by Jodi Daynard
“I have every idea of attending my father’s funeral, and you won’t prevent me.”
She looked at me with that imperious noblewoman stare, and I saw the old Eliza I had once vowed never to forgive.
“Well, then, go if we absolutely cannot stop you. But I beg you, don’t take the child, for Boston is filled with disease and every other hazard just now.”
She considered my words. “Yes, I shall leave him. Only I hope my leaving him does not interfere with your dinner with Admiral d’Estaing.”
“Oh, I shall be glad to watch him while you go,” Martha replied. “I have no stomach for society just now.”
Martha helped Eliza with her stays and hair. We generally wore our hair in simple buns, like farm women, but that would not do for Eliza on this occasion. Suddenly, as if awakening from a dream, Eliza cried, “But I’ve nothing to wear!”
Martha offered that she had a mourning dress—the one she had arrived in, but Eliza doubted that it would fit her.
“I’ll inquire of Ann,” I said. “I’m certain she has something appropriate.”
“Oh, no,” Eliza replied. “I wouldn’t have them know my sad business. It would mortify me.”
“Trust me,” I said.
An hour later, the Quincys appeared, and the moment they espied Johnny, they made quick work of us adults and fairly wrestled each other for Johnny. When they left, Eliza found a black gown upon her bed.
Before Eliza departed, we wrapped her well in blankets, having instructed her at length concerning what she must do to ensure her supply of milk remain intact. This regimen I made her promise to follow strictly. Were she to let nature take its course, the babe would starve upon her return. And we had made sure she had left us her milk as well . . . but perhaps such details are unsavory to my reader. I know not. A woman’s milk, however, is a fact of life. And facts of life cannot, or should not, cause very great offense.
When Eliza had gone, I turned my attention to preparing for the dinner the following night. I felt growing trepidation, and it helped little that Martha reiterated how I must take great care and remain vigilant to all those present, including any unfamiliar servants. However, I could not deceive myself: Abigail was an easy target, should anyone wish to harm her.
As she gave her warning, Martha was dancing around the kitchen with a crying Johnny, who had a touch of colic and no doubt sensed his mother’s absence.
I replied, “You’ve been abroad even less than I these two weeks, but you speak as if you have intelligence.”
“I’ve had a letter.” Martha shrugged, continuing to dance with the baby. I knew at once she meant from Thomas, and I felt a swift pang of envy. But try as I might, I could get nothing more from her, and I went to dress.
Dinner with Admiral d’Estaing was far from being the fretful occasion I imagined. It was, in fact, a pleasurable respite from those terrors and doubts that had plagued us that fall, an intimate affair, with just the Quincys, the Cranches, myself, and Abigail. Mrs. Quincy served only the best for the admiral and his company, though I suspect she had to let a servant go in order to pay for it. There was fresh bread and flounder and genuine tea, all things we had not eaten in months and months.
But to describe the man himself. His name alone, Charles-Henri Théodat d’Estaing, bespoke his noble lineage. The admiral was dressed in a blue silk jacket with a red vest matching his sleeves. His face was long and slender, his brow tall and fine, bespeaking intelligence mixed with forbearance. He was not very tall, but he cut a fine figure. Unlike his king, whom most suspected of mere political goals, the admiral aided us out of belief in the virtue of the Cause. To us, he was a great hero. Alas, to his own ailing country, he would be counted a traitor and beheaded a decade later.
The admiral bent gravely before me and brushed his lips against my hand.
“Madam Elizabeth Lee Boylston,” said Colonel Quincy.
“The Boylston family is quite famous, is it not?” the admiral asked me.
“Indeed.” I smiled. “They are among Boston’s most prominent citizens. They were obliged to leave town for several years”—here he caught my drift at once—“but my husband and I did not go. My husband died at Breed’s Hill.”
“A great patriot, then. I am truly sorry.” He bowed.
The admiral’s English was correct, though heavily accented. He was curious about everything we told him of our ways and manners. I spoke to his aides as well, half a dozen delightful French officers, each one handsomer and more polite than the next, in their bright-blue uniforms and stiff white gauntlets.
After two glasses of wine, I tried out my bookish French—d’Estaing and his aides were delighted! We spoke together in his native tongue for only a few minutes, however, not wishing to cause discomfort to our friends.
It was all just as Abigail had described: we had not seen such gentlemanly behavior, or such exalted ideals, in a very long time. I had the opportunity to discuss these opinions after dinner when Mrs. Quincy led the women into a separate parlor, leaving the men to their pipes and port. “Why is there such a difference, Abigail, between these men and ours? These men positively shine from within.”
“I have thought hard upon it, Lizzie, and I believe it may have to do with their relative innocence. They’ve not lived here, among us.” Her lace-covered arm then swept toward the window, whether gesturing to Paris or Boston I could not tell. “They’ve not yet fought or suffered our winters or been beaten down by our reality. For them, everything is still a great idea. Oh, make no mistake,” she added wistfully, “there are those among us who continue to think of the great ideas as well.”
I knew then that she was speaking of her faraway husband and said, “Yes, it would seem that all our good men are in France, just as theirs are here.”
We were laughing at my remark when Ann Quincy leaned toward us from across the parlor and asked, “What do you laugh about? I long to laugh.” She sighed wistfully and played with a handkerchief in her lap.
“Oh, a trifle,” replied Abigail.
We blushed with shame, for we had both been very malign. It was poor etiquette to break from the group under such circumstances. We ought to have spoken about the day’s fashions, the newest bonnets, ways to make biscuits without wheat. But even this benign custom Abigail and I could no longer countenance. As if bonnets and gloves held the least importance when the war was at a stalemate and our citizens were being poisoned!
Though I am loath to mar the memory of this excellent evening with darker thoughts, I must be truthful and say that I watched every morsel we placed to our lips.
It is difficult to describe the terror I felt. Perhaps Abigail felt it, too, but we did not discuss it. We had to put our trust in the colonel and his servants. But that did not prevent me from allowing every beverage, every sauce, a moment on my tongue to taste for any unnatural bitterness before swallowing it. And while I never told Abigail this, I endeavored to keep her talking so that I could taste everything before she did.
Reader, I tasted no poison. But at this dinner I had my first taste of the rebel spirit within myself. It was a tincture that galvanized my soul. As I found myself tasting food for my beloved Abigail, I knew I was then prepared to stake my life for her. And not just for her, but for John, their children, and the Cause, for which the esteemed Admiral d’Estaing and his men did battle.
Unlike Abigail, who helped her husband with her marvelous words, I had no one I could influence in that way. Indeed, I had no husband and no child to whom my existence mattered. While I mattered to myself, I understood then that beyond me, things far more significant than I hung in the balance.
Manly thoughts in a manly time!
It grew late, and Abigail and I soon took our leave. I paused by the men’s parlor to thank the colonel and the admiral, catching them in passionate private conversation. The aides spoke among each other, also in French. I ca
ught the admiral’s fervently whispered words to the colonel, “C’est la Rose en ville où on droit faire la reconnaissance scrupuleuse.”
When the men saw us, they abruptly ceased their conversation, and an awkward silence followed.
I said, “Excuse us. We merely wish to take our leave, as it is quite late.”
They all rose to bid us good-bye. Admiral d’Estaing bowed, brushed his lips across my hand, and said, “It has been a great pleasure.”
His blue eyes searched mine, or so I imagined. He then turned to Abigail, bowed, kissed her hand, and said, “I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again. If you write to your husband, please give him my very best wishes.”
Abigail curtsied, and we exited the house somewhat tipsily. The admiral’s phrase had meant nothing to any of the others. Indeed, Abigail had heard it not. I, however, had not only heard, but knew its meaning.
In her carriage, Abigail regarded her hand and announced, “I shall never wash this hand again.” Then she giggled like a schoolgirl and departed.
I had laughed with her, but as I walked through the dunes my soul was on fire. For, hearing the admiral’s words, I had finally determined upon a course of action.
32
I SLEPT VERY ill that night. In the morning, Martha complained that my tossing and turning had kept her awake. She then proceeded to torment me until I confessed to her what I had heard. I translated the words for her. Though she had learned some French from a nanny, she had retained almost none of it.
Alone, C’est la Rose meant nothing. However, there was a well-known tavern, the Rose and Crown, on Rowe’s Wharf, which even I knew to be a Loyalist meeting place. It was this tavern that Admiral d’Estaing, intimate friend of George Washington, suggested needed “scrupulous watching.”
What I had resolved during that sleepless night was to return to my house in Cambridge and take up residence at this same Rose and Crown tavern. Not as a woman, naturally—for such a creature would instantly be suspected as either a spy or a whore—but as a messenger boy. The freedom I felt astride Star, and my earlier, unbidden wish that I could don a disguise and rise free and unobserved, now seemed destined for this one purpose.
It may be difficult to fathom how a young, well-bred woman such as I became a spy. But one need only remember how desperate we women were. We wished to be of some use. When there was little to grow and even less to buy, what we were left with were our wits. As for myself, so little did I feel like a woman in those days that I could have spoken as Hamlet did: “What have I to fear? I do not set my life at a pin’s fee!”
Martha was dead set against it. I would be gone too long and too frequently, and she would be kept in a state of constant anxiety. “You know not what you do!” She turned to me angrily.
“We’re none of us born heroes,” I replied. “Our heroism or ignominy must come from the choices we make. You yourself have argued that, in certain times, the ends justify the means.”
“Yes, but I had no idea of you going so far beyond the bounds of—”
“Propriety? Indeed. However, recall that it is only a mask, as many of us apparently see fit to wear these days. Beneath the board you place upon my breast, beneath my trousers, I assure you I am as much a woman as I ever was.”
“You’re incorrigible is what you are.” She turned away, upset and no doubt afraid for me.
I moved to face her. “A fork in the road has presented itself to me, Martha. I have no one to support, no children or husband. Oh—don’t object. I say this not to gain your pity, or to pity myself, but because I’m in the right. I know I am, and so do you. I’m resolved.”
I continued. “Luckily, we have finished the heaviest of chores, so I hope to burden you but little with my absence.”
We had already dried and milled our scant corn, pressed our cider, carded our tow, and killed a young hog, which had been given us for the birth of twins. We saltpetered it and hung its parts to dry.
Martha looked at me gravely. “If you are resolved, then there is nothing I can do,” she said. “But know that if you fail in your disguise, it will prove fatal to you and perhaps to others as well.”
Her argument sent chills through my body, but I merely nodded.
Martha had nothing more to say. She ignored me the rest of the day, took her supper alone, and retired to the second chamber, without giving me her usual embrace.
“What is all the fuss I heard?” Eliza asked upon my descent into the parlor, where she sat giving little Johnny to suck. She had been oddly subdued since her return from her father’s funeral the previous evening. “Have you had words with Martha?”
“Oh, it is nothing,” I said, not very convincingly.
I knew she did not believe me, but she continued to nurse her babe contentedly.
History would not write about me, nor judge me as it would my friend Abigail. But each man or woman must judge himself on this earth, and, like Abigail, I wished not to look back years hence and find myself lacking.
In general, I was not a good sleeper. But the night before my first foray as “Johnny Tucker,” I had a great deal of difficulty. I had not the warmth of another soul beside me, and in the absence of the noise and clutter of the day, my thoughts swooped down upon me like dark, noisy vultures, creating a cacophony of regret and reproach. On this night, I was afraid of discovery and of discovering equally. I was afraid for Abigail and for Martha. And yet, how quickly heroism can seem like self-importance! I, like Sancho Panza upon his donkey! The vultures cried until dawn broke and at last I was able to rise.
It was frightfully cold that morning. The sky was dark. Steel-gray ocean waves crashed pitilessly upon the shore; my breath enshrouded me.
I dressed slowly and carefully, finding the buttons of Jeb’s breeches difficult to fasten; a slight trace of his smell in his shirt made me catch my breath and doubt my mission, but only momentarily. I finally descended the stairs when, halfway down them, I bumped into Eliza. Seeing me, she shrieked, “Help! Someone, help!”
“Shh!” I grasped her arm. “It is I, Lizzie!”
“Lizzie? What on earth are you about?”
I descended the stairs and Eliza followed me into the kitchen.
Martha, who was already within, replied, “She goes to get her neck broken by the enemy.” Martha had just set three porridge bowls down on the table. She now picked something up and came toward me with a hairy black thing.
“What do you have there?” I asked warily, stepping back.
“It is a mustache.”
“A mustache? Whose?”
I suddenly had the impish image of Martha, Queen Mab–like, removing a mustache from someone’s face in the night. Knowing Martha as I did, it would not have been entirely out of the question.
“Yours,” she said gravely. “For if you’re to do something, you must do it correctly. Not like that farce that had Mrs. Adams recognizing you from across a crowd.”
“Oh, Martha.” I went quickly to embrace her. “You don’t hate me.”
“Not entirely,” she said, her coldness finally wearing thin.
And what of Eliza? Did she remain in the dark? Our home was small. Secrets were a luxury that could be kept about as long as toast with jam.
“Would you kindly tell me what is going on?” she asked.
Martha and I exchanged glances.
“Eliza, sit yourself down a moment and I shall tell you,” I said.
We then recounted the horrifying story of the murders. While Eliza listened, Martha endeavored to attach the mustache to my upper lip. I finally bade her leave off until I had finished my story.
I was loath to tell Eliza the truth for many reasons. Mainly I still believed her to be indifferent to the Cause and loyal to her family, her upbringing, and all she’d known.
As I spoke, Eliza took up the activity before her: powdering my medicinal herb
s, which we had set to dry weeks earlier. She did so carefully and methodically, using a clean surface. I had taught her to be scrupulous around my medicines.
First I told her about Dr. Flynt and Mr. Thayer and something of their characters—one as affable as the other was taciturn. I told her of their dilated eyes and blue lips, and that all of us who knew of the deaths presumed a plot to unhinge the Cause. I told her about Mr. Cleverly, who’d saved our crops and nearly proposed marriage to me, but who had fled the scene after Mr. Thayer’s death. Finally, I told her what I went to do that day: become a Rebel spy.
I waited for her reaction, my heart beating in my throat and my eyes close to tears for fear of reprobation.
But Eliza merely looked up from her work, sighed, and said, “How I admire you, Lizzie, you cannot know.” She smiled sweetly, yet forlornly, too.
“Then you do not wish to leave?”
“Not at all. Why would I? I’m happy here.”
“So you approve my course of action?”
She smiled again without looking up from her work.
“It’s not for me to approve. History and God alone will know whether you’re in the right. But to follow your conscience: that is your great gift. Yes, the courage to follow your conscience . . .”
“Will you help me, then?”
Eliza sighed. “I feel so weak, Lizzie. So useless. In my life I had everything. All the comforts and luxuries, society, and admiration. But freedom to exercise my will, my conscience, I never had. I hardly know what freedom is. But I am willing to learn.”
My heart reached out to her then. “Oh, Eliza, you’re a brave girl!” I embraced her, tears in my eyes, for I could feel her suffering.
She smiled. “Hardly. But I have borne it, haven’t I?” She looked at me inquiringly.
“You have borne it like a soldier,” I said. “Your brother would be proud.”
Finally Martha interceded with an impatient air. “Enough chat. We must continue Lizzie’s transformation if she’s to have any chance of fooling even the most foolish of men.”