Brookland (49 page)

“With my sisters?”

Ben said, “I could as easily have been living with Isaiah, Patience, and Maggie all this time.”

“And been miserable at it.”

“Ah, but I like your sisters better than I like Patience,” he said.

Prue wasn't convinced, but said, “If you say so.”

“I do. And I say we should get back to town as well. There's no use stopping to pay calls on your customers if we ramble all day.”

They took two extra days in returning to do just that; she did not know when she would have another opportunity to meet these gentlemen she had known only by name all these years. Most of them seemed as surprised as the hotel guest had been to discover there were actual daughters behind the gin; but they sent her away with larger orders than usual, and those who'd asked to see the drawings for the bridge sent good wishes for its success.

Prue had written to Tem again, directly before they left Albany, to apprise her of their plans for return; and as soon as their boat entered Buttermilk Channel, Prue saw a rider take off up the Shore Road.

Must be for Teturny
, Pearl wrote.

As the rider rode past, Prue could see people from the tannery and the Luquer Mill and all the way north coming out to look at them. When they passed their own wharf, perhaps thirty persons were crammed against the retaining wall, and a score more dotted the fences that backed along Clover Hill. Others, including Tem, had clustered around van Nostrand's landing, where Prue, Pearl, and Ben would be dropped off with the mails. Tem waved and shouted as she saw them approach, though over the din of the port, Prue could not hear what she was saying. Pearl waved back. An auction was under way at Joe Loosely's, and a crowd of children was gathered appreciatively around a flock of agitated black-faced sheep.

When they landed, Tem jumped down onto their boat. Losee was sitting on the flat rock north of his landing with his young daughter, Petra,
eating a fried chicken. After Prue had exchanged greetings with Tem and Isaiah, and learned no terrible fate had befallen the works in her absence, she tried to forget Losee's words at the petition signing, and went over to the rock. “Losee, Petra, it's good to see you,” she said. “Looks like a fine lunch.”

He wiped his hands and mouth on his gingham napkin in what seemed an ordinary fashion, but Petra stared at the ground so that her pale blond braids swung down to hide her face, and blushed in a manner that told Prue she'd been the subject of conversation at table. “Indeed,” Losee said. “You met with some success, I hear?” He was wearing an old shirt, thin at the elbows, with his deceased wife's signature blue stitching. He surely thought he'd never have another like it, once it wore out.

“Some,” Prue said. “Perhaps not as much as we might have hoped.”

“Papers said otherwise. Your father would be proud.” Had he not looked out across the water, a stranger would never have known he found this troubling. “Very proud.”

Prue said, “Thank you.” She wanted to tell him that in honor of her father, she would make certain he was never driven out of business—she would employ him to ship her own goods, should it prove necessary—but she knew this would please him no more than anything else she might say.

Losee pointed toward Ben and Pearl. “Was it trouble looking after those two?”

“No trouble,” Ben called, but any humor he might have intended was lost between his mouth and the small, lapping waves. “Bit of unloading to see to,” he said. “Excuse me.”

Losee's broad, wrinkled face unnerved Prue; it gave the impression she was keeping him from a more important task. “I don't want to interrupt your lunch,” she said.

He answered, “No, not at all.”

“I'll be up to the works, then. I'm sure there's plenty to see to.”

“One hears.”

“How so?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and took up a new piece of chicken. Petra hadn't looked at her all that time. Loosely's boys had shouldered the scroll and the Winships' trunk and were carrying them down to the Shore
Road. They'd called out a team of horses to move the model bridge; Ben's small trunk had gone on a barrow, and a lone boy had set out to wheel it up toward Olympia. “What kind of a gratuity will you give us, Mr. Horsfield?” one boy asked. “Can you make Miss Winship pay us in gin?”

“I'll pay you all in broken noggins if you don't get everything to the distillery in one piece,” he said.

They shouted at him and stuck out their tongues. He capered along in front of them to lead the way.

Tem and Pearl were having what looked to be an animated conversation, but Prue broke into the middle of it and led them both down the open stairs toward the Shore Road. “Losee made me wonder if everything really is all right at the works,” she said.

Tem put her strong arm around Prue's shoulders. “Nothing burned down. There was one small accident.”

“Of what kind?”

“Nothing, really. I received one of your letters on Saturday,” Tem said, letting go of her sister, “and the last just yesterday. Prue, I am so proud of you. This is the best that could have happened.”

Prue was still wondering about the accident, but would have to let it be for the moment. Though Tem was no taller, her stride was longer, and it took some effort to keep up with her. “And Ben and I have finally decided to marry. This autumn.”

“That's excellent news,” Tem said, beaming over her shoulder at her. “Quite a week.” They were approaching the ropewalk and the din of its machines. “Where shall you live, by the bye?”

“In the house,” Prue said, nearly shouting.

“The lot of us, all together?” She was walking at a brisker pace now. “I hope I shan't grow to be a sour little pippin, like Maggie Horsfield.”

“She was born sour, don't you remember? Have no worries; we shall manage it somehow. Both you and I need to live in the house, after all. It isn't practical for either of us to live beyond sight of the works.”

Ben had instructed the boys to take the drawings upstairs to the countinghouse. Those bearing the trunk would continue up Clover Hill to the house. “Gratuities!” they were shouting to him. “We want our gratuities!” A few of the men were smoking in the yard, and they waved and called out their greetings.

Pearl tapped Prue on the shoulder and held up a note to her.
I shall go check on Abiah at Home. Come soon
, it said.

“Very well.” Prue followed Tem up to their office.

Tem once again smiled over her shoulder at Prue. “I'm not certain I want to live with you and your husband.”

Prue wished she could wait until the door was shut behind them. “Why so?” she asked.

Ben was on his way back down, and said, “Off to see how Adam's done without me,” as he ran to follow the second set of porters up the hill.

“I'm unsure,” Tem said. “Perhaps it's that the house will be so close, for five of us.”

“I know you're right,” Prue said. The countinghouse smelled good and familiar—juniper, burnt coffee, fire, and dust. It smelled like home. “But what else should we do? If I lived at Ben's I'd have to keep a saddled horse tethered to the porch, that in case of emergency you might blow on a conch shell to hurry me down.”

Tem laughed and poured them each a drink.

“Thank you,” Prue said, taking hers. She could see that behind Tem's bright expression, this troubled her.

“Well, how shall we manage it? I can't share a room with Pearl. She'll never sleep again.”

“We'll build on. It's high time, anyway; Father should have done so himself.”

“Father should have leveled the house and built a more modern one,” Tem said.

Once again, Prue missed him acutely. It had been almost three years since he'd died, yet he continued to come back to her at these odd intervals. “We could still do that. We could live at Ben's while the work was accomplished.”

“No,” Tem said. “I would miss the old place too dearly.”

“You're not yet twenty, you know,” Prue said to her. “You shall yourself yet marry, and be free to leave.”

Tem wrinkled her nose at her.

“Why do you show me that countenance?”

“Because I don't think I shall ever marry,” Tem said, as if it were the plainest statement possible.

“Just because you don't like Cornelis or Mr. Fischer—”

“It isn't that I don't like them,” Tem said. “Or, it
is
that I don't like Mr. Fischer. Cornelis is a fine friend. But look around you, Prue. Who of the married women is as happy as we?”

“Peg Dufresne.”

“Granted,” Tem said. “But other than her. Mrs. Livingston? Patience? Our mother wasn't happy a day in her life. I prefer to be a distiller.”

“You don't see, Tem. You and I shall do both. Mother was constitutionally unhappy; it had naught to do with being Father's wife. Quite the contrary. I think he rather cheered her up.”

Tem shook her head but didn't respond, and poured herself a second drink, which she drank quickly. “Well, I left Jens with a thousand gallons of low-wines. I ought to go see to it.”

“I'll be down in a moment,” Prue said.

Tem stopped at the door and turned around to face her again. “The accident, Prue?” The expression on her face reminded Prue of how a child would look, confessing some unutterable sin, except that Tem had always done her mischief in the open air. “Marcel Dufresne lost two fingers in the press.”

Prue's breath hissed in across her teeth, and her own hands flew up instinctively to her mouth. “No,” she said. After all her mother's dire predictions, this had been the accident she'd most feared; she had always imagined its victim would be herself “How did it happen?”

“I don't know. I wasn't there. Inattention, I suppose.”

“But I trained him myself” Prue's eyes were full of tears. The press exerted about a thousand pounds of force, and she could only too well imagine how the blow must have felt.

“He was extracting essence of orrisroot and turned to answer a question from someone behind him. The press slammed down on the first two fingers of his left hand.”

“This is a ‘small accident'?” All Prue's own fingers were throbbing in sympathetic pain. “Oh, God,” she said. “He cannot have died of his wound, or you would have told me straightaway.”

“No, he lives.”

At this moment, Isaiah walked in. Prue could see he immediately read the topic of conversation in their expressions. “Why did no one write me of this?” she demanded.

“We didn't know what it could avail to do so,” Isaiah said. Prue thought the vertical crease between his brows had deepened during her absence. “He was maimed, not killed; and there was nothing you could have done from Albany.”

“I did not need to tarry on my way home. We could have been here two days since.”

“But what good would it have done Marcel?” Isaiah asked, leaving Tem by the door and approaching Prue at the desk.

“I don't know,” Prue said. She sat down on the desk's edge. “Were his fingers crushed or severed?” she asked.

“Crushed,” Isaiah said. “He fainted on the spot. I was the first to respond to the bell, and I sent for Dr. de Bouton right away. He looked haggard when he saw the injury. He pronounced the fingers beyond repair, and amputated them right there, on the press.”

“God,” Prue said. “He's only a boy.”

“And therefore recovering well,” Isaiah said.

“You've been to check on him?”

“Of course,” Isaiah said.

“We both have,” Tem added. “I feel very bad this happened on my watch, Prue.”

Prue shook her head. “It was my fault, not yours. My fault in training him. You couldn't have prevented it.”

“Still, it seems—”

“No,” Prue said. “You're not a bad steward.”

“Thank you,” Tem said. “Jens remains on his own in the stillhouse. I should get back.”

Both Prue and Isaiah nodded to her. She practically ran down the stairs.

“Will you have a drink?” Prue asked.

“Thank you, no.”

“How does Simon take the news?”

“Well enough,” Isaiah said. “As you would expect. Peg is nursing the boy back to health; and they both understand it was an accident.”

“We are paying him, I hope, while he recovers?”

Isaiah said, “Payroll will be this Saturday; I shall pay him if you wish.”

Prue nodded. She could imagine the seeping bandage on Marcel's left hand, and felt it was her personal responsibility. “When he returns, I want
him kept out of the rectifying room and brought up to you in the office.”

“I don't know, Prue,” Isaiah said. “He likes working with you. He has an irreplaceable nose. And has he any aptitude for writing?”

“We shall train him to if he doesn't. Dammit,” she said, and slapped the desk. “Simon was one of our strongest supporters for the bridge.”

“And surely remains so.”

Prue glanced out the window “You are ever the voice of reason. When did this happen?”

“Tuesday. We shut down the rectifying stills until your return; but we can fire them up this afternoon if you are willing.”

“You haven't rectified in nearly a week?”

“What choice had we?” Isaiah asked.

If no one had rectified, the remainder of the manufactory had to have been operating below capacity. The days were still long, and Prue could catch up quickly enough; but her eyes felt sandy, and she rubbed them until they burned.

“Don't worry,” Isaiah said. “Both storehouses are full.”

“And I shall still sit here on tenterhooks until we hear from Governor Jay.”

“But I have wonderful news from my brother,” he said. At last his expression softened. “I have anticipated it a long time.”

“I, too,” Prue said. “I am so glad you're happy.”