Silence in Hanover Close (18 page)

“I will always be here, my dear,” Loretta promised—or, in the hot motionlessness of this room, was this a veiled threat? “Always.” Then, as Emily’s paralyzed figure caught the corner of her vision, “What are you staring at, girl?” she asked. Her voice stung like a sudden slap. “Be about your business!”

Emily leapt to attention and the dressing robe slid from her hands to the floor. She bent and picked it up clumsily, fingers stiff. “Yes ma’am!” She almost ran from the room, her face burning with frustration and embarrassment for having been caught eavesdropping. The words had been so ordinary, any mother and daughter-in-law might have exchanged them, but there had been no lightness or ease in the air; it was charged with multiple layers of meaning. And Emily felt with a crawling electricity under her skin that beneath it all was an immense hatred.

Emily took her first meal in Hanover Close in the servants’ hall, at a large table presided over by Redditch, the butler. He was in his mid-forties and just a trifle pompous, but his face had such an inoffensive air of slight surprise about it that she could not dislike him.

It was late by the time the meal had been served in the dining room, found satisfactory, and cleared away. The scullery was filled with dirty dishes. At the foot of the table sat the cook, who was still solicitous, since Emily was a newcomer, but there was no doubt that motherly concern would be quickly replaced by motherly discipline should Emily speak out of turn or fall short in her duty. Mrs. Crawford, the housekeeper, was dressed in black bombazine with an immaculate lace-trimmed cap, more elaborate than the one she had worn previously. She was very much on her dignity. She obviously considered herself the mistress in any other part of the house and only tolerated the cook’s supremacy here because Mrs. Melrose was so immediately concerned with preparing the meal. Throughout the conversation Mrs. Crawford made sharp little remarks, reminders of rank.

Edith, the other lady’s maid, apparently felt recovered enough to come to the table. She was in her mid-thirties, plump and sullen, her black hair still shiny but her country complexion dulled with two decades of London fog and soot and too little air. Whatever her indisposition, and although she seemed ill pleased with the food, she managed to eat all of it and came back for second helpings of the bread, cheese, and pickles, which was all there was offered, the main meal having been eaten at luncheon. Emily had the strong suspicion that Edith was more lazy than unwell, and she determined to find out why the disciplinarian Mrs. York tolerated her.

She spent what was left of the evening in the servants hall, listening to scraps of conversation and learning all she could, which was little enough, because they spoke mainly of their own affairs, domestic matters, the tradesmen and their shortcomings, and the general decline of the national character as exhibited by other people’s servants and the standards of households in general.

Edith sat next to the fire and sewed a chemise, and the mystery of her employment was solved—she was an exquisite needlewoman. Idle and ungracious she might be, but there was genius in her fingers. Her needle flashed in and out, drawing the gleaming silk behind it, and flowers took shape under her hand, delicate as gossamer and perfectly proportioned. Emily glanced at her work and saw the reverse was almost indistinguishable from the top. She realized that she might well be expected to pull Edith’s weight in fetching and carrying, and she would have to do it without complaint, or she would be replaced. Girls who would run errands were two a penny since the coming of machinery and the consequent disappearance of hundreds of home crafts; the traditional occupations for women no longer existed. Tens of thousands of them poured in from the country to take domestic service, most of them with nothing to offer but willingness and the need to survive. Girls who could stitch like Edith were worth their weight in gold. It was a lesson to be remembered.

Fanny, the tweeny, who was only twelve, was sent to bed at half past nine so she could be up at five to clean out the grates and polish the brasses. She went with a halfhearted complaint, made more from habit than any hope she would be reprieved, and Prim, the scullery maid, followed fifteen minutes later, for similar reasons, and with a similar complaint.

“On with you!” the housekeeper said sharply. “Quick sticks! Up them stairs, girl, or you’ll be late in the morning.”

“Yes, Mrs. Crawford. G’night. G’night, Mr. Redditch.”

“Good night,” came the automatic reply.

“I know there is a big dinner party tomorrow—will there be many guests?” Emily asked as casually as she could.

“Twenty,” Nora replied. “We don’t do very big parties here, but we have some important people.” She sounded a little defensive. She looked at Emily coldly, prepared to counter any slight, should it be offered.

“We used to ’ave more,” Mary said, looking up from the mending she was doing. “Afore Mr. Robert was killed.”

“That’ll do, Mary!” the cook said quickly. “We don’t want to talk o’ things like that. You’ll be givin’ them girls bad dreams again!”

Emily deliberately misunderstood. “I love parties. I love to see the ladies all dressed up.”

“Not parties!” the housekeeper said crossly. “Talking about death. You can’t be expected to know, Amelia, but Mr. Robert died terrible. I’ll caution you to hold your tongue about it. You go tattling all over the place and upsetting people and you’ll have no position in this house, and no character to take with you! Now you go upstairs and put out Miss Veronica’s things for the night an’ make sure you got your tray set for the morning. You can come down here again for cocoa at half past nine.”

Emily sat motionless, her temper rising. Her eyes met the housekeeper’s and she saw the start of surprise in them. Maids do not question their orders, least of all new maids. It was her first mistake.

“Yes, Mrs. Crawford,” she said demurely, her voice thick with anger, both at herself and at being subjected to discipline.

“Uppity, that girl,” Mrs. Crawford said as Emily was almost out of the door. “You mark my words, Mrs. Melrose: uppity! Can see it in her eyes and the way she walks. Got airs, that one. She’ll come to no good—I can always tell.”

Emily’s first night in Hanover Close was wretched. The bed was hard and the blankets thin. She was used to a fire, and a feather quilt, and thick velvet curtains over the windows. These curtains were plain cloth and she could hear the sleet lashing against the glass until sometime in the shivering darkness when it froze and turned to snow. Then there was silence, thick, strange, and penetratingly cold. She hunched up her knees but she could not get warm enough to sleep. Finally she got up, the air so bitter that the touch of her gown against her skin made her wince. She swung her arms sharply but was too tense to succeed in warming herself. Instead she put her towel on top of the bed, and then the mat from the floor over that, and climbed back in.

This time she slept, but it seemed only moments before there was a sharp rap on the door and the tweeny’s pale little face came round it.

“Time to get up, Miss Amelia.”

For a moment Emily could not think where on earth she was. It was cold and the room was stark. She saw iron bedposts and a heap of gray blankets and the floor mat over her. The curtains were still closed. Then with a rush of misery it all came back to her, the whole absurd situation she had got herself into.

Fanny was staring at her. “You cold, miss?”

“I’m freezing,” Emily admitted.

“I’ll tell Joan; she’ll find you another blanket. You’d better get up. It’s near seven o’clock, and you’ll ’ave ter get yerself ready, then make Miss Veronica’s tea and fetch it up, and draw ’er bath. She usually likes to be up by eight. An’ if nobody told yer, Edith’ll prob’ly sleep in an’ you’ll ’ave ter make Mrs. York’s tea, too, and draw ’er bath maybe.”

Emily threw the bedclothes off and plunged out, her body shaking. The floor without the mat was like dry ice. “Does Edith often skive off?” she asked with chattering teeth. She pulled open the curtains to let in the light.

“Oh yes,” Fanny answered matter-of-factly. “Dulcie always did ’alf ’er work, as I ’spec’ you will too, if you stay. It’s worf it. Anyway, if Miss Veronica likes you she’ll prob’ly take you wif ’er when she marries Mr. Danver, an’ then you’ll be all right.” She smiled and her eyes moved up to look at the gray sky through the window. “Maybe you’ll get ter meet someone real nice—’andsome, an’ kind—what ’as ’is own shop, maybe, and fall in love. ...” She let the thought hang in the air, beautiful and bright as a bubble, too precious to touch.

Emily felt tears prickling her eyes. She turned away, but she was too cold to stop dressing, nor was there time.

“Is Miss Veronica going to get married? How exciting. What’s he like, Mr. Danver? I expect he’s well-to-do?”

Fanny let the dream go and came back to reality. “Lor’ miss, I dunno! Nora says ’e is, but then she would! Got eyes for the gentlemen, she ’as. My ma used ter say all parlormaids ’as. Fancies theirselves rotten.”

“What was Mr. Robert like?” Emily put on her apron and reached for a brush to untangle her hair and pin it up.

“I dunno, miss. ’E died afore I come ’ere.”

Of course—she was only twelve, she would have been nine when Robert York was murdered. Stupid question.

Fanny was not to be deterred. “Mary says ’e was ever so good-looking, and a real gentleman. Never tried it on, like some gentlemen do, and lovely spoken. ’E liked nice rings, dressed a treat, but not showy like. In fac’ she says ’e was the best gentleman she ever saw. She thought the world of ’im. O’ course I fink she ’eard it all from the front servants like, ’er being scullery maid then. Devoted to Miss Veronica, ’e was; an’ she to ’im.” She sighed and looked down at her plain gray stuff dress. “Terrible sad, ’im bein’ killed like that. Fair broke ’er ’eart. She wept suffink wicked, poor soul. I reckon as ’ooever done it should be topped, but nobody never caught ’im.” She sniffed fiercely. “I’d like to find someone as’d love me like that,” she said, then sniffed again. She was a realist and half of her knew it would always be a fantasy, but it was precious. In the long day of practicalities, she needed to let go for a moment and permit the mind to take wing. Even the remotest chance was infinitely cherished.

Emily thought of George with a vividness she had learned to avoid for months now. A year ago her life had seemed so safe, and here she was, shaking with cold in an attic at seven in the morning, dressed in plain blue stuff and listening to a twelve-year-old tweeny pour out her dreams.

“Yes,” she said honestly, “it would be the best thing imaginable. But don’t run off with thinking that it only happens to ladies. Some of them cry themselves to sleep too; you don’t see all that happens. And some people you’d never think of can find happiness. Don’t give up, Fanny. You mustn’t give up.”

Fanny wiped her nose on a rag from her apron pocket. “You’re a caution, miss. Don’t let Mrs. Crawford ’ear you say that. She don’t approve o’ girls wif ideas. Says it’s bad for ’em: unsettles ’em, like. She says ’appiness comes from knowing yer place an’ keepin’ to it.”

“I’m sure she does,” Emily said. She dashed the cold water from the bowl onto her face and snatched the towel from the bed to rub it dry. It hurt her skin, but at least the roughness made her blood sing.

“I gotta be goin’,” Fanny said, turning to the door. “I only done ’alf me grates, and Bertha’ll be arter me to ’elp ’er wi’ ve tea leaves.”

“Tea leaves?” Emily did not know what she meant.

“On the carpet!” Fanny stared at her. “The tea leaves on the carpet to clean it afore the master and mistress comes down! Mrs. Crawford’ll ’ave me if I don’t get on!” And with a note of real fear in her voice she scuttled away. Emily heard her rapid feet along the uncarpeted passage and down the stairs.

The day was an endless whirl of one task after another. Emily began by cutting fine bread and butter and taking a tea tray to Veronica, pulling back the curtains, inquiring for instructions for bathing and dressing; then she did the same for Loretta and suddenly felt idiotically nervous. Her fingers fumbled and she nearly spilled the tea; the cup rattled and for a moment she was afraid she was going to knock it over. The curtains stuck and she had to yank them and her heart stopped as she had visions of the whole rail coming down on top of her. She felt Loretta’s eyes boring two holes in her back.

But when she turned round Loretta was busy with her bread and butter and had no interest in her whatsoever.

“Would you like me to draw your bath, ma’am?” she asked.

“Certainly.” Loretta did not look up. “Edith has already put out my morning dress. You can come back in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and excused herself as hastily as she could.

When both the ladies were bathed and dressed Edith deigned to put in an appearance, so Emily had only Veronica’s hair to do, after which she was permitted to hurry down to the kitchen and take her own snatched breakfast. Then she was required to go back upstairs and help Libby the upstairs maid with turning out the bedrooms. Each room had to be aired thoroughly, and before this could be done the cheval glasses must be laid down so the draft could not knock them over and break them. Then in the freezing wind from the open sashes they turned the bottom mattresses, plumped up the middle ones, and thoroughly kneaded and pummeled the top feather ones till they were as light as soufflés. Finally they remade the beds. The carpets were rolled and taken downstairs to be beaten only once a fortnight, and thank heavens it was not today. This time they only swept the carpets, dusted every surface, emptied and washed all the basins and chamber pots, cleaned the baths thoroughly and laid out fresh towels.

By the time they were finished Emily was tired and dirty. Her hair had fallen out of its pins, and Mrs. Crawford caught her on the stairs and told her that she looked a disgrace, she had better smarten herself up if she wished to remain. Emily was on the point of retaliating that if Mrs. Crawford had done a hand’s turn herself she would also look a little untidy when she caught sight of Veronica. Pale and tight-faced, she was walking quickly away from Loretta, and the butler with the morning newspapers freshly ironed, going across the hall towards the dining room.