‘Maybe George will have to look after her,’ I said. ‘After all, she’s his cousin too.’
But Nora shook her head.
‘I asked Mother about that,’ she said. ‘And she said she couldn’t expect George to look after a girl.’
We shared a sorrowful look.
‘No chance of getting your mother to come to the next IWFL meeting, then,’ I said. ‘What’s Grace like with George? Is she awful to him too?’
Nora made a face.
‘She only sees him in the holidays, of course, but I think she considers him one of the grown-ups,’ she said. ‘Even though he isn’t. So she’s all nicey-nice to him. And that means I’ll be the only one in the house who sees her true colours. Imagine.’
It truly was a horrid prospect.
‘Well, you can come over to my house whenever you like,’ I said. I patted her on the arm because that’s what you’re meant to do when you’re comforting people, but it didn’t cheer Nora up.
‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to,’ she said gloomily. ‘Mother keeps going on about what a wonderful opportunity this is for me and Grace to become great pals. She’s going to organise lots of outings and things for us.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said.
‘It’s just because she and Aunt Alice have always been awfully close,’ said Nora. Aunt Alice is Grace’s mother, and she and Nora’s mother are sisters. ‘She can’t understand why I don’t want to be friends with Aunt Alice’s daughter. Especially when,’ and here Nora did a not-very-accurate impersonation of her mother’s voice – “Grace is such a wee darling”.’ Nora’s mother is from Belfast and she sometimes says things are ‘wee’ when she means ‘little’.
As I have said before, grown-ups always think Grace is wonderful. But maybe having Grace under her roof for weeks will change Mrs. Cantwell’s mind. Grace is staying with the other aunt overnight and is arriving in Nora’s house tomorrow. So as I write this letter, poor Nora is being forced to get her room ready for Grace, which means putting practically half of her clothes in the attic so there’s room for Grace’s things, as well as making up the stupid camp bed, which is full of springs that keep pinching her fingers and which almost collapsed when she sat on it earlier.
I mentioned the dreadfulness of all this to my family this evening, but, worryingly, my parents didn’t feel very sorry for Nora at all. I thought they were a bit more tender-hearted than that, but apparently not.
‘When I was at school I had to share a dormitory with five other boys,’ said Father. ‘We all have to muddle along with people we don’t like.’
Mother agreed.
‘I’m sure it will be good for both of them,’ said Mother. She looked at her four offspring. ‘Sometimes I think you modern children are terribly spoiled.’
Spoiled! When I spend half of my time trimming hats and learning French verbs and sharing a room with Julia. Maybe Harry and Phyllis and Julia are spoiled (well, Harry definitely is), but I’m certainly not.
Anyway, I will of course keep a record of how Nora gets on with her unwelcome guest. I hope you are having lots of fun on the boat. Thanks awfully for sending me your American itinerary – I have marked all the places you’re going to go in my atlas and put the dates next to each one so I will be able to imagine you in each location. I believe there are a lot of dangerous wild beasts in America so I hope you are being careful – I don’t want you to get eaten by a bear or a wild cat or a possum or anything.
Best love and votes for women,
Mollie
P.S.
Later
I mentioned the wild beasts of America to Phyllis before I went to bed and when I told her I hoped you wouldn’t get eaten by a possum she laughed and laughed and said a possum was a little animal about the size of a big rabbit or a very small dog.
‘Some dogs are dangerous,’ I protested. ‘And savage. Just think of the Menace.’
As I am sure you remember, the Menace is a dreadful little woolly dog belonging to Mother’s friend Mrs. Sheffield. His real name is Barnaby, but he is one of nature’s menaces, hence his nickname. I must admit he’s never actually bitten anyone, as far as I know. But he always looks as if he wants to and he barks a LOT.
‘Well, I can assure you that Frances is in no danger of being eaten by a possum,’ said Phyllis, in a very patronising and annoying way. She did, however, deign to admit that bears really are dangerous, but when I showed her your itinerary she laughed again in a superior fashion and said it was very unlikely you would meet one in New York or Boston.
‘But what about the bits in between?’ I asked. But she told me that you will presumably be travelling by train rather than roaming on foot through the woods and she had never heard of a bear getting on a train, which is a good point. Still, you’re going to be in the countryside at some stage. Do keep your eyes open for bears and lions and things.
5th July, 1912.
Dear Frances,
I have been keeping a close eye on the papers in case there is anything about your ship hitting an iceberg or indeed any other naval incidents, and I am very glad to see that there have been no disasters so far. You must be practically there by now – or have you actually arrived? Anyway, I hope your voyage across the mighty ocean was fun and exciting (in a non-dangerous way). I wish I had some exciting news to report from Dublin, but alas all is doom and gloom because Grace is now ensconced in Nora’s room and she is being every bit as bad as we feared she would be.
She arrived this morning. Nora had begged me to call over for moral support so I went while Mrs. Cantwell was on her way to Amiens Street station to collect Grace, who was getting a train from Belfast. George had gone off to play tennis, as free as a bird.
‘In just half an hour she’ll be here,’ said Nora miserably. We were in her room, trying to move the camp bed as far away from Nora’s bed as possible. ‘These are my last moments of freedom.’
‘Not that way,’ I said. ‘You won’t be able to open the chest of drawers.’ We moved the camp bed towards the window.
‘Ow!’ squeaked Nora. ‘I caught my finger in the stupid springs again.’
Her finger was red and a bit swollen so we left the bed where it was and went to the bathroom, where Nora ran her finger under the cold tap.
‘I’m already in agony and she hasn’t even got here,’ she muttered.
‘Maybe it won’t be so bad.’ I forced myself to sound cheerful. ‘After all, she won’t want to hang around with you either.’
‘She will if it’s what Mother wants,’ said Nora. ‘She always does what grown-ups expect her to. It’s why they all think she’s wonderful.’
You’d think some grown-ups would find her annoying, the way she’s always smirking at them and sucking up to them, but they never seem to care about that. Nora was drying her hands when we heard the front door open and Mrs. Cantwell called, ‘Nora? We’re home.’
‘Coming, Mother.’ Nora sounded as if she was being called to the gallows. I followed her downstairs, where Grace, smiling with unnatural brightness, was hanging her hat and coat up in the hall.
‘Hello, Nora.’ She sounded much more friendly than I’d ever heard her before. Then she noticed me coming behind Nora and her smile flickered for a moment. But only for a moment. ‘And Mollie too!’ she cried. ‘How nice.’
‘Hello, girls.’ Mrs. Cantwell turned to her daughter. ‘Nora, why don’t you show Grace up to your room?’
‘She knows where it is,’ said Nora. I say ‘said’, but really it was more like a grunt.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Cantwell firmly, ‘but I’d like you to show her where she can put her things.’
‘All right.’ Nora barely repressed a sigh. She had started up the stairs when Mrs. Cantwell said, ‘And I think you can take the first turn on the camp bed tonight, can’t you, Nora?’
I gave Nora a warning look. I knew – and I totally understood – that she wanted to protest, but I also knew that if she started off Grace’s visit by making a fuss, h
er Mother would probably be even more on Grace’s side. Nora knew this too, and she said, ‘All right. Come on, Grace.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Mrs. Cantwell brightly. ‘And while you’re doing that, I’ll ask Agnes to get us some tea and cake.’ She went off to the kitchen and Grace followed me and Nora up the stairs. As soon as the kitchen door closed behind Mrs. Cantwell, Grace said, ‘I really think you could be a bit more cheerful, Nora. No one likes a gloomy girl.’
Nora swallowed and said, in a very stiff voice, ‘Here’s my room.’
‘Gosh.’ Grace put her bag on the floor. ‘It’s much smaller than I remember it being.’
‘That’s probably because the last time I let you in here was at my ninth birthday party,’ said Nora. ‘You were smaller then too.’ She pulled open the bottom of the chest of drawers, which was now empty. ‘You can put your things there.’
‘What about my frocks?’ said Grace. Nora marched over to the wardrobe and flung open the door. It was half empty because Nora had been made to pack away lots of her clothes and put them up in the attic. (‘Where they’ll probably be eaten away by moths,’ she’d grumbled earlier. ‘And it’ll be all Grace’s fault.’)
‘That’s not very much room,’ sniffed Grace.
‘Well, that’s all the room there is,’ said Nora. ‘Is there anything else you need to know?’
Grace plumped herself down on Nora’s bed.
‘This bed’s not terribly comfortable, is it?’
Nora gritted her teeth.
‘You’re more than welcome to have the camp bed,’ she said. Grace gave an incredibly annoying tinkling laugh.
‘Oh no, this one will do,’ she said. ‘I suppose I don’t have a choice.’
‘Neither of us do,’ said Nora. ‘We’ll leave you to unpack.’ And she grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the landing, slamming the door behind her.
‘Is everything all right?’ called Mrs. Cantwell from the drawing room.
‘Fine,’ Nora called back. ‘I just banged the door by accident.’ She looked at me and pointed silently towards the bathroom. We went in and closed the door.
‘If I ran away from home today,’ said Nora, ‘how long do you think it would take before I could get a job and earn some money to keep myself? It’d only have to be for a few weeks, until Grace goes.’
I sat down on the edge of the bath.
‘I don’t think you could get a job,’ I said.
‘Why not? Lots of girls our age work,’ said Nora.
‘Yes, but in jobs that aren’t very nice,’ I pointed out. ‘And besides, you’d have no references.’
‘I could forge them,’ said Nora. ‘It can’t be that hard, my handwriting looks very grown-up. And I’d rather scrub floors than stay in the same room as that little beast.’ But she didn’t sound very convincing. Grace might be one of nature’s worst creations, but sharing a room with her isn’t nearly as horrible as the sort of job most working girls our age end up doing. When Maggie and her sister Jenny were fourteen, they were both working as scullery maids. I knew, and so did Nora, that we were lucky we weren’t ever going to be forced to do a job like that. Scrubbing floors is no joke when you have no choice in the matter. Besides, if someone who spoke like Nora asked for a job as a scullery maid, they’d think she was playing some sort of odd joke.
‘Come on, Nora,’ I said. ‘Let’s go down. We might as well eat some cake.’
Nora sighed.
‘All right then,’ she said.
When we walked into the drawing room the tea and cake were already laid out.
‘Just in time,’ said Mrs. Cantwell. ‘Where’s your cousin?’
‘Unpacking,’ said Nora. The cake was a sponge one and looked jolly good. ‘Can I have a slice of cake, please?’
‘Wait until Grace gets down.’ Mrs. Cantwell lifted the cake stand out of Nora’s reach. Nora threw me an outraged look, but unfortunately Mrs. Cantwell noticed. ‘And don’t make faces at Mollie like that. I know you’re not happy about sharing your room —’
‘It’s not the sharing my room part,’ Nora interrupted. ‘It’s the sharing it with Grace. I wouldn’t mind if it was any of my other cousins.’
Mrs. Cantwell sighed and pushed her spectacles up her nose.
‘Nora, think what it’s like to be Grace right now,’ she said.
‘I’d rather not,’ muttered Nora.
Her mother ignored her.
‘She can’t go home for weeks on end,’ Mrs. Cantwell continued. ‘The family were meant to be going to a hotel in Killarney next week but of course that’s all off now.’ She poured out tea for herself, Nora and me. ‘And I know you might find this hard to believe, but she’s probably not very happy about sharing a room with you. Imagine if you had to go and stay with someone you knew perfectly well didn’t like you.’
I have to admit it was a pretty grim prospect. I was starting to feel a bit sorry for Grace. Nora put a lot of milk and a large lump of sugar in her tea, but didn’t say anything.
‘So please,’ said Mrs. Cantwell, ‘try to get along with her. Can you promise me that?’
Nora looked like she was genuinely considering it, until Mrs. Cantwell spoiled it all by saying, ‘After all, she’s such a sweet wee girl. I know you don’t get on very well at school, but maybe you’ll like her more once you’ve spent some time together outside of lessons.’
Nora glowered at her mother.
‘I’m quite sure I won’t,’ she said.
‘Well, you’re going to have to,’ snapped Mrs. Cantwell, clearly losing her patience. ‘Ah, hello Grace, darling.’
Grace was standing in the doorway with an expression on her face that could only be described as simpering.
‘Am I too late for cake?’ She tossed her curls as she spoke. (She does this a lot and grown-ups seem to think it is ‘winsome’. If I did it, I’d probably hit someone in the face with one of my plaits, and no one would think it was winsome at all.) She practically skipped across the room to the table. ‘Oh goodie, there’s some left.’
‘We haven’t been allowed to eat any of it,’ said Nora flatly. ‘So obviously there’s some left.’
Grace gave another dreadful tinkling laugh. I’ve never heard her do this at school. She probably knows she couldn’t get away with it there. Someone would eventually give her a slap. But in the bosom of her family she could toss her curls and giggle as much as she liked. She was like a child in a pantomime, the sort who always have dreadful names like Little Gertie or Baby Betsy, even though you know they’re probably about twenty-five really. Later I told Nora I couldn’t believe that Mrs. Cantwell didn’t see through this little-girl act, but Nora reminded me that this is how Grace always behaves with her grown-up relatives. Aunt Alice, Nora said, encouraged it.
‘But she wouldn’t dare do it at school,’ said Nora. ‘The staff wouldn’t stand for it.’
I imagined Mother Antoninas’s reaction to Grace flicking her hair about.
‘They definitely wouldn’t,’ I agreed.
Mrs. Cantwell, however, seemed inexplicably charmed by Grace’s manner.
‘We were waiting for you, dear.’ And of course she gave Grace the first slice of cake.
‘Mmmm!’ said Grace. ‘How delicious, Aunt Catherine.’
I thought Mrs. Cantwell would have to see through her now but no, she just smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it.’
The cake was indeed delicious, but I couldn’t really enjoy it with Nora on the other side of the table looking like she was about to either burst into tears or growl at someone. All in all it was a dismal tea. Nora just sat there brooding, while Grace prattled on at Mrs. Cantwell, who seemed somehow delighted with her. I couldn’t really think of anything to say, so I concentrated on eating the cake. Every so often Mrs. Cantwell would try to involve me and Nora in the conversation, and I did my best, but it was hard going. I was very relieved when the clock on the mantelpiece eventually struck four o’clock.
‘Thanks awfully
for tea, Mrs. Cantwell.’ I leapt to my feet. ‘I’d better be getting home now.’
‘Maybe you and Nora and Grace could go on a little outing tomorrow,’ suggested Mrs. Cantwell. ‘To the park or the Botanic Gardens.’
‘If my mother says it’s all right,’ I said. And then I said goodbye. I felt like an awful heel running away and leaving Nora with Grace, but I really did have to go home. Nora walked out into the hall with me, closing the drawing-room door behind her.
‘Are you sure I couldn’t find a job somewhere?’ she whispered miserably. But she knew it was a ridiculous dream. I tried to think of something comforting to say.
‘Just think of Jane Eyre,’ I said. ‘She had to live with horrible cousins too.’
‘Yes, and she only got away from them by going to boarding school,’ retorted Nora.
‘Not a very nice one,’ I said.
‘Even a boarding school where you have to eat burned porridge and your best friend dies seems like more fun than sharing with Grace.’ Nora’s face was the picture of misery.
‘Thanks very much,’ I said. ‘If you’d rather I died of consumption …’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Nora. I left the poor thing standing forlornly at the front door, with the prospect of days and days of Grace ahead of her. It seems so unfair, especially when I remember that we will have the charming and civilised Frank as a guest, while Nora has to put up with Grace prancing around the house.
Of course I didn’t talk about Frank’s visit to Nora this afternoon as (one) it would look as though I were gloating and (two) she would probably say something annoying again about me being in love with him. I do wish she’d forget about all that nonsense. It just struck me that the only good thing about Grace staying there is that Nora might be too preoccupied with her to think of any annoying remarks about me and Frank. But that is a rather selfish thought, when even as I write poor Nora is probably having to get ready for bed in the same room as Grace. I bet all Grace’s nighties are covered in frills and ribbons and she will look patronisingly at Nora’s perfectly serviceable plain cotton and broderie anglaise. I will let you know when I write more tomorrow.