These Shallow Graves

by Jennifer Donnelly

  And then she was gone, out the door and down the steps, and it felt to Jo as if they’d said adieu, not au revoir. She had the urge to run to her mother and embrace her, but she told herself she was being childish. And she knew full well how her mother would react to dramatic scenes enacted upon the sidewalk. So she simply watched her carriage until it turned off Gramercy Square and disappeared.

  How odd it feels to be standing in my own doorway, she thought. It had always been Theakston’s job to see people off. For a few seconds, she almost missed him.

  She shivered in the cold winter air and turned to go inside. As she did, a voice called her name.

  Jo turned and smiled at the handsome young man at the bottom of the stoop.

  It was Bram Aldrich, Elizabeth Adams’s fiancé.

  “January’s come and gone already. Time moves so fast,” Bram said wistfully, staring at the bare trees, their branches dusted with snow. He turned to Jo. “I hear you’re heading to Winnetka. What will you do there?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Jo said. “Something, I hope.”

  “You liked to write. Couldn’t you do that? During the trial, you said you posed as a reporter.”

  Jo laughed. “I did, yes. But posing as one and being one are two different things. Winnetka is not New York. Not every town is eager to have its very own Nellie Bly.”

  She and Bram were sitting on a bench in Gramercy Park. He’d brushed the snow off it, and neither of them minded the cold air. He’d been walking past her house on his way to the Rhinelanders’ for tea when he’d spotted her on her stoop and asked her to take a walk with him.

  Jo had immediately agreed and fetched her coat, hat, and gloves. She felt her mother’s absence keenly and wasn’t looking forward to being in her sad, empty house with only Katie for company.

  Bram had broken off their engagement weeks ago. Grandmama had had such severe heart palpitations when she’d been told about Jo’s arrest that the doctor had been called. She’d insisted she was on her deathbed and that the only thing that would bring her out of it would be for Bram not to marry into a family with such a strong streak of insanity running through it.

  Jo had expected this and was not saddened by it, only relieved. She returned his ring, telling him that the one thing she would like to keep was his friendship. He’d smiled at that, and said, “Always, Jo.”

  “I—I’ve wanted to tell you something,” he said now. He’d removed his hat and was fidgeting with the brim. “With everything that happened, I never got the chance.”

  “What is it?” Jo asked.

  “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. For believing Phillip instead of you. For thinking you were insane.”

  “It’s all right, Bram. I can hardly blame you. Anyone would have thought I was mad if they’d seen me as you did—on a city street in the dead of night, filthy as a pig, saying I’d just dug up a body. Everyone else in this city still thinks I’m crazy.”

  “I’m so glad you sent for me. I’m glad I brought Win. I’m glad your uncle and Francis Mallon are behind bars. When I think of what could have happened to you …” He trailed off.

  “I played right into Phillip’s hands from the very beginning. He couldn’t have plotted it more perfectly. He almost got away with it. With all of it.”

  “But you’re free now,” Bram said.

  “Thank goodness.”

  “From Phillip. From everything and everyone and all their expectations.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “I wonder what that’s like,” Bram said, so quietly that Jo almost didn’t hear it. He looked at his watch. “Four o’clock already.” He sighed. “I’d best not be too terribly late to the Rhinelanders’ tea.” He turned to her. “I’m glad we had the chance to talk. I’ll miss you, Jo. You’ve made the last few weeks very exciting.”

  “You’ll have plenty of excitement with a wedding to plan,” Jo said. “I hear Elizabeth’s going to Paris to be fitted for her gown by Monsieur Worth himself. If I know her, it will be the event of the year.”

  “Yes, it will. I’ll be a married man in June, I’m afraid. I won’t be able to get out of this engagement unless Elizabeth, too, ends up in jail,” Bram joked. “The noose has been tightened.”

  Jo laughed. “There are worse things than marrying a beautiful and charming girl,” she said. “Elizabeth will make a good wife. She cares for you. Why, I’ve heard she’s even succeeded in winning Grandmama over. If that’s not love, what is?”

  Bram laughed, too. “She likes Herondale very much, it’s true. And spaniels.”

  “You are of one mind, then. That’s important.”

  “On most things, yes,” Bram allowed. And then with a sudden, fierce honesty he said, “You’re very brave, Jo. I wish I were half as brave.”

  There was a great deal of emotion in his voice. More than Jo had ever heard before. She realized that they’d talked more honestly in the last half hour than in all the years they’d known each other.

  “I don’t feel brave, Bram. I feel scared,” she said. “I always thought I knew what life held in store. Miss Sparkwell’s. Dances and parties. You, one day. I thought, right up to the end, that I would find my way back to my world. To our world. But I didn’t. I got lost. I am lost.” She shook her head. “Winnetka? My God. What on earth will I do there? Wither and die.”

  “No, Jo. Not you. Withering’s not in your nature.”

  He had said so much to her, and yet—looking into his eyes—Jo had the feeling there was much he had not said. She wondered if she’d misjudged him. Maybe there were secret dreams hidden in his heart, too. Things besides land deals and railway routes that he wished he could pursue. If there were, she would never know them. Such secrets were for Elizabeth to unlock now, not her.

  They both stood. Jo offered him her hand, but instead of taking it, he folded her into his arms and held her tightly. “Goodbye, my darling Jo,” he said. “I’d wish you good luck, but you won’t need it. You get to write your own story now. Nothing’s luckier than that.”

  He walked away from her then, down the well-trodden path through the park. With each step, he got smaller. More indistinct. Until he was only one figure among many.

  As she watched him go, Jo felt like she was looking at a man in a photograph.

  An image of the past.

  Blurry and faded. And gone.

  “Come on, Katie!” Jo shouted. “Run! We’re going to miss the train!”

  “We wouldn’t if you hadn’t made us so late!” Katie shouted back.

  Jo and Katie were hurrying into the Grand Central Depot. Their train was due to leave in five minutes. It would take them to Chicago, where they would change to one bound for Winnetka. Jo hadn’t intended to leave Gramercy Square quite so late, but things had come up.

  Jo had been busy in the week since her mother had left, and today was no exception. Her mother’s lawyer had stopped by that morning with a sheaf of papers for Jo to take to her. And then she’d remembered she hadn’t been to the post office to have their mail forwarded. The clerk had given her a form to fill out and handed her a stack of letters that had just arrived. She’d thanked him and run back home to get Katie.

  At least they didn’t have many bags to slow them down—only one valise each. Katie would be paid well for making the trip out and back, but she wasn’t happy about it. She had a new beau and wanted to be with him.

  “You need a chaperone?” she’d scoffed, when Jo asked her to accompany her. “For what? In case a man looks at you the wrong way? Just pull out a gun, like your good friend the pickpocket, and blow his kneecap off.”

  Jo searched the departures board for their train’s track number and learned that it was delayed by twenty minutes. “Oh, thank goodness!” she said. “Let’s take a seat and catch our breath.”

  She and Katie settled themselves on a wooden bench near t
he ticket window. As Katie opened a newspaper she had with her, Jo looked around at the people nearby. She saw a family with five boisterous children. Two elderly women—sisters, from the looks of them. A traveling salesman with a sample case. A handful of businessmen. Two women wearing hats with heavy veils over them passed in front of her. A newsie bellowed the day’s headlines. A boy shouted his shoe-shining services. A woman walked by selling pretzels.

  And Jo realized, with a heavy heart, that the passing minutes were the last ones she’d spend in New York, the city where she’d been born and raised. Her heart felt as if it were breaking. How can I leave? she wondered. But how could she stay? The house was sold. Her train tickets were bought.

  She decided to distract herself from her sadness by going through the mail she’d picked up earlier. There was a letter to her mother from her bank. Another from the auction house. There were various notes.

  And there was a letter for her. From Eddie. Her heart leapt when she saw it. She tore it open eagerly and read it.

  March 9, 1891

  Dear Jo,

  I owe you something—an answer.

  You asked me some time ago at Child’s if I was sorry.

  I didn’t give you a reply then. I couldn’t.

  I can now, so here it is: I’m not sorry.

  I’m angry and sad, but I’m not sorry and I never will be.

  Good luck to you in Winnetka. I’ll miss you.

  New York won’t be the same without you.

  Yours,

  Eddie

  Jo put the letter back in its envelope with shaking hands. Bram said I’m brave, she thought. But I’m not. I’m a coward. I’m more scared right now than I was when my uncle tried to kill me.

  Because I love Eddie Gallagher.

  I love him and I’m scared to death he doesn’t love me anymore. That it’s too late. That he can’t forgive me and he’ll always be angry at me for foolishly, rashly choosing Bram.

  Jo heard a man’s voice shout that the Chicago train was boarding.

  “That’s us,” Katie said. She unbuckled her valise to tuck her newspaper inside it.

  But Jo remained where she was, unable to move.

  The two women wearing veils whom she’d seen earlier walked by her again. They were only about two yards away, and she could hear them talking. The taller one was urging the shorter one along. They went to the ticket window, and the taller one told the agent that she needed two tickets to Chicago. Her voice sounded confident, but Jo saw that her gloved hand was knotted into a fist.

  Jo knew that voice.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” the window agent said. “Today’s train is sold out. I can sell you tickets for tomorrow’s.”

  “There’s no other train we can take today?” the tall woman asked, worry in her voice now.

  And no wonder, Jo thought. She’s a fugitive. The police are after her. She jumped bail and was declared in contempt of court for failing to testify at my uncle’s trial. I wonder if she knows that. I wonder if she knows the Tailor’s after her, too, because Madam Esther wants her goods.

  Jo stood up. She walked up to the women. “Here,” she said, handing the tall one her tickets. “Use our names until you get to Chicago, so the cops don’t catch wind. Or the Tailor Then make up new ones. Be careful.”

  She turned to go, but the tall woman grabbed her wrist. “Do you remember the walk we took? Over the Brooklyn Bridge?”

  Jo nodded.

  “We talked about freedom,” the woman said. “It’s all I ever wanted, and now I have it, thanks to you. My mother, too. Without you, she’d still be on the streets and I’d be at Madam Esther’s, and neither of us would ever have found the other. Freedom is the best thing. Thank you for mine, Jo Montfort. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

  Jo pulled her into a fierce embrace. “You already have.”

  The two women held each other tightly. And then a conductor hollered a final boarding call for the train to Chicago.

  “Go,” Jo said. “Hurry.”

  Fay Smith and Eleanor Owens rushed to the train. As Jo watched them go, Katie walked up to her.

  “Are we getting on or not?” she asked, buckling her valise.

  “We are not,” Jo said. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to Winnetka. Or anywhere else. I just gave our tickets away.”

  “You did what?” Katie squawked. “Who’d you give them to?”

  “To a friend,” Jo said. “The best one I ever had.”

  She kept watching until Fay and Eleanor stepped into the train; then she walked out of the gloom of Grand Central with Katie on her heels, and into her city’s gray winter light.

  Chelsea

  March 23, 1891

  “Goodbye, Jo! Knock ’em dead!” Sarah Stein called out.

  “I will, and then I’ll bring the bodies to you!” Jo called over her shoulder.

  Sarah laughed her noisy honking laugh and waved goodbye with a bloody scalpel. She was busy dissecting a cow’s eyeball at their kitchen table. Jo closed the door to their apartment and trotted down the stairs of their building.

  They were roommates, Jo and Sarah. Jo had bumped into Sarah in the office of a rental agency. Sarah had come to post an ad for a roommate, as hers had just left to get married, and Jo had come to post an ad for a room. Now they lived together in the Jeanne d’Arc, a redbrick building on Fourteenth and Seventh, in what was called a French flat—a small, self-contained suite of rooms complete with a tiny kitchen and private bathroom. For the first time in her life, Jo could come and go from her home as she pleased, without reasons and excuses and chaperones.

  Freedom, she thought as she pushed the building’s door open and walked outside. It is the best thing.

  Today was Jo’s first day at her new job. She was excited and nervous as she walked downtown. She’d had to work up the courage to apply for it, but her new employer had hired her on the spot, telling her that she was a natural. He’d shown her where she would sit and had introduced her to a few of her new colleagues.

  Her weekly paycheck would not be huge. She had the income from her investment account, but she was being careful with its proceeds. Already she’d had to contend with some unforeseen expenses, like galoshes to protect her shoes from slush. She’d never walked the streets in winter before. There had always been Dolan.

  After she’d given her tickets to Fay and left Grand Central, she’d gone directly to a jeweler’s and sold her watch, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet. She’d paid Katie what was owed to her, said goodbye, and then checked herself into a modest hotel. From it, she’d written to her mother to tell her she wasn’t coming to Winnetka because her heart was here, in New York.

  Our old world is closed to me now, Mama, she’d written, but that’s all right. I don’t miss it. It’s a darker place than I’d ever realized. And there’s a new world that I’m just discovering, with so many people in it. Wonderful people. And terrible ones. More people than I ever knew existed, with more stories than I can possibly imagine.

  Anna had responded that she was not entirely surprised, and that Winnetka, she now saw, could never hold her daughter.

  Please be careful, Josephine, she’d written. And always remember that you are a Montfort. It was a good name once. Perhaps you can make it so again.

  After half an hour’s walk, Jo was well downtown. She suffered a bout of nerves now as she stood on the corner of Broadway and Murray Street, waiting for the traffic to slow so she could cross. She reached into her coat pocket, feeling for the postcard inside it. It had been forwarded to her new address. There was a picture of Lake Michigan on the front. On the back was written: Wish you were here. There was no signature, no return address. Jo knew who’d sent it, though, and she hoped that the good citizens of Chicago were guarding their wallets. She felt glad to know that Fay and Eleanor had made it. She hoped they were safe and
warm and had plenty to eat. She knew they had each other.

  She put the card back in her pocket. She kept it there, feeling for it whenever she needed courage. And she needed it now.

  A wagon loaded with beer kegs stopped dead in front of Jo and nearly caused a collision with a lumber wagon behind it. As the two drivers exchanged words and traffic snarled around them, Jo saw her chance. She dashed across the street, past city hall to Park Row, and then on to Nassau Street, where she arrived at her destination. She paused at the door of an imposing nine-story building. The New York Tribune was emblazoned above it.

  “Fac quod faciendum est,” she whispered, and pushed the door open.

  Jo told the harried-looking woman at the front desk who she was and the woman pointed at the stairwell.

  Jo made her way upstairs to the noisy, smoke-filled newsroom. As she walked down one side of it, she saw the city editor chewing out some hapless reporter, and the editor in chief, Mr. Johnson, looking at a group of photographs spread across his desk. He noticed her walk by and gave her a brisk nod. She nodded back. He was the one who’d called her a natural.

  There was one more office, down at the very end. It belonged not to an editor but to a senior reporter—the one who covered the crime beat. The door was open. She stopped in front of it, waiting until the man inside, furiously typing away with a pencil clamped between his teeth, looked up and saw her.

  “Jo?” Eddie Gallagher said after he’d taken the pencil out of his mouth. “What are you doing here?”

  Smiling, she pulled a notepad out of her bag—it was the same brand he used—and held it up.

  Eddie stared at it, confused for a moment. Then he smiled. “Welcome to the newsroom, Miss Montfort,” he said. “Nellie Bly better watch her back.” He put the pencil back in his mouth and went back to his story.

  A smile, Jo thought. It’s something. It’s a start.

  She kept walking, to the very back of the room, where the cubs started out. She sat down at a battered wooden desk that had nothing but a typewriter and a stack of paper on top of it.