31 Bond Street (26 page)

August 4, 1857

W
hen Emma awoke, the shutters of the bedroom were shut and the full glare of the morning sun came through the slats. She slipped on some house shoes and knocked over an empty glass with a white film around the edge off of the night table. She picked the glass up from the floor and placed it on her vanity, which was piling up with odds and ends. Ever since she had returned, she had done nothing but walk up and down the tall staircases, making note of items that were missing or out of place. Eventually, she believed the house would return to its previous state, the way a dial on a clock worked the day back to the beginning.

What time was it? The tall clock in the hall no longer chimed. One day she had opened the glass and used the key to wind it up. The brass pendulums began to swing, and she heard the ticking sound and saw the minute hand jump on the dial. She set the time, satisfied that it was synchronized correctly. Later that day, when she passed by again, she saw that the clock had stilled. She gave it repeated windings, and the clock would tick on for a random amount of time, and then peter out, for no reason that she could discern. She
even pushed it away from the wall to look at the gears in the shaft, but the intricate placement of the machinery left her puzzled.

It seemed that everything in the house was run-down. While she was in jail, Dr. Burdell’s family had sold some furniture, unjustly it appears, for the ownership of the house and its contents were as yet unresolved. Mr. Clinton saw that she was awarded a sum of money for the missing furniture. She put the money in a drawer. Each day she would dip into the box and walk to the markets with her basket, and then return to her chores and meals, but as the weeks ticked by, she barely seemed to make headway on the overall improvement of the house.

She opened the bedroom shutters and put on a housecoat. From the energy of the traffic, it seemed to be well past ten in the morning. Although most of her neighbors had left for the summer, there were a few who still remained in the city during the week, along with servants who served the houses and stables. By afternoon it seemed that everyone had retreated far from the heat, and the leaves hung limp in the direct sun.

She descended the stairs. The door to Doctor Burdell’s office was slightly ajar. The wall had been whitewashed over the wallpaper where the blood had splattered, and the carpet had been removed leaving the floorboards bare. Emma descended to the kitchen, and as she entered, she heard the scurrying sounds of mice in the brick oven. The furnaces smelled of old coal and the house had a lingering odor of rotting eggs from leaking gas. Today she would buy some beeswax and mix some citrus into the wax as she polished, to freshen the stale air in the parlor.

There was a loaf of bread in the pie cabinet, but it was hard. She felt light-headed, so she sat down at the kitchen table. She couldn’t remember if she had eaten the night before, only that she had mixed a drink with laudanum and lay down on her bed, listening to the house creak and settle in the dark. She would send a note
to Augusta to stop by the apothecary for more powder. Augusta was living with the old woman named Nellie, who had once cared for her and Helen when they were younger. After the acquittal, Augusta had chosen to remain there. Helen was still living with the relation, on Second Avenue. Both girls had resisted moving back to Bond Street because the house made them uncomfortable. Emma assured them that when the fall season arrived, everything would be fixed and they would all live together, and the girls would have piano lessons and pretty new wallpaper in their bedroom. But the summer dragged on, the only visits were from her daughters, and from Mr. Clinton, who stopped by with reports on legal matters.

Today she would dress and go to the market. Every day she made this plan. There was no hurry. As she headed up the kitchen stairs, she noticed an envelope sitting inside the vestibule, dropped through the slot of the front door. When had it come? Usually a messenger left an abrupt set of rings to alert the owner of the house to a delivery. Had she slept through the bell, or was it out of order?

She took it into the parlor and sat before a table that she used as a makeshift desk. She opened it smoothly with a letter opener that she had salvaged from Dr. Burdell’s desk set. It was on dusty grey stationery, with a blue crest.

She anxiously searched the top of the letter, but it wasn’t dated. She wasn’t even sure what day it was, or if the letter had come yesterday or this morning. There was no food or refreshments in the house. She put down the letter, thinking she had just enough time to dress and get to the market before noon. She dressed quickly, but with care. Had he returned for Augusta?

She headed for the market at the Bowery, and as she crossed the busy intersection, she was startled by the dangerous approach of a stagecoach. Suddenly, a hand was at her elbow. “Allow me,” said Ambrose Wicken, guiding her across.

“Why, Mr. Wicken, you have given me a start.” She turned to look up at him, so tall that his hair seemed to burnish in the sun.

“It was not my intention to frighten you, but to offer you aid,” he said, leading her firmly to the opposite curb. “Are you headed to the market?”

“I was going to do some shopping, but I had no idea the trip was such treachery,” she said, laughing, as if the crossing had endangered her, and he had saved her life. She stood on the sidewalk and patted at her hair.

He eyed her with concern. “I admire a lady who can prevail through great hardship, and come away from it lovelier than ever.” She had no idea what to think about his flattery. It had been a long time since she had basked in the reflected glow of an appreciative man, so she smiled but chose not to answer. “I have been meaning to come and call on you,” he said, “but I wanted to be considerate
of your need for privacy. I imagined that you and your daughters needed time alone for a reunion.”

“There has been so much to do. I have the household to manage and there will be new servants that will need to be trained.”

They were at the other side of the avenue, now moving among the market stalls. She had never noticed how gnarled and small the ordinary class of humanity was until she saw them in contrast to Ambrose Wicken.

“Are these fresh? I fear not,” he said lifting a bruised peach and dropping it back, at the displeasure of the man behind the stall. He wore a glove on his right hand, and kept that hand limply at his side. Seeing her notice it, he lifted it and said, “A carriage accident, while I was racing in Louisiana. Most unfortunate, for otherwise I would have won the race. How is the fair Augusta? I assume your girls are making the rounds at the spas this summer.”

“Oh, I hardly see them for all of their comings and goings. They are often away from home, so I have to keep their suitors at bay.” She suddenly felt dizzy, as though she was caught in the crush of every vendor and pushcart.

“Are you all right?” he asked, taking her elbow again.

“It is a spell of nerves. I have been much afflicted by it lately,” she replied, feeling faint. He led her to a small bench near the lorries. She sat for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

“This is no place for a lady,” he said, offering her his hand. “Let me escort you home.” They crossed the busy avenue and walked down Bond Street, past the hushed townhouses. As they neared the house, Mr. Wicken said, “Do you remember, we were to meet, on that fateful day? The death of Dr. Burdell was a most terrible shock.”

“Yes, poor Harvey.”

“I remember you wrote me about a matter. It was concerning
some land. Dr. Burdell was a careful man. Did you resolve that matter of the land for you and your daughters?”

“It’s all so confusing. There are many papers missing. Even the deed to the house is in question.”

“Perhaps I can still be of help to you.”

“Why thank you, but my lawyer will sort it all out.” They were on the sidewalk in front of the house. She thought he was expecting to come inside but she was hesitant to invite him into the house and see it in its sorry state. “I am afraid that this afternoon I need some rest.”

“I shall leave you, then,” he said. “But I will come back on Sunday, and will take you out for some fresh air and entertainment. A day of pleasure, how does that sound?”

“I am not sure if Augusta is available.”

“Then it shall be just the two of us. I shall come in the morning.”

“Where shall we go, in the heat of the summer?”

“You shall see, the summer has endless surprises.”

T
here was a note on the front table from her mother, asking her to pick up an elixir at the apothecary on Sixth Avenue. It had scientific words and notations on it, to show the pharmacist. Augusta lived on Bedford Street, where she lived with Old Nellie, once her nursemaid. The woman’s tidy little house had a garden and fruit trees, and breezes from the river, and seemed far away from the nightmare days of the trial. Helen went back to visit their mother more often than Augusta did, but neither of them wanted to return to Bond Street to live in that haunted shell of a house.

The letter sat on the table for two days. Both afternoons had brought thundershowers—the thunder cracked, and the rain came down so hard that it bounced back up a foot and then streamed off the paving stones, leaving puddles so deep she needed to pin her dress up to the shins just to pass along the road. There were no city storm drains in Greenwich Village, so the water pooled into little rivers and flowed under the trees in the orchard that bordered the church garden. Finally, on Thursday, the sun came back out, and the Hudson glimmered through the apple trees.

Augusta had no desire to leave Bedford Street, where the long summer days washed away the accumulated trauma of the last months. She could walk barefoot in the yard, getting mud between her toes, and spend mornings pinching roses off the back fence, filling up little vases with fragrant buds, still tightly closed. The front door was painted blue, and hollyhocks leaned against the sunny side of the house. Augusta and Nellie cleaned the house together in old linen dresses and used candles instead of gas. Augusta loved the house because of its simplicity, and knew that it was exactly its simplicity that would make it unacceptable to her mother. She felt possessive about it, and realized her possessiveness must be the same feeling her mother had for Bond Street.

Nellie was well into her seventies and had lived there since she was a girl and British troops had camped out in the fields. While Nellie combed Augusta’s long blond hair she told stories about the handsome soldiers and wove tales about Augusta’s future that conjured images of a house like this one, with a kitchen garden and little babies in the yard.

Augusta resisted going back into the heart of the city to do her mother’s errand, especially now, because the day was becoming very hot. The walk east to Bond Street meant putting on stockings and shoes. She changed her thin dress, and rolled her hair up into two twists, to lift it off her shoulders. She found a basket and put in some vegetables from the garden to give to her mother. Her mother was getting thin, and she didn’t know how she was managing without a cook.

Augusta lifted the latch of the gate. Vines wound up the front of the house with thick trunks the width of her wrist. As she walked east on Christopher Street, she passed Greenwich Lane and Factory Street. The streets gave way to small wooden houses, well kept, but modest, with doors just steps off the street. She crossed
Sixth Avenue and entered the apothecary with its high cases of jars with colorful liquids, lined up behind glass. Mr. Bigelow prepared a bottle of elixir to match her mother’s order and stopped up the glass bottle and sealed it with wax.

“Careful now with this concoction,” he said. “It’s not for everyday consumption.” She put the bottle in her basket and continued on her way, past the Gothic buildings on University Place. She thought of stopping into one of the cool churches to pray but was no longer sure that piety could comfort her. This part of the city seemed empty in the middle of summer. There were no prams or children minding their nurses at Washington Square, or students from the university, just the still buildings and a tangy smell of rotting food where refuse was piled in boxes, abandoned at the curbside.

When she reached the long block of Bond Street, the sight of the house filled her with dread. She walked up the stoop and rang the bell, but the pull was rusted and loose and she could hear that it did not ring. She turned the knob on the large oak door, and it pushed open to the vestibule. Her mother was getting absentminded, with the large house to care for, that she was not even remembering to lock the front door. She went up two flights and found her mother in her bedroom, walking around, as if she were looking for something.

“Mother, I came from the apothecary. Mr. Bigelow said to be careful of this mixture.”

“Thank you. I need it to give me strength. I have had a series of nervous jolts, but I feel better now. Did you tell the pharmacist about my condition?”

“I didn’t know what to tell him,” replied Augusta, hesitant to sit and stay.

Her mother sat down in the armchair. She had a strange look on her face. There was a glass in her hand.

“Mother, there are no servants here and no one to look after you. You don’t look as if you are eating well.”

“I will be fine, now that I have more medicine.”

“There is no need to be alone in this big house. It is foolish to remain here.”

“It’s my home,” Emma insisted. “I will fix up the house and make it lovely again. For you and Helen. You will see.”

“Helen is staying with Cousin Matilda, and I am not coming back. You know I prefer staying with Old Nellie. I do not want to be in this house.”

“Of course you do, it will be perfect for us.”

“Mother, when will you abandon this folly?”

“In September, we can get a season’s box at the symphony, and the seamstress will come to make some new dresses.” Her mother lifted her hand to reach for one of Augusta’s curls, and Augusta dodged her hand away. “There will be suitors, and parties, in the fall.”

“I won’t return to that charade, with you trying to sell us to the highest bidder.”

“Sell you?” Emma said.

“Yes, you have trotted Helen and I around in circles, in finery and jewels, for years. I will not suffer it any longer.”

Her mother’s face contorted to reveal teeth that had yellowed from the cheap tea in prison. “You mock me,” she said with vehemence. “I struggled to make sure you had decent surroundings. You and Helen had what every girl needs and desires—frocks and hats and music lessons!”

“You did everything to make sure we had decent surroundings, but nothing to surround us with decent people,” Augusta snapped.

“It is time you were married—where will you be without that? You board with an old woman, and when she passes away, then
what will you have? Will you live in a shanty? A shack? When a woman keeps going backward, it’s a bottomless hole—there’s nothing but degradation. Why would you choose such a life, when I have worked so hard to lift you above it?”

“I find degradation here, in this house,” said Augusta.

“You ungrateful girl! This is an elegant home, and it will be beautiful again. It will be yours and your husband’s. Certainly a woman has to make small bargains, but they are always for the good.”

“What kind of bargains have you made? You made bargains with our father, and with Dr. Burdell. You brought us here to Bond Street, and the next thing we were all sitting in a murderer’s box, waiting to see if you would hang!”

Emma slumped back in her chair, as if fatigued by the fight and the oppressive heat of the house. “Augusta,” she said, imploringly, “he is back.”

“Who?

“Mr. Wicken—”

“Stop, I refuse to hear any more.” Augusta slammed the apothecary bottle on the vanity, and picked up her basket. “I am leaving.”

“I will order you a wedding dress from Hartbelle’s,” insisted Emma softly, smiling with her cracked smile, as if there was nothing wrong with her outlandish plans.

“Are you mad? Is there no way to bring you back to your senses? Can’t you look around and see the circumstances?”

“We will all live here together. You’ll have a baby. It’s a fine home for a family.” The air in the room was close and stale. Augusta felt the old feeling of desperation roll through her so fiercely that she could hardly breathe. It was a physical sensation, like having a revolver pointed to one’s head, waiting indefinitely for the flint to click.

“Good-bye, mother,” she said, with determination. She turned from the room.

“Come back, listen to me! Ambrose Wicken has a fine plantation in Louisiana, and he will be living here, in New York, half the year.”

“You have mentioned that man’s name for the last time in my presence.” As she walked out, she heard her mother call after her. Augusta continued quickly down the staircase, past Dr. Burdell’s office, its door slightly ajar. She knew the room had been cleaned and emptied long ago, but she imagined blood on the floors, turned foul and rancid in the summer heat. She rushed faster, down the final staircase to the vestibule.

Emma was calling now, down the well of the stairway from the third floor. “Darling, will you be back in time for supper? We will all eat here tonight in the dining room. When you have a baby, I will have a nurse come over and care for it.” Her voice sounded odd and plaintive.

Augusta turned the knob of the front door and screamed with all her strength, “I am leaving and I am not coming back. You are mad and I won’t listen to this lunacy,” and she turned the knob and ran down the stoop.