by Ruth Glover
“She’s waitin’ to meet yer,” Gladdy said in reference to Miss Frances. “She won’t have her brefuss until you get there. Most times you’ll go downstairs to eat, but Miss Frances always has her brefuss in her room. Unless you’re sick. You’re not sick, are yer?”
“I’m perfectly well,” Kerry answered rather huffily. “I’m just small.” This eating in her room—rather a strange practice, Kerry thought, but a nice one. She and her papa had eaten at Mrs. Peabody’s boarding house table . . . most of the time. When Papa didn’t have enough “blunt,” as he called it, they sneaked food into their room, food purchased at the shop on the corner—pasties, usually, and not bad. When Miss Perley joined them it became a picnic, with the added excitement of keeping it from the landlady; they carefully picked up every crumb and hid all signs of their lawlessness. Once, when she was sick with a putrid throat, Mrs. Peabody had brought soup in to her and hadn’t even scolded when some of it slopped on the bedding. No, Mrs. Peabody hadn’t been mean; it was her daughter, Cordelia, who was a snitch and who gladly told her ma whenever she found signs of food in the Ferne room. Kerry had always been afraid Papa would refuse entrance to Cordelia, who was the only playmate, albeit an undependable friend, Kerry had.
But here, in this house, somewhere under the spreading roof, was Miss Frances, surely much nicer than Cordelia, if tones of voice meant anything.
“How come,” Kerry asked curiously, “Miss Frances eats her brefuss . . . breakfast in her room? Is she sick?”
“Miss Frances ain’t—isn’t in good helf,” the London waif explained. “Some days she feels better than ovvers, and Gideon takes her for a drive, or somefing like that.”
“How is she today?”
“I don’t know, maybe good, cause Mrs. Finch said to take you to her room as soon as you was baffed and dressed.”
Walking down the hall in Gladdy’s wake, clad in sweet-smelling clothing of unknown material and style but making her feel pretty just to be in it, Kerry felt as if she were in a dream. Was this real? Would it . . . could it . . . last?
But the portraits that graced the halls were heavy, imposing, substantial. Stiffly posed, the Maxwell ancestors gazed condescendingly on the humble passersby from gilded frames, secure in their exalted position, unshaken from their eternal imperturbability.
Down this hallway trod the two small beneficiaries of Maxwell largess: the maid who was nobody in her own right but who felt herself wonderfully superior to underprivileged maids serving a household of less consequence; the orphan, dependent upon Maxwell bounty for her very existence, but who would forever resist all efforts to restrain or constrain her uniqueness.
Each girl watched the tips of her shoes as she walked, as first one and then the other peeped from below the hem of her skirt. The girls’ satisfaction dimmed their regard for the rich carpet that glowed underfoot and closed their eyes to the intimidating stare of generations of Maxwells, who certainly must have sniffed in disdain at the insignificant parade: Gladdy, reveling in serge-topped boots laced halfway up her leg, and costing, as she was occasionally reminded by Mrs. Finch, sixty cents; Kerry, with a satisfying tingle up her backbone, reveling in chocolate-colored, nine-button shoes of the best kangaroo stock, only a little too large and costing, had she known it, $1.65, a grand sum indeed.
“How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!” Kerry half-whispered; Gladdy’s kinship was established when she neither mocked nor questioned a comment she must have found unusual if not incomprehensible.
Down the hall and around the corner they marched, an odd couple similar in many ways. Each in her own way a misfit and blissfully unaware of the protocol that shackled society to prescribed ways and made them slaves of fashion and propriety.
In the land of the free, only those souls were free that had a vision of a new life and the courage to seek it out. One immigrant—Robert Service, self-styled God’s Vagabond—said it clearly for all those who scorned the easy, familiar way and doggedly forsook the known for the unknown:
A passion to be free
Has ever mastered me;
To none beneath the sun
Will I bow down,—not one
Shall leash my liberty.
Kerry and Gladdy had no knowledge of the poet and his viewpoints but were, nevertheless, caretakers of the same spirit. Only their age kept them from being among the bold ones who surged on past the settled areas to the vast plains and deep woods that were beckoning those with a dream and the fortitude to see it through. For many of them it was more costly than they reckoned on, and in the end they paid the ultimate price. As the prairie provinces claimed them (or as they claimed the prairie provinces), some would die of hunger, some of injuries for which there was no hospital, no doctor. Others went mad from the loneliness of it all; most of them submitted to hardship beyond their ability to imagine or to describe and did it with a dedication that did not count the cost but doggedly awaited the gain that must surely follow such devotion, such determination, such investment.
In their prized footwear—Gladdy’s purchased for her at the cheapest price possible, Kerry’s purchased for someone else and cast off to her—they proudly marched toward their future. Certainly no one watching would have recognized that within the small bosoms a spark burned, which would—given the proper moment—flame into that devotion, that determination, that investment.
“’Ere,” Gladdy said eventually, “this is Miss Franny’s room.”
It was love at first sight. Entering another strange room, feeling once again at a disadvantage and about to strike out from that uncomfortable position much as a fighter would throw a hat into the ring, Kerry’s challenging “Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease” died on her lips.
For here was no Cordelia Peabody.
Lying in a big bed, surrounded by pillows of frothy white that served to emphasize the paleness of the one propped against them, Frances was an ephemeral being, perhaps even a fairy! Slight of build, making only a small mound of the covers, her only color the faint pink that tinged her thin cheeks and the fair hair that spread around her like a cloud, she seemed an other-worldly being to the wide-eyed Kerry. Prepared for another like the rambunctious, undependable Cordelia of the boarding house, and primed to stiff-arm her verbally, Kerry’s protective scriptural greeting, put on like a cloak, fizzled and faded.
Silenced for perhaps the first time in her memory, Kerry found a meaning never understood before in “Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” Because of that very cleaving, Kerry was dumbstruck.
Not so with the scrap of femininity in the bed. Holding out a blue-veined, white hand toward the newcomer, Frances smiled as sweetly, surely, as an angel. Woe and betide if this promise of purity and perfection should slip and fall from the pedestal upon which Kerry immediately enthroned her!
It was good that Frances was unaware of either the pedestal or the enthroning, so that when she spoke, it was in the gentle tone that was her usual manner.
It was the one word, “Kerry.” But the wealth of meaning! The warmth of the gray eyes! The unspoken promise of the outstretched hand!
The little sparrow that was Keren Ferne, displaced, lost, “as a wandering bird cast out of the nest,” recognized the mooring when it beckoned. In her borrowed slippers, as on a magic carpet, the sparrow “escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler” and flew to the dainty “nest.” Without a moment’s hesitation she reached out, to have her hand taken and held in a soft grip that was as an iron fist for security.
Kerry was speechless, caught up in the spell that was woven, unconsciously but surely, by the vision that was Franny. But not speechless for long. Mesmerized, she rallied. “Behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes,” she managed, but in a whisper. Never had Kerry been better served by her multitude of Scriptures, for the gray eyes were oval in shape, soulful in expression. Now their quiet depths changed, as a still pond when it is moved by a frolicsome breez
e.
Franny’s laugh was a tinkle of pure joy, not a shred of it skeptical or scornful. “Oh, I just know we are going to be the best of friends! I think, little Kerry, that you are just what the doctor ordered!”
Kerry’s smile was small, tentative, almost as if she were blind for the moment and proceeding by touch alone.
“Come, sit beside me,” Frances invited and patted the coverlet. Still blindly, Kerry climbed up by means of a stool onto the white froth that seemed a veritable magic conveyance but was called bed.
“Now, Gladdy,” Frances lilted, “we’ll have breakfast.”
Gladdy, half mesmerized by the pretty scenario, came to with a start. “Yes, Miss Franny, you’ll have it d’reckly.”
Gladdy spoke in as proper a tone as Mrs. Finch herself might have used. The moment was, for Gladdy, as glorious as it was for Kerry, and she played her role with a lifted heart. Coo, she thought, if me mum could see me now—all grand, and as important as the queen’s own maidens. And Gladdy’s hair seemed to vibrate into life as though set aquiver with static generated by her excitement. Her sixty-cent shoes quite literally danced their way to the side of the fireplace mantel. Her red, chapped hands touched for the first time the bell pull that the gentry used so casually to summon lackeys from below to their elevated position, and she gave it a magnificent yank. The opportunity might never come again, and so she lived the moment fully, eking from it every scrap of feeling possible: the responsibility! the power! the satisfaction!
Sure enough, as certainly as though the mistress herself had issued the command, in a few minutes the door opened and Finch appeared, a snowy cloth over one arm, gloved hands bearing a silver tray, chin in the air. Gladdy watched, fascinated, wondering if he could possibly make his way across the room without stumbling against some impediment and slightly disappointed when he didn’t. It would be so consoling to see someone else spill something for once! But Finch performed to perfection. And that’s why he’s the butler and I’m a maid . . . nearly, Gladdy’s half-formed thoughts ran. And then she ran, quite literally, when Finch’s eyes slid in her direction, and his head bobbed bed-ward, indicating, Gladdy supposed, that she get herself over there. Finch’s sallow, pinched face took on a long-suffering look as Gladdy helped Franny sit up straight, arranged a place in front of her for the tray, and stepped back, looking at Finch questioningly.
“The towel, Gladys,” Finch said in a patient tone. And Gladdy reached cautiously, lest she be the one to upset the tray and face the ultimate humiliation—disapproval in the eyes of Franny and Kerry—to remove the cloth from Finch’s black-garbed arm and, at his nodded directions, spread it over the knees of Frances.
With things, finally, to his approval, Finch carefully lowered the tray, righted its first tendency to tip, and said, “If the little Missy will turn slightly, she can reach things quite satisfactorily, I do believe.”
Gladdy bit her lip as she concentrated on this maneuver by Kerry. In fact, so intent was she that she tensed her muscles, squirmed her hips, and flexed her fingers in sympathy with the child’s movements. Finally, with Finch’s help, Kerry’s attention, and Gladdy’s absorbed but useless convolutions, all was settled to Finch’s approval, and he backed away, bowed slightly, and turned to the door. Only when he realized that he wasn’t followed by Gladdy did he pause, fix the little maid with his eye, and bob his head—door-ward, this time. Gladdy, till then lost in the fascinating ceremony of breakfast in bed, gave a start, turned, and followed. Some day, she promised herself silently, fiercely, it’ll be me havin’ brefuss in me nightshirt.
Gladdy returned to polishing the silver, daydreams coloring her vivid imagination. Just how and when any of it would come to pass, she didn’t know, nor care. For now, it was enough to dream. But for the first time there was another figure in her fanciful future: Kerry. Somehow, and dimly, their fate was to be together. Kerry leading, of course, and she, Gladdy, always there to follow through, to accompany, to assist.
Funny, but even in imagination, Gladdy could not conceive of herself as instigator, leader, controller. Too many generations of poverty and subjection had gone into her makeup for Gladdy to even approach the thought of total independence. But the seed was there, planted by the courier who had found her and persuaded her to seek something better for herself, and nourished by the very freedom that she breathed in the new land. It was in the air; men breathed free, many of them for the first time in their lives. Life would be what they made it; free enterprise was everywhere.
Mr. and Mrs. Finch, if they so desired, Gladdy realized, could just up and leave their employers and find work somewhere else. And sometimes they threatened to do so, with an immediate raise in pay forthcoming. You could know your value in a free land. It was incredible to the half-child, half-woman who had known nothing but poverty and suppression in the slums of London. And so now in imagination she soared, but always at the heels of Kerry. So neglected, so alone, so adrift from all things the world counts dear, Gladdy McBean had fixed her wagon to a star that was Kerry Ferne. Where, oh where, would it take her? The sky, that vast, blue bowl so typical of Canada and so endless, was the limit.
Finch turned in at the kitchen where Olga, his wife, was trussing a bird for the oven.
“Well, did yer see her? What do yer think of her—some little missy, issen she? Now we’ve got two of ’em. I have a feelin’, Finch, this’n issen goin’ to be as easy to have around as Miss Frances. Other than takin’ Miss Frances her meals now and then, and a few things like that, you’d hardly know her was around, the darlin’.”
Finch picked at a thread on his black uniform, found it hard to do with gloves, and turned to Olga for assistance, bobbing his head downward. Olga dutifully wiped her hands on her apron, plucked off the annoying thread, moved to the range, removed a lid, and dropped it in; Mrs. Finch kept an immaculate kitchen. Finch nodded approval. Careless her grammar might be, trying his patience at times, but her rotund form pleased him mightily and the cooking that made her thus. Casting a quick glance at the doors—leading outside, to the hall and the front of the house, and to the pantry where Gladdy worked—he lovingly smacked his wife’s considerable back quarters but found the experience lacking its usual satisfaction. Gloves!
“This one, though quiet right now, was mighty big-eyed,” he answered his wife’s summation of the “new missy.” “I’ve an idea she’s just biding her time. We’ll see what she’s like before the week’s over, I have no doubt. You know, pet, we’ll have to approach the mistress again about extra help. You and I and this little waif Gladdy can’t run the place alone, with only occasional help from Biddle and none at all, it seems, from Mr. High and Mighty Gideon. He sits like a king in that carriage and feels himself overworked if he so much as whistles at the horses. It isn’t fair, nor right!” Finch was getting himself all worked up, a sure sign that he would approach his employer about either more help or, as usually happened, a raise in pay.
“You’re right, as usual,” Olga said, nodding her head with its bun of thin hair fastened securely on top. “You’re the one to face ’em about it. Tell ’em the Oswalds down the street are in desp’rate need o’help and have been lookin’ our way.”
“I’d sooner be put in my grave than work for those upstarts. Think they’re mighty grand, what with all that new money from the hides of those poor little animals—beaver, mostly, now that the buffalo is as good as gone. Work for them? Never!” Finch turned his sliver of a nose ceiling-ward and looked righteously indignant.
“Well, it’s true, o’course, that the mister and missus are superior in every way.” There was satisfaction in Olga’s voice as she basked in her secondhand importance. Not entirely free from the old ways, Olga, and at times Finch himself, aligned themselves with the family they worked for. The Maxwells being “quality” and their wealth considered “old money” commanded a certain degree of respect from Finch and Olga simply on that account. Because of the Maxwells, the Finches considered themselves superior. In other
words, the Finches were snobs.
“I wouldn’t set foot in that mausoleum of theirs,” said Finch, with another sniff. “But there! I don’t need to say that when I talk to the mister.” Finch had come far enough so that, in his thoughts, Sebastian was mister not master.
“Yes, talk to him. If you talk to her, she’ll just think of ways to economize or add more jobs for me to do. That little Gladdy’s got so much to learn, her’s not the greatest help.” Olga opened the warming oven and checked the bread rising there.
“She’s a willing little thing; don’t forget that,” Finch cautioned. “We mustn’t let them Oswalds get their hands on her, for heaven’s sake, or she might jump at the chance to work in a gilded palace. And they’d probably give her more money, just to get her away from the mister and missus. Yes, I’ll approach them about additional help. I think,” Finch said, his sallow face turning thoughtful, “dinner will be late today. It’s just too hard, you understand, for you to get it on the table alone, and with only me to serve. Gladdy spilled gravy on the mister’s cuff the last time she helped. Yes, we’ll soon have it a little easier around here, or my name isn’t Newton Finch.”
Olga turned fond eyes on her husband. “Of course it is,” she said, “and of course we will. Now, if you’ll just skedaddle on up and see what the missus wants for dinner, I’ll get started on it. Slowly.”
Dinner was indeed delayed. Seated at the long table in the formal dining room, Sebastian Maxwell looked down its length, frowned, and said, “Whatever can be the matter. I have a meeting to attend this evening.”
Charlotte sighed. It was about time for Finch to expect a raise in pay. And that meant a devious route to draw it to Sebastian’s attention.
“Patience, my dear,” she said calmly, more calmly than she felt. It was too much, really, the way Finch manipulated! She had half a mind to turn him over to the Oswalds. She’d noted and understood the gleam in Sophie Oswald’s eyes the last time she had come to an “at home.” Sophie had followed the impeccable Finch’s movements carefully, and Charlotte could almost see the idea taking shape: Get him! Hire him! Take him away from the Maxwells. Pay whatever is necessary.