12

SARAH WAS TIRED AS SHE MADE HER WAY DOWN Bank Street back to her home the next afternoon. She’d had a difficult morning.

“Hello, Mrs. Brandt!” her neighbor Mrs. Ellsworth called as she came out onto her front porch. She was dressed for the street, in her bonnet and gloves, and carrying a shopping bag. “Looks like summer is trying to come back. How are you this fine day?”

“Better now that two little boys have made it safely into the world,” Sarah replied with a smile.

“Twins?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked, her wrinkled face brightening.

“Yes,” Sarah said. “One was breech. I was afraid for a while he wasn’t going to make it.”

“Oh, my, twins are so dangerous. I had a friend once who lost both of them. The cords got tangled or something.”

Sarah nodded. She’d seen her share of tragedies. “These are fine now, though, and their mother, too.”

“I’ll wager she’s hoping about now that these will be her last,” Mrs. Ellsworth predicted with a smile.

Sarah thought she was probably right, although the tragedy was that women couldn’t make such a choice for themselves. The secrets of preventing pregnancy were passed around in guilty whispers, but anyone who tried to teach modem methods was subject to fines and even arrest.

“I did want to warn you,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, distracting Sarah from her unpleasant thoughts. “I found some mouse droppings in the pantry this morning. And a mouse had been nibbling at my flour bag. You know what that means.”

“That the mouse was hungry?” Sarah guessed good-naturedly.

Mrs. Ellsworth shook her head, despairing that she would ever teach Sarah anything at all about the mysteries of life. “It means something evil is going to happen. Nibbling the flour bag means that.”

Sarah felt reasonably certain something evil was happening at any moment of the day in a city the size of New York, but she didn’t want to be unkind to Mrs. Ellsworth by pointing that out.

“The mouse droppings just mean that we have mice, of course,” Mrs. Ellsworth went on. “I set some traps, and you’d best do the same. They may go over to your place, too.”

Mice were a continual problem in the city, where the waste from thousands of people was piled up in such a small area. Things were better since last year when the city had formed a street cleaning department that regularly attended to all the city streets. Until then, only wealthier neighborhoods that could hire private cleaners were regularly kept free of refuse and garbage. Some of the streets had been piled more than a foot deep with animal droppings and trash and the carcasses of dead animals. The street cleaners in their white uniforms and pith helmets looked like something out of an operetta, but they pushed their carts around the city at night and worked miracles with their brooms and shovels. So now the mice came inside, looking for richer territory to plunder.

“Thanks for the warning,” Sarah said. “I’ll do that. Where are you heading?”

“To the market,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, referring to the Gansevoort Market several blocks away where farmers brought their produce and meat to sell to the city’s residents. “Can I get anything for you?”

Sarah thought of Malloy and wondered if she would see him tonight. They did have a lot of things to discuss. Or rather she had a lot of things she wanted to find out from him, since he’d probably been to the opium den by now. “I’d like to have a chicken, if you see any nice ones,” Sarah said.

Mrs. Ellsworth smiled knowingly. “I’ll pick a nice plump one for Mr. Malloy. Do you need any potatoes to go with it?”

“I think I have enough,” Sarah said, returning her smile.

“Will you be home this afternoon? In case someone calls for you,” she added, lest Sarah think she was merely being nosy.

Sarah started to say she would, but thought better of it. “I might go out in a little while,” she said. “To visit some friends, but I’ll be back by suppertime.”

WHEN SHE’D FRESHENED up from her labors of the morning, Sarah put on her gray serge suit and a hat that was reasonably fashionable, and made her way across town once again to Gramercy Park.

As always, she was struck by how lovely the square was. The houses surrounding it were a little ornate for her taste, but unquestionably comfortable and well tended. Edmund Blackwell must have felt that he’d finally achieved success when he moved his bride here. Never mind that he wasn’t paying for the house and couldn’t have dreamed of doing so. No one else knew that. As far as everyone was concerned, he was an equal to his wealthy and socially prominent neighbors.

A maid opened the door, the same one who had admitted her before. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Brandt,” she said, dropping a small curtsy. “Were you wanting to see Mrs. Blackwell today?”

“If she isn’t sleeping,” Sarah said.

“Oh, no, she’s receiving visitors in the parlor,” the maid assured her. “I’ll show you right in.”

“Is Granger ill again?” Sarah asked with some concern. The butler hadn’t seemed particularly grief-stricken over his employer’s murder at the time, but perhaps the strain of the past days had taken a toll.

“He got better, but then he got worse again,” the girl told her. “Mrs. Wilson says it’s the dyspepsia.”

“Does he get it often?” Sarah asked.

“Not that I ever heard,” the girl said. “He never was sick a day that I knew of until poor Dr. Blackwell died.”

Sarah had been right to suspect the strain was telling on the man to whom the responsibility of running the entire household would have fallen. “Do you know if he’s seen a doctor?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. Mrs. Wilson, she’s the housekeeper, she told him to, but she says he’s too stubborn to go.”

Sarah knew Mrs. Wilson would probably have a fit if she knew how freely the little maid was sharing the private business of the household with a stranger. Still… “I’d be happy to speak with Mr. Granger and see if perhaps I can’t give him something to help his stomach.”

“Can a midwife take care of a man?” the girl asked in confusion.

“I’m also a trained nurse,” Sarah explained, managing not to smile. “And stomachs are pretty much the same, whether they belong to a man or a woman.”

The girl’s eyes widened at this fascinating observation. “I’ll go ask Mrs. Wilson right now.” She was halfway down the hall when she remembered her manners. “Oh, please have a seat while you’re waiting!” she called back, then scurried away.

Sarah sat down on the bench in the hallway. She glanced at the closed parlor doors, wondering who Letitia might be entertaining in there. Well, she’d find out soon enough. And if it was Peter Dudley, as she suspected, they would appreciate not being interrupted for a while longer, she was sure.

Mrs. Wilson was a tall, skeletal woman of middle years. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and her washed-out eyes stared at Sarah from dark hollows. “Peggy shouldn’t have told you about Mr. Granger’s condition,” she said, giving the girl, who had followed at her heels, a reproving look.

Peggy dropped her gaze, suitably contrite.

“I’m sure she was only trying to help,” Sarah said. “I am a nurse, and there’s no need for him to suffer if I can help him. Probably it’s just the unfortunate events of the past few days upsetting him. I’m sure I can prepare something that will help.”

Mrs. Wilson still did not look pleased, but she said, “All we can do is ask him if he’d like to see you. If you’ll come this way, to the servants’ quarters.”

Sarah followed her to the back stairs, which led up to a section of the house where visitors typically never went. The walls here were plain, the floors bare, and the furnishings utilitarian. Mrs. Wilson went to one of the doors along the hallway and knocked.