Songs of Love and War (37 page)

‘No, madam.’

‘Good. I trust you can read and write?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Reading and writing is imperative. As you can see my house is full of books. I love books above everything else in the world. They are my treasures and you are not to touch them unless I
ask you to. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘And you mend and sew and clean and everything else?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Mrs Hamer told me you were a lady’s maid for Lady Deverill of Castle Deverill in Cork, is that correct?’

Bridie didn’t bother to correct her. ‘Yes, madam.’

‘Why did you leave Ireland?’ Mrs Grimsby narrowed her eyes and glanced momentarily at Bridie’s belly as if she knew of her shame.

‘To make something of my life, madam,’ Bridie replied without hesitation.

The old lady sniffed but she accepted Bridie’s answer. ‘I’m glad to see you have a wider vocabulary than “Yes, madam”!’

‘I do, madam.’

‘“Yes, madam, I do, madam.”’ Mrs Grimsby sighed so that her bosom swallowed a fold of chin. ‘I hope you’re not going to be feeble. I can’t bear
itty-bitty frightened sparrows and neither can Precious here. She’s my cat. She eats frightened little birds. Ah, Miss Ferrel.’ Bridie turned to see a severelooking woman with brown
hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her thin neck standing in the doorway, dressed in an unappealing starched brown uniform.

‘Does she please you, madam?’ Miss Ferrel asked.

‘We’ll see. She’s perfectly plain. It wouldn’t do to have a beauty distracting my guests, now would it? Cut her hair and give her Alice’s uniform and explain how I
like things done. My nephew is arriving at eleven so she can bring us tea. Did you send round those invitations?’

Miss Ferrel nodded. ‘I did, madam. They were all hand-delivered at dawn.’

‘Good. You can leave me now.’

Miss Ferrel showed Bridie to the servants’ quarters downstairs. Once out of earshot Miss Ferrel heaved a sigh. ‘I’m afraid you won’t be here very long,’ she said,
not unkindly. ‘She’s a horrible bully to new maids. No one wants to work for her. She’s simply lonely.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘I hear you’ve just arrived
off the boat from Ireland.’

‘Yes, I have,’ Bridie replied.

‘Well, you might last a little longer seeing as you have nowhere else to go.’

‘I will work hard.’

‘Of course you will. They all do, but in the end they find her intolerable.’

‘How long have you worked here?’ Bridie asked.

‘Twelve years.’

‘She can’t be so bad then?’

‘I have earned her trust, Miss Doyle. She trusts no one as much as she trusts me. And I don’t have to undress her.’ Bridie paled. ‘Oh, didn’t they tell you? You
have to nurse her as well. Mrs Grimsby is an old lady who needs a lot of care. I hope you have the stomach for it.’

Miss Ferrel gave her an ugly brown uniform with a white apron and sat her down to cut her hair. ‘Shame we have to get rid of it. You have beautiful hair,’ she said, lifting it off
her back and rubbing it between her thumb and fingers.

Bridie wanted to cry. She bit her lip to stop it wobbling. ‘It’s only hair,’ she replied bravely.

‘Did you leave a man back in Ireland?’

‘No,’ Bridie replied as her hair began to fall around her shoulders like rook’s feathers.

‘That’s good. You don’t want to be pining on top of everything else. So, let me take you through your duties. Your bedroom is next to Mrs Grimsby’s so that she can call
upon you in the night if she needs you. As mark my words, she
will
need you. You will rise at 6 a.m. and light her fire without waking her. You will run her a bath and put out her clothes
for the day . . .’ As Miss Ferrel listed her chores Bridie kept telling herself that nothing was beyond her capability. Hadn’t she impressed Miss Lindsay with her sewing and mending?
She was going to be better than all the other maids. She wouldn’t let hard work scare her, or Mrs Grimsby’s bullying. She had suffered worse at the hands of the nuns. ‘You have
one day off a month and leave to attend church on a Sunday. Are you Catholic?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Bridie replied.

‘There’s a Catholic church round the corner. Trust me, you’ll need God’s help working here so I advise you to go as often as possible but hurry back. The old crow will
time you so you mustn’t hang around chatting or she’ll have your hide!’ She handed Bridie a mirror. If she was plain before, she was downright ugly now, she thought bleakly. Her
hair was down to her chin. She gave the mirror back as the doorbell chimed through the house. ‘That will be her nephew, Mr Heskin. He’s very dutiful. He visits three times a week. Come,
you’d better meet Mrs Gottersman, the cook, and take up the tea. She’ll expect you to know what you’re doing right away, so try not to drop the tray!’

Bridie covered her shocking new hairstyle with a white maid’s cap and took up the tea as she was told. The tray was heavy with the silver teapot and china cups and a succulent fruit cake
that made Bridie’s mouth water, but she was careful not to trip on the stairs. Mrs Grimsby didn’t acknowledge her as she put down the tray and poured the tea. Bridie had seen tea being
served enough at the castle to know how it was done, serving Mrs Grimsby first and offering her a slice of cake, which she accepted greedily, picking it up in her pudgy fingers and stuffing it into
her mouth, then serving her nephew. Neither thanked her, but she was used to being ignored by the Deverills and their guests so that didn’t bother her.

Paul Heskin was thin and wiry with a weak chin and calculating eyes the colour of polished walnut. He sat close to his aunt and seemed to be making a grand effort to entertain her. Bridie was
sure he was even flirting with the old lady, flattering her and charming her as if she were a beautiful woman of twenty. Mrs Grimsby listened to his stories, her hooded eyes impassive so that
Bridie couldn’t tell whether she was enjoying his company or loathing it. All the while, Precious lay on her knee, watching Bridie suspiciously, purring loudly as her mistress’s fingers
caressed her behind the ears.

When Bridie returned later to clear up the tea Mrs Grimsby was alone, her nephew having left. She sat with her eyes shut, her hand resting on the cat’s back. Bridie quietly put the cups on
the tray and carried it downstairs. She then asked Miss Ferrel to show her to Mrs Grimsby’s room so she could collect her dirty linen and make her bed. When she entered her mistress’s
bedroom she was shocked to see the state of it. The vast bed was unmade, the heavy curtains still closed, clothes lying discarded over the backs of chairs and all over the floor, bottles of perfume
and lotions sitting without lids on her dressing table. ‘Alice left this morning,’ Miss Ferrel told her, referring to the previous maid. ‘I’m afraid she didn’t bother
to make up Mrs Grimsby’s room before she left. She had simply had enough.’

Bridie set about pulling apart the curtains and flinging open the windows, making the bed and tidying the room. She gathered the dirty linen to be washed and hurried downstairs to the scullery.
She derived a certain satisfaction from doing her job well. It was a way of living in the moment and not allowing her past to draw her back into a place of suffering. Guests arrived for lunch and
Bridie helped the butler serve and clear away. She brought in the tea at five and cleared it away at 6.30. She lit the fire in the drawing room and plumped up the cushions when everyone had left.
At seven she was summoned to help Mrs Grimsby undress and bathe. Mrs McGuire had shown her how to turn the faucets to draw a bath the night before, but now she poured a little oil into the water
from the crystal bottle on the marble surround, infusing the room with the scent of roses.

Mrs Grimsby shouted commands and Bridie ran to attend to her without the slightest annoyance. She found relief in being busy. She also found a surprising respite in Mrs Grimsby’s bullying
– had she been kind Bridie might have broken down and wept. This way Bridie remained protected behind the steely armour of her new persona, Bridget. Bridget took all the abuse but Bridie
remained cocooned in the depths of her being, detached from the world which had hurt her so.

Bridie didn’t baulk at her mistress’s grotesque obesity, or at having to scrub the folds of her back in the bath. She was awoken every couple of hours during the night and commanded
to turn her mistress, which was no easy feat, considering how very heavy Mrs Grimsby was, and sometimes the old lady would shout at Bridie to cover her feet with the blanket because they had
somehow found their way out and were getting cold, or call for her chamber pot. But her mistress’s summons were an unexpected blessing for they rescued her from her nightmares where the nuns
bore down on her like a coven of witches, scolding her for her sins and making off with her babies. As the days went on and she was required to cut Mrs Grimsby’s fingernails and toenails,
wash her hair, rub lotion into the creases where her skin chafed, she grew accustomed to the old lady’s pungent smell and her incessant demands. It was as if Mrs Grimsby wanted to see how far
she could push her – and Precious seemed to be watching and waiting, but Bridie didn’t know what for.

On the first Sunday Bridie left the house to attend Mass. The church was a couple of blocks away. It was the first time Bridie had left the building since she had arrived and she relished the
early spring sunlight that bathed her face in its glorious radiance, and the warm breeze that brushed her skin. She longed to walk in the park and listen to the birdsong. She had taken the
countryside at home for granted. Now she remembered the sound of corncrakes and rooks and the twittering of sparrows in the hedgerows. She breathed in the smells of the city and her heart yearned
for the scent of damp soil and sea.

The church was large and cool and the smell of incense reminded her of home. Beside the pulpit, in a large vase, was a grand display of white lilies. The sight of them uplifted Bridie and she
found a chair near the front and waited for Mass to begin. This church was very different from the one in Ballinakelly. The priest was kind-looking and softly spoken, there was a choir who sang
like angels and people in the congregation smiled at her and made her feel welcome. It was a far cry from the fear engendered in Father Quinn’s church. At the end of Mass she lit candles and
sent up prayers for her family back home. Once again she suffered a pang of homesickness at the thought of her mother and grandmother beside the fire and her brothers plotting at the table, and the
memory of her father loomed large and bright out of the darkness of her longing. Then the pang turned to pain as her taper trembled over the candle she lit for her two babies, abandoned at the
convent, and she clutched her chest in a hopeless bid to nurse her battered heart beneath. Remembering what Miss Ferrel had told her about Mrs Grimsby timing her absence, she didn’t wait to
speak to anyone but hurried back to the house. She was relieved she hadn’t dawdled for no sooner had she reached the kitchen than the bell rang and she was summoned to the sun parlour.

Mrs Grimsby had many visitors. Sometimes she saw her attorney, Mr Williams, a round tub of a man with slick black hair combed off his forehead and spectacles, which gave him an air of authority
and intelligence. He came in his three-piece suit with a gold pocket watch on a chain emphasizing the ballooning of his belly, and a black hat which he took off in Mrs Grimsby’s presence. He
sat with Mrs Grimsby for a long while, drinking tea and pulling out official-looking sheets of paper from his briefcase. Sometimes, after he had gone, Mrs Grimsby would call for her trusty butler,
Mr Gordon, who had worked for her for over forty years. He was as tall as a broom with a shiny bald head and a long square chin. She would gently pat his hand and whisper confidentially to him as
if sharing a secret. Other times she would send for Miss Ferrel and pat
her
hand. ‘What would I do without you, Ferrel? Lord, the world is a hard place but you, Ferrel, reassure me
that there is goodness in it.’ Her nephew came often and paid court to his queen. There was something distasteful in the smug expression on his face as he left the house, but Bridie
wasn’t sure what it was about.

The months passed. The days lengthened and summer arrived, stifling and hot in the city. Bridie worked without complaint. Her sewing was neat, her mending almost invisible, her
washing and pressing as immaculate as the most seasoned lady’s maid’s. She told herself that God would forgive her sins if she worked hard. Hadn’t Father Quinn preached that
suffering purified the soul? As well as the possibility of saving her from damnation her labour also served to distract her from thinking of home, which only scorched her heart with longing and
plagued her with regret. Therefore she sought solace in her duties. She learned to be one step ahead of Mrs Grimsby. When she asked her to do something Mrs Grimsby found, to her surprise, that
Bridie had already done it. She was patient, tireless and dutiful. Miss Ferrel was astonished, for Mrs Grimsby’s maids had never lasted more than a month.

In July the heat was too intense to bear. Mrs Grimsby announced that the whole household would move to her ‘Cottage’ in the Hamptons until September. Bridie didn’t want to
leave New York, in spite of the rising temperature, because she had made a home for herself there, between the Gothic mansion on Fifth Avenue and the church. She had found comfort in the
familiarity of her routine. Now she would have to get to know another house and rely once again on the severe Miss Ferrel to tell her how Mrs Grimsby liked things done.

Unlike the mansion in Manhattan, Mrs Grimsby’s Cottage resembled a magnificent pink chateau with green shutters and a wide veranda, overlooking the sea. The rooms were large and airy with
tall windows, wooden floors and pale fabrics on the sofas and chairs. It had a completely different feel to the oppressive, unhappy mansion in the city. Here, Mrs Grimsby held court as she did in
New York. People came to visit her in droves and invitations were delivered daily by boys in uniform. She left the Cottage often to visit neighbours and friends and returned late and sometimes even
a little tipsy, but she seemed to derive no pleasure from her outings. Her face was set in a permanent scowl and she was as bullying and unpleasant as she had been in Manhattan. Bridie was overcome
by the serenity of the long white beaches and the bright, azure sea, but Mrs Grimsby seemed not to be moved by it. Bridie wondered what, if anything, made her mistress happy. Surely, the old woman
had a heart. And, if she did, what would it take to open it?