The Parting Glass

by Gina Marie Guadagnino

  “How did Seanin get involved with that lot?” I wondered aloud. “There was nothing like that in our upbringing.”

  “Seanin?”

  “Johnny.” I shook my head, wondering what good our pseudonyms would do us anymore. “It doesn’t matter now. I don’t know how he came to be part of such a lot, is all.”

  “What other lot is there for the likes of him?” Liddie asked, rummaging in her reticule for a cigarette. “You might do that posh voice you put on betimes and pass yourself as something else, but your brother looks Irish, acts Irish, and sounds as Irish as they come. The nativists have been taking a harder line with the foreigners, and wouldn’t I know? It’s either join up with your own kind and brawl together for your share of the scratch, or . . .” She shrugged, pausing a moment to light her cigarette from the fire. “They want money and they want to brawl with the nativist gangs. You know, stake out their territory, like you read in the penny dreadfuls. Brickbats and lead knuckles and all that. Johnny Prior’s a fair enough hand at it—you don’t rise to captain if you aren’t, after all.”

  “Captain?”

  “There’s probably a Gaelic word for it.” She shrugged again. “But I don’t know what it is. Chief of his division of the Order. He must have cracked his share of skulls too, as there’s a fair few nativists who’ve taken a dislike to him over the past year. I gather he’s not very popular with the firedog brigades on account of him cutting out the eye of a fireman back when he was starting out. There now!” she cried, for suddenly I was shaking. She wrapped her arms around me, saying, “It will be well,” until my shaking subsided. But all her talk about Johnny and the Order had so unsettled me that I felt as though the ground beneath me had fallen away, and I’d lost my brother over Charlotte, and now to the Hibernians, and nothing would be well ever again.

  Sickness, danger, and adversity, usually level distinctions of rank; but you must never forget that you are a servant, nor assume the airs and the consequence of a gentlewoman so long as you are in the pay and at the command of another.

  —The Duties of a Lady’s Maid

  By Saturday morning, I persuaded Dermot to allow me to return to the Waldens’ house. Having used Quigley as a go-between to make it clear my brother would have been gone already, we had concocted a story to tell, featuring Johnny as the villain, should our ruse about my taking a fall prove flimsy. Arranging my hair in Dermot’s shaving glass, my face still blooming with ugly bruises, I steeled myself for the scrutiny that was sure to come. I practiced deception in that household every day with my posh voice and studied manners—what was one more lie to the many I had already told to get and keep my place? Yet my fingers trembled as I tied my bonnet under my chin.

  Dermot was waiting at the top of the stairs with a dram of whiskey. “You needn’t go back, Maire,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to. You were only ever there because they were hiring for posts where the two of you could be together.”

  I took the whiskey from him, bolted it, and handed the vessel back to him with a weak smile. Dermot shook his head and escorted me out onto Mulberry Street to hail a hackney. He pressed a few coins on me, handing me up himself and giving the driver directions. It was strange, rattling along the cobbles as we ran up the Bowery, for I had certainly never thought to pay for the extravagance of such a conveyance. Stepping down, I waited until the hack had rattled off before hobbling around to let myself in through the servants’ entrance in the mews. There was a thin layer of slush on the cobbles, and I took care to knock it from my boots as I pushed my way into the kitchen.

  There was a cry and a gasp, and I was enveloped in Cook’s strong arms before I had taken two steps into the room. In the face of her bustle and energy, I felt faint. I heard someone call out, “Oh, catch her,” and everything blurred away into darkness.

  When I came to myself a moment or two later, I was in the arms of Mr. Buckley, who was supporting me into Cook’s rocker. Mrs. Harrison was taking my cloak and shawl, and Cook was pressing a mug of beef tea into my hand. Agnes was sobbing with her apron over her head, her back to me.

  “Good lord, girl,” Cook said. “It’s more than a fall that did that to you.”

  “Now, now, Mrs. Freedman,” said Mrs. Harrison briskly. “There will be time enough for that later. Have you a length of cheesecloth? Very good. Agnes, put some water on to boil. Quickly now, girl, leave off that wailing. Mr. Buckley, I daresay you might help Miss Ballard to my own chamber, if she’s still unsteady on her feet? No, no, Miss Ballard,” she said as I tried to protest. “I shall meet you there directly.”

  She turned and directed her energies to ordering about the kitchen staff as I availed myself of Mr. Buckley’s proffered arm and allowed myself to be escorted to Mrs. Harrison’s room. No sooner had Mr. Buckley made me comfortable in the chair by the fire than Mrs. Harrison herself entered, bearing the tea tray, some cheesecloth, and a pot of salve. Closing the door firmly behind the butler, she pulled the ottoman up before me, and dipped the cheesecloth into the salve before daubing it delicately onto my face. She did not meet my eyes, but kept her gaze fixed upon the bruises to which she ministered.

  For a time, neither of us spoke, until at last she broke the silence. “You will have the goodness, Miss Ballard,” she said, very softly, “to permit me to remark it strange that our head groom should give notice suddenly on the very afternoon that Miss Walden’s maid sends word that she is too indisposed to come home from her night off. It seems quite strange indeed that he should have come to us rather worse for the wear when you yourself, Miss Ballard, should present yourself back to us in such sorry condition. It rather beggars belief to consider that two such occurrences are merely coincidence.”

  I swallowed, but said nothing. Mrs. Harrison sighed. “Child,” she said, this time exasperated. “Will you kindly tell me why John Prior beat you, and why you so obviously attempted to claw his eyes out? For I shall be in a rather bad humor if you attempt to deny it, you know.”

  I pursed my lips. “He’s given notice, you say?”

  Mrs. Harrison nodded. “Given notice and cleared out, and if he thinks he’s likely to get a character from Mrs. Walden after departing in such a state, he is sorely mistaken. So, Miss Ballard,” she said, eyeing me critically, “there is rather little chance of him coming back.” Still, I hesitated, and she said, “Come now, child. From the moment he came into this house, you have been cold to that man. Will you not tell me why?”

  “I did not care,” I said in a low, hard voice I had practiced with Dermot, “for the way he spoke to me.” I looked up, squarely meeting her eyes, and had the pleasure of seeing surprise flicker momentarily across her features. “I’d no wish to speak ill of the man whilst he was under this roof, but I tell you plain, that Prior was never the name he was born with.”

  The color drained from Mrs. Harrison’s face. “Whatever do you mean?”

  I shook my head. There was no going back now. If Johnny had lost his character, if he had gone to his friends at the Order, I could do worse than to blacken his name in the Walden house. “You will not know, Mrs. Harrison, by nature of your breeding, the various accents of the Irish. I think I may safely confess to you that, while I was in Dublin, as a maid, it was not always my privilege to associate with the better parts of society. You will understand that I do not wish to dwell upon that unhappy time, but after those misfortunes, I can, with justice, recognize the tones of the lower orders. Mark my words, Mrs. Harrison. That man was born a Papist and a farmer.”

  She shook her head, her cheek still pale. “A Papist!”

  “I could never suffer him to speak so freely to me as he did, nor so freely as I heard him speak to Miss Walden. But it is not in my nature to criticize others, and so I held my tongue.”

  “But why should he beat you then, Miss Ballard, unless you threatened to expose him? And how did he come to find you on your night off?”

  I scowled darkly. Why could not the woman leave off with her questions? I took a breath
and began the tale Dermot and I had cobbled together, based on the falsehoods I had already told, and praying it might ring true. “Perhaps you are aware, mum, of my aunt who lives in Essex Street, with whom I stay on Thursdays?” Mrs. Harrison nodded. “Well, I was foolish enough to indulge my cousin, she is just fourteen, who wished to go to one of the Punch and Judy Shows down in Paradise Square. She was like to worry my aunt to death with all her pleading, and at last I said I should accompany her. It was as we were leaving the area that we encountered Mr. Prior, who, it was clear, had been in his cups.” My words came quickly now, the story tumbling out unbidden. “He addressed me, and I acknowledged him, but liquor had loosened his tongue, and he made so bold as to say several impertinent things to me. I could not abide that he should be so free with me, and me with my young cousin present, and so I told him if he did not cease to address me in such a manner, I should have no choice but to tell Mrs. Walden that he was not all he pretended to be. Lord! How he cursed then, and struck my face, and I did my best to defend myself. I do not know what should have become of me had the fracas not drawn the attention of a drover who pulled him off of me and bore my cousin and me home.” Here I made myself begin to weep, though it hurt my face, and the ointment Mrs. Harrison had rubbed onto my skin got into my eyes and stung. “I nearly fainted in fear I should have to return and see him here, for as they were pulling him off of me, I heard him swear he’d beat the life from me if I should say what he had done.” The tears were flowing freely now, and my shoulders shook as I wept. Through my fingers, I could see Mrs. Harrison looking, by turns, indignant and concerned. She patted my shoulder awkwardly before going to her night table and producing a bottle of brandy. She poured it into my tea and pressed the cup into my hand. I sniffed, and looked up, allowing a calculated shock to show through my weeping. “Oh, Mrs. Harrison, I couldn’t take spirits!” I cried.

  “Now, now, Miss Ballard,” she said, crisply. “You drink that and it will brace you up. You’ve had a trying time of it, and no mistaking. Just this once won’t hurt.”

  I took a sip and remembered to make a face, as ladies do. I looked up at her, and she seemed annoyed by my reticence. Meekly, I brought the cup to my lips and took a swallow, making a show of schooling my features. She nodded.

  “That’s better,” she said. “Now, you’ve nothing to fear from Mr. Prior, for he’ll never be welcome in this house again. I shall speak to Mr. Buckley directly.”

  “Oh, bless you, Mrs. Harrison,” I said, taking her hand.

  “Come, child,” she said, helping me to rise. “I’ll see you to your room. You come to me twice a day for more of that ointment. Once when you wake, and once before you retire for the night. It’s rare luck that brute didn’t break your nose, but it seems straight enough.”

  “I think he did. My aunt straightened it for me, and I was in a faint.”

  She clucked her tongue and patted my hand. “Well, if I’m any judge, it should mend clean. Now then, child, I think you’d better have a rest. I’ll tell Miss Porter she’ll need to attend to Miss Walden again this evening. We’ll give you some time to recover.”

  Mrs. Harrison had put me to bed in my own room, dosing me once more with brandy, which this time she had doctored with Charlotte Walden’s laudanum. I slept that night straight through the pain that had kept me wakeful the previous two. In the morning, I woke to the sound of Charlotte stirring, and, throwing on my wrapper, knocked gently as I entered her chamber.

  She was sitting up in bed, and her face, when she saw mine, went a paler shade of white. I hurried to her side and took her hands, which she held out to me, and squeezed my fingers tight.

  “He’s gone,” she breathed, and my heart sunk, all warmth at her tender looks gone instantly cold. I pulled my hands abrubtly from hers, confusion flickering across her features.

  “Of course,” I said, not troubling to keep the bitterness from my voice. “It’s him that concerns you, isn’t it?”

  “Ballard, what has come over you?” she asked.

  “You cannot know, miss,” I said quietly, “how little he deserves you.”

  Her face darkened. “Say rather how little I deserve him! Oh, that our last interview should have been so marred by that which I had not the courage to tell him!”

  “And yet there is much he has been too coward to say to you.”

  “Coward! What can you mean, Ballard?”

  I sighed. I felt as though I were forever sighing, forever in a state of constraint and exasperation in which these two I loved had me bound. God pity all fools and lovers. And yet, though I wanted in my heart to hate Johnny for the fool that he was, I could not bring myself to hurt Charlotte by tarnishing her memories of him. “You must know,” I said slowly. “That he loved you very much. He told me so, many a time.”

  “What cause had he,” she said, her eyes growing wide, “to speak of me to you?”

  “I waited for him every night after . . . it was over. We walked together, and sometimes he would speak of you.”

  “I never asked,” Charlotte said, her voice edged like flint, “how you knew it was him.”

  I moistened my lips nervously. Lies had come easily when I was speaking to Mrs. Harrison, as of course they must, but with Charlotte it was different. I had a chance to write Johnny out of both of our lives, but I would not let myself take it. I pressed my lips together and made my choice. “He is my brother.”

  She paled. “Your brother? But how?”

  This time, my words tumbled out slowly. “We knew I should not get work as a lady’s maid if it was known I was born Irish, and he could not learn to drop his accent so well as I. It was the only way we could think to find the work we had done in Ireland. To stay together.”

  “Your brother,” she said wonderingly, peering keenly into my face. “Yes, I see it now, the resemblance. I had not noted it before.”

  “People see what they wish to see, miss.”

  “That is so.” She sighed. “I find each day new ways I have been a fool, Ballard.” She looked up suddenly. “Or is it Prior, after all?”

  I stiffened. Names have power, Da used to say when he told us all the old tales at night before we slept. Knowing a person’s true name gives you power over them, and the name Mary Ballard had been as armor to me here. Only Dermot and Johnny knew my true name, and though I loved Charlotte with all my heart, she already possessed such considerable power to hurt me. I felt her staring at me, but could not meet her eyes.

  When she spoke, her voice was gentle and low. “I will not force your confidence,” she said. “I shall still call you Ballard if you wish, you know.”

  I looked up into her sweet, earnest face, and found, in the end, that there was almost nothing I could deny her. I was already in her power, and, bewitched, I gave her one last terrible hold over me. “O’Farren, miss. Maire O’Farren. But I’d thank you to please call me Ballard, for there’s none in this country that knows me by another name, save two.”

  “Who is the other? Your aunt?”

  I snorted. “I haven’t got an aunt, miss. On nights off, I sleep in the cellar of a tavern to the north of the Sixth Ward. The publican’s mother was a friend back home.”

  “It is very strange,” she said, “that you should know everything about my life, and what little I know of yours has been but fiction.” She shook her head when I would have protested and said, more gently still, “I do not blame you, Ballard, for it has been a necessary fiction, and, had you not told it, I should not have had the sweetness of yourself and your brother in my life. For in spite of all, it has been sweet. Oh, Ballard,” she said, taking up my hands again. “Do you suppose I shall see him again?”

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak at first, and, when I did, I chose my words with care. “I suppose it might be possible, miss, but I would not set your heart upon it. When we parted, he said it must be for good.”

  “For good! But you are his sister!”

  “We came to harsh words about you, miss.
Harsh words and blows.”

  “My god!” she cried, raising a hand to my mottled cheek. “Did he do this to you? For my sake?”

  “I would not say, miss, what was not mine to tell, and we fought. When at last I confessed the truth, he could not accept what we had done, and said that he was finished with us both.”

  Charlotte groaned. “Would that I had the strength to tell him myself!”

  “He would not see reason, miss.”

  “Even still. I could not have foreseen he would react with such . . . brutality. Not him. Not my Johnny.” She reached to touch my face again, and when I flinched she pulled her hand away, as though burned. “I would not, for all the world, have had you suffer more than you have already for my sake, Ballard. Nor would wish you to be severed from your only family on my account.”

  “It is not on your account, miss,” I said. “It is through his own pride, which will not countenance the notion that you cannot be his wife and bear his children.” She would have protested, but I went on. “It is his pride that is hurt, miss. To save it, would you have given yourself up as ruined? Would you buy his pride with your reputation?”

  “No,” she said, the flint creeping back into her voice. “I could not have sunk myself to be my own groom’s wife. It would not be my reputation alone with which I paid, but my family’s. With my mother’s. With Prudence’s. Oh, it is all very romantic to throw one’s pride away for love, but it is something else again to sacrifice one’s family on the altar of such a passion. I could never do such a thing. For all that I love him, I must let his memory go.”

  When she was done speaking, there were tears in her eyes, and I dabbed them away with the sleeve of my wrapper. She moved into the circle of my arms, her auburn head resting on my shoulder as she wept softly.