Folly

by Marthe Jocelyn

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  MARY 1877 Telling About the Rogue and Scholar

  "It's a good chance for you, Mary," said our dad, for the twentieth time. "Margaret thinks--"

  I couldn't listen again to what measly thinks Margaret were having.

  "I'll go," I said. It were unavoidable. "Only to be earning some of my own money, so I'm not taking from the littles. You'll see how much I'm missed. I'm not agreeing to please anyone, especially her."

  "We're giving you a chance, Mary. To ... venture out, you know ..."

  It were Her plot to be rid of me, sending me to work for her sister, under pretense of opportunity . Ha.

  "You'll be here through Christmas, of course," said Dad. "And go off in the new year. New year, new paths to tread on, eh?"

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  As it turned out, this leads to that, for better or worse.

  Christmas were a gloomy one, though I didn't let on to my brothers. We made paper garlands, like always, and strung them up, till She said they were like to catch fire. We swallowed her goose, dry as old bones, and shared out the oranges.

  I went off only a few days after, wearing a dress cut down by that Margaret Huckle. It'd been hers, for Sundays, but she took inches off the bottom and tucked in the sides, humming all the while, so tickled she were to be seeing the last of me. That, and her own new baby coming. As if that were anything special, were what I thought at fourteen. It'd make you sick if I told you about the row of crying brothers my last morning. But the picture that's stuck in my head is of Margaret Huckle holding on to Nan, who were bawling like she'd just been birthed in a snowstorm. Months later I'd bang my head trying not to picture it, but it's there still. My dad drove me over in the cart, more than half the day to get there. That farewell were not pretty.

  One gent on the painted sign had a wily tilt to his eyebrows, with his hand in the pocket of the other gent, who carried a book under his arm. This were the Rogue and Scholar, public house and inn; thirty-nine miles and as far from our cottage in Pinchbeck as the man in the moon.

  The lettering on the sign were writ in gold, making a fancy impression that were not upheld within. My first step into the barroom, I near swooned at the stink of beer

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  and spirits, of pipes and spat-out tobacco. Stools and tables were crammed in tight together under a low ceiling, making me wish hard for a meadow so I could take one breath that weren't poison.

  They had four rooms upstairs to let, though only one or two were occupied most nights, the place being a little off the main road. It were mainly where the men of the village stopped by most evenings for a smoke, a pint of ale, and a bit of boasting or remorse. Margaret Huckle's dead husband had spent his waking hours and many coins in the very room where I now found myself each morning, yanking at the windows and propping open the door, begging a chill breeze to freshen air so thick you could chew it.

  If Margaret Huckle looked like a potato, her sister, Fanny Forbes, had more of the rice pudding about her features: soft and speckled and bland. Billowy soft in the flesh, but rough and cranky in her disposition. The reason for her cloudy outlook were clear to all, and that reason were named Mr. Forbes. If he weren't belching, he were passing gas. If he weren't making fumes, he were touching his own self, and if he weren't fiddling under his apron while all the world watched, he were waiting to rub his sausagey fingers across someone else's backside.

  I were at the Rogue and Scholar only sixty-seven days but it were enough to cry lakes full, missing my kidlings, enough to learn a new set of curse words I'd never heard till then, along with plenty of reasons to use them.

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  Enough so that I snatched the chance to escape when it appeared--in the fine, manly shape of Harry Bates. Not that I considered romance, him being old, near thirty years.

  But if it weren't for Bates, sitting at the table in the kitchen at the Rogue and Scholar, with his boots off and his feet hooked up on a chair while he ate a bowl of Fat Pat's beef stew, well ... it'd be like a bedtime story, imagining what might have happened elsewise.

  He winked at me while I filled his cup, me nearly pouring into his lap and him grinning like an alligator. I set about mopping up the splashes and he winked again, liking the disturbance.

  "Mary!" Fat Pat just about walloped me with her voice alone. I jumped and teetered on my own feet, face as hot as a griddle while Bates laughed out loud, smacking his palm on the table.

  "You, sir," said Fat Pat, threatening him with her spoon. "You leave the girl to do her work. Do you see she's half your age? And she's not much at the best of times, on her last warning with the missus."

  "I was only hoping," he said, "as I'd find a clever girl in the house who could look in on my mistress up there in one of those rooms."

  There were nothing so far to indicate that I might have a single clever bone in my body, so I knew from the start he were the flattering type.

  "She's up there with a sickly baby," he went on.

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  "Mrs.--though not for long, I'll warrant-- Mrs . Overly. Could you slip up there? Tell her Bates sent you."

  I looked to Fat Pat and got a sigh and a nod. Mrs. Overly were in the so-called Victoria Room, it being the best and no one else looking for a bed at midday.

  The baby's cries met me on the stairs. I tapped on the door but weren't surprised with no answer, the air being filled with caterwauling. I poked my head around the door, knowing it were rude, but better than hammering with my boot, which were what I'd need to do to be heard.

  There sat the lady with her hands over her ears and tears pouring out of her eyes while the baby lay on the bed kicking like an upturned june bug, its face scrunched and red as an old berry. The noise--Lordy!--were enough to make your head split open. The lady, Mrs. Overly, jumped up and grabbed on me, pulling me to the bed.

  "He's dying," she cried. "There is something terribly wrong!" She touched him with a dainty white finger and pulled back as his howling went up another note.

  I gathered his fierce little body into my arms, while his fists and legs did battle. I wrapped the blanket tight to hold him still and pressed my humming lips to his throbbing temple, rubbing his back in firm circles.

  I were tossed straight back to those nights with Nan, remembering how minutes would pass while I prayed for the shudder of peace. It took only a moment with this little one. He burped a burp so huge that the mother

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  squeaked and flung her fingers to her mouth, as if I'd forced out a demon. Then all were quiet, till he gurgled and tipped his face to look at me.

  The mother's eyes were like candles in a cellar, beams of joy, despite the puffiness. "However did you do that? What was wrong with him?"

  "It were only wind!" I said. "Do you not have a nursemaid?"

  "We had one, but now ... We only need to get to London," she said. "Mama is hiring a new one for me...." She touched her baby's face, but did not try to take him back.

  "I ... I shouldn't really tell a servant," she said. "But ... I've been ... I've been ... I was ... married !" Her voice cracked and tears came sniveling out all over again. "But I don't think I am anymore! Everything has turned ... dreadful."

  She covered her eyes with her hands, crying away. I bounced the baby, who were now quite merry. Should I pat his mother too? I waited, and waggled him, and shortly she wiped her eyes.

  "I'll be fine ," she said, as if reminding herself. "I'll take the baby now."

  When I tried to hand him over, he protested with a jerk and a sharp cry. The mother sank to the bed and wept in earnest.

  Lordy , I thought. Mrs. Forbes'll have my hide .

  "I ... I ... I've never been alone with the baby yet!" she wailed. "Nurse Polley was with us from when he was

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  born. She took care of things, until she left.... It was such a scene you wouldn't believe! She said terrible things about ... well, that my husband ... oh, I shouldn't be telling you this!"

  No, you most certainly shouldn't . />
  "She called me ... a ninny !" She gulped. "She said that Harold was ... a lass ... lascivious cur, whatever that is, and that she wouldn't stay another minute...." She gripped the edge of the bed, stopping the shakes for a moment.

  "I ... don't know what to do," she whispered. She looked up and remembered that I was holding her son. I offered him again, and again he clung to me.

  "Oh, couldn't you just keep him?"

  "I've got work, miss. Mrs. Forbes will be wondering."

  "But I can't bear it if he cries again. I really can't. I shall run screaming from the room."

  I believed her. But it weren't my business. A hundred tasks awaited me, with not one of them being to cuddle a miserable baby whose mother didn't know which end were leaking.

  "He needs a change." My hand were now holding damp flannel.

  Her eyes puzzled up and then widened. "Oh! Oh, dear! I don't ..." She looked vaguely about the room, spying her case, and faltering at once.

  "A change?"

  I were too familiar, I know, but my arms were tired

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  from holding her child, cursed with a foolish mother. I laid him on the bed beside her, no matter that he puckered up and squawked.

  "Miss, if you don't mind me saying, the baby has certain needs that you'll have to attend to. A clean, dry bottom is one of them."

  "Oh, please!" She looked desperate. "Oh, please, I beg you! What is your name?" She fell to her knees and held on to my wrists as if I'd fly away, which I sorely wished I'd been capable of doing.

  "Mary."

  "Mary, dear Mary. Won't you please help me? I will pay you, I promise, more than your wages here. Find me a cloth for him and I'll give you ..." She looked about the room again and then to her own clothing. "I'll give you this lace handkerchief ... and five shillings and--"

  "Miss, I don't think--"

  "My name is Lucilla," she said. "Lucilla Overly. My father is Lord Sherman Allyn, the historian. You've heard of him?"

  I had not, of course.

  "And this baby is sure to die if you don't help me. We are supposed to be moving on from here in an hour or so, after the horses are fed and"--she barked a laugh that were not a pretty sound--"... and the baby has rested with me, that's what Bates said. That I should lie down to sleep!"

  "Perhaps you should do that, miss." The baby's cries

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  were gathering strength, so my suggestion were ridiculous and we both knew it. I picked him up, I couldn't not. As if I could leave Nan wailing or anyone else.

  I tucked him into the bodice of my apron.

  "May I use a stocking, miss?"

  She rummaged in the case and found one. She watched while I strapped the baby more securely to my chest.

  "I'll take him for one hour, miss, and you have your little lie-down. But he'll soon need feeding, too, won't he?"

  She winced. "The wet nurse ... I didn't think ... I've stopped my own milk weeks ago."

  I spun around and marched out the door. She were a certain danger to her own child.

  In the hallway I could hear Mrs. Forbes calling up the back stairs, "Mary? Wherever is that lazy girl? Mary? "

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  ELIZA 1877 Telling About Mary

  Bates come in, smirking at Cook and Eliza. "You're looking at the hero of the day," he said, plucking up an apple from the bowl on the table and rubbing it to a shine on his sleeve.

  "What's got you so pleased with yourself?" asked Mrs. Wiggins. "Did you collect poor Miss Lucilla from that husband we all knew was a brute?"

  "I did. As well as her wretched baby, whose squawking never stopped from the front door in Waterford to the shack of a country inn where I performed my heroic act." His teeth bit into the apple with such a crunch Eliza could taste the juice herself.

  "And what was that?" she asked. "Did you drown the brat?"

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  "Eliza, you hush!" Mrs. Wiggins always scolded for disrespect, but it made Bates laugh so Eliza could not resist.

  But this time, "No," with that smirk again. "I found a lass." If his mustache had been long enough, he'd have been twirling it. "'Hello?' I says to myself," said Bates. "'What we've got here is a damsel in distress....' Two damsels, really, with Miss L. on the one side and this baby-taming wench on the other. There's nothing like a damsel to turn a man into a hero, is there? So I brought her fine green eyes along to Neville Street."

  Eliza swore she could almost see his trousers take shape in the front. But then he caught her eyes looking down there and he smirked extra, making a little thrust with his hips in a way Mrs. Wiggins wouldn't see. Eliza quick turned her face to peeling the apples and vowed to hate this girl, whoever she might be. Bates was a brute the way he played with her, but oh, what he could do with his hands in a dark place!

  She wouldn't be the one to tell him all his fancy dancing was for naught.

  "You're a little behind the news, Mr. Bates," said Mrs. Wiggins. "There's already a nursemaid in residence."

  "And a sour cow she is too," muttered Eliza.

  "Eliza Pigeon, you watch your sass."

  "Oh no," said Bates. He dropped his apple core into the bin. "Who's she, then?"

  "Her name," said Mrs. Wiggins, "is Miss Hollow. Miss Judith Hollow."

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  Bates sat down and shot his eyes toward the ceiling, as if he could see straight through and up to where this lass of his was likely being tossed out the door.

  Eliza's intention to despise Mary Finn was flummoxed when she finally come downstairs. Eliza saw a skimpy young thing, so fresh from the country you could smell the dung and the blossoms right off her. Carroty hair and eyes more the color of old parsley than real green. No tits to speak of, nothing for Bates to ogle, Eliza assured herself of that straightaway. Knowing how he liked an ample handful, she softened up considerable. She could do with the help, after all. She could put the new girl on laundry and save herself a parcel of neck pain. Oh, and potatoes, and donkeying, and water-lugging; all the meanest tasks were suddenly half the weight of yesterday.

  So Eliza let herself be fooled in the beginning, she'd admit that. Mary had one of those faces they called heart-shaped in the penny novels, meaning to tell you adorable and prettier-than-the-reader-could-ever-hope-to-be . She tricked you just by tilting her showy-haired head, that she was a sweet girl. Well, Eliza soon learned, didn't she? The girl who plays the angel in the Christmas pageant might be making her only visit to church all year. Otherwise occupied, unless Eliza were mistaken.

  So, this Mary Finn come down, looking like she'd been served porridge when she'd expected roast beef.

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  "Sit yourself down," said Cook. "You can peel apples while you tell us how you've come to be here."

  That was Cook testing Mary's skill with a knife, and she showed herself well enough able. And out pours the story: how she'd helped the baby stop crying, how it was only wind, how Miss Lucilla--who she called Mrs. Overly--had begged her to come to London with a promise of an upstairs situation, how Bates had been so kind, how Lady Allyn took one look at her and--no wonder!--declared her unfit as a nursemaid, how Miss Lucilla blushed and pouted, how Mary felt what she called "drumming terror" that she'd be sent out into what she called "those London streets," how Lady Allyn had relented and allowed that Mary could work in the scullery on trial, and how Mrs. Wiggins was to be judge of what Mary called "any hope for a future" ...

  "And where'll she be sleeping?" asked Eliza, as if Mary weren't sitting there with the face of doom.

  "With you, dear," said Cook, who only used dear once a month when she had a need for something.

  Mary arrived with her dress and her stockings, though they were worn enough they might have been made of cheesecloth. She had on a pair of boots she said used to be her dad's. Later, she traded them with the boy, Nut, from the workhouse, whose feet were near big enough to fit. The shoes he'd got were chapped like old skin but the right size for Mary. That was how they got to be friends--no one else would talk
to him, the little beast, but Mary

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  would, having brothers and knowing little boys. According to Mary, they weren't always thinking about toads or farts, but sometimes about their mothers--not that Nut had one of those--or battles or a fistful of sugar from the breakfast bowl. Mary was good at pinching sugar and letting Nut lick her thumb. As if he were a baby, scoffed Eliza. He must be fully nine or ten, just smaller in mind.

  Eliza wasn't too pleased to have Mary sleeping in her bed when she'd had it to herself for the three months since Hazel was so foolish as to get caught in the study filling a flask with gin at Christmas. She'd been a hard one, that Hazel. Eliza wasn't saying Mary was anything like Hazel. Her method was not so plain to see. But one thing was clear: Mary was new to service, and if it hadn't been for Eliza, she'd have been lost. She did learn quick, but every time she watched Eliza first.

  "Have you even read the book, Mary?" asked Eliza, the second night they were tiptoeing around each other before climbing under the blanket.

  "The book?" And she looked scared, so Eliza knew she couldn't read, along with her other useless qualities.

  "Aye, the book. Baylis Handbook, Law of Domestic Servants ."

  "No," said Mary. "No, I've not had the pleasure."

  Ha.

  Next morning, she was stumbling over the order of things when Bates come along and said, "If you're not catching on quick enough, Mary, just give His Lordship a

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  glimpse of your ... attributes ... and you won't get a scolding."