Crystal Palace

1853

THE EASIEST DECISION that Frank Master ever had to make in his business career occurred in the summer of 1853. He was standing in his counting house. It was a nice old brick building, with a warehouse behind, that looked out onto the South Street waterfront. The sun was shining brightly on the ships crowding the East River beyond. Two of those ships belonged to him—one a sailing ship, a rakish clipper bound for China, the other a side-wheel steam vessel about to depart for the isthmus of Panama. The cargo of clothes she carried would be taken overland across Panama, then carried by another steamer up to California. The people who’d been flocking to the gold-rush towns in the last few years might, or might not, find gold. But they needed the tough, durable clothes manufactured in New York, and Frank Master had made plenty of money shipping them.

Master was in cotton, tea, meat-packing, property speculation. But he wasn’t getting into this deal.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I want no part of it. And if you take my advice you’ll give it up before the commodore comes back. Because when he does, it’s my belief, he’ll skin you alive.”

“Won’t be much he can do,” said one of them.

“He ain’t so tough,” said the other.

“Wrong,” said Master, “on both counts.”

There was always something Cornelius Vanderbilt could do.

Steam-powered vessels had been in use on the River Hudson for more than thirty years, yet the steamship had taken a surprising time to enter the Atlantic trade. A British rail company had started it off, but it was an enterprising Loyalist family named Cunard, who’d fled to Canada a couple of generations back, who’d first run steamships successfully across the ocean. The New York men aimed to catch up quickly, though. And none had been more daring than Vanderbilt.

He came from old New Yorkers, English and Dutch, but he’d started poor—even poorer than Astor. Hetty Master didn’t like him. “That foul-mouthed waterman,” she called him. It was true that he’d started life rowing a boat, and his language was certainly colorful, but he had genius, he was ruthless, and his steamships had made him one of the richest men in the city. Crossing the commodore was a bad idea.

Frank Master never crossed Vanderbilt. He’d made friends with him. When Master had wanted to run steamships down to Panama for the California trade in which Vanderbilt was powerful, he’d gone to the commodore and asked him what he thought.

“How many ships?” the commodore had asked.

“A couple, maybe.”

“All right.” Vanderbilt had favored him with a curt nod.

“You asked his permission?” Hetty had said in disgust.

“Better than being run out of business.”

Yet while the commodore was abroad, these two men, both employed by Vanderbilt, were planning to steal a piece of his empire.

You had to admire the audacity of the plan. Instead of running his goods across Panama, the commodore had opened up a cut-price route across Nicaragua, and taken a thousand sailing miles off the journey.

“But the government of Nicaragua ain’t too strong,” the two men told Master. “What if we could finance a revolution there? Put in our own man as president, who’ll give us an exclusive contract to run goods across the place, and leave Vanderbilt out?”

“You really think it could be done?”

“Yes, and for no great outlay. Do you want in?”

“Gentlemen,” said Master with a laugh, “I’m not afraid to topple the government of Nicaragua, but annoying Cornelius Vanderbilt? That frightens me. Please don’t include me in your plans.”

He was still chuckling about the two rogues an hour later, when he went uptown to meet his wife.

Hetty Master stood at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fortieth, with the great fortress of the distribution reservoir behind her. Half the world was passing by the place that day, so you might have expected her to be taking some notice of them. Or you might have thought, at least, that she’d be looking out for her faithful husband who was coming to meet her.

But she wasn’t. She was reading. Just standing there like a statue, under her parasol, and reading.

If she’d taken any notice of the scene around her, she might have reflected that close by, nearly eight decades ago, poor George Washington had beaten his troops with the flat of his sword, to try to stop them running away from the redcoats. Or she’d surely have recalled that this was where Frank proposed to her. But she didn’t. She just read her book.

Of course, she’d always loved to read. Back in the days when she and Frank were courting, the great Charles Dickens had come over from London to begin his triumphal tour of America. People had turned out in thousands, and she’d dragged Frank to no less than three events to see her favorite author, and listen to him read. “I love his characters and stories,” she’d told Frank, “and his plea for social justice is beyond all praise.” Certainly, his tales of London’s poor folk found a ready echo in New York. But it wasn’t Charles Dickens that she was reading today.

It was something more dangerous.

Frank didn’t see her at first. But then there were so many other things to catch the eye. The tallest was the Latting Observatory, a conical latticework of wood and iron that rose three hundred and fifty feet to a viewing platform high over Forty-second Street. You could go up the first two stages of the tower in a wonderful new machine they were calling an elevator. Master was eager to try that. But the Observatory was still a sideshow to the main event—which lay just behind the reservoir, its upper parts clearly visible as Frank approached.

The Crystal Palace.

Two years ago, when the British had staged their Great Exhibition in a huge crystal palace of glass and iron in the middle of London, six million people had come to see this world’s fair of culture and industrial design. The palace in Hyde Park, like a vast greenhouse, was over six hundred yards long, and covered nearly seven acres. So New York had decided to have one of their own. And though the Crystal Palace at Fortieth Street might not match the vast scale to be found in the capital of the British Empire, it was still a mighty handsome building, with a splendid dome, a hundred and twenty-three feet high. It had just opened the day before, and Frank Master couldn’t wait to see what was inside it.

Then he saw his wife. And inwardly groaned. She was reading that damn book again.

“Put the book aside now,” he said gently, as he took her arm, “and let’s see the exhibition.”

The main entrance on Sixth was splendid. With its ornate classical portico and dome, it looked like a Venetian cathedral, made of glass. The French and British flags flew to left and right, and a huge Stars and Stripes over the center.

Frank knew most of the organizers, especially William Cullen Bryant and August Belmont. They had promised an exhibition of the industry of all nations, and it seemed to Frank they had done a pretty good job. As he conducted Hetty round, they saw scientific instruments and guns, water pumps and ice-cream makers, equipment for taking photographs and for sending telegrams—not to mention the huge statue of George Washington riding a horse. It was the machinery of the new industrial age, and he loved it.

“Look at this clock,” he’d prompt Hetty. “We should have one of these.” And she’d smile and nod. “Or what about this sewing machine?” he’d try. “Yes dear,” she’d say.

But though they went round together for an hour, and she dutifully inspected everything, he knew that she wasn’t really paying attention. “Let’s go to the observation tower,” he said.

The view from the top of the Observatory was very fine. Eastward, one could see over Queens, westward, across the Hudson to New Jersey, and northward, over the miles of rural Manhattan into which, like columns of infantry, the grid lines of avenues were gradually making their way. They both enjoyed the elevator which served the tower’s lower platforms. But when they emerged, another exhibit nearby caught Frank’s eye. Hetty wanted to sit down for a while, so he went in alone.

“It’s the damnedest thing,” he reported back. “Fellow by the name of Otis. He’s designed an elevator like the one we just rode in, but he’s added a system of safety catches so that if the cable breaks, it won’t fall. I reckon you could install something like that in a big store, or even a house.” He nodded. “He’s setting up in business. Might make an interesting investment, I’d say.”

“Yes, dear,” said Hetty.

“Let’s go home,” he said at last, with a sigh.

He knew what she was going to talk about. She didn’t start at once, but waited a whole block, then began at Thirty-ninth Street.

“Frank,” she said, “something’s got to be done. I want you to read this book.”

“Goddammit, Hetty,” he said, “I’m not going to.” And then, to hide his irritation, he smiled. “No need to, when you’ve already told me all that’s in it.”

The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was no doubt a good and honest woman, but he wished to hell she might have found some other way to occupy her time than writing. For her Uncle Tom’s Cabin had been like a plague in his house for nearly a week now. A plague to the whole country, as far as he could see.

A curse to the slave owners of the South, that was for sure.

The wretched thing had started quietly enough, as a serial in a little magazine that was only read by the abolitionist crowd anyway. But then, last year, some fool of a publisher had put it out as a book, and it had broken all records. Three hundred thousand copies sold in America already, and still going strong. He’d heard they’d sold another two hundred thousand in England as well. Though a friend just back from London had told him: “The English are delighting in it, not so much for the slavery issue, but because they say it shows what a bunch of savages we uppity Americans really are.” There was no end to its run in America in sight, either. The publisher was putting out a deluxe edition now, with nearly a hundred and twenty illustrations, and the lady herself was publishing another work about how she came to write the book in the first place, called A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. No doubt that’d be a best-seller too.

And what was the thing about anyway? The story of a slave family and their trials and tribulations. Nothing new there. But it was written in the sentimental style, with a black mammy, and sweet pickaninny children, and a slave family broken up, and dear old Uncle Tom, the faithful, fatherly, suffering slave, dying at the end. No wonder all the women liked it.

“Our family had a slave like Uncle Tom,” he remarked. “By name of Hudson. My grandfather knew him. He was happy enough, I believe. I certainly never heard he complained.”

“He wasn’t a slave, he was free,” Hetty corrected him. “And he lost his only son, who was captured and probably sold into slavery in the South. Your family tried to find the boy for years, but never could. Your father told me all about it.”

“That may be,” he allowed. “But the book’s just a sentimental tale about an old slave who loves everybody. There are no Uncle Toms in real life.”

“That just shows you haven’t read it, dear,” she said. “Uncle Tom’s as real as you or me, and not at all sentimental. When it’s necessary, he encourages slaves to run away. As for the rest, slaves are separated from their children, flogged and sold down the river. Are you saying these things don’t happen?”

“I guess I’m not,” said Frank.

“Everyone agrees it’s a wonderful book.”

“Not in the South, they don’t. I heard that a man in Arkansas was run out of town for selling it. The South says the book’s a criminal slander. They’re furious.”

“Well, they should be repentant.”

“It’s not surprising really,” he continued mildly. “After all, the villain of the book is a typical Southern slave holder.”

“Actually,” said Hetty, “if you’d read the book you’d know he’s a Yankee who moved south. The Southern gentleman in the book is a kindly man.”

“Well, people in the South don’t like it, anyhow.”

“The point is not about any individual, Frank. It’s about a system.”

They had walked as far as Thirty-sixth Street. Seeing a cab, Master hailed it, hoping the business of getting in would break his wife’s concentration. It didn’t.

“The system, Frank,” she continued, as soon as they were seated, “whereby one human being can own another as a chattel. This book”—she took it out, and clearly meant to give it to him—“is a Christian book, Frank. A challenge to all Christians. How can we countenance such an evil in our land?”

“And what,” he asked wearily, “do you expect me to do about it?”

She paused. Evidently she had been thinking about it.

“I think, Frank,” she said quietly, “that we ought to consider whether we do business with slave owners.”

He almost cried, “Are you out of your mind?” But fortunately, he caught himself, and waited a few moments before he replied.

“Hard to be a New York merchant and have nothing to do with the cotton trade.”

That was quite an understatement. Generations of New York men had assiduously courted the cotton planters—at first, buying the Southerners’ raw cotton and shipping it to England (when, had they been a bit sharper, the Southern planters could have shipped direct and saved themselves New York’s commissions), and thereafter making their grand, all-purpose trade so indispensable, and their finances so entangled with the South, that it was hard to imagine the one without the other. Frank Master shipped cotton; and he sold goods, and debt, to the South. It was a good percentage of his business.

She put her arm on his. “I know, Frank. I understand that it wouldn’t be easy. But you are also a good Christian. I didn’t marry you just for your money,” she added with a smile.

And I didn’t marry you, he thought to himself, to have you interfere with my making it. As the cab took them home, he said nothing more, but he sensed that his wife was determined about this business. In more than ten years of marriage, he and Hetty had never had a serious quarrel, and he wasn’t sure what it would be like if they did.

At about the time when Frank and Hetty Master had ascended the Observatory, Mary O’Donnell had prepared to leave her friends. They had spent such a pleasant afternoon, the four of them: Mary and Gretchen, and Gretchen’s little brother Theodore and cousin Hans.

Mary was fond of little Theodore. He was five years younger than Gretchen, and his blue eyes were darker than hers, and set very wide apart. If his sister was blonde, he’d inherited his father’s curly brown hair. And from an early age, he’d possessed a remarkable sense of his own identity. When he was five, a lady in the shop, meaning only kindness, had asked him: “Do people call you Teddy?” Theodore had shaken his head. “Why not, dear?” she’d asked. “Because,” he had answered solemnly, “I do not wish it.” By the age of ten, he’d also announced that he wouldn’t be following his father in the chocolate business. “What will you do, Theodore?” the family had asked him. “Something with no chocolate in it,” he’d said. This had displeased his mother considerably, but his father had been more understanding. “Leave him be,” he had said. “Anyway, this isn’t such a good business.” Gretchen and Mary usually took Theodore with them, even though he was so much younger.

But Hans was another matter. He’d been a distant figure when Mary was young, though Gretchen would speak of him, so Mary knew that he was serious and worked long hours for the piano-maker. Once or twice she’d caught sight of him, but there wasn’t much reason for them to meet, and Gretchen certainly wasn’t going to bring him to the O’Donnell household.

Mary had been out walking with Gretchen one day, after she’d been working for the Masters a couple of months, when her friend had said she wanted to call in at her cousin’s place of work. They hadn’t stayed long, but Mary had had a good chance to observe him. Hans was still in his early twenties, a tall, slim young man whose sandy hair was already receding, and who wore small, gold-rimmed spectacles. He was obviously busy, but friendly enough. Gretchen asked him to play something for them on one of the pianos. “He’s very good,” she said. “They ask him to show off the pianos for the customers.” But Hans told them he couldn’t just then, so they left. He was obviously very serious about his work. Mary liked that.

A week later, Mary just happened to be passing the piano store and decided to look in. At first Hans didn’t remember who she was, but when she told him, he smiled, and showed her the piano he was working on. She asked a few questions, and he explained what wood was used, how it was molded and put together. Then, taking her to another piano that was finished, he showed her how it was tuned.

He talked very quietly, looking at her gravely from time to time through his gold-rimmed glasses. And maybe it was just to get rid of her politely, but at the end, he went over to the best piano in the store and, sitting down at it, began to play.

Mary didn’t know much about music, though she liked to sing. She’d heard people play the piano in the theater, and in a saloon of course, but she’d never heard anything like this. He played a Beethoven sonata, and she listened entranced, by the beauty of the music and by its power. And she watched Hans with fascination, too. His skill was remarkable, and his hands beautiful, but even more intriguing was the transformation that came over his face. She saw concentration, absolute concentration, intelligence—and a sort of remove. For when he played, she realized, he entered another world. It wasn’t a world she knew anything about, but she could see that Hans had just gone there, right in front of her, and she was enchanted. She hadn’t realized how fine he was.

And suddenly a thought came into her mind. All her childhood, she’d heard the priests speak of angels, and she’d always thought of them like the ones she’d seen in paintings, with placid faces and unlikely wings. But seeing his face now, she thought, no—this must be what an angel is like, full of beauty, and spirit, intelligence and power.

“You should play for a living,” she said to him, when he had finished and returned to earth.

“Oh no,” he said, with a touch of sadness, “you should hear the real pianists.” He smiled kindly. “I have to get back to work now, Mary.”

Ten days later, she and Gretchen had taken a pleasure-boat trip into the harbor, and he had joined them. Whether it was his idea, or Gretchen’s, she didn’t know, but he’d been very easy and friendly, and they’d had a good time.

Some time after that, when Gretchen had casually asked her what she thought of her cousin, Mary had laughed and said, “I’d like to marry him.” But she wished she hadn’t, for Gretchen had frowned and looked at the ground, and Mary had realized the truth. What a fool I am, she’d thought, to be dreaming of such a thing, when I haven’t a cent to my name. A clever young man like that needed a wife with some money.

The trouble was that whenever she met young men after this, they always seemed so crude and coarse by comparison.

And then there’d been the man that Sean proposed.

All in all, she had to say, Sean had behaved well since she joined the Masters. He’d found out all about them in no time—you could be sure of that. “But I’m very impressed, Mary,” he told her. “You landed on your feet there.” And he’d stayed away from their house. “Just so long as I know you’re all right,” he told her. “Of course,” he’d added, with a reassuring smile, “I’ll cut his throat if he harms you.”

He’d been good about her father too. John O’Donnell had gone downhill pretty fast after she left. Sean had stepped in to help, but it wasn’t much use. She’d felt so guilty that she’d wondered whether to give up her job, to try and save him. But Sean had been adamant.

“I’ve seen a dozen like him, Mary,” he told her. “He’ll go the same road, whether you’re there or not.”

He’d sent a boy to her with a note when her father had died six months ago.

The funeral had been conducted with all due ceremony. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, but a surprising number of people turned up. At the burial, Sean had arrived with a small black box which, after a brief consultation with Father Declan the priest, he’d reverently placed on the coffin as it was lowered. Then they all went back to the lodgings, which she’d vigorously cleaned.

“What was the box you placed in the grave?” she’d asked him on the way back.

“The remains of the dog.”

“Of Brian Boru?”

“I dug him up last night.”

“Jaysus, Sean, have you no respect for the dead?” she cried. “It’s probably sacrilege.”

“It’s what our father would have wished,” he said blandly. “I asked Father Declan, and he quite agreed.”

He’d seen to it that there was food, and a fiddler, and plenty to drink. They gave John O’Donnell a rousing old wake.

And that was where he’d introduced her to Paddy Nolan.

Surprisingly, she’d liked him. Surprising because she was naturally suspicious of anyone connected with her brother. Nolan was a quiet man, about thirty, with dark hair and a neatly clipped beard. He was very polite, almost formal toward her, calling her Miss Mary. He seemed to treat her with great respect, and she rather liked that. He evidently considered her brother a fellow of some importance. After a time, he asked if he might have the honor of calling upon her some day, and, not wishing to be rude, she said that he might.

“He’s quite respectable, you know,” Sean told her afterward. “And he has money. He owns a saloon, though he never drinks a drop himself.”

“And you’ve known him a while?”

“We’ve done business together.” He smiled. “He likes you, Mary. I could see that. And God knows, he could have his pick of women, with the establishment he has.”

She went out with Nolan ten days later. He treated her to a meal, then they looked in at his saloon, which was down on Beekman Street.

A saloon wasn’t a place where a woman would normally go. But seeing her in the company of the owner, the men in there gave her a polite nod. It was certainly a cut above the usual establishments of its kind, patronized by gentlemen who worked or wrote for the nearby newspapers and magazines, like the New York Tribune and The Knickerbocker.

“I get all kinds of literary gentlemen in here,” Nolan told her with quiet pride. “Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark, Mr. William Cullen Bryant, Mr. Herman Melville.” Over in one corner he showed her a table stacked with recent publications. “The newspaper gentlemen leave them here for others to read,” he told her. Clearly he meant the place to have something of the tone of a club, and she had to admit she was impressed.

Afterward they took the train up Fourth Avenue, and he escorted her politely back to the door of the Masters’ house.

She normally had Sundays off, and they went out several times. After a month, she let him kiss her. Once, they met some of his friends, who were very nice to her. The only moment when she felt awkward was when, discussing an acquaintance’s marriage, he remarked: “Treat a woman right, I always say, and she’ll do whatever you want.” The men had laughed, and the women had glanced at her, but Nolan had given her a friendly smile and added: “A man should never take a woman for granted, Mary, don’t you agree?”

The remark before had been harmless enough. But she still felt a little uneasy all the same, even if she wasn’t sure exactly why.

The next time they were out, and walking by the waterfront, he said something about the cotton trade. Living in the Masters’ house, and hearing the merchant’s conversation, she’d picked up a bit of knowledge about that business. And hardly thinking, she told Nolan he was wrong. For just a moment, a cloud passed across his face. Then, without looking at her, he gave a tight-lipped smile. “Now don’t you go contradicting me,” he said quietly. And she could see he meant it.

She knew she shouldn’t mind these things too much. Most men were the same. And you had to admit, Nolan had many things to recommend him. By late spring, it seemed to her that he would ask her to marry him.

She’d discussed Nolan with Gretchen, of course. For Gretchen had a fiancé of her own now. Her parents had made the arrangements. He was a German boy, a distant cousin with the same family name, whose father had a bakery and confectionery store, an only child who’d inherit the business. His name was Henry and Mary thought he was nice enough. He had a little mustache, and he liked to talk about confectionery.

Mary didn’t quite understand her friend’s engagement. Gretchen didn’t seem to spend much time with her fiancé, but she seemed quite contented, as if she was glad that a matter which might otherwise have caused her trouble had been settled for her easily. “I don’t even have to change my name,” she remarked cheerfully. “I’ll still be Gretchen Keller.”

“Do you love him?” Mary had once asked her friend. “Oh yes, I like him,” Gretchen had answered placidly, though she never seemed to bring him along when she and Mary went out together. Gretchen and Henry were due to be married at the end of the year.

When they discussed Nolan, Gretchen never asked if she loved him. But she asked if he was attentive, and kind, and if he had a good business. And as the weeks went by, and Mary had time to reflect on her situation, and she compared the Kellers’ solid family household with the morbid chaos of Five Points, she concluded that Gretchen’s attitude might be wise. At the end of May, when Gretchen had asked her whether, if Nolan proposed, she would accept him, she had answered, “I expect I might.”

Nolan had made his move in June. At noon on a Sunday, he’d picked her up from the house in Gramercy Park. It was a warm summer day, not a cloud in the sky. He’d hired a nice little two-seated gig and, with a picnic basket and blanket behind, he drove her up Broadway and out onto the old Bloomingdale road. It wasn’t long before the city streets gave way to empty lots and countryside. They’d gone about three miles, and she’d supposed they might be going to some pleasant spot overlooking the Hudson, but instead he turned right and continued a little way until they came to a large tract of wild ground, with small hills and rocky outcrops.

Drawing up, and tethering the horse, he took the basket and blanket and led her down a path.

“Where in the world are you taking me?” she asked.

“A place I discovered a while ago,” he said. “You’ll see.” They passed a high outcrop of rock half concealed by trees and bushes. “Just a step,” he said as, taking her hand, he guided her between the trees. “There.”

She had to admit that it was a delightful spot. A little dell, where the sun fell gently onto an open bank of grasses which, most charmingly in that summer season, were sprinkled with wild strawberries.

“Perfect spot for a picnic,” he said.

He’d brought a bottle of wine, fresh salmon, jellied chicken, bread that smelled as if it had just come out of the oven, sweetmeats, fresh fruit. She’d never had a more delightful meal. And during the course of it, he talked easily of this and that, and even told some funny jokes which, she had noticed, was not a thing he often did.

So when he kissed her, she had been expecting it, and had no objection. And when, lying beside her on the grass, he began to kiss her more passionately, she returned his passion. And when his hands began to caress her she gave a little gasp. But when he started to go further, and rolled on top of her, she found she did not wish it, and she resisted him, and asked him to stop.

He did so, but it was clear that he did not believe her, and suddenly he was at it again.

“No, Paddy,” she said. “Please.” She sat up and looked at him reprovingly. “I am not your wife.”

He rolled on his back and looked up at the sky, and she wondered if he was going to ask her to marry him then. And indeed, she had the distinct impression that he was considering it. But instead, after a while, he sat up. He was looking a bit thoughtful.

He poured her a glass of wine, which she took, and he poured some for himself. Then he smiled.

“It’s a beautiful day, Mary,” he said. “Can’t think what came over me.”

He didn’t say much more, but after a while he began to collect the remains of the food and put them in the basket. Then with a sigh he remarked that he wished he didn’t have to do some work at the saloon. “But duty calls.”

So he led her back to the two-seater, and drove her home.

After he’d gone, she sat in her room for a couple of hours, taking stock of the situation. What did it mean? Was he not serious about her at all, and only intending to seduce her? He wouldn’t try to force himself on her, she was sure—he would know that Sean would put a knife in his back if ever he did that. And he surely wouldn’t have spent all this time courting her when he could have plenty of easy women as a mistress, if that’s what he wanted. No, from everything that had passed between them, she was sure he was thinking of her as a wife.

She wished she could talk it over with Gretchen, but Gretchen and her family had gone away that week to visit relations in New Jersey. Anyway, she told herself, she was perfectly capable of thinking it out for herself.

What was his game, then? Simple enough, she supposed: he wanted to sample the goods before he bought. She couldn’t really blame him for that. Out in the country, it was thought decent enough so long as you married before the first child was born.

And she’d refused him. Why? A sense of her own reputation? God knows, the place he’d chosen was discreet enough. Had she wanted him? Perhaps not. Not just then. She hardly knew. Was that such a good reason to refuse? Was he disappointed? Was he angry? Had she lost him?

It was early evening when she left the house. It was still her day off. She walked down Irving Place to Fourteenth Street, across to Fourth Avenue, and took a train down to City Hall. It was only a short walk to Beekman Street from there.

She hadn’t quite decided what she was going to say, or do, when she got to the saloon. But at the least, she would speak to him, let him know that she was sorry for disappointing him. More than that she hadn’t decided. She’d see what reception she got, and take it from there.

She was halfway down the street when she saw him. He’d just come out of the saloon, and he was looking angry. It made her pause, nervously, and her first thought was that his bad temper was probably her fault. He turned along the street, with his back to her. There weren’t many people about, but she didn’t want to call out to him, so she started to walk quickly, to catch up with him.

She noticed that there was a ragged street urchin in his path, a little boy of seven or eight, by the look of him. He was standing there with his hand out for a coin. Nolan waved him out of the way, irritably, as he drew near. But the little fellow stood his ground, his hand still out. Nolan reached him, and paused. His hand seemed to go to his pocket. And then, silently, and with great deliberation, he smacked the urchin across the face so hard that the little boy was lifted clean off his feet and sent rolling in the gutter. People turned at the sound. The little boy lay in the street so shocked he didn’t even scream. And Nolan walked on as though nothing had happened.

She stopped. She stared. Normally she’d have rushed to the boy, but others were doing that, and besides, for some reason she couldn’t. She turned and started to hurry away. As she did so, a sudden feeling, not only of shock, but a kind of nausea, overcame her.

She turned up toward City Hall. A train was leaving and she quickly got on. It wasn’t only that she wanted to sit down, but somehow to remove herself from the street. As the train slowly trundled up the Bowery, she tried to make sense of what had just happened.

She’d seen Nolan. Seen him when he had no idea she was there. Seen him, as it were, unclothed. Seen him angry. But no anger—even if she was the cause of it—gave him the right to do what he just did. It wasn’t just the violence of the blow—you could see worse than that any day around Five Points. It was Nolan’s cold, deliberate cruelty that had been exposed.

And this was the man who she’d been thinking of marrying, the man who’d kissed her, the man who, only hours before, had pressed his body into hers. And foolish though it might be, and though it was the boy he struck, and not herself, she felt a terrible, sickening sense, as though she had been violated.

When he called at Gramercy Park again the next week, she sent out word that she was unwell. A few days later, she asked Mrs. Master to help her. She gave few details, simply telling her that Nolan had been courting her, and that she had discovered something bad about him. And after a little gentle questioning, Mrs. Master told her she’d take care of it. The following Sunday, when Nolan called to know how Mary was, Hetty Master herself told him plainly that Mary did not wish to see him any more, and that he was not to call at the house again.

“He was not best pleased,” she told Mary afterward, with some satisfaction.

The only thing Mary dreaded was that Nolan might complain to her brother, and that this might cause Sean to come to the house, but mercifully it didn’t. The next Sunday, though, when she’d gone down to Gretchen’s house, it didn’t surprise her to see Sean waiting for her in the street.

“What’ve you done to Nolan?” he asked. “You’ve embarrassed me.”

“I can’t bear to be with the man any more,” she said. And she told him plainly what she’d seen.

“All right, Mary,” said Sean. And he hadn’t mentioned Nolan since.

Today, however, she’d been able to put Nolan completely out of her mind. She’d met Gretchen at the shop, and they’d walked arm in arm with Theodore along the street.

“Where are we going?” she’d asked.

“Oh, just to pick up Hans,” Gretchen had answered cheerfully.

Her heart had missed a beat, but she didn’t think it showed.

“I haven’t seen him for ages,” she’d said.

So they’d picked him up at the piano store, and they’d walked along the East River all the way down to Battery Park. They had eaten ice cream beside the big entertainment hall, and stared out across the harbor to Staten Island. Someone had laid out a little bowling alley, so they’d played ninepins for a while, Hans being best at it. And she’d watched him all the time without his seeing it. After that they’d walked round the point and gazed up the Hudson. Once, when he’d taken her arm to point out a boat to her, she had almost lost her breath, but she’d kept quite still so he shouldn’t notice.

On the way back, he’d mentioned that the next time they got together, there was a young lady that he’d like them all to meet. And Gretchen had whispered to her that she already knew that Hans and the girl were likely to get married. So after Mary had smiled and said she looked forward to it, and overcome the sudden cold sensation in her stomach, she’d told herself that she was glad, and happy for him.

She was just approaching the house in Gramercy Park when she noticed the man entering the front door. She only had time to get a glimpse of him, but she could have sworn it was her brother Sean.

But why in the world, she wondered anxiously, would Sean be seeing Mr. Master?

After the distressing conversation with his wife about slavery, Frank Master had been glad to retire to the library. He sat down in a leather armchair with the latest copy of the New York Tribune, found a dispatch from the paper’s new correspondent in London, a fellow called Karl Marx, and started to read it.

He was rather surprised when the butler brought in a card bearing the name Fernando Wood. And even more surprised when he heard that the gentleman was not Mr. Wood himself, of Tammany Hall, but his representative.

A visit from the enemy. He frowned. After a moment’s hesitation, however, he judged it wise to discover the reason for the visit, so he told the butler to bring the stranger in. And shortly thereafter found himself gazing at Sean.

The Irishman was expensively dressed, his suit a little too snugly fitting for Master’s taste, and his side whiskers just a bit too assertive; but at least his boots were polished to a shine that Master could approve of. He gestured the young man to a chair.

“You come from the chief sachem of Tammany Hall, I understand.”

“From Mr. Fernando Wood, sir,” Sean answered smoothly. “Indeed I do.”

If Frank Master had been asked to name the biggest rogue in New York—and it was a competitive field—he wouldn’t have paused a second before naming Fernando Wood. Born in Philadelphia, that place had been far too genteel for his talents. He’d come to New York, made a modest fortune, by one means or another, before he was thirty, and got himself in with Tammany Hall. Then he’d turned politician.

You couldn’t deny the genius of Tammany Hall. Fifty years ago, that wretch Aaron Burr had built up Tammany as a political power to get himself elected vice president. And after Tammany had successfully backed Andrew Jackson for the presidency, its Democratic Party machine had become awesomely efficient.

Tammany had got Wood elected as a Democrat to Congress. Then they’d run him for mayor of New York and nearly pulled that off too. Soon the damn fellow was going to run again. In the meantime, with the help of his Tammany Hall friends, Wood had his finger in every pie in the city.

“Might I ask your own name, sir?”

“O’Donnell is my name, sir. But in anything I say, I am speaking for Mr. Wood.”

“And what is the nature of your business with me?” Master inquired.

“You might say it is political, sir,” the Irishman replied.

Surely, Master thought, his visitor couldn’t imagine he’d support Wood for mayor.

“I suppose you know, Mr. O’Donnell,” he said evenly, “that I’m not a great friend of Tammany Hall.”

“I do, sir,” the young man answered coolly, “yet I believe that you and Mr. Wood have an interest in common.”

“And what might that be?”

“Parcel of lots on Thirty-fourth Street, west of Broadway.”

Master looked at him in surprise. It had been six months since he’d bought four lots on that block for future development, and he was still deciding what to do with them.

“You’re well informed,” he remarked drily.

“Mr. Wood is also thinking of purchasing in that block,” his emissary continued. “But there is a problem. It seems that a certain gentleman owning property there is desirous of starting a rendering plant.”

“A rendering plant?”

“Yes, sir. Grinding up carcasses from the slaughterhouse. Dead horses, too. Amazing what you can get out of them. Good business, they tell me. But messy. Not good for other property owners.”

“Not at all.”

“Bad for you, sir. Bad for Mr. Wood.”

“And what can we do?”

“Fight it, sir. We believe there’s a legal remedy, though lawyers are expensive and courts take time. More efficiently, you might say, one or two of the aldermen might be persuaded to deny the permit.”

“To vote it down?”

“We think the problem can be made to go away.”

“I see,” said Master reflectively. “But that would cost money.”

“There, sir,” said the emissary, “you come to the nub of the matter.”

“And my contribution would be …?”

“A thousand dollars.”

Then Frank Master threw back his head and laughed.

“Cigar, Mr. O’Donnell?”

Frank Master didn’t mind a bit of corruption. Give a man’s son a job, and he’ll do you a favor later. Give a theater manager a tip for a good investment, and he’ll send you tickets for the opening of a new play. These were the kindnesses that made the world go round. Where did corruption become a vice? Hard to say. It was a question of degree.

He’d thought he knew most of the Tammany Hall tricks. Apart from the basics, like the small bribes for permits, or the larger bribes for contracts, the big stuff was to be found in the padded contracts. Supply the city with food, say, for the poor. Add a percentage to the true invoice. Split the difference with the man who gave you the contract. Continue it year after year. Hard to detect, harder to prove, almost impossible to prosecute—assuming anybody even wanted to. Over time, the money could be huge.

But this trick of O’Donnell’s was new to him. As they lit up their cigars, he gazed at the young man benevolently.

“Nice try.”

O’Donnell looked at him sharply, but said nothing. “Thousand bucks is a pretty good shakedown,” Master continued amiably.

“The threatened plant …”

“Doesn’t exist, Mr. O’Donnell.” Frank Master smiled. “I’m used to paying the city boys for this and that. But the threat of a non-existent rendering plant is a refinement I admire. Do many people fall for it?”

Sean O’Donnell was silent for a moment or two. Then he gave his host a charming smile.

“Between us, sir?”

“Yes.”

“An amazing number.”

“Well, my respects to Mr. Wood, but I’m not one of them.” O’Donnell considered the new position. “There’s one problem, sir. I wouldn’t like to return to Mr. Wood empty-handed. It’s not a good idea.”

“I suppose not. What’ll he take?”

“Five hundred, minimum.”

“Two fifty.”

“Won’t do, sir. You know he’s quite likely to be mayor at the next election.”

“And you’ll be stuffing ballot boxes?”

“Of course,” said Sean cheerfully.

“Two hundred for him, and the same for you.”

“You’re most understanding, sir.”

Frank Master rose, left the room for a minute, and returned with a bundle of banknotes.

“Cash acceptable?”

“Certainly.”

Master settled himself in his chair again, and puffed on his cigar.

“We have a girl by the name of O’Donnell who works here, Mary O’Donnell,” he remarked easily.

“It’s a common name,” Sean answered.

Master continued to puff on his cigar.

“My sister,” Sean said finally. “But she doesn’t know I’m here. Doesn’t approve of me, in fact.”

“I think we treat her well.”

“You do.”

“She said there was a fellow bothering her. My wife told him not to come round any more.”

“He won’t be troubling her again.”

“And you don’t want me to tell Mary I met her brother?”

“I’d prefer not.” Sean’s gaze went round the richly appointed room. Master watched him.

“You know,” Master said quietly, “you Tammany boys didn’t invent the game. My ancestors were doing this kind of thing even before Stuyvesant was here. I reckon it’s the way cities always have been. Always will be, I dare say.” He nodded contentedly. “New crowd. Same game.”

“So one day my grandson might be sitting in a place like this?”

“Maybe. You seem like a coming man.”

“I’d like that,” Sean said frankly. Then he grinned. “Perhaps even my sister would approve of me then.” He paused. “You’ve treated me very well, sir. I shall remember it. Especially considering the great difference between us.”

Master took a slow draw on his cigar, sighting the young man through half-closed eyes.

“Not so different, O’Donnell,” he said softly, “just dealt a better hand.”