These Shallow Graves Read Online Free PDF Page A

the donning of somber clothing. Jo would wear black for six months, her mother for two years. After that, touches of white were allowed, and then gray or mauve.
    Attendance at balls and parties was not allowed for half a year, but mourners could attend church and, after three months, concerts. Visitors could not be received for several months—except for family and close friends. Nor could the bereaved pay social calls to anyone not in their immediate circle.
    At Charles Montfort’s funeral luncheon, Grandmama had loudly opined that the whole blasted custom was a pretentious middle-class invention and refused to have anything to do with it.
    â€œBlack dresses for months on end … pah! If I wanted to wear black all the time, I’d join the clergy.”
    Jo’s mother had relented, and Jo had been grateful to her uncle for providing her with an escape. She’d been so desperate to prolong that escape that she’d grabbed the little box containing the whiskey flask for Mr. Stoatman as she’d left the house that morning, hoping she’d be able to persuade Dolan to take her to Park Row.
    They were heading down Bowery now. Jo’s carriage was enclosed, the better to avoid noxious smells and bad weather, but its doors had generously sized windows, and she looked out of hers excitedly. An elevated railway ran the length of the street. Shopgirls walked arm in arm underneath it, laughing and chattering. Men loitering in doorways eyed them boldly. Barkers stood on wooden boxes shouting about dime circuses and snake dancers. Newsboys shouted the day’s headlines.
    Jo knew she shouldn’t sit at the edge of her seat, her face pressed to the glass— Eager young ladies aren’t ladies at all, her mother would’ve said—but she couldn’t help it. The New York before her now was so much more interesting than the one she knew, and alone in her carriage, away from the oppressiveness of her mother’s rules, she could give free rein to her insatiable curiosity.
    Her carriage crossed Grand Street, with the tenements of Little Italy to her right and the Jewish East Side to the left. The sidewalks were teeming with immigrants, and Jo yearned to know more about them. She’d heard stories: they lived ten to a room, spat on their fruit to clean it, ate pickles for breakfast, and were poor and wretched. But as she watched the people, she wondered if they knew they were wretched. They didn’t act it. They shouted their greetings. Sang their wares. Kissed each other on the cheek. They poked and slapped and hugged their children.
    One woman in particular caught Jo’s attention. Her clothes were grubby and ill-fitting. Her hair had been scraped into a messy bun. She was buying potatoes from a pushcart man, and he must’ve said something funny because suddenly she was laughing—with her head thrown back and a meaty hand pressed to her enormous, jiggling bosom.
    What’s it like to laugh like that? Jo wondered. She didn’t know. She never had. It wasn’t done north of Washington Square.
    A few minutes later, her carriage turned onto Park Row, home to many of the city’s newspapers. It stopped in front of the Standard ’s building—an old, squat brick structure nestled up against the tall new Tribune building.
    Dolan jumped down from his seat and opened the door. “In and out, Miss Jo,” he cautioned.
    â€œI won’t be a minute,” Jo promised.
    Her heart beat faster as she stepped inside the building. The small room in which she now stood served as the reception area. A wall separated it from the pressroom, but it did little to mute the pounding of the presses or contain the sharp, oily smell of ink. Copyboys raced down a staircase at her right, rushing finished stories to typesetters. Reporters raced up the same stairs, hurrying to the newsroom.
    Jo watched them with a longing so intense, it hurt. She’d loved this place from