The Gilded Hour (74 page)

Elise decided she was thirsty enough to go in search of the cold mint tea Mrs. Lee made by the bucketful. Maybe she would sit in the garden for a little while, if the mosquitoes weren’t too bloodthirsty. She opened her door and stepped into the hallway, where she found Rosa poised for flight, her face pale with shock.

She wore a clean pinafore over a muslin dress and her sturdiest shoes. There was a shawl folded over her arm, half hiding a small basket.

In such a situation Elise would have expected flustered excuses and a quick retreat back into her room, but Rosa stood there without flinching.

She said, “If you stop me now, I’ll go another time. You can’t watch me forever.”

Confused, alarmed, Elise came closer and crouched down until their faces were on the same level. “But where is it you’re going?”

Relief flowed through the little girl, as visible as a storm tide dying out on a beach.

“To Staten Island,” she said with a note of impatience. “To get my little brother. Would you come with me?”

“Sit here with me a minute.” Elise tugged her to the staircase where they sat side by side, speaking in low whispers.

“Why do you think your brother—”

“Vittorio,” Rosa supplied. “The baby.”

“Why do you think he’s on Staten Island?”

From the basket Rosa took a single sheet of paper and held it out. Anna’s handwriting, with much crossing out and many insertions. The letter had not come easily to her.

Rather than take it in hand, Elise said, “Tell me what it says.”

Rosa bit her lip so hard that Elise expected to see blood.

“I have to go now before they come in from the garden. Won’t you come with me?”

“Wait,” Elise said.

“No,” Rosa said, getting up. “I’m not going to wait anymore.”

“Rosa—”

“You can’t stop me. It’s your fault that he got lost in the first place. You lost him, and now they know where he is but they aren’t doing anything about it. Well, I’ll do something.”

She began to run down the stairs.

“Rosa,” Elise said, trying to keep her voice calm. “There’s no ferry at this time of night. You can’t get to Staten Island until morning.” Which might not be strictly true, but she had nothing else to offer.

The girl paused to look over her shoulder. Elise had never seen such an expression on a child’s face, misery and anger and flint-hard determination.

“I’ll hide until morning,” she said. “I’ve done it before.”

Elise saw Jack coming out of the hall from the kitchen. Rosa followed her shifting gaze and then she was dashing for the door.

Before she could even turn the lock, he was there.

Rosa screamed. A scream that would tear a hard man’s heart in two, and Jack was not hard of heart. He picked up a kicking Rosa and held her while she screamed and thrashed. He simply kept her against his chest, in the circle of his arms.

Jack was talking to her, a low river of sound. When she tried to bite him, he adjusted his grip and kept talking. When Mrs. Quinlan and Mrs. Cooper came rushing into the hall, he kept talking. Rosa was still howling, her mouth a dark hole. She ripped the buttons from Jack’s shirt collar and threw them, her other fist hitting him on the jaw, the cheek, the ear. He never flinched, and he never stopped murmuring to her.

Now she was shouting at him, directing all her anger and frustration into his face in a rushing, tumbling stream of Italian. By his expression it was clear Jack understood her. A kind of calm came over him and seemed to pass into Rosa, who slumped against his shoulder.

A door opened behind Elise. Lia came into the light, sleep-tousled, her thumb firmly in her mouth and tears pouring down her face in a sheet.

“Oh baby,” Elise said. “Come here.” She pulled the little girl close and folded her into her lap, smoothing her hair.

“Shall we go into my room and get into the big bed?”

Lia wound her free hand in Elise’s shirtwaist so tightly that she felt the pull of it at her throat.

“Shall we?”

Her head jerked from side to side: no.

“It will be all right,” Elise whispered to her. “I know this is scary, but it will be all right. We’ll all sit down together and find a way to make Rosa feel better. We can do that, Lia.”

She realized then that Mrs. Cooper had come up the stairs and stood motionless, her hands flat on her waist, arms akimbo. Lia’s eyes, brimming with tears, blinked once, and then she held her arms out.

Elise had had more than one uncharitable thought about Margaret Cooper, and she was embarrassed to remember how quickly she had judged. Her whole person, body and mind, belonged to Lia, who had
wrapped her arms and legs around Mrs. Cooper’s neck and slender waist. She murmured to the little girl, soft sounds that might have been words but were meant for no one in the world but Lia. When the door to the girls’ room closed behind them, Elise had to put her forehead down on her knees and let herself be swept away, just in that moment, home to her own mother.

Rosa was still talking in ragged bursts. Jack held her safely in his arms, listening. In small, easy steps he moved into the parlor.

Mrs. Quinlan gestured for Elise. She had an errand and didn’t want to wake Mr. Lee. Would Elise be so good?

“Of course. Just tell me what I can do.”

She pressed money into Elise’s hand and closed her fingers over the bills. “Walk over to the New York Hotel front entrance, tell Mr. Manchester I’ve sent you. He’ll get you a cab. Let him get the cab for you, do you hear me? Then go straight to the New Amsterdam and tell Anna what has happened here. Ask her to come home as soon as she’s able.”

All the questions tumbling through her head, but only one presented itself. “What now?”

Mrs. Quinlan was very old, but there was nothing frail about her. She was filled with calm determination that settled Elise’s own jangling nerves. Some women had that strength hidden inside them, a light that flared to life when everyone else was overwhelmed.

She patted Elise’s cheek and smiled at her, a weary but fond smile. “Tomorrow Anna and Jack will take the girls to Staten Island to see their brother Vittorio,” she said. “Nothing else will do.”

T
HE
RAINY
DAY
that Anna had wished for came, and would not be wished away again. All the way to the ferry terminal she worried that their departure would be suspended due to rough waters. At the last moment the winds died back and they were allowed to board.

In the hurry not to miss the ferry she had forgotten things: she hadn’t checked to see if the girls had handkerchiefs, or how much money she had in her pocketbook, or if her hat was pinned firmly in place. A gust of wind made her think of the pins, because it almost took the hat from her head. At the same time it took the only umbrella she had found in the rush and turned it inside out with a great pop.

But they got onto the ferry, and it left as scheduled to plow its way through the chop.

Anna held Lia’s head while she was sick, both of them soaked by rain that was falling so hard that each drop bounced like a grasshopper off rail and deck. Lia’s complexion went a sickly yellow green.

The only reasonable, sensible thing to do was to turn around and go home, but one look in Rosa’s direction made it clear that she would fight such a suggestion with all the strength she could muster.

Anna carried Lia back into the cabin and settled with her on a wooden bench across from Jack, who had already accumulated a small pond around himself. On another day she would have had to laugh—he would have laughed at himself. But for Rosa, who sat a little apart, her body angled away from them. She answered Jack in monosyllables when he asked a question, but she would not even look in Anna’s direction. She was in shock; Anna understood that and lectured herself: any attempt to explain or justify would only make things worse. She tried to work out what she might say:

A priest found Vittorio at the Foundling and gave him to a Catholic family to raise as their own. Now he’s Timothy Mullen, and the law will do nothing to restore him to his sisters.
Or she could leave the Church out of it:
He is a healthy, happy child, one who is very much loved, and who loves. Timothy Mullen clings to his adoptive mother because he remembers no other.

Rosa was not interested in logic or reason or the law. All attempts to engage her met with a blank look; she was as brittle and unreachable as a stroke victim.

The rain fell all the way across Raritan Bay and was still falling when they left the ferry and walked the short distance to the railway station, where stranded travelers were packed, all wet and cold and not inclined to see the situation as anything but inexcusable. But a tree had fallen across the tracks and it would be at least an hour, probably two, until anybody went anywhere.

Lia was a sodden bundle of miserable little girl in her arms. She needed to be stripped out of the wet clothes and rubbed down, but for the moment any small distraction might help. Anna wiggled her way through muttering discontents to get to a window made opaque by condensation. With her gloved hand she wiped it clean, and began to point things out: a yellow dinghy tugging at its ropes like a restless dog, a runaway hat tumbling over and over in the gusting wind, a flash of lightning in the distance, a lady who stood in the doorway of the bakery, peeking out from under her umbrella, watching for someone who was clearly late.

“Who do you think she’s waiting for?” Anna asked. It was a game Lia loved, the making up of stories, but there was nothing there today, not the least spark. Jack and Rosa had come to stand behind them—or Jack had come, leading Rosa by the hand. He was talking to Rosa, but Lia was listening.

On so little sleep Anna’s mind would have nothing to do with Italian, and so she waited while Jack talked and the girls asked questions. When Rosa’s shoulders slumped Anna knew that he had made the situation clear to her; the only way to Tottenville was by train, trains ran on tracks, tracks were sometimes made impassable by the weather, and the weather was out of everyone’s control. They were all of them wet and hungry, Jack was telling them, but there was a hotel just down the street.

One small good thing struck Anna once they were out in the weather:
Stapleton was a wealthy town, so that the roads were paved and the sidewalks raised. They would not have to slog through the mud.

The Stapleton Arms lobby smelled of wet wool and coal oil and sweat. Within a minute Anna decided that she would rather be wet outside than steaming hot in a crowded lobby.

Jack paid a premium for two rooms while Anna talked to the matron about towels, cocoa and buttered toast, tea and sandwiches. The matron went bustling off, and Anna hoped the rest of the staff was as sharp and quick.

Finally in the room, she decided she could forgive the hotel owner for overheating the lobby. It was a very pleasant room with an attached bath—Anna wondered briefly how much Jack had had to pay—a small table, a comfortable chair, and a good-sized bed with clean linen and a pretty quilt. As the first order of business she cracked both windows for fresh air.

She had barely taken off her hat when they were invaded by the matron, leading her maids like soldiers into battle. There were stacks of towels and loaded trays, dry socks and facecloths. Jack took a few towels for himself and disappeared into the next room while Anna began stripping wet clothes off Lia. The matron did the same for Rosa, who allowed this service without comment.

The food was set out on the table, and then the maids ducked their heads and withdrew. Lia, wrapped in towels, managed a smile for the matron, who brought her a cup of cocoa. Rosa accepted a cup too, and soon began to blink sleepily. They had another hour to wait, and a nap seemed the best use of that time.

The matron—Mrs. Singer, as it turned out—had brought a dressing gown for Anna to use. Old and frayed at the hem, but sweet smelling. Anna went behind the privacy screen to strip and handed her clothes over to Mrs. Singer.

“I’ll hang all your things in the kitchen, where it’s warmest.”

“I don’t know what you can do make them dry in an hour,” Anna said. “But thank you for trying.”

Mrs. Singer raised one thin eyebrow. “If the next train leaves before three, I’ll eat my own hat and yours for good measure. It always takes longer than they claim.”

The matron went out as Jack came in.

Rosa said, “Where did you get that?”

“It’s pink,” Lia said, and giggled.

“These girls are mocking me, Anna. Mocking me.”

“You’re wearing a pink dressing gown,” Lia pointed out. “You look silly.” It was true, the old dressing gown the landlord had found for him was big enough, but it had faded over the years from what had probably been a somber maroon to a delicate pink.

“And you have cocoa all around your mouth, like a mustache and beard. Let’s get you cleaned up and down for a nap.”

Anna’s stomach gave a terrific growl and so she sat down to eat while Jack folded back the covers. Both the girls were asleep before he had finished tucking them in. Anna, her hair still dripping, sat in the chair beside the bed and went about the business of putting herself in order, when she would have liked nothing more than to climb into bed with them.

Jack came up behind her with a fresh towel. “Here,” he said. “Let me.”

While he pressed water from her hair she closed her eyes and let herself be drawn down and down into the comfort of it. Then he ruined her lovely half sleep. “Listen now, while I talk. No arguments, just listen.”

Anna drew in a deep breath and let it go in one long sigh. She got up from the chair and went to the window, but he followed her.

Jack said, “Nobody in this world could have done more for these girls than you have. Rosa doesn’t see that now, but she will. You have to remember that and leave guilt and remorse behind, because while it seems as though she’s ignoring you, she’s watching every move you make.”

Anna nodded and yawned, and, leaning forward to put her head on Jack’s unyielding shoulder, she fell asleep.

•   •   •

T
HE
SUN
BROKE
through the last of the clouds just as they reached the railroad office, and that, Jack decided, could be taken as a good omen. From there things moved quickly; tickets were bought, and all four of them settled on the crowded train while a faint rainbow appeared over Raritan Bay.

Anna sat across the aisle with Lia, who was taking in the scenery with something like astonishment. After Washington Square’s walkways and benches and neatly manicured bushes and trees, Staten Island would be overwhelming.

Once or twice he had heard Aunt Quinlan telling stories of her
childhood in the endless forests and mountains of northernmost New York state, and so it came as no surprise when Lia asked about bears and panthers, wolves and moose.

“Not here,” Anna told her. “The endless forests are far away. It’s a long journey.”

“Beaver?” Lia asked hopefully. “There must be beaver.”

Anna raised a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe the conductor could tell you. See, he’s coming now to take our tickets.”

You had to admire Anna’s way of dealing with the girls. Rather than try to convince them they should not be sad or angry or disappointed in something, she gave them something else to concentrate on. He had seen this strategy work dozens of times already, as it worked now. Lia tugged on the conductor’s sleeve to ask a question, and for the rest of the journey she looked forward to his trips through the car, when he would stop and tell her about Staten Island when he was a boy, about plentiful beaver and deer, porcupines and foxes.

Rosa was listening, but she took no part in the conversation. Jack tried to imagine what she would be feeling, the relief of knowing her brother was alive and well, the fear that she would be turned away and not allowed to see him. She was angry at everyone and everything, but she focused most of that anger on Anna and Elise.

“It’s understandable,” Anna had said to him last night. “She trusts me not to reject her for being angry. If I could be dispassionate about any of it, I might say that she is thinking of me like a mother. Someone who will take the worst she has to offer, and never turn away.”

Drifting between consciousness and sleep, he had thought about this Anna, who had once lost a brother. She understood Rosa’s sorrow and anger better than he ever could.

•   •   •

I
N
T
OTTENVILLE
THEY
wasted no time wandering through the village or finding a meal but went straight to Mr. Malone. The old man’s face broke into a wide smile at the sight of them, but this time he didn’t try to communicate. Instead he picked up a short rod and struck a bell that hung over his head. Before Jack could make sense of it, Mr. Malone’s son stuck his head out of a workroom of some kind, his hands full of tack.

“On my way!”

Anna looked at Jack with something like bemused resignation, and she was right; because they had been here before, the Malones felt obliged to inquire about their journey, their health, their newly married state, their feelings on the weather as it had been in the city and what might be to come here, and then in great detail about the girls, who Jack introduced at their wards.

“Italian,” said the younger Malone. “I never would have guessed it.”

Jack bit back what he might have said:
Imagine our surprise to get Italian orphans who aren’t filthy and diseased!
Because he saw the confusion on the man’s face, his inability to reconcile the little girls he saw before him with what he had heard and read about Italian immigrant hordes ruining the country.

It was Anna’s hand on his arm that made him pull himself together and end the conversation with a curt nod.

One thing the Malones didn’t ask, to Jack’s relief, was their destination. When they finally climbed into the little rig, with the four of them squeezed together in on one seat, he set the placid old piebald mare off at a quick trot. Anna, busy with the girls, didn’t look up at him until they were on the road north toward Mount Loretto, and Jack was glad. She hadn’t seen the odd pale rectangle on the side of a building where a sign had been taken down, but Jack remembered it.

EAMON MULLEN
GENERAL BLACKSMITHING, HORSESHOEING,
PLOW AND WOODWORK

Maybe the sign was being repainted, he told himself. Maybe Mullen had moved his business to a bigger space somewhere else in Tottenville. And maybe, he had to deal with the possibility, what he had interpreted as a turn in their luck was nothing more than the eye of the storm.

•   •   •

S
OMETHING
WAS
WRONG
with Jack, something other than young Michael Malone’s careless insult. Anna saw it in the set of his jaw, in the line of his back. The girls sensed it too, because they were quiet. They were hardly out of town when Lia climbed into Anna’s lap, not looking forward but pressing her face to Anna’s shoulder.

Then he pulled to the side of the road under a stand of oak trees and tried to smile.

“I need a minute.” Jack secured the reins and jumped down, trotting back the way they had come to disappear behind a stand of bushes.

The girls seemed almost to relax, assuming, as most people would, that Jack’s distracted mood and sudden leaving had to do with nature’s call. But Anna knew somehow that it was something else entirely. He had walked off to gather his thoughts and his courage, because he knew something, had heard or seen something that she had not.