Page 7 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

Question by Prisoner’s Counsel: Did not Levi pay as much attention to Hope Sands, as he did to Elma?

Answer: Yes, I think he did and more too.

—From the testimony of Margaret (Peggy) Clark at the trial of Levi Weeks

New York City

January 9, 1800

Hope stayed in the front room after the lawyer had left, staring at her own hands, empty and idle.

She should go back to the millinery. Peggy and three other girls were hard at work; Hope had left her own work half-finished. The millinery, like the boardinghouse, was Caty’s idea, and like everything Caty put her mind to, she had made a success of it. At their busiest times, they had as many as twenty women shaping straw, sewing on beads and blond lace, securing flowers and feathers.

Hope could sew on a feather so it stayed—but Elma had a genius for the work. She could take a bit of white crepe and shape it into a turban, or find an old black beaver hat, add a gold chain and a single feather, and turn it into the latest word from London.

Sometimes Elma would try them on, modeling her creations for the others—the same way when they were little she’d take a handful of flowers and weave them into crowns of bugleweeds and touch-me-nots, Turk’s-cap and tiger lilies. She’d woven Hope crowns too, in those long-ago days when they’d been girls together, escaping their chores in the fields outside the house in New Cornwall.

Hope’s mother had looked sadly at them, and spoken of the ways of the flesh and frippery. The confiscated crowns had frizzled on the grate, reduced to ash. Elma’s mother hadn’t said anything at all, only looked down and gone on sanding the floor, board by board.

After that Elma had kept her fripperies to herself.

Hope hadn’t told about Elma’s cache of discarded finery: ripped lace, stained silk, a broken comb, a fan and embroidered stomacher Granny Mercy had worn to local assemblies before Father had convinced them to turn Quaker and renounce such things. Hope had never told anyone about the purloined paper on which Elma sketched flowers and people and landscapes, some real, some fantastical, palaces and princes, and, over and over, a man in the dark blue coat of a Continental Army officer.

Hope had always kept her secrets for her.

Until Levi.

You mustn’t tell, Elma had said, that day in the millinery, just as if they were children again, and Elma enlisting Hope’s aid in something they both knew to be forbidden. Jumping in the creek; tearing blank pages from the back of one of Father’s books to draw on; borrowing Caty’s comb and then claiming she hadn’t.

If I mustn’t tell, then why tell me? Hope had demanded. She wasn’t in a mood to play confidante.

But Elma went on anyway, leaning close, her breath tickling Hope’s ear. Don’t tell Caty. I’m to be married on Sunday.

To Levi? Hope had blurted out, and then wished she hadn’t. Of course to Levi. It had always been Levi, ever since they’d come back from the country. Levi who had sat by Elma’s bed hour by hour when Elma had been taken ill, refusing Hope’s offer to take a turn tending her. Levi who had private jokes with Elma, ones Hope couldn’t follow.

Elma had only smiled in that dangerous way she had when they were little, when she was about to propose something truly dreadful, and held up the hat she was working on. What do you think? Do I look like a bride?

Thee looks like thee has three hats to trim and only an hour until the light wanes, Hope snapped back, and Elma leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

When I am married and have a home of my own, you will come to me, and wear silk and eat iced cakes.

A fine castle in the air thee has built thyself, Hope mocked, but she had to drop her eyes quickly over her hat to hide the pang the words had given her: Elma, married to Levi, in that fine house he always talked of building.

One day, he’d said shyly, as he and Hope had walked to the charity sermon together, one day he’d build a house to his own design, with a curving stair and a classical pediment. She didn’t think him foolish for it? His brother thought him foolish, told him to concentrate on his work and stop scribbling.

No, she didn’t think him foolish.

But it was Elma who would someday run up that curving stair, Elma’s children who would play in the fine, bright nursery Levi planned on his imaginary top floor. There had been a time—walking with Levi in the crisp December night, sitting down with him at his brother’s table, holding his niece on her knee—when Hope had imagined herself into that home. Not for the silks and iced cakes, but for Levi, for the light in his eyes when he smiled at her, the feel of his hand on her elbow helping her over a slick patch in the street, the endearing boyishness as he confided his dreams of designing homes like John McComb, but better.

That whole long week after Elma told Hope had been an agony, going through the motions of daily life, knowing that a week from now, five days from now, three days from now, Elma would be Mrs. Levi Weeks.

As they bent over their work, Elma would lean to Hope and murmur things like, Maybe I’ll commission you to make one like this for me when I’m married, and You haven’t told Caty, have you? and Hope would have to pretend not to hear.

Sidelong glances, murmured comments. A conspiracy of which Hope had no desire to be a part. Should I wear this for my wedding? I hope it will be fair weather Sunday night.

Every word a pinprick. Hope had gone to meeting and prayed for peace, prayed for generosity of spirit, prayed for kindness and understanding, but jealousy had squirmed in her like maggots on meat.

“Hope?”

Hope started as Peggy’s cheerful face appeared in the doorway. She and Elma and Peggy—how they’d laughed together. Before Levi came and cut up all their peace.

“Did thee need me? I didn’t mean to leave thee with all the work. Thee can scold me if thee like.”

“I don’t mind. You can do mine tomorrow.”

Peggy glanced behind her, lowering her voice to a hiss. “You’ve a caller.”

“A caller?”

“I’ll not be far if you want me.”

Peggy whisked out of the way and past her stepped Levi.

Hope’s chest felt tight; she couldn’t breathe. He stood there, in the doorframe, his hat in his hand, that rip in his breeches Elma had mended for him, looking at her like there was no one else in the world, and she couldn’t help it: she felt that sudden surge of joy that always attended his appearance.

He wasn’t quite the same. His nose skewed slightly off-center, destroying the symmetry of his face, and there was a fading bruise next to one eye. It ought to have made him look raffish, but it didn’t. The morning sun caught the golden lights in his hair, the broad planes of his cheekbones, the line of his throat beneath the crooked ties of his shirt.

“How dare thee show thy face here!”

“I had to see you.”

Once she would have thrilled to those words. “Why? So thee can ask me to sign another paper?”

“That wasn’t my idea, it was my brother’s; you know it was my brother’s.”

Levi took two eager strides toward her, stopping abruptly as Hope flinched away. “You know I would never have hurt her.”

“Do I?”

It wasn’t fair that he could still look so appealing. If the form revealed the soul, his face should be dark and cankered; worms should crawl from his lying tongue; his hair should writhe with snakes. “I thought I knew thee. I was mistaken.”

How dare he look so sorrowful? “You know there was nothing of that sort between us.”

His lies gave her strength. Hope drew herself up to her full height. “I know thee was alone in her room with her with the door locked and not a candle lit between you.”

Levi stared at her, his hat hanging forgotten on one hand. “I—how would you—”

Hope’s eyes flickered sideways. “Dr. Snedecker bid me fetch Elma.”

It was only a little lie. She’d been sitting on Elma’s bed with her, talking about something she didn’t remember, when Levi had come to the door—and Elma, out of Levi’s sight, had arched her brows at Hope, jerking her head slightly to the side. Hope had taken the hint and left. But at the bottom of the stairs, she’d removed her shoes and tiptoed back up.

She’d stood there, her ear to the door, hating herself, hating them, but all she’d heard was the sound of their whispers, muffled by the wood.

And then there had been a knock at the door below and she’d hastily run back down to find Peggy admitting Dr. Snedecker, there to check on Elma. She’d taken Peggy up with her to get Elma—as witness, she supposed, although why she should want a witness she wasn’t quite sure.

Hope stared belligerently at her cousin’s lover. “What did thee want with her in the dark with the door locked, Levi?”

Levi ran a hand through his hair, making a bit come free from his queue. He was always doing that. Hope used to find it endearing. And Elma would cluck and tie it back for him. Destroying my handiwork, she’d complain. Why should I care when you’ll only tie it back for me again? he’d tease. And Hope would stand there, a fixed smile on her face, pretending she didn’t feel an awkward third to their banter.

Levi didn’t have Elma to tie back his hair for him anymore. It stuck out in wisps around his face. “It wasn’t—if you had seen, you would know—it wasn’t for courtship, but only for conversation!”

“If it were for conversation, why could thee not converse in the sitting room like any other person in this house? Do thee always lock the door for conversation? Thee didn’t need a closed door to converse with me.”

“For your honor . . .”

Levi stammered.

“But not Elma’s? Thee had no care for Elma’s honor?”

The color was rising and waning in Levi’s cheeks, as changeable as an autumn leaf. Hope took courage from his discomfiture. “Richard Croucher says he saw thee together—in a way that could not be mistaken. Thou must have forgot to lock the door.”

Levi scowled at her. “Richard Croucher would say anything against me. He holds a grudge.”

“Because he spoke out for Elma? Do I hold a grudge against thee? Does Caty?”

“You didn’t have to be so quick to judge me!”

“So quick? It’s months I’ve watched thee!”

Hope wished the words back the moment she said them, but it was too late. In a low voice, she added, “I would have had to be blind not to know what was between thee.”

“It isn’t what you think. I swear it.”

“What use is thy swearing? Thee swears and forswears thyself as easily as thee draws breath.”

“I never lied to you.”

Levi took a step forward, his eyes never leaving hers. She felt his gaze like a touch. “I never kept anything from you that was mine to keep.”

He looked so earnest, so true, that Hope almost felt herself weakening. Almost.

“When Elma didn’t come home on Monday—thee told Caty thee had no doubt it would turn out better than we thought. Why did thee say that?”

Levi’s eyes dropped. He shook his head, silent.

Hope could feel the rage building in her. “How could thee? How could thee pretend thee didn’t know? If I knew something I would tell thee, thee said.”

She took a cruel satisfaction from the way he flinched at her savage mockery of his words. “But Elma didn’t keep thy secret. We knew.”

“I never knew she told you we meant to marry!”

he cried. Quickly he amended, “Because we didn’t. I was never with her Sunday night. I was at my brother’s—he’ll swear to it.”

“Did thy brother refuse to let thee marry her? Did he want thee to marry higher?”

Hope looked closely at Levi, watching his mouth open and close, as he stuttered and failed to speak. “She might have brought a suit against thee for breach of promise. A fine thing that would look for thy brother—and thee.”

Levi made an inchoate noise of frustration. “She wouldn’t marry me! She wouldn’t even walk out with me! You know that better than any.”

His voice dropped. “It was you I asked to walk with me, Hope.”

His eyes were light blue, like a rain-washed sky.

She could remember walking with him, large and warm and safe beside her. Sitting with him at the table in his brother’s house, as his brother’s wife poured her tea, and the baby made them all laugh crawling up onto Hope’s lap. And she’d looked at him, and found him looking at her, and felt a warmth spread through her that had nothing at all to do with the tea.

“Thee left with her that night,”

Hope said stubbornly. “Just after eight. She waited until thee came and then thee both left.”

“I left a little after eight but I never left with Elma. You would have known if you’d been here to see.”

Hope put her chin up. “Caty said thee did. She said she heard thee whispering on the stair and then the door closed behind thee both.”

Levi looked seriously at her. “Where were you that night, Hope? When I came home and asked for you, you weren’t there.”

Hope hesitated a moment. “I was at meeting. Thee knows that.”

“Until midnight?”

“What would thee know of our meeting?”

Hope snapped.

Levi looked at her searchingly, as though she were a beam he was scrutinizing for woodworm. “I know that Elias came back well before you did. He was here before I went out. Where were you, Hope?”

Hope gasped for breath, feeling the way she had when Elma had dared her to jump in the creek, and there had been that horrible moment when the waters had closed over her head and the sodden weight of her skirts had wrapped around her, before she scrabbled choking back to the surface. “Thee cannot mean—”

“If you quarreled—if there were an accident—”

“What would I be doing with Elma in Lispenard’s Meadow? When she had said she was gone to be married to thee?”

“When you said she was gone to be married to me.”

The room felt horribly still. The boarders were all out, at work. Even the dust motes caught drifting in the afternoon sun seemed to slow and stop. “She never said anything to anyone else.”

“Because thee enjoined her to secrecy!”

“It’s your word—and your word only.”

“Is that thy brother speaking too?”

Hope asked bitterly. “Thee knows I’m only a woman—and a Friend. I cannot swear as thee do—or forswear myself neither.”

Levi turned his hat around in his hand. “You weren’t so particular once—when you came to church with me, and my brother’s house.”

“I wish I had been,”

spat Hope. “I wish thee had never entered this house. I wish thee had never had an existence!”

Levi stared at her, the bruises around his eye livid against his white face, his eyes blazing.

“You may well get your wish.”

He turned to go, and then paused, the words torn out of him. “Will you watch when they hang me? Or will you be at meeting?”

“Go,”

croaked Hope. “Go before I tell Elias thee had the gall to cross his threshold. He’s said he’ll shoot thee if he sees thee.”

“So he can avenge Elma’s honor?”

Levi gave a strange laugh, that turned into something like a sob. “Oh, Hope. Hope.”

She couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear the way he was looking at her.

“Go,”

she said fiercely.

And he did.