Page 27 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

But if our minds revolt with horror at the idea of murder, it unfortunately happens that this crime may frequently be committed in such a manner as to render it impracticable for us to obtain direct and positive proof against the guilty.

—An Impartial Account of the Trial of Mr. Levi Weeks for the Supposed Murder of Miss Julianna Elmore Sands, by James Hardie A.M.

New York City

April 1, 1800

It was supposed to be done by now.

Creeping into the boardinghouse in the dead of night, Caty felt like a stranger in her own home, in her own body. Her fingers were clumsy on the ribbons holding her gloves; she fumbled with the strings of her bonnet.

Did it even make sense taking off her dress to sleep? She’d only be putting it on again in three hours when she woke to coax the fire back into life and put the water to boil for tea and coffee and stir the porridge.

She needed to put the oats on the coals to cook, she reminded herself. It seemed strange to think that in this endless night there were still the usual rituals to be observed.

She wished Justice Lansing had held firm and insisted they stay.

But that was selfish of her. Caty felt a surge of guilt thinking of Rachel and Phoebe and David and Eliza. Bad enough they’d gone to sleep without her there. What would they have thought when neither of their parents came home? At least they’d wake up and see her tomorrow morning and she could hug them and hold them close before going back to that horrible place where the lawyers in their fancy clothes played their nasty games and stopped honest women from speaking the truth.

Mostly honest women. Mostly the truth.

In the bedroom, the children were all in their beds, Phoebe snuggled up against Rachel, David sprawled on his back with the covers kicked off, Eliza in her cot.

Eliza would be two in just four days. Caty felt tears sting her eyes. It was April—fourth month—tomorrow—no, today already. For the past three months, since Elma had been found, through the long, hard, miserable months of winter, she had thought of nothing but Levi’s trial. They just had to get to the trial, that’s what she’d told herself, and then it would all be over and they’d all be back to normal.

Except it wasn’t. And they weren’t.

Elias banged into the room and began the noisy process of disrobing.

“I’m going to set the porridge to cook for morning,”

said Caty, and left the room. The idea of being in there, with him, suddenly seemed unbearable.

In August they would have been married ten years.

In the kitchen, Mr. Colden’s maid had nodded off in front of the fire. They’d forgotten all about her and so had Mr. Colden. Gently, Caty shook Mr. Colden’s maid awake. Mr. Colden hadn’t told her what to do with the girl. The girl didn’t seem to know either.

“He told me I’m to stay until the trial’s over,”

she said confusedly.

A trial that lasted more than a day. Who had heard of such a thing? Caty felt a surge of frustration, with Mr. Colden, with everyone, with all these men who talked and talked and then left her to deal with their mess.

“There’s a bed upstairs for you,”

Caty said. She was hardly going to send the girl to walk back at three in the morning. “The third door to your right on the second floor.”

Elma’s room. The room she’d slept in after she’d come back from the country. Just a room now, empty.

They’d asked such a lot of questions about which room Elma slept in.

The girl thanked her and stumbled up the stairs. That would be another for breakfast tomorrow morning, Caty thought, in that part of her mind that was always calculating the number of breakfasts to be cooked, whether they had enough clean sheets to last until Monday wash day, and was there room in the hem to let down Phoebe’s dress if she grew again before spring.

It was spring, Caty realized, with a horrible lump in her throat. In Cornwall, the daffodils would be coming out already in the meadows, the trout lilies would be sprouting up by the river, and in the woods, there’d be the delicate pink and white of spring beauty. It was only here in the city that the seasons lurched from frost to fever with no in between.

Why had they ever left Cornwall?

Because Elias had wanted to. Cornwall was too small for him. He’d had grander things in mind. Elias—refusing to name the month, glaring at the jury from under his hat. This was his fault; he’d brought them to this. This nightmare she couldn’t seem to wake from.

“Mama?”

David staggered out to the kitchen, his face blurred with sleep. He was thinning out, growing up, starting to look more like a boy than a baby, but at times like this, he looked like the baby he had been, his cheeks still soft and round.

“Thee needs thy sleep,”

Caty said, but she couldn’t resist holding him close, resting her cheek against his soft curls, red like hers.

It was horrible to think he’d grow up and be a man like Elias or Levi, taking what he wanted, not caring who he hurt.

“I told him to go back to bed.”

Elias loomed in the doorway, exhausted and annoyed. “If thee coddle him . . .”

Did Elias think the children had no idea what was going on in this house? Caty wasn’t sure what they’d guessed or understood, but they knew their cousin had gone and never come back. Murdered. They needed comfort too.

Or maybe she was the one who needed comfort.

Caty gave her son one last squeeze. “I’ll be in presently,”

she murmured to him. “Go now. I’ll be here when thee wakes in the morning.”

“And make me oil cakes?”

David asked hopefully.

“If thee are good.”

He’d learn soon enough that being good brought no rewards. She’d tried and tried and look what it had brought her. Let him enjoy while he could.

David scampered off to bed, excited at the prospect of a treat. Elias moved aside to let him pass, advancing on Caty.

“Come to bed,”

Elias commanded.

“I’ve the oats to set.”

There had been a time she’d found his arrogance wildly attractive, a sign of his authority. Now she knew it for what it was. The sort of man who’d lie to his wife and make a scene in court. “Why didn’t thee tell me that Levi had threatened to tell of thee?”

Elias shrugged. “It wasn’t for thee to know.”

Not for her to know, but he’d shout it to the world in Federal Hall. “Does thee think those lawyers don’t know of thee and Elma? They were toying with thee—and thee gave thyself away! The friend and protector of Elma!”

Elias cast a quick look over his shoulder. “Hush. Do thee want to wake the boarders?”

He’d not been so careful of the boarders when he’d been having his way with Elma with the door open. “Did Levi see thee together?”

“He might have.”

Which meant he had.

Caty remembered Croucher standing up there in court, with that nasty smirk on his face, talking about Elma’s lover being so wild for her he hadn’t bothered to close the door. “Why didn’t thee just couple with Elma in the front room for all to see?”

“It was only the once—and no one saw,”

Elias hissed back, and then realized what he’d said.

“In the front room?”

“Thee were away!”

Elias dropped his voice. “Isn’t it enough? Isn’t it time thee stopped throwing this up against me?”

There were no words to contain her emotions. Caty turned her back. “I have to set the oats,”

she said in a strangled voice.

If he’d come to her, if he’d apologized—but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. She heard him turn and go, his steps heavy on the uneven boards of the floor. Caty tossed oats into the pot with a shaking hand.

“Caty?”

Hope stood in the doorway in her shift, her feet bare, her light brown hair in a long braid over her shoulder. “Is it true? What he said? Did Elias—?”

“Thee shouldn’t listen at doors.”

“I wasn’t listening—I came down because I wasn’t sure if thee had remembered the oats!”

As if Caty weren’t the one who remembered everything in this house. Hope only helped when she felt like it and then felt a glow of virtue. No, that wasn’t fair, Hope did her share, but Caty wasn’t in the mood to be fair.

“I’m setting the oats now.”

Maybe she should just curl up on the hearth and sleep next to the fire.

“What Elias said—about Elma—did Elias and Elma—”

Hope’s voice cracked. She sounded painfully young.

Caty dropped the scoop into the barrel of oats and slammed down the lid. “Thy cousin wasn’t chary with her favors.”

“But Elias . . . He’s your husband!”

“I know he’s my husband!”

Hadn’t she borne the weight of him these past ten years? Caty shoved at the iron arm to position the pot on the stove. Like everything else in this ramshackle house, it didn’t work the way it ought. “Go back to bed, Hope.”

Hope folded her arms across her chest, looking as self-righteous as only a woman without responsibilities of her own could look. “Not until thee tell me the truth.”

“The truth is that thy cousin was a blight on our home from the day she was born!”

Caty lowered her voice, so she wouldn’t wake the children or, worse, Elias. “What thee heard—what happened before, while we were in the country—that was nothing to do with anything. Thee knows Elma meant to be married to Levi that night. Thee told me thyself.”

“She told me she meant to be married,”

Hope said slowly. “It was I who said to Levi.”

“Does thee think she ran off to be married to Elias and he pushed her down the well? As thee said, he’s married already.”

Never mind she’d wondered it herself. “It was with Levi she went. Thee know that. Thee know every word I said in court today was true.”

Hope gave her a long, thoughtful look. “Thee said Elma was troubled by cramps in her stomach.”

“And she was,”

said Caty in frustration. Elma had had cramps for weeks after, her body revolting against her sin.

Hope took a step toward Caty. “The baby—was it Levi’s baby? Or was it Elias’s?”

“I ought never to have said anything to thee.”

Exhaustion seeped deep into Caty’s bones. She ought to have known Hope was too young to understand. “As far as thee or the world knows, there was no baby.”

The light of the fire sent strange shadows flickering across Hope’s face. “I wondered why Levi wanted me to know of it. But if the baby was Elias’s . . .”

“What do thee mean, Levi wanted thee to know of it?”

Horror and rage surged through Caty. She grabbed her sister’s wrist. “When did thee speak to that man?”

“He told me if I wanted to know the truth to ask thee. . . . Ouch! Caty!”

Hope tried to pull away, but Caty held fast. “Thee spoke to Levi. When did thee speak to Levi?”

“It was when I went to bring bread to the Widow Broad—”

No wonder Hope had been struck by a sudden fit of Christian charity. Caty released Hope so abruptly that her sister staggered. “Thee are as bad as Elma, sneaking and lying.”

“I wasn’t sneaking! I told thee where I was going—”

“To meet thy cousin’s killer!”

Everyone abandoned her; everyone betrayed her. What had Caty done to bring this on herself? All she’d ever tried to do was be a good wife and mother and sister. . . . “I should never have brought thee here. I should have left thee home in Cornwall and never let this place corrupt thee.”

“Corrupt me? When Levi told me that thee knew something—”

Caty wanted to lift her face to the moon and howl like a dog. “Why would thee listen to him? Thee knows what he is!”

Hope stepped back, pale and remote. “I thought I did. I’m not sure now.”

“This changes nothing,”

Caty said shrilly. It was like telling the children to put on their shoes; she felt like she’d said it over and over and over until the words had no meaning. “Everything I said today was true. Everything Mr. Colden said today was true. Thee knows Levi and thy cousin consorted behind locked doors. Thee knows Elma said they were to be married. Thee knows Levi came back for her that night. . . . And the way Levi behaved when we taxed him of it, wanting thee to sign that paper, saying Elma might have done away with herself. . . . Is that the behavior of an innocent man?”

“He told me there were things I didn’t know—and he was right,”

Hope said in a low voice. “He told me the truth when thee didn’t.”

“Only to cause strife between us! He only wants to confuse thee.”

Elias’s betrayal had hurt, but this was worse. This was her sister. “He left with her that night. I heard him leave with her that night.”

Hope only shook her head. “Could thee be easy in thy conscience if thee were wrong?”

“I’m not wrong,”

said Caty, but she was speaking only to the flickering fire and the oats that would never be steeped by morning.

Hope had gone.