They were all sorts. Many were escaping from the Old World to take their chance in the New. Her own family had come from Ireland twenty years earlier. Others came from the upstate farmlands, from Connecticut, New Jersey or further off, looking for whatever the city might offer. In the last two years, however, a new and sudden tide had washed against America’s shores, larger than any before, and sent there by the tragedy of the Irish Famine.
They came by the shipload. And though they weren’t the poorest Irish—for at least they, or relations in America, had been able to pay the fare—once they had arrived, they usually had few resources. And for newcomers to the city, if all else failed and you’d nowhere to go, then the last resort was the filthy tenements of Five Points. God knows how many poor Irish were crowded in there now.
The area contained one noble building: a huge rectangle, the size of a castle, whose tall window frames and thick stone columns were splendidly sculpted in the Egyptian style—so that you might have thought the ancient pharaohs had deserted their pyramids and come to live in New York. Whether its inmates appreciated the architecture was doubtful, for this was the local prison, known as “The Tombs”—a blunt reminder that the New World, too, could be cold and hard as stone.
But as she glanced in the direction of Five Points, there was one thing Mary was sure of: every prisoner, every prostitute, every tavernkeeper, every poor Irish newcomer—every one of them knew the devil, and he knew them. Like as not, he was in there now. She quickened her pace, therefore, until she was well past.
Only once did she pause, for a moment or two, at Reade Street, to look into the handsome windows of A. T. Stewart’s Dry Goods Store. She didn’t go past it often, but who could resist peeping at the calicos and silks, the beautiful gloves and shawls set out there? Once, she’d even dared to go in and look at some of the ladies’ underwear they kept in drawers behind the counter. Such lovely lacy things. Not that she could think of buying them, of course. But it gave her a thrill, just to look.
She paused not even a minute, and was turning to hurry on, when she felt a hand clamp upon her shoulder.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” she cried.
“Going somewhere?” asked the devil.
“Mind your own business.”
“You said you had to work late.”
“The manager changed his mind.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mary. I always know when you’re lying. I’ve been following you all the way from Fraunces Tavern,” her brother Sean said.
“You’re the devil all right,” she said.
She couldn’t remember when she’d first given Sean his nickname. A long time ago. The devil. It suited him. She could never be sure what he was up to, and often it was better not to know. He was only sixteen when he first killed a man—or so it was rumored. For when people were killed in Five Points, their bodies usually disappeared. Anyway, his reputation had helped him in his career.
Not that he was anything but a kind brother to her—she couldn’t deny it—but he was always wanting to control her. And that she couldn’t tolerate.
“So where are you going? You may as well tell me, since I’m sure to find out.”
“Damn you to hell.”
“You’re too late for that, I should think,” he said cheerfully.
“I’m looking for a position.”
“I told you there’s a job at Lord & Taylor,” he reminded her. “It’s a good store. Doing well.”
But Lord & Taylor was in Catherine Street, which was too near to Five Points. She didn’t want to go there. Anyway, she wanted something entirely different.
“I’m going into service,” she said. “In a decent house.”
“Does Father know?”
“No,” she answered, “I haven’t told him.”
“Well,” said Sean, “I can’t blame you for that.”
Their father, John O’Donnell, had been a good man, until 1842. That was the year his work on the big aqueduct had ended. Also the year his wife had died. After that, he’d changed. Not dramatically at first. He’d done his best to keep the family together. But then he’d started drinking a bit, and got into a fight or two. He’d been dismissed from his next job, and the one after that. By the time she was ten, although she was the youngest, Mary had been keeping house for him while her two elder sisters went their own ways. Her brother Sean had helped her then, and still helped her now. She had to give the devil his due.
But the last months had been impossible—since the death of Brian Boru.
Brian Boru had been her father’s bull terrier, and he’d been prouder of that dog than anything. Whatever money he had was tied up in Brian Boru. “He’s my investment,” he’d say. You’d have thought he owned a bank. Brian Boru was a fighter—put him in the ring, and there weren’t many dogs he couldn’t tear apart.
John O’Donnell used to bet on Brian Boru. He called these bets investments. So far as Mary knew, apart from the money she brought home and anything Sean gave him, Brian Boru’s winnings had been her father’s only source of income for some years. As the owner of Brian Boru, even when he was the worse for drink, Mr. O’Donnell had carried himself with a certain style. But now Brian Boru was dead, and her father had nothing to live for. The drinking had got worse. If she gave him her wages, they’d be gone in a day. And it wasn’t only the money. The lodgings they had on Delancey Street were no palace, but at least they were a good half-mile up the Bowery from Five Points. The way things were going, however, she was sure the landlord would soon tell her father to leave. Even Sean might have difficulty preventing that.
“I’ve got to get out, Sean,” she cried.
“I know,” said the devil. “I’ll take care of Father.”
“Don’t kill him. Sean, promise me you won’t kill him.”
“Would I do such a thing?”
“Yes,” she said, “you would.”
“You’ve a terrible view of my character,” said Sean with a smile. “Now would you guess where I was before I came looking for you?”
“With some woman, no doubt.”
That was how she usually saw him, with a woman on his arm, two women sometimes, strolling down the Bowery dressed in his fancy coat. A poor man’s dandy, with a smile on his face—and a knife in his pocket.
“No, Mary. I was at a bar mitzvah.”
“A bar mitzvah? For the love of God why? Are you not a Christian any more?”
“We don’t only look after the Irish, Mary. Christian, Jew or heathen: if they’re in my ward, I’m their friend. I helped that family get naturalized when they arrived.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a Jewish house.”
“The Jews are like the Irish, Mary. Do a Jew a favor, and he’ll never forget.” He grinned. “They quarrel with each other, too.” He paused. “So where are you going?”
“Uptown.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
That was the last thing she needed. Uptown, the streets became genteel again. Rich people lived up there. The place she was going wanted a quiet, respectable girl. What would they think if they caught sight of Sean, the Bowery boy in his loud coat, the devil from Five Points? She’d sooner they didn’t even know she had a brother. For if they knew, they’d be sure to ask what he did, and what could she say?
What did Sean do? Organize the local ward? Yes. Help the poor? No doubt. Stuff ballot boxes? Certainly. Run errands for his friend Fernando Wood? Why not? Enforce his will, at point of knife? Better not ask.
Sean would do whatever it took to please the boys at Tammany Hall.
Tammany was a sort of Indian name. The Tammany men called themselves Braves, and their leaders were sachems, just like an Indian tribe. It was organized a bit like a tribe, too—a loose collection of groups and gangs who’d banded together for mutual assistance. They had a meeting place, though, which they called Tammany Hall, on the other side of the Common. And they were certainly effective. If you were a new immigrant, you went to Tammany Hall. They h
elped you find a place to live, maybe helped with your rent, found you a job—especially if you were Irish. You might become a fireman. Your wife and daughter might work at home, stitching ready-to-wear clothes for Brooks Brothers. Then Tammany Hall told you who to vote for. And made sure they were elected, too.
If Tammany did favors, it expected favors in return. You kept on the right side of Tammany, if you had any sense. And there were fellows like Sean to persuade you of the wisdom of doing so, should you have any doubts. Respectable people didn’t like Tammany.
“I’m all right by myself,” she said.
“I’ll treat you to the train,” he offered.
This might have been tempting. The coaches of the New York and Harlem Railroad were so plush that even the rich Wall Street men rode in them. Leaving from beside City Hall, they lumbered sedately northward past Five Points, then trundled up the Bowery and picked up Fourth Avenue. Until they reached the end of the residential neighborhoods, where quiet was demanded, they were pulled by teams of heavy horses. Above the residential area, the coaches were coupled to steam engines for the long journey up to Harlem.
“I can’t,” she said. “I promised to meet Gretchen along the way.”
“Oh God,” he cried. “I might have guessed. The chocolate girl. Little goody two-shoes.”
Mary might have said, “She doesn’t like you either.” But she didn’t.
“So it’s Gretchen that’s found you this position.”
“It’s a family she knows. I may not get it.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
They walked on together, past the hospital and the Masonic Hall. At Canal Street, Broadway rose a little where it had once crossed over marshy ground. A few minutes more and they came to Houston Street. Here the planned, rectangular grid of the new city, obscured by the older, V-shaped pattern at the southern end of the island, began to make itself plain. The cross-streets began to have numbers instead of names. At Grace Church, where Broadway made its turn, Mary said, “Gretchen’s meeting me up the road,” and her brother said grumpily that she could go on alone. But as they parted, he reminded her: “I shall find out all about this place, you know.”
Just so long as you don’t come there, she thought to herself.
Sure enough, at the corner of Union Square, there was Gretchen.
“Will I do, Gretchen?” Mary cried as she reached her. And she turned herself around to be inspected.
“You’re perfect,” her friend assured her.
“Not,” said Mary, with a sigh, “compared to you.” Small, proper, orderly, blue-eyed little Gretchen always had her face well scrubbed, and her golden hair pulled back and pinned. Not a hair out of place, not a speck of dust on her coat. She was as perfect as a china doll. But if Gretchen Keller was your friend, she never let you down.
The Kellers were German. They’d arrived in New York two years before Mary’s mother had died. Mr. Keller and his wife kept a little chocolate store on the Bowery at Sixth Street. Mr. Keller’s brother, Uncle Willy, kept a cigar store a few doors down, and Gretchen’s cousin Hans worked for a piano-maker in the same quarter.
Though most of the Germans who’d come to America were farmers, quite a few were staying in New York. And unless they could afford better, they were settling in the quarter that stretched across from the Bowery to the East River and from Delancey Street in the south, where the O’Donnells lived, up to Fourteenth Street. A mixed quarter had therefore developed, German and Irish, but the two communities got along well enough, because they didn’t tread on each other’s toes. The Irish men in that quarter were mostly in the laboring and building trades, and the women in domestic service. The Germans worked as tailors, artisans and shopkeepers. So many had come in during the last decade that, despite all the Irish there, people were starting to call the quarter “Kleindeutschland.”
So it wasn’t surprising that the blonde German and the dark-haired Irish girl should have met and become friends. The Kellers might not approve of John O’Donnell, but they were kind to Mary, and Uncle Willy would still give her father a cigar, out of charity, from time to time. But the future was increasingly clear. South of Delancey Street, as you got closer to Five Points, the area became poorer. North of Delancey, the streets became more and more respectable. The Kellers would soon be moving northward. John O’Donnell looked to be heading south.
“I’m so frightened,” Mary confessed, as they walked along Fourteenth Street and turned into Irving Place. “What’ll they think of me?”
“The lady’s been buying our chocolates for years,” Gretchen reminded her. “She’s very nice. And it isn’t as if we’ve come knocking on her door—it was she who asked my mother if we knew of a girl who’d might like a position.”
“That’s because she wants someone respectable like you.”
“You’re very respectable, Mary.”
“What if they saw Sean?”
“They won’t.”
“What if they ask me what my father does? The last regular work he had was laying bricks on the aqueduct. And that was years ago. As for what he does now …”
“We’ll say your father’s a mason. It sounds better. Apart from that, Mary, just be yourself and tell the truth. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
“Thank God you’re coming with me,” said Mary, as they entered the square at the end of Irving Place.
Gramercy Park was a gracious place. Its rows of big, wide, red-brick houses, as spacious within as many city mansions, were arranged in a broad rectangle around a pleasant central garden. It might have been one of London’s quieter, aristocratic squares. If some of the houses built in New York recently were encumbered with opulence, those of Gramercy Park kept a classical dignity and restraint. Fit for judges, senators, merchants with libraries. “We are new mansions,” they seemed to say, “for old money.” Why, even the land under them had been purchased from one of Peter Stuyvesant’s descendants.
Frank Master had a modest library, but when he got home from his counting house, he’d gone into the dining room, so that he could unroll the maps he was carrying along the entire length of the table. It was a fine room. The table, under a big chandelier, could seat more than twenty. Over the fireplace hung a large painting, of the Hudson River school, depicting Niagara Falls.
As he started to unroll the maps, he turned to his wife.
“This Irish girl,” he said. “Before you engage her, I want to see her.”
“Of course, dear,” said his wife. “If you wish it.” Her voice was gentle, but he did not miss the slight edge in it. A danger signal. This was household business. He was trespassing on her territory.
Frank Master loved his wife. They’d been married six years now, and they had two children. If her body was a little fuller than when they’d married, he thought it suited her very well. And she was kind. Hetty Master’s religion was simple, warm and practical. She tried to help people whenever she could. He suspected that she secretly felt that the Lord was directing her acts of charity, but rather than say that, she’d just remark that she felt the business in hand was fated. He’d also noticed that, from time to time, she was capable of giving fate a nudge.
When it came to running the household, however, Hetty was not quite so easy-going. A few months before their wedding, Frank’s father Weston had died, and they’d begun their married life together with his mother, in the big family house. It had lasted four months. After that, Hetty had gently told him that she and his mother couldn’t both run the household, and so they’d better be moving. That very day, as it happened, she’d heard about a house that was available. “I do believe,” she’d said firmly, “that it’s fated.” So that was that. They’d moved to Gramercy Park.
If Frank was determined to interview this Irish girl, he didn’t press the point at once. It was better, he’d learned, to play for time. So he changed the subject.
“Look at these maps, Hetty,” he said, “and tell me what you think.” The reason why he needed
the whole table was that the maps covered a territory that ran all the way up the Hudson, from New York to Albany. “The Hudson River Railroad,” he said with satisfaction. “The northern sections are all complete. Before long it’ll reach us here.”
Hetty obligingly gazed at the maps, and smiled. “That’ll teach the damn Yankees,” she remarked.
George Washington might have called John Master a Yankee, but in the last generation a distinction had grown up. One might speak of Connecticut Yankees, and Boston was certainly Yankee, but the New York men liked to think of themselves as different. Taking the name of the fictitious author of Washington Irving’s delightful mock history of the city, they’d started calling themselves Knickerbockers. Of course, there were plenty of Connecticut Yankees, and Boston men too, among the merchants of New York, but the genial distinction was still made. And when it came to any rivalry between New York and Boston, then the Boston men, sure as hell, were damn Yankees.
It wasn’t too often that the Boston Yankees got the better of New York. The Knickerbocker merchants had managed to bring most of the Southern cotton trade through their port; more of the swift China trade clippers left from New York than anywhere else, many of them built on the East River too. So maybe a touch of arrogance had blinded the Knickerbockers to the fact that the Boston men, seeing all the trade coming across from the Midwest by the Erie Canal, had built a rail line across to Albany, to carry goods swiftly to Boston instead of down the Hudson to New York.
Well, that oversight was going to be remedied. When it was completed, the Hudson railway line should pull those goods back to New York again. But that wasn’t the only reason why Frank Master wanted to look at the map today.
“So what is your plan, Frank?” his wife asked.