The Lost Ancestor (7 page)

‘Don’t ask me how it is, but there are
ninety-eight steps up to the boys’ rooms,’ Clara said with a little
laugh.  ‘And I’ve triple-checked.’

At the top, an exhausted Mary realised
that they were, in effect, on the same corridor as the female servants’
quarters; the hallway having been permanently bricked up to segregate the
sexes, which seemed entirely over the top.  ‘God, if they knocked that
thing down,’ Mary said, indicating the brick divide, ‘we’d have less clambering
up and down stairs to do.’

Clara laughed.  ‘We’d be horsewhipped
if we were found within a mile of the boys’ rooms when they’re there.’

Banging her fist on the wall, Mary said,
‘But we are within a mile—our room is just the other side of here!  Let me
guess,
it’s not the Blackfriars’ way?’

‘Come on, stop chatting, let’s get
on.  It’s basically the same as our rooms’, dust, sweep—’

Mary interjected, ‘Clean the grates, make
up the fires, check the candles.’

Clara grinned.  ‘You’ve got it.’

Just as Mary was about to enter the first
room, a thought entered her head.  ‘Which room is my cousin Edward’s?’

‘That one,’ Clara said, pointing to the
third room along the corridor.  ‘Usually the most untidy one.’

‘Must run in the family.’  Mary
smiled and began to rush through the cleaning of the first bedroom so that she
could move on to his.  She had been taken by surprise when he had touched
her in the library yesterday; a twinge of feeling had stirred inside her that
she had not been aware of before. 
But no!  Edie was sweet on him
and, for all she knew, he was sweet on her, too.

Mary hastily threw the broom around the
floor, dusted only the areas which were visible and restocked the fire without
first emptying or cleaning the grate.  Quietly, she pulled open the door
and crept along the corridor to Edward’s bedroom.  From the second bedroom
she could hear Clara softly singing to herself.  Mary cautiously tugged
open the bedroom door, as if she were unsure of what might lie behind it. 
However, Edward’s room was nigh on identical to all the other servants’
bedrooms.  Angular shafts of sunlight streamed in through the small
window, situated between two single beds.  Mary looked at them, wondering
which one belonged to him.  She spotted some postcards and pictures to the
sides of both beds.  Carefully casting her eyes over the images, Mary soon
identified which bed belonged to Edward.  Dominating the pictures of
various female music hall stars, was a photograph taken at Caroline’s wedding
of Mary, Edie and Caroline standing outside St Thomas’s, shortly after the
ceremony had taken place; it was one of her favourite photographs of the three
of them and was widely distributed among the family after the wedding. 
Mary looked long and hard at the picture, tracing her finger over the sepia
outline of Edie’s face, wondering when her twin might forgive her. 
If
she
might forgive her.

Mary sighed and slowly lowered her face to
the indentation in the pillow left by Edward’s head.  She inhaled,
gradually drawing Edward’s scent through her nose and into her waiting
lungs.  The same stirring feeling that she had felt yesterday reappeared
in her stomach.

Though she knew that she shouldn’t, she
carefully opened his bedside table.  Without disturbing the contents, she
could see a stack of letters.  Mary recognised the handwriting:
Edie’s.  It appeared from the quantity of letters that she had taken quite
a fancy to Edward a long time ago. 
Did Edie have a similar stack from
him in her bedside table?
Mary wondered.  Edie had certainly been more
guarded and private in recent months. 
Was Edward the source of her
distraction?

The definite sound of a bedroom door
closing to the adjoining room sent Mary to her feet, pulling and pushing the
broom back and forth rhythmically.

Edward’s door opened and Clara stood with
an impressed smile on her face.  ‘See, you’re getting the measure of it
alright.  Keep going.  Just another three to go before lunch.’

Mary half-heartedly smiled back and
returned to her haphazard sweeping.

By the time the girls had returned to
their specific places at the table in the servants’ hall at one o’clock, Mary
was worn out.  She looked at every individual seated on the opposite side
to her: not one of them looked as tired out as she felt.  Even trying to
converse with Joan or Clara was nigh on impossible.  She was
struggling.  Her eyes inadvertently locked onto Edward’s and he smiled
reassuringly, as if he could sense her dispiritedness.  She wondered if
she had imagined that the moment yesterday was anything more than friendliness.

Something lightly touched Mary on the
shoulder and she turned to see the disdainful face of Mr Risler.  ‘How are
you getting on, my love?’ he asked, his dark brown eyes searching her face
hungrily. 

Mary nodded.  ‘Very well, thank you.’

‘Good, good.  You can always come to
Mr Risler if ever you need any help with anything—day or night,’ he said,
placing a subtle emphasis and intonation on the word
night. 
He
gave Mary’s shoulder a squeeze, probing his long bony fingers into her flesh
before moving back to his chair at the head of the table.

For a good while after Mr Risler had
returned to his chair, the spot of skin where he had touched on her shoulder
was crawling with repugnance.  Unable to look up or talk, Mary was unwilling
to eat much of the chicken, carrots and potatoes in front of her and spent much
of the mealtime moving them around the plate and piling them in such a fashion
as to appear more had been eaten.  She sipped her beer and prayed that
lunch would soon come to an end.  Finally, it did.

‘Now what?’ Mary asked Clara, as they made
their way from the servants’ hall. 

‘Now we check all the fires are burning
nicely, restock or relight as required and stock up candles ready for
tonight.  Then, from three until five we do needlework in the servants’
hall.’

Having checked that each fire was lit and
restocked all the candles, Mary and Clara joined Eliza in the empty servants’
hall at three o’clock sharp.  On the table, Mrs Cuff had placed a mountain
of linen, livery and clothing in need of repair.  Mary’s heart sank; she
hated needlework.  She was useless at it and at home, it was always Edie
or their mother who attended to the household haberdashery.  Edie
delighted in their mother’s oft-repeated tale of how she had never met a girl
incapable of sewing a hem until Mary had first tried a running stitch. 
‘Practice makes perfect,’ her mother would say, night after night, as the three
of them attempted to repair torn clothing by candlelight in the sitting-room. 
In Mary’s case, practice did not make perfect.  Practice made Mary despise
even holding a needle and thread.

‘Are we supposed to get all of that done
today?’ Mary asked incredulously.

‘As much of it as we can, yes. 
There’ll be another stack there tomorrow—equally as large,’ Eliza said,
reaching for the first garment.

Mary took a white apron from the pile and,
copying Eliza and Clara, ran it carefully through her fingers to identify the
repair required.

‘Are we not allowed to talk while we
work?’ Mary whispered after several minutes’ silence.

Eliza shook her head.  ‘We might
become distracted from our duties.’

And so Mary worked with the two girls in
near-silence for two, torturous hours.  To Mary, a thousand minutes might
have passed in those two hours.  At ten minutes to five, Mrs Cuff entered
the servants’ hall and began to inspect the neat pile of completed repairs
whilst the girls stood, arms folded behind their backs, and watched
expectantly.  Only minor nods of the head gave Mary any indication of her
approval or otherwise.  She picked up the white apron which Mary had
started with and raised an eyebrow.

‘Is this your handiwork?’ she asked Mary.

Mary nodded.

Mrs Cuff threw it to one side.  ‘Not
good enough,’ she said reprovingly, continuing through the stack.  Every
repair that Mary had undertaken ended up in its own jumbled heap.  ‘Well,
you certainly weren’t employed here for your needlework skills, were you?’

‘No, Mrs Cuff,’ Mary mumbled.

‘This stitching is very shoddy, look,’ she
said, tugging at a loose thread on an overcoat.  One pull and the
stitching came apart.  ‘I can see you’re going to take a lot of work,
young lady.  What have you got to say for yourself?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Eliza, Clara—you need to have these
garments corrected before you finish for the day,’ Mrs Cuff said.

‘Yes, Mrs Cuff,’ they responded in unison.

Mrs Cuff left the servants’ hall carrying
the approved clothing.  The still maid entered and began setting the table
for tea.  Mary could feel Eliza and Clara’s disapproval.

‘What
did
they employ her for?’
Eliza whispered to Clara, as she scooped up the garments in need of
correction.  ‘Come on, we’ll work through tea.’

‘Let me help,’ Mary begged.

‘I don’t think so, Mary,’ Eliza said
frostily.

The two gaps beside Mary at the dinner
table only heightened her feelings of isolation and segregation from the rest
of the staff.  Nobody, not even Joan or the awful Mr Risler attempted
conversation.  Mary sat in cold dismal silence, eating her bread and butter
and taking small sips from her cup of tea, desperately hoping that the day
would just end.  But it didn’t end, it kept on going.  Half an hour
after she had sat down and the sun had given way to darkness, Mary was back up
on her feet ready to return to her duties.  Once all the other servants
had departed the room, Mary left and was collected by Clara at the door.

‘Did you manage to get them done?’ Mary
asked in the muted, flickering glow of the corridor lamp.

Clara nodded.  ‘Eliza’s just taken
them in to Mrs Cuff.’

At that moment, the housekeeper’s door
opened and Eliza stepped out.  ‘Back to work, girls,’ she instructed
haughtily.  ‘Let’s not repeat that tomorrow.’

Clara led them back upstairs to the female
servants’ quarters and pushed open their bedroom door.  Inside was dark
and freezing: Mary shuddered. 

‘It does warm up,’ Clara said.  ‘Our
duties now are to turn down the beds, close the curtains and light the
fires.  Watch and copy.’

Mary stood back and watched as Clara
carefully pulled one side of the bedding into a neat diagonal line before
pulling out the creases. 

‘Your go,’ Clara instructed, as she tugged
closed the curtains.

Mary copied with her own bed.

‘Perfect.  I’ll light the fire, then
I’ll show you what’s next.’

Once the small splinters of kindling had
ignited, Clara showed Mary where to fill the water jugs.  As soon as all
the rooms in the female servants’ quarters were ready, they repeated the task
in the male quarters.

At eight o’clock, the girls returned to
the servants’ hall for supper, which consisted of cold ham and hot vegetables,
but Mary was too tired to eat a single thing.  All she wanted was her bed,
irrespective of how cold or uncomfortable it was: she just wanted to lie down
and close her eyes.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Joan
whispered.

‘I’m exhausted.  You’ve no idea how
many times I’ve been up and down those wretched ninety-six stairs.  It
must be at least a hundred,’ Mary said, a little too loudly.

Joan put her forefinger on her lips. 
‘Keep it down, or you’ll get into trouble.’

Mary rolled her eyes and emitted a small
sigh.

Supper in the servants’ hall lasted
precisely half an hour.  By the end of it, Mary had gulped down three cups
of tea, but not touched her food.  Without uttering a word, she followed
Clara for the final duties of the day into the main bedrooms of the house.

‘We need to check the water jugs, the
fires and take a hot can of water to each bedroom,’ Clara told her, leading
Mary into a large, warm bedroom.  A four-poster mahogany bed with fine,
delicate cotton sheets stood in the centre of the room.  Beautifully
decorative curtains covered the tall windows which, in daylight, afforded views
across the lake.  A carved wooden dressing table, chest of drawers and a
writing desk completed the room.

‘Whose room is this?’ Mary said, mentally
comparing it to her own insignificant bedroom upstairs. 
This
should
be her bedroom.  It was perfect.  Mary approached the bed and stroked
the soft fine linen.

‘Don’t touch it,’ Clara warned.  ‘It’s
Lady Rothborne’s bedroom.’

‘And Lord Rothborne’s?’

Clara shook her head.  ‘His bedroom
is next door.’

Mary puzzled as to why they would not
share a bed. 
Maybe it wasn’t the Blackfriars way,
she
reasoned.  She had once read that most of the former kings and queens of
England slept separately from their spouses and thought it must be common
practice among the upper classes.  Mary had a sudden, intense desire to
see Cecil’s bedroom.  ‘You finish up here and I’ll do the next one,’ Mary
said quickly, hurrying for the door.  She was in the brightly lit hallway
before Clara could answer.