Yes, Mama
Helen Forrester
From the author of four bestselling autobiographies and a number of equally successful novels, comes another moving tale.A triumph of innocence over hypocrisy…Alicia Woodman was born into a home that should have been filled with comfort and joy. Her mother Elizabeth was bright and vivacious, Humphrey Woodman was a prosperous businessman. But Alicia was not Humphrey’s child and he would have nothing to do with her, and before long Elizabeth, too, turned her back on her daughter.It was left to Polly Ford, widow of a dock labourer, to bring Alicia up, to teach her to say ‘Yes, Mama’ and to give the child the love she so desperately needed. In a hypocritical society full of thin-lipped disapproval, Alicia would learn that the human spirit can soar over adversity and that, though blood may be thicker than water, love is the most powerful relationship of all…
HELEN FORRESTER
Yes, Mama
Copyright (#ulink_09e4e283-ce11-59c3-bcb2-f757d9827977)
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd 1988
First published in Fontana Paperbacks 1988
Copyright © Helen Forrester 1988
Helen Forrester asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006174707
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007508235
Version 2016-12-30
Dedication (#ulink_5c57684c-39c2-569c-8659-c8112978504c)
ToNora Walton (Sylvia Poole)who was my friend when I mostneeded one.
‘The prejudices remain within society,within families and, above all, within the law.’
Virginia Ironside and Jane Horwood,
How can I explain to my daughter that
she isn’t a little bastard?
WOMAN magazine, November, 1986.
Contents
Cover (#u485e2d67-aaf8-54d7-83a6-097addbc8313)
Title Page
Copyright (#ulink_24d789a7-3052-5160-aa2d-1aa462889e0d)
Dedication (#udc1d5899-c697-58eb-b143-13b7f2a55236)
Epigraph (#u628a6d5a-e845-546d-9ab8-c4306b5d9cbb)
Chapter One (#uda81105f-0554-56dd-8058-49d3fc14aac0)
Chapter Two (#uf5ae2b65-8682-5ffa-ba78-2f96409ac836)
Chapter Three (#u3d34bf3b-b8cb-5975-88e2-8a00186ed6a7)
Chapter Four (#u90679c4f-6a5b-5573-aafb-e9caa3812001)
Chapter Five (#u46a4dcff-52ae-5910-96c9-71790d57c7af)
Chapter Six (#u85374274-0fde-554c-b974-66af2384f086)
Chapter Seven (#ubf757342-40e8-5379-866f-5211036b9aad)
Chapter Eight (#uc2432b28-a21c-5adf-b601-7a6556d949cd)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_8f0ee97a-d8bd-5412-9576-255c14479c6d)
I
Much to her mother’s annoyance, Alicia Beatrix Mary decided to be born on May 12th, 1886, during a visit to Liverpool of the dear Queen to open the International Exhibition of Navigation, Travelling, Commerce and Manufactures. On the day of Alicia’s slightly premature birth, the Queen was to drive down the Boulevard from Princes Park, on her way to St George’s Hall. As a result of Alicia’s arrival, her mother, Elizabeth Woodman, missed the chance of seeing her Sovereign.
Mrs Dorothea Evans, the wife of a Liverpool shipping magnate, had graciously invited Elizabeth to view the procession from her bedroom window, which faced the Boulevard. ‘If you wore a veil and a large shawl and came in a carriage, no one would realize your – er – condition. You could watch in absolute privacy from behind the lace curtains.’
Elizabeth had been thrilled by an invitation from such an eminent lady, who was herself to be presented to the Queen. She had looked forward to extending her acquaintance with Mrs Evans. She guessed that it would please Humphrey exceedingly if she were to make a friend of the wife of such an influential man – and Elizabeth knew that in the months to come, she would have to do a lot to mollify an outraged Humphrey Woodman, her husband of twenty-two years.
Between the painful contractions, as her forty-year-old body strove to deliver the child, she was consumed by anxiety, an anxiety which had commenced when first she knew she was pregnant.
Had Humphrey realized that the child was not his?
It was always so difficult to be sure of anything with her husband, she worried fretfully. He was so wrapped up in his multifarious business activities and the woman in the town whom he kept, that he rarely talked to his wife, never mind slept with her. But, of late, his usual bouts of temper had been so violent that she felt he must suspect her. And yet he had never commented on her condition.
Could it be, she wondered, that her huge skirts and swathing shawls had been a sufficient disguise, and that he had never realized her condition? She had found it difficult to believe, but she had still clung to the idea, hoping that she might miscarry. Now she prayed that, faced with a living child, he might use his common sense and accept it.
Peevishly, between gasps of pain, she commanded that the heavy, green velvet curtains be drawn over the ones of Nottingham lace. ‘The sunlight’s hurting my eyes,’ she complained to the midwife. Mrs Macdonald, a stout, middle-aged woman in an impeccably white apron and long, black skirt, sighed at her difficult patient and hauled the heavy draperies over the offending light. The huge, brass curtain rings rattled in protest.
‘I’ll need some more candles, Ma’am.’
‘Well, ring for them,’ panted Elizabeth.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Mrs Macdonald went to the side of the fireplace and tugged at the green velvet bell-rope.
Though the bell rang in the basement kitchen, the distant tinkle was answered immediately by Fanny, a skinny twelve-year-old skivvy, who had been posted outside the door by Rosie, the housemaid, with orders to bring any messages from her mistress to her while she snatched a hasty lunch in the basement kitchen.
The child opened the bedroom door an inch, and hissed, ‘Yes, Missus?’
‘Fanny, tell Rosie to bring us some more candles immediately and make up the fire,’ ordered Mrs Macdonald. ‘And bring another kettle of water – and a trivet to rest it on.’
‘I’ll do fire afore I go downstairs.’ A hand with dirt-engrimed nails gestured through the narrow opening of the door, towards the brimming coal scuttle by the fireplace.
Mrs Macdonald was shocked. ‘Good gracious me, no! A young one like you can’t come in here. Send Rosie up to do it.’
‘Ah, go on with yez. I’elped me Auntie last time.’
‘Don’t be so forward, young woman,’ snapped the midwife. ‘Get down them stairs and tell Rosie.’
‘She int goin’ to like doin’ my job. Fires is my job.’ Fanny shrugged, her thin lips curved in a grimace as she turned to do the errand. She was stopped by the sound of a querulous voice from the bed. ‘Mrs Macdonald, ask Fanny if Miss Florence has arrived yet – or Miss Webb. Or Mr Woodman?’ The voice sounded flustered, as Elizabeth named her husband.
‘Nobody coom to the front door, Ma’am, not since doctor coom an hour ago,’ piped Fanny.
‘Where is everybody?’ muttered Elizabeth exasperatedly. She moaned, as another bout of pain surged up her back and round her waist.
Mrs Macdonald answered her soothingly. ‘It’s early hours, yet, Ma’am. There’s no hurry. Just rest yourself between the pains.’
Elizabeth grunted, and clutched the bedclothes. The thud of Fanny’s big feet on the long staircase seemed to shake her and added to her fretfulness. Would the girl never learn to walk lightly?
Mrs Macdonald picked up a clean sheet and leisurely began to wind it into a rope. She looped this over the mahogany headrail and laid the twisted ends beside Elizabeth’s pillow, so that her patient could pull on it when the need to bear down became intense. On the bedside table by the candlestick lay a new, wooden rolling-pin; Mrs Macdonald knew from experience that mothers giving birth needed something to clutch when their pains really began.
‘Dr Willis should have stayed; he knows I need him,’ Elizabeth complained, as the surging misery in her stiff body subsided.
‘He promised to look in again in a couple of hours, Ma’am. Would you like a cup of tea, Ma’am?’
‘I’d rather have a glass of port.’
‘I wouldn’t advise it, Ma’am. It might make the baby sleepy.’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘Very well. I’ll have tea.’
‘That’s better. I’ll make a good, strong brew.’
Mrs Macdonald moved through the shadowy room to the fireplace to put a small, black kettle on to the fire. On a side table, lay a tray with a flowered teapot, a tea caddy and cups and saucers. The midwife liked to have tea handy and not be dependent upon a far-away kitchen. Tea always diverted a patient, made them feel that something was being done for them.
A soft knock at the bedroom door announced the arrival of Rosie, the housemaid, bearing a kettle of water and a brass trivet. Several long white candles stuck out of her apron pocket. She had not yet finished her lunch, and was cursing her employer under her breath, as she waited for Mrs Macdonald to bid her come in.
As she entered, Rosie composed her face. She handed the kettle, trivet and candles to the midwife and then made up the fire. She made a polite bob towards the bed and turned to leave.
‘Rosie,’ called Elizabeth from the depths of her supporting pillows.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Tell Maisie to show Miss Webb straight up when she arrives. You will all take your instructions from her. I also want to see my daughter, Mrs Browning, when she comes. Tell Cook that both ladies will probably be here for dinner.’ Elizabeth paused to take a big breath as a stab shot through her abdomen. Then she went on, ‘And, Rosie, none of the servants is to leave the house without Cook’s permission.’ She twisted suddenly in the bed and arched her back. ‘Ah!’ she cried.
Waiting to be dismissed, Rosie stood woodenly facing her, while the spasm passed. ‘Blow her,’ she thought, ‘just when I were thinkin’ I could nip out a few minutes to see the Queen. And Miss Webb is a single lady – she won’t want to come into a birthing room, any more’n she’d want to look into a midden full o’ garbage.’
Mrs Macdonald wrung out a cloth in cool, scented water and began solicitously to wipe the patient’s face. Elizabeth pushed her impatiently aside. ‘Has Mrs Ford come?’ she gasped to Rosie.
‘Yes, Ma’am. She’s bin waitin’ in the kitchen this past three hours.’
‘Send her up – I’ll see her – while I still can,’ Elizabeth ordered pessimistically.
II
Mrs Polly Ford was a widow, aged twenty-three. Six weeks before the Queen’s visit, her husband, a docker, had fallen into the hold of a ship and had died, almost immediately, of his multiple injuries. Two nights later, in her parents’ crowded cellar dwelling, his frantic widow had given birth to her first child.
Born on to a pile of rags in a windowless, waterless, heatless home, without even a clean sheet to be wrapped in, the baby boy had decided, three weeks later, that life was not worth living and had quit it. Polly wished passionately that she had been allowed to follow him. She was, however, a strong, healthy woman and, despite her despair, her milk surged in her.
Weeping helplessly, she had sat by a tiny fire lovingly built for her by her father, James Tyson. He had walked down to Seaforth sands to search for driftwood, in order to provide a little heat for her.
‘We didn’t know the babe was goin’ to come so quick – or be born here – and we run out of coal and money,’ he told her almost apologetically, his bearded face turned up towards her, as he knelt to feed the flames with chips from an old railway sleeper which he had found on the shore.
‘I know, Dad,’ she told him gently between her sobs. ‘You shouldn’t’ve took the wood from the sands – you could’ve been arrested for it.’
‘Och, I know that. Devil take the bleeders!’ He got up off his knees and stood leaning against the rough, brick chimney, the firelight catching the golden hairs of his beard and eyebrows. ‘What you goin’ to do now, duck?’
Her mother, Bridie Tyson, had been sitting beside Polly on the backless bench. Wrapped inside her shawl, to keep him warm in the foetid cellar of the court house, lay Billy, Polly’s baby brother. His wide brown eyes glittered, as he peeked out of the enveloping shawl to watch the dancing flames of the fire. Now his mother sighed, and asked, ‘Aye, what to do?’
‘She can stay with us,’ responded her husband immediately.
‘Aye, Dad, you’ve got enough trouble without me,’ Polly told him.
She looked helplessly round the tiny room, dimly lit from the open door leading to the steps up to the court itself. Down those steps, on wet days, trickled sewage from two overflowing earth lavatories which served the fourteen houses surrounding the court, to add to the overwhelming misery of the ten people living in her parents’ windowless room below ground level. But her father was a casual labourer on the docks, and this, though he was as good a man as ever heard a Wesleyan sermon, was the best he could provide for his family from his irregular earnings. Also living with him was his widowed sister-in-law and her five children.
Polly’s aunt had been sitting, almost unnoticed, on a three-legged stool tucked up by the fireplace. Under her black shawl, her stomach was swollen with pregnancy. She cackled suddenly, ‘Youse wet with milk. You could mebbe wet-nurse.’
Polly’s breasts ached with milk. She had let her little brother, Billy, suckle from her to ease the pain, but still the milk pressed within and damped her calico dress.
‘Some fine lady’d pay good for that – and you’d be well fed to keep it up,’ her aunt went on.
‘Aye, you’d live the life o’ Riley,’ her mother agreed eagerly.
James Tyson looked down at his womenfolk and shrugged. This was woman talk, and, anyway, it was time to go down to the dock gate again, to stand in the rain and hope to be picked out for half a day’s work. He patted Polly on the shoulder as he passed, and left them to it.
Through a grapevine of female cousins and aunts, inquiries went out to ask anyone in service whether their mistresses were expecting.
From Fanny, the little skivvy in the Woodmans’ house, came the information via her aunt, that the Missus was expecting any day and was proper mad at it. In Fanny’s considered opinion and judging from the gossip in the kitchen, she would be glad enough to be relieved of feeding the expected child and of looking after it; its nearest brother, Master Charles, was ten years old and had gone away to boarding school. His nurse had long since been let go.
On her Sunday afternoon off, Fanny visited her aunt in her tiny house in Shaw’s Alley and confided to her that a real blow-up about the child was expected daily, between her Master and Mistress. ‘It int his kid,’ Fanny told her. ‘And he’s got a temper like you’d nevaire believe. Always pickin’ on her, he is – and yet he can’t talk – he took up with a woman as keeps a tobacco and sweets, back o’ Water Street, downtown.’
Fanny bent to wring out a rag in a pail of cold water and reapplied it to one of her aunt’s eyes, which her husband had blackened the previous night. Her aunt was hardly listening to her niece; she was wondering dully if, after last night, she would be in the family way again, and she sighed at the very thought of it. It would be the fifteenth and, out of the whole bloody issue, only three of them full grown.
Wearily, she tried to give her attention to what Fanny was saying, and replied, with pity, ‘Well, you talk to Rosie and Mrs Tibbs about Polly Ford. The poor gel is broken-’earted and ’er Mam is near out of ’er wits over it.’
III
While Elizabeth Woodman’s affairs were discussed in one of Liverpool’s worst slums, Elizabeth herself had wandered round her handsome Upper Canning Street house through the last days of her pregnancy, and viewed with dread the birth of her child.
She had done her best to get rid of the child. She had drunk bottle after bottle of gin and had sat for hours in hot baths, while Fanny stoked up the kitchen fire to heat the water in the tank behind it, so that Elizabeth could keep renewing the water in her fine mahogany-encased bath in the bathroom. To no purpose.
She had even contemplated throwing herself down the main staircase in order to dislodge the foetus, but when she had looked at the steepness of the flight her courage had failed her.
She watched with horror her expanding figure and worried at her husband’s complete lack of comment about it. As the months went remorselessly by, his silence began to terrify her. They had not slept together for months. He must know it’s not his, she agonized. Is he going to ignore the fact or will he throw me out at some point? And where shall I go? What shall I do?
Perhaps it will be born dead, she thought hopefully. Then he won’t have to say anything.
But Alicia Beatrix Mary had no intention of being born dead; Elizabeth, Polly and Fanny would all have their lives totally altered by her existence.
Chapter Two (#ulink_7557659d-5f49-583f-900b-1969786c3709)
I
Fanny consulted Rosie, the Woodmans’ housemaid, about Polly. Rosie spoke to Mrs Martha Tibbs, the cook-housekeeper, an unmarried lady graced with the appellation of a wife because it was the custom.
In consideration of receiving Polly Ford’s first month’s wages, if she got the job, Mrs Tibbs graciously agreed to broach the subject of a wet-nurse with Elizabeth Woodman. Since nothing had been said to the domestic staff about the impending addition to the family, Mrs Tibbs went about the matter very delicately.
Bored to tears by three months’ confinement during the more obvious period of her pregnancy, anxious to keep the child away from her husband as much as possible, assuming it were born alive, Elizabeth was almost grateful to Mrs Tibbs and agreed to look at Polly.
It took the efforts of all her extended family to make Polly look respectable for the interview. She had a black skirt in which she had been married. A black bodice was borrowed from a distant cousin down the street; she had had it given to her by the draper whose tiny shop she cleaned. It had been eaten by moths at the back, but with Polly’s own black shawl over it, the holes would not show. A battered, black straw hat was acquired for a penny from a pedlar of secondhand clothes, after hard bargaining by Polly’s married sister, Mary. Polly’s mother washed and ironed her own apron to an unusual whiteness, so that Polly could wear it for the occasion. Polly had boots, though they were worn through at the bottom and were bursting round the little toes. ‘I’ll keep me feet under me skirt,’ said Polly dully.
Through all these preparations, Polly wept steadily. At her mother’s urging she suckled little Billy. ‘It’ll nourish ’im and it’ll keep the milk comin’, luv,’ her mother consoled her.
It was comforting to hold the small boy to her. Though as grubby as a sweep, he was a merry child, who laughed and crowed and tried to talk to her.
Before Polly could aspire to a job as an indoor servant, she had, somehow, to acquire a reference from another lady. At first, Polly’s mother had suggested that Mrs Tibbs’ recommendation would be enough, but, through Fanny, Mrs Tibbs herself insisted that Polly must produce a written reference.
‘Aye, she’s right,’ Polly agreed. Then, trying to make an effort for herself, she added, ‘Now I’ve got a hat, I could go and see that ould Mrs Stanley, and ask ’er.’
Before her marriage, Polly had cleaned the doorsteps and the brass bells and letterboxes of a number of elegant houses in Mount Pleasant. For five years, she had donkey-stoned the front steps of a Mrs Stanley, an ancient crone who claimed that she had once danced with King George IV. Mrs Stanley lived with a white cat and an elderly married pair of servants.
With feelings akin to terror, Polly pulled the bell of the servants’ entrance of Mrs Stanley’s house. The same bent, bald manservant she remembered answered it. He did not recognize her, and asked, ‘And what do you want?’
She told him.
‘I’ll ask the wife,’ he told her, and shut the door in her face.
She was almost ready to give up and go home, when a little kitchen-maid opened it and said shyly, ‘You’re to coom in.’
She was led into a well-scrubbed kitchen where, on a bare, deal table, a meal was laid for four. Bending over to poke the roaring kitchen fire was an elderly woman-servant. A good smell of roasting meat permeated the room; it made Polly’s mouth water.
The old woman straightened up. She wore a white, frilled cap tied under her chin and a grey uniform with a long, starched apron. Poker still in hand, she turned and said, ‘’Allo, Polly. What’s to do? Didn’t expect to see you again, after you was married.’
Polly explained her need for a reference. ‘To say I’m honest, like.’ She omitted to tell the woman that she had been widowed, because she thought she would start to cry again if she did so.
The older woman looked at her doubtfully. ‘Well, I’ll ask for yez,’ she said slowly. ‘I doubt she’ll even know your face, though. Ye ’ardly ever saw ’er, did yer?’
‘Not much,’ agreed Polly humbly.
‘I’ll go up. Sit down there.’ She pointed to a wooden chair set by the back entrance. Polly obediently sat on it.
A bell suddenly bounced on its spring in a corner of the ceiling and ting-a-linged impatiently. The manservant put on his jacket and went to answer it. The little kitchen-maid stirred the contents of an iron pot on the fire and carefully put the lid back on. A young woman in a pink-striped, housemaid’s dress put her head round the door leading to the rest of the house, and shouted, ‘Mary Jane, the Mistress wants her bath water. Hurry up.’
The kitchen-maid put her ladle down on to an old plate in the hearth. A somnolent kitchen cat slunk from the other end of the hearth and quietly licked it clean. The girl took a large ewer from a hook and swung it under the oven tap at the side of the huge kitchen fire. Boiling water belched into it. She grinned at Polly, as she waited for the water jug to fill.
Polly smiled faintly. Jaysus! Was she going to have to wait for the ould girl to bath and dress?
Two and a half hours later, by the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, Madam completed her toilet. The servants came at different times to eat their midday meal at the kitchen table. They ignored Polly as being so low that she was beneath their notice.
The morning-room bell tinkled. The manservant wiped his lips on the back of his hand, put on his black jacket and went upstairs. A few minutes later, he returned and said gruffly to Polly, ‘Mistress’ll see you.’
Her chest aching, her throat parched, her heart beating wildly from fright, Polly followed the old man along a dark passage and up two flights of stairs equally Stygian. ‘You’re lucky,’ he piped. ‘Mistress don’t bother with the likes of you that often.’
Polly kept her head down and did not answer. Surreptitiously, under her shawl, she scratched a bug bite on her arm. She was so inured to vermin bites that they did not usually irritate. Her mother had, however, insisted that she wash herself all over in a bucket of cold water, scrubbing her yellowed skin with a rough piece of cloth. It had made her itch. After that, both of them had gone over the seams of her clothes to kill any lice or bugs that she might be carrying. ‘You can’t help your hair,’ her mother had said. ‘I haven’t got no money to buy paraffin to kill the nits in it.’
The old servant pushed open a green baize door and suddenly she was in a blaze of sunlight coming through the stained glass of the hall window.
Blinking against the light, she tiptoed after the servant across the hall rug to a white-enamelled door.
The servant knocked gently, paused and then entered the room, while Polly, terrified, quivered on the red Turkey doormat.
‘Come on in,’ the old man breathed irritably. ‘She’s waitin’.’ He shoved Polly forward and closed the door behind her.
Before she lowered her eyes, Polly caught a glimpse of an incredibly thin woman, her heavy white hair done up elaborately on the top of her head. She was waiting bolt upright in an armless chair and was staring out of the window at the garden. Nestling in the folds of her grey silk skirt was a huge white cat. Heavily ringed fingers tickled the cat’s ears.
Polly stood silently looking at the richly patterned carpet, and waited to be noticed.
‘Well?’ the old lady barked.
Polly swallowed and then curtsied. She wanted to run away and cry, cry herself to death, if possible. ‘I’m Polly, Ma’am,’ she quavered, ‘wot used to scrub your steps and do the brass …’
‘I know who you are,’ snapped the voice. ‘What do you want?’
Polly glanced up at her erstwhile employer. The lady was still staring out of the window; the cat stared at Polly. ‘Well, Ma’am, I – er …’
‘For Heaven’s sake, speak up, girl.’
‘Yes, ’m, I’m wantin’ to get a job as wet-nurse to a lady called Mrs Woodman in Upper Canning Street – and I was wonderin’, Ma’am, if you would write a letter to her about me.’
‘A reference?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘A wet-nurse, humph? Have you been in trouble? I don’t believe in helping servants in trouble.’
‘Oh, no, Ma’am.’ Polly was shocked out of her fear. ‘I were a married woman.’ Her voice faltered, and for the first time, Mrs Stanley turned to look at her.
‘Lost the child?’
‘Yes, Ma’am. He was born a bit early – ’cos me ’oosband were killed – in the Albert Dock, Ma’am. It must’ve bin the shock.’ She gulped back her tears, and then went on. ‘’E fell in an ’old, Ma’am.’
‘How very careless of him.’
‘Yes, ’m.’ Tears coursed down the girl’s cheeks.
Madam stared at her thoughtfully. Everybody lost children; she had lost all hers. Still, it was depressing. And doubtless Mrs Woodman, whom she had met once or twice at parties, would be glad of a wet-nurse. She understood that, nowadays, they were difficult to obtain.
‘Have you been in service before?’
‘Yes, Ma’am. I were a tweenie when I were ten, ’elping the ’ousemaid empty the slops, and like. The Missus died … and then I found I could earn more specializin’ in doin’ doorsteps.’
‘Humph.’ Mrs Stanley’s lips curled. The lower classes were remarkable in their ability to survive.
‘And for how long did you – er – clean my doorsteps?’
‘Five year, Ma’am.’
‘Why don’t you go back to it?’
Polly heaved a sigh. She was so tired that she thought her legs would give under her. ‘Me Mam wants me to improve meself,’ she burst out, with sudden inspiration.
‘Very commendable. And do you go to Church, Polly?’
Polly had never been to Church in her life. And only once to an open air Wesleyan meeting with her father. She knew, however, what the answer must be. ‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. I go to St Nick’s – I mean, St Nicholas’s.’
‘Humph. Protestant, then?’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ replied Polly promptly, wondering suddenly what she really was, since her mother was a Roman Catholic and her father a Wesleyan.
‘Mrs Woodman is a Protestant, I believe.’
Polly did not care if Mrs Woodman worshipped golden idols, like the blackie seamen who walked the streets of Liverpool in silent, single files. All she wanted was three meals a day, to lessen the pain in her stomach, and a baby to suckle, to ease the pain in her chest; even the thought of suckling made her breasts fill and she could feel the milk trickling down to her waist.
Mrs Stanley smiled thinly. She did not care for Mrs Woodman, a fluttering widgeon of a woman with an upstart husband who dabbled in many commercial enterprises in Liverpool. Distinctly lower-class. She thought it might be amusing to send them a wet-nurse who was probably lice-ridden.
‘Bring my desk from over there and put it on this table beside me.’ Mrs Stanley gestured towards the far wall.
Polly did not know what a desk looked like and glanced, bewildered, towards the furniture indicated by the delicate white hand.
‘There, you fool – that – er – sloping box.’
Polly carefully lifted a pair of crystal inkwells and a matching candlestick off the desk and laid the desk on the table indicated. She then replaced the inkwells and candlestick.
Irritated, Mrs Stanley moved inkwells and candlestick to the back of the desk, so that she could open the lid and extract a sheet of paper, a goose-quill pen and a piece of sealing wax. In exquisite copperplate, she wrote To Whom It May Concern that Polly Ford was honest, industrious and had worked for her as a charwoman for five years. She was desirous of improving herself, and Mrs Stanley felt that she would give satisfaction.
She sanded the paper to dry the ink. She then took a phosphorus match from the candlestick, struck it and lit the candle. She held the stick of sealing wax to the flame and allowed a small drop to fall upon the letter and seal it closed. Into the molten wax, she pressed a ring from her forefinger, to imprint her own seal.
‘There.’ She turned in her chair and handed the note to Polly. With a bit of luck, that would give the odious Woodmans a fair amount of trouble.
‘Oh, thank you, Ma’am.’ Polly’s voice was full of genuine gratitude as she made a deep curtsey.
Mrs Stanley gave a stiff nod of acknowledgement, and then ordered, ‘Put the desk back on to the far table.’
‘Yes, ’m.’ Polly did as she was bidden, being particularly careful not to spill the red and black inks from their crystal containers. She then backed to the door, bobbing little curtsies as she went.
‘James will show you out. Pull the bell by the fireplace.’
The only thing by the fireplace which could be pulled was a long piece of embroidered canvas hanging from the ceiling. Polly hoped for the best and pulled it. Then she stood with hands neatly clasped in front of her and examined the pattern on the carpet. She was stupid, she told herself. She should have realized that she would have to be escorted out of the house in case she stole something. Not that I would, she told herself crossly.
The old manservant arrived with commendable promptness. ‘Yes, Ma’am?’
‘Show this woman out – by the servants’ entrance.’
‘Yes, Ma’am. Of course, Ma’am.’ He twisted his toothless mouth into a tight knot. As if he would ever show a member of the lower classes out of the front door. After fifty years of service, Madam ought to know that, he thought irritably.
II
Sent upstairs by Rosie, Polly stood with head meekly bowed and examined the blue and white Chinese carpet in Elizabeth. Woodman’s room, while her new mistress looked her over for a second time.
The young woman seemed healthy enough; and with a reference from the high-and-mighty Mrs Stanley and a personal recommendation from her cook-housekeeper, Mrs Tibbs, she should be satisfactory. Yet, Elizabeth smelled a rat. Mrs Stanley was notorious for her perverted sense of humour. A leftover from the wilder days of King George IV and King William IV, the old devil was capable of all kinds of japes and capers.
As she peered in the candlelight at the humbly bent head, a much sharper pain shot through her and she cried out. Mrs Macdonald came to the bedside immediately. She picked up the rolling-pin from the bedside table and handed it to the sufferer. ‘There, there, Ma’am. Hold on to this.’
Elizabeth clutched at the pin and gritted her teeth, as she waited for the next pang. She felt tired already, worn out from worrying over the coming child’s existence. She was petrified at the thought of the outburst which might occur from Humphrey when he actually saw the baby.
But if she employed this Polly Ford, the child could stay in the old nurseries on the top floor for months, and as far as Humphrey was concerned, out of sight might be out of mind. And she herself would be freed from the boredom of feeding the baby. She could go out and fulfil her social obligations, be free to spend afternoons with darling Andrew, as before, though they would have to be much more careful.
She let another spasm go over, managing not to cry out. Then she said to the midwife, ‘Mrs Macdonald, tell Mrs Tibbs to see that this woman is bathed, her head rubbed with paraffin, and her present clothing wrapped up tightly and sent to her home. Mrs Tibbs should have her uniform ready by now.’
‘Yes, Ma’am. I’ll ring for Rosie.’
Polly kept her head down. This was much better than she had expected. Both she and her mother had been worried about getting her a uniform, fearing that the pedlar might not give them credit. Now the clothes were to be given to her. If she had dared, she would have sighed with relief.
Elizabeth knew from sad experience that vermin could come into a house in a servant’s trunk. She took no chances and always provided uniforms.
Polly endured without comment the humiliating complaints of her fellow servants, as a tin bath was lugged up to the windowless box room which would be her bedroom. Loquacious Fanny hauled two ewers of hot water and one of cold up the endless stairs from the basement kitchen, together with a bottle of paraffin, a bar of laundry soap, a piece of flannel and a worn bath towel. ‘Mind you don’t make no splashes,’ she warned Polly.
Polly had never had a bath in her life; she had simply rubbed herself cursorily with a bit of cloth wrung out in cold water. Now, Fanny laid an old copy of The Times on the floor and said, ‘Take off all yer clothes and put ’em on this. Mrs Tibbs’ll get next door’s gardener’s boy to walk down with ’em to yer ma’s.’
Polly looked at the girl appalled. Take off everything?
As if she could read her mind, Fanny said, with a grin, ‘Everythin’, ’cept yer stockin’s and boots – you’re to keep them.’
‘Well, you go away, Miss, while I does it,’ snapped Polly defiantly. Even Patrick had never seen her completely naked.
At the thought of Patrick, tears welled. Fanny saw them, and said sympathetically, ‘Don’t take on so. They did this to me when I coom. Fussy, the Mistress is – wash all of you every day, she allus says.’ She glanced up again at Polly, still standing uncertainly by the bath. ‘These days, I fancy a bath meself now and then – takes the aches out of yez. I’ll bet she’ll make you scrub your dairies every day.’ She nodded her head like a disapproving old woman. ‘Proper finick, she is.’
While she waited for Fanny to leave the room, Polly sat down and unlaced her boots. One of the bootlaces broke and she looked at it ruefully, wondering where she would get a halfpenny from to buy a new one. ‘What’s the Master like?’ she inquired carefully – her mother had warned her long ago, when she had been a ten-year-old tweenie in a big house, to keep out of the way of the men of the house.
‘Himself? Och, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s got a fancy woman downtown. Maisie – she’s the parlour-maid – says the woman keeps ’im exhausted!’ Fanny chortled and looked wickedly at Polly. Then she said more soberly, ‘They do say as once he got a maid in trouble and the Mistress sent her packing. Nowadays, he don’t even notice you’re there, though. He’s got a lousy temper, though. Just keep out of his way of an evening when he’s drunk.’
Polly digested this advice, and then, as Fanny picked up her empty ewer and moved towards the door, she asked, ‘What part of town do you come from?’
Fanny laughed. ‘I dunno, for sure. I got an auntie wot lives in Shaw’s Alley, but I coom ’ere from the Workie. I were born in there – and bloody glad I was to get out of it. At least the Mistress don’t beat you. It were me auntie that got on to you.’
‘Is your Mam still in the Workhouse?’
‘Not her. She died when I was only an itty-bitty kid. The Workie Gaffer hit her one day for something she said – and she lay down and I remember she were cold.’
Polly did not bother to ask her where her father was. In her experience, fathers often remained unknown. She sighed and said, ‘It must’ve bin proper hard for yez.’
Fanny’s eyes twinkled. ‘I wouldn’t give a dead farthin’ to go through it again,’ she replied forcefully. Swinging her empty ewer, she turned and plodded down the stairs to the basement.
Polly quickly stripped off her blouse, skirt and stockings. She put a cautious toe into the steaming water and then stepped into it. It felt comfortable, so she carefully lowered herself into it and reached for the soap lying on the floor. She took the hairpins out of her plaits and loosened her hair. She found that holding the hot flannel to her breasts eased the ache in them and she was able to expel some of her milk. It would be a day or two, she realized, before the baby would be able to suck, and, in the meantime, she must keep the milk coming.
After she had dried herself, she kneeled down by the bath and uncorked the bottle of paraffin. Holding her breath because of its smell, she rubbed it liberally into her damp hair, until it dripped into the bath. Then, using a fine-toothed comb which her husband, Patrick, had given her as a present, she combed the long, damp locks until she reckoned she had all the lice out; the paraffin would kill the nits, so, if she were lucky, she would be free of them.
Two full-skirted, ankle-length, cotton dresses with petticoats to go under them had been provided. In Polly’s eyes, the dresses were beautiful, far nicer than anything she had ever worn before; they had narrow, blue and white stripes. There were three large white aprons to wear over them and three white cotton bonnets to pin over her hair. To go out-of-doors, there was a navy-blue jacket, and a navy coif to go over the white caps.
She would have to find stockings and shoes for herself, and she wondered if her mother could prevail on the pedlar to let her have them on two months’ credit. Her first month’s wages would be appropriated by Mrs Tibbs, the cook-housekeeper, as her fee for getting her the job. As she thought about this, she replaited her hair and wound it into a neat bun at the back of her head.
When Fanny came back up the stairs, carrying a pair of slop pails in which to remove the bath water, she gaped at the newly created Nanny. ‘Well, I never,’ she exclaimed. ‘You look proper pretty.’
Her spirits revived, Polly gave the girl a playful cuff about the head for her impudence. Then she asked, ‘Wot time is servants’ meals?’
‘Breakfast at six-thirty, dinner ’alf-past eleven, tea at five. If Ma Tibbs is in a good mood, you get a bit o’ somethin’ afore bedtime – depends on wot’s left from the Master’s dinner. The Mistress isn’t mean, but Ma Tibbs is. She takes food to her sister’s house.’
‘I’m awfully hungry,’ admitted Polly, her voice trembling slightly.
‘Oh, aye. You could get a mug o’ milk or ale anytime you want – and I suppose I’ll ’ave to bring it up.’
She plunged her slop pail into the scummy bath water.
‘Bring me some milk and a piece of bread now,’ wheedled Polly. ‘There’s a pet. I’m clemmed.’
Fanny glanced up at her. ‘And the baby not even born yet?’ she teased.
‘Come on, Fanny. I’ll share it with yez.’
‘Well, seein’ as I know yez, I’ll ask for it.’
Chapter Three (#ulink_f555c22e-402d-5611-aa32-8efa7dd61c9a)
I
At half-past eleven that warm May night, Alicia Beatrix Mary yelled her first impatient complaint in this world.
Dr Willis declared her a healthy child and Mrs Macdonald gave her her first bath. To ensure a flat, well-healed navel, a flannel binder was wound tightly round her stomach.
On a dresser lay a pile of baby clothes originally prepared for a brother, who, eight years before, had died within a month of his birth. Mrs Macdonald picked up a cotton napkin and one of terry towelling and enclosed Alicia in these. Then the child’s tiny arms were pushed into a flannel vest. A long cotton petticoat followed and then a flannel one, each tied at the front. Over all this went a fine white baby gown, frilled and embroidered and hemstitched in an Islington sweat shop. The long petticoats and gown were folded up over the protesting little feet, and she was finally wrapped in a warm, white shawl crocheted for her by her mother’s spinster friend and lifelong confidante, Miss Sarah Webb.
Almost smothered by the amount of clothing, Alicia carried her complaints to Humphrey Woodman.
Humphrey had been called from his booklined study by Dr Willis to inspect the new addition to his household and was uncertain, at first, whether he should go up. He had been startled when Maisie, the parlour-maid, had told him that his wife had commenced her labour. He had hoped to the last that his wife would miscarry, so that he would not have to face directly the fact of her infidelity.
Maisie was waiting, politely holding the door open for him, so he slowly pushed himself away from his desk and got up. As he straightened his velvet smoking jacket and gravely marched upstairs, a slow anger burned in him. He did not care a damn what Elizabeth did as long as she was discreet; but having a child at the age of forty was, alone, enough to interest the gossips and raise speculation.
Since Dr Willis and Mrs Macdonald were present, he kissed his wife dutifully upon her white cheek, and, afterwards, went to inspect the minute bundle lying in the frilly, draped cot which had served all his children.
His breath began to come fast as he gazed at the crumpled red face, and he seethed inwardly; at that moment he would have liked to murder Elizabeth and her lawyer, Andrew Crossing, whom he was fairly sure was the child’s father. Yet, in a sense, he also felt defeated. There was no question of his divorcing his wife; he must maintain his carefully built-up image of a well-respected city businessman with an impeccable home-life. To maintain society’s rigid proprieties, he would have to accept the baby as his. He knew it and he guessed that his wife was counting upon it – the sanctimonious bitch!
At the back of his mind, too, was the need to protect the future of his daughter, Florence, who was standing by him, bending over the little cot and tenderly touching her newborn sister with a careful finger. Florence was herself seven months pregnant. She was the wife of the Reverend Clarence Browning, a gentleman with small private means bent on a career in the church. A divorce between her parents, or even a separation, might put an end to his hopes of obtaining a bishopric one day.
Humphrey loved Florence. She was the only person to whom he showed any real affection. Her marriage portion had been as handsome as he could make it. Though at this moment he itched to beat her mother to death, he knew he would never make a single move that might injure his little Flo. When Alicia’s time came, however, he thought savagely, she would not get a penny out of him.
’isn’t she lovely, Papa?’ cooed Florence.
Humphrey continued to gaze expressionlessly at the crabbed little face, as he said politely, ‘Yes, my dear.’
While Dr Willis went to use the Woodmans’ magnificent new water closet, Mrs Macdonald stood, hands folded over her apron, at the foot of the bed, waiting for the series of visitors to pass. She would stay to nurse Elizabeth for a couple of days, before handing her over to her friend, Sarah Webb, to be cared for during the rest of her ten days’ lying-in.
As Humphrey turned to leave the room, he felt suddenly drained. His anger began to subside and he thought longingly of his Mrs Jakes. Most of his friends had a little woman tucked away somewhere in the town, and Mrs Jakes was his woman. Her well-patronized sweets and tobacco shop, on the corner of one of the crowded streets behind his office in Water Street, offered a fine excuse for visiting her. His need for tobacco for his pipe and the occasional gift of sweets for his children accounted easily for his going there. When the shop was empty of customers, he would slip behind the counter and through the door to her living-quarters. She would send her dull, thick-waisted daughter to tend the shop, lock the intervening door and draw the lace curtains over the window in it. They could be very cosy together behind the lace-draped door, sitting in front of her blazing coal fire; or they could go up the stairs which led to her bedroom above. It was a discreet, mutually agreeable arrangement. Why could not Elizabeth have been equally circumspect? he fumed.
Now, ignoring his wife, he said goodnight to Mrs Macdonald and told Florence to go to bed soon. Mrs Macdonald, much experienced in these matters, drew her own conclusions.
Downstairs, Humphrey waited in his study until the doctor should be shown in. Dr Willis, when he did come, accepted a glass of port and lifted it in a toast to the newborn. Humphrey bent his head slightly in acknowledgement, but he did not raise his glass. As Dr Willis drank from his glass, his eyebrows rose slightly – so his own wife’s gossip about Elizabeth Woodman had a sound basis. Woodman was showing none of the jovial relief at a safe delivery that most men exhibited. He hastily finished his wine, put down his glass and said that he would call again the following morning, to check both mother and child.
II
Upstairs, Mrs Macdonald was deferentially solicitous and wondered privately who would pay her bill. She said, as she fussed round her patient, ‘Miss Webb wondered if you would like a bite to eat, Ma’am?’
Sarah Webb, being a spinster, would not visit her friend until the morning; not having been married, she was supposed, officially, not to know how babies arrived. The following day seemed to her to be a polite time to come up. She had, meanwhile, taken over the housekeeping, and Mrs Tibbs had had a long, uncomfortable evening as Sarah began to cope with a kitchen unused to being visited by its mistress.
Florence reinforced the suggestion of food. She said, ‘Yes, Mama, you should take something to eat. You have to keep up your strength.’ Florence was deadly tired, her bundly body aching in every direction, but she spoke brightly to her mother.
‘Very well, dear,’ Elizabeth responded wearily. ‘Tell Mrs Tibbs to make me a plain omelette and toast – and some Madeira to drink.’
Mrs Macdonald pulled at the bell rope.
Elizabeth continued to talk to her daughter. ‘I have a wet-nurse for the child,’ she told her with a wan smile. ‘I don’t propose to feed her myself. At my age …’
Florence nodded understandingly. She had not been informed of her mother’s pregnancy until a week before the birth. Elizabeth had not felt able to tell a pregnant daughter that she was expecting an infant. At forty, it was indecent to be in such a situation; she herself had not expected it to happen.
As her mother’s figure burgeoned under the flounces and heavy drapery of her elaborate dresses, the situation had been clear to Florence for some time. She was, however, much too well brought up to mention the subject until her mother cared to bring the matter up and she expressed suitable surprise when Elizabeth suddenly blurted out that she would be brought to bed within the month. She had been much alarmed that her mother would not survive and had prayed earnestly each night that she be safely delivered. Now, she thought, she must pray for herself.
As if the midwife divined her thoughts, she turned towards her and smiled faintly, ‘You look very well, if I may say so, Ma’am. You’ll soon know the joy of your own wee babe in your arms.’ There was oily comfort in every word.
‘Thank you, Mrs Macdonald,’ responded Florence graciously, ‘With your help, I’m sure I will.’
In answer to the bell, Maisie, the elderly parlour-maid, arrived and was instructed regarding a meal.
‘Tell Mrs Ford she may now come to remove the baby,’ Elizabeth told the maid. ‘I trust a fire has been made in the nursery – and in baby’s bedroom?’
‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. Fanny’s bin watching both fires ever since atternoon.’
Up in the nursery, Polly, lulled by the heat, had gone to sleep in an old easy chair set by the fireplace. In the glow of the coals, she looked softly pretty, tidier, more clean than she had ever been in her life.
When Fanny clumped in with yet another hod of coal, she woke up with a start.
‘Coom on, now,’ Fanny commanded her. ‘The Missus wants you to take the baby.’ She dumped the heavy coal hod into the fireplace, picked up a pair of tongs and lifted a couple of lumps of coal on to the blaze. ‘Maisie and Rosie’ll bring the cot up.’ She yawned enormously, her stunted little body stretching as she did so. ‘Aye, I’m that tired. Seems to me as if none of us is goin’ to get to bed tonight. And I got to be up at five, ’cos ould Tibbs raises Cain if she don’t have a hot oven by six o’clock, ready to put the bread in.’
Polly got up and stretched. Then she peeked into the mirror over the dresser, to check that her hair was still neat and her cap on straight. ‘Fancy having a mirror,’ she thought to herself gleefully. She picked up the candle from the table.
‘Aye, don’t leave me in the dark,’ protested Fanny. She hastily tipped the rest of the coal into a brass coal scuttle at the side of the hearth. ‘It’s proper ghosty up here, what with Mr Charles and Mr Edward gone away and not usin’ the rooms on the other side o’ the passage.’
Polly waited for the little skivvy and then, carrying the candle, led her down the dark staircase, the coal hod clanking like chains behind her.
On the floor below lay Elizabeth’s bedroom and beside it the dressing-room in which Humphrey had slept for the last year or so. Also on this floor, lay Florence’s old bedroom, a guest room and the main drawing-room; the latter was shrouded in dust sheets, because Elizabeth could not entertain in the last months of her pregnancy; it was not the thing. At the back of the house, on this same floor, was Elizabeth Woodman’s latest status symbol, a brand new water closet and a handsome adjoining bathroom with hot and cold water which belched from shining brass taps.
‘You’re not allowed to use the water closet,’ Fanny warned Polly, as they passed it. ‘You got to come down to the closet outside the back kitchen door – or you can use a chamber-pot and empty it yourself down there. I ’aven’t got no time to be running up and down with a slop pail to clear it for yez. There’s an old slop pail in the nursery cupboard if you want to use it.’
Polly reached Elizabeth’s door at the same time as Maisie was about to enter, so she followed her in. They both stood just inside the doorway, hands folded, eyes down, waiting for orders.
Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a pink shawl, her hair plaited neatly over each shoulder. She was feeling better and, though her eyes were black-ringed, some of her normal high colour had returned to her cheeks; the birth had, in fact, been quite an easy one. She fully expected that, thanks to Mrs Macdonald’s modern ideas of well-scrubbed hands, boiled aprons and sheets, she would be spared that plague of new mothers, childbed fever.
Replete with omelette and half a bottle of Madeira, her breasts bound tightly by Mrs Macdonald to prevent the flow of milk, all she wanted now was that the child be taken away, so that, as much as possible, she could forget it. She hoped, also, when trouble with her husband had blown over, that she could be reunited with Andrew Crossing, only in a more private place than on her drawing-room settee.
‘Polly,’ she snapped at the trim, black-haired wet-nurse. ‘Take the baby upstairs. See that it is fed every three or four hours and has its napkin changed frequently to keep it dry.’ She turned to Maisie. ‘Take the tray away. That will be all for tonight.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Maisie replied, took the tray and fled thankfully to her bed. Polly approached the cradle cautiously and picked up the tiny bundle which was Alicia Beatrix Mary. The infant opened its eyes and whimpered.
‘Polly.’
‘Yes, ’m?’
There is a good supply of clothing in the chest of drawers in the nursery. Fanny will remove any washing including your own. She will also bring up your meals. The washerwoman will come twice a week. See that the dirty clothes and sheets are down in the wash cellar by six o’clock every Monday and Thursday morning.’
Polly bobbed a small curtsey to indicate agreement.
‘I have instructed Mrs Tibbs to feed you well and let you have as much milk as you can drink.’
Having met Mrs Tibbs, Polly did not have any great hope of these instructions being followed properly. She whispered, however, a faint ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She allowed herself a small shivering sigh – it had been a long and eventful day for her – and then asked, ‘What’s baby’s name, ma’am?’
‘Alicia Beatrix Mary,’ replied Elizabeth, having decided that it was better to name the child herself, rather than ask Humphrey his opinion. Though she would not have liked to admit it, there was the thought in the back of her mind that, like its baby brother, it might die within the month, anyway; and that would solve a lot of her problems.
Andrew had assured her that since she and Humphrey lived together the child was legally his, unless he repudiated it. Nevertheless, she supposed she would have to go herself to register its birth, as soon as she felt well enough; Humphrey was hardly likely to do anything about putting his name on the birth certificate. She must also write a note to Andrew, she reminded herself, telling him of Alicia’s birth; she could say that she wanted to alter her Will slightly to include a small legacy to the new baby. She sighed, and hoped he would come soon.
‘You may go,’ she told Polly, patiently standing in front of her with the baby in her arms.
III
Unaware of the inconvenience her arrival had caused, Alicia Beatrix Mary was carried up to the attic nurseries. To Polly, the child was sent by the Holy Mother herself to replace the little boy she had lost and to comfort her in her widowhood. For her part, Alicia learned to turn to Polly for mothering; it was Polly’s voice she knew first and Polly’s face that she first recognized.
Chapter Four (#ulink_ac2c70be-2ae9-5ccb-86df-a03da06a1635)
I
Alicia had barely learned how to suck, when Elizabeth, after ten days’ of lying-in, descended one afternoon to the pleasant, sunny morning-room on the ground floor. She was escorted solicitously down the stairs by her friend, Sarah Webb, and was met by her elder daughter, Florence, in the little sitting-room.
As her own confinement drew near, Florence looked white-faced and drawn. She dreaded the birth of her baby, because she had no idea how it would make its way into the world. There did not seem to be an aperture big enough to give it access! She wondered if she would split down the middle, like a pea pod giving up its peas, and the idea terrified her. She was much too afraid of her stout, dogmatic husband, the Reverend Clarence Browning, to ask him. Having been taught nothing about sex and having been horrified when Clarence took her on her honeymoon, she felt that life was vulgar enough, without giving him further opportunity for lewd remarks and disgusting behaviour. She simply did not believe frustrated Clarence’s assurance that their sex life was normal.
She was relieved to see her mother looking very elegant in a copper-coloured gown with the hint of a train at the back and a velvet collar edged with cream lace. It was comforting to realize that her mother had always survived childbirth, despite whatever ordeals it presented.
With the aid of her friend and her elder daughter, Elizabeth was gently eased into an armless easy chair near her work table in the window. Florence had brought a bunch of fat, pink roses from her own garden and had set them in a silver bowl on the table. She had also thoughtfully placed her mother’s workbasket by her chair. Her mother still followed the old custom of making and embroidering her own petticoats and drawers, though Messrs George Henry Lee, a fashionable shop in the town which made her dresses, cloaks and hats, would have been happy to undertake the work for her.
Florence had already been up to the nursery to see Alicia, and now she asked her mother if she had seen the child that day.
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. Then she said heavily, ‘No. Polly will bring her down at teatime.’
‘She is thriving, isn’t she?’
‘I believe so.’
Though Florence had herself been cared for by a nanny, she was worried about the little mite so summarily handed over to a wet-nurse. The baby seemed contented enough, but her mother showed no interest in it; and the nursery, when Flo had visited, appeared neither clean nor tidy. She had spoken sharply to Mrs Tibbs and to Polly about the need for cleanliness. Mrs Tibbs, all indignation, had promised to order the housemaid to turn the room out immediately.
Now, with Sarah Webb nodding agreement, she strove to awaken her mother’s interest in Alicia. ‘Polly needs supervision,’ she told her.
Her mother merely sighed absently, unable to tell her daughter of the sweating fear within her. She asked Florence to serve each of them with a glass of port from the decanter on the sideboard and to hand round biscuits from the biscuit barrel; when her glass was given to her she drank the contents with unmannerly speed.
‘It’s a pity Papa won’t keep a carriage, isn’t it, Mama? Such a lovely afternoon. We could have gone for a drive round the park.’
Elizabeth replied acidly, ‘You know that your father has money for everything – railways, roads, ships, are all he’s interested in. Never thinks of my needs.’
Sarah Webb, anxious to cheer up her friend, broke in, ‘Dear Elizabeth, if you don’t mind being driven in a governess cart, I should be delighted to take you out. I stabled it in Crown Street during your confinement, so that I would have it close by. As you know, I can handle the reins quite well.’
The idea of being seen in her old friend’s extremely shabby, humble vehicle, made Elizabeth shudder.
‘No, no, Sarah, thank you. If I wished, I could, I suppose, hire a carriage from the stables. Thanks to my own dear Papa, I am not without funds for such things. And Andrew has managed my portion so well that it has increased.’
Elizabeth’s dowry, legally tied up so that Humphrey could not touch it, provided her with a good wardrobe and sufficient pin money for small luxuries, like a hired carriage to take her shopping. But if Humphrey was so mean that he would not provide her with a fashionable vehicle, she preferred to put him in the wrong by being a martyr among her better-equipped friends. So, while Sarah and Florence sought to raise her spirits, she sighed and sulked, and looked forward with absolute dread to her husband’s return from his office in the city.
She had not seen Humphrey since the night of Alicia’s birth. As he had done for the past year, he had slept in the dressing-room next to their bedroom; in addition to the entrance to the bedroom, it had a door leading on to the landing, so he came and went without entering her room. Today, unless she feigned fatigue and returned to her bed, she would have to meet him at dinner. Later in the afternoon, Sarah and Florence would both go home and there would be no one present to make it necessary for him to control himself. The prospect made her feel sick, and she wondered what Andrew would do, if she ordered a carriage and fled to him.
As she drank her second glass of port and listened to Sarah and Florence talking about the joys of motherhood, she wanted to cry. Where was Andrew? He could have called or, at least, have sent some flowers from his wife and himself. He was her lawyer. He had every right to call on her. But in her heart she knew Andrew. He was in many ways weak; he would avoid a troublesome mistress as if she had the plague.
‘Babies are such darlings,’ gushed Sarah, none of whose nephews and nieces had ever been presented to her by their nannies, unless dry, fed and sleepy. She herself would not have known what to do with a sopping wet, hungry, howling infant, except to coo over it.
Florence was smart enough to realize this. She remembered her younger brother, Charles, with whom she had shared the nursery for a while; he had been anything but lovely. Clarence had told her flatly that they could not afford a nurse for their baby and that she must do the best she could with the aid of their cook – general and kitchen – maid. Because Charles was a boy, she had never seen him either bathed or changed. How did you change a small, wriggling creature like a baby? Or bathe it? Or put it to the breast? She hoped, rather frantically, that Mrs Macdonald, the midwife, would instruct her; she could not ask such vulgar questions of Mama. In some despair, she had made a point of arriving at her mother’s house quite early, during the past ten days, having taken the horse-bus from home, so that she could go upstairs to watch Polly struggling with Alicia.
II
Polly was herself learning on the job, though she knew much more about birth and babies than poor Florence did. Before coming to the Woodman household, she had received some strict advice from her mother and from her Great-aunt Kitty, herself a midwife to the slum women around her. The result was that, much as she protested, Alicia was scoured twice daily from head to heel. To Fanny’s irritation, the child was changed the moment she was damp; it was poor Fanny who had to carry the pails of dirty napkins, petticoats and gowns down to the cellar ready for the washerwoman.
‘All for nought but a little bastard,’ Fanny had muttered, as she heaved the heavy pails down the stairs.
To the Woodmans, Fanny was nothing but a quiet, little shadow responsible for all the coal fires in the house. As she went from room to room, she had become well aware of Andrew Crossing’s interest in her mistress; raucous jokes at his expense had been a real source of entertainment on quiet evenings in the kitchen, as the maids sipped their fender ale.
Fanny had also seen something of the bitter fights between Elizabeth and Humphrey. When she went through the house to make up all the fires and they heard her knock, they would stop their shouting and upbraiding and would stand rigidly staring at each other while she poked up the fire and added more coal; as soon as she was out of the door, coal hod in hand, she would hear them renew the battle.
It was Fanny who danced out into the street to find a cab to take Florence home. She took her time because it was so lovely to be out in the afternoon sun, and, when she found one, Florence gave her twopence for her trouble.
Florence was thankful that her mother had insisted on giving her the money to pay for the cab; otherwise, she would have had to take the horse-bus again. Though Elizabeth had great faith that the Reverend Clarence Browning would make his way upwards in the Church and would, in due course, be able to afford a carriage, Florence was acutely aware that he was far too outspoken, far too direct, ever to be recommended for high office. Florence herself was content to preside over the little vicarage they occupied, thankful that a man so intent on the saving of souls had managed, in spite of church politics, to rise to a vicarage. She asked no more – except for a nanny.
In order to conserve her strength for the coming confrontation with Humphrey, Elizabeth tried to take a nap in the afternoon, but she was so filled with anxiety that she returned to the morning-room in time to take tea and to receive Polly and Alicia.
Alicia was hungry and was screaming. Elizabeth inquired of Polly if she had everything she needed for the child and then sent her thankfully back upstairs.
III
When Humphrey bowled swiftly into the dining-room for dinner, his white-faced wife was already seated, and Maisie, the parlourmaid, was hovering over the laden sideboard.
Humphrey ignored both of them. He indicated that he was ready to be served by simply shaking out his table napkin and spreading it across his stomach. In complete silence, Maisie served them both.
Never a man to waste anything, Humphrey ate his way stolidly through soup, roast beef and steamed pudding. He knew, as his wife had already sensed, that this was the evening to make clear his attitude towards Alicia, who, like his wife, he had hoped would either miscarry or be born dead.
Impotent rage surged through him. Hemmed in by the constrictions of social propriety, he was certain there was not a great deal he could do about the situation without coming to grief himself, and this knowledge added to his boiling anger. He helped himself to hot mustard and cursed under his breath when the condiment stuck to its spoon. He banged the tiny spoon on the side of his plate and in the tensely quiet room it sounded like a pistol going off.
Elizabeth kept her eyes down and picked uneasily at her food. Her mind leaped wildly between fear of Humphrey and heartbreak that she had not heard from Andrew.
She jumped when Humphrey asked for a second helping of pudding and more wine. Really, the man ate like a hog. The only thing he seemed to notice in the house was when Mrs Tibbs’ cooking was not up to its usual standard.
Humphrey had, indeed, not noticed for months that his wife was pregnant. When he did, he had hastily checked his office diary. It told him with certainty that the child could not be his. Plump, comfortable Mrs Jakes kept him so exhausted that he had rarely slept with his wife. Elizabeth had not seemed to care about his neglect.
Elizabeth had been more than thankful to be relieved of her wifely duties. Her lifelong friend, Andrew Crossing, had been only too willing to meet her needs, since his wife was a useless invalid. As Maisie took away her untouched roast beef, she thought agonizedly of how she had rebelled against marrying Humphrey, how passionately she had loved her childhood playmate, Andrew. At nineteen, Andrew had had no money and had failed his first year at University; her father had been adamant that he was not suitable for her. In contrast, at twenty-five, Humphrey was already well-established with his father, in a brokerage business and, as the elder son, he was to inherit the entire enterprise. What her father had not realized, Elizabeth fulminated, was that Humphrey was not only physically repellent to her, but also had the hoarding instincts of a jackdaw; his ambition was to accumulate capital to invest in shipping or railways. He lectured her regularly, from the days of their unhappy honeymoon onwards, on the fact that capital accumulated by personal savings was the only sure way to expand a business. Money made in a business should be ploughed back in. He had rationed her and, later, poor Flo, to two pairs of black woollen stockings and one pair of white silk every winter of her married life; any extra ones had had to be bought out of the money left her by her father. And he still went over Mrs Tibbs’ account books with her each month and railed at her for waste.
It had taken twelve months of unmitigated pressure by her parents to make her marry him, twelve months during which no other young man had been allowed to get more than a single dance with her and she was never left alone.
It was Andrew himself who finally had broken her resolve.
At a banquet and ball given by the Mayor, Mr Gardner, to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, he had pushed his way through the throng, to find her sitting demurely beside her mother and her aunt, while her bearded father and his brother had gone to join their friends for a drink. He had formally asked for a waltz.
Her mother had answered frigidly for her. ‘Elizabeth’s programme is full, I am sorry.’
Elizabeth, faced with the handsome, blond, young man, had said desperately, as she handed him her tiny programme, ‘I have one more dance to fill, Mama.’ Two chaperones sitting near were watching the little exchange with interest, so, rather than cause a public fuss, her mother had said no more.
They had hardly taken a dozen steps, after Andrew came to claim her, when he blurted out, ‘It’s no good, Liz. I’ve tried to get the old man to persuade your father to allow an engagement, with no luck at all. He’s furious with me for muffing my exams, and he’s insisted that I begin all over again in law. Law’s what I always wanted to do, anyway, but he was dead-set on my entering the church, so I had to do Divinity.’
‘I can wait for you.’ Elizabeth remembered her utter despair when she had realized that Andrew himself was backing out.
As they whirled amid the colourful throng of dancers, she had looked up at him and seen the tremulous uncertainty in his face; he had always been weak, she thought bitterly, as she contemplated her steamed pudding, and in her heart she knew without doubt that he had again deserted her. She wished that Mrs Macdonald had not been quite so skilful, and that she had died having Alicia.
Her reverie was broken by Humphrey’s saying to Maisie, The Mistress will take her tea in the drawing-room.’
Elizabeth swallowed. Humphrey was choosing the field of combat, the upstairs room from which loud voices were least likely to be heard by the servants.
‘Yes, Sir. I’ll ask Fanny to make sure the fire is made up.’
While Humphrey ate his gorgonzola cheese and biscuits there was a flurry in the kitchen as a swearing Fanny fled upstairs with a shovel full of burning coals from the kitchen fire, to start a fire in the drawing-room. She had been so sure that the room would not be used that evening, there being no visitors, that she had not bothered to light the fire.
Elizabeth thought resignedly, ‘So be it. What does it matter?’ and went up to sit by the struggling blaze. Though it was May, the room was cold and clammy. Outside the tall, velvet-draped windows, a fine rain was falling. Elizabeth picked up a shawl and flung it around her shivering shoulders.
If Andrew had been anything but a family lawyer, she would have taken a chance and run to him now, told some suitable story to his fragile, rheumaticky Eleanor, and simply stayed with him, daring him to say a word. But in his profession, he dealt with the Estates of a number of widows, with Trusteeships like her own dowry. The slightest hint of scandal and he would lose a lot of business.
When she had told him of the coming child, he had immediately and fearfully repudiated any idea that he was the father. It had hurt her immeasurably.
‘Humphrey will know it is not his,’ she had replied dully.
‘You’re married to him, so the child will be born in wedlock.’
‘Not if he denies it.’
They had been sitting, arms around each other on the big sofa facing her now, and he had drawn away from her. He had walked stiffly up and down the room, while she stared at him aghast. He had finally turned towards her and said through lips that quivered slightly, ‘Come on, Liz. It can’t be mine.’
‘It can be and it is.’
‘I simply don’t believe it. I’ve never fathered a child before.’ He came to sit down beside her, and added in a wheedling tone, ‘Anyway, you can manage Humphrey, I’m sure.’
Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘You don’t know him. He’s got a a murderous temper.’
She had wept and had implored him to take her away – to Italy, to anywhere they could live together. But the irresolute boy had grown into a vacillating man, and gradually she had realized that, if she pressed him, he would abandon her entirely.
She had bravely dried her tears and said that, somehow, she would brazen it out with Humphrey. In an almost motherly fashion she had decided that he probably needed protection against a scandal more than she did.
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ she whispered, as he thankfully said his farewells. ‘Just find a place where we can meet more safely than this. I love you, remember.’
He had replied, somewhat woodenly, that he loved her, too, and that he would find a trysting place.
His visits had grown rarer, however; he did not attempt to make love to her and she began to despair. Through the last months of her pregnancy, she had reassured herself again and again that he was merely being careful for the sake of the child, but, in more realistic moments, black hopelessness had almost overwhelmed her.
‘Well, you slut. What have you to say?’ Her husband had come into the room so quickly and so quietly that she had not heard him. Without warning, he clouted her across the back of her head.
Determined to feign innocence, she cried out indignantly, ‘Humphrey, what did you do that for?’
‘I suppose you think you’re going to fob off Crossing’s brat on me? Thought you’d get away with it?’
The blow had made her reel in her chair. Now she tried to rally herself. ‘Humphrey, how could you say such a thing?’ She angrily pushed some hairpins back into her bun. ‘And to strike me, when I’ve only just got up from childbed. You must be drunk.’
He stood facing her, head thrust forward, his lips drawn back from tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Don’t try that on me. I know what’s been going on – and now we’ve got a bastard in the house.’ His hand shot forward and slapped her a stinging blow across the mouth, followed by another one with his left hand. ‘And you, milady, are going to pay for it. This brat isn’t mine and you know it.’
Shocked and terrified, she stared back at him, in too much pain to speak.
He pushed his face close to hers. ‘You know, don’t you?’
She edged to the side of her armless chair and slid out of it with what dignity she could muster. ‘You must be mad!’ she muttered, from between her swelling lips. ‘You’re my husband – it’s normal to have babies.’
‘I’ve not been with you for over a year – and you must know it. And I know about your happy afternoon hours with Crossing.’
Her eyes shot wider open, but she answered as steadily as she could, ‘Andrew’s my lawyer. He has to manage father’s Trust for Clara and me, so, of course, he comes to consult me. Anyway, we’ve known him for years.’ She held her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes with pain. Then she said, half-crying, ‘If my brother were in England, you wouldn’t dare to say such dreadful things – or hit me! And for no reason!’
‘That jigger rabbit is three thousand miles away, in Ceylon. He’d be ashamed of you, anyway.’ He advanced towards her and she hastily put the width of the chair between them and began to back towards the door. As she fumbled with the handle, he caught her by the shoulder and spun her back into the room, her full skirts splaying out round her. She stumbled and fell, face down.
He whipped his razor strop out of his pocket. Raising his arm, he brought it down across her shoulders with all the force he could muster. She screamed and covered her head with her arms as the wicked leather strap whistled down on her again. Four months of suppressed outrage were vented on her, as she sought to crawl away from him and reach the door.
‘I’ve been waiting for this,’ he yelled at her. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’ The strop came down again across the back of her head.
Her screams stopped. She lay immobile.
He paused, scarlet-faced, panting over her, the desire to rape her urgent in him. He heaved up her heavily gathered skirt, but she was tightly entangled in her three petticoats. He tore at his trousers and emptied himself over her.
‘You damned Jezebel,’ he snarled and kicked her in the stomach. She did not move.
‘Go to hell,’ he shrieked. ‘Look at another man, and I’ll make sure you do.’
He flung open the door, and ran down into the hall, buttoning up his trousers as he went. He seized his hat and stick from the rack and went out of the front door muttering like a madman. Five minutes later, he was sitting primly on the horse-bus on his way to visit Mrs Jakes.
Chapter Five (#ulink_7d83bce5-a95e-5076-a386-364ce9f1db35)
I
Fanny found her when she came to rake the cinders out of the fireplace before going to bed.
With a frightened squeak, she dropped her coal hod and knelt down to turn her mistress over. When she saw the swollen lips and tear-stained cheeks, she knew what had happened; she had seen the same thing so often in her aunt’s home.
‘Oh, Missus! Can you sit up, Missus? Look, I’ll turn yez on your back and give you a heave up.’
Elizabeth moaned as she managed to turn and raise herself sufficiently to lean her head against the little skivvy’s shoulder. Fanny swallowed, and looked desperately around. ‘Is anythin’ broke, d’yer think?’ she asked.
Elizabeth shuddered, then whispered, ‘I don’t think so.’ She began to cry.
Well, let’s try and get you on that low chair there, and then I’ll run and get Maisie to help you up to your bed.’
‘Not Maisie,’ Elizabeth murmured. ‘Or the others.’ She paused, her breath coming slowly and heavily. ‘Ask Polly – she’ll mind her own business.’
She cried out in pain as Fanny slowly sat her upright while she brought the small chair closer, and moaned again as she was eased up on to it.
‘There, Ma’am. Lean your head against the high back, and I’ll be back with Polly in half a mo’.’
As she flew to the door, Elizabeth halted her by saying hoarsely, ‘Not a word of this – from either Polly or you – to the other servants.’
Fanny had been thrilled at the idea of telling everyone about the drama on which she had stumbled. But, as Elizabeth spoke, she realized that to her mistress it was a terrible humiliation. She warmed with pity and said reassuringly, as she went out, ‘Of course, Missus. Don’t worry, Missus.’
Once Elizabeth had been laid gently on her bed, Polly sent Fanny back to the kitchen, where Mrs Tibbs promptly scolded her for being so long in doing her raking out, and sent her off to bed.
Elizabeth said stiffly, ‘I shall be all right now, Polly.’ She lay on her side, legs curled up, arms crossed over her injured face.
‘I’ll help you undress, Ma’am. Fanny said she thought your back was hurt. Let me have a look, Ma’am. If you’ve got any arnica, I could paint it on the bruises. First, will I get some brandy from the Master’s study?’
‘No!’
‘Don’t worry, Ma’am. He’s out. He won’t miss a small glass, Ma’am.’
With one hand, Elizabeth gestured to indicate reluctant agreement.
In the hope that it would ease her mistress’s pain, Polly brought a generous glass of Humphrey’s brandy, and, after Elizabeth had swallowed it, she allowed Polly to unbutton her dress.
‘Jaysus!’ Polly exclaimed, when she saw Elizabeth’s back. Weals ran across it from the hairline to just below the waist. Where her corset had softened some of the blows, the marks were scarlet; above that, they were purple. ‘It’s a miracle if nothin’s broken, Ma’am. We should get the doctor.’
‘We can’t, Polly.’ She looked up at the other woman, tears beginning to course again down her ravaged face. She had given no explanation of her situation, because it was obvious that both Polly and Fanny had guessed what had happened; wife-beating was common enough amongst the lower classes, though it might have surprised them how often it occurred amongst their so-called betters.
‘No, Ma’am. I do understand, Ma’am. I’ll get the arnica from your medicine chest and maybe that’ll do the trick.’
While she carefully sponged the bruised back with cold water and then applied the arnica, she was thinking fast. ‘Would it be best, Ma’am, if you went to stay with someone? ’ave you got a sister or anybody? Till things blow over, like?’
Her mistress winced, as Polly dabbed on the tincture, and replied frankly, ‘Last time he beat me, I went to my sister in West Kirby. She told me it was my fault and I shouldn’t provoke him. She’s unmarried and doesn’t understand,’ she finished brokenly.
Polly sighed. ‘What about Miss Florence’s?’
‘She has a difficult life herself – and her baby is due any moment.’ Elizabeth’s voice strengthened. ‘I don’t want anyone to know, Polly. The disgrace would be more than I can bear. That’s why I sent for you instead of Rosie or Maisie. You seem to keep to yourself.’
‘Aye, you was right. I’ll keep me mouth shut.’ She eased her mistress’s nightgown over her head, and then she blurted out, ‘It were that Maisie wot is the root of the trouble. She told ’im every time, accordin’ to Rosie.’
Elizabeth’s eyes opened slowly. ‘Told him what?’
‘Told ’im when Mr Crossing called – and ’ow long ’e stayed.’
‘Good Heavens!’
‘He give ’er a shillin’ every time.’
‘Ach!’ Elizabeth was sickened. ‘Are you sure, Polly?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’
Never in her life before had Elizabeth spoken so frankly to a servant. But never before had she needed an understanding friend more. Now she said grimly, ‘I’ll dismiss her. And I’ll make sure she’s gone before Humphrey finds out.’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Polly was putting her mistress’s clothes away. Now she examined the back of the gown Elizabeth had been wearing. ‘I think your dress is ruined, Ma’am.’ She held it up for Elizabeth to see and lifted the candle closer to it.
Elizabeth heaved, and Polly hastily dropped the dress and picked up the bowl holding the water she had used to bathe the bruises. ‘Take a big breath, Ma’am,’ she ordered the sickened woman.
The nausea subsided, only to rise again each time she remembered what Humphrey had done. ‘Oh, Polly,’ she moaned, ‘how could he?’
‘Better outside than inside, Ma’am,’ replied Polly with a quick quirk of humour. ‘You can do without another baby.’ Elizabeth heaved and brought up the brandy and what little dinner she had eaten. Afterwards, she said, ‘Wrap up the dress and put it in the midden – bury it under some of the rubbish.’
‘Oh, aye, Ma’am. Don’t you worry about it.’
Polly put it about that Elizabeth had tripped over her gown and had fallen, hitting her face on the doorknob of her room. ‘Made a couple o’ rotten bruises on her cheeks and mouth,’ she told Mrs Tibbs.
Mrs Tibbs had heard similar excuses several times before and simply shrugged slightly and went on with her cooking.
While Humphrey went on with his life as if nothing had happened, Elizabeth stayed in bed for three days. When she was ready to descend, she put on a black silk dress with a high neck edged with white frilling and dressed her hair low on her neck, to disguise the terrible bruise now yellowing there. A heavy dusting of rice flour helped the marks on her face. She sat silently in her favourite chair in the morning-room, her sewing untouched on her lap, and hoped Florence would not call for a few days more.
At dinner, she sat at her usual place at the foot of the table. She never raised her eyes, except to order Maisie to serve or to clear the table. Humphrey smiled at her – it was not a pleasant smile and it filled her with dread; in the months that followed she rarely spoke to him.
For several months, she cancelled her At Homes and invited no one to dinner, neither did she accept any invitations; she gave as the reason that Alicia’s birth had been difficult. As time went by and Andrew Crossing did not communicate with her, she felt physically and mentally ill.
She waited patiently until Humphrey went to Manchester to stay with his brother, Harold, for a few days. Then she gave Maisie a week’s pay in lieu of notice and told her to pack her bags. When Maisie protested, Elizabeth told her that they had decided to reduce staff.
‘I want to speak to the Master,’ retorted Maisie mutinously.
‘Don’t be insolent,’ ordered Elizabeth coldly. ‘I decide who works in this house. And it is I who will write references for you. Do you want to be turned off without a reference?’
At this deadly threat, Maisie caved in. Rosie was promoted to wait at table. When Humphrey noticed that Maisie was missing, he was forced to ask his wife where she was. She told him frigidly, between clenched teeth, that she was not going to be spied upon by a servant and that Rosie was quite satisfactory as parlourmaid. To get even with her, Humphrey told her that she would have to manage without a replacement girl.
Rosie came into the room, bringing another bottle of wine for which Humphrey had sent her, so Elizabeth sat stonily eating her dessert and did not reply.
Rosie and Fanny had to carry the work of a housemaid between them, and Rosie remarked thankfully that she would be married to the milkman by the end of the year. Fanny, who to her joy had had her wages quietly raised by a shilling a week, said nothing. She was learning to be a housemaid and that was real promotion for her.
II
‘When is Alicia to be christened, Mama?’ inquired Florence, when finally her mother ordered a carriage from the stable and went out to visit her.
‘Well, I thought dear Clarence might do it in your church. It would be so nice to keep it in the family, wouldn’t it? I’ll get Mrs Tibbs to make a christening cake.’ She paused and took a nervous sip of the Reverend Clarence’s atrocious sherry from the glass in her hand. Then she babbled, ‘Charles went straight from school this year to stay for a few days with one of his friends – I thought as soon as he came home – a nice little family party?’ Her voice trailed off. She knew she could not face having the christening in her own church, St Margaret’s in Princes Road. It was almost certain that Humphrey would not attend it – and that would cause enormous speculation, a fresh flurry of unwanted interest.
Florence felt that her mother was being unreasonable in getting her to have the party; it could be quite a large one, she thought wearily, if all her father’s relations came and her mother’s friends, not to speak of Aunt Clara from West Kirby, who was such a professional invalid that she would rearrange the whole Browning house to suit her convenience. ‘I hope that I’m not taken to bed at the wrong moment, Mama,’ she said anxiously.
‘Well, then we’ll make it a joyful double christening,’ responded Elizabeth unfeelingly.
III
Elizabeth had been thankful that her younger son, Charles, had been away in boarding school during the more obvious period of her pregnancy and during her lying-in; she had certainly not wanted the cold, dark blue eyes of a ten-year-old examining her during this confinement.
When confiding to Sarah Webb, her oldest friend, the secret of her unwelcome breeding, she had wept on Sarah’s shoulder, afraid of Humphrey, afraid of the hazard of giving birth at forty years of age. Speaking of Charles, she had added, ‘Children always sense when something is wrong. And Charles always wants such precise answers to a question.’
Sarah sighed, and stroked her friend’s dark hair. She had not only known Charles all his short life, but had been friends with Elizabeth and with Andrew Crossing since they first attended the same children’s Christmas parties together. She had watched with pity, as her beautiful young friend had been bullied by her parents into marriage with Humphrey.
But Elizabeth had loved languid, charming Andrew, fair as some Icelandic god, a boy who appeared slow and lazy to her parents. His charm had, however, served him well in his subsequent career as a family lawyer, Sarah ruminated; even she herself, plain and studious, had worshipped from afar. She had been present at a ball, a few years back, at which Elizabeth had met and danced with him again; up till then, his old senior partner had always dealt with the affairs of Elizabeth’s father’s estate, so they had rarely seen each other. That winter, Andrew’s senior partner died and the care of Elizabeth’s affairs came into the hands of Andrew. Sarah had been greatly worried when Elizabeth promptly asked him to her next At Home.
’is it wise, my dear?’ she had asked, as she arranged her furs in front of Elizabeth’s mirror before going home. She was the last guest to leave and Elizabeth herself was prinking before the mirror.
‘I don’t care,’ Elizabeth had hissed savagely.
‘Well, ask his wife as well,’ suggested Sarah.
‘I did – but you know and I know she can’t stir out of the house – she’s stiff as a board with rheumatism and she has to be carried everywhere. And, anyway,’ she went on defiantly, ‘anybody may call on At Home days.’
Sarah sighed glumly. ‘It’s foolish, my dear – very foolish.’
Elizabeth bridled, and twirled in front of the mirror to show her fine, plump figure.
Over coffee in Elizabeth’s morning-room the following day, Sarah had argued again.
‘I can’t help it, Sarah.’ Elizabeth’s wide dark blue eyes, so like those of her son, Charles, had a hint of tears in them. ‘I must see him,’ she said, ‘I simply have to. Humphrey has his fancy woman – surely Andrew and I can be friends.’
Sarah bit her lips and said no more.
IV
When young Charles finally came home at the end of June, Elizabeth met him at Lime Street station.
Charles had spent his Easter holidays with his Uncle Harold and his cousins in Manchester, so he had not seen his mother since the previous Christmas. She looked suddenly much older than he remembered, but when he inquired about her health as the hackney carriage traversed Lime Street, she told him brightly that she was quite well. She added that he now had a baby sister called Alicia – and, of course new babies were notorious for being rather tiring little people.
‘Well, that’s nice,’ he responded politely, ‘having a little sister, I mean.’ He was not really very interested. Babies came in all the households that he visited; they often died. He vaguely remembered having a baby brother who had died very young, though, when he thought about it, it was the memory of his elder brother, Edward, being upset about it that had stayed with him. Death had always upset Edward; funny that he should have become a soldier.
Reminded that Edward was now a fixture in the 11th Foot, he also recalled a conversation he had once overheard between his father and Edward. His father had been furious when Edward had refused to join his brokerage firm and had asked permission to join the army instead. He recalled his father shouting that it cost money to maintain a son as an officer in the army, and Edward replying nervously that it might not cost as much as sending him to university to study Divinity, so that he could enter the Church.
Charles guessed that the main thing Edward wanted to do after finishing boarding school was to leave home. He had been awfully stubborn and finally his father had given way.
Their father had, later, talked to Charles about the advantages of joining the family firm. Though Charles thought that buying and selling stocks and shares would be a dreadfully dull way of earning a living, he had not dared to say any such thing to his father; he had merely smiled what he hoped was a nice little-boy smile, and said nothing. His maths teacher, old Fancy Moppit, wanted him to take more chemistry and maths and think about going to university. He wondered, now, if his father would pay for university.
‘Have you heard from Edward lately?’ he asked Elizabeth. ‘I got a card from him at Easter, but I haven’t heard since.’
‘Not got a card, Charles – received a card.’
Charles grimaced, and said, ‘Yes, Mama.’
‘I heard from Edward quite recently. He is in Burma – and he’s a full Lieutenant, now.’
‘Oh, cheers!’
Charles was glad to be home for the remainder of the summer. Though nothing very interesting ever happened there, Mrs Tibbs produced all his favourite dishes and his mother didn’t mind how much he read. Probably the family would go, as usual, for two weeks’ seaside holiday in North Wales, and he would be able to add to his extensive collection of shells; he already had a glass case full of them, each neatly tagged with its Latin name.
After he had been down to the kitchen to see Mrs Tibbs, he climbed the five flights of stairs from the basement to the top floor, to see his new sister, Alicia. ‘Her nurse’s name is Polly. Be polite to her,’ his mother had instructed.
Rosie and Fanny were left to toil up the stairs with his trunks.
‘Holy God! Wot’s he got in ’em?’ puffed Fanny, as they paused for rest on the second landing.
‘Books,’ opined Rosie. ‘Proper little bookworm, he is.’
Polly was glad to have a young boy sleeping in the back room across the landing. As Fanny had said, it could feel ghosty away at the top of the house; Rosie and Fanny shared a basement room and Mrs Tibbs had her own private bed-sitting room off the kitchen.
In case Charles came into the nursery while she was feeding Alicia, Polly took to wearing a shawl over her shoulders so that she could cover her breasts. She had been instructed by Elizabeth to keep Charles out of the day nursery at such moments, but, as Fanny said, ‘If he don’t learn now how a baby’s fed, he may not know never.’ So Charles learned a few interesting facts of life that summer. He also watched her being bathed, one day, and observed that she did not have a penis; this confirmed what other boys had told him, that girls did not have such appendages. He found it very peculiar.
The day after his return, he went out to visit Florence in the company of his mother and Miss Sarah Webb, and attended Alicia’s christening. He noted uneasily that Florence was uncommonly stout, but he dared not comment on it.
To Florence’s mystification, Humphrey and Uncle Harold and his wife, Vera, did not attend the christening; they had urgent business to attend to in London that day. Elizabeth bought the customary silver christening mug and had it engraved, To Alicia Beatrix Mary, from her loving parents, July 1886.
Elizabeth had written to Andrew and his wife, inviting them to the christening. She received no reply and, after the christening tea, she had retired to Florence’s privy and wept at the snub. She wondered if Mrs Crossing had even been shown the invitation.
As the long summer holiday progressed, Charles began to feel bored. He inquired of his mother when they would be taking their holiday in Wales. He was taken aback when Elizabeth snapped at him sharply that Papa was far too busy this year to think about holidays.
Feeling contrite about her peevishness, Elizabeth asked him if he would like to spend a few days with his Aunt Clara at West Kirby.
‘Not really, Mama,’ he replied. Though Aunt Clara lived by the sea, her many ailments did not make her appealing to him.
He began to accompany Polly when she wheeled Alicia in her pram through Princes Park. He liked Polly; she had never seen either shells or seaweed or even sand and had shown a most respectful interest when he had explained what they were.
In the park, she always paused for a little chat with a young gardener weeding the flower beds; he regularly managed to be working somewhere along the usual route of their walk, and Charles teased Polly about him.
In the course of one of their walks, Charles discovered that Polly could not read. He stopped in the middle of the sandy carriageway, and stared up at the handsome young woman. ‘Really?’
She smiled down at him mischievously. ‘Aye. I don’t know nothin’, ’cept lookin’ after Miss Alicia and a few things like that.’
He began walking again, kicking a stone along in front of him. ‘I’d have thought you would be able to read easily. Servants always know so much.’
‘I suppose they do – folks like Mrs Tibbs. But me? I only scrubbed doorsteps and cleaned brasses and helped me Mam sell fents in the market sometimes, afore I were married.’
‘What are fents?’
‘Bits of old or damaged cloth – for dusters, like.’
‘I see. I didn’t know you were married.’
‘I’m not no more …’ Her voice faltered. In the weeks since she had been with the Woodmans, she had wept fairly constantly, alone in her windowless garret. Her only comfort had been the delicious sensation of Alicia’s contented sucking at her breast. ‘Me oosband,’ she picked up again, ‘he were killed in the docks.’
‘How dreadful!’ Charles was genuinely shocked. He understood that to be a widow was very hard; even the Bible said that you had to look after the widowed and the fatherless.
‘It were proper awful,’ Polly confided to him. ‘And me baby died – so I come to look after Miss Alicia.’ She smiled sadly down at the sleeping child in the old basketware pram in which Charles himself had been wheeled as an infant.
‘Well, I’m glad you did come. These hols are boring enough. Say, would you like to learn to read? It’s easy, once you know how. I’ve still got my first books up in my bedroom – and I bet there are some girls’ books in Flo’s old bedroom. I could teach you in the evenings.’
So that summer Polly learned to read and discovered a wonderful dream world.
She also learned to sew better than she had previously done. Elizabeth sent up to the nursery loads of sheets and other household linens, demanding that they be neatly darned or patched; servants should be kept busy, according to Elizabeth.
At first, Polly had been appalled at the huge pile of mending, but Elizabeth had told Rosie to instruct her, particularly on how to patch and how to turn a sheet sides to middle, and they both spent long evening hours by Polly’s single candle carefully weaving their needles in and out of the heavy linen cloth.
When Alicia had acquired a pattern of sleep and it was fairly certain that she would continue to sleep for an hour or two, Polly took a piece of sewing down to the big basement kitchen and sat for a little while with Rosie and Mrs Tibbs round the roaring fire in the kitchen range. ‘I’ll go crackers if I don’t have a bit of a jangle with somebody,’ she told Mrs Tibbs, and Mrs Tibbs had agreed that a little gossip was necessary to one’s sanity. Except for minor squabbles, they got along together fairly well and they would talk about the neighbours and their servants, about the Woodman family and their own families, while Fanny toiled through the washing-up and the scouring of the big, soot-covered iron saucepans.
From these agreeable sessions, Polly began to learn how such a fine house was run, how you could acquire a few perks to take home, like a half-used tablet of soap, nearly finished bottles of wine or perfume, odds and ends like buttons, discarded in the wastepaper basket. In addition Mr Bittle, the gardener, according to Fanny, would sometimes provide a few windfall apples or pears or even a seedling geranium in a pot. ‘Me auntie were made up when I bring ’er a little geranium,’ she confided to Polly, as she sat down on a nursery chair to rest, after bringing up a hod of coal. ‘Mrs Tibbs makes quite a bit on the side, Rosie says. She’ll take a slice or two off a joint or a little bitty butter or cheese – not much, but it adds up to a meal or two by the time ’er day off come around. She takes it to ’er sister.’
Another time, she remarked, ‘Ould Woodie is a mingy master, a proper pinchpenny, so he’s askin’ for theft. I suppose the Missus is used to ’im being mean and pokin’ his nose into the housekeepin’ book. And him payin’ out for his fancy woman; the poor Missus must lose out because of her,’ she giggled knowingly.
Polly laughed. Then she said more soberly, ‘It’s hard when you’ve no man interested in yez.’
As Polly’s grief over Patrick diminished, she had begun to look for someone to replace him; she was young and strong and could not imagine life without a man in it. But she lived in a world of women domestics, and the valet of the Colonel who lived next door was, she soon found, not interested in females. ‘And he a fine lookin’ man,’ she tut-tutted to Fanny. Fanny’s reply was ribald in the extreme.
Every time Polly went home to see her parents, however, she was reminded how lucky she was. The stench of sewage and the lack of even a decent cup of tea had not bothered her in earlier days – she had taken hardship for granted; but not any longer.
The overcrowding had been lessened by the removal of her paternal aunt and her five children to another cellar, but she was grieved to see her struggling mother grow progressively wearier and her unemployed father more despairing. She gave them most of the two shillings a week she earned, and, after her few hours of freedom, she would return thankfully to the nursery, to have only the smell of the baby round her and to know that tea might not be a very large meal but it would certainly arrive.
Though not given to pondering on what the future held, she began to consider how she could continue working for the Woodmans after Alicia was weaned. As a possible alternative, she dreamed occasionally of the gardener in Princes Park. He had never asked her out but he always seemed glad to see her. If he were promoted, he might be given a tied cottage in the park; they were sometimes provided for more senior gardeners. There he might be able to keep a pig and grow some vegetables – and keep a wife.
Unlike Rosie, she did not meet the tradesmen who came to the house and lingered round the back door until they were sent packing by Mrs Tibbs or, in the case of the grocer, invited into her private bed-sitting room to discuss the week’s groceries.
In the darkness of the early morning, Rosie, the house-parlourmaid, used to scurry down the path in the back garden, to get a kiss and a quick fondle from the milkman, who was courting her. Then, trembling with desire, she would rush back into the house and tear upstairs to wash out the great bath with its mahogany surround, before Humphrey Woodman got up. She would lay out his cut-throat razor, his moustache scissors and his shaving cup on the bathroom dressing-table and wipe down his leather razor strop which hung on the wall beside the sink.
‘He used to tan ’is sons’ hides with his razor strop,’ Rosie told Polly. ‘I remember Master Edward gettin’ it so hard once, he fainted. And even then he never lifted a finger against ’is Pa. Loovely young man, Master Edward is; always says “thank you”.’
Rocking the baby in her arms as she paused at the doorway of the bathroom she was not allowed to use, Polly remembered the dreadful state of Elizabeth’s back after she had been beaten and she wondered if he had used the strop on her. No one, she thought passionately, should use a strop on such a pretty lady, no matter what she had done. Since that day, she had more than once found her Mistress with tears on her face. She wondered what else he had done to her, and she shivered.
Chapter Six (#ulink_b389d73d-f885-5524-8baa-1091aa39668b)
I
Elizabeth had no idea whether her husband had expressed any feelings in public about the new arrival in the family, but she suspected that Maisie had done so and that the news of Alicia’s doubtful origins had reached some of her acquaintances. Certainly, the number of invitations she usually received had dropped off, and one or two ladies appeared not to have seen her when she met them while out walking.
Her conscience told her that, as Andrew and she moved through their usual group before the birth, mutual friends must have sensed the attachment between them – and her pregnancy, at so late an age, must have caused speculation behind delicately waving ball fans.
She decided that she did not care; she would brazen it out. And Humphrey could take himself to hell, as long as he kept her. Once she had recovered from the beating, she had done some urgent arithmetic, and had decided that she could not possibly live on her marriage settlement from her father; it provided pin money, but that was all.
In her despair, she had considered writing to her brother in Ceylon and asking if she could make a home with him; but he had always been a poor correspondent and lived up country on his tea plantation, sharing a house with his partner. Two bachelors together, she thought wryly, would not want to be saddled with a woman. And it was said that men sometimes, well, sometimes did intimate things together – and she could not face the possibility of that.
So she decided to use Humphrey to her own advantage. If he threatened to beat her again, she would say sharply that she would show the bruises to the wives of his business associates. Stiff-necked Presbyterians, most of them, they might feel she deserved it, but faced with it, they would freeze out Humphrey. They’d be a pack of Pontius Pilates, she thought maliciously.
The armed truce prevailed, with occasional tiresome arguments which never resolved anything.
II
Though Elizabeth’s friends might snub her, Humphrey found, to his embarrassment, that when he met business acquaintances accompanied by their wives, several of the ladies inquired after Elizabeth’s health and whether the baby had been a boy or a girl.
The same thing happened when he attended social events alone. Where was dear Elizabeth and how was the new baby?
He knew he must, to save unwanted conjecture, persuade Elizabeth to accompany him occasionally, and he must learn to reply civilly to polite inquiries. He could not ignore both mother and daughter indefinitely. His Manchester brother, Harold, and his wife, Vera, had been offended at not being asked to the christening, and he had told them that it had been very quiet because Elizabeth was still weak and Florence was in the family way herself. Though his brother accepted this, Vera felt that it confirmed her own suspicions.
At St Margaret’s Church, Humphrey and Elizabeth stood side by side each Sunday morning in frigid silence. He hoped that she had been privately Churched, attended a traditional service of thanksgiving; otherwise, the minister would ask awkward questions.
Elizabeth had, indeed, been Churched. One morning, she had kneeled alone before the priest, while he intoned over her Psalm 127, with its uncomfortable references to men with quivers full of arrows, and she wept quietly for Andrew Crossing, the darling of her youth, who had deserted her. In a worldly way, she knew he had been wise to slip quietly out of her life, by the simple process of handing over her legal work to one of his partners. She knew he should have done it long before. But it hurt.
It was common enough for women to cry after giving birth, so the priest ignored the tears stealing down Elizabeth’s cheeks. He was, however, kind enough to invite her into the vicarage, where he handed her over to his sister, who kept house for him. She was a fussy, plain woman who produced a strong cup of tea and ten minutes’ bracing conversation on the joys of having children. It gave Elizabeth time to blow her nose, before walking home.
III
Alicia’s first Boxing Day was a Sunday. Harold and Vera Woodman, accompanied by their three sons, came to spend the day with Elizabeth and Humphrey. At tea time, Alicia was brought down by Polly and laid in her mother’s arms; she behaved admirably and gurgled and smiled at the company.
Aunt Vera stroked the fine down of ash-blonde hair on the child’s head. ‘She’s as fair as a lily – and with such light grey eyes,’ she remarked, watching Elizabeth’s face.
Elizabeth bent her own dark head over the baby and kissed it. ‘My brother is quite fair,’ she lied; at least he was not likely to come home for years; with luck, his black hair would have turned white before he returned to England.
Humphrey chewed his moustache and turned to look out of the lace-draped window. His brother and nephews joined him – babies were not very interesting, particularly when they were girls.
Vera pursed her lips and made no further comment. She brought out from her reticule an ivory ring with two silver bells attached to it. ‘Here, Alicia,’ she said. ‘Here is a pretty present from Father Christmas for you.’
Alicia clutched at the ring, and Elizabeth sighed with relief.
When, the following year, the Queen’s Jubilee was being celebrated in Liverpool, Elizabeth’s sister, Clara, came to stay and to join in the festivities. She was older than Elizabeth and lived in a small house left her by their father, in the village of West Kirby on the Wirral Peninsula. She had been ill with bronchitis at the time of Alicia’s birth and this had left her with a painful cough, making travelling too arduous for her. Thanks to the patient ministrations of her companion-help, she was now feeling better, and had come to see her new niece.
She was a spinster and sometimes quite lonely. When she saw the little girl in Polly’s arms, she said impulsively to Elizabeth, ‘You must bring her to stay with me. The sea air will put some colour into those pale, little cheeks.’
When Elizabeth demurred that the presence of a young child might put too much strain on her delicate health, the older woman replied, ‘Let Polly come as well.’
So Alicia’s early childhood was enlivened by visits to the seaside, occasionally accompanied by Elizabeth, more often by Polly. Though frail and slow-moving, Aunt Clara taught her niece how to build sandcastles and took her to collect shells and to paddle in the shallow pools left by the tide.
Polly had never seen the sea before and was, at first, terrified of its bouncing waves. She soon discovered with Alicia the joys of paddling and she, too, looked forward to these little holidays.
Humphrey had invested money in a railway line to link West Kirby with Liverpool. Because it failed to draw enough passengers and part of it had to run in a tunnel under the Mersey, which was more expensive than expected, he suffered a resounding financial loss. When, finally, it did go through, it was a joyous occasion for Alicia, because dear delicate Aunt Clara could then so easily visit the house in Upper Canning Street. Humphrey was consoled by the fact that a piece of land that he had, years before, bought in West Kirby suddenly became immensely valuable because it lay close to the new station. He sold it for housing development, at a handsome profit.
IV
‘Wot you goin’ to do when our Allie goes to school?’ Fanny asked Polly, as, one night, she snatched a moment in the nursery to rest her aching feet. She had asked a similar question when, at eighteen months of age, Alicia had finally been weaned.
At that time, Polly had been very troubled. The under-gardener in the park, of whom she had had hopes, had failed to appear during two successive walks. According to a surly park-keeper, he had been dismissed for impudence. Polly’s dream of presiding over a tied cottage with a small pigsty vanished with him. A brief encounter with a regular soldier, also met in the park, had come to an abrupt end when his regiment was sent to India. Statistics were against Polly’s ever marrying again; the district had far more women than it had men.
The longer Polly continued to live in the comfort of the nursery attic, the less she wanted to return to the teeming slum in which she had been raised. A high standard of living, she found, was very easy to get used to. She had been thankful when Elizabeth had used her, in part, to replace Maisie.
Fanny was now a small, pinched seventeen-year-old and had replaced Rosie as a housemaid. Rosie had married the milkman as soon as he was satisfied that she was pregnant; a working man had to be certain that his wife could have children to maintain him in his old age.
A tweenie was no longer employed to care for fires, empty slops and carry water. Instead, Humphrey ordered Elizabeth to employ a charwoman, who came early in the morning to clean out the fireplaces and remake the fires. She also filled all the coal scuttles. To cut down on the carrying of water, more use was made of the bathroom taps, though the servants were still not allowed to wash themselves or use the lavatory in the bathroom. Elizabeth ended a custom of centuries, abandoned the chamber-pot under her bed and trailed along to the bathroom; she felt it was a real hardship.
Safe in the nursery with Polly, for many years Alicia understood little of the bitterness which lay between her mother and Humphrey Woodman. She learned early, however, from Polly that Papa was to be feared and that she should keep out of his way. As soon as the child could talk Polly taught her that the pretty lady who lived downstairs was to be obeyed without question, no matter how unhappy her decisions made little girls and nannies. Nannies said, ‘Yes, Ma’am, of course, Ma’am.’ Little girls said, ‘Yes, Mama,’ she instructed.
Alicia’s first day at Miss Schreiber’s Preparatory School approached and Polly was again worried.
‘I suppose I’ll have to look for another place,’ she sighed to Fanny. ‘It’ll fairly kill me to leave little Allie – she’s my baby more’n anybody else’s.’ She glanced across to where Alicia was kneeling on a chair at the table. She was quarrelling with Florence’s elder son, Frank. They were playing Snakes and Ladders and she was protesting to the boy that he must slide down every snake on which his counter landed. He retorted that if he wanted to he could slide down only every other one. A fight threatened, and Polly got up to settle the squabble.
‘Now, you play nicely, Master Frank, or I’ll send you home.’
Frank looked at her mutinously, picked up the board and tipped the counters off it, then slid down from his chair to go to the rocking-horse. Still watching Polly, he climbed on to it and began to rock as hard as he could. ‘Cheat!’ shouted Alicia, and, aggrieved, went to sit on Polly’s lap.
‘You could wait at table.’ Fanny grinned wryly at Polly. ‘The Missus says I’m even worse’n Rosie was.’
‘I don’t know how neither.’
‘Ask the Missus to train you. You and her is as thick as thieves – she’ll jump at the idea. Now the Master is wantin’ to have more dinner parties, she’ll need a proper parlourmaid.’
‘’Ow d’you know he wants more people in?’
Fanny looked wise, ‘I ’ear it all.’
When Master Charles came home for the summer holidays, soon after Alicia’s fifth birthday, he found his old friend, Polly, waiting at table. For the first time, Alicia was allowed to have lunch with him and with his mother in the dining-room. He noticed, uneasily, that Elizabeth was most impatient with the little girl, as the child floundered over the various knives and forks. He teased her gently that she would soon be a grown-up young lady and the threatening tears turned to a shy giggle.
‘I’m going to school soon,’ she confided proudly, and wondered if she dare ask for another spoonful of strawberry jelly. She looked up at Polly, hovering over her mother, water-jug in hand, and decided not to. She had long since joined the silent conspiracy of servants in the kitchen; she knew that after the meal she could go down to the basement to ask Mrs Tibbs for a bit more and would be given it gladly.
After this first venture at lunch in the dining-room, she asked Polly, ‘Why are you dressed up differently in the dining-room?’
‘’Cos as well as lookin’ after you, you cheeky little bugger, I got to be the parlourmaid in a parlourmaid’s uniform.’
Miss Schreiber, at the preparatory school, was horrified when, one morning in September, Alicia called a teasing boy a cheeky little bugger. For the first time in her life, the child received a sound slap. She learned quickly that there was more than one English language.
Alicia tended to be secretive and very quiet when in her mother’s company. Miss Schreiber’s complaint forced Elizabeth to pay more attention to her daughter’s language, and this made Alicia more than usually tongue-tied. Only in the kitchen, where she was treated with easy affection, was she able to express herself freely.
She also tended to be struck dumb in her sister’s home, where she was taken by her mother to play with her nephew, Frank. Frank now had a small brother and a baby sister.
‘They’re no good to play with yet,’ he told her, in reference to his siblings. ‘He wets his trousers and she only sleeps – do you know, she hasn’t got any teeth?’
The latter interesting fact stirred Alicia out of her usual wordlessness. ‘Perhaps she’s lost them,’ she suggested. ‘Aunt Clara lost hers once – we found them in her dressing-table drawer.’
For months after that, Frank checked his teeth from time to time, to make sure that they were still firmly fixed in his mouth.
Alicia was always thankful, after these visits, to be returned to the safety of the kitchen in Upper Canning Street; Frank tended to push her about and she did not enjoy it.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_7c8d5918-c01b-5be4-b5df-69d381843cd9)
I
Several times in her life Alicia was visited in her nursery by a man so tall that it seemed to her that his head would touch the ceiling. He was very thin and stood awkwardly in the open doorway of the nursery, until he was invited in by Polly, who curtsied to him.
He was dressed in tweeds which smelled of tobacco smoke and his black hair was cropped close to his head. He always went to stand with his back to the fire and then he would survey the room and say, in a deep friendly voice, ‘This is the only place in the world which never changes – and old Toby is still there!’ He would move over to pat the head of the rocking-horse, which Alicia loved to ride.
At first, Alicia tended to shrink behind Polly’s skirts; her knowledge of men was limited to Humphrey, who had never been known to enter the nursery, and the Reverend Clarence, who never spoke to her. Polly hauled her out, however, and said, ‘Come on, now. You know your big brother, Master Edward. He’s come all the way from India to see yez. Come and say how-do-you-do.’
With the offer of an ivory elephant, just the right size to hold in her hand, she was beguiled on to his knee while he talked to Polly. Polly made up a story about her furrie elephant; it was some time before Alicia realized that she meant a fairy elephant and not a fur-clad mammoth such as she had seen in a picture in one of Charles’s old books.
Perhaps because the room was Edward’s childhood nursery and Polly was not unlike the nanny he had known long ago, his military stiffness left him. While Alicia dozed in the warmth of the fire, her head on his shoulder, he talked easily to buxom, blue-eyed Polly.
Polly watched the yellowed, strained face and fell helplessly in love with every line of it. On other nights, while Alicia slept in the next room, she listened avidly, with her sewing needle poised above her mending, to his stories of the jungles of Burma filled with small, brown men who wore only loincloths. Glad to have a genuinely interested audience, he described the wild beauty of the Himalayas and a particularly dangerous spot called the Khyber Pass, where wicked men in turbans hid amongst the rocks and fired at British soldiers. Normally, he was a quiet, dull man, who, as a boy, had tried to live up to his father’s expectations and had failed. To escape, he had joined the army – a nondescript foot regiment – and he knew he would never be a particularly outstanding soldier either. To Polly he seemed a wonderful person, and she treated him as such.
‘Aye, he’s a lovely man,’ she said wistfully one day to Fanny, who, quick of eye, had noticed the blush which rose to Polly’s cheeks when Master Edward’s name was mentioned in the kitchen and had later teased her about it.
‘Does ’e coom to your room?’ inquired Fanny with great interest, as she quickly dusted the hallway of the top storey.
Polly was changing into her afternoon uniform, ready to open the front door to Elizabeth’s callers, and she paused in tying her apron.
‘Aye,’ she whispered, ‘but don’t tell no one, Fan. He’s a really good man and I wouldn’t want ’is Mam to find out.’
‘Watch out you don’t get in the family way,’ Fanny warned, as she commenced to dust down the bare wooden stairs that led up to the nurseries. After a moment, she looked up again. ‘Be careful. He could tell someone. Some of ’em is real organ-grinders. When did it start?’
Polly adjusted her frilly cap and prepared to come down the stairs. ‘He’ll never tell nobody,’ she replied firmly. Then, in answer to Fanny’s question, she went on, ‘It all coom about, the year ’e coom down with malaria. Remember, ’e coom home and the mistress and me ’ad to nurse ’im? He were home a long time, till ’e got over it.’ She sighed. ‘It were then when he were better and not yet called back to ’is Regiment.’ As she sidled past Fanny on the stairs, she giggled suddenly. ‘He couldn’t do it, first time – he were too weak!’
‘Do ’e give you anythin’ for it?’
‘No. I don’t want nothin’. I love ’im.’ The dark head with its frilled cap was raised proudly, as she paused, hand on banister, to look back at her fellow servant.
Fanny opened the staircase window and leaned out to shake her duster. She laughed. ‘Aye, you’ve got it bad, you ’ave.’
Polly sighed again. ‘Aye. I wish he didn’t ’ave to go to them furrin parts. The Missis told the Master as he’s goin’ back to India soon – he’s bin in Aldershot so long, I begun to think he’d be there always. It makes me sick to me stomach to think about them blackies in their turbans, with their guns.’
When Edward did return to India, this time to the Punjab, Alicia began to get regular letters from her brother. He would invariably end them by sending his love to her and asking her to remember him kindly to Polly, who, he trusted, was well. In neat script, seven-year-old Alicia would equally invariably reply that Polly was well and sent her best respects.
II
In an effort to re-establish herself, Elizabeth had, about a year after Alicia’s birth, plunged into the fashionable world of charitable undertakings. The ladies of St Margaret’s Church found her so useful, when planning church bazaars, that they began to ignore the occasional innuendo which reached their ears about their fellow parishioner.
With one or two other ladies from the church, she became a fund-raiser for the new Royal Infirmary and for the Sheltering Home for Destitute Children in Myrtle Street. She was occasionally snubbed, but a number of the ladies appreciated her hard work and, with them, she was sometimes asked to receptions given for the many important visitors who passed through Liverpool. Humphrey soon discovered that she was acquainted with the wives of men he would like to know, and he suppressed his smouldering anger with her sufficiently to be able to address her and encourage her to ask these people to dinner.
A handsome, well-dressed woman in her forties, forced to deny her natural sensuality, she became, as the years went on, extremely peevish with those who served her.
‘Forever pickin’ on yez,’ Fanny complained to Polly, while they prepared the dining-room for a formal dinner in September, 1896. She pushed a mahogany chair more exactly in position at the glittering table. Quick and impatient, she could be nearly as irritable as Elizabeth was.
‘Aye,’ agreed Polly, ‘and I’ll get it if I don’t hurry. Got to collect Allie from Miss Schreiber’s.’
‘She’s risin’ eleven now. She’s old enough to take ’erself to school and back.’
‘The ould fella says as she’s to be escorted. I heard ’im. Gettin’ at her, he was, pickin’ on her for nothin’. Tryin’ to make things awkward for her. She said as Allie were old enough.’
‘Don’t want ’er to stray like her Mam,’ opined Fanny, positioning finger bowls round the table with mathematical precision. ‘It’s herself what needs escorting. She’s still fine lookin’.’
‘Fanny!’
‘Well, she’s forever trailin’ her petticoats afore one man or another. You watch her tonight.’
‘Nothin’ comes of it,’ Polly responded forcefully. ‘It’s just her way – and she must be all of fifty by now – an old woman. You shouldn’t say such things – and about a good Mistress an’ all.’
‘Aye, she’s quite good,’ agreed Fanny reluctantly. She turned to poke up the fire. ‘How do we know what comes of it? Anyway, who’s comin’ tonight?’
‘A professor and his missus and two other couples. They’re all at that big meeting in St George’s Hall. A real famous doctor come to talk to ’em. Read it in the paper. Name of Lister.’ Polly surveyed the table, set with Elizabeth’s best china and Bohemian cut glass. ‘Well, that’s done, anyways.’
‘Better snatch a cup o’ tea while we can,’ suggested Fanny, putting down the poker on its rest in the hearth.
‘Not me. I must run to get Allie.’
III
After school, Alicia sat by the kitchen fire, watching a harassed Mrs Tibbs baste a huge joint of beef, while Fanny stirred a cauldron of soup. Polly thrust a glass of milk into the child’s hand and told her that after she had drunk it she should go into the garden and do some skipping in the fresh air.
‘Do I have to?’
‘Aye, coom on, luv. I’ll come with yez and count your peppers for a mo’. Then I got to help Cook.’
She put her arm round Alicia and together they went out of the back door, which led into a brick-lined area, and then up well-washed stone steps to the long, narrow walled garden. A straight, paved path ran from the area to a wooden door in the high, back wall. The wind was whirling the first autumn leaves along the path and over the lawn, and the single aspen tree at the far end shivered, as if it already felt the cold of winter. Opposite the tree, on the other lawn, stood an octagonal summerhouse, where Alicia occasionally played house with a little girl called Ethel, who also attended Miss Schreiber’s school. Nearer the house, an apple tree bore a crop of cooking apples almost ready for picking.
At Polly’s urging, Alicia did a fast pepper, her skipping rope thwacking the path quicker and quicker. Polly counted, and they both laughed when Alicia finally tripped over the rope.
‘Seventy-two,’ shouted Polly.
The latch on the back gate rattled suddenly, as it was lifted. A grubby face, topped by wildly tousled hair, peered cautiously round the door. A very thin boy, about eleven years old, entered like a cat on alien ground. His breeches were in the last stages of disintegration and were topped by a ragged jacket too large for him. He wore a red kerchief round his neck and was bare-legged and barefooted. Alicia smiled at him; he was Polly’s brother who came sometimes, when he was unemployed, to beg a piece of bread from her. Though he smelled like a wet dog, Alicia accepted him as part of her small world, as she did the coalman, the milkman and the postman.
This visit was obviously different. The boy was blubbering like a brook in spate, and when he saw Polly he ran into her arms.
‘Why, Billy! What’s to do?’ She hugged him to her white, starched apron.
‘It’s Mam,’ he told her. ‘She’s took bad – real bad. Mary’s with her and Ma Fox from upstairs. Dad says to come quick.’
Unaware that his sister had suckled both of them and was equally loved by Alicia, he ignored the girl and clutched at Polly.
‘Jaysus! What happened?’
‘She’s bin sick of the fever for nearly a week and she don’t know none of us any more.’
Fever was a scary threat, and Alicia interjected impulsively, ‘Polly, you must go. I’ll do my homework while you’re away.’
‘I’ll have to ask your Mam. We got a dinner party.’ She looked down at the mop of hair on her shoulder and gently pushed the boy away from her. ‘Don’t grieve, luv. I’ll come, somehow.’
Billy stepped back and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. This left a dirty smear on either cheek.
For the first time, he seemed to realize that Alicia was there watching him, her skipping rope dangling from one hand. He stared at her for a second and then, obviously trying to re-establish his manliness after such a bout of tears, he carefully winked at her. While she giggled, he turned on his heel and trotted back down the path. The garden door banged behind him, and, as he ran, they could hear his bare feet thudding along the back alley.
With Alicia hurrying behind her, Polly fled back to the kitchen. She was met by an anxious Fanny.
‘The Missus is in, and in a proper temper, askin’ why you wasn’t there to open the door for her. I told her as you was in the garden with Allie, but she’s real put out and sez you’ve not put the claret glasses on the table.’
‘Bugger her.’ Polly stripped off her kitchen apron, snatched up her frilly parlour one and whipped it round herself. The ribbons of her cap streamed behind her, as she shot upstairs, leaving a surprised Fanny facing Alicia and asking, ‘And what’s to do with her?’
IV
The dining-room door was ajar. Elizabeth, still in her osprey-trimmed hat, was standing in the doorway, tapping her foot fretfully.
The moment the green baize door to the back stairs opened to reveal a breathless Polly, Elizabeth turned on her. ‘Polly, claret glasses, girl, claret glasses – and couldn’t you find a more interesting way to fold the table napkins?’
Polly’s panic over her mother immediately gave way to her mistress’s wrath, and she responded humbly, ‘I thought it was your favourite way of havin’ the napkins, Ma’am.’
‘It is not. And the claret glasses?’
Polly bobbed a little curtsey. ‘I’ll get ’em immediately, Ma’am. I wasn’t sure which wine you was having.’
Aware that she was not being quite fair to a woman she respected, Elizabeth tried to control her irritability, and turned to pass through the hall and climb the red-carpeted staircase to her bedroom. Polly followed her anxiously to the foot of the stairs. ‘Ma’am, may I speak to you, Ma’am?’
Her plump white hand on the carved newel post, Elizabeth turned to look down at her. ‘Yes?’
‘Ma’am, I just had word that me Mam is very ill and is callin’ for me. Can I go to her?’
‘Really, Polly!’ Elizabeth burst out. ‘What has come over you? First the dinner table, and then this! How can you go anywhere when Professor Morrison is coming to dinner? Who is going to wait at table?’
‘I thought, perhaps, Fanny could do it, for once. Mam’s real ill – she wouldn’t send otherwise.’
‘Fanny is too clumsy – and I am sure other members of your family can care for your mother for a few hours.’ Elizabeth was shaking with anger. ‘If you must go home, you may go immediately after you have brought in the tea and coffee trays. Fanny can clear up afterwards. But make sure you are back in time to take Miss Alicia to school in the morning.’
Polly kept her eyes down, so that Elizabeth should not see the bitter anger seething in her. I’ll get another job, I will, she raged inwardly. Friend? She’s no friend. Aloud, she said, ‘Yes,’m. Thank you, Ma’am.’
As she got the claret glasses out of the glass cupboard, she cried unrestrainedly for fear of what might have happened to her mother.
When she went down to the basement kitchen, it was in turmoil. Mrs Tibbs missed not having a kitchen-maid and she still tended to lean on Fanny for help. Fanny worked hard. During the day, she still had to carry hods of coal to all the fireplaces in the house, in addition to her cleaning duties as housemaid. Though she resented the totality of her work, she was, like Polly, thankful to be reasonably fed and warm under a mistress who did not usually penetrate to the kitchen. Polly, also, found herself hard-pressed to keep up with the work of parlourmaid and take care of Alicia, as well as do the extensive mending required and the careful pressing of Elizabeth’s elaborate dresses, while Humphrey strove to keep the costs of his household down.
Today, his housekeeper-cook, Mrs Tibbs, usually fairly calm, was in full spate in the steaming kitchen. She shouted to a reluctant Fanny to fill up the hot water tank by the blazing fire and then to peel the potatoes. The light of the fire danced on her sweating face, as she tasted the mock turtle soup and added a quick shake of pepper to it.
Polly was weeping as she came through the door, and Mrs Tibbs, Fanny and Alicia all looked up. They listened in shocked silence as Polly told them what Elizabeth had said about her going to her mother. Polly turned to Fanny. ‘Could you manage the clearing up, Fan?’
‘’Course I can, duck. Mrs Tibbs and me – we’ll manage, won’t we, Mrs Tibbs?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know how – but we will,’ sighed Mrs Tibbs. She picked up a ladle and opened the big, iron oven at the side of the fireplace to baste the joint of beef in it. Then she carefully closed the door on it again. She turned to Polly, who was wiping her eyes with a corner of her apron. ‘Now, Polly, make yourself tidy again, and then you could beat the cream for the trifle – and give Miss Alicia her tea.’
Alicia had come forward to watch Mrs Tibbs deal with the meat. The cook asked her, ‘Would you like a bit of our Shepherd’s Pie, luv?’
‘Yes, please, Mrs Tibbs. Can’t I help you – or do some of the dishes for Fanny?’
Mrs Tibbs smiled at her. ‘No, luv. It wouldn’t be proper. Your Mam wouldn’t like it.’
So Polly carried a tray containing Shepherd’s Pie and trifle up to the nursery – Mrs Tibbs had made the dessert in a little glass dish specially for Alicia.
As Polly put the tray down in front of her, Alicia asked, ‘Why doesn’t Mama let me come down to dinner, now? All the girls at school have dinner with their parents. I’m nearly grown up – and it would save you such a lot of running up and down, Polly.’ She shook out her table napkin and put it on her lap. ‘I could even eat my meals in the kitchen with you and the others. And, you know, I could have helped Mrs Tibbs today, so as to free Fanny to wait at table.’
‘Bless your lovin’ heart.’ Polly bent and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her flaxen head. Then she hastily rewound the plaits of her own hair more tightly and settled a clean cap on top of them, while she considered how to answer the girl.
‘It’s not proper for you to eat with the servants, luv. And your Papa gets cross very quickly, as you well know. So your Mam probably wants him to have his dinner quiet, like.’
‘I don’t think it’s because of that, because I can be as quiet as a mouse. I think they don’t like me, not even Mama. There must be something wrong with me.’
‘Och, no! Parents always like their kids,’ Polly lied.
‘Well, I don’t understand why I can’t be with them.’
No you don’t, thanks be, thought Polly. I’d hate you to find out. She was anxious to get back to her work, but Alicia was following her own line of thought, so she lingered for a moment, as the child asked her, ‘Do you think Mama would be grumpy, if I asked Mrs Tibbs to teach me to cook? Some of the girls at school are learning from their Mamas. You see, I could then help Mrs Tibbs.’ She looked earnestly up from her dinner.
‘Well, you could ask your Mam. But don’t say nothin’ about helpin’ – she might not like that.’
‘Surely I can help a friend?’
Polly did not respond. She merely said she must get back to the kitchen and fled before she had to explain the limit of friends allowed to little girls.
Alicia licked both sides of her trifle spoon and sadly scraped the empty dish. She put the dish back on to the tray. As she slowly folded up her napkin and pushed it into the ivory ring which Edward had sent her from India, she thought there was no explaining the idiosyncrasies of parents. She leaned back in her chair and her lips began to tremble – she wanted to cry. It was so strange that the other girls at school had parties at Christmas and birthdays and went on holidays with their mothers and fathers, and no such things ever happened to her – she was not even taken shopping by her mother – Polly took her to Miss Bloom, the dressmaker, to have her dresses and coats fitted, or to Granby Street to buy the few Christmas gifts she did not make herself. Polly even took her to All Saints Church most Sunday mornings.
She got out her spelling book to do her homework for the following day. But the letters seemed to jump erratically, as she realized suddenly that not only had she never given a party; she had never been invited to any other girls’ parties, either.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_462639d3-259d-5eb3-8926-e019822d8103)
I
James Tyson did not take much notice of his wife, Bridie’s, complaints of fatigue and of pain in her legs; women always complained of their feet and that they were tired. He himself suffered chronic pain in his back, a relic of his work as a docker; it made it impossible, now, for him to find work, except occasionally as a nightwatchman. It was Bridie selling her rags and old buttons in the market who kept them from starvation. When one morning she failed to get up in time for the opening of the market, it was suddenly brought home to him that her complaints were not the usual ones.
‘Me head,’ she nearly screamed to him. ‘It’s me head!’
She was hot with fever, so a worried James suggested that she should go to the public Dispensary to ask for medicine.
‘I couldn’t walk it,’ she gasped. ‘I’ll be better later on.’
James woke Billy and sent him off to work; he had a job cleaning up after the horses in a stable belonging to a warehouse. On the way, James said, he was to call in on his sister, Mary, and ask her to come to her mother. Mary arrived at Bridie’s bedside half an hour later, her newest baby tucked inside her shawl. She was followed by her daughter, Theresa, a fourteen-year-old who plied the streets at night. They both stared down at Bridie tossing on her truckle bed; neither knew what to do.
Finally, Mary sent James upstairs to the tap in the court, to get some water to bathe Bridie’s face with. ‘Looks as if she’s got the flu,’ she suggested, as she handed her baby to Theresa to hold.
Nobody else attempted to put a name to the fever; there were all kinds of fevers, and people either got better from them or they died. And pain such as Bridie’s was something you put up with.
The news went round the court that Billy Tyson’s Mam had the flu. Nobody wanted to catch it, so they stayed away. James went to peddle Bridie’s fents in the market.
Word that Bridie had the flu very badly reached her Great-aunt Kitty, who lived in the next court. She hobbled down the stairs from the attic in which she lived and, slowly and painfully, dragged her arthritic limbs into the Tysons’ cellar room. She was panting with the effort as James, returned from the market, made her welcome; few people knew as much about sickness as Great-aunt Kitty did. She pushed her black shawl back from her bald head and bent over to talk to the patient.
‘’Ow you feelin’, Bridie?’ she croaked.
Her eyes wide and unblinking, Bridie tossed and muttered unceasingly.
‘Lemme closer,’ the old lady commanded Mary. ‘And give me the candle so I can see proper.’
As was the custom, Bridie still had her clothes on; clothes kept you warm at night as well as in the daytime. Only her boots had been removed, to show black woollen stockings with holes in the heels and toes.
As she shuffled closer to the bed, the old lady muttered, ‘Well, it int cholera, praise be, or she’d be dead by now. Is ’er stummick running?’
‘No. She ain’t even pissed.’
Aunt Kitty paused and looked up at Mary. ‘She truly ’asn’t?’
‘No. Not a drop. I bin ’ere all day.’
‘That’s bad.’ Aunt Kitty bent still lower, the candle dripping wax on Bridie’s blouse, while she lifted the sufferer’s chin and held it firmly in order to take a good look at her face. ‘Lord presairve us!’ she exclaimed. She touched a dark encrustation at the corners of Bridie’s mouth, and then drew back thoughtfully.
She turned to Billy and James and ordered, ‘You turn your backs. I’m goin’ to take a real look at ’er all over.’
Filled with apprehension, Billy followed his father’s example.
Great-aunt Kitty gestured towards Mary with the candle. ‘Lift up her skirts. I want to see her stummick.’
Mary hesitated, her brown eyes wide with fear of what her great-aunt might deduce.
‘Come on, girl.’
Kitty was said to be a witch, so rather than be cursed, Mary did as she was bidden, though she felt it wicked to expose her mother so.
Underneath the black woollen skirt were the ragged remains of a black and white striped petticoat. Mary lifted this and her mother’s stomach was exposed; she wore nothing else, other than her stockings.
Holding the candle so that it did not drip on Bridie’s bare flesh, Kitty ran her fingers over the sick woman’s stomach. She bent down to peer very carefully at it. Beneath the grime, she was able to see dark red blotches. Her lips tightened over her toothless mouth.
She felt down the rigid legs and her sly old face, for once, showed only a terrible sadness. Very gently she took the petticoat and skirt hems from Mary’s fingers and laid them back over Bridie. ‘You can look now,’ she told the male members of the family.
While she made her examination, James had retreated to the back of the tiny room. Now she turned to him.
‘’Ad any rats ’ere lately?’
‘There’s always rats, you know that,’ growled James.
‘Hm.’
Billy interjected, ‘Mam found a near-dead one in the court a while back. Proper huge it were – like a cat. She threw it in the midden with the rubbish.’
‘I knew it,’ muttered Great-aunt Kitty. ‘I seen it before. She’s got gaol fever, God help us all.’
A hissing sigh of fear went through the other members of the family.
‘Typhus?’ James whispered.
‘Aye. Haven’t seen it for a while. But I seen lots of it in me time.’
‘What’ll we do?’
‘Doctor from Dispensary might come.’
‘They’ll be shut by now.’
‘Well, first light tomorrer, you go after ’em. Aye, this’ll cause a pile of trouble.’
‘What?’
‘They’ll burn everythin’ you got, to stop it spreadin’.’ She pointed to Bridie, still staring at the blackened rafters above her head and chattering incoherently. ‘They’ll take ’er to the Infirmary no doubt – keep ’er away by herself.’
‘To die by herself?’ James was aghast.
That’s wot ’ospitals is for, int it? To die in.’ She gave a dry, sardonic laugh. ‘They daren’t leave ’er here, ’cos everybody in the court could get it from her.’
‘Christ!’ He rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Are you certain sure?’
‘Aye, I’m sure.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘Well – almost.’ She looked round the little room, lit only by the candle in her hand, at its dirty brick walls, its earthen floor, its empty firegrate. ‘And you take care o’ yourself and our Bill,’ she warned. ‘Take all your clothes off and wash ’em, and kill every bloody louse and flea you can find. The cleaner you are, the better you’ll be.’ She turned to Mary, and asked, ‘Anybody else bin in here?’
‘Our Theresa and the baby was here. I sent ’em home just now.’ Mary began to cry.
‘Well, you got a copper in your house. You go home and put all your clothes in it – and Theresa’s and the baby’s and our Billy’s and your Dad’s stuff. And boil the lot real hard.’ She looked disparagingly at the fat, rather stupid girl in front of her. ‘And if it’s wool and it can’t be boiled, borrow an iron and iron it well. Go over all the seams – with a good, hot iron, mind you.’
She turned back to Bridie, who periodically was letting out short shrieks. She put her hand on her niece’s forehead again, and then turned to James. ‘See if you can get a bit of milk from somewhere and feed it to her.’ She swung back to Mary and snarled at her, ‘Stop wingeing.’
Mary sniffed and wiped her face with the end of her shawl. She cast a glance of pure hatred at the humped back bent once more over Bridie; witches ought to be burned, in her opinion. Aloud she said, ‘I’ll go and get the fire lit under the copper. Tell our Billy to come straight over to our ’ouse – I’ll do ’im first. While the water’s gettin’ hot, I’ll run back with a bit of conny-onny for Mam.’
Kitty straightened up and sighed. She felt around in her skirt pocket and brought out a penny. ‘Get a pennorth o’ fresh milk, as you go by Mike’s dairy. Conny-onny int goin’ to do her much good.’
With a pout, Mary took the proffered coin, said goodbye to her father and clumped up the steps to the court.
‘I’ll stay for a while,’ the old woman told James, who had moved closer to look anxiously at his tossing wife. ‘Gi’ me a chair, Jamie boy.’
James hastily moved a small stool closer to the bed and she slowly lowered herself on to it. ‘’Ave you got any firing? I could use a cup o’ tea.’
‘Aye, I got some driftwood.’ He took the water bucket up to the court to draw water for tea from the common tap.
Crouched against a wall, Billy had listened dumbly to Great-aunt Kitty’s diagnosis. His mother was his world. Sharp-tongued and quick to slap, nevertheless, she kept the family together. Without her, there was only darkness. Now he crept forward, to ask, ’is she goin’ to die, Aunty?’
His great-aunt looked up at him from her stool, her bloodshot eyes glittering in their black hollows. ‘Coom ’ere, duck.’
The lad moved closer to her, and she put a long bony arm round him. ‘She might,’ she said. ‘She ’asn’t got no strength.’
Billy began to blubber like a small boy, while his mother raved on her bed. ‘Na, then, luv.’ Great-aunt Kitty’s arm tightened round him. ‘There’s a time when all of us has to go. You must pray nobody else gets it.’ She sighed. ‘Your Pa should’ve asked the Dispensary for ’elp before.’
‘Mam didn’t want ’im to. She’s afraid of us all endin’ up in the Workie.’
The very word ‘Workhouse’ was enough to make anybody panic, thought Great-aunt Kitty, so she nodded understandingly.
‘Well she is real ill now, lad, and the Dispensary is the only one what might save her.’
II
Wrapped in a black woollen shawl, her straw hat skewered by two huge hatpins to the top of her plaited hair, Polly ran through the ill-lit city. Though she was by no means young she was nervous in the Woodmans’ neighbourhood of being cornered by half-drunk, smartly dressed men out for an evening’s entertainment; further into the city itself, prostitutes paraded followed closely by their pimps, all of them anxious to defend their own particular territory. As she cut through side streets to reach her home near the junction of Scotland Road and Cazneau Street, homeless men dozing in doorways called to her, and an occasional group of seamen on shore leave shouted after her. She gave them all wide berth.
The narrow street off which the court led was almost dead dark, and she feared she might not find the entrance. As she passed, she let her fingertips brush along the rough brick wall, watching that she did not trip over front steps which occasionally protruded on to the pavement.
A slight difference in the light and nothing under her fingertips told her that she had found the narrow archway.
As she entered, the smell hit her, the appalling reek of the midden full of a month’s rubbish and the overflowing earth lavatories. Very faintly, from the steps leading down to the cellar, came the glow of a candle. She walked lightly towards it, afraid of slipping on the cobblestones, greasy from half a century of filth. Then she ran down the narrow outside staircase and into the room.
Though there were only three of them, the cellar seemed full of women, wrapped in their black, crocheted shawls, all watching tearfully, as her mother on her straw mattress muttered softly. The light of the solitary candle barely reached her father, who was pacing up and down a narrow space by the fireplace. He was beating his breast with one clenched fist, in time to the movement of his feet. Crouched on another palliasse laid on the floor, his head against the wall, Billy dozed, his tousled hair shadowing his face.
Polly’s quick footsteps on the stairs woke the boy, and all heads turned towards her.
Polly had eyes only for her mother, and the women edged back as she ran to the narrow bed and flung herself on her knees by it. ‘Holy Mary!’ she breathed, as she saw the black-encrusted mouth and the frightening staring eyes. She laid her arm round her mother’s head and whispered, ‘Mam.’
Bridie ignored her, and continued to toss and mutter with an occasional near shout.
Polly looked round wildly. ‘Aunty! Aunty Kitty, what’s to do with her? Can’t you do somethin’?’
Perched on her stool like a roosting crow, her great-aunt said heavily, ‘I think it’s gaol fever.’
Polly drew back from the bed in horror. ‘Has anybody bin to the Dispensary to ask the doctor?’
‘Billy’ll go as soon as it’s light – mebbe somebody’ll be there.’ She looked down at the terrified girl. ‘You come away from ’er, duck. You can’t do nothin’, and you might catch it.’
Mary let out a sudden wail, ‘Aye, we’ll all die unless we’re lucky – and our Billy wouldn’t come over and ’ave hisself washed and ’is clothes boiled.’
‘Now, Mary, don’t take on so. Time enough for that later.’ This from Mrs Fox, Bridie’s distant kinswoman and the family’s landlady, who, to her credit, had come down from her ground floor room to see if she could help.
But Bridie was beyond help. She died before midnight in the arms of her old aunt, her half-nourished body unable to withstand the ravages of the terrible disease.
In the first light of morning, as they listened to the unearthly sound of keening coming from the Tysons’ cellar, her Catholic neighbours formed an uneasy knot on the far side of the court; occasionally, one or the other of them would cross themselves.
They whispered questions to each other, and, finally, a woman ran across to the iron railing guarding the cellar steps. She leaned over. Great-aunt Kitty was sitting exhausted on the bottom step, and she asked her, ‘What’s to do?’
The old woman looked up and replied, without hesitation, ‘Typhus, I reckon. It’s our Bridie, dead from typhus.’
The woman flung her hands across her chest, as if to protect herself, her face a picture of horror. ‘Jaysus, save us!’ she screamed.
At her shriek, panic went from face to face. People not yet up leapt from their palliasses to the windows and flung them up, as the woman turned and spread the news. Nobody came near the cellar, tending instead to bunch themselves in the far corners of the foetid yard and draw comfort from excited talk with each other.
James wept unrestrainedly, not only because he had lost his wife, but also because she would have to be given a pauper’s funeral, the last great humiliation.
‘’Aven’t even got a sheet to wind her in,’ he sobbed bitterly. ‘Will they ’ave to strip ’er?’
‘Aye, for their own safety, they’ll have to take everything of ours off ’er and burn it,’ Great-aunt Kitty told him. ‘They’ll bring a shroud, though.’
III
Though his neighbours did not come near him, it seemed to James that that day, the rest of the population of the city tramped through his miserable dwelling.
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