Lily at Lissadell

by Judi Curtin

  ‘Is the house massive?’ asked Jimmy, wiping a crumb from his face with a very dirty hand. ‘And is it all fancy? And do you have to bow when you’re talking to the rich people? And do they have sweets and chocolate for breakfast?’

  I answered all of his questions, and then Denis piped up. ‘A boy at school said they have a motor car, but that couldn’t be true, could it?’

  ‘Actually that boy was right,’ I said. ‘The Gore-Booths do have a motor car. It’s called a Wolseley Siddeley.’

  I knew this because I’d heard the nice driver, Albert, telling one of the stable boys all about it. I don’t understand why he laughed when the boy said that motor cars would never catch on, and that people would always need horses for getting around.

  ‘Where do they go in the car?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘I heard someone say they go on holidays to Bundoran,’ I said. ‘And they go away on fishing trips.’

  ‘If I owned a house like Lissadell,’ said Mam with a big sigh. ‘I wouldn’t leave it for anyone. I’d sit in my fancy living room with my feet on a cushion and never wish for another thing in my whole life.’

  ‘Have you seen the car with your own two eyes?’ asked Denis.

  I nodded. I had actually seen it through the window once when I was shaking out Lady Mary’s eiderdown.

  ‘What’s it like?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s dark blue and huge and shiny, and it makes a lot of noise,’ I said.

  Denis was looking at me with more respect than ever before.

  ‘Did you get a drive in it?’ asked Jimmy.

  Mam laughed. ‘There’s a thought!’ she said. ‘People like us won’t ever be going around in cars. It’s a good day for us when a farmer gives us a lift in a pony and trap.’

  Jimmy looked embarrassed, and I felt sorry for him. When you’re a child, it’s never nice to have grown-ups laughing at you.

  ‘I’d love to get a drive in it, Jimmy,’ I said. ‘But I don’t expect I’ll ever be in a motor car. Mam’s right – they will always be only for rich people.’

  Soon after that, Hanora and Rose came to visit. It was strange at first. I thought they might have changed but they were just the same – I felt different though. The three of us sat on the bench outside our house, like we had a hundred times before. Hanora and Rose talked about what happened at school that week. They mentioned history and sums and the new skipping game they played during lunch break. I listened and smiled but it all seemed foreign – as if my two old friends were living in a world that I had left behind forever.

  Soon they had to go home to help their mams and dads, and when they left, Mam said it was time for me to go back to Lissadell.

  ‘Let me make you up a small parcel of food for the journey,’ she said when I was ready to leave.

  ‘I’m so full after the dinner,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I could eat another bite.’

  I was really quite hungry, but Mam and the little ones didn’t have much to spare, and I knew there were all kinds of treats waiting for me in the servants’ hall. So I kissed everyone goodbye, and set off on my long walk.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a strange feeling, walking along the shore at Lissadell again, and coming around the bend and seeing the Big House between the trees. Only a week had passed since my first day, but already everything was different. I knew which gate to walk through and where to find the servants’ tunnel. I knew exactly how Lady Mary liked her towels folded. I knew my place at the big servants’ table and I knew not to pull out my chair until Butler Kilgallon and Mrs Bailey were seated. It’s funny how easily you get used to new things

  * * *

  Morning came much too quickly. I’d been dreaming I was at home, cuddled up in bed, telling stories to Winnie and Anne, looking forward to a day at school. I wasn’t happy when Nellie shook my arm and I remembered I was at Lissadell, and my school-days were over.

  The morning passed quickly, and after lunch, Mrs Bailey told me to dust and sweep the big staircase. Nellie and I and the other servants always used the back stairs, so I’d never gone up the main one, which was very fancy. The steps were made of black stone that was polished so much I could nearly see my face in it. The pillars were decorated with swirls and flowers, and halfway up each one was a lovely golden bird with its wings spread out. It was so beautiful! I wished I was good at drawing so I could do a picture to show to my mam – she loves pretty things – and doesn’t have many of them in her life.

  I dusted everything very carefully and then I went back to the top of the stairs and began to sweep. I was walking backwards, sweeping slowly and being careful not to raise up all the dust, as Mrs Bailey had warned me – and then I bumped into someone! I guessed it was probably Nellie coming to see if I was doing my job properly. I was ready for her to shout at me, and tell me how useless I was, when I heard a soft voice. When I turned around and saw a lady, I nearly collapsed on the spot.

  ‘Oh, Madam, Miss, My Lady, I’m ever so sorry,’ I said. ‘I was concentrating on the sweeping and I wasn’t looking and I should have been looking and it’s all my fault, and did I hurt you, and …?’

  I stopped talking. Too late, I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to say a word to the family unless they spoke to me first.

  Would I lose my job for this?

  Would I have to go home to Mam and tell her that my big mouth had got me into trouble again?

  Would I get sent to some horrible house where the servants got beaten and were half-starved?

  But the woman was smiling. ‘You can call me Lady Mary,’ she said, in her beautiful voice. ‘You must be the new housemaid – Lily, isn’t it?’

  I nodded as I squashed myself up against the wall and tried to look small. If I could, I would have disappeared altogether.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Lily,’ she said. ‘I hope everyone is treating you well?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘That’s good. I hope you will be very happy here,’ she said, and then she walked on up the stairs. My heart was thumping so hard I felt it was going to jump right out of my chest and go bouncing all the way down the shiny stone steps. A few minutes later, all that remained was the smell of Lady Mary’s perfume, and I wondered if she’d been a vision rather than a real person.

  Over the next few weeks, I saw Lady Mary twice again, and she smiled at me, but she never said another word. Once I saw Sir Josslyn, but he didn’t look in my direction, and I don’t think he even noticed that I was there, scrubbing his rug on his landing in his house on this huge big estate. Every now and then I saw the little ones with Isabelle or one of the other nurses. The babies looked so sweet, all dressed up in satin and lace, and seeing them made me miss my own dear sisters. It seemed strange though – all of us, family and servants, were living in the same house, breathing the same air, but we were always apart. It reminded me of the farm near our village, where the sheep and the pigs were kept in separate fields, with a thick stone wall between them. Sometimes it didn’t make any sense to me at all.

  * * *

  One morning I went into a small room off the kitchen and saw Harry, one of the footmen ironing the newspapers. I leaned across to read the headlines and he smiled. ‘Don’t bother looking, Lily,’ he said. ‘The world is changing, but not fast enough for me. The papers always have the same old news.’

  ‘So what news is there today?’

  ‘The Lockout’s still going on, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ve heard people talking about the Lockout,’ I said. ‘But I don’t really understand what it is. Could you tell me who has been locked out – and why?’

  Most of the senior servants still scared me, and I’d never dare to ask them anything. Harry was nice, though, and I knew he wouldn’t laugh at me.

  ‘It’s been going on since August,’ he said. ‘The big employers locked out all the workers who wouldn’t resign from their union, and now there’s thousands out of work.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  �
�You can say that again. We’re lucky down here in the country, but there’s people in Dublin who are nearly starved to death – even little children.’

  ‘And isn’t anyone doing anything to help them?’

  Harry looked over his shoulder, and when he spoke again, it was almost in a whisper.

  ‘The Countess has done a lot to help.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I could tell you a hundred good things she’s done, but I’ve got work to do. Sir Josslyn will be waiting for these newspapers.’

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Just tell me a few things about her. No one around here ever wants to talk about the Countess – and that makes her seem so mysterious and interesting.’

  ‘She’s an interesting woman, all right. Lately she’s been selling her jewellery to raise money for people who are hungry. And she’s helped to set up a soup kitchen, so the children will have something warm in their bellies. I hear she goes down to the basement of Liberty Hall herself, puts a sack over her fine dress to protect it, and peels potatoes with the other women.’

  ‘She sounds like a very kind lady to me,’ I said. ‘Sir Josslyn and Lady Mary should be proud of her.’

  He smiled. ‘Maybe they are – in their own way. Thing is, some people think the Countess isn’t very ladylike – what she does embarrasses them. It’s not what they expect from a woman of her station.’

  ‘What do they expect of a woman like her? Why can’t she––?’

  I was enjoying the conversation, and trying to make it go on longer, but Harry interrupted me.

  ‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘These papers should have been in the breakfast room ten minutes ago.’

  I watched as he took the papers and ran up the back stairs. I gave a big sigh. Countess Markievicz! When was I going to see this exotic lady?

  * * *

  Soon every working day began to feel like the one before. Isabelle said there were fifty-eight fireplaces in Lissadell, and some days it felt as if I had cleaned and lit every one ten times over. I couldn’t count how many ornaments I had dusted or floors I had swept.

  Most of the rooms downstairs had shelves full of books. At first I used to hope that maybe Lady Mary would let me take one to my room so I could read at night, but soon I realised that was a foolish thought. When bedtime came, I was always half-dead from tiredness, and I only had time for a quick prayer in my head before falling fast asleep.

  Nellie and I spent most of every day together and she was nearly always grumpy and mean. Her rare smiles were like treats, that vanished before I had time to enjoy them properly.

  I’d spend days looking forward to my day off, and then it would come and be over in a flash, and I’d have six more long days of work ahead of me.

  I had a warm bed and plenty to eat, but I was often sad. I was often lonely.

  I never had any fun.

  And then one day something strange happened.

  Chapter Nine

  It was evening time, and Nellie and I went upstairs to prepare the bedrooms for the night. By now I could almost do this in my sleep, so my mind was on my own bed and how badly I wanted to be there. Nellie had been coughing for hours the night before, and I had barely managed to sleep a wink.

  ‘Lady Georgina and Miss Maeve are here,’ said Nellie. ‘So that means two extra rooms for us to prepare.’

  ‘What are they like?’ I asked.

  ‘Lady Georgina is a real angel down from Heaven,’ said Nellie. ‘Back in the famine days, she did so much for the poor people.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked. Isabelle had told me something about this already, but I didn’t care – I hoped that if I kept Nellie talking about the family, she might forget to be mean to me.

  ‘Lady Georgina and Miss Constance and Master Josslyn and Miss Eva set up a stall and gave food to anyone who was hungry. Imagine that – their own food, and they gave it over with their own hands! There’s not many did that.’

  Nellie was standing with her two hands pressed together, and there was a strange sparkle in her bright blue eyes.

  ‘And once, when Lady Georgina heard that some people had no beds to sleep on, she sent straw from her own sheds down to the cottages, to give the people some little bit of comfort in their hard, hungry days.’

  ‘That was kind of her,’ I said. ‘And what about Miss Maeve? What’s she like?’

  For a minute, Nellie didn’t say anything. ‘Poor Miss Maeve,’ she said in the end. ‘Sometimes I feel sorry for her. Her father is always vanishing away to that foreign country he comes from, and her mother is off in Dublin, getting involved in things no woman should ever bother with. But then I say to myself, Nellie, why are you feeling sorry for Miss Maeve, when she lives in a fine house, and sleeps in a fat feather bed every night?’

  ‘But what’s she like?’ I asked again.

  Nellie ignored my question. ‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Get hot bottles for all the beds and extra for Lady Georgina – she feels the cold more than most.’

  I put hot bottles in all the beds, and I was making my way out of Miss Maeve’s room, when I saw a girl coming towards me. She was taller than me, but it was hard to guess her age. She had huge eyes and long wavy hair down to her waist, like a princess in a storybook. She was dressed for dinner in a beautiful pale pink dress with pearls on the sleeves. By now I had learned what to do, so I stood to the side and looked down at the floor, so she could pass me.

  I was still looking at the floor, when she stopped next to me.

  I kept my eyes down and concentrated on her feet. She was wearing the most gorgeous shoes I had ever seen.

  ‘I don’t bite, you know.’

  I looked up at her, with no idea what to say.

  ‘I haven’t seen you before, have I?’ she said. ‘My name is Maeve, what’s yours?’

  ‘I’m Lily,’ I whispered.

  ‘I was named after Maeve of Connacht,’ she said. ‘She was a brave warrior queen. If you look out the window of my bedroom you can see her burial mound at Knocknarea.’

  And then the words popped out of my mouth. ‘I was named after my daddy’s mam. She wasn’t a queen, but she was the most beautiful woman in the whole parish and she could sing like a lark. If you go to the churchyard near my house, you can see where she’s buried.’

  ‘My mother is Countess Markievicz, and she is in Dublin fighting for the rights of women and poor people. One day she will be famous all over Ireland.’

  Maeve and I seemed to be playing some kind of game, and even though I was happy to play, I knew this was a game I could never win. I remembered all the warnings Nellie and Mam had given me, but I couldn’t stay quiet.

  ‘My mother is Josephine Mary Brennan,’ I said. ‘And she is at home minding my little brothers and sisters. One day she will be famous for keeping our family from starving in very hard times.’

  At first Maeve didn’t answer, and I was afraid I had gone too far. If this was a game, she was definitely making the rules. Then she laughed out loud.

  ‘You’re very funny, Lily,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’

  I liked being funny, it reminded me of the days when I was one of the most popular girls at school, when I could make Hanora and Rose and everyone else laugh, without even trying. Sometimes the Master tried to look cross when I was being skittish, but his smile always won out in the end. This was different though. I didn’t like this rich girl saying such things out loud in the corridor of this fine house, where I could get into trouble for even talking to her. I looked over my shoulder, afraid of being seen. If Nellie came along, or Mrs Bailey, or even Butler Kilgallon …

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Maeve.

  I’m really afraid that someone might see me, and I’ll get into lots of trouble with Mrs Bailey, and might actually lose my job – and that’s not fair, when I was only trying to be funny.

  Even if I could find the words to explain all this to Maeve, would a rich girl like her ever understand? What did she know about having a job, and being afraid of losin
g it? When was her family ever depending on her to make money so they could eat? Life was much easier when I was at school with my friends and no one was supposed to be better than anyone else.

  But Maeve surprised me. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Here, come into my room.’

  She opened the door, and I had no choice but to follow her inside. She sat on the bed and patted the space beside her. ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  I had been in that room many times before. I’d shaken the eiderdowns, and swept the floors and dusted everything. I had never, ever dared to sit down on the bed.

  ‘I think I’d prefer to stand,’ I said. I was still afraid, still looking at the door. This really wasn’t fair. I had to do what Maeve said, but soon Nellie would come looking for me. If I got caught, I’d be the one in trouble, not this pretty girl in the fancy pink dress.

  ‘I think I’d better go back downstairs,’ I said. ‘I have jobs to do.’

  ‘If someone comes, you can say you are doing a job in here for me.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to do here,’ I said, looking around the room. I had done my work well, and everything was clean and in its place.

  Maeve stood up and ran to the mantelpiece. She grabbed a large china ornament and threw it to the floor, where it broke into a thousand pieces. I jumped. I had never seen anyone do anything like that before.

  ‘There’s something to do now,’ she said.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Don’t worry, Lily,’ she said. ‘This house is full of ornaments and I’ve always hated that one. Some boring old poet gave it to my mother ages ago.’

  ‘But it’s…’

  ‘Don’t worry. No one will care. Well, maybe my grandmother, Gaga, will, but she’s very old-fashioned – and I won’t tell her if you don’t.’