Rather vexed at this high-handed appropriation of what was supposed to be her investigation, Abigail asked, “Would you say that you were friends with Bathsheba, Miss Pugh?” and the maid looked up again, as if startled to be asked anything about her feelings at all.
“Yes, m’am. Bathsheba, she was all right. She told me who was the best tooth-drawer to go to, when I’d cracked my tooth on—”
“Gwen, I’m sure Mrs. Adams does not need details of your dental history,” laughed Mrs. Hartnell. “Really, the things servants will come up with if you encourage them!” Gwen’s cheeks colored, and she looked down in shame.
“Did Bathsheba ever speak to you,” asked Abigail gently, “of anyplace she would go—or anyone she would go to—if she were frightened, or in trouble? Was there anyone in Boston, or in the country round, that she had whom she trusted?”
“Mr. Barnaby, m’am,” said the girl promptly.
“’ Tis quite true,” put in Mrs. Fluckner. “Barnaby is very much the father to all the servants, which is of course as it should be. And speaking of servants—”
“That will be all, Gwen,” dismissed Mrs. Sandhayes. And the discussion of the enormities of the lower classes flowed over the tea table like an inexorable river. Abigail settled back and sipped her peppermint tea (on which both Mrs. Fluckner and Mrs. Hartnell had twitted her, as if standing against the King’s monopoly were some mental maggot or hobbyhorse), dissatisfied and troubled and very well aware that Mrs. Hartnell had told her very little, and Gwen, nothing at all.
Which was odd, given that most people were delighted to talk about events, particularly events connected with murders, disappearances, and conspiracies.
Or did Caroline Hartnell—like Margaret Sandhayes—simply consider her a provincial busybody?
Abigail’s eyes went back to the portrait of Hannah Fluckner—which could have been the depiction of any twenty-year-old girl some eighteen years ago—and then, troubled, to the two maidservants sewing in their corner. And so doing, her gaze crossed that of Gwen Pugh, and she saw in the girl’s dark eyes the wretched uncertainty of one who had lied, and knew she lied . . .
. . . and yet dared not speak the truth.
The maid turned her eyes quickly away.
Mrs. Sandhayes chirupped, “More tea?”
Seventeen
To lie about one’s activities is scarcely evidence of a conspiracy to murder a man she doesn’t know,” John remarked, when Abigail told him the tale of her morning call over dinner. “The woman might simply have been meeting a lover—”
“The two of them were in it together,” insisted Abigail. “Rather, I should say ’twas the Sandhayes woman who did the lying, for Caroline Hartnell quite clearly hasn’t the brains to find her way back from the outhouse if she ventures forth without a guide.”
John spooned Indian pudding onto the plates as Johnny passed them to him. “Nor does she need brains,” he replied. “Mrs. Hartnell is wealthy. Her husband is a member of the General Court and a friend of the Governor, and her friendship assures that Margaret Sandhayes will not be treated in this town as the charity case that she is. No, you shall not have more molasses, Charley—that is all the molasses that a boy of your years should eat.” He turned from his middle son—who knew better than to argue the point—back to Abigail.
“We are in large part as people treat us, Portia. The difference between a woman who accompanies a wealthy young lady about town to keep would-be suitors at a distance, in trade for a roof over her head and a pittance of money, and a woman who does precisely the same thing as a kindness because she is a guest of the young lady’s family is—incalculable. And the difference lies entirely in whether that woman is welcomed by the family’s friends or is regarded by them as a very intelligent servant.”
“But for a woman of Mrs. Sandhayes’s intelligence to participate in a cheap intrigue—”
“So far as I’ve been able to ascertain,” John said, “Margaret Sandhayes came to this town this winter with very little beyond a respectable wardrobe and a couple of letters of introduction: nothing to live on or by. Yet she’s a proud woman and obviously of good family. She would readily admit that Philomela and Barnaby are intelligent . . . and I daresay she would rather die than be regarded as their equal.”
“There is no shame in it.”
“There is no shame in it for you,” John replied. “Nor for your sisters, nor any of the women you know, because Massachusetts is not like England.” He finished his corn-pudding and rose, Nabby springing to her feet and gathering up the plates while Tommy in his raised chair—quick to observe his mother’s preoccupation with her conversation—gravely applied palmfuls of molasses to his own cheeks.
“We demand the rights of Englishmen, in Parliament and before the King, but we are not like them,” John went on. “ ’ Tis what they don’t understand. We know in our hearts—men and women both—that we can always find some honest work that will feed us, even if it be breaking flax in some backcountry farm. ’Tis not the same in England. We forget that.”
“How do we go about finding the truth, then?” Abigail folded her napkin, her thoughts far beyond the warm kitchen and the bright, icy slant of the evening light upon the wall. “We have no idea how long until the Incitatus sails, but it can’t be more than a day or two. And all we have learned is who couldn’t have had to do with Cottrell’s murder—a formidable list of the ‘best people’ in the town”—she drew out the several amended tallies put together by Lucy and Mrs. Sandhayes—“plus the two men who had the best cause to thrash him, whether or not he froze to death afterward. Three men, I should say, counting Harry. Thomas Boylston Adams!” she added, suddenly aware of her youngest child’s experimentation with molasses as facial decoration and hair restorant. “If this is the purpose to which you put your molasses, you shall have no more of it!”
“I’ll take his, Mama, please.” Charley stood up on his chair in his anxiety to be heard. “I promise I won’t put it on my hair!”
There was a pause in the adult conversation, as Abigail cleaned up her son while Johnny, Nabby, and Pattie cleared the table, put the leftovers in the pantry, spread towels, and poured water from the boiler for the washing-up. Thaxter, returning from his mother’s house, dropped the afternoon post on the sideboard and said, “One from Haverhill, sir. It looks like Mrs. Teasel’s hand,” and this John read while Abigail led the cleaning-up, then bundled the older three children up tightly for an excursion to the Common.
But her mind was on the Incitatus, lying at anchor off Castle Island with its white sails folded like a Death Angel’s wings; on Margaret Sandhayes’s firm determination to avoid the impropriety of interviewing the servants of people socially useful to herself; on the shadowy cavern of the front hall of the Pear Tree House and the trace of stink lurking in its gloom that whispered like a trapped ghost, Someone died here . . .
John said, “Damn.”
Abigail looked up.
He held Mrs. Teasel’s letter, but his eyes were on Thaxter’s, who had read it over his shoulder. Their faces were grave.
“What is it?”
John put down the folded, much-crossed sheet. “The body of Mary Teasel’s husband was found in the kitchen of his house—their house”—he turned the sheet to look at the date—“Tuesday evening. I’ll have to go. Pray the weather holds—” He crossed to her, put his hand on her waist to kiss her on his way to the hall, the stair, the bedroom to pack—
“I won’t,” she said softly. “I can’t.”
His round blue eyes widened at this—if the weather didn’t hold it meant thirty miles in cold and sleety gale, and undoubtedly finishing the journey in the dark—and then he remembered. He said softly, “Ah.”
If the icy good weather remained, the Incitatus would sail for Halifax within days, with Harry in chains onboard. And once he’d been tried by the Navy Court—and, given the feelings of the British military since the dumping of the King’s tea, convicted—Abigail suspected tha
t nothing would prevent the young man from turning King’s Evidence against Sam, against Dr. Warren, against John and dozens of others, to keep his own neck out of a noose.
By dark the wind had risen. Ironing John’s shirts by the blaze of the kitchen hearth, Abigail heard it moaning in the chimney and quoted the Book of Kings: “Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand.”
And John, sorting through the papers he would need to take with him in the morning, grumbled the next verse, “Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.” It was a long way to Haverhill.
The post had also brought a note from Paul Revere, reporting a complete lack of result in his search for either a tallish dark-haired thin gentleman, blue or green eyes, seen in the vicinity of the Man-o’-War on Ship Street and going possibly by the name of Elkins or a slender gentleman a little under middle height, dark hair, blue eyes, a dimple in his chin, gentlemanly speech and bearing; possibly wearing a yellow waistcoat embroidered with violets . . . which was discouraging but not altogether surprising. Toby Elkins had come out and told his landlord that he would often be away from town—who knew what that meant? And put an actor in a sailor’s slops or a footman’s livery and Androcles Palmer would vanish as if he had never been. What actor drew breath who could not assume the bearing of a footman or a lord—or a lady, for that matter—at will? The descriptions were no more informative than the portraits on Hannah Fluckner’s drawing-room wall.
Frozen sleet had begun to hammer the window-shutters when someone pounded on the back door, and Pattie came back into the kitchen a moment later with the same young footman who’d brought Abigail Lucy’s note a week before. Abigail gave him a silver bit, because it was raining so hard, and after she’d read the note, she wished she’d given him two.
Mrs. Adams,
This evening we have had music at the Gardiners’ and I have only just got home, after gossiping with Fanny Gardiner and Belinda Sumner, who wish nothing better than to speak ill of the Dead which I encouraged them to do. It is perfeckly true what Lt C said of Sir J, that he seduc’d a young lady of good family who hanged herself, and Margaret, tho she did not know Sir J was the man in questn, tells me that this girl’s sister so griev’d the loss she too died at her own hand. I askt was there a brother or a father, and some say no and some say yes, but the sister had a lover, whose name was Tredgold, and Fanny Gardiner (who is from London) says, t’was on this Tredgold’s account that Sir J had himself sent first to Spain, then to Barbados.
This was in 1766. Would Mr. Fenton know of this, and be able to tell us, what this Mr. Tredgold looked like?
“Eight years is a long time,” murmured Abigail, when John had read the note over her shoulder. “Would a man pursue across the ocean the one who brought his sweetheart to death from grief? Would you?”
Abigail knew any number of men who would fall over themselves with gallant affirmatives: ungallant, untactful, and truthful as a cudgel, John stood for a time in thought, turning over in his mind what he would actually do.
Like Don John in the play, thought Abigail, with an inner smile—because it clearly didn’t even cross John’s mind that he needed to profess his love or his loyalty, when that wasn’t the question. Another man who eats when he has stomach and asks no man’s leave . . . laughs when he is merry, sleeps when he is drowsy . . . and lives his truth though it bring the world to ruin about his ears.
“I think a great deal would depend on who this bereft suitor was,” said John at length. “Was he a gentleman of independent means? Or did he have to work for the money it would cost him to take ship—a consideration that I notice rarely vexes the heroes of novels.” He gathered up the shirts and bore them upstairs, where his portmanteau lay unfolded upon the bed surrounded by four times as many books as could possibly fit into its volume. Abigail followed. By the dim tallow candles that flickered odiferously in the draught, he packed the books first, then folded each shirt carefully into the smallest possible packet and attempted to ram the packets by main force into the corners.
“I suppose ’tis one reason the great epics are all written about kings and noblemen,” reflected Abigail. “One cannot quest far on foot with a few shillings in one’s pocket. Even Don Quixote was of noble blood.”
“I think the point of Don Quixote,” returned John grimly, “at least in this instance, is that behavior that is considered acceptable, if eccentric, in a nobleman is ludicrous—or criminal—in the Sancho Panzas of this world . . . Like seducing girls and abandoning them. Would your Lieutenant Coldstone know more about those involved?”
“I shall certainly write him first thing in the morning to ask.”
After seeing John off in the wild bluster of morning light, Abigail wrote a brief note to the Lieutenant and carried it down to Oliver’s Wharf at the foot of King Street, whence it was usually possible to find someone going from the town out to Castle Island at most hours of the day even in weather like this. Ascending the slope of the street again, it crossed her mind as she approached Customhouse Square that only a short walk along Cornhill would bring her to the Governor’s house, where Mr. Buttrick might tell her how Mr. Fenton fared.
She could not, she knew, despite what Lucy had written, put him to further question on the matter of his master’s behavior and death. Her own heart clenched with anger at the thought that he might have been poisoned solely as a ploy, a means to be sure that Jonathan Cottrell would be alone when he stepped off the Hetty on his return. Yet he had helped her, and she felt a kind of sad protectiveness toward him, lying in that dim attic room listening to the wind howl around the eaves.
What would it be to know one was dying, surrounded by strangers in a town on the other side of the ocean from one’s native land?
Yet as she crossed the square, she heard the far-off clamoring of voices down Cornhill in the direction of the Common and saw a small squadron of constables hastening along the street in that direction, trailed by a crowd of apprentices and boys. Some trouble somewhere, she thought. Thank heaven Nabby and Johnny will have reached the school by this time . . .
“Mr. Thaxter heard shouting in the street and has gone to see,” provided Pattie, the moment Abigail came into the kitchen. “Shim Walton”—she named Thomas Butler’s apprentice next door—“says a man was shot.” She sprang to the hearth in time to catch Tommy before the child could precipitate himself into the fire.
“A Tory,” provided Charley, who had not the slightest means of knowing this piece of information. “Bang!”
“Bang indeed,” murmured Abigail, and fetched out her pastry-board. The thought crossed her mind that if news had arrived about Parliament’s reaction to the Tea-Party at last—and if there was genuine trouble over it—Thaxter could be sent galloping after John. Heaven only knew how that news—and whatever mob reaction was triggered in Boston in response—would affect Harry’s verdict. Perhaps there was some way the Incitatus could be disabled in port . . . Though with spring advancing, another ship was sure to arrive soon.
She dropped lard into her flour, two knives deftly flashing as she cut it smaller and smaller. The wreckers themselves might well be caught, too, multiplying the number of frightened men apt to turn King’s Evidence . . .
The shouting in the street was definitely coming up Queen Street. Her eyes met Pattie’s: “Get them upstairs.” Charley had already put aside the battle royal he’d been conducting between two walnuts and stood by the table, listening with widened eyes. Johnny, Abigail reflected, would hear the tumult with that strange eagerness, that readiness to fight, shining in his face . . .
Charley was scared.
Pattie scooped Tommy up and took Charley by the hand, just as someone knocked sharply at the front door.
Abigail said, “Go.” She dropped a towel over the flour, dried her hands on her apron as she strode down the hall. Just as she opened the door Thaxter—panting—slipped out of the mob and into the hall at her side.
“Mrs. Adams
—”
Two constables were immediately behind him, and a man whose blue military cloak didn’t quite conceal the uniform of Major of Artilleryman from the shore battery. It was one of the constables who spoke.
“Mrs. Adams?”
“I am she.”
He held up a folded square of paper. “Did you send a message across to Lieutenant Coldstone of the King’s Sixty-Fourth Foot, at Castle Island, bidding him to meet you?”
“I did.” What on earth—?
“He was ambushed and shot in the Common. You’re not under arrest by any means, m’am—” That was for the benefit of the growing crowd of men behind them. “But we’ve been asked to bring you before the magistrate of the ward, to explain why your summons was in his hand at the time.”
Eighteen
Is he alive?” For the moment it was all that she could think of: that cold-blooded, oddly compassionate young man dead, far from the family that he cared for. I’ll have to write to them, she thought . . . Then the constable’s words sank in: “In his hand? I only gave that note to—” Her mind stalled on the name of the fisherman she’d handed it to . . . Geller? Gilson? One of John Hancock’s part-time smugglers . . . “I only sent that note across to the island an hour ago.”
“Do you deny that this is the note that you sent?”
Lieutenant Coldstone,
A shocking piece of information has come to me that I do not know what to do with. Meet me beneath the Great Tree on the Common at nine tomorrow morning.
Abigail Adams
Abigail blinked, trying to shake herself free of the sense of being in a dream. The handwriting was so similar to her own that for a moment she wondered, COULD I have written that and not been aware of it . . . ?
Don’t be silly, Abigail. This is not a romance.
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