City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  She expected him to touch her, but he did not. Instead he retreated to one of the room’s elegant little chairs, still clutching his glass of Malmsey. “What if I were to offer you the control of every whore in the city, Delight Higgins? Would you be able to manage them?”

  She laughed out loud, unable to suppress her reaction even as she saw his face darken with anger. “Every whore in the city, Mr. Blakeman? The Corlear hookers, the Canvastown hot-pockets, and the Five Points Molly O’Hannigans? All of them?”

  “All of them.” He’d suppressed his anger, sounded cool, and charming with it. “And, not to imply that any house in New York is on a par with the Dancing Knave, the ladies of the other parlor houses as well.”

  “What a remarkable notion. Taken all together, have you any idea how many there might be? Has anyone?”

  “Not now, no. But soon I will have. In the interests of good order and general health and well-being, it might be better to have the entire trade confined to one area of the town. And of course registration will be required.”

  “Required by whom?”

  Blakeman shrugged. “That’s not important just now. You still haven’t answered my question. Can you manage what will be a very large and thriving business, Miss Higgins? As well as you see to this smaller enterprise?” He nodded his head toward the burble of laughter still coming from somewhere beyond the little parlor. “I admire your understanding of the notion of the carrot and the stick.”

  “Many more carrots than sticks, Mr. Blakeman. It makes life considerably simpler.”

  “But when necessary, Miss Higgins…?”

  “When the stick is necessary, yes, it is used.”

  “And on a wider scale?”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Entirely serious. Never more so.”

  Good God. “Then I will tell you that I can do whatever I need to do, Mr. Blakeman. Whatever is in my best interests, and those of”—she hesitated, unsure how to characterize the relationship that seemed to be on offer—“of my colleagues.”

  “Excellent,” he said softly. “I believe we have an understanding, Miss Higgins.”

  “I believe we do, Mr. Blakeman.”

  “In that case I’ll be bold enough to go a bit further. Now that Mr. Clifford is in my employ, he confirmed some information I only suspected. About what I’m told you call the hawk’s nest.”

  “It can’t have come as a great surprise,” she said with a small shrug. “Such arrangements are useful in places like the Knave.”

  “Indeed. But the identity of the hawk? Mr. Clifford mentioned a name. I found it…unexpected.”

  Delight waited. So did he. After a few seconds she took a step closer and removed the now empty glass from his grip. “More wine, Mr. Blakeman?”

  “Thank you.”

  Her stomach was churning and her hands shook as she poured the Malmsey. Fortunately, her back was to him and he couldn’t see. When she could trust her voice, she asked, “Unexpected in what way, Mr. Blakeman?”

  “Heroes,” Blakeman said softly, “up-standing men of medicine…In the public mind such things are not associated with whoremongering.”

  “In that case the public must be made up entirely of fools.” She knew she had confirmed Joyful’s identity as plainly as if she had spelled out his name. Delight turned and lifted the glass of wine she had poured for her guest. “I am suddenly struck by a great thirst, Mr. Blakeman. You’ll forgive me if I drink some of this.”

  “I will find the remainder all the sweeter for that fact, Miss Higgins.” Blakeman rose and went to where she stood.

  Delight took a few sips of the wine, then held what was left to his lips. When the glass was empty, she put it down and began undoing the ties of her dressing gown one by one. When she got to the last, she paused. A recklessness and a fury were rising in her, unlike all that had gone before. You keep yourself cooler than that icicle hanging from that tree, little miss Laniah. Listen to Cuf, because he knows. Cool as ice, that’s how you win. But some coals could not be extinguished. Some rage was beyond suppression. Some betrayals demanded a fiery vengeance.

  Joyful never recognized her. Not in Barnaby Carter’s shay. Not in this place they’d built together. Not in her bed. Not last night when he was so enthusiastically fucking her in the hawk’s nest. Not today in the Fly Market. She had opened herself to him in every possible way, and Joyful had never cared enough to realize that she was part of his past as he was part of hers. She was a convenience. Beautiful and available, and black enough inside and out so she should expect no more. Because—time to tell herself the truth—she had never been part of Joyful Patrick Turner’s plans for his future.

  “Perhaps you should consider, Mr. Blakeman, that what you’re calling whoremongering is not the only…shall we say the only vulnerability to be exploited?”

  Gornt realized that she was giving him something special, and that it might be more valuable than she realized, considering how little she really knew of his intentions. “And what might another be, Miss Higgins?”

  “A young lady. I believe her name to be Manon Vionne.”

  There it was then, the other piece of the puzzle. A woman, the jeweler’s daughter as it happened. That’s why Delight Higgins was betraying her lover, and that’s how Joyful Turner knew whatever he knew. “Ah,” Blakeman said. It was a sound of great satisfaction.

  “Ah,” Delight echoed.

  She undid the last tie, the green dressing gown fell open, and he reached for her. Delight allowed herself to melt against him. The bear trap waited.

  Maiden Lane, 5 P.M.

  “Excellent, ma petite, as always.” Maurice Vionne ate the last mouthful of his dinner of duck stewed with onions. “You are as fine a cook as your maman before you. I said as much to Pierre DeFane just the other day.”

  “I am flattered by your praise, Papa. I take it, however, that Monsieur DeFane cares about my cuisine only on behalf of his nephew, the widower from Virginia.”

  “Of course. DeFane is well married. You know Madame DeFane, surely.”

  “Surely,” Manon agreed. A tiny bird of a woman with the claws and the destructive instincts of a hawk. “And when is this nephew to present himself in New York?” She would meet him a time or two, maybe even permit him to call on her here rather than simply see her in the company of others. That would show Joyful he had to stop shillyshallying.

  “As soon as he can. It’s very difficult to travel these days. We’re told there are British warships in the Chesapeake who land troops at will, and harry the roads and the surrounding farms.”

  Her father sounded truly worried. Suddenly, the matter of Mr. Madison’s war seemed to Manon to be more urgent than whether she could maneuver some unsuspecting widower to serve her ends. “It seems a terrifying prospect, Papa. The British can’t really make us colonies again, can they? So many soldiers and militia in the streets, and sometimes, in the market, one hears dreadful things.”

  Vionne pushed back from the table and stood up. “Dreadful indeed. And perhaps true, at least in part. But for myself, I do not think the redcoats will prevail, however much damage they do. We were a morsel too big for them to swallow in ’76 and so we shall be now. Independency, ma petite Manon, once and for all time. That is how it must be. Never doubt it.”

  She was surprised at the vehemence in his voice. “Of course, Papa. I am sure you are right.”

  “Yes, and about you as well. You would do well to remember always that your papa has only your best interests at heart. Now, please hold yourself ready to produce some refreshments in the next hour or so. I am to have a guest.”

  “The man you saw last night, Papa? He is to return?” Her heart began the same fierce tattoo that accompanied any thoughts of what she might do to speed the time when Joyful would consent to ask for her hand. Or even, perhaps better, whisk her away without bothering to get permission. “I can—”

  “I told you to forget about last night’s caller. I am expecting
a colleague, Mr. Frank of Water Street.”

  “The Hebrew goldsmith, Papa?”

  “Yes. We’ll offer him some wine, and perhaps a few cakes. Nothing too fancy, Manon.”

  “Yes, Papa. I will do exactly as you say.”

  Half an hour later when she carried the tray of wine and small cakes to the shop, she found her father conferring with another man as well as Mordecai Frank the smith. “Ah, come in, my dear. My daughter, gentleman. Manon, may I present Mr. Frank, whom I believe you have met, and his friend, Mr. Simson.”

  Manon knew Samson Simson as well, but only by reputation. He was an attorney, the first Jewish gentleman to be a member of the New York bar. Why would Papa and Mr. Frank want a lawyer? None of her thoughts showed on her face. She smiled and nodded and dropped a graceful curtsey. And though she tried hard not to stare at the book all three had been bent over when she arrived, she knew it was the Tavernier.

  Maiden Lane, 10 P.M.

  “Your daughter, sir,” Blakeman said. “Manon. I want her.”

  Vionne’s eyes were heavy with sleep—he’d been in bed when an insistent hand on the brass knocker of the front door summoned him to his shop—and now they opened wide with astonishment. “You want my Manon? For what?”

  “What do you think? For a wife. I am unmarried and nearly forty. Past time, wouldn’t you say? As soon as the banns can be called. A matter of a few weeks, I believe.”

  “But—”

  “Yes? But what?”

  “You don’t know her. Last night…I don’t think you’d ever seen her before.”

  “Quite true.” Blakeman wore boots and satin breeches, as on the previous evening, with a ruffled shirt and a hat with an outsize brim. He had removed his hat when Vionne let him in. Now he leaned forward, putting his face directly in the glow of the small oil lamp the goldsmith had lit. “Here, get a good look at me. Am I such an unpleasant prospect as a son-in-law?”

  A jutting chin, glittering eyes. Not handsome exactly and not young, but the look of a man who would always get what he wanted. Vionne glanced at the entrance to the private part of the house. He’d wager his last pearl necklace Manon was standing a few feet away, ear pressed to the door and listening to every word. She would have heard the ruckus Blakeman made trying to get in and come downstairs. Vionne swallowed hard. Dear God, if only her mother were here…“I would not expect my Manon to marry a man, any man, purely on my say-so.” Too bad she had to hear that. It would make her all the more impossible to manage. Gornt Blakeman was not a man to be trifled with. “You must return at a more regular hour, sir. And perhaps—”

  “She’s a virgin, isn’t she? I told you last night she was the finest gold in your possession. A treasure to be guarded.” They’d been the last words he whispered to the goldsmith as he left, and only half in jest. But that he might marry the goldsmith’s daughter and do good for himself while doing ill to Joyful Turner—that hadn’t occurred to him until Delight Higgins mentioned the girl’s name. In fact, the idea came to him in the mulatto’s bed. “As long as you can guarantee she’s untouched, I will require no dowry.” Blakeman paused, waited for a response. Instead, Vionne kept looking at the door to the private part of the house. Must be he thought the girl to be listening—a bad habit and one he’d have to break. “I want sons, sir. I require them. Huguenot women are known to be good breeders. Have you sons, Mr. Vionne? Does she come from good stock?”

  “My wife, God bless her memory, gave me three sons, Mr. Blakeman. All born healthy and alive. Unfortunately, two were lost to the cholera, and one was trampled by a runaway horse.”

  “That’s all right then. Come, goldsmith, you should be smiling. Have you had a better offer for your goods? I can support her, as you know. And my connections…” Blakeman waved an expansive hand. The shop was deep in shadow, but they both knew what exquisite and expensive trinkets lined the shelves. “It will be no bad thing to be my father-in-law, sir. Speak to your daughter. Then arrange the banns.”

  Blakeman turned and left the shop. Vionne stared after him, then went to the door to the private quarters and pulled it open. There was no sign of Manon and no evidence she’d been there listening, but she would not have remained demurely in her room. Tighten your grip on her, Maurice. Almost the final words his wife spoke as she lay dying. Take Manon in hand, otherwise she’ll take you.

  Vionne sighed, closed the door, and turned back to the shop to lock the street door and extinguish the oil lamp, but for a moment he let his glance rove over the lustrous gold and silver creations he had so long labored to produce. What would it mean to an artisan like himself to be connected to a man like Gornt Blakeman? A little shudder traveled from his spine to his scalp—the tall-dream shivers, his dear dead wife used to call such feelings. You’re a fine man for dreaming, Maurice Vionne. Good thing I’m the practical one. And Manon? She was a blend of them both. Might she be practical enough to find the notion of marriage to a man like Gornt Blakeman more intriguing than she apparently did the suit of Monsieur DeFane’s nephew?

  Upper Broadway, 11 P.M.

  Back in Germany, Jacob Astor had been the son of a village butcher. He was rich as Croesus now, and in America a quarter of a century, but he still spoke English with a thick, guttural accent and a foreigner’s syntax. “So, you come by me very late, Dr. Turner. Usually, I am by now in my bed.”

  “But you were willing to keep the appointment, sir.” The note Joyful passed Astor at the sale said he would call at 11 P.M. and that it was in Astor’s best interest to see him. It also gave the address of Joyful’s boardinghouse, in case Astor wanted to put him off. He’d sent no such word.

  “Ja, very willing,” Astor admitted. “Curious I was.”

  “So am I. This afternoon, Mr. Astor, at Blakeman’s sale, when I passed you the note, you seemed to expect it. How was that possible, sir? Are you possessed of some extraordinary mystical power? Is that the secret to such magnificence?” Joyful waved a hand to indicate everything around them.

  The rest of the country accused all New Yorkers of excessive spending and ostentation, but nowhere in the city—probably not in the nation—could there be another man who lived like Jacob Astor. His mansion in this countrified northern end of town was staffed by Chinese servants, the only persons of their race in New York as far as Joyful knew. Astor had brought them over on one of his merchantmen before the war. The butler who let Joyful in had the flat features of a nongmin, a Han peasant, but his employer had dressed him in the elaborately embroidered black satin gown and crimson silk trousers of a prosperous hong merchant.

  For Joyful, seeing the butler was like having a window on his past suddenly opened. “Chi le fan meiyou?” he spoke the traditional greeting in proper Mandarin. Have you eaten rice today?

  “Chi le. Chi le.” The butler said. Eaten. Eaten. The words repeated twice for emphasis in the Chinese manner, and always the answer, even if the speaker were a half-starved rickshaw driver. In this case, however, it looked to be true. The man was plump and round, and beaming at Joyful. “Nin guixing?” May I know the honorable gentleman’s honorable name?

  Joyful would wager ten hot dinners and his cue stick that Astor must have told him who and what to expect, else the butler would have been shocked to have a New York yang gwei zih, a foreign devil, address him in his own language. Instead he was smiling and entirely self-possessed. “Wo xing Turner,” Joyful said, giving his surname first, because that was the way it was done in China: “Turner Joyful Patrick.”

  “Wo xing Wong. Wo xing Ah Wong.”

  Ah was a diminutive, used in China for only the most trusted servants. The man was indicating his high standing in the Astor household.

  “Ah Wong,” Joyful said with another bow.

  The butler bowed back. “Prease forrow me,” he said, obviously proud of his English. He turned to lead the way, and Joyful saw that his queue, his braid, had been extended with silk to hang halfway down his back. Jacob Astor’s Chinese butler was as splendid as everything els
e in the place.

  The entryway was vast, with a marble floor and gilt columns and walls lined with mirrors. It had proved to be a proper prelude to the study where Astor and Joyful now sat: large enough to be a ballroom, two stories high, and decorated with elaborate frescoes depicting hunting scenes. The tables were made to look like elephant ears or boar tusks—for all Joyful knew, they were elephant ears and boar tusks—and the chairs were carved to resemble lions and tigers. His host was seated across from him, in a chair carved to look like a snarling tiger, with the fearsome beast’s head forming a canopy over Astor’s. The tiger’s mouth was open and the great teeth seemed ready at any moment to snap shut on a victim. Magnificence indeed.

  “All this,” Astor waved an arm to indicate the room and everything beyond it, “from much hard work it comes. And a little good fortune. And also, Dr. Turner, the power of seeing. Observation.” Astor tapped his temple to indicate his eyes. “With these only.”

  “Observation?”

  “Ja. Nothing else.”

  “Forgive me, sir. I don’t believe it.”

  “But it’s true. Let me explain. You can no longer be a doctor or a surgeon,” he gestured toward Joyful’s missing hand, “but nothing else you do yet. You have been seen frequently at the docks. When I am told this, I think about your father. I know he was many things, but he finished his life in the Canton trade. His son was raised in China. I too am a trader. I trade in many things. Property, here in New York, you know that, no?” Joyful nodded. Everyone knew that Jacob Astor spent hours prowling the edges of the city, buying what seemed unlikely plots of land that always turned out to be the next place every New Yorker wanted to live. “And furs I trade,” Astor continued. “Many furs. First they came. But now, also the silks and porcelains and tea of Canton. Everyone knows these things. You as well, Dr. Turner. So, when like me you appear at Blakeman’s sale, but you buy nothing, I observe that we are both there for curiosity only. After a time you come beside me. A little, what shall I say…stealthy. It must be that you intend to speak to me, or to pass me a note. Speaking would attract attention, which already you have tried to avoid. I decide it is to be a note. And because I remain curious, I put out my hand.”