But nothing eased the gnawing ache of loss. Back at Norwood, she wandered in and out of rooms, down to the river, to the edge of the forest and beyond, longing to hear Antonio’s youthful voice ringing through the still, heavy air.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Atlantic, 1901
Two months later, Mayhew and Antonio’s journey to Liverpool and to England began.
‘I’m sorry it came to this,’ Mayhew said to Antonio, the day they sailed out of the Amazon estuary and into the Atlantic.
‘What do you mean?’ Antonio, who’d been fine while on the river, was already starting to look a bit green around the gills. Mayhew recognised the signs and felt sorry for him. The sea was rough at any time of year, but especially in December and January, and it was miserable to be a poor sailor. Though he had never suffered himself, he had seen countless fellow passengers laid low on his passage to America all those years ago, and again when he’d made his escape from New York. It looked like Antonio wouldn’t be much of a companion for the rest of the voyage.
‘Your mother – well, she means well,’ he replied, shaking a cigarette out of the packet.
‘Does she?’ Antonio asked, sounding defensive. ‘In what way?’
Mayhew patted the boy’s hand. He was so young, just at that age when a lad is at his most impressionable. Momentarily, he thought of Kitty. The baby she was having – his baby – would be around a year old now, though Mayhew hadn’t done the maths to work it out precisely. Boy or girl, what nonsense would Kitty fill its head with? He had given up the right to provide a good influence when he faked his own death.
Observing how Antonio was sweating with nausea and the heat, Mayhew passed him a handkerchief to wipe his brow. It was a pity, he mused inwardly, that his nephew had to learn the harsh realities of human fallibility so young. Mayhew wished it didn’t have to be this way, that he didn’t have to be the one to spell it out. But sadly, in the absence of anyone else who would be honest, that task fell to him.
‘Well you see, Anthony,’ he began, adopting a sage and worldly tone. ‘From her point of view it seemed best to get you as far away from the Amazon for your teenage years as possible. You being around – well, it was likely to prevent her from following her, er, how shall I put it, her natural inclinations in the way she wished to.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Antonio’s tone was plaintive. Confused. ‘What are you talking about? She told me it was just about learning, education. And because I was so ill that time, and she wanted to protect me.’
Mayhew tapped ash into the ashtray. He sighed, deeply and regretfully, as if he really didn’t want to say what he was going to. Antonio was staring at him, his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Or possibly because Mayhew’s smoke was all pervading in the confined quarters of their cabin.
‘Your mother. She’s not been honest with you. She and, er, she and Thomas, well, let’s just say they’re more than just colleagues.’
Antonio blinked. ‘I know. I saw them. Holding hands and… and stuff. One evening when they were in the office and they didn’t know I was outside.’
Mayhew’s cigarette halted halfway to his mouth. This was news indeed. He’d had no idea the boy had any inkling of his mother’s shenanigans.
‘It made me sad,’ Antonio continued, ‘but I don’t really know why, because I like Thomas.’
Mayhew’s mind whirred. He’d thought that he was going to have to break the news of the relationship between Katharine and Thomas to Antonio, but as the boy already knew, he’d have to change tack.
‘Well, it’s perfectly fine to like Mr Smart,’ he answered, cautiously. ‘He’s a splendid chap. It’s just that… well, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s Black. And I’m afraid – well, it’s not just me, it’s the way of thinking the world over – it’s just not right for a Black man and a white woman to… you know, to be in a relationship. To sleep in the same bed. Not right at all. In the jungle – well, all sorts of unsavoury things go on. But you need to know that, in polite society – quite simply, it’s regarded as, if not illegal, at the very least indecent.’
Antonio looked startled for a moment, and then anger spread across his face like a dark cloud during the rainy season. ‘That’s why she was hiding it from me. Kissing in secret, not telling me anything – because she knew it was disgusting.’ His eleven-year-old face was screwed up in pain, red with fury. ‘I was cross because she’d always said that no one could replace my father. And she promised she’d never love anyone but me, that she’d always love me best of all! But I didn’t know that her being with Thomas was actually wrong.’
Mayhew nodded resignedly. It was a shame for the boy to learn the harsh truth, but better that than be kept in ignorance. Although seeing Antonio so agitated, Mayhew felt a momentary twinge of alarm, and something that was almost remorse.
‘Look, my boy,’ he said, in an attempt at mitigation. ‘Out in the jungle different rules apply. People become isolated and that makes them develop strange habits and do things they wouldn’t if they were somewhere more developed, like London, say.’
As he finished speaking, Antonio stood. Far from being mollified by Mayhew’s words, instead he picked up the ashtray and flung it forcefully at the cabin wall. The thick glass did not shatter but threw off a few dispirited chips and then fell, with a dull thud, to the wooden floor. The extent of his nephew’s rage both alarmed and confused Mayhew. Antonio was so truculent, so stubborn and at the same time so credulous. It was hard – impossible, in fact – to read him. He had certainly taken it all rather more to heart than Mayhew had anticipated. Mayhew watched him nervously as he paced up and down the few square yards of the cabin floor, clenching and unclenching his fists. At least anger seemed to have banished his incipient seasickness, Mayhew thought grimly.
‘Come on, young man,’ he volunteered, using a hearty tone of voice to try to dispel the tension in the atmosphere, ‘let’s get some fresh air and then have dinner.’
Perhaps it was good it would be up to Kitty, and Kitty alone, to bring up their baby. It was harder than it looked, this child-rearing business; Mayhew had had a lucky escape from the responsibility. Locking the door hurriedly behind them as Antonio stormed along the corridor, Mayhew shook his head grimly. All he had wanted to do was to make the boy aware that his mother was far from perfect and ensure that he understood who really had his best interests at heart – namely, his Uncle Mayhew.
But it seemed that his words had set a fire burning that he had no idea how to put out.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
London, 1901
Mabel gazed apprehensively around her at the gleaming marble tiled floor and the gracious oak staircase, at the high, vaulted stucco ceiling decorated with elaborate carvings and at the plethora of gas lamps that meant the entire space, cavernous though it was, was brightly lit. Opulence screamed out from everything she could see. Patrick McNamara’s Highgate mansion was a fitting abode for one of London’s richest men.
Mabel could still hardly believe she was here.
Determined to pick herself up after the ignominy of being sacked, Mabel had summoned all her courage and taken herself off to Mrs Hunt’s employment agency on Duke Street. She’d decided (perhaps spurred on by the thought of what Kirsty would have advised her) that the only way forward was to look for a job higher up the rankings than housemaid. She’d saved a bit of money while at Brampton Square and had put some of it towards cloth for a new uniform dress that Mary had made. She spoke properly and, thanks to her mother’s expert craftsmanship, was well presented; she had experience and a reference and knew French.
All of these attributes meant that Mabel did not see why she should not apply for a position as a lady’s maid. Though the master’s assault had crushed her spirit in many ways, in others it had galvanised it into action. Her reasoning was that becoming a servant of higher status might afford her some protection from the same thing happening in the future, and this gave her the confidence and strength to e
nact her plan.
Once in the solemn, silent chamber of the agency, she’d begun to have second thoughts. To take her mind off her anxiety, she’d perused the numerous thick cream cards stuck into the custom-made wooden boards that adorned the walls. All had details of jobs on offer: third housemaid, cook, chamber maid, scullery maid.
And then the words ‘lady’s maid’ had jumped out at her and she bent forward to read in closer detail.
Lady’s maid required for Lady Alexandra Cardburn.
Usual duties, £32 pa. Must be young and presentable.
Apply to Mr Patrick McNamara, Priests Avenue, Highgate.
Patrick McNamara. She recognised that name. Wasn’t he Katharine’s friend from the Amazon, the rubber baron on whose estate she’d been staying when Anselmo died? Mabel was sure he was. And she remembered Katharine writing about his daughter, Alexandra, whom she’d met when she’d visited one Christmas. Katharine had liked her and that was good enough for Mabel. So was the prospect of £32 a year – more than double what she’d been earning previously.
Purposefully pulling the card out of its holder, she went to sit down and await her turn to be interviewed. When her name was called, she had produced the card and insisted, politely, that this was the only position she was interested in.
The redoubtable woman sitting opposite her had read her credentials then invasively run her eyes up and down Mabel’s person. After a pause to show who was in charge here, she had acquiesced to her request.
‘Interview on Monday,’ she had said. ‘Twelve noon, don’t be late.’
And now here Mabel was, overawed at her own boldness and wondering what on earth had possessed her to apply for the job. She had no experience as a lady’s maid; the very thought terrified her. She chomped on the inside of her cheek until it was raw.
But Patrick McNamara, when she was eventually taken into his office to speak with him, was kind. He sat behind an enormous mahogany desk with a green leather top, a variety of expensive gold fountain pens arrayed on the blotting paper before him. The trappings of wealth pervaded every part of his home and himself, but his intense blue eyes twinkled encouragingly as he regarded her and he did not stop smiling throughout the brief interview – at the end of which he did what Mabel had least expected and offered her the job! Bluffing as she had been every inch of the way, she’d had no idea it would be that easy.
As she left, he looked her up and down. ‘Your sister was right,’ he said, still smiling.
Mabel hesitated. She’d told Mr McNamara as soon as they’d been introduced who she was. She’d hoped – and perhaps she’d been right, given the result – that it might make him look favourably upon her. She wondered when he and Katharine had been talking about her, and then whether Mac, as she knew Katharine called him, was going to explain. Should she ask? But Mr McNamara was bidding her farewell before she’d had a chance to. In the few moments before a servant arrived to see her out, Mabel knew she had to say the words that had been burning inside her since the interview began.
‘Mr McNamara, sir,’ she began, falteringly, ‘would you mind very much, sir – I mean what I wish to say is…’ She stopped, flustered, palms sweating. Mac lifted his eyes from the papers he had retrieved from a drawer. He waited, patiently.
Mabel tried again. ‘Please, sir, I would be very grateful if you wouldn’t mention the matter of my employment to my sister, should you see her again. I mean, you will see her again, obviously, when you go back to the Amazon…’ Mabel tailed off. Had she said too much? But it had to be done. She began anew, firmly now, her voice unwavering. ‘I would rather she didn’t know that I’m working, you see. She thought… she thinks… that I’m still in school. And I’d rather it stayed that way. If you don’t mind.’
Mac stared at her intently for a good few minutes after she’d finished. And then he leaned back in his chair, rocking it onto two legs, and began to guffaw with laughter. Surprised and shocked, Mabel looked on speechlessly.
‘Oh, that’s funny,’ gasped Mac, as he recovered himself. His valet had arrived by now to escort Mabel away and was watching his employer, bemused. ‘That’s a rum request if ever I heard one.’ It was as if he were talking to himself. And then he abruptly stopped laughing and looked straight at Mabel, into her brown eyes with his startling blue ones. ‘But of course, my dear,’ he said. ‘I will, of course, follow your request to the letter.’
Thankfully, Mabel breathed a sigh of relief as she left the Highgate mansion. She would start her new job in two days’ time. She still didn’t know what Katharine had told Mac that he now knew was true but it didn’t seem to matter any more. She had landed the job, plus a huge pay rise and she felt, justifiably, somewhat pleased with herself. It wasn’t a feeling she indulged in often, but while it lasted it was a good one.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
London, 1901
By the time Mabel was ringing the bell at the tradesman’s entrance of the elegant Nash house on Hanover Terrace, her nerves had returned and she was practically shaking.
‘Lady Alexandra,’ she kept repeating to herself in her head, ‘Lady Alexandra.’ She had to remember that was the way she must address the person who Katharine merely called Alexandra. She wondered if she’d be allowed to keep her own name. She’d been lucky so far. Employers often changed their servants’ names to ones they thought more suitable such as Emma or Lucy, or to the one associated with the job, such as Mary for scullery maids.
Led into the house by a servant, Mabel was taken straight to see her new mistress. She was too nervous to notice much about her surroundings but Alexandra Cardburn, she saw immediately, was tall, slim and very beautiful, though Mabel thought her features had a sharpness about them that hinted at a quick temper. She was also exquisitely dressed and Mabel felt self-conscious in her plain dress, however carefully made by her mother. She had worn uniform, assuming that was what was expected. And in any case she would have felt uncomfortable in anything else, worried that it would make her look forward, as if she was trying to be noticed or to upstage her boss.
But as soon as Lady Cardburn spoke, Mabel realised she had made a mistake. ‘How curious,’ Alexandra said, forehead furrowed in puzzlement. ‘Did you have to wear uniform in your old post? That’s unusual, for a lady’s maid. Usually, one would expect such a person to wear their own clothes.’
‘Oh, I was…’ Mabel, biting her tongue, checked herself just in time. Mac must have told his daughter that she was experienced in this particular area, not just that she’d done domestic work before. ‘I-I wasn’t sure what my lady would want,’ she stuttered. She couldn’t let on that she hadn’t realised that her wardrobe was no longer restricted to print and plain dresses, with or without an apron.
‘Well,’ smiled Alexandra, sweetly, ‘now you know. Mrs Bustle, the housekeeper, will show you your room and around the parts of the house that concern you.’
No one, apart from the butler and the housekeeper, had access to all areas of such a grand establishment as this.
Mabel nodded. ‘Yes, my lady.’
Mrs Bustle, Mabel soon discovered, lived up to her name. She was less than five feet tall and round as a barrel, and she scurried about like an overgrown hedgehog, her numerous bundles of keys rattling like spines. Mabel’s bedroom was right next to Alexandra’s and was twice the size of her attic in Brampton Square. It had a bed with a much better mattress than she was used to, a chest of drawers, a kidney-shaped dressing table with a damask curtain and, best of all, a large window that looked onto the mews behind where the coaches and horses were kept.
She could hardly believe all this space was just for her. There was even a bathroom with running water for the servants and she was allowed two baths a week. The Bird family wasn’t the poorest in society, not by any means, but the Clerkenwell house burst at the seams with two adults and six children still in residence, and bathing was done sporadically in a tin tub in front of the fire.
Mabel was grateful for this new-found luxury.
In fact, she even started to think that she was going to like this new job, this new life, hobnobbing with the aristocracy, having, at last, a status within the household. She could begin seriously saving for the future with her new wage, to put money aside with which she might, one day, be able to achieve her dream of travelling to France and becoming a teacher of French.
Next, Mrs Bustle introduced Mabel to the butler, Mr Robson, and she curtsied gracefully, slightly overwhelmed at being in the presence of the most exalted servant. Brampton Square had not given her any opportunity to get used to the hierarchy of the servants’ hall.
As they were heading through the front hallway, Mabel caught sight of a pair of footmen, resplendent in scarlet breeches, waiting by the door. They looked so alike that Mabel wondered if they were twins. Kirsty had told her that it was the last word in fashion to have matching footmen, and the taller the better; six footers held a premium in terms of status and wages. These two were both at least that height, towering over Mabel and the diminutive housekeeper. Mabel caught the eye of one and instantly looked away. But not before she’d seen the faintest hint of a smile cross his lips.
‘His lordship is about to go out,’ said Mrs Bustle proudly, as if this were a magnificent and princely achievement that only the highest echelons were capable of.
At that moment, a door was thrown open and a man who must be Lord Cardburn strode into the marbled hallway. Another man followed close behind; it was Patrick McNamara.
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