Band of Sisters

by Cathy Gohlke

  Curtis strode through the marbled foyer. Removing his gloves, he said, without turning, “My entourage, the Carmichaels. You’ll see to their needs that they might see to mine.”

  “Very good, sir. Mr. Belgadt has informed us to expect your staff.”

  “Excellent.” Curtis removed his hat, but before Harder could take the hat and gloves, Joshua smoothly retrieved them.

  Harder shifted his jaw, a flash of slight in his glance. “Mr. Belgadt is expecting you. This way, sir.”

  An hour later Maureen had settled into her new duties. Between them, she and Joshua had made the agreed-upon adjustments to their employer’s bedchamber: books, papers, and writing instruments positioned at exact angles across the desktop; toiletries lined in a row with labels facing forward; suits hung two inches apart, matching shoes directly beneath—all designed to give the impression of an eccentric and fastidious character, a man of habits, accustomed to having his demands met.

  “Pity the woman he marries!” Maureen chuckled.

  But Joshua frowned sharply, raised a finger to his lips, and shook his head.

  Maureen nodded in return, accepting his rebuke. It’s no game we’ve entered, and no tellin’ who might be listenin’ at doors.

  “We’d best make our way to the kitchen,” Joshua said plainly, “meet the staff, and see to the master’s meals.”

  “Yes, sir,” Maureen responded obediently, for although they portrayed brother and sister, she knew his position as gentleman’s gentleman was well superior to hers as chambermaid.

  He quickly squeezed her hand and motioned “chin up.”

  Maureen returned his smile, stopped by the looking glass to adjust her wig with a slight forward tug, and followed down the stairs.

  Curtis had timed their entrance for the middle of the afternoon, shortly before they were expected, knowing it would give Maureen and Joshua an opportunity to settle in and liberty to observe the room assignments of arriving guests.

  Once his simple needs were met, he begrudgingly offered Belgadt the supplemental services of Mary and David Carmichael, saying he wished to help alleviate strain on the harried household staff.

  Waiting for the other guests to join them, Curtis and Victor Belgadt shared drinks in the library.

  “Good of you to offer your staff, Morrow,” Belgadt observed. “You can appreciate why I would not want to bring in outside help for this occasion.”

  Curtis nodded. “The very reason I travel with my own people.”

  “Sure of them, are you?”

  “Four years.”

  “I envy you that. It’s always a risk—what they know, who they know, their sense of loyalty.”

  “Not when you own their father’s farm.”

  “Here? In Ireland?”

  Curtis snorted softly, swirling his drink. “I told you my assets are far-reaching. Nothing like the Atlantic and the dependence of their parents and siblings to ensure discretion.”

  “Particularly among the Irish—clannish lot.” Belgadt laughed. “I like you, Morrow.”

  Curtis lifted his brows and raised his glass.

  Dinner for thirty-one went smoothly. Harder and “David Carmichael” waited table.

  “Mary Carmichael” assisted the Sedgebrook maids in running hot dishes up the kitchen staff stairs and soiled ones down. She stayed until the last platter was washed, earning grudging thanks from the cook, Mrs. Beaton, and undying appreciation from Nancy Small, the scullery maid.

  “I never thought we’d get that lot washed and put away.” Nancy pulled her sopping apron from her shoulders.

  “Just in time to set the table for breakfast?” Maureen tied a fresh apron round her waist.

  “Oh no, miss! Mr. Belgadt’s very strict. No dishes in the dining room till morning.”

  “But he wants breakfast served by eight, you said.”

  “Aye, but he uses that great, long dining room table to stage his auc—” Her eyes widened as she caught herself. “To entertain, some evenings,” she whispered at last.

  “They smoke and take brandies in the dinin’ room?”

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Beaton asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Nancy spoke up quickly. “I just told her we don’t set table for breakfast till morning.”

  “That’s right, we don’t. You’ve a problem with that?” Mrs. Beaton challenged Maureen.

  “No, of course not. I’ll be down by six, shall I, and lend a hand?”

  Mrs. Beaton stared but didn’t respond.

  “I’ll finish my duties for Mr. Morrow and say good night, then.” Maureen warmed a cup of milk for her master on the stove, conscious of the weighted silence behind her, and headed for the stairs.

  She’d barely turned the corner when she heard Mrs. Beaton hiss, “Watch what you say, you little fool!”

  “But she’s been brought in to help us. She surely knows why they’re all here, don’t she?”

  “I don’t know what she knows, but if you value your tongue, you’ll keep it behind your teeth.”

  Nancy, Maureen thought with a smile to herself, we must have a little chat.

  The night had run late for Joshua and taxed everything he’d learned in the last weeks. He and Harder had been on duty since the first guests arrived that afternoon, fetching and carrying, pouring drinks and lighting cigars, not only for their own masters, but attending every gentleman’s whim.

  The full-story clock in the downstairs foyer struck two before the last guest retired, and then only because Belgadt had had the women escorted away, promising to bring them out to prance and play the next evening.

  The butlers had been left to set the room to rights and then attend their masters.

  Once he’d left Curtis for the night, Joshua locked the door to his servants’-quarters room above stairs behind him, pulled his collar and tie from his shirt, and heaved a sigh. At least I’ve not been billeted with that slime, Harder. He sank to his knees and poured out the contempt he’d barely kept hidden.

  It sickens me, Lord, this shameful exploitation of the crown of Your creation. I know we’re here to cut this abomination off below its knees. I know that if we’re to do that, these men must be made to feel safe and important enough to reveal their secrets, or they’ll never lead us to their victims. But I don’t know that I can long look on these men without showing them the anger and disgust I feel. And forgive me, help me, Lord, in my thoughts and in the surrender of my flesh to You, this night. For I’m a man, and that’s all I am.

  Protect Maureen, Father. Protect her from the hurt these men would cause her. Protect her heart and sensibilities. Remind her that what she does, she does for the good of her friends, her sister, and for other women so they’ll never know the cruelty she’s known. And most of all, Lord, let her know Your love. Reach out to her, and draw her heart to Yours. Let her know the joy of bein’ Your daughter.

  Thank You for Curtis and his plan. Thank You for giftin’ him with the ability and the resources to do this work. Strengthen our arms and spirits. Make us successful in this fight. Help us free these women in bondage so that You might show them a life they’ve not yet imagined. Help us reunite them with those who love them, and open the hearts of their families to receive and restore them. Through Jesus, who came to set us free, amen.

  Three long days later Curtis spit into the snow, then said, “Night after night of throwing to these bloodhounds the most expensive caviar and liquor money can buy, soirees to rival pre–Civil War slave auctions, and all Belgadt’s sales talk—and we’ve whittled our ‘guest list’ to seventeen.” He spit again as though he couldn’t get the nasty taste from his mouth. “Seventeen men who would willingly sell their sisters for a price, and some who’ve already sold their wives to brothels.”

  “But no progress on our end.” Joshua followed close on Curtis’s heels, the picture of the manservant obediently trailing his eccentric master during a midday constitutional, but also providing their only opportunity to speak freely.

&nb
sp; “No.” Curtis marched faster, fury evident in his stride.

  “I’m at the beck and call of the lot of them, so I’ve had no opportunity to look for ledgers or accounts or where they keep the women. Maureen’s found nothin’.”

  “Nor have I,” Curtis sighed. “Belgadt sticks to me like glue.”

  “And Harder to me. I’m thinkin’ that’s his assignment.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Some are scheduled to leave by tomorrow mornin’s train. It’ll not be easier to search when they’ve gone.”

  “No.” Curtis slowed. “We need some sort of distraction—an upheaval of sorts, to throw things off-kilter—to give you and Maureen freedom to search. And we need it tonight.”

  “Somethin’ they’re not prepared for,” Joshua mused.

  “Exactly.”

  “Leave it to me.”

  “You want me to what?” Maureen gasped, her hot iron in midair.

  “You’re not deaf, lass; we need a distraction,” Joshua insisted, slipping her a small vial.

  “Well, that will distract them, if it doesn’t kill them. Not that they deserve better.” She pocketed the vial and shook the shirt she’d been pressing for Curtis.

  “Just a little in the soup and the cuttin’ of the trunk wires in the attic. I’ll show you after we serve drinks. You can meet me there,” Joshua pushed, leaning closer. “Can you manage it?”

  “I suppose. But if I’m caught, Mrs. Beaton will kill me before that demon Belgadt ever catches me!”

  Joshua winked and kissed her on the cheek. “Well then, we’ll dance from the gallows together, Miss Carmichael.”

  Maureen might have slapped him, but he was out the door before she could think to raise her hand. Instead, she touched softly the place of his kiss upon her cheek.

  It was half past six when the winds of a violent snowstorm howled through the lanes of the estate, whistling and rattling panes of glass as Maureen ladled creamed oyster chowder from the stove pot into china tureens under Mrs. Beaton’s watchful eye. She’d half filled the first, smiled at Mrs. Beaton, innocent as a babe, then looked sharply again, spreading her eyes wide in horror at a point just over the woman’s left shoulder. Her bloodcurdling scream rent the steamy kitchen air. The sturdy woman jumped and turned as Maureen’s ladle flipped high, showering scalding soup over Mrs. Beaton’s arm and hand, then sent the first tureen crashing to the floor.

  Mrs. Beaton bellowed in agony. Nancy dropped to the floor in terror, desperately trying to corral the spreading rush of imported oysters with her tea towel. Maureen deftly tipped her small vial into the pot.

  “Look what you’ve done, stupid girl!” Mrs. Beaton screamed again, dousing her hand in water. “That tureen’s come from France—part of a matching set! It’s worth more than three years of your wages!”

  “I’m ever so sorry,” Maureen cried as mortified as she could be. “I saw a rat run across the shelf—just there.”

  “There are no rats in my kitchen!”

  “But I saw one, and I’m that terrified of them!”

  “Stupid, stupid girl! How you ever made it out of the scullery and above stairs is beyond me.”

  Maureen began to sniffle. “I said I’m sorry, and I’m sorry.” Then penitently, she retrieved the ladle from beneath the stove and handed it up. “Perhaps you’d best do the soup, mum. I’ll help Nancy clean up.”

  Cook jerked the ladle from Maureen’s hand. “Call Harder to come for the tureen. Shorthanded or not, I’ll not trust either of you simpletons to carry it up the stairs.”

  “Yes, mum.” Maureen lowered her head, curtsied, and turned to do as she was bid.

  “And when you’ve done that, get out of my kitchen! Don’t come back until the meal’s done, clumsy girl! We’ll save you the pots to scrub!”

  “Yes, mum.” Maureen hid her smile until she was out of sight.

  “Well, their families will have to manage without them! You should have insisted the live-out staff remain with a storm brewing. We can’t afford to be shorthanded tonight,” Belgadt berated Harder.

  “I should have thought ahead, sir.”

  Belgadt waved him away in contempt. “Get every maid and groom on duty. I want you and Carmichael in the dining room at all times. Bring up some of those girls with domestic experience and put them in uniforms—the strongest ones not dancing tonight. I want the house to look staffed to the rafters. Now that we’ve skimmed the less than committed, I intend to convince our potential investors we’re wallowing in diamonds.”

  That evening, over an elaborately planned banquet, Belgadt announced, “With our mutual investments, gentlemen, we can more than double our playing fields. Morrow has agreed to match us dollar for dollar and inventory for inventory, the proceeds to be divided by all.”

  Murmurs of surprise and approbation ran both sides of the banquet table.

  “All that you see, gentlemen—” Belgadt spread his hands before the lavish feast and wider, to include the estate—“is but the beginning for all of us.”

  Glasses were raised.

  The first course had just been served when the lights flickered from the storm. Belgadt motioned to Harder, who nodded to Joshua. The two butlers produced candelabras for the sideboards and along the banquet table. Before they had set them all in place, the electric lights went out.

  Once accustomed to the change in lighting, Belgadt initiated toasts. Half jests, vulgar boasts, and running speculations regarding the extent of financial possibilities and the necessity for personally “testing new merchandise” peppered the second and third course.

  It wasn’t until the fourth course was removed that the stomach cramping began—a grimace here, a puffing of the cheeks there. After the second man excused himself from the table, Belgadt received wary glances from his remaining guests.

  The fifth man to clutch his stomach exclaimed, “What is this, Belgadt? You trying to poison us?”

  Belgadt smiled and huffed at the insult but was taken aback by Curtis’s furious and accusing glance as he clasped his napkin to his mouth, excused himself quickly, and motioned for Joshua to follow.

  When retching was heard from the hallway, Belgadt called Harder to his side and ordered that the remaining Sedgebrook staff abandon their duties and attend their guests.

  The order was barely given when Belgadt clutched his stomach and stumbled from the table.

  Washbowls and seldom-used chamber pots, sloshing and stinking with the leavings of heaving guests, flew up and down the dark stairs between the arms of a frazzled staff. Indoor toilets, flushed too many at a time, backed up into bathrooms.

  “Can you give me a hand, Carmichael?” Harder called from the upstairs landing, a chamber pot in either hand.

  “When I’ve attended Mr. Morrow,” Joshua called back. “You’d best bring in a doctor, lest your employer boast a houseful of corpses!”

  A door flew open at that, and a guest, stripped to the waist and clutching a towel before his mouth, ordered, “Tell Belgadt he’d best get a dozen doctors out here at once! Tell him I’ll sue for this!”

  “Make the call, Harder,” Belgadt ordered weakly as he topped the stairs, his face ashen, just before his stomach emptied upon the landing.

  Harder slammed his lamp onto the marble-topped table in the downstairs hallway and madly tapped the telephone’s cradle. “Operator . . . Operator!” He swore, then tried again.

  “Is someone coming?” Joshua demanded from behind him, not sorry that the contents of the bowl he carried slopped onto Harder’s livery and shoe.

  “The lines are down!” Harder raked his hands through his hair, not seeming to notice that he reeked. “Do the best you can. I’ll get the groom and send him for a doctor.”

  “I just saw him below stairs. He’s down with it too—must have sampled the feast. Where’s the rest of your staff, man? We can’t manage alone!” Joshua challenged, barely able to hide his glee.

  Harder looked desperately from Joshua to the front door and back.r />
  “I’ll have to go for the doctor myself. I’ll bring the women to help you.” He swore beneath his breath. “At least the swells’ll die smiling.”

  Maureen had searched Belgadt’s room during the first course. Finding no ledgers, no safe, no secret panels, and no women, she’d visited two of the guest bedchambers during toasts and Harder’s room after cutting the trunk and telephone wires coming in through the attic.

  As the men took to their rooms, groaning and swearing, she waited silently in the small storage room beneath the stairs, the door barely cracked to let her observe the comings and goings of all who passed through the open hallway.

  She never moved until Harder had thrown the telephone receiver against its cradle and, taking up his lamp, pushed open his employer’s study door. She shadowed Harder, just out of the lamp’s range, and crouched behind an overstuffed leather chair, watching him fumble before the fireplace. Awkwardly, he turned the right andiron. A single bookcase slid smoothly open behind another. Harder passed through, turned, and raised his hand somewhere beyond Maureen’s line of vision. Less than a moment passed before the bookcase slid back into place.

  Holding her breath and a flashlight, Maureen searched the bookcase for a seam, a sign of the hidden door. There was none.

  Having no idea how long before Harder might reappear or if she’d have warning, Maureen searched the drawers of Belgadt’s desk. The very fact that not one drawer was locked convinced her that she’d find nothing incriminating. But she paid special attention to the dimensions and depth of each drawer, in search of secret compartments, as Curtis had instructed her. She ran her hands along the backs, seats, and bottoms of his chairs, along the chair rail that ran round the room. She was halfway through reading the spines of his books upon the shelves when she heard the shuffling of feet beyond the bookcase. As the bookcase opened, Maureen clicked off her flashlight and slid beneath the desk.