The Maid's Quarters

by Holly Bush

  Chapter Two

  “I’m going to Mrs. McKinnell’s as soon as I am dressed,” Alice said to her mother, who was busy heating up a frying pan to brown leftover ham.

  “I’ll be down with Jimmy as soon as he’s eaten. Maybe Bet will have some boxes for us to pack some things, or should we send one of her boys to the grocer for a box?”

  “But where are we going to put everything?” Alice asked, as she brushed her hair and wound it in a tight bun.

  “Your da was here last night. He said there’s a shed behind the boardinghouse that is dry and we can stack some of the furniture inside.”

  All Alice could think of was that he would probably sell it all before they were settled somewhere else, but it mattered little if it was sold or if she had nowhere to store it. Their things would be ruined or in some other home, and not in their possession either way. But she had promised herself to try and think the best rather than the worst, and to give her da a chance, if only when talking to her ma about him.

  “How is he feeling? Did he eat anything?”

  Maeve turned to her. “Oh yes, Alice. He ate and said he was feeling a bit better because of it. He asked me to particularly thank you for the meals.”

  “We played three games of checkers, we did, Alice,” Jimmy added from his bed. “I won every time!”

  “Did you now, Jimmy?” Alice said, and looked at her ma, whose eyes were shimmering with unshed tears as she stared down at her boy in his bed. Alice buttoned her coat and drank down the coffee her mother handed her. “I want to be at Mrs. McKinnell’s when Mr. Nyturn comes with the key.”

  Maeve nodded. “Yes. And hopefully Bet will keep Mr. McKinnell in the house until the agent is gone. We don’t need to be the cause of misery for that family as they’ve been good to us all these years.”

  “Mr. McKinnell?”

  “He was nigh on furious when we were put out. He told Bet he’d be happy to find Nyturn in the middle of the night and make him see reason.”

  “There’ll be no fisticuffs today, Ma.”

  “You’re a good girl, Alice. I am ever so glad you’re here.”

  Alice hurried down the street, pulling her coat close around her. When she rounded the corner to Cherry Street, she saw a crowd gathered in front of her house and Devon McKinnell running to her.

  “Miss Alice! The men are tearing up your house! Hurry!”

  “What?” she shouted, and looked past the boy to her home. “Tearing up the house?”

  Alice ran the last half block, one hand holding up her skirts and the other on her hat. Mr. and Mrs. McKinnell were there and other neighbors had gathered round, all shouting as the front door banged open and dishes hit the porch atop clothes and pots and books and furniture. Alice could not believe her eyes.

  “Stop!” she shouted, and ran up the steps and into her home. “Stop! What are you doing?”

  Nyturn turned to her from directing men as they ransacked the kitchen. “Maybe learn to keep your mouth shut and stay away from your betters, you mouthy piece of baggage.”

  “Stop these men this instant!”

  “Or you’re going to see my fists coming at you, Nyturn,” Mr. McKinnell said from beside her.

  “You’ve no right to do this! I’ll send for the police!” Alice cried.

  “Go ahead girl!” Nyturn said, as he directed men to the second floor. “Go ahead. We’ll see what the coppers say about moochers trying to steal out of one of Mr. Donahue’s houses.”

  “We’re not moochers! And Mr. Donahue told me yesterday that you were to come here and give me the key so I could get our things.”

  “But Mr. Donahue ain’t here now, is he, girl?” Nyturn said, and looked about at the burly men that he’d brought with him. “What are you standing here staring for? Get the sledgehammer and break up this furniture!”

  Mr. McKinnell charged Nyturn full on, and the two men tumbled to the floor. Another neighbor, young Robbie Duff, heard McKinnell’s shouts and ran in, taking on two of Nyturn’s men. Mrs. McKinnell smacked the third man in the head with a pot. She called to Alice.

  “Help me, Alice. We’ll drag this no good, worthless bit of a man out on to the street.” Bet McKinnell straightened when Alice’s ma passed them. “Get any valuables you have, Maeve. They’re aiming to tear it all apart, and Bert and Robbie can only hold them off so long.”

  Alice took hold of the man’s pant leg, while Mrs. McKinnell took the other and began dragging him out the door. She saw her mother frantically pulling drawers out of the china cabinet lying on its side. She hurried back into the house to help her mother, carrying an empty box Mrs. Spretz had handed her, intending to help her gather any valuables that were still unbroken. She stopped suddenly, seeing her ma kneeling on the floor, sobbing, and piecing together a cream pitcher and its handle.

  Maeve Porterman looked up at her daughter. “All of my ma’s furniture and linens in pieces. This came from the old country, too, you see. It was the last of her china,” Maeve said between the shouts and gasps of men fighting with fists.

  “Come, Ma,” Alice said. “Bring it with you then, put it in here. Where is Jimmy’s medicine?”

  “I’ve got it,” Maeve said, as she struggled to her feet.

  Alice wrapped an arm around her mother as they hurried out, stepping over and around debris on the floor. Once outside, Maeve went to Jimmy, who was crying and being comforted by Mrs. Spretz as he sat in the cart he was being wheeled in. Alice turned around, went inside, and called to Mr. McKinnell and Robbie Duff.

  “Come out now,” she said to them. “There is nothing more to be done here, and I don’t want to see you hurt on our account. Come along now.”

  The men contented themselves with shouting obscenities at each other as they tumbled out of the house. Nyturn was telling one of his men, now holding his jaw, to hurry to the police station.

  “This rabble’s got to learn their lesson! Hurry now and get there and back with a copper before these ruffians run off.”

  Mr. McKinnell pointed to his house. “I live right there. Tell him to come see me and I’ll tell him what happened, I will.”

  Maeve was crying as she held Jimmy in her arms, a blanket tucked around the boy. Jimmy was staring at their house and patting his mother’s arm. Mrs. Spretz and Mrs. McKinnell were shouting at the men while wielding rolling pins and frying pans. Other neighbors were calling out their dissatisfaction with hisses and boos. Nyturn and his men were pointing fingers and hollering back at the crowd, threatening to find out which of them rented from Mr. Donahue, so that they could be thrown from their houses, too.

  “Stop!” Alice cried, and the crowd quieted and looked at her. “Stop and settle your tempers. It is over, and there is nothing to be done about it. Go back to your homes.”

  “Go ahead and leave! The police will find you!” Nyturn shouted.

  “The police?” a voice said. “What is going on here?”

  Alice turned and saw Mr. Donahue. He tipped his hat to her and to the other women standing nearby. She was struck, as she was yesterday but refused to think on it at the time, that this Albert Donahue was a gentle man. Tall and lean, but with broad shoulders, he towered over most of the men, all but Mr. McKinnell, who was eyeing him now with distrust as were most of her neighbors. Donahue was staring at her and walking toward her, as if she were the only person on the street and there were not pots and pans and bits of chairs strewn about his feet and the yard. She wanted to look away, away from the intensity of his gaze, but she could not.

  “They’ve ransacked the property, Mr. Donahue,” Nyturn said then. “We couldn’t stop them, and they turned on us. Wild animals they are. Look at poor Williams over there with his teeth near gone.”

  “They’re gone,” Robbie Duff called out, and held up a fist full of teeth. “He’s got a soft mouth.”

  “What malarkey!” Mr. McKinnell shouted. “Alice stopped to tell us last night that the agent would be dropping off a key here so she’s able to get her brother�
��s medicine. I’ve been on the lookout, staying back from Mass, but no one knocked at my door and I didn’t know nothing till I heard crashing and shouting from the Porterman house. Is your men that done this with no provocation!”

  “No provocation? They’re squatters! Behind on their rent and only here as long as they were because of your good graces,” Nyturn said. “We came to salvage what furniture and wares we could to sell to make up for the lost revenue and found them inside tearing the place to pieces.”

  The crowd groaned and shouted their indignation. Mr. Donahue turned to Nyturn. “They were inside ahead of your arrival making this mess?”

  “They were!” Nyturn said, and looked at his crew of men.

  “Throwing furniture out the door as we got here, sir!” one of the men said. “We just tried to stop them.”

  Donahue nodded and looked around the yard and at Alice as she knelt beside her ma and Jimmy. Her ma stood, wiping her face of dirt and tears with the edge of her apron as she did.

  “Are you Mr. Donahue?” Maeve asked.

  “Let it go, Ma,” Alice said, and rose to hold her arm.

  Maeve shook off her daughter’s hand. “I won’t be silent, Alice. This man, all nice in his fancy clothes, will hear the truth from me, he will, and not some fairy tale this villain is telling.”

  “Mind your place in front of your betters, woman,” Nyturn said.

  Mr. Donahue turned and stared at his employee. “I’m willing to listen to her, Mr. Nyturn. Thank you for your input.”

  Maeve waited till he looked at her and reached down into her apron pocket. “Here. Here is your two dollars. That is what I was behind on the rent, and I won’t have you or your men calling me a moocher. I won’t!”

  “Two dollars? Nothing compared to what she owes!” Nyturn said. “The police should be here any minute, sir. Let them straighten this lying thief out.”

  “I am not a thief! And here are the receipts to prove it!” Maeve said, as she dug into the box she’d carried out of her house. “Here! Look! Here are the slips signed by him there.”

  Maeve’s hands shook as she sorted through the small pieces of paper. Alice sought to catch them before they landed on the frozen mucky ground and straightened one out while her ma handed them to Mr. Donahue.

  “This is what your agent gives me every month when I’ve paid the rent. I have them all,” Maeve said.

  Nyturn picked one off the ground, looked at it, and laughed. “Why these only say the date. Not the amount given or who it was given to or anything. Are you daft, woman?”

  “You gave me one of these every month when I paid, don’t deny it!”

  Nyturn shrugged. “Then tell me what it says.”

  “I can’t,” Maeve said quietly. “I can’t read and you know it. You gave me one of these every time I paid and told me it was my receipt.”

  “There’s nothing on this slip, ma’am, that indicates the amount you paid,” Donahue said as he stared at the paper. “I’m sorry, but they don’t mean anything.”

  Alice was doing all she could to keep from screaming and stomping her feet at the injustice of it all. But she would not give these men the satisfaction of seeing her acting like she had yesterday when her temper had got the best of her. She looked down at her brother, huddled under a thin blanket, and thanked the dear Lord that she wasn’t in this situation without any money or means to get new housing. It could have been so much worse. She would raise herself above that behavior as there was little she could do about it anyway. She looked up to see Mr. Donahue staring at her. Just then there was a loud crash on the path between her house and the McKinnells’, and a head popped out of the second-story window.

  “Torn up all the sheets and clothes and chopped the little bit of furniture there was, boss,” a man shouted from above.

  All eyes were on Nyturn. “I don’t know the man! He must be one of theirs,” he said, and sneered, but the agent must have felt the attention turning to him and began to slowly back up to the street.

  “Are we near done, Mr. Nyturn?” the man shouted from the window. “I’ve not eaten since sunrise.”

  Donahue walked to Nyturn and spoke low enough that no one else could hear. From behind a carriage came a large man who took Nyturn by the arm and led him away. His workers scattered. Mr. Donahue turned to her.

  “Miss Porterman. Let us inspect the damage in your home and see how I can go about making restitution,” Mr. Donahue said, and turned to the crowd. “I don’t condone violence, especially when it is used against any of my employees or in this case, former employees, however, I am glad to see that someone was here to help these two women in view of this injustice.”

  “What do you mean, restitution?” Alice asked.

  “I’ve given you your two dollars. Is there a penalty?” Maeve asked.

  Donahue shook his head. “No, ma’am. I intend to pay you for the damage to your things or replace them. And unfortunately, you are not the only ones whom Mr. Nyturn has swindled, which I discovered last night. Your explanation and receipts confirmed what I’d thought. Won’t you allow me to come inside with you and get you both out of the cold?”

  “I’ll take your brother to my house while you go inside, Alice,” Mrs. McKinnell said. “Carry him, Bert. He looks all tuckered out.”

  “Thank you, Bet,” Maeve said. “This cold air isn’t good for him.”

  Alice went directly to the back stoop where the firewood and some coal were stored. She’d have to get the broken windows covered quickly.

  Donahue came outside and took the load of wood from her arms “I’ll get it started, miss. Go inside with your mother.”

  Alice found her ma, Mrs. McKinnell, and Mrs. Spretz, righting furniture, sweeping and trying to piece together what was broken and strewn across the floor. Mr. Donahue came in carrying the wood, and some coal, and lit the stove. He pulled a small pad of paper from an inside pocket of his jacket and the stub of a pencil.

  “I am very sorry about this. Very sorry. I can have someone here tomorrow to fix all the glass and the broken frames, and I see a hole in the wall, so we’ll need a plasterer, too. These cabinets and fixtures in your kitchen need changing out as well. And it looks as though most of your furniture will need replaced. Mrs. Porterman. Will you accompany me to choose the replacements? We may as well get a coat of paint on everything while we’re working.”

  Maeve held her hands to her face. “Then you believe me? You know I paid all of my rent other than the two dollars I just gave you.”

  Donahue nodded at Maeve but continued to watch Alice. She felt his eyes on her like pinpoints, like sparks from the woodstove, like fireworks she’d seen one summer. His stare warmed her lower insides and her breasts and brought a blush to her cheeks. What was it about this man, her enemy, that made her think about babies and Sunday dinners? But was he her enemy? He believed her ma, apologized to them, and was fixing the house, even going as far as repairing things that Nyturn and his men had not done.

  “I’ll be at the shop for work tomorrow,” Maeve said, and looked from her daughter to Mr. Donahue. “But maybe Alice could accompany you. She has good taste and knows what we will need.”

  “Would you come with me to the furniture maker, Miss Porterman? I will, of course, have a maid come with us for propriety’s sake.”

  Alice shook her head. “That is unnecessary. That is to say, the maid is unnecessary, as I don’t think I can come with you. My brother is sickly and needs watching.”

  “I’ll keep the boy at my house for the day,” Mrs. McKinnell said, and nodded with a gloating smile. “He’ll have a good time, and the young ones can do their lessons with him.”

  “You should go, you should, Alice,” Mrs. Spretz said. “Pick the finest furniture and draperies and such, and let this fancy nob pay for them.”

  “He ain’t hard on the eyes,” Mrs. McKinnell said. “Wouldn’t be a hardship to spend the day him, now would it?”

  “You should go, Alice,” her ma said.
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br />   Alice could not stop a smile as she listened to her mother and neighbors. Donahue’s eyes twinkled and he was smiling, too. She looked up at him shyly.

  “You can hardly dismiss the words of all my champions,” he said, with a nod to the older women. “Would ten o’clock tomorrow morning suit you? I have a business meeting at eight but I should be able to be here by ten, in plenty of time to visit the furniture maker, and then perhaps you would join me for a meal at the Windsor House.”

  “I will be ready,” Alice said.

  Chapter Three

  Albert entered his home with a nod to Higgins. “Have Mr. Vickers attend me as soon as possible.”

  Of all the turmoil, deceit, and ugliness that day and the day before had brought, none struck him more than when Mrs. Porterman was digging through her box, hanging on to the torn slips of paper as if her very life depended on them. Watching them filter through her shaking fingers to the frozen dirty snow and her attempts at catching them. It made Albert sick. One of the things his grandfather had repeated over and over to him and his brother was to give each person respect and dignity, even if that person didn’t give it to themselves. Mrs. Porterman’s desperate determination to make clear that her family was not in arrears was difficult to watch, and he could tell it was embarrassing to her daughter.

  But more than all of that, he could barely think of anything other than the moment that Alice Porterman looked up at him with a smile. It drew the air from his lungs, and he forgot to breathe momentarily. Nor were there words to describe the multitude of emotions that whirled through his head when she accepted his invitation. Triumph and terror and an overwhelming need to touch her face, her hair, the long length of her leg. She was his, he thought as he sat down behind his desk, waiting for his secretary. She was his and he was hers as well, he supposed. How would he convince her of that fact?