Song of the Sea Maid (8 page)

I have not the heart to tell her I do not say my prayers at all any longer, at the foot of the bed or anywhere else. I can see Matron invests the accidents and happenstance of our lives with a significance I neither care for nor understand. I see scientifically; chance events are caused by a confluence of a hundred causes, neither directed nor asked for and in no way influenced by incantation. It is nature and its mysterious yet uncaring workings that drive our destinies, not luck nor crossed knives nor even God. That is my belief now. There are some black parts of the night when I hear the paupers’ cart trundle past my window and think on my lost parents and stolen brother, when I suspect that God does not care for us at all, that He created the planet and set it in motion like a clock, then watches it fall to pieces with detachment. I do not share these dark thoughts with any living soul, not even Mr Applebee, who despite his radical leanings does speak often with reverence of the Almighty, and Susan would listen to aught I chose to tell her, but I have spied her praying earnestly for her son’s safe return at the water pump, when she thought herself alone.

One spring afternoon, Susan’s prayers are answered, for a brief time anyway. It is May of 1745 and I am around thirteen years of age. I arrive in the kitchen for my weekly, longed-for lunch and find a strapping young man slouching at the table, legs outstretched across the floor ending in square-toed black boots, over which Susan trips with glee and giggles like a girl. His face is framed by bushy sideburns and he sports a scrap of stained material knotted around his neck. His red coat hangs on the chair behind him, the pewter buttons glinting in the light from the fire. He smells of smoke, sweat and something else approximating roasted meat and bad eggs. Mr Applebee gives his son a good hard slap on the back, a manly way of showing his affection.

‘Dawnay, this is my son, Owen Applebee.’

Applebee the younger laughs, as if this is a great joke, and in truth, before every statement he utters, he laughs the same, even when his words are in no way comical. ‘How do you do?’ says he and I say nothing. ‘Shy, is it?’

‘Not usually,’ says Susan, fussing about his shoulders with a cloth, brushing away invisible specks. ‘Speak up, child.’

‘Are you come from the battlefield?’ I ask.

‘Oh, let the boy rest, for heaven’s sake,’ says his mother, buttering bread for his plate. ‘No need to talk of battles.’

‘Now then, Mother. The child can ask. And I am no boy any more and can talk of what I please,’ says Owen with a broad grin. When he smiles, he is the picture of his mother – auburn hair and freckled skin – with little of his father about him at all. Perhaps in his eyes, that is all: wide, brown and expressive.

‘I have been fighting under the Duke of Cumberland and am come directly from defeat in battle near Fontenoy. Tomorrow I go to see off the Young Pretender up north. I am stopping one night only with my family.’

Susan puts her hands on his shoulders. ‘One night will have to do,’ and then adds quietly, almost to herself, ‘
Thank you, Lord, for this one night
.’

‘Enough of that, Mother. I am here, aren’t I?’

Say I, ‘You speak of defeat. You lost the battle?’

He laughs again and throws up his hands, revealing a rash of scars, a big red callus on his right hand and his fingers topped with a thick black line of dirt beneath the nails. ‘We did! The truth is we
almost
won the day. We smashed through the centre of the French lines, only to find we were forced to retreat as our enemies rained cannon and musketry fire down upon our heads. The French had more cavalry and we had more infantry. Lots of heat from the French drove us back. We fought in our withdrawal though, and many French died, as well as our own.’

‘Was it very exciting?’

‘You feel the very life pulse through you. You are playing cards with death and so you feel your most alive.’

‘I should like to feel like that.’

‘You are not alone. There was a woman discovered in our company, only recently.’

‘Surely not, son,’ says my tutor. ‘How can that be?’

‘A soldier injured in the arm found his way to the wife of General Cumberland and then revealed
him
self to be
her
self. She’d joined to be with her husband, and when he was injured too and invalided home, she disclosed her identity so she could go home with him. Quite the tale about the regiments. No one had noticed a thing. Remember that we don’t wash much. We don’t see what’s under our shirts too often. And mayhap she didn’t have much under there to show!’

‘Now, my boy,’ says my tutor. ‘There is a child present.’

‘Yes, Father, apologies. So you see, child, there have been women in the army. Though I wouldn’t recommend it. Must be a tricky thing to lie all the time, every day, and to live that lie. Any woman to try it would be a plaguy fool.’

His mother cries, ‘Owen Applebee! Watch your words!’

The thought of dressing as a boy and running away this very night to fight the Young Pretender alongside Owen and the Duke of Cumberland’s forces now seems to my childish fancy the only course my life can take. I worry it over in my mind, how I will find male clothes and how I will hide them. But my tutor must say something to Matron, for she keeps a close eye on me that evening and even sits outside our dormitory until I sleep. When I wake the next morning, I know Owen’s regiment has gone and my chance with it. And would he protect me anyhow? I surmise he would not and would return me to my place here, so it would all be for naught.

The next visit I say to Susan how I envy the army life and she scolds me: ‘My son’s profession is a terrible beast that will tear at him if it can and pull him to pieces. So far, he remains intact. I pray he stays that way. You are only a child. Until you have your own, and they hand you the babe, and you run your fingers along its limbs to perceive that all is there and all is right and a wave of thanksgiving to God assails you and never leaves you – only then will you understand what the mother of a soldier suffers.’

But I do not comprehend and ignore her clucking ways. I dream of running away with the army for years to come. It is the idea of escape that is alluring, yet also the thought of living as a boy, as a man, appeals keenly. To escape the strictures of feminine dress and limitations – the narrow and small lives women live in our age – to escape that and be a swaggering man free to follow his own destiny, that is something to covet.

Once I am deemed fifteen years of age, my female existence catches up with me. I rush to Matron one morning with a great gout of red-brown blood at my thighs.

‘Am I dying?’ I gasp.

‘No, of course not. You are a woman now. It will occur again from time to time. Perhaps once in a month. Those who eat quite well do bleed more often. Others with bad food and bad lives may not bleed at all. But you are one of the fortunate class. When it comes, it will last some four or five days and you must wipe it on your shift so that it does not soil your shoes, or my floor.’

Matron explains to me the hidden purpose of this bleeding. In my study of animals, I know of course the process of reproduction, the roles played by the female and the male. But I had no thought it need be accompanied by this gruesome bloodletting each month. I am certain female mice and frogs do not bleed thus. Or insects, though they may be too small to tell. Is it only humans who suffer this flux, only women?

‘Stop daydreaming, Dawnay!’ chides Matron. She then proceeds to speak of boys and men and their base desires for such a young woman as me. I have no interest in their cravings and tell her so. Not in that way. Only as specimens to study.

‘But it is essential you know how to tell a good man from bad. You must think on finding a husband soon, Dawnay, or you’ll be sent away for service before long. The founder mentions your continued presence with disdain. Most of our charges are long gone into apprenticeship by this age, as you know.’

‘But I do not wish for a husband. For he will bring forth children and I have no wish for those either. How will I study with a baby at my breast?’

‘Such talk is unnatural. And what choice do you have anyway? If you will not when you may, when you will you shall have nay. Marry soon or you’ll be a mop-squeezer ere the year is out. And I fear such work will drive you mad, my dear, with your busy mind. A good husband might be kind and let you read a book from time to time.’

My tutor and I discuss it, how I can possibly continue my education when my fate falls one way or the other in the direction of service or marriage. He says he will think on it. But no further ideas are forthcoming. I begin to formulate my own plan, but keep it to myself for the moment.

I am called by my benefactor to his withdrawing room one summer afternoon, just before I am due to walk back to the asylum with my teacher.

‘The orphanage has done its work by you and asserts you must find a position.’

‘I know it, sir. And I have a proposition for you. This house is run admirably by your housekeeper Mrs Sturgis, your valet Mr Sturgis, and of course Susan … I mean, Mrs Applebee, your cook. But you have no permanent maidservant, sir. Just the girl who comes and goes, and is often run off her feet with the laundry and other rough work. I am thinking that I could work for you. I could manage the collection, dust it and take care of it, and help in the kitchen with preparation of healthful food for you, sir. And I can sew very well and be a kind of permanent seamstress for you. In return, I would require only a bed in the scullery or the garret, which I would put away in daylight hours. And I even know the art of wig keeping and could help your valet when necessary. Matron has taught me a thousand skills, sir. And if—’

‘Enough!’ cries Mr Woods. ‘I have no need or desire for a lady’s maid!’

‘But sir …’ The words catch in my throat, as panic rises there. To be sent away from this place, to lose my lessons, my discussions with Mr Applebee and chats with Mr Woods, my lunches with Susan, my afternoons spent in the curiosities room – it would not be an exaggeration to say at this moment I feel I will wither and die without them, or at least my mind will and all hope of happiness.

‘Will you curb your prattling tongue for one moment, child? I wish to offer you something quite different. Now sit here, stop your noise and listen. You must know how very fond of you I have become, child, over the years. I am a bachelor and after me my name will become extinct. I wish to offer you a home here, for as long as you require it or desire it. You would have your own rooms and unlimited use of my collections. I would settle an annual income on you, so that you can continue your studies unabated. Legally, I would make you my ward. Our good friend Applebee alerted me to the idea and I agree it. I have become accustomed to our fireside talks, which provide a welcome escape from the rigours of business and the social whirl. I would miss them if you were to leave. I would miss you, my dear. This is to be your home, Dawnay, if you wish it. Well, child, do you wish it? Now will you not speak, when it is required of you?’

But I cannot speak, for I am afraid I will weep without end if I do.

‘Why do you cry? Is it tears of joy?’

‘It is that word, sir.’

‘Which word?’

‘
Home
.’

I take my leave of the asylum
within a week. I am given the same brief ceremony all the other graduates are given, complete with a final meal of back bacon.

The founder stands me before all the other children, looks me squarely in the eye and pronounces thus: ‘You are a singular girl, Dawnay Price, with some skills and facilities. Soon you will be of age. Endeavour now to remake yourself in the image of a good wife, for the female that wast the last and most complete of the creation was designed by Almighty God for a comfort and companion to mankind. As you grow in years, child, may you exert yourself to grow also in goodness. For your exit must every day draw nearer, and your proximity to the next world is beyond, and your inevitable farewell to the follies and indulgences of this world will be complete. Therefore, live every day as if you were to die at the end of it, and think on your salvation, for it will slip through your fingers if you do not handle it with care.’

Inwardly, I take from his speech a meaning I am positive he did not intend: that is, to
live each day as if I were to die at the end of it
, and therefore to live with reckless disregard for convention, regulation or fear of consequence.

Before I leave the house, Matron takes me aside and makes her own speech: ‘As you know, I am a childless spinster. I have no delusions about my role here in this house. I prepare orphans for a life of service and I do so efficiently. But I am not made of stone. ’Tis a special child that wins my heart and none but you have owned it so completely. ’Twas the stealing of the quill did it, dear. Never have I seen such life and determination housed in a tiny frame. You do have a peculiar effect on people; as I think I told you once, even your namesake, the gentleman who found you, told me he had no interest in wretches until he saw you with his wig in hand that day and you looked him straight in the eye. I wish you well, Dawnay Price. I cannot guess where your clever head shall lead you. And I will be curious to follow your progress. But never come back here, never return to this place. It is not part of you, you are beyond it and too good for it. Never turn back, Dawnay. Off you go, now.’

I protest, but she will hear none of it. This woman has been a rough kind of mother to me, but a mother nonetheless.

Susan Applebee, my other mother, welcomes me to my new home. I am shown my room, my bed, my articles of toilet and, housed neatly in a wardrobe, some brand-new shifts and stockings, shoes with high curved heels and pointed toes, and dresses in a range of pastel colours she has picked for me. There is also a collection of fans. The wallpaper has been hand-painted in China and depicts blue birds amid flowers, leaves and berries. My dresser has serpentine drawers and placed on top are a china ewer and basin beside a soap dish decorated with light pink flowers. By the window is an escritoire with a drop front and mirror, and a dozen tiny drawers each with their own lock – I shall place my brother’s note in one of those. The four-poster bed stands high off the ground with what appears to be at least three layers of mattresses and next to the bed sits a set of bed steps, with a chamber pot hidden inside. In a second dresser the top drawer contains powder, rouge, patches and lip colour neatly stowed in their own cubby-holes. There are two wig stands encased in narrow compartments on either side of the dresser, ventilated by silk panels in the doors. The fire is alight and I stand before it shaking my head.