If You Were the Only Girl

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.