New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [327]
“But at least there’s plenty of air and light,” Anna would say, “and the girls are friendly.” Salvatore guessed that she was glad to get out of the house, too.
Another effect of the new regime was to bring Salvatore closer to his little brother.
Angelo was still a dreamer. At school, he learned his lessons erratically, but the one thing he loved was to draw. He would carry a little pencil in his pocket, and use any piece of paper he could get his hands on. When he and Salvatore were on their way to meet Anna, they would often pick different routes. Nearly every time he’d find something that interested him, and he’d start to sketch it, until Salvatore had to drag him away. Often he would notice some fine bit of carved stonework over a doorway, or high up on the entablatures and cornices of the tall office buildings. No one in the family thought much of his efforts, except Uncle Luigi.
“Of course he likes the carvings,” he declared. “Who do you think did those carvings? Italian stonemasons. All over the city. Look at the Americans’ houses—copied from ancient Rome. Now they make tall office buildings—great cages of steel—but they clothe the cages with brick and stone, and add Roman cornices round the top so that they look like so many Italian palazzi. New York is turning into an Italian city,” he cried enthusiastically. “Our young Angelo will be a great architect, a man of honor. That is why he draws.”
This ambitious design was so obviously impossible that nobody paid any attention. But his father did say grudgingly: “Perhaps he could be a stonemason.”
As for Angelo himself, he went upon his dreamy way. Once Anna confided to Salvatore, “You and I will have to watch out for Angelo all his life.”
For over a year, Anna worked at the Triangle Factory without incident.
The year 1910 began on a Saturday. In New York, there was a light dusting of snow. But on Sunday morning, when Rose Master got into the Rolls-Royce and set off downtown, the sky was clear and blue.
There was still an hour to go before she was due to join old Hetty for lunch, but she was leaving extra time to make sure that the arrangements she had made were all in place. As she stepped into the car, she told the chauffeur that she’d be picking up some people on the way. When they started off, she gave him the address. It was at this point that the astonished chauffeur glanced in his mirror and asked her if there wasn’t some mistake.
“None at all,” she said. “Drive on.”
The last thing Rose wanted to do—the last thing she’d ever thought she’d have to do—was get in a fight with old Hetty Master. She’d talked to William about it. “Am I wrong?” she’d asked. “No,” he’d said, “but you can’t stop her.” She’d reasoned with his grandmother, gently pointing out why this luncheon might be a bad idea. But Hetty had been obdurate. And the trouble was, people were already talking about it. Hetty’s name was being mentioned everywhere, and Rose feared, with good reason, that there could be some reference to the old lady in the newspapers. Something had to be done.
So Rose had made her plans. They were subtle, and devious. She had even employed a journalist she knew, a sound man she could rely upon, to draft a story which would have the desired result. With luck, it might be possible to turn the whole business to some good account without personally offending Hetty too much. But whatever the outcome, she was determined about one thing: the Master family name must not be sullied.
Edmund Keller walked briskly down Fifth Avenue. He liked to walk, and the cold air on his face felt good. He’d spent the first part of the morning with his Aunt Gretchen’s family, up on Eighty-sixth Street. Like so many of the inhabitants of the old Kleindeutschland, they’d long ago moved to the Yorkville area on the Upper East Side, where Eighty-sixth Street was called the German Broadway now. Gretchen had died a couple of years ago, but he was still close to her children and their families.
It was only sixty-five blocks or so down to