Abi couldn't stay still any longer. When Mary had slid the bag under the bed and slipped between the sheets, Abi went up on her elbow and whispered, 'Mary.'
'What is it?'
'Talked to a Quaker man today.'
'Did you?' Absently. 'So will he come speak to the mistress?'
'No,' said Abi bleakly.
Mary turned her head towards her. 'You should run away,' she said, on impulse.
Abi curled her lip. What kind of nonsense was that?
'I mean it,' said the girl with animation. 'You wouldn't stand for such treatment if you'd a spark of spirit in you.'
Resentment flared up in the maid-of-all-work. She flung back the blanket and hauled her nightshirt up to the top of her thigh. She put her finger to the old brand.
'What's that?' asked Mary, staring. 'Another master's name?'
'Look close,' said Abi gruffly.
Mary brought the wavering candle near enough to the skin to make out the letter R, stamped in black.
'That means Runaway,' Abi told her before she could ask. 'Means I done it before, in Barbados. Means I know running gets you nowhere.'
'Tell me,' said Mary eagerly. 'What happened? Was it long ago?'
Abi wrenched up the blanket and turned on her side. 'Told you enough,' she said through clenched teeth.
'All right then, don't tell me. All I'll say,' added Mary, 'is that your chances are better in this country. If you got as far as London, they'd never find you in the crowds.'
Confusion filled Abi's head, and a sort of grief. Was the girl trying to get rid of her? Did she want the whole bed to herself? Did she not have any need of Abi's company in the long nights? 'What you care, anyway?' she asked hoarsely.
Mary shrugged. 'I just ... it seems to me that masters shouldn't be allowed to think they own people, that's all.' She leaned over and snuffed out the candle with her fingers.
The maid-of-all-work lay and brooded on this for a minute. Then she spoke up in the darkness. 'If I did.'
'Mm?'
'If I run. You tell me where to go? In London?'
'Of course I could,' said Mary with animation.
'You give me money?'
A cold, prickling silence filled up the bed.
'Mary?'
'What money?' came the answer, almost formal.
Abi was suddenly sick of these games. 'You think I deaf?' She didn't care if her voice could be heard in the room below. 'You think I don't know what money sounds?'
'It's none of your business.'
'You got a stocking full!'
'I earned it.'
'I need some. I never get away without some money.'
Mary lay as stiff as wood.
'Please!'
'I'm sorry for you, Abi, but no. As a friend of mine used to say, Every girl for herself.'
It occurred to Abi now how easy it would be to pick up the pillow and press it down on this girl's haughty face.
'Oh, and by the way, I know how much I have, down to the last ha'penny,' Mary threatened softly. 'And you know I'd be able to smell your hands on it if you ever so much as touched it.'
Abi's fingers were full of murder. She put them in her mouth and bit down.
In the dog days of August, hives walked their way up Mary's ribs; her sleeves stuck to the crooks of her elbows. The air was full of dust from the hay harvest. For the first time in months Mary missed London, found herself pining for all the worst things about it, even the reek of the Thames lying low.
Trade was slack. There was a spinster called Rhona Davies who'd recently set up as a dressmaker over on Wye Street; she offered nothing fancy, but her low prices were tempting old customers away from the Joneses. At the house on Inch Lane, Mary sweated over the accounts, while Mrs. Jones nibbled her thumbnail. Missing sums, outstanding bills, bad debts. Everything depended on the Morgans, that was about the sum of it. If Mrs. Jones—rather than some smooth Bristol dressmaker, or even, God forbid, a London firm—got the commission for young Miss Anna's coming-out trousseau, the family on Inch Lane would be eating good beef all winter. Most of their other patrons were off taking the waters or shut up in their houses with gigantic paper fans; nobody was in a paying humour.
Over breakfast, dinner, and supper, on the stairs and in the yard, Mary felt herself being watched by Mrs. Ash like a Recording Angel. Any day, on a whim, this woman could choose to bring down destruction on her head. That was what tortured Mary: the not knowing whether or when. She kept her eyes low and did nothing to provoke the nurse. When one morning Hetta clung to Mary's skirts and said she wanted to learn to embroider, Mary had to push her off: 'Go back to Mrs. Ash.'
The child heard the hint of poison in the maid's voice, and clearly thought it was for herself; her lip hung down. But what could she do, Mary asked herself? Mrs. Ash smiled placidly and held out her hand for Hetta.
The girl never went near the Crow's Nest, in case Mrs. Ash ever came to hear of it; she got Mrs. Jones's cider from the Green Oak instead, and told her mistress it was much fresher. On the rare occasions when she saw the Reverend Cadwaladyr, at market or in the church porch after service, she looked away. Her hoard of coins had stopped growing. They stuck to her palms when she counted them. They were all she had, but they weren't enough.
She and Abi shared a room without meeting each other's eyes; at night they lay rigid, inches apart.
The air reeked of fermentation from the cider brewing. Mary's forehead bore a permanent crease. 'Whatever's the matter with you these days?' Mrs. Jones asked one afternoon when they were down in the kitchen, pressing sheets.
'Blame the heat,' said Mary shortly.
Right through August, storms blew up every few days; no sooner was washing pinned up on the line than it was soaked through again. The farmers complained of mildew in the corn. Mary had a sense of waiting, but for what? These days all she was doing was killing time.
Mrs. Morgan walked in on the first of September for the final fitting of her velvet slammerkin. For all the heat, she was still swathed in her black fur-edged cape. Reverently Mrs. Jones lifted down the snowy velvet dress and spread it in Mrs. Morgan's lap to show how the snakes and apples on its train caught the light. 'Just think how the silver thread will set off madam's hair!' she said.
Meaning, thought Mary, bored, that Mrs. Morgan was as grey as an old dog.
'How this will eclipse them all at Bath!' trilled Mrs. Jones.
Yes, even if a mule wore it, thought Mary. Her hives were driving her demented. To distract herself from the itch, she stroked the nap of the velvet slammerkin with one pin-callused finger.
'It's fine work,' the Honourable Member's wife conceded at last. 'Well done, Mrs. Jones.'
The dressmaker bobbed gratefully.
'For the winter, I think I'll have you make me a riding-habit, as well as three complete suits of clothes for my daughter's first season. And your husband might fit us both for some dress stays.'
Mrs. Jones nodded, glowing. Mary could tell she was too excited to speak. Their eyes met over Mrs. Morgan's shoulder, and Mrs. Jones gave the girl a tiny wink, as if to say that their worries were over. The dressmaker picked up the dress, and Mary rushed to help her hold it like a cloud of white over Mrs. Morgan's head so madam could worm her way into it.
Mary stood back and considered. What an almighty waste of a year's embroidery! Inside her silver-veined splendour, the woman looked plainer than ever. Stretched over the gigantic hoop and layers of petticoats, the slammerkin seemed to fill the room, bobbing against the trunks and almost knocking over a chair. It was magnificent, in this humble setting, but it was also quite ridiculous. Mary itched to try it on. How much better she would carry it off than Mrs. Morgan. Mary's breasts were twice the size, for starters. A laugh bubbled up in her throat.
'Why is your maid looking at me so insolently, Mrs. Jones?'
Mary blinked, and looked down at her hands. She'd forgotten to be careful.
'Was she, madam?' said Mrs. Jones, breathless.
'Indeed she was.'
The girl had turned her back, now. She pretended to be sorting through some jackets hanging from the ceiling; she buried her head among them and bit her lips to stop the laugh from coming out.
'Well, Miss, what have you to say for yourself?'
Mrs. Morgan's voice, tight as a chicken's, increased Mary's merriment. She pressed her face against a train of cool satin. 'I'm sorry, I'm sure.' Her words came out muffled.
'You will look at me when you address me!'
Mary turned, with a face as rigid as china.
'High time you learned some respect for your betters.'
The word hung in the air between them. Mary kept her mouth sealed shut. But she couldn't prevent one eyebrow lifting. A gesture that whispered, You, my better?
Now her mistress's eyes flicked between the two of them in panic.
'I beg your pardon, madam,' Mary said to Mrs. Morgan, adding a deep curtsy, to be on the safe side.
'She meant no harm.' Mrs. Jones gave her patron a paralysed smile.
Mrs. Morgan sighed and turned aside to examine her profile in the long mirror. 'I would not keep a girl so pert, myself,' she remarked.
'No, madam,' said the dressmaker. 'She's not generally so. It's the heat, I do believe.'
'I doubt she would have reached such a height of impudence without some encouragement, Mrs. Jones.'
No answer to that.
The Honourable Member's wife lifted her arms resignedly to indicate that Mrs. Jones should begin undoing the slammerkin. 'The neckline a quarter-inch lower, I think.'
'Very good, madam.'
She stood there like a doll with her arms in the air. And Mary, watching from under her lowered lids, realised all at once that the rich were useless. The more servants they depended on, the feebler they grew. Parasites!
But she went over to help her mistress with a perfect humility of manner. She meant to behave herself for the rest of the fitting. And all was well until, in the struggle to hoist the narrow bodice off over her head, Mrs. Morgan's shift fell open and her left breast flopped over the edge of her stays. It resembled nothing so much as a lightly fried egg, livid and elongated, quivering on the edge of the plate. Mary had never seen anything so funny in her life. She looked up and saw the Honourable Member's wife, who had noticed what the girl was looking at. A huge and terrible laugh spilled out of Mary's mouth before she even knew it was coming. She clamped a hand over her lips, but it was too late.
What Mary remembered afterwards, as she stood in the hall, against the closed door—with her heart banging almost loud enough to drown out Mrs. Morgan's shouts: 'By Christ, I say she laughed at me! I tell you, the slut guffawed in my face!'—was not Mrs. Morgan's face, but Mrs. Jones's. Lost, dreading, like a child in a wood.
Mrs. Jones couldn't eat a bite of supper. Afterwards, she waited till she was alone with her husband.
'Jane?'
She looked up, startled at the first name.
Mr. Jones laid a warm hand over hers. 'You're not yourself this evening.'
She blinked at him with grateful tears. 'It's nothing.'
'Has the child been tiring you?'
How she would have liked to nod, to blame it all on the petty exhaustions of an ordinary day. It wouldn't be the first time she'd have kept something from Thomas, after all. She had had bigger secrets, lies of omission.
But she shook her head regretfully. 'It's only—Mary. She was ... pert. With Mrs. Morgan.'
His forehead drew into a knot. 'Pert?'
'She meant no real harm—she only laughed—'
'Laughed? At what?' he interrupted, his face dark.
'Nothing,' said Mrs. Jones unconvincingly. Somehow she couldn't bear to describe the incident, the breast in all its pallid limpness. She was half afraid she might laugh herself.
'And what of the commission?'
His wife squirmed. 'That's what's worrying me. That's why I've brought it up at all. When she first came in today, Mrs. Morgan asked me to undertake three sets of clothes for her daughter—'
'And now it seems Mary Saunders has caused an utter breach in our relations with our most prominent patron!' He pronounced the words as if in a court of law.
His wife flinched. 'I don't know about that, Thomas. Mrs. Morgan left in such a hurry—'
His hand thumped the table. 'We'll be lucky,' he growled, 'if any member of that family ever steps into our shop again.'
Mrs. Jones put her face in her hands.
'As for the girl, I'll give her pert, he roared. 'I'll give her no harm. Bring the chit down this minute and I'll whip the smile off her face.'
His wife could feel her face stiffen into a mask of horror. 'But my dear, consider—'
'Bring her down for a round dozen this minute, I say. Her kind can't be reasoned with.'
'Thomas.' Mrs. Jones tried to gather her forces. 'We've never re-sorted to such punishment in our family. I cannot agree—'
'You cannot?' The vein on his nose stood out. 'Well, what matter if you can agree or not? I hope we'll have no petticoat government in this house!'
In the whole length of their marriage, through money troubles and domestic disputes, she'd never seen her husband's face so distorted, so beyond her reach. It was as if, by some piece of girlish foolishness, Mary Saunders had ruined her master's life.
Mr. Jones pushed his chair back; it made a dreadful squeal. Every nerve in his wife's body strained away from him, but she stayed where she was. He stood, breathing heavily. Something was softening his face—not kindness, it seemed to her, but some obscure doubt. As he scrabbled for his crutches, he mumbled something, so low she barely caught it.
'I beg your pardon?' she whispered.
'You do it. More seemly.' And with that he'd lurched out of the room.
'Abi said I was wanted.'
When Mary came in, the mistress was standing in the parlour like a thief, red-eyed, her hands behind her. 'Mary,' she said very fast, 'Mr. Jones—that is, we—have decided, my husband and I, that you deserve a whipping for your conduct today.' A birch rod emerged from behind her skirts. She toyed with it, as if it was some fashionable accessory she didn't know how to use.
Mary looked at her mistress very hard. They waited in a dull silence. Mary couldn't quite believe it. She hadn't been whipped since she was thirteen years old, and lost the penny through a hole in her pocket.
Mrs. Jones's words squeezed out painfully: 'What you did was very bad.'
'What did I do, exactly?'
The older woman's lips trembled. 'You laughed at Mrs. Morgan.'
'I meant nothing by it. I said I was sorry.'
Her mistress put her hand up to cover her mouth. Realising it still held the birch, she put it down again. 'It was the way you looked at her, when you were laughing.'
'I'm not responsible for my face, madam!'
But Mary knew this was bluster. When she had accepted the advance on her wages, back in the spring, she'd as good as signed herself over. Her back, her hands, her words, every muscle in her face.
'Your behaviour deeply offended Mrs. Morgan. It has probably lost us the year's most important business.'
'Well, she shouldn't have been so touchy,' muttered the girl.
'Oh, Mary,' said Mrs. Jones helplessly, 'what lady could bear to be looked at in that way, at such a moment?'
At this Mary couldn't prevent her mouth from forming into a tiny smirk.
'If you prove yourself to be a child,' Mrs. Jones said, in a stiff and borrowed voice, 'I must treat you like one.' She shouted loud enough to startle them both: 'Come in, Abi!'
Only when the maid-of-all-work came in, expressionless, and stooped over, did Mary understand. She was to undo the laces of her stays and bare her back, then put her wrists in Abi's hands and lean her body against the curve of Abi's spine and give herself over to be whipped like a common convict. When all she'd done was laugh at the wrong moment! When the order had clearly come down from Mr. Jones, who wanted her punished n
ot for today, but for the night when she'd lifted her skirts to him.
Mary didn't have to stand for this. All she had to do now was walk upstairs and pack her bag. She had more than enough money to take Niblett's wagon to London and make a new start.
But something held her. Maybe the habit of servitude. Maybe the stillness of the three women, like masked actors in a play. Or the look in her mistress's unfocused eyes that said, Help me, Mary?
Mr. Jones stood with his ear pressed against the door, hard enough to make it tingle. As each blow fell in the little parlour he seemed to feel the wood shake. Nobody inside the room spoke a word or let out a cry of pain. His wife was not shirking the job, he could tell, even though she couldn't know he was listening. Whatever Jane set herself to do, he thought with appalled love, she did to the best of her ability. Even if the choice was not hers to make.
The strokes came hard and regular. At the tenth, there was a hiatus, as if Mrs. Jones had lost count, or more likely, he imagined, as if she was shaken by the sight of a speck of blood leaking through the girl's shift. But then came the eleventh, and finally the twelfth. The silence was a dreadful relief.
It was he who needed a whipping. Mr. Jones did know that, now he had calmed a little. It should have been him in there, baring himself to his wife's birch rod and begging her to lift the skin off him. He should have knelt at her feet and said, I broke our marriage vows with a dirty whore, one you think of as a daughter. And then he should have asked, What can I do to repay you? What bargain must we make so we can go on?