Brookland by Emily Barton

Author:Emily Barton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2006-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

THE PETITION

There were two practical matters to attend to, however, before Prue could make a public presentation of the bridge. The first was the unwieldiness of Pearl’s elevation, which Prue could not imagine placing on view in its current state. When she and Pearl had attempted to hold it up for Tem, it had been almost impossible to keep upright; and if they were to lay it flat, it would likely be besmirched by a passing boot. Prue therefore asked Jean and Scipio to mount two thick dowels on sturdy wooden bases, crown them with simple finials, and paint them black. Prue and Pearl then glued each short end of the elevation along the shaft of a dowel. The whole drawing could still be rolled in upon itself, like a scroll, but when unfurled, could stand in a great shallow arc on its two feet. They were pleased with this solution for both its practicality and its aesthetics. The black bases and finials anchored the ends of the drawing as surely as the abutments anchored the ends of the bridge; and both sisters thought the drawing appeared more monumental in this fashion than when it had lain on the floor.

The second matter was of greater delicacy: how best to present the plan, particularly in New York and Albany, with regard to its authorship. In Brooklyn, people counted it ordinary enough that Tem and Prue ran their distillery. If, when their father had begun to train Prue, some of the neighbors had sniggered, the quality of the gin Winship Daughters produced had long since put to rest any lingering doubts. When Prue dealt with her customers, suppliers, and Mr. Timothy Stover at the Bank of New-York, she did not feel she could have been treated with greater respect had she been a man. And had she been required to visit Albany with some grievance regarding the distillery, she expected the gentlemen of that august body would receive her petition fairly.

A bridge architect, however, was another thing. Though it had been years since any of the neighbors had twitted her about her britches, she believed some of them might cavil at the prospect. She could only imagine how New York’s aldermen, or the state assembly itself, might respond. “Brookland is a backwater; they have their own ways,” she could picture them remarking as they puffed on their cigars. She did not think it would stand so singular and expensive a proposition in good stead to be the brainchild of a woman.

Ben, however, had received his commission from the governor’s office; he was already known to the senate. Even Prue granted that surveying seemed, on its surface, a line of work more likely than distilling to produce a bridge architect. He could stand in her stead as the author of this plan. He had a pleasing voice and an earnest manner, and could expound passionately and knowledgeably upon the merits of the proposal. Yet Prue could not bear to consider giving him credit for work whose seed had been her own.

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