I suspected that my attraction had diminished the second I was acquired. When I was beyond his grasp, I had been desirable. Now that I could be easily had, I was just another worn-out toy to abandon. Although I felt hopelessly adrift, I still thought I could learn to swim back to land. I wanted only to win them both over.
On a whim I bought some cheerful yellow and red tulips from a street vendor. Mrs Wiggs’ campaign to buy fresh flowers daily had not lasted long, for the flowers hadn’t lured Thomas home, so the pleasure they gave the rest of us in the house was deemed irrelevant. Nonetheless, I saw the tulips and bought them. I felt braver and happier for it, and I trimmed the stems, put sugar in the water, and arranged them into a display such that whoever saw them couldn’t help but be uplifted. They had not been on show for more than two hours before I walked past and found them gone, replaced with a vase of violets.
Violets were Aisling’s favourite flowers. Mrs Wiggs couldn’t have known this, but it made me think of her when I didn’t want to be reminded, and I was quite unprepared for it. Mrs Wiggs simply laughed when I questioned her, and in the most condescending tone said, ‘I’m afraid red and yellow tulips send the wrong message, Mrs Lancaster. One doesn’t put such a display in the hall. It was frankly overwhelming, and a little… How do I say this without offending you…? Gauche. We are not French; we have no need to inflict our passions upon everyone who should happen to walk through the door. I thought you might not be aware of the subtlety of such matters, so I replaced them with violets. Violets convey discretion, loyalty and devotion. A more appropriate message.’
Seeing violets, Aisling’s violets, in the hall was like being struck about the face with a bat. It upset me more than it should have. I was trying to forget about her, yet she kept sidling in, reminding me how lonely I was. I was hopeless at this. I was no sort of wife at all. I needed Aisling back. I wanted her to come and tell me to pull myself together and make fun of Mrs Wiggs and tell me Thomas was an idiot. Instead, I ran to my room and buried my face in the pillow so that Mrs Wiggs could not gain any satisfaction from my tears. I would not cry in front of people. Not if I could help it. I would rather die.
*
Living with Mrs Wiggs was like being under permanent attack, only she sliced at you with tiny invisible blades so you didn’t know you were being cut until you were nearly drained of blood. It was exhausting. She was never happier than when Thomas needed her, but if I plucked up the courage to request something, it was as if I had asked her to send the tide back in the other direction. She stiffened wherever she found me, as if surprised to find I was still there, disappointed I hadn’t been collected with the ashes.
I tried to discover more about her, but she was no more forthcoming regarding her history than I was. All I learned was that she had started with the Lancasters as nanny to Thomas and his twin sister Helen. She had been Helen’s governess when Thomas was sent away to school in Winchester, then a lady’s maid, and eventually housekeeper of Abbingdale Hall. Now that Helen was in charge there and could cope with a less experienced housekeeper, Mrs Wiggs was spared to look after Thomas in the wilds of London.
I could only assume that she had shown more deference to her employers at Abbingdale Hall. On one occasion she told me that I did not have the correct number of hairbrushes for a lady. ‘What will you do if a lady friend calls and has need to clean the city dust from her hair?’ she asked, her eyes wide, as if this were one of life’s greatest questions.
‘Well, I don’t have any lady friends, so it shouldn’t cause too much of a problem,’ I replied. It was true, I didn’t have any lady friends, not a single one, not any more.
She next developed a preoccupation with my usage of the water closet. She was apprehensive of the water closet, being that it was new, and technical, and she worried it would break. I think she perceived it as dark magic. She was petrified of the noise the flush made, and of it exploding. She said she had heard many stories from other households of maids burning to death after lighting a candle and igniting the gases that had leaked back into the bathroom from the pipes. ‘The announcement of effluent is at once reprehensible and morally repugnant,’ she said. She then attempted to decree that I should only use the water closet between certain hours of the morning and then again for an hour in the afternoon.
I could endure being nagged and marginalised and made to feel irrelevant and stupid, but I would not have anyone take control of my bodily functions. Lord knows, even I couldn’t predict those with any surety.
‘No, Mrs Wiggs, I will use the water closet as and when I, or nature, dictates, and I shan’t be consulting anyone for permission to do so.’
I didn’t wait for a response. I walked away, my pathetic sparrow heart fluttering in my chest.
Mrs Wiggs was somehow able to look straight through me and see the peasant, no matter how much I convinced myself she was gone for good. The girl who had hoarded food beneath her bed, raced barefoot across the mud and dug out worms with her fingers was not so far from the surface. Mrs Wiggs had sniffed her out and sought to chase her into the light.
We called
