Sons of an Ancient Glory (22 page)

Outside, the night was nothing but moonlight and the scent of summer flowers, heady and sweet on the warm July breeze. Michael pulled her along with him, and the star-sprinkled sky began to spin as they whirled across the patio.

“I'm doing it! I
am
, Michael!”

He held her tighter. “Of course, you are. Didn't I tell you all you had to do was follow my lead?”

“Well…the truth is, you're very nearly carrying me.…”

He searched her eyes for a moment. “And do you mind, sweetheart?”

“No,” Sara said softly. “I don't mind at all, Michael.”

Sara's feet scarcely touched the smooth flagstone. She was aware of nothing but dancing stars overhead, the strength of Michael's embrace, the white flash of his smile as he carried her smoothly beyond remembrance of her lame leg and her fear of clumsiness.

Tonight, for the first time, Sara danced. She danced with her husband, bathed in the magic of moonlight and the fragrance of flowers. Unable to contain herself as she floated in Michael's arms, she laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it all. He laughed with her, laughed at her delight and, Sara thought, with a delight all his own, to be dancing in a summer garden in the moonlight with his wife.

Seeing Sara and Michael disappear through the patio doors, Lewis Farmington guided Winnie in the same direction. He stopped just inside the ballroom, riveted by the sight of his daughter dancing.

He had never seen Sara quite like this, certainly had never seen her look so lovely or so happy. And, of course, he had never seen her dance, although he had sensed her longing, seen the yearning in her eyes more than once as she stood on the sidelines, watching others.

Michael was virtually carrying the girl over the patio, and her face was brighter than the halo of moonlight and stardust that framed the two of them. They looked so incredibly young, so infinitely happy—and so thoroughly in love—that Lewis had to wipe his eyes at the sight of them.

Beside him, Winnie put a hand to his arm. “Aren't they splendid, Lewis? Aren't they just
splendut
!”

He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the couple on the patio. “They are, indeed,” he choked out.

“It must make you feel very happy, Lewis, seeing them like this.”

Lewis turned to study his own dancing partner. Winnie was a vision tonight, she truly was! All pink lace and diamond fire, with that magnificent silver-blond hair piled high—why, she looked like something right out of a fairy tale!

Suddenly, before he could stop himself, he blurted out what had been on his mind for most of the evening—and for most of the week preceding the evening.

“Only one thing could make me happier, and that's a fact.”

Winnie looked at him with an ingenuous smile. “Whatever would that be, Lewis?”

Fumbling to reach his inside coat pocket, he withdrew the small velvet box he had tucked there earlier. “Seeing this on your finger!” he said bluntly, flipping the ring box open so abruptly it almost went flying out of his hand.

For a moment, Winnie continued to stare at him with that odd little wondering smile of hers. Finally, her eyes went to the diamond and sapphire ring glittering on the velvet cushion.

When she finally looked back to Lewis, still smiling, her eyes were twinkling like diamonds themselves.

“Well, then,” she said, extending her dainty left hand, “do put it on for me, darling. Please, do.”

Feeling twenty-five again—well, thirty at the most—Lewis put the ring on Winnie's finger and spun her back onto the dance floor for the next waltz.

My heart's oppress'd, I can find no rest,
I will try the land of liberty.

A
NONYMOUS
(I
RISH
S
TREET
B
ALLAD
C. 1847)

Q
uinn O'Shea stood staring out across the river to the island known as
Brooklyn
. It had been another miserably hot day. The river had a stench that made her think of garbage and death. The sun was going down, but its heat remained cloying and oppressive.

Workers had begun to spill out from the warehouses onto the docks, wiping their faces with large kerchiefs as they grumbled about the ongoing heat wave. Heavy iron gates and shutters clanged shut behind them, and soon the wharves grew quiet with the anticipation of approaching nightfall.

Quinn shuddered at the thought of another night on the docks, without shelter. She had been living on the riverfront for days.
Like a harbor rat
, she thought to herself,
though not near so adept at sniffing out food.

After bolting from the quarantine hospital, she had spent the first two days wandering aimlessly about the city with Bobby Dempsey and the others. At first, she had been too dumbfounded by the sights and sounds of New York to fret much about her empty belly. Before long, though, she had been forced to face the reality of their situation: they had no food, no jobs—not even a place to sleep, other than in the alleys, among others as impoverished as themselves.

Finally, at the coaxing of some other Irishmen on the docks, Roche and Boyle decided to take their women off to a place called Five Points. According to the weaselly characters that talked them into the idea, there were decent boardinghouses and the prospects of jobs to be had in this Five Points place.

Quinn already knew she didn't want to attach herself to the others. They were a rough, dirty bunch, as coarse as they came. When Bobby made known his intention of staying on the docks to find work, she decided, at least for the time being, to stay with him.

So far, though, he hadn't found even the hopes of a job, and Quinn was beginning to think she should get away, on her own—as much for Bobby's sake as for her own. He was too concerned for her by far. He spent more time looking after
her
than he did looking for work.

What she could not seem to make the slow-thinking Bobby understand was that she did not
need
looking after. Indeed, his continual hovering was beginning to annoy her. This afternoon, for example, Quinn had practically had to get cross with him just to get him out of her shadow for a spell.

Bobby could not know, of course, that Quinn had resolved before ever leaving Ireland to never again be beholden to a man—not even to a kindly intentioned man like Bobby Dempsey. Once had been enough. She would not be paying the piper twice for the same tune.

She was seventeen, a woman grown, and from now on, she was on her own keeping entirely. She had decided that tomorrow, while Bobby was off searching for work, she would simply disappear.

At the moment, however, she was feeling a bit uneasy about the man. He should have been here long before now. Added to her concern was a growing weakness and light-headedness. Her legs would scarcely hold her up, so wobbly were they from the lack of food.

She was beginning to think she had merely exchanged the Hunger at home in Ireland for yet another hunger here in the United States.

The land of golden streets…

Quinn uttered a brief sound of disgust. Perhaps somewhere out there in the city, those golden streets did, indeed, exist. Somewhere far and away from
this
place, where the starving and the ill huddled like rats just to stay alive, where men fought like animals for a bite of food from the rubbish barrels…perhaps there truly
were
streets paved with gold and opportunity.

But so far, the only thing Quinn O'Shea had seen on the streets of New York were drunken sailors, Irish immigrants, and wild pigs.

And only the pigs, Quinn had noticed, appeared to be well-fed.

Sergeant Denny Price was deep into the Bowery, a ways off his beat.

He had come down to meet a nervous informant who refused to budge from the bar of the Blue India saloon. Although this particular pigeon had proved valuable in the past, Denny was feeling just irritable enough from the heat that he begrudged the time and the effort he was expending for what might turn out to be nothing.

He curled his lip as he neared the bar, disgusted by the ripe smell of garbage rising off the streets. The steady high temperatures of the past few days had only made the stench worse. Nights brought no relief, either from the foul odors or the oppressive heat. Nights like these made Denny remember with a great fondness the sweet, clean air of Donegal.

It was just past ten when he rounded the corner of Chatham and started toward the saloon. He stopped dead at an outcry just ahead. Seeing nothing, he waited. Again came a shriek, a cry that sounded like that of a young girl.

Pulling his pistol, Denny moved, quickly but cautiously. There was no lack of people in the streets. The Bowery was a blaze of light, pouring out from the gin palaces and the free-and-easys. Street vendors, men and boys on their way in and out of the saloons, prostitutes, youths out on the town—this was the East Side's center of night life.

But the crowded streets didn't necessarily mean safety, Denny knew. As with anywhere else in the city, the Bowery was no place in which a policeman dare let down his guard.

Nevertheless, when the next scream shrilled through the streets, he threw caution aside and took off at a run.

Quinn had intended to keep her distance from the gambling den. She had gone in search of Bobby, but after futile hours of looking, wandering farther and farther from the riverfront, she'd given up.