“Last night you spoke of poor Mr. Fairfield meeting a young friend out near the college barns,” she said, when these negotiations were satisfactorily concluded. “You wouldn’t happen to know her name, would you?”
And Mrs. Squills laughed. “Lord love you, Mrs. Adams, that’s like putting a name on one of those butterflies out there.” She gestured toward the kitchen door, beyond which lay her vegetable garden and a rather weedy border of penstemon, buttercups, and wild roses just coming into bloom. “Poor Mr. George had a dozen of them, for all he was practically engaged to Miss Sally Woodleigh. I think my Ginny broke her heart for him,” she added, in a quieter voice, “not that I’d ever let her go meeting him or any man living out behind the college hay-barn . . . But it goes to show.”
The tiny landlady shook her head sadly. “He hadn’t an ounce of vice in him, you know, Mrs. Adams. Please don’t think so. And he’d never have harmed a soul. But he was like a walking sprig of catnip, and that’s the truth.”
“Had he enemies?” In addition to the marketing basket she’d arrived with, Abigail now carried a small satchel belonging to Horace, into which they had crammed the papers, bills, and letters that had cluttered the hidden compartment of George Fairfield’s desk. “Barring the sweethearts of his lady friends, that is.” Dozens of the letters in the satchel were love-notes in a score of different hands, and in the pocket of George’s gold-laced gray coat—which had lain, tossed down with his ruffled shirt and his breeches, on the floor where he’d dropped them—she had found a small packet of them, along with a note in a delicate hand saying, As you love me, be behind the barn at midnight . . .
“Well—” Mrs. Squills frowned, as if speaking against her will. “He was a Tory, when all’s said—though I like to think it was just a boy’s fancy, because he was raised that way, you know. He’d have gotten over it.” She sighed, and Abigail guessed that the local beauties weren’t the only ones who’d fallen for George Fairfield’s easy charm. “But most of the men at the college, they’re all for our liberties and will be slaves to no man, nor no King either. And yes, sometimes there was bad feeling over that, and once or twice I understand it came to blows, though never here. I stand for nothing like that in my place.” (There was a Mr. Squills, stout and ox-eyed, fussing about in the kitchen, but Abigail was under no illusions about whose place the Golden Stair was.)
“But that sort of thing, ’tisn’t the sort of thing one kills over.”
Isn’t it? Mr. Metcalfe’s chaise drew up before the door, and Horace and Weyountah—appearing in their college gowns with a bulky parcel for her—helped Mr. Metcalfe’s young groom fasten satchel and parcel onto the back. Promises were exchanged to lose no time in searching the countryside round for the house to which Horace had been taken, for a dark-haired woman of respectable appearance, for anyone who might have been called George’s enemy . . . Promises to visit Diomede and make sure he had food and a blanket, to write to Mr. Fairfield protesting his innocence . . .
’Tisn’t the sort of thing one kills over, reflected Abigail, as the chaise pulled away.
Only wasn’t the formation of the King’s Own Volunteers—a fighting-force of the young men of the district loyal to the King—preparation to do exactly that?
Kill all men who would take up arms against the King in defense of their own liberties?
Was there not every chance that the King’s ship, when it made landfall in Boston, would be carrying troops with precisely that mandate? To arrest—and kill if necessary—those whose politics differed from those of the King? Including Cousin Sam, she thought, her heartbeat quickening unpleasantly. And maybe John . . .
No. She thrust the thought aside. John had never involved himself with the Sons of Liberty—not much, anyway. She leaned back in the seat, and thought about the paper-wrapped parcel the boys had given her, and Horace’s worn satchel with it smuddl e of love-notes and who-knows-what tha t George hadn’t wanted prying eyes to see. A personable young gentleman . . . widely known from here to Medford . . . always invited to this house or that . . .
Politics, passion, and mysterious ciphers written in Arabic . . .
And none of them, reflected Abigail—gazing out between the horse’s ears at the bright dapple of sunshine on the shaded road, the peaceful countryside of stone walls, prosperous farmhouses, hay, and corn—none of them sufficient reason to save a man’s life from those who had decided beforehand that he must be guilty.
Abigail’s uncle Isaac Smith dwelled on Milk Street in a house that wouldn’t have looked out of place in London. He was one of the wealthiest shipowners in the colony, and his dwelling had its own stables, half-a-dozen apple trees, and gardens stretching back to join the open fields of the Summer Street Ward. Charley and Tommy—held severely to their good manners by Aunt Eliza and Pattie—were ushered into the parlor in a scrubbed and polite condition that made Abigail’s heart glow with pride. “I am covered in abnegation,” she said, stretching out her hand to her aunt. “And to you, Pattie, I owe you a thousand apologies. What must you think of me—?”
“I think you’re a good lady who got talking too much to her nephew in Cambridge,” retorted Aunt Eliza good-naturedly, “and ended up standing on the wharf watching the ferry pull away, like nobody ever has in the history of the world—”
“I promise you, Aunt, the horse picked up a stone—”
“Oh, aye, and there was an earthquake and an Indian attack . . .”
All three women laughed. “They were honestly no trouble,” said Pattie, with a slightly nervous glance at Aunt Eliza, who was, after all, a well-off lady and might take exception to a servant entering into a conversation uninvited.
“Lord, no,” chuckled Elizabeth Smith. “Johnny and Nabby went off to school this morning, good as gold. I’ll send them on to you when they come back, unless you’d care to stay for dinner . . . You’re sure? Let me at least have Cuffee carry that package of yours, then—”
Cuffee was one of the Smith household slaves. Virginians—and the sons of West Indian merchants like Mr. Pugh—weren’t the only ones in the Americas to hold black men in servitude.
“’Tis only a few books, not a bale of hay!”
It was, in fact, seven books: rather large, heavy, and old, their thick leather covers smelling of mildew and smoke. As Weyountah had remarked, there was no reason for Abigail to think that George Fairfield’s murder had had the slightest thing to do with the books he’d bought from Narcissa Seckar—there were plenty of other reasons someone might have wanted to make away with a young Tory captain of militia who had apparently tupped every woman in Middlesex County. Considering the content of the missing volumes and the presence of young men like St-John Pugh in the vicinity, their disappearance last night from George Fairfield’s room might have had nothing to do with their new owner’s murder.
And the fact that part of the original collection had been in Arabic only coincidence.
But she had felt better, knowing that the books would not be in Horace’s room that night.
Seven
Midmorning Thursday brought a note from Governor Hutchinson.
My dear Mrs. Adams,
I well remember our brief meeting and the kindly concern that you showed for an unfortunate stranger whom Fate had brought beneath my roof. Please do attend me this afternoon following dinner, and I will do what I can for you. If as you say the matter is ‘not one of politics,’ it will be a most welcome relief at the present moment.
Sincerely,
Thos. Hutchinson
Abigail suspected that had she not included, in her request for a few minutes of Hutchinson’s time, the reassurance that her visit was not a political one, the reply would have been merely, Send a petition to my secretary . . .
And so it might prove, she reflected, glancing through the kitchen windows at the angle of sunlight in the little yard. Pattie was emptying the mop-water into the gutter of the little alley that connected the yard with Queen Street—it was shocking how quic
kly street-dust and the general griminess of town living accumulated in a house, even with only two days of not being mopped. Abigail ticked off tasks in her mind as she tucked the note behind the household tablet on the big oak sideboard: butter to be churned—thank Heavens Their Majesties Cleopatra and Semiramis were producing milk again after the winter’s drought!—lamps to be cleaned and set ready for evening, dinner to be started, mending . . . And all before she could justify to herself even touching that satchel full of young Mr. Fairfield’s papers.
The “worthies” of Boston ate their dinners later than workingmen and the wives of peripatetic lawyers, so probably she could walk to Marlborough Street at six and find His Excellency back in his office . . .
Oh, drat it, the bread needs to be got up . . .
My dear Mrs. Adams sounded promising, however. From a drawer in the sideboard, Abigail pulled out a piece of paper, then—considering its rough yellow surface—replaced it. When Pattie—fourteen years old, brisk, and pretty, the dark-haired daughter of one of their neighbors on the farm back in Braintree had lived almost as a daughter in the Adams household for over a year—came back in and hung the mop-bucket in its place by the back door, Abigail said, “Would you scald the dasher and the churn for me, dear? But do not get the butter started—I won’t have you doing my work for me; you’ve enough to do on your own . . . Yes, my darling,” she added as Charley—just a few weeks short of four years old and filled with resentment that he no longer had Uncle Isaac’s garden to play in—“I’m sorry you can’t go back to Aunt Eliza’s, but you can’t.” She lifted Tommy as the younger boy held out his arms. Twenty months old, he had recently figured out how to untie his leading-strings from whatever piece of furniture he’d been fixed to and was running everywhere now with happy abandon and was going to get himself killed, Abigail reflected, before he reached his second birthday . . .
“I will be out in exactly two minutes—Yes, Charley, you can come with me . . .”
With the boys tugging at her skirts and at each other’s, she went down the hall to John’s study, sat the boys firmly on the chairs there (For all the good that’s like to do . . .) and, on the fine smooth English legal paper from John’s desk, wrote a quick précis of the events of Tuesday evening and yesterday: that George Fairfield, a scholar at Harvard, had been murdered in his room by person or persons unknown; that all evidence showed that his slave Diomede had been drugged; that items were missing from Fairfield’s rooms that a robber could have taken; but that the Reverend Dr. Langdon (whom Abigail knew was no friend to Hutchinson) was stubbornly insisting that Diomede must be the culprit because as a slave he must have hated his master enough to do murder, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Without your assistance in the matter, the unfortunate Diomede will be returned to his master’s father in Virginia and will surely suffer the extreme penalty for a crime of which he is almost certainly innocent. In the name of justice, sir, please consider either taking the necessary steps to have the case tried in the courts of Massachusetts, or at the very least, stay this unhappy man’s deportation until some enquiry can be made into the actual circumstances of the event, for he surely can expect no justice once he leaves these shores. Yours sincerely, A. Adams.
And a blot, because Tommy, overwhelmed with the endless weight of enforced stillness, was moved to pull Charley’s hair, setting off a train of circumstance that precipitated both boys against their mother’s chair.
One day I am going to run off to the Maine Assizes myself and let John stay here and make butter . . .
Petition in hand and, for the sake of propriety (a convention she privately considered silly), escorted by her daughter Nabby, Abigail walked the quarter mile along Cornhill to Marlborough Street at six and presented the Governor’s note to the Governor’s butler at the handsome three-story brick mansion allotted by the colony to the representative of the Crown. Just as well, she thought, that John IS away at the Assizes . . . To her assertion a few months ago that she had never found His Excellency to be other than polite and considerate, John had simply roared, And I suppose you’d think well of a WHOREMASTER who was polite to you?
If he were not passionate, about politics as well as all other things, she supposed, he would not be John . . .
But it was best that she, and not he, was in charge of this particular portion of the effort to save an innocent man from death.
A dozen men—most of them well-off merchants, to judge by the quality of their clothing and wigs—occupied the chairs of the handsome tapestried parlor to which the butler showed her; the Governor’s son-in-law Mr. Oliver got quickly to his feet and offered Abigail his chair, and a man whom she recognized as one of Uncle Isaac’s extremely wealthy merchant rivals brought his own seat over for Nabby, who curtseyed her thanks in some confusion. At not quite nine, the plump, quiet girl was curious and a little proud to be taken out into company, but invariably shy once among strangers, and sat with hands folded in silence, wide blue eyes taking in the old-fashioned, elegant hangings and carved wainscot of the room. Abigail sent in her petition and took note of the men whom the Governor called in before her with abstract curiosity. She rated, evidently, below the merchants—who were probably relations of the Governor—but above the two she guessed were ship-captains.
Given that no one in Boston had the slightest idea what the King was going to rule appropriate punishment for the colony and the town, it was not surprising that His Excellency was being inundated with requests for audience, favors, and assurance of protection.
From her satchel she took the small packet of love-letters that had been in George Fairfield’s pocket and glanced over them while she waited, as she would on another occasion have brought a book. Delicate and rather rounded handwriting, thin expensive French paper, passionate sentiments, a faint scent of attar of roses, and no signature. But obviously some wealthy man’s daughter who had been taught, at least, to handle a pen.
“Mrs. Adams?” said the secretary from the inner door.
Governor Hutchinson—whom John habitually described as a pusillanimous traitor—was on his feet when Abigail came into his study, and himself held the chair for her when she sat.
“This sounds like a most serious matter, Mrs. Adams,” he said in his soft voice, seating himself and touching the petition that lay before him on his desk. “And one in which there is certain to be some question from Governor Dunmore of Virginia, regarding the legality of distraining a man’s property here in Massachusetts, should Mr. Fairfield, Senior, demand the slave Diomede’s immediate return. Are you sure of what you contend, that the man was drugged and not merely drunk?”
“Two students who entered the room and—as young men will—drank off the rest of the rum in the carafe were rendered unconscious within minutes. Two others—I presume juniors who were only able to get a lesser share—were groggy and stumbling. No rum remained in the carafe, but I found the inference compelling.”
“And the items removed from the room—?”
“Two old volumes, only recently acquired by Mr. Fairfield from a Mrs. Seckar.”
The Governor’s narrow face lightened: “Not old Professor Seckar’s widow? Dear Heavens, if ever there was a man who would cut you to pieces over whether God’s predetermination of the saved and the reprobate was active or passive—I remember that thundering lecture of his on infralapsarianism and the precise timing of the Fall of the Angels that went two hours over into the dinner hour, and all of us ready to tear apart the youngest freshman in the room and eat him, we were so hungry. Which I suppose,” he added with a smile, “was proof in his eyes that we were none of us saved and all doomed to the eternal fires. But I thought he left the whole of his library to the college when he died?”
“I believe these volumes had come down to Mrs. Seckar from her grandfather.”
“I wonder that—” He visibly bit back some epithet applicable to the Reverend Dr. Langdon, and continued, “I wonder that Dr. Langdon didn’t insist on their inclus
ion in the bequest. That wouldn’t be Barthelmy Whitehead, would it? By all accounts the man was practically illiterate, but with a heart like a counting-frame—one of the last men in the colony to attempt to sell Indians as slaves to the West Indies and one of the first to enter the Negro trade.”
Abigail guessed that having written a history of the colony—his own troublesome ancestress having played no small part in it—the Governor was intimately acquainted with the affairs of every family from Cape Cod to Halifax.
“Perhaps Dr. Langdon did not consider them appropriate for inclusion in the College library,” she replied. “I understand from my nephew—whom I was visiting in Cambridge on Tuesday night, when the crime took place—that they were of an improper nature.”
“Ah.” Hutchinson frowned. “Young men being what they are, that might account for their theft but surely not for murder being done over them.”
“Among normal men, no, sir. But I’m sure Your Excellency is aware that where darkness corrodes a man’s heart, even matters of insignificance become reasonable grounds for murder.”
He shot her a sidelong glance—clearly thinking of Wily Cousin Sam—and murmured, “Just so.”
“The circumstance of their theft so soon after their acquisition, and of poor Diomede—Mr. Fairfield’s man—being drugged to prevent his waking during the theft, seem to me sufficient grounds to merit investigation, and intervention on your part to have the matter tried here in Massachusetts, where witnesses in the man’s defense can be brought forward. Objectionable as the condition of slavery is, I do not see it as ipso facto proof of a slave’s guilt in his master’s murder when there are circumstances that so clearly point to another cause.”
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