All The Days of My Life by Hilary Bailey Page B

house, upstairs and down, pushing all the bellpushes in all the rooms, bedrooms, dining room, drawing room and library, and try to get back to the kitchen before any of the brass bells across the door had stopped vibrating. She had never managed it yet, even though the bell in the big bathroom was broken.
    Mrs Gates went out of the kitchen to answer the bell and Mary opened the oven door to see what there was for supper. It was shepherd’s pie.
    Mrs Gates stood in the kitchen doorway, observing her. She said, without feeling, “I’ve told you time and again not to open that stove door without asking.” Mary looked at her guiltily. “Anyway,” said Mrs Gates, “you’re wanted in the drawing room for some reason. Take that mac upstairs, put them wet shoes by the fire and go straight up and give yourself a tidy – change those socks, put your sandals on and brush your hair.”
    â€œWhat am I going in there for?” asked Mary.
    â€œI don’t know,” said Mrs Gates, grimly.
    â€œWill they let me have a bit of cake? Is it chocolate?” Mary asked excitedly.
    â€œThey might,” said Mrs Gates. “But don’t go begging for it, mind. Wait till you’re asked.” She stood on the flagstones, after Mary had trotted out to get ready, and said, “Something funny going on.” Then she started spooning jam into a cut glass bowl. As she did so she tried to work out why the evacuee was being summoned in to tea in the drawing room. At five years old. Perhaps Lady Allaun was trying to prove to some bigwig she was doing her bit for the war effort. But that theory seemed unlikely and, even with her sophisticated knowledge ofeverything which might take place in the household, she could not imagine what the answer to this could be. The limousine, driven by a chauffeur in civilian uniform, had come to the house at three. A tall, middle-aged man, obviously, to Mrs Gates’s experienced eye, someone of dignity and importance, had come in. Mrs Gates knew that Lady Allaun did not know him. At four the bell had rung for tea. At four-thirty, with a batch of fresh scones and a fresh pot of tea made, she had to prepare Mary Waterhouse to go in to the drawing room. Not
The Times
, interviewing the better class of home for evacuees, she thought. Not the police, come to say the Waterhouses had been killed in a raid. Had it got something to do with that letter from Mary’s mother announcing the birth of a little sister? Not likely, thought Mrs Gates, that anyone so posh would arrive to discuss the birth of a Shirley Waterhouse, in the drawing room. It made no sense at all.
    â€œSo it’s a big, front bedroom for you now, madam,” said Mrs Gates, who was on her knees, polishing the wood surrounds from the skirting boards to the edge of the faded green and gold carpet of the large bedroom. “Well – get your dusters and give us a hand then.”
    So Mary went off and got the little pinafore Mrs Gates had made for her, the one with the pink rabbit on the front, and collected her dusters from her own corner of the cleaning cupboard and ran upstairs again to help. She liked the room. It was important. It was above the library. There was a big carved chest under one window. There was a dressing table, made of inlaid wood, for Mary to put her clothes in. There were two little tapestry chairs under the other window. The heavy, faded green velvet curtains had been taken down for a good airing. The dusty grey-green carpet had been vacuumed. She even had her own bellpush.
    â€œI’ve got my own bell, now,” said Mary with satisfaction as she pushed her rag into the polish and smeared some on the floorboards.
    â€œWoe betide you if you use it,” said Mrs Gates.
    â€œI might get scared,” Mary said. “Why am I moving my room?”
    â€œI told you – it must be to do with Tom coming home,” said Mrs Gates.
    â€œIs he nice? Will he