Brookland (42 page)

Prue had felt guilty about the prospect of injuring Losee ever since she had conceived the idea for the bridge. She was afraid if she did not speak with care, she would burst out in apology to him, which would not address the issue at all. “I know Mr. Fischer's ferry has come as a blow to you,” she said, “but I also know how many people in Brookland are loyal to you, and will continue to ride your boat simply because it is yours.”

He shrugged his great shoulders. “Of course I shall carry on. A bridge, however; that would change things.”

“There will always be those who prefer to cross by water,” Prue said, feeling her voice weak.

“During a freeze?” Losee asked.

She almost wished he sounded angrier, so she might be angry in turn. “I agree there will be competition between ferry and bridge,” she responded, doing her best to maintain an even tone, “but I see no reason there should not be sufficient custom for both.”

Losee's kind face darkened. “I am the only man in Brookland must compete for his business. Think about it, Prue: one alehouse, one tavern; one rope manufactory; one sawmill, one gristmill; one chandlery. If there are three smithies, there are enough horses to occupy two more. One surveyor. What would you say if someone proposed to distill gin at Red Hook?”

“I don't know,” she replied. The answer that sprang to mind concerned the relative likelihood of a newcomer being able to produce good
gin on such a scale; and she had the sense to keep this to herself. “Perhaps I should say that after all the kindness you have ever shown me and my family, I would not willingly do anything to harm you.” Her throat was dry again, and she didn't know how much longer she could speak. “If the bridge serves its purpose of increasing trade to our port, that will, I hope, redound to your business's good as much as to anyone's.”

She felt certain Losee would object, but he only looked at her, his mobile old face hardened and set. “I shall not sign for you,” he said. “But neither shall I seek to influence my neighbors. They'll do as they think's best. Good day, Prue.” He cupped his hat over his heart and made his way back through the crowd. Someone coughed.

“Are there other questions?” Prue asked, in an attempt to clear the air. Her voice had a break in its middle. She worried that Losee's dilemma might sway the opinions of his friends. The flag continued to crack in the breeze, but no one spoke for what seemed an uncomfortable while.

“Thank you for your time, then,” Ben said. “The gin flows freely from those two casks; and should anyone wish to sign our petition, you will find it, along with pens, ink, and a blotter, on the table outside the brew-house, at the southern end of the property.”

There followed some applause, but as the crowd began to open up, Prue could only watch Losee, and a small party with him, departing up the Shore Road.

Most of the listeners remained, however, to drink and discuss; and though Prue tried not to watch, there seemed a steady enough flow of persons to and from the brewhouse. People continued to stand around drinking for hours; and it was well past suppertime when at last Boerum's high-spirited son and his drunken compatriots broke into fisticuffs and removed themselves to the Liberty Tavern. Only the lees were left of the second cask, but Tem proposed they finish them. She looked exhausted.

Ben said, “Before we drink, let us see how our petition fared.”

Tem tried to lean against the cask, which creaked and fixed to roll off its sawhorses.

“I'm not certain I can bear to,” Prue said.

Tem said, “There's always more gin if the news is bad.” She led the way to the brewhouse.

The sunlight shining in across shadowed Manhattan was tinged orange and cast a warm glow on the page on which Ben had written their
petition. It was covered in signatures, which ran on to fill six more sheets. There were hundreds of names, some curly as new ferns, others mere X's scratched by hands more used to gruffer labor. “Dear God,” Prue said as she shuffled through them. She began to laugh. Ben seized the papers, handed them to Tem, and lifted Prue up to spin her around.

“I knew it,” he shouted. “Hoo-hoo!”

Tem was laughing, too. “You'd best make plans for your departure,” she said.

“No,” Prue said. When Ben put her down, the mill yard continued to spin, and the sweet scent of his sweat clung to her chest and arms. “No, first the mayor and the aldermen. Then Albany.”

“Come,” Ben said. “I want to read them.”

Tem spread them out on the board so they might see.

For all the names she saw there, it hurt Prue that Joe Loosely's familiar scrawl was not to be found. Losee's she did not expect to see, nor Rem Cortelyou's, nor Mr. Livingston's. She tried to concentrate on all those Luquers turning the notion around their practical noggins and pronouncing it worthwhile; but it still pained her, that she could not earn the support of most of her father's friends.

“I feel certain you will go to Albany,” Tem said.

Prue said, “Thank you,” and gathered the papers to her breast.

“Are you joining us for supper?” Tem asked Ben.

“If I may.”

“If there is any,” Prue said. “Abiah never came back. I hope Pearl is well.”

“If nothing else, there's soup and bread,” Tem offered. “And gin, of course.”

Ben said, “It will be a fine supper.”

Prue let him lead her by the hand up to the house, and could not quit dreaming of how different Brooklyn would be when her bridge leapt out from its soil, a marvel for all the world to admire.

Sec
^nd
April, Winship Gin

Beloved Recompense—

As your mother, I believe I may say you have always thus been sensitive to the travails of others. It is not merely the fault of your condition, & you may believe me it is one of your many qualities I cherish.

You are correct that disappointment is a terrible circumstance,—among the most terrible,—but there are others, more painful still, from which I would rather seek to shield you. Perhaps I should counsel you to keep your dreams of modest size; then you can your self prevent any great disillusionment in that regard, & leave your mother to fret on your behalf about all those affairs no man nor woman may control.

As you see, I survived, so there is naught to worry over on my account. I do appreciate your concern.

Your Aunt Tem, however: Now there was a puzzle. What was I to do with her? So pretty;—moderately good natured;—shewing increasing skill at the distillery;—and yet so
proud
, she would have no man, nor make aught of her life.

The very evening after our petition-signing, Mr. Fischer showed up in the countinghouse. He bore a bouquet of daisies & wore a white weskit to match.—Miss Temperance, he said, bowing, as he knocked and entered, will you do me the honour of accompanying me for a stroll?

She rolled her eyes and would certainly have refused had I not stood
at our desk staring her down.—Yes, she said in a tone flat as a griddle cake, a stroll sounds like just the thing.

As they left together he offered her his arm, but she would not take it. I remained another half hour balancing the accompts, & did not expect to see her until supper;—but lo, she came bounding in, and flung the daisies down, shouting,—God damn! The
Insolence!

—Tem, I said, please.

She stalked directly to our shelf, and took a drink from the bottle. —He
proposed marriage
to me, she said. Had she been a bull I daresay her expression would have caused me to run.—Miss Temperance, she said, folding her hands before her in cruel imitation of her suitor, I realize you may not hold me in the highest possible regard; & yet I believe you will find, on further acquaintance, I am a man of sterling character; and once I am won, I am a friend for life. I hope you will therefore not think me
importunate
if I &c. &c. Christ! (Here, of course, she laid aside his gesture & articulation, and took a swig from the bottle.)

—And what did you say? I ventured.

—What
did I
say?

—He is a proper handsome gentleman, I said. Wealthy, & obviously struck with you.

—He is an intolerable bore, Tem said. She took a third long drink.—He spoke of the
advantage
to our
businesses
. He said the family that owned both a ferry and a bridge could comfortably be said to own all Brookland.

—I cannot disagree with him, said I.

—Fine, then, she said. You marry him. Or let him marry Pearl.

I would have objected, but she had already gone out again & slammed the door. I knew not to dwell on't. Temmy was 19 years old,—mistress of her own fate, howsoever she might chuse to squander it, and it was not for me to tell her where lay her happiness, & furthermore other issues required my attention. The morning had brought a scruffy delivery boy bearing a letter for Ben from New-York's aldermen, who had heard with great interest of our meeting the previous day, and charged us to bring our model & drawings for their perusal at our earliest convenience. This we planned to do the Wednesday morning, & I was full of trepidation about it. The only man I knew who had any connexion with the board of alders was Timothy Stover, my banker;
who had told me (I could not tell if with disdain or relish) they were
drinkers, garners, theatre-goers
, and in short the kind of
urbane gentlemen
who could eat a country lass like me at teatime and still have appetite for their evening roast.

In a panic, Prue took Pearl to Mrs. Tilley's the next morning, picked out some deep blue yard goods, and left them off with the seamstress, muttering vague instructions for a dress to be made along the same straight, fashionable cut as Pearl's. Of course it could not be done by the morning, despite its simplicity; and Prue did not like the woman's smirk as she wrote down the order.

She thinks you're after a Husband
, Pearl wrote as Prue closed the jangling door behind them. Then Pearl clicked her tongue at her sister as one would to a chicken, and butted her forehead against her shoulder.

Pieter Huber, the cobbler, also broke into a waggish grin when Prue requested a pair of black ladies' shoes with pointed toes, delicate heels, and a row of buttons to fasten them. “Won't last a day, Miss Winship,” he said, exhibiting the brown stubs of his former teeth. “Not the way you treat your boots.”

Not for th. Distillery
, Pearl wrote in what Prue thought an unusually prim hand.

“Ah, yes: dancing shoes,” he said. “When d'ye need them?”

Prue found the entire situation mortifying. She said, “As soon as possible.”

“Yesterday week. Without fail.”

When they were back out in the steaming turnpike, Pearl wrote,
What a Donkey. I do hoap you get to wear the shoes to Albany. What a fine Lady you'll seem to those Rubes!

“Don't fool yourself,” Prue replied. She wanted to yell at someone, but reminded herself to take care it not be Pearl. “If they're sophisticated enough to pay for a bridge, their wives have very good shoes.”

Prue would go in her old brown dress to Mayor Varick and the aldermen, and beforehand had the sense to load a cask of gin onto the barge with the cumbersome model bridge and the elevation, both of which were wrapped in oilcloth. Before they left she also took Ben aside and offered him $300 in Bank of New-York paper money. His eyes nearly
jumped clear of his head, and Prue wondered if he'd never before seen notes in such large denominations. “What on earth is this for?” he asked.

She was still ruffled from her visit to the shops the previous day, as well as nervous about their errand, and she said, “Ben, don't be such an innocent.” She did not think they'd get far with the politicians of New York unless he could be more canny; but he continued to look at her with his blue eyes wide and to hold the money in his hand rather than to pocket it. “I don't know to what exact end you might have need of it,” she told him in a more careful tone. “Only that it may prove useful to have it on your person.”

He shook his head with a rueful smile, folded the thick stack of money, and tucked it into his burgundy waistcoat. (Even as Prue wrote to Recompense more than twenty years later, she did not know with what subtlety Ben had deployed that money. By day's end, it had been gone—taken as tribute, Prue had supposed, along with her gin. She had later asked him what he'd done with it, but he'd refused to answer, saying, “A man must have some secrets from his future wife. Else what will provide the mystery when they have exhausted all other subjects of conversation?” She was pleased this act of bribery was not the only topic left to them.)

The aldermen were a glib and cultured crowd, but they too had long been dreaming of a bridge; and as Ben and Prue hoped to have it financed by the state, some thought it might be possible to get it at very little personal expense. Mr. Harrison had, furthermore, written an article of superlative praise for the plan's ingenuity, and had thus already influenced many of the alders' opinions. They brought the matter straightaway to a vote—viva
voce
, with Ben and Prue standing right there—and a few more than half gave their consent to the proposition. Prue had worried about Mr. Varick's long, sallow face and dyspeptic appearance while Ben spoke; yet he, too, voted in favor of the petition to Albany. He also offered his help in Ben's suit to a Mr. Cornelius Brouwer, who owned the Old Market Wharf, should Ben prove fortunate enough to have reason to approach him.