She felt the boy’s eyes on her back. Prideful as ever, she lifted her head and held it high.
• • •
THE WHARF WAS crowded with people waiting to make the trip back to Manhattan, with flower sellers and postcard vendors, with omnibuses, carriages, and cabs to take the new arrivals where they wanted to go. Sophie walked along the line of drivers waiting for fares until she found one who would not turn her away. He sat hunched forward, the reins folded over enormous hands, and looked at her from under the brim of a spotless black top hat. When he nodded she climbed into the cab without his assistance.
“Where we going, miss?” Abrupt, but not disrespectful.
“To a printer’s shop. Mr. Reason, by name. Do you know him?”
That got her a laugh. “I know everybody in Weeksville and they know me.”
“Weeksville,” Sophie echoed, looking at Mr. Reason’s business card.
“It’s what we call the neighborhood.” His brow folded in on itself as he studied her. “How you come to know Sam Reason?”
“We met in Manhattan about a year and a half ago.”
When she was seated, her bag on the floor at her feet, he chirruped to his horse and the cab took off with a jerk. The driver was still studying her over his shoulder, leaving the horse to find the way.
“You the one who fixed him up that time the cab he was in got run over?”
Sophie’s mouth fell open and then shut with a click.
“Yes. But how do you know—”
He waved a hand as if to shoo away a fly. “Everybody know that story. And you are carrying a doctor’s bag. I heard your name once but I can’t recall.”
Sophie introduced herself and in return was given his name: John Horatio Alger, Johnny to his friends.
“Now one thing,” he said to her, still ignoring the horse and the road entirely. “Sunday morning Sam won’t be in the shop. I’ll find him for you, though. Sure enough.”
Sophie sat back and watched Brooklyn pass her by. Spring was here, too, in every breath she took and the warmth of the sun on her face, in the new grass and the budding trees and the birds wheeling overhead.
A half hour later they turned onto an unpaved street and into a neighborhood like many Sophie visited in the course of her day. A large dog slept stretched out in the middle of the road; the horse went around him without breaking stride.
“You, Helmut!” the driver called to him. “I’ma run you over one day, you don’t watch out.” One long speckled ear cocked itself in feigned interest and then fell again.
The houses were small for the most part, some needing paint or repair but most so neat and cared for that the windows sparkled in the sunlight. Gardens were being dug everywhere, dark earth turned up to warm in the sun. A very old woman sat in the shade of a porch, knitting while she rocked a cradle with her knee. She looked up as the cab passed and raised a hand. The driver nodded in return, touching the brim of his hat.
The neighborhood was oddly empty. Sophie had just begun to wonder if she had gone wrong after all when they turned onto Dean Street and stopped in front of a small whitewashed building with the high arched windows of a church.
Before she could ask, Mr. Weeks said, “This here Bethel Tabernacle AME. The Reasons should be out any minute now.”
The doors opened as if commanded, and two young men in dark suits stepped aside to let the churchgoers come pouring out.
“Just in time,” the driver said.
Sophie understood that Weeksville was a colored neighborhood, but still it was a surprise to see such a sea of faces and not find one white person among them. Odder still, it seemed that every pair of eyes was looking at her. It made her both less and more anxious, and heightened her irritation with herself. Of course people must look at her. She was a stranger, no matter the color of her skin.
People called out to Johnny Alger, but their eyes focused on her and stayed there. There were smiles and polite nods and curious looks and a few, it seemed, who wanted to stop but then moved on anyway, too uncertain to approach her.
Ten minutes must have passed and the crowd began to thin out, but Sophie saw no sign of Mr. Reason. Then Mr. Alger stood up so that the carriage rocked, and called to a boy who was coming down the church steps. “George! George Reason!”
He was about sixteen, just coming into his full height and still awkward, knobby joints as limber as a puppet’s. He stopped short of the cab, looked more closely at Sophie, and pulled his cap from his head to knead it.
The driver was saying, “Where’s your folks this morning?”
“Home,” George said. “Mary baby come along about sunrise. The women all too tired to listen to a sermon—”
“And the men too wound up,” the driver finished for him.
Clearing her throat, Sophie said, “It sounds as though this isn’t a good day for a visit—”
But George had already climbed up to sit next to the driver and they were off again, the conversation moving along without her.
• • •
THE HOUSE WAS white clapboard with ivy-green shutters and a screened front porch. On one side was a garden in neat rows marked and sectioned off by string, and on the other a fenced yard was overrun with children.
The driver spoke a few words to his horse as they came to a stop.
“Are those all your—” Sophie stopped, and the boy grinned broadly at her uncertainty.
“Cousins, mostly,” he said. “My two little sisters are there if you look, up high in the climbing tree. There’s only about a half of us here today.”
“Enough Reasons to populate all of Brooklyn, one end to the other. Yes sir, reasons enough.” Mr. Alger grinned at his own wit.
From the other side of the house came the sound of a bell, and a woman’s voice calling the family to table. George swung down from the driver’s box, turned to offer a hand to Sophie, and waited while she paid Mr. Alger.
Sophie stood for a moment brushing at her skirt, adjusting her hat, and trying to calm her nerves. She thought of Aunt Quinlan, as she often did when courage failed her in such situations. Aunt Quinlan could go into any assembly, small or large, without hesitation or embarrassment, and talk to anyone. It was a skill Sophie had yet to acquire.
When she looked up, a familiar figure had appeared on the porch. Mr. Reason came toward her with a hand outstretched, smiling at her so openly that her breath caught in her throat.
“Dr. Savard,” he said, when she met him halfway. “I was wondering if you’d ever come. Welcome. Come on now and meet the family. I hope you’re hungry, because we got a ham the size of a small bear.”
“I am hungry,” Sophie said, as her stomach rumbled in agreement.
“Then come on. The whole family is looking forward to meeting you.”
• • •
FROM THE MOMENT she stepped through Mr. Reason’s front door it was clear to Sophie that a quiet conversation would not be easy to achieve. Nobody could have a discussion in the middle of a gathering like this, people celebrating a new baby and—as she learned shortly—a wedding-to-be. Mr. Reason’s grandson Michael had brought his girl home with him to announce their engagement.
So Sophie let herself be propelled to the table that stretched from one room into another, given a place of honor next to Mrs. Reason, and plied with food and iced tea until she began to worry about belching in public. Through all that she was introduced, again and again, answering questions and asking her own, telling the story of Mr. Reason’s sprained ankle.
The Reasons had so many children and grandchildren and they were all so full of energy and curiosity that Sophie’s excellent memory was quickly overtaxed. She could only be glad that half the family was missing. More unusual than the size of the Reason family was the fact that so far she had counted two sets of twins and one set of triplets. When she remarked on this, everyo
ne looked at Mr. Reason.
“I stuttered as a boy.” It clearly was a set piece, because the whole room erupted into a chiding laughter.
When the table had been cleared and the younger family members were bringing in pies and coffee, Mrs. Reason leaned closer to Sophie. “I’m so glad you finally found your way over here to see us,” she said. “But am I right in thinking you have some business to discuss with my husband?”
Sophie nodded.
“Are you in a hurry to get back to the city?”
“Not a hurry,” Sophie said. “But before dusk.”
“Well, then,” Mrs. Reason said. “We’ll have us some pie, and then I’d like you to come meet my newest grandbaby and her mama, my youngest daughter.”
The invitation was not for Sophie as a physician or a midwife, but because Mrs. Reason considered her a family friend. It was such an unusual turn of events that Sophie was confused for a single instant, and then she smiled. She said, “I like pie and I would love to meet your daughter.”
As if Mrs. Reason had snapped her fingers to make it so, the men disappeared and Sophie spent the rest of the afternoon with daughters, daughters-in-law, granddaughters, and small children of both sexes, all of them talking to each other and to Sophie. The littlest were too shy to approach her but sent coy looks and grins. When the little girls got carried away, a look from their grandmother was enough to calm them down, but Mrs. Reason’s daughters-in-law were not so easily subdued. They teased each other to the point of helpless laughter and stamping feet and mock outrage.
Althea was the second youngest of Mrs. Reason’s children. “I about gave up hope for a girl,” Mrs. Reason said. “Already had my first grandbabies when Althea and Mary came along, the last set of twins. After that I was done.”
“She saved the best for last.” Althea snagged one of her sons to wipe his face, holding on to the squirming five-year-old with one arm and wielding her handkerchief with the other.
A knock at the door brought the news that the new mother was awake. Every one of the women would have stampeded to get to her first, but Mrs. Reason had seen that coming and forestalled it by putting herself in the doorway. “All y’all have to wait your turn,” she said. “I’m taking Miss Sophie in now.”
“And me,” Althea said, giving her mother a look that dared her to disagree.
• • •
IN A SUNNY bedroom that looked out over the fallow garden, Althea leaned over her sister to examine the sleeping baby’s face.
“Ten grandsons,” Althea said to Mary, “and you had to break stride.”
“About time, too,” Mrs. Reason said, coming around the other side of the bed to get closer. “Girl babies do dawdle along in this family.” With sure hands she scooped the bundled newborn up to cradle her against a substantial bosom. “Come look at what Mary made,” she said to Sophie. “Look at this beautiful child.”
Sophie observed closely, both new mother and baby, and saw no signs of distress or trouble. Mrs. Reason’s youngest daughter was a healthy woman, exhausted but satisfied with herself and her place in this world.
“What are you going to name her?” Sophie asked.
“Mason and me, we’re still talking about that,” Mary said. She tore her gaze away from the child in her mother’s arms and smiled at Sophie. “You’re a doctor. You catch a lot of babies?”
“At least a couple times a week,” Sophie said. “But I also treat women and children more generally.”
“Didn’t even know there was colored woman doctors.”
“More of us every year,” Sophie said. “Maybe your daughter will be one too.”
Mary looked directly startled at the idea, and then amused. “Could be,” she said. “No children of your own yet?”
“I’m not married.”
“You got to find a man with character enough to take pride in an educated wife,” Althea said. “That’s what Mama always told me.” She looked at her mother and grinned. “And that’s what I did.”
“Althea taught school before her boys come along,” Mrs. Reason told Sophie.
The baby began to fuss and Mary sat up against the pillows and gestured for her.
“You have a beautiful daughter,” Sophie said. And to Mrs. Reason: “I need to think about getting back to the ferry.”
“Come look at my garden first,” she said. “The weather is just too beautiful to stay inside all day. While we’re doing that I’ll ask Mr. Reason to bring the carriage around.”
• • •
“THERE’S NOT MUCH to see yet.” Mrs. Reason opened the gate into a large kitchen garden and then closed it behind them. “But I wanted a few minutes alone with you.”
Sophie said, “I so much appreciate your hospitality and warm welcome.” She spoke the truth, but the words sounded overly formal to her own ear. Mrs. Reason seemed not to notice, her attention turned inward. Sophie wondered if she had something more serious and personal to ask and began to compose her face into the expression that was meant to tell a woman that she was listening closely, and hearing.
“Have you ever thought about leaving Manhattan?”
Before Sophie could even begin to answer, she went on. “I realize it’s been your home since the war and you have a practice there, but just imagine. Imagine what you could do for Weeksville. And I can promise you this, nobody will ever begrudge you your title or the respect you’re owed.”
In her surprise Sophie startled. “How did you know that?” And then, more quietly, “Of course you know.”
Mrs. Reason was a woman of color who had lived in the north since before the War between the States. She had been here during the draft riots, and that was likely not the worst she had seen.
She said, “Is that why you and Mr. Reason settled here? To be among your own people?”
“That was a good part of it,” Mrs. Reason said. “Weeksville is a little bit like home, like New Orleans. We are left mostly to ourselves and there’s not much need to trade with white folk. We’ve got pretty much everything we need: lawyers, music teachers, tailors, a cobbler, carpenters and masons, nurses and midwives, too. It’s our place. It could be your place.”
She stood abruptly at the sound of a carriage. “I know I’ve given you a lot to think about. Will you do that?”
Sophie thought of home, of Aunt Quinlan’s sweet face and of Anna’s, curious and laughing and fierce by turns. She thought of the garden there and of Cap, the summer day he had caught her up against the pergola trellis, heavy with sweet jasmine, sugar in the air itself, and kissed her. The surprise of it. The soft touch of his mouth and the rough prickle of his cheek, the tripling pulse at the base of his throat, and how right and good it had been.
“I love my family,” she told Mrs. Reason. “That’s where I belong. For the time being, at least.”
• • •
THE JOURNEY BACK to the ferry was far too short for Sophie to hesitate about what she had to say, and so she told Mr. Reason about Comstock’s determination to prosecute female physicians associated with Dr. Garrison.
“By extension this is a threat to you,” she said. “Because I recommended your services to Dr. Garrison. He is not above entrapment and spying to lay his hands on a target. You must be alert.”
When he glanced at her Mr. Reason’s expression was calm, without even a hint of surprise.
“It’s good of you to come so far to tell me about this. But do you really think there’s a threat?”
“Yes,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry to say, I think there’s a threat. He has ruined businessmen for the challenge of it, and sent good doctors to prison. He takes satisfaction in such things. I had to come tell you in person because he monitors the mails.”
After a moment he said, “There’s no way you would know this, but I retired shortly after we met, the day of my accident. My eldest grandson took over the
business. You didn’t meet Sam today; he spent this last week in Savannah. Should be home tomorrow.”
“Well,” Sophie said, oddly deflated. “Could you possibly tell him about all this?”
“Or you could come out to dinner next Sunday, tell him yourself.”
She grinned at him. “I can try to do that. But in the meantime—”
“Of course,” Mr. Reason said. “And let me promise you one more thing. If you need help of any kind, send word. You can send a message to the law offices of Levi Jackson; he’ll see it gets to me. There’s a whole world of help over here in Weeksville. Will you remember that?”
Sophie wondered how such a thing could be forgotten.
• • •
IN THE CAB that took her from the ferry to Waverly Place, Sophie dozed, slipping in and out of quicksilver dreams. She was in Brooklyn and New Orleans, in Mrs. Campbell’s austere kitchen, in the lecture hall where she had realized that yes, she wanted to be, she would be a doctor. She was a doctor. Tomorrow she would spend most of her day at the Foundling Hospital, where the nursing sisters took in infants who were too sick to save, and others that Sophie would treat. Some she would send on, to orphan asylums or back to their families. She could close her eyes and see many of those faces. They came to her in all colors. They came to her for help.
7
JACK MEZZANOTTE FOUND a bench in Washington Square Park and sat down to wait until three o’clock, when he could knock on Anna Savard’s door without looking like a smitten schoolboy. The sun was warm on his face and he was bone tired, but he was not so short on sleep that he would shock the neighborhood by dozing in public. A patrolman was sure to pass by and then he’d never hear the end of it.
Two nursery maids came to a stop to talk, both of them rocking their carriages to keep their charges quiet while they sent quick sidelong glances in his direction. Jack picked up his newspaper and hid behind it. There was a surplus of spinsters in the city, the long-term effects of the war still in evidence. So many young women without hope of families of their own. They made him think of his sisters, which in turn made him sad.