Home for Christmas (3 page)

Some of the patients Lydia nursed could be intimidating and she dealt with them all, just as she would this person.

She pulled out a high-backed Windsor chair at the other end of the table. On receiving no hostile reaction, she began explaining her reason for being there in as friendly a tone as possible.

‘I’ve been sent down here while my father treats Sir Avis, the gentleman of the house who is presently very ill. My father is a doctor, a very good doctor in fact. We came here in a motor car. It’s the first time I’ve ridden in a motor car. The butler said that the cook had just made some biscuits and that I should try some. Are those the ones you’re eating?’

‘I’ve ridden in a motor car many times.’

The comment had nothing to do with biscuits, but Lydia sucked in her lips and carefully considered what to say next. She decided to stick to food, but be light-hearted, jovial about it.

‘Those biscuits smell very nice. The cook must be very good. I expect she is very fat. Good cooks are usually fat. Have you noticed that?’

The girl’s shoulders stiffened.

However, encouraged there had been no tart response, Lydia pressed on. ‘I expect that it is so. It usually is. All the best cooks are fat. Fat as fat can be!’

The sudden sound of footsteps beating on a flagstone floor preceded the return of the cook who entered, blowing her nose, her apron flapping and her movements quick and sure.

The girl grinned and her eyes slid sideways. ‘Cook,’ she said, as though that one word said it all.

She was not fat and neither did she have a red face like Mrs Trinder, the cook at the Miller house. In fact she was really quite good-looking.

A coif of pale blonde hair that might have once been a shade darker framed a strong but handsome face. The eyes were the same colour and shape as those of the girl eating biscuits. Mother and daughter!

Lydia felt a fleeting embarrassment.

At first, the cook didn’t notice her.

‘The doctor says that Sir Avis is going to be all right … Oh,’ she said, stopping abruptly on seeing Lydia. ‘I do believe you’re here to try my biscuits. I’m to tell you the doctor – your father – won’t be too much longer.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Agnes. Where are your manners? You should have given Miss Miller a glass of milk and some biscuits.’

Agnes tossed her mane of springy hair and lifted her tilted nose that bit higher. Her jaw looked as solid as the salt block sitting at one end of the table.

‘Just because she’s the doctor’s daughter doesn’t mean to say that I had to wait on her. I’m not her bloody servant.’

‘Agnes!’ The cook flipped a hand in her daughter’s direction. ‘I’m warning you right now; no more of that gutter language. Whatever would Sir Avis say if he heard you?’

‘He’d laugh.’

‘No he would not! Miss Lydia is a guest in this house. It costs nothing to be polite. You’re not too old yet to get a clip round the ear if you don’t mind your manners.’

‘Sir Avis only had Quartermaster call him because he was one of the few doctors nearby with a telephone. But he doesn’t even have a motor car.’

The cook tossed her head in the same manner as her daughter had done. ‘Lydia’s father also happens to be a doctor with a very good reputation.’

‘Quite right, Ma. Came quick ’cause he had a telephone, didn’t he?’ Though the girl smiled, mischief shone in her eyes. ‘Lovely biscuits, Ma. Best you’ve ever made. Can’t stop eating them.’ Her voice cajoled and flattered.

As if to back up her statement, she reached for another, popping it into her mouth whole.

‘Lovely,’ she murmured between a splattering of flying crumbs.

The cook sighed and rolled her eyes heavenwards but there was no mistaking the fact that Agnes could wind her mother around her smallest finger.

‘Right,’ said the cook, smoothing her skirt before pouring milk from the jug and placing four crispy coconut biscuits on to a gold-rimmed tea plate. ‘Do it yourself, Sarah Stacey. If a job’s worth doing and doing well, do it yourself.’

The girl Lydia now knew as Agnes was unmoved except that her grin had widened and the amber eyes she turned on Lydia were catlike and cunning.

Lydia thanked the cook for the glass of milk and a plate of warm biscuits that were set in front of her. The biscuits were sweet, and the milk creamy and straight from the churn.

Lydia felt obliged to show the cook’s daughter that she was not easily intimidated by an over-sharp tongue.

‘I have to agree that they are wonderful biscuits …’, she said.

The cook beamed. ‘Mrs Stacey. You may call me Mrs Stacey.’

She had a musical lilt to her voice, which made her sound as though she were on the verge of laughing lightly at something subtle and sweet that had amused her.

Positioning herself behind the girl at the end of the table, she patted the spongy mass of hair before both hands fell to the girl’s shoulders.

‘Let me introduce you properly. This is Agnes Stacey, my precocious, headstrong but very beautiful daughter.’ The girl laughed as her mother ruffled her hair and planted a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Agnes, say hello to Lydia, Doctor Miller’s daughter. Lydia, meet Agnes.’

Agnes nodded. ‘Hello Lydia. I won’t call you Miss Lydia. I will only call you Lydia. You may call me Agnes.’

Lydia nodded back. ‘Hello.’

She didn’t care that Agnes ignored the formality of one class for another. She was mesmerised. Agnes was an amazing creature. It wasn’t just that she was wildly beautiful with her unruly hair and dancing eyes, her pale skin and the brace of freckles across her nose. Her outgoing personality was breath-taking. Lydia sensed that Agnes had strong views about everything and anything and always did as she pleased.

‘Right,’ said Mrs Stacey with an air of finality. ‘I must be getting on.’ In the process of tying her apron strings, she called to the girl in the scullery. ‘Clara! Has Megan finished peeling those potatoes?’

‘I have, Mrs Stacey.’

A glass partition divided the scullery from the kitchen.

Lydia turned her attention away from the scullery where Cook had gone to inspect the work the two girls had done.

Agnes, who was chasing crumbs around her plate with her finger, raised her eyes though not her face, eyeing Lydia from beneath a frizzy fringe.

‘Megan is a fool.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she thinks she’s in love. My mother says she’ll get herself in trouble if she goes on the way she is and that will be that. Her young man won’t marry her because she’s seen his sort before. He flirts with every maid at every house in the street.’

Lydia nodded sagely. ‘Our maid Doris canoodles with the postman when he comes round.’

Agnes pulled a face. ‘I don’t know whether Megan canoodles, but she’s in love with the coalman. Personally, I do not know what she sees in him. He’s very black.’

Lydia pointed out that coal dust does wash off.

Agnes adopted a pert, cheeky expression. ‘Who said it was coal dust? He’s got black skin. Ma says it’s because his mother met a lascar from a ship loading at the East India Dock. It was a very dark night.’

‘I see.’

Lydia eyed the girl at the other end of the table, the almond-shaped eyes, the tousled mane of hair. She sensed there was more to Agnes than just being attractive. Agnes seemed a little younger than she was, though she exuded confidence and attitude way beyond her years. It made Lydia feel childish in comparison.

In an effort to gain some equilibrium between them, Lydia tried to think of something clever to say, but no matter how hard she tried, nothing clever or comic came to her. She ended up asking how long Agnes had lived in this house.

Agnes’s look was forthright. ‘All my life.’

‘Does your father live here too?’

For a moment, she thought she detected anger flashing in the amber eyes. It went as swiftly as it had come. ‘No. He was a drunken bastard so my mother got rid of him before I was born. Sir Avis is my guardian now, so kind of my father.’

Lydia felt a great wave of relief wash over here. This was the common ground; they both had only one parent.

‘I too only have one parent. My mother died when I was born. On Christmas Eve as a matter of fact.’

Agnes’s eyes narrowed. ‘My mother could have married anyone she liked, but she didn’t. She stayed here in the position of cook to Sir Avis. I stayed with her.’

Lydia nodded solemnly as though everything Agnes was saying made absolute sense to her. Why shouldn’t her mother marry anyone she liked? Whom else would Agnes be with except her mother?

The joint turning in front of the fire chose that moment to blister and spit with juices causing the fire in the range to flare up and smoke. Both girls turned their heads towards it, chewing biscuits, sipping milk, the glowing coals warming their faces. The smell of roast meat hung heavy in the air and blue smoke curled like fine muslin towards the ceiling.

‘I’ve decided to like you, Lydia, mainly because you have a telephone. That makes you modern. I think everyone should have one and one day everyone will,’ declared Agnes.

‘I’m not convinced,’ said Lydia.

‘Absolutely. They’re quite easy to use although watching some people trying, you’d think the phone was about to bite them. My mother’s not afraid of the telephone though; it was her who phoned for your father to come.’

‘Really?’

Surely, it must have been the housekeeper. Alternatively, the butler? Cooks were very much ‘below stairs’ people, seldom appearing above stairs unless invited to do so.

‘We could phone each other.’

Agnes sounded as though there were no argument about it.

‘I’m not sure that’s very likely. It’s for patients; people who are sick can phone and ask my father to call no matter what time of the day or night. It saves a lot of time.’

‘Of course it does. That’s what new inventions are meant to do, make things easier for people.’ Agnes tilted her head sideways, her strange amber eyes glinting behind half-lowered eyelids.

‘Anyway,’ Lydia went on. ‘I’m not at home that much. I’m training to be a nurse at a big London hospital. Do you work here in the kitchen?’

Agnes’s eyes blazed with indignation.

‘Certainly not! I drive the motor car when Thompson’s not available. That’s what I’m going to be. A chauffeur, certainly not a cook.’

‘You can drive a car?’ Lydia was very impressed.

Agnes nodded. ‘Yes. I learned how to drive while staying at Heathlands, Sir Avis’s country estate.’

Lydia felt instantly tongue-tied. Was this girl telling the truth? She wasn’t sure. However, driving a car seemed far more exciting than being a nurse.

‘These biscuits are lovely,’ she said again after taking a bite.

‘You could become my friend if you want to. Do you want to?’

Agnes stated it as though being her friend was a great prize not offered to all and sundry.

Lydia thought about it carefully whilst nibbling another biscuit. It was still hot and oozed butter on to her tongue. She decided it did not matter that Agnes was only a cook’s daughter. She couldn’t help wanting Agnes to like her and it appeared she did.

‘Good. I’m glad you agree. Now come along,’ said Agnes sliding off the big Windsor carver chair she was sitting in. ‘Let’s go outside. I’ll show you the garden and everything.’

Lydia didn’t know what ‘everything’ meant, but it sounded intriguing the way Agnes said it. Besides, the girl amused her.

However, there was the possibility that her father might need her assistance. She told Agnes this, but Agnes waved aside her concern.

‘If you’re needed, someone will come and fetch you. The house is full of servants. They’re paid to do things like that.’

The air outside was so cold it took Lydia’s breath away.

‘Look,’ said Agnes, huffing her breath into the air. ‘Just like a steam locomotive.’

Lydia aped her new friend, blowing a stream of steamy breath into the cold air.

‘I like this time of year. I was born in the wintertime, January as it happens. Did you say you were born on Christmas Eve?’ asked Agnes.

‘Yes,’ Lydia replied, somewhat glumly.

‘All those presents. Lucky you.’

Owing to her circumstances, Lydia did not believe herself lucky, but refrained from saying so. It was unfortunate to lose your mother at birth and even more unfortunate for it to happen on Christmas Eve.

‘So where will you stay for Christmas?’ Agnes asked.

Lydia shrugged. ‘The same place as every year. Home. In Kensington.’

Apart from the small Christmas tree, the festive season would be no different from any other day of the year. The presents would be sensible, the Christmas lunch shared between herself and her father.

‘I shall be spending Christmas at Sir Avis’s country house,’ Agnes said loftily. ‘We always spend Christmas there. Sir Avis holds wonderful parties for all his friends. Would you like to come?’

‘I suppose so. As long as I’m not needed at the hospital. Student nurses have to work the same hours as those already qualified.’

It occurred to Lydia that it was not appropriate for Agnes to invite people to a house that didn’t belong to her, yet she did so with total confidence.

‘Then that’s settled. You shall stay with us at Heathlands for Christmas! Now come on. It’ll be dark before long.’

A red brick wall encircled the kitchen garden. The smell of wood smoke overwhelmed that of rotting cabbages and damp earth.

Lydia pulled her hat down over her ears.

A man wearing dark clothes and big boots, his face the colour of burnt sienna, was prodding a heap of burning twigs and hedge trimmings. His prodding caused the smoke to swirl into eddies before spiralling upwards into the naked branches of fruit trees.

He looked up from beneath a mud-coloured cap. ‘What you doin’ ’ere?’

Brown eyes twinkled in a face criss-crossed with plum-coloured veins. The pipe clenched in the corner of his mouth jiggled when he spoke as though it were preventing a smile.

‘I’m showing Lydia around. She’s the doctor’s daughter. He’s attending the master. Sir Avis has not been well,’ replied Agnes.

‘Hope the master regains ’is ’ealth.’

He went back to tending his bonfire in a desultory manner.