glances at her neighbors, that she wore her mourning dress with some degree of pride, as if making the statement that she was both too strong and too civilized to either collapse at her husband’s funeral yesterday or to show a tear today. Her hat with its twin black and blue feathers was elegant and likely expensive, yes, but a bit too jaunty for this sorrowful world. By contrast Robert, in his pale gray suit, his face still shock-white and eyes full of dazed pain, was nearly an invisible boy.
Matthew intended to give his letter of questions not to Joplin Pollard but to the widow herself after the service had ended. For one thing, he wished not to have to wait for Monday morning to begin this inquiry, and for another he bridled at the fact that she expected Pollard to read the questions first and, in essence, censor them. So hang the instructions he’d be given, he was doing this his own way. Still, he’d liked to have included a few more personal questions, about how she and Deverick had met and their earlier life in London, just to get some background on the man, but he’d decided she was definitely not going to answer those and it was a waste of ink. Anyway, it had taken the rest of the yarrow oil rubbed into his shoulder for him to scribe the letter as it was.
Actually he was sore not only at the shoulder but in the forearm, the legs, the chest, the rib cage, and the neck, not to mention the rapier cut on his left ear though tar soap had removed the dried blood. Moonbeam, he recalled Greathouse saying with derision that first training session. You’ve let yourself go to rot.
Matthew realized he could be as indignant as he pleased, but it was a show put on for the sake of pride. Greathouse was right. His position as a clerk and his interests in chess and books had left him in poor condition for physical activity. Not that he planned to forsake chess and reading, as he thought these kept his mind sharp and would mean the difference between success and failure at the Herrald Agency, but he knew also from the pain in his muscles and joints that he was a house in need of reconstruction. The lack of physical endurance might not only cost him success at the agency, it might cost him his life. He needed a rapier to practice with at home, and by jingo he intended to find one.
“…how heavy our hearts are burdened,” Reverend Wade was saying, his hands clasped tightly before him atop his podium. “How heavy our souls are laden, with this tonnage of guilt we bear. We live in the sorrow of the world, dear children, and this sorrow brings death to all the great possibilities that Christ would have us know. Look at what Paul says, in that verse the eleventh. He would urge us to clear ourselves, so that our minds and souls become fresh. To clear ourselves, and let go of…”
The reverend stopped speaking.
Matthew had thought Wade was simply pausing to take a breath, or to fashion a particular phrase, but three seconds went past and then five and then ten and still the reverend did not speak. The ladies of the congregation who were using their fans ceased almost as one. In front of Matthew, Magistrate Powers leaned forward as if to try to urge Wade to continue. The reverend stared blankly into space for a few seconds more before he blinked and recovered himself, but his face had taken on a damp sheen.
“Let go of our responsibilities,” he said, and then his mouth twitched as if in an attempt to recover the word. “I’m sorry, that is not what I meant to say. Let go of our self-recriminations. Our failings. Our harsh verdicts of ourselves, that prevent us from finding…”
Again Reverend Wade hesitated, and this time his eyes darted from face to face and his mouth moved to make words but no words were born. Matthew saw the cords in Wade’s neck standing out, and the man’s hands clenched together so tightly it appeared the knuckles must crack. Wade looked up toward the ceiling, perhaps searching past the pigeons for the face of God, but it seemed that even an appeal to God would not suffice, for the reverend was struck mute.
John Five stood up, but already two of the church elders were on their feet and were rushing to the pulpit. Reverend Wade watched them coming, his eyes wide as if he didn’t fully understand what was happening, and Matthew feared the man was going to collapse before they reached him.
“I’m all right.” It was more of a gasp than speech. The reverend lifted a hand to assure his flock, but Matthew and everyone else saw how badly it trembled. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I cannot continue today.”
It was a shocking moment. The sight of the normally eloquent and resolute minister being reduced to a shaking apologist stunned even Matthew, who had already seen Wade at a weak moment. But events took a quick turn as Wade’s apologies were overshadowed by the sudden tolling of a bell. It was being rung from outside in the distance, its high thin cry penetrating the shutters. At once Matthew and the others knew what it was. Heard rarely, and only in case of emergency, it was the harbormaster’s bell at the Great Dock raising an alarm and a summons.
Several men put on their tricorn hats and were out the door at a run. Others followed, and even some of the women pushed out to see what trouble the bell was announcing. Perhaps with relief and looking near tears, Reverend Wade turned from the pulpit like a sleepwalker and started toward the door that led to his sanctum. He was supported by the two elders and by John Five, who had gone to the reverend’s side with Constance right behind him. In another moment the congregation was in a state of utter confusion and seemed to be split between those going to the reverend’s aid and those leaving the church for the dock. Still the bell rang on, as pigeons flew madly about the rafters in emulation of the human disorder below.
The Stokelys were in the aisle and going toward the street. Matthew saw Magistrate Powers striding up to give his help to Reverend Wade, but Wade was almost through the door and it appeared he was being held at both shoulders and arms by a dozen hands. Familiar faces went past, this way and that, all grimly serious. Matthew watched the door close behind Wade and his knot of churchmen, and then he thought perhaps selfishly to look for Esther Deverick but she had left her pew. Her two-feathered hat was somewhere among the well-dressed contingent of Golden Hill residents going out onto the Broad Way.
Matthew decided to also get to the street. By the time he was successful at doing this through the throng, however, the Broad Way was a clatter trap of wagons, horses, and citizens on their way to the dock. Sunday might be a day strictly of sermons, Godly contemplation, and rest in other towns, but in New York business rarely took a breather and so the streets, stockyards, counting-houses, and most other establishments were nearly as busy as usual, per the discretion and religious conviction of their owners. The Golden Hillers were being helped by servants into their carriages lined up in front of the church. Matthew saw the widow’s hat before he saw her, and he made his way to the carriage before the driver could flick his whip.
“Pardon me! Pardon me!” Matthew called to the woman, who was seating herself in the plush cream-colored interior across from Robert. She looked at him incuriously, as if she’d never seen him before. Matthew took the letter from his coat and held it toward her. “The questions, madam. If you’d be so kind to-”
“Were my instructions not clear?” She tilted her head, her narrow eyes devoid of emotion but for perhaps the smallest little irritated ember. “Were they muddy, or foggy, or shrouded in mist? I told you to give your questions to my lawyer. Good day.”
“Yes, madam, I know, but I thought you might-”
“Good day,” she repeated, and then to the driver: “Home, Malcolm.”
The whip came down, the two horses pulled the carriage away, and Matthew was left holding the letter and feeling as if the Trinity Church pigeons had just deposited on his head their own opinions of the situation.
Twenty-Three
The bell was still being rung. It was placed atop a watchman’s tower at the dock, where in turn the watchman monitored through a spyglass the signal flags from another watchtower on Oyster Island. Whatever the bell was proclaiming, its primary purpose was to call men to either take up arms to defend the harbor against attack or to crew the rescue boats. Matthew returned the letter to his coat and started walking to the dock. In another moment he caught up with the Stokelys and then almost collided with the bulk of Chief Prosecutor Bynes moving through the gathering crowd, but at the last instant he checked his progress and Bynes went past hollering for the attention of some other official just ahead.
True to the spirit of New York, the fiddlers and squeezeboxers were already out on the dockside making a din of music with their tin cups offered, two young women dressed up like gypsies were dancing around also holding out money cups, three or four higglers were hawking from wagons such items as sausage pies, cheap parasols, and spyglasses, the enterprising baker Mrs. Brown was selling sugar cookies to children from a cart, and dogs chased after cats that chased after harbor rats scurrying wildly under all these feet.
Past the coiled ropes, tar barrels, and piled crates of cargo either coming or going, past the sturdy tall-
