by Tom Murphy
The knock on her bedroom door was loud and unexpected.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Lily all but fainted. There stood Jack, smiling. She was surprised to discover he knew where the servants’ quarters were. Jack said nothing, but only motioned her to follow him. He led her down the stairs and through the paneled wall to his suite. Then he turned and kissed her.
“Arrangements,” he said rather grandly, “have been made.”
They’re going to kill me dead. They’re going to turn me out without a good word, or a good-bye. Can you be pregnant and a nun?
Jack smiled, calm, benevolent. “I think you’ll be pleased, Lily.”
Lily gathered what strength was left in her. “I don’t understand you.”
“I can’t say it was easy, don’t think the old man let me get away without some very harsh warnings. But the upshot is, my dear girl, that a draft for one thousand dollars will be written to your name—”
“One thousand dollars!” Lily gasped. Never had she dreamed of such a sum.
“Surely it will be enough?”
“Oh, yes, yes…and thank you.”
“That’s not all, Lily. The details are being worked out on the other end, at the Emporium. Passage is booked on a cracking new clipper.”
“What are you telling me?”
“Simply that you’ll have a new life, Lily. A position in the Wallingford Emporium, some respectable clerical sort of thing, not bad, you know, my mother did it.”
“But the clipper?”
“California, Lily. You’re going to California. To San Francisco, and next week!”
15
Jack left her then, and all Lily could do was to sit down on her bed in mute amazement.
California!
It was startling, unexpected, and absolutely right. To make a new life in the new golden land! To share a small part of Fergy’s dream at last, and to escape her shame, and to make a good life for the little creature inside her! Surely these were good things, great things, even.
Yet there were dangers too, both in the voyage and in the steps she must take to be sure her shame did not pursue her. So far, at the least, no one knows. And no one shall know. Jack will keep his secrets, and so will the old man. But what can I tell to Susie, to the Groomes? Well they know all I’ve got in the world, and it’s far, far less than a thousand dollars.
Suddenly the hard fact of it came up and hit Lily with the unwelcome violence of a thrown rock. I am going to have to invent a lie, many lies! To have sinned, to have even enjoyed the sinning, with Jack Wallingford was one thing, and maybe a bad thing, but somehow not like deliberately inventing a lie. How to explain her departure in some logical way that wouldn’t set all their tongues to wagging? Or should she go about her arrangements in secret, and leave this house like a thief in the night, suddenly, and let them think what they might? Lily sat thus for some time, and slowly it occurred to her that she would never be a truly successful liar. I’ll tell part of the truth! For wasn’t it God’s own truth that Mr. Wallingford Senior had offered her a position in the San Francisco store? Surely she could say that, and let them think what they might. At ease for the moment, Lily stood up then, and smiled, and thought of California.
California meant more to Lily than just a new start.
California was all the hopes of her generation, wrapped in gold and glittering with promise. California was freedom and hope, a chance to make of yourself what you could in a free land without prejudices, without chains, without limits. No one in California would care that a girl was Irish and Catholic and barely literate. No one in California would scorn her for a hussy, for no one would know her secret.
Lily was smiling as she opened the door of her little bedroom and went down the stairs to seek out Mrs. Groome.
Mrs. Groome offered Lily tea, rather formally, Lily thought, and sat in silence while Lily told her story. Lily was brief, and unsure of herself, but what she said was pure truth, so far as it went.
Finally the housekeeper spoke. “This is a great surprise to me, Lily. I’d always thought you were happy with us here.”
“Indeed I have been. But to have so great an opportunity…”
“I wish you’d told me sooner. It won’t be so easy to replace you, my dear.”
“It happened all of a sudden, like.”
Lily looked into Mrs. Groome’s eyes and could read nothing there. Does she believe me? Is she sad to see the last of me? Does she care at all? Lily thought of the almost four years she’d been in this house, working under Mrs. Groome every day, and of all that had happened to her in that time. Already, the time of her servitude in the Wallingford mansion seemed to be receding behind her.
Mrs. Groome replied, and smiled a little, and grew more friendly. “I see. Well, child, we will miss you. You have always been a good girl, Lily, and I’m sure you will go on being one. There are many temptations in a place like California, and you must be ever vigilant against them. Keep all your wits about you, Lily. You’ll be wanting your savings, and I have them all for you in Mr. Wallingford’s safe, and you can have them tonight.”
“Oh, yes, please. And thank you.”
“Very generous, Mr. Wallingford.”
“Indeed he is that.”
She suspects, but she daren’t say a thing. Lily felt herself blushing, made an excuse, and left. Her next parting was going to be even more difficult, for she must see Jack and thank him. And find out about such details as the letter of credit, or whatever he had said it would be, and the sailing, and what she’d need to take.
Lily made her way up the familiar stairs and down the hall she knew so well. They’ve always had the leaving of me, everyone I ever cared for in the world, and now the tables are turned. Now I’m leaving them, and to hell with them, too! There should have been a sort of victory in it, but all Lily felt was emptiness, a sinking sort of feeling, and, in spite of the baby she knew was thriving inside her, a sense of being very much alone.
When Lily got to Jack’s bedroom door at last, she paused for a moment and thought of all the changes that had come to her since the first time he’d invited her inside, innocent and a virgin, and little more than a year ago, and look at her now, ruined and saved all at the same time!
Ruined. No better than she should be. Fallen woman. Soiled dove. How well she knew those phrases, and how poorly they described what had happened to her and to so many thousands of helpless girls every year! Well, if I’ve fallen, it’s damned I’ll be if I don’t rise again, and higher by far, or die trying! Lily felt the pride of the Malones bubbling in her blood, and she thought of her father for the first time in months, and his joy and the power in him. What could Big Fergus not have done, had God only spared him? And Fergy, too, for that matter. Well, things were going to be different now. Fate had dealt Lily a new hand, and she would play it for whatever it was worth, with all the strength and wit in her.
She knocked on Jack’s door and opened it without waiting for his reply. Something told her he’d be there, and she was right. There he stood by the fire in the familiar Chinese robe, his strong hands thrust deep into the robe’s pockets. Lily remembered sewing that robe, and why he’d torn it, and many other things both painful and sweet. He’ll be wanting me, she thought with an intuition far older than her years: he’ll want me for his pleasuring this one last time. Lily stood silent and watched this young man who was the father of her child, the manipulator of her fate. And she felt an enormous wave of gratitude that he had seen fit to pity her in her ruin, that he hadn’t merely cast her out into the streets as she had heard of many other disgraced servant girls being so treated, and without recourse.
Jack turned to her and smiled a slow, easy smile. “Everything is done. You sail a week from today, on the clipper Eurydice. First-class cabin and all paid for, and she’s a spanking-new ship. You have shopping to do, Lily, and plans to make. I think it’s best if you’d move to the hotel today. The fewer questions asked about the house,
the better, don’t you agree?”
Lily would have agreed to almost anything, so deep was her gratitude. “Of course.”
“Do you hate me, Lily?”
His question startled her, even though Jack was given to saying startling things: he often did it in fun. But now there was an edge on his voice, a cutting edge, that told Lily this was deadly in earnest.
“Never. Surely not. You have been…most kind.”
“Lily, sweet Lily, do you know what you are?”
“Ruined, is what I would be, but for you.”
“You are an angel. You’re beautiful, Lily.”
This was a new game. Lily didn’t understand what he was getting at.
“A fallen angel, then.”
“Not in California. You’ll be good as gold out there, Lily, and you’ll get yourself a fine decent husband, a better man than I’ll ever be, for I don’t deserve a girl like you.”
Never had it occurred to Lily that a man of Jack’s station in life was even remotely available to a girl of her background on any terms of equality. The gap between them had ever seemed impassably deep and wide, and his passion for her no different from the passing affection a man might have had for his dog. Lily paused, and considered her reply, then spoke gently, for she could see that he was in some pain.
“That’s as it may be. Still, I thank you.”
He came to her then, and took her in his arms. Lily said nothing. She felt his arms closing around her, warm under the richness of the silk robe, and she thought: Well, he is human after all, a strong young man with a man’s needs, and maybe not truly bad, he is honest with me anyway, and his honesty sometimes touches bottom when he thinks about himself. Lily felt the lust rising in him, and his need for her—for anyone—and she smiled a small regretful smile as he fumbled with the buttons on her dress. She’d been right, after all, then: he would be wanting her this one last time.
Later, in the deep quiet of Jack’s bed, she looked up at him where he lay at her side. Jack was staring at her, must have been staring even before she looked at him, and his face, slack with the backwash of their lovemaking, was troubled. And then he spoke, a hoarse whisper edged with desperation. “A man loses the world, Lily, when he loses you.”
She looked at him, said nothing, smiled. What nonsense they talk when the heat of lust is on them, boiling in their brains!
Jack reached for her, gently now, and buried his face in the curve of her neck. He trembled, and the trembling went all through him; Lily felt herself shaking with it, not the convulsions of love, but something strange and troubling. He made a sound like no sound she had ever heard, a deep sighing sort of gasp, and then the trembling stopped and Jack simply lay there quiet as death. Finally he turned his head and reached out to touch her cheek, and it was only then that Lily felt the dampness on her neck, and she knew that Jack Wallingford had spent the final moment of their lovemaking in tears.
Lily smiled at him, not knowing why he cried, wanting to comfort him as she might have comforted some small child. But Jack was lost to her then: he had gone to a place where Lily could not follow. Maybe, she thought, as her smile faded away, maybe he’s always been lost.
Lily never saw Jack’s mother again. Mrs. Wallingford had gone out in the morning, stayed out for luncheon, and hadn’t returned in the afternoon. This was unusual enough for Lily to realize it must be on account of her. The old lady probably thinks I’ve seduced her precious little boy. Or maybe she simply can’t face the possibility of a scandal. Somehow, as she packed her few clothes into the old wicker trunk that had come with her from the convent, Lily found herself smiling at Mrs. Wallingford’s delicate sensibilities. For a woman who could scheme and pander and prostitute the future of her only daughter to entertain such fine sentiments about a serving maid was comical indeed. I won’t be sad to see the last of her, or this house either, Lily thought, packing ever faster. She had felt a moment’s sadness for Jack, poor, lost, embittered Jack. But poor Jack could take very good care of himself, Lily was sure of that, and she had other things to think on, happier things, things like the entire future of Mrs. Fergus Malone, soon to be of California.
Her deft fingers moved among the contents of the trunk. Here was her mother’s linen scarf with its fine lace edging, the trousseau scarf, the scarf that Fat Bessie had tried in vain to steal. And here was the rag doll, Hortense, none the worse for wear. My baby will play with that doll in California. Lily thought, and be happy, and I’ll be happy because of it. There was Sister Claudia’s gift thimble, never used, too pretty to use. I will put it on a shelf in my new house in San Francisco, just to look at, and to remember her by. And there was the hair ribbon Fran had made so long ago, and that never used either. I will wear it on my wedding day when I marry some fine good man, a shopkeeper maybe, or a clerk at Wallingford’s, or did it matter? It was hard for Lily to imagine that any stranger could ever be interested in her. Why? Thin and frightened and of no background as she was, as her position in St. Paddy’s and in the Wallingford house had so thoroughly educated her to believe, why then should anyone care, much less notice her in the first place?
The pain and torment of inventing a lie, and the knowledge that she might have to act it out on the long voyage of the clipper ship drove Lily half mad with fear. How much would her pregnancy show on the voyage? Maybe by the grace of God she could avoid the whole issue. Still, it was better to be traveling as “Mrs.” if she were traveling alone. It was fear that made her choose the obvious name: she would be Mrs. Fergus Malone. At least she did love Fergus Malone—both of them. At least it was a name she’d never, never forget. And when the time came to announce his death, she could make herself sad by remembering the real deaths of the real Fergus Malones.
How many of her fears in the past had come to nothing. And how many more had proven themselves deadly accurate! Lily had no way at all of knowing what fate awaited her in California, but she continually reassured herself that it would be better. It simply had to be better. The terrible questions might never be asked. The dread unmasking and its subsequent shame might never happen.
She thought of all her yesterdays, and everyone who had left her, and how all that would turn into something better in this new place beyond the sunset.
16
The Eurydice seemed to be flying even as she rode at her mooring in Pier Nine on the East River near South Street.
Lily had never thought much of ships, never gone down to Battery Park to watch the sailings and hear the bawdy chanties the seamen sang at the top of their very healthy lungs as they raised anchor and set sails. But here was the Eurydice, one of the newest of the brand-new clipper class of long-distance cargo ships, paint-fresh from New Bedford and hungry for the high seas.
Lily shivered at the sight of her. Long and white and slender with a carved, painted, gilded lady on her bowsprit, the great clipper was shaped almost like a fish, sleek, quick-looking, truly beautiful. Her three great masts were raked backward at such an angle the sea wind seemed to be pressing against them even now, even as the ship rode at the short end of her hawsers, tamed and docile, but only for the moment, restless, pulling at the arm-thick ropes, lusting for the sea. South Street was a parliament of ships, ships of all kinds and all nations, fishing boats that announced their presence half a mile off when the wind was right, fat schooners, an occasional man-of-war, small tenders, pleasure craft, tugboats, some of them fitted with the newfangled steam engines that belched smoke like the keyhole of hell itself. But the unchallenged queens of this and every harbor were the clippers, and of all the clippers, the Eurydice was the newest and possibly the fastest. The Flying Cloud had the record, eighty-nine days round the Horn to San Francisco, but the Flying Cloud might not have it for long if Jack Wallingford could be believed.
“Only the best for my Lily,” he’d said, handing her the voucher that guaranteed her passage in a cabin all her own, a rare privilege on a ship that was more interested in setting speed records than taking travelers. There
would be, Lily knew, only a few first-class cabins, and no steerage at all. The Eurydice carried thirty-something able seamen plus the captain and his wife and the first and second mates. Cooks and cabin boys. No doctor.
Lily looked at the ship that would carry her to her fate.
Then she smiled. All the fears and doubts of the last few months seemed to fly away from her. The Eurydice had that power, for the Eurydice was beyond any doubt a marvelous thing, gallant and swift and unconquerable.
Lily could never erase the terrible image of her lost brother and the fate of the Indian Belle so long ago. Ships did go down, and well she knew it, and the good Lord knew Lily couldn’t swim a stroke. Well, that was in God’s hands, and if God was going to do her in, so be it.
She looked at the proud ship and saw California. Not California as it might truly be—for who knew about that?—but the California of her imagining, a sweet, warm and gilded place filled with laughter and music and rivers of gold, a place where it was always dawn, the dawn of a fine new day, a place where you could dream and build on the dream and find the dream still there in all its shimmering grandeur tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. This was California as Lily saw it, the journalist’s California, the California that had lured Fergy and hundreds of thousands of other adventurers. Somehow the ship itself became California for Lily: all fresh and gleaming with hope, eager, pure and lovely. It was California. And it was hers!
Lily had come to South Street especially to look at the ship. This was a luxury, for her shopping was only half-done. The climate, she knew, was mild in San Francisco, but for the voyage she’d need warm clothing for the Horn, where it was always winter, and light stuff for the tropics, for they’d cross the equator twice, once in the Atlantic and again in the vast Pacific. The railroad across Panama had just been finished, but it was plagued with wrecks and foul weather and bandits and fever. Jack had talked her into the clipper voyage, long as it was, on grounds of comfort. The Wallingfords always shipped with the North Star line, owners of the Eurydice, and it was an absolutely reliable outfit. This was Jack’s first indication of fatherly feeling, and it came and went in a moment.
