Family Acts by Louise Shaffer

Author:Louise Shaffer [Shaffer, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48462-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 29

Massonville 1897

Ophelia tucked the hem of her skirt up into her waistband and leaned out over the staircase railing to reach the chandelier. She managed four wide sweeps at the crystals with her feather duster, then stopped so she wouldn't fall. The crystals were clean enough, and she had no desire to crack her head open on the lobby floor below. If the truth were told, she had little patience for domesticity. However, times were hard for the Venable Opera House, and Mama had been forced to let three of the maids go. The one remaining girl had her hands full cleaning the restaurant and the theater. It had been Juliet's intention to keep up the hotel herself, but lately she had been experiencing a shortness of breath that her daughter found frightening, so every morning Ophelia dispensed with her corset and stockings, dressed in her oldest skirt and shirtwaist, and sallied forth with dust rags, a mop, and a broom. When he first saw her attired that way, her brother Horatio said she was a hoyden. He'd meant to be funny, but Ophelia had not been in a frame of mind to be amused. A week earlier Mama had had to settle more of his gaming debts, and the sum had brought on another attack of breathlessness for Juliet. Instead of laughing, Ophelia had handed her brother a broom and told him to make himself useful. This had resulted in

Horatio slamming out of the opera house and not returning for three days, leaving the company without a Friar Francis for Much Ado About Nothing. Fortunately, the stage manager was up on the lines, since Horatio had missed performances before.

Mama had been upset about Ophelia's self-imposed role as a housemaid. “If it were Horatio working like a hired hand, it wouldn't matter,” she'd protested. “He only plays bit parts. But you are our leading ingénue. What if one of the hotel guests sees you scrubbing floors?”

But as Juliet spoke, her face was pale, and even the exertion of protesting seemed to tire her. For once in her life, Ophelia had ignored her. The best Juliet had been able to get from her daughter was a promise that Ophelia would try to avoid being seen as she did her chores.

Not that their current guests would have cared. Their hotel was not the fashionable place it had been when Juliet bought the opera house nineteen years earlier. Massonville's riverfront was now lined with cotton factories and warehouses, and, these days, the well-heeled travelers who had once enjoyed their hospitality stayed at the new hostelries in the center of town.

For several years Juliet had been running what was in essence a boardinghouse for traveling salesmen and minor businessmen who couldn't afford the more expensive establishments. A newly instituted breakfast at the restaurant had replaced the elegant theater suppers of yesterday, and the hotel rooms were often let out for a month or longer. The hardworking men who lodged in them rarely had

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.