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The next few days were full of chores, but with hot meals and a warm bed at their end, and my aches and pains quickly vanished. The kitchen girls gave Apollo a wide berth, and the upstairs maids giggled behind their hands at both of us, but Cook always had kind words and even mended my trousers for me. Overall it wasn’t a bad life.
Apollo behaved amazingly well. Maybe he’d had some sense knocked into him after all. Mrs. Delaney would visit with him when she came to give Cook orders, and treat him to penny candy, which surprised me because she seemed a distant and strict woman. He became quite her pet. She found him a novelty, I supposed.
Apollo should be home with his parents, not acting as pet to some stranger lady, I thought, but I couldn’t do anything until I had some money, not pay for a ticket or even send a telegram.
I didn’t think Apollo had given a second thought to the composition of the household, until one day when he asked, “Is this a girls’ school?”
More like a school for young men, I said to myself. “No, it’s a type of boardinghouse for ladies,” I answered.
“Perhaps you’ll find a sweetheart,” he said, and then pretended to gag. “I’ll tell Phoebe if you do,” he warned.
“Phoebe has given me the mitten,” I told Apollo, “so I doubt if she’ll care. That letter you gave me says she’s to marry some monkey man from Baltimore.”
“A monkey man!” Apollo howled with laughter. “What a caution! I reckon you’re a free man, then.”
I should have known better than to expect sympathy from Apollo.
Finding a sweetheart didn’t seem likely, however. The girls at Mrs. Delaney’s weren’t shy little things like Marika, the circus girl, and I wasn’t sure how to converse with them. I avoided them mostly, except in the evenings, when I collected dirty glasses from the parlor and emptied ashtrays.
Mrs. Delaney ruled the parlor from a wing chair as if she were a duchess, whispering assignations and discreetly taking offered envelopes. The gentlemen smoked cigars, of course, and to my astonishment, some of the ladies smoked cigarettes, languorous wafts of smoke escaping from pouting painted lips. The music and laughter were loud, but the women kept their clothes on and there was a minimum of fondling. The conversation could be ripe, however, and gave me an education while I gathered up abandoned glasses as couples took to the stairs. I supposed Mrs. Delaney preferred a boy for this job so as not to expose her female household help to any indignities. One didn’t like to lose good maids.
Lillie sometimes blew me a kiss, and I felt a thrill of desire. However, when I thought of how she earned her living, my ardor dimmed. This world did not offer many opportunities to a woman without a man’s support, I told myself. I did not know what choices she’d had in life, if any, and if people of my acquaintance could make their living by exhibiting their bodies, why should I condemn her for making a living with hers. Nevertheless, it made me sad to think of beautiful intimacies cheapened by money.
Perhaps it saddened her, too. Some mornings she strolled in the backyard, wrapped in lace, watching the sunrise with a distant and pensive lo
ok. I never approached her at these times; I guessed they were sacred. As it happened, another wasn’t as considerate.
One morning the dairyman delivered the milk early, and I took the bottles down to the springhouse to keep cold in the stream. As I approached the low stone building, I heard voices and I slowed down. I didn’t want to intrude.
Then a male voice rose in anger. “You little whore. I know what goes on in that house. If you don’t give me a taste, I’m going to see the sheriff.”
“That’ll make a change,” said a voice I recognized as Lillie’s. “He usually comes to see you.” She yelped, and I knew he’d hit her.
I shoved the milk into a clump of weeds and pushed open the rickety door. In a ray of light I saw Lillie with a hand to her red cheek and a gangly young man, squinting and angry.
“I think you’d better leave,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, and strode toward me, fists raised.
“Archie Crum,” I answered, and kicked him in the knee. As he bent over, I punched him in the face. He went over backward into the stone trough and landed amid the cheese and butter. Archie would have been proud of me. His lesson in dirty fighting had taken hold.
“I don’t want to see you in this yard again,” I told him, trying to ignore the pain in my knuckles and the thumping in my chest. I offered my arm to Lillie. She took it, and I escorted her to the door.
“Who was that?” I asked when we were outside. I prayed she didn’t hear the tremble in my voice.
“Just a local boy who makes a nuisance of himself,” answered Lillie, her voice breathy and excited.
“I hope you won’t be in trouble with the sheriff,” I said.
“Not to worry,” Lillie reassured me. “If that boy had come any earlier, he would have met the sheriff going.” She tugged me close and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you, darling. You are my knight.”
I’m sure I blushed for the remainder of the day.
Life wasn’t all work at Mrs. Delaney’s establishment, I discovered. The day before payday I followed the sound of laughter to the front of the house and found a croquet game in progress on the front lawn.
“Here, Abel, take my turn,” said Lillie, holding out her mallet.
I glanced at Mrs. Delaney, who presided from a wicker chair by the front path. She presented an impressive sight in a crisp summer dress of cream and black stripes and matching cream shoes with black buttons. I expected her to wave me away, but she smiled and nodded.
