The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  But the dinner was only the beginning of the staff festivities for, after clearing away, the tables and chairs were pushed back, as were also two partitions that divided the room from that part which was used for storing dried goods. Once a year this was cleared to make space for the party.

  It was a custom to invite the master and mistress and household to join the party, but it had never been known for the mistress to accept the invitation. The master had sometimes popped in for five minutes or so, but the duty, and it was considered a duty, fell to the eldest son and any other member of the family who would like to join him. But even these did not stay long, knowing that their presence acted as a restraint on the hilarity.

  It was said, among the staff, that before the old master died when madam had ruled here, which in reality she did to this very day, she and the master had come in to the party and hadn’t been above joining the dancing. But that had all stopped twelve years ago after the old master had died and Mr Anthony had brought his wife and family here, as was his right…

  It was half past eight when the party began. Sally Finch, Jean and Biddy were sitting on a wooden form near the dividing doors. They were all agog with the excitement. Jean was describing how the party had been set off last year, and the year before, and likely would be tonight: James Simpson, the first footman, could play the fiddle and Peter Lowther, the groom, could do wonders with the flute, and they generally played the Sir Roger De Coverley. But just the older ones danced that; it would be the young ones’ turn when the games started.

  It was as Jean predicted: the party got going with the Sir Roger De Coverley, danced only by the upper hierarchy of the staff. And now the first game was about to start, a game which embraced everybody: a large circle was formed, with one player being delegated to run round the outside and to tap a member of the circle on the shoulder, this one to chase the first player, trying to catch him before reaching the open space. If he couldn’t, then he had to do some kind of forfeit before he could take his turn tapping someone else on the shoulder. It was at this point that the door opened and some of the family entered.

  Leaving the ring, Thomas Froggett went hastily towards them and conducted them to seats that had been set apart at the end of the room. The visiting party consisted of Mr Stephen, Mr Laurence, young Master Paul, and Miss Lucy. Miss May, like her mother, never put in an appearance on these occasions.

  Once the guests were seated, the game started in earnest. There was no feeling of restraint among the staff, this was their night. Shoulders were tapped and the runners encouraged by shouts for one of them to fill the gap. Then the cry would go up: ‘Song, dance, or rhyme?’ Nearly always the choice was dance, because it was the easiest.

  When one of the stable boys tapped Jean, she was so surprised to be chosen that for a moment she didn’t run and there were cries of, ‘Go on! Go on!’

  She, too, chose to dance, and when her feet tried to imitate a clog dance, she nearly fell over, causing great laughter around the ring. Now it was her turn to choose, and she tapped Davey on the shoulder and he beat her to the gap; but they closed it to him and opened it further along and pulled Jean in. And so he had to choose.

  He stood for a moment, his eyelids blinking, his fair skin red, while Biddy willed him to do something good. Recite, she said to herself. Recite. Recite, man. He had learned a lot of rhymes and poetry during his lessons. But he too chose to dance, and he was pushed into the middle of the ring, only to surprise them all and make Biddy feel proud of him as, imitating a gentleman, he placed his left hand on his hip, extended his right hand to the side, his fingers spread, and then proceeded to lead an invisible partner forward in a dance, bringing forth shouts and clapping from the others.

  Biddy swelled with pride at her brother’s achievement. She realised from where he had taken the dance steps. There was a big book in the library with drawings showing ladies and gentlemen dancing, and he had mimicked them.

  When he tapped her on the shoulder she went off like a hare, but he beat her to the gap and there she was, pushed into the centre of the ring with the cries coming at her: ‘Song, dance, or rhyme?’ And she had no hesitation in saying, ‘Rhyme.’ And she heard some voices repeating, ‘Rhyme.’

  Part of her mind was in a high state of turmoil, another part was quite calm, for she imagined the master to be standing near the gentry and he was looking at her and she knew she must do him proud. Some of the last poetry he had made her read had been from the poet called Shelley. So she stood straight, her head up as he had taught her, her mouth set with her tongue tucked behind her lower teeth, and as he had taught her to read so she spoke:

  ‘I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden,

  Thou needest not fear mine;

  My spirit is too deeply laden

  Ever to burthen thine.’

  She paused here for a moment, her eyes looking straight ahead; then went on,

  ‘I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,

  Thou needest not fear mine;

  Innocent is the heart’s devotion

  With which I worship thine.’

  There wasn’t a movement in the room. If she had blasphemed, spewed out obscene words, she could not have stunned the majority of the audience more than she had done. After a moment there was a smothered giggle here and there from the younger ones, but all the adults in the room fixed her with their eyes, and the brightness that had shone from her face as she recited faded away as she looked back at them. Her head turned slowly. What was the matter with them? It was a lovely poem. She didn’t understand it all but she liked it, the sound of it, the feel of the words, and the master had said it was a thing of beauty. Then into the stillness came the sound of a single clap, a hard definite clap, and all the eyes were turned on to the visitors and to Mr Laurence, then to Mr Stephen, who had joined him. The two younger ones were not clapping; but now, as if given a lead, here and there a servant, thinking best to take a cue, joined his hands together and clapped. But they were mostly male hands that did the clapping, except those of Jean and the seamstress, Mrs Morrison, and Julie Fenmore, her second assistant.

  Biddy had no need to be told that by reciting the beautiful poem she had stored up trouble for herself, and that in a way she had brought the game to an end, for now the housekeeper had motioned to the butler who motioned to his second-in-command, and the music struck up again.

  As Biddy moved down the room to join Jean in the corner, she had to pass the visitors, and it was as she did so a hand came out and touched the sleeve of her dress, drawing her to a halt, and she turned and faced the two gentlemen of the house. It was the one she now understood to be Mr Laurence who spoke to her. ‘You recited that very nicely,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Her voice was a mere whisper.

  ‘Who taught you to read?’

  ‘The master, sir. I mean Mr Miller from Moor House.’

  ‘Oh.’ He nodded at her, then cast his glance at Stephen, and Stephen, bending down, asked her kindly now, ‘And what else did he teach you?’

  ‘Oh, lots of things, sir.’

  ‘Lots of things?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded at him.

  ‘Such as what?’ It was Mr Laurence speaking to her again, and from where he sat her eyes were on a level with his and she looked straight into them as she said, ‘Reading and writing. But I could do that afore I went there. Then Latin and some French.’ She watched the eyes narrow as they continued to stare at her and she knew that the young man was finding it hard to believe her. She didn’t like being thought a liar by anybody, and so her tone lost its quiet, even subservient note and took on an edge as she said, ‘’Tis the truth, sir. He taught me for five years, and my brothers and sister. My brother is over there’—she turned and pointed now—‘the fair one.’

  The two men continued to look at her in a dumbfounded way, as did the younger boy and girl, but the expression on their faces represented in this moment exactly that which would have been on their mother’s face had she
listened to such audacity coming out of a servant’s mouth, and not an ordinary servant either, but a creature who was the lowest of the low in the household. As if of one mind, the brother and sister were about to rise and walk away when Laurence’s voice stilled them. He hadn’t turned towards them, nor yet seemed to be aware that they were about to leave, but he said quietly, ‘Stay where you are; you might learn some more for your good.’

  Now looking over Biddy’s head, he noticed that although some of them were dancing while others sat around the walls, nevertheless all were aware that this child was being taken notice of. He had always considered there were too many servants in this house and that there was a form of snobbery among them that outdid even that of their superiors. He hadn’t taken much notice of such things until he had gone to Oxford two years ago, but in that city, at least within the confines of the university, one naturally had servants, and some of them were servile individuals. Yet he doubted if their attitude to each other would be the same as that of the servants in this household, and in others round about at which he stayed, and he doubted very much if his father, unlike Lord Chesterfield, would remember any servant in his will, nor say of them: ‘They are my equals in nature and only my inferiors in fortune.’ And he was sure in his mind that Chesterfield must have been thinking of someone with an intelligence such as this child here possessed when he wrote those words, for was she not surprising, quoting Shelley and saying that she could read Latin and French. It was utterly unbelievable. But he hoped, for her own sake, that this news didn’t reach Mama, a title he had always given to Grace Gullmington, although they were but second cousins, for of all the minds in the household he knew that his adopted mama possessed the narrowest. So he would have to see that these two rips by his side kept their mouths shut. Stephen was speaking to the child again, saying, ‘Let us hear another rhyme.’

  Stephen was a good fellow, one of the best. He couldn’t have loved Stephen more if he had been his brother, and they were as close as brothers, yet he knew that what Stephen knew about poetry or literature of any kind was minimal. Now had it been horses. Well, that would have been different. Like his father, if it had been possible he would have eaten and slept on his horse. But here he was, unthinking as usual of the consequences of anything he might say or do, urging the child to repeat her performance and by doing so picking her out from the rest of the company. Yet he had himself to blame for that; it had been an irresistible urge that had prompted him to put out his hand and draw her attention.

  His voice quiet, while his elbow gently nudged Stephen, he said, ‘I think the young miss would like to join the party. You must remember we are just onlookers.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, all right. Away with you!’ And Stephen made an exaggerated gesture of shooing her off.

  She turned from him without further words and went and joined Jean, who was sitting open-mouthed and wide-eyed in the corner near the dividing doors. But when Biddy took her seat beside her neither of them spoke; they watched the visitors rise now and, attended by the housekeeper and the butler, move down the room towards the far door, Miss Lucy muttering, ‘Oh, aren’t I a clever girl…They’ll skin her for that.’

  In the hall Laurence caught hold of Lucy’s shoulder and as he did so he also laid a hand on Paul’s arm and, drawing them together, he bent his head down towards them, saying, ‘Stephen and I here’—he glanced at the taller young man who was standing grinning now—‘we think it best if you don’t mention this episode to Mama or Papa.’

  The girl and boy stared back at Laurence; then the boy said surlily, ‘Papa doesn’t hold with the lower classes learning.’

  ‘Now who told you that?’ Stephen gripped his younger brother by the shoulder and walked him across the hall, saying, ‘Papa’s go-ahead, he wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I think he would. Paul’s right.’

  Stephen now turned and looked at Laurence and his eyebrows went up as he said, ‘You really think he would, Laurence?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I think he would.’

  ‘Oh well, yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  They had reached the drawing room door when Laurence spoke once more to Paul and Lucy. In a quiet slow tone he said, ‘Mama would be greatly disturbed if she knew of two people who take jaunts on a Sunday and upset the stable lads and the laundry girls; especially would she be annoyed with you, Lucy.’

  The brother and sister exchanged glances; then Paul, his tone sulky, said, ‘We’ve got the gist, but why should you worry about what happens to a laundry skivvy?’

  ‘Perhaps just because she is a laundry skivvy, and the lowest of all of them back there.’ He jerked his head towards the servants’ hall. ‘And they can be even more deadly and spiteful than you two when they get going.’ He now grinned, and they grinned back at him; then Lucy, putting her head on one side, said quietly, ‘You would split on us, wouldn’t you, Laurence, if we disclosed that that person could read and write?’ And he nodded solemnly at her, saying, ‘Yes, without a moment’s hesitation.’

  Then both Laurence and Stephen, and even Paul, were surprised at the girl’s next words for, her lip curling, she said, ‘It only goes to prove that you are not our real brother.’ And on this she flounced from the door and made for the stairs, leaving the three males looking after her.

  It was Stephen who, disturbed now out of his usual tolerant and slightly absent-minded manner, said, ‘I’m sorry, Laurence. That’s unpardonable, really unpardonable. Why, you’re more one of us than…than’—he pointed to his younger brother - ‘than Paul there. I’ll go up there this minute and shake her guts up, see if I don’t.’ But as he made to dive off Laurence caught hold of his arm, laughing now and saying, ‘No, no, don’t be silly, Stephen. Let it pass. I know Lucy. She’ll be all over me in the morning.’ Stephen puffed and blew for a moment, but only for a moment for he was quite willing to let it pass; he hated disturbances of any kind. Yet he was certain of one thing, his feeling for Laurence was that of a brother, a beloved brother at that.

  He turned now and said to Laurence, who was moving away, ‘Where are you off to? Aren’t you going to join Father for a drink?’

  ‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ Laurence called back; ‘I’m going to say goodnight to Grandmama before she settles down.’

  ‘Oh, right. Tell her I’ll be up in the morning. Doesn’t want too much company at one go. Been a long day for her.’…

  When Laurence entered the old lady’s room, she was propped up in bed, and all except her head and neck seemed to be swallowed in the huge four-poster bed. He did not take a chair at the bedside but hoisted himself up on to the coverlet, cupping one knee in his joined hands. There he sat looking at the wizened face under the pink silk ruffled cap for a moment before he said, ‘Another one over.’

  ‘What are they doing down there now?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure except that Mama and Papa and May are in the drawing room, and Stephen and Paul have just joined them.’

  ‘Did you look in on the party?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes.’ His face twisted into a tight smile as he added, ‘And some party it was tonight.’

  ‘What happened? You look as if you’d enjoyed it. Don’t tell me you danced with Collins or Nichols, or Mrs Amy Fulton, she of no body and less brain.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Something much more exciting than that.’

  ‘What could be more exciting than that?’ Her lips screwed themselves into a smile, and he said, ‘I know one thing, you would have enjoyed it if you had been down there and witnessed what I did.’

  ‘Well, what did you witness?’ Her voice rose. ‘Go on, tell me.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be able to give you any real impression of the incident, and I’m sure you won’t believe what I’m going to tell you. First of all, let me ask you a question. How do you view your laundry maids? Because they still are your laundry maids, the two older ones are anyway. I remember them from I was a boy. But there are three younger ones now, and the youngest of
the lot…oh, she can’t be more than fourteen I think…and yet I don’t know, there’s a kind of age in her eyes…Can you recall the present giving?’

  ‘Can I recall the present giving?’ Her nose twitched. ‘What do you think I am, a bundle of old bones in her dotage? Of course, I can recall the present giving. What about it?’

  ‘Well’—he laughed—‘the very last one to come in was this young girl. She added a couple of extra words to her thanks, then her departure was slow as she viewed the room.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ The old head nodded. ‘Yes, I remember the child. And I knew what would happen to her when she once got through those doors and was collared by Mrs Fulton, likely got her ears boxed.’

  ‘Well, that was she. She had to do a forfeit in a round game and she stood up there in the front of the whole lot of them and she quoted a verse from Shelley.’

  ‘Shelley? Who’s he?’

  ‘Oh, he’s a poet. He died some time ago. His work is quite controversial at the moment.’

  ‘And she was quoting him, that girl?’

  ‘Yes, and beautifully.’

  ‘How did that come about, a laundry maid quoting a poet?’

  ‘Well, from what I can gather she came under the patronage of the late owner of Moor House, you remember, Mr Miller.’

  ‘Percy Miller? Oh, yes, yes. Hobson’s hero.’

  ‘What?’ He leant towards her and she repeated, softly ‘Hobson’s hero.’ She nodded towards the end of the room where Jessie Hobson was putting clothes back into the wardrobe. ‘She used to work for the Millers, and apparently was in at that fellow’s birth. Visited him until he died…Didn’t you, Hobson?’ Her voice now rose and Jessie Hobson turned round and said quietly, ‘Yes, that’s so, madam.’