The Gilded Hour (23 page)

Jack didn’t like the man’s tone or the implications. Anna seemed not to notice or care, because she answered him.

“I myself was orphaned very young,” she said. “My cousin—who is also a physician—was orphaned at ten. We were fortunate to be taken in by a loving aunt who is agreed on this course of action. I am very aware of the responsibilities, and our finances are in good order.”

It didn’t answer the question he had asked, but it told him what she wanted him to know.

“The whole idea is very irregular,” said Mr. Johnson.

“We’re not asking for your permission,” Jack said flatly. “Consider this a police matter, if that suits you better. Two little boys have gone missing from St. Patrick’s Orphan Asylum. We want to know if one or both of them might have come through here, and where they would be if they had. Now, can you help us?”

Mr. Johnson was taking great pains not to look intimidated, but Jack saw the flutter of an errant muscle at the corner of his eye. A man who was easily insulted and slow to forget. His inclination was to deny them help, but he also had a solid understanding of what trouble the law could be if he made an enemy of a detective.

“We wouldn’t have taken the baby,” he said. “But it’s possible that the
older boy went out with one of the groups that left last week. Before we go any further, Dr. Savard, you do realize that there are thousands of destitute and homeless children in this city.”

“Tens of thousands,” Anna said, her tone much cooler.

“And I hope you’ve already submitted queries to the Catholic Church?”

When she assured him that they had, he got up to leave. “I may be a half hour or more,” he said, and closed the door behind himself.

•   •   •

T
HE
OFFICE
WAS
small and overheated, and Anna felt perspiration gathering beneath the weight of her hair and along her spine. She stood abruptly, but Jack was already at the door and holding it open for her.

She said, “That group of boys we saw when we first came in. Do you think they were being sent out for placement?”

Jack said, “That would be my guess. They looked a lot like these boys.” He inclined his head to a row of a dozen framed photos that lined the walls. Groups of boys bracketed by adults, staring solemnly at the camera. Neatly dressed according to the season, faces and shoes both polished to a shine. Children as old as fifteen, by her estimation, but there was little of childhood even in the youngest faces.

The most recent one was dated just the previous week and was neatly labeled.

Placement agents Charles Tenant and Michael Bunker departing March 1883 for Kansas with their charges: Gustaf Lundström, Alfred Jacobs, Federico DeLuca, Harrison Anders, Colum Domhnaill, Lucas Holtzmann, Samuel Harris, Michael and Dylan Joyce, James Gallagher, Zachary Blackburn, Galdino Iadanza, Nicholas Hall, Erik Gottlieb, Marco Itri, John Federova, Alfred LeRoy, George Doyle, and Henry Twomey.

Anna wondered what had become of these boys, if they were well looked after and content in their new homes. Common sense said that they would be better off out of a city where children routinely froze to death for lack of a roof, but sending children off to be taken in by total strangers gave her a deep sense of misgiving.

Behind them Mr. Johnson said, “Our most recent group. You see Michael
and Dylan Joyce—” He indicated two boys alike enough to be twins. They were no more than eight, fair hair sticking out from under their caps.

“These two are from a family of seven children living in one room in Rotten Row in such filth, you can’t imagine. The mother didn’t want to let them go, but in the end she made the right decision. Not a sound tooth in her head, a drunkard for a husband, and her still putting out brats like rabbits.” He huffed. “There ought to be a law.”

Anna’s voice sounded rough to her own ears. “What kind of law do you mean? Against toothlessness?”

She felt Jack’s surprise in the way he tensed. Surprise, but not disagreement or disapproval. At least not yet, but Anna was not done and would not be condescended to.

Mr. Johnson cleared his throat. “Overpopulation is not a joking matter, Dr. Savard. The underclasses are not capable of restraint and not willing to work hard enough to support so many children, so that we—you and I—must bear the financial burden. And what is the solution to that?”

“Why, birth control,” Anna said, holding on to her temper with all her strength.

“Artificial contraceptives are illegal, as I hope you are aware.”

Anna drew in a deep breath. “I am aware. So let me ask you, Mr. Johnson. Contraception is illegal and so is abortion. History makes it clear that human beings are not capable of abstinence. The poor—wait, what did you call them? The underclasses. How do you suggest their numbers be kept to levels you find acceptable?”

Mr. Johnson’s gaze shifted away and then back, the muscles in his jaw pulsing and jumping. “Is that a serious question?”

“Oh, yes,” Anna said. “I would like to know what measures you advocate.”

He stood a little straighter. “The first problem is the influx of the worst of Europe. The moral and intellectual dregs must be turned away. If such a policy had been put in place at the right time, Michael and Dylan Joyce would have been born in Ireland, and feeding them would not fall to us.”

“At the right time,” Anna echoed. “So, after
your
forefathers arrived.”

The muscles in his jaw were clenching again. “You misunderstand me.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think I understand you very well.”

Very dryly Jack said, “Do you have any information for us?”

Mr. Johnson turned his attention to Jack with obvious relief. “Not yet. I came back because I forgot one important point. Does this boy”—he checked his notes—“Tonino Russo. Does he speak English?”

Anna couldn’t remember Tonino talking at all, but she was angry now and willing to cause the man as much discomfort as possible.

“He is bilingual.”

“So he speaks English?”

“He speaks Italian,” Jack said. “And French. And some German too, so I think you’d have to say he’s at the very least trilingual.”

Anna took one step back and poked him with her elbow even as she smiled at Mr. Johnson. Her dimples stayed hidden. “A very bright boy.”

“Dr. Savard,” Mr. Johnson said. “We do not send children west for placement if they don’t speak English. Now, does the boy speak English, or not?”

•   •   •

T
HEY
HAD
BEEN
walking a full block before Anna broke her silence. “You said that they place orphans with families. But that’s not where they stop, is it? They take children from their parents.”

Jack knew her well enough already to understand that any effort to calm or placate her would be received very badly, and so he gave her the truth, as he understood it.

“The majority of the cases are orphans, but they aren’t above separating children from their parents. From immigrant families, especially Irish and Germans. And Italians.”

She stopped and turned to look him directly in the face, as if she expected to see some hidden truth written on his brow.

“It seems I do disapprove of the Society for the Protection of Endangered Children. And most especially I do not approve of Mr. Johnson’s Malthusian philosophy. But thank you for arranging this interview. It was instructive, if not productive. I think I’ll look for a cab.”

Jack said, “There’s one more visit we could make today, if you have time. The lodging house on Duane Street run by the Children’s Aid Society.”

“As we’re already under way,” she said, and then pointed east. “We should be walking that way. To the elevated train.”

“No cab?” Jack said, amused and irritated both.

“No need,” Anna said. “The elevated will take us all the way downtown.”

She started off again, then stopped when she realized she had left him behind.

“Are you coming?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said.

She had a very expressive face, so mobile that Jack could see her irritation giving way, slowly, to confusion and then a kind of abashed awareness. He kept his own expression neutral and waited. After a moment she let out a long breath and started back until she stood directly before him, her face tilted up.

“That was rude of me. I apologize for taking my irritation out on you.”

“Hold on with the apology,” Jack said, as somberly as he could manage. “Maybe I’m a Malthusian and don’t even know it.”

The corner of her mouth jerked. “Malthusians believe that overpopulation will cause economic disaster and the end of civilized society. They put the blame for overpopulation—for everything, really—on the immigrant poor. It’s xenophobia disguised as economic theory.”

“So you’re on the side of the Catholic Church, then. The more children, the better.”

Her mouth fell open and then shut with a small click. “I’m on the side of women,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Those individuals who actually bear and raise children. The human beings whom Malthusians and priests see as no more than mindless breeding stock.”

Jack said, “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I shouldn’t have made light.”

For a span of three heartbeats she studied his face as though she could read his thoughts. Quite suddenly she nodded, and took his arm.

“Children’s Aid,” she said. “Let’s go.”

•   •   •

“I
HATE
THESE
trains,” Jack said with a vehemence that took Anna by surprise. Standing in an overcrowded car, she looked up at him and then dropped her gaze immediately.

“They turn the streets into dark tunnels, shower everything with dirt and cinders, and screech like banshees.”

The wagon swayed so that Anna’s nose almost touched the handkerchief pocket of Jack’s suit coat. He smelled faintly of mothballs, of starch and tobacco. And of himself. People had very distinctive smells; it was one
of the first things she had noticed as a medical student. Certain illnesses had distinct smells, too, and Anna attempted to list them for herself in an effort to stem the impulse to raise her head. Because if she did, it would look like she was wanting to be kissed. She had worked hard to put the memory of kissing Jack Mezzanotte out of her head, and she had even managed to do that for as much as an hour at a time.

He shifted a little and, leaning down, spoke directly into her ear. “Maybe I have to rethink this elevated train business. There might be some advantages to it, after all.”

Anna bit her lip in an effort not to laugh, and instead let out a small hiccup of sound.

“What was that?”

His breath warmed the shell of her ear and stirred the few loose hairs that curled against her temple.

“I didn’t say anything.” She was talking to his handkerchief, which was a brilliant white and beautifully embroidered, something she knew because she had its twin at home, the one he had given to her along with half his dinner in the taxi. The next morning she found it in her pocket, and now it sat on her dresser, laundered and ironed and folded to show the initials on one corner.
GLM.
She had been wondering for days what the L stood for. Lorenzo. Lucian. Leonardo. Lancelot. Lucifer. Lunatic.

“Am I embarrassing you?”

She studied the way his feet were braced against the sway of the train’s motion. Her own two feet, much smaller, between them. Feet entwined. She felt him smiling against her hair.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.

Jack could resist the swaying of the train because he was holding on to one of the overhead straps that were out of Anna’s reach. She had nothing to hold on to—nothing she could, in good conscience, hold on to. She must brush up against him at every curve.

“What is it you want, Mezzanotte?” she said, putting some backbone into her voice. “Did you want to kiss me on a crowded train?”

“Is that an offer?” Now his lips actually touched her ear, and gooseflesh raced down her neck and her spine to spark in places best not considered just at this moment.

The train stopped and the passengers inched toward the doors, flowing out over the platform and spreading to the stairwell where they came together again, a river pulsing through a canyon. With the car half-empty there was enough room to step away, but somehow Anna found it almost impossible to move.

It made her angry, how easily he took her calm from her. She said, “You clearly have the wrong idea about me. I’m not a girl looking for an adventure. I’m not even a woman looking for an admirer.”

“Too late,” Jack said. “On both counts.”

She drew in a sharp breath, took three steps back, and forced herself to count to twenty. Then she looked up at him just as the train began to slow again and she saw where they were.

“This is where we get off.”

He caught her wrist as she passed him and drew her back. Jack’s hand was large and warm and rough, the hand of someone accustomed to hard work. She set her jaw and refused to raise her head, but she heard him laugh anyway. A short, low laugh, a satisfied sound.

“This is where we interrupt the journey,” he corrected her. “But not for long.”

•   •   •

T
HIS
TIME
THE
passengers were in no hurry, lingering on the platform in a way that made no sense to Anna until the train pulled away and the new suspension bridge came into view. It was monstrous in size, a long neck arching out over the river like a predatory bird watching for prey. Along the metal flanks tenements cowered, saloons and dance halls and alleys all lost in shadow that would never go away.

And still it was beautiful. Anna couldn’t remember the last time she had looked at the bridge closely, and she saw now what had once seemed unlikely: it was very near done. In just over a month it would open to traffic.

The bridge itself crawled with laborers, with drays and wagons and carts laden with building materials. As they watched, a wagon pulled out of the barn-like terminal that stood between the bridge itself and Park Place.

“They just started test runs,” Jack told her.

There would be a huge celebration with bands and fireworks and speeches, a summer party of sorts. She planned to walk from one side of the bridge to the other along the promenade, but she would likely wait until the early crowds had had their fill. She turned to Jack, who was studying the men at work.