by Jodi Daynard
“I have not heard from him directly, but I have heard from someone who chanced to meet with John and John Quincy and pronounced them well. Why, do you know anything to contradict this report?”
I knew her well enough to hear her heart race with anxiety, and I secretly cursed Mr. Thayer.
“No, indeed. Certainly not. We are glad to hear of it. Very glad. Who was it you said saw him?”
One more question and I would punch him with my own fist.
“I didn’t say, sir.” She smiled.
“Oh, leave the poor woman be,” interjected Mr. Cleverly, who until this point had said not a word to any of us. He then returned to the other end of the parlor, casting me a backward glance. Abigail and I merely shrugged at each other, and a certain look in her eye made it difficult for me to keep from giggling.
Apparently Richard then felt the need to apologize for Abigail, for he said, “I’m afraid, Thayer, that our womenfolk have grown as tough as shoe leather.”
“Richard!” cried Mary, appalled, certain her husband had offended the esteemed Mrs. Adams.
“Fear not, Mary.” Abigail smiled again, understanding, as I did, that Richard’s refusal to defer to her was, in fact, a sign of his love and respect. “Richard is right. Still, I trust no one these days, I’m afraid. Especially not where it concerns my husband.”
“You are prudent, dear,” said Colonel Quincy, and we then passed on to other topics.
26
“YOU TRUST NO one, but I am to trust this man Cleverly, about whom I know hardly more than you know of Mr. Thayer?” I scolded Abigail the next day as we pulled my flax—what patches had not already died.
There was a breeze off the ocean, and the gulls squawked. Martha was well, and my brother was alive. I thanked my Maker for having precious little to complain of, though in the back of my mind Dr. Flynt’s death still nagged at me.
“I did not say trust him,” she mused. “I merely think you must begin at least to consider marriage. You cannot go on as you are forever. With the summer we have had, I fear for you this winter.”
“And you think Cleverly is the right sort of man for me? He is handsome, I admit.”
Abigail smiled. “He is that, but he also has a brilliant mind. You need someone who is your equal intellectually. A woman needs a true partner, not just a keeper, if she is to be truly happy.”
“It seems he has not read Hamlet,” I said. “He was silent and sulking while Richard and I conversed, as if I belonged to him and none other.”
“Yes, Lizzie. I noticed. But you cannot expect even the most educated of men to have your precise interests.”
“But not to know Hamlet?”
“Do listen, Lizzie. I have made inquiries into the Cleverly family of Stonington, New Hampshire, and they are of a very high and unimpeachable patriotic rank.”
“How did you make these inquiries?” I asked, grasping one of her tiny wrists.
“I have friends.” She smiled.
I would not have been surprised had Abigail sent a letter of inquiry. Abigail loved me, and she no doubt wished to see me married off before my youth and prospects faded.
Abigail said it seemed likely that Cleverly would propose to me. “If he does, what will you answer?” she asked.
“I know not. Truly I don’t. I hear and believe what you say. But Abigail, I cannot say that I love him. I feel I hardly know him.”
However, it had been a detestably hot summer, and I was ready to give myself up to the Devil himself if he offered relief from my chores. Furthermore, I now believe that loneliness of an intimate nature warps the mind and has us seeing phantom qualities in a man, not the truth about him.
Such was my state of mind the following afternoon when Cleverly came riding up on a fine horse. It was still miserably humid, but a breeze off the ocean whispered of cooling relief to come.
Cleverly dismounted, tied his horse to my post, and in no time at all stood stiffly, like a knight errant, in my parlor. Martha had just returned from some chore, and I was relieved not to be alone with him. But then she left me to go into the kitchen, where I heard her clumping noisily down the cellar stairs, presumably to fetch us all some cider. Cleverly took my hand and looked beseechingly at me.
“Elizabeth, shall we walk in your garden of Eden?”
“So long as you don’t expect me to share an apple with you.”
I glanced at him: he wore a clean linen shirt, and his fair hair seemed freshly washed. His face was clean-shaven and he held his chin high, as if someone were taking his measure. What was Cleverly’s true measure? I wondered. More to the point, could I see myself waking up beside this man?
“Believe me to be in earnest,” Cleverly began when we had moved far enough from the cottage, “when I say I didn’t come to Braintree to find a wife. But I did find you, Lizzie. I have never met such a one as you in my life. A woman so lively of mind, and so very able—”
He looked directly into my eyes. I said nothing, as no words came to mind. I could not put aside the question of Cleverly as bedfellow. Could I imagine it? I tried . . . and yet, I felt no warmth, no tenderness.
I was just wondering whether my lack of feeling was due to some numbness of my soul, one that might thaw with use, when fate intervened. Galloping down the lane toward us was Richard Cranch. He looked gravely disturbed.
I removed my hands from Cleverly’s and ran to him. “Richard, what is wrong?”
“It’s Mr. Thayer. He did not come to breakfast. I told a servant to rouse him.” He came close to me and said quietly, “She found him lying in his room—stone dead.”
Martha had just come up from the cellar and was carrying two stoneware mugs of cider into the parlor. Overhearing Richard, she dropped them with a crash to the floor. Cleverly leapt to her aid.
“Dead?” she asked. “But we saw him last night. He seemed perfectly well!”
“He was well,” blurted Mr. Cleverly from where he crouched to pick up the broken pottery. “Deuced well enough to importune Mrs. Adams.”
I recalled how the unsmiling Mr. Thayer had inquired about John Adams’s whereabouts and whether he’d reached his destination. Had that conversation been significant?
“Please come, Lizzie. We must have answers. But quietly. We mustn’t alarm the parish.”
“I’ll get my sack. I’m sorry, John.” Cleverly’s Christian name was John, but as I had never once used it, it sounded quite strange now. I glanced at him with what I hoped was a regretful expression.
“Of course.” He bowed.
I quickly saddled Star and followed behind Richard toward his home.
The Cranch household was in a state of turmoil. News had already spread among the servants. Poor Mary was racing about the servants’ quarters, endeavoring to stop the panicked rumors from reaching her children or beyond the house. This time, however, unlike with Dr. Flynt, I sensed that the news could not be kept quiet.
“Show me to him, if you please,” I said to Richard at once, for I had no wish to be detained by anyone.
Richard led the way up the stairs. Mr. Thayer’s chamber was on the second floor, in the back. Mr. Thayer was right where they had left him: he lay upon the bed fully clothed, as if resting. He could not have long been dead. Feeling him, he was still warm, his muscles still supple. His eyes stared straight up at the ceiling.
“Would you give me a few moments?” I said to Richard, who leaned upon the doorframe looking very grim.
“Of course,” he said. “Should I send for Dr. Tufts? Or Constable Vesey?”
“Let me examine him first,” I replied, and, in a glance, Richard understood how loath I was to set the town in a panic.
He left me then, and I took a breath, composing myself for the examination I needed to perform.
I removed Mr. Thayer’s clothing and observed him, this time writing everything d
own. I began with the color of his face (bluish white), lips (blue, deepening to a plummy purple at the edges), and eyes (pupils greatly dilated). I moved down to describe his torso, assessed his body temperature (eighty-nine degrees Fahrenheit), and so on, until I reached his feet.
After finishing my exam, rather than endeavoring to turn him (for now he was becoming more difficult to move), I partially covered him with a bolster that lay folded at the foot of the bed.
I took a moment to compose myself before calling Richard. I looked one last time at Mr. Thayer before covering his face: though I had never liked the man and found him humorless and ill-mannered, I pitied him now. Mr. Thayer had died of no natural illness.
It is our limitation as a species that we are often blind to that which we do not expect to see. I knew this had been the case with me. I now saw clearly what I had not seen before. Mr. Thayer had been poisoned. Like Dr. Flynt, he had been murdered. Once the notion of poison arrived in my head, it lit easily upon a drug with which I was quite familiar. I owned a vial of it myself, and it had served me well for stubborn cervixes. Now it all seemed quite obvious: the bluish tint, the dilated eyes.
Dr. Flynt and Mr. Thayer had been poisoned with belladonna.
The question now became whom one could trust to tell. The decision could no longer rest with me alone. I decided to tell Richard my conclusion and hoped I would not find myself in trouble with the local constable. Why had I not come forth with Dr. Flynt’s death, had I suspected foul play? he might ask. I had to steel myself for that interrogation.
But the first thing I needed to do was to tell Abigail, for I now believed her to be in very grave danger.
27
SO BEGAN OUR season of terror. The moment I had determined that both Dr. Flynt and Mr. Thayer had been murdered, there was no rest from fear—not for myself or for those I loved: Martha, the Cranches, the Quincys, and, most particularly, Abigail and her family.
I had little doubt that it was a plot, for no other explanation served to illuminate why the lives of two patriots in the household of a known patriot would be extinguished. Further, I reasoned, of all the places in all the colonies for murder to take place, the North Parish of Braintree could signify only one certain target: John Adams and his family. But why kill Flynt and Thayer? I had not been impressed by their characters. Surely they could not have played a very large role in our struggle.
I considered other possible targets besides the Adamses. Since the early years of the war, John Hancock had been chiefly absent from town, and his wife and family were with him in Philadelphia. An assassination plot on them would have been hatched in those parts, not ours. Washington was by then deep in the South, so surely he was not the target. As I raced toward my beloved Abigail that morning, I endeavored to piece together a plot whose clues were not all present and accounted for. I believed that someone, or some group, wished to threaten John Adams’s family in order to force John home.
I had implored Richard to do nothing and notify no one until my return. I was exceedingly glad of my foresight now, for by the time I reached Abigail’s farm, I had become convinced that the news should not go beyond our circle and that reporting to the constable would do far more harm than good.
I found her hauling a bundle of dried flax into the house. She had opened the door and was holding it ajar with her rear parts as she backed into the entryway. When she saw me approach, she set the bundle down and came to embrace me. Her body felt tiny in my arms, and she was covered in a fine salt sweat.
“I’m heartily glad to see you, Lizzie. What brings you? Is there something wrong?”
She had quickly caught my bearing. I could not hide it, nor did I wish to.
“Abigail,” I said, taking her hands, “let us sit.”
“Are Mary and the children well?” she asked, her voice thin and fragile.
“They are all well,” I quickly reassured her. “None we could count among our friends are ill. Yet the news is still bad.”
“Then tell me.” She pushed aside a basket of pocky apples rescued from her ailing trees, finding room by the table for us to sit.
“Millie, could you bring us some cider from the cellar?” she said to her servant-girl. She was someone new, a day laborer I’d not seen before.
The girl did as Abigail instructed. Then little Tommy came running in, followed by Charles, whom he was shooting noisily with a popgun.
“Boys, kindly go out of doors. Mrs. Boylston and I wish to hear ourselves speak.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Thomas.
Once they had gone, I said, “Mr. Thayer is dead.”
“Mr. Thayer—Mary and Richard’s guest? But we saw him just last night. He seemed perfectly well!”
Just then, Millie came back with two mugs of cider. We fell silent until she had put them down, curtsied, and left the room.
Abigail whispered, “Was it the bloody flux? That scourge is among us again—but,” here, her expression grew dubious, “I’ve never known that dolor to carry one off quite so—suddenly.”
“No. Listen, Abigail. It was nothing natural—he was perfectly well. I believe him to have been murdered—poisoned. My suspicion is that he was poisoned with belladonna. He had all the signs.”
She looked at me as if I’d gone mad. “You must be mistaken.”
Abigail glanced down at our mugs of cider, and the same thought occurred to both of us: we pushed our mugs away.
“I’m not mistaken. And I have even worse news.”
When I was certain Millie could not hear us, I said, “Abigail, I now believe Dr. Flynt to have been poisoned, too. In my heart I suspected as much, but could not say with any certainty. I convinced myself it wasn’t so and kept silent. Now I deeply regret that silence. Perhaps, had I said something then, Mr. Thayer would still be alive.”
I was in an agony of remorse when Abigail took hold of my arm.
“You did what you thought best at the time. It is very easy to judge a thing from hindsight, when the larger truth is known. Except”—she released me, then sought my eyes—“do you know what that larger truth is, Lizzie?”
“What I suspect is that you’re in grave danger. There are traitors among us, those who are no lovers of the Cause.” Then, motivated to disclose all so as to lighten my heavy conscience, I added, “I have no proof, but I suspect a plot to force John home for some sinister purpose.”
There. The worst had been told. Rather than react with astonishment, Abigail was moved to smile.
“He and I have spoken of it in our most private moments. I have daily feared it.”
“But Abigail, we must thank God that between intention and act there is yet a broad chasm.” I looked at her carefully. She met my eye without flinching. “Here is my question to you: Do we tell or not? We must think through this action very carefully. Further evil that we cannot foresee may ensue.”
In asking Abigail this question, I harkened back to my conversations with Martha: How can one know good and evil when events nest themselves one within the other, like hollow wooden dolls?
Abigail was silent a full minute before she carefully began asking me questions. “Where lies Mr. Thayer?”
“In his chamber at the back of the second story.”
“And who knows of his death?”
“The servant-girl was there when I arrived.”
“Which means all the servants know.”
“And the Cranches.”
“And Martha, and Mr. Cleverly, and no doubt the children. What did you tell people about his death?”
“I made no pronouncement. The servant found him there this morning. He took a late supper of biscuits and cheese with Mr. Cleverly and the Cranches at around eleven, then retired to his room. No one saw him after that. Perhaps they assume he suffered a heart attack.”
“Has he family?”
“I know not. Mr. Cleverl
y might know more. I recall he came from New Hampshire.”
I could see her fine mind working by the intense movement of her eyes. She sat perfectly quiet for some moments.
We could both hear the pop-pop of Thomas’s gun and the shrieks of the children playing in the garden.
“It is not for us to judge alone,” she said finally. “What we decide upon must be decided as a group, composed of our most trusted circle.”
“Richard Cranch,” I said.
“And my sister,” Abigail added.
“The colonel,” I continued.
“Of course.”
“Ann and Martha?” I hazarded.
Abigail shook her head. “No. I wish for people of weight and standing in our community. Whatever decision we come to, we must be beyond reproach. We may not be right, necessarily—for we have already seen how right so often becomes its opposite in hindsight—but we must be judged to have made a unified and rational decision based upon honorable motives.”
I stared at her in astonishment. “And you think Martha and Ann unworthy?”
“They are women of lesser standing in our community. It pains me to say so, but there it is. I have uttered that which must never be said again to anyone.”
I was silent. I knew she was right. “You have the mind of a statesman, Abby. John would be proud.”
“Let us pray,” she said with grim determination, “that John will never know of what he has to be proud.”
With that, we reached for our cider and, sniffing well aforehand, drank of it.
Half an hour later, we returned to the Cranches’ in Abigail’s carriage. Meanwhile, Richard had sent word for the colonel. Soon, we—myself, Abigail, Richard, Mary, and the colonel—were gathered in the parlor. It was dark and close within, as we had shut the doors and windows to prying ears on this mid-September afternoon. Mary instructed the servants not to disturb us.
Just before we took our places on the sofas, Richard informed me of another shocking fact: while I had been at Abigail’s, Mr. Cleverly had departed, with no immediate plans to return.