Song of Erin

by BJ Hoff

  “Mrs. Harte, sir. I’m sure she would do an excellent job for you. She’s had experience, you see.”

  “Your Mrs. Harte? The schoolteacher?” Kane’s look was altogether dubious.

  “Aye, sir. She teaches the night classes, but she also works part-time as a proofreader for a textbook company. The problem is they don’t give her enough work that she can earn a fair wage.”

  “Well, now, lad, it sounds to me as if you and your Mrs. Harte are becoming quite friendly, if she’s letting you in on her financial affairs.”

  Kane’s smile was somewhat snide, his tone teasing. But Cavan didn’t mind. He had observed that Jack Kane characteristically confined his teasing to those few men he favored.

  “Nothing like that, Mr. Kane. But we do talk now and then. Mrs. Harte indicated that the textbook company can’t afford to employ her more than a few hours a week, and she’s looking for a more lucrative position.”

  “I could hardly bring a woman into the newsroom. Especially a lady.”

  “Yes, sir, but she works for the textbook company from her home. Couldn’t she do the same for the Vanguard?”

  Kane flicked the ash from his cigar. “That’s a possibility, I suppose. But see here, Sheridan, you’ve already proposed this paragon of perfect womanhood as a coordinator for our newly conceived immigrant program—if that works out and I allow you to spend my money as freely as you seem to think I should. I want your word that you won’t have your lady friend snatching away my position as publisher when my back is turned.”

  Cavan fought madly to quell the hot blush he could feel rising up his neck. “She’s hardly a lady friend, sir—”

  Kane laughed good-naturedly and came around the desk. “That’s fine, lad. Perhaps I’ll just stop by the school one evening to meet this glory of a woman, see how she strikes me. But for now, I expect you’d best be getting along to class. Else you may find yourself in trouble with the teacher. Besides, you’ve still got a bit to learn before we turn you into the city’s most illustrious reporter.”

  16

  POSSIBILITIES

  Let nothing pass, for every hand

  Must find some work to do,

  Lose not a chance to waken love—

  Be firm and just and true.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  Jack wasted no time in getting a reply off to Brady. The next morning in his office he hurriedly penned a brief letter, saying just enough to let the cunning young pup know in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be duped:

  I had hoped to see some evidence of maturity from you by now—evidence long overdue, I might add. An effort to relieve our worries about you would have done nicely for starters. In view of the horrendous accounts of the storm—and the unconscionably long silence on your part—perhaps you will concede that I had just cause for concern. At the very least, you might have sent a quick note assuring us of your safety. Your customary thoughtlessness allowed me to endure weeks of not knowing whether you were alive or dead. And then when you finally got around to dropping a line, you set my teeth to grinding with the information that you have taken up with some wild Claddagh fisherman and his pack and now hope to turn what was meant to be a brief reporting stint into an extended tour—and all, I might add, at the paper’s expense.

  I never intended for this to become a holiday, boyo, and I rather resent your taking advantage, especially in view of the fact that I could use you here in the office right now. I am in desperate need of a couple of good reporters—men who can spot a story when it bumps up against them—not to mention a front-page proofreader who isn’t half-blind. I could also use an extra pair of hands on the presses, not that I would consider asking you to stain your artist’s mitts with news ink, mind.

  He went on for a few lines more, bludgeoning his brother with sarcasm—which he knew would merely amuse Brady even as he ignored it. Only at the last did he indicate agreement to his brother’s proposal, and then based solely on one condition:

  You will not get the sort of stories I want by wasting your time in the Claddagh. That place is a world of its own, and a strange and backward world, at that. I can’t imagine your finding anything newsworthy there, nor do I intend to worry myself white-headed that some mad Claddagh fisherman will go after you one night with a hatchet.

  If you’re serious about staying in Ireland, and if your reasons are as genuine as you would have me believe, then get yourself out of infernal Galway and tend to business. Go where the people better represent the country and its problems.

  Now I mean it, Brady. That is my condition, and I will not be swayed. You have yourself a bargain, albeit a reluctant one on my part—but only if I see a change of address in the very near future.

  He proceeded to explain what he wanted him to do, then, in the way of finding a select few candidates whose stories would have great appeal for the Vanguard’s readers, with the idea of eventually bringing them across. He would have added more—he hadn’t as yet told Brady about Cavan Sheridan or given him any news of Rose—but just then Sheridan ducked his head inside the door. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Kane, but you’re needed downstairs right away. Some sort of problem with the newsboys.”

  Jack had taken to giving Sheridan odd jobs about the paper, at which the ambitious young driver busied himself between his other responsibilities. The lad had already proven himself an asset. No job seemed too mean for him; instead, he set himself to any assignment with a cheerful capability Jack could only wish for in Brady. Earlier that morning he had sent Sheridan to Ben Cross in the pressroom, telling him to make himself useful however Ben directed.

  “I thought you were downstairs,” he said, following Sheridan down the steps.

  “Aye, I was, sir, but one of the printers heard a ruckus in the alley and called for Mr. Cross. He took me along.”

  In the alley behind the pressroom, where the newsboys picked up their papers, Jack found the small, sharp-featured Ben Cross with two raggedy lads. He recognized only one of the boys: Willie Shanahan, a redheaded, eight-year-old little scrapper, who worked harder at his “business” than any other two newsboys combined. His companion looked a bit older—nine or ten, perhaps, but he was as scrawny and narrow faced as Willie, his clothes hanging on him like sails.

  “What’s the trouble here?” Jack asked outright. The words were no more than out of his mouth when Willie stepped up to him. Jack fumed as he saw the boy’s swollen eye and cut lip. Apparently, the older boy had been knocked about as well, for he had a bad mouse around one eye and an angry red scrape near the other.

  “What happened, Willie?” But Jack knew the answer even before he asked. “Rynders’ thugs again?”

  “Captain” Isaiah Rynders was a scoundrel of the roughest sort, who controlled almost every gang in the city. He and his kind had been giving the newsboys a rash of trouble for months now.

  Willie shrugged, and his fine red hair lifted out in all directions. Like baby hair, Jack thought. And why not? The boy was little more than a babe, and that was the truth.

  “Don’t know, Mr. Jack. There was a bunch of ’em, though. They gave us a terrible pounding, and didn’t they say they’d do it again tomorrow if we showed up on the corner with our papers? Said next time they’d break our legs, if we don’t pay the protection money.” The boy stopped, wiped a hand over his nose, and added indignantly, “They even robbed us of our shoes, Mr. Jack.”

  “They took your shoes?” Anger scalded Jack’s throat.

  He dropped down to one knee in front of the boy. “How bad are you hurt, Willie? Are you all right?”

  The thin lower lip trembled slightly, but Willie nodded. “I got off a couple of good punches, Mr. Jack. I think I might have hurt one of ’em.”

  Beside him, the taller, dark-haired boy gave a nod of agreement. “We put up a fight, Willie and me did.”

  Jack straightened, his fists knotted hard at his sides. “I’m sure you did, lads. But we can’t have you scrapping just to do your jobs. Tomorrow morning, first
thing, when you come for your papers, I’ll have a couple of men at the door to go with you. You’re not to go out alone, mind.” He dug down in his trouser pocket. “Here,” he said, “take this money, the two of you, and go get yourselves some shoes.”

  Wide-eyed, the two stammered their thanks, then bounded off. Jack knew this was no real solution. He couldn’t afford to send men from the office with the boys every day.

  But what else could he do? These assaults on the newsboys were becoming routine, one gang after another harassing the boys with threats and beatings, bullying them into paying a part of their hard-earned wages simply to avoid a bruising and having their papers slashed. The police had been largely ineffective against the rampant gang violence across the city, and the newspaper owners were at a loss. What made Jack even more furious was that many of the gang members were Irishmen who thought nothing of victimizing their own people—including children.

  Jack would have wagered his new printing press that Isaiah Rynders was behind it all. Whatever the crime—gambling, policy games, opium dealing, brothels, or just plain petty theft—Rynders was a part of it. The slippery snake seemed beyond the law. He ran the gangs—made up mostly of hard men, the dregs of the city—with iron control and an eerie knack for evading the jail cell he deserved.

  Trying to explain the situation to Cavan Sheridan as they headed back upstairs, he was surprised when the youth offered to accompany the boys the next morning. Jack shook his head. “Your heart’s in the right place, lad, but I wouldn’t be putting you in that position. Besides, the boys pick up their papers well before dawn. I want you available to me in the mornings, not out on a street corner swapping punches with Rynders’ bully boys.”

  “Who is this Rynders fellow?”

  Jack gave him an earful about the city’s most notorious ruffian, leaving out the fact that he had known Isaiah Rynders personally some years back, when he still visited the gambling dens. He had left the gambling madness behind him after he and Martha were married—she had coaxed a promise from him, and he’d held to his word, even after her death. But there had been a time when he would have rather played blackjack than eat or sleep—and he had made a small fortune at it. That was the source of the nickname still used behind his back, though he suspected most assumed the epithet referred to his character. Or his soul.

  In any event, he knew “Captain” Rynders and his toughs well enough to know they were capable of anything, including beating up defenseless little boys.

  “I was surprised to learn,” Cavan Sheridan said as they reached the landing, “that this sort of ugly business went on in America. Until I ran into the bully boys in the mines, I thought I’d left such trouble behind in Ireland.”

  Jack lifted an eyebrow. “The barbarians are everywhere, lad, especially in the city.”

  They stopped outside the pressroom. “Every place has its no-accounts. They’re just called by different names. Here in New York we call them Bowery B’hoys and Dead Rabbits and Slaughter-Housers.”

  Sheridan’s smile was thin. “And in Ireland they’re called the Sassenach.”

  “Aye, that’s true, the British have given us our share of grief. But don’t make the mistake of casting an entire people into one great lump, lad. Some of the blackest scoundrels in New York have names that start with a Mac or an O. On the other hand, I’ve known a number of Brits who were decent enough fellows.”

  At his driver’s openly skeptical expression, Jack grinned and added, “Well, perhaps not all that many. But two or three, I should think. You take my point.”

  Jack’s day didn’t get any better. After the exchange with the newsboys, he went back to his office to resume work on the financial article he’d begun the day before, only to discover that he’d left his notes at home. Later, his meeting with key staff members deteriorated into an argument about the advisability of employing European correspondents.

  Their arch rival, the Herald, had set the precedent, and Brady’s trip to Ireland had been Jack’s first move to establish a similar system of his own—a move wildly disputed by Clark, his head bookkeeper, and Kaiser, his general manager. As was often the case, any talk of the Herald led to an even more heated discussion about the reasons for its phenomenal success. The paper’s owner, James Gordon Bennett, had been the target of a great deal of spiteful speculation ever since he’d launched the Herald. Jack had his own ideas about why the Herald had been so hugely successful and had, in fact, incorporated some of Bennett’s ideas into the Vanguard’s operation with almost immediate dividends.

  There was no denying that the Herald thrived on scandalous crimes and shock effect. Bennett was said to have no morals at all—some of the upstanding citizenry referred to him as a “serpent.” But there was also no disputing the fact that the dour, sardonic Scot’s revolutionary ideas had worked well. Part of the Herald’s success, Jack was convinced, could be directly attributed to the fact that Bennett had found a way to reach directly to the servant girl as well as her master. The shiploads of immigrants landing at the Battery, as well as the business owners who employed them, needed information—and entertainment. Bennett had managed to provide both, and consequently the Herald sold like wildfire.

  A great deal of jealousy had been stirred up by the squinty-eyed Bennett’s penny daily among other newspapermen in the city. Even Jack occasionally winced at the Herald’s unprincipled dredging up of scandal for the sake of sheer sensationalism. But at the same time he had made a thorough study of Bennett’s success and would be the first to admit that he had learned a great deal from the effort.

  There was still a question in his mind, however, about what accounted for the loyalty of the Herald’s readers. He had not been able to identify exactly what he was missing until Cavan Sheridan had made his observation the night before about the difficulty in interesting readers in something big and impersonal, as opposed to attracting them with the story of an unfortunate widow unable to pay her rent.

  At that instant something had clicked in Jack. Later, he had mulled over Sheridan’s idea, finally seizing on the one element he thought he could use to far better advantage than Bennett ever had: the personal-interest story.

  And as for young Sheridan, he thought he might just give the lad a raise.

  But in the meantime, he was still grinding his teeth from the disgruntled staff meeting as he spread out his copy of the Vanguard’s morning edition on his desk. In only seconds, bile hot enough to choke him rose in his throat. His eye went relentlessly down the copy, stopping at every error. Even before he reached the end of the front page, he was seething. Two generalizations that Jack knew to be wholly unsupported, four wrong-font letters, two spelling mistakes, and at least half a dozen style faults.

  His stomach knotted hard enough to make him flinch, and when Cavan Sheridan appeared in the open doorway to drive him home, Jack shot him a killer glare that made the lad step back.

  “You’re not ready…I’ll come back later,” Sheridan said, turning to leave.

  “I’ll be ready in a shake!” Jack snapped. “But first you go and fetch Bob Hailey for me.”

  A few minutes later, on the way out to the carriage, Cavan, mindful of his employer’s mood, remained studiously silent. By now he had seen Kane in a temper on occasion. He recognized the unyielding set of his back, the tight line of his mouth, the granite-hard jaw beneath the black mustache. He knew from experience that Kane would most likely not say a word the rest of the way home and on throughout the evening.

  But to give the man his due, Jack Kane never inflicted his wrath on the members of his household. His anger was more a rigidly contained heat, boiling just beneath the surface of his composure, perceptible but under control.

  Kane surprised Cavan this evening, however, by not keeping his silence. Instead, after muttering a stream of disjointed complaints about certain members of his staff, he stopped beside the carriage and said, “I believe I would like to meet your Mrs. Harte. I’m going to have to find someone rather quickl
y to help with the proofreading. Have you mentioned the idea to her at all?”

  As a matter of fact, Cavan had, after Tuesday evening’s class. He had driven Samantha Harte home again that night and had lingered for a few minutes in front of her flat, talking. At that time, he had carefully raised the possibility of an opening at the Vanguard for someone with her qualifications.

  At first she had seemed flustered, protesting that she wasn’t qualified. But she also conceded that her job with the textbook company was tenuous at best and she wouldn’t mind finding something more dependable. Cavan was sure she was interested but suspected that her misgivings regarding Kane’s reputation were at least in part responsible for her resistance to the idea. Even so, he had determined to pursue the subject with his employer, should the opportunity present itself.

  Now it seemed that it had. “I raised the possibility,” he admitted.

  Kane seemed preoccupied as he climbed into the carriage. “I’m moving Bob Hailey to the pressroom tomorrow. They’ll find something for him there. I’ll handle the front page myself until I can find someone.”

  Cavan waited until Kane pulled the lap robe over him, then said, “The class meets again tonight. Would you like me to talk to Mrs. Harte about the proofreading position?”

  Kane gave a short nod. “Why don’t you? If she’s interested, tell her to come round to the paper tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see her then.”

  Cavan hesitated, and Kane noticed. “What, you don’t think she’ll be interested?”

  Cavan shook his head. “ ’Tis not that, sir. It’s just that Mrs. Harte strikes me as being a very…reserved lady. Shy, if you will. I don’t know that she would be all that comfortable coming to the offices alone, you see.”

  Kane frowned and made a dismissing gesture with his hand. “All right, then; if that’s the case, tell her you’ll come for her with the carriage. Perhaps that would put her more at ease.”

  “Aye, sir, I think that might be best,” Cavan said. He would have gone on with more questions, but Kane had clearly turned his thoughts elsewhere.