Tuesday February 18, 2025

Beatrice Bests the Burglars, Scene 4

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 1630:

For the month of February, I am offering, for free, the fifth short story in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Beatrice Bests the Burglars. Today is scene 4, but if you would like to read the short post I did on why I wrote this short story, click HERE, or if you would like to read the Historical Tidbit on San Francisco boardinghouses in this period, click HERE.

Brief check-in: The king-sized mattress arrived yesterday (all rolled up), and with much effort my husband got it upstairs, where we unwrapped it and it has been slowly expanding all night. Today we started disassembling the old bed. We got it in 2006, no instructions, not intuitive, so looking instructions on line, wish us luck!

Beatrice Bests the Burglars
by M. Louisa Locke
Copyright 2019

Scene 4:

Feeling daring, Beatrice used the front stairs to get up to the second floor. She’d had to laugh when she overheard Kathleen trying to explain to little Tilly why she had to go all the way down the hallway to the back stairs every time she went from the first to the second floor. The poor girl had frowned and said, “But Miss Kathleen, you always say we’re to be as quick about our work as we can be, no dilly-dallying.”

Kathleen finally said, “It’s just the rule. Mrs. Dawson won’t snap your head off like some mistresses would if you forget. But it’s best if you get in the habit.”

Beatrice remembered that, when she started out in service, Mrs. Waterstone had given her a sensible explanation for that rule. She said that since servants were often carrying something––a pail of water, a stack of wood, a dustpan of cinders, or a fully laden tray––it would be difficult if they unexpectedly ran into the lady of the house coming up or down the stairs. Since the style back then was for ladies to wear huge skirts over hoops that could measure a good three feet across, she’d no trouble imagining the disaster that could happen if they accidentally spilled something on one of those skirts. The days of crinolines were long gone, and since there would be no chance of running into anyone this afternoon, Beatrice was glad to save a few steps.

At the top of the stairs, she paused, taking out the small ring of keys she kept in her skirt pocket. She didn’t have much reason to use anything but the keys that locked and unlocked the larder, the pantry, and the doors to the dining room’s sideboard, but she did have the master house key, as well as the special key that unlocked the Stein’s two rooms.

Esther and Herman Stein, a well-to-do couple in their sixties, may have been much younger than the Waterstones, but they had been their closest friends, particularly at the end when Mr. Timothy’s health began to falter. The couple made sure that their carriage was available for Agatha Waterstone to use. And, at least twice a month, they would come to dinner, Mr. Stein telling Mr. Timothy about the latest financial and political scandals, while Mrs. Stein would entertain them all with amusing stories about her children and grandchildren. But those small kindnesses didn’t hold a candle to what the Steins had done for Mrs. Waterstone’s niece, Annie.

Not only did Mr. Stein advise Annie on how to turn the O’Farrell Street house into a boardinghouse, but he and his wife sold their place in the Western Addition and moved into the Waterstones’ old sitting-room and bedroom, paying a top-notch room and board rate for the suite.

Mrs. Stein said they had already been talking about selling. Said she was lonely rattling around in their big house now that all the children were grown and gone and her husband was on the road so much on business. She also told Beatrice it was her cooking that sealed the deal with Mr. Stein.

But the Steins could have easily moved into one of the local hotels like the Baldwin or even the Palace Hotel, like so many of the wealthy did, and those places had fancy French chefs. No, it was just plain goodness that made them help Annie out, with their money and their advice.

Walking into the Stein’s sitting room, Beatrice thought about how she had always admired both this room and the adjacent bedroom that were connected by a pocket door. Both rooms had special plaster carvings of flowers on their ceilings that looked right pretty with the floral wallpaper that Mrs. Stein had picked out. The Steins had replaced all the Waterstones’ furniture with their own favorite pieces and covered the floor with a lovely, thick carpet that muffled any sound. Their furniture might have been a mite too big for the size of the room, but to Beatrice’s mind, this made it cozy. Helped wipe away some of the sadness she felt when she remembered finding Mrs. Waterstone slumped in her chair by the fireplace that terrible morning she’d died.

This July Fourth, the Steins were spending the day at the home of their youngest daughter, Hetty, who was hosting the whole extended family. Beatrice had heard Mrs. Stein tell Annie that she had half-a-mind to skip this affair and come to the picnic at Jefferson Square. She said Hetty had been complaining, as usual, that she didn’t understand why her parents had moved to that dinky boardinghouse, since it would have been so much more convenient to hold the holiday celebration at her parents’ old house.

Beatrice secretly wondered if one of the reasons the Steins sold their house was so that Mrs. Stein didn’t have to host these sorts of family parties. She had confessed to Beatrice more than once that, while she loved her family, she liked them in small doses. Beatrice knew exactly what she meant, especially when her younger brothers and sisters felt the right to tell her how to manage her life.

After making sure the windows were open so the rooms would have cooled off by the time the Steins returned home, Beatrice carefully locked the sitting-room door before crossing the hall to Annie and Mr. Nate’s bedroom.

Ever since Abigail’s birth, entering this room made Beatrice think about how life had come full circle. Annie’s parents had occupied this room back in the fifties, and it was where Annie had been born, so it seemed fitting that this is where Annie’s own daughter had been born.

The mahogany wardrobe and dresser that had once graced the room had long ago been replaced with less elegant cast-offs, and the expensive Persian carpet was now slightly threadbare, but the round table and the large ornately-carved bedstead were part of the original furnishings. Even the old clock sitting on the fireplace mantel was the one Annie’s mother had brought all the way from New York all those years ago.

Annie once told Beatrice that this clock and the two blue jugs on either side of it were the only things she still had of her mother’s. She said just knowing her parents had lived in this room, slept in that bed, sat at that table, and looked out that window, brought her a kind of peace she’d thought she’d never experience again after her father’s death.

Of course, the mantel now held a couple of Mr. Nate’s law books, the wardrobe was a good deal more crowded with his suits, and they’d had to squeeze a second small dresser into the room to handle his clothes. Not to mention all the baby’s things that were now in the room, including a crib. Good thing Mr. Nate wasn’t fussy.

It helped that Laura, Nate’s sister who lived in the next room, had agreed to take the trunk that usually was at the end of the bed, as well as the full-length mirror that used to be where the second dresser now stood. But this made her room pretty crowded as well, which Beatrice couldn’t help notice when she stuck her head in to see if anything needed straightening.

Miss Laura had left early this morning and she did tend to leave her belongings scattered about. Poor girl had thought she would have the whole day off, but she’d been called in to work so she could help set the type for a special edition about President Garfield’s attempted assassination. She did hope to get away early enough to join everyone at Jefferson Square later in the afternoon.

Beatrice went further into Laura’s room so she could pull the curtains open, since the sun would no longer be hitting this eastern facing window. As she passed the mirror sitting on its wooden pedestal, she paused. Didn’t know when she’d taken the time to look at her herself from head-to-toe. Of course, she knew her hair had all turned grey, except for the very tips. But those were hidden at the end of the braid wrapped around her head. What shocked her was how wide her hips appeared in the mirror. From the front, didn’t seem like she had any waist at all. Well, no matter. People said you couldn’t trust the meals in a house with a skinny cook.

Did make it a bit difficult, however, to thread her way around the end of Laura’s bed, what with the additional furniture, including a small dresser Annie had bought for the baby’s things. Thank goodness Miss Celia, Miss Laura’s friend from the university, had moved out before the baby came. And the crowding was only temporary, because next month Laura was to move into Mr. Harvey and Mr. Chapman’s room, letting Annie turn this room into a full-time nursery.

When she got to Mr. Harvey and Mr. Chapman’s room, she saw that Mr. Chapman had, as promised, left the curtains and the window open. While Beatrice would miss Mr. Harvey when he moved out, she was glad he was finally able to bring his wife and two sons to live with him in San Francisco. For a moment, she’d thought her kind-hearted mistress was going to try to figure out how they could fit his whole family into the boardinghouse! But he’d found a small place to rent down south of Market, and David Chapman had agreed to move with him and sublet one of the rooms to help pay the rent.

That was the biggest shame––losing Mr. Chapman. The man was so kind, always willing to help out, take Jamie, Ian, and Emmaline on outings or play cards with them after dinner. He would be sorely missed.

She was now at the back of the house at the entrance to the back stairs, which was across from the water closet. Mrs. Waterstone had this tiny room carved out of what had been Mr. Timothy’s dressing room when her husband started having trouble making it downstairs. Sure was a convenience for everyone who now lived in the house. Especially in bad weather, when no one liked using the old outhouse at the back of the property.

As she walked up the stairs to the attic, she could feel the temperature rise. Last summer when Jamie had complained about how hot it was at night, how hard it was to sleep, Mr. Chapman had explained to him why hot air rose. Beatrice didn’t know how people who lived in those tropical places that were hot all year round stood it. At least in San Francisco, even when it did get occasionally hot, it usually cooled off at night. Not like back east. She certainly had bad memories of the summers in the Waterstone’s New York townhouse, when sometimes the nights seemed hotter than the days. Hadn’t helped that she had to share a bed with the parlor maid who gave off heat like an oven.

Thank heavens, once the Waterstones moved into the O’Farrell Street house, she never again had to share a bed, even back in the early days when the third-floor attic had housed all four of the female servants. Those had been fun years. At night, the attic had rung with whispered gossip and laughter. She recalled how Hannah, the cook back then, warned them that they’d better get to sleep or they’d regret it the next day. She’d thought the cook, in her late forties, was an old fogey. Then, twenty years younger than Hannah, Beatrice had been able to rise at six, work a fourteen hour day, then go out on her nights off and dance with Peter until the wee hours. Youth…and love, were a great tonic. Beatrice sighed.

That tonic was missing in the sad period after Peter died and she returned to service with the Waterstones. As the other servants left, one-by-one, the attic became just a place to lay her weary head. Getting the cook’s large, pleasant room at the front of the house was nice, but it didn’t make up for the long days of hard work. Or the general loneliness she had felt at night when she came up the stairs to the attic, empty of people and instead filled with trunks of out-of-fashion clothing, discarded and broken furniture, and carpets, curtains, and bedding that needed mending.

Since Annie had arrived, turning the tired old home into a boardinghouse, the attic had become a cheerful, lively place again. Filled not with servants, but with boarders, now a place that rang with children’s laughter over the antics of a small dog.

The first boarders to arrive had been Miss Minnie and Miss Millie Moffet, the old dears who held adjoining rooms on the east side of the attic. They were two of the city’s most sought-after dressmakers, and they had turned the bigger of their two rooms into their workroom, taking advantage of the eastern and southern facing windows that gave them plenty of light in the morning. Six months ago, they were joined by Emmaline, their young orphaned niece, and they had carved out a corner of their workroom for her bed and small dresser.

Next to move in was Barbara Hewitt, who took up the large room on the southwestern corner of the attic. Mrs. Hewitt, a lovely woman with such a pleasant voice, taught at Girl’s High. She had a sad history. Really such a shame, because it seems to have turned her off men and poor David Chapman was awful smitten with her. Kathleen swore the reason he’d been so quick to volunteer to move out of the boardinghouse and room with Mr. Harvey was because he thought if he weren’t around all the time, Mrs. Hewitt would miss him. Absence making the heart grow fonder and all that.

Up until this winter, Jamie and his small black and white dog Dandy shared his mother’s room. But after Christmas, Annie, bless her heart, said he could move into the small box room next to his mother’s room with Ian, Kathleen’s brother, who needed a place to live. Beatrice knew for a fact her mistress wasn’t charging Mrs. Hewitt any more than she had been, even though she was really getting two rooms, and she wasn’t charging Kathleen more than five dollars a month for Ian’s room and board, and that boy could eat!

At least Emmaline’s rich guardian, the owner of the Silver Strike Bazaar up on Sutter, was more than happy to pay for the young girl’s room and board, and both Jamie and Ian, good boys that they were, had offered to turn over some of the money they made selling papers. Annie told them to save their money, but that she would ask them to do occasional chores around the house and run errands for Mr. Nate. So far, that had been working out well.

But Beatrice worried that the loss of income from Mr. Harvey and Mr. Chapman was going to send Annie back to work too soon.

Well, not my job to worry about that.

Walking towards her bedroom that overlooked O’Farrell Street, she wondered if she would be able to get a decent breeze going up here if she left the door to her room open. Otherwise, she was going to have to take her sore leg and her grumbling knees right back downstairs to the kitchen, to take that little cat-nap in the kitchen rocker.

To be continued…

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