The first Monday of 1894 began like any other. Eileen was up early. It was a school day, of course. She was always excited about going to school. I think it was because it afforded her a modicum of freedom. My father kept her close now that Mama and Joshua were gone. Sometimes, I think he rather thought of her as a stray kitten. He was overprotective to the point of smothering the child and never let her go to the park unless both of us were with her.
I thought his behavior strange, but knew he was still grieving.
There were other things to worry about. Like trying to find a maid to help with the cooking and cleaning. I was stretched thin caring for Eileen and waiting on my father hand and foot. My mother coddled him, often to his detriment. She always had his pipe ready for him when he came home. His slippers beside his favorite chair. A roast on the table, ready to be carved and served with his favorite wine.
He expected the same now that I was no longer in school.
Perhaps I was being unfair. He worked all day. But unlike my father, I never got Saturday or Sundays off. I worked seven days a week. I was the first one up in the morning and the last one to turn in. I was also the last one to eat. After serving everyone, my dinner would often be cold. I’d be too tired to reheat my dish. No one helped with the dishes. Or the wash. Laundry would be tossed in the scullery for me to pick up. My father expected creases in his trousers. Eileen always wore pressed dresses, whether she went out to play or not.
I cared nothing about wrinkles, content with clean petticoats.
Besides ironing, there was also the starching and mending. There was bread to make. Butter to churn if we didn’t go shopping. I had a list as long as a football field of things that needed to be done daily. Growing up with a maid spoiled me, I think. My father was reluctant to hire another one, saying they cost money. But I thought they were well worth the expense. My mother certainly thought so, having grown up in a household with both a cook and a housekeeper.
Without a maid, I spent all day sweeping and dusting. The kitchen floor never seemed to get clean, no matter how many times I mopped. Carpets gathered dust like magnets, likewise all the wood in the house. My father said I was being melodramatic.
That may be true, but I was frustrated.
He and Eileen were out all day while I was trapped inside a house with nothing to do but play housemaid. I had just turned nineteen and longed to return to my studies. My father thought I was being selfish, saying it was hard on Eileen not having Mama around. “You’re the closest thing to her,” he chided one night after I inquired about hiring a maid. “I told you it’s only temporary.”
I was too tired to argue.
I think I was so consumed with Eileen and my household responsibilities that I was oblivious to what was happening around me. My father began behaving oddly, often getting up in the middle of the night to go on long walks through the city. “I get restless without your mother beside me,” he said when I asked him about the mud stains on his clothes.
He rarely ate.
He would shut himself in his study all day, even on his days off.
And, to my horror, he began borrowing enormous sums of money. I found a receipt for one such transaction in his pocket when I was doing the laundry. I didn’t know what to believe at first, thinking he might have more of Joshua’s debts to settle. As time went on, I feared he may have gotten himself into a spot of “trouble” and couldn’t climb out of the hole. I was uncertain how to broach the subject and put it off until it was too late.
Much like a festering limb, my father’s troubles soon spread to every aspect of our lives. Suddenly, there was no money for anything. Bills piled up, and I was forced to plead for more time.
Eileen needed a new dress for a school play.
I offered to make her one, and she threw a screaming fit so loud and horrific, I sold my schoolbooks to buy her the one she wanted, along with the matching shoes. My father barely said a word, content to while away in the corner with his newspaper or his lesson plans.
Things were so dire I began looking for work.
I’d wait until my father left the house to peruse the employment advertisements. I could sew and bake. But out in the real world, you needed experience. Most of the advertisements were for nursemaids or servants. All required notes of reference from the last place of employment. Disheartened at the lack of prospects, I set the newspaper aside and went about my housework.
Weeks went by in a similar fashion.
One morning, I had a little extra time for myself after walking Eileen to school. I strolled the cobbled High Street, peering into quaint shop windows full of goods I couldn’t afford. I laughed at silly hats adorned with feathers and embroidered gowns from Paris. I needed a new package of needles and purchased a few skeins of thread, eyeing my brown paper package with dull enthusiasm. Such was my splurge for the day.
There were a few shillings left over, and I wandered to the local coffeehouse for a cup that didn’t require my assistance to make it palatable. I took my steaming coffee to a back table and sipped gratefully. As I savored the rich brew, my senses were overwhelmed with the aromas of freshly baked bread and cinnamon. How I longed for a Danish. I hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning, rushing to get my father and Eileen out the door. I sighed with wistful longing over a glass case stuffed with chocolate cake and muffins.
I forced myself to look away and focused on the people around me instead. There were businessmen with their bowler hats and impeccable mustaches. There were young women in servant’s garb and starched aprons. Students. I could tell because they ate half of what they ordered and wrapped the rest in a handkerchief for later. Most of the men had their noses buried in the morning paper. After one finished his breakfast of tea and toast, he left the paper on his table. I calmly helped myself to its smudged pages.
I leafed through stories about labor protests and a peasant uprising in Korea. The advertisements were in on the last page. In small print. I fished out my spectacles and squinted at notices for maids, cooks, and gardeners. There were a few notices for an English tutor, but my eye sought a position as a companion for an elderly woman. Preferably one who needed nothing more than someone to read to them before naptime. Anything more beyond traveling and keeping the poor dear company might be too much to ask.
Especially since my experience with the infirm and elderly was severely lacking.
I’d been around my grandparents, but I knew that wasn’t the same. Maybe I should look for a job in a textile mill. There were plenty up north. I could get a job and visit on the weekends. My father would have to let me if I agreed to send money home.
Wouldn’t he?
“Dear, dear,” I muttered to myself, sensing it would not go over well. My father was stubborn to a fault. He wanted me at home so he wouldn’t have to worry about Eileen. That was the crux of the matter.
It was also my dilemma.
If I somehow sought and procured employment, would he agree to look after Eileen? He didn’t even know her shoe size!
“How’s it going?” a girlish voice said, breaking my reverie. I glanced up in confusion. Was she addressing me? I pointed at myself. “Yes,” she laughed, helping herself to an empty chair and pulling it up to my table. “I haven’t seen you here before.” She pointed at the newspaper. “Looking for a job, are you?”
“Er… yes.”
“Oh! You’re an American. I hardly see those.”
“We’ve only just arrived,” I explained. She was a delicate creature with enormous eyes and fragile bones. She also wore a maid’s uniform. “I am looking for work,” I confirmed, biting my lip. “But I have no experience.”
“Some jobs don’t need it.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Have you been to the registry?”
“No.”
“They’ve got a board with all the postings. What are you looking for?”
“I thought I could be a companion.”
She tilted her head to one side, reminding me of a curious magpie. “You’d have to have references for that. Or be recommended for the position.”
“I don’t have those.”
“Oh. Can you cook and clean?”
I nodded.
“Well, you’re halfway there.”
“What do you do?”
“Me…?” She laughed. “I’m a maid. Maid-of-all-work, mostly. I do a little bit of everything.”
“Does that pay well?”
“Not as much as the upstairs folks. But I do all right.”
“You seem very young.”
“I’m not. I just turned twenty.”
I frowned at the tiny lines etching her eyes. “Do the employers treat their servants well?”
“Some do. It depends. I work for a surgeon and his wife. Splendid fellow.”
Something caught my eye. At first, I thought I was seeing things. I pushed the newspaper the girl’s way and asked her if it was a misprint. “Does that say what I think it says?”
The girl squinted. “I don’t read very well,” she admitted, sounding out the words. “I think they are asking for a companion.” Her eyes widened. “For a gentleman no less!” She slid the paper back. “Isn’t that the strangest thing?”
“How so?”
“You never hear about elderly men needing a companion. They usually have a valet or butler.”
“Yes,” I murmured, frowning over the description. “In wealthy households. This doesn’t specify.”
“Want me to inquire at the registry?”
“Would you?”
“I’m going there tomorrow. I usually check the notices to see if there’s an upper housemaid position.”
“I thought the surgeon was nice.”
“Oh, he is. It’s just I’d like a change of scenery.”
“Don’t we all?” I tore out the advertisement and handed it to her. As she walked me out, I wondered why she would go out of her way for a stranger. “Are you sure it isn’t too much trouble?”
“Not at all,” she assured me, placing the slip of paper into her purse. “I was once like you.” She introduced herself as Susan. “Shall we meet here again? Say on Saturday? At the same time?”
“I don’t know if I can get away.” I thought about it and figured I could say I ran out of salt. My father never noticed those things. “I’ll try.”
She nodded. “If I don’t see you, I’ll leave a message with Mr. Hartwell.”
“All right.”
We parted ways at the corner. She gave me a little wave, and I waved back, hopeful yet uncertain. I walked back to the house and wondered what I was hoping for. To get away? Away from what? If I found a job, it would certainly be no better than what I was doing now.
Thinking nothing would come from it, I counted my steps until I spied the familiar whitewashed gate.
