I left the chair in the shade and walked around the gardens, hoping to attract the attention of a passerby outside the railings. But the square was deserted apart from two women servants who hurried along the far side and a carriage that passed me at a brisk trot, too quickly to be hailed. As I approached the southeast corner, which was the most wooded, I remembered the man in brown. I hadn't seen him leave the park, and he would have to have a key for us. But he was no longer standing under the trees. I looked around. No movement except for a squirrel that darted across the lawn.
Just then a large shrub close to the railing rustled. The movement was too big to have been caused by another squirrel. A cat, maybe. I moved closer, then froze when I saw the man in brown crouching down beside the shrub. He turned and looked around, nervously. I managed to shrink back behind a tree trunk just in time. Obviously satisfied that there was nobody to see him, he grasped one of the railings, removed it, slipped through the opening and then replaced the railing. It was all over in a second. I watched him brush himself off and walk down the street whistling.
I was so impressed with what I had seen that it took me a moment to realize I had seen him before. He was the same man who had taken our photograph in Central Park.
Three
I didn't think any more of the strange incident until the next day. I presumed that the man merely wanted to access the gardens without owning a resident's key. The cool shade was certainly tempting on these stifling summer days when the heat rose from the cobblestones and reflected from the brick walls.
I had followed his example and made my exit through the loose railing, then picked up a key from the maid, not disclosing to Miss Van Woekem the details of how I had made my escape. I had, however, noted the railing for future use.
I had arrived home that night to find my landlady very agitated.
“Well, here you are at last, Miss Murphy, and not a moment too soon.” She stepped out into the hallway, blocking my passage up the stairs. She had an uncanny habit of doing this, no matter what time of day I came home. She was one of those women my mother used to call “lace-curtain” Irish—nothing better to do than sit behind her lace curtains and snoop at the world.
“Why, what has happened, Mrs. O'Hallaran?” I asked.
“All hell has broken loose up there.” She indicated the stairs. “Half the rabble from the Lower East Side, if you ask me.”
“Oh, that will be his cousin's family.” My heart sank. My least favorite people in the city of New York.
“A fleet of wild children making so much noise that I had to send himself up after them. Any more noise and they're out.” She turned back to me. “I was given to understand that Captain Sullivan recommended you as a quiet and sober young woman. Now look what you've brought into the house.”
“I'm sorry, Mrs. O'Hallaran,” I said, “but I did explain to you about the O'Connors. I felt responsible for those children, packed like sardines into that awful tenement room, and their poor mother dying back home in Ireland.”
My landlady's grim expression softened. “Well, you would, wouldn't you. Any decent, God-fearing woman would. Poor little mites in a strange country and their dear mother maybe already up there with the angels.” She paused to cross herself. “There's nothing wrong with those two that a firm hand wouldn't mend, but those cousins…”
“I couldn't agree more,” I muttered. “I'll speak to them myself.”
“Yes, you do that, Miss Murphy. I'd be most obliged.”
I sighed as I walked up the stairs. Little had I known what I was taking on when I escorted two children across the Atlantic to their father. I had expected to deliver them and vanish from their lives, but I had found that hard to do. They were, as Mrs. O'Hallaran had said, poor little mites. I couldn't leave them jammed into a two-room apartment with that dragon of a cousin Nuala and her terrible family. It had been a case of hate at first sight for both of us when the children and I arrived from Ellis Island. Nuala couldn't have made me less welcome, even though I had nowhere else to go. Which was why I wanted to rescue Seamus and his little family from that squalor as soon as Daniel found me this wonderful attic on East Fourth Street. I had grown very fond of young Seamus, whom I now nicknamed Shameyboy, and little Bridie. Taking care of them seemed the least I could do for their poor mother, Kathleen, who must have been worrying her heart out back home in Ireland. It had been with misgivings that I had left them to go to Miss Van Woekem's. They were so small to be alone all day in such a vast city while their father worked eighteen-hour shifts digging the tunnel for the new underground railway. I had to remind myself that they needed to learn to stand on their own feet. New York was the kind of place where only the strongest survived. And after all, I wasn't related to them. Working for Miss Van Woekem would be a way of easing them into independence, I decided as I mounted the second flight of stairs. It would be up to Seamus to take responsibility for his own children.
The next morning passed quickly and remarkably smoothly as Miss Van Woekem sent me on an errand to match her knitting wool. When I returned from a successful mission, I found her staring out of her window.
“There is a strange man in the gardens,” she said, not looking up. “He has been there all morning.”