Page 21 of A Treacherous Trade
It became instantly clear the second scream fracturing the air contained more frustration than fear. Still, I didn’t stop to divest myself of my winter garb before rushing to see what all the commotion was about.
My maid, Mary Jean McBride, was busy dusting porcelain and glass knickknacks over the fireplace. Her nine-month-old daughter, Teagan, kicked and yawped from her belly on a blanket in the center of the room, straining for a knitted red mouse about a pace beyond her reach.
Unfazed by my appearance, chubby little Teagan let out a screech that threatened to shatter the windows and let winter invade my domicile.
“Caterwaul all you like, you little miscreant,” the lively Mary Jean said, in the particular singsong voice people saved for their infant children. In her own South London patois, often the kindest words could sound like a slight, or a threat. “I’m not picking you up, and I’m not bringing it to you. I seen you crawl toward that cat in the garden yesterday, so I know if you want it bad enough, you’ll figure out a way to get there, won’t ya? Won’t ya? You darling little fraud.”
She turned to her child and tensed to find me standing in the doorway, looking, no doubt, like a wind-burned ragamuffin.
“Miss Mahoney!” Mary Jean’s young and attractive face split into a genuine smile, revealing teeth that’d been stained by poverty, even at her tender age of one-and-twenty. “I heard you was dressed and gone before the ’ouse even stirred this morning.” She bustled over to Teagan and swiped her from the floor, settling the baby in that crook on her hip that seemed made just for the child. “Now that you’re ’ome, you want some tea or something to warm your bones?”
“Don’t bother, Mary, thank you. You’ve your hands full here,” I answered, perhaps a bit too quickly, as I’d rather leave her and the child’s noise here at the front of the house and retreat to the relative solitude of the kitchens.
Besides, to call whatever abomination she dubbed “tea” was doing a disservice to the entire British Empire’s beloved beverage.
I’d engaged Mary Jean as a maid-of-all-work on a sentimental whim upon meeting her at Katherine Riley’s murder scene. The girl was widowed only a couple of days, as her young husband had perished in a factory incident. Destitute and desperate, Mary had taken the last of his earnings to pay Mrs. Riley in hopes of placing little Teagan with a family who could care for her.
Thank God the woman hadn’t been able to add Teagan to the ashes of her previous victims.
The little nipper made enough noise to rouse both the gods above and the demons below, but she was a sweet child, all things considered, and the light of her mother’s life.
Something in Mary Jean’s predicament, in her heavy, dark hair, eyes, and lovely, high cheekbones, had reminded me of another Mary.
My Mary.
Mary Jeanette Kelly.
So, without thinking—without hesitation—I’d taken her in.
In return for her service, she had a fair wage, and the entirety of below stairs to herself, as I didn’t have need of other staff. Furthermore, she was able to keep little Teagan with her when she worked.
I couldn’t fathom what women like us, women who must rely on themselves for income, did with their children during their long days of employment. Where would Teagan go if not here? To a stranger? To a wet nurse? Who among the working or lower classes could afford such things?
I had days when I regretted my decision, days when even three stories weren’t enough to separate me from the baby’s constant din. It had also become immediately and abundantly clear that Mary’s skills didn’t reach into the realm of the domestic.
But in all, I enjoyed Mary Jean’s company. And more importantly, she’d brought new life, comfort, and company to Aunt Nola. She was bright, capable, and willing to learn. I appreciated that she kept my house, my aunt, and my business from falling into disrepair whilst I wallowed in Aidan’s death.
I blinked and hesitated, realizing I owed Mary an apology and an explanation.
“Well, don’t you look better today after being in the out of doors?” she marveled, batting her lashes like a flirt. “Your eyes have a bit of life in them, miss. It’s good to see that.”
“Thank you, Mary. I realize I have not recently been very present… or perhaps the word I’m looking for ispleasantin your time here. I want to say how very sorry I am—”
“You don’t got to apologize, miss.” She held up her hand to stop me, bouncing her baby on her hip with one strong arm, impervious to the stream of drool running from the child’s mouth to the sleeve of her starched white apron. “I’m all sorts of aware just ’ow lucky I am to keep me Teagan with me an’ all. Besides, your aunt Nola told me you lost your fella. That he was killed.”
That same strange breathlessness overcame me whenever I thought of Father Aidan Fitzpatrick. A terrible mélange of hatred and hunger. Of regret and rage. “He succumbed to the St. Michael’s Cathedral fire,” I corrected her, my voice sounding queer even to my own ears. “And he was my priest, not my—”
She flapped her hand in an artless dismissal of whatever I’d been about to say. “I know you weren't married or nothing, seeing as how Irish folks don’t let your vicars have wives, but you loved him, dinn’t you?”
“I did,” I whispered, wondering why I was suddenly telling this painful truth to someone little better than a stranger, and in the presence of her burbling baby.
“Then you lost him,” she declared. “You grieved him. And grief is pleasant for no one.”
I was silent, staring down at the black garb I couldn’t seem to stop wearing. I knew all the reasons I shouldn’t, but any other color just seemed sacrilegious, like a mockery of my despair. I hadn’t merely lost the man I’d loved. I’d lost everything I knew about him. Every memory we’d made was now tainted by who he’d become at the end.
And I mourned that as much as I mourned the man. Perhaps more.
“I’ve decided to start working again,” I told her. “So, you don’t have to send for Hao Long by default anymore. I’m sure everyone thinks it’s well past time for me to have—”
