“Right.”
“What hurts you?”
“Right. Bloody right.”
Jane stepped closer to the old woman, signaling to her that she had taken the patient into her care now; the old woman drifted away into the remains of the crowd. Closer now, Jane could see the tear in the shoulder of her brother’s coat; she peeled it back and saw the discoloration on the shirt, dark on light; blood. The wound.
She said, “Your shoulder? It hurts?”
“Right.”
“What else? What else hurts? Can you stand?”
In answer Nate scuffled his heels across the snow, and without speaking Jane and the boy lifted; Nate was not steady on his feet, and the iced-over street helped none. The boy, however, helped greatly—he took his half of the weight and more and followed Jane’s directions well: “This way. Left. Back, now. Here. Turn.” They walked, swaying, teetering, past the tavern, up to Aunt Gill’s door. The boy freed a hand to rap on the wood hard. Jane heard steps within and the door opened to Prince, with Martha standing behind. Prince would have been out to discover the trouble, of course. Prince would have come home and told. Prince, who might have helped and had instead run home to gossip for his mistress. Jane felt the beginnings of the old rage form, but before she could feed it into flame Prince came around and took the boy’s place, leading Nate through the keeping room to the small bedroom beyond, the room nearest the central fire. Jane removed her brother’s jacket and shirt, in fear of the worst, but in truth she was relieved at the site of the wound. The flesh had been penetrated, yes, but the bleeding had already stopped, or close to; she called to Martha for water and cloth and her juniper tincture to clean the wound.
“You right,” Nate said as Jane swabbed his skin.
“I’m fine,” Jane answered.
“Bloody right,” Nate said. The words were half nonsensical, but Jane didn’t—wouldn’t—fear for his mind. “Brandy, please,” she said to anyone, and Martha returned so quickly with a mug and leaned over the bed with such attention that Jane wondered why she hadn’t forgiven her a little stolen bread, a private laugh, a smirk with Prince before now. Jane slipped a hand behind her brother’s neck and raised his head. She held the cup to his lips, and he drank it down.
So intent was Jane on her brother that she heard no knock at the door, none of the usual shuffling required for the admittance of the visitor, and Henry Knox appeared beside her as if dropped from the ceiling. “Good heavens, Jane. I’ve been combing every shadow in search of you. Are you unharmed?”
“I am. My brother has received a wound to the shoulder only.”
“Dear God. Dear God. I was so in fear of the very thing that happened; I could not prevent it; I tried and I could do naught. And then to have lost you again—”
Jane began a search for words to soothe him but gave it up before she’d gone very far. Henry, her big, strong Henry, who above all the men she might have expected to keep her safe from harm, had instead carried her into danger and left her there, left her to Hugh White to worry over.
Aunt Gill said from behind, “Perhaps we should leave the boy to rest,” and all but Jane left the room. She sat down in a chair that someone had brought her and watched over her brother, from time to time pulling back the sheet to make sure the wound had not seeped through. The second time she did it she noticed her hand trembled; she poured herself her own tot of brandy and drank it down as Harry Nye had taught her to do. It steadied her hand but it also loosened her head; when Nate spoke again she heard it as he meant it, as he’d no doubt meant it before. Not right. White. Hugh White.
“Hugh White. Bloody White. Looked at me. Aimed at me. Shot me down.” Nate, the boy, looked at Jane, and—unbelievably—grinned. “And he’ll hang for it too.”
JOHN ADAMS BROUGHT THE first news the next morning when he came by to check on his clerk. As little as Jane knew Adams she recognized the look of a mind in calculation of the future even as he spoke of the recent past. He had arrived late at the scene, and seeing all in hand, hurried home to his pregnant wife to ease the alarm the bells would surely have brought on. Being Adams, the rest of the news had come to him.
“The big mulatto Attucks is dead, as are two others. Two more look to be mortally wounded. There are six others with lesser injuries, this lad to be counted among them. Preston and his grenadiers have been arrested and confined to gaol; all the town’s crying for their necks in ropes. The remaining soldiers have been ordered out of the town to Castle Island.”
And so the “horrid massacre,” as it was already being called, had accomplished that thing which two years of petitions and protests had failed to do.
Jane’s grandparents came. Jane’s grandmother went straight to her grandson, but Jane’s grandfather and Adams stepped into the front parlor for a word. Before they’d finished, two young men arrived, whose names Jane recognized from Nate’s letters from school, with Henry Knox close behind. The young men joined those in the sickroom but Henry joined the men in the parlor, and Jane could hear his voice rise and fall in equal part with the others.
Late in the day, after the other visitors had gone, Jane heard a woman’s voice at the door.
“I’ve come to see Mr. Clarke.”
“Who is it come to call?” That from Martha.
“Miss Linnet.”
Jane stepped into the hall. Miss Linnet approached her and clutched her arm, all her feeling in her eyes, her fingers, her entire knotted form. “Miss Clarke, I must see him.”
Jane led the way to her brother’s room. The woman went to the bed and leaned down. “My Nate, oh, my Nate.” She pushed back his hair, cupped his head. Whatever they might have been arguing about that day as Jane had listened on the stairs, it appeared to be of little matter now. Indeed, what could matter now? All Jane’s resentment of Miss Linnet’s hoarding of her brother drained out of her. She left the pair alone.
THAT NIGHT THE FEVER set in; by dawn Nate was in a delirium. He carried on about White. Hugh White. Bloody White. He called it attempted murder, over and over again, but Jane could not believe him, that the patient sentry had singled Nate out of the crowd and all because of a few words that had passed between them on the street so many months before. She tried to remember the shooting exactly as she’d seen it—soldiers on guard in a semicircle, bayonets addressing the crowd, the club sailing through the air and knocking the soldier down, the soldier calling for his brother soldiers to fire, others from the crowd calling for fire, but still the soldiers held, until the final cry had come from behind the line. Hugh White had been at the end of the line near Jane, and indeed his musket must have gone off, but Jane’s eyes had been fixed on the other end of the line, first on Preston and then on the man in the dark cloak. Jane could not have said if Hugh White had fired on her brother or not, but she could remember his impressive restraint day after day, his concern for her safety even at the moment of his own greatest danger. Only after Jane had recalled all of that did she recall the other thing: White bringing his musket into the side of a young boy’s head for so little a thing as an accusation over an unpaid bill, and a bill not even his own.
Chapter Twenty-two
JANE’S GRANDPARENTS, JOHN Adams, Henry Knox, and Miss Linnet came to visit Nate each of the next few days; if Jane’s grandfather or Adams or Henry happened to arrive together they always retired to the front room and spoke in low tones, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for more. At first, occupied with her brother, Jane paid them little mind, but by the third day she found herself anxious to know what went on. By making her way in and out she discovered that a group of radicals from the town had gone around collecting depositions from all the witnesses to the scene; Henry had given one, along with ninety-five other inhabitants of the town. It appeared no one had thought of Jane.
Jane also learned that John Adams had been asked to defend Preston and the soldiers.
“You consider this?” Jane’s grandfather asked.
“I must. All others have refus
ed. A proper defense is the last thing a man should be wanting in this country.”
“But you can’t call them innocent,” Henry said.
“Their guilt or innocence is not my concern. That will be the work of the trial.”
In quick succession Jane’s thoughts flew to the qui tam, Winslow’s horse, and, for the first time in days, to Phinnie Paine.
Henry remained in the front room after the others had left, waiting on Jane. He held a rolled-up paper in his hand, which he unwrapped for Jane: an engraving by Mr. Paul Revere depicting “The Bloody Massacre.” The soldiers stood on one side of the street in perfect formation, bayonets fixed, guns drawn and blazing; the inhabitants stood cowering a good distance away, their dead lying awash in flaming crimson in the street below. Jane looked from the print to Henry. “But it wasn’t so.”
“Well, he makes his point.”
Jane handed back the print. “You were asked to make out one of those depositions?”
“I was.”
“To what purpose? Do they intend to put them in the newspaper?”
“By order of the town the depositions are not to be published before the trial, for fear of influencing the jury.”
Jane pointed at Revere’s engraving. “But all the town may see this.”
Henry made no answer.
Jane moved on. “Mr. John Adams’s defense of the soldiers must displease his cousin Samuel.”
“Not at all. All parties insist complete fairness must be observed.”
And they might as well, thought Jane, for all the hope the soldiers had of it in such a town. But why should she care, with her brother lying bloodied by one of them in the next room?
Henry stepped close and pulled Jane into him. He dropped his mouth to her collarbone. “Jane. My Jane. If I had allowed anything to happen to you—”
Again Jane’s first impulse was to hush away his guilt; again her second was to leave it lie, but for a different reason this time. As hard as Henry had worked to prevent the so-called massacre, he didn’t seem overly distressed about it now. In fact, he seemed quite cheerful. Jane pushed herself free.
NATE’S CONTINUED DELIRIUM HAD a poor effect on Aunt Gill. Her own speech became nonsensical at times, mixing up soldiers with rebels and visitors with strangers. One day, on leaving the guests in the front room, Jane found her aunt again standing alone in the middle of the stairs; another time she found her standing in the middle of Jane’s room, thinking it her own. The aunt and the brother together began to wear Jane down; she was short with Henry and no doubt with others too.
Finally the night came when Nate’s sweat drenched the sheets, and in the morning his fever was gone. When Jane entered the room, he lay in a deep sleep, and she stood gazing down on him in exhausted relief. The unconscious Nate seemed so much more her brother than the awake one, the eyelashes still against his skin, the pale hair quiet on the pillow, the mouth relaxed into its old gentle curve. But was this the brother she thought she remembered? When had his lashes not been on wide alert around his eyes? When had his hair not blown about his face as he ran? In truth, how often had he smiled? But the sleeping Nate soothed her and healed him, and Jane would disturb him for no one—not Mr. Adams, Miss Linnet, or Phinnie Paine.
He’d come on hearing the news of Nate, to see how he fared, or so he said, but his eyes worked over Jane, as if checking for her wounds. He would find no wounds, but he would find someone more worn down than he’d seen last; this might have disturbed Jane more if she hadn’t noted the changes in Phinnie too—the tensed shoulders, the tight mouth, the line across the brow. As she looked at him he seemed to shift into someone she no longer knew, which was of course impossible, since she’d never known Phinnie at all.
“Your brother’s wound,” Phinnie said. “Is it . . . will it—” He seemed unable to finish either the thought or the sentence, which was another thing new.
“His fever is gone,” she said. “I have excellent hopes of him. He sleeps now, his first fair sleep; I shouldn’t like to wake him.”
“No! Good God, no.”
After a time Jane said, “I was there with Mr. Knox. I saw the whole.”
Phinnie took a step forward. Back. “You were there! With Knox!”
“I was.” She looked away and was displeased that she did so. She looked quickly back, but Phinnie’s head was now bent, studying a pamphlet Jane only now noticed he held in his hand, flipping it restlessly from page to page. “I knew Knox to be there. I read his deposition in here. I never dreamed he was such a fool as to pull you along.”
Jane held out her hand for the pamphlet and Phinnie handed it across—the depositions that were not to have appeared in the newspapers ahead of the trial were printed out, page after page of them, in a small booklet. Jane looked up. “Where did you get such a thing?”
“ ’Tis all about town.”
Jane began to read.
Daniel Calef of lawful age testifies and says that on the evening of the fifth current, hearing the bells ring which he took for fire, run out and came into King Street, seeing a number of people about one hundred he went up to the Custom House where was posted about a dozen soldiers with their officer. This deponent heard said officer order the soldiers to fire, and upon the officer’s ordering the soldiers to fire the second time, this deponent ran off about thirty feet distant, when turning about, he saw one Caldwell fall, and likewise a mulatto man.
I, Samuel Condon, of lawful age, testify and say, that on the night of the fifth instant March I stood near the door of the Royal Exchange Tavern, apprehending danger as the soldiers stood with their muskets and bayonets in a charged or presented position; during this interim I saw no violence offered the soldiers; in a few minutes a musket was fired by the soldier who stood next the corner, and so in succession till the whole was discharged. I went up to the head of the lane where I saw the people carrying off one dead person, two more laying lifeless on the ground about two muskets length of the said soldiers, inhumanly murdered by them, the blood then running from them in abundance; a person asked the soldier who fired first the reason for his doing, the soldier answered, “Damn your blood’s, you boogers, I would kill a thousand of you!”
Joseph Hooten, jun., of lawful age testifies and says that between nine and ten o’clock came into King Street and saw about eight or ten soldiers drawn up in the Custom House, and an officer, which he since understands was Captain Preston, between the soldiers and the Custom House. In about five minutes after the deponent first stood there, he heard the officer give the word “fire”; they not being firing, he again said, “Fire,” which they still disobeying, he said with a much higher voice, “Damn you, fire, be the consequence what it will!” Soon after this one of the guns went off—in a few seconds another and so on.
I, Henry Knox, of lawful age, testify and say, between nine and ten o'clock, p.m., the fifth instant, I saw the sentry at the Custom House charging his musket, and a number of young persons crossing from Royal Exchange to Quaker Lane; seeing him load, I stopped and asked him what he meant and the sentry said if they touched him, he would fire. Immediately on this I saw a detachment of about eight or nine men and a corporal, headed by Captain Preston. I took Captain Preston by the coat and told him for God’s sake to take his men back again. When I was talking with Captain Preston, the soldiers of his detachment had attacked the people with their bayonets. There was not the least provocation given to Captain Preston or his party, the backs of the people being towards them.
Jane stopped reading. She handed the pamphlet back to Phinnie. She went into the front room and knelt before the fire, jabbing the grayed logs into flame.
Phinnie came up behind her and touched his fingers to her shoulder. “That you should have seen such things—”
Jane shrugged out from under Phinnie’s hand, stood up, turned around. “If you mean such things as I read about in that pamphlet, I saw no such things.”
“Thank God for that, then. I feared you would have seen the whole b
loody mess.”
“I saw the ‘whole bloody mess,’ as you call it. I also saw a mob throwing rocks and ice and calling foul names. Waving sticks and clubs. The soldiers only came because the sentry was endangered, and whoever wrote up those depositions is the same lot who’s written every lie in the paper.”
Phinnie’s eyes widened, but not long afterward his mouth twitched in something that he would once have let loose in a smile. Was he thinking of that last night together at Satucket? Was he thinking: Ah, so you decide for yourself the newspapers lie? Well, she knew they lied, knew because of her own supposed “accosting” by the sentry. But there she thought of Otis, the accounts in the paper of Otis, and of the very real accosting at the ropewalks. She turned away and felt Phinnie again—those same light fingers—on her arm.
“The thing is over, Jane. Blast Knox for getting you in it, but ’tis done now; ’tis naught to do with you and you mustn’t think on it anymore.”
Jane picked up the pamphlet that had somehow fallen to the floor. “I must read the rest.”
A second line formed to join the first across Phinnie’s brow. “Whatever for? ’Tis naught to do with you. Four men died, yes—”
“Four men? Do you mean to say one of the wounded has died?”
“He has.”
Jane’s eyes slipped toward the door beyond which her brother lay. Her brother, who might have been five.
“Have you seen Mr. Revere’s rendition of the scene?”
“I have.”
Jane wanted to ask what he thought of it but knew better than to try. “ ’Tis not how it was. And yet all the town will see it, and all the town will read this pamphlet. What hope have those soldiers of a fair trial?”
The Rebellion of Jane Clarke Page 17