The Downstairs Girl: Chapters 1–6

Two years I have worked as a milliner's assistant at the same wage of fifty cents a day.

She barely traipses in at nine, when the shop opens, and it's not even a quarter past eight.

“Good morning, ma’am. I had an idea. What if, instead of wearing these toadstools, we model our latest styles? See how fetching my sensible hat looks on Lizzie—”

Her rheumy eyes squint up at me towering over her.

“You make some of the ladies uncomfortable."
Each of the syllables slaps me on the cheeks, un-com-for-ta-ble, and mortification pours like molten iron from my face to my toes.

The solicitor's wife even called the silk knots I tied for her bonnet “extraordinary."

My hand flies to my cheek, dusky and smooth as the Asian steppes.

Now that I am forced to face the woman, I have to admit, she appears more bemused than angry, her dark eyebrows steepling, her mouth halfway ajar.

“I have been admiring the knot embellishment on my friend's hat, and she said it was made by the Chinese girl who works here.”

That tedious chore is typically done on Friday, but she's trying to get her money's worth out of my last day. Lizzie never gets the numbers to come out right.

The proprietress's mouth draws in like a purse string being cinched.

Mrs. Bell's genteel smile doesn't falter, but her finger spools a loose thread on her sleeve.

Lizzie takes languid steps toward the ladies as if the floor were full of horse patties.

Anyway, according to Old Gin, the real looker is his horse, a rare piebald with a white coat offset by a black mane and tail.

I expect Mrs. English to reprimand her, but instead, she’s staring at the cash register, a smile fanned across her face.

I bite my tongue, realizing this is the kind of opining that cooked my goose.

Has she just given her implicit approval that the situation may continue?

The sooner I get home, the sooner I can eavesdrop on Mrs. Bell to ascertain whether her visit was more than a coincidence.

A copse of trees lies fifty yards beyond One Luckie Street, the home of the Bells' print shop and attached house.

Even at the barely audible volume that we use underground, he can tell I’m cross. It heaps insult onto injury that I can't rail about my unjust situation at the volume it deserves.

Old Gin's horrified gasp sets off another bout of coughing, and I immediately regret my words.

I imagine his ruddy face with its fleshy eye pads growing bright with indignation.

The race kicks off debutante season, and everyone who lives on the top branch will want to be seen.

The next morning, I don my russet dress and button my pebbled-goat-leather boots.

By three o'clock, I’ve made over two dozen inquiries. For my troubles, I net seventeen doors and one window closed on my face; two offers of employment as a “chambermaid" that certainly involved chambers, but not the cleaning of them; one twisted ankle from a crone who sicced her dog on me; and one offer to dye cloth, which was revoked as soon as the mistress saw me limping.

Chinese aren't actually allowed to own land or rent—Old Gin and the other bachelors had squatted in a cluster of ramshackle shanties before I was born—but for the right price, folks could be persuaded to look the other way.

Chinese aren't actually allowed to own land or rent—Old Gin and the other bachelors had squatted in a cluster of ramshackle shanties before I was born—but for the right price, folks could be persuaded to look the other way.

I resist and redirect my nose to a poster on the nearest building, one of the many that has excited a fervor in ladies like Salt and Pepper.

Not two shakes later, Bear bounds over to me, woofing and bellowing like she's discovered the world's largest sheep. It's uncanny that an animal with no eyes could have such accurate aim.

"Stop! Please,” I beg the sheepdog.
"Forbearance! Forbear this instant!” Nathan utters in a voice that could bend grass.

However, my flaxen stockings have torn.

The best way to deliver the truth, if not posthumously, is anonymously.

I alight to Old Gin's side of the house, where a set of drawers holds old fabric and writing supplies.

And despite his grouchy disposition, unlike his father, he treads lightly upon the world, as if he knows there is more than one way to make a lasting mark.

The propriety of “turnaround” events has reared its head again due to the upcoming horse race, even though the sponsors have clearly stated that “ladies may ask gentlemen.”

Your steed may not be available furlong.

Miss Sweetie, I write with a flourish.

Most of the uncles took their scant belongings with them when they left, but oddments remain, like Lucky Yip's favorite cushion and Hammer Foot's two-string fiddle, which for obvious reasons he rarely used.

The barn must have provided a handy terminus for the enslaved on their road to freedom, offering not only a lookout but a water source from a well dug deep underground.

A group of men, out for a night of drinking, judging by their boisterous voices, eye me from across the street.