An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) (27 page)

On the second evening she had agreed to assist her friend Mrs Robinson, the housekeeper, in
sifting through
a
surprisingly large number of letters
of
application for a housemaid’s
vacant
position. Servants in Mrs William’s househol
d, for some reason, did not appear
to stay for very long.
And although it prevented her from visiting Mrs Staveley, in many ways Maggie was grateful for the diversion.
She h
ad been feeling very restless. Now that he had secured his place within it she was finding that s
he could not get Freddy out of her mind.

So it was several days af
ter Mr Staveley’s departure before
Maggie finally found an opportunity to visit his elderly mama and by the time she did so, as well as suggesting that she might wish to notify her son of Miss Brewer
’s engagement
, Maggie had discovered a further reason for seeking a
n interview
with her. Primed by what Freddy had told her about the state of his mother’s finances she had made it her business to watch and listen out for any activities, any incidents
in relation to his mama
which could reasonably be thought to be odd. And in so doing she had realised that Mrs William appeared to have taken
responsibility for
so much of the management of Mrs Staveley’s day to day existence – from the food she was
taken for breakfast and dinner -
she normally ate these in her room except for when there were guests
-
to whether and when she should bathe – that the poor woman appeared to have absolutely no more say in the running of her own life than a two
-
year old
child
might have done. More than this, from the remnants of meals left for collection on Mrs Staveley’s little table Maggie could clearly see that the range, amount and quality of the food provided for the old lady upstairs was far inferior to that enjoyed by the rest of the family down below.

So although it was several days before Maggie could
call on Mrs Staveley
, once she had done so
at least
it appeared that the visit should bear some fruit.
Mrs Staveley was more than receptive to Maggie’s
blushing
suggestion that her next letter to Freddy could usefully
contain a hint about the new status that Miss Brewer had recently acquired for herself. Yes, she did write to her son from time to time – she had been an avid writer in her better days, though she was finding it singularly difficult now
-
  and yes, he may well be interested in the news. She should certainly tell him about it the very next time she wrote.

‘And does Mr Staveley respond to your letters, ma’am? I
have not heard you mention it
before.’

Maggie was savouring the opportunity to talk about him – to speak his name out loud to his mama. It felt oddly exciting.

Mrs Staveley gave
Maggie a sweet little smile.

‘No, my dear,’ she sighed. ‘I receive no replies. He always used to be a dutiful correspondent – not that he had much to say – he is a gentleman, after all, and gentlemen do not generally enjoy writing letters as we ladies do – and his handwriting is not so easy to decipher – but he would always send something in response. I should like to have heard from him. I should like to know how things are coming along.’

Maggie found herself thinking that all this sounded odd. Mrs Staveley could be a little forgetful, that was true, but it seemed singularly unlikely that she should forget the existence of something
like a letter
that would obviously mean such a lot to her.
She had come to know Mr Staveley quite well in recent weeks.
Nay
-
s
he had come to know hi
m very well indeed. She
blush
ed
at her thoughts.
He was a kind and considerate
young man. He was obviously most
attached to
his mama. In spite of what she had just told her, Maggie could not imagine him omitting to reply to every one of the letters she had sent
to him
.

‘Well, perhaps I should look out for one,’ she said. ‘I feel persuaded that Mr Staveley will certainly write back. If I see that there is a letter directed to you I shall pick it up and bring it here for you in an instant.’

Mrs Staveley cast her a grateful look.

‘I should be so pleased if you would, Miss
...
. err – my dear,’ she said. ‘I do wonder, you know, whether perhaps my nephew and niece take a little too much upon themselves at times.’

‘So you suspect that they are keeping your letters from you, Mrs Staveley?’

The old lady leant forward from the comfort of the armchair that Freddy had acquired for her.

‘They are
keeping everything away from me
, you know, my dear,’  she whispered, confidentially. ‘They are taking my whole life away bit by bit and bleeding me quite dry
. They are taking every decision from me. Every little
choice I had
– whether I go out or stay in, whether I eat downstairs or in my room – every little choice I had is now no longer available to me.
I even have no say in what I do with my money any more. I have no life left to me. My nephew and niece have taken over
it all
.’

Maggie normally had very little to do with her employers
– and, in particular, with the
slightly more feminine of the two. For one,
she was kept well occupied for the bulk of the day during the week and, apart from
Mr Wright
’s one
disastrous
foray into the schoolroom
,
neither he nor his wife took any interest at all in the education of their first
-
borns. For ano
ther, they tended to entertain,
and be entertained
,
a good deal of an evening – which, from their particular points of view, was probably just as well, as, having so little in common with one another otherwise, their evenings
should probably have proved to be partic
ularly silent
affairs
. Saturday afternoons, apart from the usual duties – escorting one or other of the children to some external activity or preparing the schoolroom f
or the following week’s lesson
s – were generally spent on personal tasks – washing and mending her linen, washing her hair, cleaning her room – whilst after church on Sundays she was generally able to practice on the pianoforte in the music room, safe in the knowledge that everyone else was gone out.

Although
they were always ill
-
behaved, Maggie had started to discover that the little twins were generally much more mischievous than usual whenever their parents were about. And she had also begun to discover that the
se same
twins generally attracted what little attention they
got
from their parents whenever they were at their worst.

One afternoon Augusta had manufactured a very pretty little posy out of scraps of material and a few remnants of ribbon and, keen to reward her for applying herself constructively for almost a complete hour without disrupting anything else, Maggie had suggested that she might like to present it
to her mama, who might
carry it with her when she
next
went out for the evening.

‘But she will not like it, Miss Owens,’ the girl had asserted. ‘Mama never likes anything I do. I want you to have it.
Mama will not even look at it, I’m sure.’

Maggie, realising that Augusta was probably quite correct, accepted the gift with some sadness
and gave the little girl a much
-
needed hug
. So when, only a very few minutes later, she bumped into Mrs William as she crossed to her own room from the schoolroom she determined on raising the matter with her, and maybe recommending that she showed a little more interest in
the development of
her children every now and
the
n.

Mrs William had looked at the posy with distaste.

‘But
why
ever
would I wish to carry such an
ugly
thing as that to an engagement?’ she had said, dismissively. ‘I should be the laughing
stock
, Miss Owens. I am heartily surprised that you should even
think
such a thing,
never mind
suggest
it.’

‘But
Augusta put such a great deal of effort into it we thought that you might appreciate it. If you don’t mind my saying so,
I do wonder whether the children might behave a little better were they to feel secure of your affection for them, Mrs Wright.’ Ma
ggie knew that she was on dang
erous ground here, but she felt that she owed it to her little charges to do the best she could for them. ‘I fear that they think they must misbehave in order to get any attention from you.’

This was a little much for the tender mama to take. Pulling
herself up to her full height
-
which, unfortunately for her, and more particularly for the effect she had been hoping to
create,
was still a good few inches short
er than Maggie
-
she
took on
her most steely look, tossed her head like a horse, and thundered:

‘And since
when
have
you
been such an expert in how I should bring up my own children, Miss Ow
e
ns?
I
am their
mama
, after all, in case you should have forgotten. I think I know better than a young
chit
of a girl,’
Maggie did not quite see herself as a chit of a girl. She was tw
e
nty one years old,
and earning her own living,
after all. ‘
...
.a y
oung
chit
of a girl
, about how best to bring up my
own children
? I do
wonder
about your own abilities as a governess, to be honest. I would have thought that you could control them
better
than you do. Why, whenever I see them they are
always
misbehaving. I should wish that you would teach them better
manners
from now
on
.’

‘But that is exactly what I am trying to do, ma’am. I would like you to reward them by noticing their good
behaviour
and not just noticing the bad. I do my best in the schoolroom, but it is their mama who
m they
really
want to please
-
and
their mama who
can influence them
the most.’

‘Enough!’ stormed Mrs William. ‘That is
quite
enough, Miss Owens. I wish to hear
no more
about it. I see my children’s behaviour as
entirely
your responsibility. They are with you for far more of every day than they can
possibly
be with their mama. I shall expect to see a
big
improvement over t
he coming few weeks -
a
big
improvement. And if you do not feel
that
you are up to it then I suggest yo
u start to look for a less demanding p
os
ition
somewhere
else
.’ 

Since the denouement of their
little romance
Maggie and
Mr Wright
had maintained a more formal
and distinctly cool relationship which, now that Maggie was
able to look at it with a less i
mpassioned eye, was a much more comfortable situation than had been the case before. However, this reversion to a purely professional relationship did not com
e without disadvantages of its
own. Had she remained on friendly terms with her employer she should probably have felt able to raise her concerns
– her concerns
about
the twins, and her concerns about
Mrs Staveley
-
with him
. She would like to have been able
to ask him whether he knew of the old lady’s plight in his household and to ask him whether he might, perhaps, feel obliged to interv
ene. With her new status as a
mere paid hand
she did not feel at all able to raise so delicate an issue
with him, and neither could she feel at all able to raise anything further
with his wife.
However, s
he knew roughly what time the post was expected – not that she received any correspondence herself, of course, but she had occasionally been in the
vicinity
when the letters had arrived – and so for the next couple of days she made it her business to pass through the hallway at the requisite time and sneak a quick look
whilst the butler paid the man for their carriage.