by BJ Hoff
Sara looked at him. “Is she really all that formidable?”
“Terrifying,” he said, still smiling. Lifting her hand, he brought her fingers to his lips for a moment. “But no match for my Sara, of course. Still, you’d best have a care. You’re not going over to Brooklyn alone, I hope?”
“No, Robert’s going to drive me to the ferry, then go across with me.”
He made a face. “Robert is practically doddering, Sara. Not much of a protector, I’d say.”
“We’ll be fine, Michael. Don’t hover.”
He gave her a look, but said nothing.
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“Not tonight. I’ve a meeting at seven.”
“The subcommission?”
“Aye, we’re finally getting down to the reason I agreed to serve in the first place.”
He turned back to the mirror, and Sara watched him. “The crime bosses, you mean?”
“And the pirates who work for them, that’s right.”
“You’ll be investigating Patrick Walsh?”
He met her gaze in the mirror. “Among others.”
“Michael…you know what a dangerous man he is. You’ll be careful?”
He ran a brush through his hair, then turned to her. “I can be a dangerous man, too, sweetheart, if need be. You’re not to worry.”
“He terrifies me! I wish—”
He took her by the shoulders. “What, Sara?”
Sara searched his eyes. She knew the hard glint reflected there wasn’t for her. “I wish…you’d let someone else see to Patrick Walsh.”
His jaw tightened as he turned away to shrug into his jacket. “Walsh is mine,” he said flatly, his tone clearly leaving no room for argument. “Come along, now,” he said, taking her arm, “or I’ll not have time for breakfast. And you’d best be looking to your own welfare instead of fretting about mine. You’ll need all your defenses in place to brave the formidable Miss Crane.”
“Good heavens, Michael, you make the woman sound positively intimidating.”
He opened the bedroom door, stopping just long enough to plant a quick kiss on her cheek. “Well, now, and wouldn’t I know a terrible, fierce woman when I see one, being married to you?”
Sara had hoped to find Nora improved from their last visit, but there seemed little change, if any.
Although the baby appeared to be thriving, Nora was another matter altogether. She was too thin by far, almost as gaunt as when she had first arrived in America, ill and devastated by the famine. Even her hair seemed to be graying more quickly than was reasonable. Indeed, to Sara’s eyes, Nora simply did not look well.
When questioned, though, Nora continued to insist that she felt “perfectly fine.”
“Oh, I’m a bit tired, perhaps,” she admitted. “A baby does take work, though Teddy is so good I scarcely know he’s about.”
Sara studied her across the kitchen table. “I think you could do with some help, Nora,” she suggested. “At least for a while, until you’re stronger. Especially now that Johanna has gone back to her lessons with Miss Summer.”
“Oh, I’m managing fine, Sara—truly!” Nora insisted. “Johanna is here in the evenings, and Aunt Winnie still comes often to help.”
“But you’ve told me yourself that Johanna seems reluctant to handle the baby,” Sara reminded her. “And Aunt Winnie will soon have her hands full, looking after her own home again. If Father has his way—and he almost always does—they’ll be married before year’s end.”
Nora nodded and smiled. “Aunt Winnie is positively glowing, isn’t she? I think it’s quite wonderful about her and your father.”
“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Sara agreed, her enthusiasm genuine. “Father’s been alone long enough, and Winifred is an absolute delight. I think they’ll be wonderfully happy. But don’t go changing the subject. Promise me you’ll give some thought to this,” she urged, leaning forward to clasp Nora’s hand across the table. “If there’s a problem with finances, you know Father or I would be more than happy to help. For that matter, we could send one of the day girls over for a few weeks.”
Nora had a certain strength, a quiet dignity about her that often went unnoticed because of her retiring nature. But there was no mistaking it now. “You and your father have done far too much for us as it is, Sara,” she said firmly. “Please don’t think me ungrateful—I can’t think what would have become of us without you and Mr. Farmington. But Evan and I want to make our own way from now on, don’t you see? Besides, one day, when Evan can send for his money in England, things will be easier for us.”
“What money in England?” Sara stopped, embarrassed by her own bluntness. “I’m sorry—that’s none of my business, of course.”
Nora waved off her apology. “When Evan was employed in London, he managed to accumulate some savings. But after going against his employer’s instructions and helping us get away—well, he fears some sort of retaliation if his whereabouts were to be discovered. That’s why he’s made no attempt to contact the bank before now.”
“But couldn’t Evan’s father get the money and send it to you?”
Nora’s expression clouded. “Evan thought of that as well. In fact, he wrote to his father about it some months past. But Mr. Whittaker has been too poorly to manage the trip to London.”
Not wanting to press, Sara said nothing further. But she had already decided to take the subject up with her father at the first opportunity. He was fond of declaring that he couldn’t get along without his British assistant, that the man was invaluable to him. Sara thought this might be a good time to remind him of Evan’s usefulness—and suggest a raise in salary. A generous raise. Perhaps then Nora would be more open to taking on help.
In the meantime, she would ask Nicholas Grafton to make a call. He could drop by on the pretense of checking baby Teddy, but surely when he got a look at Nora, he’d insist on examing her, too.
If there was one thing Quinn O’Shea despised with a vengeance, it was sewing. For as long as she could remember, she had been all thumbs with a needle.
Although she had never voiced her suspicions, she expected the reason for her clumsiness with the sewing had to do with her eyesight. Close work had ever been a bother to her, for such things as tiny stitches and fine patterns seemed to blur and run together.
In spite of her protests to Miss Crane, however, Quinn had spent almost the entire time since her arrival at the Shelter—close on three months now—hunched over a stack of shirts, stitching buttonholes and shirt cuffs. Her fingers were pricked raw from her clumsiness with the needle, and her eyes watered and burned incessantly.
Today she was finding the sewing particularly difficult, what with the room being dim and gray from yet another rainy afternoon. Her stomach knotted with bitterness as she jabbed the needle through the shirt front she’d been working on.
She had hoped to catch a glimpse of the ladies touring the Shelter today, on the chance that the society widow, Mrs. Deshler, might be among them. Quinn was almost certain she had sensed a hint of kindness in the woman’s eyes that night back in July, in the Bowery—a kindness she could appeal to, if given the chance.
Somehow, she must make known the truth about this place they called a Shelter. But stuck up here in the crowded, cheerless sewing room, there was no likelihood of that ever happening, she reminded herself despairingly. Ladies from the various missionary societies never visited the third floor.
No doubt, there would be some questions to answer if they did. Crowded with eight women—two of whom were in advanced stages of their pregnancies—the narrow sewing room would have been cramped with four. It was dimly lighted by only two flickering candles at each end, and cold and damp in the late September chill.
When she first arrived at the Shelter, Miss Crane had set her to work in the kitchen, which suited Quinn just fine. She had always been fairly handy with food, and if Mrs. Cunnington, the cook, had not turned out to be such an old shrew, the work mi
ght even have proved enjoyable.
On Quinn’s third day in the kitchen, however, the hatchet-faced Miss Crane had relieved her of her duties, assigning her instead to the sewing room upstairs. Quinn’s objections were met with the terse statement that “Miss Cunnington is disturbed by your cough. She feels it might be unhealthy for a consumptive to be handling the food.”
“Consumptive?” Quinn had shouted. “I’m not consumptive! I have a cold, ‘tis all!”
The administrator had fixed her with a look of such distaste that for an instant Quinn felt as if she were, indeed, diseased. Recovering, she informed Miss Crane that since she had planned to leave by the end of the week all along, she might just as well be on her way immediately.
To her amazement, Ethelda Crane proceeded to inform her that it would be “quite impossible” for Quinn to go just yet, that she would be required to stay on until she had “paid her debts.”
“Debts? What debts?” Quinn demanded, stunned by the woman’s remark. “I have no debts!”
The other’s thin lips curved slightly in the mockery of a smile. “To the contrary, Miss. You owe us for two days’ room and board, not to mention the expenses incurred for your medical treatment.”
Quinn seethed anew at the memory of that confrontation. The medical treatment to which Miss Crane had referred had been some weak tea with a drop of camphor! She had seen no surgeon, received no medication whatsoever. Medical treatment, indeed!
In spite of the ridiculous allegations, Quinn had stayed. Miss Crane’s final thrust had been too frightening to ignore. “Penniless immigrants who cannot pay their debts find themselves in jail in this country, Miss. Either you stay for a full month hence, or I shall turn you over to the authorities.”
So Quinn had stayed on, forcing herself to hold her tongue about the blatant injustices and unfair treatment that went on at the Shelter. Determined to “serve her time” and be done with the place, she followed the rules and worked hard, without complaining.
But when the month finally drew to an end, she was told that she had incurred “new debts” which must be paid. The threat of jail was once again hung out to her.
This time Quinn exploded in rage, making a few threats of her own. In the midst of her outburst, however, Ethelda Crane quietly produced what appeared to be a detailed list of Quinn’s current obligations. To an unsuspecting eye, the list would seem to prove that Quinn’s meager “wages” in no way covered her considerable expenses.
Quinn was not one to give up easily, but the threat of being locked up was the one thing that could intimidate her. More than anything else, she feared imprisonment.
She had left Ireland to avoid a cell. It made no difference at all that Millen Jupe would have beat her to a bloody pulp if she hadn’t knifed him. He had meant to kill her, and that was the truth. She had acted only to save herself. But the authorities would not have listened to a word of defense on her behalf. In their eyes she was naught but a strumpet—a murdering strumpet. It would have been the hanging tree for certain, had they caught her.
She could not bear the thought that she might have escaped one prison cell only to land in another!
And so, months after her arrival, she was still caught—as were the other residents of the Shelter—in a seemingly hopeless, inescapable trap.
Meanwhile, she had grown to detest Ethelda Crane as she had never disliked another human being in her life, except for Millen Jupe. Her bitter feelings toward the woman had begun to fester that first night at the Shelter. Even then Quinn had sensed that the seemingly virtuous Miss Crane might turn out to be more foe than friend to someone like herself.
Time, she now acknowledged wearily, had proved her instincts sound.
How she wished she had heeded those instincts from the beginning! Had she known then the ugly truth about the Chatham Charity Women’s Shelter, she would never have allowed that smooth-talking policeman to send her here.
Although the place was altogether miserable and grim, apparently it had once been the fine home of a wealthy Dutch family. But that had been many years ago, and there was little left to suggest its past elegance. The wall coverings had long since faded, and the few remaining pieces of furniture looked tired and outdated. To Quinn, it seemed a bleak, inhospitable place with not a single cheering attribute to mark it as anyone’s home. Indeed, sometimes it seemed little better than the prison she was so determined to avoid.
The first thing required of any roomer was to give up her own clothing—right down to her petticoat, if she had one—in exchange for an ugly, shapeless brown dress. “We adopt a practical, modest attire here,” Miss Crane was fond of saying when a new resident attempted to hold on to her own apparel. “We do not conform to the world.”
The place was supposed to house women down on their luck, but in reality most of the residents were young girls, some mere children of nine or ten. Others arrived “in disgrace,” as Miss Crane referred to their situation: unmarried mothers-to-be who had no recourse but to seek charity.
The few mature women who did board at the Shelter worked outside, at the factories, while the younger girls cleaned and cooked, or else took in piecework from the shirt mills to earn their keep. No one was allowed to keep even a small part of her pay, but instead was required to turn each week’s wages over to Miss Crane, to pay for their “board,” or, in the case of the expectant mothers, to accumulate for “forthcoming medical expenses.”
Even the pregnant girls worked until they were ready to drop. Nobody rested until bedtime, and they were hauled out well before dawn the next morning.
On the rare occasion when one of the newer residents ventured to protest, she was threatened—as Quinn had been—with immediate expulsion to a police workhouse or a jail cell for “unlawful indigents.”
Ethelda Crane frequently reminded her charges that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” and that “she who does not work, does not eat.”
It seemed to Quinn that the long-nosed administrator did little enough work herself, other than when she whipped through the building with a flock of society ladies in tow. These were usually from one of the big city churches uptown, interested in seeing the fruits of their financial support. All residents were warned ahead of time that there was to be no conversation during these excursions, and no reply to questions other than a simple yes or no.
There were few questions, of course. On those rare times when she had been downstairs during a tour, Quinn had not missed the fact that most of the finely dressed women flouncing through the halls, while duly impressed by the Shelter’s “cleanliness and order,” displayed little if any interest in the residents themselves.
And why would the place not be clean and tidy? Ethelda Crane seemed obsessed with “cleanliness and order.” Let the woman spot so much as a fleck of dust or a ball of lint, and didn’t she act as though a mortal sin had been committed?
Oh, she was a strange one, was Ethelda Crane! According to Ivy Meeks, the one truly close friend Quinn had made at the Shelter, Miss Crane was a devout Christian lady, a spinster woman who had been administrator for nearly four years. Apparently, she was a loyal member of a small congregation who met in each other’s homes. Their leader was a man they called “Brother Will.”
The entire group had come to hold services at the Shelter once since Quinn had been there. They seemed a fiercely religious bunch, just as sour as Miss Crane, every last one of them, except for Brother Will. A big man, with a full head of curly gray hair and a great wide mouth of white teeth, he often flashed a smile that Quinn noticed was not reflected in his eyes.
He appeared pious enough, leading the services in the parlor with loud prayers, even weeping as he pleaded for souls of the “lost.” At first Quinn couldn’t figure what there was about the man that gave her the shivers, until she realized that he had a look about his eyes that was familiar.
She had seen that glint before, in the eyes of Millen Jupe. It was the look of a falcon set on his prey.
Ivy shared Quinn’s doubts about Brother Will. In truth, she and Ivy shared many of the same feelings. Had it not been for her new friend, Quinn would have been unbearably lonely, for most of the women seemed either silent and embittered, or too timid to develop close friendships.
Ivy was just a year younger than Quinn—sixteen—and had come up to the city with her folks from Pennsylvania. They were farm people, Ivy explained, who had lost their homestead when the illness of her younger brother drained the family’s resources. Despite their efforts, the little boy had died, and Ivy’s father decided to pull up roots and move to the city to find work.
A month later he was dead of the influenza, leaving Ivy and her mother, who was expecting another child, on their own in the city. The two of them came to the Shelter at the recommendation of a street mission worker. When her mother died giving birth to a stillborn child, Ivy could think of nothing else to do but stay on.
Ivy was a pretty, lively girl with fair hair and a quick smile. She worked days at a shirt factory; evenings, after performing her chores about the Shelter, she stole off by herself to study her reading. Her daddy had taught her the little he knew, she told Quinn. “But I’m going to learn more, as much as I can, so I’ll make a good impression when I apply for service.”
As a rule, Quinn divulged little about herself. But seeing the younger girl struggle night after night, she finally offered to help.
“I can read a streak,” she told Ivy somewhat gruffly. “It’ll be no trouble to teach you.”
Millen Jupe had taught her to read, early in her employment at the Big House, before he turned mean. She told Ivy nothing of this, of course, nor did she let on how it strained her eyes to make out the words. Ivy’s gratitude for her help was so childlike, so eager, that Quinn would not have spoiled her pleasure for anything. Didn’t the girl have little enough to smile over?
Didn’t they all?
Quinn wished Ivy were here with her now. Perhaps they could have given each other the courage to sneak downstairs.
She felt a growing urgency to try something. What if the Widow Deshler were here in the building, right at this very moment?