Journey's End (Gilded Promises) (2 page)

Smiling shyly, she placed a look of sublime innocence on her face and quoted the exact amount she’d put in her reticule that morning. “I have five pounds.”

She lifted the cloth purse strapped to her wrist to punctuate the statement.

“Five pounds.” The man’s eyes widened. “A tidy sum, indeed.”

Perhaps that would be true if she were an impoverished seamstress coming to America in search of a better life. But five pounds wasn’t nearly enough for her real plan. And it was only a fraction of what she’d sewn into her skirt.

“I must ask, Miss St. James. How did you acquire such a large amount of money?”

Adding a hint of confusion to her smile, she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I . . . well, I saved it, of course.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “I have been preparing for this day for a very long time.”

Now
that
, she silently reflected, was the truth.

“I see. Then let me be the first to welcome you to America.”

“Thank you. You’ve been very kind, Mr.”—she glanced at the nameplate on his desk—“Andrews.”

“It’s been a pleasure. You may change your pounds into dollars over there.” He pointed to a row of teller windows behind her. “Good luck to you, Miss St. James.”

Luck.
Luck would play no role in Caroline’s time here in America. She’d struggled to survive too long in a “hotbed of villainy” to rely on anything but careful planning and meticulous preparation.

After thanking her interviewer for his assistance, she moved to stand in line at the teller windows. Memories threatened to steal her composure—dark, painful reminders of that horrendous day nearly a year ago when her life had been altered forever.

This journey had begun then, with her mother’s startling deathbed revelation. When Caroline had been shocked to discover that she had a wealthy grandfather, a man who had abandoned his own daughter because she’d dared to fall in love with someone below her station. A greedy old man who’d ignored his daughter’s pleas for help after her husband had been killed and she’d found herself penniless with a small child in tow. It was the knowledge of her grandfather’s cruelty that had driven Caroline to America. She’d come to seek justice.

Justice? Or revenge?

Sometimes it was hard to know, even in the privacy of her own mind.

How she wished with all her heart she’d come to this country for the reason she’d told Mr. Andrews—to seek a better life. But there would be no happy ending to her tale. Not like so many others here today.

Standing in yet another slow-moving line, Caroline had a clear view of the famous kissing pole. She watched, strangely disconnected, as families reunited with one another after their separation earlier in the registration process. She knew nothing of the happiness displayed so freely. Hugging, kissing, laughing. What astonishing foolishness.

And yet . . .

An unwanted burst of longing clawed for release, nipping at the edges of her control like tiny little rat teeth. The dreadful emotion tangled inside one word.
Family.

What did a woman like her know of family?

To Caroline, the word was nothing but a slippery promise that remained permanently out of reach. Nevertheless, her heart . . . yearned.

What would it feel like to belong so completely? To love and be loved unconditionally? To know true security for once in her life?

Mary, bless her naïve little heart, had claimed that Caroline wasn’t alone, that she had someone who loved her without question and always would. Her Heavenly Father.

Caroline shook her head at the ridiculous notion. She’d given up believing in fairy tales long ago.

But what if Mary was right? What if the answer was as simple as her friend claimed?

Would God ever truly accept a woman like her?

Caroline shut her eyes against the painful sensation of wanting what she knew she could never have. No matter how many slow breaths she took, no matter how many times she swallowed, her mouth went dry and it felt as though a noose had been fixed around her throat.

For the hundredth time since boarding the SS
Princess Helena
, Caroline wondered if she was making a mistake. Was seeking retribution a shameful act, one that would dishonor her mother’s memory?

An image of Libby St. James’s face flashed in her mind. Not the beautiful, happy, carefree girl who’d sacrificed everything for love. But the pale, broken woman who’d lived in Whitechapel and been forced to turn to begging, and other more horrible pursuits, to feed herself and her young daughter.

The sad, heartbreaking memory of a mother who had ultimately been incapable of caring for herself, much less her daughter, reminded Caroline why she had come to America.

Richard St. James would answer for his sins. Caroline would make sure of it.

Chapter Two

By the time Caroline made her way to the kissing pole, her thoughts had returned to Mary with a vengeance. She admitted, if only in the dark recesses of her mind, that she missed the girl. Dreadfully so. The realization came as a complete and utter surprise. Only a few hours of separation had passed, and already Caroline felt the absence of her friend. The feeling was quite unfamiliar and one she would rather have avoided altogether.

Apparently, the young Irish girl had done the impossible. She’d broken through Caroline’s determination to remain distant. Mary’s unassuming presence, her unwavering faith, even her persistence in befriending Caroline despite Caroline’s attempts to ignore her, all these things had worked together to form a bond between them.

A bond that now had Caroline worried about the girl’s future, to the point of making her stomach roil with apprehension.

Where had the authorities taken Mary? Would they refuse her entry because of her current medical condition?

Surely Mary’s God wasn’t that unjust. After all, the girl hadn’t always been frail, not for most of the journey. But seasickness had taken its toll in the final days. By the time the ship had docked, Mary had lost far too much weight thanks to her permanent state of queasiness.

Perhaps now that they were on firm ground the girl’s vibrancy would return.

Would it return soon enough?

Caroline moved slowly around the kissing pole, searching for the familiar face of her friend. One time around, two . . . By the third she lost her remaining shreds of hope. She knew that as each moment passed, the likelihood of Mary joining her today became less and less.

She had to make a decision. Stay or go. Both presented difficulties.

A glance to the heavens told her the sun had dipped well past the halfway mark. Three, maybe four hours of light left in the day. If Caroline stayed much longer, she might have to wander the unfamiliar streets of New York in the dark. She’d been in worse spots, true, but not by choice. And always in an at least somewhat familiar neighborhood.

But if she left now, she would be abandoning the only real friend she’d ever had. The thought didn’t sit well, which was the most surprising discovery yet.

Tossing her shoulders back, Caroline paced around the kissing pole once again, widening her arc as she went. The crowd had thinned out, making her search easier. And yet far more depressing.

“Mary,” she called out, standing on her toes in order to see over the heads of the taller immigrants. “Mary O’Leary, are you here?”

Silence met the frantic question.

Sighing, Caroline pressed her hand to her forehead. The air was too hot, oppressive even, as if the world were closing in on her and she’d lost the ability to breathe. It was altogether possible she might actually cry.

A hand clamped on her arm.

Caroline stiffened, assessed, considered several options, all the while forcing down the instinct to spin around and fight.

Think,
Caroline told herself.
Think before you act. You aren’t on the streets anymore.

Balancing on the balls of her feet, she hovered in a moment of indecision. The touch on her arm was light, nonthreatening. Familiar.

Relief buckled her knees and her heart lifted.

“Mary!”
Caroline spun to face her friend. “Oh, you dear girl, you made it.”

“I did.”

As she looked into her friend’s face, Caroline realized she’d never been so happy to see another person in her life. When had this girl become important to her? When had Mary become the sister she’d never had?

To Caroline’s surprise—and embarrassment—tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. She banished the unwelcome sensation with a hard blink.

“What happened?” Her voice came out shakier than usual. “The last I saw you an American official was leading you away by the arm.”

Mary opened her mouth to speak, but then she swayed, the heavy bag in her hand making her list slightly to the left.

Caroline took her friend’s luggage from her and then eyed her more closely. Although Mary didn’t look nearly as sick as she had this morning, her skin still had a greenish undertone. “How are you feeling?”

“Stop fussing, Caro, I’m perfectly well.” Bold words, spoken with an oh-so-confident manner. But then Mary made the mistake of lifting her chin, whereby she promptly lost her balance.

Caroline automatically reached out to steady her. “Perhaps we should call for a doctor.”

“No.” A shudder passed through Mary. “No more doctors poking at me, or asking their endless questions.” She looked over her shoulder and shuddered again. “We should go, before he changes his mind.”

Something in the girl’s expression, a cross between uneasiness and regret, gave Caroline pause. “He?”

“The doctor who let me through.” A faraway smile spread across her lips, making her look almost ethereal, as if her mind was somewhere else entirely. “Dr. Brentwood was . . . very kind.”

“Are you saying he bent the rules for you?”

“I don’t know.” Mary looked over her shoulder a second time. “And I don’t want to find out.”

Neither did Caroline.

With her free hand, she reached for her own bag and adjusted the weight of both pieces of luggage to even out the load.

“Let’s head to the ferryboats. You’ll tell me what happened with your Dr. Brentwood later.” She spoke in an authoritative tone, making certain Mary understood that Caroline would expect every detail once they were away from Ellis Island.

Mary didn’t appear a bit concerned by the warning. In fact, she brightened considerably. “Does this mean you’re coming with me to Aunt Jane’s after all?”

Although Caroline had never agreed to travel into the city with her friend, much less stay at her aunt’s home, she couldn’t leave the girl to fend for herself. Not now. Not with her skin leached of color and her balance still questionable. “Apparently I am.”

“Praise the Lord.” Mary smiled even brighter. The gesture added a hint of pink to her cheeks, and she almost looked like herself again. Almost, but not quite.

Mouth set in a determined line, Mary reached for her luggage. “Let me take that from you. I’m quite capable of carrying my own bag.”

They both knew that wasn’t true.

“Of course you are,” Caroline said in an appeasing tone. “But I’m perfectly balanced. You’ll throw me off if you attempt to assist me now.”

Mary sighed, but she didn’t argue, which only confirmed Caroline’s earlier suspicion. The girl had yet to fully recover.

For a tense moment, Caroline struggled with the need to protect her friend, to do whatever it took to lighten her burden. This, too, was a new sensation, this desire to care for someone beyond herself and her mother. Perhaps she was getting her new beginning after all.

But this was a dangerous delusion, one she must squelch immediately. She’d come to confront her grandfather and to demand an explanation for his years of abandonment. She had not journeyed all the way to America to make friends with a sweet Irish girl, or to find a place where she belonged.

Richard St. James.
She repeated her grandfather’s name over and over in her mind.
Richard St. James.
Richard St. James.
Richard St. James.
At last, the familiar anger and consternation returned, flaming to life like a blazing fire.

On familiar ground once again, Caroline led Mary toward an official-looking booth, moving as quickly as possible through the smell of wet wool, sweat, and grease.

Avoiding pleasantries, she asked if there was a map of New York, more specifically Manhattan, available for purchase.

“No. But you may consult that one over there.” The bored official pointed absently to a large map posted on the wall beside his booth.

“Thank you.”

A quick perusal of the crisscrossing lines and Caroline let out a sigh of relief. She’d assumed the city’s layout would be as complicated as London’s, and thus it would take her considerable time to learn her way around. But after one long, pointed look at the map, she had the basic design memorized. The streets, avenues, and boulevards created perfectly spaced squares running east to west, north to south, with a large park in the middle.

Mary pulled in close beside her, her gaze on the map as well, her brows drawn together in confusion. “Do you see where we have to go?”

“That’s Orchard Street, there.” Caroline ran her finger along a line just north and slightly east of the foot of the island.

Mary squinted at the map, cocked her head, and then—finally—nodded. “I see it now.”

Dropping her hand, Caroline kept her gaze trained on their destination a moment longer. She resisted the urge to let out a cynical snort.

She’d traveled across an entire ocean only to land right back where she’d started, on the east end of a city that had no place for her and probably never would. The irony would have amused her if it wasn’t so terribly tragic.

Would she ever find a place to call home?

Until she completed her task in this city, it was a question she dared not ask herself. Where she ended up after this ordeal was over didn’t matter. It couldn’t.

Jackson Montgomery had a long, tedious afternoon ahead of him, one that promised nothing but trouble, assuming his assistant’s report proved correct. Since John Reilly was meticulous with his details, often to a fault, Jackson braced for the worst as he rounded the corner of Hester Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

With his assistant following silently beside him, Jackson was able to study his surroundings without interruption or unnecessary input.

Eyeing the general area, he drew in a sharp breath of air and swallowed back a hiss. The oppressive stench of rotting vegetables, day-old fish, and unwashed linens filled his nose. The low, mournful sound of a merchant’s shout rang out, followed by several more. Even though the end of the day approached, countless men, women, and—sadly—children continued to conduct their daily business, as if every sale mattered to their ultimate survival. Which, Jackson realized, was probably true.

Various foreign languages wafted through the foul-scented air. Jackson recognized German, Italian, and several Slavic dialects. Even accented English from the British Isles joined the incomprehensible jumble of words as the people haggled over prices.

He’d never seen so many desperate souls jammed in one place. Not even the opening-night crush at the opera compared with such chaos. Careful to avoid knocking someone over, he wove through the marketplace at a slow pace. After nearly careening into a cart of radishes, he turned onto Orchard Street, where the five tenement houses he owned were located.

Tapping into the remaining scraps of his self-control, Jackson emptied his mind of all emotions, all thoughts, all intents save one: the landlord of his Orchard Street tenement houses had better be prepared with an explanation.

Despite Jackson’s efforts to remain detached, icy anger surged. He swallowed back the emotion and focused on the alleyway to his right and then the one on his left. So many people. So little space available for them.

As if reading his thoughts, John Reilly broke his silence. “So many people, living on top of one another, it’s unconscionable.”

“Yes, it is.” Jackson swerved out of the way of a toddling child clinging to her mother’s skirt. “They pack themselves in the tenement houses along these streets, sometimes three generations to a room.”

“That can’t be comfortable. Nor”—his eyes haunted and filled with distress, Reilly frowned at the overflowing gutters and trash on the street—“sanitary.”

Left eye twitching, jaw tight, Jackson fisted his hand with a white-knuckle grip. “No, not without proper ventilation in the apartments it isn’t.”

Hence the reason he’d given Smythe such a large sum of money last month. He’d instructed the landlord to make long overdue repairs as well as construct a series of interior windows that would allow the outside air to better flow through the individual apartments.

With so many people living in one unit, the airless rooms had to be stifling on a good day, unbearable in the summer. The image brought a heavy dose of guilt. Why had he not come down here sooner?

Jackson had never planned to own real estate, especially not tenement houses, but that was one of the many consequences of his father’s selfish actions. Yet, as he looked around him, Jackson’s own difficulties seemed trifling compared to the daily struggles these people faced. He was humbled by their fortitude, by their willingness to forge a life for themselves despite their cramped living conditions, lack of consistent employment, dismal wages, and often the inability to speak English.

The least he could do was ensure they had a safe home to return to at night after a long, hard day of work.

Why had he allowed his landlord such autonomy when his gut had warned him the fellow couldn’t be trusted?

The question weighed heavy on his heart because, deep down, Jackson knew the answer. He’d been focused on his own troubles and personal agenda instead of the people indirectly in his care.

Perhaps if his father had stayed and faced the consequences of his actions all those years ago, Jackson would have been more aware of the conditions of his tenement houses.