Chapter 13

It's something that Katherine thinks on, as she walks home. What people think of her and Jack. Whether it is widely assumed that Jack is regularly requiring something for the weekend. Whether he should be. Winter is drawing in across New York, even though it's only mid-October and the trees have shed their leaves completely now, a crunchy carpet beneath her shoes. As a child she had loved to run and play in them, laughing and cavorting in them along the pavement outside their house. Then one day father said that she was too old for such thinks. Leaves were for walking on, not playing in. Such behaviour wasn't ladylike.

It's late, when she gets home, well after dinner has been served, thank goodness. Katherine takes the tradesmen's entrance round the back, turning her key in the lock and slipping up the servants' stairs, hoping that she'll manage to make it to her bedroom without being cornered by one member of her family or another. She thinks she's managed it, too, until she passes the doorway to her parents' room just as her father emerges. Katherine feels a little bit like she'd just like to shrivel up and die right at that moment. Her father looks at her. There it is again. Appraising.

"Katherine."

"Father." She looks at where he's standing in the corridor. Can she sneak past him before he says something awful?

"You're late." She shrugs in response and is rewarded with a glare of irritation. He'd always hated it when they didn't 'use their words' as children; they'd always been told off for it. Somehow, he hadn't thought 'using her words' was a compelling argument for her career choice, though. "Your conduct-"

"Is none of your concern. I'm not your perfect daughter, Father." She snaps. Katherine knows she shouldn't, but she's tired, damnit, and stressed.

"No." His lips twist. "You're a slut." He walks past her and down the stairs, leaving her frozen in place, heavy-limbed and mouth open.

The words are still ringing in her ears on Sunday when, once again, they go and sit in their regular pew at church. Sit in their regular places. Kneel at the regular times. It's performative, somehow, in a way that Katherine feels that it shouldn't be. The minister stands in his pulpit and speaks to the evils of fornication. This time, it's her father who looks over at her, but unlike him the week prior, Katherine notices. She feels hot shame bubble in her stomach and wonders whether what she's doing right now is as bad as everyone seems to think it is. After all, she and Jack haven't done anything, not really. Sure, things have got a bit heated, but Jack has been nothing if not a gentleman throughout. As soon as she so much hints at wanting to stop, he pulls away as fast as if he's been burned.

She thinks about it during lunch and then some more as she walks to Elizabeth's. The two of them aren't close, not by any means, though she used to think they were. Until she'd met Jack and the rest of the newsies, this is what she'd thought friendship was, these tea parties and embroidery circles. Now she knows that friendship is more than that. But this isn't a topic that she feels that Race would be particularly helpful with, at least not if she ever wants to show her face amongst the newsies again, and she knows that if she tries to talk to Davey about it then he'll just turn bright red and develop a stammer. So, Elizabeth it is.

The other woman seems pleased to see her, pouring her tea and making polite small talk in the little parlour that adjoins her bedroom in the enormous townhouse owned by her parents. Katherine isn't sure exactly what it is that Eliza's parents do, but it's something to do with the fortune to be made with diamond imports from Africa. The room is a bit too pink for Katherine's tastes, the wallpaper the sickly sort of pink of the sweets that are piled in the jars behind the post office counter for small children with sticky fingers to drool over. On the coffee table, beside the dainty china tea set patterned with forget-me-nots, is a small black-and-white photograph in an intricate silver frame. Mr. Vanderbilt stares out, impassive, in a startlingly white garden party suit. Katherine smiles a little, knowing that if Jack ever put one of those on it would stay white for all of two seconds. The boy is a veritable magnet for dirt.

"How are you and Mr. Vanderbilt?" Katherine asks, accepting the teacup handed to her.

"Very well, thank you." Elizabeth replies, sinking back into a plush velvet sofa, this one in an aggressive shade of fuchsia. Katherine tries not to look directly at it for fear of being blinded. "I believe he may propose soon; he has spoken of marriage within the next year, which makes Father exceptionally happy."

Katherine sips her tea, startled. Rose, of course, had married Dr. Graceton last year, the first in their little group to do so. But Rose was three years older than Katherine and Eliza. The prospect of Elizabeth, only a month younger than her, but still younger, being married is jarring.

"So soon?"

"We've been properly courting for nigh on two months now, Katherine." Elizabeth laughs, a practiced, high society laugh like a tinkling bell. "It hardly takes longer than that to get to know someone's character, if one is asking the right questions. Besides, we will of course have to have a summer wedding, by which time I shall have had my birthday, and nineteen is a perfectly respectable age to get married."

Katherine inclines her head. She supposes it is, really. And if she really thinks about it, maybe it isn't so young at all. She thinks about being able to live with Jack, to step out with him without having people whispering behind their hands. She thinks about being able to wake up next to him every morning and wrap her arms around him while they cook together. She thinks about being able to be alone with him as much as she likes without fear of being interrupted. No, perhaps marriage has some appealing qualities after all.

"Are you excited?" She asks.

"I suppose?" Elizabeth looks taken aback, as if she'd never even considered that excitement was something, she should be feeling in regards to getting married. "I've not given it much thought. I have planned the wedding colours though, we're to have mint green, and you must be a bridesmaid, of course."

Katherine wonders whether there's something wrong with her, whether there's something broken with her womanhood, that she's like this. That she wants a career, that she wants to kiss Jack rather than endures it, that when she thinks about getting married she thinks about sleepy mornings in the kitchen rather than her desired colour scheme. Maybe that was what people meant when they said 'always a bridesmaid, never a bride'. Elizabeth's wedding would be her third time as a bridesmaid. She wonders whether Jack thinks about it – whether he sees her the way her father does. Whether that cheeky boy she met on the street in those heady days before the strike was the real Jack Kelly, a flirt who was interested in skirt-chasing but not seriousness. Is she just a slut? Is Jack hanging around to get under her skirt and then leave her, ruined reputation and no prospects? She pushes the thoughts away. They're stupid and she knows it. Jack is good and loyal and loves her. He always puts her first. She is not going to let her father poison this, too, this good thing that's finally hit her in the form of Jack Kelly.

"It would be an honour."

"And what of yourself?" Eliza asks lightly. "Have you reconsidered your stance on Darcy yet?"

"You say it as if it were an inevitability!" Katherine responds in kind, trying valiantly to suppress an eye roll.

"Isn't it?" Elizabeth shrugs, taking a pointed sip of her tea. "The man is crazy about you."

"I haven't seen him in months, Eliza." Katherine attempts to shut this conversation down. She had sort of come to talk about Jack, but not like this. This wasn't the way that she'd wanted.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Elizabeth sing-songs. Her tone reminds Katherine of Race when he teases Jack, calling up the fire escape things about the two of them sitting in a tree and nonsense about a baby carriage. Although it still makes her blush, it seems more innocent coming from Race. More affectionate.

"Eliza, you know that I'm with Jack."

Immediately, Elizabeth's nose wrinkles in disdain. She tries to hide it behind her teacup, but Katherine sees it written across her face like words in an open book. Why couldn't these people see in him what she did?

"Ah, yes," the words border on a sneer, "your bit of rough."

"Eliza!" Katherine almost drops her cup.

"Oh come on, Katherine, I'm only teasing." Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "We both know you're only with him to spite your father. Why else would you be carrying on the way you are?" Katherine frowns, recovering herself.

"What do you mean, carrying on?"

"Well, pretending to be so loose. The rumours must be infuriating him." Elizabeth looks positively gleeful.

Katherine wonders, for the first time, if this is actually what her friend wants. If her vicarious delight in Katherine's illicit affair isn't a manifestation of her own desires. Well, it hadn't quite been the way that she'd wanted to get to the topic, but Katherine isn't going to complain. This could, though, she knows, be rather painful. Steeling herself, she asks:

"What rumours?"

"You don't know?" Perfectly plucked eyebrows heighten on the other woman's forehead.

"What rumours, Eliza?" No nonsense.

Elizabeth's glee drops away and she suddenly becomes exceptionally interested in the dregs of tea at the bottom of her cup.

"It's not my place to say."

"Eliza." Katherine warns, putting her cup and saucer down a little harder than strictly necessary, making the china rattle.

Elizabeth shifts uncomfortably on the sofa and leans forward to pour herself another cup of tea in the slowest manner humanly possible. Katherine can feel the coil in her stomach winding and winding, ready to snap – she's about to, when:

"The rumour that you're…" Elizabeth lowers her voice to a whisper, looking around the room, "sleeping with him. That you've been seen going into his apartment building alone."

"Oh, for pity's sake." Katherine slumps backwards and throws an arm over her eyes. Honestly, trust Elizabeth to make it quite so dramatic. The rumour though…

"It's not true!" Elizabeth gasps at her friend's response, quite clearly convinced it is true. "Katherine -"

"Of course it isn't true!" Katherine snaps. Stops. Adds, slight sheepishly: "Well, the sleeping with him bit."

Elizabeth eyes bulge out of their sockets in a manner rather reminiscent of a bullfrog and she nearly chokes on her tea. For the millionth time that day, Katherine once again resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"You have been… alone with him, though?"

"Yes."

"Katherine… your reputation."

"I know." Like I need reminding. Elizabeth presses her lips together, disapproving, but Katherine takes no notice, engrossed in her own thoughts. "Does everybody think we're sleeping together?"

"Most people think you're pretending to in order to rebel against your father." Elizabeth shrugs.

Right. Katherine can't deny that her father's irritation is satisfying, because it really is. She loves to see the fury on his face when she mentions Jack at the dinner table, just daring him to make some comment. But then again, stunts like that are what nearly got Jack killed the other week and she has learned her lesson. She'll be keeping things on the down low from now on. But it makes her sad that others would think so little of her, that they would imagine that she'd step out with a man whom she didn't love just to spite her father. She makes a mental note to tell Jack how wonderful he is when she next sees him – he'll probably turn up to walk her home after work one night this week; he'd promised he would. Other people might doubt her, but she won't be leaving him in any doubt of why she's with him.

"Katherine… if this is true… perhaps you should reconsider Darcy sooner than we thought." It takes Katherine a moment to realise Elizabeth is speaking again, but when she finally processes her friend's words, they smart something awful.

"I'm not leaving Jack." She speaks the words with finality. Elizabeth crinkles her nose in displeasure.

"You can't be – Katherine, you've always been impulsive, but please. Think of the long-term consequences here."

Long term consequences. Right.

…

When Jack comes out of the interview in the offices of The Wall Street Journal, he strides around the corner into an alley and lets out a breath he's been holding since he walked in over an hour ago. How the hell he'd just done that, he will never know. He leans against the wall, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. It's only when he realises that it's probably not the best idea to lean against the damp, mossy, brick wall because this is his good suit, the one that Katherine got him in the soft, charcoal grey, and it really wouldn't do to ruin it on its first outing, and he stands up properly, that it hits him. This time last Tuesday, he'd been in bed recovering from a life-threatening infection, worrying about how he was going to make rent for him and Crutchie. And now, well, now he's just been promised more money than he's ever heard of in his life. And he knows that he's whipped, because the only thing he wants to do is tell Katherine.

It's quite a way to the offices of the Sun, especially when you're running with ribs that are still sore as hell, but somehow Jack can't quite bring himself to care. The late afternoon sunlight streaks across the city pavements as he pulls in great gulps of chill autumnal air. Jack passes Buttons hawking papes on a street corner and tips him off to get the guys round to Jacobi's – they've got some celebrating to do. He's not been on a high like this since the strike and after all he's been through in the past few months, he damn well deserves it. He makes it to her office five minutes before she usually leaves, at least according to the clock set in the tower of the church a little further down the street, so he has time, at least, to nearly cough up a lung whilst leaning against the building opposite. So maybe he's not quite back to full health yet. Who cares? He's fucking rich.

When Katherine steps out of the office, blinking in the sunshine after hours staring at black ink on white paper, her tired eyes don't spot him at first. She's half-preoccupied with speaking Mr. Ross, one of her many pain-in-the-ass editors, as he pesters her for the third time this week to allow him to walk her home. She's tired, she's fed up of stupid newsroom staff, and she just wants some peace; but, apparently, that's too much to ask. Amidst all this, she hardly even sees Jack coming.

But Jack is coming, and come he does, with a flare of jealousy and protectiveness in gut that even the day's good fortune can't quite douse. Mr. Ross' hand on her arm is sharply withdrawn and she hears quick, defined footsteps behind her, and then she's whirling round, caught up in Jack with his bright eyes and dark curls and dazzling grin. He kisses her like he's a man dying of thirst and she's an oasis. It's deep and passionate and completely inappropriate and Katherine can't bring herself to care about it, propriety be damned, and she catches the lapels of his jacket between her fingers and tugs him closer.

When they finally break away, Jack turns, far more coolly that he has any right to after a kiss like that, Katherine thinks, and offers his hand to Mr. Ross.

"You must be Mista Ross, sir. Pleased to meet'cha. Sorry, just couldn't wait to see my girl." Mr. Ross, as if on autopilot, takes Jack's hand in his pudgy one. His fingers are like cold sausages, clad in rings which the flesh bulges out above and below. He opens and closes his mouth a few times in a manner not dissimilar to a goldfish, before finally managing:

"Mr….?" The word comes out an octave higher than it probably should. Jack smirks.

"Kelly. Jack Kelly."

Katherine just looks up at Jack, unable to form any words. He still hasn't let go of her, just pulled her round and tucked her into his side, his arm around her waist and his thumb brushing the waistband of her skirt where her shirt is tucked in. In the sunlight, he almost has a halo, the loose curls at the edges of his outline stained orange in the setting sun. It's ridiculous, that Jack Kelly would be the one with a halo, when he's sporting that wicked grin. Especially in that suit – don't get her started on the suit. It's the first time she's seen him in it and there's a sense of smug pride knowing that he's wearing something that she picked out for him. He looks damn good in it too, now that Medda has spent the past few days feeding him up and giving him back a little of the weight he lost to the infection. Beneath the jacket, there's a hint of broad shoulders and she can feel the strength of him, warm and radiating across her from the arm around her waist. Katherine thinks she could ruin herself over him. She thinks she might have already.

"Ah." The man is struck a little dumb. His eyes flick between the couple, once, twice. "Well, Mr. Kelly, I really must be going." Mr. Ross straightens his shoulders and touches his hand to the brim of his bowler hat. "Miss Plumber." He bids her goodbye.

Katherine lets him get half a block away before she brings her hand up to smack at Jack's chest, speaking his name in chastisement. The sentiment is somewhat diluted by the fact that she's definitely snuggling into his side and doesn't remove the hand from his chest.

"What?" Jack asks, looking down at her with faux innocence, eyes sparkling. She rolls her eyes.

"Bit much, don't you think?"

"Jus' don't want 'im gettin' any ideas." Jack shrugs, grinning. He'd be lying if he said that another man laying a hand on Katherine (especially with what she'd told him about Mr. Ross – he recalls one particular occasion where she spoke the words 'sleazy' and 'buffoon' in the same sentence) didn't make him feel like he'd been lit on fire, but he can handle it. Today is going well, he's not going to ruin it. He squeezes her waist, tugging her a little closer. How was she supposed to stay annoyed at him? "C'mon Ace, don't be mad at me. I's got great news!"

"Oh yeah?" She pulls away a little, to look up at him, but doesn't remove her hand from where it's resting over his heart.

"Yeah." His grin grows impossibly wider. Jack turns to face her, taking both of her hands in his. "You is lookin' at the next executive illustrator for The Wall Street Journal."

There's so much glee in his in his expression. It's infectious, but Katherine doesn't need any help to reach his giddy heights.

"No!" She squeals, squeezing his hands and then throwing her arms around his neck, pulling him into a fierce hug.

"Betta' believe it!" Jack crows, wrapping his arms around her, his voice loud in her ear.

She squeezes him tight, then steps back carefully, not quite far enough to disentangle herself from his embrace. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she looks up at him in something like awe.

"Jack, that's fantastic! Congratulations! What? How?"

"They sent me a letter invitin' me for interview, sayin' they likes my work. Found my address in some book now I's got an apartment. Wanted to steal me from The World and were very 'appy that they didn't hafta deal wi' your father."

Neither of them can stop smiling. They look like idiots, Katherine knows, grinning like clowns at one another in the middle of the pavement. She doesn't stop.

"When do you start?"

"Next month – first o' November."

"Oh, Jack," her hand comes up to cup his face, her tiredness whisked away by the force of his enthusiasm, "I'm so proud of you."

"You ain't even heard the best part!" Jack grins, his eyes alight as he jabbers on. "They's promised me twenty-three dollars a week, Ace. I's rich! I's gonna be able to help out the boys an' take you on proper dates! Ain't that jus' the best thing you's ever heard?"

"You're fantastic." She says, and she means it.

There are other thoughts of course. Thoughts of how little he must have been making before for twenty-three dollars a week, which, whilst more than a regular labourer, was pretty standard for an office employee with Jack's skill, to make him feel rich. Thoughts of how that's less than her monthly allowance, never mind her wage. But it's a living wage – and, Katherine thinks, before she can stop herself, more than enough for the two of them to live on comfortably if they were to get married.

"The boys an' I, we's goin' to Jacobi's tonight to celebrate." Jack says, cutting in on her reverie. "You wanna come?"

"I don't know." She replies, before she can think it through.

It's like someone has poured an ice-cold bucket of water over Jack. His face falls and he pulls away a little, her hand dropping from his face.

"Has I done somethin'?" He frowns. "Was it that Mista Ross?"

"No, no, nothing like that." She assures him.

"Then what?"

What, indeed? How was she going to put this? Katherine avoids his gaze, trying to choose the perfect words. Somehow, words always seemed to escape her whenever she was talking to Jack. Sit her in front of a typewriter and she could churn out pages and pages of perfect prose, but stand her in front of her boyfriend and, all of a sudden, she was dumb as a brick.

"Do you think we ought to have chaperone?" She asks quietly.

"So you's gonna hafta define that word for me." Jack remarks. There's a lightness in his tone, but Katherine knows he finds it difficult when he has to ask her such things. It reminds him of how different they are. She can see it in the little twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"Someone who sort of… goes along with us." She ventures, still not meeting his eyes. "Makes sure nothing… compromising happens." Katherine manages to look up at him then and immediately regrets it. He looks positively stricken.

"Katherine, I know it got a little much when Medda walked in th'other day, but I swear, I ain't pushin' for nothin'-" Jack gabbles out before she manages to cut him off.

"No, I know that! I trust you completely. It's just – there are… rumours."

"Rumours?"

"About us, well, me. That I'm, you know." Jack raises an eyebrow. She clarifies. "Sleeping with you."

"Oh." Jack looks wary, but she can't quite read him.

He's like this sometimes, and it makes him feel so far out of her reach. Katherine's getting used to it, or trying to, knowing that this ability probably kept him alive growing up the way he did. She had overhead a comment a tactless Race had made to a small, crying newsie a few weeks ago. Snyder jus' beat us harder when we cried, he'd said, count your blessin's. So, Katherine can deal with Jack holding back a little emotion. She waits.

"If you would feel more comfortable wi' a chaperone or whatever, then I's happy to go along with that. Whatever makes you happy." Jack says slowly, all solemn-like. "But, it don't matter what we has, Katherine, people are gonna talk about us. The world ain't gonna stop thinkin' we're crazy jus' 'cos some other person vouches that I ain't got my hand up your skirt." She winces at his less than delicate phrasing, but nods.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Jack questions. She smiles a little.

"Let them think we're crazy. I want to be alone with you–" her eyes widen, "-wait, not like that," she blushes, then sees a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and rolls her eyes at him, "oh, you know what I mean."

"Sure I do, Ace." He smiles. Not his big, devil-may-care grin, but a small one, gentle. Just for her. "An' I jus' wants to say, as well. I know, I's said it before, an' I swear I ain't sayin' it to get a leg over or nothin', but, well, I am gonna ask you to marry me. It ain't gonna be today, an' it gonna tomorrow, but I will. I wants to make sure that I can give you everythin' you deserve, 'fore I ask. But I will ask."

She's surprised by the seriousness in his eyes and the nervousness there, the way he can't quite keep himself from fidgeting as he speaks, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. Well, that certainly answers her question. Her high society friends will, she knows, tell her that she's naïve, taken in by a street urchin's pretty promises. But it's Jack, her Jack, and god help her if she doesn't trust him with her life.

"I know." She says, as sweet as if there were sugar on her lips, leaning up to brush a kiss against his perfect mouth. "I love you."

"I love you too." He smiles down at her. "C'mon, we's got a reservation at Jacobi's. You never know, I might even buy you a seltzer. I's goin' up in the world, after all."

Jack grins, pulling her close once again with an arm around her waist, and bumps her hip with his own. Cheeky boy. She smiles up at him, bumping him back. He staggers a little, mocking her, the grin stuck on his face like glue.

"Jack Kelly, you sure know how to treat a girl."