Thirty

I left her and crossed back to the Upper West Side. I was rather tired by the time I came to Emily’s neighborhood. Even for one like myself, used to tramping the wild west coast of Ireland, I had been doing an awful lot of walking recently, and most of it at a great pace. It occurred to me that Emily should probably be in a hospital, where she could be properly cared for, but it would take a doctor’s recommendation to send her there. It also came to me that I should pay a quick visit to McPherson’s to let Mr. McPherson know of Emily’s current condition and to watch Ned’s reaction. I knew this was a somewhat risky move, but Ned would be safely at work all day and by nightfall perhaps that jar of cream would have been analyzed and Ned Tate might find himself behind bars.

I have to admit it was with some trepidation that I pushed open the door of McPherson’s and heard the bell jangle. It came to me, a little too late, that maybe Mr. McPherson might also be in on the whole scheme and that I might be walking into a trap. Before I could pursue these thoughts, Ned himself came around the counter, looking dapper and chirpy as always.

“Miss Murphy. My, we are seeing a lot of you recently, aren’t we? What can I do for you today?”

“It’s about Emily,” I said, loudly enough for Mr. McPherson, in the back room, to look up. “I’ve just visited her. She’s very sick. It’s a lot more than a mere headache. I think she has contracted that awful flu. I wondered if Mr. McPherson could recommend a doctor around here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ned said. “If it’s the flu, there isn’t much anyone can do for her. Believe me, we’ve had people pestering us all spring, asking for something to cure the influenza, and of course we can’t give them anything. Just liquids and keeping down the fever. We can make up a powder for that. Mr. McPherson has quite a good one, don’t you, sir.”

The druggist himself now came out through the swing door. “Emily’s got the flu, you say?”

“I can’t think what else it could be,” I went on, trying not to look too obviously at Ned. “She’s running a high fever, she’s vomiting, and can’t keep any food or drink down, and her breathing sounds terrible.”

“Sounds like she might have contracted pneumonia, too,” Mr. McPherson said. “I could make up my preparation to bring down the fever and send young Ned round with it—”

I almost squeaked out the word “No!” but I bit my tongue.

“But, frankly, if she’s not keeping anything down, it will only irritate the stomach even more,” he finished.

“I really think a doctor should take a look at her,” I said. “I believe she should be in a hospital where they can give her constant care.”

“There’s not much a doctor could do, except charge her a hefty bill,” Ned said quickly. “Like Mr. McPherson says, it’s only a question of fluids, sleep, and the body fighting it off. It’s almost my lunchtime. Why don’t I go and visit her? That would cheer her up.”

“No!” This time I almost shouted it. “She wouldn’t want you to see her looking the way she does,” I added hastily. “Women have their pride, you know, and she looks terrible.”

“Yes, my boy. You stay away,” Mr. McPherson said. I wondered why he was being so considerate for once until he added, “I don’t want you coming down with it. I’ve already lost two assistants.”

“I’m going to be staying with her and nursing her,” I said, “but I would like a doctor to see her, just to make sure I’m doing everything right. I’m happy to pay for the doctor myself if need be.”

“You can call on Doctor Hoffman if you’ve a mind to,” Mr. McPherson said. “His office is on the corner of Amsterdam and Seventy-fourth. He’s a good man and won’t charge an arm and a leg.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“And now let us get back to our work,” McPherson snapped, reverting to his usual unpleasant personality. Then he added as an afterthought, “Give our best to Miss Boswell.”

“Yes, please do,” Ned said. He gave me a syrupy smile.

I was glad to be outside in the fresh air again, safely away from Ned. What I had interpreted as charm before now seemed to have sinister undertones. I went straight to Dr. Hoffman’s and was told that the doctor would not be able to make a house call until he had finished his afternoon consultations. I left the address and went back to Emily’s room. She was sleeping as I let myself in but she stirred as she heard me and regarded me with a hollow-eyed stare.

“Molly, you’re back,” she whispered.

“I am,” I said. “Here, let me get you some more to drink.”

I held the glass to her cracked lips for her to take some sips and then I sponged her face and neck with a cool washcloth. “I’ve a Doctor Hoffman coming to see you later,” I said. “And I hope that by then Daniel will have had that cream analyzed.”

“Doctor Hoffman,” she repeated.

“And I have to leave you now for a little while,” I said. “I need Ned’s mother’s address.”

“Ned’s mother?”

I nodded. “I have to pay a call on her.”

She frowned. “I know it’s Hicks Street in Brooklyn, but I’m not sure of the number. It’s a white frame house, just down the block from a laundry. It looks rather rundown and she has the ground-floor flat at the back.”

I tucked her in, made sure she had everything she needed, and then prepared to leave again. “If I were you, I wouldn’t open the door to anyone until I come back,” I said. “I should have enough time to get to Brooklyn and back before the doctor arrives.”

I didn’t tell her that Ned had been awfully keen to come to visit her and luckily had not been allowed to do so. I’d make sure I was here when his workday was over.

It took what seemed like an eternity to ride the train all the way down the length of Manhattan and then the trolley across the bridge, but at last I was standing outside the dilapidated wooden house. I opened the front door and went down a long, dark passage to the door at the back. I tapped and a face peered out. “Yes?” she demanded in the darkness. “I don’t know you. What do you want?”

“Are you Ned Tate’s mother?”

“What if I am?’

“I’m a friend of his and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions,” I said.

“All right, come in then.” She gave me a half smile. “He was here on Sunday with his lady friend, you know. Always comes to visit me on Sundays, like clockwork. Such a good boy, he is. So faithful to his poor mother.”

We had entered a dreadful, dingy apartment. It was dark, it smelled of drains and boiled cabbage, and it was furnished in the most threadbare manner. It was hard to picture the fastidious Ned growing up here. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness I was able to study Ned’s mother. She looked like an old, old woman. Her front teeth were missing, her face was sunken, her hair was gray, and yet she couldn’t have been more than fifty at the most.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, honey?” she asked.

“No, thank you, I can’t stay long,” I said. “I came to see you because I need to set something straight. It’s about Ned’s father.”

“What about him?”

As I looked around the room my eyes fastened on a photograph on the mantelpiece—a lovely young woman in a scanty costume. She was holding a tray of cigars and smiling coyly. And beside it a picture of a handsome, dark-eyed child, looking angelic in lace petticoats and holding a dove.

“Did you tell Ned who his father was?” I asked.

“Not in so many words,” she said, then she winked. “Between us women, I was never rightly sure which one his father was, if you get my meaning.”

“So you never told Ned that his father’s name was Bradley?”

“Oh, that’s what he’s been telling you, has he?” She gave me the coy look that I recognized from the photograph. “Well, I might have hinted. He was a strange child, you know. Born with big ideas. He kept pestering me to tell him about his father and the longer I kept quiet the grander his ideas became. Then one day I took him to Central Park for a treat and this open carriage passed us. What’s more, the toff in the carriage was looking straight at us and I could tell that he recognized me. Well, I recognized him too, right enough. He’d been one of my customers and I’d sold him more than cigars, if you get my meaning. Well, like I said, my Ned always was a sharp little thing. He noticed that Mr. Bradley looking at us, so he got it into his head that that was his father. I didn’t want to disillusion him. Could have been, of course.” She gave me a knowing, toothless grin. “Has he been spouting off about his father, then? Always did like to talk big, my Ned. I said to him, you want to watch that. Pride comes before a fall.”

“Did the Bradleys have a little girl in the carriage with them?”

“They did. A lovely little thing she was. Like a little angel. I think Ned was smitten with her too.”

I pictured the little boy, watching that passing carriage in Central Park and then coming back to this hellhole, and felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Ned Tate. Then of course I remembered Emily, who lay dying, and any scrap of sympathy vanished.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tate, you’ve been very helpful,” I said. I reached into my purse to give her money, but her defiant, proud stare stopped me.

“Nothing to thank me for, honey,” she said in her scratchy voice. “What did you want to know all this for?”

“For his sweetheart, Emily,” I said, not wanting to hurt her with the truth. “She was curious about Ned’s father and he would never speak of him.”

“Oh, I see. Well, she would be, wouldn’t she, if she’s thinking of marrying him. I told him, boy, you could do a lot worse than this one. Got a good head on her shoulders, she has, and anyone can see she’s a lady.”

I thought of Ned, bringing Emily home as his sweetheart when he had already given her the preparation that was going to kill her. And I looked at this broken wreck of a woman who had obviously done everything she could to make sure her son was raised with an education and prospects. It would break her heart when she learned the truth.