Beatrice Bests the Burglars Read online

  Beatrice Bests the Burglars

  A Victorian San Francisco Story

  M. Louisa Locke

  Contents

  Preface

  Beatrice Bests the Burglars

  Other Works by Author

  About the Author

  Preface

  This short story features the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse cook, Mrs. Beatrice O’Rourke. My goal was to use this short story to expand on this character’s history with this house. I also wanted to provide a fuller description of the boardinghouse itself, which has only been portrayed in bits and pieces in the other books. Finally, I felt this story would be a fun way to remind readers who haven’t read one of the books in this series for some time about the various inhabitants of the boardinghouse. Chronologically, this book comes soon after the sixth novel in the series, Scholarly Pursuits, so if you don’t like spoilers, you might want to save reading it until you have read that book.

  Beatrice Bests the Burglars

  Noon, July 4, 1881

  O’Farrell Street Boarding House, San Francisco

  * * *

  Beatrice O’Rourke gently kissed Abigail’s tiny fist and secured the baby more firmly against her shoulder as she watched her mistress, Annie Dawson, dig through a wicker basket sitting on the kitchen table.

  “Bea, are you sure I packed the clean diapers?”

  “Yes, I saw you put them in the basket. But Annie, you can change your mind about taking Abigail with you to the picnic. I’d be more than glad to keep her here with me for the next few hours. What if some wretched boy sets off a fire cracker and spooks the horses?”

  Annie looked up, with several of the cotton squares she’d just unearthed in her hand. “Now, Bea, Jefferson Square isn’t but a five minute ride away, and you know the Eddy Street stables have the best trained carriage horses in town. You could set off a cannon under their noses and they wouldn’t notice.”

  The baby stirred at the sound of her mother’s voice and Beatrice patted her as she rocked from side-to-side. She knew how important this outing was to Annie, who hadn’t left the house since Abigail was born seven weeks ago. She sighed and said, “Don’t mind me, dearie. I’m being a silly old goose, worrying so.”

  Closing the basket’s lid, Annie chuckled. “No one would ever dare say you were silly or a goose. However, I promise we will be back by four at the latest, hours before sunset, which is when any pyrotechnics will start in earnest. Besides, Patrick told us yesterday that the hooligans getting drunk in the Barbary Coast saloons are the ones most likely to cause trouble today, and that’s way across town.”

  Beatrice was proud that Patrick, her young nephew and one of San Francisco’s policemen, was following in the footsteps of her deceased husband. But sometimes her nephew could be too full of himself, showing off in front of the maid Kathleen. When she recommended that Annie hire Kathleen Hennessey to come work for the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse, Beatrice had never expected that her nephew would fall head over heels in love with the young servant. Or that Kathleen would return the sentiment, although––sensible girl that she was––she’d made it very clear to Patrick that she wouldn’t even consider an engagement, much less marriage, until she’d successfully shepherded her youngest brother, Ian, through school and into a decent profession.

  But that seemed to have only encouraged Patrick to work harder to impress Kathleen––and Annie––whom he steadfastly believed was his ally in his campaign to get a ring on Kathleen’s finger. Patrick claimed that this part of town would remain untroubled today on account of the city canceling most of the festivities in response to the attempted assassination of President Garfield two days ago.

  Beatrice did think it was a shame that the poor man had been shot––and if the papers were to be believed––was at death’s door. Seemed even more of a shame that the bigwigs had decided to deprive the poor San Francisco workingmen of this one summer holiday they could count on. Most of the other cities in the state hadn’t felt the need to cancel their celebrations––just add on prayers for the president in all the speechifying.

  As for the kind of mischief the shiftless young men of the city might get into, she wouldn’t be surprised if, without the parade and sporting events for people to attend, there wouldn’t be more––rather than less––trouble. She’d lived through enough July Fourths to know that no part of the city was safe from the reality that men of every age and station loved devices that made loud noises and threw off dangerous sparks.

  That’s the main reason she’d volunteered to stay home when her mistress declared they were going ahead with the picnic at Jefferson Square. Beatrice had already heard the distant clanging of a fire engine twice this morning and she wouldn’t be able to enjoy herself at the picnic, worrying the boardinghouse might burn down in her absence.

  In any event, she’d not been terribly excited about spending the afternoon sitting outside on the ground. Especially in this heat, when she felt every one of her fifty-nine years. Picnics were for young people.

  “Ma’am, Mr. Nate’s coming down the alley with the carriage.”

  Tilly, the little Irish maid, skidded into the kitchen from the back yard, her cheeks pink with excitement. Then, noticing Abigail in Beatrice’s arms, she whispered, “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  Annie smiled warmly and said, “That’s quite all right, Tilly. You’ve seen how soundly Abigail sleeps right after a feeding. Do go back and tell my husband I will be out in a moment. But first, can you take this basket with you?”

  Beatrice watched as the young girl bobbed a hasty curtsy and took the basket, leaving the kitchen at a more proper speed. No doubt she would break into a run as soon as she was out of sight of the kitchen window.

  Although Tilly was about to turn fifteen, she wasn’t much more than four and a half feet tall, so she appeared considerably younger. Beatrice had been worried when Mrs. Dawson decided to hire the wee girl to help out Kathleen, fearing that Tilly’s life back in Ireland, chronically starved and beaten by a brutal father, made her too scrawny and timid to hold her own in such a large, boisterous household.

  Luckily, what Tilly lacked in size she more than made up for in a fierce desire to better herself. And while the young girl hadn’t grown but an inch in the past year and a half, her cheeks were now round, her eyes healthy and bright, and she could do a full day’s work without flagging. She still had a tendency to get tongue-tied when Mr. Nate, Annie’s husband, or any of the male boarders spoke directly to her, but she could be quite chatty in the safety of the boardinghouse kitchen, working with Beatrice and Kathleen.

  Annie, who had moved to the small mirror that hung on the kitchen wall to adjust her hat, said, “Now Bea, I want you to take the opportunity to rest this afternoon. You’ve been on your feet cooking for days. When we get home, Tilly can finish up the last dishes that are soaking, and I asked Kathleen to be back by seven…in case any of the boarders get home that early and need something from the kitchen.”

  Beatrice smiled at the idea she would ever leave dirty dishes in the sink, but she did appreciate Annie’s thoughtfulness in telling Kathleen to return early. Otherwise, Patrick would have tried to get her to wait at Jefferson Square until he got off work at nine. The boy never seemed to get it into his head that, for a live-in servant, a holiday or an afternoon off didn’t mean there weren’t still chores to be done. Most Tuesdays, Kathleen would have spent the day tackling the week’s ironing. The holiday today meant that tonight she would need to spend a couple of hours ironing sheets and table linens before she headed to bed––if she had any hope of getting through her normal chores over the next few days.

  “Here, I’m ready to take Abigail now.”


  Annie carefully placed one hand behind the baby’s head as she transferred her from Beatrice’s shoulder to her own, where she had draped one of the clean diapers. “With any luck, she’ll sleep through the trip to the park and won’t want to be fed again until we return. But that’s why Nate reserved a closed barouche for today, so I can sit in there if I need to feed her.”

  Beatrice stood at the kitchen door and watched as Annie crossed the back yard to where Tilly stood holding the gate open for her. The bright sun touched off sparks of flame in both Abigail’s and her mother’s reddish blonde hair. There was a definite spring to Annie’s step.

  She was glad her mistress had decided to join the rest of the boarders at the picnic. She did need to get out, and the fresh air wouldn’t do little Abigail any harm either. Beatrice could depend on Mr. Nate to whisk his wife and daughter home the first sign of a chilly wind or fireworks.

  I am being a silly goose to worry.

  Beatrice dried the last bowl and put it on the shelf, glancing at the kitchen clock. Only a little past one and she’d finished the dishes, washed the baby’s soiled nappies and hung them out to dry, and started a pot of baked beans to simmer. She also had mixed up enough dough for rolls, which would rise slowly over the afternoon. All she had to do now was peel some potatoes and boil some eggs so she could make potato salad when it was closer to supper-time.

  Tilly had instructions to bring back any of the left-over fried chicken and roast beef when she accompanied Annie and Mr. Nate home. But, if there wasn’t any left, or the meat had sat too long outside, there was still half of Sunday’s ham in the larder to go with the beans and potato salad, in addition to fresh greens from the garden.

  She’d bake some cookies later in the afternoon, since she doubted very much if any of the pies she’d made would survive the picnic. And the master did love her cookies. Annie often joked that Mr. Nate only wanted to marry her because of Beatrice’s cooking.

  As she sat at the kitchen table and started peeling the potatoes, she looked around the room with satisfaction. Everything neat and tidy as she liked it.

  But so empty.

  Even the old black cat, Queenie, had deserted her, going outside to lay in the shade of one of the bushes at the back fence.

  Beatrice couldn’t remember the last time she had been all alone in the house.

  Between the other servants, Kathleen and Tilly, her mistress Annie, and Annie’s husband and new baby, as well as the eleven boarders, there was always someone here. Even the few times a month she took an evening or afternoon off and left the boardinghouse, she only visited one of her numerous relatives. This meant sitting in crowded kitchens, listening to her sisters complaining about good-for-nothing sons-in-law, flighty unmarried daughters, or grandchildren who had gotten into some sort of mischief.

  Could this really be the first time that I’ve been all by myself since Mrs. Waterstone died? Hard to believe that was over three and a half years ago.

  Agatha and Timothy Waterstone first hired Beatrice in 1840. She’d recently arrived in New York City, a shy eighteen-year-old, fresh off the boat from County Cork. The saints had surely been looking after her that day when they led her to the employment agency where Agatha Waterstone had put in a request for a maid-of-all-work. Not only did Mrs. Waterston turn out to be a kind mistress, which Beatrice would learn was rare indeed, but the woman, who had no children of her own, had taken Beatrice under her wing—patiently forgiving her mistakes, listening to her small concerns, and giving her wise advice.

  By the time Mr. Waterstone, a sea captain, decided to retire and move out west to make his fortune in ’49, Beatrice was a well-trained parlormaid and the only servant brave enough to come with them and weather the first few years of living in tents and crowded boardinghouses. As a reward, as soon as they moved into the newly built O’Farrell Street house, Mrs. Waterstone promoted her to the position of lady’s maid, with an increase in weekly wages. With those wages she’d even been able to help pay for the rest of her siblings to come west.

  Such fine times! Dressing her mistress for a constant round of afternoon visits, fancy parties, and nights at the theatre. And then there were the small select dinners the Waterstones hosted, where Mr. Waterstone made his successful business connections. With a staff of five servants, the house had hummed with life.

  Nevertheless, Beatrice had begun to yearn for a home and a husband of her own. Agatha Waterstone, unlike some mistresses who tried to make a good servant feel disloyal if they chose to leave, supported her decision to marry the brash Irish copper, Peter O’Rourke. She even paid to have a dress made special for her for the wedding. A lovely light blue plaid that matched the color of her eyes, with yards and yards of material in the skirt. When Peter danced with her, sweeping her up in the air, it twirled out so sweetly. She pitied the young girls nowadays, like Kathleen, who wanted dresses like their betters…with those narrow skirts and awkward bustles. Couldn’t be much fun on the dance floor.

  But twelve years ago, her dances with Peter came to an end when he was shot to death by some thief who objected to her husband’s demand he hand over the wallet he’d stolen.

  Oh, that had been an awful day.

  She’d always known Peter’s job put him in danger. But she was still young enough to believe that disasters happened to other people, so she’d not been prepared. The small pittance the policeman’s benevolent society gave her barely paid for the funeral and wake, and she surely hadn’t wanted to go live with one of her younger sisters or brothers. But she feared she’d not be able to get a decent job as a servant—the only paid work she’d ever done. There weren’t very many employers who would be interested in hiring a woman in her late forties, specially not as a lady’s maid. The styles had changed so much from the hoop skirts and curls of the eighteen-fifties, which was when Beatrice last held that position.

  She remembered thinking that maybe she could get a letter of recommendation from Mrs. Waterstone. She’d kept in touch with her former mistress, who’d occasionally hired her to help out in the kitchen when the Waterstones hosted a large dinner party. The kind woman had known it was hard to make ends meet on a policeman’s meagre salary.

  What Beatrice hadn’t imagined was that––the day after Peter’s funeral––Agatha Waterston would arrive at her doorstep and ask her if she would consider moving back to the O’Farrell Street house to work, telling her that her current cook had left her in the lurch. Only later did Beatrice learn the truth, that Mrs. Waterstone had gotten a friend to hire her cook, at a slightly higher wage, so that she could offer the job to Beatrice.

  All she had known then was that the second she stepped back into the O’Farrell Street kitchen, put on the apron that hung by the back door, and fired up the old wood cookstove, her heart had begun its slow process of healing.

  She soon got the opportunity to show her gratitude. As Mr. Timothy’s health and business declined in the early seventies, one-by-one, the other servants either left and weren’t replaced or had to be let go. Beatrice cheerfully became a maid-of-all-work again, doing what she could to keep the house clean, the laundry washed and ironed, and the meals cooked and served. She even helped out by taking over some of the nursing duties so her poor mistress could go to church and keep up some social life, doing her charity work, playing whist with her old friends.

  Then came Mr. Timothy’s death and, a few months later, the stroke that felled her mistress. Merciful heavens, that had been a shock! Although Agatha Waterstone had been in her seventies, she’d appeared quite healthy.

  Even in death, her mistress had reached out to help her. Not only with the small annuity she’d left Beatrice in her will––a sum that would have at least kept her out of the poor house if she’d not had family to take her in––but Mrs. Waterstone had left instructions with Mr. Stein, the executor of her will, to let Beatrice stay in the house, at least until Mrs. Waterstone’s widowed niece, Annie Fuller, came to take possession.

  When
Mr. Stein told her about the niece inheriting the O’Farrell Street house, she’d not been surprised. She knew all about Annie. Beatrice was still working for the Waterstones in 1852 when Annie’s parents, Elizabeth and Edward Stewart, arrived in San Francisco. They’d taken the trip west to join the Waterstones by way of Panama, and Mrs. Stewart was already pregnant with Annie when they arrived.

  Beatrice had even been in the room when Annie was born, and she had been given the job of taking the newborn down to meet her father and aunt and uncle who were waiting down in the small front parlor.

  Yet, back then, what Beatrice really wanted was a baby of her own. So, when she left the O’Farrell Street house to get married a year later, she’d not given it a thought that she might not see the little girl again. Beatrice didn’t even bother to come by and say goodbye when she heard that the Stewarts and their little girl were moving down south to Los Angeles, for Mrs. Stewart’s health.

  She had felt a passing sadness when Mrs. Waterstone told her that Annie’s mother had died. She’d been back working for the Waterstones by then. And after Mr. Stewart took Annie back east to live, Mrs. Waterstone would read her the yearly Christmas letter Annie sent. From these letters, Beatrice learned about the girl’s decision to marry a young man named John Fuller. Then came the terrible news that first Annie’s father and then her husband died.

  When Mrs. Waterstone heard this last piece of news, she reached out to Annie, asking if she wanted to move back to San Francisco to live with her and her husband. But she’d never received an answer. Eventually, as Mr. Waterstone got sicker, she gave up writing.

  Beatrice now knew that Annie never received those letters. Her young mistress never spoke much about her marriage to John Fuller, or the five unhappy years after his death that she spent living with his family as a kind of unpaid servant, but Beatrice often wondered if Annie’s in-laws had kept Mrs. Waterstone’s letters from her.