by Tom Murphy
The big room was silent but for the noise of Bertha Dolan’s broom sliding over the clean floor. That noise stopped, and Lily turned from the window. Bertha stood at the foot of Lily’s bed, staring at Hortense with a kind of dull fascination, as though the little rag doll might bite.
“A pretty doll, that is.”
Bertha’s voice was heavy for a young girl, and there was a coarseness about it that Lily thought sounded more like the voice of a man, and a big man at that.
“Thank you.”
“Might I be holdin’ her?”
Lily didn’t want the bigger girl to hold Hortense. Lily didn’t like Bertha Dolan at all. But it was her first day, and the older girl frightened Lily. She picked up Hortense and handed her to Bertha. “My mother made her.”
Instantly on holding the doll, Bertha’s dull face changed. A lurid grin spread across her potato-shaped countenance. She laughed a shrill maniac’s laugh, and held Hortense high over her head, as though holding the doll up for sale. “Ooooh! Did she, now? Hee-hee-hee! And would that be what the poor lady died of, making such ugly things for the likes of you? Hee-hee!”
Bertha danced and pranced the length of the big dormitory, tossing Hortense high in the air, catching her roughly.
Lily ran after her. “Stop that now. Give her back!”
“You’ll be having better things to think on than silly dolls, my fine lady, for ’tis kissing the matron’s ass, you’ll be, and doing God knows what for the pleasurement of the priests!” Bertha eluded Lily easily. The bigger girl led Lily around the beds, back and forth, down the central aisle, until at last she made her way back to where the torment had begun, at the head of Lily’s own bed, near the window.
“Please,” said Lily, frantic now, on the brink of tears, “give her back to me.”
“Here’s what I think of your damned ugly old dolly, little miss, la-di-da, and good-bye to her!” Lily watched, horrified, as Bertha Dolan threw Hortense out of the open window. The doll spun in the air and fell in a heap on the lawn three stories below.
“No!” But Lily’s cry was too late.
“It’s grateful ye should be, little slut, that I’m not flinging you after her.”
Both girls stood there for a moment in silence, Bertha looming over Lily, Lily not knowing whether to fight or cry or run away. Neither of them heard the door opening. The new voice came as a surprise.
“And what devilment have you been up to this time, Bertha Dolan?”
A young nun stood at the end of the room with a clean blanket folded over her arm. She was a pretty girl with pink-and-white skin and lively blue eyes. Lily thought that if she could have seen the nun’s hair, it must be blond. Yet pleasant as she was to look on, there was authority in her voice, and a touch of anger. Obviously this was not the first time the strange nun had found herself at odds with Dolan.
“Nothing at all, Sister Claudia. I was just trying to help this poor little girl, Sister, she was so upset she went and threw her nice dolly out the window, sure as you’re born.”
Lily could only gape in speechless wonder at the speed and smoothness of Bertha’s lie. The nun came up to Lily and touched her on the shoulder.
“We haven’t met, my dear. I’m Sister Claudia, and I am in charge of the middle dormitory. What is your name?”
“Lily, Sister. Lillian Malone.”
“I see. Tell me, Lily, and you needn’t be afraid, not of Dolan here, nor of anyone in this place. Is it true, what Bertha told me?”
Lily looked at Bertha Dolan, scowling in silence by the bed, and saw her brute strength and the promise of vengeance in her eyes. Lily looked at Bertha, and at Sister Claudia. Lily had met bullies before. Fat Bessie was a bully. Lily made her decision. When she spoke, she spoke quietly.
“Bertha asked to hold my doll. She threw it out the window.”
There was a pause then, and Bertha’s face, which was already flushed from her dance around the big room, turned from red to purple.
“I didn’t ever do no such a thing, Sister. It’s lying she is, the little divil.”
“Bertha, Bertha, what are we ever going to do with you?”
There was genuine wonderment in Sister Claudia’s soft voice.
“Your reputation for truthfulness, Bertha, is not such that I have any special reason to take your word over Lily’s, even though Lily is new here. The first part of your punishment will be to go fetch back Lily’s doll, and quickly, please. Run along with you. We shall decide what else needs to be done about this when you get back.”
Glowering in all directions, Bertha skulked out of the room. Sister Claudia turned to Lily and smiled. When Sister Claudia smiled, it seemed to Lily that her whole face lit up, as though someone had a hundred bright lanterns concentrating their beams there. Sister Claudia’s voice had a special lightness to it when she spoke. Lily could sense that severity did not come naturally to this young nun.
“I apologize for Bertha, Lily,” she began. “Most of our girls are good, friendly children, and the boys too, for that matter. Bertha is a problem, there’s no denying it, and I hope you will bear with us. We try to help her, and sometimes it seems a thankless job of work. Yet try we must. Now. Tell me about yourself.”
“I have a brother. Fergus. He’s here now, too.”
“I hope you will introduce me, Lily, and it’s a fine thing to have a brother. I often wish I did. Alas, I’ve only got sisters. Sometimes it seems to me we’re always wishing for what we have not and maybe not appreciating what we have in this world.”
“I like Fergus.”
“I’m sure you do, Lily, and we must arrange that you see him as much as possible. I’ll be taking that up with Father James, who is the headmaster of the boys’ orphanage, and a kindly man at that.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
“I know, on your first day especially, dear, some things will be hard for you here. But truly, ’tis not a bad place. I only wish we had space enough for all the poor young things whose families have been taken away from them: often the poor creatures end up living in the streets, like the pigs, with nary a roof over their heads. ’Tis enough to break your heart.”
Lily looked at Sister Claudia and thought it might not be such a bad thing to be a St. Patrick’s orphan. It might not be such a bad thing to become a nun, like Sister Claudia. Lily was thinking these pleasant thoughts when Bertha Dolan came back into the room.
“Give Lily her doll, Bertha. And apologize.”
“I’m sorry.” Bertha did not meet Lily’s eyes, nor the eyes of Sister Claudia. Instead, she looked at the floor, at the toes of her scuffed shoes, at the iron leg of the bed.
“Thank you.”
“I have no further punishment for you, Bertha: your unhappiness is punishment enough. You may go back to your chores.”
Bertha bobbed in an awkward imitation of a curtsy, turned, and walked quickly to the other end of the room, where she had left the broom. Lily had the uneasy feeling she hadn’t heard the end of the incident. Hortense looked none the worse for her aerial adventures. Lily placed the doll gently on the bed.
“It might be wise,” said Sister Claudia gently, “to keep the doll in your wicker trunk, Lily. Out of harm’s way, if you take my meaning.”
Frances O’Farrelley came bursting into the room. “Good afternoon, Sister,” she began breathlessly. “Look, Lily, I think it’ll just fit.”
Frances held up one of the dark blue summer jumpers and its contrasting light blue blouse. Embarrassed at first getting undressed in front of strangers, Lily nevertheless struggled out of her old go-to-church dress and into the jumper and blouse. The skirt was an inch too long, but the blouse fit perfectly. Frances ran for her sewing kit and pinned up the hem of the jumper right then and there.
“We’ll sew it up properly tonight,” Frances said, surveying her handiwork proudly, “and it’s a fine sight you are, Lily, don’t you think so, Sister?”
“I do,” said Sister Claudia. “The color suits you, Li
ly, you should always wear blue, with that hair, blues or maybe greens, like your eyes.”
Lily blushed. No one at home had time for compliments.
“It’s a fine dress.” The dress, Lily could tell, was not new. Yet it was freshly laundered and crisply ironed and it felt good after the too-tight woolen dress she had worn to the funeral. Lily turned in place, a small dancer’s spin, and raised her arms up to get used to the feel of the uniform. She felt free, all of a sudden, as though some great weight had been lifted from her. She’d be one of them now. She’d belong in this strange, formal, frightening, fascinating new world. Lily finished her shy pirouette, and smiled at her audience of two. She liked Frances, and she liked Sister Claudia. “Thank you, Frances,” Lily said, “for taking the trouble with me.”
“Sure, and ’tis nothing. My job it is, Lily, to be the head seamstress in this dorm. Sister Mary Agnes is teaching me, and I’m teaching all as wants to learn. Tonight I’ll teach you how to take up a hem, if you like.”
“I would like that.”
Lily decided then and there to become a seamstress first, and then, when she could sew something as fine as her mother’s wedding scarf, then she would become a nun like Sister Claudia, then the matron of St. Patrick’s.
“Now,” said Frances, all business again, “I am to be giving you the grand tour, says Matron. Come with me, Lily, and I’ll show you some fine sights, beginning with our well-known indoor water faucets.”
She took Lily by the hand and led her past the glowering Bertha Dolan to the door. Sister Claudia watched them go, and a thoughtful expression came over the young nun’s face as she took in Lily’s shyness, her eagerness to please, a kind of quiet gallantry. And to think, thought Sister Claudia, on this very day she buried her mother.
4
The sun that poured so generously through the drawing-room windows of his parents’ mansion on Washington Square did little to cheer Master Brooks Chaffee.
The boy sat on the ivory-and-blue Persian carpet, his long legs folded under him—like a red Indian, Mama said, but where was the harm in it? His armies spread out in front of him, the French to the left, the British to the right, brightly painted lead figures by the dozens, detailed to the tiniest sword and bandolier, horses rearing, flags permanently fluttering in an imaginary wind.
But it wasn’t much fun unless Neddy would play with him, and Neddy had decided just a few weeks ago that he was too grown up for such games.
Brooks reviewed his troops, decided that the British lancers would be better deployed in a flanking maneuver, and proceeded to rearrange them. When his older brother’s voice reached him, it came as a surprise.
“Thirteen years old and still playing with toys, is he? And he looked like such a clever lad. What a shame.”
Brooks turned, flushing. Maybe he was too old to be commanding lead armies. Still, the bright little figures fascinated him. Even now, in the face of Ned’s mockery, he could almost hear the bugle calls.
“Someday, when I’m grown, I’ll be a famous general, Ned Chaffee, and you will be in distress somewhere and need rescuing, and I—”
“Will somehow contrive to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as they say. I’ve no doubt of it, old bean.”
Brooks stood up and faced his brother, not quite sure how far removed his laughter was from tears. Neddy always had a quick, smooth answer. Brooks worshiped his brother, it was as simple as that. The two-year difference in their ages was only a pale measure of the superiority with which Brooks endowed his brother in all things. No one could run, leap, climb a tree, tie a knot make a joke, or charm a girl with the disarming ease of Ned Chaffee. Sometimes, as in the present, this could be infuriating. Most of the time it was pure delight. And Brooks had long since learned that the only way to deal with his brother was to try, however much in vain, to match wit with wit laughter with laughter.
“And to think,” said Brooks, trying for mockery, “that I was going to let you be Wellington.”
Neddy came over to him and put a hand on Brooks’s shoulder.
“It’s all right don’t you know, old turnip? I didn’t mean to spoil your game. It’s just that your dashing brother has an appointment. Someone has to defend the Chaffee honor, wouldn’t you say?”
It was a girl, of course. It was always a girl these days, for Neddy, and always a different one. Girls were silly. Brooks hoped this didn’t mean his brother was getting silly, too. He sighed.
“If you,” said Brooks, in perfect imitation of their father at his gruffest and most intimidating, “are all we poor Chaffees have to defend our sacred honor, then I fear it is lost!”
And they both dissolved in hoots of laughter.
Neddy went off to his appointment, and Brooks stood in the window for a moment watching the older boy striding briskly across the dappled sun and shade of the park. Then he turned and looked at his soldiers for a while, and carefully packed them away in the wooden case that had been especially made for them. Each foot soldier, cavalryman, and officer had his own small felt-lined niche. When the big case was full, Brooks Chaffee shut it and clasped the latch and carried it upstairs to the old nursery. Then he put the case on the highest shelf beside a threadbare stuffed tiger and an incomplete deck of playing cards.
Lily could hardly believe that a year had passed, but pass it had, and no denying it. Not that I’d want to. In many ways, this had been a happy year. She had made fast friends with Frances O’Farrelley, and other friends, too: Sarah Fitzgerald for one, and Molly Sheehan for another. Bertha Dolan was still a menace, but she was a menace to the whole of St. Paddy’s, a universal menace like influenza or the pox. Even the bishop himself was said to be aware of Dreadful Dolan, a name that Lily had invented for her old tormentor.
It was a relief not to worry about food, or if Ma would last the night. So many bad things had happened to Lily before St. Paddy’s that the orphanage itself was an ease for her troubles. Most of the nuns were kindly, and although the orphans did more chores than schoolwork, Lily was learning to read a bit, and she could form the entire alphabet and even write her name and a few other words. And, under the friendly tutelage of Frances, Lily was learning to sew and care for linens.
St. Paddy’s was a relief, but one thing it did not relieve her from was her continual worrying about Fergy.
It was all very well to have promised Ma on her deathbed to look out for her brother, to get the wildness out of him, but it was quite another matter to actually do anything effective in the way of achieving those goals.
Sometimes Lily felt there was no more hope of taming her brother than riding the wind. Strange fires burned in Fergy, and his sister had no idea what fed them, nor how to cool them down.
Yet there he was, past fourteen and nearly grown, and fast making a name for himself at St. Paddy’s, a name worse than Dreadful Dolan’s.
When Fergy found a friend in the boys’ section of the orphanage, you could be sure the friend would be a wild one. Twice Fergy had run away and twice they’d brought him back. A third time they might not think him worth the bother, and that was more than speculation, for Lily had heard it from a despairing Father Gregory’s own lips. And every time her brother ran away, Lily felt her small world tremble, for ever since Ma died her greatest fear was to be completely abandoned, and running away meant a lad might just as well be dead, considering the life of the streets in New York and the dangers that lurked anywhere a boy like Fergy might go.
But Fergy would hear no warnings. He was bound and determined to break away and win the fortune that was waiting for him sure as sunrise, and no words from Lily would sway him.
In the darkest corner of her heart Lily knew it was only a question of time, but this knowledge was too great a burden to bear thinking on, and she avoided it with the pathetic skill of practice.
Lily had come to dread their Sunday meetings in the big visitors’ parlor on the ground-floor front of the orphanage. Today was such a Sunday, and Lily came as always to their appo
inted meeting. You never knew, this time God might give her the grace to say the right thing, to make the right gesture, to bring about the miracle that would be the saving of Fergus Malone Junior, and Lily too, for all that.
Before he even spoke a word, Lily could tell her brother had gotten himself into trouble again. His head hung a certain way, and a sly defiant glare crept into his eyes, which roamed the big heavily furnished room incessantly as if in search of lurking enemies.
“How are you, Fergy?” she asked, kissing him. He squirmed away from her touch.
“Right as rain, Lil, how’s yourself?”
His voice carried its burden of false cheer unsteadily.
She looked at her brother. “What’s wrong, Fergy?” Lily sometimes found herself slipping into the language of her babyhood: “Fergy” was her first name for her brother, and it usually had the magic power to make him smile. The magic worked. He flashed her a quick and dazzling grin and leaned closer to whisper, the two red-gold heads melding into one spot of color in the dark reception room where they had their Sunday meetings.
“Can you keep a secret, Lil?”
“You know I can.”
“There’s gold in California, Lil!”
“Yes?”
“Well, Barry and me, we figure to go out there and get us some. Lots. We’ll make our fortunes, Lil, I can support you in style.”
“Fergus Malone, you are fourteen years old and penniless. How in the name of the good Lord are you planning to get to California?”