The Parting Glass

by Gina Marie Guadagnino

  “Sure, you never did. I could fit two of you in there.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “Fit me just fine in Donegal.”

  Seanin stepped forward. “We didn’t eat much on the ship.”

  “Well, once you’ve scrubbed, we’ll sell it to the Yiddishers down in the Sixth Ward and find you something more fitting. By now you’ve surely spoiled it with your lice. It’ll want boiling to make it fit again.”

  I wrapped my arms across my bosom. “You’ll not have me gown!” I said shrilly.

  “Don’t be a fool, lass. That’s a lady’s gown, and you ain’t hardly a lady. You’d look a right blowden showing up in a gaud like that. It’ll not do to have them think you’re a thief straight off.” He shook his head. “Aye, you’re a stubborn one, and no mistaking. Can’t think why you didn’t thrive up at the big house with gumption like that.”

  I went pale, ducking my head and scowling, and Seanin, showing the first sign of backbone I’d detected in him since we disembarked, slipped a protective arm over my shoulders and said coldly, “That’s no concern of yours.”

  Dermot’s eyebrows shot up again, but he spread his hands and shrugged his compliance. “Well, and you’ll thrive here, ambition like yours. You’re sure you’ve a mind to go back into service, though?”

  “What’d you mean?” Seanin inquired.

  “Only,” he said, a bit more gently than he’d been speaking, “that if there were something in service that didn’t suit, you’re not bound to it. There’s other manner of work, if you want it.”

  I raised my eyes to his again and said in the posh voice I’d taken pains to cultivate, “I want to be a lady’s maid, sir, and nothing would please me more than your assistance in finding a situation that would suit.”

  He chuckled at this. “Fair enough, lass. Fair enough. And you, lad?”

  Seanin tightened his grip around my shoulders. “I’ll not be parted from me sister. We’ll have positions in the same house, like as we had back home.”

  “Well, lad,” the publican said. “You’re in America now. This is your home.”

  Our first night in Dermot’s cellar, I lay freshly scrubbed and dressed in a clean if threadbare shift, pillowed in Seanin’s arms. Dermot had made up a pallet for us by the hearth, and, unused to the humid night air, we lay together atop the blankets, grateful for the slight coolness now belowground. The grate was cold, and by the moonlight slanting in from the high windows, I peered around the room at the vaulted ceilings, the casks and hogsheads piled up between the pillars and along the walls. The smell of warm malt made me think of Colleen O’Brien’s pub in Donegal Town, and I wondered if Dermot ever wandered down here on sleepless nights to breathe deeply the smells of his childhood. The thought made me tremble and huddle closer to Seanin, who was snoring gently beside me. It was curious that he did not smell like himself, like Da had, of horse and leather, but instead the queer aroma of the lye soap Dermot had insisted we scrub with came off him. I thought of the position we might get, if we might be allowed to share a bed, for I had never slept alone before, and now, in this strange, bustling city, the thought of passing a night without my brother by my side filled me with sudden terror. Back at the big house, Mrs. Boyle’s maid had a room of her own; was it the same for ladies’ maids in America? Or would I share my chamber with another maid? I shivered at the thought, unsure if it would be worse to sleep alone or what might come of lying again beside a girl I did not know, and, rolling over, Seanin pulled me closer. His breath smelled of ale, a little foul with sleep, and the familiarity of his hot breath against my cheek soothed my panic but filled me with nostalgia. We had come here for a better life, one where we could remain side by side. What if that should not be possible here, any more than it was in Donegal? I had thought myself done with tears, and, as my eyes welled full of them, silent sobs racking my frame, Seanin woke. He blinked at me in sleepy concern, brushing the damp from my lashes.

  “It’s over,” he whispered. “We’re here. Safe. Together.”

  “Together,” I repeated.

  “Together. And I swear,” he said, holding me tight, “there’s no one and nothing that can come between us. We’ll never be parted.”

  Nothing is more disliked in a servant, whatever may have been the previous familiarity, than this unbidden giving of opinions and advice.

  —The Duties of a Lady’s Maid

  Dermot wrote a note from my “aunt” to Charlotte Walden in a curling and feminine hand explaining that I had taken a fall and was unwell. I protested, for I was uneasy about Charlotte’s condition, but Dermot held up his shaving glass so that I could see the patchwork of bruises blossoming, and I consented to spend the day lying on my pallet with a side of beef fairly smothering my face to take down the swelling. In the afternoon, between the lull of the dinner set and the regulars who came in after work, Dermot came to ask if I needed anything, and I broke down and had him send for Liddie.

  “For then,” I said thickly, “if you know all about her, I might as well have some comfort out of it.”

  Dermot shook his head. “I don’t care if you’re a tribade, Mar. That’s between you and the Lord, and I don’t doubt but that the Lord has other axes to grind, so. But it won’t do to be whoring with that colored London wench.”

  “Ah, go on. She’s only a friend.”

  “Oh aye.” Dermot snorted. “A bosom friend, I’ve no doubt.”

  I propped myself up on one elbow and regarded him as critically as I could from my one good eye. “What is it exactly you object to? The colored part? Or the whoring part? For there’s nothing you can say I’ll take kind to on the former, and as far as the latter part goes, I can promise there’s never been a penny passed between us.”

  “Sure and close as you’ve been, d’you reckon you could fit a penny to pass between you?” he muttered. But he sent for her anyway, and, as the tavern above filled up with the scraping and stomping of work boots, I heard her light heels tripping down the stairs. I lay still on my pallet and heard her stop before me. I lifted the corner of the steak off my eye and saw her looking down at me, her hands on her hips. She snorted and came to sit beside me in a flutter of petticoats.

  “Well, now, let’s have a look,” she said, lifting the beef away and setting it on a plate. I saw her eyebrows shoot up in concern as she took in my mottled visage, but she forced a smile and bathed my face in cool water. “Gracious, aren’t you a sight?” she asked, shaking her head, and she gently brushed out my hair. She helped me dress into my shift before easing me back into Dermot’s wrapper, and she set to plaiting and coiling up my hair. I was feeling nearly human again as she inspected my rumpled gown where it still hung by the fire.

  “Shall I press it for you?” she asked. “I could run up and get an iron from the publican.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” I said. “Come and lay with me awhile and we’ll talk.”

  “Oh, it won’t be a moment. I’ll set the iron on the fire while we talk,” she said, and disappeared up the stairs. I heard her voice at the head of the stair, shrill and questioning, before she dashed back down to me, her face ashen.

  “I must know,” she said, hushed and agitated, “if you will see a visitor.”

  “A visitor?” I asked. “Who in hell would be visiting me?”

  “A man,” she said, dropping her voice even lower. “His name is Johnny Prior.”

  I nearly laughed, though the pain in my face would not permit it. “That eejit,” I said. “Right then, I’ll see him.”

  For the first time in our acquaintance, Liddie looked shocked, but she said nothing when she led Johnny in. I sat propped up on the pallet, leaning against the wall as he approached, hat in hand and looking crestfallen. He had narrow welts around his eyes from where I’d dug in my nails, but he looked otherwise unscathed. He was limping a bit, favoring one leg, I noted with satisfaction, and he seemed properly horror-struck when he saw my face.

  “Oh, Christ, Mar,” he said, dropping to one sid
e of the pallet. “I didn’t mean it, I swear.”

  “Ah, go on,” I said gently. “You’d been spoiling for a fight.”

  He stiffened. “So’d you.”

  I shrugged, uncertain as to whether I had just forgiven him. Over his shoulder, Liddie stood with her feet planted and her arms crossed. I looked up at her and then meaningfully at the stairs, but she shook her head ever so slightly. I switched to Irish. “What’d you want then, Seanin?”

  He looked surprised, glancing quickly over his shoulder at Liddie, whose face flashed annoyance at the change I’d just effected. “To see how you are, of course.”

  “Ah, I’ll live. Sure, and you should see the other fellow.”

  He snorted, running his fingers gently over the scratch marks. “Aren’t we a pair, then?” He shook his head ruefully. “We can’t go on like this, Mar. You can tell me what I’ve done to make you hate me so, but . . .” He trailed off, looking down.

  I took his hand in mine. “I don’t hate you, Seanin. Truly, I don’t.”

  “She was sore worried about you,” he said, meeting my eyes at last. “It was all the talk in the kitchen.”

  “Was she now?” I said softly. “I wouldn’t have thought.”

  “It’s about her, isn’t it?” he asked. “Why you’ve grown so harsh and cold with me. I always knew it was her, though I’d not thought that was why. You’re . . . fond of her, after . . . your fashion, I know. It was plain how you . . . admired her. But’s not like you could ever love her the way I do.”

  I let this aspersion go, piqued by his own declaration. “Do you? Are you, I mean? In love with her?”

  “I am.”

  I shook my head. “That won’t be enough in the end. She can’t marry you, Seanin.”

  “Not as I am now, I know it. Someday, perhaps—”

  “Don’t be daft, Seanin. She can’t marry you and she can’t bear your children, either, unmarried as she is.”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t ask it of her.”

  “Good,” I said, hesitating a moment. This was as good an opening as I was likely to get. “Because she hasn’t.”

  He looked confused. “I know she hasn’t.”

  “No,” I said slowly, “I don’t think you do. She can’t bear your child. She would be ruined.”

  “I know that.”

  “So she didn’t do it.”

  “Didn’t do what?”

  I drew a deep breath and said my next words very slowly. “She didn’t bear your child.”

  His hands were shaking in mine. I swallowed.

  “She wouldn’t,” he whispered. “She never would.”

  “She did,” I whispered back. “And I helped her to.”

  He stood, drawing his hands from mine. “You bitch,” he said. “You perfect goddamn bitch.”

  I scrambled to my feet. “You only just said—”

  “To hell with what I just said.” He cut me off. “You helped her murder my child.”

  “You’re a fucking fool,” I said wearily. “She couldn’t bear your child, and I saw to it she didn’t have to.”

  He shook his head, and, when he spoke, his voice was cold. “I’m through with you, Maire. I’m through with you, and I’m through with her. Between you, you’ve cut out my heart.” He turned to go.

  “For Christ’s sake,” I said in English. “See reason!”

  “Fuck yourself and all your reasons.” He spat. “Fuck yourself and everything you’ve brought on me, Maire O’Farren.” And he pushed past Liddie up the stairs.

  I slumped, shaking and shaken, and Liddie rushed to my side. Her hands were cold as she gripped mine. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she whispered, her voice quavering. “How the fuck do you know Johnny Prior, and how’d you come to talk Gaelic with him?”

  Tears had begun to ooze from the corners of my eyes, burning their way down my swollen cheeks. “He’s my brother,” I whispered back. “He’s my twin brother.”

  Liddie’s jaw dropped. “Jesus Christ,” she breathed. “I knew Ballard wasn’t your real name, but fucked if I ever thought you were related to the likes of Johnny Prior.”

  I dabbed at my tearstained face, the import of her words slowly dawning, and looked Liddie squarely in the eye. “And how do you,” I said, “know the name Johnny Prior?”

  She blinked, disbelieving. “Oh Christ, Mary. You’re in for a shock.”

  The wise look forward to misfortunes, and prevent or provide for them before they come.

  —The Duties of a Lady’s Maid

  In her line of work, Liddie Lawrence knew better than most what streets were safe to walk alone at night. Though she relished her own independence, it came at a price, and, like so many other streetwalkers, Liddie had found it prudent to take precautions. It seemed that every other week the croakers were reporting the death of another light-skirts—she clucked her tongue, reading of Helen Jewett, bludgeoned to death, her body burnt in her own draperied bed. She did not ply her trade amongst the potentially more respectable cullies in the Third Ward, where she lived. The merchants, clerks, and lawyers might represent repeat custom, but there was too much risk of being followed home. She never went stargazing in the Sixth Ward, naturally, and the brothels upon which she hoped to someday model her own were in the Tenth and the Fourteenth. Upwind of the miasma that still hung over the now-filled Collect, north of the merchant district, were the dance halls and public houses lining the Bowery. It was here she made her rounds before making her way back down to Chambers.

  She was completing her circuit one early summer night, too chilly for June, coming down Mulberry Street, when she saw flames fanning south from the Sixth Ward. Amidst the cramped, fetid blocks of the Sixth Ward, where the buildings leaned together like drunkards holding each other upright, fires were as common as dirt, and there was no shortage of that either. With a foot or less between the buildings, flames spread quickly, consuming whole blocks sometimes before the fire brigades could arrive and complete their pugilistic competition over access to the pumps. With no desire to be caught up in the rush of the brigades, Liddie had paused to reconsider how far east she should alter her route when the clang of alarm bells began. A door in the building closest to her swung open with a slam, and a group of men poured out, talking rapidly in Gaelic. They clustered in a knot in the street, speaking harshly, some pointing urgently downtown to where the blaze could be seen, flames licking the night sky. She pressed herself into a darkened doorway, observing the men quietly. She thought she recognized one or two from her route—impossible to tell for sure at this distance, in the dark. One man was talking over the crowd, waving his hat emphatically, his fair hair shining in the moonlight. After a moment, he had the other men nodding in agreement. They swept past her in a rush, pulling on hats and coats, shouting to one another as they hustled south toward the conflagration. The door they left open behind them, creaking ajar on its hinges. She stepped out of the shadows and moved to shut it, noticing the Celtic cross carved into the heavy wood. As the door swung shut, she caught a glimpse of the room beyond, where a single candle guttered on a table, against which leaned a small cache of rifles.

  She stopped, her hand on the door, her fingers tracing the grooves carved deep into the wood. The clanging from the belfry above her drowned out the shouts as men ran toward the blaze, but not the uneasiness in her heart—what were so many guns doing inside a church? A door slammed nearby, and she jumped, jerking her hand back from the carved wood.

  Rattled, she turned east, going south only when she reached the Bowery again. At every intersection, people were turning out of the pubs and houses in an effort to see the fire, and as she came closer to where the flames were rising, the crowds grew thicker. The further south she went, the warmer the air grew, thick with smoke and the press of bodies, men and women running in both directions. She hurried on, hoping to skirt the worst of it. The ground rumbled as fire trucks clattered past down side streets, horses whinnying in fear. Passing Pell Street, she felt a rapid gust of h
ot wind, and suddenly she was knocked off her feet when the blast issued from a nearby building as the flames consumed it. She hit her head when she fell, blacking out for a moment. Her eyelids fluttered, and the world around her came alight in a hideous, incandescent blaze. Pushing herself to sit upright, she realized that her hands were scraped and bleeding, and one knee throbbed. She staggered, her ears ringing, and was promptly sick on the cobbles. The heat bore down upon her in waves, and she knew she must rise up and run, but in her pain and terror she could not move. Flames licked the building in front of her. All about, figures raced, silhouetted in the fire, their mouths open in silent screams she could not hear for the pounding in her head.

  A hand was tugging on her arm. She looked up, dazed. He was staring down at her, shouting something, but she could make no sense of his words. His face was streaked with soot and grime, but she recognized him as the fair-haired man who’d come racing from the church, shouting to his fellows in Gaelic. He was speaking English now, she knew that somehow, though her head ached and her ears rang and his words meant nothing to her. She reached for him with her other hand, and he hauled her to her feet, pulling her up from the cobbles, and, with him half-supporting her, they staggered together out of the street as the fire brigade pulled up, the ringing of hooves the first sound she properly heard. The man left her leaning on a hitching post as he dashed back toward the blaze.

  She clutched at the post, the roar of noise about her slowly penetrating through the fog in her head. She stared in fascinated horror as men flung buckets of water at the blaze, figures seeming to hurry in and out of the wall of flame. A group of them appeared to be waving their limbs frantically together, until her watering eyes were able to make sense of the scene, and she realized that there was a melee. Firemen and tattered workingmen and swells off the Bowery were brawling, spending equal energy on gaining control of the pump and on pummeling one another. Liddie, who knew the value of territory and boundaries, thought perhaps she had an inkling as to the cause, though she might have no agreement with or stake in it.