Memoir of a Trapped Housewife

Chapter Thirteen {In the Cabinets}

Chapter Thirteen

In the Cabinets

It was the butler, not my employer Mr. Cyrus, who instructed me on the duties I would have as the head Blackstone's secretary. Mr. Cyrus had left the estate as midnight crept onto the clocks due to circumstances no one knew. In fact, not one knew he had departed until the gala's festivities dissipated at six in the morning of the new day. As guests drunkenly ambled to the vehicles brought to them by exhausted valets or whispered up to their rooms in the mansion kindly provided by Mrs. Cecilia, the presence of the breadwinner was found to have vanished.

I could not have enjoyed this unexpected change more. Having been through so much the night before, some parts of it I was unable to recall, it was pleasant to have the absence of Mr. Cyrus's heavy, leaden presence.

Mr. Harricort carried a shiny typewriter that I'm sure weighed as much as a block of marble and positioned it delicately on a spare desk in Mr. Cyrus spacious office. I scooted into the high backed seat that accompanied the desk and gazed at the rows and rows of keys on the typewriter. To eyes that had never used such a thing, the rows and symbols were Egyptian hieroglyphics.

"Sir, I'm not exactly sure what I am supposed to do with this," I said to the butler. To this he grimaced.

"Why did he insist on making you his secretary?" Mr. Harricort grumbled lowly, perhaps thinking that I couldn't hear. "Bernadette, it is just like writing, except you use a machine."

"I knew that, sir. But how do you use it?"

He slapped a brown and poorly printed manual in front of me.

"Thank you," my voice faltered.

"I do have other duties besides instructing young women who are better suited to cutting carrots for the cook," he said, more to himself. I imagined he was speaking to Mr. Cyrus.

He left me staring at an untouched, most likely never read manual and perching in a padded chair. The door swung behind him, slamming into its appropriate spot with a final thud. Looking around me, I realized I was completely alone. Mr. Cyrus's belongings--his gold-lettered encyclopedias placed on mahogany bookshelves, green-backed dictionaries, law books and psychology pamphlets, paintings by illustrious artists, stately office furniture and leathered couches--surrounded me in a blur. Before me loomed his desk and wooden file cabinets.

My fingers itched and I thought of every dirty secret that must be tucked away in that black hole. Breathing in, I cautiously advanced towards it, nervously slipping my gaze to the door.

No one.

As suspected, the desk's carved drawers were secured by glistening silver locks. Pulling two bobby pins from my hair done in a severe bun, I poked, prodded, teased until one drawer decided to relent. It slid out obligingly, disclosing the contents of neatly arranged checkbooks and receipts. Wincing, because it would be hard to search a man's skillfully organized things without making noticeable changes, I closed it and hoped the next one would be messy.

It was not, but due to the filing system it used, inserting things back in place would not be an arduous task. Lips stretching into a conniving grin, I dragged out file A and flipped through the contents.

Papers scrawled with accounting gibberish and figures passed before me. Sighing, I returned the file to its paper heaven home and grabbed file B. Then C, D, E, F, and G.

When I reached file K manuscripts written in Chinese characters, or some other foreign language, tumbled out of the manila folder. My eyes narrowed, noticing that the characters were similar to those in Sable's enigma letter. With unsteady movements, I shifted through the fan of information. And that is when I found it.