‘Why?’ She paused and turned again to face him, her plump body held rigid. Well-fleshed as she was, her loose, biscuit-coloured afternoon gown of lace and chiffon gave her a regal appearance, adding to her display of indignation and betrayal.
‘Why, Bertram? How could you promote that girl when you know full well how I feel about her? This interest in her is becoming an obsession with you. We both grieve for our darling girl. Millicent was our life. But you can’t bring her back. This girl has gained a hold over you and she knows it. She is playing it to the full. What does she expect to achieve?’
‘I don’t think she expects to achieve anything. And why are you so much against her when you are so drawn to keeping her sister on?’
‘Because I find Dora a sweet, even-tempered and willing girl. She has no idea what that sister of hers is up to.’
‘I am not aware she is up to anything, Mary.’
‘I am! I do not like her. I can never like her. I believe with all my heart that she is playing on this weakness of yours.’
‘That is an unkind thing to say, Mary. She wouldn’t stoop to—’
‘Of course she would! She’s clever. She is using your grief in order to better herself. She is using you, Bertram. She is playing you for a fool.’
Bertram stood up suddenly. ‘Thank you so much, my dear, for those kind sentiments!’ he said with acid sarcasm.
Since Millicent’s death, there’d been many marital brushes like this. If he was obsessed, as she said, with their loss, so was she – nothing of Millicent was to be moved. Even this claustrophobic drawing room, with its draperies and potted plants, had photographs everywhere of their child: studio portraits of her as a toddler sitting on his knee, her smiling mother standing behind them; older ones posed beside pedestals of various kinds; those of her in the garden playing with Tinker, her Yorkshire terrier. He could hardly bear to look at them, constant reminders of a child for ever lost to them.
‘I’m not a fool!’ he said harshly. ‘You’re the one growing obsessed. You miss her as much as I, but you can’t let grief rule you. You’ve let your imagination run away with you and it must stop. I wish to hear no more!’
He could be firm when he wanted. A medical man had need to be firm against the malingerer, the manipulative or the merely bone-lazy patient. But he did have a tender heart and understood and felt for his wife’s aversion to young Ellie. But Mary was becoming preoccupied by it and he needed to put a stop to it before it grew any worse. With Ellie kept on in this house, in time Mary would overcome her peculiar phobia and begin to accept her.
Telling himself this had the effect of dulling a little voice in his head that said his decision presented a unique opportunity to keep alive his daughter’s memory. It had happened by sheer accident and a chance like this would never come again. He could even convince himself that Ellie reminding him so of Millicent might even, in time, take the sting out of his loss. She might, eventually, even take her place, said that insidious little voice in his head, though he tried to ignore it.
‘A whole day to ourselves!’ Dora cried as she and Ellie hurried arm in arm towards Victoria Park. ‘We won’t get another one for weeks and I want to make the most of it. Thank heaven it’s a lovely sunny day. And warm too. You don’t get many sunny days in April. We’re so lucky.’
Dora was beginning to make sure to sound all her aitches, just as her mistress insisted.
‘I want you to be a little lady, Dora, my child,’ she’d told her almost with affection. ‘A lady’s maid – and that’s what you may be some day – should speak nicely.’
Though Dora was still sewing in a humble role, repairing any rents in sheets and pillow cases, hemming towels that had become a little frayed at the edges, on the odd occasion she had been asked by Mrs Lowe to lay out the clothes she had chosen for the day, showing her how to do it nicely and neatly and with graceful movements, beaming at her as she achieved good results.
‘In time you might act as my very own maid,’ she’d said. ‘Florrie is far too ungainly.’ And of course there were the weekly jaunts to the market with her mistress, something she always really looked forward to. Last week Mrs Lowe had even bought her a little bag of toffees. She’d never treated her before and it had made her feel so very important.
When Dora told her, Ellie had smiled secretively but said nothing. The envy she’d once had was gone. Of course, now being under-housemaid, she too had been elevated. A few nights ago, as they lay in bed, she’d confided to Dora her hope of one day taking over from Florrie.
‘She won’t be here for ever,’ she whispered. ‘She’d want to move on or get married. Then I’d have someone working under me, wouldn’t I?’
Mrs Jenkins had a new kitchen maid, a pale-faced girl of fourteen called Rose Holt, relieving Ellie of the extra chore of washing up. The only disappointment was that, contrary to what she’d expected, she still hardly saw Doctor Lowe except if he happened to pass while she was on hands and knees brushing the stair carpet or scrubbing the hall linoleum or cleaning out the fire grate, Florrie having taken it upon herself to do the cleaner jobs: polishing, dusting, cleaning brass, laying the table.
On the rare occasions when he did pass, she’d get to her feet to give a respectful bob. He’d respond with just a nod, passing on without speaking.
‘It’s so odd,’ she said to Dora as they entered the park.
