Anne Bennett - If You Were the Only Girl

‘Well,’ said Clara, ‘in Birmingham the scullery maid has two half-days a week off and one full day every month. It will probably be the same here. Not that she’ll be able to see you on her half-days.’

‘Not on her full day either,’ Minnie said. ‘Letterkenny is a fair step from here.’

‘But the rail bus goes all the way,’ Clara said.

Lucy knew what she was talking about: the little bus that ran on rails, which she had seen many a time, though she never thought that she would ever have the opportunity to ride on it.

‘Lucy’s never been on a rail bus,’ Minnie said. ‘None of us has.’

‘Well, that can be remedied,’ said Clara with a smile. ‘That’s how I travelled down and how I will go back in a day or so. And remember that while Lucy will be far from home, I will be there to look after her as if she were my own daughter. What d’you say, Lucy?’

Lucy knew what she wanted to say: that she didn’t want to go so far away from home to work. What Clara said was a shock and not just to her but to all her siblings.

Sam’s eyes had filled with tears because Lucy had done a lot of the rearing of him. ‘Lucy’s not to go anywhere,’ he cried to Clara in protest. ‘She’s not to. She lives here with us.’

Danny thought the same. He and Lucy were very close, but he knew when adults decided something that was that. Grainne was dismayed that she would be losing the big sister that she looked up to so much and left with just the boys for company, and even Liam felt a bit sniffy at the thought of Lucy going away.

Clara looked at the saddened faces around her, Sam’s still red with temper and Lucy’s eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and she said, ‘I see that wasn’t a very popular thing to say.’

‘You shan’t take Lucy away,’ Sam said belligerently. ‘You shan’t because I’ll not let you.’

‘That will do, Sam,’ Minnie said.

‘But—’

‘Enough, I said. You are being rude.’

‘Lucy must work someplace, you know, now her school days are over,’ Clara said to the children. She went on to describe the big house just outside Letterkenny and the benefits for them all if Lucy were to take a job there.

As Clara spoke, things became much clearer to Lucy too. She was no keener to leave home but she knew that for all their sakes she must go and be a scullery maid at this house and lift some of the burden from her mother.

For years Lucy had listened to Minnie in the garden from early morning till late at night, digging, planting, hoeing, weeding, watering and then harvesting. Any surplus was exchanged for oatmeal, flour and fats and candles at the shop, and Lucy knew that it was time now for her to contribute to the family. She nodded her head to Clara. The younger children stared at her open-mouthed, but Danny had known all along what the outcome would be.

Then Clara asked Lucy, ‘Is that your best dress?’ She knew the answer really. She had seen how the others were dressed.

Minnie’s face flamed with embarrassment but she answered firmly enough. ‘Sometimes there is barely enough money to put food on the table and there is none to spare for new clothes. St Vincent de Paul come round with a bundle of things sometimes, but ours is not the only poor family in Mountcharles. There has been nothing suitable for Lucy in the bundles lately.’

Clara knew that she would have to tread carefully. Minnie set a great store by pride. ‘Don’t fret about it,’ she said. ‘The family will provide Lucy’s uniform – a grey dress and various aprons – though they will have to be altered to fit.’

‘She’s handy with her needle,’ Minnie said. ‘I have taught her that much. But if her uniform is provided why does her normal dress matter?’

‘Lady Heatherington expects a certain standard of dress among her staff,’ said Clara. ‘So that if they should choose to walk about the town on their time off and certainly on Sundays when we go to Mass we shall not disgrace the house.’

‘Then I don’t know what is to be done.’

‘Let me buy Lucy a couple of dresses.’

Lucy caught her breath in a gasp of pleasure, for she could never remember having new clothes before. However, Minnie was shaking her head. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you do that.’

‘Why not?’ Clara demanded. ‘Stiff-necked pride again?’

‘As I said before, it’s all I have.’

‘You are denying Lucy a chance in life,’ Clara said angrily. ‘And denying all of them the opportunity to make their lives even the tiniest bit easier because of some crackpot notion you have. Have you the right to do that?’

Lucy saw her mother was wavering and so did Clara, and she went on more gently, ‘Minnie, you said you will miss Lucy sorely when she is gone from you and I am sure you will, but I would give my eyeteeth to be in that position and able to see my daughter every month. Now you are my dearest friend, and it would ease my soul to buy the clothes needed for your daughter. Surely we have been friends too long for you to feel awkward about it?’

There was only one way to respond to that, and when Minnie inclined her head, Lucy let out the breath she was unaware she had been holding.

‘But how will you get the things so quickly?’ Minnie asked. ‘You’ll have to choose the material and contact the dressmaker.’

‘There is no need for that now,’ said Clara. ‘You can buy things off the peg.’

‘Not in Mountcharles, you can’t.’

‘No, but we’ll probably be able to in Donegal Town,’ said Clara. ‘There is a large store called Magee not far from the Abbey Hotel where I am staying.’

The whole family looked at her, stunned. Though Donegal Town was only three or four miles away, none of them had ever been there. In fact, Lucy hadn’t been further than Mountcharles all the days of her life, and here was Clara talking blithely about a hotel in the town where she was staying and taking her to a big store to buy her clothes. It was totally beyond her understanding.

‘How will you get there?’ Minnie asked. ‘Walk?’

‘No,’ Clara said, ‘I thought we’d take the rail bus. They have really opened up the North of Ireland. We can pick one up at the halt in the village and be in Donegal Town in no time at all. Now,’ she said to Lucy, ‘I will be here bright and early tomorrow because I must leave on Tuesday. The family are arriving at the weekend and it’s my job to make sure everything is ready for them.’

Lucy knew Danny would have given his eyeteeth to be the one travelling on the rail bus the following morning. She would never admit it to him or anyone else, but at first she had been a bit worried that the rail bus would jump off the tracks and that she would be thrown out of it, especially as it seemed to go at such speed.

However, she soon got used to it and watched the countryside flashing past as Clara told her all about the people she would be working with.

‘It’s not a large household,’ Clara said, ‘and some have come with us from the house in Birmingham, like the General’s batman, and the butler and footman. Now, the footman goes by the name of Jerry Kilroy. He has a shock of ginger hair, and green eyes like a cat, and he usually has a large grin on his face, remembering some devilment he has been at. He is an impudent scamp, not averse to pinching the girls’ bottoms.’

Lucy’s eyes opened wider. Clara said, ‘I think we won’t tell your mother that and I’m sure you can deal with him very effectively. You may have to join forces with Clodagh Murray – she’s the new kitchen maid that I have engaged – or Evie McMillan, the housemaid. Between you all I’m sure you will teach him a lesson he will not forget in a hurry.’

‘Yes,’ Lucy said, but she said it uncertainly; then added, ‘So, Evie is new too?’