I didn’t know what to do, so I prayed. I begged the Blessed Mother to show me a way to save Moonstone. I know she heard me, because all at once I remembered what Mrs. Rosenbach said my first night here. Oh, Solly! It used to be cats and dogs! I saw the significance of those words. Before he rescued me, Mr. Solomon must have brought home stray cats and dogs.
So then I knew what to do: ask Mr. Solomon for help. Perhaps he could talk Mrs. Rosenbach into letting me keep Moonstone. After all, he’s her firstborn son, and anyone can see how proud she is of him. I don’t always like Mrs. R., but she’s a very devoted mother.
I shut Moonstone in my room and started downstairs. I tried to think how I might catch Mr. Solomon alone. It wouldn’t be easy because he often goes to Temple in the morning. I was still pondering when I reached the stair landing. Then impulse seized upon me. I tiptoed down the hall to Mr. Solomon’s door and stood outside, listening.
I heard a drawer open and shut. He was awake and humming one of those sad-happy Jewish tunes. I knocked. Now that I look back, it strikes me that going to his bedroom was a bold thing to do. But at the time, I didn’t think about it. Every day I go into Mr. Solomon’s room and make the bed, and dust the furniture, and pull the shades down so the room won’t heat up. I gather his dirty clothes and check to see if his shoes need polishing, and I comb the hairs out of his hairbrush. Mr. Solomon is tidy except for his socks. For some reason, he likes to roll them up in little balls and toss them around. I never know where I’ll find them. I don’t know why I’m writing this. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it would be easier for me to be shy about men’s bedrooms if I weren’t a hired girl.
All the same, I jumped when the door opened.
He was dressed and shaved, thank goodness. He looked at me quizzically and said, “Janet?” I could see him trying to work out why I was knocking on his door.
I thought I’d better be quick. I said, “Oh, sir, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I don’t know what to do and —”
“Is something wrong downstairs?” he asked. “Is Malka ill?”
“No, no,” I said. “But I need your help something awful — I don’t know who else could help me.” My eyes filled up with tears. I thought of how little Moonstone was, and how he didn’t have anyone but me, and how I didn’t have anyone but Mr. Solomon.
Mr. Solomon said, “Can’t this wait? Surely after breakfast —” But then he switched to making consoling Jewish sounds. I told him how Mimi and I rescued Moonstone together and how Mrs. Rosenbach said we couldn’t keep him. I told him how Malka made me shoo him outside and how in the night I couldn’t bear it and I had to rescue him again.
“The kitten’s upstairs?” he said, before I’d quite finished. “In your room?”
“I couldn’t leave him out in the dark,” I said. “He’s just a tiny little kitten.”
“Let me see him,” said Mr. Solomon.
He followed me to my room. When we opened the door, Moonstone was up on the windowsill, watching the sparrows. He leaped onto the chair and down to the floor, and crossed the linoleum with his little tail held high. My heart swelled at the sight of him. He was so bold, so curious, and so pretty.
Mr. Solomon hunkered down and tapped his fingers on the floor. Moonstone pricked up his ears. Then Mr. Solomon took his handkerchief from his pocket, shook it loose, and tickled the floor with it.
The kitten was delighted. He began to frisk and scamper and pounce. Mr. Solomon played with him — oh, so gently! Ma used to say that men were rough because that was their nature. I wish she could have seen Mr. Solomon playing with Moonstone.
“He’s a pretty little fellow,” said Mr. Solomon. With one deft hand, he caught hold of the kitten and turned him on his back. “Actually, it’s a she. She’s friendly, too. No wonder you lost your heart to her.”
I knelt down across from him. “That’s just it — that’s exactly what happened. I’ve lost my heart. I can’t part with him — her. I just can’t!”
He made a soft noise with his tongue against his teeth and dangled the handkerchief over Moonstone’s head, so she had to leap for it. Then he waved it in a circle, so that she chased her tail. I couldn’t help laughing. Most of the time when you laugh, it’s because something is amiss — clumsy or wrong or sad — but when you laugh at a kitten, you laugh for pure joy. “Do you think you can persuade your mother to let me keep her?”
He looked me straight in the eye. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry, Janet, but I know my mother. When I was a boy, I was always bringing home stray animals. Then it became Malka’s job to care for them, and Mother’s job to find them new homes. A kitten is more work than you think. They get into everything, and they need to be watched.”
“I’ll watch her,” I vowed, but I felt my eyes fill with tears. Malka keeps me busy all day long.
“You can’t,” said Mr. Solomon gently. “You have work to do. Besides, Mother won’t allow it. She’ll be even more set against the kitten when she finds out it’s a girl. That means kittens later on. And then there’s Thomashefsky. Cats don’t like sharing their homes.”
“But Moonstone’s so little, and she hasn’t any mother,” I wept.
Mr. Solomon took the handkerchief away from Moonstone and handed it to me. “Tell me, Janet,” he said, “do you love this kitten enough to want a good home for her, even if she has to live somewhere else?”
I didn’t want to answer. I knew where the conversation was tending. I sobbed harder on purpose. I’m ashamed that I did that, because it wasn’t fair. It was feminine wiles; that’s what it was, and I don’t think much of feminine wiles.
“You have to answer me,” he said, not unkindly, but firmly. “Would you be willing to give the kitty up if you could be sure she was happy and safe?”
I looked down at Moonstone. His wide blue eyes were fixed on the handkerchief. He — no, I must learn to write she — didn’t like it that the game had stopped. I brushed the handkerchief against the floor, and she leaped forward and caught it between her paws. Then she rolled over on her back and bit the cloth, fierce and merry at the same time. Oh, her little tail, her pink-padded paws, the sweet triangle of her face!
“Yes,” I said wretchedly.
“Then I’ll help you,” said Mr. Solomon, and he smiled his sweet-for-a-man smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t give up until I’ve found her a good home. We’ll start with my sister Anna. She’s afraid of mice, which is good. And I think Oskar’s old enough to be gentle with a kitten.”
I wasn’t sure whether I liked that idea or not. Mrs. Friedhoff seems like such a shadowy person, nice, but dull, and Oskar seems like a snake lover, not a kitten lover. On the other hand, the Friedhoffs live nearby, and I might be able to visit Moonstone if she went to live there. “She isn’t trained,” I said, remembering the mess in the room.
“I’ll tell Anna to keep a box of sand in the house,” Mr. Solomon assured me. “It’s easy to train them, if you have a box of sand.”
A box of sand. I’d never have thought of that. “What if she says no?”
“I think I can talk her into saying yes. If she doesn’t, one of Mother’s bridge ladies lost her pug dog a little while ago. I might be able to persuade her to try a kitten.” He reached for Moonstone and gathered her up. “I’ll go see Anna right after breakfast. Can you find me a basket, or a cardboard box with a lid?”
My heart tightened. “Do you have to take her right away?”
He nodded. “When you ask people if they want a kitten, they say no. But if they see the kitten, it’s a different matter.”
I could see this. But I could also see something else — that my time with Moonstone was at an end. Right after breakfast, Mr. Solomon would take her away. I started to cry again, but this time it wasn’t feminine wiles.
I’m shedding tears as I write this, but I’m almost finished. Mrs. Friedhoff did take Moonstone, and Oskar made her a little house out of a baby quilt and a cardboard box. Mr. Solomon says Oskar spends a lot of time dragging
little pieces of string across the floor so Moonstone can chase them. And Anna — I mean Mrs. Friedhoff — has promised that some night when she and Mr. Friedhoff go out, I can look after Oskar and see Moonstone again.
So I am grateful. I have to be grateful. But I’m sure that Moonstone was meant to be my cat, not Oskar’s, not Anna’s, not even Mimi’s. (Mimi isn’t half as sorry as I am that Moonstone’s gone. I think she’s a very fickle sort of girl.)
After Mr. Solomon came back, he asked if I would do something for him. I said, “Anything.” Because I would do anything for him, but I would prefer it to be something heroic, like saving him from a burning building, or helping him win the hand of Nora Himmelrich. It turned out that what he wanted was for me to forgive Mrs. Rosenbach — not only forgive her but apologize to her. Apparently she told him I flounced when she said I couldn’t keep the kitten, and Tuesday night, everyone could hear me banging the plates when I loaded the dumbwaiter. It seems I’m not supposed to flounce or bang plates. I guess hired girls shouldn’t have any feelings.
I didn’t want to forgive Mrs. Rosenbach, but Mr. Solomon looked very earnest and pleading. He said Mrs. Rosenbach was hurt by my ingratitude. I wouldn’t have thought that anything I did could hurt someone like her, but I guess I should be grateful. She pays me well and she bought me two dresses that are a lot nicer than they have to be. All the same, I wish Mr. Solomon hadn’t asked me to forgive her, because I was kind of enjoying being angry. On the other hand, I’m supposed to forgive people; I’m trying to be a good Catholic.
So I humbled myself and agreed to forgive Mrs. Rosenbach and say I was sorry for the flouncing. I wasn’t sorry, but I strained myself to say so. The apologizing wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, because Mrs. R. wasn’t cold or scornful, only grave. She said she knew I was disappointed but the important thing was that Moonstone had a good home, and I was free to go on with my duties. She even said she valued my apology, because she knew I was an honest person and wouldn’t say I was sorry unless I meant it.
Then I felt guilty, because I didn’t really mean it. But there was no point in saying so. I said, “Yes, ma’am.” And I was careful not to flounce when I left the room.
Monday, August the seventh, 1911
I have had an adventure!
It was late last night and I was in the library trying to read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. That was Mr. Rosenbach’s idea. I finished The Moonstone and was going to start The Woman in White, which is also by Mr. Wilkie Collins. It begins in such a fascinating way: This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. How can anyone not want to read that? But yesterday Mr. Rosenbach asked me what I was reading. When I told him, he looked thoughtful and said that if I wanted to become truly educated, I must read history and philosophy as well as novels.
So I asked for some philosophy because I thought that sounded elevated, and he gave me the Meditations. It isn’t long, for which I am grateful because it’s slow going. It seems to me that Marcus Aurelius doesn’t want anybody to get excited about anything. I don’t want to live like that. If anything exciting ever happens to me, I want to get excited about it. Of course, thus far my life has been tedious because of Steeple Farm and being only the hired girl, but there is such a thing as real life, and sooner or later it’s going to begin. I suppose I might have to suffer a little because real life is like that, but I hope I will suffer nobly. Mr. Marcus Aurelius has some ideas about that, too.
So there I was, reading Marcus, and then I decided to refresh myself with The Picturesque World. I look through the plates almost every night; they are so fascinating. As I was musing over engravings of the Alhambra, I heard the sound of footsteps on the front porch.
I was in my nightgown. My kimono is perfectly lovely, cream colored with apple blossoms on it, but I don’t always wear it once I get inside the library because these summer nights are hot, and my kimono’s too nice to perspire in. I tell myself that if I ever heard anyone coming, there’d be time to put it on. But when I heard the front door open, I didn’t think about my kimono. It was nearly midnight, and everyone was in bed: Mr. and Mrs. Rosenbach, and Mr. Solomon, and Mimi, and Malka. No one ought to be coming into the house.
And whoever was coming in was coming in stealthily. Usually the front door sticks, so that opening it makes a sound like a sneeze, but this time the door opened slowly, so that the sneeze was muffled and prolonged.
I thought of screaming to rouse the house, but I didn’t dare. Isn’t that queer? My heart beat like a rabbit’s, but my mouth was too dry to scream. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
But it was happening. And even though my mind couldn’t believe it, my body knew it was time to be frightened, because the footsteps were coming toward the library. So I moved — oh, so swiftly! — to the hearth. I picked up the poker, grasped it with all my strength, and glided forward — my feet were bare and the carpet is thick and I scarcely made a sound. I saw the doorknob turn. As the door opened, I leaped forward and brought the poker slashing through the air.
He swerved and ducked. It makes my blood run cold to think how close I came to killing him. He leaped back and held up his hands in surrender. “Jehoshaphat!” he cried. “Great Jakes, don’t kill me!”
At that instant — that very instant — I knew who he was. I gasped, “You’re David!”
He gaped at me with a queer mixture of amusement and shock — because I really had frightened him. “Yes, I’m David,” he said, “but who are you? What are you doing in Papa’s library in the middle of the night?”
I was so startled I almost said my real name. I stammered, “I’m Jo — Janet”— like that. I don’t think he noticed the slip. “The hired girl. Your father gave me permission to read his books.”
“You’re Papa’s little girl?” he said incredulously. “That’s what he calls you, you know: the little girl who loves to read.” He gave a shout of laughter and looked at me, and that’s when I realized that I was in my nightgown. I was dreadfully mortified. Thank heavens it wasn’t that awful old rag I brought from Steeple Farm but one of the new things I bought with Mimi.
I know I blushed. I flew to the chair where I’d left the kimono and put it on as fast as ever I could. Even when I’d knotted the belt, I felt flustered. Mr. David is so — well, he’s not handsome, now that I think it over. He has an enormous crooked nose. I couldn’t help staring because I’d heard something about Jews having big hooked noses, but I’d made up my mind it was all twaddle, because none of the Rosenbachs have noses like that. Mr. R.’s nose is hawkish but it isn’t large. Mr. Solomon has a handsome nose. Mrs. R.’s nose is fine and straight, and Mimi told me hers is what they call retroussé.
But David’s — I should write Mr. David’s — nose is large and very crooked. He caught me staring at it and said, “A nose like mine is the banner of a great man, Janet. When it blows, it’s a typhoon; when it bleeds, the Red Sea. But it’s a monument — never doubt that — a monument to a generous heart, a towering spirit, and an expansive soul.”
I stood nonplussed. I never heard anybody talk like that before, and between being embarrassed because of my kimono and almost murdering him with the poker — well, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I just stared at him.
“I broke it.” He lowered his voice as if he was sharing a secret. “I was ten years old and walking on top of a fence — showing off for a little girl with blue eyes. I waved to her, she smiled at me”— he shrugged, throwing up his hands —“I lost my balance. Fell flat on my face.”
I couldn’t help laughing. But while I was laughing, a funny idea stole into my mind. It sounds silly now, but for a moment, just a shred of a moment, I wondered if he might be flirting with me. I mean, he was talking about blue eyes, and I have blue eyes. Now that I write it down, I see that what I was thinking was awfully far-fetched. But at the time, it confused me.
And as a matter of fact, he confused me. Feature for feature, he isn
’t as good-looking as Mr. Solomon. But he’s taller than his brother, lean and easy in his movements, and he wore his shirtsleeves rolled up, and I liked looking at his forearms. His hair is curly and nearly black, and he has his mother’s heavy-lidded eyes, except his are full of mischief. He has to be at least eighteen, because he graduated from high school, but he doesn’t look much older than that. He’s young.
I said, “Why are you here in the middle of the night?”
“I took a late train.”
“They’re not expecting you.”
“I wasn’t expecting me,” he said, which was no answer at all. But I guess he doesn’t have to explain himself to me, because I’m only the hired girl. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to knock me on the head with a poker, either. Would you really have hit me?” He sounded admiring.
“Yes, sir,” I said proudly — because if he had been a burglar, I would have shown courage and resolution.
“Papa described you as a nice, bright little thing, and Mama said you get along with Malka. Nobody told me you were dangerous. What are you reading? The Picturesque World? Are you a lover of the picturesque?”
“Yes, sir.” I liked the way he said that. It sounded so cultivated. “I’m choosing all the places I want to see when —” I almost said, when I grow up, but I stopped in time.
“I like traveling, too. Especially France and Italy. Are you interested in scenery, or art?”
“Both. Only I don’t know too much about art. I’m trying to learn.” I set my palm against the cover of The Picturesque World. I was pleased to see that my hand was steady. “I study the plates. I just — use my eyes.” He nodded emphatically, as if using my eyes was exactly what was called for.
The Hired Girl Page 17
