“Careful. You will sound too like a Quaker for some.”
“August is not sick, is he? Why would he want me to think that?”
“He believes you would then feel it was God’s mercy if he were killed on his mission. And, he assumes you might ask for prayers for his health, which you might, and that would give credence to his ruse. Besides, he would not have you mourning him as a life half lived, nor cursing his devotion to making this a free country from England.”
“Treason.”
“Yes. Secession from the empire. And the lot of us are in it. Hancock and your brother have been outrunning and outgunning the East India Company. August has another ship fitted with forty guns of his own, a sloop he named Westwind, just to do battle against the English navy in the East. He has gone this night to have her unloaded.”
“In wharf twenty-one?”
“No. It is always backward. In wharf twelve. And do not ask me to tell you which one is given that number for I do not know. They change the numbers regularly.” Cullah breathed and nearly put out the candle flame; his sharp exhalation caused a ribbon of melted wax to run over and onto my hand. “Ah, I’m sorry, Ressie. Let me take the candle for you.” I rubbed the hot wax, trying to spread it fast enough that it would not have time to burn, while he placed the candlestick upon the table by the bed. “Now you know. It is a small thing, my part in this, for I would have stood by your brother and swung a sword, and I may yet, but all they have asked is that I carry the word. Now you, my wife, are not only an apple thrower, you are a traitor, too. None of this will come cheaply. Our own son a Tory soldier. I did all I could to keep it from you—”
“But you could not, for I would not have it. I can stand against anything, husband, except the distance you keep between us by not telling me things. You made me no different than an acquaintance.”
“I made you safe.” He raised the coverlets. We settled into the bed.
“You made me sad.”
“If I am caught, they may now come for you as well.”
I laid my head upon his shoulder, nestled in the cove of his arm. “You will not be caught. And, I work hard to be honest, Eadan, but it takes constant guarding of my tongue. I am a considerable liar. If I am caught, I will deny knowing. I will not deny you, but I will deny my knowledge.”
“I will not deny it. I will stand.”
“Cullah.”
“Ask me no more, wife. I am grievously tired. As you should be, after the firkin of Madeira you had tonight. Come here to me and rest.”
“I am glad my brother is not going to die.”
Cullah’s answer was to stroke my hair.
“I will tell him in the morning,” I said, “how happy I am.”
He kissed my head. “You will ruin it, then. Do you not see, Resolute? You must affirm what you have been given to see as truth. That is the lie you must tell. You must act as if a player on a stage. He wants the world at large to believe he is no longer able to command a ship or to fight.”
With that, he drifted into quiet slumber. My hand upon his muscular chest moved up and down with his breathing. I thought upon every word just spoken between us. In the morning, we left without seeing August at all, but before we departed, I placed a note to him upon the desk at the end of the parlor.
Dearest August. May you find your health renewed soon. Perhaps the physicians may have some new cure. At any rate, please visit when you are well enough to travel.—Ever your faithful and true sister, R.
CHAPTER 34
June 22, 1765
I went to work on a gown for the Reveres’ evening with a heavy heart, hoping every moment to hear from August, fearing to learn the worst. A few mornings later, Cullah opened the door to a knock. I was standing behind him, expecting to find August in some new disguise, though I wondered that he had not given his usual birdcall first. A Redcoat soldier stood there, smiling. “Brendan!” we shouted simultaneously. My heart leaped for joy. Oh, so many nights I had lain awake wondering if he yet lived.
Brendan pulled off his hat and hugged us both. He was so tall and regal in his uniform. Gold braid glistened everywhere. He snapped to a salute. “Pa. Ma? I have brought you an even greater surprise. Wait here.”
He returned to the coach and opened the door, helping a young woman from its interior. She in turn looked back and helped a small child down, dusted him off, spoke in his ear, and held his hand as they approached, her arm upon Brendan’s arm. The woman was well dressed. Her bonnet was exquisite. Upon her face, a deep vertical scar over the left eye was covered by an eye patch of white linen upon a cord. The patch had been embroidered with cream-colored silk so that it was more a testament to how she meant to be seen than a testament that she could not see. I liked that about her right away, and I thought of Jacob, remembering what a fright he had appeared when first I met him, his grizzled eye socket unhidden for all the world to gape.
“Mother and Father,” Brendan began. Only then did I catch how clipped and precise his manner of speech had become. “I would like to introduce to you my wife, Rosalyn, and our son. He has turned three years. Quite a little man already. He’s named after the story you used to tell, Ma, about the boy who rescued all the captives from the ship lost at sea. Meet Bertram Willow MacLammond.”
“Madam? Sir?” the woman said, and curtsied most gracefully.
“Oh, la!” I cried. I fell upon the girl with hugs and kissed her cheeks. I cared not at all for scars. Cullah took her hand and bowed over it, and gave her a wisp of a kiss on the cheek. “Oh, oh,” I said again with my arm about her shoulders. “Rosalyn. Rosalyn. Why did you not write us, son, of such fine news?”
“But I did, Mother. I wrote you when I married and again when Rosalyn was ill. Then when Bertie was born. I sent another letter to tell you we were coming to visit. Now that I’m stationed in Boston proper, with all the buildup, you know, I was so excited to come I could not wait.”
“Bertie?” I said, and knelt before the laddie. “Bertie? What a fine name you own. Just like a name I used to know.” I felt such a tug, both joy and pain in my heart. The real Bertram Willow had died on that Saracen ship, in so forlorn a place. Died with my father. In telling my children fanciful stories, I had created of his name a boy full of great feats of seamanship, a heroic Ulysses. It was always one of Brendan’s favorite stories. “Well, Master Bertie,” said I, “I think after a long ride many boys might like pudding with milk on a fine afternoon such as this. What do you say?” I held out my hand to the child.
He took my hand with all the conviction as if he had known me from his birth, and said, “Yes, Mistress. Thank you kindly.”
“Why,” said Cullah with a laugh, “he’s a bonny wee gentleman already.” He smirked and added, “The letters did not get through if you didn’t pay the cursed stamp fees.”
“Come in, come in. We shall have sweets!” I called over my shoulder. “I have made pudding this day for your pa, who is mending after an accident. Follow Master Bertie and me!” I was overjoyed to spread linens on beds for them, using my best and newest.
After supper we talked until Bertie curled up on a blanket atop the inglenook by the fireplace; we talked and laughed and whiled the time until the clock struck one in the morning, and heard how Brendan had met Rosalyn after the war. She told us she had been injured as a child by the lance of an Indian. The next day, Cullah took Brendan and little Bertie with him to his shop. I was happy for that. It would give me time to talk to Rosalyn, but more important to me, I hoped it would raise Cullah’s heart and remind him of the work he had left to do.
Rosalyn helped Dorothy and me to create her a gown after a new fashion they were wearing down the coast rather than a mantua. My own gown was a sack dress, gathered in back in box pleats with a couched and embroidered stomacher all made from rose-colored silk moiré, and I relished its elegance as Rosalyn helped me try it on. We had dinner in our house, my old table swaying with the load of food and surrounded by Gwenny’s brood, Brendan’s as well, a
nd Ben and James. My new daughter was ever pleasing so that I liked her a great deal. I was sad to see them leave, but much encouraged that they would be but a couple of hours’ walk from our house.
The evening at the Reveres’ home was as so many others had been, with one great change. The room was full of British officers and their ladies, all trying to assume airs of condescension toward us poor colonists. I soon became bored by the small talk and fluttering of the younger women, and sat myself beside Deborah for a while. When a friend called her away, a woman came and sat in Deborah’s chair, fanning herself from the flush of a dance in too tight laces. “Good evening,” she said with a merry smile.
“Good evening,” I returned. She had a decided accent, though not a British one. I suspected she was from one of the more southern colonies, but from the cut of her gown, I wondered if she had just landed on one of the ships from London.
She smiled gaily and said, “Oh, let us not stand on ceremony. I am so tired of some of the women here with whom I have acquaintance. Margaret Gage. Married to the stodgy owl there by the hearth, gesturing with the glass of port. They will have to throw the rug out for the ragpickers after his windy speech to that poor man. Look at him spilling wine with every gesture!” The gentleman to whom she referred was in military uniform, decked with gold braids, paunchy, white-haired naturally rather than wearing a powdered wig.
The lady herself wore neither wig nor cap but a turban wrapped with gold braid and hung with tassels in the new Arabian style. Her hair had not been curled or coiffed but hung from the turban in random disarray like a courtesan or a savage. Smiling, I nodded, curious at such presumption. I looked into her eyes and saw something that opened, as if a trunk lid rose within them, revealing a sparkle of candlelight as if through a shaded lantern flickering there. I said, “Yes, I know of him. General Gage. My husband served under him at Ticonderoga. Good evening. I am Resolute MacLammond. Married to the braw Scotsman by that table, the one with dark hair bending with a kiss now, serving a plate to that girl.”
“She’s stunning! Are you not jealous of your Scotsman’s attentions to so delicate a flower?”
I laughed. “She’s our daughter.”
“Ah. Good. Excellent.” The lady laughed again.
I saw at once her charms were in her disarming manner, though her figure nothing special. She spoke with a delicate lisp, though not a brutal one; it gave her words a soft slurring sound. Her rose-colored gown was near the same shade as my own. “I cannot say I had any idea this evening would be so lavish,” I offered. “I will be happy to introduce you to anyone you wish of the colonists.”
“I came from quite respectable Presbyterians in New Jersey, though there is the rogue or two, just to keep things interesting. This town is lively. So close to the shore you can smell the ocean some days. Tell me, do you know any truly rapacious ogres?”
“Madam?”
“Surely you know some of Boston’s most illustrious gentlemen? I’m looking for one who is a villain at heart for a particular sport of mine, and not the one you think. I find that really devilish men seem to find either simpletons or hags to wed, one who is too stupid to see what he is or one who, if she is clever, is more evil than he. If you know someone here, I should like to meet his wife. I enjoy a good joust.”
A chuckle crossed my lips then. “I enjoy them most in secret. I have to live among these people, and I have made enemies enough in my time here. It does not prevent me from imagining, as you say, a good joust. Or a lovely afternoon hanging.”
“Ha! I knew I liked you at once. Would you call upon me? Please say yes. I want to know your dressmaker and your husband’s tailor, for his coat is exquisite—if I could get Thomas out of that scarlet and into something more delicate, I am sure he would grow to love it. I am so anticipating making acquaintances here in the colony. We have been here but a month and it is dreadfully boring sitting with the macaroni stew.”
“Pardon? Macaroni stew?”
She patted my arm with her hand, small and manicured. “The gaggle of girls married to all these officers. ‘Macaroni this,’ and ‘macaroni that’ as if they had the vocabulary of a flea. I adore your gown. I see we have similar tastes. What do you think of this turban affair?”
“It is most pleasing, Mistress Gage.”
“Now be honest. And call me ‘Margaret.’”
“Well, it is unusual. Flattering but, well, Margaret, you catch me off my guard.”
“Good, I meant to, for I am secretly quite rude.” She smiled again, winning, open. “I’ll wager you have more spirit in you than you like to admit. Quite a labor, keeping the horses in check, is it not?”
“The turban is breathtaking, and your hair, so bold.”
She leaned toward me as if we were young girls sharing gossip. “You are prevaricating, dear. Would you say it is ‘wenchy’?”
“Oh, not at all. Well. If I may say, it is rather savage.”
She laughed. “Good. My husband adores it, though in public he criticizes me roundly for it. All the while, see there, he looked again. All the while he complains, he is stoking up the fires for later.”
I blushed deeply.
“Oh, how attractive your color becomes when you are alarmed so. Please do call upon me. I could not bear it if you refuse.”
“I shall.”
“Send your man around to my house in the morning. May we say, Tuesday afternoon tea?”
At first, I reckoned she meant Cullah, then my face dropped as I realized she meant a servant should search out her house and then direct my coachman to it. Had I a coachman. Or a servant. “I will be there.”
“Bring your daughter if you’d like. She’s charming.”
* * *
Margaret Gage and I became friends within a couple of weeks. I called at her house, which was not as grand as I expected it to be, and she called upon me, as well. My home could be described as little more than a humble country house. More than a cottage, but nothing like those in Boston. She was gracious in every way, and accepted the cakes and ale or pasties and coffee I offered with aplomb. I guarded my words with her still, and I suspected she knew as much. She, on the other hand, guarded nothing from me. And one day she chided me that I did not have help in my kitchen, but did all myself. “Help in the country is harder to find. My daughters have helped.”
“You need a girl in.”
I promised her I would think about that, and later, when I was helping Gwyneth shell some pease, I mentioned it to her. Within a week, with no explanation other than “it seems the right thing to do,” Dorothy moved home. She put her things in Gwyneth’s old room at the front of the house. I was so happy I sang the day through, though neither she nor Gwenny would admit to their having talked about it. I did not like the idea that my daughters would speak around my knowledge, but at last I accepted it as their having grown so close during the last years.
After the sun set the next Sunday, a wind came up. We were preparing for bed when I heard a strange bird calling outside. It called again. A few minutes later there was a knock at the back of the house. Cullah went outside and around the house. In a few minutes, I heard cartwheels crushing gravel in the road, and the clomping step of a heavy horse. It went past the house and toward the barn. The sound drifted into the wind. I heard nothing for an hour, and then the parlor door swung open. Cullah held it wide. In stepped August and the man who had delivered the message to him before, their arms loaded with heavy crates.
Dolly came down the stairs. “Ma? What is wrong? Pa? Oh, uncle!”
“Get on your wrapper,” I called to her. “August Talbot, what have you? Come here by the fire. Will you have something to warm yourself? Brother, will you not introduce your friend? Come. You are welcomed also.” How joyful to see him alive!
August and Cullah exchanged looks, but finally the man said, “Call me ‘Nathaniel,’ Mistress.”
“Ressie? I have put quite a stock into your barn in that upper room. Have you a place in the house to hide
a few crates? It’s going to Parker’s warehouse tomorrow night, but for now it would be better these were watched by other than geese and cows.”
“Of course.” I led him to the panel halfway down the stairs. Nathaniel crawled into the room and lit a lantern, then Cullah and August passed boxes to him.
August looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Powder cartridges and shot.”
I nodded. We gave them the remnants of our supper and filled their cups with cider. I had baked bread that day and there was plenty to fill in what the meat could not. We made up a bed for August in Benjamin’s old room, and one for Nathaniel on the pull-out stand there in the parlor. I had long ago burned the ticking upon which my Patey had slept, but we replaced it with a few blankets and he promised he would be comfortable.
While I watched them eat and presided over the laying out of blankets and bedding, I could not but feel atremble at what the two men wore. They had long black capes and each wore a beaten but black tricorn hat, just as the one in which our graveyard ghost appeared. Their shirts were black as well as their waistcoats, stockings, and trousers. Both also had wide black kerchiefs around their necks. August carried a leather pouch, rough sewn and oft patched, all stained black, too.
“And, my dear sister,” said August after draining his cup. “I have brought you a gift.” He pulled from his pouch a smaller cloth sack and handed it to me. “Taken from the captain’s quarters of His Great Buffoonery Wallace Spencer’s Long Ridge out of Jamaica with a hundred barrels of sugar, and I fear, not a ha’penny of tax paid for any.” He and Nathaniel laughed conspiratorially.
I slipped the drawstrings and looked inside, then let out a long breath. “August. Cashews! Quick, Dolly, get me a skillet. But”—I stopped, my nose into the sack—“these are stolen?”