by Tom Murphy
October turned to November and the time seemed to slide through Lily’s fingers like water, so quickly it went.
There was still no word from Fran. Five months now Lily had been at the Wallingford mansion. She had written once to Fran, sending her love to Sister Cathleen and promising to come and visit, a promise she truly meant to keep, but somehow the visit hadn’t happened. Time passed too quickly, and there always seemed to be some new and more exciting thing to do. Days off now were mostly spent with Susie. Something about that one fatal afternoon when she’d followed Tess made Lily afraid to go out by herself now. Susie, irrepressible, was afraid of nothing. She was filled with larks and laughter, and if she had no sense of consequences and fewer long-range plans, she was great fun to be with, a walking, skipping tonic, and Lily rejoiced in her company.
It wasn’t the same as her friendship with Fran. With Fran Lily had shared dreams, had made plans that seemed possible, so real you could almost reach out and touch them. With Susie, princess of the quicksilver moment, there was no point in even trying to be serious. Yet she was a kind girl, and honest, and implacably jolly. Susie was only half an orphan. Her father was alive, if you could call it that, so far gone he was in drink. She spoke of him only rarely, and always with a mocking air, but Lily thought she could detect a permanent sorrow buried not far beneath Susie’s ready laughter.
There were, Lily reminded herself, many things worse than death.
The pace of life in the mansion picked up with the burgeoning winter. It was the Season now in New York, and the Wallingfords were ready and well able to make the most of it. Lily had never seen, nor imagined, such comings and goings, trays so thick with calling cards you could barely see the silver, polished as it was in any case to a mirror shine by Groome himself with white gloves and jeweler’s paste. There were teas and oyster suppers and special parties for the men.
Lily had been in the house six weeks before she got so much as a glimpse of Mr. John Frederick Wallingford himself, he of the Wallingford Emporium, with all its cornucopia of the world’s dry goods, source of Mrs. John’s rope of diamonds and of this mansion and everything in it.
He looked exactly like an old turkey. A scrawny neck protruded from the starched white collar that never quite seemed to fit him, a long, ropy, wattled neck that was colored in a strange and apoplectic shade of red. On top of this unflattering column Mr. John’s head rode sharp-nosed and chinless, brows beetling over small gold spectacles, unruly tufts of white hair sprouting in every direction from around his ears, seemingly untamable. A thin, stooped man he was, with the look of having spent far too long hunched up over his ledgers, which, if rumor could be credited, was precisely what the man did. There was none of Mrs. John’s softness or good humor about him. He looked capable of biting—quick and sharp and humorless, a turkey, beyond doubt, or maybe even a turkey vulture. The man spoke not a word to Lily as he passed her on the stairs, but he terrified her nonetheless for that.
During Lily’s first months with the Wallingfords she saw the family almost not at all. Mrs. Wallingford remained vague and wraithlike among her silks and jewels and the ever-increasing demands of the New York social season. Miss Marianne was, if anything, even busier than her mother, forever coming and going and entirely absorbed in the exhausting business of being young and very fashionable. There was a son, Lily knew, John Junior, called Jack, famous for the hell he raised even at seventeen, now traveling in Europe with a tutor before entering Yale.
The Wallingford family had little reality for Lily. They moved like gods in their world of wealth and gaiety, while Lily’s days were spent with chamber pots and dust mops and, increasingly, with her needle. She heard no more of Miss Marianne’s secret romance, and saw the famous rope of diamonds only at a distance. Sometimes at evening parties Susie and Lily would be summoned to wait upon the ladies in Mrs. Wallingford’s suite, and then they’d hear tantalizing fragments of gossip, slices of mood and merriment, bits of schemes, the small cruelties and aspirations of the newly rich women of the city. These gilded, powdered, scented, whalebone-waisted, jewel-decked, and altogether glorious creatures treated the maids as so much furniture. They would say anything and do anything, and Lily found this fascinating even while she knew it was degrading, too. Their concerns, she decided, were very ordinary ones, given the lofty place most of these ladies occupied in the great world. They, too, were prey to doubts and dreams, to jealousies and love and lust, and all the other sins.
When Mrs. Vanderclift’s daughter ran off with the coachman, Lily could plainly see that the protestations of shock and horror that rippled through the retiring rooms were well-laced with sexual envy. And Lily thought of Pat, their own stableboy, he of the lithe muscles and hooded eyes and mocking smile, and she well understood how such a thing might come to be.
And Lily heard fragments of talk she understood not at all, especially from the fine gentlemen, who spoke of debentures and railroad bonds and the paper mysteries of business. It seemed to Lily that there was a price for everything in this strange world, that a paper changing hands could mean the making or the breaking of some great business enterprise, but how it was actually done was like a conjurer’s trick to her astonished eyes.
The concerns of the women, however rich they might be, were more direct and human, and Lily thought she understood them well. For weren’t they prey to all the emotions she sometimes felt herself, to pride and ambition and a desire to make a place for themselves in the world?
Often, it seemed to Lily, these women lived through their children. She knew for a fact that Mrs. Wallingford gloried in the dazzling popularity of Miss Marianne. And wouldn’t I feel the same, having risen so high, from clerking in a store to livin’ in such a palace, and my own flesh and blood waltzing the night away with the likes of the Astors? The flow of money that supported the Wallingfords’ way of life was so vast and unceasing that it was beyond envy: it had the bulk and unreality of the doings of a government. Lily thought of Miss Marianne’s latest ball gown, a froth of silk brocade and real pointe-de-Venise lace worth a hundred times what Lily would earn in a year, worn once, and now, mysteriously, torn almost beyond repair. Lily would mend it. Her skill with fine needlework had brought rewards quickly. Both Mrs. Groome and Louise praised Lily and gave her more and more needlework to do.
The incident of the gilt-silver knives had endowed Lily with a kind of presence in the servants’ hall that might otherwise have taken her years to achieve. She was aware of the luck in this, and treated her small fame carefully, like a fragile thing that might easily be broken. Only when the question of replacing Tess came up did Lily venture to suggest Fran. And Mrs. Groome did indeed make inquiries at St. Patrick’s, only to learn that Frances O’Farrelley was already in service, with a wealthy family in Brooklyn Heights.
If it had been me, Lily thought, I’d have written, or sent a message somehow. There was a betrayal in it, after all, for hadn’t she and Fran been best friends, and hadn’t she made Fran’s monogram in her finest needlework, and Fran herself made a hair ribbon all embroidered with flowers? Maybe they’re holding her prisoner, maybe she’s locked in the cellar, maybe she’s dead. But Lily remembered her own first months in the service of the Wallingfords, and how queer everything had seemed, what with a hundred different discoveries to make every day, and a whole new world to learn, and the simple fact of being very tired after a long day. Not betrayal, then, but just life, that’s what it was, and there was the shame in it, life with all its tricky currents pulling you this way and that, taking from you all of a sudden, and just as suddenly giving you things that you hadn’t asked for and maybe didn’t want, but there they were anyhow, and what were you going to do about it?
Brooklyn Heights was a world away, far across the harbor, and the only way to get there was by boat; it’d take hours. Fran might just as well have gone to Paris as Brooklyn.
Only when Susie commented on how short her skirts were did Lily notice how much she had grown. Winter had com
e and gone and the big house on Sixteenth Street and Fifth Avenue was stirring with spring and the expectation of young Mr. Jack Wallingford’s return from Europe. Almost a year he’d been gone, making a very grand Grand Tour as Mrs. Groome put it, off with a tutor who was, if you could believe Patrick, more of a keeper. Jack Wallingford’s arrival would be a major event for the family, but Lily hardly considered herself part of the family, and so she put this out of her mind, and let down her hems, and thought of other things.
One thing Lily thought of was money. Mrs. Groome was holding eight dollars of Lily’s wages, almost a fortune. She lived in thrift, and watched her small hoard grow with a miser’s satisfaction. To spend five cents on a day off was to spend a lot Lily remembered her plan, to set up a dressmaking establishment with Fran. Maybe nothing would come of that now, at least not with Fran, but it hadn’t been such a bad plan. The eight dollars wouldn’t be enough to set up anything, but it was a beginning. If she could save fifteen dollars in a year, then in five years she’d have nearly a hundred! That was a sum that could do things in the world! Why, you could buy steerage to England for twenty-five! Not that Lily had any desire to go to England, or to go anywhere by steerage. But it was something to dream on, and Lily was never afraid to dream.
One day she woke up and realized that in a few days she’d be sixteen. Susie McGlynn was almost eighteen and considered herself a woman of the world. They still shared the little room in the garret, and Susie was as much of a chatterbox as ever, bubbling over with all the little dramas of seething young womanhood. In Lily, the older girl found a rapt audience for her amorous adventures, real and projected. Susie was such a cheerful girl, and generous in her spirit, that Lily could hardly find it in herself to condemn her friend on moral grounds.
But the fact remained that Susie had long since discovered the allure of Patrick’s hayloft, and of Patrick himself. At first Lily was scandalized, but the romance of it intrigued her, not to mention the danger and the addictive sense of participating, however vicariously, in a great love story while it was actually happening.
“Ah, Lil, a wonderful thing it is, loving a fine strong man like my Patrick!” And Susie would cast up her eyes toward heaven, recalling the strength and the fineness of him. Lily was tempted to ask the obvious: would it last, would he, as the saying went, make an honest woman of her? But these were hard questions and Lily was too careful of her friend’s new happiness to risk destroying it. Instead Lily overcame her earlier reservations and became love’s willing handmaiden, bearer of messages, deviser of ruses, covering for Susie while Susie and Patrick explored a forbidden continent of lovemaking and self-delusion.
The risk was real, and beneath her joy and merriment Susie knew it. The facade of stern morality was as much a part of the Wallingford establishment as the limestone pillars that framed its iron gates. And while servants as a class were expected to be feckless, if not worse, the more obvious moral lapses were not tolerated by Mrs. John Wallingford. The Wallingfords’ position in New York society was tentative at best, their money being new and they being Catholic, and Mrs. Wallingford was well aware that even the smallest chink in her social armor could prove fatal. That was why the scandal of the stolen knives had been so thoroughly hushed up. A guest in the Wallingford household must feel secure in every respect. A servant’s immorality might prove contagious and could not be tolerated for that reason.
But love, for Susie McGlynn, transcended all barriers. Her days off were no longer spent with Lily now, although more often than not it would be with Lily that she’d leave the house, only to meet Pat at some predetermined rendezvous. On these long afternoons Pat would invent some business with one. or another of the Wallingford carriages, and he and Susie would enjoy long jaunts up into the countryside that lay north of Fifty-ninth Street, out into the meadows and hay-fields and orchards where there was no one but an occasional seagull to disturb their idyll.
Watching Susie, Lily learned of the tempestuous heights and depths of feeling that turn love’s landscape into an obstacle course for the unwary. Now Pat was a god, golden, untouchable; now a devil, cheating and fickle, despised and forsaken. The truth, Lily was sure, must lie somewhere in between, but it seemed true that, for Susie, whatever pain came with her love, the loving was worth it. Lily had never seen anyone so transported by happiness, and the happiness itself was contagious. They had always laughed and had fun, Susie and Lily Malone, but now their friendship took on a new dimension, welded by secrets, strengthened by the shared confidences of Susie’s love.
In a way, Lily was glad that Pat had singled out Susie to love, for Lily had sensed a vague danger in the simple presence of the dashing stableboy. Patrick represented temptation, and even while she considered herself at least half a child still, Lily felt the aura of wickedness and forbidden pleasures every time Pat was nearby. Susie’s romance effectively defused the stableboy: Lily could see him clear, and as the air of naughty glamour faded, Pat became more human to her, a rather simple boy, in fact, touched with the luck of his handsome looks and not at all afraid to use them. But there was nothing deep about Patrick. He loved fun, loved horses, girls, and ale, and enjoyed them all as often as possible and with so few scruples and inhibitions that his very passions had a kind of animal innocence about them, a directness and simplicity that had its own special appeal. Especially for Susie McGlynn.
Once cupid’s arrow had found its way to Susie’s heart, it was quickly followed by all the demons of jealousy, and this, too, became an object lesson for Lily. Pat had a charmer’s looks, and magnetism, and there was a directness about his enthusiasm for girls that drew response from many quarters, and with very little effort on his part. He had made Susie no promises, and therefore felt no scruples about going with other girls now and then. This drove her mad, and the second phase of her romance was fraught with dark suspicions, with espionage and tears, with confrontations that had only the effect of confirming her suspicions, because Patrick would never take the trouble to deceive her.
Lily overheard part of such a scene.
“Who was she?” Susie’s voice was choked, bitter. “Don’t deny it, Pat, for I saw her from my window.”
This was happening in the courtyard, in broad daylight, for Susie had grown careless now, and she didn’t mind who might see or hear her. Lily, passing by the stables with a jug of milk for the coachman’s wife, saw the two of them standing half in and half out of the stable, Susie red of face and damp of eye, Pat stone-faced and cool.
“And do ye own me, then, Susan, and am I a darky slave, for all that we take a fine tumble now and then? And whose business but mine is it who I see, and when?”
“You don’t care for me, not one bit, you’re a scoundrel, Pat, just a scoundrel, so there!”
“Am I, then? ’Tis sorry I am to hear it, for I was just beginning to think I’m a fine fellow, after some of the things you’ve been telling me, and only last night, as I recall it. Was I mishearing ye, then, Susan?”
“That was last night, before you betrayed me!”
“Betrayed? It is a strong word, that, now, isn’t it? Well, then, I am sorry if I betrayed you, Susan.”
“Ah, what can be done with the likes of you? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!”
She turned and ran across the courtyard, head bowed, heedless of who might be watching. Patrick stood there and followed Susie with his eyes, and slowly a smile crept onto his lips as she vanished into the kitchen, a soft, curling cat’s smile. Lily hurried on with her errand, not sure whether they had seen her. So this was love, what wars were fought for, and suicides died for, and fortunes spent for? Watching Susie’s explosion, Lily had suddenly felt sorry for Pat. Was it his fault, after all, that she loved him that much more than he could, or would, return? Here she was, ranting and accusing, and accusing him of what? Of doing a thing that obviously came as natural to Patrick as breathing. Of doing a thing he felt no guilt for, as why should he—the guilt was all on Susie’s part, her invention, a new device to
torture herself with, for Lily was coming to realize that for Susie this torment was a part of the pleasure, strange as that might be. Puzzled but loyal, Lily took Susie’s part automatically, unthinking, as befitted her role of confidante and friend. How sad it was to see the grand affair curdling right here before her eyes! For as she moved briskly into the carriage house with her jug, Lily realized that for Pat the affair had been just an incident, a brief exchange of pleasure for pleasure, and that it was over now, or soon would be over, and what had her friend gained for losing her honor to a stableboy? Unimaginable delights, to be sure. An adventure, even if it ended sadly, might be better than no adventure at all. It was most confusing, this new wisdom that had come so fast, and uninvited, to Lily Malone.
She hadn’t asked for the burden of Susie’s love, and having been given that burden, Lily wasn’t at all sure what to do with it. How could she, a virgin, advise a girl like Susie? Lily wished for Sister Cathleen, who always knew what to do. But even Sister Cathleen might be unapproachable on such a subject as this one. Mrs. Groome, whom Lily often asked for advice on other matters, was precisely the last person in the world to tell about this. If any telling was to be done, Lily decided, she most surely would not be the teller. She left the milk with Mrs. Williams and walked slowly back to the big house. Susie, she knew, would be upstairs in their room dissolved in tears. Lily resolved not to go there, not just yet. For what would she say, and what could she do? To imagine being able to change Pat was like thinking you could stop the tide from running, or the sun from coming up tomorrow morning.
Lily thought these things without quite realizing she had just made the first mature decision of her life.
