Maid to Match (22 page)

He buried his face in Mack’s neck and shook his head. “I want my pa. I wanna go home.”

“Well, your pa doesn’t want you,” she snapped. “Now, quit blubbering and come along or you’ll do without your supper.”

Tillie gasped.

Mack tensed. “Cover your ears, boy.”

The boy pressed one ear against Mack’s shoulder. The other he covered with a dirty hand. Mack set his lips against his teeth and let out a loud, piercing whistle, which slid up the scale, down and then up again.

Jumping, Tillie slammed her hands against her own ears.

A window on the second floor wheeled open. “Mack!” A girl on the cusp of adulthood leaned out. “I’ll be right there!”

Mrs. Sloop pointed her finger at the girl. “You will stay inside and finish your work.”

She looked at the woman, then at Mack. He winked.

A smile bloomed on her face and she disappeared, then burst out the door running full tilt. “What are you doing here in the middle of the week!” She flung her arms about his waist, sandwiching the boy between them. “Have you come to get me? Are you taking me with you?”

Her faded brown cheviot dress with an oversized epaulet collar suited a ten-year-old. Its short length barely reached her calves, threatening to be just this side of indecent. A thick shock of dark blond hair was gathered at her neck in a filthy ribbon.

Mrs. Sloop pulled in her chin. “I told you to stay put.”

Mack nudged his sister behind him. “I’m going to visit with Ora Lou for a few minutes. We can do it here or inside.”

“No one is allowed inside except during visitation.” Snapping her fingers, Mrs. Sloop reached out a hand. “Come along, Homer.”

Tillie touched Mack’s sleeve, afraid the woman’s anger would be taken out on the boy if Mack didn’t release him.

He sighed. “Homer? Is that your name?”

The boy nodded.

“This here behind me is my sister. As soon as I’m through talking to her, she’ll come back inside and check on you.”

Ora Lou’s face fell with disappointment.

“Until then, you need to go with Mr. and Mrs. Sloop.” He tried to peel the boy off of him, but Homer tightened his hold.

“No, no! I won’t go in. I
won’t
.”

Tillie stepped toward Mrs. Sloop and introduced herself. When people found out she was part of Biltmore’s upper staff, they often catered to her as if she were a Vanderbilt herself.

Mrs. Sloop was no different. “Danver is carrying parcels for you, then? You’re not . . .
with
him.”

“That’s correct,” Tillie answered. “And I’m wondering if perhaps Homer could stay out here with us until Ora Lou and Mr. Danver are finished? Maybe by then he will have calmed a bit.”

The woman clearly didn’t care for the idea, but was unwilling to upset Biltmore’s head parlormaid. She turned to Ora Lou. “Put him in with Artie when you come inside. And don’t linger.”

Spinning around, she commandeered her husband’s arm, and the two of them disappeared through the front door.

Mack turned to Ora Lou. “You all right?”

She nodded. “They still stay clear of me. Ever since you lit into him.”

“You weren’t so confident last time I was here.”

She cocked her head. “No? Well, it was probably because of Irene. She’s not a very strong person. She needs someone to look out for her.”

“And you’ve decided to take on the job?”

She smiled. “I guess I have.”

While the two of them talked, Tillie watched the boy. The moment he made eye contact with her, she ducked her face behind Mack’s shoulder in a game of peekaboo. She’d drawn many of her own siblings out of their doldrums with the universal game.

Slowly, she peered back around him. As she’d hoped, the boy’s eyes were wide and watchful. She ducked out of sight again.

“Where have you been?” Ora Lou asked Mack. “I expected you a week and a half ago.”

He absently patted the boy’s back. “The Vanderbilts had a house party and no one got their day off. But since I was in town today, I wanted to come tell you I’d saved enough money to get you out, but I want to earn a little more in case it takes you some time to find a job. Give me a couple more weeks, all right?”

Tillie looked at him, forgetting about the game. Mack had said that as soon as he had the funds he needed for his siblings, he’d leave Biltmore. She had no idea he was so close to his goal.

Panic began to well up until she remembered he’d said siblings. Plural. Was there another Danver in the orphanage? Did that mean he’d have to work longer at Biltmore to support more children?

Ora Lou’s face lit up. “Do you mean it, Mack? Just two more weeks?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

She flung her arms about his neck, again sandwiching the boy between them. Homer locked eyes with Tillie. She held out her arms and he came without hesitation.

She’d intended to put him on the ground and hold his hand, but before she could, he latched on to her the way he had Mack. The precious feel of his thin, bony frame hugging her tight cut right to her heart.

She wrapped her arms around him, rocking him, patting him, shushing him, all while she tried to suppress memories of her mother doing the same for her. And if she were a mother, she would surely do the same for her child. But not if she stayed at Biltmore. For if she stayed until her late thirties, she would, most likely, never be a wife, much less a mother.

She looked up at Mack. He and Ora Lou had quit talking and were watching her. Homer tucked his thumb in his mouth. He was way too old to still be sucking his thumb, but no one said a thing.

Melancholy touched Ora Lou’s eyes. “Reminds me of when we had to leave Ikey, Otis, and John-John with those families on the mountain.”

Tillie frowned. “Who are Ikey, Otis, and John-John?”

“Our little brothers.” Ora Lou looked at her. “So you’re Biltmore’s head parlormaid?”

She blinked. “Your little brothers? You, you have
three
little brothers?”

Ora Lou raised a brow. “Who is this, Mack?”

“Tillie Reese. We’re getting married soon.”

Tillie gasped. “We are not.”

“Yes, we are.” He turned back to Ora Lou. “We have to go. Our train will be coming in a bit and we still need to pick up our parcels. Here, you take him.”

“We are
not
getting married.” She tried to transfer Homer into Ora Lou’s arms, but her sharp tone frightened him and he would not let go.

Mack placed a hand on the boy’s back. “Listen, Homer. I’ll be back on Sunday. So you go on with Ora Lou. She’ll take care of you.”

Homer clung even tighter with arms, legs, and desperation.

“Why don’t you carry him to Artie’s room,” Ora Lou suggested. “That may be quicker.”

Tillie glanced between them. “But no one’s allowed inside right now. Only during visitation hours.”

“Then make him get down,” Mack said. “We need to go.”

A tear from Homer’s cheek dropped to her neck.

She sighed. “Show me where Artie’s room is.”

Instead of going through the front, they went round back. Tillie was so used to Biltmore’s efficiency, the primitive kitchen took her by surprise. Only one stove for all those children?

But she didn’t have time to linger. Ora Lou looked both ways, placed a finger against her lips, then led them tiptoeing down a dim hallway and into a stairwell. The condition of the building surprised Tillie. Clearly, Sloop’s renovations had yet to touch this section.

With one hand, she lifted her skirt, with the other, she supported Homer – leaving none with which to hold the railing. But she’d carried many a load more cumbersome than this up and down the steps of Biltmore. Still, Mack placed a steady hand against her waist.

She had no doubt he felt the tremors scuttle up her spine. She only hoped he attributed them to the fear of being caught rather than a reaction to his touch.

Forcing herself to the task at hand, she captured brief impressions between the floors. Moldy, wet smells. Filth and cobwebs. Loose balusters. A hole in the wall. And flies everywhere.

At the third floor, Ora Lou paused. “It’s right down this hall.”

About halfway down, she opened a door for Tillie. The tiny room held nothing but two cots, a chamber pot, and a peg for clothes. No pitcher, no lantern, not even a candle. The walls were papered with years of grime. The floor, bare and gritty. The cots offered no bedding other than a blanket apiece – neither of which looked as if they’d been washed in a month of Sundays. Surely this wasn’t where the children slept.

“Where’s Artie’s room?” Tillie whispered.

“This is it.”

She tried to hold in her shock. “Where’s Artie?”

“He’s locked in the basement for bad behavior.”

She gasped. Mack stiffened. Homer tightened his hold.

Locked in the basement? She looked up at Mack, his eyes as troubled as hers. How could they leave this child here? But what other choice did they have?

Carefully, she lowered herself to the edge of the cot and pulled Homer’s feet to one side. “Listen to me. Ora Lou will stay here with you and show you where you need to go. I imagine it will be suppertime soon and you’ll want to wash up like a good boy, so you make a nice impression on Mr. and Mrs. Sloop.”

Once more, she scanned the room, wondering how he would wash up without pitcher and basin. “Mr. Danver will be back on Sunday.” She looked up to double-check with Mack.

He nodded.

“Perhaps when he comes you can accompany Ora Lou during her visit.” Again she checked with Mack.

Again, he gave her an affirmative.

“For now, though, I need you to let go.”

“Will you come back?” It was the first words he’d uttered since his refusal to go with Mrs. Sloop.

“Absolutely. If not this Sunday, then the next one I have off.”

“You promise?”

She smoothed his hair. “I promise. Now, come. Be a good boy and let Ora Lou show you what you need to do.”

He slowly loosened his grip, then paused and kissed her right on the lips, their noses bumping, before sliding off her lap.

Tears clogged her throat. She’d barely whispered good-bye when Mack drew her up by the hand, whisked her down the hall, down the stairs, and then out the back door.

Tillie sat on her parents’ porch sewing an infant slip. Though it was her day off, the maternity baskets could not be delivered until the slips were completed. So instead of going to the orphanage with Mack, she had to stay behind to stitch. She told him to tell Homer she’d come next time. She hoped the boy wouldn’t be too disappointed.

Finishing off a seam, she scanned the yard dotted with trees of light and dark green. Tucked into the corner, an impatient ash clothed in reddish violet leaves offered a premature peek at fall colors.

Her mother rocked beside her, helping to sew yet another slip. “There’s been some talk about you and the useful man.”

Tillie looked at her sharply. “What are they saying?”

“That you’re romantically involved.”

She tightened her shawl, warding off a bite in the afternoon breeze. “Says who?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. I was just curious, is all.”

“A woman’s reputation is not in her own keeping, Tillie, but at the mercy of others. The only control you have is to be completely aboveboard.” Her mother looked over the wire glasses propped on her nose. “Something’s going on. What is it?”

Tillie plucked a collar facing from her sack, then matched it against the slip’s neckline. “Nothing is going on.”

Mama’s needle stilled. “Are you attracted to him?”

She felt a blush creep up her neck. “Mama, please.”

After a moment, her mother once again set the chair to rocking and took up her sewing. “Oh, he’s a handsome one, I’ll give you that. And he appears to have more character than his brother. I can see how he’d turn a girl’s head.”

Tillie offered no reply.

“But with all that’s at stake, you can’t afford so much as a whisper of gossip.”

“I know.” She tugged on the thread, tightening her stitch.

“Lucy Lewers’s mistress gave her a solid gold thimble as a token of her appreciation.”

Tillie sucked in her breath.

“Did Miss DePriest leave you anything?”

She stared at her mother, until the two locked gazes.

“You know she didn’t.”

Mama nodded. “Then I suggest you end whatever it is between you and Mack Danver, or before you blink you’ll have handed over the opportunity of a lifetime to Lucy.”

Tillie studied her mother’s face. The face which had seen thirty-seven years of life. Twenty-one years of marriage. The birth of ten babies. The death of one.

Subtle creases fanned the corners of her eyes and lined her lips like a button stitch. A touch of gray threaded through her hair.

“If I’m awarded the lady’s maid position, I’ll be the age you are now when they ask me to step down and allow some younger, prettier girl to replace me.”

“And think of all you’ll have seen and experienced. Think of the money you’ll have earned and saved. Think of all the good you will have done for your family and those in need.”

What about the loneliness? What about all the childbearing
years I’ll have lost? What about Mack?