Polly's Story (11 page)

Despite my reservations about the boathouse from Iris’s point of view, there was no denying it made a wonderful place to hold a party. It was so private and set apart, with the sparkling lake in front and a tangle of woods behind. That evening the gardeners brought in all sorts of potted plants and buckets full of creamy roses; the place ended up so crammed with greenery and flowers you could scarcely make out an inch of bare wall. Edward and Rory, Miss Brookfield and her mother came to inspect the decorations while Jane and I were setting out the tables. The older lady was on the pernickety side, unfortunately, and wanted to rearrange everything to suit her own odd ideas, but Miss Brookfield was delighted. ‘How pretty it looks,’ she said, gazing around. ‘Just like a room made out of leaves and branches. Harriet will love it!’

‘What she will love most about her birthday is the fact that you are there to share it,’ said Master Rory, looking at her all moony-eyed. ‘I declare, Miss Brookfield, you haven’t even been at Swallowcliffe a week and already I can’t imagine the place without you. We shall be quite desolate when you are off on your travels again.’ (The Brookfields were going on to Italy, after they were done visiting England.)

‘Then perhaps I can come back to cheer you up,’ she said, with a pretty smile. ‘If you will be kind enough to invite me, that is.’

‘Good friends don’t need an invitation,’ said Master Edward, breaking in on the conversation. ‘Whenever you’d like to visit, Miss Brookfield, we shall be delighted to see you.’

That’s a bit more like it, I thought to myself, polishing a teaspoon on the corner of my apron. If you don’t look out, Master Edward, your little brother will be stealing a march on you.

I was glad to see that it was Edward who sang a duet with Miss Brookfield that evening while Miss Eugenie played the piano; he had a lovely rich baritone. They were all late to bed, which made me late too, since I had to help Miss Brookfield out of her evening gown. It was a hot, close night, with faint rumblings of thunder in the distance and scarcely a breath of air in our room. I drifted uneasily in and out of sleep, and at one point found myself looking over towards Iris’s bed. It was empty, just like before. I could not bear it; we weren’t starting all this business up again, were we? I sat up and looked out of the window in case I should happen to find her by the lake again, although surely she would not have gone to the boathouse tonight. At any rate, the sliver of a new moon did not shed enough light for me to see.

Then suddenly I knew exactly where Iris would be. So it turned out: as I climbed through the sash window on to the roof, I saw her standing with her back to me, leaning against one of the chimney stacks and gazing out into the dark velvety sky. The hem of her nightgown fluttered a little in the faint breeze, but otherwise she was completely still. Something in the slope of her shoulders made me feel sadder than words could say, and when she turned her head, I saw that her cheeks were wet with tears.

‘Oh, Iris,’ I said, putting my arms around her, ‘won’t you tell me what the matter is? Could I not help you in some way?’

She shook her head, clinging to me for a moment. ‘There is nothing anyone can do. Don’t worry, I am sure it will turn out all right in the end.’ She laid her head on my shoulder and I rubbed her back, feeling it was all I could do to comfort her.

We stood there like that for some minutes. ‘You have been a good friend to me, dear Polly,’ she said eventually. ‘We have shared some happy times together, haven’t we?’

‘And many more to come, God willing,’ I said, not wanting to follow where her words were leading, and fighting against the hopeless tone of her voice. ‘Now come inside or we shall never be up in the morning.’

The roof seemed a dangerous place for Iris to be in that state of mind, and I was relieved when she allowed me to lead her down and back into bed. I kissed her cheek and she closed her eyes, though I don’t think either of us managed much sleep the rest of that long night.

Nine

Do not smile at droll stories told in your presence, or seem in any way to notice, or enter into, the family conversation, or the talk at table, or with visitors; and do not offer any information unless asked, and then you must give it in as few words as possible.

From
Rules for the Manners of Servants in Good Families
, 1901

The next day dawned bright and hopeful. I laid a bunch of meadowsweet and dog roses on Miss Harriet’s early-morning tray, together with a lavender bag that I had made for her birthday out of a scrap of lace. It was not much, but I had embroidered it with her initials as well as I could, and she seemed very pleased.

‘It’s lovely, Polly. Look at your tiny stitches! How can you possibly make them so neat? Oh, this is going to be the best birthday ever. It is such a lovely day, and I am to go out riding with Miss Brookfield after breakfast, and then boating with Rory and Edward.’

Miss Brookfield had instructions to keep Harriet well out of the way while we carried all the china and food out to the boathouse. Mrs Bragg had prepared her favourite dishes: game pie, salmon mayonnaise, lobster salad and a huge side of roast beef with a chunk of fresh horseradish to grate. There were strawberries and peaches from the greenhouse too, and Mrs Henderson had baked a walnut cake which Iris had iced and decorated most beautifully with crystallized violets and rose petals. I didn’t get a chance to speak to Iris privately that morning, but at least she seemed a little calmer at breakfast.

At one o’clock sharp the guests were all waiting in the boathouse, its gingham curtains drawn so as not to give away the surprise. I winked at Master John across the room; he was almost bursting with excitement, hopping up and down while the nurserymaid held his hand and tried to keep him quiet. We maids had been given permission to stand at the back and wish Miss Harriet a happy birthday; Miss Brookfield thought it would be a nice way to thank us for everything we had done. Everyone fell silent as we heard Harriet’s voice come floating across the water, followed by the clunk of the boat’s wooden hull against the jetty. Then suddenly I noticed that Iris was missing. She should have been there, especially as she had taken such trouble icing the birthday cake, and I knew that she had been looking forward to seeing the boathouse in all its glory.

Rory opened the door and Harriet came in, and there was a great deal of ‘Oh, my goodness!’ ‘Look who’s here!’ and ‘Are you sure you didn’t realize?’ but I could not enjoy any of it. I knew in my bones something was badly wrong. Slipping away from the party as soon as possible, I ran back along the path around the lake, then straight up the servants’ staircase to our bedroom.

Everything of Iris’s had gone. Her chest of drawers was empty, her coat no longer hung on the back of the door, and her bed had been stripped of its sheets. It was as though she had never existed.

I turned around instantly and ran downstairs, my heart pounding in my chest and my shoes clattering on the wooden floorboards. For once, I didn’t care whether Mrs Henderson or anyone else could hear me making more noise than was necessary. I rushed along the corridor and knocked on the door of her room.

‘Please, Ma’am,’ I said quickly, upon being admitted, ‘has something happened to Iris?’

Mrs Henderson laid down her pen and looked at me for a long moment. ‘Miss Baker is no longer a part of this household,’ she said. ‘You are to forget all about her. I shall tell the rest of the household at luncheon. If I hear anyone so much as mention her name again, they will be dismissed. She has been a naughty, wicked girl and if you have any sense, you will learn a lesson from what has happened to her. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, and quietly let myself out.

The news was more of a shock to me than a surprise. There was no need to ask why Iris had been made to leave. I had had my suspicions for a while now, and when I had held her close the night before in her thin cotton nightgown, they were confirmed. Iris had gotten herself into trouble, of the worst kind: she was expecting a baby.

Of course we did talk about Iris between ourselves that night. We couldn’t pretend that nothing had happened.

‘I always thought she was no better than she should be,’ Jane said. ‘Well, now the pigeons have come home to roost! I wouldn’t be in her shoes for anything.’

‘Do you know who the father is?’ Becky asked me. ‘You and Iris were always knocking about together. Didn’t she ever tell you?’

‘No, she never did,’ I replied, which was true enough. I did not want to mention Rory Vye’s name and hear what they would have to say about that. ‘And even if she had, I’d have kept it to myself. We’ve no business speaking badly of Iris behind her back. What has she ever been to all of us but a good friend? You were happy enough to have her running up and down the stairs with cups of beef tea, Jane, when you were poorly over Easter. There was no mention of her being so very wicked then, as I recall.’

They harumphed a bit at that, saying of course they were sorry about what had happened and they hadn’t meant any harm, and we went to bed very sniffy with each other. Well, let them look sideways and whisper under their breath - I didn’t care. I would never forget everything Iris had done for me: the good advice she had always been ready to give, the hundred and one little kindnesses that had made my life so much easier since the first day I had come to Swallowcliffe. She might have made a mistake, but show me the person who’s never done that. And she was certainly paying a heavy price for it now. How frightened and alone she must be feeling! The sight of her empty bed made me sick with worry. There was a thunderstorm that night which cleared the muggy air; I lay there, listening to the rain drumming down on our roof, and prayed that she had found somewhere safe and dry to sleep.

The next day, life carried on just the same. A stone might have been thrown into our little pool, but the ripples had faded quickly away and now the water was smooth again - on the surface at least. A new maid moved into the still room within a matter of hours: Lucy, the head kitchenmaid. She was interviewed by Mrs Henderson in the morning and took over her new post that afternoon as Mrs Bragg had no objection. I had no choice but to get on with things, like it or not. The house guests were staying for another few days, so there were bedrooms to be cleaned and beds to be made, linen and towels to be changed, endless cans of hot water to be carried up and down stairs. There would be croquet on the lawn, tennis matches, picnics in the woods, and trips to the seaside to entertain our visitors.

Keeping the house running smoothly, that was all that mattered. I wondered whether anyone in the family apart from Lady Vye knew that Iris had gone, and what they would have thought about it if they did. Would Master Rory even notice, or was he too taken up with Miss Brookfield to care? I should have liked to give him a piece of my mind - not that it would have done much good, of course, and I didn’t dare risk being dismissed myself. You might be thinking that it wasn’t very loyal to Iris, going on with my work just the same, but what choice did I have? It was too late to change what had happened, and there was no sense in two of us being out on the streets.

I thought about Iris all the time, though. I should have liked to talk about her with somebody kind and trustworthy; William perhaps, but we did not often have a chance to speak now that there were no fires to be laid, and Iris’s condition was a rather delicate topic to bring up with a young man anyway - especially one who had been attached to her. Miss Harriet was far too taken up with the visitors to think about anything else and I could not properly discuss things with her either. She had lived a very sheltered life and besides, Master Rory was her brother; it was all a good deal too close to home. And then in the afternoon, I came across Miss Harriet hurrying along the passage.

‘Can I come and hide in your sitting room, Polly?’ she said breathlessly. ‘I am trying to give Miss Habershon the slip and she’ll never come looking for me there.’

Being so worried and preoccupied, I was not in a mood to beat about the bush and answered her very bluntly, I’m afraid. ‘And why should Miss Habershon waste her time searching for you? It would not kill you to sit in the schoolroom for an hour or so. I should like nothing better, myself.’

‘That is a very sharp remark,’ she said, looking at me warily. ‘Why are you so scratchy all of a sudden? Are you tired or something?’

‘Sorry, Miss Harriet.’ I came to my senses a little too late. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘I don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but tell me what you are thinking, and why you should be so cross.’

I decided to be honest, and hang the consequences. ‘Well, not cross, exactly. But you see, I had to leave school when I was ten and a sad for me that was. I like Miss Habershon, she has been lending me books and we talk about all sorts of things. I think you are not treating her at all fairly and it’s not like you. Just think of everything you have done for me!’

‘You’re my friend, though. We help each other, we’re on the same side. Miss Habershon is so strict and severe! If you could see her glaring at me over a German grammar book you would not like her so very much, I assure you.’

‘Perhaps she only wants you to make an effort.’ The governess had never said as much, but I could imagine that she was at her wits’ end with Harriet. I had seen the pair of them once in the schoolroom, Harriet staring out of the window with her arms folded and Miss Habershon looking fit to burst with impatience.

‘Well, I shan’t give her the satisfaction,’ Harriet declared. ‘The sooner she leaves the better.’