Katherine Woodfine - The Midnight Peacock

Tilly followed Sarah through into the kitchen, rather glad to have an excuse to get away and think. But as she carefully dried the glasses and put them away in their proper place, all she felt sure of was that the apparition in the passageway couldn’t possibly have been a prank of Charlie’s. He was only a lad – he might be tall, but he was too much like a beanpole to have been that big threatening figure, with its heavy plodding footsteps. Besides, he’d never have been able to beat her back to the Servants’ Hall.

Now, as she lay in bed, she decided three things. First of all, she would go back to the East Wing tomorrow morning, and have a good look around. Secondly, when she was dusting the Library later, she’d pinch that book she’d read before – the one about ghosts. She wasn’t supposed to take books from the Library, of course – she couldn’t even imagine the dressing-down Mr Stokes the butler would give her, if he ever caught her at it. But she’d been doing it for as long as she could remember, and she’d never been caught yet. After all, it wasn’t as though His Lordship would miss them. In spite of having all those hundreds of books, Tilly had never seen him read much besides the newspaper.

Thirdly, and most importantly, she decided she would tell Miss Leo all about it when she came home tomorrow. Whilst she didn’t fancy talking to Sarah or any of the others – she’d likely work them up into even more of a tizz about ghosts if she did – Tilly knew that she could confide in Miss Leo.

She snuggled down further under the blankets, hugging the thought that her friend would soon be home. Miss Leo, or to give her her proper name, Miss Leonora, was three years older than Tilly, but, perhaps because she had been very ill with polio as a child, and had spent so much time in bed, she had always seemed younger than she really was. She was quite different from her older sister and brother – and not only because of the crutch she had used ever since her illness. She was the only one of the family ever to be seen in the Servants’ Hall. She had been everyone’s pet when she was small: Ma would always let her scrape out the mixing bowl, or give her a bun hot from the oven. ‘Poor little mite,’ she’d say, when Miss Leo had gone.

In those days, Tilly and Miss Leo had played together, just as if they were sisters. Miss Leo had been Tilly’s best friend in the world. They understood each other: Miss Leo knew that Tilly would prefer tinkering with the workings of a clock or reading a book about scientific inventions than sewing or polishing; just as Tilly knew that Miss Leo would rather paint or draw than sit primly in the Nursery embroidering in a pretty dress.

Tilly knew too that Miss Leo’s life was a lonely one. She’d never been to school or spent much time with other children – and when she did, she had to put up with their whispers and giggles, all because she had a bad leg. Tilly knew how that felt – she’d spent enough time at school being taunted and jeered at because she didn’t look like the other girls. She knew how to deal with that: she just put her head in the air and ignored them, knowing that they’d be laughing on the other side of their faces when she came out top of the class. But Miss Leo had never had the chance to toughen up. When she wasn’t with Tilly, she was always by herself.

What was worse, as they got older, Ma and Nanny, who ruled the Nursery, did not seem to approve of their friendship any longer. They wanted to keep Tilly and Miss Leo shut up in their separate boxes: Leo in the Nursery, all dressed up in a velvet frock with a frilly white petticoat; Tilly in the kitchen, shelling peas or doing a bit of mending for Mrs Dawes. It was as if they were two dolls, Tilly used to think, neatly tidied into their rightful places like the porcelain figures in Miss Leo’s big doll’s house.

‘Know your place,’ Ma told her, but Tilly had found ways to make sure she and Miss Leo could keep being friends. After school, she made sure she was always on hand to hang up Miss Leo’s clothes or run her bath or stoke up the Nursery fire. ‘She’s getting to be a good little maid, isn’t she?’ Ma said proudly to Nanny, but Tilly and Miss Leo just grinned at each other, knowing they had found a way to make sure they could still spend time together.

Ma approved of Tilly waiting on Miss Leo. ‘You’re a bright girl,’ she’d say, as she rolled out pastry for a game pie, or stuffed the mutton for a luncheon party. ‘Quick and handy – and so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days. Miss Leo’s of an age to be needing her own lady’s maid soon, and if you play your cards right . . .’

She hadn’t needed to finish the sentence. Tilly knew exactly the picture that was in Ma’s head. She was imagining Tilly as a proper lady’s maid in a black frock with a lace collar, permitted to sit up at the top of the table in the Servants’ Hall, and to take her tea in the housekeeper’s room. Only a housekeeper or a butler ranked higher than a lady’s maid, and Ma had grand ambitions for Tilly. But what Tilly had never admitted to Ma is that she wasn’t so sure that she really wanted to be a lady’s maid at all. Waiting on Miss Leo was a good way to make sure they could spend time together, but there were so many more interesting things that Tilly could do than fuss about with hairstyles and dresses. His Lordship had recently bought his first motor car, and Tilly hung about the garage whenever she had a free moment, breathing in the wonderful petrol smell, and staring at the big shiny machine with its roaring engine. She wondered how it would feel to drive it. Could girls be chauffeurs, she wondered? She’d much rather do that.

Then Miss Leo had managed to persuade Her Ladyship and His Lordship that she should be allowed to go off to London to study art. Tilly couldn’t even imagine what London might be like, though she’d seen photographs of it in the newspapers that His Lordship left scattered about the Library. Fascinating pictures of big new buildings and busy streets jammed with people and bicycles and automobiles and motor buses. She wondered what it would be like to live somewhere like that – London or maybe Oxford, where Mr Vincent had gone to university. Tilly knew from Miss Leo that young ladies could study there too, although they wouldn’t be awarded a proper degree, as the young gentlemen were. But they could still learn Latin and Greek and science and mathematics. For a moment, she imagined going there herself. She’d study mechanical sciences, she thought, so she could learn all about how machines worked.

Ma always said that these kinds of thoughts did her no good, and that Tilly oughtn’t to ‘get ideas above her station’. It didn’t matter tuppence to her that Tilly had always been top of the class at the village school, nor that Alf, His Lordship’s chauffeur, said he’d never known any lad get his head round the workings of a motor engine half so quick as Tilly. There would be no thought of any more schooling for a girl like her. Even spending too much time in the garage was frowned upon. ‘You keep your feet on the ground, my girl,’ Ma said. Tilly sighed to herself in the dark.

But at least Miss Leo would be back tomorrow – and Tilly could hear all about what London was really like. Thinking of tomorrow, she rolled over and blew out the candle in one sharp breath. She’d have to be up before six to sweep the grates and make the fires and take up the early morning tea trays. Putting all thoughts of ghosts – and Miss Leo – firmly out of her head, Tilly closed her eyes and made up her mind to sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE

Mr Lim raised his eyebrows as he peered at the newspaper. ‘A New Year’s Eve Ball? So this is Mr Sinclair’s latest scheme!’

‘It’s going to be his grandest yet!’ said Lil. ‘There are all kinds of special entertainments planned – but the best part will be the fireworks on Piccadilly Circus at midnight.’