Chapter Two

"Yes. Oh, yes."


Later that night, she crept back to her room in the servant's quarters with flushed cheeks and a throbbing heart.

She could not sleep. Lying in her bed, the events of the evening came back one by one; his hands, his words, his lips. His gentle soft kisses that turned hungry and hot in the dark alley behind Lady Constance's residence. She had pushed him away, startled, and he laughed and caught her against his heart before releasing his grasp.

"I'll let you go for now."

He said he would speak to Lord Stockbridge as soon as things were settled.

"We can leave this life, Mary. Quit scraping and bowing to these toffs and actually live like we're supposed to. I've put a bit by, and an old friend wants me to join him in business. We can settle down and have a comfortable living without having to run up and dress the upstairs people every five minutes."

She had assented, as was her wont. Somehow it seemed like a dream. No more querulous complaints, no more whims and fits of temper to put up with. Just her and Robert and –

She sat bolt upright in her bed.

What of Mrs. Wilson?

She had never told Robert about his mother. What she knew was buried along with her knowledge of that night he entered Sir William's office – never spoken of, even between the two of them. When it surfaced in her memory she always saw Mrs. Wilson saying in that odd, choked voice of hers, "That's what's important – his life." Sometimes it all seemed like a bad dream.

But now it was different. She was to be his wife, and if she kept silent she would be forever living on that lie.

In the silence of the night Mary debated with herself.

What if – what if he was angry with her? What if he left her? He believed his mother was dead. He stabbed his father because he thought she died ruined and unhappy. To find that she was alive – to find she had known him for who he was but never made any attempt to reveal herself – it might break his heart. And he would hate Mary for the pain and deception she inflicted on him.

Oh, but his mother did so much for him, her heart pleaded. She did it all for him. Wouldn't he understand? Wouldn't it hurt him more to think that she – the woman he loved – knew his mother was alive and hid it from him all her life? Wouldn't he – couldn't he forgive?

Mary did not sleep that night. When the weak early sunlight filtered through the curtains she rose and went to the window with her mind made up.

"I'll do it."


Lady Sylvia's London residence was an extravagant display. A recent acquisition by the newly widowed daughter of the Earl of Carton, it was the product of her industrialist husband's storied millions – a marble-and-gold-decorated tribute to the excesses of pre-war Europe. Her housekeeping staff was fond of saying it had the highest ceilings and greatest amount of modern amenities anywhere to be found in London.

Everywhere, of course, but the servants' quarters.

Here in the dark bowels of a London townhouse Mrs. Wilson sat and added up her accounts. She was unchanged as ever. Every morning she got up punctually at 5 a.m. to supervise the morning cleaning; at night she sat up until well over midnight, checking and rechecking the column of figures that showed a balanced book of accounts for the household. Upstairs Lady Sylvia might indulge in bacchanals and wild parties, but downstairs Mrs. Wilson reigned supreme. Her ladyship knew it, and was quite happy with an arrangement that saved her the trouble of managing anything beyond her casual affairs and flirtations.

Faded, grey-tinted hair; fastened by neat pins. The plain dress, always dark, with its narrow collar of white lace. The knotted and folded hands, the eyes that spotted every speck of soot with the exactitude of a hawk, the lined severity of her face – had Mrs. Wilson ever been young, a new scullery maid asked? The other servants laughed in the lower hall.

"Her! She was born crabbed, that one!"

Such a woman was Mrs. Wilson, head housekeeper of Sandringham House.

But in spite of the servants' jeers she, too, had been young once. Young and – unbelievable as it seemed – quite pretty. When she put up her hair and wore a new pink dress at the factory girls' dance the fair-haired little beauty with laughing eyes turned more heads than one.

Including that of her employer, William McClore.

Her son had very little of his mother's looks, except her startlingly vivid eyes. In the faded old photograph one could hardly see any resemblance. So little, in fact, that his mates from the orphanage had jeered when they found the picture hidden under his bed. That ain't no mother of yours, they said. Prob'ly some woman cut out of the papers. Robert sometimes bitterly wondered if the face he saw in the glass each morning was a carbon copy of his hated father. He had smashed more than one mirror because of the thought.

But Robert Parks did not look like either his mother or his father. Although he did not know it, he was the living image of his maternal grandfather, a tall, dark man who clerked in one of the city's large banking houses. His untimely death in an accident forced his motherless daughters to seek out work they had not been raised for – in McClore's shoe factory in Isleworth. Elizabeth, the elder, got a job first in the kitchens and used her "pull" with her employer to insure Jane a spot in the assembly lines. Had she known what the results of her efforts would entail she would have probably cut out her tongue, but McClore's beguiling words had lured her into a false sense of security, and she imagined he was only looking out for her baby sister. Why, hadn't he said they'd get married just as soon as he could manage – But that was long ago, and by the time Lizzie learned her mistake Jane was already crying her pretty eyes out after a visit to the doctor's office.

But Robert inherited more than his grandfather's looks; he got what both Arthur Parks and his youngest daughter had in abundance – a strong unbending will and the strength and reserve to carry out what he wanted. As Jane had transformed herself from a laughing girl into a rigid clockwork of a housekeeper, Robert changed as well – from a neglected urchin of the orphanage stamp to a well-groomed, intelligent upper house servant whose ability and reserve made him a prime candidate, they said, to be butler some day. The head gardener at the Earl of Flintshire's establishment remarked as much in his shrewd, old way.

"That one – he's quiet. But he'll get what he wants, whatever that might be."

Mrs. Wilson would have given her eyes and ears to have known such things about her son. She did not, however, and told herself she never would. It was best that they never met again.

It was best for him.

So Mrs. Wilson sat at her desk late at night, busy adding and subtracting figures under the dim yellow glow of a gas lamp. When a short tap-tap sounded at her door she scarcely looked up.

"Come in."

A young, caddish-looking fellow opened the door.

"Pardon the lateness, ma'am, but Lord Stockbridge's valet is here to see you. He says it's urgent."

The hallboy was bored and sleepy, or he would have noticed that the housekeeper's pen was frozen in the air, knuckles gripped white and tense. But all she said was,

"Show him in."

"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Parks, sir."

The door opened wide to usher in the visitor, then shut closed. Mrs. Wilson drew herself up and with a brief intake of breath, spoke first.

"Mr. Parks, how nice to see you. You've been well, I trust?"

The dark, tall man gazed at her, his strong-featured face set and unreadable as stone.

"Quite."

"Young Henry tells me you have an errand from his Lordship."

His eyes glinted dangerously in the shadows.

"Not from Lord Stockbridge, no."

"From her ladyship then, I presume?"

"No."

The silence was thick, heavy. As she spoke Mrs. Wilson was aware that her voice was thin and strained.

"Then may I ask why you are here?"

"Because I came to see my mother."

She turned away, suddenly, bracing her form against the desk for support.

"I – I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Parks"

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Miss Parks."

His voice was harsh, rough. His word had a deliberate edge about them.

"Did you ever think about telling me?"

She could hear his footsteps, heavy and stark, as he drew near.

"Or didn't it mean anything to you? I suppose you were glad to be rid of me – a good end to something you'd rather never happened."

A sob broke from her throat.

"It wasn't like that – I –"

"Then why did you never look for me? You're no different from him; you gave me away first and decided to forget afterwards.

And when I showed up you killed him before I could so I'd never be caught and expose your little secret."

Tears ran down her face. She could not move an inch if her life had depended on it.

"I'll tell you this much. Your secret's safe with me. And it's even safer because I say this: you're no more mother to me than the old bastard was my father.

Good night, Mrs. Wilson."

Robert turned around and strode toward the door. As he opened it with a jerk a figure outside jumped, surprised; his eyes fell on Mrs. Croft. For a second he stood and gazed at her with dark smoldering eyes; then he walked away, harsh deliberate footsteps ringing in the distance.

Behind him, the cook hurriedly approached the woman he left behind.

"Jane? Jane –"

The housekeeper, half fainting, turned to her sister. Mrs. Croft put her arms around her and held her close to her heart.

"My boy – oh my boy –"

The servants' floor of Sandringham House was dark, silent. Only the heartbroken sobs of its housekeeper sounded muffled and distant in its depths.


A/N: If anyone's reading this story, sorry about the quality of this update. The ending will be rewritten at some point after exams -- currently too stressed to spend any more time fiddling with it. I've discovered I'm too used to doing vignettes to actually write long chapters. So while Water Under the Bridge attempts to tell a coherent story, it is actually a collection of vignettes, in semi-chronological order.

For those of you interested in details: Sandringham House actually exists. Formerly an upper class residence in London, as far as I know it is now government property. I was tired of writing and just ripped off the name, so no connection to the actual building implied.

See that button down below? It means "yes I actually read this story." Click and you get my thanks :)