A Mother's Shame (12 page)

Maria was so shocked that she was rendered temporarily speechless. Isabelle meanwhile was tapping her foot at the injustice of it all. It had never occurred to her that the position she was in was partly her fault.

‘My parents want me to marry Philip Harrington. Have you heard of him?’ she demanded.

Maria nodded. Everyone in Ansley and Hartshill had heard of the Harringtons. Much like the Montgomerys, they were a very influential family.

‘Do you not like Philip then?’ she asked innocently. She had seen him a few times in the family carriage or on his stallion and thought what a handsome young man he was. She had certainly never heard a bad word said about him, or his father for that matter, who was commonly known to be a fair man. But the mother was cut from a different cloth entirely: rumour had it that she was a shrew who led her poor husband a merry dance.

‘It’s not that I don’t like him exactly. He is certainly goodlooking, and when his parents die he will be very wealthy indeed. It’s just that after knowing my Pierre he is so utterly
boring.
Like a little puppy dog, if you know what I mean.’

‘Would it be such a bad thing to be married to a man who is kind?’ Maria said practically. ‘What is it about him that you find boring?’ She could only assume that Pierre must be the father of Isabelle’s unborn child.

Isabelle tossed her head. ‘Just about everything!’ She spread her hands expressively. ‘He works every single day in one or another of his father’s factories because he says he wants to know everything about them before he inherits. Can you believe that? It’s so ridiculous when he can well afford to just put a manager in.’

Maria secretly thought it was admirable of Philip to want to feel that he was earning his living, but she wisely held her tongue. Also, as much as she disliked her father for the majority of the time, and although he was merely a poor preacher, he was actually a very learned man and had insisted that his children should be well educated, for which she was truly grateful. Maria had always been like a sponge when it came to learning, and she was sure that she was more knowledgeable than her mistress, had it been put to the test. Isabelle’s head seemed to be full of nothing more than the latest fashions and getting her own way, whereas Maria was keen to know about world events as much as was possible. But then they had been brought up so very differently. It was doubtful that Isabelle would ever have experienced what it was like to be hungry, as Maria herself had been at times, or to know how it felt to have no decent shoes to wear.

Isabelle idly flicked the lid of her jewellery box now and withdrew a sparkling ring with a green stone in it surrounded by diamonds set in gold. ‘Have you ever seen an emerald before?’ she asked as she placed it on her finger and held her hand out so that Maria might admire it. The stones snatched at the light, throwing rainbow prisms across the walls, and Maria thought she had never seen anything quite so splendid. In truth, the only piece of jewellery she had ever seen was her mother’s plain gold wedding band, but she had read about various gemstones in books.

‘No, I haven’t,’ she admitted. ‘It’s quite beautiful.’

Isabelle withdrew another ring; this time with a red stone in it. ‘This is a ruby,’ she informed Maria. ‘And they are worth a fortune.’ Her eyes became crafty then as she said cajolingly, ‘If you could get me out of this place I would give them to you. Think of it – you would be rich.’

Maria stared at her. ‘But that would be nigh on impossible,’ she answered honestly. ‘The door at the end of the landing is securely locked at all times. Even I cannot get out.’ It seemed that Isabelle would stop at nothing to escape her prison; she had already tried pleading and threatening, and now she had resorted to bribery.

‘Oh!’
Fury twisted Isabelle’s pretty face into a mask of hatred as she picked her hairbrush up and aimed it at Maria. ‘You are no better than the rest of them,’ she screamed. ‘Pretending to be my friend but all the time you are as intent on keeping me locked up here as they are!’

She was just about to launch the hairbrush when Maria leaped forward and caught her wrist in a vice-like grip as something inside her snapped and her blue eyes flashed fire. She had endured all Isabelle’s tantrums, the tears and the accusations, the rantings and the ravings, but now she had had enough.

‘I have
never
professed to be your friend,’ she ground out. ‘I am merely employed as your maid. But that does
not
give you licence to treat me as you wish. Do you
hear
me?’ Her face was as red as Isabelle’s now as all her fears and frustrations surfaced. ‘I have served you as best I could,’ she rushed on. ‘But I’ll tell you now, I will not allow you to throw another single thing at me! You are so spoiled you are utterly unbelievable. What makes you think that you are the only person in the world who is in trouble, eh? Because let me tell you, my fine madam, you are not!’

Isabelle’s mouth gaped open. All her life she had been pandered to and given everything she demanded. No one had
ever
spoken to her as this girl was doing now. But what could she have meant when she said she was not the only one in trouble? And then suddenly it came to her in a blinding flash as she shook her wrist free.

‘You
are with child too, aren’t you?’ she choked.

Maria’s shoulders suddenly sagged and in that moment Isabelle knew that she had guessed correctly. That would explain Maria’s red swollen eyes and her quietness.

‘Yes, I am.’ Maria knew that it would be useless to lie. Hers was not a condition that could be hidden indefinitely.

Isabelle regarded her steadily but eventually Maria’s fighting spirit returned and she told her, ‘You can tell Mrs Bradshaw if you wish – I have no doubt you will. I shall be dismissed, of course, but I dare say I shall survive.’

‘I shall be telling her nothing,’ Isabelle retorted. ‘The truth will come out eventually anyway, but until then I should like to keep you with me.’

‘You would?’ Maria was astounded. She had thought Isabelle hated her but perhaps she had been wrong.

‘You intrigue me,’ Isabelle said with a shrug. ‘I have never known a servant girl like you. Should you be properly dressed, I have no doubt you could be mistaken for gentry. In fact, sometimes you put me to shame.’ She grinned ruefully then before confiding, ‘I know that I have been spoiled shamelessly, which is probably why I am in this condition now. But
you
. . . you are so very rational, Maria. I would have thought you would have had more sense.’

‘We are
all
fools when it comes to love.’ Maria’s eyes welled with tears as she explained, ‘I have had a very strict upbringing and so when I met a lad from the village who showed me some affection, I was swept off my feet. He told me that he loved me and I believed him. I thought that with him I would lead a different sort of life. Then one evening he . . . Well, let’s just say that things went a little too far and I soon realised that I was with child. I went to see him to tell him that he was going to be a father but then he ran away to sea. He would have come back though,’ she said quickly, ‘but then when I went home on Sunday my mother informed me that he had been involved in a brawl at the docks and was stabbed. He is dead,’ her voice grew fragile, ‘and once my father discovers I am with child he will disown me.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

‘How awful,’ Isabelle exclaimed, forgetting her own troubles for the time being. ‘So what will you do now?’

Maria sighed and wiped her eyes. ‘I shall have to find another job and somewhere to stay, and then I shall try to work until the baby is born.’

Isabelle felt ashamed. At least her parents were prepared to stand by her, even if they had had her locked away until the confinement was over.

‘How far along are you?’ she asked now.

‘A little over two months.’

‘And so am I,’ Isabelle answered quickly and the two of them lapsed into silence as they each pondered on their dilemma.

It was Isabelle who broke the silence when she said, ‘I think the best thing we could do is keep silent for now. You are so slim it is likely the child will not even be evident for some time. Once it is . . . well, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.’

For the first time, Maria found herself liking Isabelle. Beneath her airs and graces and her hoity-toity ways, she was only a girl like herself, after all.

‘If you are quite sure,’ she said hesitantly. She had no wish to get Isabelle into trouble.

‘I am quite sure. Now come, read some more of
David Copperfield
to me. We must devise some ways of passing the time or we shall both end up as mad as some of the lunatics in here.’

In that instant, a friendship was forged, one that gave each of them comfort. Their relationship had changed dramatically, and for the better.

For the rest of that week, Isabelle was far calmer. Each morning she allowed Maria to help her dress and she even had a kind word or two for Kitty when she delivered their food and the logs for the fires to the rooms each day.

Kitty had obviously taken a shine to Maria. After all, she was the first person to ever go out of her way to talk to her and she began to linger for as long as she dared whenever she had an excuse to visit their suite of rooms.

It was one morning when she had carried Maria’s breakfast into her room that she commented, ‘It don’t seem fair to me that Miss Isabelle dines off the fat o’ the land while you an’ me ’ave to make do wi’ lumpy porridge.’

‘It’s always been that way, Kitty. One rule for the rich and another for the poor.’ Maria grinned as Kitty chewed on her lip, obviously wanting to say something more but not sure if she should.

‘But what if you weren’t really poor?’

Maria sat down at the table to eat her breakfast. The waistband of her long skirt felt a little tighter than usual but she was trying not to think of it.

‘Whatever do you mean, Kitty?’

‘You
are
Maria Mundy, ain’t you? The daughter o’ the local preacher?’

‘You know I am. What of it?’

Kitty licked her lips before whispering, ‘Well, I over’eard Cook an’ Miss Belle talkin’ in the kitchen t’other day, an’ Cook were sayin’ that Miss Isabelle is Master Montgomery’s daughter from Willow Park. An’ she also said—’

‘Kitty!
Whatever are you doing loitering about up here? Cook is waiting downstairs for you. Away to your duties at once, girl!’

Kitty almost jumped out of her skin as she glanced around to see Mrs Bradshaw standing in the open doorway of Maria’s room.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ She scuttled away like a cat with its tail on fire and once she had gone Mrs Bradshaw shook her head before saying, ‘Oh, that dratted girl. She can be such a trial. But never mind her for now. How is Miss Isabelle? Things certainly seem to have been a little quieter up here for the last few days. And I also notice that you have managed to persuade the young lady to get dressed.’

Maria nodded as she lifted a spoonful of the fast-cooling porridge to her mouth. ‘Yes, she has been calmer and she has even allowed me to read a little to her,’ she agreed.

The Matron surveyed her thoughtfully, wondering if any of the rumours that were flying around about Maria were true. She had thought from the first second she saw her that this girl was a cut above the rest in the village, and as the days had progressed she had been proven right. The girl’s skin was clear, not pock-marked or roughened by outdoor work, and her eyes were bright and intelligent. Her back was straight and she carried herself well, a sign of a reasonable diet no doubt, and her hands, the older woman noted, were soft and white, free of the usual calluses.

Maria, meanwhile, was studying her. She had never really taken much notice of the woman before, but now as she looked more closely at her she imagined that Mrs Bradshaw must have been a very handsome woman in her younger days. Her hair, although greying now, was still sleek and her teeth were excellent, even and white. When she walked she held herself regally and Maria briefly wondered where Mr Bradshaw might be and why the woman had chosen to become Matron in such a place as Hatter’s Hall. But then she supposed it was really no business of hers at the end of the day. As she was fast discovering: in this place, everyone had their own story to tell.

Joshua placed his knife and fork down, then looked across at his mother and father, who had breakfasted in complete silence.

Since his sister’s hasty departure more than a week ago, a pall seemed to have settled over the house. His parents did not appear to have exchanged more than a dozen civil words, and then only when it was absolutely necessary.

‘Have you heard from Isabelle about how her friend is yet, Mother?’ he asked now, hoping to start a conversation. In truth he did not believe a word of the story his father had fed him. He knew that Isabelle would never have simply taken flight without taking him into her confidence. Something was wrong, he just knew it.

Before Helena could reply, something akin to a growl issued from Charles Montgomery’s throat. Pushing his chair back, he stood and strode out of the room with a face as dark as a thundercloud.

Helena’s eyes fluttered nervously after him before coming again to focus on her son. ‘No, dear, I have received no word from her as yet but I am sure we shall do so in due course.’

‘I see.’ Joshua frowned. Isabelle was a spoiled little minx. She had always been the bane of his life and yet for all that he had a great affection for his little sister. It was he who had taught her to ride her first pony, spending hours leading her on a guiding rope around the level field adjoining the stable-block, alternately encouraging, or scolding her when she did not do as she was told, which tended to be often. It was he who had taught her to take her first steps in the nursery and he who would sit each night and read fairy stories to her until she fell asleep when she was a child. At one stage she had followed him about like a shadow until he had been close to screaming at her to leave him alone. And yet now that she was gone, it was as if the sunshine had gone out of the house, and without her cheerful chatter about inconsequential subjects that held absolutely no appeal to him, he found that he missed her.