New York - The Novel

England
1896
    O N A WARM June evening, in the year 1896, Mary O’Donnell, looking very grand in a long white evening dress and long white gloves, walked up the steps of her brother Sean’s house on Fifth Avenue. As the butler opened the door, she smiled at him.
    But her smile masked the terrible fear that was gnawing within her. At the foot of the sweeping staircase stood her brother, looking very elegant in white tie and tails.
    “Are they here?” she asked quietly.
    “They’re in the drawing room,” he said, using the English term.
    “How did I let you get me into this, you devil?” She tried to make it sound lighthearted.
    “We’re just having dinner.”
    “With a lord, for God’s sake.”
    “Plenty of those where he came from.”
    Mary took a deep breath. Personally, she didn’t give a damn about any English lord. But that wasn’t the point. She knew why the English lord was there, and what her family expected of her. Normally, she coped well enough with social occasions, but this would be different. Questions might be asked, questions that she dreaded.
    “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she murmured.
    “Chin up,” said Sean.
    It was five years now since Mary had finally given in to her brother andleft the employment of the Masters. And she’d only done that because she knew it was what the younger generation wanted.
    By chance, a house had become vacant on the side street a few doors down from Sean’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, and Sean had bought it. “I don’t want to rent it out,” he told her, “so you’d be doing me a favor if you’d live in it for me.” Compared with his own place, the house was quite modest, but it was still far bigger than she needed. When his children and grandchildren had begged her to live there, however, she had taken the hint. Apart from her own bedroom, which was very simply furnished with some things she liked, she had let them decorate the house as they wished. Hardly a week went by without one of the younger generation calling in there with friends, to have tea with their Aunt Mary. And she’d entertain them in just the style they would have encountered in the Masters’ house in Gramercy Park. That wasn’t difficult; after all, she’d been watching Hetty do it for forty years. In this way, she was able to complete the picture of the family’s new wealth and respectability to everyone’s satisfaction. She didn’t mind doing so, if it made them happy.
    But this evening was different. His Lordship might ask probing questions. Like: What had she been doing for the last forty years of her life?
    If the truth were told, when she first came to live in her grand house, she’d rather missed her little room at the Masters’. But then events had brought about a new arrangement.
    She’d been in her house a year when Frank Master had fallen sick and died. Hetty Master had only been widowed a couple of months when she asked Mary to call, and told her: “I get a little lonely, Mary. There’s always a room for you here, any time you’d like to stay and keep me company.” And when Mary had proposed spending two or three nights a week in Gramercy Park, Hetty had suggested: “I thought you might like to use the blue bedroom.”
    Her old room had been up on the servants’ floor. The blue bedroom was on the same floor as Hetty’s. Mary had accepted. Everyone understood. The servants called her “Miss O’Donnell” now. They knew she was rich.
    So Mary divided her time between Fifth Avenue and Gramercy Park, and she was quite happy. Her new regime left her with time on her hands, but she found many agreeable ways to fill it. She liked to draw, and she went to art classes. She and Hetty became frequenters of exhibitions and lectures. Her taste in music remained quite simple, but when the brilliantoperettas of Gilbert and Sullivan came from London to New York, she always went. She’d seen
The Mikado
and
The Yeoman of the Guard
three or four times.
    She had her family and a few friends, especially Gretchen. Theodore had been married a long time now, and had children, but she still saw him from time to time. She’d asked herself many times down the years if she shouldn’t have tried harder to get married, but somehow or other she’d never met Mr. Right. The truth was, she realized, that she’d always wanted someone like Hans or Theodore, and they weren’t so easy to find. Perhaps if she’d taken up Sean’s offer long ago and stopped working for the Masters,