But Sylvie could tell he wavered. “No one in that building loves her,” she told him. “They will not ask her what she likes to eat or sing her songs to soothe her.” She listed her complaints and described the orphans who had reverted to sucking their thumbs and wetting the bed. She told him of children wasting away and becoming mute with neglect and despair. “Do you really think she’d be better off there than with you, or perhaps a relative of yours who could care for her during the day?”
His broad shoulders sagged. “We have no other kin here. The neighbor women have their own worries. They work at factories, or they do piecework at home with barely enough attention left to keep their own babies from falling into the fire. Rozalia is in danger almost every hour as it is.”
Sylvie looked at the girl, a lump forming in her throat. “I’m sure that’s not—”
“True? And how do you know what is true and what is not in the place where I live?”
Heat flashed through Sylvie. He was right. They shared a city but lived worlds apart.
Mr. Dabrowski’s hand cupped Rozalia’s chin. “She is already a beauty, no? And not yet five years old.”
Despite the lack of hygiene, she was an uncommonly beautiful child, with delicate features and eyes an enviable cobalt blue.
“People have noticed. Vile people.”
Goosebumps lifted Sylvie’s skin. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that wicked men have tried to buy her from me, and next time they’ll make no offer before they take her to be raised in a brothel, trained for a life of sin. Now tell me, Miss Townsend, do you still believe my daughter is better off with me than she would be behind those doors?”
On an impulse founded on years of thought and striving, Sylvie decided right then that she might not be able to change the system, but she could change the life of this one precious girl.
“I can take her.” Her heart hammered as she heard the words, but nothing had ever sounded or felt more natural. “For as long as you need, Rozalia can live with me and my father.” She described their home and the bookshop below it on the corner of Randolph and LaSalle Streets. She offered to show him their property for his approval. “I’ll bring her to see you any time you wish, and you’re always welcome to visit us, too.” She took his rough hand in hers. “Make no mistake. She is your daughter. I’ll only care for her until the two of you can be together again.”
Grooves furrowed his brow. “I cannot pay you. But she can work for her keep, if that suits. You can dust, Rozalia, can’t you? Wash dishes? Tend the fire?”
She nodded.
Sylvie wasn’t after domestic help but had the sense to recognize a man’s pride when she saw it. She knelt, the cold creeping through her skirts to her knees. “That’s all fine, dear. But I will also want you to play. I have a very old cat named Oliver Twist, and he would love to have a little girl to keep him company. I would love to have a little girl to keep me company, and so would my father, I’m sure. Shall we try it and see what happens?”
Rozalia loosened her grip on her father and gave another tentative nod.
Mr. Dabrowski cleared his throat. “She isn’t so good with English now. The people in our neighborhood don’t speak it. But with you, she will learn English very good, yes? This is what I want for her. She’s an American now.”
Sylvie unwound the muffler from about her neck and wrapped it around Rozalia. “I’m sure she’ll learn quickly.” She stood to address one more concern. She knew few Protestant Polish and wondered if her religion would pose a problem. “Mr. Dabrowski, I feel I ought to make you aware that I’m neither Jewish nor Catholic.”
“Neither am I, miss.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “It’s been a long time since I’ve believed in anything. If you have faith of any kind, it will be more than the girl gets from me.” To Rozalia, he spoke in Polish. The girl protested. He replied with a stronger voice. To Sylvie, he said, “It is settled.”
For a few weeks? A few months? A year? There was no way to know how long this arrangement would last. To Sylvie, it didn’t matter.
Too overcome for words, she held out her hand. Rozalia took it.
“Keep her safe for me, Miss Townsend.”
“I promise. For as long as you need.”
CHAPTER ONE
CHICAGO
FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1893
Sylvie hadn’t always leapt to the worst possible conclusion. But being a parent seemed to enlarge her imagination as much as it did her heart.
Tightening her grip on her parasol, she paced the broad sidewalk parallel to the many-columned Peristyle—one column for each state of the Union—that stretched between Music Hall and the Casino. She squinted against the blinding white buildings, straining to find her seventeen-year-old daughter among the thousands of other visitors here at the World’s Fair.
“You worry too much.” Beth Wright called to her from the shade of the Peristyle’s central arch, one hand planted on her hip. At forty-three years of age, the same as Sylvie, she’d already been a widow for five years but had no children. Sylvie didn’t expect her to understand the niggling dread Sylvie felt. “So what if she’s a few minutes late? What’s so urgent, anyway?”
Sylvie returned to her friend, ducking into the shade. “Her violin lesson with Kristof was supposed to start at two o’clock. Right there.” She pointed to Music Hall. It was the off-season for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra right now, so Kristof and Gregor Bartok, her third-floor tenants, were both performing in the Exposition Orchestra at the Fair. Rose met Kristof between their two daily performances for her weekly lesson. He wasn’t her first violin teacher, but he was the best.
Beth fanned herself with her hat. Coils of cinnamon-colored hair swayed at her neck, the only soft aspect of her otherwise wiry frame. “When we were children, the idea of a woman playing the violin was scandalous. The times are changing indeed, and I’m glad of it. But don’t tell me you go with her to her lessons.”
Sylvie peered up at her friend, who had three inches on her. “I don’t. I just finished my tour early at the Manufactures Building.” The massive structure was adjacent to Music Hall.
Most World’s Fair tour guides were men, but a select band of female guides, including Sylvie and Beth, were hired to lead groups of women. Two or three days a week, Sylvie conducted tours based on each group’s interests. On Friday afternoons, many of those tours overlapped with Rose’s lesson time.
Brassy notes marched through the air, courtesy of the Iowa State Band. “Good group today?” Beth asked.
“Very. Seventeen young ladies from New Orleans, with three nuns as chaperones. We visited the model of St. Peter’s Basilica on the Midway, Queen Isabella’s relics in the Woman’s Building, the Louisiana State Building, and the Catholic School Exhibit in Manufactures, among other things.” Tours were paid for per person, per hour, which made today’s work a valuable supplement to her rental and bookstore income. “The nuns work with blind children too, so I took them to see the inventor of the braille typewriter and his machine. While we were there, a girl who was both blind and deaf came forward—Helen, I think, was her name—and when she was introduced to the inventor, she gave him a hug and a kiss. It was so moving, watching them meet.” It was easily the highlight of Sylvie’s week.