A SHORT WALK ALONG THE WATERFRONT AND A BRIEF TURN INLAND brought us to our hotel almost immediately. I could see why Lyell had chosen it: if his avaricious soul could conceive of a New World paradise, this one street, Wall Street, must be it. Banks and insurers jostled with one another in their broad-shouldered buildings, while merchants and factors and exchanges squeezed between them. Nor was commerce confined to the privacy of the great houses: even outdoors, auctioneers who could afford no better raised themselves on puncheons of rum or bales of cotton and conducted their business with the crowds who flocked around them. Cries of ‘Another cent’ and ‘Once, twice’ filled the air, until I began to wonder whether the whole city itself would not change hands if a man tipped his hat at the right moment.
Having pushed through the tumult in a fever of confusion, I was eager to gain the sanctuary of our lodgings, but in this I was disappointed. From the outside, the Tontine Tavern looked more like a bank than a hotel: a fine brick building with narrow windows, fronted with a portico and surmounted by an imposing pediment. Steps led up from the road to its elevated front door, but as we stepped inside, far from escaping the noise, we actually increased it. The front room was packed with sober-suited gentlemen all talking and clamouring and waving papers in the air in a host of conversations and transactions. At first they were too rapt in their business to notice our arrival, but as first one and then others caught sight of Lyell they swarmed to speak with him. His daughter and I were pushed aside as a circle formed, and a hundred questions assailed him.
‘Have they reversed the Essex judgement?’
‘What news of Madison and Pinkney?’
‘Does Fox still live?’
‘Is there to be an embargo?’
Doubtless a thousand fortunes rested on the answers to those questions, but they might as well have enquired after the state of the moon for all I knew. I drifted away, wondering what strange manner of hotel Lyell had brought me to, and whether the roar of commerce would subside or continue unabated through the night.
As I edged through the crowd, a small man in round glasses snatched at my arm. Without introduction he asked, ‘Are you arrived from London?’
I nodded dumbly.
‘Tell me, how is the price of tobacco there? Up or down?’
‘Up?’ It was as much a question as a statement – I neither knew nor cared – but it seemed to please him enormously. He gave my hand a vigorous shake; then, as abruptly as he had approached, he scurried away shouting he would have a hundred shares of Virginia at eight and two bits.
Miss Lyell had vanished somewhere in the mêlée. Left alone, I found a servant hovering by the wall and established, counter to my every impression, that there was indeed lodging to be had, on the upper floors. I mentioned Lyell’s name, and was immediately led up three flights of stairs to a comfortable, well-proportioned room with a bed in the corner and a sash window looking out over the rooftops of New York. I threw my coat over a chair and sat back on the bed.
I was in a new city, a new country – a new side of the world, even – but those cares were nothing against the designs I had seen on Lyell’s chests. Two men on the same boat bound for the same port bearing cargoes under the same seal did not admit to happenstance. So far as I could see, that allowed only one explanation: Lyell was in league with whoever had sent Lieutenant Beauchamp’s letter, the very conspirators whom Nevell – and, apparently, I myself – were supposed to thwart. That made him liable to know a great deal more about the scheme than I did; the longer I spent in his company, the more likely I was to betray my ignorance. I did not like to think what would befall me if he discovered my deception.
I was sorely tempted to abandon my mission altogether, to jump back on board the Adventure and sail home. But I doubted Nevell would forgive such a craven abdication, and he was one of the few friends I could trust in England.
No. I would take the first coach to Pittsburgh next morning and hope that Lyell’s part in the business took him no further than New York. If he remarked at my undue haste, he could always ascribe it to enthusiasm.
A knock at the door rapped into my thoughts and I almost leaped off the bed. In the midst of such gloomy and fearful contemplation I could not bring myself to answer it. I sat still, straining my ears against the silence, and wished I had locked the door.
The knock came again and still I waited, unmoving. I thought I saw the handle begin to turn and cursed myself for not locking it, but almost as quickly it eased back into position and I heard footsteps padding away down the corridor. It might easily have been a porter with my chest, or Miss Lyell establishing my whereabouts, but I could not stop myself from trembling long after the sounds had died away.
I did not leave my room again that day. I dined in solitude, and when Miss Lyell called to ask if I would join them in the coffee house I pleaded illness. The commercial noises from below subsided at two o’clock, so suddenly that it must have been a customary arrangement. The sounds from the street, by contrast, did not die down until very much later; even after nightfall I could hear the clatter of carriages and the shouts of hawkers, the general hubbub which seemed to attend the city’s inhabitants wherever they gathered. It was not one tenth the size of London, yet already its boisterous spirits were her equal.
The next morning, I slipped out of the coffee house before the Lyells were about and, upon enquiry at a reading room, learned that the most direct road to Pittsburgh would begin with a journey to Philadelphia; furthermore, that the stage coach would leave from Fraunces’ Tavern at the junction of Pearl and Broad Streets. Unfortunately, by the time I had walked the half-mile to reach it through streets crowded with dray-carts, barrows and carriages, the coach had departed.
‘She’ll leave again tomorrow,’ the ostler told me. ‘Seven in the morning.’
That left me another day to lie idle in the city – another day in which I risked betraying myself to Lyell should I meet him. I could not sit in the hotel all day for he would surely find me there. I would have to stay abroad on the streets, and steal back late at night. It was not a happy prospect.
At least, though, there was plenty to see. From the tavern, I walked past the bridewell and an almshouse and turned onto an elegant thoroughfare which they called the Broadway. The houses here were tall and gracious, not unlike the fashionable terraces of London, though of red brick rather than yellow. The footways were paved with a similar brick, and planted with lofty poplars which doubtless gave a welcome shade in the summer. The sun was out and the sky an impeccable blue, though the November air was crisp on my cheeks. For a time I was able to forget my cares as I admired the trades on display – jewellers, hatters, milliners, drapers, pastrycooks – and the finely dressed women who patronized them.
Unaccountably, I found my thoughts turning to Isobel. Perhaps it was the memories of walking down the Strand with her in London and seeing her delight; perhaps it was the stirrings I felt seeing so many embonpoints precariously covered by light French silks and crêpes. Whatever the cause, it was a welcome distraction from my more immediate concerns. What was Isobel doing now, I wondered? Would she have stayed in London? I doubt she would have returned to her native Dover, for she had no home there save the poorhouse, and enemies who would not welcome her back. Had she found another man? Though I no longer had any claim on her affections, the prospect troubled me. She had wanted me to marry her, after all – it would be a rank betrayal to forget me so quickly.
For a moment, I had almost found myself wishing her present with me there, soothing my fears and offering her commonsense advice, but the thought of her dancing around London with some upstart dandy on her arm quelled that desire instantly. Still, I could show her my generosity of spirit, demonstrate that I harboured no grudge. The gleam of a jeweller’s window caught my eye as I walked past, and on impulse I broke my stride and stepped in. A pair of golden earrings seemed a suitable present: a souvenir of my visit to America and a signifier of my enduring fondness for her. The jeweller wrapped them in paper for me, and took my guineas without any quibble.
As I continued down the Broadway the shops began to give way to houses. The buildings were older in this part of the city, some of them still bearing the steep, step-gabled roofs of the Dutchmen who had first settled Manhattan. Off the main thoroughfare, the streets were pinched closer together, and the houses built of timber. It seemed a strange contrast, a remnant of a pioneering settlement in the midst of the otherwise modern city.
Beyond the end of the Broadway, the island tapered to the point past which we had sailed the previous morning. There was a battery here to guard the approach, but the greater part of the ground had been laid out as a park. Long avenues of elms and oaks led on to fine views over the harbour, while children played cricket on the lawns.
‘Lieutenant Jerrold!’
The voice surprised me, though I knew it even before I had turned to see her. Miss Lyell was standing on the gravel walk in a close-fitting green dress, with a spencer over her shoulders and a smart beaver hat cocked atop her golden curls. She did not appear to be chaperoned.
‘How do you do?’ If my manner was a touch stiff after two months’ close companionship at sea, it was because I had hoped to avoid her and her father entirely. Though now that we had met, I could not deny a certain uncomfortable pleasure at her presence.
‘How do you find the city?’ I asked.
She slid her arm into mine and started forward, drawing me after her. We were almost at the end of the path, where the gentle park ended in a rocky embankment and the confluence of the two rivers with the sea.
‘It is a little dull, don’t you think?’
‘You prefer London?’
‘London is very fine, I grant you, but it wears on me. The society there can be so … inflexible. Papa spends all his time at the bank, or in his clubs and coffee houses; we do not entertain very much. I am glad to see more of the world.’ She squeezed my arm.
‘And how long will you stay in New York?’ The question was of more than casual interest to me.
‘Another day or two, I collect. Papa insists that he must make some journey to the interior of the continent soon, though I fear it will be a great hardship if winter approaches.’
I felt my spirits circling ever lower. ‘Whereabouts into the interior?’
‘A settlement called Pittsburgh,’ she said with disdain. ‘No doubt it will consist of a log hut and three wigwams, and be populated with the most tedious savages.’
It was the answer I had feared. For a moment, I did not know what to say, whether to admit it as my own destination or feign ignorance. Miss Lyell removed the matter from my hands. ‘But of course you will see it for yourself. Papa tells me that you are bound there also – is it not a curious coincidence? – and you will accompany us on the journey. I think he is much relieved that he will have a stalwart hero to defend him – as I am.’
She stopped and gazed up at me. She had reached back a hand to keep the hat from sliding off, so that her spencer fell open and her breasts pressed forward towards me. With the sun gilding her ivory complexion and the emerald pendant gleaming at her throat, her beauty was irresistible.
The breeze filled my senses with the sticky salt air of the harbour and I leaned forward to kiss her. My lips touched hers, then glided over her cheek as she ducked gracefully aside and pressed a quick kiss behind my ear. She stepped back.
‘You presume too much, Lieutenant,’ she rebuked me. A strand of hair had fallen down over her face, and her breathing was agitated. ‘I am not some French ship that you can seize for your prize as the fancy takes you.’
She was playing with me; I could see the mischief in her eyes. ‘You must forgive me, Miss Lyell, if I gave offence. Je ne peux pas résister ton beauté.’
She teased a finger against my chest. ‘Ta beauté. But I forgive you, Lieutenant. A man should not fear to pursue his desires, though a less sociable place might be better suited to it. We must not take our pleasures at the expense of reputation.’
I believed I understood her perfectly. Suddenly, the long journey to the depths of the continent seemed an entirely more agreeable prospect – if we could avoid her father.
On impulse, I reached into my pocket. ‘If I cannot give you a kiss, perhaps, for now, I may give you these.’ I handed over the jeweller’s packet, and she beamed with excitement as she pulled away the paper. ‘No doubt they seem a meagre trinket to you. But I hope you will take them as a token of my admiration.’
With an expert hand, she plucked the earrings she wore from her lobes and dropped them into a velvet bag in her reticule. Then, equally deftly, she fastened my gifts in their place.
‘They are perfect,’ she declared, though of course she could not see them. ‘But I hope you do not think this to be sufficient gift.’
She laughed at the confusion evident in my eyes, and lowered her voice to a suggestive whisper. ‘I will want more than token evidence of your affections presently.’
There was a wicked promise in her words, and my face must have betrayed my lascivious thoughts for she laughed at me and spun away. ‘For now, we had best return to Papa. He will be expecting us for dinner.’
The streets were busy and hectic as ever as we approached the Tontine Tavern. An auctioneer was knocking down hogsheads of sugar at a furious rate, while opposite a cleric in black was nailing up a broadside denouncing some vice or other. I took Miss Lyell’s arm and steered her between the rush of carriages and wagons, taking care to avoid the mounds of dung which steamed in the road. As I looked up, a figure loitering by the tavern steps caught my eye.
‘You!’ I hailed him, letting go Miss Lyell and stepping towards him. ‘A word, if you please.’
He did not please. As soon as he heard my shout he jerked up his head from his hunched shoulders, then turned and hurried away around the corner of the building. Before I could follow, a curricle had blocked my path, and by the time it was past he had vanished.
‘Whatever are you doing, Lieutenant?’ asked Miss Lyell.
‘I thought I saw Fothergill waiting at the tavern.’ In fact, I was sure of it. I had had a good glimpse of his face, and he was not a man easily mistaken.
‘The steward? But why should he not be there? He will not be required aboard the Adventure now, and we are not so far from the docks here.’
All she said was perfectly true, but it did not convince me. I was suddenly anxious to return to my room.
‘I will join you in the dining room,’ I told Miss Lyell.
Even before I reached the room I could see that something was wrong. Light was shining into the corridor from my doorway, though I was certain I had left it locked. I ran the last few yards and saw the splintered timber around the lock where the door had been prised open.
The room was in chaos. The bed had been overturned and the mattress hacked apart with a knife, so that its horsehair intestines bulged out of the wounds. A similar fate had befallen the seat of the chair, while the contents of my chest were strewn across the floor. They had even taken an axe to the chest itself: a fractured hole gaped where they had chopped through the bottom.
As I gazed on the ruin with disbelieving horror, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall behind. I turned and saw Lyell in the door. His face was flushed, and his breathing laboured.
‘What the devil has happened here?’ he bellowed. And then, more quietly, glancing over his shoulder, ‘What has become of your package?’