Mrs. Evans stares hard at me, but I don’t flinch. I’m not sure what it is she’s seeking, but I think I’m making a good impression. I must be, because she’s still talking to me.
“Mrs. Lowell assures me that you have.” She peeps at some papers on her desk, then writes something too fast for me to see. I am fit to be tied, waiting for her answer. “Please come back tomorrow morning, Miss Ryan. You’ll learn what you need to know, and you’ll get your uniform. Now. What about you two girls?”
Glory be. This is the grandest thing that’s ever happened to me. Didn’t Mrs. Evans make my dreams come true with that one little sentence. It’s like wings blossom from my back. I could fly home, but I can’t leave yet, since she’s speaking with the other two. Instead, I am as patient as can be, trying to appear calm. The wait is driving me mad. Finally, both girls’ cheeks burn red when she hires them as well. We are all so glad, but we don’t say a word to each other as we leave her office.
I step into the sunrise and light up the whole street with my smile. Granny will be so pleased for me, though she won’t say so. She’s not inclined to encourage a nice girl to get a job. The proper thing for a woman, she preaches, is to slave in her home without a penny being paid to her.Mind you, she knows how I’ve wanted this. And the money! To be honest, I don’t know what it is yet, but I am certain that ’tis more than what I was getting at the Queen’s Hotel. I will learn all that tomorrow morning, when I walk through the staff entrance of the Dominion Hotel for my new job.
Heading to work at five in the morning is not new for me, nor is it a hardship. I can see so well in the dark I’m like a cat. Just like at the Queen’s Hotel, I’m to be at work by five thirty, and if I leave my home a half hour earlier, I will have plenty of time to prepare for the day. I like the walk to work in the morning, when the air is still, only lit up by a dog barking and a blush in the east. Once, I saw an owl drop down on a mouse, bold as brass, right there on my street. ’Twas strange, but a fine, quare kind of strange, knowing I was the only one in the world to have seen it.
With so many hours of work, I’ll not be home until late, so I do worry it might wear me down. Still, I won’t say a word about that to Mrs. Evans, or to anyone else. I’ll never complain, me. Not a peep. Besides, why worry about that already? I’d be a fool to break my shin on a stool that’s not yet in my way.
Past the crooked roofs, the broken chimneys, and the scrawny trees poking out between sheds, anyone can see the Dominion. It’s like a castle, and we’re the servants. That’s fine with me. I’ve no fool notions that I might become a princess or queen. I’m happy just to be near the shine of it.
Today is my first day of training. I arrive at the hotel fifteen minutes early. Both Kiera and Deirdre are right behind me, so I go with them into our chambermaid room, where we are to leave our coats and boots when ’tis wet outside. Three other girls join us shortly after that, and we all wait for Mrs. Evans.
“Are you worried?” Deirdre asks quietly.
I put on a brave face. “We can do this. We will learn how to do all the chores, and we already know how to work hard. Don’t be frightened.”
“Didn’t say I was afraid,” she grumbles. She’s a very competitive girl. Always has been.
Behind us, Kiera makes a gasping sound. She has opened the big closet, and a whole row of chambermaids’ uniforms is hanging inside, black and white, crisp and clean. They’re grand beyond telling.
“Here, Rosie. This one’s yours.”
I take the hanger from her and try to appear indifferent, but I can’t believe it. My name is pinned on the perfectly starched material, neat as can be. I prick my finger with the pin just to be sure I’m not dreaming.
“Good morning, girls.” Recognizing Mrs. Evans’s voice, we’re quick to replace the uniforms in the closet. “Today we begin training so you will be ready to work when the hotel officially opens in a month.”
We learn that we’re to be paid four dollars a week. I say nothing when Mrs. Evans says that, for I cannot lie: I’d hoped for more. Then she says that if we prove ourselves to be capable, it will be raised to seven dollars a week. That’s more like it. Once I have been fully trained, she says I will be responsible for twenty rooms. Twenty! On my own! And the news gets better: my rooms are on the sixteenth floor, which means I must take an elevator every single day. Not one of the glamourous ones that the guests use, but a staff elevator, which is just as exciting for me.
I am keen to be the best chambermaid in the hotel, and I’m eager to prove that to Mrs. Evans. She’s granted me my dream, and I’ll not soon forget it. I listen carefully to everything she teaches us, and I understand the reasons for everything she does. After the training is over, I will do everything right. I will have my trolley loaded up with all its cloths and soaps and my ring of keys. Up on the sixteenth floor, I will knock clearly and announce myself at the door, and when I know it’s all right, I will put my key in the lock and enter a guest’s room. Well now, I imagine that will feel strange at first. Like I’m walking into their home without permission. But ’tis my job, so I will get used to it, I’m sure. Inside, I am to be invisible while I make everything neat and spotless, leaving the room better than it was when I first got there. When theguests enter their rooms, it will be as if the room has magically cleaned itself.
Mrs. Evans will never have anything to complain about when it comes to my work because I will be the best chambermaid she has ever seen. My rooms will be the cleanest of all. That is my promise to myself. And I don’t break promises. Not ever.
chapterTHREE
I work at the biggest hotel in the British Empire. I love the sound of that. It’s grand to think it, but to say it out loud is to quietly announce it to the world.
“There are the most beautiful carvings all over the outside of the building,” I tell Granny that first night. I’m sure I have been bending her ear for too long, but she hasn’t stopped me yet, so I go on. “Some are patterns, and some are animals. Even gargoyles. And inside, there are more than a thousand guest rooms, five restaurants, a library, beautiful views of Lake Ontario, and a tunnel to Union Station. There’s even a little hospital with a dozen beds in it.”
“Pride and gluttony, that’s the height of it,” Granny grumbles, fit to burst with holy disapproval. “Was the old hotel not grand enough? Askin’ for trouble is what they’re doin’. A little fire that warms is better than a big fire that burns.” She squints, considering. “Five restaurants, is it? A library, you say?”
“With thousands of books, Granny. Oh, and there is a rooftop garden on the fourteenth floor. Can you imagine? A garden in the sky, where they’ll grow vegetables and flowers and herbs for the kitchen. ’Tis a bit early toplant, I reckon, but I’ve walked past it. Someday I shall visit. It may take a year or so before I can ask Mrs. Evans properly, but I want to see that garden for myself.”
She groans. “A sinful place. Who but the divil needs that sort of decadence? ‘For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?’?”
Quoting the Bible helps Granny justify her disapproval. She’s only talking about the divil and decadence because she wants so badly to see the hotel. We both know she probably never will. With her old legs the way they are, she barely leaves the house these days. Not even for Sunday Mass, though I can tell it pains her to miss it.
“Ah, but Granny, Proverbs 3:9 says to ‘honour the Lord with our wealth.’?” I take her wrinkled old hand in mine and give her an encouraging smile. “Surely that means a hotel such as this is a celebration of the Lord. I’ll tell you, walking through it feels like entering a church, it’s so lovely.”
What I really want to tell her about, but I’m not sure how to do it without setting her off, is that the hotel’s grand opening gala is June 11. What an event it promises to be! Mrs. Evans explained that the supper and dance will be in the ballroom, and each guest will have paid ten dollars to attend. The ticket buys them a full, sumptuous dinner—that is how it has been described to me by Mrs. Evans—and the opportunity to dance to the music of Ben Bernie and His Orchestra.
There’s something even better about the gala, though:Iwill be attending. Not as a guest, of course. I will be there to help with whatever is needed. And on the morning after the glorious party, the hotel will be open for guests to inspect, and they’ll see all our housekeeping skills for themselves.
Time passes quickly, and on the night before the gala, I don’t catch a wink of sleep. When I arrive in the morning, our uniforms are pressed and starched so well they could probably stand up by themselves. We are shuffled into theballroom, and I almost trip on my own feet I’m so taken by the sight. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I stare up at the ceiling with my mouth hanging open like a fish. Mrs. Evans pauses beside me.
“Twenty-five-foot ceilings. Have you ever seen the like?”
