Brookland (41 page)

“I am Prudence Winship, owner of this distillery, and coauthor, with Benjamin Horsfield, King's County's surveyor, of the plan you are invited here today to witness and approve.” It was probably unnecessary to introduce herself—no one would mistake her for some other redheaded woman wandering the premises in a man's attire and work boots—but the ruminant gaze directed up at her from those assembled faces had unnerved her. She cleared her throat, resolved to do better, and explained as succinctly as she could her plan for the bridge and the barest outline of its novel method of construction. She then told them of the elevation and model they were about to view.

The sails of the windmill, unhooked from the gear shaft, spun easily in the hot breeze, and the flag of the Republic snapped atop its pole. She caught sight of Will Severn in the crowd, his undershot chin nearly quivering with expectation. He seemed to be looking for someone.

She wished she had more water. “Shall we proceed, then?”

A murmur of assent rippled through the crowd.

Prue saw Tem had stationed herself by the door to the assembly hall. “My sister Temperance Winship stands by the room wherein the materials may be viewed. If you will line up outside the door, everyone will be admitted in turn.”

Tem waved a hand in the air, and the crowd began to converge on her.

Prue saw Abiah speaking to Patience, Rachael, and Maggie near the distillery gate. A moment later, they started up the lane. Patience was once again large with child, and she lagged behind the rest of them. When Prue descended the ladder, Ben said, “Well done.”

“Thank you.”

He said, “It's such a large gathering.”

Prue thought he meant to say he was nervous, and she nodded her understanding.

Pearl took her sister's arm as they moved toward the countinghouse.
Those at the front of the line stepped back so Ben and the Winships might enter first. As they passed him, Will Severn raised his hat in greeting, and Pearl waved back with her free hand. Someone unknown to Prue asked his companion if they were likely to be offered samples of the wares later on. She hoped few of these people had come merely to drink.

Pearl walked over to the table of drawings, and Isaiah to the model bridge. Ben and Prue untied the ribbon from the elevation and began to unwind it. He was sweating in his high collar and frills but had somehow managed to grease his cowlick down. They all glanced nervously around between them, and Isaiah said to Tem, “Very well. Let them in.”

“No more than twenty shall enter at a go,” Tem announced to the crowd. “And we would be most obliged if you'd spit out your tobacky before you step inside.” This provoked laughter, but Prue heard people spitting outdoors. Hot, humid air puffed through the windows, and the planks of the floor creaked as the first viewers arrived.

“Oh, good God!” Mrs. Livingston exclaimed on seeing the elevation, and began touching at her hat as if the drawing might cause it to disintegrate. “Impossible!” As the room was still almost empty, it gave back her words with a sharp, metallic echo.

“It'll never do, never do,” her husband comforted her.

Of course, the crowd erupted in a volley of speculation and surged toward the door, but Tem held them back. “In due time,” she called, and they subsided. But those who had made their way indoors felt free to gesticulate and shout about what they saw. Much of the commentary was incredulous, but much was full of interest and awe.

When Peg Dufresne's turn came, she leaned in to touch Prue's arm and asked, “Pearlie really drew that?”

“She did.”

Pearl beamed from the table end of the room. She was flushed, and her delicate collar was wilting with perspiration.

“Bless her,” Peg said. “I always knew she was special.”

From the door, Tem shouted out, “May I ask for order? My friends, please. If you line up and enter in a systematic fashion, you'll all get in quick enough.”

Isaiah called out, “Temmy? Let us trade places,” and she seemed relieved to comply. She tugged at her vest as she moved inside.

The line did quiet and grow neater with Isaiah to regulate it. Ben
stood by New York's abutment, and Prue by Brooklyn's. In clots and clumps the neighbors, employees, slaves, and numerous strangers filed past the items on display, some taking only a cursory glance around before retreating, others exclaiming, still more crouching down to squint at the layered timbers or at some detail of the drawing, as if it were a queer fish brought up in the day's catch. Not a few kissed Pearl, or bowed to her, which raised a thick bubble of gratitude in Prue's breast. Will Severn happened to be standing by Ezra Fischer when he entered.

“Fancy that,” Mr. Fischer said, placing his hand on Will Severn's sleeve. “Her drawing rolls up like the Torah, in which we read the holy Scriptures.”

“I have heard,” Will Severn said. “Your work is magnificent, Miss Pearl.”

She smiled broadly in reply.

Soon afterward, an unfamiliar young man entered and began scribbling furious notes on a folded bill. His whole body hunched around the work, and the underarms of his pale linen jacket were dark with perspiration.

“How's that, sir?” Ben asked him.

“Ah, Mr. Horsfield,” the young man said. He stood up sufficiently to remove his hat, and gave a perfunctory bow “C. Mather Harrison, of the
New-York Daily Argus
. I've been sent to observe this wonder; and a wonder it is.”

Prue felt her pulse in her throat, but knew she should allow Ben to speak. He replied, “We have not yet presented this plan to the good people of New York.”

Harrison gave a quick, affable smile. “Indeed, sir. That's why I'm sent to write up the report.” Like Will Severn, he had a slightly undershot chin, but Prue thought the resemblance ended there.

Ben looked to Prue for guidance, but Pearl stepped over to him and wrote him a note. Ben took a deep breath after reading it, then turned to Harrison and said, “Very well, sir. Present the facts; your fellows will know them soon enough. Mind your pencil, however. I don't want you marking up our elevation.”

“Of course not, sir. Much obliged.” He returned to his work with a dedication Prue found worrisome.

Jens and Cornelis Luquer let out a whoop of astonishment when
they saw what their friends had been working upon. Many of Brooklyn's womenfolk seemed curious how all these things were put together. Mrs. Luquer eyed the way the elevation attached to its poles, and Katrintje Remsen showed an interest in the model's pattern of timber. None of this was as Prue had expected, but it pleased her nonetheless.

The reactions of some of her father's compatriots, however, worried her. Mr. Remsen and Mr. Joralemon hurried by the drawings almost with their eyes averted. Prue feared their displeasure, for it was their names, and their property, that would sway the legislature. She tried to remind herself that if a man had lived twice as long as she, and had land and a family to protect, he would not be likely to jump up shouting for change. It was beginning to seem natural to Prue that her workers loved the bridge—building it would bring good jobs to their sons and brethren.

Though the hottest part of the day soon passed, the room continued to grow hotter with the sour warmth of bodies and breath, and Prue knew her own agitation contributed to her discomfort. Pearl's hair had begun to come undone, and her shoulders were sagging; Isaiah had removed his coat but was still red and perspiring. Prue worried the floor was seeping the scent of stale liquor, though this seemed impossible. The stream of gawkers showed no signs of abating; but at last, when Isaiah let in a group that included Claes and Eelkje Luquer, he said, to no one in particular, “That's it. That's the last of them.”

Prue's throat felt dry as a rock in the sun, and she thought she saw Pearl wobbling on her feet, but there could be only a few minutes more of exclamations and sullen stares to live through. Claes and Eelkje were wearing their Sunday clothes and comported themselves better than many of the grown people around them; Prue did not know how they had managed to wait, with such apparent patience, for so many hours together. “ 'Tis very beautiful, Miss Winship,” Claes said as he came around to her. “I'm glad I could help.”

“You were of great assistance,” Prue said, and found his bright expression buoyed her up for her last half hour of standing. Before those in the room had departed, Isaiah called out to those still milling in the yard, “Miss Winship and Mr. Horsfield will take questions, as soon as they have had a moment to refresh themselves.”

Prue wished she had had the foresight to stow a pot up in the countinghouse;
there was no possibility she could get clear up to the privy with such a crowd gathered.

When at last Claes and Eelkje filed out, Pearl sat down on the floor.

“Are you all right?” Prue asked.

She fumbled to remove her pencil, and wrote,
Only the damn'd Heat
. Her finger left a smudge on the page.

Isaiah said, “Abiah brought some cake and lemonade upstairs for us.”

Ben took Pearl's hand and drew her upright. She leaned unsteadily into him, and he led her toward the door.

People began clamoring with questions the moment they appeared, but Ben called out, “Fifteen minutes, I beg you. We will give you all evening, if you require it.”

Isaiah locked the door to the assembly hall before following them upstairs. Prue felt sick, but once she could force herself to swallow the lemonade, it cooled her. Pearl drank and allowed Abiah to press a cool rag to her neck and forehead, but she looked unwell.

“I'm going to take her back up to the house,” Abiah said. “She'll fare better there.”

Pearl shook her head no.

“That, or a dunk in the river,” Isaiah said. “Your choice.”

Pearl wearily opened her book and wrote,
Thankyou, I wo'n't be mortify'd befor all theese People. It is my bridge, too. I wish to stay for the Questions
.

“You have done a great deal,” Prue said, “but you really should let Abiah take you home. You'll be quite ill otherwise.”

Pearl shot her sister a perturbed glance as Abiah helped her to her unsteady feet. Abiah said, “If she seems well enough, I'll come back to help with the refreshments.”

“Thank you, Abiah,” Isaiah said. “If you do not return, my wife and sisters will manage it.” The moment they'd left, he said, “We should go back down. Perhaps we can answer questions from the countinghouse steps; it'll be easier to see into the crowd that way.”

Ben removed his jacket and hung it on a peg by the door before they left the room.

Outdoors, Patience, Maggie, and Rachael were manning two tables set out with
koekjes
, cakes, lemonade, and cups for the casks of gin. Patience looked exhausted. She and the refreshments had been an attraction until
Prue and Ben appeared on the stairs, and then most of the crowd turned back to them. Prue did not even feel she had time to straighten her damp cuffs before the questioning began: “You can't really think it'll work?” Mr. Joralemon shot out at them; and someone near him, “How long would it take to build?” Mr. Cortelyou called out, “We don't have enough hands to spare you, not from here to Nassau County. Where will you get the men?” To which young Gregor Joralemon, with one arm draped affably around his brother Ivo's shoulders, replied, “I don't mind saying, if you're going to use explosives to clear the earth for the foundations, I'll be the first to volunteer for the job.” The newsman, Mr. Harrison, stood at the outskirts of the crowd and made notes about the questions.

Prue saw Pearl and Abiah go out the gate and leave it swinging open behind them.

Ben had recovered himself sufficiently to start in on the questions, and began to address them, one by one. He detailed the cost of the bridge, which was reckoned in pounds, though the joint houses of the state legislature had the previous year approved the adoption of the federal dollar. (Ben and Prue agreed that as everyone still used pounds and shillings for their daily transactions, to state the cost in dollars would only breed confusion. Neither did it escape Prue's notice that the dollar was valued rather lighter than the pound, so any sum reckoned in that currency sounded greater.) Ben explained the time he believed would be necessary to build the bridge and the number of men it would require. Some of the younger Brooklanders sat down in the sand to listen. John Boerum whispered something to his adult son, who appeared uninterested; Jacob was known for a bounder and probably wanted to get back to the gin.

At last Joe raised his hand to question them, and asked, “Would you stake your life upon this thing's ability to stand?”

Prue glanced at Ben, but he did not even pause before replying. “I shall have no choice, Mr. Loosely,” he said with a broad smile, “as I shall be up on it every day, supervising its construction.”

This raised a faint wave of laughter, and Prue felt as if a cool breeze had blown through, despite the day's heat. The crowd still did not feel entirely friendly.

“Prue?” she heard someone call from the edge of the gathering. She looked out to see Losee van Nostrand making his way forward through
the crowd. “Please pardon me,” he said. Those in his path stepped aside for him, yet he seemed to be drawing his strong, hunched shoulders inward to take up as little space as possible. He stopped in front of the staircase and stood with his hat in his hands, his hair tawny white above his tanned brow. “I am exceedingly proud of you for all this,” he said, “and I wish your father were here to see it. If there is any justice, he's looking down on us from Heaven right now”

Someone called out, “I wouldn't count on it, Lo.”

Again some of the neighbors laughed. Losee turned his hat around by its brim, and took a full breath before speaking. “I see the beauty of your proposal, and I see it would serve our port well; but please understand, my livelihood depends on people needing to be ferried across these straits. My business will already be harmed by Mr. Fischer's new ferry.” The mill yard fell almost silent. “What do you say to that?”