by Edward Cline
James Brune interrupted again. “This friend of yours likes to hear himself talk, Hugh,” he remarked with disapproval.
“Perhaps,” said Hugh. “He is a barrister and a member of the House. Talking is his epée in the law and legislation lists. He must convince himself of the efficacy of his words and thoughts before he will employ them to skewer his opponents or persuade his auditors.”
James Brune shook his head. “Maybe. But he seems to be contemptuous of politics. He nearly reeks of sedition, the way he talks. And then, he employs spies to gather information that I am certain is not meant to be shared so freely and publicly.”
Hugh smiled. “There is hardly a member in London who does not engage in the judicious purloining of Crown confidences. Some members are more successful at it than others.” He sighed. “And you are right that he is contemptuous. But that is a state easily reached when one has observed, as he has in the Commons — and as I have in Williamsburg — that many politicians refuse to think, or regard reasoned thought as an enemy, or have made careers of deceit and complacency.”
Reverdy spoke up and chided her brother. “James, please don’t interrupt. I am enjoying listening to this man’s letter.”
James Brune shrugged and sighed in concession. “I beg your pardon, Hugh, but I own I was not aware that so much dissension existed in any quarter of England.”
Hugh nodded in thanks to his wife, then said to her brother, “The dissension that exists there is proportionately smaller than that which exists here. It is my hope that it grows greater. A general opposition to Parliament’s and the King’s policies, both here and in London, may prove to be our only salvation and means of redressing the costly abuse heaped upon us.” Then he glanced through the rest of the letter. “Fortunately for you, James, there is not much more here to read that you might find disagreeable, except some personal matters I do not think Mr. Jones meant to be shared freely and publicly.” He folded the letter and put it aside.
“Mr. Jones sounds like a very interesting man,” said Reverdy. “I don’t wonder he is a friend of yours and your father. I should like to meet him, if we ever travel to London.”
“You shall,” said Hugh.
“Sounds like a dangerous and recalcitrant fellow to me,” remarked James Brune lightly.
Hugh smiled. “Dangerous? To whom? Besides, that kind of fellow is the best friend to have.”
“Like your friend, Mr. Frake?” queried Reverdy.
“Like Mr. Frake, especially,” said Hugh.
They talked next of James Brune’s planned departure. The captain of the Busy had left word for Hugh that he would return from West Point in two weeks, and after taking on new cargo in Caxton and Yorktown — much of it hogsheads of tobacco and other crops from Meum Hall, Morland, and other plantations in Queen Anne County — would call next on Philadelphia, and finally on New York before setting sail for England. James Brune had decided to find passage on the Busy and continue his tour after Twelfth Night. Hugh described the two cities to him, and gave him advice on what to see and do in them.
“Hugh and I will write letters to our families for you to deliver, James,” said Reverdy. “They will be duplicates of ones we shall send on the mail packet from Hampton. Perhaps you will arrive home before the packet.”
James Brune smiled. “Our parents will be surprised with the news of your marriage,” he said to her. Then the smile disappeared. “But not altogether pleased. If I recollect correctly, there was quite a row about the pairing of you two before Hugh left Danvers.” After a pause, he added, “And, Hugh, I won’t essay a prediction of how your parents will receive the news.”
Hugh grinned. “They will be surprised, as well. And pleased.”
Reverdy said, “James, it is done. Our parents must reconcile themselves to it.”
Her brother shook his head in amusement. “More likely would be a reconciliation between King Frederick of Prussia and the Bourbons.”
“James,” said Reverdy, “you must arrange to have my things sent from home, and from my London residence, as well.”
“Yes,” said Hugh. “Speak with my father, who can arrange to have her things put on the Ariadne or the Sparrowhawk if one of them is handy. Mr. Worley will see that they are securely loaded.”
James Brune nodded. “I will attend to it immediately upon arrival, but only after Mother Brune has boxed my ears and demanded to know why I did not oppose or foil the marriage!”
His sister smiled in sympathy with him, but said, “You could not have opposed or foiled the marriage, James. And Mother must take some consolation that Hugh and I were married by no less a personage than the governor of Virginia.”
James Brune chuckled again. “I will suggest that to her, Reverdy, but she will likely answer that his honor the governor should have instead clapped Hugh in irons and incarcerated him in the town jail.”
Reverdy grinned, then glanced at Hugh. “I should like to see anyone try to put my husband in irons and confine him to a bed of straw. The moon will rain honey before that is ever likely to happen.”
She rose then and went to a window, and saw the thin coating of white on the bushes outside. “Oh! Look at the snow!” she exclaimed. “It is going to be a pretty Christmas! I hope it lasts at least until the concert at Enderly!”
“Perhaps it will not,” said Hugh. “Snow melts fairly quickly here, when one sees it at all.”
Later in the evening, when James Brune retired to his room, Hugh took Reverdy to his study and pried open one of the small boxes that Spears had brought in from the Busy. After he removed the excelsior and some magazines and newspapers used as packing near the top, he invited his wife to look inside.
Reverdy glanced down, and gasped. She saw sitting in a nest of wadding a mound of gold, silver and copper coins. She looked at Hugh. “I don’t understand.”
“It is nearly illegal to pay colonials in specie for what they send to England,” he explained to her. “Most of what I export is consigned to Mr. Worley at Lion Key in the Pool. You know he is my father’s agent. I demanded from the beginning that I should be paid this way, not in credit or drawbacks or paper promises.” He paused. “This is why Meum Hall is a success, Reverdy.” He smiled. “My debts are short-lived.”
Reverdy nodded, but seemed confused about her husband’s purpose. “Why did you wish me to see this?” she asked.
“So that when you hear Mr. Vishonn and other planters complain about their debts and credit and troubles with their London brokers, you will understand why I do not similarly complain. And you must keep this secret of mine.”
“Of course, Hugh.”
* * *
The Christmas Day concert at Enderly was one of the finest in Caxton’s memory. The snow from a few days before did indeed melt away, but was renewed by a fresh blanket on Christmas Eve. Those who dutifully attended Reverend Acland’s service on Christmas morning were happy to escape the drafty, clapboard confines of Stepney Parish Church and to forget their pastor’s dour sermon and make their way home to prepare for the journey to Enderly.
The supper room and ballroom of the great house of Enderly were decorated with sprigs of holly and scrub pine bedecked with colored ribbons. The gaming room was stocked with the finest liquors from Reece Vishonn’s cellar, and an extra room was set aside for guests’ younger children to amuse themselves under the watchful eyes of their governesses. Liveried servants tended to guests’ mounts and carriages and treated the horses to water and oats. Vishonn himself greeted his guests at the door and handed each guest a card that contained a printed number. “It is a form of lotto,” he explained jovially. “After our supper, I shall draw a card from a silver bowl, and the owner of its mate shall receive a sack full of pineapples I procured from a correspondent in Barbados. They are the sweetest and juiciest I have ever tasted.”
Inside the ballroom the guests were served punch by servants and entertained by an ensemble of musicians composed of the Kenny brothers — Jude and Will, corn and
bean farmers from the outskirts of Caxton — and some hired musicians from Williamsburg. Vishonn had acquired a French-made spinet to complement his pianoforte. Jude Kenny had enlarged his musical skills to include the flute and French horn, while his brother remained with the violin. Many guests expressed pleasure when they saw a harp sitting unoccupied among the musicians; Etáin “Angel” Frake was to perform tonight. They saw her standing in a corner of the ballroom talking with her husband and some friends. She was garbed in the familiar green riding suit, and her mobcap sported ribbons and holly berries.
They also noted Hugh Kenrick and his wife, Reverdy, a striking Englishwoman with black eyes and black hair. She wore a blue gown, no wig, and a mobcap as gaily decorated as Mrs. Frake’s. The Kenricks looked as formidable a couple as the Frakes, almost devilish. All kinds of rumors had circulated around Caxton about the captivating newcomer, including stories of a scandalous past and a talent for singing.
Muriel Tippet, wife of Sheriff Cabal Tippet, had seen her shopping in Mr. Rittles’s store and Lydia Heathcoate’s millinery shop for feminine wares and clothing, and remarked to her husband as they crossed the ballroom at a distance, “Look at the Kenricks, Mr. Tippet! Some marriages are made in heaven, but I swear that one was made in hell.”
“Muriel!” admonished the sheriff in a hushed voice. “What a terrible thing to say about anyone! You have not even made their acquaintance! And what language!”
Muriel Tippet’s pique was founded on an imagined snubbing she had received from the new Mrs. Kenrick, who, while passing her on Queen Anne Street, mistook her for a servant on an errand and did not return her greeting. She and Louise Rittles, wife of Lucas Rittles, the storekeeper and innkeeper, were responsible for most of the dark rumors about Reverdy Kenrick, lately Reverdy Brune-McDougal, widow. Louise Rittles, famous for her culinary fare, had been hired by Barbara Vishonn, Reece’s wife, to help her kitchen staff prepare the Christmas supper.
The whole town seemed to have climbed the gentle slope of Enderly’s private, cresset-lit road to celebrate the holiday. Vishonn’s guests included the Granbys, the Otways, the Cullises, Thomas Reisdale, the Tippets, the Stannards, Steven Safford, Carver Gramatan and his wife, and other town and county notables. Vishonn’s son, James, with his wife, Selina; and his daughter, Annyce, with her husband, Morris Otway, also came from across the river to be here. Reverend Acland even accepted the invitation, though he avoided the company of some guests, and sought out that of others. His known disapproval of the town’s opposition to the stamps in November worked against him, and he had to inveigle his way into conversations, which invariably died soon after he joined them.
At one point before supper was announced, Jack Frake took John Proudlocks aside. Jack was dressed in his best finery, as was Proudlocks. The Indian had helped Etáin bring her harp to Enderly and set it up for her in the ballroom. “I have asked Mr. Vishonn to allow you to sit at his table this night. He declined, saying that he would not mind it, but many of his other guests might. I’m sorry.”
The Indian shrugged. “I had expected it, Jack. It is Mr. Vishonn and his guests who should be sorry. But I am welcome at your own table, and at Mr. Kenrick’s and Mr. Reisdale’s, and that more than compensates for the rudeness.” He smiled. “Then I shall eat with the servants in the kitchen. They are a good source of information, as well.”
The objection was more Barbara Vishonn’s than her husband’s. She could barely tolerate Proudlocks’s presence in her house as a guest, and she harbored a secret disgust for Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick for their treating the man as a friend and an equal.
At the long, damask-covered table in the supper room, under two chandeliers fixed with the best and brightest-burning candles, the guests were plied with roast goose and beef, chicken, various side dishes, mince pieces and puddings, dry and wet sweetmeats all on exquisite china, and complemented with a variety of wines and ales. The conversation was lively and merry, hardly touching on politics, nor dampened by complaints.
Reverdy and her brother, James, were the special focus of questions about conditions, fads, and fashions in England. Edgar Cullis kept a civil but discreet distance from Hugh Kenrick, his fellow burgess. Carver Gramatan, owner of the Gramatan Inn in Caxton and of farmland throughout the county, and who had resigned from the Sons of Liberty in protest of that organization’s plans to resist the stamps and over certain of its members’ untoward remarks about the Crown, refrained from venting his anger and opinions at the table. He merely turned a light red when Etáin Frake, in answer to someone’s question about what she planned to play this evening, began her answer with “I shall start with ‘Brian Boru’s March,’ which I have taken the liberty to rechristen ‘A Meeting at Caxton Pier,’ to commemorate our stand against the infamous stamps.”
“That is an Irish tune, is it not?” asked Damaris Granby, wife of Ira.
“Yes, and a solemn one, as well. I believe it was inspired by the legend of an ancient Irish king who led his army against the Danes, and died in the battle. The composer is not known.”
“Well, I suppose that is appropriate,” remarked Mrs. Granby doubtfully.
That was the closest the conversation ever came to politics.
“And what else, my dear?” inquired Reece Vishonn.
Etáin said, “Mrs. Kenrick here will sing a cantata on the Nativity by Alessandro Scarlatti, accompanied by all the musicians. I will play a transcription of Mr. Handel’s ‘See, the conquering hero comes’” — she turned with a smile at her husband, Jack, who looked surprised, adding, “That is in honor of my husband — and a number of other tunes. And I shall introduce a composition of my own, a quadrille, which I call ‘Squaring the Circle,’ which employs the tempo and movements of the ‘Charlotte and Worter,’ with which I am certain you are all familiar.”
Hugh chuckled and leaned forward to remark to Etáin from across the table, “But a circle cannot be squared.”
Thomas Reisdale, who could not in any event dance, asked with some mischief in his words, “Like all quadrilles and contra dances, I am supposing that your own composition could go on forever, infinitely, so to speak?”
Most of the guests laughed at this remark.
Etáin looked impish. “This is true. But the number will end abruptly, on a low note, leaving someone without a partner.”
“What a novelty!” exclaimed Reece Vishonn.
“A mathematical novelty, at that!” said Reisdale.
“As for some other numbers we shall play,” said Etáin, “we lack the requisite trumpets, but hope you will not enjoy the pieces any the less for their absence.”
Reece Vishonn said, “And I am certain that Mrs. Kenrick will cause us to forget that she is not accompanied by a choir!” He picked up a glass of wine, then rose and proposed a toast to the newlyweds.
The company rose. Vishonn said, “May you both live long and prosper in this bountiful land and time!”
“Hear, hear!” said Jack Frake.
“Hear, hear!” echoed the company.
Near the end of supper, Reece Vishonn called for the silver bowl and the silk sack of pineapples. A black servant appeared with those items. Vishonn’s wife covered his eyes while he picked a card from the bowl, then read out the number on it.
Reverdy rose and waved her card. The company applauded her. “What an auspicious beginning!” remarked the host as he presented her with the sack.
When supper was finished and many of the men made their way to the gaming room for a pipe or cigar before the concert began, Jack steered his wife to the side in the ballroom. Holding her by the elbow, he asked, “How did you know?”
“About ‘See, the conquering hero comes’?”
“Yes.”
“You told me about it,” answered Etáin simply.
Jack shook his head once. “When? I don’t remember.”
“Before we were married. About a year after Hugh came here.”
Jack grinned helplessly. “And you remembered? I am
surprised, and pleased. Thank you.”
Etáin said, “You said then that when you heard it in the King’s Theater in London, you were truly awakened to all the glorious possibilities to you in your life. That is how you described the moment to me. How could I forget that?”
After a moment, Jack said, “You are looking especially lovely tonight.”
Etáin bussed her husband on the cheek, as much of an expression of her love as she would allow herself in public. “Now, go and have your pipe before Mr. Vishonn commences the concert, my hero.”
Jack passed a loving hand over one side of her face, and obeyed.
In the gaming room, Jack encountered Hugh. As he packed and lit his pipe, he said, “It’s a fine Christmas, is it not?”
“It’s a fine Christmas,” concurred Hugh. “Things have happened so quickly, all I could think to give Reverdy as presents were copies of Elizabeth Carter’s translation of Epictetus’s Enchiridion and her Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy Explained for the Ladies. They were all that was handy on such short notice.”
Jack’s brow furled in mild disbelief. He asked cautiously, “How were those presents received?”
Hugh smiled. “With more felicity than I had a right to hope for. Miss Carter also writes for Gentleman’s Magazine, which Reverdy reads. Miss Carter happens to be one of her favorite versifiers and essayists.”
After a moment, Jack frowned without losing his grin. “I’ve read most of the pamphlets you loaned me, Hugh. So has Mr. Reisdale. Perhaps we can talk about them some time soon.”
“Why not now?”
Jack shook his head. “No, not tonight. I’m in too pleasant a mood to discuss politics.”