Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Okie Migration
1934 Maine
The house was large, but it certainly didn’t look menacing or foreboding. In fact, if the situation wasn’t so dire for her, she might laugh at the sight of a pink house that apparently belonged to a grouchy man, instead she sighed, pulled at her dress a little, and smoothed at permanent wrinkles or dirt. Then again, there was no amount of pulling or tugging that could help the dirt stains that could never be washed out. The stains were just as much a permanent fixture as her memories.
“Miss Arabella French to see a Mrs. Zelina West? It’s about the maid position.”
The large man who had answered the side door only nodded and motioned for her to walk through. He must be kind, Belle thought. It had to be kindness for him to not linger on the dress that was too short, nor on the hair that was just growing to meet her shoulders, as the dirt and filth had become so bad in that shack, that her father had suggested the rather daring style.
“Short hair is all the rage these days.” Her papa had wheezed through gasping breath. “You will certainly be the prettiest short haired beauty in the south, my dear.”
As if she could be anything but a grubby bum from Oklahoma, having access to neither food nor bath for so long now, surviving on scraps she found and people’s charity. The sweet lady who owned the general store, who gave her a can of food in exchange for sweeping the floor had saved her life by giving her the address to the house of a man by the name of Mr. Gold, apparently in need of a maid.
“He needs one every few months, of course. They aren’t picky, or at least, they shouldn’t be, since they can’t hold on to a single employee. Between his temper–the cantankerous Scott– and the sourness of the housekeeper, it’s no wonder they have problems! However, it would be food and a roof over your head. Here, tell them old Mrs. Clarke sent you. Don’t make me regret giving you my name, now, understand?”
Belle had smiled, assured her she was a hard worker, and thanked her ever so much.
“Don’t thank me yet! You may curse the day I recommended the position, but I hate to see anyone in such bad shape…so you say all those reports of the dust storms are no exaggeration, yes?”
And so they had spoken about the current state of things in the United States until she had finished her small meal and followed the directions to a house on the very outskirts of town.
The housekeeper, Mrs. West, or Miss West as she was soon corrected with sharp blue eyes and a sharp tone to go with it, was not what she had pictured at all. She had expected an older lady with a grouchy demeanor, something menacing to scare off potential employees. Miss West had flaming red hair that refused to stay up where she had clearly set it, and looked to be in her mid-thirties at the very most. Her freckles seemed to have a mind of their own and danced around her face as she spoke.
“ You want to work for Mr. Gold?” Her tone was both sarcastic and grating, yet, Belle was sure she was trying for neither. Her pointed nose wrinkled at Belle’s appearance, and she withdrew a handkerchief to cover her nose. Belle was mortified, but was too desperate to shrug her shoulders and walk away.
“Yes ma’am. I am a hard worker– I can cook, clean, do laundry, anything that needs to be done. I am only dirty now, because I’ve just come from a long journey. Mrs. Clarke…”
“Mrs. Clarke? At the General Store? You know her?”
Belle only hesitated a moment. Mrs. Clarke had given her, her name, there could be no deceit in using it.
“Yes indeed, it was she that told me you were in need of a maid and recommended me to come to you.”
Miss West muttered a few words under her handkerchief that sounded a great deal like, miserable busybody but Belle was not certain.
“Where were you employed before?” Miss West had moved on from Mrs. Clarke’s recommendation, apparently. This seemed like a good thing, since she at least looked as if she were very much contemplating allowing her the position.
“I worked for my father, ma’am. We were wheat farmers in Oklahoma. I kept house, did all the cooking and cleaning, as well as helped with the planting and harvesting. As you might be aware, conditions there became…insupportable…”
“I know nothing of the world outside of what Mr. Gold wants or needs.” Miss West cut in. “And since there are no references I can get from you, I will take you, with the warning here–I run a tight ship, and should you decide you think you know better than I on how something ought to be done, then you will be thrown back out into the world from whence you came, do you understand?”
“Yes, of course.” Belle struggled to utter the words politely, Miss West caused her to bristle at the insinuation that she would be a rebellious domestic. She had a good few years to practice at submitting to a world that had been taken out of her control, whether it was the weather, or the move east. If she could shoulder those burdens, surely she could shoulder whatever Miss West put upon her, especially if it meant food and a roof over her head, and money to boot.
“Alright then, Miss…French was it?”
Belle nodded. Miss West stood up, Belle did after her, and followed her into a hall. The smells that permeated told her they were near the kitchen and her stomach protested at the little it had been fed. The can of food had been insufficient to satisfy. Yet, Belle smiled, for things were finally looking up.
“Blanchard! Miss Blanchard!” The words were sharp and Belle felt the urge to cover her ears. A dark haired girl, around Belle’s own age of nineteen, appeared breathless from a nearby room. Her eyes were wide with worry, she swallowed before answering Miss West, sparing no look to the raggedy person behind the housekeeper.
“Yes, Miss West?”
“Have you finished dusting the downstairs?”
“On my last room, ma’am.”
“Hmmm, well, show Miss…French here...” Miss West hesitated on her name again, as if she had forgotten…again. Belle wondered if perhaps it was hard to keep track of names when the house had such a high turnover in maids and employees. “...Your room. She’ll have Miss Clements old bed and…clothes… The uniform may swallow you, but it’s got to be better than…whatever that is.” Miss West was pulling out her handkerchief again, as if the clothes themselves might give her disease. Belle cringed as Miss Blanchard noticed her and her eyes roamed over Belle’s clothes as well. At least Miss Blanchard had the good manners not to wrinkle her nose, and only gave her a pitying smile instead.
“Come with me Miss French.” She spoke softly and Belle breathed a sigh of relief to see Miss West walk off in the opposite direction.
“I’m Mary, Mary Blanchard, by the way. I always think Miss Blanchard sounds so stuffy.” Her smile was still sad and pity-ing, but Belle still instantly warmed to her openness.
“I’m Arabella, but my parents and friends always called me Belle.”
“That’s very pretty, Belle–French for beautiful, isn’t it? Like the fairy-tale.”
“I know…at this point it’s rather ironic.” Belle squirmed in her dirty dress, and pulled at the ends of her matted hair.
“Oh no, of course not.” She was kind, but Belle could hear in her voice that it was forced.
“Here we are.” Mary Margaret spoke as they took the last of the stairs and entered a skinny hall. “Our room is the first here on the left. There are three servant’s rooms, two on one side, one on the other. There were only two rooms up here, I think, but they put walls in one and two beds in each of those. Mr. Dove, the steward and secretary to Mr. Gold has his own house, and Miss West has an entire room to herself. The cook and her daughter stay in the other room, and then there is our room here.”
The room was about the size of the shack they had lived in for two years, though that was not saying much. It was a tiny room, with two tiny, metal beds, with one tiny window on the outside wall. To Belle's delight it was above her own bed, as one bed was lined up with the window, and the other sat just inside the room, beside the door. There was a wardrobe, but nothing else. No water basin, no small table, curtain, or any decorations.
“Have you been here long, Mary?” Belle tried to sit on the very edge of the bed, so as not to make it dirty.
“Only four months, but that’s twice as long as the girl who was here before you!” Mary seemed proud of this accomplishment and Belle smiled in return.
“And do you like working here?” Belle thought that might be a safer question than why can’t this place keep anyone?
Mary wrinkled her nose. “It’s not the most pleasant, but it’s money, y’know? Keep your head down and pretend to be invisible, that’s the best way to keep your place here, and…to keep from screaming your lungs out and losing said place…” She leaned over, as if she were telling Belle some great secret. Belle was only glad she didn’t seem to be put off by Belle’s smell. “The day off each week! I may go home and complain to my family as much as I please. They know that I am doing it to help them, and so they don’t mind me complaining very much…and then there’s David.” She sighed a sort of happy sigh that made Belle smile, despite the sinking feeling she had felt earlier at the mention of Mary’s ability to go see her family on the weekend.
“David?” Belle smiled, Mary had quite forgotten about Belle as her eyes drifted away in a dreamlike state.
“David, oh! Yes, well…” Her fair cheeks went a rosy pink. “He’s our pastor’s son–just came back from college. He’s very smart and has already found a position at the lumber plant as a manager. He’s saving…well, you don’t want to hear all this, surely.”
Belle smiled again. “I don’t mind, truly. It’s been so long since…well, I don’t mind. So your David is saving up for?”
“My David! Oh heavens, the thought…I suppose he’s close to being my David, though…He says perhaps once he’s saved up for a house…”
“I’m very happy for you.” Surprisingly, the words were true. Someone so pretty, and honest, and sweet as Mary seemed to be, should have a David to hope for and dream of. Belle knew her own feeble dreams had crashed around her like sand had done to their tiny home, but she could dream new dreams…she just had to eat…and find her way a bit. She could keep her head down and be invisible for a little while, and save her money to… To do what, was the problem. She had only wanted a home. A home with love and family and maybe a few books. Apparently that was too great a dream to dream, so she would have to find another.
“These are the uniforms. Ugly things, aren’t they? Why do maids' uniforms always have to be sickly gray? Miss West was right, these will probably swallow you.”
Mary pulled out two long, gray dresses, plain except for a bit of white ribbon that embellished the collar. It was too big and too long, Belle could tell from only a glance.
“You don’t happen to have a needle and thread, do you?”
“Do you sew? I make terrible stitches. They are always too crooked and messy. Mother always sent me to some other chore and tore out any stitch I made. I wasn’t upset at her, I knew well enough I was terrible. Sewing things, yes, I have a little box here, but I don’t know if you should…Miss West won’t like it. She keeps them all a similar size so she doesn’t have to get more when someone else leaves.”
Mary’s chatter came to an end finally and Belle smiled in answer.
“Do not worry, I will only baste a tuck here and there. Easy to pull out when it’s time for the next person to use it. I could do the same for you, if you would like? Even a plain dress would be pretty if it only fit properly.”
“Would you? Oh thank you, that would be wonderful. Here’s my extra dress, as you can see, it’s only a couple inches too long, and the waist is only a little big. But don’t worry about mine just yet, see to yours first. I’m sure you’d like to freshen up before dinner, yes? There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall–Inside! We don’t have one at our house, and this one has one has three! One for each floor, although the bottom floor has only a toilet and sink. Ours has a small tub with water that comes right out of the tap. I’ve got soap, and even an extra day dress you could sleep in but no extra nightgown, see? I see you didn’t bring anything?”
Belle swallowed again. The kindness of her new friend was astounding but her words brought reminders that she had nothing–no dreams, no clothes, no family. Not anymore.
“No, I’m sorry. You’re too kind. I’m sure, if you would be so kind as to let me borrow just the dress, I’ll have enough money soon to buy my own clothes.”
Mary gave her the same big sad eyes again and pulled out a plain brown dress. “The only other one is my Sunday best, and I doubt you want to wear that to bed.”
“Oh no, this is wonderful, thank you so much Mary. You’ve truly been too kind to me.”
Mary laid a hand on her dirty arm. Despite the hard work she knew Mary must do, her hands were white and creamy next to the filth that her too-short sleeves could not hide.
“I can tell we’re going to be friends, just you wait. We can scream at each other, now! My mother will be thanking you.” At Mary's giggle, Belle tried one of her own. It was unpracticed but still there, Belle was happy to find.
“Now, I have one last room to finish, so why don’t you get a bath and you can wear my brown dress to supper tonight. They won’t expect you to work today, and this is the perfect time to have some privacy to yourself when no one is vying for the bath. I’ll see you downstairs at six-thirty?”
Belle gave another smile and a nod.
An hour later she began to stitch the hem and waist of her uniform. She had tried it on and it was very true…the dress swallowed her. Belle knew she was thin, but even at her most healthy–which had been some years back–the dress would have been much too wide.
Then there was the length. After wearing a dress that had been in her closet since she was thirteen, this dress went past her ankles and dragged to the floor. This made the waist all wrong, and it took Belle until dinner time to baste herself into the monstrosity. It still did nothing for her shape, but since her shape was more like a stick at the moment than anything resembling what a woman should be, she thought that it was just as well. Looking at the small alarm clock on the floor next to Mary’s bed, she rushed to put on the brown dress, it was a bit like a tent, but less ugly than the maid’s uniform, and so much better than what she had been wearing before. She was at least clean and without all the grime, her hair was even curling again at the ends. With this in mind she mouthed another thanks to the heavens for the blessing she had been given and went to find the kitchen.
On the bottom floor, she knew she had made the wrong turn when she had gone all the way down and found no kitchen. She felt a surge of panic when she realized the maze of the place. Halls seemed to jut out everywhere and now she couldn’t find where the stairs were to retrace her steps.
A scampering was heard and from a bend in one of the halls appeared a young boy of around five or six years old with a wild mop of brown hair and sparkling brown eyes. He stopped short when he saw Belle.
“I haven’t seen you before.” The boy stated simply.
“That’s because I’m new. I’m Belle, what’s your name?”
“Baelfire Ian Gold, Bae for short.” The boy continued to look at her with a curious look, as if analyzing her to see if she was friendly or not.
“Nice to meet you Bae. You wouldn’t happen to know where the kitchen is, do you? You see, it’s my first day here and I’ve lost my way.”
“Do you work here?”
“Yes, is that alright?” Belle smiled, trying to get him to return it with his own. The answer didn’t seem to make him exactly pleased, but he nodded his head as if he understood.
“I can take you to the kitchens.” and without warning slipped his little hand in hers. It was nothing more than him pulling her to their destination, but it was the second time in one day that she had been touched in a friendly way and she was almost overwhelmed by it. It had been weeks since anyone had done anything but shove her or show her the door. Weeks since her Papa had gone to Heaven and left her alone. For a girl who lived off of human contact and well written words, it was as if she had found an oasis in a dry desert.
“Bae?” A masculine voice broke through her thoughts, causing her to freeze where she stood and her heart to patter quickly.
“Here, Papa!”
Thump, step, Thump, step
The sound felt ominous, and she placed her free hand on her chest as she readied to meet Mr. Gold.
Author's Note: (I'm adding it here because on the first chapter the author's note gets put on each consecutive chapter)
Historical Notes:
During the Dust Bowl and drought of the 1930s, many from Oklahoma (as well as other states in the region) went west in what was known as the Okie Migration. Okies went along Route 66 to California to find a better place to work and settle. They came in such great numbers that there was not enough places to put them, and they camped outside the towns in tents and vehicles. 'Okies' became almost a byword and people looked down on them for their poor economic situation, and also, often their dirty state.
I have Belle going east to Maine. Maine actually fared relatively well during the great depression, because of the landscape (lots of trees and fertile soil where gardens could still be grown and eaten from). While the economy was still bad and money tight, they came out on the other side much better than many of their state counterparts.
Servants or 'domestics' were slowly being replaced by technology or being 'hired out'. People as rich as Mr. Gold still had living quarters in their houses, but it wasn't as common as even a decade earlier. The very well to do were still hiring servants, though, and here we find Belle and a whole cast a crew of characters!
Story Notes:
I still haven't fleshed out my entire story in my head (or on my notes in my phone), but I've had this general idea since before I wrote 'The Claim Shanty'. It was supposed to be an 1800s story, but after 3 stories set in that time period, I thought I would try another in the 20th century. I really wanted a cute Bealfire, and I am leaning into the scottish-celtic origin of his name and just going with the name from the show :)
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I know it's mostly just Belle, but there is a lot of Gold and Bae coming up! I would love to hear what you think :)