistress when the Ponsombys came to call and she said she got no better. I could never understand it.’

‘What a shame,’ Lucy said. ‘Still, I suppose that didn’t bother Master Clive, and I suppose this girl Jessica was better company than no one at all.’

‘Maybe,’ Cook said, ‘but there is no Jessica here now and Master Clive will be along before either of us are much older, you’ll see.’

Cook was right. The following morning, Clive sidled in to lean against the cupboard. He ran his finger around the mixing bowl on the counter and pinched a couple of cakes from the cooling trays. Cook’s lips pursed, but both Lucy and Clodagh knew that she wasn’t really cross and there was no snap in her voice when she said, ‘Master Clive, if you keep on, I’ll cut your fingers off.’

‘You know, Ada, you have been saying that as long as I can remember.’ Clive, a twinkle in his eyes, suddenly leapt forward, grabbed Cook around her waist and planted a kiss on her cheek.

Cook was flustered. ‘Oh, give over, do, Master Clive.’

‘Ah,’ Clive said, pulling Cook even closer. ‘You know you love me really.’

Cook’s face was flushed crimson to the roots of her hair. Lucy was astounded and so, she saw, was Clodagh.

‘You should have seen her, Evie,’ Lucy said when they reached the safety of their room very late that night. ‘Bright red, she was. Golly, just imagine what she would do to me and Clodagh if we behaved half as bad.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Clodagh. ‘But he is the master’s son, don’t forget, and one that Cook has obviously got a soft spot for.’

‘Oh, that’s as plain as the nose on your face,’ Evie said. ‘Real favourite, he is, I’d say. And I tell you what, I wouldn’t complain if he gave me a big kiss on the cheek.’

‘Evie!’

‘What? It’s not likely to happen, is it?’ Evie said. ‘But he is devilishly handsome, don’t you think?’

‘I think he is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,’ Lucy said simply.

Evie hooted with laughter. ‘You don’t call a man beautiful! Anyway you are far too young to be thinking of things like that.’

‘Leave her alone,’ Clodagh said. ‘She’s only expressing an opinion, and he is nice-looking and seems to have a soft spot for you as well, Lucy.’

‘He hasn’t,’ Lucy protested. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, look how he was just before Christmas,’ Clodagh said. ‘Calling you by your full name and all.’

‘Yeah,’ Evie added. ‘And he watches you all the time and smiles at you a lot.’

‘He smiles at everyone,’ Lucy said. ‘He’s just a smiley person.’

‘No,’ Evie said. ‘He definitely has a soft spot for you.’

Lucy blushed and Clodagh said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Lucy. The gentry don’t usually bother with the likes of us and our Master Clive will probably be just the same when he has grown up a bit. Just now you probably amuse him because you are so small for your age.’

The girls weren’t the only ones to notice Clive’s attention to Lucy, for he visited the kitchen at least once a day and he always had some word to say on a teasing note to Lucy in particular. She was well aware that Mr Carlisle didn’t like special notice taken of a girl on the bottom rung of the ladder, but she didn’t see what she could do to stop him. If she was honest she didn’t want to stop him because he disturbed her in a way no man or boy had ever done before – not that she’d had that much experience in that department. But with Master Clive she only had to see him, or hear his voice, and she would start to tingle all over.

There were no festivities planned for New Year. Rory told them that though Lord Heatherington had enjoyed the visit of the Mattersons and the Farandykes, he had been exhausted after their departure. In deference to that, the staff’s own celebrations for the coming of 1936 were muted. As for Lucy, she was quite dispirited because the harsh winter weather that held the North of Ireland in such an iron grip meant that she was unable to go home in January when the rails were too coated with ice for the rail buses to run. She was especially disappointed because as well as her wages she had the five shillings that Clara had given to her on Christmas Day, and she had thought at the time that she would use it to buy some little things for all of them in Letterkenny, but the weather had been too bad to allow her to go there either.

She was thinking about this one day in early January as she scrubbed the steps up to the front door when she was startled as the door suddenly opened and Clive stood there, illuminated in the threshold for a moment. He was dressed in riding gear and appeared annoyed to see her on her hands and knees scrubbing away.

He knew that she must have started before it was light because the black winter’s night was only just turning into the gloom of a grey pearly winter dawn. It was also so cold that whispery breath escaped from his mouth as he said, ‘Lucy why don’t you go inside, now? They say it will snow later, which is why I want to get my ride in early, so all your work will be in vain, and what’s more it’s bitterly cold.’

‘It’s all right, sir,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m used to it.’ She spoke the truth and just then she wasn’t cold, for the proximity of Clive Heatherington had caused the heat to flow through her body in a very odd way.

Her words, though, seemed to irritate Clive. ‘This is nonsense,’ he said as he took her elbow to encourage her to her feet. ‘Get inside, little Lucy. Whatever you say it is far too cold for you to be out like this. If anyone complains tell them to come to me.’ Their eyes suddenly met and it was as if they locked together. Lucy was unable to tear her gaze away and then, without any warning, Clive bent his head and kissed her cheek.

She gasped and put her hand to the place he had kissed, which seemed to burn under her fingers as he bounded down the rest of the steps. She returned to the house in a sort of daze as she recalled his eyes so intense and deep blue that she’d felt as if she were drowning in them. She knew she would tell no one of the encounter. She wanted that memory all to herself.

When he came into the kitchen later that day, though, Lucy was at first very embarrassed, but Master Clive was just as normal so she was soon as relaxed as much as she ever was when he was around. Not that he was around much longer, because just a few days later he returned to school. Lucy knew it would be a duller kitchen without the possibility of Master Clive’s visits.

Adding to the despondency of them all was the snow. It began in earnest the day that Clive left and fell so thickly that the Lodge was virtually cut off.

‘I know we always have snow, but I can never remember it like this,’ Clara said to Lucy one day when the snow reached halfway to the windowsills.

It was the evening before Lucy should have seen her family in Mountcharles, but no one had been able to leave the grounds. Though the gardener had made valiant attempts to clear the drives, as soon as he had, the unrelenting snow covered them again.

‘I’ve never seen it this bad either,’ Lucy said to Clara. ‘But I had never been as far as Letterkenny before.’

Clara nodded. ‘You’re right, of course, and yet I should have given it some thought, for we are quite a lot further north. Do you mind very much?’

Lucy did mind, but she reasoned it was no good saying that to Clara, for she could hardly do anything about it. ‘Well, it’s not just me, is it?’ she said. ‘Clodagh and Evie can’t go home either.’

‘It is good too to see that you are being so mature about this,’ Clara replied. ‘And I am glad to see that you get on so well with the other two girls. It is what you needed, friends of more or less your age.’

Even royalty, it seemed, was not immune to the rigours and dangers of the extreme cold, and the English King George died on 20 January. It was reported on the wireless and Rory told them all about it as they sat having their evening meal.

‘So his son Edward will be the new king, then?’ Clara said, wrinkling her nose in disapproval.

Rory shrugged. ‘Seems so.’

Lucy had seen the expression on Clara’s face. ‘Don’t you want this Edward to be king?’ she asked, wondering why she or any other ordinary person should care who was on the throne, because it would hardly change their lives in any way.

‘He likes the Germans too much,’ Clara said.

‘Yeah, and a murdering lot of buggers they are.’

‘Mrs Murphy!’ Mr Carlisle exclaimed outraged.

Cook gave a defiant toss of her head as she went on, ‘You can say what you like and be as shocked as you like as well, but I’ll say it again, the Germans are buggers and murdering buggers into the bargain. Look what they have done to this family. Three sons, they’ve lost, and if that isn’t enough to make someone swear then I don’t know what is.’

‘That’s not the point—’ Mr Carlisle began primly.

But Cook cut him off: ‘Oh, yes, it is exactly the bloody point, Mr Carlisle, and I don’t want a king of this country to be friends with a nation that started a war that stripped England of thousands and thousands of fit young men.’

‘She’s right,’ Norah said. ‘Madame said something similar. And then there’s that Wallis Simpson that Edward is always seen with.’

‘Who’s she?’ Lucy asked.

‘Some American heiress,’ Norah said, ‘and a divorcee, into the bargain.’

‘Well, he will have to give her up if he is to take up the crown,’ Clara said. ‘We could hardly have a divorced American called Queen Wallis sharing it, can we now?’

The three young girls giggled, for it was just too ridiculous, but there was no time to talk further then because Cook had jobs for them all. The topic of the succession didn’t go away, and as time passed it seemed the staff at Windthorpe Lodge were not the only ones to be concerned, especially as the new king continued his association with Wallis Simpson, who seemed to like the Germans even more than he did.

A month or so later there was news closer to home. Rory told them that the General had been more active since Christmas and had taken a few steps up and down his room. ‘He wants to walk outdoors really,’ Rory said. ‘He is an outdoor sort of person. Course, I know he is really hankering to get back on a horse.’

‘Oh,’ Mr Carlisle said, his thin mouth pursed in disapproval. ‘Do you think that wise?’

Rory gave a rueful grin. ‘No one really thought he would make it at all at first, not realising what a fighter he is and, as he said to me, it was no good him hanging on to his life if that life was to be played out in his bedroom and his only means of getting about was being pushed in a wheelchair. He says he wants to feel the grass under his feet and the wind in his hair,’ Rory said.

‘Well, he may get his wish,’ Mr Carlisle said. ‘There is definitely a thaw on the way.’

Mr Carlisle was right. The icicles that had hung from the windows had melted away and the frost no longer gilded the hedgerows and covered the lawns. Streams had begun to run freely again. The snow that had fallen had melted into soiled and slushy dark grey lumps and there was the sound of dripping water everywhere and a feeling of dampness in the air.

Rory nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘He wants to be really well when Master Clive comes home again in the summer, for they won’t have all that long together because Master Clive starts his European tour in early July.’

Lucy, though knowing that when Mr Carlisle was at the table, the three younger girls were not to speak unless addressed directly, was surprised enough to burst out, ‘European tour?’

Mr Carlisle glared at her, but before he could deliver one of his scathing remarks, Clara said, ‘A lot of young men from this type of establishment do this kind of thing before they go off to university.’

‘Oh,’ Lucy cried. ‘Wouldn’t that be just wonderful, to see lots of other countries?’

‘Whether it would or not, Cassidy, is no concern of yours,’ Mr Carlisle snapped. ‘Kindly attend to your breakfast.’

Lucy obediently bent her head over her food, but she wasn’t too bothered about Mr Carlisle. She hadn’t much to do with him really. She was always careful not to offend Cook or Clara, though, and Clodagh gave her a furtive kick under the table in sympathy. However, Lucy listened avidly to the adventures planned for Master Clive so that she could tell her family the next time she visited.

It was early March before she was able to go home and then, as the Cassidys sat down after Mass to a bacon and egg breakfast courtesy of Mrs Murphy, they listened to Lucy’s tale.

‘So where is he going?’ Danny asked. ‘I mean, what countries?’

‘I’ll hardly remember them all,’ Lucy said, her brow furrowing as she tried to recall what Rory and Mr Carlisle had said. ‘It will be France first – I do know that – and Spain, and they are due to go to Italy, too, but course, the main country they will be heading for is Germany.’

‘Why’s that then?’ Danny asked

‘Because of the Olympic Games.’

‘And what’s that when it’s all about?’ Minnie asked.

Lucy gave a secret smile of satisfaction because she hadn’t known a thing about it until Clara explained it.

‘It’s a special games where one country can compete against others in all sorts of sports and all the people who compete have got to be amateurs. That means they can’t get paid for it,’ she went on, knowing that ‘amateur’ was a word that they wouldn’t be familiar with. ‘And they pick three winners for each event, the first one gets a gold medal and the one who comes second has a silver one and there is a bronze for the athlete in third place. Lots of countries join in and it’s held every four years. Each country sort of takes it in turns to put it on and this year it’s Germany’s turn.’

‘Well, you seem to know all about it, at least,’ Minnie said, ‘though I doubt it will make any difference to our lives.’

‘Nor mine,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But they all talk about it round the table and that, and you can’t help listening. It all began because Rory was saying that the Master – you know, the General – wanted to be well enough to spend some time with Master Clive before he sets off on this trip.’

‘Isn’t he an invalid?’

‘Well, he was when I got there first,’ Lucy said. ‘He spent a lot of time in his room and only came down for meals, and then Rory had to carry him down.’

‘So is he getting better now?’ Danny asked.

Lucy told her family that the General had confounded doctors by getting to his feet and started the long process of learning to walk again. ‘Course, I don’t know how much better he will get, but Rory said his ambition is to be able to ride horses again.’ She shrugged and went on, ‘He might never be able to ride again, for all his determination, but Rory said that he has made greater strides since the great freeze ended and he has been able to get outside in the fresh air.’

‘Well, that would make anyone feel better, especially after being cooped up in a room for a long time,’ Minnie said. ‘Anyway, we have some news of our own. Tell Lucy about it, Dan.’

‘I have got a job as well,’ Danny said. ‘Or at least I had a job through the winter.’

Lucy had sensed in the house a small ease of the extreme poverty that she had experienced before she left. It was such a slight shift that anyone else might not have noticed it, but it was there and she thought that it might have been her money or maybe Clara’s gift portioned out that had made the difference and now it seemed that ease in the house was due to Danny’s endeavours. She was irritated and couldn’t really understand why.

‘How can you have a job when you are still at school?’ she demanded.

‘It’s weekends,’ Danny said. ‘I work for Farmer Haycock. I went and asked him if he had any jobs I could do.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘Well, he keeps lots of horses, as you know, and they weren’t getting any exercise with the ground so hard and they had to be taken out into the yard, but first I had to use boiling water to melt the ice coating the yard and a really stiff brush ’cos there can’t be the slightest bit of ice that the horses might slip on. Then I have to lead them out one by one and walk them round and round and then clean out their stalls. Farmer Haycock showed me how to make a bran mash for them and I must always make sure their drinking water is not iced over. Then I have to groom them, put the blankets back over them and clean all the tack. He says I am a natural with the horses, like Dad was with cows, and he gives me five bob a week.’

‘Five shillings!’ Lucy cried, thinking life was unfair when she worked much longer hours for not much more. ‘Still,’ she said, ‘I get all my meals thrown in.’

‘I do too,’ Danny said. ‘Haycock’s wife gives me a big feed in the kitchen at dinnertime, with pudding and everything, and a few sandwiches to take home for my tea. And if we didn’t eat all the pudding she lets me take that home as well for the others. Point is, though, that job might have come to an end now the ice has thawed. I mean, I went up yesterday and there was no ice in the yard and when I said you were coming home today Haycock said to have the day off. So I only got half a crown, and he might not want me at all next weekend. I will go up and see, though. Maybe there will be something else. He says he will employ me to get the harvest in later in the year and pay me a proper wage so that’s something to look forward to.’

Lucy was thoroughly ashamed of her annoyance at Danny getting any sort of job. All he was trying to do was help their mother and his siblings. Her mother looked better than Lucy had seen her in years, and she knew that, though Minnie was still very poor, Lucy’s own contribution, and the added extra from Danny, had removed the worry from her mind that they might starve to death or be taken to the poorhouse. That alone had made her look better. The clothes from Clara had made a difference too. Lucy was quite surprised to see that with more food, less strenuous work and more money to dress nicely and look after herself better, her mother could look quite pretty.

SIX

After such a ferocious winter, the spring was a good one, and Easter, in the second week of April, was almost balmy. Lucy had hoped that Master Clive might be home for the holidays, but Clara told her that as the exams for his Higher School Certificate started not that long after Easter, he was staying with a schoolfriend in England where they were having extra revision lessons. ‘And, I believe, seeing quite a lot of the Ponsombys, or probably, I should say, it is Jessica Ponsomby he is interested in visiting.’

A totally unreasonable and unexpected stab of jealousy shot through Lucy as she said, ‘Cook told me about her. She says she’s a spoilt madam.’

Clara’s lips nipped together in annoyance. ‘Cook has a slack mouth at times,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know that she has seen that much of Miss Jessica to make such statements. Anyway, people change. The Ponsombys are old friends of the Heatheringtons. Norah told me that Lady Ponsomby had lost a son in the Great War, and when she learnt that Lady Amelia had lost sons as well, it was like a bond shared between them. Jessica is a year younger than Clive and their mothers have high hopes of them.’

‘High hopes?’

‘Yes,’ Clara said. ‘To marry. It really would be eminently sensible.’ And she added, ‘With her brother dead, Miss Jessica will inherit everything when her father dies, and she will also have a sizeable settlement when she is married. Sometimes the size of a dowry is better than a pretty face.’

Lucy was quite shocked. She had naïvely thought that you married someone you loved, who could easily not be that eminently sensible or very rich, but your choice at least. However, she was too miserable to say any of this. She knew that people like those she worked for often had different ways of doing things and this choosing someone who was eminently sensible to marry was just another indication of that.

As spring slid into a mild summer, Lord Heatherington got astride a horse again and Rory told them he had been like a dog with two tails. There was also no problem with Lucy going home every month, and, though she looked forward to it, she was always concerned by how much her siblings seemed to change each time and what little part she had in their lives now.

This was more or less confirmed when Liam made his first Holy Communion in late June.

‘It isn’t even that I can’t be there,’ she complained to Clodagh. ‘I mean, I would like to be there, it is a special day, but I am more upset by the fact that he more or less expected that I wouldn’t make it. He wasn’t the tiniest bit upset, like it didn’t matter to him one way or the other.’

‘Did you want him to be upset?’ Clodagh asked. ‘Would it have made you feel better if he was breaking his heart crying over it because you couldn’t be there, however upset he was?’

‘I know,’ Lucy said resignedly. ‘And no, I suppose that I don’t want him upset, of course I don’t. It’s just …’

‘Lucy, it would be the same if you were married and lived a distance away.’

‘I don’t want to be married,’ Lucy said. ‘Do you?’

‘Not likely,’ Clodagh said. ‘Well, not yet, anyway. Good job really, because where do we go to meet any men or boys?’

‘We go to Mass.’

‘Well, I’ve seen no likely looking chaps there, have you?’

‘No,’ Lucy said with a smile. ‘But then I haven’t been looking.’

‘Haven’t you?’ Clodagh asked. ‘You probably will in a year or two, but I wouldn’t waste your time looking in Letterkenny. And then if you found a boy you fancied, you would have no time to see him.’

‘Does that bother you?’

‘No, at the moment it doesn’t,’ Clodagh said. ‘But I’m definitely not going to stay in service for ever. For now, though, there is going to be a bit of excitement for us because Master Clive will be home next week.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Lucy said, ‘I had almost forgotten that.’ She blushed as she spoke because she knew exactly when Clive was expected home. The date seemed to be engraved on her heart.

Clodagh hadn’t noticed Lucy’s blushes, and she went on, ‘I wonder what Master Clive will make of his father’s progress. Neither the Master nor the Mistress has told him in letters or anything because Rory said the Master wanted it to be a total surprise.’

‘It will be a surprise all right,’ Lucy said. ‘Or maybe shock is a better word, because didn’t Rory say that the Master was trotting round on his horse the other day as if he’d never been out of the saddle?’

‘He did,’ Clodagh said. ‘He did indeed.’

Clive was indeed shocked, but also delighted to see his father so well. The first thing they did was go for a ride together. Word of this soon reached the kitchen and everyone was pleased. Clara had seen them both ride out together and said that it filled her heart with joy to see Lord Heatherington almost returned to the man he had once been. Aware of the short time he would have alone with his parents before his travelling companions arrived, Clive rode with his father every day and was also an amusing companion at the dinner table in the evening.

When his three friends arrived the house became instantly more alive and vibrant, and the kitchen a far busier place. They all seemed to have voracious appetites, and after dinner on the first day they insisted on being introduced to the cook who had produced the delicious food they had just enjoyed. They almost burst into the kitchen, and though Lucy thought they all seemed so nice, friendly and smiling, she was suddenly overcome by shyness. She retreated to the scullery and watched from the door.

She saw that Clive was his usual amusing self, putting his arm around Cook as he introduced her.

‘This is the one responsible for all the culinary delights you have just enjoyed, and will, I promise you, continue to enjoy, for she is the best cook in the world and she answers to the name of Ada, Ada Murphy.’

A young man with a shock of black curls and dark eyes, whom Clive introduced as Colin Braithwaite, shook hands with Cook and said, ‘Mrs Murphy, I have to say every mouthful I have eaten so far has been exquisite.’

Cook’s face was as red as a ripe tomato. ‘Oh, sir,’ she cried, ‘you’re too … too …’

‘He’s not too anything,’ said another young man, who was slight of build and had sandy hair and eyes a sort of hazel colour. ‘Exquisite is exactly the right word.’ He also took Cook’s hand. ‘My name is Phillip Banister and I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs Murphy, and I know my friend Mathew will agree. Likes his grub, does Mathew Mainwaring.’

Mathew was as broad as Phillip was skinny. His dark brown eyes twinkled as he said to Cook, ‘I’ll say so, Mrs Murphy. In fact, I can’t ever remember a time that I have eaten better.’

Cook recovered herself enough to say, ‘You’re so kind, young sirs.’

‘Not at all,’ Colin said. ‘Credit where credit’s due and all that.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Mathew put in. ‘Clive is always saying what a treasure you are.’

‘And was I right, or was I right?’ Clive laughed.

‘You were right,’ chorused his grinning friends.

‘And you know what they say?’ Clive continued, putting an arm around Ada’s ample waist. ‘Never trust a thin cook.’

‘Master Clive,’ Ada remonstrated, though Lucy knew that she wasn’t cross at all but really enjoying every minute of it. Cook introduced the young men to Clodagh, Jerry and Mr Carlisle. Clive’s eyes, meanwhile, were raking her kitchen and he suddenly walked quickly to the scullery. Lucy had dodged back when she realised Clive had caught sight of her and she was just about to plunge her hands into a sink full of hot water and pots when Clive drew her out into the kitchen by the hand. His attention sent a tingle up her arm and all through her body, bringing a tinge of crimson to her cheeks that, had she but known it, made her even more attractive.

‘This,’ Clive said, as he drew Lucy along behind him, ‘is the scullery maid, Lucy Cassidy. And in case you think my parents are involved in child labour, for all Lucy’s size, she assures us she is fourteen.’

Cook saw Lucy’s flushed face and said, ‘Shame on you, Master Clive. Lucy doesn’t like the constant reference to her size, which she can do little about, as much as I don’t like being referred to as fat.’

‘Sorry,’ Clive mumbled, though Lucy saw the spark of mischief was still there behind his eyes. ‘No offence intended. And, Ada, if you were any slimmer, who would I put my arms around when I came home?’

‘Master Clive,’ Cook said, and there was a steely tone to her voice, ‘I suggest you take your guests out of the kitchen before I feel the urge to wrap the rolling pin around your neck.’

‘I think a tactical withdrawal is best,’ Clive said, but he planted a kiss on Cook’s cheek before turning to his friends. ‘Let’s leave these good people to have a well-earned rest after all their hard work, and return to my father before he has drunk all the port.’

The kitchen seemed a duller place when they had gone, and Lucy couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy that Master Clive and his friends seemed to live in a different world from her.

The house was a much noisier place suddenly, with boots ringing on the stairs or sudden guffaws of laughter emanating from one or other of the young men. They never seemed to stay still a moment. As they all liked to ride, Lord Heatherington hired mounts for them. Lucy loved the regal stance of them as they led the horses down the drive, but to her there was no nicer sight than that of them all galloping over the hills.

‘Those young men seem to enjoy everything,’ Mr Carlisle said one day, bringing back empty plates. ‘Though their manners are impeccable and they are respectful, there is more fun and laughter around the table at luncheon or dinner than I have ever seen. They are a tonic to have in the house.’

Lucy and the rest of the kitchen staff saw a lot of Clive and his friends, for, despite the sumptuous and very satisfying meals that were offered to them three times a day, they were forever on the scrounge between times. Cook said she had never cooked so many cakes and biscuits and scones in her life before, and Clara added hefty slabs of fruit bread to her tasty tea-time pastries. Cook was convinced that the lads either had worms or hollow legs, but despite the extra work, everyone in the household appeared happier. The young men were always very appreciative as well as being full of fun and ready for a good laugh, often at themselves. With the kitchen staff, they took their lead from Clive and, as he singled out Lucy and Cook, they did the same. Though Lucy often blushed to the roots of her hair and sometimes protested, secretly she enjoyed the extra attention.

The time when the boys would leave for their European tour drew closer. They were so excited it was hard not to get caught up in it, though everyone knew that when they left they would be missed. In the relatively short time they had been at Windthorpe Lodge, they had made an impression on everyone.

‘Even the Mistress liked them,’ Norah said. ‘Said to me that it was gratifying to see that Master Clive has such nice friends and it has eased her mind about him going abroad with them.’

Lord and Lady Heatherington were going with them as far as the port in Belfast. The morning they left in two taxis, all the staff came to wave them off. As they returned to the kitchen, Mr Carlisle declared, ‘Well, that’s that, and for many weeks. Now our lives can get back on an even keel.’

Lucy stared at him but didn’t dare say a word. In bed that night, she said to Clodagh and Evie, ‘Don’t know about you but I think an even keel is a very dull and dreary place to be.’ With heartfelt sighs the other two girls agreed.

They all looked forward to the postcards, which began to arrive not long after the boys reached France on 10 July. The first was a view of the French countryside with a message scrawled across it: ‘Parts of Northern France are very flat. Can see now why a lot of the Great War was fought in trenches.’

‘He doesn’t say much,’ Clodagh said, ‘but then I suppose he writes to his parents as well.’

‘What we need is some sort of board to fasten them to,’ Rory said. ‘I’ll have a look round and see if I can find anything that will do.’

He was as good as his word. By the time Clive’s next card arrived, the board was in place and Mr Carlisle bought a map of Europe, which he pinned up beside the cards. The second card carried a picture of Lyons and Clive wrote that they had intended to travel to Spain next but were advised not to as there was trouble brewing there.

‘I wonder what the trouble is in Spain?’ Cook said, with a worried frown.

‘I shouldn’t let it bother you,’ Mr Carlisle said. ‘These Latin countries are very hot-headed and trouble is never that far away. Spain has had periods of unrest for years.’

The next postcard was from Lombardy, on the borders of Switzerland, and featured beautiful, snow-covered mountains that Mr Carlisle told them were called Alps. Lucy felt she would give her eyeteeth just to get a glimpse of those mountains.

However, by the time Clive and his friends sent the postcard from Prague, the trouble in Spain had erupted into civil war. He didn’t mention it, but Mr Carlisle said English newspapers might be difficult to find.

The news about Spain got worse. Cook said some war in far-off Spain was nothing to do with them and they had to let the Spanish get over it in their own time and in their own way. She was just glad that Master Clive and his friends, now ensconced in Berlin, were miles away, according to Mr Carlisle’s map. As they waited for the Olympic Games to start, they went out and about in the city and so the first postcards showed the Berlin Cathedral, a spectacular edifice, the elegant and embellished bridges over the River Spree, the wide thoroughfares, colonnaded and castellated buildings. When the Games began, however, although they still received postcards of the stadium itself and others of the tiered amphitheatre beside it, the messages had changed. Instead of explaining what the things were in this city that Clive originally thought so wonderful, they were cryptic sentences: ‘Things aren’t always what they seem’ or, ‘I have never seen so many soldiers, and all with serious faces. I think we are entering worrying times.’

No one knew what to make of what he seemed to be trying to say. The Games drew to a close and the postcards ceased.

It was a surprise to everyone when, a few days later, Clive arrived back home. Gone was the carefree youth that had travelled out with such enthusiasm.

He asked to speak with both his parents immediately, and barely had they reached the sitting room before Charles said, ‘What went wrong, son? You were supposed to stay in Europe until the university term was due to begin.’

‘I know that, Father,’ Clive answered, ‘but things happened in Germany that have changed everything for me and my friends.’

‘Well, I will say the tone of the last letters you wrote was quite worrying,’ Amelia said. What do you mean when you say that things have changed for you?’

‘Well, for a start I don’t want go to university just now.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘I feel there is something more important that I can and must do.’ Clive looked from one to the other of his parents, but it was his father he addressed. ‘Berlin is a beautiful city, the home to many wonderful buildings and sculptures, and some of their churches are magnificent. The German people are always considered cultured and erudite. Isn’t that so?’

‘Yes,’ Charles said. ‘That’s what many believe.’

‘Well, we all saw a different Germany,’ Clive went on. ‘There is a definite air of menace in the streets, and soldiers, many of them dressed like storm troopers, are everywhere.’

‘Wasn’t that just to keep order?’ Amelia asked. ‘You know, with so many people coming in to see the Games?’

‘No, Mother,’ Clive said. ‘It wasn’t just for that. It is for something much more sinister, which is to intimidate certain groups of people, mainly Jews. A lot of Jews have recently come to England from Germany and the tales they carried about what was happening to many of their countrymen were so incredible we could scarcely believe them. We got hold of British papers on board the boat going out and read a lot of this kind of stuff, and I am ashamed to say I thought it couldn’t be true or at best, a gross exaggeration. I think this is because we have a view of Germany, as I said before, as a nation of courteous and civilised people, lovers of fine art and music and opera, and fiercely proud of their country. But I know now these tales of what Hitler’s troops are doing to the Jews are true and it appears that it’s not only Jews he is targeting.’

‘What do you mean?’

Clive didn’t answer his mother straight away and when he did it was to speak of the Games. ‘We were there for the opening ceremony and we tried to ignore the sense of unease we felt. It was as if the Germans were saying, “Look what we can do. See how efficient we are.” Colin, who studied German, said the papers were full of the Master Race, those with blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin who will one day dominate the world.’

‘Yes,’ Charles said. ‘It always struck me as odd that the man spouting all this rubbish that the German people seemed to fall for hook, line and sinker was himself a black-haired, brown-eyed Austrian. And not a big man, either.’

‘That’s what makes it all the more ridiculous,’ Clive agreed. ‘Anyway, when the bell began to toll to signify the start of the Games the crowd erupted in cheers. It was hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere of being there at the Olympic Games. Forty-nine countries were taking part and the unease returned a little at the raising of each country’s flag. There was Germany’s black swastika on a red background, fluttering in the breeze, looking so menacing. Then there was the parade of the athletes. Germany’s team was led by this chap called Lutz Lang, who is the epitome of this ‘Master Race’, with his blond hair, blue eyes, height and build.’

‘I read about him,’ Charles said. ‘Wasn’t he beaten by an American in the long jump?’

Clive nodded. ‘By a black American, that’s the point. He was an African-American. Altogether they had ten in the Olympic team and this one, Jesse Owens, broke eleven Olympic records. The long jump was close, really close, and it seemed like everyone in the whole stadium was holding their breath. From where we were sitting we could see the podium where Hitler was and he went puce with temper when it was obvious that Owens had won, though I have to say that Lutz Lang was the first to congratulate him. And then Hitler refused to put the medal around his neck.’

‘Can he do that?’ Amelia asked, intrigued.

Clive shrugged. ‘I don’t know whether he can or not, Mother. To my knowledge it has never been done before, but Hitler is a law unto himself. In his twisted mind he thought Owens racially inferior and he even refused to shake hands with him. Afterwards he said that America should be ashamed to let Negroes win their medals for them, and that he would not be photographed shaking hands with one of them.’

‘Goodness …’

‘That is the type of man he is and it is what I meant when I said that Jews are not the only ones he has no time for. But many of them too are suffering. A couple of days after the Games began we met this Jewish man. When he first saw us he quickly moved away, but the following day he sought us out in the street and asked in really good English if we were from Britain. When we said we were, he drew us into the partial shelter of an alleyway where he said things were happening in Germany that had to be brought to the eyes of the world and yet he knew that he was risking his life even talking to us.

‘He had been a university professor before the Nazis came to power in Germany and threw him out of his post and out of his house. His son opposed the government and their agents shot him dead, and now he and his wife live on the streets of Berlin, for it is death to any who offer them shelter. They live as fugitives, trying to dodge Nazi soldiers, who, he said, would kill them if they were caught.

‘He claimed no Jew can hold any post of responsibility, work in any business or live in any house the Nazis deem unsuitable, and their children cannot attend school. They are thrown on to the streets and their houses given to Nazi supporters and their businesses are often destroyed. And there are a great many other things Jews cannot do and places Jews cannot go. We saw no signs to this effect, but our informant said Hitler ordered all the signs removed so those visitors from other countries would not know how bad it was.’

‘If all that is true,’ Amelia said, ‘then it is truly dreadful.’

‘It’s true, Mother,’ Clive said. ‘I would stake my life on it. And Franco in Spain is another fascist, isn’t he, Dad?’

Charles nodded. ‘He is, and the news from Spain is not good. The rebels appear to be making for Madrid.’

‘Yes, I read about that in one of the English papers on the boat we came back on,’ Clive said.

‘But what can we do?’ Amelia said plaintively. ‘Surely this is Spain’s problem?’

Clive didn’t answer his mother. Then he said, ‘The day after we had spoken to this Jewish man we went looking for him again.’

Clive was silent for so long that Charles eventually asked, ‘And did you find him?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Clive. ‘We found what was left of him.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Mother, they had beaten him to a pulp,’ Clive said, ‘and dumped him in the street as if he was a pile of rubbish. He was almost unrecognisable as a human being. He looked like a bundle of rags.’ Clive remembered the horror and revulsion he had felt when they had found the body, and, when it had dawned on the young men who it was and what had been done to him, they had all felt guilty. ‘I think he was so badly beaten because he had been seen talking to us,’ Clive said. ‘Of course, it also acted as a deterrent to anyone else tempted to do the same thing. The man’s death decided us, and we made arrangements to come home immediately.’

‘But why?’ Amelia cried.

Charles had heard the new steeliness in his son’s voice, and suddenly knew what he was going to say.

‘We could do nothing to save that wretched man, but we can listen to what he told us,’ Clive said. ‘Fascism is rising in Germany and will be in Spain, too, if Franco isn’t stopped. We met some English fellows on the way home and they told us about some International Brigade being formed to help the elected government stay in power in Spain. Ordinary people are joining up because the British government is not prepared to step in. Do you know anything about it, Father?’

‘A little,’ Charles said. ‘Apparently, there is a big contingent in Liverpool.’

‘Yes,’ Clive said. ‘And from what I understand, these chaps intend leaving for Spain in early September, so there is little time to waste. Colin, Phillip and Mathew went straight home to talk to their parents, as I am talking to you, because we all intend to be part of that brigade.’

There was a gasp of dismay from Amelia. ‘You cannot do this,’ she cried. ‘You will not. I will not risk another son. Charles, say something. You must stop him.’

Charles could see his wife’s acute distress etched on her face. He remembered how he had watched her die a little as each telegram announcing the death of one of her sons was delivered. It was having Clive, he believed, that had saved her sanity at the time. He knew it would be terribly hard for her to know that Clive, this precious and now only son, was prepared to risk his life, however good the cause. But he knew he could not deter his son from doing what he thought was right. It was what he would have done himself as a young man. He had wanted Clive to go into the army when he left school, for officer training, as he had done, but Clive had said from the first that the army life wasn’t for him and he intended to study law.

Charles had been just the tiniest bit disappointed, but Clive was showing now that he was fully prepared to stand up for what he believed in. So, though his words were gentle, in deference to his wife’s feelings, they were firm enough. ‘I can’t stop Clive doing this, my dear, if it’s something that he feels he must do.’

‘What has Spain to do with us?’ Amelia demanded of her son.

‘Well, it isn’t Spain so much as who will lead it,’ Clive said. ‘If the government is defeated, Franco and his fascist supporters will be in charge, and the greatest ally to the rebels in Spain is Hitler and the Nazi Party. If Spain falls, Europe will have another unstable country.’ He put his hand over Amelia’s. ‘I do understand, Mother, and I know you want to protect me, but if we fight now, we may avoid a worse conflict later on.’

‘And what do you know about fighting?’

Clive shrugged. ‘As much as the next man. And I suppose I will be trained.’

Tears spilt over Amelia’s lashes and trickled down her cheeks. Clive felt a stab of guilt, for never in his life had he made his mother cry. He looked helplessly to his father, who put his arm around his wife and led her from the room.

SEVEN

The news of Clive’s plans to fight in Spain filtered down to the kitchens. Lucy felt as if someone had squeezed her heart tight and she had a sick feeling in her stomach. Norah said the Mistress was nearly destroyed and Lucy knew exactly how she felt.

‘Seems to me he was far more considerate to some old Jew that he met in Berlin than he is to his own parents,’ Cook said grimly.

‘It was because the man died after talking to them,’ Norah said. ‘Beaten to death, he was. That’s what her ladyship said to me.’

‘Ugh,’ the three girls said together.

‘It should have come as no surprise,’ Mr Carlisle said. ‘Hitler is a racist. You all read what happened at the Olympic Games with that black athlete.’

‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with Master Clive fighting in Spain?’ Cook asked.

There was no answer to this.

Cook continued, ‘I still maintain that Master Clive never gave a thought to his parents, and especially his mother, and I shall tell him so at the first opportunity.’

Later that day, when Clive popped his head into the kitchen, Cook asked him straight out what he was playing at, proposing to fight in Spain. ‘This isn’t your war,’ she said bluntly, ‘so why are you sticking your neb in?’

‘To stop the rise of fascism,’ Clive said. ‘Hitler is helping the rebels and they will overthrow the government if we are not careful. It could be worse for us if Franco wins and joins with Hitler and the Nazi Party.’

‘You have thoroughly upset your mother.’

‘I know,’ Clive said. ‘I was sorry about that, but this is something that I have to do.’

Two angry spots of colour appeared on Cook’s face. ‘Master Clive,’ she snapped out, ‘you have no idea how it feels to give birth to children you love better than you love yourself and then lose them one by one. You will have no idea of your mother’s pain.’

Clive glared at Cook. ‘Yes, and let me remind you, Ada, that every man jack who joins the Brigade – and there are many many who feel as I do – will be someone’s son. What would you have me do, stand back and watch?’

Before Cook had time to say anything else, he turned on his heel and left.

Mr Carlisle said, ‘Mrs Murphy, I think it was beyond your authority to speak to young Master Clive like that.’

‘Oh, do you?’ said Cook. ‘Well, let me tell you, I have known and loved that boy from the day that he was born, and this is the very last thing that I thought he would do. What was I supposed to say, “Congratulations”?’

‘It may have been better to say nothing,’ Mr Carlisle said stiffly. ‘You abused your position and you got his answer, too, and though I am sorry for his parents, Master Clive has made a very brave decision. However, it’s not our place to comment on the doings of our employers and I might say that you’ve set a very bad example to the younger servants.’

‘Well, you stick to your view and I will stick to mine,’ Cook said. ‘I’ve said my piece, and I’m not sorry, for I think Master Clive is selfish to even consider this.’

The atmosphere remained tense all evening, and if Mr Carlisle and Cook spoke at all it was in icy tones.

The three girls discussed the argument when they went to bed that night.

‘D’you think him selfish or brave, Lucy?’ Clodagh asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lucy said. ‘Brave, I suppose, but I still wish he wasn’t going.’

‘And me,’ said Evie. ‘But it is awful what happened to that Jewish man that spoke to them.’

‘And then they felt guilty and they had to sort of avenge his death,’ Lucy said.

‘I think it’s the sort of thing men do that we will never understand,’ Clodagh said. ‘Mammy said that in the Great War men were falling over themselves to enlist. Couldn’t wait to get over there and get the Jerry on the run.’

‘Daft way to go on, if you ask me,’ Evie said.

‘Ah, well …’ Clodagh said, with a sigh. ‘Anyway, I have no intention of discussing this any further. I need my beauty sleep.’

‘You’re not kidding,’ Evie said with an impish grin, and Clodagh lobbed a pillow at her, though they muffled their giggles in case they were overheard.

Lucy lay awake long after her friends. She knew that Clive would go because she had seen the resolve on his face, and part of her was proud that he was prepared to fight for something he saw as right, but a far greater part of her was worried for his safety. When sleep eventually claimed her, she was beset by horrific nightmares.

Clive left, then sent a letter to his parents saying that he had arrived safely and met up with his friends. There was nothing else, and as one week followed another with no further news, Mr Carlisle said he wasn’t surprised.

‘Master Clive will not be in any sort of regular army,’ he said, ‘so he probably will be unable to contact anyone here, and even if he did manage to get the odd letter home, it’s highly unlikely that they would be any sort of address on it to enable his parents to write back.’

Lucy hadn’t thought of that, and she felt even more sorry for Lord and Lady Heatherington. She herself already missed Clive with a pain she could barely understand and, anyway, could never confess to.

‘They must be worried sick,’ she said one night as she undressed for bed.

‘Yes,’ Evie said. ‘You know, the Mistress asked Norah yesterday if she had ever heard the expression that the silence can be deafening and when Norah said she hadn’t the Mistress said that she’d not understood what it meant until now.’

‘Ah,’ Lucy said, ‘it is sad, isn’t it? And I think the only thing we can do is keep our heads down, and hope and pray that this business in Spain won’t go on too long, and that Clive will be coming home again soon.’

Lord Heatherington wanted to find out as much as he could about the conflict in Spain, so he ordered more English papers and began to listen to the wireless news intently. In early October, he read the accounts of Oswald Mosley’s attempt to lead his party, the British Union of Fascists, in a march through the East End of London, where a lot of Jews had their homes and businesses.

Lord Heatherington could hardly believe what he was reading. ‘What is it, my dear?’ Lady Hetherington asked, noticing his agitation. ‘What’s upset you so?’

‘It’s Mosley’

‘Oswald Mosley?’ They had met the man many times when they had lived in England. ‘What’s he done?’

‘His damned party – the British Union of Fascists or some such rubbish they’re called – tried to march through the East End of London where a great many Jews live, apparently. Good God, Clive didn’t have to go so far to fight fascists; we have them on our own doorstep.’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘I didn’t imagine for a moment that British people would get caught up in this racial hatred. To think, I have sat at the same table and had a drink with that man.’

‘But what happened?’ Lady Heatherington asked. ‘You said, “tried to march”. You mean they didn’t succeed?’

‘No, Mosley didn’t succeed, for the simple reason that, according to the paper, three hundred thousand decent human beings turned up to oppose him.’

‘Three hundred thousand?’ Lady Heatherington could hardly believe it.

‘There is unrest everywhere,’ Lord Heatherington said.

About the same time as Mosley’s aborted march through the Jewish areas of London, two hundred men began another march from Jarrow to London to highlight the unemployment crisis in the Northeast. The march caught the spirit of the nation, as the men walked through towns and cities often plagued with unemployment themselves, and the papers showed them striding out jauntily to the music of a mouth-organ band. They reached London on 31 October, just a month after they began, and the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, not only refused to see them but told them they’d be arrested if they didn’t make their way back home again.

Lord Heatherington listened to the account on the wireless. He knew Baldwin had refused to see the men because he was afraid of inciting unrest, but in his opinion he had made a grave mistake. Later that same evening, he said to Rory, as he helped him dress for dinner, ‘I tell you, Britain is a terrible country at the moment.’

Rory was used to Lord Heatherington going on like this, using him as a sort of sounding board. He usually didn’t want any smart replies, and Rory would just answer, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And the King still knocking around with that bloody American divorcee, Wallis Simpson,’ Lord Heatherington went on. ‘Quite apart from her being entirely unsuitable, the woman is far too friendly with the Krauts for my liking. I think we could have trouble in that quarter before long. Clive saw it too. That’s why he wanted to fight and beat Franco, but God,’ he added with a sigh, ‘I miss him like a nagging tooth.’

When Lord Heatherington had finished with the newspapers they went down to the kitchen, where Mr Carlisle would scan them before putting them with the kindling to help light the fires. That was when Lucy might squirrel them away. She had little leisure time to read but, like Lord Heatherington, she was anxious to learn as much as she could about Spain because Clive was involved. She would scan the news in any free time she got and so she learnt not only about Spain but also all about the trouble the King was in for his association with a woman by the unusual name of Wallis Simpson.

So when in December Rory told them that the King was abdicating in favour of his younger brother, George, Lucy wasn’t as surprised as some of the other servants.

Cook gazed at him open-mouthed. ‘You are kidding,’ she said.

‘I assure you I am not,’ Rory said emphatically. ‘He said that he couldn’t perform his duties as King without the woman he loves by his side. He did a broadcast on the wireless yesterday evening and I heard the words myself.’

‘Such a thing has never happened before, I think,’ Clara said.

‘No, it hasn’t. The announcer said as much,’ Rory agreed.

‘Well,’ said Cook, and the word spoke volumes. ‘That’s just poppycock. Duty comes before love, as far as royals are concerned, and that man has been trained to become King of England since the day he was born.’

‘I agree with you,’ Clara said. ‘And yet in the end we might be better off with George.’

Lucy remembered that Clara hadn’t liked the idea of Edward becoming the king when she’d heard of his father’s death. ‘How d’you work that out?’ Mr Carlisle asked.

‘Well, he isn’t as flamboyant as his brother,’ Clara said. ‘With Britain in the state it’s in, do we really want such a playboy at its helm? George is far more level-headed, and maybe, as we live through these turbulent times, those qualities are needed in the leader of the country.’

‘You could be right, Mrs O’Leary,’ Rory said. ‘You are certainly spot-on as far as the state of the country goes. The General said the country is going to rack and ruin while he languishes here, and that there is nothing wrong with him now and he wants to go back to England.’

‘What, now?’

‘Well, December is not the time to cross the Irish Sea, if you have a choice about it, I’d say,’ Rory said with a grin. ‘But I bet by springtime we will be moving from here.’

The three girls looked at each other. That night in bed they fell to discussing the move.

‘I’m for going with them if they’re agreeable,’ Clodagh said.

‘Are you?’ Lucy said. ‘What about your parents?’

‘What about them?’ Clodagh said. ‘This is my life, not theirs. They may kick up but I’m still going. I am determined about it. What about you, Evie?’

Evie shook her head. ‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘My parents are on about me staying on in Donegal every time I go home. Point is, my aunt is opening a grocery store and wants a girl to train up, and she asked my dad if she could consider me. I said no at the time but if the Heatheringtons decamp to England …’ She gave a shrug. ‘Let’s just say, I’m pretty certain that I won’t be coming.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘Nor me,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t leave my mother.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘How could I go off like that, Clodagh?’ Lucy cried. ‘Even now I think going home once a month is not enough,’

‘Maybe not,’ Clodagh said. ‘I bet, though, your mother is grateful for the money you bring.’

‘Course she is.’

‘So how will it help her if you go back home? Evie might be all right but I doubt you’ll find it easy to get employment.’

Clodagh was right and Lucy was well aware of it. If she were to return home, it would be to the poverty she had once endured. The few shillings Danny earned would not help much, especially with another mouth to feed and no laden basket of goodies from the Lodge each month.

She bit her lip in consternation. ‘I’m due home this Sunday,’ she said, ‘providing the rail buses are running, and I will talk it over with Mammy. You never know, it might not be happening for a good while yet.’

She saw her friends’ eyes fasten on her, full of sympathy, and she knew they didn’t believe that any more than she did. In the relatively short time she had been at the house she had realised that Lord Heatherington was a very determined man and that once he had decided something he wouldn’t be changing his mind.

If she could forget about Master Clive in danger in some far-off land, Lucy could feel almost happy because she had been given a rise of sixpence a week in October. She didn’t tell her mother because she was used to the money she got, and there was a little more now that Danny was at work with Farmer Haycock, and she desperately wanted to buy presents for all her family for Christmas.

So on the last half-day before her whole Sunday off she went into Letterkenny for some serious shopping and bought fur-lined slippers for her mother, a warm scarf and gloves for Danny, a skipping rope with proper wooden handles for Grainne, a football for Liam and a spinning top for Sam. As it was coming up to Christmas, Cook packed a festive hamper for her to take home so, together with the normal fare she usually sent of eggs, butter, cheese and tea, she added a big knuckle of pork with plenty of meat on it, a Christmas cake and pudding, and a tin of shortbread biscuits that Clara had made.

Lucy set off in high spirits that Sunday morning, 13 December, anxious to be home, thinking about the faces of her mother and brothers and Grainne. The food would be treat enough for them, but when they realised that she had presents for them to open on Christmas Day she knew they would be so excited. As the rail bus ate up the miles she began to tingle in anticipation.

Lucy was surprised that Danny was the only one to meet her, and even more surprised that he had a good thick jacket and long trousers on. ‘Farmer Haycock’s wife gave them to me,’ Danny said as they made their way to the cottage. ‘She said it was time that I was in long trousers and she has given me jumpers too, and good thick shirts.’

‘But who are they from?’

‘Her sister’s son,’ Danny said. ‘Older and taller than me. Mammy unravelled a couple of the jumpers to knit up some things for the others.’

‘I didn’t know Mammy could knit.’

‘Well, she can now. Said it made sense.’

‘I suppose it does,’ Lucy conceded. ‘Where are the others?’

‘They went to the half-six Mass with Mammy this morning,’ Danny said.

That was a surprise for Lucy, but Danny forestalled any questions by catching up the bulging bag. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave this in at the cottage and then we will have to get our skates on or we’ll be late.’

However, as they neared the cottage, Lucy’s eyes opened wide with astonishment, for it had been newly whitewashed and there was a fresh coat of paint on the door. The cultivated garden looked better than it ever had done and so did the hens that were pecking at the grit in the cobbles in the yard. Once through the door the warmth hit Lucy and she noted the fire blazing in the hearth where normally a few embers eked out the turf. The children, who had been on the rag rug in front of it, ran towards her in welcome, and her mother, who had been turning something in a frying pan, looked round with a smile. But though she saw all this, her attention was rooted on a chair to the right side of the fire, the chair that her mother had put away in her bedroom the night her father had been taken to the sanatorium. ‘No one will ever sit in that again,’ she’d said at the time.

But the chair was back, and sitting in it as if he belonged there was a thickset man. Lucy glared at him. He had dark hair streaked with silver, a ruddy complexion, a large mouth and very dark eyes. In those eyes was a certain wariness, for as Minnie approached her daughter, her arms outstretched, Lucy pushed her aside. The man got up a little uncertainly and the atmosphere seemed suddenly charged as Lucy spoke and her words fell into the room like chips of ice.

‘What are you doing sitting in my father’s chair?’ she demanded.

There was an audible gasp from the children and Minnie barked out, ‘Lucy! That was a most incredibly rude thing to say.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ Lucy protested. ‘You said no one would ever sit on it again.’

‘I’m real sorry,’ the man said. ‘I had no idea the chair belonged to your father. The settle will do me well enough.’

‘Don’t be silly, Declan,’ Minnie said. ‘Why sit on the uncomfortable settle when there is a perfectly acceptable chair to use?’ Then she turned to her daughter, her eyes full of reproach. ‘Lucy, apologise to Mr McCann this minute.’

‘No,’ Lucy said. ‘I will not. You said no one would ever use Daddy’s chair and you put it away, and I come home to find a stranger is sitting in it.’

‘Declan McCann is no stranger to me,’ Minnie said. ‘Though there is no reason that you should know him because he has been in America some years.’

Declan, still standing before the fire, said, ‘I went to America the day after your mother married, Lucy. I was a great friend of your father, Seamus, and also of Sean O’Leary, who married Clara.’

‘So why have you come back now?’ Lucy asked truculently.

‘Lucy …’ Minnie began, but the man, Declan, put up his hand. ‘No, Minnie,’ he said. ‘She has a right to ask.’

‘Did you know my father was dead?’ Lucy asked bluntly.

‘Not till I arrived here, no,’ Declan said. ‘I was not a regular correspondent since I left Ireland.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.