Page 14 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

During [Elma’s] indisposition [Levi] paid her the strictest attention, and spent several nights in the room, saying he did not like to leave her with Hope—my sister—fearing she might get to sleep and neglect her; and in the night he wanted to go for a physician, but I discouraged him, thinking she would get better by morning.

—From the testimony of Catherine Ring at the trial of Levi Weeks

New York City

March 1, 1800

“Have thee seen Elias?”

Caty hissed, catching Hope just as Hope had almost made it to the door.

“No,”

Hope lied.

She had seen him leave an hour earlier, heading in the direction of the tavern by the corner of Greenwich and Barclay. Her sister’s husband had become a frequent patron there. Hope wasn’t sure if it was for the numbing properties of their rum or to get away from the tension emanating from Caty like one of Mr. Franklin’s experiments with lightning.

“Elias’s great friend Mr. Croucher has brought his intended to see his room—and her serving maid to clean it for him.”

Caty’s voice vibrated with indignation. She straightened abruptly at the sight of someone over Hope’s shoulder. “Mrs. Stackhaver. Was the room to thy liking?”

It was evident Mrs. Stackhaver was a faithful purchaser of Mr. Croucher’s wares; Hope recognized the lace fichu, too thin and fine for March, and the silk that made up the widow’s turban. Mr. Croucher sauntered behind his betrothed, looking well pleased with himself. They made a striking couple, both brilliant in brocade, utterly out of place in the simple environs of the boardinghouse.

“We need water and rags,”

said Mrs. Stackhaver imperiously. Beneath her carefully cultivated tones, Hope could hear a strong trace of a rural Dutch accent. “I’ll set my girl to cleaning.”

“Mr. Croucher’s room,”

said Caty tightly, “is cleaned as often as anyone else’s.”

“Which is not enough,”

sniffed Mrs. Stackhaver. “Margaret!”

A girl appeared behind her, all big eyes and thin wrists, her brown hair modestly braided beneath her cap. She looked hardly older than Rachel. “Ma’am?”

“Mrs.—”

Mrs. Stackhaver looked blankly at Caty. Mr. Croucher leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Mrs. Ring will bring you what you need to render that room habitable.”

“Habitable,”

muttered Caty, as she turned toward the kitchen, to get the desired materials. “Habitable, she says. As if it weren’t his mess that was the trouble. Dropping his clothes on the floor, expecting me to pick up after him. . . .”

“Caty.”

Hope cut in before the rant could develop further. “Caty, I’m going out.”

“Out?”

Her sister looked at her sharply, panic in her face. “And who’s to mind Phoebe and Eliza while I’m minding Mrs. Stackhaver?”

“Rachel is with them,”

said Hope soothingly. “I’ve finished the hats Peggy left to trim and I’ve fried the oil cakes thee asked me to make. I thought I would bring a basket of oil cakes to the Widow Broad—thee are always saying what a sad thing it is she gets so few visitors and her son never takes any notice of her.”

“Ye-es,”

admitted Caty. “It’s a fine Christian thing and it was kind of thee to consider the notion, but . . .”

“Mrs. Ring!”

bellowed Mrs. Stackhaver.

“I won’t be long,”

said Hope reassuringly, and bolted before Caty could call her back.

The door made its usual prolonged creaking noise as Hope pulled it firmly shut behind her. Safely out in the street, Hope slipped expertly into the shuffling gait that marked her as a true New Yorker. She’d barked her shins on protruding stoops and pump handles more times than she cared to count when they’d first come to the city, but now she knew just how to weave around obstacles and avoid the wild pigs that periodically charged through the streets.

Hope breathed in deeply. With the slight thaw, the air stank of refuse both animal and human, but it was still preferable to the close confines of the boardinghouse.

Ever since Elma had disappeared, Hope could scarce go to meeting without Caty pacing in front of the door until she got back. I’m not Elma, Hope had told her, but Caty had only looked distracted and said who knew what dangers were out there and was that the stew burning?

The cakes for the Widow Broad bumped in their basket against Hope’s hip. Hope’s breath came faster, making puffs in the air. The Widow Broad lived just across Greenwich Street from Ezra Weeks’s lumber yard. From Levi.

Hope hated herself for what she was doing, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. The day they’d buried Elma, she’d snuck out and hurried down to the Bridewell. It was a foolish thing, really; she should have known she’d have no sight of him. She’d turned around and rushed home again, just in time to see Elias organizing the removal of Elma’s coffin into the street.

And then, of course, there had been Levi’s visit to the boardinghouse. Hope had turned over every word that had passed between them, miserably certain she had made a poor show of herself, that if she had it to do again she would do it differently: be more immune to his charm, steel herself against his lies, force him to admit what he’d done.

How dare he imply that she might have harmed Elma? She’d loved Elma.

She just hadn’t liked her very much those last three months, and it was Levi who was to blame for that.

Levi who was, impossibly, alarmingly, hauling a large plank of wood into his brother’s workshop. He lost his grip on his burden at the sight of her, futilely grappling to keep it from falling on the damp ground.

He hauled it up again, staring at her with such mingled hope and trepidation that Hope began to wish she hadn’t come after all or, having come, had simply gone on walking at the sight of him.

“Hope. I hadn’t dared wish—”

Hope drew away. “I’ve come to bring cakes to the Widow Broad. If I’d known thee were here I would never have come near.”

Her conscience twanged. Lies, all lies. She’d come just for this but now she was here she couldn’t remember what she’d wanted of him. To look at his face and see if it bore the mark of the murderer? To berate him as she had done before in the hopes he would, at last, break down and confess?

If only he’d just admit to what he’d done, then she might be able to put him from her mind. Not her heart, she told herself fiercely. She’d long ago put him from her heart.

“I’ll leave you to your act of mercy, then,”

he said. There was something different about him. It wasn’t just the effect of the gray light of the strange season that wasn’t quite winter but wasn’t yet spring. His face was thinner, his cheekbones sharper, and there was a bitter edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

It pricked Hope, that he should sound so aggrieved, when he was the source of all their sorrows. “Thee had best hope for mercy,”

she said sharply, “from He who has the power to give it.”

“Why? So I can take the blame for something I never did?”

He took two quick steps forward, and Hope was struck by the wiry strength of him, the corded muscles in his arms, the heat that steamed off him.

“Thee knows thee could tell us of Elma if thee would!”

she tossed back, refusing to be intimidated, trying to ignore the uneasy notion that this man—this man she once thought she knew—had already once committed murder and might again and there was no one to hear her but the Widow Broad, old, infirm, and increasingly deaf.

“You want me to tell you of Elma?”

There was a dangerous edge to Levi’s voice. “There are things I could tell of Elma. But they’re not what you think. And you wouldn’t thank me for telling them.”

Hope was breathless with indignation. “Has thee the gall to imply thy crimes are of my cousin’s making? I know thee shared a bed with her. Even Elias has admitted he heard thee together when we were away in New Cornwall.”

In New Cornwall, where Hope had, like a ninny, spent the days daydreaming of a handsome carpenter, peeling the skin off apples and throwing them over her shoulder to see if they made a letter L.

“Elias.”

Levi’s voice was rich with loathing.

“Did thee think he would hold his tongue? Like thee thought Elma would hold her tongue about thy marriage?”

“There was no marriage!”

Levi shouted. He controlled himself with an effort, his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his worn work shirt. Abruptly, he said, “You want the truth? I did ask Elma to marry me. But not that night. And not for the reasons you think. If I could turn back the clock and change what happened, I would—but it’s not what you think.”

Hope’s throat hurt. “Thee said thee never asked her to marry thee.”

Levi closed the space between them, leaning his arms on top of the fence that enclosed his brother’s yard. “I said I didn’t go to be married to her that night.”

“Thee argue like a lawyer,”

Hope said bitterly.

“Hope . . .”

The fury had leached from Levi’s face, leaving only regret—and something like pity. “Hope, there are things you don’t know.”

“I know enough. I know thee to be false as a March thaw.”

Hope stomped up to the fence, shaking with rage and frustration. “First thee said there was nothing between thee and Elma, nothing more than fellowship, and now thee say thee asked her to marry thee. Thee claim she never left with thee—but a month from now, will thee say otherwise?”

“I’ve never lied to you. I’ve only kept those secrets that weren’t mine to share.”

Levi straightened, his eyes on hers. “If you want to know the truth, apply to your sister.”

Hope gawped at him. “Caty? Caty has no secrets from me.”

The idea of Caty—Caty!—keeping secrets was absurd. Caty didn’t have time for secrets; her every moment was occupied with the boardinghouse and the children and the millinery.

“Ask her.”

Levi grasped her arm; Hope could feel his touch burning through the thick wool of her sleeve. “Ask her about Elma’s illness—her cramping of the stomach. Ask her why she wouldn’t let me go for the doctor.”

Hope stared down at his fingers. She drew in a long breath, saying, as steadily as she could, “Thee are hurting me.”

Levi dropped her arm, looking horrified. “I would never hurt you.”

“Is that what thee said to Elma?”

Hope asked smartly, and turned away before the devil could seduce her further.