Shaken to the Core

by Jae

  “It is indeed. I’ll see if Mrs. Winthrop will receive you. Wait here.” He gestured at the foyer behind him and then disappeared down a long hall.

  So he was a butler or another employee, not the master of the house after all.

  Worrying her straw hat between her hands, Giuliana entered and closed the heavy door behind her. The circular entry hall was about as large as her family’s entire home. A massive crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling, its lights reflecting off the gleaming marble floor. The silver candlesticks on the hall table had to be worth more than she and Turi had earned selling crabs in a whole year. A winding, red-carpeted staircase with a mahogany banister led to the second floor.

  Within a minute, the butler was back. “Mrs. Winthrop will see you in the drawing room.” He led the way down the hall.

  Giuliana hurried to keep up, not wanting to get lost in the big house.

  He opened a door and gestured for her to step through.

  With wobbly knees and damp hands, Giuliana entered what the butler had called the drawing room. A small table and a group of three chairs sat along one side of the room while a rocking chair occupied one corner. Marble busts and vases with tiny embossed golden roses were displayed on polished mahogany tables. Watercolor drawings covered the walls. One of the amazing inventions of the Americans, electric bulbs, lit the chandelier.

  Giuliana’s gaze was drawn to the only person in the room. A slender, middle-aged lady in a lilac dress with a high lace collar rose from a green velvet chair.

  The butler closed the door, leaving them alone. Silence reigned in the drawing room, interrupted only by the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the marble mantle.

  The lady looked her up and down, and Giuliana feared that she might be found lacking.

  Finally, when Giuliana couldn’t stand the silence anymore and was just about to speak, Mrs. Winthrop asked, “You are not from here, are you?”

  Was that good or bad in Mrs. Winthrop’s book? “No. I come from Sicilia five years before,” Giuliana said with a careful smile. “It is a very beautiful place. So is San Francisco, of course.” Was she babbling, as she often did when she was nervous?

  Mrs. Winthrop sighed. “Take a seat, please.”

  Giuliana carefully walked across the golden oriental carpet, sank into the velvet chair across from Mrs. Winthrop, and clutched her hands together in her lap.

  “Have you brought any references?” Mrs. Winthrop asked.

  “References?” Giuliana wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “A letter of recommendation from other employers,” Mrs. Winthrop said.

  Had the newspaper ad said it was required? Giuliana couldn’t remember. She bit her lip. “Eh, no, I do not have a letter.”

  Mrs. Winthrop lifted an eyebrow that was perfectly shaped, not as thick as Giuliana’s. “But you have worked in a similar position before, haven’t you?”

  Giuliana hung her head. “No.” She peeked up at Mrs. Winthrop’s disapproving expression. “But I cleaned the home of my brother. I washed his laundry, I cooked, and I sewed. I am very tidy and a hard worker, ma’am. That is what my mother and my grandmother taught me. They always said, ‘A clean home is a happy home.’” Now she was babbling.

  The lady of the house regarded her for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she said, “Show me your hands.”

  “My hands?” At a rebuking look from Mrs. Winthrop, she held out her hands, palms up, without asking any more questions. She pressed her lips together into a tight line as Mrs. Winthrop examined her hands.

  Compared to the lady’s soft, elegant fingers, her hands looked downright ugly. Once, a few years ago, a large crab had grabbed her index finger in its strong claws, leaving a ragged scar. She had also burned her hands a time or two before she had learned to drop the crabs into the pot of steaming water without scalding herself. The salt water and the hot steam had roughened her skin and turned it red.

  She wanted to curl her hands into fists and hide them in shame, but Mrs. Winthrop seemed to like what she saw.

  “Good,” she said. “I find that if a maid has soft hands, she’ll turn out to be lazy.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I am not lazy. I promise.” Giuliana held her hands out for a moment more before placing them back in her lap.

  The clock on the mantle ticked along for several seconds. Finally, Mrs. Winthrop nodded. “All right, Julie, we’ll give you a try. I’d like you to start tomorrow morning, if that’s possible.”

  “Of course,” Giuliana answered, thinking it better not to correct Mrs. Winthrop’s use of the wrong name.

  Mrs. Winthrop stood, indicating that their conversation was over.

  Giuliana got up too but hesitated to leave the room just yet. Should she ask about her wages?

  Before she could decide, Mrs. Winthrop spoke again. “You’ll have to provide your own board and lodging. Except for my personal lady’s maid, I don’t like having servants around during the night.”

  “Oh.” So she wouldn’t get to live here and would still have to pay for her room in the boardinghouse. She gathered her courage. “What are my wages, ma’am?”

  “If we’re happy with your services, we’ll pay you four dollars a week, plus the expenses for the cable car. You’ll have Sundays and one afternoon a week off.”

  Was that considered a good payment? Giuliana wasn’t sure, but she knew that it was more than what she and Turi had earned in a week of crab fishing—and she hadn’t had an afternoon to herself in the past.

  “I expect you to report here at six tomorrow morning,” Mrs. Winthrop said. “I won’t tolerate tardiness.”

  “I will come here at six, ma’am.”

  “Very well.” Mrs. Winthrop gave a regal nod and rang the bell so the butler would escort Giuliana out.

  Awkwardly, Giuliana curtsied and followed the butler back down the hall. Only when the heavy portal closed behind her did she breathe a sigh of relief. She had secured the employment! Turi would be so proud of her—at least she hoped so.

  She made her way past the rose bushes, barren at this time of year, and reached out to open the iron gate.

  * * *

  Kate trudged up the hill from the cable car stop, still disappointed and furious. The editor hadn’t even spared her photographs a single glance, as if he’d already been sure a woman couldn’t produce anything of value. The worst thing was that she wouldn’t even get a compassionate response from her mother if she told her what had happened. Her parents insisted that only working-class women should hold a job. The last time they had discussed Kate’s future, her mother had told her, “If you feel you must work before marriage, you could teach school for a while”—as if it was already decided that she would marry not too far in the future.

  Well, not if Kate had her way. She wanted a career, not a husband. With a determined shove, she pushed open the iron gate in front of her home.

  Instead of opening fully, the gate bounced off an unexpected obstacle on the other side and hit her in the forehead.

  “Darn!” Kate stumbled back and landed on her rear end in the middle of the sidewalk. Wonderful. Could this day get any worse?

  A suppressed cry came from the other side of the gate.

  Oh gosh! Had she hit Obedience or Mrs. Tretow? Kate scrambled up and peeked through the gate’s iron bars.

  It wasn’t her mother’s personal maid or the cook sitting in one of the flowerbeds, nor was it one of the girls who came by once a week to help out on washday.

  This stranger didn’t look anything like the Irish girls her mother usually hired. Her straw hat had tumbled off when she had fallen, revealing hair as dark brown as the chocolate the Ghirardellis produced at the North Waterfront. The young woman looked just as Italian as the famous chocolatier. Big eyes of the same rich brown color, framed by long lashes, stared back at Kate, and her full, generous mouth formed a startled “oh.” A flush—either of surprise or of embarrassment—had darkened the stranger’s olive complexion.


  More carefully than before, Kate opened the gate and squeezed through. She knelt in front of the woman without caring whether her skirt would get dirty. “I’m so sorry. I was…distracted and didn’t see you. Are you hurt?”

  The young woman—probably no older than Kate’s twenty-two, perhaps even a year or two younger—still stared at her and shook her head.

  “Let me help you up.” Kate stood and offered the stranger her hand.

  “Oh, no. No need.” A warm accent colored the woman’s words. “I can—”

  “I was the one who bowled you over, so let me be the one who helps you up too,” Kate said, still holding out her hand.

  Finally, the young woman laid her fingers into Kate’s. Her grip was strong and her palm callused. Like her clothing, her handshake confirmed that she was a working-class woman, not one of the wealthy high-society ladies who had visited Kate’s mother to talk about one of her charities.

  Kate pulled her up. Again, she misjudged her own strength, and they nearly collided a second time. For a moment, only inches separated their bodies. Kate stared into the woman’s eyes, dark and beautiful like a warm summer night. She caught a whiff of tomatoes, something nice-smelling that she couldn’t identify, and…fish.

  Quickly, the young woman pulled her hand free and started brushing down her dress.

  On impulse, Kate lifted her hand, about to help her. What are you doing? Let her clean her own backside, stupid! She tried not to stare as the stranger ran her hands over her lush hips and shapely figure to brush off clumps of earth. “Did you come to apply for the open position?” Kate asked, keeping her gaze on the woman’s worn leather shoes.

  The stranger’s hands froze in mid-motion. “How do you know?”

  Kate couldn’t resist. “Telepathy.” She pointed from the woman’s head to her own and grinned. When the woman stared at her without comprehension, Kate added, “I read your mind.”

  The chocolate-brown eyes narrowed, and then a hesitant smile spread over the woman’s face, lighting it up in a way that made Kate stare again.

  “All right,” Kate said. “Maybe I didn’t really read your mind. Maybe my mother told me.”

  The smile disappeared, as if someone had flicked one of the new electric light switches. “Your…mother? You…you are…?”

  “Kathryn Winthrop. But, please, call me Kate, or I’ll think I’m in trouble.”

  “Madonna mia! Please do not take away the job. I did not mean to…”

  Kate held up her hand. “It’s all right. I was the one who knocked you over, so your position is safe—assuming my mother took you on.”

  “She did.”

  “Then it seems we’ll run into each other again—hopefully not literally this time,” Kate said.

  A hint of a smile darted across the woman’s face but then quickly disappeared.

  “So do you have a name?” Kate teased, just because she wanted to see if she would get another smile.

  She didn’t.

  “Oh. Scusa. My name is Giuliana Russo. You can call me Julie if you want. Your mamma did that.”

  Kate mentally repeated the name. Giuliana Russo. It was unusual, at least in her circles, but she liked it. “What do you prefer?”

  “Giuliana,” the other woman answered without hesitation.

  “Then Giuliana it is.”

  That earned her a smile.

  The front door swung open. “Kate? What are you doing?” her mother called across the driveway. “Come inside now! Mr. Jenkins just telephoned to let us know that he’ll call on you this afternoon.”

  Kate bit back a groan. “I’m coming.” Under her mother’s watchful gaze, she didn’t dare say another word to Giuliana, so she just gave her a nod and hurried past her to the house.

  CHAPTER 4

  Winthrop Residence

  Nob Hill

  San Francisco, California

  March 22, 1906

  It was still dark when Giuliana made her way up Nob Hill. Wrought-iron gas streetlamps provided pools of yellow light that glowed eerily in the fog. The heavy cable of the trolleys hummed underground, but otherwise, California Street still lay in silence. No carriage wheels rumbled over the cobblestones. Either it was too early for anyone to be up and about, or the hill was too steep for horse-drawn wagons.

  She looked to the north, hoping for a glance of the harbor, but the fog and the darkness covered the land and the bay. Shivering in the early-morning chill, she walked faster and soon reached the Winthrop residence. She peeked through the iron gate before opening it, wanting to avoid another disaster.

  Something like that couldn’t happen again. What if Miss Kate had blamed her for their collision yesterday? She might have lost her position before her first day as the new maid. Luckily, Mrs. Winthrop’s daughter seemed less strict than her mother. She had even worn one of the shirtwaists Giuliana had admired in the department stores’ windows. Turi had dismissed them as “too mannish-looking,” but it had looked wonderful on Kate Winthrop, not mannish at all. It had shown off her tall, willowy figure and set off her honey-blonde hair and her blue eyes in a way that Turi surely would have found appealing.

  The bell of the church on the eastern slope of Nob Hill pealed six times.

  Giuliana realized she had hovered in the driveway for minutes, woolgathering. She dashed to the front door, Mrs. Winthrop’s words about tardiness echoing through her mind.

  Again, the butler opened.

  “Good morning,” Giuliana said, a little breathlessly.

  “Morning,” he mumbled. “You need to use the servants’ entrance in the back from now on, not wake up the entire house by knocking on the front door.”

  Despite the chill in the air, Giuliana’s cheeks warmed. “Oh. I am so sorry. No one told me this.”

  “Come on in. You’re letting all the warm air out.” The butler waved her into the house.

  Giuliana quickly entered and took off her worn coat and her straw hat. Holding them in both hands, she stood in the entry hall, not sure what to do now.

  “Good morning,” said a female voice from behind the butler. A thin young woman with a face that reminded Giuliana of a mouse walked up and took Giuliana’s coat and hat from her. “You must be Julie.”

  Biting her lip, Giuliana nodded.

  “I’m Obedience, but most everyone calls me Biddy. We’d better get started. There’s a lot to do today, and the missus doesn’t like idleness.” She set off in a fast clip down the hall and hung up Giuliana’s coat and hat. “I suppose we should start with the water closet. Mrs. Winthrop likes to start the day with a long bath.” Without waiting for Giuliana, she started up the staircase.

  Gripping the mahogany banister with one hand, Giuliana hesitated, almost afraid to set foot on the pristine red carpet on the stairs. What if dirt—or, worse, horse manure—was clinging to her shoes?

  “Come on. We don’t have all morning,” Biddy called down to her.

  Giuliana gathered her skirt and rushed up the stairs.

  Biddy opened a door to the right and flicked a switch.

  Light flared on. Giuliana stared up at the ceiling, marveling at the miracle of electricity. She had seen electric lightbulbs here and there, of course, but never before in a private home, at least not before setting foot into the Winthrops’ home yesterday. Just how rich were they? She was tempted to flick the light switch a few times, to watch the light turn on and off, but she didn’t dare. Biddy probably already thought she was either slow or lazy, so she quickly entered the room.

  More wonders of the new century awaited her. A claw-foot tub stretched along one entire wall, its white porcelain gleaming in the bright electric light. How unlike the dented tin tub her mother had set up in a corner of their home once a week! The floor and the walls were covered with white tiles, except for the upper part, which was set in bluish-gray plaster. Instead of the chipped washbowl that Giuliana used to wash herself, this room held a pedestal washbasin with pipes that carried away the water. Above it hung a mirror
, showing Giuliana her stunned-looking reflection. On an oak commode next to it lay a silver hairbrush. A water closet with a large tank was installed on the opposite wall. Of course. An outdoor privy like the one they had used at home wouldn’t do for the Winthrops, and neither would a rickety toilet in a tiny room down the hall, to be shared by all families living on the top floor of Giuliana’s boardinghouse.

  “You give the toilet a good scrubbin’, and I’ll do the tub,” Biddy said.

  As she watched Biddy twist the silver handle on the tub, Giuliana got the feeling that she had gotten the short end of the stick. Suppressing a sigh, she got to work. She took one of the cleaning cloths, stepped up to the washbasin to wet it, and turned on the faucet. “The water…It is warm!” she blurted out.

  Biddy laughed. “Of course it is. We won’t have to heat water on the range for Mrs. Winthrop’s bath either. It comes out of the tap. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Giuliana nodded numbly. If only Turi could have seen this.

  But even the wonder of running hot water didn’t spare them from an hour of hard work scrubbing the toilet’s porcelain bowl, the tub, and the tiles with ammonia and then washing the floor with chloride of lime. The stinging, unpleasant odors filled Giuliana’s nose and made her sneeze twice.

  Finally, she pulled the chain dangling down from the toilet’s tank and watched the water swirl down into the now shiny white bowl. “All done.”

  The grandfather clock in the vestibule chimed, indicating that it was seven o’clock, as they made their way back downstairs, where more work awaited them.

  Giuliana cleaned the ash out of the fireplace in the morning room, where the Winthrops would take their breakfast later. By the time she had mopped the marble floor in the entry hall, her back was groaning and her stomach growled, since she had only had time for a bit of bread and cheese before catching the first cable car earlier this morning.

  Biddy stayed close all the while, more instructing her than doing her fair share of the work. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be since Biddy was a lady’s maid, so—unlike Giuliana—she hadn’t been hired for general housework. While they worked, Biddy kept up a constant stream of chatter. Giuliana found out that while only Biddy lived in the mansion, the Winthrops also employed two other servants in addition to Biddy and the butler—a cook and a gardener. Until recently, there had also been another maid and a chauffeur.