Never Look Back by Lesley Pearse Page A

Reverend might be easy to fool. But I’m not.’
    Matilda wasn’t surprised by this response, cooks and housekeepers were notorious for shielding their employers. In as few words as possible she explained what had occurred.
    Aggie slumped down on to a chair and looked astonished. ‘You jumped in front of a galloping horse?’
    It wasn’t so much a gallop as a canter, but there were four of them, so Matilda nodded.
    Aggie’s face softened and she touched her eyes with the bottom of her apron, all hostility gone. ‘Well I never,’ she exclaimed. ‘You were a brave girl. No wonder Madam brought you home. I’d better look at your wounds.’
    The smell of meat and gravy wafting around the kitchen was so tantalizing Matilda was tempted to ask for food first, but shewasn’t brave enough. She turned round so the older woman could view her back.
    Aggie tutted but touched the wound gently. ‘Your dress is all stuck to it, and it’s none too clean either. I think you could be doin’ with a bath, miss.’
    Some time later when Matilda was at last allowed to sit at the table with a plate of stewed lamb and vegetables in front of her, she wondered for a moment if she was dreaming all this. Was she really eating this huge dinner? Had she really had a real bath? Was the clean grey dress she was now wearing really for her?
    It was a house of miracles, that much she was sure of. Aggie had taken a fruit pie out of the stove, all perfect and golden just like the ones in the bakeries. Out in the scullery next to a sink there was a big tub thing with a fire beneath it which Aggie called the boiler, she’d turned a tap and drawn out hot water into a pail to fill a tin bath. Matilda was shocked to find she was expected to take off all her clothes and climb into it. A bath to her was just a wash-down all over, when her brothers and father were out, and she washed her hair under the pump outside.
    Aggie had overseen the whole thing, including washing her hair for her. She’d tutted over the wound on her shoulder and said she hoped it wouldn’t leave a scar. Matilda wondered why anyone would worry about a scar on her back, it wasn’t as if she’d ever go around in a low-cut dress like ladies did.
    But as if washing with proper soap wasn’t enough, after she’d dried herself, and had ointment put on her back, Aggie came back into the scullery bringing a whole armful of Lily’s old clothes for her, not just a dress but a cotton shift, two flannel petticoats, a pair of stockings and boots. There was even a pair of drawers, something Matilda hadn’t ever worn before. The boots were just a bit big, but that didn’t matter, they were comfortable, with no holes in them.
    She felt like a lady. Clean, sweet-smelling and lovely.
    Aggie glanced over her shoulder at the young girl eating her dinner and winced as she saw the way she used only the knife and pushed the food on to it with her fingers. But she had cleaned up well, her hair was as shiny as buttercups now it was washed, hanging loose over her shoulders. A pretty little thing with her sweet smile and her lack of cheek. Aggie hadn’t even seen any lice on her, and she’d looked hard enough.
    Aggie had been housekeeper at the parsonage for eighteen years. The Reverend Hooper had taken her on when she was widowed and left with four small children. In those days the children came with her to work, sitting out here in the kitchen or playing in the garden while she cleaned, washed and cooked for the old man. When the Milsons arrived nearly seven years ago, she had resented them bitterly. She had been used to doing everything her own way, in fact she’d come to treat the parsonage as if it were her own home. But Lily Milson changed all that. Suddenly it was ‘Spring-clean that room,’ ‘This needs a good polish,’ And ‘That isn’t the way I like this or that cooked.’ She was forever in the kitchen, poking her nose into every last thing. Yet Aggie came round to her when she saw