Hope - Lesley Pearse [4]
By the time Nell heard Bridie’s heavy, slow step on the stairs almost an hour later, it was broad daylight, with warm sunshine coming in through the lattice window by the sink. The baby was now washed, rewrapped in clean flannel and fast asleep in a linen basket by the stove.
She had opened her eyes as if in astonishment when Nell peeled off the soiled flannel, and she’d wailed indignantly as she washed her. But the moment she was rewrapped she went back to sleep.
‘I thought I told you to go to bed?’ Bridie said grumpily as she came into the kitchen, weighed down with a pail of dirty water in one hand, a covered basin in the other and bundles of bloodstained linen under each arm.
She looked all in. Her apron was bloodstained, her shoulders were stooped and she was wheezing with the effort of walking.
‘The baby, it’s alive,’ Nell said, pointing to the basket.
Bridie blanched and dropped her burdens, splashing water on to the floor. ‘Oh Jesus, Mary, Mother of God!’ she exclaimed, crossing herself and glancing fearfully at the basket.
‘She’s very bonny,’ Nell ventured fearfully. While she felt some sympathy for Bridie and her mistress because she knew how much trouble a living baby was going to cause for them both, she couldn’t help but feel delight she’d helped it to survive. Yet at the same time she also knew girls like her could be dismissed for getting above their station, and Bridie was quite likely to feel that was just what she’d done.
Bridie let out a sob of pain, and put both hands to her face in consternation. ‘Oh, my lawd!’ she exclaimed. ‘What am I to do?’
Nell instinctively moved towards the older woman and put her arms around her, just as she would do to her own mother if she was in distress. Bridie had been kind to her right from her first day at Briargate, when she was a frightened twelve-year-old who had no real idea of what leaving her own family and going into service meant. It was Bridie who had suggested Nell was wasted in the kitchen, and that she should be trained as a parlourmaid; she’d fought the protests from Cook and Mrs Cole, the housekeeper, covered up for Nell when she broke an ornament, and smuggled home leftover food when her father was laid up with a bad chest and couldn’t work.
During her four years at Briargate this woman had been Nell’s comforter, teacher and confidante. Thanks to her, she could help her family; she had good food, decent clothes, and prospects. She didn’t know if there was any way she could help Bridie out of this tight spot, but if there was one, she’d find it.
‘Don’t take on, Bridie,’ Nell said comfortingly. ‘We’re both tired now, but if we put our heads together we’ll think of something. I’ll make you some tea, and then you go to bed. I’ll put the linen in to soak and listen out for the mistress.’
Bridie drew back from Nell’s arms and wiped her eyes on the hem of her apron. Her blue eyes were still swimming but Nell could see she was struggling to regain her composure. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘But it’s you who must go to bed. I’ll sit here with my tea for a bit, and then go back upstairs. I can doze in the chair in the mistress’s room.’
‘Shall I take the baby in with me?’ Nell asked.
Bridie shook her head. ‘She’ll be warmer here. Go to bed now.’
Nell found she couldn’t sleep for thinking about the baby. It would need feeding soon and if Bridie was up in Lady Harvey’s bedroom she wouldn’t hear it cry. There was so much else which needed to be done too – coal brought in for the stove, linen to be washed and something nourishing cooked for Lady Harvey. She couldn’t just lie here wide awake and leave everything to Bridie.
She got