New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [285]
After struggling down two blocks, however, Skip saw a welcome sight. A single carriage drawn by two patient horses had just turned into the avenue and was plowing its way slowly along. Skip didn’t hesitate for a moment. As the carriage passed, he nipped up beside the coachman. That individual was about to knock him off his cheeky perch and let him fall down into the roadway when a gruff voice from inside the carriage called out: “Let him be.”
“You’re lucky,” said the driver.
“Where’ve you come from?” asked Skip.
“Yonkers, Westchester County,” answered the coachman.
“That’s a long way,” said Skip.
“Been going since six this morning. I thought the horses would’ve died, but they kept at it. Big hearts.”
“Why not stay at home?”
“My gentleman in there has business in the city today. Says a blizzard ain’t goin’ to keep him from that.”
“It ain’t keeping me from mine either,” said Skip happily. That was the spirit of New York, the boy thought. He wouldn’t care to live anywhere else.
“No trains from Westchester?” he inquired.
“We crossed a bridge and saw one stuck fast in the snow. I reckon they all are, most likely.”
At Sixty-fifth Street, they picked up Broadway. When they reached the south-west corner of Central Park, the carriage started south down Eighth, and Skip jumped off. He wanted to follow the line of Broadway.
People had been shoveling for a while already, doing their best to keep a path open along one of the sidewalks. It was more like a trench. Skip noticed that the untidy masses of telegraph lines were all frozen. Soon he came to a point where they had been brought down entirely, into a great tangle of wire and ice that went on for several blocks. At Fifty-fifth Street he slipped and fell, but he was so bundled up that he wasn’t hurt. He laughed, and looked about to see if he could find another ride. There was nothing. No cabs, no carriages, hardly anyone even trying to walk. Some of the stores and offices seemed to be open, but no one was going out or coming in. He slipped and slid another two blocks and came to a saloon. He went inside. Here, there were a few men, wrapped up like himself, standing at the bar. He unwound his scarf.
“Drink, son?” offered the barman.
“No money,” said Skip, though it wasn’t true.
One of the men at the bar put a few coins down and motioned him to approach. There was a smell of whiskey and hot rum at the bar.
“On me, boy,” said the man. “Give him a car driver’s,” he instructed the barman, who nodded. “It’s just ale and red pepper,” he told Skip. “It’s what the coachmen take. It’ll keep you warm for a bit.”
Skip drank it slowly. He could feel the warmth in his stomach. After a while, he thanked his benefactor, and headed out into the street again, wrapping his scarf tightly round his face at the doorway. And it was as well that he did, for as soon as he stepped into Broadway, the snow whipped round his face as if it meant personally to attack him and rip his scarf away again. But steadying himself against a railing, he put his head down and staggered on.
And then, a few blocks further down, he got lucky again. For what should he see, but a brewer’s wagon. Behind his scarf, his mouth drew into a grin. Nothing ever stopped the brewers. When the supply of beer in New York came to a stop, you’d know the world had come to an end.
The wagon was big, and loaded with kegs of ale. It was lumbering slowly along like a great ship through an iceflow. It was pulled by no less than ten massive Normandy horses. Unseen by the driver, he hopped in the back. And was thus conveyed, in ponderous but cheerful style, all the way down to Twenty-eighth Street. From there, clinging onto railings or whatever support he could, he made his way through the blizzard to Gramercy Park.
Hetty Master was most astonished when Skip arrived with a note from Lily de Chantal, but she read it eagerly. The note wasn’t long. Frank’s boat had been forced to turn back the night before, she said. He’d arrived soaked, and seemed to have