Brookland (65 page)

When Ben saw them both approaching, he whistled to his men and gave them a quarter-hour break. Some of them filed off the bridge toward
the market, but others continued to mill around, interested in what might happen. “Is aught amiss?” he asked immediately.

Prue glanced sideways at Isaiah's face and saw his pinched expression; she could easily imagine its mirror on her own.

“Letter from Mr. Clinton,” Isaiah said, and handed it over.

Ben's face betrayed no emotion as he opened the letter. He read it through once, then glanced around for something to sit on. A casket of tools stood open nearby, and he closed it and sat down on its lid.

“What does it say?” Prue said.

He read it all the way through again before answering. She could still glean nothing from his expression. “His apologies for the delay, as they had a great many matters to attend to before closing for the summer holiday.” He wiped his brow and seemed to read it through again. “They will offer us another twenty-five thousand, but not until next spring. It will be impossible before then.”

Prue had hoped for the best and half expected the worst, and could not quite force this information to fit either category.

Isaiah asked, “What will you do, then?”

Ben let out a breath through his nostrils and glanced off toward the river. “Ask for my position back as county surveyor? There's a bit of money, right there.”

Prue said, “Ben—”

“It's all right,” he said. “I shan't be bitter about it long. We have enough as stands to see us through the month; we could call off construction until next year.” Prue's face must have betrayed her heartsickness, because he said to her, “Yes, exactly as I feel. Our other option is to go ahead and mortgage the works; which I do not think will improve our standing in your sisters' esteem.”

Prue could see the distillery, humming along and belching smoke across the river. She felt a fondness for it almost as dear as that she felt for Ben and her sisters. “There are still shares to be bought. I think we might yet do so safely.”

“I agree,” Ben said, but he did not stand up from the tool chest or look any less disconsolate.

Isaiah cleared his throat and said, “If you'll excuse me, I've thought a great deal about this issue since last we spoke of it.”

“So has Patience,” Ben said.

“As you know, she objects to the notion of my giving up any part of my salary. But I think I should mortgage my house and lands for the bridge.”

Prue said, “Isaiah, we won't hear of it.”

Isaiah moved past her and crouched down to speak to Ben, and Prue was aware of the workers listening out on the lever. “Ben,” he said, “I know our father would have wished it so. I know he would not have stood by, safe and secure, as Matty Winship put his property in peril.”

Ben did not at once reply, and Prue tried to remember Israel in this light. He and her father had been greatly devoted to each other, as much as if they had been brothers or partners; and yet he had always remained in her father's employ.

“Ben,” Isaiah repeated.

Ben shook his head, as if indicating only God could know the answer. He stood and walked down the ramp toward the pyramid.

Isaiah loosened his cravat with one hand. “Prue?” he asked. “What do you think?”

“I could not ask you to make such a sacrifice,” she said. “But I shall stand by whatever Ben decides.”

Against her expectations, Ben later accepted his brother's offer. They must have had some further conversation about it, but Ben never told her when it had been or what it had comprised. He simply, the next night, drew her close to him in bed and said, “Isaiah and I have gone over the books again. We have enough to see us through until October—almost till the end of the building season—but next month, we shall go to Mr. Stover and ask his help.”

“What convinced you to accept him?” she asked.

“I cannot deny him. He sees the bridge is my dream as much as yours. He wants to make his contribution.”

As little as she liked Patience, Prue slept badly, imagining her unhappiness and fear over her husband's decision. The injustice of it, when she had four children to feed; the injustice, when she had married the heir to the property, little expecting him to sacrifice it all to the whims of his younger brother. Prue avoided her sister-in-law as much as possible in the weeks to come, but could not help seeing how hollowed out and taut Isaiah's features appeared. He managed the works as well as ever, but had clearly ceased to take even his usual temperate pleasure in this. Prue felt
she could bear her sisters' worry and disapprobation; Isaiah's gloom, however, cast a pall over everything.

And Recompense fretted for all of them—her parents, her uncle, her aunts.

“You needn't, though,” Jonas told her as he leaned over the back of her chair to kiss her nape. She was ticklish at that moment, and shied from the touch of his whiskers and lips. “You know they are all hale and well, and survived their difficulties.”

“That is not altogether true,” she replied.

He came around and sat in the chair beside hers. His dark eyes were twinkling, she supposed with the desire to spar with her. “It is very nearly so.”

But Recompense had no wish to argue, and her throat felt thick. She wished he would not tell her how to interpret her own family's history.

“What, love?” he asked, and reached out to touch her hair. Recompense flinched, and he at once withdrew his hand.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I suppose I am disturbed by the letter.”

Jonas nodded. “It is as my sister says, no doubt: Your condition makes you prey to vicissitudes of feeling.”

“Perhaps,” she said. The twinkle was gone from his eyes, but she could see him trying to keep an attitude of dejection from his countenance. At moments, she felt she had known him always, and at others—as now—something in his features seemed momentarily unfamiliar. She kissed his whiskered cheek.

“You should take care, for our son's sake, to turn your mind to more salubrious subjects.”

“I shall,” she said, though she knew her mind would remain with her mother, and though she felt certain the child she carried would be a girl.

T
he morning Ben had chosen to travel to the bank was mild and clear, a warm September day that seemed to deny the possibility summer could ever end or the world contain suffering. Ben preferred to travel by the New Ferry, both because of its speed and “because I don't want to see it, if Losee is pleased we've come to this pass,” he said.

“I'm sure he wouldn't be,” Prue said.

“Even so.”

Prue walked him to the landing. Each side of the bridge was nearly two-thirds complete and soared toward the middle of the river like the golden struts of a partly obscured rainbow.

Ben swung her hand as they walked, and said, “God, what a beauty.” Prue had been looking at the bridge, but when she turned to regard him, he was smiling at her, in her britches and work boots.

“Oh, come,” she said.

“Courage, Prue.” He squeezed her hand.

She told herself to try to hold the bridge in her imagination all morning, to wish him luck. It would not be easy to hear her neighbors say she counted her father's dreams lightly, not when the distillery—her father's legacy—was so dear to her. She would risk it for the bridge, but she still wished she could tie a string around Ben, or chant an incantation, to bless his errand that morning.

She kissed him good-bye on the landing and stood watching as the burly young ferryman, unknown to them by name, shuttled him across.
She might have stood there until he reached the other side, but she reminded herself it was no time to be sentimental, when the bridgeworks and the distillery awaited her.

When he returned a few hours later, Prue was up on the Brooklyn lever, observing the turning of the crane, and had the opportunity to view him as he disembarked with his companions. He helped their banker, Timothy Stover, up out of the boat. Prue realized she had never seen the man outdoors, and had thought of him as belonging to the dusky interior of the bank. She had always known he was thin, but had not noticed quite how frail he'd grown until she saw him leaning heavily into his stick as he walked. The other man accompanying them was a short fellow in a round hat, who lifted a case to the wharf before him that stood nearly as high as his knees. Prue thought this must be the assessor. Though Mr. Stover seemed to be chatting affably with Ben, the assessor appeared to be among strangers.

Prue went down to the landing to greet them. Mr. Stover wore a bright expression Prue thought at odds with the situation, and wondered if he might have been starved for fresh air.

“Miss Winship—Mrs. Horsfield,” he said, putting out his hand. “What a pleasure to see you today.”

“The pleasure is mine.”

“May I introduce Mr. Corey, our assessor?”

Mr. Corey bowed to her but did not extend his hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” Prue said.

“Dandy of a bridge,” Mr. Stover said, shaking his head. He had an orator's rich voice, which made his every word seem a pronouncement. “I didn't realize quite how grand it was until I saw it from the water.”

“Yes,” Ben said, “it is a most impressive prospect.”

“Will you jest at me, Mrs. Horsfield, if I admit to you I had never been out upon the river before this morning?”

This seemed unlikely, but Prue did not wish to convey her skepticism.

“Mrs. Horsfield?”

“Yes, excuse me. As you were saying?”

“Ah,” Mr. Stover said, “perhaps I've alarmed you with my admission; but it's quite true. I was raised on a farm up the Bloomingdale Road, and when I broke with my parents, came to apprentice in the bank. I hadn't been north, south, west, or east of town until today. But it was a fine adventure
going out upon the river this morning. Bracing! And Brookland appears to have a most healthful outlook, agreeable to the eye.”

The ferryman, behind Mr. Stover, was smirking to himself as he kicked idly at the mooring.

“I'm pleased you're enjoying your visit thus far. If you've time to stay, perhaps you'll join us for tea when your work is through; and one of us could provide you a brief walking tour of Brookland.”

“I would enjoy that,” he said, looking upward. “Great God, there's no question you must be allowed to finish this work.”

Ben smiled uncertainly at Prue and said, “Have no fear, we shall.” He cleared his throat and said to her, “I see you sent Marcel over to start the New York crew this morning?”

“Indeed. He can manage until your return.”

“Good. Perhaps, then, I can show Mr. Corey and Mr. Stover around the properties, and you may return to your business.”

Prue nodded, though she inwardly winced, considering how Patience might react when an assessor was brought to her door. Isaiah had kept to himself all morning; Prue had assumed this was the reason why. She wondered how long it would take the papers to report Mr. Corey's visit.

“So,” Ben said, smiling to Mr. Corey, who did not appear at all amused. “Do you know how a distillery operates?”

“In the vaguest terms,” Mr. Corey said. He gazed around at the buildings as if Brooklyn were an insufferable backwater.

“Ah,” Ben said. “Then I shall lead you through it in the order of production, so you may come to understand; and then I shall show you the houses.” Prue thought she had never seen him look so disconsolate since the days he'd spent learning Latin in Mr. Severn's school. As they set out, Mr. Corey leaned sideways to counterbalance the weight of his case.

Prue climbed back up the Brooklyn arm, and watched Ben begin his tour of the properties; but she kept thinking about the expression with which Mr. Corey had looked about him. She had never wondered how her distillery might appear to someone who did not call it home. To her it was solid and utilitarian, a thing of use and therefore of beauty; but as if she could borrow Mr. Corey's eyes, she saw that morning how dense the smoke was, how weathered the shake siding, and how primitive the packed earth floors. She thought back to the first time she'd seen Brooklyn from the water, as a girl, and how arbitrarily the houses had seemed to
have been scattered on the cliffs, compared to the relative order of New York's streets. This difference was only the more pronounced now. She hoped Mr. Corey would see through to the value of the place, and not merely consider it squalid. She once again felt a flicker of that same sense of injustice she'd felt watching Ben present the bridge to the assembly. He had not worked a day of his life at Winship Daughters Gin, but it was his to show. She told herself to do her best to stifle this emotion. It was enough—it was more than enough—that he made no claim on the distillery and allowed her to continue to run it.

Ben never came to fetch Prue for tea, though she saw him lead both men up Joralemon's Lane to the house and not reemerge for some time. Prue hoped that if Pearl had been at home, she had mastered her anxiety enough to be a thoughtful hostess. At last, shortly before noon, Ben came up to find Prue on the lever.