The Downstairs Girl

by Stacey Lee

  Leaving the pot and bucket in the barn, I slip around to the Bells’ house. A group of men, out for a night of drinking, judging by their boisterous voices, eye me from across the street. One wolf-whistles, starting off a chain of hoots through the pack. A jag of fear streaks through me. I make a show of walking up to the Bells’ porch, hoping the men will pass by when they see I have a destination.

  The whistling stops and the men move on. Praying the banging of my heart doesn’t give me away, I slide my letter into the Bells’ mail drop.

  My plans are laid.

  Seven

  Old Gin and I sail up Peachtree Street in Seamus Sullivan’s ten-row streetcar, the plodding rhythm of the mule out of sync with the trotting of my heart. Most of the commuters, both black and white, cluster around the coal heater Sully keeps in front. I suggested we sit up front today, though Old Gin refused. It is understood that the warmer rows are reserved for the weakest passengers, which Old Gin insists is not him.

  While he exchanges pleasantries with a nanny, Mrs. Washington, I pick at my fraying sleeves and poke my finger through a hole in the seam. I wish I had thought to try on my old maid’s uniform last night, when I could’ve made adjustments.

  “Lucy’s having a ‘first day,’ too—at Spelman Seminary. She’s a lucky girl,” Mrs. Washington says to Old Gin in her slow, lilting voice. All her freckles brighten on her face, which is charmingly set off by a bright yellow bonnet.

  A twinge of longing stirs my soul. Only a few years old, Spelman has already established a reputation as a fine school for colored girls. Old Gin has schooled me in mathematics, Chinese, and philosophy since I was five. English and history were more challenging for him, but the Bells’ misprint newspapers and conversations stepped in there. When I was twelve, he tried to enroll me at the Girls’ High School, but we were told I would have to attend the colored school. Old Gin said I shouldn’t take a colored child’s seat, given how few seats they had.

  He glances at me sitting tight as a new shoe beside him. “I believe Luck rides a workhorse named Joy.”

  “Luck rides a workhorse named Joy,” Mrs. Washington repeats, and she throws back her head. “Ha! That’s a good one. She does work hard, and she does enjoy it.”

  One of the colored children rings the bell up front with a ka-klank! ka-klank! The kids are always vying for that privilege. The streetcar stops.

  “Votes for women!” chants a group from behind us. Heads turn.

  A pair of safety bicycles float by, leading a trail of white women wearing sashes of marigold fabric. The women range in age, their faces tight with determination as they chant. A few push baby buggies, and one bangs on a drum to mark the beats.

  The matron in front of us mutters to her daughters, “Ain’t they got nothing better to do than act like men?”

  One of her daughters tugs at her honey-blond braids. “Can we get one of those safeties, Mama? They look like such fun.”

  Unlike the high-wheeled variety, the chain-driven safeties feature even tires and brakes, so you don’t have to jump off to stop. That means women could ride them.

  The matron snorts. “Only girls with loose morals ride those. Don’t ever let me catch you on one.”

  Sully transports us past a trim colonial, which looks downright shabby compared to the Greek-looking temple one block up. Peachtree Street is Atlanta’s top branch, a stretch so dense with millionaires, you can probably throw a rock and hit three on the way down. A few years back, they carved a special ward out of two neighboring pie slices to separate this wealthy corridor from the rest of northern Atlanta. Not all parts of the pie taste the same.

  Ka-klank! ka-klank! The streetcar reaches our stop, a block short of the Payne Estate, and Sully brakes the mule. “Off with you, on with you!” he barks.

  Old Gin casually sweeps a foot underneath an empty bench. The man drives through life with one eye on the road and the other on the lookout for fallen coins. Then he offers me his arm, which feels birdlike under his worn coat. Though we stand the same height, today I feel taller than him. The points of his shoulders seem especially sharp, and even his rib cage projects more than usual under his shirt. He is becoming a bag of bones.

  As we walk, my gray skirt swings an inch too high over my boots, and my sleeves slowly strangle my armpits. If I need to beat a hasty retreat, it will not be by swinging on trees.

  The sight of the crab apple trees that stud the front lawn of the Payne Estate stirs a strange brew of emotions inside me. Looking back, my days working in the stables were mostly carefree, except when Caroline came around, and even then, not all the memories were sour. We played together on occasion—she was the mama, and I, the naughty babe; she captained the ship, while I manned the oars and, too often, walked the plank. But as we grew older, her bossiness crystallized into something sharper, and her pranks would rattle me for days.

  My life improved when I was twelve and Caroline was sent to the finishing school in Boston. Mrs. Payne decided I was getting too old to swab stables and put me to work as a housemaid. The winds of change blew a year later when Caroline’s brother, Merritt, returned home from Exeter Academy. Abruptly, I was dismissed.

  A paved driveway marked with electric lampposts, fancier than the ones on Whitehall Street, leads to the front door. We take a second carriage track to a back courtyard, which houses a white gazebo with red shingles to match the rest of the house. Inside the gazebo, a safety bicycle leans against a post. It looks new, with its pneumatic tires, a polished metal frame, and a red leather seat. Sure, it’s a looker, but a pretty horse does not a fair ride make.

  My heels drag as I follow Old Gin to the scullery door. He raps on the wood, and not two shakes later, the housekeeper and head of staff, Etta Rae, is grinning her triangle smile at me and clapping me on the back with her wiry arms. The only signs of her age are a few liver spots on her sable skin and the graying of her hair at the temples. “You’re growing like a rumor, aren’t you?”

  “It’s good to see you, Etta Rae.”

  She hauls me past the onion-scented scullery and into the kitchen, never one to waste movements. Old Gin doffs his hat and follows. He rarely enters the kitchen, and never the rest of the house.

  “Watch the shells. Noemi broke her nutcracker and she’s had to use a hammer. Makes an awful mess.”

  The kitchen hasn’t changed much. Copper pans and pots hang in neat rows on the wall between a sink on one side and an iron range, where Noemi is stirring oatmeal, on the other. “Good morning, Noemi.”

  She knocks her spoon against the pot rim. The speckled blue enamel finish contrasts sharply with the cast-iron pots meant for the servants. “Morning, yourself,” she speaks in a drawl pleasing to the ear, dropping r’s and g’s along the way. Those letters don’t have much business here in the South for colored and white alike, as worthless as the pecan shells strewn on the floor. A smile animates her handsome features—pointy cheekbones, tawny skin, and bushy eyebrows that hail from her Portuguese ancestry. Smelling like soap, she kisses me on the cheek. “I’m glad to see you, but”—her voice drops—“you sure you want to wrestle a porcupine?” A mischievous coil of springy black hair peeks out from beneath the ruffle of her mobcap, and she pokes it back in place.

  “Gin, you’ve been skipping too many meals!” Etta Rae knocks Old Gin with her elbow.

  Old Gin puts up a hand. “Old men don’t need much—”

  “Take these pecans.” With her knobby fingers, Etta Rae scoops a handful of nuts from the piles that cover the farm table where I’ve taken many meals. “They’re like little blobs of fat. You could use a whole tree of ’em.”

  Old Gin is too polite not to take the pecans, even though pecans make his mouth itch.

  The scent of peaches nudges up my pulse. Mrs. Payne appears at the center of a molded doorframe that leads to the dining room, twisting her gold wedding band. It’s a bottom fact that if
Mrs. Payne had accepted all the proposals of marriage she received, she would have more rings than fingers. “Well, then.” Her eyes dribble over me. If she bears me ill will, there is no trace of it on her face. I wonder if she sees any on mine. I was the one dismissed for no reason, after all. “Old Gin, I’m much obliged to you for bringing Jo home to us.” Her manners have always been flawless, but if you put a hand to her forehead, I expect she runs cooler than most.

  “You’re welcome.” He bows, then after throwing me a quick smile, leaves.

  I curtsy. “Ma’am, I am pleased to see you.”

  Mrs. Payne glides to me. She stands just a breeze under my height, but I feel like a dandelion in the presence of a rose. By itself, her face is not striking—watery blue eyes and a drawn-out nose that dips toward her too-dainty mouth—but an elegant neck and narrow carriage give her the presence of a queen.

  I roll back my shoulders, two bumps that give the illusion of good posture even when I slump. Shoulders are like pavement, underappreciated for the job they do holding one up in the world. Mine have done a decent job.

  “Still pretty as a June pay-itch,” she says, drawling the word peach. Like other ladies of her class, she has a habit of leaning into her words as if to squeeze out all their juice.

  She whisks me farther into the house. “You remember where everything is?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The Payne house typifies those of the Southern gentry, with family needs subjugated by the need to entertain, something Southerners consider their God-given duty. In the dining room, black walnut chairs herald from Italy, but they are as difficult to separate from the table as heifers from a trough. The gold-flocked wallpaper attracts dust like a magnet pulls iron. My arms ache just looking at the chandelier, which needs to be taken apart weekly for its routine spit and polish.

  From the dining room, we pass into a central hall, to a staircase leading to the private floors. Mrs. Payne lifts her pleated skirts and begins to ascend, hardly making a sound. The daughter of horse breeders, Mrs. Payne was groomed in the Southern tradition of manners and manors, and probably gave up slouching the year she stopped sucking her thumb. “Now, Jo, what is it that separates us from the animals?”

  “We know how to open the pickle jar?”

  She smiles. “Religion, child. Chapel is still nine a.m. on Sunday. You are always welcome.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” The Paynes invite all the staff to attend Sunday services in their private chapel. When you’re as rich as the Paynes, God comes to you. But after the chaplain told me Satan had already hooked one claw into me for being born a heathen and I would have to pray extra hard if I wanted to escape his grasp, I never enjoyed going to the Paynes’ services.

  Photographs of Caroline and Merritt through the years line the walls. As a child, Merritt wore frocks, and the two looked like sisters with their soft curls and cherubic gazes. The higher one ascends, the more devilish their gazes become.

  “Merritt’s in Virginia picking up a new horse,” Mrs. Payne continues the pleasantries. “He’s engaged, did you hear?”

  “You and Mr. Payne must be very pleased.”

  “It is an exceptional arrangement,” she states brightly, though to my thinking, the same could be said of furniture.

  Merritt had been standing on this very staircase, a few steps below me, when his mother dismissed me. Only seventeen then, he’d been wearing a ridiculously billowy shirt that spilled out over his tight breeches, as was the style. The air had been so wet, you could drink from it, and I’d rolled my sleeves up as far as they would go.

  My legs wobble, and I grip the rail. Was Merritt the reason I was dismissed? Now that he is engaged, it is safe to bring me back. But I had always known my place.

  I hurry to catch up with Mrs. Payne. On the third and highest floor, where the women’s chambers are located, the scent of the mahogany wood paneling swills acid in my stomach. It’s curious how even the faintest smells can inflict injuries. I recall the time Caroline accused me of losing her brooch. I searched on my hands and knees for an hour, before she showed me the brooch on her hat. “I wanted to see how long it took you to notice,” she said with a laugh.

  Caroline pops her head out of her bedroom, her weasel-brown hair scattered around buttermilk cheeks. The rest of her follows, draped in a gauzy gown. Her body has blossomed—round arms, ample chest, and hips that could stir up hearts and trouble alike. I could never have a body like Caroline’s, no matter how many pecans I ate.

  Caroline drags her frost-blue eyes down me, eyes that look like they’ve been pressed too hard into her face. “Your hairstyle is barbaric, take it out. Maids should not try to outshine their mistresses.”

  Charming as ever. It’d taken me a good part of the morning to plait my locks into a side braid I call “waterfall over rocky ledge.” The banister tempts me to hop on and slide away while I still have a chance.

  “Now, make yourself useful and bring up a tray. Something robust, as I will be going for a ride this afternoon.”

  “Caroline,” Mrs. Payne interjects, “we have not come to an agreement yet. Please finish sorting through your belongings for castoffs. The Society for the Betterment of Women is sending their wagon tomorrow.”

  The tip of Caroline’s nose draws a checkmark in the air. “I’ve already sorted my things.”

  “What about the safety?”

  “Bicycles are so vulgar. I don’t know why you bought it in the first place.”

  “Bicycles are quite current. Of course, nothing will ever replace our horses in speed or beauty, but a ‘freedom machine’ will exercise different parts of you that could use exercising.”

  Caroline’s sharp nostrils flatten, and she makes a vulgar noise at the back of her throat. Snatching her dressing gown around her, she evaporates into her bedroom, the fabric swirling like smoke around her ankles.

  Mrs. Payne’s movements are jerky as she leads me to a guest bedroom. Her normally controlled expression has come loose, as if her daughter had agitated the water. She closes the door behind us and lets out a controlled breath. “Now, Jo, I do not doubt your ability to handle this job. What concerns me is, well, you and Caroline grew up together here. But you are not equals. You understand that, do you not?”

  “Certainly, ma’am,” I say, though the words sting like vinegar on a sunburn. “I hope I have never, er, acted above my station?”

  “No, you have not. But now that you are both young ladies, I want to be clear on where we all stand.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I’ve understood that ever since I could stand.

  A sigh pulls her shoulders down. “Wonderful. You will work Monday through Friday, with payment on Fridays, five dollars each week. I trust that is acceptable?”

  It’s much more than Mrs. English paid and includes meals. The Paynes take pride in how well they treat their domestics. Yet, I still prefer my old job, with its promise of a future. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  She pulls from a wardrobe a black uniform of thick cotton, and cream-colored stockings. “As before, leave your uniform in the laundry basket for our washerwoman to collect at the end of the week. Your duties are to maintain Caroline’s quarters, her wardrobe, and her person, and to accompany her when she goes out. You may use one of my old riding habits. Caroline’s might be too big for you.”

  Back into the wardrobe she goes, selecting a velvet jacket and matching skirt. A pair of jersey pants with quilted knees hangs next to the other riding clothes.

  Noticing my interest, she peers back into the closet. “Is there something there that interests you?”

  “I just noticed, er, the riding breeches.” As girls, Caroline and I rode horses astride—she in knee-length dresses, and I in boy’s overalls—but now that we are older, we are expected to use the sidesaddle. At least, fine ladies are.

  “Oh, I thought I had given them away.”
She brings them out and smooths the fabric under her slender fingers. “I used to show horses on my parents’ farm.”

  Old Gin told me the “farm” spanned more than a hundred acres and produced some of the finest horses in the South. Horses seem to be the only thing that cause her eyes to light, though she had to give up riding them after an injury.

  “Would you like to use them?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t.”

  “Things are meant to be used.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I ride better in the cross saddle.”

  “As do I. Being packed and twisted into an unnatural side seat is hard on the spine. I swear it’s the reason for my bad back, despite what the doctor says. And I daresay it would make keeping up with Caroline easier.” Her smooth brow furrows, as if mentioning her daughter’s name set off a flurry of thoughts underneath. She digs out a smile. “Of course, they might mistake you for a suffragist.”

  “Oh, they won’t make that mistake,” I return brightly. “You have to be a citizen before you can be a suffragist.” Without birth records, Old Gin and I couldn’t prove to City Hall that I was born here. He suggested there might be an exception for foundlings, but the clerk wheezed in my face, “Not fer you, there ain’t.”

  Mrs. Payne’s smile flattens and the beadlike protrusion in the center of her upper lip—same as mine—disappears. Chinese believe a “pearl” lip attracts good fortune. “Well, be that as it may, women have more important worries than the vote. Like raising up our children. Surely you don’t disagree?”

  “No, ma’am,” I demure. If I were truly a saucebox, I would point out that many women are unable to raise their children when factories such as the ones owned by her husband make them early widows.

  She snorts. “Those suffragists want equality, but I gave up such romantic notions long ago. One must be careful about what one wishes. Better to be satisfied with one’s lot, as there is always someone who is worse off.”

  Make that a whole lot of someones, in her case. I lower my eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”