by Rose Doyle
My mother was confined to the house too, which suited her even less than me since she didn't have reading to divert her. My father went about his business but the new maidservant, who was timid and fretful and grateful even to be allowed to breathe, failed to come to work. It was so difficult to move about that Bess had to spend three nights in Haddington Road.
Tempers in the house were short and seasonal goodwill a distant memory on the day Bess opened the front door to Ned Mulvey's knocking.
I was coming down the stairs when I heard her tell him my parents were out and would not be back for a while. He stepped inside anyway, stomping his feet and complaining of the cold saying he would warm himself by the fire before going on his way.
I came down the remaining steps.
'Alicia will keep me company.' He handed Bess his hat and coat — grey with a velvet collar — and crooked his arm for me to take. 'Lead me to a warm fire,' he said.
'There are several,' I told him, 'but the drawing room is the warmest.'
I was glad of some pleasant company. Even Bess was in a bad mood. I was worried that Sarah was the cause but couldn't get her to talk to me.
'Maurice McDermott tells me you are fearlessly healing the sick on the northside of the city.' Ned Mulvey hunkered down and spread his long, white, manicured fingers to the flames of the fire.
'Does he, indeed.'
I stood by the mantel and studied him. He was in every way an indoor man, with the looks and manners of someone whose life was spent in salons and hotels and in travelling. He was very rich, according to my father, and a snob by my own reckoning. He'd shaken my hand but not Sarah's the day we met in the Shelbourne Hotel.
He was also bored, if my instinct that day was to be trusted. But he was diverting company.
'I doubt fearless was the word used by Dr McDermott,' I said when he moved back from the fire.
He was a lot taller than me and stood with his hands in his pockets. His suit was dark grey and his necktie pearl-coloured.
'Fearless is my word for you,' he admitted. 'Maurice thinks you mad, bad and dangerous to know.' He laughed and raised questioning eyebrows. 'He tells me he no longer calls on you.'
'That farce has ended,' I agreed.
'Unlucky Maurice,' he said.
'Nothing unlucky about him. We weren't suited and he knows it, now. I'm sure he'll find a suitable wife in no time.' I'd a vision of his bulbous eyes and overripe lips and revised what I'd said 'There's bound to be a woman in Dublin who'll find it fascinating to have the newspaper read to her by Dr Maurice McDermott.'
'He read the newspaper to you?' Ned Mulvey looked highly amused.
' The Irish Times. Maybe he thought I couldn't understand it for myself. Maybe he had no other conversation.'
'You didn't have to listen to him,' Ned Mulvey pointed out.
'Newspapers serve a useful purpose.' I didn't add that it was better than listening to Maurice McDermott's views on almost anything.
'They're of limited use. Do we really need to know that Viscount Lismore and suite have arrived from Holyhead?' Ned Mulvey asked. 'Or to be told the appalling story of the young man who threw himself on the railway track near Kingstown?'
'It's information about the world we live in. I suppose the news of Viscount Lismore's arrival is unnecessary . . .'
'Unnecessary to you, perhaps,' Ned Mulvey looked at me thoughtfully, 'but then you don't represent the thinking of most people.'
'I'm glad of that.'
'Then you must be prepared to take the consequences.'
'You sound like a teacher I had in Paris. She was eighty years old and a nun.'
He laughed outright. 'You are definitely not the woman for Maurice. Your patients must think an angel has come among them. An avenging angel.'
'Would you like tea?' I cut him short. He was immediately contrite.
'I didn't mean to trivialise what you do at the dispensary,' he said, 'and yes, I'll have tea. But only if you stay to share it with me.'
It was Mary Connor and not Bess who came when I rang the bell. She was out of breath and the tip of her sharp nose was red.
'You weren't expected,' she said to my guest 'or I'd have been here to open the door to you myself.'
'Why don't you rest, Mary, since you've just come back in?' I was civility itself. 'Ask Bess to bring us some tea.'
'Mr Buckley is away. Mrs Buckley will be back shortly.' Mary Connor ignored me.
'Then I will wait and see Mrs Buckley before I go.' Ned Mulvey sat into an armchair and crossed his legs. 'Tea would be nice in the meantime.'
'Perhaps you would help Mrs Rooney prepare the tray?' Mary Connor looked at me hard out of her pale, angry eyes.
'It would be rude of me to leave Mr Mulvey on his own,' I said.
She spun on her heel and left. I paced a little, unsure where to sit.
'Do you believe in Fate?' Ned Mulvey made a chapel of his fingers and looked up at me over their steeple.
'I've wondered about it,' I admitted, 'and I'm still not sure if I do or not.'
'I'm a great believer myself. I'm certain Fate brought me here today.'
He looked at me in a way that made me wish I'd worn something more exciting than my plain, and pale, green dress.
'I would be honoured, Alicia, if you would come as my partner to the Roomkeepers' Ball. My mother has something to do with the running of it and I'm obliged to attend. It's to be held in the Rotunda.’ He paused. 'It has a reputation as a very entertaining function.'
'This has been decided by Fate, has it?' I settled a cushion and sat into an armchair. It gave me a moment to collect myself.
'It has. I'm meeting with the person who has the tickets tonight and today,' he spread his hands, ‘you and I meet. Will you come?'
I was flattered. I was also uncertain. Most of all I was curious, and aware of what curiosity had done to the cat.
Flattery won the day.
'They say it's foolish to tempt Fate,' I said. 'I'd be pleased to partner you. What charity is the ball in aid of?'
'One of the most deserving in the city. The Sick and Indigent
Roomkeepers' Society.' He turned as the door opened and Mary Connor came in with a tray. 'Thank you.' He took it from her. 'You needn't stay.'
She left, reluctance in every bone of her body. The door had no sooner closed than he took out and looked at his watch.
'I can't stay for the tea after all,' he said, 'will you excuse me?'
I let him out myself and watched from the door while he went down the steps. He didn't stumble. He didn't look back either.
I stood for a while after he'd disappeared along the road, needing the cool air on my burning cheeks.
For such a small event, an afternoon visit and casual invitation, the repercussions were terrible. Like ripples from the centre of a pool, they spread and lapped at the lives of everyone around. In my case I almost drowned.
The first victim was Bess Rooney. After a lifetime's service with us my mother dismissed her that evening. It happened as dinner ended.
'You took extra duties upon yourself this afternoon.' My mother had eaten hardly anything. Bess was serving a dessert of bread and butter pudding.
'Did I?'
Bess put a piled bowl in front of me. I'm fond of bread and butter pudding.
'You opened the front door to Mr Ned Mulvey,' my mother's voice rose, 'you allowed him in without either Mr Buckley or myself being at home. You encouraged him to spend time alone with Alicia in the drawing room.'
'That's not the way it was at all.' Bess defended herself gently enough. 'There was no one else about to answer his knocking and he asked to warm himself a bit by the fire before doubling back on his journey.'
'You had no business opening the door when there was no one at home.' There was an hysterical edge to my mother's voice. 'It's not your position to admit people. The task of admitting callers belongs to Mary Connor, who tells me she was out of the house for but one, bare hour. You should have igno
red the doorbell while she was gone.'
My mother clenched her hands on the table. Bess and I watched her cautiously. When she'd returned from her afternoon's outing in a black mood I'd known that a row of some sort was likely.
'You have never known your place, Bess Rooney, never . . .'
'I was the one said Mr Mulvey should come into the drawing room,’ I lied. 'I was sure either you or Dada would be home any minute. Asking a friend to step inside on a cold day seemed the civilised thing to do.'
'Was it civilised for a young woman your age to spend time alone with a man like Ned Mulvey?'
'But he is a friend of yours, and of Dada's. You didn't object to me being alone with Dr McDermott.'
This was completely the wrong thing to say. My mother went white in the face.
'So that's it!' She brought the palm of her hand down hard on the table. 'Having viciously dismissed Dr McDermott you plan to amuse yourself with Mr Mulvey. Well, you'll not do it, miss. I will see to it that you don't. Mr Mulvey is not a man to be trifled with.'
'Mr Mulvey has invited me to a ball,' I said, hearing Bess's intake of breath beside me, 'and I have agreed to go.'
Bess's shoes made a thin creaking as she walked to my mother with her dessert. It was the only sound in an electrifying silence.
'What ball?' my mother managed. She'd become rigid as a pillar.
'The Roomkeepers' Ball. It's to raise money for the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Society.'
My mother stared. A muscle under her eye gave tiny, convulsive ticks and there were red spots high on her cheeks. Bess put the bread and butter pudding in front of her and she
lowered her eyes to the bowl.
j
'Take that disgusting mess away from me,' she said, 'I will never again eat anything prepared by you, Bess Rooney. You've been the cause of untold damage and mischief in this house. I want you to leave. Immediately. Don't come back.' She lifted the bowl and, without looking at her, handed it back to Bess.
'You're telling me I no longer have a position here?' Bess took the bread and butter pudding.
'That's precisely what I'm telling you.' My mother lifted and shook the handbell on the table beside her. 'I should have got rid of you a long time ago. Before we moved to this house. You don't know your place and look where it has got us. None of this would have happened if you hadn't presumed to admit that man.'
'What exactly do you think has happened?' I tried to keep my voice level. 'We spoke. I accepted an invitation to a ball . . .'
'A ball? Don't play the innocent with me, miss. The ball you have agreed to go to is notorious, and well you know it. Last year's event caused outrage and was said far and wide to be nothing but a vulgar orgy.' My mother's glittering eyes held mine. 'The newspapers wrote of drunken men and women hanging together in maudlin embrace, of foolery and vice. It's not the place to bring a young girl. Or any woman, for that matter.'
'How was I to know any of this? I wasn't here.'
'You will not go.'
Mary Connor, in response to the bell, came into the room. Like a deformed shadow she attached herself to my mother's side.
'I've given my word and the tickets will have been bought by now,' I spoke loudly. The Roomkeepers' Ball seemed to me, suddenly, the most exciting event on earth. Also, if Bess Rooney was to lose her position then it couldn't be for nothing. 'I'm certain Mr Mulvey wouldn't have invited me if he thought it unsafe.'
'You will not go,' my mother said. 'But you,' she turned to Bess, 'will leave this instant. I won't have a mutinous servant in my house. Furthermore, I'll have the police remove you if you don't get out of my sight immediately. Mary . . .'
'There's no need for this carry-on Mrs Buckley.' Bess untied
her apron. ‘I’ll be off.' She laid the apron on the table. As she passed she patted me on the shoulder. 'Take a good care of yourself Allie,' she said. I wanted to weep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sarah
After twenty-one years working for the Buckley family, longer even than my own lifetime, my mother was dismissed by Harriet Buckley.
'That woman's a mad bitch from hell.' My father, full of drink, stood in the middle of the room and railed like the demented. 'She was always a mad bitch only now she's an evil one as well.'
'Well, there's an end to it now,' my mother said, 'and there's no good you bawling about it.' She turned her hands over and over in her lap, examining them. It was as if she thought this would somehow make sense of what had happened. 'God alone knows how we'll manage but we'll pray and He'll provide somehow.'
'You pray,' my father said, 'I'll go over and have this out myself with Leonard Buckley.'
'Do what you like but I won't be going back,' my mother said. She was sitting to one side of the fire, wearing her hat and shawl. The effort to remove them seemed too much.
My grandmother, sitting opposite her, had said nothing so far. I'd never known her so quiet. She'd been silent even before my mother came in and I was worried. There was an uneasiness about her, a waiting and a brooding in her silence.
'The judgement of God will strike that greedy, backsliding hound of a publican,' my father flailed the air with his crutch,
'or if He doesn't I'll strike him down myself. Hasn't he done enough to this family? Hasn't he destroyed me, ruined forever my chances of supporting my own? Isn't that enough for him?'
'It had nothing to do with Leonard and you know it,' my mother said as she got up at last to take off her hat. 'Harriet wants free of the past and wants nothing to remind her of Dominick Street and the way she was once a publican's wife.' She hung the hat on the back of the door but kept the shawl about her shoulders.
'She's free now,' she said.
'What happened?' I said. 'What led up to it?'
'I answered the front door and let that man friend of theirs into the house Mary Connor was out,' she took a breath, 'I couldn't turn him away he sat a while with Allie.'
'What man?'
'Ned Mulvey's his name you remember him pleasant enough by times.'
'I remember him.'
I wished, more than ever, that I'd told Allie my suspicions about Ned Mulvey. He was the reason my mother had been dismissed, I was sure of it; though Harriet Buckley wanting to be free of Dominick Street was a part of it too.
'I'll pray to God and His Blessed Mother and with their help I might get work tomorrow,' my mother said.
'Where was God when your other daughter died? Where was he today?' My father thumped the floor with his crutch. 'Where is He when I'm out looking for work? Answer me, God,' he shook the crutch at the high, silent ceiling, 'where have you been all my life, you bastard?'
His futility was a terrible thing.
'Stop it Cristy I won't have you blaspheming,' my mother stood in front of him, 'God's ways are not ours and we must accept and try to understand.' She held both of his arms. 'Things will get better we're over the worst of the grieving I'll get work and Sarah will get a good position one of the days . . .'
'There's no good you depending on Sarah.'
My grandmother spoke at last and I knew I'd been right to worry.
'She'll have enough to do looking after herself in the months ahead.' She turned to where I was sitting on my bed in the corner. 'Am I right, Sarah, in thinking you won't be around here for much longer?'
'Leave the child alone she'll talk to us in her own time,' my mother said.
I knew then that my mother knew too, along with my grandmother, about my condition. I wasn't very big; someone must have said something.
'You're soft, Bess,' my grandmother was harsh, 'too soft for your own good and for hers . . .' She jerked her head in my direction. 'She's lost to us. She's brought disgrace on a family with the best name of any in the streets around here. The Rooneys have always lived proper. She'll have to go.’
My father, rooted where he stood while my grandmother spoke, sank into a chair by the table and stared at me. 'Your grandmother's wrong, Sarah, isn't she? Or i
s it me that's wrong in understanding her to say you're with child?' He seemed to have shriveled and grown smaller.
'There's nothing wrong with your understanding,' my grandmother said. 'Out with it, Sarah, and the truth, mind.'
'I'm five months gone.' I looked from my father to my mother, 'And I'm sorry for the shame it'll bring on you. I'll be going away. My plan was to go when the days got a bit longer but I'll go now, in the morning.'
'You won't spend another night in this house.' My father didn't look at me. It was as if he couldn't bear to.
'You'll leave now and you'll leave with the clothes on your back, not another stitch. Our good name was all we had in this family and you've lost us even that. You'd best get out of here and get yourself to one of the Magdalens. The nuns can look after you and your bastard when your time comes.'
'Let her stay Cristy,' my mother said, 'no one need know for a while yet and maybe with God's help we can manage somehow . . .'
'Every dog and cat in the city knows of her condition,' my grandmother said, 'isn't that the case, Sarah Rooney? All of them going in and out of the dispensary in Eccles Street knows. Allie Buckley does and so do the doctors. It was Biddy Moran told me. She saw you there. God knows how many others she's told.' She poked me in the shoulder and put her face close to mine. I could smell the decay from her rotting teeth.
'I've been watching you and hearing you get up in the mornings early. I've seen your middle thickening and your mother did too but she was too taken up with grieving your dead sister to do anything. You're a whore of the worst kind, concerned only with lust and depraved acts when you should have been grieving the dead child too.'
She spat on the floor at my feet. 'You've no place in this or any other decent family. We're disgraced, like your father says, and there's nothing for it but for you to redeem yourself in the convent. You've turned your face from God and your body to the devil. You'll earn your keep in the laundry. The nuns'll see to that. They'll separate you from your friend the devil too. You can forget about ever going to America now.'
'Five months . . .' My mother was sitting very still. 'Five months is the father gone Sarah is there no hope at all that he might . . .' she trailed off. 'Is he a soldier Sarah?'