The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘You heard what was being said then?’

  ‘Yes, I overheard, madam.’

  ‘Well, what do you know about this girl?’

  ‘She’s the daughter of the housekeeper who has four children, and Mr Miller taught them for so many hours a day, so I understand.’

  The old lady now looked with widened eyes at Laurence as she said, ‘Did you hear that? God in heaven, what’ll be happening next? And she’s in this household?’

  ‘Yes, she’s in this household. Well, in the laundry.’

  The muscles of the old face moved, making a pattern like water flowing over ridged sand, and then the bedclothes began to jerk up and down as the old lady’s whole body shook with her mirth. And when she spluttered she grabbed at a lace-edged handkerchief lying on the silk coverlet and dabbed her mouth and then her eyes before she said, ‘Imagine what will happen when Lady Grace gets wind of this, a little scholar in her laundry. Not that she would recognise one laundry maid from another if they were pushed under her nose.’

  ‘That’s not all.’ Laurence was now joining in her glee and he leant a hand on each side of her shaking body as he went on, ‘She says she can speak French and knows Latin into the bargain.’

  The old lady’s laughter ceased and she said quietly now, ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘No, Grandmama, truly I’m not joking.’

  ‘Then all I can say, ’tis a great pity for the creature, for where does she think that will get her, only into serious trouble, as her head will be telling her she’s too clever to use her hands. I’ve never gone along with any ideas of your father’s, you know that’—she too alluded to her son being Laurence’s father—‘but I’ve always been with him in the business against the education of the lower classes, because where is it going to get them? Nowhere, except where they are at present, serving in one way or another and, in the main, yes, happy.’ She inclined her head in a deep obeisance now, giving her words authority as she repeated, ‘In the main, yes, happy, because they are satisfied with their lot; but teach them to hold a pen and to read from a page, then you are dropping seeds of discontent into their otherwise contented lives. What is more, you know my ideas on God and His supposed directions for the human family. There are many things on which I disagree with Him. One such as you know is the superiority of man, which is rubbish. But with regards to His placing of human beings in certain positions, whereby a servant is subject to his master and in return the master has the duty to his servant inasmuch as he should see that he is fed and clothed in return for his labour, I’m in wholehearted accordance. So with regard to this little genius in our midst I would say that it’s a pity she is here. No good will come of it for the child, for as you only too well know once the mind begins to work it gropes at reason, and reasoning has no place in the life of a servant. You would agree with me, would you?’

  ‘No, Grandmama, no, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’ The head came up abruptly from the pillow and the lace frills fell aside, exposing the bony shoulders, and again she said, ‘You wouldn’t?’

  And once more he replied, ‘No, I wouldn’t. I’m for people using their minds, and whether we like it or not, more and more are doing it. There are great stirrings in the world outside our little domain, Grandmama. You wouldn’t believe. Here’—he swept his arm wide as if taking in the whole domain—‘in these two thousand acres is a world behind the times. Outside there are great rumblings below, and there are eruptions bursting to the surface here and there in strikes and murders. You did hear about the gibbeting at Jarrow, didn’t you, of the miner who killed the deputy? And that’s not all. They are bringing soldiers into towns to quell riots, and the navy into ports to guard the merchant ships. And as for reading and writing, men are defying their masters here and there and doing just that.’

  ‘Nonsense. Nonsense.’

  ‘No, Grandmama, it isn’t nonsense, it’s common sense. It’s got to come sometime.’

  ‘What has got to come sometime, equality?’

  ‘Well, since you’ve said it, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, go away. Go away.’ She slumped down into the bed again. ‘Jack will be equal to his master when Christ makes a second coming and as, to my mind, He hasn’t made the first yet, there’s your answer. Go away; you tire me.’

  ‘I don’t tire you.’ He was leaning over her again. ‘I annoy you by stimulating your mind. You know I do. I set you thinking. You said yourself, remember, I’m the only one in this establishment who can set you thinking. And ten to one this time next year you’ll be using my tactics on someone else.’

  She didn’t come back at him with, ‘Never! Never!’ but surprisingly and in a small voice, she said, ‘I may not be here this time next year, Laurence. Sometimes I know I won’t be here; other times I’m frightened that I won’t be here. Death is a very frightening thing, Laurence, and I’m not prepared for it, I’m still too much alive up here.’ She now pointed to her frilled cap. ‘And as my mind tells me that there’s no heaven and no hell, only a great nothingness, I’m afraid to go into it.’ Her hands now clutched at Laurence’s, and he brought them together and stroked them as he said softly, ‘There may not be a heaven or hell, Grandmama, but there is surely a something. There is no great void, no great nothingness; that thing that’s alive up there’—he nodded towards her head—‘will go on.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Her voice was a mere whisper now and that of an old woman, and as quietly he answered back, ‘I do know. I feel it, and I’m not the only one. There’s new thought running through the world. The old ideas are dying; people are laughing at penance and purgatory. There are men who are performing miracles as Christ did, just by touch, and they are not charlatans, no more than He was. All right, all right’—he shook the hands he was holding—‘He may not have been God, or the Son of God, but He was a great man with a great mind, and a greater spirit. So just think on that. Just think that that great mind of yours cannot die. Your body, yes, it will rot, but nothing can destroy thought. It cannot be touched, or seen, or held, yet it tells us everything…Go to sleep now, dear, and remember one more thing: I need you, if it is only to argue with.’

  He bent now and kissed her wrinkled cheek; then he slid from the bed and walked out of the bedroom and into the dressing room, where Jessie Hobson was arranging a complete change of her mistress’s underwear for the morrow, and, stopping by her side, he said, ‘She’ll sleep now, Jessie.’ The woman turned to him and, her face solemn, she said, ‘You always do her good, Master Laurence, and she’s always better when you’re at home, but she’s very fractious at other times.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He patted her arm. ‘She’s not easy…You look tired.’

  ‘I am a bit. Master Laurence.’

  ‘You should have help.’

  ‘I’ve put that to madam, but she won’t hear of it.’

  He was on the point of wishing her a good night when he turned and looked at her and said, ‘This child in the laundry, what do you know of her other than what you’ve said?’

  ‘Only that she’s very bright an’ that Mr Miller thought highly of her. I’m sure he’d be disturbed if he knew that her mother had sent her into a laundry.’

  ‘Why did she?’

  ‘Oh, well, as far as I can gather, from what little I know, she hasn’t any money, and although Mr Miller left her the house…’

  ‘He left her the house?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir, he left her the house, but no money to keep it up, and so she put the girl out to work, as her brother has been for the past few years. I think she hopes that she and her other children will be able to survive in that way, although I can’t say how long she’ll last with the small wage they both get. Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I know it’s enough, because of their uniform and…’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, Jessie. I know what you mean…Life’s an odd mixture, isn’t it?’

  She paused before nodding and saying, ‘It is. It is, Master Laurence.’

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nbsp; ‘Good night, Jessie.’

  ‘Good night. Master Laurence.’ And watching him leave the room, she thought, He’s nice, but he’s strange. Fancy talking like that about God. It’s a wonder he wasn’t afraid. And for a moment she felt afraid for him, because she had seen what happened to people who questioned the Divinity of the Creator.

  In the far, far end of the house, in the last room that was ten feet by eight and at this minute deathly cold, Biddy too was thinking that life was very strange, so strange that it was making her cry. She was sitting on the edge of the pallet bed hugging her knees as she stared into the black darkness. Her outdoor coat was draped round her shoulders over her nightgown, and her day clothes were laid over the foot of the bed for extra warmth.

  Jean had been asleep this past hour, tired with the excitement of the day and the joy of possessing a pair of mittens given her by her mistress, and a blue hair-ribbon which she had received from Biddy herself.

  Biddy too had received a pair of mittens, but she thought nothing of them, she had knitted better ones herself. The whole day had held little joy for her except that she had been amazed at the beauty of the house. As for the party, she would know the result of that tomorrow morning, because after it had broken up the housekeeper had waylaid her and commanded, ‘Come to my office at nine o’clock in the morning.’ And then as she had passed the butler and the footman, they had looked down on her as if she was some strange creature, and the butler said, ‘My, my! It’s comin’ to something, it is that.’ Oh, she wished she could go home…Yet, there had been one bright spot in the day. The two young masters had spoken to her so nicely, and the one called Mr Laurence reminded her in some way of her old master, and he seemed to know about poetry. She thought she could like him, but not the two younger ones. She knew spite when she saw it in people’s eyes and the young miss had really turned her nose up at her, as had her brother.

  There were a lot of strange people in this house. She had felt lonely at times for people back in Moor House, but here there were too many people, and all of them, it seemed, at one another’s throats by what she could make out from the bits of gossip she overheard. So she supposed she wasn’t the only one that was going through it.

  Oh, she wished she was home. If she did something awful she would be sent home. But then what would her mother say? Perhaps not very much, but she would think all the more, losing two pounds twelve shillings a year, and having to feed her. But surely there were other jobs she could get. But what kind of jobs? What was she fitted for? All she could do was housework, or digging, weeding, and planting, and now, of course, laundry work. Oh, that place. She ground her teeth, then flounced round and into the bed and pulled the covers over her head. If she ever got sent away from this place it would be for going for that Mrs Fitzsimmons.

  But the following morning at nine o’clock as she stood before Mrs Fulton’s desk in her box-like office, the housekeeper almost took the laundress’s place in Biddy’s mind as a means of being dismissed, for she kept ranting on at her, as if last night she had committed a crime in saying her poetry. Dirty, she called it. A young girl like her reciting about kissing. And now she seemed to be almost frothing at the mouth as she said, ‘And you had the effrontery to stop and speak to the young masters.’

  ‘I didn’t. One of them pulled me to…’

  ‘Don’t you dare answer me back! Don’t you dare speak until I give you permission. All you had to do was dip your knee and listen, then walk away.’

  ‘I’m not dumb.’

  ‘How dare you!’ This last was a bellow that brought the woman to her feet, crying, ‘If it wasn’t that Finch has gone sick with stuffing herself, leaving Mrs Fitzsimmons short-handed, I would send you packin’ this very minute.’

  Biddy watched the housekeeper’s chest move up and down. It reminded her of the bellows back home in the kitchen. And now after one long breath the housekeeper said, ‘I have asked you before, I’ll ask you again, what did the young master say to you?’

  When this question had been put to her before she had answered nonchalantly, ‘He just talked,’ fearing that if she had repeated what he had said it would have aroused the woman’s wrath. But now, throwing caution to the wind, she put it in a nutshell by saying in no small voice, ‘He asked me how I’d become educated.’

  It wouldn’t have surprised Biddy if the housekeeper had collapsed on the floor at that moment; but what she did do was turn her head to the side and then move it in a half circle while her eyes appeared to follow an imaginary object. But when once more they were glaring at Biddy she became speechless for a moment; then, her words struggling out of her small puckered lips, she said, ‘Girl, you have no place in this household, and I’m going to make it my business to see you leave it at the earliest possible time. Do you understand me?’

  Biddy’s whole body was trembling, part with injustice and part with a dry sobbing that was racking her chest. When now the housekeeper’s arm was thrust out and her finger pointed, like a stick of lead, towards the door, Biddy turned and stumbled out. No sooner had she reached the passage than the tears forced themselves over the lump in her throat and flowed down her face, and blindly now she continued down the passage instead of taking a turning that would lead to the yard door, and so entered the kitchen, and for a moment she quelled the laughter round the table where Kate Pillett was enjoying a joke with Mr Laurence.

  Laurence had always been a favourite of the cook’s since he was a small boy and when he was at home it wasn’t unusual to find him sitting on the edge of the table munching one of her pies.

  Anna Smith had her head back laughing loudly, as had Daisy Blunt who was peeling vegetables at the sink, but Daisy kept her back turned which proved she was concentrating on her work and not taking advantage of the young master’s visit.

  The laughter ceased and they all looked at the girl hurrying down the room and rubbing one cheek after the other with the back of her hand. And she paused for a moment near the table and looked at the cook before running out of the kitchen and into the boot room and so into the yard. She had appeared oblivious that one of the young masters was in the kitchen and she had passed him without dipping her knee.

  Laurence now looked enquiringly towards the boot room and then at the cook, and she answered his look by saying, ‘Oh, she’s been getting it in the neck from Mrs Fulton. It’s about last night, sir.’

  ‘What did she do last night?’

  ‘Oh, well.’ The cook now rolled out some very thin pastry before she said, ‘She made a bit of a show of herself saying those rhymes like that, though meself, I thought it was funny. But coming from such a youngster, well…anyway, she’s not the type that will reign long here. Mrs Fulton was only looking for an excuse to get rid of her, and this’ll be it. Anyway, laundry maids are ten a penny. Would you like another pie, sir?’

  ‘No, thanks, cook. No thanks.’ He smiled at her now, adding, ‘As usual they spoil my appetite for my meal.’

  ‘Go on with you, sir. If I remember rightly, you used to be able to eat six at one go and come back for more.’

  ‘I was filling out then. I’ve got to think of my digestion these days. But thank you; as usual your pastry is excellent.’

  Again the cook said, ‘Oh, go away with you, sir.’ Then both she and her assistant dipped a knee as he nodded to them before making his way up the kitchen.

  Once he had gained the house he stood for a moment considering. It was no business of his, and yet in a way it was. He had stopped the child and talked to her and therefore he knew he had put her in a position of envy, and the little lady Fulton was showing her powers. He paused a moment, then with a quick right about turn he went once more behind the screen, through the green-baized door and into the corridor. And there he knocked on the housekeeper’s door, and when he was told to enter the woman was so surprised she popped up from her seat, saying brightly, ‘Well, Mr Laurence, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve come after a position.’

 
‘Oh, Mr Laurence, you’re always a tease.’ Her voice and manner were coy, and he smiled at her as he said, ‘Well, Mrs Fulton, what I’ve really come about is to apologise.’

  ‘Apologise, sir? What on earth have you got to apologise for?’

  ‘Well, it’s about that incident last night, Mrs Fulton. You know, that child.’ He paused as if it was difficult to remember the incident, then went on. ‘I think now I was very remiss in talking to her. Looking back on it, it seemed as if I was singling her out, and it was never my intention to do so. But at the same time she seems a very bright little girl. Don’t you think so, Mrs Fulton?’

  ‘Well, sir, I…I find her…well, rather forward.’ The coyness was slipping now.

  ‘Yes, yes, I…I agree with you, but…but merely in a scholastic way, which is very unusual I suppose in the position she holds. But perhaps you’ll take her under your wing, you’re so used to seeing to young girls like her. And—’ He smiled broadly now, even laughed a little as he added, ‘I was telling madam about the incident last night and she was most interested in the fact that a child like her should be quoting Shelley…you know, Shelley the poet.’

  ‘Er, oh yes, yes, sir.’ The tone was flat now.

  ‘Well, I thought I would just apologise for what was really my fault and for what, on her part, might have appeared unseemly behaviour. But I knew you would understand. You must make allowances for me: it was Christmas Day and I’d imbibed a great deal of wine. Well, they are waiting for me in the stables and I must go and shake up an appetite.’ He smiled again at her, adding now, ‘You have put on a splendid table for us these last few days, Mrs Fulton. It’s a credit to you. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, sir.’

  In the main hall once more he stopped, closed his eyes for a second and said to himself. How could you? Talk about being smarmy. Then chuckling inside, he answered himself, saying, All in the furtherance of education. Isn’t that what I aim to do? As he hurried now towards the front door he cast his eyes around him as he answered his own question by saying, Yes, but not here or in these parts. By God no. Oxford or no place.