31 Bond Street Part 12

January 31, 1857 Emma woke before dawn, then fell back to sleep. When she next awoke, it was almost seven, and she was in a cold sweat, frightened by a vivid dream. In the dream, she stood on the stoop of an elegant home. Harvey Burdell appeared at the door and handed her a bundle. The bundle was an infant, wrapped tight-an exchange for something that was not clear. Below at the curb, a carriage waited, and Samuel beckoned, from the top seat. She saw that he was waving a b.l.o.o.d.y knife. She looked down, and there was blood on her hands and on the baby's blanket. Samuel had cut the umbilical cord, and the baby was bleeding through the blanket. Shaking, she woke, and shook off the strange dream.

From her bed, she could hear the servant boy banging the coal buckets as he carried them down the stairs. She got up and pushed hairpins into the places where it had come loose during the night, tucking strands into the folds of her twist while new strands fell forward, as if nothing was willing to hold.

She had stayed up past midnight the night before, saying good-bye to her straggling guests and directing the maids to clean up after the party. She had been satisfied with the level of gaiety in the parlor and of Ambrose Wicken's charming interlude with Augusta, but the memory of Dr. Burdell's departure had left her feeling weary. As she'd prepared for bed she'd listened for Dr. Burdell-he had never returned, and she suspected he was spending the night out of the house. She had gone to the fireplace and torn a bristle from the small hearth broom and made her way down the tall stairway to his door. There was only the faintest flame left in the hall lamp, lowered by Hannah. Emma had placed the bristle of the broom in the lower crack of door, down low, where it sat in the pile of the carpet. If it were unmoved in the morning, she would know that he had stayed out the entire night.

On her way downstairs now, she saw the bristle still on the door, unmoved. He had not come home-and the knowledge instilled a hard feeling of resolve.

She returned to her room and began to dress slowly, putting on her best suit. It was Friday. Today was the day that Augusta was riding with Ambrose Wicken, and Helen was leaving for school the following day. Emma determined that it was time that she took matters into her own hands.

In the kitchen, she asked, "Has Dr. Burdell rung for his breakfast?"

"He has not rung, this morning, Ma'am," said Hannah. Alice was at the kitchen table slurping some porridge. Both of them seemed to be mocking her, for certainly they knew from the bed linens that he was often sleeping out of the house at night.

"Hannah, would you send John to bring Samuel around. I would like to use the carriage."

"I don't know if I should tell Samuel to come around unless that's the orders from the master," replied Hannah, making herself an obstacle.

Emma did not have the patience to bicker. "Very well, then I shall see to it myself," she said firmly. She gathered her coat and headed out of the house, pulling on her gloves. The stable was at the end of the street, near the Bowery, and she found Samuel inside.

"I will be taking the carriage now," she said.

"I am waiting for my orders for the day, as I usually do," he replied.

"I believe Dr. Burdell is occupied and will not need the carriage this morning."

He gazed at her with a quizzical expression.

"Have you ever driven Dr. Burdell to the home of Commodore Vanderkirk?" she asked.

"I have been to many a home, Ma'am."

"I want you to drive me there."

"To Mr. Vanderkirk?"

"Yes, now. I am taking the carriage. You need not wait for any other orders. My own orders will suffice. Do as I say. Hitch up the horse. And put on your livery." Samuel stiffened, as if confused. He started moving to ready the horse. Emma marched out of the stable to wait on the sidewalk while the carriage was readied, and soon Samuel led the carriage out to meet her. He had put on his red jacket and his tan boots. He opened the door for her, and then he climbed onto the driver's seat.

They rode slowly north on Broadway. The morning had a wintry pall, with deep clouds that hung low in the sky, sooty as smoke. They turned onto Fourteenth Street and then onto Fifth Avenue. A few blocks farther, at Sixteenth Street, Samuel stopped before an enormous limestone residence, ablaze with light. Emma stepped down and hesitated before the door. Atop the doorway was a carving of a seafaring s.h.i.+p, as if it were a coat of arms. She pulled a bra.s.s bell and heard distant footsteps echo across the marble floor. A butler, in formal attire, pulled the heavy door open and said dryly, "Good morning, Madame."

Emma curtsied, but before she could speak, the butler said, "I regret to inform you that Madame Vanderkirk will not be seeing anyone today. If you leave your card, she will be most obliged to have you return when she is receiving visitors."

"I am here to see Commodore Vanderkirk," stated Emma, without preamble. "It is a matter of importance." The butler faltered, which indicated to her that the Commodore was most likely at home.

"May I ask who is calling?" he said. Emma reached into her purse and handed the butler one of the cards that she had ordered for the party that said only "31 Bond Street." The butler looked at it skeptically, and Emma said, "He will know who I am, and he will know my business."

"I shall inquire," the butler said, admitting her into the front hall, which had a black and white marble floor. The butler slowly mounted a tall stairway with her card in hand. To her left, Emma peered into the library, a vast room lined with cases of rare leather volumes. There was a writing table with a felted blotter, and a rack of newspapers, carefully folded, as if they were fine linens. A tray table sat readied before an armchair. It was set with fine china and crystal gla.s.sware and had a domed silver chafing dish, with a frost of steam across the top, spread for the Commodore's breakfast. It appeared that anything the man needed was brought forth to him, and when he was done, it was whisked away.

Emma remained waiting for a long while, examining the surroundings while the bra.s.s pendulum in the hall clock swung back and forth. Finally she heard the steady footsteps of the butler returning.

"Come this way," the butler said. She followed him down a long corridor to a rear wing of the house with numerous closed doors that might be closets or anterooms, used by servants. At the very end was a door, and the butler opened it to the cold air of the outdoors and a private service alley. Her carriage had been moved into this alley, where it sat waiting, and the butler stepped out and opened the door for her. He stood there imperiously in his black uniform, waiting for her to enter. Furious, Emma lifted her skirts and climbed the carriage step, ducked into the carriage, and settled on the seat.

"I am sorry, Madame," the butler said, "the Commodore is not at home."

Of course he is at home, she thought, I saw his breakfast waiting. But she could not bear to dignify the insult and manner of her dismissal with a response.

The butler shut the door of the cab, and she heard him whisper instructions to Samuel as the carriage started to move along the narrow driveway, flanked on one side by a wall and on the other side by the enormous facade of the house, which, at this close angle, loomed as large as a hotel. There was a row of kitchen windows at the lowest level, and Emma could see many cooks and servants scurrying about. Vegetables were piled by the sinks, and roasts were lined up beside the large iron ovens, and tarts laid out in rows on baking sheets, as if in preparation for a banquet or a ball. And there, standing to oversee the activity, was Mrs. Vanderkirk, a heavyset woman, recognizable not by her dress, for she was wearing ordinary attire, but by the flash and solidity of her jewelry, the gems on her hands evident, even as the carriage slid by.

The carriage moved several yards past the kitchen windows, under a portico at the corner of the mansion, and stopped. Ahead, Emma could see that the driveway forked left to the stables and right past a gla.s.s conservatory where the carriage could exit again on Fifth Avenue. Then the carriage door opened and the corpulent figure of Commodore Vanderkirk climbed in beside her.

"I do not know the reason for your visit, but you compromise me by coming to my house," he stated without greeting.

Startled by his presence and his tone, Emma faltered. "Sir, you must be mistaken by my purpose. I am here on the very same business about which you recently visited Dr. Burdell at my home."

"A woman does not come to speak privately at the home of a gentleman. It has a certain significance that would not be appreciated by my wife. She jumps to conclusions when I receive a lady behind closed doors."

"You must know I have no illicit intention. I am here to discuss the sale of land. There is no other business between us."

"That matter is between myself and Dr. Burdell. By coming alone, I suspect you are going behind his back. And furthermore I do not conduct business with women."

Emma found herself emboldened by her own transgression, now that she was cramped in the small carriage beside him. Even if she wanted to, she could not retreat. "Sir, with all due respect, you have come outside to meet me, and so I suspect you have a desire to hear what I have to say." Her voice was tenuous, and she nervously hastened to speak her message. "Dr. Burdell did not reveal to you the true owners.h.i.+p of the land. If you wish to buy it, I am able to sell it to you directly."

"This is most irregular," he said. "And who do you pretend to be? Are you the wife? The mistress? Perhaps it would be useful for me to instruct you that frauds are committed every day and I should have no reason to suspect anything but a ruse." The Commodore put his fingers together, tapping them impatiently.

She lifted her chin and spoke with the clipped diction of one who has been insulted. "I purchased the deed you desire with money from my daughter's dowry, left by her deceased father. The land in question is my daughter's, and I am in a position of authority with regard to her affairs. I shall handle this matter myself. It is my own property, not that of Dr. Burdell."

The Commodore, pondering her, said, "Your friend, the Doctor, has many schemes afloat. I saw him just yesterday, and once again, I made him a fair offer for the property, but he refused. He tells me he has other plans for this same plot. He told me that he intends to finish up this sale and then he is going to sail to Europe." Emma flushed, furious at the reference, for it conjured up an image of the woman from the hotel, strolling with Dr. Burdell along a s.h.i.+p's deck as they crossed the Atlantic.

Emma took a deep breath and spoke to him directly. "I know that you desire this land for your own ambitions, and it would be well to discuss a price."

"So now you are a financier! Isn't this all above your head? Hah," he said, "certainly, everything has a price in this city-land, political favors, female companions.h.i.+p-"

"I would like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars," said Emma, interrupting, surprised by her own brashness.

The commodore appeared visibly subdued, and his expression turned sour. "I see you are a profiteer! And if I turn down your sum?"

"I shall marry my daughter to her fiance. He is from the South and would most likely desire this property to do with as he pleases. But, sir, I would prefer to finalize this deal with you."

He jostled in his seat and pulled out his gold watch. "I am wasting my time and the money is of little consequence to me. Hand over the deed, and I will give you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I am tired of bickering over it, I really prefer that this be done," he ordered.

Stunned, Emma quickly countered, "I will certainly accommodate you, but I do not have the doc.u.ment here. I shall arrange to take the deed to my solicitor, Mr. Billings on Worth Street, and he will oversee the sale for that sum."

"Very well, then." The Commodore opened the door to the carriage and squeezed his large body out. "I shall send my own counsel. Make sure it is there at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon," then he slammed it shut behind him. Emma heard him pa.s.s by the horse and say to Samuel, "Be off, boy. Use the stable gate."

The carriage veered left into the large stable yard. They sat before the closed gate until a groom came scurrying to lift the latch. The prospect of the Commodore's offer was almost too large to absorb. Emma slumped back in the seat, still rattled by his indignant tone. But was it possible that her worries were finally over? That she could spend the entire summer at her leisure in Saratoga or Newport? She imagined Augusta in a dress styled after the cla.s.sical manner, with an Empire waist and a blue sash, standing with Ambrose Wicken at the altar in a dove grey suit. What were the fas.h.i.+ons in Paris this year?

The groom pulled open the gate that opened onto Seventeenth Street, a street lined with small buildings and stables that served the mansions on Fifth Avenue. As the carriage turned, a servant from the kitchen appeared with a barrel of remains. She dropped a bit of the trash, and the wind picked it up, and twisted it into eddies around the girl's feet, then she poured the barrel into a street receptacle.

Some women were huddled, waiting; they rushed forward, wraithlike, their cheeks sallow and bloated, their eyes l.u.s.terless, their teeth discolored, and their hair matted with dirt. The women plunged their arms up to the shoulders in the trash bins and pulled out feathers, bits of fat, bones, and entrails of fowl and ate ravenously from the waste.

A little girl, about ten years of age, pulled out a ham bone still pink with bits of flesh. Upon seeing the carriage moving past, she ran up to the window with a taunting manner and paraded before it, mimicking an actress strutting across the stage. Her face was defiant, and she pulled up her tattered frock to her armpits, exposing her naked body. She laughed at her own impudence and walked up and down before the mansion gate until a group of boys coming along the other side of the street shouted, clapped, then threw sticks at her and the little girl tired of her act. She shouted some half-worded insults, then, with the quickness of a cat, she scurried away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

Emma fished in her purse and jiggled the large key in the front door to unlock the heavy bolt. She could tell by the hat on the hall table that Dr. Burdell had now returned home. The errand boy came forward to take her coat.

"Are there patients waiting?"

"None today, Ma'am. Since it is Friday," he said. "Dr. Burdell has been settling his business and is going out to his bank and other errands."

She rushed past him, upstairs, past the closed door to Dr. Burdell's office where the light above the transom was burning bright. She would take the deed right away, downtown to Mr. Billings, for safekeeping. She hurried to the third floor and closed her bedroom door behind her. She sat on the vanity stool, pulling off her gloves. She opened the drawer, and as her hand entered the s.p.a.ce, her fingers grazed the wood at the bottom of the drawer and she moved her hand around inside where it encountered the four sides of the drawer. She moved it again and again before she dared to look down and confirm what she sensed-that the drawer was empty and her doc.u.ment was not there.

She reached around and around, pulled the drawer open wide, but it was empty. Then she yanked the opposite drawer. Bottles and cremes rattled as she pulled the drawer out too far, causing the contents to spill to the floor.

She was overcome by a sense of alarm. Perhaps she had forgotten and placed the deed inside the closet. She ran to her armoire and began thras.h.i.+ng to get to the shelves, pus.h.i.+ng aside her muslins and petticoats. She pulled everything out, causing clothes and fabric to fall in a pile, creating more hiding places and confusion, clawing harder as a surge of panic came rus.h.i.+ng over her in waves.

She hadn't put the deed in her armoire or in her closet, nor under the mattress or behind a picture frame. She let out a m.u.f.fled cry of despair at the certainty of what she had known at the first moment she put her gloves in the drawerHarvey Burdell had taken her deed.

The minutes pa.s.sed and Emma fell to the ground defeated, sitting in a pile of scattered clothes and the disorder of her room. Fractures were spreading deep into the most believing parts of her, and the fearful emotions that now began to rise up were mixed with outrage. Harvey Burdell would rue the day that he had the effrontery to enter her room and remove her possession. With her heart still beating heavily, she stood up, tossing the clothing that was in her way. She knocked over the vanity stool as she made her way to her door and headed downstairs. The sight of Dr. Burdell's closed door so invoked her outrage of the theft that she was overcome with the urge to confront him, her anger and agitation rising to a pitch. With one knuckle, she knocked, pounding loudly and insistently.

There was no answer so she put her ear against the door and envisioned papers lying across the desk, and on top of them, her deed. She turned the k.n.o.b.

"Emma." She jumped back, startled to see Dr. Burdell behind her, coming up the stair.

"I am looking for you," she said defiantly. He stopped at the top stair, facing her. She was blocking his door.

"Step aside, I have work to do," he said dismissively.

"You have taken my deed," she said.

"What? I have done no such thing."

"You have, and you have lied to me about its worth."

"You are mad. I have no interest in something that is valueless. Nor do I intend to pay you for it. You have lost your chance and my offer is withdrawn."

"You have stolen it and are selling it."

"Move away from my door. I am expecting a visitor and I have business to do." Downstairs, the doorbell rang, and John answered it, and then she heard the singsong voice of a woman. Her mind raced with the urge to confront Dr. Burdell-to chastise him for his betrayals, his infidelity, and his scurrilous behavior.

"You have been out every night with another woman, and your treatment of me has been dishonorable!" she declared.

He sighed. "If you say so."

"Did you not promise to marry me and say that after we were to be married that we were going to Europe?" her voice was rising, incredulous.

"Yes, I suppose you are right." His tone was resigned, as if he were talking to someone whose mind was addled.

"And that we would live in this house as husband and wife, or move to Fifth Avenue?"

"Of course, of course."

"Is anything the truth? Do you lie to get your way? Do you believe that my daughters and I are just figurines for you to move about for your own purposes? That I wouldn't see a magistrate and bring a suit against you for breach of promise?"

He glowered, now rising to anger himself. "Will you leave me alone? I have a visitor. She is waiting downstairs," and he pushed Emma aside and entered the office, shutting the door in her face, and turning the lock.

Rattled, she banged at the door vehemently, repeatedly calling out, loudly, "You will regret this. You have taken my papers, and I will see that they are returned to me."

Her mind raced to the fact that she had nothing to show the Commodore, and if there were any delay in presenting the deed, he would suspect she was a fraud. Then she remembered Mr. Billings-he knew of the transfer of Augusta's dowry and kept slips of paper marking her transactions. He would certainly be able to help her secure her rightful claim to the land. And she thought of Ambrose Wicken. She could appeal to him for advice; as Augusta's suitor he would have an active interest in the matter. She rushed back to her room and went to her desk, where she took out her note paper and still standing, hastily penned a note, Mr. Wicken, I am most grateful for your offer of friends.h.i.+p and advice, and I am now in need of such, but it must be kept in the strictest confidence.

As you know, I have a deed to a parcel of land purchased with proceeds of my daughter Augusta's dowry. I know you are a man of honorable intentions. I am obliged if you would meet me tomorrow to discuss this matter My daughter Helen will be leaving for school in the morning, and after her departure, I will come with the carriage to your hotel at 1 p.m.

E. Cunningham She sealed the envelope with a drip of wax and hastily wrote Ambrose Wicken's name on the envelope and then headed downstairs to place it on the hall table. In the foyer, she pa.s.sed the visitor who had just rung the bell, a plump, middle-aged woman who nodded anxiously and said, "Good morning, Ma'am." Emma rushed by with barely a nod and spoke to John.

"When Mr. Wicken rings to take Augusta for a ride, please see that he has this letter," she told him.

Next, she determined that she would get the keys from Alice so she could use them to examine Dr. Burdell's room, after he had gone out. When she reached the kitchen, Hannah started complaining right off.

"I won't be able to finish the bread, because I have run out of yeast. There is none in the larder, for no one has kept up with the provisions."

"Where is Alice?" snapped Emma.

"Doing the bedrooms, I suppose."

"She is not upstairs, Hannah. She has not been seen since I returned."

Hannah avoided Emma's eyes. "Am I supposed to make bread rise without yeast, and also to keep track of the parlor maid?" she muttered.

"You are insolent! Where is she? Is Alice in the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"I don't have eyes at the back of my head to see where she goes while I am at the stove." Furious, Emma marched into the pantry, which served as a was.h.i.+ng room. There was a door to the back garden and another door to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Emma opened the bas.e.m.e.nt door and stepped onto the rickety stair that descended down into the cold s.p.a.ce, feeling her footing on the crooked boards. High windows emitted discreet shafts of murky light, and as she descended, she made out the shadows of iron cranks that served the dumb waiters and deep stalls of inky black coal set against the fortresslike walls. She heard a cough and as her eyes adjusted saw Alice, seated on a crate.

"Alice!" She heard rustling, "Is that you?"

"I came down here because I am feeling poorly," the girl said. "I have a cold in my feet, and needed to rest."

"I am looking for the keys, do you have them?"

"I don't leave 'em around, 'cause I know you're always lookin' for 'em." Alice slurred.

"You are drinking whiskey!" Emma exclaimed. Beside Alice was a barrel, with a bottle of whiskey on top.