Murphy's Law (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #1)

"Oh no, ma'am. I'm used to hard work." She nodded but her expression was skeptical. "Very well then. We'll see how you do. We're at sixes and sevens today because the master is hosting a large dinner party tonight--he always does, the week before St. Patrick's Day. Andwitha girl short, we've all been run ragged. I'll find you a uniform and have Daisy show you your duties. Follow me."

She led me out of the kitchen, along a dark hallway, and into a small office. The shelves were lined with folded linens. She took a black dress from a closet, held it up, then nodded to herself. "That was Eileen's dress, it will have to do, near enough for now. And here's your apron and cap. Make sure you don't spill anything on your apron. It won't get laundered until next Friday."

Then she was off again, along the hall and up a flight of uncarpeted stairs. She pushed open a swing door and we were in a different world. It was an entrance hall with a marble floor, adorned with life-sized marble Greek statues and potted palms as big as trees. To our right a curved

marble staircase swept up to the next floor and the chandelier over it was sparkling even though I could see no candles. It took me a second to realize that it was lit with carefully hidden electric lights. The housekeeper hurried me across the hall and opened a door on the far side. It was a dining room, far grander than anything in the Hartleys' house. Two maids and a footman were standing at a table long enough to host the Last Supper, giving a final polish to candelabras before placing them on the center of a long white cloth.

"Daisy?" Mrs. Brennan's voice cut through the silence. "Leave that for a moment. This is the new girl, Eileen's replacement. Take her up to your room, help her into her uniform, and then she can finish laying the table for you. Go on, girl, get a move on. There's work to be done."

Daisy gave her a frightened look, scurried across the room, and out of the door. I followed. We ducked through the swing door again and she led me up a narrow wooden back staircase. Up and up. Those turrets that looked as if they reached into the sky? We were sleeping in one of them. My legs felt like jelly by the time she pushed open a door on the final landing. It was a narrow, cold room with just one bed in it.

"Here we are," she said. "I'm Daisy, by the way."

"And I'm Molly." I smiled at her.

"When your belongings come you can put them in the bottom drawer. I've got the top one."

"Where's your room, then?"

"This is it."

"And mine?"

"We'll be sharing the bed," she said in an Irish accent thicker than my own. "I hope you don't snore."

"Sharing the bed?" I demanded. "They can afford all those marble statues and they can't buy enough beds for their servants?"

"Hush!" She put her fingers to her lips and glanced at the door, although how she thought anybody would hear us all the way up here, I don't know. "For the love of mike, don't let them hear you talking like that or you'll be out before you start. Alderman McCormack is known for being very good to his servants."

"Where I come from only the Kane family had to share beds, and they were as poor as dirt, and had more

children than rabbits," I said.

"Stop talking and hurry up," Daisy said. "Mrs. Brennan will start yelling if we're not down again before you can blink. She gets so nervous when the master has a dinner party. The mistress is very fussy, you know. Everything has to be quite perfect."

She started trying to undo the buttons on my blouse for me. "I can do it, thank you," I said, hastily. "Is that why the last girl was fired?"

"Fired?" A look of amusement spread across her face. "Who told you she was fired? Ran away she did--her and Frederick, the under footman. Oh, you should have seen the fuss! A parlor maid and a footman running away to get married, just like their betters? Never heard of!" She held the black dress over my head and pulled it on to me. Then she buttoned it down the back. It was scratchy wool. She helped me tie the apron and held out the cap.

"You've too much hair," she said. "They'll probably want you to cut it off. No signs of vanity allowed around here."

"I'm certainly not cutting off my hair," I said indignantly. "I like my hair the way it is, thank you."

"Don't let Mrs. Brennan hear you talking like that. You have to look the way they want you to. What kind of household were you in before?" She was looking at me with horrified fascination as if I was a dangerous new type of animal.

Shut up, I reminded myself. She might report everything I'd just said to the housekeeper and then I'd be fired before I could find out anything useful.

"My mother always used to say I had too much pride," I said, laughing. "I don't think it will ever get stamped out of me."

"It will here, if you stay long enough," Daisy said. She ran a brush savagely through my long curls. "Anyway, for now we'll try to hold it back with pins. The mistress hates to see any hair poking out from under a cap." Together we managed to tame my hair and she tied the cap so tightly across my forehead that it hurt my eyes.

"Ow," I said. "Not so tight."