by Peter Quinn
“And do what? Clean the houses of Yankee Protestants instead of staying home and cleaning those of Irish ones? Small reason for such a great journey.”
The vision Margaret had of America was always of the West, tall men with faces turned so brown from the sun that they were practically indistinguishable from the Indians. And rivers. Rivers that poured over mountains and plains, torrents of raging water, untamed.
Catherine put out the candle. She rolled onto her side with her back to Margaret. “It’s no holiday in America. Some of them that went over are already coming back. It’s as hard for the Irish there as here, they say.”
Margaret faced the window. Her tiredness was gone. Outside, moonlight bathed the far hills and turned the land to a single shade of gray. One girl had come back, that’s all, and she to enter a convent. Molly Foley had spent a few years in New York. She had returned with boots for her father, a silk shawl for her sister, and a sewing machine for her mother. Pious, sincere, quiet Molly. If she wasn’t so kind and sweet, Margaret would have hated her. But none of the others had come back, and the remittances they sent home had become a regular part of life for many of the families the O’Driscolls knew, money that paid the rent and put food on the table. The blessings of the Yankee dollar. It brought more comfort to Ireland than all the deliberations of the Parliament in Westminster ever had.
It was on that night in bed with her mother that Margaret decided she would leave Ireland for America. She didn’t sleep. It was as if she were leaving the next day. In the morning she still felt sure of her decision, but, perhaps because she was so tired, she was less enthusiastic than she’d been the night before. Her uncle was unusually talkative, bantering with Margaret and Catherine when he came back from the fields for his breakfast. Margaret was sure that he supposed the offer had been conveyed to her. She was sure also that he believed she would jump at the chance to be a townsman’s wife, the opportunity her mother had lost. And he’d generously settle the dowry, happy to help his niece—and not ignorant of the benefits of a personal tie with Murphy the grain seller. In bad times it was such connections that could make the difference between holding your land or being turfed out. But Jeremiah was also happy for Murphy, maybe for him most of all, a girl from Cork City as his bride, with her city ways and city dresses, and her grandmother’s hair, Kate of the red-yellow tresses. Such things were important to townsmen, especially those determined to rise in the world as Murphy was, a lovely girl on his arm, the envy of the other merchants, that river of crimson gold so lightly on your shoulders rests.
Margaret wasn’t sure of when her mother told Jeremiah of Margaret’s refusal to avail herself of his offer. Probably late the next afternoon. He was still friendly and full of talk at breakfast. But he didn’t come home for dinner. His wife said that he had gone to look at a cow that was for sale. “He’s a great one for seizing an opportunity,” she said. He was there the next morning, but had little taste for conversation. He barely spoke a word to Margaret for the rest of the visit.
Catherine didn’t mention the offer again, and when they returned to Cork City, neither did she bring up Margaret’s announced intention to emigrate. They went back to their work as day-hire domestics, and instead of handing over all her pay to her mother, Margaret began holding back a few pennies from each job, determined to accumulate what she needed for a passage to America. It would take time before she had enough, but it would allow her to find out more about where she was going, to give some thought to what she would do and with whom she would stay. She was in no great hurry.
Walking home one night from a triduum in honor of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, several months after they had come back from Macroom, Catherine finally brought up Margaret’s plans.
“How much have you saved?” she asked.
“Saved?”
“Don’t be coy, you’re just after leaving church.”
“Near half a pound, I should think.”
“You’re a long way from ever seeing America.”
“Eight pounds isn’t all that much.”
“Eight pounds, is it? And what will you live on after you land? Do you think the Yanks provide free room and board?”
Margaret hadn’t given it much thought, not yet. As determined as she was to go, she hadn’t made much headway in fleshing out her plans. America was still so indistinct a place, rivers of roaring water, men panning for gold in them. The Mississippi. The Hudson. The Swanee.
“I’m making plans.”
“Plans, is it? Well, people make their way there same as here; ‘by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread.’ You keep saving your money, all that you can. You may need it to carry you over once you land. I’ll see to the fare.”
“And where will you find eight pounds?”
They were standing at the top of the street, and down below the Lee moved swiftly but gently. No one had ever looked for gold in it.
“Your uncle.”
“Jeremiah? He wouldn’t give me the tail from a pig, not after I went and ruined his grand alliance with Murphy the grain seller.”
“Never give you anything, ’tis true. But perhaps he’d lend it to you at a small rate. He never turns his back on such propositions.”
A few weeks later, Catherine returned from Macroom with the money. Suddenly the distant possibility of America was near, but along with a growing excitement Margaret felt hurt at the ease and speed with which her mother had made the arrangement, as if she couldn’t be rid of her fast enough, one less person to crowd the basement where they lived, a daughter to send them remittances, from America, whatever she could afford after dispatching her uncle his monthly payment. It wasn’t until the night before she left that Margaret grasped her mother’s desire to have it done with as quickly as possible; her eldest child, the one she was closest to, sent on her way without a prolonged leave-taking, the equivalent of a slow dying. Few ever returned. They went by the thousands, sometimes whole villages, swearing never to forget. And yet their eyes and voices, their merriness or sadness, their marriages and spouses and children, were all reduced to the occasional letter, fewer as time went on, until the small death of emigration was eventually enveloped in the greater final one.
The last night, Catherine sat apart as Margaret’s girlfriends buzzed about. The relatives had yet to appear, and the girls were still too excited by the thought of Margaret’s departure to dwell on the loss they would feel, a truth they would comprehend only at the end of the evening. Catherine held her apron to her face and tried to stifle her sobbing. The girls stopped their talking and stood around her, each trying to offer some comfort. Then she began to keen: the cry of the country women, their shawls thrown over their heads, a low moan that gradually ascended to a shriek. The girls kept talking, trying to muffle the sound of the cries, but eventually gave up. Margaret hadn’t thought her mother capable of such a thing, but then she began to sob too, which is most of what she would remember from that last night, tears and sobbing, her mother’s keening, singing and music, the raucous sound of men with too much to drink suddenly coming to a stop for a song or more crying. Margaret stood like an observer at her own wake, and understood why her mother wanted it over as quickly as possible.
*
Margaret looked up at the clock on the wall of the pantry. Twenty past seven. “O Christ,” she said. Mr. Ward would have expected his second cup of tea long ago. She jumped up from her stool, grabbed the pot, and put her hand on its side. Tepid. She should have brought it back to the kitchen and kept it warm, should have poured it ten minutes ago, should have cleared the table by now. No time to warm it. And she had no intention of giving Miss Kerrigan more inspiration for her speeches. She went into the dining room. Mr. Ward was sitting with one elbow on the arm of his chair, his hand propped beneath his chin. With the other he held open a book that rested on the table; his spectacles were laid atop it; his dishes had been pushed to one side.
“More tea?” she asked.
; He seemed startled.
“More tea?” She gestured with the pot.
He looked around the room as though he were getting his bearings. From the walls, the images of his ancestors gazed serenely into the distance. Recovered from his surprise, his expression seemed similar to theirs. Reposed. Thoughtful.
“Tea, of course. Yes, please.”
She poured it and went about gathering up the dishes. As she was about to reenter the pantry, he said, “When you’re through, please bring me pen, paper, and ink.”
She went into the library and brought back pen, paper, and an inkwell. She had planned to clean the dining room first thing, or at least get a start before Mr. Bedford came down for his breakfast. But the old man could very well spend the whole morning scribbling at the table and throw off her schedule. She put the writing materials in front of Ward. He picked up his spectacles, fitted the wire arms around his ears, and began to write. She stood at his elbow and read, mouthing the words to herself. The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. The script was large and legible and flowed across the page. He stopped and dipped the pen into the well. She wondered whom he was writing to, but then she saw that he was copying from the book he had been reading. His finger sought out the line where he had left off. He started to write again. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted. He paused. She waited for him to continue. Without looking up he said, “That will be all, thank you.”
“Of course, sir.”
She hurried out of the room, embarrassed that he had caught her reading his words. But what was the harm? It wasn’t a letter to his mistress, not that Mr. Ward was the kind that would have one. Mr. Bedford, maybe, there was no telling, but Mr. Ward was wed to his books, as faithful a spouse as there was. She shouldn’t have been peering over his shoulder. Privacy of the eyes, it could be called. Something she had to practice. But not much of a sin, not when all she saw was merely words copied from a book. Hardly worth a Hail Mary.
Margaret put the breakfast dishes in the dumbwaiter and tried to decide whether she should wait for Mr. Bedford to come down for breakfast before she began her cleaning. That was the trouble with the Bedford household. No instructions. She away so much, and he not caring, and no housekeeper to run things, although Miss Kerrigan liked to imagine she had that job. It was worse with Minnie and Eileen in summer exiles. Margaret had to deal with the disorder left behind. Closets to clean and put right. Rooms to maintain until the house was in full use again in the fall. Every hallway, corner, and cranny to be dusted, swept, wiped, mopped, polished, so that the dirt and soot blown from the street through the windows or tracked in on boot bottoms would never go unchallenged.
She decided that she would begin with Mrs. Bedford’s room. She could start and stop when she wanted, without worrying about leaving it unfinished. She went through the dining room as quietly as she could. Mr. Ward never looked up. He was poised pensively over his paper. When she reached the top of the stairs, she could hear Mr. Bedford in the water closet. He would be in there awhile, for sure.
Mrs. Bedford’s room was still in disarray from yesterday’s packing, clothes tossed onto the bed and chairs, boxes strewn across the floor. After two and a half years, Margaret was still impressed by the sheer profusion of things. Not merely the quality of the things the Bedfords owned, but the multiplicity. A mountain of things. In the bedroom, quilts from Belgium, rugs from Persia, sheets from France, blankets from Scotland, armoires so full the doors would barely close, shelves crammed to capacity, dresses and jackets and petticoats crushed together, hatboxes piled one atop another and more under the beds, drawers packed tight with silk shifts, silk blouses, silk handkerchiefs, silk scarves, silk stockings, a cedar chest filled with intimate silk apparel from Paris, lavender paper between the layers; in the attic, standing trunks in which hung winter capes, coats, jackets, more dresses; in the basement, more clothes and the overflow of shoes, racks going from the floor to the ceiling jammed to capacity; in the kitchen, a tall, broad cabinet overflowing with everyday china, flowered cups and plates from Nanking, serving dishes, tureens, bowls; in the dining room, two more sets of plates and utensils: the ancient pewter plates and cups and flatware brought from Holland by Mrs. Bedford’s first American ancestor, each piece kept in its own felt purse, and, in the towering china cabinet against the wall, the formal dinner service, Limoges plates edged in gold, and gold flatware. An endless number of possessions to be cleaned, polished, pressed, tucked away, retrieved, a seasonal flow of raiment and instruments that were impossible to catalogue fully. As grand as the house was, it strained to contain all inside it.
Margaret picked up a dressing gown from Japan that was the color of jade. It had been thrown in a ball onto the bed. Next to it was a jewelry box, the lid opened, and necklaces, earrings, and brooches spilled across the damask coverlet. She worked at putting things away until she heard Mr. Bedford leave his bath. She went back to the dining room. Mr. Ward was nowhere to be seen. She cleared the table. In the kitchen, Miss Kerrigan was sweeping the floor.
“Mr. Bedford will be down in a minute,” Margaret said.
“Sure, I know what time it is.” Miss Kerrigan put the broom aside and went back to the stove.
Mr. Bedford was easy to serve. He read the paper until his food came, and then devoured both at the same time, his chair set sideways to the table, turning pages with his left hand, eating with his right. After he gulped his coffee, he would be gone. He did his lingering in the water closet, not in the dining room, but this morning he sat at the table a little longer than usual, taking more time with the paper than was his custom. Whatever it was that he read, it seemed to make him happy.
He left at half past nine. Margaret handed him his hat and gloves in the vestibule. Andrew, the coachman, stood below, holding open the door to the brougham.
Mr. Bedford surveyed the street from the top of the stoop.
“A lovely day, sir,” Margaret said. She hoped he would take these as parting words and be on his way, but he didn’t move.
“I should take the victoria today,” Bedford said. “No sense in being cooped up when I could be enjoying the day.”
Margaret was afraid he was going to send Andrew back to get the victoria. It could take another half hour to unhitch and rehitch the horses, and she would be left standing around, kept from her work, perhaps fetching more coffee. But Bedford was only thinking aloud. Finally he started down the steps.
“Better yet, I should take the trap, hook up the trotter, and race downtown on my own, in and out of traffic, to the Devil with all obstructions, be they men or monuments.”
Margaret knew there was no chance of that. He kept the trotter in a stable up near the shantytown. He got into the brougham. Andrew tipped his hat, shut the door, climbed into his seat, and off they went. Margaret went into the dining room and set to work. She stripped the table, washed it, dried it with a cloth, poured on wax and rubbed it in, rubbing hard until it had a sheen. Yet the sheen couldn’t hide the table’s age, its tally of dents, chips, scratches. Margaret didn’t understand why people with the Bedfords’ means didn’t buy a grand table of cherry or mahogany, and put this relic in the basement. Eileen said it was because they wanted something for the help to do. “Making the old look new, isn’t that what we spend most of our time doing?” she asked.
Finished with the table, Margaret emptied the glass-faced cabinet in the corner, wiping each piece as she took it out: wide-mouthed goblets with hollow knopped stems, Dutch fluted glasses etched with roses, candlesticks with baluster bases, bucket shaped crystal bowls with intricately faceted rims, fruit dishes that stood on elegantly molded feet, a serving platter in the shape of a fish. When everything was returned to its place, she swept the rug. On Thursdays, the silverware was polished. Fridays, the parlor and music room we
re dusted and scrubbed. Mondays, the hallways were swept, the doorknobs shined, the curtains taken down, and the windows in the bedrooms cleaned. Tuesdays, she did the windows, in the library, glass crisscrossed with bands of lead that divided the panes into diamond patterns, each to be washed inside and out, then rubbed dry. An endless cycle. But still, she preferred to be here than with Minnie and Eileen in the dunes of Jersey, cramped quarters, bloody mosquitoes, and sand in everything.
The day was getting warm. She felt herself perspiring. She swept the stairs. She polished the banister, fetched a duster from an upstairs closet, and worked over the pictures that lined the stairs. Men in togas. Temples in flames. Young women in white robes holding a garland. Romans and Greeks. Pagans, by the look of them, the genuine kind, not like her father. He had always been a Christian at heart, her mother said. “’Tis this cursed country hardened his heart, but they are few it hasn’t done that to, in one degree or another.”
When she reached the first floor, she dusted the pictures along the hallway. Men in red coats, horses, hounds, the hunt in progress, flying across the countryside, a fox turning to look behind him. One day in Macroom, she had been walking with her uncle up a boreen when a troop of hunters had come cantering from the other direction. The riders took no notice of them, and they had to scamper up the steep side of the lane to avoid being trampled. At the top, her uncle quickly turned, removed his hat, and smiled in a tense, unnatural way. “A fine day for it, Your Lordships,” he said. “Good luck to ye.” The horsemen never looked his way. In the picture, the fox was still ahead of the hounds and their masters, a thundering pack of landlords. Margaret hoped he got away.
She turned the tap in Mr. Bedford’s bathroom and leaned over to take a drink. There had been a few blistering days in May, but the heat hadn’t settled in yet, not the way it did when summer arrived with full intensity, the gritty, grinding heat that sat on the city day after day, the night bringing no relief. On the boat over from Ireland, they had hardly noticed the change in temperature until they had come through the Narrows and it suddenly felt like the steam engines were all throwing off excess heat and cooking the atmosphere. People were crowded on deck for their first glimpse of New York, but the seamless curtain of gray, lifeless air blocked their view and left them panting for breath. The men took off their woolen coats. The women removed their shawls and unwrapped their babies. It was a heat they had never felt in Ireland, steamy and inescapable. Margaret felt her clothes grow wet with perspiration. Out of the mist came a small tender that chugged up alongside the ship. A rope ladder was thrown down. Margaret and the others watched as a man in a blue coat with a single row of gold buttons pulled his way up and climbed onto the deck. Their first American. He took off his cap. His round, fleshy face was crimson and dripping with sweat. He pulled a great red handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. He looked around the deck at the wilted passengers, and chuckled. “Well, ladies and gents,” he said, “welcome to hell.”
