Beacon Street Mourning by Dianne Day

is brick and stone and has remained unaltered all its many years, save for a few necessities such as replacement of the outside shutters. Like all the others along the old stretch of Beacon Street from Arlington up past the State House (that's as opposed to the new part of Beacon on down through Back Bay), these houses in our block were built flush to the sidewalk with no front yard or even a strip of grassy verge to call their own. Nor do they have much space in back, though ours has a tiny walled garden where one may sit out in summer. The builders must have assumed that anyone desirous of outdoor activity would go across the street to the Public Garden. Why then waste valuable lot space that could be used to enclose more rooms?
    The house does have many rooms, on three full floors plus a top floor of tiny rooms with low ceilings and dormer windows that stick up through the sloping slate roof. There is also a basement scarcely worth mention, as it has never been much more than a stony hole in the ground.
    The driver of the hansom cab had assisted me out of his vehicle and I'd paid and tipped him handsomely, with the promise of more to come if he would return for me in an hour. Now I stood on the sidewalk gathering my composure and contemplating this place where I and so many generations of my paternal family had lived the majority of our lives.
    I had to admit it was rather imposing. In part this was due to the cumulative effect of so many tall houses taken altogether, their appearance similar yet not identical, each as large and handsome as the ones on either side, and all bathed in the mellow glow of evening's gas lamps. These old Federal-style houses were plain when compared to the Victorians and Edwardians of San Francisco; yet they seemed somehow both more substantial and more elegant. Beacon Street commanded respect—even from me, though I had never thought or felt this way before.
    I slowly climbed the seven steps from the sidewalk to the front door and rang the bell. Lights glowed behind the drapes of the first-floor windows, but the upper floors were all dark. My heart began to beat faster as I stood there waiting to be admitted to the place where in the years of childhood my little feet had once run freely in and out.
    The woman in servant's dress who answered the door was completely unknown to me, and I to her. But apparently I was expected and she was well trained, because she did the little dip that passes for a curtsy these days and said, "Evening, Miss Jones, please come in."
    "Fremont Jones to see Augusta Simmons Jones," I said, perhaps unnecessarily. But I wanted the maid to announce my arrival to Augusta as Fremont, not as Caroline.
    "May I help you with your coat and all, miss?"
    I acquiesced to this offer, and while divesting myself of all the layers of outdoor wrappings, I remarked, "Your employer is my father. I grew up in this house. Did Augusta—Mrs. Jones—tell you that?"
    "No, miss. Only that you'd be Miss Jones and you was expected."
    "I see." Well, that was a place to start at least.
    Propriety notwithstanding, I had always been inclined to talk freely with the servants, mine and other people's, because, for one thing, they are people too and deserve to be treated as such, and, for another, because they generally know much more about what is going on in any house than anyone else. But in this instance, with a maid handpicked by Augusta, I must remember to be wary.
    "How long have you worked here, may I ask?"
    At closer range she was even younger than she had appeared when she first opened the door. Her skin was so fair that it bordered on the unhealthy, a bluish-white like skim milk. But her fingers were red, especially around the knuckles; Augusta was working this girl hard.
    "Few months, miss," she replied, her pale eyes flickering as she counted up in her head, "going on five, I reckon. Would you like me to undo your coat buttons?"
    "No, thank you, I can manage. What is your