A Marked Man

by Barbara Hamilton

  “I think jail’s the only place they could be, don’t you?” Abigail glanced back at the feeble glimmer of the Magpie’s porthole in the frozen stillness of the new-fallen dark. Even in the harbor, sitting in the little sloop’s damp cabin had left her aching and slightly sick. “If they were looking to flee the town, they hadn’t far to run to get on a ship. Going inland across the Neck would only get them to Cambridge, where it doesn’t sound as if they had friends. They could take the ferry to Charles Town or Winissimet, but why? Thank you,” she added, when they turned along Ship Street, toward her home and the much-belated supper that poor Pattie would have been obliged to prepare. “I beg you extend my apologies to Rachel for taking you away like this—”

  Revere waved a hand good-naturedly and then grabbed for his hat again. “Lord, Thursday is Rachel’s night to have her sisters over,” he said. “They’ll be clustered around the fire, stitching and talking like a tree-full of finches in the spring.” He grinned. “You’ve only made me a trifle late for my pint at the Salutation—” He named one of the North End’s most notoriously Whig taverns. “And I know for a fact that that’s never killed a man, because Rachel’s told me so a thousand times. I’ll send you a note in the morning, to let you know if anything turns up at the jail.”

  But the note that arrived the next morning, as Abigail was scalding the churn and the dasher preparatory to starting (Heavens be praised!) the first butter of the year, was borne, not by Paul Revere, Junior, but by the young black footman who had served her tea and cakes at the Fluckners’. He emerged from the passway from the street, grinned with relief as he recognized her, and hurried up to her, shivering a little and wrapped to his cheekbones in scarves and a coat. “Mrs. Adams, m’am.” He held out a note. “This from Miss Fluckner. She say it’s important.”

  “Come inside.” She left the bucket standing on the icy bricks, deposited the butter-making equipment in the shed as they passed its door, and took a silver bit out of the box on the sideboard to pay the youth. Though she heartily disapproved of tipping the servants of rich people who probably ate better than did her own children, Abigail knew also that the small pleasures of freedom would be few for a slave. “Does she need a reply?” she asked as she broke the seal, and the young man, who was holding out mittened hands gratefully to the fire, shook his head.

  “She didn’t say, m’am. Just that it was important that you get this right away.”

  Mrs. Adams—

  Can you come at once? I don’t know what to do about what I’ve found, or what it means, but everyone will come home before dinner and I’d like you to see this before that happens. Mr. Barnaby has instructions to let you in.

  L.

  Nine

  What on earth—?” Abigail knelt in a whisper of petticoats to peer behind the narrow bed that Lucy had pulled away from the wall of the little attic room.

  “I put it back exactly where I found it,” provided the girl. “Bathsheba had a piece of planking over the hole, braced in place with the end of the bed. I know a lot of the servants hide their tips, because there’s always somebody in any house who steals. You couldn’t see this, unless you moved the bed and lay down on the floor.”

  “I see.” Abigail brought her own cheek close to the worn planks, tried to angle the candle to the hole that had been gouged straight through the thick layer of plaster and broken-off lathe, without burning down Mr. Fluckner’s very expensive residence.

  “This whole attic used to be one huge room,” explained Lucy. “This”—she slapped the wall—“covers a truss-beam about twelve inches square, and there’s another partition wall there on the other side, with a hollow in between where the beam goes. You can reach in,” she added, when Abigail hesitated. “There’s nothing awful in there.”

  Abigail obeyed, bringing out first an old teapot, half full of something that made it weigh several pounds, and then an apron, rolled together around what felt like coins. Quite a number of coins.

  “I wanted you to see them exactly how they were.”

  She spread the apron out on the bed. “Good heavens!”

  “I counted,” said Lucy in an awed voice. “There’s twenty-three pounds in there.”

  Abigail picked up one of the coins. Silver—English. On its face, King George stared superciliously off into space. She sorted the rest of the coins with swift fingers, while Lucy held the candle above her shoulder, for the window in the little dormer was small and faced west, away from the fitful morning sun. “All English,” she murmured, still trying to adjust her mind to the fact that a slave-woman would have that much hard cash.

  She opened the broken-spouted teapot, and from it dipped out more coins. These were more typical of the little hoards of hard money collected and saved by all of her friends: quarters and bits of Mexican doubloons, French deniers, Dutch rix-thalers. As a girl, she’d scarcely ever seen currency. Most business in Weymouth and the surrounding farms had been done by barter: I’ll fix your shoes if you give me some butter. John still had a great many clients who paid him in potatoes. When he did get paid in cash money, it was always like this, minted in the name of a dozen European kings because Parliament would not give any colony the power to hold silver or strike coins of its own.

  She didn’t think she had ever seen twenty pounds in English coin all together at the same time.

  She let the bits and coppers slither through her fingers, touched the hem of the apron, clean and still stiff with starch. “That apron hasn’t been in there long. Nor has the silver tarnished.”

  “And Papa isn’t missing any money,” added Lucy. “Believe me, the whole house would know it if even a penny went missing out of his desk. Sir Jonathan’s the only person—maybe even counting Governor Hutchinson—who would have that much English coin. But why would he give it to her? He could get fifty harlots for it—couldn’t he?”

  “At least,” agreed Abigail absentmindedly, her thoughts on other things than her companion’s moral upbringing. “Depending on how fastidious he was. And what were you doing, young lady, searching your servant’s room?” She looked around her at the bare and icy little chamber. Besides the bed there was only a low bench that appeared to do service as both table and cupboard. There were two stools tucked beneath it, and along its back edge a neat line of folded petticoats, caps, and stockings, piles of clean baby-clouts and tiny garments. Both children must have shared their mother’s bed, a desperate necessity in the unheated room. Something in the stale air of the place made her think that the room had been closed up for the almost two weeks since Bathsheba’s disappearance, and Abigail breathed a prayer of relief. At least they weren’t making poor little Marcellina stay up here alone.

  “I remembered what you said,” said Lucy slowly, “about Sheba maybe being dead. I hope she isn’t—Papa’s still offering a reward for her—but if she doesn’t come back soon, I know he’s going to sell the children, or even just give them away just to get them out of the house!” There was real distress in her voice. “I know it isn’t my business, but I thought . . . I know some of the servants keep their tips. When Sheba was my maid, men were always paying her off to carry love-notes to me. I don’t mean that to sound like it does,” she apologized. “But it’s true. For three years now, I’ve been . . . It makes me sick, Mrs. Adams. Sick and mad. That’s why Harry—”

  She stopped herself, her jaw tightened at the thought of Harry Knox. Abigail laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and Lucy shook her head, pushing the thought aside.

  “Anyway, I knew Bathsheba was saving her tips, to buy Marcie free, and then Stephen when he was born. And I thought, she might have saved enough that if I gave it to you, you could buy at least one of them. Mama’s already spoken to Mrs. Barnaby about the time she spends changing Stephen’s clouts and feeding him and Marcie. I honestly don’t know where they can go. I don’t even think the orphanage would take Negro children, and that only leaves the poorhouse . . .”

  “I won’t let that happen,” said Abigail fi
rmly, seeing the tears start in Lucy’s eyes. “And who told you it wasn’t your business, what becomes of the children of a woman whom you’ve known since you were Marcie’s age I daresay? This”—she scooped up a handful of the heavy silver coins—“will vastly help matters, if it comes to that. But as you say,” she added shrewdly, “’tis a great deal of money for a man to give a slave-woman when there are others who can be bought for less . . . If that’s what he was buying.”

  Lucy frowned, puzzled. “What else would he have wanted to buy from a woman?”

  “Silence.”

  “About what?”

  “About whatever was worth twenty-three pounds to him—maybe. And twenty-three pounds may not be the whole sum of what he gave her, if she took some with her when she left.”

  Lucy knelt beside the bed and ran the coins through her fingers, listening to their heavy, musical clink. “Why would she leave any?”

  “We can’t know that until we know why she left.”

  “Could that be what she meant, when she said to Margaret, Something terrible has happened, and I don’t know what to do? Could she have been pregnant?”

  “I’ve been told a woman can become pregnant while she’s still nursing,” said Abigail, “but I’ve never known it to happen. And I’ve never known a white man who considered impregnating some other man’s servant-girl—by seduction or by force—sufficiently shameful to pay twenty-three pence to the girl to keep quiet about it, much less twenty-three pounds. Something terrible has happened,” she repeated slowly, “and I don’t know what to do.” She replaced the lid on the teapot, folded the silver together in the apron again, and tied its bands into a loose bundle. “And this on the Friday, after Sir Jonathan had departed but nine days before his death. May I keep these?” she asked, rising to her feet. “I’m sorry,” she added, as Lucy preceded her out the door into the main attic. “I didn’t mean it to sound—”

  “No, it’s all right.” The girl laughed. “I know what you mean, and yes. I mean, if I left them here, or even in my room . . . I know at least one of the footmen steals. Mama’s like Margaret and says all servants always steal, but your girl doesn’t, does she? Neither does Sheba, nor Philomela, nor Mr. Barnaby, though I actually wouldn’t put anything past Mr. Barnaby if he was protecting his wife. He dotes on her. I think it’s sweet, really,” she added, as they crossed through the upper hall toward the main stair. “Let me get you something to carry those in, so if Papa comes home for his dinner early, he won’t accuse you of stealing a teapot.” She dodged into her room, emerging a moment later with a hatbox, into which teapot, apron, and coins were tucked and tied. “Will you stay for some tea?” she asked, when they were in the downstairs drawing room again.

  “Thank you,” said Abigail, “but I honestly can’t. With John away there’s always more to be done. Really, Miss Fluckner, if you don’t stop beating and starving this poor dog”—she stooped to scratch Hercules behind the ears as the obese pug waddled up to her, its curled tail wagging so that his whole backside threshed—“your reputation will never recover. I’m sorry, sirrah, my hands are empty. No food. See? There is nothing edible in that hatbox, either—” She turned her head at the sound of the outer door opening, and a moment later, Hannah Fluckner’s rich, slightly overloud tones.

  “Good Heavens, Barnaby, company before noon? What on Earth was the girl thinking?”

  “Just in time,” Lucy whispered.

  “My dear Hannah,” laughed Mrs. Sandhayes, “they all go to bed at sundown here! Of course they’re all up and doing at the crack of dawn—”

  “Should I tell Margaret about this?” Lucy nodded toward the hatbox. “She blithers like a perfect nincompoop, but she’s really very clever. You should see the list she’s putting together, of people who were in the ballroom that I didn’t even remember, and when people came and went out of the cardroom.”

  “Caroline Hartnell?” Mrs. Sandhayes’s voice lifted in reply to some remark of her hostess. “Dear m’am, there’s no sense expecting her to contribute a penny. She lost five hundred guineas at silver-loo Wednesday night . . .”

  “Great Heavens!”

  “I almost fancied myself in London again. And playing so badly! I wanted to go around the table and shake her, except that I was winning at the time—”

  “I don’t think so,” murmured Abigail. “And she complains of servants gossiping!” She stroked Hercules’s little round head, and though she did not approve of lapdogs, smiled as her fingers were thoroughly licked. “As we’re going on the assumption that Harry didn’t murder Sir Jonathan, it follows that someone else did . . . and that someone might just as easily be a member of the Governor’s circle of friends, as some poor disgruntled ruffian from Maine.”

  “—La, my dearest Hannah, surely you know about her and that dashing Major Usselby . . . such a name, Usselby . . . ! The one who always seems to win, when she plays across from him . . .”

  “Until we know more about who might have done it and where they were just after full dark fell on Saturday night, I had rather we keep whatever we might learn between ourselves. My dear Mrs. Sandhayes,” she smiled, turning from Lucy’s protesting headshake to greet the chaperone as she appeared in the doorway.

  Lucy sprang to her feet: “How went your shopping, Margaret?”

  “Astonishing—I positively made your mother purchase the most exquisite yellow silk for you—”

  In the hall beyond Mr. Barnaby’s shoulder, Abigail could see a parade of footmen bearing parcels and hatboxes up the stairs, sufficient to have furnished an expedition to China.

  “I’ll take oath it was French, for all that pirate who was selling it claimed it was Indian and perfectly within the regulations of the Board of Trade. It should make up divinely into one of the new polonaise gowns—le dernier cri, my dear: nobody but dowdies like me are wearing panniers anymore. Has Mrs. Adams seen young Mr. Knox again?” she asked more softly, drawing close. “Is he well? They’re not really going to be such imbeciles as to ship him off to Halifax . . .”

  “Well, they’ll need a ship to do it on, first,” said Abigail, shaking hands. “And given the weather, I doubt that will appear any time soon. The fact is, I came to ask about Mr. Fluckner’s plans regarding that poor girl Bathsheba’s children, if their mother does not return.”

  “Poor little mites,” sighed Mrs. Sandhayes. “Worse of course that the older one’s a girl, because one can sell boys as young as five for pages, if they’re pretty enough.” She shook her head. “I cannot even imagine what sort of despair a woman would have to be in, to walk away from them like that . . .”

  “Do you think it was what she intended to do?” asked Abigail, as a footman—the same young African who had brought Lucy’s letter earlier that morning—relieved the Englishwoman of her half-dozen shawls and scarves, and of her faded cloak with its elaborate whaleboned hood.

  “I wish I could say yes or no. But honestly, Mrs. Adams, I don’t know.” She drew off her gloves, resettled the Medusa cameo on its ribbon at her throat, tucked and patted and twitched the powdered mass of hair—genuine and false—into order again. “She loved her children, and I know she would never have gone away from them in her right mind . . . But had you seen her, weeping, and shivering, and . . . and turning about as she did, at any noise or movement nearby . . . I should have spoken to her then. I should have taken her aside . . .” She limped to the nearest chair, sank carefully down into it, and propped her canes against its arms. “I should have done something. But I did not.”

  Lucy walked Abigail to the door, carrying the hatbox for her carefully, so that the coin inside neither jingled nor shifted its weight. Mr. Barnaby brought Abigail’s wraps to the hall, and as she donned them one by one, Abigail asked quietly, “Mr. Barnaby, the last time I was here you spoke of the chance that I might see Mr. Fenton, at the Governor’s house. Can that still be arranged?”

  “I’ll ask my sister about it,” said the butler. “But I can’t see why not. I can’t ima
gine His Excellency would deny the poor man a little company in his illness. He’s barely able to eat, Mattie says—my Emma’s sister—and weak as a babe.”

  “Then I shall make him a blancmange,” said Abigail.

  By which form of bribery, she reflected, she might very well be able to find out whether Sir Jonathan Cottrell had indeed handed over the cost of a good horse to a slave-girl . . . and possibly, why.

  Two notes lay on the sideboard when Abigail came into her own kitchen again, to find Pattie telling Charley and Tommy the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff while she chopped up yesterday’s chicken into a stew for today’s dinner . . . a task which Abigail knew she herself should have been doing. Yesterday’s laundry, like a maze of whitewashed planks, swung awkwardly on the lines that crisscrossed the yard, and a glance into the shed told her that Pattie had not yet had the time to churn the small amount of cream into butter.

  Good. There were still three crocks of last fall’s butter in the cellar—tired as everyone was of the salt taste of it. Even this modest contribution from that morning should suffice for a blancmange.

  She turned her attention to the notes. The one from Lieutenant Coldstone contained a neatly drafted plan of the mews behind the Governor’s house, the alley, and the mews gate, with the location of Sir Jonathan’s body, of the lanterns on the gate, and of the farthest range (ascertained by experiment by the Governor’s head-coachman Mr. Sellon) at which a hundred-pound sack of corn could be distinguished on the ground once full dark had fallen. There was also a list of the names of all footmen, coachmen, and stable hands present in the yard that night.