by Rhys Bowen
“Here we are,” she said. “I’m Daisy, by the way.”
“And I’m Molly.” I smiled at her.
“When your belongings come you can put them in the bottom drawer. I’ve got the top one.”
“Where’s your room, then?”
“This is it.”
“And mine?”
“We’ll be sharing the bed,” she said in an Irish accent thicker than my own. “I hope you don’t snore.”
“Sharing the bed?” I demanded. “They can afford all those marble statues and they can’t buy enough beds for their servants?”
“Hush!” She put her fingers to her lips and glanced at the door, although how she thought anybody would hear us all the way up here, I don’t know. “For the love of mike, don’t let them hear you talking like that or you’ll be out before you start. Alderman McCormack is known for being very good to his servants.”
“Where I come from only the Kane family had to share beds, and they were as poor as dirt, and had more children than rabbits,” I said.
“Stop talking and hurry up,” Daisy said. “Mrs. Brennan will start yelling if we’re not down again before you can blink. She gets so nervous when the master has a dinner party. The mistress is very fussy, you know. Everything has to be quite perfect.”
She started trying to undo the buttons on my blouse for me. “I can do it, thank you,” I said, hastily. “Is that why the last girl was fired?”
“Fired?” A look of amusement spread across her face. “Who told you she was fired? Ran away she did—her and Frederick, the under footman. Oh, you should have seen the fuss! A parlor maid and a footman running away to get married, just like their betters? Never heard of!” She held the black dress over my head and pulled it on to me. Then she buttoned it down the back. It was scratchy wool. She helped me tie the apron and held out the cap.
“You’ve too much hair,” she said. “They’ll probably want you to cut it off. No signs of vanity allowed around here.”
“I’m certainly not cutting off my hair,” I said indignantly. “I like my hair the way it is, thank you.”
“Don’t let Mrs. Brennan hear you talking like that. You have to look the way they want you to. What kind of household were you in before?” She was looking at me with horrified fascination as if I was a dangerous new type of animal.
Shut up, I reminded myself. She might report everything I’d just said to the housekeeper and then I’d be fired before I could find out anything useful.
“My mother always used to say I had too much pride,” I said, laughing. “I don’t think it will ever get stamped out of me.”
“It will here, if you stay long enough,” Daisy said. She ran a brush savagely through my long curls. “Anyway, for now we’ll try to hold it back with pins. The mistress hates to see any hair poking out from under a cap.” Together we managed to tame my hair and she tied the cap so tightly across my forehead that it hurt my eyes.
“Ow,” I said. “Not so tight.”
“It has to be tied as tight as that or it slips. And you’ll get in awful trouble if they see you with your cap crooked.” She turned me around. I caught a glimpse of a severe white-faced stranger in the mirror on the dresser. “Right. You’ll do. Now we’d better get down there or we’ll never hear the end of it.”
Back down all those stairs, our feet clattering on bare boards. The candelabras were now in place, and between them large bowls of fruit and flowers. Daisy showed me the open chests of cutlery lying on a sideboard. “Do you know how to lay a table properly?”
“Only the Irish way,” I said, not wanting to admit that I’d never seen a table laid properly in my life. Refreshments at the Hartleys’ house had been limited to milk and a biscuit taken in the nursery.
“George, put out one place setting for her, then she can follow,” Daisy said to the footman.
“I’m still busy polishing,” George said. “Whoever put these away didn’t do a good enough job at wrapping them. They’ve started to tarnish.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll do it.” Daisy grabbed a handful of knives and forks. “Now, you start from the outside and work inward, as I expect you know,” she said. “The little knife and fork are for the entrée, then the soup spoon on the right, then the fish knife and fork are in that box, then the meat—”
“Holy Mother,” I said. “How many courses are there?”
“Seven, as usual. It’s only for special occasions that they have twelve. This is just regular entertaining that they’re always doing.”
“They entertain a lot, do they?” I asked, putting out knives and forks as she had demonstrated.
“Oh, all the time. The mistress likes to think of herself as the number one hostess in the city. She’s always entertaining the Vanderbilts, and the Roosevelts—all the hoity-toities come here.”
My brain was working fast. Today was Saturday so if I counted back . . . “I suppose they only entertain at weekends? They don’t do this sort of thing on a Monday, say?”
“Oh, sometimes they do. They’re either out to dinner or they’ve got somebody here all the time.”
“What about last Monday? Did they have anybody to dinner then?”
“What would you want to know that for?” she laughed. “How can I remember back to last Monday?”
“I remember last Monday,” George said without looking up from his polishing. “They were out. I know because Sunday’s usually my evening off but they had the mayor over then and Mr. Holmes told me I could take Monday instead because they’d be dining out.”
So the alderman was not at home on Monday evening.
“I bet they come home at all hours when they’ve been out,” I said. “Do they wake you up when they come in? They don’t want to be waited on, do they?”
Daisy looked up from the place she was laying across the table. “Only the master and mistress’s personal maid and valet have to help them get undressed. Mr. Holmes always stays up until he can lock up for the night. But we don’t have to worry about that. We’re sound asleep at the top of the house. They could let a herd of elephants run through the place for all we’d hear.”
“Do you always chatter like this, Molly?” George demanded. “The mistress doesn’t like servants chattering when they’re supposed to be working.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I just like to get the feel of a new place. I won’t say another word.”
I went back to work. I was pleased to notice that I was quicker than Daisy and even Mrs. Brennan nodded approvingly when we’d finished. “This table looks a treat,” she said. “And I must say your appearance is a big improvement over the last time I saw you, Molly. You look quite civilized now. Run and get yourselves a cup of cocoa, girls, before you put the carpet sweeper over the living room and the main staircase.”
I followed the others back to the warmth of the kitchen. There were mugs of hot cocoa and big slabs of fruit cake waiting and I fell on them eagerly. It felt like days since I had had a decent meal. While we ate I was wondering how I could find out if Alderman McCormack had not come home on Monday night. Mr. Holmes looked like a meticulous kind of person. Perhaps he kept a diary or appointment book. I’d have to get a feel for the rhythm of the household to know when might be a safe time to go into the butler’s private quarters. I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.
As soon as the cups were drained Daisy nudged me. “Come on, we’ve got sweeping to do.” She took me to a broom closet and handed me a square box on a long handle. “Go on, take it,” she said impatiently. “Have you never seen a carpet sweeper before? What kind of households have you worked in?”
“We’re not as up-to-date in Ireland,” I said, “What do I do with this?”
“Oh, it’s like a miracle. You just push it over the carpet and it picks up all the specks. You’ll never want to go back to sweeping with a broom again.”
We went up the stairs again and back into the bright, sparkling light of the front hall. They kept the electric lights in the chande
lier running all the time, even when nobody was around!
“I’ll do the drawing room,” Daisy said. “The mistress is more likely to notice specks when they’re having coffee in there after dinner. You can do the stairs.” She pointed at the curved staircase. “And make sure you do each step thoroughly. And if you hear any family members coming, try to get out of the way until they’ve passed. They don’t like seeing servants in the main part of the house. They like to pretend the house runs itself with no human help!”
I took my sweeper and started on the bottom step, feeling quite exposed in the front hall. The sweeping might have been easier than with the brush and dustpan we used at home, but there were an awful lot of those steps and they became so narrow at the center that it was impossible to get that sweeper to work properly. I was feeling hot and tired by the time I reached the top. But a fascinating new hallway stretched out ahead of me. This might be a good opportunity to do a spot of scouting. My sweeper gave me a good excuse for being there. I started along the hall until I reached the first door. I glanced around, then knelt to put my eye to the keyhole. I was just focusing when the front door opened, letting in a blast of cold air. As I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the carpet sweeper, I got a brief impression of a large man with bushy whiskers depositing his hat on the hall table. Footsteps came up the stairs toward me. I shrank to the side as large feet came past me.
“You, girl. Go and tell Holmes that I’d like a whiskey and soda in my study straight away and then let cook know that I’ll take my lunch on a tray up here while I’m working. Nothing fancy, tell her. A slice of her pork pie and some pickles will do.”
“Very good, sir.” I bobbed a curtsy, as I’d seen the maids at the Hartley’s do, and kept my eyes firmly on my feet.
“You’re new here, are you?”
I had to look up then. “Yes, sir.” Was the face the one I had seen that night? It was hard to tell. Same impressive whiskers and rounded paunch with a vest stretched across it. I realized that I had never taken in the features beneath those whiskers. Hadn’t the nose been larger? If it was he, then surely he must recognize me by now.
“What’s your name, child?”
“Molly, sir.” I lowered my face rapidly again until he was looking at a cap.
“You don’t have to be nervous with me, young woman. This is a happy household. If you do your work well, you have nothing to be afraid of.”
“No, sir. I’ll go and find Holmes for you, sir.” I made a bobbing curtsy, grabbed my sweeper, and ran down the stairs. I was pretty sure he hadn’t recognized me. The question was whether I had recognized him. He had spoken to me in a soft, rumbling voice. I’d have to wait to see how his voice sounded when it was booming.
I found Holmes without any trouble and passed on the instructions. He turned very pale.
“The master came home and I didn’t even hear him come in? That makes twice in one week now. Dear me. I must be slipping. Very well, girl. You can go back to your duties.”
I left him and went into the kitchen to pass on my message to the harried cook. She now had several pots on the stove and was moving from one to the next.
“Oh, blast him, right when I’m in the middle of waiting for this sauce to thicken,” she muttered. “And Ruby still has all those potatoes to peel.”
“I could take it up for you, if you’d like,” I said.
“You? You’re the parlor maid. It’s not your job. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I just wanted to help. I’ve finished doing the stairs.”
She glanced around as if she was committing a crime. “Well, I won’t say no this time,” she said, “and if the master doesn’t like it, you can tell him I didn’t want his favorite sauce to curdle.”
She pointed out the pie and pickles to me, then gave me step-by-step instructions on which cloth to put on the tray, which napkin to go with it, and which salt cellar to use. When the tray was finished to her satisfaction she sent me off with it. “Up in his study. Third door on the left as you go along the upstairs hallway. Don’t linger now and come back down the servants’ stairs.”
I carried the tray up the stairs and was just approaching the study door when I heard the master speaking.
“I told you, Bertie, there is nothing to worry about.”
I paused in the hallway. The study door was half open and I got a glimpse of the alderman speaking into a telephone. “Who could find out? We are the only two who know and everything will be fine if you don’t blab. . . . Yes, I’m aware of the newspaper man, but, in my opinion, he was just fishing. He can’t know anything . . . No, that wouldn’t be a wise move at this stage. Only calling attention to you, which then calls attention to me. Just sit tight and shut up, Bertie. This will all pass over and everything can go on as it was before. Of course I still plan to be the grand marshal of the St. Patrick’s parade. Why shouldn’t I? The people love me.”
I watched the speaking part of the telephone being hung back on its hook. I was about to knock on the door when I saw him open a drawer in the top part of his desk. He pulled that drawer all the way out, then reached in and opened another drawer behind it. He removed papers from it, went through them quickly, then nodded in satisfaction and put them back again. I tiptoed back down the hall, waited a suitable amount of time, then made another approach, before tapping on the door.
“Your lunch, sir.”
“What? Oh yes. Put it there.” He indicated a spot on a side chest of drawers where a tray containing a whiskey decanter and soda siphon already stood. I put the tray down and made a hurried departure.
Twenty-one
We servants took our midday meal together at the big scrubbed kitchen table. I came into the kitchen to find Daisy, George, and a couple of others I hadn’t seen before already seated. I pulled out a chair beside Daisy.
“Where do you think you’re sitting, girl?” Mrs. Brennan demanded. “You’re a newcomer. Your place is at the bottom of the table, beside Ruby.”
With all those eyes on me, I moved to the bottom of the table and tried to look humble. I picked up my fork and was about to reach for the nearest plate when Ruby dug me hard in the ribs.
“We have to wait for Mr. Holmes to say grace,” she whispered.
We sat and waited until Mr. Holmes made a grand entrance and took his place at the head of the table. “For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful and ever mindful of the wants of others,” he intoned. Then we all fell upon our meal.
The food was better than anything I had eaten in my life before—a joint of cold ham, cold roast beef, another large round pork pie, hot-jacket potatoes, a big slab of cheese, pickles. I wondered if we were celebrating our own special occasion until the cook said to the butler, “I’m sorry for such meager fare, Mr. Holmes, but I’ve been so run off my feet this morning that I didn’t have time to cook for us today.”
“I quite understand, Mrs. O’Leary,” the butler said. “I’m sure we can all make do with leftovers for once.”
Make do with leftovers? If it turned out that the alderman had nothing to do with the events on Ellis Island last Monday night, I might do well to stay here for a while—if I could ever learn to be humble and behave like a proper servant, that was. But what I had seen and heard in the upstairs study made me think that I was on the right track. The alderman had something important to hide—something that had piqued a newspaperman’s interest and the Irish community shouldn’t know about. What else could it be? He had obviously confided in one other person and it sounded very much as if that person—Bertie, wasn’t it—had been prepared to kill on his behalf. I was dealing with a dangerous man all right. I would have to tread very carefully indeed.
I wondered if parlor maids had any duties during dinner parties. If they were all busy cooking and serving food, I might just have time to slip up to the master’s study and see what I could find. At least I’d be reasonably safe, knowing that the alderman and his wife were in the dining room, eating with guests
.
As soon as lunch was over the cook and senior servants went for an afternoon rest. Holmes, it turned out, went out for a walk. I was instructed to wipe off all the best china, then place it in the little lift they called a dumbwaiter to be taken up to the storage area behind the dining room. There was an anteroom, hidden to one side of the dining room, where the plates were stacked in the correct order. Food would also be sent up in the dumbwaiter. Two footmen would carry it through and serve at table. Apparently female servants were too lowly and clumsy for such tasks. Which might mean I had some time and opportunity to do a little scouting.
I worked fast, polishing all those plates, sixteen of each, then sending them up for the footmen to lay out above. Mrs. O’Leary, the cook, sat in a rocking chair beside the kitchen range, snoring. Ruby, the scullery maid, was still out there washing up the plates from our meal and the pots that had been used that morning. No sign of Daisy—I presumed she was up helping the footmen. I was all alone. I darted out of the kitchen. If Mrs. Brennan had an office, then Mr. Holmes must have one, too. Cautiously I opened one door after another until I came to a door that was locked. By peeking through the keyhole I saw a tidy desk, a large bunch of keys hanging on the wall . . . it had to be Mr. Holmes’s office, but unfortunately he seemed to be the one person in the household who locked his door when he went out.
I went back to the kitchen, just in time, as it turned out. As I stepped in through the door a bell started jangling on the far wall. Mrs. O’Leary woke with a start. “The mistress’s sitting room,” she said. “She must have returned from lunch, and Mr. Holmes isn’t back from his walk yet. You’d better go and see what she wants, girl.”
“Which room is it?”
“First floor, at the far end of the hall, past the master’s study. Go on, run. She hates to be kept waiting.”
I ran up the back stairs, past the master’s study and tapped on the far door before entering. An exquisitely lovely young woman, with blond curls piled on a doll-like face, was reclining on a pink silk chaise longue before the fire. I couldn’t have been more surprised. The alderman was a middle-aged man. His whiskers were already graying at the sides. If this was his wife, then she was a good twenty years younger, and very lovely. She was reading a letter and didn’t look up as I came in.
