Authors: Rosemary McLoughlin
Miss Timmins was grateful the Dowager was not in the room when she bent to minister to Lily East and found her skirt and the carpet drenched in blood. Using the end of the girl’s black
shawl she hurriedly soaked up most of the blood from the dark red carpet, then rang the bell pull and told the maid to get Sid to bring the pony and trap around to the servants’ entrance
– the new girl was very ill. She lifted her – she was hardly any weight at all, a little wisp of a thing – carried her to her room, wrapped her tightly in a dark blanket, and
rushed to the back door of the Park where Sid was already waiting.
“That was quick, God bless you,” she said.
“Here, give her to me,” said Sid. “What a tiny little thing!” He peered into her face and loved what he saw. “Are you sure she’s not dead already?”
“Stop that kind of talk!” Miss Timmins admonished as she seated herself beside Sid. “She might be able to hear you. Hand her over to me now. Straight to the doctor’s
house, and hope as you’ve never hoped before that he is at home.”
“What’s she got?” asked Sid.
“Anaemia.”
“I never seen anyone that pale.”
“Try to avoid the potholes – she looks as if she could snap in two.”
Sid was only sixteen but he handled the pony and trap with accuracy and confidence.
A young man met them at the door and took a minute to convince them he really was Dr Finn, the son of the older version they were expecting. Sid wanted to stay on, but Miss Timmins sent him
back.
Five minutes later old Dr Niall Finn arrived out of breath and joined his son in the surgery attached to the house.
They were in there a long time.
The older doctor explained to Miss Timmins later that it had been touch and go but it looked as if the young girl would pull through. Could she notify the parents?
“She has none.”
“She’s obviously underage, so who is her guardian?”
“The Dowager, I suppose. She employed her as the new maid.”
“Well, in that case I’ll talk to you instead so we can spare the Dowager. Is that all right by you?”
“I feel responsible for her anyway. It’s my job as housekeeper to look after all the indoor staff, and I’d take particular care of one so young and ill.”
Lily had had a miscarriage, as Miss Timmins had already guessed, and lost a lot of blood. It would be better not to move her to a Cork or Dublin hospital, as she was too weak to travel. Young Dr
John Finn’s new wife, who was a nurse, would look after her until she was well enough to go back to the Park. Lily had an infection and would almost definitely be infertile – he would
spare her the details. Lily would be told of this when she regained her strength, but there was no need for anyone else ever to know.
“I’ve already said anaemia.”
“That will do as well as anything.”
Six weeks later Miss Timmins stood on the Turkish carpet (which she had personally and secretly managed to clean before anyone noticed) and re-introduced Lily, whom the Dowager found difficult
to equate with the sickly waif she had met previously, such was the improvement in the orphan’s health and appearance. Rather than sending her back to the Park after the initial danger was
over, the doctor’s wife had insisted on keeping her until she was fully recovered, captivated as much by her personality as moved by her circumstances.
Most people avoided the Dowager because of her constant talking – it was a mystery how she picked up so much gossip when she didn’t pause long enough to let anyone break into her
flow. She could clear a large space around her with, “Did I ever tell you about the time Lady Crombie met me by chance in Sackville Street?” or “Just listen to this. This will
amuse you. I was in London and passing by St Paul’s Cathedral when . . .” Even her growing stock of misused words, examples of which were treasured and quoted by those who noticed, were
not enough to prevent the silent withdrawal of guests. But since the arrival of her new maid, the Dowager noticed a change. When everyone else had left, Lily was still there, not missing a word. An
audience of one, and a maid at that. The Dowager couldn’t believe how the young girl’s admiration gratified her need for attention. There was something about Lily that appealed to her
– her company was agreeable and comforting, and as the years went by, indispensable.
All the chattering was a joy to Lily who had come from a house that, for the last four years with the arrival of her stepfather, had been filled with hostile silence, some of it bought at the
cost of tape across her mouth. To the amusement of the staff, she absorbed the vocabulary and cadences of speech of her mistress from hours of captive listening.
Miss Timmins made sure Lily took time off to have meals in the staff kitchen and often came up to collect her. If one waited for the Dowager to pause in her monologues, one could starve to
death. Young Sid always looked forward to her arrival and made sure she didn’t sit in a draught.
Lily was allowed to borrow books from the library when it was discovered she could read – her father had taught her – and chose Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as
accounts of real-life murders, so that she could share them with Miss Timmins. Because Lily had spent four years fantasising how she could dispose of her stepfather, she felt she had something in
common with those who had actually done the deed.
Her dearest wish was that Waldron, who was twelve years her senior, would marry and father some children, and that she would be appointed as nanny to them, but from what the Dowager said he was
in love with the army and, besides, had no opportunity to meet suitable young girls in India.
Lily East, four inches taller and a stone heavier, was twenty-four when the Dowager, who had never actually become a dowager as her husband remained alive and her sons unmarried so she was
mistress to the end, died of a heart attack, not from jaw fatigue as her neighbours had predicted. His Lordship personally thanked Lily for being so good to his wife and promoted her to be Miss
Timmins’s apprentice, as the dear old housekeeper was getting on in years and wasn’t really up to the job. Both women were more than pleased with the arrangement, though every now and
then there was a dip in efficiency as they became too absorbed in discussing a hand of cards or the latest Sherlock Holmes mystery.
When Lily was thirty, just before the beginning of the twentieth century, Miss Timmins died and Lily became head housekeeper. The indoor staff were pleased that no one had been imported for the
position – they were used to Miss East, as she was now addressed, and liked working for her.
Years earlier Sid had wanted to marry her but she refused, saying she preferred to stay free and single. She didn’t tell him it was because she couldn’t have children – he was
such a good man he would have married her in spite of it, but she didn’t want the sacrifice weighing on her conscience. He eventually married Kate, one of the younger maids, and they moved to
a cottage on the estate. Miss East was asked to stand as godmother to their first child, and when her eyes caught Sid’s across the baptismal font and she saw his proud expression, she knew
she had done the right thing to refuse him.
Waldron was fifty when his father died and he inherited the title and the estate. Within a year he had brought back to the Park his twenty-year-old cousin, Lady Blackshaw, as a bride. Miss East
looked forward to the life of the Park continuing – hunts, balls, weekend guests, tennis and shooting parties, but to everyone’s unhappy surprise, Waldron abandoned his young pregnant
wife, saying she would be in good hands with Miss East as housekeeper, and went back to India, talking about duty to the Empire.
Tyringham Park
1917
“Will she come back?” Charlotte asked, standing shivering beside Miss East’s bed in the middle of the night. Miss East, too sleepy at first to register that
Charlotte was speaking for the first time since Victoria’s disappearance, lifted up the bedclothes, allowing the child to jump in and snuggle up to her.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
Charlotte nodded, her wide eyes shining in the near darkness.
“Did you dream she came back?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Will you tell me about it?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“I don’t think we’ll ever see her again,” Miss East said after a while when Charlotte kept her silence. “Which is just as well. The nerve of her, saying you told
tales about her when I know for a fact you didn’t. And pulling your hair the way she did. That was dreadful. There’s just a tiny chance she might come back to see your mother, but she
won’t come anywhere near you, I can promise you that. She will never, ever, ever be in the same room with you ever again. Now close your eyes and think of Mandrake asleep in his
stall.”
Charlotte’s body relaxed and minutes later her breathing became slow and regular. Miss East waited for a few minutes before extricating her arm and moving away from Charlotte so that the
little girl wouldn’t become overheated and wake up again.
“Your father would be delighted to see this drawing,” Miss East said the next day as she picked up Charlotte’s latest discarded sketch of a horse.
“It’s the sort of thing he does himself. He’ll be pleased to know you’ve taken after him. We must go up to the nursery and collect all the ones you did there so we can send
them to him.”
“There’s none there. Nurse Dixon burnt them all.”
“Oh, dear. That’s a pity.”
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders to show she didn’t care. “I can do plenty more,” she said, picking up a fresh page.
Miss East sat at the table working out the next month’s roster while Charlotte stood beside her, filling the page with studies of horses viewed from different angles. Every now and then
the two would look up from their work and smile at one another.
When Charlotte had asked one day if she could stay with Miss East forever, and become her daughter, the childless woman was given a glimpse of the joy that had been denied her. She cursed her
stepfather. If the Lord wanted to forgive, let Him, but she never would.
“You know there are no such things as witches,” said Miss East that night after she finished telling a story in which Charlotte featured as the heroine who
outsmarted a nasty witch, a theme repeated each night with slight variations. “Despite what Nurse Dixon used to say. They are made up to frighten children into doing what they’re told
and to make stories more interesting.”
Charlotte thought for a while and asked in a small voice, “What about curses?”
Miss East was immediately alert. She had been preparing to bring up this topic for some time.
“No one can put a curse on you because it’s not possible,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Mind what I say. Nurse Dixon can’t make anything bad happen to
Mandrake just by saying it. It’s not possible because she doesn’t have any special powers. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, and nothing bad is going to happen to you, so you must
put Dixon’s curse out of your mind and not worry about it again. What she was doing was trying to scare you into keeping a secret.”
The trusting look on Charlotte’s face changed quickly to one of suspicion, and she moved away from Miss East’s side.
“What you have to concentrate on instead,” Miss East said as if she hadn’t noticed the reaction, “is the one great thing you were put on this earth to do, and knowing
you, it will be something wonderful and remarkable.”
Later, when Charlotte was sleeping, an unsettling thought came into Lily East’s mind. When Charlotte had asked, the night before, “Will she be coming back?” could it have been
Victoria she was referring to and not Nurse Dixon?
Passage to Australia
1917
On the ferry Elizabeth Dixon had targeted a clergyman who, within a fortnight, put her under the patronage of a benefactor who was travelling to Australia. As soon as Dixon
heard the word ‘Australia’ she felt that destiny had stepped in and was being kind to her for once. Here was her chance to be reunited with her only friend, Teresa Kelly.
Mrs Sinclair, recently widowed, was emigrating to live with her daughter Norma, whom she hadn’t seen for eleven years, and Norma’s husband Jim – “He’s loaded with
money, so my daughter tells me. I’ll soon be able to see for myself.”
Although Dixon had vowed never again to take on the role of carer, she made an exception for Mrs Sinclair because of her rich son-in-law and her level of fitness and health. There was little
likelihood she would become a burden during the two-month voyage. The fact that the old lady would organise her travel documents and pay her fare as part of the arrangement (courtesy of the rich
son-in-law) made Dixon think her luck really was turning at last.
“It’s not as if I need a companion,” Mrs Sinclair continued, “but it was either get one or have Norma come over to collect me. The way my daughter’s carrying on,
you’d think I was in my dotage. I’m a long way from that, I can tell you, but she insisted, so I gave in for peace’s sake. I think she’s afraid I might get lost and
she’ll never see me again. But look at you. A beautiful young woman like you should have a lot more interesting offers than mine. If my daughter could snare herself a rich husband
there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to.” What a tactless thing to say, she thought, as soon as she’d said it, knowing that Elizabeth Dixon could be one of the
millions of women facing a manless future because of the war.
What would she think of me if she knew I couldn’t even snare myself a poor one? Dixon wondered. She put her hand wearing the diamond ring up to her forehead in a gesture of grief.
“My fiancé died in the trenches,” she said, squeezing out a genuine tear by thinking of Manus. “His family didn’t think I were good enough for him,” she added,
sensing that the jewellery and her new good-quality clothes were at odds with her accent and limited use of words, “so they shoved me out on the street as soon as they heard and I never seen
them again after that.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs Sinclair, commenting on Dixon’s grammar as much as the pathos inherent in her explanation.