Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  The plan was to leave not in May, as originally intended, but in June, before it became too hot. The Ogilvys and Jeannie departed before them, for Naples, and instantly the Casa Guidi seemed a lonelier place. Wilson realised how shut in she had become since little Wiedemann was born and how dependent on Jeannie for any company, and yet she did not have the energy to go out on her own and pick up the contacts she had once had. In the afternoons, trudging up the stone stairs with the baby in her arms, she felt exhausted and likely to collapse with fatigue but the moment they entered the apartment Wiedemann was off, racing to the balcony which his father had been obliged to cordon off, so dangerous was it. Sometimes, she felt tears come into her eyes, tears of self-pity, and she had to be stern with herself. It even entered her head that once back in England she might just as well stay there for all the happiness being in Italy was now bringing her. Better to be with mother, helping her after such a Long desertion.

  ‘Do you long to be in England, now that April’s there?’ Mrs Browning asked her, laughing at the words she had just quoted. ‘Do you, Wilson?’

  ‘It will be pleasant to be home, ma’am,’ Wilson said. ‘I think it will be refreshing.’

  ‘I think it will be terrifying,’ her mistress said, and shuddered. ‘Were it not for seeing my sisters I would not go. And of course there is my baby to show off.’

  Wilson, who at the time had only begun to suspect, went on folding clothes and kept her thoughts to herself.

  ‘You are in one of your quiet moods, dear.’

  ‘Oh no, ma’am.’

  ‘Then it must be because you have a secret.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And that secret is to do with me?’

  ‘I do not rightly know.’

  ‘I think I do. You are quick, Wilson, but by now I am experienced in these things and not the innocent I once was. You think I may be with child again, that is it, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And if I am, we cannot go to England.’

  ‘Indeed not.’

  ‘Well, it is only just possible. Let us wait another month, and say nothing to my husband.’

  It was a foolish warning, for as Wilson wrote to her mother at the end of May:

  — her husband was always on the lookout and guessed almost as soon as we did. It appeared to me, mother, that he was far from truly regretful at cancelling our trip to England but did it as though freeing himself of a burden. I alone was desolate, knowing it means I will not see you for another long year and I have vowed never again to promise I am coming until such time as bags are packed and carriages taken. The baby will be a Christmas baby and Mrs Browning is determined to keep it, not moving from her bed more than an hour each day in an attempt to be tranquil. It is strange but I have observed this time she is growing big with great speed and it is possible now, when she is barely two months gone only, to know she is carrying a child. She is of a mind to believe this means it is a girl but I am sceptical and think it not wise that she should get into the habit of having a daughter. So we are to be here all the hot summer and Mr Browning is to try to find a villa somewhere near but cool.

  Mr Browning failed in his task. He looked here, there and everywhere and could not find any place cheap enough or near enough or attractive enough to take for the high summer. Meanwhile, the thermometer in June climbed to over eighty degrees and his wife lay clad only in a white wrap on her bed, longing for the cool of the evening. Wiedemann ran around all day long until his blond curls were plastered to his hot forehead and he cried with the heat. Wilson was demented with the effort of keeping him cool and suddenly longed for the stream at Bagni Caldi though she had so detested the last summer there. Early in July, Mr Browning heard of a villa at Siena and went to look at it. Wilson asked Alessandro, who was still with them, where Siena was and what sort of place and he rolled his eyes to heaven and sighed and said it was inland, on a high plateau, but nowhere near sea or water of any kind. In the event, and rather to Wilson’s relief, Mr Browning was back that same night declaring both villa and situation impossible.

  Afterwards, Wilson dreaded to think what would have happened if that isolated villa outside Siena had been taken. Surely, her mistress, as she told Minnie:

  — would have died and I do not exaggerate. Never, Minnie, was she like this before. In the middle of the night I heard my name called in a frantic tone and got up to find Mr Browning going for the doctor and when I got to the bedside I saw at once the sheets were already drenched in blood and more and more coming away and oh Minnie I almost fainted at the sight. Then Dr Harding arrives and takes one look and tells Mr Browning to go at once and wake Alessandro and between them to bring as much ice as they could procure. When Mr Browning and Alessandro had brought the ice Dr Harding wrapped the blocks in muslin which fortunately was to hand being newly bought in lengths to make new curtains and packed them all round my mistress’s body. Minnie, she lay like that for two whole days. It was terrible to look at her, so deathly white and her lips almost blue, and I cried Minnie when she smiled at me and said dear Wilson the trouble I put you to. At length, the dreadful bleeding stopped. That was a month ago Minnie and her lack of progress is frightening. It is pitiful to see her drag herself around, there is not an ounce of flesh on her anywhere and as if she did not have enough to bear with this miscarriage which Dr Harding has said not one in five thousand women would have survived our dear baby was taken ill two days ago. It was we now think a touch of sunstroke for he had been out in very hot sun with Dolorosa. By nightfall he was almost delirious and in a great fright we sent for Dr Harding who said that there did not seem anything materially wrong and that in the morning he would be well which to our joy he was, to all intents and purposes. But he is pale and I am worn out Minnie. I was glad when I heard Dr Harding tell Mr Browning that it was imperative his wife and child were got out of this city where the sun now makes it into a cauldron. Indeed, since it is nearly the end of August, it could be said the worst is over but September can be uncomfortable too so we are to leave tomorrow for Siena, the very place we were to have gone in July and thank God we did not. I will not write from Siena Minnie since the posts will be variable it being a remote place.

  It was remote. The house had seven rooms and stood on a hill, Poggio dei Venti, the Hill of Winds, two miles from Siena. In some ways it was even more remote than the house they had taken the year before at Bagni Caldi since there was no settlement near it, but to her own surprise Wilson found it more congenial. Coming towards the house at the end of a long and exhausting journey from Florence she had been much struck by the English feel to the countryside. There were hedges that bore a resemblance to English hedges and lanes which were strikingly similar and the vineyards from a distance looked like English fields. The views from the house were extensive, the eye stretching across the high plain to the mountains beyond, and there was a sense of space she had never felt before in Italy. In front of the house was a little flower garden, full of flowers quite recognisably English, and at the back a vineyard and an olive grove perfect for Wiedemann to run around in. All that worried Wilson as they settled in was the cold. The breeze blew strong and fresh through all the open windows and she found herself shivering in such an obvious fashion that her mistress grew quite annoyed and insisted on showing her that whatever her belief the temperature stood at seventy degrees. All the same, Wilson pointedly donned a shawl.

  Within a week, she had grown used to the climate and had benefited as much as her mistress. In the morning when she got up she felt fitter than she had done for a year and had the energy to run with Wiedemann in pursuit of the pigeons he adored. Together they raced round the garden and played with a ball and Wilson enjoyed herself more than she would have thought possible. Now that Wiedemann was eighteen months old, he was fun as a companion and she was absorbed in teaching him so many things. He did not yet talk, though his mother swore he was capable of it but simply did not choose to demonstrate his capabilities, and she
spent hours encouraging him to say ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’. She spent other hours persuading his mother to have him weaned and at last, after they had been in Siena a month, she capitulated. Aloes were smeared on Dolorosa’s breasts and Wiedemann duly made an expression of disgust as he took the nipple into his mouth. To the astonishment of all except Wilson, there was no screaming. As she had insisted, the child was ready to leave extreme babyhood behind. It was his mother who was sad when he was weaned, not Wiedemann. Wilson, when expressing satisfaction at the transition, was reprimanded.

  ‘Do not wish his life away, Wilson, I beg you,’ Mrs Browning said and Wilson to her astonishment saw tears in her mistress’s eyes.

  ‘His life, ma’am?’ she queried, shocked.

  ‘The faster he grows, the quicker his childhood passes and I would not have that for the world.’

  ‘But he could not have sucked at Dolorosa until he was a great lad.’

  ‘He is not a great lad yet but a very small, rosy cherub still.’

  ‘A cherub with a will to grow and have his hair cut.’

  ‘Cut? Oh, Wilson you frighten me, how can you say such a wicked thing and indeed he cannot have asked for it to be cut when he does not talk.’

  ‘He pushes his curls away and pulls at them and makes himself plain. And when his father trimmed Flush last week he all but snatched the scissors to do the same with his own hair. Which may be a good idea, though I say it as shouldn’t.’

  ‘You most certainly should not. The darling’s curls are one of his chief glories and must not be touched, not for many a year. Never speak to me of cutting Wiedemann’s hair, Wilson, if you do not wish to provoke me, dear.’

  Wilson put down the washed grapes and nodded, not trusting herself to speak, but the minute she was in her room and Wiedemann sleeping – sleeping far better than he ever did in the Casa Guidi thanks to all the fresh air and exercise from which he was now benefiting – she began a letter of outrage to Minnie, telling her how

  — it does not make sense Minnie to keep the boy’s hair so thick when it cries out for trimming and would not spoil his looks in the least. Likewise she will have him dressed in silks and satins which are not suitable for the running around he does when these same flimsy materials catch on bushes and get torn so completely I cannot mend them. As for his appetite, she is not a bit concerned that presently he will eat only prosciutto a kind of spicy ham Minnie and grapes and will not take anything more substantial not even bread. Heaven knows how this precious child will be brought up if the lack of rules we have now is anything to judge by. She says she wishes him to be happy and that children should be trusted to know what is best for them which you will agree is the most manifest nonsense Minnie. How we will contain the child when he is back in Florence in the Casa Guidi I do not know.

  The answer was, with difficulty, which his mother was the first to admit. Wiedemann’s new habit was to snatch his hand free of Wilson’s and to attempt to dart across streets without her. This was so clearly dangerous she brought herself to speak out. She did it quietly, taking care only to make sure Mr Browning was present with her mistress.

  ‘Ma’am, sir,’ she said, her voice even, ‘I cannot any longer take Wiedemann in the streets. He is too heavy to carry and is determined to break free and run.’

  ‘Then let him run,’ Mrs Browning said at once, to be followed by her husband remonstrating and saying, ‘Now, come Ba, you do not think. If he runs in the streets he will get knocked down. He must have a rein, do you think, Wilson?’

  Before Wilson could reply her mistress jumped in to object, saying, ‘He is not a horse, Robert, for shame.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest, my love?’

  ‘Dolorosa can carry Wiedemann. Why else do we keep her on but to be useful a little longer? And then. when he is stronger and walks steadier and sees for himself streets full of people and carriages are dangerous places, then he will submit and walk properly with Wilson.’

  She made all to do with her child so easy, Wilson reflected. And yet it was not easy. He was turning, day by day, into a tyrant, if one so greatly adored and in himself so loving could be termed a tyrant. Everything within the Casa Guidi had to be done his way, and it was wearing. When she was alone with him, Wilson imposed her own conditions which the child seemed happy to abide by, seeing them as a game. ‘Hands!’ she would say before she let him feed himself and he would hold them out, knowing that if he did not allow them to be wiped there would be no food. But the moment he was with his parents all hope of restraining influences vanished. He knew, instinctively, that he was out of her jurisdiction and made the most of it, smiling wickedly at her as he indulged in some particular bit of mischief, as she wrote to Minnie:

  — you will see at once what I mean when you have witnessed it which I believe, though I do not tell my poor mother yet, will be in the summer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE EXCITEMENT HAD precisely the effect she had anticipated and dreaded. Knowing her expression would betray her disapproval and provoke the kind of caustic comment which was all the more hurtful for being sweetly said, Wilson turned aside as soon as she had taken the child from his mother’s arms. He clung to her, his face red, his eyes over-bright, and bounded up and down so that it was all she could do to restrain him. ‘Lily!’ he said, over and over again, ‘Lily! Lily! Lily!’ Where had he got her name from since no one used it, but then where had he got his own? For two months now he had begun to speak, if the strange mixture of English and Italian words he came out with could be called speech. ‘Pen’, he called himself and she found that easier than the ‘Penini’ he had begun with. But then, as Jeannie had remarked, given an outlandish name like Wiedemann, to honour his dead paternal grandmother, what could the poor bairn do?

  So Pen wriggled and fidgeted and clung to her neck, kissing her behind the ear and licking her cheek, chattering all the time she carried him to the room they shared. It was at the back of the guest-house, away from the noise of the Grand Canal, for which she was thankful. It would be nearly midnight in any case before the child would sleep and if their room had been at the front, where all night long it seemed gondoliers shouted to each other, there would be no settling him at all. And the dark water frightened him as much as it did her. She shivered as much as her mistress exclaimed with delight at the sight of the moon rippling on the black, black streets of water and could hardly bear to go near the front balcony. Even in the daytime, when the same water was blue and bubbling with colourful life she felt uncomfortable, seasick, unbalanced just to be so close to it. Venice did not suit her. She saw no beauty in what her mistress called the ‘divine floating sea-pavements’ and shuddered at the marble palaces admired as mysterious. To her, they were sinister, unfriendly, the very facades harsh and overpowering. The whole of Venice felt alien in a way neither Pisa nor Florence had ever done and when she was left alone, as she had been this day when his parents took Pen to the play (much against her wishes) she retreated to her room, closed the shutters, lit a candle and tried to pretend she was back in the Casa Guidi.

  Next door, she could hear, very faintly, both Mr and Mrs Browning laughing as they ate their late supper. The play, they said, had been most entertaining and their tiny son’s behaviour exemplary. ‘Except, Ba,’ Mr Browning had added, ‘for the chains.’ Looking askance at her mistress, Wilson had seen her put her finger to her lips and then, when caught out, she murmured that it was nothing, her husband had only referred to one very small incident when an actor had been too convincingly put into chains … Grimly, Wilson tucked up the child and sat at his side, knowing that she was in for a night of it. He was only just two years old and there he was, watching scenes that could do nothing but inflame his already over-active imagination. It was scandalous. But strangely enough, Pen fell asleep at once and did not waken that night at all. Instead, Wilson herself lay awake, wishing she was either back in Florence or already in England – anything but this travelling which made her feel displaced and anxious. F
lush, crouched at her feet, seemed to feel the same and had been unlike himself ever since they left Florence.

  One day she heard her mistress swear she could live in Venice forever, that it was her natural home, that she had never felt so well. The mere thought of this made Wilson feel giddy and if it had not been for Mr Browning immediately saying he certainly could not stay in Venice, that he had been feeling bilious ever since they arrived, she would have given notice there and then and somehow got herself home. As it was, they left Venice the next week and travelled to Milan by way of Verona, sixteen hours by train and coach with Pen in near hysterics all the way. Stoically, Wilson endured his violent dancing about, relieved that at last they were away from water and land looked like land.

  Her relief was short-lived. From Milan – of which she saw nothing since Pen had a cold and she was confined indoors – they journeyed on to the Italian lakes. Then came the passage of the St Gotthard the next day, and if the canals of Venice had seemed ominous to her the snowy crags of the Alps almost made her swoon with fright. She cowered in the corner of the carriage, a shawl over her eyes, clutching Pen frantically to her, convinced the icy rocks would at any moment crash down and kill them all. It did not make sense to her that her frail and delicate mistress was sitting, swathed in shawls, on the outside of this coach, glorying in the magnificence of the scenery.

  Of course, she was teased for it. All the way to Paris, a journey of such discomfort and tedium she thought of it as yet another possible death before it was over, Wilson had to endure the sly smiles and the remarks as to how strange it was the things some people, who were brave really, were frightened of and she blushed and then rallied and said she was sorry for it but she could not help being frightened on that perilous route and believed there was not one woman in three who would not have felt the same. Then her mistress laughed and patted her knee and said she was quite right and that she was merely glorying in her own fearlessness by which she had been amazed herself. A little mollified, Wilson tried to put the experience behind her and hoped she would never have to repeat it.