Brookland (66 page)

“They're gone, I take it?” she asked, wiping sweat from her brow.

Ben handed her a cup of water from the nearby bucket. “You can see them there, on Losee's boat,” he said, inclining his head toward the dull green ferry, carrying one eager seer of sights and one prim figure reading.

“Clear!” someone shouted farther out the lever, and the crane's winch began to creak.

“How did you fare?” Prue asked, raising her voice above the screech.

Ben said, “I can't be sure, but I think well enough. They asked for the survey I performed when we were making the proposal for the bridge; and they say we'll hear back from them within the week.”

Prue thought it would prove a long week, but said nothing.

The press printed its intimations of doom: The writer for the
New-York Journal
was certain “Winship Gin will pay the price of this folly;—along with New-York and Brookland themselves.” As much as such aspersions stung, Prue found Isaiah's evident distress the most painful part of the waiting. She asked him again and again if anything troubled him. He looked her in the eye as he said no, but he appeared distracted. Prue thought once the news had arrived, he might rest easier; but of course it was only for the bridge the news could be bad or good. Patience was angry their house was being mortgaged at all, and it would not matter to her if they secured a larger or smaller loan upon its value.

In the middle of the week, Ben returned from New York at the close of the workday, as Prue oversaw the stowing of her men's tools and
equipment for the night. He helped with the cleaning, and once all the men had left, husband and wife began to walk down toward the distillery. As they descended toward the abutment's Gothic spires, he said, “I've an idea what we should do once we have our money in hand.” Prue wondered if their course of action had been in question. “We should buy both ferries and, once the bridge is open, shut them down.”

Prue glanced sideways at him as they walked, to see if he was joking; but his expression was matter-of-fact. “Why so?” she asked.

“Because we'll earn back our investment more quickly if we've no competition.”

Prue walked along for a moment, and watched a packet skim past on a good puff of wind. “You're mad, Ben,” she said, and laughed at him.

“No,” he said; she could hear she'd injured his pride. “It would be good business.”

“Good business at Losee's expense.”

“We are already building this bridge at Losee's expense.”

The smoke over the distillery was gradually clearing as the fires burned down. While at one level she could not argue with his logic, at another she found it irrational. “No, Ben. A ferry will always be of use.”

“Why so?”

“I don't know,” Prue said, kicking a pebble out of her way. “The bridge will be convenient for us and the Schermerhorns, but perhaps others will wish to ship and travel the way they always have.”

“Perhaps.”

“And you cannot discount their sentimental attachment to it.”

“No,” Ben said, “I suppose not.”

She still thought his idea odd, and wondered if the strain of waiting was proving too much for him. She knew she herself was acting strangely: All week she had stashed her receipts in the safe and never once boarded a boat for Manhattan, as she could not bear to enter the bank. She hadn't let Tem take them, either, when she'd offered. She had an order due to a tavern north of the canal—far distant from the bank—yet had made no plans to deliver it, for fear of seeing Mr. Corey walking down the street. She thought there would be no other way about things until their news came.

At the beginning of the next week, a letter from Mr. Stover arrived at the countinghouse, addressed both to Ben and to Prue. Marcel had been
there alone, and came to find Prue on the bridge, where the men were pitching the next section's timber. Prue knew from Marcel's expression why he'd come.

“Ben was right there on the New York arm,” she said, working the seal open while looking across the water toward his crane. “He might simply have spoken to him.”

“Would you like me to go, ma'am?” Marcel asked.

“No,” Prue said. “Hold a moment.”

Before she read the letter, she steeled herself for what it might contain, and reminded herself that however bad the news might be, she was fortunate her father had chosen to become a distiller. He could as easily have taken up chandlery or screw-cutting, and how little succor his wares could have provided her then.

The letter offered a loan of five thousand on the Winship homestead, thirty-eight hundred on the Horsfield land, and seventeen thousand on the distillery.

“Is the news not good?” Marcel asked.

Prue wanted to swear at Mr. Corey, who, Mr. Stover wrote, had not been convinced the distillery was an altogether wise investment, particularly as regarded its susceptibility to fire.
It's why we're insured to the gills
, Prue thought; but nevertheless she said, “Nor all bad, neither.” It was nearly twenty-six thousand, all told; a great deal of money, but less than she had expected. The distillery brought in more than seventeen thousand in an ordinary year.

Ben scoffed at the letter when she showed it to him later that afternoon in the countinghouse. “ ‘Suitably impressed by your scale of production, but concerned by the hazard of fire the wooden buildings pose'? Then he must think all Manhattan a bad investment.”

“It probably is,” Prue said, and poured them another round. The cups were, as ever, dirty, but she trusted in the cleansing powers of gin. “I've a mind to tell him we pay four times as much as the Schermerhorns in insurance for exactly that reason; but I'm not positive it would change his assessment.”

“No,” Ben said. “He must know that without being told.” He sipped his drink for a moment, then asked, “What are you thinking?” Prue looked out the window, over the port. “That my father will roll
over in his grave to see for how little I'm mortgaging everything he owned.”

Ben said, “I still think he'll be proud.”

Prue wished she could believe him. She allowed Ben to tell Isaiah the news and to arrange with him their visit to the bank.

When they arrived to meet him the next morning, Isaiah was out smoking on his steps. “Bad night of it?” Ben asked, as the gravel of the walk crunched under their feet. The morning had been washed clean by an early rain, and the branches of the Horsfield apple trees were pearled as with dew.

Isaiah shook his head and held out a hand in warning. When the sound of their footfalls subsided, Prue could hear Isaiah's youngest wailing indoors.

“You are not obliged to accompany us,” Ben said in a low voice.

“No,” Isaiah said, “there's no question.” He took one last puff of his pipe, then tapped it out into the nearest flower bed. “Let me get my coat.” He did not invite them in, but shut the door behind him. Prue heard Patience speaking, though she could not make out the substance of what she said, and the baby began to cry more piteously. Before Isaiah could return, Patience opened the door and stood looking out with her face wan and irritable. The screaming baby had one fat wet hand wound into its mother's dull hair, and the three larger children burst past her into the yard. “Do you seek to ruin us all?” she asked Prue, her tone as level as if they were discussing the weather.

“Patience—” Ben said.

“I ask your wife, Benjamin Horsfield, if she seeks to ruin us.”

Young Israel ran up to Ben and began pummeling his thighs. “Not now,” Ben said, ruffling the child's hair.

Prue said, “Of course not,” but felt foolish doing so.

“But it's what you're doing.”

Still trying to pull his nephew off his legs, Ben said, “I think it a matter of opinion.”

Mrs. Tilley and her daughter, walking past on their way to the store, turned with unabashed interest to listen to the conversation. “Good day, Mrs. Tilley,” Prue called to her, and they hurried down the road. To Patience, she said, “You must trust my husband and I would do nothing to
harm your prospects any more than our own. It will be a sound investment.”

The baby opened its glistening mouth and shrieked. Ben finally managed to disentangle himself from Israel, and shunted the boy toward the open door.

Isaiah came quickly down the stairs with his jacket over his arm, and took his hat and stick from the peg by the door. “Leave her be, Patience, we've spoken of it enough already,” he said, and leaned down to kiss the baby's slick face as he passed.

“No,” Patience said, “I have not—”

But though she might have continued all morning, Isaiah walked briskly up the path. Prue could see Patience's face begin to redden, but when Ben turned to follow his brother, she went with him, walking as quickly as she could.

“I am so sorry,” Isaiah said, looking at neither of them. He was leading them up toward Losee's ferry, instead of toward the faster new one; but this would be all right. “She knows full well it's not your fault, Prue, nor Ben's, but my decision alone.”

Prue felt Patience's pain keenly, and wondered if she was still standing in their cheerful blue doorway.

Joe Loosely must have heard their whole conversation, for he was standing on his steps when they approached the ferry, and offered them a drink, though it was not yet eight in the morning. Ben and Isaiah glanced at each other before refusing him. “I'll manage,” Ben said.

Joe said, “But it's Isaiah I fear for.”

Isaiah looked off toward the water and said, “There's Losee at his landing. We should go.”

Losee grinned at them as they approached. Prue had almost forgotten how infectious that rotten-toothed smile was, it had been so long since she'd seen it. “Three Horsfields, is it?” he asked. Prue looked around before realizing he meant her as well. As they were too glum to respond, he went on, “Will you all take passage this morning?”

“Please,” Isaiah said, though he had begun to look peaked. Losee walked bowlegged down to where his boat was tethered, and Isaiah added, “You seem in good spirits, Losee.”

Losee put one hand on the wharf and hopped down into his rocking
boat. Once it was steady, he put out his hand for Prue. “I am, Isaiah. Have you not heard the good news?”

Isaiah shrugged his shoulders. The boat resettled to accommodate his and Ben's weight.

“Sold the business,” Losee said.

Ben said, “What?” and Isaiah began patting about his coat as if he'd forgotten something.

“I know,” Losee said. “ 'Twas just yesterday Ezra Fischer approached me and offered to buy the boat, the landing, and my very house. Wearing quite a fancy suit of clothes, I might add; probably cost more than a decent horse.”

“You sold the ferry?” Ben asked. Prue imagined what he was thinking: either that he himself would have liked to buy it, or that Losee loved his business as other men loved drink. It was not obvious what he'd do without it.

Losee reached up to the wharf, rang his bell, and called out, “Over!” Then he pulled them into the current and began to turn the boat alee. “I've agreed to. I'm getting old, Ben. I've arthritis in the shoulders and gout in the feet; I've long said if anyone would offer me a good price, I'd give it over.” Prue could not recall his ever having said such a thing. He was on the lookout for oncoming traffic, but most of the other boats were fishermen. “He's not such a bad feller as I thought. He'll manage it all right.”

“Where will you live?” Prue asked.

He gestured with his chin back toward Brooklyn, dwarfed by the rising arm of the bridge. “One of the new places on Whitcombe's property. It'll make a nice home for Petra, away from all this bustle.” As if to prove his point, the bell rang at the ropewalk, and the great water-powered engines began to churn. The distillery's would follow in a moment.

Ben said, “I congratulate you; it's very good news.” Prue and Isaiah chimed in their agreement. Glad as Losee looked, Prue could not imagine him anything but a ferryman; it seemed he might die of inactivity. Who would be his fellows if he sat on a stoop two miles inland? Prue also wondered why Ezra Fischer would risk purchasing a second ferry when the bridge stood so near to completion, and so nearby.

“Won't it be quite a change for you?” she asked.

“From workin' to not workin'? I don't know a man who wouldn't take it.”

“I rather like to work,” Isaiah said absently.

“When will this occur?” Prue asked.

“End of November,” Losee said. “I've a little time to grow accustomed to it.”

She had to remind herself not to feel nostalgic for something that had not yet happened. Nostalgia for things already past was consuming enough on its own.

When they landed at Fly Market, Losee helped Prue out of the boat, and Ben once again congratulated him. The waiting passengers pricked up their ears, and Prue thought he'd have a picnic telling everyone of his changed circumstances. The pyramid was a fine sight from where they stood on the wharf. Prue saw a few pedestrians turn to regard it as one might a weathercock.

They did not speak as they walked to the bank. It had never before struck Prue how dismal it appeared, with its small windows covered by iron bars. Two gangling boys—young enough to be in school, had anyone cared for them—sat on old stools to either side of the door, guarding it. They nodded to Ben and Prue, but the nearer one held out his skinny hand to Isaiah and said, “State your business, please, sir?”

“Isaiah Horsfield, manager of the Winship distillery,” he said, looking at the ground.

The other boy, who'd held his position longer and knew Isaiah, filliped his companion with his finger. “So sorry, Mr. Horsfield, sir,” he said. “You can go in, of course. Mr. Stover expecting you?”

“Most likely,” Prue said.