Nevertheless, as she stacked the coffee tray, plumped the cushions on the sofas and tidied up crumbs of shortcake from the carpet with a little dustpan and brush, the small, gaily-wrapped parcel in her pocket banished any tiredness. She could just imagine Sophy’s face tomorrow morning when she had a present from the doctor. And there were the books she and her mam and da had bought the bairn too. The old picture book was falling apart, Sophy had looked at it so much, besides which the lass hadn’t been reading so well then. She hadn’t known which book to choose – Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales or Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when she had nipped into the little toy shop close to the dairy in Southwick Road. Conscious of the list of shopping in her pocket from the mistress, she had bought them both and she didn’t regret it. The bairn had little enough.
She would have dearly loved to buy Sophy one of the richly dressed dolls she had seen, their porcelain faces and long hair curled in ringlets similar to those in Miss Patience’s room, or maybe one of the magic lanterns which could project hand-coloured scenes on slides, but both would have been difficult to conceal. The books would give her the greatest pleasure. She nodded to the thought. And no doubt before too long she would know the stories off by heart.
Bridget’s parents had already retired to their room when she finally finished in the drawing room and walked through to the kitchen. The room was in semi-darkness. Kitty had extinguished the oil lamp but left two candles at either end of the kitchen table, and by their flickering light Bridget gazed down at the child sleeping under her mound of blankets. Sophy was so finely boned and slender she often appeared small for her age but in fact this wasn’t so.
Crouching down beside the pallet bed, Bridget smoothed a stray silky curl from the velvety forehead. Long thick lashes rested on milky white skin and the rosebud lips were slightly apart. The child was so lovely, the ever-present worry Bridget felt about Sophy’s future rose to the fore once more. She was going to be a beautiful young woman in a few years, and a girl as enchanting as Sophy needed a father’s protection, or at the very least a guardian’s covering between her and a world full of men.
And then Bridget’s common sense intervened. The bairn was only ten years old. There would be more than enough time to worry about such things in the future, but for now she was safe enough.
Standing upright, Bridget eased her aching back, the tiredness she had felt earlier suddenly overwhelming. She had been on her feet since five o’clock, not an abnormal occurrence, but tonight she felt every one of her thirty-five years and a good few more besides. She needed her bed. It had been three years after Sophy’s birth before she had felt able to return to her room, and even now she occasionally felt uneasy about leaving the child sleeping in the kitchen, but this night she didn’t even bother to undress before falling into bed, and was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Chapter 5
When Sophy opened her eyes the next morning, her first thought was of her birthday, and the second that she still felt full from the forbidden delicacies Kitty had slipped her way the previous evening. Kitty had given her a little bit of most of the dishes, but had made her a whole pear smothered in ginger sauce all to herself, the taste of which still lingered on her tongue.
Sophy glanced across the kitchen to where Bridget was busy persuading the range fire into a cheerful blaze. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s my birthday. I’m ten years old.’
‘That you are, my pet.’ Bridget smiled at her. ‘Why don’t you hurry up and get dressed, and then you can lay the table in here while I see to the fires in the house.’
Sophy nodded, scrambling out of bed. She liked the beginning of each day more than anything. The family were still asleep when she and Bridget and Kitty and Patrick ate their breakfast at the kitchen table, and it was always quiet and peaceful. She had never told a living soul – not even Bridget from whom she normally had no secrets – but she always pretended each morning that Bridget was her mother, and Kitty and Patrick her grandparents, and that they were a proper family eating together. To have said it out loud would somehow be a betrayal of her real mother, but just thinking it was all right.
By the time Kitty and Patrick rose at half-past six, the fires in the drawing room, morning room and dining room had been lit, and the first of the two pans of porridge which Kitty always left soaking overnight was simmering on the hob. Once they had eaten, Kitty would begin to prepare the family’s breakfast which was served in the dining room at eight-thirty sharp after the whole household had met for morning prayers in the drawing room.