by Delia Parr
Lester struggled his way inside first, and Emma followed Orralynne back into the house, where they gathered in front of the massive oak coat rack.
Sheriff North was waiting for them just down the hall at the bottom of the staircase with the several bags he had carried inside. “I’m not sure where to put these bags.”
Emma pointed straight ahead to the room just behind him. “You can put Mr. Burke’s in the library and the rest in my office.” When he turned and walked down the hall to deliver the bags, she explained the arrangements she had made for them. “I’m afraid we don’t have any guest rooms available upstairs, and there are none at all on the first floor. Instead, we’ll set up some sleeping cots for you in the library and my office, which are adjoining rooms. My office isn’t very big, but it should do nicely as a bedroom for you, Orralynne, and there’s an outer door there so you can come and go as you please without having to use the center hall. The library is large enough to allow for a sitting area for both of you, and you’ll be close to the dining room, too.”
Lester snorted. “We prefer eating alone, so we’ll take our meals in the library. I’m certain you must have a small table you can put there. As a matter of fact, I believe we were expected for dinner.”
Emma could make a stand here and now and insist that they both take their meals in the dining room—although the opportunity to have the two of them virtually sequestered in a makeshift suite of rooms in the back of the house, at their own request, might be better all around, despite the inconvenience of giving up her office. Her only concern was that travelers and guests who arrived typically used the outer door to her office to register for their stay, but since no guests were scheduled until spring, she easily set aside her concern. “Why don’t you hang up your outerwear on the rack before I show you to your rooms?”
When Lester eyed the garments already hanging there, his gaze filled with disdain, as if the coats and bonnets did not measure up to his standards as a master tailor.
Orralynne, on the other hand, simply shook her head and shrugged. “Thieves are everywhere these days. I’ll keep mine in my room,” she insisted and turned to her brother. “If you’re wise, you’ll do the same, but do what you will, as long as you don’t complain to me when your coat or hat disappears.”
Stunned, Emma barely had the wherewithal to hold her tongue to defend her household and her guests. No one at Hill House had ever been labeled a thief or had lost a single item to thievery. Instead of arguing the point, however, she led them down the hall and into the library, where the sheriff was waiting for them.
“Unless there’s something else you’d like me do, Widow Garrett, I need to get the rest of the bags so I can take the buggy back to the livery.”
“No, thank you. You’ve done more than enough already.” Her words sounded cool, even to her own ears, and she smiled to soften them. “Please give Joy my regards, and Pamela and Patricia, too,” she added.
Struck by the memory of seeing Mother Garrett and Aunt Frances sitting at the Norths’ kitchen table, each holding one of his little girls while his wife, Joy, prepared supper, her smile grew. “Aunt Frances is back for a visit. I’m sure she and Mother Garrett would love to stop in to see them.”
He grinned. “Anytime. Joy would love the company,” he replied and said good-bye to the Burkes.
Once he took his leave, Emma turned her attention back to her guests. “While you make yourselves comfortable, I’ll check on dinner for you and see if we can’t find a table we can set up for you in the library, as well.” She pointed to the door in the far wall. “My office is right through there, if you care to unpack. We’ll move some sleeping cots into these rooms later today.”
With high spirits, she left quickly before either one of them could argue with her. If the rest of the Burkes’ stay followed the same pattern as their arrival, and if they remained isolated in the back of the house, which is what they seemed to want, keeping peace at Hill House might be just a bit easier than she could have hoped.
6
PEACE LASTED ALL OF THIRTY MINUTES.
While Mother Garrett and Aunt Frances served dessert in the dining room, Emma finished making up two dinner trays. She handed one to Liesel and the other to Ditty. Although she felt slightly uneasy about sending the two young women to deliver the trays to the Burkes, there was no sense delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, Liesel and Ditty would have to contend with them, and Emma preferred to be close at hand the first time they did.
As long as they followed Emma’s advice, however, they should be fine. She eyed the two young women and cocked her head. “Before you leave, tell me again what you need to remember.”
Liesel did not let much in this world intimidate her, with the exception of losing her position here, and she grinned. “Deliver the tray. Smile a lot. And turn the other cheek. Don’t get upset if they say anything that’s nasty or unkind.”
“And don’t trip,” Ditty added. “I know you didn’t say so, but that’s because you wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings. But I think I’ve been doing much better, and I promise to be very careful so I don’t trip and drop the tray.”
Emma chuckled. Ditty was a hardworking young woman, uncommonly tall but incredibly clumsy. She really had improved over the past few months, apparently “growing into her own feet,” as Mother Garrett liked to say. “I know you will. Just remember: If you encounter any trouble at all, leave the trays on the small table we just carried down from the garret and come get me. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
Once the girls left the kitchen, Emma filled a plate with beef stew for herself, buttered a thick piece of bread, and nibbled off the crust. The moment she heard a large crash coming from the same direction as the library, she gulped down a last bit of bread. With visions of disaster nipping at her heels, she charged out of the kitchen and ran through the dining room, past her startled family and guests, who made no effort to go anywhere near the library.
She got to the center hall just as Liesel and Ditty came scurrying out of the library. Slamming the door behind them, they turned about and leaned back against the door to catch their breath.
Tears coated Liesel’s cheeks.
Ditty’s face was flushed dark pink, and her chest heaved as she drew in deep gulps of air. Like Liesel, her apron and the bottom of her skirts carried several telltale stains from the food on the dinner tray she had been carrying.
Emma swallowed hard. Despite all Ditty’s good intentions, she must have either tripped or dropped the tray she had been carrying, and Emma faulted herself for sending the young woman to the library in the first place. She went directly to the two of them, realized she was still holding her buttered bread, and shoved it into her apron pocket before taking each of the trembling young women by an arm. “Take a deep breath. Both of you. Don’t worry, Ditty. I’m sure it was an accident.”
Ditty’s eyes widened and filled with fresh tears. “I didn’t have an accident. I didn’t trip at all. I didn’t!”
“She did it,” Liesel argued as she pointed behind her. “She did it. That Miss Burke did it, not Ditty.”
Emma let go of them and wrinkled her nose. “Miss Burke dropped the tray?”
“No,” Ditty cried. “She didn’t drop it. She threw it at me.”
Emma gasped. “She . . . she what?”
“It’s true. Well, almost true. She didn’t throw it at Ditty as much as she just put her hand under that tray and shoved it right back at Ditty. I saw her,” Liesel argued.
“No!”
“That’s just what she did,” Ditty protested. When she looked down at her apron and skirts, she managed a bit of a smile. “I didn’t get hit too badly with the food, though. I was pretty quick. After helping to feed all my brothers and sisters when they were babies, I’ve gotten used to dodging food.”
“But the library is a mess,” Liesel countered. “The dinner is spilled all over the floor and I think it hit some of the chairs, too. Mr. Burke said we had to cle
an it up before he could eat, so he wants us to fix another tray for him, too, because the food on the tray we already gave him will be cold by then.”
“Widow Garrett! Come here at once! Widow Garrett!”
Emma ignored Lester’s booming command and kept her focus on unraveling the details of the girls’ encounter with the Burkes. “Did she . . . did she say why she flipped the tray at you?”
Ditty shrugged. “I’m not sure. One minute I was setting the tray down and the next that tray was heading straight for me.”
“I remember what she said,” Liesel offered. “She said if they were going to be living here at Hill House, the least you could do was to treat them as well as the other guests and serve their meals on china instead of crockery.”
“Widow Garrett! Come here! Now!”
Emma’s head started pounding and irritation pulsed through her veins, but she ignored Orralynne’s command exactly as she had done with Lester’s. “I’m sorry this happened,” she managed. “I’ll see to it that this doesn’t happen again. Liesel, go with Ditty and see if you can’t help each other to get those stains out of your skirts while I speak to the Burkes.”
Liesel nodded and urged Ditty toward the kitchen.
As the two young women crossed the hall, Emma called after them, “Fetch me a pail of water, some soap, and a few cleaning rags, will you?”
Liesel looked back over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Could you maybe see if the Burkes could leave the room while we clean it up?”
“You’re not cleaning up the mess. Just bring everything I asked for and leave it outside the library door,” Emma said. She turned and reached for the handle on the library door, then hesitated for a moment to clear her head.
On the one hand, she wanted to charge inside the library and give both of the Burkes a good tongue-lashing. On the other hand, after raising three sons, she knew better than to react to any tale without at least attempting to get the other side of the story first.
The Burkes were a troublesome pair, which made both Liesel’s and Ditty’s account of their encounter more likely than not. But the Burkes still deserved the same benefit of the doubt Emma would have given to anyone else, especially if she had any hope of learning to love them as her neighbors.
At the moment, however, tolerating them seemed a bit too much to ask, even for a woman trying desperately to be good.
7
EMMA CLOSED HER EYES LONG ENOUGH to whisper a prayer for patience and understanding before she knocked on the library door and opened it. She stepped inside, took one look around the library, and choked back her disgust.
Just as Liesel had described, the gleaming wood floor, which Emma and Ditty had cleaned and polished only last week, was splattered with chunks of beef, turnips, carrots, and potatoes. It appeared gravy had sloshed on one of the new leather chairs. A bowl of custard, along with a generous slice of apple pie, had landed on the floor, as well, right next to a pool of hot tea still dripping from a teapot lying on its side next to the upended dinner tray.
As she approached the Burkes, she drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She looked directly at Orralynne but deliberately kept her voice soft. “Tell me what happened.”
Orralynne sniffed. “You can see that for yourself. There’s a mess that needs to be cleaned up.”
Lester waved his hand toward the floor to get Emma’s attention. “It’s about time you got here. You need to tell one of those servant girls to hurry back here to clean this up.”
Emma swallowed hard. While she held tight to her determination to hear both sides of the story, she was sorely inclined to lay blame directly with the Burkes. “Before I do anything, I need to know exactly how your dinner wound up on the floor.”
“That’s where it landed,” Orralynne explained. “Not that I threw it there deliberately, although I was tempted. I merely gave it a shove and it slid right off the table. That wouldn’t have happened if anyone had bothered to cover the table with a tablecloth,” Orralynne said without a smidgeon of apology in her voice.
“You shoved your dinner tray? Why?” Emma asked.
Orralynne huffed. “It’s difficult enough to know you’ve given the other guests proper bedrooms, while we’re forced to make do in these rooms.” She pointed to the tray in front of her brother. “You shouldn’t treat us like nobodies and serve us our dinner on ordinary crockery. Not when I’ve heard all about the fancy china you use to serve your hoity-toity guests. What’s good for one guest should be good for all.”
With the girls’ account essentially confirmed, Emma tried to keep hold of her temper and remain patient. Unfortunately, after turning both cheeks earlier, she did not have another one left. She reacted immediately and instinctively, stared directly at Orralynne, and held up her hand to count off her complaints on her fingers as she made them.
As she did, her voice rose with each complaint. “First, Liesel and Ditty are not servants. They’re both valued members of my staff, and I’ll remind you to treat them, as well as everyone else here, with respect. Second, you may never, ever throw anything at anyone for any reason, for as long as you’re living here. Third, if you intend to eat anything between now and when you leave, you’ll clean up this mess you’ve made or go hungry.”
“B-but—”
“Let me explain something,” Emma continued, astounded that this woman would be so brazen as to mutter a protest of any kind. “If you insist on dining on china plates, you’ll go hungry more often than not. With twenty-three people staying here now, I don’t have enough china for everyone, which you would have known if you had dined with everyone else, instead of insisting on having special private accommodations. Of course, that would mean you’d have to be on time for your meals. You were both over half an hour late for dinner today.”
She paused to catch her breath and looked from Orralynne to her brother and back again to make sure she still had their full attention. “In the future, I’ll expect you to take your meals in the dining room, on time, just like everyone else, so there won’t be any more misunderstandings. We have breakfast at eight, dinner at one, and supper at six. We don’t accommodate anyone who is late and misses a meal. Ever.”
Lester struggled to his feet, knocked his chair to the floor, and waved his cane at her. “I cannot and will not allow you to speak to my sister or to me in that tone of voice.”
Orralynne remained seated, but her cheeks flushed scarlet. “You can’t tell us what to do, Emma. We’re adults. We’re not children anymore.”
Emma’s tenuous hold on her temper snapped. “No, you’re not, which means you should have learned by now that you can’t use being an orphan or being sickly as an excuse to be demanding or obnoxious or rude or mean. As proprietress of Hill House, I certainly can and will ask you to follow the same rules as everyone else as long as you’re living under my roof, which means I’ll also expect you to attend services every Sunday.”
Horrified that she had lost all semblance of control and courtesy, she clamped her mouth shut as a warm blush stole up her neck to her cheeks. Trembling, she blinked back tears of embarrassment and frustration and struggled to find her voice. “If you can’t or won’t comply, I’m sorry, but you’ll simply have to leave. It’s entirely up to you,” she whispered, turned, and walked out of the room.
The moment she shut the door behind her, she leaned back against it, closed her eyes, and concentrated on taking one long, slow breath at a time to keep from dissolving into tears. As a businesswoman, whether she was operating the General Store or Hill House, she had developed a number of strategies. Depending on the situation at hand, she had either been conciliatory or forceful. Occasionally, she had even been coy.
But she had never, ever allowed herself to lose her temper or to speak so forcefully to anyone, most especially a guest at Hill House.
When she heard footsteps approaching, she opened her eyes, found Ditty and Liesel arriving with the cleaning supplies, and pushed herself away from the door.
She managed half a smile. “Just put everything right here on the floor. When you get back to the kitchen, tell Mother Garrett I’ll be upstairs for a bit.”
While the two young women did as she requested, Emma started for the staircase rather than let them see how upset she was.
“Widow Garrett?”
Emma looked back over her shoulder. “Yes, Ditty?”
“You never had time to eat your dinner. Would you like me to bring you something to eat?”
Emma pressed her lips together and swallowed hard. “I’m not very hungry anymore, but thank you.”
Liesel glanced down at the cleaning supplies. “What about the mess in the library? Are you sure you don’t want us to clean it up?”
“Very sure,” Emma whispered and walked slowly but steadily to the staircase, seeking the privacy she would find in the solitude of her bedroom. She was halfway up the stairs before she remembered that Aunt Frances had moved into that room. She could not even escape to her office because Orralynne had already settled herself there. The only place in the entire boardinghouse that offered any retreat at all was the garret.
She climbed up the stairs, turned down the hall, and walked up the last flight of steps to the third floor. Feeling like an exile in her own home, she was ashamed of herself and completely certain she did not fit anyone’s description of a good woman at the moment, especially not Zachary Breckenwith’s.
Not after the way she had behaved in the library.
She paused just a few steps from the top and reached for the pocket in her gown for her keepsakes. Instead, she realized she had reached into the wrong pocket the instant she grabbed hold of the buttery bread she had slipped into her apron earlier.
“I give up. There isn’t a thing I can do right today,” she grumbled, plopping herself down on the step to wipe the butter from her hand with the hem of her apron. When she finished, she pressed her hands together and wrapped her fingers tight to make a single fist.