‘Why did you leave Ireland?’ Mrs Grimsby narrowed her eyes and glanced momentarily at Bridie’s belly as if she knew of her shame.
‘To make something of my life, madam,’ Bridie replied without hesitation.
The old lady sniffed but she accepted Bridie’s answer. ‘I’m glad to see you have a wider vocabulary than “Yes, madam”!’
‘I do, madam.’
‘“Yes, madam, I do, madam.”’ Mrs Grimsby sighed so that her bosom swallowed a fold of chin. ‘I hope you’re not going to be feeble. I can’t bear itty-bitty frightened sparrows and neither can Precious here. She’s my cat. She eats frightened little birds. Ah, Miss Ferrel.’ Bridie turned to see a severelooking woman with brown hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her thin neck standing in the doorway, dressed in an unappealing starched brown uniform.
‘Does she please you, madam?’ Miss Ferrel asked.
‘We’ll see. She’s perfectly plain. It wouldn’t do to have a beauty distracting my guests, now would it? Cut her hair and give her Alice’s uniform and explain how I like things done. My nephew is arriving at eleven so she can bring us tea. Did you send round those invitations?’
Miss Ferrel nodded. ‘I did, madam. They were all hand-delivered at dawn.’
‘Good. You can leave me now.’
Miss Ferrel showed Bridie to the servants’ quarters downstairs. Once out of earshot Miss Ferrel heaved a sigh. ‘I’m afraid you won’t be here very long,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘She’s a horrible bully to new maids. No one wants to work for her. She’s simply lonely.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘I hear you’ve just arrived off the boat from Ireland.’
‘Yes, I have,’ Bridie replied.
‘Well, you might last a little longer seeing as you have nowhere else to go.’
‘I will work hard.’
‘Of course you will. They all do, but in the end they find her intolerable.’
‘How long have you worked here?’ Bridie asked.
‘Twelve years.’
‘She can’t be so bad then?’
‘I have earned her trust, Miss Doyle. She trusts no one as much as she trusts me. And I don’t have to undress her.’ Bridie paled. ‘Oh, didn’t they tell you? You have to nurse her as well. Mrs Grimsby is an old lady who needs a lot of care. I hope you have the stomach for it.’
Miss Ferrel gave her an ugly brown uniform with a white apron and sat her down to cut her hair. ‘Shame we have to get rid of it. You have beautiful hair,’ she said, lifting it off her back and rubbing it between her thumb and fingers.
Bridie wanted to cry. She bit her lip to stop it wobbling. ‘It’s only hair,’ she replied bravely.
‘Did you leave a man back in Ireland?’
‘No,’ Bridie replied as her hair began to fall around her shoulders like rook’s feathers.
‘That’s good. You don’t want to be pining on top of everything else. So, let me take you through your duties. Your bedroom is next to Mrs Grimsby’s so that she can call upon you in the night if she needs you. As mark my words, she will need you. You will rise at 6 a.m. and light her fire without waking her. You will run her a bath and put out her clothes for the day . . .’ As Miss Ferrel listed her chores Bridie kept telling herself that nothing was beyond her capability. Hadn’t she impressed Miss Lindsay with her sewing and mending? She was going to be better than all the other maids. She wouldn’t let hard work scare her, or Mrs Grimsby’s bullying. She had suffered worse at the hands of the nuns. ‘You have one day off a month and leave to attend church on a Sunday. Are you Catholic?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Bridie replied.
‘There’s a Catholic church round the corner. Trust me, you’ll need God’s help working here so I advise you to go as often as possible but hurry back. The old crow will time you so you mustn’t hang around chatting or she’ll have your hide!’ She handed Bridie a mirror. If she was plain before, she was downright ugly now, she thought bleakly. Her hair was down to her chin. She gave the mirror back as the doorbell chimed through the house. ‘That will be her nephew, Mr Heskin. He’s very dutiful. He visits three times a week. Come, you’d better meet Mrs Gottersman, the cook, and take up the tea. She’ll expect you to know what you’re doing right away, so try not to drop the tray!’
Bridie covered her shocking new hairstyle with a white maid’s cap and took up the tea as she was told. The tray was heavy with the silver teapot and china cups and a succulent fruit cake that made Bridie’s mouth water, but she was careful not to trip on the stairs. Mrs Grimsby didn’t acknowledge her as she put down the tray and poured the tea. Bridie had seen tea being served enough at the castle to know how it was done, serving Mrs Grimsby first and offering her a slice of cake, which she accepted greedily, picking it up in her pudgy fingers and stuffing it into her mouth, then serving her nephew. Neither thanked her, but she was used to being ignored by the Deverills and their guests so that didn’t bother her.
Paul Heskin was thin and wiry with a weak chin and calculating eyes the colour of polished walnut. He sat close to his aunt and seemed to be making a grand effort to entertain her. Bridie was sure he was even flirting with the old lady, flattering her and charming her as if she were a beautiful woman of twenty. Mrs Grimsby listened to his stories, her hooded eyes impassive so that Bridie couldn’t tell whether she was enjoying his company or loathing it. All the while, Precious lay on her knee, watching Bridie suspiciously, purring loudly as her mistress’s fingers caressed her behind the ears.
When Bridie returned later to clear up the tea Mrs Grimsby was alone, her nephew having left. She sat with her eyes shut, her hand resting on the cat’s back. Bridie quietly put the cups on the tray and carried it downstairs. She then asked Miss Ferrel to show her to Mrs Grimsby’s room so she could collect her dirty linen and make her bed. When she entered her mistress’s bedroom she was shocked to see the state of it. The vast bed was unmade, the heavy curtains still closed, clothes lying discarded over the backs of chairs and all over the floor, bottles of perfume and lotions sitting without lids on her dressing table. ‘Alice left this morning,’ Miss Ferrel told her, referring to the previous maid. ‘I’m afraid she didn’t bother to make up Mrs Grimsby’s room before she left. She had simply had enough.’
Bridie set about pulling apart the curtains and flinging open the windows, making the bed and tidying the room. She gathered the dirty linen to be washed and hurried downstairs to the scullery. She derived a certain satisfaction from doing her job well. It was a way of living in the moment and not allowing her past to draw her back into a place of suffering. Guests arrived for lunch and Bridie helped the butler serve and clear away. She brought in the tea at five and cleared it away at 6.30. She lit the fire in the drawing room and plumped up the cushions when everyone had left. At seven she was summoned to help Mrs Grimsby undress and bathe. Mrs McGuire had shown her how to turn the faucets to draw a bath the night before, but now she poured a little oil into the water from the crystal bottle on the marble surround, infusing the room with the scent of roses.
Mrs Grimsby shouted commands and Bridie ran to attend to her without the slightest annoyance. She found relief in being busy. She also found a surprising respite in Mrs Grimsby’s bullying – had she been kind Bridie might have broken down and wept. This way Bridie remained protected behind the steely armour of her new persona, Bridget. Bridget took all the abuse but Bridie remained cocooned in the depths of her being, detached from the world which had hurt her so.
Bridie didn’t baulk at her mistress’s grotesque obesity, or at having to scrub the folds of her back in the bath. She was awoken every couple of hours during the night and commanded to turn her mistress, which was no easy feat, considering how very heavy Mrs Grimsby was, and sometimes the old lady would shout at Bridie to cover her feet with the blanket because they had somehow found their way out and were getting cold, or call for her chamber pot. But her mistress’s summons were an unexpected blessing for they rescued her from her nightmares where the nuns b
ore down on her like a coven of witches, scolding her for her sins and making off with her babies. As the days went on and she was required to cut Mrs Grimsby’s fingernails and toenails, wash her hair, rub lotion into the creases where her skin chafed, she grew accustomed to the old lady’s pungent smell and her incessant demands. It was as if Mrs Grimsby wanted to see how far she could push her – and Precious seemed to be watching and waiting, but Bridie didn’t know what for.
On the first Sunday Bridie left the house to attend Mass. The church was a couple of blocks away. It was the first time Bridie had left the building since she had arrived and she relished the early spring sunlight that bathed her face in its glorious radiance, and the warm breeze that brushed her skin. She longed to walk in the park and listen to the birdsong. She had taken the countryside at home for granted. Now she remembered the sound of corncrakes and rooks and the twittering of sparrows in the hedgerows. She breathed in the smells of the city and her heart yearned for the scent of damp soil and sea.
The church was large and cool and the smell of incense reminded her of home. Beside the pulpit, in a large vase, was a grand display of white lilies. The sight of them uplifted Bridie and she found a chair near the front and waited for Mass to begin. This church was very different from the one in Ballinakelly. The priest was kind-looking and softly spoken, there was a choir who sang like angels and people in the congregation smiled at her and made her feel welcome. It was a far cry from the fear engendered in Father Quinn’s church. At the end of Mass she lit candles and sent up prayers for her family back home. Once again she suffered a pang of homesickness at the thought of her mother and grandmother beside the fire and her brothers plotting at the table, and the memory of her father loomed large and bright out of the darkness of her longing. Then the pang turned to pain as her taper trembled over the candle she lit for her two babies, abandoned at the convent, and she clutched her chest in a hopeless bid to nurse her battered heart beneath. Remembering what Miss Ferrel had told her about Mrs Grimsby timing her absence, she didn’t wait to speak to anyone but hurried back to the house. She was relieved she hadn’t dawdled for no sooner had she reached the kitchen than the bell rang and she was summoned to the sun parlour.
Mrs Grimsby had many visitors. Sometimes she saw her attorney, Mr Williams, a round tub of a man with slick black hair combed off his forehead and spectacles, which gave him an air of authority and intelligence. He came in his three-piece suit with a gold pocket watch on a chain emphasizing the ballooning of his belly, and a black hat which he took off in Mrs Grimsby’s presence. He sat with Mrs Grimsby for a long while, drinking tea and pulling out official-looking sheets of paper from his briefcase. Sometimes, after he had gone, Mrs Grimsby would call for her trusty butler, Mr Gordon, who had worked for her for over forty years. He was as tall as a broom with a shiny bald head and a long square chin. She would gently pat his hand and whisper confidentially to him as if sharing a secret. Other times she would send for Miss Ferrel and pat her hand. ‘What would I do without you, Ferrel? Lord, the world is a hard place but you, Ferrel, reassure me that there is goodness in it.’ Her nephew came often and paid court to his queen. There was something distasteful in the smug expression on his face as he left the house, but Bridie wasn’t sure what it was about.
The months passed. The days lengthened and summer arrived, stifling and hot in the city. Bridie worked without complaint. Her sewing was neat, her mending almost invisible, her washing and pressing as immaculate as the most seasoned lady’s maid’s. She told herself that God would forgive her sins if she worked hard. Hadn’t Father Quinn preached that suffering purified the soul? As well as the possibility of saving her from damnation her labour also served to distract her from thinking of home, which only scorched her heart with longing and plagued her with regret. Therefore she sought solace in her duties. She learned to be one step ahead of Mrs Grimsby. When she asked her to do something Mrs Grimsby found, to her surprise, that Bridie had already done it. She was patient, tireless and dutiful. Miss Ferrel was astonished, for Mrs Grimsby’s maids had never lasted more than a month.
In July the heat was too intense to bear. Mrs Grimsby announced that the whole household would move to her ‘Cottage’ in the Hamptons until September. Bridie didn’t want to leave New York, in spite of the rising temperature, because she had made a home for herself there, between the Gothic mansion on Fifth Avenue and the church. She had found comfort in the familiarity of her routine. Now she would have to get to know another house and rely once again on the severe Miss Ferrel to tell her how Mrs Grimsby liked things done.
Unlike the mansion in Manhattan, Mrs Grimsby’s Cottage resembled a magnificent pink chateau with green shutters and a wide veranda, overlooking the sea. The rooms were large and airy with tall windows, wooden floors and pale fabrics on the sofas and chairs. It had a completely different feel to the oppressive, unhappy mansion in the city. Here, Mrs Grimsby held court as she did in New York. People came to visit her in droves and invitations were delivered daily by boys in uniform. She left the Cottage often to visit neighbours and friends and returned late and sometimes even a little tipsy, but she seemed to derive no pleasure from her outings. Her face was set in a permanent scowl and she was as bullying and unpleasant as she had been in Manhattan. Bridie was overcome by the serenity of the long white beaches and the bright, azure sea, but Mrs Grimsby seemed not to be moved by it. Bridie wondered what, if anything, made her mistress happy. Surely, the old woman had a heart. And, if she did, what would it take to open it?
Chapter 25
‘Bridget, you have shrunk my dress,’ Mrs Grimsby accused as Bridie struggled to attach the little hooks into the eyes at her mistress’s back. ‘How do you expect me go out in this?’ Bridie wanted to tell her that it wasn’t the dress that had got smaller but her huge body that had got bigger, but she knew better and remained silent. ‘Really, I can’t imagine how Lady Deverill put up with you. A slovenly maid isn’t worth having. There’s no future for you if you can’t even wash a dress without shrinking it to the size of a child’s. I suppose you’re thinking I’ve expanded? Yes, I know what goes on in your unpleasant little mind!’
Bridie let her rant on. Experience had taught her that it was better to say nothing for Mrs Grimsby liked answering back least of all. At last the hooks grabbed the eyes and the dress was firmly put together, though straining badly at the seams. ‘I can barely breathe, Bridget. Do you want to kill me? Is that it? You want to see me to my grave like everyone else.’ Mrs Grimsby turned round, her face pink and sweating. ‘They all think I don’t see through them, but I do. They take me for a fool but they are the fools, because I know them for what they are: greedy, avaricious, two-faced scavengers. Money is a great curse, Bridget. You may think me wrong for saying so, but when one is rich one doesn’t know if people like one for oneself or for what they can get out of one. Sometimes I’d rather be poor like you, with one friend who loves me for who I am. Do you have a friend, Bridget?’
‘No,’ Bridie replied quietly.
‘That’s because you don’t make yourself very appealing. Smiling would help.’ The old lady chuckled with difficulty in her straitjacket of a dress. ‘I suppose you’re going to whine and tell me I make your life difficult. Well, my life is difficult, Bridget. After Eliot died everything changed. I was on my own like you are now. I had to fend for myself. Like me, you’ll grow to be strong and resilient. Perhaps you’ll even learn to smile. Smiling might win you a husband and then you can shrink his clothes as well. Now help me out of this dress. I can’t possibly wear it. You’ve ruined it. Find me another, the blue one, or have you shrunk that, too?’
Mrs Grimsby left the Cottage in her blue dress, her great bosom almost bursting the seams at the front, and already fanning herself vigorously and breathing with effort. Bridie watched her go and heaved a sigh of relief. She was used to her abuse now but not impervious to it. Her mind wandered to the first time Mr Deverill had held her and her heart burned with longing to be
loved. She leant against the wall in the hall as Mrs Grimsby was driven away by the chauffeur and felt her mind spin as the memories somehow slipped through her defences to remind her of a time when she had had not only a friend in Kitty but a lover in Mr Deverill. A man with strong arms and a handsome smile and eyes that looked deeply into her soul and made her feel cherished. Her mother’s face floated before her and her grandmother, Old Mrs Nagle, smoking her clay pipe in her chair by the fire. But before she surrendered to the images Mr Gordon stepped into the hall and coughed deliberately, rousing her from her reverie. ‘And what are you doing?’ he asked imperiously, for it was not her place to stand there by the front door.
‘I was seeing Mrs Grimsby to the car,’ Bridie replied, shaking away the pictures of Ireland and the sense of melancholy they induced.
‘You should have called me. I’ve worked for Mrs Grimsby for forty years. She would prefer me to see her to the car and settle her in. Did you make sure she had a bottle of water?’
‘No . . . I . . .’
‘Oh dear,’ he said, clearly taking pleasure from her oversight. ‘Well, it is very hot and she will get thirsty. She always likes a bottle of water in the car.’
‘I presumed the chauffeur—’ Bridie began.
‘Don’t ever presume, Miss Doyle. It’s not by presuming that I am her most devoted and trusted servant. You have to use your head so that she doesn’t have to use hers. She is old and fragile, although you may not think so. I see the softer side, of course, which very few have the privilege to see. She will be hot and uncomfortable when she comes home. You had better be ready with a cool bath and some cold water. Did she tell you where she was going?’
‘No,’ Bridie replied.
Mr Gordon gave a superior little smile. ‘Oh, well, for fear of being indiscreet I will simply say that she is having luncheon with relations whom she despises. She will be in very bad humour when she returns. You had better brace yourself. It is a miracle that you’ve survived this long. Miss Ferrel says it’s because you have nowhere else to go.’ He shook his head. ‘This must be quite an endurance test. Or do you think you’ll find her soft centre?’
Songs of Love and War Page 29