Rose Of Skibbereen, The Beginning

by John McDonnell

CHAPTER THREE

  From the time the train pulled in to the station at Pittsburgh and Mary’s sister Kate met them on the platform, things went by in a blur for Rose. There was so much to see and learn and do that she felt sometimes like her head would burst from taking it all in.

  Their employer was Mr. John Overton, a brusque, no-nonsense man who worked for the railroad and had financial interests in several other businesses, including a natural gas well. His wife was Nancy Overton, a tall, thin-lipped, haughty woman who ran her household with a firm hand. They had four daughters: Melissa, Victoria, Jane, and baby Caroline. Melissa was the oldest, at 15, while Victoria was 12 and Jane was 10. Caroline was 5.

  They lived in a mansion on a hill overlooking the Monongahela River and the tall buildings and blast furnaces of Pittsburgh. Rose had never been in a house so big, and its many rooms and gables and peaked roofs were confusing and disorienting.

  “How do you find your way around here?” she said to Kate. “I’d be lost forever in all these rooms and passageways.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” Kate said. “You’ll get used to it, Rose. And all the traipsing up and down steps will keep you fit.”

  “It hasn’t kept her fit,” Mary said, when they were alone in the attic bedroom that Kate had said was theirs, and they were unpacking their steamer trunks. “Why, I’m sure she wasn’t that stout when she left Ireland. I’m thinking she’s eating a sight better here.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” Rose said. “None of us had enough to eat back in Cork. My two sisters look like skeletons. It’s the reason I came here, to send money back and put some meat on their bones.”

  “Well, you’ll have your chance,” Mary said. “Mrs. Overton said we’re to be paid four dollars a week! Faith, I feel rich already. I don’t know what I’ll do with all that money.”

  “You’ll be smart to put some of it away and send the rest back home,” Rose said. “That’s what I’ll be doing.”

  “Ah, Kate sends enough home to feed the lot of them,” Mary said. “I’ll do my share, but I’m not going to live like a nun. Did you see some of the clothes on the women over here? I picked out two or three dresses and hats already that I’d like for myself. I’ll be the finest-looking serving girl in Pittsburgh, I will.”

  “And you’ll be the stupidest,” Rose said. “Spending your money on silks and satins! That’s no way for a good Irish girl to live.”

  “It is if she wants to meet a man,” Mary said. “I like this place already, Rose Sullivan, and I’ve no intention of going back to that miserable farm in Cork. I want a better life. I’ll meet a man here and marry him, and I’ll have the life I long for.”

  “Why Mary,” Rose said. “I’m shocked at you. I thought you were only here to help the people at home, like I am.”

  “It’s no life back there,” Mary said. “Look around you, Rose. They have trains that run on the road here, and gas lamps on the street, and a stove that’s run with gas instead of a miserable peat fire like we had at home. They have brass handles on the doors, and steak on the table at night, and fine clothes to wear. The whole place gives off an air of progress, of invention, of excitement. It’s where I want to be, and I’ll make a life here no matter what.”

  “Then God be with you, Mary,” Rose said, “but I won’t be sharing your dream. It’s back to Ireland for me, in ten years’ time.”

  As time went on Rose never lost her determination to go back. There was a lot to learn, though, and she barely had time to think of Ireland from morning till night. She and Mary were up at dawn to make the breakfast for the family, then they had to clean up, make the beds, sweep out the rooms and the downstairs, polish the silverware and the furniture, dust the whole house, go to the market and buy food for dinner, make the luncheon and the dinner, then clean up after that. Two days a week they had laundry to do, plus ironing, and many other tasks that left Rose weary and ready to fall in bed at night and sleep soundly till it was time to get up and do it all over again the next day.

  Mary’s sister Kate had a little bit of education, so she had responsibility for the girls, tutoring them in French and Latin, making sure they practiced their violin and piano, taking them in the carriage to their dance lessons, among other things. It was an easier life, but she had earned it -- she had started ten years ago doing the very work Rose and Mary did, and she had worked her way up to a nanny position. Kate was lame, from an accident in her youth, and she walked with a limp, so it was a good thing that she had advanced to an easier station. She liked the Overton girls and they were obviously fond of her, calling her “Aunty Kate”.

  At night she would sometimes come up to Mary and Rose’s cramped attic bedroom and gossip with them, tipping them off to all the personalities of the household. She told them in a whisper that they had to beware of Mr. Overton, who often developed a fondness for the serving girls, and sometimes tried to kiss them if he caught them alone.

  “It’s the reason they can’t keep girls here,” Kate said. “Since I’ve been here it’s been a revolving door -- girls are always quitting or getting fired because of Mr. Overton.”

  “Then how have you lasted this long?” Mary said. “Hasn’t he tried something with you?”

  “You see this foot, don’t you?” Kate said. “He won’t try anything because I’m damaged, in a manner of speaking. The mistress knows that, and it’s why she trusts me around him. Two pretty young things like yourselves, though -- that’ll be a different story.”

  “I’ll keep my eye out for him then,” Mary said. “And it’s sorry he’ll be if he ever lays a hand on me. I’ll crown him with a frying pan, I will.”

  “And you’ll regret that to your dying day,” Kate said. “Don’t you know that he’s a rich and powerful man, and he could make sure you don’t get another place in Pittsburgh if ever you tried something like that? There’s nobody would hire you with a black mark like that on your record. Worse, he could have you on the next boat back to Ireland quick as a flash.

  “No,” she continued, “you girls just stay close to me, and I’ll make sure nothing happens. I can handle the old reprobate.”

  Rose kept a watchful eye around Mr. Overton, who was a large, ruddy complexioned man with an auburn mustache. He was a man of action, who was often out of the house looking after his business interests, and for many months Rose saw little of him.

  However, Mr. Overton took a liking to Rose, calling her, “red-haired Rosie” and teasing her mercilessly when he was around, and it wasn’t long before the lady of the house noticed.

  One morning when Rose was serving tea to Mrs. Overton in the parlor, she said, “Have you ever been kissed, Rose?”

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am?” Rose said, feeling herself blush deep red.

  “Oh, don’t be so shy,” Mrs. Overton said. “A pretty girl like you must have been kissed by now. Tell me, has a boy ever kissed you?”

  Rose found herself thinking once again of the shockingly powerful kiss of Sean McCarthy. “Well, ah, I suppose I have, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Overton sipped her tea and smiled. “You suppose you have? I would think you wouldn’t have to suppose about something like that. Have you been kissed or not?”

  “I have, ma’am,” Rose said. “By a boy at home.”

  “And what was it like?”

  “It was very nice,” Rose said.

  “Nice,” Mrs. Overton said. She took a sip of tea and pondered that answer. She smiled again. “I’m sure it was more than nice, from the way your face has turned scarlet. Be that as it may, I’m glad that you have had the pleasure of being kissed already, because then you will not make the mistake that some other girls have made in this house.”

  “Ma’am?” Rose said. “I don’t understand.”

  “What I am saying is that in the course of working here you may be subject to some, ah, attentions from Mr. Overton,” she said. “He is a bold, active man, and he is used to seizing the opportunity, as he calls it, in business. Thi
s quality of forceful action is an asset for a businessman, but not for a husband and father.” She looked out the window, and Rose detected a great sadness in her eyes.

  “There are times when he, ah. . . well, he gives in to his carnal impulses and takes liberties with. . . ah, the domestic staff.”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Rose said. “I still don’t understand.”

  “You can’t be that stupid,” Mrs. Overton snapped. “I will speak plainly: He will do what that boy in your home town did, what all men do.” She put the teacup down with a clatter. “But I daresay he will be more forceful about it than your country swain.”

  Rose looked down in silence.

  “I am warning you,” Mrs. Overton said, an angry edge to her voice. “If this happens, you will be dismissed immediately. I cannot have my serving girls seducing my husband.”

  “Seducing, ma’am?” Rose said. “But I would never--”

  “Silence!” the lady said, her eyes blazing. “Do not talk back to me. I have long and bitter experience with these situations, and I know how they happen. I am only telling you this so that you know what to expect. And so that you have no illusions about his feelings for you. Certain girls in the past have had the foolish idea that my husband was in love with them. I suppose it is natural for a simple Irish girl who’s never been kissed by a man like John Overton to think such a thing, but