Chapter 6

Marianne Neumann peeked around the corner and saw him. She jerked back against the brick wall, her breath coming in sudden bursts. She hoped but hadn’t expected him to be outside today with his family. He usually wasn’t there. Or at least he hadn’t been on the previous Sundays she’d returned to her old neighborhood to look for him from a distance.

Had she just dreamed him there? Did she miss him so much that she’d begun to imagine seeing him? She slid along the wall and looked toward the front of the tenement, where families were resting on their day off, attempting to escape the stifling heat that became trapped in the tiny two-room apartments.

Her gaze locked on him immediately. His build and broad shoulders were hard to miss. His brown hair was sun-streaked after the months of working outdoors doing the construction work that had given him thickly muscled arms. Her heart pattered faster at the sight of him, and she couldn’t keep from soaking him in. When he reached for one of his little sisters and tossed her in the air, Marianne smiled at the girl’s squeals of laughter.

At the moment Reinhold lowered his sister to the ground, he glanced in her direction and froze. Marianne quickly jumped out of sight and pressed herself against the building again. Had he seen her? Part of her hoped he had. But another part told her she shouldn’t be there.

Every Sunday that she’d made the thirty-minute walk to Kleindeutschland, she found herself having to fight back guilt. If Elise knew where she was, she wouldn’t be happy about it. Even if Uncle Hermann had been about to evict them, even if he’d found new tenants, there was no telling what he might do if he saw them again, especially because they’d stolen from him.

Marianne shook her head in frustration. No, they hadn’t stolen. The money had been rightfully theirs—the wages they’d earned from their long hours of sewing in the sweatshop. Even when Mutti had been alive, Uncle had shown no compassion toward his sister. Instead he’d required Mutti to give him most of their earnings—to pay for room and board, he’d claimed.

Uncle had always demanded much, had belittled them, and had been dangerous when drunk, which was often. Then after spending all their earnings at the beer hall, there had been very little left for food and fuel. Even then he’d demanded more money from them. And when they’d had none left to give, he crammed more boarders into the tiny tenement so he’d have their earnings too.

Marianne swallowed the rising fear that came whenever she thought of her uncle and what he was capable of doing if he caught them. He’d likely turn them over to the police for being thieves. But the truth was, when they ran away, they’d only taken back what was theirs in the first place.

Of course, there was also the small matter of Friedric Kaiser, one of Uncle’s new tenants. The dangerous young man had decided he wanted to have Elise as his girl. They couldn’t risk his discovering their new home either.

But they’d been living at the Seventh Street Mission for over a month. Surely they were secure enough that talking with Reinhold wouldn’t jeopardize them. The rioting last month left the city reeling for days, and repairs to businesses were ongoing. The mission, however, was unscathed compared with many other buildings of the area that were looted and destroyed.

Miss Pendleton had just opened the second workshop at the mission. Now there were over forty women employed, all doing seamstress work. The dear woman had given Elise the job of managing the new workers, which had brought a raise of ten cents an hour. Now Elise was earning $1.90 per week, thirty cents more than she’d made working in the tenement sweatshop with Uncle Hermann.

Marianne had hoped the switch to the new workshop would ease the tension that still existed with the Irish workers, but it hadn’t gone away.

Jealousy. Marianne could see it in the eyes of the other women when they looked at her or Elise. They were jealous Miss Pendleton had given Elise the supervisor position even though most of them had worked at the mission longer. They were jealous Miss Pendleton allowed them to live there even though the dormitory was far from ready for occupancy. They were jealous because Sophie and Nicholas and Olivia were able to stay there too, while they had to leave their children home alone during the workdays.

Though the petty disagreements and underhanded bullying continued, at least they were safe, well-fed, and together. Now that they were finally situated, why shouldn’t she tell Reinhold where they were living? Why shouldn’t she resume their friendship? It wouldn’t hurt anyone, would it?

She took a tiny step toward the corner. But as she moved, a hand clamped down on her arm. Panic pushed a scream up her throat. The hand shifted to her mouth and captured the scream before it could alert anyone nearby of her predicament.

“It is you” came Reinhold’s surprised voice.

She swiveled to find Reinhold standing next to her, his ruddy face close, his green eyes alight with pleasure. He released his hold over her mouth, and a smile filled his handsome face.

At the sight of him, she gave a squeal of joy. She couldn’t contain her excitement and threw her arms around him.

His low rumble of laughter accompanied his arms closing about her, enfolding her for a heavenly moment of pure bliss. He’d apparently caught her spying and had sneaked around through the alley behind her. When he pulled back, she wanted to cling to him. Yet he held her at arm’s length and assessed her, his smile growing wider.

Marianne couldn’t keep herself from drinking him in. He wasn’t overly tall, but that only made him all the more perfect for looking directly into his mesmerizing eyes. Should she tell him right now that she loved him and wanted to marry him? Before she lost her courage? She’d been dreaming about marrying him since the day they’d first met. Now that she was eighteen, maybe he’d finally see her as a woman instead of a little girl.

“The one Sunday I decide to take a break in my search and I find you.”

“You’ve been searching for us?” Her heart opened wide at the thought that he’d missed her. Maybe even as much as she’d missed him.

His smile faded, his expression turning almost angry. “Of course I’ve been searching. I’ve been going nearly mad with worry. Why didn’t you or Elise tell me you were running away? Why didn’t you come back sooner and let me know you were okay?”

“I have been coming back,” she admitted shyly. “Almost every Sunday. But you’ve always been gone.”

“I’ve been using every spare minute of my day off scouring the streets trying to find any clues about where you’d gone. After having no luck, I decided you somehow found the means to leave the city.”

“So you decided to give up?”

“I don’t think I could have ever given up,” he said, the anger tapering from his voice. “I just thought I should take a day off to be with my family.”

She couldn’t help herself. She threw herself into his arms again. He hugged her tightly as though to reassure himself she was real. She burrowed her face into his shirt and dragged in a deep breath of his musky scent. This time when he started to release her, she clung to him, not caring that she was acting slightly desperate and lovesick.

“Marianne,” he said gently, prying her loose. “Tell me everything. I need to know you’re all safe and well.”

She gave him the quick version of their story, about how after leaving Uncle’s they’d lived on the streets for over a week before Miss Pendleton had found them and brought them to her new mission where they’d been for the past month.

“You’re living in the Seventh Street Mission?” he asked, his brows lifting and almost touching the brim of his hat.

She nodded. “We have jobs as seamstresses—”

“But isn’t it a place to reform prostitutes?”

Marianne flushed and glanced down at the cracked pavement.

“Pardon my vulgarity,” he was quick to add. “It’s just that I never thought to inquire there. I never imagined you or Elise would do something like that—”

“Reinhold Weiss!” She stomped her foot and almost reached up to slap him. “How dare you think Elise or I would stoop to doing something so shameful?”

“I didn’t think so—”

“You better know so.” She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest to keep herself from doing him bodily damage.

He searched her face. Apparently he found the answer he was looking for, because his taut features relaxed. “Then you’re truly safe and secure?”

“Truly.”

“Sophie and Olivia and Nicholas?”

“They’re all fine.”

“I just wish Elise would have sent word to ease my mind.” It was his turn to look down at the sidewalk. “Why didn’t she?”

When he finally glanced up again, she was taken aback by the hurt in his eyes. “We’ve been really busy working. And she was afraid of Uncle or Friedric finding out where we were.”

“But surely she knew I wouldn’t tell them.”

“I know.” Marianne released a long sigh. “I told Elise we should send you a note.”

“And what did she say to that?”

“She said we would once we were settled.”

Reinhold mulled over her words and seemed to take comfort in them. Then he squeezed her arm. “I’m glad you’re okay, Marianne.”

She wanted to tell him she was okay now that she was with him, but at the sound of shouting around the corner, he propelled her backward behind him. “Maybe you should go.”

He was right. She needed to get away before anyone else recognized her. And she needed to return to the mission before Elise grew suspicious and realized she was gone.

She was tempted to hug Reinhold again, except he’d already put another step between them. “When will I see you again?” she asked, not caring that her tone was laced with desperation.

“Now that I know where you’re living, I’ll try to visit soon.”

His words brought a smile to her heart. “I’ll be waiting.”

He gave her a fleeting wave. As she turned to go, she realized she would be counting the days until his arrival.

“I won’t go,” Sophie said. She sat in the only chair in their third-story room and held Nicholas on her lap. The little boy sucked the thumb of one hand and absently fingered the silky end of Sophie’s braid with the other.

“You have to go,” Elise insisted. Her frustration was mounting with each passing minute. At half past six in the morning, that didn’t bode well for the day.

Sophie didn’t budge from the chair. “I’m staying here to watch Nicholas and Olivia just like I have every other day this summer. I don’t know why that needs to change.”

Elise wanted to roll her eyes and say, Because whether we like it or not, life changes. Instead, she took a deep breath, counted to five, and tried to respond calmly. “I know you’re not hard of hearing, Sophie. And I’ve already told you why at least a dozen times.”

According to Miss Pendleton, the state of New York had passed its Truancy Law last year, the first state to make such a law. All children between the ages of five and fifteen had to go to school, unless they were gainfully employed. If they were caught by the police, they could face jail or indenture.

“But I have a job.” She drew Olivia to her side and kissed the girl’s head. Olivia gave a sleepy yawn but hugged Sophie back.

“You know as well as I do, watching Olivia and Nicholas isn’t a job.” Elise held Sophie’s gaze, which was as stubborn as her own.

“Someone has to watch them,” Sophie said. “They can’t be alone all day.”

“They won’t be. Marianne and I will check on them.” Elise didn’t like the idea of Olivia entertaining Nicholas for hours on end, but at least she and Marianne were close by, and Olivia could come get them if she needed something—unlike most of the other workers who had no choice but to leave their young children home at the mercy of neighbors or nearby relatives.

In the early morning light cascading through the open window, Elise could see the battle raging across Sophie’s delicate features. She’d been caring for the two children for months and had become like their mother. In fact, Sophie was a better mother to Olivia and Nicholas than their real one ever had been. They adored Sophie as much as she adored them.

Elise wondered if Sophie had grown too attached to the young orphans and they to her. She worried about the day when someone stepped in and decided the children needed a real home. What would Sophie do then? How would she ever be able to let them go?

As kind as Miss Pendleton had been in allowing them a room for a pittance, it wasn’t a permanent solution. How could it be? Living at a mission among former prostitutes was not the kind of life she’d envisioned for herself or her sisters. No, it was only a short-term arrangement. Eventually she hoped to save enough money so they could find their own apartment and live independently.

In the meantime, she planned to make the most of their time here. That included sending Sophie to school. “Vater would have wanted you to go to school,” Elise finally said, voicing her truest and deepest reason for wanting Sophie to attend school. “He’d be very disappointed if you don’t get an education.”

“Then it’s a good thing he doesn’t have to know.”

“Sophie,” Marianne chided from where she stood fixing her hair into a coiled braid. “Both Elise and I were lucky to get as much education as we did. Now you have the opportunity to go, and you should take it. Not everyone can.”

“Stop treating me like a child. I’m educated enough.”

When Vater died and they’d had to stop school to work as seamstresses, Sophie had already learned to read and write and do some arithmetic, but she hadn’t been in school for long. Not long enough to please Vater. “You don’t have many more months until you turn sixteen,” Elise said, “until you are no longer required to attend school. So just go.”

“No.”

Elise released an exasperated sigh and threw up her hands in defeat. “Then you’ll have to be the one to tell Miss Pendleton you’re not following her wishes. I won’t do it.” Elise crossed the room that had become their home. It was still in need of repairs and crawling with rats and cockroaches and other vermin. But they’d worked hard in the evenings to scrub it as clean as they could and had even painted the walls white.

In addition to a bed, Miss Pendleton had found an old chest of drawers for the room. Sophie had displayed her brass candle holder, a kneeling angel holding up a lampstand. It was a gift from Mutti, as Elise’s cross ring was. Next to the candle holder sat Marianne’s music box with a figurine of a girl tending her geese, another deathbed gift from Mutti. Other than the clothes they wore, these items were all that remained of the life they’d once known, all they had to remind them of the happy family they’d been in the days before Count Eberhardt had ruined it all.

As Elise began to open the door, Sophie spoke firmly but with a hint of apology. “I promise I won’t cause any trouble for us. In fact, I have a plan I’ve been meaning to talk to Miss Pendleton about.”

Elise paused.

“You know how Miss Pendleton doesn’t like that the women have to leave their children at home alone when they come to work? And you know how she’s been trying to find a solution?” Sophie paused as though to ensure she had Elise’s full attention. “Well, I’ll offer to watch their children for them—for a small fee, of course.”

Marianne’s hands stilled with a pin only half in her coil. “Can they afford to pay you?”

“I won’t charge much.”

Elise regarded Sophie for a moment, struck once again by how girlish she looked. But how much of her girlhood had been lost to poverty and despair? At least she and Marianne had memories of happier times to keep them company on the darkest of days.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Elise finally said. Her workers would be arriving soon, and she liked to make sure all the supplies were ready by the time they sat down to sew.

Elise made her way down the hallway to the steep stairwell.

“Elise, wait,” Marianne called after her.

Slowing a little, Elise allowed her sister to catch up.

“I saw Reinhold yesterday,” Marianne said over the loud clattering of their footsteps against the plank stairs. Her sister’s words seemed more a guilty confession than a simple sharing of information.

“Where?” Elise came to a halt, and Marianne bumped into her.

“He said he’s been searching for us all of these weeks.”

At the thought of Reinhold worrying about them, remorse rushed in. She should have tried harder to get him word of their whereabouts. But she supposed that if she was completely honest with herself, she’d been afraid of telling him because she was sure he’d insist again that they get married. She didn’t know if she’d be able to resist another proposal.

“I can’t see him, Marianne.”

“Why? He misses us.”

Elise didn’t know how to explain her feelings regarding Reinhold. He was a good man. He’d make a fine husband. But she didn’t want to marry him because he felt obligated to take care of her. If she married him someday, she wanted it to be because they loved each other. She wanted a marriage like her parents had. Was that too much to ask for now? Could desperate people be so choosy?

Before she could formulate an answer to Marianne’s question, loud voices came from the first floor. The commotion was unusual for such an early hour.

Elise hurried down the stairs and hallway toward the original workroom that was already lit. As she drew nearer, she recognized Mrs. Watson’s English accent along with Reverend Bedell’s. When she entered the room, Mrs. Watson and several other workers were speaking in urgent tones with the reverend. Their faces were pale and somber. If they noticed her, they didn’t acknowledge it.

“All the outsiders working for Lewis and Hanford were told they won’t have any sewing this morning either,” Mrs. Watson was saying.

“We have nothing to worry about,” the reverend said. “Mr. Devlin runs a sound business. Even if some of the other garment manufacturers are having trouble and laying off workers, we’ll be just fine.”

“But we heard there’s a panic at the banks too.”

“It will pass.” The reverend spoke the words with too much force, as though perhaps he was attempting to convince himself as much as the women.

Only then did Elise notice how wrinkled the reverend’s shirt and trousers were, the same garments he’d worn yesterday. Had he slept in them? From the dark circles under his eyes and the way his hair was sticking up in places, Elise suspected he hadn’t gotten much slumber, if any.

Something was definitely wrong, but it was clear the reverend was trying not to worry them.

“Then the women should still plan to come to work this morning?” Mrs. Watson asked.

“Yes, of course,” Reverend Bedell responded.

Mrs. Watson hesitated, and the women with her wore guarded hope in their expressions.

The reverend waved a hand at the tables that were already filled with the precut shirt pieces they’d received yesterday. “As you can see, we have shirts to sew. You may let everyone know we’ll begin work at the usual time.”

As the women exited the building to deliver the news to the workers lined up at the door, Elise wavered a moment in the workroom, wishing the reverend would reassure her too. But he turned and fingered one of the cut pieces of cloth, evidently not realizing she was still there.

His shoulders dropped as did his head, as if without the women in the room he couldn’t bear the weight of his troubles any longer.

For as much as he’d tried to instill hope into Mrs. Watson, he obviously didn’t feel the optimism for himself. If Lewis and Hanford, the city’s biggest manufacturer of clothing, had no work for seamstresses, then was it only a matter of time before the economic troubles spread to D. and J. Devlin too?

Elise could only pray it wouldn’t be so, that the reverend was right in saying they had nothing to worry about. However, something told her trouble was on the horizon and it would be only a matter of time before it rumbled their way, bringing the worst storms yet.