Through Glass Eyes (3 page)

From the window, Lucy stared out over the courtyard. The moon was full, the wind blowing from the north bending the trees towards the house. The dark shadows danced impishly around the paving teasing her imagination. She turned from the window wishing she hadn’t looked, wishing Mrs Gresham’s words would stop ringing through her head –
Burn it
!

But how could she burn something so lovely?  It was both exquisite and expensive and would have cost more than she could save in a lifetime.

Burn it!
The voice repeated in her head. 

How could she burn something she had admired every day for a month when she had seen it resting in the crook of the little girl’s wasted arm? It was something she had secretly longed to hold in her own arms? Something she had coveted?

The long case clock in the hall struck twelve. Lucy knew what she was supposed to do. Inclining her head towards the steps, she listened for the clacking of the housekeeper’s feet. But the house was silent. Perhaps Mrs Gresham had gone to bed.

Laying the doll on the pine table, Lucy cautiously opened the oven’s fire door. The metal handle was still hot. The flames had died but the embers glowed red. The firebox was large and deep, and there was ample room to put the large doll in.

Stacked up neatly beside the cooking stove was almost a week’s supply of firewood, including a small pile of sticks and branches which would be used as kindling for the morning’s fire. Choosing carefully, Lucy selected an armful of fuel – thick sticks, long branches and short twigs. Breaking them to the size she required, she placed them in a specific fashion on the hot embers. From the drawer in the pine table she took an empty cotton flour bag. It had been washed, ironed and folded. And from the tool drawer – a pair of scissors. Her hands were shaking and the heat from the oven was making her sweat.

She avoided the stare from the doll’s blue eyes, untied the plaited cord which held the velvet cloak, and let it fall onto the table. Carefully, she removed the feathered hat, sliding the two miniature hatpins from the lustrous hair and weaving them into the hem of her apron. Turning the doll over, she unfastened the buttons running down the back of the gown. The ivory satin reflected the firelight.

Suddenly, the kettle rattled, startling her. She listened hard, but the only other sound was the rustle of fabric in her hands. Hurrying, she removed the layers of petticoats and the doll’s delicate chemise. Only the shoes, stockings and pantalets remained.

 Then her ears pricked to the sound of footsteps echoing on the first-floor corridor. She stopped, her heart thumping. The footsteps were distinctive. They belonged to Mrs Gresham. She had to hurry.

Grabbing a hank of the doll’s hair she sliced through it with the scissors. The dark locks fell onto the table. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

The footsteps were getting louder.

With the fire burning brightly, Lucy took the bundle of doll’s clothes and fed them, piece by piece, into the flames, carefully draping the garments across the twisted twigs and branches. The dress flared instantly in a burst of white hot flame but the cottons were slower to ignite. The hat’s feathers frizzled and the ringlets of human hair smoked and
shrivelled
before being consumed. Finally the blue cloak, which Lucy draped across the
smouldering
pile, burned. Then she closed the fire door.

Her hands shook, as she opened the empty flour bag. By now, the footsteps had reached the top of the stairs. Only a dozen more steps and the housekeeper would be in the kitchen. Grabbing the doll by the neck, she shoved it head-first into the cotton bag, rolled it into a bundle and dropped it behind the stack of firewood.

Mrs Gresham was at the door.

Looking down, Lucy noticed a fine fuzz of brown on the table. Praying the housekeeper was not watching, she dusted the hair into her palm, then pushed the handful of clippings deep into her apron pocket.

‘Oldfield!’

She could hardly hold herself still. ‘Yes, Mrs Gresham,’ she whispered, not looking at the housekeeper’s face.

‘Have you done what I said?’

Lucy nodded, unable to answer.

The housekeeper sniffed the air and was satisfied – singed hair has a distinctive smell, then leaning forward towards the firebox she noticed a sliver of peacock blue velvet protruding from the iron door. Opening the door, she inspected the fire. It was burning brightly and within the flames was a distorted, mangled shape covered in the unrecognizable remains of burnt clothing. Satisfied, she flicked the fragment of blue velvet into the blaze and slammed the door.

‘What are you looking at me like that for, girl? Go to bed! We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow!’

Glancing at the pile of firewood, Lucy glimpsed one corner of the canvas flour bag protruding from behind it. Surely Mrs Gresham would notice. And if she didn’t, the scullery maid who stoked the fire in the morning would find it. What then? The maid would tell Cook, and Cook would report it to the housekeeper. Lucy had been blatantly disobedient and before long, Mrs Gresham would know her order had been disobeyed. If the deceit was discovered, Lucy would be accused of stealing and instantly dismissed. Imagine the shame. Imagine what her mother would say.

‘What are you waiting for, girl?’

Unable to reply, Lucy bobbed a small curtsy. Her hands, wet with sweat, were clasped tightly behind her back, with doll’s hair stuck to her palms.

That night Lucy did not sleep. At two o’clock she crept down to the kitchen and recovered the flour bag. She was thankful the sky was cloudless and the moon almost full so she didn’t need to light a candle. By the time she got back to her attic bedroom, her heart was thrumming in her ears. She was grateful she had a bedroom to herself.

Pulling the doll from the bag, she wrapped it in one of her petticoats and forced it into her wooden suitcase. With its legs and arms bent forwards, it only just fitted. Buckling the leather strap around the case, Lucy slid it under the bed. She could only hope and pray no one would open it.

It was two months since Miss Beatrice had passed away and every day Lucy had looked at her case and wished desperately that she had not taken the doll. As she lay awake at night, she considered how she could dispose of it. She thought of throwing it into the lake, but wasn’t certain it would sink, or burying it in the woods. But if a fox unearthed it or the hounds found it, it might be brought back to the house. What then? One night, after midnight, she got up, dressed herself and prepared to go to the kitchen. She intended to burn the doll in the kitchen fire as she should have done earlier. But just as she was about to step out on the landing, she heard voices. Had someone guessed what she was about to do? Sitting on her bed, trembling, she waited, but nothing happened. After that, she never attempted to dispose of the doll again.

A few weeks later, rumours ran through the house that most of the staff at Heaton Hall was to be dismissed. Like all the other maids, Lucy was shocked – but she was also relieved. At least, when she left, she would be able to take the doll with her.

In a letter from Lord Farnley dated 15 November 1896, the butler announced to the household that Heaton Hall was to be sold. For most of the staff, their employment was to terminate the second week in December.

Though no specific reason was given, Mrs Gresham explained that his lordship had decided the upkeep of the Hall was too expensive and it was his intention to sell the property and move to the south coast. The staff, on the other hand, were of the opinion his lordship’s decision was not for financial reasons but because he had lost interest in the house after his daughter’s death. Heaton Hall was a fine stately home, built by his predecessors over 200 years earlier. It was a house Lord Farnley had once loved, yet the building itself was only part of the valuable estate. If he had needed extra funds, which seemed unlikely, he could have sold a portion of the estate's 400 arable acres, retained the house with its sculptured lawns and ornamental gardens, or leased out the grazing land and sold his livestock.

Word quickly passed around that Simmonds, the butler, and Mrs Gresham were to stay on, together with two maids, two footmen and the gardeners. But with talk in the village that Heaton Hall might be converted into a boarding school or sanatorium, it was likely those positions would not be secure for long.

It was drizzling the day the majority of the staff left. The gloomy weather reflected their mood and any sense of excitement or anticipation at the idea of going home for Christmas was dampened by the worry of unemployment. The number of positions coming available in good houses was fewer and fewer every year, and, despite the minor irritation Mrs Gresham caused Lucy, the Hall had been a good house to work for. The idea of a job in a noisy woollen mill did not appeal to any of the girls.

Lucy’s suitcase was among the pile of trunks and boxes lashed on one of the wagons. Because the doll had taken up much of the space in her case, she had rolled her clothes into a bundle and tied it with piece of string. With the bundle balanced on her lap and a letter of reference, bearing his lordship’s signature, in her pocket, Lucy sat between Jennie Porter and one of the other maids in the second carriage. Not a word was spoken as the three coaches and two dray wagons rolled away from Heaton Hall, rumbling down the driveway and out onto the main road which led to York and the railway station.

‘Why didn’t you let me know, Mum?’ Lucy said, when she arrived back home.

‘There weren’t much point. I mean, what could you do from the other side of Yorkshire? It weren’t right for me to bother you with my problems.’

‘But I could have helped. I could have come home or asked for some of my wages and sent you some money. Why did you sell all your good stuff and not tell me?’

Mrs Oldfield tapped her daughter’s hand. ‘Well, what’s done is done. Can’t cry over spilt milk, can we? Anyhow, I can get around all right now. Me leg’s healed a treat and I’m not entirely useless.’

‘But how did you manage to pay the rent, and what did you do for food money?’

‘I’ve got good neighbours,’ she said. ‘When I was in bed, they’d bring me a meal and take it in turns to do me washing. Real good they were. Now I’m right again, I’ve taken on some mending and if any of me neighbours need anything done, I do it for them for nothing.’

Lucy shook her head, as she regarded her mother resting by the fireplace. ‘But how could you manage on a few shillings?’

‘I managed and that’s that. And now you’re home, lass,’ she sighed, ‘you don’t know how glad I am to see you.’

Lucy touched her mother’s hand. ‘Here, Mum. My handkerchief.’

‘Ta, lass,’ she said, as she blew her nose and sniffed. ‘That’s enough about me. But just take a look at you. A fine figure of a woman you are now.’

‘Well, I was at the Hall six years and we were well fed.’ 

‘And you talk real proper.’

‘I haven’t changed, Mum.’

‘No luv, I don’t suppose you have.’ Mrs Oldfield lifted her foot onto the wooden stool. ‘But tell me about your young man.’

Lucy was puzzled. ‘What young man?’

‘The one you’ve been writing to. Arthur! Arthur Mellor.’

‘Arthur Mellor?’

‘Such a nice young man.
Helped me out no end when I was short of a bob or too. Took some of the things I didn’t need and sold them in the market. Always brought money back. I don’t know what I’d have done without his help.’

‘But I hardly know him! I met his twice and he wrote to me twice, and I wrote back to him once. He’s not my young man!’

‘Well he makes out like he is. And he says he can hardly wait for you coming home. Sounds to me like he has his mind set on you.’ She raised her eyebrows and added, ‘you could do a lot worse.’

‘Well we’ll have to see about that!’ Lucy said indignantly. For the present, she had far more important things to concern herself with than finding a husband.

The advertisement in the antique shop window said:
Experience Essential
, but Lucy applied anyway.

With his spectacles perched on the end of his nose, old Mr Camrass scrutinized the reference, signed by Lord Farnley. Young Mr Camrass, whom Lucy considered old enough to be her grandfather, was more interested in her experience handling silverware. He explained that if she was offered the job she would work six days a week despite the shop being closed on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Her duties would be mainly cleaning; both the shop, and the house which backed onto the business premises; polishing metal – namely the second-hand silver and brass items which were purchased from deceased estates, and washing the fine china which was bought by the two gentlemen in bulk lots at the auctions. Both father and son made it quite clear that she would perform her duties in the confines of the house kitchen and that on no account should she step into the shop during business hours.

As to the wages, Lucy thought them to be reasonable compared with her pay at the Hall, especially considering the long hours she had worked when in service. But at least at the Hall there had been no deductions for food and lodgings. Now she had rent to pay, and had both herself and her mother to support. It would not be easy, but she would be paid on a weekly basis and she was convinced she would manage.

‘They are extremely fussy,’ Lucy told her mother later. ‘But I’m used to that. And really both gentlemen are very polite and rather nice, especially old Mr Camrass.’

‘I am pleased for you,’ her mother said.

As Lucy talked about her new job, neither noticed the house door open and a man step onto the doormat.

‘Hello! Anyone home?’

‘Oh, it’s Arthur,’ Mrs Oldfield said, her face brimming with a smile. ‘Do come in, love, and see who’s here.’

Lucy stood up beside her mother’s chair and pushed the hair from her face.

‘Yes,’ Lucy said less enthusiastically. ‘Please come in. Mother has been telling me all about you and I’m grateful for what you have done for her.’

‘Well, someone had to help her out and you being away and all.’

Lucy turned to the stove. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’