Brookland (32 page)

She had known Isaiah most of her twenty-six years; such a glimmer of irresponsibility was rare. “Are you certain?”

“It won't take a minute.” He gave her his hand to climb up.

Before she could, however, someone was calling, “Miss Winship?” She turned to see Jens Luquer jogging up behind her. He was blowing steam from his nostrils and over his red mustache. “Sorry to disturb you, Prue,” he said, “but it seems a small batch of yesterday's came up feints, and I can't say why.”

“Did anyone taste the wort before it went in?” she asked.

“No, but it smelled fine.”

She wanted to counsel him always to rely on his tongue; but in the general clamor, she herself often went by the nose. “Worm dirty?”

“Cleaned on schedule on Friday, and the flannel beneath it changed. I suppose I can check it again.”

Phineas Bates overheard the conversation, and drew nigh to listen. He stooped down, as if to be a more ordinary height would make him less conspicuous.

“Which batch is it?” Prue asked.

“Four-aught-fourteen.”

She had smelled it herself the previous day, and it had seemed normal. Some coal shovelers and horse keepers were now finding pretexts to be nearby, as they sometimes did if Prue idled too long. She fancied they
were waiting for her to begin uttering Delphic pronouncements. Feints was always serious, as Prue could see from Isaiah's pinched expression; nevertheless, she looked at the loaded wagon and said, “Isaiah and I are off on business. Phineas, can you lend Jens a hand?”

Phineas nodded, his whole figure stooping into the gesture.

“Mr. Bates will help you, then; and have Miss Tem look into it.”

“With all due respect—”

“Have Tem look into it, Jens,” she repeated, as she was also trying to convince herself this was a reasonable course of action. “She knows feints as well as anyone.” Jens's breath rose around his broad face in plumes, and Isaiah kept holding the near horse by its reins. “You may as well know, I have some work to accomplish outside my ordinary sphere,” she went on, directing her voice to everyone around. “If in the next few days you must inquire about foul-smelling spirits or a broken machine, speak with Mr. Horsfield or with Tem.”

Jens looked like he had more to say, but Phineas put a hand on his shoulder and steered him back toward the stillhouse. They made a comical pair—the one so solid and Dutch, the other so elongated. The other men were leaning on their shovels and exchanging views. “There'll be plenty of time for opinions at the Twin Tankards this evening,” she said. A few shook their heads at her. “Back to work. Mr. Horsfield will return within the half hour.”

The crowd dispersed when Isaiah clicked to the drays. As soon as Prue and Isaiah cleared the distillery gate, they passed Nicolaas Luquer heading down the bill for slop exchange. They all waved to one another. As the horses strained uphill, Prue glanced sideways at Isaiah and found him doing the same. “Spooked 'em good,” he said.

“Oh,” Prue replied. She wasn't certain it was a compliment.

He reached around to pat her far shoulder. “It's just as well the men find you uncanny. I can't see them taking orders from a pretty gell otherwise.”

It was pleasant to know he thought her pretty. She looked out over the bluff and toward the river, and saw one of the Schermerhorn barges bobbing toward them, empty except for its tired, half-frozen pilot.

“Can you tell me what sort of a structure you're intending?” Isaiah asked.

The previous evening's difficult conversation with her sisters remained
fresh in her memory; but it was difficult to keep a secret from Isaiah, and he had a milder temperament than either of them. “I'm hoping to figure out how to build a bridge,” she said, and pointed toward the Fly Market. “To New York, I mean,”

For a moment, he kept quiet, and Prue nearly winced each time her watch ticked against her ribs and told her another second had gone by between them, silent. The hooves and wheels clattered on the hard-packed road, and the great engines of the ropewalk thrummed. He said, “Goodness, Prue. That's an undertaking. Have you considered how vast it is?”

Prue nodded and glanced sideways at him again. He wasn't laughing at her; this was a start. “I have an idea,” she ventured. “It is yet to be proved. And I do know the rudiments of construction. I shall attempt to learn what I don't know through reading, experimentation, and questioning; and then I'll draw up plans for it and build a small representation, to see if it has the least chance of holding. 'Tis a pity your brother isn't here. I don't think there's anything I want more, in determining if this plan will prove practicable, than a surveyor.”

He looked askance at her again. “I've something I'm supposed to keep secret from you,” he said. They drove past his house, up on the ridge. There were Maggie and Patience, the latter with the screaming infant on one arm. Both women were taking down their frozen laundry, which had been hanging on the line since Monday.

“Ben's coming home?” Prue asked.

“Well, I'm not to say.”

Prue leaned over and kissed his cheek, and the Devil care if his wife saw her. He pushed her off, laughing, as if they were still children. “I could kill 'im,” Prue said. “He hasn't written in ages.”

Isaiah shook his head. “He's been deep in the wilderness, Prue. I hadn't a letter of him in six months.”

“Still.”

“But he's—” Isaiah stopped himself, and appeared to weigh the worth of keeping part of his secret. “He's been appointed surveyor for King's County. I believe he'll set up shop within the month.”

The day remained frigid, but the warmth in Prue's heart flooded her chest. “I could dearly use his help.”

“And nothing more?” Isaiah asked.

“What is it you ask?” Prue said.

“If you require him for aught else than bridge-building.”

She itched to push him off the wagon, but they had arrived at the Liberty Tavern, and Joe was out smoking on his stoop and awaiting his delivery. Isaiah pulled twice at the reins, and the horses looked daggers back at him over their withers.

“Both of you?” Joe asked. “Slow day for gin. Come in and have a sup.”

Prue thought of Tem down there, battling the feints. There was nothing to be done about it now—the money and labor were already lost—and Tem was no fool; she'd arrive at a solution. “No, Joe,” she said. “Isaiah'll stay for a pint, but I've business to conduct this morning.”

“Suit yourself, fancy lady,” he said, and spat a shred of tobacco to the ground. His boys began with their usual languor to unload the casks onto barrows.

Isaiah hopped down, and said to Prue, “If I can be of further assistance—”

“You've been a great help already,” Prue said. “More than you know” Waving good-bye, she set out along the turnpike for the sawmill.

Ten years earlier, she might have felt embarrassed, striding along in a man's coat, knee britches, and tall boots entirely unlike the delicate pumps Pearl wore; but she had grown accustomed to her place in the world, and that day she felt each step over the frozen mud as a promise. She thought she might be the only woman in Brooklyn with a gold watch ticking along against her breast, and she felt proud of the distinction.

The pavement rumbled as heavy carts rolled by, and pedestrians walked on the frozen dirt margins of the road. Five students from Mr. Severn's school, however, tromped up the center of the roadway, with their lunches in buckets. Simon Dufresne nearly ran them down, and swore over his shoulder at them as he swerved past. The boys, of course, laughed, and dared one another to remain in the path of the next carriage. Prue thought they were all lucky it was midwinter; in any other season, they would either have been choked with dust or ankle-deep in mud.

Simon whistled and beckoned Prue in as she walked past his gate. Prue reminded herself van Vechten would still have wood at his sawmill a quarter hour hence, and turned into the yard. Two of Simon's men
were unhitching his team, and the barrel-chested old man himself was standing by the empty wash line, talking in icy puffs to Peg as she wiped bird excrement from the rope with a cloth. “Prue,” he said, “what're you doing away from the mill? Get back to your gin. Peg, make 'er some coffee.”

Peg nodded her head toward the door as she stuck some stray clothespins in her pocket. “Come, I've got honey cake. You can bring some home for little Pearl.”

“She's nineteen.”

“Pshaw.”

“Will you mind if I'm brief? I've an errand at van Vechten's.”

“No, no,” Peg said, and hustled Prue toward the kitchen. “Into the house with you. You look cold.”

Simon followed on their heels. “Don't tell me you left Temmy running that distillery?” he asked.

“Just for an hour or two.”

“Oh, she could break a heart in less time than that.”

“Mind your business, Simon,” Peg said as she ground the coffee. She put cinnamon in the grounds, and its scent made Prue want to settle in for the remainder of the morning.

She sat down on the long bench. “She's grown up a fair bit these past few years.”

“Grown pretty, too, 's all I'm saying. I'm surprised she turned down Cornelis. Not as if she could find a decenter fellow.”

“No, nor one she's known better nor liked so well.”

Simon shook his white head and sat down across from her. “People are saying she's proud.”

“Perhaps so.” She was still thinking about Ben's return. “She'll have more responsibility in the near future. I have plans to improve access to the distillery.”

“Right smart of you,” Simon said. “You should rebuild the whole place in stone while you're at it. That's what you need, for real security. I told your father so when you were a pip, and again when you did all that rebuilding a few years back.”

“We're heavily insured, and we've been lucky thus far.”

“Mmm,” Peg said, “but who but God knows how long that will continue?”

Prue said, “I should think whatever curse fell on Mr. Joralemon would have outlived its usefulness.”

Simon spat (prophylactically, Prue thought) into the fire, and Peg clicked her tongue. “I'll hope you're correct, Prue,” he said.

“Enough on that, now,” Peg said.

Simon thumped the table. “She's right, of course. Miss Winship, I've a favor to ask. I've a grandnephew, brother's grandson, out in Midwout. Nineteen years old—”

“Just right for Pearlie,” Peg added. “A dear, sweet boy.”

“—and a hardworking one, looking for a place. Any chance he might find work with the Winship daughters?”

“Of course,” Prue said, relieved it was something so easy. “What are his skills?”

Peg set down a pitcher of milk with the cream floating on top.

“He's not the strongest lad—he had the whooping cough a few years since, and hasn't been the same—but a diligent study, and clever with his hands.”

“Send him to me as soon as he can come. I'll see what he can do.”

Peg set the coffee down in its steaming tin pot, and Prue warmed herself all the way through with their fire and conversation.

When Prue set out again for the sawmill, her spirits were soaring—she could not say if because of her project, the news of Ben's return, or Peg's coffee. She found Theunis in his office above the whining sawmill. When she arrived, he was sitting with his feet up on his desk and the holes in his boot-soles exposed. He was chewing tobacco, which he removed from his cheek in a hurry, and he beckoned her in with a welcoming hand. “Little Prudie,” he shouted over the screech of the saw and the plash of the waterwheel. “What can I do for you?”

“Good morning, Theunis. I need a plank of wood big enough for a desk.”

“Does it have to be fancy? Or pine'll do?”

“It hardly matters, so long as it's level and broad.”

“That's done,” he said. “I'll send one over this afternoon.” He noted it down on a sheet of paper. “Something else?”

“Yes, actually. I've also come to ask you about timber.”

“Timber,” he said, “that's my specialty; but it's been twenty years since
we had any round these parts. Do you even remember what a forest looks like?”

“They were still standing when I was a child.”

The saw quit whining, and Prue could hear the river and horses going by. “Ah,” he said, “isn't it lovely when the machines go off?”

“I know,” she said.

“So. What can I tell you about timber?”

“Well,” Prue said. In fact, now that she had told Isaiah, it was no use trying to keep it secret. Isaiah was trustworthy, but rumor spread through Brooklyn more quickly than black flies in June; so Prue realized she might as well start the rumor herself. She sat down across Theunis's desk from him. “I have it in mind to build a bridge across the East River.”

He widened his rheumy eyes at her.

“I know,” Prue said. “I may yet abandon the idea; but not until I'm certain I've proven it impossible.”

“We've needed one a long time,” Theunis said. “And it'd be a fine thing to have it homegrown.”

“Thank you,” Prue said.

“But Prue,” he continued, “you know well you won't be the first to try. No plan has ever even earned the approval of Joe Loosely, never mind the legislature.”

“I know. I shall try not to hope too dearly for it; but I also can't know it's impossible unless I work all the details out.

“At all events, I have a great deal to learn of materials, but from what I know of them, I think it might be best to build such a structure in wood, for its lightness and flexibility.” She would tell no one but her sisters she had remarked this in looking at Cornelis's springboard. “I wonder if you've any notion what would bear the most weight without itself being unnecessarily heavy; and what you think would best resist the weather. I shall need to know my material to work the plan according to it.” She saw him eyeing his tobacco pouch and said, “It's all right if you want to chew.”