The Downstairs Girl

by Stacey Lee

  He hooks his long fingers around the edge of our rock, stretching his back. The stream whooshes and clucks. “Well, now that you know so many of my secrets, maybe you can tell me some of yours.” His eyes widen a fraction.

  “My whole life is a secret.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  The daylight draws him in sharp lines. For so many years, his face was little more than a fuzzy image, despite him being as familiar as my own cloak. Is it possible to have the kind of life his family offered me? Not just working with them, but living among them, in the spaces that show? Interracial marriage is illegal, but no one can legislate family, friendship, or love.

  When I don’t answer, he gives me half a smile. “I really just want to know, since you are an experienced hatter, what do you think of my Homburg?” Removing the hat, he flips it back and forth in front of him.

  “You mean your humbug? It’s like a giant frown on the crown.”

  “Then I shall continue wearing mine with pride.”

  “At least put a feather in it. Lizzie will appreciate that.”

  He sets his hat back on his head, and the brim slumps into an extra-deep frown. “I’m not interested in impressing Lizzie.”

  My suddenly fidgety hands pick up his book. Faded silver lettering on the leather cover reads Modern Horse Racing. “Where did you get this?”

  “Used bookshop down the street.”

  “Are you reading this for her?”

  “Yes, I am reading this . . . for her. Not Lizzie.” The grumpy set of his jaw has loosened, and his throat moves. “Jo, you’ve known me all your life. Do you think”—he swallows—“do you think you could ever care for someone like me?”

  My skin tingles, and my pulse clamors in my ears. As I watch his eyelashes bow, the messy deck of my emotions squares itself and turns up a heart. I realize I am holding my breath. “Besotted.”

  “Besotted?”

  “My favorite word. I lied, before.”

  The voice I have heard all my life whispers right by my ear. “Jo.” And I no longer need to wonder how it would feel to kiss him.

  Forty-One

  This time, when the portal to Billy’s cathouse heaves open, Madam Delilah lets me in without inquiry. Perhaps it is because I’m in the company of Noemi, who, with her lightning-bolt scowl, looks in no mood to suffer fools. After a perfunctory “Good evening, ma’am,” Noemi hooks her arm through mine and marches us past the watchful square eyes of the Jesse James dice on the door. Madam Delilah’s shocked face seems to droop under the weight of her cosmetic paste, like an old sock that is dangerously close to slipping off.

  “Does she know?” I whisper, hearing the woman’s boots scrabbling down the hallway after us.

  “She thinks the church sends me,” Noemi whispers in my ear. “Let me do the talking.”

  My stomach clenches at the ripe scent of the overly perfumed hallways, and my heartbeat picks up its feet. If the patrons here are curious about our arrival, I don’t notice, as anger swells inside me. The only thing that stays me from storming the corridors is Noemi, whose firm hand keeps me by her side.

  In room 9, Billy Riggs sits at his desk, a cigar drooping from his mouth as he writes in a ledger. His hat hangs on the wall, and his coppery hair is tied back by a black ribbon. Sleeve garters keep his cuffs from smearing the ink. Four white men stand around the table, their expressions caught between sheepish and surprised. Billy blinks at Noemi. “Is it Sunday already?”

  Noemi growls, but before she can speak, Billy closes his ledger. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, Madam Delilah will get you watered, on the house.”

  Casting us annoyed looks, the men file out and Madam Delilah closes the door behind them. Billy rounds his desk and leans his backside against it. “Let me guess, you’re not here to place illegal bets.”

  Noemi lights in. “I never agreed with your depraved lifestyle. I did my honest best to overlook the perversions in your soul, knowing judgment is not mine to pass. But when you start taking swings at folks I know, good folks, you have gone too far. Your creepy clothes-hanger almost done in Old Gin.” She pushes up the sleeves of her dress, as if she is getting ready to take a swing herself.

  Billy puts up a hand, his open cuff blooming like a lily around his crooked wrist. “What do you mean, ‘done in Old Gin’? I only told Knucks to scare him a bit. Then Knucks comes back a bloody mess and bolts the door on his room. Thinks that old man put a curse on him. I might have to hire someone new, and it’s not easy to find a good menace, you know?”

  I choke on my saliva. Old Gin bested Knucks?

  “Serves both you creepy crawlers right,” Noemi snaps, clapping me on the back.

  “She’s the one who double-crossed me, giving me that counterfeit elixir.” He picks up an already lit cigar from its ashtray. “I run a fair racket here. You can’t expect a man to give away his assets for free.”

  “Assets,” I say, seething, waving away the smoke. “If you weren’t blackmailing Old Gin, I would never have debased myself by paying you a visit.”

  His coppery eyes cinch. “I was not blackmailing Old Gin. He came to me.”

  I nearly choke again. Old Gin would never have truck with a criminal like Billy Riggs. “I don’t believe it.”

  Billy takes a long draw of his tobacco, but Noemi plucks the stick from his fingers. “Explain.”

  I never thought I’d see Noemi boss around the likes of Billy Riggs, but he is surprisingly tolerant of her. “He wanted to buy back a family heirloom.”

  My eyes lock on to the empty space on the side table where the Buddha vase sat before I threw it.

  Billy laughs at my horrified expression. “You flatter yourself. That was Ming dynasty, worth six hundred dollars if you hadn’t broken it.” Moving toward his oddities shelf, his twitchy fingers hover before his assortment of bottles. He selects the smallest—a jade snuff bottle—and presents it to me with a mock bow. “Shang pawned it for twenty-five dollars. Of course, over the years, it has accrued interest.”

  The bottle bears the shape of a peach, its roundness matching the impression in the box I wanted for hair ribbons. Its color is the same green as the screw top with attached spoon. It had belonged to Old Gin’s wife. My grandmother. The jade feels warm, like a polished rock left in the sun.

  Old Gin’s story of the farmer’s son and the nymph creeps into my mind. The son gave up the peach for the nymph, a peach meant to attract fortune. The farmer, Old Gin, had taken steps to ensure our future by attempting to buy it back.

  Noemi leans against the edge of his bathtub. “You thought an old groom could pay that?”

  “Again, he came to me,” Billy says through his teeth. “No one held a gun to his head.”

  Noemi ties her arms into a knot. “Give her back that bottle. You know what I have on you.”

  Billy’s mouth purses into a petulant knot. “Even if I gave it back, she would still owe me for my Ming vase. Besides, you wouldn’t rat me out. I just gave an anonymous donation to that Bluebird society of yours.”

  “Bluebells. Take it back. Your money comes with more strings than a harp.”

  An argument starts up between them, with Billy protesting the banditry of his favorite bauble, and Noemi making threats that she would likely never carry through. I pull at my braid as my outrage loses its focus. It’s Billy’s own fault that Ming vase broke. As for the snuff bottle, it is unfair to ask Noemi to spend more of her family currency persuading him to return it when it was Shang’s decision to pawn the bottle away.

  I clear my throat and the arguing stops. “You are a man who values information, secret information, am I right?”

  Noemi’s chest expands, as if filling up to fuel all sorts of protests. I avoid her eyes.

  “Indeed.” Billy’s teeth seem to sharpen.

  “I have some information about
the race that I will trade in exchange for the bottle.”

  He crosses to the open window and reposes upon the ledge. Dying sunlight bronzes his pale skin. “I very much doubt you could tell me anything I don’t already know.”

  “Life is full of risks,” I say, feeding his words back to him. “Keeps it interesting.”

  Billy blows smoke in my face. “I’m afraid that’s not how it works. Tell me what you know, and I will decide its worth. Otherwise, we are at an impasse.”

  My collar grows sticky, despite the breeze blowing in through the window. How would Mrs. English close the deal? She would butter the biscuit so that it would be impossible not to take a bite. “Unless you have received information in the last eight hours, let me assure you, you do not know my secret, a secret that is sure to cause a stir when made public. Of course, by then, you will have lost a very lucrative business opportunity.” The official betting station may not offer odds on Sweet Potato, but an illegal gambling ring certainly can, and Billy Riggs does not run the only racket in town.

  Noemi suppresses a smile. She picks up a dried sea sponge that resembles a brain and squeezes it. I can’t help thinking she is paying me a very peculiar compliment.

  Billy’s hair rambles wildly around his head, somehow unshackled from its ribbon. “Tell you what. I’ll buy your information with a hundred-dollar credit toward your father’s bauble.”

  “Not good enough. It would still take me a decade to save two hundred dollars.” I toss out the words like dice. He could easily retract his offer, and then I would be out of luck.

  Noemi’s grip on the sponge tightens even more, and this time, I do not think it is a compliment.

  Billy’s leg begins to twitch just like that day in Buxbaum’s. “Once I am satisfied with your information, I will make you another offer for how you may pay for the remainder.”

  Noemi gives me the barest nod.

  “Fine.”

  “Now, what is this information?” He cuts an irritated glance at Noemi. “And it better be good.”

  “Oh, it’s good,” she says.

  “As of this morning, I have been added to the roster.”

  “You.” The news seems to suck Billy’s displeasure right out the window. “Well, well. Ain’t you a thief’s bag, full of all sorts of goodies. But I hardly see how that information helps me.”

  “There will be no odds taken on my entry. Official odds, that is.”

  A moth of a smile alights on his face. “You ever race before?”

  “No, but I know how to ride.”

  “And your horse. Is he seasoned?”

  “She has never raced either.”

  “She.” He runs a pointy tongue over his lips, then chuckles. “Well, good.” He shoots a few rounds from his finger guns. “People love a long shot. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some odds in need of refinement.” He grabs his hat off the hook and wiggles it onto his head.

  “But what’s the offer for the rest?”

  Billy hardly seems to hear me, smoothing his eyebrows in a looking glass.

  Noemi’s reflection joins Billy’s in the mirror. Now that they are side by side, I can see a family resemblance around the pointed cheekbones and square hairline. The eye sees what it wants. “Make her an offer for the balance, you crook,” she says.

  “Right.” Turning to me again, he straightens his vest so that the pinstripes running down it are no longer lightning jags. His pupils slide to one corner for a moment as he thinks, and then he scowls so hard, his forehead turns white. “A man I hate has a pony in that race. I hate him for the simple fact that God handed him everything, while He made me bow and scrape for every cent I own.” With quick tucks, he adjusts his sleeve garters. “By all accounts, he operates on penny promises nowadays—there is some justice in the world. Still, I would like nothing more than to see his horse and jockey bested by a pair of females. In fact, his jockey was a patron here until I had to kick him out for being too rough on the ladies.” He straightens his tie, oblivious to the irony in his statement. “You cross the line before them, and you can have your bottle back.”

  My shoulders pull at my cloak. “I told you, I am a novice. If I make it around the track, it will be a miracle.”

  He grins. “God and I may not see eye to eye”—in one smooth motion, he slips into a rifle-brown frock coat—“but I do believe in miracles.”

  I release an effortless exhale. So, I must pull a chestnut from an open fire. At least that horse is not Ameer. God may have handed Merritt everything, but the Payne heir is as wealthy as sin itself. “Who is this horse?”

  “His name is Thief.”

  Forty-Two

  The tincture has kept Old Gin in a foggy but hopefully painless state. But before the sun rises on Friday morning, Old Gin calls out, “Sao Yue.”

  “Grandfather?” I fly to his side from my makeshift bed. His eyes are unfocused and wet.

  “Sao Yue?”

  “No, it’s me, Jo.”

  His face falls, as if disappointed by the answer. I help him drink. “Who is Sao Yue?” The words, meaning “graceful moon,” taste sweet on my tongue.

  “Your grandmother. Sao Yue gave me a snuff bottle,” he gasps. “A wedding present. Your father pawned it to the turtle egg, wanting to buy something to impress Mrs. Payne, a hair comb, I think. He foolishly thought he had a chance with her. When I found out what he had done, I”—his face crumples a little—“I raised my hand against him. I told him he had shamed our family, and he must leave. I said I didn’t want to see him again.” His chest collapses, as if the confession has broken something inside, and a thread-y cough starts up.

  “Shh, don’t talk.”

  He shakes his head. “I hoped, if I could get that peach back, the bats of good fortune might return. Maybe bring my son back with them.” A tear rolls down his cheek, and he turns his face away, as if to hide it.

  I pat his cheek with my flannel sleeve. “I will get Grandmother’s bottle back for you.”

  * * *

  —

  AFTER A RIGOROUS afternoon of drilling at Six Paces, I return Sweet Potato to the Payne Estate, which is now fully festooned for a party. The groundskeepers have cut topiaries in the shape of horses, and shaved the lawn so close it looks like carpet. Balls made of flowers trim the gazebo. Hired domestics are twisting wire around mason jars with candles, which will be hung in the trees. The post-race party will be worthy of a visit from President Harrison himself.

  I am straightening Sweet Potato’s tack when I feel someone behind me.

  Caroline seems to have grown thinner since her episode with the face cream. It’s as if the assault had siphoned off the baby fat and left wisdom in her cheeks. Her hair falls in unkempt waves around her shoulders, and her gray dress with a lace bib makes her look mature without being matronly. She carries a cardboard box with a handle, the kind given with purchases at fancier shops.

  “You’re not with your father today?” I ask, when no words are forthcoming.

  She shakes her head. “Mama wanted me to stay with her.”

  I nod, not wanting an explanation. My heart tears a little, remembering all the years we were at war without understanding why. The grievances I’d held against her have dropped off like shriveled leaves.

  “You look—” Her gaze spreads over my damp riding silks and to my pebbled-goat-leather boots with my bulging toes. I brace myself for a jibe. But then she finishes, “Like a winner.”

  “I thought you were going to say train signal.”

  She smiles. “That, too.” An emotion flits over her face, hard to read in the filtered light of the barn. She takes a measured breath.

  “Is everything okay, my lady?”

  She winces and the box handle tightens in her grip. Another breath. Her frost-blue eyes seem to melt, expanding in her face. “I am lost.”

 
I’m surprised at the tears forming in my eyes. “Then you should look up. The sky reminds us that troubles are not permanent. Of course, right now, there’s just cobwebs.”

  She attempts a smile, but a tear splashes out. She whisks it away with the back of her hand. “This is for you.” She holds up her box. “My riding boots. You will need them for tomorrow.”

  “Your violin boots? I—I can’t.”

  “They are just boots.” She sets them down by my feet. “And besides, I want you to braid my hair.” She pulls a comb and pins from her pocket. “If you don’t mind.”

  Tomorrow is the start of the debutante season, and Caroline will be the belle of the ball. I square a stool into the ground. “Your chair, my lady.”

  I begin to braid, and the soothing scents of hay and leather mingle with wonderment over what could’ve been. A strange and meditative peace settles over us. We don’t speak until I’ve pinned the last pin and adjusted the curls around her face.

  “I’ve been thinking,” says Caroline. “I might buy one of those safeties for myself.” A dozen emotions paddle across her face. None find mooring. “Do you think Noemi would show me how to ride?”

  “Probably not,” I say, though we both know, if Caroline demanded it, Noemi would have to give in.

  A flush builds on her cheeks, and she shakes air into her skirts.

  I sigh. I may never be friends with Caroline Payne. But maybe the freedom machine will move us all a step forward. “Let’s go ask her.”

  * * *

  —

  SATURDAY ARRIVES WEARING a cloud shawl over her damp shoulders. I step into Old Gin’s room, scarlet silk skimming my figure, my hair braided into two tight buns on my head. Old Gin refused the tincture last night, preferring pain to feeling groggy. His face is a sunset of blue, red, purple, and gray, with more bruises blooming each day. Deeper injuries take longer to surface.

  I shake the tincture. “How about half a dose? I’m worried about infection.”