Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Yes; yes, m . . . ’

  ‘You call me miss.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  She was again in the broad corridor. They now turned into a narrower one at the end of which was a steep flight of stairs. The stairs were dark and the only guidance she had was from a narrow handrail and the sound of Mabel Price’s steps on the bare boards, but when she emerged at the top she found herself on a square landing lit by two lamps. There were a number of doors going off this landing and Mabel Price, lifting up a lamp, went to the first door and, thrusting it open and holding the lamp high above her head, said, ‘This is the children’s school and day room.’

  In the moment of time she had for looking round the room Tilly saw a large rocking horse, a doll’s house, and various other toys scattered about the room. She noticed that a fire had burned low in the grate which was now covered by a large black-mesh screen.

  The next room she was shown was a small bedroom, the main furniture being two single iron beds. In one lay a small child curled up fast asleep. ‘That’s John,’ Mabel Price said; ‘he’s the baby.’ In the other bed a little girl was sitting up, her arms hugging her knees, and when Mabel Price ordered, ‘Lie down, Jessie Ann, and go to sleep,’ the girl made no movement whatever but stared at Tilly, and it was to her she spoke, saying in a voice that held laughter, ‘You’re the new one then?’

  Tilly said nothing to this, but Mabel Price, going to the child, pushed her roughly backwards and pulled the covers up almost smothering her face as she said, ‘Get yourself to sleep. If you’re not gone in five minutes I’ll inform your mama.’

  For answer the child simply said, ‘Huh!’

  As if she had been exposed to defeat, Mabel Price marched out of the room with no order for Tilly to follow her; but Tilly did and closed the door gently behind her.

  They were in the next room now. This room was a little larger, but also sparsely furnished. The eldest boy was sitting at the foot of his bed, his long blue-striped nightshirt and his fair curly hair framing his round face giving him an angelic look. His brother was tucked well down under the bedclothes, but both boys’ eyes were bright with expectancy.

  Mabel Price began without any introduction. ‘That’s Matthew there’ – she pointed to the cherub – ‘he’s ten. And this is Luke, he’s eight.’

  She was standing by the bedside, the lamp, held over the boy, showing only his dark hair and bright eyes. Then throwing her glance from one to the other, she added without indicating Tilly in any way, ‘This is the new maid. Any of your carry-on and I’m to inform your father. Those are his words, and remember them! Now you get into bed . . . ’ She pointed to Matthew, but the boy, instead of obeying her, simply returned her stare and she went out as if once again she were suffering defeat.

  On the landing she opened another door but did not enter. Simply pointing into it, she said, ‘That’s the closet. You will see that they wash themselves well every morning. You’ll have to stand over them, it’ll be no use trusting them to do it themselves. They are called at half past seven. You start at six prompt. You clean out the schoolroom, the closet, and your own room.’ She now pushed open another door and, marching inside, pointed to a battered chest of drawers on which was a half burnt candle in a candlestick. ‘Light the candle from the lamp,’ she said.

  Quickly Tilly brought the candle forward and, holding it over the long glass funnel of the lamp, she waited until it was alight, feeling all the while that this woman would go for her because of the grease spluttering on to the burning wick below. But Mabel Price seemed to ignore this and said, ‘This is your room, not that you’ll be in it much. But to get on with your morning’s work. You light the fire in the schoolroom; then after you’ve cleaned and tidied it up, you set the children’s breakfast out. You’ll find the crockery in the cupboard there. At half past seven you awake them and see that they’re washed, as I told you. Their breakfast is brought up at eight. Having seen to them starting the meal you then go down to the kitchen for your own breakfast. You have from eight till half past for your meal. Ada Tennant, the scullery maid, takes your place up here while you’re downstairs. At nine o’clock Mrs Lucas, the housekeeper, does her inspection. At quarter past nine if the weather is fine you take the children for a brisk walk round the garden. They begin their lessons with Mr Burgess, their tutor, at ten o’clock. In the meantime you empty all the slops, and see that you wash out the buckets well. Then you see to their clothes and necessary mending. That’s as far as I’ll go now. Have you taken that in?’

  Tilly stared at the woman for almost ten seconds before she could make herself say, ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Well, I’ll know tomorrow whether you have or not. Anyway, should you want to know anything, you come to me. My room is the fourth one along the corridor from the mistress’, it’s the end door. I’m in charge up here, not Mrs Lucas, understand that?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get to bed, not that you’ll be allowed to go to bed at this hour every night, but you’ve got a lot to get into that head of yours, so you’ll have time to think over my instructions.’

  Alone now, Tilly looked round the room. Even the soft glow from the candle didn’t lend any warmth to it and the patchwork quilt on the bed did nothing to brighten it. All the furniture it possessed was the bed, the chest of drawers, a stool, and a rickety table with a chipped jug and basin on it. Two hooks on the back of the door was all the wardrobe the room afforded.

  Up under the roof in the cottage she’d had clippy rugs on the floor but these boards were bare, with not a thread of covering to them. The knobs on her brass bed had been polished bright, the curtains on her window, although faded, had been crisp and clean, but the window in this room didn’t require curtains because it was let partly into the roof.

  She dropped down on to the edge of the bed. Her mind was in a turmoil; she had met so many people during the last hour and apart from two of them they had all been alien to her. Yet not only to her, for there was alienation among themselves. She had sensed it from the moment she entered the house; each was trying to get the better of the others in some way. And those children, what was she to make of them? Well, she would soon find out in that quarter, she was sure of that. But the staff, they were another kettle of fish altogether. She’d have to go careful; if she pleased one, she’d offend the other, and she’d have to find who she wanted to please and who she didn’t mind offending. Her granny used to say speak the truth and shame the devil, but she already knew that this wasn’t the kind of house where it would be wise to speak the truth . . . And the mistress of it? She didn’t know what to make of her. A grand lady doubtless, but cold; somehow not alive. No, no; that wasn’t what she meant. Oh, what did it matter, she had tomorrow to face. Six o’clock in the morning . . . prompt, which meant rising before that. But how would she know when it was time to get up? She should have asked her, that woman, Miss Price. Likely there would be a knocker-up. Well, she could think no more, she was tired and weary in both mind and body . . . It must be nice to be dead, just to lie there still and have no worries.

  She shook her head at herself, she mustn’t start to think like that again. She’d got a job, wasn’t that what she wanted? A job, and she must learn how to do it, and learn quickly or else . . . Aye, or else.

  Three

  She started the following day by learning how one knew when it was time to get up when her shoulder was roughly shaken and a voice said briefly, ‘Up!’

  She came quickly out of sleep to peer at Ada Tennant and when the girl again cried, ‘Up!’ she surprised her by answering as abruptly, ‘All right! All right!’ and when the scullery maid backed three steps away from her and the grease of her candle spilt over before she turned towards the door, she knew a moment of victory, and again one of her granny’s sayings came to her: ‘Give what you get. I never believed in a soft word turning away wrath.’

  Her mind was clear. Strangely, she re
membered nearly all the instructions that Miss Price had given her last night and she went about them with agility; until she attempted to wake the children. When gently she shook Matthew’s shoulder the boy’s fist came out and struck her a blow on the arm. It was as if he had been waiting for her coming. She stood for a moment, her body half bent over the bed gripping the place where the boy’s fist had hit her, her arm was paining because it had been no light blow; then as if she had stepped out of her timid body she was amazed at her next reaction for, her hands on the boy’s shoulders, she was pinning him to the bed. Bringing her face down to his, she whispered, ‘Don’t you ever do that again because whatever you do to me I’ll give you twice as much back.’ She paused while their eyes bored into each other in the lamplight and for a moment she imagined she was holding down Hal McGrath, and then she asked him, ‘Do you understand me?’

  It was evident to her that he was so taken aback by her reaction that for a moment she seemed to have stunned him, and not him alone for Luke, sitting up in bed, stopped rubbing his eyes and gaped at her, his mouth partly open. Then she turned to him and said, ‘It’s time to get up.’

  After a moment’s hesitation he pulled the bedclothes back, but when he went to put his feet on the floor his brother cried at him, ‘Stay where you are! There’s plenty of time.’

  Tilly looked hard at the boy for a moment before going to the other bed. Here she finished what Luke had begun: pulling the bedclothes right to the bottom of the bed, she put her hand gently on the boy’s elbow and eased him to his feet; then looking from one to the other, she said, ‘You’ll be in the closet in five minutes.’

  It wasn’t until she stood on the landing that she realised her legs were trembling, and she asked herself, ‘What made me go on like that? Well, start the way you mean to go on.’ It was as if her granny were at her side, directing her.

  In the next room she had no trouble with Jessie Ann, but the four-year-old John seemed a chip of his ten-year-old brother and when she tried to lift him from the bed he kicked and kept saying, ‘Don’t wanna!’ and as he kept repeating this she thought, he speaks no better than a village child.

  The first incident in the nursery war took place in the closet when Matthew purposely kicked over a bucket of slops. As the water spread across the floor the others screeched with glee and jumped out of the way, but Tilly stood in the midst of it, and as she looked at the excrement floating around her feet she could at that moment have been sick. But there was her grandmother again seeming to shout at her now. ‘’Tis no time for a weak stomach, go for him or else you’ll not last long here.’ And so, instinctively, she reached out and gripped the boy’s arm and pulled him in his slippered feet towards her. For a moment he was again too taken aback to fight; even when he attempted to she held his arms against his sides, and her grip was surprisingly strong. She had not wielded an axe or used a saw to no avail during all her young days and the strength of her hands must have got through to him for, like the little bully he was, he whined and said, ‘It was an accident. I tripped, I did. Didn’t I, Luke, I tripped?’

  Staring into his face again, Tilly said, ‘You didn’t trip, you did it on purpose’ – her voice was quiet now – ‘but I’m tellin’ you this, you do this again an’ I’ll make you clean it up, every last drop.’ And she added, ‘Your father has given me the position to look after you, an’ I’ll do it gladly, but any more of such pranks and I’ll go right to him an’ let him deal with you.’

  The boy was truly astounded: maids didn’t react like this, they cried, they whined, they pleaded, they brought extras and titbits from the kitchen to placate him.

  But the boy’s surprise was nothing to the surprise Tilly herself was feeling. It was as if on this day she were being reborn. Like the little lizards who shed their skins, the fearful, frightened Tilly Trotter was sliding away from her. If she could get the better of this fellow she felt she would lose her fear of people, all people.

  No, not all people; there was one man she would always fear. But he was miles away beyond the walls of this house, wherein was encased another world. He had no hope of getting at her here, and she would see that she didn’t meet up with him on her day off a month. Oh aye; aye, she would see to that.

  ‘Go now, get your clothes on.’ She addressed the two older boys and, looking at Jessie Ann, she said, ‘Take John’ – she wasn’t even sure of their names – ‘and I’ll be along to dress you in a few minutes. Away now. But before you go out there, wipe your slippers on the mat.’

  They wiped their slippers and they went away, all of them, without a word but with backward glances. They couldn’t make this one out; she had got the better of Matthew, and they had never known anyone get the better of Matthew.

  When the door closed on them she looked at the filth around her feet and again her stomach heaved. But heave or not, it had to be cleared up and so, grimly, she set about the task.

  She didn’t realise that this particular nursery breakfast was an unusually quiet affair. There were no spoonfuls of porridge splashed over the table; the bread and butter was not stuck downwards on to its surface; and so when Ada Tennant came into the room she stood for a moment gazing at the four children all quietly eating their meal. Then turning to Tilly, she was about to make some remark when she changed her mind. Her eyes widened just the slightest and what she said now and in a civil manner was, ‘Your breakfast’s waitin’.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Ada Tennant’s eyes widened still further. It was likely true the rumour about her, must be. An’ the way she spoke! She hadn’t said ‘Ta’ but ‘Thank you’, just as if she was educated.

  And look at this lot sittin’ here like lambs. But how long would it last? Then the rumour was utterly confirmed when Tilly turned in the open doorway and, looking towards the children, said, ‘Behave yourselves mind.’

  When the door closed on Tilly, Ada Tennant gazed at it. It was as if she knew the minute her back was turned they would start, and she had given them a warning.

  She herself had started to work here when she was eight years old, now she was fourteen. She had seen this lot grow up, and for the past three years it had been her morning chore to attend them at breakfast, and she had dreaded it. She still did. She turned and looked at the children and, taking advantage of the new lass’ authority, she said, ‘You heard what she said, so get on with it.’

  And they got on with it.

  Breakfast was almost finished when Tilly entered the kitchen, and it seemed to her now that when she left the top floor she had also left her new-found courage behind. Two men were leaving by the far door; and the only ones seated at the table now were the cook and Phyllis Coates, the first housemaid. Amy Stiles, the second housemaid, was filling copper cans of hot water from a boiler attached to a second fireplace in the kitchen. Tilly hadn’t noticed this last night. It was an enclosed fire with a boiler on one side and a round oven on the other, and as she turned and looked towards it the cook spoke. What she said was, ‘Are you tea or beer?’

  ‘Pardon. What?’

  ‘I said are you tea or beer?’

  ‘I . . . I would like tea please.’

  ‘Well, get it.’ Cook jerked her head towards the stove.

  After a moment’s hesitation Tilly made her way towards the stove. At the same time Phyllis Coates rose from the table, smiled at Tilly, pointed to the dresser and said, ‘Bring a mug an’ a plate,’ and when Tilly did this, she muttered under her breath, ‘You help yourself from the pot.’ She pointed to a huge brown teapot standing on the hearth near a heap of hot ashes. ‘But first come and fill your plate, the porridge is finished.’ And on this she walked along the room to the round oven. Tilly followed her and watched her pull open the iron door to disclose a large dripping tin in which there were a few strips of sizzling bacon.

  ‘Mostly fat left,’ Phyllis said, ‘but help yourself if you want any.’

  Tilly helped herself to one narrow slice of the bacon; then after placing her plate
on the table she filled her mug with the black tea from the pot, and when she sat down at the table Phyllis Coates pushed towards her the end of a crusty loaf.

  As Tilly ate the bread and bacon and drank the bitter tea she noted that there was a basin full of sugar opposite the cook; also a platter with a large lump of butter on it and a brown stone jar that evidently held some breakfast preserve. But she was grateful for the bacon and bread and the tea, and when she had finished cook was still sitting at the table but had as yet exchanged no word with her, in fact she had hardly looked in her direction.

  It hadn’t taken her ten minutes to eat her meal and when she rose from the table Phyllis Coates rose with her, and when cook spoke to Phyllis, saying, ‘You’re goin’ about your business early this mornin’ then?’ the first housemaid answered, ‘It’ll take me, with the old dragon due in a fortnight’s time. She’ll have her eyes in every corner.’

  ‘Well, she won’t find any mucky corners in my kitchen.’

  ‘She’ll find mucky corners in heaven, that one.’

  This last retort was made as Phyllis Coates followed Tilly through the door and into the broad passage. She walked by Tilly’s side to the end of it where it turned towards the back stairs, but once round the corner she pulled her to a stop and, her voice rapid and her tone low, she said, ‘Don’t let Ma Brackett frighten you. She’s only over the kitchen, she’s got no other say in the house. The one you’ve got to look out for is Miss Price.’ She raised her eyebrows upwards. ‘She’s the one who rules the roost here. Not the housekeeper, Mrs Lucas; she thinks she does but it’s only in name, it’s Miss Price who has the say. An’ watch out for Simes. That’s the footman, you know. He’s a crawler, he’d give his mother away for a shillin’ that one. Mr Pike, the butler, the old fella, he’s all right. Amy Stiles, she’s my second, she’s all right an’ all. Not much up top but she’s all right. An’ take no notice of Maggie Short. She’s as ignorant as a pig that one. An’ Ada Tennant, you know the scullery maid, the one who’s up in the nursery now, she’s got a slate loose.’ She tapped her head. ‘Outside there’s three gardeners an’ my Fred. That’s Fred Leyburn. He’s the coachman.’ She smiled now. ‘We’re walkin’ out. Should get married shortly.’