The Queen of Bedlam (51 page)

Thirty-Nine

Under a leaden sky, Matthew stood on the deck of the packet boat Mercury and watched the town built on the hope of brotherly love slide out of the gray mist.

It was Tuesday morning, nearing seven o’clock. He was one of eight passengers, and had enjoyed a decent communal supper with his fellow travelers and the captain and then a good night’s sleep in a hammock that swayed with the boat. He was dressed as a proper gentleman for today’s excursion, wearing his dark blue suit with the silver-buttoned waistcoat and a new dark blue tricorn bought an hour before the Mercury had sailed on Monday morning. A white-and-blue-striped cravat tucked into the collar of his clean white shirt added a dash of professional flair. At his side he held a brown canvas valise with a leather shoulder strap, courtesy of Marmaduke Grigsby. He no longer resembled a clerk, but perhaps a young lawyer with places to go and people to see. The better to get into Icabod Primm’s office, since he had no appointment.

The Mercury was sailing slowly but surely along the green Delaware River. Ahead on the port side, forest and pastures had given way to first a scattering of wooden houses, and now brick buildings were coming into view. Boatyards and piers emerged, with men already at work transferring cargo to and from other vessels. Ropes lay in thick coils; barrels, crates, sacks, and hogshead casks were stacked awaiting destinations. The smell of the river was thick and swampy, yet it was apparent the river gave Philadelphia life and certainly profits. Matthew saw larger ships “mud-docked” in the shallows, where they were undergoing refitting, having their hulls scraped of barnacles and the like. Scaffoldings had been built alongside the ships and men with mallets and other tools were clambering around like so many ants, each focused on one small part of a larger picture.

He noted especially the labor that was going on regarding a few older ships. Their nameplates were in the process of being chiseled off. Queen Anne must be given due respect, if one wished to make a living on the sea, and there were always officials standing ready with pad and pencil to mark down the offenders. Therefore any ship’s name with the word King in it was being retitled to honor the Queen. A whole row of ancient mariners sat keel-deep in the mud, awaiting the mallet and a more politically suitable christening.

Matthew watched the work intently as the Mercury continued on, and then his mind turned toward the news that Marmaduke had been bursting to relate on Sunday night when the two weary travelers had returned from Westerwicke.

“An amazing moment,” Grigsby had said. “When Reverend Wade stood at the pulpit and announced that he was torn between his church family and the family he and his departed wife had created. He said he’d wrestled with this decision, and I have to say at one point he was quiet so long I thought he was still trying to decide it. But then he said his allegiance had to be to the memory of his wife, and what she would want him to do. He said he would accept the consequences. Then he told the story. His eldest daughter, Grace, is ill near to death. And do you know where she’s lying?”

“Tell us,” Matthew had urged, as he’d spooned sugar into his cup of hot tea.

“At Polly Blossom’s house! Can you fathom it?” The white eyebrows had jumped and capered. “The reverend announced to one and all that Grace was-how did he put it, exactly?-a child of the streets who had found her way home. He stood up there, looked everyone in the eyes, and said he’d been to that house to see his daughter and he was planning on going again until she passed away. Not only that, but he was going to pray over her in the cemetery and bury her in a plot he’d chosen. Well, you can be sure some of those elders flared up, and it was a near riot.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Matthew had said.

“Constance was sitting right there in front, with that young man of hers. You know, the fellow with one ear.”

“I know.”

“I suppose they already knew the story, because they didn’t react, but the rest of the church was in one hell of an uproar. A few of the elders were shouting about blasphemy, others turned around and walked out, and you should have seen some of the Golden Hillers sticking their noses up in the air. It would have been comical,” Grigsby had said, and then more gravely, “if it hadn’t been so tragic. I fear that’s the last of William Wade in this town.”

“Maybe not,” Matthew had ventured. “He obviously has a strong character and he’s meant a lot to the growth of Trinity. If enough church members come to his defense-which they ought to do, and which I intend to do-he might yet weather the storm.”

Grigsby had looked at him askance. “Why is it,” he’d said, “that I have the distinct impression you’re not surprised by this news?”

“Surprised by the fact that the reverend is first and foremost a human being? Surprised by the fact that every human being, reverend or ribald, can be undone by capricious circumstances? Or should I be surprised by the fact that a man who teaches love and forgiveness can love and forgive? Tell me, Marmy, exactly what it is I should be surprised at.”

The printmaster had shrugged his misproportioned shoulders and retreated, but not without a potful of muttering, a grotesque grimace or two, and the faintest echo of a bass Chinese gong.

Watching the town glide nearer, Matthew thought he should be kinder to Grigsby but he was still rankling at this marriage business, just as Berry rankled at it. Two people should not be potted together like plants and expected to entwine their roots. No, it should be a slow process of excitement and discovery. Then let whatever was to happen run its course. Still, he should be kinder to Grigsby just for the sheer effort the printmaster had put into making the dairyhouse a home. A nice writing desk, a decent bed, a set of bookshelves that hopefully would not remain barren too much longer, and even a rug to cover the dirt floor. Of course the new and very secure lock on the door. He did wish for a view, though. But all in all, it was his own miniature mansion and the rent could not be better, either.

“Mr. Corbett?”

Matthew turned around and there stood the portly and white-bearded Mr. Haverstraw and his equally portly but fortunately nonbearded wife, Jeanine. He had learned last night that the Haverstraws, who were natives of New Jersey and owned a flour mill near Stony Point, were on their way for a few days’ visit with their eldest son and his family. Haverstraw, a regular visitor to Philadelphia, had been helpful in suggesting places where Matthew might find lodging for a night.

“Very pleasant to spend time with you, sir,” said Haverstraw, offering a calloused workman’s hand to shake. “I hope your business is successful. A legal matter, did you say?”

“Yes sir, it is a matter of the law.”

“Well, then, good fortune to you. Do remember the Squire’s Inn on Chestnut Street. The beef there is excellent. Also the Blue Anchor serves a fine supper, if you prefer fish. And Mrs. Fontaine’s boarding house is not so richly appointed as the Market Street Lodge, but if you’re like me you’ll appreciate the shillings saved.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The lady Haverstraw gave her husband a quick prod in the belly with her elbow, which Matthew pretended not to notice. “Oh, yes!” Haverstraw said, a bit of color blooming in his cheeks. “I meant to ask you. Are you a married man?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah. Well, then. Any…um…ladyfriend of note?”

Matthew knew where this was heading. The lovely daughter of a friend’s friend who had just turned sixteen and was interested in matrimony and seven children if the right young man presented himself. Matthew smiled and said, “At the moment, I am perfectly free and intend to remain so.”

Some of the shine went out of the lady’s eyes. Haverstraw nodded. “If you’re ever up our way, come say hello.” Then when his wife turned away, he gave Matthew a quick thumbs-up.

The Mercury’s lines were thrown and secured and along with the other passengers Matthew walked across the gangway onto the wharf planks. He saw that a fiddler was playing for coins in a tin cup and farther on two little girls were dancing for money as their presumed mother and father beat out a rhythm on drums. The same as in New York, so as in Philly.

Matthew set out for the intersection of Walnut and Fourth streets, which was where Haverstraw had said he might find Mrs. Fontaine’s house. The river’s mist yet shrouded the entire picture, but before him the town was not unlike New York, being houses and shops of red brick and gray stone, churches with wooden steeples, pedestrians going about their business, and wagons trundling on their routes. A nice touch was that trees had been planted regularly along the sidewalks. He quickly realized also that the streets were laid out quite differently here than in New York. It seemed to be an orderly grid pattern, as opposed to New York’s often chaotic arrangement.

He discovered within another block, however, that there was a downside to this otherwise pleasing pattern. Out of the mist a haywagon with two horses went flying past him at a speed that would have taken him under the hooves if he’d not been paying attention, and he drew himself back up to the curb thankful for no broken bones. The grid meant long, flat, and unobstructed streets, and woe to pedestrians for Matthew noted that the drivers of some vehicles took advantage of that fact to let their horses run.

Having secured a room at Mrs. Fontaine’s, shaved, and then eaten a light breakfast, Matthew headed back at midmorning with his valise toward Market Street in search of Icabod Primm’s office. The sun was beginning to shine through the murk. Thanks to the help of a tailor on the corner of Market and Fourth, it was no difficult matter to find the building, which was just a block to the east and near the very beautiful and elm-shaded Christ Church.

I. Primm, Attorney-At-Law, read a brass plate on the front gate. Matthew ascended six stone steps to the slab of a door, opened it, and faced a young clerk at a reception desk. The place was as quiet and serious as a crypt, the walls the color of dark tea. The clerk waited until Matthew had closed the door behind him and approached the desk.

“May I help you, sir?”

“Yes. I’d like to see Mr. Primm, please.”

The young man’s eyes behind his spectacles were two bits of uncaring coal and were certainly not impressed by either Matthew’s suit or new hat. “And this is concerning…?”

“I just need to see him for a few minutes.”

“Well,” said the clerk, and folded his thin hands together. Matthew knew the signs when a person who had no power suddenly got a gift of it. “Mr. Primm has a very busy schedule, sir. In fact, he’s with a client now and I doubt he’ll be free within the hour. Let me see.” He opened a ledger book and made a show of tapping his finger down a list of appointments. “No, no…unfortunately, no. Mr. Primm will not have time to see any new clients today.” He looked up and gave a cheerless smile. “Might you come back tomorrow afternoon, say?”

“I’m afraid I’m taking the packet boat back to New York tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, New York, is it? I thought something about you seemed different.”

“Be that as it may,” Matthew said, keeping his voice pleasant, “I would appreciate five minutes with Mr. Primm. Today. Would that be impossible?”

“Yes sir, I’m afraid it is. Impossible.” The clerk picked up his quill and started to pretend to do whatever it was he’d been pretending to do when Matthew had opened the door.

Matthew had hoped it would not come to this, but here it was. And so quickly, too. He opened the valise, took out a rolled sheet of paper, and put it on the desk in front of the clerk’s face. “If you value your position,” he said calmly, “you’ll take that to Mr. Primm. I’ll wait.”

The young man unrolled the paper and looked at the drawing there. In an eyeblink Matthew knew the clerk had no inkling who the woman was. “This has some meaning, I assume?”

“You may. Assume,” Matthew answered, with a little more grit in his voice. He decided to approach this irritating roadblock as Hudson Greathouse might. “Now get your ‘assume’ up out of your chair and take that drawing to Mr. Primm. I don’t care who he’s with, and he won’t care either in about two minutes.” For effect, he produced his silver watch and snapped it open.

It was either the tone or the watch, for the clerk took Berry’s drawing and was off like a rabbit up a set of stairs behind him and to the left.

Matthew waited, and wound his watch while he was at it. One minute later, there came the sound of a door opening and closing and boots on the risers. A voice boomed along the stairway: “I should say I couldn’t sit there like a muffin and let that man strike me, could I? And right in broad daylight at my favorite tavern! I ought to challenge the old fart to a duel, is what I should do, and to blazes with the courts!”

“I’m sure that would not be the best course of action, Admiral,” came the clerk’s voice, now more nettled than powerful. He appeared guiding a man of about seventy wearing a huge cockaded bicorn and dressed in some kind of military uniform with a row of medals pinned to his chest. The old man’s right eye was blackened.

“Mr. Primm promised me an hour! Either I’m more senseless than I thought or my hour has shrunken into ten minutes!” the affronted admiral protested as he was escorted to the door.

“Yes sir. But I’m sure Mr. Primm has the situation under control and, besides, as Mr. Primm says, your time and money are best spent more wisely than sitting in his office talking about a minor scuffle.”

“A minor scuffle? That old seabeast strikes me, near blinds my eye, and it’s called a minor scuffle? See here, I have a reputation to uphold!”