Next, Roxanne went in to dust the office.
The office was better. It had a plain oak rolltop desk, a round oak table and five straight chairs. A calendar with advertising hung on the wall, and the carpet was somewhat worn. A plain, no-nonsense sort of place where business could be conducted, she decided. There were several piles of ledgers and account books and some stacks of business papers weighted down by heavy glass paperweights.
The second floor was devoted entirely to reception rooms, furnished mostly in the ponderous Eastlake style with “Turkish” overstuffed sofas and rich, dark-red tasseled portieres. Roxanne passed it regretfully and went up to the third floor.
Clarissa’s rooms were a delight. Her big bedroom stretched across the front, and behind it were a large, private sitting room and a dressing room so big that Roxanne guessed it had once been a bedroom in its own right. All were dazzlingly decorated. Cream satin drapes and billowing curtains of sheer Irish lace adorned the tall windows. The furniture was of walnut and satinwood, robustly Victorian, full of curlicues and carved angels. Roxanne envied Clarissa the elegant cheval glass with its dainty jointed candle brackets. The tall adjustable mirror was a perfect place for a young lady to survey her appearance before going out. And oh, to comb one’s hair at that fancy dressing table with its pink marble top and scalloped beveled mirror set between gilt flower baskets! She couldn’t resist opening the walnut armoire, which was crammed with stylish clothes, most in shades of peach and pink. She pulled out one creamy lace ball gown trimmed in peach satin and held it up to her own figure. It would have fit her perfectly, she thought yearningly. Turning, she saw that a drawer of the big bureau had been hastily shut. From it protruded a pink corset ribbon. Roxanne pulled open the drawer and was greeted with a jumbled assortment of kid gloves, sachet, lacy handkerchiefs and dainty stockings. She sighed, sniffing the faint perfume that clung to the corset. How wonderful to be rich and carefree and live like this!
She held up the corset and studied its steel-boned construction before she put it away. Then she whirled once before the cheval glass, noting with satisfaction her own slender waist and delicately molded bust. How tightly did Clarissa have to lace that corset to wear those lovely clothes? she wondered. She could have worn them without a corset!
Both Joab Coulter’s sons occupied front rooms on the fourth floor. She met Gavin Coulter when, believing the room empty, she threw open the door and caught him, standing in shirt and suspenders, in the act of shaving before his mirrored washstand.
He whirled, a tall keen-eyed man, and she was instantly reminded of the dining room portraits. Those portraits of the pleasure lovers—and of the coldly ambitious. Here was a face that strangely combined the two: Gavin had the full sensuous lips of the pleasure seeker but—was there a cruel twist to the mouth? And his eyes, so dark and cold and watchful as he turned.
Suddenly, they seemed to change, brightening at the sight of her. His stance was commanding, and there was about him something that both attracted and repelled her.
Roxanne, red-faced, turned to retreat, but his crisp authoritative voice stopped her. “Who are you?”
“I’m Roxanne, the new maid. I’m sorry to disturb you . . . sir,” she added hastily.
“You’re not disturbing me,” he said. “Someone should have disturbed me sooner. I overslept and no-one called me.” His tone was contemptuous. “This house is disorganized. But I’ll be finished shaving in a minute, so go on about your duties, Roxanne.”
Roxanne advanced on the bed, trying to make herself inconspicuous. She was nervously aware of Gavin’s keen eyes watching her in the mirror as he deftly worked up a lather in his shaving mug. Not quite sure what his attitude might be, she scurried about the room as he shaved with swift strokes.
She had been told that Gavin was in his thirties; now she saw that there was a peppering of premature gray in his dark hair. His face, while craggy, was not bad to look upon. Under heavy brows, his dark gaze was very penetrating, and his aggressive stare made Roxanne mindful that her bodice was tight and that she was breathing hard as she energetically plumped the pillows.
“Where were you employed before?” he asked, cleaning the lather from his razor.
“San Francisco,” said Roxanne, hoping he would not ask her any questions about the town.
“Ah,” he said, “that one.” And she realized he knew that Mary Willis had been expected.
“Did you not find it confining—being maid to an old lady of ninety?” he asked curiously as he toweled his face and rinsed out his china shaving mug.
“No,” said Roxanne promptly. “That is, I—I’ve led a sheltered life, sir,” she added with an earnest look.
He looked amused. “Indeed, you must have. And yet I’ve heard San Francisco is a lively city. Had you no desperate young swain to bid you fond farewell at the station and plead with you not to leave?”
Conscious she was being mocked, Roxanne gave the pillow a somewhat harder slap. “No,” she said coldly.
His laugh had a tinge of sarcasm. “Miss Clarissa—who’ll have you dancing a merry tune to keep up with her wishes when she gets back—has numerous admirers. But she prefers my brother Rhodes to all of them. It’s believed they’ll marry eventually—when Rhodes settles down enough to propose properly.”
“And where is Mr. Rhodes now, sir?”
“God knows. Somewhere on the high seas. We’ll know he’s here when he comes whistling up to the front door and tells us his ship has docked in the harbor. Rhodes is a wandering boy. He’d never be home at all if he had his way.”
Gavin gave his hair a quick brush, shrugged into his coat and—affording her a last narrow glance— went out into the hall.
A little flustered by the encounter. Roxanne looked about the room. The furniture was handsome and, except for the bed, which was a high-headboard East-lake, almost a duplicate of his father’s. But the pictures on the walls were of commerce: of ports, of warehouses, of steamers, of busy docks. There were a few textbooks, a pile of ledgers—no favors from young ladies, no smiling portraits. A serious-minded fellow was Gavin Coulter, she decided, and yet . . . she flushed, remembering the bold way his eyes had raked her figure.
In Rhodes’s room, which was somewhat smaller, the bed was already made, so she had only to dust. But she studied it, too, noting that it contained a hodgepodge of furniture, as if everything nobody else wanted had been stuck up here. There was a vast number of books; Rhodes apparently read everything. The walls were hung with pictures of sailing ships; clippers, schooners, tall ships with billowing white sails in romantic settings. Golf clubs, tennis rackets, a fencing foil and mask were stacked in a corner, and on a shipshape desk in a rococo gilt frame was a picture of a woman with smiling eyes and a gentle mouth that Roxanne decided was Rhodes’s mother. Although she had not met him, she felt that she would like the carefree Rhodes who had not yet settled down. The breeziness of his room appealed to her. It occurred to her as she dusted that there were two very marriageable young men living in the same house with her.
The thought made her eyes sparkle.
Gavin Coulter had looked at her with more than moderate interest just now. And Gavin Coulter had a brother who was younger and might be even more appealing. Lost in happy daydreams, she finished dusting and went downstairs to find Reba.
She met her in the dining room, just coming through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. Reba’s face was flushed and her dress, wet with perspiration, clung to her back. She pushed back a lock of damp red hair that was plastered to her forehead. “Lord, it’s hot in the laundry on a day like this!” she gasped. “All finished?”
Roxanne nodded. “I made all the beds, and dusted. Mr. Rhodes’s room was very dusty,” she added.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” cried Reba. “There wasn’t any need to do his room—he’s been gone for months, and no one knows when he’ll be back.”
So Gavin had said, but Roxanne decided to keep to herself the fact that she had
spoken to him. As to Rhodes, perhaps he would return home as capriciously as he had gone. She hoped so. She was looking forward to meeting the man who resembled the interesting portrait in the hall.
“I liked his room,” she confessed. “All those sailing pictures.”
“And his big square bed,” teased Reba. “I’ll bet you ached to try that too!”
Roxanne flushed.
“Well, maybe you’ll get the chance to try it,” said Reba in a voice pregnant with meaning. “Miss Clarissa has, I’ll warrant!”
Roxanne turned and frowned. Mrs. Hollister stood in the doorway behind her. It was impossible to tell what the older woman was thinking, but she was considering Reba very steadily. “I’ve things to do—got to finish ironing,” muttered Reba, and brushed past Mrs. Hollister.
“I’ve finished the bedrooms,” said Roxanne.
Mrs. Hollister’s face cleared. “I thought you might like to go to market with Greaves,” she said graciously. “It will give you a chance to see something of the town, and you can help him carry the baskets back.”
Smiling her thanks at Mrs. Hollister—for who would not like to be out on such a beautiful day as this—Roxanne went in search of Greaves. He was the manservant who had first let her into the house, and she found him both courteous and friendly, if a trifle reserved. Roxanne realized that he felt the dignity of his position strongly, and so she tried to maintain a suitable gravity in his presence.
Carrying a market basket on either arm, she accompanied Greaves to the Hollins Market. In the bright sunshine they wandered through some three blocks of outdoor market, walking between rows of stalls where the merchandise was displayed under awnings. Everyone seemed to know Greaves and spoke to him respectfully. Some of the stall owners, Greaves told her, had inherited their businesses from their fathers or even their grandfathers. His sober face looked stern with its big flaring sideburns, as he bent over some tomatoes, testing them for ripeness. Then, moving on decorously, he inspected baskets of snap beans and carrots, and finally selected a large watermelon, which he hefted with ease.
At last, weighed down by a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, they made their way back to the house. Mt. Vernon Place was very fashionable, Greaves told her proudly. Mr. Joab Coulter had moved here when he’d married his second wife, the Virginia lady who had borne Rhodes. She’d had a great fortune. Not that the first wife, the Eastern Shore lady, hadn’t been rich. Joab Coulter had a talent for annexing his own fortune to that of young heiresses, Roxanne guessed. She inquired if he’d made much money himself.
My, yes, she was told. A great deal of it. But—there was a certain hesitancy in the way Greaves said it—Mr. Joab was fanatically attached to sailing ships, and steamers had taken the trade. Much of the Coulter fortune, Roxanne gathered shrewdly, was tied up in this dwindling business.
Why wouldn’t the Coulters buy steamers? she wondered aloud.
Mr. Gavin wanted to, Greaves told her. But his father was adamant. Sail, sail was the thing with him. And young Mr. Rhodes, who cared for nothing except the roll of a windswept deck under his feet and a pretty girl in his arms when ashore, took no sides in the matter. Mr. Rhodes always shrugged and let his father handle the business while he was off under sail to the far corners of the world.
Roxanne could easily imagine that commanding pair, Gavin Coulter and his father, quarreling at the long dining table, and Rhodes, whom she envisioned as a ruddy wind-whipped figure with the reckless green eyes of the hall portrait, fidgeting with his wine glass, eager to be gone.
Rhodes who, when ashore, cared for nothing but a pretty girl in his arms. . . . And Reba had baldly stated that Clarissa had tried out Rhodes’s big bed. Well, Roxanne told herself, Gavin had said Rhodes would marry Clarissa when he got around to it. It was ridiculous to feel a pang of jealousy for a man she had not even met. Nevertheless, she found herself once again envying the absent Clarissa.
Roxanne ate dinner with the other servants at a long scoured wooden table in the big kitchen. It was bare of tablecloth and the food was served on heavy ironstone plates, but it was good and tasty. Certain delicacies meant only for the main table were jealously denied them by Mrs. Hollister, who explained to Roxanne's surprised look that the household money only went so far. Roxanne supposed that meant if the servants ate pastries they’d have to do without meat—as indeed they did in the mornings. She learned later that breakfast consisted mainly of hot cakes, which were cheap, and blackstrap molasses, the more expensive refined white sugar being reserved for the gentry in the dining room.
At dinner that first night, Roxanne met the staff. The cook, whose name was Mary Scobie, but whom everybody called simply Cook, was a robust bustling woman, weighing almost two hundred pounds. She constantly tasted everything on the stove, and the floor shook when she walked. There were three maids, whose quarters were in the servants’ wing on the second floor: Reba, whom she had already met; stocky plodding Lizzie, with her strong hands, who seemed to spend her life scrubbing pots or floors or carrying chamberpots—all the heavy tasks nobody else wanted to do; and Mary Bridey O’Reilly, whom everyone called Mary Bridey to distinguish her from Cook. Mary Bridey was a dainty Irish girl with gleaming black hair and downcast blue-green eyes. She gave Roxanne a woebegone look, and in the middle of dinner started up with an “Excuse me,” and dashed from the room.
“First it was morning sickness—now it’s every meal. She’s beginning to show,” said Reba with a giggle.
Mrs. Hollister frowned at Reba. “Mary Bridey was always such a carefree jolly thing,” she sighed to Roxanne, “until . . .”
“Until she made too many trips upstairs and he had his way with her,” said Reba slyly. “And now she’s in the family way and don’t know what to do.”
He had his way with her. She must mean Gavin, Roxanne thought, recalling how he had looked at her with such a hot narrow glance as she made his bed. Roxanne felt chilled.
“Reba!” Mrs. Hollister’s tone was sharp.
“Well, you know it’s true,” said Reba in a sullen voice.
“I know nothing of the kind,” Mrs. Hollister declared. “Mary Bridey’s sad because she’s leaving us at the end of the month. She’s going to live with her sister, I understand.”
Reba’s jaw dropped. “Mary Bridey ain’t got no sister, Miz Hollister!”
Mrs. Hollister frowned. She appeared not to have heard Reba’s outburst. “So I suppose instead of helping Reba with the upstairs, Roxanne, it’s best you take Mary Bridey’s place serving meals. Greaves will instruct you.”
Across the table, where he was eating stolidly, Greaves gave a silent nod.
Roxanne bobbed her head to indicate she understood, and before they ate their pudding, Mary Bridey was back. The Irish girl looked very pale as if she’d been sick. Roxanne’s heart went out to her. It came to her with sudden force: Was she pregnant? A possibility she had not really considered when she left Kansas. That agonizing doubt ruined her evening, although it was assuaged the next day, much to her relief.
As she tossed and turned that first night, it occurred to her to listen for the footsteps Mrs. Hollister had mentioned so obliquely. She soon found herself alert to every sound, but heard no footsteps. Somehow the night passed. Finally, toward morning she fell into a deep sleep, and when she woke the sun was bright.
Realizing that she had overslept, she dressed hurriedly and ran downstairs, cutting through the servants’ wing at the second floor. She met Reba storming up the steps—a red-faced, angry Reba who looked as if she’d been crying.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve been dismissed, that’s what!” Reba cried indignantly. “Old Holly accused me of making off with the linens, she did! But I’ll bet it was because yesterday—”
“Reba!” Mrs. Hollister’s voice came from below as she flew up the stairs after the girl. She looked flushed and angry, but at sight of Roxanne, she became flustered. “Are your things ready, Reba?” she asked severely, brushing b
y Roxanne. “I’ve written you a recommendation so that you can get a new position.” Her lips tightened. “Not that you deserve it after—well, anyway, I’ve said you left us for personal reasons. You had best come downstairs now and get it before I change my mind.”
Her manner was threatening. Reba’s mouth closed with a snap. She cast a vengeful look around her and, muttering, following Mrs. Hollister down the stairs.
It was the last Roxanne ever saw of Reba. Later in the day, Roxanne asked Mary Bridey why Mrs. Hollister had dismissed Reba—had she really stolen the linens? And Mary Bridey, whose brows were puckered in thought, answered absently that of course Reba hadn’t stolen any linens; Reba had worked here six years and was as honest as the day was long.
Then why had Reba been dismissed? pursued Roxanne. Mary Bridey shrugged helplessly. Mrs. Hollister, who had dismissed maids before on sudden whims, had never liked Reba, always said she talked too much. Mrs. Hollister didn’t like people who carried tales.
Roxanne frowned. “Mary Bridey, Mrs. Hollister told me I might hear footsteps at night and that I wasn’t to pay any attention. Do you know what she was talking about?”
Mary Bridey gave a guilty start. “I wouldn’t know,” she cried. “Me, I sleep real sound. You should too,” she added earnestly.
Roxanne looked at her in amazement, but before she could pursue that, Mary Bridey said she’d just remembered that she had something to do downstairs, and ran off.
Belatedly it came to Roxanne, that the footsteps might well be Mary Bridey’s own, creeping upstairs at night to Gavin’s room. No wonder the girl looked so guilty.
Roxanne had the strange, nagging feeling that Reba’s abrupt dismissal had something to do with Reba’s having spoken “out of turn” to her twice in Mrs. Hollister’s presence.
And if that were true, which slip had so angered Mrs. Hollister? What Reba had said about Clarissa and Rhodes? Or about Mary Bridey and Gavin?
The next day a new maid arrived to replace Reba: a subdued immigrant girl who desperately needed the job. Remembering Reba’s sudden dismissal, Roxanne forbore to ask the staff any more questions and refrained from answering ail she could. But as the days went by, Reba was soon forgotten. The official explanation of her absence was that she had “gone home to her people in Philadelphia.”
These Golden Pleasures Page 8