Letters To Alice

‘I’ll remember to do that, Lizzie,’ she said calmly, glancing up at the young, uniformed figure standing in the doorway of Alice’s new room – the room she would be sharing with her mother from now on.

‘Humph’, Lizzie snorted. ‘Anyway, you and your Ma were only asked to live in because of your Pa being killed. That’s what Cook said.’ A thin smile played on the pale lips. ‘A stroke of luck that he was, then, eh?’

Alice straightened up, tossing her thick, dark plait over her shoulder angrily, her green eyes flashing with savage indignation. Although her father had never been a constant member of the family – well, how could he be, with his job – Alice had always loved him dearly and the thought that anyone should think it was a good thing he was dead was obnoxious. She moved purposefully towards Lizzie – who involuntarily took a step back, realizing she’d gone too far.

‘Don’t you dare say that,’ Alice said quietly. ‘My papa was a valued member of the crew – the captain told my mother. And they were sorry that he’d died. Everyone was sorry.’ Alice bit her lip hard. She was not going to shed even one tear in front of the maid, even though the lump in her throat was nearly killing her. ‘What you just said Lizzie was…despicable!’

‘Ho! Hoity-toity! Des…des…picabubble…am I? What sort of word is that?’ Lizzie retorted.

Well, if you read some books you might know what the word meant, Alice thought.

Reading had been Ada, Alice’s mother’s solace during her lonely hours, and she’d instilled the love of literature in her daughter. Alice could read fluently by the time she was six, and she was seldom away from school.

‘Oh, just go away, Lizzie, I’ve got things to do,’ she said airily, turning away.

Alone at last, Alice sat on the edge of the big double bed for a moment, her eyes welling up with the tears she’d managed to hold back. Although her father had only ever been back for one week at a time, and then gone again for six, Alice always looked forward to his home-coming, for them to be together again, just the three of them, in the two-bed terrace house they rented in Hotwells. And Alice’s father would always bring them little presents from wherever he’d been, and tell them how much he’d missed them while he’d been away.

And Ada never once complained about the fact that her jovial husband spent much of his leave down at the pub with his friends, often coming home so drunk she had to put him to bed to sleep it off. And when, one day, Alice had commented on this fact to her mother, she had been gently rebuked.

‘It’s the way with some people, with some men, Alice,’ she’d said. ‘Your Pa needs to have one or two drinks when he’s ashore. God alone knows how he – how his ship – survived the Great War. He…he deserves to be able to relax when he’s ashore.’ But Ada herself never touched a drop of anything, and refused to have alcohol in the house.

‘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 this new life, loved everything about it, and young as she was she recognized this part of her childhood as having a story-book feel. The best of all possible worlds…

But most of all she loved being with Samuel when he came home from boarding school. She would listen, round-eyed, to all his tales…that he was having to learn Latin and Greek, and learn great chunks of the bible off by heart. That they all had to do “prep” after lessons finished, and that the last meal of the day was “supper” at 6.30 and that the food wasn’t very nice – not as good as Cook’s. And that he had to be up very early each morning, how he shared a “Dorm” with seven others and that everyone had to make their own beds. And about the pranks they played on each other and that no talking was allowed after lights-out. He told her about the sports they played, and that he’d been chosen as captain of their Junior House cricket team. To Alice, it was a dream fantasy world and she devoured everything Samuel was saying in his gentle, well-modulated voice as if she could catch some of it for herself.

And soon, they’d begun to write letters to each other, Alice using her careful, rounded handwriting to tell him about the goings-on in the nursery, and of her day at school. And Sam would write back, almost at once, always addressing his letters to the house in Clifton.

Then, a few weeks after Alice’s tenth birthday, when her father’s ship had just docked, they received terrible news.

Before his feet had even touched the ground, Alice’s father, drunk as a lord, had fallen overboard, crushing his arm badly against the side of the vessel. He was rushed to hospital but died a week later from an infection.

That had been seven weeks ago, and one day, Helena said –

‘Why not come and settle here with us, Ada? It would be more convenient for you than renting your home… Professor Carmichael and I have discussed it and we would love to have you living-in. The children adore you – and they adore Alice – so it would be good for all of us, wouldn’t it?’ She paused. ‘And with the housing shortage still so dreadful after the War, it would mean your place would be available for others.’

That point clinched it for Ada as she thought about it. Although it was true that it was just the girls – Rose and Margaret, to take care of during term time – since David and John had joined Sam at his boarding school – Ada was always happy to do general housework if required, and would sometimes help Betty do the vegetables – especially if the Carmichaels were entertaining. And if she and Alice did come to live here permanently, then they would be on hand at night time when the professor and his wife had to go out. There often seemed to be dinner engagements and various social occasions for them to attend. And for her own part, it would be a relief to Ada that she and her daughter were to be well-housed and well-fed, and that she no longer had the responsibility of finding the money for rent and household bills.

So Ada gave notice to the landlord of their furnished accommodation, and at the end of the month she and Alice packed their belongings into two large suitcases and a couple of bags. And watched by groups of curious neighbours, they shut the front door behind them and got into the car which had arrived to take them away from that part of their lives for ever.