The party had grown in excitement, and every inch of floor held a foot tread in the next reel. I watched every square. And suddenly I could not find Gwenny. I located August, smoking a pipe at a window where he had opened the pane a couple of inches to draw in fresh air. “August? Where is Gwyneth? After that minuet I have not seen her.”
His face lost its charming appeal and assumed the character of a hardened man used to having his orders followed. “You.” He accosted the man next to him. “Have you seen the young lady coming out tonight, in the pink and lace frock?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “Fair as— Pardon, sir. I saw her, but not since the minuet.”
August’s face became frightening. “Find her. Search the house.”
The young man ran to do as he was told. I laid my arm upon August’s, finding it held none of the comfort as before, but was gone to stone. “I am sure she is dancing,” I said, trying to smile at another man who was now backing away at the tone of August’s order. “At least be discreet, sirs.”
August strode about the room, through the reel itself, upsetting three of the squares, and walked right through the hall made by dancing pairs, his eyes this way and that. I began scouring all the side rooms that led from the ballroom to alcoves and windows. At the far end, I opened the door to a room so dark that were it not for a reflection on her pink silk from the hall behind me, I would never have seen her. August reached my side as I threw the other of the double doors wide. There stood Gwenny in the arms of Wallace Spencer, his lips upon hers, his embrace swathing her. He looked up without a care on his face.
“Mother!” she whispered, her eyes wide and terrified. “I’m sorry.”
August pushed past me and said, “Unhand her, Spencer.”
“This is my house,” Wallace replied, though he did let her go and began adjusting his coat collar and vest, brushing at his sleeves as if she had left something there by her touch. “And the lass wanted her first kiss. She’d chosen someone quite unworthy to give it to her. Now, let us have no more about this and return to the ball.”
I rushed to Gwenny and clutched her shoulders, searching her face. I heard August talking to Wallace behind me as I asked her, “Did you ask him for a kiss?”
“No, Mother, but when he kissed me I couldn’t let go.”
“Where is the young man?”
She began to cry. “Out the window. Lord Spencer hit John in the face and tumbled him off.”
I went to the window. The young man lay sprawled below. “Is he dead?” I asked.
Gwenny cried louder. “I don’t know. He might be.” I turned. August’s and Wallace’s voices had grown louder and the music stopped behind the door.
“Are you challenging me, sir, in my own house?”
“You must apologize to my niece.”
Wallace snapped his fingers and from behind a set of drapes appeared two armed guards. He smiled. “It is a party, sir, and the crowd is quite gay. Kisses and little freedoms are part of the happy occasion. But to insist I apologize for kissing the child of a slave?” He hissed out that last word as if there were nothing lower on earth. “You, sir, astound me. Step aside or throw down your glove.”
At that, the slick of metal against metal heralded the two guards drawing small swords. August seemed not to watch them at all, but I felt he sized them up. He said, “Sir, I am sure you are aware that dueling is against the law. Perhaps we should meet alone at another place to finish our—discussion.”
Wallace looked at me with cruelty in his eyes. “Over a petty wench? I doubt you know who her father is, but if you should find him, tell him for me she is a choice little peach waiting to be plucked.”
I gave a cry of shock.
August said, “He is trying my bluff.” He turned to the two men with swords at the ready. “Captain August Talbot, at your service.” One of them developed a rain of sweat from his brow, his sword hand trembling. August said, “Ladies? I suggest you find Miss Roberts. Our host seems to have lost affection for our presence.”
He pushed us behind him as he backed out of the room. I shielded Gwyneth with my body and she turned her face toward the wall as we edged toward the large hall. August told the doorman to get a torch and help him find the poor man lying in the snow. America joined us and we followed him, tramping through snow and damp in our thin slippers. At last we came upon him. “Is he alive?” I whispered. “He is a most gentle man, the son of a minister.”
August jostled John and patted his face. He was but a boy, I thought, perhaps just a year or two older than Gwyneth. “There you are, good fellow. How is that head, now? Quite a blow you received.”
“Sir, I beg pardon,” John began, his speech a little slurred.
“Not at all, not at all,” August cajoled. “Hit your head, did you?”
“I fear I have had too much wine,” he said. “Oh, look, my new coat. Is the ball over?” He caught sight of Gwyneth and squinted as if trying to remember something. She turned away. “Miss MacLammond? At your service, I think. My head feels as if hit by a cannonball. I have been so hard at the books I have not danced or had wine in three years. I am quite embarrassed to have made such a fool of myself.”
August said, shouldering up the boy, “I warrant you had a great deal of help. Someone scuttled your jib and sent you off the boards there. Let us get you to a bench. As the morrow is Christmas, you may rest.”
“Christmas? Alas, no. I must be in Meeting at the earliest. Oh, I shall rue this evening, I fear. Oh, please forgive me.” He spoke to Gwenny.
As we rode home, I asked August, “What do you know of that man?” The mere fact that John Hancock was no doubt on bad terms with Wallace Spencer made him all the more appealing than had his cream-colored coat and breeches.
“Spencer, that hack-slaver? As black a bilge rat as Rafe MacAlister.”
“I meant Hancock. Other than that his hair was astir, he seems gentle and striking fair. I might be pleased to have him suitor to Gwyneth.”
August chuckled. “You choose well, for he’s heir of the richest family on this shore, I would wager. Half my cargo is whale oil and rum to England from the Hancock company. Would a minister’s son want me for an uncle?”
“He might make her a good husband.”
“He might, indeed. There. She is asleep now. As is our America. The shame will be when anyone finds out what happened.”
“You are not really going to duel with Wallace, are you?”
August smiled, letting the expression harden on his face. “I might look forward to it. But sister, it is against the law. And I would never do aught against the king and Crown.” He pointed with one finger toward the ceiling and the coachmen.
I mouthed, “Can they hear us?”
“Assume it so,” he whispered. “At any rate, though a first kiss ought to be a delightful mess between two untried and willing souls, it was but a kiss, and there will be others. You have pretty children, Ressie. Very pretty.”
“Are you fond of America Roberts?”
“Well, of course.”
I raised my brows.
He said, “Not that way. She is too beautiful.”
I wondered if some disagreement had occurred that night I left them alone with only blind Jacob and the children. “You danced with her several times,” I prodded.
“Were you counting?”
“Yes. And what man scorns a beautiful woman?”
He shifted his legs and said, “The cold this time of night is cruel, isn’t it? It is well past midnight. Don’t tell me you shall turn right around and make your children go to church meeting? I don’t intend to go.”
“Fine example you are, uncle.”
CHAPTER 28
January 18, 1756
August meant to stay with us until Cullah and Brendan returned. Everything changed the second week of January, when a sudden thaw left the roads passable but not yet muddy. If he had been present, rather than down in Boston at the harbor on business all day, he might have ba
lanced things, or taken them into hand himself. Jacob was not in the house; he was feeding the goats and fowl, doing the milking. The children were upstairs with America and Gwyneth at their books. A gig that I recognized as one of the Spencers’ pulled up to my house. Serenity alighted and left the entire rig with four men and six horses stamping against the cold, waiting in the road.
I invited her in, of course. It was what must be done. “Will you have coffee?” I asked after she had been seated.
“Tea, if you have it. All England is mad for tea now. We were there last spring. Oh, have you ever seen Hyde Park in spring? Just lovely. You cannot imagine it if you have not been there. You must go sometime.”
“I have no tea but there is coffee,” I said, “and biscuit.” I heard children playing overhead and smiled. “My youngest two. Benjamin hates being confined to the house in this weather. They are playing at knights and castles as they learn their history. I believe we are up to the reign of King John.”
“I do not care for coffee.”
“Well, then. Beer?”
“No, thank you. I am on my way to Concord to see a dear friend of mine. And my mother is ailing, did you know? I am going to interview another doctor for her.”
“Yes, I knew. Lady Spencer—”
“Not Lady Spencer. I mean my mother, Mistress Roberts-Brown. Quite lost her mind, poor soul. Rambles on, saying the same things over and over.” Serenity seemed to be squirming in her seat. Something had brought the woman here, that I knew.
“How sad.” To be kind, I said, “Often when people are old, they forget what they have just said. It is not madness, just aging.”
“Well, that may be so for your mother, but my mother is daft as a drunkard most of the time. I hope I never live so long as to become idiotic. I was quite taken with your gown. Who made it? Oh, dear. That’s not why I called. Oh, well. You know, don’t you?”
“Know, Serenity?”
“Well, that we’re apologetic. Wallace and I are monstrously sorry for the incident that happened in our home and trust you will say nothing at all about it. We are both very sorry you became upset. There. That’s it.”
“Is that why you called?” I asked, bridling a cauldron of anger that she was stirring. Perhaps she was only here to forestall another meeting between Wallace and my brother. “Why, Serenity, you cannot be sorry that I was upset.”
“Why not?”
“You cannot apologize for my feelings. You may apologize for your actions. You may even try to apologize for your husband’s taking advantage of my daughter and disgracing her, and throwing an honorable young man out a window with a fist to his jaw. But”—I slowed my words, emphasizing each one—“you may not apologize for my feelings. My feelings are my response to your husband fondling my daughter. He all but called out my brother to a duel. No, Mistress Spencer, you must apologize for your husband’s actions.”
“Well. Well. I told him he was mistaken sending me here. You are not our level of society. You were a slave. Everyone knows what slaves are like.”
“Why, Serenity, I lived with you. I was your companion and friend. Indenture was in my childhood. Perhaps I lack understanding, not being so refined as yourself. What are you implying?”
“Your children are from all different masters.”
“How many children on your plantation look like Wallace?”
Serenity stood with a hop, nearly tumbling over the chair in which she had been sitting. “How dare you.”
“Fifteen, by now I should say, at least.”
She stomped toward the door. There, she stopped and looked from her gown to a bolt of fine blue wool I had laid there on a small table, waiting to be wrapped and taken to town. She gasped. They were the same fabric. She whirled at me. “You may think you belong in our society, Miss Talbot, but you do not. You are nothing but a tradeswoman, a crafter. You and your family will never darken the door of my home again.”
I thought of Lady Spencer’s grand home, now already pledged to my brother, and realized that Serenity had no knowledge of that. “I would not let Gwyneth’s shadow fall upon so much as your coffin. I am a crafter. Had not the Crown taken my plantation from me, I might have grown up to be much more like you, Serenity. So for that, I am thankful I learned to weave.”
She sniffed, patting her own cheeks as one might soothe a pensive child. “One must make allowances for the lower class of society. God sent you to be a slave so you could learn to weave and make your living outside of good society as a crafter.”
“God sent me to be a slave?”
“Otherwise you’d have become a slut.”
At my side on the table rested a bowl of apples, most of them soft and awaiting cooking down for apple butter. It was done before I knew it. It was done as if someone else ran into the room and put the apple into my hand and pulled my arm. I threw it at her with every ounce of strength I had. I roared at her, “God sent you this apple, then, to teach you manners!” The fruit hit Serenity at the base of her lower lip and splattered upward across her face, causing a tiny cut in the lip at the same time. A drop of dark red appeared on her lip.
Serenity shrieked for her men, and proceeded to feign a faint on my doorstep, her face filthy, and her wig falling off sideways. The man holding her right arm while her backside slid into mud at the doorway asked, “May we bring her inside, madam?”
“No. I will help you get her into the coach. I think she will be most comfortable in her own home. She was rambling on about madness in the family. Repeating herself. I believe the woman is having a spell. Quite incoherent, perhaps mad. It runs in the family, you know. Get her home and I insist you send for a physician. She needs a vigorous vomit and a good bleeding. See to it that a doctor does it as soon as she gets home.” We got her into the coach where she tumbled down against the seat as a child might sleep.
The coach left, though I did not enter the house until it was well out of sight. “Jacob?” I called. “Jacob, I must talk to you.” I told him what I had done, adding, “Oh, Jacob, they will come for me. If we were in England, they would transport me here. The Wallace Spencers have wealth and position. I am doomed.” My children came down then, and I was forced to confess another time. “Children, your mother lost her temper in the most terrible way. I was insulted and did not forbear to take it quietly. I should have asked the woman to leave. Or merely told her I was not pleased with what she said.”
My little Dorothy said, “Ma? What did you do?”
I drew a deep breath. “I hit Mistress Spencer with an apple. A mushy one. Right in the face.”
“Yippee!” Benjamin whooped. “Did it make a big mess and bust out all her teeth? I want to see that!”
“Oh, son. I am so sorry I did it. Gentle people ought not to behave so.”
“What did she say to you, Ma?” Gwenny asked.
“She said she had come to apologize for what occurred at the ball—Wallace Spencer was too proud and sent her—and then she apologized for my upset, not for your affronting.”
Jacob said, “It isn’t like you to be offended over mere words. I have known you to be almost stoic when faced with a braggart or a lunatic.”
“But she was neither. And her husband took evil advantage of my precious Gwenny. Besides, that was not all she said. She said God had made me a slave and that was where I belonged.” I burst into tears. “Oh, my dears, they will come for me. I could hang for this. My poor babes. You will be motherless and scorned. I have ruined us.”
“But Ma, it was just an apple,” said Benjamin. “I threw an apple at Thomas Bedford’s sister Nanette and it had a worm in it. All I got was that Thomas’s father flicked my behind with a switch a few times.”
I bit my lip from the inside.
Jacob said, “Well and aye. If your mother gets a switch a few times, we won’t think the worse of her, will we, children? After all, she was defending our family honor and your sister’s name.” Of course, all the children agreed with that, but my heart broke so that I wante
d only to go to bed, and left America and Gwyneth to serve them supper.
America brought me tea and a bit of pudding. “I am sorry,” she said. “I cannot help but think she deserved even more, but I wish I had been the one to deliver it. Then you would have nothing to fear.”
That evening, when August rode home on a fine stallion, leading another horse he had bought, I was forced to tell the story yet again. August’s understanding was far different than mine, as was his response. “No one will arrest you,” he said, “if I have to load muskets and fight them off.”
“August, we cannot do that.”
“Then we will take your family and disappear. Or you will hide in one of your many priest holes. You built them for just such a purpose, did you not?”
“I would not break the law.”
“It was what the wench deserved. If she were not wealthy, no one would give another thought about it.”
“But she is wealthy. She will do something.”
“I will duel that fat fop over it. That will settle it. It must be done before the magistrate is called in.”
“I will not have you risk your life on that account.”
“You risked yours.”
I sighed. “I am undone. I am undone. I need Cullah. He always answered cunning with silence, and it was the right thing. I have never been able to master my own tongue.”
August laughed in a knowing way. “Only this time it was your hand, I think. Like a good cider, my little sister, you are very sweet and a wee bit spoiled, hiding a hogshead of black powder and cinnamon in your stays.”
“August! The children will hear.”
He laughed again, a bit louder, and said, “I wish that they had heard you bewend the hassock-headed bitch. You have a talent for it; it would have improved their education.”