Chapter 11

Anger has ever been a failing of mine. When it surges, it sings in my veins like a dram of gin. Any action seems possible, reasonable. It is only afterwards, when the fire fades, that I see the dark soot-stain of what I have done.

I thought I had conquered it in time for Lady Rose’s next baby. Reconciled myself to the idea she would prefer the child’s company to mine. Because after all, a baby would be a part of her: a girl with her heart-shaped face, or a boy with her melting brown eyes. Perhaps I could love it too.

I would be there throughout its upbringing, and – who could say? – perhaps it would grow to favour me above the other servants. Perhaps it would call for me before its mother, as Robert Farley had done.

I could make it need me.

So after she missed her second course, I dedicated a few weeks’ free time to sewing a complete set of baby clothes: barracoat, swaddling band, clouts and pilchers, two bonnets in hollie-point lace and a quilted gown. As the garments began to take shape, so did my affection for the stranger who would wear them. I grew impatient for chubby limbs to fill out the sleeves, a soft skull to place inside the caps. My tired fancy conjured up images of a baby that cooed and gurgled, a baby happy to be passed from its mother’s breast to me.

It was on a Wednesday that everything began to unravel. Shortly before they struck the dinner gong, I tied off my last stitch and folded all the tiny clothes into a linen parcel which I secured with ribbon. If I took it down right now, my lady would have time to open it before I changed her dress. But I hesitated.

Unaccountably, my stomach came alive with nerves; I felt vulnerable, as if I was exposing part of myself in this gift. Showing, perhaps, how truly devoted I was: that I would sacrifice my leisure hours, sacrifice sleep itself, to make her smile.

Hugging the parcel to my chest, I took a breath and set off towards my lady’s suite.

As I approached the door, I became aware of voices murmuring behind the wooden panels. The words were muffled.

I knocked.

‘Oh, that will be Stevens.’ My lady’s rich tones rang clear now. ‘Enter, Stevens.’

With some trepidation, I turned the knob. Entered the bedroom to see . . . myself.

Or in fact a better version of myself; the woman I might have been, who had always eluded capture.

A dignified bearing. Hair of a darker colour tied neatly into a chignon at the back of her head. Her face rested, solemn, but the features were softened at the edges by a prettiness mine lacked. She stood with hands lightly clasped by her waist and her shoulders held high, carelessly highlighting the excellent cut of her plain navy gown.

‘Stevens,’ said Lady Rose, ‘this is Mrs Friar.’

Friar nodded to me, pleasant enough. I did not know what to do with myself. The parcel of baby clothes seemed a ridiculous thing to be holding. I put it aside hurriedly on the bed, my practised speech all forgotten.

‘I am pleased to meet you, Mrs Friar. Excuse my interruption. Will you be dressed for dinner, my lady?’

‘Heavens!’ Lady Rose looked down in dismay at her plain clothing. ‘I had quite forgotten. Any gown should do. Did you let out the blue satin? I will wear that.’

I moved to the press to search out the gown, astonished that Mrs Friar did not seem to be going away.

Behind me, she cleared her throat. ‘May I ask what you usually dine upon, Lady Rose? It may be wise to make some adjustment.’

‘Nothing very exciting for today, Friar. Mutton, I believe. My mother-in-law Mrs Windrop takes the menus in hand, you had better speak with her.’

‘As you wish, madam. And I would take it as a great favour if you declined any wine with your meal. Many liquids can be pernicious – I would not have you take anything stronger than barley water.’

Lady Rose caught my eye; hers widened, seemed on the point of a comical roll. ‘Indeed? Well, of course, I shall do exactly as you say.’

‘I will leave you to get dressed, madam. But Stevens,’ I started, nettled by Mrs Friar’s familiar use of my name, ‘no stays. Jumps, if you must. I should prefer no constriction at this point.’

With that, Mrs Friar left the room.

My lady’s lips twitched with amusement. ‘Is she not impressive? Such assurance. She makes one feel quite safe.’

I smoothed out the blue satin, feeling as if I had gone mad. ‘Yes . . . But if you’ll pardon me . . . Who is she, my lady?’

Her laugh rang shrill. She moved over to the bed and slipped off her shoes. ‘Well might you ask! She simply arrived this morning like an apparition. I had not the slightest idea she was coming.’

This hardly answered my question. Distractedly, I lay the blue satin down on the bed beside the bundle of baby clothes. What should I do with them now? My plan had all gone awry. I knew her moods and humours; she was not in the frame of mind to receive the present – or at least, not to give me the reaction I craved. To see her open the parcel without interest and put the clothes quietly aside would destroy me.

Holding my tongue, I began to unfasten my lady’s dress.

‘I never saw a woman like Mrs Friar,’ she went on. ‘I hear the nurses in hospitals are drunken frights, are they not? Then, of course, there are the useful apothecaries and good midwives like your own mother, but this Friar . . . I think she has the air of a physician. Do not you? They tell me she assists one of the fashionable accoucheurs . . . I cannot recall his name. I am glad we did not end up with him. You will call me outmoded, but I cannot abide the idea of a man interfering in these things. It is intrusive, indelicate.’

A sour taste crept into my mouth. ‘Mrs Friar is here for the baby?’ I slipped the gown from her shoulders and there it was, starting to show through her stays. I felt something in my own stomach, an abscess of jealousy quickening, growing.

‘She tells me she has treated a number of women who have previously been . . . disappointed.’ A catch in her voice. ‘The “lowering treatment,” as she calls it, works wonders. How clever of Artie to find her! And to know, without even asking me, that I should not like a male accoucheur. He is terribly dear, Stevens. I pray I shall repay his attentions with a sturdy son. I could not bear—’

‘Sir Arthur sent for her?’ I had never interrupted my lady before.

Lady Rose peered over her shoulder, surprised. I noted one hand lay proudly on her small bump. ‘To be sure, Stevens. Who else would do so?’

‘I did not think . . . We said . . .’ Betrayal was a bitter mouthful to swallow. She was speaking as if the baby had nothing at all to do with me. ‘It is a surprise to hear, my lady, that is all. I thought him still in ignorance. You did not tell me you had made Sir Arthur aware of the pregnancy yet.’

‘Oh.’ Her lips parted in a little circle. ‘Goodness. Did I not?’ She shrugged her shoulders, as though it did not matter. ‘How silly of me. I must have forgotten to say something.’

Looking back, my mind is clear enough to see that she was not unkind to me. She treated me a good deal better than most mistresses ever would. But that was the rub. With the ‘interesting condition’ she became a mistress again, gaining consequence each day. And I was no longer a sister, a friend, a confidante; merely a maid.

It was the ‘lowering treatment’, I believe, which had such an effect upon her moods. It seemed a barbaric procedure, not at all like something my mother would recommend. The day after Mrs Friar arrived, I came upstairs with my lady’s morning chocolate, only to find that the blasted woman was already with her.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

Lady Rose glanced at me with her accustomed languid smile. ‘Oh, good. Thank you, Stevens.’ She put out her hands for the cup, but Mrs Friar’s voice arrested them.

‘What is in there?’

‘Drinking chocolate.’

Mrs Friar shook her head. ‘No. That will not do. Do not give her coffee either. Some tea I shall permit – without sugar. I find the best things are fruit or herbal tisanes. I believe Her Majesty takes an orange tea. Now, there is a woman who has delivered many children safely to term.’

Lady Rose pursed her lips. ‘Well, I suppose you had better take it back, Stevens.’

I left the room quietly enough, but I fear I made a terrible stomp going down the stairs. Burns was just emerging from the kitchen with Mrs Windrop’s tray of tea and toast.

‘You must take more care,’ she tutted. ‘The place for galloping hoydens is out on the street.’

Her sneer lingered as I poured the chocolate away and began to clatter the tea things about. The scullery maids shied out of my path.

Mrs Friar made me appear foolish without even trying. All I had learnt from my parents, the workings of the human body, seemed provincial in her presence.

When I returned with the cup of tea, I paused outside Lady Rose’s door, listening to them talk.

‘I fear you will ask me to forsake my snuffbox next.’

‘No, madam, providing it is used in moderation.’

‘To think that I did so many heedless things!’ Lady Rose exclaimed. ‘With my last child . . . I was not certain, you see. But now I fear I must have hurt the poor creature, eating and drinking and riding about in the carriage as I did. Nobody warned me.’

‘No, indeed. You were not to know, madam. Only those conversant with the very latest discoveries would be able to tell you. Our understanding of the child as it forms has changed.’

‘Stevens’s mother is a midwife.’ I heard a strain in Lady Rose’s voice. Not precisely distrust. Something worse: disappointment. ‘It seems she must be rather a shabby one, for Stevens never said a word about any of this.’

Pride throbbed.

‘No one can know what they are not taught, madam.’

‘True,’ she sighed. ‘It is a prodigious shame. I had started to think my maid rather clever about these sort of things.’