NELLIE GAVE A final check to the drawing room before Mother’s guests arrived for afternoon tea. Nora had lit the fire and, with great care, Nellie had dusted each little china figurine and carved teak or ivory ornament in her mother’s collection. The silver shone, the glass sparkled and everything was ready for Mother’s regular ‘At Home’, which was held twice a month. Mother enjoyed hosting these occasions and, in turn, visited her friends and neighbours at their homes.
The drawing room was Mother’s sanctuary and no one was permitted to use it unless invited.
Nellie slipped down to the kitchen to check that all was ready, then at three o’clock precisely the doorbell rang. Nora ran to open it, taking Mrs Fox’s coat as she left her card on the silver salver on the hall table before being shown into the drawing room.
Twenty minutes later Mother was busy entertaining her guests. Glancing at the clock in the kitchen, Nellie prepared the special blend of tea her mother preferred for these gatherings, sending Nora to serve it as the ladies chatted. Then a few minutes later Nellie joined them in the drawing room, offering small fresh scones with cream and jam and delicate slices of freshly made cake to each of the guests. She usually baked two cakes on the morning of an At Home, icing one and leaving the other plain. Mother disapproved of guests being offered or eating too much, which she felt was impolite.
‘How are you, Nellie?’ enquired Mother’s friends as she served them.
‘Did I tell you Alice is getting married next month to a chap from Sussex?’ asked Beatrice Woods, whose daughter Alice had been in school with her.
‘Please convey my good wishes to her.’
‘Jerome’s regiment is being sent to India, so they will move to live there in two months’ time.’
Nellie could see Mrs Woods was upset.
‘Jerome is a fine young man, but India is so far away,’ she continued, trying to control her emotions. ‘Alice is our only daughter and we will miss her so. Your mother and father are fortunate to have Claude and his wife married and living so near to them.’
Nellie was filled with great sympathy for her and offered to fetch her more tea.
As she moved around the drawing room, Nellie picked up snippets of conversation. She was returning with the pot of tea when she heard Henrietta Lewis talking loudly.
‘Isn’t it wonderful for you and Frederick to have Nellie so devoted to helping you here at home? Mark my words, when all the others are gone away and married, Nellie will be the one looking after you both in your old age and running the house and kitchen.’
Nellie held her breath outside the door.
‘Yes, I expect so,’ responded Mother lightly. ‘Nellie was never one for school and has no interest in studying, and in fact has become an excellent cook.’
Nellie swallowed hard as she pushed open the drawing-room door and refilled the tea cups, trying not to meet her mother’s eyes and to remain composed as she received compliments about her scones.
‘Nellie dear, that walnut cake is delicious. Did you make it yourself?’ asked Mrs Fox.
‘Yes, it’s a new American recipe I followed.’
Back in the kitchen she sat down. She could feel her heart pumping wildly as her mind raced. Was this what she wanted for her future? Baking and cooking, running the household for her parents and family?
Essie and Nora at least got paid their wages, but she only got the same allowance from her parents that her sisters received, despite all her hard work.
Her mind was in turmoil at the thought of living at home in Temple Villas while everyone else went and got on with their lives. This had never been her intention, but now Nellie realized she was caught in a trap of her own making that might prove very difficult to escape from as she did not possess the academic or artistic attributes that so many of her siblings had.
‘Why are you so glum?’ teased her older sister Kate a few days later.
‘I heard one of Mother’s friends talking the other day and she was saying how wonderful it was for Mother and Father that I would be the one here looking after them when they are old and everyone else is married and settled,’ Nellie confided, unable to hide her upset.
‘But I presumed – we all presumed – that you enjoy housekeeping and cookery and running things so well at home.’
‘I do,’ she admitted. ‘I far prefer cooking and helping Essie manage the household than school, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it for ever. Everyone just presumes …’
‘Good old Nellie will cook a delicious dinner,’ said Kate. ‘Deal with ordering the provisions from Findlaters. Get the fish in Hanlon’s fishmongers. Attend to the household budget, and of course be perfectly happy even if Mother harps on at her.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, a lump in her throat. ‘And I don’t know what to do.’
Nellie wished that she was more like her sisters, all of whom seemed to know what they wanted. Kate, one of the first Irish women to gain a place in university, was set on the world of academia; Grace, like Ada, cared only about art and painting; Muriel talked about nursing; and even little Sidney was obsessed with writing. Nellie was the only one with absolutely no clear idea of what she wanted from life or the future.
‘It is a problem that has to be solved,’ Kate decreed wisely. ‘We must try to find exactly the right opportunity for you.’
A week later Kate came bounding excitedly into the bedroom and passed Nellie part of the newspaper.
‘Read it,’ she urged.
Nellie glanced at the printed page – details of a concert and a ballet and piano recital.
‘The other side,’ her sister prompted impatiently.
Nellie read the advertisement over and over again. It was for a course run by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in the School of Domestic Economy in Kildare Street to train as a rural domestic instructress. The course was for six months and participants would attain a qualification linked to a job travelling the country teaching cooking and domestic skills.
‘Do you think I should apply?’ she asked.
‘Most definitely,’ her sister assured her.
A few days later, Nellie slipped on her hat and gloves and went along to the college. She enjoyed a very agreeable interview and was immediately offered a place on the course, which would start in September. Now there was just the question of breaking the news to her mother and father, and paying the tuition fees. She had absolutely no money of her own and relied on her parents to cover the general costs of her clothes and going-out money.
Mother had grave reservations about the course, saying she wasn’t at all sure it was suitable for a young lady of her background and means.
‘Don’t come complaining to us if this course isn’t what you expect,’ she warned. Nellie suspected she was put out, as she realized her daughter would no longer be at her beck and call to help with cooking and household affairs.
As usual, Father said little, but he agreed to pay.
‘I do believe that you will enjoy this, Nellie, and make a success of it,’ he said, handing her a cheque for the fees. ‘Also, the benefit is that you will have a proper qualification.’
Delighted, Nellie hugged him. This was her opportunity to be independent and perhaps, if she passed the course, to have a career of her own.