Brookland (34 page)

Once she had worked out the size, depth, and weight of the bridge's abutments, she was at leisure to determine their appearance, and here she could give her imagination free rein. At first she'd envisioned the abutments as no more than a pair of bookends, propping the structure up from its two ends. The two sides of the river differed markedly from each other, however—the bridge would originate in Brooklyn at the foot of a cliff, whence it would spring up from between the two manufactories; but in Manhattan, it would alight in the midst of lively urban streets. It was only sensible the abutments should suit their individual environs.
Prue hoped to look across at the New York side of the bridge the rest of her days, and hoped what she gazed upon might stand as fitting testament to her achievement. She arrived at the idea of a simple stone pyramid, with the roadway running in a vaulted tunnel through its middle. For the Brooklyn footing, in its less scenic locale, she imagined a Gothic structure, whose spires would echo those of New York's churches across the water. Neither abutment would be the more grand, but Brooklyn's might be more decorative, to atone for its less aesthetically pleasing location.

When Prue's father had begun training her in the distillery, Prue had been eager to please him and to dispel any lingering doubts he might have about her fitness for the work. She had always lived in terror of failure—close kin to being known for the sinner she was—and had honed her skills and attention in order to stave it off. Now the distillery was hers, she more or less believed its continued success depended upon her industry and vigilance; and though she could rest on the day of rest, she did not allow herself much leisure otherwise. Even she, however, was caught off guard by her dedication to this new project, because her absorption in it was at once so intense and so joyful.

As if her work had a spell on it that might be broken by uttering its name, her sisters at first gave her a wide berth; but Pearl soon gave in to curiosity. She began following Prue down to her workroom, whither she had brought Johanna's rocker in which to read. While Prue worked, Pearl rocked in the creaking chair and bent over her needlework, which at the time was yet another Pietà, this one with a sad, green-faced Virgin bending over her even sadder gray son. When she grew tired, Pearl would retire to the house without so much as meeting Prue's eyes or bidding her good afternoon. The next day, she would be back. At first Prue found her presence irksome, but after a few days, she began to look forward to this silent time in Pearl's company. Prue could hear the rush as Pearl pulled her silk floss through the muslin, and she felt the heat of Pearl's gaze upon her as she figured and sketched. At last, on the evening she'd made her first complete drawing of what she believed would be the actual bridge, Prue pushed abruptly back from the table and met Pearl's dark stare. Pearl whistled a descending scale and drew her palms together in the air to indicate she had been caught.

“Indeed,” Prue said. “But I've been watching you, too, when your head's down. May I see?”

Pearl secured her needle in the fabric, unhitched the tambour hoop, and stretched her scene wide for her sister's view. It was broad as her arm span, and half as high; and her hoop had left a large dimple surrounding Mary Magdalene's hand, which was clutched tight around a handkerchief, her very sinews expressing her grief. Pearl was peering at her sister over the top, awaiting her approval.

“It is most affecting,” Prue said, “and beautifully composed.” Pearl dropped her chin in thanks. “I am not certain I understand where you acquired a taste for such images.”

Pearl folded her scene in her lap, opened her pad, and wrote,
I might ask the same of you, in oth' Circumstanses
. She paused to sharpen her pencil against her pocketknife. The shavings curled to the floor.
M
^r
Severn also thinks it most affeckting, & our Catholic Neighbours will almost certenly wish t'exhibit it in thr Church
.

“Should I hire you some minions to execute your designs?”

Pearl's small eyes widened, while she awaited further explanation.

“You could make a tidy business of it. It wouldn't earn so much as a distillery, but I daresay you'd do well.”

Pearl smiled and shook her head.
Might earn more'n a Bridge. But t'would'n't work
, she wrote, then tapped her left fingers against her breastbone.
No use unless you feel it Here. Never fear, the Catholics pay me well. I am quite satisA'd I shll have a new Dress come spring
.

“You needn't save up your shillings for that,” Prue said.

I know. I can ask whenever I wish. Now may I see what yr working uppon?

Prue's mouth went dry, but she answered, “Yes.”

Pearl watched her a moment, as if to ascertain whether her answer still held true. Then she placed her embroidery on the chair and crossed the few paces to the desk. Prue could not fathom her own nervousness at the prospect of showing her sister this work.

“You will forgive my inexpert drawing,” Prue said, and slid before her the most detailed sketch, which showed the whole structure seen from the south, with Winship Gin to its right and, across the river, the Old Market Wharf.

Pearl took it up by its edges, mindful as she was of graphite's impermanence,
and let out a breath of surprise or delight. She bent her head down close, as if to smell each detail, and scanned it up and down. After a while, she settled it on the table and reached out her hand for Prue's arm. It was their mother's hand Prue saw—all length and veins. With her free hand, Pearl gestured to the other drawings around the desk.

“Yes, if you like,” Prue said, and pulled away from her enough to gather them.

Before Pearl picked them up, she wrote,
Beautiful
.

Pearl scrutinized the cross section of one of the levers, the joists supporting the roadway, the foundations for the abutments, and the abutments themselves. She brought Prue's candles closer to her and arranged the drawings around them. At last she drew one of Prue's clean sheets of paper—a full-sized sheet—toward her, dipped Prue's pen and wrote,
Y
^r
.
Mathmaticks are sound?

“To the best of my knowledge,” Prue said. “The model bridge will help show if such a structure can stand at all: if it be a plausible method of construction.”

& Yr Materials will hold, over such a Spann?

“Again, it appears so. Once we have the facsimile, I shall test it with weights out of all proportion to its size, in the hopes this will prefigure the weight of the eventual thing itself.”

Pearl stepped back from the table and regarded them all once more. Then she returned and dipped the pen again.
In truth I think it magnificent
, she wrote. Prue felt her face light up with pride.
Magnificent
. But I could draw it better for you. W. a better draw
^ng
you'd be able to see more clearly, where there are Flaws. May I have a go at it? Even if only for a few Days?

She was leaning toward Prue, her face eager. Prue could see she had a faint rash at her temples, no doubt from the dry air. “Of course,” she said. “I would be most thankful.”

Pearl slapped the table as Tem might have done. The inkwell wobbled, and she reached out to steady it before dipping her pen once more.
The Moment I finish my Pieta, then
.

“I cannot thank you enough,” Prue said. A moment later the gratitude itself flooded her chest. She was surprised both at how pleasant it felt and at how long it had taken to arrive. “Shall we go up?”

Pearl nodded, and began to blow out the candles.

Prue closed the stove's door. “When do you imagine you'll begin?”
she asked. But as the room was now nearly dark, her sister could not answer her. The date didn't matter, after all; it would be soon.

Prue had never seen her sister so happy as over the next few days. She began arising earlier than Prue; when Prue arrived downstairs for breakfast, there Pearl would be by the kitchen fire, working on her embroidery. She would continue to pore over it long past dark, though her eyes grew red from the strain. Prue thought, watching her, it was as if Pearl had been struck by lightning—she had a current of energy coursing through her where previously only her own mild spirit had appeared to move. She understood the pleasure and satisfaction Pearl anticipated in working out the drawings; and when she thought it had always been possible to bestow such a gift on her sister, and she had only now figured out the way, she felt something very like the silent awe she sometimes glimpsed during Will Severn's sermons. She hoped she would have the opportunity to join her sister at church again soon.

It was also with great joy Prue returned to supervising the distillery. She had never before left it for more than a day. While she had performed her experiments and calculations and worked out her first drawings, she had generally been on or near the premises, and apprised of the business's daily output and events; but for the first time in more than half her lifetime, she had not had her hands regularly in the malt nor the burning fumes of proof spirit in her nostrils. She felt, on returning, she could see Winship Daughters Gin with new eyes; she could appreciate the sheer size of the manufactory, and its gruff, unstudied grandeur. She experienced for the first time an understanding of what her father had meant when he'd likened the process to alchemy. If only he had not been so full of doubt, she thought, he might have likened it to a miracle.

B
en came home to Brooklyn in mid-April sporting a coonskin cap, its wildness at odds with his pointy Horsfield chin, which was itself incongruously covered in a trim reddish beard when Prue first caught sight of him. She chanced to see him debark from Losee's boat as she looked out the countinghouse window. Although he wore a thick shearling coat, he appeared slighter than she recalled; but there was no mistaking the cock of his head or the exuberance with which he sprang up to the wharf. She was glad Tem and Isaiah were elsewhere, so she could watch him in peace.

He did not call at once. Prue started at every footstep, both at home and at the distillery, but none was his. He could only have gone to stay with Isaiah, but her overseer told her nothing the next morning. Gossip sped around Brooklyn, however, and she learned from Joe Loosely that Ben had gone that very morning to see about buying one of the tidy new houses of Olympia, in Buckbee's Alley. “That'll give 'im a place to hang his shingle,” Joe said, serving her a plate of fried fish. “And keep him clear of that colicky whelp of Patience Livingston's.” He blew out a whistle of surprise. “Healthy lungs, that one. My wife and I hear her from our bedroom.”

Prue had two questions of great importance for Ben: whether he would assist in the design of her bridge, and what he had concluded, during his years away, as regarded their former intimacy. She berated herself for wondering when he would come make love to her, and tried to find comfort in telling herself the bridge was the only important thing.

“Yep, bought that little blue house,” Joe told her the next day. The day after that, “My boys carried his trunks over this morning, and he's hiring one of the lads away from me, for an assistant.” Prue had never eaten so much fried cod in her life, but vowed she would lunch at the tavern until she received some definitive news. Three days had passed and the man hadn't called. Prue dreaded to know why—perhaps he had taken a wife in the north country, or worse, had simply worn out his fancy for his childhood friend—but at last she determined to seek him out and learn his reasons. As dusk began to fall, she hung her work clothes on a peg and put on the plain brown dress she still had not bothered to replace. She noticed as if for the first time how awkwardly she moved in it. Abiah stood cutting carrots in her palm with the paring knife. “You look pretty,” she said.

Prue could not read Abiah's tone, and took up her coat from the rack without responding.

“Going to see Ben Horsfield, I'll wager.”

Prue wondered why anyone in Brooklyn even bothered to have conversations, when everyone knew everything already. Abiah put down her knife, wiped her fingers on her apron, and went over to pinch Prue's cheeks. “Don't,” Prue said, but she also could not help feeling flattered.

“That's better,” Abiah said. “Shall I expect you back for supper?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” she said, and returned to her work.

The blue house Ben had taken was next to Will Severn's. When Prue arrived, Will was standing at his open door, sweeping dust out into his yard. Prue wondered where his servant was. Though dusk was falling, she saw him suck in his lower lip in what appeared genuine surprise at seeing her in a dress on a workday. “Hello, Prue,” he said. He bowed his head, still holding his broom. “No Pearl?”