Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  She herself did not know exactly how she felt. On the whole, up to Christmas, she felt suspended in time, unsure whether she was happy or not. Ferdinando’s unequivocal delight in being back home almost offended her – it seemed to be so simple for him to forget Oreste and what she suffered in leaving him. But saying this was a mistake and did no good, Ferdinando was indignant, calling Heaven to witness her lack of charity and swearing he had wept himself dry for his son. Ashamed, Wilson left the subject alone, recognising she only made a burden for her back by accusing her husband of forgetting. It was better to have him cheerful than depressed and he had, after all, endured enough misery in his temporary exile. Only one thing alarmed her and that was his light-hearted assurance that soon they would have other sons. The thought horrified her. Wasn’t she doing all she could to prevent this? Hadn’t she sought Lizzie’s advice and wasn’t she following it? Leaping up and douching with vinegar and water as soon as they had had relations and trying to get Ferdinando to leave her alone when she knew she was at a dangerous time. Only immediately after her monthlies did she feel relaxed and even then did not give up the douching. Another pregnancy would spell disaster and she had had enough of that.

  All the time she schemed as to how Oreste could be brought over and where he could be put when he was. Sometimes, though she was careful not to be the one to raise the subject, her mistress indulged her and discussed what could be done, but nothing ever came of the vague promises to ask this person or that if they could accommodate an infant in their party travelling out to Florence. ‘I am too selfish to want to lose you again,’ Mrs Browning smiled, ‘and I fear I would if you had your child near you. What would you do with him, Wilson?’

  ‘Why, board him out, ma’am. It is not the dreadful business it is in London. I know of many a kindly woman who will look after a child for far less than we remit to Ellen now.’

  ‘It is no sort of family life, however,’ her mistress said.

  ‘Having Oreste near would be a beginning, ma’am.’

  ‘But what would be the end, since you would have no prospect of setting up house together?’

  ‘In time, we may.’

  ‘How, Wilson? You intrigue me.’

  ‘Ferdinando must stay with you, ma’am. If I am to speak frankly, you know we must hold between us one steady position and in the way of things, as I have seen, a man’s is steadier than a woman’s. But I can do other work and yet be a wife and mother besides. I can sew and cook and could take in work.’

  ‘But where would you live, in this grand design?’

  ‘Oh it is not grand, it is humble if nothing else, and dependent on finding a cheap house to rent.’

  ‘There are such houses in Florence?’

  ‘Not of this kind, but there are places, Ferdinando says.’

  ‘He is no businessman, your husband.’

  ‘No, he is not. But he is known as trustworthy and looks it and so do I and if between us we could raise a loan we might get a start and make something of ourselves.’

  ‘Ah, a loan,’ repeated Mrs Browning with a very deep and long sigh, ‘how we would all welcome a loan.’

  That was that. Flushed, Wilson hid her agitation by leaving the room. She knew, for how could she not when she heard so many bits of conversation, that Mr Kenyon had died early in December and that only last week, just before Christmas, the Brownings had both received a legacy. Minnie Robinson, who wrote rarely now but had made a special effort having such a good piece of gossip to relate, had written to tell her how the rest of the family had been disappointed in their expectations and the Brownings alone had benefited. Minnie knew for certain that Mr Browning had got £6,000 and Mrs Browning £5,000.

  Folding up Minnie’s letter, Wilson smiled to herself a little bitterly. There had been no mention of the Kenyon legacies, though she had heard her employers discussing some investment in Tuscan bonds which she knew could not be possible if there had not suddenly been money available. Otherwise there was not at first any indication that their financial situation was easier. Not, that is, until the carnival came round the following February when, to his astonishment, Ferdinando was ordered to start preparing a grand entertainment because Mr Browning was hiring a box at the Grand Ball and would wish his guests to be wined and dined in style. Immediately he heard this Pen was beside himself to have a proper domino costume and kept up a non-stop barrage of pleading and cajoling until in the end his mother gave way and Wilson was sent to buy material. Pen stood at her knee watching every stitch she put in the blue satin, hopping from foot to foot in his agitation that it should be finished. When the carnival began and the streets of Florence began to fill with costumed revellers he was everywhere among them, convinced that his mask rendered him quite invisible. Wilson grew exhausted chasing after him but laughed all the same – it was rare to be truly in the Florentine spirit and while she was weaving in and out of the colourful, jostling crowds with Pen she felt light-hearted and optimistic.

  She assumed that her mistress would not go to the ball and was resigned to missing it herself in order to stay with her. All winter she had coughed, in spite of staying snugly in her bedroom, which had been made out of the drawing room and became her quarters. Her fatigue seemed more than physical. Watching her closely, Wilson saw how the books slipped out of her hands and the sheets of paper remained virgin white at her side. Even letter-writing seemed to have palled. She lay, hour after hour, staring into the fire which Wilson kept stoked at all times whatever the external temperature, and only revived temporarily if Pen ran in. Even then, she could not match his enthusiasm and was more inclined simply to hug him than talk to him or listen properly to what he said. It was a pathetic sight and one which, as ever, softened Wilson’s resentment. Who could hold anything against such a wasted, troubled creature? She was ill and in the worst kind of way. Only Mr Browning knew, as Wilson knew, how dreadfully thin her body had become, how the rib-cage could clearly be seen and the breastbone stood out in sharp relief. Against her master’s wishes, Wilson had given in to demands for laudanum twice during the day as well as at night, given in because the requests were so urgent and heartbreaking and Mr Browning was not always there to deal with them. He was out at his drawing-class during the day and at dinner, often at Isa Blagden’s, whenever company that might amuse could be found. It was easy for him to decree there should be no extra laudanum when he was not there to see the tears and the outstretched hand and the trembling.

  But as the whole of Florence took on the aspect of a pantomine during carnival week Mrs Browning seemed to recover a little. The improvement was due partly to the weather: the sun had come out and the cold wind, which had plagued the city all that winter, dropped. ‘Wilson,’ she said on the morning of the ball itself, ‘I think I might venture as far as the box we have taken and sit there an hour to see the spectacle.’ Delighted, not making the mistake of even a token discouragement, Wilson brought up the question of dress. What would her mistress wear? Everyone would be in costume and it was not possible to go unless suitably attired. There was no time for even her speedy needle to make a domino – one must be hired. Off Wilson went, knowing there would be unlikely to be a spare domino in the whole of Florence, and fortunately as she wrote to Minnie:

  — I was blessed and found a woman Ferdinando knows who had a black domino left from last year which had been given to her by a lady of means in payment of a debt this woman being a seamstress. It did not fit exactly but it was not to be expected I would find any that did with my mistress being so small and now so thin. I took it home and made a good job of pinning and tucking it and with the aid of a black lace shawl it was very presentable. And Minnie you will well remember how with animation my mistress can quite transform herself in an hour and so it seemed and Mr Browning was quite charmed and pronounced her his bella mascherina which is to say his beautiful masked lady. She wore her pearl necklace that was her mother’s and the diamond brooch that was her grandmother’s and was altogether lovely such as
she has not been for a long while. I of course had to play my part and improvised a costume for myself out of that old blue dress as was once my best and I had a mask too. It is a strange thing, to go out at night in a mask. We sat opposite each other, my mistress and I, in the carriage taking us to the ball and we could not help but giggle at the sight we made, a foolishness that Mr Browning could not rightly understand. It is certain everyone masked feels the same for by virtue of hiding one’s features Minnie and being in costume and therefore further hidden a boldness is induced. You would not have recognised me in the ballroom where I moved freely among the highest in the city no one knowing my status nor caring and I danced near to the Grand Duke himself and thought nothing of it. This freedom was granted to me on account of my mistress far from staying in our box going out into the furthermost corners of the theatre feeling suddenly well and strong. Her husband was beside himself with joy and her happiness to be at his side in the revelry complete. At one in the morning – only imagine Minnie, at one! – Ferdinando served supper in our box and you never saw such a spread. He had made a galantine of chicken which was as light and delicate as any woman could make and sandwiches of salmon and ham all cut artistically because you know presentation is everything to him and then sponge cakes and ices of three flavours and champagne throughout. All that is missing says my mistress is my darling boy and would have sent Ferdinando for him if her husband had not remonstrated and pointed out that the child would be asleep and the nursemaid we engaged with him. We all ate together, maids as well as masters and mistresses, and never was there a warmer feeling. Afterwards my mistress did not again leave the box but I was sent out with Ferdinando and we danced and really Minnie I never remember such a happy night.

  It ended at two thirty, when she took her exhausted mistress home, leaving Mr Browning behind to continue celebrating. The life had gone out of Mrs Browning as abruptly as it had entered her, and Wilson felt she had a rag-doll in her arms as she helped her to bed. It was nearly four when she went to her own bed and she knew there was no point in trying to go to sleep. Ferdinando would return soon. Dancing with him, she had been left in no doubt that he was excited and aroused by the glamour of the evening and as she had bid him goodnight he had pressed her to him and whispered in her ear and she knew his passion must be answered. Lying there, waiting in their narrow bed, she could not deny to herself that she wanted him to come in a way her mistress no longer was able to want her husband to come. But the danger terrified her. Half drunk with champagne, she tried to remember when her last monthly had been and felt some relief that it was surely almost upon her again and she would be safe. Ferdinando, coming in half an hour later, was troubled by no such calculations. He tore his clothes off and rushed into bed and even if she had wanted to discourage him she could not have managed it. Not since their reunion after Oreste’s birth had she found such pleasure and they fell asleep in each other’s arms satisfied and complete.

  Almost immediately, the penalty was apparent. In the cool light of day, Wilson remembered with none of the difficulty of the previous night when her monthly was due: in two weeks’ time. At first, the knowledge cheered her and she went about her daily routine humming in spite of her headache. Her mistress was prostrate, a pale shadow on a pillow, and neither spoke nor opened her eyes all day. Her condition seemed a reprimand and Wilson fell silent and moved about on tip-toe. Two weeks later, as Mrs Browning was beginning to revive, she herself was full of foreboding. She had not bled on time and she was always as regular as could be. By the end of the week she had no doubt she had been caught and hardly knew what to do with herself. Ferdinando smiled when she shared her suspicions and his smile goaded her to shout that he was stupid. They had one child they could not keep and now here would be another and what would they do? She did not dare cry or appear low in front of her mistress and the strain of once more dissembling exhausted her. It was with the greatest relief that she heard that Mr Barrett had died on April 17th because then she could weep openly and no one would guess she was crying with all the pent-up force of several weeks of worrying which grew greater every day.

  Mrs Browning, watching her sob, told her she envied her. As ever, she could not find release in tears, not at first. She lay on the sofa, composed, eyes staring, as Wilson shielded her face with a damp handkerchief and apologised for being overcome with grief.

  ‘I had not thought you cared for my father as much, Wilson,’ Mrs Browning murmured, though without hint of criticism. ‘You had little to thank him for, I think.’

  In reply, Wilson wept some more and managed to say, ‘I know what it is to lose a parent, ma’am, and be hundreds of miles away and not even at the funeral.’

  ‘I doubt if I should have gone to the funeral. I would not have been capable. And he would not have spoken to me, even on his deathbed, had there been time. That is the true pity of it, dear. Now, dry your tears, do not continue to distress yourself for I envy you too much.’

  But later, when with painful slowness a tear or two began to trickle from under her mistress’s closed eyelids, a trickle that within the hour had turned into a torrent, the torrent she had longed for, Wilson was able to weep freely again. Together, they cried in each other’s arms and, had it not been for having learned the wisdom of secrecy Wilson would there and then have thrown herself on Mrs Browning’s mercy. As it was, the tears for both of them came to an exhausted end. ‘We must be brave,’ Mrs Browning said and Wilson could only echo her.

  She did not feel well. Before May was out, she was troubled with morning sickness which she had the greatest difficulty concealing. Pen was always acutely aware of his beloved Lily’s spirits and was quicker than anyone else in the household to note and worry about any silence or lack of cheerfulness on her part so, every morning, though she had just vomited into the chamberpot and had not had time to dispose of the contents, Wilson was obliged to smile and sing and try to be as she usually was. Ferdinando did his part, tempting Pen into the kitchen where the smell of an omelette frying would make his wife heave again. Once they were outside, in the Boboli Gardens or walking by the Arno, she felt better but even then she had aches and pains she never had while carrying Oreste. Worse still was the intermittent bleeding. When first she saw the spotting on her underclothes her heart leapt and she was convinced she was going to miscarry and have done with it. But the bleeding did not increase, though she made sure she was particularly energetic to help it along, and soon ceased, only to return in June. It made her faint to wonder what this could mean. Was there something amiss with the baby? Would she give birth to a monster? Or did it mean she was carrying a girl, as Ferdinando vowed?

  There was no doubt, by July, that her pregnancy showed, though only, by her reckoning, some four months gone, at which stage she had been only a little thick round the waist and a little full in the bosom the last time. The mound in her belly was quite prominent and, though she wore her clothes loose and took to wearing an apron on far more occasions than usual, she knew that a discerning eye could tell her condition. But no eye chose to discern. Her mistress remained wrapped in misery, scarcely ever leaving her bedroom, and never seemed to look at her at all. Mr Browning spent hours at Isa Blagden’s and was forever rushing in and out, too busy to notice anything. Only Pen remained a danger and terrified her with his ‘My Lily is getting fat and fatter and fattest’, and cuddling her stomach fiercely. But if the child told this to his mother she either heard nothing or ignored it.

  The last thing Wilson could bear the thought of was holidays, but inevitably the subject came up. ‘We must get away, Ba, we really must,’ she heard Mr Browning say one raging hot day towards the end of June. ‘This inferno is intolerable and everyone makes preparations to leave.’ His wife only sighed. Wilson, hovering near the door, heard the reply. ‘If nowhere else, Ba, it will have to be Lucca where at least boredom will be cool. What do you say?’ Say no, Wilson pleaded silently, say no, say you have been three times and it is duller upon each occasion and not to be
endured. But her mistress said she really could not care and had no opinions and it was all the same to her. ‘Very well,’ Mr Browning said, with some irritation, ‘Lucca it shall be and there’s an end to it.’ Wretched, Wilson crept away. How would she manage up there? They would all be on top of each other and she would not escape scrutiny, yet were she to confess now she would be dismissed instantly and then what? Better at least to be with them at Lucca where they would be obliged to keep her for lack of a suitable substitute.

  On the train to Lucca, Wilson saw Mrs Browning’s eyes light on her swollen stomach for the first time and the question she had dreaded flash into her eyes. That very evening, though they were all worn out with the journey and the heat, her mistress spoke to her once they were alone. Her voice was cold and angry. ‘Well, Wilson, I see you once more have a secret from me.’ Wilson hesitated, brush poised to begin. ‘There is no use denying it, I have eyes when I care to use them, which I should have done by now, but it is remarkable how I persist in believing I am worthy of respect and trust.’

  ‘Indeed you are, ma’am …’

  ‘Indeed I patently am not since I swear you have known of your condition some months?’

  ‘Not precisely. There was some bleeding …’

  ‘I do not wish to hear the details, Wilson. Spare me, please. When is this child expected?’

  ‘November, I think.’

  ‘And we are in August tomorrow. Do you see yourself giving birth here, might I ask?’