‘Well then, what I say is let us wait until it comes to pass.’
‘Wait?’
‘You said “in a short time”, – Timothy. Let us wait that short time until your printing business is in profit and then marry if you will.’
He was silent, searching her face, weighing his words. She looked at him without flinching and ready to be judged. ‘A short time,’ he said slowly, ‘was a manner of speaking. I do not know how long it will take to prove myself in this printing business. It may take one year, two years, even three, though I will work my back off to make it shorter.’
‘Very well,’ she said, ‘one, two, three years, what of it?’
‘What of it? That you can ask? All that time when we might be together, working together?’
‘I, work as a printer?’
‘No, no, you know I did not mean that, I meant living together, me working and you – ’
‘Yes, me what?’
‘Why, supporting me as a wife and – ’
‘Bearing children?’
‘If God willed it, in time.’
‘And if the printing business were to fail?’
‘Well, then, I can always return to this work.’
‘With a wife and those children God wills?’
‘Lily, you are hard on me.’
‘I am hard on myself, hard headed for both our sakes and you will thank me for it.’
‘Do you not love me?’
‘I may do, who can tell? If I do, I will find out. It will stand the test of time.’
‘So the answer is no.’
‘The answer is the one I have given you, honestly and it has cost me dear to pain you, believe me.’
At that, he came round the table and put his hands on her shoulders and sighed. ‘Nothing is ever simple,’ he said, ‘and I thought at least this was, a man loving a woman and wanting to marry.’
‘Why, Wilson, my dear, you are as white as a ghost!’ Miss Elizabeth cried the moment she returned to the drawing room. She half rose from the sofa, her face anxious and her arms outstretched. Wilson sat down quickly, embarrassment and distress turning her complexion from white to red, which at least reassured her mistress. ‘Then you are not ill,’ Miss Elizabeth said, ‘it is something else or someone else, am I not right?’ Wilson had not the energy to put up a pretence. She nodded, busied herself once more with the sewing. ‘It is Timothy?’ again, she nodded, feeling too helpless to resist. ‘Well, I thought as much,’ Miss Elizabeth said indignantly, ‘he has been importuning you and must be spoken to. I will not have my maid treated so. I will speak to Mr Kenyon – ’ ‘Oh no,’ she interrupted, ‘begging your pardon, miss, but there is no need to do that, it is not at all necessary. Timothy is a good man and kind. Nothing is his fault. There was a misunderstanding. It is all sorted out now and tomorrow he goes with Mr Kenyon to the Isle of Wight for heaven knows how long.’ She bent her head but could not this time help a tear escaping and this tear dropped on to the red silk she was sewing and spread like a stain. She dabbed at it frantically but her mistress took the silk away and held her hand and said, ‘I can guess, my dear, I can guess what transpired and I am sure, sure, you have made the right decision. It has been in front of you for some weeks, has it not? Whether to say yes or no? I felt it in the air and in your looks. And now you have said no? And he has taken it badly? But of course he has, who would not? You must not weep, Wilson, for you did right. You are too intelligent to be overcome by flattery, too honest to admit to a love you do not feel.’
‘I do not know what I feel,’ Wilson burst out.
‘But that is an answer in itself,’ Miss Elizabeth insisted. ‘If you loved him, you would not need to ask whether or not you did, do you not see?’
All day spent in that pretty room Wilson marvelled at how much she had allowed her mistress to suppose. She had let her think Timothy had been refused and the affair was at an end when it was not and she might still marry him. Before they parted in the kitchen, Timothy had earned her admiration by saying she spoke sense and even though he hated hearing it he would accept her terms. He would ask his master to fulfil his promise and see how he made out and in a year he would come to her again and lay before her his progress. He even acknowledged the virtue of a complete separation since he found seeing so little of her a terribly frustrating business. He requested permission to write, which she leapt upon as what she had hoped for. But Miss Elizabeth supposed all was at an end and so straightaway deceit was being entered into it. Whom did it harm? No one, she decided she could have her secret and if necessary, in a year, divulge it. Meanwhile, not knowing it made Miss Elizabeth happy. She had thought she might lose Wilson as she had lost Crow and, knowing she was not going to do so, made her quite triumphant. There was nothing she liked better, she said, than seeing women apply commonsense to affairs of the heart.
For a long time afterwards she was particularly solicitous to Wilson, who was grateful though plagued by feelings of guilt. Timothy’s letters did not arrive as regularly as Mr Browning’s but they came far more frequently than she had anticipated and gave her such pleasure. Wilson went to great lengths to conceal this correspondence, but her mistress was not suspicious since she was far too occupied by the end of August with a plan of her own, a plan of which she had told Wilson, with many requests that she tell nobody else. The plan was to do at last something she had intended for many a year and from which she had held back: to winter abroad, in the sun. She asked, with shining eyes, what Wilson thought and, when Wilson said she thought it an excellent idea, she clapped her hands. ‘You will come with me, will you not, dear? And not be afraid to leave your own country and your family behind for a few months?’ Wilson said that far from being afraid she was now so far different from her former self that she positively yearned to go abroad and she ventured to ask where, if the plan came to fruition, they might go. When her mistress said she hoped Italy, her heart leapt. Timothy had only just written that his plan to become a printer was delayed because he was to accompany Mr Kenyon to Rome in the coming winter and the effect of this news had been to make her instantly regret that he would be so far away. Still cautious, still reluctant to recognise love, she nevertheless had begun to think of the absent Timothy in a way that suggested she might well have been mistaken in doubting her own feelings. ‘When will we go, miss?’ she asked and was thrilled rather than alarmed with the reply: In a month or so, if it can be arranged.’
Chapter Eleven
ONE MORNING IN late August, when the weather had broken and rain streamed against the windows for the first time in months, Miss Elizabeth said she saw nothing for it but to call the doctor and seek his help. As she spoke, she was standing near the windows in her room, watching the ivy in the window box gleam in the heavy shower, its dark green leaves suddenly glossy after weeks of hanging limp and dusty against the wall. She had a shawl round her shoulders but she shivered, though in spite of the sudden drop in temperature it was still not really cold. Wilson, busy pouring out coffee for her mistress, did not see her tremble and pull the shawl closer round her as she came to take the cup but, looking up as she handed it over, she saw the misery on her face. ‘Why, miss, whatever is the matter? Are you not well?’
‘I am well enough but for how long? Oh, it will be the same story, Wilson, another month and I shall start to cough and be unable to move from this room. I am tired of it, tired, tired.’ Wilson waited, knowing it was not for her to bring up the subject of going abroad for the sun. Again and again during the last month mention had been made of this intention but never had it come to anything so far as she knew. Now, with the rain and the change in temperature, winter approaching gave an urgency to the secret project.
‘There is nothing for it,’ Miss Elizabeth said, sipping her coffee, ‘I must do what everyone advises and call in Dr Chambers.’ She shuddered as she said the name, as though evoking an ogre. ‘I must tell Papa tonight that I wish to consult him and then it will be done.’ She drank a second tiny cup
of coffee and then said, ‘You have not met Dr Chambers, Wilson. He is perfectly pleasant but he terrifies me. All doctors do. I cannot revere the medical profession except for dear Dr Scully in Torquay who died and left me, his patient, alive. For the rest, I have no confidence. They poke and prod and peer and end up telling me what I know and do not need to hear. But Papa will heed Dr Chambers, who is the Queen’s physician you know. If Dr Chambers were to tell him it is imperative I winter in the sun then he would listen, so the ordeal must be gone through and that is all there is to it.’
An ordeal it was. Miss Elizabeth told her Papa she felt unwell and wished to see the doctor. By all accounts Mr Barrett was not pleased. Minnie vowed his face was dark as thunder when he came down from Miss Elizabeth’s room and Simon, who was sent with the note requesting a call from the doctor, said the master seemed reluctant to send him at all. The answer he brought back was that Dr Chambers would be pleased to attend Miss Barrett at three o’clock the following afternoon. From the moment this news was received Miss Elizabeth was agitated and quite unable to sleep, ‘Oh, I do so hate these examinations,’ she complained to Wilson, ‘and yet it is not through any foolish false modesty. I do not want to be touched by a stranger’s hands, doctor or not. I feel so at a disadvantage, half undressed and bound to be still and obedient while I am observed. It is horrid, is it not Wilson?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure miss,’ Wilson said, ‘never having had a doctor nor seen one except when Mrs Graham-Clarke was visited and I saw no examination then. Mother often wanted a doctor for Fanny but we only once had one. We had to make do with an apothecary other times and he was a rough fellow none of us cared for.’
‘Then I am fortunate to have a skilled doctor to call and you tell me so very nicely Wilson and I am ashamed not to be more grateful. I will try to be calm and not make such an unseemly fuss.’
Minnie insisted that Miss Elizabeth’s room should be cleaned extra well, in so far as it was possible with her in it (and her protests loud at the invasion of maids). No doctor, Minnie said, should be able to say that any room under her charge was anything less than immaculate; and she personally supervised the dusting that morning and came along to check that the brass fender gleamed satisfactorily and that there was not a speck of coal dust anywhere. Wilson, to her embarrassment, had not realised until the cleaning operation was over how very necessary it proved to have been. She swore that from now on she would insist on Miss Elizabeth vacating her room one day a week so that a proper job could be made of it. Minnie, flushed with indignation at the state of the room, said she would hold her to that.
Dr Chambers arrived promptly. Wilson met him at the foot of the stairs, all resplendent in a sparkling new apron over her dress starched white and stiff. Miss Elizabeth said it was a nonsense to dress up for a doctor but all the servants who might remotely come into contact with the Queen’s doctor had been reminded by Minnie not to disgrace the house. In the event, Dr Chambers hardly seemed to look at her. He gave his hat and cloak to Simon, picked up his bag and stood waiting to be guided to his patient with an air of deep boredom. He was neither as tall nor as imposing as she had expected and did not inspire the awe his position merited. As they ascended the stairs he did not speak. His tread was slow and heavy and Wilson was sure she heard him wheeze on the first landing and sigh as he saw yet more stairs. By the time they reached Miss Elizabeth’s room she noticed his face was very red. As she put her hand on the door knob to open it he motioned her to wait. They both stood there a moment or two until he nodded and she showed him in.
Miss Elizabeth was in a nightgown and wrapper lying on the sofa. Wilson thought how pretty she looked in the soft white garments, so much more flattering than the dark daytime clothes she habitually wore. She was not even too shockingly pale and indeed was not ill at all but some sort of pretence had been necessary to justify calling the doctor. Dr Chambers stood looking down at Miss Elizabeth with an air of doubt, his thumbs stuck in his waistcoat pockets and his spectacles slipping down his nose. Wilson, standing to one side ready to help her mistress remove her wrapper and open her nightdress, felt the tension as, in a faltering voice, Miss Elizabeth related how weak she felt in the chest since the good weather had departed and how she could feel the old lassitude overwhelming her and was afraid all the good of the summer was about to be undone. Dr Chambers did not speak. After what seemed an eternity, he turned from scrutinising his patient, who had grown increasingly flushed, to open his bag. Wilson’s eyes were riveted on the contents. He drew out a strange looking contraption with a long rubber tube attached to what looked like a silver disc. It divided at the other end into two parts. Her heart began to thud unpleasantly loud as her imagination went to work on what this implement might be used for. Then Dr Chambers asked Miss Elizabeth if she would be so kind as to remove her wrapper and open her nightdress. Wilson stepped forward and swiftly took the wrapper off then undid the lacing at the front of the nightgown. Dr Chambers asked that it should be undone further to make his work easier. When Miss Elizabeth was open to the waist, her breasts partially exposed, Dr Chambers sat down beside her and put into his ears the ends of the tube then picked up the silver disc and applied it to Miss Elizabeth’s chest, tapping with his fingers as he did so. Watching his face, Wilson saw he was completely absorbed and did not even notice Miss Elizabeth’s appearance. The moment he had finished he turned aside while the nightdress was done up again and the wrapper replaced. Then, his bag repacked and closed, he stood up and resumed his former stance.
No one spoke. Miss Elizabeth looked frightened, Wilson thought. The doctor had not yet spoken and, as she wrote immediately afterwards to her mother:
— I did not know what to do but stood uneasy wondering if I should go out though Miss Elizabeth had directed I should stay in attendance throughout the visit. At last Dr Chambers spoke and said he had used the stethoscope, for that is what they call the instrument I told you of, and it had proved there was not absolute disease of the lungs only a congestion which was not as yet severe. In the matter of wintering abroad in the sun this was something he would recommend to any patient with a chest complaint such as hers but it would not be right to say such a thing a matter of life or death. When Dr Chambers had departed Miss Elizabeth wept and would not be consoled, vowing all was lost and there was no hope of going abroad. I soothed her as best I could but she was as yet distressed still when her father came to see her. I made to leave but she clung to me and Mr Barrett did not bid me to go so I remained and heard him say he was relieved that Dr Chambers saw no cause for immediate concern. Miss Elizabeth made a great effort and said so I am not to winter abroad and her father said she could surely answer that herself and left the room. Well, then there was a storm of crying and in the middle of it she called for pen and paper and I said you are not going to write in the condition you are in and she said she must, she must write at once to Mr Browning and tell him all her hopes were dashed. It was as I thought, mother, it is not only for the pleasure and ease of the sun that she wishes to winter abroad but to be out of her father’s house and near Mr Browning. And now she cannot go though her brother George is to plead with the master for her.
At last, after taking a double laudanum draught, Miss Elizabeth was asleep and Wilson free to go to her room. On the way up, she met Molly who had been sent to find her and ask her if she would step into Mr Barrett’s study as soon as Miss Elizabeth was asleep. It was only the second time she had ever been sent for, and at nine in the evening, unusual enough to be doubly alarming. Wilson smoothed her dress down and turned about. Doubtless an inquisition was to follow in which the master would seek the truth about what Dr Chambers had said; but since she knew he had spoken to the doctor himself, what harm could she do that was not already done? As she crossed the hall, dim in the light of a single lamp, she was startled by Mr Barrett’s door opening suddenly and Mr George stepping out. He did not speak to her but stalked past her, angry looking and clenching his fists which only increased her n
ervousness. She hesitated in front of the door Mr George had just closed with what was nearly a slam. It seemed wise to leave the master on his own for a moment or two, wise not to follow upon Mr George’s heels too closely. She shivered slightly as she stood there in the half light, her face only inches away from the solid door. Though she was still not afraid of Mr Barrett she was more wary than when she had first come into his house. She had by now learnt his humours too well, knew quite how peremptory and even brutal he could be, even if inherently fair. He was, she knew, dangerous and though she had never had cause to suffer at his hands she had seen others do so, both family and servants.
Finally, she knocked and was told instantly to enter. The master was standing by the fire, his back to her. He wheeled around and she saw he was very flushed. It crossed her mind that he had deliberately let himself be seen facing a roaring fire so that she would think his face was red because of it, when that was not the reason at all. She stood a good few yards from him and yet could feel him tensing, could sense his jaw clenching, his foot tapping, his arms straining as he locked them together behind him. It seemed to cost him a great effort to speak.
‘You were present, I believe, when Dr Chambers examined Miss Barrett?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you heard him say what? What precisely?’
‘As Miss Elizabeth has told you, sir.’
‘What was that?’
‘Dr Chambers said wintering abroad would help her chest.’
‘But that she was in moderate health and this abroad business was not absolutely essential? Am I correct?’
‘I did not hear everything, sir.’
‘Then you are even more discreet than given credit for. Well, I spoke to the doctor myself and tomorrow my own doctor will see Miss Elizabeth. I will have this straight once and for all, is that understood?’
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