The Sunday Girls Page 13

  Back at the counter once more, the woman, who wore spectacles similar to the ones worn by Rosie, smiled. ‘Are you on holiday, dear?’

  ‘No, I’ve started work with Mrs Barrie at Whitegate Lodge,’ I replied, handing over the correct money. It included quite a few halfpennies and was all the money I had.

  She looked surprised. ‘Has Miss Hood retired?’

  I shook my head and explained that I was an extra pair of hands around the house. As I left, I overheard the woman standing behind me whisper to her companion. ‘I didn’t think yon old battle-axe had retired. She likes to give the impression she’s the owner of the house and does she not like to rule the roost?’ In a curious way, this statement cheered me up and I was glad the housekeeper wasn’t generally liked. I thought it was just me that didn’t get on with her.

  Later that afternoon, when the storm clouds moved overhead and thin streaks of sleet splattered against the windowpanes, Mrs Barrie settled back in her large armchair while I sat on a low stool, not quite at her feet but close enough for her to hear.

  After the trip to the post office, I had spent a lovely two hours dusting all the books in the lounge. I noted all the authors – wonderful writers like Dickens, Walter Scott and Jane Austen – as I went.

  That was why I almost fell of my stool in surprise when Mrs Barrie pointed to a bookcase in the corner of the dark morning room. ‘You’ll find the latest novel by Agatha Christie over there, Ann. I just adore mystery novels.’

  After an hour and a half of reading, she stopped me. ‘You will be getting tired, Ann, but I’m dying to know the ending. Maybe you can read to me tonight?’ She hastily added, ‘At least if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Oh, no, Mrs Barrie,’ I assured her, almost adding that I was also keen to know how the story ended.

  She smiled. ‘It’s easy to see you love books, Ann, because you have the talent to bring the story alive when you read the words.’ She shook her head and added, ‘Not like poor Lottie who hates the written word. Listening to her is such a trial as every word comes out with no expression. To be honest, I resort to using my magnifying glass to read the book myself but that is our little secret. Perhaps you don’t realise it but, when you read the text, your voice takes on a different tone for each character. If you got your voice trained, you would make a good actress.’

  I went pink with pleasure at this compliment and, although I had no inclination to be on the stage, I relayed it to Mrs Peters when we sat down for our tea.

  ‘Well, that is praise indeed, Ann, coming from Mrs Barrie. She was a famous actress in her younger days – even acted in films,’ said the cook, spreading a floury scone with a huge dollop of jam. This was news to me but it explained all the photographs in the house.

  The cook wiped a floury smear from the front of her ample bosom. ‘Aye, she was on the stage in the West End of London for years and she even appeared in some silent films in Hollywood. She was called Evaline Bay in those days. That was her stage name because she was married to Mr Barrie by then.’

  I couldn’t understand why she had given up such a glamorous and exciting life to come and live so far from the scenes of her triumph. Especially with someone so sour-faced as Miss Hood. I said so.

  ‘Well, she never had good health, even as a lassie, and, about ten years ago, they came here to help her recuperate after a bad dose of influenza. Then, just a month later after moving in, Mr Barrie collapsed and died. It was so sudden and so sad. I remember it well because I had just started working here.’ She looked sadly at the half-eaten scone in her hand, almost as if reliving that sad time.

  ‘Then that old besom Miss Hood wrote to her to commiserate on her bereavement and giving Mrs B. some hard luck story about some man she’d met but he had buggered off. And who can blame him, being shut up with her? She had been Mrs B’s wardrobe mistress in the days of the theatre and the upshot was she was invited to come here as companion-stroke-housekeeper.’ The cook stopped, a hard look in her merry eyes. ‘Within a week of arriving, she was throwing her weight around like she was the owner of the house.’

  ‘Does Mrs Barrie know what a horrible person she is?’

  The cook almost choked on her scone. ‘Not on your nelly. She makes sure she puts on her charming side upstairs but, down here, it is another matter. Still we don’t have her company today or tomorrow although you will have her this week on your own.’

  When she saw my worried look, she patted my hand. ‘Never mind. It’s just for this week and then we’ll have our time off together.’

  Later that night, after a companionable evening with Mrs Barrie and Agatha Christie, I had a lovely bath in my own private chamber. Then I went off to bed with a book from the lounge.

  The small bedside lamp cast a warm glow over the quilt and a warm feeling of happiness spread through me as I snuggled into my pillows. On many occasions in later years, I was able to recall that happy night – that brief hiatus of pleasure. As a child, I had read somewhere that happiness is nearly always followed by sorrow as surely as night follows day. One thing was for sure – whoever wrote that certainly knew what they were talking about.

  7

  Trouble descended on me on the Monday like a thunderclap. Actually the blue touchpaper was lit on the Sunday afternoon with the return of Miss Hood.

  Mrs Barrie and I were closeted in the morning room. Our reading session with Mrs Christie having finally come to a denouement, we were now engrossed with Dorothy L. Sayers – so engrossed, in fact, that Miss Hood’s arrival had gone unnoticed until she swept towards us in a cold cloud of hate. I thought she was about to have a seizure. Her cold eyes like grey slate swept over me with such loathing that I could almost swear the temperature of the room dropped a few degrees.

  Mrs Barrie, being short-sighted, missed this terrible look but she heard the footsteps. She turned in her chair, a bright smile on her face. ‘Oh, you’re back, Lottie. Did you enjoy your time off?’

  Miss Hood tried to smile gaily at her but it only emphasised her fury. The bottom half of her face held a shark-like grimace – a so-called smile which, as usual, didn’t reach her eyes and stopped at a point midway across her nose.

  She pulled off her long woollen coat that was neither beige nor brown and was another unfortunate colour for her to wear. She had such a strange complexion, I thought. Just as it had done when she was wearing her green dress, her skin seemed to echo the colour of whatever she was wearing. On this particularly cold Sunday evening, she looked as if she was suffering from a bad dose of jaundice. She snatched the detective novel from my hand and, if I had been standing instead of sitting on the low stool, I just knew she would have pushed me towards the blazing fire.

  ‘That’s fine,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll take over the reading and you can go back to your chores.’ As if to emphasise any laziness, she drew her gloved finger along the edge of the side table and looked at it in disdain.

  If I hadn’t been so alarmed, I would have laughed at her comical image. In her haste to oust me, she sat down on the stool still completely dressed in her hat, boots and gloves.

  Mrs Barrie was taken aback by this display of brusqueness and, for a brief second, she looked angry. Suddenly she shrugged her slim shoulders and said softly, ‘I think I’ve had enough reading for one day, Lottie.’ Then she turned to me. ‘Ann, will you bring in the tea tray please?’

  I spent the rest of the evening dreading meeting Miss Hood but, for some reason, she stayed with Mrs Barrie for most of the time.

  After a rotten, sleepless night, I crept downstairs and began my morning chores. I was kneeling on the stairs, dusting the banisters when she suddenly appeared from nowhere and swooped down on me. She gave me such a hefty shove that I almost toppled backwards. In fact, if I hadn’t had a good hold of the banister, I would have landed in an untidy heap on the hall floor. With her mission unaccomplished, she walked back up the stairs, giving me another hefty shove that was so hard that I banged my shoulder and arm on the carved wood. A
sharp pain surged through my arm and I cried out in agony.

  She placed her face a few inches from mine and her fury was plain to see. At first I thought she was going to prise my arm away from its hold on the banister and perhaps that was her original intention. Instead, she hissed like a deadly cobra, ‘You stick to the cleaning jobs around here, madam, and don’t try and ingratiate yourself with the mistress. Is that perfectly clear?’

  Although fear made me feel queasy, I suddenly remembered Mrs Peters and how she had stood up to her. I looked right at her. ‘If Mrs Barrie wants me to do anything for her, then I will do it. She’s my employer – not you.’ Her face convulsed with anger but the unexpected sound of a voice calling from upstairs made her turn on her heel.

  She gave me a backward, malevolent stare. ‘Your job here depends on me.’ She pointed a bony finger to her chest. ‘And don’t you ever forget that.’

  She then climbed the stairs, calling out softly, ‘I’m coming, Eva.’ Her dulcet tones must have fallen on Mrs Barrie’s ears like honey. Who could blame her for thinking everything was sweetness and light down here?

  As that dreadful day progressed without the comforting presence of Mrs Peters, my chief ally, Miss Hood had me working every minute with no respite for a cup of tea or a meal. I stood in the yard with another pile of carpets. I could hardly hold the big carpet beater because of my increasingly sore shoulder. The cold wind didn’t help either – it seemed to penetrate every muscle. The wind also whipped up the edges of the carpets, making it difficult to get any direct aim with the beater. I resorted to holding the corner with my bad arm and beating with my weaker left hand.

  For a short time, I considered going upstairs and packing my small suitcase and going back home to the Overgate. Then the spectre of no money floated in front of me like a grey financial ghost and I knew I had to grit my teeth. I also had the horrible impression that Miss Hood was behind one of the dark windows, watching and gloating and rubbing her thin bony hands in glee.

  After two hours, I struggled indoors with the heavy rugs and left them in neat rolls in the back lobby. One blessing, if it could be called that, was the fact that, although the wind was freezing cold, it had at least been dry – not like the other day when we, the rugs and me, had got a proper soaking.

  There was no sign of the housekeeper so I put the kettle on to have a warming drink but, before it could boil, she was back in the kitchen with a huge mound of bedclothes. She marched me right out to the wash-house in the yard where she deposited the huge pile on the stone floor.

  ‘These have to be washed right away so get on with it,’ she snapped, like some third-rate tinpot dictator.

  I spent ages lighting the fire under the copper boiler. It had a look of neglect, as if it had been years since it had last been used but, once the fire was glowing, the water soon heated up.

  I sorted through the pile and separated the sheets and pillowcases from the blankets, not to mention at least ten huge bath towels. By the time I pushed the first lot into the hot soapy water, darkness had fallen and, because I didn’t know where the lamps were, I just kept working in the dark. It was so scary in the small vault-like building and I kept a wary eye out for the housekeeper – after all, she had injured me once already that day. I also kept an eye on the door in case any stray blackbirds flew in as the yard was their happy eating area.

  By now, the pain had spread right up to my neck and down to my hip. Whether this was from the knock on the stairs or the manhandling of the heavy rugs and wet washing, it was difficult to say but I was grateful when the last load was done and I stumbled into the warm kitchen. I noticed with dismay that it was nine o’clock and supper was now long past.

  Because the airing cupboard was still full with the wet rugs from the previous day, I had to drape the wet washing over a large clothes horse and I placed this in front of the warm Aga.

  Starving with hunger because I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I decided to cook something for myself. I scouted round the pantry, finding bacon and a large bowl of eggs plus a large white loaf. Mrs Peters had told me to help myself to anything if I was hungry but I was unsure of Miss Hood. What if the tantalising smell of bacon wafted upstairs to her room? Would she descend like a Valkyrie? I thought for a moment that, if this should happen, then I would tell her to leave me alone – either that or I’d hit her with the frying pan. Having been brought up to respect my elders, this action was a mere rebellious thought but, in the end, I settled for tea and toast.

  The atmosphere in the kitchen was damp from the warm steamy mist that arose from the wet washing. As I chewed my toast, I wondered idly where all the washing had come from. The pain in my shoulder was now throbbing as I made my way wearily to my room, remembering how happy I had been on Saturday night.

  The upper stairs and lobby were normally lit by shaded ceiling lights and the old gas lamps on the wall were just silent reminders of the house’s previous energy source. Tonight, however, everything was in darkness but, because I now knew my way around, I navigated the lobby in the dark. I was almost at my door when a figure materialised out of the gloom like a ghostly blur. To my horror, it was Miss Hood and she was waiting for me. She snapped the light switch on in my room and I saw the copy of the book in her outstretched hand.

  ‘You little thief,’ she snarled, her lips curling with satisfaction. ‘Right then, madam, first thing tomorrow morning, you are going to see Mrs Barrie and you’ll explain why you have one of her books in your room. Then I’ll make sure you get your marching orders.’ As she stormed off down the corridor, I wished she would trip over her feet but the footsteps receded down the narrow stairs.

  I gazed unbelievingly at my bedroom. The bed had been stripped and she had moved the mattress for some reason – maybe to search for some more so-called stolen goods. I now realised where some of the washing had come from – from this room and there was no sign of any replacements either. There was also no sign of Danny’s chocolate and Maddie’s card had been torn in half and it lay on the floor. With a feeling of weariness and a very painful shoulder, I got down on the bed and lay my head on the scratchy blue-striped pillow.

  My one consolation was the fact that I had permission to read the book but, just on the point of sleep, a horrible thought erupted in my dozy brain. What if Mrs Barrie couldn’t remember saying I could borrow the books? After all it had been a pretty casual permit. Ma Ryan had predicted the blackbirds but not the housekeeper. Between that thought and the cold bed, I spent another miserable and sleepless night.

  The next morning, on seeing Mrs Peters’ motherly face, I almost fell into her arms.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, what’s been going on here?’ she asked, gazing open-mouthed at all the bedclothes drying in her kitchen.

  I told her the whole sorry story. Pulling up my jumper to show her the large bruise which had now spread, in a multicoloured patch, from my shoulder almost to my waist.

  She pressed her lips together. ‘Right then, we’re going to tell Mrs Barrie about this.’

  I was mortified. ‘Please don’t say a word. Promise me. I need this job and what if Mrs Barrie doesn’t believe me? After all her housekeeper has been here years and I’ve only been here a few days. She’ll maybe call me a troublemaker and you did say yourself that Miss Hood puts on a different face upstairs.’

  She looked dubious for a moment then nodded. ‘All right but, if this happens again, then we’re telling her.’ She pointed to the still-wet washing. ‘I mean look at this. No washing is ever done in this house. Everything gets sent to the laundry in the Ferry. The man collects it every Wednesday.’

  There was one small blessing I was grateful for. ‘At least we’ll both be off on the same days after this. I’ll not be left on my own with her again.’

  The cook said loudly, ‘Damn right you’ll not.’

  I waited all morning for my summons about the book but, by evening, I still hadn’t heard any word – either from the housekeeper or Mrs Barrie.

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nbsp; The cook had her own idea about it. ‘You mark my words, you’ll not hear another cheep about it because Mrs Barrie will have put her right about the book. That old witch will be left with egg all over her face and she’ll not be happy to admit that.’

  She pulled a pair of rubber galoshes over her shoes and put on her hat in readiness to go home. It had been another day of heavy rain and a miniature river swept down the drive towards the road drain where it disappeared with a loud gurgling sound. A cold wind swept in the open door and sent a smattering of raindrops over the patterned linoleum. I watched Mrs Peters as she departed into the darkness, skirting round the deep puddles.

  I turned round with a deep sigh and almost fell over Miss Hood. She had obviously chosen her time to summon me upstairs. I held my breath for so long that I almost choked but she just glowered at me. She was certainly a sly one.

  I waited in terror but, to my immense surprise, she crossed over to the Aga where a kettle simmered gently and filled two puggy hot water bottles. Without a word, she moved out of the kitchen as silently as she had entered, stopping briefly to place a slip of paper on the kitchen table.

  It was a list of tomorrow’s chores and I was dismayed to see the list grow longer with each passing day. Still I could cope with it and I hoped this silent treatment was to be in operation all the time. How wonderful if our only communication was to be through a slip of paper.