by Jae
It was the only good thing about her new employment. The butler had taken a dislike to her for some reason; the cook was too busy to say even one kind word, and Biddy seemed to think that Giuliana’s presence in the household meant that she, herself, no longer had to do the heavy work.
At the end of another long workweek, Giuliana muttered Sicilian curses under her breath as she knelt in the entry hall to brush down the carpets with tea leaves. It was an old trick to get rid of the dust, but her body didn’t appreciate all that bending and scrubbing. Her fingers, still red from doing laundry all day on Monday, ached as she gripped the carpet brush.
The front door swung open, and a gust of misty air drifted into the house.
Giuliana paused in her work, enjoying the coolness on her overheated skin. She let go of the brush with one hand and reached up to wipe her forehead. When she looked up to see who had entered, her gaze trailed up a shockingly short skirt, barely able to cover a pair of slender ankles, and then over a long linen duster and a pair of goggles that now rested on Miss Kate’s forehead.
It was the third time Giuliana had seen Miss Kate in her motoring outfit, but she still hadn’t gotten used to it. The most amazing thing wasn’t the outfit itself; it was the fact that Miss Kate—a woman—could drive an automobile. Giuliana had never before seen a woman driving an automobile, but Mr. Winthrop seemed unconcerned about letting Miss Kate take out the noisy machine on her own.
“Good afternoon, Giuliana,” Miss Kate said as she took off the duster, revealing a tucked-in shirtwaist with pleats.
“Good afternoon, Miss Kate.” Giuliana jumped up and reached for the duster to put it away for her.
But Miss Kate pulled the duster out of reach. “That’s not necessary. I can hang it up myself.”
A little puzzled, Giuliana retreated. She couldn’t quite make her out. Had Miss Kate not shared her mother’s blue eyes and slim figure, Giuliana would have thought her adopted. She was so different from Mrs. Winthrop. In fact, she was different from the women Giuliana had known in Sicily and even the few she had gotten to know here in San Francisco.
She dropped a little curtsy and was about to go back to work when Miss Kate stopped her with a quick touch to the arm.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“What?” Giuliana looked back and forth between the carpet and Miss Kate’s face. “Brush the carpets?”
“Curtsy,” Miss Kate replied. “There’s no need for formalities when we’re alone.”
What was she supposed to say to that? Miss Kate’s words didn’t fit the rules her mother imposed on every servant in the household.
Miss Kate didn’t seem to care that a lady of her standing was supposed to ignore the hired help. She cocked her head and looked at Giuliana with an expectant smile.
Truth be told, Giuliana enjoyed being treated like a human being, not a servant, by at least someone in the family. But it was a bittersweet experience, one that she couldn’t fully enjoy. If Mrs. Winthrop saw them talk to each other, she’d take her annoyance out on Giuliana. So she tried to stay out of sight as much as possible as she went about her duties, just the way a good servant was supposed to. But Miss Kate made that all but impossible.
“I really cannot,” she whispered. “I should not…”
“Shouldn’t do w—?”
“Goodness gracious!” a loud voice behind her made Giuliana flinch. “Kathryn Elizabeth, surely you aren’t wearing that skirt again! I told you it’s much too short to be proper attire for a young lady.”
Miss Kate sighed. “Mother, everyone is wearing them when riding around in automobiles. Long skirts are just not practical for climbing up onto a motorcar.”
“Everyone? I don’t see the Bakers’ daughters or Mr. Jenkins’s sister wearing skirts like that. But then again, they aren’t driving all over town on their own, completely unescorted.” Mrs. Winthrop tsked and shook her head. “Your father is spoiling you too much. If your brother had lived, everything would be different.”
Miss Kate’s spine stiffened. “But he didn’t. I’m the one who survived the darn typhoid fever. I know you wish it different, but—”
Mrs. Winthrop gasped. “No. Never. I never thought that for a second.” She glanced at Giuliana, who was staring at the carpet, trying hard to make herself invisible. “Not in front of the help. Let’s go into the drawing room.”
In passing, Miss Kate handed Giuliana the duster and the pair of goggles and whispered, “Thank you.” Then the door closed behind the two Winthrop women.
Giuliana stared after them and slowly let out the breath she’d been holding. So the Winthrops’ lives weren’t as blessed as she had thought. All their money hadn’t saved their son from dying of typhoid. So it seemed she and Miss Kate had something in common after all. They had both lost a brother.
She shook her head at herself. That didn’t mean they could ever be equals. Back to work. That carpet wouldn’t clean itself. She put Miss Kate’s duster and goggles away and then knelt on the carpet and picked up the brush. For a moment, she peeked toward the drawing room, wishing she could hear what was being spoken inside, then she resumed scrubbing.
* * *
Her mother pulled Kate over to the small table. Even when they were both seated, she didn’t let go but kept holding on to Kate’s hands with an almost painful grip. She hadn’t known there was so much strength in her mother’s elegant fingers.
“When your brother—”
Kate interrupted by squeezing her fingers hard. “Say his name.”
“Pardon me?”
“His name. Father and you rarely mention it anymore.” Sometimes, it was as if her brother had never existed and she’d been an only child all along.
Her mother dabbed at her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. “It’s not because I have forgotten him. It just…it hurts too much. When Cornelius Junior fell ill and we couldn’t get his fever down, I would have done anything, given anything to save him. Except for one thing.” She slid the handkerchief into the sleeve of her dress and looked at Kate with red-rimmed eyes. “I never prayed for the Lord to take you instead.”
Kate searched her mother’s face and found nothing but truthfulness. It felt as if a heavy weight that had rested on her chest for the last eight years had been lifted. “Did Father?”
“No,” her mother said firmly. “No. You know he loves you.”
“But he loved Corny too, and Corny could have taken over Father’s shipping business.” Kate tried to keep her voice from cracking.
Her mother rubbed Kate’s hand between both of hers. “You’ll marry and have a family. Your husband and sons will carry on the business.” She peered beneath the table at Kate’s skirt. “But for that to happen, we can’t have the eligible bachelors thinking you’re behaving in an unseemly way.”
“This is a new century, Mother. Wearing a motoring outfit and driving an automobile is no longer improper behavior for a woman. Women can have pastimes other than needlework and can even hold down a job nowadays. In fact…” Kate took a deep breath. Maybe now was the time to tell her mother of her efforts to seek employment with the San Francisco Call.
But before she could do it, her mother got up and went over to her overstuffed armchair. She picked up a newspaper before joining Kate at the table again. “It might be a new century, and on the surface a lot of things might have changed, but deep down things are still the same. When you were a little girl, people might have found it endearing when you spoke your mind or when you later spent all your time taking photographs of people and tinkering with dangerous chemicals in that darkroom of yours, but—”
“They aren’t dangerous if you know what you’re doing. I know as much about chemistry as any man my age.”
“That’s just it. You are not a man. And you’re no longer a child. Most young women your age are already married. You should spend your time getting serious about one of your suitors, not taking photographs or driving an automobile.”
Kate sigh
ed. She’d heard that sentence for years, and she was sick and tired of it. “You’d think becoming an adult would afford me more freedom, not less. Why must it mean I have to give up everything I hold dear?”
Her mother gave her a smile that appeared almost wistful.
For a moment, Kate wondered what her mother had given up when she had come of age and had gotten married. Or had she always been the way she was now, focused on her family and her home, with few interests other than the occasional charity work?
“Being an adult means doing the responsible thing,” her mother said. “Even Alice Roosevelt seems to finally realize that. See?” She slid the newspaper she had picked up from the armchair over to Kate, who turned it around to read it.
It was the Amador Ledger, the newspaper published in Jackson, California, where Mother’s grandfather had struck it rich mining for gold. One of her sisters still lived there and sent her news from home from time to time. This issue’s headline said, Miss Alice to wed.
Kate stared at the newspaper. President Roosevelt’s daughter was getting married? To Kate, Alice had always represented the modern woman—someone who was free to set and achieve her own goals. Granted, the First Daughter didn’t seem to have any particular goal in life. She’d always been a bit of a rebel, outspoken and unconcerned with other people’s opinions of her. Newspapers all over the country reported on her antics—drinking gin, smoking on the roof of the White House, betting on horses, and tearing around the capital in her automobile.
Sometimes, Kate wished she could be more like Alice Roosevelt. Not the gin and the cigarettes, but defying the expectations of her family and society. And now the rebellious First Daughter was about to give up her independence and be a proper wife? Somehow, it felt like a personal betrayal to Kate.
“A grand wedding in the White House…Won’t it be wonderful?” Her mother got a little dreamy-eyed. “Have you seen the photograph of her intended? He’s a congressman and the only son of a millionaire.”
The words her mother wasn’t saying hung heavily between them. Alice was about the same age as Kate, and she had landed the kind of husband Kate’s parents wanted for their daughter. “Yes,” Kate repeated dutifully. “Wonderful. Just wonderful. If you don’t mind, I’ll go up to my room now.”
Her mother nodded and let her go.
The newspaper still in her hand, Kate trudged to the door and stepped out into the hall.
Giuliana was still on her knees, her back to Kate as she scrubbed the carpet. Her rhythmic motions made her skirt swish back and forth, drawing Kate’s attention toward her pleasantly rounded backside.
What are you doing? You know it’s not right to look at other women that way. But she knew that admonishment wouldn’t help. She had always looked at her classmates with more appreciation than was proper, and as the years had gone by, that strange affliction showed no sign of letting up. The only thing she could do was ignore it as much as possible.
She wrenched her gaze away and directed it at the newspaper clutched in her hand. For the first time, she noticed the words beneath Alice’s photograph: copyrighted by Frances Benjamin Johnston.
Her brooding thoughts evaporated like the fog on a warm summer day. Miss Frances B. Johnston had been Kate’s idol since the day she’d leafed through a copy of her mother’s subscription to the Ladies’ Home Journal. In an article, Miss Johnston—a famous photographer who traveled Europe unescorted and opened her own photographic studio—encouraged women to take up photography as a means to support themselves. She had photographed diplomats, admirals, and leading political figures, including President McKinley right before his assassination. According to the Amador Ledger, Miss Johnston would also be the photographer who would get to take Alice Roosevelt’s wedding portrait—an opportunity that any photographer, male or female, would have given his or her right arm for.
Maybe it was a sign. Kate didn’t have to follow Miss Roosevelt’s example by marrying a wealthy man and forever giving up her dreams. She could strive for the life that Frances B. Johnston was living. It wouldn’t be easy, but it might still be possible. All she needed was a chance to prove herself. Now with a spring to her step, she climbed the stairs to her room, already thinking about what she could do.
* * *
“This roast is delicious,” Kate’s father said.
Her mother beamed as if she had prepared dinner single-handedly.
Kate couldn’t care less about the roast. Her mind wasn’t on dinner. She kept glancing out the window. Darkness had fallen, and the gas streetlamps threw patches of light onto the cobblestones.
Great. Here she was, stuck at the table with her parents, while every reporter and newspaper photographer had hastened to City Hall at nightfall.
It was as if architects had planned the layout with that purpose in mind, because the bronze-domed building held not just City Hall but also the police station and the Central Emergency Hospital. If you wanted to report on anything interesting happening in the city—rumors about corrupt politicians, crimes, arrests, or accidents—all you had to do was lie in wait at the main entrance. Easy, at least if you were a man.
For Kate, however, things weren’t quite that effortless. She couldn’t very well take the cable car down to Market Street and wander the streets alone at night. Even if she made it to City Hall unmolested, she couldn’t stroll into the emergency hospital and play cards with the doctors on duty, as the other newspaper people did.
One thing was sure: opportunity wouldn’t just drop into her lap while she sat around and ate roast. If she wanted to become a newspaper photographer, she needed to prove herself to the Call’s editor.
Instead of returning to her room after dinner, she snuck into the darkroom to ready her camera. She carefully cleaned the lens and then opened the hinged door at the back of the camera to insert a seven-by-five-inch dry plate, still in its plate holder. Working in complete darkness, she slid the camera closed and sealed off the light-sensitive plates. Her fingers moved as if by themselves, performing the familiar task without needing even the amber light from the oil lamp.
Finally, she packed the camera into its leather carrying case and slipped half a dozen unexposed glass plates into the compartment next to it. She gazed at her collapsible tripod and then decided not to take it with her. Newsworthy events usually happened fast, so there wouldn’t be time to set up the tripod. At the last moment, she decided to take the flash pan and a bit of magnesium powder, just in case she had to take a photograph without good light available.
Her equipment all packed, she considered the next step of her operation. Should she take the Packard to drive to City Hall? The chances that her parents would hear her start the engine were small since they kept the automobile on the other side of the yard in the former stable. But any chance, no matter how small, was too much for Kate. If her father noticed her gone, he would send their butler after her.
What about her bicycle? Up until her father had bought the automobile, that bicycle had taken her everywhere, much to the consternation of her mother. But it didn’t have a place to put her equipment, and if she hung the carrying case from the handlebar, the fragile glass plates might break.
There was only one option: she’d have to walk down Nob Hill and somehow sneak into City Hall.
The carrying case in hand, she tiptoed out into the hall to get her coat.
A crashing sound from inside of the study made her freeze. Had her father dropped one of his thick, leather-bound books? A low moan drifted over. Kate’s heart started beating faster. She put the carrying case down and rushed into the study.
* * *
Stupitu! That had been a really stupid thing to do. Giuliana wanted to slap herself. From her position on the floor of the study, she stared at the toppled-over chair and the books that had rained down on her. She’d taken off her shoes and climbed up onto one of the upholstered chairs to reach the top shelf of Mr. Winthrop’s bookcase, but even with the help of the chair, she hadn’t quite been able
to reach the books on the very right. Instead of climbing down, repositioning the chair, and climbing back up, she had leaned to the side, her arm with the feather duster stretched out as far as it would go.
That was when the chair had toppled over. She fell, landed with her foot twisted between a chair leg and a spindle, and crashed to the floor. Luckily, the carpet had broken her fall.
Get up! What if someone heard you and comes in? When she tried to get up, pain lanced through her left ankle. “Ouch. Minchia.” She dropped back onto the carpet and clutched her foot.
The door was pulled open.
Oh no. Now her days in the Winthrop residence were numbered for sure.
“Giuliana!”
It wasn’t Mrs. Winthrop’s shrill voice or Mr. Winthrop’s booming baritone. Relief swept through Giuliana. Miss Kate wouldn’t give her away.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” Miss Kate rushed over to her and knelt next to Giuliana with complete disregard of any wrinkles it would put into the dress she’d worn to dinner.
“Sssh,” Giuliana whispered. “They will hear you.”
Fine lines appeared on Miss Kate’s smooth forehead. “They?”
Heat crept up Giuliana’s neck. “Your mamma and papà.”
Miss Kate went to the door and closed it before returning. “What happened?” she asked again. “And why are you still here? I thought you’d gone home already.”
“I wanted to dust the bookcase before I go, so it is clean if…”
“If my mother decides to get out the white gloves and check again,” Kate finished the sentence for her.
Giuliana looked down and nodded. “I wanted to do good this time.”
“I see.” Miss Kate looked at the books that had fallen on top of Giuliana when she must have grabbed them on her way down, trying to hold on to something. A tiny smile quirked her lips. “It seems the books didn’t appreciate your attempt to dust them. Did they attack you?”
Despite her embarrassment and the pain in her ankle, Giuliana couldn’t help returning the smile. “Yes. They jumped on me when I did not look.”