The Windsor Girl Read Free Page A

know.  Innocent young girls get caught, and sometimes, without knowing how’.
    ‘I suppose you right’, Dora agreed.
    ‘Aye, I am right, an d it’s not going to happen to my Ellie’, said Maggie, taking a swig of the stout. 
    ‘This stout’s a bit flat Dora, tastes like they’ve had it in a few years’.
    Dora thought, well, as you would say yourself Maggie, 'beggars can't be choosers '. But she dare not say it.
    ‘Anyway, as I was saying ‘, Maggie went on, ‘they’re very strict with them in them big houses you know, but they eat well and sometimes they give them clothes to wear.  She’ll get used to it and it’ll keep her out of trouble’. 
    She stopped talking long enough to notice that Ellie was a peculiar colour and very near to tears.  Maggie dare not show any softening of attitude now, so remarked, sharply, ‘well Ellie, say what you want to say and get it over with’.
    Ellie’s tears spilled down onto her soiled blouse as she blurted out her distress.
    ‘You’re talking as if I were not in the room.  I feel I am just an object instead of a human being.  I hate the thought of going into service.  It’s not what I want for myself Mother’.
    ‘I see we’re back to ‘Mother’ again, eh?’  Maggie made to raise her hand but something in Ellie's manner warned her that this was not a time to lash out in her usual way.  Instead she took a long gulp of the stout and said, ‘well you going and that’s that’.
    Dora put her arms around Ellie and tried to give her comfort. ‘There, there lass, don’t take on so, you’ll be alright, you’ll see’.
    Ellie got to her feet, ‘I'll go to the ‘big house’ because I see no other way, but I will not always be a maid Mother, you’ll see’.  Ellie ran upstairs away from her mother’s shocked eyes.
    ‘Well I never’, said Maggie, shaking her head, ‘I never thought our Ellie had it in her to talk that way.  Well, well, well’.
    ‘She’s growing up Maggie’, said Dora, ‘and she’s always been a bit different from the rest, if you know what I mean?’
    Maggie looked thoughtful, ‘I know what you mean Dora, she thinks highly of herself.  Tom was like that an all, always thought he were better than his mates but life brought him down with a bump.  I just hope Ellie won’t get hurt too much when it happens to her because she’s a good lass and deserves a better life’.
    ‘Aye Maggie, same as you do’.
    They continued to talk but Maggie kept seeing Ellie’s sad face and wished she didn't have to take her to the ‘big house’.  But needs must and that’s that , she thought, then pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind.

Chapter Three
     
    Monday morning arrived and Maggie awoke to the ‘knocker up’, tapping on her bedroom window with his long pole.
    ‘ Five o’clock, all a windy and a blowing’, he sang out.
    ‘Thanks Jack.  I’m awake’, shouted Maggie.  She turned to look at Ellie lying next to her, still sleeping despite the shouting.  A wisp of fair hair lay on her face and the rest of it billowed over the pillow, in waves of white gold.  Maggie wondered, at the sight of her, and could hardly believe that this lovely creature was, indeed, her daughter.
    ‘Well you didn’t get you good looks from me, my love.  And you father was no prince.  Yet there you are as beautiful as any princess’.
    As she whispered these words she was suddenly afraid that Ellie might hear her and quickly jumped out of bed.
    ‘Come on Ellie.  Time to get up.  You can’t lie in bed all day’.
    She dressed hurriedly, shivering in the bitter cold of the bedroom, and then made her way down the narrow stairs almost bumping into Thomas, who was already up and about.
    ‘The fire’s lit and the kettle’s on the hob Mam’.
    ‘ Eh! you a good lad when you want to be, Son’.
    ‘Aye, and I could have got you up this morning, an all.  I don’t know why you paid Jack to knock you up when you know I get up early