City of Promise (11 page)

“If Auntie Eileen had picked the man’s pocket,” Mollie said, “he wouldn’t have known a thing about it.”

She and Josh and her aunt were in Eileen’s sitting room. Hatty had fixed an early supper of creamed finnan haddie on toast, and fed them before the fire, and though Mollie had only one glass, her aunt and Joshua between them finished off a bottle of French wine, a Graves from 1863 which Eileen pronounced of the highest quality. It was time for truth telling. “Auntie Eileen,” Mollie said, “is an Armagh O’Halloran. They are famous for their skill at dipping.”

“Entirely so,” Eileen said. “You must have some brandy to settle your digestion, Mr. Turner.” She poured a snifter from the decanter at her elbow, then another. “I shall join you. Just this once. Since it has been such a difficult day. My niece never takes brandy.”

“I notice,” Josh said, “that Miss Popandropolos is modest in all her habits.”

“Don’t tease, Josh,” Mollie said. “It’s Mollie Brannigan. As you now know.”

“My fault she deceived you,” Eileen said. She’d been racking her brain for a scheme that would let her influence Joshua Turner’s courtship of Mollie and now the opportunity had been handed to her. Never a cloud but what there’s a silver lining, as her mam would have said in the old country. “I’m the one who insisted Mollie use a false name when she went to work at Macy’s. I didn’t want her tarred with my brush. All for nothing as it turns out.” Eileen raised her snifter in Josh’s direction. “Your health, Mr. Turner. And I drink it happily, though Teddy Paisley’s had the best of me this time.”

“I thought he must be the one to have done this,” Mollie said. “But how could he have known where you’d be?”

Eileen held up her hands. Every one of her rings—stripped from her hands by the police when she was first arrested—had been returned to her before they left the Tombs. Entirely unexpected, and a courtesy Eileen attributed to the intercession of Boss Tweed. “The grand opening of Tiffany’s new store in Union Square . . . I was bound to show up.”

“All right, I see that,” Mollie said, “but how did Paisley manage to get his purse into your pocket?”

“Not himself. I’d have spotted him instantly. Clearly he had someone inside the store. And I obliged the villain by not clipping the pocket to my dress but carrying it in my hand. And when I put it down to try on a brooch . . .” Eileen shrugged. “Teddy’s waited all these years. I’m sure he made provision for every eventuality.”

Josh let the matter of some old grudge slide. None of his business and he really didn’t care. “Why do you say this Paisley’s had the best of you, Mrs. Brannigan? You obviously have, as they say, friends in high places.”

“Indeed I do. And I am assured Boss Tweed will see to it that the charges are dropped. But . . .” She got up and walked to the window. “Come over here, Mr. Turner.”

Josh did as he was bid. Eileen pushed aside a length of emerald green velvet, exposing the lace curtain beneath. “Look at that,” she said.

There was a crowd of perhaps two dozen men on the street below. All circling Eileen Brannigan’s front door. “Do not mistake these creatures for importunate clients begging us to open our doors, Mr. Turner. They are reporters,” Eileen said.

“So many,” Josh said, “that no client, however importunate, to use your word, can get near the place.”

“Yes, though that doesn’t matter tonight. The house is always closed on the Sabbath. But the clients won’t come tomorrow night either. This is the second time Teddy Paisley has managed to have my heritage become an item of interest to the New York press. Other
houses could sustain such an onslaught, Mr. Turner. Not Brannigan’s. It’s entirely contrary to the spirit of the place.”

“A man’s home from home,” Josh said. “With a companion that might be his wife, if his wife was as beautiful and intelligent—”

“—and willing as well as skilled in the bedroom,” Eileen finished for him. “Exactly. So we’re done.”

Mollie had come to stand beside them. “It’s dreadful, Auntie Eileen. What shall you do?”

“Oh, I shall find other ways to keep myself occupied. No fear of that. But what, my darling Mollie, shall we do about you? That’s the question.”

“Me? I don’t understand . . .”

“My niece,” Eileen said, aiming her remarks at Joshua Turner, “is astonishingly capable and talented and I think lovely, as long as one does not have a taste for the flamboyant. But, Mr. Turner, sometimes—to use an expression from the old country—she’s as thick as two short planks. Mollie,” turning to her, “the reporters for the gutter press hang about the Tombs like the water rats they are. You were no doubt seen when you arrived and carefully observed when you left with me. By tomorrow you will be a featured part of the story of my disgrace. You as well, Mr. Turner, though I doubt it will be as problematic for you as for my niece. It’s only women who are seen as the villains in matters such as these. The men are their victims, led astray by their natural instincts.”

“No problem at all for me,” Josh said. “As you rightly point out. But will Mollie not be perceived simply as a loyal and loving niece coming to her aunt’s aid in a time of trouble?”

“Yes, Auntie Eileen. That might—”

Eileen made a sound somewhere between laughter and a derisive snort. “Not a chance, Mollie. Mrs. Getchell will be done with you. No scandal of any sort, that’s what’s allowed her to keep on hiring women at the store despite public disapproval. Rosie O’Toole will speak for you I’m sure, but it won’t make a penny’s worth of difference. Macy’s
will no longer have a job for you, my dear, and I daresay Miss Hamilton will want shot of you as well. You can, of course, come back and live with me. But then it’s spinsterhood for sure and certain. Unless—”

“Auntie Eileen!”

Eileen paid no attention to her outburst. “Unless you would like to marry her, Mr. Turner.”

“I would, Mrs. Brannigan. I most assuredly would.”

“Stop it! Both of you. How can you think I—”

“Hush, Mollie. This is a negotiation and I am far more experienced than you in such matters.”

“Joshua, I will not—”

“Listen to your aunt, Mollie. Hush.” This with a small and surreptitious pat on her bottom.

Eileen pretended not to notice. “Shall we go back to the fire, Mr. Turner? And will you have a touch more brandy?”

Josh and Eileen returned to their seats. Mollie stayed where she was, unsure if she was more astounded by the conversation or that extraordinarily intimate touch.

Josh held out his snifter. Eileen splashed in a generous portion of dark gold brandy. Josh murmured his thanks.

“Now,” Eileen said, “you must tell me how you propose to support my niece if this marriage takes place.”

“I manage property, Mrs. Brannigan.”

“Your own?”

“Much of it, yes, though some belongs to my parents. During the war when prices were depressed my father purchased six lots on Sixty-Third Street between Third and Fourth Avenues. We intend to build on them and sell the houses.”

“And do you,” Eileen asked, “have Croton water and gas lines as far north as East Sixty-Third Street?”

“We have. The city put them in when they paved the streets and avenues.”

“Then given running water and light, housing so far uptown is a
possibility. And building it an undertaking that requires clever management,” Eileen said. “But who will want to live so far from the town?”

“No one yet,” Josh admitted. “Nor on the property my mother purchased in the downturn. It’s even further north. Truly in the uncivilized wilds.”

“Ah yes, the remarkable Mrs. Devrey Turner,” Eileen said.

Mollie had figured out hours ago that Eileen knew all about Josh. She had no doubt that was down to Rosie O’Toole, but it was too late now to fret about that. She took a few steps toward the fire. “Auntie Eileen—”

“Do come and sit down, Mollie. And do please hush.”

“Yes, Mollie,” Josh said. “Please hush.”

He was twinkling at her.

Mollie sat down.

“Where, Mr. Turner, is your very clever mother’s property?”

“She owns, Mrs. Brannigan, all the lots from Eighty-Seventh to Ninety-Fifth Street along the east side of Fourth Avenue.”

“A shanty town,” Eileen said. “Even less likely to appeal to people looking for housing than your father’s property in the East Sixties.”

“I agree with you,” Josh said. “But that will not always be the case.”

Eileen nodded. “Possibly so. But for now you are a gentleman bearing the legacy of a very unfortunate wartime injury, who claims to be ‘managing’ property in a part of town where no respectable person would consider being seen. Please tell me how this equips you to provide a living for my niece.”

“My family was extremely kind when I returned from the war, Mrs. Brannigan. Admittedly, calling me manager of their property was more a promise for the future than a source of present income, but my brother’s company made me a loan that enabled me to begin acquiring property of my own. Mostly brownstones deserted by the gentry. They are now rooming houses. Like your Miss Hamilton’s,” with a nod to Mollie. “The rents provide me a decent income. And the loan from Devrey’s has been paid back.”

“But,” Eileen said, “your rooming houses are an asset with little room for expansion. One can charge only so much rent for any room. Even in New York City. What about the future, Mr. Turner?”

“I have plans, Mrs. Brannigan.”

“Do tell, Mr. Turner.”

“We are running out of housing room on our island. I am going to change that by building flats.” He turned to Mollie. “That’s why I took you to Eighteenth Street. I wanted to explain—”

“French flats,” Eileen said. “That’s what you plan to build? On the lots belonging to your mother and father?”

Josh shook his head. “The French flats are like my idea, but they are not my model. Nor is the new place Hunt’s building over on Broadway. And while I’m not quite sure exactly where I’m going to build, I expect at least my mother’s lots to be many decades away from being suitable for what I have in mind. And it will still be some years before the city catches up to our holdings in the East Sixties. Where, however, is a more easily solved problem than how.” He leaned forward and began moving the remains of their supper about the table to illustrate his point. “I can pile these plates and cups and saucers on each other easily at first.” He made a stack of a cup topped with a dish and then a wineglass, then picked up another dish and held it above the glass’s rim. “But if I try to go too high it will all fall down.” He replaced the plate on the table, avoiding any jeopardy to Eileen’s crockery.

Mollie was so intrigued by the discussion she forgot the humiliating reason for it: that she was being haggled over like a piece of merchandise at a Macy’s sale. (Not, of course, that Macy’s permitted haggling, fixed prices having been the engine that fueled the remarkable rise of all the department stores of the Ladies’ Mile.) “But,” she said, “that’s because you chose to put a narrow cup at the base of your stack. If you built it on a dish or a soup bowl, it could go higher.”

“In principle, yes. A broader base allows you to build a higher structure. But to achieve such a thing in a building rather than a tower of dishes, you have to keep making the walls thicker. Granite is an improvement
on bricks. That’s why we can do so much more with newer granite and cast-iron buildings. But a wider and therefore stronger granite base dramatically cuts down on usable space within the building, particularly on the lower floors which command the highest prices.”

“And do you have a solution for this conundrum, Mr. Turner?”

“Not yet,” he admitted, “but I’m working on it.” Ebenezer Tickle it said on the card Trent Clifford had given him. It was in his breast pocket now. Picking up the card along with his money clip and his keys and his pocket handkerchief had become a regular part of Josh’s morning routine. Ebenezer Tickle. At an address on Dey Street downtown.
Figure out how to do it and I’ll back you.
A man who had stood on a riverbank shooting at desperate, unarmed men as if they were clay pigeons. “It’s not a simple matter, Mrs. Brannigan. I don’t wish to lie to you. Not simple at all. But I intend to solve it.”

“Am I correct, Mr. Turner, in thinking that the solution is likely to involve a considerable sum of money?”

“That’s part of it, yes.”

“My niece,” Eileen said, “comes with a hundred-thousand-dollar dowry.”

“No! Auntie Eileen, you’ve gone too far. I won’t have it.”

“The rate increase,” Eileen said, addressing her niece but acting as if she hadn’t heard a word of Mollie’s protest, “over four years brought it to sixty-something. I’m rounding up.”

“Rounding!—you are practically doubling. Auntie Eileen, this is just like the Merkel affair. I told you then, I am not a horse to be bargained for at an auction.”

Josh reached for her hand. “I have no idea who Merkel is, but you can’t think I believe you to be a horse or anything else to be bargained for. Surely you’ve known for months I want to marry you. I don’t think there’s another woman anywhere to whom I could speak with such frankness, let alone one so adorable and—” He broke off, as if remembering that he and Mollie were not alone, and looked at her
aunt. “Thank you, Mrs. Brannigan, but I don’t require a dowry. Only Mollie’s answer.” Then, turning to her once more, “Will you marry me, Mollie Brannigan?”

Eileen held up her hand. “Wait a moment before you answer, Mollie. Mr. Turner, that is a very gallant statement, and I can on occasion be as charmed by romance as any woman, but it’s not good business to turn down an offer of one hundred thousand dollars. The pair of you will have a desperate time of it in future if you’re no more sensible than that. On that evidence I would strongly advise you to refuse, Mollie.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t take the money, Mrs. Brannigan.” Josh still held Mollie’s hand. “Only that I would not accept it as a dowry. Mollie is beyond price, you and I both realize that, and I’m bound to add that however large a sum a hundred thousand sounds, it won’t be enough for what I have in mind. It will certainly help, however. And I’d be pleased to know that when the time is right I can count on you investing that sum in my endeavors.”