Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  Somehow she had managed to say something to break Manny’s distraction, because his head came up sharp.

  “Will you be working at the poorhouse?”

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said, spreading her hands out in front of her. “I don’t know anything except that I am to be trained by Dr. Simon.”

  Manny said, “Then you’ll be working in the poorhouse. That’s where folks come to get vaccinated, the ones who can’t afford to pay a doctor.” There was new energy in his voice. He started to say something, and then cut himself off.

  “Will I see you again?” Hannah asked.

  “I’ll come by the kitchen to say hello to Mrs. Douglas early tomorrow morning, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Hannah said, more intrigued than anxious. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  APRIL 25, 1802

  Walked through the city in the company of Mr. Cicero, Cousin Will Spencer’s butler. He took me to see the African Free School where I visited with Almanzo Freeman, who was glad of the news of home I brought to him.

  On the way back to Whitehall Street Cicero gave me a lesson in the types and uses of vehicles here in the city. Each has its own name and it seems to be a matter of great importance not to mistake a barouche for a cabriolet or a gig for a phaeton. Beyond the pony carts and ox carts and coal carts, which are easy enough to distinguish even for me, there are also coaches and chariots, curricles and gigs, whiskies and chaises, some with two wheels and some with four, some with high sides and some without, some with coverings of leather that can be folded back when the weather is fine and others with glass in window frames. The largest are pulled by four or even six horses, and the smallest have room for only one passenger who must also hold the reins of a single pony. Some of the finest coaches are painted in bright colors with gilt edging while others are very battered. Today I saw a hackney carriage (which may be rented for a little money, driver, horse, and all) pulled by a gelding whose tail and mane had been dyed purple, and plaited with dried flowers.

  A neighbor, the eldest son of the head of the city council, called soon after we were arrived at home to see if I should like to take a ride in what he called his high-flyer. Cousin Amanda brought me this invitation with a concerned look, and bid me politely refuse. Her exact words were “Let him break his own neck if he must, the silly boy.”

  When he drove away I saw what she meant, from my window. The wheels of the high-flyer are as tall as a child of twelve and there are steps to climb to the seat. For all that it does look like good fun, I have followed Amanda’s advice and will keep my neck and head in good working order, given all there is for me to learn at the Kine-Pox Institution and hospital.

  When she is nervous, Kitty babbles at great length; I write silly things of no real importance, to save myself the trouble of putting down in ink the things that I have learned about Cousin Will Spencer that will keep me awake this night.

  Chapter 20

  By the time they left by carriage for the New-York Dispensary, Hannah had almost talked herself out of raising the topic of runaway slaves and blackbirders to Will Spencer, mostly because she was very aware that her father and her stepmother would have very different opinions on the matter. Elizabeth liked to think of herself as ruled by reason, but she often let her heart lead her; Elizabeth would want her to do anything in her power to help Manny, and that meant approaching Will.

  But she knew very well what her father would want and expect of her: she must fulfill her promises. To Richard Todd, that she would see his wife and stepson safely home; to her family, that she would not do anything to put herself in real danger. She had warned Manny, and he would pass along that warning to Will Spencer and whoever else was involved; that should put an end to her involvement.

  Except, Hannah thought, as Will pointed out buildings and parks and theaters, she knew that she could not put aside or forget or explain away the way Manny had reacted to that last message. His expression had stayed with her all morning through all the planning for outings and visits and shopping, the complex negotiations with Kitty about how much rest she required every day. The boys had been absent from the table because they had gone with Peter’s tutor to see the orangutans and waxworks, and taken along a picnic packed by Mrs. Douglas.

  It wasn’t just luck that sent Vaark to the Newburgh dock.

  From what Hannah understood of the whole business, Selah had not run on a whim, but had left the city well prepared with maps and memorized instructions and help along the way. Manny had provided all of that, Manny and the mysterious society Peter had mentioned so artlessly. But something had gone wrong, and Mr. Vaark—Selah’s owner—a word that could not be ignored for all its implications—had known to look for her on the docks at Newburgh, where he had died. Where Selah had killed him.

  If it wasn’t luck that had sent Vaark to Newburgh, what had? Or who? Was there a spy at work?

  “You are very far away in your thoughts,” said Will. “Are you thinking about the Hakim again?”

  “No,” Hannah said, smiling. And then, looking away out the carriage window: “I visited Manny Freeman this morning at the Free School, and I was thinking about him.”

  Will was quiet for a long moment. “We will have to talk about that later this afternoon,” he said finally. “Here we are at the dispensary.”

  It was an unimposing building, a house that had been converted into offices where doctors could treat the sick rather than visiting them in their homes. From Will, Hannah knew that there were thirteen physicians and surgeons who contributed their time to the dispensary, as well as a full-time apothecary. The Kine-Pox Institution itself was in the Almshouse, but they were to meet Dr. Simon here first.

  “There’s no need to feel anxious,” Will said. “Dr. Simon is an excellent doctor and one of the finest men in the city.”

  Hannah said nothing, but she thought of the men who had spent so much time with Kitty yesterday and refused her questions. Then she reminded herself that she was here on a very simple matter. She had studied all the available materials on the variolae vaccinae—including the pamphlet that had come in this morning’s post from Hakim Ibrahim—and all that remained was to practice what she had read about in theory, under the supervision of an experienced doctor who could answer her questions.

  She was not coming to this New-York Dispensary alone. All of her teachers were at her back; she would not shame them, or herself.

  A young black man who introduced himself as Archer showed them into a meeting room, before Hannah could get any sense at all of the dispensary beyond the smells common to any place where the sick were treated.

  Eight men sat around a round table, all very distinguished in appearance, most with elaborate beards and mustaches. The youngest was perhaps thirty, and the oldest—wearing a very outdated powdered wig—was more than sixty. Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Wallace were both present, and Hannah was vaguely pleased to see them. She would ask again about their examination of Kitty, and they would not be able to avoid or ignore her in this company.

  The room was thick with pipe and cigar smoke and for a very strange moment Hannah thought of the council fire at Good Pasture. When there was a problem to be solved the sachem called together men experienced and wise enough to contribute to the conversation as they smoked oyen’kwa’onwe in a pipe that passed around the room. But at any Kahnyen’kehàka council fire the clan mothers would be there too, to make sure that the men did not forget their responsibilities, or lose their heads. As men were wont to do, Curiosity would say.

  I am Walks-Ahead, she reminded herself. I am the daughter of Sings-from-Books of the Kahnyen’kehàka people. I am the granddaughter of Falling-Day, who was a great healer, great-granddaughter of Made-of-Bones, who was clan mother of the Wolf for forty years. I am the great-great-granddaughter of Hawk-Woman, who killed an O’seronni chief with her own hands and fed his heart to her sons. I am the stepdaughter of Bone-in-Her-Back.

  What had Elizabeth said, that morn
ing that she left? Hold your head up and meet their eyes. Don’t smile until they see you for who you are, and understand that you won’t be put off or dismissed.

  “Gentlemen,” Hannah said to the room, and they all rose to their feet as if she were the schoolmistress and had called them to order.

  Some of them looked skeptical and others curious. The youngest of the men sat down almost immediately to scribble something on a piece of paper while two others came forward to greet her.

  The elder of them was so round that all of him wobbled as he walked. A cascade of chins hid his neck, and above his beard his complexion was so high in color that Hannah thought he might burst if she touched him. If he were to fall over with an apoplexy she would not be in the least surprised.

  “The Reverend John Roberts,” said Will. “President of the board of directors of the dispensary.”

  “I look to the details of funding and support so that these good men can go about their business without distraction,” explained the reverend, and he waddled back to his chair while Will introduced Dr. Simon.

  Hannah’s first thought was that Richard Todd and Will had not told her what she really needed to know about Dr. Simon. Of middle age and dressed in Quaker gray, he had the kind and intelligent expression that had been described to her, but there was nothing soft about him at all, and without knowing exactly why, she was reminded of her uncle Bitter-Words, who had been Keeper of the Faith at Barktown, before the last of the Kahnyen’kehàka had left Trees-Standing-in-Water.

  Will went on with the introductions: Mr. Furman, superintendent of the Almshouse; Dr. Hosack; Dr. Benyus, who bowed deeply from the waist; Dr. Pascalis, who had some paralysis on the left side of his face that dragged down the corner of his eye and mouth both. The last of the men, the one who had taken his place to write, turned out not to be a doctor at all, but a journalist.

  “Mr. Henry Lamm, of the New-York Intelligencer. I hadn’t been expecting you today, Mr. Lamm.” Will Spencer was always polite, but there was an unusually sharp edge to his tone.

  Mr. Lamm inclined his head and sat down again to write. “Dr. Wallace invited me,” he said, without looking up from his notes.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” This from Mr. Roberts, who sat far back from the table to accommodate his girth.

  Hannah cast a questioning look at Will, but he looked as puzzled as she felt.

  “Gentlemen?” Will sent the question out into the room, but it was Dr. Simon who responded, clearing his throat first.

  “My colleagues are very interested in Miss Bonner’s background and training,” he said. “If she has no objection, they would like to ask her a few questions.”

  “There was no mention of this—” Will began, but Hannah held up a hand to stop him.

  “I have no objection.”

  Will hesitated. “As you wish.”

  He thought she was being foolish or foolhardy or simply stupid to agree to such an inquisition, but Hannah was far more angry than she was anxious. These men had come to see her as the boys went to see the orangutans, to satisfy their curiosity. Most of them meant no harm and would ask her simple questions about fevers and broken bones, but not all of them.

  By his expression she could see that Dr. Ehrlich was here to expose and embarrass her, and the journalist was here to see what news could be made of it.

  But Hannah was overcome with a sudden and complete calm. For three years she had endured Richard Todd’s impatience, the endless questions designed to distract from the obvious, his poor tempers. She had treated sore throats and set broken bones and dosed fevers; she had helped many and saved a few and watched others die, her little brother and her grandmother among them. All of it she had recorded in her daybook, every step she had taken on this journey.

  Let Dr. Ehrlich—let all of them—do their worst.

  Chapter 21

  Hannah woke the next morning to find Ethan standing next to her bed in his nightdress. He was turned toward her open window, his head tilted to one side as he listened to a creaky deep voice raised in a singsong.

  Here’s white sand, choice sand,

  Here’s your lily white s-a-n-d

  Here’s your Rock-a-way Beach s–a–n–d.

  “Do you hear it?” Ethan asked her.

  “Yes,” Hannah said, rubbing her eyes. “I hear it. It’s only a street vendor, Ethan. You know, like the man who brings the milk or the woman who sold you boys some gingerbread yesterday on your way to the theater.”

  He turned his face to her, blinking slowly. She reached out to touch his cheek, and he stepped back a little, shaking his head. Then he raised his chin and echoed the song that they could still hear, faintly, as the vendor moved down Bowling Green.

  “‘White sand, choice sand, lily white sand.’ He’s singing about Lily. Is Lily in the white sand? Is she lost in the white sand?”

  Gooseflesh rose on Hannah’s arms, but she forced herself to move slowly so that she would not startle him out of his walking sleep. Very carefully she folded back the covers.

  “Come, Ethan, sleep here a while. Come lay your head. Lily is at Lake in the Clouds safe and sound in her bed. She is asleep, and so should you be. Sleep.”

  He let out a great sigh, of relief or weariness or sadness that he had not made her understand, but after a moment he climbed up on the bed and closed his eyes. Hannah lay awake next to him, shivering in spite of the warm bedclothes and thinking of her sister. Lily white sand. Lily white. Lily.

  After a good while she realized that no amount of O’seronni sensible reasoning would allow her to ignore what a dream-walker had come to tell her. She got up, lit a candle, and wrote a letter.

  Dear Lily and Daniel for in that order were you born):

  Yesterday your cousins Ethan and Peter and their friend Marcus went to see a large monkey called an orangutan who is kept in a cage. There is a picture of an orangutan in one of your mother’s books on the jungles of Borneo. A man called Dr. King charges money for the privilege of seeing this animal (who is called Samson, for his great strength). The boys report that Samson is in the habit of pelting Dr. King with bits of rotten food, and that he has three times escaped from his cage. This reminds me of the story of Mrs. Sanderson, which you have heard many times. If you were here perhaps we could find a way to help Samson escape and he could come and live on Hidden Wolf. There is a longer letter for Curiosity that will have come today with more news of the city. If you are very good I’m sure she will share it with you. In the meantime I will ask you to sit down right now, today, without delay, and write to me. Your cousin Ethan dreamed of you last night and I would like to know that you are well.

  Your loving sister Hannah Bonner, also called Walks-Ahead by the Kahnyen’kehàka, her mother’s people

  Will was the only one up and about to see her off to the Almshouse for her first day of work with Dr. Simon. She left the posting of the letter to him, and resisted the urge to tell him why it was important. He had many fine qualities, but Hannah wasn’t sure that Will’s open-mindedness would extend to dream-walking. She must trust him to see that the letter found its way home, and quickly.

  Just before seven, Cicero delivered Hannah to the Almshouse, a rambling, shabby building that sat across from the beautifully kept city hall park like a boil on the nose of an otherwise elegant lady.

  Cicero started the long climb down from the driver’s box, but in her eagerness Hannah opened her own door and jumped lightly to the ground.

  “That’s not the way we do it, miss,” said the older man, dropping his chin to look at her through overgrown eyebrows, divided by a deep and disapproving furrow.

  “I’ll try harder, Cicero, really I will, but—” Hannah sidestepped two old women who shuffled down the street with arms twined together like branches. “I don’t want to be late.”

  His nose twitched in distaste as he looked at the Almshouse. “I’ll be back at four sharp, right here. Don’t you make me come in that place to find you, miss.”
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  “Four exactly,” Hannah echoed, and waited until Cicero had climbed back on the box and clucked to the team. He seemed to have assigned himself the role of her protector in the city, and Hannah was both touched and irritated by his concern for her, but she was also very glad when the carriage had disappeared into the traffic on the Broad Way and she was free to study the Almshouse.

  It was three stories high and far bigger than the fine homes on Bowling Green, but it had been hard used in its short life and it seemed almost to sag in the middle. There were faces at many of the small windows, children and old people mostly. One face was so old and its expression so vacant that Hannah couldn’t be sure if it belonged to a man or a woman. Sometimes the very old gave up on this world to concentrate on the next, and it was that kind of waiting that Hannah saw in the face that was watching her now. Wanting nothing, expecting nothing.

  A building this big, filled with people too poor or old or sick to feed themselves, with no families to claim or care for them; such a thing was almost beyond comprehension. She wondered if it had to do with the city itself, so many people crowded together. Whatever the cause, the city was full of people who were so desperate for help that they might be willing to overlook the color of her skin. That was what she would find out today, for better or worse.

  When she walked up the steps and opened the front door she was greeted by the smells of porridge and boiled onions, too many bodies too close together, chamber pots waiting to be emptied, flesh gone foul, sour stomachs spilling over. A little boy came hurtling past her and bumped into her bag so that she had to steady herself with one hand against the door frame, or begin by falling on her face.

  “Watch yourself, little bugger!” screeched a voice nearby. Hannah wasn’t sure if this was meant for her or the boy, but she decided it was better not to find out.

  The entryway was filled with people, most of them elderly, all of whom studied her openly.