December 1951 #2
I didn’t have Sunday best to get into, not exactly.
But I had my own clothes as well as the uniform, so I did myself up in this knee-length dress in navy blue under a little jacket with sharp shoulders and a fitted waist. Fashions was simple in them days what with rationing, but I thought the cut worked well on me and with my barnet set and a touch of makeup I thought I looked nice enough.
Emily and me wouldn’t be going down together, of course.
That would have raised eyebrows even on a day off.
Especially on a day off, when I’d no call to be attending on her.
So I went down with some of the girls and a couple of the lads.
We was a gaggle, mostly, but there was pairs among us.
Tall quiet Sam had been sweet on young Vera for months and now they was holding hands shyly as they weaved in between stalls.
It didn’t take long for me to shake the crowd.
Since I’d moved half upstairs the other girls hadn’t had much time for me, and if any of the young men were paying attention I’d not noticed.
I remember walking on my own for a long time, watching little kids dashing about playing in the—not in the snow, I keep thinking there was snow but there weren’t.
But I remember the kids still. And I remember thinking even back then that if there was any way that me and Emily, that me and the mistress…well there’d be choices to make. If I’d ever get to make them.
Not that I would.
I made sure to keep in sight of the steps—right round where we do the interviews now—and so I saw Emily coming down at last with her brother, Master James that is, the one as took the place over in sixty-two and sold it in eighty-nine.
She looked impossible, like always. A long black coat that went to her knees with light-grey piping around the lapels. A hat in a matching colour, warm enough to fit the season but set for fashion more than comfort.
They were talking to each other in low voices, and I only got snatches of what they were saying. But snatches were enough.
“—dy knows, Em. You’re not half so clever as you think you are. And even if you were, she certainly isn’t.”
And then Emily’s laughter, bell-bright and fearless. “You worry too much, Jimmy.”
“Easy for you to say.”
I don’t think Master James saw me, but Emily did. She saw me and she smiled, and her eyes told me to wait.
So I waited. And when her brother had left to go and do heir-to-the-estate things amongst the common folk, she wandered all careless-like to my side.
“Hello, stranger.”
“Reckon you don’t have to pretend we don’t know each other, miss,” I told her. Though I’d not curtseyed as I would have normally. “Folks understand.”
Emily looked almost upset, like she’d wanted me to play along. “What they’ll understand is that you’re an ordinary girl who the lady from the big house has kindly chosen to show around the fete. Come on.”
She reached out a gloved hand, and I took it. There was something electric about that, for usually when I touched her it was private, just us, with all the doors closed and the curtains drawn and the unspoken understanding that it never happened.
But now she took me by the hand and just for a moment we were no different from Vera and tall quiet Sam. No different from any other young couple.
We was, of course. Even then. Even at Christmas.
Even on a half-day off with me in what passed for my best and her not giving a damn like always, we was different.
When we stood to listen to the carollers, she couldn’t hold me, she could only stand by my side with a half an inch of air blowing cold between us.
And when she bought me a bundle of gingerbread for luck, we had to eat it separate, just staring at each other in a crowd.
I had to be content knowing that the spice and the sweetness that was on my lips was on hers as well.
Even if that was all we could share while there was eyes on us.
The fete spread over most of the grounds, and we wandered out of sight of the house, down towards the river and then along it, past the bridge to the hermitage (and here Doris looked around at Audrey).
You remember the one? Didn’t smell so bad of piss in them days.
Or if it did, I didn’t care. Maybe it was just ’cause I was with her.
She sat me down on that hard stone bed and buried her fingers in my hair.
“Fuck,” she said—sorry, but she did, though; if it bothers you I can just say eff, “I wish I didn’t have to hide you.”
Well I didn’t know how to take that. Because as I saw it there was no sense wishing for things that would never happen, and though it had its costs and its pains, right then I’d not have changed what we had for anything.
So I just begged for her to kiss me. And she did. And when I could speak again I begged her for more besides, and though there’d been times when she was cruel—because she liked to withhold things, did Emily, just in general, just because she could—on that day, she gave me everything I asked for.
I think I told her I loved her. I don’t think she was listening.
But her brother was.
He stepped into the door of the grotto like a wolf eating the sun. And all I can remember him saying was, “Em.”
I wanted to die then. From the shame of it, and from the knowing it was over.
I’d expected the news to come from Mrs. Loris. And it did, in a way. But all she said to me was, “Sir Arthur will see you now.”
I’d known the Branninghams on and off for a decade and I think I’d said maybe a hundred words to Sir Arthur.
Less if you didn’t count sir and yes. So it was strange to be shown through now to his study, a place I’d cleaned dozens of times before I made lady’s maid but never really been in, and sat down opposite him like I was being interviewed in a newspaper.
“I want you to know,” he said, “that I don’t hold you responsible.”
I kept my eyes low. I remember he had this fountain pen in front of him, marbled blue with the name of the maker engraved on the nib. “Thank you, sir.”
“My daughter is a troubled young woman.”
“As you say, sir.”
Looking down, I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I think he frowned. “However, you understand that my family has a reputation to maintain. That should you make any accusations…”
“I won’t, sir.” The word accusations stung. As I saw it, Emily had done nothing to be accused of. Leastways not as he meant it.
“Mrs. Loris will see to it that you are provided with an excellent reference.”
“Although”—Mrs. Loris spoke up here—“for your work as a housemaid only. Your services as a lady’s maid are, I think, best left undiscussed.”
That seemed right enough. And even if it hadn’t, I’d not have had much choice in the matter.
“But this is contingent,” Sir Arthur was saying, “on your complete discretion. Should I find that you have been spreading any kind of rumours about my daughter or my household—”
“I wouldn’t,” I blurted out. “I wouldn’t do nothing to hurt Miss Emily. Not never.”
There was a kind of sorrow in Mrs. Loris’s eyes then. “On that much, at least,” she told Sir Arthur, “I believe we can trust her.”
And that was that. I packed my things at once, and that evening I was on the last train back to Stepney.
I never got to say goodbye to Emily. Never got to take nothing to remind me of her, ’cept a half-ate, half-wrapped bundle of gingerbread. And I carried that all the way back to my mum and dad’s house in Stepney. Stuck it in a box under my bed.
Never could bring myself to finish it.