The remark before had been harmless enough. But she still felt a little uneasy all the same, even if she wasn’t sure exactly why.
The next time they were out, and walking by the waterfront, he said something about the cotton trade. Living in the Masters’ house, and hearing the merchant’s conversation, she’d picked up a bit of knowledge about that business. And hardly thinking, she told Nolan he was wrong. For just a moment, a cloud passed across his face. Then, without looking at her, he gave a tight-lipped smile. “Now don’t you go contradicting me,” he said quietly. And she could see he meant it.
She knew she shouldn’t mind these things too much. Most men were the same. And you had to admit, Nolan had many things to recommend him. By late spring, it seemed to her that he would ask her to marry him.
She’d discussed Nolan with Gretchen, of course. For Gretchen had a fiancé of her own now. Her parents had made the arrangements. He was a German boy, a distant cousin with the same family name, whose father had a bakery and confectionery store, an only child who’d inherit the business. His name was Henry and Mary thought he was nice enough. He had a little mustache, and he liked to talk about confectionery.
Mary didn’t quite understand her friend’s engagement. Gretchen didn’t seem to spend much time with her fiancé, but she seemed quite contented, as if she was glad that a matter which might otherwise have caused her trouble had been settled for her easily. “I don’t even have to change my name,” she remarked cheerfully. “I’ll still be Gretchen Keller.”
“Do you love him?” Mary had once asked her friend. “Oh yes, I like him,” Gretchen had answered placidly, though she never seemed to bring him along when she and Mary went out together. Gretchen and Henry were due to be married at the end of the year.
When they discussed Nolan, Gretchen never asked if she loved him. But she asked if he was attentive, and kind, and if he had a good business. And as the weeks went by, and Mary had time to reflect on her situation, and she compared the Kellers’ solid family household with the morbid chaos of Five Points, she concluded that Gretchen’s attitude might be wise. At the end of May, when Gretchen had asked her whether, if Nolan proposed, she would accept him, she had answered, “I expect I might.”
Nolan had made his move in June. At noon on a Sunday, he’d picked her up from the house in Gramercy Park. It was a warm summer day, not a cloud in the sky. He’d hired a nice little two-seated gig and, with a picnic basket and blanket behind, he drove her up Broadway and out onto the old Bloomingdale road. It wasn’t long before the city streets gave way to empty lots and countryside. They’d gone about three miles, and she’d supposed they might be going to some pleasant spot overlooking the Hudson, but instead he turned right and continued a little way until they came to a large tract of wild ground, with small hills and rocky outcrops.
Drawing up, and tethering the horse, he took the basket and blanket and led her down a path.
“Where in the world are you taking me?” she asked.
“A place I discovered a while ago,” he said. “You’ll see.” They passed a high outcrop of rock half concealed by trees and bushes. “Just a step,” he said as, taking her hand, he guided her between the trees. “There.”
She had to admit that it was a delightful spot. A little dell, where the sun fell gently onto an open bank of grasses which, most charmingly in that summer season, were sprinkled with wild strawberries.
“Perfect spot for a picnic,” he said.
He’d brought a bottle of wine, fresh salmon, jellied chicken, bread that smelled as if it had just come out of the oven, sweetmeats, fresh fruit. She’d never had a more delightful meal. And during the course of it, he talked easily of this and that, and even told some funny jokes which, she had noticed, was not a thing he often did.
So when he kissed her, she had been expecting it, and had no objection. And when, lying beside her on the grass, he began to kiss her more passionately, she returned his passion. And when his hands began to caress her she gave a little gasp. But when he started to go further, and rolled on top of her, she found she did not wish it, and she resisted him, and asked him to stop.
He did so, but it was clear that he did not believe her, and suddenly he was at it again.
“No, Paddy,” she said. “Please.” She sat up and looked at him reprovingly. “I am not your wife.”
He rolled on his back and looked up at the sky, and she wondered if he was going to ask her to marry him then. And indeed, she had the distinct impression that he was considering it. But instead, after a while, he sat up. He was looking a bit thoughtful.
He poured her a glass of wine, which she took, and he poured some for himself. Then he smiled.
“It’s a beautiful day, Mary,” he said. “Can’t think what came over me.”
He didn’t say much more, but after a while he began to collect the remains of the food and put them in the basket. Then with a sigh he remarked that he wished he didn’t have to do some work at the saloon. “But duty calls.”
So he led her back to the two-seater, and drove her home.
After he’d gone, she sat in her room for a couple of hours, taking stock of the situation. What did it mean? Was he not serious about her at all, and only intending to seduce her? He wouldn’t try to force himself on her, she was sure—he would know that Sean would put a knife in his back if ever he did that. And he surely wouldn’t have spent all this time courting her when he could have plenty of easy women as a mistress, if that’s what he wanted. No, from everything that had passed between them, she was sure he was thinking of her as a wife.
She wished she could talk it over with Gretchen, but Gretchen and her family had gone away that week to visit relations in New Jersey. Anyway, she told herself, she was perfectly capable of thinking it out for herself.
What was his game, then? Simple enough, she supposed: he wanted to sample the goods before he bought. She couldn’t really blame him for that. Out in the country, it was thought decent enough so long as you married before the first child was born.
And she’d refused him. Why? A sense of her own reputation? God knows, the place he’d chosen was discreet enough. Had she wanted him? Perhaps not. Not just then. She hardly knew. Was that such a good reason to refuse? Was he disappointed? Was he angry? Had she lost him?
It was early evening when she left the house. It was still her day off. She walked down Irving Place to Fourteenth Street, across to Fourth Avenue, and took a train down to City Hall. It was only a short walk to Beekman Street from there.
She hadn’t quite decided what she was going to say, or do, when she got to the saloon. But at the least, she would speak to him, let him know that she was sorry for disappointing him. More than that she hadn’t decided. She’d see what reception she got, and take it from there.
She was halfway down the street when she saw him. He’d just come out of the saloon, and he was looking angry. It made her pause, nervously, and her first thought was that his bad temper was probably her fault. He turned along the street, with his back to her. There weren’t many people about, but she didn’t want to call out to him, so she started to walk quickly, to catch up with him.
She noticed that there was a ragged street urchin in his path, a little boy of seven or eight, by the look of him. He was standing there with his hand out for a coin. Nolan waved him out of the way, irritably, as he drew near. But the little fellow stood his ground, his hand still out. Nolan reached him, and paused. His hand seemed to go to his pocket. And then, silently, and with great deliberation, he smacked the urchin across the face so hard that the little boy was lifted clean off his feet and sent rolling in the gutter. People turned at the sound. The little boy lay in the street so shocked he didn’t even scream. And Nolan walked on as though nothing had happened.
She stopped. She stared. Normally she’d have rushed to the boy, but others were doing that, and besides, for some reason she couldn’t. She turned and started to hurry away. As she did so, a sudden feeling, not only
of shock, but a kind of nausea, overcame her.
She turned up toward City Hall. A train was leaving and she quickly got on. It wasn’t only that she wanted to sit down, but somehow to remove herself from the street. As the train slowly trundled up the Bowery, she tried to make sense of what had just happened.
She’d seen Nolan. Seen him when he had no idea she was there. Seen him, as it were, unclothed. Seen him angry. But no anger—even if she was the cause of it—gave him the right to do what he just did. It wasn’t just the violence of the blow—you could see worse than that any day around Five Points. It was Nolan’s cold, deliberate cruelty that had been exposed.
And this was the man who she’d been thinking of marrying, the man who’d kissed her, the man who, only hours before, had pressed his body into hers. And foolish though it might be, and though it was the boy he struck, and not herself, she felt a terrible, sickening sense, as though she had been violated.
When he called at Gramercy Park again the next week, she sent out word that she was unwell. A few days later, she asked Mrs. Master to help her. She gave few details, simply telling her that Nolan had been courting her, and that she had discovered something bad about him. And after a little gentle questioning, Mrs. Master told her she’d take care of it. The following Sunday, when Nolan called to know how Mary was, Hetty Master herself told him plainly that Mary did not wish to see him any more, and that he was not to call at the house again.
“He was not best pleased,” she told Mary afterward, with some satisfaction.
The only thing Mary dreaded was that Nolan might complain to her brother, and that this might cause Sean to come to the house, but mercifully it didn’t. The next Sunday, though, when she’d gone down to Gretchen’s house, it didn’t surprise her to see Sean waiting for her in the street.
“What’ve you done to Nolan?” he asked. “You’ve embarrassed me.”
“I can’t bear to be with the man any more,” she said. And she told him plainly what she’d seen.
“All right, Mary,” said Sean. And he hadn’t mentioned Nolan since.
Today, however, she’d been able to put Nolan completely out of her mind. She’d met Gretchen at the shop, and they’d walked arm in arm with Theodore along the street.
“Where are we going?” she’d asked.
“Oh, just to pick up Hans,” Gretchen had answered cheerfully.
Her heart had missed a beat, but she didn’t think it showed.
“I haven’t seen him for ages,” she’d said.
So they’d picked him up at the piano store, and they’d walked along the East River all the way down to Battery Park. They had eaten ice cream beside the big entertainment hall, and stared out across the harbor to Staten Island. Someone had laid out a little bowling alley, so they’d played ninepins for a while, Hans being best at it. And she’d watched him all the time without his seeing it. After that they’d walked round the point and gazed up the Hudson. Once, when he’d taken her arm to point out a boat to her, she had almost lost her breath, but she’d kept quite still so he shouldn’t notice.
On the way back, he’d mentioned that the next time they got together, there was a young lady that he’d like them all to meet. And Gretchen had whispered to her that she already knew that Hans and the girl were likely to get married. So after Mary had smiled and said she looked forward to it, and overcome the sudden cold sensation in her stomach, she’d told herself that she was glad, and happy for him.
She was just approaching the house in Gramercy Park when she noticed the man entering the front door. She only had time to get a glimpse of him, but she could have sworn it was her brother Sean.
But why in the world, she wondered anxiously, would Sean be seeing Mr. Master?
After the distressing conversation with his wife about slavery, Frank Master had been glad to retire to the library. He sat down in a leather armchair with the latest copy of the New York Tribune, found a dispatch from the paper’s new correspondent in London, a fellow called Karl Marx, and started to read it.
He was rather surprised when the butler brought in a card bearing the name Fernando Wood. And even more surprised when he heard that the gentleman was not Mr. Wood himself, of Tammany Hall, but his representative.
A visit from the enemy. He frowned. After a moment’s hesitation, however, he judged it wise to discover the reason for the visit, so he told the butler to bring the stranger in. And shortly thereafter found himself gazing at Sean.
The Irishman was expensively dressed, his suit a little too snugly fitting for Master’s taste, and his side whiskers just a bit too assertive; but at least his boots were polished to a shine that Master could approve of. He gestured the young man to a chair.
“You come from the chief sachem of Tammany Hall, I understand.”
“From Mr. Fernando Wood, sir,” Sean answered smoothly. “Indeed I do.”
If Frank Master had been asked to name the biggest rogue in New York—and it was a competitive field—he wouldn’t have paused a second before naming Fernando Wood. Born in Philadelphia, that place had been far too genteel for his talents. He’d come to New York, made a modest fortune, by one means or another, before he was thirty, and got himself in with Tammany Hall. Then he’d turned politician.
You couldn’t deny the genius of Tammany Hall. Fifty years ago, that wretch Aaron Burr had built up Tammany as a political power to get himself elected vice president. And after Tammany had successfully backed Andrew Jackson for the presidency, its Democratic Party machine had become awesomely efficient.
Tammany had got Wood elected as a Democrat to Congress. Then they’d run him for mayor of New York and nearly pulled that off too. Soon the damn fellow was going to run again. In the meantime, with the help of his Tammany Hall friends, Wood had his finger in every pie in the city.
“Might I ask your own name, sir?”
“O’Donnell is my name, sir. But in anything I say, I am speaking for Mr. Wood.”
“And what is the nature of your business with me?” Master inquired.
“You might say it is political, sir,” the Irishman replied.
Surely, Master thought, his visitor couldn’t imagine he’d support Wood for mayor.
“I suppose you know, Mr. O’Donnell,” he said evenly, “that I’m not a great friend of Tammany Hall.”
“I do, sir,” the young man answered coolly, “yet I believe that you and Mr. Wood have an interest in common.”
“And what might that be?”
“Parcel of lots on Thirty-fourth Street, west of Broadway.”
Master looked at him in surprise. It had been six months since he’d bought four lots on that block for future development, and he was still deciding what to do with them.
“You’re well informed,” he remarked drily.
“Mr. Wood is also thinking of purchasing in that block,” his emissary continued. “But there is a problem. It seems that a certain gentleman owning property there is desirous of starting a rendering plant.”
“A rendering plant?”
“Yes, sir. Grinding up carcasses from the slaughterhouse. Dead horses, too. Amazing what you can get out of them. Good business, they tell me. But messy. Not good for other property owners.”
“Not at all.”
“Bad for you, sir. Bad for Mr. Wood.”
“And what can we do?”
“Fight it, sir. We believe there’s a legal remedy, though lawyers are expensive and courts take time. More efficiently, you might say, one or two of the aldermen might be persuaded to deny the permit.”
“To vote it down?”
“We think the problem can be made to go away.”
“I see,” said Master reflectively. “But that would cost money.”
“There, sir,” said the emissary, “you come to the nub of the matter.”
“And my contribution would be …?”
“A thousand dollars.”
Then Frank Master threw back his head and laughed.
“Ci
gar, Mr. O’Donnell?”
Frank Master didn’t mind a bit of corruption. Give a man’s son a job, and he’ll do you a favor later. Give a theater manager a tip for a good investment, and he’ll send you tickets for the opening of a new play. These were the kindnesses that made the world go round. Where did corruption become a vice? Hard to say. It was a question of degree.
He’d thought he knew most of the Tammany Hall tricks. Apart from the basics, like the small bribes for permits, or the larger bribes for contracts, the big stuff was to be found in the padded contracts. Supply the city with food, say, for the poor. Add a percentage to the true invoice. Split the difference with the man who gave you the contract. Continue it year after year. Hard to detect, harder to prove, almost impossible to prosecute—assuming anybody even wanted to. Over time, the money could be huge.
But this trick of O’Donnell’s was new to him. As they lit up their cigars, he gazed at the young man benevolently.
“Nice try.”
O’Donnell looked at him sharply, but said nothing. “Thousand bucks is a pretty good shakedown,” Master continued amiably.
“The threatened plant …”
“Doesn’t exist, Mr. O’Donnell.” Frank Master smiled. “I’m used to paying the city boys for this and that. But the threat of a non-existent rendering plant is a refinement I admire. Do many people fall for it?”
Sean O’Donnell was silent for a moment or two. Then he gave his host a charming smile.
“Between us, sir?”
“Yes.”
“An amazing number.”
“Well, my respects to Mr. Wood, but I’m not one of them.” O’Donnell considered the new position. “There’s one problem, sir. I wouldn’t like to return to Mr. Wood empty-handed. It’s not a good idea.”
“I suppose not. What’ll he take?”
“Five hundred, minimum.”
“Two fifty.”
“Won’t do, sir. You know he’s quite likely to be mayor at the next election.”