Mary and Jeremiah walked past her without acknowledging her presence, their personas having changed radically now there was no longer any need to keep up the pretence of being a happily married couple. However, Mary did manage a tight smile as she paused at the foot of the staircase to say, ‘Tell Cook the meal was most satisfactory, Bridget.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.’
‘The ladies on my committee for the Sunday School Christmas party will be meeting here at ten-thirty tomorrow morning. Please see to it refreshments are served promptly at ten forty-five.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And the young masters will be home for the Christmas holidays in five days’ time. You may start airing their bedding tomorrow morning and lighting a fire in their rooms.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘That is all. Once you have put the drawing room to rights, you may retire.’
Considering it was nearly midnight, she should think so an’ all, Bridget thought, her voice without expression as she said again, ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Nevertheless, as she stacked the coffee tray, plumped the cushions on the sofas and tidied up crumbs of shortcake from the carpet
with a little dustpan and brush, the small, gaily-wrapped parcel in her pocket banished any tiredness. She could just imagine Sophy’s face tomorrow morning when she had a present from the doctor. And there were the books she and her mam and da had bought the bairn too. The old picture book was falling apart, Sophy had looked at it so much, besides which the lass hadn’t been reading so well then. She hadn’t known which book to choose – Hans Christian Andersen’s
Fairy Tales
or Lewis Carroll’s
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, when she had nipped into the little toy shop close to the dairy in Southwick Road. Conscious of the list of shopping in her pocket from the mistress, she had bought them both and she didn’t regret it. The bairn had little enough.
She would have dearly loved to buy Sophy one of the richly dressed dolls she had seen, their porcelain faces and long hair curled in ringlets similar to those in Miss Patience’s room, or maybe one of the magic lanterns which could project hand-coloured scenes on slides, but both would have been difficult to conceal. The books would give her the greatest pleasure. She nodded to the thought. And no doubt before too long she would know the stories off by heart.
Bridget’s parents had already retired to their room when she finally finished in the drawing room and walked through to the kitchen. The room was in semi-darkness. Kitty had extinguished the oil lamp but left two candles at either end of the kitchen table, and by their flickering light Bridget gazed down at the child sleeping under her mound of blankets. Sophy was so finely boned and slender she often appeared small for her age but in fact this wasn’t so.
Crouching down beside the pallet bed, Bridget smoothed a stray silky curl from the velvety forehead. Long thick lashes rested on milky white skin and the rosebud lips were slightly apart. The child was so lovely, the ever-present worry Bridget felt about Sophy’s future rose to the fore once more. She was going to be a beautiful young woman in a few years, and a girl as enchanting as Sophy needed a father’s protection, or at the very least a guardian’s covering between her and a world full of men.
And then Bridget’s common sense intervened. The bairn was only ten years old. There would be more than enough time to worry about such things in the future, but for now she was safe enough.
Standing upright, Bridget eased her aching back, the tiredness she had felt earlier suddenly overwhelming. She had been on her feet since five o’clock, not an abnormal occurrence, but tonight she felt every one of her thirty-five years and a good few more besides. She needed her bed. It had been three years after Sophy’s birth before she had felt able to return to her room, and even now she occasionally felt uneasy about leaving the child sleeping in the kitchen, but this night she didn’t even bother to undress before falling into bed, and was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
When Sophy opened her eyes the next morning, her first thought was of her birthday, and the second that she still felt full from the forbidden delicacies Kitty had slipped her way the previous evening. Kitty had given her a little bit of most of the dishes, but had made her a whole pear smothered in ginger sauce all to herself, the taste of which still lingered on her tongue.
Sophy glanced across the kitchen to where Bridget was busy persuading the range fire into a cheerful blaze. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s my birthday. I’m ten years old.’
‘That you are, my pet.’ Bridget smiled at her. ‘Why don’t you hurry up and get dressed, and then you can lay the table in here while I see to the fires in the house.’
Sophy nodded, scrambling out of bed. She liked the beginning of each day more than anything. The family were still asleep when she and Bridget and Kitty and Patrick ate their breakfast at the kitchen table, and it was always quiet and peaceful. She had never told a living soul – not even Bridget from whom she normally had no secrets – but she always pretended each morning that Bridget was her mother, and Kitty and Patrick her grandparents, and that they were a proper family eating together. To have said it out loud would somehow be a betrayal of her real mother, but just thinking it was all right.
By the time Kitty and Patrick rose at half-past six, the fires in the drawing room, morning room and dining room had been lit, and the first of the two pans of porridge which Kitty always left soaking overnight was simmering on the hob. Once they had eaten, Kitty would begin to prepare the family’s breakfast which was served in the dining room at eight-thirty sharp after the whole household had met for morning prayers in the drawing room.
Porridge was always followed by a full English breakfast for the family. It had been something Mary had been used to when she lived with her parents and had continued into her marriage. Along with freshly baked breakfast rolls accompanied by various preserves, dishes of all kinds were sent up to the dining room: grilled bacon and broiled kidneys, boiled eggs – cooked for exactly four minutes by the kitchen clock – mushrooms from Patrick’s dark little forcing house behind the south wall of the garden, and a hash of potatoes cooked the night before, to which onion and seasoning was added before Kitty shaped the end result into small squares and warmed them on the griddle. Occasionally, kromeskies – a kind of fritter – were also sent up to the dining room. When the boys were home, the dishes invariably returned to the kitchen empty. Other times, if anything was left, Kitty was expected to use it for the servants’, and Sophy’s, lunch.
Mary had a bee in her bonnet that the breakfast beverage had to be cocoa. Her father had always insisted that because cocoa contained cocoa-butter and starch, it would make up for the waste which had occurred during the fast of the preceding night, and would also maintain the body during the day. Tea was drunk at breakfast only when the bishop was a guest, since he had a dislike of cocoa.
Another of Mary’s pet hates was pre-packed coffee. Although tradesmen were forbidden by law to adulterate coffee with chicory, Mary didn’t trust them, therefore she insisted that the family’s coffee was roasted and ground in the kitchen. Every three of four days, Kitty would take half a pound of the raw coffee berries, put them in a clean frying pan with a little fresh butter and stir them round and round until the whole was done, before grinding
them immediately. Kitty often complained to herself during this process, muttering that the freshly packed coffee was just as good and she had enough to do as it was, but Sophy loved the mornings when the roasting coffee beans filled the kitchen with their luscious aroma.
Porridge, followed by thick wedges of Bridget’s crusty bread spread with butter and two rashes of bacon apiece was the se rvants’ breakfast as decreed by the mistress of the house. However, Kitty saw to it that a boiled egg – two for Patrick – along with several of the potato hashes, was added, having little time for what she called ‘the mistress’s parnicketies’.
It was one of Sophy’s jobs to wash and prepare the vegetables for the whole household’s meals each morning before the servants’ breakfast. Kitty left the required amount in the scullery’s huge square sink every evening before she retired, and Sophy always got to work as soon as she was up. She had to stand on an orange box to reach the sink, and however warm the kitchen was, the scullery was always freezing and gloomy, but with Bridget bustling about seeing to her various tasks the time passed quickly enough. Today though, Sophy had had to clean and scour a couple of pans and kitchen utensils left over from the dinner party the previous night before she could start on the vegetables. As far as Mary was concerned, it was one of Sophy’s many duties to scrub all the stewpans, saucepans, sauté pans, frying pans and other kitchen equipment each day, but between them Bridget and Kitty saw to it that the majority of this was taken off Sophy’s small shoulders. If the child had been forced to carry out all of Mary’s orders, it was doubtful if she would have got to bed each night before the early hours of morning.
Sophy had just finished the last of the vegetables when Kitty called her through to the kitchen for breakfast, and when she took her place at the table there were two packages by her bowl of porridge, a slim long one wrapped in bright paper and another bulkier one in brown paper tied with string. She glanced at Bridget whose soft brown eyes were waiting for her. ‘Happy birthday, hinny.’ And then, as Sophy leaped up and hugged her, planting a kiss on
her cheek, before doing the same to a smiling Kitty and Patrick, Bridget added, ‘Now afore you open ’em, the smaller one is from the doctor, Dr Lawrence.’
‘Dr Lawrence?’ Sophy returned to her seat, her eyes wide, touching the bright paper as though it was going to bite her. ‘Why would Dr Lawrence buy me a birthday present?’
After talking the matter through with her mother in hushed whispers while Sophy finished the last of the vegetables, Bridget had decided to say nothing of the past gifts, feeling it would somehow take the shine off the present. Now she cleared her throat before saying, ‘I suppose it’s because you’re ten and that’s quite a landmark, and you are his god-daughter, after all.’
Sophy stared at Bridget in amazement. It was the first time she knew of this. ‘I am?’
‘Aye, you are. When you were a little babbie you were christened by your uncle, and Dr Lawrence and Mrs Lawrence were asked to be your godparents.’
It was the biggest surprise of Sophy’s young life. Again she trailed a finger over the doctor’s present. ‘Did my mam ask them?’
It was rare Sophy used the local idiom. Mary insisted she speak as she termed ‘properly’ and any lapses on Sophy’s part had resulted in a brutal use of the cane.
‘No, hinny.’ Bridget’s voice was soft. ‘I don’t think so.’
Sophy nodded. ‘But she liked the doctor?’
‘Oh aye, he’s a grand man, the doctor, and he was the first one to see you when you were born. I think your mam would have been very pleased.’ Bridget’s voice was over-bright; the expression on the child’s face was paining her, and even Patrick had a lump in his throat at the transparent wonder lighting Sophy’s face. ‘Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got.’
Sophy’s small hands hesitated over the doctor’s package, and then she reached for the brown-paper one. ‘This is from you all?’ she asked, her clear amber eyes flashing over their waiting faces. And at Bridget’s nod, ‘Then I’ll open this one first.’
There was another round of hugs after she had opened their present, and then she carefully separated the edges of the thick
embossed paper. It fell apart to reveal a swathe of pale pink tissue paper, and when she lifted out the lengths of ribbon – two white, two violet and two scarlet – Sophy and the two women drew in their breath in a long
oooh
of delight.
‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ Sophy lifted shining eyes to the others. ‘Feel them, Bridget. They’re like silk.’
‘They’re bonny.’ The look on Sophy’s face brought a feeling of recklessness and Bridget jumped up, coming behind the child as she said, ‘Let’s see what they look like in your hair, shall we?’ and she began to unplait the tight golden-red braid.
‘She won’t be able to wear ’em in front of the mistress.’ It was Patrick who spoke and his voice was cautionary. ‘You understand that, don’t you, hinny?’ he added to Sophy as Bridget finally loosened the waist-length hair which spilled over the child’s slender back in a mass of glowing waves.
‘’Course she does, she’s not daft.’ Bridget was combing out the thick, silken locks with her fingers. ‘But that don’t mean she can’t have a few minutes now, does it? It’s a cryin’ shame, keeping all this hidden day after day. Beautiful, your hair is, me bairn. Just like your mam’s.’
Bridget reached for one of the violet ribbons but she never got to pick it up, a gasp from her mother causing her to spin round. And there, standing in the doorway, was Mary Hutton.
Mary had suspected for some time that her orders concerning the child were not carried out to the letter. Bridget took too much on herself, she had been saying the same to Jeremiah for the last two or three years, but his response had been chary. The O’Learys did the work of double their number and he would be hard-pressed to get a gardener-cum-handyman, let alone a cook and maid, for what he paid each month, he had warned her. He didn’t want her preoccupation over Esther’s daughter spoiling things.
But now she had her proof. She was well aware it was the child’s birthday and had timed her early morning visit to the kitchen to maximum effect. She walked slowly into the room and looked down at the child who was the bane of her existence, crouching into the maid for protection. ‘What are these?’ She flicked the
paper containing the ribbons with one finger, but with enough force to send them fluttering on to the stone slabs, the sight of the child’s hair increasing her fury. ‘You did this,’ she said to Bridget who had frozen at her entrance. ‘You bought these.’
‘She didn’t.’ The only thought in Sophy’s head was that Bridget mustn’t be blamed. ‘The doctor gave them to me. It was him.’