The Rebellion of Jane Clarke

by Sally Gunning

  At last Jane was able to ease Aunt Gill into the bed, pull up the sheet, and fold it back two turns . . . one turn . . . two . . . there! And the coverlet was to be laid across the feet. Or knees. By the time Jane had worked each thing to her aunt’s satisfaction she could think of many words that might have been applied to the process, but efficiency was not among them. By then her nerves were so frayed that when Aunt Gill touched her cheek and said, “Well, child, I do believe we’ll get on,” it seemed a second great gift that Jane didn’t know how to return, beyond applying a last unnecessary tweak to the bolster.

  Jane’s room turned out to be a comfortable enough space in the upper half-story, containing a bed, a case of drawers, a table, and a washstand. A small, dormered window faced east, which no doubt kept the room cooler than if it had faced the afternoon sun, but Jane already felt the want of the southwest breeze that stroked her summer nights at Satucket. She stood in front of the tiny panes a while, gazing down at the street; she saw a British soldier go past, perhaps he of the dirty boot, but all other activity seemed to take place at the corner near the Exchange Tavern.

  Jane was tired, but she would have said it grew more out of the attempt to acclimate to her new life on land than to the sea voyage, as Aunt Gill had claimed. She didn’t understand how merely shipping her person from one place to another could make that person feel so different—so awkward and strange. And if she felt so different, what might her brother see when he came? She might be tired, but she knew she would never sleep unless she made some effort to discover her old self under the unfamiliar travel clothes and the dirt and smoke and stickiness of town. She’d been left a full pitcher and bowl and she stripped to the skin, unwound her bandage, dipped in her hands. The bowl turned pinky brown with the old blood, but as she touched the stitches Harry Nye had left behind she felt nothing but a solid, dry line. She carried the bowl to the window and stepped up to toss it down, then stepped back in a hot fluster. Full dark had not yet dropped down, and outside her window an opposing row of like windows stared back at hers. She turned around, redraped herself in her filthy linen, crossed again to the window, checked the street for passersby, and dashed the water into the gutter. She returned to the jug, refilled her bowl, and scrubbed herself hard. She put on a clean linen shift, sent the next bowl after the first, and sat down to attack her hair. It was stiff and sticky from the salt spray aboard ship; she ripped the comb through it, loosening the odd bit of seaweed and pitch; when she was through, her hair fanned out around her face in twice the usual volume, making her feel as strange as before.

  Jane pulled back her bed cover and ran her hand over the sheet; it came away as clean as any sheet at home. She lay down and closed her eyes, hoping to find Satucket behind her darkened lids, but instead she found town still very much nearby in the rattling carts, baying dogs, and inebriated inhabitants collected around the tavern. But after a little more time she discovered it was too noisy and too quiet as well—no mill wheel; no millstream. She’d still not reached any kind of agreement with the subject of sleep when the gonglike voice rang up the stairs and filled her room.

  Jane wrapped herself in her shawl and hurried down. The old woman was sitting up in bed, rocking to and fro like a pale white hobbyhorse with a thinning mane. “Did you hear it? Did you hear someone rattling a window below? You must raise Prince and tell him to look it out. He sleeps in the lean-to at the back of the pantry. Oh hurry, Jane! Do.”

  Jane left her aunt and worked her way down the stairs, listening hard but hearing nothing, straining her eyes against the town-dark—a paler thing than it was in Satucket—with lanterns from the tavern shadowing the street and candles burning in windows at an hour when they would have been long black at home. In the keeping room she found the candles and lit one; she continued to the lean-to door. She called out in the same voice she might have used on their Negro Jot at home: “Prince? Your mistress wants you.”

  There was no sound from behind the door. She threw something of her father’s Jot-voice into her own and tried again. “Prince! Your mistress says get up and check the windows. She’s heard a sound.” A thump and a rustle answered her.

  Jane returned to the keeping room. Prince came out of the back room after her, linen breeches sagging and shirt loose to his knees; no slave Jane knew had ever dared to dress so in her father’s household, but perhaps this was no slave; there was something in the candlelit eyes that warned of more knowledge than Jane had been used to seeing in the Negroes at home. She kept well back of him as he made his way to the front room and walked along the windows, using his hands not to test the shutters but to shove his shirt into his breeches. When he’d completed the loop he said, “All sound,” and disappeared out of Jane’s circle of light into the keeping room. Jane would not have vouched for all being sound on the basis of Prince’s examination, but neither could she hear any sounds, either from within or without, except the distant shout of the tavern patrons. She returned the candle to the keeping room table, pinched it out, and felt her way back to the stairs.

  But Prince’s “All sound” seemed the only thing the old woman needed to hear. She thanked Jane, leaned back against her bolster, and said, “The wind, no doubt. Good night, my dear. I am so glad you’ve come.”

  And so it was that Jane spent her first night in town lying awake alone, listening for the absent wind, listening for whatever it might have been that had rattled the shutters below.

  Chapter Eight

  IN A VERY few days the pattern of Jane’s new life was set down. Martha kept the house; Prince kept the yard and performed any heavy work within, as well as most of the errands; Jane kept Aunt Gill. Each morning Jane would help her aunt get up and get dressed, which took a healthy part of the morning, the process extended further by much discussion of how Martha had done it wrong the week or the month or the year before.

  Jane would then assist Aunt Gill down to a breakfast Martha had prepared, always a meal so bland as to be tasteless, always eaten with careful pauses between bites to see how it might go down. After breakfast her aunt would announce her intention of sitting and reading the newspaper in the back room, or writing letters in the front room, but more times than not, as soon as Jane had set off to walk her either front or back, she would change her mind, chasing or being chased by every stray sound.

  Throughout the day Prince and Martha were called a number of times on their own fool’s errands here and there; Jane tried to decipher something in their look that might tell her if this was her aunt’s usual behavior or something new caused by Jane’s arrival, but she’d never been skilled at reading thoughts in a slave’s face, and Martha’s blank white one offered little more. She snatched the odd look as it passed between them and understood that whatever Jane was to be in this household, she was not to be one of them. She also understood soon enough that Aunt Gill’s alarms were almost always false, and that any reading of the newspaper would be sure to kindle one.

  JANE TOOK HER FIRST opportunity to send a note to her brother at his rooms on Cold Lane, informing him of her safe arrival in town. She anticipated an early visit from him, but when it didn’t come she remembered something he’d written in one of his letters, reporting on a dinner with his aunt. I would submit to the Spanish Inquisition before I would submit to another such afternoon! And indeed, he seemed to have fended off all invitations since then, as the old woman was never again mentioned in his letters.

  Jane had found nothing resembling a Spanish Inquisitor in her aunt, but she had found a great difference in nursing the people of Satucket and the so-called nursing she performed for Aunt Gill. Stitching a wound or easing a sore throat or rubbing the first breath out of a newborn babe was work that mattered. What matter front room versus back room, green skirt versus brown, this noise over that one? The specter of wasted day after wasted day dropped down over Jane like a cowl. And it began to look as if the days would be lonely ones as well; her brother did not call.

  ONE AFTERNOON, AFTER JANE had br
ought her aunt above-stairs for her nap and had three times arranged the bolsters, a black urge to press the bolster over her aunt’s face and hold it there caught her unaware. It forced her to take a step back. She set the pillow on the floor. “Excuse me, Aunt. I feel . . . unwell.” She walked out, down, toward the back door, thinking to step into the yard and breathe the air until the loathsome urge passed, but as she neared the back room she heard an odd scratching noise from within. She pushed open the door and found Prince, attempting to jiggle open her aunt’s desk drawer with the aid of a kitchen knife.

  Jane said, “Here, now! What are you about?”

  Prince turned around. He smiled, the slow, bright smile of an imbecile. He said, “Drawer sticks. Mistress ask me to fix it.”

  “Without a key?”

  Prince opened his hand, and in it lay a small brass key, warmed and smoothed by many handlings. He dropped it into a pewter pot on top of the desk and backed from the room.

  Jane stood some time staring at the desk, trying to understand what she’d seen. A servant breaking into a desk drawer with a kitchen knife, or so it had seemed, until the production of the key. Or a key. Was the man clever enough, quick enough, to produce some other key just to camouflage his crime? Jane reached into the pot and fished out the key. She fit it to the lock and turned. The drawer slid open an inch and hitched there, but in the narrow space she could see the glint of red, silver, gold. Another tug brought the drawer open far enough for Jane to identify the red as her aunt’s sealing wax, the gold as her seal, the silver as two . . . four . . . seven . . . nine . . . ten pounds British sterling.

  Jane closed the drawer and stood as she was, thinking. Had she almost caught a servant stealing? Had he at one time observed Aunt Gill hiding her key and gone back later to empty out her savings? Would her aunt, so nervous over everything, send a slave to mend a drawer that contained ten pounds in silver inside? Jane lifted her hand to drop the key into the pot but instead closed her fingers around it. She climbed the stairs. Aunt Gill was still lying on the bed, but her eyes were open, the bolster Jane had left on the floor now propped behind her head.

  “Are you recovered, dear?” she asked.

  Jane gave a nod of sorts. She stepped up to the bed and held out the key; her aunt’s eyes narrowed, as if focusing on the eye of a needle.

  “If you would forgive me intruding in matters of private business, I came upon Prince attempting to fix your desk drawer as you had apparently instructed him. He put the key in the pot as he left, but I thought it a little too handy. I took the great liberty of bringing it to you in hopes that you might find a more secure location for it.”

  Aunt Gill clawed herself into a more upright position. She reached out and picked up the key. “Yes, yes, a foolish place to keep it, surely. And all my little wealth locked up in that drawer! All that’s left me from my father! But where shall I keep it?”

  Jane considered and discarded several places before offering up one that Prince would be unlikely to discover. “Your needle case, perhaps?”

  “Yes, yes, a fine idea!” Aunt Gill dropped the key back into Jane’s palm. “Take it below and secure it, please.” She reclined again and closed her eyes.

  Jane stood there. The question had not, in fact, been answered. Had her aunt instructed Prince to repair the drawer? Or was she just that muddled with sleep or age to have missed the significance of that part of the tale? It seemed crucial that Jane make certain of that instruction, as in it lay the truth of Prince’s character. She leaned over and touched the old woman’s shoulder. “Aunt. Did you wish for Prince to repair the drawer? If so—”

  Aunt Gill opened her eyes. “Yes, how silly. Give him the key and tell him where to put it when he’s finished.” Which would defeat Jane’s purpose altogether. Could the old woman not see? It was true, Jane thought; the old grow young again, adopt again the innocence of a child.

  Jane went below-stairs, searched out Prince, and gave him the key, but left him no new instruction on its hiding place. She stood by as he worked the drawer smooth, watching as he returned the key to the pewter cup. Later, after he’d gone, she retrieved the key and put it in her aunt’s needle case. Her first useful act done.

  FROM THAT DAY JANE began to look at her aunt’s eccentricities with less innocent eyes. She began to wonder just how much her aunt had known about the creatures she’d taken into her household and trusted with important keys. Jane did not believe in Prince’s imbecile smile. She did not believe in Martha’s flatness. She began to watch the pair of them and to make better note of the looks they shared that excluded not only Jane but the old woman as well. She began to watch for other things. One day she found Prince wandering out the door when Jane hadn’t heard a single instruction for him to do so. Afterward, when Jane asked where he’d been, he answered only, “Errand.” A few days later Jane discovered Martha pushing the fresh-baked bread into a sack and setting the day-old on the table. Jane picked up the sack and said, “Whose supper is this, then?” As she expected, Martha said nothing. Jane said, “If that was your old way of doing, you may find a new one as of this minute, or wait here while I speak to your mistress on the subject.”

  The flat face sharpened. Moving slow enough to keep alive the question of whether she would or wouldn’t, Martha removed the fresh bread and exchanged it for the old.

  THAT NIGHT AS JANE prepared her aunt for bed she considered telling her something of the loose workings of her household, but as she looked down at the shrunken form beneath the coverlet she could not bring herself to do it. Jane knew well enough from her aunt’s letters to her father that a good servant was no easy thing to come upon in town, and in truth, all Jane knew for a fact was that Prince had stepped out, and a loaf of bread had almost been stolen. If Prince and Martha were not utter fools, and Jane did not believe them to be so, they would see that the old woman had a new friend, that the sides had now been evened, that the watch had been set upon them, and that Jane would not tolerate any abuse of her aunt’s innocent nature. As if she read Jane’s heart, Aunt Gill reached up and touched Jane’s cheek. “It eases my mind a good deal to have you here, Jane.”

  So, not useless then.

  AS SOON AS JANE could marshal the time and the will she sat down to write the promised letter to Mehitable, which she expected her father to read, and so constructed it with care. She made a great thing of Aunt Gill’s house, describing it in minute color and flattering detail; she spent a long, exaggerated paragraph describing the heartfelt welcome she had received. She struggled most with her description of town, because she could base it on one carriage ride and the view from the window only; she had in fact yet to venture outside. She said nothing in her letter to her stepmother of Martha or Prince, but she wrote a separate letter to Bethiah in which she took full advantage of the aunt’s silliness in hope of making her sister smile. She wrote another letter to her brother, reminding him that she was yet awaiting his call.

  It was this third letter sitting on the post table that attracted Aunt Gill’s notice. “This letter is to your brother?”

  Jane nodded.

  “I’ve had the young man to dine, or did you know? I asked him once or twice more, but he was always too engaged in his work for Mr. Adams to spare the time. Are you close to her brother?”

  “Indeed so.”

  “When have you seen him last?”

  “Near a year ago now.”

  “A year ago! Well, then, shall I attempt another invitation to dine?”

  “Oh, Aunt—”

  The old woman’s answering smile almost equaled Jane’s own.

  BUT STILL NATE DIDN’T come. He declared that he was too pressed with work to take time out of the middle of the day to dine, but that he would be sure to pay a call some evening soon.

  JANE READ THE NEWSPAPERS as they arrived, or that is to say she read the radical Boston Gazette—it was the only paper to which her aunt subscribed—and she read every word—letters, advertisements, news. It was through the
paper that it finally struck her how far she was from Satucket; it was one thing to read of events that could never reach her; it was quite another to read of such events when they took place just down the road.

  I am informed that next Tuesday Night two plays are to be performed in this Town, the soldiers now being here. I should be much obliged to anyone to inform me what right the Commanding Officers have to give leave to their Men to perform any such entertainment contrary to our laws here? Whether Law to be by the Military or the Civil? I hope the same spirit of purity reign now as did in former times.

  On Weds. next Instant at one o’clock will be sold by Public Vendue, at the Bunch of Grapes, in King Street, 5 stout able-bodied Negro Men, that are healthy and strong, Also a Negro Boy about 17 years of age,

  and 2 Negro Women suitable for Town and Country.

  A few days since died a very valuable Negro belonging to Capt. Jacobson; His Death was occasioned by Mortification from several stabs with a Bayonet given him by two Soldiers a short time before, without the least Provocation from the fellow.