No One Notices the Hired Help by YDB95
The Isles of Chauncey were on the eastern fringe of a great kingdom. The town of Candover was the last outpost on the Isles of Chauncey, twenty miles east of Morton City, the county seat of the Isles (and only a city in the broadest definition of the term). Portia’s Café was on the edge of Candover – the edge of the edge of the edge, was how Portia’s daughter Celestine had always thought of her mother’s restaurant. With its well-kept tables for ladies and its carefully cultivated reputation for family-friendly dining, Portia’s was the last vantage point from which people could watch the ships as they left for the wide world.
Few cared to do so; most were there to eat Portia’s renowned meals and enjoy the sea air. But Celestine was among the few who could often be found gazing longingly at the departing ships. Somewhere out there was a world just waiting to be discovered, and rumour had it there were even places out there where women could live on their own terms.
Candover was no such place, as Celestine’s mother had reminded her again and again as a girl, from the first time Celestine had made the mistake of saying she envied the sailors. “Want to be a sailor, do you?” Portia had laughed. “You’re a lady, my dear, and that’s not your place.”
“But what is my place?” Celestine could still remember asking as she tried and failed to come to terms with having her dreams crushed in one sentence.
“To make a good home for a good man, and to look beautiful for him. We ladies really are blessed, Celestine. The men do the business of running the world, but we give them what they need to run it and we provide a beautiful backdrop for their lives. Never forget, we may be in the shadows, but we have the real privileges. No need to get our hands dirty with anything but tonight’s dinner.”
“But I don’t want to be in the shadows!” Celestine had known it even then. “I want to find my place in the sun out there like the sailors do!”
“Then you chose the wrong body to be born into, my dear,” Portia had advised her. “It is every woman’s curse, honestly,” she had said, looking down at her own body, which was shapely and beautifully clothed as always. “Men are strong and tough and brutal when they need to be, and a woman’s body is but a pathetic reflection thereof and a deadly temptation for a man at the same time. It is our responsibility to do what we can to control that temptation, and you had best never forget that.”
Celestine had in fact never forgotten that admonition. She had been much too young at the time to have any real idea what her mother meant about temptation. Now, ten years or so later and two years out of school and her body having long since taken shape, she still didn’t agree but she understood much too well.
The crew of the Reprise, having just put in that morning, were not likely to let her forget.
“Bloody hell, that ain’t ever Celestine!”
“It is you, ain’t it? Last time I saw you you could’na been a day over fourteen!”
“What’s it now, nineteen?”
“Twenty,” Celestine said, forcing an agreeable look on her face as she tried to focus on wiping down the empty table next to the sailors’.
“Twenty!” came a haughty voice she didn’t recall hearing on any of the Reprise‘s many comings and goings in the past. “Why, that’s old enough for me to –”
“You shut your mouth, Stradlater!” snapped Captain Young. “That lass is the owner’s daughter, and she runs a respectable establishment!”
“Then why’d we come here?” quipped one of the other men.
“You want one more meal of hard-tack when there’s real food available?” the captain asked.
“Hell, no!”
“There’s your answer. But all of yeh’s, save the dirty talk for later, understood?” To Celestine he added, “I hope you can forgive me crew, they ain’t seen a lady in weeks.”
“Well, now, we’re glad they’re here to see this one.” Celestine knew her role, no matter how much she abhorred it, and she knew what she was in for should her mother spot her failing to flirt gently with the clientele. “Welcome home, gentlemen,” she added. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Kinda pie has Portia got just outta the oven this time?” Captain Young asked.
“Blackberry,” Celestine said as saucily as she could stand to. “An old favourite of mine.”
“A slice for all the boys, please, and then we’ll be outta your hair.”
“As fine as that hair is!” quipped one of the mates.
“Why thank you,” Celestine said, patting her chestnut curls. “I’ll have that pie for you in just a moment.”
Flirting just enough with the sailors was an art rather than a science, one that Celestine was forever being reminded she had yet to master. As she turned to bring the pie order to the kitchen, she saw her mother standing arms-akimbo in the doorway and knew she had missed the mark again.
“Fine hair, Celestine?” Portia sounded livid.
“They said it, Mother,” Celestine pointed out. “I merely thanked them.”
“Yes, and now they’ll think it’s perfectly fine to comment about it next time,” Portia said. “I don’t know why they should compliment that of all things about you anyway; of all the things your father could have passed on to you, that was among the worst.” Portia’s own mane was straight and copper-coloured; that was just another on the long list of things on which she had never got over her disappointment that her daughter had not taken after her. “But if they must comment on that rat’s nest, you don’t have to play along.”
Celestine kept a stiff upper lip as usual as she counted out the slices of pie to put on the tray. “And if I hadn’t said thank you, you’d have criticized me for not playing along.”
“Perhaps, but you still could have avoided giving those heathens just what they wished for,” Portia seethed. “You know your place in this world as a lady, my dear. And hadn’t you ought to learn to comport yourself better before you marry Troy?”
“Speaking of heathens!” Celestine couldn’t help herself.
Portia grabbed her daughter by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen, having expertly taken note that none of the diners were looking that way. She shoved Celestine up against the wall; the kitchen staff, having seen it a hundred times before, carried on as if nothing had happened. “Now you listen here! Your father, God rest his soul, he and Troy’s father made a deal, fair and square, that you would marry Troy. It is not your place to go against that deal, and to deprive our family of the money that’s at stake. You know your father left us far too little to live on should the restaurant fail. And we have talked about this before!”
“We’ve talked about it all right, and I’ve told you again and again I don’t even like Troy!” Celestine retorted. “Father never asked me what I thought of him, and I’d have told him –”
“You’d have told him you would obey him!” Both women knew it was a blatant lie, but Celestine knew her mother was not to be dissuaded. “You’ve had all the time there is to do what you needed to learn to love Troy! You are twenty years old, and I shan’t let you shirk marriage until the bloom is off the rose! Besides, who else is there?”
“Well, for one…” Celestine began, fearless as ever in the face of her mother’s determination.
“Good Lord, Celestine — Dylan?” Portia laughed long and hard and heartless. “That boy knows his place and he knows your place. That’s why I allowed you to be friends when you were children. Do not force me to forbid you to continue with that friendship! Troy likely will if he suspects you harbour any feelings for the boy, mind you.”
“Dylan is no boy!” Celestine snapped. “He’s a man, a wonderful young man, and –”
“And if you married him, you’d find yourself working in the general store all your life like his mother. My God, Celestine, is that what you want when you could live on Troy’s estate?”
“Absolutely, Mother.” Troy Russell was from the oldest and best-established family in town; Celestine had always known all about the prestige their marriage would bring to her mother’s new money. But she had never been attracted to Troy in any way.
“Brat!” Portia slapped her daughter across the face. “Enough of this! Go bring those men their pie, and then I want you ready for dinner with Troy this evening. Understood?”
“Yes, Mother,” Celestine whimpered.
“You may have the afternoon to collect yourself,” Portia decreed. “But you know what I’ll be expecting of you at dinner.”
They both turned toward the door, to see Agnes the housemaid standing in the doorway. “S…ss…sorry, m’lady, but…I just…”
“Oh, what is it, Agnes?” Portia snapped. “Celestine is perfectly fine, isn’t she?” With that she turned to glare at her daughter.
“Oh, of course,” Celestine said. “I’ve been a very bad girl again, Agnes. When am I going to learn?”
“Sometimes I wonder about that myself,” Portia said. “Now what is it you want, Agnes?”
“The kitchen staff at the house was short of a few things,” Agnes said. “I brought a list.”
“You know where everything is,” Portia said. “Collect it and get out of here.” She turned and shut herself in the business office. Agnes, who had seen such things a hundred times before, offered Celestine a sympathetic look before she returned to the dining room.
Celestine was sure the sailors could see her mother’s handprint on her still-stinging cheek and the tears she had barely held back. But none of them commented as she set the pie plates before them. “There you are, gentlemen!” she said, feigning a cheerfulness that was but a pleasant memory in reality.
Their hearty thanks and joyful first tastes restored her happiness just a bit. But it was her nemesis Stradlater who really brought her joy back. “I say, boys, all me life I’ve heard about the Green Lake, and it’s hours to sunset yet. What do you say we go there next?”
“Forget it, Strad,” said one of the others.
“It’s lovely,” agreed another, “But I’ve had enough of being on the water with only you lot for company.” The others laughed in agreement.
“Happy to bring you there another time, Stradlater,” Captain Young said. “But I think I speak for us all when I say there’s another place entirely in this town I want to visit next!”