Eliza’s Daughter (10 page)

‘Poor lady. What a terrible thing to happen.'

I had found the frugal, punctilious and high-minded atmosphere at Delaford Rectory rather tiring and decidedly hard to live up to; I could not help wondering what life with Mrs Montford Jebb held in store, and looked forward to it with a good deal of interest.

Mrs Montford Jebb occupied a small house in New King Street.

‘Of course when my late dear husband was alive, matters were very otherwise,' she told me. ‘Then we resided in far more spacious and handsome premises, a large house in Paragon. But such accommodation would be sadly unsuitable for a lone, lorn widow.'

To me, Mrs Jebb appeared neither lone nor lorn. Almost every evening three of her particular friends, Mrs Langley, Mrs Chamberlayne and Mrs Busby, came in to play whist, or she went to their houses; during the day, also, she went out a great deal, either on foot or in a chair, to take the waters, visit the shops and meet her acquaintance in the Pump Room or at circulating libraries. She lived comfortably, and kept two maids and a manservant.

As soon as I had been led into her parlour, Mrs Jebb ordered me: ‘Take off your hat, child, and let's look at you.'

The bonnet was a straw one that Mrs Ferrars had given me (hitherto my only headgear had been a ragged broad-brimmed hat woven of sedge, which Elinor had condemned as uncouth and fit only for the garden bonfire). I took off my hat and placed it carefully on a chair. It was trimmed with white ribbon and I was extremely proud of it.

Meanwhile Mrs Jebb studied me and I studied her.

She had once been, I thought, a massively built woman, but was now somewhat shrunk, perhaps by age and calamity. But her voice and manner were still commanding. Her face was very large and square, pale-complexioned, rather ugly, the lips much pursed and puckered, the nose bony. Her hooded eyes, light-grey, had a most unblinking, steady regard. Her hair was scanty and plainly dressed and her attire less stylish than what I had observed on ladies as we drove along the streets of Bath; but still it was evident that all her things were carefully chosen and of good quality. She wore handsome jewels.

‘Well, now, Pullett,' Mrs Jebb suddenly demanded of the servant who had admitted me. ‘Look carefully at the gal. Does she have a colour? A ring? What have you to say about her? Does she give out light? Or darkness?'

Much startled at these obscure questions, I turned my eyes on the maid Pullett, who bore an almost simple-minded appearance, with brown bulging eyes, long narrow face, clouds of soft dark hair beneath her cap and half-open mouth; I would, from her look, have put her down as slightly wanting in wit, but she answered at once quite sensibly (only I had not the least idea what she meant), ‘Oh, yes, ma'am, she've a ring. A good one. Blue, quite bright.'

‘In that case she may stay,' briskly rejoined Mrs Jebb. ‘Take her things up to the back bedroom, Pullett. And you, child, sit down – on that chair, there – and answer my questions.'

‘Excuse me, ma'am, but may I first go somewhere and relieve myself? It has been a long ride and there was nowhere along the way – '

Mrs Jebb nodded slowly, twice. I saw with surprise that I had surprised her, too, and in some way exceeded her expectations of me.

When I returned to the room, she was reading the note that Cousin Elinor had given me to deliver to her.

‘Humph, you certainly seem to be a well-educated young gel.—Are you looking forward to school?' she pounced.

‘No, ma'am, not very greatly. But I know that it is needful. I have to earn my living.'

‘Humph,' she said again. ‘Let's see your hands.'

I showed them. There need be no false shame or pride with Mrs Jebb; she was wholly straightforward.

‘Yes . . . Unfortunate.
You
'll never get a husband. However my niece informs me that you are a capable performer on the pianoforte and have a tolerable singing voice. At Mrs Haslam's they will give you lessons on the harp, and other instruments too, I daresay. No doubt there will be an opening for you later as a music teacher.'

I assented politely, without troubling to inform her that I would sooner jump off a cliff.

‘Ma'am?'

‘Yes, child?'

‘What did your maid mean? When she said that I had a blue ring?'

Mrs Jebb nodded again. ‘I could see you thinking that Pullett must be a zany, touched in her wits. But she is not. A trifle slow, she may be, but about people she has unerring instinct. She comes of mixed stock: gypsy blood two or three generations back, I don't doubt. She sees people in colour – as you have just been given proof. Blue – your colour – is a good one. Fortunately for you.'

‘If I had a bad one, what would it be?'

‘Black – or purple – or some reds. No one but a gaby would invite such a person into their house.'

‘Are you serious, ma'am?'

‘Indeed I am, gal.'

‘If I had had a red ring, what would you have done?'

‘Turned you out directly into the streets of Bath.'

I suppose I gaped at her, and she looked back at me, half smiling, half scowling. I wondered whether there might be any sailors in the streets of Bath, and how they were provided for soap. I wondered if Mrs Jebb, as well as Pullett, could be slightly mad, have a gap in her thatch, as they put it in Byblow Bottom. But I had received no such intimation from Mr Ferrars or his wife. And Mrs Jebb did not behave like a mad person. She was perfectly brisk and businesslike.

‘However,' she went on equably, ‘as Pullett vouches for you, I expect we shall deal together well enough. I cannot be bothered with young people around me for a great deal of the time. You will keep to your own quarters, except when I invite you in here, or at meal times. You will run such errands for me as you have time for, along with your school duties. You must find your own way about Bath – my servants have enough to do without attending you through the streets.—You have been used to take care of yourself, I conclude?'

‘Indeed I have, ma'am.'

‘Humph, yes, here it says – Lady Hariot and that dolt Vexford,' she muttered, reperusing the letter. ‘At some other time you shall tell me all about them. Not now. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, no classes at your school; you will of course accompany me to Divine Service in the morning. And in the afternoon you may as well plan your daily route to the establishment in Queen Square. It is no great distance. And I shall expect you to be well-behaved, polite and entirely truthful at all times.'

‘Of course, ma'am.'

‘Pullett
always
knows when someone is telling a lie,' Mrs Jebb remarked, giving me an exceedingly sharp glance. For the first time I remembered about her arrest by the constables, and the affair of the packet of lace. Which party in that episode had spoken the truth?

It behoves me to get on to good terms with Pullett, I thought. For I was as used to lying as to breathing, and saw no benefit to be gained from discontinuing the practice.

‘Shall you accompany me to the school on Monday, ma'am, or shall I go there by myself ?'

‘Which would you prefer?' she surprised me by saying.

I thought. ‘By myself, ma'am – if you do not think that would be improper?'

‘No, why? Mrs Haslam is expecting you; she has a letter from Elinor Ferrars. Of course you will have to find your own level in the place. I do not think you will receive much assistance from your cousin Nell; (if she is your cousin, that is). But I daresay your cousin Margaret may be friendly enough.'

Mrs Jebb gave a sniff.

‘That will be Miss Margaret Dashwood? Mrs Ferrars' sister? She teaches at the school?'

Another sniff. ‘History and literature. Of course the poor thing hoped – when she came to Bath ten years ago – that she would soon secure a husband. But what man in the world ever married a history teacher? Let alone one as silly as Mag Dashwood. She has been at her last prayers for years.—Run to your room, now, child. You have tired me. I must rest before meeting my friends.'

‘Thank you, ma'am.' I turned at the door to say, ‘I am very obliged to you for having me to live in your house, Mrs Jebb,' and met her disconcerting regard.

‘Have you any idea who your father was, gal?' she suddenly rapped out.

‘No, ma'am. Not the least in the world.'

‘Oh. Very well. That is all. You may go.'

Up in my room I found that Pullett had unpacked my modest belongings and arranged them neatly in cupboards and chests. Quite unused to such a service, I thanked her heartily and received in return a beaming smile, which completely transformed her thin hare's face.

‘I daresay you'll find it sad here, at the start, Miss, being used to the country as Missis tells you are,' she said kindly (for the first thing I had done was to run to the window, open the casement and hang out. There was a view across city roofs to a handsome wooded hill – Beechen Cliff, I later learned – and far away, where the sun was setting in the distance, I could fancy I saw the hills of Somerset).

Pullett's sympathy almost undid me. To me, Bath was a huge black ugly place. I had never conceived that a city could be so large. Byblow Bottom, Growly Head, Kinn Hall, Hoby, Triz and Lady Hariot all seemed unbearably distant, lost already in the past.

‘I come from a small place myself, Emborough. It took me a mortal time to get accustomed to all the houses and the paved streets, and all the folk everywhere,' Pullett went on. ‘But you've a lucky colour, Miss Liza. I won't say you're certain of a smooth passage, for that beant so, but there's allus likely to be
one
as loves you. So try not to fret, and if you'm low-hearted, and in need of a friendly word, why, come down to me and Thomas and Rachel in the kitchen, and we'll try to cheer ye.'

‘But what will Mrs Jebb say?'

‘She'll never know,' said Pullett simply.

***

On Sunday morning, wearing a black stuff dress (too long, too loose) which had been discarded by Nell Ferrars, I accompanied Mrs Jebb to the Abbey and sat through what – after Dr Moultrie's skimped offices at Othery – seemed like an interminable desert of prayers, chanting, music, more prayers and long periods of declamation. Once, Mrs Jebb had to prod me sharply because I had fallen asleep, exhausted after a long, sad and wakeful night listening to the hum and clatter of the town outside and the regular cry of the watch.

On the Abbey Green, after the service, I was made known to various of Mrs Jebb's acquaintance, who were all elderly ladies in widows' weeds, or aged gentlemen walking very lame with sticks, or pushed by attendants in Bath chairs.

To my surprise, Mrs Jebb introduced me as ‘Miss FitzWilliam' to these people.

On the way home, as she was carried in her chair along Monmouth Street and I walked beside, I said,

‘Ma'am, I thought my name –'

‘Hush, be quiet,' she said sharply.

And when we were back in the New King Street parlour, she told me, ‘Mr Ferrars and I have agreed to expand your name to FitzWilliam. Firstly, it sounds better.'

‘But why, ma'am? And what is secondly?'

‘Never mind about that now. Just hold your peace and accept what your elders decide is best for you.—Now you had better take Pug for a walk. The way to Queen Square, where you will find Mrs Haslam's school, is up Chapel Row. It will be as well for you to know how long the walk takes you, since you must be at school by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.'

And so Mrs Jebb turned me loose in Bath, with Pug and my new name. I rambled around, at first dolefully enough, for it was a damp, misty and gloomy afternoon, but by degrees I became fascinated by the city, which was most majestically situated, up and down a steep hillside with many handsome houses. The streets, some of them in the form of circles or crescent shapes, were pleasing to the eye, and peopled with elegantly dressed strangers, sedan chairs and glossy carriages. There were arcades and stores, and a great market building (closed for the Sabbath) wholly unlike anything I had ever seen before. I discovered a few pleasant gardens, luminous at this season with fallen leaves. There was a wonderful bridge, which had shops and houses along it on both sides, and a rushing torrent below. And on the far side of this bridge a noble street led away into open country.

I wondered what Mr Bill and Mr Sam would make of this place. With their abiding passion for sounding cataracts and wild country, I concluded, they would not think highly of it. But they would enjoy the bridge and the river.

‘Bunch of hips ‘n' haws, Missie?' whined a beggar-girl at a street corner, proffering a dismal posy of a few berries made up with some dead beech leaves. I told her in Byblow Bottom language where she could put her posy, and received a look of startled respect. She had believed me to be a nob.

Pug began to whine – evidently he was not accustomed to such long promenades – and I retraced my steps to New King Street.

***

Next morning, tidily and correctly dressed, equipped with my umbrella, I presented myself at Mrs Haslam's Seminary for Young Ladies in Queen Square.

What can I relate about the period of time I spent at this school? It was of some value. But by far the greater part of the information I acquired there was nowhere written down on the school syllabus. Lady Hariot had already acquainted me with the manners of good society. What I learned at the school was society's hypocrisies, concealments, rancours and enmities. I learned how neat, sweet-voiced, trimly dressed young ladies are able to conceal in their bosoms the hearts of hoydens and the dispositions of street-girls. I learned how battle can be joined over the needles and thread-bobbins, how darts of malice and snobbery can pierce through the armour of muslin, lace and jaconet.

From the very beginning I understood how fortunate I was, in that I could escape from the compressed and hectic atmosphere of the school each evening and repair to the calm precincts of Mrs Jebb's house. Of course the boarders and parlour boarders at the school heartily despised the day girls who went home at night (and who paid lower fees); taunts and gibes were exchanged between the two parties; the boarders were known as Queensers and the day girls (for some reason) as Pillihens. But, as well as this division, there were many, many exquisitely fine distinctions between the better-off and the worse-off pupils: at the top of the school scale were those whose parents paid the full fees, who attended the school for five or six years in order, it was assumed, that they should acquire enough ladylike accomplishments to equip them for matrimony – and also to keep them out of the way of their friends and families until it became time for them to be presented at Court, attend assemblies at Almack's, endure the ordeal of a London Season, and hope to emerge from this with the necessary nuptial prize. Below them were those whose friends, for various reasons, paid reduced fees, either because they were acquaintances of Mrs Haslam, or taught at the school; below
them
came the ones who, like myself, were not considered eligible candidates for matrimony, and so must learn enough to prepare them for teaching others; and at the very bottom of this melancholy ladder were to be found a group who were paid for by public subscription or some charitable organization in Bath. They were despised by
everybody,
and, indeed, to some degree, served as handmaids to the elevated young ladies in the top levels.