What if Juvenal and Arabella had lain together? What if the result had been a girl-child with dark skin? Henrietta Barville.
Now the idea had hatched itself, the rest followed in an instant. In those days at Mount George, early in her marriage, Arabella must have hoped that the child growing in her belly would be Wintour’s. But the girl had been black and Arabella’s adultery was written for all to see in the colour of her child’s skin.
So much now became clear that had been obscured. When Froude discovered his long-awaited heir was a black bastard, no wonder he had inflicted such a savage punishment on Juvenal, one that made it impossible for him to father another child. When Froude wrote to Judge Wintour, no wonder he said their grandchild had been stillborn.
Nor was it strange that Juvenal had killed Froude when he had the opportunity.
Miriam falsely claimed to have killed Juvenal to protect her mistress on the night when Froude died and Mount George was destroyed. Arabella had supported her. The truth was that the mistress and the maid had conspired to allow Juvenal to escape. The women had brought Henrietta Barville with them to New York – a negro infant of no account; a slave’s child. There was no one left to provide another version of events.
No one except Roger Pickett.
Even in his mutilated state, Juvenal had remained a jealous lover. Miriam became his eyes and ears in the Wintours’ household. When Pickett became a threat to Arabella and her child, Miriam would have told him, which had led to Pickett’s murder in Canvas Town. When Jack Wintour returned, she would have reported on his behaviour to her brother. It had been soon after Wintour had hit his wife in the garden that he had been attacked, almost fatally, on his own front doorstep.
Similarly, both his nocturnal assaults on me had been because, even in his ruin, Juvenal did not brook rivals, particularly one who had been enquiring about the death of the young informer, the mulatto Taggart. I realized now that Juvenal had been responsible for two other deaths – that of Virgil, the runaway who had been hanged for Pickett’s murder; and that of Taggart, who had borne false witness against Virgil and thereby brought him to the gallows.
Juvenal’s child had died and been buried with his surname for all the world to see. Surely that must have hardened his heart still further?
For then had come his attack on our expedition to Mount George, culminating in his murder of Jack Wintour, his former master and his lover’s husband.
Yes, Juvenal had been a jealous lover. Hence his desire to castrate me when he learned from Miriam that Arabella and I had become lovers.
Oh yes. I understood everything now as I stood in the hall and pulled on my greatcoat while barking orders at Josiah and the porter. Everything, though I did not know it, except the most important thing.
Chapter Eighty
A savage wind was blowing off the river. The moon was up but its light was fitful, for clouds were moving steadily across the sky. It was very cold, colder than I had ever known.
When I had left Warren Street, the grandfather clock in the hall was striking half-past three. The tide had turned almost half an hour earlier. There was no one I could take with me from the house for the only male servants who remained to us were old Josiah, the porter, who was even older, and the boy who did the fires. I scribbled a note for Marryot and left it with Josiah for him to send round as early as he could in the morning.
Under my cloak I had a pistol in my pocket, one of the pair I had carried when we were in the Debatable Ground. I had also brought Juvenal’s axe, which I had thrust into the belt securing my coat. My hat was tied to my head with a scarf that had the additional benefit of concealing and protecting the cut on my cheek.
I met no one until I encountered the patrol manning the barrier near Vauxhall Gardens on the Greenwich road.
‘There’s a woman,’ I said with a wink as I showed the sergeant my pass. I swayed slightly. ‘Lovely girl. She hates waiting, Sergeant.’
He chuckled and handed back my papers. ‘Don’t we all, sir?’ He gestured to his men to move the barrier aside for me.
I gave him a shilling. ‘Get yourself something warm to drink,’ I advised him. ‘It’s a cold night.’
‘Not if there’s company in your bed, sir,’ he said.
I walked on. I had chosen a plausible excuse to be out at this hour for several houses in this direction had become little better than bordellos; others provided lodgings for gentlemen who preferred the convenience of keeping their mistresses at a safe distance from the temptations of the city.
My eyes adjusted to the lack of light and I made good time on the road, which the authorities had recently cleared of snow for the benefit of the army. Norman’s Slip was out towards Greenwich, a short way beyond the foundry. I had been there once last summer with Townley. The slip itself was protected by a small mole and there was a yard containing a warehouse on the shore beside it. The yard was surrounded by a high brick wall set with spikes and broken glass. Though it was close to the city, Norman’s was a secluded place. A short lane serving nowhere else connected it to the road.
Mr Townley held the slip and the yard on a five-year lease from a Loyalist merchant who had fled to England at the outbreak of hostilities. There was a good deal of trade, legal and illegal, between New York and Jersey throughout the war. Our outposts in New Jersey, at Paulus Hook and elsewhere, were in constant need of supplies. Major Marryot had told me once in his cups that they found Norman’s Slip useful at Headquarters for it served as a private place for people to cross the river without the tedious necessity of official sanction.
To this day, I do not know whether I made the right decision in going directly to Norman’s. The terms of my commission from the American Department gave me the powers of an observer, nothing else. I was not authorized to order soldiers hither and thither. But perhaps I should have gone to Headquarters, roused Marryot if he was there and then tried to persuade him to intervene with a sufficient force to make a difference. That would have been the prudent course of action, appropriate to a clerk in a government department; that would have been what Mr Rampton would have done. But, even if my efforts had gone as smoothly as possible, it would have taken me until dawn to reach Norman’s Slip with a party of soldiers.
By then it would have been too late. Even the geography of the affair was against me: Norman’s was not far away from Warren Street, whereas Headquarters was much further and in the opposite direction.
I could be certain only of this: there was a bridge of ice across the Hudson to the Jersey shore, and Norman’s Slip was a secluded spot from which to make the crossing. I could not be sure that this was the night chosen for the attempt but, whatever Townley’s plan might be, delay could only make it riskier for him.
The going became harder when I turned into the lane. It was covered in frozen snow, which had fixed itself into hard, unforgiving ruts. On either side were thick hedges that reduced the light still further but at least gave some protection from the biting wind.
At last I came to the double gates into the yard. They were shut fast. But in front of them was a pile of fresh horse-dung that had not lain there long enough for it to freeze. It was a good omen. I waited a moment and listened. I heard nothing.
I knocked on the wicket set into the gate. A dog began to bark inside. Its chain rattled as it leapt about in a frenzy. There was the sound of a door opening.
‘Who is it?’ a man demanded. He snarled at the dog, which fell silent.
‘Message for Mr Townley,’ I said, wondering if Townley would have been alerted by the dog. ‘Open up, man, and quick – I’m chilled to the bone.’
‘Who are you? What message?’
‘It’s Mr Savill,’ I said. ‘Hurry – Government business, and I’m pressed for time.’
The man drew back two bolts and opened the wicket. Two men, one armed with a musket, the second with a heavy stick, studied me by the light of a lantern. One of them was probably the watchman. The other I recognized from my visits to Mr T
ownley’s house, where he served as the porter. Hope surged through me: his presence must mean that Townley was here; and if Townley was here so, almost certainly, was Arabella.
‘It’s Oliver, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I’ve seen you often enough at Hanover Square so I should know your face by now.’
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he said, opening the wicket for me to step through. His breath smelled of rum. ‘Didn’t realize it was you.’
‘No matter. Where’s your master?’
‘Down by the slip, sir.’
‘With the others?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I don’t believe he had any suspicion of me. I was fortunate – Townley’s habit of secrecy was so ingrained that he kept his own counsel whenever he could. The porter knew me merely as an honoured visitor to the house. I guessed that this was not the first time that he had been called upon to assist on one of these nighttime expeditions and that such comings and goings had become almost routine to him.
‘Are they all here?’
‘Just his honour and Mr Noak, sir, and the lady and her maid. I came over with them from the house.’
‘Excellent. I know my way from here. Stay in the warm while you can.’
With obvious relief, the two men retired into a cabin with a stove that had been built against the wall by the gate. In the grey half-light, I struck out towards the river with a confidence I did not feel. The bulk of the warehouse lay between me and the slip itself.
I rounded the corner of the building, which took me out of sight of anyone who might be watching from the cabin by the gates. Footsteps were approaching from the direction of the slip. Pulling off my gloves, I ducked into a recessed doorway leading to the darkened warehouse. I took out the pistol but did not cock it for fear of the sound the mechanism would make.
A tall man came into view. It was too dark to see his features but I guessed it was Townley coming to see what the dog’s barking was about.
I stepped out of the doorway and rammed the muzzle into his cheek. ‘Be silent.’
He gave a start but recovered himself instantly. ‘Good God, sir. But – but it’s Mr Savill, isn’t it? You took me quite—’
I let him hear me cocking the pistol and he fell silent. I jabbed the muzzle harder into his face. ‘Hold your tongue. Where are they?’
‘Who, sir?’
I drew him into the embrasure and placed the pistol under his chin, forcing his head back against the door. ‘Mrs Arabella. Noak.’
‘Why, at home with Mrs Townley, of course, and I hope fast asleep. Poor Mrs Arabella was quite—’
I pushed harder and he gave a cry.
‘Pray be careful with that, sir,’ he said in a strangled whisper. ‘The slightest touch might lead to an accident.’
I pushed harder still. ‘Pistols behave unpredictably sometimes, especially in this weather.’
Townley’s breathing became rapid and laboured. He tried to speak but could not.
‘Where are they?’ I said again. ‘On the ice already?’
‘Yes. Not long, though. If you hurry … But, sir, allow me to say one thing at least. When Noak was at his London attorney’s, he intercepted a letter from Pickett to his sister that revealed the existence of a great gold deposit. May we not come to an understanding? You and I will be as rich as—’
‘Hold your tongue.’ I eased the axe from my belt. ‘Is it just the three of them out there, the two women and Noak?’
‘Yes, sir. I swear it on my mother’s grave.’
I believed him. The more people in a party, the greater the risk of being either betrayed or observed.
‘Are they being met?’
‘A patrol’s coming from the other shore.’ Townley hesitated and then added in a rush, his voice soft and hoarse: ‘I never meant that any harm should come to you. It was merely necessary to keep you out of the way for a day or two. For your own safety as much as anything. I don’t know how you—’
‘Juvenal slashed my cheek,’ I said.
‘Juvenal? Who?’
‘Your gaoler – a runaway slave with a grudge.’ I realized suddenly that Townley knew no more of Juvenal and his significance than Juvenal had known of Townley, Noak and the gold. ‘He was going to emasculate me and leave me for dead. That is not safety, sir.’
‘I’m more distressed than I can say. It was Miriam’s idea that the man should keep you out of harm’s way until she and her mistress were safely away. She said he was entirely trustworthy and devoted to the interests of Mrs Arabella. On my honour, sir, I had no dealings with him myself—’
I brought up the axe and swung its blunt side against Townley’s exposed head. The blow caught his skull between the iron of the axe and the hard wood of the door. The haft twitched in my hand. Something cracked. He crumpled to the ground.
Chapter Eighty-One
The slip was encrusted with icy snow. I stared down its frosted slope to the cold, grey world of the river, which stretched away towards that other America I knew so little about.
The night was full of noises. The tide was ebbing rapidly, causing the great sheets of ice to move restlessly against each other. The river creaked and groaned and grated like a living thing in pain. The wind hissed and howled, sweeping upstream towards the empty heart of the country. A bank of high clouds now occluded two-thirds of the sky and hid the moon completely.
I did not like the ice. When I was a child, I had seen a boy fall through the ice on the river near our village. None of us could swim. They did not find the body, what was left of it, until the spring.
So I had not ventured on the ice that year or during the previous winter. But many people did, walking and skating. They took sledges on the frozen river and even horses.
This winter, the worst of the war, the cold had been so intense that the army was able to move a twenty-four-pound cannon, which weighed three tons on its carriage, across the ice from the city to Paulus Hook. On another occasion, two hundred sleighs laden with provisions, each drawn by two horses, crossed from New York to Staten Island, with an escort of two hundred light horse to guard them.
But one could never be sure of the ice, even in that long, hard winter. The movements of the tide and the fluctuations of the water temperature subjected it to unpredictable stresses and varied its thickness from place to place. There were stories of refugees who had drowned as they fled from the rebels to the safety of New York. Cracks and holes sometimes allowed water to wash over the surface of the ice, where it would form new layers and freeze in its turn.
In the distance, on the further shore, a light flashed on and off some way to the north of Paulus Hook. After a pause of perhaps twenty seconds, it happened again. And then once again.
It must be a signal to the party on the ice, I thought, a marker to show them their direction. The discovery broke the spell that had held me. I scrambled down the slipway, holding on to the iron railing fixed to the side of the quay to prevent myself from falling.
I stepped gingerly on to the sheet of ice at the bottom and walked out beyond the lee of the mole. A faint yellow glow made a puddle of light on the ice. Hanging on a hook at the end of the mole was a lantern. When I drew nearer, I discovered that the glass was shielded so the flame could only be seen from the ice and the opposite shore.
It was another navigation marker, I realized, the twin to the flashing light across the river.
The full force of the wind struck me as I moved away from the shelter of the mole. It came in gusts that made me stagger like a drunken man. I stumbled over the frozen corpse of a duck and pitched forward on my hands and knees.
The light flashed three more times on the Jersey side.
I scrambled to my feet. I must reach Arabella before the rebel patrol. That was all that mattered.
I did not think of what would happen next if I succeeded in reaching her or what would happen if I did not. I did not think of any of the unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions. I plodded onward, my mind emptied of thought.
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The ice was as solid as a marble floor. The wind was my enemy, cruel and insatiable in its malice. It pushed me off-course, it buffeted me, it set my eyes watering, and it found its way into the smallest crevice in my clothing.
But the snow was my ally: it offered better purchase for my boots than the ice and also, as my eyes adjusted to the conditions, it showed me where the others had gone before me.
Three sets of footsteps marched abreast in a wavering line towards New Jersey. Noak’s were in the centre, slightly ahead of the others. He had Miriam and Arabella close on either side, probably hanging on to his arms. Their travelling cloaks were longer than his and they trailed along the ground behind them, the marks they made partly obliterating the prints of their feet. The women would slow him down.
Following their footsteps lessened the fear that I might stumble on to one of the thinner patches of ice in the river or fall into one of the cracks between the sheets of ice. I began to run – slowly and awkwardly at first, like a child in leading strings discovering a new means of locomotion, but then with increasing confidence.
Again the flashes of light came from the Jersey shore.
The wind pushed the clouds away from the moon with the speed and transforming effect of a curtain rising to reveal a brightly lit scene on the stage.
Suddenly the North River was a sheet of silver and white under the night sky. Beyond it lay a long, grey blur, the coastline of New Jersey. Not a hundred yards away, outlined like the principal actors in the drama seen through the wrong end of a telescope, three linked figures were walking over the ice.
I shouted wordlessly. The wind whipped the sound from my lips. But they heard something for they stopped and looked back.
I ran on.
I drew closer. The little group had separated, the two women standing side by side. Though the women were shrouded in their hooded cloaks I knew the one on the right was Arabella because she was taller than Miriam.
Beside them was Noak. They must have recognized me now for he drew a pistol and levelled it at me. He did not shout that I should stop or he would fire. He didn’t say anything at all. He merely cocked the pistol.
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