Ellis Island (16 page)
Authors: Kate Kerrigan
Precious was not promoted to parlor maid—Mrs. Flannery would never have allowed it anyway—but she continued to help me as part of her duties and was given full access to Isobel’s things. Although the incident was never mentioned again, Isobel’s attitude to Precious changed. She was more respectful of her and went out of her way to praise Precious for the way she polished her side table or arranged her bangles by color. Yet it was Isobel’s change in attitude toward me that was the more remarkable. My mistress began to seek my advice and approval.
At first it was just on what she wore. “Ellie—should I wear the feather hat with this or is it ‘too much.’”
“I really couldn’t say, Ma’am.”
“Oh, come on, Ellie, I know you have an opinion—and stop calling me Ma’am. It makes me sound so old!”
“I think the red felt Lanvin would be better.”
“You are right of course, Ellie,” she would say, picking out one hat, or coat, or set of gloves over the other. “You are
always
right.”
One day she said, “Can you read, Ellie?” I blushed in anger as she quickly redeemed herself: “No, no, of course you can read— What I meant to say is, do you
like
to read?”
The truth was that I had not had time to open a book since I arrived in America. “Oh yes, I love to read.”
“Good,” she said, “because I detest it, but I do like to know what is going on in the world. Perhaps you would read this to me now?” and she handed me a copy of
This Side of Paradise
. “F. Scott is such a sweetheart and he is
all
the rage, but the print hurts my eyes.”
We sat in the drawing room, Isobel on the gold chaise, her stockinged feet tucked up to her tiny rump for comfort, and I on a hard chair opposite her. From the moment I began, the two of us were mesmerized by the charmed, privileged life of Princeton student Amory Blaine. After a while, seeing me shift uncomfortably, Isobel suggested I move into the large armchair by the window. It was so soft that I felt as if I was sitting on a cloud, and the seat was so wide and high that I struggled to keep my feet on the ground, my head resisting the temptation to fall back and disappear into its silk-covered duck-down cushions. At the end of each chapter I flicked my eyes across to Isobel, to see if she wanted me to continue. Although her eyes were closed, she had her fingers to her mouth, indicating that she was not asleep, but listening intently—perhaps drawing pictures of the handsome young protagonist in her mind, hoping some raffish suitor might barge into her own life and carry her off into a whirl of heady decadence without the restrictions of respectability that her husband’s money demanded of her.
At lunchtime, she held up her hand for me to stop and called down to the kitchen for tea. Precious came up with a small plate of sandwiches and one cup. Isobel insisted that she go and fetch another cup for me. I was mortified and offered to go to the kitchen and eat my lunch there.
“Certainly not,” she insisted, “you are engaged in very important work. I can’t wait a moment longer to see what happens to our hero. Precious, tell Mrs. Flannery to make some sandwiches for Ellie, and I would like some coffee sent up also.”
In protest Mrs. Flannery sent up a tin mug on an old wooden tray with two thrown-together crusts barely acquainted with a slither of cheese.
I read until the last line and, as I looked up from the gaudy yellow cover, I noticed that I had been reading virtually in the dark. The trees of Central Park were silhouetted against a steel gray sky, the streets empty as everyone sat down to dinner with their families. Isobel and I sat in the wake of our wasted day. Precious called up to tell Isobel her dinner was ready on a tray if she wanted it, and I sensed she was going to ask me join her for dinner so that we might sit and review Amory and his antics.
I knew that would be a bad idea, not least because of what Mrs. Flannery might send up to me a second time. I stood immediately and followed Precious out of the room before Isobel had time to ask. I turned as I reached the door, and noticed how her eyes had hollowed in the shadows of the gray dusk light. She looked more lonely than any person had a right to be. I flicked on the electric light switch as I was leaving, and she smiled and said, “Thank you.” As the door closed behind me, I remembered I was lonely too, and with a brief, unexpected pang of bitterness I wondered who was there to turn on the light for me.
Isobel took a house by the Jersey Shore for the winter, where she hosted small weekend parties for her coterie of artistic and eccentric hangers-on. She always took me, and only me, away with her. This caused me the joint discomfort of fending off Mrs. Flannery’s suspicions that Isobel was “up to something” and the backbreaking responsibility of being the sole servant in a houseful of demanding people.
While Isobel had adopted me as a confidante, gifting me with increasing numbers of her castoffs, and requiring that I waste afternoons reading to her or just sitting on the end of her bed discussing the fashions of the day, she still expected her stockings to be hung, her hats placed pristinely back in their boxes, her dresses pressed and her silks carefully wrapped in tissue paper. Drunk or sober, last thing at night Isobel would sit at her dressing table and slather her face in cold cream, wiping it off with a silk handkerchief that she carelessly threw after her. In the morning, when she checked herself again, the mirror had to be polished, any greasy smears removed first with soapy water, and a freshly laundered handkerchief left in place of the used one.
At the apartment in Fifth Avenue, Mrs. Flannery tended to all the servants’ basic needs, as far as warmth and food were concerned, and I had Precious to help me with the smaller details. However, in Jersey I was expected to cook and prepare the meals, tidy up after everybody and tend to Isobel’s insecurities and needs.
Isobel was lackadaisical in her habits and careless with her belongings. She would carry sandwiches into the bathroom with her and leave them on the sink, to be found by me hours later, in a dripping, swollen heap. She tossed her shoes off while walking up the stairs, the pair separating as one tumbled to the bottom and the other wedged itself treacherously in the carpet rail, to cause the person after her to trip. She had become so used to people cleaning up after her that she was entirely unaware of the mess she made and the work it meant for me. Rooms had to be aired and prepared for guests, food delivered, then menus agreed and meals cooked for up to ten houseguests. The first two weekends I was like a whirling dervish—running up and down the stairs, catering to the whims and demands of the noisy socialites, artists and hangers-on, while at the same time cooking their meals and running them baths, and doing everything but brushing their teeth for them.
On the other hand, these weekends gave me a break from the city, and the monotony of my daily routine. The best part was the car journey down, when there was nothing to do but sit and talk for two hours. We were collected at the front entrance of the apartment block by a uniformed chauffeur. In the emerald-green cape with matching hat and gloves that my mistress had given me, I looked more like her friend and companion than her servant as we walked out past Mr. Flannery and climbed into the big, black car.
Isobel confided nonsense to me about small flirtations and I inquired after acquaintances and socialite rivals, allowing her to babble on. On the journey for our second weekend, I asked after Charles Irvington.
“How do you know him?” she asked, astonished. “He’s almost
never
in the society pages—although his family are
very
rich.” She was thrilled to hear how I had met him on the boat, clapping her hands with delight. I felt so proud of my ability to entertain her that I even told her about commenting about his shiny white teeth, and she screamed with delight at my scandalous tongue.
“I saw him at one of your parties,” I said. “The first one you gave after I got here.”
“Oh, my God—that’s right. He came with Dolly Vinewood, dreadful woman, looks like a horse. Where did you see him? What did he
say
? Did he remember you? Was there
romance
in the air, Ellie?”
“Of course not—I’m sure he didn’t even remember me!” And I felt slightly giddy with the silliness of her suggestion.
“Oh, Ellie, how exciting. Maybe I’ll invite him again—for your benefit!”
I blushed and she nudged me crudely, then her expression became serious, and she looked at me queerly as if thinking of confiding in me. I turned the conversation to some other frippery. I didn’t want to carry any of Isobel’s darker secrets. There had been times when I wondered if my mistress had a special lover. Up to now, she had made no move to confide in me—perhaps because she feared what I would say. I would have said nothing, of course. In truth I had no opinion on my mistress’s behavior, one way or the other. I had married for love and had never experienced desires for anyone other that John. Isobel had married for money alone, and so she was alone in her marriage. For that reason it would not have surprised me if she sought comfort from other men.
We stopped at a gas station en route, and the boy who filled the tank doffed his cap at me. It reminded me of the boys in town back home, where I was considered a real lady on account of my father’s job.
When we arrived, Isobel pleaded with me, “Don’t start work right away, Ellie. I’ll be too lonely here in the big house until my friends arrive. Sit and have tea.” She was mindless of the fact that I had to leave her alone in order to go to the kitchen and make it.
Later, I heard her praise me to an unpleasant bearded young artist, as I was coming into the library with some cocktails. “Ellie is wonderful. She would do
anything
for you!”
“Having servants is
so
bourgeois,” he rudely responded.
“Oh, Ellie’s not really a maid, Franz, she’s more a
friend
—isn’t that right, darling?” Her hand reached out and touched the skirt of the castoff day dress she had encouraged me to wear instead of my uniform, the better to please her liberal friends. “We’re all equal here, Ellie—isn’t that right?” she pleaded with me.
“Absolutely, Ma’am,” I said, adding meanly, “Please excuse me while I go and finish cleaning up the kitchen after lunch.”
“You see,” I heard Franz say as I was leaving, “it’s people like you, Isobel, who are keeping our class structure alive. What we need is a revolution. For the Negroes and the working class to rise up . . .”
I felt like suggesting he might start the revolution by coming downstairs and helping me with the pots and pans. But I didn’t. Despite the hard work, I enjoyed taking part in the delusion that I was more friend than servant.
Mrs. Flannery disapproved of Isobel encouraging me to forget my place, yet she remained convinced that at heart I was a sensible type and not “a foolish flibbertigibbet” like Sheila, whose imminent marriage into money was a subject she derided with huge cynicism. Mrs. Flannery was part of a New York network of housekeepers who, between them, could trace the inside workings of every wealthy family along the east coast of America. “I know that family. That Alex lad is from self-made Irish stock. Hardworking. If Sheila doesn’t bring something to the table, she’ll never be let in. There’s nothing in this life comes free. She’ll have to earn her place one way or another.”
When I returned exhausted after the second of Isobel’s weekends, Mrs. Flannery decided that I was being exploited. “Expecting you to cater for ten people? What was that stupid woman thinking of! You’re only a lady’s maid, Ellie—you’re not trained for that kind of work!” With her years of experience in such matters, Mrs. Flannery could organize a weekend house party without even being there, which is exactly what she proceeded to do.
She sat me down and planned menus for the whole weekend—simple food that I would be able to prepare and manage easily. On the Friday night, a cold meat platter and potato salad because “people will be arriving at different times, so the food can be laid out in the dining room and they can help themselves.” The same went for breakfast, with a selection of pastries—eggs and sausages an optional extra on the Sunday morning—to be prepared beforehand and left on a heated metal dish, a miraculous new invention in which she had recently invested, and released to me with severe warnings to neither break it nor blow up the house with it. For the Saturday she gave me the recipe for a minced meat and tomato-based sauce to be poured over spaghetti. “It’s Italian,” she said. “Put the whole lot in a big dish and let them help themselves. Trust me, these bohemians are well used to eating rough and ready.” We practiced by cooking “spaghetti Bolognese” together for the staff supper that evening. It was tangy and sweet, hearty enough to eat every night. Mr. and Mrs. Flannery both passed it over for boiled bacon and potatoes, never conceding to like “foreign food,” but as we were clearing it away, I saw the old woman dip a hunk of white bread into the burgundy sauce and stuff it back greedily while she thought nobody was looking.
When everything was set, the housekeeper then instructed me to give Isobel my drill for the weekend. Meals were to be eaten at set times only. Drinks and snacks could be found in the dining room during the day, but food was not to be carried up to the rooms and left there. There would be no laundry or mending services offered to guests, save what Isobel herself needed. No running upstairs and downstairs, willy-nilly, catering to every guest’s whim. “Put your foot down now, Ellie, or those people will take advantage. You might be in Isobel’s service, so you have to put up with her. But it is not your place to cater for that godless gang of fly-by-nights she has hanging about. Artists and writers, my eye—not a decent job between them! You are as good as any of them, Ellie Hogan, and don’t you forget it.”
Isobel had no problem ordering an extra car to carry all the food, much of it already prepared for me and packed with ice, for the weekend. Mrs. Flannery was a consummate professional and, despite her protestations about Isobel’s guests, she had catered for every other detail. She packed away laundered napkins, bath- and hand-towels, fragranced soaps, bath salts, chocolates and lavender pillows for each bed, and had me write out ten times a welcoming letter to be left in each room explaining mealtimes and the availability of hot water. In addition, she sent a telegram to a cleaning service in Jersey and arranged for them to send me a girl on Saturday to stay over until Sunday to help me clean and work the kitchen. The bill was to be sent straight to Mrs. Flannery and the girl could sleep in the kitchen, so that Isobel, who never came downstairs, would not even know she was there.
As soon as we got to the house, the driver of the second car drove round to the tradesmen’s entrance and helped me to unload the many bags and boxes into the large kitchen, side-scullery and larder. Once the last bag was in, I asked if he would like tea after his journey, but he declined politely and I gave him the dollar tip that Mr. Flannery had pressed into my hand for that purpose.
I briefly surveyed my boxes, rubbing my gloved hands together, both because of the cold and, I realized, with some excitement. In truth, I was relishing the prospect of the coming weekend, being in charge of proceedings. I knew what was in every box and bag, where it was to go, how and when each of its contents was to be stored and then dispatched. I briefly surveyed my field of battle, making last-minute decisions about where to put various items and then, full of energy, I ran up the stairs to check on Isobel. I was anxious to get her settled into her evening toilet and dressing routine so that I could come back downstairs and get on with my preparations.
Isobel was not in her room, but standing in the hallway. She was still in her furs and the door was open. Although I had heard our car drive away as the other was still unloading, there was another car at the end of the path, waiting with its engine running.
“Ellie,” she grabbed both my hands. “I have the most thrilling thing to tell you. I am not spending the weekend here at all, but with . . . with a friend.” Her eyes were already looking out the door. Her face was wild with excitement. “You understand nobody must know about this—only you, darling Ellie? I’ll be back on Sunday.”
So she did have a lover, and she was abandoning me for him. Her hands released mine, but I clutched at the soft, navy leather of her gloves. “What do you mean? What shall I do? What about all the guests?”
She was smiling, laughing almost, “I’ve canceled them all, Ellie . . . It was a trick!” And she giggled and drew back her lips in a naughty, child-like grin. “Goodness, Ellie, you must think I’m dreadfully wicked.”
“But what about all the food—all the work that me and Mrs. Flannery put in? The expense of the extra car? How can I bring all that food back with me? What shall I do with it all?”
She snatched her hands away and her girlish expression darkened. “Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie, you’ll think of something. Frankly, I can’t believe how selfish you are being! I thought you’d be pleased for me. Anyway, I don’t have time for this,” and she straightened her gloves as she walked out the door. “You have the whole house to yourself—do whatever you like.”
I stood dumbfounded looking after her.
When she reached the bottom of the steps she stopped and, clearly remembering that I was her “friend,” turned and called up, “Enjoy your weekend, Ellie, and remember, it’s our secret!”
