Her Heart for a Compass

by Sarah Ferguson

  “You look so different,” the maid said. “Pretty, but not in the usual way. It’s the smile that transforms you, my lady, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’s very good to see.”

  “I show too many teeth when I smile, my mama says. ‘A little more demure, Margaret,’ she was forever telling me.”

  “Well, far be it for me to contradict a duchess, but I think it’s a lovely smile with just the right amount of teeth,” Breda said. “A real smile, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do, actually.” Margaret pulled on her gloves. “Now, fetch your hat, Breda, and I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes. Dublin awaits us.”

  The Powerscourt landau set them down on Grafton Street, which Breda informed her was Dublin’s main shopping district. Beneath black awnings glass-fronted shops, displaying gloves, hats, and fine china, sat beneath tall Georgian buildings. Well-dressed shoppers thronged the clean-swept pavements; smart carriages and dray-carts fought for space on the broad cobbled street.

  “Don’t you want to make some purchases, my lady?”

  “Perhaps later. I see there is a bookshop over there. For now I’d like to stroll, if you don’t mind, and get my bearings a little. Lord Powerscourt has furnished me with an itinerary. He tells me that I must be sure to see the old parliament building and Trinity College, especially the Book of Kells.”

  “The Book of Kells, my lady? Isn’t that just some oul book written by a monk?”

  “That’s one way to describe a historically important manuscript.” Margaret laughed, seeing Breda’s face. “Don’t worry. I am no more disposed than you are to spend this lovely autumn day poring over a dusty book.”

  “May I take a look at what his lordship has written,” Breda said, “then I’ll know what direction we are to take. For the love of God,” she added, pursing her lips, “he has a terrible spidery scrawl. Why is it that the better educated a person is, the worse his writing is? My brother Padraig can write in a better hand, and he’s had but three years of school. We’ll go this way, my lady, past St. Stephen’s Green towards Merrion Square.”

  Turning away from Grafton Street, a few steps took them to an impressively wide boulevard, and Margaret got her first glimpse of the true splendour of Georgian Dublin. The iron railings of a pretty park were on one side, where four open carriages sat waiting for custom. On the other side, the red brick and sandstone frontage of the Shelbourne Hotel dominated, with a liveried doorman kept constantly occupied by the stream of carriages. Margaret had imagined a cityscape similar to the New Town in Edinburgh, but the frontages of the houses here were red brick rather than sandstone, the buildings themselves, with their flat roofs and pretty porticos with shallow steps and fanlights above the glossily painted doors, less uniform and to her eyes more appealing. Georgian town houses faced onto all four sides of the pretty Merrion Square. Peering over the railings into the private gardens, nursemaids could be seen pushing baby carriages along the meandering paths, and well-dressed children scampered on the grass playing with hoops and balls.

  “It’s lovely here,” Breda said, “but walk a bit farther on to the canal, and it’s a different story. Leinster House, which is on his lordship’s list, is just down here, though I’m not sure why he mentioned it.”

  “It is by the same architect who redesigned Powerscourt,” Margaret informed her. “Apparently there are many similar features. That must be it over there.” She paused to gaze at the Palladian style mansion from the edge of its extensive gardens, trying to summon an appropriate sense of deference, but instead found herself mildly irritated, for by following the viscount’s itinerary she was allowing him to dominate their precious day away.

  “Trinity is next,” Breda said, setting out stoically.

  The college was lovely, gracious grey granite buildings looking out over more swathes of green, with gowned undergraduates rushing about clutching books; but as Margaret and Breda emerged at College Green opposite the bank which was once the parliament building, Margaret had had enough, though they had completed only a fraction of the viscount’s tour. “I think I’ll visit the bookshop now, and then it will be time for tea at the Shelbourne,” she said firmly.

  “Would you mind, my lady, if I took the opportunity to visit my mammy while you are taking tea?” Breda asked. “It’s not far, and I’d be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I wouldn’t ask, only she’s a bit poorly at the moment.”

  “Goodness me, of course you must go. You should have said sooner, Breda, rather than traipsing about after me.”

  “Well I couldn’t leave you on your own in a strange city. I’ll come with you to the bookshop and on to the Shelbourne, and then—”

  “You will do no such thing. You will go straight from here to your mother’s and I will come with you.”

  “Oh no, my lady, it’s a rough oul area, I wouldn’t dream . . .”

  “I have probably seen worse, when I did voluntary work in the Lambeth district of London, so lead on, unless you think your mother is too ill for uninvited visitors.”

  “Mammy will be delighted to meet you, for I’ve told her all about you in my letters. If you are absolutely sure, my lady, it’s just across the river.”

  As they approached the riverfront, the Georgian buildings wore an air of neglect, the streets becoming shabbier and the people a little more grubby. The ground-floor shops sold second-hand clothes and boots, and every third frontage seemed to be a tavern. Margaret became conscious that people were studying her, but she was accustomed to brazening that out, and Breda’s fierce defiant glare was acting as an excellent deterrent.

  On the corner of the street leading to the bridge sat a little flower girl. Barefoot and filthy, she was unkempt, with knotted brown hair and huge brown eyes. Her tentative smile tugged at Margaret’s heart. “What have you for sale?” she asked.

  The girl tilted her basket, which contained a few slightly limp pink roses. “Perfect,” Margaret said, fishing in her pocket for a shilling. “Is that enough?”

  “That would buy the basket, too,” Breda cautioned, but Margaret shushed her, taking the flowers and handing over the shilling. The little girl stared at the coin for a moment, as if she was afraid it wasn’t real, then grabbed her basket and fled.

  “They will be lucky to last more than a couple of days,” Breda pointed out, eyeing the roses disparagingly.

  “But they have a sweet perfume, and I couldn’t go empty-handed to your mother’s. I know perfectly well I paid over the odds,” Margaret added, “but the little girl doesn’t know I know, and now she can go home and tell her mama how clever she was.”

  “You have a good heart,” Breda said, shaking her head. “Mammy will appreciate them anyways.”

  The River Liffey ran brown and sluggish, and Dublin city’s heritage as a flourishing Georgian capital was obvious in the elegant expanse of the Custom House with its distinctive high-domed cupola on the opposite bank. Across the Carlisle Bridge was Sackville Street, another wide boulevard lined with elegant shops, a department store, and several hotels. Farther on, however, as they passed the post office, and the Nelson Pillar, into Upper Sackville Street, the surroundings became shabbier.

  “Tuck your watch out of sight, my lady—oh, I see you have already done so.”

  “And my purse is safe in my petticoat pocket. I told you—I’m used to areas such as this.”

  Breda stepped a little closer to her. “I always think those houses must have been very grand when they were first built, but even when we came here from Mayo, which was almost twenty years ago now, they were in a bad way. We turn here, my lady.”

  A young boy, clinging to the bare back of a wild-maned grey horse, came riding at full tilt down the street they now entered. One step in from the main thoroughfare heralded a considerably more dilapidated world. It wasn’t only that the cobbles were obscured by the filth running down the centre of the street, or the boarded-up windows or the missing slates making gaping holes in the shallow roofs. It was the stench o
f poverty, of unwashed bodies, filthy clothes, stagnant water, damp plaster, and rotting wood.

  “Mind your skirts, my lady. Sorry about the smell.” Breda was wrinkling her nose. “I never used to notice it when I was growing up here. Mammy does her best to keep the house clean, but it’s hard work at the best of times.”

  “Please, don’t worry about it. I understand perfectly how difficult it is without a fresh supply of water. What is wrong with your mama, Breda?”

  “The same thing that’s ailed her nine times before, only she’s getting far too old for it. I had a new baby brother two weeks ago. She thought she was past all that, for my youngest brother is now six years old, and it would have been better if she had been, for something went wrong when her time came. Agnes, who is my third sister, had to take her to the Rotunda—that’s the lying-in hospital just a few steps from here. They thought the little one wasn’t going to make it. He’s very sickly yet, and Mammy has had the priest round to baptise him as a precaution.”

  “Oh, Breda, I wish you had told me. If there is anything she needs . . .”

  “What she needs is to have my father let her alone,” Breda said tartly. “If you’ll forgive the plain speaking, my lady. She’s forty-four years old, and doesn’t need an extra mouth to feed. To be perfectly honest, and God forgive me for saying so, it might have been better if the little mite hadn’t survived, and—ah no, I don’t mean that. I only hope this time it is her last. Mind your step now, for we have to cross here. And there is Cillian, if I’m not mistaken. My youngest brother. He should be at school, the little scallywag.”

  Breda stomped over to where a cluster of urchins, some barefoot, others wearing outsize boots, were playing a game of marbles. The smallest but cleanest, presumably Cillian, stood up at her approach, throwing his arms around his sister’s waist; and Margaret laughed, for his winsome smile immediately dissipated Breda’s frown as she crossed to join them.

  “It’s this house here,” Breda said, “first floor. There’s only Mammy, for Agnes had to go back to work yesterday at the biscuit factory over in the Liberties, and the boys all work near there at the brewery, where my father is employed. My other sisters are in service like me, in a big house in County Kildare. That just leaves Padraig, who is at school, and the little one, too, of course.”

  “Baby Liam. He cries all the time,” Cillian informed them solemnly. “And so does Mammy.”

  Breda pressed a penny into her young brother’s hand. “Away and buy yourself a barley sugar now. And it’s back to school tomorrow or else.” Breda’s smile faded as she got to her feet. “Mammy cried like a watering spout for a month after Cillian was born too. Come on then, my lady. Let’s go in and see if we can cheer her up.”

  Two hours later, their mission accomplished, they found themselves at the Shelbourne Hotel. The foyer of the hotel was as opulent as its frontage promised, with highly polished marble floors, gilded cornicing, marble pilasters, and a series of arches leading to the public rooms. It could not have been more of a contrast to the three cramped rooms in which Breda’s family lived across the Liffey.

  “I am Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott, a guest of Lord Powerscourt,” she informed the maître d’hôtel who greeted them. “I believe the carriage is stabled here? l would like to take tea, and then have the carriage sent round in perhaps an hour?”

  “Certainly, my lady. Your maid may wait in the foyer.”

  “Miss Murphy will take refreshments with me.” Margaret almost laughed, for it was difficult to tell whether Breda or the maître d’hôtel was the more scandalised. Margaret threw the man an imperious glance worthy of her mother, which resulted in them being led into a large salon decorated in gold and cream, facing a garden, and placed at a round table in the window.

  “My goodness, you didn’t half put him in his place,” Breda whispered, casting a harried glance over her shoulder, “but it’s not seemly for me to be here.”

  “You must be hungry, surely.”

  “Growing up in our house we were never anything else, but . . .”

  “I have no desire to take tea alone. Lady Julia assures me that the Shelbourne does the best afternoon tea in Dublin. And look,” she added as the platters began to arrive, “I think she was right.”

  There were smoked salmon and watercress sandwiches on soft white bread, and egg mayonnaise with cress on Irish soda bread. Buttermilk scones with cream and strawberry jam, and sticky gingerbread. There were delicate apple and blackberry pastries with Chantilly cream, and choux pastry éclairs glazed with chocolate. And there was tea, fragrant in the delicate Belleek porcelain teapot, served with lemon slices or milk.

  “I can’t believe this spread is for just the two of us,” Breda said, her eyes on stalks.

  It struck Margaret that it did seem an obscene amount of food, given where they had just come from. “Do you visit your mama often?” Margaret asked, serving them both a selection of sandwiches and pouring the tea.

  “Once a month, on my day off if I can, and I write every week.”

  “Can all of you read and write?”

  “Yes, for Mammy made sure of it, and gave us all lessons even before any of us went to school. I remember we had a few books when I was learning, but they’re long gone, and she’s had to try to teach Cillian using newspapers, which is probably why he’s not doing so well. Mammy wanted to be a teacher, and had started working in the village school back in Mayo, but then she met my pa, and he’d no sooner looked at her sideways, to hear her tell the tale, than she was expecting me.”

  “What a shame—oh, I don’t mean that she had you, I am very glad she did, but . . .”

  “Ah, well, not long after that the famine came, and the village school closed and that’s when my father brought us all to Dublin.” Breda finished her salmon sandwich, and Margaret helped her to a scone. “Thank you, my lady. Mammy was talking of teaching again, when Cillian was a bit older, but my father did not approve and now he has given her Liam to take care of, so that’s that.”

  Mrs. Murphy’s skin had been ashen, that of a malnourished woman who has lost far too much blood bringing her child into the world. After ten children, she looked considerably older than her forty-four years, and had barely had the energy to hold the mug of tea Breda had made her. “I believe fried liver is good for building up one’s strength after a difficult birth,” Margaret said, recalling Susannah’s advice to a new mother.

  “Don’t worry. Agnes will see to that, and make sure Mammy has plenty strong porter to drink, which one of my brothers will bring back from the brewery.” Breda cut her scone in two and took a delicate bite. “You are full of surprises, my lady. I thought Mammy was going to fall off her chair when you changed Liam’s dirty napkin.”

  Margaret laughed. “It was positively fragrant compared to some I’ve encountered.”

  “You’ll be doing the nursemaid out of work, when you have your own babes.”

  “Perhaps. What about you? Do you intend to get married?”

  “I’m in no rush. I’d have to give up earning money if I took on a husband.” Breda took a sip of tea, her brow furrowed. “God’s honest truth, though, is that I’ve no wish to end up like Mammy. I know the church teaches us that children are a blessing, but if I bide my time before I take the plunge, I’m thinking I’ll be less blessed but maybe happier.” Breda winced. “Sorry, that sounds selfish.”

  “It sounds an eminently sensible approach to me. Have you finished?”

  “It seems a crying shame to leave so much food, but I don’t think I’ll be fit to eat again for days.”

  “I have an idea,” Margaret said, summoning the waiter. “Please have all of this wrapped up and put in a hamper, and supplement it with whatever you think necessary to feed—how many will be home tonight, Breda, including your father?”

  “Eight, but you can’t—”

  “Eight people,” Margaret said to the waiter. “Eight very hungry people.”

  “I am afraid the Shelbourne do
es not provide picnic hampers, Lady Margaret.”

  “I’m sure that can be remedied,” Margaret said, for the second time that day adopting her mother’s most imperious tone.

  “I will speak to the manager; it may be possible,” the waiter said doubtfully.

  “I am certain that it will be. Miss Murphy here will provide you with the directions. If you will have the Powerscourt carriage brought round now, I would be much obliged.”

  “My lady!” Breda watched the waiter’s retreating back with a mixture of glee and horror. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Do you think your mother will be insulted?”

  “No, Mammy will be over the moon. Never look a gift horse and all that.”

  Margaret got to her feet and handed over her purse. “Here, I’ll leave you to settle the bill, please, and do so without trying to barter it down. I will see you in the carriage. Will the groom mind waiting on Grafton Street for me, do you think? I would still like to visit the bookshop. I want to buy your brother a storybook. One with lots of pictures to capture his interest that your mama can read to him.”

  “That would be very generous of you, my lady, and thoughtful, too. Thank you.”

  “I wish I could do more for your mother, but I suspect your father would call it charity and take umbrage.”