“Do you think my investment in Hughson's is a good idea?” Clara asked.
“Good and getting better by the day.” He waved a folded newspaper. “The word from Europe is war with Spain or France or both. That will bring the king's ships and maybe his troops to New York. Every tavern in town will become a gold mine. Even the whores will get rich.”
He was still a warrior. Clara could see he loved the prospect of a war. “That's a good argument to use on Catalyntie,” she said. “Nothing is more likely to convince her than the word
profit.
” She told him about Adam's proposal of a bill of exchange.
“Consider it done,” Malcolm said.
That night, over dinner, Malcolm went to work on me with a nice combination of pleas and threats. He confirmed his promise to share a third of Clara's charities on his own account and said if I declined to give her a bill of exchange for the full amount we owed her, he would write one himself. I furiously pointed out that under the law it would be my debt as well as his. “I know that,” he said, complacently chewing his venison.
Almost casually, Clara had demonstrated who had more influence with my supposedly devoted husband. Trapped between my anger and old affection, I struggled not to hate my Seneca sister. The baby kicked in my stomach. Maybe he was telling me to bide my time.
The next day, Eugenia Fowler was the store's first customer. “Clara, my dear girl,” she said. “That cambric you selected for my evening gown was the sensation of the King's Birthday Ball! Governor Clarke himself told me he's never seen anything quite as ravishing. I want to buy up every yard you have left, so no one else can get their hands on it.”
“Of course, Mrs. Fowler. But other shopsâ”
“Other shops won't have your quality. Holland goodsâat least the luxury sortâare so superior to English or French. The Dutch have a way with expensive fabrics. Rather like the Irish with their linen.”
“I'll have Adam deliver our entire stock to your house this afternoon,” Clara said.
As the great lady departed to her coach, I countermanded Clara's
promise. “I'll be damned if I'll sell her all our cambric,” I said. “Send her twenty yards and keep another forty for other customers.”
“I gave her my word,” Clara protested.
“I didn't see your hand on a Bible,” I said. I clutched my back again and sank into a chair. “I'm sure this monster child is a boy,” I said. “He does nothing but kick. His father adores it, of course. He puts his hand there and chuckles like an eight-year-old.”
In fact, the baby had not stirred. I was telling Clara I had better hopes of keeping Malcolm than she did.
I gazed sourly at my Seneca sister. “So I'm to give you a bill of exchange for the full amount, is that it?”
“I hope so,” Clara said.
“Oh, it must be so. That captain of finance, Malcolm Stapleton, explained it all to me at dinner last night. I'm to tie up a fifth or sixth of my credit to keep you happy. Because if darling Clara is unhappy, he's unhappy too.”
“I think it's fair,” Clara said.
“Oh, very fair. While I'm shaped like the sail on a Hudson River sloop in a stiff breeze, you go to him and sigh and sob. You know as well as I do what was stiff by the time you finished with him.”
I was talking like a Seneca again. Clara did not mind that as much as the implication that she had seduced Malcolm into the arrangement. “He thinks it's a good investment,” she said.
“Let's hope he's right,” Catalyntie said. “If I die giving birth to this monster in my belly, I hope you marry him, no matter what anyone says. He'll need you in more ways than one.”
“You won't die,” Clara said. “You'll go on and on, insisting on your own way in everything, becoming colder and more unloving. I often pity Malcolm.”
“But never a tear for me?” I said. “Have you ever thought I'm doing the best I can? Have you thought of where you might be without me? I mean, since I rescued you from your adventure in New Jersey?”
“I know all that!” Clara cried, almost weeping. “But I still want to get away from youâbefore you destroy me.”
“Nothing can really separate us,” I said. “Here's your bill of exchange.”
I handed her the paper and stumbled out of the store, managing to conceal my tears until I was a block away. The bill was for the full amount of Clara's share, 1,426 pounds. I had not deducted any of the gifts to the whores or her African supplicantsâor the Hughsons' debt. Would she see it as a forlorn gesture of love? Probably not.
Â
That night, Adam drew up a letter of agreement and he and Clara hurried through a chilling October drizzle to the Hughsons' tavern. Adam
gazed up at the brick-fronted, timber-roofed building and pronounced it a noble acquisition. Inside was the usual mixture of sailors, whores, and average New Yorkers, drinking, eating, arguing, playing cards or dice.
Malcolm Stapleton was there, orating on what was likely to happen if war broke out. “Between the Spanish and the French West Indies fleets, they could ravage this coast before help arrives from England. The Walpole ministry has let the army and the navy decline to a pathetic state of weakness. We must convince London to take steps immediately to create regiments here in Americaâ”
They extracted Malcolm from his admirers and told him the good news of my capitulation. He nodded. “She told me at dinner,” he said. “Maybe it proves she loves you, Clara, in spite of her hard heart.”
For a moment Clara almost wept. “I'm afraid you're right,” she said.
In their disorderly office on the tavern's second floor, Sarah and John Hughson joyously signed the agreement, making Clara a half owner for a thousand pounds. Clara handed over the bill of exchange and Sarah Hughson offered her a bill drawn on her mother's house in Yonkers for the difference of four hundred twenty-six pounds. Adam wanted to go to Yonkers to inspect the place first but Clara said she trusted the Hughsons. Sarah vowed that the bill would receive priority among the tavern's debts, as soon as the outstanding obligations were paid.
John Hughson insisted on opening a bottle of their best port to celebrate the deal. “You're the answer to a year of prayers to the Virgin,” Sarah said, beaming at Clara.
“The Virgin?” Clara said.
“I was raised a Catholic. We pray to the Virgin Mary. She never fails to answer a prayer,” Sarah said.
Clara knew little about Catholicism beyond what Bogardus had taught us. “Where does she get her power?” she asked.
“From being the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God.”
In the office doorway swayed Mary Worth, one of the city's older, fatter whores. “Oh, Sarah,” she said in a singsong voice. “There's a captain downstairs who's lost his purse at cardsâbut he has pounds a-plenty on his shipâ”
“Take him to room number ten,” Sarah Hughson said. “But mind you get the money out of him tomorrow, hear?”
“Oh, I will, depend on it.”
Mary vanished and Mrs. Hughson finished her port. “I think the Virgin finds little fault with the sins of the flesh,” she said.
Clara was amazed, knowing the harsh puritanism of the Dutch Reformed and other Protestant churches. She looked forward to learning more about this strange faith.
Downstairs Malcolm Stapleton helped John Hughson hoist Clara onto
the bar and introduce her as the new half owner of the tavern. Hughson tried to make a speech of it, but the port had addled his not very abundant wits just enough to get the facts all wrong. He told everyone Clara had borrowed a thousand pounds from the Stapletons to rescue him from bankruptcy. Clara saw dismay on Malcolm's faceâhe knew the story would convince everyone in New York that Clara was his mistress. Was he unhappy because the story made him an unfaithful husbandâor because it was not true? Clara wondered.
While Hughson talked, the faces of the crowd swirled before Clara's eyes in the light from two huge iron chandeliers, each with a dozen blazing candles. Some white, some black, mostly young, they were a motley groupâbut she felt closer to them than she would ever feel to the customers of the Universal Store. Even if the good cheer they displayed was mostly the product of rum, it was better than the brittle jealousy and petty envy she saw so often among the rich.
One face caught her attention: her old friend Caesar. “Hey, beautiful, remember me?” he said, pushing his way to the bar as Malcolm lowered Clara to the floor.
“Of course I remember you,” Clara said.
“She'd rather forget you,” Malcolm said, shoving him away. Everyone who drank at the city's taverns knew Caesar. He made the rounds almost every night, often peddling stolen goods in return for drinks.
“What's this?” Caesar said. “The great assemblyman doesn't give a damn for a poor nigger who can't vote for him? Your little piece of chocolate cake had a better time with Caesar than she's ever had with you.”
Malcolm punched Caesar in the face, sending him flying backward across a table of cardplayers to land in a heap with cards and bottles and rum in a mess around him. “What the hell was all that about?” one of the cardplayers asked.
“He just insulted this lady,” Malcolm said.
Blood streamed from Caesar's nose. “You son of a bitch,” he shouted. “There'll come a day when Caesar will make you sorry for that.”
“Oh?” Malcolm said. “How will Caesar arrange that?”
“He won't arrange it alone. There'll be an army behind him. An army that will make all you English bastards beg for mercy.”
“Oh?” Malcolm said. “Who'll be the general of this army, Caesar? You?”
“Maybe. I'll be one of the generals. I wasn't named Caesar by accident.”
“Step aside,” Malcolm said to the cardplayers. He approached Caesar, his fists raised in the style of a prizefighter. “Come on, General. We'll make this our first battleground.”
He was a head taller and at least thirty pounds heavier than Caesar. Something propelled Clara from the bar into the dwindling space between the two men. “You've hurt him enough,” she said to Malcolm.
She turned to Caesar. “Go to Dr. Hopper. He'll give you something for your pain. Tell him to send the bill to me.”
“Thanks, beautiful,” he said.
Caesar retreated into the night. Clara turned to confront a frowning Malcolm Stapleton. He and everyone else in the place were wondering if Caesar was telling the truth about being her black lover. They had just finished presuming Malcolm Stapleton was her white lover. It was not a very good way to start trying to make Hughson's a more respectable tavern.
“Why did you do that?” Malcolm asked.
“It wasn't a fair fight,” Clara said.
“Fair or foul, I'll break his neck the next time I see him,” Malcolm snarled.
“Not if you want my ⦠my good opinion!” Clara said.
Malcolm stalked out of the tavern, leaving Clara surrounded by staring eyes. The story of the assemblyman's embarrassment would be all over New York tomorrow morning. Did she care?
The answer was yes. She still wished Malcolm Stapleton well. But in another part of her soul, a second answer whispered:
no
. She gazed slowly around her, absorbing the reality of the white and black faces mingled here. Twisted mouths, low sullen brows, hard obtuse eyesâfate had consigned them to the bottom of life's heap. They would never be part of the world of power and wealth that Catalyntie and Malcolm were struggling to enter. But they were part of her world now.
Free, Clara thought. For the first time she was truly free. She had chosen to turn her back on Catalyntie and Malcolm, to separate from them in this fundamental way. Her impulse to protect Caesar from Malcolm's superior strength was part of this freedom. Perhaps she could use it to heal some of the bitterness in Caesar's soulâand help other Africans find a place in this misshapen American world.
“As long as I own a share of this place,” Clara said. “Quarrels, brawls, hateful talk of any kind, will be forbidden here. Let's celebrate my partnership by treating everyone to their favorite drink.”
A rumble of approval rose from the crowd. They swarmed to the bar. Cicely, the red-haired Irish whore, threw her arms around Clara. “I told them you had a heart as big as County Mayo!” she cried. “Sure now you've proved it.”
Clara kissed her red mouth. “We're all brothers and sisters,” she said.
“Oh, I don't know about that!” Cicely said. “My brothers never did the sort of things half the loafers in this place have done to me.”
As laughter and good cheer became general, John Hughson lowered his big bald head and whispered to his new partner: “I'm glad you saved Caesar from a drubbing. I'm obliged to him for a good bit of income each year.”