Cindy Thomson - [Ellis Island 01]

by Grace's Pictures

  “Thank you, Officer,” Mrs. Hawkins said as she hugged Grace to her and moved toward the door.

  Nicholson motioned to him. “Let’s talk about that meeting on Worth Street.”

  30

  GRACE SCRAMBLED UP THE FRONT STEPS, Mrs. Hawkins at her heels.

  Annie met her at the door. “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Grace covered her face with her hand and ran upstairs to her room. Behind her she heard Annie and Mrs. Hawkins mumbling together. Whether or not they thought she was a complete nitwit to have gotten lost and ended up at the police headquarters way over on Mulberry, she’d learned something. She knew who not to trust: Feeny.

  Sleep would not come easily after all the evening’s commotion, so she might as well warm some milk and try to calm herself. Slipping out from under the quilt on her bed, she crept from the room and made her way downstairs.

  Carrying a small oil lamp, she stopped at the front door. A piece of paper lay just beyond the mail slot. She hadn’t seen it earlier. Mail was not delivered at night. She picked it up. Her name was scribbled on the outside, but no return address and no stamp. She peeked into the parlor. Empty. She set the lamp down on a side table, slid onto the sofa, and opened the letter.

  Dear Rosie,

  I’m watching you. I should have smashed that camera. Whatever goods you got better not show up in public. Cross me and you’re dead, little lassie.

  Davis

  He knew where she lived. She crumpled the note and held it against her chest. She didn’t have any goods, as Smokey put it. Why had she pretended she did when she approached him that day at the trolley? Because she was no smarter than a toad, that’s why. “Another blunder, lass!”

  Looking to Mr. Hawkins’s portrait, she silently pleaded, Who will protect me?

  Sunday passed all too quickly, and before she knew it, she had to leave the secure confines of Hawkins House to go to work. She had not mentioned the note to anyone, hoping a solution would occur to her so she wouldn’t need to worry anyone. Grace studied every face on the streetcar that turned in her direction. Every muscle in her body tightened whenever a new man boarded. When she exited to make her walk to the Parkers’ house, she paused at a newsstand to let those behind her go ahead. As unlikely as it might be, she found herself wishing the Parkers lived on Owen’s beat. But he would be nowhere near here if she needed him.

  A gust of wind blew debris along the street. The smell of musty, decaying leaves made her nose twitch. The stormy day whistled in her ears. You can’t survive.

  “Stop it,” she said aloud, alarming a few people near her. She smiled at them and then continued walking, holding her hands over her ears to block out her father’s voice. She’d been tossed into a stormy sea without her permission and now she had to swim. And she would. She had to.

  Grace kept walking and looking. She did not see Smokey Davis, thankfully.

  When she was in sight of the house, she rushed toward it and ran up the steps. Only when the large door closed behind her did she allow herself to inhale deeply. For once she would have no trouble keeping the children in the house. As she hung up her coat and hat, she wondered if she would see Officer Feeny when she walked the girls to school. He’d wanted Owen to let that scum Smokey go, and hadn’t he offered to protect her from him? They were in cahoots of some sort, apparently. She bit her lip.

  “Good morning, Miss Gracie.” Linden stood in his union suit gripping a glass of milk.

  “Has Auntie gone, Linden?”

  He frowned. “Father took her to the train. They woke me up to say good-bye.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Still in bed.”

  “Come along. We’ll make some breakfast.”

  “I want sugar in my porridge.”

  Grace scooted him along toward the kitchen. “You know how your mother feels about giving you sugar, Linden.”

  “Please?”

  “Molasses, so. Hurry along. Maybe we’ll make hotcakes instead.”

  He toddled on down the hall and set his milk on the table just as Hazel and Holly bounded down the rear staircase into the kitchen. Hazel set the table and Holly placed a linen napkin at each spot. Routine. The children were more comfortable with it and so was Grace.

  Once the kitchen filled with the smell of fresh hotcakes and creamy butter, Grace glanced out the back door. No sight of Smokey Davis. She turned back to the children. “Where is your mother this morning?”

  Holly started to answer with a mouthful, but Hazel stopped her. “She went back to bed after she fed Douglas. I don’t think she’s feeling well today, Miss Gracie.”

  “I’ll check on her. You all behave and finishing eating, aye?”

  They nodded. Grace pointed a finger at Linden to remind him of his promise, and then she scurried up the steps.

  She found Alice Parker under the covers in her bed, a magazine open near her face. “Oh, Grace.” She pushed herself up on one elbow. “You should read this.”

  “What is it?” Grace pulled back the drapes. The baby stirred in his cradle and she patted his belly.

  “An old issue of Ladies’ Home Journal. Edith gave it to me before she left. There is an article in here about children’s nurseries she wanted me to see.”

  “Oh?” Grace took a quick glimpse out the window to the street below. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She returned to the woman’s bedside. Alice Parker’s complexion was unusually sallow. Grace picked up the magazine.

  “Edith says most people today think children need more stimulation. See what you think. I don’t think we’ll put in an indoor pond so Linden can float his boats like the article suggests, but an indoor garden seems like a good idea. And a skylight, so that the third floor will receive more light.”

  Grace tucked the magazine under her arm. “That sounds delightful. Does the baby need a change?”

  “No. Edith changed him right before she left. That was close to the hour of eight, I believe.”

  Grace glanced to a mantel clock. She had about twenty minutes before she had to walk the girls to school. “Would you like some hotcakes?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “I’ll make you some tea. You’re looking peaked.”

  “I’m not feeling real well.”

  “Well, stay in bed. If Douglas wakes, I’ll bundle him and take him with us.”

  Later Grace found mother and baby slumbering, so she gathered the other children and set off toward the school. Her knees were weak, but they made it fine. No sign of any gangsters and no peelers either. A good morning.

  When she and Linden went to pick the girls up, he began tugging on her arm as they squeezed past a crowd of people on the corner across from the school. “Miss Gracie, why are we walking so fast? I’m tired.”

  “Sorry, Linden, but we must hurry.”

  “Why?” He began the whining that she had been trying to break him of.

  “You know your father doesn’t want you children out for very long. Now come along.”

  He began to cry.

  They stopped at the front steps of the school, where they always met the girls. “What’s the matter, Linden?” She sounded impatient, even to her own ears.

  He cried harder.

  “Stop that.”

  “I don’t want to be a big boy.”

  She bent down to look him in the eyes. “’Tis all right, Linden. I just . . .” She glanced around. No Feenys or that evil Smokey. “’Tis all right. I won’t tell anyone, and I’m sorry I scared you.”

  He wiped his face with his coat sleeve and nodded.

  She pulled a handkerchief from her bag. “Blow.”

  He puffed up his cheeks and blew his nose. He grinned when she stopped wiping. “You won’t tell Mother or Father I was crying?”

  “They should not care. I don’t. But nay. I won’t mention it.”

  On the way back, she lifted her eyes to the sky and wondered silently, Have you protected us this day, Lord? She
wanted to dare to believe.

  31

  AS SOON AS OWEN GOT TO WORK, he found Feeny. “What was that all about?” He gave the man a shove against the police lockers.

  Feeny straightened his jacket. “Ye don’t know the game, Owen. Smokey wants that camera-toting lass to know her place.”

  “You oughta know your place, Feeny. Smokey doesn’t care about her. Who put him up to this?”

  Feeny sneered. “Didn’t I tell ye? Middleton didn’t like gettin’ his picture made. Was that Rosie girl who done it.”

  “Well, if she did, she didn’t know what she was doing. No harm done, right? It’s not like she sold it to the papers or made Wanted posters with it.”

  “Well, she can’t be trusted. Next thing ye know, she’ll take a picture of Goo—”

  “What?”

  “She’ll take a picture of some thief who’ll shoot her for it. Someone needs to warn the wee lass.”

  “That’s not what you were going to say.”

  “Buzz off, McNulty. I got work to do.”

  “You listen to me, Feeny. I’m looking out for that girl. If you’ve got connections like you think you have, you’ll make ’em back off.”

  “I could, if I wanted to.”

  Owen was just about to deliver a punch when someone grabbed his arm. He spun around. “Jake?”

  “Not the way to get things done, Owen. Trust me.”

  Jake steered Owen back to the lobby, where he was working at the desk. “We’ll find Smokey. And when we do, we’ll lock him up with his leader.”

  “She’s innocent, Jakey. She was in the wrong places at the wrong times.”

  “I know that.”

  “Why does this happen to people? Life is so unfair.” Owen was relieved he had someone to complain to, even if his complaints were useless.

  “I know. Good thing she’s got you to look out after her.”

  “Am I wrong, Jakey? Am I letting my personal feelings interfere with my job?”

  “I think you’re the just the guy she needs. What could be wrong about that?”

  Grace tried not to think about the note from the gangster as she went about her usual duties. That evening, shortly before Mr. Crawley was to arrive for her and after the older children had gone to bed, she went to the parlor to get Douglas to put him in his cradle.

  She lifted the sleeping baby from his mother’s arms as they both dozed in front of the parlor fireplace. He barely stirred when she placed him in his cradle upstairs. She took in the sight of his plump cheeks, the smell of talcum powder, the peaceful wee smirk his lips made while he slept.

  She retrieved a wool blanket from the chest in the upstairs hall and returned to the parlor to cover Alice Parker. The woman’s head tipped backward and her mouth hung open. Grace expected she would stir when the warm blanket covered her, but she didn’t. Grace tapped her arm. “Mrs. Parker, I’m leaving now.”

  No response.

  “Mrs. Parker?” Grace put the back of her hand against the woman’s neck. Cold. She pulled the blanket off and the woman slumped at a peculiar angle. Oh, dear God.

  She dropped the blanket and ran to the kitchen when she heard Mr. Crawley’s knock.

  “Good evening, Miss McCaffery. How was your . . . ?” He dropped his hat and gripped Grace’s shoulders. “What is wrong, child?”

  Grace’s lips felt like jelly. “M . . . m . . . She’s . . .” All she could do was point.

  The man rushed to the front of the house. A few moments later he shouted to her. “Grace, get on the telephone and ring Mr. Parker. Now, child!”

  Her fingers shook, but she finally managed to get the operator and place an emergency call, instructing the operator to insist Mr. George Parker return home immediately. Then she collapsed in a kitchen chair.

  Mr. Crawley came back. “Did you call?”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll phone the doctor as well.”

  She didn’t recall what happened after that. The house filled with people. Footsteps clattered by but she didn’t care to notice who they belonged to. Finally someone shook her by the shoulders. Mr. Crawley.

  “Get on upstairs and make sure the children don’t come down here, Grace.”

  She pulled a slumbering Linden from his bed and lifted him to her shoulder. Wee Douglas still slept peacefully in his cradle. When Grace stared at him, she sucked back a sob. He didn’t know. None of them did, but soon would. Their mother was dead.

  As she tucked Linden into bed with Holly and then climbed in beside Hazel, Grace wondered. Had she done something wrong? Should she have insisted Alice Parker not be so sedentary? Should she not have given her tea so late at night? She could not pinpoint just why this had happened. Surely Mr. Parker would blame her.

  Sometime later someone woke her. “Shh. Come downstairs, love.”

  “Mrs. Hawkins? Where am I?”

  “Still with the Parker children. Don’t wake them. Come on, love.”

  When they got to the parlor, Mr. Crawley sat in Mr. Parker’s chair, long legs crossed at the knee. Reverend Clarke sat on the sofa. They both gave her a sorrowful look. Grace turned in all directions. “Where is Mr. Parker?”

  “Locked himself in his study, love. I believe he’ll sleep in there. Sit down.”

  Grace couldn’t move. This looked like an inquisition. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Of course you didn’t, love. Arrangements have to be made . . . and . . . Well, we’d just like to hear what happened.”

  Grace sat next to the reverend. He reached out and patted her hand. “Let’s say a prayer for this family.”

  Grace bowed her head but could not remember the words he spoke. She wanted to ask if God heard, but this man had once admitted he didn’t have all the answers, so she didn’t bother. Instead she told them how she had found Mrs. Parker.

  Mr. Crawley shifted in his chair. “The doctor was here. It’s his opinion that a blood clot formed sometime after the birth and burst tonight. Death was instantaneous.”

  “A blessing she did not suffer.”

  “Aye. Yes.” Grace could not find the words and doubted there were any to explain this.

  “I’ve telephoned Edith, love. She’ll be on the next train.”

  “Oh, good. The children . . .” The tears came then. Grace covered her face with both hands. The others wrapped their arms around her.

  “God will provide,” Reverend Clarke said.

  Grace wiped her face with the handkerchief Mrs. Hawkins gave her and looked at him. Those crystal eyes still held the same light she’d always seen there. “But, Reverend Clarke, you once said you didn’t understand God.”

  “I said I didn’t understand why he allowed suffering, and that is still true. What I do know, Grace, is that he is here with us, guiding and providing, and he never changes, though the world around us and the people in our lives do. He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow.”

  “Amen,” Mr. Crawley said.

  They held a memorial service for Alice Parker in Grace Church on Broadway, a place where respectable people, in Mr. Parker’s opinion, would come to pay last respects. While it was true that Alice Parker never attended First Church, Mr. Parker did, so this arrangement made no sense to Grace. But it was none of her affair anyway.

  Alice was not buried there, though. Grace had been told it would be several hours after the service before the mourners would return to the Parker home because the graveside service was a distance away. Grace had stayed at home with the children and the baby to prepare a meal for their return.

  Wee Linden played at her feet while she cooked. The girls were in the playroom and the baby was asleep in his cradle. She pulled meat from the carcass of a goose and consulted the fancy cookbook Mrs. Parker had given her. Aspic jelly with cold slices of goose meat would have to do. Grace was finding it difficult to navigate her way through her duties, and Mr. Parker would just have to accept whatever she could manage to put on the table.

  The man had barely spoken t
o her since his wife died. Grace had expected him to lay blame, but so far that hadn’t happened.

  A sad hush hung in the house. The children didn’t argue or complain or even cry, only the baby, who had to get used to a glass bottle feeder and infant formula. Grace would speak to the midwife as soon as she could. Certainly she would know of a wet nurse Mr. Parker could employ.

  When the food was ready and the table set, she took Linden up to the playroom to read the children a book. They stood together staring at the bookshelf. Finally Grace pulled one down and Linden settled into her lap while the girls scooted close. The Brothers Grimm. “Here now, Twelve Brothers. Doesn’t that sound fair?”

  He nodded.

  “‘Once upon a time there were a king and a queen. They lived happily together and had twelve children, all boys. One day the king said to his wife, “If our thirteenth child, which you are soon going to bring into the world, is a girl, then the twelve others shall die, so that her wealth may be great, and so that she alone may inherit the kingdom.” Indeed, he had twelve coffins made . . .’ Uh, let me find another.”

  Hansel and Gretel? Nay, the witch wanted to eat the children. She kept looking while Linden twirled one of his army men in his hand. Story after story was about children and the evil adults in their lives. No good. She gave up.

  “Just tell us a story, Miss Gracie,” Linden pleaded.

  Hazel agreed. “One from Ireland? Please?”

  A story did occur to her just that moment. The Dagda’s Harp. “Long ago, before the time of Saint Patrick, there was a leader of a great tribe in Ireland. His name was the Dagda. His greatest weapon was not a spear but a harp, a special harp that obeyed only him. Its beautiful music made the seasons change, so they say. I don’t know myself.”

  The children giggled. They loved stories that defied logic, Grace assumed.

  She continued on. “There came an enemy one day, and they stole away the Dagda’s harp and took it to a faraway place. The Dagda went after it, and it took a very long time to reach the hiding place.”

  “Did he get his harp back?” Holly asked.