With that, she disappeared inside without a backward glance.
Kathryn stood staring after the woman, her jaw slack. Imagine demanding that her guests disrobe and leave their things outside. Had she no inkling of hospitality, of common courtesy even?
Well that, at least, was a quality Kathryn could offer. Since she was temporarily forced to stay here and “help out around the place,” as per Papa’s arrangement, at least she could lend an air of gentility that was desperately needed.
Kathryn extended a hand toward Miss Everett, who had already obeyed the command to shed her cloak, though of the three of them, hers was by far the driest. “I’ll take that,” she offered. “You go on inside and get settled.”
With a quick smile and a quiet “Thank you,” the lady handed over the garment. When she had followed Cousin Mary Ann through the doorway, Kathryn hung the garment on one of the pegs and then shrugged out of her own. Rivulets ran from her saturated cloak to pool on the wooden slats. She turned to take Mr. Gates’s coat, but he had left the shelter of the porch to help Carter unload the baggage. Good. Offering courtesy to a quietly dignified woman like Miss Everett was one thing, but a man who flung insults at women? Let him hang his own coat.
Two
The inside of the hotel was as austere as the outside, though at least it was dry. Kathryn stepped into a long room, bare but for a few hard wooden chairs lining the plank walls and a writing desk situated beside a closed door against the far wall. The only windows were the two in the front, and the deep porch outside them would prevent much sunlight from penetrating the room. She tested the rough wooden slats beneath her boots with a toe. This was the floor that must be protected from puddles?
To her right a narrow stairway led upward, and she heard signs of movement from above. The harsh tones of Papa’s cousin seeped through the ceiling in short, staccato blasts, the words unintelligible from the distance. At least a fire crackled in a stone fireplace to her right, the flickering flames lending a bit of light to the otherwise gloomy interior. She crossed the room and stood before it, hands extended in an attempt to chase the chill from her sodden fingers. This room would benefit greatly from the addition of a few nice pieces of artwork on the walls, and perhaps a table where fresh flowers might be displayed. And a bright woven rug—not to mention some comfortable chairs—would add warmth.
Heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her alerted her to Cousin Mary Ann’s descent. At the same moment the door opened. She whirled as Mr. Gates entered the hotel without his heavy overcoat. In his hands he carried his narrow rectangular crate, which he set on the floor at his side and kept upright with one hand.
“There you are.” Cousin Mary Ann’s crass voice filled every corner of the nearly bare room as she heaved herself down the stairs. “I’ve saved you a room upstairs.” She drew to a halt at the bottom and tilted her head sideways to peer at him. “The charge is double the normal rate, since your letter said you want to be private.”
He straightened. “I insist on it.”
She shook her head, unruly wisps of wiry dark hair floating around her scalp like the halo on a deranged angel. “That’s two of you asking for private accommodations. Waste of a couple of beds, I say, but it’s all the same to me. I’ll have two weeks’ in advance, though.”
“That’s fine.”
Eyes narrowed, she thrust out a hand, empty palm upward. Certainly payment in advance was an acceptable arrangement for a place of lodging, but Kathryn found the woman’s brash manner embarrassing. Surely the business of collecting rents could be conducted with a bit more finesse. She averted her eyes so as not to appear to stare while he extracted a thick wallet from an inside pocket of his suit coat.
When the money had changed hands and been secreted in the pocket of her skirt, the woman turned again toward the stairs. “This way. You’ll have the corner room in the back. I can’t be responsible for noise. There’s a woman who lives nearby with a couple of brats who squall half the night. I suggest you keep the windows shut till they quiet down.” She hauled her bulky body upward, breath coming heavily after a few steps. “I don’t serve meals, but Evangeline’s next door has decent food and doesn’t overcharge for what you get. If you want a tray brought up, I can arrange that for a small fee.”
“I wouldn’t want to put you out.” Mr. Gates picked up his crate and, holding it before him in two hands, followed her up the stairs at a distance.
“Not putting me out at all,” puffed the woman. She stopped halfway up to lean heavily on her knees. “My hired girl can do it.”
She looked toward Kathryn with a grin. Kathryn’s answer was a hesitant smile. She certainly didn’t expect to be waited on while she was here, even if she was a relative. The distance between here and the restaurant next door wasn’t much farther than the walk from her upstairs room at home to the formal dining room on the main floor. The inconvenience of having to go outside was minor. Unless the rain persisted.
Mr. Gates’s gaze scanned the empty room and came to rest on Kathryn. His eyebrows arched high on his forehead. “Your hired girl?”
“That’s right.” She turned her smile on the young man. “If you want her to take care of your laundry or other personal concerns, we’ll work out the details. That’s one of the reasons I’ve hired a strong young woman, so I can offer good service to my customers.”
When she gave Kathryn a disturbingly proprietary glance, the meaning of her words struck with force.
“I?” She rested a hand on her chest. “I am to be a…a maid?”
Pudgy fingers waved in the air in her direction. “We’ll work out the details in a bit. Let me see my guest settled first.”
She continued upward and disappeared through the doorway at the top. Kathryn stared after her, jaw slack. This was Papa’s arrangement? Not that she assist in the management of the hotel, but that she become a servant? Then she realized she was the object of close scrutiny. Mr. Gates’s gaze connected with hers for a moment. Was there more than curiosity in his stare? Did she detect a superior smirk? Heat flooded her cheeks. She whirled around and made a show of splaying her hands to warm them before the fire. The sound of creaking steps told her of his departure.
She forced a long, even breath from her lungs. A mistake had been made. She would write to Papa immediately.
No—on second thought, there was no need to write. She didn’t intend to be here long enough for her letter to reach him and his reply to arrive. First thing in the morning she would speak with Captain Baker and book passage on the Fair Lady for the return voyage home.
The room was bare, but sufficient. Jason stood in the open doorway to inspect the interior. A pair of narrow beds, little more than cots, really, lined two walls and took up most of the space. Between them stood a nightstand with a lamp on its surface, and very little room for much else. The area between the beds was hardly big enough for two men to stand side by side, but that wouldn’t present a problem since he did not intend to share his lodgings. He had money enough to ensure his privacy for the duration of his stay in the Faulkner House. As soon as he had settled into a routine at the mill, he would arrange for permanent lodgings.
“There’s plenty of light in this room.” The proprietress peered over his shoulder. “Two windows, you’ll notice. Good breeze when they’re open.”
Since the room was situated on a corner, windows graced two of the four walls and gave the impression of more space than was actually available. The curtains had been tied back, though the dark sky outside shed little light at the moment. Rain drizzled down the glass on the rear-facing wall and turned the trees behind the hotel into mirages. The other two walls were as bare as the ones downstairs. He would take care of that shortly.
He stepped through the doorway and set the crate containing his painting down on the floor. “This will be fine for my needs. Would you arrange to have the spare bed removed?”
“It’ll be morning before my hired man comes, but I’ll have him see to it.” A gleam
flickered in her eyes as she looked at the second bed. “I can move it across the hall and turn that room into a triple.”
Unless the other room was significantly larger than this one, Jason couldn’t imagine how three beds would fit. But that was not his concern.
He dipped his head in a courteous farewell. “Thank you, Mrs. Garritson.” Hopefully he’d gotten the name right. Her correspondence had been nearly illegible, and she had not introduced herself since his arrival.
“Madame Garritson’s what everybody in these parts calls me.” She smiled, a somewhat gruesome gesture considering two of her teeth were charcoal gray and the rest yellow. “Or Mother Garritson, if you prefer.”
An image of his mother, genteel and educated and exquisitely groomed at all times, rose in his mind. If he were given the task of selecting a complete opposite to Mother, the woman before him would be his top candidate.
Arranging his lips into a polite smile, he said, “Thank you, Madame Garritson.”
An unladylike cackle issued from deep inside her ample bosom. “Madame it is.” She started to leave, and then stopped and turned back with a sly grin. “Forgot to ask. Did you want to hire my girl to see to your needs?”
While inspecting his room he’d forgotten about Miss Bergert. Her shocked expression upon discovering that she was being hired as a maid had wrung an unexpected response from him. For a moment he’d felt sorry for her. What position had she expected to take when she arrived? He didn’t know, but clearly it was something different. Taking a servant’s role would no doubt be hard for one so arrogant, though a lesson in humility might soften the sharp edges of her personality a bit.
But that was not a task he wished to undertake. The very reason he had agreed to come to Seattle was because there would be few females to distract him from the business of managing a successful steam mill operation. Why put himself directly in contact with one? His heart belonged to Beth, and he intended to remain true to her for as long as it continued to beat.
“Thank you, but I believe I can manage without any assistance.”
Madame Garritson shrugged. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
She waddled down the narrow hallway toward the stairs. Jason closed the door with a soft whisk and turned to rest his back against it. His gaze was drawn to the crate. The painting inside begged to be released and allowed to breathe, to spread oil-and-canvas sunshine into this gloomy room. Into his lonely heart.
When the proprietress descended the stairs once again, Kathryn crossed the floor to meet her head-on, heels echoing on the unfinished plank floor.
“Cousin Mary Ann, there has been a mistake.”
The woman stepped off the bottom step with an umph and continued without a pause toward the closed door next to the desk. “Call me Madame Garritson, like everybody else. Wouldn’t want to give the impression of favoritism, would we?”
“Certainly not.” Actually, she preferred not to advertise her kinship with this crass person, however distant it may be. She followed close on the woman’s heels. “My father arranged for me to help with the management of this hotel, not to become a maid.”
“Management?” She made an impolite sound halfway between a grunt and a snort. “No mistake, missy. Except I thought you’d be”—she paused with her hand on the knob and sent an appraising glance the length of Kathryn’s body—“different.”
Kathryn drew herself upright. How offensive! “What do you mean?”
A hand reached out to finger a bedraggled lock of hair that had begun to dry in the warmth of the fire. “Fancier, you know? Being from San Francisco and all, I figured you’d dress nicer, fix your hair up, maybe use a bit of rouge to give your face some color. Philip described you as an attractive girl.” She pursed her lips. “Accomplished was how he put it.”
Papa had called her accomplished? Kathryn indulged in a moment of satisfaction. He’d never encouraged her pursuit of art. Why, she’d come to believe he thought her without talent. “I am an accomplished artist.” She lifted her nose in the air. “I paint landscapes.”
Madame gave a rude snort of laughter. “What use is a painter to me? Help emptying chamber pots and straightening bed linens, that’s what I need.” With a smirk, she pushed open the door, gesturing for Kathryn to follow.
The idea! “I most certainly will do no such thing.”
They entered a generously sized room fitted with a few mismatched pieces of plain, block-style furniture. A large window looked out onto a stand of trees so dense that shadows dark as night filled the spaces between them. The glass had been left open and rain had blown in, leaving puddles on the floor.
Madame Garritson appeared not to notice. She stopped in the center of the room and turned. “What do you think the manager of a hotel does?”
“Well…” Kathryn stopped, taken aback. In the weeks prior to the journey, her efforts had been focused on convincing Papa not to send her away. When he remained stubborn, she’d comforted herself with a single recurring thought—that she would come, spend a few weeks here, and then return home with the tale that things had not worked out as he hoped. As to the actual duties she might be asked to perform, she had given them no thought at all.
She cleared her throat. “I suppose a manager collects rents, and sees to guests’ inquiries, and ensures they are comfortable.”
“Rents don’t touch a single hand but this one.” She extended her palm and slapped it with the fingers of her other hand. “And if someone has an inquiry, what help could you offer? You don’t even know where the privy is.”
“Of course there will be an initial adjustment period.”
Her answer went unnoticed as Madame’s lips formed a cynical twist. “And just what do you think guests need for their comfort?”
“Well, I…” She swallowed. The only time she had stayed in a hotel was last year, when she and Mama traveled to Sacramento with Papa on business. Her needs were seen to by Mrs. Lassiter, owner of the Lassiter House. While Papa worked, she and Mama toured the city and discovered a delightful little art gallery. When they returned for the evening, their rooms were neat and orderly. Now that Kathryn thought about it, she’d seen no maids or anyone else about the place. Had their clean rooms been due to the efforts of the proprietress?
“You see?” Excess flesh on Madame’s neck jiggled with the force of her nod. “I’m not as young as I used to be, and steps are proving a challenge to these old joints. I want someone younger to see to the work upstairs. Rents and inquiries I can handle down here.”
She turned her back and waddled toward a closed door, leaving Kathryn standing in the center of the room, searching for an argument. The problem was, she saw the woman’s point. Well, except for the fact that the weakened state of her joints was probably due to overload more than advancing age. Still, managing a hotel of this size no doubt included the unpleasant tasks of keeping the rooms clean and, therefore, the guests comfortable. And if one was incapable of handling those tasks, one would need to hire someone to help. Hence, the arrangement with Papa.
It made sense. If she were going to stay, that is. Which she most certainly was not. But she had overheard Captain Baker mention to a crewman that the Fair Lady would be in port for four days. Though Papa had not sent her away penniless, her travel allowance was by no means generous. And unbeknownst to Papa, she had spent quite a bit on the painting supplies that were packed carefully in her trunk, for who knew how hard they would be to find here? Between that and the donation she had managed to make the day they sailed, of which Papa would certainly not approve, her ready cash had been severely depleted. If she had to pay for room and board, she may not have enough left to purchase passage on the return trip to San Francisco.
It appeared she had no option but to accept Madame’s offer of employment, distasteful though it may be.
Well, and why not? If a woman were to make her way in this world, she couldn’t be afraid to work even menial jobs. She was a grown, capable woman, and certainly wasn’t unac
customed to household duties. At home she tidied her own art room. Papa and Mama employed a cook and a housekeeper to take care of the other chores, but she did not trust anyone to enter the sanctity of her studio, especially when she was working on a painting.
She would not call herself a maid, though, even for four days. A girl had her pride, after all. “I accept the offer to become your assistant manager.”
“My assistant, eh?” Madame’s blast of laughter ended in a snort. From the surface of a small table in the corner she took up a match, struck it, and lit a candle. “Call yourself what you will, as long as those rooms get cleaned every day and the guests are happy.”
A minor victory, but one that would have to do. A thought occurred to her. “How much will I be paid?”
Scraggly eyebrows shot upward. “Paid? You’ll get a bed, a blanket, and a roof over your head. That was my arrangement with Philip.” A smile that looked more like a taunt leaped onto her face. “And the honor of calling yourself my assistant, of course. Here’s your room.”
She threw open a door in the far wall and gestured for Kathryn to enter. When she did, she blinked to adjust her eyes to the darkness. Behind her Madame held the candle high and details emerged from shadows. No wonder the woman stopped in the doorway. Her rotund figure would have filled the tiny space without an inch to spare. The only furnishing was a narrow bunk, not even as wide as Kathryn’s berth on the Fair Lady. There was no chest of drawers, no writing desk, not even a chair to sit and read.
She whirled, her mouth gaping open. “Why, this is not a room! This is a closet.”
“I used it for storage until they got me a shed built out back.” She moved the candle in a circle as though to shed light into the corners, an unnecessary gesture since the room was so small there was not enough room for shadows to hide from the candle’s glow. “Once you start earning your keep, I figure you can move upstairs. Only now we’re full up with paying guests so this is the best I can do.”
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