In the days that followed Lady Rose’s miscarriage, I retained sole possession of her. She could not endure anyone else – not to change her bed or mend her fire, not even to fetch up her food tray. Sir Arthur she did permit, but he was not the same man who had watched me wash her. Faced with her tears he was stiff, awkward.
‘I have failed him, Stevens,’ she would sob into my arms after he had left. ‘He knows that I have failed him.’
I scarcely knew how to deny it. Blameless though Lady Rose was, there could be no doubt that the fiasco had damaged Sir Arthur’s standing. Like a porcelain figure, a wife was prized for smoothness and lustre, degraded by the slightest flaw. Lady Rose had been . . . chipped. We could not recapture that air of promise and glamour she once exuded.
Enquiries were made after her health, but not so many as I expected. Visitors stayed away.
Deep within me vibrated the old fear: that I had somehow caused this disaster. My tainted presence falling over my mistress like a cloud. But even my mother, who was apt to blame me for much, did not seem to think Lady Rose’s plight out of the usual way. Miscarriages were common in her line of work; her letters were full of practical instructions to restore my mistress to health. She wrote out a receipt for me: a broth made with knuckles of mutton, spring water and hartshorn.
No amount of nostrums, however, could repair the emotional fissures. Only I saw them. When I insisted on taking Lady Rose for air in the carriage, she looked utterly terrified.
‘People will see me,’ she gasped. ‘They will whisper.’
She was right. The beau monde were out in flocks upon those breezy summer days, gossiping behind their fans. Instead of sunlight, we saw the glint of a thousand quizzing glasses turned in our direction.
My mistress leant her head upon my shoulder in the carriage, as if the weight of her mind and its thoughts was more than she could support.
There must be somewhere I could take her. A single place in this great City where she could find peace.
I recalled how she loved the story of the Willow pattern about the lovers fleeing across a bridge. And just that morning, I had been reading her poetry from Mr Wordsworth.
‘I have an idea.’ I rapped upon the roof. ‘Driver, take us to Westminster Bridge.’
When Mr Wordsworth composed his famous lines, he found the City in repose. It was not so upon that day. Traffic clopped steadily over the stone arches. Sails fluttered from a mass of boats and ships upon the river. Arm-in-arm, we struggled alongside other pedestrians to find a vantage spot unpolluted by dung.
As we stopped and looked out, the world seemed to open up like a casket. Towers and domes were silhouetted against the brightness of the sky. Fields stretched far into the distance. The abbey shone with a kind of hazy radiance I had only seen in paintings.
It gave me hope. This time, I thought, I will stay in my position. I will coax my mistress back to health and nothing else will go wrong. Lady Rose will love me. She will love me forever.
Lowering her head from the glare of the sun, she considered the water seething silently beneath. ‘Did you never think of jumping in, Stevens?’
I almost laughed. ‘Into the Thames?’
‘Yes.’
I shook my head at her, sure this was her idea of a jest. The rim of her bonnet obscured her expression. ‘That would be a very foolish thing for me to do, my lady, considering that I cannot swim.’
‘No more can I.’
She spoke calmly, matter of fact.
Sunlight glanced off the river, dazzling my eyes. From this distance it appeared cool and glassy. With dust swelling up from the road behind us, the idea of water was inviting. I had heard of young bucks leaping into the Serpentine in the height of summer, emerging to scandalise the ladies with their dripping shirts. No doubt that was what Lady Rose meant.
‘It is not at all safe,’ I cautioned. ‘It is not like the shallow areas in the sea where they take the bathing machines. The current is strong, the waters are rough.’
‘What would they do to me?’
‘They would toss you about. Chill you.’ I put a hand upon her arm, a nurse once more. ‘Promise me you will never attempt it, my lady. With all the refuse in the river you would be torn. Cut to pieces.’
She turned then, looked me squarely in the eye. ‘Sometimes, I think I should like to be.’