Mr. Sitwell stared out the window until they reached Magazine Square, at which point he sank down into his seat and lowered his eyes. Although technically against city ordinance, it was common knowledge that blacks were not welcome to live or shop there; the neighborhood was notorious for the violence in their efforts to keep black people out. Because of this, most people avoided the area altogether and Mr. Sitwell, for his part, didn’t even like to look at it through the window as they rode past. He’d been taught from a very young age by his uncle Max that some people required the same treatment as wild animals: do not feed or molest them. Keep your dealings with them to a minimum and under no circumstances look them directly in the eye, because they tend to regard this as a threatening gesture and become enraged. This advice seemed particularly prudent lately because a large group of them had been on strike for several months and staged protests almost daily. It was his understanding that part of their antagonism toward the colored race stemmed from the fact that, as opposed to addressing their demands, the Employers’ Association had attempted to blunt the effects of the strike by hiring scabs, most of whom were black men.
He was back at the Olliana stop by seven thirty. He walked down the Avenue, then pushed through the Barclays’ front gate and made his way up the long drive. As he rounded the back of the house he heard the kitchen door slam shut, looked up, and saw Mamie hurrying down the steps, headed toward the larder. Mrs. Lawson, the Barclays’ parlor maid, rushed out after her.
“Don’t try to hide from me, Mamie Price,” Mrs. Lawson said. “I want you to look at what your girl did to Mr. Barclay’s shirt.”
Mamie made it all the way to the larder door and had her hand on the lock before she stopped and turned around. Just over five feet tall, she was a woman in her late thirties who always looked harried without somehow looking hard. She was wearing a long gray smock dress and work boots and, as Mrs. Lawson scowled, she kept her hand on the lock clenched so tightly that it seemed like her grip was all that was holding her upright.
“That’s not her job.”
“Since when? Where do you think we are? That’s not how things work around here and you know it.”
Mrs. Lawson, a tall, thin, hazel-eyed woman in her mid-fifties whose long nose and stony profile reminded Mr. Sitwell of a cigar store Indian, stopped talking as soon as she saw him walking past them on his way to the porch. He nodded and then, instead of going into the kitchen as planned, turned toward the vegetable garden. He had no intention of being drawn into their disagreement; he’d been working in that house for twenty years and knew that when the two of them started arguing the best he could do was stay out of it.
“Wasn’t doing anything but sitting out here smoking,” Mrs. Lawson said. “I told her if she had time for that, she could come back in the house and help me. And just look what she did.” Mrs. Lawson waved one of Mr. Barclay’s shirts over her head like a white flag. “It doesn’t even make sense, starching a collar the way she done.”
“The girl just got started,” Mamie said.
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it, Mamie? We don’t need anybody who ‘just got started’ here. Not now. As if I don’t have enough to deal with now that Mr. Thomas is gone. . . . Petunia might have been slow, but at least when she finally got around to doing something she did it the right way.”
“Petunia’s gone.”
“Yes, Mamie. I realize that. I’m asking you why. When you sent Petunia away from here I just assumed you were going to find someone with some experience.”
“Experience costs too much,” Mamie said. “You know Barclay can’t afford that right now. Had to settle for smart enough to train.”
“So how is that any better than what we had before?” Mrs. Lawson shook her head. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mamie Price. Turning Petunia out like that. Maybe nobody else around here has the nerve to tell you to your face but don’t think they’re not talking about it. It’s starting to seem like nobody’s safe so long as you in charge.”
“Yeah? Well, I am in charge.”
“For now.”
“That’s right. For now. And so long as it’s true, I suggest you take your bony behind back inside and get to work. I mean, if you want to keep your job.”
There was a brief silence, then the sound of a door slamming shut.
Mr. Sitwell kept his head down. A full minute passed before he found the nerve to glance behind him, and when he did, Miss Mamie was still standing on the porch.
“You heard that didn’t you, Sitwell? The nonsense I got to deal with? And every damn day? I know you heard it.”
Mr. Sitwell nodded. He didn’t want to talk about it, but the fact was Mrs. Lawson had been telling the truth—she wasn’t the only one in the house still feeling prickly about Petunia being sent away.
“You think I wanted to send anyone away from here? Mr. Barclay made me do that. Said we needed to cut down on expenses, that someone had to go. Either it was Petunia or somebody else.”
Mr. Sitwell said nothing. He’d figured as much. Just like he knew that Petunia’s leaving wouldn’t have been so contentious if they weren’t already so understaffed. Shortly after Mr. Boudreaux left, Mr. Thomas, the butler, had suffered a heart attack. The man was over eighty so his passing was hardly sudden, but Mr. Barclay had been distraught. When Mamie took over for Mr. Boudreaux she’d naturally assumed that her first job would be to help find a suitable replacement for the butler. Instead Mr. Barclay had told her it would have to wait and reluctantly adjusted to being forced to dress himself, which he seemed to regard as a form of mourning. For the time being, not only would Mr. Thomas not be replaced, she would have to make further reductions to the staff.
“You know, Mr. Sitwell. I got to say. Every time I come out here it occurs to me just how smart you are. Stay out here in the sun all day, with the trees and the plants and the flowers. Flowers don’t talk nasty to you, do they, Mr. Sitwell? Flowers don’t try to call you out by your name, do they, Mr. Sitwell?”
Mr. Sitwell shrugged.
“Yeah, you’re smart, alright,” Mamie said. “You and your durned plants . . .”
The porch door slammed shut.
Mr. Sitwell frowned. He’d planned on warning her about what Mr. Barclay had in mind for the boys as soon as he saw her that morning, but now he was glad he’d kept the troublesome news to himself. It seemed odd, but the best thing he figured he could do for those children was not tell the one person in the house he knew cared even more than he did. But now was not the time. So much depended on Mr. Barclay’s negotiations going well and, to the extent that those negotiations were at all effected by the meals that accompanied them, the best thing Mamie could do to help those boys was focus on doing her job.
Besides, sometime during his commute that morning Mr. Sitwell had managed to convince himself that things with the boys would never come to that. Mr. Barclay was in a state because of the stress of his current negotiations and Mr. Sitwell knew that there was no point trying to reason with him when he got like that. But it was also clear the man was not thinking straight. It was just a fact that the care and feeding of three boys was such a meager expense that it hardly made a bit of difference to the household finances one way or another. Once Barclay sorted out his deals with the New Englanders and the Southerners he was bound to be in a more reasonable mood. All Mr. Sitwell had to do was find an excuse to hold off on Barclay’s request for another week or two; after that he was certain he could convince the man to pursue a more sensible course.