Away in a Manger

by Rhys Bowen

  I took the bowl from them and put it back in my shopping basket. I wanted to say something reassuring but I couldn’t think of what that might be. That their mother would come back soon? That all would be well? My gaze went to the other boys now busily sweeping at the street crossing. There was probably no happy ending for any of them. The city was full of unwanted children, some of whom would freeze to death tonight or die of starvation tomorrow. As Daniel had said, it was a harsh world. On impulse I went around the corner to a pushcart selling hot potatoes and bought two big ones.

  “Here,” I said, coming back to Tig and Emmy. “These will help keep your hands warm and then you can eat them.”

  They took them shyly, murmuring thanks, and I left them huddled together in that doorway. I was headed back home, but then I decided that Liam would be quite safe with Bridie and this might be a good day to have a talk with Aunt Hettie. So I turned and headed down Christopher Street toward the waterfront. The wind blowing off the Hudson was icy and the constable who stood at the corner of West Street looked utterly miserable. I walked past him until I came to the house—one in a row of grimy brick buildings. On the ground floor was a tailor’s shop, but beside it was a front door with peeling and faded red paint. The sign on it said Rooms for Rent.

  On the way over I had been debating how to approach Aunt Hettie. If I expressed criticism about the way she was looking after the children she could throw them out. If I expressed concern she could always tell me to take them in myself. We had no room for that and Daniel certainly wouldn’t approve. But now I saw the sign, I decided what I should say. I rapped on the door and after a while heard approaching footsteps. It was opened cautiously, only a few inches, and a suspicious face peered at me.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I see you have rooms for rent,” I said, putting on my strongest Irish brogue. “Do you have any vacancies at the moment?”

  “I might have. For yourself?”

  “No. A friend of mine is arriving from Ireland and will need a place to stay until she fixes herself up with a job.”

  She opened the door wider and I took in the hard face with its jutting chin, perpetual frown, and darting, suspicious eyes. She was a big woman—not fat but big-boned—and she was wearing a dirty apron over a faded wool dress. I could tell she was examining me—my good boots, my thick wool cloak—and wondering what I was doing in this part of the city.

  “You’d better come in,” she said, and half dragged me into a narrow, dark hallway before slamming the door behind me. I followed her up a flight of stairs. The smell of boiled cabbage grew stronger as we came out onto a landing.

  “When will your friend be wanting the room?” She turned to look back at me. “Because Mr. Wilcox is moving out at the end of the week. Going back to Philadelphia, so he says. Doesn’t like New York.”

  “My friend hasn’t even sailed from Ireland yet,” I said. “She’s hoping to get on the next boat out of Queenstown. So it won’t be for a couple of weeks at the earliest.”

  “I can’t guarantee to hold a room for her,” she said.

  “I quite understand that. I was just trying to get a feel of places near the docks. I’d have her to stay with me but I’ve got a young baby, an older girl, and my mother-in-law with us,” I said.

  “And what does your man do?”

  “He’s with the police,” I said. Did I detect a slight change in expression? Those eyes now darting even more warily?

  “That’s a hard job in this weather,” she said.

  “It certainly is. That poor young constable at the end of your streets looks frozen to the marrow.” I let her go on thinking that my husband might also be standing on a street corner at this moment, not sitting in an office at police headquarters.

  “The kitchen and dining room are on this floor, together with my own room,” she said. “I serve breakfast and dinner, included in the price of the room. The guest rooms are up another flight.”

  And she started up another flight of dark stairs. On this landing there were four bedrooms, each with the minimum of furniture—a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, a braided rag rug on the floor. They were some of the sorriest rooms I had ever seen and I thought that people would have to be quite desperate to want to stay here. Their occupiers were not present but were all clearly men, from the items of clothing that hung from the bedsteads. It was also clear that the children were not sleeping in any of the rooms here.

  “This is the room that will become available,” she said as we stood in a narrow back room that looked out onto the brick wall of another building. Washing hung, frozen solid, on the roof opposite, and from one of those windows came the sound of a baby crying.

  “I’ll pass on the news to my friend,” I said. “This is all the rooms you have, is it? Not another floor?”

  I had noticed yet another staircase, even narrower this time, going up into darkness.

  “That just leads to the attic,” she said. “No proper rooms up there—just a storage space under the roof where I keep my odds and ends.”

  And the children, I thought. That’s where they have to sleep.

  “It’s very quiet,” I said. “The tenants are all out and working, are they?”

  “I don’t know if they are working or not. They have to be out during the day. Those are my house rules. I’ll not have idlers littering up the place. You’d best make sure your friend knows that.”

  “I will.” I started down the stairs.

  I was trying to think how to bring the conversation to the children when she said suddenly, “So how did you hear about me? Live around here, do you?”

  “No, I believe that someone must have told me. Was it maybe your sister?”

  “My sister?” she demanded sharply. “My sister died when she was eight years old of diphtheria.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe it was another family member.”

  “That’s not likely unless you’ve come from Ohio,” she said. “I’ve hardly been in touch with my family since I moved here twenty years ago with that no-good husband of mine. He thought he’d make his fortune in New York. Fortune, huh!” She gave a disgusted grunt. “Hardly call this a fortune, would you. And now he’s gone, leaving me to make do as best I can.”

  I nodded with understanding. “He turned out to be a no-good drunk. I won’t allow alcohol on the premises and if any of the men turns up with beer on his breath, I’ll not let him in.”

  As we started down the second flight of stairs I was still searching for a way to mention the children. In desperation I blurted out, “I’ve remembered who it was,” I said. “It was a little boy, sweeping the crossing for me the other day. I asked him if he had a roof over his head and he said he lived at a boardinghouse run by his Aunt Hettie. I asked him where it was and he described the area for me. Am I right—was that you?”

  “I’ve got a couple of young children staying with me at the moment, that’s right,” she said. “Their mother abandoned them. Walked out one day and never came back. I’ve kept them here out of the goodness of my heart.”

  I swallowed back what I’d have liked to say. “That’s really Christian of you.” I managed to force out the words. “So their mother just upped and left them here?”

  “She did indeed. They came off the boat and she rented a room from me. Just for a few days, she said. Then she went out one day and never came back. Only paid rent for a month too.”

  “That’s terrible. What do you think happened to her?”

  “In my opinion, she ran off with a fancy man and didn’t want children like a millstone around her neck.”

  “Was she that kind of woman?”

  Her face was a stone mask. “I couldn’t say. She was a pretty enough little thing. I give her that much.”

  “Poor little children. So what will happen to them? Have they no relatives they can go to?”

  “They came from England,” she said, “and from what I understood the father had died and the mother thought they’d
be better off over here. She wasn’t exactly the talkative sort. Kept herself to herself.”

  “I wonder why she thought they’d be better off over here?” I said.

  I saw I’d gone too far. The suspicious look had returned. “What are you—one of those do-gooders? Poking your nose into other people’s business?”

  “No, of course not,” I said hastily. “But you can’t help feeling sorry when you see so many abandoned children in the city, can you? Not when my own children are well fed and loved. But at least you’ve given these two a roof over their heads, and that’s something to be thankful for in this weather.”

  “It is indeed,” she said.

  I couldn’t stop myself from continuing. “But from what I could see the boy certainly didn’t come prepared for our harsh New York winters, did he? Poor little thing looked frozen.”

  “I house them and feed them,” she said, almost spitting out the words. “You’re not expecting me to clothe them too, are you? I’ve no obligation to two strangers.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” I said. “Nobody would expect you to do more than you’re already doing. But no doubt you’d be glad if I could look through my own girl’s things and see if she had any odd bits of outgrown clothing she could spare? We don’t have much but I’d like to help if I can.”

  She hesitated and I could see the wheels of her mind turning. She was wondering whether I was the one who had given the child the scarf and was now checking on it.

  “I think it would be most charitable of you,” she said.

  “It’s the spirit of the season, isn’t it?” I said, smiling at her. “Makes you want to help those less fortunate.”

  She didn’t answer that one. We had reached the front door. As she opened it a man was coming up the steps toward us. He was a big brute of a man, the type you’d see working on the docks. His hat was pulled down over his face and his coat collar turned up against the cold.

  “You’re home early, Jack,” Hettie said, and I heard sharp tension in her voice.

  “Get the kettle on, Hettie,” he demanded. “I’m freezing me knackers off.” Then he saw me.

  “Who’s this then?”

  “Lady checking out the place.”

  “Thinking of coming to live here?” He had a coarse round face, cheeks red with cold, but his eyes were also checking me out. I knew when a man was mentally undressing me.

  “For a friend,” I said quickly. “Coming over from Ireland.”

  “Oh, Irish, are you? Well, you would be with the red hair. Tell your friend there ain’t no better landlady than Hettie here.”

  He pushed past Hettie and I heard his boots stomping up the stairs. So much for her rule that tenants weren’t allowed in the place during the day, I thought. Or was this one more than a tenant?

  “Thanks again,” I said, giving her a polite nod. “I’ll pass along your information to my friend and bring her to see you when she arrives,” I said. “I don’t think I’d be looking forward to crossing the ocean at this time of year, would you?”

  “I’d not get on a boat,” she said. “Not for love nor money. And I didn’t catch your name.”

  “It’s Sullivan,” I said. “Mrs. Sullivan. And I didn’t catch your name either.”

  She frowned. “Jenkins. Hettie Jenkins. Good day to you then.”

  As I walked away I permitted myself a little smile. I didn’t think it was likely she’d take away any more warm clothing if I found some for the children. And as I stepped back while a brewer’s dray came thundering past, it struck me that Jenkins was a Welsh surname. That was interesting, because I suspected that Hettie Jenkins knew more about those children and what had happened to their mother than she was letting on.

  * * *

  On the way home I remembered Sid and Gus’s desire to help me with Christmas puddings. Giacomini’s was open seven days a week so I went in for dried fruit and spices. My mother-in-law would be arriving tomorrow on the afternoon train, but we’d have time to make the puddings in the morning. As I stepped out of the store and made my way home across Washington Square, the sleet turned to full-blown snow. It started to come down heavily, swirling around and coating me in a white blanket. I was glad when I turned into Patchin Place and opened my front door. Liam had been playing ball in the hallway with Bridie. He took one look at me and burst into tears.

  “It’s all right,” Bridie said. “It’s only your mama.”

  I realized then that I must look like a walking snowman. I threw back the hood and went back to the doorstep to shake off the coating of snow.

  “There, is that better?” I asked. “Now it’s your mother again.”

  “You found Tig and Emmy and give them the stew then, did you?” Bridie asked, taking the empty bowl out of my shopping basket.

  “I did and they ate up every morsel,” I said. “I also bought them each a baked potato to keep their hands warm.” I took off my cape and hung it on the hallstand, then I bent to unhook my boots.

  “That’s good.” She tried to smile. “But it’s not right they have to be outside on a day like this.”

  “It isn’t,” I agreed. “I also went to see the woman they live with.”

  “And told her to give Emmy back her scarf?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I had to be careful because we don’t want her to throw them out, do we?”

  “They could come and stay with us,” Bridie said.

  “That’s just not possible,” I said. “We have no spare room, for one thing, not with Mrs. Sullivan arriving tomorrow.”

  “They could share my room,” Bridie said.

  I laughed. “Three of you squished into one small bed? Besides, Captain Sullivan would never allow it. He says we know nothing about the children and he’s quite right. They do have a mother somewhere, and they were left in the care of Mrs. Jenkins.”

  “Is that Aunt Hettie?” Bridie asked.

  “She’s not really their aunt. I did gather that much,” I said. “But they must have family somewhere. Someone must know where their mother has gone.”

  “I hope she comes back soon,” Bridie said.

  “Me too.” I picked up Liam and carried him down the hall to the warmth of the kitchen. If she’s still alive, I wanted to add. Because the way those children spoke of their mother was with great affection. Surely such a woman would not abandon her children unless there was a very good reason? And the most likely one was that something terrible had happened to her.

  I paused, halfway down the hall. I could find out, maybe. After all, I had been a good detective. Then Liam squirmed in my arms and let out a wail of frustration. I gave my own sigh of frustration too: I had a husband, a child, and a ward to look after. And a mother-in-law arriving for Christmas. How could I ever find the time to go poking around New York, looking for a lost woman?

  Ten

  Sunday

  The next morning we awoke to a world of gleaming whiteness. Snow had fallen all night and bushes and garbage cans were now hidden under mantels of snow. Since it was Sunday Gus had not gone to the bakery and the only footprints to spoil the pristine whiteness of Patchin Place were those of the sparrows.

  “Thank God for snow,” Daniel said as he finished his breakfast and got up from the table. “Always less crime after a bad snowstorm.” He looked up and grinned. “They leave telltale footprints behind. And it’s harder to run away.”

  “I don’t see why they are making you work on a Sunday if there isn’t much crime,” I said.

  “You know I have to take my turn just like everyone else.” he said. “Besides, I’ve had a fair amount of time off recently, haven’t I?”

  “I don’t want to jinx Christmas by saying you’ve been home more than usual,” I said. “But it’s been lovely to have some meals with you.”

  Daniel made a face. “It might not be all good that I have no major crime to occupy me.”

  “Why’s that?” I detected something in his expression.

  “You know the pr
esent commissioner doesn’t like me. I’m not a Tammany man. It seems to me that he’s making sure the juicy cases go to those who are.”

  I came around the table and put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s not around much longer, Daniel. Commissioners are only elected for two years, aren’t they?”

  “There’s such a thing as a second term,” he said, looking away from me. “And this one has Tammany in his pocket. They’ll make sure everyone votes for him.”

  “But all your senior officers like you,” I said. “You’re well respected. You’ve had great results.”

  He nodded. “The commissioner apparently thinks I’m too soft on gangs. Just because I’m realistic and understand our limitations. If I tried to crack down the way he wants me to, there would be all kinds of repercussions.”

  “You did what he wanted earlier in the year and look what happened,” I said angrily. “Our house was blown up and poor little Aggie was killed. Do they think that is a satisfactory result?”

  He shrugged. “The Cosa Nostra are different. I can work with Monk Eastman. We have developed an understanding. But these Italians—they are violent and brutal and they thumb their noses at the police. I don’t know how we’ll ever stop them. What’s more, they are extending their sphere of influence daily, as more recruits arrive off the boats.”

  I shuddered, remembering all too clearly the crash of glass and the explosion that had destroyed our home. I remembered the body of our poor Aggie. “Don’t give in to them, Daniel. If anyone can find a way to beat them, you can.”

  He turned and kissed my forehead. “That’s what I like about you, Molly Murphy. Your spunk. You never give in or give up.” His eyes traveled over me. “Actually there are more things I like about you—the way that red hair falls over your shoulders when it’s not pinned up. That neat little waist. And those lips…”

  “Don’t get carried away,” I said, laughing as I held him away from me. “You’ll be late for work.”

  “We’ll take this up where we left off tonight,” he murmured, giving me the lightest of kisses.