Lady's Maid

by Margaret Forster

  ‘So you are to be a mother, Wilson,’ he said, and even smiled though she saw he was irritable, ‘and soon, I hear.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well then, it is fortunate you have your sister to go to though not so fortunate for us that this will be no two-week holiday.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Clearly, Wilson, you cannot return with your lying-in so near.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And then with our imminent return to Paris we will find ourselves in considerable difficulties which we would rather resolve now if it were possible. What are you plans, Wilson?’

  ‘Plans, sir?’

  ‘For after the birth of your child.’

  ‘I have not thought, sir.’

  ‘Then, without any wish to be unkind my dear, you had better do so. There have to be plans in these situations.’ He took a turn round the room and came back to his original position, but still she had not replied. ‘Let me help you, Wilson. It is quite a simple matter, really. What it comes down to is: do you and Ferdinando intend to return to Florence?’

  ‘Why yes, sir, of course, sir, it is our home, Ferdinando is a Florentine and as you know loves his city. We had never thought otherwise, we long to be back in Italy.’ Relief that she could be so certain about something made her speak all in a rush and Mr Browning held up a hand to halt her flow.

  ‘And how do you plan to return?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You and Ferdinando and the child – how do you propose to return to Florence?’

  ‘Why, as we would, sir, as we came, whichever route you preferred, we …’

  ‘I am not talking of routes, Wilson. You are confused again. Let me enlighten you. We are not returning to Italy this autumn but instead renting an apartment and wintering in Paris. Now, this being so, how can we accommodate you with a baby?’

  Stunned, Wilson stared at him.

  ‘Do not look so stricken, Wilson. You must see the problem, surely. How can you care for my wife, who needs so much care, and for my son if you have a baby of your own? It is not possible. And even if it were to be considered, which I do not rightly think it could, nor would anyone expect that it should be, we have not the means to engage a servant to look after you, our servant. Indeed, even if we were to return directly to Florence I doubt that you would be fit to travel with us and once there the Casa Guidi, as you are aware, is not big enough to house another child nor could we feed one. Everywhere you see, Wilson, there are very real difficulties.’

  As he said the last few words, Mr Browning spread his arms wide, in a gesture of helplessness, and shook his head regretfully. Wilson felt her mouth so dry that it almost choked her to whisper, ‘Then I am dismissed forever, sir?’

  ‘Oh, now come, Wilson,’ said Mrs Browning, speaking for the first time, ‘nobody dismisses you nor mentions forever. You dismiss yourself by your circumstances and as for forever, that is surely your decision.’

  ‘Ma’am?’ She was bewildered, she felt a game was being played and the rules had not been explained to her. The mistress who sat opposite her, so aloof and remote, was not the woman who had wept on her breast nor the woman whose hand she had held as she gave birth.

  ‘We do not wish to dismiss you, Wilson,’ Mrs Browning explained patiently, ‘but for several months you will be unable to work for us. Is that not so?’ Wilson nodded, afraid the tears might start at any moment. ‘So you are dismissing yourself. As to the future, it is in your own hands. You may of course return and continue to work for us.’ Wilson looked up, suddenly hopeful, but saw nothing had changed in Mrs Browning’s expression and hope waned. ‘But you must consider: what would you do with your child?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘Well, Wilson, you could hardly bring it with you to Paris. Be reasonable, dear.’ There was a fraction of a pause before the endearment and it was said without affection. ‘We are not a circus, Wilson, it would be impossible to travel all the way to Paris and then back to London and finally to Florence all with a new baby.’

  ‘Jeannie travelled …’ and then Wilson stopped. It was too humiliating and would achieve nothing to remind her mistress, even if she dared, that the Ogilvys had regularly travelled the length and breadth of Europe with new babies and Jeannie had vowed it was far easier than with a two-year-old. She tried to take a deep breath but only succeeded in tightening her chest until it hurt.

  ‘We have not enquired yet,’ said Mr Browning gently, ‘of Ferdinando.’

  ‘Sir?’ she wondered for one wild moment if the paternity of her child was to be contested.

  ‘Does he wish to stay in England with you?’

  ‘He wishes not to leave me, sir, at this time – it is natural, I think.’

  ‘Of course it is. Do I take it, then, that he has other employment here in view?’

  She was so shocked that she could not reply at all. Feeling behind her, she located a chair and gripped it but Mr Browning had already leapt forward to help her onto it, and at the same time Mrs Browning rose to approach her. Their concern was evident and the speed with which a glass of water was brought and her feet put on a stool consoled her, but even in the midst of these attentions she sensed the difference yet again. This was common-or-garden human kindness, the sort that might be extended to a stranger who collapsed in the street. The Brownings were kind but she knew they could be tenderness itself when such feeling overwhelmed them and it did not do so now.

  She could not sit there suppressing tears forever. She struggled to get up, but was persuaded to rest longer. Already she could hardly remember what it was that had made her feel faint and when Mr Browning repeated that they needed to know Ferdinando’s plans she was overcome all over again. ‘Why, he has no plans, how should he have,’ she managed to say, ‘he did not know he would have need of them.’

  ‘Nor would he, if he is to stay with us.’

  ‘Why would he not, sir?’

  ‘To be with you and your child, Wilson. You are upset, you are not thinking clearly. If you are to stay in England with your child and Ferdinando is to stay with you then how can he remain in our employment? He cannot be in two places at once.’

  ‘He speaks no English of any consequence,’ Wilson said, ‘and he is not happy here. He expects to stay with you and return to Florence when you go.’

  ‘Then we would be delighted,’ Mr Browning said. ‘You know how we value Ferdinando almost as much as yourself.’ The compliment was not lost on her but it rang hollow. ‘But if he stays with us – I am sorry to press this argument to its conclusion, Wilson, but now we have started it must be done – he cannot stay with you and that is all there is to it.’

  ‘He will stay with you, sir,’ she said dully. ‘There is no choice. He cannot earn his living otherwise and one of us must or we will be in the workhouse’

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Mrs Browning returned to her chair, her dress rustling. Mr Browning walked to the window again and stood tapping absent-mindedly on the window pane.

  ‘It is not our fault, dear,’ Mrs Browning murmured, ‘and there is no need to talk of workhouses.’

  ‘Is it my fault, ma’am?’

  ‘I do not wish to be cruel, Wilson, but a woman who acts as you have acted must inevitably expect what has happened. It takes no great mind to assess the hazards of marriage.’

  ‘What should I have done?’ She was weeping now, but no longer cared.

  ‘That is not for me to say. It is what you ought to do now that is more important and I do not think you are in any fit state to decide. We must leave the decision open until after the child is born and then, if you feel you are able, you may wish to return. Rest assured, Wilson, no one else could ever take your place.’

  And yet, the very next day girls began to arrive to be interviewed for her situation and the speed with which one of them was engaged made Wilson wonder if she was held in any regard at all. Mrs Browning pronounced herself much pleased with the new maid, one Harriet White. ‘She is pleasant,
is she not Wilson, and quick?’ she said when the selection had been made and Wilson had felt upset out of all proportion. ‘Quite pleasant, ma’am, though as to quick she was only quick to state the salary was insufficient in the first instance.’ Mrs Browning blushed. Harriet was offered the same wage as Wilson but had only agreed to come for a guinea a month more and had made it plain that, should she stay beyond the six months for which she was contracted, then she would expect a more handsome remuneration. ‘And Pen was not much taken with her.’

  Pen had hated her on sight. One look at the rather pretty blonde woman who smiled so dazzlingly at him and he had run into Wilson’s arms and buried his face in her bosom.

  ‘Pen no want Lily go,’ he shouted and turning round yelled, ‘Go away!’ to Harriet.

  ‘My!’ Harriet said, ‘we have a temper here I see.’

  ‘No,’ Wilson said quietly, ‘not a temper. He is distressed. I have been with him since the moment of his birth. It is natural he should resent you. You must be patient with him.’

  ‘Oh, I have the patience of a saint,’ Harriet said airily, ‘he’ll be eating out of my hand in no time, don’t you worry.’

  It almost made Wilson smile to hear such an absurd boast but she held her peace then and throughout the next week when Harriet came to be instructed. The girl would not do, not ever, for all her prettiness and smiles. She was not even, truly pleasant. Her manner was quite artificial, a drawing-room performance. In the kitchen and nursery she was sharp and sulky. Ferdinando as well as Pen detested her and the thought of having to work with her drove him to despair. At night, it was he and not Wilson who wept and groaned at the trap they were in, wailing constantly that their situation was an insult to his manhood and he wished to shoot himself forthwith. Wilson soothed him and told him to take heart and for her sake and his child’s endure these next months as best he could. One day, they would all be together in Italy.

  He did not come to East Retford after all. Her own departure was delayed until the first week in October, though it made the Brownings nervous to have her still with them. But she had seen a doctor and he had estimated she had another month to go and, in the face of her plea to stay as long as possible with her husband before such a long parting, her employers had given way. Now suddenly huge, she dragged herself round seeing to Pen, and trying to train Harriet to her ways, knowing all the time her mistress wished her gone. In her look there was resentment and impatience and once Wilson overheard her say to a visitor that yes, it was most depressing having her around.

  Finally, on October 7th, she packed her trunk and Ferdinando took her to the station. He stood on the platform proclaiming his Italian nature by weeping so hard that his jacket became sodden and yet no one laughed. She herself was composed, because otherwise she could not have left him at all. She had not said goodbye to Pen. His father had taken him to the zoo and there had been a stiff and painful farewell from his mother. But a gift of money had been given to her to help with her lying-in expenses and she was kissed on the cheek and wished well.

  She was glad to get out of the house and if Ferdinando and Pen had been with her would not have wished to return. Ferdinando had been given leave – indeed, urged – to accompany her and see her safely to Ellen’s but she had not wished him to go with her. Circumstances had changed. She was afraid, now, that once in East Retford she would be unable to persuade him to go back to London. She was the stronger of the two and must do the leave-taking. So she kissed his wet cheeks and vowed her eternal love and got into the train, negotiating the steps with difficulty. Her last sight of him was of him running along the platform to the very end, keeping pace with the train, and he looked such a fine, handsome, strong man she felt a sudden spasm of fear at the thought of leaving him fair game for the likes of Harriet. But there was no alternative. She had to go somewhere to have her child and Ellen’s was the only place she had. The misery of the parting with her husband over, her mind became preoccupied with Ellen’s household. If her position proved unendurable, what would she do?

  Chapter Twenty Three

  LONG BEFORE THE day her child was born Wilson knew how grave was the mistake she had made. She blamed herself bitterly for not questioning Ellen more closely, for not attempting to make her sister describe her circumstances in some detail. The two or three ill-written notes she had received in the last year could never have prepared her for how Ellen lived and she did not know whether to accuse her poor sister of deliberate deceit or to praise her for being so forbearing. Again and again she asked herself how Ellen could have allowed her to come, knowing what she knew? Why had she not said outright it was impossible for her to be accommodated? But, then, she in turn had not been honest and she felt shamefaced to remember the shock she had given Ellen by arriving huge with her unborn child.

  Yet in this respect her condition was the one factor which bound them all together – her, Ellen and the insufferable William Wilson. They all loved children and would forgive much for their presence. Wilson realised very quickly that half the trouble she found in the household arose from the deaths of William’s two children from fever that summer (of which she had known nothing, Ellen being too distressed to communicate the dreadful news), and from Ellen’s own barrenness since her miscarriage. William was murderous in grief, violent with misery and Ellen was rightly afraid of the storms of weeping which ended in drinking and then in smashing the furniture. Appalled when she first witnessed it, Wilson could only watch William’s unhappiness express itself in this ugly way and calculate how long he could endure it before he did himself or Ellen a serious injury. It was more likely he would injure Ellen. Though she felt disloyal, it was some release to write of this to Lizzie – since Ferdinando could not read. (To him, she wrote in Italian, though her knowledge that her husband must suffer the humiliation of having the letter read to him by Mr Browning acted as the most agonising form of censorship.) To Lizzie she described the regular end of William’s working day:

  When he comes home, exhausted in his body from his labours in the fields, and Lizzie if nothing else it is plain he is a hard worker, he is still alive in his grief and begins at once to roar against God for taking away his son and daughter who were wont to wait for him at the gate and were worth more to him than all his land. Ellen, though I say this full of pity and in no spirit of condemnation, Ellen flinches from his voice which indeed is loud and threatening and cowers away from him so that when he strikes her it comes as no surprise. When he has eaten, which he seems to do as a blind man with no evidence of purpose or enjoyment, he begins at once to call for brandy and is capable of drinking himself stupid when we then have the unedifying sight of him stumbling about the room knocking over whatever gets in the way and breaking what there is left to break which is precious little. When at last he has been coaxed to bed he cries many hours and falls asleep at last worn out. In the morning he is silent and morose saying not a word until he leaves the house and then we breathe more easily for the hours he is gone. Upon his return, it is the same performance every day. How we pray for Sundays! For then he attends Chapel and does not drink and that tenderness which I thought to see in him at his wedding can be caught sight of briefly. I thank God my mother has not lived to see how low Ellen has been brought. She knows that only the birth of a child can heal her husband’s deep wounds but though she has tried everything to conceive it has been to no avail and now she says he begins to spurn her and to talk of taking other women. It is in these circumstances I am to have my child Lizzie and I am not comfortable with it. Ellen says it will be the saving of them to have a baby in the house and I do not doubt it will soothe her husband and may effect a temporary cure but what of when I leave? It will make their plight worse. So I am unhappy and fearful here Lizzie but I have made my bed and must lie on it until after I am delivered which if the pains I have been having this past week are anything to go by will be soon. There is a midwife who lives in Carol Gate where I am and she has been engaged to come on call and there is besides
a young woman who is something in the way of being a monthly nurse and charges but one guinea a month and has experience and with the gift my mistress gave me I have enough to pay for both so I am well served unless things go badly and a doctor is needed which would outstretch my purse. This is a life as unlike any I have led Lizzie and I am faint with longing to be with Ferdinando. How he manages without me I do not rightly know it being impossible to tell from the weekly notes penned for him by Mr Browning. They are all I believe to go to Paris this next week and then the distance between us will be even greater and will give me more cause for concern. Harriet White goes with them in my place and I am thankful I have seen with my own eyes that she is not to my husband’s taste and there is no danger there.

  That there would be danger in Paris, Wilson had no doubt. She had lived in Paris, if briefly, and knew it held far more temptations for the likes of Ferdinando than London. He was afraid of London and not given to wandering abroad, but in Paris he would feel more familiar and find his way to companions of his own nationality. Once that was done, once he had haunts to visit and friends with whom to visit them, she had less hope of his sworn loyalty. He was only human, only a man. He would succumb. How foolish she had been not to accept Lizzie’s offer, how stupid not to have found a way to stay near her attractive husband. All the time she lumbered around Ellen’s house, trying to make herself useful and failing, she was plotting and planning her return, her speedy return, to Ferdinando.

  Already Ellen had made the offer, tentatively, trying unsuccessfully to keep the longing out of her voice. She could leave her baby here in East Retford for the winter, returning in the summer to collect it before setting off for Florence. A baby so small would not miss its mother if a wet nurse could be found from the beginning. And she would be doing Ellen and William a favour in return for their hospitality. She had seen how things were between them: did she not have a duty to do what she could? And so, as the day of her confinement drew nearer, she stifled all thoughts, once so clear in her mind, of the dangers hidden in such a convenient arrangement. Once she had been safely delivered and the child seen to thrive she would return without delay to the Brownings’ household.