Yes, Mama. Helen Forrester
standing uncertainly by the bath. ‘These days, I fancy a bath meself now and then – takes the aches out of yez. I’ll bet she’ll make you scrub your dairies every day.’ She nodded her head like a disapproving old woman. ‘Proper finick, she is.’
While she waited for Fanny to leave the room, Polly sat down and unlaced her boots. One of the bootlaces broke and she looked at it ruefully, wondering where she would get a halfpenny from to buy a new one. ‘What’s the Master like?’ she inquired carefully – her mother had warned her long ago, when she had been a ten-year-old tweenie in a big house, to keep out of the way of the men of the house.
‘Himself? Och, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s got a fancy woman downtown. Maisie – she’s the parlour-maid – says the woman keeps ’im exhausted!’ Fanny chortled and looked wickedly at Polly. Then she said more soberly, ‘They do say as once he got a maid in trouble and the Mistress sent her packing. Nowadays, he don’t even notice you’re there, though. He’s got a lousy temper, though. Just keep out of his way of an evening when he’s drunk.’
Polly digested this advice, and then, as Fanny picked up her empty ewer and moved towards the door, she asked, ‘What part of town do you come from?’
Fanny laughed. ‘I dunno, for sure. I got an auntie wot lives in Shaw’s Alley, but I coom ’ere from the Workie. I were born in there – and bloody glad I was to get out of it. At least the Mistress don’t beat you. It were me auntie that got on to you.’
‘Is your Mam still in the Workhouse?’
‘Not her. She died when I was only an itty-bitty kid. The Workie Gaffer hit her one day for something she said – and she lay down and I remember she were cold.’
Polly did not bother to ask her where her father was. In her experience, fathers often remained unknown. She sighed and said, ‘It must’ve bin proper hard for yez.’
Fanny’s eyes twinkled. ‘I wouldn’t give a dead farthin’ to go through it again,’ she replied forcefully. Swinging her empty ewer, she turned and plodded down the stairs to the basement.
Polly quickly stripped off her blouse, skirt and stockings. She put a cautious toe into the steaming water and then stepped into it. It felt comfortable, so she carefully lowered herself into it and reached for the soap lying on the floor. She took the hairpins out of her plaits and loosened her hair. She found that holding the hot flannel to her breasts eased the ache in them and she was able to expel some of her milk. It would be a day or two, she realized, before the baby would be able to suck, and, in the meantime, she must keep the milk coming.
After she had dried herself, she kneeled down by the bath and uncorked the bottle of paraffin. Holding her breath because of its smell, she rubbed it liberally into her damp hair, until it dripped into the bath. Then, using a fine-toothed comb which her husband, Patrick, had given her as a present, she combed the long, damp locks until she reckoned she had all the lice out; the paraffin would kill the nits, so, if she were lucky, she would be free of them.
Two full-skirted, ankle-length, cotton dresses with petticoats to go under them had been provided. In Polly’s eyes, the dresses were beautiful, far nicer than anything she had ever worn before; they had narrow, blue and white stripes. There were three large white aprons to wear over them and three white cotton bonnets to pin over her hair. To go out-of-doors, there was a navy-blue jacket, and a navy coif to go over the white caps.
She would have to find stockings and shoes for herself, and she wondered if her mother could prevail on the pedlar to let her have them on two months’ credit. Her first month’s wages would be appropriated by Mrs Tibbs, the cook-housekeeper, as her fee for getting her the job. As she thought about this, she replaited her hair and wound it into a neat bun at the back of her head.
When Fanny came back up the stairs, carrying a pair of slop pails in which to remove the bath water, she gaped at the newly created Nanny. ‘Well, I never,’ she exclaimed. ‘You look proper pretty.’
Her spirits revived, Polly gave the girl a playful cuff about the head for her impudence. Then she asked, ‘Wot time is servants’ meals?’
‘Breakfast at six-thirty, dinner ’alf-past eleven, tea at five. If Ma Tibbs is in a good mood, you get a bit o’ somethin’ afore bedtime – depends on wot’s left from the Master’s dinner. The Mistress isn’t mean, but Ma Tibbs is. She takes food to her sister’s house.’
‘I’m awfully hungry,’ admitted Polly, her voice trembling slightly.
‘Oh, aye. You could get a mug o’ milk or ale anytime you want – and I suppose I’ll ’ave to bring it up.’
She plunged her slop pail into the scummy bath water.
‘Bring me some milk and a piece of bread now,’ wheedled Polly. ‘There’s a pet. I’m clemmed.’
Fanny glanced up at her. ‘And the baby not even born yet?’ she teased.
‘Come on, Fanny. I’ll share it with yez.’
‘Well, seein’ as I know yez, I’ll ask for it.’
I
At half-past eleven that warm May night, Alicia Beatrix Mary yelled her first impatient complaint in this world.
Dr Willis declared her a healthy child and Mrs Macdonald gave her her first bath. To ensure a flat, well-healed navel, a flannel binder was wound tightly round her stomach.
On a dresser lay a pile of baby clothes originally prepared for a brother, who, eight years before, had died within a month of his birth. Mrs Macdonald picked up a cotton napkin and one of terry towelling and enclosed Alicia in these. Then the child’s tiny arms were pushed into a flannel vest. A long cotton petticoat followed and then a flannel one, each tied at the front. Over all this went a fine white baby gown, frilled and embroidered and hemstitched in an Islington sweat shop. The long petticoats and gown were folded up over the protesting little feet, and she was finally wrapped in a warm, white shawl crocheted for her by her mother’s spinster friend and lifelong confidante, Miss Sarah Webb.
Almost smothered by the amount of clothing, Alicia carried her complaints to Humphrey Woodman.
Humphrey had been called from his booklined study by Dr Willis to inspect the new addition to his household and was uncertain, at first, whether he should go up. He had been startled when Maisie, the parlour-maid, had told him that his wife had commenced her labour. He had hoped to the last that his wife would miscarry, so that he would not have to face directly the fact of her infidelity.
Maisie was waiting, politely holding the door open for him, so he slowly pushed himself away from his desk and got up. As he straightened his velvet smoking jacket and gravely marched upstairs, a slow anger burned in him. He did not care a damn what Elizabeth did as long as she was discreet; but having a child at the age of forty was, alone, enough to interest the gossips and raise speculation.
Since Dr Willis and Mrs Macdonald were present, he kissed his wife dutifully upon her white cheek, and, afterwards, went to inspect the minute bundle lying in the frilly, draped cot which had served all his children.
His breath began to come fast as he gazed at the crumpled red face, and he seethed inwardly; at that moment he would have liked to murder Elizabeth and her lawyer, Andrew Crossing, whom he was fairly sure was the child’s father. Yet, in a sense, he also felt defeated. There was no question of his divorcing his wife; he must maintain his carefully built-up image of a well-respected city businessman with an impeccable home-life. To maintain society’s rigid proprieties, he would have to accept the baby as his. He knew it and he guessed that his wife was counting upon it – the sanctimonious bitch!
At the back of his mind, too, was the need to protect the future of his daughter, Florence, who was standing