The Downstairs Maid (39 page)

‘I want you to have it to remember me by … perhaps one day we might …’ He offered it back to her.

She shook her head, refusing to let him return it to her.

‘Please don’t,’ she begged, knowing that he must be suggesting clandestine meetings … an affair. ‘Don’t tempt me, Nicolas. You must know that I care for you … but I can’t do this to Christopher. He needs me. I have to be with him now – for as long as he lives.’

‘Emily … don’t go …’ It was a cry torn from his heart.

Emily felt the tears burning behind her eyes. Her chest hurt and the pain was almost more than she could bear, but she forced herself to her feet, holding back the tears as she said, ‘Forgive me. Christopher needs me.’

Turning, she walked to the door and then down the long corridor that led to the wards. She wouldn’t look back, because if she did her resolution would crumble.

Nicolas could only offer her an affair and it wasn’t enough even if she hadn’t given her promise to Christopher. She loved Nicolas, but she wouldn’t be his mistress.

‘Emily isn’t coming back – ever?’ Lizzie stared at her brother in shock. ‘Does Amy know?’

‘She was furious – said Emily had to give notice and she wasn’t going to pay her any wages unless she worked out her notice. Of course I shall see that she does receive them. I imagine the poor devils will need every penny they can get.’

‘Amy is just being mean. I’m sure she will relent when she’s over her temper.’

‘I wouldn’t be sure of that,’ Nicolas frowned. ‘She’s off to London at the end of the week and she doesn’t have a maid.’

‘She will have to find one in London or share Maude’s.’

‘I doubt that would work. She’ll have to take Janet. Mary will be coming back full-time in a few weeks so Mama has told her she can have the new maid.’

Lizzie nodded, understanding her sister’s reluctance to be fobbed off with a maid who was nowhere near as obliging as Emily had been, but her sister’s troubles were not her most pressing problem at the moment. The letter was burning in her pocket. She hadn’t destroyed it yet and she was terrified her mother might see it. Derek had written an apologetic letter, begging her to meet him. She wouldn’t go of course, but she felt apprehensive, uncertain of what to do. Ought she to write to him or just ignore it?

She noticed that Nicolas looked serious, almost as if he were angry – or distressed about something. His gorgeous smile was missing and she wondered if he was concerned about returning to his unit. She touched his hand.

‘Is something the matter?’

He shook his head, but there were shadows under his eyes and she guessed that something had made him deeply unhappy.

‘I shall miss you when you leave tomorrow.’

‘I’ll miss you too, princess,’ he said but she felt the reply was automatic.

Lizzie was convinced something was wrong but he obviously wasn’t going to tell her.

‘Papa is going to start organising the convalescent home tomorrow. They are moving the extra beds in and the nursing staff will arrive next week.’

‘You’re looking forward to helping out there, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, very much. If Mama would let me I should join the VADs but she won’t. So I’m just going to help out where I can.’

Lizzie knew that her brother wasn’t listening to her. Something had happened when he went down to that military hospital to see Emily. A thought occurred to her but she dismissed it almost at once. Nicolas couldn’t be in love with Emily Carter – could he?

Emily was going to marry the soldier who had been so badly wounded. She wouldn’t do that if she had the chance to marry Nicolas. No one could resist Nicolas; he was so gorgeous and so lovely. Lizzie studied her brother. No, he wasn’t suffering from a broken heart, or at least she didn’t think he was – so perhaps he was just worried about going back to the war.

He would never tell her if that was the case, lest she thought him a coward. Lizzie would never do that, because she loved him more than anyone else in the world.

Remembering the letter in her pocket, she decided to burn it. If she became involved with Derek again she might end up by being banished from the family and then she might not be able to see Nicolas.

That silly affair was over and she wouldn’t think about Derek again.

Lizzie sat on the edge of Amy’s bed and watched as she sorted out her clothes. She had packed a few things but then taken them out again, because they wouldn’t fit into the case. Some of them had crumpled and would need ironing.

‘You will miss Emily looking after your things,’ she said.

‘Mother says I can have Janet, but I don’t much like her,’ Amy said. ‘She is so staid and boring. Emily used to make me laugh.’

‘You didn’t like her at first. You called her a common farm girl.’

‘Well, she was a farm girl – but she certainly isn’t common. I’d got used to her and she’d learned to do my hair properly, and now I have to start all over again.’

‘Poor you. What about Emily’s feelings? She’s getting married to that soldier and he is scarred and still very ill. He probably won’t be able to work for years and he might never be normal again.’

‘Then she shouldn’t have chosen him,’ Amy said, showing her annoyance. ‘I would have let her do some volunteer work in London if she wanted to nurse the sick.’

‘As long as she looked after you first.’

‘Don’t be so rude, Lizzie.’

Lizzie arched her brows, jumped off the bed and left her sister to pack. Amy didn’t like to be told the truth, which was that she was selfish and spoiled. Lizzie supposed that she was too in a way, though Amy had had so many more chances than Lizzie.

Lizzie thought about Sir Arthur as she went downstairs. Jonathan had told her that he was back in England and she’d wondered if he would come to visit them. So far he hadn’t, so perhaps he was still in disgrace?

Wandering downstairs, she saw her father entering the hall. He looked at her and nodded.

‘Just the person I need,’ he said. ‘They’ve asked me to make an inventory of everything at the dower house. I know you want to be involved – and someone is going to keep a record of what is needed and what is spent. The War Office will reimburse us but we’ll need accounts. How do you feel about helping me to oversee setting up the place?’

‘I should love to,’ she replied. ‘I have nothing else to do.’

‘It hasn’t been fair on you these past months,’ her father said. ‘Your mother ought to have brought you out last year, but somehow she didn’t get round to it.’

‘I think I’d rather be helping at the convalescent home now that there is a war on. It’s so awful out there, especially for the men in the trenches. Nicolas doesn’t say much but I know it is terrible for him too.’

‘It was his choice to join up,’ her father said, a look of annoyance in his eyes. ‘But I suppose he couldn’t have stayed out of it once it started.’

Lizzie decided to change the subject. ‘I shall need a journal to write everything down in.’

‘Come to the study now and I’ll give you what you need.’

Lizzie followed him into his room. He’d brought his own things with him when they moved to the manor, and it had always seemed dark and oppressive in here because of all the brown furniture and leather chairs. Now she saw that he had silver photograph frames on his desk, a bronze figure in the corner and a brass inkwell – and with the sun peeking in at the window it didn’t seem so bad – or perhaps she was growing up and no longer so intimidated.

Armed with her book and pencils, she left the manor and set off for the dower house. At last she had something to do with herself!

Approaching the house, she saw a man looking at the outside. He was wearing the uniform of an army officer and was staring up at the landing window, which had been left slightly open, but turned as she walked up to the door and produced the key. Relief broke out over his face.

‘I was just wondering how the hell I got into the damned place,’ he said. ‘These old houses are all very well, and the War Office is glad of somewhere to put the injured – but give me a decent hospital any time.’

‘I expect they’ve got all the things the men will need to recover. After all, they are supposed to be getting better when they come here – aren’t they?’

‘The poor devils that end up here will probably never be better,’ he said with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. ‘I’m Captain Manning – are you one of the people running this place, trying to make it halfway decent?’

‘I’m Lizzie Barton. My grandmother owns it – and my father asked me to do the inventory for him.’

For a moment he looked embarrassed, but then he held out his hand to her. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Barton. I’m sorry if I was rude but I’ve had one hell of a day. I have more than a hundred permanently disabled men to find beds for and I need to know how many I can rely on here. Some of the places we’ve been offered are wrecks and we can’t afford the repairs.’

‘Granny has always kept the dower house in good repair. Please come in and have a look,’ Lizzie said. ‘I think they finished moving things around this morning. Some of the furniture is ours, of course, but the beds are new and were sent down by someone in London.’

‘That’s my department,’ he said. ‘The beds arrived then? Thank God something went right. The idiots in my office are continually losing vital pieces of paper and things seem to go astray.’

‘It’s just as well I’m here to make an inventory then, isn’t it?’ Lizzie laughed. He removed his cap and ran his fingers through dark brown hair that seemed to have a will of its own, sticking out at all angles. Now that she looked at him, she noticed that he was attractive and had nice eyes and an interesting mouth. He was wearing his army uniform and she saw now that it was different to the one Derek had worn. She’d always thought that somehow his wasn’t right – a relic of an earlier era perhaps.

Inside the house they could smell polish and lavender. Some girls from the village had been employed to come in and give it a good clean right through, because it had been shut up for years. You wouldn’t have known that now. Some of the walls had been painted and everywhere was as clean as it could be. There was a large sitting room for those men who were able to get up, and it was supplied with a bookcase, desk and lots of chairs rather than sofas. In the next room someone had taken the pictures down and put up a dartboard; there was also a billiard table and a card table.

‘Yes, not bad,’ Captain Manning said. ‘It seems I was a bit hasty; this will do very nicely. Now how many beds do we have altogether?’

They made a tour of the house, Lizzie noting down everything she found in each room. Captain Manning frowned, because most of the rooms had only one bed and even in the larger chambers there were only two singles. He made a note on his own pad, and turned to Lizzie.

‘We only have fifteen beds here and I’m sure we could squeeze in another fifteen. Most of these rooms will take two singles and the blue room might take four at a pinch.’

‘So many?’ Lizzie arched her brows. ‘Papa thought this arrangement would be more private and comfortable.’

‘We have thousands of injured men being sent back from the Front Line. Young women like you wouldn’t understand but privacy and comfort has to go out of the window when we’re desperate. I’ll send another fifteen beds – tomorrow, if you could be here to see them in?’

‘Yes, of course, if you wish it.’

He looked pleased and went into details about what was needed, where things ought to be put differently and the possibility of some extra toilets, showers and washbasins being fitted in the annexe at the back of the house. When Lizzie looked doubtful he promised that the expense would fall on his department and that everything would be put back as it was at the end of the war.

Lizzie nodded, knowing that her grandmother might not be too pleased at more building work being done on the dower house, but she would explain it as best she could. Captain Manning spent two hours making more notes and planning, told Lizzie that the builders would be there in the morning and said he hoped to move the first of the recovering patients in within ten days.

Lizzie thought that was optimistic from what she’d seen of the local builders when they made repairs to the manor but he explained that the builders would be soldiers. Apparently, they were used to putting up temporary sanitation, which was rather different to a permanent fixture.

When Lizzie finally locked the door of the house, he shook her hand and walked away to his car, which was a rather battered-looking tourer. Until then she hadn’t noticed that he had a pronounced limp. She’d been too busy writing her notes and listening to his plans to notice anything else. He must have been injured in the first months of the war himself, she thought. Perhaps that was why he was so concerned for his men’s comfort, because he knew what they were suffering.

Walking back to the manor, Lizzie felt happier and more at peace with herself than she had in a long time. At last she was of use to someone and she rather liked Captain Manning. She hoped this wouldn’t be his last visit to the dower house.

‘I never thought this day would come,’ Mr Johnson said, looking at Emily with undisguised tears. ‘When they moved my boy to the Tower Hospital in Ely I thought he might just give up, but you kept him going. It’s you that’s brought him through, Emily lass. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

Nearly seven months had passed since Emily had first gone to Christopher in the hospital and there had been times when everyone had thought he might die, but now he was coming home.

‘I’m not sure how much of it was me and how much his own will,’ she replied. ‘But it’s such wonderful news that he can come home at last, isn’t it?’

Sir Arthur had let them have an empty cottage – and he’d paid for all the alterations that would enable Christopher to manage, with a downstairs toilet and washing facilities too. As soon as Christopher was well enough they would get married and she would move in with him.

She could not help being moved by Mr Johnson’s emotion. She’d been living with him and his wife in their own cottage on the estate. His wife wasn’t as friendly as he was, and Emily thought she didn’t particularly like her, although she didn’t say much; it was more a look in her eyes, as if she didn’t think Emily was good enough for her son.