Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [88]
At such hints, Mary could see her mistress's mind whirring like a spinning-wheel. Perhaps they should call early at St. James's Square and leave a card offering Mrs. Jones's services?
'The Owen widow's daughter's looking very poorly.'
Mary knew what that meant, for all their pious nods. Miss Owen wouldn't be requiring any fancy gowns this spring, or ever.
'A funeral next week at St. Mary's?' repeated Mrs. Jones with animation. 'What was the crest on the carriage?'
'Two martlets.'
'No, it was three.'
'That'll be the Hardings of Pentwyn.'
Mary met her mistress's eyes. The Hardings would have need of mourning. Maybe they'd be in too much of a hurry to send to London for it...
It was Mary who carried in the big China tea-kettle Mr. Jones was so fond of. He wouldn't let Abi touch it, and even Mary had to submit to his instruction. The visitors sugared their tea in the saucers, blew on it, and drank with little genteel slurps. Mary watched them thirstily.
Mr. Jones had taught her to make a curtsy when leaving the room. He demonstrated on his single leg.
'Even if they're not looking my way?'
'Ah, but if you omit to do it,' he said, with a bark of a laugh, 'they'll be sure to see.'
And indeed, it seemed the ladies of Monmouth could not bear not to know what to make of Mary Saunders. 'Your maid is not from these parts, I understand? But her mother was?'
Hearing her fictional story told and retold in Mrs. Jones's tactful undertone—Susan Saunders's deathbed scene becoming more and more affecting, like something out of Mr. Richardson's novels—Mary almost felt ashamed. Sometimes she was troubled by an irresistible urge to laugh, as on one occasion when she was pinning up a hem for the Widow Tanner, who owned houses and coppices all over Monmouth. Seeing fat Mrs. Tanner's eyes bulge at her in concern, at the story's tragic climax, Mary had to run from the room with a muttered excuse about fetching more pins.
She stood in the passage, fingers sealing her mouth, and shook with guilty mirth. In the shop she heard their voices, hushed a little. Mrs. Jones wondered aloud if she had upset Mary. The Widow Tanner was of the opinion that it didn't befit a servant girl to be sensitive, who would have to make her way in the world.
Daffy Cadwaladyr knew he was only a stub of a man. With his short thick arms, and eyes sallow from night-time reading, he was nothing much to look at. But when he walked down Monnow Street with his cousin Gwyneth at his side, he felt like that statue of the young David after beating Goliath that he'd seen engraved in the Gentleman's Magazine.
She wouldn't take his arm today, however. There was something weighing on her spirits, he could tell that much. He didn't press her.
Despite the hard times Gwyneth had seen since her family had lost their holding down near Tintern, her cheeks were still the pink of fresh-cut logs, and her wrists were round where they emerged below the frayed ruffles of her sleeves. The line of hair below her limp mob-cap was creamy blonde. She had the kind of looks that put bony dark creatures like that Mary Saunders to shame, and she was as sensible as girls with twice her education. Not a very talkative creature today, his Gwyneth, but he was happy just strolling along beside her down the street where anyone could see the couple and draw their own conclusions.
He didn't care who called her a beggar. The era of such snobberies was drawing to an end. The light of reason was spreading round the world. In the coming times, he felt sure, what would matter was not your birth or upbringing, but what you managed to make of yourself. A woman had no rank of her own, besides; she could rise to the level of whomever she married. He watched his beloved's old pink shoes, and the tide-marks of slush on them.
'Daff,' she said at last, 'you know ... what's between us?'
A grin crinkled every line on his young face. 'Say no more.'
'No, but—'
'Gwyn,' he said, and he took her left hand into the two of his and held it, for all her squirming. 'You need have no fear.'
She