by Echo Heron
The girls stared after her, each one aware that something was terribly wrong. Miss Griffin waved her hand. “Miss Wolcott? Aren’t you feeling well? Where are you going?”
Clara stopped. “Carry on with what you’re doing, ladies,” she said without turning to face them. If she saw the concern in their eyes, she would break down, and until she knew for certain what awaited her, it was better to remain numb. “When you’ve finished with that, I trust you to select your own pieces and cut them. If you need help, Mr. Bracey will assist. Do your best—just as you always do.”
~ 8 ~
THE STREETS WERE a blur as the cab raced through the city. She stared out the window trying to make sense of what Henry was telling her. That her sister would have gone to Five Points was inconceivable in and of itself, let alone that she’d gone without a chaperone.
The moment Henry handed her down from the cab, she ran to the hospital entrance, imploring a God she was not entirely sure of to let her sister be alive. Inside the lobby she stopped a young nurse pushing a cart stacked with folded bed linens.
“May I help you, Miss?”
“Word has reached me that my sister, Josephine Wolcott, was brought here a short time ago. Can you please tell me where I might find her?”
The nurse screwed up her face in an effort at concentration. “You don’t mean the one who came in from Five Points?”
“Yes, Josephine Wolcott. Please, will you take me to her?”
The nurse’s neutral expression changed to one of undisguised disgust. “I’m sure I couldn’t help you,” she said, pushing past her. “You’ll have to speak to the matron about that one. I don’t cater to them that’s in the common ward.”
Clara stepped in the path of the cart, stopping it with her foot. “Excuse me.” Her voice was firm. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. My sister has been injured in an accident. I wish to see her immediately, or, if that isn’t possible, I want to speak to the doctor treating her or to the matron in charge.”
“I’m sure I don’t know where Miss Grennan is at the moment.” The nurse pushed around her and was about to continue on her way when Henry appeared at Clara’s elbow.
Stony-faced, he placed a hand on the cart. “You will find the ward matron or the doctor and bring one of them to us without further delay. If someone with authority isn’t here within five minutes, I will personally see to it that you’re dismissed before the end of the day. Do you understand?”
The nurse curtsied. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s just that the girl who came in was …” she glanced at Clara, curtsied again, and hurried off, leaving her cart in the middle of the lobby.
Clara clutched Henry’s arm. “I’m frightened. What if Josie’s dead?”
“She isn’t. You were summoned to the hospital; the dead are taken to the police station.”
A heavy woman in an immaculate white apron appeared on the other side of the lobby. The enormous ring of keys that hung from her waist clanked rhythmically against a foot-long crucifix. Her graying hair was held back by a white linen scarf, after the fashion of Catholic nuns.
She made her way toward them with a light step that belied her large frame. The young nurse trailed sheepishly behind her. “I’m Miss Grennan, the ward matron here,” she said with a trace of an Irish brogue. “Would you be the ones inquirin’ after Miss Wolcott?”
“I’m her sister, Clara Wolcott. Please tell me she’s all right.”
The woman peered over the top of her spectacles. “You say you’re her sister?” There was doubt in the question.
Clara answered with growing impatience. “Yes, I’ve already told the nurse that. I want to know my sister’s condition and what has happened to her. If you can’t tell me, I demand to see the physician who is treating her.”
The Ward Matron looked from Clara to Henry, scanning him head to foot. “And who might you be?”
“I am Mr. Henry Belknap, and I find this reluctance to answer Miss Wolcott’s question about her sister’s condition tantamount to cruelty. I’m well acquainted with the members of the board of this hospital, and you may be sure they’ll be made aware of the shoddy treatment to which we’ve been subjected. Now, either take Miss Wolcott to her sister straightaway, or stand aside and we’ll find her ourselves, even if we have to search every square inch of this building with the aid of the police!”
Miss Grennan’s eyes flickered in recognition of his name. She pushed her spectacles back to the bridge of her nose and, without further delay, moved toward the stairs. “If you please, Miss, follow me. Your sister is in the women’s common ward.”
She glanced back at Henry. “Sorry sir, but men aren’t allowed in the women’s wards, except during visiting hours on Wednesday and Sunday. Today is Tuesday.”
Henry waved Clara on. “I’ll wait here. Take as long as you need.”
Giving him a grateful smile, she ran after Miss Grennan, who was already halfway up the stairs.
Miss Grennan walked at a fast clip, though not as fast as Clara would have wished. After a maze of corridors, the matron led her through a set of swinging doors that opened onto a long, narrow room crowded with twenty or more cots lining each side.
Women of every age and description lay huddled on the dingy sheets. Yet, in spite of her revulsion, she could not stop herself from looking. Everywhere her eyes went she saw feverish, sunken eyes, toothless mouths and diseased or damaged flesh. Many of the poor wretches were wasted away to nothing more than flesh-covered skeletons, while others seemed to float on sagging pillows of fat. Two elderly women, whose skin was gray and mottled, lay side by side so perfectly still she was sure they were no longer among the living. Groans and cries of pain echoed off the walls. Several of the women could be heard begging for water or morphine. Only one prayed—a sickly girl who looked to be in the last days of her confinement.
A heavy stench caught in Clara’s throat, forcing her to press her lapel scarf over her nose and mouth. She followed the matron down the constricted path that lay between the ends of the cots and redirected her gaze to the sway of the matron’s hem, which went still at the end of the row.
Clara lifted her eyes to the battered creature lying on sheets filthy with blood and dirt. The orbits around the girl’s eyes were greatly swollen, and the rest of her face was so marred with cuts and bruises, she wasn’t at all sure it was Josie. She desperately searched for some small feature that was exclusively Josie’s, and reflexively jerked back.
“She isn’t breathing!” she gasped, pulling on Miss Grennan’s arm. “Dear God, is she dead?”
“No, no. Of course not,” Miss Grennan chided, picking up Josie’s wrist to count her pulse. “Her breathing’s shallow is all; it’s common after they get the morphine. She was hysterical when they brought her in, you know. Dr. Mackley gave her an injection so she wouldn’t work herself into a state that might cause her heart to fail.
“Cafferty—he’s the copper that collared the two hooligans that got hold of her down at Five Points—he told me that some old codger saw ’em followin’ her and fetched the law. Cafferty said they roughed her up, but …” Miss Grennan lowered her voice to a whisper, “they didn’t violate the poor girl, thank sweet Jesus for that, Miss. You can’t say her guardian angel wasn’t watching over her today.”
Clara wondered where the guardian angel was while her sister was being assaulted. Taking Jo’s hand, she flinched at the cold flesh and began rubbing warmth into her fingers.
“Dr. Mackley is Chambers Street house surgeon,” Miss Grennan went on. “He’s the best in the city. He thinks she’s going to be all right, but he says your sister has a sort of heart dropsy and the shock probably caused some damage. He’s sent to the chemist for special medicines—she won’t be able to get along without them.”
The matron paused. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, Miss, but you seem like a decent sort. What do you think your sister might’ve been doing down in Five Points? Most of the women we see from there are a bad lot. Anyone with the sense of a
hen knows you can’t go in there and come out same as what you went in.”
Bewildered, Clara shook her head. “I can’t imagine how my sister came to be in that dreadful place, but I’m certain it was not her intention to be there. It’s a mystery only Josephine will be able to solve for us.”
Miss Grennan fingered her keys. “I’ll be plain with you Miss—we put her here in the common ward ’cause we thought she was a prostitute. When she wakes, we’ll bring her upstairs to the private ladies’ ward. It might cost you some, but it’s got windows and it’s quieter. They get their feed first, so the food is hot. She’ll rest better up there, too. Nights down here …” Miss Grennan waved a hand in the general direction of the ward, “sometimes the women get to acting crazy. Some of ’em can be downright foul, if you understand my meaning.”
Clara had no idea what Miss Grennan was hinting at, but from the matron’s expression, she was fairly certain she didn’t want to know. “How long will she have to be in the hospital?”
“Dr. Mackley won’t let her leave until he’s certain she’s out of danger; but that being said, he wouldn’t dare keep one of the private ward beds occupied for too long either.” The matron cocked her head to the side and studied Josie’s inert body. “I reckon she’ll be able to go home in a week’s time. Now if you’ll excuse me, Miss, I’ll make arrangements to have your sister taken to the ladies’ ward.”
After the matron was gone, Clara inspected every inch of her sister’s bruised and swollen face. “Josie? You’re safe now. Please wake up.”
Josie opened her eyes as far as the swelling would allow and winced at the light. Seeing Clara, she struggled to sit up, speaking in fits and starts, forcing her damaged lips to form the words.
“You should have seen it, Clara. There was this little girl who took my hat and ate garbage and … and …” She closed her eyes. “I almost escaped, except my heart hurt and I couldn’t breathe. Those boys they … they were going to kill me! It was the old man who saved me.” She gripped Clara’s hand. “We have to find him and give him something—maybe a new pair of shoes and some money. Maybe we could find him some work at Miss Todd’s. He could sleep in the furnace room.”
“I’ll see what we can do,” Clara said quietly, “but you’re safe now, and Dr. Mackley says you must rest. You have to—”
“They took everything—all the money I saved, grandmother’s locket, even my hat and shoes.” She let loose with a hysterical giggle. “My hat and shoes. Can you imagine? What would street boys want with those?”
Clara pulled her close, trying to absorb as much of the hurt as she could. She stroked Josie’s hair, humming the first tune to come into her head. A dozen notes into “La donna, è mobile,” she felt her sister relax. “You mustn’t worry any more about it,” she whispered. “The police have recovered most of your things, including your shoes, which …” she attempted a lighthearted laugh, “they’ve probably polished for you.”
Josie turned her face to the wall and sighed—a gentle, sad sound. “Now there’ll be more doctor bills and medicines,” she said, her voice growing faint as sleep overcame her. “I’ll have to go to the Christian charities and ask for a dress. Alice and I can trim it with Miss Todd’s old wreath ribbon.”
Clara tucked Josie’s hand under the covers and hurried to the lobby, where she related the facts to Henry. When she was finished, he led her to a nearby bench.
“I had a brilliant idea while you were gone,” he said. “I’m going to stay at my club, and I want you to use my apartment. It’s comfortable, and you could look after Josie yourself. I’ll arrange to have my physician come by as often as you think necessary. It would be no inconvenience to me, and it would provide your sister with a private place to recover.”
“Thank you, Henry, but I’m afraid she’s much too ill to be moved. However, I am going to call upon you to help in another way.”
“I’ll do whatever I can, just name it.”
“Please telephone Miss Todd and tell her Josie has been taken ill with the grippe and that we‘re staying with friends in the city for the time being. She’ll press you for details, so you’ll have to plead ignorance. In the morning, inform Mr. Tiffany that I won’t be in until after noon. Tell him I made an emergency visit to the dentist—just the thought of a dentist makes him weak in the knees, so he won’t ask anything further.”
Clara hesitated. “This next request might prove impossible even for you, but if you have it within your power to ensure that news of this incident doesn’t find its way into the newspapers, I’ll be eternally grateful. Should word of this get into the gossip mills, Josie’s reputation will be forever tarnished, and that would be a worse cruelty than anything she has endured today.”
“The Times editor and the police commissioner are acquaintances of mine,” Henry said. “I’ll make sure not one word of this appears in any paper or gossip mill in New York.”
“There is one more thing, Henry, but I have to come up with a plan first. When I’ve figured it out, I’ll call on you. Until then, I think we should carry on as if nothing has happened.”
The upstairs ward windows were open, letting in fresh air and light, while the smell of clean linen lent the ward a sense of wellbeing. The patients were of an altogether different sort, just as the ward matron had promised. Respectable married women occupied most of the beds, with the rest being taken up by shop girls and elderly widows.
Once Josie was settled, Miss Grennan brought Clara a tray weighted down with a generous bowl of steaming barley soup, a thick slice of brown bread and butter, a sliver of sausage, and a pot of hot, sweet tea. With her first bite, she realized how hungry she was and finished off the meal in haste. But even as the food revived her, she was assailed by guilt over eating provisions that might have gone to one of the unfortunate women in the common ward.
Confident that Josie would not wake for some time, she made her way to the front steps of the hospital, where a fine rain turned her hair into a Medusa-like mass of curls. She had to smile at the thought that with her hair sticking out at all angles, anyone passing by would think she was a madwoman making her escape.
She began walking, sorting out the day’s events and their probable ramifications as she went. A few blocks later she came to a chapel, its doors open and the lamps lit, as if she were expected. Silence engulfed her as she slipped into the last pew and kneeled on the hard wood of the kneeling bench. The stained glass window behind the altar portrayed Jesus’ agony in the Garden at Gethsemane. It was to that suffering God that she directed her simple prayer.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Why have I been blessed with this gift if I’m not to use it? Surely my dream is not to end so soon.”
Her throat ached with the effort of holding back her sorrow. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she wept. No revelations came from on high, yet, by the time her knees had gone numb, she knew the path she would take. As for her art, she would manage what she could, although to what end she couldn’t say—that she would leave to fate.
Getting to her feet, she leaned out over the pew and exhaled in a long, keening note, just as she’d seen the Irish washerwomen do before rolling up their sleeves and plunging their arms into the scalding water of the washtubs.
October 13, 1889
Ft. Greene Park, Brooklyn
The heavy mourning veil draped over the top of Josie’s hat made it impossible to tell anything was amiss underneath. This was evidenced by the fact that none of the Sunday morning strollers took notice of the trio as they descended the hospital steps and climbed into the private cab. They were a half-mile away from Miss Todd’s before anyone spoke.
“Let’s go over the plan once more,” Henry said, “just in case we run into problems.”
Clara glanced out the cab window to check their location. “It’s very simple. The boardinghouse is always deserted on Sundays between nine and eleven. We’ll arrive a little after ten. I’ll go in first to make sure there’s no one left
hanging about.”
She fished in her purse for a handkerchief. “If the coast is clear, I’ll wave my hanky from the front door. Henry, you will then escort Josie inside and up to our room.”
“But what if someone is there?” Josie asked, her fingers stealing under the veil to touch her swollen face. “Like Miss Alling?”
“Say nothing, and above all don’t stop. I’ll create some sort of diversion, while the two of you slip past me before anyone is the wiser. I’ll just say Mr. Belknap is calling with his sister-in-law from Denver.”
Henry sighed. “I still think it would be much safer to do this at midnight.”
Josie shook her head. “That’s exactly when everybody in the house is feeling peckish and searching around for something to eat. It’s practically a mob scene in the parlor.”
Just kitty-corner from Miss Todd’s, Clara alighted from the cab. As she started for the boardinghouse, Henry stuck his head out the window. “If this doesn’t work, I think we should use my idea of rolling her up inside a carpet and carrying her upstairs. It worked for Cleopatra.”
Miss Todd’s Boardinghouse
October 20, 1889
Dear Aunt Harriet and Uncle Joseph,
We have a little mystery here at Miss Todd’s that you may find interesting. As I mentioned in my last letter, Miss Josephine Wolcott was unexpectedly struck down with a bad case of grippe (or so we were told), while visiting Clara at Tiffany’s. Some doctor we’ve never heard of insisted she wasn’t well enough to return to Miss Todd’s, so Clara took her to the home of a Miss Smith (we’d never heard of her before either), where Josie allegedly stayed for some time.
Then, one morning last week, Clara announced that Josie was back in residence. We were all greatly surprised, since none of us, including the house servants, had seen her return. Of course, we all wanted to welcome her home, but according to Clara, the doctor insisted she was not to have any social calls whatsoever for fear of triggering a relapse.
