Dorothy Eden (2 page)

Mother’s trembling but stubborn chin went up.

“Her name is Harriet, ma’am.”

“So you told me. As a servant, she will be called Brown.”

Hetty tried to meet this fashionable woman’s long hard domineering stare, as she was to do many times later, on many different kinds of occasions.

“She knows nothing?”

“Nothing,” Mother said. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“Then I’ll send for my housekeeper. She can bath her and find some place for her to sleep.” She moved towards a bell rope, shrugging her shoulders fatalistically. “I believe I must be the most magnanimous woman in New York.”

Before Hetty could beg in horror not to be left in this strange house with this alarming woman, Mother was saying fervently, “Thank you, ma’am. It’s a great relief to me,” and then adding, with some daring, “Life can be unfair to women, ma’am.”

This was a sentiment to which the lady did not respond. She obviously hardly thought that she and someone like Mother with her shabby clothes and dark piteous eyes could be talking about life on the same planet.

Hetty only realised years later how extreme misery could toughen and harden and shape one’s character. For good or evil.

She didn’t think she had it in her to be evil, but neither could she go on for ever being a meek nonentity. She was told that as she came from a very poor and distant branch of the Jervis family she must expect to work for her board and lodging, her wearing apparel and her education. She could never presume to be the equal of Miss Clemency, the pampered and adored daughter of a widowed mother.

After the death of her husband at the age of only forty-five Mrs Jervis said she did not intend to remarry. She would devote herself entirely to her little girl’s future. She would make it a glittering one, to compensate the poor child for being made fatherless so young.

In a way Hetty’s arrival was a boon, for Clemency, over-protected and cosseted, had been lonely and bored with her life.

The two girls were not unalike in appearance, both being dark-haired and green-eyed with slim neat bodies. But they were totally unalike in character, Hetty’s early austerity having made her introverted and wary, and with a love of beauty, and a greedy desire to learn about everything, books, pictures, manners, food. She was not unhappy, for the servants, hearing of her previous life, had made something of a pet of her, a thing that did not escape Mrs Jervis’s notice. As a consequence she made it so evident that Hetty was an unwelcome outsider, taken in only by Mrs Jervis’s Christian kindness, that Hetty never had the courage to demand more details of that distant family relationship.

Actually, her slum upbringing hadn’t left her in much ignorance of the facts of life, and by the time she had reached puberty she had had an intuition about the true nature of her relationship with the Jervis family. Hints dropped below stairs and her own growing awareness of the opposite sex made her suspect what must have happened. When she was told by Cook, a fierce-tongued but kindly woman called Mrs Crampton, that her mother had briefly been an upstairs maid in the house shortly before Mr Jervis’s marriage to Mrs Jervis, she was almost certain that, far from being a distant cousin of Clemency’s, she was, in fact, her half sister.

The knowledge didn’t shock her. She was only full of pity for what her mother must have suffered, and intensely admiring of her for having had the courage to enter into such an emotional and hopeless relationship.

She eventually discovered that her assumptions were correct when, one day, just after her sixteenth birthday, a rather grubby package addressed to her, Miss Harriet Brown, was delivered at the servants’ entrance of the house.

“By a very sharp-looking fellow,” said Cook disapprovingly. “What is it, Hetty, the family jools?”

They were not jewels, only a small package of letters tied with faded ribbon. A badly-spelled note accompanied them. It read:

Dear Hetty Brown, Your Mam intrusted me with these when she died. I promised to deliver them to you on your 16 birthday which she said was first May 1908. She said you would be old enuf to unnerstand, I hope you are, dear. Your pal, Alf.

Whoever Alf was, he had kept his promise, and Hetty, shaking with emotion, had read the creased pages:

My darling girl,

I hope life is not too hard for you. It is bad luck it must be like this. I trust you to understand, and enclose some money for your needs. I will send more after the baby is born, and continue to do so. Remembering all the sweetness we had.

Howard

More letters followed at infrequent intervals, mentioning money, and later, her, the baby. “Harriet is a good name, but I shall call her Hetty.”

Then a final letter:

I seem to have developed a touch of heart trouble, nothing to worry about, but I have to take a vacation. Millicent and I are going to Florida for a few weeks. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while. Enclosed, enough to cover things for the next few months.

This letter ended with a touch of more open emotion. The signature was “Your own Howard”.

It was the last letter, for it must have been soon after that Howard B. Jervis had died from his “Slight heart trouble”. His younger daughter, aged five years, was an heiress, his elder, aged six years, was precipitated into her education in a Bowery sweat shop, beside her shocked and grieving mother.

Howard Jervis might genuinely have loved Hetty’s mother, but he had been too dreamy and unpractical to provide permanently for her. He had certainly never set eyes on his illegitimate daughter. Wouldn’t have wanted to, indeed.

Poor Mother must have nourished her bitterness for years, until she had become fatally ill, and took her sad and desperate revenge by depositing Hetty on the doorstep of the Fifth Avenue mansion.

After reading the letters Hetty felt as if she had attained maturity within a few hours. She wept a little then, drying her eyes and lifting her head proudly, had resolved never to stoop to using the letters as a weapon, as perhaps her mother had intended her to do. Clemency would never be told of their relationship and Mrs Jervis never reminded of it. All in all, Mrs Jervis had treated her well enough, considering how outraged she must have been, and an illegitimate child did not expect an inheritance. Clemency must be rich and she poor. That was the way of the world.

But she had learned a great deal in the Jervis household. She was no longer an illiterate Bowery child, but a reasonably educated young woman with natural good taste. The ways of the rich had easily enough rubbed off on her. She had inherited, too, her father’s love of beauty and poetry but, fortunately for her, these qualities were leavened with a good deal of her mother’s common sense and instinct for survival. She had no intention of remaining a lady’s maid for the rest of her life.

She was a bastard.

When she had accepted that fact she knew that she had lost the last traces of her childish sentimentality, and began to think frequently and seriously about her future. After all, she was just as attractive as Clemency, and could easily adopt the same haughty air and the same sweet persuasive manners. Indeed, Clemency had occasionally extracted enormous fun from making Hetty dress in her clothes and receive the male callers whom she found too boring. Hetty had entertained these unfortunate rejects in the south drawing room, and none of them had discovered the truth. It had been a great lark. Clemency had giggled helplessly at the keyhole, and Hetty had had to raise her voice vivaciously to drown the sound. Naturally she had not been permitted to play this game with Lord Hazzard, which she regretted. She would have enjoyed having those brilliant blue eyes fixed on her only, although she was not at all sure that he would not have seen through the disguise. She had wondered if he had a sense of humour.

That was something Clemency would have to discover. It didn’t seem to be worrying her. She was totally involved in material plans. Besides, Hugo seemed a bit unreal, didn’t he, on the other side of the Atlantic, and perhaps being a rather grim soldier.

But everything would settle down happily, wouldn’t it? That was the only time Hetty detected any nervousness or uncertainty in Clemency. However, it was gone in a moment, and she was crying, “Brown, did you pack my Ascot dresses? We’ll be in England just in time.”

As soon as Hetty had been old enough to learn her duties as a lady’s maid, the two girls’ schoolroom friendship was over. Clemency must now be addressed respectfully as “Miss Clemency” and Hetty herself by her surname. It had been a difficult lesson to learn. But Hetty was becoming adept at adjusting to circumstances.

“I shouldn’t think there’d be any Ascot this year, Miss Clemency.”

“Oh, nonsense, it’s an English institution. As soon say there’d be no Parliament. Or no King and Queen.”

“And that’s a stupid remark, if I may say so, Miss Clemency,” Hetty said evenly. “You’ll have to learn more about England than that. She’s fighting a war that’s getting worse each week.”

“Brown, I forbid you to scare me! You’d just better stop reading the newspapers.”

T
HE DODGE MOTOR CAR,
of which Uncle Jonas was extremely proud, stood outside waiting to take them downtown to the Cunard pier.

But the ladies had been delayed over their breakfast by Uncle Jonas’s arrival, and the alarming news he had brought them. He had come in flourishing a newspaper and asking if they had read the shipping notes in the
New York World
a week ago.

“Why, no,” Mrs Jervis answered. “We have our time of sailing. What else do we need to know?”

“This,” said Uncle Jonas, pointing at a column. “A damned odd notice put out by the German Embassy. Shall I read it to you?”

“Do. But we’re not sailing on a German ship. I personally would have preferred the
Kronzprincessen Cecilie.
So many of my friends have said how wonderful she is. But under the circumstances we thought it diplomatic to choose a British ship bound for a British port. Didn’t we, Clemency?”

“Let him read the notice, Mother.”

Uncle Jonas cleared his throat and read in his most sonorous voice, “Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or of any of her allies are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk. Imperial German Embassy, Washington D.C. April 22, 1915.

“Now what do you make of that, Millicent?”

“I guess it’s honourable behaviour by the Germans, but it doesn’t mention the
Lusitania.”

“It’s put right beside the advertisement for the
Lusitania
sailings. Don’t you think that significant? I wish I’d seen it a week ago, but my clerk only brought it to my notice this morning. It’s still not too late to cancel, Millicent.”

“At the last minute like this! Why, all our trunks are on board. Clemency’s wedding gown and all. What do you think, honey?”

Clemency answered her mother without hesitation.

“We can’t cancel now. Hugo is getting leave so that he can meet us at Liverpool. Goodness, Uncle Jonas, we can’t have Hugo thinking we’re scared.”

Uncle Jonas, who was Mrs Jervis’s brother and much resembled her with his pale grey eyes and florid complexion, said in his downright manner, “Better to be scared and alive than brave and dead, my girl. Think about it, Millicent. There’s an hour before we need to leave for the docks. You can telephone the Cunard people. I think they could be persuaded to get your trunks off. Even if they can’t, I guess there are other wedding gowns to be had. And I can send a cable to freeze that million dollars in the Westminster bank. We can’t have milord getting his hands on the marriage settlement before the marriage.”

“Uncle Jonas, Hugo would never do that! He’s absolutely honourable. Anyway, I don’t suppose the bank would let him.”

“Not if it conducts its business in a proper manner. We’ve given clear instructions. Credentials, including the marriage certificate, to be produced.”

“And the bride, too?” Clemency asked. “I think this talk of money is a bit heartless when you should be worrying about German submarines.”

“That’s what I am worrying about,” Uncle Jonas insisted, thumping his fist on the table, making the delicate china rattle. “Haven’t I made that clear? Millicent, I know your hopes for your daughter, but it’s my personal belief that the stakes have got too high. Is a title for Clemency worth a million dollars, and risking her life into the bargain?”

“Jonas, you’re being an old woman. The Germans would never dare to sink a passenger ship, especially when there’ll be so many Americans on board. They’d be mad. Think of the outcry. They’re already accused of murdering babies in Belgium. This would be murdering them at sea. Why, it would just about make the United States declare war.”

“Which would suit the British and the French nicely, wouldn’t it? You’ve got to realise that devious things go on during a war. I’ve even been told this morning that there’s a rumour the
Lusitania
is carrying munitions, though apparently the manifest doesn’t say so. Now the British aren’t naïve innocents. They’d never have got their Empire if they were. So if the
Lusitania
is armed she’s a legitimate target for German submarines.”

“I don’t believe a word of it, and I think it’s cruel of you to try to frighten us at the last minute. You’re too cautious. I don’t believe you ever took a risk in your life. I suppose that’s being a banker.” Millicent had put down her napkin. Except for her hat, gloves and furs, she was dressed for departure. “But I’m not entirely ignorant either. Isn’t it the code that an enemy submarine surfaces and gives passengers time to leave a ship before it is sunk?”

“Take a mighty long time to disembark two thousand souls in mid-ocean. And I can’t see any liner carrying enough lifeboats to accommodate so many. But there is that point, I grant you.”