The Maid’s Quarters

Boston 1893
Chapter One

Alice Porterman looked at Mrs. McKinnell. “What do you mean Ma and Jimmy aren’t living here anymore? It is our house!”
“They’re living in two rooms at the back of the church, Alice. I would have taken them in here, but I have no room, none at all,” Alice’s mother’s closest neighbor said to her. “You better get them, girl. Jimmy wasn’t doing well the last time I stopped by. Your mam can hardly leave him to get victuals or go to work. I’ve been shopping for her when I can.”
“Thank you, Mrs. McKinnell. I’ll go right away.” Alice turned and looked at the narrow two-story home where she’d grown up. “I’ll just put my bags in the house,” she said, and started down the walk that separated the Porterman and McKinnell homes as she had just arrived from the train station coming from Washington.
“Nay, you can’t, girl. They’ve changed the locks. Your mam couldn’t even get back in to get your brother’s medicine. Leave your cases on my porch. I’ll have one of the boys carry them in and we’ll keep them here until you’re settled somewhere.”
“Thank you, Mrs. McKinnell,” Alice said, red-faced. “I will get them as soon as I get this straightened out.”
“Don’t worry, Alice. Just get your mother and brother back home where they belong.”
Alice nodded and kissed the plump, red-headed woman’s cheek. “Thank the Lord you were here to help Ma.”
“It’s nothing. Neighbors do for neighbors. Your mam would do the same for me, she would. So, your mother had Jimmy read me the letter she got from you that those rich nobs are paying you without you even working for them. La-de-dah! And look at them skirts of yours! That is fine wool, is it not, with them lacy petticoats sticking out? And a pretty little hat to boot!”
“Senator and Mrs. Shelby knew that Jimmy was ill and were very grateful for the help I gave them and their daughter when their ranch was struck with the influenza. They wanted to lighten my worry about Jimmy and Ma and offered me my full salary indefinitely. I will always be eternally grateful.”
“I would say so!” Mrs. McKinnell agreed, and belted out a laugh. She peered through the open door of her house and screamed, “Devon McKinnell! Stop your teasing! I’ll have Mr. McKinnell whoop your hide when he gets home from the mill, I will!” She turned back to Alice. “Go on, now. Get your mother and get poor Jimmy back in his bed.”
Alice waved her good-byes and turned to climb the hill to Saint Peter and Paul Catholic Church. How very angry she was! How could her mother have let this happen? Alice sent her the full amount of the rent on their small house every month from her pay as long as she had been employed. Even when she’d first started at Landonmore as an upstairs maid, her salary had been enough to cover her mother’s rent and pay for some food, although it left only a few pennies for herself. With her help, Alice’s mother had been able to work mornings only at the dressmakers and still scrape by.
Alice let herself in the church gates and circled to the back. She came to a small building and saw smoke coming from the chimney. What would it be costing in coal to heat this shack? she wondered. The door opened suddenly, and her mother was screaming and dragging Jimmy out into the cold air.
“Breathe, boy!” her ma shouted, and plopped down in the snow beside the steps. “Breathe!”
“Ma!” Alice cried, as she dropped her purse and hurried to where her mother was struggling to turn Jimmy onto his stomach.
“Help me, Alice! He’s not breathing!”
Maeve Porterman thumped the back of the thin, limp boy lying across her legs as she sat just outside the door of the building. She hit his back hard with a closed fist, and Jimmy’s shoulders began to shake. He sputtered and struggled to breathe and coughed until his eyes watered. Maeve continued to tap his back until he spit and cleared his throat enough to breathe calmly. Alice was kneeling, holding him in place across his mother’s knees lest he roll onto the ground. She chafed his arm through the thin cotton of his shirt and felt him shiver.
“Come on, Ma. Let me carry him into the house,” Alice said and bent to pick him up.
Her mother struggled to stand and then wiped the tears from her face on her apron. “I am so glad you’re here, Alice. So glad.”
“Get in the house, Ma. We’re letting the heat out,” she said, as she turned sideways at the doorway to carry Jimmy inside.
Alice lay her brother down in the bed near the stove. She propped his pillows up, kissed his cheek, and smiled. “You gave us a fright, Jimmy! Are you warm enough?”
“Alice!” Jimmy smiled back at her. “You’re home!”
“Quit trying to talk so soon after one of your spells,” Alice admonished, and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “You will start a coughing fit again.”
Jimmy held her hand and leaned back on his pillows. Alice knew he was exhausted, and soon his eyes drifted shut. She pulled the covers up over his shoulders and turned to her mother.
“What has happened, Ma? I went home today, only to find out the locks have been changed. I send the rent money faithfully every month. Why are you not living at home? Mrs. McKinnell said Jimmy hasn’t been doing well.”
Maeve Porterman turned from her daughter and busied herself folding clothes and stacking them on the shelf above the washstand. “The rent went up a dollar, and Jimmy’s new medicine is twice as much as the old. But he’s only having a coughing fit once every few days instead of once every few hours. He’s even been eating better.”
“But still I send you twenty dollars every month, which should cover the rent and the price of the new medicine.” But it occurred to her what had happened, and it was all Alice could do to not shout. “Please tell me you have not given that man money.”
Maeve said nothing, and Alice went to her and waited until she turned. Her mother would not meet her eye. “You have given him money, haven’t you?” Alice whispered. “You gave that man my money!”
Maeve flushed. “It is my money to spend as I see fit once you have given it to me.”
“The four dollars and a half from the shop that you earn and what I send you have always been enough. That man came crawling around, didn’t he?”
“Watch your tongue! That is your father you’re speaking so ill of. He brung you into this world!”
“And then left me and my brother to starve. Left you, too, to chase his whiskey. What has he done now?”
Maeve crumbled onto the chair beside the bed she slept in. She stared grimly ahead and pulled a worn hanky from her skirt pocket. “He hadn’t eaten in days, Alice. What would you have me do? He looked like a skeleton, I say. He came to say hello to Jimmy, he did, and I heated some soup for him. He was nearly starving, but he ate very slowly. He told me it had been four days since he’d eaten anything other than a crust of bread.”
“And whose fault is that? Maybe if he didn’t drink away every penny he earned, he’d be able to buy himself something to eat.”
“Your father lost his job six months ago. He has been doing odd jobs to keep his room at the boardinghouse but was thrown out last week.”
“And somehow this is our problem, Ma? You gave him money, didn’t you?”
Maeve nodded. “Yes, I did. I’m still a Christian, Alice. A poor, homeless one, but I still understand the suffering of others.”
“As long as the suffering is done by women? Men do nothing but abuse us, and no one worse than my da and you still give him money even if it puts you and your sick son out on the street.”
“It was only two dollars. But enough to get him room and board for another week until he gets some work.”
“And where will he go when he can’t get work next week and the week after? And if he does get work, he’ll just drink it away!” Alice shouted.
“Shhh,” her mother scolded. “You’ll wake your brother. Your father hasn’t taken a drink for upwards of a year.”
Alice shook her head. “And you believe him?”
“Yes, I do. He’s not well. The liquor has rotted his innards, the doctor said. He isn’t long for this world, and I won’t let him die in the gutter.”
Alice stared at her mother as the woman scurried from the chair to the washstand and back. She would not look at her and it occurred to Alice that her mother was not embarrassed, but angry. She and her mother rarely, if ever, spoke about Gerald Porterman, as they were both content to not argue. The last ten minutes was the most they’d spoken about the man in a decade. Maeve stopped her hurrying then, faced the wall, and Alice watched her shoulders shake.
“I loved him, I did,” she said then. “He was such a handsome, fun fellow. He tried to stay away from the drink so many times but he always went back, and finally, finally, I’d had enough of the excuses and the lost paychecks and the other women showing up at our door looking for him. I told him to go and not come back. It broke my heart to say the words.”
Alice wrapped her arms around her mother and rested her chin on her shoulder. “Of course it did, Ma.”
“I’ll always love him though, Alice. You can’t stop how a heart beats and who it beats for, girl.”
“I’m home now, Ma. I have a good salary coming in and a lump sum Senator Shelby put in the bank for me. He told me it was my nest egg. Let me get us home and then talk about what we’re going to do about everything else. How far behind are you on the rent?”
“I paid him thirteen dollars instead of fifteen this month. I told him I’d pay him the two dollars one at a time as I got paid from the shop but . . .”
Alice turned her mother to face her and held her shoulders. “What about the other months? Were you behind on the other months?”
Maeve shook her head. “Just this month. Just two dollars.”
“He threw you out of the house you’ve been renting for twenty years because one time you were late two dollars?”
She nodded. “But it isn’t old Mr. Jenkins. He’s in his grave a year now. His son sold the house to a real estate man, Albert Donahue.”
“Where do I find this Albert Donahue?” Alice asked, pulling her coat on.
“I don’t know. I pay his agent that comes calling on the last of the month, Mr. Nyturn.”
“Where do I find him?”
Maeve dug through a wooden box until she found a torn piece of paper she handed to Alice. “Union Park near Blackstone, he said. I’ve never gone. He always came to the house.”
“What will we be eating tonight, Ma?”
Maeve shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got some broth for Jimmy. It’s all he can hold down after one of his fits.”
“I’ll stop by Mrs. McKinnell’s and have one of her boys bring us some supper.”
“Oh, I hate to put her out like that, Alice. She’s got her own family to feed.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll pay her for the meals, and she can send it over with one of the boys. It won’t be charity, then, will it?”

* * *

Alice stepped off the streetcar, made her way to Union Park Street, and stopped a moment to shake out her skirts, tuck loose strands of hair back in her bun, and check her hat ribbon tied beneath her chin. She found the number her mother had given her and went inside the four-story building. The door to her right was open and people were lined up waiting. Straight ahead were numbered doors and a set of steps. She could smell cabbage cooking and heard babies crying and women shouting. She heard a “next” from the room with the open door and caught a glimpse inside of a wiry-looking man, puffing on a cigar as he sat behind a desk.
Alice waited in line, stepping finally into the small smoke-filled room, and held her gloves to her nose. The room was filled with people, some leaning against the wall and many sitting in groups on the floor. Children were being shushed, and some men paced the length of the room. Finally, Alice was next.
“Mr. Nyturn?”
“State your business, girl.”
“My mother and brother live at 604 Cherry Street,” Alice said, and leaned forward. “What a dastardly thing to do, to put out a sick boy and his mother over two dollars that she was paying within the month. Twenty years or more she’s lived there and never missed a rent. Now what does she owe you? I’m here to make it square.”
“That house is already rented to someone else,” he said. “I’ve no time for deadbeats. Next!”
“What? What do you mean? That is our family home!”
“Not anymore! New tenants on the first of the month. Next?”
“Now see here,” Alice began, but she stopped when two burly-looking men came to her on either side.
“Out,” Nyturn ordered, and pointed an ink-stained finger to the entrance. “I’ve no time for this.”
“Leave me be,” Alice shouted, as the men turned her around and forced her through the crowd of people. She was suddenly outside and the door closed soundly behind her. She blinked away tears of anger and embarrassment. After all, there was no one in there she knew, but she was not accustomed to such rough treatment, and her arms stung where they’d grabbed her. She would get no satisfaction from Mr. Nyturn, that was for certain! But living with and working for her last employer, Jolene Crawford Crenshaw Shelby, had given Alice a glimpse as to how to get what one wanted done, done.

* * *

Alice woke early the next morning from the cramped bed she shared with her mother and dressed quickly in the cold air. She checked on her brother as her mother sat up and wrapped the wool blanket from the bed around her shoulders.
“I am going to the grocer’s first, Ma. I will bring flour and yeast so you can begin making us some of your delicious bread. Will sugar, eggs, milk, and potatoes do? I can stop for a chicken at the butcher. Or would you rather have ham? It is Jimmy’s favorite,” Alice said.
“Oh, a ham. We’ve not had any ham for so long.”
“A ham it is,” Alice said, and kissed her mother’s cheek.
Maeve looked up at her. “Your da is coming by today. I told him to. I will feed him, Alice, and if you’d rather not bring us the groceries because of that, then so be it.”
Alice had felt small and harsh as she knelt down beside her mother to say her prayers the night before. Gerald Porterman had used her mother cruelly, and yet she found it in her heart to make sure he was fed and had a roof over his head in his time of need. Alice was not sure she could be so forgiving or so kind, but she knew her mother should not be forced to choose between her conscience and feeding her son. And perhaps she should let go of some of the anger she’d felt for her father all of her life. Her resentment did not change his behavior but only served to make herself miserable with tension and hatred when she thought too long about him. What was the point? she thought.
“Feed him, Ma. It is your food to do with as you please, and it would be cruel to do otherwise seeing he is so sick,” Alice said.
Maeve nodded with a wobbling smile. “It would be cruel, and it would be no example for you and Jimmy.”
Alice returned with the groceries and her mother oohed and aahed and convinced Jimmy to sit up in a chair near where she would mix and knead her dough. Alice set out to the Courthouse and nearly lost her courage as all the well-dressed folks filed in and out of its massive wooden doors. She looked down at herself and realized she looked every bit as neat and tidy, and even fashionable, as many of the women she saw. She straightened her back, went inside, and looked for the Registry of Deeds.
“What can I help you with, ma’am?” the man behind the counter asked.
“I’d like to see the deeds that Mr. Albert Donahue owns,” she said.
“It don’t work like that,” he replied, and swept a hand behind him to the rows and stacks of massive wooden filing drawers. “It’s organized by address, not owner.”
“I’d like to see the deed for 604 Cherry Street then.”
“Wait here,” he grumbled.
Alice watched the man walk away and sniffed. It smelled like dust and old books and was chilly to boot. Ten minutes later the clerk came back with the deed for 604 Cherry Street, owned by Albert Donahue. She scribbled his address on paper she’d brought with her and thanked the clerk.
Two streetcars later, Alice stopped on the sidewalk in front of a large brick home. It was located in a well-to-do area, near the Back Bay, full of three- and four-story homes with live-in servants. She watched the nannies and their charges, bundled up against the cold in large wheeled strollers, make their way up and down the street, and men in heavy coats with long aprons beneath sweeping sidewalks. Alice knew if she walked to the back, she would see carriage houses and deliveries being made from grocers, butchers, dressmakers, and the like.
Alice very nearly went to the back door, sure of her ability to manage a cook or a gardener. But she did not have business with the housekeeper or the butler. She had business with Mr. Albert Donahue, or at the very least his secretary. She climbed the steps to the front door and lifted the knocker. It was opened almost immediately by a dour-faced man.
“May I help you?” he said.
Alice nearly lost her voice and courage. But if the butler was capable of keeping her at arm’s length, how would she ever get her family home back? She cleared her throat. “I need to speak to Mr. Albert Donahue. My name is Alice Porterman.”
The butler’s bushy brows rose. “And you have an appointment, miss?”
“I do not.”
“Anyone wishing to speak to Mr. Donahue has an appointment.”
“And who do I see to get such an appointment?”
“Mr. Vickers, his secretary. I’m sorry, he is not in but, but—Where are you going? You cannot come into this house!”
Alice swept by him and seated herself on a settee inside the door. “I will wait here until Mr. Vickers arrives, unless you would prefer me to wait in his office.”
“Certainly not. I can’t just let a complete stranger make herself at home in Mr. Vickers’s office.”
“Then I will be satisfied to wait here,” Alice said, as she noticed a young man hovering near the staircase. She nodded toward him. “Someone is looking for you.”
The butler turned and looked back at her openmouthed. But he did not call to someone to have her removed. Alice studied the fine artwork on the walls and the marble floors and the beautiful wooden staircase to avoid looking at him. The butler took another look at her and walked to where the young man stood. After a long hour, the front door opened again, letting in a cold breeze and a tall, thin man.
The man looked at her and walked directly to the butler. They conferred and turned and stared at her for a moment. The man walked off toward the back portion of the house, and the butler came to her.
“That is Mr. Vickers,” he said. “He will see you at three o’clock.”
“Three o’clock? That is four hours from now!”
The butler opened the door. “That is the only available time he has.”
“Then I will stay here and wait for my appointment.” Alice lifted her chin and folded her hands in her lap.
“You cannot sit in Mr. Donahue’s foyer until then,” the butler said. “Come back when it is time for your appointment.”
Alice looked up at him. “It took me two streetcars to get here. By the time I got home, I would need to turn around and come back and would have wasted four fares in doing so. Thank you, but I prefer to stay here.”
The butler opened his mouth and then closed it and walked away. Alice watched the comings and goings of the house, and it seemed as routine as she was accustomed to. Young men on ladders wiping the gas lamp globes and young women dusting, all while one woman was arranging a massive display of flowers on a large round, marble table in the center of the foyer, its intricately carved wooden legs shining from polish.
Alice nodded off briefly, jerked awake, and looked around hurriedly to see if anyone had seen her head bob and her chin hit her chest. Then a young maid in a black uniform with a stiff white apron over it came toward her.
“Mr. Higgins said I was to offer you a glass of water and see if you needed the necessary, miss,” she said with a smile.
Alice took the water from the maid. “Mr. Higgins is the butler?”
“Yes, miss.”
“This is very kind of him. Please tell him I said thank you.”
At fifty-eight minutes past two o’clock, Mr. Higgins came for her. “Miss? If you will follow me.”
Alice followed the butler down a long corridor until he opened a door and allowed her to precede him inside. “Miss Porterman to see you, Mr. Vickers.”
“Thank you, Higgins,” the man said, without looking up.
Alice stood still at the doorway waiting for some acknowledgment that she was to come in the room. Finally, Mr. Vickers spoke.
“Do you intend to stand there for the next four hours as you have sat in the entranceway for the last four?”
Alice knew his type. Men who took satisfaction in making those beneath them squirm, especially women. She took a moment considering him, and making him wait for her to speak. “I am here to make an appointment with Mr. Donahue. Mr. Higgins said you make the schedule.”
“What is this about?”
“I would prefer to speak to Mr. Donahue,” she said.
“If you don’t tell me, you’re never going to speak to Mr. Donahue, and I’m a very busy man.”
“Maeve Porterman is my ma and has lived at 604 Cherry Street for nigh on twenty years. First renting from Mr. Jenkins and most recently—”
“I am well aware that Mr. Donahue owns 604 Cherry Street. Get on with it.”
Alice gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. “She was two dollars short on the rent for this month and told Mr. Nyturn she would pay him one dollar a week before months’ end, and he threw her and my sickly brother out. Out into the cold winter! I went to pay Mr. Nyturn and he said the house has already been rented. All of my ma’s things are still there and the locks have been changed!”
“Whatever misconceptions you have concerning the contract your mother signed when Mr. Donahue purchased the house is not my problem. Mr. Donahue is a business person. Not a church or a charity. Apply there if you are unable to meet your obligations.”
“She has lived there and paid rent faithfully and on time for all those years,” Alice said. “Fourteen days late in twenty years is hardly a failure to meet obligations.”
“Good day,” he said dismissively, and looked down at the open ledger on his desk. “Higgins will see you out.”
Angry tears formed in Alice’s eyes, and she marched forward and slammed her fist down on Vickers’s desk. “How dare you!” she shouted. “How dare you, you odious, selfish man! I demand to see Mr. Donahue.”
Vickers stood and pointed to the door. “Out! Get out before I call the police and have you removed!”
“I will not!” Alice cried, and leaned across the desk. “I demand to see Mr. Donahue and see for myself if he is as horrible a person as you say he is!”
Vickers went to the door and opened it. “Higgins! Get the police. I’ve an insane woman in my office who won’t leave. She may be dangerous.”
“I am not insane, Mr. Vickers! I am quite sane, but I am furious that you refuse even now to discuss the matter. How am I to get my ma’s things? My brother’s medicine is still in the house and it is very costly, and you will not let me have it?”
“What is the shouting all about?”
Alice turned to the corner of the room where a tall, younger man had appeared through a doorway behind Vickers’s desk that she had not noticed at first. He stood in the shadows and Vickers hurried toward him.
“Be very careful, sir. I have called for the police, but this woman is unstable and there is no predicting what she will do next.”
“I am not unstable!”
“Shhh,” the man said. “There is no need for either of you to shout.”
Vickers proceeded to tell the man that she was from a family of moochers who had come to badger him to allow them to live rent free and that he had told her that was impossible but now she refused to leave. Tears filled Alice’s eyes as Vickers continued to malign her. It was not true. None of it. The Portermans had always paid their way, even when it was difficult to do so. The tall man was listening to Vickers, and it occurred to her that no one was going to believe her. This was a fool’s errand she was on. She could make better use of her time looking for a new house for Ma and Jimmy and forget about their furniture and kitchen goods that had been passed down from Ma’s mother. Quilts and rockers could be bought or made, and Alice had better set her sights to the future and forget about the past and this blight on her family name. She wondered briefly if other landlords would refuse to rent to them because of this incident.
Alice opened her purse and pulled out two dollars. She laid the bills on Mr. Vickers’s desk and walked to the door. She was light-headed, she supposed from shouting and not having had anything to eat since early that morning. It was time to move on, although she dreaded telling her mother they would be unable to get in their house to get their belongings.
Mr. Vickers shouted at her. “You there. Stop! The police are coming for you.”
Alice turned back. “You wanted me to leave. I am leaving.”
“Now see here,” Vickers started.
Alice turned as a hand touched her elbow. It was the tall younger man.
“Please,” Alice said, and put a hand on the doorjamb to steady herself. “I am begging you. I have a sick brother and a ma who needs me. I came here to speak to Mr. Donahue, but it is clear that I will be unable to talk to him. Please. Just let me leave. It will be dark before I’m off the last streetcar.”
“I am Mr. Donahue, miss. What is it you would like to speak to me about?”
“You are Mr. Donahue?” Alice had in her mind a picture of an older man, fat as he was high, with a sweating bald head. This man looked nothing like what she’d imagined. He was tall, with neatly trimmed dark hair and brilliant blue eyes. He wore a black suit with a gray waistcoat and spoke softly.
“I am Mr. Donahue. Won’t you sit down, Miss . . .”
“Porterman. Miss Alice Porterman.”
“This is unwise, Mr. Donahue,” Vickers said. “Let me handle this. You are unaccustomed to dealing with riffraff.”
Mr. Donahue spoke but did not turn his face from Alice. “I think riffraff is an excessively strong word to use for a well-dressed young woman who is clearly not carrying off the silver, Mr. Vickers. I will speak to Miss Porterman in my office. Please ask Higgins to come there straightaway and Mrs. Erskine as well.”
Mr. Vickers stared at Alice as he left the room, and she felt a shiver trail down her back. Mr. Donahue motioned to her to follow him into the next room. She was seated in a chair near a roaring fire. Higgins arrived and was directed to have tea and coffee delivered. She was introduced to the head housekeeper, Mrs. Erskine, whom Mr. Donahue asked to stay for propriety’s sake as Miss Porterman was unescorted. Higgins returned with tea and coffee, and Mr. Donahue sat down opposite Alice’s chair.
“Higgins has told me you waited in the foyer since this morning. Are you hungry?”
Alice hated to feel any kindness or show pleasant manners toward this man as he was the one who’d thrown out her brother and her ma from their home. But she was starved and had finished her tea in a hurry. And he was being solicitous, handing her into her seat, pouring her tea, fetching the housekeeper to avoid any impropriety, and she just a maid, and paying rapt attention to her when she spoke. He looked at her, even now, with a quiet, reserved intensity, matching the soothing sound of his deep, but soft, voice. Alice reminded herself that he was also the one who employed Mr. Nyturn and Mr. Vickers.
“I am hungry, sir, but I will be fine,” Alice replied.
“Then I will have Mrs. Erskine send for a tray of sandwiches,” he said, and turned in his seat.
Alice shook her head. “That is kind of you; however, I would prefer not to break bread with you. This is only business, as Mr. Vickers reminded me.”
He looked at her solemnly. “Then continue on, Miss Porterman.”