Liza

by Irene Carr

  William was taken by surprise, but he had been through this experience before — though not with an English lady. He reached the bed in two long strides and snatched up the dress. He picked up Cecily and carried her out on to the landing. It was her turn to be surprised. She had planned a seduction and had not expected rejection. ‘I’ll scream!’ she hissed.

  ‘Scream away. It’ll be your word against mine and I still have my breeches on.’ He set her down, shoved the dress into her arms and shut his door on her. She heard the key turn in the lock.

  * * *

  At breakfast she was snappy with a brittle smile and he mostly silent but polite when he spoke. To Edward she was cold, never addressed him and answered his remarks with monosyllables. When the two men said their farewells and climbed up into the carriage she replied only with a flat, ‘Goodbye.’ She had refused to go to the station and her face was devoid of expression. Edward sighed to himself and accepted that their relationship was back to normal again.

  As Cecily watched them go, with the coachman sitting up on the box and driving the carriage, she thought: Well, there’s always Simmie.

  Days later Alexandra said, ‘No one in the village knows anything about a pageant.’

  Cecily shrugged carelessly. ‘Some girl told me about it and I believed her. Still, no harm done.’

  * * *

  Edward did not discuss the visit until he and William were at home in Sunderland. Then, one evening after dinner, when the maid had cleared the table and he was alone with William, he dropped the first bombshell: ‘I would like to make you a partner. I’ve been told by my doctor that I must ease up a bit and I’d like you to take on some of my work.’

  William looked startled, then concerned. ‘I didn’t know you were ill.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Edward gave him a reassuring grin. ‘I just have to cut down on my work. Will you take on some of it?’

  ‘I know nothing about it.’

  ‘You’d soon learn in the saddle.’ Edward was sure of that. ‘Well?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll do all I can.’

  Elspeth came with the whisky decanter then and set out glasses.

  Edward did not wait for her to go because she knew all about his family anyway. He proceeded to drop the second bombshell: ‘I took you to see my ward because I want to name you as her guardian if anything should happen to me.’ His doctor had told him he might last ten years — or die next winter. ‘Will you take that on for me too?’

  William’s surprise and horror were written on his face. ‘To tell the truth I found her ill-mannered and lacking in respect for yourself.’ He left it at that, though to his mind Cecily Spencer was a mischief-making slut.

  ‘I know she is a difficult girl. She was not brought up as I would have wished. But she is my brother’s daughter and it behoves me to do my best for her.’ Edward added hopefully, ‘I think she is improving.’

  William did not agree but could not hurt this man who had been guardian to himself, could not tell him of his own experience with the Spencer girl. ‘I’ll act, of course, as that is what you wish.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Edward smiled. ‘I’m grateful.’

  ‘It’s I who am grateful to you, sir. I take it this responsibility will cease when she is twenty-one?’

  Edward nodded. ‘In just under two years’ time.’ It was highly unlikely that William would be called on to act in his stead for any length of time — if at all.

  ‘It seems to me that the school and her aunt see most of her. She never comes here,’ William said.

  ‘That’s true. I sometimes think Alexandra is too easy with her, but there’s no one else and Cecily refuses to come here, let alone live in this house. She must stay with Alexandra, at least until next year when she finishes at the Swiss school.’

  ‘What will you do with her then? Send her to train for a trade or profession?’ William asked.

  ‘Alexandra has suggested taking her on a tour of Europe.’ Edward grinned. ‘I think she likes the idea herself, and I’ll probably fall in with it. Afterwards — I don’t know.’ But he thought the suggestion of a trade was worth remembering.

  ‘I hope she is suitably grateful,’ William said, but his tone showed he doubted it.

  * * *

  Elspeth took in all of this, stored it away and formed an opinion of Miss Cecily Spencer.

  10

  NOVEMBER 1906, PARIS

  The train ran into the Gare du Nord with a hiss and a sigh, and pulled up with a grinding of brakes and a clatter of couplings. Liza stood in the corridor at an open window. Willi, Albert Koenig’s short, tubby valet, squeezed in beside her. They shouted for a porter together and two came hurrying with their barrows. As the train ground to a halt Liza jumped down and Willi followed. Together they hurried along the platform to claim the baggage. Both the barrows were needed: Albert had two massive suitcases, while Beatrice, his wife and Liza’s mistress, had four — and three hatboxes. Liza pointed them out to the porters and they hauled them from the luggage car and stacked them on the barrows. She nodded, satisfied. ‘That’s the lot.’

  ‘Fa.’ Willi agreed. He was not a good traveller and gladly let Liza take the initiative.

  She seemed cool and calm, unflurried. In fact, she was excited, and had been for some months now. She had worked hard for Mr and Mrs Underdown at the house in Buckinghamshire and learned all she could from Freda Jarvis, the lady’s maid. Freda was brisk and spry for a woman of fifty-five, always smartly dressed and never a hair out of place. She had nothing but praise for Liza, save when she had caught the girl imitating Mrs Underdown’s regal, sweeping walk. The latter was a society beauty in her mid-twenties, and the other servants, who had been watching, applauded. ‘That’s rather naughty, dear,’ Miss Jarvis said.

  Nevertheless, when Freda Jarvis broke an ankle as their mistress was about to leave for a long stay in the South of France, she recommended that Liza should take her place and attend Mrs Underdown. Liza, hastily briefed on the duties of a lady’s maid when travelling abroad, was a success.

  As a consequence, when Beatrice Koenig’s maid handed in her resignation in order to marry, Mrs Underdown suggested that Liza could take her place. She explained to her husband as they prepared for bed, ‘I would like to keep the girl but this would be a step up for her. If she stays here she will be playing second fiddle to Freda for another four years. Beatrice is an old friend. She is going to Germany to see some of her husband’s relatives and stopping in Paris for a while. She hasn’t visited his people before, nor been married long.’

  Her husband grunted. ‘She wed Albert as an act of desperation.’ He stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside.

  His wife pouted. ‘That’s a cruel thing to say, though it’s true she looked to be left on the shelf. But I’m sure she and Albert will be happy.’

  ‘He should be, with her money.’ He put his arms around her.

  ‘Again?’ she protested, but she was smiling.

  So Liza had taken the job and was a lady’s maid before she had come of age, with a rise of four pounds a year, giving her an annual salary of twenty-four pounds. She had been able to send more money to support her mother and Susan. She kept the bare minimum for herself, but she knew Kitty was saving for her. Then, to crown it all, there was this trip to France and later to Albert Koenig’s family on their estate near Hamburg.

  Liza and Willi led the porters, in a little procession, to where Albert and Beatrice were making a leisurely descent from a première classe carriage. Albert Koenig was a portly young man with a thick, upswept moustache, while Beatrice was a plain but pleasant girl, who clung to his arm and simpered at his every word. Albert greeted Liza jovially, ‘You have it all? Good! Then follow me.’ He took over the lead of the procession.

  That night Liza slept in the bedroom of a good hotel, albeit in one of the cheaper rooms. It was a world away from Newcastle and the shipyards of the Tyne, the little house close by the river. She yearned for home, her mother and little Susa
n, but knew she must be patient.

  * * *

  Cecily Spencer was with a man in another hotel, seedy and little better than a pension, a quarter-mile away in Montmartre. When she had left the finishing school on her twentieth birthday she had backed Alexandra Higgins in asking Edward Spencer if she could be sent on a tour of Europe. Alexandra had asked, timidly but with hope, and was as overjoyed as Cecily when he agreed, with the proviso: ‘I think Cecily should study painting and also learn something of the languages.’ They had spent some time in Italy, then moved to Paris. Later they would go on to Berlin. At this moment Alexandra was sleeping deeply in a much better hotel; she had discovered Cognac.

  Cecily had discovered Mark Calvert. She had experienced several brief romances since her near-seduction of Simmie, her aunt’s coachman — his nerve had failed him and he had run — but none had touched her heart. Until now. She and Alexandra had sat at a table in a café and she had felt that someone was watching her. She looked around and saw a young man sitting alone at a table across the room. His dark, brooding gaze was fixed on her and did not falter when he met hers. Cecily read the message in those dark eyes and shivered.

  She looked away, knowing she was blushing, but when she and Alexandra rose to leave, the young man followed — all the way to their hotel. She peeped out of her room, which overlooked the front of the hotel, but could not see him in the street below. However, when she passed through the foyer later, wondering, heart beating fast, he was there, sprawled in an armchair. He saw her and rose, tall and broad, then stepped into her path. ‘I heard you were English when you were talking in that café. I’m Mark Calvert. I know we haven’t been introduced, but there is no one to carry out that formality.’

  ‘I quite understand.’ She did not care, either. She just wanted to see more of this man. ‘I’m Cecily Spencer.’ She put out her hand. He bowed and kissed it, held it as if he would never let it go. When he did so she said, ‘Shall we sit down?’ When they were settled at a small table she explained, ‘I’m travelling with my elderly aunt — I think you saw her?’ He nodded and she added hopefully, ‘We haven’t been here long. Would you be a guide by any chance?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m a land agent, but resting at the moment.’ He said that awkwardly because it was not altogether true and he was an honest man.

  ‘Oh.’ But Cecily did not give up. ‘Do you speak French?’ ‘I’ve learned a little and can call a cab, order a meal, pass the time of day.’

  ‘I have to learn something of the language,’ Cecily said, ‘and we have not yet engaged a tutor. Could you obtain a reference for yourself from someone?’

  * * *

  Alexandra engaged Mark the next day on the strength of his reference — Henri, one of the croupiers at the casino had provided him with it — and from then on he and Cecily spent many hours together. Sometimes he taught her simple phrases in French from a primer and Alexandra sat nearby, listening or dozing. Otherwise they met when she had retired, believing Cecily to have done the same. Then Mark and she would sit in cafes or bars, but it was not until that night that he had taken her to his hotel room.

  They had sat in a bar that was crowded, smoky and noisy. ‘I have quite a decent little room,’ he had told her, ‘but I can’t take you there. I have to think of your reputation. You’re a respectable girl of good family.’ For a moment Cecily thought he was joking. Then she realised he was in earnest, crediting her with a virtue she had tried to discard. She found she was casting her eyes down, modestly, as he went on, ‘I would ask you to marry me but there are a few things you should know about me.’

  Marriage? Cecily had not thought so far ahead. ‘I told you I was a land agent,’ he went on. ‘In fact that’s just a fancy name for a glorified farmer. We — my family — owned an estate of a thousand acres in Yorkshire and I ran it and made a handsome profit. I was the eldest of six children and Father mortgaged the estate to educate us all and to see the others settled in careers or married with a handsome dowry. Then he died, suddenly and unexpectedly. The banks foreclosed and sold the estate to recover the loans. The new owner kept me on to run the place for him but we argued about how it should be done and I told him to do the job himself, though not so politely.’ Mark sighed. ‘I suppose I’d been running my own show too long. I didn’t take kindly to obeying an order from him, especially when I knew he was wrong.’

  Cecily laid a hand on his. ‘How sad! What did you do?’

  ‘Everything had gone.’ There had been a girl but she had departed when he had lost the estate. ‘I could have gone to one or other of the family but I wouldn’t sponge off them. I got a job as an escort to a young chap who was going to tour Europe. His father had plenty of money, and the son had too much. We came to Paris first. On the boat coming over he insisted on getting into a card game so I joined in. The others won or lost a little, he dropped a great deal and I won a lot. I’d played from childhood and my father was an expert, though only for small stakes. He always said he wouldn’t gamble with the estate. It might have been better if he had. But he was a grand man and I loved him.

  ‘Anyway, I offered to give back the young man some of the money he’d lost but he accused me of cheating because I’d won so much. I stayed with him until we got to Paris. Then he wanted me to find girls for him and I told him to go to hell. I got into another card game and I’ve been living that way ever since, for nearly a year now.’ He took a breath. ‘So, you see, I’m a gambler.’

  ‘I don’t care whether you’re a farmer or a gambler.’ Cecily looked into his eyes and stroked his hand. ‘My guardian would not allow me to marry but soon I will come of age ... It is so noisy in here. Where can we go to — talk?’

  Mark stood up, laid some coins on the table then took her arm.

  And so they lay close in the big bed in his room, their passion spent for the moment, and talked of the future. It was by no means their last night in that bed.

  A week before Christmas Cecily took the train to Berlin. Mark, as her tutor, attended at the station and was thanked by Alexandra. ‘You’ve been very kind and we’ve both enjoyed your company, haven’t we, dear?’ she added.

  Cecily nodded demurely. At her insistence Mark had agreed that they would keep their betrothal secret rather than attract unwelcome attention from Alexandra or Edward Spencer. Soon she would inherit, would be a free agent, and would meet him in London. Behind her aunt’s back she stole a kiss from him and whispered, ‘At the Jefferson Hotel.’ He had suggested it — he would not subject her to a cheap hotel such as he had used in Paris. He had heard his former employer, Randolph Stevenson, speak highly of the Jefferson. Now he watched and waved until the train was out of his sight.

  * * *

  The Koenigs and their staff left Paris that same day, bound for Hamburg and Albert’s relatives. Liza was looking forward to Christmas, then a bright New Year and, hopefully, a visit soon to her mother and Susan. It was as well she could not foresee the disasters that lay ahead.

  11

  JANUARY 1907, NEWCASTLE

  ‘Aye, Liza’s getting on very canny now.’ Kitty Thornton had paused outside the baker’s to talk to an old friend. Jinnie was over eighty now and frail. She had been thin when she assisted at Liza’s birth, but now she was skeletal and hobbled along with the aid of a stick. Her skin was like paper stretched over the veins that writhed on her hands like snakes, but she still had a smile for Kitty, who said now, ‘She sends a bit home every month.’

  Jinnie cocked her head to one side and put a hand to her ear. ‘What? You’ll have to speak up.’

  Kitty did so, smiling: ‘I said she was getting on very canny. She sends a few pounds home every month. 0’ course, I save a lot of it for her, put it away in a tin. She’s in Germany now, spent Christmas and New Year there and had a lovely time. She told us all about it in her last letter.’

  ‘Oh, aye. I’m glad. She was always a bonny lass, always had time for people. And this is her bairn?’ She nodded at two-year-old Susan,
standing at Kitty’s side.

  ‘Aye. Takes after Liza, doesn’t she?’

  ‘The spit of her,’ agreed Jinnie. ‘Well, give her my love when you see her.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you were asking after her.’ Kitty stooped over Susan: ‘Say ta-ta now.’ Susan obediently waved a fat fist and Jinnie laughed as she limped away. Kitty went on with her shopping and did not notice the girl who had listened to her conversation and who now followed her.

  It was Una Gubbins. She had blossomed into a coarsely attractive woman, full-bosomed and sulkily sensual. Now she trailed Kitty back to the house in the terrace where she still rented two rooms. Una made a mental note of its number and that Kitty had the downstairs rooms — she had seen Susan come to the front window and push aside the lace curtains to look out. There was a public house across the road.

  Una hurried away to the rooms she shared with her husband Luke. She was now Mrs Cooper, and found him sitting before the fire drinking beer from a bottle and reading the racing form in a newspaper. He was bearded now and harshly handsome, but he carried a long-bladed knife on a belt inside his jacket. The plump youth had become a burly thug in a suit. Neither he nor Una had work but lived on the results of small crime and took a job only when they had to. Una perched on the arm of his chair and took a swig from his bottle. He reached out a hand for her leg but she slapped it away. ‘I think I’ve found our ticket to London.’

  ‘Aye?’ Piggy reclaimed the bottle and squinted to see how much beer was left. ‘The sooner the better. That bloody bobby is keeping an eye on me. I seem to see him every time I gan oot.’

  The following day they avoided the policeman when Una led the way to the public house and they sat in there, ostensibly reading the racing form but in fact watching for Kitty to go out. Eventually Piggy muttered out of the side of his mouth, ‘There she goes wi’ the bairn.’ He folded his newspaper, stood up and together they left the pub. They walked up the street, Una on Piggy’s arm, like any couple out for a stroll. Then they crossed the road and walked back. There were other strollers and a few children, but no one stood gossiping at the front doors because of the January cold; nor did anyone pay attention to them. When they came to Kitty’s front door they only had to open it and walk in; front doors were not locked or bolted during the day. They hurried along the passage with its worn matting and came to the door to Kitty’s rooms. This was locked but Piggy set his shoulder to it and the lock gave way with a splintering of timber. They waited for a few seconds but no one called out from the upstairs rooms and there was no sound of movement inside. They walked in.