by Sandy Taylor
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said that everyone wanted to work at the Hall and it was inevitable that I wanted to as well. Did I put it in the right place?’
‘You did, Kitty, and I think that is what made you stand out from the crowd. I’m proud of you.’
‘I was a little proud of meself, Nora.’
‘What’s the place like?’
‘Oh, Nora, it’s like a different world up there.’
‘Describe it to me.’
‘Well, you could fit the whole of our cottage into the hallway alone. The floor is so shiny you can see your face in it and there’s a sweeping staircase that rises up to the floor above, with beautiful pictures in golden frames hanging on the walls.’
‘What’s the mistress like?’
‘She’s just as you’d expect an Honourable to be.’
‘Did you have to curtsey?’
‘Mrs Tittle, the housekeeper, showed me how to bob.’
I grinned. ‘Mammy told me about the first time she went to the Hall to see Mrs Bretton. She said she tried to bob and nearly fell over.’
‘I’d forgotten that your mam worked there.’
‘So did Annie.’
‘And now it’s my turn,’ said Kitty.
‘Which room did she receive you in?’
‘The best room, Nora, the drawing room. I wonder why it’s called the drawing room; do you think people used to draw in there?’
‘I suppose they might have done; I’ll ask my Grandad Doyle – there isn’t much he doesn’t know. What was the room like?’ I said.
‘I can only remember bits of it, because I was terrified.’
‘Try and think,’ I said.
Kitty frowned, the tip of her tongue came out of her mouth and she licked her lips. ‘The carpet was blue, yes, I think it was blue. The windows were long and I think that maybe the curtains were a darker blue. There was a big fireplace, with a grand fire burning, not a turf fire but coals. And books, lots of books, in cabinets that went right up to the ceiling.’
I closed my eyes, the better to visualise it all. This is where Eddie grew up, amongst all those beautiful things. Perhaps he’d sat in a chair beside the fire with a book on his lap. Maybe he’d stood by the long windows looking out over the lawn that fell away in front of the house, knowing that beyond the tall trees was a secret garden. He must have run up and down that grand staircase, taking no notice of the paintings on the walls because he’d run past them all his life.
I’d thought it didn’t matter; I’d told myself that Eddie was the same Eddie but suddenly I felt like the boy I thought I knew had gone. My Eddie lived above the stables and helped his father with the horses. I’d thought that this was something we had in common, a love of horses, but I’d been wrong and I felt cheated and a bit silly.
‘Oh, I wish you could see it all, Nora,’ said Kitty, breaking into my thoughts.
‘I know you do, but it’s out of the question.’
‘Because of your mammy?’
I nodded. ‘But I’m happy here, Kitty, and I’m grateful for the job. When do you start?’
‘Tomorrow morning at six o clock. This is my last day of freedom, Nora, and I’ve been in bad humour since the minute I woke up.’
Minnie brought the tea and a couple of apple cakes over to the table and me and Kitty sat down.
‘Oh, thank you, Minnie,’ said Kitty. ‘That’s awful good of you.’
‘You look in need of sustenance, child,’ said Minnie.
‘She’s starting at the Hall tomorrow, Minnie.’
‘And I’ve a mind not to go,’ said Kitty, pulling a face.
‘You’ll be grand, Kitty,’ said Minnie. ‘There’s a whole new life waiting for you up there, you need to grab it with both hands. If you work hard, you could rise through the ranks and become a lady’s maid and then, Kitty Quinn, the world will be your oyster.’
‘It sounds quite exciting when you put it like that, Minnie,’ said Kitty, grinning.
Minnie smiled and left us alone. I leaned across the table and held Kitty’s hand, ‘You’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘They’ll love you.’
‘Will they?’
‘Of course they will, you’ll have all the lads after you.’
‘Well, as you said, at least there’ll be one friendly face up there.’
‘And who would that be?’
‘Eddie, the groom’s son, ya eejit.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Mmm what?’
‘There’s something I need to tell you, Kitty.’
‘That sounds serious.’
‘I’m not sure how serious it is, but I think I need to let you know.’
‘Well, out with it then.’
‘Eddie isn’t the son of a groom.’
‘But isn’t that what he told us?’
‘It is, but he lied.’
‘And why would he be doing that?’
‘His real name is Edward, Edward Bretton.’
‘Holy mother of God, Nora. Have you spent the past year gardening with an Honourable?’
‘It would seem so, Kitty.’
‘Aren’t you terrible mad at him? Lying to you like that and pretending to be something he isn’t.’
‘I’m not mad at him, Kitty. He thought I wouldn’t want to be his friend if he told me who he really was and I can kind of understand that.’
‘Well, I’d be mad at him.’
‘Would you be mad if it was Finn Casey who’d lied to you?’
Kitty grinned and bit into the warm apple cake. ‘You have me there, Nora Doyle, but doesn’t it feel strange to be passing the time of day with the master’s son?’
‘He’s my friend, and I don’t mind whose son he is. It doesn’t change who Eddie is.’
‘Does that mean I’m going to have to call him Master Edward?’
‘I suppose you will.’
‘What if I slip up and call him Eddie?’
‘I’d say you’ll be out on your ear.’
Kitty sighed. ‘Is there another bit of apple cake going spare?’
‘You’ll be fat as a house at this rate, Kitty Quinn.’
‘You and I are from the bogs, Nora, we can’t afford to be fat.’
Twenty
It was a week until Christmas Day and instead of going to the garden, me and Kitty were going out to the woods to gather holly and mistletoe to decorate the Grey House and Kitty’s cottage.
‘You’ll need to wrap up, Nora,’ said Mammy as I was getting ready. ‘You’ll freeze to death out there.’
The cold didn’t really bother me that much but I didn’t want to worry Mammy. ‘I will,’ I said.
Stevie was sitting beside the fire. ‘I wish I could go with you, Nora,’ he said sadly. ‘I’d love to go to the woods.’
I felt terrible sad for my brother, who spent most of his days inside the house. ‘Mammy,’ I said, ‘if we just went to the beginning of the woods, do you think Stevie could walk that far?’
‘I think I could,’ said Stevie, looking hopeful.
‘I don’t want you catching cold, love,’ said Mammy, smiling at him. ‘You are still not strong enough. Maybe come the spring, you’ll be able to get out more.’
‘Sorry, Stevie,’ I said.
Stevie shrugged. ‘I wish it was spring, Nora.’
‘It soon will be,’ I said, ‘and then we can go all over the place, just like we used to.’
Mammy handed me a woolly hat and gloves that she had warming by the fire and then she took Daddy’s scarf from behind the door. ‘Wrap this round your neck and you’ll be nice and toasty.’
I thought about poor Eddie, who had never known a mother’s love, who never had a mammy that loved him so much that she warmed his clothes by the fire. ‘I love you, Mammy,’ I said.
‘What brought that on?’ asked Mammy, smiling at me.
‘I’m just glad you’re mine,’ I said.
Mammy tied the hat under my chin and kissed the top of my head. ‘A
nd I’m glad you’re mine, I’m so very glad you’re mine.’
I looked out the window and there was Kitty, pushing Sean’s old pushchair up Paradise Alley. I opened the door and waited for her.
‘Bloody pushchair,’ she said as she reached me. ‘I swear to God that the squeak is getting worse.’
Grandad Doyle walked around the side of the house. I wasn’t sure how old my grandad was, Granny Collins said he was a very upright man that belied his years. He had a full head of white hair and his eyes were brown like Daddy’s but much paler, they reminded me of the acorns that fell from the trees in the garden. ‘Let me get a bit of oil for that, Kitty,’ he said, laughing.
‘Thank you, Mr Doyle,’ said Kitty. ‘I’d be mighty pleased if you could do something about it. I felt a right eejit walking through town with the bloody thing. The Dolan boys were running after me and mocking me.’
‘The Dolan boys would have mocked Christ himself when he rode through town on a donkey,’ said Grandad. ‘Go inside out of the cold while I fix it.’
Kitty came into the kitchen and crouched down in front of the fire. ‘It’s desperate cold out there, Mrs Doyle,’ she said. ‘It would take the nose off ya.’
‘Then I suggest you get the holly as quick as you can and not dally in the woods, Kitty.’
‘Oh, we will,’ said Kitty.
Mammy put a parcel wrapped in cloth into Kitty’s hands. ‘A bit of a picnic,’ she said, smiling. ‘Gathering holly can make a girl hungry.’
‘I’m always hungry, Mrs Doyle,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ll be glad of a bite to eat.’
Grandad came into the kitchen rubbing his hands together. ‘The chair is grand now, girls,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ve fixed the squeak and mended the wheel, it’s as good as new.’
We built up a grand sweat running through the woods till I was so hot, I could hardly breathe. I unwrapped the scarf from around my neck and went to put it in the chair.
‘Give me that,’ said Kitty. ‘I feel the cold more than you do.’
We pulled the icy-cold holly from the trees and filled the pushchair with the bright red berries and the green ivy and then sat down to eat our picnic. As we were eating, soft flurries of snow began to swirl around us. It settled on the branches of the trees, turning the woods into a winter wonderland.
‘Isn’t it too beautiful for words, Kitty?’ I said, looking around me.
Kitty shivered. ‘I’m too cold to admire it.’
She had the scarf wrapped so tightly around her mouth that her voice was muffled and kind of snuffly, as if she had the start of a cold.
‘You sound as if you have a cold,’ I said, laughing.
‘I’ll be getting a cold if we don’t get home soon,’ she said.
‘Kitty, do you see much of Eddie at the Hall?’
‘I see him every day.’
‘And do you remember to call him Master Edward?’
‘I do, but it’s hard, as I’ve always called him Eddie. I feel sorry for him, Nora.’
‘Why?’
‘Because no one really seems to care for him. He has his breakfast in the kitchen, then he gets his lessons from some crotchety old feller who looks as if he’s not long for this world and then he disappears for the rest of the day. It’s as if he’s no one’s responsibility. It’s no wonder he was so desperate for a friend.’
‘Then I’m glad he has the garden, for I know he is happy there. But I fear that for all his wealth, he has a sad kind of life.’
We sat in silence, eating the bread and cheese that Mammy had packed, and I thought about the garden and how beautiful it would look on this magical day. Oh, how I wanted to be there now, sitting on the green bench beside Eddie with the snow falling about our shoulders.
* * *
It snowed all week, covering the town in a blanket of silence. The school had closed and the children were dotted around the hillside, building snowy little men, pelting each other with cotton wool balls and sliding down the hills on bits of tin. Ireland didn’t get much snow, so the whole place was alive with the sheer excitement of it.
I decided that I would get Eddie a little present for Christmas. I wanted him to know that someone cared about him, but it had to be something that he could keep without arousing suspicion. I got to work early the next day and walked across to the beach. The sea and the pebbles were bright white in the dark morning, as if someone had taken a pot of paint and thrown it over everything. I walked up and down, my head lowered, my eyes searching until I found it – a pale grey pebble in the shape of a heart, as perfect as if an artist had lovingly carved it and placed it there for me to find. I put it in my pocket and ran across the road to Minnie’s.
Minnie had started to teach me how to make the bread and I was loving it. ‘It’s a living thing, Nora,’ she’d said. ‘You can feel it changing and coming alive beneath your fingers. I take all my frustrations out on it, so be as violent as you like – it won’t bear any grudges.’
Minnie was right – I found it soothing and exciting in equal measure. The sharp smell of the yeast filled the little kitchen as the dough changed from a sticky mass that stuck to my fingers and pushed underneath my nails to a smooth plump mound that changed shape and consistency under my touch. Once Minnie was happy with my pressing and pummelling, she’d cover it over with a damp tea towel and place it on the shelf in the cupboard to rise.
‘Now we have to let it rest for a couple of hours,’ she’d said.
‘A couple of hours?’ I’d said. ‘But that’s ages.’
‘If something is worth making, then it’s worth waiting for.’
That morning, Minnie was showing me how to slide the proved dough into the hot oven. The smell as it baked made my mouth water and filled the room, drawing passers-by into the little café. Minnie said the waiting was like giving birth, because you never knew whether you were going to get an old lump of a thing or the perfect article.
Later on, Minnie called me into the kitchen, and there on the table was a pale brown crispy loaf of bread. ‘Well done, Nora,’ said Minnie, pulling off a chunk and handing it to me. ‘The perfect article.’
Minnie had given me Wednesday afternoon off so that I could go Christmas shopping with Kitty. I was earning my own money now and I couldn’t wait to choose gifts for my family, although there were very few shops in Ballybun. There was the baker’s and the butcher’s, Pasley’s that sold groceries, Toomey the cobbler, the undertaker’s and Mulligan’s that sold shoes. The only decent shop in town was Merrick’s, which sold just about everything, so that’s where we would be heading. I helped with the washing-up as I waited for Kitty to come into the café. The bell tinkled and I dried my hands and went into the shop expecting to see her, but a man I had never seen before was standing by the counter.
‘Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?’ he said, taking off his hat.
‘You can, of course,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘And would you like a cake to go with it? They were freshly baked this morning.’
‘Well now,’ he said, smiling back at me, ‘I’ve never been one to turn down a freshly baked cake.’
‘Sit yourself by the heat, and I’ll bring it over.’
I watched him walk across to the fire – he didn’t sit down immediately but stood with his back to me, spreading his hands out towards the flames. I’d never seen him before, maybe he was on his way to Cork, or perhaps he had business at the Hall. He was tall and handsome with dark hair that curled around the collar of his coat. I thought he looked like a film star.
I wanted to tell Minnie about him but when I went into the kitchen, she was fast asleep in her chair. I made the tea and placed a slice of sponge cake on one of our best plates, then I carried it across to the gentleman, because there was no doubt in my mind that was what he was – a gentleman. He looked up and smiled at me.
‘Thank you, Miss…?’
‘Doyle,’ I said. ‘Nora Doyle.’
He stared at me. ‘And you live in the town?’
I nodded. ‘Paradise Alley,’ I said.
‘Please join me,’ he said. ‘Is that allowed?’
I thought it was an awful odd request but he seemed alright. ‘Well, there’s no one else in,’ I said, ‘and Minnie’s asleep, so I suppose I could, just for a minute.’
‘Get another cup,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to drink tea alone.’
I took another cup from the shelf. No one had ever asked me to join them for a sup of tea – he must be desperate lonely.
As I poured the teas, I was aware that the man was looking at me. I pushed a stray curl behind my ear and I could feel my face going red.
‘Do you live with your parents, Nora?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
‘And they are both well?’
‘They’re grand,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I’m very pleased to hear that.’
I wondered why he was pleased to hear that Mammy and Daddy were well. ‘Are you?’ I said.
‘I am indeed.’
We drank our tea in silence, the man seemed to be lost in thought and I was feeling terrible awkward. Then he stood up, but made no move to leave the café. ‘It’s been wonderful meeting you, Nora,’ he said. I didn’t know what to say to him as we stood facing each other. Eventually he moved towards the door. As he opened it, he turned back. ‘Are you happy, Nora?’ he said.
‘She’s happy,’ said Minnie from the kitchen doorway. ‘And now I suggest you get about your business, sir.’
I had never known Minnie to speak to a customer like this – the whole thing was strange.
‘I just wanted to know how the girl was,’ said the man politely.
‘So now you know. I bid you a good day, sir.’
The man tipped his hat at Minnie and left.
‘That was the oddest thing, Minnie. He wanted to know all about me; now why would anyone want to know about me?’
‘Don’t be worrying your head about it, Nora,’ said Minnie, going back into the kitchen.
I started to clear the table and as I picked up the saucer, I could feel the colour drain from my face. Underneath were two one-pound notes folded in half. I’d never seen so much money in my life. ‘Minnie!’ I shouted.
