The two women worked on, chatting as they did so. Mrs Gallagher was so easy and approachable that Biddy soon found herself talking freely, telling her employer all about her parents, her sojourn with Ma Kettle and her time as a delivery girl, though she said nothing about her flight from the Tebbits or the reason she was dismissed from Millicent’s. Already she loved her job and was desperate to keep it; she would do nothing which might make Mrs Gallagher think she had been mistaken in taking Biddy in.
When the meal was ready Biddy’s was set out on the kitchen table and Mrs Gallagher and Elizabeth carried the rest through into the living-room on trays.
‘It’s not a real meal, it’s just a snack,’ Mrs Gallagher explained. ‘But tonight we’ll eat in the dining-room, because Mr and Mrs Prescott will have arrived – we’ll be quite a party, so if you don’t think you can cope just tell me, and Liz and myself will help you out.’
A snack! Biddy thought, spooning thick vegetable soup into her mouth and following it with a bit of milk roll – so light and fluffy, so delicious. You couldn’t call this a snack, a snack’s a handful of potato crisps or an apple or a raw carrot. This is a wonderful meal, that’s what it is.
There was a great deal of bustle and chatter when the Prescotts arrived. Biddy, helping them to take their traps upstairs, was very surprised to find that they were not rich or anything like that but quite ordinary people. Mrs Prescott – Mrs Gallagher called her ‘My dearest Lilac’, which Biddy thought a very unusual name – had glorious, red-gold hair and a pretty, lively face, but she wore an ordinary dark blue coat with a matching skirt which just brushed the tops of her smart little suede boots and she talked about the trials of housekeeping so that Biddy knew at once the Prescotts did not keep a maid. And Mr Prescott talked with a London accent and was a great joker, picked Mrs Gallagher up and kissed her on the nose, made a great fuss of his wife and the little boys, who were very alike but not, Biddy was relieved to see, identical, winked at Biddy when his wife began scolding the children for dragging at her coat and trying to examine the contents of her handbag and generally behaved, Biddy thought wistfully, just like her own father had, when he came home from sea.
‘You must come into the living-room and meet my friend Bethan’s son, from Anglesey,’ Mrs Gallagher said at one point. ‘Bethan died some time ago, and Dai came calling since he was in Liverpool, so we’ve invited him for the holiday – he’s at sea, too, so he and Joey will have a lot in common.’
‘You and your lame dogs,’ Mrs Prescott said to Mrs Gallagher; but she said it so softly that Biddy thought no one else had overheard. ‘I hope he’s the only one.’
Biddy did not understand this, but anyway, Mr Prescott was speaking.
‘The boys need some air,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if Biddy here were to take the twins out for a walk? They will be good, won’t you, boys? And it’s no distance to Prince’s Park.’ He winked at Biddy again. ‘She could buy them ice creams.’
Johnny and Fred Prescott leaped and bounced at the idea, clutching Biddy’s hands and promising to be good.
‘They slept in the train, the little demons,’ Mrs Prescott said, ‘So now they’re bounding with energy. But are you sure, Biddy ? Only they do need to run off some of their energy.’
‘I’d like it,’ Biddy said shyly. ‘I’d like to run in the park too – we could have a race, boys.’
‘She’ll be their idol from now on,’ Mrs Prescott said, laughing, as Johnny and Fred squeaked that they would
certainly race with her and beat her hollow, that boys were best, that ice creams were their favourite thing … ‘I wish I had your energy, Biddy! But I’m afraid after a train journey with those demons, all I want is a nice cup of tea and a sit-down.’
‘The kettle’s on the hob, ma’am,’ Biddy said, enjoying her new role. ‘Shall I mash the tea before I go?’
But Mrs Gallagher, laughing, said that she and Lilac were not quite helpless and bade her get her coat down from her room and go off for her walk.
‘The snow’s not deep, but you should wear boots,’ she instructed, then looked guilty. ‘You haven’t got boots, of course … I shall lend you an old pair of mine, our feet are about the same size. In fact, you may keep them, Biddy, if you find them comfortable. Go and fetch your coat and I’ll get my Wellingtons out.’
‘Where did you find that pretty little creature?’ Lilac asked Nellie, when introductions had been effected and Joey Prescott and Dai were talking about the sea and ships in front of the Living-room fire, whilst the two adopted sisters sat on the comfortable velvet-covered
chaise-longue
, catching up on each other’s news. ‘You said you’d never have another maid, after Peggy.’
‘She came through an Employment Register,’ Nellie confessed. ‘She was the very first girl they sent me and I liked her at once. I didn’t even take up her references or anything like that. I do believe I’ve found a gem this time.’
‘Or a very pretty lame dog,’ Lilac said, dimpling at the older woman. ‘No, don’t get cross, Nell darling, I’m only teasing. When did she start work for you?’
‘This morning. She made an excellent thick vegetable soup for our luncheon … Dai enjoyed it and so did Elizabeth … and she did several other jobs around the kitchen. She’s neat, quick to learn, good with her hands. And a hard worker, to boot. I do hate it, our Lilac, when you pretend I do things for the wrong reasons. I needed help in the house, she applied for the job. … There’s no question of her being a lame dog, truly.’
‘No, of course not.’ Lilac lowered her voice. ‘But Dai … Nell, darling, who does he remind me of? He’s most awfully like someone I used to know …’
‘You never met Bethan, but he’s rather like her.’ Nellie looked into the fire, her cheeks flushing. ‘Actually, he’s a bit like Stuart was at that age … can you still remember?’
‘Yes, that’s it, of course. He’s dark, he’s got twinkly eyes and a curly mouth … yes, it’ll be Stuart.’ She pulled a face at her sister. ‘Not a by-blow, I trust?’
‘Lilac, you haven’t changed at all, you’re just as dreadful as ever! And do stop talking about someone who’s in the same room.… Tell me about your horrid little boys, queen, and stop tryin’ to shock me. I got them both clockwork train sets for Christmas, I do hope they like them.’
‘Dai and my dear Joe are far too busy swopping tall stories to worry about us, Nell. And the twins will be absolutely delighted with everything they receive because … well, we have quite a struggle now that I’m not working. But clockwork train sets will give Joey and me as much pleasure as they will the twins, I’m sure.’
‘Good. And I thought the twins could have a high tea with Biddy, in the kitchen, and then we can put them to bed whilst she gets on with the dinner. Elizabeth’s gone to a party the other side of the park; she wanted to refuse when she heard you were arriving today but I insisted that she went. She’ll eat with us, of course, but she’ll enjoy helping with the twins. She doesn’t say much, but she would have loved a brother or sister.’
‘It just wasn’t to be,’ Lilac said, squeezing Nellie’s hand. ‘Let’s have another cup of tea, shall we? I’m spittin’ feathers.’
Nellie laughed. ‘Whatever do they think of you down London way, you scouser, you?’ she said. ‘Spittin’ feathers, indeed! I brung you up better’n that, our Lilac!’
Laughing together, the two women returned to the kitchen.
It had been a hectic first day for anyone to take on board and by the time she was to serve the dinner, Biddy was so tired she could have sat down on the floor and gone straight off to sleep.
The twins were dears, but little terrors, too. They had walked across the park and half-way Elizabeth, coming home from her party, had come bouncing up to them.
‘Twins dear, it’s your own Lizzie!’ she said. ‘Are you being good for Biddy, then?’
To Biddy she added, sotto voce, that the boys were spoilt rotten, but she said it indulgently. You couldn’t say much else when they were only three years old and so lovable. Johnny was the bolder and naughtier of the two; it had been Fred who had put his little arms round Biddy’s neck and asked to be carried home and then, with his mouth an inch from her ear, he had murmured, ‘I love you, Biddy. Will you marry me when I’s a big boy?’
‘I will, Fred, if you’re still of the same mind when you’re big,’ Biddy assured him. ‘Now where’s that ice cream gone?’
She was grateful for Elizabeth’s company when they got home, though, and she realised where most of the ice cream had gone. Down the twins’ little checked tweed coats,
over their small hands, even up the sleeves of their red woollen jumpers.
‘How did they get ice cream in their hair?’ she asked Elizabeth, as the two of them tackled the sticky little boys with soap and flannel. ‘No one gets ice cream in their
hair
!’
‘We does,’ Johnny said, as the flannel moved away from his mouth. ‘We gets it all over; our Mam says so.’
And then there was the twins’ high tea … boiled eggs with bread-and-butter soldier boys, warm milk in bunny mugs, a banana mashed up with brown sugar sprinkled over it. Their mother swathed them in voluminous bibs but even so the floor somehow managed to receive more than its fair share of their tea.
‘We ought to have a dog,’ Mrs Gallagher said, surveying the linoleum with despair. ‘A dog would
enjoy
cleaning up after them.’
‘I wanna dog,’ Johnny said immediately. ‘Do you wanna dog, our Fred?’
‘Not our Fred, darling, just Fred,’ Mrs Prescott put in. ‘Oh dear, but I say it meself, I know I do!’
The men kept well out of the kitchen, but Biddy didn’t mind. It was wonderful in here in the firelight, with the twins sitting up to the table banging with their spoons and slurping at their bunny mugs, whilst the women attended to their every want and Biddy ate a plateful of honey sandwiches, drank several cups of tea, and assured her employer that this would see her through until dinner was over.
‘Bathtime now,’ Mrs Prescott said briskly as the boys clambered off their chairs and began to tug at their bibs as though quite willing to behead themselves if only they could remove the hated sign of a meal sloppily eaten. ‘You love a bath don’t you, darlings?’
The darlings roared that they loved a bath and charged out of the kitchen, across the hall and up the stairs, making as much noise as a football team and, as Biddy discovered when she went upstairs herself that night, liberally smearing sugar, banana and egg yolk over everything they touched.
‘Go and help, Liz,’ Mrs Gallagher told her daughter indulgently. ‘Biddy and I will cope down here won’t we, Biddy?’
‘I’m sure we shall, ma’am,’ Biddy said. In the course of the afternoon she had made, under Mrs Gallagher’s instructions, a pan of leek and potato soup, a wonderful concoction made with oranges, lemons, cream and sugar which Mrs Gallagher said was a citrus syllabub, and a savoury, which was liver, onions, bread and beef dripping all mashed and mixed together and then spread on little square biscuits.
‘You’ll put the biscuits on the sideboard, beside the drinks,’ Mrs Gallagher had told her. ‘Then I’ll come and tip you
the wink when to serve the soup. Liz will help. When you think we’ve had long enough to drink the soup you can bring the beef through – the roast potatoes, sprouts and so on will be in the tureens, keeping hot in the cupboard by the oven, so they must be taken out and brought through with the beef – the trolley’s over there, just watch it on the edges of carpet. I’ll see to the Yorkshire pudding … that isn’t as easy as it looks. Oh … gravy …’
But at last all the instructions were given and understood and Mrs Gallagher had gone off to change.
‘We don’t bother, usually, but tonight, as it’s our guests’ first night with us, we shall,’ she said. ‘Poor Biddy, what a day you’ve had! Look, my dear, are you sure you can cope? I really should have got someone in to help you … but Elizabeth is awfully good, she’ll be through like a shot if you need a hand.’
‘I’ll be all right; soup first, when you say,’ Biddy said, white-faced but determined. Thank heaven for Mrs Gallagher, she thought. If she’d been some hardnosed old woman who gave orders and walked away I’d never have got through it. As it is, I’ve a fair chance.
She put the little biscuits out by the drinks tray, checked that the fire was made up, the table laid properly and the soft lamps round the room lit. Mrs Gallagher said the big central light was too bright and daunting for a family party. Then she went back to the kitchen.
The soup would be served from a huge china tureen, with a matching china ladle. Mrs Gallagher would serve the soup. It looked very good, just simmering on the stove, as Biddy hovered above it with a handful of chopped parsley. Add it at the last minute, Mrs Gallagher had said. And the vegetables in their tureens – silver ones this time – were in the oven along with the beef … the Yorkshire pudding had been made by Mrs Gallagher and put in the top of the wall oven, where it was cooking at a high heat, her mistress had said.
‘Psst, Biddy! Soup!’ Having nearly given her a heart attack, Elizabeth beamed at her. ‘Want a hand?’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ Biddy scooped the hot soup dishes out of the cupboard by the oven – heavens, they really were hot – and clattered them onto the trolley, then slid the tureen onto it as well. It was really heavy, she must be careful not to drop it!
She wheeled the trolley slowly across the kitchen, across the hall and through the dining-room door. There was a carpet in here, but she should not have to cross it; a gleaming parquet path led from the door to the head of the table, where she was bound. She kept her head down and her eyes lowered, intent on her task. Just get it there, that was all she had to do, then lift the tureen and put it down in front of Mrs Gallagher, hand the soup plates round, and she could go back to the kitchen.
She lifted the tureen and managed, just, to give it a safe landing right in front of her mistress. She gave a little sigh and stepped back, taking the soup plates off the trolley, and felt someone staring at her. She glanced uneasily down at herself. She was wearing the black dress, the little white pinny, the celluloid hair-tidy, only it was a cap whichever way you
looked at it. Everything looked all right from up here; and the plates, though hot, were …