The Quietness (11 page)

Across the road from Charing Cross Station Queenie saw people milling about in front of the entrance to a passageway. Over the top of the entrance was a sign painted in gold.
Lowther Arcade
. Queenie walked inside and stopped, amazed by the sight that met her eyes. The passageway was lined with shops; the whole thing covered by a roof of glass. Shafts of sunlight poured down and fell on piles of treasure that spilled out of every shop doorway. The air was so light and bright and the whole place hummed with noise: the rustle of dresses, the clatter of feet and the echo of voices and laughter. There were tables laden with bracelets, hair ornaments, brooches and rings with stones as big as eggs. Queenie walked slowly along, putting her hand out to stroke a gleaming wooden horse. She stopped to gaze in wonder at a miniature house, its front open and each room furnished with tiny tables, chairs and beds. Every shop had something different: walking sticks, perfume bottles, china dolls, cakes of soap, candlesticks and fans. Queenie had walked into a whole new world and she never wanted to leave it. After a long while she chose to buy a cake of pink soap. It smelt of roses. The shopkeeper wrapped it in a square of brown paper and tied it with string. Next Queenie bought a length of ribbon, as yellow and glossy as a pat of fresh butter. The ribbon was folded neatly into a sheet of silver tissue.

It had been so easy. The shopkeepers had smiled at her and thanked her for her custom. They had treated her like a lady. She clutched her parcels tight as she made her way back to Wild Street. They felt like the most precious things in the world.

I rang for Mary. I needed her now like I had never needed her before. With this terrible fear coursing through me, I could not be patient any longer. I tried to calm myself as I waited for her to arrive. I got out of bed and paced the room. It was all so familiar: my dressing table, my wash stand, my armchair, my wardrobe. All of it, the paper on the walls and the painting of a rose-filled garden hanging over the fireplace, had been there my whole life. It was so familiar that I went about my days taking no notice of it all. It was the same with Mary, I realised. She too had been there my whole life too. She was as familiar and as invisible to me as my bedroom furniture.

‘Yes, miss?’ Mary poked her head around the bedroom door. ‘You rang?’

‘Mary . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘Come in and close the door.’ She did as I asked. I could see by the blotches on her face that she had not long stopped crying. ‘Mary.’ I swallowed hard. ‘Now that Jacob has told me the truth about myself, I want you to know that I am glad. I am glad I know the truth and I am glad that it is you.’

Mary looked puzzled. ‘What is me, miss?’

I hesitated. I thought she had understood me. ‘I . . . I am so glad it is you, Mary. I am so glad you are my mother.’

Mary’s hand flew to her mouth and she sat heavily in my armchair. ‘Your mother? Miss! Whatever makes you think such a thing?’

I stared at her. My heart was thumping in my ears. ‘But you
are
my mother, aren’t you? It can only be you. Please tell me it is you!’ Why wouldn’t she say it? Couldn’t she see how much I needed her to tell me the truth?

She stood up and grabbed my hands. ‘Miss, I am not your mother. Believe you me, I am not. But if I had a daughter I would wish her to be just like you. Oh, miss, this awful business truly has left you at sixes and sevens.’

‘You are lying!’ I shouted. Did she think I was going insane? I felt my face grow hot with shame and anger. ‘Jacob said my mother was a maid. Here in this house. And you have been here all my life. Who else can it be?’

‘Oh, miss! It is true. Your mother was a maid here. But
another
maid. Not me.’

I did not want to believe it was true. I wanted Mary to be my mother. Tears filled my eyes. I needed to belong to her. To belong to someone who loved me. Mary did love me, didn’t she? I pulled away from her. Maybe she was just doing her duty. She cared for Mother and Father too, after all. Had I mistaken her diligence for love?

‘If you are not my mother,’ I shouted, ‘then who was she?’ My voice was brittle with anger. I hated Mary at that moment. ‘WHO WAS MY MOTHER?’

Mary lowered her head. ‘I never knew her, miss. Least not properly. She left a couple of months after I came. When you were just a newborn.’

‘She left me?’ I whispered. ‘Why? Why did she do that?’

‘Oh, miss,’ Mary said gently. ‘She had no choice. How could she have looked after you on her own? She was just a maid.’

‘But why could she not have stayed?’

‘Think of the scandal, miss! Your father would have been ruined. Your mother . . . Mrs Swift, I mean, could never seem to keep a baby inside her for long, as you know. You were the answer. You were the child they needed. Your real mother knew you’d be best off here.’

‘How do you know all this?’ I asked suddenly. Mary’s face clouded with guilt.

‘Oh, miss,’ Mary pleaded. ‘Don’t be angry with me. I always thought it was for the best. I helped bring you into the world, you know? And your Father . . . well, he paid me to keep quiet and promised me a job for life. It was for the best, miss, believe me it was for the best.’

‘Aunt Isabella did not think so did she? She hated Father for what he did and she probably HATED YOU TOO! Don’t you see it would have been better if I had not been born at all!’

Mary flinched. She looked at the floor. She suddenly looked old and worn out. I hoped that she was feeling some pain. She deserved to.

A sad silence filled the room. But I could not stop myself from thinking and wondering.

‘What was she like?’ I asked.

Mary looked directly at me. ‘She was beautiful, miss. Thick black hair and dancing eyes. Green as green, they were. But quiet, she was. Quiet and sad.’

‘And what was her name?’

‘Dolly, miss. Her name was Dolly.’

So now I knew. I knew why I had never belonged. I knew why I had never been loved. I was kept here to protect Father’s good name. To give him the respectability of a family. To save him from the embarrassment of a barren wife.

The day passed in a haze. I would not speak to Mary. I could not even look at her. She had known all along that I was no better than her. She had pretended all my life. I felt completely hollow; my insides scooped out and discarded. Everything I had ever known was all pretence, but it somehow all made sense now.

I thought of Dolly with her dark hair and green eyes. Did I look like her? I wondered. Where was she now? Did she ever think of me? I would go to Father, I resolved. I would confront him with the truth. Demand for him to find my mother. To bring her back. But even as I thought these things my stomach lurched with fright. What good would it do? He would never risk his reputation. He would put me out on the streets. Then where would I go? What would I do?

I sat in the library. The door leading to the garden was ajar and a faint smell of grass and rain drifted inside. The thought of outside still made me feel queer, but I forced myself to stay. I had searched the bookshelves for a particular book that I had once stumbled upon and read with horrified fascination. I had it now, open on my lap:
A Treatise on the Diseases of Married Females.

Mary came in. She tiptoed around; straightening cushions and tidying up my tea things. My silence did not stop her from speaking.

‘I know it’s been a shock, miss. A terrible, terrible shock. All of it. But you know Dolly would not have coped with you out there on her own. Who would have given her a job with a baby in tow? You wouldn’t even have got a place in the workhouse together. And you’ve had a good home here. More than most people could ever wish for.’

‘I do not need you in here, Mary. Please go,’ I said abruptly.

‘As you wish, miss.’ She clamped her lips together and picked up my tray to leave. ‘But just so as you know,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Your father has been enquiring on your time of the month. So you will have to allow me to come to your room later to collect up your soiled cloths.’

She walked out and the true horror of my situation brought a half moan, half cry from deep inside me. Trying to control my panic, I bent my head to the book again. Strange words and expressions swam before my eyes:
conjugal relations, encumbered with child, parturition, fecundation, lactation, conception
. I put the book down again. It all made sense. But it could not be.

I was unwell with the horror of all that had happened, I told myself. I was fatigued and my imagination was inflamed. I jumped from my chair and hastily put the book back in its place. Then I wiped my hands on my skirts as though they had been dirtied.

The sun was lighting up the garden and shining through the windows. My chair was standing in a puddle of warmth. I sat back down in it. Tiredness swept over me again; in my toes and limbs and head, and in the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the sun creep into my bones.

I dreamt of Jacob and of a beautiful dark-haired woman walking by his side. I was watching from the window of a dusty attic room as they strolled down the garden arm in arm. Jacob picked her a red rose. He pinned it to her gown and it looked like a splash of blood against the emerald-green silk. I watched them walk further into the distance. Then they disappeared. I banged my fists against the window and shouted their names.
Mother! Jacob!
But they could not hear me.

When I woke the sun had gone in. I sat in the quiet of the room and listened to my heat thumping in my throat. I had never felt so alone.

Mary came into my bedroom early the next morning and placed a glass of toast water on my bedside table. ‘Drink this,’ she said. ‘You’ve been looking very peaky of late. It will do you good.’

I looked at the brown water. I could smell its warm yeastiness and my stomach heaved.

‘I know you don’t wish to speak to me,’ continued Mary, ‘but I must follow your father’s orders.’ She looked around my room. ‘Now, where are your soiled cloths? Your father is waiting to inspect them.’

My stomach heaved again. I leaned over the side of my bed and pulled my chamber pot out from under it. My stomach rose and sour liquid poured from my mouth into the pot. Mary came to me at once. She pulled my hair back from my face.

‘There, there,’ she soothed as another wave of sickness hit me. When it had finished, I slumped back on my pillow and Mary dabbed at my mouth with her handkerchief. ‘You
are
in a bad way, aren’t you?’ she said gently.

Suddenly I could not be angry with her any more. I flung myself in her arms and sobbed and sobbed. My heart was squeezed so tight it felt like a hard lump in my chest. I thought of my childhood: full of pretty dresses and cold-hearted governesses. Never a smile or a word of warmth from Mother, never an embrace or a word of encouragement from Father. I thought of the sameness of all the bleak, grey days, marching one after the other. Then I thought of Jacob and how he let me know love for the first time, and how he had filled my heart before he smashed it into a thousand pieces. And I thought of my mother, my real mother. A girl with dancing green eyes.

‘Mary,’ I cried, hugging her tight to me. ‘It is all so bad. It is the worst thing you can imagine!’

‘What is, Miss Ellen? You tell your Mary now. What is so bad?’

‘I . . . I am going insane, Mary. I . . . I am sure of it.’

‘Don’t be so daft, my girl. Whatever makes you say that?’

I loosened my embrace and looked into her face. ‘My monthly bleed has not arrived. What am I to do? It is the first symptom of insanity, is it not? Father has always told me so.’

The corners of Mary’s mouth twitched. ‘Well now,’ she said. ‘I can’t say I always agree with your father’s opinions . . .’

‘If not that,’ I said quickly. I had to get rid of the knowledge that had been tormenting me all night. ‘If I am not going insane, then I must be with child.’

Mary stiffened for a moment, then began to rock me in her arms. ‘Oh, Lord above,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, my love. It’s what I feared. But we cannot be certain. Just because the blood hasn’t come yet, it doesn’t mean the worst. You haven’t been yourself. That can change things and make your bleeds late. I am sure that is what has happened. I am sure of it.’

I pulled away again. ‘But . . . but what about Father? He will know something is wrong if you do not take any soiled cloths for him to inspect.’

‘Yes,’ said Mary thoughtfully. ‘But don’t you worry about that.’

‘But he needs to see proof of my bleeds, Mary. You know he does. And I cannot give him any this time!’

She smiled at me. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But it just so happens that Ninny has a fresh cut of pig in the kitchen. And blood is blood, is it not?’

Back at Wild Street Queenie hid her parcels in the scullery cupboard. It was damp and full of greasy cobwebs, but at least no one else would look in there. Mrs Ellis was banging around in the kitchen. She looked up when Queenie came in. ‘Had a good afternoon?’ she asked.

‘Yes, thank you, ma’am.’

‘See your family, did you?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Had a cup of tea with me mam.’ Queenie didn’t know why she lied. It had just come out before she thought about it. But she was glad she had. She didn’t want to share her afternoon with Mrs Ellis. She certainly didn’t want to show off her precious things.

‘Well, I’m glad someone had a restful time. Been run off my feet, I have. Not even had time for supper. I’m worn to the bone.’ Mrs Ellis made a show of filling the babies’ bottles, lifting the jug as though it was a heavy brick. She sighed and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.

‘I’ll finish the feeds, ma’am,’ said Queenie. ‘And bring you some supper too?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs Ellis.

‘And Mrs Waters. Will she want supper too?’ asked Queenie.

‘Mrs Waters is out,’ said Mrs Ellis in a flat voice. ‘She won’t be back till late.’ She took off her apron and threw it over the back of a chair. ‘I’ll be in my room.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Queenie as Mrs Ellis hurried out of the door.

The kitchen filled with silence. Not a soft, hushed comfortable silence. It was hard and brittle. Queenie was afraid to break it. The babies were as still as usual and there was not even a tap dripping. She picked up the jug. Its bottom scraped across the table. Then she began to fill the bottles Mrs Ellis had left. The milk trickled and gurgled and Queenie began to hum. The silence softened and Queenie felt better. She took the full bottles over to the sofa and placed one by the side of every baby. She jiggled the long teats between the babies’ lips and shook them all gently. One or two stirred and tried to suck at the rubber in their mouths. They were so tired they barely managed to swallow a drop. Little Rose was fast asleep. Queenie tickled her feet, but could not get her to open her eyes.