Brookland (30 page)

A few workers were still out drinking in the yard when she returned. Dusk was descending, and Isaiah must finally have given in and called off operations for the day. The carpenter would remain until the work was complete, and Prue could see the foremen through the various windows, patiently plucking at belts and lining up paddles. She recognized tall, slim Phineas Bates—no relation to Hiram, she had learned in a rare letter from Ben—moving around the brewhouse. Prue had hired him only a few months before, when her former brewmaster, John Putnam, had abruptly quit, claiming gratitude for all her father had taught him but homesickness for his family on the outskirts of Philadelphia. She'd been
shocked by his sudden leave-taking, after all his years in her father's employ; but she was pleased with this new Mr. Bates thus far.

Isaiah came out from the countinghouse, squaring his stooped shoulders in his coat. When he saw her, he waved a weary hello. “It's nearly fixed,” he said.

“Good,” Prue said. “Thank you.”

“Pleasant walk?”

“Yes,” Prue said, and again said, “thank you.”

He touched the brim of his hat to her and said, “I should be getting home.” He trudged off uphill, toward Patience, Maggie, his year-and-a-half-old son, Israel, and his new baby daughter. Prue thought wistfully of Ben, who would have deplored this living arrangement. She had imagined, when he'd left more than two years since, that she might take the opportunity to deepen her connection to Will Severn, but this had never occurred. She continued to enjoy and learn from his sermons, and he continued to welcome her to his home as a friend; but ever since her father's passing, something between them had changed. She could not ask him about it, and had to assume he had either come around to her position on her parents' deaths or learned of her escapades with Ben. Nothing else could explain the subtle coolness she felt from him. Pearl did not seem to notice it and spent as much time as ever in his company, while Prue contented herself corresponding with, and dreaming about, Ben. Tem, after all, had proven the one the neighborhood bachelors had come calling for: She was younger, prettier, lighter of spirit, and good at cards. But thus far she'd turned down both Cornelis Luquer and Anton Remsen, giving no explanation beyond that they did not suit her fancy, and imitating their shock at being refused with a wicked, mirthless accuracy.

Prue loved the mill when it was quiet and she could hear the river rush by. She also loved how the warmth of the fires clung to the buildings even after a day's work had ended. It was a typical, tepid January sunset, but the air felt milder once the wind had died down.

Now, at low tide, the smooth rocks of her father's retaining wall were high above the water, dry and dark. She walked along the strand until she was opposite the stillhouse's huge chimney, then sat down with her back to the river and the last few rosy wisps of cloud. From this vantage, the distillery appeared vast, and the Schermerhorn and Horsfield houses looked like frills, lace collars and cuffs around the edges of the promontory.
If she looked toward Buttermilk Channel and Nutten Island (“I tell you, it has been the Governor's Island for decades now!” Recompense exclaimed aloud, though she was alone in the room; her mother's stubbornness about such matters irritated her no end), Prue could imagine how different this land must have looked when her father had first seen it, more than thirty years before. She could imagine the cypress that had grown on the bluffs. She could not quite imagine how her father had built a modern manufactory on a site where previously had stood little more than a two-bit homemade still, with nothing to bank on but his faith he would succeed.

She felt in her bones she could build a bridge. She could not yet know if what she'd imagined would work, but it seemed worth exploring. If her own books and Cornelis's proved inadequate, they had a subscription library in New York; she could join it, and borrow the most up-to-date treatises on engineering. She knew enough about the properties of timber, stone, and iron from her work on the distillery to begin to think about materials, and she could study up on this Mr. Smeaton's miraculous cement. She believed she could correctly calculate the total avoirdupois of whatever materials she chose, and determine if making the bridge both large and sturdy enough would cause it to collapse under its own self-weight. She ran a distillery; she did not doubt she could arrive at efficient methods of construction and organize work crews. What else was there to consider? Money, but she had her fair share of that. The beginnings of what she could not give from her own pocket she believed she could raise among her neighbors and in New York, exactly as Mr. Whitcombe had raised funds for Will Severn's church. The New York State legislature—or, if it came to it, the federal government, far off in Philadelphia—would have to supply the rest. It would be necessary to earn the approval of her neighbors, but Prue did not imagine much difficulty in this quarter, except, perhaps, from Losee and a Mr. Ezra Fischer, a New York gentleman of the Jewish faith who had recently bought up land between the ropewalk and Butcher's Wharf, and who proposed to begin a second ferry service that summer. She felt less certain of the approval of the people of New York, their mayor and their board of aldermen, the assembly, the senate, and the governor; but though what she knew of New York politicians she knew only through hearsay, she thought she might go a good distance with them on money and gin. On
the New York side, she would have to purchase land for a footing, at who knew what cost; but on the Brooklyn end, she believed she might use the empty space between her storehouses and the ropewalk without interfering with either manufactory.

She also realized she'd gotten far ahead of herself. If the bridge proved feasible and worthwhile, her ability to worry over every last detail of a plan would be invaluable; but it would not matter how artful a letter she could write Governor Jay if there turned out to be no real grounds for a bridge.

However long she had sat there, evening had settled in, and the wind picked up again at her back. Jens Luquer, who was now the foreman of the stillhouse, came out from the building, turned up his collar, and started down the Shore Road, his form visible against the sand in the dim moonlight, his back canted wearily forward as if he were walking into a gale. He didn't see her, in her dark clothes, on the dark wall.

When she returned home that evening, Prue wished she had a door to shut against her sisters, or that she might, for an hour, borrow Pearl's affliction and sit silent. As was often the case, because she yearned for solitude, her sisters were solicitous of her; it was, after all, her birthday, and Abiah had baked her a rye bread and a pound cake before going off to an evening prayer meeting in Mr. Severn's church.

“Is everything all right down there?” Tem asked, striding in from the parlor in her worn-out house shoes when she heard the door shut.

Prue pulled off her boots; it would be pleasant to warm her feet by the fire. “Isaiah thinks so.”

“What took you so long, then?”

“I don't know. I was thinking.”

Tem hung, practically swaying, by the door to the hallway, as if it were an affront to nature to be still. “Did you have an enjoyable walk?”

Pearl came gliding up behind her. Snippets of the bright silk threads she'd been working with clung to her sleeves and skirt. Her dark eyes fixed keenly on Prue, who was finding both her sisters irksome. “Yes,” she replied. “And I also enjoyed sitting on the retaining wall, regarding the distillery.”

Pearl wrinkled her nose and pointed her forefinger toward that corner of the house past which lay the distillery, the East and North Rivers with New York tucked snugly between them, and the vast, woody continent
beyond. “It may not sound titillating, but I enjoyed it.” Her toes prickled in the cook fire's heat. Pearl began to brush the threads from her clothes, and Tem uncovered the cake and broke off a corner.

Pearl said “Ssst!” and smacked at her while continuing to brush her skirt.

“You know, the distillery really is beautiful when it's quiet and everyone's gone,” Prue went on. Pearl flashed her a helpless glance, possibly of solidarity, and went back to her thread-picking.

“It's a manufactory, you know,” Tem said, “not an aesthetic object.” Apparently tired of breaking off pieces of the cake, she cut a slice and a clean one from behind, and offered the latter to Prue on her open palm.

“No, thank you,” Prue said. Though a moment since she'd wished for nothing more than solitude, she now felt nettled that Tem did not share her sentiment.

Pearl opened her notebook and wrote,
For Heavens Sake T we've a perfectly good supper in that clay Pot. All I've to do is sery it
.

Tem offered her the slice of cake in apology, and Pearl rather ostentatiously put it on a plate and set it on the sideboard. Then she took three bowls and a ladle and served up their sweet potato stew. Tem leaned over her shoulder as she did so, and sniffed at the bowls.

“I'm tired of sweet potatoes,” she said, and went to bring the pitcher of milk to the table. En route, she drank from its spout. Tem behaved thus a hundred times a day, without any ill intention or causing real harm to anyone, but Pearl looked violated anyway as she sat down. Prue figured it was not so unusual to spend one's adult life with one's sisters, but surely it was among the pleasures of marriage that, when one despised it, it was one's own chosen Hell.

As she had sat on the retaining wall, Prue had prepared herself to begin her great undertaking in secret. It would not do, she had reasoned, to have her sisters or Isaiah prodding her with questions or watching over her shoulder as she worked. But as she settled down for supper and watched Tem and Pearl squabble as they'd done when they were small, she wondered how well such secrecy would serve her. Her first and deepest secret had corroded her heart; and those that came after—her early visits to Will Severn's church, her fondness for him, her goings-on with Ben, the unwelcome intuition that her father's death had not been
accidental—remained burdens. Had it been possible to tell her sisters all these things, she would have done so; but that was too much to ask of herself. She had not even fully decided to speak to her sisters of her plan, but found herself saying, “There is something I wish to discuss with you. A matter of some importance.”

Pearl looked away from her argument with Tem; her expression, however, showed some eagerness to get back to it.

Prue drew in a breath. Now she had begun, she could think of no way to avert the disclosure. “I'm considering building a bridge,” she told them.

Pearl opened her eyes a bit wider, but did not write her a note. Tem said nothing.

Prue said, “I wonder if either of you heard me just now”

“I believe so,” Tem said. “Between which buildings?”

“Across the river. A bridge to New York.”

“Ha!” Tem said, and slapped the table. This obviously annoyed Pearl, who let her spoon drop in exasperation. Tem dug into her supper. While she chewed, she eyed Prue merrily, as if the revelation had been a scheme to make Pearl forget about the cake and the milk.

“I am quite serious,” Prue said.

Tem and Pearl glanced at each other, and Pearl wiped her mouth, took her book from around her neck, and laid it on the table as she ordinarily did at mealtime.
A bridge of what Descrption?
she wrote. She was running low on pages; they would have to cut more.

Prue had not reckoned how difficult it would be to speak of an idea still so nebulous and unformed. Her hand was quivering, and as much as she wished to disclose her secret, she half hated Pearl for making her do so. “A vast bridge,” she said quietly. “Simple in form, and tall enough to admit the masts of ships.”

But 'tis'n't possible
, Pearl wrote.
There have been a doz. such Plans
.

“I believe mine will prove more sound,” Prue said. She had no better argument.

Tem shook her head no. “Prue, are you ill? Why should you be thinking of this?”

“I don't know,” Prue answered truthfully. “Or perhaps I have simply done so since before you were born.” She expected Tem to laugh at her
again, but her sister was chewing and listening. “Before you came, Pearl,” she went on, “I gazed across the straits every day, with a terrible fear of what went on there, and of what our father's business was with the inhabitants. I suppose I have never quit dreaming on it. And now I feel—the river has taken our father, and I wish to do something to mark that; beyond which, there is a great necessity for a bridge. It would be a boon to ourselves and our neighbors. And such an accomplishment. Far greater than running a distillery.”

Why were you afear'd, as a gell? You were so grave
, Pearl wrote. She was watching Prue intently.

Prue wondered why she had asked about this and not about some other aspect of her exposition, and saw Pearl trying not to allow her face to show how much the answer interested her. “It doesn't bear repeating,” she said, “and I learned soon enough there was nothing to dread there. When Father began allowing me to accompany him on his deliveries, I went so often my boots became permanently salted.”

I rmmber
.

“So I've been thinking about traversing the distance a long time; and as I say, most everyone believes a bridge would be of service. It's been a matter of arriving at a workable plan. I think I may have done so.”

“Damme,” Tem said. She poured some milk into her glass.

Pearl, who'd been holding herself up by the collarbones every time Tem's hand approached the pitcher, relaxed. She wrote,
How did you arriv there?

“I had a dream last night,” Prue said. Tenn turned her head to one side, preparing to badger her sister; but Prue said, “Hear me out. Hear me out.”

Tem exhaled through her nostrils and folded her arms on the table.