Untitled (16 page)

   She looks over at Robert. His eyes are still shut, but from the way his lips are pressed together she knows he is thinking. At last he says, "It
is
odd, I'll grant you that."

   He still hasn't opened his eyes when the gong sounds. The ringing pulls him out of his thoughts. "Come on, my love. Let's put on a brave face and eat what we can of Mrs. Johnson's lunch."

        
T
here is an excitement below stairs: coming down for tea, Cartwright announced a telegram had just arrived—the widow is on her way. Her ship from France has docked, and she will be in London by evening.

   Above their heads the hanging laundry shifts slightly. At least it has stopped dripping, not that they'd mind particularly, today of all days. Sarah talks faster than usual and sits a little straighter in her chair. Mrs. Johnson hurries about the kitchen, chivvying Elsie to clean the fish for dinner, to sit down for her pie, to put the dishes from the upstairs lunch away, until poor Elsie stands at the sink and says, "Can I sit down now? Can I? Can I?" Even Price joins in, taking pursed-lipped sips of her tea and saying, "Goodness gracious, what a tragedy for the young lady. Barely married and a widow already." Shaking her head and enjoying every minute of this, for, if truth be told, they know that most likely the widow will soon be gone, back to her own family once the funeral is over.

   And then? Will the household sink back into its usual routines? Or will it be caught up in the windstorm of a greater change? The day before at dinner Price told them that although Mrs. Bentley had taken a turn for the worse, the doctor held out hope—oh yes, there was
great
hope she would recover, and she'd nodded her head like a puppet. The rest of them had looked down into their plates. At any moment their mistress could leave this world and her household be broken up. They'd be released from its cramping routines: from hours spent alone in rooms with a brush or a mop; from meals hurried through but interrupted nonetheless because there was always something to be fetched or taken away; from the need to always think of the family—always the family—before themselves. But to be freed from this household wouldn't be freedom, not really. After all, paying for lodgings and food is costly, it eats through savings, and soon each one of them would have to find a new situation, maybe less comfortable than this one, maybe with a mistress more demanding than old Mrs. Bentley has been.

   For now, though, the thrill in the air comes from the prospect of the widow who is soon to arrive. Jane feels it, this promise of a disturbance in their lives. Of course, another person in the house will mean more work: another bedroom to be cleaned, more laundry to be washed, more food to be cooked and carried upstairs. Jane takes hungry bites of her pie and doesn't say much beyond "Yes, a terrible shame" and "It's awful," even when Price catches her eye and seems to be asking her opinion. For once Cartwright doesn't put a stop to their gossiping but sits at the end of the table with his coat hung over the back of his chair and his pie waiting on his plate in front of him. Even when Albert appears at the kitchen door he doesn't send him back into the chilly grey of the dying afternoon, doesn't do much except give him his cool stare, so Albert comes in, and soon he is leaning against the sink with a cup of tea in one hand and a slice of pie in the other.

   "It's the talk of the whole street," he tells them. "That poor lady what's lost her husband when they'd only just got themselves married. Coming home for the honeymoon and all that." He takes a loud sip of tea. "It's a tragedy, in't it? A bloomin' tragedy. Everybody's talking about it."

   Over by the stove Mrs. Johnson pauses with a strainer between her hands. Price looks around her, and Sarah comes close to smiling. Even Elsie is not immune to the enormity of this—the household's sudden, tragic celebrity—and her hands fidget over the tabletop between her cup and her plate. Only Cartwright seems above it. He has yesterday's paper held up in front of him, but, as Jane notices, his eyes are fixed on one spot, and that spot lies far beyond the paper.

   "Mr. Robert is taking it well," says Sarah. "He ate most of his lunch. And so did she. But they only talked about how quiet the funeral should be and where the new Mrs. Bentley is going to have Mr. Henry sent."

   "Sent?" Elsie sets both elbows on the table. "Sent how?"

   "To the you-know." Sarah drops her voice. "The undertaker."

   Elsie grips her cup with both hands. "Undertaker?"

   "Well she's not going to bring him here, is she?" Sarah gives a small laugh. "Besides, that's not how it's done anymore, not if you have the money."

   "That's not right," says Elsie, and her voice is loud. "That's not right to have him sent away like that to people who are paid to do for him."

   "It's better than having him here." Sarah shivers. "It makes my skin creep, the thought of a body in the house like that, just lying there, and the family not knowing what to do except to just sit there and stare at it."

   A bell jangles and their heads turn towards it. "Morning room," says Cartwright. "Off you go, Sarah—it'll be Mrs. Robert wanting more hot water for her tea, I'll bet."

   Sarah sighs. "Barely got started on my own." She catches Jane's eye. "You go—you don't mind, do you? Besides, you've finished most of yours."

   She hasn't finished most of it. For once she has let her tea cool rather than hurrying to drink it, too caught up this afternoon to think ahead. "Oh," she says. "I don't know—"

   Sarah waves her hand at her. "Go on, you'd better get a move on."

   She looks at Cartwright, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't lift his head from the newspaper. As for Mrs. Johnson, she's swatting away the heat from the open oven with a cloth so she can lean close and ladle fat over the ducks she has roasting.

   So Jane goes, but her chest feels tight. The last time she took on a chore not hers she opened the door to a burglar. And although she only has to walk upstairs to the morning room and enquire from Mrs. Robert what she would like, the job seems fraught with danger. Indeed, as she climbs the narrow steps, the thought of being alone with Mrs. Robert alarms her. What if Mrs. Robert wants some account of what she has seen and heard downstairs—what will she tell her? That all the talk is of Mr. Henry's widow, she decides. No need to mention that a few days ago she saw Mrs. Johnson selling butter to a large man lurking outside the kitchen door. Surely Mrs. Johnson would guess who had told, so why risk having less on her plate for dinner, or the tea leaves for the carpet being inexplicably thrown away?

   Mrs. Robert is at the desk, looking through papers in the feeble north light that comes through the window. "Oh," she says, "they sent you, did they?" She nods to herself, and turns her chair around. "I should have guessed."

   "Ma'am?"

   "Come here, Jane."

   "Yes, ma'am." She comes closer and stands just off the edge of the carpet that she brushed clean only that morning, and that already is flecked with flakes of ash from the fire.

   "How are you getting on, Jane? Are you being worked too hard?"

   "No, ma'am."

   She raises one eyebrow, and Jane almost smiles. "I do hope you are telling me the truth."

   "Oh yes, ma'am."

   She raises the other eyebrow too. "Well," she says, "for the time being we'll say that you are finding this position satisfactory."

   "Say, ma'am?"

   "To Mrs. Saunders. Apparently the matron of the orphanage is concerned for girls who leave for London and likes to be assured that they are doing well." From the papers on the desk beside her she pulls a letter and unfolds it. "Mrs. Saunders wants to reassure her."

   Jane feels her blood turn sluggish. It has thickened all of a sudden, and everything from the blink of her eyes to the lick she gives her lips is slow and awkward. I won't cry, she tells herself. I won't, not in front of her, even if this is the end of it all.

   "It's a curious thing," Mrs. Robert is saying. "She refers to
the
stain of your past,
but I don't understand what she . . ."

   Mrs. Robert's voice grows faint, and her mouth—the only thing that Jane looks at—moves too quickly for the words it is producing. The sensation lasts only a few moments, then all of a sudden the room shifts around her and she feels very cold.

   She has never fainted before. It is something one associates with ladies—they are more easily overcome. By repugnant sights and strong language, by walking up stairs too fast or getting out of a chair without the aid of a gentleman. But when the darkness wheeling in front of her eyes clears she finds her head close to the fender and the heat of the fire on her face. Mrs. Robert is holding smelling salts beneath her nose. An awful, sour smell. She turns away and takes a deep breath. Mrs. Robert is saying something. She has to force her attention to the words to make any sense of them, then she hears, "I didn't mean to shock you. It was only my intention to see if you had—an explanation."

   She strokes the side of Jane's face—her hand is warm and soft, and Jane catches the scent of lavender, a light, summer smell of the country that makes her close her eyes. Her life with the Saunderses was plagued by injustices, but this other life—her attempt at bettering herself—how it has gone wrong! She will have to resort to more lies now, and where will they lead?

   Mrs. Robert's skirts rustle. "You are a resourceful girl," she is saying. "Illegitimacy—is that this
stain
?—need not hold back a girl like you."

   Jane nods, but she doesn't open her eyes.

   "It was a passable attempt. Come on—look at me."

   She doesn't. Her head swirls, as though it has been filled with water that shifts when she moves.

   She feels the slight brush of breath on her cheek, hears, "Jane— look at me."

   This time she does look. Mrs. Robert is crouched beside her, and when she sits back a little Jane sees what is in her hand: Mrs. Saunders's letter. She would know that writing anywhere, those elaborate tails curling from her ys and gs, the flattened es that look like squinting eyes. Did hers look so different? Surely not—she'd copied them so carefully.

   Mrs. Robert takes her hand and holds it against the silk of her skirts. To be touched gently—it is almost more than Jane can bear. When has anyone touched her like this? Never at the orphanage, and certainly never at the Saunderses'. Mrs. Robert's chin is sharp, her eyes watchful, but her face does not have the pinched look of self-righteousness of Mrs. Saunders's.

   "I couldn't bear it," Jane whispers. "None of that is my fault. I didn't do anything wrong. Why does it have to follow me?"

   Mrs. Robert rubs Jane's hand with her thumb. "You did wrong in taking your mistress's letter, nonetheless, and in substituting your own. Nothing can excuse such behavior. It is a terrible betrayal of trust."

   Of course, Jane thinks. The sin of her birth is not her doing, it should not be her burden, but trying to escape it puts her at fault. There it is, the predicament of a girl like her laid bare—she can be pitied but she must not help herself.

   On the far wall, beside the desk, hangs a delicate painting in pinks and blues of the sun going down over the sea. She, too, is sinking, but not like that, not with any beauty. No, she is turning everything around her ugly—even by lying here, on this carpet, in this small room that is supposed to delight the eye: the luxurious drapery of the curtains, the rich wood of the desk, the delicate flowers of the wallpaper. This house is a beautiful shell, keeping the Bentleys safe inside, no matter the way the tide turns or the toss of the waves on the shore. For her, there will never be a home like this. And now— now even her lumpy bed in the cold room under the roof will not be hers much longer.

   She wonders if it is still raining outside, and if the air is as cold as it felt when she threw open the bedroom windows earlier in the day.

   Heat is creeping in around her, out from the fire, down from the room's low ceiling. The chill inside her retreats. Instead, she feels hot. Already sweat is gathering under her arms.

   "Come on," Mrs. Robert is saying. "We need to get you up."

   So she lets herself be settled into the armchair by the fire. She knows its curves well—she has swept ash and stray threads off it every day that she has been here—but she is surprised by how it seems to reach out to her, to hold her body as if it wants to offer her comfort.

   Mrs. Robert turns away with a swish of her skirts. She drags the chair from the desk close, then smoothes Mrs. Saunders's letter over her knee.

   "How did you do it?" she says at last. "Did you take her letter and trace the words?"

   Jane nods.

   "You used pencil, then ink to write over the words you'd traced. Afterwards you erased the pencil marks, no?"

   "Yes, ma'am."

   "I guessed as much—the flow of the ink looked uneven. And as for the color—all that careful rubbing turned the ink a little grey." She sits forward in her chair. The way her chin is thrust out gives her a predatory look. "But what I have been wondering," she says, "is where on earth you might have learnt such a thing."

   "Learnt it, ma'am? I didn't learn it. It was the only way to do it— anyone could see that. I know I've done wrong—but I've never mixed with the wrong sort. In the orphanage they wouldn't even let—"

   Mrs. Robert raises one hand. "Yes, yes. I'm not suspecting you of that. I wondered, that's all. Not every maid would be clever enough to manage a deception like this."

   She has a kindly tone to her voice, and Jane shrinks from it. There was something of this tone in the policeman's voice after she let in the burglar.

   Mrs. Robert's eyes catch the shifting light of the fire, shining like an animal's at night. Jane looks away, to Mrs. Robert's lap, where Mrs. Saunders's letter lies against the black silk of her mourning dress. In the midst of the tragedy of Mr. Henry dying, she thinks, here is Mrs. Robert having to concern herself with this matter. She thought she'd been so careful, and so clever! Then here came Mrs. Saunders's letter and ruined everything.