If You Were the Only Girl

  ANNE BENNETT

  If You Were the Only Girl

  Copyright

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London, SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.com

  Copyright © Anne Bennett 2012

  Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007359233

  Ebook Edition © January 2013 ISBN: 9780007383702

  Version: 2015-07-13

  I would like this book dedicated to Judith Kendal in recognition of the many things she has done for me in our twenty-year friendship.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Aftermath

  About the Author

  By the same author

  Keep Reading – If You were the Only Girl

  About the Publisher

  Acknowledgements

  As always, thanks must go to the fabulous team behind me at HarperCollins, my editor Kate Bradley, my publicist Elinor Fewster, Amy Winchester her assistant and Yvonne who does the second edits. Special thanks must also go to Susan Opie who does such a marvellous job copy-editing my work and my agent Judith Murdoch for she is always there for me should I need her help. It is very comforting for a writer to have such a strong team at their back and I owe a debt of gratitude to you all.

  I can also always rely on the support of the family: my husband, Denis, my three daughters, Nikki, Beth and Tamsin, my son, Simon, the outlaws, Steve, Carol and Mark, and the five grandchildren, Briony, Kynan, Jake, Theo and Catrin, who help to keep me grounded.

  But the most important people are the readers – you out there who buy the books or borrow them from the Library – for without you there would be no point to what I do. And when you write and tell me what you think of the books, it means an awful lot, and I am immensely grateful to all of you. One thing I am always asked is how I get the ideas for the books and sometimes there is something that sparks it off, but for this one I cannot claim any Damascus moment, it just popped into my head.

  As always I did a lot of work on research. The Internet is a wonderful tool and I could not manage without it, but I also use books such as Niall Noi-gallach’s book, Our Town, which is a history of Letterkenny. I also used Sutton Coldfield in the Forties by John Bassett, Catholics in Birmingham by Christine Ward Penny, Life on the Home Front, which is a Reader’s Digest publication, and the book that helped me so much in writing To Have and To Hold, Q E Nurse 1938–1957 compiled by Doreen Tennant, Jeffrey Wood and Ann-Carol Carrington and edited by Collette Clifford, which I once more found an invaluable resource. Last but no means least, I used Brum Undaunted by Carl Chinn which details Birmingham through the war and I was forced to buy another copy as the original fell apart through overuse.

  My editor came up with the title, If You Were the Only Girl and I didn’t like it. Every month I meet for lunch with fellow writers and I told them of the proposed title, expecting them to agree with the unsuitability of it and maybe between us come up with something better. However, to my amazement, they not only loved it but burst spontaneously into ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’. They sang it right through and then we sang it all together again, much to the astonishment of the hotel staff. In fact so positive were my friends that I began to see the title in a different light entirely and now I love it, so thank you Kate.

  I particularly like the fact that it tells the story of the novel very well indeed and researching it, I found that it was written by a man called Nat D. Ayer with lyrics by Clifford Grey. As it was first published in April 1916, with the war raging and just before the bloodiest battle in the First World War at the Somme, in July that same year, I could imagine any soldier being ripped from his girl by war might also wish they were the only two in the world.

  So that’s it really. Another one to hit the shelves, and if you would like to hear a little more about me and mine and more about the books, too, please sign up for my newsletter. Contact details on my website (www.annebennett.co.uk). Look forward to hearing from you.

  ONE

  Lucy Cassidy saw Clara O’Leary for the first time that she could remember that dull Sunday morning in late October as they were leaving the Sacred Heart church in Mountcharles, County Donegal, after early Mass. Clara was her mother, Minnie’s, oldest friend.

  ‘Since we were girls,’ her mother had told Lucy. ‘Even after we married we were friends, and then when you were born just a fortnight after her daughter, Therese, we were so happy to be young mothers together.’

  Then Clara’s husband, Sean, developed typhus. He was a strong man, however, and was fighting the illness, but Therese caught it from him, quickly grew very ill and died on Lucy’s birthday.

  ‘Every year I think of that,’ Minnie said. ‘Sean had got over the worst and was recovering, but at the death of his small daughter it was as if he had given up and a fortnight later he died too.’

  ‘And that’s when her brothers took Clara O’Leary back to England?’ Lucy would prompt, though she knew the story well.

  ‘After Sean’s funeral,’ Minnie said with a nod. ‘And she’s never been back until now. Of course, it was a terrible tragedy and I don’t think you ever really get over a thing like that.’

  Lucy thought privately that Clara O’Leary looked as if she had got over it well enough, for she was so elegant. Only the few very rich in Mountcharles’s parish could afford such clothes as she wore. She even had fur mittens to match her hat. How Lucy, whose gloveless fingers would throb painfully in the winter months, envied her those. Clara’s grey melton coat had the same black fur around the collar and cuffs, and Lucy gave a little gasp when she caught sight of Clara’s warm-looking, snug-fitting boots. Any boots Lucy had were either too large or toe-pinchingly small, often leaky and always heavily cobbled. She looked down with a sigh at
the battered boots that she had thrust her benumbed and stockingless feet into that morning before Mass.

  Lucy could hardly believe that this woman was the same age as her mother. She looked years younger. She was a little plumper, and she had a kindly face with pink-tinged cheeks and bright blue eyes. Her hair wasn’t grey-streaked but dark blonde and caught up in an elaborately woven bun at the nape of her neck, fitting so tidily under the hat.

  As Clara drew nearer, Lucy saw her blue eyes widen with surprise as her mother introduced all of them: Lucy herself, and Danny, who was two years younger than she was, her nine-year-old sister, Grainne, and her two young brothers, Liam and Sam, who were seven and five.

  Clara, observing her friend’s eldest, wasn’t merely surprised, she was totally shocked because Lucy was so thin and small, the size of a child of ten or eleven. She had seen her standing with the others, but had assumed she was a younger sister to the child she remembered. Lucy’s tawny-coloured hair was thin and straggly, and her deep brown eyes stood out in a face that was so gaunt it was like looking at a very old woman.

  Lucy shifted her feet a little at Clara’s scrutiny, well aware that though she was wearing the smartest clothes that she possessed, her coat was far too short, the sleeves barely reaching her bony wrists, and she had a struggle to fasten it across her chest. Beneath the coat was a thin dress, which was also far too short, and with all the goodness washed out of it, totally unsuitable for the weather, even with the threadbare, darned cardigan she wore over it.

  Clara took all this in, noting as well how the arms and legs of all of the Cassidy children were stick thin, and pity washed over her. But she pushed it away before she addressed herself to Lucy in a cheery way. ‘Well, well, Lucy, I last saw you as a toddler, running and tumbling about the place, and here you are, almost a young lady. You will be fourteen now, won’t you, my dear?’

  Lucy gave a little bob of her knee and tried to smile at the woman her mother set such store by, and it tore at Clara’s heartstrings as she said, ‘Yes, Mrs O’Leary, just last week.’

  Clara knew that Minnie’s husband, Seamus, had died six months before, for the old friends wrote to each other often, and Clara knew too that she should have come home and not just sent a Mass card, but she never dreamt that the family would be reduced to such penury so quickly. She also had a sense of unease when she saw the shabby state of the sparse cottage, which was none too warm, though Minnie soon poked new life into the fire and threw on more turf, causing a flickering glow to develop under the porridge she had left cooking in a large double pan.

  ‘Take off your coat,’ she said to Clara, ‘or you’ll not feel the benefit when you go out – Lucy will lay it on the bed in the room – and then come up and sit here before the fire. I will have it ablaze in a moment.’

  Clara did as she was bid and watched Minnie swinging the kettle above the heat of the fire as she took the porridge pan off the hook. Clara was shaken by how little of the thin porridge was ladled into the children’s bowls laid ready. Minnie had none herself but she made tea for them both.

  ‘And I have some soda bread too,’ she said. ‘It would be a poor day altogether when someone is offered a bare cup of tea in my house.’

  Lucy’s mouth watered at the thought of soda bread spread with butter, for the porridge did little to fill her up. She knew that’s all there was, though, and she suppressed the sigh and watched her mother making tea and slicing and buttering the precious loaf.

  Clara heard the slight release of breath and saw the children watching her, the younger ones, eyes alive with hunger, but when she tried to refuse the bread, Minnie turned from the fire and looked at her friend steadily.

  ‘Leave me some pride, for pity’s sake,’ she said. ‘God knows, I haven’t much else.’

  Clara dropped her gaze as she mumbled, ‘I’m sorry, and you’re right. A cup of tea and some soda bread would be lovely.’

  She said nothing more until this was set before her. Then she said, ‘First of all, Minnie, let me say how sad I was to hear of the death of Seamus. It must have been a heavy blow for you with five children to provide for.’

  Lucy caught her breath. She still grieved for her father and her heart had an ache in it whenever she thought of him.

  Her mother replied in a thin, watery voice, ‘It was, but, you know, in the end his death was a blessing because he was suffering so much. And he had been ill for such a long time.’

  Lucy knew that only too well.

  Casting her mind back while Clara and her mother spoke together, Lucy remembered that when she had been a small child, her father had seemed to be the strongest man in the world. He worked for Farmer Haycock and he was a hard worker and always gave of his best. He was made up to head cowman, and would have been given a cottage too, but Minnie had inherited one from her parents when they died and as it was only a couple of miles away from the farm they decided to stay there. Many times Minnie was thankful for that decision, for once Seamus grew too sick to work, they would have had to leave any farm cottage so another cowman could live in it.

  Lucy was not aware of this at the time; she came to that realisation as she grew. As a young child she knew only that when her father came home from work the house became alive. She would fall upon him as soon as he was through the door, and in time Danny did too. Their father would toss the children in the air with ease and they would scream with delight. There was a lot of laughter in their house then, and a lot of singing. Both Seamus and Minnie loved the old songs they had learnt from their parents, and Lucy loved to hear them because it made her feel happy, safe and secure.

  ‘It was when I was expecting Sam that I first realised that the cough Seamus developed after a bad cold was still bothering him,’ Minnie said. ‘I didn’t take that much notice at first. Seamus always claimed he was fine and, as he said, everyone has a cough now and again, but his didn’t clear up and he would be grey-faced when he came home from work. The children were confused because he wasn’t able to play with them any more. All you could hear in the evening was the rasping sound of his chest and the relentless cough but we had no money to spend on doctors. I started to grow vegetables in the back garden because I couldn’t think what else to do. My priority was feeding the children and keeping the lot of us out of the poorhouse. By the time Sam was born, Seamus was too ill to work and in the end I had to find the money to have the doctor in.’

  Lucy remembered the night the sounds from her parents’ bedroom wakened her and she had slipped out of the bed that she shared with her sister and ran across the landing, soon joined by Danny, still flushed from sleep, his hair tousled. Minnie was standing in the bedroom doorway, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock, and Lucy saw there were splashes of blood on her threadbare nightgown. Then she saw her father on the bed making guttural noises as the blood pumped from him in a scarlet stream. The spasm was over when the doctor arrived, but the evidence was there for him to see.

  Lucy heard him tell her mother that her father’s first haemorrhage was unlikely to be his last because he had TB, which was highly infectious.

  ‘Keeping him at home any longer is madness,’ the doctor had barked. ‘You are risking your own life and that of your children. You must agree that Seamus is taken to the sanatorium immediately or you are risking your whole family being wiped out with it.’

  ‘Seamus said he must go when he heard what the doctor said,’ Minnie told Clara now. ‘None of the children saw him again and he lasted only six months after that.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Clara said in agreement. ‘It’s hard to see them suffer.’

  ‘Well, you would know about that, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ Clara agreed, ‘and the memories were raw in the beginning, but I wasn’t the only one to suffer a loss. There is only one thing to do and that is to go on as you are doing and fulfill your intention of keeping the children alive and out of the poorhouse.’

  ‘Aye, so far,’ Minnie said. ‘Sometimes, though, I feel as if
I’m balanced on a knife edge. You went to Birmingham and made a new life for yourself – made up from lady’s maid to housekeeper within three years.’

  ‘The aftermath of the Great War helped me there,’ Clara said. ‘The war had given women and girls greater opportunities and after it fewer girls were looking for “in service” work.’

  ‘Did you not mind going to live with strangers?’

  ‘Not really,’ Clara said. ‘My brothers were very kind to me but I knew I couldn’t be beholden to them and their wives for ever. By taking a job in service I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back and plenty to eat, and though the wages weren’t much to start with, they have improved with time. And that is where I can help you, Minnie, I am looking for a new scullery maid and your Lucy is of an age to work.’

  ‘In Birmingham?’ Minnie cried. ‘I could never countenance her being so far away.’

  ‘Now would I ask you to?’ Clara said. ‘I know how precious daughters are. But this is the beauty of it. The Master of the house where I work, Lord Charles Heatherington, was a general in the army and was recently badly hurt in a skirmish in India. He spent months in hospital and eventually insisted on being shipped home where he said he could be nursed just as well. I would say he was right, too, because he is cared for by his batman, a man called Rory Green, a taciturn Scot who is devoted to the Master. Anyway, the Mistress decided that a change of scene and peace and quiet are what her husband needs now and they have taken charge of a large house in its own grounds, a place called Windthorpe Lodge, just outside Letterkenny.’

  ‘Donegal Town is a long way from there.’

  ‘That doesn’t really matter,’ Clara said. ‘All the positions are “live in”, you see. I have a housemaid and a kitchen maid, both a bit older than Lucy, and I am short of a scullery maid.’

  Clara knew that she didn’t need to be short of a scullery maid, that she could have filled the post ten times over, but though in her letters Minnie never moaned, Clara had known things would be tight after Seamus died and she often worried that she could offer her friend no help. Then Lady Heatherington started making plans to decamp to the North of Ireland for a while and Clara thought straight away of helping her old friend by offering Lucy employment.