Like a contagion, the Panic of 1857 had spread throughout the city, the country, and even into Europe. When the New York stock market crashed, its victims fell by the thousands, until, by the end of October, one hundred thousand people were out of work. The McKaes’ neighbors in Seneca Village—railroad workers, merchants, foundry mechanics, garment workers, coopers—were hard hit. When maritime construction and the shipbuilding industry collapsed, nearly three-quarters of the city’s shipbuilders were laid off. Including James McKae.
Mama added water to the milk to make it last longer. She filled everyone’s plates but her own. Only when Caitlin said she wasn’t hungry did Vivian allow herself to eat. It was all Da could do to keep thirteen-year-old Jack from joining his friends and stealing bread.
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things,” Da had said to his family, quoting from the gospel of Matthew.
She tried to match her faith to her father’s. When he went to prayer meetings, she went with him. Where he saw a revival, however, she saw a sea of gaunt faces gathered to plead for work. For bread. For life itself.
One day, when Da asked her if she’d like to go to the prayer meeting with him again, she said no. She should be scrounging the city for work, any work. Her neighbor, Mrs. O’Flannery, sewed for a living. Maybe there was still some needlework to be had. “Going to meeting won’t feed our family,” she had told her father, feeling so wise for her seventeen years.
“Darlin,’” he said, his calloused hand on her cheek. “Prayer may not always change our circumstances. But it always changes us.” He smiled. “That is why I go. My faith is not a talisman. ’Tis the anchor in the storm.”
They were the last words he ever said to her. He had intervened in a street fight after prayer meeting, and a blow to his head stained the cobblestones crimson with his departing life.
Vivian all but disintegrated with grief, and Jack grew more violent and unpredictable than ever. It was up to Caitlin to hold her crumbling family together. While Vivian rocked from sunup to sundown in the corner, Caitlin cleaned, laundered, and cooked what little there was to be eaten. She hounded Jack until he found honest work, though the wage was criminally low. Together, somehow, they survived.
And then they learned their neighborhood was to be razed to the ground. The city leaders would build a Central Park, and give the work to thirty-six hundred of the city’s down-and-out. They would build it on land that included Seneca Village.
There was no other place to go but to the tenements, where hunger clawed at their vitals. Life was reduced to the search for food. It was barely living at all.
“Miss McKae?”
Caitlin opened her eyes to see Ana standing beside her. “Yes?”
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“No, darlin’, I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I’m hungry. Can’t I have something to eat?”
New York City
Monday, September 28, 1863
“You’re sure you don’t mind coming?”
“I already told you, I insist upon it.” Edward Goodrich helped Ruby up into the Concord buggy before turning back to the Waverly parlor window and waving at Vivian and Aiden. “My aunt has been itching to watch Aiden, anyway.”
“Well, in that case.” Ruby laughed, relieved. “’Tis so kind of both of you to help.”
“It’s her pleasure, I’m sure. And mine.”
The buggy rocked into motion. The cool wind washed over Ruby, ruffling her hair in her snood. Maple leaves the color of fire scraped and swirled along the cobblestones to music all their own.
She glanced at Edward. “Most people still don’t want to set foot anywhere near the Irish tenements, you know.”
“But you do.”
Ruby cast her gaze on gracefully arched branches dripping with autumn splendor the way some women dripped with jewels. “To be honest, I never wanted to go back there again after I left. But then I saw Emma.”
“Ah yes. The unlikely heroine of the mob.”
Ruby covered a giggle with her hand. “Very unlikely. We used to be friends, she and I. At one point, she was better off than I was—at least in terms of being able to pay the rent. She tried to help me.”
“How did she do that?”
Ruby took a deep breath. “How does a woman in poverty try to help herself? There are only a few roads to take.”
“Sewing?”
Ruby laughed through her nose. “Emma found a quicker way to make the money she needed.” She hoped that in the silence that followed, Edward could guess at her insinuation. The mere fact that she would not name it should say a great deal. Prostitution was not considered suitable conversation for a chaplain. But then, perhaps it should be.
Edward frowned. “But—you said she tried to help you?”
Ruby rolled her lips between her teeth for a moment before responding. “Recruit me. I should have said, she tried to recruit me.”
The telltale pink blotches began creeping up from under Edward’s blue wool collar. “I see.”
Her stomach burned as they bumped along over the cobblestones. She hadn’t meant to upset him. “I said no, Edward.” What would he do if he knew the rest of Ruby’s tale? She shuddered.
His sigh was audible. She bristled.
“Please don’t judge her too harshly. She was hungry. In truth, starving. She felt she had no other option. She didn’t know she could pray to a God who would show her a different way. Her compass was not her conscience, but her stomach. Sometimes you can’t hear anything else over its growl.”
She slanted a glance at him. He nodded, but kept his eyes straight ahead as they passed hackneys, carriages, and cabs. “Jesus had compassion on the sinful woman who He urged to ‘go and sin no more.’ How can I judge Emma, if she wants to turn from her ways?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out, I hope. Whether she wants to turn from her ways. She was my neighbor once. I could be a neighbor to her still. Right?”
Edward smiled at her, his brown eyes warm. “Exactly. I’m proud of you, Ruby.” She returned his smile and quickly turned away as tears pricked her eyes. She’d never heard those words before.
Once they arrived at the brick tenement building, Ruby suggested Edward wait with the horse and buggy. They have a way of wandering off in this section of town.
In a whisper of grey muslin, Ruby entered the building as Matthew O’Flannery’s widow, and felt herself swept back in time to the days when she, too, was hunted by hunger. Her eyes strained to see in the darkness, and she could almost feel her posture hunching forward once again, as had often happened as she bent over her sewing by candlelight for eighteen hours a day. Ruby squared her shoulders, as she knocked on Emma’s door.
It clicked open. “Well, hello, darlin’.” Emma’s brother Sean leaned against the doorframe, a half-empty bottle dangling from his hand. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, tight against biceps made thick with manual labor.
“Hello, Sean. Glad to see you’re back safe from the war.”
“Aye, I am, at that. You’re looking well. Pity Matthew isn’t here to see you. Lucky for me, I’ve got me own eyes.”
And they are full of mischief, that’s what. Heat singed her cheeks. “Is Emma in, please?”
“Sleeping off last night’s work. But don’t go—”
“Get out of the way, you big lout! Let her in!” Hair combs swinging in loose curls by her face, Emma swatted her brother before tightening the belt on her robe. “Why, Ruby Shannon! You came!”
With a grunt, he stepped aside, and Ruby stepped back in time as she entered the room. The women sat on wooden chairs in the front room while Sean went to the back room.
“I thought you’d never come, darlin’.” Emma beamed, and Ruby felt like crying. Her friend had aged beyond the two years that had come between them. Her watery blue eyes were bloodshot,
her skin sallow. Yet a purple satin hoop skirt gown hung on a peg in the corner, and pots of rouge lay scattered on the table, signs she still plied her old trade.
“Such a bonnie lass, you are! What have you done to save yourself from the likes of me?” Emma laughed, and Ruby forced a smile.
“I found a good job as a domestic.”
“Oh! Well, no house would take me now, that’s sure!” She cackled again, and Ruby could not contradict her.
“But that’s not what happened first, Emma. First, I found grace.”
Emma squinted at Ruby. “Bedad! You mean you found religion? How could you, after what you’ve done?”
“No. Grace. It’s different …”
Emma shook her head. “There is not enough grace for me, darlin’, and that’s sure.”
Ruby’s own words came back to her then, words she had spoken in bitterness when Charlotte Waverly had tried to tell her about God’s amazing grace for her. The Lord wants nothing to do with me, she had snapped. There is no “Amazing Grace” in my life. I am still lost, and will never be found. I am still blind, and will never see.
Emma pinched a pleat of Ruby’s ribbon-trimmed grey dress. “Other than the color, which is ghastly if you don’t mind my saying so, this is a lovely gown. Does it come in green silk? Red satin?”
A smile quirked Ruby’s lips. “I made it myself, lass. I still sew, I don’t just quit with the sleeves now. I even have a small business running where I make gowns for other ladies in Manhattan.”
Emma’s jaw dropped open. “Go on with you, now! They pay you well, do they?”
“Aye, they pay for the materials plus labor, and they’re not stingy like Davis & Company or Brooks Brothers. I almost have more work than I can manage.”
“Do you now? But you don’t look nearly so hunched over and stooped as when you only made sleeves. How can you be doing this?”
“I’m not working in the dark anymore, that’s what. And I only take in the work I want, and set my own deadlines.”
Emma whistled. “If that don’t beat all. Say, could you help me hem up my working dress? It’s gotten a mite raggedy as of late.”
“Don’t tell me you can’t hem your own dress.”
She shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I never saw much reason for it. ’Twasn’t hurting business any. Just thought I might feel a little better without my tail dragging in the dirt, you know?”
Suddenly, the germ of an idea sprouted in Ruby’s mind. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? The House of Industry taught women in poverty how to sew for this very reason. Of course, they wouldn’t accept anyone but the “worthy poor,” so Emma would not be admitted. But Ruby could teach her.
“How would you like to learn how to make your own dress? A sensible, attractive visiting dress or at-home gown. You choose the pattern from Godey’s Lady’s Book or Harper’s Weekly, then we shop for fabric and get to it.”
Emma slanted her eyes. “I’m no hand at sewing. I’m no hand at anything.”
“You could be if you tried. We could do it together. And then, you’d have a trade. Another door open to you.”
With a wave of her hand, Emma seemed to dismiss her. “All doors have shut to me, save one. And you know ’tis the one what pays the best, it is.”
“You can make your living without selling your soul.”
“Who says I’ve got any soul left at all?” Her eyes were as hollow as her cheeks.
Ruby grasped Emma’s hands. “You don’t fool me, Emma Connors. I’ve known you for years, I have. This—” She gestured toward the purple gown drooping in the corner. “This is not who you really are, deep down.”
Emma bit her bottom lip. “What if it is? Oh, I admit, I used to hate it. But I’ve grown used to it, I have. Got no complaints, mostly.” Her gaze dropped, and Ruby’s followed it until landing on yellow-grey blooms on Emma’s wrists.
“Saints alive, it doesn’t have to be this way!”
A slow smile curled Emma’s lips, her vapid eyes mirrored what Ruby had once felt herself. I deserve nothing more than this. Ruby hugged her then, and Emma’s cheap perfume tasted stale in her mouth. Lord, she prayed, help me show her what grace looks like. Help me love her like You do.
“Please,” Ruby whispered. “Just tell me you’ll come make a new dress for yourself with me. We’ll chat about old times, you and me. ’Tis all I ask.”
At length, Emma nodded. “All right, Ruby darlin’. Now off with you. I’ve got an appointment to get ready for.”
Ruby’s stomach roiled, but she let it go. Showing God’s grace to Emma would be a journey, and she would take it one step at time.
Uh-oh. This isn’t good. Ruby’s puckered expression told Edward that the fellow walking her out of the tenement was not a welcome escort. The man easily kept pace with her hurried footsteps, speaking in low tones quite close to her face.
Edward hopped down from the buggy, ready to intervene, but Ruby held up her hand, palm out, to stop him. Her green eyes flashed. Why would she tell me to stay if this bloke is bothering her?
When the man grabbed a handful of her skirt and jerked her into his arms, Edward shot toward them, bracing himself for a pounding. The man was taller and more muscular than he by far.
“Kindly let the lady go, sir.”
“Edward, you don’t have to do this.” But of course he did. Didn’t she know that by now?
“What business do you have with ol’ Ruby here? Paying customer, are ye? I’ll get in line if I have to.”
“No, Sean, stop it! I told you I don’t do that!”
“Emma says you did. Tsk tsk. What would Matthew say?”
Tears clung to Ruby’s eyelashes as she pivoted between Sean and Edward. Comprehension grooved Edward’s brow. Was this Sean actually accusing Ruby O’Flannery of being a woman of the night? The idea was ludicrous! He offered his arm to her. “Let’s go.”
Her hand trembled on his arm, and Edward covered it with his hand.
“He’s drunk, he is,” she whispered.
“Hoo-wee! The view is even better from behind! Whatever you’ve been doing to fill out those curves, Rubes, you just keep on doing it! I never did like a skinny wench!”
Ice-cold anger clamped over Edward’s chest. He turned around, though Ruby pleaded with him not to. “I would beg you to keep a civil tongue in your head, sir. Do you not realize you speak to a widow and mother?”
“Oh yeah?” Sean’s eyes popped open wide. “When the cat’s away, the mice do play!”
Vaguely, Edward registered a pull on his arm. But he would not be moved. He would not turn the other cheek this time, though he wore red crosses on his uniform collar even now. “Just what are you insinuating?”
Sean laughed. “Ain’t insinuating nothin’, Chappy. I’ll say it outright. That lady on your arm there? She may look healthier than most, but don’t be fooled. She’s a whore. And that’s a fa—”
Nearly blind with fury, hands that had never sought violence curled into rock-hard fists. A blow to Sean’s face split his lip like ripe fruit. Sean staggered, then plowed into Edward’s nose with a crack. Ruby screamed. Blood trickled down, and Edward licked it off his lips, the metallic taste detonating years of pent-up frustration he had never allowed himself to vent. For the first time in his life, Edward Goodrich stood up to a bully.
At least, until the bully knocked him out.
New York City
Sunday, October 4, 1863
Edward Goodrich felt as foul as the weather rattling his second- story sitting-room window.
Glowering, he eased himself back into the rosewood armchair, squinted at steel-grey clouds slung low over Manhattan. Thunder rolled like a drum inside his chest while rain sprayed the house like shrapnel. He brought his fingertips to the ache in his nose, and winced. But it wasn’t just the throbbing reminder of his fistfight that bothered him. No, it was something much deeper than a mere shiner and a broken nose.
Hypocrite.
How could he tell his flock
to love their neighbor when he had instigated a fistfight? Edward had always turned the other cheek before. But when Sean had implied the very worst about Ruby, he lost his self-control.
“No, I didn’t,” he corrected himself, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He had wanted to hurt Sean, and badly. The venom in his own spirit startled Edward. Was he really so vicious? Did he have more in common with his father than he realized?
A soft knock at the door, then Aunt Vivian rustled through it. She was again wearing the dress Ruby had made for her without realizing she was sewing for a former neighbor. He curved his lips into a deliberate smile.
“Not convincing.” Vivian laughed quietly. “May I join you?”
“By all means.” Edward stood until his aunt had seated herself in the armchair opposite the tea table.
Vivian flinched at the sight of Edward’s pulpy black eye. “How does it feel?”
“Not as bad as it looks.” Edward sighed. “I’m usually not a fighter, Aunt Vivian.”
“I know that.”
“I don’t believe violence is the way to solve things.” He drummed his fingertips on the armrest. “I do have a knack for getting in the way of trouble.”
“For the ones you love.”
Edward looked up, then, into Vivian’s rich brown eyes. “What did you say?”
“Love makes you do things you might never do otherwise. It makes you sacrifice, or fight, or chase, or even push away.” A faraway look shadowed Vivian’s face for a moment.
Edward cleared his throat. “I care for Ruby like a shepherd cares for his sheep. Shepherds fight bears and lions to protect their lambs.”
“True.”
“Or like a sister.”
“I see.”
Yankee in Atlanta Page 9