Parlor Games (27 page)

Miss Emmett, in a sturdy blue day dress quite appropriate to the season and nature of our outing, met me in the Gilsey lobby promptly at 10 a.m. We boarded a carriage she had arranged for our tour, a dull red brougham with fraying seams and a musty interior.

“Carry on, Dicky,” she called to a boy of no more than fifteen sitting in the driver’s seat. With a jiggle of the reins and a heigh-ho, we were on our way, traveling at a trot over the city’s cobblestone streets.

“You know the driver?” I asked.

“He’s my brother. He’s been working for the Swinburnes, too.”

“And this brougham?”

She hesitated a moment, and I wondered if a long story might be
in the offing. But if that was the case, she opted for the short one. “He’s borrowed it for the day.”

Miss Emmett and I sat side by side in the compact brougham, with me taking in as much scenery as the two-by-two side windows allowed. The day had turned chill, with thick clouds blocking out the sun. As the carriage turned, I spied a church with a tall, knob-decorated spire rising above all the neighboring buildings. “What a beautiful church. How it reaches to the heavens.”

“Oh, that’s Trinity Church,” Miss Emmett said. “One of the oldest buildings in Manhattan.”

The carriage trundled over several narrow streets, and the harbor came into view.

“And that round building,” said Miss Emmett, pointing out her side of the carriage, “is Castle Garden. Where they process the immigrants.”

We passed by the building’s domed rotunda. Two flags as wide as small houses—Old Glory and the New York State flag—graced the poles on opposite sides of the building’s dome, their rippled weight snapping under the harbor’s steady wind. In front of the building, wagons packed with people, trunks, and lumpy sacks wove among a horde of pedestrians—men in rumpled pants and jackets, women in droopy dresses, and wide-eyed children muddling along beside their parents. Our carriage slowed as we merged with the clutter of wagons and walkers weaving about in front of Castle Garden.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the multitude of people in all their slatternly garb.

“It’s like this nearly every day,” Miss Emmett said.

Our carriage cleared the clot of wagons, and Dicky turned onto a street bordering the harbor.

“Would you care to stroll the piers?” Miss Emmett asked.

“Yes, let’s do.”

She rapped on the front of the compartment, and Dicky pulled the carriage to the street side. Before we could let ourselves out, he had jumped down and opened the door for us. Dicky, whose neat jacket could not hide the ill-fitting pants roped around his skinny waist, offered his hand and stole a glance at me as he helped me out.

We walked along the pier, passing an array of ships in the harbor: the ocean liner
La Gascogne
; sailboats of forty- to fifty-foot lengths;
and tugboats coming and going. Fall’s cold air wafted in from the river, carrying scents of fishy seawater and the ships’ dusty coal smoke. As we approached one of the jutting piers, the sounds of splashing and children yelping increased, arousing my curiosity as to the cause of the commotion. We strolled to the other side of the pier. There the shore sloped into the water, and young boys and girls in nothing but undergarments ran about in the shallows while a loose gathering of women in scarves and shabby dresses watched. Given the chill of the day, the youngsters’ squeals did not surprise me.

“Swimming?” I said to Miss Emmett. “At this time of year?”

“No, no,” she said, chuckling. “They’re bathing.”

Behind me a burst of laughter sounded. I spun around to discover Dicky doubled over and clapping a hand over his mouth. When he saw me, he straightened up and said, “Not swimming, miss.”

I turned to find Miss Emmett hunched over in a feeble attempt at restraining her amusement, whereupon I, too, burst into laughter; it was a good while before the three of us regained our composure.

“Oh, dear me,” said Miss Emmett. “I’ve worked up an appetite. Do you like oysters, Miss Dugas?”

“I love them.”

We returned to the carriage, and Miss Emmett instructed Dicky to drive us to City Oysters and Seafood, a raucous restaurant overlooking the Hudson River.

As Miss Emmett and I settled at a table by the expansive front window, I asked, “Won’t Dicky want lunch?”

“Dicky can take care of himself. He’s been working on his own for two years now.”

“Driving a carriage?”

“Yes. He learned about horses and driving by frequenting Central Park. Did chores for lessons.”

We ordered our oysters, and I asked Miss Emmett, “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

“Had a little sister. Died when she was six.”

“Are you from New York?”

“New Jersey, right across the river from here.” Miss Emmett poked her chin, and I followed her gaze to the jagged string of buildings on the opposite shore.

“Do your parents still live there?”

“Mother does. We don’t know where Father is.”

“What was his work?”

“He used to own a grocery store.”

The clang of plates and utensils rang out around us, and the buzz of chatter pulsed over the jam-packed booths and stools. I leaned across the table to better hear and be heard. “What happened to his grocery business?”

“He sold it. Or lost it gambling.” Miss Emmett shrugged. “Took up professional card playing.”

“So he travels around doing that?”

“He’s made a life of train and boat travel. Playing cards with strangers.”

“You mean with people who don’t know he’s a card sharp?”

Miss Emmett nodded, her lips clamped in glum resignation.

“And your mother. How does she manage?”

“She takes in laundry. And Dicky and I help as much as we can.”

I reached out and patted her hand. “We have a few things in common, I’d say.”

She studied me with unblinking eyes. “How’s that?”

“Having mothers who are on their own. Who need our help.”

A smile of knowing recognition flitted over her face. “Most people call me Daisy. I’d be pleased if you would, too.”

It appeared that Daisy Emmett was someone I could trust. She was not afraid to tell the truth, but she showed good judgment, too. After we agreed on her salary, I apprised her of my intent to journey to London, which pleased her greatly. But first, I explained, I wished her to make discreet inquiries about an old friend, a young man now in the arts-and-antiquities business in New York.

Two days later, she strode up to me in the lobby of the Gilsey. “Miss Dugas,” she said, “I’ve news of John Graham.”

I slipped a marker into the page of my
Baedeker’s London and Its Environs
. “Yes—what did you learn?”

“I think we should go to your room.”

I closed the book on my lap. “Why?”

She stood as erect as a pine tree, her five-foot-six frame looming over me. “You said you wanted to be discreet, didn’t you?”

I rose and headed for the stairs, all impatience. “Must you be so awfully good at following instructions?”

Once in my fifth-floor room, Daisy led me to my easy chair and commanded, “Sit.”

I eased down and looked up at her.

She unfurled a
New York Sun
and pointed to a column. “It’s old news now. Happened two weeks ago.”

My eyes latched on the column headline: “John D. Graham Found Dead in Apartment.”

I stared at the words “John D. Graham.” “No, no, it can’t be,” I said. “It can’t be my Johnny.”

Daisy cocked her head to meet my gaze. “Your Johnny?”

“We were engaged.”

“Did you meet him in Tokyo?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my.”

“Please,” I said, more as a desperate prayer than anything else, “don’t let it be him.” I pictured Johnny: bounding up our hotel stairs and turning to scoop me into his arms; glowing with awe at Japan’s intricate, soaring temples; laughing so hard at my imitations of Kotone that he rolled off his chair. Johnny, so spirited, so full of life, couldn’t be gone.

“I’m sorry, then, for it
is
your Johnny.” Daisy ran her hand down the column. “It says here he killed himself for love of a woman he met in Tokyo.”

I crumpled over my knees. “Oh, no. Oh, Johnny, please forgive me.”

Daisy brushed her hand over my back. “You loved him.”

I buried my face in my hands. The headline’s words imprinted on the dark screen of my tight-closed eyelids, glaring at me like an indictment. “I killed him. I killed him.”

Daisy gripped my shoulder. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” My insides sloshed. Nauseous, I crumpled over. “I didn’t have the courage to stand by his side.”

“How could you have known?”

“What does that matter?” I dug my fingernails into my forehead. Their sharpness cut into my flesh. I wanted to feel pain. “Johnny’s dead. And it’s because of me.”

LONDON AIRS
NEW YORK AND LONDON—1891–1892

I
refused to leave New York without first paying tribute to Johnny. I enlisted Daisy’s brother to transport me and my miniature memorial to Trinity Church Cemetery on Riverside Drive. I obtained directions to Johnny’s grave from the groundskeeper and set out down the designated row of gravestones in my simple black dress and wide-brimmed hat and veil. As I caught sight of Johnny’s fresh grave, I clutched my belly—it chilled me to imagine his once-vital body lying there, inert in its coffin. The earth mounding before his marble headstone glistened under October’s misty sky, its newness a personal rebuke: You might have saved him.

Closing my eyes, I silently recited my last words to him: “My dear Johnny, forgive me for not honoring our love. You will always be my Romeo.” I opened my eyes to the quiet midday, to the place that would be Johnny’s home forever. A morning rain had moistened the tree trunks and fallen leaves, deepening their hues to burnt brown and rust. A piquant mushroom odor—of grass and loam and dying leaves—chafed at my nostrils.

“Dicky,” I said, calling the reluctant youngster to join me at the graveside. “You can unwrap the stone now.”

Dicky unfolded the burlap covering to reveal the simple memorial, a slender, foot-wide stone plaque on a solid base, and handed it to me. I placed it at the foot of Johnny’s grave, so that he might gaze down upon it, and walked to the head of the grave, where I could view its inscription:

TO MY JOHNNY, FOR WE WERE ONCE
A PAIR OF STAR-CROSS
’
D LOVERS
.

Once I had completed my private remembrance ceremony, I couldn’t quit New York fast enough. It pained me to look at the tall buildings, walk through Central Park, or dine in any of its fine restaurants. All I could think was, Johnny might have eaten in this very place, Johnny must have gazed on these buildings, Johnny probably trod this street. I wanted to blame someone: Reed Dougherty for his unscrupulous, coldhearted pursuit of Johnny and me; Johnny’s father for hiring a Pinkerton to do what a family member could and should have done; and Johnny’s family for not giving us a chance. But what good did that do? Johnny was gone, and I’d had a hand, unknowing as it was, in his tragic end.

Never again, I vowed. Never would I permit myself to mix with a young man under the thumb of a reproving family. Never again would I risk wounding someone as decent and innocent as Johnny.

The path to my new life materialized quite clearly: I would slip into the respectable and cultured life I’d sought all along, and in doing so I would avoid giving Dougherty, or any of his ilk, leverage over me. Such was my frame of mind upon setting foot in London in November of 1891.