The Banished Children of Eve (27 page)

They were on a rise in the road that gave them a dramatic view of the city to the south and the Palisades to the west. Charles got down first. He helped Ward out of the coach, and held his hand up to Sarah. She took it, and with her other hand lifted her dress at the knee, exposing the black silk stocking above the top of her shoe. Charles felt the warmth of the sun on his face. He closed his eyes for an instant and pictured the silk as it ran up her leg, enfolded it, the black ending at the perfect whiteness of her thigh.

“You
know,” Ward said, “this is near where that imposter Amos Greene claims to have shot a British soldier dead and saved the American retreat. Youngest hero of the Revolution. Absolute bunkum. Everyone knows it was Jacob Valentine who fired the shot.”

Sarah bent down and picked a dandelion, a ball of soft fluff at the end of a stem. She held it to her lips and touched it gently to her tongue. She blew on it, and the ball exploded. A shower of white particles traveled on the wind. She picked another and handed it to Charles.

Ward had his back to them. He looked at the city in the distance. “Mr. Barnum even went so far as to make Greene one of his exhibits. Posed him in a uniform with a musket in front of a wax image of General Washington. A perfect marriage of scoundrels, Greene and Barnum.”

Charles blew on the dandelion. The white down shot away from him in a long spray.

“If some future historian ever wished to chart the decay of this Republic,” said Ward, “all he'd need do is recount the origins of Mr. Barnum's museum. Think of it. When Tammany was founded at the end of the Revolution as a patriotic society for artisans and mechanics, it created, as part of its aspirations to knowledge and self-improvement, a collection of art and specimens of nature. But since Tammany very quickly surrendered such aspirations, it turned over the nascent museum to its caretaker, who sold it to John Scudder, who sold it to Barnum. Here we have the history of the Republic itself! A collection of exhibits formed from a native spirit of patriotism becomes in two generations a circus, a collection of two-headed calves and bogus mermaids and false heroes exhibited for the enjoyment of a gross and ignorant mob.”

When they
reentered the coach, Charles sat next to Sarah, with Ward on the seat across from them. Ward continued to lecture. Charles rocked with the motion of the coach, falling gently against Sarah, their shoulders and legs continually touching. Sarah was quiet. She nodded in agreement with whatever her uncle said. Ward pointed north, across the Harlem River, to wooded hills in the distance. “Over there lies the Van Cortlandt estate. A good family, they suffered much for the cause of the Revolution, and afterwards were strong supporters of the rights of property. It seemed obvious to them, as to others, that men of property had a natural interest in order and stability, and that men of no property had an equal interest in overturning such order. The Van Cortlandts were men of common sense, I'd say, a moral asset increasingly lacking in this age. Of course, they had the advantage not only of having good breeding but of coming from good stock, a mixture of English and Dutch blood. Mr. Stark tells me that this is your ancestry, too.”

“Yes,” Charles said. He had barely been listening. The touch and scent of her body so close, the thought of those black stockings, white thighs, two bodies entwined, she so willing and eager, breathless,
Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!

“An unbeatable mixture of bloods,” Ward said. “From the English come the boundless spirit of individual enterprise, the solid courage, the sense of civility and propriety, and the instinct for self-government. From the Dutch, the sound practical sense, the patient industry, the willingness to persist, and, not least of all, the respect for women. The Dutch blood comes from your mother's side, I take it.”

“Yes, she was a Van Vliet.”

Mother. A worn and silent woman from the earliest he could remember, withdrawn, eternally tired, empty of emotion. Maiden name was Payne. He had no idea of her blood. English, he supposed.

“The Van
Vliets of Brooklyn?” Ward asked.

“Of Albany.”

“Albany? I didn't know there was a northern branch of the family.”

“Albany is overrun with Van Vliets.” The coach jolted. Charles put his hands on the seat to steady himself. He felt Sarah's hand beneath his. She didn't pull it away. She turned and smiled at him.

On the way home they passed a wrecked coach. Baggage and bodies were strewn across the roadside. Sarah turned away. Ward shook his head as they drove slowly by. “Such disasters are commonplace now,” he said. “We see them every day. Smashed and ruined vehicles, broken bodies thrown about like child's toys. Yet scenes such as this fail to bring any alteration in conduct, and the addiction to velocity seems only to become more severe with each passing day. God knows what it will take to cure us of such a dangerous and destructive passion.”

When they reached home it was dusk, and the street looked shabbier than ever. Sarah went up the stoop into the house. Ward stood on the sidewalk and shook hands with Charles. On the other side of the street a disheveled Irishwoman with a ragged woolen shawl pulled over her head was sitting in front of a decaying wreck of a house. She was singing in a loud voice, but the words were indecipherable.

“Can you believe that the French ambassador to the Republic once lived not far from here?” Ward said, shaking his head as if to answer his own question.

“I should like to call again soon to take a drive to some other point in the country. In no time I shall be educated in the history of this city.”

“Quite so. I should like to do it again myself. In a fortnight, let's say.”

“A fortnight it is.”

For the next two weeks Charles wrestled with his emotions. He would have to declare his love to Sarah. He was sure that she felt something toward him. Love? He hoped so. If it was, sooner or later he would ask Ward for her hand. The question of his family would come under closer scrutiny. He would have to do better than claim some mythic family from Albany. There would have to be portraits, artifacts, papers, some silverware, an officially prepared record of his ancestry. Charles was certain it could be done. A few judicious purchases in the pawnshops, a writer paid to invent a history, a craftsman engaged to produce some authentic-looking documents. Somewhere in the city there were people to provide all these things. He couldn't be alone in his need for a past, not in New York.

As the
day approached, Charles practiced in his mind what he would say, how he would tell Sarah about his growing affection. He wouldn't use the word
love,
not yet. In a building on Frankfort Street, right in the middle of the Swamp, the city's leather district, he found an antiquarian shop that sold reproductions of old maps, charters, certificates, parchments. The proprietor, Mr. John Allan, sat at a counter carefully turning the brittle pages of what seemed an ancient book. Without looking at Charles, he said, “We can do most anything. It will cost, but it can be done.” He pushed the book he was examining across to Charles, his finger holding it open to the title page. The words were in Latin and Charles couldn't understand them, but below the words were the Roman numerals MDCX. Allan raised his spectacles to the top of his head and put his face close to the page. “Sixteen ten,” he said. He tapped the date with a yellowed finger. “But in truth this is as fresh as today's newspaper.” He lifted his head and smiled. His teeth were as yellow as his finger. “Yes indeed, for the right price, we can do just about anything.” Charles smiled back. A deeply felt smile. His spirits soared. Now he had an ancestry, as noble and extensive as he wished.

He showed up at Ward's home excited, with a sense of the importance this day would hold in his life. As soon as the carriage pulled up, Ward came out the door and down the steps. They shook hands. “Well, I've been looking forward to this,” said Ward.

“I too.”

Ward motioned
to the carriage. “Shall we?”

“What about Sarah?”

Ward's face showed his surprise. “Sarah? Sarah left for England three days ago.”

They got into the carriage. Afterward, Charles would remember little of the hours that followed, only the drone of the old man's voice. He resolved to be through with Ward. He would notify him that his account could no longer be handled by Stark and Evans. He would forget Sarah. New York teemed with women. He threw himself into his work. The task of making money seemed a kind of revenge. It comforted him. And three weeks later, before he could get around to discontinuing Ward's account, the panic struck. He was in the office from morning to the late evening, calling in his chips, tallying up his victory.

The train stations were filled with brokers and investors returning from the country in the hope that they could salvage a part of their fortunes. Americans streamed home from abroad, entire families on European tour discovering that in their absence their quickly accumulated wealth, the privilege and position they had obtained almost overnight, was gone. The sellers' market was now a buyers' one. New money replaced by the still newer. The pages of the
Tribune
devoted to “Houses for Sale/To Let” doubled and trebled. One day Ward appeared in the offices of Stark and Evans, and Charles supposed he was there to offer thanks for the salvation of his property. But Ward was glum. “Some of the oldest and finest families in the city are ruined. A terrible thing to see. They come to me for help or advice. Some even come right out and ask for money.”

“The poor usually do.”

“Where will all this lead?”

Charles opened the
Tribune
across his desk and waved his hand over the long columns of real estate notices. “It will lead wherever you wish it to. My advice is to have your present home subdivided into three or four flats and rent them. It will be a nice source of additional income. You are now in a position to buy a fine new house in a rising part of the city. The market is over-whelmed with such bargains. Mr. Ward, you should be celebrating. You have survived the Flood. The tide that has sent other men to the bottom has lifted you up. You are a true son of Noah. Multiply your holdings in real estate as fast as you can.”

“I
shall consider it. But real estate is not what brings me here. Sarah has returned from England. She thought perhaps you might wish to renew your generous invitation to escort us into the country for a day's excursion. It would be salubrious for all of us, I should think.”

More than mere happenstance, luck is the result of patiently striving to put the odds in one's own favor.
Stark's formulation. Charles felt the truth of it. It was luck that he hadn't gotten around to closing Ward's account. But the victory he now felt on the verge of winning flowed out of the time and care he had invested in cultivating his relationship with Ward. A long time since the night he had run into Ward and Sarah at the lecture by Charles Loring Brace. He barely knew Sarah. Their conversations had hardly gone beyond the tritest pleasantries. Except for the electricity he had felt between them that day they went to the High Bridge, she had never given any indication of her feeling toward him. But the pull he felt toward her wasn't something that yielded to reason. It was something he felt in his gut. An absolute confidence that what was about to happen had to happen. He had been patient. She was his now. He felt it was a certainty.

When he knocked on the door, Sarah answered. He greeted her stiffly and stood silently by the stairs. She was as beautiful as he had remembered.

“I have bad news,” she said.

Charles felt his chest contract. Could he be wrong about what must happen? “What is it?”

“Uncle is feeling unwell and shan't be able to accompany us.”

“But you still wish to go?”

“Of course.”

They drove up Fifth Avenue in Charles's new coach, a London-made brougham bought for a song from a distressed broker. Charles sat across from Sarah. He asked her a few questions about England but not about with whom she had stayed or whether she had been entertaining the proposition of some wealthy young Englishman whose fortune had disappeared when the panic crossed the Atlantic. He suspected this might be the case but no longer cared. What he cared about was having her.

The conversation
died. Their silence filled the coach. He couldn't wait any longer. He rose from his place and sat again, beside her. “Sarah, I missed you.”

“And I you, Charles.”

He put his hand on her breast. She put her hand over his and pressed it. He took off his hat and threw it onto the opposite seat. He kissed her on the cheek. She turned her mouth to him and he kissed it. She unbuttoned his shirt and put her hand inside. He pulled away.

“What's wrong?” she said.

“Nothing.” He knelt on the forward seat and slipped back the panel that fronted on the driver's seat. He knocked on the roof, and the driver's face appeared. “No interruptions. Drive on until I tell you to stop, and go slowly.”

He put his hands on the inside wall of the coach to steady himself. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him down on top of her as she spread her body across the length of the seat. He sat back onto his knees and undid her bodice. She unloosened his belt and opened the buttons of his fly. He knelt on the floor and pulled off her petticoat. He got back on top of her, the rhythm of their rise and fall conforming with the motion of the carriage. He ran his tongue down her neck. She sighed. He put his face beside hers and said softly in her ear, “Let us be fruitful and multiply.”

A few weeks later, Charles asked Ward and Sarah to join him for a ride up to see the work on Central Park. Since a new superintendent, Mr. Olmsted, was now overseeing the construction, a real park had finally begun to emerge from the swamps and squatters' settlements that the city government had acquired for over five million dollars.