City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  “Chi le. Chi le.” Eaten. Eaten.

  In his case, Joyful was sure, it was true. “There is another,” Joyful said, “also a man of the Middle Kingdom, who has not eaten. They offer him only foreign food. He is starving.” There was no rice to be found in the city these days. It was grown in the Carolinas, and coastal shipping was as prey to the patrols of the Royal Navy’s blockade as was everything else.

  Joyful was convinced the man who had brought Chinese to serve him had to understand that for these people to be without rice was to die; a man of Astor’s prescience was bound to have laid in an ample supply. If not, Ah Wong and his brood would be wasting away, but there was plenty of flesh on the bones of the butler and the little serving girl and the young man. More than there probably would be had they stayed in China. “Bu fan. Bu fan,” Joyful repeated. No rice.

  “Hen chuo. Hen chuo,” Ah Wong said. Very bad, repeated twice to show how bad he thought it. “Swallowing the bitter sea.”

  “Bitter indeed.” There was no real reason the man should give him rice in this time of scarcity, but Joyful was counting on what he knew of the Chinese character.

  Ah Wong would give him rice for the sake of guanxi, to bind their alliance. In China good guanxi made all business—indeed, all survival—possible. Joyful had to be the first and only foreigner the butler had met in New York who spoke his language, a fluent Mandarin that could only have been learned as a child. Joyful knew that for Ah Wong he was a link to this foreign place which might prove as useful as being employed by a man of Jacob Astor’s wealth.

  “Eh. Deng yi deng.” Wong hurried off. He had told Joyful to wait a little wait, and something would be forthcoming. And he’d spoken in ordinary terms, not the flowery honorifics of his first meeting with the butler, or of the little servant girl swaying on her golden lilies. He and Ah Wong had become equals of a sort, conspiring to do something that one way or another might someday further both their interests.

  The butler returned, followed by the young man Joyful had seen earlier. “Ta jiao Wong Hai.” His son’s name was Hai. “Ta de shenti hen zhuang.” The honorable gentleman should note that the son was in good health and of a superior size to most men.

  Hai carried a burlap bag of rice—about two or three pounds of it, Joyful guessed. A substantial quantity under the circumstances, but nothing that required the impressive breadth of the lad’s shoulders, not even considering he carried a small iron cooking pot as well. Nonetheless, Ah Wong kept pointing to the rippling muscles to be seen beneath Hai’s sam. “Liqi hen da. Hen da.” Very strong. Very strong.

  “Very strong,” Joyful agreed. The rice was clearly local, the burlap stamped CAROLINA—probably shipped from the South before the blockade was put in place—but the pot looked to have come from China. The family Wong would not have trusted the foreign devils to have proper utensils to prepare the food that kept them alive and would have brought a supply of rice cookers with them.

  Ah Wong issued instructions to Hai Wong, and the son carried the rice and the pot out to where Joyful’s horse waited. Joyful turned to follow, but Ah Wong put out a hand to stop him. “This too,” he said in his singsong English. Then, in Chinese: “For my brother from the Middle Kingdom.” Joyful wasn’t quite sure if his story had been believed, or if Ah Wong thought he had some other reason for wanting rice. It didn’t matter. Only guanxi mattered. The something else was a set of chopsticks, and a twist of paper containing a spoonful of tea. “Chi . Chi,” Ah Wong murmured. Eat. Eat.

  “Chi. Chi.” Joyful agreed. “Tomorrow and a few days after as well. Your brother from the Middle Kingdom thanks you. So do I.”

  “Fan is the Mandarin word for food as well as for rice,” Joyful told Hannah. “Rice is life.” They were watching her latest stray use Ah Wong’s gift of chopsticks to push the grains straight from the cooker into his mouth. The rice was hot and steaming, cooked by Joyful over a small fire Hannah built out of doors, beside what Joyful had mistakenly thought to be a well; it was actually a brick-lined cistern ten feet deep, designed to catch rainwater. About half full thanks to the summer storms.

  “And do all China peoples have no thumbs, like this one?”

  “No. He may have angered the wrong person. He says he’s called Thumbless Wu. I reckon he’s been like that for some time.” Despite the missing digits, the man handled the chopsticks with ease; it was an adaptive skill he’d have needed years to perfect.

  Joyful thought he saw the man’s eyes turn in his direction, but only for a moment. Wu’s attention quickly returned to the cooker of rice. He ate half of it, then stopped, saving some for another meal. “Tsi bao,” Joyful said. “Tsi bao.” Eat your fill. He held up the bag of rice. “You need to get your strength back. I will leave this for you when I go. You can cook yourself more when you like.”

  “Make him do it for himself,” he told Hannah later as he prepared to leave. “You’ll never get it right. And don’t say anything around him you don’t want overheard. He may not speak English, but I suspect he understands it.”

  “How does that come to be? If he’s a China man like you say, how did he get here?” “I’m not sure, but I’d venture he came on Canton Star. I can’t think of any other explanation.”

  “Gornt Blakeman’s ship as ran the blockade?”

  Joyful nodded agreement.

  “And you think Bag o’ Bones learned English on that passage?”

  “No, I doubt that. He’s a Cantonese. Canton’s a trading colony, China’s window to the West. He’ll have had plenty of opportunities to learn English.”

  “So why did he come to New York?”

  “I have no idea,” Joyful admitted. “None at all.”

  Hannah considered for a moment. “He’s got a knife,” she said. “I seen it. Weak as a sick kitten he may be, but he still hones that knife with a stone every day, and uses it to shave his scalp. Everything but that braid.”

  “That’s his queue. No Chinese will ever cut it. When the Manchus defeated the Ming Dynasty in 1644, they made it a law that every man in the country had to have a shaved head and a queue. Without that braid, Thumbless Wu can’t return to the Middle Kingdom. That’s what they call China, by the way, a place between heaven and earth.” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “If he cuts his queue, he can never be buried with his ancestors.”

  “It’s not him bein’ buried as bothers me. You reckon he’s any kind of danger to my boys?”

  Joyful considered. “Whatever has brought him here, it’s nothing to do with any of you. He might steal you blind and leave in the middle of the night, but I don’t think he’d do any of you physical harm.”

  “I’m not worried about him thieving,” Hannah said with a shrug. “Wouldn’t be the first time. And there’s not much to steal. I’ll let him stay.”

  “Good. He should start getting stronger now he’s eating rice. If you have any meat to spare, you can give him a bit of that as well. Or some pot herbs or salading. I’ll try and come back tomorrow or the next day and see how he is. Maybe by then I can get him to tell more of his story.”

  Rivington Street, 10 P.M.

  The small door at the rear of the Dancing Knave led to the cellar where Tap-a-Keg Jonah deposited his wares once a week. Joyful used his key. The door, whose iron hinges were kept well oiled on Delight’s express orders, opened soundlessly. He slipped inside. Normally, he had no reason not to be seen going into the Knave by the front door like everyone else. Tonight was different.

  He made his way up the cellar stairs. The rear hall was deserted. He moved quickly toward the front of the house, pausing to look into the Ladies’ Parlor. One girl sat alone playing a hand of solitaire. The others must all be upstairs in the bedrooms. She glanced up and saw him. “Good evening, Dr. Turner.”

  “Good evening, Cecily. How are you?” A plump and pretty fair-haired little thing, she looked perfectly well. But looks were no guarantee of anything.

  “Perfectly fine I am, Dr. Turner. Bit bored, though.” And with
a cheeky little smile: “You wouldn’t care to spend half an hour”—she’d started to say “upstairs,” but thought better of it—“playing cards?” she finished instead.

  “Can’t right now, I’m afraid, Cecily. I’m looking for Miss Higgins.”

  “Right behind you.” Cecily dealt herself another hand.

  Joyful turned; Delight was standing at his shoulder. “I need to talk to you,” he said quietly.

  “Later,” she said. “Upstairs?” It was a plea as much as a question.

  Joyful shook his head. “I can’t stay.” And seeing the flash of disappointment that touched her eyes: “I’m sorry. Business. But I do want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, well, not here. Cecily, you can’t be trying very hard if you’re the one left when all the others are chosen. Perhaps you smell unpleasant. Go upstairs and wash.”

  The girl flushed bright red, but got up and headed for the stairs, sidling past them, careful not to look at the man all the girls swooned over, though they knew he was their mistress’s lover. Delight watched her go, then led the way into a small room off the entry hall that served as a private office where sometimes she conferred with customers, usually refusing the credit they were asking for. There was an oil lamp on the table, the flame kept economically as low as it could be without going out. Delight turned the little wheel that lengthened the wick and the place brightened considerably. She saw the bruise on Joyful’s cheek. She couldn’t keep herself from touching the mark. “What happened?” she asked, caring though she didn’t want to.

  “I had a disagreement with a tree branch. Delight, Vinegar Clifford’s gone to work for Gornt Blakeman.”

  She shrugged, careful not to let him know how it made her feel to hear him speak the name of the man she’d invited to make him a cuckold. “I know. I have already replaced him with three Irish lads from Five Points.”

  “You’re always ahead of me,” he said. “But there’s another concern. Clifford has the French disease. The lasses could be infected—”

  She looked at him, appalled. “You think any one of my ladies would have given herself to Vinegar Clifford?”

  “I know it’s against your rules, but—”

  How could he think that because a woman whored to survive she might willingly give herself to an animal like Clifford? “No,” she said. “Not against my rules. It’s against theirs.”

  “I could examine them if you like…”

  She shook her head. “It’s entirely unnecessary. The young Irishers maybe, if I don’t keep an eye on them. But the whipper? Never.”

  “Very well, if you’re certain.”

  Delight nodded. It was growing easier by the minute to live with what she’d done. Particularly when Joyful again said he couldn’t stay and left without even accepting her offer of a glass of wine.

  Sunday, August 21, 1814

  Chapter Thirteen

  New York City,

  Scrivener’s Alley, 8 A.M.

  YOU HAVE EVERYTHING ready, Mr. Danforth?” Eugenie wore an old-fashioned, tight-waisted frock with a wide skirt and a snug bodice. It covered her from neck to ankles, and her bonnet had a thick veil that covered her face.

  “Everything, madam. Exactly as required.”

  Slyly Silas busied himself collecting the documents he’d prepared for her, keeping up the pretense that he didn’t recognize her. I’m not that much of a fool, Mistress Eugenie. Used to see you, I did, back when I was doing work for your late husband. Timothy Fischer always wanted his paperwork to be the very best, and to drop into his hand, so I delivered the goods to the house on occasion. That’s why he came to me, and it’s why he picked you, a lady as might have been courtesan to some king over in Europe. Doesn’t make a ha’penny worth o’ difference that I recognize you, Eugenie LaMont Fischer. Too high on the shelf, you are, for the reach of Slyly Silas, and he knows it.

  Her money, however, was another matter. Danforth put out his hand and Eugenie counted twelve coins into his palm. “Forty dollars, as agreed,” she said. Lord help her. The servants wouldn’t be paid for another six months. And what about her bill at the butcher’s? At least four months overdue and sure to go four months more. Ah, but when this investment produced a profit…

  “Exactly right, madam.” Danforth had to bite his tongue to keep from trying to weasel a bit more out of her. Might have done, if he hadn’t caught sight of that fellow as was waiting for her when she came two days past to place the order. Patch over his eye, bandanna round his head, sort o’ hiding himself ’neath the canopy of that smart little chaise she was driving. A pirate for sure. Slyly Silas was far too canny to get on the wrong side of a pirate.

  Eugenie longed to get out of the stuffy little room and away from the leering of this disgusting scrivener, but she longed still more not to have to come back anytime soon. She took the time to examine the documents.

  There were six sets, each neatly inscribed with a fine quill writing on thick paper, produced in triplicate as the law required, and each set clipped together with a straight pin. The top three claimed the missing slave to be “a male nigra upwards of five feet.” None of the papers specified how many inches upwards. “Has dark eyes and black curly hair.” Plenty of those about. “Answers to Pompey,” one document said. Two others assigned the names Nero and Caesar. The nigras would deny having those names, but that did not figure to weigh overmuch with the magistrate. Everyone knew that the first thing a runaway did was drop his slave name for something that sounded properly white and Christian. You could call a sow a steed and it remained a sow, but the nigras couldn’t be expected to know that. The other three documents indicated the runaways to be women. One even specified a “comely mulatto.” That had been Tintin’s idea. Eugenie thought it unwise to be so specific, but he insisted. Getting hold of the nigras that matched the descriptions was his part of the bargain. “Thank you, Mr. Danforth. These are excellent. I may return for more before too much longer. For now, I bid you good day.”

  Danforth swung the door open and bowed her out, then rushed to the window and pushed the curtain aside a crack, just enough so he could watch her lift her skirts and climb into the chaise. Driving herself, Eugenie was, as she’d done on her first visit. Didn’t want anyone knowing where she’d been, not even a servant. The pirate being the exception. Wasn’t with her today, though.

  Slyly Silas jerked the curtain all the way open, letting the daylight stream in. Eugenie might want more documents. She’d said so. Where would she get them if not from Slyly Silas Danforth?

  For most New Yorkers Sunday morning was time for church, and Maurice Vionne and his daughter were not exceptions. Ten o’clock found them in their customary pew in the French Church of the Holy Spirit, founded when the Protestant Huguenots first fled Catholic France for the safety of Nieuw Amsterdam. L’Église du Saint Esprit continued to conduct services in the French language, but since 1804 the rite had been that of the Anglicans. It was a Protestantism perhaps not quite as austere as that which the Huguenots had brought with them, but its services were equally long-winded.

  It was nearly quarter to eleven and Manon estimated the service to be less than half done. The preacher was droning on, reading psalms. She leaned over so she could whisper in her father’s ear. “I must go, Papa.”

  “How can we go? There is still—”

  “You stay. I will go.” A woman in the pew behind shushed them, but Manon ignored her. “We will give less scandal that way.”

  “But…” The woman shushed again and Vionne let his protest trail away.

  Manon turned to give the scolding woman the sharpest glance she could muster, then leaned even closer to her father and put her lips right against his ear. “It is a lady’s concern, Papa.”

  “Ah,” Vionne breathed. He patted her hand, then quickly withdrew his. A husband and father for a quarter century, he could still be unnerved by women’s fluxes and flows.

  “With him that had a proud eye and an ambitious heart I would not eat,” the preac
her intoned.

  “Go,” Vionne whispered to his daughter. “Go, go.”

  Manon had been careful to insure that she was seated at the end of the pew. She rose, clutching tight the lacy shawl that was her head covering and gathering her skirts to prevent any swishing sound, and hurried up the aisle.

  “In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land,” the preacher cried out as she left.

  French Church Street was between William Street and Broadway, a little less than a quarter mile from Bowling Green. Manon arrived at the park five minutes before eleven, breathing hard. She’d walked as quickly as she dared without actually running. The watch did not patrol after sunrise; nonetheless, a lady running through the streets would attract attention. She dabbed her cheeks with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, turning swiftly in the middle of the small green oasis and enjoying the faint breeze made by the swinging skirt of her frock of lavender silk.

  One man had apparently chosen not to say his prayers this Sabbath morning. Manon spotted him a little distance away, near a bronze statue of General Lafayette astride a rearing steed, apparently intent on the inscription though he didn’t look the sort who could read, and altogether too common for fashionable Bowling Green. Was he here before she arrived or did he come in after she did? She couldn’t remember. But he was no one she recognized, so he would pass no tattle on to Papa. On the other hand, it appeared there would be no rendezvous, and thus no tattle. Joyful was still nowhere to be seen.

  Dear God, what if that one-armed boy simply took her two coppers and never delivered her note? Then she saw Joyful on the walkway straight ahead, his long-legged strides bringing him to where she stood.