Redcoat

by Bernard Cornwell

  Abel Becket had presumed Jonathon’s death. Now he heard of his nephew’s survival and he understood precisely what that news implied. He turned to the priest. “Jonathon will be in his sister’s power.”

  “Indubitably.” MacTeague nodded. In April Becket would be forced to pay one quarter of his profits to the junior partner – if profits there were, which all now depended on the men who struggled in the miasmic waters of the river flats. “And the money,” MacTeague said meaningfully, “will doubtless be put to work against our interests? You heard of your niece’s indiscretions two weeks ago?”

  “Indiscretions!” Becket exploded with anger. “A flaunting, MacTeague! Wantonness!” Martha’s celebration, which seemed, by Lord Robert Massedene’s presence, to have the tacit blessing of Sir William, had caused deep offence amongst Philadelphia’s Tories. “She’ll not take Jonathon’s profits if I can help it!” Becket said.

  “Lesserby says you cannot help it.”

  “But Jonathon’s a rebel!”

  The priest shrugged. “Mrs Crowl also has a lawyer. Your action will be contested. It will take money, much money, and Lesserby is not sanguine, not sanguine at all.”

  “It will take money right enough,” Abel Becket said gloomily. Philadelphia lawyers were a match for the devil himself, and twice as expensive.

  “Unless …” MacTeague said teasingly.

  Becket glanced sharply at the plump, shrewd priest. “Unless?”

  MacTeague carefully placed his teacup on the hearth, stood, and walked to the window. “Medical opinion is divided on the efficacy of bleeding, Becket. Some new opinion preaches against it, though I profoundly disagree with that notion. Your niece, however, shares that modern opinion. She denies Jonathon the benefits of scarification and, though he is much mended, he is not yet fully recovered. Could that be because he lacks proper medical attention? I ask myself that question, indeed I do.” He turned. “Allow me, very humbly, to remind you that you are Jonathon’s legal guardian until April. If it is your opinion that he will only live if he is bled, then bled he must be.” The priest shrugged. “Though I doubt whether the procedure can be peacefully done in Mrs Crowl’s household?”

  Becket understood instantly. “I should bring him here?”

  “Should a boy not convalesce in the happy surroundings of his own home? And if Jonathon were here, Becket, he could not sign away his interest in the business to his elder sister, could he?” MacTeague went back to his chair and carefully lifted the dish of tea on to his lap. “There is, however, one obstacle. The boy may be beyond the reach of our law. He is, officially, a prisoner of the British and they have signed him over to Mrs Crowl’s household. They could insist he stays there.”

  “But she’s a rebel!”

  “A popular one!” MacTeague shook his head sadly. “Our city is now ruled by men who value entertainment and frippery above sobriety. In that society Mrs Crowl is an ornament. That creature of Sir William’s has become an intimate of Mrs Crowl’s!” For a fleeting and disloyal second MacTeague was tempted by the thought that Saratoga might be a divine judgement on British immorality. He thrust the thought away. “But I have a suggestion for you.”

  “Please,” Becket invited.

  “I am thinking of the proposed bridge at Middle Ferry. You are selling them the materials?”

  “Not unless they increase the price they’ve offered.” Becket was scornful of the proposed floating bridge which, after the failure of the assault on Fort Mercer, would have to be built on the Schuylkill’s bank. The bridge would undoubtedly quicken the trickle of wagon-borne supplies, but it would shift no heavy cargoes of black walnut.

  “The British are suddenly impatient.” MacTeague closed his eyes and steepled his fingers before his face. “They need nails, tar, cables, timber, and all before the river freezes. A gift, Mr Becket, will make them look very gently upon the giver.” The priest’s eyes opened to stare at Becket.

  “A gift?”

  “You must think on the matter. I believe the officer at Sir William’s headquarters who is most inimical to Mrs Crowl is a Captain Christopher Vane.” MacTeague chuckled.

  “Vane?” Becket asked.

  MacTeague, who made it his business to listen to the city’s gossip, relished this titbit. “It seems he was unfortunate enough to declare an attachment to your niece and received short shrift for his pains! He was sent packing!” MacTeague was clearly amused. “He is not pleased, Mr Becket, not pleased at all, but those wounded by Cupid’s arrow rarely are. Mrs Crowl’s new beau is a lord, no less, but I think Captain Vane will be a match for him. And I am sure that, in return for a gift of some worn-out timber and frayed rope, Captain Vane would be happy to arrange for a prisoner to come to your loyal house?” MacTeague looked at the clock on the mantel and pretended surprise. “So late already! Mrs MacTeague will be making my tea. You must forgive me. Such a good dinner!”

  MacTeague proved to be a happily accurate judge of the purchasing power of nails, elm, tar, and cables, and so, at dawn two mornings later, Ezra Woollard went with two men to the back door of Martha’s house, while Abel Becket, with four others, went to the front. The men were all workers made idle by the emptiness of the wharves and were eager to earn the coins which Abel Becket had promised them. It was a cold morning. Wisps of mist drifted above the stumps of the poplar and buttonwood trees which had once lined the streets, but which had long since been cut down for fuel.

  Becket hammered on the street door. Jenny, the black maid, answered it and was pushed aside by the surge of big men. Jenny screamed. One of the menservants ran up from the basement, a pistol in his hand, to find himself staring down the brass-rimmed muzzle of Abel Becket’s horse pistol. “Lift that gun,” Becket said, “and I’ll kill you. You know who I am?”

  “Yes, Mr Becket.”

  “Open the back door.”

  The servant turned as Ezra Woollard’s hammering echoed through the kitchens, then whirled back again as Jenny screamed at him to keep the door shut. Abel Becket slapped her. Jenny screamed at the servant again. “You keep it shut! Keep it shut!”

  “I told you to be quiet!” Becket slapped her again, breaking her lip, then one of the big loyal stevedores took Jenny in his hands and pushed her face against the wall. The manservant, appalled by the blood and the promise of more, fled to open the kitchen door.

  “What in God’s name are you doing?” Martha, dressed in a silk robe and with her hair in a mob cap, appeared at the stair’s head. Lydia, dressed in a flannel nightgown, clung to her mother’s skirts.

  “I’ve come for my nephew.” Abel Becket faced his niece from the foot of the stairs.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He isn’t well enough to move. Nor does he wish to move.”

  There was another rush of feet as Ezra Woollard’s men jostled up the stairs from the kitchens. The hall was suddenly filled with big men, but their courage faltered in the face of Martha’s defiance.

  Her voice was cold and scornful. “Let Jenny go. Do you hear me, you oaf! Let her go or I’ll have you in the courts! This is my house, you are not invited, and you will all leave.”

  For a second her voice checked them. The man holding Jenny relaxed his grip and the maid twisted away, only to be stopped by Abel Becket’s arm. “Hold her!” He pushed Jenny back, then climbed the stairs towards his niece. “If you stop me taking Jonathon to where he can receive proper medical care, then I will have you in the courts! He is my ward, made so by an order of the judiciary. So stand aside.”

  Martha did not move. “He is receiving proper care, uncle, and you are making yourself ridiculous. Go away. And take your oafs with you.”

  Abel Becket stopped two steps beneath her. “The doctors advise he should be bled. Stand aside.”

  Martha did not move and her voice, though not loud, reached every man in the hallway. “If you bleed him, you will kill him.”

  “Stand aside.”

  “You need so many men to deal with one woman?” Martha’s sc
orn was magnificent. “You can go to hell, Abel Becket.”

  Becket climbed the last two steps and Martha pushed him back. He gripped her arm to save his balance and, for a second or two, uncle and niece grappled grotesquely at the stair’s head. Lydia, scared of what was happening, screamed, then Ezra Woollard shouted at the hired men to help. Their feet pounded on the stairs, and Martha was thrust aside by the rush. Abel Becket, scenting victory, pushed her backwards. Martha fell, dragging her sobbing child down with her. The wharfmen were opening her doors, searching, but Abel Becket, who knew the house well, shouted at them to climb the upper flight of stairs.

  Jenny, released when the men made their whooping charge up the stairway, had fled from the front door. Martha, regaining her feet on the middle landing, clutched Lydia to her breast, then twisted away as her uncle shouted from the top floor that Jonathon had been found.

  Martha pushed Lydia into the parlour and tried to climb the upper stairs, but Woollard stopped her. “He has the right, Mrs Crowl.”

  “What would you know of rectitude, Woollard? Out of my way!”

  “Keep her out of here!” Becket shouted, then Martha heard above Lydia’s terrified weeping her brother whimper with pain as the bedclothes were snatched away from him.

  “Jonathon!” Martha shouted her brother’s name, then tried to push past Ezra Woollard, but the big man easily stopped her. Martha clawed at him, trying to scratch at his eyes, but the foreman laughed, gripped her shoulders in his big hands, and pressed her back against the landing wall. Lydia, peering from the parlour door and seeing her mother so treated, ran and pounded puny fists against Woollard’s thigh. He slapped the child to send her reeling down the landing in pain and tears.

  Jonathon screamed with pain as he was lifted by one of the stevedores. “Let him alone!” Martha shouted, but her brother’s limp, blanket-covered body was carried on to the top landing where his one foot was jarred against the newel post to cause another horrid and gasping cry of anguish.

  “Look at him!” Becket shouted down at Martha. “You’re a witch! He needs bleeding, woman, bleeding!”

  Martha tried to free herself to comfort Lydia, but Woollard, his breath stinking in her face, held her fast. His hands pressing on her shoulders made her gown gape at the neck and Woollard grinned down at her. “A half-naked witch, aren’t you?” The closest stevedores laughed. Martha was weeping, trying to wrench her shoulders free, but Woollard leaned his considerable weight upon her.

  Then new voices sounded in the hall downstairs and Ezra Woollard twisted his face away from Martha to see a red-coated officer come running up the stairs. Jenny, keeping her wits about her, had summoned one of the British patrols that were charged with keeping the peace on Philadelphia’s streets.

  A very nervous and young lieutenant appeared at the stairhead. He flinched from the child’s screaming, then frowned to see Martha in such obvious disarray and under such duress, but he was clearly too young and too confused to know what he should do.

  Martha wrenched uselessly against the hands that held her. “These men have broken into my house,” Martha shouted at the lieutenant. “They’re kidnapping my brother, and you will stop them!”

  “She’s mad,” Woollard said confidingly. “Brain sick.”

  “I think you should let her go, sir,” the lieutenant said with an uncertain and ineffective authority.

  Woollard shook his head. “It’s nothing to do with you. Leave us alone.”

  A red-coated sergeant, burlier even than Woollard, and with a scarred face, edged past his lieutenant. “The officer,” the sergeant said wearily, “said to let the lady go. So let her go!” The sergeant’s authority was old, practised, and reinforced with a musket. “You heard me!”

  Woollard, as though stung, released Martha who clutched her robe tight and ran to scoop up the sobbing, terrified six-year-old. She clutched Lydia to her body, but stared at the officer. “They’re kidnapping my brother!”

  “Get out of the way!” Above them, Abel Becket pushed through the stevedores, making a path for the man who carried Jonathon. He checked when he saw the scarlet uniform. “Who are you?”

  “Lieutenant Jarvis, sir. Of the seventh.”

  Becket looked scornfully at the sergeant’s musket, then at Jarvis’s men who, with bayonets fixed on their firelocks, peered hopefully up the stairwell. The merchant took a paper from his pocket which he held towards the nervous Jarvis. “This is a warrant, Lieutenant, duly signed at your headquarters, giving Jonathon Becket into my care.”

  “No!” Martha tried to snatch the paper, provoking another wail from her daughter, but Becket pushed Martha aside and thrust the warrant into the lieutenant’s hands.

  Jarvis read it. His sympathies, like those of his men, were entirely with Martha, for she was a woman, and beautiful, but the paper bore a seal he recognized. He read it again and sought some escape from its implacable wording. “The lad’s in pain, sir?”

  “He’s in pain, Lieutenant, because he is not receiving proper treatment in this house.”

  “You’re a liar!” Martha screamed at her uncle, and Lydia echoed the scream with a pathetic and frightened howl.

  “But still, sir” – Jarvis hesitated to abandon the women’s cause – “it might be better to give him a few more days? Let him recover? Doesn’t do to shift the wounded about, sir, not if it can be helped.”

  “It might be better,” a new and languid voice spoke from the hallway, “if you were to obey your Commander-in-Chief’s warrant, Lieutenant?”

  The voice was mocking, casual, and triumphant. Captain Christopher Vane, whose immaculate uniform betrayed that he had been warned and ready that a disturbance might occur at this hour, climbed the stairs. He took off his cocked hat. “Good morning, Mrs Crowl. Can’t you keep that wretched child quiet?”

  Martha snatched the warrant from Jarvis’s hand. “ ‘Signed on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief by Captain Vane.’ ” She read the words scornfully. “What were you paid, Captain?”

  “You’re being offensive, ma’am. Your brother requires skilled medical attention which he will now receive. You men! Make way!” This was to Jarvis’s soldiers in the hall. “Mr Becket!” Vane pretended to notice Becket for the first time. “Good morning, sir!”

  Jarvis, outranked, could only watch as the moaning and pale Jonathon was carried down to the hall. The stevedores, grinning because of their victory over a notable rebel, followed. A table had been broken in the hallway and two of the delicate banister supports, made from turned mahogany, had been snapped. Christopher Vane, the last man to go downstairs, flicked at the freshly broken wood. “This is not chargeable to the army’s account. You resisted a lawful order, ma’am.”

  Martha was still hugging Lydia close. “I would not take your money if you offered it on bended knee. You’ve killed that boy!”

  Captain Vane, victorious, stood in the patch of morning sunlight that came through the open street door. His smile was mocking, almost pitying, but Martha heard the pathetic echo of his former pleading voice in its new and arrogant tone. “I can always arrange for your brother to be fetched back here, ma’am.”

  Martha, at the head of the stairs, shuddered. “Were my uncle’s thirty silver shillings not enough for you, Captain?”

  Vane pushed the broken table aside with his foot. “I had another price in mind, ma’am.”

  “Get out!”

  Jonathon was gone now, and Martha was helpless to stop it. The stevedores, in triumphant procession, bore her brother down Market Street while Jarvis’s men, defeated by Vane, tried to disperse a small crowd that had been attracted by the fracas. Vane lingered, relishing his triumph. Jenny, her lip bleeding, edged past the British officer and climbed to take Lydia into her comforting arms. “Get out,” Martha said again to Vane.

  But Vane wanted to enjoy the full measure of this victory. “Perhaps this will teach you, ma’am, not to celebrate at inappropriate times?”

  “I’ll celebrate your defeat, C
aptain. Now leave this house!”

  Vane smiled. “I was thinking of quartering myself here, ma’am. You have an empty room now, do you not? Don’t you think we could be happy here?”

  “In a house where you once grovelled for my affections?” Martha laughed at him. “If you dare come to this house again, Captain Vane, I will burn it down around you. Now leave!” Vane still showed no signs of obeying her, so Martha plucked a vase from a table on the landing and hurled it down the stairs.

  Vane stepped nonchalantly aside, watched the vase shatter into fragments, then went to the door. A Patriot had been humbled, and Captain Vane had gained a small, but not yet full, measure of his revenge.

  Twenty-Three

  Captain Vane went to the small stables where Sam spent most of his time and told Sam that he was never again, ever, to visit Mrs Crowl’s house.

  Sam, astonished by the abrupt order, said nothing. He could see from his master’s face that there was nothing to be said.

  The next day, perhaps because Captain Vane needed his servant’s loyalty at a time when he felt the rest of the city was mocking his failure, Vane offered a lame explanation to Sam. “The physicians insisted that Jonathon was to be moved, Sam, and the lawyers! It’s no good fighting lawyers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sam’s dutiful but unenthusiastic response irritated Vane. “For God’s sake, Sam! If you’re going to sulk I’ll damn well replace you! You want to go back to that sergeant?”

  Sam, who was pounding ginger roots in a mortar as medicine for a sick horse, offered a defence of the Widow. “It was just that Mrs Crowl was kind to me, sir.”

  Vane heard the hurt in Sam’s voice and, because Vane liked Sam’s efficiency, offered further explanation. “Mrs Crowl is a rebel, Sam, and rebels have a way of being kind to your face and treacherous behind your back. I don’t expect you to understand it, but I do expect you to trust me. It’s for the best, Sam.”

  “Of course, sir.” Sam knew as well as Vane why Jonathon had been moved; not because of doctors and lawyers, but because the Widow had thrown Captain Vane out of her house. It was a lovers’ tiff, and Sam had no intention of letting such a thing prevent his visits to the Widow’s house. He pretended to obey Vane’s order, but Sam’s freedom as an officer’s servant gave him ample opportunity to visit the warm kitchen where Jenny ever offered a teasing welcome and where, more importantly, Sam could pretend that his meetings with Caroline were accidental.