The Quietness (7 page)

‘What is it you want her for?’

‘She needs a girl to help her with the housework and the children. Here, look, I saw it in the newspaper.’ Queenie held the torn paper advertisement out to the woman.

‘Yes, yes,’ said the woman impatiently. ‘Well,
I
am Mrs Waters, but I’m afraid you don’t look like the sort of girl I’m after.’ She went to close the door and Queenie’s heart sank. She didn’t want to find somewhere to sleep on the streets or worse, walk back home.

‘But please, ma’am,’ she said quickly. ‘Can’t you give me a chance? I ain’t scared of hard work and there’s enough little ’uns at home for me to have learned what to do with ’em. I’d be a good worker, ma’am, if you’d just let me show you.’

Mrs Waters paused and looked Queenie up and down. ‘You’ve had plenty of dealings with children, you say?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And babies?’

‘Oh yes, ma’am. Plenty. Me Mam is always having new little ’uns.’

‘So why aren’t you at home helping her?’

‘No more room for me, ma’am. And besides we had a falling out and I’m making my own way in the world now.’ Queenie stood tall and straight.

‘Well . . . you’d have to live in anyway, you know. Tend to the babies in the night if need be. And keep the house in order and fetch the children’s milk.’

‘Yes ma’am, course ma’am. I could do all that.’

‘And does your mother know you’re here?’

‘Oh no, ma’am. Not yet she don’t.’

‘Well . . . maybe I’ll give you a go, then. Just a day or two, mind. See how you get on. Have you brought your things with you?’

‘Don’t have any things, ma’am. Only what I have on. But I’ll keep myself clean I will.’

‘Well, you’d better come in, then.’ Mrs Waters looked up and down the street. ‘And tell me your name, girl.’

‘Yes, sorry, ma’am. It’s Queenie, ma’am. I’m fourteen, and I’m ever so grateful to you.’

Queenie hardly dared to say anything else in case she was dreaming. And if she was dreaming she didn’t want to wake up. A maid! She was going to be a maid in a grand house. And be trusted to look after the mistress’s children too. She wondered if she would have a uniform and a cap, or some new shoes at least.

Mrs Waters shut the front door and bolted it. ‘Come on then, girl, you may as well start as you mean to go on.’

Queenie looked around as she followed Mrs Waters’ bustling back. The hallway was bigger than their whole room at home, with a fancy dark-wood staircase that curled up and round and disappeared from view. There were faded paintings of stern-looking gentlemen on the walls and the floor was tiled with small squares of red, green and yellow which Mrs Waters’ shoes clacked on as she hurried ahead. She led Queenie through a door at the end and down a dark stairwell.

‘This is the back kitchen,’ she said, ‘where you’ll be doing most of your work. You’ll sleep here too. There’s a mattress in the scullery.’

Another woman, shorter and scrawnier than Mrs Waters but with the same orange hair scraped back in a bun, was standing mixing something in a jug at the kitchen table.

‘Sarah, this is Queenie. Answered our advertisement to help out with the babies. Queenie, this is Mrs Ellis. My sister. You’ll be taking your orders from her too.’

Queenie nodded, but couldn’t reply. The sight that met her eyes was far too astonishing. Lying on a worn sofa at the back of the kitchen was an untidy row of babies. All squashed close together with barely a stitch on any of them. Eight? Nine? Ten? Queenie didn’t have time to count properly before she saw the two wooden crates on the floor. They had babies inside too. A couple in each at least.

‘These are all
your
children?’ she asked before she could stop herself.

‘Yes, in a manner of speaking,’ said Mrs Waters. ‘But it is not your place to ask questions. You understand?’

‘Yes,’ replied Queenie, feeling more and more uncomfortable.

‘Good. Then we’ll say no more. You work hard, we pay your wages and then . . . we shall all get along just fine, won’t we? Now . . . you can help Mrs Ellis with the morning feeds.’

‘Yes ma’am,’ said Queenie. She suddenly realised why the room was making her feel so uneasy. Not one of the babies was making a sound. Not a whimper or a whine of hunger. They were all lying as still as still could be, their eyes open and staring. Queenie knew enough about babies to know that was just not right.

It was a bitter cold afternoon. Not a day to be leaving the comforts of the parlour fire. But warm anticipation had been flowing through me since I’d woken that morning and I barely felt the need for the winter cloak and bonnet that Mary pressed upon me.

‘Don’t stay out too long, miss,’ she warned me. ‘I don’t want you getting the chills. And mind your father does not hear of this. You know he would not approve of you and Jacob meeting alone.’

‘Do not fuss, Mary,’ I told her. ‘I will be discreet. And please hurry with my bonnet!’

She finished tying the ribbons under my chin and I hurried out to the garden. The air outside stung my cheeks with its delicious coldness. As I walked down the steps of the terrace on to the path that led away from the house, I tried to calm myself and slow my pace.

The garden was quite bare except for a smattering of evergreen shrubs planted at intervals along the borders, but as I walked further along, I noticed the bright white of daphne flowers blinking at me and golden patches of winter aconite nestled underneath the trees. Where was Jacob, though? The garden was not so large for me to have to hunt him out.

‘Ellen!’ Jacob’s voice sounded from behind me and I turned to see him hurrying along the path towards me. I felt my cheeks grow hot, despite the cold.

‘Ellen!’ he said, as he came up beside me. ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for too long?’

‘No . . . no,’ I assured him. ‘I have only been out here for a moment.’

‘Good,’ he said. Then he took my hand and hooked it in the crook of his arm as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

We walked in silence for a while, around the walled flower garden and back up the pathway to face the house. Jacob stopped and I turned to look at him, expecting him to say something. But he was staring at the house. I took the opportunity to study his profile; the way his skin darkened along his jaw line and the slight dimple in his cheek.

‘You are very fortunate,’ he said, still looking at the house. ‘To live in such a place. To have such a life.’

His words took me by surprise. ‘Yes, I suppose I am,’ I said. I did not want to sound ungrateful and I could not tell him how dull and empty my life usually was. ‘I have never really thought about it before.’

‘Of course you haven’t. My beautiful cousin. Why would you have had to?’ He was looking at me now and smiling. I felt encouraged to continue the conversation.

‘Did you not live in a house like this one? Before, I mean? Before your mother passed away?’

‘Ha! Oh, Ellen,’ he said. ‘Your father really didn’t tell you anything, did he?’

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I did not even know he had a sister. Or that I had a cousin. All I know,’ I ventured, ‘is what Mary has told me since.’

‘And what is that?’ asked Jacob.

‘That my father and your mother had a falling out.’

Jacob began walking again and I gripped the crook of his elbow to keep pace with him. ‘My mother was a good woman, Ellen,’ he said. She was a friend of the poor, you know. Not long after I was born we were forced to move from London to a small village
.
Father was ill and Mother nursed him until he died. Then she carried on; nursing the sick, visiting the poor and cheering up the old and infirm. Not much of a life, was it? She should have had so much more. She
could
have had so much more.’ He paused. ‘So, no, Ellen. I never did live in a house like this one.’

He suddenly turned to me and took hold of both my hands. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Enough of boring old me. It’s freezing out here! What do you say we go inside, get Mary to bring us hot drinks and I’ll challenge you to a game of Old Maid!’ He started to run, pulling me along with him, and by the time we were back inside we were both out of breath and laughing.

The following month was the most heavenly month of my whole life. Jacob chose not to go to the hospital every day, and sought me out time and time again when Father was out of the house. He strolled with me in the garden and we talked of books and clouds and examined each other’s knowledge of shrubs and flowers. Jacob invariably knew more than me and I was flattered that someone so clever should take such notice of me. He read me passages from his favourite books and I thrilled to hear of Jules Verne’s
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
and of Dr Frankenstein and his hideous monster. I did not tell Jacob that Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory reminded me of Father’s dissecting room. I concentrated instead on the sound of Jacob’s voice and the way it changed when he spoke the words of different characters.

I loved to watch his face as he talked; the way his lips moved as he formed words, the glimpse of his tongue as he moistened his lips between sentences and the way his eyebrows drew close together during a particularly harrowing or exciting passage. Most of all I loved it when he smiled or laughed. The sorrow that lurked behind his eyes disappeared at those times. He became carefree, and I wanted to always make him feel like that.

He never talked of his mother and I did not take it upon myself to ask. One day, though, a silence fell between us and Jacob leaned towards me and looked directly into my eyes.

‘Mother would have approved of you,’ he said.

I looked back at him; at the flecks of grey in the green of his eyes. A strange longing filled my insides and I began to tremble. He was so close I felt the warmth of his breath on my face. I knew I should pull away, but I could not move. Instead I closed my eyes. At that moment he put his lips on mine and kissed me softly. I could not help but sigh. I felt as helpless and weak as a baby bird, and it was a while before I could bring myself to open my eyes again. When I dared to look at him, Jacob was smiling foolishly and I felt like a shy child. But I knew then, with a certainty, that we were now sealed together forever.

That night as Mary was brushing out my hair I stopped her hand and said, ‘Mary, have you ever been in love?’

‘Once or twice.’ She winked. ‘A long time ago, mind.’

‘So you know what it feels like, then?’

‘Can’t say as I do. It was so long ago.’

‘It can’t have been proper love, then, Mary. You would never have forgotten if you had ever felt like this.’

‘You go careful, miss.’ Mary looked worried. ‘Don’t fall too hard too soon. After all, we don’t know the boy that well yet, do we?’

‘Oh, Mary! What is there to know? He has lost his mother, he is all alone in the world and he has come here to us, his only family.’

‘I am just saying, miss. Take care. Take care of your feelings.’

‘Why are you saying this, Mary? I thought you would be glad for me.’

‘I . . . I am glad for you, miss. But . . .’

‘But what, Mary? What is it?’

‘Well, I didn’t like to say anything, miss, but . . . I just have a feeling that something isn’t quite right. And Ninny has been overhearing things.’

‘Ninny? What things has she been hearing?’

‘Well, raised voices, mostly, coming from your father’s study. Your father and Jacob arguing.’

‘And what were they arguing about?’

‘Oh, you know Ninny. She couldn’t quite make it out.’

‘I am sure it is nothing, Mary.’ I laughed. ‘I expect Jacob dared to question one of Father’s opinions, that is all!’ I pictured Jacob’s tender smile and his fearless green eyes. ‘He is not afraid you know, Mary. He is not afraid of Father one bit.’

‘I know,’ she said as she turned to leave. ‘That’s what worries me.’

I had thought that only Mary knew of my meetings with Jacob, but one day Father called me to his study and told me that on no account was I to spend time in Jacob’s company on my own. It would be entirely improper for me to behave in such a manner he said, and it was his duty as my father to prevent my reputation from being sullied. I would be committing the gravest of errors if I were to disobey him.

But for all his harsh words and despite the fear that curdled in my stomach, I could not stop myself.

The days slipped by, one drifting into the next. Days that were filled with Jacob. Thoughts of Jacob, dreams of Jacob and delicious stolen moments spent together. Poor Mary was torn in two. She did not want to disobey Father’s orders, but she could see that I would not be told.

‘Please be careful, miss,’ she pleaded. ‘You know your father has eyes everywhere.’

Father was silent. More silent than usual. He spent the evenings in the drawing room reading his paper while Jacob and I were forced to break the quiet with snippets of polite conversation. Jacob still went most days with Father to the hospital, but on some days he returned early on his own and on other days he did not go at all. It was those times I lived for.

Spring had come early and the walled flower garden was alive with colour: yellow buttercups, pink campions, lilac violas and white clouds of cow parsley. It was here we met, on the bench behind the carved stone archway, hidden from view. The household had come out of mourning for Aunt Isabella and I was able to wear my prettiest gowns again. On the day I wore my pale yellow silk, Jacob picked me a posy of daisies and sprinkled them in my hair. He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘My mother was very beautiful too, you know. And kind.’

I nodded and waited, hoping he would tell me more.

‘She was too kind for her own good,’ he said, picking the petals off a buttercup one by one. ‘Too kind and too stubborn in her ways. She and your father fell out when I was just a baby.’ He crushed the remains of the buttercup in the palm of his hand.

I nodded again, encouraging him to continue.

‘She wanted nothing more to do with him. And he wanted nothing more to do with her. I could never understand it.’ He stood and began to kick softly at the borders of cow parsley. The tiny white flowers trembled on their stems, some falling to the ground.