Park Lane

by Frances Osborne

  ‘He’s going to go,’ says Grace, ‘right over.’ And Michael laughs again. There it is: she knew the old Michael was there. Whatever she’s said to him, it’s working and, slowly, the wrongs of yesterday begin to right themselves.

  ‘They’re feeding you, sister.’

  Grace blushes. She looks across at him. He’s drawn, not eating what she is. She’d thought of him when she saw the leftovers in the pantry were turning.

  ‘That’s not a thought even to have,’ Mary had said. ‘It’ll set Mrs Wainwright on your tail. She’ll say that Lady Masters can’t be feeding half of London.’

  ‘I thought she did?’

  ‘Did?’

  ‘The dockworkers. When they were on strike.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Oh, no one.’

  ‘Message from God?’

  ‘Joseph.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mary’s oh was long drawn out. She looked at Grace sideways. ‘That was before his time. Best not to know it.’

  ‘Got all you need, Grace? I worry about you.’ Really, Michael is on gentle form today, Grace is beginning to feel that this is her moment to tell him any one of those things burning inside her. She needs someone to tell her that nobody will think she really sent the card to Mr Bellows, that it is usual to feel funny after last night, that that is not why Joseph likes her, and how to find thirty shillings a month. He could do all these things, could Michael.

  But instead she answers, ‘Yes, I have all I need.’

  ‘Sure of that, Grace?’ Michael can tell that all’s not as it should be. Reassure him, Grace Campbell. She pulls her gloves higher up over her wrists.

  ‘I’m all right, Michael.’

  Now he’s looking at her and catches her eye and makes her look back him and hold his gaze. He raises his eyebrows.

  ‘If you say so, Grace.’

  It’s Grace’s turn to worry, at the tone of his voice. He knows she’s lying, she thinks.

  ‘What are you needing then, Michael?’

  ‘Grace, can you type something out for me?’

  Her breath stops in her.

  ‘On the machines, Grace. At your office.’

  Her reply comes quickly now, too quickly.

  ‘It’s not allowed, spending work time on a personal matter.’

  ‘You could go in early.’

  What’s she to say to that? This is it, thinks Grace, I’ve told a lie and I’ll burn for it even before I’m in my grave. But something comes to her.

  ‘There’s the paper,’ she says, ‘and the ribbon to pay for.’

  ‘I’ll give you those,’ he says.

  Grace sticks to it, she has to. No, not for personal use, she says, there was another girl, she’s been told, as took in her own ribbon and was given the sack on the spot. Out on her ear and not even that week’s pay. ‘It’s the rules, Michael.’

  Michael doesn’t believe her, but Michael doesn’t believe in rules, or rather, he doesn’t like them. The corners of his mouth are down and his eyes are half closed, looking at her sideways. He thinks she’s shirking, she’s sure of it. He turns away and hangs his head.

  ‘I would have thought,’ he says, ‘that you would do this for me.’

  At that moment she has a fear that it mightn’t take Michael finding out for Grace to lose him, and that there are other ways in which she can disappoint him. He may be her brother, but he’s all too ready to turn his back on a person and never talk to them again.

  ‘Oh, Michael. I’ll do anything I can for you. You know that. Just not that.’ What can she do, she thinks, what can I give my brother that he might need?

  ‘Can,’ he snorts, ‘can? If we only do what we “can” nothing in this cursed world will change.’

  He is silent now.

  ‘What about where you work, Michael, in chambers?’

  ‘You can’t come in there.’

  ‘No, I mean you do the typing.’

  He looks at her as though she’s simple.

  ‘I’m not a typist, Grace.’

  She’s too flustered, though she’s hiding it, to ask him what needs typing, and she can’t now. Any case, she wants to talk about anything but typing. In a minute she may trip over her tongue.

  Michael is continuing. ‘Besides, I have reading to do in order to know what to write. That’s if I can find the books.’

  ‘What books?’

  Michael rattles out a few names. Philosophy, Grace, Michael tells her. Call it politics if you must, you should know about that. Grace knows about politics, she reads the Daily Express once the others have finished with it, and of course Miss Sand told them about the government. Why, a young woman like Grace, even if she is working as a maid at present, should be thinking about politics too, she tells herself.

  Mrs Wainwright knows that Grace likes doing the library. Grace has told her she enjoys her elbow pushing into the wood and bringing the shine back up, that smell of polish everywhere. Grace spends as much time as she can there, breathing in old paper and leather. Today being a Monday she’s more time to enjoy it, for the family is still in the country and there are no bedroom fires to be lit.

  It’s on the ground floor, tucked away in a corner and only the double doors tell you it’s a place to go into. They’re plain dark wood, none of that white and gold of upstairs. Grace likes the plainness: it adds to the surprise when you walk inside.

  There’s not much light from the side window. It’s lamps they use to make the room glow, all wood and leather book spines lining the walls. There’s enough of them in red and green to give it a feel of Christmas year round. This morning, as she’s standing and looking, polishing a spine or two, Joseph comes in and stands beside her. It’s just one man who collected all these, he tells her, the first Sir William Masters. He’s the man who built this house fifty years ago. He travelled all over the world. Grace could tell that herself of course from the titles when they’re in languages she doesn’t understand, and she tells Joseph this. Joseph tells her that Sir William couldn’t read them either, not a word that wasn’t English. They were for his wife. She could speak all the languages for him.

  Then Joseph says, ‘Look, Grace, look what’s in here.’ He opens a cupboard and takes out a long leather tube. ‘See the paper inside, Grace? That’s plans for the railways he built before he became Sir William and built this house. He didn’t start off Sir William,’ Joseph says, ‘he was a builder; maybe I’ll become a builder, Grace.’ Joseph is standing right next to her, so as she can feel the heat from his body, and he reaches an arm out for a book but when it brushes past her shoulder, he pulls it back. Grace feels a flush rising through her collar and she holds herself in at the waist, her shoulders back, even though it makes her chest go forward, pushing it closer to him.

  Joseph’s fixing his eyes straight ahead, poker-necked but full-lipped, and pretending not to look. Grace is sure he knows how close he is and it feels as though he is drawing her towards him, and she has an impulse to kiss him. Her body starts to move, and before she knows it her face is right by his; then, just as suddenly, a fear comes over her, and she sees her life going one way, rather than the other. She stops and holds her breath in, for it’s going tell-tale fast, and says, ‘I must get on.’

  He gasps; at least she thinks it’s a gasp she hears. His mouth is half open and his eyes look as though he’s been pinched.

  He is still for a moment, and looks at the far wall. Then, eyes to the floor, he says, ‘See you, Grace,’ as though it’s the last thing he wants to do. As the door clicks shut behind him it feels like it’s cut a piece of her in two.

  Her impulses: Grace can control them but look what good that does her. She has an urge to swear out loud but Grace can’t swear, she’s had it so drummed into her that swearing is the beginning of the end, though what she’s about to do now is going to lead her straight there, in one leap. ‘Jesus Christ,’ she says, in not much more than a whisper but it’s out there nonetheless. Then Grace looks over her shoulder to che
ck that nobody has slipped in behind her, double reason to check that.

  The library steps are heavy – the trick is to roll them forward rather than try to swing them to the side. They’ve been left at the end by Z, at the window, giving the impression that someone has read their way through the lot. The wheels rumble on the floorboards, and Grace starts at the noise. What if Mrs Wainwright … But she should be moving them to sweep underneath. Though perhaps not so far all at once for there’s folding steps she can use to reach the books from, with the feather duster she’s left leaning against the side. She’d think of something though, she’s always been quick at that, and she’s grown quicker recently, had to, lips tight as they can be every Sunday. Now she’s stopping and starting, searching the letters. Fr, Fl, Fe … Grace likes the orderliness of the library, nothing unexpected can happen here. Fa … Ew, there was an E, wasn’t there, one of the books Michael told her the name of. E, there you are, Grace, ladder into the side and up she goes, clutching a dusting cloth in case anyone comes in, and searching the Es for a name that rings true.

  As she climbs her head grows lighter and by the time she’s at the top she feels as though she is flying, not quite herself. She finds it up there, the book she’s after. Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England, that’s the one Michael said, and how can you forget a name like that?

  The books are packed tight as six in a bed up here, takes all of a tug, and not easy with the duster too, and she’s near tipped off, and with her hovering ten foot up what would she have broken first? They wouldn’t keep her here then, not all crippled, when she’s as good as just arrived. And if she said she was dusting behind the book, just that one, nobody would believe her.

  Once she’s down she lifts up her skirt, pulls her stomach in and squeezes the book up above her waistband. She’d left her apron loose especially: now she ties it as tight as she can and still breathe.

  She’s moving the steps on to A to make it look as though she’s gone right round with the duster. She hurries, worrying that some-one’ll start wondering why she isn’t in the saloon yet, and moves the ladder too quick. There’s a thundering from the wheels, enough to make her jump. In the silence she can hear pointy-heeled steps ringing towards the room.

  ‘What in God’s name?’

  ‘Ever so sorry, Mrs Wainwright,’ and Grace bobs.

  ‘You could have shaken the devil awake. What were you doing?’

  ‘Just saw a bit more and nipped back to catch it.’

  ‘Well, you should’ve caught it the first time. And don’t try nipping anywhere with those steps. That feather duster can reach from the folding ones, if I’m not mistaken.’

  Please go, thinks Grace. Go, so I don’t have to walk past you with this book under my pinny.

  ‘Is it all done, now?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Wainwright.’

  ‘Well, then, straighten the steps and into the saloon.’

  From behind the ladder, Grace bobs another curtsey, clutching her stomach as though there’s a baby in there, hoping Mrs Wainwright doesn’t think that, that’s just the sort of trouble she’d be on the lookout for. But anyone who knows Grace … but they don’t, do they?

  The service stairs are on the far side of the hall. She walks fast, wants to trot, but the book’ll be banging around the bottom of her bloomers. She goes up the stairs, her hand pressed against her. When she’s in her room, she loosens her apron and lifts her skirt and petticoat before easing the book out. As she holds it out in front of her, her head empties and she feels as if she’s going to fall. If she had any breakfast in her, it’d be on the floor. Where’s she to put it, this book, and keep it, all week too? If she had any sense, she’d’ve waited until Saturday. If she had any sense … Well, too late now, Grace Campbell.

  The chest of drawers. There’s Mary, though. The first week Grace was here she came in to find Mary going through her drawers. Without a flush of embarrassment, Mary had come out with Oh, my drawers are at the top now, easy to forget. Grace imagines finding Mary holding up the book and her stomach turns again – and she needs to be back downstairs, minutes ago. There’s her suitcase, the edge of it coming out from under her bed, no lock on it, but if Mary’s already looked in it, she’ll think it’s empty still. Grace takes an armful of clothes from her drawers and burrows the book inside them and into the case.

  She’s out of the door when she turns back to check the case. She can see it as though it reads Open Me across the front. She rushes back to her drawers and pulls out her woollen shawl. She’ll be cold without it but it’s the thickest thing she has. Her mattress is so thin a child could lift it, and up it comes. Grace wraps the book in her shawl to protect it from the wire netting underneath, and slips it under the pillow end.

  As she comes downstairs again, Grace jumps. Mrs Wainwright is standing to the side of the staircase as though she’s been waiting for Grace, and Grace’s chest tightens. Imagine, just imagine if she’d seen Grace going up with the book. She feels white, and red, and Lord knows what else, her face must look like a convict’s already. Smile, Grace Campbell, she tells herself, take that look away.

  ‘Where have you been, Grace?’

  ‘Upstairs, Mrs Wainwright.’

  ‘Upstairs?’

  Grace folds her hands over her belly and dips her head.

  Mrs Wainwright pauses.

  ‘Well, we all have to get on, you know. I can’t have every one of you off for a couple of days each month. Anyhow, keeping moving will take your mind off it. Into the saloon; you can take a hot water bottle after luncheon. And, Grace …’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Wainwright.’

  ‘I expect more of you, Grace. You know that.’

  8

  BEA’S EYES OPEN EARLY. SHE RINGS THE BELL BESIDE HER BED and, when Grace arrives, asks her for coffee and toast. She is certainly hiding by having breakfast upstairs. Rightly so, for Mother can scent subterfuge at fifty paces, and the thought of it sets Bea’s mind abuzz. Not a chance she can sit still enough for breakfast in bed. She slithers out from between the sheets before even reaching for her dressing gown and feels the chill of the morning; then, silk-wrapped, she walks over to the dressing table. The triptych looking-glass sends back three Beatrices. I am legion, she thinks, a demonstration of suffragettes in myself. If that’s what I have now become, converted in a single evening by a woman whom I have spent every hour since yearning to follow. Though not, of course, all the way.

  Bea searches her features for some sign of metamorphosis, wondering what a suffragette should look like. Her recollections turn from the made-up woman next to her, the slight lady in expensive grey, to the bodyguard and Mrs Pankhurst herself, black and feathered. Then there is Celeste and her sartorial perfection. However, and bother her for vanishing last night, Celeste is a long way from Bea in suffragette hierarchy. Nonetheless, there is a limit to how plain Bea can bring herself to look. Not too detailed, fine. A wide, gathered ‘practical’ skirt, no.

  Bea looks down at the pots on her dressing table. Compared to Clemmie’s, or even Mother’s spread, they are few. Cold cream, powder. She is not sure whether she should powder for a daytime’s work but her nose is already shining and she’s not a child. Yes, powder, and decent hair; when Grace comes back with breakfast Bea will ask her to do it. Bea looks back down at her pots and sees the toast already beside her. She didn’t see or hear Grace come in. She takes a piece from the rack and tears off a corner, before letting it drop, mangled, on to the plate. Her stomach is too tight to do any more than pick. She reaches for a comb, and starts to pin her own hair.

  At a quarter past nine Bea is ready to leave. She’s taken an umbrella from the stand – a near guarantee that it will not rain, but gripping the handle makes her feel a little empowered. Joseph opens the door for her, and the stench of engine oil and horse pushes into her nose as she waits for the footman to find her a taxi. Once Joseph has brought one to the door, Bea manoeuvres herself and hobble skirt inside. It is not until he ha
s closed the cab door behind her that she gives the driver the address she has memorised.

  The taxi circles the block before turning north. In Curzon Street Bea glances back and looks up for the crack in the side of the house. It seems longer than it was two days ago and she wonders how far it will go. Perhaps it will lengthen until the exterior wall crumbles away, exposing the dining room below to the world outside, rubble sitting on the chairs, the dark green walls and Venetian and pastoral scenes veiled in pale powder. She finds the image somehow both sad and, in a strange way, liberating.

  The taxi turns up on to Park Lane and heads north past the shuttered windows of the many who, at this time in the morning, are not even halfway through their night’s sleep. The other side of the road is a river of square boxes of motors and teetering omnibuses and beyond them, half a dozen riders are cantering along the sand track inside the park, just as Bea should perhaps be doing. But Bea’s taxi draws her away. At Marble Arch the pavement fills. A dozen bus routes are emptying their passengers into a quivering skein of dark, tailored wool moving in search of the next bus, or the steps down into the Underground station. Bea glances west along the north edge of the park towards Campden Hill Square. Flashes of recollection keep coming back to her – of all parts of the evening. Though not, she tells herself, in the correct order of importance, and she tries to put them back to where they should belong. It takes no small effort, for the word ‘entertainment’ is still driving her teeth together.

  It’s further than Bea thinks to Maida Vale, and the further she goes the more she wonders what she is doing, going to join these half-mad, club-wielding women. She could still turn back. There’s a lunch she could go to, and she really should see about a dress for her dance. No, Beatrice, she tells herself, she must stick with it. Surely, if you have learnt anything over this year, it is not to assume anything at all until you have seen or heard it.

  The new red bricks and white pillars of Lauderdale Mansions spread right along the street, broken every few yards by an identical doorway. The taxi has passed along through a dozen similar streets and avenues of red-brick mansion blocks. Bea’s heart is now shaking her ribcage as she wonders which is the right door. The number has vanished from her head.