They walked briskly to Patrick’s hotel, Eve being grateful for the movement to build body heat and shake off the jitters.
Back in the present, Eve watched Patrick pace the room, the smoke of worry on his face.
“Eve, I’m very concerned that we may have, inadvertently, hurt Maggie by what happened tonight.”
Eve touched her sore cheek. “Yes, I thought about that on the way home.”
“Just being here, in this time, means we are changing history.”
“Well, that was a given, if we time traveled. How could we not?”
“Yes, of course, but my biggest worry is about Big Jim. He will respond. What will he do? What if he flies into a rage over Maggie’s planned escape and he kills her now, and not on Christmas Eve? We may have set something into motion that can’t be undone. Even if he doesn’t kill her, what if he hides her or sends her off to some other city or small town, as a prisoner, and we’ll never know where she is?”
Eve lowered her sorrowful head. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to help. I thought she and I could get away before Big Jim found out.”
Patrick stopped, tenderness in his tone. “It’s not your fault. You did what you thought was best. You were very brave. You risked your life.”
“But now I’ve probably made it worse for us, and worse for Maggie.”
Patrick’s eyes held a curious glitter. “By the way, how is she? How is Maggie?”
“Have you seen her?”
“Only on the stage. I was… well, a bit nervous to approach her. I wanted to, but…well, I was afraid, for many reasons. But she’s a lovely girl, isn’t she, Eve? And a fine actress, too. A fine, fine actress and lady, I think, despite her messing with Big Jim.”
“Yes, and she’s smart, and she’s scared. She desperately wants to get away from Big Jim.”
Frustrated, Patrick punched a fist into his other hand. “Blast it! Obviously, Big Jim has eyes and ears all over this town. As much as I want to charge headlong to try to save her, I’m afraid we’re going to have to let things settle for a time. You’re going to have to hide out, for at least a week.”
“A week? Patrick, we’re running out of time as it is. We can’t afford for me to hide for a week. That would make it December tenth.”
“I know that, but you must hide. Big Jim will be combing the city looking for you. I will not risk your life any further.”
Eve shut her eyes, suddenly exhausted.
Patrick began pacing again. “We must move from here, and you must cut and dye your hair black, and change your name. I have registered here as Patrick O’Hearn. We’ll move tomorrow to the Hoffman House on Broadway at Madison Square, just in case we were followed.”
Eve’s eyes opened. “I paid for a room at the Biltmore for a week.”
“You can’t go back there, Eve. That will be the first place Big Jim will look. We’ll register as Mr. and Mrs. O’Hearn. You can come up with a first name.”
Eve rubbed her tired eyes and sighed. “What have we got ourselves into, Patrick? We thought this was going to be so easy.”
Patrick drilled her with his eyes. “I never thought it would be easy, and that’s why I didn’t want you to come.”
“Let’s not start that again. I’m here, and we’ll just have to work together and figure out a way.”
Patrick stopped again, and they locked eyes.
Eve sat up straight, jaw set. “Okay, now, I’d like to know, finally, what happened to you and how we got separated after I lit the lantern?”
Patrick ran a hand over his shadow of a beard. “When I arrived here, I wondered the same thing. I was nearly out of my mind when I realized you were nowhere to be found. For a time, I was frantic. I searched everywhere for you. I thought I had lost you forever, and it was all my fault. I wanted to shoot myself.”
Eve arose and went to him with a sweet, worried smile. She took both his hands.
“When did you arrive?” Eve asked.
“On Monday, November 30th.”
“But that was two days after me,” Eve said. “Where did you land? What time of day? What happened to you for an entire day?”
Patrick sighed. “We were together for a while. I could see you clearly, and then you just vanished into some blue, misty fog. I called to you—I kept calling out to you—but you were gone. And then I just felt disconnected from everything. I seemed to tumble in and out of water-like waves for what seemed like hours, until I was exhausted. I think I slept for a time. When I awoke, I moved about in a confused, cloudy atmosphere, in a smoky damp forest, with towering trees and darting colorful birds.
“Several times, I heard your voice and I called to you, but your voice soon faded, and I was alone again. Finally, I blundered about and then fell into a kind of deep well. I thought I was falling to my death. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on a park bench in Central Park.
“When I finally shook off my sleepy confusion, I asked a man who was walking by what day it was. He told me. That’s when I went looking for you.”
“How did you know that Irene and I were at the hospital?”
“After I pawned my ring for money and found this hotel room, I bought several newspapers and read them back to back. I saw that Maggie was in a play. I went to see her, and then I followed her. I saw you this morning come out of the hotel with her.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I wanted to. Believe me, I wanted to. I almost screamed out to you, but then I thought, no, wait. See if you and Maggie were being followed. I didn’t want to bring Big Jim down on you both, and me.”
“And were we being followed?”
“Yes… You were. That’s when I decided to stay in the background. I wanted to try to get the big picture. Forgive me, it’s the detective in me. But from that time on, I followed you to make sure you wouldn’t be harmed.”
Eve touched Patrick’s cheek and felt the familiar flair of desire for him. “I love you, Patrick. I love you very much, and I’m glad we both made it and we’re both here and safe, at least for the time being.”
Patrick’s eyes changed, losing their worry. He stepped back a little, taking in Eve’s thin, lush figure, her long lashes, her waiting lips.
“And there it is, Eve.”
“There what is?”
“The miracle of you that always takes me by surprise. Here I am talking like a looney when I should be kissing you. I thought I’d lost you forever. I thought I’d never see you again. Who was the man who said, ‘Remember why you fell in love?’ Well, I do remember, Eve.”
Patrick’s expression was tender and eager. He placed a finger on her lips and traced them.
“How’s the bed?” Eve asked.
Patrick leaned, kissing her, deep and warm. When they finally broke the opulent kiss, Patrick glanced over at the bed.
“It squeaks.”
Eve grinned naughtily. “Good… Let’s give it a long squeaky workout and bother the neighbors.”
CHAPTER 25
As one day looped into the next and then faded, Eve remained sequestered in their room at the Hoffman House while Patrick spent each day wandering the City, seeking information about Daniel Fallow, Jacob Jackson, and Maggie. He’d come up empty on all three, and his mood was darkening.
The first snowfall of winter hit the city on Thursday, December 10th, dropping five inches of snow.
According to the newspapers, Maggie had left the Broadway show Rose Pepper because of an unspecified illness, and she would be out for an undetermined amount of time. The theatre owner was understandably concerned and worried. Maggie’s understudy had taken over the role, and the reviews had not been entirely favorable. It was rumored that unless Maggie returned to the show soon, Rose Pepper would close.
Eve also read a newspaper account of the deaths of the two men Patrick had been forced to kill. It was reported that they were street thugs who had gotten into a back-alley argument and killed each other. All well and good. That
meant Patrick had left no evidence behind, except for a couple of buttons ripped off his coat in the knife fight.
Patrick learned that Maggie had left the St. Regis, but he was unable to discover where Big Jim had hidden her. Big Jim obviously knew that somebody wanted to take Maggie away from him. Being a selfish and vicious man, he would kill anyone who had the guts to try to take her. Patrick prayed and hoped that his daughter was still alive.
Day after day Patrick had tirelessly meandered the City, talking to theatre stage managers, taxi drivers, tavern owners, bootblacks and newsie boys, but no one knew anything about Maggie, or, if they did, they were too scared to tell. Even money didn’t loosen their tongues. Maggie had just simply vanished.
And as to Daniel Fallow and Jacob Jackson, the last two people to have seen the lantern? He had also made little headway. Perhaps Dr. Long knew something about them. They had sent her a telegram the morning they moved to Hoffman House.
On Thursday, December 10th, Eve couldn’t take being inside the hotel’s three rooms any longer. She had to get outside, even if it was just to take a walk around the block in the snow.
She put on a navy wool dress and looked in the mirror, nodding her approval. It was one of five dresses Patrick had had tailored for her, based on the dress Irene had loaned her. He’d also purchased undergarments, gloves, two hats, two pairs of shoes and two winter coats, following Eve’s instructions as to color, style and fit. Patrick grinned after his excursion, saying he’d flirted with the shop girls and received a few discounts, to which Eve quipped, “I think you enjoy buying women’s clothes.”
“They’re certainly more fun to buy than men’s clothes. I especially enjoy exploring the lingerie that women wear in this time,” he said, winking. “There are so many sizes and colors. And they feel so very good.”
Eve had cut her hair to just below the ear, dyed it black and styled it into tight curls. She’d used Aureole, a hair color product Patrick found at Miller’s, a pharmacy just two blocks away. It lent a rich, bitter-chocolate sheen to her hair. Patrick joked that he felt as though he was having an affair with another woman. It had been one of the few times they’d played and laughed. Patrick mostly arrived home looking weary and beaten, and it was a challenge to keep their spirits up.
At a little after noon, Eve was fully dressed and ready for her first foray out into New York as her new self, Mrs. Colleen O’Hearn. She paused one last time to examine her new self in the mirror, stepping back, turning left then right, patting her hair. The dark color gave her a more severe, no-nonsense look—perhaps she looked Russian. Eve wondered if Irene would recognize her.
Eve often thought of Duncan. A few days before, Patrick had dropped by the hospital to inquire about him and was told that Duncan had indeed improved, so much that he was soon to be released. Eve was relieved and pleased that the antibiotic had saved the young man’s life. She ached to know if he and Irene had reunited or if he had returned to Boston.
Just as Eve reached for the doorknob to open the door and leave the room, it turned on the other end. She backed off, and when the door swung open, Patrick stood staring at her, curiously. He stepped in and closed the door behind them.
“Where are you going?” he asked, a little troubled.
“I have to get out of here, Patrick. I’m going stark raving mad. I’m sure it’s safe now, and no one is going to recognize me—not that there are many people who know me in this time anyway.”
Patrick stared, conflicted. “I don’t know, Eve. It’s chancy. Big Jim has long arms in this City.”
“I can’t hide in here forever. Let’s go out together. Let’s go to lunch somewhere. I have got to get out of here.”
With a deep sigh, Patrick relented.
Outside, a light snow was still falling, creating a holiday spirit. Eve opened her navy-blue parasol against the snow, feeling quite fashionable, and held out her hand to catch the cold flakes. Meanwhile, Patrick waved down a hansom cab, not a motor taxi.
“You don’t mind, do you, Eve?”
“Not at all.”
Inside the cab, Eve thought it was fun to ride in a hansom again, pulled by a single horse, even though there were a lot of autos about. It was so unlike 1885, when no one had even heard about an automobile, much less ridden in one.
A car passed with an African American man behind the wheel, wearing a cap and white coat, chauffeuring a man with a bushy, white mustache. He was seated next to a stoic woman seated upright, wearing a green feather hat. She glanced over at Eve, her impressive heavy chin jutted out in a challenge.
The hansom plotted alongside the curb, passing pushcarts, letting the streetcars and faster cars chug by.
A stout policeman, dressed in a knee-length blue coat with brass buttons and tall felt helmet, waved his baton at the passing vehicles, his steely eyes watching three young boys darting in and out of the aggressive foot traffic.
Patrick sighed.
Eve turned to him. “What’s that sigh about? I know all your sighs, Patrick, and that one sounds like despair.”
He stared into her eyes with a serious expression. “I have to admit that I miss not having a cell phone, so I can Google facts and places. It would have made this searching a whole lot easier.”
“Okay, Patrick, your expression tells me you’re about to tell me something profound.”
Patrick scratched the side of his nose. “I finally tracked down Daniel Fallow and Jacob Jackson.”
Eve sat up, all ears. “And…?”
“Daniel Fallow died about ten years ago from tuberculosis. Jacob Jackson drank himself to death and died in 1908.”
“Did you talk to their families? Did you mention the lantern?”
“I found Daniel’s only daughter. She lives in Brooklyn. Not a pleasant woman, to say the least. After she called me several colorful names, she said everything her father owned she had tossed either into the garbage or into the river.”
Now Eve sighed, resigned. “Okay, and what about Jacob Jackson?”
Patrick sat back, crossing his arms across his chest. “Jacob died at Gouverneur Hospital.”
Eve’s interest sharpened. “Really? How did you find that out?”
“I was a detective, Eve. I flattered a nurse, slipped her some money and was taken to a record room, down below, in a dank and dusty basement file room. Did you know that your friend Dr. Ann Long kept meticulous records?”
“I’m not surprised,” Eve said. “She was an excellent doctor and administrator.”
“Anyway, our friend Mr. Jackson died of cirrhosis of the liver and cholemia in 1908. Dr. Long signed his death certificate. It seems that Mr. Jackson had continued working for the hospital until only six months before his death. By the way, what is cholemia?”
Eve looked away, lost in thought. “Excess bile in the blood. It usually leads to coma.”
“Well, that’s it then,” Eve said, her voice low and despairing. “Without that lantern, we have no way of getting back to our own time. We’re stuck here.”
Patrick gazed out into the traffic. “Yes, it would seem so. We’re going to have to change our plans. We’ll have to find Maggie and then escape to some other state or country where Big Jim will never find us. Which reminds me…”
Patrick dug around into his side coat pocket and drew out two passports. He handed one to Eve. “Finally got these. The pictures aren’t the best, but they’ll do.”
Eve opened hers and grimaced at her photo. “I don’t look so good in dark hair. How did you get them?”
“The son of a guy I knew back in 1885. He works out of the same storefront down on Delancey Street. I think the son’s work is not as good as the father’s. Anyway, at least we have identification if we have to leave the U.S.”
Both sat in silence as the cab persisted uptown until it came to 58 West 36th Street, Henkel’s Chop House. Located at the center of the Herald Square theater district, it was just a few steps from the Garrick Theatre’s back entrance, a theatre Maggie had of
ten performed in.
Eve and Patrick left the cab cautiously, Patrick’s quick eyes swiftly scanning the streets as he led Eve into the restaurant. Inside, it was all dark wood and leather. Eve smelled roasting lamb, steak, whiskey and the ever-present-in-this-time tobacco smoke, which clouded the room.
A short, balding, white-aproned man led them through a maze of small tables, winding past well-dressed men and young secretaries, and loud, whiskey-drinking reporters slouched around a center table.
Eve and Patrick sat at a two-top, covered by a white linen tablecloth and a center candle. As Eve coughed and longed to wave away the cloud of cigar and cigarette smoke hanging in the air, she understood why the life expectancy of these people was lower than in her time. If she remembered correctly from her nursing school days, in the early 1900s, most men lived to about 45 or 50.
Patrick continued to study the room, looking for anyone suspicious.
“Relax, Patrick. We don’t know anybody here.”
“It’s a small town, Eve…”
“Colleen,” Eve whispered.
“All right, then. Colleen, you can’t be too careful.”
Patrick ordered grilled mutton chops and Eve chose roast beef.
Eve leaned in toward Patrick, trying to speak above the reporters’ shouts and laughter. “What is it about this time that so many people eat grilled mutton chops?”
Patrick shrugged. “Because they’re good. I’ve missed them. Didn’t you have them in 1885?”
“No, I passed on them. I just couldn’t get my head around it.”
“Head around it? I’ll never get used to your expressions.”
“And I’ll never get used to mutton chops.”
“There’s no restaurant in your time that knows how to cook mutton chops properly.”
“My time?” Eve asked with an arched eyebrow. “Isn’t my time your time?”
“You know what I mean…”
Eve surveyed the room, her mind still circling around the lantern. What could have happened to it?
“I can’t help but be depressed, Patrick. I knew it was a slim possibility, but I had hoped we’d be able to find that lantern. I really did.”
The Christmas Eve Daughter - A Time Travel Novel: The Sequel to The Christmas Eve Letter Page 17
