City of Liars and Thieves (2 page)

F
IVE
Y
EARS
E
ARLIER

N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY

J
UNE 1799

The sun was sinking beyond the western horizon, the distant hills fading into dusk as Elma stepped onto dry land. The journey south from Cornwall was sixty miles, and the wind off the Hudson was calm. We had been waiting at the boat slip for hours. Elias paced, Charles whined, the baby fussed, and my heartbeat rose and fell like the swells of foamy brine in the harbor. Spring had warmed to summer and, while I was grateful for the sunny day, the stagnant air visibly hovering over the foul dock carried its own set of worries. Each year as the weather grew hot and sticky, yellow fever ravaged the city, turning its victims into monsters, vomiting black bile, bleeding from their pores. There were those who believed the scourge came from dirty water.

“Rivers will run with blood and the nation will be black with crimes!” a man on the dock cried with religious fervor. As many times as I moved the family away, he followed, waving his arms and shouting as if his dire predictions were directed solely at us. Gulls cawed overhead, and he raised his righteous voice to meet theirs. “Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames, female chastity violated, and murder openly taught?”

“Elias,” I said, when I could stand no more, “it sounds like he's ranting about the plagues on Egypt.”

Elias lifted his head to assess the bizarre tirade. Stout with broad shoulders, he was not conventionally handsome, but he had a square jaw and a strong profile. His eyes flashed gold in the waning light. When we first met, I had been captivated by the intensity of his gaze, which seemed to glow with inner fortitude. After seven years of marriage, I found it slightly cynical and all too knowing. It would not be long before I understood that the qualities that drew me to Elias could serve the wicked as well as the wise.

“It is politics,” he said. “The devil's religion.”

Frigates, sloops, and cutters dotted New York's bustling harbor. Some were squat with sloped bows. Others had tall masts, piercing the hazy summer sky like daggers. Several brandished cannons; one or two carried harpoons. Most flew colorful flags from places I could only begin to imagine. They had quaint names like
Flying Mist
and noble ones like
Enterprise
. A British schooner called
Arbuthnot
was said to have fourteen guns and a crew of sixty. Neither ship nor ranting zealot was able to distract Charles from the excitement of Elma's arrival. She had always been able to soothe him in ways I never managed, with whimsical tales of little red calves and snowy colts. As he grew, her stories became their carefully woven collaborat
ions. He had been moping since the day we left Cornwall, his boyish exuberance ever so slightly muted.

“Where is she?” Charles asked, balancing on tiptoe to look down the pier. Passengers, sailors, and merchants jammed the waterfront. Families welcomed one another in myriad languages; others wept as they departed.

I reached for his hand, resisting the urge to hug him close and bury my nose in his downy hair. At six, Charles, every bit his father's son, was starting to assert his independence.

“There's Elma!” he cried, and I saw her standing slightly apart from the crowd on the edge of the dock.

Never were two cousins more different. Elma's petite frame and open expression made her look like a girl of sixteen, though she was now a twenty-two-year-old woman. Only five years her senior, I had been matured by marriage and motherhood. I arranged my fair hair under a simple lace cap, drawn at the neck, and wore proper Quaker clothing in traditional gray. Elma favored dresses that complimented her lively eyes in periwinkle, lilac, teal. Her dark mane reached the middle of her back and, although she tied it in a thick braid, strands invariably fell loose to curl around her ready smile. When we were children, I had loved Elma the way one might love a china teapot: She was as delicate as the finest porcelain, her character as intricate as the most meticulous design. As we grew, though, I realized that beneath the luster she was as durable as the sturdiest kettle. She possessed the wholesome beauty of a girl, but time had taught me that she was also brave.

“Finally,” Elias said, frowning as if I controlled wind and tide.

“We're here to welcome Elma,” I said. “She's come to help.” Elias flinched, reminding me, as he often did, that Elma was not part of his carefully orchestrated plan.

Less than twenty years had passed since the British occupation. Wartime fires had destroyed as many as a thousand buildings. Entire streets were gutted, and lodging was hard to come by. Where others saw shortage, Elias sensed opportunity. He spent months traveling to and from New York, scouring the city for the ideal location for a dry-goods store, calculating and saving, before moving our family from our modest home on the western banks of the Hudson to a three-story gabled building on the southwest corner of Greenwich Street.

He swelled with pride as he showed me our new home. The store occupied the largest of the ground-floor rooms, and he had done an admirable job hanging cooking utensils and hardware along the walls and enticingly displaying fabric, ribbon, and spools of thread in specially made chests. Across a narrow entrance was a sunny parlor that also served as a kitchen. It had an ample hearth flanked by a set of rocking chairs, a long pine dining table, and a pretty hutch. Our bedroom was a cozy space behind the hearth with room for one small bed, an even smaller cot for Charles, and a cradle for the baby we were expecting.

The rooms were comfortable and more than sufficient for our young family. But something troubled me. I walked back to the cramped entrance and looked up at a steep stairwell. The steps climbed to a landing with a set of doors, then turned and ascended higher still.

It was only when I questioned the building's size that Elias told me we would be taking in boarders. Why pay rent, he reasoned, when we could collect it. While it was difficult to dispute his logic, I was even more bothered. I had never slept under the same roof as a stranger. But when Elias had a plan, arguing was futile.

A deep sunset lingered as Elma stood on the dock, looking as pale as a ghost. Men pushed past, carrying steamer trunks on their shoulders and wheeling carts laden with luggage. She clutched the handle of a worn leather valise. The sight of her delicately tapered fingers clinging to her one, small possession triggered buried memories. I thought to her arrival in Cornwall so many years ago and wondered if inviting her here had been more selfish than kind.

The first heavy snow of the season was falling the night Elma appeared at my family home, in the winter of my fourteenth year. Perfectly formed crystal flakes spiraled out of the night sky and settled into a glittering mound. It was Christmas Eve. Friends did not, as a general rule, observe Christmas. We were taught to reach out to others each day, not turn to sacred books or religion only on designated holidays. But Father, whose lighthearted spirit complemented Mother's rigid demeanor, liked to celebrate with a large meal or special treat. Mother excused the lapse, saying that the Lord may always be thanked. Despite their differences, or maybe because of them, my parents clearly and openly adored each other. I never heard them argue. Except once.

There was a knock at the door. It was such an unobtrusive noise, I wondered if I had imagined it, but Mother, whose ears were as sharp as her tongue, set aside her sewing and stood. She cracked open the door and, for the first time ever, I witnessed her utterly speechless.

A waif of a girl hovered on our threshold, and a slight, middle-aged woman stood awkwardly behind her. Though I had not seen her in years, there was enough family resemblance to recognize my father's sister. Both were dark and small with narrow frames. But while my father's mouth was framed by laugh lines, my aunt's was marred by grooves like gullies running from a stream after a heavy rain.

As I stared from the parlor, my aunt set a shaky hand on the girl's slender shoulder. “This is my daughter, Gulielma,” she said, forgoing all other greetings.

Mother remained silent while Father led our visitors inside. “Such a big name for such a little girl,” he said.

The girl broke free from my aunt. “People call me Elma,” she said. “Elma Sands.”

If Elma's first name was curious, her last name was baffling. Our family name—my father's name—was Sands. I studied her carefully, unable to understand why she had inherited her mother's surname.

“And I'm not little, I'm nine,” she announced, then bit her lip, reconsidering. “Well, almost.” Her complexion had the translucence of an icicle, one that was already melting, and her hair was so black as to be tinged with blue. An only child, I had often wished for a playmate. Elma was small and pale, and I doubted her ability to climb a tree or swim in the river's strong currents, but her eyes were full of mirth. She would do.

Mother stepped away as if Elma had a plague.

Elma examined the fabric of her skirt, as if she might discover the reason for Mother's apparent animosity in its folds. I was also at a loss to imagine what offense she had committed.

“It's not contagious,” Father said, more abrupt than I had ever heard him.

“Art thou ill?” I asked.

“Not in the least,” Elma said. She was missing two front teeth, and her words, spoken with a slight lisp, were not particularly convincing.

“Where did thou come from?”

“From our Lord, like all living creatures.”

At the time I thought her answer amusingly innocent. Looking back, I realize that she was avoiding the question. It was a skill she had developed early and honed.

The precocious child raised her chin, inspecting me as closely as I scrutinized her. “Why do you speak that way?” Elma's frank tone was a stark contrast to her dainty femininity.

“We're Friends.”

Dark curls swayed as she shook her head. “Mama is your father's sister. That makes us cousins.”

“No,” I clarified. “We are Quakers and we employ plain speech.”

“It doesn't sound plain to me.”

Mother smiled thinly as I repeated what she had always taught me. “We say ‘thee' and ‘thou' to avoid class distinction.”

“But how—”

“And we name the days of weeks and months numerically, rather than use the names of heathen gods,” I continued, raising my voice slightly. I refused to be interrogated by a skinny interloper, and this part of Quaker practice was easier to explain.

Elma lifted her chin again, as if she might ask another question. But I had one of my own. “Where is thy father?” I asked. It seemed to be the unspoken query on everyone's tongue.

“My father is a Methodist minister in England,” Elma said with a melodious sameness, as if she had imparted the information often but did not fully comprehend it.

“To bed now,” Mother said, sweeping her arm to scoot me along. It was early and I stood still, confused and dismayed. Father looked as if he might object, but he closed his mouth and nodded, and I reluctantly went upstairs.

Almost instantly, their voices began to rise.

“I won't allow it,” Mother said.

“David.” My aunt addressed my father. “I don't want to cause trouble.”

“Thou are family,” Father said. “And even if thou were strangers, it would be common charity.”

I did not have to see Mother's expression to know his words had made an impact.

The house grew silent, but I could not sleep. The sudden appearance of an eight-year-old cousin was the biggest mystery that had been posed in my young life. Where had she come from? Why had we never discussed her?

Within days, I had heard enough whispered conversations to understand that Elma's father was neither traveling nor dead. Death, in fact, would have been preferable. The disgraceful truth was that my aunt had given birth out of wedlock. “Illegitim
ate,” people murmured, passing Elma on the street. “Bastard.” Even if they did not speak, their posture conveyed their disdain. Elma would take my hand, never breaking stride. Her fingers were smaller than mine, but her grasp was strong and dry, as if she were comforting me. I feel it even now.