Mood Indigo

by Parris Afton Bonds

  On another visit Susan asked her about her fiancé. “Did he ever return your billet?”

  Jane looked out across the dwarf box garden. “No.”

  Susan called again at the end of the third week, but this time, as they sat chatting on the back porch, they were interrupted.

  Ethan, ducking his head, was framed by the doorway. His smoky gaze aimed first at Susan, then shifted to Jane. Since that episode at Bruton Parish, the formality between the two of them had grown so stiff that any outsider could see that virulent emotions seethed just below the eruption point. The right spark and—

  “I’m pleased to find it is not another Tory thee entertains, mistress.”

  Jane rose. Stiffly she took the tricorn he cradled beneath his arm. “I will return to my work. I’m sure you have much to talk about with Susan.”

  “Ethan!” a man’s voice shouted.

  From the front of the house came running feet. All three people on the back porch watched in dismay as Bram threw open the porch door. “Ethan!” His breath came short. “A ship has arrived. British.” His stubby-lashed eyes darted a glance at Jane. “A Lord—Woodwick or something—is seeking his runaway daughter.”

  “Wychwood,” Jane corrected. Her heart thudded dully. Her father was as obstinate as she. She looked at the other three. “My father can do nothing. I am of age.”

  Bram leaned against the red brick, closing his eyes and breathing heavily. “He travels to Williamsburg. With six of the king’s royal guard, mistress—Lady—”

  “Lady Jane Lennox,” Ethan supplied.

  “Lady Jane!” Susan echoed, gray eyes wide in astonishment.

  “You are a subject—of the Crown,” Bram continued with labored breath. “The king’s order for your return – the royal governor to enforce it—the lobsterbacks to make the arrest . . . ”

  Jane sat down again. Her fingers gripped the chair’s wicker arms. Her thoughts spun like the blades of Robertson’s windmill across the way. She could run again.

  Susan’s small hand reached out and touched her rigid hand. “There must be a way, Lady Jane.”

  Jane rose. “I’ll need a horse.”

  “You’d never make it out of the colony, much less to British headquarters,” Ethan said flatly. “There is but one alternative.”

  Jane’s eyes left Susan’s troubled face to meet his indecipherable gaze. “What?”

  “Recant thy refusal of my offer the Sunday we attended church.”

  Jane sprang to her feet. “I won’t.”

  He shrugged. “Then return to England. I rid myself of a contentious maidservant.”

  “But you would settle for a contentious wife?” she snapped.

  “Not happily. But thee is in trouble.”

  Both were oblivious of Susan’s and Bram’s bewildered gazes. Jane’s mind searched frantically for another escape. But she seemed boxed in, with no alternative but to accept the big man’s honest offer.

  “Ethan’s right,” Bram offered. “Not even the king would dare defy a rite of the Crown’s own Anglican church.”

  Jane bowed her head to hide the tears of frustration. “Aye,” she said at last.

  “Aye—what?”

  “I shall marry you.”

  “Nay. Ask me, Lady Jane Lennox. Here before witnesses. Ask me to wed thee.”

  Her hands clenched. Her pride was shattering. “Continually you have humbled me. I will neither forget nor forgive you.”

  “So be it.” He turned to leave. “Come along, Bram. I want to show thee my newest warehouse. Since hiring MacAbee as my agent, my indigo business has doubled and—”

  “Wait!”

  He turned. His eyes bored into hers. “Aye?”

  Her lids lowered over belligerent eyes. Her voice, when it came, was as demure as Susan’s, but no submissive quality colored it. “Will you wed me?”

  His gaze did not leave her face. “Fetch the rector, Bram.”

  “I’ll go with you, dear,” Susan tactfully volunteered at once.

  When they were alone, Ethan said quietly, “This marriage is not entered into on either of our parts with any of the love that flows between Susan and Bram.”

  Jane turned her back to him. Her anguish made speech impossible.

  Ethan’s hands cupped her shoulders from behind. His voice—low, bereft—stirred the lace on her mobcap. “But we must do all we can to make work this mockery of what marriage should be. On my part I shall do what I can to be a pleasing husband in thy sight. I will not ask of thee what thee is unwilling to give. Yet I would desire that thee would attempt the same, Jane. Forget thy anger . . . forget thy Terence.”

  She turned to face him. “As you shall forget your Susan?”

  The two stared at each other with the emptiness of years stretching between them. When Bram and Susan returned with the rector, Ethan was in the library and Jane changing into her one suitable dress.

  The marriage, once decided upon, came about swiftly and inevitably. Like any news of import, word of Jane’s identity spread rapidly, and neighbors began to filter into the Paradise house to watch the wedding that was about to take place. Williamsburg had not experienced this much excitement since Dunmore proclaimed Henry an outlaw for demanding payment for the confiscated powder.

  The colonists parted for Jane, head held high as she descended the stairs and entered the library. Susan gave Jane a brief hug before she went to stand at Ethan’s side. The hand she placed in his enormous one was icy cold. The walls of books seemed to close in on her, and her breath came shallow and fast. Marriage with Ethan Gordon was not what she had waited for, dreamed of, and plotted out all those years. She was afraid of him, more so than even her father. Yet she feared herself also. How could she keep her body from betraying Terence?

  Yet Ethan had promised not to ask of her what she would not willingly give.

  She spared her future husband one glance but was given only that view of his profile that could make a child’s heart shudder.

  The plump little rector cleared his throat. “This is— rather irregular. The banns haven’t been posted. Neither of you is a member of Bruton Parish Church. Rushing into something like this could only—”

  “She is with child.”

  Jane’s gaze snapped to Ethan. He did not even bother to glance at her, but said, “Please get on with the ceremony, Reverend.”

  The vows were barely exchanged before the library doors opened and Lord Wychwood entered. Behind him pressed the curious colonists, and flanking him were scarlet-coated soldiers, above whom he towered. There was no doubt in the mind of anyone present the relationship between him and the woman just married. Their inordinate height clearly announced their blood tie.

  His eyes slowly raked over the five people as he digested the scene before him. “I see you have proceeded without my blessing, daughter.”

  Ethan’s hand, warm and possessive, pressed Jane’s. “Thy daughter is now my wife.”

  Lord Wychwood threw back his handsome head and laughed, showing his bad teeth. Jane shivered, but Ethan’s custody of her fingers reassured her. When the laughter ebbed, her father chuckled, “You have spared me my confession, Jane, and cost me a needless trip.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Daylight. A new day was beginning. Ethan uncoiled his length from the bed where he had lain awake for the better part of an hour and strode to the window. His naked torso was silhouetted by the faint gray-pink that tinted the win-dowpanes. He braced his hands on either side of the window’s sash. Below, Williamsburg’s town crier passed, calling in his German accent, “Basht four o’glock, und Lord Dunmore hast fled the gobenor’s palace. All isht veil.”

  Was it? Virginia’s 169-year history as the first permanent English colony was now ended, and its status as a free and independent commonwealth was beginning. The day before, the General Assembly had appointed an eleven-member Committee of Safety to act as executive of the newly created commonwealth until such time as a governor was elected. God grant tha
t the commonwealth would fare well—God grant that his own new life would fare better than it had the past three days.

  It was too late to unsay those halting words on the back porch. He reminded himself that marriage was a step that had to be taken sooner or later. Across the hall slept his wife. Did Jane, too, suffer the restive days and sleepless nights? Did she agonize over what was lost to her? Did she hate him—or was she merely indifferent to him as her husband, as the hours since their marriage would seem to indicate. And would they ever come to terms? They had to.

  He straightened, plowing his fingers through the long rumpled hair. Without its ribbon, his hair flicked the sun- browned skin of his shoulders like a vexing horsefly.

  Vexing. The encounter with Lord Wychwood had been vexing. The man had crossed an ocean to prevent his daughter from marrying a certain British officer, this Terence, only to accede to her marriage to another with a satiric humor that was without rhyme or reason. Lennox’s pride was as stiff as his daughter’s, and it made no sense he would yield her so easily to a colonial farmer.

  Like Lord Dunmore, Lord Wychwood had boarded a man-of-war that morning in Chesapeake Bay. Wychwood’s ship would sail with the tide without a word of farewell for his daughter.

  And Dunmore’s ship? Henry reported that the Fowey would doubtless remain in the Bay until reinforcement came. And it was the task of the Committee of Correspondence, who ultimately reported to the Leper’s Colony, to ascertain when, from where, and with how large a reinforcement.

  That other committee—the Committee of Safety that sought to rid Virginia of her Tories—they now had another loyalist to persecute. Jane. And this time Wainwright and his host of fanatics were entrusted with the power to carry out their vigilante programs.

  Ethan sighed and began to dress for the day, pulling on a ribbed cotton stocking over each muscled calf. For Jane’s safety, it would be best if they returned to Mood Hill. When his work necessitated his absence, he would have to depend on Josiah, Peter, and Icabod to protect his wife.

  His wife. His wife in name only.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The principal event of Philadelphia’s most popular ball in years, held that August at the country estate known as Walnut Grove, was the exchanging of the black and white cockades—badges that the rebel soldiers wore on their hats. The exchange signified the union of all the colonial armies, of which the New England Militia was the core, under General Washington. At that moment the general continued to besiege Boston like a persistent and nagging fly.

  After the exchange of the cockades, the guests adjourned to the vast dining room. Two tables covered with an incredible assortment of food stretched the length of the room. In addition to fifty pyramids of jellies, syllabub, cakes, and sweetmeats, there were over a thousand other dishes, not including the great tureens of soups and stews. All of this was served by black slaves dressed in Moorish costumes with silver collars and bracelets. Many toasts were exchanged, but the spy Ahmad picked up little information he did not already know. Most of the talk now concerned Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, which George Mason introduced that month. But the rumor went that most members of the Continental Congress thought the idea that all power was vested in and consequently derived from “the people” too radical to be passed.

  The most prestigious of patriots graced the hall—John Adams, Randolph Peyton, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, who was recently recalled from England. Ahmad had reason to be wary of Hancock and Adams, for they certainly recalled his participation in the Boston Sons of Liberty meetings. But his clever tongue deceived even the discerning Hancock. From the outset Ahmad reassured Hancock and other patriots that, like them, he had been forced to flee Boston by Gage’s subjugation of that city. He told them in his most humble manner that he sought only the opportunity to serve the colonies here in Philadelphia.

  However, Hancock was an exceedingly cautious man, and Ahmad was invited only to the patriotic functions and not the private councils that were usually held immediately afterward.

  At midnight a set of doors was opened at one end of the dining room to reveal an enormous ballroom elaborately decorated with flowered arches. The orchestra struck up a minuet, and Ahmad began his enchantment of one patriot lady after another. And at last he was rewarded for his efforts. As dawn broke, he danced the quadrille with Esther Reed, the pretty wife of one of Washington’s ablest officers. Esther was the heroine of a transatlantic romance, for she had been courted in London when her colonial husband was a law student at the Middle Temple and boarding with her father. And though she was a converted patriot, London was still dear to her.

  Ahmad capitalized on this, mentioning his own studies at the Temple Bar. The two reminisced, with Ahmad never touching on politics but bringing London to life again: Turk’s Head Tavern in Soho where intellectuals like the slovenly Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, and rakish John Wilkes met; Westminster, where deer still grazed in St. James’s Park and the wealthy were moving to escape the horrors of the city; London’s thick, grimy haze that forced one to walk to the middle of London Bridge to try to find a breath of fresh air off the Thames.

  At one point the spy permitted himself the merest of smiles as fragile Esther unwittingly divulged, with his skillful prompting, information he was seeking.

  “You are too tempting, Madam Reed. Your husband is unwise to leave such a beautiful wife in a city full of men far from home and family.”

  She dipped as called for by the music and dimpled a smile up at him. “Ah, but you do not have a family,” she said mischievously. Then, as they straightened, and their hands joined, she added somewhat forlornly, “And I sometimes wonder if Joseph remembers he has a family. His letters seem more preoccupied with Benedict Arnold’s planned march on Quebec than with letters about his new-born son.”

  The spy’s pale-blue eyes raked over her appreciatively. “Madam, you are much too slender to have recently given birth to an infant.”

  The daring compliment brought a blush to Esther’s' fair cheeks and a babble of words to cover her flustered state— “the horrible war and all these desertions!”

  At the first light of dawn Ahmad left the ball, quite satisfied. By midmorning he was on his way to Quebec— this time dressed in the soutaine of a Catholic priest. The journey took him three weeks by canoe and horseback. There were reconnaissance patrols to avoid and the wilderness to contend with—its unyielding forest and frustrating rapids and falls.

  One afternoon at dusk he came upon the body of a British soldier, most likely a deserter. A mongrel dog hovered near. When, a few minutes later, a Yankee patrol passed near, he had to silence the animal’s yelping with the soldier’s bayonet. A messy business for one of his fastidious nature.

  At the citadel perched on the sheer cliff of Cape Diamond, General Carleton received him. With the general was a swarthy Indian dressed in the civilized garb of knee breeches and doublet but wrapped in a foul-smelling blanket. The spy guessed immediately the Indian’s identity. The educated Iroquois chief, Joseph Brant, who had sometime before thrown in with the English. The chief’s eyes met Ahmad’s direct gaze, then shifted away.

  “Welcome back to Quebec,” General Carleton said, indicating to the spy the other chair opposite his desk, which was littered with papers and maps.

  Ahmad placed the chair in a position that kept the other two men in his line of sight and spun it around to straddle it. His black soutaine hiked up to reveal buckskins. Carleton said, “I see you come this time as a man of God rather than a soldier of war.” It was an uncomfortable attempt at jocularity to cover an uneasiness about the secret agent that the general could not identify.

  The man’s lips smiled, and Carleton thought he looked more like a satyr than the priest he was disguised as. “If he were still here, the good Father who last wore this soutaine would no doubt have appreciated the irony, General.”

  The general’s mouth flinched, but the agent continued on in that same easy vein. “H
owever, I come as the Angel of Death. The Continental’s Colonel Arnold is marching on Quebec now with two battalions.”

  The general sucked air through his false teeth. “How much of a head start did you have?”

  “Benedict Arnold has the head start, by a week. But he has sixty-five tons of provisions and ammunition to haul with him.”

  Carleton grunted. “It’ll take him at least two to three months then. We can easily fortify ourselves for a long siege.”

  “Can you?” Ahmad asked with a touch of malice. “You have less than four hundred men. I passed settlements all along the Susquehanna Valley that not only will aid the rebels but will join them. Even your Canadians will abet Arnold’s troops. You might succeed in turning Arnold back, but eventually another rebel contingent will attempt the invasion again.”

  Carleton drummed his fingertips on the desk, rustling the papers. His small mouth pursed. He did not know whether he was irritated more by the news or by the arrogant man who brought it. “You have a better suggestion, I assume?” he asked sarcastically.

  Ahmad’s gaze flicked to the Indian chief, who had remained stoically silent, then settled again on Carleton. “Have your allies—the Iroquois and Butler’s Rangers—stir up trouble in the valleys as a warning. If every man, woman, and child is killed in—let’s say, just one selected settlement, perhaps the Mohawk Valley, I can assure you that you will never have to contend with an insurrection in other settlements.”

  Carleton’s puffy lids flared. “I am not a barbarian to order the scalping and murdering of helpless people! A war is waged between armies!”

  The spy shrugged his wide shoulders nonchalantly and smiled. “A war is waged to be won.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Making of the winter’s stock of candles was a dreaded household duty, for the great kettles were tiresomely heavy to handle and the kitchen, despite the open upper half of the Dutch door, was stifling. Worse, neither Porhatras nor Jane knew what they were doing. Ethan had simply said over dinner, “The candle stock is running low, mistress,” assuming she knew what to do.