Brookland (67 page)

He pulled the door back on its creaking hinges.

The gentlemen of the bank sat at cramped desks in neat rows, and were all in their shirtsleeves, crouched scratching at figures. The younger men had the same hunched posture as their elders. One glanced up from his paperwork, but did not appear to think much of Ben, Isaiah, and Prue. When Mr. Stover noticed them he sat up straight and said, “Ah, good morning. I hope I have not kept you waiting.”

“Good morning,” Prue replied. “We've only just arrived.”

Stover stood to welcome them to his cramped quarters. There were two small chairs across his desk, but his near neighbor immediately shutfled
over a third, for which Ben thanked him. “I take it, then, you found the terms of our offer satisfactory?” he asked.

Before answering him, she looked to Ben and Isaiah, but could not read their expressions. “We do not believe the assessment to be quite commensurate with the properties' worth, particularly as regards the risk of fire, against which we are more than adequately insured.”

Stover nodded. “Mr. Corey was concerned.”

“And we therefore think he has undervalued the property. I have brought our terms of insurance for your perusal,” she said, and removed a folded paper from the pocket of her coat. “If you like, you may yourself make inquiries at Associated Underwriters. I believe this would assuage Mr. Corey's doubts.” All around, pens continued to scratch, but Prue thought some of those nearest her had slowed as the men listened.

“I am sorry to hear you dissatisfied,” Mr. Stover said, and smoothed a hair over his balding crown. “Let me see what we have here.” He squinted at the page, but nodded to himself as he read it. Then he reached into the file behind him and extracted a thick sheaf of papers bearing the distillery's name. Prue could see he had already had the scrivener draw up contracts for the three separate properties. “I see,” he said after a time. “It appears that Mr. Corey did not account for quite such a thorough policy as you possess; in which case, I should be able to offer you”—he ran his finger down the page to arrive at a number—“thirty-five hundred more than the original estimate.”

“It's worth more than that,” Prue said. She felt poised either to yell at Mr. Stover or to have her heart break in public. She half wished Ben would offer some assistance; but this was her work, and she knew it.

Stover's face conveyed true sympathy. “I do understand your position,” he said. “But that is all I can offer you. Will you accept it?”

Prue looked to her husband and brother-in-law. Isaiah was gazing out one of the grubby windows, but Ben nodded to her slowly.

Prue said, “Yes.”

One of the nearby bankers rustled his papers, as if to prove he was returning to his work.

“Good,” Mr. Stover said. “The contracts are ready for the two houses; and I shall have the scrivener emend the contract for the works. It shouldn't take long.”

“Thank you,” Ben said. “We will, of course, appreciate it if we can take care of matters as soon as possible.”

“Yes,” Stover said, “right away. I shall see to it now” He stood with some difficulty and used his cane to walk to the other end of the bank, where Prue saw him conferring with a younger man, who took out a new sheet of paper to write upon. The wait for the contract seemed interminable; and Prue did not know what to do with her hands or her eyes. As if he read this on her, Ben took her hand in his own as they waited.

Stover returned perhaps a quarter hour later. “Very well, here it is. Read it through, and ask any questions before signing it.”

Prue's gaze would not stick to the words, and reading the contract took much longer than it ought to have. The document did, however, appear fair; Ben did not seem displeased with it. They applied the same scrutiny to the paper for the house, and Prue saw Isaiah doing the same for his.

“Have you any questions?” Stover asked.

“None,” Ben said.

Isaiah said, “It appears to be in order.”

Ben signed the papers first, then handed Stover's pen over to Isaiah. Prue was galled to see that however well Stover understood her to run the distillery, her signature was not required for this transaction. Stover replaced the signed contracts in the distillery's file, and it was done. They could now return home, as if nothing had happened. Prue's head felt light, to realize how much one's circumstances could change yet appear the same.

As they traveled homeward on one of Fischer's boats, Prue still felt disconsolate that Ben might, if he wished, have mortgaged the works without even her permission. Yet she determined that if she had to stand by the millrace that evening and shout out her sadness and rage, she would not mention this to her husband; and in the meanwhile, she was surprised to feel a crashing wave of nostalgia for Losee. Bridge or no bridge, she could not imagine riding back and forth across these straits the rest of her days and not having at least the option of his good company. She recognized as well that it was easier to think about Losee than to think about what she'd just done. She imagined how the reports of the mortgage would read in the various newssheets, then chastised herself
for doing so. It was bad enough the newsmen's opinions would come; she had no need to compose them herself.

The nascent bridge truly was magnificent from the water—like a rainbow, indeed. This would have to be some consolation. Beneath the Brooklyn spires, Prue could see a group of workers gathered, bent gesticulating over something, no doubt a dogfight or a game of chance. “Ben, are those our men?” she asked. “What are they doing? Where is Marcel?”

“We'll find out soon enough,” he said.

She knew the men gambled, and did not mind so long as they completed their work with accuracy and in reasonable time. Still, she felt Marcel should have had the sense to keep them from mischief on such an important day. “He should know better,” she said. As the ferry drew closer to Brooklyn, the gathering dispersed, and the men hustled off toward their various stations.

Isaiah did not even look to see what they were speaking of. He had his arms folded before him and sat staring at his whitewashed house atop the bluff. Prue wanted to offer him comfort, but did not want to embarrass him before the ferryman. “Isaiah,” she said, “we can't thank you enough. I know it'll turn out for the best.”

He ran his fingers behind his right ear, as if he might find a pencil there. “Yes,” he said, “I hope it will,” but kept silent the remainder of the trip back.

I
n October, a man lost his footing off the side of the New York lever and hung dangling by his harness a quarter hour. As his compatriots were reeling him in to safety, his rope must have rubbed against the timbers and begun to fray; for with what Ben reported as a sickening ripping sound, the harness broke free, and the worker plummeted into the straits. As if by miracle, he survived the impact, but he was knocked senseless and would have drowned had not a passing fishing dinghy heeled about; the fisherman dragged him into the boat and pumped his arms until he vomited up the water. Ben arrived down on the wharf with his legs shaking so badly he could hardly stand; and though he knew the worker only by name, he knelt down to embrace him. Operations on the New York side were called off for a few hours while all the ropes and harnesses were checked. When the news reached the Brooklyn side, Prue thought she should ask Mr. Severn to bless the workers for the remainder of their term. When she told Pearl of this at lunchtime, Pearl volunteered to go and ask him later in the day. Her eagerness for the task nettled Prue, but the blessing seemed worth some annoyance.

In one respect, Severn's prayer appeared to work: Prue began to think it possible the second building season might end without loss of life. She did not know if this continued success cheered or frightened her, as she suspected that the longer a fatal accident was averted, the more terrible it would be when it finally came. But in other respects, Severn seemed to have little influence with the Almighty. The man plummeting from the bridge made a fine gloomy story in the newssheets; and then in mid-November,
Ben discovered the New York lever had deviated seven minutes of arc toward the south.

“That cannot be,” Prue said. The workday was done, and the men had retired to their tents or the taverns. Ben had rushed to the countinghouse with the news. “We have performed our measurements a hundred times over.”

Ben paced the room and would not look at her. “And we should not have commenced building before a hundred and one.”

“The men work with great care,” Prue said. “We supervise them ourselves.” She heard herself pleading, as if a plaintive tone could invalidate what he'd seen.

“It doesn't matter, Prue. Something went wrong—either the measurements or the work. There is no saying which at this point.”

It was impossible the bridge should fail; her mind could not encompass such a thought. “Can we determine at what juncture the lever diverged? Can we tear it back to that point and rebuild? Seven minutes is far less than a degree; surely the lever is redeemable.”

“I don't know,” Ben said. He sank down in the nearest chair and took both hands to his head. “Christ!”

“We must seek counsel. We must write Mr. Pope directly.”

“That is the last thing we should do; if we tell Thomas Pope, the governor will know within the week, the
New-York Journal
within the hour. We must find a solution ourselves.”

Prue went to the shelf and poured two cups of gin. “Ben,” she said as she handed him the fuller one, but she could not think of anything more to say. She trusted in both their abilities, yet felt she understood for the first time how vulnerable their inexperience left them.

He downed his drink and immediately stood to pace again. When he reached the far side of the room, he turned to face her with the china teacup still in his hand. His hair stuck out where he had lifted it with his hands, and his eyes were wide. “It never bodes well when you're silent, Prue, but I feel we must attempt this on our own. We cannot afford to lose everything.”

Despite that she'd said she would never do so again, and despite her misgivings, she left the rectifying room under Marcel's command over the next few days as she, Ben, and Adam brought out the instruments and tried to ascertain how to correct their error. At least, she reasoned,
the deviation was as small as it was: If the New York lever continued along its current trajectory, the levers would indeed meet midstream, but the New York arm would protrude five feet nine inches on the downriver side and Brooklyn's would do likewise upriver. Ben determined that rather than dismantle the New York lever, they should change the trajectory of each lever by three and a half minutes as it progressed. This was a difference of a fraction of an inch per timber. He believed the correction would be invisible and would little affect the strength of the bridge.

And there was, at least, no doubt they would be able to continue the work for a third season; they had sufficient funds to continue. Once again, most of the men contracted to return the following April, and some found winter work in Brooklyn or its near environs. The money from the shares Ben and Prue had purchased sat safely in the bank, along with the remainder of the mortgage; and though Isaiah thought they might merely scrape by with the assurance of the state's money come spring, it seemed likely the bridge would be completed sometime in i Soz. Already each lever covered two thirds of its final span. The bridge gave a clear presentiment of its future appearance, and attracted visitors from far and wide. When Prue gazed out on it from the distillery, she sometimes thought the distance between the ends of the two levers appeared short enough for a man to leap across.

As soon as the last worker had been paid and the tents stored for winter, Ben set out north to see if he could bargain for a better price with the timber merchant. If not, he would search for a new one, if another could be found with a large enough supply. He was willing to admit the quality of the wood at the center of the span could be lower than at the abutments; it would, after all, bear less weight, and such a compromise might ensure their ability to complete the bridge.

“You will still write me?” Prue asked him before he left.

Ben rubbed her upper arms affectionately. “I gave you my word. And I shall not be gone long. You won't have sufficient time to miss me.”

Prue raised her eyebrows but didn't respond. She would miss him if he went up to the Wallabout for the day; but there was no need to tell him this.

The day he left, though bright and unseasonably warm, seemed long and gloomy. Except for the discovery of the error, the entire building
season had gone well, she told herself as she went back to the ordinary business of the distillery. If mortgaging their property was not what she would have chosen, it had been a reasonable solution to their problems; and if Ben could account for the misalignment between the levers, it would prove the bridge had some kind of blessing upon it. Prue's mind was as dark as it ever had been, but this was neither the fault of the bridge nor of Ben's absence.