The calling, p.20
The Calling, page 20
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
When a girl is out of a situation she is, in many cases, in a very helpless condition, much more so than a man in similar circumstances. The factories are full, and a situation as a domestic servant may not be got at once.
FROM A LETTER TO THE EDITOR, LYTTELTON TIMES, 17 MARCH 1896
It was frustrating having to wait two whole days until Monday, but the registry didn’t open on Saturdays or Sundays. I spent many hours walking through the city, getting to know my way around — that was the reason I gave Mrs Clendon, but really I was looking for Tommy and Eddie. There were plenty of young men, many of them wearing smarter clothes than Eddie or my brother had ever owned, but also there were too many who looked ragged and without hope.
They should have written to me. They should have told me where they were living. I began to wonder if either of them were still in Wellington — I surely would have caught sight of one of them if they were.
I wrote to Mother Joseph and Father Mac, asking them for a reference. I told Mother how Dad had made me realise God hadn’t called me and that he’d forbidden me from returning to Jerusalem until I was called to serve Him. It was a hard letter to write, for it made me yearn to be her dear chick again. I ended it with a cry from my heart.
Dear Mother, I don’t understand what God wants me to do with my life. All my attempts to serve Him have come to nothing.
Your loving daughter in Christ,
Molly
I wrote to Dinah as well. Her mama had known me all my life. I asked Dinah to beg her to write me a reference.
On Sunday I returned to the cathedral for early Mass and to thank Father Farrelly for his kindness. He wasn’t at the service. Was he avoiding me now that I knew his story? Heni’s words sounded in my memory. Pray hard. He’s a deeply troubled soul. I prayed hard for him to find peace.
The next day, after the most idle weekend of my life, I was waiting at the door of the Charlotte Street Registry when it opened for business at nine sharp.
My heart sank at the sight of the man I’d have to talk to. He looked forbidding and stern, all neat whiskers and clothes just so — a folded handkerchief peeping out of a top pocket of his jacket, his waistcoat buttoned, shirt blinding white, and the collar starched stiff enough to chop through his neck.
So with all that tidy splendour in front of me I nearly leapt out of my skin when he smiled and said, ‘Good morning, young lady. May I see your references, if you please?’ His voice was pleasant, almost melodious. Oh goodness, I needed to keep my mind on my reason for coming here.
I handed him my precious sheet of paper.
He read it, then gazed at me. ‘Only one reference, Miss Conway? Two is usual. Three is even better.’
My words tumbled over each other in my hurry to explain.
‘I see.’ He steepled his hands, but this time he gazed over my head rather than at me. I hoped he was thinking how to help me. I prayed silently while I waited. Please help me, Saint Joseph.
He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Miss Conway, I will be frank with you. Your Catholicism will be a problem for some prospective employers, as I’m sure you’re aware.’
I wasn’t, although after my treatment by my stepmother I should have been. My religion had no bearing on my ability to work, and anyone who thought so didn’t deserve me.
Maybe I was glaring at him because he smiled again. ‘However, many households are crying out for good servants. There’s a lady I could send you to who will almost certainly employ you.’ He held up a hand to stop my words of thanks. ‘Unfortunately, this lady is difficult. I’d resolved only last Thursday to decline to take her business but she is most persistent.’
Yet it was a chance for me. I said, ‘My stepmother was difficult and I coped with her. Please tell me more about this lady.’
‘Very well. Pin your ears back. She’ll use anything against you she can so as to pay you less than she should, which is fifteen shillings a week plus your board and uniforms.’
I didn’t understand. ‘But …’
‘She will seize on the facts of your religion and on your having only one reference. She is demanding, likely to overwork you, and she’ll never utter a word of thanks or gratitude.’ He looked at me, sorrow in his eyes. ‘I’m very sorry that hers is the only position I can offer you right now where you won’t be turned away. I have to warn you — the last of the three young ladies she employed stayed the longest. Ten days. Do you want to take it?’
I took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Thank you for telling the truth about her.’
He shook his head. ‘I feel like I’m sending a lamb to the slaughter.’
‘You’ve been very kind. Thank you.’
He sighed and handed me a slip of paper. ‘Mrs Young, widow of a wealthy man. She lives on Tinakori Road. Likes to think she’s one of the toffs. She’ll only pay you ten shillings a week. I advise you to leave the minute your references arrive.’
I was sad to say goodbye to Mrs Clendon. She cut off my thanks by wrapping me up in a hug. ‘You’re welcome back here any time, Molly, and don’t you forget it.’
The house on Tinakori Road looked outward to the harbour and the hills beyond, but below it in a gully were hovels where children played in the dirt.
It was an imposing two-storeyed building complete with a funny little tower on one side. I opened the fancy wrought-iron gate and had time to take in the well-disciplined garden. My goodness, no flower was allowed to stick its head across the tidy borders here. I much preferred Mrs Clendon’s riot of blooms.
I walked around to the back of the house, knocked on the door and waited, was about to knock again when it was wrenched open by a girl with a paring knife in her fist.
I took a step back, my hands up.
She blushed and tucked the knife away in the pocket of her apron. ‘Sorry. Last parlour maid quit and it’s me what has to answer the door. What you want?’
I grinned at her. ‘I’ve come about the position of parlour maid.’
She fair towed me into the house. ‘Wait here. I’ll tell madam.’ Off she scurried up a most elegant set of stairs. Would it be my job to polish that banister and dust all those curly bits holding it up?
The kitchen maid gestured frantically for me to follow her. ‘Madam will see you now.’ Then she whispered, ‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’
That wasn’t encouraging.
Mrs Young lay on a long sofa set under the window. She had one hand clasping her brow and the other clutching something that she kept lifting to her nose. Was she an invalid?
But no, apparently not. She swung her feet to the floor and sat up, her back as straight as the spine of a book. ‘Name, references. Quick smart. I don’t have time to waste.’ She held out her hand.
She glanced at Father Niall’s note, looked me over as if I was a horse she wanted to buy, then snapped, ‘Ten shillings a week. You’re Catholic. You’ve only got one reference and that’s not worth the paper it’s written on. You’re lucky I’m a Christian woman who’ll give you a home and pay you.’
Mother wouldn’t think well of this woman’s sort of Christianity. Well, the nice gentleman had warned me. Mrs Young issued more instructions. ‘You will keep your room and your uniform immaculate. You will not have anything to do with anyone of the opposite sex. You most certainly will not vote.’
I bobbed a curtsey. ‘Yes, Madam. Of course not, Madam. As for voting, I am too young. Unfortunately.’
How dare she give an order like that? She was going to be a nightmare to work for.
And so it proved. The uniform was a black dress with a white apron, and on her ‘at-home’ days when she had people calling I had to wear a ridiculous frilly white cap that had two long white ribbons dangling from the back.
Her week followed a strict routine, with the at-home day occurring always on a Wednesday afternoon. The other afternoons except Fridays she attended the at-homes of friends and acquaintances. And left me with a long list of tasks — polishing silver and furniture, dusting every blessed ornament cluttering every surface, cleaning windows and mirrors, taking the mats outside to beat the dust out of them. When she came home she inspected everything, sighing all the time and murmuring, ‘I suppose you’ve done your best.’
In the mornings she followed me around the house, watching to make sure I did my work to her satisfaction. God must have been somewhere in her, buried deep down where I couldn’t find Him, just like with my stepmother. Was this to be my life — serving one difficult woman after another until I learned to see Him in everyone?
To keep up my spirits I sang as I worked, though never hymns, which would have brought Madam’s wrath down upon my head. For a bit of plain devilment I sang a few of the hymns in Maori, but she didn’t seem to realise I was singing in a heathen language, and anyway it wasn’t such a brilliant idea after all because it made me yearn to be back among friends. Madam tutted along behind me while I sang and worked.
Cook and Ivy, the little kitchen maid, said they’d never seen anything so funny as me singing away and ignoring Madam whose face, they said, kept going from red to white. ‘She doesn’t know what to make of you, and that’s a fact.’ Cook rubbed her hands with glee. ‘Those other parlour maids, they couldn’t stand being watched like that. It’s better than a play!’
I was glad to lighten their days and I’m afraid I was delighted to have so confounded Madam.
Friday came. I’d lasted four days so far. I could do this. I could endure for another week until my references arrived.
But Friday was a revelation. I was required to accompany Madam into town and to carry any parcels she bought. I had to wear a fresh white apron and the silly, frilly hat, but I was glad of the chance to walk in the city and go into some of those elegant shops. I would also look for Eddie and Tommy, unlikely as it was that they’d be out shopping, and I’d run into the post office to see if, by any miracle, a letter had arrived for me a week before it was due.
We went to town in a gig driven by Cyril, Mrs Young’s gardener, who was now much more smartly dressed than when he worked in the garden. Mrs Young saved money on her servants wherever she could. He drove us the length of Lambton Quay to the corner of Willis Street, arriving there at exactly 11.30. Apparently this was the time when women of consequence — or, as Cook said, those with money who wanted others to think they were toffs — came into the city to shop and be seen. Then she’d sniffed, so I figured she didn’t rate Mrs Young as a toff.
I jumped down from the gig but her ladyship stayed where she was. ‘For heaven’s sake, girl — hand me down. Don’t you know anything?’
I held my hand up for her to take, giving her my sunniest smile. ‘I do now, Madam. Thank you for instructing me.’
She pursed her lips and climbed down to the street in a haughty silence. ‘Walk behind me. Keep a respectful distance.’
‘Yes, Madam.’
Cyril winked at me, a broad grin on his face.
I followed her stop-start progress down the street. The day was fine and breezy and she was wearing a hat like a large plate, decorated with silk flowers. She defeated the wind by tying it onto her head with a scarf which rather spoiled its magnificence.
One glance at the people strolling by was enough to convince me that neither Eddie nor Tommy would be among the crowd of fashionable women trailed by their maids. I would search again on Sunday, but for now I would give myself up to the wonder of the stores with their huge windows glittering with enticing displays of merchandise.
We hadn’t needed such things at Jerusalem. We had no use for feathers and ribbons, or mantles, pelisses, table damasks, fringes, fancy keyhole covers or even a chronometer. And Mother would never permit us to waste precious flour on gingerbread, muffins or pastries.
I didn’t want to buy anything, not even a fancy trimming for a bonnet, but it was such fun to feast my eyes on the rich array.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
[Kirkcaldie & Stains] … became a comparatively exclusive retail institution during the 19th century.
WELLINGTON CITY HERITAGE
Mrs Young kept stopping to chat to every woman who had a maid trailing along behind her. Their conversation was always about the ‘servant problem’ but I don’t think Madam was aware of the sly comments aimed at her. ‘Ah, my dear Mrs Young! How delightful to see you. And is that another new maid with you today? Are you satisfied with this one?’
Madam gave the same reply four times. A sniff, then, ‘She’s … adequate. It’s the most one can hope for in these benighted times.’
Adequate. What high praise! I’d get a swelled head if she wasn’t careful.
She drifted past a bicycle shop without a second glance while I followed as slowly as I dared. It was the sort of place where Eddie might have found work — but he wasn’t one of the two men attending customers.
Madam followed the advice of one of her acquaintances and hurried into the New Zealand Clothing Factory sale to buy a pair of kid gloves with a wool lining for only two shillings and sixpence. The shop assistant handed the parcel to me and Madam said, ‘Don’t lose it, Molly. That money will come out of your wages if you do.’
I gave her another of my sunny smiles. ‘Thank you for the warning, Madam.’
She shot me a suspicious look. Clearly, she didn’t know what to make of me, but I thanked Saint Joseph that I’d found a way to cope with her. True, I enjoyed confounding her and maybe that was a sin, but maybe it wasn’t. I shrugged and gave myself up to taking in the sights.
She tried on six pairs of shoes in Hannahs shoe store but bought none of them. I cringed when she said to the man serving her, ‘I prefer to buy my footwear from Kirkcaldie and Stains. They have much superior stock.’
She tried on four hats in Almaos which advertised itself as the Cheap Hat Shop, but again she bought nothing. We dawdled our way down the Quay until she stopped at Pringles and went inside. The window was full of colourful china figurines of ladies dressed in a costume I didn’t recognise. I ventured inside — and my goodness, Madam was actually handing over money to buy one of them. So pretty but so terrifying to dust.
That was another parcel for me to carry and another warning not to lose it. ‘And be most careful with it, Molly. These Japanese figures are extremely delicate.’
Then it was back on the street with more stopping to gossip, but finally we arrived at the Kirkcaldie and Stains department store. She bought shoes. She bought a hat — another huge one decorated with hundreds of silk birds. It had a fringe around the brim. It made her look like a lampshade. The assistant put it tenderly in a large, round hatbox. She was probably ecstatic to be rid of it, but it was another parcel for me to carry, and a most awkward one given that I also had the gloves, the Japanese lady and a pair of shoes. Surely she’d done enough shopping for one day?
‘Wait for me on the street, Molly. I wish to patronise the lingerie department. There is no need for you to accompany me.’
‘Yes Madam.’ I’d bet my week’s pay that she didn’t want me to know what size corset she wore.
It was a real balancing act carrying those parcels. I had to set the three smaller ones on top of the stupid hatbox, but I kept a finger on the edge of parcel with the Japanese lady inside. The other things would bounce, but she would shatter.
The wind had picked up when I reached the street. I wouldn’t have minded if my hands had been free — that dratted wind, it pulled and tugged my skirt, flung my apron every which way and fretted away at the hatbox as if it wanted to tear it from my hands.
I was turning to seek shelter back in the store when the accident happened.
A horse whinnied, there was a clomping of hooves, shouting. I whirled around to see a panicked horse, a sheet of newspaper blown across his face and the gig he was harnessed to flying sideways. There was a thud and a crunch as the man and woman in the gig hit the ground. The lady didn’t move. The man crawled to her, calling, ‘Lillian! Oh, my dear wife! Not dead? You cannot be dead!’ He pulled himself towards her, not even aware of the blood pouring down his face.
I ran to help. Nobody else was doing anything useful. Two fashionable ladies stood rigid with shock. One looked ready to faint. I had no attention to spare for her, not when Lillian lay broken and unmoving on the road. I knelt beside her, felt for a pulse in her throat. The beat was fainter than it should be, but steady. ‘She’s alive. She must have been stunned when she was thrown from the gig.’ I gave her husband’s arm a shake. ‘Listen to me! She is alive. She will recover.’ I glanced up. The crowd of onlookers had grown. ‘Has somebody sent for a doctor?’
A grubby boy of around ten piped up. ‘Miss, I told them inside …’ He pointed his chin at the store. ‘They’re ringing Doctor Calder.’
I gave him a quick smile. ‘Bless you.’ How long would it take before the doctor got here? Long enough for the husband to bleed to death at this rate. I took off my apron. ‘Please be still while I bandage your head.’
He swiped at the stream of blood. ‘It doesn’t matter. Please — help my wife.’
Dear God, please guide my hands and my words.
‘Sir, it won’t help your wife if you bleed to death or are too weak from losing blood that you can’t be by her side when she wakes. Now sit still and let me work.’
To my astonishment he obeyed.
The apron made a bulky sort of bandage, but it did stop the stream of blood. ‘Now sit beside her and hold her left hand. She fell on her right side and we don’t know if she’s hurt her arm. Be careful not to bump her. She may have broken a bone.’
Again, he obeyed without question, but how I wished for Mother’s steady presence and her skill at bone-setting, for I was sure Lillian had broken her leg, maybe both, judging by the twisted way she was lying. She wasn’t young, and older bones don’t mend quickly.
Gently and carefully, I freed enough of the fabric of her skirt to risk a quick look underneath. Her right leg bent below her knee. Bone stuck out of the skin. Blood trickled from the wound. The pain would be horrible when she recovered from the bump to her head. Please let that doctor come quickly and be skilled.
