Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Your mother and sisters?’ he pressed her.

  ‘Oh, I was going to say they had all been or were to be brides and I would not change my life with any of them.’

  He was lost. He smiled, but his eyes were troubled. She was being foolish, this was not talk for a picnic, she was putting him off with her attempt at philosophising. So she took a bite of onion tart and praised his cooking though indeed the pastry was not nearly as light as her own. As he leaned forward to cut a piece for himself she saw the long, ugly scar on the inside of his arm, stretching from his elbow into the sleeve of his blouse and wondered that she had not noticed it before.

  ‘Is that a battle wound?’ she asked, touching the beginning of the scar with her fingers.

  He laughed derisively. ‘A rout wound, that is what it is,’ he said. ‘Nothing more. We turned tail and ran before the Austrians when all our lines had been cut to shreds. It was flee or die, and the brave died.’

  ‘Nothing brave about dying when you can live to fight another day.’

  ‘If it comes, and if it does not come soon I shall be too old to be of use.’

  She felt sorry for him. He hung his head and spoke so sorrowfully and seemed ashamed. ‘Well, we are a fine pair,’ she said lightly, ‘to talk of disappointments and lost hopes on such a day. We need Pen to chatter us out of our sighing.’

  ‘No,’ he said and looked at her with an unusually serious expression. ‘It is good not to have Penini. I would rather have you to myself when I can.’

  By the end of the first week in October, when the weather turned cool and cloudy at Bagni di Lucca and the return to Florence was made, Wilson and Ferdinando had managed to be alone many more times though never for as long as that day they picnicked. There were endless stratagems for managing it and never a day went by without at least half an hour’s indulgence in each other’s company without benefit of Pen’s chaperoning. ‘You two mine fwends,’ he would lisp and join their hands together across him, little knowing the pleasure it gave them. Aware how observant her mistress’s eyes were, and fearing above all else attention drawn to her growing love for Ferdinando, Wilson worked hard to dissemble effectively. Ferdinando was not so astute. She scolded him in private for smiling at her too knowingly and for seeking her out with his eyes every time he came into a room where she was with the Brownings. Her caution puzzled him. He could see no reason for it and took it at first to mean that she thought she was doing wrong. Patiently, she explained that she did not like people to know her business until there was proper business to know and that she wanted no smirks and hints and teasings at her age. So Ferdinando had tried hard to respect her dignity though it did not come naturally.

  What did come naturally, too naturally, was his urge to make love to her. They had progressed from hand-holding to kissing and then to embracing but it was thus far and no further – Wilson drew back whenever his ardour led him to stray beyond the most innocent boundaries. And yet she was, he sensed, neither frigid nor a tease. He could feel her wishing to respond as he held her in his arms and her body followed his until he pressed her too far. He could tell that refusing him distressed her as much as being refused distressed him. Trembling they would both pause and disentangle themselves and he would tell her he loved her and wanted only to make her happy. They must marry at once, he said, and then there would be no bar to their proper union. But she became sharp with him and told him they were not in a position to marry and did he not see how penury and disaster would follow if they did? She would be dismissed instantly and they would be obliged to part. What kind of married life would that be? Ferdinando shook his head and confessed himself beaten: if they were not to marry, what were they to do? Wilson replied that they must wait, they must start saving and bide their time, but as she wrote to Lizzie:

  — oh Lizzie only you know how hard that waiting is for I have no doubts any more and love him truly and no longer ponder what that word means. But think, Lizzie, of our situation! He has no income but what he earns and neither have I and were we to marry mine, which is the greater, would stop and if I were to be in the family way I would be unable to go and look for employment elsewhere. Ferdinando protests our master and mistress would be happy to have us as a married pair and swears I am thought so highly of that they would not let me go, but I know them better Lizzie and so do you. For a while it might be well but if I should fall and be with child why then the tolerance would stop as it always does and she would say as most would that I could not blame her and had brought dismissal on myself. So what is there to do? I find it hard to deny him for I am denying myself and it is not wise to continue with this frustration. He has healthy appetites and so I am bound to say and to my own astonishment do I and would no longer condemn my sister Ellen as once I did. Then I think of how it would kill mother should anything happen as it happened with Ellen and I cannot do it. I am near mad with it all Lizzie, and though Ferdinando neither forces me nor turns angry but is only sad I fear for the future if this continues. Write to me Lizzie for God’s sake and give me some direction.

  Surprisingly, Lizzie did write and by return. The Casa Guidi was all in uproar when the letter came because the entire household was moving to Rome to winter and Wilson was diverted from her personal anguish by the need to pack and organise all their belongings. But she found a moment to read Lizzie’s letter and it calmed her for her friend pointed out that, since she was undoubtedly in love with this Ferdinando and he with her, there was no point in waiting – they should marry at once before, as Lizzie put it, ‘the need arises as it did for me’.

  Ferdinando did love her and he was a good man, but what Wilson found herself thinking all the long eight-day journey to Rome was that, though good, her lover was neither clever nor enterprising. He had no ambition, was at a loss when she attempted to discuss the future. He had a situation and merely saw himself continuing in it, for that was his lot in life. She had already discovered his whole existence hitherto had been one of such acceptance. From a boy, he had taken what was on offer, counting himself lucky that he was wanted anywhere. And, in his own eyes, he had indeed been lucky, working in good households and always so easy and popular his days were never made a misery. People employed him for his personality and not his skills, which were minimal. If he had bread to eat and a wage it had never troubled him that he had nothing else. Only on the subject of his country did he show any fire and even then he would always be of the kind that rallies to, but never raises, the flag. So, as Wilson saw all too clearly, it was useless to look to Ferdinando to see a way out of their dilemma. She must do it herself. She must think of a way of using their combined talents to support themselves in a life together outside the Browning household.

  In Rome she and Ferdinando were at first so busy settling into the rooms taken in the via Bocca di Leone that they had not a moment to themselves and hardly saw each other and then, with frightening speed, a calamity of such proportions overshadowed their lodgings that all thought of themselves was banished. Joe Story, only six years old, whom they had last seen sitting on Ferdinando’s shoulders and screaming with delight as his head touched the trees, died, suddenly. Wilson was with her mistress when the message came and was hardly less affected. Ferdinando was distraught, crying openly and wishing he could have given his own life to save the child’s. Throughout the awful days that followed her own romance was the last thing in Wilson’s mind and yet the tragedy had a direct bearing upon it. She and Ferdinando as well as Mr Browning went to the funeral and as she stood there in the gloomy church looking in horror at the tiny coffin before the altar the meaning of the solemnly intoned words, ‘In the midst of life we are in death’, sounded over and over again in her head. Poor little Joe had been struck down by a strange fever nobody could diagnose. Who knew when it would strike again? Who knew if one among the weeping congregation already carried the same seed of destruction? And here she was, her lifespan more than likely half over, waiting, with deliberate effort, to give herself to the man she lov
ed. It was folly.

  On Christmas morning a month later, when Wilson went with Ferdinando and the Brownings to attend mass at St Peter’s, she had come to a decision. The next time the opportunity presented itself she would follow her desires and become Ferdinando’s wife in all except name. The music soared and Ferdinando at her side held up Pen to see the procession down the main aisle and Wilson’s heart soared with it until she found herself crying with the emotion. She shut her eyes tight and wiped away the tears she was too late to control and thought how happy she was to have made the decision. She had to take risks or lose everything. And so that very evening, when the Brownings had gone with Pen to eat turkey and plum pudding with the still grieving Storys, she went to Ferdinando in the kitchen and surprised him with an open show of her affection. Feeling her arms round his neck and her body pressed to his, he was the one to pull back and look at her, a little confused. The question was in his eyes, as it always was, and she answered it by leading him by the hand to her room where a fire burned brightly. Still he did not understand the change that had come over her and stood bewildered as she sat down on her bed and held out her arms. A groan escaped him and he backed away, announcing he would not be master of himself if he held her and when she whispered that he did not need to be, still he hesitated, unsure and trembling. But he came to her at last and they lay down together still fully clothed, and when she kissed and caressed him without thought of the consequences his sudden joy made him frantic. She had thought the act itself would terrify her but as one by one she was stripped of her garments and as one by one Ferdinando divested himself of his own, she felt only her heart beat wildly and a thrill sweep through her limbs until she was all on fire for him.

  Whatever he was in other ways, Ferdinando was sure and certain in love-making. Wilson was awed by his mastery, his control, his great care for her own pleasure – it was as unlike the fumbling brutalities she had imagined as grace was unlike clumsiness. There was a pace and pattern to the act she had never guessed at and she became a part of it with unlooked-for ease. They had only two hours, but into it crammed months of yearning now given its satisfaction. But, almost immediately, the deceit began. Flush barked, as though he understood the importance of being a watchdog, and then the noise of the carriage outside and Pen’s high voice had Ferdinando leaping for his garments, knowing he ought to be at the door to carry the child up the stairs. Wilson herself, though with equal need to be swift and even more cause to be fearful, found herself languid. As Ferdinando rushed from the room, she dressed slowly and looked at herself in the gilt-edged mirror which hung over the chest of drawers. She ought to look different, transformed, but apart from the flush on her cheeks and the dishevelled state of her hair she looked exactly the same. When she went to take Pen from Ferdinando’s arms she was glad to find him asleep so that he could be attended to the quicker. She wished to be alone to savour what had happened to her and the thought of next attending to her mistress dismayed her. But when Pen was safely tucked up and she went into Mrs Browning’s bedroom to help her disrobe she found her mistress so taken up with her own misery that she paid Wilson no attention at all. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she was exhausted and weak as much from the emotional strain of a day spent with the Storys, a day in which the fact of Joe’s death had constantly to be faced on this happiest of days, as from the fatigue of being sociable for so long. ‘The agony of it,’ she kept repeating, her eyes shut, ‘oh, the agony of being with them.’ Wilson made sympathetic noises and was as deft and soothing as possible in her ministrations. ‘Life is so short,’ her mistress murmured as she lay back on her pillows, ‘so very short, but then death can only be a transition, Wilson, with all our loved ones waiting on the other side.’

  Back in her room once more, Wilson made ready for bed and thought on what she had done. It gave her a strange feeling of satisfaction to have taken such a momentous step as she had done, on Christmas Day, no ordinary drab weekday, but a special day, already marked for joy. Nor did it affect her mood to share her mistress’s mournful reflection that life was short. That was what had influenced her most. Life was short and though her mistress seemed to take that as a reason for concentrating on death and what happened after it, she felt no inclination to do so. Life was short and she wanted to enjoy it to the full, to waste none of it. And she felt more alive, more full of hope than she had ever done, whatever the future held. If she became pregnant then so be it – it had been foolish to try to plan ahead. But she would say nothing to Mrs Browning, would endeavour to keep secret the true situation between herself and Ferdinando. The only person she told was Lizzie, who could be relied upon to keep quiet and who indeed had no temptation to tell. She was shy about what she wrote, vowing:

  — I cannot bring myself to write of it, Lizzie, but you will know to what I refer when I say I was made a most happy woman on this Christmas Day! Indeed, it was not deliberate but happened as you had sensed it would and I have no cause to regret it. The coming together since is not as difficult as it was in your time in Wimpole Street for it is not at all the same here and there is a freedom which we take advantage of with no harm to anyone that I can see. Mr Browning, who might be more of a danger than my mistress (though she is more astute) simply in being in need of Ferdinando at unpredictable times is out a great deal and has less use for him than in Florence. He goes everywhere to dinners and balls with his wife’s encouragement and blessing you may be sure though many do not believe it. Only the other day Isa Blagden’s maid, Miss Blagden being a friend from Florence I may not have mentioned to you, said to me I suppose your poor mistress is demented with her husband roving so and her an invalid. I looked askance at her and assured her my mistress far from being demented was pleased and greatly liked to hear her husband telling where he had been and enjoyed at secondhand what through feeble health she is unable to enjoy with him. And it is true Lizzie for whatever else she may be my mistress is not nor never has been or will be a jealous woman, and I for one believe her faith to be justified. When Mr Browning is out we have our own amusement and I do not mean myself and Ferdinando for that concourse is kept for when we are alone here. My mistress is much taken with spiritualism to which as you will remember she has always had leanings. There is at present a great vogue for it in both Florence and Rome and there are seances the length and breadth of both cities. Mr Browning is loud in his protestations that it is all nonsense but my mistress ignores him and carries on her own way. Now you know how I have told you my mother sees into the future and I have told my mistress the same in the past and she has been greatly taken with mother’s gift and often plagued me with requests to try my own luck though I have told her I do not know myself to have the gift. But lately, such is the strength of the craze, I have been unable to resist her plea to experiment and so we have drawn the curtains tight and put out all the lamps and by the light of one candle only sat at a table together. It makes me nervous even to sit there but though we have concentrated hard neither voice nor hand from the other world has materialised. But with a pencil we have had some experience of an outside force which I am tempted to put down to the agitation of our fingers resulting from scaring ourselves out of our wits. Last night, Mr Browning being out, we settled ourselves soon after ten o’clock at the table and waited. It was all dark, Lizzie, with not even a candle lit and the only light the dull glow of the small fire across the room. My mistress had taken a double dose of laudanum which if her husband knew he would be very angry and was in a trance before we had half sat down. After a while she bid me take up the pencil for she could feel a presence and I did so and held the pencil tight and waited. I have seen spirit-writing done at Miss Blagden’s for her maid is famous for it and knew what should happen only nothing did. Then through clutching the pencil too tight I swear I made a mark on the paper and my mistress drew in her breath and waited and the pencil jumped again. After a while my mistress said she could feel the presence had gone and I lit a lamp, whereupon she took the paper we had had before
us and declared you have written a K Wilson, who do you know who is a K. Why I said only my mother who is Katherine and not dead thank God. And then I looked at the marks I had made and saw it might indeed be a K and now I await assurance in her next letter that mother is well which I confidently expect.

  Mother had turned excellent correspondent since the summer before, which had made her very happy. Even her mistress had remarked how regularly the envelopes from Sheffield came, professing jealousy since her own letters from home never flowed fast enough for her liking. And the content of the letters had been buoyant and cheerful with news of May’s marriage and her happiness with Arthur and the excitement of moving house and once more being a true housekeeper and no longer working for the pharmacist. Only when it was over did mother confess how weary she had been and how distasteful the work. Ellen, too, was content though mother implied by the use of the word that things did not go as well with Ellen as they did with May, which did not surprise Wilson. Mother had ended her last letter before Christmas with a hint that in her next she might have some interesting news and so Wilson waited with a certain anticipation for what she guessed would be an announcement that either Ellen or May was expecting.

  When, on the seventh of January, the black-edged envelope came for her addressed in a strange hand she did not know, Wilson fainted. Ferdinando finding her in a crumpled heap on the stone floor of the entrance to the house where they lodged, picked her up bodily and rushed upstairs, wailing as he went. Mr Browning came out and seeing the envelope lying on Wilson’s bosom to which she had clutched it, hastened to prepare the sofa for her and then to fetch some brandy. Ferdinando kept up a babble of Italian, alternately chafing Wilson’s hands and stroking her forehead and, if Mr Browning had not been so concerned himself, his agitation would have told all. Eventually, the brandy forced through her lips, Wilson’s eyes opened, though her ghastly pallor remained. Her fingers grasped the hideous letter and she held it out piteously to her master. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘please.’ Hesitating, wishing desperately that his wife had not gone to visit Isa Blagden taking Pen with her, Mr Browning took the letter and said ‘My poor Wilson, you wish me to open it?’ and when she nodded, ‘I had rather not, my dear, it is not something anyone but your good self should do.’