Ruby Flynn (9 page)

Lady Isobel smiled, gently. Neither woman registered that it was the first time she had smiled in a very long time.

‘Mrs McKinnon told me you lost your mother in the storm.’ Lady Isobel sounded nervous, as though she felt she shouldn’t ask the question, but at the same time, kindly and curious.

Ruby didn’t know how to respond. The boundaries of position and class sat before them. Placing the book face down in her lap, she turned her head and stared at the fire.

Lady Isobel continued. ‘I lost my babies. We have something in common you and I, Ruby. We both know what it is like to lose those closest to us. The only people we truly love.’

The tears which sprang to Ruby’s eyes were met by those in Lady Isobel’s. No more words were spoken. Both women gazed into the fire lost in their own thoughts, each unsure of what to say next, both realizing no further words were required. Knowing was enough. Unknown to anyone but Ruby and Lady Isobel, a bond of closeness and a deep understanding had developed.

From that moment on, Lady Isobel began to show small but perceptible signs of improvement. Mrs McKinnon was beyond delighted with her improvement and made sure that everyone in the castle knew who was responsible. The temper tantrums and fits of crying became a thing of the past.

‘You have a great nature with the lady, Ruby,’ she said, at staff supper one day. ‘If you are all wondering why I am in such good spirits, it’s because this young lady has taken a weight off my shoulders and worked wonders with Lady Isobel.’

Jane looked less than pleased.

‘Well, she still spends all day every day sat in the nursery. Doesn’t seem like much of an improvement to me.’ Jane was so quick to condemn Mrs McKinnon’s praise. She spoke with her mouth full and crumbs of boxty flew across the table.

Mrs McKinnon scowled at Jane, who was becoming increasingly jealous of the attention Ruby received from Betsy and Mrs McKinnon. Even Mary’s face shone with delight when Ruby came into the kitchen.

‘Don’t speak with your mouth full, Jane, and look at the plank in your own eye first, young lady before you criticize the splinter in the eye of another. The linen room isn’t looking its best. I will be making an inspection soon, so get it sorted, please.’

Ruby interjected and brought the conversation back to Lady Isobel. She was saving Jane from further criticism, although Jane was too consumed by her own penchant for complaining about what others had more than she, to notice.

‘I’m about to try and persuade Lady Isobel to move across to the morning room tomorrow,’ Ruby said. ‘Jane is right, she spends most of the day in there. I swear she spends so much time in that chair, she would be buried under a mountain of cobwebs if no one cleaned the room.’

‘We managed afore ye came.’ The angry retort flew back from Jane, whose job it had been to look after Lady Isobel’s room before Ruby arrived.

‘Well, I have managed to dress her each day, Jane.’ Ruby would not be put off. ‘She lets me choose her clothes and she dresses nicely now.’

Jane snorted with derision..

‘Oh shut up, Jane, you started this,’ said the normally mild-mannered Betsy, as she stood to gather up her plates and reached for the breadboard on the table. ‘Come on Ruby, time for us to get back to work.’

‘Don’t let Jane get to you,’ said Betsy, as they ran up the back stairs.

‘Oh, I don’t. I will be away from here soon enough, and Lottie and me, we will make our own way. I have my father’s cottage. He built it with his own hands and my mother helped. It’s mine now. I don’t need Ballyford or anyone. I can and I will do it all for myself.’

‘Well, sure, until you want a husband,’ Betsy said quizzically, ‘and what about Lady Isobel? You and she get along great guns.’

‘A husband? Well, Lottie would like one and maybe, one day I would too. I don’t need a husband though. All I need is what’s mine and that’s my father’s cottage. Then Ruby Flynn can look after herself. I have loads of ideas to make money. You can virtually live off the tatties and fish. I can sew and knit well and Lottie could teach at the school. What in God’s name do we need husbands for anyway? And Lady Isobel, she can manage without me. There are plenty of staff who can do my job.’

Betsy began to giggle. ‘No husband, are ye mad or what? Do ye not want to lie down with a man?’

‘Away with you,’ said Ruby. ‘Anyway, if you don’t stop, I will have a word with that Jimmy about you. I’ll tell him yer after lying down with him and soon.’

Betsy squealed and blushed as both girls walked back along the corridor.

‘You see those statues…?’ said Ruby.

‘God, don’t look,’ said Betsy. ‘Mrs McKinnon will know, so she will, she can tell.’

‘No, she can’t. I look every time I pass, especially at that one, of the boy in all his glory,’ grinned Ruby. ‘And it’s not true, she doesn’t know. She can’t tell. Go on, take a look yerself, then you’ll know what Jimmy has in store for you.’

Betsy clasped both hands over her mouth to stifle her shrieks and then dared herself to take a look.

Linking arms and holding each other upright, the girls walked back along the corridor, weak with laughter.

Lady Isobel stood behind the nursery door about to leave the room and hearing the girls, smiled. She could feel the gloom which had oppressed her for so long beginning to lose its grip, and she knew it was because of Ruby Flynn.

The taxi deposited Mr McKinnon, and the two large cases he had transported across the Irish Sea from Ballyford, at the bottom of the steps of No. 1 Prince Albert Road, in Sefton Park, Liverpool.

‘You need a hand with those big cases, mate? Those steps look a bit steep,’ the taxi driver said.

‘No, no, I will be fine, thank you,’ Mr McKinnon replied, with not much conviction. It was his first visit to Lord FitzDeane’s new town house in Liverpool. McKinnon preferred to remain at Ballyford.

Until recently Lord FitzDeane had reserved a room at the Grand Hotel for his twice monthly visits on business. His father had always retained a suite, with a room adjoining for his manservant. The new town house created an aura of permanence.

The cab driver was insistent, however. ‘Get outta here, old man, I saw yer struggling down at the Pier Head, ’ere gis the bags.’

‘There you go, many thanks, now,’ said Mr McKinnon, holding out a shilling. ‘Get yerself a pint when you knock off.’

‘Go’way mate, I don’t want yer money!’ The cabbie lifted his cap and with a grin he jumped into the driver’s seat and pulled away.

With a smile, Mr McKinnon watched him go and thought that Liverpool was the only city in the world, perhaps apart from Dublin, where the cabbies would do something for nothing.

From the salon on the first floor of the house, Lord FitzDeane surveyed the scene below, with his forehead pressed against the cool pane of glass. His fair, almost blond hair hung in curls and flopped across his eyes. He was delighted to see McKinnon arrive at long last and was keen for news from home. He knew that his spells away from Ballyford were longer than they need be. At times he felt lonely. He loved the Irish countryside and when he was in Liverpool, his thoughts often wandered to the river of fish that ran through the estate, to the cows that grazed on his fields, and to the famous pigs. But visits home always resulted in pain. His heart was in Ballyford, it always would be, but for now the agony of all he had lost was too raw.

‘Ah, McKinnon, good man, come in and sit by the fire.’

Charles took the cases from McKinnon. He was genuinely pleased to see the man who had been more of a father than a servant.

‘You should have left the cases downstairs, I would have carried them up here myself.’

‘I wasn’t going to let them out of my sight, Lord FitzDeane, and besides, that housekeeper you have looks like she could open them with her teeth in a second.’

Charles flicked the lamp on and walked across to the drinks cabinet to pour McKinnon a drink.

‘Fancy a whisky?’

‘I do, but is it Irish or Scotch?’

‘Well, as it’s you, it’s Scotch of course.’

McKinnon noted to himself that it was nice to see Charles smile again. It had been a long time. A smile born of relief crossed his own face.

‘I will confess, McKinnon, that woman is a dreadful housekeeper. I was served a mutton pie last night so undercooked that I swear to God, it winked at me. Her name is Mrs Bat. I’m sure she spends her nights hanging upside down on a coat stand somewhere.’

Charles handed McKinnon his whisky and the two men sat down, either side of the fire. McKinnon loved moments like this with his boss, the man he had known since he was in the nursery. Due to the fact that the old Lord FitzDeane was never at Ballyford, McKinnon had raised him himself and having no children of his own, he felt as close to Lord Charles as he would have to any son of his own.

Charles leaned forward and threw a log on the fire.

‘I’ve been busy. You know, I’m buying a new ship. She will be a fine spectacle, very new and modern. She carries three times the number of passengers on one crossing than any of the ships of the Blue Star Line. What do you reckon to that, McKinnon?’

McKinnon looked into his glass thoughtfully. His instincts were fiercely paternal but needed to be phrased in the words of a servant.

‘Well, sir, are you sure you’re not biting off more than you can chew? I mean, it is a lot of work for one man. You have a lot on your plate already with the estate and the airplanes now, well, there’s a lot of talk of the prices coming down and them being used for mass travel. They say that in the future, we will be able to visit any country in the world we want to, on an airplane.’

‘Ah, well, strictly speaking, I’m not doing it alone, McKinnon.’ Charles was prepared for McKinnon’s concern. The reason he enjoyed his company so much was because he imagined it was how it would feel to have a close relationship with a father. ‘Rory Doyle is coming into the business with me. He has great enthusiasm and he also knows Liverpool and its people from having lived here for years. Besides, an airplane can’t carry the number of people a ship can or even as far. I can’t see them ever taking over from travel on the seas.’

‘Rory’s father was just the same in Ireland,’ said McKinnon, ‘and his before him. Great men for the craic, a bit too much so, some may say. I thought Rory had his own salvage company down on the docks?’

‘He does that. He’s one hell of a man, is Rory. You have to admire him and his drive to get on. You’d never guess to see him now that he was born in the Ballyford cottages.’

Charles did not see that McKinnon had raised his eyebrows, sceptically. McKinnon and his wife were possibly the only two people who knew exactly how and why Rory Doyle had managed to buy a salvage company.

Charles pressed on. ‘Rory has a fondness for the sea and he’s a good business manager now too. The ship will carry six hundred passengers to New York from Liverpool and back. Four days there, one-day turnaround, four days back and we start all over again. Rory knows all there is to know about shipping, and I’ve been watching and learning from him. I’ve even spent time working on the ticket sales. But the new business will keep me anchored in Liverpool more often than I would like, I’m afraid,’ Charles lied. There were times when he both liked and needed to be in Liverpool and like most men of his class, his input into the business was more financial than practical.

‘What, with that housekeeper looking after you?’

Charles leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you think Mrs McKinnon could find me a replacement?’

‘Now, sir, you know you’ll have to come home to Ballyford and ask her yourself. Do you want me to be a dead man?’

Charles laughed. He knew and loved Mrs McKinnon’s foibles better than anyone.

‘A new girl has begun at the castle,’ McKinnon went on, draining the last drops of his whisky. He looked carefully at Lord FitzDeane. ‘We fetched her from the convent near Belmullet. She’s to work in the nursery for Lady FitzDeane, to give her a helping hand with her personal things. It was Lady FitzDeane’s request. Well, it was more of an order from the doctor really.’

Charles swilled his own whisky around the sides of his glass and took a last gulp.

‘There’s no need for new staff in the nursery. It can be emptied, the dust sheets laid in place and shut up. There will be no more babies born at Ballyford, McKinnon.’ Charles spoke stiffly, his voice full of regret.

McKinnon took a deep breath and wished his wife were with him; she would explain this so much better than he ever could. There was so much more to tell Lord Charles about Ruby Flynn, but McKinnon now decided it could wait until he returned home to Ireland.

‘I don’t think we can lay the dust sheets on the nursery just yet,’ he said at last. ‘Lady FitzDeane does spend a great deal of time in there.’

Charles jumped up from his chair and with his hand on the mantel, gazed into the fire, remembering the first boy who had been named Charles after himself, his father and grandfather. This baby had lived the longest. Almost six whole glorious months. Months of smiles and laughter. In those early days, Charles playfully fought Isobel to be the first one in the nursery each morning. The love he felt for his baby boy poured from him, the boy loved him back and he knew it. Charles looked deep into his son’s eyes and thought that he had never loved anyone or anything as much.

Sometimes, at night, when he couldn’t sleep for excitement, he would creep into the nursery while the nurse was sleeping. He would quietly sit on the low velvet-covered nursing chair at the side of the crib and stroke his son’s dark, downy hair. He whispered to him gently, promising him Ballyford, the earth and more.

‘I will look after you and work hard every day of my life so that you have the very best. I will fight your battles and teach you everything you need to know to make you the most deserving heir God could ask for to take over Ballyford Castle. You will be the best man ever to have been born on this estate, in all of Ireland even.’

He would kiss his son on the small, soft indentation on his as yet un-knitted scalp and let his lips linger there whilst he inhaled the deep warm smell. Flesh of his flesh. He had loved all his sons. But although he would never admit it to anyone, he had loved none as much as his firstborn boy. He knew he would never again feel such an outpouring of innocent, unconstrained love for a child. And that knowledge tore at his heart.