The Mersey Girls (34 page)

He longed to go to the house in Sunnyside himself and confront her, beg her forgiveness, but Roddy was learning at last. He was only here for one more day and if she didn’t receive the letter first who knew what she might say – or do – to him? So he bought the bracelet, wrapped it in softest tissue paper, made it into a neat parcel, sealed it with red sealing wax and posted it and the letter to Linnet, at the Sunnyside house.

He hadn’t said a word in either the letter or the note he sent with the parcel about not giving in if Mr Cowan tried anything on, because he knew she wouldn’t, not really. He didn’t even tell her that marriage to such an old man would be a miserable affair compared to marriage to him because that, too, would undoubtedly be seen as more nastiness. He just posted his parcel and his letter and walked back to the house in Peel Square with his fingers crossed.

And then, because he had no choice if he was to keep his job, he rejoined his ship and sailed away, without knowing whether his hot-tempered little love had accepted his apology or was even now burning his letter on a slow flame and stomping his bracelet underfoot.

He didn’t really think she would do anything like that, though. Linnet had always been quick-tempered but she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She would read his letter, accept his grovelling apology, and wear the bracelet to show him, if he happened to pass by, that all was forgiven and they were friends again.

Or he hoped she would. But as his ship laboured through the heavy Atlantic swell there were times when he had his doubts; times when his eyes watered and he recollected the left hook and prayed fervently to God and the Mother of Jesus that he hadn’t put his foot in it with Linnet for the last time.

‘Holy Mother, keep her safe, make her love me,’ he prayed. ‘I’m a bit hot-tempered meself but I don’t mean a word of it. I’m gentle as a lamb really, I swear to God I am. And may that old lecher Cowan burn in hell if he hurts one hair of her head!’

Linnet had got over most of her feelings of outrage that Roddy could have believed she was the sort of girl to take a lover – especially one as old as Mr Cowan – in the weeks which followed their quarrel. But she still felt quite cross with him, so when his letter arrived one Monday morning she didn’t open the envelope at once. She put it in the little drawer of the bedside table in her room and left it, she told herself, to simmer.

And next morning, the package arrived. It was a pretty little parcel, with the scarlet sealing wax and the white outer paper, painstakingly addressed in Roddy’s best hand – and he could write beautifully when he chose. But she didn’t open it, she let it lie beside her breakfast plate where she could eye it broodingly from time to time.

What was in it? What could it possibly contain? In the end she carried it upstairs and dropped it into her bedside drawer and went down again to take Mollie out to the park since she knew her charge needed fresh air even on a rather chilly October day, when the wind was in the east and the sky threatened rain. So she and Mollie would go to the park where Mollie would play with any other children also there, and then they would come home again and Linnet would help Mollie with her big jigsaw puzzle, the one with pictures of animals, all with their names written on them. The jigsaw was an instructional one and was, Linnet hoped, helping Mollie to learn her letters.

Then they would go into the breakfast room where the maid would serve them a light luncheon. After that they would go to the nursery and Annabel Withers, who lived up the road, would come to tea with Mollie and they would play together, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes not, depending on their mood.

Annabel’s nanny, Edie Ryan, was only a year or two older than Linnet. She was a jolly, pink-cheeked girl who truly loved her charges – she had three, but two of them were in school, only Annabel being below school age. Linnet and Edie had speedily become friends and now they took it in turns to entertain each other’s child to tea so that the one not on duty could have a bit of time to herself. Linnet, putting her charge’s leggings on with minimal help from Mollie, found herself wishing that it had been Mollie’s turn to visit this afternoon and not the other way round; then she could have opened her letter and her parcel at her leisure.

But the day passed. Mollie was fed, bathed, put to bed. Linnet went down to the dining room and had dinner with Mr Cowan, quieter than usual because of the letter and the parcel. In fact, as soon as the pudding was cleared away she excused herself; she would go to her room if Mr Cowan did not mind, she had some work to do.

‘But I do mind,’ Mr Cowan said, smiling sweetly at her. ‘I enjoy our quiet evenings together, Miss Murphy. I like to hear what you and Mollie have been up to whilst I’ve been toiling away at Exchange Flags.’

It would have been rude to say that the enjoyment was all on his side as well as untrue – usually Linnet enjoyed their evenings, too. So she went with him into the white drawing-room and they talked for a little and Linnet kept forgetting what she was saying and staring into the fire until Mr Cowan gave her a searching look and asked, in a rather stiff voice, if she had a headache.

‘Yes, I have,’ Linnet said, trying to look pathetic. She knew she could scarcely look pale, what with the warmth from the fire and the meal she had just eaten. ‘If you don’t mind, Mr Cowan, I think I’ll go up early.’

He must have guessed she wanted to leave him but he just smiled and bade her goodnight. He is a nice man, Linnet thought, conscience-stricken. I really shouldn’t lie to him – but what am I to do? If this was an ordinary job I’d walk away from it at six, but as it is I’m on duty twenty-four hours a day, or it feels like that. Nannies really do earn their salaries!

Up in her room, she closed the door firmly and went over to give the fire a poke. It was a tremendous luxury having a fire in her bedroom, a luxury which was all the sweeter because it was always lit, as if by magic, when she came up to bed. All she had to do was put a bit of coal on occasionally, or liven it up with the poker. Having dealt with the fire she went over to her bedside drawer and got out the letter and the packet. Then she drew her chair up close to the hearth, sat herself down, and decided to open the letter first.

It was a nice letter. He was truly sorry, he said, for everything he had said and thought about her living with Mr Cowan. He explained painstakingly that he had jumped to a wrong conclusion, told her how he had heard the news originally, explained that he was now bitterly ashamed of himself. He begged her forgiveness and said he would always be her friend. You could almost say he grovelled, Linnet mused, putting the closely written sheets back into the envelope and reaching for the packet. But Roddy need not worry because she had always known he was her friend and she would always forgive him as he, she knew, would always forgive her. That punch on the nose had been quite well received, all things considered. Linnet knew young men who would have punched her right back.

She undid the packet and the bracelet slithered out and fell into her lap, making her gasp. It was beautiful, really beautiful, easily the nicest thing anyone had ever given her – and it must have cost poor Roddy an awful lot of money, he must have spent every penny he’d saved, one way and another.

She slipped the bracelet round her wrist and fastened it and a tiny little note fell out and fluttered to the floor. Linnet bent and picked it up.

Hope you love it like I love you
, it said simply.
Your Roddy
.

Over the weeks which followed, Linnet learned a thing or two about being a nanny which she had not even considered when she took the job.

The first surprise came when Mr Cowan asked her, quite mildly, if she would mind not wearing her new bracelet whilst she was on duty.

‘It’s very pretty, Miss Murphy, and I’m sure you enjoy possessing it,’ he said. ‘But it will give rise to talk – I’m sure I need not say more.’

Linnet murmured that she would take it off straight after breakfast and did so, but she could not imagine what sort of talk a bracelet could give rise to, and that night, at dinner, she taxed Mr Cowan with it.

‘As you see, sir, I’m not wearing my bracelet since you desired me to take it off, but I have to admit I’m curious. How could it possibly give rise to talk? Surely no one thinks I would steal such an object?’

Mr Cowan shook his head chidingly at her. ‘Come, Miss Murphy, I know you are very young, but what do you suppose my housekeeper thinks when she sees you for a month bare-wristed and then you turn up at breakfast one morning with a gold bracelet to which you seem so attached that you keep it on three days running?’

‘It was sent to me, through the post,’ Linnet said, her cheeks hot. ‘I expect Mrs Eddis wondered what was in my packet – well, now she knows. I don’t see how anyone could think different, sir.’

‘People sometimes believe what they want to believe,’ Mr Cowan said. ‘You are a young and lovely girl, living in a widower’s house. Some people will say that I gave you the bracelet. Others will conjecture why I gave you the bracelet. Few indeed are those who will suppose it was sent you as a present through the post.’

If Mr Cowan had known about Roddy’s black eye, Roddy’s swollen nose, he might have been glad that a great stretch of highly polished walnut dining table separated him from his daughter’s nanny. And Linnet managed to control an urge to fly across that same stretch of dining table and box his ears for him, because she realised he was only saying what he thought to be the truth. Poor man, as if she would have accepted a valuable present like a gold bracelet from an old widower and one, moreover, who was her employer!

‘Well, if anyone has such evil thoughts, sir, I hope for their sake that they don’t speak them aloud,’ she said. Her voice was icy but her cheeks, she knew, flamed. ‘The bracelet comes from a very old friend.’

Mr Cowan grinned then, and he looked younger and a good deal less censorious. ‘A very old friend, Miss Murphy? As old as me?’

She had to smile, but did not answer him directly. ‘I hope, if anyone ever says anything like that in front of you, sir, that you’ll tell them roundly that I am not that sort of person, and that you are not either, Mr Cowan.’

‘I’m very sure, Miss Murphy, that no one would dare to say anything of that nature to my face,’ Mr Cowan said smoothly. ‘However, I’ll bear what you say in mind.’ And then, whilst she was still thinking it a poor sort of reply, he changed the subject.

Another thing which Linnet learned about being a nanny was how very boring it could be. She loved Mollie and enjoyed her company, but she still got bored because there was simply not enough for her to do. Nanny Peters had prepared and cooked all Mollie’s meals, but because Linnet had had no formal training Mr Cowan decreed that she and Mollie should be fed from the kitchen. The kitchen staff did not much like having to make a luncheon each day as well as doing a high tea for Mollie, but they had no choice but to obey and Linnet, too, could scarcely insist that she would enjoy cooking Mollie’s luncheon, particularly when cook brought them such very delicious meals.

So Linnet, finding herself with leisure for the first time in her life, began to long for the office life she had so gladly shed, for a friend like Rose to giggle with, for the other lodgers back at the Boulevard – even the noisy little boys would have been a relief during the long, silent afternoons when Mollie was out to tea, or playing quietly with her toys.

It might have been better had the month been June instead of November, because it rained and rained, turning a visit to the park or the aviary to a purgatory of cold hands and wet feet, and although she could, in theory, have left Mr Cowan in charge of Mollie in the evening whilst she went to the cinema or even the theatre, she didn’t much fancy trudging through the rain at either end of the journey.

The outings with her employer stopped because of the weather, too, though he told her he would take her and Mollie Christmas shopping in Chester as soon as the weather improved. Linnet thought Chester a delightful city – the rows intrigued her, and the old, Elizabethan shop-fronts – but would rather have spent a day going round Blacklers, Lewises and the Bon Marché on Church Street. Christmas shopping would be fun, but it was too early yet, so she wrote letters to Roddy which she could not post, lacking an address, read books from Mr Cowan’s library and moped.

And her days off, which had been promised, always seemed to disappear into thin air, because they were so difficult to arrange. She had not once visited Margaret or her other friends from the Boulevard, and had only managed to spend half a day with the Sullivans on one occasion. She was supposed to have a whole day off each week but who would look after Mollie whilst she went gadding? She asked Mr Cowan, timidly at first, and he said she had best speak to Mrs Eddis and Linnet wished very heartily that she had not agreed with her employer that she had no need of a nurserymaid once she took up the job. Nice, efficient little Emma Alcott was gracing someone else’s nursery by now, allowing some other nanny to get away from her charge from time to time. But Mrs Eddis, though pleasant to Linnet, made it very clear that neither she nor the maids could take on the extra responsibility of Mollie.

‘You could go out for an hour if you let one o’ them other nannies take care of the kid, or you could go round to your friend’s place and take the kid wi’ you,’ she suggested after Linnet had been living at the house for several weeks without a single afternoon off, let alone a whole day. ‘The boss won’t know –’e probably wouldn’t care if ’e did know, come to that.’

It sounded fair enough so after luncheon one day Linnet dressed Mollie in her scarlet coat and leggings and the little round scarlet hat like a pudding basin, put on her own navy overcoat and round velour hat and set off for the tram stop.

It was a very cold day; last night’s rain had frozen to ice in the puddles and Mollie’s little nose was as red as her coat and hat, but they hurried along, hand in hand, and hopped on the tram as soon as it arrived, both in the best of spirits at the thought of a break in their routine.