If You Were the Only Girl. Anne Bennett

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ