Sunlight on the Mersey (20 page)

Iris hugged her. ‘Oh, thanks, Mam! I’ll save as hard as I can from now on and I’ll tell Tom that you’re quite happy to have him as a son-in-law.’ She grinned. ‘I bet you’ll get on better with his mam than you do with Mrs Taylor.’

Kate grimaced and then smiled. ‘I’m sure I will. Well, I suppose now I’d better write and tell Rose the happy news – unless you want to?’

Iris shook her head. ‘No, you know I’m not great at writing letters. I hope she’s settled in with Aunty Gwen.’

‘I’m sure she has but I hope she won’t find working at Plas
Idris too . . . trying. She won’t have much time to herself or as much independence as she’s been used to. She’ll have to mind her Ps and Qs too, they can be very particular and strict – hidebound, really – in these places and she’s not used to that.’

‘I’m sure in time she’ll get used to it, Mam. She wanted to go back, she wasn’t happy here and she had to have a job,’ Iris reminded her although she felt that she wouldn’t swap her life and work for Rose’s, not for all the tea in China. She was enjoying running the greengrocery and was constantly looking for ways to increase trade.

Kate sighed. ‘I hope so, I really do, but she isn’t like you, Iris. You’re like me, practical and level-headed; Rose has always been a bit of a dreamer and she certainly won’t have much time for that now,’ she replied, making a mental note to ask Gwen to write and report how her youngest daughter was getting on at Plas Idris for she wasn’t certain that Rose would tell her the truth. She had wanted to go back so much that she might paint a very different picture in her letters to how she was really feeling. Kate sighed again, wondering if she would ever stop worrying about all of them. Probably not. It was what mothers did.

A
S THE FLAMES CAUGHT THE
wood and paper Rose sat back on her heels with a nod of satisfaction. Nancy had drawn the heavy curtains and was folding back the interior shutters and peering through the window.

‘I hate February! Look at it out there, dull, grey, misty and cold,’ she complained. ‘Still, there’s one good thing about it,’ she finished on a more cheerful note.

‘What’s that?’ Rose asked, getting to her feet for the fire was burning up nicely now.

‘There’s not much of it, see. It’s a short month and then winter is finally over.’

Rose smiled and joined her fellow housemaid at the window. A heavy mist hung over the grounds of Plas Idris and as it was barely light yet there was very little to see. Both girls
turned away to resume preparing the dining room before the family came down for breakfast. At least before Miss Olivia came down, dead on the stroke of eight, Rose thought. Sometimes Miss Elinore didn’t appear for breakfast and often David Rhys-Pritchard had a tray taken to his room. You always knew when he was having one of his ‘difficult’ days because a tray would be requested, Nancy had informed her.

Rose turned back to dust the long buffet and replace the lace runner and the condiments and Nancy began to set the table. Rose thought she would be very glad to see the end of this winter. She had found working here difficult to start with. She was unfamiliar with the routine of a big house and the tasks that were allotted to each member of staff, although these days the lines of demarcation were more blurred, according to the housekeeper, because the number of staff was greatly reduced. It was really one of Beryl’s jobs to see to the fires but she was hopeless at it and so Rose had suggested to Mrs Mathews that she do it. It would be done far more quickly and with less mess, she’d said, and she didn’t mind. And it was really the footman’s task to set the table, overseen by the butler, but Henry Jones had been with the family for so long that Mr Lewis seldom bothered. Henry did it for lunch and dinner but she and Nancy had taken over breakfast for Henry was getting on now and suffered with rheumatism: movement was stiff and painful for him in the morning.

Nor had she realised that the house would be so cold and draughty despite the fires that burned in every room. She had had to stay one night in January when it had snowed heavily
and it would have been foolhardy to try to get back to the village, she remembered grimly as she placed the guard in front of the now fiercely burning fire. Miss Olivia had telephoned Gwen to say she was staying and she and Nancy had made up a bed in one of the rooms in the attic. It had been freezing up there and she’d been so cold that she’d hardly slept and had vowed that snow or no snow the following night she would go back to her warm, cosy bed at Gwen’s. Thankfully the thaw had set in next morning.

‘What are you doing this afternoon, Rose?’ Nancy asked, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Nothing much really. I’ve a letter to write to Mam and I thought I’d spend a few hours catching up on my reading. I’m trying to finish my book,’ Rose replied. She didn’t get as much time as she liked to read these days. She surveyed the now cheerful and tidy room with satisfaction, glancing at the ornate clock on the mantel. Beryl would be bringing up the hot dishes any minute now and Miss Olivia would be down in a few minutes. ‘Have the papers arrived yet?’

Nancy nodded. ‘I think so, I saw Mr Lewis getting out the iron.’

It had astonished her at first when she had learned that the newspapers were actually ironed before being placed on the table in the hall; it had seemed such a trivial and unnecessary task. But Nancy had explained that it wasn’t just to get rid of any creases as she had imagined but to ensure that the ink did not transfer itself to the hands or clothes of those members of the family who read them.

‘I’m thinking of going into Denbigh, why don’t you come with me?’ Nancy asked as she went to help Beryl who was backing into the room bearing a large tray heavily laden with dishes. ‘Put it down on the table, luv, before you drop it,’ she instructed the kitchen maid.

Rose helped the two girls transfer the dishes to the buffet. ‘Thanks, Nancy, but I really do want to finish my book and I’m trying to save up. If I go into town I’m bound to go spending money on things I don’t really need.’

Nancy was about to ask what she was saving for but the appearance of Olivia Rhys-Pritchard curtailed the conversation.

‘Good morning, Rose, Nancy,’ Olivia said pleasantly and then frowned. ‘Beryl, shouldn’t you be back in the kitchen by now, helping Cook?’

All three girls nodded politely and left, Beryl looking flustered and irritable and muttering, once outside in the hallway, that she was always being picked on.

‘Ah, take no notice,
cariad
,’ Nancy said as she and Rose made their way towards the main drawing room where the family had spent the previous evening and which would need cleaning and tidying. ‘What do you find to write to your Mam about each week, Rose? I can never think of anything interesting to put in my letters. After all, we don’t lead very exciting lives, now do we? We get up, we work all day, we have supper and we go to bed – very boring! At least you get to go back to the village each night.’ Nancy took out her frustration on the sofa cushions, repeatedly dropping them on
the floor which she’d been taught was the best way of plumping them up.

‘It’s not
that
bad. If you worked in a factory you’d find the work just as boring and the conditions in some of them are awful. Our Iris said the work was tedious, heavy, dirty and sometimes dangerous when she was in munitions,’ Rose informed her as she placed the dirty cups and glasses on a tray ready to be taken downstairs.

‘That’s as maybe but we’d get better wages and more time off,’ Nancy reminded her. ‘How is your Iris getting on?’ Nancy always enjoyed hearing about Rose’s family and Iris in particular who worked for herself in that shop. Nancy found that extraordinary. She envied her.

‘She’s fine. She’s really trying to make a go of the greengrocery so she has to put in long hours. Mam said in her last letter that both she and Tom are saving hard, as is Charlie,’ Rose replied.

‘Any sign of a wedding date being set yet, with Florence and Charlie?’ Nancy asked, replacing the last of the cushions.

‘I think Florence is hoping it will be some time this year but with our Charlie, who knows?’ Rose shrugged.

‘He was very lucky, Rose, to come through the war so well,’ Nancy said seriously, ‘unlike Master Dai,’ she added, jerking her head in the direction of the rooms on the ground floor at the front of the house where David Rhys-Pritchard had his bedroom, bathroom, drawing room and small study, for he was unable to contend with stairs. His drawing room had French doors which opened on to the terrace and the gardens.

Rose nodded, thinking of their young master. When she’d encountered him for the first time as a servant in the house she had been very surprised that he remembered her.

‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ he’d enquired as he’d come into the hall to find her on her hands and knees dusting the bottom treads of the staircase. She’d hastily got to her feet, unsure whether she should dip a curtsy or not.

‘I started work here a few days ago, sir,’ she’d replied, dropping her gaze and feeling awkward at the intensity of his gaze.

‘But I’ve seen you before. I remember . . . the way you speak,’ he’d continued. Before she had had time to say anything he’d exclaimed, ‘Rose. Your name is Rose and you were here last summer. Rosa mundi. Rose of the World.’

She’d blushed, twisting the duster between her fingers. ‘That’s right, sir. I was staying with Miss Roberts and helping with the flower show. I . . . I wasn’t sure if you were . . . teasing . . . me about my name.’

To her surprise he’d smiled at her and she’d thought how different it made him look: quite handsome, despite the scar.

‘No, Rose, I wasn’t teasing you. I was just . . . I suppose I was just telling you what your name meant and . . . and that it’s a lovely name,’ he’d replied.

‘Thank . . . you, sir,’ she’d said, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

‘And now you have come to work here? Had you grown tired of Liverpool?’

Haltingly she’d tried to tell him how she had been unable to settle back in her native city after her father’s sudden and tragic death and at that he had nodded sadly and looked away.

‘So we both have experience of how . . . cruel life can be, Rose,’ he’d said and she could have bitten her tongue.

‘I’m sorry, really. I am, sir, for . . . reminding . . .’ she’d stammered.

He’d looked back towards her. ‘There is nothing to be sorry for. I hope you will be happy here, Rose.’

She’d nodded and he had propelled himself down the hallway towards his rooms.

She’d spoken to him on a few occasions since, but only when he’d been inclined to stop and speak. There had been occasions when he’d barely acknowledged her and days when he never left the confines of his rooms. She’d told him a little of her family and of how she enjoyed walking in the countryside when the weather permitted and of her love of reading. He’d asked what books she enjoyed and seemed a little amused when she’d told him.

‘I go to the library in Denbigh whenever I can,’ she’d finished.

‘I’m sure you would find it easier, more convenient, to use the library here, I’ll speak to Livvie about it. I know we have copies of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters’ books which I think you might enjoy.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,’ she’d replied, wondering what Miss Olivia would think of one of her maids borrowing books from their library, but to her
surprise Olivia hadn’t objected. She had suggested
Jane Eyre,
which Rose had loved and ever since she had been working her way through the Brontës’ others. In fact this afternoon she hoped to finish
Wuthering Heights,
after she’d written to Mam.

‘Well, that’s that finished. I suppose we’d better make a start on Miss Olivia’s bedroom now while she’s still at breakfast,’ Nancy announced, breaking Rose’s reverie.

‘And find out whether Miss Elinore has made it downstairs yet this morning,’ Rose added.

‘You can’t help but feel sorry for her sometimes, half the time her mind seems miles away, but the way she plays fast and loose with mealtimes plays havoc with our work and really annoys Miss Olivia. Mind you, I can’t say I blame her for not wanting to get up, I don’t myself these dark, miserable mornings. I’ll really be glad when spring comes,’ Nancy said firmly.

When Rose arrived at the cottage that afternoon she found Gwen in the middle of polishing the numerous brass ornaments old Mrs Roberts had collected over the years.

‘I see you’re very busy,’ Rose greeted her, smiling.

‘I’ve been meaning to do them for ages. Mam would have ten fits if she could see the state of them. She did them religiously every week but I just can’t seem to find the time. If Mam hadn’t treasured them so much I’d have got rid of them ages ago. No wonder Megan didn’t want them – just more work and she’s enough on her plate as it is. Everything all
right up at the big house then?’

‘Oh, fine, but both Nancy and I will be glad when the weather gets warmer,’ Rose replied, taking the tin of
Brasso
and a cloth from beside Gwen.

‘Now,
cariad,
put that down. You do enough polishing. It’s your afternoon off. Put the kettle on,’ Gwen instructed.