“Gone on about what, exactly?” I said, and Liza looked surprised by the chill in my voice.
“Why, the way she and Miss Graham go on. You or me was to tipple like that and they’d toss us out in the gutter, but them being ladies nobody says a word. Well, it shows you what comes of it. Always a head in the mornings after a party, hasn’t she? Takes her breakfast tray like a married lady in her room. That ain’t proper.”
She stood, fixing me with a look both smug and frightened, proud at her boldness and fearful of what her honesty might cost. I narrowed my eyes at her. “I had not realized, Liza, that you had become an expert on propriety. Perhaps, with your newfound airs, you might ask Mrs. Harrison to be promoted to something more promising than the bluing.”
She bit her lip then, for, as I had imagined, she had been taken to task in the time that I had been in with Charlotte. I just narrowed my eyes and said, “Get on with you,” and watched her scurry off. I felt my knees weaken when she was gone, and it was only that I was still holding Charlotte’s tray that I managed to keep upright. Relief washed through me, and I thought, We are still safe, we are still safe, in time with my tread up the stair.
Charlotte seemed a figure of wax, lying motionless against the pillows in the exact posture that I had left her. Her lids fluttered as I came in with her tray, but she did not open them. She sniffed delicately.
“What have you brought, Ballard?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“Mrs. Harrison has sent up some chamomile, very fine stuff, miss.”
Charlotte raised her lids and sighed as though the thought of chamomile was terribly trying.
“It will do you good, miss.” She was regarding me with suspicion. “You needn’t touch anything but the chamomile, Miss Charlotte.”
She nodded once, and I set the tray down on her nightstand, pouring out some tea before coming over with the cup and saucer. I sat myself down on the edge of the bed and held the cup to her lips. She sipped very slowly.
“There now, miss, can you hold it yourself? Good, good. Let me bathe your face again.”
Charlotte held the cup listlessly in her lap while I poured some water from the ewer into the basin and added a few drops of oil of verbena. I looked at her over my shoulder. With her auburn curls spread out against the pillow behind her and her porcelain face, she looked like a doll. “Take a sip now, Miss Charlotte.” She obeyed woodenly, reinforcing the image. I returned to the bed with a damp cloth and pressed it gently against her temples. She caught at my fingers with one hand and squeezed them tight.
“My dear Ballard. You are so good to me.”
She held my fingers in hers, so close to her face that her breath, foul with her sick and sweet with the chamomile, warmed them. I wanted to reach out and stroke her cheek and kiss her and tell her that all would be well, and in some madness I think I began to lean in when she squeezed my fingers again and released me.
“I think you had better tell my mother I shan’t be able to join them for dinner,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows sharply, but said only “Oh, really now, miss, I shouldn’t think that needful. I daresay Mrs. Walden hasn’t even risen yet.”
She favored me with a thin smile. “Oh, very well, you can tell her later. I don’t blame you when she’s bound to make such a stir.” Her eyes darted back to the tray. “What else did Mrs. Freedman send up?”
“Some hot milk with an egg beaten in.”
Charlotte sighed again, very deeply. “I suppose I shouldn’t disappoint her by sending it back untried.”
“Just a sip, miss,” I said, holding the cup to her lips. She drank a little down, smiled, and took the cup on her own. “Not too quickly now,” I cautioned. I sat next to her as she took alternating sips of the tea and the egg posset, so very slowly finishing them both. After she was done, I rose to take the tray back to the kitchen when she plucked at my sleeve.
“Oh, don’t leave me, Ballard!” she cried, looking suddenly more fretful than I’d seen her. “Suppose it doesn’t stay down?”
I left the tray outside the door and pulled the bell. Agnes would be in a pout over all the extra work, but it was no concern of mine. Agnes had exasperated me enough for one day, and it was not yet ten. Fuck Agnes, I thought as Charlotte held her arms out to me, and I came and settled onto the bed next to her. She nestled herself in my arms, and I rested my chin atop her head.
“Please,” she whispered, “please just stay here with me. I don’t know why I should be so unwell.”
I shushed her gently. “Now, now. It’s that Mr. Dawson should be ashamed of himself.”
Charlotte gave a weak little laugh. “He’s not a bad sort, I suppose.”
I made a face. “I’m sure he’s a very fine gentleman, miss.”
“I suppose,” she said. “Mother has been dangling me before him all season, and I suppose I could do worse, but it galls, Ballard, to let her drive me like a lamb to slaughter.”
I forced a brittle laugh. “Slaughter, miss? I had not thought the prospect of marriage so grim.”
She blushed furiously and said, “No indeed, I had not thought but that I should marry, of course. I should merely like to be the one who decides, in the end.”
I stroked her hair. “We are not all so lucky as to choose our fates, miss,” I said. “Mrs. Walden wishes only to see you comfortable and settled. If not Mr. Dawson, miss, then who?”
She let the weight of my words hang for a moment and then said softly, “I don’t particularly care to speak of Mr. Dawson, Ballard.”
“Then,” I said, quite relieved, “let us speak no more of him.”
We lay there in silence for some time, and by and by Charlotte’s breath slowed and she became slack and heavy in my arms. I lay back against the pillows, hardly daring to breathe lest I mar the sweetness of her weight against me. In the end, my arm went numb, and I carefully slid it out from under her. She stirred a little as I arranged her against the pillows and returned to my needlework in my customary chair by the window. Though she might wish to fall asleep in my arms, I knew better than to risk the coldness or shyness she was wont to display upon waking up in them.
By the afternoon, Charlotte had recovered herself and decided she would go down to dinner after all. It was just as well, for the Grahams were expected, and Mrs. Walden would not countenance entertaining even her own family without Charlotte in attendance. I had the right of it anyhow, for when Mrs. Walden did finally rise, she had a head as well, or so I surmised from Grace, who was as protective of her mistress’s indisposition as she was put out by it. I was fastening a cameo on Charlotte when Mrs. Walden made her first call on her daughter.
There were many things I could say about Grace Porter; she was a prude and a bore and a busybody, but she was an unimpeachable lady’s maid. Augusta Walden looked positively regal in her gown of emerald velvet. Grace had decked her in amber beads and tortoiseshell combs and powdered every suggestion of a line or shadow from her face. I was always a little afraid of her, even though I well knew the effect was achieved through hours of artifice. Still, the temperature of the room lowered by degrees when she entered it. Charlotte and I both looked at her in the mirror as she prepared to speak.
“I received Mr. Dawson’s card this morning,” Mrs. Walden said, brandishing it. “I have invited him to dine on Monday next.” The words were spoken calmly, without a hint of the threat or a challenge that must be inferred. I looked to the carpet, half-expecting she had thrown a glove.
Charlotte’s smile did not quite reach her eyes as she replied, “How lovely. Do order a game course, for he is an avid hunter, you know.”
Augusta Walden narrowed her eyes, immediately suspicious of such pliancy in her daughter, but when no biting second remark followed, she nodded, allowing herself a small, satisfied smile. “An excellent notion, my dear.”
When she left, Charlotte caught my eye in the mirror. “Well,” she said, frank relief suffusing her features, “that was painless enough.”
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We laughed. In the mirror I watched our two red mouths, our two sets of white teeth, unladylike and wide.
Charlotte was in very fine spirits when she came up to bed. From the kitchen, I had heard her and Miss Graham exhibiting on the pianoforte. Charlotte Walden had a very fine voice, a smooth and low alto, while Prudence Graham’s was a high and lilting soprano. It was Prudence who tended to play, her long, thin fingers fluttering nimbly over the keys. Sometimes when Grace and I would watch them from beyond the fringed curtain that separated the parlor from the dining room, I would see her close her eyes and become so lost in the music emanating from her fingertips that she forgot to sing. Such lapses would, of course, occasion much good-natured teasing from her mother and sister, and Miss Graham would then be obliged to blush and say what a ninny she was, but there was something wounded in her eyes and pitying in Charlotte’s that gave me pause. To Grace Porter, such lapses were merely evidence of Charlotte Walden’s superior accomplishments, as she would never be silenced on the subject when we were back in the kitchen, but I could not but feel for the girl. Were she any common miss, she might have been in a way to play more, but for the heiress of the Graham diamond mines, music must be forever relegated to one of the many accomplishments—with riding, and needlepoint, and languages, and dance—that were all calculated to attract a husband.
I have always thought it was the most bitter injustice that gentlemen of means are encouraged to develop those talents in which they show promise, for these accomplishments are but an ornament to their attractions in society, while a young lady of means diminishes her worth when she seeks to cultivate a particular talent. Those skills or arts, which only serve to heighten a gentleman’s appeal and showcase his industry in practicing them, become a liability for a young lady, for such industry smacks of occupation or, at best, unmannerly exhibitionism—neither of which society will tolerate in the female sex. Worse, the level of knowledge and skill such demonstrations of mastery must reveal is telling of those unfeminine qualities—education and ambition—which no marriageable young lady of good family would think to betray. Prudence Graham might speak of her admiration for Liszt—just then coming into vogue—or his mentor Beethoven—still shocking to New York society matrons—if she could bear to do it in the prosaic terms in which any young lady with an appreciation of the musical arts might be acquainted. That she was incapable of doing so without praising the merits of those composers’ techniques insinuated a mastery or, worse, an intimacy with contemporary composition that many of her set found unsettling, if not distasteful.
Charlotte Walden did not herself indulge in her aunt’s passion for music. She was a lovely and accomplished singer, and, as such, harbored a tempered admiration for modern composition. She was well informed enough to converse fluently with Prudence on her aunt’s singular passion, and gifted enough to follow the accompaniments in which Prudence delighted, but there was lacking in her execution Prudence’s curious loss of self in the performance. I well knew what it was to feel so deeply and be denied.
There was something musical still in Charlotte’s tone as I undressed her, and I put her to bed satisfied that Mr. Dawson and his liberality with the champagne had done my mistress no lasting damage. Thus it was that, two mornings later, I awoke with a start in my little closet as I heard Charlotte tumble out of bed and retch again into her chamber pot. I stood in the doorway, my shawl thrown over my shift, as she looked balefully up at me, her eyes red-rimmed, her knuckles white. I was at her side in a moment, snatching a flannel from her washstand and dabbing at her lips, pouring her cool water. Dawn’s thin light was edging its way in through the gap in the curtain. Charlotte shuddered helplessly as I guided her back into her bed, tucking the eiderdown under her chin and smoothing the stray curls from her forehead. She sunk back to sleep almost instantly, but I was too worried for her health, which had been growing so fragile all winter, that I dressed and went belowstairs. Charlotte did not ring until nearly nine, and, when I brought up her tray, she devoured the contents. I examined her as she ate, but her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy, and so I dismissed her indisposition as a freak.
It was not until the pattern had gone on for over a week that I began to suspect. When, on Sunday, I heard the now-familiar splash of her sick, I roused myself, and, realizing that my monthlies had come, made to blot up my spot of blood before throwing on a wrapper and attending to my mistress. Once I had helped her back into bed, I took more care in arranging my rags before making myself neat and dressing. I noted to myself to ensure I had extra flannels on hand for when Charlotte’s blood came, as it always did, a day or so after mine. By Tuesday, however, when Grace came into the kitchen intimating Mrs. Walden’s indisposition, I went cold, for now it was two days gone by and Charlotte showed no signs of bleeding. I thought then with a chill of her retching, of her rosy skin, of the fact that I was lacing her stays looser though she had not yet bled. A fear shot through me. It could not be. It could not be. Was there some other cause that kept women from their courses? Could there be any reason, anything other than the one that filled me with such fear? The kitchen fire became suffocating; I could not think. My face felt suffused with flame.
When Charlotte rang, I bolted up the stairs.
She had been ill again, though a week of the habit had wearied her to it. She passed the back of her hand over her lips, grown chapped now. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes feverishly bright.
“I think, Ballard,” she said, easing herself into the tufted chair, “perhaps it is time I asked Mother to send for Dr. Carlyle. I cannot remember last when I was so indisposed.”
“Miss,” I said softly, “your mother is in bed with her courses.”
Charlotte frowned. “That is very strange, for does she not usually take to bed when I do?”
I settled a blanket over her knees, tucking it around her legs as I chose my next words with care. “It is most unusual, miss, for I cannot think of a time when you were not abed at the same time. Indeed—forgive me, Miss Charlotte—but I cannot wonder if your indisposition has . . . stayed your courses, somehow?”
“Stayed them?” said Charlotte. “Why, I know of no malady that stays one’s courses.”
“I would not call it a malady, miss. Perhaps . . . some other affliction.”
“Some other affliction . . .” she said wonderingly, and she froze, the roses fading quickly from her cheeks. Her eyes, as she fixed them on me, were quite wild. Before us was the breach we’d neither of us attempted to cross before this moment; the unspoken secret lay yawning between us. I did not trust myself to speak, and held my two trembling hands out to her. She took them and I knelt before her, so close, so close, and I felt her pulse throbbing in her slender wrists.
“You know?” she whispered hoarsely.
“I know it all, miss.”
“Ballard,” she said. “Ballard, what have I done?”
“Oh, miss,” I sighed.
“I have been such a fool, Ballard. Oh god, I’ve been such a fool.”
“No, miss, no,” I said, roughly wiping away the tears that had sprung to my eyes. “It’s him that’s to blame.”
Charlotte groaned. “Oh, Ballard, I am ruined!” She tossed her arms about my neck and, shaking, commenced to weeping softly. I stroked her back, and she slid down from the chair and I cradled her as she wept in my arms there on the floor. I buried my face in her hair and let myself weep into the auburn waves coming unbound from her braid, the scent of her hair oil perfuming my tears. And we sat there, joined in misery, for what could I do now to comfort her?
At last, I said, “He would marry you, you know.”
Charlotte laughed bitterly. “Marry me? My god, Ballard, do you expect me to be the wife of a stable groom?”
I shuddered at the harshness of her words. “No, of course not, miss.”
She sniffed, sitting up, her arms still twined in mine. “Do not mistake me, Ballard. I love him. Yes,” she said vehemently when she saw the look on my face
. “Oh yes, I love him. But I never did intend to marry him.” She shook her head ruefully, tears streaming down her cheeks. I reached up and wiped them gently away. “I begin to think I never knew what I intended. Oh, he was clever, and he seduced me, but I let him because I wanted him to. I gave up my virtue and my pride for him. I was willing to be his whore.”
“Oh, miss!” I cried, shocked by her words. “You mustn’t say such things.”
“Why not, Ballard? It is nothing less than the truth. I was his whore, and I have reaped a whore’s wages. That is the matter, and I cannot change it.”
I sighed. “You cannot change it. But you might yet undo it.”
She looked at me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I wet my lips. “There are ways of casting it off.”
“I do not know, Ballard,” Charlotte said. “I could not be seen calling a midwife.”
“There are other ways, I think,” I said. “There is someone I know who could give me the answer.”
“What if they can’t?”
I sighed. “There’s no use in thinking about such a thing until that time comes. This person will know what to do. But if she doesn’t, I suppose you shall have to sing again for Mr. Dawson, and something very sweet this time.”
If you wish to be happy, avoid all such [tales of love and adventure], for they will only fill your fancy with vain images, and make you hopelessly wish for miraculous events that never can happen.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
Each month since the summer I had taken my Sunday afternoons off and gone down to Chambers Street. Each time, I half-hoped and half-feared Liddie Lawrence would be from home, and each time I sunk gratefully into her proffered arms. My first visit, I was awkward and afraid, sitting politely on the edge of the chair she offered, talking woodenly of the weather. She did not allow me to suffer long.
“Now then, Mary Ballard,” she said merrily, “do you really care at all if it is very warm for the season, or did you not come here to fuck me again?” She rose up from her seat and took me by the hand. “For you see, I don’t care to talk about the weather. I had much rather you kiss me.” She led me to the divan, where we made love slowly and languidly in the afternoon heat.
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