by Peter Quinn
Margaret made the bed in Mr. Bedford’s room. She hung up his robe and made a pile of his soiled clothes and the towels he had used. Mrs. Bedford wanted him to have a valet. They had even interviewed one. But Mr. Bedford had never gone any further. He was too preoccupied with his business to be bothered. Margaret dusted the armoire and the nightstand next to the bed. The first time she had entered the Bedford house, she had had the feeling of being in a church, a place of quiet and peace, unchangeable, a fixed refuge from the noise and crowds that filled the rest of the city. At the top of the front stairs was a skylight of stained glass. Holy colors. She stood in the hallway, nervously fingering the latch on her handbag, rubbing it like a rosary bead, trying to contain her nervousness. Suddenly Mrs. Bedford appeared; her footsteps had been inaudible on the thick carpeting. She wore a white dress with blue ribbons at the throat and cuffs. Our Lady’s colors. She was a handsome woman, with a passing resemblance to Molly Foley, Margaret thought, but she had a fuller figure and a commanding way about her. The house seemed especially suited to her, as if built with her in mind, a permanent shelter for her loveliness and beauty, a space where she would always be safe. That impression lasted for the first few weeks of Margaret’s employment. But one afternoon, while serving tea to Mrs. Bedford and a guest, she couldn’t help but overhear that Mr. Bedford was contemplating building a larger home, somewhere nearer to Central Park. “This time,” Mrs. Bedford said, “we’ll employ an architect of our own, instead of relying on some contractor’s version of metropolitan elegance.” She waved her hand in a circle, an indictment of the entire premises. “We hope to get started as soon as possible.” The war had made them postpone their plans. But Margaret’s perception of the house had changed. She realized that neither Mrs. Bedford nor her husband regarded this as their home, a setting in which to live out their lives, year following year, accumulating memories as numerous and substantial as the furniture. Both of them in their own way lived here in the expectation of leaving; and despite all its size and grandeur, the house had no more claim on its inhabitants than the tenements or shanties that filled other parts of the city.
Margaret went to Mr. Ward’s room. She knocked. There was no answer, so she opened the door slowly and stuck in her head. Sometimes, when he didn’t answer, he was in there poring over his books, and would be annoyed by the disturbance. The room was empty. She made his bed and dusted the furniture. The windows needed washing, but they would have to wait their turn. She dusted the windowsill. Down below, Miss Kerrigan was standing in the yard talking to Mrs. Flynn, the washerwoman. They had their arms folded in the same way, fists tucked into the elbows. Mrs. Flynn came down every day from Shantytown to do the washing. Her sleeves were rolled up, and her arms were red and beefy, like a man’s. A head taller than Miss Kerrigan, she leaned down toward her, busily nodding in agreement with what was being said.
They prided themselves on their travails, on what they had survived. Margaret was sure they were talking about her; Miss Kerrigan was no doubt using her as a measurement of the indolence and ease that had crept into the world since the days of their youth, the lack of seriousness and purpose in these girls nowadays, them with their fancy ways and fear of hard work. Mrs. Flynn’s head rose and fell in continual agreement. Margaret pulled the drapes. Mr. Ward liked it that way, rooms in darkness during the day. He said it kept them cool.
Miss Kerrigan was right: Margaret had come with bigger hopes than those who fled the Famine. America was more than just enough to eat, the alternative to the workhouse or to being laid, coffinless, in a mass grave. America was the things Molly Foley had returned to Cork City with: store-bought clothing and a sewing machine, money of her own, possibilities that it was hard to put a name on. But perhaps these expectations made the disappointment bitterer. The money that had poured into Ireland from America had created a false impression. To the families that received it, it fell like manna on the Israelites, an excess of abundance, God’s sustenance. But to those who earned it, it came hard, the fruit of heaving, hauling, digging, cleaning, sewing, serving, low-paid work of which the very numbers available to do it drove down wages even further, and what was sent to Ireland represented, in most cases, not a sharing of what was left over but the breaking of a single loaf, food taken from one mouth to feed another. When Molly Foley returned, she hadn’t spoken much about New York. They thought she was being shy. A girl suited to the convent. But Molly had come to New York at the beginning of 1857, and although Miss Kerrigan was never willing to admit that there was anything worse than “Black ’47,” the year of her arrival, the year of the Famine exodus, even she said that the winter of 1857-558 was the bitterest of all.
“Many the girl had to do what she had to do in order to survive, and I say God’s forgiveness is on them because they had no choice. Was that or starve.”
Molly gave Margaret rosary beads. She sent them from the convent with her sister on Margaret’s last night in Ireland. The beads were next to Margaret’s bed in the attic. She hadn’t much time to use them. Lying in bed, she would start a decade, but she never got very far before she fell asleep. On the journey over, aboard the New World, a four-decker of 1,500 tons, she had used them every evening. All the women had, led by an Irish-speaking girl from Killorglin, in Kerry, who was going to America with her mother. Everyone was attentive to their prayers. Afterward, there was dancing and singing in the men’s compartment. The music drowned out the steady thud of the engines.
Margaret hardly slept during the voyage. The bunk she occupied was a top one. There was only a small space between her and the ceiling. But it wasn’t the engines’ noise or the sense of confinement that kept her awake. No one slept well. They each had an address of someone in New York, a cousin, an aunt, a brother, a former neighbor, a friend of a friend, a guide to the strange land of America. But they had also heard stories about the size of New York, and stories of people moved or dead or simply disappeared by the time their immigrant relatives arrived, of addresses that weren’t there anymore, a hotel or store in place of the house or tenement they had expected to find, of wrong addresses, Third Avenue instead of Third Street, or even the wrong city, lost souls looking for addresses in New York City that were actually in cities named Brooklyn or Yonkers. They had been told to be careful, a cautionary note that was sounded constantly in the letters that came from America, a reminder that as each ship disgorged its own quota of bewildered Paddies, individuals and entire families, there were those who would wander the streets for days, even weeks, before they got even a rudimentary sense of where they were, and some who would never find the places they had come looking for, becoming instant and permanent additions to the city’s vagrant population.
Margaret had the address of a friend of her mother’s from Cork City who had left Ireland in 1853. Domitilla O’Sullivan. A dim memory to Margaret. A slight, soft-spoken woman standing in the street as her boys ran wild. Her husband had gone to England in search of work, but had been killed in a train wreck soon after he arrived there, a car full of Paddy laborers splattered against a retaining wall. Margaret remembered Mrs. O’Sullivan sitting in a chair while Catherine tried to comfort her. Catherine and Mrs. O’Sullivan had exchanged a few letters after Mrs. O’Sullivan left for New York, and Catherine had written to explain Margaret’s plan to emigrate. They waited and waited for an answer. Finally, a week before Margaret was set to depart, it came, brief and to the point: I will be glad to do what I can, but she should have no silly notions of what she shall find here. “I knew Tilly wouldn’t let me down,” Catherine said. The reply, as short as it was, made Catherine happy. She went on about Tilly’s humor and good-naturedness, but the memories were of a general sort, distant impressions. Margaret knew it was relief her mother felt, the assurance that however attenuated the tie, there was somebody for her to go to. Margaret felt a sense of relief, too.
Tilly’s address was sewn into the pocket of Margaret’s dress. 65 Jackson Street. The Seventh Ward. The City of New York. When M
argaret disembarked in New York, she had her rosaries in her hand, and though she worked them steadily, what was running through her head was not the Hail Mary but Tilly O’Sullivan’s address.
The last days before they had arrived, they had talked of nothing else but the landing. Margaret couldn’t touch the cured meat they were served. At most, she had a cup of tea and some hard bread. The girl from Killorglin didn’t ease the nervousness. She said that her cousin in America had written to tell her to look as healthy and alert as possible when she landed, that it wasn’t like in the old days when the ship simply docked and the immigrants spilled off to make their way. Now there was a depot with government inspectors wanting to see what physical condition you were in, and to count how much money you had, and to demand to know where you intended to stay. Those that didn’t satisfy them were detained a few days and then shipped back to where they came from.
They spent their last night aboard ship at anchor in the harbor. At dawn the next morning, they docked and were formed into a single line. They proceeded from the dock down a short lane lined with sheds, and through a dark passageway into the largest hall Margaret had ever been in, a vast circular concourse under a wooden roof. At the center of the roof was a cupola, and directly beneath it, in the middle of the room, a fountain that shot a small column of water into the air. The sun streamed through the high circle of windows the way it did in the pictures on holy cards, but instead of shining on virgins and martyrs, it fell on immigrants in baggy, badly wrinkled clothing, and officials in blue caps and jackets. The dust swirled in the shafts of light. It grew thicker as more people entered the hall. The noise of shuffling and coughing grew louder, and the barked commands of the officials reverberated off the Castle Garden ceiling, echoing loudly, the unintended beneficiary of the acoustics of what had been the city’s largest auditorium, the scene of Jenny Lind’s great triumph, the voice of “The Swedish Nightingale” filling the hall, bringing thousands to their feet.
Most of the time they stood. One by one, they approached a long counter onto which they set their baggage, which a clerk proceeded to open and inspect. At another counter they laid down the money they had, and it was counted and returned to them. The clerks were either emotionless or gruff and irritable, especially with some of the country people whose English was poor and who, in their nervousness, usually managed to spill the contents of their bundles across the floor or send a handful of coins careening across the countertop. As the morning went on, a steady flow of immigrants entered, some in embroidered clothing that was beautiful but strange, women with braided hair the color of cream, men with tasseled hats, children covered from head to toe with billowing dresses. The clerks’ voices rose, the words blending into the indistinguishable din, a chorus of babble. The lines snaked around the room, one for baggage inspection, another for the medical officer, and Margaret found herself standing next to a broad-faced man in short pants and a feathered hat. She tried not to stare. Farther on, she waited beside a neat, scrubbed-looking girl her own age who was intently reading what appeared to be a Bible. The girl looked up to check the progress of the line and caught Margaret’s eyes.
“Are you saved?” the girl asked.
Margaret smiled, uncertain of what she had been asked and aware that the people around her were listening.
“Safe?”
“No, saved, do you know the Lord?” She had a flat way of speaking, an English accent, but not one that Margaret had ever heard before. Margaret felt her face turn red. She sensed people waiting to hear her answer.
“I pray.”
“But do you read God’s word, and know His will?” The girl held up her book. “It’s here in the testament of the prophet Mormon, the truth of God’s plan for us.”
The lines began to move, and a distance opened between them. The girl raised her voice. “We’re near the Promised Land now. It’s only a short journey from here. Open your eyes and your ears. The Kingdom is within your grasp.”
The distance between them grew greater, and Margaret was glad for it. When the inspections were done, the men and the women were separated. A matron came up a flight of iron steps that was set into the floor of the hall. She directed the women to proceed downstairs, and stood aside, tapping each one on the head, counting aloud as they went. At fifty, she brought her arm down and stopped the line. Margaret was the last one in the group that passed. At the bottom of the stairs was a big room with brick walls that curved into a vaulted ceiling. It felt like a tomb. There were hooks on the walls and, in the middle, a long copper trough into which two open spigots poured water. The trough was surrounded by an iron railing on which was set small trays that held balls of brown soap.
“Okay, ladies,” the matron said, “we got no time to waste. Hang your clothes on the hooks, and then it’s time to scrub.” Two young girls spoke to each other in a language Margaret couldn’t understand. They giggled and began to undress. The other women stood around looking bewildered. The matron clapped her hands.
“Okay, okay, okay, let’s get going. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your lives down here, then get them clothes off and get into that water. It ain’t gonna hurt.” She clapped her hands again. More women started to undress. The girl from Killorglin, the Rosary leader, stood by the stairs with her mother, who still had her shawl drawn over her head, a small, bent woman with no English at all.
“My mother can’t undress,” the girl said to the matron.
The matron continued to hurry the women with her clapping. “Tell her she’s got a choice,” she said in a voice loud enough for all to hear. “She can either wash or go back to where she came from.”
The girl went over to her mother and spoke to her in Irish. Margaret began to undress quickly. She ran over to the trough and stepped in. The water came up to her knees. It was so cold it made her legs feel numb. She offered a hand to the old woman and, with the aid of the woman’s daughter, helped her in.
“Use the soap,” the matron yelled, “that’s what it’s there for.”
A stout woman with her hair in pigtails squatted down into the trough and splashed water over herself. The matron pointed at her. “That’s the way. Look at her, girls. This is the way to do it.” She rubbed her hands together and ran them over her face and down her arms, a pantomimed cleaning.
They all started to squat down and splash, and their awkwardness gave way to a loud playfulness, the water cascading onto the floor, the shouts of shock as they submerged themselves in the water mingling with loud laughter. Margaret held the old woman’s arm as she lowered herself into the water. Margaret looked at the other women as they went about their washing, girls with chests as flat as boys, women with full, hard breasts, the old woman’s sagging downward, as if they had been sucked dry.
In a moment, the matron was telling them to get out, get their clothes on, get a move on. “We’re outta towels,” she said, “You’ll have to use your clothes.”
They dried themselves as best they could, and mounted the stairs a bit more confidently than they had descended them, a step closer to their new lives than the unwashed still lined up for inspection. They were given back their baggage and taken into a room off the main hall that had rows of long benches. For the first time since arriving, they sat. A clerk entered and stood in front of them. He quickly read aloud the contents of a sheet of paper he held in his right hand. “All tickets for travel outside of the city, whether by rail or by steamship, are to be purchased inside the hall at the windows marked appropriately. Upon leaving the terminal, those traveling in parties should make sure no individual is lost or separated. Don’t converse or do business with strangers offering to carry your baggage, discount your tickets, or provide food or lodging. Hired cars are available to take you to the railway station, and the rates are posted by the door. The steamboat docks are on the North River.” He gestured with the paper toward the door. “You can walk. It’s just a couple of blocks. But be careful.”
The room erupted in a loud babel o
f languages, the gist of the clerk’s remarks given impromptu translation by whoever had enough English to grasp what he had said. Directly outside the room were the ticket windows, and beyond, down a short corridor, a large, open doorway, trees in the distance, steady stream of traffic, rumble of wheels, clanging of bells, voices, whistles, music, New York.
Margaret took her bag and walked down the corridor. There were no more clerks. The door was unguarded. The sun was out, but the air was wet and close, and she felt the perspiration run down her back. A few steps beyond the door she put down her bag and decided to wait for someone she knew from the ship to emerge. The English girl she had talked to earlier came out in the midst of about a dozen people, all the women holding hands, around them a rough square of men laden with baggage and trunks. The woman was clutching her book. They moved off into the city in search of the North River, the American Jordan, then west to Deseret, the Promised Land. More groups of immigrants followed, most headed for the river and the steamboat to Albany, tight knots of people determined not to be unraveled before they got out of the city.