Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  ‘I shall send for the doctor tomorrow if this has not lifted. You would agree, Wilson?’

  ‘Yes sir, though what he will be able to do in such a case I do not know.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we ought to have a medical opinion. You will come again?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Indeed, were you to need me, I would stay, if it would not cause offence to Annunciata.’

  ‘Offence does not come into it,’ Mr Browning replied rather irritably, ‘but there is no need, I shall sit up myself.’

  Wilson heard from Ferdinando, who came at six in the morning to tell her, what had happened. The doctor had been sent for at one o’clock when another terrifying bout of coughing had made up Mr Browning’s mind. The doctor had applied a poultice to the invalid’s chest and sat her feet in a mustard bath. By dawn, anxiously watched by her husband, the doctor and Annunciata, a great deal of phlegm had been expelled and the coughing had once more subsided into its customary pattern. But the verdict was that in all likelihood an abscess was on the congested right lung and might very well burst with fatal consequences, if not dispersed, which would be no easy matter. Ferdinando wept as he relayed all this, but Wilson ignored him. She spoke to her maid, a much more reliable girl than she had ever had before, and instructed her in the care of Pilade and the running of the house, saying she would engage reinforcements at once because she feared she was needed elsewhere and would not be at home much for a while. Then she packed a small bag and kissed Pilade and, returning with Ferdinando, announced to Mr Browning that she would stay and help Annunciata until the crisis was over.

  To her surprise, Mr Browning appeared cheerful enough. ‘It is an abscess, Wilson,’ he announced confidently, ‘and we need wonder no more at this excessive weakness nor as to why the coughing is so very troubling. I knew there was something in particular wrong. Did I not say so? Did I not wish a doctor to examine my wife and diagnose the precise problem?’

  ‘You did, sir.’

  ‘It explains everything, do you see? How can Ba recover if this wretched abscess is clogging up her lung? It is not to be expected.’

  He seemed dangerously optimistic all of a sudden, but when she went in to the invalid herself, with whom Mr Browning left her for a short while, there was not the same relief. Wilson, trying to make the bed a little more comfortable, thought its occupant looked worse rather than better. Her eyes, ever the clearest indication of her true state of health, were black and opaque-looking, without light or recognition. ‘Who is it?’ she murmured as though she could not indeed see.

  ‘Wilson, ma’am. Come to make you as easy as I can.’

  ‘Ah, Wilson.’

  She tried to smile, but the pathetic wavering of the mouth was too much for her. Gently, Wilson took a cloth and squeezed it in the cold water lying in the wash bowl, and with infinite tenderness passed it over the sick woman’s brow. Her hand went up to hold it there and then fell back, too weak to keep the position. For half an hour Wilson methodically cooled down all the exposed parts of the invalid’s body but felt it was a losing battle – her skin was so very hot and dry. Occasionally, Mrs Browning’s eyes would close and she would seem to drift away and then, when once more she opened them, the expression in them would seem even more hopeless. ‘Doctors,’ she murmured once, ‘they know nothing, nothing. And he has the wrong lung, it is the left that is infected, not the right, it is the left. Do you remember, Crow dear, it is the left?’

  ‘I am not Crow, ma’am,’ Wilson said very quietly, ‘I am Wilson. But I remember I was told it was the left when you were very ill in the days before I came to you.’

  ‘Oh, Wilson, is it? How times change.’

  Then she seemed to fall properly asleep and Wilson was left to look at her and feel very strange indeed. She did not know why being mistaken for Crow should have the curious effect of making her feel insubstantial, as though she might at any moment float away. It was an understandable confusion, one that had arisen many times in the old days, and the likely consequence of heavier and heavier doses of opium. But she felt that day as though it cancelled her out, as though everything that had happened to her since she left Newcastle had no reality. She crouched at the bedside in that stifling room, kept as ever in almost total darkness when the sun was at its most fierce outside, and closed her eyes half the time, beginning to feel dizzy with the heat and the tension and her acute awareness that her mistress was very ill. She felt that she was on the edge of hallucination herself and that if she were to give herself over to the drowsiness which threatened to overcome her she could once more be in mother’s arms and walk with Fanny by the river, threading daisies. Again and again she jerked herself upright and pressed her knuckles to her eyes and only when they came away damp did she realise she appeared to be weeping. Furtively, she wiped away the tears that would keep falling, though she persisted in her surprise that she was crying and felt she was wiping them away from someone else’s face. There was an ache at the base of her throat but she could not connect it with these tears and wondered if she was about to start a cold.

  When Mr Browning came to relieve her, he assumed she had been crying over his wife and was a little irritated. ‘Now come, Wilson,’ he whispered, ‘we want no tears, that is not the way.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘It is a touching sight, I grant you, but the news is good, remember.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It was too much trouble to tell him she had not been distressed on account of his wife but for some other reason she could not divine. And this feeling of utter sadness persisted throughout the day whether she was in the Casa Guidi or not, until she came to regard the sickroom as a welcome refuge, the only place where her misery had a proper home. Even when the invalid seemed to be making progress, there was still the same atmosphere of suspended time, of being cocooned from all outer pressures, and she longed to stay there. Leaving the room each day, she was almost afraid to step into the comparative glare of the other rooms and even more afraid of speaking to other people – she longed for any questions to be of such simplicity that a nod or shake of the head would suffice in reply. She did not want to share her peculiar grief with anyone and looked on in disgust as Ferdinando and Annunciata conducted themselves in true Italian fashion.

  On Friday, June 28th, when she arrived at Casa Guidi – for she was not after all staying at night, though she had begged to take the night-watch which Mr Browning claimed for himself – Mrs Browning was still in bed. The habit had been, for the last three days, that she should once more be put in a chair and that chair should be taken into the drawing room to give her a change of air. Wilson had not liked this, though obliged to concede it was beneficial. In the drawing room there was no intimacy. Mrs Browning slumped in her chair, hating it, and though the vast room was cooler and altogether more comfortable to sit in, Wilson felt happy only when at last the time came to put her mistress back to bed. Then, both of them sighed with contentment and were glad of it. But that Friday Mr Browning was entertaining Mr Lytton and had agreed it would be more convenient altogether if his wife remained in bed, which she had never had any desire to leave in any case. Wilson was pleased, though she did not of course show it, and went through to the bedroom almost eager to enter its womb-like darkness, to let its peculiar peace envelop her.

  But, in fact, Mrs Browning was disposed to be livelier than she had been all week and there was as a consequence a different and less soporific air in the room. Somehow disappointed, though chiding herself privately for being so, Wilson also took in that the shutters were not quite firmly closed and the curtains were half open. There was enough light to see everything plainly and quite to destroy the illusion of being anywhere but in a bedroom. She did not remark on it, but said instead, ‘How much brighter you look this morning, ma’am. It is a pleasure to see.’

  ‘Brighter? Oh, I am hardly bright, only less dead for not being dragged into the drawing room. I think I could rest here forever and may very well do so.’ But she smiled, and it was a real
smile and lightened the shadows in the poor sunken cheeks. The bones, Wilson noted, now stood out alarmingly, the skull plain to see beneath the skin, but then a diet of spoonfuls of milk and even smaller sips of broth for the past month was hardly likely to have put flesh upon the body. Quietly, efficiently, Wilson smoothed the bed-clothes and plumped up the pillows and did all the usual number of little things which were part of her routine and all the time she felt bereft, as though something she treasured had suddenly been taken from her. Perhaps Mrs Browning felt it too, she thought, for she murmured that the curtains being opened was not her idea nor did she wish the shutters to be other than shut, but ‘Robert will have it that it is healthier thus and will aid this recovery of mine he is so determined on.’ Once Wilson had finished her tasks and had settled down in her usual place, she repeated, ‘Recovery. A strange word, Wilson, do you not think? Recuperate, to recuperate. But then what is regained, do you think? Control of one’s senses, of consciousness. To make one’s way back, but to where, and can it be done? And why do it when in the end it cannot be done, when the day will arrive when it is impossible. What would you wish to recover, dear?’

  The voice was low, as usual, and thin and a little hoarse, but Wilson was as impressed as ever by the strength of the mind which had thought all this, which deliberated in such a way even in the middle of such illness. She remembered how nervous it had once made her to be made to respond to such enquiries and then, gradually, how she relished it and learned to take part. So now she repeated ‘Recover’ herself and then thought awhile before answering with the honesty expected of her, ‘Why, you, ma’am, I should like to recover you.’ Slowly, the head turned and into the lack-lustre eyes came the faintest flicker of curiosity. ‘Me? You mean you would like to recover my health for me, dear?’

  ‘No, ma’am, though that too, it goes without saying, but I meant rather the feeling, ma’am, which I believe to have been between us, the understanding, if I was not wrong.’

  The eyes closed but Wilson could tell from the way the hands plucked at the bedcover that her mistress was not asleep and from the crease in the forehead that she reflected still on the topic. Great energy was needed in her condition to say anything at all, and she was merely, in the long pause, husbanding her resources. Where once the interchanges would have rattled along they now cost such effort every word had to count for more and Wilson felt guilty at provoking any other response at all. ‘Perhaps, ma’am,’ she said, ‘you ought not to talk or upset yourself.’

  ‘If talk now upsets me I am done for,’ Mrs Browning said. ‘No, I must talk, dear, and I wish to. It is touching, what you say and I see the truth in it. There was an understanding, a sympathy, between us. I valued it. I shrink from believing, as I suppose I must, that I sacrificed it in anything I said or did or in how I may have behaved towards you. These things happen. I wish they had not. You were very dear to me, Wilson.’

  The long speech, longer than she had managed for many a day, exhausted her. Stricken, Wilson seized her hand and held it and said, ‘Oh, ma’am, forgive me. It is I who was at fault. And if you held me dear I hold you dearer to this very day and want only to be close to you and with you.’ There was no reply, but her own hand was squeezed, the very feel of the fingers thrilled her. They sat hand in hand, all the rest of the hour Mr Browning was with Mr Lytton, and when it was time for Wilson to go her mistress opened her eyes wide and said, ‘We will talk more, dear, tomorrow, we will talk of ourselves and what we mean to each other.’ All the rest of that day she felt an uncontrollable excitement at the prospect of going over what had come between herself and her mistress, of trying to fathom what had created the coolness between them and then dispelling it and ‘recovering’ the past happiness. She could settle to nothing, walked feverishly and foolishly, considering the broiling heat, around Florence, longing for the sun to set and the darkness to descend and the new day to come. By nine in the evening she could no longer stand to be away from the Casa Guidi and was compelled to go there once more and brave the stairs merely to enquire if Mrs Browning had settled for the night comfortably. To her joy, she was invited in, Mr Browning boasting his wife was not even asleep but livelier than she had been for a month. He wanted Wilson to see her so she could agree a corner had been turned and when she entered the bedroom, where the doctor was finishing the twice daily visit he had made for the past two weeks, she was so looking forward to the next day that she was determined to see an improvement which would make their heart-to-heart certain. ‘Oh yes, sir,’ she said confidently, ‘Mrs Browning looks better, and so late in the evening too.’ Pen caught her on her way out, after she had bid a goodnight hardly worth making when tomorrow was so near, and asked her, ‘Is Mama really better, Lily?’ and she hugged him close and had no difficulty assuring him that yes, she was.

  She did not sleep the entire night and towards dawn gave up all pretence. She went out into the tiny courtyard at the back of her house, taking care not to waken Mr Landor with any noise, and stood looking up at the stars and the thin crescent of new moon. There was nothing refreshing in the thick, humid air but she felt exhilarated, and paced about restlessly. She watched the sky eagerly, straining to see the stars disappear, willing them to, and the moon to wane and the far horizon above the roof-tops to lighten. Even then, it would be hours before she could decently go to the Casa Guidi and retreat into that dim, still bedroom where she was to bare her heart and be received once more into her mistress’s own. The stone of the house against her back was warm, even though it was night. As she came to lean against it, its roughness scratched her spine. She liked the sensation and moved against the wall like a cat. All the heavy dullness in her had vanished and she felt alert, ready to walk for miles or climb mountains or sail the Seven Seas. She smiled at the absurdity of her thoughts and went inside, thinking she ought at least to lie down for another hour and try to compose herself.

  The smile was still on her face when she heard a loud knocking on the outer door and her name being called. Quite unworried, not in the least concerned, since her mind was elsewhere, she drew the bolt and opened the heavy door to reveal Ferdinando in a dreadful state of incoherence. He clutched her to him and for once her body did not resist but allowed itself to be enveloped by his. She felt, with her arms round him, as though she was supporting him and she waited in some bewilderment but with no apprehension to hear what she was sure would be the inevitable story of some Italian patriot who had died, or some battle lost. Her husband seemed quite unable to talk – the sobbing and hiccuping were frightful to hear and he stumbled as she led him into the kitchen and half-thrust him into a chair. ‘Now come, come, Ferdinando,’ she said soothingly, ‘it cannot be so bad you must make yourself ill.’ This only produced more tears and he put his arms on the table and buried his head in them under the weight of his grief. Patiently, she poured a glass of wine for him – whatever the hour, her husband could usually be revived with a glass of wine – but no amount of coaxing would make him drink it. He seemed quite destroyed and in spite of her lack of interest in the affairs of Italy she found herself growing curious as to the precise cause of all this flamboyant distress. Doubtless Mrs Browning would be similarity affected which would be very bad for her and would put back her recovery yet again and at this realisation she began to grow anxious, seeing that her tête-à-tête would be threatened. ‘Come Ferdinando,’ she said, ‘this has gone on long enough. It is time to tell me what has happened else there is no use in your being here.’

  She saw him shudder and make a great effort and he lifted his head and stared at her with eyes full of an anguish so apparent she was shocked. Filled with a compassion for him that took her by surprise she stroked his shoulder and wondered if all tenderness for him was after all gone. He was a good man, a kind man and he did not deserve to be landed with a wife who showed no more regard for him than a stone. Perhaps for a long time now she had not been herself, had been in some way ill, and if she could be restored to her former state of mind she wo
uld find that Ferdinando once more would mean something to her. ‘Come,’ she said, squeezing his arm, ‘come, tell me.’ He closed his eyes and groaned, then pushed his great fists into them and a mumble came out of his mouth, which she could not at first decipher but the more she asked him to repeat it the less distinct it became. All she caught were the words, ‘mistress’ and ‘asleep’. Slowly, she took her hand away and clasped it in her other one. Calmly, still not filled with any real foreboding, she repeated, ‘Your mistress is asleep? Well, it is not yet morning, it is good that she sleeps.’ And then he let out one more word in a great bellow – ‘Forever!’ he cried. ‘Forever! Forever! She is dead, dead!’ and he began beating his fists on the table and weeping loudly all over again.

  She did not move or speak for almost a full hour. Dawn came, the first rays of sun sneaked through the shutters into the room, the first noises of people rising began, and still she sat at the table, a faint frown on her face. Now it was Ferdinando who was doing the pleading. His awful news once out, he had begun to explain in a torrent of words and gestures she seemed to ignore. At half past three Mr Browning had woken him and told him to send the porter for the doctor because his wife was hallucinating. But he had gone himself and, to save time, he had charged through the streets of Florence and knocked up the doctor and brought him back himself. When they reached the Casa Guidi Annunciata met them at the door of the apartment and one look at her face had told them all – ‘Quest’ anima benedetta é passata!’ Annunciata had said, ‘Her blessed soul has passed to another world.’ He had seen her himself, he had gone in with the doctor and seen her at peace, her face that of a young girl’s, and then pausing only to make sure Penini still slept he had come to tell his wife and take her to the Casa Guidi with him. His weeping at last in control, he urged her to rouse herself and come with him because they would both be needed that day in the house of mourning.