The Christmas Card: The perfect heartwarming novel for Christmas from the Sunday Times bestseller. Dilly Court
Clara’s arm. ‘We will call you Clara.’
‘She won’t like it, ma’am. I’ll get it in the neck if she thinks I’ve been blabbing to you.’
‘Then we’ll only call you Clara in private,’ Alice said, smiling for the first time that morning. ‘Now, if you’d care to show us to our rooms, Clara, we can unpack and be ready in time for luncheon.’
Clara pulled a face. ‘Don’t get too excited, miss. What her majesty calls luncheon wouldn’t feed a sparrow. I knows that only too well.’ She picked up the valise despite Beth’s protests, and with a great deal of heaving and pulling she managed to get it to the foot of the stairs.
‘Let me help.’ Alice could not bear to see such a small girl struggling valiantly with a heavy case.
Clara held up her hand. ‘I can do it, miss. Her majesty says it is lack of willpower if you can’t do things for yourself. I got to practise me willpower.’ She began to bump the case up the stairs and Alice picked up the valise, proffering her free arm to her mother. She shivered as an icy draught whistled past her head. Outside there was the promise of snow, but inside the Radcliffe domain the chill of previous cold winters lingered like a bad memory. The polished floorboards were bare of rugs and carpets, and the pristine expanse of whitewashed walls was unrelieved by the addition of pictures or mirrors. The sound of their footsteps echoed off the high ceilings as they made their way upstairs, and when they came to a halt the house reverberated with silence.
‘I’m so sorry, Alice,’ Beth whispered as Clara opened the door to a room on the second floor. ‘To have brought you to this breaks my poor heart.’
Alice glanced at the Spartan interior, comparing it mentally to her cosy bedroom in Doughty Street with its floral curtains, matching coverlet and brightly coloured rag rugs. ‘It’s not so bad, Mama,’ she said, forcing a smile.
‘Yours is next door, and it ain’t no better,’ Clara said gloomily.
‘I’m sure this will suit me very well.’ Beth slumped down onto the bed. ‘A few pictures on the walls will brighten is up.’
‘The missis don’t approve of anything what ain’t of a religious nature.’ Clara folded her skinny arms around her body, shivering. ‘There ain’t much she does approve of, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘We don’t, but you’d better not let her hear you talking like that,’ Beth said gently. ‘Anyway, this is better than being cast out on the streets. Misfortune brought us to this sorry pass, and we should be grateful to Jane for taking us in.’
Alice could not agree, but she was not going to make things worse by speaking her mind. ‘I’ll leave you to unpack, Mama. Where am I to sleep, Clara?’
Her room, she discovered, was identical, and as cheerless as a prison cell. She thanked Clara and sent her off with a smile, but when the door closed she sank down on the bed, which, as she had expected, was hard and lumpy. The four white walls seemed to close in on her, adding to the winter chill, and the only patch of colour in the room was the faded crimson and blue tapestry of her valise as it rested on the snowy Marseilles coverlet. An oak chest of drawers and a washstand with a white enamel bowl and jug were the other items of furniture, and a piece of drugget matting was the sole concession to comfort.
As she opened her case and started to unpack Alice could not help wondering whether this was her aunt’s idea of a punishment. She had never bothered to hide her contempt for her sister-in-law, and Alice had not forgotten a conversation she had overheard when Jane scolded Pa, insisting that he had made a mistake by marrying for love instead of choosing a woman of property. Alice knew that her uncle had done well in the City, but it was common knowledge that the house had been part of Jane Hubble’s dowry and she was inordinately proud of her family history. There had been a Hubble fighting the French at Agincourt, and somewhere along the line a Hubble ancestor had been elected to Parliament, and another had been a royal physician. Alice would not have been surprised if Aunt Jane had claimed that a Hubble had discovered the Americas. A wry smile curved her lips. Aunt Jane had been an only child, and her one surviving relative was a bachelor cousin, so it seemed that the name of Hubble was already consigned to history. That was a cross that Aunt Jane would have to bear.
Luncheon, as Clara had prophesied, was a simple meal. The dining room was huge, and might have been the refectory in a monastery for all the warmth and comfort it offered. Aunt Jane said grace, which went on for so long that Alice’s stomach began to rumble, which earned her a warning glance from her aunt. The meal for which they had to be truly thankful was bread and cheese with water to drink, and an apple for dessert. Jane ate her piece of fruit until all that remained was a single stalk. She frowned at Beth when she left the core on her plate.
‘We don’t waste food in this house. There are people starving on the streets who would be grateful for an apple core, let alone an apple.’
Alice and her mother exchanged meaningful glances, saying nothing.
Jane finished her water and replaced the glass on the table. She cleared her throat. ‘I’ve made arrangements for you to start work tomorrow morning, Alice.’
‘Work?’ Beth stared at her open-mouthed. ‘What sort of work? Alice isn’t trained for anything.’
‘My point exactly. You and Clement brought her up to be neither use nor ornament, but I have contacts through the Church, and as a favour to me a wife of a respectable and prosperous owner of a printing works has agreed to take Alice on to teach her daughter to draw and paint. There will, of course, be other duties for her to perform, but she will find that out when she starts tomorrow morning at seven thirty.’
After spending less than a day in Aunt Jane’s house, where the list of rules seemed endless and meals had to be earned by doing menial work, Alice decided that almost anything would be an improvement. Jane employed the minimum of servants needed to run the household. Cook and Clara lived in and there were a couple of daily women who came in to clean. Alice spent the afternoon polishing the silver cutlery and the brass cross and candlesticks from the small altar in Jane’s boudoir. Beth was given the task of cutting up a sheet that had already been turned sides to middle, but was now too worn to use on a bed. The resulting squares then had to be hemmed and the cloths used for cleaning and dusting. Jane was nothing if not frugal, although Alice knew that her aunt was a wealthy woman.
Supper that night was again taken in the cheerless dining room where a few lumps of coal smouldered feebly in the grate. ‘You should dress according to the weather, sister-in-law,’ Jane said sternly when she saw that Beth was shivering. ‘A woollen shawl is all you need.’ She glared at Alice who was about to pick up her spoon. ‘We will say grace.’
The soup was cooling rapidly by the time Jane came to the end of what turned out to be a sermon on gratitude aimed, no doubt, at her reluctant guests. Alice was too hungry to care and she spooned the vegetable broth into her mouth, wiping the bowl with a chunk of dry bread. She waited eagerly for the next course, but it did not materialise. Jane folded her hands, murmuring a prayer before rising from the table. ‘I spend my evenings studying the Good Book. You may do as you please, but bear in mind that candles cost money, and I don’t approve of fires in the bedchambers. We rise early in this house; therefore you should retire at a reasonable hour. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, Jane,’ Beth said meekly.
‘Yes, Aunt Jane.’ Alice sighed inwardly. She waited until her aunt had left the room. ‘I don’t think I can stand much more of this, Mama,’ she whispered, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Jane was not within earshot.
Beth rose wearily from the chair. ‘We haven’t much choice, my love. It’s this or the workhouse, and I know which I prefer.’ She leaned her hands on the table, taking deep breaths. ‘It’s all right, I’m quite well, just a bit stiff from sitting on a hard wooden seat. I think I might go to bed and rest. It’s been a long and trying day.’ She held her hand out to her daughter, a smile sketched on her thin features. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Of course