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“Not after breakfast.”
“Well, I’ll be…” He laughed as he took the money. “Climb aboard, then. Willy Murphy never ran from anything in his life.” He winked at her a trifle saucily. “If I’m headed for the hereafter, missus, I’d rather they found me with a tenner in me pocket.”
“If that’s indeed where you’re headed,” Constance replied as one of the doormen helped her into the cab, “I’ll keep you company on the journey.”
The cabbie laughed again; shook his head in disbelief; pulled the lever to close the carriage door; then raised his whip, cracking the air above Rascal’s head, and they went trotting off.
2
AS THE COACH MADEits way down Broadway, Constance sat back in the small compartment. The leather of the seat was worn and cracked, and with every jolt she could feel the lumpy springs of the cushion dig into her.
She estimated she’d arrived about two and a half hours ago. That would make it early afternoon. Good: where they were going, the earlier in the day, the less dangerous it might be.
She had made it safely to this time and place. In half an hour, maybe less, she’d be reunited with Mary and spiriting her away from a miserable existence of overwork and ultimate death. At the thought of death, Constance became aware of her pounding heart. She almost couldn’t process all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours—and if she allowed herself to dwell on it, the thoughts would quickly overwhelm her. She had to concentrate on one thing only: rescuing her sister. As the coach made a brief jog along Fourteenth Street before heading southeast once more, she closed her eyes and, with long practice, let the sounds and sensations around her grow dim, purging herself of all unnecessary thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, the cab had just crossed East Houston Street, and Fourth Avenue had become the Bowery. Putting two fingers to her wrist, she felt her pulse: sixty-four.
That would suffice.
Now once again she let in the external world. The landscape had changed dramatically from the upscale neighborhood of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Here there were more wagons than cabs, with battered wheels and goods covered in stained oilcloths. The pedestrians that thronged both sidewalk and street wore vests and jackets of coarser material. There were few women visible. Every man, no matter how disheveled, wore some kind of hat or cap. The broad pavers of Fifth Avenue had given way to cobblestones.
She felt the cab begin to slow. A moment later, there was a rap on the door in the compartment’s roof.
She reached up and opened it. “Yes?”
The head of Murphy, the cabbie, appeared above the trap door. He had pulled the flaps of his cap down around his ears. “Begging your pardon, missus, but I’d rather not be taking her directly through the Points.”
“Of course. Please pull over a moment.”
While the cab waited, she consulted the city map she’d purchased. “I would suggest turning west on Canal, then south on Center.”
“And then…left on Worth?”
“Exactly. Can you manage it?”
“I’ll pull in at the corner.”
“Very good. And Mr. Murphy?”
“Yes, mum?”
“If there’s any trouble, you don’t need to return us to the hotel. Union Square will do. I would not want you getting involved in anything that might cause…difficulties for yourself. I just need to get my friend safely away from that place.”
“Begging your pardon, mum, but if she’s confined in the workhouse, there must be a reason.”
“She had the bad luck to be out after dark and was swept up in a raid by police looking for streetwalkers.”
“They may not be in a bloody great rush to release her.” It seemed the closer he came to becoming a partner in crime, the more familiar—or at least pragmatic—the coachman became.
“I’ll persuade them the same way I persuaded you. Two raps when we arrive, please.” And Constance closed the trap door.
As the cab started up and she sat back once again, Constance knew her voice had been steady. However, inside she felt anything but calm. With each clop of its hooves, the nag was bringing her deeper into her own distant memory. And as their surroundings grew increasingly dirty and impoverished, Constance was assaulted by smells she’d long forgotten: the scent of penny pies and sheep’s trotters and steamed oysters; the odor of printer’s dye being readied for inking the next day’s broadsides; acrid coal smoke. And the sounds: the call of the street vendors shouting “Buy! What’ll you buy?”; the singing of children playing hopscotch or skipping long rope, blithely ignorant of their poverty:
Johnny gave me cherries,
Johnny gave me pears.
Johnny gave me sixpence
To kiss him on the stairs.