The Servant

by Maggie Richell-Davies

  My only relief these days is the warmth from Peg’s bony body as we cling together in the night. Meanwhile the rent is due again, but we do not have it. Might I have to give birth on the street?

  I place my remaining pennies in the landlord’s outstretched palm and he stares at them with the suggestion of a sneer before pushing them into the pocket of his waistcoat.

  ‘It is all I have just now. You will get the balance. Tomorrow.’

  ‘How do you propose to manage that?’

  ‘They need a pot washer at The George.’

  ‘The job is promised to you?’

  ‘No.’ My lips are dry. ‘But if they do not take me, I will sing in the market.’

  ‘I doubt that singing for pennies will earn my rent.’

  There is grit under my fingernails from this morning’s scavenging for coal. If the jolting carts have a full load, a rattle of lumps sometimes falls onto the road. Nellie gave me bread and soup in return for what I collected and brought back in the skirt of my gown.

  ‘I am not much short.’

  ‘I have said before, Annie, that there is an easier way to pay your rent money.’

  What kind of man will proposition a girl heavy with child? I refuse to sink to that. If The George does not want me, I will sing my heart out. Someone will surely take pity and give me a spare coin or two. My time is getting near and afterwards things will improve. They must.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  My voice is not strong, but Mrs Lamb used to say it was sweet. So I stand where the women pass into the market and summon the courage to make a public spectacle of myself. The George did not want a woman about to drop a child, so I have no choice.

  The first sound from my cracked lips is a croak. This is a noisy place, so I make myself think of fresh bread and how I might earn enough to buy a penny loaf as well as pay my rent. Then try again. Louder. The tune is a quaver, but I persevere despite the clamour surrounding me. Nobody even notices. Time passes. Finally, an elderly gentleman smiles and digs a generous handful of coppers from his pocket. Enough, perhaps, to appease our landlord. Then there is nothing, only indifference and the biting cold.

  I am about to turn for home when a soberly-dressed woman walks by, a governess, perhaps, escorting a curly-haired child. The little girl has her teeth in an apple. She stares at me, tugs the woman’s sleeve, and whispers. As they walk away, I hear: ‘A slut, child,’ murmured by the woman. Perhaps the tender-hearted girl was asking for a coin for me. Instead, she lobs her apple in my direction. It lands at my feet and I snatch it up into my sleeve. Though not before noticing that she has only taken a single bite from it, probably because it is wrinkled from winter storage. My mouth waters. Nearly a whole apple is a feast.

  I think of her as I trudge back to my cellar. What if her governess were careless? What if she strayed and became lost? Might she end in the hands of people like the Chalkes? Where are that wicked pair hiding? And why do Twyford and Jack still walk free?

  After I get home and the apple is gnawed to nothing, I count out the money I have been given. Not quite enough, so I drag myself to Nellie’s room.

  ‘Could you lend me a penny?’ It grieves me that I will be forced to sell my precious book, perhaps tomorrow.

  Nellie stares at me, slumped in her doorway like a bundle of dirty washing, then reaches into her pocket for a coin.

  ‘It is a gift.’ She places a reddened hand on my belly. Gentle, but exploratory. ‘I reckon you are pretty close to your time, Annie. Don’t go begging on the streets again. You and old Peg can share my soup until the babe comes. And welcome.’

  I struggle up the stairs and thrust my money at Doggett, who takes it with a surly grunt and staggers back into his room, clearly drunk. I have another week’s reprieve.

  I shuffle along the passageway wondering whether I might try singing one more time. With Thomas’s sovereigns gone, next week there will be nothing but Aesop’s Fables between us and the street. Then the cramp bites into me.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  As blood and water gush down my thighs onto the hall floor, I know I must get out of sight, so I hang onto the worm-eaten bannister and shuffle down the stairs. Trying to hurry, aware the child is coming days earlier than we thought.

  Around me doors slam, children squabble and foul language signals arguments likely to end in violence. The familiar noises of the house. Then I unlock our door and slam it behind me, relieved at least to be safe from prying eyes.

  I slide down the wall onto our straw bed and pull my ragged half-quilt under me. It will be ruined over the coming hours, but I refuse to give birth on dried grass, like an animal. At least there is that welcome glimmer of warmth in the bricks to lean against. One of Nellie’s infants is unusually loud today, but its grizzling might mask any noises I make.

  I consider distracting myself with my precious book, but do not want it soiled. Its pages are already speckled with damp. Better, instead, to think about finally getting my freedom back when this is over.

  From the age of ten I have known I am unimportant, but I am a hard worker and have more determination and learning than most. I am barely sixteen, so there is surely time to make something of myself. To appear respectable again after the child is left at the Foundling Hospital. My son would be nothing to me but an unwelcome reminder and a badge of disgrace.

  The pains, when they begin to properly bite, bring a flutter of panic, for Peg will not return from her latest job until dark and there is no money for a midwife. They squeeze, make me gasp, then stop, and make me whimper for my mother. Perhaps, when they get closer together, I will drag myself next door and seek Nellie’s help.

  I knew there would be pain, from my mother’s labours and from the muffled cries one hears from houses where women have reached their time. But there is also draining exhaustion. I need sleep to summon the strength to push the child out and get my ordeal over. But I know there is likely to be a deal of straining before that happens.

  I am moaning to myself when Nellie puts her head around the door, makes a clucking sound, and comes to kneel beside me.

  ‘How long have you been like this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Two hours?’

  ‘Let me see.’ Nellie has borne half a dozen children and I am grateful to have someone help me, for I am not as brave as I thought. She shamelessly lifts my skirts. I am nothing but a great veined belly and white, spindly legs. Sweaty and soiled. I disgust myself.

  ‘First ones is often slow,’ Nellie says, sucking on her empty pipe. ‘You are nothing but skin and bone, girl. When did you last eat?’

  ‘Yesterday. Your soup. And I had an apple.’

  There is no bread. Peg is not paid until the week’s end and we have only a few coppers between us, which will be needed next week to stave off the landlord. After they are gone, if we are to eat again or keep this roof over our heads, I must drag myself into the street and beg.

  Nellie looks me over. ‘I will bring some tea. And a bite of bread to go with it.’ She gives me a stern look. ‘I will not want paying for it, neither.’

  I let my eyes tell Nellie how welcome that would be, for I have no strength for pride. If she will feed me, I will let her.

  The tea, when it comes, slopping in a chipped bowl, is nectar for I am desperately thirsty. The pains launch through my guts with more frequency now, like a tight-wound spring. But while I await the next surge, I dip bread in the tea and suck the pap gratefully into my mouth.

  ‘That is good,’ Nellie encourages. ‘Get it down. You need your strength.’

  The noise of the wailing child through the wall starts up again. It must be her own, since the babes she fosters will be in a gin-and-water stupor.

  ‘Your little girl is calling for you,’ I say, not wanting her to leave.

  ‘Don’t you worry. My Dorcas can see to her sister.’ She gropes under my shift again, her smell feral, though my own is rank now. ‘Let me rub your back. It helps.’

  At least it is still
light, though I cannot afford even a tallow dip and it could be night before the child comes.

  ‘Want me to send word to Peg? Dorcas could fetch her.’ She clamps stained teeth on the pipe. ‘You need someone with you.’

  I must find a way of buying our friend another screw of tobacco, after this is done. Assuming I survive. ‘Peg has a pot-washing job,’ I say. ‘We cannot lose her wages.’

  ‘Then I will come, every so often, to check on you. Bang on the wall with your tin mug if you feel the babe ready to come out.’

  I nod my thanks, wanting to beg her to stay.

  It is unbearable to feel like an overripe fruit ready to burst. Yet surely expelling this great lump will split my body in two?

  Perhaps it will die, as so many of my mother’s did. Yet I cannot bear to think the burden I have carried under my heart these months, that has pushed at me with impatient limbs, might fail to draw breath. I pray, again, that it will be a son. For who would willingly bring an unwanted girl into the world?

  As the hours pass, I begin to despair. I cannot do this thing. Darkness falls and Peg returns, to wipe my sweating brow and share the weary hours. Then Nellie brings us a rush light and a mouthful of gin. A bowl of water and cloths. More tea. More foul-tasting gin. Finally, the two of them urge me to push, though I weep from fatigue and misery at a body which has become a mess of blood and hurt.

  The child slithers into Peg’s hands in the thin light of dawn.

  I had expected to despise it. Instead, when my trembling fingers touch the bloodied creature laid on my belly, there is fierce joy. Tears flood down and I am overwhelmed. This is life, created by me. Something all my own.

  The infant that Peg places in my arms, wrapped in the scrap of clean linen saved for this day and looking outraged at coming into the world, is a girl. A precious daughter that will be part of me until I die.

  How strange to be a mother. How right.

  ‘I will bring the caudle I have brewed for you,’ says Nellie, packing rags between my legs with rough tenderness. ‘We must build you up. Then you need sleep.’

  She and Peg make a nest in the straw for me with one of Nellie’s motheaten blankets and a hot wrapped brick tucked under my feet that make me feel like a ragged queen. The need for sleep weighs my eyelids, but I cannot bear to lose sight of the precious scrap of life I have created.

  I am in awe of her perfection. Washed with clean water provided by our ever-generous neighbour, the baby’s skin is silken-soft. How guilty I feel about despising Nellie. Rough-spoken and rough-living she may be, and her care of children doubtful, but she has been my saviour.

  I think my daughter wants to suckle and offer my breast. Try to squeeze a few drops of milk from painful nipples to tempt her minute, rosebud mouth. But I fail.

  Nellie roughly draws out her own swollen breast.

  ‘Give that child here. Plenty of time to feed her, after you are rested. You lost a deal of blood.’

  She is right. The child’s coming was an ordeal. I am beyond weary as I sip the caudle and watch Nellie encourage my daughter to tug hungrily at her nipple.

  Peg has settled beside me, her back resting against the warmth of the wall.

  ‘I will hold the little one while you sleep,’ she smiles. ‘She will be safe with me.’

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  I sleep late and wake to full daylight at the tiny window. Peg is still beside me, clutching a swaddled bundle.

  ‘Why is she so quiet?’ Its stillness panics me. ‘Let me see her.’ I am frantic until my daughter is in my arms and I realise her eyes are only closed in sleep. She is tiny, but fits perfectly into the crook of my arm.

  Peg slips next door, to Nellie’s, to return with more tea and another crust of coarse bread to dip into it. They are like mothers to me.

  ‘Now you have had the child,’ Peg says, accepting the morsel of bread that I pass her, ‘we should talk about moving away. Maybe sending that letter wasn’t such a good idea.’ I recognise her old haunted look and wish I had not told her about meeting Jack.

  I clutch my daughter with one arm and sip tea with my free hand. I am sore and weary still, but brimming with love for every child that breathes.

  ‘Think of those girls, Peg. Used by evil old men. You were one yourself. Don’t you feel for them?’

  ‘Of course, I do. But Chalke is not locked away. Twyford and that Jack fellow walk free. And you said the apprentice asked whereabouts you live.’ She shakes her head. ‘After we have taken the babe to the Hospital, it’s best if we disappear.’

  My heart lurches at talk of giving up my child. To strangers.

  ‘Those men might come looking for you, Hannah. Who else could have taken those papers from Chalke’s house? And you said young Twyford knows you can read and write.’

  ‘They cannot prove it was me. Not even Jack would think me capable of penning such a letter.’

  ‘Maybe not. But they might think you told a tale to some gentleman of your acquaintance. Like Farmer Graham. He would have been capable of writing it. Wouldn’t he?’

  She is right. I could well be looked for. If only we still had those guineas from Thomas, they would have paid for discreet lodgings on the other side of London. Out of harm’s way.

  I try the child at my breast again, silent, but desperate for us not to be parted. Desperate for there to be some way to keep her.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  ‘I will call her Thomasina,’ I announce.

  Peg’s brow wrinkles. I have said nothing to her of the constant memories I have of my friend. My regret that I did not trust him with my plight. That I want my daughter’s name to have at least a connection with someone good and caring. It is all I can give her.

  ‘They will likely change it,’ she says.

  ‘Perhaps. But until then, that is what I want her to be called.’

  We have argued about the child in my arms. Peg feels almost as much for her as I do, but sees danger for my tiny girl, from the Chalkes and from their powerful friends. She worries that Jack knows we live in this neighbourhood. That he will direct those men in greatcoats with the closed carriage to where I live.

  On my lap my daughter’s head nestles in my hand, warm as an apricot on a sunny wall. Her bunched fist clings to my finger, the nails delicate as a lady’s pearl earrings, and my heart squeezes with love. She is so fragile, her skin so fine, I fear my calloused fingers might draw blood.

  Although her halo of fuzzing dark hair is almost comical, her beauty overwhelms me and I am consumed by tenderness and fear. She has nobody in the world but me and I am a powerless nothing. An object of scorn.

  She needs a clean room, with no fleas to bite her, and a proper fire. Warmer clothes, not patched rags and clouts. Most of all, she needs nourishment. My nipples are raw, but though my daughter tries to suck, her face grows red with frustration until Nellie pulls out a breast dripping with the milk she wails for.

  This living, breathing miracle is the child I expected to abhor. The child I tried to murder. The child I must give up. But the longing to see her grow, to surround her with love, pinches my heart. I keep remembering Mary at the poorhouse, with a thumb in her mouth, saying she had never had a mother to remember.

  Could I not find a way to keep my baby? Some women do, though staying with me would have her branded a bastard. But even if I found work it could not be within a household, not with a child, even if I pretended to be a widow. Servants are expected to be single, so that they can concentrate on looking after those they work for. And hiding her away would mean leaving her with someone like Nellie.

  I see no way out of my sacrifice, especially as Peg insists that keeping her will make it easier for the Chalkes to find and punish us.

  Whenever Peg gathers Thomasina in her scrawny arms and croons a tuneless lullaby, I see the love on her face. What was done to her meant she could never hope for children of her own. She is even more unfortunate than I am.

  ‘The babies at the poorhouse usually died
,’ I say. ‘We would hear the mothers shrieking in the night. The babies whimpering in the early hours of the morning. Then silence, followed by the scrape of the shovels.’

  Peg offers a gnarled claw for the baby to grasp. ‘The place we are taking her to is different,’ she says. ‘The man who built it cared.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe he saw it as a Christian duty.’

  I consider this. I know there are good people in this hard world. People like Mrs Lamb, Mistress Buttermere and Nellie. Then there is Thomas, who cares for his farm labourers and the beasts in his fields, and who tried to help me, even though I had rejected him. But I must not think about him and how my life might have been.

  Peg knows how torn I am. ‘Nobody knows where the Chalkes are, Hannah.’ She rocks the baby. ‘But that brother might still be around, and if he has you taken by the beaks you will never see this child again.’

  ‘Nor will I, if I leave her at the Hospital.’

  ‘You might. If you can build a life for yourself. They say you can go back for a child, later.’

  I have nothing to give my daughter but love. Not clothes, not bedding, not a decent roof over her head. Not even mother’s milk. I stare at the damp mottling the wall, the frost crazing the inside of the window, and wonder how I could ever provide a fit home for her. Yet I am this child’s only hope. Otherwise she has no choice but servitude, and perhaps a fate like mine.

  I consider the unthinkable. Would I whore myself to keep my child? It is a sure way of earning money, if you are young. Yet what gift would it be to her to have such a mother?

  I wish now I could persuade a kindly old man to marry me. Marriage for a woman means children, year on year, and with them the pangs and risks of birth. Followed too often by the pangs of sorrow when so many of them die. It is the way things are.