The Address, page 31
“As I said to her, it’s one of those mysteries we may never solve.”
It pained Bailey to think that they might never know the full story. What exactly had happened between Theodore Camden and Sara Smythe? Bailey imagined the woman had been sent over the edge by her love to a married man, and that after her release from Blackwell’s, she’d bided her time before killing the man she considered responsible. But no doubt, there was more to the story.
“I think the Met should have the sheath,” she said. Jack nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything. Learning the truth seemed to have alienated the one family member she had left. What had she done?
Fred made a note on his desk. “Very well. I’ll let them know.”
“I’m sorry I lashed out at you, Dad.” Bailey’s eyes welled up with tears and she was glad Melinda was gone, so as not to see her so vulnerable. “I know I forced you into this, that you don’t want to be a part of this family, what’s left of it. But I swear I don’t care if the trust is worth two thousand or twenty thousand dollars. That’s not why I did it. I had to know the truth.”
Jack spoke slowly, carefully. “After I heard from Fred, I spent a long time sitting out on the docks, thinking. I figured I’d held you and your mom back, nursing the same grudge that had driven my father mad all those years. Watching as it affected you, too, like a poisonous birthright, passed down from generation to generation. I’m sorry I closed myself off and did nothing to help you. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say, to make it right.” He tilted his head, one eyebrow raised. “And, of course, Scotty told me I was out of my mind to pass up a potential windfall.”
She took his hand in her own. “Thanks for covering the cost of the testing. Let’s just hope the trust has enough to reimburse you.”
Fred laughed. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll find that a problem. How happy I am to spread some good news today.” His features relaxed for the first time since the meeting had begun. “You are now in charge of three million dollars.”
Bailey yelped. “Three million!”
Jack blinked a couple of times. “I’m not sure I’m capable of handling that much money.”
“Don’t worry, we’re here to help,” offered Fred. “You’ll get all the guidance and advice necessary.”
Jack turned to Bailey. “First off, I want you to consider it our money. Yours and mine. We’ll make decisions together, promise?”
She promised. “And second?”
“Let’s take care of each other better.” The words came out a hoarse whisper. “Your mother would’ve wanted that.”
Bailey buried her face in his chest and wept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
New York City, November 1885
Blackwell’s Island. The one place to which Sara vowed she’d never return. But it was the only way of reclaiming her own past. Of finding out the truth. All the strange dreams and ruminations of the past few weeks had gnawed away at her, and it was time to close out that chapter in her life for once and for all. If Daisy had been wrongly accused, Sara would make things right. Only by seeing the girl’s face would she know.
She almost didn’t recognize the asylum, if it weren’t for the familiar octagon. The land to the right of the walkway had been transformed into a garden, where dozens of women in serviceable dresses and aprons weeded and chattered away in the unexpected November warmth, clearing the flower garden for the winter to come and picking large gourds that they put onto a wheelbarrow.
Sara walked past the building, to the south end of the island, clutching the piece of paper that Nellie had sent her. Her friend had responded quickly to Sara’s request, and for that, she was grateful. Sara had informed her of her trip today, so someone knew where she was. Part of her regretted not accepting Nellie’s invitation to accompany her, as she had a not-so-irrational fear that she might once again disappear into the madhouse.
But Nellie was a journalist. Sara didn’t want to let on too much. Not yet.
In the penitentiary, Sara waited in a dingy room with scuff marks on the walls, Nellie’s referral having created an immediate response to her request. The door opened and Daisy shuffled in behind a woman guard wearing a stony expression. “You have ten minutes,” the guard said before walking out.
Daisy scowled at Sara. Her hair, once shiny with curls, was a matted, dirty nest. Two of her teeth were missing and it made her seem even younger than she was, like a seven-year-old, albeit one who was chained by hands and feet. She sat down, hard, in the chair opposite Sara.
“Daisy.” Sara leaned forward, near tears.
Daisy considered her for a moment. Then she sneered and spit on the ground.
Sara drew back, repulsed. She’d imagined the girl pouring out her heart, telling her that she was innocent, pleading for help. Anything but this cold grimace.
She didn’t know how to begin, what to say. In spite of the curl in Daisy’s lip, she recognized in her eyes a desperation to make contact. Sara had felt the same way in the asylum, the animal need to communicate with someone else, about anything. To find a measure of humanity in the rigid structure of each day.
She began again. “Daisy, what happened to your teeth?”
“Got knocked out. That’s the least of my worries. Trust me.”
“Are your brothers and sisters all right?”
“Dunno.” She kicked the leg of the chair with her heel.
“I think you know why I’m here. I want to find out what exactly happened last year.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because we were friends once. I want to understand. I need to understand.”
Daisy’s tone softened. “You sure about that?”
Sara remained quiet, letting the silence between them grow. For what seemed like ages, the only sound was the wind.
Finally, Daisy sighed, her body caving in on itself. “Mr. Douglas should have come through with what you asked for after my mum died.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t.”
“Then I wouldn’t have been so desperate.”
Sara leaned forward. “You never let on that something was wrong.”
“Because there was nothing you could’ve done about it, obviously. You’d tried and failed. Stupid Seamus. Christmas Eve, he got himself put in jail for pickpocketing and I had to get him out, to take care of the wee ones. I borrowed a large sum and then had to figure out how to pay it back. There was no choice in the matter.”
“No choice about what?”
She stuck out her chin, defiant. “I told Mr. Camden you were with child, and said that if he didn’t pay me, I’d tell his wife.”
No. Daisy was lying. Theo couldn’t have known about Sara’s pregnancy all along. That couldn’t be correct. Poor Daisy. All her talk of marrying a wealthy man, her infatuation with rising above her station, had turned her into an ugly, wretched person.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Daisy’s voice was a menacing growl. “You have no idea what it’s like to feed that many mouths.”
She’d test her. “In that case, what did Mr. Camden do when you told him?”
“He grew silent, for a while. Said that he was in a bind. That there was nothing he could do, but something had to be done. He paced about and grew upset and then I had an idea. I offered to take care of it and then he would pay me for my trouble. Solve both our problems.”
Theo had been waiting on Hardenbergh’s approval at that time. Any scandal of a mistress or a baby would have ruined his chances of starting his own business.
Dread brewed in her gut. “What did you do?”
“I thought it’d be as easy as taking you to see the doctor. But you kept on putting it off. So then I took a bottle of something that the doctor gave my mother when she was in your situation. I added it to that tonic you drank.”
She remembered those weeks before she was taken away. The lack of focus, not being able to remember what she was doing one day to the next. “What did you give me?”
Daisy shrugged. “Dunno. I felt bad, watching you reel about, get sick, and the first installment of Seamus’s debt was due. So I nicked the necklace from Mrs. Camden. It’s easy, in a big apartment house, where lots of people are always coming and going. Figured I’d sell it and be done with it all. But no one would take it.” A flash of irritation crossed her face. “Seamus said I was a dolt, stealing something so fancy. So I put it in your drawer, the day that Mr. Douglas was due to stop by.”
Sara closed her eyes for a moment, picturing that dismal day, how distracted she’d been by her illness, giving Daisy the perfect opportunity to frame her.
Daisy was telling the truth.
Theo had known everything.
She wished she could go back in time, to when she didn’t know any of this, didn’t suspect a thing. Go back to before the truth emerged.
Theo had manipulated them both for his own purposes, treating Sara like a marionette who was allowed out of her box as long as she was of use. He’d played her for his own purposes and she’d joyfully accepted whatever nonsense he’d thrown her way, taking it for love. Fury rose in her chest like a thick, polluted fog.
The clanging of a prison door brought her back to the present. “Daisy, how could you have done this to me? I was your friend.”
“I had made a promise to my mother we’d stay in the tenement. What were the little ones going to do when we were thrown out into the streets into the cold? If you’d gone to the doctor with me at the beginning, it would have been finished up right off. You should have done as I said.”
“You’re horrible.”
A sharp laugh erupted from Daisy. “Don’t pretend you were better than I was, having an affair, getting with child. We’re the same.”
“No, that’s not true.” She was about to say that she’d been in love, but Theo didn’t deserve that. “Why did you keep on stealing after you’d had me sent away?”
“They said you’d gone back to England. I figured I’d held up my end of the deal, but Mr. Camden strung me along, promising a payment but never coming through, and I didn’t have anything left to hold over him. I began pilfering small things here and there, enough to stave off the thugs.”
For all her hard edges, Sara couldn’t shake the ghost of the girl that Daisy had been. Eager to please, kind. Not this dirty, bitter urchin. Yet there was a time, near the end of her days in the asylum, when Sara had been equally heartless. To herself, to others. Behind Daisy’s vicious posturing was a profound sadness and loss.
“Where is your family now?”
The girl lowered her chin to hide it from wobbling. “Don’t know. Scattered. Lost.”
“Daisy, you’ve done terrible things. But I am sorry that you ended up here. On this island. It’s an awful place. I’m sorry you lost your family.”
The girl recovered fast, blasting Sara with a garish smile, the gap in her teeth black between cracked, dry lips. “I hear the asylum is a fancy hotel compared to what we criminals put up with. You don’t know anything. Never did. Don’t you pity me. I can take care of myself.”
The guard came in. “Time’s up.”
She grabbed Daisy by the back of the neck and shoved her out of the room in front of her. Daisy’s cackling reverberated down the hallway after her.
Sara tore back to the ferry pier, breathing hard. Daisy. Theo. She was never to trust a soul again. Anyone might turn on you, at any time. She might as well check back into the asylum for all life offered her. Let the nurses tell her when to eat, when to sleep. She didn’t want to have to face each day. The loss of everything she’d held dear.
Her mother’s suffering should have been warning enough, but Sara had convinced herself that her own story would have a different ending.
No such luck. Men betrayed, women endured.
She had forty minutes before the ferry departed. Lifting her skirts, she moved at a fast clip to the building where she and Natalia had peered in the window. She showed them Nellie’s golden pass and a nurse took down the relevant information.
“But he was born in the asylum, does that make a difference?” she asked.
“No. We have all records of every bairn here. Dead or alive.” The woman’s Scottish brogue spoke the awful words with a melodic spin.
Sara waited, checking her timepiece, for twenty minutes. She couldn’t leave without visiting the grave of her child. Of saying a prayer over the mound of dirt that pressed upon his tiny bones.
Finally, the nurse reappeared, holding a clipboard. “A stillborn, you say?”
“Yes. Born in July of this year. To Sara Smythe.”
“No stillborn. The boy was alive.”
“Well then, he was alive but then he died.” Arguing over the semantics cut her to the core.
“No. He was taken away. To the Foundling Asylum on Lexington and Sixty-Eighth.”
The room spun and Sara held hard to the wooden countertop to keep herself upright. “He was alive? Why was I not told the truth?”
“They never do, as a rule. No point in driving the nutters madder than they already are. Easier this way, I guess.”
During the ride across the river, Sara keened on the hard bench, wishing the ferry would speed faster. So much time had already passed. Would he still be there? Was he still alive? She didn’t know what she’d do once she found him, how to prove that the child was hers. Would they just give him to her, hand him over? She moaned and the other passengers stared. The boy must have suffered so, without his mother. Her baby was alive. Her thoughts wound around each other like a dust storm.
More waiting, more sitting. The nurse in the Foundling Asylum was no kinder than the one on Blackwell’s Island. They must turn brittle fast, in order to stay inured to the cries of the babies and children that echoed down the stairwell.
A form was thrust at her on a clipboard. The words swum for a moment before she focused, reading them softly out loud. The boy had been taken in by a family, just as Sara was released from Blackwell’s.
She recognized the signature on the document. The same that she’d seen scrawled on countless letters and contracts.
Theo had known all along.
Christopher was her son.
“Where is he?”
Sara tore down the long gallery of Theo’s apartment. Her first priority was Christopher, getting him out of Theo’s hands, taking him somewhere safe. She’d had plenty of time to figure out a plan on the ferry and cab ride back to the Dakota. First off, she’d head with Christopher to the offices of the New York World and tell Nellie everything. Nellie would protect them and provide them with safe shelter until Sara could arrange to sail back to England. Only an ocean between herself and Theo would do to put her mind at ease.
She’d planned on appearing calm, offering to take Christopher for a walk in the park, then absconding with him, but as she grew closer to the Dakota, panic gripped her. Once inside the apartment, the memories of everything Theo had said and done to her flooded back. The evening after the ball, the picnic. The betrayal.
Mrs. Camden stepped out of the children’s room, the three children scampering behind her. She saw the look on Sara’s face and turned around. “Off you go, children. Play in the parlor, please.”
The children trotted away quietly, no doubt tuned into the strange vibrations that Sara was giving off.
Sara barged into the nursery, Mrs. Camden close behind. Christopher was in his crib, asleep.
“Where is Theo?” Sara said.
“He’s due back any minute. You seem upset. Let’s sit down and have a cup of tea.”
Sara wanted to throttle her. “You knew. You were raising my son and you knew it, didn’t you? How did he get you to agree?”
Mrs. Camden didn’t answer, but a tremble went through her body.
“Why would you do such a thing? Don’t you have any shame?”
“He said I owed it to him.”
“‘Owed it to him’? You’re as mad as he. He took my child. I want him back.”
“He’ll never let you do that.”
A child’s wail pierced the standoff.
“Luther?”
Mrs. Camden ran to the library and this time Sara followed. Luther sat at Theo’s desk, staring down at his open palm.
“My God, what’s happened?” cried Mrs. Camden.
Sara took the boy’s hand in her own. It was unblemished, other than a small pinprick.
Mrs. Camden knelt down. “There, there.”
As the child’s cries died down to a dull whimper, Sara looked around to find what had caused the injury. She reached down to pick up a letter opener that had fallen from the desk, and gasped.
It was a knife, a sharp one with a curved blade. She’d seen it before.
In the Rutherfords’ library.
“Where did you get this?” she asked Luther.
He pointed to an open drawer.
“Father usually keeps that locked,” said Mrs. Camden. “How did you get into it?”
“I found the key in the top drawer,” he mumbled. “I wanted to see if it fit. Then I saw the toy.”
“My dear boy, you could have cut yourself terribly.” Mrs. Camden took the knife from Sara and examined it. “This is no toy. What on earth was it doing in Theo’s desk?”
Sara imagined Theo slipping it into his pocket at the ball, while he distracted her with his touch. Taking whatever shiny object he wanted. Just because he could. Angry at the men’s dismissive insults about poor street children, wanting to strike back. Feeling that everyone else owed him something.
The front door opened.
Theo.
He stopped and surveyed the scene before him. “What on earth is going on?” He spoke cheerily, in a good mood.
