Brookland (61 page)

T
he river froze again in January of 1801. Pearl had apparently been out walking early in the morning, though the day was dull and white, and she came bounding into the kitchen, her breath labored. “How now?” Ben asked, putting his coffee down and rising to greet her. “We were worried where you might be.”

Ice-bridge
, she wrote, then dropped her book on its chain to raise her hand to her heart.

They might as well have been a table of children for the way they bolted their food and bundled into their coats and boots. Tem was often sluggish from liquor in the mornings, but she raced down the hill faster than any of them. As they passed the distillery, Prue saw Isaiah, waiting for the workers so he could spring them on holiday. He had already notified the slaves, who were out on the ice. “Come with us,” Prue said to him.

“As soon as someone arrives to take over,” he said. “Go; I'll be along with the children.”

“Cross up by the bridge!” Prue called to Tem. Tem turned to glance at her, then continued to run. Prue felt excited to cross near the footing. The ferries were a scant quarter and half mile upriver, but had never afforded so close an approximation of what it would be like to walk over the bridge.

It seemed every inhabitant of Brooklyn and New York was out to try the ice; and it was clear how much these places had grown in the past nineteen years. In 1782 there had been room to slide and skate, but now
the whole river, from Red Hook to the Wallabout, was packed with people in brown and gray coats and fur hats. Where there had been half a dozen mongers, there were scores, selling everything from candy twists to warm cow's milk. Ben took Prue's hand. “You look as if you'd never seen a city before,” he said.

“I rather feel that way,” she said. She remembered from childhood wondering if the ice would groan underfoot; but how different the river looked now, with the stump of their great pyramid looming into view. Her heart cried out for her parents. She would dearly have liked to show them what she had done; and she thought what a pleasure it would be to share some simple holiday fun with them, such as buying a paper cone of roasted chestnuts from a hawker. She hoped they had, indeed, gone to Heaven and could give her a bit of good luck or outright help. The governor had sent the year's money on time, but Ben had spent it on timber before it arrived. This would not cause undue trouble for the nonce—they still had some of their neighbors' contributions in the bank and had not yet spent any of their own money—but Prue had begun to wonder what might happen come spring. She knew it was only a matter of time before the newssheets learned of the shortfall; and she did not know what would become of her neighbors' support then. As she walked with Ben across the river that day, she asked Matty and Roxana, wherever they were, to send a sign that everything would work out in favor of the bridge.

The temperature rose steeply that night, and the river thawed in a rushing torrent; in the morning, as Tem and Prue prepared to leave for the distillery, the Ferry Road erupted into chaos. A saddled black mare was rearing in the middle of the road. She had already kicked out a few pikes from the Livingstons' fence, and seemed intent on breaking more; she neighed fiercely, and rolled the whites of her eyes at whomever approached. A group of men had surrounded her and were approaching her with gentle words and outstretched hands; but they and the horse kept slipping in the mud that had melted since the night before. As Ben went to offer his assistance, Prue saw Joe Loosely, who was good with horses, jogging toward them down the road. If the mare's owner was anywhere nearby, he was embarrassed by her behavior and had made himself scarce.

Prue was so intent on this spectacle, it was a moment before she realized
there was another, farther down the road, where a similarly large crowd had gathered. When Prue craned her neck, she could see a dark-haired man, lying supine and still in the middle of the road. Young Gregor Joralemon was out in the street, directing wagons and riders around the fellow, while the family's two serving women bickered with each other and fanned absently at the man's torso. The man had been thrown, then, by the crazed horse—a common enough circumstance, but people ordinarily stood, wiped down their prats, cursed out their horses, and went on about their business. This man, however, was not moving.

“Someone must have called de Bouton by now?” Abiah asked.

Tem squinted to see better. “Hard to say.”

Abiah retied her apron, then set out up the road to get him, skirting the spooked horse as quickly as she could.

Dr. de Bouton had already been called, and met her only a short ways up the street. Even from a distance, Prue thought he looked haggard, from drink or from being too old a man to suffer through another emergency. As Abiah hurried him past the Winship gate, he bowed his head to them all, standing in the dooryard. Prue hoped a new doctor would move to town soon and relieve him of some of his burden.

“Let's follow him,” Tem said. Others were already trailing in his wake.

“Vulture,” Prue said, but also went out into the street. She added, “Perhaps there's something we can do to help.”

But there was nothing they could do. Joe had the mad horse by the reins and was being dragged around the street by her, as in a horse-breaking contest; and de Bouton had to push his way through a crowd of people to reach his patient. Ivo Joralemon was leaning on his crutches at the edge of the crowd, his face drawn with anxiety. One of the serving women shouted at Abiah to back off; Abiah moved a few paces away and spoke to one of the Cortelyous' slaves. After a moment in conversation, she came running back to meet Tem and Prue. She had not bothered to put her coat on and had her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. “The Joralemons' woman shooed me off,” she said angrily.

“Why so?” Prue asked.

“She said something about a curse.”

“Who was thrown?” Tem asked.

“It's Jacob Boerum.”

Prue asked, “Does he live?”

Abiah shrugged her thin shoulders and shivered. “No one's quite sure. The story is, he and his friends were carousing last night in the countryside past Cobbleskill, when they ran out of liquor. There was no aqua vitae to be had between there and the Ferry Tavern; but you see, the haunted fort was on the road in between.”

Dr. de Bouton was shouting for the crowd to clear off.

“But it isn't haunted,” Tem said. “Ben and Isaiah told us that to frighten us, when we were small.”

Abiah's eyes widened. “Well, one of the Joralemons' women said Boerum made a profane statement about the ghost and got on his horse to fetch the liquor. He never returned, and never made it up to Loosely's, for no one there saw him and his flask is still empty. And there he lies, in the road.”

“Go in,” Prue said, “before you catch your own death.”

Abiah nodded and ran back up toward the house.

Some of the Joralemon servants passed a long plank into the crowd, that the young man might be laid upon it and carried out.

Now Prue was shivering, too, despite the mild weather and her coat. The horse certainly seemed to have been driven mad; and if it had happened down by the fort, Jacob had had a long, unpleasant ride to the Joralemons'.

“There's nothing we can do,” Tem said, peering to get a better look at the body as it was hoisted aloft. One pale hand dangled from the edge of the board and barely twitched. Blood matted the hair over his brow, but from that distance, Prue couldn't see whence it flowed. “Come on. To work with us.”

Dr. de Bouton was issuing orders about the boy's removal to his father's home; and Tem put her pinkies in the corners of her mouth to signal the distillery workers to go. Many startled at the sharp sound, but they began walking down toward the water in a boisterous clump. Up the road, Prue saw Joe had managed to subdue the horse somewhat and was speaking to her in a gentle tone as she jerked her neck sharply to one side. Joe spared a dark glance for Prue as she passed.

“D'ye think it's a hex?” Scipio's young apprentice asked Tem.

Tem answered, “Don't be a child.”

But the men were arguing volubly about Jacob Boerum's hubris. The slave Actæon wondered aloud if Boerum's mishap was a portent about the bridge.

“Bite your tongue,” Prue instructed him. She tried to force herself to laugh, but it sounded false to her own ear.

“I meant no offense, ma'am. Only that it happened direct across the street from your property.”

“Yes, we see,” Tem said.

“And it's what folks are saying.”

Prue, meanwhile, was horrified. She had asked her parents to send her a sign about the bridge's prospects; and at the same time as she dreaded what Boerum's accident foretold, she derided herself for having the least faith in omens, when she so disdained such belief in others.

All the machinery was up and running only an hour behind schedule, but the mood at the distillery was somber. Anyone who stepped out for a stretch or a smoke was hammered with questions the moment he returned, and Isaiah reported a near accident of inattention in the cooperage. After the previous day's unexpected holiday, the brewhouse, stillhouse, and rectifying room seemed preternaturally loud and thick with smoke. Even Tem, who as far as Prue knew had no room in her heart for spooks or hexes, was distracted all day.

It was little surprise when news went around early the next morning that Jacob Boerum had died of his injuries and that his horse, though mollified, had continued to thrash and foam and had been shot toward evening. The Boerums would hold a funeral late that very afternoon, though the earth of the churchyard was still frozen and the men would have to use picks to dig a grave. It was eight in the morning when the news bearers arrived at the countinghouse, but Prue offered them a dram before sending them on their way.

“We'll close the works for the funeral,” she said to Tem.

“I don't know,” Tem replied. “We lost the entire day Monday.”

“The poor man died a hundred yards from our gate.”

Tem blew a breath out through her lips. “You and I should go, but we cannot close for every death in Brookland—we'd never make another ounce of gin.”

“Tem,” Prue said, trying to control her temper, “the neighbors are
saying it's a portent about the bridge. The papers will be close on their heels. We must show our sympathy.”

“It's hardly my fault people are foolish,” Tem said. As Prue did not reply, Tem took the bottle of gin from her hand and poured a splash into her coffee cup. After she drank it down she set both bottle and cup on the desk and said, “I know you're right, but I shall not be held responsible if this distillery fails.” She set out to ring the assembly bell to notify the workers.

In the middle of the afternoon, they returned to the house to change their clothes, and found Pearl with her hair combed back neatly and with a new brown ribbon on her bonnet. Jacob Boerum had never paid her any mind, but Prue felt touched her sister would go to such trouble to pay him her respects.

As they walked together up to Mr. Severn's church, Prue thought how it had been just over two years since they'd laid James Weatherspoon in the churchyard and one since they'd buried her own daughter. One of the Cortelyou women had died in childbed the past summer, and a young Quaker housewife down past the tannery had died of a stomach ailment; and this had been a good year, in which none of the ships docked in the port had brought virulent illness such as had carried off Israel Horsfield. Why did it seem such a tragedy to see a young man laid in his grave? Jacob Boerum hardly deserved lamentation. He had been an only son, and of course his parents were prostrated; but he had also been a profligate and a bounder, who'd done nothing for the improvement of his father's property nor learned any profession but drinking. He'd flirted with Mrs. Tilley's daughter, but advertised around town he would never marry a shopkeeper's child. Prue had imagined Jacob Boerum's death would merit less public grief than the death of someone useful to the community; but this was not so. The young Boerum had been well liked by the Twin Tankards' regular customers, whom he had routinely stood drinks; and many people no doubt attended the funeral because of John Boerum's wealth; but beyond this, there was an intrinsic sadness in a man's untimely death, regardless of what kind of man he'd been. Severn used the opportunity to preach on the mystery of God's plan for us all; and though out of tact he did not speak against drunkenness, he had some words for those who believed in ghosts.

“Do you think, gentlemen,” he said, craning his undershot chin upward, “any force in the universe to be stronger than the infinite love and mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ? Do you think the anger of a soldier, twenty years in Mr. Remsen's asparagus field, can rival the power that made Heaven and earth?”

Someone coughed, and half the eyes in the church were filled with tears, Prue wondered if of sadness or relief.

“There cannot be ghosts, nor omens, for good Christians,” he said. Tem yanked at the collar of her dress. “There is only the sorrow of Jacob's unseasonable departure from our midst; and the joy of his return to his Maker.”

Mrs. Boerum was sobbing as if nothing could be less certain; and continued to do so while Severn concluded and while some of the prominent young men of the town, Ben among them, surrounded and lifted Jacob's coffin to carry it out to the churchyard. Dusk was already descending, and the church bell sounded small and fragile on the chill air. As they filed out, Prue found herself passing close by Will Severn. Although he appeared occupied with his own thoughts, she reached a hand toward him and said, “Thank you for your sermon.”

He nodded, still looking at the ground.

It was too far to walk to the Boerums' in such weather, so everyone would pile into carriages and carts; Ben had asked to have one of the distillery's wagons waiting for them by the gate. But as the crowd dispersed, Will Severn continued to stand at the head of the grave, watching the diggers shovel frozen dirt onto what had been the Boerums' dearest hope. Pearl was intent, watching him. Tem gave a tug at her sleeve, but Pearl held up a finger for them to wait.