Читать книгу Yes, Mama - Helen Forrester - Страница 10

Fanny consulted Rosie, the Woodmans’ housemaid, about Polly. Rosie spoke to Mrs Martha Tibbs, the cook-housekeeper, an unmarried lady graced with the appellation of a wife because it was the custom.

In consideration of receiving Polly Ford’s first month’s wages, if she got the job, Mrs Tibbs graciously agreed to broach the subject of a wet-nurse with Elizabeth Woodman. Since nothing had been said to the domestic staff about the impending addition to the family, Mrs Tibbs went about the matter very delicately.

Bored to tears by three months’ confinement during the more obvious period of her pregnancy, anxious to keep the child away from her husband as much as possible, assuming it were born alive, Elizabeth was almost grateful to Mrs Tibbs and agreed to look at Polly.

It took the efforts of all her extended family to make Polly look respectable for the interview. She had a black skirt in which she had been married. A black bodice was borrowed from a distant cousin down the street; she had had it given to her by the draper whose tiny shop she cleaned. It had been eaten by moths at the back, but with Polly’s own black shawl over it, the holes would not show. A battered, black straw hat was acquired for a penny from a pedlar of secondhand clothes, after hard bargaining by Polly’s married sister, Mary. Polly’s mother washed and ironed her own apron to an unusual whiteness, so that Polly could wear it for the occasion. Polly had boots, though they were worn through at the bottom and were bursting round the little toes. ‘I’ll keep me feet under me skirt,’ said Polly dully.

Through all these preparations, Polly wept steadily. At her mother’s urging she suckled little Billy. ‘It’ll nourish ’im and it’ll keep the milk comin’, luv,’ her mother consoled her.

It was comforting to hold the small boy to her. Though as grubby as a sweep, he was a merry child, who laughed and crowed and tried to talk to her.

Before Polly could aspire to a job as an indoor servant, she had, somehow, to acquire a reference from another lady. At first, Polly’s mother had suggested that Mrs Tibbs’ recommendation would be enough, but, through Fanny, Mrs Tibbs herself insisted that Polly must produce a written reference.

‘Aye, she’s right,’ Polly agreed. Then, trying to make an effort for herself, she added, ‘Now I’ve got a hat, I could go and see that ould Mrs Stanley, and ask ’er.’

Before her marriage, Polly had cleaned the doorsteps and the brass bells and letterboxes of a number of elegant houses in Mount Pleasant. For five years, she had donkey-stoned the front steps of a Mrs Stanley, an ancient crone who claimed that she had once danced with King George IV. Mrs Stanley lived with a white cat and an elderly married pair of servants.

With feelings akin to terror, Polly pulled the bell of the servants’ entrance of Mrs Stanley’s house. The same bent, bald manservant she remembered answered it. He did not recognize her, and asked, ‘And what do you want?’

She told him.

‘I’ll ask the wife,’ he told her, and shut the door in her face.

She was almost ready to give up and go home, when a little kitchen-maid opened it and said shyly, ‘You’re to coom in.’

She was led into a well-scrubbed kitchen where, on a bare, deal table, a meal was laid for four. Bending over to poke the roaring kitchen fire was an elderly woman-servant. A good smell of roasting meat permeated the room; it made Polly’s mouth water.

The old woman straightened up. She wore a white, frilled cap tied under her chin and a grey uniform with a long, starched apron. Poker still in hand, she turned and said, ‘’Allo, Polly. What’s to do? Didn’t expect to see you again, after you was married.’

Polly explained her need for a reference. ‘To say I’m honest, like.’ She omitted to tell the woman that she had been widowed, because she thought she would start to cry again if she did so.

The older woman looked at her doubtfully. ‘Well, I’ll ask for yez,’ she said slowly. ‘I doubt she’ll even know your face, though. Ye ’ardly ever saw ’er, did yer?’

‘Not much,’ agreed Polly humbly.

‘I’ll go up. Sit down there.’ She pointed to a wooden chair set by the back entrance. Polly obediently sat on it.

A bell suddenly bounced on its spring in a corner of the ceiling and ting-a-linged impatiently. The manservant put on his jacket and went to answer it. The little kitchen-maid stirred the contents of an iron pot on the fire and carefully put the lid back on. A young woman in a pink-striped, housemaid’s dress put her head round the door leading to the rest of the house, and shouted, ‘Mary Jane, the Mistress wants her bath water. Hurry up.’

The kitchen-maid put her ladle down on to an old plate in the hearth. A somnolent kitchen cat slunk from the other end of the hearth and quietly licked it clean. The girl took a large ewer from a hook and swung it under the oven tap at the side of the huge kitchen fire. Boiling water belched into it. She grinned at Polly, as she waited for the water jug to fill.

Polly smiled faintly. Jaysus! Was she going to have to wait for the ould girl to bath and dress?

Two and a half hours later, by the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, Madam completed her toilet. The servants came at different times to eat their midday meal at the kitchen table. They ignored Polly as being so low that she was beneath their notice.

The morning-room bell tinkled. The manservant wiped his lips on the back of his hand, put on his black jacket and went upstairs. A few minutes later, he returned and said gruffly to Polly, ‘Mistress’ll see you.’

Her chest aching, her throat parched, her heart beating wildly from fright, Polly followed the old man along a dark passage and up two flights of stairs equally Stygian. ‘You’re lucky,’ he piped. ‘Mistress don’t bother with the likes of you that often.’

Polly kept her head down and did not answer. Surreptitiously, under her shawl, she scratched a bug bite on her arm. She was so inured to vermin bites that they did not usually irritate. Her mother had, however, insisted that she wash herself all over in a bucket of cold water, scrubbing her yellowed skin with a rough piece of cloth. It had made her itch. After that, both of them had gone over the seams of her clothes to kill any lice or bugs that she might be carrying. ‘You can’t help your hair,’ her mother had said. ‘I haven’t got no money to buy paraffin to kill the nits in it.’

The old servant pushed open a green baize door and suddenly she was in a blaze of sunlight coming through the stained glass of the hall window.

Blinking against the light, she tiptoed after the servant across the hall rug to a white-enamelled door.

The servant knocked gently, paused and then entered the room, while Polly, terrified, quivered on the red Turkey doormat.

‘Come on in,’ the old man breathed irritably. ‘She’s waitin’.’ He shoved Polly forward and closed the door behind her.

Before she lowered her eyes, Polly caught a glimpse of an incredibly thin woman, her heavy white hair done up elaborately on the top of her head. She was waiting bolt upright in an armless chair and was staring out of the window at the garden. Nestling in the folds of her grey silk skirt was a huge white cat. Heavily ringed fingers tickled the cat’s ears.

Polly stood silently looking at the richly patterned carpet, and waited to be noticed.

‘Well?’ the old lady barked.

Polly swallowed and then curtsied. She wanted to run away and cry, cry herself to death, if possible. ‘I’m Polly, Ma’am,’ she quavered, ‘wot used to scrub your steps and do the brass …’

‘I know who you are,’ snapped the voice. ‘What do you want?’

Polly glanced up at her erstwhile employer. The lady was still staring out of the window; the cat stared at Polly. ‘Well, Ma’am, I – er …’

‘For Heaven’s sake, speak up, girl.’

‘Yes, ’m, I’m wantin’ to get a job as wet-nurse to a lady called Mrs Woodman in Upper Canning Street – and I was wonderin’, Ma’am, if you would write a letter to her about me.’

‘A reference?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘A wet-nurse, humph? Have you been in trouble? I don’t believe in helping servants in trouble.’

‘Oh, no, Ma’am.’ Polly was shocked out of her fear. ‘I were a married woman.’ Her voice faltered, and for the first time, Mrs Stanley turned to look at her.

‘Lost the child?’

‘Yes, Ma’am. He was born a bit early – ’cos me ’oosband were killed – in the Albert Dock, Ma’am. It must’ve bin the shock.’ She gulped back her tears, and then went on. ‘’E fell in an ’old, Ma’am.’

‘How very careless of him.’

‘Yes, ’m.’ Tears coursed down the girl’s cheeks.

Madam stared at her thoughtfully. Everybody lost children; she had lost all hers. Still, it was depressing. And doubtless Mrs Woodman, whom she had met once or twice at parties, would be glad of a wet-nurse. She understood that, nowadays, they were difficult to obtain.

‘Have you been in service before?’

‘Yes, Ma’am. I were a tweenie when I were ten, ’elping the ’ousemaid empty the slops, and like. The Missus died … and then I found I could earn more specializin’ in doin’ doorsteps.’

‘Humph.’ Mrs Stanley’s lips curled. The lower classes were remarkable in their ability to survive.

‘And for how long did you – er – clean my doorsteps?’

‘Five year, Ma’am.’

‘Why don’t you go back to it?’

Polly heaved a sigh. She was so tired that she thought her legs would give under her. ‘Me Mam wants me to improve meself,’ she burst out, with sudden inspiration.

‘Very commendable. And do you go to Church, Polly?’

Polly had never been to Church in her life. And only once to an open air Wesleyan meeting with her father. She knew, however, what the answer must be. ‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. I go to St Nick’s – I mean, St Nicholas’s.’

‘Humph. Protestant, then?’

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ replied Polly promptly, wondering suddenly what she really was, since her mother was a Roman Catholic and her father a Wesleyan.

‘Mrs Woodman is a Protestant, I believe.’

Polly did not care if Mrs Woodman worshipped golden idols, like the blackie seamen who walked the streets of Liverpool in silent, single files. All she wanted was three meals a day, to lessen the pain in her stomach, and a baby to suckle, to ease the pain in her chest; even the thought of suckling made her breasts fill and she could feel the milk trickling down to her waist.

Mrs Stanley smiled thinly. She did not care for Mrs Woodman, a fluttering widgeon of a woman with an upstart husband who dabbled in many commercial enterprises in Liverpool. Distinctly lower-class. She thought it might be amusing to send them a wet-nurse who was probably lice-ridden.

‘Bring my desk from over there and put it on this table beside me.’ Mrs Stanley gestured towards the far wall.

Polly did not know what a desk looked like and glanced, bewildered, towards the furniture indicated by the delicate white hand.

‘There, you fool – that – er – sloping box.’

Polly carefully lifted a pair of crystal inkwells and a matching candlestick off the desk and laid the desk on the table indicated. She then replaced the inkwells and candlestick.

Irritated, Mrs Stanley moved inkwells and candlestick to the back of the desk, so that she could open the lid and extract a sheet of paper, a goose-quill pen and a piece of sealing wax. In exquisite copperplate, she wrote To Whom It May Concern that Polly Ford was honest, industrious and had worked for her as a charwoman for five years. She was desirous of improving herself, and Mrs Stanley felt that she would give satisfaction.

She sanded the paper to dry the ink. She then took a phosphorus match from the candlestick, struck it and lit the candle. She held the stick of sealing wax to the flame and allowed a small drop to fall upon the letter and seal it closed. Into the molten wax, she pressed a ring from her forefinger, to imprint her own seal.

‘There.’ She turned in her chair and handed the note to Polly. With a bit of luck, that would give the odious Woodmans a fair amount of trouble.

‘Oh, thank you, Ma’am.’ Polly’s voice was full of genuine gratitude as she made a deep curtsey.

Mrs Stanley gave a stiff nod of acknowledgement, and then ordered, ‘Put the desk back on to the far table.’

‘Yes, ’m.’ Polly did as she was bidden, being particularly careful not to spill the red and black inks from their crystal containers. She then backed to the door, bobbing little curtsies as she went.

‘James will show you out. Pull the bell by the fireplace.’

The only thing by the fireplace which could be pulled was a long piece of embroidered canvas hanging from the ceiling. Polly hoped for the best and pulled it. Then she stood with hands neatly clasped in front of her and examined the pattern on the carpet. She was stupid, she told herself. She should have realized that she would have to be escorted out of the house in case she stole something. Not that I would, she told herself crossly.

The old manservant arrived with commendable promptness. ‘Yes, Ma’am?’

‘Show this woman out – by the servants’ entrance.’

‘Yes, Ma’am. Of course, Ma’am.’ He twisted his toothless mouth into a tight knot. As if he would ever show a member of the lower classes out of the front door. After fifty years of service, Madam ought to know that, he thought irritably.