Читать книгу A Mother’s Spirit - Anne Bennett - Страница 8

After dinner that first evening, Planchard introduced Joe to the rest of the staff. They had heard how he had rescued Miss Gloria, and at great risk to his own life, and so he was welcomed as something of a hero. Joe hadn’t grown up in a home where praise was customary and so he was embarrassed at the fuss made. He was also very tired, and was pleasantly surprised to be shown to the room in the basement that, Planchard told him, Mr Brannigan senior had specially built to house the servants.

He didn’t notice that it was basic and spartan, for he’d never had a bed, never mind a whole room, to himself before. And it had everything he needed. It housed an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers and a hanging rail, and to him it was like a little palace. He lay in that comfortable bed that first night amongst crisp clean sheets, under plenty of warm blankets covered with a bedspread, and was so happy that he had taken the plunge and come to America. He had the feeling that this was the sort of country where anything could happen, a true land of opportunity.

The following morning, Brian ordered a taxi for himself and Joe, using a telephone that he had had fitted in the house. Joe was astounded when he told him this.

‘You mean, sir, that you can just pick up a machine and talk to people miles away?’

Brian smiled at Joe’s astonished face. ‘That is the general idea,’ he said. ‘How else would the taxi firm know that I wanted them this morning?’

‘It’s almost unbelievable to me, sir,’ Joe said. ‘I know that you said I was to go into New York this morning to fetch the carriage back and I wasn’t sure how I was going to go in except maybe to use one of those frightening tram cars.’

‘No, Joe, not this morning,’ Brian said. ‘Though you will have to get to grips with those sooner or later. Today I am going with you because I want to see how Tim is faring. And don’t be in too much of a hurry to fetch the carriage back. Familiarise yourself with the place before you collect it because as it is Saturday today I will not be going to work and will have no urgent need of it.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Joe said, grateful for his employer’s consideration, because he had had only a glimpse of the city as the taxi had sped through the deepening dusk the evening before and he was dying to see more of it.

Just a short while later, after his second ride in a taxi, he stepped from it onto one of the crowded streets and looked about him. He could hardly believe that he was here at last, standing in New York City.

Used to winding country lanes, he was fascinated by the wide and perfectly straight streets and the way many of them had numbers instead of names. The city’s skyscrapers towered above him, and the size and variety of the shops and the goods they had on sale in their huge glass windows fairly dazzled him.

To all sides, people, seemingly of every colour and creed, thronged the pavements which Joe had heard tell were called sidewalks. He noted that though many folk spoke with the American drawl, there were plenty more with foreign accents or inflexions in their speech, and he knew it wasn’t just the Irish who were flooding American shores. New York truly was a cosmopolitan city and he felt privileged to be part of this New World. He vowed to store it all up to tell Tom in his letters home.

When he arrived back, later that morning, it was to learn that Tim the coachman had died in the night.

‘Poor fellow,’ McManus said. ‘Been here years, and then to end his days like that …’

All the staff were upset over Tim’s death, as was Brian Brannigan, although he was heartily glad that Joe had agreed to step into Tim’s shoes. Joe had surprised himself that morning by quite enjoying bringing the pony and carriage home. Bramble was a lovely little pony when he was not spooked by anything, and rattled along at a fair old rate.

Joe couldn’t help comparing Bramble to the farm horses back home. Their top speed was little faster than a man could walk briskly. He did agree with Brian, though, that the city streets were not so safe for horses any more. Soon Bramble would be sold on and it would be a car that Joe would be driving. That thought was a scary one. However, for now he had to care for the horses and it was Joe who drove the sombre Brannigan family to St Bridget’s church a few days later for Tim’s funeral.

The next day was Thanksgiving and a half-day off for Joe. And so, after tasting such delights as apple and butternut squash soup, pumpkin pie and Mayflower pudding, he decided to look up Patrick Lacey. He braced himself and went into the city on his first tramcar. Patrick lived in a downtown tenement, and McManus had given Joe instructions on how to find him in that maze of streets on the East Side. He found 57 Orchard Street fairly easily, but stood outside it for a moment or two, surprised by its seediness. It had not been what he had expected at all in this brave new world.

The tenement was just one of many, and built of dull grey brick, with an iron fire escape fitted to the side of it, running down to the ground, and which, to Joe’s surprise, was festooned with washing. There were few people about, but then the day wasn’t a pleasant one and the other servants had told him that on Thanksgiving Day most people got together with their families if they had any close by.

As he entered the tenement door, his nostrils were immediately assailed by a pungent smell that came, he supposed, from so many people crowded in together and he was glad that the smell got fainter when he reached the third floor where Patrick’s rooms were.

Patrick was delighted to see him and Joe noted his friend seemed taller somehow, and certainly broader than the man he remembered leaving Ireland’s shores.

‘Well, the American life seems to suit you well enough,’ he said as Patrick drew him inside. ‘You’re looking grand.’

‘Never mind me, you old codger,’ Patrick said. ‘Sit you down there and I will rustle us up some tea and then maybe you will tell me what has happened to you because all I have had so far is cryptic messages.’

Joe sat down on the battered sofa and in no time was nursing a cup of hot strong tea and regaling Patrick with his adventures since the incident at the docks.

Patrick listened flabbergasted. ‘You are one lucky sod,’ he remarked good-naturedly when Joe had finished. ‘Tom always used to say if you fell in a dung heap, you would come up smelling of roses and he is damned right.’

‘I can’t help being in the right place at the right time.’

‘Where was the imperilled heiress when I was ready to disembark?’ Patrick asked. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

‘If there wasn’t one, then there wasn’t one,’ Joe replied with a grin. ‘I’d say that heiresses, imperilled or otherwise, are in pretty short supply, and you can’t lay the blame for that at my door either.’

Patrick shrugged. ‘I suppose not,’ he conceded. ‘And I haven’t done that badly myself either.’ He caught sight of Joe’s disbelieving eyes and said, ‘I know what you are thinking and you are right – it isn’t that damned pretty a place and not one half as good as where you are living. But it is a good deal better than some, and better than when I first came when I was lodging with another family. Talk about cramped.’

‘How many rooms have you?’

‘Three,’ Patrick said. ‘If you have finished your tea I’ll show you.’

‘Well, this is the living room, I suppose?’ Joe said.

‘Yeah, and the only room with windows,’ Patrick said. ‘Though the view is not one to write home about, so I am not really bothered about that anyway. Next door to it is the kitchen.’ And as Patrick led the way to it Joe caught sight of a few cupboards and a sort of stove with a couple of gas rings. ‘Fairly new innovation, the gas,’ Patrick said. ‘These tenements were thrown up with no form of lighting, heating, no running water, nothing, but now we have gas lights, gas rings to cook on, and a toilet just down the corridor. ‘And this,’ he said, opening the door off the kitchen, ‘is where I sleep. You see there would have been plenty of room for you too.’

There would have been, Joe saw, for Patrick had a sizeable double bed, but Joe thought of his own little room and bed for him and him alone – his little oasis of calm where he could hide away in his off-duty moments – and he knew he would never change places with Patrick. He didn’t say this, however, because he had no wish to alienate his friend.

‘At least you are almost right in the city,’ he said, ‘and I bet there is fine entertainment to be had in New York on Thanksgiving Day?’

‘Entertainment?’ Patrick cried. ‘Man, there is everything here. Catch up your coat and we’ll hit the town and you’ll see for yourself.’

Joe never forgot his first foray into New York at night and he wrote in all down in a letter to Tom the following day.

Dear Tom,

Last night I was out with Patrick Lacey, who wanted to show me what New York is like at night and we went in on an underground train that they call a subway. We went into what looked like a large metal box on the street to find hundreds of steps leading down. And you went down so far I began to think that we were descending to the bowels of the earth.

Suddenly, we came out at a platform, not unlike those at Derry with the ticket office at the end and it was hard to believe that above us were roads and houses and shops and people carrying on as normal. However, everyone else seemed to be taking it in their stride and the platform was fair teeming with people. I didn’t want to make a holy show of Patrick and so I said nothing and got in the train behind him as if I had been doing it every day of my life and it seemed no time at all till we were at Times Square.

Full darkness had fallen then and oh Tom there are not enough words to tell you about the lights. Patrick said he was fair mesmerised at first and so was I. The colours were so bright, so vibrant. It was amazing. There weren’t just one or two, you understand. Whole sides of buildings were lit up in every colour you could think of and some were fixed to flash on and off.

Eventually Patrick dragged me away to a place called a speakeasy, because though there is supposed to be no alcohol allowed in America at the moment, at the speakeasies they serve it in teapots and give you a cup to drink from, with a saucer as well, so any taking a casual look in would think we were all taking tea.

They play something called jazz. It’s really catchy, foot-tapping music, and played with such energy on big brass instruments. The dance floor was full.

The way some of the women dance the Charleston and the Shimmy and the like, though, would be frowned upon in the whole of Ireland. And many of the young women have their hair cut short, and their dresses go straight down and have a little bit of skirt at the bottom with hems just below the knee. And some smoke and nearly all wear cosmetics. Imagine a few of those walking the streets of Buncrana?

It was a truly amazing night and at the end of it, I took a streetcar that brought me most of the way home. This truly is a wonderful country, Tom, and I cannot thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to come here.

But when Joe had sealed that letter and sent it, he wondered if Tom would feel any resentment when he read it, knowing that he would never experience any of these things himself. All Tom’s life he had sublimated any desires of his own and bent to the will of a crabbed old woman who never had a civil word for him. Joe knew at the end of it, with their mother gone, eventually Tom would inherit the farm, but he thought it a high price to pay.

As the months slipped one into another, Joe considered himself a very fortunate man. He had a job he enjoyed, especially when the car arrived. It was a magnificent, dark green Cadillac, and Joe thought that the idea that he would sit behind the wheel and drive it was both terrifying and thrilling. But he had readily taken to driving, and so the carriage and matching pair that pulled it had been sold, and so had Bramble, and Joe was by then so mesmerised by the car that he hardly missed them.

He was truly content. He had a generous employer that he respected, good wholesome food, a warm bed and a room of his own. Added to all this, he enjoyed the camaraderie of the staff and had a good friend in Patrick Lacey. What more could a man want?

And all this had come about because he’d rescued the daughter of the house from danger. He would have hated anything to have happened to Gloria because she was a lovely young thing. Not that he saw much of her because after his first Christmas in the house she had started at her convent boarding school in Madison.

She had told him that as well as academic subjects, she would learn the sort of attributes she needed to take her place in society. ‘Isn’t it odd, Joe?’ she went on. ‘Mother says I have to learn how to be a lady. I thought you just grew into one, but apparently not.’

Joe had laughed at her gently and said, ‘And I’m sure that you will make a fine lady at the end of it.’

While Gloria had settled down happily at the school almost immediately, she was missed by everyone at home. Her parents were like two lost souls. Brian eventually started going to his old club two or three evenings a week, and Mary reported that even on the nights he was home, he and the mistress hardly said one word to each other while she was in the room serving dinner.

They both lived for the holidays when the house would come alive and ring with the sound of chattering, giggling girls running up and down the stairs. They danced to the pulsating jazz that Gloria played on her phonograph, or played tennis on the court Brian had had made in the paddock at the back of the house.

Kate, the cook, would moan that she didn’t know whether she was coming or going, but Joe knew by her twinkling eyes that really she loved to see the house full. She made sure the cookie jar was never empty, and there was always homemade lemonade on offer.

Joe was also pressed into service to fetch and carry girls around the city. He knew he was a favourite with them all because he never told tales on them. Gloria’s friends also thought it the most romantic thing in the world for a man to rescue a girl in the way he had Gloria, and Gloria claimed he was her own knight in shining armour.

One day in the autumn of 1923 Brian asked Joe if he had ever thought of taking any of the courses being advertised in the city institutes. Shock ran through Joe at Brian’s words, because he knew his employer well by now, and when he spoke like that, it wasn’t really a question at all. It was more like the iron fist inside the velvet glove.

Yet Joe answered, ‘No, sir. Things like that are not for the likes of me. I am not brainy enough.’

‘Who says?’ Brian said. ‘You have to have a brain in your head to understand the mechanics of a car, and they are always praising your knowledge at the garage.’

‘That’s different, sir, and—’

‘They do courses in typewriting and accounts, and I need a man in the office,’ Brian said.

‘Oh, sir, it is kind of you and all, but I am not fitted out for office work.’

‘Kind be damned!’ Brian cried. ‘You would suit me very well. I am impressed by your common sense and your intelligence. Will you do this for me, Joe?’

Joe shook his head helplessly. ‘I honestly don’t know if I will be able to make head nor tail out of any of it,’ he said. ‘And I would probably need a typewriter.’

‘Leave that to me,’ Brian said. ‘Your job is to take the course and get Bobby ready to take over from you in a year or so.’

Joe sighed and yet he knew the hand of opportunity was being extended to him again, and he would be a fool if he didn’t grasp it tight.

A month or so into the course Joe thought he had made a vast mistake. He found it the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He had always been good at figures and thought he would find accounts not that difficult. He was wrong, but he found typewriting much worse. Memorising the keyboard was hard enough and his fingers seemed too big and cumbersome for the keys.

He laboured on and didn’t bother complaining because he knew that Brian would obviously want some return on the money he had spent educating him, and he hoped that his employer’s belief in him was not misplaced.

None of the Brannigans’ staff could understand why he was doing all the book work, and neither could Patrick. Joe told none of them, not even Tom, what Brian had said about being taken on in the office if he should pass the exams, because he could not visualise himself in such a role. He didn’t know if he wanted it, certain he would feel out of his depth. Anyway, there would be no possibility of it if he were to fail his exams, as he was certain sure he was going to.

In one way, though, Joe was pleased that he had so much going on in his life because that summer he had found himself attracted to Gloria physically for the first time in his life. He had been appalled and disgusted that he should have such feelings for a young girl, and the boss’s daughter, no less, and seventeen years younger than he was. He knew he wasn’t just lusting after her beauty and her developing figure, for his love for Gloria seemed to fill every part of him. Just to be near her caused the heat to fill his body as the blood coursed more quickly through his veins and he knew that he would willingly lay down his life for Gloria and feel it an honour to do so.

He recalled the day she had left to start boarding school she had sought him out in the garage first and put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. She had been a child then, though, and he had thought of her as a child. But two years down the line she was a child no longer. He wasn’t sure that he could trust himself not to betray his feelings if she were to do anything like that again, and he knew there was no way that he would ever risk that.

This meant that his manner towards her changed. They had always had a special relationship. Gloria never forgot that Joe had possibly saved her life, and so they had always been free and easy with one another, and she never thought of calling him ‘Sullivan’, as her mother did. But suddenly Joe became very stiff and proper, as that was the only way he could deal with emotions that he had never imagined he would have.

Gloria had been confused and hurt at first. She assumed that she must have said something to offend, though Joe denied she had, nor would he admit that there was anything wrong. Then she became irritated by his remoteness and the peculiar way he was behaving, and one day she had stamped her dainty little foot on the floor and almost hissed, ‘Joe, if you say just one more time that it is not your place to comment on something I say then I will get very cross with you.’

Joe had no reply to that, and in the end Gloria had barked out, ‘Are you going to say nothing at all?’

Joe shrugged. ‘What is there to say, Miss Gloria? You and your parents are the bosses around here.’

‘Joe Sullivan, you must be the most aggravating man in the whole world,’ Gloria cried.

‘So you say, miss,’ Joe had replied, and she had flounced back to the house.

He was sad that he had made her so angry, and from that point her attitude to him had been cooler, and although that made life easier for him, he missed the camaraderie that they’d once enjoyed.

But he didn’t allow himself to dwell on any sort of relationship with Gloria. He knew the only way to get rid of any madness of the mind – and this was a form of madness – was to work harder until he got over it, as he knew he would in the end.

However, Joe’s hard work paid off because in the summer of 1924, he took exams in accountancy and typewriting and in the autumn of that year found out that he had passed both with high grades. He was delighted, but unaware that his results meant that his life was going to change completely. Brian clapped Joe on the shoulder, said that he had always had faith in him and that he would be an invaluable help to him in the office.

That was enough of a sea change for Joe to cope with, but then Brian dropped another bombshell.

‘Of course, now that you are going to be working for me in the office a servant’s room in the basement will no longer be suitable accommodation for you,’ he announced.

Joe was astounded. ‘But why, sir? I’m very comfortable there.’

‘Joe, this is an opportunity to better yourself,’ Brian said. ‘You must trust me in this.’

‘But where will I stay, sir?’ Joe asked.

‘Why, in the house, of course,’ said Brian, as if the decision had all been signed and sealed. ‘You’ll be put in one of the guest rooms.’

Joe’s whole being recoiled from living in the house. It was the largest and most sumptuous dwelling he had ever seen, but it was someone else’s house, and he really didn’t want to leave his room in the basement.

But Brian had decided that that was how it was going to be, and Joe was to take his meals with the family in the house too. Joe remembered the only other meal he had had in the house, the evening he had arrived in New York, and the way that Norah had resented his presence then. He had no reason to think that she thought any more of him now, for all Brian’s praise. He would much rather have taken his meals in the kitchen and knew he would miss the banter and companionship.

But never in his wildest dreams had Joe thought the other servants would act the way they did when he told them what Brian had in mind for him. Kate actually called him an upstart and made a few pointed references about people not knowing their position in life and aping their betters.

Joe didn’t even try to explain or justify himself, for surely they knew he had to do what his employer wanted, just the same as they did, but he was sorry to lose their friendship. Only Planchard, himself in a privileged position, congratulated him and said he deserved every success, and Joe was grateful for his support.

To his utmost surprise, Patrick reacted the same way as most of the Brannigans’ staff when Joe told him of Brian’s plans for him. ‘Well, you’ve done well for yourself, all right,’ he commented sourly. ‘I’m surprised you still come to see a common man like me.’

‘Come on, Patrick. It’s still me – Joe.’

‘No it isn’t,’ Patrick said. ‘The Joe I know would never have sucked up to his employers the way you must have done.’

Joe was surprised and a little hurt. He considered Patrick a really good friend; surely, he thought, you want a friend to achieve good things in life. He hoped that he would have reacted differently if the positions had been reversed.

However, Joe knew that something had been severed between him and Patrick that night and he felt heart sore about it. In fact, he felt so deeply hurt that he was determined at the first opportunity to tell Brian he wanted no fancy job in a fancy office and he would like to turn the clock back and just go back to his room in the basement and let everything go on as it had before.

In the cold light of day, though, he knew he couldn’t do that. His future was inexorably linked to Brian’s, for better or for worse.

For his second dinner in the house, Joe dressed with meticulous care. He knew that Brian’s wife would be the kind of person who had never really seen him as a person; to her he would just be one of the servants. But she would probably remember that the last time he had dinner in this house, he had been wearing soiled and travel-weary clothes, the hand that he had extended to her had been rough and calloused, with blackened nails, and his brogue had been so thick it could have been cut with a knife.

That night he wore a dark blue suit and a snow-white shirt, the striped tie matched the handkerchief in his top pocket, cufflinks sparkled at his wrists, and the black leather shoes were so highly polished he had almost been able to see his face in them. Added to this, his hands were much softer than they had been and his nails spotless. Mustering as much confidence as he could, he extended his hand to the woman whose eyes had opened wider in approval and said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Brannigan.’

She smiled at the charming lilt to his voice and her smile was a genuine one as she shook his hand and said she was pleased to see him. However, her eyes were shrewd and Joe wondered if she couldn’t understand why her husband had paid for the man to have lessons in accounts and typewriting when there must be many already trained for such work. Sullivan, after all, was just a chauffeur.

She betrayed none of this in her manner to him, though, and when Joe showed how embarrassed he was to be served by people he had once counted as his friends he saw Norah’s sympathetic eyes on him. She understood perfectly how he was feeling, and she was also aware of how servants often reacted with someone they thought was stepping out of their class. Brian, on the other hand, was unaware of Joe’s discomfort and saw no problem at all, and Joe knew that that was just one more thing that he would have to overcome.

‘And how did you like the work in the office today, Mr Sullivan?’ Norah asked him as the meal was served and the servants left the room.

‘Oh, I liked it fine, ma’am,’ Joe replied. ‘Of course, there is still a lot for me to learn.’

‘Plenty of time, Joe,’ Brian said. ‘And at least you have made a good start. Those letters you did for me today were first class.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Joe said. ‘Tell you the truth, I never expected to have a job like this. To go to work every day in a suit was never in my line of thought at all.’

‘America truly is the land of opportunity,’ Brian said.

‘It is, sir, right enough,’ Joe agreed. ‘But it was you, not America, that gave me this chance and I will never forget it.’

‘Thank you for that, Joe,’ Brian said. ‘But in the Ireland I remember, and the Ireland some of the migrants tell me about, such things as I did for you couldn’t be done. If your father is a drunk or a layabout then it is almost assumed his offspring will be the same. Your future and expectations would be fixed in the minds of those around you. It was America, Joe, that gave me the opportunity to help you get on.’

‘You are right there, sir,’ said Joe. ‘And tonight I intend to write a letter to my brother and tell him all about the good fortune that has lighted on me, and all about my first day at work.’

‘Have you given him no hint of it before this?’

‘I have told him very little, sir. I was going to tell him what I was doing, but I found it all so hard at the beginning I didn’t think I would ever make a hand of it, and was positive I would fail my exams. There seemed no point in saying anything until the results were in, but now he needs to know. He will be delighted for me. You’d not find a better man than Tom, for it was his generosity of spirit that allowed me to come to America in the first place.’

‘How’s that?’ Norah asked.

‘He sold a field of sheep,’ Joe said. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to manage the sheep on his own once I had left, but he sold the whole lot to a neighbour who had been after them for some time. And he gave the money to me to pay for my passage over and to keep me for a few weeks in case I couldn’t get employment straight away.’

‘What a wonderful gesture,’ Norah said. ‘He surely is a brother to be proud of. And now if everyone has finished maybe, Brian, you will ring for the next course?’

Joe’s presence at meal times was a very beneficial one for Norah, because he soon became aware of her unhappiness. He sensed that she was lonely and missing Miss Gloria, and he found himself feeling sorry for her and so often tried to keep the conversation going.

A few weeks after Joe had moved into the house, Brian said one morning at the office, ‘It’s obvious that you are enjoying yourself at work because the way you talk about it over dinner you have even got Norah interested.’

‘You don’t think that I am talking too much, sir?’

‘I do not, Joe. I tell you, I have never seen Norah so animated.’ He thought for a minute and added, ‘Well, if I’m honest she was like that when Gloria was smaller. Sometimes we even had guests for dinner. Seems a long while ago now. You seem to have rejuvenated something in her.’

Brian was right. Norah was greatly attracted by Joe. She didn’t think of him in a sexual way – she wasn’t going to be that stupid, – but she thought that if she’d ever had a son, she would have liked one like Joe and she couldn’t for the life of her think why he was still unmarried.

‘I haven’t found the right woman yet,’ he told her when she asked him.

‘What!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe that in the whole of New York you haven’t found a girl to suit you. Are you difficult to please, Mr Sullivan?’

‘I wouldn’t say so,’ Joe said. ‘I mean, not more than most men, but I may be more on the cautious side.’

‘I wouldn’t have said that that was part of your personality at all.’

‘Ah, maybe not generally,’ Joe said, ‘but I think it pays to be a little hesitant when someone is making a lifelong commitment.’

‘And there you have it, my dear,’ Brian said. ‘The man rests his case. Anyway, a wife might bring further problems. It suits me to have Joe as free as a bird just now. Anyway,’ he went on, ‘Gloria will be home in a week and your time will probably not be your own then, for, going by past performances, you will be called on to be a taxi service to Gloria and her entourage of friends.’

‘I shan’t mind that, sir.’

‘That’s what I like, an adaptable man,’ Brian said. ‘And you know I can barely wait to see my little girl again.’

Nor can I, thought Joe, but kept that thought to himself. He had no intention of rocking the boat. Many men had to cope with the fact that they loved a woman who was unattainable and he was just one more. He was sure he would get over the fixation he had for Gloria Brannigan in time. He had to, and that was all there was to it.