by Maureen Lang
Roscoe whined again, leaving the bed to stand between Ian and Kate. Ian wanted to rub the sting from his face but refused to give Kate the satisfaction. Instead, he rubbed Roscoe’s ear, but the action wasn’t calming enough to stay his tongue. “Maybe if you hadn’t banished John from the only bed he’s known for the past three years, you would have been the one controlling who heard the news.”
If she had a retort, she caught it between pursed lips. New tears appeared, and she turned back to John’s body. She sank to his bedside, bent close enough for her own tears to dampen his cheek.
“You know why,” she whispered, not to Ian but to the body in front of her. “You know it was right for us to part, if only for a little while. We were to be married, weren’t we, darling? This very week.” She put her head on his chest again. “But you’ve gone on without me.”
Ever since they’d met, she’d been able to make John do just about anything she wished. Precisely why Ian and the others disliked her. The vision of him as their leader had blurred with visions of her.
Kate continued to cry, and Ian wanted to tell her to go, to leave him alone with his own grief.
Instead, he left the room, taking Roscoe with him. There were still details to be seen to if they were to have visitors both tonight and tomorrow.
Because once word of John’s death circulated through New York, Ian was certain he would be juggling more than just a few visitors at a funeral.
3
It is generally unwise for a lady to travel without an escort. In emergencies, however, the wise traveler will arrive well in advance for ease of departure, use baggage of the best quality to avoid breakage in transit, avoid wearing such fabrics as velvet or lace (known to attract dust), and be careful not to draw the attention of strangers.
Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies
New York City
Although the shop was in a respectable neighborhood, south of New York City’s exclusive Ladies’ Mile, where Meg had often shopped at the Marble Palace, Macy’s, and Lord & Taylor, she knew a moment of hesitation as the driver directed the hansom to the curb. But Meg refused to acknowledge her whisper of fear. This was New York! And even though she was here alone for the very first time in her life, this was the city she’d once wanted to claim as home.
Peering through the carriage window, Meg saw the sign identifying Yorick’s Household Goods. The wide plate-glass display windows on each side of the threshold showed off wares beneath an awning protecting the goods from the sun.
Meg swallowed, but her mouth remained dry. All those times she’d been the one to set an example for other girls at school haunted her now. Certainly some families, even upstanding ones, allowed their ladies to shop without a chaperone, but this simply wasn’t permitted among the girls from Madame’s school, not even for Meg as an exemplary student. Just taking the train into the city and then the carriage ride here—alone—had been an infraction Meg hadn’t been willing to commit since she was fourteen years old. Since then she’d succumbed to the life she’d been dealt: as the favorite, most accomplished student at Madame Marisse’s. The one who was good at being good.
Any time for hesitation was long past. She’d made up her mind last night, only hours after receiving word of her father’s death. And this morning, before either Hazel or Beatrice had arisen, Meg had packed a bag—much as she had that early morning four years ago. Only this time she hadn’t thought about taking any food, and she’d asked Mr. Pitt to take her to the train station. If her father’s laying out lasted the customary three days, she intended to stay at least another day. So she’d dressed in the one black gown she owned, reserved for occasions such as this, knowing she would play the part of the grieving daughter. She also left orders for her darkest burgundy gown to be dyed black as quickly as possible so she would have another gown to wear during her period of mourning.
Leaving her bag on the seat beside her now, she asked the cabbie to wait. Then she saw herself into the shop.
A little bell jingled when she pushed open the door. It was a surprisingly quaint feature for a specialty shop, since she knew most of its northern neighbors had clerks greeting customers. But she could tell there was a need for the bell here. Not a clerk to be seen. With such poor service, it was no wonder this shop couldn’t earn a spot closer to the more fashionable real estate up Broadway.
She looked around. While the view from the street had been common enough—household and sewing goods neatly displayed—inside the shop was something else. The first shelf she viewed shared its goods with a thin layer of dust, as if it had been quite some time since anyone had tended to the inventory, let alone been interested in a purchase. How on earth had her father made enough money to support her at Madame Marisse’s with such humble business interests?
She eyed another door behind a plain oak counter. “Pardon me?” she called. “Is someone here?”
No answer. She looked around again, noting the limited choices, the general lack of attention to detail in each display. She was nearly tempted to rearrange a set of dishes when the door at the back of the shop opened and someone emerged, a tall man who looked surprised to see her. He was finely dressed—his attire included gloves and a fedora—and he did not offer any help. Instead, he walked past her and out the front door.
Meg looked again at the inner door. It was ajar.
“Pardon me?”
A moment later another man peered around the edge of that door. She saw his white cap of hair first, then wrinkle-shrouded eyes that widened upon sight of her. He disappeared before she could say another word, finally opening the door wide enough to pass through while he pulled away an apron that had hung around his neck.
“May I help you?”
Meg nodded. “I hope so. Are you the proprietor here—or a clerk in his service?”
He didn’t look directly at her; rather he looked around the store as if checking to see that nothing had been disturbed. “I am the proprietor,” he said. “Mr. Thomas Yorick. How can I help you?”
“I came because you are my only means to contact my father, an investor in this shop. John Davenport.”
He gasped—she was quite sure of it, though he hid it well with a little cough. Instead of looking around anymore, he turned his gaze on her. He had to look up to see her face, and his white brows rose, lifting some of the wrinkles around his faded hazel eyes.
“Your father, did you say?”
“Yes. John Davenport.”
Now those brows fell, gathering in the middle. “And who are you, young lady?”
“My name is Margaret Davenport, but my father always called me Meg.” Meggie, she silently amended but wouldn’t say that name aloud. She’d always hated when he’d called her that, such an affectionate and familiar form of her name, as if he’d known and loved her. “I received word yesterday . . . about him . . .”
She stopped speaking because he leaned closer to study her, and she in turn leaned back to maintain a standard distance.
“Yes, you have his eyes, just as he said you did. Blue stolen straight from the sky.” Mr. Yorick grinned, and different wrinkles appeared on his face, on his upper cheeks—deeper on one side than the other, making that grin appear lopsided. “Blue of the sunniest day.”
“My hired carriage is waiting outside, and I was told you have my father’s household address. I intend going there now.”
The man was already shaking his head. “No, no, you needn’t trouble yourself. He’s not here in the city, you know.” He was already turning, and Meg’s heart sank to her stomach for fear of being sent away without completing her mission. She knew her father wasn’t here, not in spirit anyway. But in body, at least. She would say good-bye to him and remember him in death, perhaps more fondly than she had while he lived. And perhaps, just seeing his home, she would gain a glimpse of what her life might have been had he truly acted a father to her.
The proprietor glanced out the shop window. “Do you have the means to travel outside t
he city, miss?”
“I’m familiar with the train schedules.”
“Very good, then.” The man withdrew paper, ink, and a gold-tipped writing instrument from beneath the counter. “Go to the station at Chambers and Hudson, to pick up the Hudson River train. Buy a ticket to Peekskill. Have you traveled the Hudson line before?”
She nodded. Every so often she had taken the Hudson line for student outings to explore historical sites from the Revolutionary War.
Mr. Yorick blew on the ink before handing her the paper. There was no name attached to the unfamiliar address he’d written.
“And this is where my father’s funeral will be held?”
“Yes. I received word about it yesterday afternoon. You’ll be traveling on your own, then?”
She nodded again, determined to hide the fact that this was the first time she’d traveled by herself any farther than a few hours’ distance from her school.
He eyed her as if reading the truth. “You might as easily get off at Croton, but it’s a bit farther by carriage from there. Take the train as far as Peekskill; you won’t regret the extra expense.”
“You’ll be going, then?”
“To this address? Oh, I should say not.” He winked. “It’s a bit closer to Sing Sing than West Point, if you know what I mean.”
She nodded, though his words—and wink—meant nothing. If the address was closer to Peekskill than Croton, what had that to do with either Sing Sing or West Point? But she didn’t ask because he looked a bit too amused over his own choice of words.
Meg turned away, and as she reached the door, he called after her, “My condolences.”
As she settled in the carriage, an unjustifiable feeling of sadness came upon Meg. Her stomach grumbled from lack of nourishment, but she’d been unable to eat and even now had no desire for food. This was a journey she had to make, although she wasn’t sure why. If money were love, then John Davenport had loved her well. But if love were smiles and embraces and companionship, then he’d loved her not at all. Why honor his passing?
This should be an adventure, if nothing else—at long last she was beyond the school and on her own. What was she mourning? A father she’d barely known?
She’d never understood the fascination he’d stirred in Hazel and Beatrice. Even Madame Marisse must have been moved by his charm; otherwise she never would have taken in Meg. Not when admission into her school normally meant a thorough exploration of background—and not just of bank accounts, but of pedigree. Other than money, the only things in Meg’s past were questions.
Meg remembered the day she’d vowed to never again inquire about her father and whatever lineage she’d inherited. She’d been nine years old, and her father had brought Ian Maguire with him to visit her. It wasn’t long after that Meg had made her first of several attempts at escape. Not to run to her father, but to run away from the life he’d designed for her.
Why should her father need her—or love her, for that matter—when he had a surrogate son upon whom to lavish all his affection and attention? Though the two had barely exchanged a word in her presence—the boy was as awkward as her father had been—Meg knew. She knew whatever place she might have once held in her father’s life had been filled. By Ian Maguire.
The carriage slowed at the train station, drawing Meg’s attention from her thoughts. Folding the paper and stuffing it inside the fringed pouch she carried, she withdrew enough money to pay the cabman. Then she took her satchel and went in search of the ticket office.
Nothing stood in her way now. Meg could finally discover her past—and with that knowledge, better plan her future.
4
A lady in the company of strangers while traveling will not be considered unrefined should she partake of polite, though guarded, conversations.
Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies
Meg stared out the window of the train car, ignoring again the emptiness of her stomach and the heaviness of her heart. She wished she’d paid more attention the last time she had taken this train route. All she’d noticed was the river, how it widened and twisted, how the trees grew alongside. The outings she’d enjoyed with other students had taken her only as far as Hastings, some twenty miles outside the city. Up to that point, she did recall a few things, like Tubby Hook being Inwood’s old name and some of the history associated with Fort Washington. And Yonkers, where one of her former schoolmates had said her family owned a summerhouse.
Soon Meg would reach her destination—although once there, she had no idea what she would do. She supposed the length of her stay would depend on what she found at her father’s home. During the past four years, she’d accepted her fate, knowing her past, present, and future were bound up in the school. But the farther the train took her, the more she felt like that fourteen-year-old girl again, the one she’d banished so many times in the last few years.
A rattle at the train vestibule door drew her notice. A man walked the aisle slowly, so slowly that Meg’s eye wasn’t the only one drawn to him. He looked at each passenger as if to catch their attention like some kind of friendly host: nodding, occasionally greeting some, winking at the child two seats in front of Meg. She turned her gaze back out the window, but when he neared her seat, he paused altogether.
“Good afternoon, miss.”
Meg nodded with the barest of glances. She’d never minded speaking to strangers with a gaggle of girls behind her, but alone—and to a man, even one nearly her father’s age—wasn’t at all proper.
The man did not move on. He was garishly dressed, with a jacket so purple no gentleman ever would have chosen it. And the hat! A British pith helmet, as if he’d just gotten off a sailing ship from some faraway colony.
To her dismay he steadied himself by grabbing the back of the seat in front of her. “You going far up the line, miss?”
Without answering, she softened her rudeness by issuing the tightest of smiles. If he were any kind of gentleman, he would receive the message to leave her alone. Of course, if he were any kind of gentleman, he wouldn’t have spoken to her in the first place. Why hadn’t she spent the extra money for a seat in first class, where other passengers could not wander in?
A conductor entered, announcing the next stop at Tarrytown. The man lingering by Meg’s seat had to step aside to let the conductor through, but instead of moving on, the older man took the seat on the other side of the aisle, directly across from Meg.
“Sing Sing’s next, you know. Ever been there?”
Meg lifted her chin, still staring out the window.
“The city gets their ice from Rockland Lake. Nice, fresh.” He mimicked a shiver as preamble to his next word. “Cold.”
She chanced a glance around them, wondering if someone else might engage the man instead. But the mother and child traveling together were silent, and so was the couple sitting in front of him. She knew there were others behind her, but no one responded. They must all have known, like she did, whose interest he wanted.
Rather than looking out the window on his own side of the car, he stared beyond Meg at the landscape on her side. “Lots of quarries along here. Yes, indeed. Enough to build an entire prison at Sing Sing. Five stories high, one thousand cells. Built by inmates, you know.”
That, evidently, piqued the interest of the gentleman in front of the man speaking.
“Do you work for the railroad?” He threw the inquiry over the back of his seat.
The man laughed. “No, sir; no, I don’t.”
“You sound like a travel guide, that’s all.”
“Well, I could tell you a thing or two about the places we’ve passed, that’s for sure.”
He prattled on, talking mostly about Sing Sing. Meg couldn’t help but listen, even if she’d wished otherwise. There was no other noise in the train car, and she hadn’t thought to bring a book for diversion. By the time the track entered the tunnels beneath the prison’s yard, she, along with anyone else who might never have traveled this far on
the line before, knew what to expect.
The travelogue continued as the man talked about the aqueduct at Croton, but it was the name that piqued Meg’s interest. Croton . . . she wanted the stop after that one.
Despite her best effort at cool confidence, when the conductor announced Peekskill, Meg’s pulse fluttered with excitement. She was almost there, where her father never wanted her to visit.
Without looking at the man who’d shared so much information about the route, Meg found her way to the vestibule. But as she waited for the conductor to open the door and lay out the step, the very man she’d been ignoring stepped past her and offered a hand down to the platform.
“Thank you,” she said but neither took his hand nor looked his way. Between her own stiff limbs from sitting still so long and an effort to avoid him, she nearly stumbled—yet that was preferable to sending a message she had no wish to issue. She gripped her bag and reticule, confident she could take care of herself.
Meg walked toward the station office to inquire about hiring a driver to take her to the address she’d been given.
“Going to the Davenport funeral?”
Meg nodded at the man emerging from the ticket office; he wore a sturdy cloth apron and a leather visor, which he tipped her way.
“Needn’t hire a driver, miss.” He pointed to the end of the platform. “See there? A carriage is just around the corner, here at every arrival from the city and meets every departure back. They’ll see you safely on your way, and without charge.”
Meg followed his gaze, spotting a matched pair of horses that were no doubt hooked to a carriage behind them.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Anything else I can help you with? Carry your bag for you?”