These Golden Pleasures

by Valerie Sherwood

  “These gloves are so tight they cut off the circulation in my arms,” complained Clarissa, flexing her arms doubtfully. “I have a friend in New York whose doctor warned her that if she persisted in wearing such tight gloves she would get varicose veins and hands as red as any kitchen maid’s!”

  “Ah, but they must be tight so that they will wrinkle properly,” pointed out Denby. “That is the famous fashion created by the divine Sarah!”

  “Sarah Bernhardt’s arms are thin as rails,” objected Clarissa. “And mine aren’t. I know because I saw her in a play in New York.”

  “Ah, then we must choose between fashion and health,” he declared jovially.

  “I should prefer to have both,” said Clarissa in a tart voice, fighting a losing battle as she tried to tug off the gloves.

  “Here, let me help you.” Denby sprang to her aid. “You must remember it takes a good fifteen or twenty minutes to put these on and, if it is a warm day, at least as long to take them off, else you will tear them.”

  “I’ll take the gloves whether they tear or not,” cried Clarissa irritably. “Just get them off!”

  Now that fashion had won, Denby was all solicitation. “You must remember to flutter your hands. It restores circulation,” he advised in a serious tone, and Roxanne hid a smile.

  Eager to distract the ladies as he wrestled delicately with Clarissa’s tightly encased arms, Denby, who was schooled in glovers’ lore, told them of gloves that had been made of the skins of snakes and dogs and whales, the fiber of nettles, even the hairy growth of shellfish. Once, spiders had been used to produce enough silk for several pairs of gloves that had been presented to the Royal Society of London. Clarissa, forgetting her discomfort, exclaimed she would love to see a pair, but Denby explained that in captivity the spiders fell to eating each other—and besides it took some seven hundred thousand spiders to produce but a pound of silk for gloves.

  Roxanne laughed aloud and Denby flushed with pleasure.

  He snapped his fingers at a young female clerk who hovered nearby—Roxanne strongly suspected she was a younger sister—and the clerk hastily wrapped up the three pairs of gloves that Clarissa had selected. Roxanne watched resignedly; it would be her unfortunate duty to have to stretch those gloves onto Clarissa’s arms and tug them off again.

  Clarissa said she’d come by again when they had a better selection, managing by her voice and manner to snub both shop and owner. Denby looked chagrined, but Roxanne noticed that he rushed to the shop window as they left and watched them walk down the street. She looked back and on an impulse smiled at him. She had liked the young glover; somehow she felt that he did not regard her as a servant but a young lady on whom, if one were encouraged, one paid social calls. Then she wondered in horror if it was the swaying motion of her bottom in the tight black silk dress that he was watching as she leaned forward in her effort to shield Clarissa’s face with the parasol. Her face burned at the thought, and she watched the bright leaves that fluttered to the ground with relief. Soon Clarissa would have no excuse for her parasol; she would be bundled up against the cold winds that swept down from the north.

  “You should not have laughed in the glove shop,” Clarissa reproved her. “It was a silly bid for that young man’s attention.”

  Roxanne yearned to tell Clarissa who was bidding for attention, but she turned away so that Clarissa would not see the contempt in her eyes.

  When they got home, Roxanne put away Clarissa’s new gloves, assisted Clarissa out of her clothes and corset, combed out Clarissa’s hair, straightened the room, and drew the drapes so that Clarissa could enjoy a pleasant afternoon nap.

  “Oh, and Roxanne,” Clarissa called sleepily as Roxanne turned to go. “You’re to help Greaves serve dinner tonight. That new girl—the mousy one whose name I can never remember—cut her hand with the carving knife.”

  “She’s not supposed to carve,” said Roxanne, surprised. “Greaves does that.”

  “I know. The stupid thing was bringing the carving knife and fork to Greaves in her half-witted way when she tripped and fell.”

  Roxanne shuddered to think that the girl could have been impaled on that long wicked knife.

  “So I’ve told Mrs. Hollister you’ll be available until the girl gets that unsightly bandage off. You can change to your gray uniform for serving dinner, Roxanne. Just wear the black when you’re at your usual duties.” Roxanne nodded to indicate she understood and went out to change immediately into her gray. It was bulky and stiff, and it made her look heavier, but she got into it with a sigh of relief. At least she did not look like a fancy woman in the sober gray.

  There was time enough before dinner for a walk. So Roxanne availed herself of the opportunity, and begging some bread crumbs from Cook went off to feed the pigeons in the park. She liked being outside, feeding the birds in the bright fall weather.

  At the park, amid the pigeons, she met a serving maid from the brownstone house next door on Mt. Vernon Place. A big blond immigrant girl named Anna, who came from Eastern Europe, and who cried in her heavily accented English, “Ach, don’t I know you? You vork next door to me!”

  Roxanne, still smarting from Clarissa’s spiteful comments, was very glad to talk to someone. Anna regaled her with stories of the house where she worked. She’d been there for five years—almost since getting off the boat, she laughed. Her employers, whom she called simply “the family,” were away in Europe, and things had fallen apart something awful; the butler was drunk most of the time and the housekeeper was letting things go to wrack and ruin while she slept or read for long hours in the best bedroom. Anna shook her head with foreboding as she imagined what would happen if the family were to return early from their grand tour of the Continent.

  Roxanne listened with interest to these revelations and then companionably walked back to Mt. Vernon Place with Anna. Anna’s English was fluent, but she had trouble pronouncing her w's.

  “I know all about your family,” Anna volunteered as they strolled along, and Roxanne gathered she meant the Coulters. “Vun of the maids ve had till last summer used to vork over there. I asked her how could she leave a house vith all men—and single to boot. Ven ve have only a married couple and five daughters at our house!”

  “There’s an unmarried girl at our house too—Clarissa,” demurred Roxanne.

  The big girl shrugged. “It’s only men who count,” she stated. “All the girls who vorked at ‘your house,” she added significantly, “vere after vun or the other. For myself I’ve alvays fancied the younger vun, Mr. Rhodes—more blood in him, I’d wager, although . . She shrugged and fell silent.

  Roxanne smiled. “And the girls who work for the Coulters—do they all succeed with the Coulter men?” she asked casually.

  Anna gave her an appraising look. “Some say so,” she murmured. “They also say, in the kitchen, that you can take your pick,” she added slyly.

  Roxanne flushed and fell silent. She hadn’t known she was being discussed in the kitchen next door.

  When they parted, Roxanne promised to attend an upcoming crab roast with Anna. Though she was well aware it would not be attended by people of any social importance, she told herself she ought to get out more.

  At dinner, shuttling back and forth between the dining room and kitchen, Roxanne mused that now that Clarissa was back, the conversation at the dining table had changed. Ships and commerce were no longer discussed. Beautifully gowned Clarissa dominated the table with her rippling laugh and animated gestures. Clad in amber lace or pink silk lined with rustling violet taffeta, a spray of pearls and diamonds in her auburn hair, Clarissa kept the table lively with her sallies. Gavin seemed absorbed by Clarissa, but sometimes Rhodes’s green eyes followed Roxanne. At such times, her cheeks flamed and she tried to keep her eyes downcast, for the looks he gave her were not the looks he bestowed on the presumably virginal Clarissa.

  Later that evening, as she sat in her mean little room, Roxanne told herself rebelliously that she mu
st get out and mix with people. She must not yearn for Rhodes—whom she could not have on her terms—or mourn for Buck whom she had lost. Over the weeks her feelings about Buck had at least clarified, and she had begun at last to have a certain reluctant understanding of the way Buck had felt about her. Worn out with waiting for Julie and in the immediate presence of death, he had clasped Roxanne’s young body to him compulsively. It was not love, it was wanting. And in the madness of that wild turmoil of sky and sound she had felt the same thing.

  Sitting on the bed, she lit her lamp and realized irritably that she had forgotten to clean it. Its chimney was badly fogged, and she had to give up the idea of reading the novel she had filched from the back of Clarissa’s armoire. There would have been hours to read, too, because Rhodes had taken Clarissa to a ball given by plump little Mary Stadler at their Renaissance-style mansion. Roxanne had laced Clarissa up, had powdered her arms the better to ease them into the new long gloves, had combed her pompadour to imitate Gibson Girl lines and had pinned into it a spray of diamonds made in the fashionable Southern Cross constellation design. Around Clarissa’s neck she had clasped an equally fashionable dog collar of pearls. And thus attired, in filmy copper-colored tulle, Clarissa had waltzed out into the night with Rhodes.

  They would be back later, and Clarissa would be sulky if the evening had not gone to her liking. Roxanne would have to undress her, unlace her, comb out her long hair, put away her finery, turn down her bed, perhaps run down and heat a glass of hot milk for her. And then she could return to her own room and sleep till the rattling milk cart woke her in the morning.

  Feeling wakeful, she tried to turn her thoughts from lucky Clarissa, whirling about in Rhodes’s arms, and found herself remembering Kansas. Strangely, now that she’d left the prairies, she could remember not just the loneliness and the bad times, but other more appealing things: the sweet smell of the mixed prairie grasses, the chunky little meadow mice and the pretty prairie deer mice with their white undersides and big shoe-button eyes.

  Ah, well, she was here now and she had to make the best of it, for the present, at least.

  Gavin went out of town again, and Rhodes busied himself at the docks—with what matters Roxanne did not know, but he came in late and whistling to dinner, and sometimes missed dinner altogether. Clarissa was very miffed at Rhodes’s desertion, for when she had first returned home, Rhodes had squired her about a good deal. At such times she had been exuberant, dismissing Roxanne almost graciously, sometimes even giving her a few hours off. But with Rhodes preoccupied with other things, Clarissa grew bored and petulant and pouted at his lack of attention.

  On Monday, Clarissa struck back. A carriage, conveying a dapper young gentleman dressed for a go at lawn tennis, called for her. As Clarissa went out to meet him, wearing a long linen skirt and sporty blouse, Roxanne saw her lift her head airily, sending a triumphant glance up at Rhodes’s fourth floor window. But Roxanne hid a smile, for she knew that Rhodes had gone out early. Obviously Clarissa did not.

  Roxanne turned away from the window with a sigh, and went to change to her sensible gray uniform, because she had to help big Tillie with the ironing. That morning, Clarissa—indignant that Rhodes had smiled too frequently at Roxanne at dinner the night before—had said coolly, “I’ve told Mrs. Hollister you would help in the laundry today, Roxanne,”

  From the steaming laundry, Roxanne saw Anna next door hanging out clothes, and going to the open window, waved to her. Friendly Anna always made a point of waving, sometimes from the servants’ entrance out front, sometimes from a window as she shook out a dust mop. Today, Roxanne was cheered by the sight of Anna. And when Anna slipped over to remind her about the crab roast, Roxanne was glad to affirm her promise to attend.

  On Sunday afternoon, Roxanne joined handsome Anna and two burly young men who worked in one of the giant warehouses that were a Baltimore landmark, as they rode in a delivery wagon piled with hay. Along with a giggling crowd of housemaids and delivery boys, they made their way out into the parklike Greenspring Valley, where the crab roast was held. Someone had brought a fiddle, and they square-danced on the grass. Roxanne was sharply reminded of that moonlit summer night in Kansas when she had square-danced in the Smiths’ big barn and Buck had discovered her. ...

  The food was delicious, but there were also several kegs of beer and, as it was rapidly consumed, the party grew raucous. All in all, it was a rough affair. Roxanne was glad when the wagons, with everyone singing “The Band Played On” loudly, creaked back into Baltimore. On the way back, Roxanne found herself desperately resisting the advances of her date, one of the burly young warehousemen, who was roguishly grasping her knees under the hay. When she finally struck at him, he roared with laughter and gave her a bear hug and a smacking kiss on the lips. Her hat fell off as she pulled out of his rough embrace, and she had to scramble for it in the hay, afraid the wind would carry it off. As they turned the corner of Mt. Vernon Place, she bade them all a hurried good-bye, tumbled out of the wagon and fled.

  The next week the ever exuberant Anna asked her to attend a clambake, but Roxanne declined. Remembering how Anna’s men friends had almost pinched her black and blue, Roxanne explained earnestly that she must catch up on her reading at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

  Anna’s eyebrows elevated. “Miss Hoity-Toity!” she exclaimed. “My friends aren’t good enough for you, eh?”

  “It isn’t that,” said Roxanne, flushing uncomfortably because Anna had perceived her true feelings. She didn’t want to marry a day laborer who got drunk on Saturday nights and beat his wife or landed in jail. She wanted—she looked about her wistfully—she wanted what the Coulters had.

  Plus happiness.

  Chapter 9

  Roxanne was a great favorite with Mrs. Hollister, and sometimes, on days when Clarissa’s strident calls were not too intrusive, the older woman asked her to take tea with her.

  They would sit and chat, balancing delicate teacups from a lovely set of Bavarian china that Mrs. Hollister spoke of mysteriously as a “gift from a gentleman.” The first time Roxanne had entered Mrs. Hollister’s bedroom, she had been startled at the luxury of it. Although it was in the servants’ wing, it was quite large, a partition obviously having been taken out to make it so. And the furnishings were at least as good as those in Rhodes’s room. Even the dainty tea service and linens were, Roxanne imagined, far beyond an ordinary housekeeper’s meager salary. Whenever the girl admired anything, Mrs. Hollister always smiled a secret smile and said they had been gifts from “an admirer.” Somewhat baffled, Roxanne presumed Mrs. Hollister had had younger, palmier days. Certainly the housekeeper had been with the Coulters for many years, and Roxanne could hardly imagine her receiving an amorous gentleman friend here in the house.

  “You are what I might have been,” the older woman mused one day, studying Roxanne across her teacup. Mrs. Hollister sighed. “You must be careful to make the right decisions in life, Roxanne.” As I did not, her tone implied.

  When Roxanne inquired about Mr. Hollister, Mrs. Hollister turned to her with the air of imparting a great confidence.

  “There is no Mr. Hollister,” she admitted, looking behind her as if someone else were there to hear. “When I first went into household service, I added a Missus to my name for—for protection.”

  Roxanne’s puzzled sapphire eyes wondered silently what kind of protection that would afford.

  “From men,” said Mrs. Hollister delicately. “From their—advances, Roxanne.”

  “Oh,” said Roxanne, her face clearing. “Yes.”

  So Mrs. Hollister had never married. Surprised, Roxanne couldn’t help glancing at the plain gold band on Mrs. Hollister’s plump left hand.

  Mrs. Hollister caught her look and fidgeted. “It’s a friendship band,” she said, twisting it, and decided to change the subject. “I’ve never given up wearing a bustle,” she said. “It does so become my figure, doesn’t it?”

  Roxanne thought it made her look fat,
but she smiled and went on sipping her tea.

  “You could have a great future, Roxanne—just as I might have had,” said the older woman wistfully. “You could marry a wealthy tradesman. You know Baltimore is full of wealthy self-made men.”

  “Or perhaps I might marry into one of the wealthy old-line families?” suggested Roxanne dryly.

  Mrs. Hollister looked alarmed. “Oh, no, you shouldn’t aspire to that,” she cried. “You will only come to grief, Roxanne. Gentlemen of the old school—”

  “Don’t marry serving wenches. So Mary Bridey has informed me.”

  “Have you seen her?” Mrs. Hollister asked. “How is poor Mary Bridey?

  Roxanne nodded. “She’s very lonely. I think she would like to see you.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Hollister’s hand flew distractedly to pat her soft gray hair. “Well, of course I’m very busy right now, but later I’ll try to get around to it.”

  Roxanne thought of Mary Bridey seated on the green rocker, so wistfully asking for news of the “great house,” and set down her cup abruptly. “Thank you for the tea,” she said. “I must get back. Clarissa will be calling for me, and she’ll be angry if I don’t answer.”

  “I suppose you find it difficult to work for Miss Clarissa?”

  “Yes,” said Roxanne shortly. “Especially,” she added, “since she makes me wear these silly clothes.”

  Mrs. Hollister tch-tched. “I suppose they do make the men look at you,” she murmured sympathetically.

  “Look at me? When I’m bent forward holding a parasol over Clarissa’s empty head, with my bottom swaying in this tight silk dress? Can you blame them if they look? It’s providential they don’t make remarks! And they probably do after we’ve passed by!”