‘Eeh, I were right worried yer were goin’ to be late an’ feel the length o’ Mrs Bradshaw’s tongue,’ the young girl told her as she began to lead Maria back along the seemingly endless corridors. ‘She’s a right stickler fer time-keepin’, is the Matron.’
Maria eyed the girl quizzically before asking, ‘Don’t you ever get any time off, Kitty?’ She was so pale that she looked as if she had never stepped out into the fresh air at all.
‘Not me, miss,’ Kitty answered. ‘I ain’t never been beyond the gates o’ the Hall in me whole life.’
Despite her own misery, Maria was appalled. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Seems they found me mam layin’ outside the gates an’ fetched ’er in. Then she died shortly after I were born an’ they’ve kept me in ’ere ever since. I’ve been workin’ since I were eight years old. I don’t even know what me mam’s name were or where I come from.’
‘But that’s just awful!’ Maria gasped. ‘Why don’t you tell them you want to leave?’
‘An’ where would I go if I did?’ Kitty grinned at her ruefully and for the first time Maria really looked at her properly. She was small for her age, which Maria judged to be a couple of years younger than herself. She was painfully thin too, but Maria suspected that dressed in different clothes and with her hair loose instead of hidden under a mob cap, she might actually be quite pretty: her eyes were a lovely amber colour and the tiny wisps of hair that had escaped her cap were a deep brunette. Just for a moment the girl had taken her mind off her own problems and now Maria felt ashamed. Poor Kitty. It looked as if the girl would live and die in this wretched place without ever having known any other life at all.
They were climbing the stairs to the wing that housed Miss Isabelle now and Maria made a mental note to speak more kindly to Kitty in future.
‘There y’are then, miss,’ the maid said when she had unlocked the door. ‘I’ll be back up shortly wi’ your suppers.’
‘Thank you, Kitty.’ Maria watched her walk away then hurried to her room to get changed into her house shoes and tidy herself up.
*
‘Ah, so you’re back at last, are you?’ Isabelle snapped, the second Maria set foot into her rooms. ‘It must be nice to be allowed some freedom instead of being caged up here like some animal at a sideshow!’
‘I’m sure it will not be for too much longer, miss,’ Maria replied patiently as she began to tidy away the stack of books that the girl had flung about the room in her absence. It was as she was lifting one particular book that the title caught her eye and she could not prevent herself from glancing at the first page.
‘Why are you looking at that?’ Isabelle asked irritably.
‘It’s David Copperfield, miss. A book I’ve long wanted to read.’
‘Read? You can read?’ Isabelle repeated incredulously. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Then prove it to me, girl. Read something aloud!’
When Maria sat down and began the first chapter, the young woman’s mouth gaped wide open. Not only could this chit read, she could read well.
‘I didn’t think that servants were literate,’ she interrupted.
Maria looked back at her with her head held high. ‘Servants are people, miss – flesh and blood, just the same as you, but without the privileges. Perhaps you should remember that!’
For the first time in their acquaintance, Isabelle was rendered speechless. She stared at Maria in amazement.
Then Maria coolly placed the book down and quietly left the room, locking the door securely behind her. Let the spoiled little madam think on that and stew in her own juice for a while, she thought as she wearily made her way to her own room. She was sick and tired of her, and at that moment she didn’t even care if she was dismissed. After all, now that she had lost Lennie, what did she have to look forward to?
Chapter Nine
Maria did not venture into Isabelle’s room again until Kitty came up with their evening meal. When she carried the tray in, the girl was much more subdued and for once did not instantly spew out a mouthful of abuse. Isabelle could see that Maria had been crying but she made no comment as Maria set the food out on the table.
Normally she would scream that she wasn’t hungry, but tonight she meekly took a seat and after lifting her knife and fork, began to eat the meal that the cook had prepared for her. Maria was secretly pleased, although she had no intention of commenting on the fact. Isabelle had hardly eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive since she had been there, and the girl knew that it could not be good for her or the unborn child she was carrying. No one had actually confirmed that Isabelle was with child, but the signs she was displaying were identical to how Maria herself was feeling – and she was no fool.
‘Will there be anything else, miss?’ she asked as she poured some wine into a cut-glass goblet.
‘No, thank you. You may go and have your own meal now.’
Disguising her shock, Maria turned away. It was the first time that Isabelle had spoken to her as if she was a human being, let alone said thank you, so Maria took it as a major step forward. Once back in her own room, she lifted the lid on her dish. Cook had prepared two plump lamb chops and a selection of vegetables for Isabelle, but Maria’s meal consisted of two cold sausages and a dollop of mashed potato. It didn’t really bother her. At least the food here was plentiful, if plain, and tonight she wasn’t hungry anyway.
Crossing to the window she stared sightlessly through the glass to the darkness beyond, and for the first time she was forced to acknowledge what a truly terrible position she was in. Until now she had held firm to the belief that Lennie would come for her like a knight on a white charger and rescue her from shame, but that could never happen now.
Choking back a sob, she composed herself, and after lifting the candle she went back to Isabelle’s room leaving her meal untouched. She was pleased to see that the young woman had at least eaten a portion of her supper tonight and as she loaded the pots back onto the tray, Isabelle said, ‘I think I may get dressed tomorrow.’
‘As you wish, miss,’ Maria answered expressionlessly and she then left the room, placing the trays on the landing table for Kitty to collect. In her present mood it felt as if it was going to be a very long night.
The following morning, Kitty delivered a plateful of bacon, sausages, mushrooms and two fat kidneys for Isabelle’s breakfast. There was a dishful of watery porridge for Maria, which she forced herself to eat once she had seen to the needs of her mistress.
When the meal was over, Isabelle told her, ‘I think I would like to take a bath today. Could you arrange that for me?’
Within minutes of Maria ringing the bell, Kitty and another of the servants were carrying up cans of steaming water and filling up the large bath-tub. At home they each took turns in a tin bath in front of the fire, so this was luxury indeed to Maria. When the bath was ready for her, Maria helped Isabelle to undress and steadied her as she stepped into it. The young woman sank down beneath the hot water, telling Maria, ‘Wash my hair, please.’
Maria obliged, using French soap and jugs of clean hot water. Half an hour later, as Isabelle sat at her dressingtable in a silk negligée, Maria began to gently comb out the tangles in her hair.
‘Have you ever dressed anyone’s hair before?’ Isabelle asked.
Maria shook her head. ‘No, miss, but I’m quick to learn if you’ll tell me how you’d like it.’ She fumbled with the pins as Isabelle gave instructions and sometime later she stood back to study her efforts. Not bad for a first time, even if I do say so myself, she thought to herself. Isabelle’s hair was beautiful, long and thick with a tendency to curl. Maria had swept part of it up onto the top of her head and now, as it dried in the heat from the fire, it looked very becoming falling in tiny ringlets down her back. Isabelle turned her head this way and that in the mirror, then rose without comment and went to her wardrobe where she began to withdraw a number of silk gowns that had Maria’s eyes popping.
‘I think I shall wear this one
,’ she said eventually, throwing a blue gown trimmed with lace across the foot of the bed. ‘Help me into my stays and my petticoats now, would you?’
Once dressed, the girl was totally transformed, and Maria could not help but stare at her admiringly. Isabelle was truly beautiful, a fact of which she was all too well aware.
‘Oh well, that got rid of a little time,’ Isabelle said peevishly. ‘Now we just have the rest of another long day to get through.’
Maria made no comment as she went about gathering the damp towels together for Kitty to take down to the laundry.
Once the bath was emptied – a laborious process – and the rooms were tidied, Maria suggested, ‘Would you like me to read to you, miss?’
‘I suppose so. There is nothing else for us to do,’ Isabelle said sulkily.
Maria suppressed a sigh. Since the evening before, Isabelle had been slightly less irritable, but now it looked as if she was going to revert to her normal spoiled self.
‘Which book would you like me to read?’
Isabelle had begun to pace again and now she waved her hand impatiently. ‘Oh any, I suppose. I am not really interested anyway.’
Maria began to peruse the beautiful leather-bound books on the shelf and it was then that Isabelle suddenly paused to ask, ‘Do you know why I have been locked away here, Maria?’
Maria answered carefully. ‘Well, I haven’t been told, miss, but I think I have a good idea.’
Isabelle was stroking her stomach thoughtfully. ‘I am going to have a child,’ she confided. ‘And I just pray daily that I might lose it. You are of the working class – do you not know of a way I may achieve this?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t, miss.’ Maria stared at her steadily as Isabelle stamped her dainty silk-shod foot.
‘Oh, damn and blast,’ she cursed as she built herself up to yet another tantrum. ‘Why did this have to go and happen to me? And why did Papa see fit to lock me away in this hellhole! Surely he could have found a better place for me to go until this bastard is out of me. I hope the monster dies at birth for all the grief it has caused me!’
Maria was so shocked that she was rendered temporarily speechless. Isabelle meanwhile was tapping her foot at the injustice of it all. It had never occurred to her that the position she was in was partly her fault.
‘My parents want me to marry Philip Harrington. Have you heard of him?’ she demanded.
Maria nodded. Everyone in Ansley and Hartshill had heard of the Harringtons. Much like the Montgomerys, they were a very influential family.
‘Do you not like Philip then?’ she asked innocently. She had seen him a few times in the family carriage or on his stallion and thought what a handsome young man he was. She had certainly never heard a bad word said about him, or his father for that matter, who was commonly known to be a fair man. But the mother was cut from a different cloth entirely: rumour had it that she was a shrew who led her poor husband a merry dance.
‘It’s not that I don’t like him exactly. He is certainly goodlooking, and when his parents die he will be very wealthy indeed. It’s just that after knowing my Pierre he is so utterly boring. Like a little puppy dog, if you know what I mean.’
‘Would it be such a bad thing to be married to a man who is kind?’ Maria said practically. ‘What is it about him that you find boring?’ She could only assume that Pierre must be the father of Isabelle’s unborn child.
Isabelle tossed her head. ‘Just about everything!’ She spread her hands expressively. ‘He works every single day in one or another of his father’s factories because he says he wants to know everything about them before he inherits. Can you believe that? It’s so ridiculous when he can well afford to just put a manager in.’
Maria secretly thought it was admirable of Philip to want to feel that he was earning his living, but she wisely held her tongue. Also, as much as she disliked her father for the majority of the time, and although he was merely a poor preacher, he was actually a very learned man and had insisted that his children should be well educated, for which she was truly grateful. Maria had always been like a sponge when it came to learning, and she was sure that she was more knowledgeable than her mistress, had it been put to the test. Isabelle’s head seemed to be full of nothing more than the latest fashions and getting her own way, whereas Maria was keen to know about world events as much as was possible. But then they had been brought up so very differently. It was doubtful that Isabelle would ever have experienced what it was like to be hungry, as Maria herself had been at times, or to know how it felt to have no decent shoes to wear.
Isabelle idly flicked the lid of her jewellery box now and withdrew a sparkling ring with a green stone in it surrounded by diamonds set in gold. ‘Have you ever seen an emerald before?’ she asked as she placed it on her finger and held her hand out so that Maria might admire it. The stones snatched at the light, throwing rainbow prisms across the walls, and Maria thought she had never seen anything quite so splendid. In truth, the only piece of jewellery she had ever seen was her mother’s plain gold wedding band, but she had read about various gemstones in books.
‘No, I haven’t,’ she admitted. ‘It’s quite beautiful.’
Isabelle withdrew another ring; this time with a red stone in it. ‘This is a ruby,’ she informed Maria. ‘And they are worth a fortune.’ Her eyes became crafty then as she said cajolingly, ‘If you could get me out of this place I would give them to you. Think of it – you would be rich.’
Maria stared at her. ‘But that would be nigh on impossible,’ she answered honestly. ‘The door at the end of the landing is securely locked at all times. Even I cannot get out.’ It seemed that Isabelle would stop at nothing to escape her prison; she had already tried pleading and threatening, and now she had resorted to bribery.
‘Oh!’ Fury twisted Isabelle’s pretty face into a mask of hatred as she picked her hairbrush up and aimed it at Maria. ‘You are no better than the rest of them,’ she screamed. ‘Pretending to be my friend but all the time you are as intent on keeping me locked up here as they are!’
She was just about to launch the hairbrush when Maria leaped forward and caught her wrist in a vice-like grip as something inside her snapped and her blue eyes flashed fire. She had endured all Isabelle’s tantrums, the tears and the accusations, the rantings and the ravings, but now she had had enough.
‘I have never professed to be your friend,’ she ground out. ‘I am merely employed as your maid. But that does not give you licence to treat me as you wish. Do you hear me?’ Her face was as red as Isabelle’s now as all her fears and frustrations surfaced. ‘I have served you as best I could,’ she rushed on. ‘But I’ll tell you now, I will not allow you to throw another single thing at me! You are so spoiled you are utterly unbelievable. What makes you think that you are the only person in the world who is in trouble, eh? Because let me tell you, my fine madam, you are not!’
Isabelle’s mouth gaped open. All her life she had been pandered to and given everything she demanded. No one had ever spoken to her as this girl was doing now. But what could she have meant when she said she was not the only one in trouble? And then suddenly it came to her in a blinding flash as she shook her wrist free.
‘You are with child too, aren’t you?’ she choked.
Maria’s shoulders suddenly sagged and in that moment Isabelle knew that she had guessed correctly. That would explain Maria’s red swollen eyes and her quietness.
‘Yes, I am.’ Maria knew that it would be useless to lie. Hers was not a condition that could be hidden indefinitely.
Isabelle regarded her steadily but eventually Maria’s fighting spirit returned and she told her, ‘You can tell Mrs Bradshaw if you wish – I have no doubt you will. I shall be dismissed, of course, but I dare say I shall survive.’
‘I shall be telling her nothing,’ Isabelle retorted. ‘The truth will come out eventually anyway, but until then I should like to keep you with me.’
‘You would?’ Maria was asto
unded. She had thought Isabelle hated her but perhaps she had been wrong.
‘You intrigue me,’ Isabelle said with a shrug. ‘I have never known a servant girl like you. Should you be properly dressed, I have no doubt you could be mistaken for gentry. In fact, sometimes you put me to shame.’ She grinned ruefully then before confiding, ‘I know that I have been spoiled shamelessly, which is probably why I am in this condition now. But you . . . you are so very rational, Maria. I would have thought you would have had more sense.’
‘We are all fools when it comes to love.’ Maria’s eyes welled with tears as she explained, ‘I have had a very strict upbringing and so when I met a lad from the village who showed me some affection, I was swept off my feet. He told me that he loved me and I believed him. I thought that with him I would lead a different sort of life. Then one evening he . . . Well, let’s just say that things went a little too far and I soon realised that I was with child. I went to see him to tell him that he was going to be a father but then he ran away to sea. He would have come back though,’ she said quickly, ‘but then when I went home on Sunday my mother informed me that he had been involved in a brawl at the docks and was stabbed. He is dead,’ her voice grew fragile, ‘and once my father discovers I am with child he will disown me.’ Her eyes filled with tears.
‘How awful,’ Isabelle exclaimed, forgetting her own troubles for the time being. ‘So what will you do now?’
Maria sighed and wiped her eyes. ‘I shall have to find another job and somewhere to stay, and then I shall try to work until the baby is born.’
Isabelle felt ashamed. At least her parents were prepared to stand by her, even if they had had her locked away until the confinement was over.
‘How far along are you?’ she asked now.
‘A little over two months.’
‘And so am I,’ Isabelle answered quickly and the two of them lapsed into silence as they each pondered on their dilemma.
A Mother's Shame Page 9
