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Great Writing - Home > Extended > The Red Devils - Chapter 12
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Extended Work
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| The Red Devils - Chapter 12 | |
| By jean.day | ||||||||||||||
| 27 February 2008 | ||||||||||||||
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Friday finally dawned, and it was hard to concentrate on our mornings’ work at school. But we had permission to leave school at lunchtime, and we hurried to the station on Water Street. The train was not overly full and we had a compartment shared with only two other people, an elderly woman and a man who looked to be in business. It as a fine day, and we stared out the window at the passing countryside, which we had never seen before - going by Fairfield, Southport, Westport, Norfolk, Stamford, Greenwich, and then into New York State at Port Chester, New Rochelle, Tremont, in the Bronx and finally over the King’s bridge and into Manhattan, stopping at 127th Street in Harlem before we finally arrived at Grand Central Station. And what a monster of a building it is - that famous train station. Mr. Hudson had had the foresight to write “Kellogg girls” on a placard and held it up in front of himself. We were then confronted by a tall thin man of about fifty, looking very nervous, as if he had a million things to do and wished this particular job he had taken upon himself would be swiftly over. “Hello,” I said. “We are Mattie and Cora Sue Kellogg. Are you Mr. Hudson?” He took off his hat, and shook our hands gravely. “Yes, I am Fredrick Hudson from the New York Herald. Did you have a good trip?” “Yes, thank you very much. And it is so kind of you to meet us and to have arranged this weekend for us. We are so much looking forward to it,” put in Cora Sue. “Well, let me take your case. And we can push our way through the crowd here to that door. My driver has the carriage waiting outside. Luckily the weather has not been too unkind to us today, and hopefully it will stay fine and reasonable for your visit.” “Yes, that would be very wonderful, but any weather would do. We cannot believe we are really in New York City,” I replied somewhat gauchely. “Do you know anything at all about New York City?” he asked as we stepped into the carriage. His driver put our case in the back. “We’ve never been here, but we have been reading up about it since we knew we were coming.” “Well, your hotel, the Washington Hotel, is situated in a part of New York called ‘Greenwich Village.’ Have you heard of it?” We shook our heads to say no. “It is really the place where artists gather, and you will find street artists offering to draw your pictures tomorrow. You will see the most wonderful stalls, and the restaurants and shops in the area are unique. As Greenwich Village was once a rural hamlet, entirely separate from New York, its street layout does not coincide with most of Manhattan's more formal grid plan. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curved at odd angles. Additionally, unlike most of Manhattan above Houston St, streets in the Village typically are named rather than numbered. Greenwich Village is located on what was once marshland. In the 16th century Native Americans referred to it as Sapokanikan which means"tobacco field". The land was cleared and turned into pasture by Dutch settlers in the 1630s who named their settlement Noortwyck. The English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland in 1664 and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet separate from the larger and faster-growing New York City to the south. It officially became a village in 1712 and is first referred to as Grin'wich in 1713 Common Council records.” “That’s fascinating, “I said. “I can’t wait to see it.” But it was no more than ten minutes of driving through the main streets of New York before we arrived at our hotel on Greenwich Street. The building was in Queen Ann style with red brick mixed with brownstone detailing. It had multi-paned windows on white wooden frames, with a large front porch. It was not at all overwhelming, for which we were grateful. Mr. Freeman carried our case up to the door, and through into the reception area. A very efficient woman sat at the desk, and when he told her that the Kellogg girls had arrived, she smiled and asked us to fill out a form. Then we were told our room was number 4, just down the corridor on the right. A young boy of about eight came out to take our suitcase, and Mr. Hudson tipped him a penny. “Well, I shall leave you to sort yourselves out. These girls have a dinner reservation for here this evening,” he said to the woman at the desk. “Yes, that is all in hand, Mr. Hudson,” she said. “Dinner will be served until 8, so I suggest you freshen up quickly and then come back here and I will show you where the dining room is.” “So I will have a cab sent to pick you girls up at 9.45 tomorrow morning. I expect you can get breakfast here, is that correct?” he said to the woman.“Yes, breakfast is served from 6.30-8.30.” “Well, I wish you a pleasant evening and look forward to meeting you again tomorrow morning.” He again shook each of our hands, very formally, and was off, with no doubt great relief. He certainly was not relishing this job that Mr. Bennett has forced upon him. We thanked the woman at the desk and made our way down the corridor to our room, number 4. It was huge - twice the size of our room at home, and it had a 4 poster bed with a canopy and all. And there was a water closet within the same room. This must be a very posh hotel. We quickly washed our hands and faces, brushed down our dresses and hung up our outdoor cloaks and bonnets in the wardrobe, and went back to get directions to the dining room.There were perhaps a dozen other dinners already seated and in the process of eating their meals. We were shown to a table set for two, and were given the menu to peruse, while the waiter filled our glasses with water. “Can I offer you young ladies something else in the way of refreshment while you make up your minds?” “We are too young for wine,” said Cora Sue, “so what other sorts of drinks do you have?” “We could offer you lemonade, which I think you will find most acceptable for accompanying any of our meals. Or we have orange juice or non-alcoholic apple cider.” We agreed that we would like lemonade and he went off to fetch the drinks.When the waiter returned we both ordered chicken, with mashed potatoes and green beans, as we know what it was that we would be eating, unlike some of the other menu items. The food was delicious and we cleaned up our plates. When the waiter came with the bill, we told him our room number and that we were the guests of Mr. Fredrick Hudson.We then returned to our room, passing by the library and ladies’ writing rooms near the dining room, and fell exhausted into our very comfortable feather bed, and went straight to sleep.
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