As Sophie worked, Mrs. Campbell told her things she would be embarrassed to remember in a few hours. If Sophie said nothing, the new mother would be free to forget about the secrets she had whispered, and to whom she had said them.
Mrs. Campbell was drifting off to a well-earned sleep when she suddenly shook herself awake.
“Have you heard about Dr. Garrison?”
Sophie was glad she was facing away in that moment, because it gave her a chance to school her expression.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve followed along in the newspaper.”
There was a long silence. When she turned around Mrs. Campbell said, “If you are a physician, could you—”
“No,” Sophie interrupted her. “I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Campbell heard only the regret in Sophie’s voice, and she pushed harder. “Another one too soon will kill me, I know it. I have money saved—”
Sophie set her face in uncompromising lines as she turned. “By law I can’t even talk to you about contraceptives or—anything similar. I can’t give you a name or an address. If you know about Mrs. Garrison, you must know that the mails are not safe.”
Mrs. Campbell closed her eyes and nodded. “I do know about the mails,” she said. “Of course I know. Mr. Campbell makes sure that I know.”
Sophie swallowed the bile that rose into her throat and reminded herself what was at stake.
2
WHEN THEY HAD shepherded the children off the ferry, Mary Augustin let out a sigh of relief to discover that there were three omnibuses waiting for them. Even better, as far as she was concerned, were the four sisters who had come to help with almost thirty desperately frightened and unhappy children. Ten children and two sisters in each omnibus was manageable. Sister Ignatia was difficult in many ways, but she had no equal when it came to planning.
Mary Augustin had just crouched down to encourage a trembling and teary six-year-old called Georgio when an older man came off the ferry, walking very slowly. As soon as he was on solid ground he simply sat down where he stood and began to fan himself with his hat. There was sweat on his brow and his color was ashen. This might be simple seasickness or something far worse; Mary Augustin tried to get Sister Ignatia’s attention, but at that moment a scuffle broke out in the crowd of people waiting to board for the next crossing.
Two dockworkers stood nose to nose shouting at each other, both of them strapped with muscle and both decidedly drunk. Punches were thrown and bystanders darted out of the way, some laughing and others looking disgusted, while all the time the old man sat and fanned himself and tried to catch a breath. Mary Augustin divided her attention between moving the orphans farther away and the old man who might be having a heart attack, and so she only saw what came next from the corner of her eye.
One of the longshoremen shoved the other with such force that he went staggering back with an almost comical look of surprise on his face. Bystanders jumped out of the way of his pinwheeling arms, and in fact the man seemed to be losing momentum when his feet got caught up in someone’s canvas sack. In his last desperate attempt to regain his balance he flung out both arms, and one fist slammed into Salvatore Ruggerio, eleven years old, newly orphaned, who had gone closer to watch the fight but now stood frozen with shock.
Man and boy went over the edge of the dock, backward. There was a single heartbeat of utter silence, and then the crowd erupted.
Sister Ignatia was shouting, her voice like a bullhorn over the noise. “Move the children! Get them away!”
And still Mary Augustin hesitated, turning to watch as three men, one of them in the long navy coat of a patrolman, jumped into the water. Just beyond him the old man Mary Augustin feared was having a heart attack had jumped to his feet to watch the drama, as nimble as a boy of ten.
? ? ?
ONE OF THE omnibuses had already left and so Mary Augustin got her charges onto the second one as quickly and calmly as could be managed. She was hesitating about whether to go see if she was needed on the dock when Sister Ignatia came marching up and grabbed her by the elbow to turn her around.
Her color was high but otherwise she wasn’t even breathing hard. “The boy knocked his head. That patrolman”—she pointed with her chin—“wants the third bus to take him and that idiot drunkard to St. Vincent’s.” She paused as if an unwelcome thought had come to her and then shouted over her shoulder, as forceful as a general.
“Officer! We’ll take the boy to St. Vincent’s and nowhere else! Do you understand me?”
The patrolman, young enough to be Sister Ignatia’s grandson, swallowed visibly and nodded, but she had already turned her attention back to Mary Augustin. “So you’ll have to get all the rest of the children into this bus. Sister Constance will come along and you’ll just have to squeeze together. I’ll see about the boy—” She hesitated.
“Salvatore Ruggerio.”
“Ruggerio,” Sister Ignatia echoed. “And send word when I’ve spoken to the doctors. Now get these children away. They’ve seen enough.”