Crooked Branch (9781101615072) Read online

  Mrs. Spring waved her off with one hand. “You can start by cleaning up that mess.” She gestured to the stink at their feet. “Roisin will get you cleaned up. And Roisin?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Spring?”

  Mrs. Spring gestured to Ginny’s red petticoat. “Get her something more appropriate to wear.”

  • • •

  First, Ginny scrubbed the sick off the flagstones, and then doused them with a pail of fresh water. The shabby afternoon sun was fading into a drippy mist, but the breeze was still clean enough to scour away the bad smell quick. Ginny was feeling a bit wobbly and worried, and entirely stunned by her luck. But she was determined to get straight to work, before Mrs. Spring could come to her senses and change her mind. She still had to figure out how she could get food to her children, fast.

  Roisin gave her a jug of clean water and a towel, and then took her up three flights of stairs to a small attic room, with a bare mattress and a three-legged table where the stub of a candle remained. There were no windows in the little room, and the gables sloped down low overhead.

  “You’ll sleep here, nights,” Roisin said, stepping inside so the sound of her brogues rapped loudly against the gappy floorboards. “But never worry that it’s a bit bare; you won’t spend much time here besides.”

  Ginny gave a measured nod, careful not to betray the awful swell of tears she felt, looking at that lone, bare mattress. She tried not to think of the cozy little bed she shared with the girls at home, now that Raymond was gone. The sunny patch of clean straw for Michael in the same room, where they all slept together. There was a warm reassurance in all that shared breath in the nighttime. She couldn’t imagine how she would sleep here, alone, without the whispered dreams of her children all around her. Sometimes Maggie giggled in her sleep, even since the hunger, even now, when she never laughed in her waking life. Ginny took a deep breath and held it for a moment. The trick, she would learn, was to relieve her mind of the burdens of adjustment, and convince her body to take over that work instead.

  “Get yourself washed,” Roisin was saying. She opened the glass trap on her lantern, and lifted the little candle stub from the table to light it. There was a black skirt and fresh white shirtwaist folded neatly at the end of the mattress. Roisin pointed to it. “Get dressed and come down to the kitchen, after. You can help me get the tea on.”

  “Will I be able to find it?” Ginny asked. “The kitchen?”

  “Back to the dining room—you know the door I came through?”

  Ginny nodded.

  “In that door and down the steps, in the basement.”

  “Right.”

  When the housekeeper closed the door behind her, Ginny sat down for a moment on the mattress. The flame from the candle threw close-dancing shadows overhead.

  “I have to get food to them,” she whispered to herself, her face screwed up with anxiety. “Straightaway. Tonight.”

  Thank God they had that small bit of food today, to keep them ticking over. Thank God that girl Anne had passed by the cottage and stopped. Ginny knelt for a moment, gave a few further prayers of thanks, and asked God to watch over her children and keep them safe. Then she stood, careful not to bump her head on the gables above, and unbuttoned her worn shirtwaist. The skin of her belly was stretched taut, and the bump was fairly pronounced when she was undressed. But not the size it should be.

  Outside she could hear the wind scraping itself over the roof of Springhill House, and she reached a hand up to touch the cold wood overhead. She hoped her babies were warm enough at home, in the cottage. “Don’t worry, Maire,” she said. “Just hold it together.”

  • • •

  The kitchen at Springhill House was enormous, by far the biggest room Ginny had ever seen, outside of the parish church. Copper pots and ladles lined the walls, and still more hung from racks that were strung to the ceiling. Wooden storage bins stood along the walls, and atop these were countless little clay pots and small glass bottles with oils and dried herbs in them. There was a deep larder at the far end of the room, and two massive fireplaces along another wall that shared a chimney. One of the hearths was raised up off the floor, at waist level, so that you could cook in it without having to kneel down on the stone floor. The other was the ordinary kind, down low to the ground, but there was a great spit affixed above that hearth, and the girl who had answered the door earlier stood there now, turning a large leg of mutton on the spit. The chimneys were well vented, but the scent of roasting meat filled the hot, dark room. There were no windows, as the room was in the lowest level of Springhill House.

  Roisin stood at a long, central worktable, kneading some dough in a trough, and she looked up at Ginny when she came in.

  “You met Katie, before,” she said, gesturing at the girl beside the hearth.

  “I did, at the door, but not properly. How’re ya, Katie.”

  The girl kept turning the spit, and gazed back at Ginny without a word.

  “She’s our scullery girl, a great helper. She’s been with us this five months, nearly.”

  Roisin smiled at the meek, dark-haired girl, but Katie only turned her big, mournful eyes toward the mutton.

  “Misses her family something awful,” Roisin whispered. “Her mother was my only sister. Passed away last autumn, and Katie came here to me. Her brothers and sisters all got shipped out to various places. She’s been a great addition to our little number. Haven’t you, Katie?”

  The girl still didn’t answer, and Ginny tried not to scratch at her neck, but the uniform was terrible itchy.

  “It’s just the starch, dear, you’ll get used to it.” Roisin glanced up again. “There are knives in the drawer just there, in the larger press. You may get started on those carrots.” She nodded at a large bunch of thick orange roots.

  Ginny found a knife, and lifted up one of the carrots by its leafy stem. Roisin was watching her, still kneading the dough.

  “Give it a quick scrub, use that bucket there”—she pointed with her chin—“and then just peel it, the same as you would a potato.”

  “Right, so,” Ginny said. She had never seen a carrot before.

  The three women cooked for the better part of two hours, and while they did, Ginny asked Roisin about the daily operation of the house. Although the estate had a substantial acreage and numerous outdoor staff, the house itself was rather on the small side, despite its flawless Georgian facade and pristine walled gardens. Ginny learned that, apart from herself and her two kitchen mates, it was only Murdoch and Mrs. Spring who were resident in the house. “A tidy little number,” was what Roisin called it. Ginny thought it odd. She had never heard of an estate with such a small house staff, and she wondered whether that would mean less work for their limited number, or more. Not that it mattered in the least. While she scrubbed and chopped, she moved her lips again, thanking God for her strange turn of excellent luck.

  The feast that was laid on when they finished cooking would have served a village. Ginny thought of her hungry neighbors in Knockbooley, her skinny children at home. The amount of food in Springhill was perverse.

  “Are the meals always this grand?” she asked Roisin, as they prepared the plates to be carried up to the dining room. They used little clay domes to keep the food warm.

  “Only the evening meal,” Roisin said. “Breakfast is usually fairly simple, just toast, maybe a boiled egg, unless there’s guests. And Mrs. Spring likes to keep the supper in the daytime fairly light. A bit backwards if you ask me. But then who asked me?”

  She was so pleasant, Roisin—so easygoing and lighthearted that you could nearly forget about the horrors going on outside the gates of Springhill House. You could nearly forget about that man who’d passed by the cottage in Knockbooley just this morning with his starved baby wrapped up in a sack for the graveyard. It was a sort of madness inside these walls, a determined forgetfulness. The length of
the worktable was covered with food: boiled carrots with butter, roast mutton, fresh bread, and a mushroom soup with barley and fennel. Ginny wanted to scoff at the extravagance of it, but she couldn’t gauge Roisin yet, what her loyalties might be to Mrs. Spring. She couldn’t risk offense.

  “It’s some feast,” she said instead, trying to sound admiring. “What about the staff?”

  Roisin was loading the prepared plates onto a tray. Katie added a basket with the steaming bread wrapped up in a cloth.

  “Well, as I said, it’s really only us in the house,” Roisin explained. “We usually serve Murdoch and Mrs. Spring together. They ordinarily dine together because Mrs. Spring doesn’t have anyone else for company, God bless her. And then it’s only the three of us, after. And the jarvie. The odd time he joins us for the evening meal instead of eating with those ruffians in the stables.”

  “Jarvie?”

  “Mrs. Spring’s driver,” Katie piped up. It was the first time she’d spoken, and a blush came to her cheek straightaway. He must be handsome, this jarvie.

  “But what about the grounds staff?” Ginny asked.

  “The head gardener’s wife cooks for the outdoor staff, there are so many of them,” Roisin explained. “She even has her own scullery girl, because there’s a whole army of gardeners and stable hands. I couldn’t even keep count of their number. But they eat much simpler than this, more like the tenant farmers. Just potatoes and eggs, mostly. Of course this year it’s different, with the praties gone. They’re having to make up the difference with grains and vegetables out of the house gardens. Mrs. Spring has spent a small fortune feeding them already, since the potato crop failed. I tell you, Murdoch is none too happy about it.”

  “Murdoch is the agent?” Ginny asked.

  Roisin nodded.

  “I met him earlier at the gate. What’s he like?”

  Roisin looked up warily. “What are they all like?” she whispered. “You’d think he was English, the way he carries on. He doesn’t mind selling out his own people to please the gentry.” Roisin glanced up at the staircase and then shook her head. “Ruthless,” she muttered.

  Just like Packet, who’d been the agent at Knockbooley so long that he fancied himself a landlord now. The tenants in Ginny’s parish knew their real landlord’s name was Lord Crofton, but they had never clapped eyes on him. He had never set foot in Ireland. Instead, the absentee landlords in London would hire in these local Irish agents like Packet and Murdoch to run their estates for them, to squeeze out every last drop of profit they could from the land. The agents would rent out the acreage to tenant farmers like Raymond and Ginny for exorbitant prices. And then God help them if they couldn’t pay. God help them. Some families got evicted even if they did pay. The agent might turn a poor punter out for some other reason, on a whim. If a tenant had the gumption to improve his plot of land, for example—to irrigate or build or expand—the agent would seize these improvements for profit. He’d turn the tenant out into the road, and then let his land to a neighbor for a steeper rent because of the effort and ingenuity the first tenant had put in to make it better.

  Nobody could blame a man for doing what he must to survive in times like these, but there was a certain class of a scoundrel who would do this sort of work with glee. The Murdochs and Packets of the world seemed to enjoy lording this kind of power over their own neighbors and kin. These agents were a hateful sort of specimen altogether, a wicked disgrace to their countrymen.

  “You needn’t worry about Murdoch,” Roisin said, “so long as you keep your head down and stay clear of him. He keeps mostly out of the household affairs. He leaves all that to me. Just be thankful you’re not one of his tenants.”

  Ginny sighed, looked at the elaborate spread of food covering the table. “But all of this food . . . it’s just for us, then? Just for five people?”

  “That’s right, dear,” Roisin said, hoisting the tray firmly. “It’s not our job to question.”

  Ginny cringed at herself, slightly. She’d ventured too far.

  “Katie and I will serve,” Roisin went on. “There is fruit and cheese in the larder. Prepare a tray from that for afters, will you?”

  “I will, of course,” Ginny said, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “I’ll be back to put the tea on.” Roisin and Katie disappeared through the arched doorway, and up the darkened steps.

  • • •

  Ginny took a lantern and went into the cold larder, where she marveled at the store of food. Along one wall were large barrels of salted fish and flour. Some cured pork hung from the ceiling, and everything smelled salty and pungent. The other two walls were lined with shelving from floor to ceiling, and every shelf was neatly stocked, with milk, buttermilk, eggs. Ginny could smell the sharp tang of all the different cheeses, even covered, as they were, in cloth and twine. It was all so rich that she had to breathe through her mouth, in case it would overwhelm her and she’d be sick again. There were fruits she’d never seen before, not even in the shops in Westport, and their skins were so bright they glowed. She set the lantern atop one of the barrels, and began selecting some of the fruits to lay into her apron.

  “Hallo!” A man’s voice behind her.

  She spun, and her apron came loose from her hand. The fruit tumbled to the ground, and an orange rolled across the floor, where it bumped against the man’s foot. He was standing in the little doorway, and he rightly filled it up. He was grinning at Ginny.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “You didn’t,” she said, stooping to collect up the scattered food. “I mean I just didn’t see you, I didn’t hear you come in there.”

  He bent down and picked up the orange that had come to a rest beside the toe of his brogue.

  “You must be the new chambermaid.”

  She fitted all the fruit back into the sling of her apron, and lifted the lantern back into her hand.

  “I must,” she said.

  He moved out of the doorway and back into the large kitchen so she could get past. She took the fruit back to the long table, and began to arrange everything onto a copper platter. He went back into the larder, and returned with a small wheel of cheese, already cut. He lumped it up onto the table and fetched a knife from the press. He cut himself a small wedge, and then left the knife down for Ginny. She could feel him staring at her, and she was anxious for Roisin and Katie to return. She glanced at the stairwell, but couldn’t hear any sign of them.

  “I know you,” he said to her then, taking a bite of his cheese.

  He sat up on a high stool beside the worktop, and she lifted the knife, peeled back the layer of cloth on the cheese wheel.

  “Do you, now?” she said, without interest.

  “You’re Ginny Rafferty.”

  She paused to look at him. She gripped the knife in her hand.

  “No,” he went on, “hang on, that’s not quite right.” He was still grinning, showing all his teeth. “You’re Ginny Doyle now, aren’t you? Née Rafferty, and then you married that Raymond Doyle, from Knockbooley, didn’t you, around about the time your parents passed away, God rest their souls? Must’ve been ten years ago.”

  “Twelve,” she whispered, staring at him. He was tall and broad in the shoulders, with keen blue eyes that were made even brighter by the dusky tint of his skin. He’d a strong jaw and cheekbones, and hair even blacker than hers. She couldn’t place his face. “You must be the jarvie,” she said.

  “Seán Lyons,” he said.

  “You’re never.” She set the knife down on the counter.

  “I am,” he said.

  “My God, you’ve changed a small piece since I seen you last.” She stared hard at him, and his smile tapered off modestly while she looked. He’d only been a child then, only slightly older than Maire maybe, when Ginny’s parents died in the same bad winter, and she left her home in Doon t
o marry Raymond. His mother, Kitty Lyons, had been her childhood neighbor, one of her mam’s dearest friends. Ginny studied the lines of his face for a trace of the boy she had known.

  “You haven’t changed a hair,” he said, staring her boldly in the face without smiling. “Still the most beautiful girl in Mayo.” He shook his head, looked down at his hands. “Oh, I was heartbroken when you went off with that Raymond fella,” he laughed.

  “Ah, wouldja stop,” she said. “You were only a boy.”

  “A boy with a savage heart!” He clutched his chest with his hand, and she laughed at him, she couldn’t help it. She was sure she was blushing. He stood, and lifted the knife out from under her hand, began slicing the cheese for her. “Where is he now, our hero, our dashing Raymond Doyle? I reckoned you’d have a lock of childer and be off in Knockbooley living the sweet life.”

  She bit her lip. “He left for New York in September.” She took the cheese as he sliced it, and arranged it on the platter with the fruit.

  “Ah, it’s bad times,” he said. “Bad times for dear ould Mother Ireland.”

  “It is,” she agreed.

  But it was good times for Ginny Doyle, she reckoned. Awful lucky times altogether. “You drive for Mrs. Spring?” she said.

  “I do,” he said. “All her messages, her elegant appointments, her step-and-fetch.” There was no small hint of mockery in his voice. “When she sends for new silk slippers from the Continent, I hasten into Westport to collect them for her. I’m vital! Important work, that.” He tossed the cheese knife into a nearby bucket of water, and sat back up on his stool. He glanced at the stairwell before leaning in toward Ginny. “It’s a load of bollix,” he whispered. “But what are you going to do?”

  She leaned across the worktable, and looked at him. “Jesus, I’m awful glad you’re here, Seán.”

  The quick and earnest blush of his cheek shocked her, but still, she reached over to squeeze his hand. They could hear footsteps coming down the stair.

  “Can you meet me tonight?” she whispered.