Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

It was still raining and I held an umbrella over me as I splashed through puddles along Fourth Street to First Avenue. I knew that First turned into Allen Street on the other side of Houston. I suppose I could have taken a horse-drawn bus to get me across town, but they were generally slower than walking. Besides, the cold water splashing up around my ankles kept me tied to reality at this moment when everything else felt decidedly unreal. I don’t think I had ever felt more alone, not even when I fled from Ireland. Not even when I was thrown out of Nuala’s house after I first arrived in Manhattan.

As I crossed from West to East, the streets became more crowded, and as I turned south on First, it became positively clogged with humanity. The street itself under the El was lined with pushcarts trying to avoid the worst of the rain, and the pedestrians were channeled along a narrow path between storefronts and carts, accosted from both sides by merchants shouting their wares. At any other time I would have enjoyed the lively scene. Now the crowd was just an added nuisance through which I had to negotiate.

I should have taken the El after all because it was a long way down Allen Street. I crossed Rivington, then Delancey. At Rivington I looked longingly toward the East River to where Jacob lived. How long ago it seemed that I had hurried down to his studio by the river and he had welcomed me with a glass of tea. Then life had been safe and relatively un-complicated. If only I had felt differently about him. What a pity I wasn’t willing to settle for security over love.

Still, there was no point in brooding over what might have been. I was trapped in the present, and there was no way out but through 231 Allen Street. It was a tall tenement like any other, rising five or six floors high. The ground floor was occupied by a tailor shop. Gaslights were on and someone was still working. I went in and asked for Mrs. Butler. From the way the man looked at me, I guessed he knew what Mrs. Butler did as a profession.

“Fourth Floor, at the front.” He almost spat out the words.

This is how you would be treated every day of your life with an illegitimate child, I reminded myself and started to climb the stairs. There were raised voices on the second floor—a woman and man yelling at each other in what sounded like Italian. If I could hear so easily through this closed door, what would happen if I cried out later? I hadn’t thought about the pain that might be involved. Now I did. I had seen women in childbirth screaming and crying and imploring the Blessed Virgin to take them out of their misery. I hesitated and took the next flight more slowly. I couldn’t turn back now, could I? After all, Mrs. Goodwin was risking her own career by getting involved on my behalf with something so horribly illegal.

I took a couple of deep breaths to pluck up courage, climbed the last flight of stairs, and knocked on the door. The woman who opened it could have been anybody’s maiden aunt. She was slight, refined looking, dressed in a gray dress with wider skirts than are fashionable nowadays. Her hair was matching gray, and she wore a light net over it. She would seem, to anybody she met, to be a gentlewoman who had known better days and now possibly eked out a living as a seamstress.

“Mrs. Butler?” I asked.

“Miss Murphy?” She smiled. “Come in, dear. I’m expecting you. I’ve made some iced tea.”

The door closed behind us.

“It was brave of you to come.” She motioned to a Queen Anne–style armchair. The furniture was old and shabby but had been good once. I sat. She poured iced tea into a tall glass and handed it to me. “Now before we go any further, I must make sure that your condition is what you think it is. No sense in going to a lot of trouble for nothing, is there?” She smiled sweetly. I sipped iced tea.

“Now, what makes you think that you are having a baby? You have had a recent—encounter with a young man?”

I nodded.

“And you’ve missed your monthly, have you?”

I nodded again.

“Any other symptoms?”

“I’m horribly sick all the time, and dizzy, and I passed out.”

“And your breasts—are they tender?”

I put my hand to one and realized that it did feel tender to the touch.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Then I don’t think there’s much doubt. I’ll double-check before I do the operation, of course, but I think we can safely say that we are sure.” She took a drink from her own glass. “And there’s no chance the young man can marry you? I always think of this as a last resort, seeing that it’s not without its own risks. I haven’t lost a girl for many years, you understand, but there is always the risk of bleeding and infection.”

“The young man is in no position to marry me at the moment,” I said. “He is in jail. He may be there for a while.”

“Oh dear. That’s not good. Still, you’re better off not being saddled to a criminal type. Trust me. Mr. Butler was the same—always into some illegal scheme or other. Always hoping to get rich quick, and of course he never did.”