by Rhys Bowen
“I don’t intend to make a habit of it, I assure you. In fact I can positively guarantee that I’ll never climb up a half-built bridge again.” I attempted a laugh. “You don’t have to worry about me, Jacob.”
“Not worry? Since I’ve met you a woman was killed by mistake in your place, you were almost burned to death in a fire, and then almost hurled to your death from a bridge. What is there to reassure me that you’re not to be worried about?”
“Let’s just hope that my future cases are more mundane.”
“Let’s just hope there are no future cases,” he said firmly. “Molly, I want you to give up this absurd idea right now. If you want a job, I can find you one that will challenge you and use your talents. The women’s trade union league could use someone fearless and articulate like you. You’d be doing a real service, Molly. Making a difference. What do you say?”
“It’s very tempting, Jacob. I will think about it.”
“Just promise me you’ll stop trying to be a detective.”
“But I’m not trying to be one,” I said as the realization came to me. “I am a detective. I’ve just concluded two cases satisfactorily. I’ll have earned two hundred dollars—not bad for a month’s work, wouldn’t you say?”
Jacob shook his head, but he was smiling. “Molly. What am I going to do with you? I don’t want to let you out of my sight for another moment.”
I turned away from him. “Jacob, I . . .”
“I’m sorry. That was stupid of me,” he said. “I promised I wouldn’t put you in a glass case, didn’t I? It’s because I care so much that I—”
“Jacob,” I interrupted and looked at him this time. “This talk of marriage makes me uneasy. There’s something you should know. I like you, Jacob. I admire you and respect you, but I’m not sure that I can love you.”
He looked down at his hands. “I see,” he said. “Cannot love be learned and grow over time? If our match had been arranged by the matchmaker, we wouldn’t even know each other before the ceremony, and yet many such marriages are truly happy ones.”
“I’m sure they are, but that would be a risk I wasn’t willing to take. I will only marry for love.”
There was another long pause.
“Is there someone else?”
“Yes, and no.”
“That policeman,” he said sharply. “The one who shouted at you.” He looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. “He shouted, as I did, because he’d been worried for you. Do you still love him?”
“I’m not sure, but I have experienced what love feels like, and I’m not ready to settle for less.”
“Then why did you not marry him?”
“Because he wasn’t free.”
“Ah,” he said quietly. “So are you’re trying to tell me that you don’t want to marry me?”
“I don’t know, Jacob. I really don’t know what I want. That’s the trouble. I want to be fair to you as well as fair to me, so that if I decide to marry you, it will be because you’re my true choice and not because I’m settling for second best. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“I understand.” He paused, staring past me out of the window. “And I commend you for it. You will let me continue to visit you so that I can woo you and sweep you off your feet?”
I laughed, making him smile too. “You do not need to woo me. You have nothing to prove to me. It is I who has to decide what I want from life and to shake off the ghosts of the past. But I look forward to continuing our friendship and seeing where it might lead us.”
His face lit up. “Then I am content.”
“Thank you. You are a very dear person.” I put my hand to his cheek and leaned forward to brush his lips with a kiss.
“I’ll have to get used to that beard, someday,” I said.
A week later a letter arrived from Ireland from Major Faversham.
Dear Miss Murphy,
I can’t tell you how relieved my wife and I were to receive the letter from you and from Katherine. To know she is alive and well and to discover that she is no longer married to that bounder has lifted our spirits considerably. Of course, we had hoped that she would return to us immediately, but she has promised that she will keep in touch with us via letters and may be coming home soon. Thank you for your splendid work. Enclosed please find a check for twenty-five guineas.
A little over a hundred dollars! I was on my way to becoming a successful woman. I ran across the street and burst into Sid and Gus’s house waving the envelope. I found them all at the kitchen table, enjoying the morning coffee and hot rolls ritual.
“A letter from your parents, Katherine. They were so thrilled to hear from you.” I stopped. A strange man was sitting at the kitchen table with his back to me. “Oh,” I said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
The man rose to his feet and turned toward me. “Company, you call it? It is I, darling Molly, come home to the bosom of my loved ones.” And the dashing, irresponsible, loveable, infuriating Ryan O’Hare stood there, dressed in a black velvet jacket with a large diamond pin in his purple silk cravat.
“Ryan!” I ran to his arms. “How wonderful to see you. We have missed you so much. Have you finally brought the play to New York?”
“It is due to make its glorious opening at the Victoria Theater next week—don’t say anything about bad omen in the name. It was the one theater that was free and willing.”
“Why should it be a bad omen?” Katherine asked.
Ryan made a face. “I had to leave England in a hurry after the queen was not amused about my satirical play about Her Majesty and Albert.” Then that brilliant smile flashed across his face. “I must say it was deliciously wicked. I had the both of them to a T, in all their boring glory. I even gave them plaid sheets on the marriage bed.”
“Ryan, you are very naughty, we all know that,” Sid said. “I hope your American audiences haven’t been equally incensed with your new satire of the American lifestyle.”
“My dear, it goes over most of their heads. They laugh uproariously, not realizing they are laughing about themselves. It is too marvelous for words. You’ll all come to opening night, of course, as my guests—and to the party afterward. Everyone who is anyone will be there.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world, would we?” Gus said, looking around the table.
I realized with a great flood of relief that this was my normal life now. I could eat long, luxurious breakfasts and take hot baths and go to plays. I was no longer a sweatshop worker. I was Molly, a member of the artistic set of Greenwich Village.
“Let me have a roll and some coffee, please,” I said. “I’m positively starving.”
“And I have to haste myself in the direction of the Victoria Theater to see about the scenery,” Ryan said. “I gather there’s an annoying pillar that will have to go. Let us hope it will not bring the house down, literally.” He blew kisses and swept out.
Katherine was looking at me strangely. “I may have made a mistake,” she said. “I had thought that Jacob was the man in your life, and then I thought that perhaps it was the policeman, but perhaps I am wrong.”
“Ryan?” I laughed.
“My dear Katherine,” Sid said. “Everyone loves Ryan. Even Ryan loves Ryan.”
“Especially Ryan loves Ryan,” Gus added. “No, I think that Jacob might not be such a bad choice for Molly after all.”
“I’ve just told him I’m not ready to think of marriage yet. I’m not at all sure I want to marry him.”
“Quite right. Too earnest.” Sid set a cup of Turkish coffee in front of me. “And think what a hindrance it would be to your career if you wanted to marry. You need time to enjoy life first, Molly.”
“You’re right,” I said. “What is the rush? I’m sure husbands are an infernal inconvenience.”
I glanced across at Katherine who was looking pensive, fingering the locket she now wore again at her neck, returned by the repentant Ben Mostel. “I’m sorry,” I sai
d, flushing. “How insensitive of us to speak of marriage, after what you’ve just been through. I expect you never wish to hear the word again.”
“Not for a long while,” Katherine answered. “But I can assure you I’m not going to be a widow and wear black. As a matter of fact, I am excited about starting life on my own, although I have no idea what I’ll find to do with myself.”
“We’ve told you that you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want,” Sid said. “You can fill the empty nest left by Molly.”
Katherine smiled. “You are most kind, but I have to leave New York, just in case my father comes looking for me. He can be very forceful, as I’ve told you. I will stay in touch with my parents, but I really don’t want to go home again.”
“Then you must go to Boston, of course,” Gus said. “I’m sure we can find something for you there. My family owns half the city. I’ll write some letters for you.”
“But I don’t want to go back to the upper-class life,” Katherine said. “Now I’ve seen how much needs to be done for poor working women, I’m anxious to do more for them.”
“Not back to a terrible sweatshop, surely?” I asked.
“Preferably not a terrible sweatshop,” Katherine agreed, “but I have to do something useful to give my life a meaning.”
Her words struck at my conscience. Was I being selfish if I didn’t continue to work for the union? As Jacob had said there was a lot of good I could do. Then Sid sat at the table between us, brandishing the silver coffeepot.
“I commend you, Katherine,” she said, “but I have to confess that my morning coffee and hot rolls and my friends, and Gus here of course, are what give my life meaning. I couldn’t exist without them.”
“Amen to that,” Gus said, and raised her coffee cup in salute. I did the same.
Just before Christmas I received a letter from Katherine.
I have settled in Boston. There is a thriving garment industry here as well as a large Irish population, so I feel well at home. Thanks to Gus’s connections, I am boarding with several other girls of good family who have started a league dedicated to improving the lot of female factory workers. We have started a branch of the garment workers union in several shops. We have just opened a clinic in one of the worst slums and staffed it with volunteer doctors and nurses. It is challenging, but satisfying work.
Thank you for everything. I hope we may meet again and I wish you well.
Katherine
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine