She looked at me sharply, and I met her gaze as blandly as I was able. “Will that be all, Miss Charlotte?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why, yes, Ballard. Yes, I think that’s quite enough.” She turned to Miss Graham. “Well, then, Prue. I suppose we ought to salvage the evening for Mama, hadn’t we? Ballard, do me back up? Quickly now.”
Prudence Graham rose, her arm out to her niece in a rakish, masculine way when her eye caught something on Charlotte’s dressing table we both had missed.
“Hullo,” she said, snatching up a nosegay of bachelor’s buttons, tied with a bit of white silk. “Who sent you this?”
Charlotte’s eyes widened, and she turned to Prudence with a look of innocence and said, “I’ve no idea,” before taking her aunt firmly by the arm and leading her from the room.
I advise . . . that you do not stay till a late hour, when drunkenness and revelling are at the height.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
The sound of a rollicking polka—what Miss Graham would have called “low music”—reached me from the stair. I stood at the turning, suddenly too weary to slide back to my place behind the screened-off landing, from where I could watch Charlotte and her mother making assurances to their guests that all was well. It was only nine o’clock, and it was three hours yet before supper would be served. The idea of standing on the landing with Grace while my legs cramped up seemed too exhausting to contemplate. Instead, I made my way down to the kitchen in the hopes of tea. Peals of laughter and raised voices rose up to meet me, as I discovered the room packed with drivers deep in their small beer, Mrs. Freedman shooing them impatiently away from the table. Agnes and Liza were flitting back and forth, hefting platters and tureens, while Millie attempted to organize the drivers and keep them from being underfoot. They ignored me as I passed along the wall, lifting my cloak from its hook by the door and ducking out into the mews.
A few coachmen were lingering along the kitchen wall, smoking and talking amiably, and these lifted their hats to me as I passed by on my way to the privy. My boots crunched on the fresh snow, and the bracing cold rallied my spirits. I walked from the kitchen door down the mews to Fifth Avenue before turning back. As I approached the kitchen door, I looked up at the Waldens’ carriage house. There, backlit from the loft window, stood Johnny. He was not looking down to me in the mews, but, following his gaze, I saw that he was staring into the Waldens’ brightly lit second floor. As he shifted, light fell over his features and I could see a bright blue bachelor’s button pinned to his lapel. I paused, momentarily tempted to shout up to him for being a fecking fool, but ended instead by laughing. Blue. She’s wearing feckin’ blue. The git. Gritting my teeth, I went back inside to wait until I should be required again.
Your time, while you are in place, you must remember is not your own. You have agreed to give it up to your employer for the money, board and lodging, for which you bargain. It is therefore no less dishonest than actual pilfering, to be indolent and neglectful in the services required of you, as by so doing, you are evidently guilty of fraud and gross misdemeanor. Nothing will sooner attach to your character and render you disliked than careless and slovenly habits, and nothing will be more against your own comfort, both in keeping you always in a bustle, and in delaying and confusing every thing you have to do.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
The advantage to waiting up for the Waldens was that they were both then late risers, and the whole house got a bit of a lie-in, except for Agnes, of course. I lay abed, studying the plaster wreath affixed to my ceiling and wondering, not for the first time, what earthly purpose it served and why such a bit of frippery had been installed in a nurse’s closet. I supposed it was laurel, for the leaves were longish, and I knew of no other leaf used in wreath making, excepting perhaps holly. Outside it was snowing again, and the dim winter light filtered through the thin baize curtains that hung before my tiny window, leaving half my laurel wreath in shadows. I was never one for lying about the way Charlotte and Mrs. Walden seemed to, and though it was many hours before I would need to attend to my mistress, I rose and dressed myself and slipped down the back stairs to the kitchen.
Walking into the kitchen was like slipping into a warm bath, for it was baking day, and the smell of new-made bread enveloped me as I came in. Agnes stoked the fire while Cook tied herbs to a roast. Four loaves were cooling on the sill, and I knew there would be four more in the oven, for Cook always made them in batches of eight. None of the housemaids were down yet, but the pantry was open, and from within I could hear Mrs. Harrison and Mr. Buckley rowing in their quiet way. They rowed quite frequently, though they did it in such a still, sedate sort of manner that you would not realize they were rowing if you were not listening to their words. This morning, they were having a terribly polite go at each other over the state of the apple bin. I looked at Cook, who rolled her eyes and cocked her head sharply at me. When I came close, she said in an undertone, “The missus is sick of apple tart, yes indeed she is. And here it is, only February and months yet before we’ll have anything new. We didn’t put up half as many cherries as last summer, and the peach crop wasn’t nearly as good. I tell the missus every year to send up for peaches from Georgia like she used to when my Frank was still living, but she never does.”
I nodded, not really hearing her, for I did not care at all if there was tart with dinner so long as we were fed. She nodded back in a knowing, conspiratorial way. “Those loaves should be cool enough to slice, if you’re peckish. Breakfast won’t be but another hour, so there’s a girl.”
I almost never came over peckish, since I came into this house where meals were regular, though, when I’d first come, I ate like a creature starved. Mrs. Freedman thought me skinny still. She was very generous, far too, with her portions for me, and so I obliged her by slicing myself a bit of the heel. As I stood by the fire, chewing it slowly, Grace Porter came bustling in, a flannel in her hand. She nodded sharply to me and to Cook.
“Mrs. Harrison?” she called in her thin, shrill voice. “Mrs. Harrison?”
Mrs. Harrison and Mr. Buckley emerged from the pantry. Mrs. Harrison looked cool and appraising as ever, but Mr. Buckley looked rather hot around the collar. “Yes, Miss Porter?” Mrs. Harrison said, sounding somehow withering instead of weary.
“Mrs. Harrison, you must speak to Agnes and Liza. This is not to be borne!” Grace said, her voice cracking with rage as she held out the flannel. We all peered in at it, and there was a faded rusty stain, sure enough. Grace held it far from her, like some noxious thing, grimacing in distaste. “Suppose I had handed it to Mrs. Walden? It is only Providence that they were misfolded, or I should not have noticed until it was too late.” She shook the offending item at Mrs. Harrison, who took it gingerly by the corner and held it out to Agnes, who was cringing in the corner like a beaten cur.
“Agnes, who is responsible for adding the bluing? Is it yourself, or is it Liza?”
Agnes, twisting her apron in her hands, as though she had been accused of murder, burst into tears and buried her face into the twists. Mrs. Harrison chucked the flannel at her feet in disgust.
“I trust we shall not be treated to a recurrence of these proceedings?”
Agnes blubbered something into her apron, and somehow managed to bob a curtsy with the thing still over her head. I could only imagine what wonderings of admonishment were in store for Liza when she was done lighting the fires. She was only second housemaid, and, though you couldn’t say her star was on the rise, she was at least not so wretched a creature as poor, sniveling Agnes. The whole kitchen seemed to bristle with Agnes’s shame, and it was all I could do not to stare about me at so many fools for whom a bit of an old stain was now to be the gossip of the morning.
My superior sentiments did not last long, for Grace Porter, deprived of the drubbing she so clearly felt Agnes deserved, turned her pale, critical eye on me and cried, with all the horror such a turn entailed, “Why, Miss Ballard, you hav
e broken your bootlace.”
I looked down, and, yes, the frayed bit that always rubbed against the loop holes had snapped at last. I looked stupidly at Mrs. Harrison, who sighed and said, “Is this not your second bootlace this month, Miss Ballard? You are quite out of your allowance, I am afraid, unless you wish to purchase one against your salary?”
“No need,” said Grace Porter. “I haven’t used my allowance in two months. Miss Ballard may take one of mine.”
What followed was the dullest showing of Grace Porter’s magnanimity and my gratitude, whereupon a bootlace was procured and my frayed one removed and replaced, and much was made over Grace and her goddamn sharp eyes and her goddamn sense of generosity.
There were days when things like apple tart and clean flannels and bootlaces drove me mad, for I felt sometimes on those days the immensity of my life, and the briefness of it, and how the bulk of it had been built of apple tart and flannels and bootlaces, and then my heart beat very fast, and my face grew hot, and I felt as though my hands were grown huge and thick and heavy, like warming pans heaped with coals. I could feel it coming on me now, that wave of heat, and I excused myself to the privy.
The wind whipped up the snow, and I picked my way carefully across the slick cobbles. It was cold inside the privy; my breath came quickly in smoky puffs. I counted the puffs of breath, willing myself to think only of the numbers, and of nothing else. The heat slowly left my body, my hands shrunk to their normal size. I quieted my breathing, putting my hands to my face. Though calmer, I was not yet ready to face the kitchen, and instead made my way to the carriage house.
Johnny and Young Frank, the stableboy, were feeding and watering the horses, and right away the smells of hay and dung and leather soothed me something marvelous. I was always that way around the horses, for they were the smell of Johnny now, as once they had been the smell of Da. It had been too many years now that he was gone for me to picture his face quite as clearly as I used, but the smell of him stayed sharp in my memory. I walked directly to Charlotte’s sweet-tempered mare, who had come to lean over the opening of her box. I stroked her velvety nose, taking pleasure in the softness. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Johnny making his way down the aisle. I stiffened as he approached me.
“Miss Ballard,” he said in a low voice.
“Mr. Prior,” I replied, in soft tones.
He eyed me carefully. “May I assist you, Miss Ballard?” There were, of course, rather stringent prohibitions about any of the housemaids making bold in the carriage house, and though there might be some leeway for Miss Charlotte’s maid were it her riding day, on a snowbound morning someone surely would mark it odd. Young Frank, still at the other end of the stalls, was looking at us curiously.
“She’s a darling, isn’t she?” I asked, not raising my eyes. “So gentle. So obliging. So lovely and soft. How you must enjoy your time with her.”
“To whom do you refer, Miss Ballard?” he asked, an edge to his voice.
“Why, to Angelica, of course,” I said, still caressing the horse. “Goodness, but to whom else should I refer?”
Johnny made a noise that was equal parts exasperation and mirth. I went on tranquilly rubbing Angelica’s nose, and, at length, Johnny produced a carrot from his pocket.
“She likes her treats, does this one,” he said, pressing it into my hand. “I meant to give it to her myself, she being the good lass you say, but perhaps you might care to?”
I held the carrot flat in the palm of my hand, offering it to Angelica. Her lips, thick and velvety, tickled, and her blunt teeth scraped gently against my skin as she gobbled it up. I brushed my damp hand against my skirts before resuming my caresses. “Indeed,” I said softly, for Young Frank was coming nearer. “It is kind of you to let me, though any young miss will appreciate a posy from an admirer.”
“And you admire her?”
I shrugged, not meeting his eye. “You might say that. Though my familiarity with her could never rival your own.”
“A creature like her,” Johnny said, “and you’d be a fool not to admire her. She’s lovely to ride.”
“What?” I said, startled.
“I said she’s lovely to ride. She’s always eager for it, very willing creature, and a steady gait. It’s an absolute pleasure to be atop her.”
“Are we still speaking of Angelica?” I asked, my cheeks glowing crimson.
“To be sure,” Johnny said, his eyes bright with mischief. “To whom else could I be referring? Is there anything else I can do for you this morning, Miss Ballard?”
“Thank you, Mr. Prior, but I was just passing by.”
“Passing by? I see.” Young Frank was approaching with water for Angelica now. Johnny stepped out of the way to allow the stableboy egress, and I backed away from both of them.
“I shall take up no more of your time,” I said, my cheeks still blazing. I left in a hurry, knowing Johnny would be puzzling over why I had come and wondering why I had started such a conversation. Let him think it was his goddamn bachelor’s buttons.
The heat of the kitchen closed in over me, and, after my exchange in the carriage house, I no longer felt soothed. Sweat prickled my neck, collecting at the base of my hairline, and I thought I should stifle in the thick, close air. The smell of baking bread, which always cheered me, now filled my nose and was like to smother me. I closed my eyes, wishing I could stop up my ears, for Grace Porter would go on after poor Agnes, who was defending herself in a whining tone. I sat very still indeed, fearing that if I moved it would be to dash Grace’s head against the flagstones, or Agnes’s, or my own. Not Cook or Mrs. Harrison said a word, and I knew I must not either, but sitting there I thought they would drive me mad between them. And then—like music!—Charlotte’s bell was ringing with such vigor that I stood in a rush and upset my untouched teacup.
She was sitting on the thick-piled rug next to her bed, the chamber pot on the floor next to her. The color was all drained away from her face, her hair stained with sweat, her skin gleaming with a fine sheen of it. I paled myself, for I had never seen her so unwell, and was by her side in a moment, to help her back to her bed. She began to rise, never speaking a word, but before I could get her upright, she was back on her knees again, retching. I held back her hair where it had come loose, thinking of the times Johnny had done as much for me, then pushing the memories ungratefully away. She sat up at last, breathless, and tears at the corners of her eyes. I rubbed her back, feeling her shoulders heave beneath the fine linen of her night rail.
“Ballard, I—” she began when she had caught her breath, but I hushed her. She rubbed her lips with the back of her hand, a small brown smear coming away on her pale skin, and that nearly set her to heaving again. I took a cloth and dipped it into the ewer by the washbasin to clean her hand and bathe her face. She sat propped up against the side of her bed while I crouched beside her and took her white face into my hand. When she was neat, her skin cooler, I slipped her arm around my shoulder to get her to rise. She stood, then leaned against me hard, both her arms around my neck, her loose auburn curls falling on my face, and I breathed in sharply the scent of her. She buckled in my arms, and I thought she might fall again, but I managed to maneuver her onto the bed.
“There, there, miss,” I murmured as I tucked her in. “Shall I bring you some beef tea then? Or some bread, new baked?”
She shook her head weakly. “No, nothing. I am afraid I have a head, Ballard.” She smiled, her lips thin and tight. “I should be ashamed, I suppose, but Mr. Dawson would keep handing me champagne.”
“Hush now,” I said, for her words came thickly and cost her something to form. “I shall find something to tempt you. You lay still now.”
She smiled up at me again, and I slipped down the servants’ stair back to the kitchen. Grace had gone away again, and Agnes was sniffling by the hearth. The rest of the household were at breakfast; Johnny looked up sharply as I came in. Cook nodded to me.
“Up already, is she, Miss B
allard? Well, child, you sit and have a bite while Agnes fixes her tray.”
I shook my head. “Miss Walden is poorly. Perhaps an egg posset this morning, Agnes.”
“Poorly? What, again?” asked Agnes.
Mrs. Harrison sniffed. “Miss Walden does not wish to be poorly, I’m sure. Well, but sit and eat a moment, Miss Ballard, while Agnes boils the water.” She rose, her keys clinking softly against her skirt. “I believe we have a very fine chamomile that might serve, if she is poorly,” she said, going to unlock the caddy.
I sat and helped myself to a slice of bread and butter, but left the rashers untouched, for Charlotte would not like the smell of them on my breath. Millie whispered something to Liza, who tittered and caught the attention of Mr. Buckley.
“Is there something amusing, Liza?” he asked, and that wiped the smile off her face fast enough.
“No, sir,” she said, stealing a sidelong look at me that I did not much care for. She and Millie were rising to go just as Agnes was finishing my tray. I followed them into the corridor and stepped on Liza’s skirt, holding her back.
“Hey, hey!” she cried, and I kicked at her. She gave a little yelp, though I could barely feel her through her petticoats, and knew she was only surprised.
“What was that now?” I hissed at her.
She scowled. “I ain’t going to say a word, anyhow.”
I stepped on her foot. “I saw you looking at me. What’s that you’ve got to say that you’re too ashamed to say to my face?”
Liza pulled her foot out from under mine and huffed, “Only that she’s got caught out at last, and serves her right.”
I stepped back. “Caught out?”
“You heard me,” Liza said. “Everybody knows it. She can’t have gone on about it as long as she has without getting caught out. Won’t nobody say it before you or before Miss Porter, but we all knows it just the same.”
The Parting Glass Page 7