If You Were the Only Girl

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.’