These Shallow Graves (46 page)

All that Charles had procured for the family was sold and the monies donated to various charities. The things Jo's mother had brought to the marriage—the Gramercy Square town house, jewels, and many fine heirlooms—were also sold. Anna planned to live on the proceeds.

Anna had also set up an investment fund for Jo, one that would give her about five hundred dollars a month. It was nowhere near the money Jo would have had at her disposal if she'd said nothing, done nothing, and married Bram, but it would keep her.

Throughout the ordeal, Jo had gained a new appreciation for her mother. She admired her toughness, her resilience, and her insistence on doing not just what was required, but what was right.
Breeding,
Grandmama Aldrich would have called it. Jo liked the word
character
better.

“Josephine!” Anna called out now.

She'd just come downstairs and was full of last-minute instructions. The plan was for her to go to Winnetka ahead of Jo and ready their new home. It was a small, modest house, but it was in the best neighborhood. Jo would stay behind for a week to make sure their last few pieces of furniture were taken to the auction house and that any remaining notes were paid.

There was no question of her returning to Miss Sparkwell's. She'd received a letter from the headmistress saying that in light of the tragic death of her father, and other subsequent events, it might be better for Jo, who must be in a very fragile state, to not return to school this year.
Or ever,
Jo thought, reading between Miss Sparkwell's lines.

“You'll need to take the papers to the lawyer's office, and don't forget to bring the keys to the new owners. They're staying at—”

“The Fifth Avenue Hotel! You told me five times, Mama!” Jo protested.

Anna buttoned her fur coat up around her neck. “Do you have your own train tickets? Yours and Katie's?” she asked.

“Yes, Mama.” Katie was to accompany Jo to Winnetka as her chaperone.

“Make sure you lock the doors at night and leave no lamps burning. Mr. Theakston is no longer here to check.”

They'd let him go last week.

“I will. Your cab is here,” Jo said. “If you don't leave now, you'll miss your train.”

Anna kissed Jo, bade her goodbye, and headed for the door. She stopped as she reached it, however, and turned around one last time.

“I am very sorry, Josephine,” she said with a voice full of feeling.

“For what?” Jo asked, unused to such a tone from her mother.

“For all the things you've lost,” Anna replied. And then, in a rare display of emotion, she walked back to Jo, took her face in her hands, and kissed her again. “But you are a different sort of girl. Not at all what I expected you to be. And this is a different sort of time. And so I am hopeful for all the things you may yet find.”

And then she was gone, out the door and down the steps, and it felt to Jo as if they'd said
adieu,
not
au revoir.
She had the urge to run to her mother and embrace her, but she told herself she was being childish. And she knew full well how her mother would react to dramatic scenes enacted upon the sidewalk. So she simply watched her carriage until it turned off Gramercy Square and disappeared.

How odd it feels to be standing in my own doorway,
she thought. It had always been Theakston's job to see people off. For a few seconds, she almost missed him.

She shivered in the cold winter air and turned to go inside. As she did, a voice called her name.

Jo turned and smiled at the handsome young man at the bottom of the stoop.

It was Bram Aldrich, Elizabeth Adams's fiancé.

“January's come and gone already. Time moves so fast,” Bram said wistfully, staring at the bare trees, their branches dusted with snow. He turned to Jo. “I hear you're heading to Winnetka. What will you do there?”

“I haven't the faintest idea,” Jo said. “Something, I hope.”

“You liked to write. Couldn't you do that? During the trial, you said you posed as a reporter.”

Jo laughed. “I did, yes. But posing as one and being one are two different things. Winnetka is not New York. Not every town is eager to have its very own Nellie Bly.”

She and Bram were sitting on a bench in Gramercy Park. He'd brushed the snow off it, and neither of them minded the cold air. He'd been walking past her house on his way to the Rhinelanders' for tea when he'd spotted her on her stoop and asked her to take a walk with him.

Jo had immediately agreed and fetched her coat, hat, and gloves. She felt her mother's absence keenly and wasn't looking forward to being in her sad, empty house with only Katie for company.

Bram had broken off their engagement weeks ago. Grandmama had had such severe heart palpitations when she'd been told about Jo's arrest that the doctor had been called. She'd insisted she was on her deathbed and that the only thing that would bring her out of it would be for Bram not to marry into a family with such a strong streak of insanity running through it.

Jo had expected this and was not saddened by it, only relieved. She returned his ring, telling him that the one thing she would like to keep was his friendship. He'd smiled at that, and said, “Always, Jo.”

“I—I've wanted to tell you something,” he said now. He'd removed his hat and was fidgeting with the brim. “With everything that happened, I never got the chance.”

“What is it?” Jo asked.

“I wanted to say that I'm sorry. For believing Phillip instead of you. For thinking you were insane.”

“It's all right, Bram. I can hardly blame you. Anyone would have thought I was mad if they'd seen me as you did—on a city street in the dead of night, filthy as a pig, saying I'd just dug up a body. Everyone else in this city
still
thinks I'm crazy.”

“I'm so glad you sent for me. I'm glad I brought Win. I'm glad your uncle and Francis Mallon are behind bars. When I think of what could have happened to you …” He trailed off.

“I played right into Phillip's hands from the very beginning. He couldn't have plotted it more perfectly. He almost got away with it. With all of it.”

“But you're free now,” Bram said.

“Thank goodness.”

“From Phillip. From everything and everyone and all their expectations.”

“I suppose I am.”

“I wonder what that's like,” Bram said, so quietly that Jo almost didn't hear it. He looked at his watch. “Four o'clock already.” He sighed. “I'd best not be too terribly late to the Rhinelanders' tea.” He turned to her. “I'm glad we had the chance to talk. I'll miss you, Jo. You've made the last few weeks very exciting.”

“You'll have plenty of excitement with a wedding to plan,” Jo said. “I hear Elizabeth's going to Paris to be fitted for her gown by Monsieur Worth himself. If I know her, it will be the event of the year.”

“Yes, it will. I'll be a married man in June, I'm afraid. I won't be able to get out of
this
engagement unless Elizabeth, too, ends up in jail,” Bram joked. “The noose has been tightened.”

Jo laughed. “There are worse things than marrying a beautiful and charming girl,” she said. “Elizabeth will make a good wife. She cares for you. Why, I've heard she's even succeeded in winning Grandmama over. If that's not love, what is?”

Bram laughed, too. “She likes Herondale very much, it's true. And spaniels.”

“You are of one mind, then. That's important.”

“On most things, yes,” Bram allowed. And then with a sudden, fierce honesty he said, “You're very brave, Jo. I wish I were half as brave.”

There was a great deal of emotion in his voice. More than Jo had ever heard before. She realized that they'd talked more honestly in the last half hour than in all the years they'd known each other.

“I don't feel brave, Bram. I feel scared,” she said. “I always thought I knew what life held in store. Miss Sparkwell's. Dances and parties. You, one day. I thought, right up to the end, that I would find my way back to my world. To
our
world. But I didn't. I got lost. I
am
lost.” She shook her head. “
Winnetka?
My God. What on earth will I do there? Wither and die.”

“No, Jo. Not you. Withering's not in your nature.”

He had said so much to her, and yet—looking into his eyes—Jo had the feeling there was much he had not said. She wondered if she'd misjudged him. Maybe there were secret dreams hidden in his heart, too. Things besides land deals and railway routes that he wished he could pursue. If there were, she would never know them. Such secrets were for Elizabeth to unlock now, not her.

They both stood. Jo offered him her hand, but instead of taking it, he folded her into his arms and held her tightly. “Goodbye, my darling Jo,” he said. “I'd wish you good luck, but you won't need it. You get to write your own story now. Nothing's luckier than that.”

He walked away from her then, down the well-trodden path through the park. With each step, he got smaller. More indistinct. Until he was only one figure among many.

As she watched him go, Jo felt like she was looking at a man in a photograph.

An image of the past.

Blurry and faded. And gone.

“Come on, Katie!” Jo shouted. “Run! We're going to miss the train!”

“We wouldn't if you hadn't made us so late!” Katie shouted back.

Jo and Katie were hurrying into the Grand Central Depot. Their train was due to leave in five minutes. It would take them to Chicago, where they would change to one bound for Winnetka. Jo hadn't intended to leave Gramercy Square quite so late, but things had come up.

Jo had been busy in the week since her mother had left, and today was no exception. Her mother's lawyer had stopped by that morning with a sheaf of papers for Jo to take to her. And then she'd remembered she hadn't been to the post office to have their mail forwarded. The clerk had given her a form to fill out and handed her a stack of letters that had just arrived. She'd thanked him and run back home to get Katie.

At least they didn't have many bags to slow them down—only one valise each. Katie would be paid well for making the trip out and back, but she wasn't happy about it. She had a new beau and wanted to be with him.

“
You
need a chaperone?” she'd scoffed, when Jo asked her to accompany her. “For what? In case a man looks at you the wrong way? Just pull out a gun, like your good friend the pickpocket, and blow his kneecap off.”

Jo searched the departures board for their train's track number and learned that it was delayed by twenty minutes. “Oh, thank goodness!” she said. “Let's take a seat and catch our breath.”

She and Katie settled themselves on a wooden bench near the ticket window. As Katie opened a newspaper she had with her, Jo looked around at the people nearby. She saw a family with five boisterous children. Two elderly women—sisters, from the looks of them. A traveling salesman with a sample case. A handful of businessmen. Two women wearing hats with heavy veils over them passed in front of her. A newsie bellowed the day's headlines. A boy shouted his shoe-shining services. A woman walked by selling pretzels.

And Jo realized, with a heavy heart, that the passing minutes were the last ones she'd spend in New York, the city where she'd been born and raised. Her heart felt as if it were breaking.
How can I leave?
she wondered. But how could she stay? The house was sold. Her train tickets were bought.

She decided to distract herself from her sadness by going through the mail she'd picked up earlier. There was a letter to her mother from her bank. Another from the auction house. There were various notes.

And there was a letter for her. From Eddie. Her heart leapt when she saw it. She tore it open eagerly and read it.

March 9, 1891

Dear Jo,

I owe you something—an answer.

You asked me some time ago at Child's if I was sorry.

I didn't give you a reply then. I couldn't.

I can now, so here it is: I'm not sorry.

I'm angry and sad, but I'm not sorry and I never will be.

Good luck to you in Winnetka. I'll miss you.

New York won't be the same without you.

Yours,

Eddie

Jo put the letter back in its envelope with shaking hands.
Bram said I'm brave,
she thought.
But I'm not. I'm a coward. I'm more scared right now than I was when my uncle tried to kill me.

Because I love Eddie Gallagher.

I love him and I'm scared to death he doesn't love me anymore. That it's too late. That he can't forgive me and he'll always be angry at me for foolishly, rashly choosing Bram.

Jo heard a man's voice shout that the Chicago train was boarding.

“That's us,” Katie said. She unbuckled her valise to tuck her newspaper inside it.

But Jo remained where she was, unable to move.

The two women wearing veils whom she'd seen earlier walked by her again. They were only about two yards away, and she could hear them talking. The taller one was urging the shorter one along. They went to the ticket window, and the taller one told the agent that she needed two tickets to Chicago. Her voice sounded confident, but Jo saw that her gloved hand was knotted into a fist.

Jo knew that voice.

“I'm sorry, miss,” the window agent said. “Today's train is sold out. I can sell you tickets for tomorrow's.”

“There's no other train we can take today?” the tall woman asked, worry in her voice now.

And no wonder,
Jo thought. She's a fugitive.
The police are after her. She jumped bail and was declared in contempt of court for failing to testify at my uncle's trial. I wonder if she knows that. I wonder if she knows the Tailor's after her, too, because Madam Esther wants her goods.

Jo stood up. She walked up to the women. “Here,” she said, handing the tall one her tickets. “Use our names until you get to Chicago, so the cops don't catch wind. Or the Tailor Then make up new ones. Be careful.”

She turned to go, but the tall woman grabbed her wrist. “Do you remember the walk we took? Over the Brooklyn Bridge?”

Jo nodded.

“We talked about freedom,” the woman said. “It's all I ever wanted, and now I have it, thanks to you. My mother, too. Without you, she'd still be on the streets and I'd be at Madam Esther's, and neither of us would ever have found the other. Freedom
is
the best thing. Thank you for mine, Jo Montfort. I'll never be able to repay you.”

Jo pulled her into a fierce embrace. “You already have.”

The two women held each other tightly. And then a conductor hollered a final boarding call for the train to Chicago.

“Go,” Jo said. “Hurry.”

Fay Smith and Eleanor Owens rushed to the train. As Jo watched them go, Katie walked up to her.

“Are we getting on or not?” she asked, buckling her valise.

“We are not,” Jo said. “I've changed my mind. I'm not going to Winnetka. Or anywhere else. I just gave our tickets away.”

“You did
what
?” Katie squawked. “Who'd you give them to?”

“To a friend,” Jo said. “The best one I ever had.”

She kept watching until Fay and Eleanor stepped into the train; then she walked out of the gloom of Grand Central with Katie on her heels, and into her city's gray winter light.