Читать книгу If You Were the Only Girl - Anne Bennett - Страница 10

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.