Thursday March 13, 2025

Dandy's Discovery, Scene 2

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1653:

Brief check-in: As predicted another storm rolled in. Here are clouds gathering yesterday, and this morning we woke to hard rain pelting against the windows.

Throughout the rest of March, I will be publishing every Tuesday and Thursday, for all subscribers, the sixth short story in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Dandy’s Discovery. Today is scene 2, but if you would like to first read the short posts I did on why I wrote this short story, and historical tidbits on both dogs and cats as pets in the Victorian era, click HERE, or HERE.

Dandy’s Discovery
by M. Louisa Locke
Copyright 2020

Scene 2:

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.

To be continued…

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