Band of Sisters (6 page)

The stairs opened into the center of a great hall. A moment of awe swept through the crowd as a sea of caps slipped respectfully from heads before the gigantic American flag.

Maureen caught up with Katie Rose and placed a supportive hand on her sloping shoulder. They filed through a maze of metal railings, benches, high wire cages, and holding areas overflowing with group upon group and line upon line of jabbering humanity—some laughing self-consciously, some tearful, all crowding, talking loud enough to make themselves heard above the great din.

Maureen caught snippets of conversation, guessing at their general meaning by the inflection and tones of voices, the physical movements of hands and creases in brows. She never knew there were so many languages on the face of the earth and wondered how the people of America were able to understand one another if all these strangers with their strange words poured onto her shores.

She’d begun to rub her temples in weariness and worry when a little girl with coarse raven curls and eyes browner than any Maureen had ever seen smiled up at her. Maureen stared. The child reached out her hand. Something in that happy, trusting gesture pushed the strangeness of the din away. The little girl’s open smile was infectious and sprang a return from Maureen—a smile that, this time, played naturally about her lips, pushing quibbles of fear and anxiety from the ache in her head. Refreshment seeped into her bones.

For the first time she paused and dared look forward to stepping into New York, to exploring that city of tall buildings set against the skyline opposite the Statue of Liberty—the one she’d been too frightened to more than glimpse while holding Katie Rose.

She drew a deep breath, looked about her with unveiled eyes, and suddenly wished she could understand the feminine voices two lines away—women in full, embroidered skirts—and the young men who spoke with their hands nearly as fast as they spoke with their mouths. She wondered what country they’d sailed from, how they meant to get on in America. This was, after all, the land of hopes and dreams—her aunt had said so. Her da had sworn by it.

But when she looked again at Katie Rose to share this sudden hope and saw that the clusters of scarlet splotches had sprung in a garden across her face, Maureen realized anew that they might never know.

“Chicken pox,” the doctor pronounced not an hour later. “You should have reported this right away. Highly contagious.”

Katie Rose looked too frightened to speak, like a small child disciplined for stealing biscuits from a crock.

“She’s my sister, sir.” Maureen intervened, as if that explained everything.

“How old is she?” the doctor demanded.

“Thirteen—just,” Maureen hedged. “Please let us go through, sir. We won’t be any trouble. I had the chicken pox when a bairn and I know just what to do.”

“If you’d known what to do, young woman, you should have reported this! No telling how many have been infected from your negligence.”

Maureen felt the hair on her arms prickle. “Well, she got it from somewhere, now, didn’t she? She certainly didn’t have it when we boarded ship! ’Tisn’t like we brought the plague as a gift!”

Now the doctor did look at Maureen. He spoke evenly, and Maureen knew that flirting was out of the question. “Your display of temper will help neither of you.”

“Please don’t send me back,” Katie Rose whispered. “I’ll do anythin’. Please.”

“Quarantined.” The doctor marked Katie Rose’s cloak and motioned for a nurse to come forward. “Chicken pox.”

The nurse took Katie Rose by the arm and began to pull her away.

“No!” Maureen pulled Katie Rose by the other arm.

“Please.” Katie Rose began to cry.

The nurse looked expectantly at the doctor, but he said nothing. She pursed her lips—appearing as disapproving of the doctor’s callous behavior as of the girls’ outburst—and took Maureen aside. “It only means that we’ll keep her here in the hospital until she’s well. Because she’s contagious, she’ll have to be in a ward with other patients with chicken pox. If all goes well, and if she has no further complications, she’ll be released.”

“Then you’ll let her go to America?” Maureen begged.

“Then we’ll see.” The doctor spoke now. “She’ll be eligible for further examination.”

Katie Rose’s eyes filled with terror, and she reached for Maureen’s hand.

“I want to be here—to be present—durin’ all my sister’s examinations,” Maureen said stoutly.

The doctor laughed. “Only if we detain you for idiocy.”

The nurse’s lips pursed again. “You’ll have to go through, my dear. We’ll take good care of your sister. Once you’ve settled, once she’s past the point of contagion, you may come back to visit her. If she passes her examinations, she’ll be free to immigrate.”

“But how will I know?” Maureen persisted.

“You’re holding up the line. Move along.” The doctor pushed the women through, barely glancing at Maureen.

“Let me get your sister settled. I’ll make sure you have all the information you need.” The nurse checked the watch pinned to her uniform. “I’m going off duty soon, but I’ll make certain someone from the next shift speaks with you. Is someone meeting you both?”

“No,” Maureen said miserably, holding Katie Rose’s clutching hand.

The nurse pulled the girls aside. “They’ll certainly not let you through alone, my dear,” she admonished. “Have you no one?”

“What?” Maureen could barely focus. The day and its emotions had become a murky swamp in her brain.

“The letter,” Katie Rose whispered.

“The letter,” Maureen repeated, as if all the world should understand completely.

“You have a letter of sponsorship?”

Maureen realized she was skating precariously. “Yes.” She nodded and, unbuttoning her cloak, pulled the letter from its hiding place. “We’ve been invited, you see.” She waved the page before the nurse, hoping she would not read it closely, hoping she would not focus on the letter’s details or notice its date.

But the nurse was thorough. She snapped the letter from Maureen’s hand and just as quickly copied the return address onto a new chart for Katie Rose.

Maureen tried to lift the page from her fingers, but the nurse turned aside, reading every word. “My dear, this letter of invitation was written twenty-eight years ago! And it mentions a son.” She stepped back, eyeing Maureen hard. Her action raised the eyebrows of the official in the next line. “This paper will never get you through Ellis Island,” she whispered.

Katie Rose moaned, snapping the nurse to attention.

“It’s all we have. I know it’s good. Our father saved Colonel Wakefield’s life; he’s pledged himself to help us.” Maureen was too old to cry but felt very near it.

The nurse shook her head. “Well, it’s not my affair. You’ll have to take it up with immigration.” She tapped her chart with her finger. “You understand that your sister’s care will not be free.”

Maureen felt the room begin to spin. Beyond embarrassment, she lifted the edge of her skirt and searched for a weight, holding it up to the woman in white. “We’ve each a gold coin left. Is that enough?”

The nurse’s eyes softened in pity. But she shook her head. “You’ll need that and more. They won’t let you go through empty-handed, you know.” She sighed, and Maureen saw the weariness of futility settle upon the nurse. “Whatever happens later, I must get this girl to the ward now.” Wrapping her arm round Katie Rose, she sternly whispered to Maureen, “But if you don’t want to be sent back, I advise you to come up with a better plan than this—and quickly.”

Maureen barely noticed the succession of doctors prodding her with their tongue depressors and stethoscopes. Even the dreaded eye exam, when her eyelids were quickly flipped inside out with a wicked buttonhook in search of the fateful trachoma, seemed as nothing compared to her worry for Katie Rose.

And then a woman, a pert official, asked her, “And how do you expect to earn your living here? Do you have a job waiting for you?”

“Not yet, but I’m willin’ and most able to work.”

It was a question the woman aboard had warned her about. She mustn’t be seen as taking work from another.

“What sort of work have you done? In the town? In the tavern?”

Maureen straightened, uncertain what the woman was asking, but fairly certain she understood the implication. “I’ve served seven years in domestic service, mostly as a lady’s maid.”

“Mostly?”

Maureen lifted her chin but felt her face flame and hoped the shame of her past did not paste itself across her brow. “I began in the scullery and then as a parlor maid. I attended the person of Lady Catherine Orthbridge of County Meath.” She’d not say that Lady Catherine died a year past.

The woman seemed satisfied and motioned Maureen down the line, where she was directed to stand with a small group and await her turn yet again.

She’d not thought her nerves could be wound tighter, but when she heard women called up by turn and pounded with a barrage of questions, she thought she might snap. Most of the questions she recognized from the documents she and Katie Rose had completed as best they could before sailing from Dublin—a list of questions she’d answered with as much truth as she knew and telling as little as she thought they could get by with. She’d not considered the questions terribly important at the time but realized now that any conflicting answers might keep them both out of America. Maureen no longer cared so very much for America. But the thought of going back to Ireland, penniless and with a reputation more shamed for rejection at Ellis Island, was too much.
Joshua Keeton, if you were here now, I’d not be refusin’ your help!

“In a bit of a jam, are you, dear?” a young uniformed man whispered to Maureen in an accent so familiar that her heart raced. It could be a voice from the next county back home. “There, there now. They’re a rough lot, right enough.” He stood, looked around as though he was keeping an eye on the orderliness of things, then whispered again, “I couldn’t help but overhear your troubles with your poor sister. A rotten piece of luck.”

It was the first word of sympathy Maureen had heard since landing, and her lip quivered once, a thing she despised.

“Well, then, perhaps I can help.”

“I’d be grateful, sir.” Maureen could be polite. She would have been polite to the king of England if it would help Katie Rose.

“Would you, then?” He pulled her papers from her hand and looked them over. “Would you be grateful, Maureen O’Reilly?” He lingered over her name and eyed her carefully, returning her papers.

Maureen stepped back. “Is this a trick you’re about?”

“No. Why, no, of course not!” He looked so offended that Maureen felt contrite.

“Beggin’ your pardon. Everything’s so—I don’t know what to think.”

“Or who to trust?” He nodded sympathetically.

“Aye, or who to trust.” She sighed, glancing from side to side.

“Well, I’ll tell you this: you can trust me. You’re an Irish lass, for all of that, and we’ve got to help our own, now, don’t we?” He pulled a small wad of bills from his vest pocket and passed them to Maureen as though he were shaking her hand.

She pulled back, but he pressed her palm between his two and whispered into her ear, so close she smelled his onion and cheese breath upon her cheek. “Now, not to worry. They’ll ask if you have money and how much. They’ll be wantin’ you to have twenty-five American dollars to pass through so they know you’re not about to become a public charge. I’ve given you thirty.”

Maureen stopped pulling. “Thirty dollars?”

“Shh, then,” he whispered. “I’ve not enough to do for everyone. Just one here and there as I can help a fellow countryman—or woman.” He smiled.

Maureen did not like his smile. “I don’t know what to say, sir.”

“Say only that you’ll make a fine American and a good friend.” He squeezed her hand.

Maureen tried to decipher his meaning and her instincts—so hard to do with the desperation racing through her veins.

“You can give it back when you’re through the lines or pay me back as soon as you’re able. It’s always good to have friends from the old country. We help one another with jobs and such. And if it comes to needin’ someone to meet you or claim you’re a relative, just leave that to me.”