went on. “I have listened and, I hope, learned. Suffice it to say I have not accepted this position lightly from my cousin, the Queen.”
Lillehorne thumped his cane tip against the floor, daring anyone to chortle for fear of a night in the gaol.
“My cousin, the Queen,” Cornbury repeated, as if chewing on a sweet. Matthew thought he had very heavy eyebrows for such a lady. “Now,” the governor said, “let me outline where we are.”
For the next half-hour, the audience was held not in rapture but rather by the droning on of Cornbury’s less- than-majestic vocal skills. The man might be able to carry a dress, Matthew mused, but he couldn’t manage a decent speech. Cornbury meandered through the success of the milling and shipbuilding businesses, the fact that there were nearly five thousand residents and that now in England people saw New York as not a struggling frontier town but a steady venture able to return sterling investment on the pound. He gave his lengthy opinion on how someday New York might surpass both Boston and Philadelphia as the central hub of the new British Empire, but added that first a shipment of iron nails that had accidentally gone to the Quaker town from the old British Empire must be retrieved so as to rebuild the structures unfortunately burned in the recent fire, as he did not trust treepegs. He waxed upon the potential of New York as a center for farming, for apple orchards and pumpkin fields. And then, going on forty minutes in his dry dissertation, he hit upon a subject that made the citizens sit up.
“All this potential for industry and profit must not be wasted,” Cornbury said, “by late-night carousings and the resulting problem of slugabeds. I understand the taverns are not closed here until the last…um…gentleman staggers out.” He paused a moment, surveying the audience, before he clumsily plowed ahead. “Forthwith, I shall decree that all taverns close at half past ten.” A murmur began and quickly grew. “Also, I shall decree that no slave is to set foot in a tavern, and no red Indian shall be served-”
“Just a moment, sir! Just a moment!”
Matthew and the others up front looked around. Pennford Deverick had stood up and was casting an eagle- eye at the governor, his brow deeply furrowed as a sign of his own discontent. “What’s this about the taverns closing early, sir?”
“Not early, Mr. Deverick, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Mr. Deverick it is.”
“Well. Not early, sir.” Again the hideous smile emerged. “I wouldn’t call ten-thirty at night early, by any stretch. Would you?”
“New York is not a town constrained by a bedtime, sir.”
“Well, then, it ought to be. I’ve done a study on this. Long before I set out from England, many wise men afforded me their opinions on the wastage of available manpower due to-”
“The blazes with their opinions!” Deverick said sharply, and when he spoke sharply it was like a very loud knife to the ears, if a knife might be loud. Matthew saw the people around him flinch, and beside him Robert Deverick looked as if he wished to crawl under the nearest stone. “Do you know how many people here depend on the taverns?”
“Depend, sir? On the ability to consume strong drink and in the morning be unable to go about their duties to themselves, their families, and our town?”
Deverick was already waving him off with the governor’s ninth word. “The taverns, Lord Cornblow…”
“…bury,” said the governor, whose quiet voice could also be cutting. “Lord Cornbury, if you please.”
“The taverns are meeting places for businessmen,” Deverick continued, swirls of red beginning to come up on his cheeks not unlike the governor’s rouge. “Ask any tavern owner here.” He pointed toward various personages. “Joel Kuyther over there. Or Burton Lake, or Thaddeus O’Brien, or-”
“Yes, I’m sure the assembly is well-stocked,” Cornbury interrupted. “I presume you are also a tavern owner?”
“Lord Governor, if I may?” Again the smooth and rather oily High Constable Lillehorne slid forward, the lion’s head on his cane nodding for attention. “If you haven’t been properly introduced to Mr. Deverick other than by name, you should know that he represents, in a way, all the taverns and their owners. Mr. Deverick is a goods broker, and it is by his untiring enterprises that the establishments are properly stocked with ale, wine, foodstuffs, and the like.”
“Not only that,” Deverick added, still staring squarely at the governor. “I supply most of the glasses and platters, and a majority of the candles.”
“And to also mention a majority of the candles used by the town,” said Lillehorne, who Matthew thought was up to getting free wine for a year at his own favorite haunt.
“And, not least,” Deverick pressed on, “the majority of lanterns that hold those candles, supplied to the town’s constables for a reasonable allowance.”
“Well,” Lord Cornbury said after a short rumination, “it seems you run the town then, sir, is that not so? For all your good works procure both the peace and-you would have me believe-prosperity of New York.” He lifted his gloved hands to show the palms, in an attitude of surrender. “Shall I sign over my governing charter to you, sir?”
Don’t ask that of Lillehorne, Matthew thought. The high constable would use his own blood for want of ink.
Deverick stood very straight and stiff and tall, his face with its craggy boxer’s nose and high creased forehead taking on an expression of composed nobility that perhaps Lord Cornbury could do well to emulate. Of course Deverick was a rich man. Possibly one of the wealthiest in the colony. Matthew didn’t know much about him-who did? for he was certainly a lone wolf-but he’d heard from Grigsby that Deverick had fought his way out of the London rubbish piles to stand here, grandly clothed and as cold as midwinter’s pond ice, staring down an official popinjay.
“I have my own fields of governance,” replied Deverick, with a slight lift of his chin. “I should stay within their boundaries lest I trip over another man’s fence. But before I release this subject, let me please ask you to meet with myself and a committee of the tavern owners to discuss the matter at your convenience ere you decide upon a fixed course of action.”
“Oh, he’s good,” Powers whispered. “I didn’t know there was so much lawyer in old Pennford.”
Lord Cornbury again hesitated, and Matthew thought the man was not so schooled in diplomacy as he ought to be. Surely his feminine nature would seize upon a truce, if not so much to appease a very influential man but to get through his first public display without a riot.
“Very well,” the governor said flatly, with no trace of interest in hearing any other opinion. “I shall delay my decree for one week, sir, and thank you for your remarks.” With that gesture, Pennford Deverick returned to his seat.
Some of the discordant hubbub that had been brewing back in the mob pot began to simmer down now, but there were occasional hoots and hollers out on the street that proclaimed the verdict of the common man. Matthew wondered if a live governor such as the one standing before them could be worse than a dead mayor; well, time would tell.
Cornbury now launched upon another speech in which he praised every gentleman-and gentle lady, of course-for their support and recognition of the need for strong leadership in this growing and all-important town. Then, his smug horse half whipped to death, he said, “Before I ask that this meeting be adjourned, are there any comments from you? Any suggestions? I want you to know I am an open-minded man, and I shall do my best to solve whatever problems may arise, small or large, to aid this town in its orderly and profitable progress. Anyone?”
Matthew had in mind something to ask, but he warned himself against it because it was sure to anger Lillehorne and in his position that wasn’t wise. He’d already in the past month left two letters with the high constable’s clerk outlining his thoughts and had heard nothing back, so what was the point of further expressing an opinion?
Suddenly old wild-haired Hooper Gillespie stood up and said in his raspy wind-weathered voice, “See here, sir! I’ve got a problem needs fixin’!” He sailed on, as was his way, without waiting for a response. “I run the ferry between here and Breuckelen and I’m sick and tired of seein’ them bullywhelp boys a-roamin’ the river. You know they set fires out on Oyster Island to run them boats on the rocks, enough to make ye weep to see a good ship wrecked thataway. They got a cove they’s hidin’ in, I can point it out to ye quick enough. Holed up there in a shipwreck hulk, they got ’emselves a right nice hidin’ place there all covered with weeds and sticks and such, ’nuff to make a beaver throw a jealousy. Well, it’s gonna come to killin’ if them boys ain’t brought to justice, and I see
