“Yes, of course,” said Mary. “And thank you so very much, Nurse. The last few weeks were difficult for you, I know.” What would she have done without Nurse Adams? She and Mrs. Poole could not have held her mother down when she began screaming and crying about the face, the pale face. . . . Even in her final days, when she was too weak to leave her bed, Mrs. Jekyll had whimpered about it in her sleep.
“As for me and Enid, miss,” said Joseph, “we didn’t want to tell you in the middle of your troubles, but we’re planning to wed. My brother is the proprietor of an inn in Basingstoke, and he has too much custom for one man to handle, so I’ll be going into business with him. And we’re hoping you’ll give us your blessing, like.”
“Why, that’s wonderful news,” said Mary. Thank goodness, for Enid’s sake, it had not merely been a dalliance. “I’m so pleased for you both. And Cook?” For Cook was the one she had really been worried about.
“Well, I’ll be honest with you, miss, I’d been hoping to stay on awhile yet,” said Cook. “But my sister’s been at me to come live with her, back in Yorkshire. Her husband died last year, and her daughters are grown and in service, so she’s all alone. Two old women living together—I’ll be bored to tears, without the hustle and bustle of London. Perhaps I’ll take up knitting! But I’m sorry to leave you in your troubles, miss. Having known you since you were a wee thing, and coming into my kitchen for jam tarts!”
“No, it’s I who am sorry,” said Mary. They were all being so kind, when here she was, telling them they no longer had a home. At least Alice could return to her family in the country. “You’ll be able to see your mother again,” she said to the scullery maid. “And your brothers, and that hen you miss so much, what was her name?” She smiled encouragingly, but Alice just kept twisting her hands in her apron.
When she had given them the envelopes and Mrs. Poole had ushered them downstairs to their lunch, all except Nurse Adams who asked for a tray in her room so she could start packing, Mary leaned back into the sofa and stared at the painting of her mother over the mantelpiece. Ernestine Jekyll, with her long, golden hair and eyes the color of cornflowers, smiled down at her in a way Mary could not remember her smiling while alive. Almost as long as Mary could remember, her mother had stayed in the large bedroom she had slept in since marrying Dr. Jekyll and moving to London from her native Yorkshire—pacing around the room, talking to invisible companions. Sometimes she scratched herself until she bled. Sometimes she tore out chunks of her hair, so it lay in long strands on the floor. Once, Nurse Adams had suggested she be sent to an institution for her own safety. Mary had refused, but in the last few weeks she had begun to wonder if she had been wrong. What had caused those violent spasms, those shrieks in the night? That final swift decline?
Even as a little girl, Mary had not cried easily. She had learned long ago that life was difficult. One had to live it with courage and common sense; it did not reward sentimentality. At the memory of her mother lying on her pillow, looking more peaceful than she had looked for years, Mary put her head in her hands. But she did not cry, as she had not cried at the funeral.
DIANA: Because our Mary never cries.
MRS. POOLE: Miss Mary is a lady. She does not throw fits, unlike some as I could name.
MARY: It’s not my fault I don’t cry. You know perfectly well it’s not.
CATHERINE: Yes, we know.
Mary’s “earliest convenience,” as Mr. Guest had put it in his letter, did not occur until a week later. First, there was Nurse Adams to see off, and Joseph and Enid, and finally Cook. One afternoon, Mrs. Poole came into the morning room where Mary was going through the accounts at her mother’s desk and said, “Alice is gone.”
“What?” said Mary. “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean that she’s taken her things and gone off, without saying goodbye. She did all her morning work just as usual, without saying a word. I went into her room a minute ago, to tell her tea was ready, and there’s nothing there. Not that she had much, but it’s empty.”
“Well, no doubt her brothers came for her. Didn’t she say it was all arranged?”
“Yes, but she could at least have said goodbye. After the way I took her in and trained her. I never expected ingratitude, not from Alice! And no forwarding address. I would at least have liked to send her a card at Christmas.”
“She’s very young, Mrs. Poole. I’m sure you were thoughtless yourself when you were thirteen. No, come to think of it, I’m sure you weren’t. And I’m sorry about Alice. We’ll probably get a letter from her in the next few days, telling us she’s safely home and how nice it is to be back in the country. All right, I’m done here. It’s time to face Mr. Guest. It’s raining again. Could you bring my mackintosh?” She closed the account book and sighed. The last thing she wanted to do today was meet with the solicitor, but what had to be done should be done as soon as possible. Or so Miss Murray, her governess, had taught her.
Mrs. Poole met her in the hall, holding her mackintosh and umbrella. “I wish you would take a cab. You’ll be soaking wet, and when I think of you walking those streets alone . . .”
“You know I can’t afford a cab, and I’m just going to Cavendish Square. Anyway, this is the nineties. The most respectable ladies walk alone. Or ride their bicycles in the park!”
“And look like horrors,” said Mrs. Poole. “I hope you’re not thinking of wearing a divided skirt and getting on one of those contraptions!”
“Well, not today, at any rate. Do I look sufficiently respectable to your discerning eye?” Mary glanced at herself in the mirror and adjusted her hat, more out of habit than because it needed adjusting. She was not trying to look smart, and if she had been trying, it would not have worked anyway. Not when I look as though I’ve seen a ghost, she thought.
“You always look respectable, my dear,” said Mrs. Poole. “You’re a born lady.”
MRS. POOLE: Well, I never! I have never in my life called Miss Mary anything so disrespectful as “my dear.”
DIANA: Oh, stuff it! You do it all the time without noticing.
“A lady should be able to pay her butcher’s bill,” said Mary. Twelve pounds, five shillings, three pence: that was her current bank balance. She had written it neatly in the account book, and now she could not stop thinking about it. The number kept chiming in her head, like a clock always telling the same time. On her mother’s desk in the morning room was a stack of bills. She had no idea how she would pay them.
“Mr. Byles knows you’ll pay him eventually,” said Mrs. Poole. “Hasn’t he been supplying meat for this household since before your father died?”
“That was when there was a household to supply for.” Mary buttoned her mackintosh, picked up her purse from the hall table, then hooked the umbrella over her arm. “Mrs. Poole, you really should reconsider . . .”