by Cathy Gohlke
“I’ve known everythin’, all along. I’m not stupid. I know about Gavin and I know about his father.” Katie Rose struggled for her breath. She spoke so quietly that Maureen could hear only by placing her ear next to her sister’s mouth. “I never would have done it.”
The ship docked at four o’clock Tuesday afternoon. By half past six, first- and second-class passengers had been treated to a medical officer’s cursory glance and walked ashore.
But steerage passengers were held aboard for a trip to Ellis Island, for close questioning and a more thorough going-over. No matter the delay, no matter the sickness, there’d be no more ferries to Ellis Island until the next morning.
Rumors sped through the offended ranks during the wait: no carriers of disease and no vermin would be admitted among the poor, no immigration for anyone who might become a public charge—anyone too poor, too sick, too lame, too elderly, too deaf, too simple—and certainly no women traveling alone.
“Close, just not close enough. Ach, I s’pose the personal ailments of the swells is better than ours—venereal disease and all,” groused a nearby voice at the ship’s rail bright and early Wednesday morning, carrying with his foul humor the smell of sour ale and an accent Maureen did not recognize. “S’pose a bit of loose change in the pocket makes all the difference, no matter what the trouble.” The man stepped closer, removing his tweed cap as if to speak to the sisters directly.
But Maureen, her instincts rising and her heart beating an unnatural rhythm, pulled the collar of her cloak higher. She turned aside with everyone on board to stare at Lady Liberty, fired by the rising autumn sun, and tucked Katie Rose into her embrace. She pointed to the statue and a bit too loudly urged her sister, “She’s that lovely, isn’t she?”
Maureen knew that Katie Rose, her shoulders weak and trembling from fever, was beyond answering.
The man beside Maureen took up the conversation as if it were meant for him. “Aye.” He nodded toward the statue and stepped closer still, until their elbows touched. “Regal and majestic, that’s what she is. Green, like she’s risen straight from the sea to welcome us to her shores.”
Maureen braced Katie Rose against the railing. She hoped with all her heart that the Statue of Liberty was welcoming, that the officials of Ellis Island were welcoming, that they would let them pass. But Katie Rose’s fever had spiked in the night, and scarlet splotches had appeared on her neck and arms that morning. Maureen had covered them as best she could, pulling Katie Rose’s shirtwaist higher round her throat. Still, she knew it would take a miracle for the officials of Ellis Island to let her sister pass. And Maureen had stopped believing in miracles long ago.
She could hardly bear to look at the magnificent skyline opposite the great statue—the skyline behind South Ferry that meant New York and all of America beyond—not if they would never be allowed to see it, to walk among its buildings.
“Are you well, then, Maureen O’Reilly?”
Maureen had not seen Joshua Keeton approach. Hearing her name spoken quietly in the familiar baritone, very near her ear, caught her off guard.
“There’ll be a medical inspection, I’ve heard, and questions against the ship’s manifest.”
She could not let him see Katie Rose’s splotches, could not let him call attention to them in any way. So she turned her back, keeping between them, and did not reply.
“You should have listed as comin’ with me. It would have gone better for you.”
What was that supposed to mean? Are you pushin’ your last chance with me, or do you mean to help? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t risk making a mistake, not when they were so close.
A minute later she regretted her high hand and considered that perhaps Joshua would be willing to help them, to help her get Katie Rose off the ship and through the lines that surely awaited.
She turned, opening her mouth to speak. But Joshua was gone. No matter which way she looked, she saw no sign of him. Maureen drew a deep breath. “Well, then,” she whispered, “we’re on our own.” That’s best. That’s what I want.
At last a strange, flat-bottomed boat—a barge, strong and big enough to carry hundreds at a time—pulled beside their ship.
“You don’t suppose we’re bein’ made to ‘walk the plank,’ do you?” Maureen tried, to no avail, to tease a little life into her sister as they crossed to the barge that would ferry them to Ellis Island. The deck was so tightly packed with bodies and hand luggage that there was no place to sit, no shelter in any form; passengers stood shoulder to shoulder, front to back.
“If one takes a tumble, we’ll all be in that frozen slop,” a woman near Maureen fretted.
Perhaps in the cramped quarters no one will notice if Katie Rose cannot stand alone.
In only minutes they were moored before the grandest building Maureen had ever laid eyes upon. Redbrick with high, arching windows framed in white stone—something akin to towers, but fabulous beyond her imagination. She’d never been to London but doubted if anything there could be so grand.
The thrill was short-lived when they were told they must wait as an earlier barge unloaded its immigrants for processing. More than three hours later, still on their feet, still in the cold and wind, sheltered only by bodies before or behind or beside, they waited. And then it was noon, and men in uniforms streamed out the great doors.
“Where are they going?” a woman screamed, very near the end of her tether.
“They’re leaving! Don’t they see us waiting here?” another called, pulling her wrap tight over her head.
Maureen thought a riot stood in the offing. She didn’t know what she’d do with Katie Rose, how she’d get her to safety, for her sister was sound asleep and only on her feet for being wedged between the railing and Maureen.
“Calm yourselves! Calm yourselves!” a voice with a nasal accent called from the landing, speaking English so foreign that Maureen craned her neck to see what manner of person spoke. “It’s dinner, is all, and we’ve got a bite for you. But you must stand back so we can board! Stand back!”
Maureen dared not leave her post, but a woman nearby pulled a small box from the delivery wagon and handed it over Maureen’s shoulder—a slice of brown bread, more salted herring, an apple. Maureen bit into the red apple. With juice dribbling down her chin, she retrieved the apple chunk and tried to press it between her sister’s lips. But Katie Rose numbly shook her head. Maureen ate the apple herself, though it didn’t sit well on the turbulence in her stomach.
By two o’clock they’d filed ashore to be tagged with their ship and manifest number, to wait yet again in an out-of-doors line. Maureen found a spot on the pavement for herself and Katie Rose; they slept, sitting back-to-back, despite the cold and biting wind. At last they were roused, allowed through the heavy doors of the imposing building, and directed to a long flight of stairs.
Doctors in uniform stood on the top landing, staring down into the maze of immigrants. Maureen felt rather than knew that they assessed each weary immigrant who climbed toward them. She did all she could to rouse Katie Rose, even pinched her to put a spark of life in her step. Ahead, she saw a young man favoring his lame left leg, and then an older woman, short of breath, pulled to the side, where officials chalk-marked large letters on their lapels. The two were pointed away from the group, and Maureen’s heart sank into her shoes. She pinched Katie Rose again. Her sister slapped her hand.
“You there—one moment.” A doctor, chalk in hand, reached for Katie Rose, but Maureen wriggled between them and pushed Katie Rose forward.
“How do you do, sir?” She smiled, not a foot from his face. “It’s more than pleased I am to be makin’ your acquaintance. How good and kind of you to welcome us to America! I’d no idea the doctors in America would be so fine and gracious.” Maureen stroked his cheek in a brazen flirtation that astonished the doctor nearly as much as it astonished her. “I hope I’ll be seein’ you again, sir.” She flashed a smile she knew would dazzle, then demurely lowered her
eyes and moved forward with the orderly surge of the crowd. Please, God, don’t let him call us back, she prayed—and that prayer was a wonder greater to her than any flirting she’d conceived.
The stairs opened into the center of a great hall. A moment of awe swept through the crowd as a sea of caps slipped respectfully from heads before the gigantic American flag.
Maureen caught up with Katie Rose and placed a supportive hand on her sloping shoulder. They filed through a maze of metal railings, benches, high wire cages, and holding areas overflowing with group upon group and line upon line of jabbering humanity—some laughing self-consciously, some tearful, all crowding, talking loud enough to make themselves heard above the great din.
Maureen caught snippets of conversation, guessing at their general meaning by the inflection and tones of voices, the physical movements of hands and creases in brows. She never knew there were so many languages on the face of the earth and wondered how the people of America were able to understand one another if all these strangers with their strange words poured onto her shores.
She’d begun to rub her temples in weariness and worry when a little girl with coarse raven curls and eyes browner than any Maureen had ever seen smiled up at her. Maureen stared. The child reached out her hand. Something in that happy, trusting gesture pushed the strangeness of the din away. The little girl’s open smile was infectious and sprang a return from Maureen—a smile that, this time, played naturally about her lips, pushing quibbles of fear and anxiety from the ache in her head. Refreshment seeped into her bones.
For the first time she paused and dared look forward to stepping into New York, to exploring that city of tall buildings set against the skyline opposite the Statue of Liberty—the one she’d been too frightened to more than glimpse while holding Katie Rose.
She drew a deep breath, looked about her with unveiled eyes, and suddenly wished she could understand the feminine voices two lines away—women in full, embroidered skirts—and the young men who spoke with their hands nearly as fast as they spoke with their mouths. She wondered what country they’d sailed from, how they meant to get on in America. This was, after all, the land of hopes and dreams—her aunt had said so. Her da had sworn by it.
But when she looked again at Katie Rose to share this sudden hope and saw that the clusters of scarlet splotches had sprung in a garden across her face, Maureen realized anew that they might never know.
“Chicken pox,” the doctor pronounced not an hour later. “You should have reported this right away. Highly contagious.”
Katie Rose looked too frightened to speak, like a small child disciplined for stealing biscuits from a crock.
“She’s my sister, sir.” Maureen intervened, as if that explained everything.
“How old is she?” the doctor demanded.
“Thirteen—just,” Maureen hedged. “Please let us go through, sir. We won’t be any trouble. I had the chicken pox when a bairn and I know just what to do.”
“If you’d known what to do, young woman, you should have reported this! No telling how many have been infected from your negligence.”
Maureen felt the hair on her arms prickle. “Well, she got it from somewhere, now, didn’t she? She certainly didn’t have it when we boarded ship! ’Tisn’t like we brought the plague as a gift!”
Now the doctor did look at Maureen. He spoke evenly, and Maureen knew that flirting was out of the question. “Your display of temper will help neither of you.”
“Please don’t send me back,” Katie Rose whispered. “I’ll do anythin’. Please.”
“Quarantined.” The doctor marked Katie Rose’s cloak and motioned for a nurse to come forward. “Chicken pox.”
The nurse took Katie Rose by the arm and began to pull her away.
“No!” Maureen pulled Katie Rose by the other arm.
“Please.” Katie Rose began to cry.
The nurse looked expectantly at the doctor, but he said nothing. She pursed her lips—appearing as disapproving of the doctor’s callous behavior as of the girls’ outburst—and took Maureen aside. “It only means that we’ll keep her here in the hospital until she’s well. Because she’s contagious, she’ll have to be in a ward with other patients with chicken pox. If all goes well, and if she has no further complications, she’ll be released.”
“Then you’ll let her go to America?” Maureen begged.
“Then we’ll see.” The doctor spoke now. “She’ll be eligible for further examination.”
Katie Rose’s eyes filled with terror, and she reached for Maureen’s hand.
“I want to be here—to be present—durin’ all my sister’s examinations,” Maureen said stoutly.
The doctor laughed. “Only if we detain you for idiocy.”
The nurse’s lips pursed again. “You’ll have to go through, my dear. We’ll take good care of your sister. Once you’ve settled, once she’s past the point of contagion, you may come back to visit her. If she passes her examinations, she’ll be free to immigrate.”
“But how will I know?” Maureen persisted.
“You’re holding up the line. Move along.” The doctor pushed the women through, barely glancing at Maureen.
“Let me get your sister settled. I’ll make sure you have all the information you need.” The nurse checked the watch pinned to her uniform. “I’m going off duty soon, but I’ll make certain someone from the next shift speaks with you. Is someone meeting you both?”
“No,” Maureen said miserably, holding Katie Rose’s clutching hand.
The nurse pulled the girls aside. “They’ll certainly not let you through alone, my dear,” she admonished. “Have you no one?”
“What?” Maureen could barely focus. The day and its emotions had become a murky swamp in her brain.
“The letter,” Katie Rose whispered.
“The letter,” Maureen repeated, as if all the world should understand completely.
“You have a letter of sponsorship?”
Maureen realized she was skating precariously. “Yes.” She nodded and, unbuttoning her cloak, pulled the letter from its hiding place. “We’ve been invited, you see.” She waved the page before the nurse, hoping she would not read it closely, hoping she would not focus on the letter’s details or notice its date.
But the nurse was thorough. She snapped the letter from Maureen’s hand and just as quickly copied the return address onto a new chart for Katie Rose.
Maureen tried to lift the page from her fingers, but the nurse turned aside, reading every word. “My dear, this letter of invitation was written twenty-eight years ago! And it mentions a son.” She stepped back, eyeing Maureen hard. Her action raised the eyebrows of the official in the next line. “This paper will never get you through Ellis Island,” she whispered.
Katie Rose moaned, snapping the nurse to attention.
“It’s all we have. I know it’s good. Our father saved Colonel Wakefield’s life; he’s pledged himself to help us.” Maureen was too old to cry but felt very near it.
The nurse shook her head. “Well, it’s not my affair. You’ll have to take it up with immigration.” She tapped her chart with her finger. “You understand that your sister’s care will not be free.”
Maureen felt the room begin to spin. Beyond embarrassment, she lifted the edge of her skirt and searched for a weight, holding it up to the woman in white. “We’ve each a gold coin left. Is that enough?”
The nurse’s eyes softened in pity. But she shook her head. “You’ll need that and more. They won’t let you go through empty-handed, you know.” She sighed, and Maureen saw the weariness of futility settle upon the nurse. “Whatever happens later, I must get this girl to the ward now.” Wrapping her arm round Katie Rose, she sternly whispered to Maureen, “But if you don’t want to be sent back, I advise you to come up with a better plan than this—and quickly.”
Maureen barely noticed the succession of doctors prodding her with their tongue depressors and stethoscopes. Even the dreaded e
ye exam, when her eyelids were quickly flipped inside out with a wicked buttonhook in search of the fateful trachoma, seemed as nothing compared to her worry for Katie Rose.
And then a woman, a pert official, asked her, “And how do you expect to earn your living here? Do you have a job waiting for you?”
“Not yet, but I’m willin’ and most able to work.”
It was a question the woman aboard had warned her about. She mustn’t be seen as taking work from another.
“What sort of work have you done? In the town? In the tavern?”
Maureen straightened, uncertain what the woman was asking, but fairly certain she understood the implication. “I’ve served seven years in domestic service, mostly as a lady’s maid.”
“Mostly?”
Maureen lifted her chin but felt her face flame and hoped the shame of her past did not paste itself across her brow. “I began in the scullery and then as a parlor maid. I attended the person of Lady Catherine Orthbridge of County Meath.” She’d not say that Lady Catherine died a year past.
The woman seemed satisfied and motioned Maureen down the line, where she was directed to stand with a small group and await her turn yet again.
She’d not thought her nerves could be wound tighter, but when she heard women called up by turn and pounded with a barrage of questions, she thought she might snap. Most of the questions she recognized from the documents she and Katie Rose had completed as best they could before sailing from Dublin—a list of questions she’d answered with as much truth as she knew and telling as little as she thought they could get by with. She’d not considered the questions terribly important at the time but realized now that any conflicting answers might keep them both out of America. Maureen no longer cared so very much for America. But the thought of going back to Ireland, penniless and with a reputation more shamed for rejection at Ellis Island, was too much. Joshua Keeton, if you were here now, I’d not be refusin’ your help!