Band of Sisters (19 page)

By the time Maureen had laid the table and poured the tea, Katie Rose had uncrossed her arms and moved to the window to peer into the street. It was Sunday night, but the tavern below was already doing a lively business, and a Tin Pan piano player kept the beat livelier still.

“It’s different than the pub in the village,” Katie Rose spoke meekly.

“’Tis,” Maureen acknowledged. “We’ll not be wantin’ to walk about the hallway more than we need to by night.” She motioned her sister to the table. “Nor to be seen through the window.”

“Why?”

Maureen sighed. She hated that she even knew the answer. “The men in the streets look up, and if they see a face or figure they fancy, they tell the tavern keeper.”

“That doesn’t mean anythin’.”

“It means they think you’re advertisin’ yourself—sellin’ yourself—and they expect to get what they want. If you don’t give it freely, they’ll come bangin’ on the door to take it. Now come away from the window.”

They ate in grim silence. Katie Rose had not removed her cloak, and Maureen did not push her.

“It will warm up before long, at least a bit. The stove helps some.”

Katie Rose did not respond.

“Would you like to see the dress I’ve reworked for you?”

“I’m not goin’ to school.”

“Would you like to see the dress?” Maureen persisted.

Katie Rose didn’t answer but pushed the last of her potato to the edge of her plate and back again—once, twice, three times.

Maureen knew she was afraid to give an inch and decided at last that another week at home might not matter so very much, not if it meant they could forge some sort of truce. “I suppose you could do with another week to regain your strength.”

Katie Rose looked up.

“But you’ll be terribly alone. I leave at dawn for the store and am not home again until seven. From now till Christmas I’ll be called upon to stay longer; I’ve no idea how late.”

“I don’t mind bein’ alone—not now.” Katie Rose looked about the small room.

“You can’t go walkin’ about and gettin’ lost, and you can’t be downstairs in the tavern. Do you promise?”

Kaite Rose nodded quickly. A minute passed. “It’s just . . . I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“No—” Maureen reached for her sister’s hand—“nor did I. We’ll make the best of it, the best we can. And as soon as we can save some money, we’ll move. We’ll move to a place with our own tub and a real bed.”

“And hot water in the pipes. And no tavern.” Katie Rose did not pull her hand away.

“And no tavern!” Maureen smiled.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Then I’ll do our housekeepin’ and food shoppin’. I’ll do the washin’ and mendin’ and prepare our tea.”

“For this week.”

“Until my scars are healed.”

“We don’t know how long that will—”

“And then I’ll find a position, like you.”

Maureen winced at the strength of Katie Rose’s grip upon her fingers.

“I’m not goin’ to school. I’d have only this year before I’m too old, anyway. I know enough of readin’ and writin’ and cipherin’. It’s plain as plain we can’t manage on your wages. I might not be able to work in a shop, but I heard at the hospital that there are sewin’ factories all over New York. You know I’m good with my needle, and I’m dyin’ to learn the new machines.”

“But—”

“There’re no buts.” Katie Rose pushed Maureen’s hand away. “You’re not Mam, and unless you’re ready for us to go beggin’ at the Wakefields’ door, we’re both needed.”

Maureen was taken aback by the obstinacy of the sister she’d supposed meek and mild, the sister who’d had so little to say until stepping onto American shores. She stood, too weary to argue, and placed their crockery in the dry sink. She changed into her nightdress, pulled pins from her hair, and brushed long tresses until they shone in the lamplight. Something about the rhythmic brushing of her hair had always given Maureen a sense of peace and balance. She braided it into one long coil and swept it over her shoulder.

Everything her sister said was true. There was no way she could pay the rent, buy their food, recoup the money she owed Jaime Flynn, pay Katie Rose’s hospital fees, and save enough for them to move on her wages alone.
As long as Jaime Flynn doesn’t know where I am, we have time.
But she closed her eyes, knowing it was a matter of weeks—perhaps days—until he did find her, until he saw her in the store he seemed to frequent too often.

Well, I’ll not force Katie Rose back to school. I can’t start our lives together with a daily struggle—I’ve not the energy or leisure. And I do understand what it is to face a new world at less than your best. What we’ll do if her scars don’t fade, I’ve no idea.

She’d heard from Alice and Mrs. Melkford both that night schools held classes in many parts of Manhattan, some especially for immigrants.
Perhaps I can convince Katie Rose to take evenin’ classes together once we’re better situated, once our lives settle into a daily pattern. We lost so many years in Ireland. It will be good to spend time together, to get to know each other and learn new things together. We’re all the family either of us has. And after all, it’s a new land, a new life for us both. There’s no sense tryin’ to hold on to the old ways. They didn’t serve us well.

She waited until Katie Rose had readied herself for bed. Before turning down the lamp, Maureen pulled her last three dollars from her purse and passed one to Katie Rose. “There’s a grocer on the corner. He gets fresh bread and milk each mornin’ and produce on Thursdays. Make this last, and mind he doesn’t cheat you.”

Two weeks passed. Maureen felt that she and Katie Rose were settling into something of a pattern. She’d worked late every night, restocking shelves and helping to arrange new displays, trying to keep pace with the Christmas rush. By the time she returned home, it was pitch-black, but the bar downstairs shone bright lights into the street, peddling a noisy trade.

Still, Maureen was relieved at how Katie Rose had taken over the cooking and shopping, even the housekeeping, with a vengeance. She’d even grown determined to “decorate” their flat for Christmas—a thing they’d never imagined back in the village. Maureen tried to nurture her sister’s enthusiasm, but her own longtime association with Christmas was confined to the landlord’s house, a memory that led from an ostentatious display of wealth, lavish gifts and banquets, scented candlelight, and yule logs to the abuse of wine and ale, and finally to nights of debauchery and misery that followed.

Maureen shook her head, pushing back the unpleasant and too-familiar trail of memory. She’d determined not to live in the regrets of the past but to make the most of their new lives. Some days that was harder to do than others, but she’d discovered an investment she could make in those lives today, when she heard one of Darcy’s clerks talking during lunch about a Christmas tree market near the Battery.

“Oh, you’ll love it!” Eliza had exclaimed. “It has every kind of tree imaginable! Evergreens, freshly cut and shipped from the Adirondacks, all in a giant lot; it’s like walking through a forest!” She’d lowered her voice. “And even if you’re not wanting a tree, there are branches free for the taking.”

Maureen didn’t know that New Yorkers gave away anything for free.

“Sometimes they have to cut the bottoms off the trunk, you see, so the tree fits a customer’s foyer or parlor or drawing room—wherever they want to place it. All those branches are thrown in a heap. My neighbor goes round and collects what he can, fashions wreaths, then sells them on the street corner.”

“People pay money for branches wound round into wreaths?”

Eliza had nodded enthusiastically. “New Yorkers own more money than sense!”

The girls had laughed conspiratorially, but that night, Maureen and Katie Rose fell asleep talking of the fresh scent of pine and spruce, the aroma of sticky cedar.

“It will be just the thing to fill our flat with fragrance—and pale the reek of the privy!” Katie Rose clapped. “Say we’ll go!”

It was the first excitement Katie Rose had expressed for anything out of doors. Maureen sighed to think how her sister’s hatred of her slowly fading scars had kept her from exploring the possibilities of New York and from applying for employment.
Perhaps this will encourage her.

They were inching along, a bit hungry, and shivering from lack of food and heat by night.
But we’re managin’. Still, a trip to the tree market will make a fine outin’; it will cost us nothin’ but shoe leather. And we’ll hope there’re branches to be had.

She hadn’t told Katie Rose, but there were wonderful Christmas displays in the store windows of Manhattan’s shopping district, some backlit by electric lights in the evenings. Maureen smiled to anticipate her sister’s delight of standing in a dark world, suddenly surprised by Mr. Edison’s lights along the streets, as she had been that dark Thanksgiving night.

Perhaps in another month or two, if nothin’ unforeseen happens, and if Katie Rose gets the job she hopes, we’ll be able to move to a flat in a respectable boardinghouse. Perhaps there’ll be a light outside our window in a better street!
Maureen breathed deeply to think of the peace a move might bring—no more bawdy drunkards below, perhaps a hot bath on occasion, and the friendship of other young women. And best of all, no reminders of her past.

Despite the cold and lightly falling snow, Joshua Keeton wiped the sweat from his brow. He still wasn’t used to dodging automobiles, whose drivers swore they owned the slippery roadways, or weaving his bicycle in and out of throngs of New Yorkers at breakneck speed. Horses, country lanes, and wide-open spaces were more to his liking.

But he was grateful for the work—any work that kept a roof over his head, food in his belly, and padded his pockets with a bit laid by for a rainy day, precious little though it was. Still, he’d no intention of making deliveries for department stores forever.

I’ll find somethin’ more by and by. At least I’ve learned the highways and byways and all the back alleys of the streets of New York. That’s bound to come in handy.

He hefted his bicycle and carried it up the outer back stairs of the boardinghouse, then straight to his room. He wasn’t about to leave it against the building for the next petty thief; he’d suffered at the hands of a few in New York. He slapped his cap against his knee to shake off the late afternoon dampness and hung his coat on the peg.

His stomach rumbled appreciatively at the smell of the meal Mrs. MacLaren was preparing below stairs. He took the steps down to the dining room two at a time.

“You’ll kill yourself trippin’ up and down those stairs one of these days, Mr. Keeton!” the plump landlady admonished, but with all the fondness of a doting aunt.

“The fragrance of your kitchen draws every bit of sense from my brain, Mrs. MacLaren! I can’t help myself or stay me soul!”

“Oh, you’re a silver-tongued devil, you are.” She dimpled. “One for the ladies, no doubt.” She set a bowl of steaming corned beef and cabbage on each end of the table, with a bowl of potatoes and a loaf of brown bread between.

“Only for you, my gracious lady.” Joshua bowed respectfully before taking his seat but knew his mouth turned up at its corners.

Mrs. MacLaren tucked her head to one side. “If I’m your one and only, then who’s this Verna Keithly, I’d like to know?” She pulled an envelope from her apron pocket and waved it, teasing, in the air. “A lass from County Meath pinin’ her heart out for the rovin’ likes of you?”

Why would Verna Keithly write to me?
Joshua’s smile turned down.
Maureen. What’s happened to Maureen?

His heart stopped. He’d prayed for her every day since last he’d seen her, since last she’d spurned him. He’d even mapped a route to the Wakefields’ address—the one Verna Keithly had given him when she’d asked him to escort her nieces to America. But wounded pride had kept him at least two blocks in every direction from Morningside.

No matter. It wasn’t easy to forget a woman who’d set his pulse to racing—a woman whose heart he’d set out to win since she was a girl and he a lad hired to cart wood for the Orthbridge estate. He’d dared hope his dream might come true when Mrs. Keithly charged him with care for Maureen and Katie Rose. But Maureen had made her feelings clear.