The Hibernian was packed, and Dermot had to shout for me to hear him over the din. “Where’s himself then?”
“Knocked up.”
“Shouldn’t you be nursing him?”
I shook my head. “Ain’t supposed to fraternize with the Irish horse groom, am I?”
He nodded. “Right so, lass. Aye, I’m coming,” he hollered to another group clamoring at the bar, before turning momentarily back to me. “If it gets too much for you, you just nip downstairs as you please, aye?”
I nodded back and took my mug. None of Johnny’s usual crowd had arrived, not that I was in much of a mood for Quigley’s teasing or standing on the fringes as they talked about the glories of the Democratic party. To add to my irritation, there was nowhere to sit, and so I slipped out the side door to the alley. Here, the roar of the bar and the calls from the street echoed dimly from the walls, so I took a sip and closed my eyes. The alley was all in shadow and a sight cooler besides. I breathed in deeply the smell of stale beer, the hot, thick scent of summer, and tried to let my anger melt into the cobbles underfoot. There were a few casks and hogsheads along the wall, and I clambered up onto one near the door. From this perch, I leaned my back against the cool bricks of the building and drank deeply.
The light had faded and I was near to draining my mug when I heard the alley door bang open and shut as a shrill voice cried out, “Piss, shit, cunt, fuck, goddamn!”
I looked down from my barrel to the author of this tirade and saw a girl near to my own age, who stomped her foot with some passion. She was very small with delicate, doll-like features and a pretty face that she had screwed up into a scowl so severe that on her sweet mien it was almost comical. Her skin was the color of strong tea and weak cream, freckles sprinkling her upturned nose like currants scattered in a cake. The boot she had stomped belonged to a tiny foot, and her gown was cut high to show her slender ankles and the swell of her calf beneath silk stockings. Her show of leg was matched by the bareness of her arms and the tightness of her bodice, which had been laced to great effect, and her small, high bosoms peeked over the lace edge. Most remarkable of all was her hair, which had been set with sugar water and hung in stiff, perfect ebony ringlets against her cheeks and coiled into twists that rose above her neck.
I laughed at this stream of profanity, issuing, as it did, from such a dainty creature, and she looked up in surprise.
“Lord!” she cried. “You gave me such a start!” Her voice was all of the broad vowels and crisp consonants of the tonier parts of London, and, as she spoke, she held one little hand theatrically to her bosom.
“Not half the one you gave me,” I said, still looking down at her, and she laughed a merry, tinkling laugh.
“I should think!” she said, smiling. “Oh, but I promise I don’t speak so harsh all the time, but only when I am most terribly vexed.”
“And what made you so vexed just now?” I asked.
She laughed again and shook her head, her stiff curls scarcely moving. “La, it is nothing, only a bit of business didn’t come off quite as I’d hoped. I’ll be well presently. I say,” she said, changing the subject suddenly, “have you got a light?”
I hadn’t, and I said so, but she shook her head. “Never mind.” She rummaged a moment in her reticule, which was beaded gaudily, until she found a man’s monogrammed cigarette case. From this she plucked a single cigarette, then, raising her eyebrows suggestively at me, she disappeared around the corner and out into the street in front of the tavern. She reappeared a moment later, crossed one arm under the other, and regarded me thoughtfully as she puffed.
“It’s a sight far too hot in there for me, and you look so cool up there,” she said.
“There’s room enough for two,” I replied, and she dimpled prettily as I helped her up. She held out the cigarette to me, and I shook my head.
She looked steadily at me. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”
I shrugged. “I don’t much care for the crowds. Truth to tell, I just wanted to drink in peace.”
The girl made a face. “Would you rather I go?”
“No, no.” I laughed. “Sure, I couldn’t send you off like that to be vexed again, could I? Besides, it ought to do me good to entertain someone who’s been in a fouler mood than myself tonight.”
She laughed again, and I discovered I rather enjoyed the novelty of amusing someone. “You’re a queer one, now.” She stuck out her hand at me and we shook like gentlemen, which tickled me exceedingly.
“Liddie Lawrence,” she said by way of introduction.
“Mary Ballard,” I replied automatically, and she snorted.
“It isn’t either. That’s no Ulster name.”
“You’ve a good ear,” I said, avoiding the question she’d left unasked.
She shrugged, smoke pluming out from her nostrils. “It’s all part of the profession,” she said. “So then, ahem, Mary Ballard from somewhere in the north—or is it northwest?—of Ireland. I don’t suppose you’d like to stand me a drink?”
In the time since I’ve come into this country, I’ve spent almost no money on myself. Miser that I am, I take my clothing allowance from Charlotte Walden and turn my wages over to Dermot O’Brien for safekeeping. I was reared to expect so little, and I am frugal. I do not read for pleasure. I do not care for frippery or sweets. I do not write letters. I do not attend the dance halls. I do not give to charity. I do not, in short, have a taste for any thing that money can buy, save, as by now I’ve made clear, I have a fair mouth for spirits, and Johnny mostly buys the rounds ever since we came to our understanding about Charlotte Walden. I do not stand drinks to people I don’t know, and I do not, on the basis of principle, particularly care for whores. It is not a distaste based on moral grounds, but it is only that I must look down on those who cannot live by their wits and must trade on their own flesh. There has always seemed to me something very sorry in not being clever enough for any trade but lying on your back.
Yet I could find nothing contemptible in this frank, cheerful girl, who looked at me with her head cocked to one side, her stiff curls hanging rigid against her neck. She smiled at me, and there was nothing in it artful or fast. There was nothing in it that I could hate, the way I always seemed to hate those who were cadging me for something. In spite of myself, I smiled back. What the hell? I thought.
I had refilled our mugs several times, and by now the Hibernian was overflowing. A session band had formed; heat and light and music poured from the open door into the alley, and we sat still perched atop the hogshead, our arms linked about one another’s waists like sisters. We swayed and sang along with the crowd inside as they bellowed through tune after tune. They were singing now “The Mantle So Green,” which my father had loved, and so I knew all the words, though Liddie did not. She swayed back and forth with me, her head coming to rest from time to time on my shoulder, chiming in with her sweet, high soprano on the refrain at the end of each verse. The night was still hot, and the places where she leaned against me made my skin prickle pleasantly.
The song ended with a great gale of cheering—evidently there was no shortage of veterans in the crowd that night—and I pulled her closer so that our foreheads were touching. We smiled at each other, and I gazed deep into her dark eyes.
“Now then, Mary Ballard,” she whispered. “Do you think you’d like to kiss me?”
I swallowed, my tongue darting nervously over my suddenly dry lips. She leaned toward me, her breath warm, her eyes half-closed. She tasted of ale and smoke. Her mouth was soft; her tongue slid between my parted lips. My arm tightened about her waist and I pulled her closer still. My pulse quickened, and I felt suddenly weak with need. I could not breathe for wanting her, and my kisses grew more urgent as I ran my hands along her sides. It was awkward, for we still sat side to side, and I pulled her up onto my lap, whereupon I discovered that I could from this vantage kiss her bosom quite freely. I felt her heart beat faster beneath my kisses, and she laughed hoarsely.<
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“Come now,” she said in a throaty whisper, edging off my lap. “Is there somewhere we can go?”
I rose and let myself down from the hogshead before lifting her down. Even with the great mass of her petticoats, she seemed to weigh almost nothing at all. I took her hand and started for the door of the tavern, but she held back. I smiled back at her and drew her into the circle of my arm. Thus steering her, I maneuvered us to the cellar stairs.
The air was humid and smelled of malt as we made our way down into the dark. Dermot had banked the fire, and the only light came from the moon streaming in at the high windows. She held my hand, and I led her toward the pallet Johnny and I normally shared. She slipped her bare arms about my neck and fell to kissing me again, and I felt myself grow slick with desire. Her high, firm breasts were pressing against my chest, and she was laced so tight I could feel every breath she drew. She was unbuttoning me as she kissed me, and I fumbled furiously with the buttons at the back of her frock. We laughed between kisses as we strove to undress one another, and at last she stepped away from me to shed her frock in a movement quick and practiced. Our eyes had adjusted to the dark by then, and in the dim blue light I drank in the sight of her. She still wore her corset and her boots and stockings, but she wore no shift, which was terribly daring and stirred me. I drew her close and began to pick at the knots of her stays. She protested, but I kissed her neck and she began to relent. I slid the thing down over her hips and pulled her down to my pallet. She reclined gracefully, and I lifted each foot to remove each boot and each stocking. Her skin shone dully in the moonlight, and she propped herself up on one hand, regarding me with a wicked, knowing grin. She gasped when I buried my face in her cunt.
I had, of course, many times imagined what such an encounter might be like with Charlotte Walden, but all of the tenderness, the slow and gentle caresses I had envisioned were lost with Liddie in the flurried, frenzied tumult of our joining. I had brought myself to pleasure and release time and again thinking of Charlotte, and felt, time and again, the secret self-loathing such actions must bring me, but Liddie, in spite of my raw and terrible need, was as generous to me as I think I was rough with her. She was skilled in the use of both her fingers and her tongue, and as she took me to the brink of pleasure and beyond, I cried out gratefully.
We lay together afterwards, sticky and hot, our joined flesh wet with sweat. Her curls were stiff against my chest and shoulder. I stroked the bare skin of her narrow waist contentedly. She smiled up at me.
“Who is Charlotte?” she asked, all innocence.
I stiffened. “What do you mean?”
She propped herself up on one elbow to look at me. “You murmured the name. Who is she?”
I shook my head, prepared to deny such a thing, but when I opened my mouth to speak, no words would come out. I felt then the tears welling up at the corners of my eyes, and I covered my face in shame. Liddie gathered me into her arms, and I wept for a time on her breast while she stroked my hair, which had come quite undone during the evening’s exertions. “There now,” she said gently. “It’s all well. You needn’t fret.” She held me until my tears subsided, then wiped my face with the corner of my petticoat.
“There now,” she said brightly. “I’ve had cullies who’ve cried before, but you’re a first.” She stood and looked at me again with her head cocked to the side. “All to rights now?” I nodded. “Good then,” she said, and began to dress.
“Will you . . . will you not stay?” I asked, uncertainly.
She shook her head as she shimmied into her corset. “The publican was looking at me queerly. It wouldn’t suit. Will you lace me, Mary? Nice perk to fucking a lady’s maid, as they’ll know how to dress you after. It’s been an age since I’ve had anyone about to do up my stays for me. I ought to have found one of you girls out ages ago.”
“How could you possibly know I was a lady’s maid?” I asked, trying to be indignant, but laughing a little in spite of myself.
Liddie shrugged. “You’ve got a neat hand for corset laces, and you’re wearing a frock that was fashionable two seasons ago. Good quality, but darker where you’ve picked off the trim. Came from your mistress, I’ll warrant. What?” She laughed as I stared at her with frank admiration. “You have to have an eye for this sort of thing in my line. I can tell anyone’s profession, for how else will I know if they’re game, or if they can pay?” I must have looked crestfallen at this, for she cupped my cheek in her hand and smiled at me. “Now, now, Mary Ballard. It isn’t every day a girl like me finds someone quite like you. I suppose I like extending you the compliments of the house.” She kissed me again and then sat to lace up her boots. “Come visit me sometime? I keep a room in Chambers Street, number eighty-two.”
“All right,” I said, becoming shy of her. The headiness of the beer and of kissing her had worn off, and I took her hand. “Liddie, I—”
She laughed and shushed me. “Never done it with a gay girl before? Or with a colored girl? Or with anyone at all but yourself? Never mind, Mary Ballard.” She rose and drew me to her for another lingering kiss. “Get to bed now, girlie, for your mistress will want you again in the morning, and you musn’t go to her reeking of cunt.” I watched her skirts swish as she ascended the stair, and then lay back on my pallet to think over the entire mad adventure in the moments before sleep took me.
Be upon your guard, in the strictest manner, against such gossiping, either as a reporter or a listener, as nothing will sooner tend to destroy both your character and your peace of mind.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
By the following Saturday, Charlotte’s indisposition had passed, which was well, for the household’s preparations for the ball Mrs. Walden held every year in honor of St. Valentine’s Day had begun. She herself had been married to Mr. Walden on the day some three and twenty years ago, and it had been his custom, when alive, to celebrate their anniversary thusly. Though she had abandoned the tradition during her period of strictest mourning, Augusta Walden had revived her St. Valentine’s Day ball a few years before Charlotte had come of age. In the days and weeks before the ball, Mrs. Harrison and Mr. Buckley were directing the house in a flurry of preparations. The house did not have a ballroom, and, on the occasions when Augusta Walden hosted dances, the whole of the second floor was transformed for that purpose. The great double doors of the salon were drawn open on one side, and those of the music room drawn open on the other, and, together with the broad second-floor landing onto which they both opened, made up the dance floor. Number seventeen Washington Square North was significantly broader than its neighbors, having been built on a double lot, and in it Augusta Walden’s visions of a fashionable address and genteel living had been realized. The house, while not so grand as those of the Astors and Jays on Art Street, or the Grahams on Bond, was still the most magnificent of those situated upon the Square and, when opened to capacity, boasted the largest assembly space.
Grace Porter and I stayed chiefly out of the way as Mr. Buckley directed the footmen, Eben and Eugene, in the movement of furniture from its accustomed spaces to one of the spare bedrooms on the third floor. The only item that would remain was, of course, the pianoforte, for not only was it impossible to shift but the musicians would need the use of it. After sniffing with considerable volume over the state of the transformation, Grace insisted I adjourn with her to the kitchen, where she might hold forth on matters more important than the removal of the rugs and the laying of Holland.
The kitchen was full of no less activity as Cook gave herself over to the preparations for the impending festivities. The accompanying supper was her chief concern, and Grace and I were enjoined to help ourselves to the tea she had just set to brew and then, for the love of god, leave her alone. We took ourselves to the other end of the table, where Johnny and Young Frank, Cook’s son, the stableboy, were sitting before a tray of bread and coffee. They rose in deference as we approached to sit. I inclined my head, and Grace gave a rapid nod, sayi
ng, “Mr. Prior,” and then turning her attention to me fully. I gave her only half an ear as she rambled on about airing gowns and polishing jewels, so intently was I focused on Johnny, who was listening to us. He seemed, I thought, more engrossed in Grace Porter’s diatribe on curling papers than he ought, and when she was not looking, I rolled my eyes meaningfully at him. He gave me a discreet half shrug before gesturing to Young Frank their departure, and still Grace prattled on. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he made his exit.
It was nearly an hour and a full pot of tea later that I was able to legitimately excuse myself to the privy, as Grace paused for breath between sentences. As I made my way back, Johnny was leaning on the open half door of the carriage house, looking far too nonchalant for my comfort. He nodded to me, less formally than he was wont. “It seems that you’ve a great many preparations to make, Miss Ballard,” he said, grinning broadly.
“It seems that you have been very attentive to my duties, Mr. Prior,” I retorted, wrinkling my nose. “I had not thought you should care so very much over the details of a lady’s toilette. Indeed,” I said, “I thought your interest in the subject almost unnatural.”
“Indeed?” he echoed. “I hardly thought anyone but you should notice a groom’s interest in any subject under discussion with the household so unsettled.”
I looked quickly around to ensure that we were unobserved before leaning close and, dropping my posh accent, asked in an undertone, “What are you on about, Seanin, you git?”
He went red, mumbling, “Just wanted to know what color she was wearing.”
“What color? Why on earth should you care about such a thing?” I asked, baffled, and he scowled shamefacedly—an expression that brought instantly to mind the rare times Da had switched us in our childhood and wrung my heart. I shook my head at him fondly. “It’s blue, right so? She’s wearing feckin’ blue.”
The Parting Glass Page 4
