Authors: Elizabeth Adler
Pleased as punch she was that she, a merry sixty-five, was keeping this good-looking youngster on his mettle in bed.
But of course, you see, that’s what killed her. They were in bed and she had a heart attack and that was that.
“What better way to go, darling Molly,” I said over her coffin at the funeral. Ah, she loved life, my friend Molly. And didn’t she enjoy it right to the end?
Well, back to business. I got up the morning after my lazy day in bed, bright as a button again, and I collected Shannon and the horses and the dogs and we went for a long ride over the mountains. Jayzus, did I feel good. Like a new woman. The rain had cleared and the air smelled as though it had been washed and dried, the way laundry does on the line. “How are things with Eddie?” I asked Shannon when we paused to let the horses drink from an icy mountain stream.
“Fine,” she said cautiously. I caught her eye and she grinned. “He’s really nice, now I’m getting to know him better,” she said, blushing shyly. Now, I always approve of blushing. More women should do it. It’s so charming.
That night we gathered around the fire again after dinner. I was wearing emerald-green taffeta, long and formal, bought in 1974 for a grand Palm Beach ball that I had been to with dear old Molly. Now, who was the designer? Oh yes. Bill Blass. The American designers have such a sense of style when it comes to the grand occasion.
Shannon was in black silk pants and a white silk shirt, very simple and understated, but with her youth and good, rangy body, she can get away with murder. Oh dear, that’s not the right thing to say, is it? Eddie was in jeans but he wore a tie and jacket and looked incredibly handsome, as always. I cannot believe how privileged I am to feast my eyes on two such gorgeous young things, night after night.
I racked my brains to know where to begin my story. I decided to continue with Lily.
T
HE
N
ORTH
E
ND BAKED
under a hot July sun. Ragged children played tag on the littered streets while their mothers sat limply on their doorsteps watching them. It was even hotter inside their hovels than out and besides, they knew that this weather bred germs so they kept their young outdoors, hoping the “fresher” air would save them from the epidemics that swept through the tenements every summer.
Lily could feel their hostile eyes on her, taking in every detail of her silk skirt and the white lawn blouse that had started out that morning so fresh and crisp and now was stuck to her like a second skin. Gritting her teeth she trudged on, clutching her straw bag tightly, glancing nervously around, afraid any minute she would be set upon. The smell of sewage hung nauseatingly in the air and she quickened her pace, heading away from the wharves and the devastating poverty.
A grim smile crossed her face as she thought about that. She was as poor as they were, even poorer. She had exactly twenty-five cents left in her pocket and she had no idea what it would buy, but she was certain it wouldn’t be much. She needed money quickly and she was searching for a pawnbroker where she could pledge her silver hairbrushes. Her throat was parched and the sun was beating on her head, and she was beginning to feel weaker with each step.
She stopped and leaned tiredly against a wall and a young woman sitting on the steps watching her said, “Will you be feelin’ ill, miss?”
Lily looked at her. She was young and haggard and looked as exhausted as Lily felt. Her children came running, clustering around her knees, staring up at the rich-looking stranger.
Lily sank down onto the step beside her. “I’m just tired,” she sighed. “Is it all right if I sit here a while?”
“Suit yerself,” the woman said, “but if yer ill then you’d best go around to St. Stephen’s, they’ll help you.”
Lily shook her head. “It’s not a church I need, it’s a pawnbroker. I’ve got twenty-five cents left to my name.”
The woman shrugged. “Then you have more than the rest of us.”
Lily stared at her and then at her many children. “But where is your husband?”
“Out. Searching for work. Him and a thousand others for one job.”
The woman’s voice was matter-of-fact. She was beyond emotion, even bitterness. “There’s a pawnbroker on Hudson Street,” she suggested. “Maybe he can help you.”
Lily thanked her and said she would be on her way. She walked a few steps, thinking of her expensive silver brushes and how much they would bring—twenty, maybe even thirty dollars—and then she turned quickly and pressed her twenty-five cents into the woman’s hand.
“You need it more than I do,” she said, hurrying away from her thanks.
T
HE PAWNBROKER STARED
at her through his little brass grille. The beautiful sterling silver hairbrushes, the ornate matching mirror, and the comb were amazing. He looked again at the girl. Her face was as white as her blouse and she had the same look of desperation he had seen so many times before, because nobody ever came into his shop that wasn’t desperate. “The Last Resort,” they called him bitterly. But this girl was different. And the brushes were worth a small fortune.
Lily sank into the wooden chair by the counter and put her aching head in her hands, waiting for his decision. If he didn’t give her the money, she didn’t know what she would do.
The pawnbroker looked doubtfully at her, hoping she wasn’t ill. All he needed was a sick woman in his shop. He hurriedly fetched her a glass of water and watched as she drank it. He had to get her out of here before she collapsed. “I’ll tell you what,” he said quickly. “I’ll let you have five dollars on the lot. And remember, you must pay
me back within six weeks.” He knew she would never come back and he also knew a fence who would take them off his hands immediately for thirty or forty bucks.
“I’ll take it, and thank you,” Lily cried gratefully. She glanced more hopefully at him as he counted the money into her outstretched hand. “I need a job,” she said eagerly. “Can you tell me where I should go?”
He tucked the silver brushes away under the counter and glanced indifferently at her. “Where your sort always go,” he said disparagingly. “To the Irish Maids Employment Agency over on Tremont.”
Lily’s heart sank at the thought, but five dollars was much less than she had expected to get for the brushes and she knew it would not last long.
Mrs. Richardson at the Irish Maids Employment Agency had been a governess herself until she had discovered there was a more lucrative trade in selling poor Irishwomen to the rich Bostonians. The Irishwomen made good servants: they were neat, clean, honest, and virtuous. They worked hard and took pride in what they did, and they did it well because their mothers had taught them how to cook and wash and clean. And they all had a dozen brothers and sisters, so they knew about looking after children. The unheated attic cubicles they lived in were better than anything in the North End and, for room and board and five dollars a month, they worked seven days a week and only asked for time off for Sunday Mass.
Mrs. Richardson knew from her own past experience the trials of living as a servant in a rich household, and she also recognized class when she saw it. She looked Lily up and down and the girl looked straight back at her without flinching. She told her crisply, “The first thing you have to learn is that a servant does not look her employer back in the eye as if she, were her equal. She lowers her head and says, ‘Yes, ma’am, and thank you, ma’am,’ and she always remembers that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lily said, quickly lowering her eyes.
Mrs. Richardson’s Irish girls always had rough red hands
and strong brogues, but the young woman standing on the other side of her desk had none of these badges of office. “You don’t look very strong,” she said critically.
“Oh, but I am,” Lily cried anxiously, pulling herself straighter and managing an eager smile. “It’s just that I had to walk such a long way in the heat. But I’m as strong as the next girl.”
Mrs. Richardson leaned on her desk, her hands clasped in front of her. “May I ask exactly what is your background, my dear?” she said more sympathetically. But Lily just shook her head and said quietly, “Like everyone else, I left my home in Ireland to find a new life. My husband died on the voyage over. I’m all alone.”
“Are there any children?”
“No. Oh, no. No children,” Lily replied positively.
“I have a position in a rather fine house on Beacon Hill. On Chestnut Street.” She checked her list. “They need a general maid immediately. I was going to send someone else but it’s a grand household and it would suit your sort. The wage is five dollars a month, uniforms provided and room and board. And of course, the first month’s wage is payable to me, for my commission.”
She handed Lily a card with an address on it and told her to see Mrs. Janssen, the housekeeper. “One other thing,” she said, looking Lily up and down again, “you had better not go wearing those clothes. Servants do not wear silk and Mrs. Janssen is going to think you’re an uppity girl who’s no better than she ought to be.” Lily’s face flamed with guilty color and Mrs. Richardson added mildly, “I’m not saying that’s the case, my dear. It’s obvious you have come down in the world, but if you want to work as a maidservant, then you must look like a maidservant. There’s a secondhand store at the bottom of Court Street. They buy and sell. I suggest you take yourself there before you apply for the job.”
Clutching the card that would lead to her future, Lily climbed wearily back down the stairs and onto Tremont. The secondhand store was a long walk. Her back ached
and her legs ached and her head ached, but the woman in the dusty secondhand store was kind.
Taking one look at Lily’s pale face she hastily brought a chair. “Sit down, my dear,” she said kindly, “and catch your breath. You never know which is worse in Boston, the heat of summer or the bitter cold of winter.” She gave Lily a glass of lemonade and said, “Now what can I do for you?”
She nodded as Lily explained her predicament. “And what else have you to sell?” she asked. “Besides the clothes off your back.”
Lily rummaged eagerly in her bag and brought out the cloak with the fur trim, her little fur jacket, two other velvet jackets, her fawn woolen skirt, and her fur muff. She said eagerly, “They are all of the best quality.”
The woman nodded. “I can see that, my dear. I’ll take this and these,” she picked out the velvet jackets and the fur and the muff. “But you had better keep that cloak and that good woolen skirt. You’ll be glad of them when January comes around, believe me.” She looked consideringly at the little pile of pretty clothes, knowing she could get a very good resale price, especially for the fur. “I can offer you twenty dollars, my dear, for the lot. Plus I’ll give you a fair price on a suitable dress for your interview.”
Lily almost fainted with delight. Twenty whole dollars plus five for her brushes. And just this morning she had been down to her last twenty-five cents. The storekeeper brought out a gray cotton dress, long-sleeved and buttoned high at the neck, and she took Lily into the back to try it on. Lily was too thin and the dress hung on her, but she told her cheerily, “They eat well at some of those houses on the Hill, you’re sure to put on weight. Besides, that dress is a bargain. The woman who owned it died, so it’s scarcely worn.”
Lily’s skin crawled at the thought of wearing a dead woman’s dress. She wanted to rip it off her back but she knew she could not. With a pang she remembered shopping with Mammie at Mrs. Simms in Dublin, and the feel
of cool soft satins and silks next to her skin. Now she was wearing a dead woman’s clothes and she hung her head in shame, wondering what her mother would think if she could see her.
“You’ll need a sturdier pair of boots than those you’re wearing,” the storekeeper told her, bringing out a pair in stiff black leather. “And a shawl for when it’s cool.”
Lily laced up the boots, hating the way they felt. She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and gazed sadly at herself in the mirror. She looked exactly like the hollow-eyed young woman she had met on the street this morning. Without her fancy clothes she had become a poor Irish peasant, just like all the others.
“That’ll be three dollars the lot,” the storekeeper said briskly. Lily handed over the money and the storekeeper wished her well and she walked slowly out onto Court Street as a new woman.
She plodded wearily up Beacon Hill’s steep, charming streets. The houses were large and well kept, there were trees and gaslights and a feeling of quality and assurance that spoke of solid money and cultured people, a world away from the North End slums. As she climbed the steps at the house on Chestnut Street and rang the front doorbell, Lily told herself wearily that at least it was pretty.
A butler in a white linen jacket opened the door. An expression of horror crossed his face as he looked her up and down and she blushed. Tilting her chin in the air she said, “Would you tell Mrs. Janssen that Lily Molyneux is here to see her.”
He grabbed her roughly by the collar and marched her back down the steps. “And who do you think you are, ringing my front door and asking for the housekeeper? If the mistress ever saw you she’d have Mrs. Janssen’s job—and mine too.” He gave her an angry thrust in the direction of a steep flight of basement stairs.
“That’s
where your sort belongs, my girl, and don’t you forget it. And I never want to see your face in my front hall again.”
Lily fled down the basement steps to the servants’ entrance.
She turned to look at him. He had taken out a handkerchief and was wiping his fingers, a frown of disgust on his face as though he had just touched something dirty. Anger boiled in her and she was tempted to go back and tell him exactly who she was, but then she remembered she was no longer that person. She was what he thought she was. A maidservant and less than nothing.
A cheerful young Irish girl opened the door at her knock. Her black hair was half-hidden under a cap and she wore a blue-striped cotton dress and a voluminous clean white apron. “I’m to see Mrs. Janssen about the job,” Lily said, her cheeks still burning with shame and anger.
The girl grinned. “To be sure,” she said, “it’ll be the new general maid we was expectin’. I’m Kathleen. And yourself?”