Winter Sisters Read online

  “You need to leave, Captain Mantel.”

  “How old did you say that oldest girl was?”

  “Ten.”

  He shrugged. “She was of age.”

  Mary stared at him, aghast. “She is a child.” Is. Was.

  “You know as well as I do that we can’t interfere with a girl’s rights to do whatever she wishes. If that’s the life she’s chosen, then—”

  “Emma and Claire didn’t choose anything.”

  “Madam, they are not alive. That’s the end of it. And if I hear of you treating these women again, I will arrest you.”

  As he turned to leave, a man pushed through the crowd of officers at the door. At first he appeared only in silhouette, a top hat elongating his short stature, a velvet-lined cape flung across one shoulder, a confident cast to his bold stance. He removed his hat and offered a slight bow. “Dr. Stipp.”

  “Mr. Van der Veer?” Mary said.

  Gerritt stepped inside and made a second bow to the captain. The two men resembled one another. Mantel had a broader, more barreled chest, but in the bald head, dark eyes, and even the way they held themselves they could have been brothers. Only Mantel’s thick accent distinguished him. Gerritt’s tone, while braying, was nuanced by the more aristocratic tones of Dutch Albany. Seen in shadow, though, it would be hard to tell them apart.

  “I do hope nothing has happened. Is all well, Arthur?”

  “We were making rounds and heard a disturbance.”

  “There was no disturbance,” Mary said.

  “Surely you have no quarrel with this fine woman?” Van der Veer said. “This physician to whom we are all so much indebted?”

  The captain shot Mary a grim look that could be either apology or condemnation, which he nevertheless quickly wiped from his face. He turned to Farrell to commiserate over The Things He Had to Put Up With, pushed past Van der Veer, and, trailed by his officers, sauntered down the alleyway.

  Gerritt Van der Veer said, “Are you all right, Dr. Stipp?”

  “He is a loathsome man.”

  Gerritt glanced around the room, his assessing gaze missing nothing. “I’ve come with an invitation, but I see that you are busy. May I return within the hour? Or two? Name the time. It’s important. Or at least I hope you will agree that it is once we have spoken.”

  There were eleven more women to see, and the washing up to do afterward. “Two hours?”

  “I’ll return then.” He tipped his hat and was gone.

  —

  For the rest of the morning, Mary cared for the women’s bruises, ailments, and diseases as they chattered at her, trying to console her. They heard things, they said. Men at their leisure liked to talk. They would listen. Ask around. Mary forced herself to concentrate on her work but was as rattled nearly as much as she had been at Antietam, when the men were bleeding to death in the barnyard and she had only corn husks as dressings. I’m not afraid, she had declared to William after their first night of surgery together. He had laughed at her then, incredulous that she would ever think he thought her afraid of anything. Now fury made her clumsy: twice she tripped over her own feet, and once, when irrigating a sore, she knocked over the basin with her elbow and it splashed onto the floor with a loud clatter.

  Could what Darlene said be true?

  By twelve thirty, when Gerritt Van der Veer again knocked at the door, everyone had gone.

  “Is this a bad time?” he said.

  “Neither good nor bad. Tell me, how does everyone suddenly know about my clinic?”

  “I can’t speak for Captain Mantel, but I saw the lantern burning.”

  “And how do you know about the lantern?”

  He shrugged. “Albany talks. I hear things.”

  “I offer these women medical care, Mr. Van der Veer. Care that no one else offers them.”

  “That’s not completely true. There is the House of Shelter, for one, that offers help if they want to leave the profession, so to speak. But you mistake me. I did not come to pronounce censure, as it appeared Mantel did. Did he threaten you?”

  “Yes.” Mary untied her sodden apron and added it to the pile of laundry. “He insinuated that I’ve been performing abortions.”

  Van der Veer was circling the room, taking in the uneven stone floor, bare walls, and sparse furnishings. He turned on his heel. “Have you?”

  “No.”

  “All right then. I’ve come to make you an offer and an invitation. Actually, two invitations. I wish to fund this clinic. Move you to a better space. Pay the rent. Give you money to obtain whatever medicines and instruments you require. Get you out from underneath police harassment.” Van der Veer’s smile widened into a deep grin. With his malleable face and short stature, he resembled an elf more than a lumber baron.

  “Why, when Mantel was auguring arrest?”

  Van der Veer shrugged. “I hold a deep fondness for the downtrodden.”

  “If you knew me at all, then you would know that I don’t accept glib answers.”

  “Very well,” he said. “Two reasons. One, Albany is my city. I own it, at least as far as commerce goes, and I’ve little patience for corruption. At least two dozen brothels operate on the waterfront. Elsewhere, they’ve sprung up like weeds. It’s a scourge. And the injustice toward the women involved, which you have boldly confronted in this small establishment, makes me furious. And, second, I’d like to help you.”

  “By giving me money?”

  He shrugged. “I have plenty.”

  “You wish to be associated with prostitution? You? Staunch Episcopalian, the richest man in the city, with the highest social standing?”

  “You honor me, but I don’t think that the reigning families would agree with your assessment of my standing. I do not rank so highly on the social ladder; I do not live in their rarefied enclave on Elk Street, amidst their mansions and beloved cathedral. I live on the park, like you do. You are mistaking wealth with position. The two are not always congruent. But yes, I want to take a stand. Will you accept?”

  “Your money would attract attention.”

  “What if we tell no one that I am involved?”

  Mary gathered the towels and rags accumulated on the table and began stuffing them into a canvas bag. “That’s impossible. Albany lives for gossip. You said it yourself. I hear things.”

  “I think you are being foolish. This is a good opportunity.”

  She cinched the laundry bag tight. “Many men have thought me foolish, Mr. Van der Veer. That never has any bearing on what I do.”

  “Viola says that I can be obtuse. If I have offended you, I apologize.”

  “I am not easily offended. And now I need to get home,” she said, pinning on her hat and herding him toward the door.

  “It could be an homage to the O’Donnells,” Van der Veer said. “We could name the clinic after them. The O’Donnell Clinic.”

  “It’s very kind, but I can’t accept your money.”

  “Very well. By the way, did I overhear you asking Mantel to search the brothels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Mary’s gaze strayed to the open door, wishing to be gone. “One of the women thought it possible that the girls might have ended up in one of them.”

  “What did Mantel say to that?”

  “That I am mistaken.”

  “I’ll say something to him.”

  “It’s not important.”

  “There is that famous courage. Think about what I offered, won’t you? I know how difficult things have been for you lately and I admire all”—he opened his hands—“this. But you forget. I also came bearing an invitation.”

  They stepped into the alley, where runnels of sudsy water rippled among the cobbles from the washhouse up the hill. Dirty piles of snow still banked some of the buildings. M
ary handed Gerritt the laundry, enjoying the insolence of burdening one of the most noteworthy men in Albany with a sack of dirtied linens. But he waited good-naturedly enough while she wrapped herself in her cloak, snuffed the lantern, and placed it inside before locking the bolt and thrusting the key deep into her pocket. She directed him uphill toward the washhouse, where she dropped off the laundry, and then turned downhill to the Delavan House, where she had left her carriage with the doorman.

  “My invitation is this: I would like to invite you to join the board of the House of Shelter.”

  She stopped dead. “You are the one who funds the House of Shelter?”

  “You see, I can keep secrets: I am already associated with prostitution.”

  “The house is a wonderful service. Several women I’ve treated have gotten help there. One of them is married. Did you know? She lives in Coxsackie now. Another works in the glass factory.”

  “Then you know that I am serious. I would have asked you yesterday at the cemetery, with your husband present, but I felt it would have been an intrusion somehow. I admire you. You seem to be unafraid of anything. My mother was right, all those years ago. Do you know what rumors raced around Albany when you left for the war? You were with child, you’d run away to get married, you’d lost your mind. All of us young men were making bets.”

  “How disappointed you must have been when I turned up well educated and chaste,” Mary said.

  “On the contrary. I won the bet.”

  “Are you really offering me a place on the board?”

  “I am. Though I can assure you that the board is made up of a bunch of sanctimonious priests and pastors who threaten hellfire when our charges don’t comply with every rule. And one of those Pruyn men heads it,” he said, making a face. The Pruyns were first among the prominent families of Albany, and deeply involved in church affairs. Recently, one of its members had served as a missionary to China.

  Mary studied the man whose wife thought him obtuse. His top hat did little to shield him from the sunlight, but his eyes, squinting, seemed without guile.

  He opened one hand in a welcoming gesture, implying he had no motive other than concern and generosity. “All right then. If you won’t answer me now, consider my offer open,” Van der Veer said. “And contemplate this: should you accept you would be the first woman in Albany to sit on a board. I have no idea why you haven’t been involved with the House of Shelter before, with such an invested interest as this.” He tilted his chin back toward the clinic in approval. “And you must know that Viola was very taken with you yesterday. She loved Mrs. O’Donnell. She is having a tea party this afternoon, one of those obligation teas meant to appease the reigning queens of old Albany.” He made another comic face. “Would you allow me to escort you to our home? Viola would be so pleased to have a moment with you. I realize that it may be too early in your grief for social forays. But you have returned to work, and it would mean a great deal to my wife. Follow me in your carriage?”

  “I enjoyed meeting Viola very much, but I am sorry, I don’t have time.”

  “Just a half an hour. That’s all.”

  “Another time, perhaps. Do give her my regards, though.”

  Gerritt waited while the doorman at the Delavan retrieved Mary’s carriage from the hotel’s large barns, located several blocks away. He didn’t want to leave her unescorted. Mary laughed at his chivalry, for if he knew her at all, he would know she’d traipsed far more dangerous paths than the sidewalks of Albany.

  Chapter Nine

  Two years before leaving for Paris, Elizabeth began taking French lessons with Madame Hubbard, who did not give lessons so much as she gave conversation, and not conversation so much as reveries. Madame Hubbard’s husband had brought her to Albany from France under protest, and she relived her days there in long florid descriptions of balls and parties, excursions and entertainments, and divertissements on the general superiority of Paris versus Albany. In these extended musings, Madame Hubbard often talked far beyond Elizabeth’s allotted tutorial of one hour, and she never assigned declensions, vocabulary lists, or grammar books. What she offered instead was repetitive exposure to the language, and by listening and conversing, Elizabeth had long ago grown facile.

  Now, upon seeing Elizabeth at her doorstep, Madame Hubbard enveloped her in a perfumed haze of bosom, proclaiming herself overjoyed at once again seeing her darling, darling girl. Unable to express herself precisely in English, she frequently fell back on repeating adjectives to emphasize the depth of her emotions, which were often overwrought but always welcome to the recipient of her exaggerated Gallic affections. The Frenchwoman was small, plump, and bright faced, frequently overly powdered, with thinning reddish hair and given to wearing tightly corseted dresses. Elizabeth melted into the shadowy comfort of Madame Hubbard’s ample décolletage, feeling as if she’d come home. Home for Madame Hubbard happened to be a large brick mansion situated just west of the capitol building on Washington Avenue, where from time to time thuds from its ongoing construction penetrated the thick walls of her parlor, which did not now prevent Madame Hubbard from expressing astonishment that Elizabeth had left Paris.

  “I left Paris for love, but every day I question whether or not that was reason enough to forsake her—especially for this city. I don’t know why a young person like yourself would leave Paris, when you had everything before you.”

  “The O’Donnells—”

  “Yes, yes,” Madame Hubbard said, leaning forward. “I understand. But, my dear, as sad as it is, you could have grieved there and kept on with your studies.”

  “I couldn’t stay, Madame Hubbard.” Elizabeth had brought with her Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. Previously, it had been their practice for Elizabeth to read aloud in French and ask questions about sentence structure and idiom. The French language was the one thing of Paris that Elizabeth missed: the puzzle of the complicated grammar, the challenges of pronouncing the tricky vowels, and most of all the language’s musicality, a lyricism that reminded her of the extended notes of Mozart’s most fanciful concertos. She fingered the pages of the book now, hoping to divert Madame Hubbard’s attention.

  “Tell me the truth, darling mademoiselle,” Madame Hubbard continued. “Did they ask you to leave the conservatory? This happens, I am told, especially to foreigners. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You can tell me. I will not think less of you.”

  Madame Hubbard had come perilously close to the embarrassing truth. But of course Monsieur Girard had never demanded that Elizabeth leave. Instead, she had taken flight. She had failed in courage. Shame hung around her like a noose. There was so little to tell, so little that she wanted to tell.

  “I see,” Madame Hubbard said when Elizabeth did not answer. “Perhaps it was love?”

  “It was nothing like that.”

  “You make me guess, mademoiselle, when you do not tell me everything. But anyone can see that you are miserable. You miss playing your violin. I can tell at a moment’s glance. This will not do at all.”

  “But how do you know that I am not playing?”

  “Your pain is evident. And it is more than your cherished O’Donnells. You are broken, ma petite. I am so sorry that this happened to you.”

  Elizabeth stood, her heart pounding in her chest, stammering excuses as she fled the parlor. She had forgotten how perceptive Madame Hubbard could be. “I’m sorry, but I just remembered that I have another engagement. Will you forgive me?”

  The maid held open the front door for her and dutifully returned to report to Madame Hubbard that Elizabeth had been wiping tears from her eyes.

  Madame Hubbard brought her teacup to her lips and mused about the complications of youth, worrying for her petite violiniste, who had already borne too much in her young life.

  —

  Outside, Elizabeth hurried past clusters of men waiting at the omnibus stop. Home was perhaps a m
ile away, and she walked several long blocks before yielding to her embarrassment. At the corner of Washington Avenue and Lark, a melancholy little corner lacking even a modest dwelling to cheer up the bedraggled empty lot, Elizabeth finally succumbed. Monsieur Girard’s voice replayed itself inside her head: You are nothing. You are an embarrassment to the violin. Why did you come all the way from America to shame yourself? She pulled a handkerchief from her reticule, turning away so that no passerby could observe her mortification.

  “Here, now. What’s this?”

  Elizabeth blinked back her tears, stuffed her handkerchief into her sleeve, and turned to find a young man hovering beside her. He floated before her, beautifully formed, wide at the shoulders and slim at the hips, possessed of a shock of untamed yellow hair that sprouted from underneath a narrow hat brim. A topcoat covered a fitted jacket under which a paisley vest glinted in her watery vision.

  To her blank look, the young man said, “I am Jakob Van der Veer. We met yesterday at the cemetery. Might I accompany you? Escort you somewhere? You seem—as if you might appreciate someone to walk with you.” He hesitated, and at length said, “I beg your pardon. I see that you’ve forgotten. Of course you were in a state of grief yesterday and have no memory of meeting me. Please forgive my intrusion.” He lifted his hat and offered an apologetic smile.

  “I remember you, Mr. Van der Veer.”

  “Shall we begin again, then? How do you do? To spark our conversation, I’ll share the details of my day. I was just at the capitol, attending to some particulars regarding a delivery of lumber. The foreman is unclear how much he needs and when he wants it. The whole thing is a mess, actually, as has been all of the construction there. I was on my way home when I saw you. But if you like, I will wait a few more moments before I proceed, until you make the turn at the park. Would you like that?”

  He did not seem to be mocking her. He was striving to make his expression neutral. What was that biblical term, Elizabeth thought? A lack of guile.

  “May I offer some perspective?” Jakob said, when she hesitated. “I am aware that accepting the offer of an escort from someone you hardly know—me—poses the uncertainty that I might turn out to be a crashing bore, which I think is your greatest risk. But I promise that I will do everything to entertain you and thus erase what I believe to be your most likely objection to my presence. I assure you, Miss Fall, that as far as dangers go, the worst offense that I might impose would be a reverential disquisition on the merits of the new ice-yacht that my father recently purchased for next week’s regatta. On that subject, I may fail in my quest not to bore you, but at your command, I will abandon any subject that you forbid.”