Belle Cora: A Novel (49 page)

I believed him. It was one reason I was anxious to get Jack Cutter fired at the least, in prison if possible; and it was another reason to take my brother off the path he was on.

I sent Lewis a note, and we met in a Bowery oyster cellar at four o’clock in the afternoon; at that time of day the place was almost empty. We could see the boots of passersby through high windows on the side that faced the street. Whenever we weren’t talking ourselves we heard rattling pots and snatches of conversation from the kitchen, along with the
slurps and moans that went to show how much the top-hatted customer a few tables away from us appreciated his soup. “Lewis,” I said, when we had asked after each other’s health and told each other how fine we were, “do you remember Robert and Edward very well?”

“I wouldn’t say well.” With a glance at the noisy creature behind him, he removed his own hat. I observed his profile. He wore his hair Bowery Boy fashion, short in the back. At the front and sides were the long, carefully tended soap locks, sideburns oiled and brushed to stand stiffly away from the face. A Bowery Boy could not pass a reflective surface without inspecting his soap locks. “I remember Edward made a lot of jokes, and he would put me on his shoulders and another boy Edward’s age would put his little brother on his shoulders and we’d fight, me and the other small boy. I never had much to do with Robert.”

During all the years on my uncle’s farm, we had had perhaps four or five conversations in which we pooled our memories of Bowling Green.

“And Grandpa and Grandma and the house on Bond Street?”

“Mostly from after we went to live there.” As if it had suddenly occurred to him, he said, “Edward could walk on his hands.”

A waiter brought stew, bread, and pickles. We talked about old times, Christina, the Great Fire of 1835, my father’s stories about the Turk, Lewis’s accident-prone years. At last, I said, “They’re here, Lewis. Robert and Edward and Grandpa and Grandma. They’re all here in this city.”

I told him, very selectively, what I had learned, leaving out Frances and our father. “I overheard some men discussing it, and got their addresses at the post office. Lewis, you must announce yourself to them.”

I proposed that he do it himself, not mentioning me. In case they found out later from the Moodys, he should tell them what he had done to Matthew, say he had done it in my defense, say that he had lost touch with me and did not know where I was.

Lewis became upset. I had it exactly backward! If only one of us should return to the family, it must be me. He was getting on fine. He was a man doing man’s work. He didn’t have to go hat in hand to rich relatives. “But you, Belle.” He looked around the nearly empty room and spoke in a low voice. “I shouldn’t even have to say it. How can you think of going on, when there’s a way out?”

I told him that I couldn’t stand the shame. “I would always know what I had been. It’s easier for me now to stay with my own kind.”

“Your own kind!” There were tears in his eyes. “
Your own kind?
But you’re not
like
those women, Belle.”

“Hush, don’t call me that.”

He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “You’re not like them.” Not since he was a boy had I seen him so emotional. I began to pity myself. “I don’t care what you do,” he said. “You’re better than all those people.”

His naïve words took me unprepared, and I wanted to weep in earnest. He loved me after all. I was his big sister, I was good—how could I be a prostitute? That wasn’t
me
. I saw my fate through his eyes; it was sad that he had to know what I’d become.

I used these feelings. “Lewis, you’re all I have now—you know that, don’t you?”

“Oh God, Belle. Don’t.”

“You’ve got to seize this chance for my sake. You can’t let it pass. Or what is my life worth? What’s it all been worth if I can’t help you? Lewis, remember we were talking a little while ago about the Great Fire? I went to look for you in the fire.”

“I know. That’s what I
mean
, Belle.”

“You can make me happy in spite of everything, in the very midst of everything.”

He sang his aria and I sang mine, and I believe it was effective, though it wasn’t until the following week, when he had gambled away his pay, that he walked into the offices of Godwin & Co. and asked to speak to Edward or Solomon, whoever was nearest to hand.

I saw him next a few weeks later, when he slipped away to meet me. The soap locks were gone. He wore a new suit of clothes and looked a new man, and he told me of the rejoicing and how many times they called him “the Prodigal Son” and how the help was told, “This is Lewis, my grandson, who I had thought was dead!”

My grandfather had taken Lewis to his house in Bloomingdale (which was far north of the city in those days); and so, straight from his foul quarters in a Mulberry Street tenement, Lewis moved into a big room with a window, with curtains. Lying on crisp bedsheets, he could see the silvery bow of a beech tree, and if he stood up and got closer to the window, he could see a lawn, a marble birdbath, and flower beds. It was very strange at first. One morning, Lewis came out of his room and asked the servants, “Who stole my shoes? Has anyone seen
my shoes?” The shoes had been taken away to be blacked. When they were returned to him, Lewis clutched them to his breast, called them the Prodigal Shoes, and said he loved them better than the shoes that had never strayed. This story reached my humorless grandfather, who considered it a wonderful jest and repeated it ponderously to everyone he met.

Robert and Edward lived in town, and Lewis had met them. I envied no part of his reintroduction to the family so much as the hour the three brothers spent comparing their memories of the old house, of our dead parents, of Frank; of Anna, Sally, and Christina. I could tell from the way Lewis talked that it meant less to him. He found Robert, who was now a lawyer, a little stuffy. He preferred Edward. One Sunday, after church, Lewis watched a baseball game between the men of Edward’s volunteer fire brigade and the members of some other volunteer fire brigade; later, in a saloon, Lewis told Edward what he had done to Matthew and what Matthew had done to me. “Solomon must know of this,” said Edward, and that evening he had Lewis repeat the tale in my grandfather’s study. My grandfather, Lewis said, was moved, and said he understood now why a good boy like Lewis could have become so angry; had he been there, he might have wished for such a reckoning as he had visited upon our cousin. If only they could find me! Then his happiness would be complete.

Though Lewis said he missed his Bowery friends, he missed bowling, gambling, and drinking, it seemed that he was willing to give his new life a try. I suspected, however, that he was sneaking off now and then to his old haunts to show off his new clothes and spend the pocket money my grandfather was giving him. My biggest worry was that a careless word from him might lead the Godwin family to me, and I would have to return to them in the character of a fallen woman. Fortunately, before this could happen, my grandfather sent Lewis off to a place called the Pearson Academy in New Haven.

I did not dare visit my brother at the school, but I went to meet him once in the town, and some hours later, as I walked by the iron gate between the school and the sidewalk, I glimpsed a rambling two-story house and a brick dormitory. Some students in the uniform of the school eyed me curiously. None of the boys happened to be Lewis.

XXXIV

DESPITE THE IMPRESSION
that a superficial acquaintance with my biography might create, I am really quite a prudent individual. Although I was not yet ready to change my mode of life, I knew I might one day wish to come up from the diving bell and be Arabella Godwin again, and I became attached to the thought that it might actually be possible. The more I considered the matter, the more anxious I was to neutralize Jack Cutter.

“
SHAME OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE
: Police Purchase Stars by Bribery: Bribe Price Lists—Specified Amounts for Differing Ranks and Wards—Corporation Officials as High as Aldermen Involved.” So went the headlines of Mr. Heywood’s first article, breaking the news that was actually common knowledge. “Proof has been obtained by the
New York Courier
of a scandal which, when its details are fully made public, will rock the city to its foundations and shock the Corporation into a reform of the most corrupt police administration to be found in any city of comparable importance in the world.” The article, which promised to be the first of a six-part series, named only one individual, Jack Cutter.

The day it came out, a boy appeared at Mrs. Bower’s house, asked to speak to me, and recited word for word a carefully memorized message inviting me to a powwow in the basement of the grocery. I bade him wait and wrote a note back.

Heywood came. So did Donoho and O’Daniel. It was agreed that future crusading newspaper stories would omit mention of their names and be harsh on their rivals in the Democratic Party, and that Jack Cutter would be sent to Sing Sing for bribery and his replacement would be a man of my choosing. I had no one in particular in mind, but I thought that it would be good to have on the police force someone who was beholden to me. I knew by now that, although bribery and blackmail are useful in emergencies, the usual currency of politics is gratitude.

Philip Heywood gladdened his father’s heart by marrying into an old New York family. Cutter went to prison. I took a breath.

XXXV