by Lynn Austin
My hopes for proof that Jack was my father are dashed. I watch Vera work for a moment while I think what to ask next. Sweat runs down her face as she cranks the hand-wringer with one hand and feeds the cloth between the rollers with the other. It has never occurred to me to wonder how our servants wash my clothes. My garments simply reappear in my wardrobe and bureau drawers, clean and mended and neatly pressed.
“Um … do you recall the name of the family you and Mama worked for?” I ask.
“Certainly. The Blackwells.” I freeze when I hear the name. “Herbert Blackwell was a big-shot judge, but the money to rebuild their new mansion right after the Chicago fire came from his wife’s side of the family. Bessie Rockport Blackwell was a society matron.”
“Were … were they any relation to James Blackwell?” I ask with my heart in my throat.
“He’s their only surviving son. Their other two sons died young. The Blackwells also had two daughters a little younger than James.”
“Was James a lawyer?” Vera looks up at me.
“How did you know?”
“An attorney named James Blackwell helped Mama win a settlement with the railroad after her husband was killed.” Vera stops cranking for a moment and pushes a strand of sweaty hair out of her eyes.
“That’s right. I remember now. Christina did come into a little pot of money, thanks to Mr. James.”
“Can you remember anything else? What was he like?”
She gives a little laugh. “He was a very peculiar fellow who seemed to enjoy chatting with the servants more than with his rich society friends. Christina thought the world of him for helping her.”
I scarcely dare to breathe. “Please tell me everything else you can remember.”
Vera sighs and feeds another garment through the wringer. “Well, it all happened a long time ago, you know… .”
Chapter 15
Vera
Chicago, Illinois
1872
I first met Christina early one Sunday morning when my aunt, who owned a boardinghouse in Cicero, brought her over to the mansion on Lakeshore Drive where I had just started working. “Christina needs our help,” my aunt said. She told me all about Jack Newell and why Christina needed to hide from him. It so happened that Judge and Mrs. Blackwell had just moved into their grand new house, and they needed to hire a boatload of servants to keep it running. Christina went by her maiden name, de Jonge, back then, and of course she came with a good recommendation from my aunt after working at the boardinghouse for about a year. They hired her right away.
“Both of you girls will start at the bottom,” the housekeeper, Mrs. Philips, told us. “You’ll be beneath all of the other servants, but if you work hard and do what you’re told, you can earn your way up to a better position and more pay.” Mrs. Philips wasn’t really married, but she went by that name so the servants would respect her. She was like a little hornet, buzzing in and out of rooms and able to be everywhere at once. She had a pointy nose and a sharp tongue, and she carried a sting, too, if we didn’t do exactly what she said as speedily as possible. Anna and I did all sorts of jobs—cook’s helpers, scullery maids, dusting and cleaning and polishing the silver—whatever needed to be done. We were grateful for a job and a roof over our heads.
Our work kept us downstairs and out of sight most of the time, but not too long after we started working for the Blackwells, the judge called for someone to come up and build a fire in his study, where he was having an important meeting. The housekeeper sent Christina and me to do it. The fireplace burned coal, so we carried a scuttle full of it upstairs along with matches and kindling. The judge, his son, James, and five other gentlemen wearing dark suits and equally dark expressions were gathered around the table in the study, smoking cigars and talking in somber voices. We tiptoed into the room, trying hard not to draw attention to ourselves, but I was so nervous that I accidently dropped the coal shovel onto the stone hearth. The judge was sitting with his back to us, and the loud clang nearly made him jump out of his trousers. Christina tried to grab the shovel, but in the process, she knocked over the rack with all the brass fireplace implements and they fell onto the stone hearth with a terrible racket. “Stop that infernal noise!” Judge Blackwell shouted.
“We’re sorry, sir … so sorry …” Christina said. Both of us were upset and eager to finish and get out of there. Neither one of us remembered to open the fireplace flue before lighting the fire. Smoke poured into the room. We tried desperately to douse the kindling, but the thick smoke caused a storm of coughing and shouting from the judge and his cronies. Christina and I scurried around like ants, opening windows and fanning the smoke with newspapers as we tried to undo the damage, but of course the men had to move to a different room.
“I suppose we’ll both be looking for new jobs now,” Christina said as we slunk back downstairs to the servants’ quarters, our faces smudged with soot.
“And we won’t be getting good references from Mrs. Philips, either,” I added.
“No one is going to get fired,” a voice behind us said. We turned, and there was the judge’s son, Mr. James, following us downstairs. And he was laughing! “Do you have any idea how comical you girls looked, trying to chase out the smoke while my father shouted and sputtered? I’ve never seen a funnier sight!”
“We’re so sorry—” Christina tried to say, but Mr. James stopped her.
“Don’t worry about it. You already apologized. Tell me your names.”
“I’m Christina, and she’s Vera.”
“Well, Christina and Vera, I’m sorry if my father frightened you. My parents are very old-fashioned, and they believe that servants, like children, should be invisible. In fact, my mother wanted to build secret passageways throughout this house so her servants could appear and disappear wherever they were needed without being noticed. She’d seen something like that in a castle over in Europe somewhere. I reminded her that this is America, not Europe, and that we aren’t royalty. Our servants deserve to be treated with dignity and respect like other men and women.”
It worried me that Mr. James had followed us all the way down to the servants’ level, but I found out in the months that followed that he liked to spend time down there with the hired help. It made his parents furious, which is probably why he did it. He claimed that ordinary folk like us were more honest and trustworthy—and much more interesting—than his society friends. He was not much older than Christina and me, with a head of thick, wavy hair the same mahogany color as the woodwork throughout the mansion. Mr. James was good-looking, and he knew it. He loved to flirt with young servant girls like us and get us giggling. According to one of the parlor maids, James Blackwell was highly sought after as a future husband in society circles.
“If you two girls ever need anything, just let me know,” he said with a wink that day, and he strolled outside through the back door to smoke a cigarette with the carriage driver.
We got so used to having Mr. James downstairs in the kitchen with us that we hardly noticed him after a while. He happened to be down there one morning, having a cup of coffee, when a messenger arrived at the back door. “I’m looking for Christina de Jonge,” the man said, holding up an envelope. I was washing the breakfast dishes and Christina was drying them, and I saw her face turn pale. I knew she lived in fear that her husband would find her—she rarely left the house, even on her half-days off.
“Who is it from?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” the messenger said with a shrug. “Mrs. Marusak from the boardinghouse in Cicero asked me to deliver it.” Christina set down the bowl she was drying and hurried to take the letter from him. Mrs. Philips appeared out of nowhere just then, so Christina stuck the envelope into her apron pocket to read later. Mr. James stopped her.
“Wait. I’m sure the letter must contain important news if it came all the way from Cicero this early in the day. Mrs. Philips won’t mind if you take a moment to read it, will you, Mrs. Philips?” The housekeeper shook he
r head—but I could see by her tight grimace that she did mind.
“The rest of you get back to work,” she barked. “The Blackwells aren’t paying you to stand around and gawk.” I returned to my sink full of dishes, keeping one eye on Christina as she opened the envelope and pulled out a typewritten page. She looked it over, then let out a little cry before stumbling backward and slumping onto a kitchen chair. Mr. James was beside her like a shot.
“What is it? Are you all right, Christina?”
“No … I mean … I-I will be. I’m sorry.” She started to rise, but James insisted she remain seated.
“Take a moment. I can see that you’ve received some bad news.”
“Yes … There’s been a death… .”
“Someone fetch her a glass of water,” Mr. James said as he squatted beside her. I hurried to obey, hoping to get closer to see what the letter said. I didn’t know if it was Mr. James’ kindness or the news, but something had brought tears to Christina’s eyes. The page fell to her lap as she took a drink, and I saw that it bore the letterhead of the Illinois Central Railroad. Mr. James must have spotted it, too.
“May I see it?” he asked. Christina nodded. She seemed too numb to speak. I returned to my task at the sink while Mr. James silently read the letter. Mrs. Philips hovered nearby, too, as nosy as the rest of us. Mr. James let out a little whistle when he finished. “I read about this railroad accident in yesterday’s newspaper. Three men were killed. According to this letter, one of them was … your husband?”
Now it was my turn to be shocked. My hands flew to my mouth to stifle a cry. I wasn’t sorry that her bum of a husband was dead, but Christina’s secret was no longer a secret. She would be fired for lying about being unmarried, and maybe I would be fired along with her.
“Your husband?” Mrs. Philips echoed. “You told me you were single when I hired you.”
“Now, now … I’m sure there’s an explanation,” Mr. James said.
“Oh, there’s always some sort of excuse,” Mrs. Philips said. She seemed oblivious to Christina’s tears of grief. “These girls lie about being single in order to get a job, and then they go sneaking off to be with their husbands on their days off. First thing you know they’re having a child, and I’ve wasted all my time training them.”
“But I left my husband,” Christina said. “I’m hiding from him … that is, I was hiding from him.” She paused, wiping her tears. “He used to beat me, so I had to leave. I would never go back to him even if he begged, because I know he’ll never change. And now I can’t go back.”
The room fell silent. No one ever talked about what went on behind closed doors. Many people believed a husband had a right to slap his wife around if she defied him. Christina wiped her tears again and straightened her shoulders as if gathering strength. “I’m sorry for not telling you the truth, Mrs. Philips.” She stood, untied her apron, and handed it to the housekeeper as if certain she was about to be fired.
“Don’t expect a recommendation—” Mrs. Philips began, but Mr. James interrupted her.
“You aren’t going to be fired, Christina. Besides, you may not need this job anymore if you let me help you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Board of Admissions just notified me a week ago that I’ve passed the requirements to practice law in Illinois. I’m an attorney now. And according to what I read in the newspaper, the union believes the railroad was entirely to blame for the accident. You may be entitled to a settlement as his widow.”
“But I don’t have any money to hire you.”
“Don’t worry about that. With a lawsuit as big as this one, I could make a name for myself in this city—if you’ll trust me to handle your case, that is.”
Christina agreed. What choice did she have? James Blackwell was her employer. She put her apron back on and returned to the pile of dishes waiting to be dried while Mr. James bounded up the stairs two at a time, whistling a tune.
A few weeks passed and nothing seemed to happen with the lawsuit. But I sometimes heard Christina crying at night after we turned out the lights. “I loved Jack and I thought he loved me,” she said when I tried to comfort her. “I left my family and my home to be with him, and I know it broke my parents’ hearts. I don’t understand why Jack stopped loving me.”
“Sounds like he was just no good,” I told her. “An honorable man would have asked your parents for your hand, not run off behind their backs.”
“It was my fault as much as Jack’s. I loved him so much that he was all I could think about.”
“Well, don’t waste any more tears on him, Christina. There are plenty of better men out there. And you’re still young and pretty.”
Christina wouldn’t be consoled. “I don’t believe in second chances,” she told me. “I won’t marry again.”
Then one day the lawsuit took off, with meetings and trips to the courthouse nearly every day and legal documents flying everywhere. Christina and Mr. James were together a lot for the next few weeks, which made Mrs. Philips grumble behind their backs. “How can I run a household with my servants taking time off to go here and there?” But she could hardly complain, since Mr. James was the one taking Christina away from her work.
One afternoon, Christina and I were polishing the silver together in the butler’s pantry when Mr. James came bounding in, carrying on and on about some decision the judge made in their court case. I didn’t understand a bit of it—but I did notice the way Christina’s eyes sparkled as Mr. James talked. I watched more closely, and I could tell by the way she looked at him that she was falling for him. I warned her about it that night when we were alone in our attic room.
“Don’t be a fool and go falling in love with Mr. James, Christina.”
“I’m not,” she insisted, but her face turned a pretty shade of pink in the lamplight. “He’s helping me fight the railroad, that’s all.”
“I’ve heard plenty of stories about servants who have affairs with the rich folk, and they never end well.”
“It’s nothing like that. He’s interested in this court case, not me. It’s his big break, he says. Everyone will want to hire him if he wins.” The more she denied her feelings, the prettier she looked.
“Mr. James is a handsome man, isn’t he?” I asked to test her reaction. She didn’t reply, but her cheeks turned from pink to red. “Ah, so you have noticed! I hope you won’t listen to any of his sweet talk if he starts laying on the charm. The heir to the Blackwell family fortune would never marry someone like you.”
“I know.” She sounded a little sad, which worried me. But I had said my piece, so I let it go.
Late one afternoon, Mr. James came downstairs with a bottle of champagne and a huge grin on his face. “Time to celebrate!” he shouted. Christina was getting ready to take a tea tray upstairs, but he took the tray from her hands and set it aside, then picked her right up in the air, twirling her around. “We won, Christina! We won! The railroad agreed to our terms, and we’ve settled out of court. You’ll be getting your money soon.” He set her down again, then pulled her into his arms for a hug before finally releasing her. Those of us watching were shocked. Who ever heard of an employer embracing his maid that way? Christina looked radiant, but I was certain it had nothing to do with winning the money.
Mrs. Philips came flying into the room a moment later. “The celebration will have to wait until our work is done, Mr. James. Your mother is waiting for her tea.” She nodded to Christina, who picked up the tray again and headed for the stairs. She looked so rattled and thrilled and dizzy, I had no idea how she would be able to carry it. She was playing with fire, and I could only hope she wouldn’t get burned.
Now that Jack Newell was dead, Christina didn’t have to hide anymore. My aunt wanted her to come back to the boardinghouse, but Christina kept working for the Blackwells. Mr. James didn’t spend as much time in the basement with all of us after the railroad hired him to work as one of their lawyers. “They want me on their sid
e, not working for the union,” he said when he told Christina the news. “Thank you for trusting me with your case.”
About a year or so after Christina and I went to work for the Blackwells, I started going to dances at a little dance hall not far from the stockyards whenever I had a Saturday evening free. “Please come with me, Christina,” I begged. “I know you’ll have a lot of fun.”
“I don’t dance. I don’t know how. We didn’t go to dances in the town where I grew up.”
“You like music, don’t you? Just come along and have a lemonade or a beer and listen to the music. You never go anywhere or do anything, even though you don’t have to hide from Jack anymore.”
I convinced her to come. She was such a pretty little thing that I knew I would get a lot of attention if she was sitting alongside me. We were all dressed up and about to leave through the servants’ door that first night when we ran into Mr. James, who was chatting with the stableboys and carriage drivers outside. “Don’t you girls look pretty all dressed up! Where are you going?”
“Vera talked me into going to a dance with her over by the stockyards, Mr. James. I’ve never been to one before.”
“It sounds like fun. Have a good time, you two.”
It turned out that we did get a lot of attention that night, sitting at our little table together. A lot of men asked Christina to dance, but she turned them all down, insisting she didn’t know how. Then I nearly fell off my chair when I looked up and there stood Mr. James, holding out his hand to Christina. “May I have this dance?” he asked. She was so surprised and flustered—and pleased—that for a moment she couldn’t speak.
“I-I don’t know how,” she finally stammered. “I just came to hear the music.”