Chapter 14
“Miss, miss!” Dolly leaned over Kathleen’s bunk, her little face alight with excitement. “We’re here! Mum says we’re here.”
Kathleen struggled to a sitting position. She’d been seasick for most of the week-long crossing, rising from her bunk only for trips to the bathroom, or twice, to venture to the dining room, where the smell of food made her so ill it was all she could do to make it to the bathroom in time.
Maggy had been so patient, so kind, bringing her tea and biscuits, with the occasional piece of fruit, treating her like family, while worrying and watching over her own child.
“Where is your mum?” she asked Dolly.
“Washing up.” Dolly sat on the edge of the opposite bunk, swinging her legs. “Are you feeling better?”
Kathleen was surprised to realize she was. The ship’s constant rocking motion had stilled. She was hungry, not queasy, for the first time in days. She was standing, her stocking feet planted on the floor, when Maggy burst through the door to their berth.
“You’re alive!” she said. “And we’re here. Hurry now, get yourself together. The matron says we’re to be ready in the next hour.”
“Ready for what?” Kathleen reached instinctively for her valise, glancing inside to make sure nothing had been touched. She trusted Maggy, of course, but maybe someone could have gotten into the room while they were both sleeping.
Her fingertips brushed over the valise’s false bottom, and she felt rather than saw the bumps where the jewelry and money were hidden. The painting was still rolled up beneath her clothes.
“Matron says they’re going to put us on a barge, then we’ll be taken to an island, I don’t know where.” She set a mug of tea she’d been holding on the edge of the sink and handed Kathleen a piece of bread. “Sorry, there wasn’t much left today.”
“Another boat?” Kathleen’s heart sank.
“Mum?” Dolly tugged at her mother’s skirt. “Will Dad come to the island? Will he?”
Maggy knelt beside her daughter and finger-combed her fine red hair. “I don’t know, my darling. We’ll have to wait and see. Now, let’s put on your shoes and get you ready.”
One hour turned into two, which turned into three.
Finally, the steerage passengers were herded up to the ship’s deck.
A sign told them the ship was anchored at the Hudson River Pier.
Beyond the pier, they could see the city skyline, and closer than that, crowds of first-class passengers milling about the pier, reuniting with loved ones.
Maggy held Dolly’s hand and leaned close to Kathleen. “It’s grand, isn’t it?”
Too overcome to speak, Kathleen could only nod.
The vastness of the sky above, the buildings crowded together, the smells, the noise, were like nothing she’d anticipated.
America, and this city, New York, had been an abstraction, an illusion that she hadn’t dared let herself consider up until this morning.
“Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, doing a slow, clockwise circle to take it all in. “I’m really here.”
They were loaded onto huge, flat-bottomed barges to make their way across the Hudson River to a place Matron called Ellis Island.
“And if all is well, another barge will take you back to the pier later today, or tomorrow at the latest,” she promised. “And then you’ll be on your way to your final destination, wherever that might be.”
“And what if all is not well?” asked an impudent young man whose tweed cap sat on the back of his head at a rakish angle. He was stick thin and deeply tanned, with a dramatic handlebar mustache.
“If you’re sick, or a criminal, or have no business coming here, then you’ll be put back on the Cedric and shipped back home,” Matron snapped. “Best keep a civil tongue in your head, Joe Riley, or you’ll find yourself on that list.”
Kathleen sucked in her breath and stared down at her shoes, thinking of the money and jewelry that Lady Delia had given her back at Tarrymore House.
She thought of the portrait Delia sliced out of the frame, and then of the sickening scream echoing from the downstairs hall, just before she’d bolted for the stables with the loot in her valise.
What if, somehow, word had reached America?
Would she be called a thief, or worse—blamed for whatever misfortune had befallen her benefactor?
Could she be arrested or sent back to face the authorities?
“Look!” Maggy cried, pointing to a huge statue that seemed to rise out of the river’s surface. It was a statue of a woman, holding aloft a torch.
The outspoken young man from the dock was standing nearby, leaning over the barge’s iron deck railing.
He turned to address the two women. “I read about that. It’s called the Statue of Liberty.
A gift from France. It’s hollow inside, and people can walk all the way up to her crown to look out and see all of New York City. And New Jersey too.”
His gray eyes seemed to focus on Kathleen, who blushed and turned abruptly away.
When Ellis Island came into view, she was surprised at the enormity of the place.
There was an imposing-looking broad main building of brick, with a ribbon of arched doorways across the front, each corner of the building punctuated with towers topped with domed and spiked turrets.
Shorter wings jutted from both sides of the building.
“It’s a castle,” little Dolly said, removing her thumb from her mouth.
As they waited in the inevitable line to disembark the barge, Kathleen, Maggy, and Dolly stayed close together.
“Will your husband know where to fetch you up?” Kathleen asked, her voice low to keep the child from overhearing.
“Davey knows we were to dock today,” Maggy murmured. “So I hope he’ll meet us back on the other side, as soon as we finish up over here. And what about you?”
Kathleen had been wondering the same thing. “I have the name of a priest, and his church, and an address in the city. He’s been told to expect me, but that’s all I know.”
“Such an adventure for you,” Maggy said, sounding almost envious.
“I’m terrified,” Kathleen admitted.
“God has a plan for you,” her friend said. “I’m sure of it.”
“And for you, too,” Kathleen said, giving her a grateful smile and squeezing her arm.
And then they were separated into different lines. An official examined Kathleen’s papers, ascertained she could read and write and that she had sufficient funds to ensure that she would not be a burden to her new country.
She and Maggy and Dolly were reunited in the line for their physical examination. A nurse in a starched cap and uniform stood by while the doctor thumped her back, gazed down her throat, and finally, painfully turned both her eyelids inside out with his thumb.
Dolly sobbed quietly during the exam, trying to hide her head from the doctor’s prying hands and questions, while her mum tried to soothe her by rubbing her back.
Mid-afternoon, the new arrivals were directed into a massive, high-ceilinged dining hall. Tables were lined with long benches and at each place, a shallow bowl and spoon were placed side by side, with mugs of lukewarm tea.
The soup was a thick and hearty concoction, beef and barley, with a slice of buttered bread. Kathleen ate, tentatively at first, then, grateful that the queasiness had gone, she scraped up every last spoonful, sopping it up between bites with the bread.
As soon as they’d finished the meal, they were waved back into the entrance hall.
“Barges loading now for New York and New Jersey.” A balding man paced back and forth down the line of immigrants, pointing to opposite ends of the H-shaped building. He stopped in front of the two women. “Which is it for you?”
Maggy’s head swiveled from right to left. “I don’t know. Davey, my husband, didn’t say anything about New Jersey.”
“Then it’s New York for you,” the man said, pointing to the left.
Back on the barge, the two women stayed close to the railing, only glancing backward once as Ellis Island faded into the distance.
“I’m scared,” Maggy confessed, keeping her voice low. “Davey … I haven’t had a letter from him in months now. His mum hasn’t either. I keep hoping…”
“Where has he been living? Do you know where he works?”
“He works for the railway. That’s all I know. He was sharing a room with some other fellows from home, but he said he’d been saving up for a place for all of us to live.”
“Maybe he’s been busy with work. And mail can take so long, coming across the sea,” Kathleen said, trying to sound more encouraging than she actually felt. “Surely he knows you’re coming.”
“I wrote to him two months ago, after his mum gave me the money for passage for me and Dolly. We’d been staying with her, you see, and she’s the carer for her own mum, who’s blind, and Davey’s brother Bill, who’s a bit of a scalawag, is living there, and I think it was all too much for her and that’s why she gave me the money to come over. ”
The two women were silent after that, each gripping the barge railing, each wrestling with their own worries and apprehensions.
The barge bumped up against the Hudson River Pier with a jolt that sent Dolly sprawling onto the deck. The child howled, more from shock than pain, but before Maggy could react, the stranger with the tweed cap materialized. He bent over and scooped up the child in mid-scream.
“Here now,” the man said, bouncing Dolly on his hip. “You’re not really hurt now, are you?”
Dolly reached out her arms for her mother and the man reluctantly handed her over.
Maggy dabbed at her daughter’s eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. “Thank you,” she told the man.
He bowed from the waist, doffing his cap to reveal a head of unruly black curls. “Joe Riley, at your service.”
Dolly had stopped crying as suddenly as she’d started and now placed her thumb in her mouth and regarded the man with open curiosity.
“I’m Maggy Perkins, and this here is Dorothy, called Dolly.”
Riley turned to Kathleen. “And who might you be, miss?”
Kathleen looked away, watching as the others began trooping toward the gangway to exit the barge. “We’d better go,” she said, ignoring the question.
“Not very friendly, is she?” Riley asked Maggy, who gave an apologetic shrug before she followed Kathleen’s lead.
“He’s not here,” Maggy concluded, blinking back tears. They’d trekked the length of the pier, and as the crowd dwindled and the sky began to darken, her desperation grew.
“We shouldn’t have come,” she said. “Davey, he means well, but sometimes he makes big promises…” Her voice trailed off and she shifted her sleeping daughter in her arms. “What do I do now? I can’t go back. I just can’t.”
“You’ll come with me,” Kathleen said impulsively. She produced the slip of paper with the name of the church and the priest she’d been referred to by Lady Delia. “A priest can’t turn away a mother and child alone in a strange land.”
“But what if…?”
“Hush,” Kathleen said. A policeman in a splendid blue uniform stood on the street corner, where he’d been directing traffic. She marched over, planted her feet, and addressed him.
“Excuse me, Officer, but my friend and I just arrived here from Ireland.” She showed him the slip of paper. “Can you tell me, please, how we can get to this church?”
“Have you tried prayin’?” The policeman’s brogue was unmistakable, and he punctuated the question with a playful wink.
Kathleen sighed. She was in no mood. “Please? We’ve come a long way, and it’s getting late, and my friend has a little girl.”
“Have you money for a taxicab?”
She nodded.
Without another word, the cop stepped off the curb, put a brass whistle to his lips, and blew. Moments later, a cab glided up to the curb. The officer opened the passenger door, leaned inside, and said something to the driver, who nodded his understanding.
Kathleen hesitated. She’d never been in a taxi. “How do I pay?”
“You don’t,” the cop said, gesturing for her to get in. “It’s been taken care of by the Sons of Ireland Benevolent Society. Off with you now.”