Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  Wilson could not think how to end and pondered over the rival merits of faithfully and sincerely yours until she decided neither was fitting and simply signed her name. She had tried to make her letter lively but knew it contained none of her real feelings and found herself wondering what it would be like to write freely of her confusion to Miss Elizabeth who was sensitive to such things. If it had not seemed likely to be a betrayal, she might have attempted to describe how displaced she felt and, even more disturbing, how she so quickly found she had changed and in changing was not so content to be home as she had always been. So many things made her impatient though she stifled this unworthy impatience. The little cottage, though as cosy as she had remembered, seemed so very much smaller and its smallness seemed unattractive suddenly. She was horrified to find herself missing the big rooms and wide staircase of 50 Wimpole Street and shocked to notice herself cringing at the noise of people washing in such close proximity. Privacy and solitude had been thrust upon her this last year but she realised after the first week back home that they had grown on her and that she was more suited to both than she could ever have dreamed. She was also more suited to command. At home, mother was in charge as she had always been and Wilson had never questioned that she should be, had indeed always thought herself fortunate that she had a mother so in control. But in Wimpole Street she had gradually grown used to making decisions and enforcing them. She found it hard not to treat her family as she treated her mistress and was forever telling them they could or could not do things, in a way which at first amused but then annoyed them.

  What was even harder to accept was the measure of boredom she experienced each day. She was ashamed of it, denied she felt it, kept telling herself how comfortable and easy everything was. Ellen was out at work and so was May, though she still came home each evening, but mother and Fanny were always there and she was obliged to witness the dullness of their routine. So much time and energy were spent on simple tasks necessary to run the household, tasks she was no longer much aware of in Wimpole Street. Hours spent heating water and scrubbing clothes and floors, hours gathering vegetables and scraping, peeling and chopping them, hours devoted most of all to the sewing which provided mother’s income. Nobody ever sat and read all day as Miss Elizabeth, nor did they converse. Listening to mother and Fanny chattering on about nothing, Wilson found herself craving stronger meat. She realised how much her mistress did talk to her and how she involved her in all the topics of the day, whether she was interested or not. Mother and Fanny had heard nothing about O’Connell and Ireland, the one topic on Miss Elizabeth’s lips at the moment and they cared less. Once upon a time Wilson knew she also would have been obliged to admit she did not know of this O’Connell nor what he stood for, but now she was disappointed that everyone at home was so ill informed. She asked herself over and over if she could come home and live there permanently and she did not dare consider that the answer might be no, whatever her love for her mother and sisters.

  The true pleasures of her holiday were the physical ones. It was pleasant to walk about Newcastle. She liked the chance to chat and say good day to so many familiar faces. She smiled to think she had ever been impressed by the upper reaches of Pilgrim Street or by Grainger’s covered market and, as for Bainbridges being all a department store could hope to be – it was absurd. But the familiarity of Newcastle pleased all the same. It was good to saunter The Side and find it not at all terrifying with its noise and bustle and to think that, if she wished, she felt quite brave enough to go into the Surtees House cocoa rooms. She liked taking short cuts, something she could not aspire to in London, liked knowing she could find her way through the chares, the narrow lanes connecting the main streets, and never feel afraid as she had done when first visiting Lizzie in Camden Town. Even going back to the country, to Fenham, after such an excursion to the town, had its pleasures and she no longer sighed for more bustle and life. She would never, she thought, belong to London as she did to her home town. It was true that she had had to go away to appreciate her own background but now that she did it was only to reject it in part. It would always be there, always comfort her, but now she wanted something more. Instead of making her wishful for a past she had wished to reclaim, her holiday at home was making her long for more change, more adventure. Timothy spoke often of his travels the year before when he had been the one to accompany Mr Kenyon. London, he told her, was nothing compared to Paris and, as for Venice, it was sublime; until she had seen it she could, he assured her, not consider she had truly lived. She had laughed at the time but now, amazed at the ordinariness of Newcastle compared to the excitement of London, she wondered how much more there was to see and learn and felt sorry for those, like mother, who had been nowhere and seen nothing, whose whole lives had been circumscribed by lack of opportunity.

  She was delighted when, on the tenth day of her holiday, she had a letter from Miss Elizabeth. The mere sight of the tiny envelope and the spidery handwriting threw her into the sort of ecstasy her mistress herself experienced on receipt of such a thing. She hugged it to her chest and wondered where on earth in such a house she could find privacy to read it, away from the expectant faces of mother and Fanny who appeared to assume her precious letter must also be theirs. At the risk of offending them, she withdrew to the bedroom and, when Fanny immediately followed her, said as gently as possible that she would be down soon. The look of misery on her sister’s face at being rejected in so outright a manner so affected her that she instantly regretted her coldness and called Fanny back and let her lie with her on the bed while she read the letter. It was only one sheet but very closely written in Miss Elizabeth’s diminutive hand.

  My dear Wilson –

  You cannot imagine how very pleased I was, and Flush too, for he knew instinctively who had written, to receive your letter and know you had survived the journey and had been greeted with such love. It was worth enduring the discomfort, was it not, to find a mother’s arms around your neck and sisters’ smiles before your eyes? I know I would travel to the ends of the earth in a rickshaw if necessary to see my dearest sisters should we ever be parted (which God forbid) and were I to be offered an embrace from my poor departed mother there is no journey I would not make. But this is only to show you how envious I am and how I share your joy.

  We are trying hard, Flush and I, to be joyful here without you but we confess it is hard work for nothing is right. Molly does very well and I am an ungrateful wretch to venture to criticise her but I cannot help it. Who wakens me each morning with such gentleness and kindness, Molly or Wilson? Who brings me my tea at precisely the temperature I like, Molly or Wilson? Who knows when to speak and when not? Who moves around so quietly? Who knows how to tuck a shawl in and plump a pillow and in general see to a most tiresomely particular lady’s needs? Why, you dear Wilson and I miss you at every turn and grow more sour with the lack of it every minute. I dreamt last night that your mother declared she could not spare you and though I beseeched her in my dream to send you back to me she would not and I woke in tears. Dear Wilson, do not let my dream become reality, will you? I am not ashamed to tell you how I need you.

  But before this letter turns into one long complaint let me tell you that everyone in Wimpole Street is well except for Catiline who has a thorn embedded in his paw which has turned septic. Naturally, Flush and I feel for the poor animal but it has made life quieter.

  Now, do you remember the odious Jane, Miss Mitford’s maid who so annoyed you with her disloyalty? Well, all is found out and she is dismissed. Poor Miss Mitford discovered wicked Jane opening a parcel to her and pocketing the contents (being a bottle of madeira sent with his compliments from Mr Kenyon to her father). Now she is maidless again and writes in the most despairing tone that she has not the heart to take on another maid in her life and must shift to manage for herself since her luck with maids is so bad. I feel guilty that mine is so good. My maids are the very best and I know it and never cease to marvel at their devotion. With which
outrageous but none the less deeply sincere piece of flattery – but can flattery be sincere? – I will close and wish you God’s speed for your return.

  Elizabeth B Barrett

  Wilson blushed as she finished the letter and folded it neatly and replaced it in its envelope. That was what her mistress did, always replaced the letter after the first reading so that the second could seem like the first opening all over again. Fanny asked what it had said and could she read it or have it read to her. Wilson replied that she would find it too dull since it was merely a message from her mistress hoping she was well and wishing her a safe journey back. At the words ‘journey’ and ‘back’ Fanny began to cry a little and asked why she had to go so far away and only come home once a year for such a wretchedly short time. Wilson said she must earn her living and it was earned better in London and mother had wanted her to go there. ‘She doesn’t any more,’ Fanny snivelled, ‘she wishes you were back home and she said only the day before you came that she had heard of a good place with a nobleman’s wife in Durham and she was sure you might get it and be near us and see us every week as Ellen does and mother said it paid as much as London does.’ Wilson stiffened and withdrew her arms from around Fanny. ‘Mother has said nothing of it to me, Fanny, and I do not think she could. She knows I am committed to Miss Barrett and could not foresake her so readily.’ Then Fanny began to howl in earnest and through her sobs swore her sister loved this Miss Barrett more than her and it was a dreadful thing. Wilson hushed her and told her not to be so foolish and asked how an employer could ever, ever be loved more than a mother or a sister and why it was almost blasphemy to say so and Fanny ought to be ashamed and would make her cry if she persisted in such untruths. They lay on the bed together, clasped in each other’s arms, until Fanny had ceased to cry and Wilson had coaxed a smile from her. She felt exhausted. It was, as she had assured Fanny with such passion, more passion than the denial warranted, a lie that she loved Miss Elizabeth more than her family and it truly disturbed her to think such an idea could have entered Fanny’s head. She did not love Miss Elizabeth at all. But nevertheless the mention of mother finding a good place for her up here in the North had frightened her, not simply because the lure of London was strong. It was more than that, the thought of letting her mistress down was unbearable. She felt needed and depended upon and responded by giving more of herself than strict duty called for.

  She said nothing of this to mother and dreaded the subject of this place, wherever it was, being brought up by her. Under the bedclothes she asked Ellen, home for the night on Saturday, whether there was any truth in what Fanny had let out and Ellen whispered back that there was and that it was a very good place, paying sixteen guineas, the same as London, and the lady, like Miss Barrett, something of an invalid. Wilson groaned and Ellen asked what was the matter and she confessed she would not know what to say if mother brought up the subject. Ellen was silent such a long time that she nudged her and asked if she was awake. ‘I am awake,’ Ellen said softly. ‘I am only thinking over what you have said. Mother thinks you will be pleased.’ ‘But I have been home ten days,’ said Wilson, ‘and nothing has been said. Why does mother hold back? Why does she not tell me about this place?’ Again Ellen was silent and murmured, ‘You must ask her.’ But that was just what Wilson had no intention of doing and, as the days passed and the date of her departure came near, she began to think both Fanny and Ellen had been mistaken or that mother had thought better of the suggestion.

  Then, two days before she was due to return to London, Wilson found herself alone with mother in front of the fire, both of them sitting watching the flames die down before they went to bed, and she knew something was about to be said. She thought of getting up and taking herself to bed before a word could be uttered but she did not move in time. ‘There is a place I have heard of,’ mother said, looking all the time into the fire, ‘with a lady in Durham. I know you can have it.’ There was a pause and Wilson was painfully aware she ought to break it and sound eager but her tongue seemed tied. ‘But,’ mother now went on, and Wilson was sure she was about to say she knew her daughter did not want this place and was about to cry as Fanny had cried, ‘but the night before you came, sitting here as I sit now, a lady came to me. She was small, smaller than you Lily, and dressed all in black and she carried a baby in her arms and she held out the child and said to me, “Do not take Wilson from me or you take everything I might have.” I could smell the scent of flowers and feel a heat greater than the fire and I could hear from far off the sound of a man’s voice, a deep voice, talking. The lady smiled at me and cradled her baby and put a finger to her lips and then she vanished and I was at once cold and shivering and could not at first understand what had happened or who the lady was and then I thought of Miss Barrett and I knew it was her, come from some future time to warn me and to plead for her own happiness. You must go back, Lily, for something very wonderful will happen and you will be a part of it though I know not how or when. I cannot take that baby from that happy lady, I cannot let you find another place until your work is done.’

  All the time mother was speaking, Wilson felt a physical sense of disturbance. She could not see clearly, her hands shook, her heart raced. Mother’s face was indistinct and she seemed to hear her voice from a long way off. Her breath came in shallow gasps and she felt a kind of terror seize her. The moment mother was silent, these symptoms of panic vanished. She went over to mother, who was weeping softly, and took her in her arms and held her tight. She did not know what to say about this prophecy, whether to refer to it or argue against it or act as though it had never been made. For a long time, until the fire was a dull glow and all warmth gone, she sat close to mother, feeling her trembling, and then she made some tea and they drank it companionably, calming themselves by doing so. Mother was exhausted. ‘I do not want to see the future, I am sure Lily,’ she said, ‘I don’t look for it, I try to turn away for it is so much more dreadful than the past.’ She sipped the hot tea, blowing gently on the steam rising from it. ‘It is only lately I have begun to see ahead,’ mother went on, ‘and always it is something to do with you, never Ellen or May. Once, I saw Fanny – ’ and she began to weep again ‘– she was so happy, her cheeks bright and full, and she waved and laughed and told me she was far better off and I must not grieve.’ To this, Wilson dared to make a response. ‘Now mother,’ she said, ‘you know that is because you worry so about Fanny’s health and worry brings on imaginings which we all have – ’ ‘No,’ mother said, ‘no, these are not imaginings. You would know, Lily, if you saw and heard as I do.’

  In bed at last, Wilson lay awake for a long time thinking about what mother had said. It was so impossible that Miss Elizabeth should bear a child that the whole vision, if that was what it had been, seemed the purest nonsense. But mother had said she would know these were not imaginings, ‘if you saw and heard as I do.’ Mother had often expressed surprise that none of her daughters had inherited her gift of second sight and had said she thought Lily the most likely to develop it. When Wilson protested that it was a gift she did not want and was glad had not fallen to her, mother reminded her that she herself had not ‘seen’ until she was twenty-five and that there was no choice in the matter in any case. So long as mother’s visions were confined to the past, Wilson had been able to tolerate her peculiarity but now that she was delving into the future it was a different matter. She realised, lying in the dark, that she was afraid of the future, that she did not wish to see into it, even if she could see happy events. She wanted very much to remain in ignorance. And she would say nothing to Miss Elizabeth who, though irresistibly drawn to such matters, would find such a prophecy ridiculous and would imagine she was being mocked.