by DM Bryan
Here my mistress broke off her speaking. Her breathing had grown increasingly shallow and from time to time she tightened her fingers around mine. “Oh Betty,” she said, gripping my hand, “I would so like to finish this work now that I have begun it.”
I hastened to assure her she had no shortage of time in which to dictate her thoughts to me, but I could tell I sought to reassure her on the topic that distressed her more than any other. “Of what,” said I, hoping to distract her, “will you speak next, now that you have considered how repetition is a thorough-going characteristic of a Laundress’ work?” “Why Betty,” said she, weakly waving for me to take up my quill, “I will speak of …”
Chapter II. Of Constraint.
Under this head, I shall attempt to show what obstacles prevent a laundress from making those garments consigned to her care immaculately clean. Such checks to our pursuit of perfection are several, and they range in severity. The least grave are splatters and splashes, but these still require some show of invention on the laundress’ part, for she must set herself to determine the nature of the substance by testing the blemish, employing the system she has devised for this purpose. By sundry means, she must measure its degree of wetness, waxiness, oiliness, greasiness (for these are not the same), dryness, chalkiness, cheesiness, or flakiness, as well as the colour of the stain, the degree to which it enables the passage of light, and the presence of an odour. Also, she must consider the nature of the fabric that hosts the unknown smear: linen, cambric, muslin, lace or edging, Holland shirt, ruffle, or fringe all demand a different treatment. Only once a laundress has fully catalogued the nature of her stain can she employ the means necessary to dispatch it: the precise temperature of the water, the correct use of soap, and all the other parts of her exacting craft. But this is a laundress’ art and her joy, or she is no washerwoman.
Constraints of a middling sort are those central to a laundress’ practice and comprise all impediments arising from the conditions of her work: the heat; the cold; the constant wet; the indifferent reception by fellow servants upon a laundry day; the confinement to the few steps between vat and hearth; the mistresses’ instructions to save soap and coals but never miss a speck of dirt; the sweat of our brow; the blood of our cracked knuckles; the stretch of our day from the earliest hours to candlelight, for our day never ends until the task is complete. These checks upon our well-being are familiar to each of us, they are as water to herring—we swim in their currents and feel them not.
The last genus of constraints are those that threaten to unmake a laundress: the master hiding behind the door; the crafty cadet requesting extra starch; the butler demanding tit-for-tat; the footman in love; the groom with especially grubby breeches; the poetical tutor. Each of these is a danger to a laundry-maid, with her sleeves pushed up and her shift ties loose. The steam, the warmth of the tubs, the presence of a half-washed female, these things bend and shift the light so that a phantom appears in the minds of some men. Her figure hovers over his lady’s petticoats—a spectral laundress, with flowing, dampened locks of hair and skirts lifted on hot currents of wind. When she appears thus, half-nude, posed upon a cake of soap, he can no longer discern that she is only a grubby St. Giles’ girl, with a red, running nose and a smear of fuller’s earth upon her brow. A laundress must be both quick and wily to defeat a gentleman when this mood is upon him. She must not waste time calling for help or splashing him, but she must run, and run quickly, or ruin is upon her.
Such scenes are the chiefest of constraints that face a laundress, be she sixteen or sixty, but others still threaten the unwary. Sloth afflicts a few, for not all laundresses love work. Crime tempts others, for some return loads lighter by a length of Flanders lace. Gin calls to many, for the work is long and hard, and the sight of so much water can give a body a tremendous thirst. Decay takes most, for we rot and crumble in the moisture—black mould grows between our fingers. And after decay, comes death, for all laundresses must die, and this is the constraint that brings us renewed vigour. We think on the joys of freshly pressed garments, bright and shining in the sun. Our cleanest scrubbing speaks aloud this sovereign truth: while we wash we live.
Here, again, my mistress broke off speaking, and I would have had her take a bit of ale (for so long had my mistress been about the composition of her Analysis of Laundry, Mrs. Hudson and her clutch returned from church, and that good lady no sooner saw my mistress’ condition than she sent her youngest for a tankard from the Bell). Alas, my lady would have none of the Bell’s wholesome beer, but she closed her eyes and rested a while, her hand upon mine the whole time. I sat beside her on the bed and saw by the light from the window the state of her poor fingers, how wizened and bent they’d become while in the very employ of which she spoke. I stroked them gently and murmured low until I thought she slept again. But I was wrong, for she gave a sudden start, her old eyes opening very wide, and she said, “Come, Mrs. Betty, I must finish what I have begun, for that is a laundress’ duty.”
“Nay, mistress,” said I, pretending to misunderstand in the hope she would rest a while longer, “you shall go nowhere this day, for a cozening grey cloud blows up Cheapside, and I would not have you out in the rain for anything.” She knew I did not really expect her to rise and don her cloak, so she smiled a little and let me continue to chide her for suggesting so.
Then she said, “If I must not go outside then I must stay here, while together we complete … ”
Chapter III. Of Variety.
How great a share variety has in producing goodness may be seen in the very repetition that forms the base of all laundry. Consider, if you will, how variety is the product of those forces I note above. Repetition gives a washerwoman the experience necessary for the fullest understanding of her craft, while constraint fixes each woman at her vat, freeing her mind for greater and greater achievement. From these twinned precepts stem all the brilliant variation found strung out on a line of clean clothes: the frock coat of shining midnight hues, free of the shoulder-staining starch that can so mar a gentleman’s prospects; the mantua bright as a flower garden, where each stitched lily conceals no spot of veal gravy nor coin of candle wax; the plain blue stockings of an even tone and free from pale streaks, the mark of careless hands. Behold the glory, and remember a washerwoman has restored to each item the colour and the form God intended, which is the good of laundry. A laundress’ task is no less than this: to extend that goodness wherever blots, smudges, spills, and stains make washing needful.
A gentleman once told me Aristotle, in Classic times, said something in a similar vein , but in truth, this knowledge has been the laundress’ own since time began. I doubt not that Aristotle had it from his own washerwoman, but I believe I have made my point: all goodness comes from laundry, or its like, and that goodness comes in forms as varied as the freshly washed items in a basket awaiting pinning to the line. Laundry teaches love, not of principle, but of variety—of every shape and size and colour and kind. Can I say it simpler, Betty dear?
Here, I shook my head. Despite the broken and halting line of her voice, she could not have spoken more clearly. I understood her exactly.
My mistress continued in a voice so faint I had to bend close to hear her. I wrote: And as I am a laundress, I understand truth as particular to my employment, but I hold what is true for laundry is true for other trades as well. Alas, I have not been given time to pursue this insight, but I bid you to continue my labours on my behalf. I beg you never to cease to search out variety in this world, which I am now so sorry to leave.
This last came as little more than a gasp.
Sadie, my mistress’ account ends there. I could write no more and, flinging myself upon the floor next to her bed, I upset my bottle of ink. Dark fingers appeared upon the wooden boards. I begged my mistress not to leave me, urging her to consider that my apprenticeship was not complete, that the time of my indenture was not ended. She found my hand and press
ed it to her lips. “Mother,” I said, for she was this to me and more, Sadie, as well you know. “Mother,” I repeated and I felt her kind eyes approve me and saw a pale smile upon her whitened lips.
“Betty,” she whispered, “Betty, my darling. ’Tis just like something in a book.” And then she closed her eyes, her breathing racked and full of pain.
[
She did not die then, sister, but lay so for several hours. Mrs. Hudson came to weep over her, as did many of the denizens of the Bell. I could not stop them as they came up the stairs, and they came and went all day. I remember me one very well—a young thing, still wearing the hat she brought from the country. The mark of the city was already upon her, for she had removed her tucker to display her bosom and was certainly drunk. She knelt at the foot of my mistress’ bed and lay a hand upon the pale damask. Her head bowed, she swayed a little from side to side, lost in some reverie of her own. When the others left, she remained, although I could not guess the reason why.
At last I wearied of her presence and took up her hand, intending to lead her gently but firmly to the door, but I no sooner saw her muzzy face tilt up toward my own when I remembered all my mistress said in her Analysis. I looked backwards at the table where lay her words, and in my own handwriting, each line sloped and blotted in places with my tears. Then, instead of turning the creature out of doors, as I had intended, I knelt beside her, and we waited in that prayerful position for our mistress to be done. And when at last our lady’s breathing stopped, and her soul washed softly from this world to the next, the Harlot and I comforted each other, and mingled tears, and we were two variations upon the same weeping girl.
Sadie, I have not buried my mistress yet but will soon. I have not the money to set over her head a stone, but I have in mind a different monument. I would like to take The Analysis of Laundry, and perhaps sundry items also, to Mr. Palmer to see if the esteem in which he holds my lady extends to the following kindness: that he might composite her words into pages and print them up as a book.
I wonder if I dare.
[
My waterman has been to see me. He brings me a gift, which must have cost him dear, Sadie, but which already I treasure second only to him that set it in my hands. A package of papers, well wrapped in a waterproofed cloth, and which, when opened, contains a complete series of those ingenious, much admired prints. These are all Mr. Hogarth’s own work and no pale imitation.
Sadie, I spread the first of these across the table and looked hard. Engraved in lines so fine and dark, the yard of our Bell Inn appeared, with its cracked brick walls and muddied ground. And in that familiar court, I found at once the Harlot, and the bawd, and the terrible colonel, and the York coach girls, and the minister on his white horse. With his tools and his ink, Mr. Hogarth set them all in motion, cullies and whores alike, forever progressing, forever trapped.
So engrossed was I in the tale Mr. Hogarth told, I did not notice at first the small figure in the uppermost corner. She has in her hands a pair of second best stockings that she sets out to dry. Absorbed in her work, she pays no heed to the events below. She’s no part of the story, and yet there she stands, all because Mr. Hogarth saw her.
Then I was a girl again, rushing heedless home, laden with dirty clothes and fresh news for my mistress.
Sister, I might find comfort yet.
Elizabeth.
Chapter 7
The History of Glossolalia:
Or, Virtues Various.
The Lady’s Tale
A novel, containing the following note beneath its cover: Dearest Sadie, in order to afford you some amusement, I am providing you with the book given me by Mrs. Tanner, which I have finished at last. I say no more of The History of Glossolalia, except that is a patchwork of tales—a curious volume, full of variety. Affectionate regards from your Elizabeth, who loves you ever.
London, 1746.
In the great and growing city of London, in the nineteenth year of the reign of King George the second, in a comfortable but plainly furnished room, two women sat, each regarding the other with care and attention. The first, the lady named Sarah, was like her name, compact, with a face as round as a vowel. The second, the lady whose room this was, proved to be a tidy woman of middle years, tall, with a look in her eyes that seemed fixed on some object far distant from the tea-table over which she now superintended. Between them, the fire gave off a light, red and flickering, that lent an expression of warmth to the faces of the two inhabitants, and yet the women were strangers. The peculiar events of their acquaintance curtailed the usual formalities, but in fact Sarah and Glossolalia had known one another for no more than the duration of a short coach ride. Now they sat face to face, while Glossolalia picked up her teacup and looked meditatively at the ochre liquid inside.
“I am,” she said to her new companion, “grateful beyond telling for your generous assistance in Mr. Hogarth’s painting room. I feel quite restored now that I am once again in my own rooms, but truly, you must think me a weak creature for engaging in a fit of weeping before mere pigment.”
“I do not,” said Sarah, “for I am myself frequently moved by the artist’s ingenious output. I have a volume in which I collect his prints, and I purchase new works whenever I am in funds.” And like Glossolalia, she lifted her teacup and saucer with a genteel rattle.
“Still,” said that new friend, “I am not much used to crying in public.” She sipped. “You and your coach have done me a real kindness.”
Said Sarah, “when I discovered you disconsolate before Mr. Hogarth’s Marriage-a-la-mode, I took it for granted you had a particular reason for your distress. In my experience, dear Glossolalia, no female advances in life without some story to tell, and many of our elder sisters who pass unnoticed in a riffling of skirts are veritable books, should we but choose to turn their pages.”
At this long speech, Glossolalia set down her cup with such force she risked chipping the china. “You compare me to a book?” she said, looking intently at her companion’s face, as if she also would read something there. “Pray,” she added, “do you imagine I am romance or novel?”
“I imagine nothing,” said Sarah, “but I have no doubt you have a tale to tell, should you wish to do so.
“The promise of an understanding listener is a temptation indeed, but are you so certain I am worth hearing?”
“Indeed I am. Will you disappoint me, madam?”
“I shall not,” said the other, “for the sight of Mr. Hogarth’s work has left me eager to confess.” And with that, both women settled themselves more comfortably into their chairs.
“My story,” said Glossolalia, who was to be the hero of her own tale, “starts in King’s Square in London, where I was born. I came into this world the daughter of a rich man who died young, my blessings dilute from my earliest days. My father’s wealth came from water, fresh from the countryside but clapped between boards and sent downhill to spend itself in London’s sludge. City men punned mightily upon his liquid assets, but he was a solid man too, with large holdings of the rich brown soil that stained the hems of the market women’s skirts. I saw such country girls sometime, hawking carrots and cabbages in Covent Garden, and I envied them.
Envy was not my birthright, for I was my father’s only heir, and at scarcely twenty-three years of age, I found myself one of the richest women in London. But, I married badly—the same old story—a man some years my junior whose reputation I ignored in preference of his charm and pretty features. His face, I soon learned, masked a rogue and a rake, whose sole interest in my person was my purse. To put it bluntly, madam, he stole from me, and worse, he stole from the daughter I bore him, robbing my girl of that portion of the fortune that would be hers. When I discovered my husband’s trespass, I consulted lawyers, who consulted each other, but none could discover a way to remove me from the mire into which I had blundered. My own skirts were cut from silks and stitc
hed in satin, but my hems were as soaked with ordure worse than any countrywoman’s. My ruin seemed complete.
Then, one day after attending a service at St. Anne’s, my little girl by my side, a lady stopped me in the aisle as I went to pass. Her face and name I knew, and so I greeted her as an acquaintance, though not a friend. “Mrs. E—,” I said, taking her hand in mine, “I had not thought to find you here.”
But Mrs. E— had no thought for the polite niceties with which one lady greets another. Instead, she leaned forward and demanded, “Are you truly married, then?” Astonished by her urgency as much as her question, I did not know what to answer, but only pushed forward my child, tilting up her face so that my accuser could see I was a married woman, with a daughter besides.
“Yes, yes,” said the woman, “I have one too, but did you really go before the parson and swear unto God?”
Dear madam, I do not wish my tale to shock you, but I could not pretend to be unaware of what this lady had done to preserve her own fortune. Neither did I fail to understand how her case touched closely upon my own, so I only nodded. Indeed, I had married the fool and, in doing so, borrowed his motley colours for myself, and for my girl besides. The lady saw in my face that my situation was indeed an unhappy one, and to my astonishment she embraced me with a sisterly tenderness.
“I heard reports,” she said, when at last she had expended her ample reserves of compassion. “Tales of your husband roving from bagnio to bagnio, holding entertainments of his own devising. He appears in loose company, always with a glass in hand, his shirt and breeches loosened, and his hat and wig knocked askew. And recently, he has been seen in a very low place indeed, wearing no wig at all, having bared his shaved pate to admonish God for his losses at the gambling table—losses, I am told, he can ill afford.”