The Campbell Road Girls. Kay Brellend

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       Prologue

       Summer 1930

      ‘You can’t mean it!’ Sophy Lovat stared at her youngest sister in astonishment. ‘You’re planning on handing in your notice and going back to Campbell Road? You gone nuts, Lucy Keiver?’

      ‘Course not. I won’t be there for more’n a few days, not if I can help it,’ Lucy replied defensively. ‘I’ll stop with Mum and Reg just while I’m between things. I can keep Mum company while I’m sorting this out.’ She drew from her serge skirt pocket a piece of paper and, having unfolded the crumpled scrap, scanned the advertisement for an assistant lady’s maid in a mansion in Bloomsbury. ‘Got an interview early next month, and if I get offered the job, I’ll be living in straightaway.’ Lucy could tell her explanation hadn’t impressed her sister. ‘Move back to the Bunk for good?’ she scoffed in an effort to save face. ‘I’m not that daft!’

      ‘After all I did to get you took on here!’ Sophy protested indignantly. ‘And you’ve done all right for yourself with my help. Out of the kitchen and upstairs in no time at all, weren’t you?’

      ‘It was different before, when the mistress was still alive.’ The staff at Lockley Grange still called their employer’s late wife ‘the mistress’. His current spouse was referred to as ‘the madam’, and invariably in a disparaging tone.

      ‘You can’t throw it all in ’cos you’ve had a bit of a disagreement with Mrs Lockley.’ Sophy was prowling back and forth outside the stable block while reasoning quietly with her sister; she was aware they might be overheard.

      ‘Weren’t СКАЧАТЬ