City of Dreams (51 page)

“It is so very beautiful.” Jennet pressed her face to the window and clasped her hands tight inside her beaver muff. “I can’t think who made the path, but I am very grateful to him.”

“Then you are grateful to me. I made the path. At least, I caused it to be made.”

“You?”

“Of course.”

“And did you do it for me? Only so that we could take this magical drive?”

Solomon chuckled. “No, I can’t say that I did. I did it, my dear, for the reason I do a great many things. For profit.”

“I don’t understand. What possible profit can there be in making a path through the snow to a place most people only go in summer?” Hudson’s River had numerous fishing places along its banks, and in the warm months half a dozen taverns, known as mead houses, opened for business in the area. In winter, as far as Jennet knew, the place was a wasteland.

“Possess your soul in patience, my love. Everything is about to become clear.”

Ten minutes later Clemence reined in the horses and Jennet looked out the window at five other carriages not unlike theirs—though none quite so grand—all waiting in a field a short distance away, on the far side of a three-story building made of white clapboard with black shutters. There was a roofed porch supported on white pillars along one side. Lanterns hung from the eaves, washing the entire exterior in a golden shimmer. The shutters were all open and the flickering candles of the interior beckoned with the promise of warmth and welcome. Jennet saw shadowy figures moving inside. “Solomon, what is this place?”

He tugged her hand from her muff so he could grasp it in his. “Jennet, a while back you said you trusted me. Did you truly mean it?”

“Yes. Truly, truly. You must believe me, Solomon.”

“I do. Now we shall both see if we are capable of living up to our assertions.” He was carrying the walking stick topped with the golden horse. He tapped lightly on the window, and Clemence, who had been standing outside waiting for exactly that signal, swung open the door.

Solomon jumped to the ground. Clemence positioned the small stool for Jennet, and the two men handed her down. Solomon extended his arm. Jennet took it. He did not, however, lead her up the front path to the jet-black front door, topped with an elegant fanlight. Instead he guided her along the side porch, through a narrow door at the back of the building—which he unlocked with his own key—and finally up a flight of stairs to another door, this one unlocked.

The little room appeared to have been prepared for them. There were two gilt chairs with red velvet cushions. A small table held a single candle, a decanter of brandy and another of wine, two goblets, and a plate of sweetmeats. The chairs faced a red velvet curtain.

“Solomon, I am simply bursting with curiosity. You must tell me—”

“Ssh.” He put his finger over his lips, then leaned very close, so he was speaking directly into her ear. “If you love me and trust me, Jennet, you must be absolutely still, no matter what you see. Not a word. Do you promise? Don’t say anything, just nod.”

She nodded.

Solomon poured a brandy for himself and some wine for her; then he lifted the pewter snuffer and extinguished the candle. The room was now entirely dark, but Jennet sensed her husband lean forward and open the velvet curtain.

The room she looked into was lighted by a great many candles, and separated from her and from Solomon by a heavy iron grille, in front of which hung a gossamer curtain. The curtain obscured very little of the view. Jennet could clearly see the two women in the room, one black, the other white. They were both naked.

Jennet put her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp, and felt Solomon’s eyes on her. She had given him her word. She would not break it. Whatever happened, she was going to continue to believe in Solomon, in his love for her and in his protection. But for a few moments, while she gathered her courage for whatever was to come, she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, the two women were on the bed, and a man was with them. She could hardly see him because of the way the women hung over him. The Negro seemed to be sitting on his face; the other straddled his hips, and … Dear God, he was … They were … She could not believe what she was seeing.

She felt Solomon’s arm circle her shoulders. “Wait.” He breathed the word so softly she almost didn’t hear, despite the fact that his mouth was pressed to her ear. “Trust me.” Jennet’s face burned. It was as if a mirror had been held up to her own shameless abandon in the bedroom. She turned her face to Solomon’s chest.

He did not force her to see more, but continued to hold her, and to stroke the back of her neck with one finger. Meanwhile he watched the tableau vivant on the bed.

It was a rather mild entertainment. Some things transpired in this house that he would never have asked Jennet to watch, but this fellow only wanted to take two women to bed simultaneously. The color of their skin didn’t play an enormous role in his pleasure, but he was known to be fond of the black wench with the huge breasts. It was Solomon who had instructed the woman who ran the brothel that the Negro was to be sent to this customer on this particular evening.

Like Flossie, who had served Solomon in the Rio house where he began his career as a whoremaster, the woman knew it was in her best interest never to question her employer’s wishes.

The noises from the bed beyond the grille were becoming louder and more animated. The women were faking, of course. Solomon was an expert in such matters. He knew to the last shuddering moan what a woman sounded like when she was truly in the grip of passion. Jennet, for instance, when she made that little mewling sound deep in her throat … He’d have to speak to these two. They must do better.

The man let out a triumphant yell. Nothing faked about that. The pair of whores had finished him off. Solomon felt Jennet tremble and he held her tighter. Her face was still pressed to his chest. He could smell the sweet scent of the Hungary Water perfume he had ordered for her from Paris, rising from her warm and powdered flesh. The perfume, but also her own particular smell. The one that said Jennet. He lowered his head so his lips grazed her hair, artfully upswept and pinned with a diamond aigrette. Later it would hang free, a straight black curtain, and he would lift her so she lay over him and run his fingers through her hair while her breast was in his mouth.

Both women had rolled off the man on the bed. The dark one went to a tall stand that held a basin and an ewer. She wet a cloth and carried it back to the customer and began to sponge him from head to toe. The man lay with his eyes closed, obviously sated for the moment, enjoying the attention. Finally, after the whore had dried him all over, he stood up.

Solomon bent forward and spoke directly into his young wife’s ear. “Now you must look. Only for a moment. But immediately.”

She had promised to trust him. Jennet raised her head and turned it toward the grille. Solomon anticipated the gasp rising in her throat; he put his hand over her mouth to stifle the sound.

Zachary Craddock was no longer lithe and muscular. He had a paunch, and his midriff was surrounded with rolls of sagging white flesh. His hair had thinned considerably as well. It was the first time Jennet had seen Cousin Tamsyn’s husband naked, fondling absentmindedly the pendulous breasts of the black woman who stood next to him, while the white woman kneeled before him trying with her mouth to coax another erection from the flaccid tool that hung between his legs.

“Well? I think it is time that you said something, Jennet. Otherwise I shall conclude you are disappointed or shocked or both.”

“I’m neither. I told you I wasn’t.”

“I’m not entirely sure I believe you.”

“I never lie to you, Solomon.”

They were in the carriage again, heading back to Nassau Street. Her head was turned toward the window. He reached across and stroked her cheek with the golden horse’s head. “I am sure of it. But nevertheless, unless you tell me what you’re thinking I shall be worried that you are disappointed in me.”

She took a hand from her muff and reached up and clasped the walking stick. It made a stiff bridge between them. “If you must know, I’m thinking it wasn’t because you wanted to acquaint me with the true source of your livelihood that you took me to that place. You had another purpose in mind, Solomon. I am trying to fathom what it was.”

“Clever Jennet,” he said softly. “But this time you’re only partly correct. I had two reasons for taking you to the brothel. I own three others, by the way. What matters is that I did want you to know how I earn our daily bread. Because if you did not hear it from me, sooner or later you’d hear it from someone else. That seemed to me a far more unpleasant prospect.”

“I understand.”

“Yes, I expected you would. My second purpose should be equally apparent to you. It was Zachary Craddock who ruined your father’s career and deprived him of a decent livelihood, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“So I understood. What I wanted you to know, my dearest girl, is that Zachary Craddock is now entirely in your power. You may hold the hoop as high as you like, and he has no choice but to jump through it. Call it a second, slightly belated birthday present.”

In their bedroom, with the moonlight streaming through the open curtains, with her jet-black hair spread across the pillow, Jennet looked markedly solemn. “Solomon, I have two questions.”

He raised himself on his elbow and leaned over her. “Very well, ask them.”

“Why do I not fall pregnant?”

He hesitated a moment. “May I ask why you question me about this now, tonight?”

“Because it is apparently a night for revelations. And I have been thinking about the question for some time.”

“Very well. You do not conceive a child because I do not wish you to. I am not ready to see your belly grow heavy and your hips spread, or to share your breasts with a squalling infant. Someday, perhaps. But not yet.”

“How then do you prevent it? With that silk envelope you put on yourself?”

“Yes. And by withdrawing from your delightful and delicious cunt at the appropriate, perfect moment.” He nuzzled her neck while he said it, licking the back of her ear. He’d never been sure she was aware of the sheath, but it was fairly certain her lack of experience made her innocent of the fact that there were different ways to time the act. “Are you disappointed? Do you hunger for a babe?”

“No. I all but raised my younger sisters and brother. I am in no hurry to repeat the exercise.”

He chuckled. “I’m glad we’re in agreement. You said two questions. What was the second?”

“The black woman, the one sitting on Zachary’s face, what was she doing to him?”

This time he hooted with laughter. “What a brazen wench I’m making of you! And if you must know, she was doing nothing to him. He was doing it to her. Come”—he put his hands on her waist and lifted her up and on top of him—“sit on my face, as you called it, and I will show you.”

VI

In the spring of 1734, as if they were under some terrible indictment from the Almighty, New Yorkers were visited with the third plague in less than twenty-four months. It would later be called diphtheria. To the medical men of the day, it was known as
angina suffocativa;
bladders in the throat, or the throat distemper, to everyone else. Whatever it was called, it was misery to all. Especially the children. And Caleb Devrey.

The epidemic took hold just a few months after Will Devrey lost patience with his second son. Since Caleb’s return from Edinburgh two years before and his broken engagement to his cousin, the young man had done nothing but linger about his father’s house. If he bestirred himself it was to go out and drink or wench. Having invested so much money in Caleb’s education, Will was determined the boy would not be a wastrel.

“Caleb, I won’t force a bride on you. But you must begin to make your way as a doctor.”

“I intend to, Father. But it isn’t easy to attract patients in New York. There are too many—”

“Too many other physicians trained and untrained,” Will finished for him. “And all advertising in the
Gazette
or in Zenger’s new paper. … What’s it called?”