Chapter 3
The train jostled me awake. My right knee bumped against another person’s leg, and for a hazy moment I was disoriented as patchy midmorning sunlight streamed in through the train compartment’s window.
The autumnal countryside rolled by the window, a riot of orange and gold leaves on the trees.
As beautiful as the picture was, I couldn’t help but feel that I was being sent away from everything that mattered.
My nursing education. My fellow sisters. The hospital. My patients.
Even Bethany. I’d tried to call for her upon boarding the train, but she hadn’t appeared.
I feared I’d seen her for the last time.
Now I was being shipped off to the wilds of New York with a strange man who’d barely said a word to me since we’d boarded. Maybe that was a blessing; I’d been so miserable and bone-weary that I’d fallen asleep to the gentle rhythm of the rails moments after we’d departed.
Stifling a yawn, I turned from the window and found Mr. Hoffmann sitting next to me now on the railway bench, nearer to our compartment’s door. He was bent over and rocking, elbows on his knees, cupping something small in his hands while he whispered to himself—some kind of prayer or chant.
“Matres, matres, matres…”
It wasn’t English, nor did it sound like his native German. The man was in pain, physically or spiritually. I cleared my throat, and he startled, straightening in his seat.
“You’re awake,” he said, quickly pocketing whatever he’d been holding in his hands. “I’m sorry, I was many miles away.”
It felt as if I’d interrupted a private prayer. “Are you all right, sir? You’re looking awful peaked. Is your pinky finger in pain? Or do you dislike trains?”
“No,” he said absently. “I’m fine. Or I will be once we’re in Tarrytown.”
“Are you certain? If you have motion sickness—”
Mr. Hoffmann waved a trembling hand to assure me that he was okay. “I’ll be okay, thank you, Schwester Molly. I don’t travel much from the estate without Master Voss. It will be a relief to get back to Riverbend Manor. We shouldn’t be far now. A few minutes longer.”
I didn’t quite believe that he was truly okay, but he insisted, so I backed off. One instruction I’d learned from Sister Helen was that nurses should listen to their patients’ desires because the doctors often would not, so I did my best to ignore my own instincts and allow the man his peace.
“While you were asleep, I allowed the conductor to punch your ticket,” he said, handing me paperwork from the far side of the bench. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, thank you kindly.” I pocketed the punched ticket inside my cloak and stifled a yawn, then glanced out the window while he straightened his clothing.
The New York it was my best clothing.
I’d have to wear it daily while on assignment, and that was that.
After all, I was working. I owned two other sets of bodices and skirts, but one was strictly for formal events, and the other had been patched so many times, it was a bit of an embarrassment.
I’d packed it anyway—along with the scarce few personal items I owned—in Mammy’s old leather portmanteau that she’d carried all the way from Ireland many years ago.
My second piece of luggage was the small box that housed my nursing lantern.
And lastly, to help with my work at the estate, the hospital had also loaned me a black leather gladstone bag, the sort that doctors carried.
This one was a spare that had formerly belonged to Dr. Carey, a surgeon who’d died of old age a couple weeks ago.
Sister Helen had filled the bag with spare medical instruments and corked bottles of hastily labeled drugs—FOR STOMACH CRAMPS and SLEEP AID.
“We are coming!” Mr. Hoffmann cried out in a loud whisper, stamping his foot impatiently in our railway compartment as the train slowed.
I stared at him, heart racing. Who’s he talking to?
It was only the two of us in the compartment, and the sliding door was shut.
A tense silence filled the small space as I began to worry about his mental state.
And though I prided myself on being a capable nurse, that was something far outside my training.
A strange foreboding crept into my chest. I was hours away from the city with a man I didn’t know, one who might be mentally unbalanced. If anything happened, I didn’t have the financial means to purchase a return ticket back home without his assistance. Not good.
The train hissed. I flicked a glance to the window and saw billowing steam and coal smoke.
We’d arrived at a small train station. But it wasn’t one that had been built for commuters: the platform only existed to offload freight.
All the travelers on our train were headed further north but us, it seemed.
The conductor opened our compartment to help us off the train.
“Sir?” I said to Mr. Hoffmann, touching his elbow gently.
He jumped, startled. He’d been lost in his own mind, dazed. Did he even know who I was? He shivered violently, as if to shake away shadowed thoughts. “Where…? Goodness, my apologies, dear. I see… We’re at the Tarrytown station, aren’t we? Almost there, almost there…”
“Are you—”
“I’ll be fine once we’re back at the manor,” he insisted again, wiping perspiration from his brow with a trembling hand, then checking his watch. “Right on time, very good. Conductor? We should have a carriage waiting for us outside the ticketing window. Has it arrived?”
“Let’s find out. Right this way, sir,” the conductor said.
A bitter wind blew steam around us when we stepped off the train.
As the engine driver shoveled coal, the conductor kindly carried my portmanteau and accompanied us across the platform to the ticketing window.
We navigated around stacks of wooden crates, bags of barley, and carved wagon wheels, avoiding the gazes of hardscrabble denim-clad laborers.
The conductor walked quickly. I was trying to keep up while clutching both my medical bag and the box for my nursing lantern. But when I checked on Mr. Hoffmann, I spied him lagging several yards behind.
He leaned against one of the stacks of crates, breathing heavily.
“Mr. Hoffmann!” I called out, racing back to his side.
But before I could get there, he collapsed in a heap.
I quickly dropped to my knees at his side, set down the lantern box and bag, and felt for a pulse. It was there. Strong. Rapid. Perhaps too rapid.
To ensure he hadn’t injured himself when he fell, I looked for signs of bleeding on his head but found nothing. He groaned loudly.
“Mr. Hoffmann!” I said, loosening his tie and collar once he was on his back. “Take it easy and just breathe for me. You’re burning up. Let me loosen this for you a bit more…”
My fingers stilled as I peeled back his shirt collar. Beneath the cotton on the side of his neck, directly below his ear, was an unexpected mark about the size of penny. A faded symbol had been tattooed onto his pale skin. It looked like some kind of crest: horns curled around the letters V. V.
The only people I’d seen with tattoos were dockworkers and thieves—hardly the kind of men who were rightly employed by millionaires.
“Mercy, master,” he whispered in the smallest voice.
His eyes fluttered as if he were trying to wake from a nightmare.
One of his hands was firmly stuck in his coat pocket.
Concerned that he’d injured it, I gently removed his balled-up fist. When I held it to comfort him, his fingers relaxed and released something unexpected.
It was a miniature hourglass.
My mind snapped back to that night when Mr. Hoffmann and his employer had showed up at the hospital. Voss had been gripping that hourglass sculpture. This one was different—a real, working hourglass. One grain of sand slowly slipped down its narrow neck.
One grain of sand in the entire hourglass. What in the world…?
“Time is almost gone!” Mr. Hoffmann whispered. “I will fail and be punished.”
I peered into his troubled face. “Fail at what, sir?” When his reply came as a shake of his head, eyes squeezed shut, I pleaded, “Let me help you. Please. If you aren’t well, tell me. If something is bothering you, I will keep your secret. You have my word.”
With a deep sigh, he shook his head. “This is my burden to bear.” He held out his hand, requesting his property.
I returned the strange hourglass, which he pocketed after despairing at the sight of it.
Then he shut his eyes briefly while he summoned his resolve.
“I can still make it, but we need to leave right now.”
The conductor hurriedly approached, along with the ticket office manager, who helped Mr. Hoffmann to his feet. He apologized, blaming physical exhaustion. “We need the carriage immediately.”
“If it hasn’t arrived, perhaps there’s a cab in town for hire?” I asked the ticket office manager. These two-seat coaches were all over New York City. However, no one out here seemed to know what I was talking about, because they all squinted at me as if I had no sense.
Embarrassment crept up my cheeks.
“Nothing like that out here, miss,” the ticket office manager said. “Mr. Voss’s private carriage arrived an hour ago and is waiting out front.”
“We must leave now!” the valet rasped out.
The conductor and ticketing manager rushed us outside the train station, where the familiar black landau carriage and four black draft horses sat waiting, the unmistakable golden arrow crest on the door marking that it belonged to Voss.
Its luxury and elegance were a stark contrast to the humble surroundings of Tarrytown.
And this time, a lanky coachman dressed in black was perched in the front, reins in hands, his face hidden inside the hood of his midnight cloak.
When the valet spotted the carriage, he made a desperate noise. “Hurry!” he cried.
Inside the carriage, the seats and walls were upholstered in burgundy velvet and trimmed in gold. Silk curtains framed the two windows. A brick heater sat under one of the seats, warming the entire coach. I’d never seen anything so luxurious.
“Home!” Mr. Hoffmann shouted, rapping forcefully on the carriage’s ceiling.
The coachman cracked a whip, and we were off, jostling down the main street.
As we left the station, I glanced at Mr. Hoffman. He was sick. There was no doubting it now, which meant I had two patients to take care of at the estate. I’d do my best to convince him that he needed my help after we arrived. No matter how stubborn he was being.
But I’d need to be careful. The thought of his neck tattoo blazed inside my head, and I still didn’t know what to think about his odd behavior with that miniature hourglass in his pocket. Perhaps there were further depths beneath the surface of Mr. Hoffmann.
Maybe he only played the part of a decent servant and good man.
Then again, Mammy had always told me that most people were not good or bad, just strong of character or weak. You could never know another person’s mind. You could only know your own. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure I knew that very well.