Yet now I can recall as though it were yesterday the events of a stormy evening shortly after my mother had established herself in Chelsea. Midsummer thunder rolled through the heavens as though God and the angels were playing at ninepins. The streets had become muddy ruts in the matter of an hour. It was light enough to see the rain streaking down the windowpanes, and this had become for me a kind of meditative fancy. Ensconced in my window seat I hugged my knees to my chest and fixed my gaze upon the patterns made by the raindrops—God’s tears—descending in a shimmering hush as they sought to humble themselves by kissing the ground beneath.
I thought I heard a deep sigh, but at first was convinced the sound had been my own, drawn from my melancholy reverie. I had been wishing Papa were home and we were all in Bristol, a happy family once again, with no Elenor and no Inuits to mar the brightness of my mother’s days. But as I was wondering if the sigh had not emitted from my own lips, I heard it again, this time more a groan of anguish. A shiver of fear shuddered through me and I drew my knitted shawl more tightly about my shoulders.
Peering out the window, I spied a figure near the gate, evidently laboring under excessive affliction. As curious as I was anxious, I donned my shoes and threw the shawl over my head, descending into the street. The poor soul, drenched to the skin, was a lady, her thick dark hair—mostly hidden by an old bonnet—falling about her face. Her dress, torn and filthy, clung about her like rags upon a drowning woman. Underneath her scant attire she was nearly naked, her petticoats having been either lost or forgotten.
“Don’t you remember me, child?”
When had I ever known such a disheveled being? The poor wretch’s features were so obscured by the shape of the bonnet that I could not recognize them. My hand, as well as my heart, reached out to her as I offered her the coins from the pocket of my apron.
“My little friend. You are still the angel I ever knew you!” She raised her bonnet and her fine dark eyes—canopied by the thick arches of two nearly conjoining brows—met mine.
“Mrs. Lorrington!” How had my former governess fallen into such a state in so brief a space of time? It had been less than a year since we’d parted. “Come! You must come inside!” I led her up to my room, where Mademoiselle Millepied, the French instructor, and I sat the poor woman beside the fire and brought her a pot of tea to warm her innards. Mrs. Lorrington’s figure, being of a similar stamp to the mademoiselle’s, enabled us to fit her with enough dry garments to restore her modesty.
“I cannot expect to repay your kindness with another ensemble,” Mrs. Lorrington murmured sadly.
“None is expected, madame,” replied the mademoiselle.
“How came you to be in such a state?” I inquired, but Mrs. Lorrington dismissed my question with a heavy sigh. To press her would have been impolite, for even in her desolation I felt myself her inferior in every way.
Finishing her tea, my mentor rose from her seat by the fireside. “I must take my leave now. I thank both of you kind girls for your pains.”
“But you cannot go back out into the night like this!” I ran to the window. “The streets are naught but mud and the rain is still coming down in torrents.” Even in Mademoiselle Millepied’s old boots, she would not long withstand the inclement weather. “Stay the night at least, I implore you, Mrs. Lorrington. You shall have my bed and I shall place the eiderdown on the floor for myself.”
But my former governess would have none of it. I was powerless to persuade her to remain. I felt poorly at not being able to do more by her; had it not been for Mrs. Lorrington’s long-standing love affair with spirits, my mother might have offered her a teaching position come daylight. “Then give me your address that I might know where to send to you.”
Mrs. Lorrington shook her head. “But I will promise to call upon you in a few days’ time, Mary. You have my word upon’t.”
My eyes brimmed over with tears. It has remained to my eternal regret that Mrs. Lorrington did not keep her promise to visit me again. I never did see her more. Some years later, I was informed that she had died in the workhouse in Chelsea, the martyr of a premature decay, brought on by the indulgence of her propensity to intoxication. I was not surprised, but I was disconsolate. How crack’d a noble heart, indeed. Yes, Mrs. Lorrington was felled by her fatal weakness—but as I saw it, her constant tippling was the tragic result of an everlasting love that formed the chief constituent of her widowed sorrows. It was a theme that would forever haunt me.
Four
Papa Returns
1772…age fourteen
Within the space of a few months, my mother’s pupils numbered a dozen. Though her heart remained heavy, weighed down by my father’s betrayal of home and hearth, she was consoled by the knowledge of having risen from misfortune into an honorable independence.
The strike of three one afternoon heralded the arrival of an unexpected caller. “Hester!” My father’s voice echoed through the narrow corridors. “I’ve had a deuced
