Liza

by Irene Carr

  ‘Don’t say it like that. There are plenty who are after him. If you hooked him you’d break a few hearts.’ She kissed Liza’s cheek. ‘I’m off, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.’ She waved and was gone.

  Liza went shopping then, remembering her appointment with Elspeth Taggart the next day. She bought a plain brown dress and two big white aprons with pockets. She charged them to the account of Miss Cecily Spencer and carried the parcel away.

  Outside a tram was waiting that would have taken her most of the way to Spencer Hall, but she turned and walked the other way. There was a matter to be attended to and she would not let the sun set on her wrath. She walked down to the river, threading the narrow streets, the houses close together with women standing at their doors. Children followed her, their attention caught by her smart, expensive clothes. The little girls brought her own daughter to mind. She wondered what Susan was doing at that moment and smiled wistfully.

  She paused outside the tagareen shop, hesitating, less sure of herself now. She could not see the old woman in the dim interior — the gas jet was not yet lit. The children hung back now, cautious, and one little lad called, ‘Ye dinna want to gan in there, missus! She’s a witch!’

  Liza had heard this before — children often imagined some old woman had magical powers — but she knew that this one had none, just a nasty tongue, and she had come to give Iris a piece of her mind. She entered the shop and peered about among the piles of old clothes. She saw that they were graded, some for resale and others for rags, but everything in the shop, from rickety chairs to strange ornaments, was worth no more than a copper or two. She moved further inside, leaving the daylight behind her. Now she could see the staircase running down one side and firelight filtering from a room beyond it. As she moved towards it, she saw another bundle at the foot of the stairs. She stooped and her hand flew to her mouth. Iris Cruikshank lay in a heap. Her face was pale in what little light there was and her eyes were closed. She lay still as death, her black cap beside her.

  But was she dead? Liza dropped to her knees, lifted the old woman’s upper body with an arm about her, and patted her worn cheek. She thought she detected a faint breath, and then Iris stirred feebly. Liza rocked the old woman in her arms, spoke softly to her: ‘Come on, wake up, Iris, there’s a good lass. Come on, speak to me.’ Eventually the eyes opened, not wild now but vague. ‘There you are. Let’s feel your hands.’ They were cold and she rubbed them as Iris looked up at her.

  ‘Let’s see if we can get you warm.’ Now Liza could see the back room, the kitchen, and the fire emitting its glow. Iris was sitting on an old rag rug. She lifted the end behind Iris’s back and hauled it, as if it were a sledge with the old woman aboard, into the kitchen. ‘Do you think you can get up?’ she asked.

  Iris was recovering now, though still shocked. ‘Me chair,’ she mumbled.

  ‘That’s right. Your chair’s here.’ It was an old high-backed wooden armchair, lined with cushions. With Liza supporting her Iris got into it and settled back with a sigh. Liza set the black cap on the wild hair. ‘You’ve had a fall. Just sit quiet now and I’ll get you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Aye,’ Iris said croakily. ‘I was coming down the stairs and I fell. Who are you?’ She peered at Liza in the dimness of the kitchen.

  Liza evaded that question. ‘I was passing and came into the shop.’ She looked about the kitchen. The furniture in there, while old, was in good condition and shining with polish. The hearth was swept and the oven had been freshly blackleaded. A kettle stood on the hob and Liza shook it to make sure there was water in it, then set it on the fire. In a cupboard — well stocked, she noted — she found crockery, sugar, tea and a jug of milk. She sniffed at it suspiciously but it was fresh. The tea made, she sat on a straight-backed chair by Iris and fed it to her in sips.

  Iris sucked it down and licked her lips. ‘I’m grateful to you, canny lass. You’ve been a Good Samaritan to me.’ The window, which looked out on the backyard, showed that darkness was falling now, and in the kitchen they had only the glow of the fire. ‘Why haven’t you put the gas on?’ Iris demanded querulously.

  The lamp hung from the middle of the ceiling, over the kitchen table, and there were spills in a jar on the mantelpiece. Liza lit one in the fire and held the little flame to the gas mantel. It ignited with a pop. She turned back to the fire, and saw that the old woman in the chair was peering at her. Then her lined features twisted with rage and she pointed a clawlike finger. ‘You’re that Spencer bitch!’

  ‘No!’ Liza snapped it. She would not suffer this.

  ‘You are! I saw you wi’ that Billy Morgan! You’re Charlie Spencer’s lass!’ Iris struggled to get out of the chair. ‘What are you after in here? No good, I’ll lay!’

  Liza held her in the chair, but feared she might kill herself in her rage. The Spencer name was causing this fury. ‘I’m not Cecily Spencer!’ Liza said. ‘Do you hear? You mustn’t tell anyone, but I’m not her. My name is Liza Thornton.’

  ‘Not?’ Iris stared, bewildered. ‘Folks said you’d come back and I saw you wi’ Billy.’

  ‘That’s right. But I’m not Cecily.’ Liza took a deep breath. There was nothing else for it now. She had been forced into this to calm Iris but some instinct told her she could trust the old woman. ‘She and I were on this ship ...’ She told Iris briefly how and why she had agreed to play the part of Cecily, and how William and Arkenstall had accepted her.

  Iris listened intently. At the end of the story, she shook her head. ‘I can hardly believe it, but I do. And you trust me? Why? What if I told Billy Morgan and that solicitor, Arkenstall? I know him!’

  ‘I would deny I said it.’

  ‘And of course they all think I’m mad.’ Iris nodded. ‘The little bairns call me a witch.’ She saw Liza blush and smiled thinly. ‘Aye, I know all that. But another thing: what made you come down to this part o’ the town, let alone poking about in here?’

  ‘I came to tell you off about calling me names in the street.’

  Iris blinked, then gave a cackling laugh. ‘You’re a bonny little thing but you’ve got your nerve, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should stop it?’ Liza said. ‘Edward and Charles are dead, and William wasn’t even born when your husband was drowned. Nor was I. And you’re only upsetting yourself. You’d be much happier if you put it all behind you.’

  Iris glared at her. ‘Don’t tell me how to live my life, Miss. Edward Spencer murdered my Barney. He was stone-cold sober when he left the house that night. I saw him off. I swore I would shout the guilt of all of them, every last Spencer, so long as I lived and there was one of them left.’

  ‘There’s only Cecily,’ Liza pointed out, ‘and she’ll collect her inheritance and be gone as soon as she can. She told me so.’

  Iris sniffed, but said nothing, sat stubbornly silent.

  ‘I must go,’ Liza said. She knew she was late. As she rose to her feet she asked, ‘Do you have good neighbours?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ That came grudgingly.

  ‘I’ll ask them to look in later and see that you’re all right.’

  ‘I can manage on my own, but please yourself.’

  ‘And I’ll try to come again. Goodbye.’

  When Liza was nearly at the front door Iris called, ‘Thank ye.’

  Liza smiled. Out in the street she saw a buxom woman standing at the door of one of the flanking houses, with two small thumb-sucking children clinging to her apron. ‘I’m Cecily Spencer,’ Liza introduced herself. ‘I’ve just been in to see Mrs Cruikshank and she’s had a fall. She’s still a bit shaken and I wondered if you would make sure she’s all right later on?’

  The woman clicked her tongue. ‘That Iris! She wants to be more careful at her age. It’s not the first time she’s fell by a long chalk. She’s often busy all day long in that shop and she gets short o’ breath just climbing them stairs. But we’ll see to her, Miss, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Thank y
ou, Mrs ... ?’

  ‘Robson.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Aye. Bless ye.’

  Liza walked into the town and caught a tram. When it put her down she ran from the stop to Spencer Hall. She decided to say nothing of her visit to Iris.

  Elspeth Taggart met her in the hall. ‘We were expecting you earlier but dinner will be late as Captain Morgan is working in his study.’

  Liza took this as a ticking-off for unpunctuality and a warning for her to stay out of the study. It aroused in her the instinct to tease, which had often got her into trouble. But she opened her parcel and showed the dress and apron to the housekeeper. ‘I asked the girl in the shop and bought these for tomorrow. Will they be all right?’

  Elspeth Taggart fingered the material. ‘Aye, they’ll be fine. We’ll start at six forty-five in the morning. There’s a number of jobs to be done before breakfast. If that’s satisfactory to you, Miss Spencer.’

  Liza smiled. ‘Of course. I’ll follow your timetable, Mrs Taggart. Now, excuse me, please.’ Before the other woman could guess her intention, Liza had crossed the hall to William’s office, tapped once on the door and walked in. William looked up, irritated, then grinned as she cried, ‘I’ve bought this for my training tomorrow.’ She held the dress against her and struck a pose remembered from her performance at the Grange. ‘Do you approve, gallant Captain?’

  He feigned bad temper, his brows coming down. ‘Wellington said there was nothing so stupid as a gallant officer.’

  Liza acted up now, hands to her mouth and cringing melodramatically. ‘Oh, sir, say not that I have offended thee!’ Another line written by Gillespie for the play at the Grange.

  William responded in kind: ‘Nay, I know thou art but a foolish child. Thou art forgiven.’

  Child? She walked across to him, for a few seconds sinuous and seductive and she saw his eyes widen. Then she was acting again: ‘Say you approve, good sir.’

  He nodded. ‘I think it will do very well.’

  ‘I should say so.’ Then she ran from the room, laughing, past a scandalised Mrs Taggart and up the stairs. She thought she might have lost some ground with the latter, but she would make it up tomorrow.

  Elspeth was thinking, The miss did that just to show she would not take orders from me. We’ll see.

  * * *

  The next day Liza rose early and put on the brown dress and white apron. She did not hear the bucket clanking outside and knew that boded ill. She ran down the stairs and met the housekeeper at the foot. ‘Good morning, Mrs Taggart.’

  ‘Good morning, Miss Spencer. Are we ready?’

  ‘We are,’ Liza replied meekly.

  ‘Then we’ll make a start. Lesson one: I don’t believe you have a right to give orders until you have learned to take them.’

  Liza nodded vigorously. ‘I agree.’

  ‘Lesson two: I never ask anyone to do something I haven’t done myself.’

  ‘Quite right, Mrs Taggart.’ And now Liza was certain what was coming next.

  Sure enough: ‘We’ll go along to the kitchen and draw a bucket of water. Then we’ll wash the front steps.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Taggart.’

  Minutes later Liza knelt on the front steps with scrubbing brush, cloth and whitening stone. It was a bitter pill to swallow that, to impersonate a young lady of means, she had to go back to the job she thought she had left behind some years ago. Then she realised, with a shock, that she was attacking the job in her old way. That would not do. She wanted to impress the housekeeper, but if she was too good at the tasks set her then Mrs Taggart might smell a rat. In the rest of her work she was careful to show ignorance and had to be enlightened.

  ‘We will carry out the parlourmaid’s duties today,’ said Mrs Taggart. ‘Then tomorrow we’ll practise those of the housemaid.’ So Liza started by opening the shutters, laying and lighting the dining-room fire, dusting the room and finally laying breakfast for eight-fifteen. Martha and Doreen, a lumpish, surly girl, were working in the drawing room. At one point Liza heard Doreen sneer, Now we have a little lady acting the part. I expect we’ll have to clear up behind her.’ Acting the part? Liza thought. If you only knew, my girl!

  When she stopped to wash and have breakfast, she asked, ‘Do you approve of what I’ve done so far, Mrs Taggart?’

  ‘Aye, for someone who hasn’t done any work like this before you’ve done verra weel.’

  When she joined William at the table she told him, ‘Mrs Taggart says I’ve done verra weel.’

  He recognised the impersonation and chuckled.

  Liza ate with the knowledge that she had still to clear away breakfast, make beds, clean and polish the silver before lunch.

  But there was relief. As William drove off in the Vauxhall and she was about to begin again, Mrs Taggart called from the hall, ‘Miss Spencer! Your heavy baggage has arrived.’ Liza recalled Cecily saying her baggage would follow later. She could see from the window the wagon from the station, the two horses nodding and blowing where they stood before the house. The housekeeper continued, ‘I think you’d better supervise Martha while she unpacks for you. Doreen will finish off down here. I’ve sent for Gibson and Cully to carry the trunks upstairs.’

  Liza went to her room and was joined by a breathless Martha running up from the kitchen. She was just in time as the two men laboured, sweating, up the stairs with the first of two large trunks. Liza found the keys Cecily had given her and fumbled to get them into the locks, her thoughts already on the contents. Were there more shocks for her?

  She opened the lid of the first, and breathed a sigh of relief. The only problem was where to store everything. She let Martha hang up all the dresses. Liza would not wear them — like the first, they fitted well enough but were too long. She would use the things she had bought. The shoes she put away in a corner of the wardrobe; they were all size six, too large for Liza. It was at that point that Mrs Taggart knocked and entered to ask, ‘Is everything in order?’

  Liza smiled up from where she knelt by the wardrobe. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  The housekeeper picked up a pair of Cecily’s shoes that had strayed, a size six in black patent leather. She examined them and sniffed as she passed them to Liza.

  ‘Those heels are too high.’

  Liza tucked them away. ‘I probably won’t wear them.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to get on, Miss.’ She stalked out, taking her disapproval with her.

  If Elspeth Taggart had noticed that the shoes were a size bigger than Liza’s she would have wondered. Liza did not want that: it could lead to suspicion — and her unmasking. She told herself again to be constantly on her guard.

  16

  MONDAY, 28 JANUARY 1907, SUNDERLAND

  ‘Today we’re carrying on with cleaning the dining room.’ Elspeth Taggart eyed Liza, whose course of instruction was continuing. Indeed, it had not ceased over the weekend, when she had done some general dusting and cleaning, and numerous other duties under the housekeeper’s supervision. Now: ‘Carpets to be swept, loose rugs beaten, all furniture dusted ...’ She reeled off the list. ‘This is usually Doreen’s job, but today she can help me sort the linen. If you want any advice just ask me.’

  Liza had come to know all the servants: Mrs Bainbridge, the cook, little Mabel, the scullery-maid, and the three maids, Martha, Doreen and Hilda, a placid country girl. Doreen gave Liza a sulky look, then her eyes slid away and she followed Elspeth Taggart out of the room. Liza had read that look and guessed what it meant: Doreen resented someone else, particularly a lady, being given her job. She shrugged, rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She soon discovered that, if this was Doreen’s job, she had not been doing it properly. The rugs had not been beaten, the carpets not properly swept and there were pockets of dust everywhere. Liza left a few because she was supposed to be a raw recruit, but when she had finished she was satisfied that the place was much improved.

  She reported to the housekeeper who said, ‘Finishe
d already? Sure you’ve done it properly? Doreen takes a lot longer than that. I’ll look at it. Come on, Doreen.’ She inspected the dining room with her sharp eye, found the dust Liza had left, and finished examining the mirror polish on the long table in the centre of the room. She nodded. ‘You’ve done very well, Miss Spencer. I inspect this room every day and this is the best it’s been for weeks.’ Her gaze shifted to Doreen and her tone became acidic: ‘A sight better than you ever leave it. Miss Spencer should be learning from you but she could teach you a few things. I’ve spoken to you before but this is the last time I’ll tell you. Either you mend your ways or you’ll be looking for another place. Now, get on with sorting that linen.’

  Doreen flounced away, pouting, and Mrs Taggart sighed. ‘Yell take note, Miss. That’s another of the housekeeper’s responsibilities and not my favourite. Now, come along.’ She led out into the hall, saying, ‘This afternoon I want you—’

  This afternoon is free for Miss Spencer, Elspeth.’ William had come out of his study. ‘From what you tell me she’s making good progress and she’s supposed to be learning, not performing. From now on she finishes at lunch.’

  ‘As you wish, Captain.’ And to Liza: ‘Till the morning, then.’

  ‘Yes, please, Mrs Taggart.’

  That afternoon Liza walked down through Mowbray Park and posted a letter. It had been written in the privacy of her room and was addressed to her mother and Susan. She tried to write to them daily. She walked on towards the river until she came to the tagareen shop. For the last hundred yards she was accompanied by the usual crowd of grubby urchins, drawn to her by her fashionable clothes. Some remembered her. One little lad called, ‘Have you come back to see the auld witch again?’

  ‘She’s not a witch,’ Liza corrected him. ‘Just a nice old lady without any bairns to keep her company.’ He looked taken aback by this and none too sure, so Liza left the message to sink in. She walked through the shop and found Iris sitting in her armchair before the fire, her shawl round her shoulders, her cap square on her head. ‘Hello, Mrs Cruikshank, how are you today?’