They had no other choice. They had stripped their walls of valuable paintings, and sent them to auction houses in New York too. The auction houses were flooded with art from well-known families and sellers. Prices had plummeted, and once the auctions began, priceless art and extraordinary jewelry were selling for a fraction of what they were worth, which was small consolation to the sellers who needed the money desperately. Alex had sent all of his mother’s jewelry to auction too, including Eleanor’s wedding necklace.
The Deveraux family had given all of their servants notice. They were only keeping two or three for the moment, which was all they could afford, and they could barely pay them for much longer. They didn’t want to turn the others out into the street with no job market for them, so they allowed them to live at the house for free until it sold, but they could no longer pay them. Once they moved to Tahoe, the last of them would have to go. They would hire a local girl in Tahoe to help Louise clean the houses they kept there. They were selling their thousands of acres in Tahoe, and the main houses. Charles had carved out a small slice of the property for them to keep, where they would live. They were going to live in the main servants’ house, which was small and rudimentary, and a tiny cottage, which they thought Alex and Eleanor could use when they came to visit them. There was an enormous barn they were going to use for storage of whatever they kept. The boathouse would go with the main house for the new owner. And Charles had put their boats up for sale. He had already sold his horses to a neighbor. They could no longer afford their upkeep, the grooms, or their feed.
Wilson knew that once they sold the house on Nob Hill and moved to Tahoe, there would no longer be a job for her. She, Houghton the butler, and one of the maids were the only employees they were still paying, but they couldn’t do it for long. Wilson had contacted her relatives in Boston, and they said the situation there was just as desperate, and there were no jobs available. She was going to use her savings to go back to Ireland, and get whatever work she could there.
The cook had just gotten a job in a restaurant for abysmal pay, but at least she was employed. Houghton was thinking of going back to Europe, like Wilson, and hoped for a job with a family there, after years of faithful service to the Deveraux. The only maid they were still paying was trying to find a job in a hotel, but no one was hiring at the moment. Most of the country appeared to be unemployed. Alex spent hours every day trying to find a job in a bank, however lowly. The interviews were depressing, and those who were still employed seemed to gloat at how the mighty had fallen. The interviews were all humiliating for Alex, and he got turned down every time, for being vastly overqualified for the meager jobs he was applying for.
In the end, Eleanor was the first to get a job. She had gone to her old school, Miss Benson’s School for Young Ladies, and literally begged for a job. She had been candid about her situation, and they hired her for a very small salary to teach French, drawing, and art. She had been a good student herself, had some talent with watercolors, and her French was fluent. The teacher Eleanor was replacing was having a baby in January, so the timing of her application was fortuitous, and she would be starting after Christmas. She had just turned nineteen and would only be a few years older, if that, than the young women she’d be teaching. Their enrollment had dwindled dramatically in the last two months, since many of the families whose daughters attended the school could no longer pay the tuition. They were happy to get Eleanor’s services for a fraction of what they normally paid their teachers. But she was grateful to have found work, and Alex was proud of her. She said she was looking forward to it, and sounded enthusiastic for his sake. She and her mother had had a long talk about their current situation and Louise had reminded her that it was up to them now to