New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [221]
What with Gretchen’s children and a store to run, it wasn’t possible for the two friends to see each other as they had in the old days—though they always kept in regular touch, and Mary was godmother to one of the children. They were both delighted, therefore, with this chance to spend a week away at the beach together, and already they were laughing like a pair of girls.
“Look at us fashionable ladies going round the park,” cried Mary.
She loved Central Park. It was only a few years since the great, two-and-a-half-mile rectangle had been laid out to the inspired design of Olmstead and Vaux, to provide a much needed breathing space, the “lungs” in the middle of what would clearly, one day, be the city’s completed grid. Swamps had been drained, a couple of ragged hamlets swept away, hills leveled. And already its lawns and ponds, woods and avenues provided landscapes quite as elegant as London’s Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne beside Paris. Why, the contractors had even done their work without any graft. No one had ever seen anything like it.
And the two women were certainly well dressed. Gretchen could afford it, but Mary had some nice clothes too. Servants in New York made twice as much as a factory worker, with room and board besides, and most sent money back to their families. In the fourteen years she’d been with the Masters, without any family to support, Mary had saved a tidy sum.
Of course, if ever she’d needed money, Sean would have helped her. Her brother was becoming quite a wealthy man. Eight years ago, he’d taken over Nolan’s saloon down on Beekman Street. When she’d asked him what had happened to Nolan, he’d been evasive.
“He wasn’t getting along with some of the boys,” he’d said vaguely. “He may have gone to California, I believe.”
To tell the truth, she didn’t care what had happened to Nolan. But one thing was certain: Sean was making a fortune out of the saloon. He’d married and had a family now, and was quite the respectable man.
“You don’t have to work as a servant, you know,” he told her. “I’ve a place for you any time you want.”
But she preferred to keep her independence. And by now, in any case, the Masters’ house had become her home. If little Sally Master was in any kind of trouble, it wouldn’t be long before she was knocking on Mary’s door. When young Tom Master returned from Harvard for the summer, Mary felt the same thrill of pleasure as if he’d been her own.
Did she still think of getting married? Perhaps. It wasn’t too late, if the right man came along. But somehow he never seemed to. If Hans had asked her, she supposed she would have said yes. But Hans had been happily married for many years. Time had passed, and she never thought of him nowadays. Well, hardly ever.
“Down Fifth, James,” Gretchen called to the coachman, and a minute later they passed out of the bottom corner of the park and onto the carriage thoroughfare.
“Where are we going?” said Mary. But her friend didn’t answer.
If Broadway had dominated the social scene for generations, the upstart Fifth Avenue was bidding for prominence now. And though fashionable Central Park was still waiting for the city to reach it, isolated mansions on Fifth were already getting close.
The first house of note, seven streets down from the park, was a palatial mansion nearing completion on an empty site. “That’s Madame Restell’s,” Gretchen remarked. “Doesn’t she live fine?” Having made a fortune with her husband procuring abortions for the good people of the city, Madame Restell had recently