“She’s a case, ain’t she?” asked Mary.
“I’ve no idea her problem. Did ye hear what she said? Implying me a harlot!”
“Calm your boilin’ blood and don’t let her spoil your one night out. She’s just fashed no handsome lad ever calls out to her! You’re pretty, and you’re Irish, and she’s dissatisfied with her own sad lot in life.”
“I didn’t hardly answer him,” said Bridget.
Mary stopped and cast Bridget a look of exasperation. “You can’t put any credence in what she suggested of your character.”
“I put credence in it if it costs me my post!”
They walked on a bit until Mary, in a low voice, said, “I’m sorry, Bridget, and I know my boldness isn’t always welcome. I don’t want you to get into trouble for my sake. But sheets and bloody linens, all you did was stand there a half moment waiting for me!”
“I ought to have gone out the front door and told where I was going. I think that’s the root of her anger. She must’ve looked out the window and seen me talking with him.”
“But then you’d earn it for daring to use the family door rather than the servants’! And must you account for all your comings and goings? Lord knows we only get one night a fortnight, and it’s ours to do with as we wish.”
“That has been the case with my previous employers,” admitted Bridget. “But she has new rules for my conduct, and I’ll obey them.”
“She? Why she? Does she pay you? Or is it her father? It’s none of her business what you’re doing of a Friday night!”
“I know you are right, and yet I don’t know what I’d do if I lost this position without a good character.”
“There’s always a better spot somewhere else.”
“If I can get it,” said Bridget. “I don’t have your confidence.”
“Well, if worse comes to worse, you can live in the barn until they discover you,” Mary said. “And eat the pears off the trees, and I’ll bring you table scraps.”
“Good gracious! You sound as if you’ve thought of this before!”
“Your predecessor,” said Mary.
“Truly?”
“Indeed. Oh, and now here we are! Can you hear the music from down the street?”
A thin thread of sound came from a public house, but as soon as Mary grasped the door and opened it, the music flooded out loud, strident, unapologetic: completely Irish. It was the “Hayman’s Jig”, and inside the sets were already there with knees flying and skirts flouncing. Instantly, Bridget wanted to be on the floor dancing, too.
The space was small and cramped with so many bodies. There was a long bar with many golden taps, and tables pushed to the edges to create the dance floor. A smell of sweat and sodden wool from the men’s caps created a not-unpleasant whiff to the room, along with the overflowing glasses of hops and doctored tea.
“Hello, Miss Doolan!” greeted a man behind the bar, and Bridget was relieved he was addressing her friend formally.
“And good evening to you. This is my new friend, Miss Bridget Something or Other!”
“Sullivan,” Bridget supplied.
“I’m Mr. Seamus Dorgan, and I welcome ye. Where might you hail from?”
“Allihies, sir.”
“Indeed, and let’s all drink to Allihies!”
A roar went up, and all the men took a swallow of their ales. For a second, Bridget saw the scene through Miss Lizzie’s eyes: was this disreputable, men drinking so good-naturedly and loudly? Drinking to her village for her? Was it too rough?
Then Mary caught her arm and twirled her around, a makeshift jig that had Bridget’s feet flying, and soon others gathered around them, forming the straight lines until they were threading the needle, their feet following the time-worn steps.
Each song melded into the next, the fiddlers at the back of the room wiping sweat off their brows whenever they could manage between notes, the pipers and bodhran player taking sips off their pints while the music momentarily faltered. It was grand and glorious, and if Bridget closed her eyes, as she did sometimes in the dizzying twirls as she swapped grasps with new partners, she could almost imagine herself in the barn back home, with nothing outside but a stretch of cold yet fertile land offering greening hillocks to the travelers who lifted a lantern to the sea.
At one point, Bridget’s lungs could take it no more, and she stepped outside the set, giving a smile to Mary who kept dancing. She made her way to the table where meat pies and scones could be had for a few pennies. She bought a beef pie and a tea, and stood balancing both against the wall.
“I haven’t seen ye here afore,” said the woman standing next to her. She was tall and willowy, her red hair in a bun that was losing its formality from, presumably, her dancing.
“No, it’s my first time. I came at the invitation of Mary Doolan.”
“Ah, she’s grand.”
“It does my heart good to hear the tunes well presented, rather than my own deplorable whistling,” said Bridget.
The other girl laughed. “I’m Maggie,” she said.
“I’m Bridget. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Where do you hail from?”
“Kinsale on the coast.”
“So lovely!” said Bridget. “I went once on a holiday.”
“And you’re from?”
“Allihies.”
“I’ve heard of it. And when did ye make your way to these shores?”
“Five years ago,” said Bridget.
“Broken heart?”
“Broken purse more like.”
“Ah, those of broken purses tend to fill up the ships heading west across the Atlantic, do they not?”
“Aye. I’m sending a bit back home each month and hoping to keep myself out of rags as well.”
“’Tis a noble aspiration, to keep all the body clothed,” agreed Maggie with a grin.
“A lofty one indeed!”
The rhythmic beat of the bodhran, a tempered sort of drum, percussion with a lilt like all things Irish, fastened onto Bridget’s mind and became the cadence of their conversation. Everywhere she looked, she saw smiling faces. Unfettered of the general mistrust of immigrants they faced on the street, the group blossomed into joy. They all remembered, in place of the brick mills and soot-darkened windows, the green expanses of their childhoods, the hills besmocked with mossed rocks, the willows bending to the water.
“’Tis gay,” the other girl observed, and as if to underscore her point, a lad in a heather-colored wool cap pulled her off to join a set. Bridget laughed outright at her new friend’s surprised expression.
“Go on and show him the lightning of your footwork!” she called, but too late to be heard.
Bridget ate her pie and drank her tea, lukewarm now. It was good fare, which she hadn’t needed after the dinner she’d made for the Bordens and of which she’d eaten the leavings, but as they were plodding their way through the same tired roast of pork, she was glad to eat a second, more pleasing repast.
As soon as she’d finished and set down her cup and plate, a man appeared as if he’d been waiting. He was flush-cheeked with eyes blue as spatterware and smiled and indicated with a nod of his