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  Dandy's Discovery

  A Victorian San Francisco Story

  M. Louisa Locke

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Copyright © 2020 by Mary Louisa Locke

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Cover design © 2020 Michelle Huffaker

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Dandy’s Discovery

  Other Works by Author

  About the Author

  Dandy’s Discovery

  O’Farrell Street Boardinghouse

  San Francisco, 1881

  Annie stood overlooking the crib at the foot of her bed, watching her daughter sleep. Abigail’s short, reddish-blond curls looked wilted in the heat. August, as usual, had become sweltering. Long, hot days were unrelieved by fog or rain, and even the ocean breezes from the west had failed to materialize this morning. The creases in Abigail’s chubby arms and legs had been pink with the beginning of heat rash after yesterday’s naps, so Annie put her daughter down to sleep this morning wearing only her diaper.

  Her boarder, Mrs. Esther Stein, would have been scandalized. She felt that a baby who showed any skin was vulnerable to stray infectious diseases—which the good woman still seemed to believe was the result of some sort of miasma that floated in the air, particularly at night. As a result, Esther insisted on closing the windows in the two-room suite she and her husband Herman occupied across the hall when they went to bed. Fortunately, the couple were currently in Portland, visiting their oldest son and his family. Annie hoped that by the time they came back to San Francisco next month, the city would have returned to its usual cool days and cooler nights.

  Taking one final look at her daughter, Annie sighed and walked over to start putting away the clean diapers that sat in a basket by the chest of drawers. She’d really thought that, by this time, with Abigail now three months old and no longer needing to be nursed every two hours, she would have started seeing clients again, giving financial advice, and doing audits for companies. What she hadn’t anticipated was the continued fatigue that came from repeatedly being awakened in the night to nurse. And her brain seemed to have shut down permanently. She could do simple tasks, like fold laundry. Otherwise, she often found herself sitting in a kind of daze, with time just slipping away.

  Nate would come home from the law offices and ask her how her day had gone. Apart from being able to describe such monumental events as the first time Abigail had put her foot in her mouth, held her head up when she was on her stomach, and rolled over, Annie couldn’t think of anything to tell him. At least, there had been a fair amount going on in the boardinghouse that she could report on, so she didn’t feel like a complete dullard.

  Since Barbara Hewitt, who taught at Girls High, wasn’t working during the summer, she often sat with Annie and Abigail when they took the air on the front porch. The kind woman would try to discuss the news of the day with her or would recount what the talkative Minnie Moffet had said at lunch. In addition, the three children in the house, Jamie Hewitt, Ian Hennessey, and Emmaline Fournier, would come in and out of Annie and Nate’s room to “see the baby” and tell her about the latest antics of Dandy, the Boston Terrier.

  Mrs. Stein often invited her over to her parlor in order to dispense bits of wisdom she had gained from her own experiences of motherhood, which was extensive given her six children and countless grandchildren. Even Laura, Nate’s sister, had more time during the summer break from the university, and she had dinner with Annie when Nate worked late, which happened way too often for Annie’s liking. Laura would tell her about the book she had set type for that day and talk about what her beau, Seth Timmons, was learning while clerking in Nate’s law offices.

  And, of course, Annie could always bring Abigail down to the kitchen, where she would rock the baby and bask in the gentle flow of gossip among the three servants. Somehow, between Kathleen Hennessey’s forays out to do the daily marketing, little Tilly’s brief exchanges with the delivery boys who came to the back door with eggs, milk, meat, and ice, and Mrs. O’Rourke’s weekly chats with the laundress, they kept informed about everything that went on in the homes and businesses within a ten block radius of the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse.

  But a week ago, Annie lost even these mild pleasures.

  First, the Steins left for their trip to Oregon at the same time school started back up. This meant Mrs. Hewitt and the children were gone during the day, and Laura was back to her university classes during the mornings, which meant most evenings she didn’t get home from her type-setting job until after dinner. Even the Moffets, the two elderly dressmakers, were working longer than usual hours as they began designing the winter collection for the dress department of the Silver Strike Bazaar. And Mr. Harvey’s wife and children finally made the move down from Sacramento, so he and his fellow boarder, David Chapman, had moved out last week.

  To make matters worse, this week the kitchen had stopped being a congenial place to visit. Beatrice O’Rourke, who combined her duties as cook with being the general housekeeper, had decided to commence a general fall cleaning throughout the house. Her excuse was the fact that the Steins were out of town, so it would be easy to clean their rooms. Plus, since Chapman’s and Harvey’s back room was now empty, Beatrice announced this was the perfect time to give it a thorough cleaning so Laura could move in and they could finally turn her old room into a nursery for Abigail.

  All perfectly reasonable explanations for her decision, except for the heat. The few times Annie made it down to the kitchen, the place was steaming, and every surface was covered with pots and pans and wooden boxes and glass bottles that Beatrice had removed so she could give all the shelves and cupboards a thorough scrub.

  Meanwhile, Kathleen and Tilly tackled the rest of the house. They would go into a room and take down the curtains and roll up the carpets and carry them outside to shake and beat out the accumulated dust. Then they would move all the furniture in the room to the center so they could clean the walls and baseboards and dust behind furniture. When this was done, it was time to mop the floors and push back the furniture, bring up the carpets, and rehang the curtains. All this entailed constant movement up and down the stairs and in and out the kitchen’s back door, and Annie felt she should stay in her room with Abigail and out of everyone’s way.

  Kathleen and Tilly had started their work on Wednesday, after the laundry and ironing for the week was completed. It took them two days to clean Beatrice’s room, the Moffets’ two rooms, and then Barbara Hewitt’s room, all in the attic. This morning they finished up the two boys’ room in the attic and had started on the Steins’ two rooms on this floor.

  Kathleen took a brief break to help Annie bathe Abigail before the baby’s morning nap, and she had shared with Annie how upset she’d been when she discovered that the boys had been squirreling away candy they bought with some of the money they made selling newspapers. She said she’d give her brother Ian a piece of her mind when he got home today. Said he knew very well that was a sure way to attract vermin. Then she’d rushed away to work off some of her anger by helping Tilly whack the Steins’ carpets.

  The result of all this activity in the house was that Annie felt particularly useless, and lonely, and unbelievably pathetic.


  To make matters worse, going back over to look at Abigail, who was waking up and smiling at her, she felt she was an ungrateful wretch to even think of complaining about her life.

  Several hours later, Tilly stood at the door to the bedroom with a tray and said, “Ma’am, I’ve brought you lunch. Do you want me to hold Abigail for you while you eat? I’ve put on a clean apron.”

  Annie looked at the slip of a girl, whose mass of black curls were tucked carefully under her white cap and whose blue eyes were cast shyly down at her feet. Tilly was fifteen, but Emmaline, the Moffets’ eleven-year-old niece, was already her height.

  Annie smiled at her and said, “Thank you so much, Tilly. Yes, why don’t you sit with her in the rocker? Give your feet a rest.”

  After transferring the lunch dishes from the tray to the table in the bay window, Tilly sat down, settling Abigail in her lap, with the baby laying in the crook of her arm.

  Annie went over to the chest of drawers and got a baby rattle. Tilly waved the rattle and smiled happily as Abigail made grabbing motions with her tiny fingers in the general vicinity of the toy.

  Annie looked to see what Beatrice O’Rourke had prepared for her lunch.

  One thing that hadn’t changed with her daughter’s birth was the fact that Annie was always hungry. However, unlike the months leading up to Abigail’s birth, when every bite of food seemed to transform instantly into a pound, these last three months the pounds simply melted away, no matter how much she ate. Almost every two weeks, poor Miss Minnie and Millie Moffet had to keep taking in the seams in her dresses so they didn’t hang on her.

  Today, Beatrice had sent up a tall glass of milk and a ham, swiss cheese, and pickle sandwich, slathered with mayonnaise. On the plate next to the sandwich was a good-sized dollop of potato salad and four large gingersnap cookies, which were still warm from the oven.

  “Good heavens, Tilly, this is a feast. I would offer to share with you, but I know from experience that even though I’ve not done a single thing this morning, I’ll still clean my plate of even the smallest crumb. I hope you’ve had lunch.”

  “Oh yes, ma’am. I ate right before coming up. And Kathleen’s off to finish the marketing, so this was a good time to take a break.”

  “How’s the cleaning going?”

  “Fine, ma’am, although I’ve been surprised at how dirty the curtains were. We cleaned them only last spring.”

  “I suspect that during the summer, with all the windows open, there’s a lot of dust and dirt that blows in off the street. You and Kathleen are a wonder. I don’t know how you have the stamina, especially in this heat.”

  Tilly blushed and said, “Not near as tiring as cleaning out the muck from a hog stall, ma’am. And a sight more satisfying when it’s all done.”

  Annie knew that Tilly was the middle child in a large family that raised livestock back in Ireland. One of eight children, with a sickly mother, an abusive father, and older brothers who expected her to lend her hand at farm chores and tend her four younger brothers and sisters.

  She’d jumped at the chance to come to America when Mrs. O’Malley, her mother’s widowed sister, sent money to bring her here. Tilly confided to Kathleen that the only reason her father let her come was his belief she’d send back money. She’d vowed not to, saying he’d only spend it on drink. However, her aunt was helping her save her wages so she could bring a younger sister to America when the girl got old enough.

  Annie was impressed at the sensible attitude of the young girl. She had hired her two years ago to work part time, when Tilly was only thirteen. Having spent a week as a domestic while investigating her first murder, Annie had realized that she was asking too much of Mrs. O’Rourke and Kathleen to do all the work needed to keep the boardinghouse running. Annie didn’t have enough income at that time to pay for another full-time maid, so Tilly was the perfect solution. Kathleen knew the O’Malley family and knew that Tilly, who was completely unskilled in domestic work, would be happy with part-time wages. This way the girl could still be back at the O’Malleys’ every afternoon and evening to watch her younger cousins while their mother and older sister were at work.

  However, last fall, as Tilly’s skills improved and work in the boardinghouse increased, Annie hired her full-time, although the girl still went home each night, only staying at the boardinghouse on Kathleen’s night out.

  Until last week.

  That was when Beatrice O’Rourke told her that Tilly had shyly asked if it was possible for her to become a regular, live-in servant, now that her cousin Deirdre, at the age of fourteen, had proved she could handle her brothers and sisters on her own. Annie had been delighted to agree, and on Monday, Tilly arrived with her small bundle of clothing. As she had on Kathleen’s nights out, Tilly would sleep in the little truckle bed that pulled out from Kathleen’s bed. This made for close quarters in the basement room, but both girls said they didn’t mind.

  Thinking of this, Annie said, “Tilly, how are you settling into sharing a room with Kathleen?”

  “Oh, ma’am. It’s ever so nice having my own drawer for my things. My cousins were forever dragging out and playing with my few bits and pieces.”

  “And when Kathleen moves up into the nursery, you’ll have the whole chest of drawers to yourself!” Annie noticed a cloud pass over Tilly’s face, her eyes suddenly cast down. “Tilly, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh ma’am, I know I’m being silly. But I’m not used to being in a room, much less a bed, with fewer than four or five others, my brothers and sisters back in Ireland, my little cousins here. So the idea of having the room to myself when Kathleen moves up to the nursery is a might scary.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that. Well, there’s no rush for Kathleen to move out.”

  “Ma’am, I didn’t mean you should change your plans.”

  “Don’t you worry. There is no reason for her to move until Abigail starts sleeping in the nursery, and that won’t happen as long as she needs to be nursed at night. That is months and months away.”

  She saw Tilly’s shoulders relax, but there was still a slight frown on her face as she played “this pig went to market” with Abigail’s toes. It suddenly dawned on Annie that, for the first time, Kathleen hadn’t come back to the boardinghouse on her night out. Instead, she had spent the night with her friend Mary Margaret, a servant who lived a few streets away. The poor girl had been jilted by her boyfriend, and Kathleen had promised to stay with her and cheer her up. Mary Margaret’s mistress, Mrs. Ashburton, had agreed to the arrangement, having a very good reason to think highly of Kathleen. However, this would have meant that Tilly was alone in the basement room all night.

  Annie said, “Tilly, did you have difficulty sleeping?”

  After the trouble with burglars breaking into the boardinghouse in July, Annie should have thought about how it might feel for young Tilly to be the only one in the basement.

  Not wanting to make the young girl feel bad about being scared, Annie said, “I know that with these hot nights, you have to have the window open or you would stifle, but remember we had those bars put into the window in Kathleen’s room, so no one could possibly get in that way.”

  Tilly nodded and said, her voice not much above a whisper, “I know that. It’s just me being a goose. Fact is, it’s that it’s so quiet. I notice every little sound the house makes. Back at my aunt’s, there was always lots of noise, so’s you stopped noticing any particular sound.”

  “Well, once Laura has moved, and we have set up the nursery, which should be soon, you could come up and sleep in there on the nights Kathleen is out. Would that help?”

  Tilly smiled and said yes. But Annie felt she’d not quite gotten the truth from the young girl.

  Later that afternoon, Annie sat across from the young boarder, Emmaline, having tea in the formal parlor.

  “How was this first week of school, Emmaline?” she asked after the two of them had maintained a polite silence during the ritual of pouring the tea an
d taking their first sips.

  Emmaline Fournier, the young orphan who had moved into the boardinghouse last winter to be raised by her aunts, the Misses Moffet, liked to do things properly. She often quoted her deceased mother as the arbiter of good behavior, strictures that were now reinforced by her equally proper aunts.

  Annie was always impressed by the girl’s attention to detail. As usual, Emmaline’s honey-blonde hair was neatly pulled back, her ringlets had kept their curl throughout the day, and, as befitted the niece of two excellent seamstresses, her light blue tarlatan plaid was of the highest fashion for young girls. More remarkable, she’d somehow kept from getting the slightest smudge on her white cotton stockings.

  Barbara Hewitt affectionately called her their little Miss Manners but said the girl was a good influence on her son, Jamie, and Kathleen’s brother, Ian. Annie thought that the boys were a good influence on Emmaline as well. When Emmaline moved into the boardinghouse last winter, she’d been so serious that Annie wasn’t entirely sure she knew how to have fun. But she now laughed at the boys’ outrageous jokes, played spirited card games, and she was known occasionally to get a bit dirty when she played tag or hide and seek with the neighborhood children.

  Annie had asked Mrs. O’Rourke to extend Emmaline an invitation to join her for tea in the parlor when she got home from school. She had chosen to spend the afternoon here because it was cooler downstairs. In addition, apart from a thump now and then from the Steins’ rooms above, the parlor was much quieter than her own bedroom. She’d laid Abigail down on the settee under the front window for a nap, and her daughter was happily sleeping away, cooled by an ever-so-slight breeze.

  She knew that Emmaline would be feeling a bit at loose ends when she got home from school since Jamie and Ian were off selling newspapers. During the summer months, when the boys sold the Chronicle in the mornings, Emmaline would go for carriage rides with her legal guardian, Mr. Livingston, or spend part of the day with her aunts at the Silver Strike Bazaar. This was Mr. Livingston’s fancy emporium, which was where her mother had been the chief dress designer.