Mr Wintour took his wife’s arm and drew her from her son. The Captain held out his arms and let the slave ease the coat away from him.
No one looked in my direction. I thought they had forgotten me.
There were footsteps on the stairs. I turned. Mrs Arabella was rounding the bend at the half-landing. She paused at the top of the last flight down to the hall.
First she must have seen me. She let her eyes drift past me to the group in the hall below. I could not see her expression because the light was dim and the flame of the candle she held was below the level of her chin.
But the candlelight revealed two things about Mrs Arabella. It showed her slim white neck. It showed that she was swallowing repeatedly, as if trying to force down an unpalatable morsel. And the flame also picked out her hand holding the top of the newel post, and how the fingers gripped it so tightly that the skin wrinkled.
The Captain looked up. ‘Ah – there you are, madam. My pretty, witty wife.’
Chapter Nineteen
Townley was a hospitable man, who talked easily to anyone, and perhaps let his tongue wag more freely than a gentleman should. But I enjoyed his company because he was almost always cheerful and had a pleasant wit.
I would sometimes sup with him, either alone or with two or three of his friends. On those occasions I saw another side of New York, for the gentlemen around the table were Loyalists of course but, unlike those who came up to my office in Broad Street, they were on the whole content with their lives.
‘I bless the day,’ Townley confided to me in a fit of drunken confidence, ‘when those damned Yankees dumped the tea in Boston Harbour. Indeed, sir, it has been the making of us here.’
We were sitting at table in a small private room in the King’s Arms. The shutters were up and a fire of unseasoned wood crackled and spluttered in the grate. Two other men, a contractor and a commissioner for the harbour administration, made up the party. But they were oblivious to our conversation for they were engaged in an animated discussion about the need to bring in professional actresses at the John Street Theatre.
‘Surely it must be difficult for you,’ I said to Townley. ‘Since so many goods are in short supply, there must be a constant—’
‘Supply and demand, sir,’ Townley interrupted. ‘That’s what the students of political economy call it. It is a beautiful thing, for the supplier at least. If the available stock diminishes, you raise the price of what you have. Or, if demand remains keen when the supply is exhausted, you simply sell promises instead, which is like selling air. No, for a man with his wits about him, this war has been a blessing.’
He hesitated, frowning. I ran my finger round the rim of my glass and tried not to smile.
‘Of course, sir, I do not mean to suggest that the war is – well, in any way, even in the slightest, a desirable thing, but – taken, as a whole, you understand, considered in the round – there is no harm in a man looking to his own interests.’ Townley wagged his forefinger in front of my face. ‘Always with the proviso, my dear sir, that His Majesty’s interests must be served, first and foremost, without fear or favour, in any—’
‘Sir,’ I said gently, ‘I believe I understand you perfectly. Should we drink a toast to His Majesty?’
‘Indeed.’ Townley seized the bottle and burst out laughing from sheer animal spirits. ‘And damnation to his enemies. Good God, I had not realized it was so early. Shall we call for the punchbowl?’
By the time the party broke up it was nearly midnight. As we went outside, I almost recoiled from the cold. November was well advanced now, and so was winter.
Townley and one of the other men had servants to light them home. The third man took a waiting hackney chair. I decided to walk back to Warren Street. It was only a step away and the exercise would clear my head. Despite the lateness of the hour, the streets were still busy, for the city came alive at night with theatre parties, musical entertainments, suppers and dances. I knew my way perfectly and I believed, if a man was cautious, there could be no danger.
On the other side of the road, facing the fields, I saw the silhouettes of the prison and the poorhouse looming square and black against the sky. As I drew level with them, I turned up towards King’s College.
It was darker here and there were fewer people about. Someone ahead was whistling. A dog barked in the distance, somewhere near Freshwater Pond. The ferrule of my stick tapped against the paving stones. The change of direction brought me into the wind, which was blowing hard from the north. I felt its chilly bite on my neck above the collar of the greatcoat, and it cut through the thin silk of my stockings.
It was the wind that saved me. It was the wind that made me slacken my pace to adjust my muffler, which had worked loose.
Directly ahead, a man shot out from a dark entry between two buildings. But for my change of pace, he would have collided with me. Simultaneously, I heard footsteps behind me, whose presence I had already registered, footsteps that now were speeding up.
‘It’s him,’ said a man’s voice behind me.
I’m trapped.
I raised the stick above my head and turned sharply to the right, which brought my back to the blank wall of the building beside me.
The man in front leapt at me. I slashed the stick down in a diagonal arc. I heard a cry of pain. Metal chinked on stone.
I reversed the direction of the stick and swung it blindly backwards. I shouted, a wordless cry. The stick landed on something soft. It twisted like a live thing. I lost hold of it and swore at my assailant.
As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. There were more running footsteps. My two attackers darted into the alley. A couple of men gave chase, whooping and hallooing as if they were chasing hares.
‘Run, boyo, run,’ someone cried in great excitement, his voice bouncing against the walls of the alley.
I leaned back against the wall, hunched over and drawing breath in great shuddering gasps. As the danger subsided, my mind filled with all the stories I had heard of assault and robbery on the streets of New York, of the brutish attacks by drunken soldiers and vulgar criminals which the military authorities so rarely troubled to check.
‘Sir?’ It was an English voice, a gentleman’s. ‘Are you hurt?’
I looked up. ‘Thank you, no.’
‘Good God, this town is a perfect nursery of crime.’
Another man came running up to us, this one bearing a lantern. By its light I made out that my rescuer was a middle-aged naval lieutenant, with a footman to light his way.
‘Your arrival was providential, sir.’ I paused, for I still found it hard to breathe. ‘I cannot thank you enough.’
‘I can’t take the credit, sir – a pair of soldiers chased the villains away.’
His servant picked up my stick and handed it to me.
‘Footpads,’ my rescuer said, gripping the hilt of his dress sword. ‘Sprang on you like – like a pair of tigers on a goat. Saw that happen once, sir, in the East Indies. Not a pretty sight, believe me.’
‘Did you see the rogues, sir?’ I asked.
‘No, sir. Too dark to see more than the shape of them. Tell you what, though: I’d lay ten to one they were negros. You know that musty smell their clothes have, sir?’ The lieutenant sniffed, as if to illustrate his point. ‘I’ve often remarked it. Thieving magpies, the whole pack of them. They’d steal their grandmother’s teeth if they could.’
I shifted position and one of my shoes kicked against something that