City of God

by Swerling, Beverly

  Carolina ran into the front hall, calling for Dorothy to bring her a wrap and pulling on her warmest bonnet—dark purple felt, with a woolen tie wide enough to give some protection to her neck and ears—and gloves lined with rabbit fur.

  “Where are you going?” Nick repeated. “It’s not safe, Carolina. A woman alone. You can’t.”

  “I must.” Dorothy brought a black cloak also lined with fur. Carolina wrapped it around her shoulders, heading for the door before she’d managed all the fastenings and grabbing her fur muff and Samuel’s greatcoat from a tall cupboard in the hall. “My husband might need me,” she said. “I must go.”

  Nick hauled his own coat from the cupboard and snatched his hat and gloves from the table beside the door. “I’m coming with you.”

  “I assure you that’s entirely unnecessary. I can drive the buggy perfectly well.”

  “No doubt. But I’m still coming with you.”

  He handed her up into the seat of the rig and jumped in beside her before she had a chance to drive away. “Come, don’t be foolish. Give me the reins. And put that damned greatcoat over your knees.” Barnabas had apparently brought the buggy round in the same condition in which Samuel had brought it home. It was not equipped for a lady and there were no blankets that he could see.

  “There’s really no cause, Cousin Nick. You said you would be needed at the hospital, and I’m quite—”

  “Need is relative, Carolina. The looters will be out in full force. A woman alone. It’s out of the question.” He clucked the horse into movement and headed south down Fifth Avenue in the direction Sam Devrey had taken. “Do you want to tell me where you wish to go?”

  “I have told you. I’m following my husband. I believe he will need me. He will certainly need this coat.”

  “Very well.” A fire engine caught them up and passed them, its bell clanging wildly and twelve men pulling the wagon in a demonstration of the bloody-mindedness that still refused to use horses, much less wagons fitted with the steam-driven pumping apparatus now in use all over London. An all-volunteer corps of firefighters demonstrating their manliness, and the entire city cheering them on, wagering on one company over another, in the face of something such as this. Sheer madness.

  He waited until the men pulling the wagon and chanting the ditties that kept them trotting in unison had gotten far enough ahead for Carolina to hear him, then asked again, “Where do you think we’ll find your husband?” If she said Cherry Street, well and good. The responsibility would not be his. If she did not know about the place, he would not be the one to tell her.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Carolina admitted, straining forward as if she might catch sight of Samuel, though his head start and the differing speed of a riding horse and a buggy made it extremely unlikely. The clang of fire-wagon bells from the east and the west indicated still more companies heading down the island to join in battling the blaze. The windows of every house they passed were lighted, and there were any number of men about, both on foot and on horseback. She saw no other women, but Carolina did not allow herself to dwell on that, or on the likelihood that a great many of the men she saw were ruffians rather than gentlemen.

  They drew level with Washington Square. Carolina avoided looking at the houses on the north side. Papa’s house was number sixteen. He’d moved there two years earlier, and her girlhood home in no longer fashionable Bowling Green was now a boardinghouse. She knew what Papa would say if he saw her heading into the fire district. The buggy had slowed to a crawl. “Please Nick, we must hurry.”

  “Hurry to where?”

  She allowed herself one glance at her father’s house, where windows were lit on all four floors. He was likely to be out in the street among the throng. The rig wasn’t particularly distinctive; still, he might recognize it. “Devrey’s new premises on Canal Street,” she said with conviction. “That has to be where he’s gone.”

  Nick made a noncommittal sound. “Very well. Devrey’s on Canal Street.” He urged the horse forward until they were finally clear enough of the crush to trot through the park and into the confusing warren of streets beyond. They were on the edge of the old village of Greenwich, which wealthy local landowners had insisted not be forced into compliance with the grid. Nick took a moment to get his bearings, then tugged on the reins and turned the horse’s head west.

  At Canal Street on the corner of Broadway the smoke was thick enough to choke, and the glow of the fire was reflected in dancing shadows on the marble facade of Devrey Shipping’s brand-new and resplendent five stories.

  The buggy pulled up beside Devrey’s impressive front door. All around was motion and shouting and what seemed to be a chaotic back and forth of men and animals and still more fire wagons, some with the names of Brooklyn companies on their side.

  “There does not seem to be anyone there,” she said, looking up at Devrey’s windows, illuminated only by the gaslights of the street. “If Samuel were—” She broke off, overcome by a fit of coughing.

  “It’s the smoke,” Nick said, holding out his handkerchief. She shook her head and withdrew one of her own from the interior of her muff.

  “We can’t stay here, Cousin Carolina.” As he spoke, a wagon pulled by a pair of men and piled high with an assortment of goods—probably looted, Nick thought—passed so close beside the buggy that the horse neighed loudly and tossed his head in fractious discontent. Nick had to tug hard on the reins to steady him. “You can see Devrey’s is dark and entirely closed. Samuel’s not here. We can’t stay, Carolina. Let me take you home.”

  “Cherry Street,” she said.

  His heart sank. “What did you say?”

  “My husband owns two lodging houses on Cherry Street. It is further down the town and closer to the fire. No doubt those are the properties he has gone to check upon. I must go to Cherry Street.”

  “No. You can’t.” God help him, what would he say if she asked why not?

  “I must.” She reached to take the reins from his hands. Nick pulled them away from her. The horse sensed the uncertainty about who was in charge and pawed the cobbles, acting as if he might break and run at any moment. Carolina hesitated a moment more, then gathered Sam’s coat into her arms and started to climb down from the buggy.

  “Where are you going? You can’t—”

  “I must go to Cherry Street. If you won’t take me, I will walk.”

  Nick could neither force Carolina to return home nor allow her to be alone in the increasing tumult. “Sit down.” Nick bit out the words. “And hang on. This is not going to be an easy journey.”

  Close enough now to hear the roar and crackle of the flames, and the night a thing of sparks and smoke, with the sky a red-and-black dome above their heads. Yet still so bitterly cold. And narrow Cherry Street a frozen corridor of rutted snow and ice down which howled a ferocious gale.

  “I believe the two houses on the corner are Samuel’s.” Carolina had to bend close and shout the words against the wind.

  “Yes, I know.” A damn fool thing to say, but she was too preoccupied to ask him how he knew. In any event he could move the buggy no closer to Sam Devrey’s property. Lodgers from the houses lining both sides of the street had come outside despite the fierce weather. Some were fully dressed, others wrapped in blankets they had apparently snatched from their beds when the alarms sounded, all shouting and shoving and pushing. He saw one likely thief slip into a house ignored by the presumed occupants who had literally turned their backs on whatever of value they’d left behind. More important, he sensed the throng developing that strange composite being that identified a mob. “Carolina, we can never find Samuel in this crush.”

  She did not hear him, or if she did, she chose not to answer. Before Nick could stop her, she had climbed out of the buggy and was thrusting her way through the crowd, headed for the houses on the corner.

  “Carolina!” Nick shouted. “Carolina!” She paid him no mind. He jumped down after her, dropping the reins and leaving th
e buggy where it was since he had no hope of getting anywhere near a hitching post. Damn the rig. If he must choose between protecting the woman or the horse and buggy, there was no debate. “Carolina!”

  She was well ahead of him now. But her height meant that every few seconds he caught sight of her purple bonnet as she forced her way through the crowd. “Carolina!”

  The Chinese, some fifty-odd of them, were huddled together on the street in front of their lodgings. Sam noted a number of the nearby whites staring at the queues and quilted jackets of the foreigners, as if until this moment they had not realized quite how many of these alien beings lived among them. Mei-hua leaned against him, and he kept a sheltering arm around her. If the whites grew ugly, he would just pick her up and force his way into the alley to the right. It was too narrow to allow any large number to follow, and it debouched cleanly on the street behind. He’d head north after that, away from the fire.

  Ah Chee was beside them, holding the child Sam knew was called Mei Lin, though he seldom thought of her by any name. The infant was asleep in the old woman’s arms, oblivious to all the excitement. Mei-hua reached out and adjusted the silk shawl in which the tiny bundle was swaddled. Both women were also wrapped in silk, as was he. He’d arrived coatless, and Mei-hua had poured plum wine into him and insisted he put a thick red satin lung p’ao on over his western clothes. He was grateful for the robe now. It was killingly cold, damned well hurt to breathe. Had to be a bloody great obstacle in the way of properly fighting the fire, however many companies showed up. A short time back a few of the neighbors had gotten the idea of hooking up the hose that was kept beside the Cherry Street hydrant. A waste of time and effort as it turned out. The hempen hose was thick with ice, and when they managed to thaw it out enough to uncoil it, they discovered that the water in the cistern that fed the hydrant had frozen solid.

  Good God. He could have sworn he’d heard someone shouting “Carolina.”

  Surely that was not possible.

  Carolina knew only that Samuel let rooms in the Cherry Street houses to sailors seeking a place to stay between voyages. It always sounded a sensible business investment. She had never thought much about what sorts of sailors they might be, but the moment she recognized the Asian features and dress of some members of the crowd, she knew the entire story. Or thought she did.

  Oh. Oh dear.

  The little woman who sometimes watched Carolina’s house from across the street was in the crowd. Carolina could see only her head, but she at once recognized the oddly shaped straw bonnet. Another woman stood beside her, her black hair wound into a tall coiffure twisted with colored ribbons. Behind her stood a tall man wearing an odd foreign robe. He appeared to be embracing her and…a swirl of smoke blotted out the vision.

  Carolina struggled to see, but her eyes stung and teared, and she was being shoved in the opposite direction from where she wanted to go. She tried to push back and felt someone tugging at Sam’s greatcoat. “No. You can’t have it. Let go.” Seconds later the pressure was eased as whoever had thought to steal the garment gave up. Carolina clutched the coat and her muff ever tighter and struggled to get closer to her husband’s houses. Possibly one of the sailors spoke something other than that peculiar gibberish Samuel said was the Chinese language. English must be needed on the Devrey ships. She could ask if anyone had seen Samuel, if they knew where he was. She felt an arm encircle her.

  “Please let me get you out of this terrible place,” Nick said. “It’s a dreadful night, Carolina. You’ll never find—”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. I will. I have.” She was speaking more to herself than to Nicholas Turner. The smoke had cleared for the moment, blown away in a sustained gust of bone-chilling wind, and though there were no street lights on Cherry Street, the glow of the leaping flames reflected in the sky allowed Carolina Devrey to see her husband standing directly ahead.

  Nick had kept hold of her, and they were both being shoved forward through the throng, close enough so Carolina had a clear view of Samuel. He wore a bright crimson robe and had his arms wrapped around the woman with the ribbons in her hair. At this distance it was possible to see as well that her face was painted in an exotic and foreign fashion.

  Carolina did not know if the girl was beautiful or even pretty. She was too strange for such terms to apply. But she knew that the woman beside her, wizened and ugly in an ugly conical bonnet, was staring, as if she, Carolina Devrey, might be some threat to whatever it was the old woman held clasped in her arms.

  A baby.

  It was a baby. And Samuel was standing with them. Protecting them. Claiming ownership of all three.

  She might have fainted but for the press of the crowd and Nick’s firm grip.

  “Let’s go,” she heard him say. “There’s nothing to be gained by your being here. Let me take you home.”

  Carolina felt him tugging her away from the tableau of Samuel with his…his what? His mistress? And her servant. And her child.

  His child.

  Nick was still trying to pull her away but she resisted, and the crowd seemed to take her part. The endless jostling served to thrust her nearer to Samuel and the family he preferred to her and his son.

  She was close enough to touch him now, and Samuel was staring back at her, seemingly as shocked as she.

  It was Carolina who found her voice first. “Good evening,” she said. “I brought you this.” She held out the greatcoat. “I’m afraid it may have been torn in all this crush.”

  Sam spoke over her head. “I cannot imagine what you thought you would gain by bringing her here, Turner.”

  “I did no such thing. She was determined to come. I simply—” A roar of wind and more frantic pealing of nearby bells drowned out the rest of his words.

  “Get her out of here,” Sam said. “Can you do that? Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  Carolina heard their words but did not register their meaning. “I brought your coat, Samuel,” she said again. “It is such a dreadfully cold night. You will surely need your coat.” She thrust it towards him. Someone took it out of her hands, a little man with a horribly pock-marked face. She had not the strength to keep him from taking it, and Samuel had not moved. “You must have your coat, Samuel. Whatever that is you’re wearing, it cannot be warm enough for a night like this. Tell that man he must give you your coat.”

  “Turner, for God’s sake, man. If she means anything to you at all…”

  The Asian men, Nick realized, might be short and slight, but they did not lack for strength. They had formed a tight ring around himself, Devrey, and the women. It gave him enough space to pick Carolina up. He felt her body go limp in his grip and knew she’d fainted. Just as well probably. He heard Devrey say something in Chinese, and the men formed a V-shaped wedge that forced a path through the crowd and allowed him to carry Carolina back to the buggy. It had already been stripped of fringe and cushions and the carrying chest that had been strapped to the rear, but miraculously the wheels were still attached. And the horse yet stood between the traces, though the bit and bridle and reins had all disappeared.

  “Eh. Deng yi deng,” one of the men said. Nick had no idea what the words meant, but he understood the gesture. He was to wait.

  Carolina was starting to regain consciousness. Nick lifted her into the buggy and got in beside her, letting her body lean against his. Minutes later the pock-marked man appeared with the necessary tack. He and one of the others hitched the horse back to the wagon and handed Nick the reins. He heard Carolina murmuring questions as she came out of her faint, but the noise of the fire and the crowd was getting louder and he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  How in hell was he to turn the damned buggy around so they could get out of here? They were entirely hemmed in. Then he felt the rig rise just enough to free the wheels from the rutted road. Half a dozen of the men were carrying it backwards, north up Cherry Street. He had only to maintain a hold on the reins and encourage the horse to kee
p backing up. It was the weight of Sam Devrey’s orders, the power of his command, that had produced their unusual exit from—what? Hell for the woman now crying softly beside him, her face pressed against his arm. Paradise for Devrey apparently. Must be, since he was willing to risk so much to keep it.

  And for the city of New York, at least so it seemed, death by fire.

  The bitter weather was as vicious an enemy as the flames. What water was left in the cisterns had frozen solid. A dozen engine companies rushed to the East River and used their axes to cut holes in the thick ice, but the water they gained with so much effort turned at once to slush and then to ice in the hoses, and resisted the pounding feet of cadres of firemen jumping up and down on the hoses to melt ice back into the water they so desperately needed. The weak streams they did manage to aim at the inferno blew back in their faces. Fifteen hundred firemen—a number that had grown by less than three hundred in the past decade, though the city had doubled in size in the same period—were reduced to standing and watching New York burn, and to pouring brandy into their boots to prevent their feet from freezing.

  Nearly the entire town south of Wall Street, the mercantile heart of not just the city but the nation, had become a fiery cauldron. Street after street was engulfed in flames. Merchants who had rushed to their premises threw whatever they could salvage out the windows, only to find that the draymen and carters who had converged on the scene were demanding more than the goods were worth to drag them away. Firemen unable to do the job for which they were such proud volunteers helped instead to empty warehouses of tons of silks and satins and laces, only to see the huge piles they made in the streets ignited by blowing cinders and flaming bits of paper before they could be removed.