No gate barred our entry so, with me holding her hand, we walked up the long drive. The trees on either side formed a latticework as their untrimmed branches spread above our heads until, almost touching, they created a cool green lacy ceiling. At their roots long, coarse grass tangled with nettles and encroached onto the gravel. Just as I was wondering where we were going we turned a bend and I saw Cooldaragh for the first time. I gasped. It was the biggest and most beautiful house I’d ever seen.
As we approached it, two dogs ran towards us with their tails wagging, followed by a stately old lady. She was tall and thin, with white hair pinned up on top of her head. Her erect stance belied the need of the walking stick that she held in her left hand, as she offered her right one to my mother. She reminded me of characters I’d seen in sepia photographs of another era. As my mother shook her hand she introduced us.
‘This is my daughter, Antoinette,’ she said with her hand on my shoulder and a smile on her face. ‘And this, Antoinette, is Mrs Giveen.’
Shyness overcame me and silenced my tongue, but, seeming to understand that, the old lady smiled at me.
Mrs Giveen led us inside to a room where a tea tray was already laid. Even I, young as I was, soon realized that this was a type of interview and that I, as well as my mother, was being assessed and judged. She asked me several questions, such as what I liked doing and what my hobbies were. Then she started asking me about my school and whether I liked it.
Before I could answer, my mother jumped in. ‘She did very well when she went to her junior school in town. But unfortunately we had to move. Then it was just too far for us to send her. But she certainly liked it there, didn’t you, Antoinette?’
I confirmed that I did.
My mother continued. ‘If we moved here, there’s a bus that could take her to school every day. One of the reasons I would like to make this move is so that my daughter could go back to the school where she was so happy.’
The old lady looked at me and asked, ‘Antoinette, is that what you would like to do?’
I felt my heart move to my throat. ‘Oh, yes. I would like to go back to my old school very much.’
After tea she suddenly held her hand out to me. ‘Come, child. Let me show you around.’
Although she didn’t remind me of either of my grandmothers, having neither their warmth nor affectionate natures, I instinctively liked her. She talked to me as she led me outside and introduced me to her dogs, whom she obviously loved. She placed her hand on the terrier, whose colouring reminded me of Judy.
‘This one has been with me since he was a puppy. He’s thirteen years old now and is called Scamp.’
She patted the larger dog, who gazed at her adoringly.
‘And this is Bruno. He’s a cross between an Alsatian and a Collie. He’s two now.’
She asked me about my dogs. I told her about Judy, how I got her for my fifth birthday, how I’d rescued Sally and brought her home. I even told her about June, the bantam. She reassured me as she patted me on the shoulder.
‘If you come here, you can bring your dogs. There’s plenty of space for them.’
I sighed with relief. It was the one question I’d not asked which had been on my mind. As I watched her dogs playing on the lawn, I noticed large flowering bushes big enough for a child to play in, which she told me were called rhododendrons. Behind them, was woodland with tall, shady trees.
‘I have my own Christmas tree plantation,’ Mrs Giveen told me. ‘So that at Christmas I’m always able to choose my own tree.’
I began to feel very comfortable with her. I continued chattering as she took me around to the side of the house, where small stocky ponies grazed in a large field. Trustingly, they came to the fence and gazed at us with their heavily fringed, dark, liquid eyes. As she leant over the fence to gently stroke them, Mrs Giveen explained that they were old retired ponies that had once worked carting peat from the bogs. Now they could roam free and end their lives in peace. Straightening up, she took some sugar cubes from her pocket and held them out to the little ponies. I watched with wonder as their velvet noses nuzzled her hand, gently removing the sugar cubes.
‘So Antoinette,’ she asked out of the blue. ‘Would you like to come and live here?’
To me the house and grounds seemed to be magical, like places I’d read about in my fairy-tale books. I had never dreamt I could live in such a place. Still hardly daring to believe that she meant it, I looked up at her and simply said, ‘Yes, I’d like that very much.’
She smiled at me again as she took me back to my mother, showing both of us around the house. First we went into a huge hunting hall, muskets and an assortment of crude-handled knives decorating the wall above a large marble fireplace. I was later told they had been hung there by her grandfather, who had fought the Indians in America. A thick oak door opened from the hall into her private lounge, furnished with, to my untrained eye, very elegant, delicate and spindly-legged chairs and settees. I learnt over the following months that they were valuable antiques from the Louis Quinze period.
As the two women talked, I realized that my mother was being interviewed for the position of housekeeper and companion. Mrs Giveen, it seemed, no longer had enough money to staff a house of that size since the opening of factories in Northern Ireland had brought an end to the age of cheap labour.
My father, I gathered, was to carry on with his own work as a mechanic in the town. With no rent to pay and an income coming in from her new job, my mother hoped that she could save towards buying her own home.
After I learnt we were going to live there, I could sense I had passed some test and my mother was very happy and pleased with me. I can’t really remember her packing up the thatched house, but we had very few possessions and much of our old furniture was, I think, left behind. The chickens were sold to nearby farmers, including my bantam, June, which made me feel sad. We still only seemed to have a few suitcases and the now battered tea chests to our name. As on all our previous moves, my mother filled them with clothes, bedding and books.
On our arrival at Cooldaragh, Mrs Giveen met us at the door.
‘Antoinette, dear,’ she said, ‘come with me and I will show you your room.’
She took me through the hunting hall, up the main staircase to a gallery with several doors leading off it. She showed me my large room, furnished with an old-fashioned brass bed, covered with a thick down quilt. Beside it was a cloth-covered bedside table with an oil lamp placed on it. By the window was a small desk and next to it a bookcase. Then she told me, to my delight, that her room was next to mine. That news made me feel very safe.
There were two other staircases, which led to the disused servants’ quarters. One had been for the male servants and one for the females. My parents had the housekeeper’s bedroom, which was near to the only bathroom in the house. In the past, when the house had a full complement of servants, the bath water had been heated on the peat-fired range in the kitchen and carried upstairs by an army of maids. Now carrying the numerous pans of water needed for our weekly baths became an onerous task.
At the base of those stairs were two more rooms, which had once been the butler’s and maids’ pantries. A door opened into a small courtyard, where a pump supplied our drinking water. Rain butts collected more water for all our other needs and every morning buckets had to be filled and placed beside the range.
A long, red-tiled corridor led from the kitchen and pantries back into the main body of the house, where my parents’ sitting room was positioned.
Later, when I explored the house on my own, I counted twenty-four rooms. Only four bedrooms were furnished, two of which myself and my parents occupied. The smallest and dustiest rooms, which had no furniture, were the now unused servants’ quarters.
Not only was there neither running water nor electricity at Cooldaragh, with the whole house lit by oil lamps or candles, but the bus also only went into town once a day, leaving in the morning and returning after six in the eveni
ng. It was arranged that I would be a day boarder at school. That meant I could stay in the warm library to do my homework and have my supper with the full-time boarders, while I waited for the bus.
Once we had settled in, my mother had to take me shopping for a new uniform to go back to Coleraine High School. Even though I’d been pleased at the thought of returning, I was no longer the happy, confident child they had previously known, having become much more withdrawn. Because time had elapsed and the teachers had not seen the gradual change in me, they seemed to put it down to the difference that time had made.
My father was absent most weekends, ‘working overtime’ as my mother always explained, which was relief for me. On those days she and I would have lunch with Mrs Giveen in her dining room. Like her drawing room it was furnished with antiques, the surface of the mahogany sideboard completely covered in silverware. We three sat at the glowingly polished table, which was big enough to accommodate ten people. My mother, who was never a wonderful cook, could manage a roast at the weekend. Looking back, I would say my father deliberately stayed away, because Mrs Giveen was one of a dying breed, the aristocracy of Northern Ireland. My father always felt intimidated by such people, whereas my mother was comfortable in their company. I think in her mind she could pretend to herself that she was a friend as opposed to the housekeeper.
The old lady was in her eighties and exuded a sense of pride and dignity. I intuitively knew she was lonely, and we shared a bond that so often exists between the very young and the old. After lunch, I would help my mother clear away and wash up at the deep white sink in the maids’ pantry. Then I would go out into the grounds with all the dogs. I would play in the rhododendron bushes, which were tall enough to stand upright in, or visit the diminutive shaggy ponies. If I gave them titbits they would let me fondle their soft noses and stroke their necks.
I felt safe in those days, because of where I was sleeping. My father didn’t dare come near me, with Mrs Giveen’s bedroom just the other side of the wall.
On rainy days I explored the house. Mrs Giveen had cupboards full of mementos from the American wars and would enjoy talking about her grandfather and showing me all his souvenirs.
On other days I would take a book into the vast kitchen, which was always filled with delicious baking smells from the various breads and cakes my mother made. Here all the cooking was done on the old peat-fuelled range. Before I lost myself in adventures with the Famous Five or went swimming with the famous Water Babies, I would be given various tasks to do. I would be sent outside to bring in pails of drinking water from the pump. I collected peat for the range and baskets of logs for the fires in our rooms. On fine days, which in the Northern Irish winter were not too frequent, I would walk in the woods, collecting fallen branches and sturdy twigs for fires. These we would place at the back of the stove to dry, then use as kindling. My mother had read somewhere that tea made from stinging nettles had medicinal qualities, so, armed with gardening gloves, I filled baskets with the green weeds, which she then simmered on the range, filling the kitchen with a pungent aroma.
On the winter school mornings, when I made my candlelit way along corridors to fetch water for washing, I could hear the scurrying of mice. I wasn’t frightened of them, simply looking on them as an inconvenience because their presence meant every scrap of food had to be placed into tins or jars. One morning I saw that my father had left a packet of sugar out when he had returned home late. Sitting in it was a plump mouse with small beady eyes and twitching whiskers. I chased it away and threw out the remaining sugar. Even though Cooldaragh had an army of cats, every morning fresh mouse droppings appeared and my job was to clean them up.
Easter came and went, bringing with it improved weather. Then I was able to return to spending most of my time exploring the woods with the dogs. I would walk through the leaf-carpeted woodland, warmed by the rays of the sun that shone on the new green foliage. I heard the joyful notes of birdsong as egg-filled nests were guarded by the future parents. Scamp, who had become blind, was too old now for those walks, but the other three happily accompanied me, racing around beside me, digging in the undergrowth. Judy would often desert me in a hopeful hunt for rabbits. Bruno, on my command of, ‘Go fetch’, would search for her and herd her back.
Between the Christmas tree plantation and the woodland ran a stream. There I’d lie, looking for frogspawn, tickling the water with a stick to see if any life lurked in the mud. My patience would often be rewarded by the sight of small frogs that had only just left their tadpole stage behind, or a glimpse of the toads that lurked in the primrose-dotted clumps of grass.
In the early evenings, I would walk with Mrs Giveen to give the ponies titbits. They always knew the time we were coming, standing up against the fence, patiently waiting for us. On returning to the house I would help my mother prepare the high tea that had to be ready before my father was due back from work. I would take Mrs Giveen’s tray to her lounge then return to the kitchen to eat with my parents.
My father said very little to me in those months. I could sense, still, his eyes following me, but on the whole he ignored me, and I him.
Those days were a peaceful interlude in my life, an interlude that as time went by I assumed would last for ever, but how could it?
At the beginning of my school summer holidays, I woke up to an eerie silence in the house. I could sense something was wrong as I went down the back stairs to the kitchen. As my mother made my breakfast, she told me that Mrs Giveen had died peacefully in the night. She spoke to me very gently, knowing how fond I was of the old lady. A feeling of desolation crept over me for I knew that she had inadvertently been my protector as well as my friend. I wanted to say good-bye to her; I went up the stairs into her bedroom, where she lay on her bed with her eyes closed and a bandage tied around her chin to the top of her head. I wasn’t scared the first time I saw death. I just knew she was no longer there.
The dogs were quiet that day. They seemed to feel as I did, that we had lost a friend. That evening I gave the ponies their titbits, stroked their necks and found some comfort in their solemn gaze.
I don’t remember the funeral or relatives coming, but obviously they happened. What I do remember is her daughter-in-law coming to stay for a few weeks, mainly to do an inventory of the house, especially of all the antiques. She was a charming, lovely woman, who always smelled of perfume. She would invite me into her room, which was on the other side of mine, and give me gifts of hair slides and ribbons. Most excitingly, she brought me a tartan dress from London. My mother, an experienced dressmaker, made me my first suit out of grey flannel. I was very proud of my suddenly grown-up appearance, which I saw reflected in the mirror, and looked forward to wearing it when young Mrs Giveen took me to church.
It was during her visit that the Sunday service was interrupted by the appearance of a small bat, which suddenly appeared and swooped over our heads. To me it was just a flying mouse; to the panicked congregation it was a creature that instilled fear. That Sunday the service was cut short. Grown-ups, I decided, were scared of the most peculiar things.
It was the first time I had really seen my mother with another woman of comparable age, whose company she enjoyed. Instinctively, I had always known she did not enjoy my paternal grandmother’s or my aunt’s company. Often at weekends the three of us would sit in the garden at the side of the house, where we would have afternoon tea in the English fashion. My mother would wheel out a tea trolley with daintily cut sandwiches of egg and cress, or thinly sliced, home-cooked ham. There would be freshly baked scones with jam and cream, followed by fruit cake, all washed down by tea, poured from a silver teapot into china cups. My mother and young Mrs Giveen would talk and on those days I felt very grown up because I was included in the conversations.
The day I was dreading arrived, the day that Mrs Giveen junior told me she had to return to her house in London. Before she went she gave me a present.
‘Antoinette,’ she said, ‘I know it’s s
oon to be your birthday. I’m sorry I won’t be here for it, but I have got you a little present.’
She gave me a small gold locket on a chain, which she hung around my neck.
Now, with the house empty, my mother, I think, felt she was mistress. Which indeed, for the next year, she was.
Chapter Ten
The golden glow of sunbeams brushed my eyelids, forcing them apart. Sleepily, my eyes flickered around the room. The rays of sun settled on my new tartan dress hanging on the back of the door, intensifying the reds and blues of the plaid, turning them into jewel-like colours.
A twinge of excitement told me that this was my tenth birthday. This was the day I was to have my first party; every girl in my class was expected, all fourteen of them. My father, on hearing that my mother had agreed with this, had informed us he was going to spend the day playing golf, thus giving me a special present – his absence. This was my day and the first half of it I could spend with my mother alone. His presence would not be there to cast a cloud on a day I felt was mine.
My gaze alighted on the gold locket and chain that young Mrs Giveen had given me and with a pang I wished that both she and her mother-in-law could be present. My mother had told me during the summer holidays that this year I could have a party. My thoughts drifted back to taking the invitations into school. All the girls in my class had accepted and I was excited at the prospect of showing them my home. For in my mind, as well as my mother’s, Cooldaragh was my home.
The dogs and I would always end up on our walks in the Christmas tree plantation, where I thought of the young Giveens choosing their very own tree year after year, and then taking it back to the huge hall. I pictured them, dressed in the more formal clothes that I had seen in the sepia-tinted photographs hanging in the drawing room, climbing up a ladder to decorate it. I pictured them on Christmas morning in front of a log fire opening their presents, while the servants stood in the background waiting for their big day to follow.
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