31 Bond Street (5 page)

July 1856, New York City

W
hen the first heat of July settled over the city, Emma Cunningham booked one of the last staterooms on the Albany steamer for herself and her daughters. Then she telegraphed the Congress Hotel in Saratoga Springs for a suite. To economize, she dismissed the maid, struggling to move the furniture to the center of the parlor, pulling dust sheets across the upholstery and shutting off the gas, preparing to close the house on Twenty-fourth Street herself. She folded her evening dresses, packing them in sturdy trunks, and wrapped her daughters’ flimsy frocks and bloomers, camisoles and muslin sleeves.

A pile of bills lay ignored upon the desk. She gathered them and pushed them into a drawer. Widowed the previous summer, she had moved twice with her daughters, and soon the lease on this house was up, with the rents everywhere getting higher. In the tall pier mirror, she caught her image surrounded by the sheeted furniture as dust motes floated around the parlor. In the silvery tableaux, she imagined she saw the indistinct images of dancing ladies and gentlemen, apparitions swirling under a chandelier.

I am so weary of black,
she thought. If she left the city, where no one knew that her mourning period was not yet over, she could wear color again. There was no reason to spend the summer in the city while neighboring townhouses were shuttered and silent, as entire families fled the heat. Both daughters were rapidly nearing a marriageable age, and if they remained in New York, sitting in a hot parlor, the summer months would unravel aimlessly with no social visits, no parties, or suitable young men. She had drawn from her dwindling savings to buy the tickets to Saratoga where there would be concerts and tea dances and ballrooms festooned with flowers.

On the day the steamship was to depart, Emma herded her daughters into a hired cab, and the cabdriver lashed their trunks to the roof. He climbed up on the bench, and then started toward the river, the cab moving with the lurching gait of a city horse. The day was hot, and the back of the cab was close, with the three women piled in tightly, with frills and flounces and parasols at their feet.

“When we get to Saratoga, I will need a new hat,” said Helen. The youngest, at fifteen, she had the same coloring as Emma, with dark hair and red lips. Older men had approached Emma, interested in a marriage arrangement with Helen, but Emma knew from experience that marriage at such an early age was not advisable. Helen fidgeted while Augusta looked wanly out the window, twisting her curls.

“Augusta, stop pulling on your curls. A beau will take a turn of fright when he sees you arrive in Saratoga with limp hair,” said Emma, who sat packed between her daughters.

“Augusta doesn’t have a beau, Mama,” said Helen.

“And he won’t appear if she doesn’t take more care,” said Emma, readjusting Augusta’s hair.

Augusta pulled away, continuing to stare sullenly out the window. Augusta, at eighteen, was a cause for concern, for she showed no inclination toward courtship. She was forever buried in a piece of
music or a book and had no aptitude for social banter. Blond, with pale skin and a swanlike neck, she had ample beauty, but she did not take advantage of it—homelier girls with more outgoing manners made all the gains, especially those from families endowed with an excess of cash and a prominent family name. Emma believed that if Augusta would only comb her hair, or tie her ribbons tighter, or smile brightly when spoken to, a handsome husband would be conjured, the way the shape of a face appears in the froth of summer clouds.

The carriage stalled while a slow mule dragged stones to a building site, setting off an upheaval of dust. Large blocks of granite stood in the middle of Washington Street. There was not an avenue in New York that was not covered with scaffolding. Wherever there had been an empty lot, holding little more than a stray goat or a few scraggly fruit trees, there was now a gaping black hole.

The open windows brought little air. Emma dabbed her forehead with a lace handkerchief as beads of perspiration snaked along the rim of her bonnet and welled in the crevices of her corset. “Driver, please hurry along, our steamer is boarding,” Emma called, rapping on the partition with her parasol. “Couldn’t you quicken the pace by using the whip?” she called again, when the carriage did not move. The Albany steamer departed at two, and she feared they would miss the boat.

“Ma’am, whipping the horse won’t get you there faster. There’s ten ships leaving every afternoon, and only one avenue to the wharf. It’s not my concern if your boat sets sail without you. Happens every day,” he said, without lifting the reins.

“I would hate to miss our boat because you feared striking a horse,” Emma said, fanning herself. Soon, the horses began clopping forward again at an infuriatingly slow pace until they finally made their way through a snarl of wagons to the docks. The carriage swung onto a pier that was piled high with exotic goods
stamped from abroad: rum and sugar from the West Indies and barrels marked with oriental symbols, fragrant with spices from the East. Emma pushed her daughters out of the carriage. Helen and Augusta popped opened their parasols against the sun.

“Hurry, and unload our trunks. We don’t have a moment to spare,” she commanded, pacing while the stevedores tagged their bags. The steamboat loomed at the edge of the wharf, blocking the water view. The boat’s engine radiated heat, offsetting the cool breeze on the river. A whistle screamed the last call and the smokestack blew a thick spiral of carbon.

With a sense of urgency, Emma rushed her daughters up the gangway, the last ones to board. On deck, Emma scanned the doors for her berth. During the summer, the city became enveloped by a pestilential haze, and entire neighborhoods stewed in the heat. Inhabitants of tumbledown houses threw the contents of chamber pots out the windows, along with ashes, rotten vegetables, and rum bottles, and typhus rose up from the swamps, filling the fever sheds of Bellevue Hospital. In the fall, the lease on her house would be up, and by the end of the year, her money would be gone. Without a husband, there was no one to turn to, so she gambled on leaving the hot city for Saratoga, in search of an unattached gentleman. It was a matter of survival.

Each morning, breakfast at the Congress Hall Hotel was served on the verandah beside emerald lawns, cool with dew. Afterward, Emma and her daughters strolled along the shady lanes, lined with dainty cottages in the Gothic or Grecian style. They received attention from passing men, who lifted their hats in greeting. Emma took note of which ones were widowed or single, handsome or divorced. Augusta wandered into the fields in search of daisies. Helen
wore a new straw hat studded with buds and lemon ribbons. Young boys bicycled past her, stopped and pedaled back slowly, circling like bees.

One day in early July, Emma sat on a chaise, penning correspondence. A waiter brought a silver pitcher of iced tea lined with sprigs of mint. A breeze rustled the girls’ dresses. A man approached and stood before them stiffly, in formal relief against the billowing lawns. He seemed older than Emma by a decade, in his midforties, firmly built, with dark skin and a firm musculature, his black hair carefully groomed and oiled. He tipped his hat.

“How do you do. May I introduce myself?” He bowed and presented a spray of violets wrapped in yellow tissue, purchased at the hotel concession, and offered the bouquet to Emma. “I am Dr. Harvey Burdell.”

She lifted her hand to accept, squinting to see him clearly against the sun. “For me? Why, thank you!” she trilled, offering her hand. “I am Emma Cunningham, and these are my daughters, Augusta and Helen.” He made another bow in the direction of the girls.

“Good morning, Dr. Burdell,” intoned Augusta and Helen with a schoolgirl’s training, tinged with boredom. Helen was eating a berry tart and wiped the stains from her lips. Augusta faded into the landscape in a blue gingham smock and fawn-colored gloves.

“Please, sit down,” Emma said gaily, waving at a bench. Dr. Burdell sat and placed his hat beside him. She noticed that it was a fashionable height: an inch higher and he would be a dandy or a ruffian, an inch shorter, a clerk.

“Are you having a pleasant start to this agreeable morning?” he asked awkwardly, as if he were grasping for an appropriate phrase to describe the shimmering day.

“It couldn’t be more splendid!” said Emma. “There are such marvelously cool breezes. Do you stay here often?”

“I come to the Congress Hall Hotel every year. I have a dental
practice in New York and I try to get away during the summer months, if I can.” He pulled at his collar, which chafed, leaving a red rash.

“Are you the dentist on Union Square?” she inquired, recognizing the name from advertisements.

“My brother, also a dentist, had an office on Union Square. He is now deceased. My office is at 31 Bond Street, where I also live.”

“Bond Street! My favorite shops are near Bond Street!” She calculated to reveal little of herself, except, perhaps, that she appreciated fine things.

“I live there with my housekeeper,” he said earnestly. “I am ready to sell my house, but the commercial rents near Broadway have risen dramatically. The prices just keep going up.” He blinked often. He had told her much: that he was an awkward man, that he was a bachelor, and that he was rich. “I gather you are from New York?” he asked, glancing at the girls.

“My departed husband,” interjected Emma, fluttering a fan across her chest, “had a mansion in Brooklyn—on Jay Street. His illness carried so many unfortunate memories that I chose to sell it after his death.”

“I am so sorry,” Dr. Burdell replied, gravely.

“I am looking to buy a townhouse,” she continued. “I now lease a house on Twenty-fourth Street near the London Terrace. It is so difficult nowadays to find a suitable address.”

“You would be foolish to part with your money in haste. Homes in the fashionable districts in Manhattan are much overpriced.” Dr. Burdell continued, “Opportunities abound in the outlying areas.” He dropped his voice, as if this fact was a secret, known only to insiders, and he winked, in a silly way. He had a strong jaw, a full head of black hair, a sturdy build, and intense dark eyes.

“I wish I had someone as wise as you to advise me.” Emma sighed.

He appeared to be flattered by the compliment. Flustered, he patted his hands on the thighs of his dark trousers and stood, lifting his hat, ready to retreat. “Do you bet on horses?” he asked quickly. “Would you and your daughters do me the honor of joining me for a day at the racetrack?”

“We would be delighted,” murmured Emma, letting her eyes convey her pleasure.

Dr. Burdell accompanied Emma and her daughters to the races, where the women paraded with parasols among the fashionable crowd. When the thoroughbreds thundered the course, a current of excitement surged through the spectators, but Dr. Burdell paid more attention to Emma than to the horses bursting from the gate. Emma bet on several and she clapped her hands with delight when her horse won and her wager yielded a small sum.

He invited them on rides through the countryside and to recitals at the gazebo in the square. On rainy days Emma and Dr. Burdell played cards in the hotel library while rain spattered the windows, and guests wandered in, looking intently for something to read. While dealing rounds of whist, he confided in her, filling her in on his occupation. He told her that his dental office catered to the teeth of a wealthy uptown clientele. He spoke of the tinctures that he concocted in his small dentistry laboratory. She nodded as she played, not listening much, until he spoke of gold—he said he had replaced gold with an amalgam for filling teeth and the technique had made him rich. He used new metals that were less expensive yet just as effective for fillings, and he could charge his patients as much as others were charging for gold.

“How clever you must be,” she said. With her cards spread out
before her, Emma calculated her next move and landed the winning card.

“I have created a concoction of chemical powders that I mix with various drugs in doses that have quite eliminated the pain in dental treatment.”

“I have never had a tooth pulled,” she said, shuddering at the thought.

“You would hardly know that it was happening. My patients remain quite happy. They experience a feeling of euphoria, a sensation of flying, accompanied by a sense of well-being. Afterward there is soreness, but there are potions to eliminate that, too.” Dr. Burdell dealt again. He shuffled deftly, his surgeon’s hands moving across the table with the slickness of a card shark.

“Have you thought any more about your finances?” he asked. “I might advise that you consider an investment in open land. Right now there is much activity in the areas surrounding the city.”

“Well, first, I must secure a new home, for my current lease expires in the fall,” she said. “Augusta is almost nineteen, and I shall need a suitable address to entertain.”

“I have never understood the need for ladies teas. It seems to me to be a frivolous waste of an afternoon,” replied Dr. Burdell.

“The entertainment is to attract suitors,” she responded.

He dealt again, with a slap of cards against the table. “In New York, it’s a large checkbook that makes a man suitable, or so it seems,” he said. “The rest of the courting ritual is a waste of time and money. And as for your finances, I suggest that this is not a wise time to purchase a house in town,” he warned. “Manhattan is much overpriced, and even the houses in the lower wards are asking huge sums.” Dr. Burdell drew a card and then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Recently I purchased several hundred acres of marsh across the harbor, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I believe one day
the area will be as important to shipping and commerce as the port of New York. The city’s wharves are rotting, and boats are lined up out to the Narrows with no place to berth.”

Emma reflected upon his words, shifting the fan of her cards. She wondered if he thought that she and her daughters should move to the swamps of New Jersey. “My, I had no idea!” she said brightly. “To think that our city shall just expand forever outward, unfurling like the sails on a ship! But I am looking for a home, not a wharf, and I am afraid I do not have enough knowledge to speculate in land,” she said politely, for such speculation did not include a parlor for afternoon tea.