Having left me at my Uncle George Murray’s house on Pearl Street in New York City, Jacques departed on his return trip to York. I paid him liberally for the care he had taken of me en route. Now I would spend a day or two with Uncle George and his wife Elizabeth before boarding the Manhattan. I had last seen my relatives in 1816 when Papa and I were waiting to board the Manchester for our trip to England. I knew them to be kind and generous hosts.
Uncle George was ten years younger than Mama and though there was certainly a family resemblance, he did not have her pursed lips and gimlet eyes. His eyes were large and gentle, and his wavy hair spread onto his collar, unlike her tight little curls achieved by nightly curl papers. He had suffered some setbacks in his banking ventures, and he and Aunt Elizabeth lived in genteel poverty in a two-storey frame house in a section of the city distinguished by large brick mansions.
They set out tea for me when I arrived, and we sat down to excellent scones and strawberry jam that my aunt had made—“with my own hands,” she said. Along with these delicacies were pickled herrings (which I politely declined).
Uncle told me that he had just the day before received a letter from Mama.
“No doubt it has explained what she calls my ‘deplorable’ behaviour,” I said.
“We shall discuss it at some other time, my dear. For now, rest and refresh, that’s what you must do.”
It was a relief to hear those words. Though the house was cold and drafty whenever one moved several feet away from the hearth, my relatives had provided me with a small bed pushed close to the fire and heaped with quilts. I retired early that night. I did indeed need to “rest and refresh.” Before I settled into bed, I counted the money that Mama had given me. It was half gone already. I still had to pay for my voyage and for getting settled in Tolpuddle or whatever destination I chose. But for the moment I put my worries aside, climbed into my little bed, and was soon asleep.
* * *
The next morning, over breakfast, which consisted of coffee cake and beer, Uncle George informed me that I had just missed seeing my nieces. They had finished their education in New York, he told me, and had left two days before for their home in York. They were now young women, versed in French and Italian, music, geography, history, writing, and grammar. Papa had found money to spend on their education, it seemed, but not on mine.
“You have been such a help to our family,” I said to Uncle George, as I declined the beer that the servant was about to pour for me. “You have given my nieces lodging for several years and enabled them to have an education that Papa would not give his daughters. I overheard Mama one time say to Eliza that nothing but your affection could make her life bearable. I have often thought about that. I knew there were difficulties in her marriage with Papa, but I did not think she was unhappy.”
Aunt Elizabeth came in from the belowstairs kitchen at that point and settled across from me. “I believe it was the insecurity of life in her early days with William,” she said. “There was that constant moving about—from Boston to England to Quebec to Detroit—really, we could scarce keep track of it.”
“Now, what would you like to do today?” Uncle George asked, in an effort—so I guessed—to divert the conversation away from Mama’s problems and towards mine.
“Oh, please, take me to the harbour. I want to see the sailing ships.” I was not sure what Mama had told my uncle, and I did not want to say more until we had a few minutes’ private time together.
“I shall get the coachman at the corner livery stable to bring a carriage for us,” Uncle George said, “and we can be ready to depart within an hour.”
* * *
Though it was a sunny day, Uncle George cautioned me about the wind that blew from the river he called “the Hudson.” Aunt Elizabeth lent me a pair of gaiters that buttoned up the side and protected my legs from the cold. Uncle put on a fur-lined greatcoat, and we stepped up into the carriage and covered ourselves in some rather smelly fur coverings that the hired coachman provided.
The odours got worse once we turned the corner onto a main road. As I had noticed in my previous visits to New York, servants were busy emptying the contents of chamberpots from upper-storey windows onto the yards below. As well, large workhorses were pulling huge wagons of goods from the harbour, and the stink of piss and manure was overwhelming. Uncle passed me a clean handkerchief. “Breathe into it,” he said.
Our carriage made a sudden lurch into the centre of the road, and I yelped.
“It’s only a dead horse,” Uncle said. “We had to get around it. Stay calm.”
“Only a dead horse?” I could not keep the dismay from my voice.
“Yes, the horses that pull those wagons often last no more than two or three years. They work very hard, and sometimes they die right here in the street. Many of them weigh two thousand pounds, however, and their carcasses get left on the roadway until they disintegrate enough for a workman to pick up the pieces.”
Well, this was my view of a wider world, and I made up my mind to get used to it. I did my best not to gag, but Uncle George saw my effort. He laughed and put his arm around me.
Soon we were at the mouth of the Hudson River. “We call this New York Harbour,” Uncle George said, directing the driver to the edge of a hill where we could look down on the pier. A large sailing ship was in port. I stretched forward to look at it more closely.
“It’s the Manhattan,” I cried. “It’s the ship that I must board. How long will it be in the harbour? We must go back home, Uncle George. I must pack my things and get ready to board. Please. Please.”
“Your Mama has told me your wishes, Anne. I do not believe her when she writes that you are chasing after a bygone lover. But I do understand completely your desire for a new life. I hope you will not board the Manhattan, however. It is all too much of a rush, and the gossips in York would surely draw the wrong conclusions, though I doubt that you care about that. Elizabeth and I would like to have more time to spend with you before you depart. There will be another ship in the harbour within four days. Its name is the Albion. If you agree to go on that ship, I can speak to the captain whom I know from long ago when we were both in school together. He will see to your welfare, and I shall give you enough money for a comfortable cabin. I know you must be in need of money by now.”
It all sounded so reasonable, like something my Tolpuddle relatives might have said. In the household where I had grown up, reason seldom surfaced.
“I am short of money. I imagine that Mama had to part with a portion of the funds that Papa left her when he departed for England, and she could therefore not give me very much.”
“You are mistaken about your source of income for this venture, Anne. Your mother’s Boston aunt—the one who owned the millinery shop—left her a small annuity that she has spent to enable you to make this voyage. She disapproved of what you did, as you know, but she was determined to make this monetary sacrifice in spite of her disapproval.”
“I had no idea. I—”
“You have perhaps misunderstood your mother. She has always struggled to make your father understand the extent of his daughters’ and granddaughters’ needs, and when he refused to comply with her wishes, she has always stepped in—when she could—and spent her own small pittance.”
“It was she then, not Papa, who paid for my nieces’ education?”
“Yes.”
“Let us go back to your house now, Uncle George. I need to think about what you have told me.”
A sentence or two to the coachman, and we were on our way back to Pearl Street. I burrowed into the fur pelts, no longer noticing their smell, intent only on sorting out the information Uncle George had given me.
I had misjudged Mama. I had seen her as the dupe of my father. Instead she had been a brave and independent spirit—not always, it is true—but in moments when courage and selflessness mattered most.
As I dismounted from the sleigh and walked up the snowy path to my uncle’s house, I knew that I must somehow make whatever amends I could for my misjudgment. After all, four days’ delay in my departure made little difference in my plans for escape. As for revenge on the Robinsons, that seemed now to be mere pettiness.
Before we reached the front door, I turned to my uncle and said, “I am happy to stay with you and Aunt Elizabeth for several days and embark on the Albion when it comes into the harbour.”