The Parting Glass
Page 24
I caught my breath. My heard raced as I weighed my options. By now, surely, he had seen my shadow against the glass. My mouth was dry as dust. Since Liddie and Dermot had told me about Johnny Prior and his position in the Order, I’d felt my footsteps dogged. Perhaps I had imagined this, but still, perhaps not. I resigned myself to finding out, pulling on my wrapper, and opening the door to the servants’ stair.
His face was gaunt and unshaved. The beginnings of a beard marked his jaw.
“Christ, you look like hell,” I said, a nervous smile twisting my lips as I said it.
He laughed, a bitter sound. “You’re no beauty yourself, Mar,” he replied, brushing the loose strands of hair back from my face.
I laughed too, at this, and shook free from his grasp. “What is it you want, Seanin?”
“Is it true?” he asked hoarsely. “That she’s to be married? Is it true?”
I snorted. “I’m a born fool. Should have known it was her you’ve come about.”
“You’re thick,” he said, but reached out for my hand and grabbed it tightly as I scoffed and tried to turn and go. “Now, Mar,” he said. “You know well enough why I’ve kept from you.”
“Aye, I’d not have thought it of you.”
“Sure and they’re not bad lads,” he said ruefully.
“Not bad with a shillelagh is what I hear.”
“Only when it’s needful.”
“And from what I’ve heard of you, it’s been needful often enough.”
His grip tightened. “I’d asked Dermot never to speak of it to you. Goddamn the man.”
“I’ll hear naught against him!” I said fiercely. “He’s been a true friend to me, Seanin O’Farren, and if you’d asked him not to speak of it to me, sure and it’s that you knew I’d not take well the news my brother had turned so rough.”
“And what if I did?” Seanin said, dropping my hand. “ ’Tis a rough city. Christ, it’s a rough world, rougher still for us Irish, and if I wished to get ahead, there was naught for it but to rise up and meet the path before me.”
“You once said,” I began slowly, “that, as we were kin, the only kin we have now, you’d not be parted from my side. And after all we did to come here, to stay together, I come to find I barely knew the lad I was so desperate to stay beside. The things I’ve heard you’d done . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I’d not believe it, at first. And it’s queer to think you’ve held yourself apart from me all this time. That I knew we were growing distant with each other and I never thought you had this . . . this other life.”
He made a face. “Sure, and it weren’t I alone with something to hide. You never said a word to me about her. That it was about . . . how you cared for her.”
“Never needed to, did I?” I said. “And didn’t the truth shine out of my face? I thought you liked to see a lass in love, but only if you’re not in love with the same person?” I looked down. “You knew.”
He swallowed. “Might have done.”
“Ah, go on. You knew.”
He sighed, exasperated. “And what if I did? It was me she wanted, Mar. She wanted me. There was never any contest between us for her. What was I to do?”
“You could have said!” I looked up, eyes blazing. “You might have told me you knew how things stood. I’d have borne it better, maybe.”
“Maybe. And maybe no. You never did see her for a person. Christ, you made an idol out of her, and, as far as you were concerned, she was always just a prize I didn’t deserve to have won. I’ve always loved her for the woman she is, not the lady you’re paid to make her seem. But at least I’ve always known her for flesh and blood, Mar. What’s it she’s been to you?”
I froze, stung. There was nothing bitter or sharp or reproachful in his words, the way there ought to have been. There was only curiosity, the naked question that I could not answer, for answering it made me no better than the baron or Mr. Dawson, and I could not bear to throw my lot in with such as them. And so when it finally came to me to open my mouth, I said something else altogether.
“Was it,” I asked tentatively, “was it because I pushed you away, loving her like I did, that you joined the Order?”
He took hold of my hands again, but gently this time. “No. Christ, Mar. You’d grown so close with her, so wrapped in everything she does, you can’t remember anymore it’s a role you play. That if they knew you were Irish, and Catholic to boot, you’d not be welcome in that house. The nights you stayed away from the Hibernian, when I talked with the other men there, I come to realize how bad it’s growing. And then I was out there in the thick of it, and, ah, well,” he said as I went pale. “Best not to dwell on that. I did what I had to. To protect myself and my countrymen. There are thousands of our people in this city, and more coming all the time, and the folks’ve been here before us don’t like it any too well.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “The lads at Dermot’s place seem to do all right. Sure, look at Dermot himself—does he not prosper? He’s thick with that Tammany lot.”
“Aye, the lads have prospered, in their place. And those who’ve the backing of Tammany do well enough. But there’s nativist gangs who’d not see us prosper further, and would take away what footholds we have here. Or are we to be content to be their servants all our lives?”
“But you’d been in service all your life! So’d our da. So’d our mam, come to it. And I didn’t see you complaining about the hours you spent in Charlotte Walden’s carriage house.”
“Aye, and I’m expected to be content with that after I’ve shared her bed? I couldn’t court her. I wasn’t fit. But if this is supposed to be a land of opportunity, why shouldn’t I rise? Why shouldn’t I have something better here than I did back home? If I left everything behind, should it not be for a better life? Mar,” he said, “I want a better life. I’m planning for a better life.”
We stood silent there for a moment, and the silence between us grew until it seemed a living thing.
“Well, and out with it,” I said finally.
He ran a hand nervously through his hair. “There’s a ship,” he said.
I shook my head. “Sure, and I’ve heard that one before.”
“To Dublin,” he said. “This one is on its way to Dublin.”
“And who would you know in Dublin?” I asked.
“Where’d you think I’ve been these months? And there are some there,” he said, “as think that a man’s worth ought not to be judged by the church he sings in on Sundays. That we should have the same sorts of rights as other men do, and are helping our people to rise.”
“You sound like a right Republican,” I said.
“So what if I am?” he shot back, and I stared at him, taking in his frank, earnest face, and once more feeling the waves of jealousy at him rise up and overwhelm me, and I shook his hand from mine in disgust.
“And how will life in Dublin serve her?” I asked. “And till that day that you have all those rights, what will you have her do while you’re plotting treason? Live on scraps, make her work to survive, take on the service you’re so keen to shed? Or will you turn to ‘protection’ over there to keep her in style, and let her spend her days making calls on your other Republican friends’ wives? Drop her card for every Hibernian’s dam? Embroider St. Brigit’s cross on your hankies? What name will she whisper to you at night—Johnny or Seanin? What manner of life would she have, your Mrs. O’Farren-Prior, while you’re fighting for your equality with a fecking brickbat?”
“It needn’t be that,” he said sullenly. “I’ve a fair deal saved by. You have too, if you’re of a mind to it. There’s no cause for us to stay in service, when we could start over. Nobody knows us in Dublin, except my contacts in the Order—I could be anyone there. I could set up as a merchant, or a horse trader—and I know the right people now to make it happen. It wouldn’t be so grand as here, but she could still live well. As the Tredwells or the Melvills do.”
I tossed my head. “I’ve never seen her d
ance a waltz with Gansevoort Melvill, or taken tea with Elizabeth Tredwell. Don’t move in quite the same circles, do they?”
“Said it wouldn’t be as grand,” he muttered. “But it could be respectable, and it could be in style, and no one would need to know that I was born in service, and she was born to riches. And we could be together.”
“Well, then,” I said, crossing my arms. “I supposed you’d better shimmy up to that window and get down on one knee to ask her.”
Seanin gave a short, hoarse laugh. “Christ, you really are a bitch, Mar. I’m offering a new life, a new start, for all of us.”
“All of us,” I said. “For me to do what? Go on every day plaiting her hair and doing up her buttons? A new life for the two of you, maybe.”
“What care I who’s doing her buttons or plaiting her hair? You’ll ne’er be happy unless she’s by, so come with us, aye, but have pity on a man, Mar, and ask her for me?”
“Come again now?” I asked, shaking my head. “Are you not man enough to ask her yourself?”
“You know ’tisn’t that. Jesus, I’d give up my eye just to see her again, Mar.” He held up a paper, folded into a crisp, neat square and sealed with a blob of red wax. “Please, Mar. I’m begging you. Please.”
I snatched it from his hands and marched back to the house without another word.
There are things I saw, from the way she held that paper, that Seanin had written there, but I’ll be damned if I ever tell them to another living soul, for every stolen word burned into my heart like a brand, and there are some secret things, written with the heat of love, that burn too brightly to be shared. I never knew he had it in him. I suppose I never really understood until then.
But Charlotte knew him, and now, seeing his heart laid bare on the page like that, she ran to the window overlooking the mews. She pushed the curtain aside, and, with the candles blazing brightly behind her, her red hair flaming, I knew she must look like a beacon from below. She gasped, putting her hand to the glass a moment before touching her fingers to her lips and to her heart. The sight of her doing it in profile from where I stood in the corner of her room nearly slayed me. I dare not think of what it did to Seanin waiting in the dark below.
It will neither be required nor expected of you to speak with the elegance and polish of an accomplished and highly educated lady, nor with the accuracy of a professed governess; but it will add much to your respectability.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
The first time I clapped eyes on Charlotte Walden, I loved her in the same moment. Mrs. Harrison had shown me into the parlor, where I sat on the stiff horsehair sofa, my back ramrod straight, smoothing my skirts for the third time, waiting. It was early autumn then, and from the vantage of the front windows, I could see the trees in the park turning, branches of crimson and gold breaking out amidst the paling green. There were so many trees there, and I was thinking how unlike home it was when I heard a rustle of skirts in the passage, and I rose as Charlotte Walden appeared framed in the door. She wore a morning dress of celadon muslin, her hair arranged in a few curls that fell along her cheeks and a simple knot at the nape of her neck. At her throat she had a cameo, but, aside from the ivory combs in her hair, she wore no ornament. I dropped a curtsy, and she bade me sit, taking the chair opposite. In her hand, I recognized the letter of introduction Dermot had written for me, imitating a lady’s mincing hand. A born forger, Dermot. An odd talent for a publican, but a useful skill for one who did a steady side trade as a one-man registry office and labor agent.
Charlotte smiled, dimpling prettily, and I smiled back as demurely as I might. My heart, which I had felt so recently broken by Nuala Begley, thumped rapidly and loudly against my ribs, attesting suddenly to its wholeness.
“You are Mary Ballard, I think?” It was less of a question than a statement, but I nodded my assent. “I am Charlotte Walden, but you will know that, of course.”
“I do indeed, miss,” I said in my best impersonation of Bathsheba Kirk’s soft and cultured Edinburgh burr. Dermot had coached me thoroughly, forcing me to practice for days on end, not allowing me to speak a syllable in my own voice until he felt the timbre of my words was perfect. “It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, and I am most gratified for the opportunity to present myself in your employ.”
Charlotte nodded graciously. “How long have you been in New York, Miss Ballard?”
“I am but new arrived.”
“From . . . Yorkshire, is it?” Charlotte asked, glancing at the letter.
“Indeed, miss.”
“But you are not English?” Again, though it was not exactly a question, it invited an answer.
“No, miss. I came over from Scotland when my mistress, who was Miss Lillian Campbell, married and became Mrs. Burke.”
“As her lady’s maid?” Charlotte inquired.
“No, miss, as my mother’s daughter, for I was no more than eight at the time. It was my mother who was her maid. My father, God rest him, had been the Campbells’ head groom.” The story Dermot and I had concocted stuck as closely to the truth of my life as possible.
“Oh, I see. And when did you become Mrs. Burke’s maid?”
“When my mother passed out of this world, miss. She had trained me, you see, and I had the benefit of working all my life in the Burkes’ employ.”
“What were you, then, before you became Mrs. Burke’s maid?”
I pressed my lips together. Dermot and I had not anticipated this particular question, but I decided that, when in doubt, it was probably best to stick to the truth. “I was a housemaid,” I began, and then, seeing her eyebrows shoot up, quickly amended, “But only for a year before I became a chambermaid, and then Mrs. Burke’s youngest was weaned and I became a nursemaid.” Charlotte nodded expectantly, and I plunged on. “And all the while, of course, my mother trained me up, for it was always expected I should follow in her profession. When ladies came visiting and did not bring their own maids with them, it was I who served them.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows had lowered considerably, but there was still, on her face, a slight air of surprise or disbelief. “That is a great confidence shown in the abilities of one still so young. Pray, what is your age now?”
“I am four and twenty,” I lied, adding three years to my life. “And have spent the past four years as Mrs. Burke’s maid.”
“Yes, that is in accord with her letter.” Charlotte glanced at the document again, though it was clear she was quite familiar with the contents. Her long fingers fiddled with a corner of the paper. “And you quitted her service because she was removing to Dublin?”
“Yes, miss. When Mr. Burke passed, God rest his soul, Mrs. Burke was resolved to go to her sister in Dublin, but I having no wish to go to that city, my mistress was kind enough to book my passage over the Atlantic.” This part of the story was vital. With no address for the fictional Mrs. Burke, save one in Dublin, there would be no surprise should a potential employer write and find the letter returned.
“Why not stay with your mistress and go to Dublin?” Charlotte inquired. “Since you had been with the family for so long?” And, as I had practiced with Dermot, I bit my lip, as though wondering how much to reveal before taking a deep breath and diving in.
“May I be quite frank with you, miss?” I inquired, and, at her nod, went on. “I am a Presbyterian, miss, as my mother was before me, and the Burkes were. And you will know, of course, miss, that Dublin is rife with popery, and I did not wish to go to that city. My aunt, my mother’s sister, came out to New York two years past, and wrote to me that there were many respectable opportunities here.” I suppressed a shudder delicately. It was crucial, Dermot had drilled into me, that I leave no doubt about my religious sympathies. It would be a rare family that would hire a Catholic lady’s maid. A housemaid or a maid of all work, perhaps, but certainly not a lady’s maid. Dermot had told us that we must never cross ourselves, or invoke the saints or the Blessed Virgin, or else our positi
ons would be forfeit.
Charlotte nodded sympathetically, and I smiled at her, pleased the gambit had worked. “Well,” she said almost apologetically, “this is an Episcopalian house, but I assure you that, on your Sundays off, you might worship as you choose. There is a congregation in Wall Street, I believe.”
“It is a hard thing, miss,” I said slowly, “to be born in one country and raised in another. It is difficult to feel that one quite fits in, you see. That is why I took my aunt’s advice to come to New York, miss. Here, I can begin again, seen not as Scottish or English, but on my own merits, as myself.”
Charlotte dimpled again. “Of your merits, Mrs. Burke is most effusive. I understand you are quite skilled at the dressing of hair?” Her smile turned momentarily wry as she touched a hand self-consciously to the plain coil atop her head. “Porter, my mother’s maid, you know, has had the goodness to contend with”—she gestured helplessly—“all this. But I will require someone with great skill in the dressing of curls.”
“Oh, indeed, miss!” I said, and launched into a well-rehearsed soliloquy juxtaposing the virtues of papering, hot tongs, and sugared curls.
There were many questions testing my knowledge of style, of course, but I had spent long enough poring over fashion magazines with Nuala to be able to speak fluently about the plunge of the season’s necklines, the correct measure of fabric for a visiting gown, and the best types of lace to use for a pelerine.
In all, we chatted quite freely for the better part of the hour before Charlotte announced that I might have the position and inquired as to when I might begin.
I had come to the business with my heart sore, but I went away from our first interview smitten and smiling. I expected nothing, certainly, nor cherished any hopes that she might come to fancy me as Nuala had. That had been folly, of course, and it was rare—impossibly rare, I thought—that I should ever meet another girl with inclinations such as mine. I was content simply to worship Charlotte, to adore her as an idol, and to bask in her presence. And so it was to be for the first two years I had in her employ. I was happy, blissfully happy to be her maid, and to love her quietly, and to have my brother by.