Joan Smith - Gather Ye Rosebuds

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"This will take a deal of work, melady, Brodagan said, shaking her head in grim anticipation of the job before us. An ant itself couldn't find room to perch in this jumbled-up old attic."

The melady was an honorary title, to remind us that Mrs. Brodagan had known better days than working for plain Mrs. Barron. In her youth in Ireland, she had peeled potatoes for six months in the kitchen of Dublin House. Her own title of Mrs. was assumed as well. Mrs. Brodagan had never known marital bliss, for which every bachelor in Christendom should get down on his knees and thank the Almighty.

Brodagan could strike fear into the heart of an Attila. She has shoulders like a horse, and stands five feet ten inches in her stocking feet. Taking into account her towering white headdress, she tops six and a half feet. The headdress of starched linen, similar in construction to a bishop's miter, was assumed at the same time as her title.

Before that, she was plain Abigail Brodagan and wore a decent cap. Her dark hair grows blacker with each passing year. It has the unnatural gloss conferred on boots by the application of Kelly's Boot Black. She wears a rustling white apron over her black gowns, and is such a confirmed pessimist that she actually enjoys disaster. She can espy it lurking in the most innocent of events. Mama says (behind her back) that the reason Brodagan will not have her ailing tooth drawn is that she enjoys the pain, but I do not go quite that far. Now that I have denigrated her to my heart's content, I must add that she is also an admirable housekeeper and cook.

Mama and I looked at the jumbled room, which would indeed take a deal of work to transform into my art studio. Until six months before, it had been Uncle Barry's bedroom. Barry McShane was Mama's brother, since deceased. His career was in India, working for John Company, otherwise known as the East India Company. With what he called the McShane luck, he had returned from gold-paved India empty-handed save for his pension. He came to visit us after a short visit home to Ireland, and never left. For five years he had lived in the east tower wing of our house. He insisted on paying room and board like a regular lodger. Uncle Barry was very little trouble, and it was nice to have a man in the house, as Papa had died the year before.

Now that my uncle was gone, however, I meant to turn his room into my studio. It is a pretty octagonal room looking out over the rolling Kent countryside, liberally sprinkled with fruit trees, wooded hills, and meadowed valleys. With windows on three sides, it gives good light for my painting. It is actually a part of the attic, but with its own staircase, which makes it nice and private. But before I took occupancy, there was a deal of work to be done clearing away the bedroom furniture and Uncle's rubbish.

"You'll not be wanting that bed for a start, Brodagan informed me, nodding her miter at the bed hung with gold draperies of ancient vintage.

"No, though I shall keep the desk and a couple of chairs, and perhaps the old dresser, to hold my supplies."

The furnishings were the lesser part of the room's contents. Like any traveler in a strange land, my uncle had brought home several trunks of souvenirs. Gaudy shawls hung on chairbacks, an elephant's foot designed as an umbrella stand was full of bric-a-brac. A brass statue of Shiva, a mischievous Indian god with an improbable number of arms, stood on the desk. The clothespress held not only his clothing but more cartons of souvenirs.

"A regular everything shop, Brodagan declared.

"One hardly knows where to begin, Mama said, looking about with a vaguely troubled air. Mama always seems to me a creature of yesterday, a delicate Fragonard lady, perhaps. She is small, pale, and pretty. Her copper hair is beginning to soften to gray, but her eyes are still a lustrous blue. She was in mourning for her brother. Six months was considered enough for a mere niece, however. With the arrival of June, I had returned to colored gowns.

"I'll have Steptoe bring up some boxes from the cellar and take this lot to the attics, Brodagan said, with a sweeping gesture at bed, desk, shawls, elephant's foot, and Shiva.

Mama is one of those ladies who cannot throw anything out. The attic was already jammed from floor to ceiling with the detritus of twenty-six years. She walked to the bed and laid a sentimental hand on its dusty silk curtains. These hangings came with me from Ireland, Zoie, she said. Ireland, you must know, is sacrosanct. If she had brought a piece of peat bog with her, it would still find a place at Hernefield.

"Brodagan will see they are carefully packed away, Mama."

Mama moved to the desk and picked up a chipped glass inkpot with a silver-plated lid, the silver mostly rubbed away. I remember Barry had this inkpot for his sixteenth birthday. He was used to speak of being a writer. I shall put it on the desk in the study."

The desk already had two inkpots, but never mind. The first priority was to get it out of my studio. She toured the room, assigning other worn-out items a place belowstairs. As the octagonal room was at the very top of the house, I knew she would not return often. I would wait until she left before telling Brodagan to have the worn-out carpet and curtains removed, or they would end up in the morning parlor, or saloon.

With a last sighing look around, Mama said, I shall send Steptoe up with the boxes, Brodagan. You will remember to set aside the inkpot, and take care with those bed hangings. They are valuable."

"You run along, melady, Brodagan said. I'll have this jumble cleared away while you'd be saying one, two, three."

Mama left, and I began to remove Uncle's jackets from the clothespress. The press can stay here, Brodagan, I said. It is too heavy to move. It might be useful for storage."

Brodagan lifted a blue jacket from its hanger and studied it. It's many a twist life does, she said morosely. There is Mr. Barry, stretched out on his back growing grass, and he not a day older than myself. There was a time he was the most spoken-of man in Wicklow. Oh, the high-and-mighty ladies courted him. His old da tried to set him up with Lord Munster's gal. But there, he preferred an inch of want to a foot of should, and darted off to India to escape her. Tis a pity he fell amongst thieves, she said, not without satisfaction.

This last sinister sentence referred to a little misunderstanding with John Company. My uncle was the chief accountant at Calcutta. One of his assistants made off with some company funds, but the culprit was found and most of the money returned. As the man's superior, however, Barry bore a part of the blame, and retired a little earlier than he had intended.

Steptoe, the butler, arrived with the boxes. I left the servants to their chore and went to the blue spare room that I had been using as my studio. I gathered up my paints, brushes, and equipment and put them in an old bandbox for removal to my new studio. It had taken a deal of convincing to get Mama's permission to use the octagonal tower for this purpose. She feared, I think, that I was becoming too serious about my art, and might use it as a substitute for a husband.