Yes, Mama

The old woman straightened up. She wore a white, frilled cap tied under her chin and a grey uniform with a long, starched apron. Poker still in hand, she turned and said, ‘’Allo, Polly. What’s to do? Didn’t expect to see you again, after you was married.’

Polly explained her need for a reference. ‘To say I’m honest, like.’ She omitted to tell the woman that she had been widowed, because she thought she would start to cry again if she did so.

The older woman looked at her doubtfully. ‘Well, I’ll ask for yez,’ she said slowly. ‘I doubt she’ll even know your face, though. Ye ’ardly ever saw ’er, did yer?’

‘Not much,’ agreed Polly humbly.

‘I’ll go up. Sit down there.’ She pointed to a wooden chair set by the back entrance. Polly obediently sat on it.

A bell suddenly bounced on its spring in a corner of the ceiling and ting-a-linged impatiently. The manservant put on his jacket and went to answer it. The little kitchen-maid stirred the contents of an iron pot on the fire and carefully put the lid back on. A young woman in a pink-striped, housemaid’s dress put her head round the door leading to the rest of the house, and shouted, ‘Mary Jane, the Mistress wants her bath water. Hurry up.’

The kitchen-maid put her ladle down on to an old plate in the hearth. A somnolent kitchen cat slunk from the other end of the hearth and quietly licked it clean. The girl took a large ewer from a hook and swung it under the oven tap at the side of the huge kitchen fire. Boiling water belched into it. She grinned at Polly, as she waited for the water jug to fill.

Polly smiled faintly. Jaysus! Was she going to have to wait for the ould girl to bath and dress?

Two and a half hours later, by the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, Madam completed her toilet. The servants came at different times to eat their midday meal at the kitchen table. They ignored Polly as being so low that she was beneath their notice.

The morning-room bell tinkled. The manservant wiped his lips on the back of his hand, put on his black jacket and went upstairs. A few minutes later, he returned and said gruffly to Polly, ‘Mistress’ll see you.’

Her chest aching, her throat parched, her heart beating wildly from fright, Polly followed the old man along a dark passage and up two flights of stairs equally Stygian. ‘You’re lucky,’ he piped. ‘Mistress don’t bother with the likes of you that often.’

Polly kept her head down and did not answer. Surreptitiously, under her shawl, she scratched a bug bite on her arm. She was so inured to vermin bites that they did not usually irritate. Her mother had, however, insisted that she wash herself all over in a bucket of cold water, scrubbing her yellowed skin with a rough piece of cloth. It had made her itch. After that, both of them had gone over the seams of her clothes to kill any lice or bugs that she might be carrying. ‘You can’t help your hair,’ her mother had said. ‘I haven’t got no money to buy paraffin to kill the nits in it.’

The old servant pushed open a green baize door and suddenly she was in a blaze of sunlight coming through the stained glass of the hall window.

Blinking against the light, she tiptoed after the servant across the hall rug to a white-enamelled door.

The servant knocked gently, paused and then entered the room, while Polly, terrified, quivered on the red Turkey doormat.

‘Come on in,’ the old man breathed irritably. ‘She’s waitin’.’ He shoved Polly forward and closed the door behind her.

Before she lowered her eyes, Polly caught a glimpse of an incredibly thin woman, her heavy white hair done up elaborately on the top of her head. She was waiting bolt upright in an armless chair and was staring out of the window at the garden. Nestling in the folds of her grey silk skirt was a huge white cat. Heavily ringed fingers tickled the cat’s ears.

Polly stood silently looking at the richly patterned carpet, and waited to be noticed.

‘Well?’ the old lady barked.

Polly swallowed and then curtsied. She wanted to run away and cry, cry herself to death, if possible. ‘I’m Polly, Ma’am,’ she quavered, ‘wot used to scrub your steps and do the brass …’

‘I know who you are,’ snapped the voice. ‘What do you want?’

Polly glanced up at her erstwhile employer. The lady was still staring out of the window; the cat stared at Polly. ‘Well, Ma’am, I – er …’

‘For Heaven’s sake, speak up, girl.’

‘Yes, ’m, I’m wantin’ to get a job as wet-nurse to a lady called Mrs Woodman in Upper Canning Street – and I was wonderin’, Ma’am, if you would write a letter to her about me.’

‘A reference?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘A wet-nurse, humph? Have you been in trouble? I don’t believe in helping servants in trouble.’

‘Oh, no, Ma’am.’ Polly was shocked out of her fear. ‘I were a married woman.’ Her voice faltered, and for the first time, Mrs Stanley turned to look at her.

‘Lost the child?’

‘Yes, Ma’am. He was born a bit early – ’cos me ’oosband were killed – in the Albert Dock, Ma’am. It must’ve bin the shock.’ She gulped back her tears, and then went on. ‘’E fell in an ’old, Ma’am.’

‘How very careless of him.’

‘Yes, ’m.’ Tears coursed down the girl’s cheeks.

Madam stared at her thoughtfully. Everybody lost children; she had lost all hers. Still, it was depressing. And doubtless Mrs Woodman, whom she had met once or twice at parties, would be glad of a wet-nurse. She understood that, nowadays, they were difficult to obtain.

‘Have you been in service before?’

‘Yes, Ma’am. I were a tweenie when I were ten, ’elping the ’ousemaid empty the slops, and like. The Missus died … and then I found I could earn more specializin’ in doin’ doorsteps.’

‘Humph.’ Mrs Stanley’s lips curled. The lower classes were remarkable in their ability to survive.

‘And for how long did you – er – clean my doorsteps?’

‘Five year, Ma’am.’

‘Why don’t you go back to it?’

Polly heaved a sigh. She was so tired that she thought her legs would give under her. ‘Me Mam wants me to improve meself,’ she burst out, with sudden inspiration.

‘Very commendable. And do you go to Church, Polly?’

Polly had never been to Church in her life. And only once to an open air Wesleyan meeting with her father. She knew, however, what the answer must be. ‘Oh, yes, Ma’am. I go to St Nick’s – I mean, St Nicholas’s.’

‘Humph. Protestant, then?’

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ replied Polly promptly, wondering suddenly what she really was, since her mother was a Roman Catholic and her father a Wesleyan.

‘Mrs Woodman is a Protestant, I believe.’

Polly did not care if Mrs Woodman worshipped golden idols, like the blackie seamen who walked the streets of Liverpool in silent, single files. All she wanted was three meals a day, to lessen the pain in her stomach, and a baby to suckle, to ease the pain in her chest; even the thought of suckling made her breasts fill and she could feel the milk trickling down to her waist.

Mrs Stanley smiled thinly. She did not care for Mrs Woodman, a fluttering widgeon of a woman with an upstart husband who dabbled in many commercial enterprises in Liverpool. Distinctly lower-class. She thought it might be amusing to send them a wet-nurse who was probably lice-ridden.

‘Bring my desk from over there and put it on this table beside me.’ Mrs Stanley gestured towards the far wall.

Polly did not know what a desk looked like and glanced, bewildered, towards the furniture indicated by the delicate white hand.

‘There, you fool – that – er – sloping box.’