Flight of the Earls

by Michael K. Reynolds

  Clare nodded.

  “Patrick,” Tressa said, wearing a clash of colors as if the paint had been spilled on the canvas. “They have many guests to greet. Let’s leave them be.”

  “All right, then. We’ll do just that.” He tipped his green plug hat. “Congratulations to you. The both of yous.”

  Clare wondered why she felt sympathy for them, but as the couple turned, she fought the desire to reach out and call them back. In some ways, it was unthinkable to ever speak to them again after their part in virtually selling her off to Mr. O’Riley. She shuddered at the memory of that evening. Yet, there was something pitiful about her uncle and Tressa that eased her toward forgiveness. But before she could consider it further, they disappeared into the crowd.

  “Oh no,” Andrew said. “No. No. No.”

  Clare looked at Andrew, following his gaze to a commotion out front of the building. He pressed his way through the gathering with firmness and many apologies, and Clare trailed in his wake.

  Outside, a few of the stewards were trying to shoo away what was a growing gathering of ragamuffin onlookers, pressing their faces against the front windows to catch a glimpse of the revelry inside.

  “What exactly is going on here?” he asked his men with restrained anger.

  “Why, Mr. Royce,” answered one of them. “We are trying to explain to these people that tonight is not for them.”

  Andrew let out a deep sigh. “I must correct you, sir, but tonight is precisely for them.” He turned toward the downtrodden. “Come. All of you inside. Out of the cold. There’s food and drink. It’s a time of celebration and we want you to be part.”

  “But sir,” the steward protested, but there was no stopping the procession now, and they entered to shrieks and horror of the guests inside.

  Andrew was clearly amused by the whole idea, and Clare started to laugh, covering her mouth as soon as she did.

  Sensing there was someone behind her, Clare turned and was startled to see before her the very same elderly woman who had been following her months ago. She was dressed in the blue hat and worn black coat she had on when Clare first saw her in the lamplight.

  “Are you all right?” Andrew asked her.

  “Do you recognize her?” Clare said with a nod toward the woman.

  “Yes, of course. It’s Greta. She lives in the streets mostly. Perfectly harmless although a bit batty, I’m afraid. Why? What is it, Clare?”

  “I think she’s been following me. I need to know why.”

  Glancing both ways before crossing the street, Clare approached the woman, who appeared alarmed and turned to leave.

  “Wait! Please don’t go. I just have a question. Please, Greta.”

  Upon hearing her name, the old woman stopped her retreat and stepped back into the light revealing a face impressed with the tracks of a difficult life.

  “Thank you,” Clare said. “Please tell me. I must know. Have you been following me?”

  Greta’s gaze darted nervously between Andrew and Clare.

  “It’s all right, Greta.” Andrew smiled. “You can trust her. There is nothing to fear.”

  The woman slowly extended her hand to Clare’s face and touched her on the cheek with coarse fingers.

  Clare glanced at Andrew, and he assured her with a nod.

  Then Greta reached into her coat and pulled out some folded papers, frayed and yellowed. Meticulously opening each of them up, it was clear they were treasured by the woman. Then she found the one she was seeking and handed it to Clare.

  Clare took the paper and when she saw what was on it her mouth dropped. It was a delicate charcoal drawing of herself, yet it was a depiction of what she looked like when she was five years younger. What was most astonishing to Clare was she recognized the artist’s hand.

  “Where did you get this?” she blurted out.

  “What’s the matter, Clare?” Andrew put his hand on her back.

  “Answer me, woman!”

  Greta’s eyes flared and she staggered backward.

  “Clare! You’re frightening her.” Andrew put his palm on Greta’s shoulder. “She didn’t mean that. She won’t harm you. I promise.” He pointed to the other papers in the woman’s clasp. “May I see those?”

  Instinctively, Greta pulled them toward her protectively. She was near hyperventilation, but exhaled a few times and then gave them to Clare.

  Clare sifted through them. One was a drawing of Davin. The next Ronan. Then Caitlin. Each of them five years younger.

  “What is it, Clare?”

  “These are Margaret’s drawings. Maggie. My sister. This is how she remembered us when she left. No one else could have done this.”

  “Maggie’s my friend,” the woman burst out. “Give them back.”

  “Greta,” Andrew asked. “Where did you get these?”

  She glared at them in suspicion. “Maggie said I could have them.” Then she spoke as if in confession. “Until I found you.”

  “Where’s Maggie?” Clare’s heartbeat rose. “Where is my sister? Do you know where she is?”

  Greta seemed confused by the question and replied as if the answer was obvious. “At the island, dear.”

  “The island?” Clare mumbled back, and Andrew didn’t look pleased with Greta’s response. “What is it, Andrew?”

  “Blackwell’s Island. That’s where Greta was before being released.”

  “The prison?” Clare struggled to find meaning in all of this.

  “There’s a penitentiary on the island. But there is an insane asylum as well.”

  “Is this right?” Clare asked Greta. “Is Maggie alive?”

  “Of course, dear.” Greta tapped at the drawing of Clare. “She told me you would come. And to give you this.”

  Her head twisted with myriad emotions. Maggie alive? Could this be possible? It would seem so. But what about the lie her uncle told her? What else did he know?

  Clare spun around. Maybe her uncle hadn’t left yet. But Andrew interceded, pulling her in and holding her close to him. “I’m going to kill the man!” she said, and pounded her fists against Andrew.

  But Andrew held firm. “Shhh. There. There. It’s going to be fine, Clare. Shhh.” He stroked her hair and she unclenched her body and surrendered in tears.

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” he whispered in her ear. “First we’ll learn the truth.”

  Clare surrendered to his strength and drew comfort from Andrew. She never imagined someone would care for her this deeply.

  He rocked her gently and as Clare opened her eyes, she realized in horror that many of the party’s guests had been watching them from the windows. They were pointing and gesturing with the drunken fascination of meddlers and gossips.

  Some of the city’s most influential citizens just witnessed her tirade with Andrew, including his parents. Clare was mortified by the knowledge she had sabotaged his special evening.

  “Andrew?” She was submerged in embarrassment and remorse.

  “Shhh, I know, Clare. None of that matters to me.” He put his hands on her cold cheeks and smiled at her with eyes glistening with joy. “Tomorrow. We’re going to get your sister.”

  Chapter 38

  Blackwell’s Island

  “Are you certain I should leave you here in this condition?” Daphne’s brow furrowed.

  “Most certain.” Clare continued to pace back and forth across the creaking wooden floor of their apartment, as a cup of a tea in a saucer rattled in her hands. Despite not returning from the celebration until late in the evening, she hadn’t slept at all last night. “Go, go.” She waved Daphne to the door. “You’ll be late on account of me, and without the advantage of courting the publisher’s only son.”

  Daphne wrapped a scarf around her neck, glanced in the h
anging mirror, and straightened her hat before opening the door. “Shouldn’t I come with you?”

  “Leave!”

  Her roommate exited and Daphne ascended the staircase leading from their doorway to the busy street above.

  Clare glanced at the clock on the wall. What was keeping Andrew? Even with his father’s connections, he feared it would be difficult to get clearance to Blackwell’s Island, and now she fretted he might have failed.

  She couldn’t fathom delaying her reunion with her sister even one more day. After all of these years believing she was lost, and now to be only hours away from seeing Maggie’s ebullient smile?

  Yet Clare was plagued as well by the thought Maggie may have suffered her mother’s fate. Why would she be in an asylum? Of all people she knew, Margaret was the most carefree and unaffected by the worries of the world. It made no sense at all.

  Hearing a stir outside, she felt the weight of her worries subsiding. Andrew must be back. But a glance through the window only increased her unease.

  It was a man with worn blue pants, rolled up to his thighs. He was laboring down the stairway, with one leg nothing more than a peg of wood.

  Clare panicked. Should she pretend she wasn’t home?

  A firm rap came on the door and she froze, certain at any moment the hobbled stranger would peer through the window, only to discover her cowering inside.

  “Clare. It’s me. I know you’re in there.”

  She recognized the voice and was dumbfounded as she went to unlatch the door to open it for the visitor.

  There before her, in a battle-borne United States Army uniform, and with his hat in his hand, was her friend from back home. Yet he was difficult to recognize as he had aged many years though having only been gone for months.

  “Pierce?” Clare put her hand to her mouth at the sight of him.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me in? Do I frighten you so?”

  She clasped him tightly, trying to draw out his pain, and began to cry.

  “Pity is an ugly welcome.”

  Clare stepped back and brushed a tear from her eye, trying to recover some joy in reuniting with her friend. “It’s wonderful to see you. Can I . . . get you some tea?”

  Pierce hobbled in and scrutinized the room before settling into an oak chair, groaning as his body lowered into it. “I’m not here for long, Clare. My ride is waiting outside.”

  “But where are you going? You just arrived.”

  He glared at her with cold, empty eyes. “Boston. One of my mates said his father could offer me a job. Fit for a cripple, I suppose. Not that it matters to you.”

  “Of course it does. Why are you speaking like this? I want you to tell me everything.” She pulled a chair beside him and placed her saucer and cup on the table between them.

  Pierce avoided her eyes. “Don’t you want to know?”

  Clare paused. “Yes. Yes, I do. How did it happen?”

  “The Battle of Cerro Gordo. A thousand heroes and I end up taking a musket shot to my foot while tending horses. Swelling set in and they decided a leg wasn’t worth a life.”

  “I’m so sorry, Pierce.”

  “You’re doing well enough,” he said with contempt.

  She squirmed in her chair. “I’m so grateful you found me. It’s so good—”

  “To think.” He scoffed. “To think I actually came to ask you to come with me.”

  “Come with . . . ?”

  “Fool that I am, huh?”

  Clare shook her head. “I can’t, Pierce.”

  “You can’t?” His voice rose.

  “I don’t want to. I’m happy here.” From the edge of her view she saw someone descending the stairs. It was Andrew. She let him in.

  “I would be ashamed to admit to you who I had to promise political grace to, but here are the clearance papers,” Andrew said. Pierce’s presence caught him off guard. “Clare, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware you had a guest.” His gaze appealed to Clare for an explanation.

  “You aren’t leaving already?” Clare said with genuine disappointment as Pierce struggled to get up, waving off her offer to assist him.

  “I can see it’s time.” He limped toward the door, buttoning his jacket.

  “Pierce?”

  He looked at her dispassionately. “Oh yes. Your brother?”

  “Please.”

  Pierce studied Andrew with distaste. “I’ll spare you the details. The news is not what you’d want to hear, I’m afraid.”

  “Is he . . . ?”

  “He may be alive, or he may have already been hung.”

  “What do you mean by this?” Clare’s legs grew weak.

  Apparently moved by her emotion, Pierce’s voice lost its edge. “There is no other way to say it, Clare. Your brother turned traitor.”

  “What?” Clare collapsed back into the chair.

  “He fought for the enemy.”

  Even with Seamus’s history of failure, this seemed too much to fathom. “I don’t believe what you are saying. That’s not my brother you speak of.”

  “San Patricios?” Andrew asked. “Irish defectors recruited by the Mexicans.”

  Pierce seemed impressed. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “We work for a newspaper.” Andrew bent down beside Clare and wrapped his arm around her.

  “I don’t understand,” Clare said, her anger growing. “How did you let him do this?”

  “Clare,” Andrew said softly. “Don’t.”

  Pierce put his hat on. “Yes. Well. You know your brother, Clare. Maybe it was a mistake to tell you. You could have believed he died a hero.” He started to go out the door and turned back. “I don’t believe I’ll see you again.”

  She didn’t see him go, and lost herself in her tears.

  Andrew just held her in his arms for the longest time in silence. Finally, he whispered in her ear. “There is nothing you can do about your brother. But you can with Maggie.”

  As they headed down the creaking boards of the pier, the seagulls waited until the last moment before scattering away and then circling in behind them. Ahead of them was a line of people waiting to embark the paddle-steam ferry, whose engine grinded as black smoke rose, though still moored.

  “Is it happening to you already?” Clare asked of Andrew. His face was blanched and clammy.

  “I’ll be fine.” He took off his glasses and wiped the profuse sweat beading on his forehead.

  “I don’t expect you to do this.”

  “You’re not going alone.”

  They took their place in the back of the line as passengers handed their paperwork to one of the boat’s crew. With each step forward, Andrew’s agitation noticeably increased.

  “What’s with him?” said the man when it was their turn to board.

  “Just a bit of a dizzy spell.” Clare grabbed the papers from Andrew’s grasp and handed them to the steward, who seemingly read every line.

  “Reporters? The New York Daily, eh?” He returned their credentials and nodded for them to move forward.

  As they ventured across the plank to the steamship, Clare felt the full weight of Andrew on her shoulder.

  “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded.

  “Don’t ask me again,” Andrew snapped.

  “Over there is a bench inside where you won’t have to see the water.” They were only a few steps away, but when they arrived, he nearly collapsed onto the wooden seating.

  The woman next to them drew her children close into her arms. “He doesn’t look right,” she said with disgust.

  Clare scowled at the woman and put her arm around Andrew and stroked his face as the ship lurched and began its short journey across Hudson Bay.

  Being in the steamship brought back
memories of her passage across the Atlantic and the depth of illness she suffered. Yet was there ever a day on her trip as difficult as this one was with Andrew? She felt incapable of placating his hysteria and could only hope the trip would end soon. As it turned out, Blackwell’s Island was the last stop on an elongated loop the steamship was navigating, and by the time they arrived at the boat landing, Andrew’s nerves had completely frayed. Fortunately, there was a doctor aboard, who tended to him during the last stretch of the trip.

  Finally, the boat drifted into the landing and the nightmare drew near its conclusion as the rope tethered them to shore. The doctor received permission to leave before anyone else, and they bore Andrew away from the dock, each to one side of him, as he dragged along. Clare was already dreading the return trip to Manhattan.

  For Clare, the day was overwhelming. Today’s news about her brother. The anxiety regarding Maggie’s state of mind. And now having to deal with Andrew’s condition. What more could she bear?

  As it turned out, the doctor was also en route to the asylum and generously offered to share his carriage, an offer they promptly accepted.

  Now, away from the water’s edge, Andrew’s recovery was swift, although he remained mired in embarrassment. The doctor, who was an Englishman as well, tried to downplay Andrew’s reaction by suggesting hydrophobia, as he described it, was a common malady.

  “There’s only one proven way to overcome it, I’m afraid. The simple act of bravery you performed today. That’s what’s needed. It’s a fear to be faced.”

  “I wouldn’t use the word brave in describing what just happened,” Andrew said. “Hopefully, Doctor, you don’t have plans to commit me.”

  The doctor smiled as if in courtesy but became somber. “You’ve never been to Blackwell’s asylum, have you?”

  They shook their heads, and glancing out the windows of the black cab, Clare could see the vast, gray walls of the buildings approaching.

  “It is a despicable place, if I’m being honest. Devoid of all humanity. As physicians we do our best to treat our patients with care. But we’re mostly overrun. I apologize for my lack of manners. You are here in the capacity of reporters? Isn’t that what you told me?”