The door clicked shut behind her, and Mr Pepys was already holding out his arms. As he reached for her she was only dimly aware of the clank of the coal scuttle being put down, and the echoing tread of footsteps going upstairs to Elisabeth’s chamber.
Chapter Thirty-four
October
THE DOOR FLEW OPEN. No warning, just the gape of the hall and a draught of air.
Elisabeth, her hand as if frozen to the handle.
Of course, Deb jumped up like a cat from a hot trivet, but even the way she did that, the way she hitched her bodice back on her shoulders and smoothed her skirts flat to her knees with such haste, must have told Elisabeth all she needed to know.
‘What are you doing?’ Elisabeth’s voice was small, barely a voice.
‘Nothing, my dear,’ Mr Pepys protested.
‘But I saw you, you were …’ She couldn’t choke out the words. Her eyes swivelled back to Deb, whose cheeks flared fever-hot.
‘I was just helping Deb with …’ Mr Pepys looked to Deb for an answer.
With what? What could he have been helping her with? Deb floundered, searching for any excuse, but none came. The nit comb, still unused, dug into her hand, but her muteness said it all.
The bang of the door sliced through the silence. Then a clang and clatter of the coal scuttle and a cry. Elisabeth was gone. Sam cast Deb an anguished look and hurried after his wife. He said not a word to Deb, as if she did not exist. It was so quiet Deb could hear her own heartbeat; dust motes swam in the draught and the light from the lamp.
Then, below, angry whispers. Mr Pepys saying, ‘No, my dear, no!’ and then the sound of sobbing.
Deb’s soft private parts still tingled where his hand had been.
Elisabeth’s face was seared into her mind as if printed there with ink: her shocked eyes, the way the pupils turned small as if to shut her out, the flutter of the skin of her throat, a vibration where words would not come. The feeling of hurting her made Deb’s insides shrivel in shame.
It wasn’t as if she had anything to show for it either. She had not managed to persuade Mr Pepys to give her the key before they were interrupted. She sat down again, but then stood. She could not bear to sit on that chair, the one with the view of the door. Instead, she walked to the windowsill, put the comb down. Outside, the night was black and dense and empty, except for a few pinpricks of light from the torches on Tower Hill.
She peered out of the door. The coal scuttle had disgorged the coal onto the landing. Nobody came back. Would she be dismissed? If she was, where would she go? Visions of the poorhouse assailed her thoughts. Not there, please God, anywhere but there.
The room seemed different from before, as if the furniture itself was accusing her, the pages of the books whispering what she’d done. She tiptoed out and up to her chamber, but she could not sleep.
Downstairs, Elisabeth’s voice echoed up to her, railing, ‘I’ve gone back … back to the true church! They’ll forgive my sins and then when I die I’ll be in heaven, a papist heaven, far away from you and your lies and false affection, and you’ll be in hell, boiling in hell, do you hear me?’
Muffled endearments from Mr Pepys.
‘… I tell you it’s too late …’ More sobs.
Deb put her hands over her ears but could not block it out.
‘How could you? On a Sunday? How could you prefer that slattern to me, your own dear little wife?’
Deb did not sleep all night, torn between listening and not listening to the sounds from below. The next day, nobody called for her to dress them. She missed Mr Pepys’ cheerful morning talk and Elisabeth fussing over her collars and cuffs, and how best to dress her hair. Deb slunk down the back stairs to help Jane churn the milk. The way she felt, it might turn sour straight away. Jane looked at her with a smirking, satisfied eye, unsurprised at her sudden uncalled-for appearance in her territory. Did she know? Deb did her best to ignore her, nonetheless expecting a call for dismissal any moment from Mr Pepys.
But he went off to the Navy Board as usual, determined to brush the whole thing to one side as if it had never happened. When she gave him his hat in the hall, he whispered, ‘It was just a hug, nothing more. Just the once.’ His eyes pleaded with her.
She nodded; what else could she do? But the complicity made her feel small, as did the fact that she still had to fetch and carry for Elisabeth. Elisabeth’s eyes were puffy and her manner tight and too brisk. Deb did not know where to put herself, wanted to hide but was not allowed to. All through the day Elisabeth refused to meet her eyes but kept up a pretence of haughty indifference.
When Mr Pepys came back at midday, she was forced to dine with them as usual, with the worm of it all eating away at her.
Elisabeth spoke in a hard voice. ‘The salt, please, Deb, if you don’t mind.’
And Deb had to pass it over, careful not to touch her hand. The relaxed atmosphere had gone, to be replaced with a misery as tangible as the London fog. Mr Pepys himself was nervous, eyes shifting from one to the other. Once, he tried to squeeze Elisabeth’s hand under the table when he thought Deb wasn’t looking, but Elisabeth snatched it away, her eyes threatening tears.
The afternoon dragged on but still Deb was not sent away. She heard them arguing over it in the night, and again the next day. Elisabeth would not speak to her except to give orders.
Later that day, Elisabeth set her to wiping over the glasses in the dining room, but when she went to collect one from the main chamber, Elisabeth said, ‘My friend Mary Mercer is coming this afternoon. You will not be required to attend me.’
‘Do you want me to finish the—’
‘No. Just … just get out of my sight.’ And she threw the glass down at Deb’s feet where it cracked, instead of breaking.
Deb wanted to pick it up. She half stooped, ready to, but Elisabeth yelled again, ‘Get out!’ so she had no option but to retreat.
Outside the door she heard Elisabeth weeping again. She wished she would stop. Deb clutched her hand to her stays; the sound echoed inside her, a sound she would make herself if only she could. But she did not weep. Instead, she went to her room, tidied everything over and over, trying to set things in order. Blood, phlegm, the hot and cold, the dry and bitter. The humours she must control if she was to stand another day in Seething Lane.
Chapter Thirty-five
DEB WAS SENT TO THE POST HOUSE, probably to get her out of Elisabeth’s sight, but on the way back she rounded the corner to find her way blocked by Jem Wells. He’d obviously been waiting for her on the corner by St Olave’s.
Her spirits soared at the sight of him, then immediately plummeted. How could she even speak to him now, since what had happened? She lowered her eyes, intent on going past without greeting.
He stepped out directly in front of her. ‘Have you got a few moments to talk?’ he asked.
‘Sorry, I can’t, I’ve got to get back,’ she said, trying to manoeuvre past him, not daring to look into his face.
‘Please.’ He caught hold of her arm. ‘Can’t we start again? At Richmond, well … I was a complete boor. My feelings were hurt and … and I was angry. I’ve worried and prayed about it for weeks, until my conscience has driven me practically to bedlam. I’ve just been waiting for a chance to beg your pardon.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She avoided his gaze, shrugged away.
‘Please, Deb, wait. My mouth ran away with me. I should never have begun to talk politics before a lady. I promise I will never do so again. What can I do to make amends?’
‘Nothing, I—’
‘You see, the thing is, I’ve really missed your company.’ He squashed his hat between his palms. ‘Put a poor man out of his misery, won’t you, and let me walk out with you again?’
‘It’s too late. I’m sorry.’
His hurt expression was like a stab between the ribs.
She hitched her skirts above the wet, and stepped off the cobbles and into the road to get by, stumbling in her hurry to ge
t away.
Heaven knows, she wanted it. Wanted to feel his arms around her, like a shield against the world. But she was realistic. Would he be so interested in her if he knew what she really was? If he knew she’d let her master’s hand wander into her most private places? Let alone that she was a traitor and a spy for the Dutch. The ugly facts stood like a wall between them.
She speeded her step until she was half running, head down, in a kind of lope, the loss of dignity superseded by the urgent need to get away. Even then she couldn’t resist turning to look over her shoulder. He was still watching her, his hat scrunched into one fist.
Goodbye, Jem. The sense of loss was so needle-sharp it took her breath.
Nearly a week later, into November, and she still had not been dismissed. After taking her master’s shoes to be resoled, she slipped into the house quietly, anxious not to come across Elisabeth. She could not bear another confrontation. As she crossed the hall, Deb stopped, listened. A familiar, abrasive voice was coming from the main chamber. It couldn’t be. Of course, she knew from Hester’s letters that Aunt Beth was back from Ireland, but the sound of her here, in the Pepyses’ chambers, still startled her.
No wonder Elisabeth had been so keen to be rid of her that morning.
She paused, motionless, as she heard Elisabeth say dully, ‘No, it is nothing Deb has done. I am no longer able to keep a woman, that’s all, so we must part with her.’
Deb pressed her hand to her chest. So she was to be let go after all. Her first thought was that the gypsy had been right. Her second was that Elisabeth had not told her aunt what Deb had done. A sudden welling-up of gratefulness pricked her eyes. Elisabeth had saved Deb from shame, and from Aunt Beth’s wrath. She could quite easily have done the opposite. It must be embarrassment that drove her mistress – after all, what woman would want people to think she could not keep her own husband happy?
Her aunt’s clipped voice. ‘It is so disappointing. I had hoped this would be a permanent position. How much notice do you intend to give?’
‘Oh, I … I don’t know, a week, I suppose,’ Elisabeth said.
‘Is that reasonable? It is not much time for her to find something else.’
Deb clung to the newel post on the stairs, willed Aunt Beth to be quiet, in case Elisabeth should lose her temper and tell her everything.
‘A month would be more suitable,’ Aunt Beth continued. ‘References?’
Deb winced.
‘I … I suppose so.’ Elisabeth sounded empty, tired.
‘Well. There’s not much more to say, is there?’ Aunt Beth’s frosty voice. ‘I find your behaviour unspeakable. You should have made sure you had the means at your disposal before taking on a live-in servant. I bid you farewell, Mrs Pepys.’ There was the noise of a chair being scraped back.
Deb bolted from the hall and up to her room. A few moments later she heard the door bang so hard the handle rattled. She peered out of the window, saw her aunt’s upright figure stride away, climb into the Batelier’s carriage and drive off.
Her days at Seething Lane were about to end. No more plays, no more nights of cards and conversation. No more chats with Elisabeth over upholstery and decorations, no more discussions over wallpaper and curtaining, lace and ribbon, or the right way to tie a bow. That night, Mr Pepys insisted Deb should sit down at the table for supper, and she could not refuse. He mooned at her with his big sad eyes whenever Elisabeth turned her back, shaking his head as if to say to her, ‘I did try, but it’s no use.’
Though she thought she would not weep, her body defied her, and she was mortified to find that when Jane brought the soup, a tear squeezed out and she had to knuckle it away before it dropped into her bowl.
Elisabeth glared at her, affronted, as if she had no right to cry, and indeed she did not.
A few days on, and … oh, torture. Still Mr Pepys had not told her to go. What was he waiting for? She could not bear it. It made her want to scream. Instead, she scurried about her daily tasks in an agony of expectation, fearing the axe at any moment, and even more afraid when it did not fall.
Days passed. The decorators were in the house and she hid away with them, sewing hems for the curtains and ironing cushion covers over and over. The men sensed something was the matter in the house and did not engage in their usual jesting and back-slapping. The household was muffled, as if bereaved.
I’ve done this, thought Deb – wiping the hallway table for the tenth time – made their marriage a dead thing. She circled the house from safe hiding place to safe hiding place, from the cupboard under the stairs to the outside latrine, afraid to enter any room where Elisabeth or Mr Pepys might be languishing.
She could not endure yet another frosty supper with them, so when she heard Mr Pelling, the apothecary, was to eat with them, she decided not to go down. The cutlery clinked below, and Mr Pepys’ monologue gave every impression of him being his ebullient self.
She cursed the King, the Dutch, and Abigail in turn, could find no will to do copying work. Instead, she darned the same stocking again and again, until the patch was puckered and too thick to wear. After the door closed on Pelling, she heard Elisabeth climb the stairs in silence. Even the tap of her shoes made Deb feel guilty. Deb could not sleep. Does Mr Pepys sleep, she wondered?
The next morning, head aching, she buried herself under the bolster so she might not hear what Mr Pepys said when he bade goodbye to Elisabeth. His leaving spurred Deb to drag herself out of bed and begin to dress. She was only half into her bodice when her door flew open and Elisabeth stood there like an apparition, hair in disarray, eyes burning white-hot with anger.
Before Deb could react, Elisabeth’s hand shot out and grabbed Deb’s sleeve. Deb stumbled to follow as Elisabeth hauled her out of the room.
‘Slut! Tell me the truth!’ Elisabeth cried, followed by a hard slap on Deb’s cheek.
‘Let go!’ Deb squirmed, tried to fasten the laces of her bodice together, but Elisabeth hung on to her sleeve, pulled her, protesting, down the stairs.
‘Admit it. It’s been going on for months, hasn’t it?’
‘No, we were just—’
Slap.
‘Swear it on the Bible!’ Elisabeth dragged her into the main chamber. Deb heard the seam of her sleeve rip under Elisabeth’s force.
‘It was just a hug,’ Deb protested, pushing her sleeve back on her shoulder.
‘Liar.’ Elisabeth’s hand swept out to slap her again, but Deb dodged and she missed.
Breathless, Elisabeth gathered the heavy Bible from the table in both arms and pushed it towards Deb. ‘He told you to say that. I just want the truth! Is it too much to ask after all this time, just to have the truth?’ She tried to give the Bible to Deb, but Deb stepped away.
They both stared down as it dropped on the floor with a thud, and lay between them like an accusation.
‘I did not mean to—’
‘Did not mean? I saw you. In the chair. He had his hand up your skirt. I saw your legs, all your …’ Elisabeth could not say the word. She dissolved into sobs. ‘Why can’t you admit it?’ She collapsed to the floor in front of the door, skirts puffing up round her, her face reddened with grief. ‘Have I been so bad a mistress? Don’t I deserve that much?’
‘Oh please …’ She wanted to tell Elisabeth to stand up, but a catch in her chest stopped her voice.
‘How long?’ Elisabeth demanded.
‘A month or two.’
‘I knew it.’ Groaning, Elisabeth scraped up fistfuls of skirt in both hands.
The Bible still lay askew on the floor. Deb bent down to retrieve it and put it back on the table. She took a tentative step towards Elisabeth, intending to help her to her feet. ‘I’m sorry … I’m sorry, I never meant—’
‘Don’t you dare to touch me.’ The intensity of Elisabeth’s voice made it barely audible. ‘You whore. How could you? You were employed to be my friend. My friend, do you hear? And yet you do this. You are despicable.’ Trembling, Elisabeth hois
ted herself to upright and went out. Her draught caused the door to slam behind her, like a full stop.
‘I thought it would blow over,’ Mr Pepys whispered. He had finally told Deb to go, and now she was about to leave his office.
‘The milk is spilt, sir; it’s best I find somewhere else.’
‘But where will you go to?’
‘I have friends who will help me.’
‘But who? Where will I find you?’ His eyes were clinging, like a dog who’d lost his master.
‘I’m not sure if it’s a good idea that you do.’
They both turned to the door. Elisabeth was coming upstairs. Mr Pepys leapt away, gave her a brief nod, and hurried out onto the landing.
‘It is done?’ Elisabeth asked. ‘She’s going?’
‘Yes,’ her husband said.
Later, Elisabeth came in to where Deb was working with the decorators. She laid out a pile of coins on the table and pointed to it.
‘A month’s notice. But I want you out sooner than that. I have ordered a coach for the morning. You must tell it where to take you. I don’t want to know.’
‘Elisabeth, I—’
‘No. Don’t dare say a word … I can’t bear it.’ The quiver of her side-curls showed she was shaking.
The decorators ignored their conversation with a studied indifference. Deb heard the slap of their brushes against the wall. She picked up the sewing she had been doing but saw no point in it any more. She dropped it on the floor where she stood and leaving the coins lying on the table, went up to her bare room. The angel above the door gazed down at her, wings pinned to the wall, wooden arms outspread in a shrug that seemed to say, ‘I don’t know.’
Chapter Thirty-six
DAWN. DEB LAY AWAKE until she heard Jane’s footsteps stop outside her door. A scraping sound, and a letter was slid under her door. Deb lit a taper to read it by, shivering in the cold.
Pleasing Mr. Pepys Page 23