Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Spying, was you?’

  ‘Indeed not.’

  ‘Creeping up those stairs, quiet as a mouse, hoping to see something you shouldn’t I dare say – ’

  ‘I was going to my room, as I am entitled, as I do at that hour every evening.’

  ‘Well, you saw him, what do I care, I can’t help it if he follows me everywhere, begging me to – ’

  ‘I do not wish to heat any more, thank you, Tilly.’

  ‘Miss Hoighty-Toighty, Miss Give-Herself-Airs, Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-Her-Mouth, Miss Jealous – ’

  Wilson had simply walked out of the kitchen, leaving Tilly in possession, though she had not yet taken what she needed from the cupboard. But how her heart had thudded at the monstrous insinuation, so unfounded and vulgar, how deeply she resented Tilly’s accusation. Wilson consoled herself with the thought that Minnie Robinson certainly would not believe her, should Tilly be so foolish as to repeat this to her, and that none of the others mattered. They would all, Wilson sensibly reflected, know about Tilly and about Master Henry, if there was anything to know. She was tempted to mention what she had seen to Minnie Robinson but did not – even with Minnie it was better to keep one’s own counsel.

  But Minnie herself brought the subject up. ‘How did you find Jane?’ she asked the day after Miss Mitford and her maid had left. Wilson, choosing at that moment to lift her teacup the better to hide any expression of dislike which might creep onto her face, said she had had little to do with her. ‘All the better,’ Minnie said, a trifle grimly. ‘I wish Tilly had the same sense.’ Wilson said nothing. She liked this hour in Minnie’s cosy room, just the two of them, the atmosphere relaxed and friendly. ‘But then Tilly has no sense,’ Minnie went on, ‘none at all and it will end in dismissal, sooner rather than later if I have my way. Certain people should be spoken to about leading certain other people down the primrose path but then with certain other people skipping along right merrily of their own accord, what good would it do?’ Wilson thought it safe to say none. ‘Exactly. But if it should come to the attention of the Master then the Lord help them both and I should be in trouble myself.’ Wilson kept silent. It struck her that Minnie had a need to confide and that she had no one to confide in. ‘He’s always been trouble, that one,’ Minnie said with what Wilson was surprised to detect was a tinge of unmistakable admiration. ‘But,’ she sighed, ‘what will be, will be and it isn’t him I worry over.’ She paused, re-filled the teacups, looked Wilson straight in the eye and mouthed that it was Miss Henrietta. ‘Now there’s a tragedy,’ she whispered, ‘there’s a love match, with that young soldier eating his heart out, real tears in his eyes sometimes and him not ashamed to show them. Minnie, he says to me once, Minnie on my life I respect her but it is hard to push a fellow so far.’ Wilson was now bewildered but desperately eager to learn more so she gave more than a half nod in encouragement. ‘They play with fire,’ Minnie said, ‘they play with fire. Miss Henrietta knows what she does but does he? Can he? He’s never seen the Master deal with this kind of proposition, he’s never seen him make short shrift. Miss Henrietta has and she’s suffered, oh how the poor darling has suffered. She came to me afterwards after she’d begged him to let her accept a proposal of marriage and sobbed her heart out and said she would never marry, never, her father had been furious, would never allow it and she would not try again.’

  Wilson longed to ask several crucial questions but did not dare, she felt Minnie would shut up like a clam if she did, so she ventured only to murmur, ‘Poor lady.’ Minnie took this up swiftly – ‘Poor lady indeed, poor all of them and poor Master too for he loves them all, he loves them and does what he thinks is right and does not see he is hard. Only Miss Elizabeth causes him no concern, never being troubled with affairs of the heart. Marriage she says to me once when Crow married, marriage is servitude, Minnie, and make no mistake, lifelong subjection to a man, that is all.’

  Wilson thought about that last remark a great deal afterwards. ‘Marriage is servitude’ – is that what her mistress truly believed? Did she think nothing of love? She longed to ask her mistress about it but of course could not. Instead, as she brushed Miss Elizabeth’s hair and dressed her she reflected that, if marriage was servitude, spinsterhood was only another kind of slavery, surely. Slowly, coiling up her mistress’s hair, pinning it securely, taking care not to pull the delicate tendrils on the neck, Wilson pondered on the institution of marriage. Mother had married and had been happy until she was widowed and she, as a result of marriage, had children she loved and without whom life would have had no meaning. But if mother had not married? If she had stayed a seamstress? Where was the life there? A far worse servitude, and nothing to show for it, no comfort, no love. Adjusting Miss Elizabeth’s collar, Wilson thought about herself. She was no longer young. She was nearly twenty-four and as mother used to remind her, she had had her chances. Wilson put a shawl round her mistress’s shoulders and thought about these ‘chances’. Not one of them had seemed like a chance of anything but disappointment. Alfred Robson, coalman, big and ugly and skin ingrained with coal dust however hard he washed and two babies with his sister who’d looked after them since his first wife died. Was that a chance? He only asked her because she smiled at him when he delivered coal to the Graham-Clarkes and he needed a wife desperately. Then there was Benjamin Woolf, more presentable, on his way up in the world, or so he said, as clerk in the city office but she could not abide his hairiness, the hair creeping out under his shirt cuffs and over his collar tops and making her shudder. Stephen Adams, John Topping, Rufus Isaacs – all of them had asked her and with none of them at all could she see any chance of happiness. And none of them had wooed her or spoken of love.

  ‘You are very quiet, Wilson,’ Miss Elizabeth said, her toilet complete, her book placed in her hand and the pens and paper on the table at her side.

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘What were you thinking of as you brushed my hair, Wilson? Each brush stroke seemed alive with meaning today.’ Wilson said nothing and gave a little apologetic bob of a curtsey.

  ‘Come, Wilson, we are friends, are we not? Were your thoughts so terrible?’

  ‘Oh indeed no, miss.’

  ‘Well then, try me, do.’ And Miss Elizabeth placed a hand over hers.

  ‘I was only thinking,’ Wilson stammered, ‘about marriage, miss.’

  ‘Oh, Wilson! Do not tell me you are to marry!’

  ‘No, no, miss – ’

  ‘Thank heaven for that – oh the shock, Wilson – only I thought you meant you had accepted a proposal – ’

  ‘No, miss, never.’

  ‘Has one been put, Wilson?’

  ‘Not here, miss, and none that mattered.’

  ‘So why are you thinking so soulfully of marriage, Wilson? Were you sad? Do you long for marriage?’

  ‘I was wondering, miss, whether marriage was a servitude worse than not being married.’

  ‘Were you indeed. And what gave rise to this debate?’

  ‘Talk of marriage in general, miss, below stairs.’

  ‘Ah, of course. What else is there so exciting to talk about if you are eighteen, as someone is, and pretty, as someone is, and much admired, as Tilly is. Am I not right, Wilson?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘So it was not Tilly talking of marriage?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘So who was considering the institution of marriage?’

  ‘No one specially, miss, it was only general talk.’

  ‘Well, never mind that, tell me your thoughts, Wilson, the conclusions you came to. I should be very interested and indeed do not mean to mock.’

  Wilson hesitated. She wished she had been evasive, had insisted she could not remember what she was thinking of no matter how hard she tried, but it was done now. ‘I think marriage cannot be a contract, miss, though it is made out to be one by some. It is a holy sacrament, is it not, miss, and God joins people together, and so it cannot rightly be called servit
ude unless there is no love only calculation.’

  ‘Wilson, you astonish me, you state the case like the best of advocates. Those are my sentiments exactly. But look around you and where is the love in the marriages before us? I see precious little of it but a great deal of that calculation you and I abhor. We are better unmarried, do you not think, Wilson?’

  ‘I don’t know, miss.’

  ‘Marriage still tempts you with its pleading tongue?’ Wilson was again silent, almost wringing her hands with the dreadful embarrassment she felt. It would be so much easier to lie.

  ‘Not exactly. It is not marriage …’

  ‘Then it is love.’ Miss Elizabeth paused, a curious smile on her pale face. Wilson was struck, as she always was, by the way in which that smile made her mistress look so young and pretty, lighting her eyes and softening the pallor of her cheeks. In repose, her face was drawn and lifeless, a pitiful sight, and then came the smile and the great eyes danced and life was there after all.

  ‘It must be a great blessing to be loved, miss, and to love back.’

  ‘You love your mother and your sisters, for you have told me so often and I see it for myself, and they love you back.’

  ‘But they love me because I am their daughter and sister, begging your pardon, miss, and a man, a husband – ’

  ‘Would love you for yourself and not because you were a wife, a woman?’ Wilson nodded. Miss Elizabeth touched her hand again and then took up her book, the signal that Wilson could go.

  That afternoon, when once more they went to Regent’s Park, they seemed surrounded by lovers. Over the grass they walked, arm in arm, the girls drifting in sweet pea colours, their gowns only just clearing the grass, their parasols like so many little pretty clouds twirling on their shoulders. How they smiled up at their companions and laughed encouragingly and gazed adoringly and the men, many in soldiers’ uniforms all smart in regimental colours, walked proudly, backs straight, moustaches carefully brushed and oiled, arms respectfully steering their precious ladies. Wilson pushed Miss Elizabeth past them humbly, taking care to steer adroitly, closing her ears to the chatter and giggles. She felt wistful, tender, as she helped her mistress out of the chair and onto a bench, she did not like to sense the pity in people’s eyes as they took in this frail, black-clad young woman with barely the strength to stand. The yearning that overcame her was not for herself but for her mistress – she wished so passionately, as she took her place beside her, that it was Miss Elizabeth idling along the path in the palest pink or blue, Miss Elizabeth laughing animatedly and at her side a man entranced by her, a man of strength and character, a fine man all of her own.

  ‘Wilson!’ Wilson felt her arm clutched tightly and turned to face her mistress, alarmed at the cry of distress, sure some pain had struck and she was ill. But Miss Elizabeth’s eyes were huge and bright with excitement not closed in agony and she inclined her head, urging Wilson to look where she looked, to take note and see what she saw. And what she saw was Miss Henrietta, way across the lake, arm in arm with a splendid soldier in a blue coat. ‘Oh my, ma’am,’ whispered Wilson. ‘It is Surtees Cook,’ said Miss Elizabeth, ‘and if Papa knew … unchaperoned, in public – ’

  ‘No, miss, look, there is Master Alfred, behind, they are not unchaperoned.’

  But Master Alfred was well behind, a good five hundred yards behind, dawdling along, running a stick along the railings and yawning and looking everywhere except in the direction of his sister. Wilson and her mistress watched as Henrietta and Surtees turned away from the lake and towards a high hedge where there was an opening into a flower garden. Their pace slowed, they seemed to take forever to reach the hedge, and then they were behind it and although Wilson, with her good eyesight, strained and strained she could not see them emerge into the garden. As for Alfred, he lost them entirely. They both saw him stop and look around, quite unconcerned, and then whistle and take to standing with his hands in his pockets staring vacantly at the water. It took a long time before Henrietta and Surtees came back to join him and when they did, it did not escape Wilson’s notice, in spite of the distance, that Miss Henrietta’s bonnet had tipped off her head and hung by its ribbons and that her hair had tumbled down. She took Alfred’s arm and hung onto it and walked quickly, looking at her feet, while Surtees Cook hurried to keep abreast and was ignored by her. ‘Well, Wilson,’ Miss Elizabeth said quietly, ‘we have seen something today I had rather not have done, but we will not say a word.’

  What pleased Wilson was the way in which that ‘we’ was said – flatly, with no emphasis, casually, not querying that she would agree. There was no suggestion that it was in the nature of an order nor any feeling it had been a warning. Her mistress had automatically assumed that they would feel the same and when Wilson wrote to her mother about it she took care to underscore that this was:

  — a most high compliment mother such as many a mistress would not have given and I was happy to receive it. We have not talked of it since but I could not help hear Miss Elizabeth say to Miss Henrietta when she came into her room Well Henrietta you have enjoyed your walk in the park I am sure have you not and Miss Henrietta was all confusion and before I left the room I heard her begin to cry. Molly, Miss Henrietta’s maid, is a good sort but she is young and Tilly makes short work of her and so when Tilly asked Molly why Miss Henrietta was seen crying before dinner and what ailed her Molly shrugged and did not know only she supposed it was something to do with Surtees Cook who had called and been refused and sent in a note. Oh says Tilly and I bet I know what was in that note did you read it Molly. Molly was angry and said she did not read notes except when they were addressed to her and what had given Tilly such an idea indeed. Tilly sniffed and said some people were not as good as was made out. At any rate, mother, Miss Henrietta is upset and it is all to do with Surtees Cook who is a second cousin removed I believe and only a poor soldier without means to marry Minnie says so what is to be done nobody knows I am sure. Mr Barrett does not think of Miss Henrietta as he does of Miss Elizabeth —

  No, he did not. Wilson had been perturbed to see the brusqueness with which Mr Barrett spoke to Miss Henrietta and Miss Arabel. There was neither affection nor respect in his voice whereas when he addressed Miss Elizabeth there was an abundance of both and something more. She could not understand it since Miss Henrietta was so charming and was turned to by all in the house for advice and help and was said by Minnie Robinson to have taken the place of her mother at a tender age. Miss Arabel fared even worse, if anything, at her father’s hands. Wilson was troubled when she heard Mr Barrett speak to Miss Arabel, his tone harsh and cutting when hers had been soft and hesitant. He did not seem to acknowledge Miss Arabel’s goodness which everyone in the house marvelled at. She was like a little grey mouse scurrying up and down the stairs, forever fetching and carrying for her lazy brothers, never too busy or tired to be of service. And she did good work, Wilson knew, for the Ragged Children. It was a wonder the master was not moved by her charitable endeavours to estimate Miss Arabel more highly. Miss Elizabeth’s poetry meant more to him. He was pleased with the new volumes which were to come out in August and thought, her mistress told her, that several of the poems were beautiful in their piety.

  ‘My papa likes it best when I write on religious themes Wilson,’ Miss Elizabeth explained, ‘but I cannot always do so.’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘Do you care for poetry, Wilson?’

  ‘I don’t know, miss, not having read any.’

  ‘Then I will read some to you. It will be my pleasure, you shall hear what no one else in London has yet heard and you must tell me truly what you think.’

  Wilson steeled herself to find Miss Elizabeth’s work incomprehensible and prepared to have to admit, with many an apology, that she was too stupid to understand. But she did understand. In her light, high voice, Miss Elizabeth read aloud a poem she said would appeal to her, called ‘The Lady’s Yes’:

  ‘“Yes,” I answered you last night;
/>
  “No,” this morning, sir, I say.

  Colours seen by candlelight

  Will not look the same by day.’

  That was how the poem began and Wilson had no difficulty appreciating these sentiments – they were precisely stated and her own entirely. She was surprised Miss Elizabeth should write so, with such simplicity and feeling, and as the poem went on the force of the verses did not escape her. It was true, all true. She herself had never flirted in her life and yet all around she saw how coquetry on both sides ruled the day. In the fourth verse she found herself nodding at the line, ‘wooing light makes fickle truth’; and the fifth verse was so exactly right she clapped her hands.