Thursday morning, December 30, 1880
“Good morning, miss,” Kathleen said. “If you’d clear a space for me, I’ll put the tray down so’s I can light the fire. Right cold this morning.”
She had brought a tray with toast and tea for Laura, who’d not made it down to the dining room for breakfast. The young woman was sitting up in her bed, surrounded by scattered papers and books. Kathleen suspected that when she was done studying last night, she had simply turned off the lamp and crawled down in the blankets, not bothering to dislodge what she’d been working on.
“Oh, Kathleen, I didn’t mean for you to lug a tray up here. I could have come down to the kitchen. I think I woke up at the usual time, and I had every intention of getting up, but then it was such a treat to close my eyes again…just for a minute. And that seems to have been two hours ago.”
“No bother, miss. It’s rare that you get a chance to lie abed. But I thought you were done with your tests before Christmas?”
“Oh yes, the fall semester’s ended. But I don’t think I did as well as I hoped in my final Latin examination, so I am trying to get ahead. Got Jones, the same instructor, for spring semester. I guess I thought I would dazzle him with the progress I made over the holidays.”
“Well, I think it’s real brave of you to go to the University when most girls don’t even go to high school.”
“I don’t know about brave…more fool-hardy.” Laura shrugged as she put sugar into her cup of tea.
“Mrs. Dawson told me that some of the male students give you and the other young women a hard time,” Kathleen said as she gathered up the underthings that Laura had flung over the back of a chair.
“Oh, I don’t pay them any mind. Most are only trying to get us to take notice of them. But when you are in a large class, like my Latin class, with only three other women, it’s hard to hide when you aren’t prepared!”
“I can’t even imagine it. All those eyes on you.”
“Just between you and me, Kathleen, I found standing up in front of a class of forty-five seventh grade students as a teacher a lot more frightening…at least until I got to know them. Now, it’s time for me to get dressed. You don’t mind staying for a moment to help me do my hair, do you? I forgot to braid it last night before I went to sleep, and I’m afraid it’s pretty tangled.”
Kathleen, who quite liked brushing and fixing Miss Laura’s hair, which was wonderfully thick and went all the way down to her waist, nodded her assent and poured the pitcher of warm water she’d brought up with the breakfast tray into the washbasin in the corner of the room. As Laura washed her face and hands and brushed her teeth, Kathleen wondered what would be like to go to school.
She’d never been.
By the time she was six, she had her little brothers Colin and Aiden to take care of, and her mother was pregnant with Ian, so soon she was taking care of him as well, while her mother worked full-time.
She’d been surprised when Mrs. Dawson explained to her that there was a law in California that children had to be in school until they were fourteen. But no one in her old neighborhood seemed worried they would get in trouble for keeping their children at home or sending them out to work. Her first employers certainly had never asked her age, even though she started working when she was twelve.
She had learned her letters from a woman who lived next door to her family for a couple of years. When her brothers started school, she got them to explain the words and numbers they brought home on their slates. Best of all, in the house where she worked right before she came to work for the O’Farrell Street boarding house, the old grandfather had a fondness for penny dreadfuls and had her read them out loud to him every night. He didn’t seem to mind if she pronounced all the words right. Yet she knew that she didn’t understand everything she read in the newspapers, and it was embarrassing when she had to count on her fingers to make sure the grocer was giving her proper change.
Colin and Aiden couldn’t wait to leave school, but Ian was different; he liked school and was smart as a whip. That was why she gave most of her wages to her uncle Jack, so he would let Ian stay in school. But, if she had to, she would tell him about the law and let him know she wouldn’t hesitate to inform on him if he tried to pull anything over on her. Maybe she needed to have that talk with him now, make sure he wasn’t behind Ian’s decision to start to selling papers in the morning.
Shaking away her worries, she said, “Mrs. O’Rourke asked if you knew exactly how many people you were inviting for New Year’s Day.”
Laura, scrabbling through the papers beside her, pulled out a small sheet and said, “Here’s my list. I even printed up invitations at work and mailed them yesterday. I’m just asking Kitty, Ned, Celia, and, of course, Seth Timmons, although knowing him, he won’t show up. And Iris, my forewoman, and Nan, the other typesetter, from work.”
“Is Miss Celia really going to come live here? That’s what Mrs. O’Rourke said.”
“I’m hoping so. She’s saved up enough money so she can afford to go to the University full-time this spring. But it will help us both financially if we share the cost of a room. And it will be good to have a study partner around all the time.”
Laura handed Kathleen the list and said, “Here you go. Do you know if anyone else is inviting people from outside the boarding house?”
“The mistress told me that she and your brother have extended invitations to a few of their clients and their spouses, as well as their friends the Newsomes, and Mr. Nate’s uncle and the other law partner. And I think that Mrs. Hewitt invited some of her fellow teachers. But Mrs. and Mr. Stein have to spend most of the day calling on people who are involved with his business, so they’ll be out all day. I don’t know about Mr. Chapman or Mr. Harvey, although I doubt if they will have invited anyone. Mrs. O’Rourke thinks we may have as many as thirty or more people coming.”
“My goodness. Back at the ranch, we spent New Year’s Day going into town and seeing a few people from church. This isn’t going to be too much work for you all, is it? Especially for Mrs. O’Rourke.”
“Don’t you worry about Mrs. O’Rourke. She’s in fine fettle. She’s the one who convinced the mistress to have an ‘at home’ event this year. Told her that back when her aunt and uncle were alive they might have as many as fifty couples call during New Year’s Day. You know how she loves to cook for a big crowd.”
“Well, I certainly am looking forward to it. Will your friend Mary Margaret still be here to help out?”
“Oh yes. She’s a good cook herself, so she will be a big help in the kitchen.”
“She hasn’t had any success finding a new position?”
Kathleen frowned and said, “No, and I’m afraid she isn’t going to be serious about looking for one until she’s convinced her old job is really gone. Which isn’t going to happen until she, or at least someone she trusts, speaks to Mrs. Ashburton.”
“Mrs. Ashburton didn’t show up for morning services yesterday?”
“No, and Mary Margaret insists this means the son is up to no good. To make matters worse, first thing this morning, when I took Mary Margaret with me to pick up some fresh vegetables at Rileys, our local grocers, Riley himself asked Mary Margaret if her mistress had died!”
“Oh my heavens, why did he think that?”
“He said he’d been puzzled on Tuesday when his delivery boy brought back a list from a man who said he was Rafe Ashburton that didn’t have any of the usual things Mrs. Ashburton ordered. No eggs, no wheat flour or oats, no butter, no fruits or vegetables. Instead, the order was for baked beans, canned ham, potatoes, and two bottles of his most expensive whiskey and beer. He said that when he heard later in the day from someone that Mary Margaret was working for our boarding house, he figured the only explanation was the old lady had died and her son had inherited the house.”
“Mary Margaret must be beside herself with worry,” Laura said. “But didn’t you tell me yesterday, before I left for work, that Stanley, that nice policeman for our neighborhood, was going to stop by to see if she was all right?”
Kathleen then told her about Stanley’s visit and how he and Patrick seemed to believe that Mary Margaret and she were making something out of nothing. “But you know, Miss Laura, the more I think about it, the more I agree with Mary Margaret. There’s something wrong.”
Laura, who’d quickly taken off her nightgown and pulled on her chemise, drawers, and under-petticoat, now stood still as Kathleen tightened the strings at the back of her corset. With just the slightest intake of breath, she said, “It certainly doesn’t sound like the son is taking the dietary needs of an older woman into consideration, but I don’t know that this means there is anything seriously wrong. I mean, it’s not like she’s a prisoner.”
Kathleen helped Laura pull her satin underskirt over her head, fastening it at the back, and then she got the brush as Laura put on the bodice of her brown wool polonaise and began to fasten the long row of buttons in the front.
Starting to pull the brush gently through the young woman’s hair, she said, “But what if she was a prisoner? What if he has her locked in her room?”
“But, Kathleen, Officer Stanley heard her speak to her son, and what about the fruitcake?”
“I dunno. Maybe the son remembered his mother offered everyone fruitcake this time of year, so he took a chance on mentioning it. And I’m not sure Stanley really heard the mother speak. Maybe the son was just pretending to be speaking to his mother.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Kathleen said in a hurry, “This morning, when I came into the kitchen, I heard Mrs. O’Rourke talking to little Tilly, who was standing in the pantry trying to find a jar of preserves. And it came to me all of a sudden that I didn’t really know if Tilly was there or not because the whole time it was only Mrs. O’Rourke who was speaking. Not a peep out of Tilly.”
Laura turned around and said, “Kathleen, that’s so clever. You’ve given me the shivers.”
“And Miss Laura, I then remembered Officer Stanley said he was at Mrs. Ashburton’s house between six and six-thirty, so the son supposedly went up to talk to his mother at that time. The son said she was sitting up reading in her bedroom, which is at the back of the house. But at quarter after six, I was coming down the stairs from the top floor, and I stopped and looked down the hill at the Ashburton house. Mary Margaret had pointed out to me that we could see Mrs. Ashburton’s bedroom and sitting room from the third floor landing of this house. And while the curtains were open, there wasn’t a speck of light coming from those rooms, not like there would be if she was up reading. So what if he was talking to an empty room?”