Shaken to the Core (7 page)

She knocked softly and then opened the door an inch and peeked in.

What was that? Unlike the other rooms in the house, which were lit by the new electric bulbs, this room was dark except for the glow of an amber kerosene lamp in one corner.

“No!” Miss Kate shouted from inside of the room. “Don’t open the—”

But it was too late. The door was already open.

“Drat! Now it’s ruined for sure!” Miss Kate’s eyes seemed to glow like coals in the amber light. “Never, ever come in here, do you understand?”

Giuliana flinched back at the unexpected anger. “I…I…I am sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Miss Kate said, visibly reining in her anger by taking several deep breaths. “It’s just that my work is sensitive to bright light.”

Ducking even more, Giuliana wanted to close the door and retreat, but Miss Kate grabbed hold of it.

“Now that you’re already here, you might as well come in and tell me what was so urgent.”

Giuliana hesitated in the doorway. “Is not urgent. I just—”

“Come on in.” Miss Kate flicked on the electric light and squinted into the sudden brightness.

Hesitantly, Giuliana shuffled inside and closed the door behind her. Rather than look at Miss Kate, she let her gaze wander around the room. It was tiny and looked as if it might have been converted from a second larder or even a laundry closet. A workbench took up most of the space. Several enamel trays were lined up on top of it, each filled with some kind of liquid. The smell of chemicals wafted up from them, dizzying Giuliana. A pair of tongs rested against the tray to the right, like the one the cook used in the kitchen. Small shelves along the back wall held brown bottles, which probably contained more chemicals. A kerosene lamp with an amber glass globe threw its warm light onto a mahogany box with dark red leather bellows. It took Giuliana a moment to recognize what it was: a camera.

“You are a
fotografu
…a photographer!” Open-mouthed, she stared at Miss Kate.

“I am.” Miss Kate beamed, her eyes sparkling.

“Madonna mia! And I broke your pictures, no?” Giuliana directed her gaze at her scuffed shoes. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to do that.”

“It’s all right,” Miss Kate said a second time. “It wasn’t that good to begin with. I’ll go out later and take another shot. It’ll be good practice.”

Giuliana slowly lifted her gaze up to Miss Kate’s face. Why was Miss Kate so nice to her? Was she always like that? Surely nothing Giuliana had done had earned her special treatment, especially not that bruise standing out on the fair skin of Miss Kate’s forehead.

“So,” Miss Kate said, “was there something you needed?”

“Oh.” Only now did Giuliana remember the coin still clutched in her fingers. She slowly lifted her hand and presented the half eagle on her palm. “I found this in the front parlor.”

Miss Kate groaned. “Not again.”

“What do you mean? You lose another coin too?”

“No. I probably shouldn’t tell you, but seeing as you passed the test…”

More and more, Giuliana was starting to feel the way she had when she’d first come to America, speaking just the few words of English she’d learned on the ship. “Test? I do not understand.”

“That’s what my mother does every time she hires a new maid. She places a coin in the corner of a room. If the girl doesn’t return it to her, she’s either lazy and skips the corners when she’s sweeping or she’s a thief.”

All of a sudden, it wasn’t just the chemicals making her dizzy. Giuliana gasped. “I would never take money not mine.”

Miss Kate smiled. “I’m glad you don’t. Finding a competent girl is such a hassle nowadays,” she added in a reasonably good imitation of her mother’s voice.

Laughter bubbled up from Giuliana’s chest, but she quickly bit it back. Miss Kate might be allowed to joke about her mother; Giuliana, however, wasn’t. For a moment, Miss Kate’s friendly, unconventional nature had almost made her forget her station.
Don’t forget. Never forget, or you will end up like the maid and the chauffeur.

“I go and help Mrs. Tretow in the kitchen.” Not waiting for a response, she put the coin down on the workbench, backed out of the small room, and closed the door between them.

* * *

As always, Kate found her mother crocheting and sipping tea in the drawing room. “You can stop testing her.”

Her mother looked up from what might become a shawl. “Whatever do you mean, dear?”

Kate walked over and put the coin on the small, round table. “This is what I mean. She brought me the coin, so you can stop testing the poor girl.”

“Just wait until you marry and run a household of your own. Then you’ll understand why I’m doing it. A good wife has to protect her husband’s assets.”

Oh, so that’s why you’re spending Father’s money on a new dress every week.
Kate bit back the words before they could slip out.
Don’t be mean.
She was the one who was unusual, not her mother. All of Kate’s childhood friends delighted in the newest fashion and would have willingly gone along not just with her mother’s shopping trips but also with her attempts to marry her off to the son of a well-to-do family.

“Being too friendly to the hired help is never a good idea,” her mother continued.

“How can it be wrong to be friendly?” Maybe if her mother were friendlier to the servants, they wouldn’t have to find a new maid every few months.

Her mother shook her head. “There’s no need to be cruel, but you have to keep in mind that these people are not like us. Most of them grew up in the dirt. They don’t care a whit about cleanliness and will try to get away with the least possible effort. You have to keep a close eye on them—and make sure they know. In fact…” She glanced at the golden pendant watch she wore. “If she wasn’t dawdling, Julie should be done dusting the parlor and the study by now. Let’s go see if she did a good enough job.”

As her mother strode from the room, Kate followed her. Not to learn how to run a household and deal with idle servants, but because she had a feeling she might need to intervene. Her need to protect their newest maid surprised her. Before, she had rarely gotten involved in the interactions her mother had with the servants.
Must be the bump on your forehead.
She chuckled to herself.

They found Giuliana just leaving the study, a feather duster in her hand.

“Have you dusted the entire room?” Kate’s mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, then let’s see.”

They all trooped back into the room.

Kate leaned against the doorframe and watched as her mother walked around the room, checking for dirt beneath the Persian carpet and running a white-gloved finger along the golden frame of Grandfather’s portrait on the wall. She held out her finger. No dust. Grudgingly, she nodded in Giuliana’s direction.

Just when Kate wanted to breathe a sigh of relief and leave the room, her mother waved her over.

“Would you mind, dear? You’re taller and can reach the top shelf of the bookcase.”

Giuliana paled beneath her olive complexion. “I did not dust there, ma’am. Biddy…Obedience said she cleaned it on Monday, and the glass…it keeps the dust away, no?” She pointed at the shelf’s glass front.

“And that is exactly the reason why you need to keep a close eye on the servants,” her mother said to Kate in a triumphant tone. “They can’t think for themselves, so you’ll have to do it for them.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little too harsh, Mother?” Kate hadn’t missed the way Giuliana had flinched at practically being called dumb.

“Not at all.” Her mother turned to Giuliana. “If I say I want the furniture dusted, I want all the furniture dusted, no exceptions. Do you understand?”

Giuliana’s fingers tightened around the feather duster until her knuckles blanched. “Yes, ma’am. I understand. It will not happen again.”

“You’d better see that it doesn’t. I won’t employ an untidy girl.”

For a moment, a spark seemed to glimmer in Giuliana’s dark eyes, and she opened her mouth as if about to defend herself. But then she snapped her mouth shut and ducked her head. “Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am.”

Kate wanted to whisper an apology, but Giuliana slipped past her into the hall without looking up, her gaze fixed to the floor.

CHAPTER 5

Winthrop Residence

Nob Hill

San Francisco, California

March 31, 1906

For the rest of the week and the next one, Giuliana was on her guard every day, knowing Mrs. Winthrop was watching her every move, double-checking every bit of work she did. Working as a servant no longer seemed easier than selling crabs, but at least she’d been paid for the first time on Saturday.

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.”