what she was to do. There was no need to unpack, although she did take out her two dresses and hang them from the hooks to avoid wrinkling.
She went again to the window. Was this the maid Maggie had gossiped with, to her detriment? Bridget determined that she would be careful.
It was Mary Doolan, creating factory smoke out of domestic grit, and Bridget would indeed listen to her friend’s idle chitchat despite her resolve, but that would not be the cause of her service ending. Would that it had been, and she merely disgraced, while Mr. and Mrs. Borden continued their safe, if not wholly happy, lives.
Downstairs, she acquainted herself with the kitchen. She raked the ashes in the stove and fed in a log. She opened drawers and cupboards until she’d formed a mental inventory of the dismally small collection of knives, spoons, serving platters. She descended to the cellar to tally the root vegetables stored there and the twine-wrapped meats hanging from the rafters.
She’d eaten quite well at the Remingtons’, but she’d merely make do here. The larder held slender fare, but her lot was not to complain. She’d begin with dinner. She could prepare a stew of the mutton she’d seen upstairs with a few carrots, potatoes, and onions. She’d get it started now, to hopefully soften the meat by the time they ate hours later. For supper, perhaps, turnips and gravy, with biscuits.
As Bridget set herself to peeling potatoes, Miss Lizzie came into the kitchen. Bridget hadn’t realized, seeing her seated the day before, how imposing the older woman’s stature was. She cut a nearly manly figure, with her sharp posture and broad chest and shoulders. She wore a calico day dress of sprigged maroon and walked with assurance. Going straight to the white bowl on the sideboard, Lizzie plucked out an apple. She polished the fruit on her dress as she turned and surveyed Bridget.
“Good morning,” said Bridget. Something in her years of training stretched her face into a smile. It was not returned.
“You weren’t able to make it here early enough to serve our breakfast,” said Lizzie.
“No, I served a final time for the Remingtons.”
“We scraped by for ourselves, as we’ve done now since Maggie left,” said Lizzie. “Will you be sure to make doughnuts for tomorrow?”
“Certainly, miss, if you wish.”
Lizzie took her first bite of the apple, standing so as to block the light from the window, creating her own batch of shadow in the close kitchen. Bridget wondered if it would be rude to lower her head and apply her knife to the potato again.
“I attend the same church as your former employers,” said Lizzie.
“Is that so?” asked Bridget, surprised. The church was far from Second Street.
“Yes, I’ve found the First Congregational Church to be fusty and old-fashioned in its views.”
Bridget had no answer for that. She began to wish Lizzie would step aside so she could see the potato’s pockmarked surface better as she skinned it.
“The house was grand, I’m sure,” said Lizzie.
“I’m sorry?”
“The Remington home.”
Bridget couldn’t help a small sound of disbelief. Did she expect Bridget to sit here and tell the tales of that house, recite the value of each object, gleefully recount the lush fabrics used in the linens, the carpets, the curtains? Was she meant to catalog its splendors for this prying chit who would never set foot in the drawing room Bridget had dusted?
Bridget immediately saw the error of her response. Lizzie threw the rest of her apple into the dry sink with a certain amount of vehemence. “I’ve wanted to entertain here,” said Lizzie stiffly. “There’s no reason why I can’t return the favors of so many lovely dinners I’ve had out at the homes of friends. But my father can’t stomach the idea.”
Bridget tried not to frown. Did she wish Bridget to support her in this idea? But no servant would ever willingly ask for more work, and besides, what sort of clout could she ever hold with Mr. Borden?
“You may think you’ve come down in the world, to work in this house,” said Lizzie.
“Not at all. I’m grateful for the chance.”
“You’re not grateful. You took one look at this miserable place and shuddered. We’re two doors down from a grocery, of all humbling conditions!”
“There’s no shame in a grocery,” said Bridget quietly.
“It’s not indicative of our standing. We could have the finest house on the hill! Instead we live like drudges, five steps from the street.”
“The house is quite nice,” said Bridget.
“Our home isn’t even connected to the gas main, while our Irish neighbors freely avail themselves of that costly convenience.”
Bridget startled at the slight to her own kind, but Miss Lizzie interpreted it as shock for her father’s refusal to use gas. “That’s right; we are still using kerosene lamps, smoking and spluttering. And my father . . . sometimes he’ll sit in darkness to not waste fuel. That’s the man who holds the wallet and won’t open it up to save his own eyes as he reads.”
“How sad for his vision.” Bridget didn’t know how to hold this conversation. All her life, she’d witnessed people working extraordinarily hard to purchase the very barest of needs. A middle-aged woman bragging about the excess of money—while ranting about her lack of access to it—was a strange circumstance.
“I’ve begged him.”
“He’ll come to want to save his sight,” said Bridget, focusing on the one thing she could remark upon. How did one discuss a man’s miserliness without getting oneself fired? She was not unaware he was likely somewhere in the house. And she had been specifically warned against rumormongering.
“Oh, he won’t,” said Lizzie. “He’ll go blind to save a dime.”
Bridget stiffened. This was simply too much. She stood up, setting the half-peeled potato and paring knife on the table. She crossed to the stove and moved the kettle from one side of the hob to the other, then lifted up the eye to add a small piece of wood.
“Good day to you, Maggie,” said Miss Lizzie behind her.
Bridget whirled around, catching the smirk on Lizzie’s face. “Maggie” wasn’t just the former maid; it was a deprecating way to address any Irish servant whose actual name didn’t matter.
“It’s Bridget, miss,” she said.
“So it is, and I apologize!”
Lizzie moved closer, and Bridget couldn’t help but be drawn in and repulsed at the same time by the pale argent eyes. It seemed the coins Lizzie’s father couldn’t spend had landed in his daughter’s gaze. Bridget had been punished, she knew, for daring to stand up and walk away from Lizzie, casting tacit judgment on the cruel words spoken about Mr. Borden.
“Miss Lizzie, I must return to my work,” said Bridget softly.
“Indeed, you should. I’ll not
