New York City, November 1889
But Samuel, you can’t leave me alone tonight.” Ada stood within the warmth of his arms and fingered his diamond tie tack. “My evenings are empty when we’re not together.”
Samuel took her busy hands captive. “As are mine, dear lady. Your companionship is always my first choice.”
“Then why—?”
“My friends know how devoted we are to each other. So much so, that they insist I pull myself away for a Friday evening in their company.”
Ada knew the young men in their set didn’t like how she’d plucked Samuel out of their circle. She imagined they were a bit uneasy to witness the effects of true love, especially when they would rather concentrate on flirtation, frivolity, and fun. They were mere boys, while her Samuel was a man.
Her man.
The clock on the parlor’s mantel struck eight, prompting Samuel to press his lips to hers before gathering his hat and cloak.
“I’ll call on you tomorrow at one. Would you like to go to the Met? We could dine afterward.”
That sounded delightful. But Ada didn’t want to let him off so easily. “Are you certain one is late enough after your night carousing with the boys?”
He volleyed her teasing right back at her. “One fifteen then.” With a wink he left her.
The room was empty without him.
But before Ada could brood, she heard the tinkle of a bell coming from upstairs. Nana needed her.
Ada met her mother in the upper hallway. She was also on the way to answer the summons.
“I’ll go, Mother.”
“But Samuel …”
“He left.” Mother looked taken aback, so Ada explained. “He had another engagement.” When her mother’s eyebrows rose, she added, “We aren’t engaged yet, so Samuel is free to … to …”
“He’s been so attentive, Ada. You must see to it this match is made. The Alcott banking fortune is huge and—”
“I wouldn’t be marrying Samuel for his money. We love each other.”
“All the better. But you really must—”
Her grandmother’s bell saved her. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Get him to propose, dear,” Mother said. “Samuel Alcott is an excellent catch.”
Ada was glad she was walking away so she could roll her eyes without fear of a reprimand. Yes, yes, she knew Samuel was an excellent catch, and yes, she would like nothing better than for him to propose. But her mother’s words cheapened the feelings they had for each other. For this wasn’t some arranged match; it was true love. Samuel could have been a peddler on the street and she wouldn’t love him less. They were soul mates.
She cherished any time they spent together, whether it was going to the opera, enjoying dinner at the Vanderbilts’, or sitting before the fire reading to each other. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways….
Ada couldn’t count the ways she loved Samuel. Each smile, each word, each wink, each touch left her feeling—knowing—that their love was a gift from God.
A proposal would come soon. Samuel had hinted at a special surprise he had planned for her at Christmas, which was just a month away. Marriage was inevitable, and a lifetime together was a dream that would come true.
Ada knocked softly on the door to her grandmother’s room, then entered. The gas sconces were unlit, the only light coming from an oil lamp on the bedside table. Ada sought Nana’s face. She could always tell how she was feeling by her expression. This evening there was an absence of discomfort, but her brow was furrowed. “What’s wrong?” Ada asked, taking her hand. “You seem worried.”
“I heard the front door open, then close in only thirty minutes’ time. Why did Samuel leave you so soon?”
Ada smiled. Although loss of hearing was a normal result of age, Nana’s hearing was finely tuned. Even though she often felt poorly, she knew the comings and goings in the Wallace household almost better than those who experienced them firsthand.
“Samuel’s friends are jealous of the time he spends with me and insist he spend time with them tonight.” Ada perched on the chair beside the bed, her bustle preventing her from sitting back.
“Can you blame them?” Nana said. “They know they’re losing one of their own to the matrimonial yoke.”
“That’s a horrible term, Nana.”
She shrugged. “To men it fits. To most men, anyway. They mourn the loss of their freedom, even as they seek marriage for its social advantages and the private … benefits.”
Ada felt herself blush. Her mother would never even elude to the intimate side of marriage, so she was glad for Nana’s more direct manner. “Samuel’s not like that.”
“Oh, I guarantee you, he is—and be glad for it. For without those advantages and benefits—especially the private ones—marriage is as shallow as a pond in a dry spell.”
Ada was glad her mother wasn’t in the room to cringe at Nana’s down-home sayings. Nana had married well and had risen from her meager station to become a matriarch within New York society’s “Four Hundred”—the elite of the elite. Mother seemed to have forgotten that fact, and that most of their friends—including the Vanderbilts and the Astors—had also started low and ended high after they came to America. Nana said that having dirt on your shoes didn’t matter if you were on the right path.
Her proverbs always made Ada smile. Mother, on the other hand, wished there’d been an additional generation between their current wealth and Nana’s humble beginnings.
Nana pointed to Ada’s sewing basket. “Go gather your quilt-work and let’s have a good talk.”
“But didn’t you need something?”
“I needed to have a good talk with you. Now go on. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
Ada retrieved her sewing basket and took out the latest block of the crazy quilt she was making for her trousseau. She’d been working on it for six years, since she’d turned thirteen. Each fabric corresponded to a dress she’d worn and brought back memories of people and places and happy occasions. It was her bridal quilt, a map of her life she would bring to a marriage, detailing her life before. Once married, she would start a new quilt to chronicle that season of her life.
This particular square was nearly finished, with just some embroidery needed across the seemingly haphazard array of pieces. She threaded her needle with sage-green floss.
Nana pointed to the color. “That green against your mauve silk is a pretty choice. You do have an eye for such things.”
“I take after you.”
“Of course you do.” Nana smoothed her gnarled hands over the lace edging on the sheet. “Now then. To the subject at hand. I won’t ask if Samuel’s proposed, because I know I’d be the first to know.” She looked at Ada over her glasses, challenging her.
“Who else would I tell first?”
“Your mother.”
Ada knew there was tension between Nana and Mother but tried not to take sides or play into it. “Mother will definitely be next.”
“Hmm.”
Ada changed the subject. “Samuel’s taking me to the art museum tomorrow.”
“Say hello to the paintings for me. Did you know you and I were there when it opened?”
“Yes, Nana.” Ada had heard her grandmother’s story of the first reception of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870. How they’d hung the initial 174 paintings covering the walls from floor to ceiling, causing Nana to comment that obviously a woman needed stilts to see the paintings properly, eye to eye. Ada had only been a baby, but Nana had prided herself on starting her art education early. She’d always been the one to take Ada and her brother, John, on outings. Ada’s fondest memories were of the times spent as the Three Musketeers, seeing New York through Nana’s eyes. How sad those times were over. Nana rarely ventured out of bed anymore, though her illnesses were often vague.
Ada’s face must have revealed her wistfulness, but Nana guessed wrongly about the cause. “Don’t you go worrying about Samuel going out with his friends. If you don’t trust his character, you shouldn’t consider marrying the man.”
“Oh, I trust him. I just don’t trust his friends.”
“Now there, I can’t help you. Let’s say a prayer that God does the watching for us.”
Amen.
“Come on, Samuel. Don’t tell us you’ve never gone slumming.” Joseph yanked on his arm.
Samuel nearly tripped on the cobblestones, then righted himself and gently pushed his drunken friend away. It had been good to catch up on the news and latest gossip, but two hours and far too many drinks later on his friends’ part, and Samuel was done with it. And now they wanted to go down to Five Points—to the immigrant slums? Nothing good could come of it.
But then Leo whistled for a hack and dragged Samuel inside while the other three shoved from behind.
“To the slums, driver! Show us how the other half lives!” Oscar was the last one in the carriage and virtually fell over Samuel on the way to his seat. When he muttered, “Sorry, old chum,” his breath smelled of onions, garlic, and wine.
I gave up time with Ada for this? Samuel turned away from his friends to stare out the window. Sweet, kind, bright, curious Ada. How he loved her. Why hadn’t he proposed yet? She was expecting it, and he wanted to oblige.
But something was holding him back.
There was no way he could explain his hesitation to her—he had trouble explaining it to himself. Was it the voice of God, or simply his own inability to make a decision? Maybe it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. After all, didn’t everyone feel apprehension when making a life-changing decision?
He closed his eyes a moment and said an oft-repeated prayer. Show me Your will, O Lord. Over the years he’d come to know this prayer covered everything. He could pray for specifics, spelling out exactly what he wanted, but in the end, it came down to preferring God’s plan over his own. He couldn’t pinpoint any monumental moment when he’d officially deferred to God’s will, as the habit had evolved over a lifetime of being the son of parents who lived their faith. And a grandmother.
His parents had died when he was eleven, back on Christmas Day 1876. At least they’d been together. At least they’d been doing what they loved to do—attending the theater. That the theater had burned, killing nearly three hundred people, had been a horrific end to a happy day. But for a bad cough, Samuel would have been in the theater with them. “You were saved for something, Samuel,” was a mantra often repeated by his dear grandmother, who, with Grandfather, had raised him. He felt it was his duty to find out exactly what that something was.
Grandmother had been gone four years now, but she’d always encouraged him by saying, “Listen for the Lord—whether it be a whisper or a shout.”
Samuel had never heard God shout, but he’d come to believe the whispers in his mind were God’s way of directing him to do the right thing. And so, until the “Wait” was replaced with a “Now!” Samuel would bide his time proposing to Ada.
Yet he sorely wished God would give him the go-ahead soon. How he longed to make her happy.
The carriage came to a stop, and Samuel’s friends looked outside and loudly made the determination that they had, indeed, arrived in the slums.
Leo pressed some coins in the driver’s hand and said, “Wait for us. We’ll be back in a—”
The driver shook his head. “Pardon me, sir, but I ain’t waiting ‘ere for no man.”
“Then how—?”
The driver pulled away, leaving them standing on the dark street.
Joseph laughed nervously. “Well then, chums. It appears we’re on our own to explore.”
“Explore some’ere else,” came a voice.
They looked to the entrance of an alley and saw a man curled in a ball, trying to sleep on the ground.
He glared up at them with a toothless smile and pretended to doff his hat. “If yer don’ mind, gen’lemen.”
Oscar removed his own hat, swept it into an exaggerated bow, and addressed the man, his words slurred by the drink. “Anythin’ you say, your majesty.”
The man roused. “‘Ey there. No need to be rude.”
No, there wasn’t. Samuel pulled Oscar away. “Leave him be.”
Oddly, the streets were full of people. It was after eleven, but people—mostly men—lollygagged around the stone steps leading to the front doors of dilapidated tenements, or were seen in the shadows, their hands in their pockets, watching Samuel and company like vultures eyeing their prey.
“I don’t think this was a good idea,” Joseph said under his breath. “We need to get out of here.”
Oscar tipped his hat to the men, and Samuel pulled him forward even harder. “Stop it!” he whispered. “You’ll get us all killed.”
The sounds of an argument and more than one crying baby could be heard from the windows that looked down upon the narrow street. A dog ate some horse droppings just as someone heaved a pail of rubbish from an upper window.
It splattered on Oscar’s shoes. “Ahh!” He looked upward. “What do you think you’re doing?”
A woman appeared in the window and yelled something in Italian—complete with hand gestures—before shutting the window with a thud.
Samuel sidestepped around the rubbish—which appeared to be the leftovers of a meal.
A scantily dressed woman emerged from the shadows and locked onto Leo. She spoke in some Slavic language, her features exotic. Her hand brushed across Leo’s chest, and suddenly, Leo took her wrist roughly. “Oh no, you don’t! Let go of my wallet! And get away with you!” He pushed her away, and she smiled at him smugly, as if his rebuff meant little.
A group of four children suddenly swarmed around them, tugging at the men’s clothes, their small hands hunting for some bounty.
“Off! Get away!” Joseph said.
The children scattered, but looking up the street was like viewing a gauntlet to be run. The young men’s shouts—their very presence—were drawing too much attention. Samuel pointed back to the way they had come. “Men, we need to leave. Now. Perhaps we can catch a cab if we walk north—”
A child’s screams cut through his words, and another kind of instinct took over. Samuel ran toward the scream into an alley. There, in the dim light of the moon, he saw a man hitting a little girl. Slapping her. Shaking her. Tossing her against the alley’s debris only to pick her up again for more abuse.
Samuel ran forward. “Stop that! Stop that right now!”
The man paused in midslap. He glared at Samuel. “What’s it to you?”
Before Samuel could answer, the girl made a run for it toward the street. Then, obviously spooked by the presence of Samuel’s friends, she returned and took refuge behind Samuel. She pointed at the man and said something in another language.
The man picked up a piece of wood and slapped it against his palm. He strode forward slowly. “So this is the way it’s gonna be. Don’t make no never mind to me whether I hurt her or hurt you. ‘Tis your choice, Mr. Fancypants.”
“Samuel, come on.” It was Oscar.
Samuel couldn’t risk looking back to see exactly where his friends were, but by Oscar’s voice, Samuel knew they had not followed him into the alley.
They were not supporting him.
“There’s a cab at the next intersection!” Leo said. “I’ll go hail it.”
“Come on, Samuel,” Joseph said. “Don’t get between a father and his daughter.”
“Er ist nicht mein Vater!” the girl said.
The man pointed his weapon at the girl. “You owe me, Liebchen, and you’ll do as I say, verstehe?” He lunged toward her, forcing Samuel to step back, holding the girl in place behind him.
But the man was too quick. He reached around Samuel and grabbed the girl by the sleeve of her coat and yanked her back. He heaved her to the side of the alley where she bounced off the brick wall and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.
Samuel had never witnessed such cruelty. He took a step toward the girl to help her, but the man moved between them.
“You leave ‘er be,” the man said. “She’s mine!”
Samuel looked at the girl, then the man, then the girl. She moaned and was not getting up.
Oscar called from the street. “Come on, Samuel! The cab’s waiting.”
Then he had an idea. He reached in his coat pocket where he’d placed the change from dinner and pulled out a handful of coins. It was only a few dollars, but it would have to do. Samuel held the money in his palm. “See here? I have over twenty dollars in coins. For your trouble.”
“Now yer talkin’,” the man said, taking a step forward.
Samuel flung the coins over the man’s head, deeper in the alley where they clattered and scattered. A man who’d been sleeping in the shadows emerged and began scrambling after the money.
“Hey! Stop that! Those are mine!” The evil man raced back to claim his coins.
The distraction was just what Samuel needed. He rushed to the girl, scooped her into his arms, and ran toward the street.
At the mouth of the alley, he turned right and ran as fast as he could, feeling as if the hounds of Hades were nipping at his heels.
“Come on!” shouted Joseph from the cab a block ahead.
Behind him Samuel heard the man take chase.
“Come on! Hurry!”
Once at the cab, Samuel tossed the girl into the arms of his friends and dove in after her. The cab pulled away with his feet still hanging from the door. The sound of the horse’s hooves replaced the footsteps of the man.
His friends helped him to a seat. The frightened girl sat on Oscar’s lap. Blood glistened on her face, and Samuel retrieved a handkerchief.
As Samuel noticed the blood, so did Oscar. “Eeww. You take her!” He handed her off, then checked the cleanliness of his suit. “Why’d you bring her with you?”
Samuel carefully dabbed at a cut on the girl’s forehead, hating to see her wince. She looked at him with wary eyes. What must she be thinking? Even though he’d saved her, she had no reason to trust him. To trust anyone. For all she knew, he was simply another kind of evil man. “I suppose you would have left her there?”
Oscar didn’t answer.
“She smells awful,” Joseph said, holding a handkerchief to his nose.
Samuel was appalled at their reactions. “What’s wrong with you? Where is your compassion?”
“I left it in my other suit.” Oscar laughed at his own joke.
Their laughter was like acid. Samuel had known these men his entire life—or at least he’d thought he’d known them. How could they be so cold and uncaring?
Finally Leo weighed in. “Chide them all you want, Samuel. The point remains: What are you going to do with her?”
Good question.
Samuel would never forget the look on the butler’s face when he entered his family’s home carrying the girl.
“Mr. Samuel! What happened? Who—?”
“As you can see, Briggs, the girl is injured. I’m taking her to the green bedroom.”
“I … Should I call for Dr. Brandeis?”
Although Samuel couldn’t be sure, he didn’t think the girl’s injuries were life-threatening. “I don’t think that’s necessary—at least not yet. Please call Sally to come help.”
“Very good, sir,” Briggs said.
Samuel headed up the staircase and was pleased when the girl linked her hands around his neck.
“It will be all right,” he said to her. “You’re safe now.”
An hour later, Samuel tapped on the door of the green bedroom. Sally, the maid, told him to come in.
He found Sally tucking the girl into bed. She looked like a far different girl than the one he’d seen on the streets. Her hair was light brown, nearly blond, and her face was cleaned of dirt and blood—though bruises were forming on her cheeks.
“She’s all clean, Mister Samuel,” Sally said. “I even fed her some of our leftover dinner.”
He motioned Sally aside. “What of her injuries?”
Sally kept her voice low. “She’s been beaten more than once, with bruises on her limbs and body of every color from red to blue to yellow. But she doesn’t seem to have any broken bones.” She nodded toward the bed. “I gave her one of your grandmother’s old nightgowns and sent her clothes down to be washed. Her coat is barely a coat. It’s a wonder she didn’t freeze out there. I hope I did right.”
“You did well, Sally. You did everything you should have done.”
“She doesn’t seem to speak any English, sir, but she understands a bit. I think her name is Nusa,” Sally said.
The girl nodded and pointed at herself. “Nusa. Ja.”
Samuel went to the bedside. “I’m Samuel.”
Nusa let loose with a long discourse in what sounded like German. How he wished he knew the language. But then Nusa stopped talking and looked at the door.
Samuel’s grandfather stood there in his dressing gown, taking it all in. “What’s all this ruckus in the middle of the night?”
Oh dear. Samuel drew his grandfather into the hall and told him the story of finding the girl.
“So you plucked her off the street?”
“She was being beaten.”
“Then save her. But don’t bring her here. Where are her parents?”
Samuel realized how little he knew about her. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you think you’d better find out? They’ll be worried about her.”
As usual, his grandfather cut right to the chase. The entire series of events had transpired so quickly, Samuel hadn’t thought it through. “I’ll take her back tomorrow, and we’ll find them.”
“See that you do.” With one more glance into the room, his grandfather added, “Is she wearing one of your grandmother’s nightgowns?”
“Yes, sir. I—”
Grandfather turned and walked away. Samuel didn’t have time to regret his grandfather’s disapproval, for he heard Sally clear her throat. “She wants you, sir.”
He’d worry about pleasing Grandfather another day.
Nusa needed him.