Annie Gallagher rose at dawn and did her morning ablutions with the porcelain basin and pitcher of water at the washstand as quickly as she could in the chill air of her bedroom in the basement. She dabbed her armpits with vinegar and dressed herself also in haste, tied on her apron, and went from room to room drawing the curtains open. When she’d let in the light of the new day, she went about getting a fire going in the fireplaces. Young Brian brought the coal in and Annie banked up the fires to where she could safely leave them for breakfast of porridge and milk with the other staff. She’d started as a scullery maid, scrubbing floors downstairs, in ‘the big house’, on the Richardson estate and then moved up to housemaid.
Mrs Percival, the Protestant English housekeeper, made sure Annie was occupied with other duties about the house as well until it was time to draw the curtains closed for the night. Mrs Percival kept a close eye on all the staff beneath her and any whose work did not meet her standards would get a harsh rebuke from her sharp Cockney tongue. She took Annie to task early on when she’d let the fire go out in the drawing room. It was no use protesting that the room was not in use on the day or that she thought it was the responsibility of Moragh, the parlour maid. Mrs Percival enumerated Annie’s duties for her, since she had been so negligent, and added to her tasks by having her relieve Miss Bridget of her chamber pot duties for the week.
There was just one other English woman on the staff and that was Mrs Theobold, the governess. Mrs Theobold seemed to take a liking to Annie as much as Mrs Percival took a dislike to the young housemaid and the other Irish servants. Mrs Theobold was more kindly disposed and was good enough to help Annie with reading the few letters she received, with writing replies, and even helped her with learning to read and write. Annie admired the matronly governess with her education and her refined English speech, and envied her her position in the big house, as the private tutor for Lord Richardson’s grandchildren.
Annie was tending to the fire in the drawing room when Mister Robert came in. Mr Robert was the master’s eldest son and Annie knew not to speak to him unless he spoke to her. She’d cleared the ash from the grate and got the fire started with the kindling. She was building up the fire with bigger bits of split wood while Mr Robert walked about the room. He came and stood by the fire and said, “Just checking the arrangements for this evening. As you know we’re having guests for dinner today and we’ll be withdrawing in here afterward.”
“Yes Sir,” Annie said, looking up briefly from the fire. She was still kneeling at the hearth and her eye level was no higher than Mr Robert’s waist and he was standing uncomfortably close.
He held his hands to the fire and Annie stood aside from it. “It’s a cold winter’s day all right,” he said. “But you’ll have the room cosy and warm by dinner time.”
“Yes Sir.”
“And I’m thinking there’s a bit of warmth to be had here,” he said, putting his arm around Annie and drawing her close.
“Please don’t be so familiar, Sir,” she said, pulling away from his embrace. “I’m engaged to be married.”
“Is that so? And where is your betrothed?”
“He’s in New Zealand, serving in the army.”
“New Zealand! My goodness! Away at the ends of the Earth. It must be lonely for you here.”
“My family live not so far from here,” Annie said.
“I hear our army is having a tough time of it fighting the Māori,” Mr Robert said and he chuckled as he left the room. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get eaten, eh.”
At staff briefing a few days later Mrs Percival informed Annie that she would be responsible for an additional room, as per the master’s instructions. “You’ll do the curtains and the fire in Mr Robert’s room,” she said.
At the end of the meeting, Annie asked if Brian could tend to Mr Robert’s room as he brought the coal up anyway. “And I don’t think it’s proper for a young lady to go into a gentleman’s bedroom,” she added.
“A young lady, indeed,” Mrs Percival scoffed, aghast at Annie’s impertinence. “Carry out your duties as instructed.”
Annie found Brian in the coal cellar and asked him if he wouldn’t mind taking charge of Mr Robert’s room.
“And what will you do for me?” he said slyly.
“I’ll tell your Ma what a good boy you are,” she said, just as slyly. (They came from the same neighbourhood in the village.)
So Annie didn’t come to warm Mr Robert’s room or warm his bed as he’d hoped and she carried on with her usual duties. She avoided him as much as possible and never had much contact with the master’s family anyway. But Mr Robert found her in the grounds one day and asked her if she knew Miss Enid would soon be leaving.
“Yes Sir,” she said. “We all know she’s getting married.”
“Perhaps you’d like to replace her as the nanny for my children.”
Annie would have liked to be a nanny all right but she didn’t want to be beholden to Mr Robert and from what Enid had told her she would have good cause to be wary of him, so she said, “I’m happy with being a housemaid.”
“Perhaps you’d be just as happy as a scullery maid again.”
Annie ignored his veiled threat and carried on with her duties without any change but she began to feel wary and insecure. She had a trusted friend in Molly, the laundry maid, and she confided in her when they attended Mass together on Sunday.
“Mr Robert does have a reputation,” Molly said. “They say he takes after his father.”
When Enid left there were some staff changes and Annie was reassigned to scullery maid duties.
Mrs Theobold commiserated with Annie about her demotion. “There must be some mistake,” she said. “I’ll have a word to His Lordship about it.”
“It’ll be Mr Robert’s doing,” Annie said, and she told the governess about what had led up to it. “It might do more harm than good to take it up with his father.”
Annie usually met with Mrs Theobold in the governess’ room on Sunday afternoons, when she had a half day off, both still wearing their church-going Sunday best. Annie’s dress, which she had sewn herself before leaving home, was tailored to fit snugly over her modest bosom and narrow waist. Mrs Theobold’s dress was made of a good deal more material to cover her greater girth and extra gathered in flounces at the back. The two ladies would chat about this and that and Annie would get a reading and writing lesson, with children’s books and her catechism. Mrs Theobold enjoyed spending a bit of time with the pretty Irish girl and she was certainly quicker on the uptake than the children she was teaching. She also took a keen interest in any news about New Zealand since Annie first showed her a letter from Kelly, and she shared what she’d read about the colony in the newspapers. She was also very interested in the romantic possibilities that lay before Annie. What an adventure it would be to start a new life in New Zealand!
She poured them both a cup of tea and asked Annie, “And where did you meet this Finbar Kelly?”
“Well, we first met at school.”
“Ah, childhood sweethearts,” the governess remarked.
“No, not really. I didn’t even like him much when we were at school,” Annie said. “My parents couldn’t afford to keep me at school so I didn’t stay long. It was a mixed school and my parents also thought it was too anti Catholic and pro-British. Anyway, they didn’t think it was important for a girl to have an academic education and I could just as well learn needlework and weaving at home.”
Mrs Theobold fingered the string of pearls that hung around her neck, below her double chin, as she listened to Annie’s story. “So did you just stay at home?”
“For a time I did, and I helped my Ma with all the chores. But then I got a factory job at the linen mill and it was there I met Finbar again. He was working in the office. He’d stayed on at school and got a job as an accounts clerk. He took a great deal of notice of me and I thought him quite handsome then. We saw each other every day, until the mill closed down. He was kind and friendly and we went out walking together. We fell in love and after a time he asked me to marry him.”
“And you said Yes.”
“Yes, I said I would, but it didn’t feel like a proper engagement. My parents said why was I running around after an unemployed Protestant boy when I could have my pick of any of the good Catholic boys with good jobs. In fact they had chosen one for me but I was only interested in Finbar.
“You say he was unemployed?”
“We were both unemployed when the mill closed down.”
“And what about Finbar’s parents?
“They didn’t approve either.”
“It’s so ridiculous,” Mrs Theobold said. “You’re both Christian, for goodness sake. It’s not as though you were wanting to marry a heathen.”
“So I stayed at home for a time, until I came to work here,” Annie said, “and I was one less mouth to feed at home. Finbar wanted me to go with him to Belfast.”
“To elope with him?
“Yes, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t run away from my family. Finbar said we should just run further away.”
“To New Zealand.”
“Finbar was so fed up with our families refusing to accept us getting married and fed up with being out of work…”
“…that he joined the army…” Mrs Theobold had a habit of finishing Annie’s sentences.
“…and went to New Zealand.” Annie continued. “He said he would send for me when the time was right. He made me promise I would join him… if he survived, and he got a piece of land of his own that we could farm. So I’ll stick it out here for now and hope that things work out for us in New Zealand.”