The Pages of Time

Gilded Summers-4

mulignane.They tagged us like cattle, put us in rooms to stand, waiting. We stood in lines for hours, herded through, telling our names over and over.

So many lost their real names. If they couldn"t write, those who registered us went by sound alone, mangling many, wrong names these newcomers would carry for the rest of their lives. Worse were the ones they sent back. They had endured for nothing.

Then the inspections…our clothes, our hair, our mouths, our bodies. Endless invasions making us feel less than human. The constant questions, the same again and again. Thorough and hurried at the same time. They hurried us so fast, often I didn"t have time to understand myself. They hurried us, as the butler did now, as if they couldn"t wait to get us to a place where they could not see us.

Birch pointed to his left.

“This pantry here serves both the breakfast room just behind it and the dining room. A marvelous convenience for the family.”

He said mahvelous as if he were one of them.

He opened another door, plain wood and frosted glass. Into another foyer, a simple if bright one of windows and white tile. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all of small white squares of tile. Then to the staircase.

It rose and fell away from us. I looked up and down; I could see the white grillwork and polished wood banister spiral away in perfect symmetry. I stood in the middle, moving neither up nor down. It was a landing named nowhere.

“This is the servants" staircase. It is the only staircase you shall ever use.”

Birch stopped and turned to us. “Ever.”

My father needed no translation to understand.

“They may use it from time to time.” He said “they” as if the word referred to a king or a queen. “But rarely. Downstairs, if you please,” he instructed.

I had known we traveled to a rich man"s house, but I never imagined a place like this. I became aware of our ragged appearance, clothes old and worn before the hard journey, now so very much worse, our ragged suitcases holding only more ragged clothes. The coarse wool scratched me for the first time in my life. My foot shrunk away from the top step; I could not see where they led.

Before he closed the door to the marble hallway—though I didn"t know then it must never be called a hallway—I looked back.

The girl still stood at her place by the pillars; she could have been a sculpture at its feet. Her clothing was so fine. Her dress was short, hem falling between knees and ankles; it puffed all around her from something that lay underneath. It seemed to hover about her, fabric as fine as angel"s wings.

Something nameless, a creature I had never met, was born in me that was to live within, eating away, for many years.

She stared at us still, but it wasn"t a mean stare. Curious, yes, and something else, I thought. Perhaps that something else was just my own hope.

“Wait right here.” Birch instructed me, pointing to a distinct spot at the bottom of the stairs in a large foyer of the same white tile. “Right…here.” He pointed again. I did not know which I was more compelled to do, curtsey to him or slap him.

He took my father by the arm and led him through another frosted door and then another, their footsteps growing ever fainter, their silhouettes fuzzy as if they walked out of this world to another. With each step they took, the churning in my gullet twisted tighter. I found myself standing alone amid people in constant motion. My feet once more pestered me to run.

Most were women, some middle-aged, most young. Their features as alike as their uniforms: fair-haired, light-skinned, blonde or soft brown hair, most with blue eyes like pieces of glass with pointed edges.

I stared too.

All wore black blouses buttoned to the top, sleeves puffed at the shoulders, and full black skirts. All wore crisp white aprons; some aprons covered their whole body, others only their skirts. Atop their pinned hair, some white caps covered whole heads, while others wore dainty lace headdresses. The differences were small. I thought them particular to a precise position in the household. I did not know which was which. They were as strange to me as this new country—new world—I found myself in.

They hurried past, carrying all sorts of items: dishes, linens, mixing bowls. To the one, all stumbled a step at the sight of me. I shivered beneath cold glares. Eyes racked me from top to bottom. They were uniform in their quick dismissal.

A few men passed me. Like the women, their clothes told of their positions. Two men, one young and one old, wore dark suits, full jackets, and pants, while three others, all young and handsome, wore waistcoats and fancy shirts and ties like Birch. One of these men, really a boy not much older than me, winked as he walked past. I pursed my lips as I tilted my nose up and away from him.

Two others stood out, incomparable to the rest, as was Mr. Birch.

I glimpsed the man through a wide archway into a kitchen as large as a cavern filled with a huge wood table topped with copper, cast iron ovens all in a row, and everywhere copper pots and pans, and strange devices I had never seen. He stood, vibrant, in all white, a double-breasted white jacket, a white kerchief tied about his neck, and the strangest hat I"d ever seen; it had no brim, just a band of white circled about his head. The rest rose high, a pleated puff of fabric, like a crown. This man issued orders; he did not yell but spoke strong and firm. His accent was strange to my ears. It wasn"t Italian but there was something similar about it. Those he spoke to jumped, with a quick, “Yes, Monsieur le Chef.” Their response explained his speech.

“And who might you be?” She stood before me, hands curled fists on near non-existent hips. She wore all black as well, yet no apron. Her blouse boasted sharply pressed pleats, her skirt was fuller; both had a shine to the fabric, clearly finer than those of the other women. From her waistband hung a circle of keys, a huge ring of them, more than I had ever seen.

She spoke as Mr. Birch did, with such emphasis on the `t"s" and the long `o" sound. English.

While northern Italians disliked southern Italians, no one disliked Italians as much as the English and the Irish. Hope, what there was of it, fluttered out the window as quickly as a trapped bird once released.

This was my introduction to Mrs. Briggs, the housekeeper. She was as thin as a fire poker and just as hotly sharp. I learned quickly that she ruled this roost as well and as cruelly as any general ruled an army.

“Well don"t just stand there, girl, ansah me?”

Squinty black eyes bore into me; lips pinched into a tight line.

“I"m-a…,” My clipped nails dug into my palms, my legs beneath my tattered skirts quivered. “I am…” I rushed to correct my mistake. Too late.

“You ah an I-talian,” she announced, face twisting with her displeasure. “Why are you in this house?”

I opened my mouth, nothing. Yet salvation came.

“Not to worry, Mrs. Briggs,” Birch called out to us from the doorway, striding fast, my father no longer with him. My relief had a sharp bite of worry to it.

“A word, if you will, Mrs.” He called her Mrs. though she wore no wedding ring. Mr. Birch motioned his large head to a room just off the hall to my right. He unlocked the door and they rushed inside; I had only a glimpse of what looked like a nice, simple sitting room, the kind I grew up playing in back home. The twang of loss and longing struck me as the clock does midnight; it stung my eyes with tears.

At first, I heard nothing, then murmurs that grew to voices raised, none too pleased. Then, finally, unhappy acceptance.

They rushed out as fast as they rushed in. They stood before me. The woman"s face was far more curdled than it had been when she went in.

“So, you ah to be a new seamstress,” Mrs. Briggs didn"t say my name. I"m sure she knew it by then, knew all about me. “You had better be good, for the mistress and our young lady wear only the finest.”

“Good, si, I am.” The words flew from my lips. Too fast. Nerves flapped my mouth faster than my mind could stop them.

si,“Yes, well, we shall see about that.” Mrs. Briggs turned to Mr. Birch. “I"ll show the girl to her room then.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Briggs.” Mr. Birch blustered air, shoulders dropping.

“Up with you,” the sharp-boned woman waved a hand at the stairs.

I hesitated. I wanted my father, wanted to know where he was. If I took a single step away, it would be a step away from him.

Mrs. Briggs"s bony fingers pinched my shoulders, clamping, she turned me and nudged upward. There was no heaven waiting for me there.

When Papa and I had first stood outside this mansion they called a `cottage," we stood shivering from cold fear. Scrolled columns and statues surrounded us, beside us, above us. They threatened, guarding even though they were stone. It looked like the palazzos of the wealthy signori built on the mountainsides of Italy. From our home, we could see them hovering on the horizon like clouds. Like clouds, always out of our reach.

palazzossignoriMy father"s shoulders had turned, turned back toward the path on which we approached. If minds had hands, mine would have pushed him there. He faced the door once more. I held my silence. As we looked at what would be our future home—no, that wasn"t right. It would never be our home, but the place we lived; my true home would ever haunt me, becoming grander as each spectral memory invaded my mind. As we looked at it, we thought it was a two-storied building. It was not.

The basement, from where Mrs. Briggs and I started to climb, hid from the outside, and there was another subbasement below the first, she told me so, as if this were her home, though I hoped never to see it, just as I hadn"t seen it from the outside. Yes, the floors where the most work took place lay beneath the ground"s surface.

wereAs we continued upward, Mrs. Briggs took it upon herself to inform me of all the servants in the house. I couldn"t keep up with such a list.

I stopped listening and started counting; there were more than forty people here to serve four. If she meant to overwhelm me, she succeeded. If she meant to make me feel like nothing, she succeeded there too.

I grew dizzy, nauseous, as she rattled on as to who did what, or more importantly, what some didn"t do.

“Mr. Birch, Chef Pasquel, and I rule this roost. Howeva, the personal maids and valets are far superior to the footmen, the stable boys, or the upstairs maids. Mr. Birch does not serve dinner or empty ashtrays, nor is he expected to answer the door. The mistress"s maid does not clean her room, does not even make the bed.”