The House By Princes Park

by Maureen Lee

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Emily.’ Reverend Mother tried hard not to snap. ‘I see age hasn’t taught you to consider other people’s feelings.’

  ‘And age never will.’ Emily got up and began to wander round the room. She was a tall woman who had once been beautiful, fifty-seven, smartly dressed in a houndstooth check costume and a little veiled hat on her dyed black hair. A fox fur was thrown casually over the chair she had just vacated. She was proud of her still slim, svelte figure. Her sister was two years older and similarly built, though her shape was little evident beneath the multitudinous layers of her black habit. Her face, unlike Emily’s, was remarkably unlined.

  ‘Out of interest, sister dear, why are you here?’ Reverend Mother enquired. ‘Have you driven all the way from Liverpool just to lecture me? We nuns are only allowed one visit a year for which notice has to be given beforehand. I couldn’t bring myself to turn you away, but you’ve made me break my own rules.’

  ‘It isn’t just a visit, sis. I came because I want a girl.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘A girl. I want one of your girls.’

  ‘Excuse me, but aren’t you being a trifle hypocritical?’

  ‘No. I shall educate her, broaden her mind, teach her all the things you’ve managed to avoid.’

  ‘If you want to conduct an experiment, Emily, I suggest you buy a Bunsen burner.’

  Emily returned to her chair. She removed a silver cigarette case and lighter from her bag, then replaced them when she saw her sister frown. ‘Sorry, I forgot you disapprove. Mind you, you smoked like a chimney when you were young.’

  ‘There are all sorts of things I did when I was young that I haven’t done in many years.’

  ‘And smoking was one of the mildest.’ Emily winked.

  Reverend Mother refused to be riled. ‘Those things are long behind me.’ She didn’t go on about the sinner that repenteth, because it would have only made Emily laugh.

  ‘Seriously, though,’ her sister said. ‘About a girl. Since Edwin died and the children left home, I’ve felt terribly lonely in Brambles by myself. It’s so big, so isolated. Since I became a widow, my so-called friends have deserted me. I haven’t been invited out socially in ages.’

  ‘Why not sell Brambles and move?’

  ‘I can’t.’ Emily made a face. ‘It’s not mine to sell. Edwin left it to the boys, but they can only have it if I leave – or die. I think he had visions of me getting married again to some awful cad who’d inherit the place and deprive his children of their inheritance.’

  ‘I always thought Edwin very wise.’

  Emily ignored this. ‘I’m nervous on my own. I have servants, naturally, but they’re part-time. I hear noises during the night and can’t sleep.’

  Reverend Mother raised her brows sardonically. ‘And you think a fourteen-year-old child will protect you?’

  ‘She’ll be company, and I’ll feel better, knowing there’s another human being under the same roof.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I’d trust one of our girls with you, Emily. You’ll corrupt her. She’ll be smoking and drinking within a week.’

  ‘What shallow principles you must have taught them, Cecilia, that they can be dispensed with so swiftly.’

  The sisters laughed.

  ‘Why not employ a companion?’ Reverend Mother suggested.

  ‘Gawd, no.’ Emily shuddered. ‘Not some poor, pathetic woman without a home of her own. She’d agree with every single word I said, scared I’d sack her.’

  ‘And you think one of our girls will disagree? Doesn’t that rather contradict the cannon fodder theory?’

  ‘I’ll teach her to disagree as well as smoke and drink.’

  Reverend Mother opened a drawer and took out the book in which she kept a list of applicants for her girls. She always vetted them carefully, insisting they come for interview beforehand. She pretended to study the book while considering her sister’s request. It would be the worst sort of nepotism if she let Emily go to the top of the list. Yet Emily was the only flesh and blood she had and Cecilia loved her. Their only brother had been killed in the final days of the Boer War and their parents were long dead. Could she indulge her love for Emily by letting her have a girl whose head she would stuff with nonsense?

  Looked at another way, it would be an opportunity for one of the more intelligent children to escape what was, let’s face it, a life of drudgery, and make something of herself.

  ‘Well?’ Emily folded her arms and subjected her sister to a fierce stare. ‘I know you, Cecilia. Stop pretending to read and give me an answer. Can I have a girl or not?’

  Reverend Mother suddenly had a brainwave, seeing an opportunity to help her sister and herself at the same time. ‘We do have someone,’ she said carefully. ‘She’s fourteen next month. But I must warn you, she’s impudent, naughty, loud, opinionated, and completely unbiddable. We do, rarely, have girls who are difficult, if not impossible, to place. She’s a hard worker, but has too much lip – remember Nanny used to tell you that?’

  Emily made a face. ‘Has she anything nice about her?’

  ‘She’s generous, kind-hearted, amusing, curious about everything, and completely fearless.’

  ‘Hmm! What do you know about her background?’

  ‘Very little.’ The nun shook her head. ‘Fourteen years ago I was visited by a man, middle-aged, Welsh, well-dressed, rather pompous. He refused to give his name and told me one of his wife’s parlour maids was expecting a child and would I take it when it arrived in a few weeks’ time if it were a girl. I agreed, of course.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’ Emily asked curiously.

  ‘Not for a minute. He looked the sort who would have shown the door to any parlour maid he discovered was pregnant. I thought it might be his own child from an illicit liaison, but he didn’t look that sort, either. I decided it was almost certainly a relative’s, his daughter’s, maybe.’

  ‘Has this unbiddable child got a name?’

  ‘Of course she’s got a name. What do you think we’ve been calling her by all these years?’

  ‘I meant, did she come with a name? Or has she got one of your made-up ones?’

  ‘She came with a name. Ruby O’Hagan. Shall I send for her?

  ‘Why not!’

  Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the office door. Reverend Mother called, ‘Come’ and a nun entered accompanied by a girl much taller than Emily had expected for a not-quite-fourteen-year-old. Had she not known the children were more than adequately fed, she would have suspected the child hadn’t eaten in weeks. She looked pale and starved, with great dark eyes set in a peaky face, a sharp nose, and wide thin lips with an exaggerated bow. The brown uniform dress was too short, the sleeves and the hem, and her wrists and ankles were almost pathetically slight, the bones protruding as white and glossy as pearls. She had a great mane of black wavy hair tied back with brown ribbon, and she gave a bewildering impression of both fragility and strength.

  The nun departed, bowing wordlessly, and the girl came and stood in front of Reverend Mother’s desk, hands clasped behind her back. ‘Have I been naughty again, Reverend Mother?’ she asked in a loud, deep voice with an Irish accent – not surprising as most of the nuns were Irish. She didn’t look concerned that the answer might be in the affirmative.

  ‘Well, you should know that more than I, Ruby.’

  ‘I don’t think I have,’ Ruby said earnestly. ‘But sometimes I do things that don’t seem the least naughty, but I’m told they are.’

  Reverend Mother raised her fine eyebrows. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as on the way here. Sister Aloysius told me off for skipping. She said it wasn’t ladylike, but she didn’t answer when I asked why.’

  ‘Young ladies are expected to conduct themselves with a certain amount of decorum, Ruby, that’s why.’

  It was on the tip of Emily’s tongue to query this statement, but she thought better of it. ‘Decorum’ was such a boring word,
so inhibiting. If the child wanted to skip, why shouldn’t she?

  Her sister spoke. ‘If you have been naughty, Ruby, unwittingly or otherwise, I haven’t been told. You’re here because I would like you to meet Mrs Dangerfield.’

  The girl transferred her big bold eyes on to the visitor. ‘Hello,’ she said easily.

  ‘Hello, Ruby.’ Emily smiled.

  ‘Am I to work for you?’

  ‘Would you like to work for me?’

  ‘No,’ Ruby said baldly, glancing briefly at Reverend Mother, who rolled her eyes heavenwards, as if asking God for patience.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Emily, taken aback.

  ‘Because I don’t want to go into service.’

  ‘How will you support yourself, dear?’

  Ruby tossed her head and her thin nose quivered. ‘I’d sooner find a job on my own, like in a clothes shop, or one of those tea shop places I’ve seen in town. And I’ll find somewhere to live on my own too. I don’t like being bossed around.’

  Reverend Mother’s expression was grim. ‘You’ll be “bossed around” as you put it, in a clothes shop or a cafe, Ruby. Have you not thought of that?’

  ‘Yes, but I won’t belong to them, will I?’ The dark eyes blazed. ‘Not like in service. I don’t want to belong to anyone except myself.’

  Hear, hear, Emily echoed silently. Aloud she said, ‘I don’t want a servant. I want a live-in friend.’

  It was Ruby’s turn to look taken aback. She put her narrow head on one side and thought a moment. ‘I’d make a good friend,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ve got friends already, lots.’

  ‘Would you like us to be friends, Ruby?’

  There was a choking sound from behind the desk. Reverend Mother rose and said coldly, ‘Please leave, Ruby. I would like to talk to Mrs Dangerfield alone.’

  The girl looked mutinous. ‘But I want to be her friend!’

  ‘I said, leave.’

  ‘There was no need to bite her head off,’ Emily said lightly when Ruby had gone.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Her sister’s voice shivered with anger, anger mainly directed at herself for having allowed the situation to proceed this far. Emily was an entirely unsuitable person to have a child and she should have told her so straight away. ‘Ruby’s not a toy, or a piece of furniture to decorate your home. She’s a child, a human being. How long is she likely to remain your friend? Until you decide to go on another round-the-world cruise? What happens if you get married again?’

  ‘If I go away I’ll take Ruby with me. And the idea of remarrying horrifies me. I’ll treat her as a daughter, honest. Let’s face it, sis,’ Emily said reasonably, ‘You’ve got an awkward customer there. Put into service she won’t last a week. We’ll be doing each other a favour if you let me have her.’

  ‘That’s putting it very crudely, Emily.’

  ‘And very wisely, Cecilia. By the way,’ Emily twinkled. ‘Are you allowed to lose your temper? God will be annoyed. I think this calls for an extensive bout of flagellation tonight.’

  The other residents of the convent, nuns and girls alike, would have been alarmed had they witnessed the calm, controlled face of Reverend Mother turn such a deep red. ‘You’re impossible. Please go. As regards Ruby, I’ll think about it.’

  Ruby prayed extraordinarily hard over the next few weeks that Mrs Dangerfield would come back. It wasn’t that she wanted a grown-up friend, but the idea of going into service, being at the beck and call of a houseful of strangers, made her sick. She’d run away before she’d do it. Sister Finbar had once said she was no good at being good, and then got cross when Ruby had agreed. Ruby had no intention of being good unless she felt like it.

  Reverend Mother also prayed. She asked God for guidance in her dilemma. Would she be denying a child the chance of a better life by refusing her sister’s request? Or would the child be damaged if she acceded to it? And did it make a difference that the child concerned was Ruby O’Hagan who would present an equally troublesome dilemma next month when she reached fourteen and it was time for her to leave the walls of the convent?

  She couldn’t visualise the girl settling in the kindest, most accommodating of households. She would question the simplest order if she couldn’t see a reason for it. The sisters were always complaining. Why couldn’t she make her bed her own way? Ruby wanted to know. Why did all beds have to be made the same? Why did everyone’s shoes have to be laced identically? Why did her hair have to be tied back when she would have liked it loose? What difference did it make to God how she did her hair? Why couldn’t she wear her long winter socks if it was cold in September? It made no sense waiting until October just because it was a rule. Reverend Mother had changed the rule because she couldn’t see the sense in it either.

  Maybe the world needed people who wanted to change the rules. Ruby O’Hagan would undoubtedly be better off with Emily than in a place where unnecessary orders had to be obeyed. She wrote to her sister and suggested she visit again in the middle of April, after Ruby’s birthday. ‘It will give you plenty of time to get her room ready,’ she put at the end.

  Emily Dangerfield didn’t pray. She didn’t believe in it. It would be a bore having to drive Ruby to Mass at St Kentigern’s, the pretty little Catholic church in Melling, where she hadn’t been since Edwin died, a fact her sister was unaware of. Cecilia assumed her faith was as strong as it had always been and Emily saw no need to disabuse her. They met so rarely and she preferred to reproach Cecilia about the regressive policies of the convent about which she didn’t, in fact, give a damn, rather than have Cecilia reproach her for her loss of faith.

  What had praying ever done for her? She’d prayed for happiness, but look what she’d ended up with – a dry-as-dust husband who showed no interest in physical contact of the most basic sort once he’d sired two sons, forcing Emily to go elsewhere. And the sons! Adrian was in Australia, sheep-farming of all things, and she was unlikely ever to see him again. Rupert lived in London, but may as well have been in Australia with his brother for all she saw of him and his wife. She’d met her grandchildren, Sara and James, just twice.

  If Ruby came, she would treat her as a daughter. Bestow all the love that no one else apparently wanted on a fragile, orphan child. And perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to start going to Mass again, either.

  Four weeks later, on a cool, sunny, spring day, Ruby emerged from the convent carrying a brown paper parcel tied with string and accompanied by a tearful nun. There was no sign of Reverend Mother, Emily hadn’t been invited inside. The girl’s eyes were dazzling. She joyfully threw back her narrow shoulders, ready to face the world.

  Emily opened the passenger door of her grey Jaguar car and patted the leather seat. Ruby put her hand on the door and looked curiously inside. Then she slid on to the seat with a quiet smile and the ease of someone who had been getting into expensive cars all her life. She threw the parcel on to the back seat and waved to the nun. ‘I haven’t been in a car before,’ she said.

  ‘I’d never have guessed,’ Emily said drily. She started up the engine and they drove away. ‘Aren’t you sad?’ she enquired.

  ‘A little bit,’ Ruby conceded, taking the brown ribbon off her hair and tossing it loose. ‘But it’s silly to feel sad over something that can’t be helped.’

  ‘Very sensible, but not a concept that can be taken literally throughout one’s entire life.’

  ‘What’s a concept? And what does “literally” mean?’

  ‘I’ll give you a dictionary when we get home and you can look it up for yourself.’

  ‘What’s a dictionary?’

  ‘You’ll see when you get one.’

  At first, Ruby found going fast exciting, but a bit scary. She tensed whenever another car came towards them, convinced they’d crash, but the cars easily passed and she quickly forgot her fear. She said little, but her eyes sparkled with interest, even if the countryside they drove through was the same as that she’d been used to all her life: va
st green fields, undulating hills, untidy hedges full of birds. They came to the occasional village that looked dull compared to Abergele.

  ‘We’re in England now, dear, Cheshire,’ Emily said – she’d been told to call Mrs Dangerfield ‘Emily’. ‘We’ve just crossed the border.’

  ‘You mean we’re in another country!’ Ruby was impressed.

  ‘Yes. In a few years, people won’t have to drive such a long way round to Liverpool. There’s a tunnel under the River Mersey, but it isn’t ready for cars yet.’

  ‘Reverend Mother said I was going to live in Liverpool. It’s where Sister Frances comes from. She said it’s bigger than Abergele.’

  ‘Much, much bigger, but it isn’t exactly Liverpool where you’ll live. My house is on the outskirts, a place called Kirkby. Tomorrow, we’ll go to town and buy you some clothes. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to get out of that ugly brown frock.’

  ‘Clothes from a shop?’

  ‘Of course, Ruby. Where else?’ Emily thought the girl’s naivety utterly delightful.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go in a shop.’ Ruby gave a blissful sigh.

  ‘I must warn you, dear, that Liverpool is terribly noisy. There’s loads of traffic and crowds of shoppers. You mustn’t be frightened. Cities are very busy places.’

  ‘I’m never frightened,’ Ruby said stoutly, having forgotten her recent fear that the car might crash. ‘Are we nearly there?’

  ‘We’ve still got some way to go.’

  Ruby snorted and began to twiddle her thumbs, bored. England looked exactly the same as Wales. She visibly perked up when the scenery became more industrialised and squealed with delight when they reached Runcorn and the car drove on to the transporter bridge and they were carried across the shimmering Mersey on a metal sling, a process that Emily always found daunting.

  They drove through a forest of tall chimneys spewing black smoke into the blue sky. ‘They look ugly,’ Ruby opined.

  Emily nodded agreement. ‘This is Widnes.’

  ‘Ugly, but interesting. Everything’s interesting. Are we nearly at Kirkby?’ she said impatiently.