31 Bond Street Part 19

"Why, Mr. Wicken, you have given me a start." She turned to look up at him, so tall that his hair seemed to burnish in the sun.

"It was not my intention to frighten you, but to offer you aid," he said, leading her firmly to the opposite curb. "Are you headed to the market?"

"I was going to do some shopping, but I had no idea the trip was such treachery," she said, laughing, as if the crossing had endangered her, and he had saved her life. She stood on the sidewalk and patted at her hair.

He eyed her with concern. "I admire a lady who can prevail through great hardship, and come away from it lovelier than ever." She had no idea what to think about his flattery. It had been a long time since she had basked in the reflected glow of an appreciative man, so she smiled but chose not to answer. "I have been meaning to come and call on you," he said, "but I wanted to be considerate of your need for privacy. I imagined that you and your daughters needed time alone for a reunion."

"There has been so much to do. I have the household to manage and there will be new servants that will need to be trained."

They were at the other side of the avenue, now moving among the market stalls. She had never noticed how gnarled and small the ordinary cla.s.s of humanity was until she saw them in contrast to Ambrose Wicken.

"Are these fresh? I fear not," he said lifting a bruised peach and dropping it back, at the displeasure of the man behind the stall. He wore a glove on his right hand, and kept that hand limply at his side. Seeing her notice it, he lifted it and said, "A carriage accident, while I was racing in Louisiana. Most unfortunate, for otherwise I would have won the race. How is the fair Augusta? I a.s.sume your girls are making the rounds at the spas this summer."

"Oh, I hardly see them for all of their comings and goings. They are often away from home, so I have to keep their suitors at bay." She suddenly felt dizzy, as though she was caught in the crush of every vendor and pushcart.

"Are you all right?" he asked, taking her elbow again.

"It is a spell of nerves. I have been much afflicted by it lately," she replied, feeling faint. He led her to a small bench near the lorries. She sat for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to pa.s.s.

"This is no place for a lady," he said, offering her his hand. "Let me escort you home." They crossed the busy avenue and walked down Bond Street, past the hushed townhouses. As they neared the house, Mr. Wicken said, "Do you remember, we were to meet, on that fateful day? The death of Dr. Burdell was a most terrible shock."

"Yes, poor Harvey."

"I remember you wrote me about a matter. It was concerning some land. Dr. Burdell was a careful man. Did you resolve that matter of the land for you and your daughters?"

"It's all so confusing. There are many papers missing. Even the deed to the house is in question."

"Perhaps I can still be of help to you."

"Why thank you, but my lawyer will sort it all out." They were on the sidewalk in front of the house. She thought he was expecting to come inside but she was hesitant to invite him into the house and see it in its sorry state. "I am afraid that this afternoon I need some rest."

"I shall leave you, then," he said. "But I will come back on Sunday, and will take you out for some fresh air and entertainment. A day of pleasure, how does that sound?"

"I am not sure if Augusta is available."

"Then it shall be just the two of us. I shall come in the morning."

"Where shall we go, in the heat of the summer?"

"You shall see, the summer has endless surprises."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

There was a note on the front table from her mother, asking her to pick up an elixir at the apothecary on Sixth Avenue. It had scientific words and notations on it, to show the pharmacist. Augusta lived on Bedford Street, where she lived with Old Nellie, once her nursemaid. The woman's tidy little house had a garden and fruit trees, and breezes from the river, and seemed far away from the nightmare days of the trial. Helen went back to visit their mother more often than Augusta did, but neither of them wanted to return to Bond Street to live in that haunted sh.e.l.l of a house.

The letter sat on the table for two days. Both afternoons had brought thundershowers-the thunder cracked, and the rain came down so hard that it bounced back up a foot and then streamed off the paving stones, leaving puddles so deep she needed to pin her dress up to the shins just to pa.s.s along the road. There were no city storm drains in Greenwich Village, so the water pooled into little rivers and flowed under the trees in the orchard that bordered the church garden. Finally, on Thursday, the sun came back out, and the Hudson glimmered through the apple trees.

Augusta had no desire to leave Bedford Street, where the long summer days washed away the acc.u.mulated trauma of the last months. She could walk barefoot in the yard, getting mud between her toes, and spend mornings pinching roses off the back fence, filling up little vases with fragrant buds, still tightly closed. The front door was painted blue, and hollyhocks leaned against the sunny side of the house. Augusta and Nellie cleaned the house together in old linen dresses and used candles instead of gas. Augusta loved the house because of its simplicity, and knew that it was exactly its simplicity that would make it unacceptable to her mother. She felt possessive about it, and realized her possessiveness must be the same feeling her mother had for Bond Street.

Nellie was well into her seventies and had lived there since she was a girl and British troops had camped out in the fields. While Nellie combed Augusta's long blond hair she told stories about the handsome soldiers and wove tales about Augusta's future that conjured images of a house like this one, with a kitchen garden and little babies in the yard.

Augusta resisted going back into the heart of the city to do her mother's errand, especially now, because the day was becoming very hot. The walk east to Bond Street meant putting on stockings and shoes. She changed her thin dress, and rolled her hair up into two twists, to lift it off her shoulders. She found a basket and put in some vegetables from the garden to give to her mother. Her mother was getting thin, and she didn't know how she was managing without a cook.

Augusta lifted the latch of the gate. Vines wound up the front of the house with thick trunks the width of her wrist. As she walked east on Christopher Street, she pa.s.sed Greenwich Lane and Factory Street. The streets gave way to small wooden houses, well kept, but modest, with doors just steps off the street. She crossed Sixth Avenue and entered the apothecary with its high cases of jars with colorful liquids, lined up behind gla.s.s. Mr. Bigelow prepared a bottle of elixir to match her mother's order and stopped up the gla.s.s bottle and sealed it with wax.

"Careful now with this concoction," he said. "It's not for everyday consumption." She put the bottle in her basket and continued on her way, past the Gothic buildings on University Place. She thought of stopping into one of the cool churches to pray but was no longer sure that piety could comfort her. This part of the city seemed empty in the middle of summer. There were no prams or children minding their nurses at Washington Square, or students from the university, just the still buildings and a tangy smell of rotting food where refuse was piled in boxes, abandoned at the curbside.

When she reached the long block of Bond Street, the sight of the house filled her with dread. She walked up the stoop and rang the bell, but the pull was rusted and loose and she could hear that it did not ring. She turned the k.n.o.b on the large oak door, and it pushed open to the vestibule. Her mother was getting absentminded, with the large house to care for, that she was not even remembering to lock the front door. She went up two flights and found her mother in her bedroom, walking around, as if she were looking for something.

"Mother, I came from the apothecary. Mr. Bigelow said to be careful of this mixture."

"Thank you. I need it to give me strength. I have had a series of nervous jolts, but I feel better now. Did you tell the pharmacist about my condition?"

"I didn't know what to tell him," replied Augusta, hesitant to sit and stay.

Her mother sat down in the armchair. She had a strange look on her face. There was a gla.s.s in her hand.

"Mother, there are no servants here and no one to look after you. You don't look as if you are eating well."

"I will be fine, now that I have more medicine."

"There is no need to be alone in this big house. It is foolish to remain here."

"It's my home," Emma insisted. "I will fix up the house and make it lovely again. For you and Helen. You will see."

"Helen is staying with Cousin Matilda, and I am not coming back. You know I prefer staying with Old Nellie. I do not want to be in this house."

"Of course you do, it will be perfect for us."

"Mother, when will you abandon this folly?"

"In September, we can get a season's box at the symphony, and the seamstress will come to make some new dresses." Her mother lifted her hand to reach for one of Augusta's curls, and Augusta dodged her hand away. "There will be suitors, and parties, in the fall."

"I won't return to that charade, with you trying to sell us to the highest bidder."

"Sell you?" Emma said.

"Yes, you have trotted Helen and I around in circles, in finery and jewels, for years. I will not suffer it any longer."

Her mother's face contorted to reveal teeth that had yellowed from the cheap tea in prison. "You mock me," she said with vehemence. "I struggled to make sure you had decent surroundings. You and Helen had what every girl needs and desires-frocks and hats and music lessons!"

"You did everything to make sure we had decent surroundings, but nothing to surround us with decent people," Augusta snapped.

"It is time you were married-where will you be without that? You board with an old woman, and when she pa.s.ses away, then what will you have? Will you live in a shanty? A shack? When a woman keeps going backward, it's a bottomless hole-there's nothing but degradation. Why would you choose such a life, when I have worked so hard to lift you above it?"

"I find degradation here, in this house," said Augusta.

"You ungrateful girl! This is an elegant home, and it will be beautiful again. It will be yours and your husband's. Certainly a woman has to make small bargains, but they are always for the good."

"What kind of bargains have you made? You made bargains with our father, and with Dr. Burdell. You brought us here to Bond Street, and the next thing we were all sitting in a murderer's box, waiting to see if you would hang!"

Emma slumped back in her chair, as if fatigued by the fight and the oppressive heat of the house. "Augusta," she said, imploringly, "he is back."

"Who?

"Mr. Wicken-"

"Stop, I refuse to hear any more." Augusta slammed the apothecary bottle on the vanity, and picked up her basket. "I am leaving."

"I will order you a wedding dress from Hartbelle's," insisted Emma softly, smiling with her cracked smile, as if there was nothing wrong with her outlandish plans.

"Are you mad? Is there no way to bring you back to your senses? Can't you look around and see the circ.u.mstances?"

"We will all live here together. You'll have a baby. It's a fine home for a family." The air in the room was close and stale. Augusta felt the old feeling of desperation roll through her so fiercely that she could hardly breathe. It was a physical sensation, like having a revolver pointed to one's head, waiting indefinitely for the flint to click.

"Good-bye, mother," she said, with determination. She turned from the room.

"Come back, listen to me! Ambrose Wicken has a fine plantation in Louisiana, and he will be living here, in New York, half the year."

"You have mentioned that man's name for the last time in my presence." As she walked out, she heard her mother call after her. Augusta continued quickly down the staircase, past Dr. Burdell's office, its door slightly ajar. She knew the room had been cleaned and emptied long ago, but she imagined blood on the floors, turned foul and rancid in the summer heat. She rushed faster, down the final staircase to the vestibule.

Emma was calling now, down the well of the stairway from the third floor. "Darling, will you be back in time for supper? We will all eat here tonight in the dining room. When you have a baby, I will have a nurse come over and care for it." Her voice sounded odd and plaintive.

Augusta turned the k.n.o.b of the front door and screamed with all her strength, "I am leaving and I am not coming back. You are mad and I won't listen to this lunacy," and she turned the k.n.o.b and ran down the stoop.

CHAPTER FORTY.

Emma went down to the kitchen and fixed herself a tray with tea. She carried it upstairs to the office on the second floor. Dr. Burdell was so good at hiding things, she thought. She patted one of the panels in the recessed area where there was a cabinet with a washbasin. The panel slid away, revealing a cubbyhole with apothecary jars, filled with powders he mixed for the patients before surgery. There was still a small amount at the bottom of these bottles. Harvey would bring her some laudanum in quinine on the nights he desired her in his bed. She would sip it until it made her loose and sleepy. He kept the jars well hidden from the servants behind these secret panels, and no one had removed them, even after the house had been thoroughly searched during the inquest.

She dropped several spoonfuls of the snowy substance into the elixir that Augusta had brought. Then she poured some into her teacup and poured the tea on top. The herbs of the tea seemed to swirl in ornate patterns as she drank. After a while she didn't remember which room she was in or which one she went to next. She found herself in the parlor, not knowing how much time had pa.s.sed, but the house was getting dark.

She went to light some candles on the mantel. Her hand trembled as she struck the match on a piece of hearthstone. Did the servant boy take the flints? She stepped across the carpet to a table by the window. She lifted the crystal globe of a lamp and inspected the interior. It was covered with sticky black soot, and the gla.s.s bulb showed a small amount of yellowed whale oil that barely reached the bottom of the wick. She shook the lamp to wet the rope and put the match against it until a flame sputtered.

Whale oil is so expensive, who is wasting it? She sat down next to the lamp and picked up her sewing basket. The windows to the street held some of the evening glow, but the back parlor and the hallway were dark.

She started sewing along the edge of a nightdress that needed embroidery. Augusta's trousseau demanded extra touches. Emma struggled with the st.i.tches. Her rings glistened as she pulled the needle back and forth, fingers trembling, worn and thin.

"h.e.l.lo, my dear."

Emma looked up, startled. She saw a shadow through the arched doorway between the two parlors. The heavy pocket doors were halfway open, and a figure stood in the back room, framed by the archway and the heavy white molding that soared up to the plasterwork ceiling.

"Oh, Harvey, you startled me," said Emma.

"What has happened to the carpet in my office?" he asked.

"It was soiled and it's being cleaned. It will be back next week, I think." He was obscured, so that she saw only his outline.

"What are you doing, Emma?"

"I am preparing Augusta's wedding clothes. I have so little time during the day, so I must finish this embroidery in the evening. I hope you don't mind." She p.r.i.c.ked her finger, and a small dot of blood appeared on the tip. She stared at the small red orb, swelling up.

"Do you need some laudanum? I am going up to the office, and I can bring you some," he asked. His voice was strange, as if it were being channeled through a long pipe.

"Oh no-this is just a little p.r.i.c.k, it's not painful at all. You are thoughtful to ask, though."

"Well, I just want to take care of you."

She laughed. "Oh, Harvey. You always take care of me. And I am such a boring wife, trying to accomplish these fancy st.i.tches, when I should be tending to you."

"You're a wonderful wife, and a wonderful mother. And I am grateful for that." His voice now sounded more m.u.f.fled, as though he was trying to talk underwater.

"Harvey, are you all right? I hope you are not ill?" She squinted, trying to make out his features. He stepped forward under the archway, his face slowly emerging into the half-light. His sideburns spread across his cheeks, and then she saw dark smears of purple, clotted in his whiskers, and there were black bruises across his forehead. He smiled, and his mouth spouted a foul, dark substance. He tilted his head back slightly, and the skin on his neck separated, with pieces of loosely flapping skin, until a gash widened, revealing crimson sinews and pink tendons, releasing more viscous fluid.

"Harvey!" she gasped. Then a sound came across the room in waves, and she was not sure whether the sound was in her head, or in the room, or if it was silent, or loud, for the pitch was so high, it was like the end of a nerve, screaming.

"I must go now, dear-I am in the middle of doing a tooth extraction," said Dr. Burdell. "Mind you, I am not in pain-but if you are alarmed, I will get you some laudanum." He receded into the back parlor, and she heard him, from the other room, distinctly now, "You have made our house so beautiful and I am proud of you. I am so proud that you are my wife."

The ringing pitch in her ears increased to such a degree that her energy drained away. Her hands slackened and the sewing fell from her lap. Her head nodded into her chin. "I love you, I love you, I love you, and we will sail to Europe!" Now it was her own voice she heard, singing. "And when we come back from Europe, we shall be so happy!" She lifted her head. The carpets looked so clean, now that the lamps were full and the gas flames were dancing along the walls of the room. The upholstery was fresh with bright colors that she had picked out herself. There was music; Augusta was playing the piano in the back parlor. Through the archway, all the crystal and silver on the sideboard was buffed and shiny. Ambrose Wicken was standing behind the piano bench, with his hands resting on Augusta's shoulders, leaning over her, looking intently at the sheet music, smiling and solicitous. As her fingers rippled across the keys, Augusta's body swayed from side to side to give her hands wider reach. It's so silly of him to love her so much, thought Emma, fixing the knot on the thread and clipping it with her gold scissors. Helen sailed by in the hall and rushed upstairs. The girl was always in such a hurry. Three maids filed down, having fixed the coal in the bedrooms. They were headed to the kitchen to help Hannah clear the dinner dishes and lay out the breakfast china for the morning.

"Mama, Ambrose and I are going for a walk," said Augusta, appearing before her mother in a white billowing dress, with gold billowing hair. Ambrose Wicken had his arm around her waist.

"Take your cape, dear," said Emma. "It is still winter, isn't it?" She suddenly wondered what season it was.

"I am not sure, Mother. I am confused." Augusta suddenly looked puzzled. She turned pale and her legs began to buckle. Alarmed, Ambrose grabbed and caught her.

"Augusta!" he cried, alarmed. He caught her in his arms.

Augusta's eyes blinked open and she smiled. "You have that effect on me, Ambrose. When I am near you, I am always swooning." He helped her upright.

"Let's go, you silly goose, let's get some air." Looking relieved, he smiled, showing her his pearly teeth. The door shut, and Emma heard their laughter, and their steps across the paving stones.