Authors: Rhys Bowen
“Molly, you have become so domesticated. Look at you, lady of the house and soon-to-be mother. Did you ever imagine when we met last year that your life could change so dramatically?”
“It certainly is changed,” I agreed as I poured the lemonade.
“How relieved you must be that you are no longer in danger and working in such uncomfortable circumstances,” she said.
I hesitated. “Sometimes I feel that way, but I’m used to hard work, and I’m afraid I enjoyed the excitement of my job too. I find my present condition rather boring. I wasn’t raised to leisure like you so I’ve no idea how to fill idle hours.”
She took a sip of lemonade. “I was raised to leisure, as you say, but I have always rebelled against it. Croquet matches and coffee mornings seem such a waste of time to me. And all those discussions about new hats and dressmakers. I never could abide them. That’s why I went to work at the settlement house and found like-minded people.” She looked up suddenly from her glass. “You could always come and help me if you’re bored,” she said. “I’m sure you’d be splendid at educating families in the tenements on hygiene and I’d certainly relish a companion with me.”
“I would jump at a chance like that, but I’m afraid Daniel wouldn’t agree. He’s treating me as if I’m a dainty little flower at the moment and he’s terrified I’ll catch some awful disease if I venture into the slums.”
Her face grew somber. “Well, he does have a point there. Remember that terrifying typhoid outbreak a couple of years ago? They are saying there is already typhoid in Brooklyn this summer and it can easily spread across the river. And there is always cholera in the hot weather. So maybe joining me wouldn’t be such a good idea, Molly.”
“Don’t you fear for your own health?”
She laughed. “Me? I may look dainty, but I’m as strong as an ox. My brothers all came down with all the childhood diseases when we were young, but not I.”
“I was that way too when I was growing up, but I confess that I was horribly sick in the early months of my condition and for the first time in my life I did feel like a delicate china doll who needed looking after. Thankfully that has passed and I’m raring to go again. Daniel chided me earlier today because he found me standing on a chair, taking down the net curtains to launder them.”
“I think I might have chided you too,” she said.
“I need to keep busy, Sarah.”
She looked thoughtful. “If you have time on your hands—you could always help our suffrage cause. I know you are a fellow supporter.”
“I am, most definitely, but I don’t think I’m up to marching and carrying banners at the moment.”
“Of course not. But we always need help with flyers and brochures to be handed out. You could assist with things like that, couldn’t you?”
“I could,” I said.
“We’re having a meeting next week to plan strategy. Do you think you can join us?”
I started to say that I’d have to confer with Daniel first, but then the old Molly resurfaced. “Yes, I’d like to,” I said. “As long as it’s not at a time when I should be cooking Daniel’s dinner.” I saw her face and added swiftly, “He works such long hours that I like to make sure he has a proper meal when he gets home.”
She nodded, accepting this, then put down her glass. “I should be making my way to the settlement house,” she said. “We have a couple of new volunteers and I’m afraid they both fit the expression, ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ They love the idea of serving the poor, but they don’t actually want to scrub floors and make beds.”
We both laughed as she got to her feet.
“I expect it’s hard for people in your station to find themselves in such different circumstances for the first time,” I said. “I don’t suppose they’ve ever scrubbed a floor before.”
She nodded agreement. “It is a shock when you first start and when you find your first bedsheet with fleas and lice all over it. But you soon get used to it. And it’s so worth it when you see the change in the young women who come to us.”
“Where do they go when they leave you?” I asked.
“We try to find domestic situations for those who are suitable. Not all of them are, of course. Those who were ladies of the night or drug fiends don’t take kindly to our ministrations on the whole.”
“And what happens to them?”
“I’m afraid they go back onto the streets, and probably will wind up floating in the East River someday.”
I stared at her, wondering how such a delicate creature could discuss such matters calmly. Most young women of her class would swoon at the words, “drug fiends.” But as I watched her open the back door and step into the house an idea was forming in my mind. “So some of these girls go into domestic service,” I said, following her down the narrow hallway. “Do you place them yourselves?”
“We usually send them to an agency,” she said. “We simply don’t have the time to handle such matters.”
My eyes lit up. “Then we may be able to help each other. Daniel has been adamant that we hire a servant—more for his status than for me, I suspect.” I smiled. “He has just written to his mother to ask her for recommendations, but I’d rather choose my own girl if she’s going to live in my house and work for me. Do you have anyone who might fit the bill at the moment?”
She paused, her hand on my front door knob, thinking. “Not really,” she said. “But the agency that we use might be able to recommend a girl for you. They are most reliable and thorough. I’ll take you and introduce you if you like.”
“That would be splendid,” I said. “Where is this agency?”
“It’s on Broome Street, not far from the Bowery. If you’ve nothing to do right now, I could introduce you on my way to work.”
Loathe as I was to step out into that heat again, I wasn’t going to turn down this chance. “Most kind of you,” I said. “I’ll fetch my hat and gloves.”
“What do you think?” I asked as we reached the entrance to Patchin Place. “Should we chance the Sixth Avenue El and then walk along Broome or should we go across to Broadway and ride the trolley?”
“At this time of day they are both likely to be packed,” Sarah said. “Not a good idea in your delicate condition. We’ll take a cab.”
“A cab? But surely…” I began, but she was already stepping out into traffic, waving imperiously with her little gloved finger.
“There are some privileges of the rich that I still enjoy,” she said. “And one of those is taking cabs whenever necessary. In fact Papa insists that I take cabs anytime I’m in undesirable parts of the city. He thinks I’m in constant danger of being captured and whisked off to white slavery.” And she gave a gay little laugh as the cab came to a halt beside us. I had to admit I was glad not to have to face a crowded rail car and the odor of sweaty bodies, my nose having become rather sensitive of late.
The cabby looked surprised when Sarah gave him the address. “Are you sure that’s where you want to go, miss?” he asked.
“Quite sure, thank you,” Sarah replied crisply.
We set off at a lively clip. I put my hand into my purse to find my handkerchief and my fingers closed around the letter. I pulled it out. “Tell me,” I said. “You don’t happen to know a Mrs. Mainwaring, do you?”
“Mainwaring? I don’t think I do. Are they a New York family?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I’ve just received this,” I said and handed her the letter. She read it. “I thought you’d given up detecting work,” she said.
“I have, but I can’t help being curious. If the Mainwarings had turned out to be a well-known New York family, I could have made inquiries and maybe been able to give these Irish folk an answer to their concerns.”
“The fact that I don’t know them doesn’t mean that they are not New Yorkers,” Sarah said. “We are not among the Four Hundred, you know. Daddy started off in trade, which has limited our social rise, much to Mama’s annoyance. And these Mainwarings could be fellow members of the middle class who have now made enough money for a big house and plenty of servants. Besides,” she handed me back the letter, “you don’t know that Mrs. Mainwaring does live in the city, do you? She might live anywhere.”
“The fact that this Maureen found a situation so quickly after arriving in New York indicated to me that the family must be local. She’d either have seen an advertisement or visited a local agency like the one you are taking me to.”
Sarah nodded. “Of course people from all over the country advertise in the New York newspapers. she might have seen an offer of employment in Pennsylvania or California for all you know.”
I shook my head. “I can’t see an Irish girl fresh off the boat being willing to set out for California, not knowing about the people she was going to.”
“It’s a wild goose chase, Molly.”
“I know, and one I shouldn’t be undertaking. But I just thought that if it might be easily solved, then I’d solve it and put the poor woman’s mind at rest.”
“Your husband would not take kindly to your traipsing around New York, I fear.”
I chuckled. “He certainly wouldn’t. But if this agency finds me a good servant, then I’ll have even more time on my hands, won’t I?”
She returned my smile. “Molly, you’re incorrigible. No wonder Sid and Gus like you so much.”
The cab had slowed to a crawl as it entered the Bowery and had to follow a slow-moving procession of horse-drawn vehicles being forced into the curb to get around a stopped electric trolley. Sarah tapped imperiously with her parasol on the roof of our cab. “It’s all right, driver. You can let us disembark here. It’s quicker to walk the rest of the way.”
The driver jumped down to help us from the cab. “You’re sure you’ll be all right, miss?” he said again. “Watch out for pickpockets around here, and less savory folk too.”
“Don’t worry, I come to this part of the city every day,” she said. “I work in the settlement house on Elizabeth Street.”
“Well, blow me down,” he said, mopping his brow with a big red handkerchief. “Good luck to you then, miss.” He looked at the coin she had given him then tipped his cap. “And God bless you too.”
Sarah slipped her arm through mine and steered me through the traffic. We had to break into a sprint as a trolley car came toward us at full speed, its bell clanging madly. One always forgets how fast mechanized vehicles can go. Once on the other sidewalk we were in the shadow of the El and had to force our way among the housewives shopping for tonight’s meal, children getting out of school, and factory workers coming off the early shift. When we turned into Broome the scene was even more chaotic with pushcarts lining both sides of the street and the air resounding with the cacophony of hawkers calling their wares, children shrieking at play, and the ever present Italian organ grinder on the corner, cranking out a lively tarantella. Sarah seemed impervious to it all as she proceeded briskly, pushing aside ragged children and shopping baskets. She was moving at such a great pace that I found it hard to keep up with her and almost collided with a nun, bearing down from the opposite direction. She was wearing a black habit with a cape over it and carried a shopping basket over her arm. The habit was topped off with a peaked bonnet that jutted out, hiding her face in shadow, apart from a long nose that protruded, giving the impression of a black crow.
“Sorry, Sister,” I muttered, remembering the trouble I had gotten into at school when I’d run around a corner during a game and knocked one of the nuns flying.
“No harm done. God bless you, my dear,” she said softly, then crossed the street nodding to two other nuns in severe black habits topped with white coifs who were chatting with a priest and couple of round, elderly women.
“I’m glad I’m not a nun,” Sarah said, echoing my thoughts. “To be wearing all those garments in this weather must be unbearable.”
“They’re probably so holy they don’t notice,” I replied with a grin.
A bell started tolling, a block or so away. The little group broke apart and looked up. The two women crossed themselves. The priest nodded to them and then started walking briskly toward that tolling bell. The crowd on the sidewalk parted magically to let him through. It was clear that the Catholics held sway in this part of the city.
Sarah pulled me out of the stream of the crowd. “Ah, here we are,” she said, stopping at a dark entryway. “It’s on the second floor. Are you able to make it up the stairs, Molly?”
“Yes, of course.” I peered up a long, narrow flight of stairs, then added, “I’m not quite an invalid, you know.”
Up we went. I found it more of an effort than I had expected and that long dark stair seemed to go on forever, but I tried not to let Sarah see that I was out of breath and perspiring by the time she tapped on a dark wood door and then ushered me inside.
I had been to employment agencies myself when I was first looking for work in the city. They all seemed to have been staffed by haughty dragons of women, but the white-haired, soft-faced lady behind the desk could not have been nicer. She listened to my request then nodded. “You’ll be wanting someone who has experience with babies then. Most of the girls we see don’t have much of a clue. Oh, to be sure they’ve helped look after siblings, but their ideas on safety and cleanliness leave much to be desired. So let me give the matter some thought. How soon would you want the girl?”
“There’s no hurry,” I said. “I want someone who’ll be just right. I’d rather wait.”
“Of course you would.”
“So did you already place Hettie Black, Mrs. Hartmann?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, yes. Snapped up instantly. She would have been good,” Mrs. Hartmann said. She had me write down my name and address. “I’ll have a note sent to you the moment I find a suitable girl,” she said.
We were about to leave when it occurred to me that Mrs. Hartmann was the perfect person to ask about Maureen O’Byrne.
“You keep a list of past clients, presumably?” I started to say when there came a scream from the street below.
“My baby! Someone has taken my baby!”
Three
We rushed over to the window. Below us we could see a young woman, fair-haired and attired in the usual white shirtwaist and cotton skirt of the Lower East Side, looking around desperately, her light eyes wide with terror.