Of Irish Blood (5 page)

Ed begins to tell us about his adventures with the army surveying team that was plotting a route for a new canal through the wilds of Michigan to connect with the Great Lakes.

“At first,” he says, “I was rod man, only holding the rods while the others measured. All of the rest had gone to university. And here I was with only my night school learning. But I had on-the-job training at the Sanitary District, I told them, starting as an axe-man cutting trees along the canal. So then I worked my way from rod-man to full-fledged surveyor. At camp, after dinner, I’d get Captain Lewis to discuss the work. Asked him a lot of questions about the best way to blast through the rocks, how to test the soil, things like that. He gave me more and more responsibility. Said every important engineering project depends on an accurate survey. Have to know the lay of the land first. I told him that was true of most things.”

John tells Ed he’s sure the army boys were impressed and hoped they would send a good report back to the Sanitary District. “You’re going to need help getting your old job back, Ed, with the Republicans in charge,” he says.

John and Ed are off and running about who had been elected and whose brother-in-law had gotten the top job until Mame says, “Politics. You two always end up going on about politics. Can’t we talk about something else?”

Ed smiles at her. “Sorry, Mame. Don’t mean to bore you.”

Bore her? Politics are Ed’s lifeblood and he’s apologizing? What’s going on between him and Mame? And now he’s asking her all about our promotions and the letters she plans to write. Taking in every word.

So. No wonder he stopped by here before he came to tell us he was home. Yet Mame hasn’t said one word to me about Ed, nor Ed about Mame. Had she forgotten “the Pact” we three girls made last summer on this very porch? We promised each other we wouldn’t be panicked into getting married. I think the McCabes wanted to support me after I said no to Joe Murphy. A nice enough fellow but not a bit of chat in him. I couldn’t understand why he was even courting me except he was a friend of Mart’s and lived next door and thought it was time to go for a bride. He started appearing in our parlor on Sundays and after about a month he followed me into the kitchen and said, “So what about it?”

“What about what?” I asked, thinking he wanted a cup of tea or a glass of beer, but no, marriage was the “it” though I had to drag the words from him.

“Me, marry you, Joe?”

“Well,” he said, “I’ve a good job in the quarry and likely to be the foreman soon. My mother’s dead, so she wouldn’t have to live with us. All my sisters are married. We’d have the place to ourselves, which I thought you’d like.”

God, did our house look so crowded he thought I’d marry him just to get some space?

“And do you have feelings for me, Joe?” I asked.

“Well, you’re a good-looking woman, Nonie. And all your chattering doesn’t bother me since, as you might have noticed, I’m not a great talker and so you could fill up the silence in any way you wanted.”

“Well, Joe, that’s nice of you, I’m sure, but I don’t think we’re really suited.”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot. I love you, Nonie. Mart told me to say that first, but I get so nervous.”

“Mart told you?” I said.

“He did. We were thinking you and me are both getting on in years…”

“You’re forty, I’m twenty-three,” I told him.

“You’re as old as that?” he said. “I wasn’t sure. Well, most of my friends and your friends are married and there’s not all that many left to choose from. Mart said as well me as any other, since I’m steady and not a drinker and that you’d grab at your last chance to get married.” And then he rubbed his eyes. “Whew, that’s a lot of words came out of me at one time,” he said, as if he’d surprised himself.

I smiled at him and thanked him for the effort, but I wasn’t going to marry a fellow because he used up a week’s worth of talk on me. I blathered on a bit about the great honor and what a fine husband he’d make some lucky girl.

“I might even be able to go for a younger one,” he said.

I agreed that age wasn’t as much of an issue for a fellow. He seemed happy, and I thought I’d done very well, keeping my temper when I wanted to blast him, telling myself he was only a shy
guilpín
. But then he asked would I help him propose to Rose or Mame McCabe.

“Which one?” I said, sarcastic now.

And he said, “Which do you think would have me?”

The eejit. And then I lost the run of myself a bit and said that all women weren’t as desperate to get married as maybe his sisters had been. Mart had come over to tell me to keep my voice down. I could be heard in the parlor. And I’d told him if he’d mind his own business I wouldn’t have to raise up and defend myself since it seemed my own brother was so anxious to get rid of me.

Joe spoke up and said, “Don’t blame Mart. He only said you were always moaning about not being heard, and all I’ve done my whole life is listen.”

Well, I couldn’t keep raging at him, remembering how the Murphy girls would go on and on and on. Not worth yelling at Mart either, and I did make a good story of Joe’s proposal for Rose and Mame. That’s when we resolved not to marry at all unless we felt well and truly in love with a man who loved and appreciated us. If any such fellow showed up, we’d present him to the other two, who’d vote on him. Maybe women couldn’t select the president of the United States but we could help each other pick the best man for an even more important job.

“And if we don’t find such a fellow,” I said, “we have our work and each other.”

I stretched my hand out, and Mame put hers on top of mine with Rose covering Mame’s, as the Three Musketeers did in the novel we’d all read, and we swore our oath.

Now here’s Rose with John Larney and Mame with Ed and not a word to me from any of them. I look over at Aunt Kate, wondering. Is she the matchmaker? Snagging Mame for her sister’s son and Rose for her own? A neat enough situation and she knew the McCabe girls were fine women, not silly young girls. Mike liked to quote the saying, “It’s not the years in your life, it’s the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln. The only good Republican ever.

Now, I am not in any way, shape, or form a begrudger. Living with Henrietta made me swear never to fall into that trap. I’m only thinking that somebody could have said something to me, and I wonder will they have a double wedding, with me a double bridesmaid? And maybe Ed would ask his father, my uncle Steve, to walk the girls down the aisle, though that might be odd, him being the father of the groom. My brother Mike might be more suited.

But here I am, planning their wedding, and them not even telling me! I assume they’d want me to stand up for them, but for all I know they might ask somebody else. Secrets! I hate secrets. And I thought we were so close.

Just then I hear the most god-awful racket out on the street, the blurt of an engine and then a rattling sound.

“An automobile,” says Ed, and we all stand up and go to the porch rail.

Dusk now, but easy enough to see two big lights mounted on the hood of the horseless carriage as it gets closer. For all the talk of automobiles as the coming thing, there are very few around the place. Some in the Loop, which is what we call the heart of downtown where the horse tram tracks turn around on themselves. And, of course, the likes of Mrs. Potter Palmers and Marshall Field have chauffeur-driven vehicles, but not many automobiles come bouncing down Hillock or Archer either.

“An Oldsmobile,” Ed says, “the latest model.”

Like a carriage, all right, tall with four big wheels, the backseat higher than the front.

“All that noise,” Aunt Kate says, “and the smell.”

“Gasoline exhaust,” Ed says.

“I like it,” I say. “Better than horse manure.”

Always talk about limiting Chicago’s growth because the city’s being overrun by piles and piles of the stuff left by the hundreds of horses filling our streets. No room for more wagons when we already have all that muck splattering our clothes. Well, compared to the stink of horse droppings, automobile exhaust smells like lemon verbena.

Now the automobile stops right in front of Aunt Kate’s. A man gets out wearing a long black duster coat with goggles over his face. He starts up the sidewalk leading to the porch.

“Engine trouble,” John says.

“Maybe the transmission,” Ed says.

“Probably a valve overheated,” John says.

“Or he needs water for the radiator,” Ed says.

How knowledgeable the fellows are.

Already tossing off words like “radiator” and “transmission.” Huge arguments around our dinner table about horseless carriages, with Mike all for them and Mart completely against.

“Toys for the rich,” Mart said. “How many children will be run down and killed?”

Henrietta agreed, saying, “The likes of us will never be able to afford an automobile, that’s for sure. One more way to mock the poor.”

But Mam was more concerned about our uncle Michael’s blacksmith business. “Blackshirt Mike” they called him and he was great for giving jobs to men just arrived from Ireland. My own grandfather Michael Kelly had wielded a hammer onto an anvil, Mam told us, and his grandfather before him, Granny Honora had said.

“Always will need blacksmiths, if only for racehorses,” my brother James put in.

“You should know,” Henrietta said. “The money you waste betting at Brighton Park track.”

So a split vote on automobiles in our house, but now I can go home and say I’ve seen one.

The fellow climbs the steps and even before he pushes the goggles up on his head I know. Tim McShane, standing right in front of us. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Ed speaks up first. “Quite a beautiful motorcar. An Oldsmobile, right?”

“Did it break down?” John asks.

“Not at all,” Tim says. “I’m on my way to check my horses, and I saw you all in the shadows. Such a pleasant group, I couldn’t help but stop. Hello, Mrs. Larney. Are those the famous cookies your son keeps talking about?”

“Well, John does like my
engelsaugen
,” Aunt Kate says. “My German father taught my Irish mother the recipe.”

John walks over to him. “I don’t remember discussing my mother’s cookies with you, Mr. McShane,” he says.

“I suppose a police detective’s life is so full he’s bound to forget a few things,” Tim says.

Aunt Kate looks from John to Tim and back, aware of the tension. And surprised at her son’s bad manners. But she’s too hospitable and too curious about the automobile not to invite Tim to join us. John’s shaking his head as I say, “
Engelsaugen
mean’s angel eyes.”

And doesn’t Tim McShane wink at me.

“I look forward to sampling them,” Tim says.

“I’ll just get another glass,” Aunt Kate says.

“Let me, Aunt Kate,” I say, and head into the house, passing Tim as he takes the empty chair next to mine.

“Hurry,” he says to me softly.

My hand actually trembles as I take a glass from the kitchen cabinet. In Granny’s stories, fairies or a pooka arrive riding a magic horse. Dear God, are they using automobiles now?

On the porch Tim touches my hand as he takes the glass, and I feel the spell taking hold. Pull away, Nonie, pull away, I tell myself.

“Thank you, Miss Kelly,” he says.

“You’re welcome, Mr. McShane.”

“Tim—please. This is our third meeting.”

“Third?” Ed says.

“All by accident,” I say. “On the tram, at Henricci’s, and now here.”

“Oh yes, all accidental,” Tim says.

John looks a question at Rose but she nods and smiles. Thinking of tickets for Dolly McKee’s concert, I bet, while I’m drowning.

“Happy accidents,” Tim says, biting into a cookie. “Wonderful.” He smiles at Aunt Kate, who nods at him. “Angel eyes,” he says to me.

“So nice to have young people together,” Aunt Kate says. And doesn’t she tell him about our new jobs—my designs for dresses, Rose’s patterns, and Mame’s letter writing.

And Tim McShane says, “Such talented women, and beautiful too.”

John just grunts.

But Rose speaks up. “And how is Mrs. McKee, Mr. McShane?”

“Tim, please,” he says. “Fine, excellent. Onstage right now and taking her bows.”

“I’d have thought you’d be there,” I say.

“No, Nora. We lead quite separate lives. Very good friends though, and have been for a long time.”

“So I hear,” I say.

“She owns the team of champion horses I train. I met her when I was a young lad cleaning stables and exercising the horses for Jim Boyle. This grand lady came sweeping in telling Jim she was moving all of her horses to his stable. Took an interest in me.”

“And were your parents in the racing business, too, Tim?” Aunt Kate asks.

“Yes, but my dad died young, Mrs. Larney. We lived in Saratoga, and my father was a trainer.”

“Saratoga—a place I’ve always wanted to visit,” Mame says.

“Nothing better than a long soak in those mineral springs,” he says, looking at me again.

I can’t help but see him stretched out naked, water bubbling around him, and damn if he doesn’t know what I’m thinking.

“And did your parents drown?” John says, which makes Rose poke him with her elbow.

“Sadly my father was kicked to death by a stallion who was mounting a mare,” Tim says. “Animal passion hard to control.” He catches my eye. The nerve of him. “My mother died soon after. I was fourteen.”

“Very sad,” Aunt Kate says.

“At least automobiles don’t kick people to death,” Ed says.

“They will,” John Larney says. “Crashes already.”

“That’ll be sorted out when drivers are better,” Ed says. Always up for whatever’s new, Ed is.

As I sit in the warm darkness of that summer evening, I accept the tale. The poor but honest young orphan being scooped up by a grande dame, too naive to understand her intention. How well I listen, embroidering his story for him in my mind.

“I’d like to take you out for a drive sometime, Ed,” Tim says.

Ed nods. “Machines will change everything. The roads we’ll build … Captain Lewis and I used to talk about a great highway going along Lake Michigan. Parks and fine buildings on the shoreline and automobiles sailing by.”