by Tom Murphy
Maybe it was something rushed and furtive in the way Tess moved, or it might have simply been boredom and indecision and a desire not to be alone on her first afternoon outside the house. But for whatever reason, Lily found her footsteps following Tess. She kept her distance and kept to the other side of the avenue. Tess was moving fast, and looking neither right nor left. Down Fifth Avenue she went, past Fifteenth, and right across the wider, busier expanse of Fourteenth Street. On Thirteenth Street Tess turned right. Lily followed, farther behind now, for Tess seemed to move ever faster, bending forward as if walking into a wind. But there was no wind, and Lily wondered why in all the world, and on this bright beautiful day, the older girl could be in such a hurry. Maybe Tess had a lover! That would be a good secret to share with Susie, who shared all of her own secrets with Lily, generous in this to the point where Lily had long since decided that if she, Lily, ever had a real, really-truly secret, then she’d never tell it to her friend, for secrets told to Susie were only one step less public than a thing advertised in the New York Times. Still, Tess pushed on, Lily trailing.
In a month of hard work in the Wallingford house, often side by side with the unlovely Tess Reilley, Lily had never seen the older girl move so fast or with such purpose. Tess was a good worker, that was for sure, but never quick the way Louise could be quick, or Lily herself for that matter. Briskly as ever, Tess turned the corner of Sixth Avenue and proceeded downtown. And for the first time Lily began to question the wisdom of trailing her. What fun was it, anyway? Tess was probably late for an appointment with some friend, some other servant girl, and if she was a friend to Tess, God help her, the unknown friend was probably every bit as unpleasant. Lily decided that the block she was on right then would mark the end of her detective work. She hadn’t paid much attention to the three gilded balls of the pawnbroker’s sign until Tess Reilley turned into the doorway underneath them.
Lily paused in shadow across the street, and watched the small window of the shop, fascinated. It was painted in gold letters edged with black: “A. LEVY & SONS, LOANS, APPRAISALS, GOLD, SILVER.”
And what did a girl like Tess have that might be worth the pawning?
Pawnbrokers had been part of the daily life of the Malones and everyone they’d known back on Mulberry Street, feared but respected, a necessary evil attendant on the poverty that stalked their every step. Lily could remember her mother pawning Big Fergus’ clothes after he’d died, pawning their own few winter clothes that last desperate summer without the ghost of an idea how she’d ever redeem them before winter got to the Malones. Death had solved that problem for Lily’s mother, and the nuns of St. Paddy’s had kept Lily and Fergus warm and fed. But for the others, less lucky, if you could call it luck, there were the pawnbrokers.
All Lily could see from her hiding place across the street was shapes moving vaguely behind the glass of A. Levy’s window. She decided that Tess would probably murder her right on the spot if the older girl found out that she had been spied upon, and so Lily turned and walked up Sixth Avenue and tried to forget the whole thing. After all, it was none of her business, and going to the pawnbroker’s wasn’t much of a secret anyway, nothing like having a lover or doing a murder or running away to sea. Lily decided to say nothing about her adventure, and to take Susie with her next Thursday. Susie could make scrubbing floors entertaining, so just imagine what she might do with a whole free afternoon loose on the city, and fifteen cents on top of that!
Lily walked up Sixth Avenue all the way to Twenty-third Street, then turned east and crossed Fifth Avenue to Madison Square, circled the square, then walked back down Fifth to the Wallingford house. The fun had gone out of her afternoon off. Lily looked big-eyed into store windows but lacked the courage to go in. She passed the noisy oyster houses and dodged the drunken men who came reeling out of the ale shops even this early in the day. She gazed with no special interest at the cameos and lockets in a jeweler’s shop and thought how even one of Mrs. Wallingford’s diamonds would likely buy the whole shop and the jeweler too. Lily saw bands of roving street boys who looked thin and ferret-faced and ran in packs like the very rats they resembled. The street boys frightened Lily and sent a shiver down her back, for they made her think of Fergy and what might have become of him, and that maybe death was better than this, and the sight of these rambling little beggars also reminded Lily of her own good luck, for long as her day might be, hard as the work surely was, still she had a clean warm bed to call her own and decent food to eat.
When she reached the Wallingford mansion, Lily sighed with relief. The huge stone wedding cake lay in shadow now, and the clear fall afternoon had the hint of a chill on it. Lily shivered, half from the chill and half from relief, and thought of the winter coat she and Fran had cut from an old orphanage blanket. She’d go see her old friend next week, and even if she couldn’t persuade Patrick to drive her, it wasn’t all that far a walk. Smiling with the warmth of her resolution, Lily slipped through the carriage gate and into the Wallingford kitchen.
It was a week before the antique gilt-silver knives were missed.
Lily and Susie and all of the servants, even Patrick and Williams, the coachman, were summoned by a grave-faced and very sober Mr. Groome into the servants’ hall one Tuesday evening late in October. It was obvious that something was up, and something serious, but only the Groomes knew what, and they hadn’t told anyone. When the entire staff was accounted for, Groome cleared his throat and spoke.
“There seems,” said he, in tones that were heavy with impending doom, “to be a criminal in our midst.”
Lily caught her breath. A criminal indeed! On wings of innocence, her eyes flashed about the room, from servant to servant. She knew some better than others, and Williams, for instance, Lily knew not at all, but still it seemed unlikely that any of them could be a criminal. Drunk, maybe, or, like Pat, lecherous, but were these things crimes?
There was a pause while Groome observed the effect of his words. The effect was considerable. It started with small whispered exclamations, and these grew to full-blown questions, speculations, hissing, and buzzing. Lily thought of the ropes of diamonds stuffed so carelessly into the top of Mrs. Wallingford’s closet wondered if they were always kept there, and who knew, and who had access to them. And Lily thought of Tess scurrying into the pawnshop, then dismissed the thought. Tess might be another version of old Dreadful Dolan, but that didn’t make her a thief. Like everyone else, even before she knew what was missing, Lily searched the room as though the culprit might jump up and confess right then and there. That, she thought, repressing a smile, was probably just what Mr. Groome hoped for.
He continued, as if from a pulpit: “I think that it is fair to say we run a kindly establishment here, thanks to the goodness and generosity of the Wallingford family. We pay fair…and we play fair. Or, at the very least, ladies and gentlemen, we try to. Mrs. Groome sets a fine Christian example for all of us, and while some”—at this, Groome looked pointedly at Patrick, who was lounging in a corner, scarcely able to hide his boredom—“are more successful at heeding this fine example than others, we try. Yes, we try. And until this week, it is fair to say that Mrs. G. and I were well pleased with our little backstairs family, as it were. But now, now it seems we have been nurturing a viper to our bosom. Six valuable antique table knives of the finest silver gilt are missing. Six. Now, one, possibly, might be lost, thrown out by chance with the garbage. But six? No. Never. Six is deliberate. Six is theft, ladies and gentlemen, and theft, as we all know, is a crime, and crimes must be punished, and the punishment for such a crime is prison, nothing less, and disgrace. Prison and disgrace, ladies and gentlemen. Now, before I continue, let me ask you this, in all honor and fairness. Does any of you know what might have become of these knives? Or who might have taken them? It is always possible, although we doubt it, that this house has been forcibly and illegally entered and robbed. Why do we doubt it? Simply because any burglar would doubtless have taken more, and more valua
ble things. But, come, now. I hear only silence. Has no one a clue?”
The pause filled the room like smoke from a dangerous fire. Lily shifted on her hard wooden chair, looking from face to face to face, not wanting to confront the suspicions that were welling up in her. Patrick cleared his throat as if to speak, then said nothing. And still Groome waited, silent, eyeing them all, one by one and collectively.
Finally he spoke again. “If those knives were to be returned, I can promise that no legal action will be taken. Now—once again—does anyone in this room have an idea of where they might be? No? I am sorry, then, to say that one of you is lying. Lily Malone, stand up.”
Lily stood, blushing, not knowing where to look. She looked at Groome, fascinated, half-paralyzed with fear, a dazed little mouse looking at a very large, very hungry cat. Groome reached into his deep trousers pocket. He pulled out a shining gilt-handled knife and held it aloft like the True Cross itself. Lily stared at it, helpless.
“Can you tell us, then, Lily, what this was doing in your own wicker trunk, found this afternoon?”
It was like being hit by a brick. Lily stammered, tried to speak, failed, tried again. “I…never saw it. Never.”
She knew they all thought she was lying. Lily saw the jail-house, the cold iron bars, disgrace, death. She looked at Susie. Susie was staring at the floor as though it represented her only hope of survival. Then Lily heard the whispered hiss from Tess: “Thieving little slut, that’s what she is.” The fear sat in Lily’s gut with a cold and paralyzing weight. Yet as Tess spoke, something changed in Lily. She looked at Tess. Suddenly the fear in Lily turned to white-hot rage. She turned to Groome and met his accusing stare. Then she pointed at Tess Reilley, and spoke: “Can ye tell us, Tess, what it was you took to Mr. Levy’s pawnshop last Thursday?”
The reaction was even quicker and more dramatic than Lily dreamed. Tess shot to her feet, screaming, clutching at her throat as though she’d just swallowed poison. She made little gasping sounds and her dull round eyes blinked faster and faster. Mr. Groome and his wife looked at Tess in wonderment, not knowing whether her performance amounted to a confession, an accusation, or if the girl was simply having a seizure.
“I…I…I…” But Tess could not form the words.
Lily found words of her own. “Mr. Groome, sir, I surely did not take the knife you have, nor any other. If it was in my trunk, someone put it there. I don’t know, to be sure, what it was that Tess brought to the pawnbroker, but by chance I did see her go there, Thursday it was, my first day off, you see. The Levy pawnshop on Sixth Avenue it was, down by Twelfth Street.”
“I know the shop. In fact, I know Levy.” Mrs. Groome, as was her habit, quickly took charge. Her husband was still staring at Tess as though the girl had just arrived from another planet.
Mrs. Groome continued: “Tis late, Mr. Groome, but it is Levy’s habit to keep late hours. Chances be fair he’ll still be in the shop. Go, then, sir, and ask him what Tess brought. Surely, Tess, you can have no objection to that? If it’s innocent ye are, there’s nothing to fear. Or is there, girl?”
Tess had stopped sputtering and commenced, now, to wail. It was a high, thin, piteous sound that put Lily in mind of the mournful keening of the older women at her own mother’s wake. The wailing went on and on, and it seemed to the Wallingford servants that it was going to go on for all eternity. Mr. Groome roused himself to action and left the room, clutching the valuable knife and shaking his huge round head at the inconsistencies of fate.
At last Louise spoke. “This foolishness, mes amis, does not mean one should not have some tea, non?” And she set about making a big and very welcome potful.
Tess finally stopped her wailing and settled into a kind of rhythmic snuffling. She was sitting down again, and her frazzled head rested on her arms, on the polished oak table from which they all ate their meals. Lily felt sorry for Tess, that this new sorrow should be piled on top of whatever other troubles she must have, to make her so miserable. For surely her behavior amounted to an open confession. To steal knives? What could such knives be worth, and what would a pawnbroker give for them? Lily looked at Tess calmly, knowing that her own innocence was proven. The girl kept her head down, kept on sniffling and snuffling, and the minutes dragged heavy as wetwash. Suddenly Lily felt very tired. She wanted nothing more in all the world than her own quiet pillow, and to close her eyes in darkness.
It was not to be.
Groome came storming into the servants’ hall, more angry than Lily had ever seen him, too fat for an avenging angel but on fire with righteousness nonetheless. He paused in the doorway theatrically, savoring his newfound importance in the backstairs world. Then he pointed at the thin, pathetic, quivering back of Tess Reilley, even as Lily had done.
And he spoke with the voice of fate itself. “For shame, Tess Reilley,” he boomed, “to so repay our kindness, and the kindness of the Wallingford family!”
The snuffling turned to wailing again, as if a switch had been thrown.
Lily looked at Tess and thought of all the many times Tess had tormented her, needlessly, just for whatever sick pleasure the older girl might get from bullying someone younger, weaker, someone who couldn’t really fight back. I wished—prayed—for bad things to happen to her, and now they have, and why aren’t I feeling happy? But all Lily felt was pity.
Groome spoke again. “You can go now. This is a matter for Mr. Wallingford himself, and for the police.”
At the sound of the word “police,” Tess screamed outright, then lapsed into silence.
Embarrassed, ashamed, and altogether disconcerted, the servants began drifting from the room in silence, looking everywhere but at Tess.
Lily stood up and started for the door.
Mr. Groome reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder. For once, she felt kindness in his gesture, and didn’t cringe from it. When he spoke to her, there was a new gentleness in his voice, too. “Lily,” he said softly, “we are truly sorry. Try not to judge us harshly, child, for we had no way of knowing.”
“Oh, sir. Please think no more of it: I understand.”
“Then sleep well, Lily. And thank you.”
Lily all but ran into the hallway and up the dark stairs. She felt as though she had gone through some terrible and deadly combat, and by a miracle won it. But there was no feeling of triumph or revenge satisfied. To Lily, Tess Reilley was a poor tormented soul, and her howling in the servants’ hall was only a small portent of the future, which, Lily was stone-cold certain, the girl would spend howling for all eternity in hell.
They never saw Tess Reilley again. By the time Susie stopped chattering, by the time Lily’s nerves calmed down enough to let her sleep, it was well past midnight. She heard the rustle and slam of hasty packing in the room next door, and the bump of a trunk being hauled none too gently down the stairs. The bells of St. Stephen’s chimed one. Lily heard Susie’s soft, even breathing, and looked up from her thin pillow at the window. The roundness of it stood out blue-gray against the pitch-black wall. Lily could see one small star. It looked cold, that little star, and lonely. One of the girls at St. Patrick’s had a theory that all the stars in heaven were actually the souls of dead people who had been unhappy in life, now doomed to roam the cold night skies forever. Lily knew this was madness, but seeing the lone star made her wonder, and she imagined it might be Fergy’s soul, wandering the skies forever in search of her, Lily, his long-lost sister. And that was madness, too, and she must sleep, but the more Lily thought on it, the more intriguing the idea became. Unhappy or not, how thrilling to be so brilliant and aloof, to cross the skies in silent majesty, to look down on all the oceans of the earth, on all its citizens, to be so totally removed from all of life’s dilemmas! It was a waking dream that Lily had, lying in her garret room and waiting for sleep’s late arrival. She closed her eyes, but not to sleep. Instead she imagined what the world must look like, seen from the window of a star. Suddenly Lily was high, high in the night sky
, higher than any steeple, higher even than birds flew or the masts of tall ships. And the earth and all its creatures was a small, dark, soft, round thing, a plum that had lain too long in the fruitmonger’s basket. The thought thrilled Lily even at the same time that it sent cold waves of terror quivering to her toes.
It was a long time before Lily Malone slept that night.
Lily was the only one of the Wallingford servants who could resist the subject of the late, unlamented Tess Reilley and her shameful depredations.
To Lily, Tess was a sad thing, a Bertha Dolan gone wrong, maybe beyond saving now. They learned the Wallingfords were reluctant to prosecute, having recovered all their knives from the pawnbroker on payment of the fifteen dollars he’d given Tess. Fifteen dollars! Yes, surely that was a small fortune, nearly a year’s pay for Lily, but to ruin your life for such a sum? The knives, Groome implied, were worth vastly more than that, although how much more, precisely, remained one of several mysteries surrounding the case. Another mystery was what had become of Tess. There was endless speculation about this, but the Groomes said nothing, and no one else knew for sure.
To Susie McGlynn, Lily had become a heroine. “Ah, and ’twas a fine show you put on, Lil, sure and you turned on the bitch like a scrapper, and gave her what-for, and didn’t she go all funny when you did it, and wasn’t it grand, a truly grand sight to see?”
Lily found it less than grand, a deed she was hardly proud of. For no matter what the strictures of justice might be, Lily felt that she had done a thing that was somehow dishonorable, playing the informer on one of her own; however guilty Tess had been, however ready to push the blame off on others. If ever, thought Lily, I take up a life of crime, ’twill be on a far grander scale than swiping six old knives! But she greeted Susie’s effusive chatter with silence, and before very long even Susie tired of the subject. It was easy to forget Tess Reilley, for they had done their best to ignore her even while she was in their midst.