Chains (13 page)

The reverend had so much beseeching to do for the royal family, I thought we'd be stuck in church for a week. Trinity was an Anglican church, filled with prayers for England, burning incense, and ministers in fancy dress. It discommodated me some to attend, but Madam gave me no choice. At home we went to the Congregational church, with ten pews, windows that looked out on the ocean, and a preacher who always wore black. I liked it better. Incense made me sneeze.

“We humbly beseech …”

They did a pack of beseeching at Trinity. The church was more than half-empty compared to the first Sunday Madam brought us, what with so many folks melting into the countryside, like Master Lockton. Martha Washington and her ladies were north on the island and those left in the pews were Loyalist. This made matters easier for the reverend, who could pray the way he wanted without worry of insulting men who owned the rebel cannons.

Ruth bounced her cornhusk doll on her lap and flew it through the air. Some folk grumbled about servants and slaves being forced to sit in the upstairs gallery. To my mind, being in the upstairs meant we were closer to God, and our prayers got there first. Besides, nobody upstairs fussed when Ruth played on the floor.

“Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers—”

I beseech thee, O Lord, by Thy great mercy take us home, by the hand of Colonel Regan, take us home, in all Thy glory, take us home, ad astra, ad astra, ad astra …

Ruth tugged on my skirt. It was time to stand up again and pray. Below us, Madam leaned against the sturdy figure of Lady Seymour, who had come to the house early and forced Madam out of bed and into a Sunday dress. She covered the bruises still visible on Madam's face with a thick white layer of Molyneux's Italian Paste and told her she must not show weakness.

We sat down again. Up. Down. Up. Down. Yon minister could never make up his mind. My belly grumbled. Good thing the service was drawing to a close. Just a little more beseeching, a few amens, and we'd head home for cold pigeon pie and sour pickles.

Ruth's fingers drifted to her nose for some unsightly digging. As I reached for her hand, the front door of the church slammed open with a thud. The reverend near fainted with surprise.

A young boy ran halfway down the center aisle. “Beggin' pardon, Reverend,” he shouted, “but the British have sailed into the harbor!”

The British army was hardly marching down Wall Street, but ten ships had docked downriver on Staten Island. Ruth and me followed behind Madam and Lady Seymour as we strode with the crowd to the Battery as fast as our skirts would allow.

Madam quivered with excitement but was wise enough not to say a word, for we found ourselves in a crowd of rebels furious about the arrival of King George's boys. Someone fired a cannon a stone's throw from where we stood. Gunpowder smoke drifted across the crowd as soldiers started running every which a'way, carrying on about “orders this” and “orders that.” Someone fired a musket, and a woman shrieked. Two more muskets blasted. Rough voices commanded the firing to cease. Mothers chased after their children. Five men in frontier leggings and leather shirts sprinted past us, rifles at the ready.

Should I grab Ruth and run for the barracks? Could we slip away to sanctuary in the commotion? I looked for Colonel Regan but saw him not. None of the men were familiar to me. Had I waited too long?

The cannons fired once more, then fell silent. The ships were too far away to be hit, and the cannonballs fell into the river. Another musket cracked fire, but this was more
distant. The crowd had settled some, and soldiers were lining up in orderly fashion, thanks to their barking officers.

“Everyone please disperse,” shouted a broad-shouldered man in a crisp blue coat and a sleek, freshly powdered wig. “There is no danger here. Go about your business.”

“Come now,” Madam said. “We will leave this rabble.”

She walked away with Lady Seymour. I went to follow them, but Ruth would not move. She stood rooted to the ground, trembling against my leg as if a gale were blowing.

“Ruthie?” I patted her back. “It's over now. The noise is gone, no more bangs.” I reached to pry her fingers from me. They were stiff and shaking. She was in the grip of a fit, a small one.
Oh Lord, I beseech thee …

Madam had stopped and was watching us. “Come along, girl,” she snapped. “Turn your sister loose and run ahead to prepare the meal.”

Ruth quivered, her teeth chattering in her head.

“She's a wee bit frightened, ma'am,” I explained. “Never heard a cannon go off before.”

“Neither have I,” added Lady Seymour. “She'll feel better once she starts to walk.”

Please, Lord.
“Hear what Missus said, Ruth? Walking is the best thing.”
Please keep her on her feet. Please make it stop.
“We've work to do, baby girl.” My voice was as false as my smile. “Please.”

I stepped forward, pushing Ruth ahead as I went. The trembling stopped, but her body went limp. I picked her up and settled her on my hip, her head on my shoulder as if she had fallen asleep.

Lady Seymour frowned in concern. “Is she poorly?”

Madam cast a suspicious eye at us.

“No, ma'am,” I lied. “Just tired.”

“She is not suffering her particular ailment, is she?” Madam asked, her voice cutting like a blade.

“No, ma'am,” I lied again. “She helped carry out the ashes this morning, and it tired her.”

Madam glared a moment longer.

Lady Seymour stepped in front of Madam. “The heat affects small children more than most. Make sure your sister drinks some water before any more chores.”

“Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.” I bobbed a clumsy curtsy and walked as fast as I could with the limp burden in my arms, beseeching with every step.

British ships continued to sail up the river all the day and all the night. Madam set us to polishing the silver in the hope that we'd soon be serving dinner to the British high command. On Monday morning Becky sent me to the washerwoman with a giant basket of dirty tablecloths and serviettes. So many ships had arrived by then—hundreds, folks said, with thousands of soldiers—that we could see the patches of white sail far down the harbor.

The washerwoman's home stood empty. A neighbor said she had fled at first light, terrified at the thought of invasion.

She wasn't the only one.

I carried the basket of linen back to the house on Wall Street, put a pot of water over the fire, and gathered the soap and the scrubbing board. Becky was off in search of a seamstress, so Ruth helped me haul the water to the washtub in the backyard. I gave her a small bucket and sliver of soap and she got to work washing a pair of stockings and singing
to herself. She showed no ill effects of the small fit at the Battery. It had been a brief shower, not a thunderstorm.

As I scrubbed, my mind ran in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. I should take Ruth and march down to the Battery. I should demand payment for helping with the arrests. No. No demands. I should politely ask the colonel to fulfill his promise, as a gentleman would. I should write a letter to the general. I should beg Curzon to beg Mr. Bellingham to beg whoever to get us out.

I flopped the tablecloth into the rinse tub and started in on a shift that had gotten mixed in with the table linens. Ruth dropped her stockings in the rinse bucket and loaded her bucket with rocks.

“We don't wash rocks, Ruth,” I explained.

“But they dirty,” she said.

“That is a truth,” I said. The rocks were dirty and washing them kept her calm and away from Madam. “Scrub away, lass.”

There was no use in begging anyone. The chances of them listening to me were as good as a snowball's chance in the Devil's bake oven.

I reached for the soap as Ruth flung her half-washed rocks, now muddy, not dirty, into the rinsing tub with the clean tablecloth. Before I could scold her, the back door slammed. I saw the flash of a yellow gown by the kitchen window. Madam had been watching us, no doubt displeased that Ruth was washing rocks with the tablecloths.

We must escape. Soon.

… THE CONGRESS HAVE JUDGED IT NECESSARY TO DISSOLVE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN COLONIES, AND TO DECLARE THEM FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; AS YOU WILL PERCEIVE BY THE ENCLOSED DECLARATION…. I AM DIRECTED … TO REQUEST YOU HAVE IT PROCLAIMED AT THE HEAD OF THE ARMY, IN THE WAY YOU SHALL THINK MOST PROPER. —LETTER FROM JOHN HANCOCK, PRESIDENT OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, TO GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON

That week unspooled slowly with hot days and muggy, breathless nights. Militia units from the surrounding colonies piled into the city. Ordinary folk skedaddled out of it as fast as their horse or feet would carry them. The extra soldiers were not the cleanest sort, or maybe they were too busy drilling and making gunpowder cartridges to wash. Whatever the cause, New York soon smelled like a garbage pit mixed with a fresh mountain of manure. The stench cooked under the midsummer sun.

Madam's moods changed with the tide. One moment she floated on clouds of fancy, imagining her grand life once the British beat the rebels. Next she fell into melancholy,
grumbling about the lazy British commanders floating at anchor off Staten Island, observing New York through long spyglasses but making no move to invade. She now carried with her a brocade pouch suspended from a red satin cord. Within the pouch lay a green flask filled with a calming elixir prescribed by the doctor. He advised her to drink from it whenever the need arose. She also took to walking around the house in her stocking feet, trying to catch me unawares as I scrubbed or dusted or polished, often with Ruth at my side. She said nothing during these encounters but watched us with hungry hawk eyes. It unnerved me.

The week after Hickey's hanging, Becky suffered a mild attack of the ague that had befallen so many soldiers. She grew pale and sweaty but did not require purging or leeches. In her stead, I went to the market. Our needs were fewer now that we no longer fed the master and his companions. 'Twas a good thing, for farmers were afeard to come into the city, and there was less to choose from. More people fled every day, including the wives of General Washington and Colonel Knox and Brigadier Greene, her that folks said was such a big flirt.

I searched for Curzon every day, but Bellingham's affairs kept him out of sight. I was afraid to seek out Colonel Regan, afraid that word would get back to Madam and our lives be put in jeopardy.

Ten days after the British flooded the river with their ships, news that the Congress had declared independence arrived in New York. The Declaration was read to the troops from the steps of City Hall. The men cheered so loud it seemed to shake the whole island. I hurried from the egg seller to see the cause of the commotion.

The cheering men danced and marched down Broadway,
tossing their hats into the air and shouting across the river at the silent ships of England. They gathered into a mob on the Bowling Green around the massive statue of King George III. I stayed at the edge of the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of Curzon or a soldier familiar from my visit to the Battery.

The King was mounted on his horse, and the horse mounted on a white marble pedestal that rose to the height of three men standing one atop the other. Both the horse and the man were fashioned larger than could be possible, but I supposed that was the way of kings. They were both made of gold that sometimes glittered in the sunlight but dulled when the clouds interfered.

Ropes appeared as if conjured, thick ropes used for tying ships to the docks. The men cheered louder and worked together to throw the ropes over the King and his horse and tie them tightly.

“One, two, three, heave! One, two, three, heave!”

The men strained their arms and backs. Boys on the edge of the crowd jumped up and down. Common folk stood froze at the sight of a king being pulled down by the strength of the men working together.

“One, two, three, HEAVE!”

The statue toppled, slowly at first, then gaining speed as the weight fell from the sky to the ground. The men scrambled out the way, no one wishing to be crushed by a fallen king. As it crashed, they shouted even louder and swarmed over the thing. Axes were called for and rushed out of workshops and up from the barracks. A half-dozen men took to chopping the King and his steed to bits.

I inched closer. How could they be chopping through a statue with simple axes? A piece of tail broke off, and
a soldier held it up for all to see. The King was not made of gold, but of soft lead, covered with gilt paint. The crowd shouted again as another soldier lifted the King's head freshly removed from his neck. A fife-and-drum corps started playing just beyond the mob, piping out the song usually heard during a tar-and-feathering party.

The men made short work of King George. When the statue was reduced into pieces that could be easily carted off, they did just that. The plan was to melt down all the lead into bullets.

“We'll fire Majesty at the redcoats!” joked a man with a booming voice.

“Aye,” said his companion, shouldering an axe. “Emanations from Leaden George will make deep impressions on the enemy!”

As the crowd marched off to make bullets and celebrate liberty and independence in the taverns, I realized dark was fast falling, and I had tarried overly long. I picked up a sliver of lead that lay in the street. It was fringed with gilt; my own piece of majesty.
Tyrants beware,
I thought as I put it in my pocket.

I was surprised to see the front parlor windows alight when I walked down Wall Street.

“Is the master back?” I asked Becky. She was dozing in the chair by the kitchen fire with a red-checked shawl around her shoulders, still worn down from her illness.