City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  “Neither as it happens. Holy Hannah found Wu and I met him at her cabin.”

  “Holy Hannah? What’s Thumbless Wu got to do with her?”

  “Hannah takes in strays. Wu was starving. It seems you don’t feed your stowaways particularly well, Finbar. Even those you invite aboard.”

  “Wu tell you that?”

  “No, he’s told me nothing. As for him being a stowaway on Canton Star, how else would he get here? The rest was just a guess. You’re too good a captain to have a stowaway aboard and not find him. Unless you chose not to.”

  “Well I didn’t starve the bugger. Whatever he says. Not any more’n I flogged the life out o’ that blighted bastard Tammy Tompkins.”

  “The whole world’s doing hard by you, is that it, Finbar?” And when the Irishman shrugged: “Where’s your money? Did you have to leave it behind on Canton Star when Blakeman ran you off? Want me to go and get it for you, perhaps? Is that what this is all about?”

  “Took me money with me,” O’Toole muttered.

  Joyful thought for a moment. “But you don’t have it now, is that it?”

  “That’s it. Not what I came to see you about, though.” The last thing he remembered was Peggety Jack showing him the way to the shed where he spent the night. You’ll be safe here, Captain O’Toole. He could probably find the old bastard and indeed he would, but there was no way on God’s green earth he’d be able to prove Peggety Jack took the moneybag and left him nothin’ but the few loose coins remaining in his trouser pockets. Not as full o’ grog as he’d been, and in a blind stupor to boot. “Money comes and money goes. Nothin’ new in that.”

  “You need a berth, that’s why you came. You’re prepared to sail the Lisbetta to the Caribbean.”

  “No, lad. That’s exactly what I’m not prepared to do. I may be a fool, but I’m not a liar or a cheat. Whatever you think. And for the sake o’ the log, I didn’t take a single strip off Gornt Blakeman’s back by giving Thumbless Wu a hidey-hole aboard Canton Star, not a single strip. Shared me own grub with him. Took meals in me captain’s cabin and brought him a portion o’ that. Not that he ate much. Never saw anyone be that seasick afore.” Despite everything, O’Toole smiled at the thought.

  “Yes, and starving for rice.”

  “Course he was. But I daren’t give him any. I start asking the cook to make rice on a ship wi’out a single Chinaman aboard as anyone can see…” He shrugged.

  “Fair enough. But I think we’re wandering down herring alley, Finbar.” It was a sailor’s term for going astray when you went ashore. “You say you’ve lost your money, but you won’t captain Lisbetta. And that whatever made you bring Thumbless Wu to New York on Gornt Blakeman’s ship, it’s nothing to do with me. So what exactly is it that was so private you wouldn’t talk about it except here in my room?”

  O’Toole sat up and instantly bent over, holding his pounding head in his hands. “First, for the sake o’ log, like I said, I haven’t any idea why the tset-ha tset-ha wanted to come to New York. I brought him because I owed him a hundred taels of silver. No way I could pay that. Thumbless agreed to cancel the debt if I brung him here. Whatever else he gets up to, it’s nothing to do with me.”

  “Very well. But I believe we still haven’t gotten to the part that bears on me.”

  “No, lad, we have not. Be warned, you aren’t going to like it.”

  “I’ve been told things I didn’t like often enough before this. I doubt I’ll die from one more.”

  “Aye, well, remember that when you hear this one. The treasure ain’t in the Caribbean any longer. Wherever your da left it, ’tis not there now.”

  “I see. How do you know that?”

  “Fellow called Peggety Jack told me.”

  “Any reason you should have been talking with this Peggety Jack about something I told you in strictest confidence?”

  “’Tweren’t like that,” O’Toole said. “He talked to me. I admit I don’t remember a lot o’ what we said, but I swear on my mother’s soul, I never mentioned the treasure. Not the Fanciful Maiden neither. ’Twas this Peggety fellow what brought up both of ’em. We were at the sign o’ the Bull’s Head on the Bowery. And he says to me, ‘Goin’ after the thrice-back treasure, are ye? ’Taint there. The Jews got it.’ That’s what he said. On my mother’s soul, lad.”

  As far as Joyful knew, only he and his cousin Andrew knew about the “twice around and thrice back” legend that was at the heart of the enigma of Morgan Turner’s treasure. For his part, Joyful was entirely certain he had not repeated those words to another human being.

  Ann Street, 3:30 P.M.

  “Extraordinary,” Andrew said. “Truly.” They were in his front room. The windows were all open—Andrew didn’t hold with the notion that disease was carried on the humid currents of summer air—and because it was nearing the dinner hour, the smell of good cooking mingled with the city heat. “I give you my word, from the day I got hold of the damned note until the day I handed it to you, I might have looked at it twice, perhaps three times. No more. And I sure to God Almighty never spoke of what your father had written. Not to anyone. Alive or dead.”

  “I didn’t think it likely, but I had to ask.”

  “Yes, of course you did.” Andrew sat silent for a few moments. “Occurs to me,” he said finally, “the thing we don’t know is where that piece of paper had been between the time your father wrote the words and the moment I took it out of Caleb’s dead hand.”

  “I’ve thought the same thing. And there’s no way we’re going to know, is there?”

  “None I can imagine.”

  Joyful walked to the open window, looked outside for a time, then turned back to his cousin. “One other thing…”

  “Yes?”

  “Finbar said this Peggety Jack told him the Jews had it and it was fitting that they did.”

  Andrew shook his head. “I’m afraid I can shed no more light on that than the other. Unless he was referring to your grandfather. Solomon DaSilva. Since he was a Jew, I mean.”

  “That occurred to me as well. But I can’t make the connection.”

  “Nor can I. Doesn’t put us much further forward, does it?”

  Joyful pursed his lips, thought for a moment, then changed tack. “Different subject,” he said, “in its way more vital.”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a young woman…” He saw Andrew smile and felt himself blush, the red intensifying when he realized he was behaving like a lovesick puppy rather than a mature and battle-hardened man. “Her name is Manon Vionne.”

  “The goldsmith’s daughter? Pretty lass, I’ve seen her. And an up-standing family. I approve.”

  “Her father doesn’t.”

  “Why not? You’re a hero and the son of a hero, a medical man to boot. What possible—”

  “I shouldn’t say he doesn’t approve of me. What I mean is that I’m sure he would not.”

  Andrew stared at him a moment, then shook his head. “You’ve not made a formal request for the lady’s hand, have you? In God’s name, Joyful, why not? It’s high time you married.”

  “I have no means to support a wife. Not yet.” The steady income from a brothel was not something he could reveal to either Andrew or Maurice Vionne.

  “I see. But you’re telling me all this for a reason, Joyful. What is it?”

  “I am concerned for her safety. If her father should turn her out.”

  “Turn her out? Joyful, I think I had best not ask what is behind that worry.”

  “It’s not what you think; I give you my word. But if my fears are realized, may I bring her here to stay? Only until I can marry her and give her a home of her own.” If Vionne insisted that Manon marry Gornt Blakeman, and she refused to do so, all hell could break loose.

  “Of course. How could you think otherwise? Besides, having a young woman in the household to fuss over—Bridey would think she’d died and gone to heaven.”

  As if summoned by the speaking of her name,
Bridey tapped on the door, then opened it to announce that dinner was ready, and of course she’d set a place for Dr. Joyful, who definitely looked to her as if he could use a proper meal.

  Pearl Street, the Private Rooms Above

  Barnaby Carter’s Warehouse, 5 P.M.

  Lucretia Carter—Lucretia Hingham before she married—had never thought, after she became Barnaby’s wife, to use her skills in what her mother and her aunt had called “the female arts.” Not until this war made business so difficult, and Gornt Blakeman didn’t pay them what he owed. After that, she’d no choice. “What’s a body to do, Miss Delight? The times are terrible hard.”

  Lucretia’s voice was like nails scraping on glass, but Delight was accustomed to it by now. She came frequently to the room above Barnaby’s warehouse. “Indeed they are, Mrs. Carter. And you do perform a much needed…Do stop sniveling, Felicity.” Delight turned to the girl beside her. “Drink your tea. It will strengthen you. And take this.” Delight offered her handkerchief. “Your own is too sodden with tears to be of any use.”

  Felicity, who had been weeping off and on since she first confided that “Granny hadn’t come to visit” for two months, took the square of linen and used it to soak up another rush of tears. Lucretia leaned forward and patted the girl’s knee. “It’s going to all be over before you know it, dearie. Haven’t the other girls told you how quick I am? Thorough as well, of course. In these matters”—the screech rising to an almost unbearable pitch—“One must be thorough.” Scrape up, down, and side to side, Lucretia. Otherwise you can’t be sure you’ve got it all. A babe might be born despite your efforts, maybe missing an arm or a leg or even a head, missing the part you scraped away without getting it all. So the poor woman is worse off than when she came to you. Terrible for business, that is. Word does get around. “No half measures,” she promised. “Don’t you worry about that.”

  “I can’t stand pain,” Felicity wailed. “Never could. And Cecily told me—”

  “Cecily is a fool,” Delight said. “A very pretty one, but a fool nonetheless.” She removed another little brown bottle of Devrey’s Elixir of Well-Being from her drawstring bag and emptied it into the girl’s tea. The third dose today. Pray God they’d soon take effect. Otherwise the whole town was bound to hear the screams. “And do consider, Felicity, that you have only two alternatives—Mrs. Carter here, or a bouncing babe whose papa is a total mystery to you.” She did not add that the girl would also have nowhere to live, since there was no place at the Dancing Knave for a pregnant whore, terms of employment that had been made clear the first day Felicity came to work. No parlor house, not even one considerably less prestigious than the Dancing Knave, would take her with a big belly, much less a squalling brat in tow. The Hook it would be then.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” Lucretia drank the last of her tea and stood up.

  Felicity made a halfhearted attempt to protest. Delight pulled her out of the chair. Sweet little thing, Felicity. Thin and delicate, and all those red-brown curls. The gentlemen adored her. Too bad she wasn’t more careful about flushing out her sex after every customer the way she’d been taught. Well, she wasn’t likely to forget after today. “Come along, Felicity. We mustn’t keep Mrs. Carter waiting.” Quite docile the girl was now, all her consternation replaced by a dreamy look. Ah, Jonathan, one thing you did learn from your mother and your sister—how to make the town’s best laudanum tonic. Wouldn’t I love to see your face if you knew the identity of your best customer. Impossible, of course; Agnes would continue to be the one to buy the Knave’s supply of Devrey’s Elixir of Well-Being.

  “Here we are then. Everything’s ready.” The room where Lucretia Carter practiced her art was furnished with a high and narrow brick platform topped with a straw mattress—“Mr. Carter made that arrangement for me. Such a thoughtful man”—and a table containing the tools of Lucretia’s trade: three nails, each almost a foot long and forged so thin they were little more than stiff threads. Lady nails, they were called. “Mama’s these were before me,” she confided to Delight. For maybe the tenth time. Then, with a little giggle: “Oh, the tales they could tell.” She always said that as well.

  Felicity had become as uncoordinated as a rag doll. It took the two of them to hoist her atop the bricks, and get her frock and her petticoats rolled above her hips and her legs in the proper position. No need to take down her pantaloons since they were respectably crotchless. The girl was humming to herself. “Bend your knees, Felicity. Yes, that’s it.” Delight spread them apart. “Have you light enough, Mrs. Carter?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Higgins. Plenty. Do it mostly by feel, I do. After all these years.” It had never been her intention to do it at all. She’d hated growing up in a house where mama and mama’s sister were never through with ladies who first wept and begged, then when they got what they wanted, screamed the very roof off the place.

  Delight took her customary place at the top of the narrow bed, slipping one arm below Felicity’s shoulders.

  Lucretia waited until the other woman was in position, then spread Felicity’s sex with one hand, and used two fingers of the other to withdraw the wad of seaweed Delight Higgins had inserted the previous day. A right miracle that was. Opened the ladies up so wide it made it almost easy to get the nail in and do the job. Seaweed, who would have known? Mama and Auntie certainly had not. “Seaweed, Miss Higgins. I do declare.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Carter. You do.” Every single time I come, you do declare. But you’ll go to your grave knowing no more than you know now. It does what it’s meant to do. Never you mind that it was Roisin Campbell Turner who taught the secret to her daughter, and Clare Turner Devrey who used to send me to every beach in New York looking for the special orange seaweed. And once I had the temerity to bring back not orange but brown…Switch the skin off your back I will, you little fool. How would you like it if it was you lying with your legs spread and your womb was so tight nothing could get in…

  Lucretia reached for the longest and thinnest nail.

  Delight put a hand over Felicity’s mouth to stifle the inevitable screams of agony. It was easier with the seaweed and the laudanum, but never easy. Never that. And all so a girl could avoid starving to death, and men could have their pleasure whenever they wanted it. “Go ahead, Mrs. Carter. Get it over with. We’re ready.”

  Good God, what if Gornt Blakeman were to make good on his offer and she really were given charge of every prostitute in the city? A license system he’d said, to promote good order.

  Lucretia inserted the nail. Felicity’s first shriek fought its way out despite Delight’s restraining hand, and she struggled to tear herself out of her employer’s grip. Delight made the usual soothing noises while tightening her hold on the girl’s head and shoulders. “Do be quick, Mrs. Carter.”

  “I’m doing my best, Miss Higgins. Quick but thorough.” Scrape up, down, and side to side, Lucretia. Otherwise you can’t be sure you’ve got it all.

  There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of prostitutes in the city. How could Gornt Blakeman come to hold that much power? But if it did happen…Delight saw a selection of houses, different standards in each one, each meant for a different class of custom. Better to get even the hookers under a roof. She’d need half a dozen Mrs. Carters, and every scrap of orange seaweed the beaches of New York would yield.

  “There, that’s it. You’re all done, Miss Felicity. That wasn’t so bad, was—”

  “Save your breath, Mrs. Carter. She’s passed out.”

  “Just as well, isn’t it?” Lucretia held out her hand and Delight passed over the two shillings she was due. “She’s sure to bleed some tonight and tomorrow,” Lucretia said. “You will be sure to keep her abed until the flow stops. And no…no gentleman callers for at least three weeks.”

  “I will do exactly as you say, Mrs. Carter.” One reason the Dancing Knave had the prettiest whores in the city—if you had to be scraped out, Miss Higgins herself looked after you and you got an en
tire fortnight to recover from the procedure. Delight told herself that’s why she took the trouble to use the seaweed, and allowed her ladies such a luxurious amount of time before they must again entertain customers. Because it insured that she always had the best girls in town. Nothing to do with being softhearted, or knowing all too well what drove women to whoredom.

  Delight went to the window and tapped on the glass. Preservation Shay heard the signal and nodded. She saw him come into the building and began drawing on her lace gloves as she went back to the table where Felicity lay. “I’ve no doubt we’ll see each other again soon, Mrs. Carter.”

  “No doubt, Miss Higgins.” Who would have imagined that she would talk to a half-nigra woman as if she were a social equal? Mama and Auntie always refused to perform their services for nigras, but if Lucretia Carter turned away the custom of Delight Higgins, she and Mr. Carter would be in a sorry way. All the same, hard as things were, Lucretia was not comfortable with the story Mr. Carter had told her last night. Wormed it out of him, she had, when he came up from downstairs half an hour after her lovely Sunday dinner had gone stone cold, and he could barely force himself to eat three bites. Having their prosperity restored by going back on their word to the rest of the states—it didn’t seem right.

  Preservation Shay, who had been sweet on Felicity since the first day he came to work at the Dancing Knave, came into the room and lifted the girl as if she were a precious bit of porcelain and carried her down the stairs. Delight Higgins said goodbye, and Lucretia Carter wished her a good day and looked forward to their next meeting.

  Imagine, a whore being treated like a princess. A mulatto no less, and one who wore a frock Lucretia herself couldn’t afford if she scraped the unwanted babes out of the womb of every woman in New York. The modern world was surely an extraordinary place.

  Chapter Fifteen

  New York City, the Woods Above North Street,