“She doesn’t seem to be too bad, does she?” There was relief in Emily’s voice as we left the Hochstetter mansion. “I was so worried that we’d find her dying or dead like Fanny.”
“Yes, I know you were.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “So now perhaps we can put Dorcas’s illness down to coincidence and Fanny’s death down to pneumonia following the flu, and I can get on with solving your own little mystery.”
She smiled prettily. “Why, of course. What do you plan to do next?”
“Go to Massachusetts to the place where your Aunt Lydia was born,” I said. “If the family comes from around there, then someone will know something—a childhood playmate or an old servant. Someone always remembers.”
“I hope so,” Emily said. “I can’t tell you how painful it was to walk past my old home just then, even though it holds no particularly happy memories for me. But it did remind me that I now have no place to call my own, and it’s a distressing feeling.”
“I feel rather the same,” I said. “I had to flee from Ireland and can no longer go back there, so I, too, have no home.”
“But a family—you still have a family, don’t you?”
“I lost my father and my oldest brother. I still have two brothers alive. One is in exile with the Republican Brotherhood in France and the other has been taken in by a kind family. So I don’t know if or when I’ll ever see them again.”
“Oh Molly, I’m so sorry. You must miss them terribly.”
“Actually I found them annoying and ungrateful when I had to look after them, but it seems to be true about absence making the heart grow fonder.”
I looked at Emily and we shared a smile.
“I am concerned about my youngest brother, Malachy,” I said. “I don’t like the thought of his being raised by strangers, but I don’t quite know what to do about it. When I’m settled I would like to see if I can bring him to America, but I don’t know if he’d even want to come.”
Emily took my hand. “So we are both alone in the world. Then let us be sisters, linked with a common bond. I recognized you as a kindred spirit the moment I saw you in that parade.”
We parted company as she went across the park to the Upper West Side and I took the Third Avenue El to Grand Central Terminal to inquire about trains to Williamstown. I booked a ticket for early the next morning and started home to prepare for the journey. I was just crossing Greenwich Avenue toward Patchin Place when I heard the thunder of approaching horses’ hooves. A woman’s voice screamed, “Lookout!” I turned to see a carriage bearing down on me at great speed.
“Holy mother of—” I exclaimed. The vehicle showed no sign of slowing. I flung myself aside, tripped at the gutter, and would have gone sprawling had not passersby grabbed me and hauled me onto the sidewalk as the carriage passed, mud flying up from the hooves and wheels. I got an impression of a black, enclosed carriage of the type often seen around town, owned by the smarter families. From what I saw the driver was all in black, wearing no particular livery by which I could later identify him. But in truth the whole thing was a blur and my heart was beating so fast that it was all I could do to stand there, gasping for breath.
“Are you all right, miss?” a woman asked.
“Should be locked up,” a man beside me muttered, and waved his cane at the rapidly disappearing carriage.
“I’m fine. No harm done, thanks to you.” I looked at their concerned faces. “If you hadn’t grabbed me, I’d have been under those hooves.”
“It’s happening more and more these days,” another woman said. “Reckless drivers all over the place, electric trolley cars, and now these new automobiles. A person isn’t safe crossing the street any longer.”
The crowd began to melt away, the hope of a spectacle now over. I also went on my way and turned into Patchin Place. I found my hand was shaking as I put my key in the lock. As I put on the kettle for a cup of tea, that scene insisted on playing itself over and over in my mind. And as I replayed it an alarming thought surfaced. That carriage had headed straight for me—accelerating, not slowing. I was the target, not a random victim.
Which made me wonder who could possibly want me out of the way badly enough to risk running me down in broad daylight on a busy street. I found myself wondering if Anson Poindexter was still at the funeral banquet. Maybe I couldn’t put Fanny Poindexter’s death behind me just yet.
When I went to bed that night I tried to reason with myself that recklessly driven carriages cause accidents every day in the city. It must just have appeared that the carriage was headed for me. It had been unlucky timing, nothing more. But I couldn’t shake off the nagging doubt and was rather glad that I would be out of town for the next couple of days.