Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Why, Wilson!’ Miss Elizabeth exclaimed, dropping her book in astonishment, ‘you run as if followed by the hounds of hell.’

  ‘Oh no, miss, the door crashed of its own accord and I know not why.’ She walked over to her mistress’s sofa with Flush, holding him out to receive his goodnight kiss but for once this kiss was perfunctory and Wilson herself of far more interest.

  ‘Has someone annoyed you, Wilson dear, for if they have you must tell me,’ Miss Elizabeth said quietly. Aware that her face was still flushed and her hands damp with perspiration Wilson struggled for composure and said with emphasis, ‘Indeed no, miss, no one has annoyed me, I have only annoyed myself and said something as I ought not to have done and it was misunderstood and I would be obliged, miss, if you would ask me no more about it for it was nothing.’ Miss Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and held her gaze steadily for a moment but then shrugged and said, ‘We must all have our private domains, I grant you that.’

  When Miss Elizabeth had been prepared for bed and Flush put in his basket, Wilson went straight to her room. No sooner had she closed the door and leant against it with relief than she saw an envelope on the floor at her feet. Cautiously, knowing it could not be a letter delivered through the post at this hour, she bent down and picked it up. The hand was bold and quite unknown to her. Inside was a single piece of paper and on it the words, without any form of address preceeding them: ‘If I spoke as though intending harm it was not meant, nor did I have any seditious action in mind but merely uttered a general prayer and hope for the future. Believe me, Timothy Wright.’ Wilson tore the letter up into tiny pieces, as though its very existence incriminated her.

  She could not understand why she had reacted as violently to Timothy’s words which, the more she recalled them, seemed more and more innocent. It was she, as she reminded herself, who had planted the seed by speaking out as she did and why should Timothy not reply as he did? Lying quietly in bed, praying to herself, repeating over and over the Lord’s Prayer, she saw everything differently – of course Timothy had merely expressed a hope for the future. He had intended no harm and she had been foolish to assume he did. She would have to make amends the next day.

  The thought caused her some apprehension. She had never been easy with the men servants but then, until now, she had not had much opportunity to overcome her intense shyness. Mrs Barrett in Newcastle had kept only a general man-servant and Mrs Graham-Clarke not even that. She had only a gardener and his boy, called in to lift anything heavy and to drive the carriage. But now, in Wimpole Street, there seemed almost as many male servants as female and she found it both confusing and embarrassing. The butler, Mr John, was remote enough not to trouble her by noticing her particularly but with the others she was obliged to have some relationship and she could never decide what it should be nor could she dictate how they treated her. Charles had been well on the way to being impudent, which she had dealt with mainly by keeping out of his way, but the lesser mortals such as the boot boy, had been entirely respectful and gradually she had come to feel more comfortable. But Timothy was something new. She was not at all sure she could address him, even now, without at once blushing deeply, which she hated. It was such a curse to blush so. It meant every man understood by your blush that you were smitten by him and fair game. She had tried so hard to conquer this unfortunate habit but, always, she had failed. She knew that if she were to seek Timothy out with the intention of being so brave as to apologise, her face would be peony red and any manner of motives deduced forthwith. She would have to steel herself and did not relish the prospect.

  But she had no opportunity. The next day Timothy had gone off with Mr Octavius, she knew not where, and Miss Elizabeth was expecting a new visitor which put her into a state of such violent agitation Wilson did not have a minute to herself all day. She forgot entirely about Timothy in her fascination with the spectacle her mistress made of herself. As soon as Wilson went in that morning, even before she had time to say good morning or to comment on the noise the storm had made the night before, she was confronted by a mistress actually in tears. ‘Oh Wilson!’ she cried, stretching her arms out piteously, ‘there is no escape, Mrs Jameson comes today and cannot, cannot, be turned away. What am I to do? I cannot pretend to be ill or Papa will be angry and indeed such deceit is wicked – oh, what can I do?’ Wilson began going through the usual tasks mechanically, without replying, knowing that such routines were soothing and had their own effect and once Miss Elizabeth had been washed and her dressing wrapper put on and her hair brushed she became calmer. But now it was eyes closed and head thrown back and brows furrowed as though in pain. ‘Have you a pain, miss?’ Wilson asked, but the head was shaken and a groan escaped. ‘Only the pain of having to receive this stranger,’ she murmured, ‘for which I have only myself to blame.’ Safely behind the sofa, adjusting the blind at the window, Wilson permitted herself a smile. Miss Elizabeth had made the first move, she had written to Mrs Jameson, telling Wilson this lady was an eminent critic and writer whose opinion of her poems, which Mr Kenyon said Mrs Jameson had admired, she would value. She had expected a letter back and had expressed annoyance at each post which did not include a letter from Mrs Jameson in reply. And now Mrs Jameson was coming.

  Wilson told her mother in a very long letter what a very curious lady Mrs Jameson had turned out to be:

  — really, mother, she is most peculiar looking and not as you would fancy a learned lady would look and Miss Elizabeth thinks the same saying did you not wonder Wilson at the lack of eyebrows and the thinness of the lips. Well, I would not say as I noticed either but was taken rather with the shade of Mrs Jameson’s hair which mother was so pale a red as to be nearly pink and if it were another sort of lady you may imagine what people would think. She is small, as small as I am, and wears a fierce expression though her words were kindly enough. She stood on no ceremony saying as I showed her up now what is your name and I said Wilson ma’am and she said was that all my name for she supposed I had been christened and had not always answered to Wilson only and I told her my name and then as we were at the first landing, for she took the stairs briskly, she asked where I was from and when I said the North she asked what part for she knew the North well having lived at Whitehaven in Cumberland as a child and then at Newcastle-on-Tyne for a year or two. Well mother I was so surprised I stopped short and begged leave to ask where in Newcastle Mrs Jameson had lived and she said over the shop of Mr Miller, bookseller and publisher. She said her family were very poor, her father being in bad health and only a portrait painter at that which was precarious and they were glad to find rooms above a shop and thought themselves lucky. She said we must talk of Newcastle some day and I said I should like that and then I showed her in to Miss Elizabeth’s room. Such visits liven her up no end mother and there is great benefit to be had from them even if they leave her tired. Her father however observes only the tiredness and was solemn about it and frowned and said with Winter coming on she must take care to guard her health. When I put her to bed tonight she sighed over what he had said about the Winter and said she dreaded it and felt walled up in a tomb and wished she could fly England for the Winter and go to some warm country as Mr Kenyon did and many others she knew of. She said she dreamt of Italy and sitting in the sun and saying goodbye to coughs and colds but that it could not be, she could not break up her father’s home again. Then she sighed some more and said let us pretend Wilson dear let us pretend we can go where we like and where would you go. I said I had no desire to travel further than I had already travelled from home and she cried shame on you Wilson you are too timid. That is as may be I said but it is the truth. She became excited which I never like to see at that hour and said had I no soul, did I not wish to view Niagara Falls and all manner of other places of which I had never heard. Before I left her, she clutched me by the hand and said if I were to go abroad to winter would you come with me dear Wilson and mother I did not have the heart to say indeed not. She is like a child sometimes
mother and puts me in mind of Fanny in her weakness and yet I know she is not weak. So I said I would to stop the tears and bring a smile to her lips and settle her for the night and now I live in fear of it coming to pass and then what should I do? But I do not think this is anything but wishful thinking on her part (please God). And I do not think her father would permit it —

  It was in this that Wilson placed her real faith. Minnie shook her head and said, when told of Miss Elizabeth’s hopes, that Mr Barrett would as soon see her dead at his feet than send her abroad. Hadn’t he sent her to Torquay to winter when the doctor swore she could not survive another London winter some six years ago? And hadn’t she been worse there than she ever had been in London? No, he would not hear of it and Wilson need have no fears. But consoled though she was by Minnie’s emphatic assurances, Wilson found that instead of dismissing the idea from her mind and being relieved, on the contrary she thought of it even more and was faintly disappointed that the proposition had little chance of success. She could not understand herself. She did not want to go further away from her mother and she had never in her life day-dreamed or nursed visions of going abroad. But now she began wondering what abroad was like, what it looked like, what it felt like living in the sun. One of Mrs Jameson’s books lay on Miss Elizabeth’s table – Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad – and Wilson found herself dipping into it whenever her mistress slept. Slowly the idea that abroad might be exciting grew upon her and the notion of travel itself took on a new perspective. It would never be dull, that was for sure. Every day would bring variety and as the autumn ended and winter began and the first of London’s fogs enveloped Wimpole Street, this was what Wilson began to long for and what was sorely lacking: variety.

  Chapter Six

  THE FOG WAS so thick throughout November that Wilson was afraid to go out. She had seen nothing like it before and wrote in awe to her mother:

  — the depth of it, mother, so as you cannot see further than a foot in front of you and that is no exaggeration. Often of a morning lifting Miss Elizabeth’s blind I imagine it is still night for the fog presses so close to the window pane there is no light to be seen and the mistress cries out to let the blind fall again and have the lamps lit all day. We are prisoners, mother, only the men venturing forth and glad to be back again. Then there is the breathing, mother, for this fog creeps into the nostrils and is evil smelling stuff and brings on coughing even from those with healthy lungs. Timothy, as I have told you of, came back from lighting the way for Mr Barrett coughing fit to burst and he is strong and healthy and he had a scarf well wrapped round his mouth and nose but it did no good. Miss Elizabeth comes nowhere near this fog as you may imagine but she swears she can smell it and feel it and she coughs twice as hard as usual. What is strange mother is how the fog muffles sound. There are few carriages abroad and those that still are on the streets seem to make no sound at all. We are a good way from the river but we hear the fog horns sound and a right mournful noise it is. I wake up to hear it and shiver and I am glad I know no one at sea.

  Trapped indoors, Wilson saw that she had after all been accustomed to more life outside 50 Wimpole Street than she had either realised or appreciated. She missed the outings with Flush, the walks to post letters, the visits to the Regent Street Chapel and the occasional excursion with Miss Henrietta. Standing one afternoon at the window, desperately trying to convince herself the gloom was lifting and she could make out a chimney pot, she heard her mistress say, ‘It is a shame, Wilson, that you cannot be out for a while to break the monotony. I well know how time hangs when one is confined indoors.’ Her voice was weak and sad and Wilson felt guilty she had provoked the comment with her wistfulness.

  ‘Indeed no, miss,’ she protested, ‘I am happy enough inside out of such a fog.’

  ‘But you would be happier outside in the sun doubtless and so would Flush.’

  ‘The fog will lift soon I am sure.’

  ‘Ah, there you are mistaken, Wilson. There are more fogs than you can imagine. London is swathed like a mummy all winter long sometimes. You will get used to being held prisoner here with me I am afraid.’

  ‘It is too comfortable to be a prison, miss,’ Wilson said bravely, ‘and the company too respectable.’

  Miss Elizabeth smiled. ‘That is nicely put Wilson and I thank you for it. I could not abide a sulk for a maid. Come sit by me, hold Flush on your knee and let me rest from his wriggling awhile.’

  Wilson sat on the end of the sofa and took Flush. She held him firmly, stroked him the way Timothy did, in long movements beginning between the ears and sweeping down the back bone all the way to the tail. Flush grunted and settled down, resigned. ‘Look at me, Wilson dear,’ Miss Elizabeth said, ‘look at me, full in the face if you please.’ Wilson looked from her own blue eyes into her mistress’s large brown ones and held her gaze as steadily as she could. She was strangely at ease. Staring was rude, especially for a servant, but she had been bidden to stare and she found it curiously satisfying though she could not have said why. She could see herself reflected in her mistress’s pupils and she stared at her own tiny pin-point reflection. She felt pleasantly relaxed, almost sleepy, and there was the faintest sound of buzzing in her ears. Above it, she heard Miss Elizabeth murmur, ‘I think I could do it, I think I could, I feel I could, do you feel it, Wilson, do you?’ Wilson noticed that as she softly replied, ‘Do what, miss?’ the buzzing stopped and that when she found herself blinking rapidly at the same time so did the sleepy feeling. Miss Elizabeth let out a small sound of exasperation. ‘There, it is spoiled, and I do believe we could have managed it. You are most receptive, Wilson, did you not know that? It is quite frightening, it frightens me.’ Wilson, bewildered, could only continue to stare, but her mistress was no longer staring back. ‘Oh, it was an experiment,’ she said. ‘I hear so much of this mesmerism and though I would rather not I do believe in it, Wilson, I do believe the power of the mind can be such that it can conquer the mind of another. I did not try to conquer yours, dear, only to see if a rapport might exist, if in certain circumstances, it might be possible to mesmerise you, not that I should truly try. Did you feel sleepy, Wilson?’

  ‘Indeed yes, miss. And there was a buzzing in my ears which I could not account for.’

  Miss Elizabeth drew in her breath, ‘I knew it, I knew it,’ she said. Wilson could not credit her excitement, nor the passion with which she recounted the tale of her friend Miss Martineau’s experience of mesmerism which had provoked this little experiment of her own, to her friend Miss Mitford who had again come to stay.

  Miss Mitford stayed two nights and since she did not bring Jane, for which Wilson was thankful, required help with her toilet. Wilson gave it gladly. Miss Mitford talked all the time but hardly paused for answers so all that was needed was an attentive air and the occasional exclamation. She had the most extraordinary hair style under her strange bonnets and it took all Wilson’s expertise (and hair was not her forte) to curl and plait and twist the wild grey-brown locks into the shape Miss Mitford demanded. All the time she worked, Miss Mitford chatted, her plump red face beaming with delight at her own reflection. ‘You do very well, Wilson,’ she said ‘and I am grateful for I know I do not have hair like your dear mistress oh is it not beautiful like a raven’s wing if that were not such an unattractive cliché as well as inaccurate for who can deny there is a good deal of blue in a raven’s wing and Miss Elizabeth Barrett’s hair has far more shine to it and is far more lovely than any wing of any raven I have seen and I have studied a few. But she is a pretty little person altogether is she not Wilson and ought to have a better fate than she has and would have if she went abroad as I would like her to and tried to urge upon her when first I met her, to no avail. Now I was born to be a spinster, indeed I was, and I do not think I could have taken to husband or children with a dear father needing me as my poor father does but Miss Barrett, I will not have it that Miss Barrett, one so pretty, that she was not meant to grace some fortunate man’s
arm. I cannot bear to think of her pining away but her cousin Kenyon has tried too and had no greater success. Come the summer, Wilson, and I shall move might and main to bring something about though with whom I do not know for no one is worthy enough. Miss Barrett thinks the game is over and never played in point of fact but I do not, I do not think it is over for either her or for Miss Henrietta though of Miss Arabel I have doubts, she is wedded to her charity work and of too religious disposition to seek romance.’

  The bonnet was on and tied and off Miss Mitford went, pressing a half guinea into Wilson’s hand though she demurred. Wilson had heard her mistress say Miss Mitford was poor, and Jane had told her Mr Mitford drank any money she had away, so she did not want such largesse, but she saw how pleased Miss Mitford was to give it and how a refusal to accept would offend. So she kept the half guinea to send to mother for Christmas and thought of what a difference it would make to the season for her. Christmas had not been a festival very joyously kept in mother’s house. She associated it with her husband’s death, though that was early in December, and all her childhood Wilson had been more aware of tears at Christmas time than in any other month in the year. It astonished her, with this as her own particular legacy, to find that Christmas in Wimpole Street was an affair of such importance with plans being made from the end of November and an atmosphere of excitement present from the first of December itself. She said as much to Minnie and was told she had seen nothing yet and would surely enjoy herself. And she did, finding in all the preparations a warmth she had thought lacking in the household.

  Minnie of course took the brunt of the extra work but did not seem to mind. Under her direction the whole house was decorated with garlands of holly and ivy, even the banisters threaded with greenery, and red candles were placed in clusters in every room; and there were three trees, something Wilson had never seen, each hung with silver and gold baubles. At evening prayers the master regularly reminded them all that this was a religious festival and that the birth of Our Lord should not be the excuse for an excess of inappropriate merry-making but even he seemed pleased with the way in which the house glowed in its Christmas colours. Wilson wished passionately that