Mrs. Engels. Gavin McCrea

there’ll be dirt and dust round the place, for I don’t allow it. She said it isn’t a question of cleanliness but of heritage, for olden things can be clean without being shiny. I said what would I be wanting with heritage? All I need is a couple of chairs that stand upright. She said it isn’t hard to give the idea of it, even in recent and modest houses, by buying the necessaries at auctions, such as movables of no modern date and art that’s been handled and weathered—and chipped, I see now—and by scattering it all about so that two new things don’t rub against each other and make a glare.

      “Ending the tyranny of novelty,” is what she called it.

      “Spending other people’s brass,” is what I call it, but only to myself. And it’s unkind even to think it, for I wouldn’t have been able to do it—the ridding, the arranging, the fixing up—without her.

      She’s thought of everything. She’s had the right fringe put on the draping, and the right frills put on the fringe. The few bits we sent down ourselves, she’s had cushioned over. She’s had the stores stocked. She’s had calling cards made; there they are stacked on the hall table. Everything: first to last, start to end.

      “We went a finger over budget,” she said. “But I believe quality speaks for itself.”

      And the rooms do indeed speak. They speak dark and solemn. For in buying the movables—and by all accounts she bid like a madbody after most of it—she thought not about what was handsome but about what was suitable to Frederick’s position. And seeing them now, these hulks of bookcases and cabinets and desks and tables, I find myself wondering has she mistaken him, all along, for a priest.

      “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Frederick?” I says, as a way of cheering him.

      But there’s no humor to be had from him. He’s gone like a brick. Closed like a door. He shrugs and disappears upstairs. I follow him up and find him on the first landing, glowering down at his feet.

      “Lizzie, I wish you to favor me by showing me which room you would like to have as your boudoir. I’d rather have these matters decided for me.”

      “All right,” I says, hardening myself now. “If that’s how you want it.”

      Jenny has put a cabinet and a toilette table in the large room on the first floor, so she probable expects me to claim that one, on account of its size and distance from the road. As it happens, I decide to leave that one to Frederick—it’s closer to his study, after all—and I choose instead the smaller one on the top floor. Here I’ll have to share a landing with the maids, and it means an extra flight of steps up and down, and I know people will think I picked it out of a fear of taking too much. But the truth is, I much prefer it. They’ve thought to put a fireplace all the way up here. And there’s a nice washstand and a hip bath, and the flowers on the wall are so brilliant and colorful they look fresh picked. And the bed: the bed has golden posts and an eiderdown quilt, and the way it’s sitting in the light, it’s like God shining down over it. I sit on it and know immediate that it’s mine. “That’s it with the moving,” it makes me think. “We’ll not budge from here. This is the place that’ll see me out. This is the bed that on my last day I won’t get up from.”

      “This is the one I want,” I says.

      “Fine,” he says, and goes to look out the little window that gives over garden and the roofs of the other houses.

      There’s a terrible quiet. His back is a wall blocking out the lovely bit of sun, and the shiver in his limbs makes me think he’s going to put his fist out through the glass. For what reason, it’s beyond me to say.

      “Is everything all right with you, Frederick?”

      Slow, he turns round. He doesn’t look at me and heeds only the wringing of his hands. “I am sorry, Lizzie”—he shakes his head in a sorrowful way—“I am sorry that you judge the house only awful grand. You were expecting something more. But this will have to do for now.”

      Alarmed, I open to object. I rise to a stand and reach out an arm, but he raises to halt me.

      “It is already a risk to take a house this size. A bigger one would be a push too far. Besides, I have already given my word on it. It has been signed to us for three and a half years.”

      “Frederick, I—”

      “Jenny and Karl are waiting for our impressions. They, and especially Jenny, have put a great deal of time and effort into finding us this house and making it fit to occupy. So what you are going to do, Lizzie, what I’m telling you to do, is to pretend that you think it more, much more, than awful grand.”

      A rising laugh makes me push my face into my sleeve. As foreigners go, he’s unusual fast at picking things up. His problem—the big noke—is letting go when a thing is long done and over. There’s times he’ll get his whole fist round a delicate article and won’t drop it till he’s wrung all the sense out of it, and he holds it still, even if he knows it’s crushed or broke, or anyhows beyond repair.

      “Lizzie, are you laughing?”

      Laughter that’s sealed only builds and I think I might burst. I plonk back down on the bed and lift my shirts up to hide my face.

      “Ya, you are laughing! What is so funny? Stop it! I said, stop it!”

      “Oh, Frederick,” I says, and it all spills out of me, a peal. “Come here and let me kiss you.”

      He lumbers over, confounded, and sits beside me.

      “Frederick,” I says, “the house is much more than grand. It’s an effin’ castle!”

      He frowns and studies my face for any hidden rigs.

      “I’m serious! I just adore it!”

      He grins and lets out a sigh and takes tight of me and kisses me. And for a moment now, it almost doesn’t matter that it’s her he really wants to be holding, that it’s her he’d prefer as his princess, for she isn’t here and won’t be coming back, and I’m the closest thing to her he can ever hope to get.

      “You know something?” he says then, tears in his eyes but laughing too. “The Queen was right.”

      “The Queen? About what?”

      “About the Irish.”

      “And what, pray tell, did the old hooer say about us?”

      “That you’re an abominable people, none in the world better at causing distress.”

      IV. Cross to Bear

      Imprisoned, they have us, in their hospitality. Already here two days longer than planned. It’s my own fault for not being firmer with Frederick. I ought kick up more of a row.

      At first I was worried about getting in the way. I didn’t want to walk in on top of anyone or trespass on their time. But, as it happens, I keep finding myself alone and lost and off the beaten course, in rooms that go into rooms, up and down and every which direction. My heart goes out to Jenny, having to govern such a monster, and I’ve come to admire her practice of going away to rest in case she might be tired later in the day, for I’ve learnt that a mere glance into the parlor is liable to dizzy you, for the depth. It certain can’t be work that drains her. Since our arrival I haven’t caught her doing anything but make work with her queer times. She has a joke: “Better a dry crust and manners at eight than fowl and vulgarity at five,” but in actual fact, she wouldn’t be content with crusts at any hour, and the maid is left bearing the brunt. Boiling up and bringing in and fettling about, the little creature attends to all of their little wants, and she does it on her own, too, with no others to aid her (for it seems that with servants, if not with any other portion of life, Jenny knows how to make a saving).

      Ah, the poor wee puppet! The petty pocket! The pigwidgeon! Nim—I can’t deny it!—has succeeded in fascinating my attention. Despite my strict resolve to be cool in her company—“Don’t notice her,” I says to myself whenever she comes in—I always find myself flushed and susceptible.