Secrets of Sloane House

by Gray, Shelley

  Most. That one word made all the difference between comfort and wariness. Not everyone was honest. Or helpful. Some, it seemed, were much worse.

  Once again, Rosalind recalled Miranda’s letters. She’d written stories of women coming to the fair and getting pulled into brothels, never to be heard from again.

  Like a newsboy calling out the day’s headlines, Cook’s voice rang down the hall. “Don’t you be comin’ back without my squash, Rosalind. You do, and I’ll have you be the one to tell the missus herself why her dinner party will be ruined, and you know what will be happenin’ then!”

  She’d be let go, that was what would be happening.

  Rosalind didn’t doubt Cook’s threat in the slightest. From her first day, she realized the whole staff lived in fear of the mercurial moods of the family. Mrs. Sloane could be at once exceptionally benevolent and malicious. Stories abounded of servants being fired for the slightest offense while others were paid while recuperating from the influenza.

  Removing her apron and hanging it in the servants’ closet, Rosalind grabbed four coins from the cook’s top desk drawer, then, at last, darted out the back door.

  “Lord, please help me find my courage,” she whispered. “Please help me become strong and not such a ninny. I need to keep my wits about me to find my sister. Please help me become more confident and more hopeful too. Help me be more like the girl I was back home.”

  Back home, she’d hardly ever worried about her safety. Back home, she’d known everyone and had felt secure, not only in her surroundings, but in the knowledge that she mattered. To the townspeople nearest to their farm. To her family. To the Lord.

  Stepping out onto the broad cavalcade of Michigan Avenue, Rosalind was immediately swept into the crowd of people hurrying among the drays, carriages, and curricles. She was sure her starched gray blouse and skirts were about to be hopelessly stained.

  Then she knocked into the side of a lad no more than twelve.

  “Watch it,” he muttered with a fierce scowl. He was a messenger boy, distinguishable as such by his hat, sturdy satchel, and single-minded expression.

  “Sorry.” Suddenly, with a burst of steam, the trolley squealed to a halt in front of her. Though she’d only traveled on the crowded conveyance twice before, she knew she had to push her way on and hold on tightly. Within seconds, the trolley car moved forward, pushing its way through the cacophony of carriages and people filling the street.

  Noise filtered by the congestion rang in her ears. Rosalind gripped the leather strap more tightly. Looking around, she sought a friendly face. Directly across from her stood a woman, most likely a typist, given her black skirt and crisp white shirtwaist. “Pardon me, have you ever gone to the market? I mean, to the farmer’s market,” she clarified. “You know, for vegetables?”

  “I have,” the woman said with a regal nod. Long black feathers circling the brim of her hat fluttered with the motion.

  “Am I going in the right direction?”

  If the lady heard, she didn’t deign to give a reply. Flummoxed, Rosalind resigned herself that she’d have to wait and see.

  “Exit the next stop, miss,” an older man in multiple layers of brown tweed and tan muttered from her other side. “Exit and walk toward the west. Can’t miss it.”

  A young woman dressed in a plain dress flashed a reassuring smile. “He’s right, lamb. You’ll see the stalls before you’ve walked too far. You’ll smell them too. Nothing smells better than the market in the afternoon.”

  Rosalind took their advice with a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

  “Have a care, now,” the working girl warned. “The streets can be a challenge for one who’s not familiar with them.”

  Rosalind nodded but said nothing more. The girl’s warning told her nothing she didn’t already know. And nothing her sister hadn’t already found out.

  Rosalind made it back in two hours. She had no idea if she’d made good time or had taken twice as long as necessary. All she cared about was that she’d accomplished her mission, by herself, with little problem. That, she felt, was something to celebrate.

  “This is what Tom had today,” she said as she handed over a cloth sack filled to the brim with squash. “I hope it will do.”

  The cook’s fleshy face brightened as she looked into the parcel. After pulling out one of the yellow vegetables, she held it to her nose, breathed deeply, then nodded. “It will.”

  Rosalind breathed a hearty sigh of relief.

  Her gaze warmer, Cook clucked a bit. “Now you’d best sit down before you fall down and have something to eat. You’re so thin, sometimes I fear a sharp wind is going to take you away from us,” she teased. “Not a one of us will be getting any rest ’fore midnight, I expect. Master Douglass is entertaining this evening too. He’s hosting a rowdy crowd of gentlemen in the billiard room.”

  Rosalind took a thick stoneware bowl, filled it with mutton stew, and sat down at the far end of the kitchen table. No meal had ever looked so good.

  With a brief prayer of thanks, she dived in. She was hungrier than she realized. Each bite brought her warmth and felt cozy and filling. It was a welcome oasis amid the hustle and bustle of the busy kitchens.

  “And who might you be?” a man asked as he pulled up a chair and sat next to her. It was the same question Douglass had asked her upstairs.

  Off-kilter by the nerve-racking events of the day, Rosalind looked at the short, mustached man with more than a slight degree of suspicion. “I’m sorry . . . Have we met?”

  “I should say not,” Cook said, her voice merry. “This here’s Jim Quinn. He’s doing a bit of repair work in the wine cellar today.” After a moment, she added kindly, “And no need to worry about him. Jim’s a mite too forward, that’s true enough. But he’s harmless enough.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” He tipped his cap. “I’m a carpenter, miss. I do odd jobs, doing my best to make a dime, you know.”

  “I’m Rosalind.”

  “I know that. I do.” He winked. “As soon as I saw there was a looker new on staff, I asked about you.”

  “Out with ya, Jim,” Cook exclaimed. More confidentially, she leaned closer to Rosalind. “His mouth is going to get him in trouble yet, you mark my words. But if you learn to ignore most of his silly flirting, you’ll see that Jim’s as good a man as they come. I’d trust him with my soul, I would.”

  Before Rosalind could think of a reply to that, Jim started speaking. “Have you been to the fair yet?” When she shook her head, he grinned. “Didn’t think so. If you had, you’d be smiling.”

  Still too rattled to even think about attending the World’s Fair, she murmured, “I doubt I will go.”

  “You should. I mean, you should if you can get the time off.” Jim rested his elbows on the table as he continued. “It’s something to see, make no mistake. If you had seen Jackson Park before we got to work, you’d be right amazed at all the changes that have come about. Us carpenters have been right busy, making one building after another into a thing of beauty.”

  “Beauty where there was none,” Cook interjected.

  “I worked on several of the buildings, I tell you that. The Agricultural Building, Fisheries, even the Gov’ment one too.”

  “They got carrier pigeons and a redwood in that one,” Cook interjected importantly. “I saw them meself.”

  “I even helped with fourteen of the state buildings,” Jim continued, his voice sounding prouder than punch. “Maybe I even worked on yours. Where are you from, Rosalind?”

  “Wisconsin.”

  Jim frowned. “Sorry, can’t say’s I worked on that one.”

  “Oh.” She was starting to realize Wisconsin sounded as foreign to these Chicagoans as Japan or Russia sounded to her.

  “But I’m sure it’s there. Somewhere. You’ll have to see it, all the same.”

  “The fair does sound special,” Rosalind murmured. “It’s hard to believe such a big event is taking place right here in Chicago.” />
  “We live in a wondrous age, for sure. And our city is plumb in the middle of it! You be sure you go and see the sights, if you dare,” Jim said as he stood up.

  Rosalind was about to smile when he lowered his voice dramatically. “But if you do go, don’t forget to be careful, now. The city can be a dangerous place. For a young woman likes yerself, there’s trouble around almost every corner.”

  In a flash, the cozy atmosphere of the kitchen darkened.

  Cook scowled as she used a paring knife to cut the squash into long yellow ribbons. “Jim, there ain’t no reason for you to be bringing things like that up.”

  For the first time, Jim looked embarrassed. “Martha always tells me to watch my tongue. Guess I should start listening. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be scaring you.”

  Feeling apprehensive, but for the first time slightly hopeful, Rosalind struggled to keep her voice tempered. “No, no, I want to hear what you mean.”

  “I was only thinking of another pretty maid, that’s all.”

  “Jim’s speaking of Miranda,” Tilly, the scullery maid, whispered.

  Rosalind’s heart slammed into her chest. “Miranda?”

  She had to be careful. Because she went by Rosalind Pettit instead of Perry, which was her real last name, no one at Sloane House knew she was Miranda’s sister. And so far she’d been afraid to start asking questions. Now that the subject of Miranda had unexpectedly come up, she had to make the most of it.

  Cook left her position and ponderously approached the table. After a second’s pause, she said with obvious reluctance, “Miranda was a maid who worked here.”

  “But she didn’t last long, though,” Tilly said with a troubled expression. “Barely a couple of months.”

  “Why such a short time?”

  “She was real pretty,” Jim continued, ignoring her question. “She was about your age, now that I think of it.” He snapped his fingers. “And from Wisconsin just like you.” Eyeing her a bit more closely, he murmured, “Did you know her?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “Go on with you, Jim,” Cook scoffed before Rosalind could utter a lie. “Even though Wisconsin is no Illinois, there’s still a fair number of folks living there!”

  While another of the maids snickered, Rosalind stared at Jim. “Wh–what about Miranda? What happened to her?”

  “No one really knows.” Looking at her a bit more closely, he added, “She was here one day, gone the next.”

  “Left without so much as a by-your-leave, she did,” Cook added. “I was good to that girl too.”

  But Rosalind noticed that Cook’s voice wasn’t bitter. No, it sounded worried.

  “Where do you think Miranda went in such a hurry?” Remembering some of the dark things Miranda had written, about being frightened by someone in the house, she swallowed hard. “Do you think she got hurt or something?”

  Cook shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  Feeling slightly sick, Rosalind attempted to sound more hopeful. “Maybe she fell in love and ran away to get hitched or something?”

  “Not a chance. She left without her clothes and paycheck,” Tilly said.

  Cook glared. “Tilly!”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but love can only get a girl so far, you know,” Tilly said with a lift of her chin. “Takes money to eat.”

  After sending a dark look to the cheeky girl, Cook answered. “Miranda’s leaving was a sudden thing. Too sudden, if you ask me.” After a furtive glance at the door to the hallway, she lowered her voice. “I, for one, don’t believe she left the house on her own will. By all accounts, she seemed happy enough here—at least until the last few days or so.”

  “Always had a smile for us all, she did,” Stanley, valet to Mr. Sloane and Douglass, said.

  Cook continued. She shivered dramatically. “No one leaves a good job like this without giving notice first. I fear somethin’ terrible happened to her.”

  “Like what?” Rosalind asked, fearing the answer. She could feel tears wanting to fill her eyes. With effort, she blinked them away. No one could know how affected she was by this news.

  “You could choose any number of things,” Jim said. “She could have been abducted, murdered. Maybe even fallen onto the train tracks.”

  “Or maybe even something worse,” Tilly whispered. “Maybe someone she knew did her in.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Rosalind asked. Vivid pictures of her sister in terrible situations came to mind. Each one ended with her being beaten and bleeding. Broken and alone. Maybe even dead.

  After glancing at Cook, Tilly flushed. “Nothing.”

  What was Tilly not saying? Why didn’t Cook want Tilly to tell what she knew? And why did Cook sound like Miranda wasn’t happy just before she left?

  “Her going missing has been a real mystery, for sure. It’s affected us all, and that is the truth,” Cook stated after the briefest of pauses. “We read about girls getting snatched all over Chicago all the time in the Tribune. But bad things feel different when they happen to you. Know what I mean?”

  Rosalind nodded. She knew exactly what Cook meant. It was one thing to hear about a nameless woman getting injured or killed. But if it were a sister? Well, there were no words.

  “Mrs. Sloane was in a state about it too.” A line formed in between Cook’s brows. “She still kind of is, if you want to know the truth.” Wagging her finger, she said, “If you know what’s good for you, don’t ever bring up Miranda’s name. It sets Mrs. Sloane off something awful.”

  “Rosalind?” Tilly called out. “You’re looking as white as a sheet.”

  Cook narrowed her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  No. No, she was not. But that hardly mattered.

  Lifting her chin, Rosalind tried to think of her mission and not her worst fears. “I’m surprised, that’s all. I never would have imagined something horrible happening to a girl working in a grand house like this. And, uh, I would have thought she would have been more protected.”

  “Protected? Well now. No one can promise you that you’ll always be safe.” Cook wagged a finger again. “But I can promise that our lady makes sure she knows just about everything that happens. And what she doesn’t know Mrs. Abrams does,” she said, speaking of the housekeeper who hired Rosalind.

  Rosalind didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. Struggling to keep her expression neutral, she murmured, “I’ll be sure to remember that. And keep my eyes open.”

  “Good. But remember, child, whatever you do . . . Rosalind, don’t you get it in your head to start asking about poor Miranda. As far as you are concerned, young Miranda never existed.”

  The lump that had formed in her throat was threatening to choke her. She bent down to her stew, attempting to concentrate on it instead of her broken heart.

  “Like I said, I hope I didn’t scare you none. Just wanted you to be aware of things, you know.” Jim tipped his hat again. “A fetching girl like you can’t be too careful, by my way of thinking. Now I best be gettin’ back to work or I won’t get paid.”

  She stared at him, almost woodenly. What had happened to Miranda? What did people know that they weren’t saying? Her mind awhirl, she barely heard Stanley approach. “If I were you, I’d forget this whole conversation, Rosalind,” he murmured. “We get paid to mind our own business, not to speculate on others’ affairs. It’s best for us all if you remember that.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Rosalind tried to concentrate on her stew again, but her mind was churning. Could that be what had happened? Her sister had gone walking in the streets one day and simply never returned? Had disappeared against her will?

  Or was it intentional? But if that had been the case, where had she taken off to? Why had she never written home?

  Her plan to get hired on at Sloane House and discover what had really happened during Miranda’s stay had seemed so logical back on the farm. She’d assumed a new name, made up a story about always wanting to work for a pr
estigious family like the Sloanes, and somehow convinced the clerk at the employment agency to send her for an interview. When she’d gotten the job after a brief meeting with Mrs. Abrams, Rosalind had been sure that the Lord had wanted her to find out what, exactly, had happened to her sister.

  Now she realized that wasn’t the case. She’d been woefully ignorant of the things she was expected to do. Of the hard, hidden life of a servant in a big, prominent house. Of the gap that divided the Sloane family and the people who served them.

  Most of all, she realized that she’d never imagined that so many people could live together and still keep so many secrets. Furthermore, it was becoming obvious that there were things no one in the house wanted to talk about. The more Rosalind learned about the people who lived inside Sloane House, the more she was sure Miranda’s fear had been real. If only she could determine what, exactly, her sister had been so afraid of.

  After finishing her meal, Rosalind walked quietly out of the kitchen. Never had she felt so alone.

  CHAPTER 3

  “I do love it when you make time to talk with me when you’re home,” his mother announced when Reid entered the drawing room shortly after six. “It’s a bit lonely with your sister away. But the opportunity to travel in Europe with her schoolmate’s family was too special to keep her here, even with your father being ill.”

  After lunching with the Sloane siblings, Reid had taken his leave and gone to his father’s offices, where he continued work on the incoming reports and updates from the family’s silver mining holdings in Colorado.

  After that, he completed correspondence for his own company, the fledgling Armstrong Construction. Since he’d always had an interest in building things, he’d begun a small company with a band of twenty workers. Each of his men had worked on the construction of the Exposition buildings. Now he was actively bidding on work in other parts of the city.

  No, they weren’t making much money as of yet, but he had dreams. One day, he wanted the Armstrong name to mean something. He hoped his children and grandchildren would be able to take pride in the Armstrong name the way Douglass and Veronica did being Sloanes.