The Maid's Quarters (4 page)

“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.

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?

“Yes, Mr. Donahue?” Vickers said.

“Please sit down.” He was not anticipating this interview
with joy. Albert liked Vickers, even knowing he was an odd sort of man,
particular about his appearance and his place in Boston society, the latter something
Albert didn’t care about at all. “I was wondering if you could explain to me
how you make your entries in the properties ledger.” Vickers looked at him
oddly, certainly wondering why he was asking about a system that Albert had arranged
and handled personally prior to his own hiring.

“Well,” he said. “On the last day of the month, Mr. Nyturn
and his associates collect the rent and the loans. By the second or the third
of the following month, Mr. Nyturn comes to see me and brings me the written
receipts and the money. I count the money against the receipts, and barring any
discrepancy, I go to the bank that day to make a deposit.”

“Are there ever discrepancies?”

“Rarely, but they do occur. For instance, last month, on the
receipt for the property on Elm where the Weintraub family lives on the second
floor was recorded that their rent was sixteen dollars a month. That is just a
small apartment and only brings in twelve dollars a month. I asked Mr. Nyturn
about the error, and he explained to me that he must have been looking at the
rental fee for the property on Walnut Street, as they are close by, and he had
recorded that amount on the next receipt for the Weintraubs. Just a clerical
error from what I could tell.”

Albert nodded. “How did you discover the error? Do you check
the receipts for the correct rental amount every month?”

Vickers colored. “No, sir, I don’t. I counted the money Mr.
Nyturn gave me, three times, as is my normal habit, and then added up the
amounts written on the receipts. I was short four dollars and began to look at
the receipts individually.”

“How many properties are behind in their payments, Mr.
Vickers?”

“More than there should be, that is for certain. I do not
know why people do not live within their means.”

“More than there has been in past years?” Albert asked.

Vickers nodded. “Yes. Mr. Nyturn said that good tenants are
increasingly hard to find, and that many are drunkards or gamblers, and often
don’t have their rent money put aside. He says he gives tenants the leeway you
have instructed but it galls him to be so generous to the vulgar spendthrifts.”

“Have we had so many new tenants in the last year? It was my
impression that most of the tenants stayed on for many years.”

Mr. Vickers drummed his fingers on Albert’s desk. “Hmmm.
That would be helpful to know, would it not? I will begin a study of how often
your tenants come and go.”

“Very good,” Albert said. “There is an issue I’d like to
discuss with you concerning Miss Porterman.”

Vickers tightened his lips into a thin line. “I am not proud
of my behavior that day, Mr. Donahue, but I was surely goaded into it. Some
people just do not know their place.”

“Perhaps you will think more charitably toward Miss
Porterman once I tell you my experiences from today,” Albert said, and repeated
all that had happened and what his suspicions of Mr. Nyturn were. “I believe
Mrs. Porterman paid all of her rent in full other than this past month, when
she was short two dollars, and which she promised to pay before the next rent
was due.”

“But . . . but, the receipts say zero dollars paid for three
months. I went back through them after Miss Porterman left to make sure I’d not
made an error.”

There was no doubt in Albert’s mind that Vickers had no idea
what Nyturn had been doing. One of the skills he’d acquired and honed early on was
reading men’s words for not only what they said but for what they meant. He was
quite good at it, and it had served him well him in many a business dealing.

“Mr. Nyturn increased the rent amount to tenants who were
unable to read or calculate, and there were many to choose from. I visited two
of them last evening and confirmed my suspicions. He continued writing the
correct rent amount on the records you received but collected the increased
amount, leaving him a sizable income each month, or he did what he did with the
Portermans, and recorded that they had not paid at all. Miss Porterman
challenged him, leading him to destroy her family’s possessions as a threat.”

“The thief!” Vickers said, and then looked at his employer
in panic. “Did you wonder about . . . well, of course you did. Let me assure
you, sir, I had nary an idea that Mr. Nyturn had this nefarious plan. I would
have told you straightaway!”

Albert stared at Vickers for five long seconds and let the
man squirm under his regard. “I don’t believe you had any idea of Nyturn’s
plan. I believe you were played the same as me, and the same as all the tenants
who were cheated.”

“It appears I owe Miss Porterman an apology, sir.”

“An apology is in order, Mr. Vickers. We will need to see to
refunding the other tenants the amount they were cheated out of, as well.
You’ll have to interview them and best determine what is owed. I am taking Miss
Porterman to the warehouses tomorrow to choose replacement furniture for everything
that Nyturn and his men destroyed. Will you be so good as to see to arranging
for our regular tradesmen to the do the repairs required?”

“Certainly,” Vickers said, as he stood. “I’ll take care of
it immediately.”

* * *

Albert dressed with care early the
following morning for his appointment at the bank. If the plan he presented
came to fruition, he would make a small fortune in a very short amount of time.
The first step, bank financing, was now complete. He’d not had the slightest
bit of nerves as he entered the bank building and was ushered into a room with
the president and the vice presidents of the bank, nor when he proceeded to lay
out his plan for reclaiming a large lot that had fallen into disrepair near the
Post Office. The men, all older than he, had listened attentively, and told him
he would have his answer within the next few weeks, but before he’d left the
lobby, he’d been asked to come back to the president’s office and told the
financing was approved. It was a sweet victory, one that he’d been able to
predict, even if he’d never thought the approval would have come so quickly.
After all, bankers are in business to make money, and this plan insured that
all parties would see a sizable profit.

But his next meeting was causing his stomach to roll
uncomfortably and had his thoughts in a disjointed jumble. His carriage was
soon pulling up at the Porterman home on Cherry Street, as he’d already stopped
to pick up the housekeeper’s assistant to act as chaperone. He knocked on the door
at precisely ten and took off his hat.

“Good morning, Miss Porterman,” he said when she opened the
door.

“Good morning, Mr. Donahue.”

“You look very lovely today.”

“Thank you,” she said, and looked up at him from under her
lashes.

“I regretted not having you and your mother and brother put
up in a hotel last night. I hope you were able to be comfortable.”

“We were fine,” she said. “The men didn’t touch anything in
my sleeping room, so my ma and I slept together. Jimmy stayed at Mrs.
McKinnell’s. Your workmen showed up very early with Mr. Vickers, and they have
been making good progress.”

“Oh, yes, they are here,” he said, looking past her and just
now realizing there were men in her house, pounding and painting and
plastering. She smiled, and he grinned and stared at her. “I was so happy to
see you that I didn’t notice them. Shall we go?”

Albert helped her into his carriage, introduced her to his
housekeeper’s assistant, Miss Denby, who promptly opened a book, and settled
into the seat across from the two women.

“So tell me, Miss Porterman. Have you lived all of your life
at 604 Cherry Street?”

“Yes, other than the last year that I lived in Texas.”

“Texas? That must have been quite a change for you. What
prompted that move?”

“I had been employed at the Crenshaw estate, Landonmore, for
eleven years, first as a cleaning maid and for the last six years as Mrs.
Shelby’s personal maid, she was Mrs. Crenshaw then. When Mr. Crenshaw died, she
married Mr. Maximillian Shelby from Texas, now Senator Shelby. I was the only
staff member to go with her. So you see there was never any need to bring a
chaperone. I’ve been in service all my life.”

Albert shrugged. “Customs like this are for all young,
unmarried women. It does not matter what you do or how much money one has when
considering a woman’s safety.”

“That is a very nice thing for you to say but not often true.
Women without means or family are often treated poorly in my experience.
However, Mr. Vickers was kind to me this morning when he showed up at our door,
and kinder still when he apologized to me.”

They arrived shortly at a warehouse near the docks where
furniture was bought and sold. Miss Denby remained in the carriage reading.

“I was reasonably sure that Mr. Vickers did not know of
Nyturn’s plan but wasn’t positive until I spoke to him. He knew nothing about
it.”

“And of course, his information was that we were months
behind on our rent when I decided to insist on speaking to him and waited most
of the day in your foyer,” Miss Porterman said. “I’m sorry I was so forward,
but I did not know what else to do and there was no one else to ask. It is just
my ma and brother and me.”

“Has your father passed on?” Albert asked, as he guided her
through the doorway.

“In a manner of speaking, yes, Mr. Donahue. He is a drunk
and was thrown out of the house by my ma years ago. I’ve had nothing to do with
him since, although now he is very sick and my ma has been helping him. I have
paid the rent on our house since the first time I was paid as a maid at
Landonmore, and in the last few years I’ve made enough to pay the rent and let
my ma only work mornings at the dress shop.”

Albert had stopped walking, listening intently to what Miss
Porterman was saying. No wonder she was prickly. Her father was gone, her
brother was clearly too ill to do much more than lay abed, and her income was
the main source of money for the family. And then his employee lied, stole from
her, and threatened her, making good on that threat by destroying their home.

“Miss Porterman. You have my admiration. There are many
young misses who would not have given a care about the rent for their parent’s
home, or been too terrified or unsure to do anything about the scheme that
befell your mother. You have been selfless.”

* * *

Selfless, except for one memorable
occasion. One time when she abandoned every principle she’d been taught and let
herself enjoy just for her own sake. How that evening lived on in her head, and
she asked herself over and again, why she’d agreed to go with him, that
conniving no-gooder Phillip Ramsey. But what had she been, if not no-good as
well, considering Phillip and her best and only friend, Mary Rodgers, had
already planned their wedding date? She shivered, as she often did when she
thought too long and too hard on that horrible event, thanking the dear Lord
that she’d not been made pregnant, and wondering if that would have happened, would
her life have been much the same as her ma’s. She heard by way of Mrs. Spretz
that Mary had three children now and was expecting her fourth, and that she
took in laundry to help pay the rent and put food on the table as Phillip did
not hold down any job for long. What a narrow escape!

“You are too kind,” she said, as she looked up at Mr.
Donahue.

“I don’t believe so. I believe you are being modest.”

Alice shook her head, refusing to be downcast about such a long-ago
time even though it plagued her, and he smiled at her with all the charm this
handsome man had at his disposal, which was plentiful. She thought about how
glad she was that she was wearing a new dark green wool skirt and matching coat
with a bright white blouse, fastened with emerald green buttons.

It was one of several outfits that Mrs. Shelby had helped
her pick out before she left Washington, and everyone knew that Mrs. Shelby had
impeccable taste that set her apart even more so than the fact that she was a
very beautiful woman. Alice had learned quite a lot working for Mrs. Shelby and
was in her debt as well for the fact that she could read well and do numbers,
too. Mrs. Shelby did not want to employ servants who could not follow
directions, or understand recipes, or how to cut cloth, or any of the myriad of
things required in service to her. Without thinking, Alice had also mimicked
how Mrs. Shelby stood, and walked, and conversed, and adopted it as her own.