The Life of Objects Read Free Page A

(my books of lace), my father came up the stairs to the attic. “I don’t know where you come by it,” he said, sittingat the end of my bed. “Your mother says it was the books that did it.” He could not bring himself to look at me. He’d made me a present of a new pair of brogues, and I was having trouble fitting them into the small case.
    I stopped my fussing. “The books saved me,” I said. “And the lace.”
    I sat next to him on the bed and took his hand. I was not accustomed to touching him, and I was embarrassed—I could smell turf smoke on his jacket, and there was a trace of ash on his shirt. “I haven’t much to give you,” he said, tucking a pound into my pocket. “Nothing to get you out of trouble when it comes. Your mother will never forgive you.”
    “Think of it as an apprenticeship, Father. I’m going out to work.”
    “I have a sinking feeling that woman’s a Papist,” he said with a sigh. He rose stiffly and made his way cautiously down the narrow stairs, his head level with the floor when he stopped to say good night.
    My mother would not walk with us to the station in the morning, but Mr. Knox was waiting on the platform with a book for me,
The Ornithology of Shakespeare
, which he’d inscribed
To Maeve, in the hope that she will learn to fly, September 1938
. My father, suddenly tearful, kissed me on the cheek (he nodded shakily to the countess, and she gave him a chilly smile), handing me a letter as I boarded the train.
    When I showed the countess Mr. Knox’s present, she asked why my old schoolmaster had inscribed it to someone named Maeve. “I am Maeve,” I said. “That’s my real name.” The countess looked puzzled, although not sufficiently interested toquestion me further. She opened a magazine and, somewhat to my relief, soon fell asleep.
    I watched from the window as the familiar river slipped past, low and dark behind the rowan trees. My initial excitement had begun to fade, particularly after saying good-bye to Mr. Knox, and I had a stomachache. I was traveling to a strange country whose language I did not speak, with a strange woman whom I had known for eight days, to work for people whom I did not know at all. I wondered what in the world I’d been thinking (I knew exactly what I’d been thinking).
    When I could no longer see the river, I read the letter that my father had slipped into my hand. My mother wrote that as I had left
the bosom of your loving family for foreign shores
, she hoped that my new friends would be willing to provide the home that I had so eagerly forsaken, as she no longer felt obliged to do so. I folded the letter and looked for a place to put it—I had no handbag, and I tucked it into Mr. Knox’s book. My mother’s coldness, although familiar to me, caused me pain, and I was grateful that the countess was not awake to see me cry.
    Over the five days of our journey to Berlin, my misgivings began to disappear. Countess Hartenfels (who more and more reminded me of Trollope’s Madame Goesler, tall, dark, and thin, and adept with her eyes in a way unknown to any Englishwoman) explained that her maid was in Munich awaiting her arrival, and asked if I would be able to assist her with her hair and clothes, a request that thrilled me. When I noticed her staring at me (it was then that I realized she could not beembarrassed), she said that while my hair was a bit thin, it was not a bad shade of brown. And,
gracias a Dios
, I was not a redhead.
    I had my own berth on the train from Calais, meeting Countess Hartenfels for meals in the dining car or in her private compartment, where I helped her to dress (pinning, fastening, combing, admiring). Her elegance left me feeling both threadbare and inspired, and by the time that we reached Belgium, I’d vowed to model my personal habits on those of the countess, even if my scant means (I had nothing) would be something of a constraint. At home, I wore my best dress to church and to the rare wedding or