by Annie Murray
‘Mercy – how pretty a name. Do sit down again. I’m so sorry—’ She went and peered out into the hall. ‘Oh where is – ah, here she comes.’
A moment later, the nanny appeared. Mercy saw a very thin woman, Mrs Adair’s senior by about fifteen years, clothed in a black dress topped by a starched white apron. She stood in the doorway, feet neatly together. She had remarkably thin ankles, even for a woman of her slender build, and wore flat, very pointed black shoes. She was small featured, and could almost have been pretty, had she not pulled her black hair back into such a severe knot behind her head, leaving only a fringe, dead straight across her forehead.
‘You wanted me?’ Her voice was rather high and nasal, with only a trace of a Birmingham accent. Her eyes took in Mercy and Dorothy across the room. Mercy felt herself being closely, coldly examined. Something about the woman, correct in every way as she was, filled her with an instinctive unease.
‘If you could just take him for a time?’ Margaret Adair was as apologetic with the nanny as with her visitors. ‘I haven’t quite finished the feed, but as you see, I have company.’
‘As you like ma’am,’ the woman said. She moved briskly forward, holding out her arms. Her hands, poking out of the stiff cuffs, were very small, Mercy noticed, like a doll’s.
At the sight of her, Stevie Adair’s face crumpled with dismay and he let out a roar.
‘Oh dear,’ his mother said. ‘He was so cheerful just now. Perhaps his face is still bothering him. It still doesn’t seem to be healing very well, does it?’
‘I’ll see to it,’ the nanny said. She spoke in an even tone, yet managed to imply the younger woman’s inexperience, stupidity even. ‘As for the state of him now, that’ll be colic. Look at the way he’s pulling his legs up. Of course, overfeeding a child brings it on. Come along now, Steven,’ she commanded, forcing him from his mother’s grasp. ‘Time for your nap.’
‘Oh – do you think he really needs to sleep again?’ Mrs Adair’s voice was tremulous. ‘He does seem so lively.’
The sounds of distress turned into screams, his face turning blotched and sweaty.
‘Now, now, now – tired out, that’s his trouble.’ Stevie writhed, perched on her angular hip. ‘We’ll just get you back into a routine, Stevie boy, and you’ll be right as rain. That’s all he needs. You mustn’t be tempted to give in to him.’ She gave Margaret Adair a smile which did not warm the frozen depths of her eyes.
‘Perhaps if I were just to hold him again, to calm him?’ Margaret Adair pleaded, as her son arched his back and screamed in the other woman’s arms.
‘No need. You have quite enough to do. Leave him to me.’
They heard the screams recede up the staircase, growing ever more hysterical. Mercy saw that Margaret Adair was digging her nails into her palms, her breath shallow and uneven. A door closed, muffling the noise, and she unclenched her hands and tried to compose herself.
Mercy was bewildered. Didn’t people have servants so they could order them about instead of the other way round?
‘Nanny Radcliffe is very experienced,’ she said tremulously, sitting down opposite the two of them. Mercy saw it was herself she was trying to convince of this fact.
‘Now, er . . .’ She looked dazed, as if she was still trying to hear the sounds from upstairs.
‘We’ve come about the position,’ Dorothy said. ‘You was looking for a companion, and Mrs Weston suggested I bring her to you.’
‘Ah, Grace – Mrs Weston. Yes, of course!’ Mrs Adair managed to rouse herself, and for the first time, her round face broke into a smile. ‘Dear Grace, how is she? And those lovely boys?’
‘She’s well.’ Dorothy spoke abruptly, and added with apparent reluctance, ‘And of course she sends her warmest regards.’ Mercy listened with interest. Dorothy seldom said much about her employer. They had concocted an almost true story. ‘She wanted to recommend Mercy to you. We’ve known her for a good while. She’s an orphan child who we’ve taken some interest in . . . although she’s young Mercy’s already acted as a companion to another girl.’
‘Oh?’ Mercy found Margaret Adair was addressing her directly. ‘Why was that?’
‘She was paralysed, ma’am.’ Mercy spoke as correctly as she could manage. ‘She stayed at home – didn’t go to school. So I was there to keep her company, teach her a bit . . .’
‘But you attended school yourself?’
‘For some of the time I did, yes.’
‘And she no longer requires your company?’
‘She died last year, ma’am. Of the Spanish influenza.’
To her great mortification Mercy felt tears filling her eyes and she looked down into her lap, clenching her jaw. For heaven’s sake don’t start blarting now! she ticked herself off.
‘How very sad,’ she heard Margaret Adair say. ‘So you have spent all your working life with, er . . .’
‘Susan.’ Mercy quickly wiped her eyes and looked up. ‘No – I worked in munitions . . .’ She looked uncertainly at Dorothy. Was she supposed to tell her prospective employer this? ‘I made Mills Bombs in the War.’
‘Goodness – you look so young.’ Mrs Adair sounded slightly awestruck. ‘I’ve never met anyone who . . . What was that like?’
What on earth did she want to know that for? Mercy glanced at Dorothy again, but Dorothy could give her no advice about what to say. ‘It was tiring. Long hours standing up.’
‘But you thought it worth it – for the war effort?’ The woman questioned her intensely, seemed hungry to know.
Mercy hesitated. She could think of nothing else to say except the truth.
‘I did. To start. And the money was good. But then the lads were coming home with no legs – or worse – or not coming back at all. And then I started to think, was we wasting our time? Was it all wrong? But I suppose I was wrong to think like that—’
‘Anyway, that’s all over now,’ Dorothy interrupted.
‘Yes, of course – thank heaven.’ Mrs Adair pulled her attention back to the matter in hand. ‘Now, this position. It’s really my husband’s idea and of course he’s not here. He feels I need a companion in the house, though I do feel a little foolish about it.’
‘What are the duties?’ Dorothy asked.
‘Well . . .’ Margaret Adair looked down, a thick roll of flesh appearing under her chin as she did so. ‘I hadn’t really thought. I suppose I want someone . . . to be a friend.’ She looked up into Mercy’s eyes.
She looks frightened, Mercy thought. What’s she frightened of? She felt bewildered, but drawn to this plump, somehow helpless woman.
‘Do you think we can be friends, Mercy?’
‘I, er . . .’
‘Oh, I’m so stupid, how can you possibly answer a question like that? I should try to explain your duties. Audrey Radcliffe has an afternoon off every week so I shall need some help then. I shall need a few errands done, though of course we do have our maids. Otherwise your main task really is to keep me company, and Stevie, when he’s allowed to be with me. To keep me from becoming too glum, that’s what James says anyway!’ She tried to sound light and self-mocking, but instead sounded sad. ‘Perhaps you think me very weak and foolish. Only since Stevie was born, I’ve been finding life rather a strain.’
Mercy felt she was expected to respond, and fell back on something she had heard Elsie say. ‘When you have a babby everyone forgets to ask about the mother, don’t they – even if you’re tired out. As if it’s only the babby that matters.’
To her horror, the fleshy, ungainly woman in front of them burst into tears. Dorothy looked at Mercy as if to say, for heaven’s sakes now look what you’ve done!
‘Oh – I’m ever so sorry for upsetting you – oh dear . . .’ Mercy stood up, but could think of nothing else to do.
Margaret Adair let out several loud, unstoppable sobs, the emotion seeming to rush out of her like compressed air. Then she wiped her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry. Oh dear. This is so undig
nified of me.’ Her face was blotchy. ‘But at least you can see, I really don’t feel quite myself. James – my husband – thinks that if there was someone here to take my mind off things . . . She tried to collect herself. ‘How old are you, Mercy?’
‘Nineteen, ma’am.’
‘And you have no mother or father – no family?’
‘None I’ve ever heard of.’
‘You must be so strong to live so alone in the world, dear. Would you like to come and live here with me?’
Live here! Was she offering her the job? It was like another existence from Angel Street. Almost unimaginable.
‘You mean sleep here? Where’d I sleep?’
Margaret Adair smiled gently. ‘How solemn you are my dear girl. Don’t worry, there’s a nice little room on the top floor. Simple, but clean. With a window overlooking the garden. And our maids Emmie and Rose have a room together up there, so you wouldn’t be all alone. If you feel you could live here, I’d like to give you the job, from tomorrow, if you can manage that. I feel we’ll get on. Do you agree?’
For a moment Mercy was too amazed to speak. She felt Dorothy prod her ankle with the tip of her boot.
‘Oh yes.’ The smile poured across her face. ‘Yes, please.’
That evening, James Adair travelled home as he did in all but the foulest of weather, on one of the cycles manufactured at his own works in Greet, nearly three miles from the centre of Birmingham. In heavy rain or snow he drove his motor car. But he not only designed and built cycles, he loved to ride them, test their metal, the wind rushing past his ears. He reached his own house, dismounted, and paused outside, bending over the cycle and turning a pedal fast backwards and carefully examining the chain.
James was thirty-three years old, a tall man, solid though not weighty, with light brown hair which curled and frizzed a little and was already fast receding from his forehead. His face, if not exactly handsome, had a kind, if slightly austere look to it. His hands, as he made a show of adjusting the bicycle chain, were not built to force or damage: he handled objects with respect and precision.
At this moment though, the cycle needed no adjustment. It was in fact the newest Adair Safety Bicycle for Gentlemen. The mechanics and balance of it were almost flawless, and James had ridden it with excitement, knowing its chances in the fiercely competitive market, even against the big firms – the BSA, Rudge-Whitworth – were excellent.
What he was doing now though, was putting off the moment when he had to walk through his own front door. Family life had come as a shock to him. He had grown up as an only child in a respectable, orderly household, a self-contained boy with a passionate interest in anything mechanical. He had been easy for his parents to entertain and control.
The birth of his own son, Steven, had brought him a sense of joy and renewal he could never have put into words. Even now the child was six months old he watched him with an astonishment which almost touched on unbelief. Every single day of those months, returning from the works, he had felt his heart speed up at the thought of seeing him, of simply being able to look at him, to say to himself, My son. This is my son Steven.
But it was not all pleasurable. What disquieted him, the reason for his hanging about out here with his bicycle, was the abrupt slide into chaos which had accompanied Stevie’s birth. He found the irrationality, the unpredictability of family life disturbing. Even in his household with its requisite number of staff – maids, a cook, a nanny, a gardener – James felt his home ensnaring him as he walked in.
There was the child’s crying for a start. Surely Stevie shouldn’t howl as much as he did? Delightful though he was when cheerful, he did cry for long, grating periods and the noise was almost impossible to escape in any part of the house.
Thank goodness for Nanny Radcliffe! James thought, stowing his cycle in the alley between the house and the garden wall. That woman at least was reassuring. She was strict about order and routine, because without that Margaret would let everything slide into shapeless mayhem.
He went round to the front of the house and rang to be let in, feeling the now familiar sensation of dread.
Let her be all right today. None of that foolish emotion. Just back to normal.
There were times since Stevie’s birth when he could scarcely recognize the woman he married. For those five years (it had taken them a long, sometimes despairing time to conceive a child) Margaret had always been well rounded, sensual, with her peaches and cream complexion and pale, girlish hair. During the pregnancy she had bloated and the fat was still piled on her even now, unflatteringly so. It wasn’t her size in itself. He found that inviting, sensuous. Yet he was shut out: her lactating breasts which by their swollen tautness seemed to invite his caresses, seeped at his touch, and his wife wrapped herself defensively in her layers of nightclothes and turned away from him. Her emotions were the worst. The agitation the baby seemed to cause her, the weeping, especially at night when they heard Stevie crying.
‘He needs me,’ she’d sobbed during the early weeks. ‘My little one needs me. I must feed him!’
She knew perfectly well that Nanny Radcliffe’s regime didn’t permit night feeding. That it weakened the constitution and gave him irregular habits.
At times James felt he would try anything to get his old wife back, cheerful and yielding.
‘Margaret?’ He pushed open the door of the front parlour, his eye gladdened by his beautiful array of green glass in the remaining light through the window. The grandfather clock ticked steadily. But there was no fire and the room was empty.
Then her voice, ‘I’m here . . .’ came from the back room. She sounded light and cheerful and he felt encouraged.
She was sitting with Stevie on her lap.
‘Hello dearest.’ She smiled. Stevie turned and beamed at him too.
‘Hello there, my two.’ Suddenly outrageously happy, he bent and kissed Margaret’s cheek, then knelt and played with his son as he lay in Margaret’s lap, offering him a knuckle to suck.
‘Shall Rose bring in a tray of tea?’ Her voice was sweet.
‘Oh, I’m all right – dinner will be ready soon, won’t it?’ He laughed as Stevie sucked hard on his hand. ‘What power in that little mouth!’
‘I hope your hands are clean – think what Nanny would say!’
He was even encouraged by her scolding. This was the first animated greeting he’d had in weeks.
‘And how are you?’ He looked up into her eyes, puzzled to see excitement in them.
‘I’ve found someone.’
‘Found someone?’
‘A companion. As you suggested.’
‘You mean – you’ve already made a decision? Without my seeing her?’ He stood up, hands on his waist, frowning in concern.
‘Well, darling it’s me she’ll be keeping company. She was recommended by Grace Weston – you know the Westons, in Handsworth? One of her maids brought her here. She’s very sweet, a real breath of fresh air. She’s nineteen, and—’
‘Nineteen?’
‘Yes, but ever so sensible.’
James was appalled. He’d pictured Margaret in the company of some staid matron who would bring her to her senses.
‘Oh James, don’t tell me I’ve been stupid. I feel sure she’ll be all right, and that you’ll feel the same about her when you meet her.’
‘Well, I hope so.’ He went coldly to the door. Honestly, just when he thought she was beginning to see sense! ‘I do wish you wouldn’t rush into things in this irrational manner, Margaret. We’ll give the girl a month’s trial, and then see whether or not I think she’s suitable!’
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘So you’re going then – with nowt more to say?’
Mabel stood huddled in her shawl in the doorway of the dank bedroom. Her face was further hardened by grief, hair turning grey. She watched Mercy gathering together her clothes and her few other possessions.
‘What else is there to say?’ Mercy was folding her grey work dress
. ‘You mean, no fond farewells? Oh, there’ll be fond farewells all right – to Elsie and Alf. They’re the ones who’ve been a mom and dad to me.’ She turned to face Mabel. The woman was truly on her own now, but Mercy could find very little pity for her.
‘I don’t owe you a thing. Eight years you’ve had me ’ere to act as your skivvy. You stole me, you did. And the only reason I ever stayed in this pigsty of a place is because of Susan and Elsie and the lads. They’re my people and they always will be. They looked out for me and took care of me while all you could ever think of was yourself. So don’t go telling me I owe yer summat. I don’t.’
She laid her book Cheerful Homes, and the embroidered handkerchief on top of the little pile of clothes.
‘When I came ’ere these’re all I had in the world. And there’s not much more to show now, is there? Anything else I’ve ever had’s been down to Dorothy Finch or Elsie.’
‘But Mercy – you’ve been like a daughter to me . . .’
Mercy listened to the self-pity in Mabel’s voice and felt her temper spilling over.
‘No!’ She turned on her. ‘You never once treated me like a mom should treat a daughter, and in your case it’s a good job or I might not be alive to tell the tale, like the rest of your kids!’
Mabel gasped as if she’d been punched and her face took on a terrible, twisted expression.
‘You wicked little bitch, saying a thing like that . . .’
Mercy gathered up her bundle and pushed past her. ‘And where did I learn to be cruel, eh? I’m going now. I’ll be up Moseley, living in a better house than you’ll ever set foot in. And I’ll be back – to see Elsie. You’ve got the parrot if you want some company.’
It was far sadder saying her goodbyes to George that afternoon, than to Mabel. Mercy bent and looked into his cage, smelling the sharp odour of him. He was busy burrowing his beak into his chest, cleaning himself.
‘Ta-ra, Georgie boy. Make sure she takes care of yer.’
