Maids of Misfortune (25 page)

“It’s all my fault. I should have left well enough alone. I just
know
Jeremy didn’t kill his father, but you’ve just shown me that he could be found guilty anyway. If I had just let it alone, you, the police, everyone might have been willing to let it rest as suicide. I thought I was helping. Trying to clear Matthew’s good name. I wanted to do something to preserve my memory of him as a kind and wonderful friend. But I haven’t even done that. The longer I live in this house, the more I can see that Matthew himself was to blame for much of the unhappiness I see here. I mean, there is Miss Nancy, a bitter old woman who lived her entire life for her brother, and I can’t see that Matthew cared two figs for her. And he let her turn her bitterness on his wife. Maybe Amelia Voss acts like such a foolish and naïve woman because he insisted she be that way. Who am I to despise a woman for giving into an autocratic man? I was no better at standing up for myself to my husband. And Jeremy—well, it would have been a crime to put an end to the career of someone with the artistic talent that Jeremy has just to satisfy some vain idea of a son carrying on the business.”

Annie had begun to rock back and forth in her despair, her last words coming out as a kind of lament. “I should have left Matthew to rest in peace. But now Nellie’s dead, Matthew’s son might be hanged, the Voss family will be destroyed, and there will be no peace. It’s all my fault.”

Slowly through her misery, Annie came to realize that she was being rocked in Nate’s arms, her face pressed up against his chest, where she could feel the warmth of his skin and hear the beat of his heart through the fine linen of his shirt. One of his arms was tightly wrapped around her waist, and with his other hand he was gently stroking her hair. All the while, he was murmuring to her.

“Annie, hush now, hush. You’re not to blame. It’s not your fault. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry, please don’t cry. It will be all right, hush now.”

Annie pulled away and sat up straight, groping for her handkerchief. She blew her nose, unable to look him in the face. Nate, while he did loosen his hold on her, kept an arm around her, and now he pulled her chin up so she had to look him in the eyes.

“Annie, you must believe me when I say you are not responsible for any of this. You know as well as I do that the police were already suspicious of Voss’s death before I went to see them, and I’ve learned that they had already sent out word to find Nellie for further questioning. From the beginning, they suspected Jeremy, so you had nothing to do with that. What you’ve been doing at this house might have been misguided, but it certainly hasn’t made anything worse. And perhaps I’ll be able to use some of what you’ve learned about Cartier to at least mount an effective defense for Jeremy.

“And you mustn’t be so upset about what you’ve learned about Mr. Voss. So he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. But they were not heinous crimes. He behaved the way men are supposed to. He wanted to take care of his wife, and he wanted to make sure his son grew up to be able to support his own wife. You shouldn’t be so hard on him. Ninety percent of the men in this city act the way he did, and none of them have been murdered. He didn’t deserve that. And he would be grateful that he had a loyal friend like you who cares enough to take personal risks to find his murderer.”

Annie gave him a quick hug, whispering, “Thank you.”

She felt his arms tighten around her, and she felt the warmth of his breath travel slowly down her forehead, her eyes, her mouth…

The neighbor’s dog again barked, and Nate broke away from her and stood up, peering around. Silence reasserted itself, providing a counterpoint to the thump of Annie’s heart. She waited, hoping that he would sit back down beside her. Instead, he turned and reached his hand down to her in an offer to help her to her feet, saying as he did, “Come, let me escort you home now. You have the back door key, don’t you? Well, lock up and take it with you. First thing in the morning, Kathleen can bring the key back and get your things. You can write a note, make some excuses. You won’t have to see anyone in the house. It will be all right.”

Annie snatched her hand away as she stood up. “What do you mean? I can’t leave now. I promised Mrs. Voss I would stay. And it’s more important than ever to see what I can learn to help save Jeremy.”

Nate grabbed Annie suddenly by the arms, startling a gasp from her.

“No!” Nate was almost shouting, which prompted another series of barks from the neighbor’s dog. Then he lowered his voice, although it was no less intense. “Your days as maid are over. Leave this to me. I want you out of this house now; it’s too dangerous. If Jeremy isn’t the murderer, then the murderer, whoever he is, could be in that house right now. It’s just not safe for you to stay. One servant in this house has already died. I will not permit the same thing to happen to you. I should never have let you stay in the first place. It’s not right. You shouldn’t be exposed to this sort of danger.”

Nate’s vehemence was so unexpected that Annie was at first speechless. Then as she pulled away from him, she said, “Nate Dawson, get your hands off of me! You have used that tone of voice on me once too often. I’m not your sister,
thank goodness
, so you can’t boss me around. You have no authority over me whatsoever. And I don’t take kindly to threats.”

Nate instantly stepped back, and she rubbed her arms where he had held her. He reached towards her and then backed away again, saying, “Oh, Annie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please forgive me. I meant no offense. But don’t you see, I’m worried about you. What if I promise that I’ll look into your suspicions about Cartier first thing tomorrow? Maybe you are right and she and some man were in it together. You must realize you have done what you can here. It’s time for you to leave the investigation to others.”

“You mean leave it to some man, don’t you?” Annie snapped back. “But you’re wrong; there are things I can do to help here, even though they may not seem important to you. I have to be there in the morning to let Wong in and to get the kitchen oven going. You don’t expect Mrs. Voss to do those things? And she isn’t going to be able to get a new servant in a day, not one they can trust, not with the publicity that Jeremy’s arrest will generate. Wong can’t do everything himself, and you wouldn’t want me to leave Mrs. Voss with only Cartier, who might be a murderer, to serve her. Anyway, if it is dangerous, I can’t just expect some young innocent girl to take my place. I have got to stay, at least for tonight. You see that, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t see it,” Nate said flatly. “But it’s useless to argue with you. You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met or ever hope to meet.” He took a deep breath and said, “All right, you are probably safe as long as Jeremy is with the police, safe from Jeremy if he is the killer, and if he isn’t, the real murderer isn’t going to do anything while the police have him in custody. But I want you to promise that you will leave by tomorrow evening, and I want you to promise no snooping around in the meanwhile.”

Annie bristled, muttering, “No promises.” There was a charged moment of silence; then she said, “Look, I have a responsibility here, and being female doesn’t release me from it. Please try to understand. Since I am at least partly responsible for the danger Jeremy is facing, no matter what you say, it is only right that I should take some risks to try and help him. I only wish I could do more. I know you probably disagree, but I happen to believe that what’s right for a man to do is right for a woman. If you feel that makes me less of a woman, I’m sorry.”

She whispered, more to herself than to Nate, “I can’t change, not for you or for anybody,” and before Nate could reply, she turned and fled back down the path to the kitchen door, half-afraid he would attempt to stop her and half-afraid he wouldn’t. She’d left the kitchen door open slightly, so it took but a moment to slip inside and bolt it with the key. Then she stood leaning against the door, the silence of the night pooling around her.

Chapter Thirty-four:
Thursday morning, August 14, 1879

Wong was late
. It was nearly six in the morning, and Annie had already removed and sifted the cinders from the grate and rekindled the fire in the kitchen stove.
Wong was never late
. She should be opening up curtains upstairs by now, then setting and starting the fire in the dining room, cleaning out the fireplace in the front parlor, and making sure that room was dusted and ready to be used. But she didn’t dare leave the kitchen since it was her duty to let him in. Instead, she sat at the kitchen table, barely able to stay awake, trying to think of what to do. By now, Wong would have been making bread. Annie supposed she could try to get it started, but her bread-making attempts at home, even under Beatrice’s tutelage, generally ended in disaster. Kathleen had suggested last time that they should use the dense brick-like loaf of rye she made as a doorstop.
Heavens, how I want to be home!

And she was so tired. After Nate had left and she'd retired to her attic room, she had lain for hours, going over what he had told her, looking for proof that Cartier or some mysterious stranger was responsible for the murders. At least she could remove Miss Nancy or Mrs. Voss from the list of potential suspects. While they might have had a hand in killing Nellie, or even Matthew, in order to protect Jeremy, they would never have participated in an attempt to wrongly accuse him of these murders.

A muffled shout from the back yard snapped Annie from her reverie; her heart pounding, she grabbed the lamp beside her, took the key from its hook, and unlocked the back door. With the door open, she could clearly hear the neighbor’s dog barking and what sounded like several voices raised in anger. She ran up the back steps and could barely make out two men at the back gate who were struggling to hold a third man. Without thinking, she raised the lamp higher and ran through the back yard, shouting, “You there. What’s going on?”

When she realized that the man who was being held was Wong, she stopped short and yelled, “Let him go. He belongs here. If you don’t let him go, I’ll have the police on you.”

One of the men turned towards her and said something that was drowned out by the ever more frantic barks of the neighbor’s dog, but he didn’t release his hold on Wong. Instead, he pushed Wong to his knees, while yanking on the old man’s long braided queue. Fearless with rage, Annie snatched up a rake that was leaning up against the garden fence and one-handedly began to whale at the back of the man holding Wong. With each swing of the rake, she grunted out, “Let him go, let him go.”

Simultaneously, there was the sharp crack of a window shade being drawn up, and a man’s voice bawled out, “King! Shut up, you worthless hound!” and the dog’s barking ceased. The man whose back Annie had been assaulting dropped his hold on Wong and ran through the back gate. Once he put the fence between himself and Annie, he shouted at the other man, saying, “Ned, let him go. She’ll have the whole neighborhood awake. It's not worth it. The old Chinaman’s not going to talk anyway.”

The other man gave a half-hearted kick at Wong, who was struggling to his feet, and then removed himself from the back yard, joining his friend behind the fence. His courage apparently bucked up by the sight of Annie dropping the rake in order to help Wong to his feet, the first man leaned over the fence and said, “Hey missy. No need to get all in a bother. We just wanted to talk to the old man, but he didn’t seem to understand us, guess his English isn’t all that good. We’re just looking for a story, got a deadline for the afternoon editions. Damned
Chronicle
got a jump on us. Seems like the police think that old man Voss was killed by his son. So tell us how’s his mother taking the news? Did she faint or something? Hysterics? Why’d ya think he did it? For the money? Did he have help? Just tell us something and you’ll get your name in the papers. We could make it worth your while. Now come on, don’t go, we’re not going away, and if you don’t talk to us, someone else will!”

This last was shouted at Annie and Wong’s retreating backs as they stumbled together down the three steps and into the kitchen; Annie slammed the door shut and locked it behind them.

Putting the lamp down, Annie began to brush at the dirt that clung to Wong’s jacket, saying, "Wong, are you all right? What happened? What was that man shouting about? Has Jeremy been arrested?”

Wong, who had been completely silent up until this moment, said quietly, albeit a little breathlessly, “Please Miss, give me a moment.”

He walked over to the stove and drew out water from the reservoir into a pitcher that was sitting on the stovetop. Then he went to the washstand in the corner and added fresh hot water to the basin sitting there. He bent and brushed dirt from the knees of his trousers, took off his coat and shook it, hanging it on the peg beside the washstand, and began methodically to wash his hands and face. After he was done, he carefully folded the towel and hung it over the rod on the side of the stand and flipped his queue neatly over his shoulder. Only then did he turn and come quietly over to Annie where she still stood before the door. He placed his two hands together, raised them to his forehead, and bowed slowly to her, saying, “Thank you.”

Embarrassed, Annie motioned dismissively and began to ask him again to tell her exactly what happened. Wong said, “Miss Lizzie, I am afraid that the newspapers have become interested in this family’s misfortunes. Those two men were reporters, and they were lying in wait for me at the end of the alley. They took exception to my unwillingness to answer their questions. I regret that you became involved.”

Annie started to exclaim, but Wong held up his hand and cocked his head, saying, “Please Miss, let us not discuss this further. We have our morning chores to attend to, and if my ears are not deceived, I believe that we are about to receive a visit from Miss Nancy. It would be good if she would find breakfast preparations underway.”