Band of Sisters (33 page)

Katie Rose turned and crossed the room. She pulled back the tattered curtain and looked into the darkened glass. Maureen watched her sister’s reflection as she waited, watched her features change, wondered what brewed in her thirteen-year-old head. She sighed at last, unable to guess. “Come away from the window.”

“I’ve decided.” Katie Rose spoke quietly. “With you or without you, I’m goin’ to Olivia’s. We came to America for a different life, and I mean to have it. I won’t become like you. I won’t crawl, and I won’t do the things you’ve done to get what you want.”

“The things I’ve done? What I want?” Maureen could not believe her ears.

Katie Rose faced her sister. “I saw you do it in Ireland. I know you took money from that man at Ellis Island—you told me yourself. And now, now that we can’t make ends meet, you’d rather move into some deeper, darker hovel than take the decent hand that’s offered us.”

Maureen gasped, anger and shame both rising within.

“Well, I’ll not do it, and if you persist, I’ll not have anythin’ to do with you.”

Maureen stood. “What I did in Ireland I did so you and Mam could keep a roof over your heads and food in your bellies! I did it so you wouldn’t be sleepin’ in ditches and barns after Da died or be driven off to the poorhouse.” She shoved the chair between them aside. “I did it because Lord Orthbridge was bigger and stronger than me and I had no other choice. And I did it with no thanks or pity from you or Mam! Not once!”

Katie Rose’s face took an ugly, grim turn. “That’s a lie, Maureen O’Reilly. May God strike you for such a lie!”

“Did you think Lord Orthbridge let you both squat in a cottage not our own because he took pity? He was not well acquainted with pity!”

Katie Rose began to tremble and shouted back, “He did it because Mam paid him with her body and soul, regular as clockwork every Monday and Thursday night that he stumbled home from the pub. She paid him in her bed, to keep us and to keep you in your fine, grand life—you with your feathered bed and painted walls and clothes and shoes and more food than we saw all the year!”

Maureen felt a rush of waters through her body, a dinning in her brain.

“So don’t tell me that you did anythin’ worth anythin’! Mam did it all, and you did whatever you did because you wanted it. You wanted him crawlin’ over you and whatever luxuries he gave you for it!”

Maureen knew her head moved from side to side in sick denial. She knew that Katie Rose had it wrong—terribly, terribly wrong.
Unless . . .

“And now you want to pull me down with you—when I’ve a chance to be good, to lead a good life, and an offer to help me have those luxuries you enjoyed. Only I’ll have them without your sin!”

Lord Orthbridge played us all for fools, two ends against the middle, knowin’—bankin’—that we’d never confess the horror of our shame to one another.
“It’s not true . . . I never knew he went to Mam.”

Katie Rose glared as though she didn’t believe her.

“Those nights he frequented the pub—they were my only nights of reprieve after Lady Catherine died. But I never suspected he—he never told me, and Mam never did. He took my wages for your rent and food all those years, and he took me after Lady Catherine died because he said the money wasn’t enough for—Oh, why didn’t she stop him? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mam made me swear.” Katie Rose turned her face to the wall; Maureen could not tell if she cried.

“But how could she keep such a secret in the village?”
Everyone knew what he did to me. They never let me forget!

“They knew.”

“But they treated Mam with respect.”

“Because ‘a husband has his rights’—that’s what Mam said.”

“A husband . . . his rights?” Maureen could not believe her ears. “He had no rights to force her! Mam was Da’s widow, alone and defenseless. He took his liberties because he was landlord and powerful, not his rights!”

Katie Rose stared blankly at Maureen a long time, so long Maureen whispered, “Katie Rose?”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That he was Mam’s lover—long, long ago.”

Maureen felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”

“Before she and Da—your da—ever married. They’d bed and wed in a makeshift ceremony in the woods. But Lady Catherine wouldn’t have it, Mam being a country girl and no title, no dowry—a
nothin’
. Lady Catherine cast her out.”

Maureen stood, the room falling around her.

“And so she married Da. But Mam said she still saw Lord Orthbridge from time to time.” Now Katie Rose cried. “She said she could not help herself.”

“No.”

“And that’s how it was that Da had his stroke—when he found them together. He’d not known before. All the village had known, Mam said, but Da had been too grateful to have a family of any sort to heed, and they’d had the decency not to openly shame him.”

Maureen could not believe the slander, and yet it forced itself with steel-edged clarity into her brain.

“And that’s how I was born.”

Maureen sat down again, her knees weak, her stomach broiling, her wits seeking a mooring.

“Lord Orthbridge is my father, not Da. That’s why Aunt Verna insisted you take me away. Because Gavin Orthbridge is my brother—my half brother.” Katie Rose faltered, then went on. “Lord Orthbridge wouldn’t touch his daughter, but there was no tellin’ if he’d keep his son away or be able to.”

A minute, two minutes passed as Maureen tried to put the tale in order, but it swirled and tumbled through her heart, her mind, her limbs.

“Did you not notice that my hair and eyes were nothin’ like yours and Da’s—nor even Mam’s? Did you never wonder?”

Maureen swallowed, trying to push down the bile in her throat.

“Have you nothin’ to say, then?”

“I didn’t know.”
All that time, all that time he used me night after night, he was sneakin’ off to do the same to my mother—but no, he didn’t rape her. She willingly went to him, let him come to her. She carried his child. Katie Rose is his child—and Da found them together! Da found them together, and it brought on the stroke that shaped the rest of his days!
She couldn’t bear the tale; she couldn’t bear to take it in but, unable to grasp it, did not dare to let it go. Aunt Verna’s words coursed through her veins:
“She was not a good wife, my sister.”

“I won’t allow myself to be caught in that tangled web that you and Mam wove—which is exactly what will happen if we stay here. We’ll be workin’ for Mr. Crudgers or someone like him. I won’t do it! I won’t!”

Yes, a web—so tangled, so convoluted. But I must protect her. She’s his daughter . . . she’s not Da’s girl, but . . . I must protect her.

“You suit yourself, Maureen. I’m goin’ to—”

“You can’t,” Maureen whispered. “You can’t,” she pleaded more loudly. “Don’t you see that you’d become beholden to them as well? The Meitlands are the Orthbridges of New York City!”

“What I see is that you don’t want to go—you and your pride—and you don’t want me to go without you. You fear I’ll come above you. And you don’t like that, do you? You don’t think I’m equal to you.”

“Katie Rose! It’s not like that!”

“You despise Mam’s love for Lord Orthbridge. And now that you know I’m not Da’s daughter like you—you so noble and high . . . but I’m the daughter of a lord! But to you, all you can see is that I’m his dirty leavin’s! That’s what you think, isn’t it?” Tears streamed down Katie Rose’s face.

“No! I never thought such a thing!”

“Are you goin’ to tell Olivia?”

“Tell Olivia? Why would I—?”

“Are you goin’ to tell her I’m not Da’s daughter, that I’ve no rights to her protection?”

“Of course not. I’m just tryin’ to take it all in—”

“Well, I don’t care. I’ll deny it. I’ve as much right to the Wakefields as you do—not by Da’s blood, but by all Mam did.” Katie Rose picked up her plate and threw her meal into the slop basin. “I don’t know what to believe about you anymore, Maureen. You say one thing—as if you’re so concerned about doin’ what’s right, what’s best for us—and then you go and do another. You made us beholden to that Jaime Flynn, and you got us stuck in this hovel! You forged a letter and you lied about the Wakefields.” She glared at her sister. “You lost your good job, and you refused to take the Lord’s Communion, for pity’s sake! You’ve spurned the best man we know, the man I . . . I love, and turned your back on good and decent people. And now that horrid man is comin’ to our door for—for—” But she couldn’t finish.

“Katie Rose, we’ll move. I promise. But the Meitland man is mixed up with the disappearin’ women; I’m sure of it. I don’t want you near him!”

“So you said before, but you’ve no proof of it.” Katie Rose stepped back. “How do I know that you’ve not spun that tale? People don’t just disappear with no one cryin’ the alarm.” She tilted her head and looked squarely at Maureen. “You’re tryin’ to scare me. You are, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“You’re tryin’ to frighten me from acceptin’ Olivia’s offer so I’ll stay with you. Well, it won’t work, and I won’t stay.”

Maureen saw the light of decision in her sister’s eyes.
Whatever I say she will discount. Whatever I say will add fuel to her fire.
Maureen sighed. Her head splitting, she turned away, knowing that only a miracle could heal their breach.

Olivia stepped into the motorcar. She knew it was totally beyond the bounds of propriety for her, unchaperoned, to invite Curtis Morrow to her home, but a midday stroll through Central Park seemed harmless enough.

And she needed to talk with someone about the O’Reilly sisters. She couldn’t talk with Dorothy. Her sister had struggled with inviting the O’Reillys to attend the Ladies’ Circle and tea in her home. How would she respond when she told her that Katie Rose had moved into Morningside?

But Curtis had helped her find Maureen, and from the beginning he’d seemed to grasp and support her desire to help the sisters—no questions asked.

Why can’t Dorothy exhibit that same kind of faith?
But Olivia knew the answer. It was all too close to her sister’s heart and health.
Beautiful immigrant girls in need of help, perhaps desperate. Just the type of women Drake must see every day in the tenements he buys and sells.
Olivia sighed.
No, I can’t ask Dorothy. And Joshua is busy working for Curtis—besides, he’s too smitten with Maureen to be objective. Curtis is the only logical choice.

Despite her conviction of the need for this meeting, the corners of her mouth tugged upward. She didn’t mind seeing Curtis Morrow again, for any reason.

Ralph, her new driver, pulled the motorcar to the curb and ran round the back to open the door for his employer. He proffered a steady hand as she stepped onto the frozen ground. “You’re certain you don’t want to wait in the car, ma’am? It’s biting cold, and the path to the pond may be slippery.”

“Quite certain, Ralph, thank you. But you’ll keep the motorcar here?”

“Of course, ma’am. I’ll keep the motor running. But don’t you want me to accompany you?”

“No. No, of course not.” And she walked off, her head held as high as she dared while watching for icy spots.

Olivia had thought it brilliant and proper enough to meet Curtis in the open-air company of the colorful, swirling ice skaters in Central Park. Now that she was descending the slippery path in the cold, she wondered if it was the best location for a serious conversation.

By the time she’d reached the pond’s edge, a tall and graceful skater had sped by, returned, and waltzing near the edge, tipped his black hat to her in a rakish grin. Not daring to return his forward glance, she turned aside, pretending she’d not seen. When she was fairly certain he’d gone, she turned again, wishing mightily that Curtis would come soon.

A few couples with heads close together, whispering and laughing, dominated the frozen landscape, gliding, twirling, cutting lavish figure eights.

When a handsome pair flew by in tandem, their arms and eyes locked, Olivia momentarily imagined herself being led and twirled round and round by Curtis in a Viennese waltz. So mesmerized was she by the idea that she stepped gingerly onto the ice and attempted a little glide in her shoes. Three feet from the shore she realized the impetuous folly of what she’d done and, clasping a hand to her chest, chided herself for behaving in such a schoolgirl fashion. One step toward shore and her feet flew from under her.

But Curtis Morrow was suddenly beside, behind, and around her in one smooth glide, lifting her to her feet. “Where are your skates, Miss Wakefield?” he teased, spinning her once.

“My skates? But I didn’t come to skate!” Olivia slipped again, was caught again by Curtis and righted in one smooth swoop, and left breathless from the sudden nearness of the strong and confident man.

“No skates? For a skating meet?” Curtis swerved, digging his blade to a sudden stop.

“No!” she tried to laugh, doing her best to cover her heated face. “It’s not that kind of meeting!”

“But you said you wanted to meet at the skating pond—oh—oh, I thought this was a social event.” Curtis frowned, looking sincerely disappointed, though he couldn’t seem to keep the grin from pulling up the corners of his lips. “At least, I’d hoped you wanted to engage me in a social event.”