The definite sound of a bedroom door closing to the adjoining room sent Mary to her feet, pulling and pushing the broom back and forth rhythmically.
Edward’s door opened and Clara stood with an impressed smile on her face. ‘See, you’re getting the measure of it alright. Keep going. Just another three to go before lunch.’
Mary half-heartedly smiled back and returned to her haphazard sweeping.
By the time the girls had returned to their specific places at the table in the servants’ hall at one o’clock, Mary was worn out. She looked at every individual seated on the opposite side to her: not one of them looked as tired out as she felt. Even trying to converse with Joan or Clara was nigh on impossible. She was struggling. Her eyes inadvertently locked onto Edward’s and he smiled reassuringly, as if he could sense her dispiritedness. She wondered if she had imagined that the moment yesterday was anything more than friendliness.
Something lightly touched Mary on the shoulder and she turned to see the disdainful face of Mr Risler. ‘How are you getting on, my love?’ he asked, his dark brown eyes searching her face hungrily.
Mary nodded. ‘Very well, thank you.’
‘Good, good. You can always come to Mr Risler if ever you need any help with anything—day or night,’ he said, placing a subtle emphasis and intonation on the word night. He gave Mary’s shoulder a squeeze, probing his long bony fingers into her flesh before moving back to his chair at the head of the table.
For a good while after Mr Risler had returned to his chair, the spot of skin where he had touched on her shoulder was crawling with repugnance. Unable to look up or talk, Mary was unwilling to eat much of the chicken, carrots and potatoes in front of her and spent much of the mealtime moving them around the plate and piling them in such a fashion as to appear more had been eaten. She sipped her beer and prayed that lunch would soon come to an end. Finally, it did.
‘Now what?’ Mary asked Clara, as they made their way from the servants’ hall.
‘Now we check all the fires are burning nicely, restock or relight as required and stock up candles ready for tonight. Then, from three until five we do needlework in the servants’ hall.’
Having checked that each fire was lit and restocked all the candles, Mary and Clara joined Eliza in the empty servants’ hall at three o’clock sharp. On the table, Mrs Cuff had placed a mountain of linen, livery and clothing in need of repair. Mary’s heart sank; she hated needlework. She was useless at it and at home, it was always Edie or their mother who attended to the household haberdashery. Edie delighted in their mother’s oft-repeated tale of how she had never met a girl incapable of sewing a hem until Mary had first tried a running stitch. ‘Practice makes perfect,’ her mother would say, night after night, as the three of them attempted to repair torn clothing by candlelight in the sitting-room. In Mary’s case, practice did not make perfect. Practice made Mary despise even holding a needle and thread.
‘Are we supposed to get all of that done today?’ Mary asked incredulously.
‘As much of it as we can, yes. There’ll be another stack there tomorrow—equally as large,’ Eliza said, reaching for the first garment.
Mary took a white apron from the pile and, copying Eliza and Clara, ran it carefully through her fingers to identify the repair required.
‘Are we not allowed to talk while we work?’ Mary whispered after several minutes’ silence.
Eliza shook her head. ‘We might become distracted from our duties.’
And so Mary worked with the two girls in near-silence for two, torturous hours. To Mary, a thousand minutes might have passed in those two hours. At ten minutes to five, Mrs Cuff entered the servants’ hall and began to inspect the neat pile of completed repairs whilst the girls stood, arms folded behind their backs, and watched expectantly. Only minor nods of the head gave Mary any indication of her approval or otherwise. She picked up the white apron which Mary had started with and raised an eyebrow.
‘Is this your handiwork?’ she asked Mary.
Mary nodded.
Mrs Cuff threw it to one side. ‘Not good enough,’ she said reprovingly, continuing through the stack. Every repair that Mary had undertaken ended up in its own jumbled heap. ‘Well, you certainly weren’t employed here for your needlework skills, were you?’
‘No, Mrs Cuff,’ Mary mumbled.
‘This stitching is very shoddy, look,’ she said, tugging at a loose thread on an overcoat. One pull and the stitching came apart. ‘I can see you’re going to take a lot of work, young lady. What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Eliza, Clara—you need to have these garments corrected before you finish for the day,’ Mrs Cuff said.
‘Yes, Mrs Cuff,’ they responded in unison.
Mrs Cuff left the servants’ hall carrying the approved clothing. The still maid entered and began setting the table for tea. Mary could feel Eliza and Clara’s disapproval.
‘What did they employ her for?’ Eliza whispered to Clara, as she scooped up the garments in need of correction. ‘Come on, we’ll work through tea.’
‘Let me help,’ Mary begged.
‘I don’t think so, Mary,’ Eliza said frostily.
The two gaps beside Mary at the dinner table only heightened her feelings of isolation and segregation from the rest of the staff. Nobody, not even Joan or the awful Mr Risler attempted conversation. Mary sat in cold dismal silence, eating her bread and butter and taking small sips from her cup of tea, desperately hoping that the day would just end. But it didn’t end, it kept on going. Half an hour after she had sat down and the sun had given way to darkness, Mary was back up on her feet ready to return to her duties. Once all the other servants had departed the room, Mary left and was collected by Clara at the door.
‘Did you manage to get them done?’ Mary asked in the muted, flickering glow of the corridor lamp.
Clara nodded. ‘Eliza’s just taken them in to Mrs Cuff.’
At that moment, the housekeeper’s door opened and Eliza stepped out. ‘Back to work, girls,’ she instructed haughtily. ‘Let’s not repeat that tomorrow.’
Clara led them back upstairs to the female servants’ quarters and pushed open their bedroom door. Inside was dark and freezing: Mary shuddered.
‘It does warm up,’ Clara said. ‘Our duties now are to turn down the beds, close the curtains and light the fires. Watch and copy.’
Mary stood back and watched as Clara carefully pulled one side of the bedding into a neat diagonal line before pulling out the creases.
‘Your go,’ Clara instructed, as she tugged closed the curtains.
Mary copied with her own bed.
‘Perfect. I’ll light the fire, then I’ll show you what’s next.’
Once the small splinters of kindling had ignited, Clara showed Mary where to fill the water jugs. As soon as all the rooms in the female servants’ quarters were ready, they repeated the task in the male quarters.
At eight o’clock, the girls returned to the servants’ hall for supper, which consisted of cold ham and hot vegetables, but Mary was too tired to eat a single thing. All she wanted was her bed, irrespective of how cold or uncomfortable it was: she just wanted to lie down and close her eyes.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Joan whispered.
‘I’m exhausted. You’ve no idea how many times I’ve been up and down those wretched ninety-six stairs. It must be at least a hundred,’ Mary said, a little too loudly.
Joan put her forefinger on her lips. ‘Keep it down, or you’ll get into trouble.’
Mary rolled her eyes and emitted a small sigh.
Supper in the servants’ hall lasted precisely half an hour. By the end of it, Mary had gulped down three cups of tea, but not touched her food. Without uttering a word, she followed Clara for the final duties of the day into the main bedrooms of the house.
‘We need to check the water jugs, the fires and take a hot can of water to each bedroom,’ Clara told her, leadin
g Mary into a large, warm bedroom. A four-poster mahogany bed with fine, delicate cotton sheets stood in the centre of the room. Beautifully decorative curtains covered the tall windows which, in daylight, afforded views across the lake. A carved wooden dressing table, chest of drawers and a writing desk completed the room.
‘Whose room is this?’ Mary said, mentally comparing it to her own insignificant bedroom upstairs. This should be her bedroom. It was perfect. Mary approached the bed and stroked the soft fine linen.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Clara warned. ‘It’s Lady Rothborne’s bedroom.’
‘And Lord Rothborne’s?’
Clara shook her head. ‘His bedroom is next door.’
Mary puzzled as to why they would not share a bed. Maybe it wasn’t the Blackfriars way, she reasoned. She had once read that most of the former kings and queens of England slept separately from their spouses and thought it must be common practice among the upper classes. Mary had a sudden, intense desire to see Cecil’s bedroom. ‘You finish up here and I’ll do the next one,’ Mary said quickly, hurrying for the door. She was in the brightly lit hallway before Clara could answer.
Mary entered Lord Rothborne’s bedroom, closed the door behind her and smiled. The size and layout of the room was comparable to Lady Rothborne’s, yet somehow it struck her as definitely belonging to a man. The wallpaper, carpets and curtains all exuded masculinity. She approached the bed and ran a finger over the crisp, pristine pillow. Unlike Edward’s inferior bed, there was no revealing indentation. Unable to help herself, Mary lowered her face down onto the pillow and closed her eyes. Over the sterile scent of fresh laundry, she could detect the faintest whiff of an expensive cologne. Never in her most fanciful childhood dreams did she imagine such intimacy with Lord Mansfield, Earl of Rothborne. Cecil. For just that single moment, they were together. Mary took a long, deep breath, yearning to hold the fragment of his smell inside her for as long as possible, then stood and returned to herself: Mary Mercer, third housemaid of Blackfriars. She turned down the bed, added logs to the fire, refilled a jug of water and brought in a hot can of water. She did her duty, took one last longing look into the bedroom, then moved on.
When, at last, Mary climbed the ninety-six stairs for the last time that day and fell into bed, sleep would not come. Clara had fallen asleep the moment she had crawled under the blankets, but for Mary, the emotion and difficulty of her first day plagued her. It had, without doubt, been the toughest day of her life; every muscle, every joint, every bone throbbed with pain. Her mother’s words and a flashback of a visit to see her granny in the Rye workhouse filled her mind. Now she understood why Granny, spirit and body broken, was dead and buried in a pauper’s grave at the age of sixty-two.
The chunks of willow in the grate had all but disappeared when sleep finally came for Mary. She had cried for what seemed to her like an eternity: she cried for the pain in her body; she cried for her granny; she cried for her sister, Edie; she cried for the life she wanted; but most of all, she cried for the life to which she had given herself over.
Chapter Five
Wednesday 18th January 1911
Mary’s first half-day off had finally arrived. She was granted half a day in the previous two weeks but, under pressure from Clara and Eliza, decided to spend it on needlework practice which, as far as Mary was concerned, had made no difference at all to her inability to stitch.
It was one o’clock, just when the rest of the servants would be settling down for lunch, when Mary Mercer flung open the kitchen door and bound out into the fresh air.
‘Eh! Ferme la porte!’ Monsieur Bastion called after her.
Mary gasped at the air like a miner who had been trapped underground for weeks on end. At last, she was free, albeit for just half a day. She didn’t need to be back until nine o’clock and she intended to make the most of every single second. She hoped to goodness that her letter to Edie had arrived on time, giving warning of her imminent visit. Maybe they could go for a long walk together. There might even be time to get a ride into Rye for the afternoon.
The pervading snows had now completely vanished, leaving no trace of ever having been, and today, the sun shone brightly. As Mary hurried up the back path from Blackfriars towards her home, she looked out at the beautiful sun’s rays, illuminating the manicured lawns and the orchard around the ruined abbey in the distance. She was so happy to be free that she felt sure that the sun was shining just for her.
Mary ran the final few yards, wanting to spend as much of her precious time at home as possible. She quietly pushed open the front door, wanting to surprise her mother and Edie. Her father would likely be out at work but she hoped to see him at teatime. Tiptoeing silently into the passageway, Mary closed the door without a sound and peered into the sitting-room: empty. She crept along the short hallway to the back of the house and opened the kitchen door. To her surprise, she found her father eating lunch at the kitchen table with her mother and Edie.
‘Surprise!’ Mary cried, bursting into the room.
‘Oh my godfathers, you scared the living daylights out of me!’ her mother said with a smile. She stood and hugged Mary.
Over her mother’s shoulder, Edie looked up, briefly met Mary’s eyes, then flicked her gaze to meet their father’s eyes: Mary was perturbed by the conspiratorial look that passed between them. Her mother, as if sensing that Mary wasn’t about to receive the same welcome from Edie and her father, kept her held in a tight embrace. Letting her arms fall limply to her side, Mary let go and was waiting for either her sister or father to look back at her. Finally, her mother released her grip.
‘Sit down, Mary dear, there’s tea in the pot. Thomas, fetch Mary a cup,’ her mother said. ‘We’ve had some very sad news reach us.’
‘What’s happened?’ Mary asked.
‘It’s Caroline’s William: he’s dead from consumption.’
‘Oh,’ was all Mary could think to say. She barely knew William but was mightily grateful that he had taken her horrible sister all the way to live in Bristol. She hoped that this didn’t mean Caroline would be making a return. ‘Is Caroline coming back?’
Her mother shook her head. ‘I don’t know—it’s too soon to say,’ she said, pouring Mary a cup of tea. ‘I’m minded to go and stay with her a few days, but your dad’s not keen on the idea.’
‘Who’s paying for you to get there, then?’ he barked. ‘Better that she comes home here if anything.’
‘We’ll see,’ her mother said. She smiled and changed the subject. ‘Will you be wanting some food? There isn’t much, but you’re welcome.’
Mary glanced at the bare plates on the table. Her family were existing on scraps of bread and the merest sliver of butter between them. Her father’s presence at the lunch table usually meant no work, which meant no money. As hungry as she felt, she couldn’t possibly take their food. ‘No, no lunch for me, thank you—I’ve already eaten.’
Her father snorted and mumbled, ‘Bet you have, some fancy three-course meal or other, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Mary knew what might cheer her father. She reached into her bag and pulled out a handful of money—it was every penny she had earned so far at Blackfriars. She placed it on the table in front of him.
‘It’s my wages so far—’ Mary began. She stopped mid-sentence when her father reached up, snatched the money from the table and pocketed it without so much as looking up.
‘Thank you, Mary,’ her mother mouthed softly.
Edie finished her last mouthful of bread, stood up and left the room. Mary hurried after her. ‘Wait, Edie!’ she called, chasing after her sister. Edie continued up the stairs and into their shared bedroom without so much as a glance back at her twin.
Edie stood defiantly at the window, her shoulders dramatically surging up and down with every angry breath. ‘Just go away!’ Edie cried. ‘Go back to Blackfriars; I don’t want you here.’
‘Please talk to me, Edie,’ Mary pleaded, reaching out to touch her sister’s hand.
‘I hate the job and I wish to goodness that I hadn’t taken it from you. One of the reasons I came home today was to beg you to go back there tonight instead of me; they’d take you on in a flash. I’m terrible at being a third housemaid.’
Edith turned to face her sister, her raging eyes red and watery. Her jaw was clenched and a small purple vein throbbed at her left temple. ‘Oh, it’s alright for me now, is it? Have you got something much better, then? I heard you and Mum talking about how the job was alright for me but you’re capable of so much more. Maybe you’re not so clever, then, if you can’t even be a third housemaid.’
‘Please, Edie,’ Mary said quietly.
‘I don’t want the wretched job. I don’t want anything from you ever again.’
‘Edie, please…’
‘Just go!’ Edith yelled.
The gentle groaning of the wooden floorboards in the hallway made the girls switch their attention to the door, both realising that the outcome of their argument rested with whichever parent was standing at the top of the stairs. It was their father; Mary had lost the battle and no more words were needed.
‘Think it’s time you went back to Blackfriars,’ her father said.
Mary knew from the tone of his voice that it was not a suggestion but a command and that the slightest rebuttal on her part would result in a violent outburst. As she had done on so many prior occasions, Mary conceded defeat, pushed past her father, down the stairs and straight out the front door. She desperately wanted to hug her mother, but she knew that remaining in the house a minute longer would make her mother’s life a misery for the next month.
Mary maintained her composure as she walked from the house towards the gates of Blackfriars. She was fully aware that she had the entire afternoon and most of the evening to herself, yet the gravel path to Blackfriars drew her back in. Somehow, it seemed the only logical and sensible place to go. The moment that she crossed into the estate, every angry, incredulous word that she had just suppressed, every spiteful glance between her father and sister and every angry rejection from home flowed out of her as hot tears.
The Lost Ancestor Page 7
