Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  Wilson passed Mr Barrett on the stairs as she went down to the kitchen carrying Miss Elizabeth’s dinner tray, on which the food was barely touched. He frowned and stopped, ‘You carry trays, Wilson? Can this be right?’ ‘It is to avoid disturbing Miss Elizabeth, sir, it means no one else need enter her room, sir.’ The frown lifted a little. Wilson stood there uncertainly, not knowing whether to proceed or not. The tray began to tremble a little in her hands with the effort of holding it steady. ‘Take your tray, Wilson,’ Mr Barrett said finally, nodding, ‘you do well.’ Relieved, she continued to descend the stairs but was not even to the first level when she clearly heard Miss Henrietta’s laughter and the sound of a door banging and feet pattering and she froze, knowing the master would hear them too and that, if he came to investigate the hilarity would see what she saw: Surtees Cook hand in hand with Henrietta in the hall and Simon pop-eyed still holding the knob of the closed door. But fortunately Mr Barrett continued on his way to see his eldest daughter and, that time, disaster was averted. Wilson was relieved. Her mistress’s desire not to be involved was beginning to be hers. Not to know was to avoid blame, or to go a good way towards doing so. She deposited the tray and, after Mr Barrett had gone, returned to Miss Elizabeth’s room. She finished tidying the room and lifted Flush up. The doctor had been adamant: Flush was not to sleep on his mistress’s bed but in his basket. The moment she lifted the dog he began to struggle and yelp, desperate to return and snuggle down under the bedcovers. Miss Elizabeth smiled and murmured that surely one night would not hurt but Wilson said she had her orders from the doctor and from the master and she was disposed to obey them. She said she would bring the little dog back when Charles had taken him into the yard. Miss Elizabeth roused herself to beg her to make sure Charles watched over Flush carefully and did not allow Catiline, Henry’s blood-hound, to harass poor Flushie. Wilson said she would do so, though she knew as everyone else in the house did that it was Flush, a quarter the size of the other dogs, who terrorised them.

  But when she reached the kitchen, carrying the squirming spaniel, Charles was not there. Instead there was a new young man.

  ‘Oh Wilson,’ said Minnie Robinson (who Wilson could see was flustered and anxious), ‘this is Timothy. Charles has been sent off.’ Wilson did not enquire why. Twice this week she had seen Charles quaking outside the master’s study and heard some talk of his having been caught drinking wine in the cellar but she had firmly repressed her desire to know more. In good time, all was always known in this household.

  ‘This is Mrs Wilson,’ Minnie said, ‘who is lady’s maid to Miss Elizabeth Barrett.’ Wilson nodded, Timothy smiled. Afterwards, Wilson described to her mother how:

  — there was no cheek or Impudence in his smile mother or I assure you he would not have had one back from me and indeed I was very sparing with my greeting knowing full well as I have always done how Smiling can be misunderstood and that it is better to withhold the smiles at first. But he is a pleasant young man who conducts himself Seriously and appears respectful to all. He had a place at Mr Kenyon’s in Devonshire Street I think it was but Mr Kenyon shutting up his house to go abroad had no need of him until the spring when he has been told he will be taken on again if he wishes and that is as good a recommendation as any the master has said. He is not tall but he is broad and strong looking and looks well in his uniform better than Charles who wore it untidily and often annoyed Mr John who took responsibility for him. He is from the Isle of Wight where Mr Kenyon has a house and came into his service at twelve years old being boot boy. All this I learned from Minnie for you can be sure mother I did not question him in such a familiar manner myself. Flush tried to bite him of course but he dealt firmly with that naughty animal and said as how Mr Kenyon had warned him of that Mighty Fierce Hound and had been bitten himself and had told Timothy the way to Flush’s heart was with a cake. I said there was some truth in that but that Flush would not take cakes from anyone and Timothy said he had no cake in any case. He stroked Flush cleverly and took him into the yard and caught him again without difficulty and had the decency to wipe the dog’s paws before he handed him back for it was raining outside and they were wet. He will do well here I should think if he can keep clear of Tilly who made eyes at him immediately —

  Wilson was not in the kitchen long enough to observe how Timothy responded to Tilly’s eye-flutterings and coquettish smiles. Doubtless he would be flattered, as most men were, but she wondered if he would be smart enough to scent the danger, to appreciate that Tilly could hardly help herself and that her flirting meant nothing. Tilly was flying higher than a mere footman. She had a follower who was butler to a household round the corner and was proud of it and had told Minnie she could not help it, if it came to something sooner rather than later. Minnie told Wilson privately that she only hoped it did and that Tilly would marry her butler and be sent off, and next time she would take care to engage a girl a good deal more humble and docile. But this Timothy would provide Tilly with some sport which she would consider harmless and Wilson feared for him. She watched him carefully over the following weeks and was relieved to find he was more knowing and adept than she had given him credit for. He smiled back at Tilly readily enough but Wilson noticed he never sat beside her at dinner, even when a chair was vacant, and never allowed himself to be alone with her but moved on quickly, inventing, Wilson was sure, some pressing business. It was hard to fathom Timothy who, as she told her mother

  — is not in the ordinary run of young men mother but is a Curious Fellow. For one thing he reads and I do not only mean newspapers as many a footman does if they are passed down to him but pamphlets which he buys and which he says are about the Condition of the World in which he is much interested. He is quiet about it and does not Flaunt his reading but I have come upon him in corners applying himself and never hearing me pass. And Miss Elizabeth has noticed him too for yesterday she said to me oh Wilson this may be the last warm day of the year for I do not often go out after the end of September and so I think I would like to go to Regents Park if you are willing and I said as I was surely willing and ready and it was Timothy who carried the chair down and placed her in it. When he had left us seeing I managed well Miss Elizabeth said so that is the new footman is it and I have heard he is a good fellow who does not drink and is dutiful and my father says he is an asset and I must write and thank Mr Kenyon for loaning him to us. I said nothing, except that I believed he was giving satisfaction but that I could not judge since I had little to do with him I was sure. Miss Elizabeth murmured the lady doth protest too much and smiled and since I failed to take her meaning mother I said nothing. After an hour Timothy came to accompany us back as had been arranged and Miss Elizabeth spoke to him charmingly. She asked if he liked his new place and he said he did and she said she believed he was a Reader and he said he was and he hoped it caused no offence and she said indeed no he had come to the right house to be a Reader and might she inquire what he read and he said all the information as he could get about why the world was as it is. This pulled her up mother you can imagine. She thought a bit and then she said had he found any answers and he said not yet but he lived in hopes. When we were back in her room, Miss Elizabeth asked me if I did not find Timothy pleasing. I said I did not know. I did not think about him. Well Wilson she says then you are even more extraordinary than I thought. I said nothing. It is not often an attractive young Man who shows he has a Mind comes your way Wilson she said eventually and yet you do not think about him. I knew I coloured mother and indeed I was hurt. Do you have a brother Wilson she asked for I believe you have only told me of sisters. No I said I have no brother. Well she said that explains all for I have had eight brothers and I have been teased within an inch of my life by all of them over such things and in truth my dear that is all I was doing and I see you are not used to it and take it ill and I am sorry for it. Then I said I did not take it ill but that it was ill founded teasing for I had spoken the truth —

  But had she? Wils
on struggled to assure herself that she had, that she had no interest in Timothy as she had declared. Yet there was no denying she was aware of his presence and that, unlike Charles’s, it did not serve only to annoy. Timothy never spoke to her unless there was strict need. He made no attempt at small talk and neither did she. When they passed each other on the stairs, the place they seemed most frequently to meet, he stood aside and was polite and she was polite in return and tried if possible not to raise her eyes. At dinner he rarely sat near her and, when he did so, politeness again ruled the day. He spoke to Minnie deferentially, as he ought, and to Mr John but did not take part in the banter of the other servants. Once Tilly found he was proof against her charms she quickly branded him a snob and wished he were back in his old place for he was a wet blanket with his reading and his silences. Wilson saw that no one agreed with her. She watched the other servants and saw clearly that Timothy had become popular without trying. There was something about his solid appearance which inspired confidence. He was always smart and clean and alert and the smile Wilson had admired from the very first proved to be no superficial grin, to be switched on and off at will, but a sign of his warmth and own contentment. Whatever Timothy’s worries about the world, he did not let them drag him down. There was no restless talk, no evidence that he wanted to be up and off.

  He had become friends, in so far as the term could be applied in such circumstances, with Mr Octavius. Wilson saw them together going out of the house, Mr Octavius even putting an arm round Timothy’s shoulder and laughing. Timothy, she noted, was not familiar in spite of this; there was the same politeness in his demeanour as always. She wondered what Mr John would think and if the master had observed the connection. But then it turned out the master had himself appointed Timothy to accompany his youngest son about town, which intrigued Wilson and raised Timothy higher in her estimation. She allowed herself to relax her guard a little and, though still offering no direct encouragement, did not actively ignore the young man. Now, when he offered to relieve her of Flush as she carried the dog up or down the stairs – he had a habit of tearing along and doing his best to trip up anyone also negotiating the stairs – she accepted. She went so far, surprising herself, to remark one day that he had quite won Flush over. He said he had been brought up with dogs and knew their ways. He said sometimes he thought they were a deal easier to understand than many a human being of his acquaintance and then begged her pardon if that had sounded rude. Wilson said he had not sounded rude and that she thought what he said had some truth in it. Timothy said, ‘Mr Flush seems to mean a great deal to Miss Elizabeth.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Wilson replied. ‘She loves him to distraction.’

  ‘He is a comfort to her, being confined to her room mostly.’

  ‘Oh, he is more than that,’ Wilson said, smiling. ‘She teaches him to count, you know, and even to read though her brothers laugh her to shame. He is a spoiled little dog, is Mr Flush.’

  ‘So people say but an excess of love never hurt anyone that I have seen.’

  Wilson did not reply to that, feeling vaguely shocked at such free talking. The sentiments Timothy expressed without any kind of embarrassment alarmed her – this was not the stuff of pleasantries, not the nice-day, are-you-well of normal intercourse. Yet he did not seem to think he had said anything in the least out of the ordinary, and maybe he had not. Alone in her room, Wilson wondered why she recoiled at the very word ‘love’. Miss Elizabeth spoke freely enough of love, though not of romantic love, and her poetry was full of it. But Wilson never did, it was not how she had been brought up nor how she was in herself. She knew she loved her mother and sisters but endearments had barely existed between them and demonstrations of affection were rare. The only expressed love was for God, said in prayers, sung in hymns, chanted in psalms. Watching the master at evening prayers Wilson had been struck by the passion with which he loved God. Through lowered eyelids she had seen Mr Barrett’s face lighten, in a way it never did at any other time, when he spoke of the love he had for God who saw all and understood all and would redeem all. ‘Let us love the Lord,’ he would end and his expression was fervent enough to make Wilson uneasy. At other times when she met him on the stairs or crossing the hall, the harshness of his face contrasted violently with his praying look – there was no movement in it, it was set and stern and above all closed.

  Timothy, Wilson soon saw, was not afraid of Mr Barrett any more than she was. They were both united in this lack of fear which was so clearly exhibited among the other servants, both higher and lower (for both Minnie and Mr John had a trace of fear for the master, though it was kept well hidden). Everyone recognised this, of course. Should any servant need to have dealings with the master, the help and advice of Timothy or Wilson was quickly sought. They became the oracles on how Mr Barrett would react and they were always uncannily right. Timothy in particular, after he had been in the house no more than a month, could predict what Mr Barrett would say or do and he was regarded with considerable awe because of this unfailing instinct. ‘The master cannot abide deceit,’ he explained once to Wilson, ‘and that is the key to him.’ Wilson nodded but ventured to add, ‘It is how he judges deceit that counts.’ It was Timothy’s turn to nod. ‘There are those,’ he said, ‘who would not recognise deceit if you showed it to them and those who would smell it however it was disguised and the master is one of them: he has a nose for it, and so have I.’ Wilson thought a moment and then said, ‘I, too.’ The silence between them afterwards, held for a full five minutes, felt precious to her.

  She told no one of this bond, this growing bond, with Timothy. It did not do to talk of one servant to another and even Minnie was included in that ban. Nor did she mention it in her letters home, knowing only too well how mother would latch on to it and imagine things. The only person with whom she was tempted to discuss Timothy was Miss Elizabeth. It became an almost overpowering urge and Wilson found herself opening and closing her mouth like a fish many times in her need to speak. This came upon her either late in the afternoon, at tea time, when there was something particularly cosy about the tableau in the room or at night, when she was making her mistress ready for bed and the atmosphere in the lamplight was predictably intimate.

  Wilson liked Miss Elizabeth’s room at night. During the day, she found it oppressive, too dark and dismal until the sun struggled through the blind at three o’clock. Often, she wished she could clear away one of the sofas, the heavy maroon silk-covered one for preference since it took up so much room, and move the claw-legged armchair to a corner instead of allowing it to dominate the centre space, and insist some of the books should go to make more space and light. But Miss Elizabeth liked it dim, preferred the crowding, said the busts of the poets looked better perched above so many volumes of their works. Once Wilson tentatively mentioned her worry that the room was not clean enough, with so much to attract dust, but Miss Elizabeth said she was quite comfortable with dust and her lungs were used to it. She was amused at Wilson’s irritation, though it was barely expressed. With the lamps lit and the curtains closed the fire built up and burning merrily Wilson liked the room better and was always pleased when this stage of the day was reached. It was then, going lovingly through the rituals of hair-brushing and washing, that she felt so near to speaking of Timothy. And Miss Elizabeth, as though she had divined this, tempted her by speaking of him first.

  ‘Papa says, Wilson, that Timothy reads newspapers most attentively and is of the same mind as he is about the Chartists.’

  ‘Indeed, miss.’

  ‘Papa thinks him a most intelligent fellow, quite above his station in life, and wonders at it.’

  Wilson said nothing, only concentrated hard on brushing hair, forty, forty-one, forty-two strokes, counting softly aloud the better to appear abstracted.

  ‘He must have had some real education to be so informed. I shall ask my cousin Kenyon all about him when he returns. Does Timothy intrigue you yet, Wilson? And I do not seek to tease you this time
, dear.’

  ‘I have very little to do with him, miss. He seems pleasant enough. But I hardly mix.’

  ‘So I hear. Now that is both a good thing and a bad thing, Wilson. I like your discretion, it pleases me, but to carry it to the extent of never mixing is to deprive yourself of friends, is it not?’

  ‘I have no need of friends, miss.’ When she said this, Miss Elizabeth put up her hand and stayed the hairbrush and twisted round to look up at her maid, who gazed back at her, quite composed, only anxious to continue brushing, to count sixty-two, sixty-three until a hundred was reached and the hair glistening in the firelight, crackling with its black energy.

  ‘I hope I am your friend, Wilson? I never could abide those who say they could not be friends with a servant and boast of the distance they keep. I wish to be thought of as a friend.’

  ‘Very well, miss.’

  Miss Elizabeth let the hair-brushing continue, apparently satisfied and there was no more such talk that evening. Instead, she complimented Wilson on the success of the recipe she had used to wash her thick, black hair, shining now so beautifully. She begged Wilson to tell her once more what she had used and, relieved to return to such mundane matters, Wilson related how she mixed half a drachm of rosemary oil and half an ounce of honey and one ounce of proof spirits then added half a pint of lavender water gradually, finishing with the final addition of an ounce of Belmont glycerine.

  ‘You should market it, dear,’ Miss Elizabeth said, laughing, ‘and make your fortune.’

  But Wilson reflected long and hard on what had been said previously. What did it mean, a mistress telling a maid she hoped she was her friend, that she wished to be thought of in this relation? To her ears, it sounded either false or dangerous or perhaps both. The gap was too wide. To be a friend, her mistress would need to bridge that gap, surely, and Wilson could not think how this could be done. Certainly she could not do it. She saw very plainly that it was her role to respond but not initiate and even in her response to be at all times guarded and prepared.