Cullah was, at that moment, doing exactly that. The Tories expected the colonists to be at their hearth sides on such a wintry day, and so it was deemed the perfect day for drilling and firing. “They need boys who can drum. Your father was fair at it. You might have the talent.”
“I wish to be a soldier for the colonies, not a drummer.”
“I have got work to do. I shall be down at the loom,” I said. When he stared ahead in silence, I asked, “Would you like me to teach you that? Most weavers are men.”
“No.”
“Go out and help Grandpa. Clean the stalls for him.”
“I hate cows.”
“Do you miss your pa?”
“I hate him.”
“Ah. He will come for you. He will.”
“No he won’t. He will die. Some Patriot will put a ball through his eye.”
“You are afraid the Patriot will be you.” Bertie’s face reddened and he turned away from me. La. I knew so well that mixture of anger and longing for a child missing parents. My heart yearned with love for him, but the boy was old enough he would not do well if smothered by a grandmother’s kisses when what he longed for was a father. “Did you know they pay drummers more than they pay soldiers? Anyone with a finger may shoot a musket, but not everyone can play a drum.”
Later that day, as I sat at the loom I heard an extra thump. I stopped, fearing my loom was coming apart, and I could ill afford to have it repaired. I began again and a definite thump-bump followed the normal sound of the pedals. I got off the bench and inspected everything on the machine, and nothing was loose. I began again. Thump-bump, thump-bump. “It is I, mum,” called Bertie. He stood, holding Brendan’s drum and descending from where he had sat upon a stair just out of my sight.
We laughed together. Then he sat again, and as I started, he tried to follow with drumsticks. “There,” I said. “I cannot tell you how to do it well, but you might start keeping time with me.” By the time the snow melted and the days of muddy roads began, he had learned from one of our deacon’s sons how to get a smart pattern out of the drum.
* * *
In the summer of 1774, Margaret’s husband, Thomas, was made governor. Great celebrations were held across the colonies, for people hoped that he would relieve the state of siege we felt under Governor Hutchinson. I read about it in a paper I brought from Lexington the following week. But Margaret herself sent me the notice along with a folded and wax-sealed packet full of pins, needles, an ell of small lace, and a thimble. I felt hurt that she did not invite me to the celebration, but I knew I would be so foreign to other people there as to be looked upon as an oddity, a token American. After I read it, I walked to our stream and sat by a still small hollow in the streambed where the water’s surface rarely moved. I set the letter from Margaret adrift there. It swirled in an eddy and the ink washed from it. Too late, I remembered how dear the paper itself was, and I reached for it but it was gone from my grasp, moving downstream. Moving toward the ocean, a letter with no words, heading out to sea.
I leaned over enough to see my reflection there. When had I stopped being Allan Talbot’s daughter? When had I stopped being fit to sit with duchesses and peers and become a colonist? An American. We were rabble from England’s crofts and gutters, Scotland’s Highlands, Dutch outcasts, Irish and African slaves, and though some came here given grants of land, in our way we were prisoners all.
A leaf touched the water. A butterfly wobbled down to look at it and flew away. There I was, a wee girl in a torn and bedraggled blue silk gown, sitting crouched in the bottom of a pirate’s snow, that longboat rowed by my brother and some strange men who would plant me here on this continent. When had I taken root? When had I become part of this cold, savage land and its people? When had I grown old? I was fifty-five, an age rare among women. If I did not see my faded hair in the reflection, however, I felt no more than twenty from the inside. I still yearned to wear a silken gown to a ball. I wanted to dance with Cullah wearing his beeswax-smelling boots. When had I gone from wearing embroidered silk to drab gray wool? The image that looked back at me looked more like an Ursuline soeur than a landed freewoman. I had not chosen the drab things that remained to me, I had come down to them as an earl might come down to being an innkeeper when his family lands were escheated by the Crown. My plain clothes now reflected not a smug choice, but our reduced circumstances.
In the house, I leaned over a basin of water to wash my face. The ravages of the constant searches of our home showed. Everywhere I looked, a scar of invasion caught my sight. My linen wheel was wearing out and did not work well, but my dear woodsman had no tools to fix it. I looked at that wheel, so much a part of my life, and thought that my heart was in the wheel, and that it, too, was wearing out. It did not work well. A tear left my chin and stirred the water.
Margaret, now the wife of the governor, moved from her gentle but nice home into the large mansion opposite August’s home, a house known to be the abode of a noted privateer and smuggler who had never so much as replaced the Spencer S above the portico with a T for Talbot. I sighed. It had brought me much pleasure to have a friend in Margaret Gage. I supposed I must resign myself to the change in her life now, and that she as wife of the governor must be more careful about her acquaintances, meaning I was no longer acceptable.
As if she had heard my lament, Margaret sent a handwritten invitation for me to take tea at her home the following week. All Massachusetts was in merry conduct, for we believed that Governor Gage would put an end to the burdens of our lives. I went to see Margaret in part hoping I would hear some gossip about what provisions he would enact soonest. Take the man-o’-war out of the harbor? Remove the four thousand soldiers from Boston town? Stop the searching of our homes, the stealing and rifling of property? My friends at First Church continued their secret messages as the Committee of Safety. Minutemen and militia drilled in my farm fields when there were no crops. “Please, Margaret, tell me some good news I may spread abroad?”
“My dear,” she said, “I trust Thomas to act wisely. He is a man of the king, but he is more sensible than Hutchinson. We are all thankful for the change of leadership.”
“That sounds too guarded for my friend of old. I know you may not feel we can be as close as before, but tell me it will be different.”
“Of course it will be different. His first priority, he told me, is to remedy the seditious talk of war.”
“Will he lift the embargo? Reduce the taxes? Return my cow?”
“He must quell the rebellious spirit of the colonies.”
I bristled. “That sounds ominous.” I sipped tea. “Margaret?”
“Do not ask me more, Ressie. I asked you here for a purpose. If you are my friend, if you have been my friend, please let us say farewell for a time.”
I set the teacup in its saucer and straightened my back. “For a time? What sort of time? Until you deign to speak to me again? Have I grown less entertaining? Are my clothes too drab to grace your parlor?”
“You know it isn’t that.”
“You are always welcome at my house,” I said, though I had a difficult time keeping my lips from turning down and weeping like a child. “I shall not trouble you any longer.” I stood.
“Ressie, please. My husband’s position makes your coming here suspect to your own people. Surely you can see that.”
“I think it makes you suspect to your people.”
“It does. Can I lie to you? No. Of all the people I know, you are the one for whom my lips cannot be forced to lie. Ressie. Everything is wrong now. Please let me explain.”
I looked at the fine velvet draperies hanging at her windows. I remembered how proud I had once been of the linens I had made that once filled our home, how they filled my heart with pride in my own labor and joy that my children were warm. How the soldiers had slashed at their rings with swords and carted them all away. “You are correct. It is not only your husband’s occupation. Everything is wrong, Margaret. Good day.”
Margaret followed me to the door, leaned her cheek against the jamb, and whispered, “Good day,” as I walked down the promenade to the street. I stilled my expression, even managed to smile warmly at a lady and gentleman, though I wept inside the entire way home. It was only after I got there and removed my bonnet that I found tucked in its brim a silver sixpence. I spent two days just staring at the sky. It seemed as if it might just fall, I thought, and I wanted to be forewarned.
Cullah left the house at midnight a few days later, and did not return for a week. He brought August with him, along with a cart full of barrels of black powder. They stored it in the barn and ate as if they were growing boys, then both slept almost around the clock. Soon as he could leave, August slipped away in the small hours before dawn. I did not ask where they acquired the powder nor where it would go from here. It was enough for me that Cullah had become himself again, and right or wrong, pirate or Patriot, my brother was part of that transformation.
* * *
Almost a year later, in March of 1775, I received yet another invitation to visit Margaret. This time the lettering was printed on expensive paper. “The Lady Margaret Gage begs the honor of your presence at tea, Tuesday next at three in the afternoon.” I told the messenger, a young man Bertie’s age and dressed in livery, riding a fine horse, that my answer was simply, “No, thank you.”
Alice stood at my side as the fellow rode away. “Why did you say no, Mistress? You have been more than one time in tears for lack of your friend.”
“Alice.”
“I am sorry, Mistress. I know it not my place to say this t’ing.”
“I was not going to chastise you, Alice. I meant to say that you are my friend. I do not wish to have a friend whose love for me moves upon the rise and fall of the waves of fortune.”
“Am I your friend, Mistress?”
“I consider you as much.”
“I may speak free?”
I turned to her, seeing Alice’s familiar face as if anew. “I presumed, because you have long ago earned enough to leave my employ, that you have chosen to stay. You never again asked me about returning to Jamaica. Of course you may speak within the bounds of friendship.”
“Then I t’ink Mistress Gage love you, Mistress. I t’ink she caught in her husband state. He get closer to the king with every move. It hard for her to claim a friend except women that step in that same place.”
“Six weeks ago Gage’s men rifled my barn and house yet again, claiming I had stores of black powder.”
“I remember.” A slow smile brightened her features and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “They didn’t find any, did they, Mistress?”
I returned her smile. “No, they did not.” August had come and removed the wares the very next day. Still, Gage’s men had ransacked our house five other times before that.
“Mistress, I know most men will not be governed by they wives. Mistress Gage does not guide her husband here or there. He does what he want. She goes to tea with his friend. She has to make his friend her own because of him. What woman has her own way? Not many I can name.”
“I know, Alice.”
“I say, she was once your friend, see if she is still.”
“You are right. I should have sent the young man away with an invitation for her to come here.”
“I will carry your word to her. It only decent.”
In the morning, Alice left with my message in her head and a shilling in her pocket, and for this I had to trust to her loyalty, for one word amiss could alter everything. Yet, what was I to do, for I had not so much as a strip of paper?
“She’s right,” Cullah added. He held a brace of grouse by the feet and flopped them onto the table. “You should go. Take the invitation, for that’s why she sent it, you will need it to get through the barricade. If she will come here, so much the better, but if she calls for you again, you should go. Take Alice with you.”
“Cullah, do you think Margaret means this as a signal?”
“You said yourself, she is an American.”
* * *
On the following Tuesday, Margaret came to my house, escorted by our old friend Dr. Warren. I served them tea such as I had, for it was not real tea but stewed of herbs and mint though they were gracious and took it. Dr. Warren asked about my health and I replied it was fair. “Samuel Prescott asked after Miss Dorothy,” he added.
“She has married,” I replied, without telling him more. I cast my eyes back and forth between them. Bertram sat in a corner pretending to be reading a book, but I looked in his direction, for I felt sure he was listening. I said, “Bertram, would you come here, please? I want you to take that satchel of candle wicking to your aunt Dorothy.”
“May I take my drum?”
“Of course, but ask her if there are babes asleep before you play it in the house.” In a few minutes, the boy left, whistling and trotting out a complicated rhythm on the drum as if it were as natural as breathing to him.
Margaret seemed preoccupied and spoke little. I tried to smile and be gracious but inside I felt put out with her again, and wondered why she came if she had naught to say to me, for indeed, including Dr. Warren was congenial but it hindered any freedom of our conversation. At last I said to her, “Margaret? I have missed you so, all these months. Well, then. I know not where to begin. Who made your gown?”
“A new seamstress; it matters not. You know I have missed you, too. You must accompany us back to Boston today. And please come to tea next week. Ressie, I had to come here because I could not speak to you at my house. I know not which of the servants is to be trusted. There are ears in every wall.”
“And that is why I never hear from my old friend? We could have spoken of music, or hats,” I offered. Uneasy silence filled the room. I touched my cap nervously, suddenly aware there was no reason to signal either of them. “Dr. Warren? I hope you have not too many patients ill?”
He looked to Margaret, and then to me. “No. Actually. Your brother—is—quite ill. He asked me to beg your presence. Today.”
I said, “I shall tell Cullah to be ready.”
“You alone, dear, but the house is watched,” Margaret added. “Wallace Spencer has again pressed charges against Captain Talbot for piracy. You don’t want Cullah anywhere near him, for he’s too often been said to be at his side. My husband has, has—oh, Resolute, he has men watching your brother’s house night and day for any activity.”
I said sharply, “Your husband has been tormenting everyone I know. My own house has been searched half a dozen times since he became governor. If August is so ill, what activity could there be?”
“Doctors coming and going,” Margaret said. “Only doctors. It would not seem amiss for his sister to arrive. Or to stay a bit.”
Dr. Warren added, “Captain Talbot asked that I should come to tell you.”
We left Alice to cook for Cullah and Bertie, and mind the house, which, I was glad to think, at last left both of them feeling quite safe with one another.
After we stopped under the grand porte cochere and left Margaret across the street, Dr. Warren took me to August’s house. I learned that my brother was still pretending to be sick, though since I had last been there, he had dismissed his entire staff but for Rupert. When August left at night, he left Rupert, a man about his same size and hair color, to wear his dressing gown and walk before the upper windows so the spies would think it was he. After greeting the doctor and me, he pushed a leather sack of coins into my hand and said, “Tomorrow, I will be leaving for a week. If you need anything, any more money, contact Rupert. If you can get word to your son Benjamin, tell him it is a matter of a horse, and I will know to come to your aid at once.”
August led me to his library, where, though lack of a regular cook should have made things meager, Rupert had laid a nice supper of mutton stew with barley and potatoes. He poured us Madeira wine, and served us at a small table before a nice fire.
“Ressie? I have something to ask of you. I
know you tried to volunteer to carry messages, but there are plenty of men to do that. We have a net of spies and committees that can do what we need to do but this is something few could do, and no one could execute it the way you could.” He opened the battered trunk, the one Cullah had once criticized as not belonging in the room with the other fine furnishings, and lifted up a rolled blue cloth which he unfurled to reveal a coat. “This came from France, and a few of us have ordered scores of them. We don’t have them yet, of course, because no one can pay for a quarter of what they want delivered, plus we want the Continental uniform somewhat different. Wider here, narrower there. Less of a collar. We want our men to see. The British soldier is not meant to see or think, and his foolish collar will not allow him to turn his head. So, less of this thing.” He pointed to the undercollar. “To do this, you will have to take it home unseen. You cannot leave this house with it, because everyone who goes in and out is searched. They even stop the doctors, search their satchels and verify their credentials to make sure they are real doctors, as if a doctor cannot be a Patriot. The blighted Tories actually did me a favor, doing that. Found one of the kitchen wenches helping herself to the silver and pewter like a thieving tinker.”
I examined the coat, inside and out, adding, “Where will I get these buttons and braid?”
“I have a few. There is a bag here somewhere. Oh, yes.” He took the lid off a Chinese vase and pulled out a ratty linen sack. “Benjamin will get you more. Revere is procuring them as we speak. Benjamin will visit his mother more than he has in the past, and each time he will bring you something. Here is the thing, sister. I need to get this coat out of this house and into yours. I’ll go with you to protect you. As many uniforms as you can make, take them to Hancock’s house in Lexington as soon as you can. I will send blue wool and dye but don’t wait for it; use what you can. Two weeks, I’d like a half dozen or so. It’s not far for you to go, is it, to Hancock’s? Some of their woolens are being shipped from France. If you can use wool you already have, and dye it, so much the better. Tell me if you can do this. I had to have you here to show you. Can you make this coat?”