Your friend Elena (Sid)
I shut my eyes, enjoying the feel of warm spring sunshine on my face and tried to picture Paris. Then suddenly I was back in Ireland, sitting in the schoolroom at the big house with Miss Vanessa and Miss Henrietta. When I was ten I had rather impressed their mother, Mrs. Hartley, with my eloquence and cheek and she had invited me to join her own daughters for lessons. They clearly didn’t think much of this idea and never made me feel welcome but their governess was delighted to have a pupil who was so keen to learn. On this day she was telling us about a trip she had taken to Paris. I was plying her with questions about the Louvre and Notre-Dame when Miss Vanessa cut into our discussion.
“I don’t see why we’re wasting time like this. It’s not as if you’re ever likely to go to Paris, Molly,” she said scathingly and her sister had tittered as if this was a great joke.
A sudden cold breeze swept across the square, almost snatching the paper from my hands. I looked up and saw that Aggie’s prediction was right. Dark clouds were racing in over the Hudson. It would rain before the day was out. I folded the letter replaced it in its envelope, and then stood up. I should get a move on and do my shopping for tonight’s meal now, rather than later in the day. Liam slept on blissfully as I set the buggy moving in the direction of home. Another gust of wind sent spray from the fountain in our direction. And then it was almost as if I was having a vision: before they left for Paris, Sid and Gus had taken me to an exhibit of Impressionist painting at a gallery in New York. I had found the paintings delightfully light and fresh and free, although others viewing them had pronounced them as shocking daubs with no substance to them. Now, as I glanced back across the square it was as if I was seeing one of those Impressionist paintings of a park in Paris—a young girl holding onto a white straw hat with red ribbons flying out in the breeze, while her small brother ran to retrieve a red ball, pigeons pecking hopefully, and sycamore trees coming into leaf, casting dappled shade on the gravel walkways. I smiled wistfully as I moved on. Such a scene in Washington Square was the closest to Paris I was likely to get.
Two
Clouds had almost swallowed up the sun by the time we returned to Patchin Place. The bumpy ride over cobbles woke Liam and his loud cries let me know that he expected to be fed again soon. I felt my breasts react in response. None of this newfangled bottle feeding for me, in spite of my mother-in-law telling me it was more hygienic and that ladies of quality never nursed their infants. I had not regretted my decision for an instant but the arrival of sharp little new teeth made me wonder whether weaning might be a good idea.
“I’m home, Aggie,” I called, pausing in the front hallway to remove my hat and coat.
Her pinched little face appeared from the kitchen. “Laundry’s all done and out, Mrs. Sullivan, but for how long, who can say?”
“You were right about the weather as usual,” I said. “The rainclouds are already gathering.”
“Maybe that’s why I’ve felt so cold all morning,” she said. “Could be a big storm coming.” Liam interrupted this conversation with another wail. Aggie went to lift him out of his pram, but I stopped her.
“It’s all right. He wants feeding. I’ll take him up to the nursery.”
Liam reached out to me to be picked up. I noticed how heavy he was getting as I swung him onto my hip. “I’m going to cut down your rations, my lad,” I said. “You’re getting too big.”
“Don’t say that, Mrs. Sullivan,” Aggie said. “We never got enough to eat at my house. You don’t know what that’s like.”
“No, I don’t,” I said, looking at her with pity. “It’s almost lunchtime. Go and warm us up some of that stew. I’ve got a nice chop for Captain Sullivan’s dinner, if he comes home in time to eat tonight.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Aggie said. I paused halfway up the stairs and turned back to her. “A man was here this morning asking for Captain Sullivan.”
“What kind of man? A policeman?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” She chewed on her lip. “A swarthy type. Foreign.”
“What did he want?”
“He just asked when Captain Sullivan was likely to be home. I told him I couldn’t say, and that Captain Sullivan didn’t keep regular hours. We’d hardly seen him at all lately. He then asked about you, and I said you’d be back shortly.”
“Did you ask if you could take a message?” I asked.
“I did. And he said he had to deliver the message to you and the captain in person, so he’d be back when you were both home.”
“How strange,” I said. “Foreign? I can’t think who that might be.”
“I didn’t like the look of him,” Aggie said. “He had shifty eyes.”