A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 4: Mary

The days that change your life often start like any other. The weather is unremarkable, there is no sense of doom or tingle of excitement when you wake. You are completely unaware that your life is about to change utterly. When I look back to that day, it was though I sleep-walked into a nightmare.

I had accompanied Miss Agatha to a game of bridge at Lady Camden's house on Bruton Street, where she was coaxing the guinea's from her friend's hands. Mrs McKenzie and her widowed niece Mrs Morton were there, so I was not forced to make up the fourth hand. Instead, I could sit by the fire left alone with my own thoughts and Lady Camden's ancient mother. From my perch, I could see that Miss Agatha was winning and I was grateful for it. When you are reliant on the whims of a wealthy employer, you know that a week's misery can fall by the turn of a card. It was my fortune that for all Agatha Chorley's stupidity, she was rather good at playing bridge.

On evenings like that, I was rather forgotten but my dearest employer did not like me to sit reading. She said it made me look idle. To humour her, I sat and embroidered handkerchiefs whilst I listen to the wizened Dowager tell me stories of the Old Queen Victoria in her youth. She sighed at the passing of such grand days and lamented that England had never had such a monarch before or since. On the handkerchiefs, I embroidered AC and WC for Miss Chorley and her nephew. They would make nice little gifts for them this Christmas, although I had another four months to make their gifts. I felt a warmness creep over me as I thought of Christmas day last year, how secure I had felt, almost as if I had a family once more. Not the loving family I had once had, I knew that would never be returned, but I had felt at least that I had a place I belonged.

A quick glance over to Miss Agatha told me that her sherry glass was empty. I hurried to get her another and she was so engrossed in her game that she did not look up to thank me. As I placed the glass gently on the table, Bella Morton looked up at me. Her dark eyes fixed on my face as though she was looking at me for the first time, perhaps it was the first time because she had never thought me worthy of her notice before. As her gaze travelled down my cheap, simple dress I saw her lips curl into a faint sneer. My cheeks began to burn with my blushes, knowing that I did not have the authority to check her rudeness and a misery stole over me. I would never wear fine silks or strings of pearls like her, I was beneath her contempt and I would always be.

As I sat down, I fought my tears as I watched the old Dowager sleep gently by the fire. An hour later, she started to snore and Lady Camden asked me if I would kindly assist her mother up to bed. With the help of the maid, I walked her upstairs, her frail bones as light as a bird's beneath her taffeta. She was as docile as a sleepy child being put down to sleep by her nursemaid.

"You are such a good girl, Mary," said Lady Camden as I descended the stairs. "Mother does look forward to your little chats by the fire."

It had been a night just like any other. Unremarkable.

The first inkling I had that anything was amiss was the strange silence in the carriage on the way home. Usually, when Miss Chorley had won a pretty sum, she would be vocal in her jubilation. In fact, win or lose her lips would be loose from the vast amounts of sherry she had consumed at her hostess's expense and all the gossip of the evening would tumble out. Tonight, an ominous silence hung in the air.

When we entered the house, she summoned me immediately to the parlour. Without a word of warning, she snatched the bag from my hand and pulled out the handkerchiefs embroidered with William Chorley's monogram. She crumpled them up and threw them to the ground. I felt a hot sting on my face and it took me a moment to realise she had slapped me.

"You hussy. You poisonous litter viper," she spat.

My stomach dropped. I could not understand her anger but it was real right enough and beyond anything I had seen from her before. She was a cantankerous old fossil but never one to show the red fury that now clouded her face.