Secrets (25 page)

With that Adele turned on her heel and walked out of the drawing room and back upstairs to finish the bathroom.

It was only much later, when she let herself out of the house at seven, having left Mrs Bailey eating her supper, that she realized just how impudent she’d been.

But as she walked wearily home back down the hill, she had no intention of retracting a single word she’d said. She knew she’d done a very good day’s work, and no one, however rich or high and mighty, had a right to treat another person like a personal slave.

Just a couple of weeks ago her grandmother had been talking about how it was for her growing up. Although her schoolteacher father wasn’t rich, it was unthinkable at that time for girls in the middle or upper classes to work. Honour had filled her days with sewing, reading and playing the piano. She had said that until girls married they weren’t even allowed to talk to a young man without a chaperone either.

The war in 1914 had changed everything. These same cloistered women were suddenly nursing, driving ambulances or running tea wagons for troops at the railway stations. Once they’d tasted freedom they didn’t want to return to the old order of sitting at home waiting for a suitable husband to present himself. Not that there were enough suitable young men any longer – the war saw to that.

Her grandmother had explained, too, that it was the war that relieved working-class girls from a life of obedience and drudgery in service, one of the few career choices open to them before. Suddenly there was a wealth of other opportunities in factories and offices, all more attractive than lighting fires, washing clothes, cooking and cleaning for the wealthy.

Maybe there wasn’t that abundance of work available any more, but Adele knew she mustn’t begin to think she should be grateful to Mrs Bailey for allowing her to be her skivvy.

She must keep it in mind that she was doing the woman a favour. And gaining some experience of how rich people lived and behaved. As soon as a real job came up, she’d be off.

Chapter Eleven

1936

Adele moved to the far end of the drawing room to look at the overall effect of the Christmas tree she’d just finished decorating. It was over seven feet tall and she’d placed it in the alcove beside the fireplace and covered the tub it stood in with red crêpe paper.

She smiled with pleasure. The silver tinsel was draped perfectly, and the glass balls were well spaced out, each one with a small candle close to it so the light would reflect on the balls when the candles were lit, just the way she’d seen in one of Mrs Bailey’s magazines. She’d even managed to fix the fairy at the top straight, no easy feat standing on a chair and stretching over prickly branches.

She felt optimistic that this Christmas was going to be a happy one, unlike last year’s which had been absolute misery. But then, in sixteen months of working for Mrs Bailey she felt she’d come a long way. She not only knew a great deal more about running a household, but she had also come to know her employer well, and learned to read the danger signs that heralded disaster.

Her grandmother said it was stupidity which made Adele stay longer than one week, and sheer cussedness that kept her there afterwards. Perhaps she was right, because Mrs Bailey had to be the most difficult, selfish, idiotic woman in the whole world. She was beautiful, rich by Adele’s standards, and quite charming when she chose to be, but that wasn’t often.

Adele couldn’t count the tantrums the woman had thrown in those first few months. Each day she had to brace herself for what she’d find when she let herself in the front door. In the first few weeks Mrs Bailey often hurled her supper tray against the drawing-room wall. Adele would get in the next morning to find a congealed mass of leftovers along with the broken china and whatever ornament had been knocked down by the tray. Apparently Mrs Bailey was incensed that there was no one there to remove it to the kitchen.

Adele kept cleaning the mess up each day until one day she rebelled and left it there. It just so happened that Mrs Bailey’s solicitor called that morning, and Adele purposely showed him into the drawing room, and left him staring at it in astonishment while she called Mrs Bailey to tell her he was there.

‘How could you let such an important man see that mess?’ Mrs Bailey screamed after he’d gone. ‘I didn’t know where to put myself.’

‘Well, think on that before you throw any more food and china,’ Adele retorted, past caring if she got thrown out. ‘Because I’m not clearing it up again, and if it gets left there you’ll have rats coming in to eat it.’

Looking back, that was one of the more easily solved problems. Mrs Bailey was terrified of mice, let alone rats, so she never threw food again. But she would throw the entire contents of her wardrobe on the floor and leave it for Adele to hang up again. She would demand fires to be lit all over the house when she wasn’t using the rooms. She ran baths and forgot them until the bathroom was flooded. She would stand by the telephone listening to it ring while Adele was in the garden hanging the washing up, then complain that she’d missed a call. Sometimes she drank so much in the evenings that Adele would find her out cold on the floor, often in a pool of vomit. But the most irritating thing about her was that she seemed unable to understand she was never again going to have a team of staff to jump to her every whim.

Jacob Wainwright, the solicitor in Rye, arranged that John Sneed, the gardener who had worked for Mrs Bailey’s parents, would come back to look after the garden and do any odd maintenance jobs. Mr Wainwright also eventually found a Mrs Thomas, and got her to come in two mornings a week to do the laundry and the rough work like scrubbing the floors. That left Adele to do everything else, but she accepted this when Mr Wainwright explained that Mrs Bailey couldn’t afford more staff.

Adele liked Mr Wainwright. He was big and hearty, with a bulbous red nose which suggested he was over-fond of port. He commiserated with Adele, praised her for getting the house back into such good shape, and said he admired the tough line she took with her mistress. He said it was imperative that Mrs Bailey learned to do some things for herself, for the time might come when she would have to move into a far smaller house and manage without any help.

By that Adele realized Mrs Bailey hadn’t got a bottomless pot of money, so she made economies where she could. It was fortunate that her grandmother had trained her well in this department because if she ever asked Mrs Bailey what she’d like to eat for dinner, she always said she wanted lamb, steak or some other expensive food. So Adele stopped asking and just cooked what she thought was appropriate. And Mrs Bailey invariably ate it without complaint.

It was just over a year ago that Adele had finally been compelled to come and live in Harrington House. She had no real choice, for her employer was a danger to herself. Aside from her drinking, she never remembered to put the spark guard in front of the fire when she was out of the room or going to bed. The hearthrug was peppered with burn holes, and it was only a matter of time before a fire would break out and burn the house down.

Aside from being able to have a real bath and use an inside lavatory, Adele hated living in. The job had never seemed so bad when she could go home at night and tell her grandmother what she’d been doing. They often had a good laugh at some of the sillier things Mrs Bailey got up to.

Now Adele had her day off on one of the days Mrs Thomas came in, and left something cold for Mrs Bailey’s dinner. On fine days she and Granny usually went for an afternoon walk, collecting wood as they went, or sometimes they’d go into Rye, have tea in a shop and go to the pictures together. When it was wet or very cold they’d just stay in by the stove and talk.

Honour always had a recipe for her to take back to try, and she would talk through any problems Adele had run into during the week. It was through this that Adele got further insight into the way her grandmother had once lived. She knew how everything should be done, from the right thickness of starch for the bed linen, to which kind of glass you used for any drink. She had a huge fund of dinner and supper ideas, and she was well versed in etiquette too.

She always asked about Michael, and whether he’d been to see his mother. He did telephone every week, and sometimes if Mrs Bailey was out he and Adele would have a chat. He had joined the University Flying Corps as he said he was going to, and he was always eager to talk about the flying lessons, his friends in Oxford and playing cricket. He never spoke of girls though, and that convinced Adele he was avoiding the subject deliberately for fear of hurting her feelings. She felt sure he must have a girlfriend, and did her best to persuade herself that she didn’t care.

But although he telephoned his mother every week, he’d only visited three times: last Christmas, at Easter and in the summer, always staying only one night. As for the rest of the family, they hadn’t been once.

Adele sympathized with them, for Mrs Bailey’s behaviour was as disturbing as her own mother’s had been. There was only so much nastiness, embarrassment and hurt a person could take before love disappeared.

When Mrs Bailey was at her worst, Adele often thought about Rose and wondered where she was now, and how she lived. But she hadn’t the slightest inclination to see her again, and she supposed the Bailey children felt much the same way about their mother too.

Mrs Bailey had been absolutely dreadful back in November of last year, refusing to get out of bed, crying all the time and not even bothering to wash herself or do her hair. But she finally perked up when Michael said he was coming for Christmas, and then announced she was going to invite some old childhood friends for drinks on Christmas Eve.

Christmas had always been a disappointment to Adele. She could remember how she and Pamela had always got excited once the lights and decorations went up in the shops. At school they put on a nativity play, the Salvation Army band played carols outside Euston station, and the feeling of joy and hope grew larger and larger as Christmas Day drew nearer. But it was always an anti-climax. Their father would invariably come home from work late on Christmas Eve so drunk he could barely stand, and that would tip their mother into one of her blackest moods. Adele could remember taking Pamela out for walks on Christmas Day, for there was always far more jollity on the streets than there was at home.

Yet coming to live with her grandmother had cancelled out some of those sad memories. Her grandmother didn’t have much money to spare on frivolity, but she put a great deal of effort into Christmas. She bought little treats and surprises, decked the cottage out with holly and paper chains, and told Adele stories of the wonderful Christmas parties she went to as a child. When she talked nostalgically of eight-foot trees alight with hundreds of candles, of huge tables laid with silver and sparkling glasses, of singing round the piano, and games of musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey and blind man’s bluff, she often had tears in her eyes. Adele sensed that she was remembering her own parents, her husband, and perhaps Rose too as a little girl. She admitted that the Christmas after Frank died she felt so low she stayed in her bed all day, and she hadn’t attempted to celebrate Christmas in any way at all until Adele came to live with her.

It was because of this blight on her own family that Adele tried so hard last year to make everything lovely at Harrington House. She got armfuls of holly from the garden and tied it with red ribbon, polished up the best glasses, and spent hours making dainty mince pies, sausage rolls and other little festive canapés Granny suggested. And all that alongside buying and preparing the Christmas Day dinner.

Michael arrived late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, but Adele barely saw him because she was so busy in the kitchen. Then just before six he came charging in to get her, saying his mother was throwing another tantrum because she hadn’t got anything to wear that night.

The guests were due at seven, so Adele flew upstairs. Mrs Bailey had said earlier in the week that she was going to wear her silver satin cocktail dress and Adele had pressed it and hung it up on her wardrobe door, with silver shoes beneath it. In Adele’s opinion it was the perfect choice, a very fashionable mid-calf length, cut on the cross, with a flash of black embroidery from one shoulder to her breast. Mrs Bailey looked lovely in it.

The sight that met Adele’s eyes as she entered Mrs Bailey’s bedroom was alarming. She was dressed in just a satin petticoat, her hair all wild, and she’d done her old trick of dragging the entire contents of the wardrobe on to the floor. The silver dress was torn into pieces and tossed on to the bed.

‘What on earth have you done that for?’ Adele asked incredulously, knowing she’d have to work a year or two to buy such a dress. ‘It’s a beautiful dress and you look so lovely in it.’

‘It made my skin grey,’ Mrs Bailey screamed at Adele, and came rushing at her, as if about to strike her. Adele put her hands out to stop her, and as she caught the woman’s arms she could smell whisky on her breath.

‘I’ll make your skin grey if you start showing off now,’ Adele said fiercely, and pushed her down into the chair. ‘Your friends will be here soon, do you want them to see you acting like a madwoman?’

Adele found a dark red crêpe dress and forced her to put it on. She brushed her hair for her, fixed two glittery combs one each side of her head, and then powdered her face and put a little rouge on her cheeks. But as she bent down to pick up a pair of black shoes for her to put on, Mrs Bailey kicked her up the backside and she fell forward, banging her head on the end of the bed.

It was all Adele could do to stop herself from kicking the woman back. Her head hurt and she guessed she’d have a bruise there the next day.

‘You’re a nasty piece of work,’ she snapped at her. ‘I’ve a good mind to go home right now, and leave you to cope alone tonight. But you aren’t going to show Michael up, not if I can help it.’

Somehow she managed to get Mrs Bailey to put on some lipstick and the right jewellery, and got her downstairs. Mrs Bailey immediately poured herself another large drink.