with neglected weeds.
She pulled an old-fashioned wrought-iron bell, and its clamour sounded echoing away inside. A slatternly woman, wiping her hands on her apron, opened the door and looked at her suspiciously.
‘Expected, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Miss Something-barrow, she told me.’
‘Quite right,’ said Lucy.
The house was desperately cold inside. Her guide led her along a dark hall and opened a door on the right. Rather to Lucy’s surprise, it was quite a pleasant sitting-room, with books and chintz-covered chairs.
‘I’ll tell her,’ said the woman, and went away shutting the door after having given Lucy a look of profound disfavour.
After a few minutes the door opened again. From the first moment Lucy decided that she liked Emma Crackenthorpe.
She was a middle-aged woman with no very outstanding characteristics, neither good-looking nor plain, sensibly dressed in tweeds and pullover, with dark hair swept back from her forehead, steady hazel eyes and a very pleasant voice.
She said: ‘Miss Eyelesbarrow?’ and held out her hand.
Then she looked doubtful.
‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if this post is really what you’re looking for? I don’t want a housekeeper, you know, to supervise things. I want someone to do the work.’
Lucy said that that was what most people needed.
Emma Crackenthorpe said apologetically:
‘So many people, you know, seem to think that just a little light dusting will answer the case—but I can do all the light dusting myself.’
‘I quite understand,’ said Lucy. ‘You want cooking and washing-up, and housework and stoking the boiler. That’s all right. That’s what I do. I’m not at all afraid of work.’
‘It’s a big house, I’m afraid, and inconvenient. Of course we only live in a portion of it—my father and myself, that is. He is rather an invalid. We live quite quietly, and there is an Aga stove. I have several brothers, but they are not here very often. Two women come in, a Mrs Kidder in the morning, and Mrs Hart three days a week to do brasses and things like that. You have your own car?’
‘Yes. It can stand out in the open if there’s nowhere to put it. It’s used to it.’
‘Oh, there are any amount of old stables. There’s no trouble about that.’ She frowned a moment, then said, ‘Eyelesbarrow—rather an unusual name. Some friends of mine were telling me about a Lucy Eyelesbarrow—the Kennedys?’
‘Yes. I was with them in North Devon when Mrs Kennedy was having a baby.’
Emma Crackenthorpe smiled.
‘I know they said they’d never had such a wonderful time as when you were there seeing to everything. But I had the idea that you were terribly expensive. The sum I mentioned—’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Lucy. ‘I want particularly, you see, to be near Brackhampton. I have an elderly aunt in a critical state of health and I want to be within easy distance of her. That’s why the salary is a secondary consideration. I can’t afford to do nothing. If I could be sure of having some time off most days?’
‘Oh, of course. Every afternoon, till six, if you like?’
‘That seems perfect.’
Miss Crackenthorpe hesitated a moment before saying: ‘My father is elderly and a little—difficult sometimes. He is very keen on economy, and he says things sometimes that upset people. I wouldn’t like—’
Lucy broke in quickly:
‘I’m quite used to elderly people, of all kinds,’ she said. ‘I always manage to get on well with them.’
Emma Crackenthorpe looked relieved.
‘Trouble with father!’ diagnosed Lucy. ‘I bet he’s an old tartar.’
She was apportioned a large gloomy bedroom which a small electric heater did its inadequate best to warm, and was shown round the house, a vast uncomfortable mansion. As they passed a door in the hall a voice roared out:
‘That you, Emma? Got the new girl there? Bring her in. I want to look at her.’
Emma flushed, glanced at Lucy apologetically.
The two women entered the room. It was richly upholstered in dark velvet, the narrow windows let in very little light, and it was full of heavy mahogany Victorian furniture.
Old Mr Crackenthorpe was stretched out in an invalid chair, a silver-headed stick by his side.
He was a big gaunt man, his flesh hanging in loose folds. He had a face rather like a bulldog, with a pugnacious chin. He had thick dark hair flecked with grey, and small suspicious eyes.
‘Let’s have a look at you, young lady.’
Lucy advanced, composed and smiling.
‘There’s just one thing you’d better understand straight away. Just because we live in a big house doesn’t mean we’re rich. We’re not rich. We live simply—do you hear?—simply! No good coming here with a lot of high-falutin ideas. Cod’s as good a fish as turbot any day, and don’t you forget it. I don’t stand for waste. I live here because my father built the house and I like it. After I’m dead they can sell it up if they want to—and I expect they will want to. No sense of family. This house is well built—it’s solid, and we’ve got our own land around us. Keeps us private. It would bring in a lot if sold for building land but not while I’m alive. You won’t get me out of here until you take me out feet first.’
He glared at Lucy.
‘Your home is your castle,’ said Lucy.
‘Laughing at me?’
‘Of course not. I think it’s very exciting to have a real country place all surrounded by town.’
‘Quite so. Can’t see another house from here, can you? Fields with cows in them—right in the middle of Brackhampton. You hear the traffic a bit when the wind’s that way—but otherwise it’s still country.’
He added, without pause or change of tone, to his daughter:
‘Ring up that damn’ fool of a doctor. Tell him that last medicine’s no good at all.’
Lucy and Emma retired. He shouted after them:
‘And don’t let that damned woman who sniffs dust in here. She’s disarranged all my books.’
Lucy asked:
‘Has Mr Crackenthorpe been an invalid long?’
Emma said, rather evasively:
‘Oh, for years now … This is the kitchen.’
The kitchen was enormous. A vast kitchen range stood cold and neglected. An Aga stood demurely beside it.
Lucy asked times of meals and inspected the larder. Then she said cheerfully to Emma Crackenthorpe:
‘I know everything now. Don’t bother. Leave it all to me.’
Emma Crackenthorpe heaved a sigh of relief as she went up to bed that night.
‘The Kennedys were quite right,’ she said. ‘She’s wonderful.’
Lucy rose at six the next morning. She did the house, prepared vegetables, assembled, cooked and served breakfast. With Mrs Kidder she made the beds and at eleven o’clock they sat down to strong tea and biscuits in the kitchen. Mollified by the fact that Lucy ‘had no airs about her’, and also by the strength and sweetness of the tea, Mrs Kidder relaxed into gossip. She was a small spare woman with a sharp eye and tight lips.
‘Regular old skinflint he is. What she has to put up with! All