by Judi Curtin
‘Keep moving, Lily, you’ve seen a staircase before, I hope.’
‘Of course I have,’ I said. This was true – once Mam took me to Sligo and I saw stairs in a hotel. Only thing was, I never had a chance to walk up those stairs. My house and my friends’ houses and my school were all on one level, and the church only had three steps outside the front door. When it came to climbing stairs, I was still at baby infant level. I took a deep breath and held tightly to the handrail as I carefully followed the steps upwards. At the top, I felt as proud as if I’d climbed all the way up Benbulben, but I didn’t tell Nellie that. I didn’t want to give her a reason to laugh at me.
* * *
I followed Nellie around for what felt like hours. I watched as she lit fires and straightened eiderdowns and picked up clothes. There were so many rooms – and some of them were bigger than my whole house. Everywhere I turned there were rugs and soft couches and silk curtains with tassels on them. It was like being in a palace in a fairytale.
I thought of all the fun Rose and Hanora and I could have in this place – playing games and pretending to be fine ladies – but Rose and Hanora were far away. All I had was Nellie, who looked like she didn’t even know what fun was.
One bedroom had a huge four-poster bed, piled high with pillows and eiderdowns and velvet blankets. Even looking at it made me feel tired. I wanted to kick off my shoes and jump in and wrap myself up in the softness, and sleep for hours.
Nellie grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room. ‘Stop dilly-dallying,’ she said. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
A few times I asked questions, but I soon learned that I was wasting my breath. Nellie either ignored me completely or looked at me as if I had grown two heads. Mam’s advice about being nice to people wasn’t working so far. I was being as nice as I could to Nellie, but the nicer I was, the more she seemed to hate me. In the end I just followed her around like a silent shadow. A few times I stuck my tongue out at her behind her back, but that didn’t make me feel much better.
* * *
It was nearly midnight when I got to my bed. Within seconds Nellie was slumbering soundly, but even though I was exhausted, I had trouble sleeping. I’d never slept in a bed on my own before, and though I’d often dreamed of this, now that it had happened, I wasn’t sure I liked it. I was used to the warmth of my brothers and sisters. I was used to Winnie’s little fingers twisting the hair at the back of my neck. I was used to the steady breathing of the four little people I loved most in the world. I was used to knowing that Mam was only feet away, ready to jump from her bed in the kitchen at the first sign that one of us needed her. And listening to Nellie’s loud snores didn’t make up for any of these things!
I wrapped myself up in Mam’s shawl and tried to imagine that she was there, hugging me and making me feel safe. I lay and looked at the ceiling and tried to cry silently as I wondered if I would ever get used to this strange new life.
Chapter Five
‘Wake up, Lily, wake up.’
Someone was shaking me roughly. ‘I’m sorry, Mam,’ I said without turning over. I was all confused. Did I sleep too late? Had Winnie eaten her porridge? Were the boys up? Was it time for school?
Nellie’s harsh laugh reminded me that I wasn’t in my own bed, my mam and my brothers and sisters were far away and there was to be no school for me ever again.
I jumped out of bed, afraid of getting into trouble for being lazy. The floorboards were cold on my bare feet, so I hopped up and down as I brushed my hair and put on my uniform. Nellie looked disappointed when I managed to fix my apron and hat correctly. I followed her along the corridor, hoping it was breakfast time. I was wrong!
She led me to a storeroom near the kitchen. ‘There’s your housemaid’s box,’ she said, pointing at a big wooden box with a metal handle. ‘Make sure it is always correctly stocked.’
‘Stocked with what?’ I asked, sure it wasn’t going to be filled with books or sweets or anything nice at all.
Nellie rolled her eyes. ‘With everything you need for cleaning the grates.’
I picked up the box. It was heavy and awkward to carry – and it wasn’t any easier when Nellie shoved a sweeping brush and a mop towards me. When I had everything balanced, she picked up another box like mine, took a mop and a brush and headed for the back stairs.
‘I’ll do the dining room first, and you can do the drawing room,’ she said when we got to the top of the stairs. ‘And get a move on – this has to be done before the family comes down for breakfast.’
She wasn’t happy when I followed her into the dining room.
‘This isn’t the drawing room,’ she said. ‘Have you a brain at all, or is your head filled with cotton wool?’
‘I have more than enough brains, thanks for asking,’ I said, as I put down the heavy box. ‘But I’m not a mind reader, so if you won’t tell me what to do, I’ll have to watch you, and then go and do the same in the drawing room.’
Nellie seemed surprised, but she couldn’t really argue with what I said, so she called out a big long list: ‘Open the shutters. Shake the curtains. Clean and blacklead the grate. Light the fire. Dust everything. Throw damp tea leaves on the rugs. Sweep the rugs. Sweep the floor. Polish the floor.’
I knew how to clean – I’d been helping Mam for most of my life – but half the things Nellie said made no sense. What was blackleading the grate?
Why would you throw tea leaves on the rugs? It was messy and a terrible waste. (In our house, tea was a special treat for Sundays, and Mam used the leaves over and over again until the tea they made was like pure water, and after that the leaves were put on the vegetable patch – we would never, ever throw them on the floor.)
In the end, I found a system that worked. I did the first thing on Nellie’s list as fast as I could, then I ran next door to see what she was doing, and I copied that, over and over until at last the drawing room was clean and shiny, with a lovely fire burning in the grate. I wasn’t very clean and shiny though – I looked like a wild woman from all the running around, and I had a big black stain on my apron.
Nellie came and looked at my work. ‘That’s not too bad, I suppose,’ she said, which I think might have been a big compliment coming from her.
Just then Mrs Bailey came along.
‘How is the work going, Lily?’ she asked. ‘Is Nellie showing you the ropes?’
I put my head down. What would Mrs Bailey say if she knew how I’d struggled with cleaning the drawing room – that mostly I’d had to work things out for myself?
Nellie didn’t say anything either, so Mrs Bailey must have guessed there was a problem.
‘Let me spell it out for you, Nellie,’ she said in a cold voice. ‘Lily is new, and I want you to take her in hand today. There is a right way to do everything, and it is your job to show Lily what the right way is. For the rest of the day, you work on every room together. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Mrs Bailey,’ said Nellie, giving me a vicious stare. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and still Nellie seemed to have found one more reason to hate me.
I was very tired by now, but there wasn’t any time to rest. Nellie had picked up her box and mop and brush and seemed to expect me to follow her.
‘Just the bow room, the billiard room, the hall, the gallery and Sir Josslyn’s study to do, and then we’re finished …’ said Nellie. I felt a little bit better until she finished her sentence. ‘… downstairs.’
* * *
All the rooms were full of ornaments, and everything had to be picked up and dusted and put back in exactly the same place. Some of the shelves had glass cases full of dead butterflies and beetles. Nellie thought they were pretty, but I felt sorry for the poor creatures, all stiff and cold and pinned to cardboard forever.
After a while I walked into one room and saw a big brown bear standing up on his back legs, showing his huge sharp teeth and claws. I grabbed Nellie’s arm, and screamed. ‘A bear! Nellie, it’s a bear! Run!�
�
‘He scared me too at first,’ said Nellie, laughing. ‘But don’t worry, Lily. He’s stuffed. He can’t hurt you. Look, you can touch him.’
I copied her and touched the fur on the bear’s back. It was dry, and coarse – not soft at all.
‘Is he real?’ I asked. I realised I was whispering, almost as if I might wake him up.
‘Of course he’s real. He’s been here for years and years. Some people say Sir Josslyn’s father, Sir Henry, shot him. Other people say that the butler, Mister Kilgallon, shot him because he was attacking Sir Henry.’
I looked nervously out the window. ‘I didn’t know bears lived around here. If Mrs Bailey sends me to the kitchen garden to pick flowers, I’ll have to bring Mr Kilgallon along to protect me.’
‘You’re funny,’ said Nellie. ‘Bears don’t live here. Sir Henry went on long expeditions to the Arctic, and that’s where this one came from.’
‘Where’s the Arctic? The Master at my school taught us a lot of geography, but it was mostly about the rivers and mountains of Ireland. Did you learn about the Arctic at school, Nellie?’
‘No!’ it sounded as if she didn’t like my question, so I decided not to ask any more.
‘Oh well, who cares anyway?’ I said. ‘All I know is, if the Arctic’s full of angry bears with sharp teeth like this one, then I’m never going there. I think I’ll stay in Ireland and take my chances with foxes and badgers and field mice.’
Nellie laughed for a long time, and I realised that I hadn’t heard her laugh before – it was a nice sound. But then it was as if she remembered who she was, and her laughing stopped. ‘You’re distracting me from my work,’ she said. ‘Stop chattering and start working – that’s what we’re here for.’
I looked at her for a second, confused by how she could be nice and happy one minute, and grumpy the next. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I didn’t dare to say any of them. So I picked up my box and began to clean yet another fireplace.
* * *
By the time the downstairs rooms were finally done I felt as if I hadn’t had a bite to eat for years, and I very much hoped it was time for breakfast. I was wrong again.
‘Now we do the dressing rooms,’ said Nellie. It didn’t seem fair. Mam is the hardest-working person I’ve ever known, but even she never does any work before breakfast. I felt sad as I imagined my poor tired mother sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of porridge. I imagined her sighing as she scraped the bowl clean, saying – ‘a good breakfast sets you up for the day, never forget that, Lily.’ I could feel tears coming to my eyes, but I quickly wiped them away – I didn’t want Nellie thinking I was a baby.
We had to go downstairs to empty the ashes out of our boxes. I followed Nellie through the kitchen, and tried not to look too longingly at piles of food laid out on big silver platters. Surely no one would mind if I helped myself to a small scrap of bread? After all, a housemaid who died of starvation wouldn’t be able to do much work, would she? I didn’t dare to take the chance, though.
‘Who lives here in Lissadell?’ I asked as we went up two flights of stairs to where the bedrooms and dressing rooms were.
‘The Gore-Booths, of course.’
‘I know it’s the Gore-Booths, everyone knows that – but who exactly are they?’
I half expected her to laugh at my question, but right then I learned something important about Nellie. She had a grudge against almost everyone in the world, but for some reason she was half in love with our employers.
‘The master is Sir Josslyn,’ she said. ‘He’s a baronet.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, remembering the word the driver had used the day before.
‘That’s … that’s …’ I wanted to laugh as I realised Nellie didn’t know the answer, but then I felt sorry for her. In some strange way, I knew she was trying to impress me, so I decided to help her.
‘I suppose baronet is some kind of title,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s it. It’s definitely a title. It means Sir Josslyn is a very important man – and he’s a good man too – always very decent and polite. His wife is Lady Mary, and there never was a kinder woman walked this green earth. If it weren’t for those two fine people …’
She didn’t finish, and that made me really want to know what she had planned to say.
‘What?’ I prompted, but she ignored me.
‘The Gore-Booths are the best employers in all Ireland, and we are lucky to be here,’ she said. ‘Their children are Michael and Hugh and Bridget and little baby Brian. Perfect angels, they are, every last one of them.’
I smiled to myself. I didn’t know if what Nellie said about the family was true, but as long as she loved them, I was prepared to love them. I was sad and lonely and ready to do almost anything to make this strange and grumpy girl like me.
‘This is a very big house for two adults and their babies,’ I said, thinking of Mam’s tiny cottage, and how we all had to squash to fit in.
‘Many visitors come to us at Lissadell,’ said Nellie, as if people came to see her rather than Sir and his family.
‘Who visits?’ I asked. This chatty Nellie was much nicer than the grumpy one, so I wanted her to keep on talking.
‘There are many friends,’ she said. ‘Important people from all over the country – poets and artists and the like. And Sir Josslyn’s brother and sisters come from England with their children.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said, still trying to keep the conversation going. ‘Anyone else?’
‘Well, there’s Lady Georgina and Miss Maeve, but they hardly count as visitors, since they are here so often.’
‘Who are they?’
Nellie gave me a scornful look, as if my question was a really stupid one. ‘Lady Georgina is Sir Josslyn’s mother. She used to live here, but she moved out so Sir Josslyn could get married.’
‘She had to leave her own house so her son and his wife could have it? That doesn’t sound very fair.’
‘Sir Josslyn is very fair. He even allows Miss Maeve and Lady Georgina to keep their old rooms for when they visit – they just don’t live here any more.’
‘That still doesn’t sound right to me.’
Nellie rolled her eyes. ‘The oldest son gets the house. It’s the way the gentry do things – you wouldn’t understand.’
She was right about that. I thought about Mam. If Denis got married, he’d never, ever put her out of her own home. Maybe rich people didn’t always have the best ideas. I knew Nellie wouldn’t agree with me, and I didn’t feel like a fight, so I changed the subject.
‘Who is Miss Maeve?’
‘Miss Maeve is Sir Josslyn’s niece – she’s the daughter of his sister, Countess Markievicz.’
At last a familiar name! Once, when Mam thought I wasn’t listening, I heard our neighbor, Molly Carty, whispering about the countess. She had that voice adults use when they are talking about shameful things, and I could hear interesting words like ‘disgrace’ and ‘scandal.’ I was dying to know more, but when Mam saw me edging closer she made a face at Molly and started talking about how cold the weather had been lately.
‘Have you ever met the countess, Nellie?’ I asked.
‘Many times,’ said Nellie, as if they were the best of friends.
‘What’s she like?’
Now Nellie looked all prim. ‘We don’t talk about her very much. I think she’s a disgrace to the family.’
Now I was very interested, but we were already at the top of the stairs and Nellie seemed to think the conversation was over.
‘You’re not paid to gossip about the family,’ said Nellie, as if she hadn’t said a word. ‘And you shouldn’t be criticizing your betters.’
I hadn’t criticized anyone, but her comment made me think. The Gore-Booths were definitely richer than me, but were they really better?
‘We’ve got work to do,’ said Nellie. ‘There are no visitors, so just two dressing rooms to
do today.’
The dressing rooms were big and very fancy. I couldn’t understand why anyone would need a special room, just for keeping their clothes and for getting washed and dressed in.
Talk of the family must have made Nellie feel generous, so she obeyed Mrs Bailey’s order and showed me what to do. We scrubbed the washing basins, and laid out the soap and towels the way the Lord and Lady liked. Then we cleaned the grates and lit the dressing-room fires and tidied everything. After that, when I felt as if I had been working for weeks, Nellie said the sweetest words I had ever heard in my whole life.
‘And now it’s time for breakfast.’
Chapter Six
We had porridge for breakfast, just the same as at home, but I was so hungry it tasted like the finest sweets I’d ever eaten. Nellie and I were the only people in the kitchen, which meant I didn’t have to talk, and I could concentrate on eating. I used my finger to pick up the last few grains of porridge, but stopped when I saw Nellie glaring at me.
A maid came to take away my bowl and I wondered why Nellie wasn’t standing up to go. A second later the same girl came back in carrying two plates.
‘Leftover meat pie from last night,’ she said, as she put the plates in front of us. ‘Cook goes mad when food is sent back from the dining room – takes it as an insult.’
I smiled. I didn’t care if the cook felt insulted – the meat pie was delicious! I still wished that I was at home, but I was beginning to see that life at Lissadell might have its compensations.
* * *
After breakfast, there was plenty more work to do, and once again I followed Nellie up the back stairs.
‘This is where Lady Mary sleeps,’ said Nellie. ‘She’s downstairs having breakfast now, so we can clean in here.’
We were in a bedroom that was about three times the size of my house. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen, with three windows, and a big four-poster bed. If I had that bed, I’d pretend to be sick every single day of my life, so I could stay lying there on the beautiful silk pillows and sheets, looking out at the gardens and the mountains.