by Sarah Waters
‘But it ain’t me I’m thinking of so much,’ she said, ‘as Gracie. You have been so good with her, Nance; there’s not many as would understand her like you do; not many who would take the trouble over her little ways, the way you have.’
‘But I shall come back and visit,’ I said reasonably. ‘And Grace -’ I swallowed as I said it, for I knew there would never be a welcome for Gracie in the stillness and richness and elegance of Diana’s villa - ‘Grace can come and visit me. It won’t be so bad.’
‘Is it the money, Nance?’ she said then. ‘I know you ain’t got much -’
‘No, of course it ain’t the money,’ I said. ‘Indeed -’ I had remembered the coin in my pocket: a pound, placed there by Diana’s own fingers. It more than covered the rent I owed, and the fortnight’s warning I should have given. I held it out to her; but when she only gazed bleakly at it and made no move to take it, I stepped awkwardly to the mantelpiece and laid it softly there.
There was a silence, broken only by Mrs Milne’s sighs. I coughed. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I had better go and get my things together ...’
‘What! You ain’t leaving us today? Not so soon?’
‘I did promise my friend I would,’ I said, trying to suggest by my tone that my friend might have all the blame for it.
‘But you’ll stay for a bit of tea, at least?’
The thought of the dreary tea-party we would make, with Mrs Milne so ashen and disappointed, and Gracie in all probability in tears, or worse, filled me with dismay. I bit my lip.
‘I’d better not,’ I said.
Mrs Milne straightened, and her mouth grew small. She shook her head slowly. ‘This will break my poor girl’s heart.’
There was a flintiness to her tone that was more frightening, more shaming, than her sadness had been; but I found myself, again, vaguely piqued. I had opened my mouth to utter some dreadful pleasantry when there came a scuffling at the door, and Grace herself appeared. ‘Tea’s hot!’ she sang out, all unsuspecting. I could not bear it. I gave her a smile, nodded blindly towards her mother, then made my escape. Her voice - ‘Oh, Ma, what’s up?’ - pursued me up the stairwell, followed by Mrs Milne’s murmurs. In a moment I was in my own room again, with the door closed hard behind me.
The little bits and pieces I owned, of course, could be bundled together in a second, in my sailor’s bag, and a carpet-bag that Mrs Milne had once given me. My bedclothes I folded and placed neatly at the end of the mattress, and the rug I shook out at the open window; the few little pictures I had pinned to the wall I took down, and burned in the grate. My toilet articles - a cake of cracked yellow soap, a half-used jar of tooth-powder, a tub of face-cream scented with violet - I scooped into the bin. I kept only my toothbrush, and my hair-oil; these, together with an unopened tin of cigarettes and a slab of chocolate, I added to the carpet-bag - though, after a second’s hesitation, I took the chocolate out again, and left it on the mantel, where I hoped Grace would find it. In half an hour the room looked quite as it had when I had first moved in. There was nothing at all to mark my stay there save the cluster of pinholes in the wallpaper where my pictures had been tacked, and a scorch-mark on the bedside cabinet where once, slumbering over a magazine, I had let a candle fall. The thought seemed a miserable one; but I would not grow sad. I didn’t go to the window, for a last sentimental look at the view from it. I didn’t check the drawers, or go poking under the bed, or pull the cushions from the chair. If I had left anything behind I knew that Diana would replace it with something better.
Downstairs all seemed ominously still, and when I arrived at the parlour it was to find its door shut fast against me. I gave a knock, and turned the handle, my heart beating. Mrs Milne was seated before the table, where I had left her. She was less ashen than before, but still looked grim. The teapot stood cooling on its tray, its contents unpoured; the cups lay huddled on their nest of saucers beside it. Gracie sat stiff and straight on the sofa, her face turned effortfully away, her gaze fixed unswervingly - but also, I thought, unseeingly - on the view beyond the window. I had expected her to weep at my news; instead, it seemed to have enraged her. Her lips were clenched and quite drained of colour.
Mrs Milne, at least, appeared to have reconciled herself a little to my departure, for she addressed me now with something like a smile. ‘I’m afraid Gracie is not quite herself,’ she said. ‘Your tidings’ve quite upset her. I told her you’ll be coming to see us, but - well - she’s that stubborn.’
‘Stubborn?’ I said, as if amazed. ‘Not our Gracie?’ I took a step towards her and reached out a hand. With something like a yelp she thrust me away, and shuffled to the furthest end of the sofa, her head all the time kept at its stiff, unnatural angle. She had never shown me such displeasure before; when I spoke to her next it was with real feeling.
‘Ah, now don’t be like that, Gracie, please. Won’t you give me a word, or a kiss, before I go? Won’t you shake hands with me, even? I shall miss you, so; and I should hate us to part on bad terms, after all our fun together.’ And I went on in this fashion, half entreating, half reproachful, until Mrs Milne rose and touched my shoulder, and said quietly, ‘Best leave her, Nance, and be on your way. You come back and see her another day; she’ll’ve come round by then, I don’t doubt it.’
So I had to leave, in the end, without Grace’s good-bye kiss. Her mother accompanied me to the front door, where we stood awkwardly before the Light of the World and the blue effeminate idol, she with her arms folded over her bosom, me hung with bags, and still clad in my scarlet duds.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs M, that this has been so sudden,’ I tried; but she hushed me.
‘Never mind, dear. You must go your own way.’ She was too kind to be stern for long. I said that I had left my room in order; that I would send her my address (I never did, I never did!); and lastly that she was the best landlady in the city, and that if her next girl did not appreciate her I would make it my business to find out why.
She smiled in earnest then, and we hugged. Yet, as we drew apart, I could sense that something was troubling her; and as I stood on the step for my final farewell, she spoke.
‘Nance,’ she said, ‘don’t mind me asking, but - this friend: it is a girl, ain’t it?’
I snorted. ‘Oh, Mrs Milne! Did you really think - ? Did you really think that I would - ?’ That I would set up house with a man, was what she meant: me, with my trousers and my barbered hair! She blushed.
‘I just thought,’ she said. ‘A girl can get herself hooked up by a feller, these days, quicker’n that. And what with you moving out so sudden, I was half convinced you’d let some gentleman or other make you a pile of promises. I should’ve known better.’
My laughter rang a little hollowly then, as I thought of how near her thoughts ran to the truth, while yet remaining so far from it.
I took a firmer grip of my bags. I had told her I was heading for the cab rank on the King’s Cross Road, since that was the direction in which I must walk in order to rejoin Diana’s driver. Her eyes, which had stayed dry through all her first shock at my news, now began to glisten. She kept her place on the doorstep as I made my slow, awkward way down Green Street. ‘Don’t forget us, love!’ she called out, and I turned to wave. At the parlour window a figure had appeared. Grace! She had unbent enough, then, to watch me leave. I widened the arc of my wave, then caught up my cap and flapped that at her. Two boys turning somersaults on a broken railing stopped their game to give me a playful salute: they took me for a soldier, I suppose, whose leave had all run out, and Mrs Milne for my tearful, white-haired old mother, and Gracie no doubt for my sister or my wife. But for all that I waved and blew kisses, she made me no sign, simply stood with her head and her hands upon the window-pane, which pressed a whiter circle to the centre of her pale brow, and to the end of each blunt finger. At last I let my arm slow, and fall.
‘She don’t love yer much,’ said one of the boys; and when I had looked from him back to the house, Mrs Milne h
ad gone. Gracie, however, still stood and watched. Her gaze - cold and hard as alabaster, piercing as a pin - pursued me to the corner of the King’s Cross Road. Even up the steep climb to Percy Circus, where the windows of Green Street are quite hidden from view, it seemed to prick and worry at the flesh upon my back. Only when I had seated myself in the shadowy interior of Diana’s carriage, and made fast the latch of the door, did I feel quite free of it, and secure once again on the path of my new life.
But even then there was another reminder of my unpaid debts to the old one. For on our drive along the Euston Road we neared the corner of Judd Street, and all at once I remembered the appointment I had made, to meet my new friend Florence. It was for Friday: that, I realised, was today. I had said that I would see her at the entrance to the public house at six o’clock, and it must, I thought, be past six now ... Even as I thought it, the carriage slowed in the traffic and I saw her standing there, a little way along the street, waiting for me. The brougham crawled still slower; from behind the lace of its windows I could see her perfectly, frowning to her left and right, then bending her head to look at the watch at her bosom, then raising a hand to tuck a curl in place. Her face, I thought, was so very plain and kind. I had a sudden urge to tug at the latch of the door, and race down the street to her side; I could at least, I thought, call to the driver to stop his horse, so that I might shout some apology to her ...
But while I sat, anxious and undecided, the traffic grew swift, the carriage gave a jerk, and in a moment Judd Street and plain, kind Florence were far behind me. I could not bear the thought, then, of asking the forbidding Mr Shilling to turn the horse around, for all that I was his mistress for the afternoon. And besides, what would I say to her? I would never, I supposed, be free to meet with her again; and I could hardly expect to have her visit me at Diana’s. She would be surprised, I thought, and cross, when I didn’t turn up: the third woman to be disappointed by me that day. I was sorry, too - but, on reflection, not terribly sorry. Not terribly sorry at all.
When I returned to Felicity Place - for that, I saw now, was the name of the square in which my mistress had her home - I was greeted with gifts. I found Diana in the upstairs parlour, bathed and dressed at last, and with her hair in plaits and elaborately pinned. She looked handsome, in a gown of grey and crimson, with her waist very narrow and her back very straight. I recalled those laces and ties I had fumbled over the night before: there was no sign of them now beneath the smooth sheath of her bodice. The thought of that invisible linen and corsetry, which a maid’s steady fingers had fastened and concealed and my own trembling hands, I guessed, would later uncover and undo, was rather thrilling. I went to her, and put my hands on her, and kissed her hard upon the mouth, until she laughed. I had woken tired and sore; I had had a dismal time at Green Street; but I did not feel dismal now - I felt limber and hot. If I had had a cock, it would have been twitching.
We embraced for a minute or two; then she moved away and took my hand. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a room made ready for you.’
I was at first a little dismayed to learn that I would not be sharing Diana’s chamber; but I could not stay dismayed for long. The room to which she led me - it was a little way along the corridor - was hardly less imposing than her own, and quite as grand. Its walls were bare and creamy-white, its carpets gold, its screen and bedstead of bamboo; its dressing-table, moreover, was crowded with goods - a cigarette-case of tortoise-shell, a pair of brushes and a comb, a button-hook of ivory, and various jars and bottles of oils and perfumes. A door beside the bed led to a long, low-ceilinged closet: here, draped on a pair of wooden shoulders, was a dressing-gown of crimson silk, to match Diana’s green one; and here, too, was the suit I had been promised: a handsome costume of grey worsted, terribly heavy and terribly smart. Besides this there was a set of drawers, marked links and neckties, collars and studs. These were all full; and on a further rack of shelves, marked linen, there was fold after fold of white lawn shirts.
I gazed at all this, then kissed Diana very hard indeed - partly, I must confess, in the hope that she would close her eyes, and thus not see how much I was in awe of her. But when she had gone, I fairly danced about the golden floor in pleasure. I took the suit, and a shirt, and a collar, and a necktie, and laid them all, in proper order, upon the bed. Then I danced again. The bags I had brought with me from Mrs Milne’s I carried to the closet and cast, unopened, into the farthest corner.
I wore my suit to supper; it looked, I knew, very well on me. Diana, however, said the cut was not quite right, and that tomorrow she would have Mrs Hooper measure me properly, and send my details to a tailor. I thought her faith in her housekeeper’s discretion quite extraordinary; and when that lady had left us - for, as she had at lunch, she filled our plates and glasses, then stood in grave and (I thought) unnerving attendance until dismissed - I said so. Diana laughed.
‘There’s a secret to that,’ she said; ‘can’t you guess it?’
‘You pay her a fortune in wages, I suppose.’
‘Well, perhaps. But didn’t you catch Mrs Hooper, gazing through her lashes at you as she served you your soup? Why, she was practically drooling into your plate!’
‘You don’t mean - you can’t mean - that she is just - like us?’
She nodded: ‘Of course. And as for little Blake - why, I plucked her, poor child, from a reformatory cell. They had sent her there for corrupting a house-maid ...’
She laughed again, while I marvelled. Then she leaned with her napkin to wipe a splash of gravy from my cheek.
We had been served cutlets and sweetbreads, all very fine. I ate steadily, as I had eaten at breakfast. Diana, however, did more drinking than eating, and more smoking than drinking; and more watching, even, than smoking. After the exchange about the servants, we fell silent: I found that many of the things I said produced a kind of twitching at her lips and brow, as if my words - sensible enough to my ears - amused her; so at last I said no more, and neither did she, until the only sounds were the low hiss of the gas-jets, the steady ticking of the clock upon the mantel, and the clink of my knife and fork against my plate. I thought involuntarily of those merry dinners in the Green Street parlour, with Grace and Mrs Milne. I thought of the supper I might be having with Florence, in the Judd Street public. But then I finished my meal, and Diana threw me one of her pink cigarettes; and when I had grown giddy on that, she came to me and kissed me. And then I remembered that it was hardly for table-talk that I had been engaged.
That night our love-making was more leisurely than it had been before - almost, indeed, tender. Yet she surprised me by seizing my shoulder as I lay on the edge of sleep - my body delightfully sated and my arms and legs entwined with hers - and rousing me to wakefulness. The day had been a day of lessons for me; now came the last of all.
‘You may go, Nancy,’ she said, in exactly the tone I had heard her use on her maid and Mrs Hooper. ‘I wish to sleep alone tonight.’
It was the first time she had spoken to me as a servant, and her words drove the lingering warmth of slumber quite from my limbs. Yet I took my leave, uncomplaining, and made my way to the pale room along the hall, where my own cold bed awaited. I liked her kisses, I liked her gifts still more; and if, to keep them, I must obey her - well, so be it. I was used to servicing gents in Soho at a pound a suck; obedience - to such a lady, and in such a setting - seemed at that moment a very trifling labour.
Chapter 12
For all the strangeness of those first few days and nights at Felicity Place, it did not take me long to settle into my role there and find myself a new routine. This was quite as indolent as the one I had enjoyed at Mrs Milne’s; the difference, of course, was that here my indolence had a patron, a lady who paid to keep me well-fed, well-dressed and rested, and demanded only that my vanity should have herself, in return, as its larger target.
At Green Street I was used to waking rather early. Often Grace would bring me tea at half-past seven or so - often
, indeed, she would clamber into the warm bed beside me, and we would lie and talk till Mrs Milne called us to breakfast; later I would wash, at the great sink in the downstairs kitchen, and Grace would sometimes come and comb my hair. At Felicity Place, I had nothing to rise for. Breakfast was brought to me, and I received it at Diana’s side - or in my own bed, if she had sent me from her the night before. While she was dressed I would drink my coffee and smoke a cigarette, and yawn and rub my eyes; frequently I would fall into a thin kind of slumber, and only wake again when she returned, in a coat and a hat, to slip a gloved hand beneath the counterpane and rouse me with a pinch, or a lewd caress.
‘Wake up, and kiss your mistress good-bye,’ she’d say. ‘I shan’t be home till supper-time. You must amuse yourself until I return.’
Then I would frown, and grumble. ‘Where are you going?’
‘On a visit, to a friend.’
‘Take me with you!’
‘Not today.’
‘I might sit in the brougham while you make your call ...’
‘I would rather you were here, for me to return to.’
‘You are cruel!’
She would smile, then kiss me. And then she would go; and I would only sink, again, into stupidity.
When I rose at last, I would call for a bath. Diana’s bathroom was a handsome one: I might spend an hour or more in there, soaking in the perfumed water, parting my hair, applying the macassar, examining myself before the glass for marks of beauty or for blemishes. In my old life I had made do with soap, with cold-cream and lavender scent and the occasional swipe of spit-black. Now, from the crown of my head to the curve of my toe-nails, there was an unguent for every part of me - oil for my eyebrows and cream for my lashes; a jar of tooth-powder, a box of blanc-de-perle; polish for my fingernails and a scarlet stick to redden my mouth; tweezers for drawing the hairs from my nipples, and a stone to take the hard flesh from my heels.
