Nearly a year later
Mother stood next to the desk, watching Ada address an invitation. When Ada was finished, she nudged the envelope to her left, waiting for her mother’s approval. “Does this look all right?”
Mother took up the envelope for a better look. “Your M‘s are a bit compressed for my taste, but it will do. What was our final count?”
“If everyone comes, there will be seventy-four.”
“Very good,” Mother said. “Fewer than fifty and a Christmas ball is a mere dance, and too near to one hundred seems overly grand for the season.” Mother returned the envelope to the pile. “Do your very best, Ada. This party is essential to your future.”
“How’s that?”
Mother gave her a look of frustration. “Because most of your friends are betrothed by now.”
By now was a decided dig. And though her mother’s mention of betrothals in relation to the upcoming Christmas party might seem odd to the uninformed, Ada knew her mother hoped that a certain Owen Reed would be so overcome by the festivities that he’d propose that very night.
As far as Ada’s hopes? They were less detailed and had a lot to do with simply wanting the whole issue of marriage to be done.
“Continue on, Ada. I must consult Mrs. Newly regarding the menu.”
Whatever. The intricacies of etiquette made Ada weary. This entire Christmas ball had been her mother’s idea. It would be a celebration of the season, but more than that, Ada knew Mother wished it to be a way to show New York society that the Wallaces—and especially Ada—had left the unhappiness of last Christmas behind them.
Last Christmas had been a humiliation, as the news of Ada’s rejection spread. That Samuel Alcott, heir to the Alcott banking fortune, had shunned Ada and his inheritance in order to play do-gooder in the slums was the topic of conversation through all of last Christmas, well into the 1890 opera season, not to be overshadowed until the death of New York mogul John Jacob Astor III, and the subsequent squabbling of his family over his inheritance.
Ada didn’t remember much about last Christmas or the parties and operas that rang in the new year. The few she’d attended, that is. To put it candidly, the Wallace family had been shunned for the social season as punishment for not securing a happily-ever-after ending to her romance. How embarrassing.
Ada had moved through the dark months of ostracism as if asleep, yet without the ability to happily awaken and discover that she and Samuel were still the loves of each other’s lives.
She’d only received one note from him over the past year—an apology note. As if a few words could mend the tear in her heart. There had been no return address and no clue as to the exact location or name of the foundling home. Ada remembered Nusa telling Nana the name of it, but neither one of them could retrieve the exact memory.
In an effort to find him, Ada had even contacted Samuel’s grandfather, hoping that he had more information. But Mr. Alcott was also in the dark. Samuel had vanished into the bowels of New York City, unbound and unfound.
In her desperation, Ada had even begged John to help her find him. But John had refused, saying what was done was done. And what would Ada do if she found him? Samuel had broken ties with her. And even if he had changed his mind, was Ada willing to give up the life she knew for some bizarre life he’d chosen?
She’d told herself yes, she was willing. But Ada also knew that words were cheap and the price of a wrong choice was costly. And so her sorrow, which had turned to desperation, evolved into anger. For even after a healthy dose of self-analysis, she couldn’t think of a single thing she’d done to cause the drastic change in Samuel. The fact he’d chosen to exclude her from his decision was unfair. He’d never given her a chance. She had no idea if she would have risen to the challenge, but to be denied the opportunity …
None of it made sense.
Until the breakup, Ada felt as if God had brought them together. But if that were true, then why had He allowed them to be split apart? Her inability to rectify this question caused her faith to suffer and made her doubt her own inner compass for what was genuine and what was false.
Until Owen Reed came into her life.
Owen had saved her from drowning in a sea of emotion. He was a member of their set and was gentle and kind. It didn’t really matter that he was on the shortish side, or that he was an ember to Samuel’s fire. That Owen was content with quiet conversations about music or the arts or his latest book of interest was a blessing. He didn’t require much effort on Ada’s part.
Ada found it appropriate that Owen had saved her at Easter—redeemed her. He’d accosted her after Easter service, and his attention had opened a door, allowing Ada readmittance into New York society.
Her sentence was commuted, and Owen did everything society proclaimed a beau should do. He was her companion to any event she desired to attend, was an able dancer, was conscious of her needs, whether it be getting her a glass of punch the moment she was thirsty or offering her his arm as they negotiated the marble stairs at the opera. He gave and she took, and though she recognized the disparity in their relationship, she was relieved that he seemed content in it.
As was she. As much as she could be.
For with Samuel’s departure from her life, so had gone Ada’s passion. Not only the physical passion, but also her desire for living, for enjoying the moment, and for thinking of the future with anticipation. Though Owen’s presence smoothed over the rawness of her pain, it still hid just below the surface, making Ada fear that feeling too much one way or the other might set it free.
Ada’s parents wanted Owen to be the one. They appreciated how he had been the one to finally break her out of her haze. And above all, his attention saved Ada’s mother from a fate worse than death and allowed the Wallace family to step free of their societal banishment. His family was suitable—being the Reeds of the Reed shipping fortune. But so far at least, Ada had felt no spark in his presence, no inner tug indicating he was God’s choice just for her.
Nana was the only one who understood the limbo she was in, the uncertainty, and the confusion that assaulted her each morning and clung to her dreams each night.
Ada was surprised to see that she’d completed a dozen more envelopes without conscious thought. If only she could complete all tasks in such a way.
“Psst!”
She looked to the doorway of the morning room and saw her brother.
“How would you like to go shopping?” John asked.
She was surprised that the idea did pique her interest. But then she looked back to the invitations. “I’d better not. Mother wants to mail these tomorrow. She’s obsessed with this party. It’s going to change my life, you know.”
He plucked an envelope from the pile. “Your M‘s are too broad.”
She snatched it back from him. “What do you need to buy?”
“Mother says all my gloves are a disgrace, and she will not let me ask a single girl to dance at the ball until I rectify the matter. I am therefore off to Macy’s, and was thinking that surely you need some new gloves, a bit of lace, or perhaps some other bit of feminine fluffery?”
She loved how he made her smile. “I suppose I could think of something I need.”
He clapped his hands. “Then get your bonnet and cape and let’s be off. McCoy is bringing the carriage around.”
Shopping. Why not?
The carriage stopped with a jerk, causing Ada to lurch forward toward her brother. John took her hands, helping to set her aright.
“Sorry,” Ada said.
“I wonder what’s going on.” John reached behind his head and opened the sliding window in order to speak to the driver. “Careful there, McCoy. We nearly ended up in each other’s laps.”
“I apologize, Dr. Wallace. But there seems to be some commotion ahead. All traffic is stopped.”
“Can you see what it is?”
“Not yet, sir.”
Ada knew they were still a long way from Macy’s. The sidewalks were busy with people walking hurriedly amid the December cold, their shoulders raised toward their ears, the distance between couples testing propriety as they sought each other’s warmth while they braved the weather to travel from here to there. The path of each person was marked by the puffs of their breath.
McCoy tapped on the window. “Excuse me, sir, but there appears to be an accident of some sort in the next block. No one’s moving. I’m sorry. There’s not much I can do but wait.”
Waiting was not Ada’s strong suit. She looked out both sides of the carriage to make her own assessment of the situation. Actually, there—what if we went …?
“How about there,” she said, pointing to a street to their left. “Could McCoy go around the carriage in front of us, turn onto that street, and find a different way?”
John did his own looking, agreed, then told McCoy the plan.
By cajoling the horses and getting the hack in front of him to move up just a bit, McCoy maneuvered their carriage onto a side street.
“I knew it would work,” Ada said.
But as they tried to go around the block, various obstructions forced them to continue farther south and east, into neighborhoods that seemed foreign—not just in their unfamiliarity, but in their ethnic roots. Ada saw bearded men with ringlets on each side of their faces, wearing long black coats and flat-topped hats, and signage on shops that was written with an alphabet far beyond the ABCs.
“Well now,” John said. “We’ve wandered into the Jewish area of town. We’re way off course.”
Ada knew her father had business dealings with Jewish people, and Arthur Wyndym had even bought his fiancée a diamond from a jeweler in this area. But Ada didn’t think she’d ever seen a Jewish person.
A little boy ran to catch up with his father, taking his hand. He, too, had the long ringlets. Jesus was a Jew….
Had Jesus looked like these men?
But as the carriage moved south, the neighborhood changed as if they had traveled from one country to the next. The buildings were similar, but even in the cold, these had laundry hanging on lines strung between windows. The people were dressed in earthen tones, their hair dark and silky, and their skin slightly darker, as if tanned by the sun. Only there was little sun here. The streets were bathed in shadow, with only a slice of sky showing above. The going was narrow as the street was occupied with a myriad of pushcarts, each with a vocal owner lauding their wares. Bread, apples, baskets …
“Pane, pane fresco!”
“Mele deliziose!”
“Bei cestini!”
“You were curious about Five Points, sister? Take a look.”
Ada looked around with new eyes. “Samuel lives here….”
“Well, yes, technically, I guess he does, but—”
Suddenly Ada felt an overwhelming need to find him, to be out of the carriage, to look for him, and to see what he saw every day. Since they were stopped, she opened the carriage door. “I’m getting out.”
“You can’t do that. Ada …”
Ada ignored her brother’s words and his touch and stepped onto the street.
McCoy called down to her. “Miss Wallace! Please. You must get back in the carriage.”
She scanned the crowd, desperately looking for the one face that was always in her thoughts. Samuel! Please, God. Let me find Samuel.
But as she stepped away from the carriage, she was overrun with children, their faces grimy and pitiful, their hands outstretched, pulling at her arms and her skirt.
“Signora graziosa. Per favore. Aiuto.”
“Una moneta?”
Some held up a piece of paper or chunk of wood, as if trying to sell it to her.
“Compri la mia carta.”
“Compri questa parte di legno.”
One held up a piece of coal. “Coal, lady? Keep you warm?”
She was appalled yet moved. Were these Samuel’s charges? She wanted to push them away even as she wanted to hold them close to comfort them. Their dark eyes were so beautiful, their grimy angelic faces pulled with pleading.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any money.”
John appeared at her side, offering them a few coins. “Get on with you now. Away! Shoo! Leave her alone!”
They ran off, scattering in the crowded street and around the pushcarts.
The congestion on the street had become an issue. A horse and cart coming toward them couldn’t go any farther. The driver yelled at McCoy in Italian.
“In the carriage, Miss Wallace. Dr. Wallace. I must insist.”
“Come now, Ada,” John said. “We must get back inside.”
With a glance, Ada knew they were right. Commotion swirled around her. The chance to find Samuel was tinged with the menace of the unknown. Ada returned to the carriage, and John started to help her inside. She was just raising her skirt in order to negotiate the step when …
The driver of the cart yelled at McCoy even louder, his hands gesturing wildly.
McCoy yelled back, and in the ruckus the horses lurched forward. Ada let out a yelp as she lost her footing, stumbled, and fell to the ground.
John rushed to help her up, but the horses … and the carriage … and the cart. Pushcarts, people, running children, and—
Just as Ada regained her footing, she saw the cart’s horse panic and rear up.
She spotted the coal boy in harm’s way and yelled, “The boy!”
Ada saw a flash of blue as a man burst out of the crowd and shoved the boy to safety.
The horse came down on the man.
There was an awful thud of hooves against flesh.
Screams.
“Inside!” McCoy demanded, his manners gone. “Now! We must back up and—”
But Ada didn’t move. Mesmerized, she watched as a swell of people rushed to the man’s aid. In the back of her mind was the accusation: I caused all this.
“Ada!” John said. “Get in the carriage. I’m going to help.”
She was tempted. For inside the carriage she could hide away and pretend none of this had happened. She could draw the curtains on the windows and close her eyes and wait until McCoy got them to safety.
But the memory of the little boy’s eyes assailed her, and the sound of a man being hurt. Added was the knowledge that good medical care was probably a rarity in such a neighborhood.
There was only one thing to do.
She pushed through the crowd until she saw her brother. “John!
John! Bring the man to the carriage. Take him away from here.”
John looked up from his work on the man, his face a mixture of surprise, diligence, and questions. Then he nodded. “Men, help me. Aiutilo!” He pointed to the carriage. “To the carriage. Veicolo!“
Enough men understood to do as he asked. Ada rushed back, leading the way. The men got the hero into the carriage, where he fell upon the free seat, unconscious.
John rushed in last. He banged on the side of the carriage. “Go, McCoy. Get us home!”
Somehow, by the grace of God, a path opened and the carriage moved.
John knelt beside the man, pressing a bloody handkerchief to his face.
“Will he be all right?” she asked.
John looked up at her, hesitated, then said, “Ada … it’s Samuel. Samuel Alcott.”
What? She nudged John to the side in order to see the man’s face.
“Samuel!”
Samuel opened his eyes for but a moment and whispered one word.
“Ada?”
“Oh, Samuel! I’m so glad we found you. I—”
But Samuel closed his eyes, and his head fell to one side.
Ada’s heart stopped. “No! John … no. He’s not dead, is he?”
John put his fingers to Samuel’s neck, then shook his head. “He’s alive, but barely so. He saved the boy, but the horse came down on him.”
Ada’s head shook no, no, no. She couldn’t lose him now. “Faster, McCoy! Faster!” she yelled.
And then she prayed.