Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  “Malone and O’Shay,” supplied Mr. Howe.

  “Malone and O’Shay, yes. Mr. Malone and Mr. O’Shay took exception to the way the alderman abused them—”

  Mrs. Kerr thumped the table with the flat of her hand. “You have gutted the tale like a two-day-old fish, De Witt. The Senate is having an unfortunate effect, as I warned you it would.” She turned to Hannah.

  “This alderman—one of the Livingstons, I’m not afraid to say, though De Witt has scruples, given that he married into the family—he called the ferrymen lazy rascals and threatened to throw them in the bridewell because they would not do as he ordered, and they stood up to him, as the Irish often will. A brash people, the Irish. I wonder if they will ever learn that discretion is sometimes the greater part of valor. They gave the man as good as they got. ‘We’re good as any buggers!’ That’s what they said, you mustn’t blush to hear it told truthfully, Mrs. Spencer. And when they reached Manhattan that rogue Livingston called a constable and had them marched to the bridewell, thrashing them with his cane the whole way.”

  She slashed the air with her finger to demonstrate, and fixed Hannah with a terrible stare. “Ask me how I know this, Miss Bonner, and I’ll tell you. I was on that ferry, and I saw the whole thing.” She sat back. “And never have I been more shocked. I’ve seen some things in my day—war wears a woman down that way, you know. But never have I seen anything like those two young men standing up to Jonathan Livingston in their rough clothes and clogs. It did my heart good.

  “And the next day when they were brought before the judge—my nephew, I am ashamed to admit, a Federalist of the worst stripe and I blame my poor silly sister for marrying as she did—he heard evidence only from the alderman, asked for no other witnesses, and he did not even allow those men counsel. Asked for no witnesses! And with his own aunt in the courtroom, who saw the whole thing with my own eyes. And said so clearly.” She drew in a terrible breath.

  “But he would not let a woman speak in his courtroom. Now men may speak of armies that take it into their heads to rule cities, but in these new times the real threat sits upon the bench in a courtroom. Men who will not scruple to use the solemn responsibility vested in them to see their own causes advanced, and lawyers who hover about like crows in a battlefield, waiting to pick over what remains of justice. I have no fear of muskets—I have fired upon the enemy myself on more than one occasion—but a courtroom, that’s another matter.”

  “But where does Mr. Howe come into this story?” asked Hannah, who was torn between amusement, concern, and confusion.

  “He was in the courtroom when the judge sentenced those two young men to six months’ hard labor, to teach them not to insult men in office.”

  “And how is it you ended up in the bridewell with the ferrymen, Mr. Howe?”

  “He did not,” said Amanda. “By the time the assembly sent Michael to the bridewell, the Irishmen had escaped.” Her mouth twitched, and she sent Mrs. Kerr a sidelong glance.

  The senator cleared his throat. “They say the guards were bribed, although it was never proved.”

  Hannah tried again. “But wait. I am still unclear on why the assembly—”

  “I wrote an editorial.” Mr. Howe answered the question that Hannah had been trying to ask. “The judge and the assembly took exception to my choice of words.”

  “Such as ‘tyranny’ and ‘partiality,’” said Amanda. “And he wrote that the ferrymen had been punished only to suit the pride, ambition, and insolence of men in office. I remember the wording exactly.”

  Mrs. Kerr let out a fierce laugh. “And right he was too, but of course they couldn’t have the truth put out plain for all to see. So they sentenced Mr. Howe who sits there before us to a month in the bridewell—”

  “And two thousand supporters carried him there on an armchair,” finished the senator. “Then three thousand met him and carried him home in a phaeton when his sentence was finished. You should run for office, Michael, with such support from the masses.”

  “Ah, but the masses can’t vote in the city elections,” said Mr. Howe. “And beyond that, I get far more enjoyment writing about the men who do run. When will you come back to the city government, Senator?”

  There was a ripple of laughter around the table.

  “You must have other things to occupy your pen,” said the senator, signaling to have his wine glass filled again. “There is always some scandal going on in the city.”

  “Yes,” said Hannah. “There’s Madame du Rocher and her slaves.”

  Hannah had spoken up at exactly the moment that the rest of the table had also fallen still, and her words seemed to echo. She glanced down the table at Will, who looked both curious and resigned at this turn in the conversation.

  Captain Lewis’s attention had shifted too, but there was nothing of the tease in him now. The discussion of the Mississippi at the other end of the table faltered and came to a stop.

  “Slavery is not a crime in New-York State, as I understand it.” This question was directed to Hannah, but it was the senator who answered it.

  “A very complex topic, and an unsuitable one in this company.” He sent a pointed look in Miss Lispenard’s direction.

  “De Witt,” Mrs. Kerr said in a tone that bordered on the sharp. “There are no children here. Two young ladies, yes, but both of marriageable age and both educated—highly educated in one case, and over my brother’s odious objections in the other. But educated nonetheless and capable of forming opinions.” She turned toward Amanda. “Mrs. Spencer, this French lady is your neighbor?”

  She nodded. “She has leased the small house across the green, this past year. I have rarely seen her in all that time. She has been in great … personal difficulties.”

  “Yes, I read the papers,” said Mrs. Kerr dryly. “And have you any cause to believe she is abusing her slaves?”

  Amanda looked toward her husband. To Hannah’s amazement and disquiet, he shook his head.

  “Then why raise the subject?” Captain Lewis turned first to Amanda, then to Will and finally to Hannah. “Unless you would like to argue about abolition. It is a topic that has been taken up by many great men over the past twenty-five years, and you see where they have got with it, Miss Bonner. It is not to be.”

  Hannah felt herself flush, not so much in embarrassment as anger. She looked around the table and saw so many different expressions. Kitty was horrified at the turn in the conversation, Will was involved but not terribly concerned, Amanda vaguely worried, Miss Lispenard curious, Mrs. Kerr eager, Mr. Davis distracted, Senator Clinton anxious and impatient, and Captain Lewis distinctly irritated. The easiest thing would be to hold her tongue, but then that was what the captain wanted and Hannah did not like the idea of giving in to him.

  “Sir,” she said to him in her calmest tone. “Abolition may not be a popular subject in the South, but the fact that the legislature of this state passed a Gradual Manumission Act into law would seem to indicate that it is, indeed, to be, as you put it. At least here. And before you leap to Madame du Rocher’s defense, you should know that by all appearances she intends to leave this state with her slaves to evade the act, which is of course in itself a violation of the law. Finally, since we were speaking of the newspapers, it seems to me that such widespread illegal activities—and I understand that slave owners often take this step to evade the law—warrants the attention of the journalists of this city. In my opinion, of course.”

  Mrs. Kerr sat back in her chair with a sigh, as if she had just finished a very satisfying meal. Her smile—and a number of other smiles around the table—could not be overlooked, and the captain colored. He cleared his throat.

  “You have a great many opinions for a young … person.”

  “The benefits of education,” said Hannah. “As Mrs. Kerr pointed out.”

  “And the pitfall,” said Kitty. “But I’m afraid it’s all to lay at my sister-in-law’s doorstep. She is an avid reader of Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s writing
s.”

  Senator Clinton said, “I would have assumed so, given what I have heard here tonight. Let me just say this much and perhaps we can find a more suitable topic of conversation. If indeed Madame du Rocher plans to break the law, of course such action cannot be tolerated. Ah.” He broke into a relieved smile at the sight of Mrs. Douglas in the doorway. “The sweets. I see you asked the cook for a meringue, Mrs. Spencer. Very good of you to remember.”

  Mr. Davis said very eagerly, “I certainly did miss sugar while I was in the West. Honey and molasses are sweet enough for some, but I’ll take sugar in my coffee if it’s to be had.”

  Just as suddenly as the awkwardness had come over the table it was gone. Hannah wondered at it, until she caught Mrs. Kerr’s conspiratorial wink.

  The Indian woman and her child disappeared from the house so quietly that no one could say when they had gone.

  “Suzannah came down to the kitchen at half past eight,” Mrs. Douglas explained for the third time. “And when she went back a quarter hour later, the woman was gone.” She had sent two of the men out to look for her, without success. “Like she just went up in the sky,” Mrs. Douglas finished. “Just flew away.”

  Hannah lay awake for a long time thinking of the woman, and then she dreamed. In her dream she flew over a bloodred sea, the woman’s child strapped to her chest. In the way of dreamers she suddenly found herself over Lake in the Clouds and without hesitation or fear she dove from the sky into water so deep and dark and so warm that it must revive even the dead. The water pulled her down and down, until she found herself inside the earth itself in a cave filled with strange flickering light. Around a fire that burned up from the rock itself were faces she knew: her grandmothers Falling-Day, and Cora Bonner, her great-grandfather Chingachgook, Robbie MacLachlan, and little Robbie sleeping in his lap with his curls damp around his face. Her own mother with an infant in her arms. Your twin, she said, holding out the child. Come take him.

  She said, I already have this child to look after, only to find that the child was gone. Instead of arms she had wings, great powerful wings with feathers in white and gold and silver. Hannah could not take the child her mother held out or even pick up the one she had lost on her way to safety. Should she ever find it.

  The low moaning of the wind moving through the trees woke her, rising and rising again to shriek like a woman in childbirth. Hannah lay disoriented for a moment, looking at the sky and not quite making sense of what she saw there, dawn or the flicker of lightning. A strange, warm lightning the color of the sunrise.

  She was out of bed and at the window in three great leaps, almost falling in the tangle of her nightdress around her legs, steadying herself by grabbing onto the brocade draperies.

  No storm, not even a house afire, but a scene on the street below her window so strange that it took a moment for Hannah to make sense of it. A team of matched bays and a fine closed carriage, its roof loaded with luggage. And behind that another team, this time six draft horses hitched to a great wagon.

  Both the carriage and the wagon were empty, but around them the Broad Way had become a great rippling river of men and women with torches held high. A light mist was falling from a cover of clouds so low that the torchlight reflected back in an odd glow, gold and rose and silver, enough to pick out faces with great clarity. Every one of them was black.

  The river of people swayed as one, and from it came the moaning that had woken her.

  The door of the house opened and a lady stepped out to stand on the stair. She was dressed for travel in a long cloak. Under an elaborate hat dressed in feathers her face was very pale but when she spoke her voice, high and clear, echoed across the square.

  “You have no business here. Leave at once.”

  Servants came out of the door behind her, each of them with their arms full of smaller pieces of luggage and boxes.

  “Hannah?” Ethan’s voice at her door, and then he came scuttling across the room in his bare feet. He tucked himself against her side, and she put an arm around him.

  “Is your mother awake?”

  It was not cold, but he was shivering so that his teeth clicked when he spoke. “No. Is Madame du Rocher going away?”

  “I think that is her intent, yes.”

  The crowd had begun to twist and flex like a great snake waking from sleep, cutting off the servants so that they could neither get to the carriage nor return to the house. Hannah counted five of them and then suddenly they were just gone, absorbed into the crowd of other dark faces. The moaning had shifted into a lilting chant, boiling up from the depths.

  Liberté! Liberté! Liberté! Liberté!

  Madame du Rocher raised her voice again. “I have summoned the night watch! Go now immediately or I will see that the skin is flayed from your backs!”

  The chant began to echo down the street, and all around Bowling Green men were appearing in the doorways in nightdress. An old woman ran toward Madame du Rocher shaking her fist, screaming, “Maudit! Maudit!”

  “Look,” said Ethan, tugging hard on Hannah’s arm. “Look!”

  A pile of refuse had been set on fire and in its light a man had climbed up onto the fence that surrounded the green, with one arm slung around the trunk of a poplar to steady himself. In the glow of the fire, Manny Freeman raised his other fist into the air and one of the windows at the front of the house exploded. A horse screamed and both teams began to pull in the traces.

  Madame du Rocher retreated into the house and the sound of glass breaking filled the street.

  Liberté! Liberté! Liberté! Liberté!

  “A riot,” Ethan whispered. He pulled away and ran from the room, but Hannah could not make herself move. The crowd had pinned her in place just as surely as they had forced Madame du Rocher back into the house.

  Men and women both were running forward, hurling rocks and rubble and handfuls of dirt.

  Liberté LIBERTÉ liberté LIBERTÉ!

  An elderly black man appeared in the doorway waving his arms over his head, but his shouting was lost in the chant. Two young men ran up the steps and lifted him bodily, dragging him away to disappear into their number. Someone had loosed the teams and the horses surged off through the crowd, the empty wagon rocking wildly on its wheels.

  From the north side of Bowling Green came the sound of musket shot.

  “Come away from the window,” said Will behind her. “The constables are come, and the blackbirders will be with them. You don’t want to see what will happen.”

  At dawn, unable to sleep, Hannah found her daybook, much neglected in the past days, and scribbled the few lines she could not banish from her head.

  May 1. Dawn. This night I watched a battle outside my window, and it was a revelation to me. What a strange place is this city, blind and deaf to a war fought day by day on its very streets.

  In the morning Will was waiting for her in the carriage, intent on using the quarter-hour journey to the Almshouse to speak to her in privacy. The lines that bracketed his mouth were very deep, and his hair, normally perfectly combed, stood up in spikes at the back of his head.

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  He raised a hand as if to push aside the question. In his usual calm manner he said, “Manny must leave the city today, under cover.”

  When Hannah closed her eyes she saw him clearly, outlined in flame, his head thrown back while he shouted with the others, his fist closed around a stone. “Was he recognized?”

  Will lifted a shoulder. “Madame du Rocher’s slaves took the opportunity of the riot to disappear. Only one has been recaptured.”

  Hannah sat up straighter. “Did Manny have something to do with that? Did you?”

  “No,” Will said. “We have never operated in such a fashion. It is far too dangerous. But Bly has accused Manny nevertheless and it will be in the afternoon papers. If Manny is found they will try him and most likely find him guilty, given the evidence.”

  “But they can have no evidence, if he was not in
volved in the escape.”

  Will pressed his hands together. “When Bly is finished with the slave he captured last night, she will give evidence to anything. She will swear that Manny organized the whole riot and encouraged them to run, or anything else that Bly wants her to say.”

  Dread washed through Hannah, moved up from her belly in a flush that crawled out to her hands and made them tingle. For a long moment she could not speak at all.

  “He may have left already,” Will said. “Or he may be in hiding and looking to the safety of the du Rocher slaves. He understands what Bly and the blackbirders are up to, of that you can be sure. Hannah, if there is anyone who can find his way out of the city, it is Manny.”

  These were good, sensible words but they could not banish the images that rose unbidden before Hannah. Curiosity and Galileo, Selah Voyager round with child. How would she ever carry such news to them?

  Will was not finished. He said, “I wanted you to be aware of the situation, in case the constables decide to question you.” He leaned forward to cover her hand with his own. “I will do everything in my power to make sure he gets home safely.”

  Hannah looked Will in the eye, and found no comfort in what she saw there. “But you don’t know where he is. Is the blackbirder called Cobb after him, the one … the voyager feared so?”

  “I understand how worried you are for your friends,” Will said. “But now you must leave it to the Libertas Society. Can you do that?”

  She said, “You did not answer my question about Cobb.”

  There was a brittleness in the way Will looked at her, worry and irritation and simple powerlessness scraping the bone. He looked away and then back again.

  “Cobb went north,” he said finally. “There’s a reward he’s after.”

  “So he is no threat to Manny.” It was a question he would refuse to answer but Hannah must say the words anyway.

  Will said, “We are here. You must try to put all of this out of your mind for now.”