Seashells Ch. 01

"I will take you to the drawing room, sir," she said. "It's the most comfortable of the rooms we have available and there's a fire burning there, which should be most welcome after your journey from Monterey."

"Err... thank you," said Jack, smiling at her once again. She did not return his smile but merely gave him another of her cool, critical stares before turning and leading the way toward the drawing room once more. He followed her, puzzled by her air of disapproval and was a bit miffed by her attitude. Did all his uncle's servants have such rude manners? It was bad enough to put up with Higgins' attitude but now...

He noticed all the lit candles and wondered why the lights weren't turned on. He went to the wall and flicked one of the switches. There was no response and the room remained in candlelight.

If he had only known that Georgia's state of mind was not much different from his own. The new owner's appearance had come as a shock to her. She had been unconsciously expecting him to resemble his uncle, a pale, stern looking gentleman with a stooping physique. Besides, she had been expecting him to look like a libertine, for his late uncle had not been sparing in his criticisms of his nephew's character.

But the young man whom she had just admitted to the house looked nothing like a wild man indulging in immoral pleasures and promiscuous liaisons. He was fair in color with dark blond hair, vivid blue eyes and quite the handsomest face she had ever seen. She shivered, realizing that those thoughts were the death knell to every servant, because to bed her master... especially, a colored servant... There was no future there, she knew.

Try as she might, though, she could see no signs of dissipation about his face. Indeed, as she had surveyed him at the doorstep, she had been reminded of a knight in shining armor she had once seen in a book as a child. She couldn't help but look at his strong nose, what looked to be a firm, sensitive mouth and square jaw. He seemed to be a pleasant and personable man, not in the least looking like a wastrel.

She knew she had to stop her dreaming. What she had imagined could never happen, not if she wished to remain free of encumbrances such as child and no husband. She was a colored servant, nothing more.

As she led him toward the drawing room, Georgia could not resist the urge to look back at him, under the pretext of addressing to him a commonplace remark about the drawing room fire and in doing so her feelings had suffered a shock. She had caught him looking at her legs and this had instantly destroyed whatever favorable opinion she might have had about him.

Clearly, she thought, he was as his uncle had described. Georgia told herself sternly that she would have to be very careful in her dealings with him and not say or do anything that might be construed as encouragement. Her remark about the fire was made with great coldness and she would not allow herself to return the friendly smile that accompanied his reply. It was hard to do so, she soon realized. He did not seem like a bad man, not at all. If she had not had the old man's warnings about him to put her on guard, she could have easily found herself succumbing to his charm.

She opened the drawing room door, inviting him into its aging elegance with its scuffed but well-maintained floor.

"Here you are, sir," she said formally. "Dinner will be ready shortly. Do you wish to see your room so you may change first or would you prefer to dine as you are? Will your friend be staying?"

"I would like to change, thank you," he said looking at his dusty clothes. "And Bill will be staying. I don't know yet about the driver. What is wrong with the lights?"

"The generator isn't working. When... we don't know how to make it work."

"Bill and I will take a look at it in the morning. What room have you put me in? Not my uncle's, I hope."

"No, I thought you would probably prefer to occupy some other room until you have had a chance to go through your uncle's things. I have put you in the south wing with a fine view of the sea. It's..."

"I know where it is," Jack said, pleased. "That's where I stayed last time I was here. It seems a lifetime ago." He cast a glance around the drawing room, lingering on the bright furnishings and watercolors on the walls. "This place looks so much livelier than I remembered it."

Georgia stoked the fire, satisfied with the warmth that rushed through the room. The flames in the fireplace danced as the wood crackled. A log split, sending a shower of embers up the flue.

"That would be your uncle's second wife's influence, I expect," said Georgia, turning to leave the room. "She did quite a lot toward improving the house, I understand. If there is nothing else, sir, I will go see to dinner. I thought, perhaps, the breakfast room, there being the two of you?"

"Don't go yet, Miss Lincoln," he said, laying a hand on her arm to detain her. She gave such a look that he removed his hand immediately but continued to speak to her in what he hoped was a winning manner. "It is Miss Lincoln and not Mrs.?"

"That is correct," she said, looking at him suspiciously.

"I was wanting to ask you... who are you, exactly? Or rather, what do you do here... what position did you fill in my late uncle's household?"

"I was nanny to his son," she replied and taking a lit candle with her, left the room hastily, leaving him with as many unanswered questions as before. Deciding he would have an opportunity to question her further at dinner, he took off his coat, warmed himself by the fire and then, taking a candlestick himself, went to his room in the south wing where Bill was busy unpacking their cases in the dimly lit room.

"The driver decided to return to Carmel. I don't know what he was thinking but he said he'd driven the road plenty of times."

"Tomorrow morning, we need to take a look at the generator and get some lights working in this place. Walking around with candles like we're characters in a Dickens novel is not to my liking."

A short while later, after shaving, washing and dressing in clean clothes, he went with Bill to the breakfast room. The room, although only lit by candles, was pleasant, having been transformed like the drawing room. With surprise, though, he saw that only two places had been set for dinner.

"Where's Miss Lincoln?" he asked of the maid, another colored woman, who had just come into the room carrying a tray with two soup bowls. "I would like to speak with her."

"Georgia usually eats with the rest of us, sir. Before, she would eat with young Master John but..."

"Would you please ask her to join us? Thank you."

The maid was shocked and did her best not to let it show, although Jack could tell she did not approve. He wasn't surprised. To have a colored woman, especially one nominally a servant, eat with the owner of the house was not something that was done.

The maid put the two soup bowls on the table and departed with his message for Georgia. She returned a minute later with Georgia, whose face wore a worried look. "You wished to see me, sir?"

"Well, yes, I do," he said. "Not to put too fine a point to it but I would like you to dine with us. There are some questions I would like to ask you over dinner."

She drew herself up and regarded him with the same expression she had before. "I hardly think it would be proper for me to dine with you, sir. Besides, I am needed in the kitchen."

"Nonsense. You are the nanny, not a cook. Why should you be needed in the kitchen? This girl..."

"The name's Ellen, sir."

"Ellen, here, said that you used to eat with my young cousin so you have no excuse not to eat with us now."

"Sir, there's a difference between eating with a small boy and the..."

"Yes, there is and I need to know what's been going on around here and since you were the one to send the telegrams, you're elected. I'm sure they can manage without you in the kitchen for one meal. Sit down, please."

Georgia felt she should continue to assert the need for her presence in the kitchen but that was difficult in face of his insistence. In fact, she wanted to sit down at the table but had never done so, knowing her place in the household.

She looked at Jack. He seemed so sincere and eager for her company and so anxious to ask her about the house. It was enough to crumble her attempts to stay out of his way even though she was still wary.

"I'm afraid I have nothing suitable to wear."

"It's just us and there's no company, Georgia. Please, sit down and dine with us. Your clothing is not an issue with me. Besides, you look fine to me. Sit down. Ellen, please bring another bowl of soup."

She sat down, defeated.

"This is Bill Johnson, my friend. Now, tell us about the house and what has happened since my uncle has died."

"Yes, sir. Ellen, go back into the kitchen and help Susan with the fish. I will take care of the plates," said Georgia, looking at the young servant girl who had been standing there.

Jack watched curiously as she picked up more plates from the sideboard and set another place at the table.

"Why are you doing that? It surely is not the job of a governess any more than cooking is. Are all the staff here colored? Why isn't the butler here?"

Georgia gave him a strange look as she sat down. "The butler is in jail, awaiting your decision on his fate," she said.

"What?" Jack asked, confused by Georgia had just said. "Why is the butler in jail?"

Chapter 3

"Ellen, go back into the kitchen and help Bethany with the fish," said Georgia, looking at the young servant girl who had been standing there watching the interplay between the newcomer and herself.

Bill had nearly spilled his soup from the bowl, he was so astonished. "How can he be in jail and how is it our business?" he asked.

"What did you say, Georgia? That can't be correct," Jack said, just as surprised as Bill to hear such news.

"A few days after your uncle's death, the butler and the cook made an attempt to steal the house silver but we found out about it early enough that the sheriff was able to catch them before they could leave the area. They were attempting to reach San Francisco and sell the silver. Ever since, they've been sitting in jail, awaiting your arrival to press charges. I had written to you about it."

"I've heard nothing about it until now. I've only received your telegrams."

"I was told that you were staying in San Francisco and sent the letters there. Surely, Higgins gave them to you."

"Higgins! That... it's all right, Georgia, I understand exactly what happened." Jack looked at his bowl of soup, wondering what other surprises were going to spring out at him.

"I know one thing, though," he said to himself, "Higgins has to go." Satisfied that he had at least come to a decision about the San Francisco house, he tasted the soup. "God, this is wretched," he said, putting down his spoon.

"So, you've been without a butler or cook all this time?" he asked.

"Yes, and without half the staff for even longer," she replied.

"What? Are they in jail, too?"

"Oh, no, they left when the first case was diagnosed," explained Georgia.

"This is insane." 'No wonder,' he thought, 'she wasn't exactly overjoyed to see me, thinking I have ignored their plight all this time.' "I'm so sorry, I really had no idea."

In spite of herself, she found her opinion of him improving. He might be all that his uncle had described but he had not been as remiss in his duties as she had once thought. Instead of living a scandalous life in San Francisco, he had been in the relative quiet of Coronado.

'Maybe,' she thought, 'he isn't the person I believed.'

"You must not feel badly about what happened, sir," she told Jack. "There is nothing you could have done to help your uncle or his family. Perhaps, later, you would like to see where they are buried? It is just a short distance from the house."

He nodded his head. "Yes, I would like to pay my respects. That is the chief reason I came here."

"Excuse me," said Ellen, "I have the fish."

"God, I hope it's better than the soup." Jack and Bill looked at Georgia but she seemed to have accepted poor food as her lot along with the other servants.

Another girl brought in two bowls of vegetables and set them down and after carefully looking at the two men, left for the kitchen.

"Thank you, Ellen," Jack said as the girl left them.

"I've tried to tell Liza not to boil everything for an hour but she doesn't listen."

"Liza is the cook, then?" Bill asked Georgia.

"No, she is just another of the maids but we had to find someone to take her place and she seemed to have more experience in the kitchen than the rest of us. I think that was a bad mistake."

For most of the next hour, Georgia related what life was like living at Windcliff and how she had come to be the nanny for the small boy, now dead. Although he was shocked by her refusal to gloss over unpleasant facts, he found her honesty refreshing. Other than calling him 'sir', she had not treated him as had so many of his other acquaintances once they discovered his new found wealth.

She seemed an altogether unusual woman and he was curious to know more about her personal situation.

"My father was a preacher," she began, "and as long as he was alive, we did all right but, unfortunately, he was not a great man for saving money. When he died, he left me with barely enough to live on until I came here as nanny. My mother had died some years earlier, you understand."

"You've had a good deal of education, haven't you?" he asked.

"Some, mainly I read a lot, starting, of course, with the Good Book and newspapers and whatever I could get."

"There were no relatives you could have gone to?" asked Bill.

"I did not wish to live off the charity of people that didn't want me. I had to work for a living, not so easy for..." She left the words hanging between them.

"A colored woman, you mean?" Jack tried to give her a friendly smile.

"Yes."

"Forgive me for saying so, but you are an handsome woman. There was no one interested in marrying you?"

"There was one..." her voice trailed away, "but he died. I came here, answering an advertisement in the newspaper. I was surprised to find everyone here was colored. It was probably the only reason he hired me, I think."

Jack lost his smile. "I'm sorry for bringing up such unpleasantness. It sounds as though you have had a great deal to suffer through no cause of your own." He knew he should not pursue the subject but so strong was his curiosity that he could not resist the urge to question her further.

"And so you were going to be married," he continued. "What sort of man was he?"

"He was a preacher like my father. He was a good man, the best I've ever known." He voice softened as she spoke these words. "He was good and kind and generous. He was poor but he had a good position and it would have been enough for us to live on, in the beginning. But he caught the flu in 1919 and died and then my father died a few weeks later and so I had no choice but to come here."

The tone of her voice made it clear she wanted no sympathy for what had happened.

Bill, who had been silent through all this, offered to do the cooking until they could find someone more qualified. "Anything," he said, "to not repeat tonight." He stood up. "You'll have to excuse me but I'm off to bed. It's been a long day and that bouncing car didn't do my back any good. Good night, Miss Lincoln. Jack."

As Bill walked to his room, he was surprised at his friend's attitude toward the woman. While he had nothing necessarily against her, he still felt uncomfortable in her presence. His grandfather had fought in the War Between the States... for the South, and had been adamant about the place colored people had in society.

While they had been eating their dubious dinner, one of the maids had turned down the bedding and had hung his clothes in the armoire. He brushed his teeth in the bathroom and then went to bed but several hours later he found himself still staring at the ceiling, wondering what his friend was going to do.