New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [204]
What this meant Mary couldn’t imagine, but she bowed her head respectfully.
“Perhaps you saw him there, Mrs. Master,” ventured Gretchen.
“Well,” said Mrs. Master, more pleased than ever, “perhaps I did.” She seemed to catch herself for a moment. “Is your father connected in any way to Tammany Hall?”
“My father? Oh no. Not at all.”
“Good. So tell me, Mary,” she continued, “what experience have you of household duties?”
“Since my mother died, ma’am, I have kept house for my father,” Mary answered. “I’ve had to do everything.” She saw Gretchen nodding vigorously. It’s lucky the lady can’t see the place, she thought.
“You’re not afraid of work, then?”
“Oh no,” said Mary, “not at all.” At least she didn’t have to think about that.
“But”—Mrs. Master suddenly looked thoughtful—“if your father relies upon you to keep house for him now, Mary, would you not be deserting him, rather, if you came to live here?”
Mary stared at her. Then she and Gretchen looked at each other. They hadn’t thought of that. The question was so logical, yet the truthful answer would demolish the entire edifice of respectability that Gretchen had just built up. Mary felt herself going pale. Whatever could she say? She couldn’t think of anything.
But already Gretchen had turned to Mrs. Master. She was speaking quite calmly.
“I can’t tell you this for certain, Mrs. Master,” her friend was saying, “but”—she seemed to hesitate for just a second before continuing—“if perhaps there was a widow who was thinking of marrying Mr. O’Donnell, a lady used to running a house of her own …”
Mary’s mouth opened. What in heaven’s name was Gretchen talking about? A respectable lady marry John O’Donnell? Had she gone out of her mind?
But Gretchen was blithely ignoring her. She was talking to Mrs. Master as if she were imparting a secret that Mary mightn’t want to discuss.
“If that was the case, and the lady had strong opinions of her own about how to run a house …”
And now Mary understood. She stared at Gretchen in wonderment. How was it possible that her neat little friend, with her angel face, could be making this up so easily as she went along? How could she tell such lies? Well, not technically a lie, she wasn’t actually saying this widow existed—only asking: what if she did? But all the same … Mary knew she couldn’t have done such a thing herself in a thousand years.
“It would be difficult for Mary, then, to live in that house,” Gretchen explained. “It may seem foolish—”
But Mrs. Master interrupted her. “It does not,” she said, very firmly, “seem foolish at all.”
Frank Master was just looking at Saratoga on the map when Hetty appeared. She was alone.
“The girl was no good?” he asked.
Hetty smiled. “Actually, she’s perfect. Very respectable. She and Gretchen live practically next door to each other. In Germantown.”
“I see. Her family?”
“The father’s a mason. A widower, about to marry again, I think. And guess where he worked for years?”
“Tell me.”
“The Croton Aqueduct.” There was a gleam in her eye. “Who knows, he may have seen you propose to me.”
“Ah.”
“I do feel, Frank,” she said, “that this is fated.”
Frank Master gazed affectionately at his wife. He wasn’t a fool. He knew when he was beat.
“We’d better hire her, then,” he said.
Crystal Palace
1853
THE EASIEST DECISION that Frank Master ever had to make in his business career occurred in the summer of 1853. He was standing in his counting house. It was a nice old brick building, with a warehouse behind, that looked out onto the South Street waterfront. The sun was shining brightly on the ships crowding the East River beyond. Two of those ships belonged to him—one a sailing ship, a rakish clipper bound for China, the other a side-wheel steam vessel about to depart for the isthmus of Panama. The cargo of clothes she carried would be taken overland across Panama, then carried by another steamer up to California. The people who’d been flocking to the gold-rush towns in the last few years might, or might not, find gold. But they needed the