New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [200]
Though most of the Germans who’d come to America were farmers, quite a few were staying in New York. And unless they could afford better, they were settling in the quarter that stretched across from the Bowery to the East River and from Delancey Street in the south, where the O’Donnells lived, up to Fourteenth Street. A mixed quarter had therefore developed, German and Irish, but the two communities got along well enough, because they didn’t tread on each other’s toes. The Irish men in that quarter were mostly in the laboring and building trades, and the women in domestic service. The Germans worked as tailors, artisans and shopkeepers. So many had come in during the last decade that, despite all the Irish there, people were starting to call the quarter “Kleindeutschland.”
So it wasn’t surprising that the blonde German and the dark-haired Irish girl should have met and become friends. The Kellers might not approve of John O’Donnell, but they were kind to Mary, and Uncle Willy would still give her father a cigar, out of charity, from time to time. But the future was increasingly clear. South of Delancey Street, as you got closer to Five Points, the area became poorer. North of Delancey, the streets became more and more respectable. The Kellers would soon be moving northward. John O’Donnell looked to be heading south.
“I’m so frightened,” Mary confessed, as they walked along Fourteenth Street and turned into Irving Place. “What’ll they think of me?”
“The lady’s been buying our chocolates for years,” Gretchen reminded her. “She’s very nice. And it isn’t as if we’ve come knocking on her door—it was she who asked my mother if we knew of a girl who’d might like a position.”
“That’s because she wants someone respectable like you.”
“You’re very respectable, Mary.”
“What if they saw Sean?”
“They won’t.”
“What if they ask me what my father does? The last regular work he had was laying bricks on the aqueduct. And that was years ago. As for what he does now …”
“We’ll say your father’s a mason. It sounds better. Apart from that, Mary, just be yourself and tell the truth. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
“Thank God you’re coming with me,” said Mary, as they entered the square at the end of Irving Place.
Gramercy Park was a gracious place. Its rows of big, wide, red-brick houses, as spacious within as many city mansions, were arranged in a broad rectangle around a pleasant central garden. It might have been one of London’s quieter, aristocratic squares. If some of the houses built in New York recently were encumbered with opulence, those of Gramercy Park kept a classical dignity and restraint. Fit for judges, senators, merchants with libraries. “We are new mansions,” they seemed to say, “for old money.” Why, even the land under them had been purchased from one of Peter Stuyvesant’s descendants.
Frank Master had a modest library, but when he got home from his counting house, he’d gone into the dining room, so that he could unroll the maps he was carrying along the entire length of the table. It was a fine room. The table, under a big chandelier, could seat more than twenty. Over the fireplace hung a large painting, of the Hudson River school, depicting Niagara Falls.
As he started to unroll the maps, he turned to his wife.
“This Irish girl,” he said. “Before you engage her, I want to see her.”
“Of course, dear,” said his wife. “If you wish it.” Her voice was gentle, but he did not miss the slight edge in it. A danger signal. This was household business. He was trespassing on her territory.
Frank Master loved his wife. They’d been married six years now, and they had two children. If her body was a little fuller than when they’d married, he thought it suited her very well. And she was kind. Hetty Master’s religion was simple, warm and practical. She tried to help people whenever she could. He suspected that she secretly felt that the Lord was directing her acts of charity, but rather than say that, she’d just