the Government took the brick house, they left us the kitchen garden, and the Home Farm, which Mrs Potter’s brother-in-law rents from us. I suppose it was a good thing really that They wanted the brick part of the house. It saves us heating it, because one bag of coal a week doesn’t go far, does it? Thank goodness we have the woods. We go scavenging if there’s been a gale, and bring in branches that have come down and saw them into logs. Every little helps.’
‘So what do we do here?’ They had come to the stile. ‘Shall I give you a lift over with the bike?’
‘No. We’ll carry on to the crossroads. A lane leads to the house from there. It’s a bit further to walk but it’s better than pushing the bike through the grass.’
‘Tell me, please.’ Meg decided it was time to sort out the way things were to be. ‘I’ve never worked as a servant before. In the shop, we had to call ladies madam and men sir. Is that what I call your mother? And do I call you Miss Polly?’
‘Good heavens, no! You’re not a servant, Meg. You’re a home help and we’re glad to have you! I’m Polly; Mummy is Mrs John, Gran is Mrs Kenworthy, so there’s no mixing them up. My real name is Mary, like Mummy’s, so I get called Polly, which I like. With two Marys and two Mrs Kenworthys, you’ll see what I mean. Oh, and there’s Nanny Boag!’
‘Boag!’ Meg gasped, remembering the lady on the photograph.
‘Mm. An unusual name, isn’t it? Scottish, I believe. She came to Gran when my pa was born, then stayed on, and when Mark and me arrived she was our nanny too. She’s part of the family really, when she remembers who she is. Mostly, these days, she’s in love with the Prince of Wales!’
‘But we haven’t got a Prince of Wales! He shoved off with Mrs Simpson.’
‘Nanny chooses to ignore that, poor thing. She was such a love. Now, she’s in a world of her own most times!’
‘And you go along with it?’
‘We-e-ll, she’s no trouble, really. You’ll soon get used to her ways.’
‘And Mrs Kenworthy?’
‘Darling Gran. She doesn’t have much of a time of it. You’ll be kind to her, won’t you, Meg? Often, especially when the weather is cold, she’s in pain; sometimes her hands are so bad she can’t hold a cup. She doesn’t complain, though, and she’ll be so pleased if you pop in from time to time, ask her if she’s comfy – maybe have a little chat. She hasn’t been downstairs for ages, poor love.’
‘Then wouldn’t it be better if she was?’ Meg reasoned. ‘When Ma got real bad, I made her a bed on the living-room sofa.’
‘We’ve thought about that, but someone would have to sleep downstairs, then, and there isn’t room. It’s one of the reasons we need you, Meg. Mummy gets tired sometimes.’
‘Then it’s a good job you’ll be getting an extra pair of feet,’ Meg smiled as they came into the courtyard from the far end. ‘And doesn’t the house look lovely, all covered in flowers?’ Her mother might once have stood at this very spot and felt as she did, Meg marvelled.
Ma? She sent out her thoughts as they passed the pump trough. Do you know I’m here?
There was no reply; she hadn’t really expected one. But a red rose that trailed over the doorway blew in the breeze as if it were nodding to her, telling her what she needed to know.
‘Here we are, then!’ Polly pushed open the door. ‘Welcome to Candlefold, Meg Blundell, and I do hope you’ll stay.’
‘I hope so too.’ Meg returned the smile, and contentment washed over her.
Oh, but she would! She had come home to Candlefold and to Ma, and no doubt about it, she was stoppin’!
‘So you’ve come, Meg!’ Mary Kenworthy – Mrs John – stood at the door, drying her hands. ‘I’m so glad. Be a dear, Polly; pop and tell Nanny I’ll be up in five minutes! She’s been ringing her bell for ages and I was determined not to answer it until I’d peeled the potatoes!’
‘OK,’ Polly sighed, disappearing.
‘Well, now that I’m here, peelin’ potatoes will be my job, and once I’ve met Nanny, I’ll run up and down when she rings. But should you be waitin’ on her, Mrs John? Why can’t she come down once in a while? Is she bad on her feet, or somethin’?’
‘No. It’s just her mind that’s sick – muddled. Nanny lives in the past, you see, and the nursery is her domain still. She sleeps in the night nursery and the day nursery is her sitting room. She insists the stairs are too much for her, but it could be because she doesn’t want to leave her rooms. Yet there must still be some semblance of reason in her head, because I think she’s unwilling to come downstairs in case the present catches up with her! She knows that Mark has joined the Army. She just wants to pretend she has children in the nursery still, and the war hasn’t happened. My husband was severely wounded in the last one – his abdomen and chest. He died when Polly was four. Nanny never forgave the Kaiser!’
‘So when this war started she decided to ignore it?’
‘She was already getting a little vague; when she found we were at war again it seemed to be the last straw. And when Mark left, that was it! She just lapsed into her long-ago world. She’s eighty, you know. Best we go along with her little moods, I suppose. She was so good to me when John died. I don’t know how I’d have pulled myself together if it hadn’t been for Nanny.’
‘But she rings her bell to call you like a servant, Mrs John – surely, that can’t be right?’
‘No, but understandable. She’s back in the days when we had a staff to run the house – we never called them servants, Meg – and she still thinks she’s only got to ring.’
‘Well, she won’t be ringing till she finds her bell,’ Polly grinned from the kitchen doorway. ‘I’ve hidden it behind the curtain. I’ll take you to meet her after lunch, Meg. You’ll learn to humour her. She’s no trouble really. If she gets a bit bossy you just walk away!’
‘But why do you have to put up with such a carry-on? I mean, she isn’t family.’
‘No, but she’s Nanny,’ Mary Kenworthy smiled gently, ‘which is pretty much the same thing. And she stayed with us through good times and bad. Almost family, Meg.’
‘Ar. I see,’ Meg nodded, though she didn’t see at all! That Nanny seemed a right old faggot! In the photograph she’d had a mouth on her like a steel trap! Nanny Boag and Master Mark her mother had written on the back of the picture of Polly’s brother in his christening gown.
But no one here knew about the photographs of Candlefold and no one would get to know until she was good and ready to tell them. Good-hearted though they were, and decent to a servant who’d got into trouble, Meg wanted to find out for herself how it had really been, and not be told kindly and gently about it by an embarrassed Mrs John. Because that was how it would be if ever she admitted being Dorothy Blundell’s daughter, and herself born at Candlefold!
‘By the way,’ Polly giggled, ‘Nanny is busy at the moment sticking pins into a newspaper picture of Mrs Simpson. I’ll leave her to it and take you up there, Meg, when she’s
