Sons of an Ancient Glory (48 page)

Finally, Kerry looked at him, touching her cheek to the baby's. “Oh, Jess,” she said, her green eyes shining, “of course, she can stay with us! Haven't I prayed for a little girl?”

“Now, Kerry, it will only be for a short time,” Jess cautioned, starting after her as she took off down the hallway toward the kitchen. “It's only temporary, you understand. Just until we can make other arrangements.”

She hadn't heard him, he was sure of it. With the basket of baby clothing dangling clumsily from his hand, he followed them to the kitchen, where Kerry was already introducing a wide-eyed Amanda to Brian Boru, the cat, and a startled Molly Mackenzie, their housekeeper.

The moaning wind! went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl

O
SCAR
W
ILDE
(1854-1900)

Q
uinn had known since Monday she was going to leave the Women's Shelter, but not until Friday morning did she decide that this would be the day.

She had spent the intervening days carefully rehearsing her plan, memorizing Ethelda Crane's schedule—and trying, in vain, to convince her friend, Ivy, to join her.

She thought of her plan as an
escape
, for the Chatham Charity Women's Shelter was surely a prison in every way, except that the inmates' only “crime” was the disgrace of being alone, helpless—and usually Irish—in the New World.

Escape had become Quinn's obsession.

Every previous attempt to free herself from the Shelter's clutches had been foiled by Ethelda Crane. The sly supervisor employed all manner of devices to maintain her hold on the Shelter's residents.

The fact was, no resident at the Shelter ever got more than a peek at her own wages. The wages of the women and girls at the Shelter—including those who worked outside, in the factories—were collected weekly for such expenses as “board,” or “medical bills,” or “child support.”

Child support applied to those residents who had infants or small children placed under the care of various members of the “church” to which Miss Crane—and the Shelter's board of directors—belonged. Care was provided at an institution on the lower East Side, and Shelter residents were required to pay exorbitant expenses for this “service.”

In addition, the wily Miss Crane used the threat of “The Law” like a weapon to keep the girls in line. Failure to pay one's debts would result in a confrontation with The Law. Rebellious behavior or disciplinary problems would be dealt with by The Law. All sorts of alleged offenses—which Quinn had finally come to recognize as contrived, for the most part, for Ethelda Crane's personal use—were subject to investigation by The Law. Since most of the residents at the Shelter were either foreign immigrants or uneducated country girls with an innate fear and distrust of law enforcement in general, it was all too easy to hold them captive with a simple threat.

Quinn herself had fallen victim to this particular gambit because she knew she could not afford scrutiny of any sort by the police. But after months of being the victim of Ethelda Crane's chicanery, she had reached the point of desperation. She was convinced she must take her chances if she were going to survive at all. The threat of The Law seemed no more forbidding than the possibility of living out the rest of her days as an imprisoned drudge at the Chatham Charity Women's Shelter.

She had her strategy down pat, had gone over it in her mind a hundred times or more. Every Friday evening, after putting Mrs. Cunnington, the cook, in charge of things, Ethelda Crane would leave the building to “go calling.” Sometimes she went alone; sometimes she was accompanied by one of the do-gooders from uptown—although never the sweet-faced Mrs. Deshler nor Mrs. Burke, the lady who had spoken so kindly to Quinn the day of the mission society tour.

Quinn had noticed that when Miss Crane went calling, she never failed to bring back at least one new resident for the Shelter. She had come to think of the Friday night expeditions as fishing trips. Apparently, the enterprising Ethelda Crane made it her business to nose about such places as the Bowery and the docks, where she might find women or young girls on their own keeping—girls in trouble, lost, down on their luck, or just plain simpleminded. By giving the impression that she was saving them from their misfortune, she found it easy to haul the unsuspecting poor souls into her net—just as she had Quinn.

Well
, this
fish was getting away
, Quinn thought grimly as she turned her last collar for the day. This evening, once Miss Crane had left the Shelter, she would wait until that great lump, Mrs. Cunnington, was having her nip in the kitchen pantry. Then she would sneak down the fire escape at the rear of the building.

And that would be the last this place would be seeing of Quinn O'Shea.

The only real beetle in the broth was where she would go. She didn't feel she had much choice. The only place she could think of was the Five Points, where a number of those just off the boat seemed to head.

Quinn had an idea that Bobby Dempsey might have followed some of his cronies there after all, especially if he hadn't managed to find a job on the docks. She hoped to locate Bobby as soon as possible, mostly to make sure he was all right. Every time a thought of the man crossed her mind, she felt troubled. Of course, his not showing up to meet her as they'd planned didn't necessarily mean something had happened to him. He might have found a job on the docks and started in to work right off. Nevertheless, after all he had done to help her, the least she could do was look him up.

She had hoped the policeman—Sergeant Price—might have made the effort to find Bobby, after the way she'd practically begged him. But no doubt he'd forgotten all about her the minute he dumped her off on Ethelda Crane. And hadn't she been foolish entirely, to think a policeman might have a care for such as her?

Well, she didn't
need
the thickheaded sergeant's help, now did she? She would find Bobby herself. Without her, Bobby would have followed his other pals to the Five Points, she was certain. As soon as she got there, she would find them all, no doubt. There was no denying that a familiar face or two would be a welcome sight in this enormous strange city—even the rough, mean faces of Roche and Boyle and their bunch.

After listening to some of the women who worked in the factories, Quinn had at least a vague idea as to how to get to Five Points. Some of the stories they told about the place made her none too anxious to go there after dark—but she didn't see as how she could afford to be too choosy. At least there she might have a chance of finding Bobby or someone else she knew from the ship. And anything, she reminded herself, would be better than staying here.

Her only regret about leaving the Shelter was Ivy's refusal to come with her. Quinn hated the idea of going without her friend—her
only
friend, except for Bobby. Ivy had a childlike innocence about her that sometimes made Quinn fear for the girl. She was too trusting entirely, too easily duped to be anything but a danger to herself.

But it was the
reason
Ivy refused to leave that troubled Quinn most. Over recent weeks, despite her initial aversion, the girl had taken up with the church members who, in addition to Miss Crane, administered the Shelter: Brother Will and his “flock”—in Quinn's mind, a herd of mindless sheep milling about after an equally mindless shepherd.

During one of the services they sometimes held at the Shelter—services the residents were required to attend—Ivy had asked Brother Will a question about something in the lesson. The preacher had gone to what seemed extraordinary lengths to answer Ivy's question, even suggesting some additional reading and providing her with a number of tracts that he claimed to have written.

This had been the start of Ivy's involvement with the “flock.” She began to spend more and more of her free time reading their literature—“doctrines,” they called it. When she wasn't reading, she was attending meetings with Ethelda Crane and some of the other residents who claimed to have been converted to the faith.

When Quinn had attempted to question her about the group's beliefs, Ivy gushed randomly, displaying no real grasp of their doctrines, but rather an excessive—and unwarranted—regard for the leader, Brother Will.

It didn't take Quinn long to realize that she wasn't going to change Ivy's mind about the church or Brother Will. Every attempt she made was met with an indulgent, somewhat vacant smile, along with a vague reference to Quinn's being a “lapsed Catholic,” and therefore unable to comprehend the Truth. When Quinn refused to read the doctrines and sneered at the suggestion she attend some of the meetings with the others, Ivy would assume a wounded look and say, “I'll pray for you, Quinn.”

Quinn was beginning to wish she had never helped the girl with her reading. Perhaps Ivy would have been better off if she had never been able to understand their drivel in the first place.

Once, when Ivy was gone, Quinn had stolen a look at some of the pamphlets on her bunk and couldn't believe her eyes at what these people were peddling. “Mortification of the flesh,” which apparently included fasting and other forms of self-denial, even something called “self-scourging,” or “disciplining one's body into submission.”

Did this blather account for Ethelda Crane's looking as if she'd been baptized in vinegar, then? Rubbish, the lot of it!

There also seemed to be a great deal of discussion on such themes as “thought purification” and “subduing the will,” the “common good,” and “devotion to duty.” But the one that really set Quinn's teeth to grinding was the subject of “absolute obedience”—obedience to their divinely appointed spiritual guide, who in this case, of course, happened to be Brother Will.

Something about the man made Quinn suspect that he was about as spiritual as a piece of stale soda bread. In fact, she thought he might be a bit crackers. Daft. He had a way of rubbing his hands together when he prayed that never failed to make Quinn think of the times she had watched her granddad kill a chicken for the pot, back in the days when there were still chickens for the killing. He also, she had noticed, had an eye for the ladies—a distinctly goatish eye, and keen for the young girls, especially Ivy, who, to Quinn's exasperation, seemed altogether unaware of the man's peculiarities and contradictions.

She had pleaded and reasoned, argued and cautioned—all in vain. Ivy would not be moved. Finally, Quinn had resigned herself to the fact that she would leave the Shelter alone.

Lewis Farmington was surprised when his assistant, Evan Whittaker, requested the afternoon off.

He might have been amused had the man not been so obviously distraught. Evan had not asked for so much as an hour's liberty from his duties since his first day at the shipyards. On occasion, Lewis insisted that his highly capable assistant take some time off, especially on a slow day—but for Evan actually to
request
the privilege was unheard of.

“You know you've only to ask, Evan,” Lewis assured him without hesitation. “Take the rest of the day, if you like. You've more than earned it, goodness knows.” He paused, then added, “There's nothing wrong at home, I hope?”

Evan absently smoothed the lapel of his suit coat as he explained. “No, sir. Although Nora seems no b-better than when I last talked with you about my concerns. In fact, one reason I need to leave early is to m-meet with Dr. Grafton. He asked m-me to stop b-by yesterday at the clinic, b-but he was gone by the time I arrived. But there's something else, another reason I need the time.”