Winter Sisters Page 18

  “Claire,” Amelia coaxed. “Do you want to come with me? Come with Elizabeth and me. I’ll tell you everything. But we’ll go outside to the veranda. It’s pretty outside. We’ll swing. Do you remember the swing? We can talk, and Elizabeth will play her violin. Won’t you, Elizabeth?”

  “Of course I will.”

  Claire looked at Emma for permission.

  “Don’t worry, Emma. I’ll go with them,” William said. “You don’t need to be brave anymore. We are all here to be brave for you. She’ll be safe. I promise.” He was not a man who gambled, but he was gambling now, all of them hoping that Emma would relinquish Claire to his custody. What trust she could invoke for any man, even one she had called uncle all her life, was unknowable. It was a gamble they all hoped Emma would take, but it was by no means certain that she would.

  Emma’s glazed eyes focused on William as if she were contemplating every possible outcome of letting Claire go. Then she nodded imperceptibly. William gave her no chance to rethink her decision. He knelt beside Claire and scooped her up from Emma’s side and carried her out the door, swaddling her in a blanket as they went, while Elizabeth and Amelia trailed behind.

  Mary took Elizabeth’s place at the edge of the bed.

  Soon, the strains of a Mozart lullaby came through the window, but Emma did not respond to the music. There was not a flicker of relief. Mary wondered what strength or despair it took for a young girl not to cry after she’d learned her parents had died.

  “I know we aren’t your mama and papa,” Mary said. “But you will never be alone. I promise. You’ll live here. And we’ll do everything to help you. We love you and Claire very much.”

  Emma lay back down and dragged a pillow over her face and drew her legs into the fetal position.

  “I—we all—will take care of you. Last night, I gave you medicine to help you sleep and to help with the pain. I can give you more now. You can sleep. I promise nothing will happen to Claire. And nothing will happen to you, either, except that you’ll be safe with us. I will be here or Amelia or Elizabeth. Always.”

  Emma made small, indecipherable sounds.

  “Pardon?” Mary said, leaning down to listen.

  “He said, he said—” But her voice drifted off.

  “Who said?”

  “The Other Man.”

  “The man who hurt you?”

  She nodded. “He said that I needed him. That I’d miss him if—he wasn’t always with me.”

  Deep fury coursed through Mary’s veins. “Listen to me, darling. He’s gone. He’ll never touch you again.”

  At length Emma whispered, “It burns.”

  “I know,” Mary said, relieved. It was a beginning. All else—who the two men were, what Emma could tell them of their captors, had to wait. “I know it does, Emma. I can fix that. And the medicine will make you sleep, so that you can rest. And when you want to, we can talk.”

  She mixed a small amount of tincture of choral hydrate with some cider. Emma drank thirstily and lay back down. Mary stroked Emma’s hair until the girl fell under the spell of the sedative. From outside, the soft tunes of Elizabeth’s violin underscored Claire’s occasional chatter and then her cries, as Claire, too, finally understood what Amelia had been trying to tell her.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Later, in response to a loud pounding at the front door, Mary slipped out of the lying-in room where Emma was still sleeping and leaned over the balustrade, peering into the foyer below, where William had opened the door and was speaking with someone. William was planning to go soon to the hospital to see Mr. Harley and their other patients, and earlier, Elizabeth had taken Claire to her room, and Amelia had just spelled Mary so that she could bathe and dress.

  “I just need a word—”

  “Darlene?” Mary said, registering the owner of that coarse, insistent thrum. Mary hurried down as Darlene rustled into the dark foyer in a swish of tawdry, nighttime finery—a gown of blue satin that was iridescent even in the entryway’s dull light. She was heaving with exertion. Mud streaked the hem of her shiny skirts. Several strands of hennaed hair had fallen from their pins and fringed her face in an uneven curtain. Despite Darlene’s garish dress, her face lacked any hint of rouge or paint. Usually, she wore a great deal of the stuff; even this past Thursday, when her wounds had been raw and weeping, she’d drawn kohl around her eyes. Now, her low, square neckline revealed possibly more bosom than had ever been shown in public at noon in the city of Albany. She tugged self-consciously at the dress, but to no effect: it was made to reveal, not conceal. William flashed a glance at Mary that seemed to communicate that he feared locusts might rain down on them next.

  Darlene, with another ineffectual tug at her neckline, said, “I didn’t get the right house at first. Some of your neighbors might be wondering about me.”

  The vision of the scandalously clad Darlene dashing from house to house in her opulent gown struck Mary in her exhaustion as laughable. “William, may I introduce Darlene—I’m sorry, Darlene, I don’t know your last name.”

  “It’s Moss.”

  “How do you do?” William said, then nodded and excused himself, leaving them alone.

  “He your husband?” Darlene asked, with a jerk of her head, eyeing William as he disappeared up the stairs.

  “Darlene, what is it? Are you all right? Is it your arms?”

  In response, Darlene thrust them out to show Mary that the slashes, no longer bandaged, were already knitting themselves back together. “I told your husband it’s not about these.”

  “Why, you’ve taken such good care,” Mary said. She took Darlene’s arms in her hands and examined the wounds carefully, marveling that she had followed through on all she asked of her.

  “I apologize for barging in. I do,” Darlene hurried on. “Thing is, I ran all this way. Cut across fields and through the almshouse grounds to avoid the road. That’s why I’m fagged, you see. I ran and ran.”

  “You ran up the hill from downtown?” Mary said. “Why didn’t you just take the horsecar?”

  “I didn’t come from near the river. I’m in a new house now over on New Scotland, past Ontario,” Darlene said. “That other house was no good. Thursday, soon as I got back from clinic, with my cuts all bandaged and fixed, Madam fined me for getting cut, as if I’d slashed my own arms. Then she wouldn’t pay me what I was owed, another penalty, she said, for not having the good sense to dodge the razor, and when I complained, she busted out with a palaver of screaming and yelling. But I gave as good as I got, then skedaddled. I caught a ride on the back of some farmer’s wagon. Paid him like he asked, out behind a tree.”

  Mary winced at this revelation, but Darlene dismissed it with a shake of her head. “Free is a lot cheaper than the horsecar, and the conductors kick me off anyway, claiming I’m uncouth, even though I’m the picture of manners when I go out.”

  “I’m not sure that it was actually free,” Mary said. She was studying Darlene carefully, taking in her disarray, her fatigue.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” Darlene said. “I’m still fagged.”

  Mary gestured toward the parlor, where the prostitute took in the furnishings, a collection of rather drab but serviceable armchairs and tables, an intentional choice, since the parlor served as the waiting room.

  “No offense,” Darlene said, “but it’s all a sight unhappy, isn’t it? We’ve had far nicer things in the houses I’ve worked.”

  “Darlene?”

  “Sorry. The new madam took me in right off. She didn’t care about my cuts or the bugs in my hair, but she decided I oughtn’t to service men till my arms got a little less weepy and I got my hair straightened around. Nice lady. She let me take care of myself, said when I was ready I could start up again.

  “Then last night she said she’d thought of a way for me to pay my board right off. She took me back to her p
rivate room off the kitchen, where a man was laid out in her bed. He had a fat bandage on his neck. She said he was her friend and that I was supposed to take good care of him ’cause she couldn’t ’cause she had to be out front all night. I was to give him food when he asked and dose him up good with liquor when he said he was hurting. She didn’t have anything stronger, even though she said someone was supposed to have brought her some poppy syrup. She warned me not to say anything to anyone. And I did what she asked. I took care of him. Anyway, he was already half drunk when I found him, complaining about his neck and moaning.”

  “That’s why you’re here? You need a doctor?” Mary said, rising. “Why didn’t you just say? I’ll tell William—”

  Darlene held up her hand, forestalling her. “To keep him quiet—he kept crying out—I asked him questions about how he’d gotten hurt. And Lordy, did that man talk. He started complaining that some little boys just about drowned him in the flood. Then he got all mixed up. One minute he was talking about those boys and the next he was clinging to my wrist and crying sorry about taking those sisters, and God, did he love them, and where were they, poor things, and he hoped they’d made it. Oh my darling girls. He said that again and again. It took me a long time to figure out just what he was saying and who he might be saying it about. And then I knew. But I wanted to make sure. So I asked him a couple times, just vague like, so I wouldn’t scare him: girls? What girls? Oh, angels they are, he said. I kept pressing him, and finally he came out with their names: Emma and Claire. I’m right, aren’t I? Isn’t that the name of your girls?”

  An icy chill shot up Mary’s spine.

  “I think he’s the one—the man who took your girls—and he’s lying in a bed just down the road.”

  Mary stared at Darlene. Captain Mantel’s warnings returned with a rush. He had said that Darlene would turn up, wanting money in exchange for information, and now here she was.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Darlene said.

  “Did you say this man has a cut on his neck?”

  “Yes. His neck was bandaged as neat as you like. And stitches. Looked as good as if you did it, come to think of it. But it was getting a bit bloody. Just seeping, you know. So I used the soap you gave me on his cut. Seemed to help. But what I really wanted to do was to put my thumb in it to make him suffer.”

  Darlene’s description of the man’s injury sounded strikingly similar to James Harley’s, whom she had left yesterday confined to his bed in City Hospital. Now she couldn’t help but wonder whether Darlene had read the newspaper story about Harley and concocted this tale in hopes of profiting. But Darlene had not yet asked for a penny. Mary wracked her memory of the terrible article. Sometime yesterday afternoon, after the delicate task of sewing up Emma, William had read her the reporter’s patronizing drivel. Were it a time any less fraught, Mary would have penned a repudiation. But what had the reporter said about Harley? She recalled no description of his injury—just his name.

  “What did this man say his name was?”

  “He couldn’t say. He was half out of his mind, sick with fever.”

  “You didn’t read yesterday’s paper?”

  “I can’t read,” Darlene said, exasperated. “I told you that on Thursday.”

  She had, Mary recalled now, and banished any further question about Darlene’s motives. “What does he look like?”

  “Head as bald as an eagle’s. Burly like. Hard and strong.”

  Harley. Without a doubt. Mary sat back, her heart racing. She shut her eyes against the image of that man with Emma.

  “Dr. Stipp?” Darlene was peering at her.

  “Did he talk about anyone else? Another man, perhaps?”

  “No. Just the girls. And those boys, I guess.”

  “Does he live there?”

  Darlene shrugged a bare shoulder freed by the wide neckline of her dress. “I don’t know. Can’t say. Last night’s the first time I spied him. Since I got there, I’d been out back in the damned laundry shed, rinsing my hair with that Lice-Bane.” She combed a hand through a loose strand. “Though, I tell you, if he came from somewhere else, he sure didn’t get there by himself. The man isn’t well enough to put one foot in front of the other. I wanted to come here right away, but I had to watch him. So, I soaked him in more whiskey until he passed out. Near two in the morning, the madam came back. Then this morning, when I woke up, I bolted to come tell you. Slept in my dress and corset so I could get out quick. ’Course,” she added mournfully, “none of any of this will tell you where those girls are. I asked and asked. All that man babbled on about was that accursed flood taking them away. Maybe your girls are all right—I hope they are—I wished I’d found ’em for you—but I think—oh, I should have said this earlier—maybe they drowned? Maybe they didn’t. But all that water—oh, my heart aches for you, thinking of it.”

  An excess of caution held Mary back from alerting Darlene to the fact of Emma’s and Claire’s survival. There were too many variables, too many things she did not yet understand.

  “Darlene, would you be willing to tell my husband what you just told me?”

  Darlene shrugged again. “Would have told you both if he’d stayed.”

  —

  Vera did not blink at Darlene’s colorful attire. She poured her a cup of coffee, then disappeared into the kitchen muttering something about eggs. As Darlene faithfully repeated the whole story to William, she ran her fingers appreciatively over the fine wool of a shawl Mary had unearthed for her.

  The unflappable Vera soon returned with a plateful of scrambled eggs and black bread slathered with butter, squeezing Darlene’s wrist in a gesture of affection before retreating again. Vera never betrayed that she heard anything of what was said in the house, but she always knew everything. The other night, when she’d been weeping, no doubt she’d thought no one had heard her.

  Darlene ate her fill. William asked a few probing questions that Mary had not thought of: Was it possible that the man was mixing up the sex of the children, confused about the gender, because he was ill? Had Darlene ever said the girls’ names to him before he told them to her? Was she certain she had heard him correctly? Drunken men, he informed her, had a tendency toward ownership of other people’s stories.

  Darlene scoffed at any suggestion that the vagaries of inebriated men were any kind of mystery to her. And she remained adamant. She knew what she’d heard.

  Mary and William exchanged an urgent, puzzled glance. Vera reappeared and demanded that Darlene turn over her shoes.

  “Why?” Darlene said.

  “To clean them.”

  Darlene stared after Vera as she toted away her surrendered shoes. William and Mary hardly noticed the exchange, preoccupied with Darlene’s news. William implored Darlene to say nothing of the man’s disclosures to anyone. Could they count on her?

  “Of course. You ought to mind that the madam is with him now, and who knows what he’ll say to her.”

  “We are so grateful to you.”

  “At least you know now who took ’em. And if they did go into the river, I’m ever so sorry. Now, will you do something for me?” Darlene said.

  Mary braced herself.

  “If you send the police, can you give me a shout ’fore they come? I don’t want to end up in the station house again. It’s cold in those cells, and I’m never dressed for it. And I’ve no money this time to pay a bribe. They don’t let you leave till you pay them something under the table. And so you know, that Captain Mantel is the worst.”

  “Mantel?”

  “He’s funny, that one. The things he asks for? He always pays well—but none of the girls like to work him.”

  “Work him?”

  “Come now, Dr. Stipp, you can’t be shocked by anything now, can you? He’s a rough one, too. Likes the young ones. I had a bruise or two from him myself, upon a time.”

 
Mary sat stunned. Captain Mantel, whom she had turned to for help. “Why didn’t you tell me this that day at the clinic?”

  “That man’s trouble. He might have been outside, listening.” She was wiping her face with a napkin and dusting bread crumbs from her décolletage when Vera returned with the shoes.

  “They’ll just get all muddy going back,” Darlene said, slipping them on, “but thanks all the same, and for the eggs.”

  Vera waved her hand and disappeared again.

  Darlene shrugged the shawl from her shoulders, but Mary insisted she keep it. A smile of gratitude crept across Darlene’s face and then she dashed out the back door, down the wooden steps, into the fenced garden, and through the gate to the alleyway, where Harold was shoeing one of the carriage horses, bent over the horse’s rear fetlock. Mary watched Darlene’s bouncing flight until she disappeared, then turned to William.

  “Emma said there were two men.”

  “The police captain?” William shook his head. “That’s a leap. It can’t be true.”

  “I’m not sure what’s true anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In his scuffed helmet and muddied uniform, Colm Farrell looked a sweaty mess. Mary and William had gone looking for the policeman and found him on Broadway, patrolling for looters at the junction of Broadway and Steuben, where merchants and restaurateurs were shoveling mounds of river sludge into the gutters, piling sodden showcases and furniture onto the sidewalk to dry, and stacking crates of rescued goods high off the muck. Up and down Broadway, the thacketa thacketa of steam pumps percussed the air, arcs of dirty water spraying into the street. Warning them that he had little time, he left his noisy post and trudged after them the one block into the quiet relief of Mary’s clinic.

  There, Mary described Emma’s injuries and Darlene’s revelations, omitting her remarks about Mantel, still uncertain whether or not they could trust the policeman completely. Farrell listened intently, at one point removing his helmet to scratch distractedly at specks of dried mud on one cheek.