City of Promise (23 page)

The Gray Lady everyone called
The
Times.
It was a name the paper was said to regard with pride. They did not announce shocking or
scandalous stories with the black headlines of the tabloids, much less the hawking cries of newsboys. In the pages of the Gray Lady such news was to be found inside, quietly designated by a small and frequently understated headline. Eileen found what she was looking for at the bottom of page four:

BUSINESSMAN FOUND DEAD

Mr. Theodore Paisley, a naturalized American citizen immigrated from Ireland many years ago, was found dead in his home late yesterday afternoon. His housekeeper discovered him slumped at his desk and a glass of whiskey half drunk beside him. The police are testing the drink for poison. Foul play is suspected, but there are as yet no suspects nor any obvious motive.

Dear God in heaven. She had conspired in murder.

. . . give that child suck or I’ll tell everyone in the city you tried and failed and your day is past. Not a drop left and here’s the starving babe to prove it . . .

She’d have done anything to protect Mollie. Then as now. No difference.

Eileen stood up and tossed the paper on the fire and watched it burn.

Josh was getting a late start that morning. Damned rain always made his leg ache. It had been harder than usual to drag himself out of his warm bed. He’d turned to his wife instead. Now Mollie was sitting across from him at breakfast looking flushed and happy, meeting his gaze occasionally with a small smile in response to his huge and, he imagined, lascivious grin. He’d wanted her to be exactly that sort of woman. One who wasn’t afraid to acknowledge her own physical side or his.

“More coffee, Josh?”

“Thank you, yes.” He passed his cup over, and when she reached for it took the opportunity to raise her hand to his lips, smiling at her once more in that way that said more than words, and chuckling when she colored a deeper pink. After which he told himself it was time to stop flirting. Eat his breakfast and read his paper and get a move on. He’d visit the foundry first today, then he’d go and—Jesus God Almighty.
Mr. Theodore Paisley, a naturalized American citizen immigrated from Ireland many years ago, was found dead . . .

Eileen popped into his head immediately. Along with her sudden, unexplained rush to put in writing what had previously been acceptable as a verbal agreement taken on trust. Josh pondered for a moment. There was no connection he could see, but that did not mean one might not exist.

Let it lie. He felt the conviction start in his gut and rise to his brain and knew instantly it was settled. For him at any rate. He had not told Mollie about the visit to Eileen’s attorney or the document he’d signed. Perhaps Eileen had. Perhaps Mollie would make some sort of connection. “Take a look at this,” he said, passing her the paper. “Bottom of page four. Isn’t Paisley the man you and your aunt blamed for sending her to the Tombs?”

“So he is,” she said, reading the paper at the same time. She looked up a moment later. “Good riddance,” she said. “I know it’s not nice to feel so, but I do, Josh. He was incredibly mean to Auntie Eileen and I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

He read no guile in her open and frank gaze, had no sense of her knowing more than she admitted about his affairs or, for that matter, Eileen’s. “Fair enough,” he said, getting up and dropping a quick kiss on the top of her head. “Paisley’s gone. No need for you or your aunt to trouble yourselves about him ever again.”

Not him either. Josh was convinced of that. Teddy Paisley’s death could not in any way be connected to him or his affairs.

9

A
LL PRAYERS ARE
answered. Sometimes, however, the answer is no.

Mollie had read that in a magazine some years past. In this case the answer was yes, though she had to wait for it a bit longer than expected.

That Christmas of 1871, the first after their marriage, Josh and Mollie celebrated at Sunshine Hill so Carolina could participate. The occasion was made more festive because the Turners invited Auntie Eileen to join them, and Zac was back from England. Best of all for Mollie, it was a special holiday because she believed she was at last pregnant.

This was a secret she yet hugged to herself. She wanted to be absolutely sure for one thing. For another Josh seemed to have more on his mind than usual. He’d decided to keep the foundry working, and while the six additional lots he’d bought after they pawned Eileen’s jewels were a justification, making more steel than he could immediately use meant tying up still more of his limited capital. “If I have to I
can sell a couple of lots. They should triple in value once the railroad people get their shovels in the ground. But that’s not going to happen until the cold breaks.”

Josh didn’t say that to Mollie. She heard him make the comment to Zac soon after the new year, when the brothers were discussing business in the Grand Street drawing room that had become an office. She’d not been invited to their meeting, but she’d gone in to bring them hot cider laced with rum and to borrow the copy of the
Christian Union
sitting on Josh’s desk. It wasn’t a weekly Josh usually read, but he’d placed the notice of flats to let on Sixty-Third Street in the
Union
as well as half a dozen other journals and newspapers. “May I, Josh? Only until I’ve read Mrs. Beecher’s column.”

“Yes, of course. And thanks for this,” gripping the pewter tankard. “Very welcome.”

“It is indeed,” Zac agreed. “This has to be the bitterest January ever.”

“And the driest,” Mollie agreed. “I don’t remember another winter without a single snowflake so late in the season.”

Both men agreed. Then, only to keep the conversation going, Mollie was sure, Zac asked her about Mrs. Beecher’s column. Advice to housewives, she explained, and he listened politely, though she was sure he’d not a penny’s worth of interest. After that there was no more small talk and it was clear her husband and her brother-in-law were waiting for her to go so they could resume their discussion. Mollie took the paper and left.

She settled herself at the dining room table and read the popular column.

These days, when there is so much work to be done in a properly furnished home, and when so many can have but one servant to do it, efficiency is the housewife’s primary skill. She must learn to manage her household like a business and prepare herself for it as a man prepares for his life’s work. It is imperative to keep careful records of everything to be
done each week: which silvers or brasses require to be polished, which carpets to be beaten, the proper arrangement and spotless cleanliness of the antimacassars and doilies and table coverings, etcetera. Further, you must be certain the domestic you employ understands the order in which these tasks are to be accomplished.

Mollie sighed. She did not find household chores quite so diverse or demanding. She had Mrs. Hannity all the time—the cook slept in a room in the attic—as well as Jane who came on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So perhaps Mrs. Beecher wasn’t speaking to her.

She put down the paper. Half a minute later she picked it up again and thumbed through the pages until she found Joshua’s advertisement. “French Flats to be let on Sixty-Third Street at the tasteful St. Nicholas,” it read. “Ready for occupancy in three to four months.” It was Carolina, eyes twinkling, who had suggested the building’s name, since, as she pointed out, Nick’s foresightful purchase had provided the land. “Favorable rates for those signing a lease in advance of completion,” Mollie read. And that interested parties were to inquire either at the property or at the Grand Street house.

The same notice had been running every day for two weeks. In at least half a dozen papers and periodicals. All had produced absolutely no result. Not a single person had come to Grand Street to ask about the flats, nor arrived at the building site to see the progress being made.

Mollie read the text a second time. Perhaps if Josh used slightly different wording . . . Her glance went to the announcements above and below. They spoke of ship arrivals. And postal rates. And various dockings and departures of assorted means of haulage. In the column on the left hand side of the page there was a long article about the reliability of paper money.

It could not be more clear. Mollie jumped to her feet.

Since Josh and Zac were discussing men’s affairs, she would normally have knocked to signal her arrival. In this instance, in the grip
of her flash of understanding, Mollie simply pushed open one half of the connecting doors. “Josh, I’ve figured it out! I know why no one has come to ask about the flats or gone uptown to see them.” Then, to her brother-in-law, “Please excuse me, Zac. I apologize for interrupting. But I know Josh has been worried. And I know what’s wrong.”

“And what is that, Mollie?” Josh didn’t sound angry. In fact he’d not raised his voice to her once in the nearly six months they’d been married. But he’d never sounded quite so distant either.

“It’s the position of the notice, Josh. Look, in the
Union
it’s here on the page with the shipping news and a discussion of whether silver currency should be eliminated. It’s the same with the other papers as well. I know it is.”

Josh continued to look at her, but he didn’t say anything. Zac seemed entirely occupied with some papers on the desk. He was, Mollie realized, embarrassed for his brother. She should have waited until she and Josh were alone. But it was such an obvious truth, Josh had to see it as well. “You’re speaking to the wrong people, Josh. Only men read these pages. You need to have the notice inserted on the pages that women read. Next to Mrs. Beecher’s column in the
Christian Union,
for example. Advice to housewives.”

“Mollie,” still that same quiet and distant voice, “the lease of a flat of this sort, indeed the choice of where to house his family, is a man’s affair. It is not the responsibility of a housewife.”

“But if she wants the flat, Josh, and if she has reason to believe they can afford it, she’ll encourage her husband to at least inquire about . . .” Both Josh and Zac were looking at her now. Rather, she thought, as if she were a small child who had presumed to comment on things far beyond her understanding. Mollie stopped speaking.

“Thank you, Mollie. Now, if you don’t mind, Zac and I are busy.”

Her husband had dismissed her as effectively as if he’d waved her out of the room as he would a servant.

Mollie waited a few minutes. When he did not come out to apologize she went upstairs.

It occurred to her that he might spend the night in one of the other bedrooms, but after an hour of tossing and turning she heard the door open.

Neither of them said anything and Josh undressed without putting on a light. She wasn’t sure if he thought she was asleep, but when he got into bed beside her he said, “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I’m sure you didn’t. But if you believe me to be inadequate and my business decisions questionable, I would thank you to wait until we’re alone to say so.”

“How can you say that, Josh? Of course I don’t believe you’re inadequate. It was simply that I got this idea and—”

“I don’t wish to discuss it further, Mollie.”

She thought he would turn away but he turned to her instead. Mollie welcomed him, feeling a little surge of triumph because his need of her and the pleasure he obviously took in their coupling reminded her of her aunt’s advice.

Except that Auntie Eileen was wrong. You could not fix everything in the bedroom. Her husband seemed to enjoy her as much as ever, but when he was finished he turned over and went to sleep. He did not even murmur good night.

Least said, soonest mended. Nothing would get Josh back to being his customary kind and loving self more quickly than being relieved of the worry that no one would lease his flats. Mollie was, however, quite convinced no one would, if he continued to market them with advertisements only men would see. Very well, she would do what needed doing. When her scheme worked she’d have proved her point, and Josh would be too pleased to be angry with her.