Re: Chapter 3.5- A knock in the night
Kitty Kelly sighed as she changed out of her dress and into her green linen nightshirt; another day in the New World seemed to her much like the Old one. America was known as a place to start over, a place for new beginnings, a place where no one could turn themselves into someone, with a little luck and a little hard work. Fortunes rose and fell with every new moon, it seemed to her. And as she stood on that ship, passing the enormous Brown Lady in the harbor, Kitty had felt newly born, as if her time in Wales and, especially, London, had all been just the shadow of a bad dream. America beckoned as a beacon for new starts, and the capitol of this new start was New York City.
New York was, somehow, very similar to London, even though it was smaller and seemed, to her, more spread out. And it was just as dangerous. And even more than London, ethnic groups tended to live with their own, concentrated in clusters spread out in specific neighborhoods: even though she was Welsh by birth, and English by law, she was considered Irish by the jackanapes employed at the new Ellis Island immigration office, and so she was told to go live in a place known as Hell's Kitchen, a drab, crime-ridden territory facing the Hudson River that was full of gangs of Paddy's, dingy saloons serving watered-down beer (but not ale or gin, as they did in London), church missions, butcher's shops, fishmongers, and every kind of poor, classless, wandering person imaginable.
But life in Edinburgh and Manchester had hardened her enough to survive just about anyplace apart from the Black Hole in Calcutta, and so Kitty had done what she did best, and made do. She turned tricks when she felt them safe, steered clear of the gangs and the rotgut, and made enough scratch to get by, just. But she'd hopes for far more than this for her new beginnings, and so far, after one month, it seemed as if she'd gone to a lot of trouble to go back to square one.
Her single room flat in the tenement was small and squalid, but was her's alone - a change from the old world for the better! At least she had some privacy, not to mention an actual bed instead of a cot or pallet of straw, although it was neither clean nor particularly comfortable, yet it too was a step up for her. There was a simple wardrobe, a small table, two chairs, a basin, a pitcher, a chamberpot, and even a small mirror. Kitty stuck her suitcase under the bed, and kept her clothes and extra shoes in the wardrobe. A nail by the door is where she hung her coat and hat; her small, humble collection of jewelry she kept stashed in her old boot, also kept in the wardrobe. She kept an ivory comb on the table near the basin, and beside that a small pile of newspapers, mostly old copies of the New York Herald. When not working on a caper, she liked to read and then re-read stories and learn about her new home through them.
She'd just turned down the oil lamp so she could go to sleep when she heard the knock next door - she did not know much about her neighbor, her it seemed everyone kept to themselves and no one talked to anyone else unless they absolutely had to. that was taking some getting used to. Still, it was late and Kitty was tired.
She tried to ignore the sounds coming from next door so she could rest, but then she heard a scream!
Instinctively, Kitty searched for and found her knife, and quickly freed the blade. Her skill with the dagger had saved her from more than a few sticky situations, including ones here in the City, and it always provided her with some level of comfort. But what was happening next door - dare she go out in her night clothes and find out?
After considering what to do, Kitty decided to quickly put on her shoes, wrap a shawl around herself, take the oil lamp in one hand, and the dagger in the other, and she unlocked the door to her flat and peeked outside into the hallway, her ears and eyes open for more clues.