New York - The Novel

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 abrief 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