Away in a Manger

by Rhys Bowen

  His eyes opened wide as he looked at the coin in his hand. “Thank you very much, ma’am,” he said. “You are very generous.”

  “Make sure your sister gets a warm meal,” I said.

  “I will. I will.” He nodded then rushed back to sweep as a loaded dray spattered mud over the street.

  Bridie was tugging impatiently as we continued to the doorway where the little girl sat. We heard her voice before we saw her. “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,” she sang in that beautiful angel voice. And there she was, hugging her knees to her for warmth, and …

  “Where’s your scarf?” Bridie demanded. “Why aren’t you wearing your scarf?”

  The child stared up at Bridie with big, sad eyes. “She took it away from me,” she said, her voice trembling.

  “Who did?” I demanded angrily.

  “Aunt Hettie. She didn’t believe it was mine. She said I must have stolen it.”

  “Your aunt thought you’d stolen it?” I said.

  She nodded, biting back tears now. “I told her a lady and a girl had given it to me but she wouldn’t believe me. Then she said it was too good for me and she took it away. Tig said that she’s probably going to sell it.”

  “You live with your aunt?” I asked, having taken them for street children with their obvious lack of care and threadbare clothing.

  She nodded. “Aunt Hettie.”

  “Then I’m going to have a word with this Aunt Hettie of yours,” I said. “I’ll let her know that we made the scarf for you and she should be ashamed of herself sending you out into the cold dressed the way you are.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” she said, reaching out to grab at my skirt. “She doesn’t like us very much. She might turn us out and then we’d have nowhere to go.”

  At that moment a woman’s voice screamed out, “My purse! Someone just took my purse!”

  Seven

  The constable on the corner sprang into action. He blew his whistle as he hurried over to the woman.

  “It was here a second ago,” the woman shouted. “I know because I checked when I was standing on the street corner, waiting to cross. They said you couldn’t be too careful around Christmastime.”

  “Anyone see anything?” A crowd started to gather. The constable looked through the crowd and his gaze fastened on a skinny youth, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. “You,” he said. “You look like you might be up to no good.”

  “Me? I’m just standing here minding my own business and waiting for my pal to show up,” the boy said. “But come to think of it, I did see something. That kid over there. I saw him standing real close to that lady and I think he took something out of her bag.”

  And to my horror he pointed out our little girl’s brother.

  “Right, my boy. You’re coming with me.” The constable took a couple of big strides and grabbed him by the collar before he could move.

  “Let go of me. I didn’t steal anything,” the boy cried out, struggling as the constable held him fast.

  “Then let’s look through your pockets, shall we?” the constable said. He reached into the boy’s jacket and held up something in triumph.

  “And what’s this, then? How does a boy like you come by a whole dollar? A nice shiny silver dollar? Not the sort of change you get from sweeping the street, is it?”

  “A lady gave it to me,” I heard him say as I tried to force my way through the crowd. “She said it was for me and my little sister.”

  The little girl was on her feet now, grabbing at me frantically. “Don’t let him take my brother away,” she begged. “He’s a good boy. He doesn’t steal.”

  I was going through a turmoil of indecision. I remembered all too clearly Daniel’s warning that some street children might look sweet and innocent, but it was just a guise to prey on passersby. What if he was a pickpocket and his little sister didn’t know or didn’t realize?

  But my gut instinct won out. Any child who had thanked us so gratefully for our small gifts surely couldn’t be a thief.

  “Hold on to Liam’s buggy,” I instructed Bridie. “Watch over him carefully and I’ll be right back.”

  Then I forced my way between two large Italian ladies and their shopping baskets.

  “Hold on a minute, Constable,” I called. “I gave that boy the dollar.”

  The crowd turned to face me.

  “You did, ma’am?”

  “A few minutes ago. My little girl has been most concerned about this boy’s small sister, who sits in that doorway down there, begging. So I thought I’d help them out with a dollar.”

  “Most generous of you, ma’am,” he said. Then he frowned at me. “Wait a minute, I know you, don’t I? It’s Mrs. Sullivan, the captain’s wife, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, Mrs. Sullivan, ma’am. I’m afraid this young rascal could well have taken your dollar, all innocent-like, and then helped himself to another lady’s purse the next instant. We see it all the time. Rogues and ruffians, the lot of them.”

  “I think this boy is different, Constable,” I said. “I don’t think he stole any purse.”

  “I didn’t,” the boy said, his eyes pleading with me. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life—apart from some extra potatoes from Aunt Hettie.”

  The constable was looking first at the boy and then at me. “If you’re vouching for the boy, Mrs. Sullivan, then I have to believe he’s okay. But a lot of the little rascals around here would sell their own grandmother for a nickel.” He continued searching the boy as he spoke. “There doesn’t seem to be a purse on him, but I’ve been instructed to take suspected pickpockets down to the station house and have them fingerprinted.”

  “If I vouch for him, then I hope that won’t be necessary,” I said. “I tell you what—I’ll take the boy home right now and have a word with his aunt. You can see he doesn’t have the purse on him, can’t you? Let’s assume he’s innocent. In fact I’m rather inclined to believe that the boy who identified him was the real thief himself, or was in league with him.”

  We both looked around and, as I suspected, the bigger boy had vanished.

  “He wanted time to get away,” I said.

  The constable was frowning now, torn between doing his instructed duty and wanting to believe me.

  “He did have a shifty sort of look about him,” he said. “What’s more I think I’ve seen him hanging around here before.”

  “There you are, then,” I said. “I’ll take this young man straight to his aunt’s house and we’ll have a little talk. We’ll make sure that nothing like this happens again, all right?”

  The constable released the boy. “If you say so, Mrs. Sullivan.” He turned to the boy and wagged a finger at him. “Now you be grateful to this lady, you hear me? If it wasn’t for her you’d be spending the night at the station house jail, along with thugs and murderers. And if you really took that purse, then I’ll be watching out for you next time. I’ll have my beady eye on you from now on.”

  “I really didn’t take it, Officer,” he said. “I promise. My mother brought us up properly.”

  The constable grinned as he looked at me. “Hark at him talking. He sounds like a proper Little Lord Fauntleroy, don’t he? Where did you get such posh ways, my boy?”

  “From my mother,” he said.

  “And where’s your ma now?”

  “She’s gone.” The boy’s face became a blank mask.

  I put an arm around his shoulder. “Come on. I’ve promised to take you home and your sister is waiting with my children.”

  Tig bent to snatch up his precious broom, then allowed me to usher him away. The crowd parted for us, as if we were bewitched. I think they’d heard the boy speak too and were looking at him with wonder and suspicion. The little girl rushed up to her brother and flung her arms around him.

  “You’re safe, Tig. They said you were going to prison.”

  He hugged her fiercely. “It’s all right,
Emmy. This lady saved me. The constable was going to arrest me but she told him that she’d vouch for me.”

  Emmy looked up at me, eyes glowing. “Are you really our fairy godmother?” she asked.

  I smiled. “You can blame Bridie here. She was the one who heard you singing and wanted to do something for you. She sat up almost all night knitting that scarf for you. The one your aunt took from you. No matter. We’ll soon sort that out. Come on. Where do you live?”

  The children looked at each other with frightened faces. “A long way from here,” the boy, Tig, said. “Look, you don’t really have to speak to our aunt, do you? If she thinks I’ve been stealing that will be a good excuse to get rid of us. She’s always threatening to.”

  “She doesn’t sound like a very nice person,” Bridie said as we set off down Broadway, heading south. “And she steals scarves too.”

  “She’s absolutely horrible,” Emmy said. “We hate her. But we’ve nowhere else to go. Mummy left us with her so we have to stay, until she comes back.”

  “How long has your mother been gone?” I asked.

  Emmy frowned. “A long while,” she said. “She went away soon after we came to America.”

  “Where did you come from?” I tried not to sound too curious.

  “England,” Emmy said, confirming what I had surmised. “We came from England. That’s where we used to live. And then we went to stay with Aunt Hettie when we got here.”

  “And when do you expect your mother back?”

  “We don’t know,” Emmy said. “We just keep waiting and waiting but she doesn’t come and she doesn’t even write to us.”

  “You don’t know where she’s gone? Didn’t she say where she was going?” I asked. This time I heard the anxiety in my voice.

  “She didn’t tell us, but she promised she’d be back soon and that everything would be all right again if we were good and did what Aunt Hettie told us.”

  “Emmy, I don’t think you should be telling this lady everything like this,” Tig interrupted sharply. “She’s been very kind, but she’s a stranger. Remember what Mummy said about being careful in a strange city, and how dangerous it was here. We shouldn’t tell a stranger things. For all we know she’s a child snatcher.”

  Emmy looked up, suddenly frightened. “You’re not a child snatcher, are you?”

  I laughed. “I promise you I’m not. As you can see, I’ve a baby of my own and a visiting eleven-year-old to take care of, as well as a husband. I don’t need more children to snatch. And my husband is an important man in the New York police, by the way.”

  “Oh, he’s a police captain,” Tig said, letting down his guard again. “When that constable called him captain I thought he was on a ship.”

  “So where are we going?” I asked. “Where does your aunt live?”

  “Over on West Street by the waterfront,” Tig said. “It’s quite a long way, and it’s starting to snow again. Do you really have to come with us?”

  “I promised the constable I’d take you home,” I said. “Besides, I’d like to see this aunt of yours for myself. I won’t mention the pickpocketing, if you like. I really don’t think you took that lady’s purse.”

  “I didn’t,” he said indignantly. “We were brought up properly. Mummy and Daddy were very keen on manners and doing everything correctly.”

  “What happened to your father?” I asked. “He didn’t come over to America with you?”

  “He died,” Emmy said. “He died a long time ago.”

  “It was two years ago,” Tig corrected. “It seems like a long time to you because you’re only four. It’s half your life.”

  “I’m almost five.” She stuck out her little chin. “You said I’d be five right after Christmas.”

  “And how old are you, Tig?” I asked. “What is Tig short for? It’s not a name I’ve heard.”

  “I’m eight years old,” the boy said, “and my real name is Thomas, after my father. Thomas Jones.”

  “That sounds like a Welsh name,” I said.

  “My father was from Wales,” he agreed.

  “Ah, so that’s why your sister has such a lovely singing voice.” I looked down at Emmy and smiled. “The Welsh are reputed to be fine singers. It’s in the blood.”

  “Our father was a wonderful singer,” Tig agreed, and for the first time I saw the ghost of a smile cross that tense and worried face. “He sang in front of people. On a stage.”

  “My mummy is a beautiful singer too,” Emmy said. “She has a lovely voice and we used to sing with her. It made her feel happy after Daddy died, didn’t it, Tig.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tig agreed. I sensed that the subject was painful for him.

  “So is your name short for Emily?” I asked Emmy.

  “No, it’s really Megan,” Tig said for her. “Mummy’s name is Margaret and Megan is the Welsh way of saying it.”

  “Did you live in Wales? Do you speak Welsh?”

  Tig shook his head. “Daddy could speak Welsh. He taught us some Welsh songs. But we never lived there. We lived in London.” He glanced up at me as we stood ready to cross the road. “Do you really have to speak to Aunt Hettie? I don’t want to make her cross with us.”

  “You don’t really think your aunt would turn you out, do you?” I asked. I steered my little brood through the traffic and we turned onto Waverly Place, in the direction of the Hudson.

  “She said she would the other day. She never thought our mother would be gone so long, you see, and she says she can’t afford to feed us.”

  “That’s why you sweep and sing?”

  He nodded, then walked on ahead, clearly uncomfortable at talking to me.

  “She says she doesn’t want us about the house getting under her feet in the daytime.” Emmy was more ready to tattle on the hated aunt.

  “And you have no other relatives you could go to? Doesn’t your aunt know where your mother has gone?”

  “I don’t know,” Tig said bleakly. “Nobody tells us anything.”

  And I realized that they were little children. Children accept where they are being taken. If Mummy says, “Good-bye and I’ll be back soon,” they trust her. They don’t cross-question where she’s going or when she will return. But surely she would have told the aunt when she asked her to take care of the children. Surely the aunt would have tried to contact someone when the mother didn’t return. While my head was telling me that this was none of my business, my heart was whispering, You are a detective. You could find out what happened to their mother and why she left them with such an unsuitable aunt in a strange city. Something about their story certainly didn’t make sense. They had precise, upper-class accents but an aunt who sent them out begging. A thought occurred to me. “Tig, it was definitely your mother, your own mother, who brought you from England to America?”

  “What do you mean?” He turned back to me, confused.

  “I just wondered if…” I shook my head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  We walked on, our footsteps crunching on hardened snow. Then Tig blurted out, “Pardon me and I’m not being rude”—he stood his ground, facing me now—“but you are asking an awful lot of questions and Mummy said it wasn’t polite to be too inquisitive.”

  “I just want to help you, Tig,” I said. “You are obviously not being very well looked after by your aunt, and I wanted to know if I could do anything to help.”

  “You can’t,” he said firmly. “You really can’t.” Then he turned back to me again. “Actually you can. Don’t come and talk to Aunt Hettie. I know it will make her cross and she’ll think we’ve done something bad and she’ll punish us. She may even turn us out.”

  “But I promised the constable that I’d take you home,” I said. “He only let you go because he thought I was now responsible for you. I’ll tell your aunt there was a spot of bother on the street and I brought you away for your own safety. I’ll also add that I think you’re too young to go out alone on the dangerous streets of New York, and let�
��s see what she has to say to that. I may even add that my husband is an important policeman.”

  “I suppose so.” Tig looked decidedly miserable.

  We crossed Sixth Avenue in silence and turned onto Christopher Street. I was wrestling mentally with what would be the right thing to do. I was itching to see this aunt and give her a piece of my mind, but a small voice in the back of my mind whispered that my visit might work the wrong way and make her decide to turn the children out onto the street. If she wasn’t their legal guardian she’d be under no obligation to give them a home. It was starting to snow harder now, blowing into our faces borne on an icy wind off the river. The children turned up their collars, shoved their hands into their pockets, and trudged miserably toward the waterfront.

  We reached West Street and the dockland area of the Hudson piers. Over the roofs of various ramshackle warehouses I caught a glimpse of the funnels of an ocean liner. Seagulls wheeled overhead, crying plaintively. The wind was now bitingly cold and snowflakes swirled. I looked down at little Emmy, shivering in her thin coat, her little cheeks red and raw, and longed to sweep her up and take her home with me right now. Tig trudged beside her stoically, his mouth in a resolute line, clearly worried about what was to happen next.

  After two blocks we came to Morton Street.

  “That’s her house,” Tig said. “Do you really have to come and talk to Aunt Hettie? She’ll be awfully angry with us.”

  “I did promise the constable that I’d take you home,” I said.

  “You did take us all the way home.” He chewed on his lip.

  I was in an agony of indecision. I so dearly wanted to give that heartless woman a piece of my mind, but I had to consider the consequences from their point of view. If she really did throw them out, I was in no position to take them in. Besides, they were waiting at their aunt’s house for their mother to come back.

  “If your aunt knows someone is taking an interest in you, she may start treating you better,” I said.