Martha arrived one morning on the doorstep of the house in Charles Square, in answer to an advertisement in a paper for nursemaid to the baby not yet born. Mary Anne seized hold of her and took her upstairs to the top floor, before Mrs. John had sight of her.
“What are you doing here? Who told you to come?”
“I saw the bit in the paper. I guessed it was you.”
The creature stared at her. The expression was stolid, dumb worship. Could she be slightly mental? Were the eyes a trifle vacant?
“Does my stepfather know you are here?”
“They didn’t want me no more. They said I must earn my living. So I’ve come to be servant to you.”
“How much do you want?”
“I don’t know. My keep, I suppose.”
Yes, she could cook. Yes, she could wash. Yes, she could mend, she could darn. She knew how to shop in a market.
“If I take you, you must never mention my stepfather nor your mother, nor the fact that you saw me at Pancras. You will be Martha Favoury, my servant. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“If you do anything to displease me, I shall send you away at once.”
“I won’t displease you. I’ll do just what you say.”
In a moment Martha had found herself an apron. In the next she was scrubbing the hearth. A nod and a smile at Pancras had made her a slave on sight. Yes ma’am, no ma’am. No wages, only her keep.
Mrs. Joseph Clarke had a servant. Mrs. Joseph Clarke could say to Mrs. John, “If you like, I can spare you Martha for the afternoon.” A touch like this canceled obligation. Mrs. Joseph and Mrs. John could meet on equal terms.
Mary Anne and Joseph lived two years in Charles Square, and during that time two children were born to them. The first died soon after birth. The second, a girl, lived, and was baptized Mary Anne like her mother. When the third was on the way, Mary Anne declared that the top floor of Charles Square could hold them no longer. They must have a house to themselves, but who was to pay for it? Joseph’s father had died, but he had kept his word. Not a penny more than the annuity of fifty-two pounds a year came to Joseph. The business on Snow Hill prospered, but without the second son. The second son shrugged his shoulders. He had a pound a week, a free roof over his head, and did not even have to pay wages to the servant, so why worry? They could live on at brother John’s indefinitely.
“Don’t you want to be independent?”
“I call this independence.”
“Don’t you want to be respected, looked up to, spoken of as a craftsman, like Thomas Burnell? Wouldn’t you like to see your own name, Joseph Clarke, above your own business?”
“I prefer to live like a gentleman.”
But was it living the life of a gentleman, lounging on the third floor of his brother’s house, and suggesting, more often than not, that they shared his brother’s dinner? Was this not the first step in the direction of someone shabby, down at heel, pitied, who eventually bore the stigma of “poor relation”? If only he had one ounce of drive, one particle of ambition.
“Brother John, we are crowding you out of your house. Now your family is growing up, you need our rooms.”
“Nonsense, my dear. There is room for us all.”
“But Joseph needs work, needs occupation. The talent is there, if he had the chance to use it. The will was unfair, unjust. Joseph has a right to share in the family business.”
Brother John looked worried and upset. His father’s death had made a difference to all of them. Already he was at loggerheads with his other brother Thomas, who had inherited the brains and most of the capital. John had fallen from favor because he had befriended Joseph. Sometimes he wondered whether it would not be better to split altogether, and leave Thomas to carry on in his own way, while he retired.
“Joseph asks for nothing,” said Mary Anne, noting the crease of anxiety, the frown of indecision. “I am asking for him. It would take such a small sum of capital to set him up in business, and naturally, as soon as he made any profit, he would repay you the original loan. Have you heard, by the way, that Brewers of Golden Lane are selling up? The house is in good repair, and the yard is behind it. If Joseph had one apprentice to help him, a boy in his first year…”
Charley would do. No outsiders. Profits all in the family. No wages paid to strangers.
“It would start, don’t you think, as a branch to the business in Snow Hill? But Thomas would have no say in the matter; it would be entirely in yours and Joseph’s hands, as you both agree so well.”
In the Christmas of 1794 the Joseph Clarkes moved to Golden Lane… At last Mary Anne had her own front door, her own staircase. No more tumbling over brother John’s children on the stairs. Her own new curtains hung at the windows, her own new carpets covered the floor. Martha, in a print dress, cap and apron, gave the orders to the butcher’s boy. There was a perambulator for Mary Anne the second, a bassinet for the baby on the way, paid for from the funds that had been put into the business, paid for by brother John, who had quarreled with brother Thomas.
“How are we doing? Very well indeed. An order for a monument at St. Luke’s. Another from St. Leonard’s. Joseph has really more work than he can manage.”
Show visitors upstairs. Show them the rooms, so spick and span, and the well-clad baby daughter, and the respectful serving maid in the kitchen. Every sign of prosperity, of success. But keep the door to the stone yard firmly closed, to hide the slabs of granite not yet touched, the tools lying neglected in the loft, the master absent.
“Is Mr. Clarke at home?”
“I’m sorry, he’s out on business. Some important order.”
And later, much later, Martha calling in a whisper from the kitchen, “Master’s back.”
Joseph, with his hands deep in his pockets, would be kicking at the slabs of granite. No need to ask where he had been: the flushed face, the unsteady hands, the immediate attempt to take her in his arms and kiss away her stare of accusation, told their own story.
“I’ll work tomorrow, but not today. Today we must have a celebration. To hell with work.”
She must not nag. She must not threaten. Nor must she show reproach. These things had sent Bob Farquhar from her mother. Smile, then, and laugh, and drive with gay assurance through the town. The spirit of bravado must be maintained before Mrs. John, who during the course of the summer would often visit her, each time with an added problem to discuss, and finally in tears.
“John made a great mistake to break with Thomas—he acknowledges it now. He’s a child where money is concerned, and his share of the capital is going fast. Until the yard here in Golden Lane shows a profit we must depend upon speculation, and John knows nothing of the City. Can’t you prevail upon Joseph to work harder?”
“He does work hard, but business is slack, what with sickness during the winter, the war, the uncertainty of the times,” Mary Anne seized upon any excuse to save her husband’s face. “And speculation isn’t necessarily a risky thing, if you know the right people. A friend of Joseph’s made a fortune the other day—I believe he introduced him to brother John. If his advice is followed we may all of us wake one morning to find ourselves rich.”
Never be apprehensive. Never dread the future. A hopeful heart wins three-quarters of the battle, and duplicity the rest. There must be no more borrowing from brother John until his speculations in the City came to success, and in the meantime Mr. Field, the silversmith in Golden Lane, was willing to advance loans on terms suggested by herself. “My husband is a nephew of Alderman Clarke, and in the event of my husband’s business not making an immediate profit, the Alderman will help us later on. But perhaps a small loan temporarily?” Temporarily, there were few silversmiths who would not have obliged at sight of the elegant, newly-furnished house a few doors down the street, the whole presumably backed by a future Lord Mayor of London.
James Burton, too, could be touched—not financially as yet, perhaps, but for workaday advice. He was now a succe
ssful builder, and could see in a glance the faults and omissions of the stone yard in Golden Lane.
“A word from you, Mr. Burton, would mean so much. Joseph is reserved and shy. He will not push for orders. For old times’ sake…”
Old times? She smiled upon him. He had long left her mother’s lodging in Black Raven Passage and lived in a house built by himself in Bloomsbury, but from the way she talked, half teasing, half nostalgic, it was as though she had dallied with him three years ago, and not with Joseph.
“I should have done better” was hinted, was thrown in the air, but never admitted, never put into words.
For old times’ sake, therefore, he obliged with orders, but the work was skimped, was poor, was left undone. Gradually he withdrew his patronage. Why should he employ a mason without skill, who was seldom sober and worked as though doing a favor?
“The trouble is, Mrs. Clarke, your Joseph drinks.”
“It’s worse than that, Mr. Burton, he has no talent.”
The father’s statement was fully borne out by now. Not merely negligible, but nonexistent. She had married a man without any purpose or will. Yet she loved him still. He was young, he was hers, he was handsome. She held their first son in her arms, one hot summer’s evening—Edward, with eyes like her own, the same mouth, the same features. She showed him to his eighteen-month-old sister, to faithful Martha, to the smiling midwife; but Joseph, who should have been with her, was not there.
It was the twenty-eighth of July, 1795. Birth of a son and heir to Golden Lane. She lay alone, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. If he had chosen this night to get drunk she would not be silent. Silence could go so far, but had an ending. She wanted his understanding as never before. Tomorrow she would be strong, ready to face the future and to take command. But—for pity’s sake—peace and tenderness tonight. When he came he was not drunk but very pale, and he did not glance at the baby in the bassinet but straight at her.
“The venture’s failed,” he said.
She sat up in bed and stared at him as he stood there in the doorway.
“What venture? What do you mean?”
“The venture in the City,” he said, “the risk, the speculation. I went to Charles Square as soon as I heard the news. I arrived too late.”
He flung himself down by the bed and started sobbing. She held him as she had held their son an hour before.
“It’s never too late. I’ll plan. I’ll find a way,” she told him.
Joseph shook his head, his face disfigured with weeping. Whatever she might scheme and plan could not mask his own incompetence now. His had been the advice, taken as expert by the trusting brother.
“How much did your brother John lose?” she asked.
“His savings. All he possessed. He learned of it in the City this morning, and didn’t return home. He shot himself at noon. They found his body in a chaise in Pentonville.”
8
The important thing was to keep face, to show a bright façade, never to betray how near they stood to bankruptcy. John had committed suicide; they survived. Therefore profusion, painted panels, polished floors, silk hangings, gay attire. Sprigged muslin for the children. A spinet, hired by the month, not paid for, sheets of music, books with leather bindings, candlesticks of plate. Fashion drawings spread upon a table, playhouse bills, embroideries in frames, the latest pamphlet from the press, a gross cartoon. A puppy with long ears, sporting a ribbon, two lovebirds in a cage. The whole dolled to portray ease, prosperity, to suggest that Golden Lane bore no resemblance to Bowling Inn Alley.
Take away the trimmings and the bones were bare. The skeleton of poverty grinned from the walls. Cover the falling plaster with a damask sheet—the neighbors saw the frills and not the fissure.
Alone, lying in bed beside a drunken husband, she saw her life merging into that of her mother, repeating the same pattern. A baby every year. Malaise, irritation. The four little faces round the table mimicking the past—Mary Anne, Edward, Ellen, baby George—dependent upon her, never upon Joseph. Joseph turning into her stepfather Bob Farquhar in nightmare fashion, sleepy-eyed, blotched, always an excuse upon his lips. How break away, escape? How defeat her mother’s image?
Mrs. Farquhar visited her daughter every Sunday and the talk was women’s talk, dragging, tedious—the price of fish, the fads of a new lodger, Isobel now helpful in the house, a cure for rheumatism. But somewhere beneath the chat complaints lay unuttered, a mute reproach that this love match, so desired by Mary Anne, had not brought affluence. The terrible “I told you so” was a specter between them. So much promised from this union with the Clarkes, nothing fulfilled. Mary Anne’s half brothers had gone away to sea, to serve in the Navy—but as ship’s boys (this was never mentioned); and both of them had been drowned at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. Charley was living in Golden Lane, apprenticed to Joseph but feeling it a dead end, leading to nowhere, threatening to quit, to join the Army.
“You said we’d all be rich. It hasn’t happened.”
The orders that came their way were humiliating. A plain gravestone for a cheesemonger up the Lane, or a simple scroll for a butcher dead in Old Street.
Always contriving, pretending, covering up inefficiency. But if it continued through the years, what then? There must be some way out, and not stagnation. She remembered the old scandal sheets, a halfpenny a copy, thumbed by grubby fingers in the taverns. Hot for a few nights only, sniggered at, discussed, then used to wrap a cod’s head for the cat. Found later, sodden, in the gutter. This was the stuff produced by Mr. Hughes, by Blacklock in the Royal Exchange, by Jones in Paternoster Row, by countless others up and down the town. Who wrote the smut? Some third-rate scribbler with an ailing wife. Why not a woman? Easy enough to persuade Joseph to an outing, to seek out eating houses where the publishers met. Easy to mix with them, chat and throw out hints, discover their dingy names, their drab addresses. And while Joseph rattled dice, talked big and played the gentleman, she learned the tittle-tattle required, the stuff which fed the market.
Sydney from Northumberland Street, Hildyard from Fetter Lane, Hunt from Beaufort Buildings in the Strand: they knew the ropes. The cunning pen flattered the reader first, threw in a classical tag to top a page, and assumed a knowledge not possessed by either the one who wrote or the one who read. Prosed his beginning, labored his paragraphs, then smack! came the innuendo, the dig in the ribs. For this the halfpenny was spent, the sheet was smudged. The higher the rank the greater the interest taken.
“Where did you learn your fireworks, Mrs. Clarke?”
“In the cradle. I had a hot squib for a rattle.”
She scribbled the trash in bed while Joseph snored, and nobody guessed the truth, not even Charley. It served its purpose, and five bills got paid—out of five dozen. Besides, it took her mind off household cares. Croup and convulsions, fever at midnight, holes in the carpets, Martha’s sulks, burned puddings, Joseph’s embraces, now no longer wanted. How to avoid them? That was a pressing problem. Feign illness, feign fatigue, go to the limit of all lies and feign frigidity. But no more children, hiccoughed to conception. Four was enough. But how she loved them when she held them first, heavy-lidded, helpless, the head out of all proportion, lolloping, loose, the tight-closed eyes, the waxen hands; hers, never Joseph’s. Given security she’d bear a dozen, but not as things were. No paupers for the parish.
Yet where was the alternative to Golden Lane? How beat the brokers? Scribbles by candle grease would never keep them all, nor spare her mother, nor make a man of Charley. There were too many people dependent on one woman’s wits, and that one three-and-twenty.
She fought a losing battle. The brokers came. They took away the tables and the chairs, they took away the lovebirds and the beds. Not enough dying tradesmen needed gravestones, or if they needed them they scorned them plain. Joseph was bankrupt and the yard was sold. Even Martha had to go, with tears, with protestations, and take a place as nursemaid down in Cheapside.
This happe
ned in the summer of 1800, and a hasty makeshift plan had to be formed. No hope from brother Thomas of Snow Hill, but how about the younger one, the curate? The Reverend James Samuel, late of Cambridge? He had a house too big for him in Bayswater, and had already given asylum to Mrs. John. Room could be found for more if tightly packed, so the Joseph Clarkes decamped to Craven Place. In time, perhaps, the curate would be a bishop, but meanwhile the children were housed, which was all that mattered, and Joseph was forced to pull himself together—what happened round the corner did not matter, as long as he sobered up to dine at five.
Neighbors were pleasant, Craven Place a suburb, the curate, hospitable, kept open house to all, and Mary Anne was hungry for new faces. The Taylors at Number Six were her great find. Three brothers in the Army, two in the Navy, and the eldest daughter a namesake, Mary Ann.
“There mustn’t be two Mary Anne’s. I’ll call you May.”
Once more, as in school at Ham, she had a female friend, someone to joke with, giggle with in private, swap hats and dresses and ribbons with, quiz every male acquaintance without mercy. Nonsense was balm, an antidote to marriage. And May Taylor had connections who might be helpful, for if Mary Anne was to keep her children clothed the editors of Fleet Street must be fed. There was a Taylor grandmother in Berkeley Street, whose seminary for young ladies was well known, the prospectus saying, “Mrs. Western’s classes are for the pious tuition of tender misses, and for the practice of more experienced dames.”
When the misses were packed off to bed and the dames forgathered, Mrs. Western sometimes lapsed into indiscretion.
“I can tell you what goes on in high society. The very best families send their pupils to me.”
Young Mrs. Clarke, who had come to rub up her French, took notes of a different sort, in printer’s shorthand. The notes were not shown to the curate, or to the Taylors, but found their way to Paternoster Row. Result, a pelisse for Ellen, a pram for George.
Mary Anne Page 8