by Maggie Ford
The plump little figure had turned on its heel and descended the rest of the stairs to breakfast while Ellie had pulled down the window, giving a farewell wave to her sister.
Later she’d heard raised voices wafting from the dining room as Florrie came out with a tray of empty dishes. Her face was flushed.
‘What’s going on?’ Ellie had hissed as they passed.
Florrie had paused, eager to relay what she’d overheard and see the other girl’s face when she told her. ‘The mistress is upset. She caught you hanging out of the upstairs landing window talking – yelling, she said – to Miss Jay, and she wants you dismissed immediately for rudeness and talking back. I think she really means to see you gone this time.’
Her expression was smug, but Ellie had ignored it. ‘I don’t think she’ll get her way on that one.’
She would have said more, but caution had stopped her. The less everyone knew about her and the master and her now having a tutor, the better. They could tittle-tattle for all they were worth, so long as that was all it was.
She’d lifted her head and gone on past, but Florrie couldn’t know how rapidly her heart was beating despite telling herself she was being foolish. She was sure Doctor Lowe would support her against his wife with her petty, irrational dislikes. Surely, after all he’d been doing for her – taking such an interest in her, engaging someone to teach her to talk properly and improve her artistic talents – he wouldn’t see her go now, not even for his wife.
For the rest of the week she watched for him, but he seemed to be evading her. Once she glimpsed him opening the door connecting his surgery to the house, but he hastily closed it behind him as if he had already caught sight of her and wished to escape an awkward situation, leaving her to come to the conclusion that he was indeed trying to avoid her.
At least he hadn’t called her to his study to convey the dread words of needing to dispense with her services. It could still come. Perhaps he was trying to compose himself for the awful moment.
By Sunday she still hadn’t been sent for, which was encouraging, and she perked up a little. There had been more high words issuing faintly through the heavy dining-room door. No one had conveyed to her what had been said. Florrie said she’d been made to leave the room before anything reached her ears.
Since the window episode Florrie had been the only one told to wait at table. That in itself seemed ominous, but as the argument appeared to be an ongoing one, she’d taken heart a little more and fought off the fear that Mrs Lowe might even now persuade her husband that she was a bad influence on the staff. The longer it went on, the more likely it was that she would be allowed to stay here.
Hurrying off to visit her old neighbour, half of her glad to be out of the house today, the other half wondering if she would indeed come back to find herself dismissed, she turned her thoughts to Ronnie Sharp instead, hoping to find him there. Seeing him would take her mind off other things.
She returned home elated. Ronnie Sharp had asked her to go with him up west on her next day off to see George Robey, billed at the Pavilion as the Prime Minister of Mirth. ‘I’ll buy tickets for both of us – I can afford it,’ he’d said, showing off with his decent wages from working at the press.
She’d had to decline, explaining that the younger domestic staff had to be back at their place of work by nine, but his offer made her feel good and he’d suggested that next time she came, if it was a Sunday, they’d go to Hyde Park, perhaps have a rowing boat out on the Serpentine. That, too, was questionable – her next day off might not be Sunday, and he worked all week.
Little wonder housemaids seldom picked up with a steady boyfriend except for one working in the same establishment or the local delivery boy, neither ever much of a catch; and if the couple did finally decide to marry, there was never much prospect of money.
It wasn’t fair, being unable to go out when she pleased, for all Doctor Lowe was regarding her as more than just an employee – which was a good thing, she supposed, but she no longer felt comfortable in his presence, knowing how he’d seen and touched parts of her no one else would be allowed to, even though he’d done it as a doctor. She still cringed from the memory.
But she intended to marry well one day. Her goal was to work towards becoming something in this world and one day stand over her father, a proud lady of substance, and see him grovel before her. That was still a long way off, and might not happen, but Doctor Lowe was at least a stepping stone.
Meanwhile she felt excited as she made her way home. Ronnie was nice, well mannered for the family he came from, and quite handsome. Yes, she could take to Ronnie. He had a good job and hopeful prospects. But that too was a long way off. Early days yet.
She let herself in by the back door, glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall to find she was a few minutes ahead of her time to be back. Ignoring Mrs Jenkins’s quizzical expression at her glowing face, she hurried by her before she could ask what a time she’d had and went up to her room.
There, however, she came back down to earth. Ronnie would never countenance waiting for her once-a-month day off to coincide with his. He would get tired and find someone else. Perhaps even now he had someone else in tow, someone freer than her. It was no good dreaming. Nor would she ever rise to become wealthy. Who’d want her, a mere parlourmaid, except someone in the same circumstances as her?
She began to feel suddenly depressed. Automatically her mind went to her father and with that the last shred of euphoria faded. To rid herself of the dismal feeling she found a small sheet of clean drawing paper and began to sketch, sitting on her bed, the paper propped on a book on her lap.
Without really thinking, she began to draw her father, as near as she could remember: the heavily handsome face, the full moustache and slick brown hair that made him look rakish, the muscular frame that under her pencil became even more muscular, the face growing ugly and brutish. At his feet she drew the outline of a crouching woman. The pencil strokes became steadily fiercer, making marks like blood dripping from his fists, spreading about his feet and the female figure, until the drawing was almost obliterating the original picture.
Of course her father – selfish, belligerent, callous though he was – had never been guilty of the sort of mayhem her pencil described; but the way he’d walked out when Mum had been so ill – that, and having his unnatural way with herself, was enough. For both these things she’d never forgive him.
She’d spoiled such sketches this way before and it always felt as if someone else was making her, though why was incomprehensible, except that it helped get some of this pent-up anger and hatred out of herself and left her with an odd sense of fulfilment, even triumph.
Laying aside the obliterated sketch, she got ready for bed. Stripping off skirt, blouse, straight-fronted corset and the rest of her undergarments, she washed herself from head to toe in the cold water poured from the cracked ewer into the basin on the washstand, each application of the flannel taking her breath away despite the warmth of the summer evening.
She washed methodically, each separate part scrubbed remorselessly with a harsh, faded flannel to be savagely rubbed dry with a rough towel. In a way it seemed to help erase every vestige of the memory the sketch of her father had conjured up in her mind – how her very soul would cringe from his approach even as she kept her face expressionless in case he got angry; that awful clutching at her heart as he told her what a pretty girl she was before leading her by the hand up the stairs, and what she’d recently gone through to get rid of the horrible result of his use of her. God! One of these days she would find him. She would watch him beg for his life. If it came to it, she would have no complaint about swinging for him.
Having dried, cleaned her teeth and donned her nightgown, she unpinned and brushed out her long hair, counting fifty strokes that would help keep the dark auburn tresses shiny, finally creeping into bed to think of pleasanter things: Ronnie Sharp, her art sessions with Michael Deel, the fact that no more had been heard fr
om her employers about being let go. She felt a lot better.
* * *
In his study Bertram Lowe frowned at the drawing he held up before him – hardly a drawing, more a mass of heavy pencil marks, so thick that the picture beneath was almost unidentifiable.
Having given Ellie permission to use his study for this purpose, she often left her work here. This one had been among several other delicate pencil sketches and watercolours she’d done, pretty country scenes copied from a book he’d lent her. It came as a shock to find something like this.
Looking at the others she had done, he had felt pleased, the cost of a tutor being, he felt, well spent. She was improving with each visit. Her speech, too, had improved but could still be better. Not easy to get someone out of the bad habits of a lifetime.
Then, almost at the bottom of the little stack, he’d come across this. He could hardly make it out for the vicious indentation of the pencil over every part of what she’d drawn. There was deliberation behind the marks, not just a crossing out of something not up to standard.
He felt a sense of bewilderment as he held it up for a better look. If it hadn’t been to her satisfaction, why hadn’t she merely torn it up and thrown it away? Why this? and why save it? Quite possibly it had been left in this pile by mistake?
Bertram’s medical brain began to question: had she often done this sort of thing? Even this one seemed to indicate a troubled mind – a confused mind, perhaps. It was possible. The traumatic experiences she’d suffered: the death of her mother, the sexual abuse of her father, and for his own part, the abortion – who could say what such things did to the brain?
She seemed settled here, well adjusted enough, but what really went on in her head? Were these the outward sign of a traumatized mind?
Leaning closer, he could just about make out, beneath the apparent vandalism of her own work, what appeared to be the shape of a man with another figure lying at his feet, but little more than that. What had prompted her to obliterate the sketch so viciously?
He should have shrugged off the matter as showing mere childish annoyance about a sketch that hadn’t turned out right, but something was telling him it went deeper than that. Oddly, it worried him every inch as much as if this had been his dear Millicent, even though he kept telling himself that it was none of his business.
He wasn’t happy at the way he was beginning to feel about her. Ellie was not his daughter. If he grew too fond of her, she would break his heart in the end. The life of a cherished offspring was, essentially, forever bound up with their family, no matter how far in the world they roamed. Ellie’s life was her own. She was beholden to no one; one day she would leave to get on with her own life and he would never see her again. The emptiness left on losing his daughter would be brought upon him again.
On the strength of this he told himself he had no right to question her as to why she’d so obviously and intentionally ruined what appeared to have been such a good sketch originally.
Moments later he knew he had to find out why, if only for his own peace of mind.
Twelve
Ellie knocked on the study door. She’d been sent for in such a way that the first thought in her head was, again, dismissal. She couldn’t get over this constant dread that one day it might happen – her life here felt that tenuous. This bad blood between her and Mrs Lowe had her in fear that one day the woman would persuade Doctor Lowe to dispense with her services. Yet she had no cause to imagine he would allow his wife to rule him. He’d once said as much to her.
Early this morning Ellie had been in his study making up the fire. He would have made a point of being there to tell her without the fuss of asking Mrs Jenkins to send her up. With no sign of him this morning, she’d lingered to do a little rough sketch of his desk, concentrating on perspective, as Michael Deel had taught her to do.
She often brought a few sheets of paper with old sketches on the other side, economizing. As she’d put the drawing on to a chair with the others, to finish her chores, she’d heard cautious footsteps on the bare linoleum of the long passage, not like Doctor Lowe’s ponderous tread. She had waited, not daring to breathe, and forgotten the drawings when she’d left, after the footsteps had receded, sure that they’d belonged to his wife.
Although she had been in Doctor Lowe’s study for the purpose of housework, she had a fear of being seen entering or leaving because of the secrecy around her using it for other purposes than household duties.
She’d been concerned when Doctor Lowe had offered his study not simply for her tutor to instruct her but for her to practise her drawing and painting at other times. She recalled saying, ‘What if Mrs Lowe finds me here?’ to which he had replied with a wry smile, ‘No need to worry; she never comes in here. We seldom meet except at meal times or at functions or when meeting friends. There were times we’d relax together in the sitting room, but not since our daughter died. These days my good wife prefers her room.’
When she had pointed out that she didn’t have a lot of time off work to spend drawing and stuff, not even if she came in here, his reply had been that young Rose would be doing more around the house.
‘That will give you an hour or so to yourself now and again,’ he’d said. ‘Leave me to deal with anyone querying your occasional absence. So long as you don’t abuse my generosity,’ he had ended with an almost playful frown. But she hadn’t felt comfortable about it and, on asking why he was doing all this for her, had seen his face become grave.
It was then that he’d admitted that despite his better judgement, she’d helped to fill the void left by the loss of his daughter and that he was deeply grateful to her for that. ‘I would like to have given her so many things,’ he’d said, ‘but I can give them to you…’
His words had faded on one last word – ‘compensation’ – mumbled as he’d turned away momentarily and he hadn’t seen the look of pleasure she’d felt must have been there on her face. By the time he’d turned back it had been replaced by a tinge of contrition, sorrow for him, despite her elation.
Now, as she knocked on the study door, she was sure his wife had been spying on her this morning and was compelling him to let her go. At the request for her to enter, she did so almost belligerently.
When Mrs Jenkins had relayed the message that she was wanted upstairs, her expression had been doleful. When Ellie had asked why she was being summoned, the reply had been, ‘You’ll find out for yourself when you get up there. But the master didn’t look happy when he asked for you.’
Indeed he didn’t. Ellie lifted her head in defiance. If this was what it seemed, she wasn’t going to bow her head in meek acceptance, nor beg for a reference. He had no right to make her feel as if she was a treasure to him, only to issue her marching orders because his wife had taken against her. She would certainly tell him his fortune before sweeping out of the study to collect what bits and pieces of possessions she had.
Her only thought now was how to get her sister to come with her. It would be one in the eye for high-and-mighty Mary Lowe. That’d show her! That was if she could convince Dora to leave.
She was composing her plan to get her to come when she saw the sheet of paper Doctor Lowe held in his right hand. With his left he indicated the chair to one side of his desk. ‘Come and sit down, my dear.’
The tone was so kind and gentle, despite the straight face, that she found herself doing as he asked. The next thing she knew, he had drawn up another chair to sit close in front of her.
‘My dear,’ he began quietly. ‘I’ve been glancing through some of the drawings you left in here. I’m glad you took up my invitation to use my study for them. It gives you privacy to concentrate. And you are showing great talent, I must say. I am very pleased – pleased to have engaged a tutor. And I am very proud of you, my dear.’
This wasn’t what she’d expected, but she said nothing.
‘There is just one small concern that I have,’ he continued. ‘Among your drawings I found this. It worried
me a little. I thought it might help me to ask you why it should worry me.’
It was an odd question, one she didn’t understand. Unable to find whatever appropriate reply she was meant to give, she took what he was holding out to her and saw it was the sketch she’d made the day before of what she’d meant to depict as her father or someone like him. The amount of scrubbing out surprised even her. Had she done all this to it?
‘Why have you kept it?’ Doctor Lowe’s voice broke through her confusion. ‘Why didn’t you throw it away if it was no good?’
Why hadn’t she thrown it away? Was it that she needed to remind herself over and over how much she loathed the man? Anyway, what did Doctor Lowe mean by his question? How could she say why it should worry him? Surely he knew his mind better than she would.
‘I don’t quite know what you mean,’ she said finally.
He smiled for the first time. ‘To tell the truth, I don’t know what I mean either. Perhaps I’m being a little over-reactive, but…’ He reached out and took the drawing paper from her to scrutinize it. ‘All this. Why? What thoughts went through your mind as you effaced what you’d drawn? – and so efficiently drawn, by what I can see is left of it.’
She wished he wouldn’t use words she couldn’t understand, but she had already grasped his concern.
‘I ain’t gone daft!’ she said, reverting to her old way of speaking. He didn’t correct her.
‘I did not say you had.’
‘But that’s what you’re thinking.’
As he continued to regard her levelly, she felt herself breaking down. All her rebelliousness leaving her, she was left unguarded against what was beginning to surface.
She could feel it rising up inside her, being caught, trapped in her throat. In a strangled voice she blurted, ‘I didn’t intend it to be my father when I started. I just drew a figure, but that’s how it turned out, and I hated it. I hated… hate him! What he did, and I couldn’t stop meself. I just kept on tearing at it with me pencil. I don’t know why I didn’t tear it up. I just felt I wanted to hurt him.’
