“But where do the women go if they want a pint?”
“American women don’t usually drink ale,” Dermot said. “Or at any rate, they aren’t meant to enjoy it. They put it down as something only foreigners do.”
“Well, where am I meant to do it, if I’m not to do it here?”
Dermot shrugged with a nonchalance belied by the gleam in his eye as he replied, “In a grocery,” and then proceeded to roar with laughter as I expressed, at length, my refusal to do any such thing. I was too green yet in New York to know what a grocery was, and it amused Dermot to no end to hear my ignorant, Old Country notions about what it must be like to sip a drop amongst the turnips and the cabbages. In the event, the results of that evening’s brawl had been that friendless Seanin O’Farren had become Johnny Prior, acquired a few instant comrades, and, as the benefit of their collective influence and Dermot’s reign over the Hibernian, I had never again suffered insult in the establishment. Every now and again, emboldened by my example and Johnny’s stout defense, they would bring along a sister or cousin, knowing that I would be there to provide female company.
It was one of these stalwarts who greeted us upon our arrival, breaking free from a garrulous quartet to clap Johnny on the back and bow ludicrously over my hand. Daniel Quigley had been one of the first of the Irish rabbits to dive into Johnny’s inaugural fray at the Hibernian, and had, in the interim, become his closest friend. Upon learning my occupation, he took to greeting me as Lady Mary, trotting out his flawed impression of Bond Street manners and simpering upon my entrance—a tactic that by turns infuriated and delighted me, depending upon my mood. Tonight, however, I was in high spirits and took Quigley’s standard freak with good grace, allowing him to chivalrously bully a pair of drovers from their place by the fire for my benefit and pluck a mug from Johnny’s hand to offer it to me with absurd fanfare. Settling himself next to me, forcing Johnny to stand, he assumed a ridiculously erect posture and began to pay me extravagant court.
“Lady Mary,” he began, putting on a mincingly aristocratic accent that in no way concealed his natural Dublin lilt. “Thank the lord you are come! I was just engaged in a most trying conversation with O’Mara and MacBride as to the quantity of lace on ladies’ collars this season, and I fear we could resolve nothing without your expertise!” The two lads he named inclined their heads with momentary seriousness, and then snickered into their ale.
I rolled my eyes, swatting away his charade with my free hand and declaring airily that, as it was my night off, lace collars were of no consequence to me, and I would thank him to allow them to remain outside the confines of the Hibernian. This produced a far heartier laugh from him than was seemly, and my smile grew a bit fixed. Quigley’s elaborate and obvious pretenses with me made me uneasy in a way I could not quite articulate. It was thoroughly clear that the attention he insisted upon paying me was, in truth, unromantic and farcical, and I never felt with him the underlying menace a young woman sometimes has when she doubts the honorability of a man’s intentions. Quigley meant me no harm—he was, on the rare occasions that Johnny should not be by my side, a most reliable defender from insult or insinuation. But there was something too polished and knowing in his manner with me, and I suspected strongly that it was because Quigley was privy to Johnny’s affair with Charlotte Walden. Moreover, I was sure that my brother had revealed more than my complicity in these proceedings—I was positive he had also revealed my misgivings, and, from them, Quigley had somehow divined my jealousy. I had no proof, of course. The entire act might have meant anything, and the days when it failed to amuse and instead ignited my fury, I was convinced it was nothing more than the mockery a brother might use to torment his sister, such as Johnny had engaged in with me in our younger years. Tonight, however, Quigley dropped his put-on voice and absurd queries straightaway and began an amusing tale about a woman who had alighted from her carriage on Great Jones Street and mistaken Quigley for one of her new footmen, berating him at length for being in the street out of his livery. He was a gifted storyteller, was Quigley, and he had me laughing merrily in moments.
Seeing me thus engaged, Johnny caught my eye, nodding approvingly as I laughed at Quigley’s predicament, and turned away in conversation with O’Mara and MacBride. I noticed that they were joined by several other men, and spared a moment of warmth for my brother. Even back home on the estate, he had always been a favorite with the grooms and the kennel boys, attracting a knot of admirers in the servants’ hall, who hung on every word of his stories. He was so like Da in that way: genial and well liked. It was no wonder he had won over everyone from Charlotte Walden to the lads in the pub. Tonight, instead of my falling into bitterness and jealousy that I did not share such qualities, the ale buoyed me and my pride in my brother, and, from the corner of my eye, I watched him speaking earnestly before turning back and giving my full attention to Quigley’s tale.
It was cozy by the fire; I was four or five rounds in—still upright but no longer clearheaded, and feeling a general sense of satisfaction with the world around me. Quigley had excused himself a moment before and gone to Johnny’s side, and, as I raised my mug to my lips, I found it empty save for a scum of froth on the bottom. I pulled myself to my feet, the room wavering as I rose, and thought for a moment about my options. I could make my way to the bar for a refill and bend Dermot’s ear awhile. I could join the cluster of lads by Johnny, but the thought of standing idly and ignorantly by as they talked of politics was dull enough to dampen my fair mood. I chose instead to end the evening before things could grow sour, and left my mug on the end of the bar to make my way unobserved down the stairs and put myself to bed.
In the dark, cool cellar, the smell of hard-packed earth and malt rising up around me, I could still hear the din from upstairs. My head swam a bit with the pleasant rise and fall of voices, and I thought for a moment that it could always be like this, if only I could forget Charlotte Walden and remember that my brother and I were here—in this country, in this city, in this public house—because we had made a vow to stay together, and that everything we had done since arriving three years ago had been in service of that vow. But even this thought brought my desire for her rushing to the foremost part of my mind, and I went to sleep in a wash of longing, punctuated by a dull, throbbing ache in my gut.
I woke in the morning, my brother’s arm draped protectively over my shoulder, prickling with sweat from Johnny’s hot, rank breath against the back of my neck and plagued with a nether cramping that meant my monthly courses had begun.
Desire nothing but what is within your reach; for if your desires are unreasonable you may be certain of disappointment.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
Charlotte Walden took to her bed with laudanum whenever she had her courses, a habit she had inherited from her mother. I could not be certain if it was necessity or imitation that drove her to her bed, or if she merely relished the excuse to withdraw from society. Cook would make her beef tea, and she would lie about with the curtains half-drawn to dim the room, watching the shadows move across the wall. Sometimes she’d embroider, or read, or sometimes embroider whilst I read aloud to her. So long as it was Godey’s Lady’s Book or the like, I would do just fine. If it were Edgeworth, or Austen, or Radcliffe, it would be slower going, and she would be rather quickish when correcting me. I was a fair hand with Pickwick serials, too, which hardly gave me any trouble at all. I think she knew reading didn’t come naturally to me, though she would never shame me with pointing it out. She had read all those novels herself a thousand times or more, but she would never read anything new when she was poorly. I asked her why, once.
“What if,” she said, choosing her words with excruciating leisure, “what if I took up a new book, and it should not be comforting?”
“Comforting, miss?”
She waved her hand, dismissing some idea from the air. “If there should be something that disturbed my mind? Something that took hold and gave me a fright? No
, not a fright. An uneasiness, perhaps.” She looked and saw no comprehension had taken root in me. “Suppose I were to read something new and I should be troubled by what I read when I was already so unwell?”
I nodded, though, not being much of a reader myself, I had no notion of what she meant.
“Come here, Ballard.” She was holding out her narrow white hands to me. I settled on the edge of her bed and took them into mine. They were cold; I closed my warm fingers over hers. “When I am unwell,” she said, her voice low, “I want all those familiar things that buoy my spirits. Beef tea and favorite books. You by my side. I could not bear to be disturbed in the mind when I am already so low, do you see? I should never sleep a wink, I should be so anxious. That is why I must have you by, my dear Ballard, my succor.”
After that, I hardly left her for a moment when her monthlies came. I used to leave the door of my closet open so that she would know I was near. I bathed her face in her lavender water, I made her the sweet, milky tea her nurse used to make. Sometimes in the night, when she whimpered, I would sing softly to her and stroke her hair until she slept. When Grace Porter and I passed one another in the hall, our arms full of fresh flannels, we would nod and roll our eyes in mutual sympathy, but where Grace dawdled in the kitchen, I hurried back to Charlotte Walden’s room to rub her sore back or dab oil of verbena on her temples. She was my only care, though, being so long in her company, I nearly always had my indisposition when she had hers, as women sometimes do when they are so much together. My own courses never seemed to cause the cramps and fever of Charlotte Walden’s, though once when the ache seemed greater than usual, I took myself a drop or two of her laudanum to help me to sleep. It was not unlike being very greatly drunk and foggy in the head, though I found my dreams that night to be vivid, I could not remember them again in the morning.
Should her indisposition fall on a Thursday, I would forgo my night out, sending Johnny off to the Hibernian without me. When we had first come to the Waldens’ house, this had seemed to gall Johnny. But after a year or so, a change appeared to come over him, and he had become more sanguine about his nights out alone and, somehow, more purposeful. I supposed that Dermot or Quigley had knocked some sense into him, or introduced him around, for, as time wore on, I noticed that instead of his merely tipping his cap to some of the other regulars upon entering the Hibernian, more and more men greeted him by name and came to stand by him and talk in low, intent voices. On his Sunday afternoons off, he no longer asked after my whereabouts, which suited me fine, but instead went off with his new mates to speak fervently about politics and practice voting—an insipid and alcohol-fueled bit of playacting that always made me glad I was a woman born and exempt from such absurd goings-on. At such times, I was engrossed in my own doings, thinking nothing of Johnny’s preoccupations, except that I was grateful they kept him out of my hair. My rare Thursdays alone with Charlotte became precious, and my private Sundays remained my own affair.
It was on such a rare, sweet Thursday that Charlotte rang for me after I had undressed for the night. I had already put her in her bed and was preparing to climb into my own when I answered the summons. In the flickering light of the candle I held aloft, she looked pale, her white skin one with the sheet, and made even paler by the firelight glinting in her hair.
She raised herself up and held out one hand to me. “I shall not sleep tonight, Ballard,” she said. “I have been filled with such fearful thoughts that I am afraid to dream.”
“There now, miss,” I said. “Will you have some laudanum to ease your sleep?”
She shook her head, trembling a little, and drew me down onto the bed. “Please don’t leave me tonight, Ballard,” she said plaintively. “Will you be my succor tonight? My comfort?”
I nodded mutely, scarcely daring to draw breath. She pulled back the blankets and made room for me to join her. I blew out my taper and settled myself under the coverlet. I had lain on her bed before, but never under the blankets with her. The closeness of her made me lie stiffly, though I longed to take her in my arms.
In the dark, I stared at the pale curve of her shoulder beneath her white night rail. Her back was to me, and her braid curled over her shoulder. Though the blankets were up, she shivered delicately, and I carefully drew her to me, slipping one arm beneath her head and draping the other about her shoulders. She took my hand in hers, brushing her lips against my knuckles as she relaxed, the curve of her back forming to my own curved form. She snuggled down against me, the stray hairs from her braid tickling my cheek, and I closed my eyes, filled with the warmth of her. I barely slept that night, so filled with the novelty and delight of holding her cradled in my arms that I was kept wakeful with joy. She kept curling further and further back against me until I was very nearly off the bed and obliged to gently navigate her back toward the center, but I didn’t care. In the morning, just before she woke, I crept quietly from her bed to dress in my own room. I could not keep from smelling my arms, which were scented with her hair oil, as Johnny’s often were. All day, whenever I lifted my arms, the scent came wafting up, making me weak and giddy.
But that night, as I dressed her and helped her under the blankets, I looked at her expectantly and her eyes grew clouded when she dismissed me in a firm sort of tone. I waited until she was asleep, lying quietly alone in the dark before creeping softly into her room to watch her. I took her hand in mine, raising her palm, smooth and unblemished as a child’s, to my lips, marveling at the softness of her skin. She sighed and stirred, and I froze, waiting with her palm still pressed to my lips as she settled back into a deeper sleep. Gently, I laid her hand down upon the counterpane and crept back into my little closet, consumed with longing for her. My own bed seemed all the narrower and colder that night, and I woke in the morning no better rested than from my sleepless night before.
Those days I spent alone with her, she was all I could think about, every moment standing next to her, bathing her, dressing her, coiffing her hair, and the air between us seemed to crackle like the air during a storm, just before lightning strikes. At night, I would lie in my bed and replay all the things we had said to each other that day—and did she think me clever, or good? And did she lie abed thinking of the things I’d said that made her smile, and when she slept did she, as I did, dream of our eyes meeting in the mirror as I braided her hair? I knew she did not. If she dreamed of stolen looks, or the accidental brushing of hands, it was Johnny of whom she must dream, not me. I went to bed with the smell of her on my hands, and lay staring at the finial on the ceiling, until finally her perfume drove me to lick the scent off my fingertips. Slowly, silently, barely daring to move, I ran my hands across my breasts, slipping beneath the blankets. There, I worked the linen of my shift up my legs, over my hips, and slid my fingers into the down between my legs. Closing my eyes, I imagined her lying over me, her lips brushing mine. I imagined what it would be to kiss her, and the thought of brushing her lips with my tongue made me tighten in anticipation. I held my breath, picturing her as she rose from her bath, her auburn hair cascading about her shoulders, the curls wrapping naughtily around her pert nipples. My breath caught as my fingers worked the soft, wet place between my legs, and I imagined breathing in the scent of her. The pleasure of it, of giving myself over to thinking of her that way, of imagining her lips on mine, of picturing my hands wandering over the softness of her skin, brought a moan to my lips. The wet ache of my need began to overwhelm me, and I plunged my two fingers into the quavering place inside me as my longing for her crested and broke.
With the sweetness of release came a sadness, and I lay there, sticky-fingered and shamed, still besotted with pining after her. My fingers left slick trails along my legs as I pulled them back up toward my face to smell her perfume again, now coated in my own musky odor. I groaned softly, my satisfaction gone as quickly as it’d come, and rolled over onto my side, shimmying my shift down. I closed my eyes and let sleep take me, but my dreams were full of her.
Yo
u may say, indeed, it would be better were the temptation not thrown in your way; but in many situations it is unavoidable, and in all it is requisite to be very guarded and cautious in those particulars.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
With every form of comfort I took against my passion for Charlotte there came a pang, for, through the course of her affair with my brother, I had found some succor of my own. There had been one night when, Seanin being knocked up with a bad cold, I had gone by myself to the Hibernian. It had been late summer then, and the affair between my mistress and my brother had been at its height. I was feeling foul and put out, for I had been first obliged to listen to Charlotte Walden’s vague laments and pouts and then obliged to listen to Seanin’s more specific ones, and was sick to death of the both of them. The heat of the day still lingered on the cobbles, and my clothes had grown damp and clinging in the humid air as I trudged down to Mulberry Street. All along the street, the doors and windows of the public houses were thrown open to catch some slight breeze, and the air was heavy with the odors of sweat, piss, and spilled beer. From the upper windows, gay girls lounged, fanning themselves languidly or calling saucy remarks across the street to each other, occasionally pausing in their gossip to address the passersby. Men stood in small knots outside the tavern doors, their shirtsleeves rolled back, arms bare to the elbow. A few had taken off their hats, fanning florid, streaming faces as they laughed and called to the women above, bargaining in merry tones.
The heat had made me cross, and I pushed irritably past the knot of men blocking the way into the Hibernian, snapping back as they catcalled and made grabs at my skirt. They were regulars, of course, and so were only sporting with me, for by this time my face and Johnny’s were familiar sights. They laughed good-naturedly enough at my salty retorts and let me past with no trouble, but I was soured on their mirth, and was pulling a face by the time I gained the bar.
The Parting Glass Page 3
