by BJ Hoff
“No, I’m quite all right, thank you, Patrick.” Picking up a bowl of fruit, she passed it to Henry. “I’m sorry if I seem distracted. Something’s been troubling me since choir rehearsal this afternoon.”
She waited, but Patrick neither inquired about the reason for her distress nor showed any real interest. Setting his cup very carefully onto the saucer, he said, “Alice, it seems to me that this business with that…choir is becoming too much for you.”
When Alice leaned forward and would have protested, he silenced her with an upraised hand, going on. “No, now hear me out. It’s all very well to do your good deeds and give to charity. You’re very generous with yourself, and I commend you for it. But you know you’re not overly strong, dear. Frankly, Alice, you’ve been more than a little…strange this evening. You’re worrying me and the children.”
Alice glanced at Isabel, who was eyeing her with a disapproving frown, then at Henry, who seemed wholly engrossed in dissecting his apple. Neither looked in the least worried about their mama.
Anxious that he not insist on her giving up the choir, Alice forced a smile. “I’m sorry if I’ve been negligent, Patrick,” she said, choosing her words with care, “but playing the piano for Mr. Whittaker and the boys takes almost no time at all, and very little effort. Actually, I believe the experience has been quite good for me. It’s just that there’s a little boy I’ve been somewhat concerned about.”
The memory of the little Hogan boy, the thin, freckled face…the bruises…the cuts…slipped into Alice’s thoughts, stirring a pool of concern. “I’m afraid something might be wrong,” she said softly, more to herself than to her husband.
She looked up when Patrick pushed away from the table. “That’s too bad, dear,” he said vaguely, getting to his feet and pushing his chair in to the table. Coming around behind Alice, he gave her shoulders a brief squeeze. “I’m sorry to rush off like this, but I’ve a meeting at eight. Now, I want you to be sure to turn in early tonight. You’re obviously exhausted. Isabel—Henry—see that Mama minds.”
Alice watched him stride smoothly from the dining room, not looking back. Crumpling her napkin into a ball, she was pierced by another stab of pain.
At first, Patrick’s utter lack of interest in what he referred to as her “good deeds” hadn’t bothered her. It wasn’t that he was uncaring, after all. Naturally, she couldn’t expect him to add her concerns to his own. The man hardly ever had a free moment the way it was, what with his seemingly endless business involvements.
Still, some peculiar petulance made her wonder if he couldn’t have shown at least a polite curiosity about the choir in Five Points—or about her personal concern for little Billy Hogan.
The sudden awareness of anger surprised her. She never, never felt anger toward Patrick, and for good reason: he never gave her reason to be angry. Oh, he could be cross at times, but not often, and he was never unkind.
She understood, however, that she could test his patience. They were vastly different, after all. Her mind worked slowly and deliberately, whereas Patrick’s wits were sharp and mercurial. Often, things had to be explained to her, while Patrick seemed to grasp the most complicated of ideas with no prompting whatsoever. She tended to be precise and methodical; Patrick was given to whims and an adventuresome spirit.
Small wonder if he occasionally grew impatient with her. She was being shamefully unfair, Alice thought guiltily, and she must stop. Pushing herself away from the table, she stood and smiled at the children. “Your papa’s right; I’ve been neglectful this evening. Let’s all go into the parlor and we’ll have a game of whist.”
As it happened, Isabel had lessons to do, and Henry preferred to spend time with his telescope. So Alice spent the rest of the evening alone, just as she usually did.
In Rossiter’s small office at the midtown hotel, Patrick Walsh stood, looking out the window.
There was nothing to see but a night with no moon and a few dim spots of light from other windows. Waiting for Hubert Rossiter, the hotel’s bookkeeper, who also served as middleman in a number of Walsh’s other business ventures, he found his thoughts going to his wife and her odd behavior of late.
Seldom did he feel the inclination to think about Alice one way or another. His wife usually required no more of his attention than a routine peck on the cheek, a brief conference about some rare infraction or problem with one of the children, and, rarer still, an uninspired night in her bedroom. Alice was a dutiful, if dull, wife. Her efforts to keep him comfortable and happy were, for the most part, admirably successful. He had little complaint with her, even less interest in her.
Lately, however, she was beginning to get on his nerves. She seemed different, somehow, had for days now. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was—he thought it might be a touch of a new confidence he’d detected in her. And, more peculiar still, a bit less attention to him.
The changes were scarcely noticeable. But ever since she’d started that silly piano playing for the Englishman, he’d sensed a certain distraction, a cheerfulness, about her that had no apparent connection to him or the children.
Whatever it was, he was losing patience. As a matter of fact, he was growing more than a little tired of hearing about her new “interests”’—that “fine Christian gentleman, Mr. Whittaker,” for example, and his “amazing accomplishments with his boys.”
Walsh almost snorted aloud. “Mr. Whittaker” was a one-armed stick of a man who had apparently wangled himself into the good graces of one of the wealthiest men in the country—the shipbuilder, Lewis Farmington. Obviously, the man was simply a clever parasite who happened to fancy himself some sort of missionary.
As for “his boys,” they were merely a bunch of raggedy immigrant and Negro scalawags who apparently had nothing better to do than fritter away their time singing songs.
Bracing a hand on the wall beside the window, he began to tap his fingers in agitation. He supposed he had both the Englishman, Whittaker, and the high-and-mighty Sara Farmington Burke to thank for Alice’s involvement in this Five Points business.
Sara Farmington Burke. Walsh curled his lip and cursed aloud. He’d had reason enough to despise the woman before: in spite of her being the only daughter of Lewis Farmington, she’d gone and married that bloodhound police captain, Burke—who for some reason seemed to have made Patrick Walsh his own personal quarry. Bad enough that she was the wife of his nemesis, but now she’d involved his wife in that do-gooder nonsense for which the Farmingtons were legendary.
Alice, of course, had no way of knowing that one of his two most lucrative businesses was built on the squalor of the Five Points district. Still, he didn’t much like her being down there every week. It didn’t seem right somehow. His wife should have no part in that filthy slum.
He liked even less her involvement with Sara Farmington—Sara Farmington Burke, he corrected himself sourly. Every time Alice mentioned the woman’s name, he ground his teeth. He was going to have to put a stop to all this foolishness before it went any further.
But at the moment, he had bigger fish to fry. Turning away from the window, he sat down at Rossiter’s desk and began to thumb idly through the papers in front of him. When the door opened, he looked up, nodding to the bespectacled Rossiter, then to Tierney Burke, who stood just inside the door behind the bookkeeper.
Walsh leaned back in the chair, his fingers playing over the papers on the desk. “Come in, Tierney,” he said, smiling.
“You sent for me, Mr. Walsh?”
Rossiter stood at a respectable distance on the other side of the desk, but Tierney Burke drew closer.
Walsh studied the boy in silence. The good-looking face bore no sign of the severe beating he’d endured several months ago, except for the thin, angry scar that ran along the side of his left eye. The ice-blue eyes, slightly hooded and always defiant, stared back at Walsh with something akin to disdain.
Lately, the boy tended to put Walsh on edge. There was no sign of the defer
ence due a generous employer, no real indication he even respected the man who paid his wages. In fact, the more he drew the young rascal into the business, the more keenly he felt Tierney’s arrogance.
Yet this one was worth half a dozen others in boldness and daring alone. The boy had proved himself absolutely reliable time and again.
Walsh reminded himself that Tierney Burke had a couple of weak spots. For one thing, he was known to drink. Not regularly, it seemed, but often enough that the men had noticed it on him now and then. Walsh himself had detected a slight slur to the young rogue’s words on more than one occasion, and at times, like tonight, those intense blue eyes seemed to hold an even brighter glint of defiance than usual.
Then, too, Walsh despised that unresolved zeal and Irish patriotism of his. Although the boy seldom spoke of Ireland, almost never referred to his political leanings, he’d opened up just enough early in their acquaintance that Walsh knew him to be a rebel at heart. A fanatic on the subject of Ireland.
Since Walsh had spent most of his adult life burying his own Irish roots—burying them so deeply that even he tended to forget them—he had little patience for what he thought of as Ireland’s national madness. As for the drinking—he viewed it as a definite character flaw, one that continued to consume and destroy the Irish immigrants by the score.
Still, whether the boy turned out to be an authentic fanatic or a rolling drunk really wasn’t his concern. As a matter of fact, either tendency, or both, might just prove to be of benefit if the boy got too independent for his own good.
Walsh’s smile brightened still more as he regarded young Burke. “Tierney, I’ve been giving some thought to your request about taking on something else, in addition to running deliveries and messages—something more…lucrative. I thought you might want to sit in on my conversation with Hubert here this evening.”
Amused, Walsh saw Rossiter flush with undisguised annoyance. It was common knowledge among the men and messenger boys that the nervous little bookkeeper disliked Tierney Burke immensely.
Patrick Walsh thought it more likely that Rossiter feared the boy. And it wasn’t all that difficult to understand why.
The conversation between Walsh and Rossiter had gone on for over an hour, and Tierney was becoming more and more impatient. Impatient, and a bit uneasy.
He had caught the drift of things after the first few minutes. Walsh had himself a kind of slave trade in the works, right here in the city. It couldn’t be much slicker. Negro kids, both boys and girls, were rounded up from the streets and alleys and herded off to the Bowery, where they were delivered to their “new owners” for a prearranged purchase price. Of course, in many cases, there was no previous owner; a number of the pickaninnies were children of free Negroes. On the other hand, as many others probably had parents on the run, hiding from the slave catchers, hoping they’d never be caught in a city as large as New York.
What Walsh was doing was illegal, at least in the North. It was also, his father would say, immoral.
Tierney immediately dismissed the thought of his father’s disapproval. Still, he didn’t much like what he was hearing. There was no telling what kind of scoundrels bought up these black kids, no imagining what their plans were once they got hold of them.
But the fact remained that the city was becoming overrun with Negroes—Negroes who took jobs from the Irish. They’d work for almost nothing, and that was the truth. In a city that was papered with signs reading NO IRISH NEED APPLY, the blacks did apply—and were often hired.
After a while, feeling somewhat dull from the whiskey he’d had earlier, Tierney banked his sympathy for the black kids and began to ask questions about his part in the operation. Including how much it was going to be worth to him.
34
Feed My Sheep
And this is the Christian to oversee
A world of evil! a saint to preach!
A holy well-doer come to teach!
A prophet to tell us war should cease.
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY (1844–1890)
No doubt, thought Kerry Dalton, if any of the straitlaced, ponderous pillars of the Fifth Avenue congregation were to see their pastor at this moment, there would be still another fuss about “Mister Dalton’s questionable behavior.” Casey-Fitz and Arthur had him trapped in the middle of the parlor floor, the three of them roughhousing like a litter of frisky pups.
From the rocking chair by the hearth, Kerry smiled and put down her mending to watch. This was Jess’s favorite part of the day, a time he looked forward to and, inasmuch as possible, arranged his hectic schedule to ensure.
The sight of him, in his shirtsleeves on his knees, tumbling about the floor like a boy himself, brought a sudden, unaccountable touch of sadness to her heart. Lately, Jess seemed to have so few times like this: light-hearted times in which he could simply shrug off the daily problems he faced and, at least for a while, escape the encroaching storm that now seemed to threaten his ministry.
Kerry’s smile waned as she watched him. Every day there seemed to be a new sprinkling of silver in his hair, a few new lines about his eyes. The startling blue gaze that could still melt her heart now looked out on the world with what appeared to be a permanent sorrow, as if somewhere deep within his soul there smoldered an unspeakable pain.
With her, he was never less than gentle, always considerate, tenderly teasing and affectionate and thoughtful. But Kerry knew that a part of him often drifted off, away from the haven she had tried to create with her love. Even here, in this deep-cushioned, warm, friendly room that had become so much a refuge for them all, she would often sense his thoughts slipping away into troubled waters.
She knew he wasn’t sleeping, although he was careful not to disturb her when he left their bed during the night. All too often she would awaken and hear him moving about downstairs. Obviously, he was trying to keep his restlessness from her, so she worried in silence.
It seemed to her that Jess’s heart was breaking, slowly, quietly, one piece at a time. Her gentle giant was a man whose wounds were many, wounds inflicted by the cruelty, the wickedness, the apathy of a world at war with itself. Like the grieving prophet, Jeremiah, her Jess was a God-driven man, tormented by the brutality and oppression all around him, a man unable to compromise the Truth he had been given, a man often accused of fanaticism or foolish idealism…a man whose very spirit bled for the agony of the world.
And yet he was also a man who had managed to turn his anguish into sacrifice, his personal pain to a kind of triumph. For through it all, he had clung to the faithfulness of a God who had promised to one day redeem and repay and reward.
Abruptly, Kerry looked up, yanked out of her dark reverie by a sense of being watched. Flanked by two bright-eyed boys, Jess stood in front of her. His grin and the glint in his eye spelled nothing but mischief.
“It seems to me that Little Mother looks entirely too comfortable. What do you think, boys? Shouldn’t she join in the fun?”
“Ladies,” she said firmly, anchoring herself to the chair with both hands, “do not indulge in horseplay.”
Jess looked at each boy, then cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a fact, now?” he challenged in a brogue that would have done Kerry’s father, God rest his soul, more than proud.
“What do you say to that, lads? Shall we unseat the grand lady from her throne?”
Before she could squeal out a protest, Kerry found herself pried loose from the chair and lifted into her husband’s arms. For a moment, he pretended to consider tossing her to first one boy, then the other. Finally, at her indignant demands—highly feigned—he laughed and set her to her feet. With obvious reluctance, he declared an end to the playtime.
Later, when the boys were in bed and the house was finally quiet, the two of them sought the privacy of their bedroom. As was his practice, Jess pulled up a chair behind her at the vanity and began to brush her hair.
Kerry smiled at his reflection in the mirror as he worked intently to bring order to her
stubborn red curls. “Watching you with the boys downstairs,” she said, “I decided your favorite time of day is when you’re down on all fours with the two of them. I believe there’s still a great deal of the boy in you, Mr. Dalton.”
He slowed the brush, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “You’re right about that, I confess.” He paused, then added, “But not about my favorite time of day, Mrs. Dalton.”
“Indeed?”
He nodded, meticulously unwinding one copper curl from around the bristles of the brush. “Indeed.”
Carefully, he replaced the brush on the dressing table and put his hands to her shoulders, slowly turning her about to face him. “As it happens,” he said, pulling her into his arms, “my favorite time of day is just beginning.”
Long after Kerry had fallen asleep, Jess tucked the blankets snugly under her chin, then eased himself from the bed. Slipping into his dressing gown, he left the bedroom and went downstairs.
It was late enough that he was the only one up and about, but he closed the library door behind him anyway. He needed the quiet, and he craved the solitude.
He sat at his desk, his head in his hands as he pored over the Scriptures. Outside, a steady, beating rain had begun, and, born on the rising wind, lashed the roof and the sides of the house. The lamp on the desk flickered in the draft.
The minutes turned to hours. Still, Jess read and prayed. At times he stopped and sat, scarcely breathing, a feeling of anticipation rising in him, then ebbing.
For more than a week now, he had caught a sense of God endeavoring to break through the turmoil of his days. In the midst of the clamor of the hourly responsibilities and problems crowding in on him would come a gentle stirring in his spirit. Sometimes, awash in the turbulence of his thoughts and rioting emotions, he would be engulfed by an unexpected hush, a sudden stillness. Just as quickly, a heaviness would center in his chest, weighing in on him like a knot of dread at some impending disaster.