Read the book: «Yes, Mama»
HELEN FORRESTER
Yes, Mama
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd 1988
First published in Fontana Paperbacks 1988
Copyright © Helen Forrester 1988
Helen Forrester asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006174707
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007508235
Version 2016-12-30
Dedication
ToNora Walton (Sylvia Poole)who was my friend when I mostneeded one.
‘The prejudices remain within society,within families and, above all, within the law.’
Virginia Ironside and Jane Horwood,
How can I explain to my daughter that
she isn’t a little bastard?
WOMAN magazine, November, 1986.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
Chapter One
I
Much to her mother’s annoyance, Alicia Beatrix Mary decided to be born on May 12th, 1886, during a visit to Liverpool of the dear Queen to open the International Exhibition of Navigation, Travelling, Commerce and Manufactures. On the day of Alicia’s slightly premature birth, the Queen was to drive down the Boulevard from Princes Park, on her way to St George’s Hall. As a result of Alicia’s arrival, her mother, Elizabeth Woodman, missed the chance of seeing her Sovereign.
Mrs Dorothea Evans, the wife of a Liverpool shipping magnate, had graciously invited Elizabeth to view the procession from her bedroom window, which faced the Boulevard. ‘If you wore a veil and a large shawl and came in a carriage, no one would realize your – er – condition. You could watch in absolute privacy from behind the lace curtains.’
Elizabeth had been thrilled by an invitation from such an eminent lady, who was herself to be presented to the Queen. She had looked forward to extending her acquaintance with Mrs Evans. She guessed that it would please Humphrey exceedingly if she were to make a friend of the wife of such an influential man – and Elizabeth knew that in the months to come, she would have to do a lot to mollify an outraged Humphrey Woodman, her husband of twenty-two years.
Between the painful contractions, as her forty-year-old body strove to deliver the child, she was consumed by anxiety, an anxiety which had commenced when first she knew she was pregnant.
Had Humphrey realized that the child was not his?
It was always so difficult to be sure of anything with her husband, she worried fretfully. He was so wrapped up in his multifarious business activities and the woman in the town whom he kept, that he rarely talked to his wife, never mind slept with her. But, of late, his usual bouts of temper had been so violent that she felt he must suspect her. And yet he had never commented on her condition.
Could it be, she wondered, that her huge skirts and swathing shawls had been a sufficient disguise, and that he had never realized her condition? She had found it difficult to believe, but she had still clung to the idea, hoping that she might miscarry. Now she prayed that, faced with a living child, he might use his common sense and accept it.
Peevishly, between gasps of pain, she commanded that the heavy, green velvet curtains be drawn over the ones of Nottingham lace. ‘The sunlight’s hurting my eyes,’ she complained to the midwife. Mrs Macdonald, a stout, middle-aged woman in an impeccably white apron and long, black skirt, sighed at her difficult patient and hauled the heavy draperies over the offending light. The huge, brass curtain rings rattled in protest.
‘I’ll need some more candles, Ma’am.’
‘Well, ring for them,’ panted Elizabeth.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Mrs Macdonald went to the side of the fireplace and tugged at the green velvet bell-rope.
Though the bell rang in the basement kitchen, the distant tinkle was answered immediately by Fanny, a skinny twelve-year-old skivvy, who had been posted outside the door by Rosie, the housemaid, with orders to bring any messages from her mistress to her while she snatched a hasty lunch in the basement kitchen.
The child opened the bedroom door an inch, and hissed, ‘Yes, Missus?’
‘Fanny, tell Rosie to bring us some more candles immediately and make up the fire,’ ordered Mrs Macdonald. ‘And bring another kettle of water – and a trivet to rest it on.’
‘I’ll do fire afore I go downstairs.’ A hand with dirt-engrimed nails gestured through the narrow opening of the door, towards the brimming coal scuttle by the fireplace.
Mrs Macdonald was shocked. ‘Good gracious me, no! A young one like you can’t come in here. Send Rosie up to do it.’
‘Ah, go on with yez. I’elped me Auntie last time.’
‘Don’t be so forward, young woman,’ snapped the midwife. ‘Get down them stairs and tell Rosie.’
‘She int goin’ to like doin’ my job. Fires is my job.’ Fanny shrugged, her thin lips curved in a grimace as she turned to do the errand. She was stopped by the sound of a querulous voice from the bed. ‘Mrs Macdonald, ask Fanny if Miss Florence has arrived yet – or Miss Webb. Or Mr Woodman?’ The voice sounded flustered, as Elizabeth named her husband.
‘Nobody coom to the front door, Ma’am, not since doctor coom an hour ago,’ piped Fanny.
‘Where is everybody?’ muttered Elizabeth exasperatedly. She moaned, as another bout of pain surged up her back and round her waist.
Mrs Macdonald answered her soothingly. ‘It’s early hours, yet, Ma’am. There’s no hurry. Just rest yourself between the pains.’
Elizabeth grunted, and clutched the bedclothes. The thud of Fanny’s big feet on the long staircase seemed to shake her and added to her fretfulness. Would the girl never learn to walk lightly?
Mrs Macdonald picked up a clean sheet and leisurely began to wind it into a rope. She looped this over the mahogany headrail and laid the twisted ends beside Elizabeth’s pillow, so that her patient could pull on it when the need to bear down became intense. On the bedside table by the candlestick lay a new, wooden rolling-pin; Mrs Macdonald knew from experience that mothers giving birth needed something to clutch when their pains really began.
‘Dr Willis should have stayed; he knows I need him,’ Elizabeth complained, as the surging misery in her stiff body subsided.
‘He promised to look in again in a couple of hours, Ma’am. Would you like a cup of tea, Ma’am?’
‘I’d rather have a glass of port.’
‘I wouldn’t advise it, Ma’am. It might make the baby sleepy.’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘Very well. I’ll have tea.’
‘That’s better. I’ll make a good, strong brew.’
Mrs Macdonald moved through the shadowy room to the fireplace to put a small, black kettle on to the fire. On a side table, lay a tray with a flowered teapot, a tea caddy and cups and saucers. The midwife liked to have tea handy and not be dependent upon a far-away kitchen. Tea always diverted a patient, made them feel that something was being done for them.
A soft knock at the bedroom door announced the arrival of Rosie, the housemaid, bearing a kettle of water and a brass trivet. Several long white candles stuck out of her apron pocket. She had not yet finished her lunch, and was cursing her employer under her breath, as she waited for Mrs Macdonald to bid her come in.
As she entered, Rosie composed her face. She handed the kettle, trivet and candles to the midwife and then made up the fire. She made a polite bob towards the bed and turned to leave.
‘Rosie,’ called Elizabeth from the depths of her supporting pillows.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Tell Maisie to show Miss Webb straight up when she arrives. You will all take your instructions from her. I also want to see my daughter, Mrs Browning, when she comes. Tell Cook that both ladies will probably be here for dinner.’ Elizabeth paused to take a big breath as a stab shot through her abdomen. Then she went on, ‘And, Rosie, none of the servants is to leave the house without Cook’s permission.’ She twisted suddenly in the bed and arched her back. ‘Ah!’ she cried.
Waiting to be dismissed, Rosie stood woodenly facing her, while the spasm passed. ‘Blow her,’ she thought, ‘just when I were thinkin’ I could nip out a few minutes to see the Queen. And Miss Webb is a single lady – she won’t want to come into a birthing room, any more’n she’d want to look into a midden full o’ garbage.’
Mrs Macdonald wrung out a cloth in cool, scented water and began solicitously to wipe the patient’s face. Elizabeth pushed her impatiently aside. ‘Has Mrs Ford come?’ she gasped to Rosie.
‘Yes, Ma’am. She’s bin waitin’ in the kitchen this past three hours.’
‘Send her up – I’ll see her – while I still can,’ Elizabeth ordered pessimistically.
II
Mrs Polly Ford was a widow, aged twenty-three. Six weeks before the Queen’s visit, her husband, a docker, had fallen into the hold of a ship and had died, almost immediately, of his multiple injuries. Two nights later, in her parents’ crowded cellar dwelling, his frantic widow had given birth to her first child.
Born on to a pile of rags in a windowless, waterless, heatless home, without even a clean sheet to be wrapped in, the baby boy had decided, three weeks later, that life was not worth living and had quit it. Polly wished passionately that she had been allowed to follow him. She was, however, a strong, healthy woman and, despite her despair, her milk surged in her.
Weeping helplessly, she had sat by a tiny fire lovingly built for her by her father, James Tyson. He had walked down to Seaforth sands to search for driftwood, in order to provide a little heat for her.
‘We didn’t know the babe was goin’ to come so quick – or be born here – and we run out of coal and money,’ he told her almost apologetically, his bearded face turned up towards her, as he knelt to feed the flames with chips from an old railway sleeper which he had found on the shore.
‘I know, Dad,’ she told him gently between her sobs. ‘You shouldn’t’ve took the wood from the sands – you could’ve been arrested for it.’
‘Och, I know that. Devil take the bleeders!’ He got up off his knees and stood leaning against the rough, brick chimney, the firelight catching the golden hairs of his beard and eyebrows. ‘What you goin’ to do now, duck?’
Her mother, Bridie Tyson, had been sitting beside Polly on the backless bench. Wrapped inside her shawl, to keep him warm in the foetid cellar of the court house, lay Billy, Polly’s baby brother. His wide brown eyes glittered, as he peeked out of the enveloping shawl to watch the dancing flames of the fire. Now his mother sighed, and asked, ‘Aye, what to do?’
‘She can stay with us,’ responded her husband immediately.
‘Aye, Dad, you’ve got enough trouble without me,’ Polly told him.
She looked helplessly round the tiny room, dimly lit from the open door leading to the steps up to the court itself. Down those steps, on wet days, trickled sewage from two overflowing earth lavatories which served the fourteen houses surrounding the court, to add to the overwhelming misery of the ten people living in her parents’ windowless room below ground level. But her father was a casual labourer on the docks, and this, though he was as good a man as ever heard a Wesleyan sermon, was the best he could provide for his family from his irregular earnings. Also living with him was his widowed sister-in-law and her five children.
Polly’s aunt had been sitting, almost unnoticed, on a three-legged stool tucked up by the fireplace. Under her black shawl, her stomach was swollen with pregnancy. She cackled suddenly, ‘Youse wet with milk. You could mebbe wet-nurse.’
Polly’s breasts ached with milk. She had let her little brother, Billy, suckle from her to ease the pain, but still the milk pressed within and damped her calico dress.
‘Some fine lady’d pay good for that – and you’d be well fed to keep it up,’ her aunt went on.
‘Aye, you’d live the life o’ Riley,’ her mother agreed eagerly.
James Tyson looked down at his womenfolk and shrugged. This was woman talk, and, anyway, it was time to go down to the dock gate again, to stand in the rain and hope to be picked out for half a day’s work. He patted Polly on the shoulder as he passed, and left them to it.
Through a grapevine of female cousins and aunts, inquiries went out to ask anyone in service whether their mistresses were expecting.
From Fanny, the little skivvy in the Woodmans’ house, came the information via her aunt, that the Missus was expecting any day and was proper mad at it. In Fanny’s considered opinion and judging from the gossip in the kitchen, she would be glad enough to be relieved of feeding the expected child and of looking after it; its nearest brother, Master Charles, was ten years old and had gone away to boarding school. His nurse had long since been let go.
On her Sunday afternoon off, Fanny visited her aunt in her tiny house in Shaw’s Alley and confided to her that a real blow-up about the child was expected daily, between her Master and Mistress. ‘It int his kid,’ Fanny told her. ‘And he’s got a temper like you’d nevaire believe. Always pickin’ on her, he is – and yet he can’t talk – he took up with a woman as keeps a tobacco and sweets, back o’ Water Street, downtown.’
Fanny bent to wring out a rag in a pail of cold water and reapplied it to one of her aunt’s eyes, which her husband had blackened the previous night. Her aunt was hardly listening to her niece; she was wondering dully if, after last night, she would be in the family way again, and she sighed at the very thought of it. It would be the fifteenth and, out of the whole bloody issue, only three of them full grown.
Wearily, she tried to give her attention to what Fanny was saying, and replied, with pity, ‘Well, you talk to Rosie and Mrs Tibbs about Polly Ford. The poor gel is broken-’earted and ’er Mam is near out of ’er wits over it.’
III
While Elizabeth Woodman’s affairs were discussed in one of Liverpool’s worst slums, Elizabeth herself had wandered round her handsome Upper Canning Street house through the last days of her pregnancy, and viewed with dread the birth of her child.
She had done her best to get rid of the child. She had drunk bottle after bottle of gin and had sat for hours in hot baths, while Fanny stoked up the kitchen fire to heat the water in the tank behind it, so that Elizabeth could keep renewing the water in her fine mahogany-encased bath in the bathroom. To no purpose.
She had even contemplated throwing herself down the main staircase in order to dislodge the foetus, but when she had looked at the steepness of the flight her courage had failed her.
She watched with horror her expanding figure and worried at her husband’s complete lack of comment about it. As the months went remorselessly by, his silence began to terrify her. They had not slept together for months. He must know it’s not his, she agonized. Is he going to ignore the fact or will he throw me out at some point? And where shall I go? What shall I do?
Perhaps it will be born dead, she thought hopefully. Then he won’t have to say anything.
But Alicia Beatrix Mary had no intention of being born dead; Elizabeth, Polly and Fanny would all have their lives totally altered by her existence.
Chapter Two
I
Fanny consulted Rosie, the Woodmans’ housemaid, about Polly. Rosie spoke to Mrs Martha Tibbs, the cook-housekeeper, an unmarried lady graced with the appellation of a wife because it was the custom.
In consideration of receiving Polly Ford’s first month’s wages, if she got the job, Mrs Tibbs graciously agreed to broach the subject of a wet-nurse with Elizabeth Woodman. Since nothing had been said to the domestic staff about the impending addition to the family, Mrs Tibbs went about the matter very delicately.
Bored to tears by three months’ confinement during the more obvious period of her pregnancy, anxious to keep the child away from her husband as much as possible, assuming it were born alive, Elizabeth was almost grateful to Mrs Tibbs and agreed to look at Polly.
It took the efforts of all her extended family to make Polly look respectable for the interview. She had a black skirt in which she had been married. A black bodice was borrowed from a distant cousin down the street; she had had it given to her by the draper whose tiny shop she cleaned. It had been eaten by moths at the back, but with Polly’s own black shawl over it, the holes would not show. A battered, black straw hat was acquired for a penny from a pedlar of secondhand clothes, after hard bargaining by Polly’s married sister, Mary. Polly’s mother washed and ironed her own apron to an unusual whiteness, so that Polly could wear it for the occasion. Polly had boots, though they were worn through at the bottom and were bursting round the little toes. ‘I’ll keep me feet under me skirt,’ said Polly dully.
Through all these preparations, Polly wept steadily. At her mother’s urging she suckled little Billy. ‘It’ll nourish ’im and it’ll keep the milk comin’, luv,’ her mother consoled her.
It was comforting to hold the small boy to her. Though as grubby as a sweep, he was a merry child, who laughed and crowed and tried to talk to her.
Before Polly could aspire to a job as an indoor servant, she had, somehow, to acquire a reference from another lady. At first, Polly’s mother had suggested that Mrs Tibbs’ recommendation would be enough, but, through Fanny, Mrs Tibbs herself insisted that Polly must produce a written reference.
‘Aye, she’s right,’ Polly agreed. Then, trying to make an effort for herself, she added, ‘Now I’ve got a hat, I could go and see that ould Mrs Stanley, and ask ’er.’
Before her marriage, Polly had cleaned the doorsteps and the brass bells and letterboxes of a number of elegant houses in Mount Pleasant. For five years, she had donkey-stoned the front steps of a Mrs Stanley, an ancient crone who claimed that she had once danced with King George IV. Mrs Stanley lived with a white cat and an elderly married pair of servants.
With feelings akin to terror, Polly pulled the bell of the servants’ entrance of Mrs Stanley’s house. The same bent, bald manservant she remembered answered it. He did not recognize her, and asked, ‘And what do you want?’
She told him.
‘I’ll ask the wife,’ he told her, and shut the door in her face.
She was almost ready to give up and go home, when a little kitchen-maid opened it and said shyly, ‘You’re to coom in.’
She was led into a well-scrubbed kitchen where, on a bare, deal table, a meal was laid for four. Bending over to poke the roaring kitchen fire was an elderly woman-servant. A good smell of roasting meat permeated the room; it made Polly’s mouth water.
The old woman straightened up. She wore a white, frilled cap tied under her chin and a grey uniform with a long, starched apron. Poker still in hand, she turned and said, ‘’Allo, Polly. What’s to do? Didn’t expect to see you again, after you was married.’
Polly explained her need for a reference. ‘To say I’m honest, like.’ She omitted to tell the woman that she had been widowed, because she thought she would start to cry again if she did so.
The older woman looked at her doubtfully. ‘Well, I’ll ask for yez,’ she said slowly. ‘I doubt she’ll even know your face, though. Ye ’ardly ever saw ’er, did yer?’
‘Not much,’ agreed Polly humbly.
‘I’ll go up. Sit down there.’ She pointed to a wooden chair set by the back entrance. Polly obediently sat on it.
A bell suddenly bounced on its spring in a corner of the ceiling and ting-a-linged impatiently. The manservant put on his jacket and went to answer it. The little kitchen-maid stirred the contents of an iron pot on the fire and carefully put the lid back on. A young woman in a pink-striped, housemaid’s dress put her head round the door leading to the rest of the house, and shouted, ‘Mary Jane, the Mistress wants her bath water. Hurry up.’
The kitchen-maid put her ladle down on to an old plate in the hearth. A somnolent kitchen cat slunk from the other end of the hearth and quietly licked it clean. The girl took a large ewer from a hook and swung it under the oven tap at the side of the huge kitchen fire. Boiling water belched into it. She grinned at Polly, as she waited for the water jug to fill.
Polly smiled faintly. Jaysus! Was she going to have to wait for the ould girl to bath and dress?
Two and a half hours later, by the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, Madam completed her toilet. The servants came at different times to eat their midday meal at the kitchen table. They ignored Polly as being so low that she was beneath their notice.
The morning-room bell tinkled. The manservant wiped his lips on the back of his hand, put on his black jacket and went upstairs. A few minutes later, he returned and said gruffly to Polly, ‘Mistress’ll see you.’
Her chest aching, her throat parched, her heart beating wildly from fright, Polly followed the old man along a dark passage and up two flights of stairs equally Stygian. ‘You’re lucky,’ he piped. ‘Mistress don’t bother with the likes of you that often.’
Polly kept her head down and did not answer. Surreptitiously, under her shawl, she scratched a bug bite on her arm. She was so inured to vermin bites that they did not usually irritate. Her mother had, however, insisted that she wash herself all over in a bucket of cold water, scrubbing her yellowed skin with a rough piece of cloth. It had made her itch. After that, both of them had gone over the seams of her clothes to kill any lice or bugs that she might be carrying. ‘You can’t help your hair,’ her mother had said. ‘I haven’t got no money to buy paraffin to kill the nits in it.’
The old servant pushed open a green baize door and suddenly she was in a blaze of sunlight coming through the stained glass of the hall window.
Blinking against the light, she tiptoed after the servant across the hall rug to a white-enamelled door.
The servant knocked gently, paused and then entered the room, while Polly, terrified, quivered on the red Turkey doormat.
‘Come on in,’ the old man breathed irritably. ‘She’s waitin’.’ He shoved Polly forward and closed the door behind her.
Before she lowered her eyes, Polly caught a glimpse of an incredibly thin woman, her heavy white hair done up elaborately on the top of her head. She was waiting bolt upright in an armless chair and was staring out of the window at the garden. Nestling in the folds of her grey silk skirt was a huge white cat. Heavily ringed fingers tickled the cat’s ears.
Polly stood silently looking at the richly patterned carpet, and waited to be noticed.
‘Well?’ the old lady barked.
Polly swallowed and then curtsied. She wanted to run away and cry, cry herself to death, if possible. ‘I’m Polly, Ma’am,’ she quavered, ‘wot used to scrub your steps and do the brass …’
‘I know who you are,’ snapped the voice. ‘What do you want?’
Polly glanced up at her erstwhile employer. The lady was still staring out of the window; the cat stared at Polly. ‘Well, Ma’am, I – er …’
‘For Heaven’s sake, speak up, girl.’
‘Yes, ’m, I’m wantin’ to get a job as wet-nurse to a lady called Mrs Woodman in Upper Canning Street – and I was wonderin’, Ma’am, if you would write a letter to her about me.’
‘A reference?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘A wet-nurse, humph? Have you been in trouble? I don’t believe in helping servants in trouble.’
‘Oh, no, Ma’am.’ Polly was shocked out of her fear. ‘I were a married woman.’ Her voice faltered, and for the first time, Mrs Stanley turned to look at her.
‘Lost the child?’
‘Yes, Ma’am. He was born a bit early – ’cos me ’oosband were killed – in the Albert Dock, Ma’am. It must’ve bin the shock.’ She gulped back her tears, and then went on. ‘’E fell in an ’old, Ma’am.’
‘How very careless of him.’
‘Yes, ’m.’ Tears coursed down the girl’s cheeks.
Madam stared at her thoughtfully. Everybody lost children; she had lost all hers. Still, it was depressing. And doubtless Mrs Woodman, whom she had met once or twice at parties, would be glad of a wet-nurse. She understood that, nowadays, they were difficult to obtain.
‘Have you been in service before?’
‘Yes, Ma’am. I were a tweenie when I were ten, ’elping the ’ousemaid empty the slops, and like. The Missus died … and then I found I could earn more specializin’ in doin’ doorsteps.’
‘Humph.’ Mrs Stanley’s lips curled. The lower classes were remarkable in their ability to survive.
‘And for how long did you – er – clean my doorsteps?’
‘Five year, Ma’am.’
‘Why don’t you go back to it?’
Polly heaved a sigh. She was so tired that she thought her legs would give under her. ‘Me Mam wants me to improve meself,’ she burst out, with sudden inspiration.
‘Very commendable. And do you go to Church, Polly?’
Polly had never been to Church in her life. And only once to an open air Wesleyan meeting with her father. She knew, however, what the answer must be. ‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. I go to St Nick’s – I mean, St Nicholas’s.’
‘Humph. Protestant, then?’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ replied Polly promptly, wondering suddenly what she really was, since her mother was a Roman Catholic and her father a Wesleyan.
‘Mrs Woodman is a Protestant, I believe.’
Polly did not care if Mrs Woodman worshipped golden idols, like the blackie seamen who walked the streets of Liverpool in silent, single files. All she wanted was three meals a day, to lessen the pain in her stomach, and a baby to suckle, to ease the pain in her chest; even the thought of suckling made her breasts fill and she could feel the milk trickling down to her waist.
Mrs Stanley smiled thinly. She did not care for Mrs Woodman, a fluttering widgeon of a woman with an upstart husband who dabbled in many commercial enterprises in Liverpool. Distinctly lower-class. She thought it might be amusing to send them a wet-nurse who was probably lice-ridden.
‘Bring my desk from over there and put it on this table beside me.’ Mrs Stanley gestured towards the far wall.
Polly did not know what a desk looked like and glanced, bewildered, towards the furniture indicated by the delicate white hand.
‘There, you fool – that – er – sloping box.’
Polly carefully lifted a pair of crystal inkwells and a matching candlestick off the desk and laid the desk on the table indicated. She then replaced the inkwells and candlestick.
Irritated, Mrs Stanley moved inkwells and candlestick to the back of the desk, so that she could open the lid and extract a sheet of paper, a goose-quill pen and a piece of sealing wax. In exquisite copperplate, she wrote To Whom It May Concern that Polly Ford was honest, industrious and had worked for her as a charwoman for five years. She was desirous of improving herself, and Mrs Stanley felt that she would give satisfaction.
She sanded the paper to dry the ink. She then took a phosphorus match from the candlestick, struck it and lit the candle. She held the stick of sealing wax to the flame and allowed a small drop to fall upon the letter and seal it closed. Into the molten wax, she pressed a ring from her forefinger, to imprint her own seal.
‘There.’ She turned in her chair and handed the note to Polly. With a bit of luck, that would give the odious Woodmans a fair amount of trouble.
‘Oh, thank you, Ma’am.’ Polly’s voice was full of genuine gratitude as she made a deep curtsey.
Mrs Stanley gave a stiff nod of acknowledgement, and then ordered, ‘Put the desk back on to the far table.’
‘Yes, ’m.’ Polly did as she was bidden, being particularly careful not to spill the red and black inks from their crystal containers. She then backed to the door, bobbing little curtsies as she went.
‘James will show you out. Pull the bell by the fireplace.’
The only thing by the fireplace which could be pulled was a long piece of embroidered canvas hanging from the ceiling. Polly hoped for the best and pulled it. Then she stood with hands neatly clasped in front of her and examined the pattern on the carpet. She was stupid, she told herself. She should have realized that she would have to be escorted out of the house in case she stole something. Not that I would, she told herself crossly.
The old manservant arrived with commendable promptness. ‘Yes, Ma’am?’
‘Show this woman out – by the servants’ entrance.’
‘Yes, Ma’am. Of course, Ma’am.’ He twisted his toothless mouth into a tight knot. As if he would ever show a member of the lower classes out of the front door. After fifty years of service, Madam ought to know that, he thought irritably.
II
Sent upstairs by Rosie, Polly stood with head meekly bowed and examined the blue and white Chinese carpet in Elizabeth. Woodman’s room, while her new mistress looked her over for a second time.
The young woman seemed healthy enough; and with a reference from the high-and-mighty Mrs Stanley and a personal recommendation from her cook-housekeeper, Mrs Tibbs, she should be satisfactory. Yet, Elizabeth smelled a rat. Mrs Stanley was notorious for her perverted sense of humour. A leftover from the wilder days of King George IV and King William IV, the old devil was capable of all kinds of japes and capers.
As she peered in the candlelight at the humbly bent head, a much sharper pain shot through her and she cried out. Mrs Macdonald came to the bedside immediately. She picked up the rolling-pin from the bedside table and handed it to the sufferer. ‘There, there, Ma’am. Hold on to this.’
Elizabeth clutched at the pin and gritted her teeth, as she waited for the next pang. She felt tired already, worn out from worrying over the coming child’s existence. She was petrified at the thought of the outburst which might occur from Humphrey when he actually saw the baby.
But if she employed this Polly Ford, the child could stay in the old nurseries on the top floor for months, and as far as Humphrey was concerned, out of sight might be out of mind. And she herself would be freed from the boredom of feeding the baby. She could go out and fulfil her social obligations, be free to spend afternoons with darling Andrew, as before, though they would have to be much more careful.
She let another spasm go over, managing not to cry out. Then she said to the midwife, ‘Mrs Macdonald, tell Mrs Tibbs to see that this woman is bathed, her head rubbed with paraffin, and her present clothing wrapped up tightly and sent to her home. Mrs Tibbs should have her uniform ready by now.’
‘Yes, Ma’am. I’ll ring for Rosie.’
Polly kept her head down. This was much better than she had expected. Both she and her mother had been worried about getting her a uniform, fearing that the pedlar might not give them credit. Now the clothes were to be given to her. If she had dared, she would have sighed with relief.
Elizabeth knew from sad experience that vermin could come into a house in a servant’s trunk. She took no chances and always provided uniforms.
Polly endured without comment the humiliating complaints of her fellow servants, as a tin bath was lugged up to the windowless box room which would be her bedroom. Loquacious Fanny hauled two ewers of hot water and one of cold up the endless stairs from the basement kitchen, together with a bottle of paraffin, a bar of laundry soap, a piece of flannel and a worn bath towel. ‘Mind you don’t make no splashes,’ she warned Polly.
Polly had never had a bath in her life; she had simply rubbed herself cursorily with a bit of cloth wrung out in cold water. Now, Fanny laid an old copy of The Times on the floor and said, ‘Take off all yer clothes and put ’em on this. Mrs Tibbs’ll get next door’s gardener’s boy to walk down with ’em to yer ma’s.’
Polly looked at the girl appalled. Take off everything?
As if she could read her mind, Fanny said, with a grin, ‘Everythin’, ’cept yer stockin’s and boots – you’re to keep them.’
‘Well, you go away, Miss, while I does it,’ snapped Polly defiantly. Even Patrick had never seen her completely naked.
At the thought of Patrick, tears welled. Fanny saw them, and said sympathetically, ‘Don’t take on so. They did this to me when I coom. Fussy, the Mistress is – wash all of you every day, she allus says.’ She glanced up again at Polly, still standing uncertainly by the bath. ‘These days, I fancy a bath meself now and then – takes the aches out of yez. I’ll bet she’ll make you scrub your dairies every day.’ She nodded her head like a disapproving old woman. ‘Proper finick, she is.’
While she waited for Fanny to leave the room, Polly sat down and unlaced her boots. One of the bootlaces broke and she looked at it ruefully, wondering where she would get a halfpenny from to buy a new one. ‘What’s the Master like?’ she inquired carefully – her mother had warned her long ago, when she had been a ten-year-old tweenie in a big house, to keep out of the way of the men of the house.
‘Himself? Och, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s got a fancy woman downtown. Maisie – she’s the parlour-maid – says the woman keeps ’im exhausted!’ Fanny chortled and looked wickedly at Polly. Then she said more soberly, ‘They do say as once he got a maid in trouble and the Mistress sent her packing. Nowadays, he don’t even notice you’re there, though. He’s got a lousy temper, though. Just keep out of his way of an evening when he’s drunk.’
Polly digested this advice, and then, as Fanny picked up her empty ewer and moved towards the door, she asked, ‘What part of town do you come from?’
Fanny laughed. ‘I dunno, for sure. I got an auntie wot lives in Shaw’s Alley, but I coom ’ere from the Workie. I were born in there – and bloody glad I was to get out of it. At least the Mistress don’t beat you. It were me auntie that got on to you.’
‘Is your Mam still in the Workhouse?’
‘Not her. She died when I was only an itty-bitty kid. The Workie Gaffer hit her one day for something she said – and she lay down and I remember she were cold.’
Polly did not bother to ask her where her father was. In her experience, fathers often remained unknown. She sighed and said, ‘It must’ve bin proper hard for yez.’
Fanny’s eyes twinkled. ‘I wouldn’t give a dead farthin’ to go through it again,’ she replied forcefully. Swinging her empty ewer, she turned and plodded down the stairs to the basement.
Polly quickly stripped off her blouse, skirt and stockings. She put a cautious toe into the steaming water and then stepped into it. It felt comfortable, so she carefully lowered herself into it and reached for the soap lying on the floor. She took the hairpins out of her plaits and loosened her hair. She found that holding the hot flannel to her breasts eased the ache in them and she was able to expel some of her milk. It would be a day or two, she realized, before the baby would be able to suck, and, in the meantime, she must keep the milk coming.
After she had dried herself, she kneeled down by the bath and uncorked the bottle of paraffin. Holding her breath because of its smell, she rubbed it liberally into her damp hair, until it dripped into the bath. Then, using a fine-toothed comb which her husband, Patrick, had given her as a present, she combed the long, damp locks until she reckoned she had all the lice out; the paraffin would kill the nits, so, if she were lucky, she would be free of them.
Two full-skirted, ankle-length, cotton dresses with petticoats to go under them had been provided. In Polly’s eyes, the dresses were beautiful, far nicer than anything she had ever worn before; they had narrow, blue and white stripes. There were three large white aprons to wear over them and three white cotton bonnets to pin over her hair. To go out-of-doors, there was a navy-blue jacket, and a navy coif to go over the white caps.
She would have to find stockings and shoes for herself, and she wondered if her mother could prevail on the pedlar to let her have them on two months’ credit. Her first month’s wages would be appropriated by Mrs Tibbs, the cook-housekeeper, as her fee for getting her the job. As she thought about this, she replaited her hair and wound it into a neat bun at the back of her head.
When Fanny came back up the stairs, carrying a pair of slop pails in which to remove the bath water, she gaped at the newly created Nanny. ‘Well, I never,’ she exclaimed. ‘You look proper pretty.’
Her spirits revived, Polly gave the girl a playful cuff about the head for her impudence. Then she asked, ‘Wot time is servants’ meals?’
‘Breakfast at six-thirty, dinner ’alf-past eleven, tea at five. If Ma Tibbs is in a good mood, you get a bit o’ somethin’ afore bedtime – depends on wot’s left from the Master’s dinner. The Mistress isn’t mean, but Ma Tibbs is. She takes food to her sister’s house.’
‘I’m awfully hungry,’ admitted Polly, her voice trembling slightly.
‘Oh, aye. You could get a mug o’ milk or ale anytime you want – and I suppose I’ll ’ave to bring it up.’
She plunged her slop pail into the scummy bath water.
‘Bring me some milk and a piece of bread now,’ wheedled Polly. ‘There’s a pet. I’m clemmed.’
Fanny glanced up at her. ‘And the baby not even born yet?’ she teased.
‘Come on, Fanny. I’ll share it with yez.’
‘Well, seein’ as I know yez, I’ll ask for it.’
Chapter Three
I
At half-past eleven that warm May night, Alicia Beatrix Mary yelled her first impatient complaint in this world.
Dr Willis declared her a healthy child and Mrs Macdonald gave her her first bath. To ensure a flat, well-healed navel, a flannel binder was wound tightly round her stomach.
On a dresser lay a pile of baby clothes originally prepared for a brother, who, eight years before, had died within a month of his birth. Mrs Macdonald picked up a cotton napkin and one of terry towelling and enclosed Alicia in these. Then the child’s tiny arms were pushed into a flannel vest. A long cotton petticoat followed and then a flannel one, each tied at the front. Over all this went a fine white baby gown, frilled and embroidered and hemstitched in an Islington sweat shop. The long petticoats and gown were folded up over the protesting little feet, and she was finally wrapped in a warm, white shawl crocheted for her by her mother’s spinster friend and lifelong confidante, Miss Sarah Webb.
Almost smothered by the amount of clothing, Alicia carried her complaints to Humphrey Woodman.
Humphrey had been called from his booklined study by Dr Willis to inspect the new addition to his household and was uncertain, at first, whether he should go up. He had been startled when Maisie, the parlour-maid, had told him that his wife had commenced her labour. He had hoped to the last that his wife would miscarry, so that he would not have to face directly the fact of her infidelity.
Maisie was waiting, politely holding the door open for him, so he slowly pushed himself away from his desk and got up. As he straightened his velvet smoking jacket and gravely marched upstairs, a slow anger burned in him. He did not care a damn what Elizabeth did as long as she was discreet; but having a child at the age of forty was, alone, enough to interest the gossips and raise speculation.
Since Dr Willis and Mrs Macdonald were present, he kissed his wife dutifully upon her white cheek, and, afterwards, went to inspect the minute bundle lying in the frilly, draped cot which had served all his children.
His breath began to come fast as he gazed at the crumpled red face, and he seethed inwardly; at that moment he would have liked to murder Elizabeth and her lawyer, Andrew Crossing, whom he was fairly sure was the child’s father. Yet, in a sense, he also felt defeated. There was no question of his divorcing his wife; he must maintain his carefully built-up image of a well-respected city businessman with an impeccable home-life. To maintain society’s rigid proprieties, he would have to accept the baby as his. He knew it and he guessed that his wife was counting upon it – the sanctimonious bitch!
At the back of his mind, too, was the need to protect the future of his daughter, Florence, who was standing by him, bending over the little cot and tenderly touching her newborn sister with a careful finger. Florence was herself seven months pregnant. She was the wife of the Reverend Clarence Browning, a gentleman with small private means bent on a career in the church. A divorce between her parents, or even a separation, might put an end to his hopes of obtaining a bishopric one day.
Humphrey loved Florence. She was the only person to whom he showed any real affection. Her marriage portion had been as handsome as he could make it. Though at this moment he itched to beat her mother to death, he knew he would never make a single move that might injure his little Flo. When Alicia’s time came, however, he thought savagely, she would not get a penny out of him.
’isn’t she lovely, Papa?’ cooed Florence.
Humphrey continued to gaze expressionlessly at the crabbed little face, as he said politely, ‘Yes, my dear.’
While Dr Willis went to use the Woodmans’ magnificent new water closet, Mrs Macdonald stood, hands folded over her apron, at the foot of the bed, waiting for the series of visitors to pass. She would stay to nurse Elizabeth for a couple of days, before handing her over to her friend, Sarah Webb, to be cared for during the rest of her ten days’ lying-in.
As Humphrey turned to leave the room, he felt suddenly drained. His anger began to subside and he thought longingly of his Mrs Jakes. Most of his friends had a little woman tucked away somewhere in the town, and Mrs Jakes was his woman. Her well-patronized sweets and tobacco shop, on the corner of one of the crowded streets behind his office in Water Street, offered a fine excuse for visiting her. His need for tobacco for his pipe and the occasional gift of sweets for his children accounted easily for his going there. When the shop was empty of customers, he would slip behind the counter and through the door to her living-quarters. She would send her dull, thick-waisted daughter to tend the shop, lock the intervening door and draw the lace curtains over the window in it. They could be very cosy together behind the lace-draped door, sitting in front of her blazing coal fire; or they could go up the stairs which led to her bedroom above. It was a discreet, mutually agreeable arrangement. Why could not Elizabeth have been equally circumspect? he fumed.
Now, ignoring his wife, he said goodnight to Mrs Macdonald and told Florence to go to bed soon. Mrs Macdonald, much experienced in these matters, drew her own conclusions.
Downstairs, Humphrey waited in his study until the doctor should be shown in. Dr Willis, when he did come, accepted a glass of port and lifted it in a toast to the newborn. Humphrey bent his head slightly in acknowledgement, but he did not raise his glass. As Dr Willis drank from his glass, his eyebrows rose slightly – so his own wife’s gossip about Elizabeth Woodman had a sound basis. Woodman was showing none of the jovial relief at a safe delivery that most men exhibited. He hastily finished his wine, put down his glass and said that he would call again the following morning, to check both mother and child.
II
Upstairs, Mrs Macdonald was deferentially solicitous and wondered privately who would pay her bill. She said, as she fussed round her patient, ‘Miss Webb wondered if you would like a bite to eat, Ma’am?’
Sarah Webb, being a spinster, would not visit her friend until the morning; not having been married, she was supposed, officially, not to know how babies arrived. The following day seemed to her to be a polite time to come up. She had, meanwhile, taken over the housekeeping, and Mrs Tibbs had had a long, uncomfortable evening as Sarah began to cope with a kitchen unused to being visited by its mistress.
Florence reinforced the suggestion of food. She said, ‘Yes, Mama, you should take something to eat. You have to keep up your strength.’ Florence was deadly tired, her bundly body aching in every direction, but she spoke brightly to her mother.
‘Very well, dear,’ Elizabeth responded wearily. ‘Tell Mrs Tibbs to make me a plain omelette and toast – and some Madeira to drink.’
Mrs Macdonald pulled at the bell rope.
Elizabeth continued to talk to her daughter. ‘I have a wet-nurse for the child,’ she told her with a wan smile. ‘I don’t propose to feed her myself. At my age …’
Florence nodded understandingly. She had not been informed of her mother’s pregnancy until a week before the birth. Elizabeth had not felt able to tell a pregnant daughter that she was expecting an infant. At forty, it was indecent to be in such a situation; she herself had not expected it to happen.
As her mother’s figure burgeoned under the flounces and heavy drapery of her elaborate dresses, the situation had been clear to Florence for some time. She was, however, much too well brought up to mention the subject until her mother cared to bring the matter up and she expressed suitable surprise when Elizabeth suddenly blurted out that she would be brought to bed within the month. She had been much alarmed that her mother would not survive and had prayed earnestly each night that she be safely delivered. Now, she thought, she must pray for herself.
As if the midwife divined her thoughts, she turned towards her and smiled faintly, ‘You look very well, if I may say so, Ma’am. You’ll soon know the joy of your own wee babe in your arms.’ There was oily comfort in every word.
‘Thank you, Mrs Macdonald,’ responded Florence graciously, ‘With your help, I’m sure I will.’
In answer to the bell, Maisie, the elderly parlour-maid, arrived and was instructed regarding a meal.
‘Tell Mrs Ford she may now come to remove the baby,’ Elizabeth told the maid. ‘I trust a fire has been made in the nursery – and in baby’s bedroom?’
‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. Fanny’s bin watching both fires ever since atternoon.’
Up in the nursery, Polly, lulled by the heat, had gone to sleep in an old easy chair set by the fireplace. In the glow of the coals, she looked softly pretty, tidier, more clean than she had ever been in her life.
When Fanny clumped in with yet another hod of coal, she woke up with a start.
‘Coom on, now,’ Fanny commanded her. ‘The Missus wants you to take the baby.’ She dumped the heavy coal hod into the fireplace, picked up a pair of tongs and lifted a couple of lumps of coal on to the blaze. ‘Maisie and Rosie’ll bring the cot up.’ She yawned enormously, her stunted little body stretching as she did so. ‘Aye, I’m that tired. Seems to me as if none of us is goin’ to get to bed tonight. And I got to be up at five, ’cos ould Tibbs raises Cain if she don’t have a hot oven by six o’clock, ready to put the bread in.’
Polly got up and stretched. Then she peeked into the mirror over the dresser, to check that her hair was still neat and her cap on straight. ‘Fancy having a mirror,’ she thought to herself gleefully. She picked up the candle from the table.
‘Aye, don’t leave me in the dark,’ protested Fanny. She hastily tipped the rest of the coal into a brass coal scuttle at the side of the hearth. ‘It’s proper ghosty up here, what with Mr Charles and Mr Edward gone away and not usin’ the rooms on the other side o’ the passage.’
Polly waited for the little skivvy and then, carrying the candle, led her down the dark staircase, the coal hod clanking like chains behind her.
On the floor below lay Elizabeth’s bedroom and beside it the dressing-room in which Humphrey had slept for the last year or so. Also on this floor, lay Florence’s old bedroom, a guest room and the main drawing-room; the latter was shrouded in dust sheets, because Elizabeth could not entertain in the last months of her pregnancy; it was not the thing. At the back of the house, on this same floor, was Elizabeth Woodman’s latest status symbol, a brand new water closet and a handsome adjoining bathroom with hot and cold water which belched from shining brass taps.
‘You’re not allowed to use the water closet,’ Fanny warned Polly, as they passed it. ‘You got to come down to the closet outside the back kitchen door – or you can use a chamber-pot and empty it yourself down there. I ’aven’t got no time to be running up and down with a slop pail to clear it for yez. There’s an old slop pail in the nursery cupboard if you want to use it.’
Polly reached Elizabeth’s door at the same time as Maisie was about to enter, so she followed her in. They both stood just inside the doorway, hands folded, eyes down, waiting for orders.
Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a pink shawl, her hair plaited neatly over each shoulder. She was feeling better and, though her eyes were black-ringed, some of her normal high colour had returned to her cheeks; the birth had, in fact, been quite an easy one. She fully expected that, thanks to Mrs Macdonald’s modern ideas of well-scrubbed hands, boiled aprons and sheets, she would be spared that plague of new mothers, childbed fever.
Replete with omelette and half a bottle of Madeira, her breasts bound tightly by Mrs Macdonald to prevent the flow of milk, all she wanted now was that the child be taken away, so that, as much as possible, she could forget it. She hoped, also, when trouble with her husband had blown over, that she could be reunited with Andrew Crossing, only in a more private place than on her drawing-room settee.
‘Polly,’ she snapped at the trim, black-haired wet-nurse. ‘Take the baby upstairs. See that it is fed every three or four hours and has its napkin changed frequently to keep it dry.’ She turned to Maisie. ‘Take the tray away. That will be all for tonight.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Maisie replied, took the tray and fled thankfully to her bed. Polly approached the cradle cautiously and picked up the tiny bundle which was Alicia Beatrix Mary. The infant opened its eyes and whimpered.
‘Polly.’
‘Yes, ’m?’
There is a good supply of clothing in the chest of drawers in the nursery. Fanny will remove any washing including your own. She will also bring up your meals. The washerwoman will come twice a week. See that the dirty clothes and sheets are down in the wash cellar by six o’clock every Monday and Thursday morning.’
Polly bobbed a small curtsey to indicate agreement.
‘I have instructed Mrs Tibbs to feed you well and let you have as much milk as you can drink.’
Having met Mrs Tibbs, Polly did not have any great hope of these instructions being followed properly. She whispered, however, a faint ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She allowed herself a small shivering sigh – it had been a long and eventful day for her – and then asked, ‘What’s baby’s name, ma’am?’
‘Alicia Beatrix Mary,’ replied Elizabeth, having decided that it was better to name the child herself, rather than ask Humphrey his opinion. Though she would not have liked to admit it, there was the thought in the back of her mind that, like its baby brother, it might die within the month, anyway; and that would solve a lot of her problems.
Andrew had assured her that since she and Humphrey lived together the child was legally his, unless he repudiated it. Nevertheless, she supposed she would have to go herself to register its birth, as soon as she felt well enough; Humphrey was hardly likely to do anything about putting his name on the birth certificate. She must also write a note to Andrew, she reminded herself, telling him of Alicia’s birth; she could say that she wanted to alter her Will slightly to include a small legacy to the new baby. She sighed, and hoped he would come soon.
‘You may go,’ she told Polly, patiently standing in front of her with the baby in her arms.
The free sample has ended.
