Ruby Flynn (7 page)

‘I’m not afraid of hard work,’ Ruby replied defensively.

‘That’s as may be, but it’s not just hard work. There’s a reason why she hasn’t used one of the girls already on the staff for this job, I’d be thinking.’

Amy settled herself down onto the stool next to Ruby, preparing herself to question the new girl and to find out as much information as possible in the short time she had, just as Mrs McKinnon walked back into the kitchen with clean white aprons and a black dress laid across her arm.

‘Thank you, Amy,’ said Mrs McKinnon with a hint of irritation. ‘I can fill Ruby in on the details of the job very well myself.’

‘I was only making polite conversation and trying to explain. It’s not like things are normal around here, is it, with a grieving mad woman in the nursery and five small coffins lying in the tomb.’

‘Amy!’ Mrs McKinnon almost took off her head with one word and a sharp look.

And then in a much softer tone altogether, she turned back to Ruby.

‘Ruby, we needed someone with a good education and understanding, you see. It is true, you are here to work in the nursery, only there is something which is, er, slightly unusual, and you need to know. There is no child here in the castle to be looked after. The nursery is empty, except for the mistress that is.’

Ruby took a bite of Amy’s pie and gave Mrs McKinnon her full attention as she ate. It was all she could do to stop herself from drooling as the buttery pastry melted on her tongue. She had never before in her life tasted anything as good as Amy’s pie.

‘You see, Lady FitzDeane, she gave birth to five baby boys in five years and each one perished and returned to his maker without spending very long on this earth. She would like the nursery to be kept spick and span and she spends most of the day in there herself. I have to warn you, she very rarely leaves. But there is a little more to it than that. Lady FitzDeane, she hasn’t been doing too well herself in many ways. The doctor visits her every week and God knows, he tries his best, but he thinks she would improve if we had someone to help feed her, pay her some attention, read to her, even. She is a little on the thin side and needs help with the everyday tasks, writing her letters, getting her dressed. It’s more a lady’s maid job, crossed with that of a nurse, which is why we needed someone of your ability.’

Ruby looked slightly perplexed but simply nodded her head as she wiped the crumbs from her chin. She had only ever heard the words ‘lady’s maid’ when Lottie had said them in jest as she brushed Ruby’s long hair and she really had no idea what one was, whereas, having looked after Lottie and Maria a number of times when they had been sick, she had some understanding of the role of a nurse. But still, it was hardly something she had given a great deal of thought to.

She ate the last forkful of the pie and washed it down with the tea. She savoured the salty flavour. The steam rising from the gravy made her want to close her eyes and breathe in the aroma and hold it with her. The food at the convent had been repetitive. She had eaten the same thing on the same day every day for six years. She had never before experienced anything on a plate that made her mouth water.

‘Right, if you have finished eating,’ Mrs McKinnon said, breaking the spell, ‘the others will be in for a break in a moment. It will be a good time to meet them all. Then I’ll take you to the room where the girls sleep and from there we will proceed to the nursery so you can meet Lady FitzDeane.’

Just at that moment, the day servants began to file into the kitchen.

‘Here they are.’ Amy winked at Ruby as she shouted at the staff entering the kitchen through the back door, ‘Did ye all smell the pie and know it was time, did ye?’

As the noise in the kitchen grew with chatter, Mrs McKinnon could not take her eyes off the new girl’s face. There was another, just like it, which she had once known well, a long time ago and her eyes lingered on Ruby’s expression as she responded to the welcome from the other servants.

‘At least they appreciate my cooking, even if the lady upstairs does not. My warm boxty, ye cannot beat it,’ Amy said to Ruby.

The eight members of staff, male and female, joked with each other and jostled for bigger slices of the pie and the boxty bread, as they all took their plates and mugs and sat along the wooden bench table for their mid-morning break. A young girl who was not much older than Ruby sat next to her.

‘Are ye from the convent then?’ she asked.

‘Don’t go scaring Ruby away with too many questions now, Betsy,’ said Mrs McKinnon as she moved along the table, filling their mugs with buttermilk.

Betsy wore her dark hair tucked neatly under her linen hat. Her eyes were big and round and almost as black as her hair and she was so gently spoken, she immediately reminded Ruby of Lottie.

‘I am. How do you know the convent? Were you there?’ asked Ruby.

‘No, none of us were. We just heard this morning that Mrs McKinnon was off to fetch a girl who could read and write. I would love to read, I would.’

‘Why don’t you, then? My mammy taught me,’ said Ruby.

‘Where are you from then, I mean before the convent?’

‘I lived in Doohoma.’ Ruby didn’t hesitate when Betsy asked about her home..

‘Doohoma, eh? My granny came from there. Before she married my granddaddy and moved into the cottages on the estate. I thought there was something familiar, as soon as I set me eyes on you. We used to go back when I was little to visit granny’s family and we went to mass. Have I seen you at mass?’

Ruby’s face lit up. Could it really be that there was someone in the world who knew her? She had to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing hold of Betsy’s arm. ‘Do you ever see your family now, do you?’

Before Betsy could answer, another young girl came and sat on the other side of Ruby. She was as thin as Betsy was plump and the lack of welcome in her face made Ruby bristle even before she had pulled out her stool.

‘So, you are from the fancy convent then, are you?’ she asked, by way of an introduction. ‘The only airs and graces around here are upstairs in the castle, not down here in the kitchen, isn’t that right, Betsy?’

‘Shut yer gob, Jane,’ said Betsy. ‘How about saying hello or something nice for a change?’

Ruby looked around her, waiting for someone to tell them off for talking. No one had noticed, or at least if they had, they weren’t the slightest bit bothered. Ruby was surprised, and told Betsy as much. At the convent every mouthful had to be taken in silence.

‘Sure, we is busy working all day. When would we get time to talk if not now? It is so noisy in here sometimes, Mr McKinnon has to shout to get everyone to pipe down when he has the news on the radio and no one even noticed when one of the pigs escaped and was squealing under the table. If Danny had his way, it would have slept there, wouldn’t it, Danny?’

A young boy who was tucking into his bread grinned sheepishly back at Betsy. ‘I never heard a thing, thought it was Jane whining as usual, didn’t I, Jane?’ said Danny. ‘You will get used to Jane’s moaning, miss,’ he went on as he looked admiringly at Ruby, ‘she never stops.’

Betsy grinned good naturedly at Jane, who dismissed Betsy with a sharp look and Ruby saw her try to kick Danny under the table.

Jane noticed that Ruby was watching her open-mouthed and said, ‘You are in our room, with me and Betsy. We never shared with no one else before. Just make sure you don’t touch my stuff on the press. Isn’t that right, Betsy? We don’t want no one touching our things. Anyway, I think I might move into the empty room next door.’

‘What things, Jane?’ Betsy laughed, but Jane stood up and carried her mug and plate to the sink without answering.

‘Take no notice,’ Betsy whispered to Ruby. ‘She doesn’t like no one, does Jane. Someone needs to tell her, no one ever broke a mouth saying a kind word. I’ve pulled your bed close to mine so that we can talk when Jane is asleep and you can tell me all about yerself.’

‘Can I come and sleep in your room too?’ Jimmy, the groom and stable boy shouted down the bench.

‘Mrs McKinnon, did ye hear that? Jimmy is being bold,’ shouted Betsy playfully. Mrs McKinnon hadn’t heard, she was deep in conversation with Jane at the sink. Ruby was stunned into silence. ‘He’s a bad lad is Jimmy,’ said Betsy, half scowling half laughing with a definite twinkle in her eye..

Mrs McKinnon now called for Ruby to join her.

‘Come along, Ruby, I will take you up to the room to change and then we shall visit the nursery.’

As Ruby stood, the rest of the staff were still joking and chiding each other and making good-natured fun of Amy. The fire boy, stood and threw peat onto the enormous fire burning in the grate. It was his job to keep the fire baskets filled with turf each morning before he went out to work in the garden or with Mr McKinnon to tend the pigs.

At the convent, the peat bricks were counted out; in the winter, they were allowed to burn thirty each day and not one more, regardless of how cold it was. It seemed to Ruby that there were more than thirty blocks burning on the fire right now.

When they reached the girls’ room, in a top wing of the castle, she saw that there was a fire grate in here too, and a basket of peat next to the hearth. The fire was already laid, ready to be lit. In winter, the dorm at the convent had small thin icicles protruding from a solid base of ice hanging from the broken and leaking skylight; the girls snapped the icicles off, one by one, before they went to bed, and dropped them into the sink. Lottie had once found them in her bed making her sheets wet and freezing. It was a payback present from Deirdra McGinty.

‘I will stand outside the door, Ruby, and leave you to get dressed,’ said Mrs McKinnon.

Ruby felt a sense of pride as she buttoned up the crisp black dress and put on the apron and starched cap. She took one look at herself in the long mirror in the corner of the room before she left.

‘Well, Ruby Flynn, here goes,’ she whispered.

‘You will do very nicely,’ said Mrs McKinnon. ‘Very nicely indeed. This is the main landing, and as you can see…’ she moved a few steps over to the highly polished minstrels’ gallery which looked down over the main hall, ‘…it runs all the way around the central hallway of the castle, until it reaches the main staircase.’

Ruby had never seen a place as grand in all her life and stood with her mouth wide open.

‘You will catch the midges if you don’t close your mouth, my girl,’ said Mrs McKinnon, smiling. ‘It will take you a little while to get your bearings, and you may even find yourself lost, once or twice. If that happens, you will eventually bump into one of the girls who will put you right. Most of the staff have worked here for years; even Jane, who you spoke to in the kitchen, has been with us since she was twelve. Her mother works in the castle laundry and her father is the lodge keeper. Jane sleeps in the next bed to you, but quite often she slips back to the lodge to be with her family. Betsy’s family looks after the pigs and they are tenants on one of the farms. Betsy has been in and out of the castle kitchen since she was a child. You’ll notice that the staff mostly call Lord and Lady FitzDeane “Lord Charles” and “Lady Isobel”. It’s not strictly correct, but everyone likes it, especially Lord Charles.’

They had reached the central grand flight of stairs and Mrs McKinnon paused at the top.

‘We never use this flight of stairs. The only time you will see a member of staff on these stairs is when cleaning and polishing is taking place. When you are heading back down to the basement, always use the green door.’ She turned and pointed back at the door they had passed through, which had closed almost silently behind them.

Ruby could barely keep herself from gawping at the paintings and the furniture surrounding her. All along the minstrels’ gallery, the walls were lined with tall white marble statues. Twenty of them, one in quite a startling state of undress.

‘Don’t look,’ Mrs McKinnon snapped sharply. ‘I can tell straight away when the girls have as much as laid their eyes on that statue.’ She turned her head and closed her eyes as she spoke, to add effect to the severity of her words. ‘I send Mr McKinnon along to dust and clean it along with the rest of them.’

Ruby obediently kept her head held high and her eyes low while Mrs McKinnon explained that Lord FitzDeane’s ancestor had the statues transported over from Italy when he had spent a year travelling around Europe.

‘Despite it being such a holy country, they appear to have little shame over there,’ she said.

Ruby thought they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. The marble shone, reflecting the light from the chandelier. Cheekily, she let her hand drift across the knee of one of the statues as they walked past. It felt cold. Later, when she was recounting it all to Betsy, she nearly said, ‘As cold as anything I have ever felt,’ but the words stuck in her throat. It wouldn’t have been true. Ruby had felt the coldest things. She had felt ice like wire in her blood, slipping through her veins and puncturing her heart. Like a wound that never heals, she felt it there still. Ruby told herself that the cold in her heart would leave on the day she escaped and made her way back to Doohoma. She knew her heart would heal on that day. As nice as Mrs McKinnon was, escape she would.

‘It is a shock to the system to see a painting that size if you’ve never seen one before.’ Mrs McKinnon noticed Ruby staring at a large painting of a family taking a picnic. It was six times the height of Mrs McKinnon and Ruby had to tilt her head back to take in the top of the painting.

There were children playing in a field, with the castle in the background and sitting on chairs around a rug were ladies wearing long dresses and men in tall hats. In the forefront of the painting stood a little girl, holding a plate up to the group while looking back at the artist and smiling.

‘Ruby,’ said Mrs McKinnon. There was no reply. ‘Ruby,’ she said slightly louder, ‘are you all right? You look terribly pale.’

Again there was no response and Mrs McKinnon watched in horror as Ruby fainted dead away.

Mrs McKinnon shouted downstairs for Jane to fetch the smelling salts and for Betsy to bring a glass of water. As she came round, Ruby thought that never in her life had she smelt anything so unbearable as those smelling salts.