One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens

Author:Monica Dickens
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448116096
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter Ten

AFTER EASTER THE house party began to break up, and by the end of the holidays everybody except a few insignificant female relations and one or two of the younger children had gone. There were always guests at the week-end, but most of the time life was delightfully slack after the turmoil of work to which I had been accustomed. We grew fat and lazy in the kitchen, though Mrs Lewis still chivvied us around to keep us up to the mark. The pretty parlourmaid Mildred went home and the pantry maid ceased to appear every day, which meant that Polly didn’t have any less to do, as she had no one to help her with all the kitchen washing up. I let her off helping me with the cooking, as she really wasn’t much use anyway, and either hard work or unrequited love was making her look pasty and peaky. Jim Driver had got a girl in the village and he used to rush out like a dog every evening after supper and not return till quite late. He often went courting in one of his master’s cars, and if I was still awake I would hear him from my room returning to the garage. He was lucky not to be discovered. Sir Harold’s window was in the front of the house, and so was Mrs Lewis’s, but somehow he always got away with it.

One evening, much to my surprise, Jim came into the kitchen while I was cooking the dinner and said shyly: ‘Would you care to come for a wee drive this evening, Missis?’

I was too astonished to say ‘No,’ though I was rather scared at the thought of the risk of being seen in the borrowed car, and also I couldn’t make out what had become of Bessie, his girl. ‘You won’t say anything to the others now?’ he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the servants’ hall.

‘No, of course not,’ I said, rather thrilled at the prospect of this clandestine outing. He really was quite good-looking, and as he went out I noticed that the boils on the back of his neck were almost completely cured.

After supper I made an excuse for going up early, saying I had to write letters. I changed my apron for something a little more glamorous, and crept out of the back door when no one was looking. Jim was waiting in the road just above the garage, and I got into the front seat of the Daimler beside him. I felt most opulent as we hummed along the lanes for a while in silence. Jim seemed nervous, and didn’t talk much, and I didn’t want to say anything until I had discovered why I had been invited. Eventually he decided that we had gone far enough, for he suddenly braked and brought the car to a standstill on the grass verge of the road.

He leant towards me, and I was just going to slap his face in the best manner when I saw it was a cigarette he was offering me, and not a passionate embrace.

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