Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  This letter will reach you in the spring, and so I’ll close with good wishes for a healthy summer, one that brings neither sickness nor new sorrows to you or your family.

  Your fond cousin and true friend,

  Jennet Scott of Carryckcastle

  The fourteenth day of February in the Year of Our

  Lord 1802

  For a long time Hannah sat with Jennet’s letter open before her on the table, so deeply lost in her thoughts that when the clock struck eight she started and could not remember where she was. She would not have been surprised to look out the window and see rolling hills covered with heather, but instead there was just the view of the next house, and a maid washing windows.

  Hannah wondered about the earl, and whether he could still be alive and what illness might have taken him. She knew that the Hakim would have written to her about that in his letter, but she wasn’t ready yet to give up Jennet. In any case the next mail packet was likely to bring news of the earl and maybe bring her Jennet and Luke too.

  Hannah could almost see them standing at the rail of the Isis. In her memory they were still as she had last known them, Jennet at ten, a tiny thing with a wide and smiling mouth and a long shock of blond hair that curled around her face; Luke with his mother’s fair coloring, tall and very lean, with their father’s breadth of shoulder and Granny Cora’s high brow and wide-set eyes. He had been a man grown even then, and he had teased her as an older brother is supposed to do.

  A letter from Luke lay on the table, addressed to their father. He wrote two or three times a year, dutifully reporting on his life in Scotland, what he was learning of running an estate and farms, how he was progressing in the handling of weapons and the art of war. And still Hannah’s real sense of this half brother she had never really known came from Jennet’s letters and not his own. He was twenty-six to her almost eighteen years, and they had spent a total of a month in each other’s company, just before he left to claim a place for himself at Carryck. For that first year in Scotland he had been the heir to the earldom, and then Carryck’s lady surprised everyone—herself not least—by producing one last and unexpected child, a son.

  Their father had sent a letter to ask if Luke wanted to come home to Canada where he had been born and raised by his grandmother Iona, or to Lake in the Clouds where he would always be welcome. But Luke had answered with nothing of regret or blame for what had been lost to him. He would stay in Scotland for as long as he could be of service to Carryck.

  “He’ll be back,” Hawkeye had said, when Elizabeth read the letter out loud in front of the hearth on a winter’s evening. “He’s not so much a Scott as he is a Bonner, and his roots are here.”

  Hannah read over Jennet ’s letter again: You’ll be thinking that we’ve kept your brother far too long and it’s high time that he visit home again, and so my newest plan is this: if we canna keep Luke here, I’ll bring him to you in the endless forests, and what great adventures we’ll have.

  Jennet’s schemes were numerous and detailed, but this one, Hannah sensed with both excitement and vague uneasiness, was likely to come true.

  “Miss Hannah?” An elderly black man stood at the door with his hat in his great hands. He had a quick, kind smile and he reminded her immediately of Galileo.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Cicero. You were wanting to go over to the Free School to see Manny?”

  “Yes.” Hannah stood, her eyes moving one final time over Jennet’s letter. “Is it close enough to walk?”

  He tilted his head in surprise. “Why, yes, miss. It ain’t so very far. Take maybe twenty minutes, a half hour, was you to want to look around and see a bit of the city.”

  “Yes, I’d like to walk a bit,” said Hannah. “I will just put these things away and then I’ll be right with you.”

  They started up the Broad Way on the east side of the street, walking on flagstone. Between the houses on the other side of the street there was a flash of mild blue now and then from the river, the same pale shade as the spring sky overhead.

  Cicero pointed out the mayor’s residence and the homes of a number of aldermen and lawyers, and Hannah supposed that these must be families that the Spencers knew well. She wondered at the carefully trimmed bushes and flowers as regimented as an army battalion, nowhere a blade of grass out of place.

  The traffic was tremendous, worse than Albany and beyond anything Hannah could have imagined. Coaches and carriages of every shape and size, delivery carts, men on horseback. A pearly pink hog was nosing around in the gutter and moved only when a carter used his whip on the broad back. There were no ladies out at this hour of the morning but there were too many gentlemen in fine coats and tall hats to count, all of them in a hurry to be somewhere. They walked alone or in pairs, and none of them took any notice of Hannah and Cicero, which suited her very well.

  There were also servants and workers, a man Hannah thought must be a baker for he was wrapped in an apron and dusted with flour from head to foot. A black man went by carrying a great sack over his shoulder and he and Cicero greeted each other softly.

  The vendors were the most pleasant surprise because all of them, women and men alike, sang to advertise their wares as they moved along. A young girl with a box suspended from a string around her neck sang in a high, clear voice: “Come get the first strawberries! Early strawberries! Sweet sweet strawberries!”

  It was truly astounding, the variety of things that were sold on the street. Gingerbread, cider, shoe buckles, neatly tied bundles of kindling, pots and fry pans, brooms, great bundles of lilac and smaller ones of violets, newspapers. A cart went by, the driver so encrusted with grime that Hannah could not be sure of his skin color and he sang too. “Charcoal! I’ve got your charcoal here!” Just after him came two chimney sweeps hung all around with the tools of their trade, scrapers and buckets and long-handled brushes. They sang together in an easy harmony:

  Sweep O-O-O-O

  From the bottom to the top

  Without ladder or a rope

  Sweep O-O-O-O

  A crowd of boys shouldered through the crowd, raggedly dressed and gaunt faced. Cicero put a hand on the stout cane he carried in a loop on his belt and kept a close watch; Hannah had the sense that he would not hesitate to strike, if he felt the need.

  A very young woman in clogs and a mobcap that came down over her ears was offering buttermilk in a simple singsong. She carried a bucket in one hand and a tin cup in the other, and she called out to Hannah. “Buttermilk, miss! Sure and there’s naught better to lighten the complexion!”

  Cicero let out a great grunt of disapproval, but Hannah merely walked on, determined not to be sidetracked by the attention she would not be able to avoid. The girl’s Irish English had reminded her of Jennet’s news of the pirate Stoker again, which made her smile.

  As they made their way along the Broad Way they passed shop after shop, many of them larger than cabins that housed a family of six in Paradise.

  “That there is Mr. Caritat’s circulating bookshop,” said Cicero solemnly, pointing with the top of his head. “Mr. Caritat is often a guest at the Spencers’ table.” In front of the shop window, two gentlemen stood head to head arguing over the open page of a volume they held between them. One of them had just cut some pages open and he jabbed with the small bookknife to punctuate his sentence. The other gentleman was Dr. Ehrlich, but he did not see her or did not care to.

  She would ask Will Spencer to take her to Mr. Caritat’s bookstore some other time, and maybe if there was the opportunity to the stationers as well for some fine paper to take to Elizabeth as a gift.

  They passed a printer and then a music shop. The door opened as they went by, letting out a warble of fiddle music and then cutting it off again just as another crowd of boys went howling through the street, one of them with a huge ham hock clutched to his chest like a baby. Close behind came a butcher in a bloody apron, grim faced and determined. There were jewelers, silver- and goldsmiths, hatters. Over
one door painted bright blue hung a beautifully drawn sign: Steven Green, Master Linen Draper, originally of Norwich. Hannah did not know exactly what it was a linen draper did, but she did not want to ask Cicero just now, as she had the sense that he would stop walking to answer her question and do so in great detail.

  “Oh look,” she said, stopping after all. “Mrs. Leonora VanHorn, Milliner.”

  “Do you know Mrs. VanHorn?” Cicero asked her, smiling politely.

  “No,” said Hannah. “But I know Mrs. Todd will want to make her acquaintance. I understand she carries lace from Brussels.”

  In the next block the smell of roasting coffee and tobacco smoke came drifting from the windows of a coffeehouse. The doors stood open and they could see into the long room crowded with men, all talking loudly. Just next to that was the City Hotel, as large as the warehouses on the pier. The front door was flanked by small trees in tubs. Hannah stopped to look at them, wondering how someone had come upon such a strange idea that a tree might be happy with so little room for its roots to spread.

  Here Cicero turned onto a side street and the noise of the Broad Way receded. There were more shops, a saddlery and a coachmaker, offices, and smaller, more modest houses. There were vendors here too, with brooms and eggs and fish fresh from the river, their voices mingling as they sang out. A group of children played in the lane with a three-legged dog who looked at Hannah with somber pleading in its eyes. Pigs were busy in the gutters, and in fact the whole street smelled much worse than the wider Broad Way, strewn as it was with trash and offal and manure. She could hardly imagine what it must be like in the high heat of late summer.

  Two more turns and they had come upon a long red-brick building with neat white shutters.

  “This here is the African Free School,” said Cicero. “Most likely you’ll find Manny in the porter’s lodge, just back there. I’ll just stop in and visit with Mr. Solomon until you ready to go. Manny will find me for you.”

  He bowed from the waist, handed her the parcel he had been carrying for her, and left.

  Hannah followed a narrow path that led behind the school building, passing classrooms as she went. In each of them students were reciting, and the sound of multiplication tables mixed with the conjugating of verbs and poetry recited in a harmonized singsong.

  The path took her to a wide-open area behind the school, no doubt where the younger children played in their recess. She found the porter’s lodge just as it had been described to her, a small building with two window sashes on either side of an open door and a slate roof. Stepping into the dim hallway from the bright April morning, Hannah could first smell more than she could see: beeswax and mineral oil, leather and wood shavings. Her vision adjusted and she made out the bright rag rug on the floor and at eye level a piece of needlework simply framed: In My Father’s House There Are Many Mansions. Two doors faced each other, with a neat hand-printed card tacked on each: one read MECHANIC and the other PORTER.

  Hannah was trying to decide where to knock when she heard a step and someone blocked the light from the door behind her.

  A familiar voice said, “Can I help you, miss?” even as Hannah turned.

  Manny’s smile was so true that all Hannah’s worries about coming simply fell away. “Hannah Bonner!” He took both her hands to shake at once. “Why, look at you. Just look at you. Ain’t it a pleasure to come upon a face from home. It’s been two years at least. Now come on in here, come on. What are you doing in the city?”

  He opened the porter’s door and ushered her in, talking the whole time with such animation that Hannah hardly answered one question before he had asked another one. In short order he had given her the best chair in the room, offered to fetch her tea or water, and seated himself across from her.

  Manny had not changed so very much, it seemed to Hannah, but there was a new watchfulness about him; he seemed sometimes to be looking inside things rather than at them. He was more like his mother in temperament than either of his sisters was, but he looked most like his father. They had the same high brow and straight posture, and even the same way of sitting. Both of them were of slightly more than average height and strongly built.

  A natural lull came into the conversation and Manny dropped his head to study the floor with a thoughtful expression.

  He’s wondering about Selah, Hannah realized. Wondering if there’s any news. He’s not even sure she made it to Paradise, or if she’s alive.

  She cleared her throat. “Curiosity sent this parcel for you, some of her soap and ginger cakes and a jar of preserves. And I have a message. More than one message.” She paused, and looked out the windows over the yard to the school. The only person in sight was an old woman standing outside the next house, peeling potatoes over a barrel, her head bound with a kerchief the color of egg yolks.

  Manny’s voice wavered. “You can talk here.”

  Hannah smiled. “Selah is safe.”

  His whole posture changed, relief running through him to bend him forward from the waist. Manny put his forehead on his knees and his shoulders heaved once, and stilled.

  Hannah said, “When I left, my father was just about to set out with her for Red Rock.”

  He raised his head. “The child?”

  “Hadn’t come yet when I left, although I would think it must have by now. Selah was fevered when she first came to us, but strong and well when I left. She and the child both.”

  “I thought she was dead,” Manny whispered, more to himself than to her. “After Newburgh I thought—” He shook his head.

  “Selah asked me to tell you not to worry for her. I don’t suppose you can stop worrying, but I think the worst is over now that she’s on her way to Red Rock.”

  Manny let out a great and ragged sigh, but his relieved expression had already given way to new concerns.

  “Liam Kirby?”

  Hannah jerked in surprise. “You know about Liam Kirby coming after her?”

  He looked away, out the window to the old woman hunched over the barrel. “We keep an eye on all the black-birders working out of the city. Mostly we know where they are and who they’re after.”

  Hannah said, “Who is ‘we’? The Manumission Society?”

  Manny’s head jerked around to her. “Christ, no. The Manumission Society couldn’t get caught up in moving slaves. It would bring this whole school down if it ever came out that one of the trustees was involved.”

  “But—” Hannah thought of Peter’s earnest expression at breakfast. How had he put it? They stay in Father’s study for a very long time and they talk about society business.

  “Manny, is Will Spencer in the Manumission Society?”

  His gaze was level, and his expression very still. “No. Never has been.”

  Hannah sat back, and waited.

  After a good while Manny said, “I ain’t sure it’s the best idea to talk any more about this. I’m thankful that you took the time to come and give me the news, Hannah. Couldn’t be written down in a letter, you understand.”

  Hannah nodded, but her thoughts were still with Peter and the story he had told in the kitchen. What Manny would not say aloud was too clear to ignore: Will Spencer was helping the runaways.

  It wasn’t our Manny tried to buy the girl free, Galileo had said, and Curiosity’s expression, the way she had cut him off: No need to get particular with names, now.

  It made perfect and undeniable sense that Will would be part of a secret society that worked to move slaves north into freedom. William Spencer, Viscount Durbeyfield, once of England, presented one face to the world: a man of the best family, excellent connections, perfect bearing and manners. There were many men like him, men who led exemplary lives and spent untold hours smoking opium or drinking brandy in darkened libraries. Will Spencer’s secret vices were rebellion, revolution, reform.

  The dangers were tremendous. A situation much like this one had forced them to flee England and leave everything familiar behind. Hannah thought fleetingly of Ama
nda and Peter, of all that he was risking.

  Manny was watching her, but Hannah knew that she could not get any more information from him, or from anybody but Will himself.

  “Did you say you had more than one message? From my folks?”

  “No,” said Hannah. “From Liam Kirby. He said—” She paused, and tried to collect her thoughts. “He said there were two things to say to you. First, to stay out of Michael Cobb’s way.”

  “Micah Cobb,” Manny corrected her.

  “Micah Cobb. To stay out of his way because he’s been watching you and he’s looking for a reason to arrest you.” To see you hang, Hannah thought, but he would know that without her saying the obvious.

  If this was news to Manny, it didn’t seem to upset him very much. “And the second message?”

  “This one I remember word for word. He said, ‘Tell him it wasn’t just luck that sent Vaark to the Newburgh dock.’”

  The muscles in Manny’s jaw rolled and clenched. He stood and went to the window, leaning with one hand high on the wall. “Anything else?”

  “Not in a direct message to you, no. But he mentioned the widow Kuick’s overseer. The way Liam was talking, I got the impression you must have had some business with him. Do you know Ambrose Dye?”

  Manny nodded. “I know who he is, yes.”

  Hannah realized that what she was seeing now was Manny so angry that he was having a hard time containing himself. And there was nothing she could do to help him, because when he looked at her he saw Nathaniel Bonner’s daughter. Manny would not put her in danger, in part because it just went against his nature, and in part because he would have to answer to her father if anything should happen to her.

  Hannah stood. “I probably should go back now. I haven’t even seen Kitty yet today and this afternoon I have to go to the dispensary …” She was running on, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Dr. Todd has arranged for me to learn how to give smallpox vaccinations.”