The Girl on the Cliff (13 page)

‘Well, that’s a start, I suppose,’ Mrs Carruthers agreed.

Mrs Carruthers spoke English in a strange accent. Mary strained to understand what she was saying.

‘I suppose you’ll be hungry. You Irish always are.’ She pointed to a seat at the end of the table. ‘Take off your bonnet and your coat and sit down. Teresa, get Mary a plate of stew.’

‘Yes, Mrs Carruthers.’ A young woman wearing a mob cap and brown dress rose immediately from the table. Mary removed her hat, gloves, coat and shawl and was directed to hang them in the lobby. She sat down next to a girl dressed in a maid’s uniform.

‘So, Mary, I suppose you can’t read and write? Your kind usually can’t. It makes life so much more difficult for me,’ sighed Mrs Carruthers.

‘Oh yes, ma’am, I can,’ Mary nodded as a plate of stew was put in front of her. ‘I used to teach the small ones at my convent school.’

‘School, is it?’ Mrs Carruthers smirked. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be teaching me to lay the table next!’

The others around her laughed dutifully. Mary determinedly ignored the jibe and gulped back her stew silently, hungry from her long journey.

‘You’ve been working for Mr Lisle’s brother at his house in Ireland, so I hear,’ continued Mrs Carruthers.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I don’t know how they go on there, but I think
you might find things a bit different here in London. Mr Sebastian Lisle tells me you know how to serve at table, is that true?’

‘I’d be thinking I do, so,’ agreed Mary. ‘But I’m sure you’re right. Things will be different here.’

‘You’re to share with Nancy, our upstairs maid.’ Mrs Carruthers indicated the girl sitting next to Mary. ‘Breakfast at five thirty prompt; if you’re five minutes late, it won’t be saved for you, understand?’

Mary nodded.

‘Your uniform’s laid out on your bed. And make sure your pinny is clean. Mr Lisle is very particular about spotless uniforms.’

‘Pinny?’ enquired Mary.

‘Your apron, girl.’ Mrs Carruthers raised her eyebrows. ‘After breakfast tomorrow morning, I’ll inform you of your duties. When Mr Lisle is in residence, this is a busy household. He’s a very important man and he likes things just so. Luckily for you, he’s away at the moment, but we don’t let our standards slip, do we?’

The table nodded in agreement and began to rise from it.

‘Nancy, take Mary up to her room.’

‘Yes, Mrs C,’ the girl next to her said dutifully. ‘Follow me,’ she said to Mary.

A few minutes later, Mary was hauling her valise up the steps and into a vast hallway. A huge chandelier hung in the stairwell, full of electric light bulbs. They climbed another three flights of stairs until they arrived on the attic floor. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! This house! ’Tis the size of a palace!’ she exclaimed.

‘That one’s yours,’ said Nancy, leading her into a room that housed two beds and not much else. She pointed to a bed by the window. ‘You’re last in, so you get the draught.’

‘Thank you.’ Mary smiled wryly and dumped her valise on to her bed.

‘We take it in turns to get hot water for the washbasin, and there’s a pot under the bed for the other,’ indicated Nancy, sitting down on her own bed and surveying Mary. ‘You’re pretty, you are. How come you don’t have that red hair that all you Irish have?’

‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ Mary replied, unpacking her meagre items of clothing and stowing them in the drawer by the bed. ‘But not all of us have it, you know.’

‘All the ones I’ve met have. No, you’ve got lovely blue eyes and fair hair. Do you put a bottle on it?’

‘You mean, do I dye it?’ Mary chuckled and shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t be getting that kind of thing where I’m from. We’re still waiting for the electricity to come to our part of the world.’

‘Blimey,’ Nancy giggled, ‘couldn’t imagine what it’s like to live without it no more, though when I was a little’un, we didn’t have none. That’s why I got so many brothers and sisters!’ she cackled. ‘You got a young man?’

‘Yes, but he’s away off fighting Jerry, and I haven’t seen him for eighteen months.’

‘There’s always more where he came from, you know,’ Nancy grinned, ‘’specially here in London.’

‘Well, I’d not be interested in any other fellow. There won’t be anyone else for me,’ Mary replied staunchly.

‘You wait ’til you’ve been living here a few months, then we’ll see. There’s a lotta lonely soldier boys here in
the city on leave, looking for a pretty girl to spend their wages on, you mark my words.’ Nancy began to undress, her stays barely covering a magnificent set of breasts and Rubenesque hips. As she let down her long blonde hair, she resembled a ripe cherub. ‘If we get our days off together, I’ll take you out and show you the sights. There’s plenty to keep you occupied here in the Smoke, that’s for sure.’

‘So, what are the master and mistress like?’ Mary asked as she climbed into bed.

‘Oh, we have no mistress yet. Mr Lisle lives alone, at least when he’s here. No lady seems to have taken his fancy. Or maybe he hasn’t taken theirs!’ Nancy chuckled.

‘Well now, to be sure, neither has his brother Sebastian married,’ said Mary, pulling the thin blanket tighter around her, understanding why the bed she was in was not favoured.

‘Mrs Carruthers says the master might be a spy,’ said Nancy. ‘Whatever it is he does is important. He entertains lots of famous people for dinner here. Once we even had Lloyd George himself! Can you imagine, the British Prime Minister sitting in our dining room?’

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God! You mean I might have to serve him at table?’ Mary’s eyes were round with horror.

‘The way I always think of it when we have someone famous to the house, and I see ’em with my very own eyes, is that they all have to use the lavvy. So, I just imagine them sitting on that and then I’m not fritted any more.’

Mary giggled and warmed to Nancy. ‘How long have you been in service?’ she enquired.

‘Since I were eleven, when my ma sent me to be a
pot-washer. Now that were hard, emptying all them slops.’ Nancy shuddered. ‘Whether you’re a lady or a skivvy, yer piss and shit smells the same.’

Mary’s eyes were beginning to close, the apprehension and excitement of coming to London getting the better of her. As she drifted into sleep, Nancy continued to talk, but she listened no more.

In the first few weeks, life at Cadogan House was full of wonder for Mary. The house was run on a grand scale, even when there was no master in residence. She could not help but gape at the vast, beautiful rooms, their huge windows draped in thick damask curtains, the finely hewn furniture and the enormous fireplaces with elegant mirrors atop them.

Apart from the ongoing jokes about her Irishness, Mary found the other servants a friendly bunch. Nancy proved to be a fine guide to London, having lived in the city for all of her life. She took Mary on trams to Piccadilly Circus to eat hot chestnuts under the statue of Eros, and up the Mall to look at Buckingham Palace. They had tea and buns in Lyons Corner House, where a couple of young soldiers ‘gave them the eye’, as Nancy put it. Nancy was all for giving it back, but Mary would have none of it.

Mary loved her new and exciting world. The bright lights and hubbub of London made it hard to remember this was a country at war. So far, the British mainland had remained untouched and, apart from the surprising sight of women driving the trams and buses and serving behind counters in shops, the city had remained unchanged.

That was until the Zeppelins came.

Mary heard the huge explosion in the middle of the night, and woke up with the rest of the city to the news
that the Germans had bombed a site in the East End, killing two hundred people. Suddenly, London became a hive of activity, with barrage balloons hanging above the skyline, the shadowy profiles of machine guns sitting on the tops of tall buildings and preparations for further attacks taking place in the cellars of every house.

During the summer of 1917, when Mary had been in London for over a year, the air-raid sirens rang out with regularity. The staff would scuttle down to the cellar to eat dry biscuits and play cards, while the sounds of the guns rattled above them. Mrs Carruthers sat on her wooden chair, brought down from the kitchen, and take surreptitious swigs from her hip flask to steady her nerves. Yet even during the worst moments, where it seemed a Zeppelin must be directly overhead and Mary watched the fear on the candle-lit faces around her, she knew little of her own. She felt … 
invincible
– as though the horror of what was happening could not touch her.

One morning, in the spring of 1918, Mary finally received a letter from Sean. Even though she’d told him of her new address, Mary had received no letters in return. She had no idea where he was, or whether he was alive or dead. Guiltily, she berated herself every time she and Nancy got dressed up on their day off to go up to town, for the giggles they shared and above all the sense of freedom she felt in this wide open city, where anything seemed possible.

And because, if she was being honest with herself, she could hardly remember what Sean looked like. Opening the letter, she began to read.

France

17th March

My lovely Mary,

I am writing to tell you that I am well, although we seem to have been fighting this war forever. I’ve a week’s leave soon, and I received your letters telling me that you are working in London. When I arrive there, I will be calling round to see you.

Mary, pet, we must both believe that this war will be over soon and we can return to our life in Dunworley together.

You are all that gets me through the days and nights here.

With all my love,

Sean x

Mary re-read the letter five times. Then she sat and stared silently at the whitewashed wall opposite her bed.

‘What’s up?’ Nancy was regarding her thoughtfully.

‘My young man, Sean. He’ll be getting some leave soon and coming to see me.’

‘Mercy be!’ said Nancy. ‘He ain’t a figment of your imagination, after all.’

Mary shook her head. ‘No. ’Tis true, he’s real.’

‘And bullet-proof and Jerry-proof too, if he’s been in them trenches for the past three years. Most of them soldiers don’t make it through the first few weeks. Ain’t you the lucky one, that you have a fella still alive? What’s the rest of us girls gonna do, eh? Gawd knows how many
thousands of young men us girls have lost to this war. We’re all going to end up dying old maids. You hang on to yours, you lucky bugger!’ Nancy cautioned.

Mary was stoking the fire in the drawing room a few weeks later when Sam, the footman, poked his head round the door.

‘There’s a gentleman by the name of Ryan asking for you at the front door, Mary. I’ve sent him round the back to the servants’ entrance.’

‘Thank you, Sam,’ said Mary. Her legs trembled as she walked down the stairs towards her past, praying the kitchen was empty so she could at least be allowed a moment with Sean alone. However, with the constant monotony of their daily routine, the staff were eager for excitement. Consequently, the kitchen had a full complement of servants.

Mary walked across to the back door as fast as she could, hoping to get there first, but Nancy had beaten her to it. Nancy’s hands were on her hips and she was smiling broadly at the gaunt, barely recognisable soldier on the threshold.

‘Seems this young man is called Sean,’ Nancy turned towards Mary, ‘and he wants to speak to you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mary.

‘He might be a Paddy, but he’s a looker, he is,’ Nancy whispered to Mary as she went back into the kitchen.

Mary gazed up into Sean’s eyes for the first time in three and a half years.

‘Mary, my Mary, I can hardly believe I’m staring right at you. Come, give your fiancé a hug.’ Sean’s voice was
choked with emotion as he opened his arms and she went to them.

He smelt different, yet the same. As she hugged him, she could feel his thinness against her.

‘Mary,’ he crooned, ‘’tis really you, right here in London town. And I’m holding you in my arms … you don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of this, so I have. Let me look at you.’ Sean took hold of her shoulders and surveyed her. ‘I swear, you have grown even more beautiful.’

He was smiling down at her, his gentle eyes full of tenderness.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Mary blushed, ‘sure, I’m the same as I always was!’

‘Can you get away today? I’ll only be having two nights in London before I must leave again.’

Mary looked at him doubtfully. ‘’Tis not normally my day off, Sean. But I can ask Mrs Carruthers if I may.’

She turned from him to walk back into the kitchen, but he stopped her. ‘You go and get yourself ready to walk out with me. I’ll be asking your woman myself. There’s not many in London town that can resist a soldier.’

And sure enough, by the time Mary was back in the kitchen in her best skirt and new hat, Sean was sitting at the table with Mrs Carruthers, a glass of gin in his hand, while she and the rest of the servants listened avidly to his tales of life at the Front.

‘They don’t tell us nothing,’ Mrs Carruthers complained. ‘We don’t know what’s going on, we don’t, they just tell us what they want us to hear.’

‘Well now, Mrs Carruthers, I’d say another six months
and we’ll have them beaten. To be sure, Jerry is suffering more casualties than we are. We’ve learned, you see, how to fight them. It’s taken time, but I’d reckon we’re on the winning side now.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mrs Carruthers fervently. ‘The shortages here are getting worse and it’s more difficult to put food on the table every day.’

‘Don’t you be worrying, Mrs Carruthers. We’ve a brave bunch of soldiers defending this nation, and I’ll see to it personally that there’s a goose on your table next Christmas,’ added Sean, with a wink.

Mrs Carruthers chuckled and looked up at Mary. ‘You’ve got a fine young man there, young miss, even though I say so meself. You two had better be getting off. I’m sure you don’t want to be wasting a second of your leave talking to an old duck like me!’

‘Ah now, Mrs Carruthers, you’re exactly the kind of fine woman us boys are fighting to keep safe.’ Sean looked at Mary and smiled. ‘Are you ready?’