It was evening time, and Nellie and I went upstairs to prepare the bedrooms for the night. By now I could almost do this in my sleep, so my mind was on my own bed and how badly I wanted to be there. Nellie had been coughing for hours the night before, and I had barely managed to sleep a wink.
‘Lady Georgina and Miss Maeve are here,’ said Nellie. ‘So that means two extra rooms for us to prepare.’
‘What are they like?’ I asked.
‘Lady Georgina is a real angel down from Heaven,’ said Nellie. ‘Back in the famine days, she did so much for the poor people.’
‘Like what?’ I asked. Isabelle had told me something about this already, but I didn’t care – I hoped that if I kept Nellie talking about the family, she might forget to be mean to me.
‘Lady Georgina and Miss Constance and Master Josslyn and Miss Eva set up a stall and gave food to anyone who was hungry. Imagine that – their own food, and they gave it over with their own hands! There’s not many did that.’
Nellie was standing with her two hands pressed together, and there was a strange sparkle in her bright blue eyes.
‘And once, when Lady Georgina heard that some people had no beds to sleep on, she sent straw from her own sheds down to the cottages, to give the people some little bit of comfort in their hard, hungry days.’
‘That was kind of her,’ I said. ‘And what about Miss Maeve? What’s she like?’
For a minute, Nellie didn’t say anything. ‘Poor Miss Maeve,’ she said in the end. ‘Sometimes I feel sorry for her. Her father is always vanishing away to that foreign country he comes from, and her mother is off in Dublin, getting involved in things no woman should ever bother with. But then I say to myself, Nellie, why are you feeling sorry for Miss Maeve, when she lives in a fine house, and sleeps in a fat feather bed every night?’
‘But what’s she like?’ I asked again.
Nellie ignored my question. ‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Get hot bottles for all the beds and extra for Lady Georgina – she feels the cold more than most.’
I put hot bottles in all the beds, and I was making my way out of Miss Maeve’s room, when I saw a girl coming towards me. She was taller than me, but it was hard to guess her age. She had huge eyes and long wavy hair down to her waist, like a princess in a storybook. She was dressed for dinner in a beautiful pale pink dress with pearls on the sleeves. By now I had learned what to do, so I stood to the side and looked down at the floor, so she could pass me.
I was still looking at the floor, when she stopped next to me.
I kept my eyes down and concentrated on her feet. She was wearing the most gorgeous shoes I had ever seen.
‘I don’t bite, you know.’
I looked up at her, with no idea what to say.
‘I haven’t seen you before, have I?’ she said. ‘My name is Maeve, what’s yours?’
‘I’m Lily,’ I whispered.
‘I was named after Maeve of Connacht,’ she said. ‘She was a brave warrior queen. If you look out the window of my bedroom you can see her burial mound at Knocknarea.’
And then the words popped out of my mouth. ‘I was named after my daddy’s mam. She wasn’t a queen, but she was the most beautiful woman in the whole parish and she could sing like a lark. If you go to the churchyard near my house, you can see where she’s buried.’
‘My mother is Countess Markievicz, and she is in Dublin fighting for the rights of women and poor people. One day she will be famous all over Ireland.’
Maeve and I seemed to be playing some kind of game, and even though I was happy to play, I knew this was a game I could never win. I remembered all the warnings Nellie and Mam had given me, but I couldn’t stay quiet.
‘My mother is Josephine Mary Brennan,’ I said. ‘And she is at home minding my little brothers and sisters. One day she will be famous for keeping our family from starving in very hard times.’
At first Maeve didn’t answer, and I was afraid I had gone too far. If this was a game, she was definitely making the rules. Then she laughed out loud.
‘You’re very funny, Lily,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’
I liked being funny, it reminded me of the days when I was one of the most popular girls at school, when I could make Hanora and Rose and everyone else laugh, without even trying. Sometimes the Master tried to look cross when I was being skittish, but his smile always won out in the end. This was different though. I didn’t like this rich girl saying such things out loud in the corridor of this fine house, where I could get into trouble for even talking to her. I looked over my shoulder, afraid of being seen. If Nellie came along, or Mrs Bailey, or even Butler Kilgallon …
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Maeve.
I’m really afraid that someone might see me, and I’ll get into lots of trouble with Mrs Bailey, and might actually lose my job – and that’s not fair, when I was only trying to be funny.
Even if I could find the words to explain all this to Maeve, would a rich girl like her ever understand? What did she know about having a job, and being afraid of losing it? When was her family ever depending on her to make money so they could eat? Life was much easier when I was at school with my friends and no one was supposed to be better than anyone else.
But Maeve surprised me. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Here, come into my room.’
She opened the door, and I had no choice but to follow her inside. She sat on the bed and patted the space beside her. ‘Sit down,’ she said.
I had been in that room many times before. I’d shaken the eiderdowns, and swept the floors and dusted everything. I had never, ever dared to sit down on the bed.
‘I think I’d prefer to stand,’ I said. I was still afraid, still looking at the door. This really wasn’t fair. I had to do what Maeve said, but soon Nellie would come looking for me. If I got caught, I’d be the one in trouble, not this pretty girl in the fancy pink dress.
‘I think I’d better go back downstairs,’ I said. ‘I have jobs to do.’
‘If someone comes, you can say you are doing a job in here for me.’
‘But there’s nothing to do here,’ I said, looking around the room. I had done my work well, and everything was clean and in its place.
Maeve stood up and ran to the mantelpiece. She grabbed a large china ornament and threw it to the floor, where it broke into a thousand pieces. I jumped. I had never seen anyone do anything like that before.
‘There’s something to do now,’ she said.
‘But…’
‘Don’t worry, Lily,’ she said. ‘This house is full of ornaments and I’ve always hated that one. Some boring old poet gave it to my mother ages ago.’
‘But it’s…’
‘Don’t worry. No one will care. Well, maybe my grandmother, Gaga, will, but she’s very old-fashioned – and I won’t tell her if you don’t.’
I walked over and bent to pick up the biggest pieces, but she pulled me back.
‘Leave it,’ she said. ‘I can clean up later. It’s just there in case of emergencies.’
I went over and fixed the bed where she had wrinkled it by sitting down. She went back and sat down and messed it up again. I don’t think she was being mean – I think she had no idea what it was like to have to tidy up after herself or anyone else.
I stood near the fireplace with my hands clasped behind my back. I was confused. I wanted to leave, but I also wanted to stay and get to know this girl better.
Now she was staring at me.
‘Do you know you have a very interesting face?’ she said.
I had no idea what to say to that so I said nothing.
Maeve got up from the bed, and I had to stop myself from going over and fixing it again. She walked around me, staring at my face all the time. I thought she was being a bit rude – you’d expect a rich girl like her to have better manners.
‘Has anyone ever painted your portrait?’ she asked.
I laughed, but she didn’t laugh with me, and I realised she hadn’t been joking.
‘Last year my little sister, Anne, found some chalk, and she drew a picture of me on the wall of our house,’ I said. ‘I had a big head and no body and long legs like sticks, and Mam gave my sister a slap for ruining the wall.’
‘I would like to paint your portrait,’ said Maeve when she finally stopped laughing.
Now it was my time to stare at her. I didn’t know this girl very well, but I could see that she was being perfectly serious.
‘My parents are very famous artists,’ she said. ‘My mother trained in Paris and London, you know. I think I may have inherited their talent. They will be so proud of me when they see I can paint a good portrait. Sometimes I try to paint my cousins, but they don’t have interesting faces like yours – and they are not very good at sitting still. Yes, I have made up my mind – you would be a very good subject. What do you think about that?’
I could feel my face going red. ‘Em…it’s very nice of you… thank you… but I’m not sure if…’
‘It would be only an hour or two a day.’
‘But, Miss Maeve, I don’t have time for that – I have to work.’
‘Please call me Maeve,’ she said. ‘And don’t worry, I think I could arrange it with Mrs Bailey and Mr Kilgallon – they always do what I say. And besides, my father once painted Mr Kilgallon, and my mother did a lovely drawing of a servant girl just like you, so I’m merely following a family tradition.’
Now I didn’t know what to do. This was all very strange and new. Sitting in Maeve’s room being painted sounded like much more fun than scrubbing floors, but what would the other servants say? Nellie would go mad – and while I didn’t mind the idea of that, I knew she would make me suffer for it later.
Just thinking about Nellie must have worked some evil magic, because right then I heard her voice.
‘Lily, where have you got to? There’s still lots of work to do. Where are you?’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I whispered, as I ran to the door in a panic.
Maeve lay back on the bed with her hands behind her head. ‘See you soon,’ she said, as I closed the door behind me.
Nellie was coming along the corridor, and she did not look happy.
‘Were you idling in Miss Maeve’s room?’ she said. ‘I should go right to Mrs Bailey and complain you.’
‘Miss Maeve is in her room,’ I said. ‘And she needed me to tidy up something she had broken. She especially asked me to stay and give her a hand.’
Nellie looked doubtful, but even she wouldn’t dare go into Maeve’s room to see if I was telling the truth. I didn’t know how much of a mess I had got myself into, but it was almost worth it to see the look of jealousy on Nellie’s face.