‘It’s the devil’s medicine, Alice,’ she said once. ‘Remember that.’
Ada was a spare- framed woman, prematurely grey, with shrewd eyes and a nature to match. She’d always known that the man she loved was not the sort to be relied upon, so three years ago she’d applied for the post of nanny to the five children of Professor Edward Carmichael, the eminent Bristol surgeon. And she couldn’t have known that the day she was ushered into the vast, high-ceilinged morning room at the big house in Clifton for her interview with Helena Carmichael, it was to change her and her daughter’s life for ever.
Mrs. Carmichael was a classically elegant woman with aristocratic, high cheek bones, widely spaced blue eyes and a perfect, sculptured mouth. Her blonde hair was swept up into a large shining knot on top of her head, and her pale, unblemished hands were calm and unhurried as her fingers turned the pages she was holding. Ada, slightly awe-struck to be in the presence of such a person, instinctively buried her own work-worn hands behind her bag, trying not to feel a lesser mortal. But Helena Carmichael’s friendly manner quickly laid any fears to rest, and after almost an hour’s conversation together, she’d said –
‘Well, I was very impressed with your letter of application, Mrs.Watts, and together with the glowing reference given to me by the vicar of St. Stephen’s church, I am quite certain that you are going to suit us very well…very well indeed.’ She’d glanced again at the papers in front of her. ‘So… I have great pleasure in offering you the position.’
‘Thank you, Madam,’ Ada had said quietly.
‘But of course – before you agree, I am sure you would like to meet the children? They are upstairs in the nursery.’
Ada had followed her future employer up the dark-oak winding staircase to the first floor, the whiff of polish, of orderliness, of affluence, making her senses swim briefly. She had never been anywhere like it before, but she had known such places existed because she had read about them often enough in classical literature. She wondered briefly if Mrs. Carmichael and her kind knew anything at all about how other people lived, just a mile or so away from here…the poverty, the squalor. Ada’s house was not squalid, and they were not that poor because her husband was employed. But the seven children living next door had no father that anyone was aware of, and often no shoes on their feet, either. Ada regularly took them in a basket of food when she knew things were really bad, and when the last baby had been born she’d helped another local woman to deliver the child, and for some months afterwards had done their pathetic washing.
Upstairs on the first floor, Ada had been ushered into the massive nursery where the children spent most of their day, overseen by the present nanny who was soon to depart to have her own child.
There were two sets of twins – the boys, David and John who were five, and the girls, Rose and Margaret, who were just two. None was identical, but they all shared the same tousled, curly hair, the same dark eyes. They were alert and interested as they gazed up at Ada.
‘Well, here they all are, Mrs. Watts,’ Helena Carmichael had said. ‘A tutor comes in each morning for two hours to teach the boys their lessons, and if at times it becomes necessary, I can always get you extra help with the girls. And of course, you have yet to meet Samuel, our eldest, who is ten, well almost eleven, and at boarding school. But he’ll soon be home for the holidays.’ She had glanced at Ada quickly. ‘And your own daughter…Alice….she is seven, I think you said?’
‘Yes,’ Ada had replied. Then, summoning all her courage she’d said deferentially – ‘Could I…may I have your approval that Alice comes up here at the end of each school day at 3 o’clock? I…I would not like to think of her home alone until I get back much later in the evening.’
‘Of course you have my approval!’ Mrs. Carmichael had replied. ‘And Alice must have her tea with you and the children. Cook bakes cakes most afternoons.’
‘Thank you, Madam,’ Ada said.
‘But…’ Helena had frowned briefly. ‘It’s surely going to be a very long walk for Alice all the way up here to Clifton, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, Alice is more than capable of walking the distance,’ Ada had replied at once. ‘She is strong, and very capable…a very sensible child. She will be happy to give me a hand with the children sometimes…I know she would love to read them their bedtime stories.’
Helena had nodded happily. ‘And you are quite sure that the hours will fit in with your own domestic requirements?’ she’d enquired. Ada was to come in by 8 o’clock each day to give the children their breakfasts, and to stay until 7 o’clock in the evening, after their baths. With Sundays and one afternoon off each week.
‘Quite sure, thank you, Madam,’ Ada had replied.
‘Then that’s all settled! We shall look forward to you being part of our staff…part of the family, Mrs. Watts,’ Helena had said.
‘Please call me Ada,’ Ada had said simply.
On the following Monday she’d arrived for work as arranged, and was formally introduced to Professor Carmichael. He was immensely tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and a fulsome beard, already tinged with grey. His granite-black eyes twinkled behind the spectacles he was wearing, and when he spoke, his voice was deep, and reassuringly personal…and he had a way of tilting his head to one side slightly. Which Ada found very engaging.
‘I do hope you will be happy with us, Mrs. Watts,’ he had said, adding, ‘and don’t let those rascally boys get the better of you, will you?’
Then almost immediately he had left the house to go to the Infirmary where he spent very long days in the operating theatre.
And for the next three years Ada had revelled in her new position.
Alice, too, soon became used to this way of life, could hardly wait for the end of the school day when, as fast as her legs could carry her she would half-walk, half-run up Park Street, and Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill until she came to Clifton Downs and the auspicious rank of elegant dwellings owned largely by wealthy merchants of the city – the Merchant Venturers, many of whom had made their fortunes from the slave trade. She would let herself in at the tradesman’s entrance and to the wonderful smell of Cook’s baking, before going up the back stairs – never up the front stairs which were for family, Ada had instructed her – to the nursery where her mother would be doing some ironing or amusing the children or helping the boys with a simple lesson their tutor had left them, or sometimes getting them to recite a poem or two.
Then bliss! Cook would lay tea on the wide table by the window and they’d all eat her wonderful cakes and biscuits and little sandwiches, usually finishing up with fruit from a huge crystal bowl. Sometimes Mrs. Carmichael would come up at this point, but not often because she was very busy with her charity work. Mrs. Carmichael was an amazing woman, Cook said, and it was a pity there weren’t more like her.
For Alice, her only problem was Lizzie. Lizzie was fourteen years old and was brought to the house every morning and collected each day after tea. Her job was to run errands and do odd jobs and help the two cleaning ladies who came in every other day. Alice knew that Lizzie hated her.
‘Lizzie hates me,’ Alice said to her mother one day.
‘Hate is a terrible word,’ Ada replied.
Before even a year had passed, it was arranged that a car would arrive in the morning to fetch Ada, and another one to collect Alice from school in the afternoons. That was all to do with the foul wintry weather they were having, Cook said at the time. Cook knew the reason for everything.
Not only that, on the week of merchant seaman Watts’s leave ashore, Mrs. Carmichael insisted that Ada worked a much shorter day so that she could be at home to spend some time with her husband.
Alice had loved