Indigo Christmas (17 page)

“Yes, she is not as kind sometimes, but I think it must be hard for her, living in the same house as her mother-in-law. even a big house like that. And
Norah, if you still worked there, you could not have Sean. Or Fiona.” She smiled over at the sleeping baby in her cradle.

“No. And Fiona is such a darlin' wee thing. And Sean…” Tears started in her eyes, and Hilda could have kicked herself. She had not intended to remind
Norah of her troubles.

“Do you know, Norah,? she said, reverting to the
earlier subject, “I think Mrs. George is still looking for a good waitress.
Elsa says there is another new one who does not do her job well. I wonder if, when you feel better, she would hire you to come in by the day.”

“And who would look after me babe?” said Norah, still weepy.

“I would,” said Hilda, who had not until that moment thought of such a thing.

Norah sighed. “Maybe. It is a long way off. I am so tired.” Hilda stood. “I should not have stayed so long. I have tired you. But I am happy that you feel a little better, and I want you to know that you must not worry.
Everything will be good. I promise.”

Yet another promise, she thought as she gently closed the door. And she was not at all sure she would be able to keep this one.

She heard the front door open and close. Patrick! She paused at a hall mirror and put her hat on again, then glided down the stairs.

“Hilda! Me darlin' girl, ye look like the Queen of the World! Turn round and let me see all your glory.”

Hilda rotated before him while Eileen giggled behind her hand. “Do you like my hair this way?”

“It's beautiful and no mistake. Makes me feel shy, though. Doesn't look like you, somehow.”

“That is what I think. I will wear it sometimes this way, when I want to look like a grand lady. But I like my braids. And I do not like this corset!”

Patrick put a practiced arm around her waist. “And no more do I. Feels like a cage around my darlin'. Go and take it off and put on somethin' ordinary, so I can tell you what I found out today.”

“Patrick! You have learned something?”

“Not much, but a little. Go on, now. I want you beside me lookin' like yourself.”

When she was settled with him in front of the fire, his arm around her and his pipe lit, he told her. “Uncle Dan closed the store just past the regular time. The snow's begun again—don't know if you noticed. Fallin' thick, it is, just like this mornin', and nobody out on the streets. Dan wanted our people home before it got too bad. Well, I reckoned I had time to go round to the police station, so I walked over there and phoned
O'Rourke to come pick me up. And while I waited, I had a nice little chat
with Sergeant Lefkowicz.” He took a few puffs on his pipe.

Hilda's nerves tightened, but she had learned in the few months she had been married that there was no point in trying to rush Patrick. He would tell his story in his own good time.

“Well, as I suspected, the police aren't looking very hard for a murderer, and they're convinced Sean is the thief. They reckon the
fire was an accident—”

“But the firemen say it couldn't be!” said Hilda, interrupting. “The lantern, so far from the hired man—”

“I know, darlin', but there's a bit of a feud between the police and the
firemen, y'know. The police claim it was the wind knocked over the lantern, and never mind there was no wind that afternoon. And they think Sean's tellin' the truth about
findin' the billfold on the ground, but that there was money in it and he took it. They're just bidin' their time before they take him back in and charge him with theft.”

“But they have no proof! Who says that there was money in the billfold at all? I do not believe it! Sean did not lie to me. I can tell when people are lying.”

“Because you're so good at it yourself, most like. You know there doesn't have to be proof when they take the likes of us up before a judge. The police tell their story, the accused man tells his, and who does the judge believe?”

“It depends on the judge,” said Hilda sagely. “There are some who will believe the one who tells the story that is sensible.”

?There?s that,? Patrick admitted. ?And there?s this, too. Sergeant Lefkowicz doesn't believe any of what the rest of the police do. He has nothin' to do with the case; a man named Applegate's in charge. Don't think Lefkowicz has much use for Applegate. He didn't exactly say anything against him, but he said he's heard enough talk to know Applegate's not dealin' with the case right. He's workin' long hours these days—Lefkowicz is, I mean—'cause he's savin' up to get married, but he's tryin' to
find out what he can in his hours off.”

Patrick puffed on his pipe, then said, in a lower tone, “And I'll tell you this, girl, but you're to keep it to yourself. Lefkowicz reckons the farmer burned down his own barn, not knowin' the hired man was sleepin' there.”

“But why would Mr. Miller burn down his own barn? A barn costs very much to build, and what would he do with his horses and cows and hay?”

“Well, you know there's trouble with a lot of banks, and Lefkowicz has found out Miller has a mortgage on the farm, and not a lot of cash. He has insurance, too.”

Patrick let that sink in.

“Oh!” said Hilda. “He would burn down the barn to collect the insurance, and then he could make the mortgage payment.” Hilda thought about that for a moment. “But then he would have no barn. I do not understand.”

“He's keepin' his stock with a cousin near Lakeville for the time bein'. Maybe he plans to sell his own farm and move in with the cousin for good. Both of 'em bachelors—it'd make sense. And when he collects the insurance, he'll be well off for cash.”

Hilda mused. “Sergeant Lefkowicz has done a lot in just a few days.”

“That he has. And he's goin' to follow up on it, too. His next day off's Wednesday, and he says he's goin' out to Miller's farm and talk to him a bit. Meanwhile, darlin', there's no court session till after Christmas, so there's time.”

“Yes,” said Hilda slowly. “But there is maybe not time for
Norah. She is a little better, Patrick, but every time someone says something about Sean she cries. She will worry herself into more illness until he is cleared.”

“And you'll worry until she stops worryin'. I know you, darlin' girl.”

The doorbell rang and Hilda heard Sean's voice as Eileen
answered the bell. “And here is Sean to visit his wife and daughter. I hope he is cheerful.”

But Sean was anything but cheerful. His head drooped and his shoulders slumped as he walked into the house.

“What is the matter?” Hilda cried.

“They're shuttin' down the bicycle factory. Somethin' about the bank loan. We're all of us out of work after Friday. And with Christmas comin', and me with a new baby!”

Can anybody remember when the times
were not hard and money not scarce?

—Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Society and Solitude
, 1870

 

 

17

T
HE NEWS OF Sean's loss of employment was a shock, even though it was not entirely unexpected. Hilda had been giving some thought to the possibility. After she had sympathized with Sean, and Patrick had offered him a drink (which he refused), Hilda asked, “Can you go back to work for Birdsell's?”

“First thing I thought of,” he replied despondently. “They're not hirin' now.”

“What about Oliver's, then? Or Studebaker's?”

“Haven't tried them. Don't know much about plows or wagons.”

Hilda could have shaken him. “You didn't know anything about bicycles until you went to work for Black's! You know how to use your hands. You can learn. I will talk to—” She came to a stop. Clement Studebaker, co-founder and first president of Studebaker's, had been a kind man who would almost certainly have hired Sean if Hilda asked him to. But Mr. Clem was dead. His son, Colonel George, took no active part in the company. Hilda didn't know J. M. Studebaker, Mr. Clem's brother and current president, at all well. There was, really, no one she could talk to on Sean's behalf.

Patrick thought it was time to intervene. “Ye'll find some-thin' soon, me boy. Meantime we can tide ye over. Ye can move in here, if ye want. Norah's like to be here for a while yet, anyway, and the baby. Why not stay yerself and save the rent on yer house?”

Patrick always became more pointedly Irish when he was talking to his cousins, who, as far as Hilda could tell, were numbered in the hundreds. Usually the thick accent and the charm laid on with a trowel helped him win his point. Not this time.

“I'm thankin' ye kindly, but we're not wantin' to be beholden to anybody,” Sean said stiffly. “I'd move Norah home if she weren't so sick, and I'll pay the bills for the doctorin' as soon as I can. Tomorrow I'll go out and find work. And now I'll be goin' up to see me wife and daughter.”

“Sean,” said Hilda. Patrick shook his head at her, but she ignored him. “Sean, you must not go to Norah with that look on your face. She must not know anything is wrong.”

Sean's face as he looked at her was expressionless, but as he left the room he straightened his shoulders, and they heard him greet Norah with a cheerful “How's me girl, then?”

“If ever there was a stubborn mule of an Irishman,” Patrick began, but Hilda interrupted him.

“He is proud. I can understand that. I am proud, too.”

“And stubborn.”

“And stubborn, yes. I stay up for what I believe—is that right?”

“Stick up.” Patrick began to smile.

“Stick up for what I believe. Sean is right to be independent. But if he does not get a job soon, you must try to make him accept help. You could lend him money, 
ja
?”

“I don't like lendin' money to kinfolk. It makes for bad blood with 'em. If I pretend it's a real loan, Sean'll worry about payin' it back, and start bein' scared to talk to me. If I tell him not to pay it back, he'll resent bein' helped behind his back as ye might say. No, there has to be another way, but blest if I see what. It's a pickle.”

Sean refused to stay for dinner, and though Hilda and Patrick spent most of the evening trying to find a solution to the O'Neill family's problems, they came up with nothing. Uncle Dan needed no one with Sean's skills at Malloy's, especially with business slow, and Sean would be quick to detect and resent a make-work job offered to him out of charity. Hilda stayed awake for hours worrying about him and Norah. She got up early Tuesday morning, though, so she could talk to Patrick about her job for the day.

“It is the boys, you see. I must invite them all to the Christmas party, but I do not know how. Most of the poor boys do not go to school, so a notice in the schools will not work. Many of them cannot read, so a notice pinned up on the streets will not work. I cannot go to all the places where they might work. I do not know how to find all the boys!”

“Churches,” said Patrick, putting down the South Bend
Tribune
. “Write up a notice and have them print up a lot of copies at the
Tribune
or the
Times.
Go round to as many churches as you can, and ask the priests—the pastors—whatever you Protestants call them—to tell any others they know.”

“Patrick, you are so clever! Yes. That is the way to do it. And I will say in the notice—no, I will ask the pastors to write to me, saying how many boys they know will come to the party. Then I can tell Mr.—can tell Riggs, and he will tell them at the hall.”

“Aunt Molly's butler? What's he got to do with this?” asked Patrick, bewildered.

“I forgot to tell you. I went to ask Aunt Molly for help, and she was not at home, but Riggs—he told me to call him that, but it is hard for me—he said he could help find a hall for the party. He was
nice
, Patrick!”

“He'd be interested in anything for boys,” said Patrick, nodding. “He lost his own son when the
Maine
blew up in 1898.”

“When Maine blew up? I do not understand.”

“THE
Maine
. The ship. Beginning of the Spanish-American War. Riggs's son was a navy man. Only about our age when he was killed.”

Hilda said nothing, but she thought a great deal. Thought about her own ingrained prejudices, her failure to see beneath the surface. Was that at the heart of all prejudice, the inability to see anything but what one expected to see? She looked at Mr. Riggs or Mr. Williams and saw “tyrannical butler.” Other people looked at her and saw “dumb Swede,” or at Patrick and saw “drunken Irish.”

“I am as bad as they are,” she murmured to herself.

“Mmm?” said Patrick, absorbed again in the newspaper.

Hilda wrote out the notice immediately after breakfast, very careful about her English. Then, after checking on Norah and kissing little Fiona, she was ready to set about her many calls. She decided to use the carriage. The gray skies threatened nasty weather, and with a choice, why should she walk and risk a soaking or worse?