The Pages of Time

Gilded Summers-5

She babbled, layering rule upon rule like frosting on a cake. Too many to remember; too confusing not to break. It would only be a matter of time. Did all of America live by such rules?

As we climbed, I found yet another surprise, another hidden floor. Here were the servants" quarters. From the outside, this floor looked like a row of carved vertical indents held up by carved brackets, all of the same peach-colored stone, a parapet not to keep marauders out, but the servants hidden.

As we hurtled the last step, I stopped mid-stride. I found myself not in a dungeon as I expected, led there by the fiery dragon that was Mrs. Briggs, but in a simple dormitory of rooms. I didn"t know then that the constant juggling and fighting for good servants were part of the life of the rich, `the servant problem," I would later hear it called. Mr. Worthington had built a nice servants" floor, hoping to keep his staff pleased and in his employ.

A wide hallway with polished wood floors stretched the length of the house. In two places, my head dropped, eyes widening at the large rectangles of glass squares etched with stars. I saw the light of the sun and my gaze flew upward. Above them, windows in the roof matched their size and shape. Sunlight flowed through the very floors and ceilings as if the owner could command the sun above him as well and as easily as he did all the people beneath him.

On each side of the hall, numbered doors led us on.

Mrs. Briggs brought me into the one that would be my room.

“All the single rooms are occupied,” she informed me. “You shall have to share.” Were a single room available it would not be mine to have. I knew which rung on the ladder I stood; I had not yet stepped off the ground. Whenever she looked at me, her eyes started at my face, but always moved downward, always darkened with distaste.

The room was far larger than I expected. Two beds hugged the walls, each with a large white steel headrail, a smaller one at the foot. There were two closets, two chests of drawers, two chairs, and a large dressing table that sat before the window between the beds. It was far more than I had ever had at home; it did not make me miss home any less. Home was not a place or things.

The windows were a surprise, the secret of this floor revealed. Through the mullioned panes, I spied a small roof, level with the bottom of the window, a roof of small rectangles of stone. Just beyond, a grey high-shingled wall, the wall that on the outside appeared as carved stone, the wall hiding us away. At least the windows let in the natural light, but it came from nowhere. I could not see the sun or it me.

“You shall be sharin" this room with Greta,” she told me, accidentally dropping her `g," not so superior in truth after all. “You shan"t see her much. A kitchen maid works the longest hours.”

She turned her back to me, yet I heard her mumble, “And that"s what you should be.”

I pretended not to hear, though I did it badly. I would become a master at it soon enough.

Greta"s side of the room was bright and alive. A merrily squared quilt covered her bed, pictures hung from the wood rail circling the room painted pale yellow, a lovely, embroidered pillow sat on the chair. The other side looked barren and empty; my side.

“Put your things away.” She pointed to the chest and the closet. “I"ll be right back with bedding and something decent for you to wear.” She looked offended as her gaze scratch over me.

She left me there. I sat on my bed, wondering if I would ever breathe again.

My father had promised me this would be a better life for us, as he had promised my aunts it would be. He had filled my head with the wonder that was life in America. I did not know them then as the fairy tales they were. This room was to be “my home” for the rest of my days. My skill with a needle put to use keeping the fancy clothes of the very rich in perfect condition.

I heaved a gulp of air.

In Italy, I would not have such a fine house. I would have married a simple boy from our simple town, and we would have lived in a simple house. But it would have belonged to us, to me. I would have made clothing for my husband and myself and, if blessed, our children. The clothes would have belonged to us. I would have earned a few lira sewing for others in the village, money for my family.

liraHere nothing would belong to me. I would take no pride in my work, for the people who wore the clothes would never notice it. I would make a little money, but with no family to share it.

I could no longer call my life my own.

* * *

When I finally saw my father again, he was sitting at the far end of the long table in the servants" dining room just off the kitchen, another small and cramped rectangle. He sat alone. There were at least three empty chairs on either side of him; the other servants bunched themselves together at the other end like grapes.

There was another table, a small round one, in the back, right corner. At that table sat Mr. Birch, Mrs. Briggs, the chef, and another man whose face I hadn"t seen yet. No one need tell me why. One day I would learn they—the rulers of the ruled—were called the “Swell Set;” I would have another name for them. The real “servants” belonged at the long table. There were ranks within the ranks; I was in a maze with no clue of which path to take.

I rushed to my father, but his guarded look buffeted me. I slowed, sat beside him. In hushed Italian, we told each other of our day. He had fared better than I had. He had his own small room to sleep in and work in, a space of his own, filled with the incredible tools and wood Mr. Worthington had waiting for my father and his talented hands.

As he told me of it all, his eyes gleamed; he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. I hated Papa for a sharp moment—a sharply jealous moment—hated he should be so pleased.

Yet I couldn"t break him of it; I hadn"t seen him happy since before Mama grew ill. What sort of daughter would I be to deny him this? One that would surely and sharply have displeased my mother.

I told him of my room and that I would share it with another girl. Though I hadn"t met her yet, I was sure she sat somewhere along this table. When I told my father of the sewing room Mrs. Briggs had shown me, my enthusiasm—what there was of it—was true, a truth I found easy to exaggerate; a small gift to him. The equipment was the best I had ever seen, some I had never seen. My fingers, so skilled with a needle, guided and trained by my mother when I was a young child, longed to begin work, which I would in the morning.

I watched my father"s eyes as they took all of me in them.

“Your clothes, they are fine,” he said in Italian.

My uniform would be the same as most of the other women: a simple black, puffed sleeved blouse, a simple black full skirt, both of cheap cotton. I would wear no apron or cap of any kind. My short-heeled, ankle boots were my own. Though their cracks and worn spots had insulted Mrs. Briggs, there were no others in the house to fit me.

“Shine them up,” she had ordered me, telling me where the shoeshine room was. “I"ll get you new ones when I have the time.”

Who knew when that would be? I had rubbed my boots for a half-hour with some linseed oil and a rag.

“Yes,” I responded flatly, hearing my own indifference, “fine.”

His thin lips drooped at the corners until he opened them. Before he could say more, the staff room maid began her parade into the room. In and out, in and out she came, with dish after dish, simple fare of chicken and potatoes and peas. It was the best meal my father and I had eaten since we left Italy.

We sat among the rest of the house staff, as we would at every meal, among them but not with them. They were all there, all the inside servants Mrs. Briggs had named, yet I had no idea who was who. I knew my father hated to reveal his thick accent in the few words of English he could speak. Though one of the most talented and creative people I had ever known, he would not let his speech reveal a false truth. How strange it was for a man with such a great mind, and me, who possessed one as well, to be thought of as simple, simply because we spoke with an accent. Accents sit upon the lips, not in minds, but small minds could not know the difference.

For his sake, I followed his lead, eating without a word. Though I did not speak, I did more than my fair share of listening. I convinced myself it was to learn the language better, a feeble disguise. I fed upon their gossip as I did the meal. My naughty eavesdropping would make my yenta aunts proud. The thought almost made me giggle.

“The mistress has instructed me to find out what the Astor woman has ordered for her fall gowns.” I heard Mrs. Briggs say to Mr. Birch. With a quick glance, I saw she ate her fill, more than I would have imagined from the look of her. Perhaps her meanness devoured the food long before her body.

“You cannot wear that dress at yer wedding, Edna!” The outcry came from a parlor or chambermaid. I knew them by then as those who wore the dainty lace on their heads.

“What?” The sweet-looking girl beside her, Edna no doubt, grew paler, though I didn"t think it possible. She looked to one of the footmen closer to my end of the table. He shrugged his shoulders, a groom-to-be unaffected by such nonsense. The bride turned back to the woman. “Why ever not, Beatrice? You know I cannot buy my own.”

“It is bad luck, thas what it is,” the outraged girl, Beatrice, hissed.

“But dear Mrs. O"Brennan has made such a kind offer.”

“Indeed, I have,” chimed in one of the older women, by her all-white clothing, the assistant chef.

A gasp came from the other table. Mrs. Briggs grew ever-sharper dripping in overly dramatic horror. “You cannot do it, Edna. It will be the death of you.”

With her sharp tongue, she told a tale of her niece, one who was to wed on the very day some man shot the president named Lincoln. The ceremony canceled; the bride gave her dress and veil away. The woman who wore it to her wedding died within a week.

Old world suspicious came into the room, beside it fear in a range of tones bouncing off the hard stone like church bells. Their voices told me another tale as well.