Paradise Alley (44 page)

Yet she was proud even here, though she tried to fight it in her heart. Slipping out her small, black, devotional book, while the other women around her simply prayed through their rosaries. Following carefully along with the priest's devotions, soothing and calming her, as they always did:

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causum meam de gente non sancta—

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.

Yet when she found herself in the confessional, she could not help but blurt out her sin, before she hardly knew it.

“Bless me, Father, but I think sometimes that I might do anything, just to feel the touch of another upon me.”

The priest's small, discomfiting silence above her, behind the screen. She was sure that it was Father Knapp, who had recently come to the parish. A stocky, humble, nearsighted man, with a touch of Tyrone on his tongue and a tendency to look down at his feet. A man she trusted for his unease, and his obvious humility.

“Have you given in to these temptations?” he had asked.

“No, Father, I never have. But I fear that I might. Just for a touch.”

“It is time that you should marry, perhaps.”

“I know, Father, but I dread it.”

“But you should marry rather than submit to wickedness. Come to see me after Mass.”

That morning the reading of the gospel was from the Book of Matthew, and she thought that the Father looked at her when he crossed over to the pulpit and read the English:

Come to me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Afterward she had waited shyly outside the sacristy door until Father Knapp had emerged—escorting her just outside to the rectory, where he had given her another, slim book.

“I know that you can read, Deirdre, and that you are a wise girl,” he told her. “Read this, and take it to heart, and I will answer any questions you may have.”

She had looked at the title curiously
—A Guide for Catholic Young Women, Especially for Those Who Earn Their Own Living—
before sliding it into her marketing basket. That night, when all her work was done, she had studied it in her room. Sorting through all the varied advice on marriage that it contained—wondering just what it was the Father wanted her to read, until the words blurred and swam before her eyes.

“
Marriage is a state of life instituted by God Himself,
” she had read.
“Do not be too hasty in making a decision.”

The writer, who was a man, apparently thought it as proper as Father Knapp did that she should marry. Yet he wrote page after page of warnings about what could happen if a good Catholic girl hurried into it, or married the wrong man. She worked her way through it, thinking of the women she knew, while she wondered if she might ever find the right man, or how she should marry at all.

“Who is that bloated, coarse-looking woman who has not apparently
combed her hair for a week, with a lot of ragged children bawling and fighting and cursing around her in her miserable, dirty hovel? That was, a few years ago, a pretty, modest girl, who was innocent and light-hearted, earning an easy living in a quiet, pleasant family, and attending to her duties regularly and with great delight in her soul.”

Then the next month had come the disturbances. The Protestants running loose in the streets, burning down churches in Philadelphia, and the Bishop himself had put out the call to protect the cathedral. She had gone with the Sisters to offer what help she could—though the men gathered in the churchyard had seemed less than pious, and more like men everywhere, leering and whistling at her as they did on the street.

“Where are ya off to now, darlin'? To serve the priests?”

“Forget it now, Pat. The three hardest things to teach in this world are a mule, a pig, and a woman—”

She had walked through them with her head held high, not so much as acknowledging their jibes or their laughter. But then she had seen his face.
So young and so open, the stupid moon calf. How had he survived so long in this City, with a face like that?
Yet daring to come up to her, to approach her alone. Having the impertinence to tell her:

“Anything. Anything ya want, miss.”

Silly, boyish thing to say. And from himself, who didn't look like he had two coins to rub together in this world.

Yet throughout the rest of the afternoon, she had found herself looking back at him, where he stood among his comrades. Noting how many friends he had, though he always conducted himself in a dignified and civilized manner. Catching him sneaking looks at her.

Whom to Trust?
Looking at his open, handsome boy's face, she thought she knew, then, what she was supposed to do—what Father Knapp and the book were directing her to. That if the right man were not to be found, perhaps she would have to make him. She would have to shape and mold and steel him to the world herself.

When he had shown up on the square, she had taken it as a sign. Moving around and around the slate-blue sidewalks with the usual parade. She had noticed him when she was heading back to the house. That broad, open face, following along behind her, like some common
footpad. She was surprised to see him there, startled by the effrontery of it. But noticing, too, the good coat he had bothered to wear, his combed hair. Understanding the trouble he had taken to find her.

She had decided to take another loop around the park, waiting for him to approach her. But he hadn't—something that pleased her as well, that he was so overawed by her. Yet realizing that something had to be done, or else they might walk around the park forever.

She had let him see her, then. She had improvised it all on the spur of the moment, from some inspiration that she was sure must have come from the Virgin Mother Herself. Knowing that the O'Looney girls, all the other servants, would be out for a while more. Turning in when she got to her house again, but making sure to leave the dooryard gate unlatched—leaving the door to the servants' quarters open as well, just to be sure.

She had sat down at her wheel, then, and begun to sing. Berating herself for a fool, at first, when he still did not appear—sure that he must be upstairs, stealing the silver and murdering the master. But hearing, then, the first, tentative footfall in the hall outside her room. Loving the very timidity of that step, his unsureness, his gentleness, even as he followed her. She sang a little louder:

“I've left Ballymornack a long way behind me

To better my fortune, I've crossed the big sea

But I'm sadly alone, not a creature to mind me,

And faith, I'm as wretched as wretched can be—”

Letting him come in, and see her there, singing to the wheel. One old song or another, it didn't matter which, just so long as it was in her best voice. Her mind hardly even half on it, just making sure that he could see her there, before they went on.

•
46
•

She went on back at last with the wet cloth to Vie and Elijiah, groping her way through the strange and darkened house. When she got there they were already asleep again, but Milton was up. Sitting at their bedside, where he had gone to comfort them himself.
Sweet boy.
Looking up at her with large, questioning eyes when she came in.

“It's all right,” she told him. “Things'll be all right, now the rain's here.”

She sat down on the bed next to him. Running a hand over the brows of her younger children, glad to feel they were cooler.

“Why are we here?” Milton asked her, in a whisper.

“Me an' Deirdre figured it'd be easier, if anything happened. You never know, with the disturbances.”

Not wanting to tell him they were hiding out in a white family's house so the mob would not attack them. Knowing even as she tried to put him off that of course he would reason it out on his own.

“Is it that they're coming after us? Is it that they're out after the coloreds?”

She tried to keep doing what she was doing, tucking Deirdre's pretty sheets up over her children. But her mind stuck on that word.

The coloreds. How quickly he had made that separation. And just where did that put her?

“No, no. It's the draft they're on about. It'd just be safer in one house or t'other. You know how Deirdre is about her house.”

Trying to bribe him with this little, adult confidence. But Milton only leaned in stubbornly, whispering again in her ear.

“Where's Daddy?”

“He's all right—”

“How do you know? How do you know anything like that?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed before her. His black, serious face nearly impenetrable in the darkness. But still, she knew, unconvinced.

“No, no, he'll be along now, with the rain. We have to wait for him here. An' you have to help me.”

Appealing to him openly now.
Her good son.

“With lookin' out for him. You have to help like you always done.”

His face softening. Boyish again, a little sheepish but pleased by her praise.
He was still, after all, a boy.

“Come now. Come have a look out for him.”

“All right,” he said, nodding seriously. “All right.”

They stayed up in the front parlor together. Milton sitting straight-backed and rigid as a sentry, in a chair by the window. His neck and head thrust forward, staring vigilantly out into the street through the half-opened shutters.

Outside the storm lessened, then stopped, almost as abruptly as it had begun—a curtain yanked back open on the town. The City smelling almost clean, the way it always did in the first few moments after a rainfall. There was a sudden and startling quiet, Ruth even daring to hope,
Well, maybe that did do it. Maybe it is over now—

The quiet was broken by the sound of footsteps—half-walking, then running—and Milton stood up from his chair. Deirdre and Ruth rising as well, going over to peer out through the cracks in the shutters, full of both hope and alarm.

They could see a lone figure hurrying down the street toward them. It was no more than a vague silhouette in the dark, with the gas unlit now. The three of them watching without a word, until it was nearly up to the house.

Only then could they see for sure that it was not Billy—or Johnny Dolan. It was a man, his face clearly white, though besmirched with what seemed to be soot, or dirt. His clothing was also dirty and tattered,
but too good for anything Johnny Dolan would have—a coat and what looked like a real silk vest, and yellow linen trousers.

He hurried quickly on past the house, down to Maddy's door, where he clanged the bell, the sound echoing up and down the deserted street. He banged on the door with his fists when she did not come down, shouting her name. Ruth could see the light from candles begin to flare up behind the other shutters up and down the block, until at last the door opened, and he was taken in.

“It isn't him,” Milton said, the disappointment plain in his voice.

“No, it's that man of hers,” Deirdre said disdainfully. “Oh, but men are desperate creatures!”

They settled slowly back down, into their places around the room—Milton leaning alertly forward again at his post. Staring out into Paradise Alley as if his eyes alone might burn a hole through the night, and bring his father back through it.

Ruth leaned back, into the rosewood reclining couch. Its shallow frame so uncomfortable when she used to visit Deirdre—though now she felt herself sinking into it, wavering on the brink of sleep. Deirdre herself sitting back in her chair, her eyes nearly shut.

Already, though, Ruth could hear the sound of more feet running through the streets, of shouts and voices from somewhere, far away. The City—the mob—gathering itself again. Regrouping in the saloons, and at the street crossings. Preparing itself for tomorrow.