by Becky Akers
“Well, you’re from London, I don’t think you under—”
“Oh, I understand, all right. I grew up here in Coventry, you know. My father tried to collect the stamp duties in ’65. Then we sailed for London when those Sons of Liberty came after him with tar and feathers.” He snorted, whether from the snuff or the topic she couldn’t tell. “‘Sons of Liberty.’ More like Sons of Violence. Can you believe it? A man doing lawful work for the king, and that’s what he’s got to look out for. Traitors, every one of them.”
Alice had learned enough at home around the dinner table to think Boston and the Sons of Liberty justified in their resistance. She sighed, not interested enough to defend such actions but feeling it her duty.
Nathan, however, had finished talking with his hostess and heard Guy’s comments. With a wink at Mrs. Huntington, he said, “Government reminds me of an elephant with wings.”
Mrs. Huntington giggled. Her husband leaned forward lest he miss a word. Jason Daggett, too, sat enthralled, trying to figure out what flying elephants had to do with king and Parliament. Only Guy’s face narrowed, but he swallowed the bait. “How so?”
“’Tis certain the elephant’s enjoying himself, but everyone below had better look out.”
The Huntingtons and Jason Daggett roared. Even Guy chuckled, though his smile faded as Nathan continued. “Surely, sir, it’s not treason to protest abuse. Only thing government’s supposed to do is protect our liberty, anything else is tyran—”
“Liberty!” Guy sneered. “That’s all you colonials talk about. But who even knows what liberty is?”
Such ignorance flabbergasted his audience. Rev. Huntington was the first to regain his wits. “Liberty,” he said mildly, “is when a man lives as he sees fit, without having to ask another man’s permission before he prays or speaks or acts. Even if that other man’s in government.”
“Even if he’s the king,” Nathan said. “King or anyone else can’t pull a gun on me and compel me to buy sugar, say, from him and his partners, just as I can’t compel him to send his sons to my school and pay me tuition. And of course, neither one of us can compel the other to give us his money or land. That’s government’s only job, if we even need government at all: making sure none of us compels the other, protecting our liberty. King or Parliament grabs power beyond that, ’tis our duty—”
“If they grab power beyond that?” Guy sniggered. “You’re joking me, right? That’s all they do. Every act Parliament passes compels someone to do something.”
Nathan smiled. “Yes, we know.”
It took Guy a moment to realize his error. “No, but that’s a good thing. The laws they’ve passed, that’s why we’re the best country on earth, prosperous and—and civilized. That’s why we won the last war—”
“A war that king and Parliament started, then expected us to fight,” Rev. Huntington said. “Nathan’s right. It’s our duty to protest, remind the men in office they’re supposed to protect liberty, not destroy it.”
“And that mob in Boston a few years back,” Guy barked. “They taunted our troops and threw bricks and—and trash and such at them, at the soldiers who give us our freedom, who are only obeying orders, after all. And then those damn—um, those traitors whined that they were massacred when our boys fired in self-defense, but they were only reminding the king not to tyrannize you, eh?”
“He’s forgetful.” Nathan raised his brows. “You’d think, being the king and all, he’d have a better memory than us mortals.”
“He shouldn’t station troops here,” Rev. Huntington said. “They’re his bully-boys. They force his opinions on us. That’s tyranny.”
“You don’t know the king very well.” Guy oozed a Londoner’s condescension for colonists. “Believe me, he’s a fair and just man. He’s got your best interests at heart.”
Nathan nodded. “Like my father with his pigs. But he’ll eat them with pleasure once they’re butchered.” He smiled innocently. “He likes the ribs best. Cleanest bones you ever saw when he’s done.”
Guy flushed.
“Gentlemen,” Rev. Huntington said, “let’s leave this alone for now. Politics’ll spoil even the happiest of times, don’t you think? Our job’s to pray God’s guidance on His Majesty. Tell me, Nathan, what’ll you be reading at Yale this next year? Any Herodotus?”
As Nathan answered, Guy turned to Alice. “Your brother’s a hot-blooded one.”
“Only on certain subjects,” she said bitterly and hurried to change the topic. “How was the passage from London?”
“Well, when I wasn’t seasick, I was sick from the food. Whoever comes up with a faster crossing could make a fortune, and welcome to it, for cutting the time you have to eat salt cod.”
“So you’re living here now?”
He nodded. “With my aunt and uncle on their share of our family’s land, until I rebuild the cabin on my father’s half. His Majesty’s honored me with a post on the Connecticut River. I’ll be collecting customs, so of course, I’ll need to live near it.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“No, not really. I won’t be doing the actual collecting.” He snickered and raised his teacup. “These colonials, they think the whole world ought to scratch and peck in the dust just because they do. No, my dear, I’ll hold the office, see, and the rights to some of the profits. I’ll hire some farmer to do the work.” He laughed again.
She fidgeted, hating to sound so provincial. “You might have trouble finding someone. Most of the farmers hereabouts want to work for themselves, on their own land. And they’ll never agree to take taxes from their neighbors. That’s like stealing.”
“Au contraire, one thing I’ve seen is that for a price, men’ll do just about anything.”
“Maybe in England, but not here.”
“Here or there. And not just men, either. Ladies, too. How many times have you thought, Now why’d she marry him? She’s young and pretty, and he’s an old sot? Then you find out he’s got fifty pounds sterling a year, and voila.”
“Gracious!” Mrs. Huntington poured more tea. “Such cynical talk. Mr. Daggett, I hope the men will pardon Alice and me if we ask after the fashions. Are the ladies in London still wearing their hair high and putting fruit and trinkets and such on top?”
Guy’s report captivated both women until Jason Daggett slurped the last of his tea and rose. “Reverend, Mrs. Huntington, thankee for the victuals. We got to be going. My wife’ll skin me alive, we ain’t back by suppertime.”
Guy again took Alice’s hand and brushed his lips across it. “Hope to see you soon, Miss Adams. We’ve heard in London of the beauty of the American colonies, but they didn’t do you justice.”
Alice glanced at Nathan for his reaction even as she blushed. The hired girl handed Guy his tricorn, the smallest Alice had seen, with a silver button on one side and a black sash dangling from the other. He perched it atop his wig as he followed his uncle from the room.
Rev. Huntington showed the Daggetts to the door, leaving his wife to tease Alice. “What’ll Elijah Ripley have to say about this?”
Alice sipped her tea. Ordinarily, such a remark would offend her. But with Nathan sitting there, jealous, she was sure, no matter how debonairly he was downing his cake, she relished it. Let him see that though he scorned her, others did not. “I don’t think Mr. Ripley’s got a right to say anything.”
“Oh, my dear, a man calls on you as often as he does will have something to say about another man’s kissing your hand. Men are jealous creatures, aren’t you, Nathan? Not that I’d mention anything, of course, but what if Mr. Daggett behaves like that at Meeting?”
“Behaves like what at Meeting?” Rev. Huntington resumed his seat. “Now, tell me, Nathan, any likely girls in New Haven?”
They spoke their farewells soon after and rode home in silence through the twilight. Alice held herself stiffly behind Nathan. She refused even to hang onto his waist, though the General’s amble hardly called for that. Her hear
tbreak preoccupied her as did mollifying her stepfather, who would have discovered her disobedience by now.
Still, the tumult that met their arrival surprised her. She expected the Deacon to punish her, but she never thought to find him coiling rope into a saddlebag with two of her stepbrothers astride their horses in the yard.
“Father, here he comes,” Samuel said.
She wanted to shrink into the General, burrow under his capacious hide, as he shambled toward the three men. Nathan said, “Kinda late to start a trip, isn’t it? Where you going?”
“Chasing after you.” Samuel laughed, though he subsided at a glance from his father.
“Where have you been?” The Deacon’s voice crackled.
“Taking those books to Reverend Huntington.” Nathan was clearly puzzled at his father’s anger. He stopped the General so Alice might dismount, and for the first time, the Deacon saw her. She forced herself to stand erect instead of cringing.
“You went with him, Alice?”
She watched Samuel swing off his horse, making her stepfather wait for his answer. “Yes, I did.”
Nathan said, “Father, remember at dinner I said I was going to Reverend Huntington’s?”
“I know you did, son.”
Joseph said, “He thought you two eloped.”
Alice blushed, her mortification complete. Nathan frowned and busied himself with soothing the General. Finally, the Deacon said, “Joseph, Samuel, go on up to the house. Nathan and I’ll take care of the horses.”
When his sons were out of earshot, and Alice lingered uncertainly, he said, “Alice, tell your brother what you were supposed to do this afternoon.”
She was thankful for the darkness that hid her while she confessed as if she were a child to shirking the henhouse. Nathan made no reply, combing his fingers through the General’s mane as she talked. She doubted he was even listening, for he must be as embarrassed as she.
She floundered to a halt, and the Deacon said, “All right, Alice, go to your room now, and stay there.” It was no more than she had thought to do, to be alone with her shame. Still, her heart fell. She would miss this last evening around table and hearth, with Nathan telling stories, Nathan popping corn, Nathan shining like a Greek god in the firelight.
Once the door of the house had shut behind her, the Deacon said, “Let’s hurry here, son. I want to get in to supper.”
He took charge of the two mares while Nathan caught the bridle of Joseph’s horse and led him and the General into the barn.
They worked in silence, unbuckling saddles and taking bits from mouths, before the Deacon spoke. “You gave me a turn tonight, son. You shouldn’t have taken her into town with you. I thought you had...that she’d persuaded you....”
Nathan glanced up from currying the General with a smile. “I’m not so wonderful that Ally’s going to leave everything for me. Besides, I gave you my word we wouldn’t marry. And I wouldn’t sneak away like a thief.”
The Deacon nodded. He had always trusted Nathan and had yet to regret it. He cherished each of his children, but there was something special about this one. They shared an understanding, a tremendous and reciprocal affection. To have learned that Nathan was a typical boy, deceitful and manipulative, would have crushed him.
And even if the Deacon could permit Nathan and Alice to wed, even if he had no explosive reason for objecting, he would have loathed the thought of another son and daughter’s espousal. He had endured scathing criticism the past nine months since John and Sarah’s. Sarah was a good girl, and sprightly, and her union with his son gratified him. He had never thought that some would consider it incest. He was dumbfounded when the marriage shocked many of his friends and neighbors and even more astounded at their denunciations. The Deacon had been irreproachable since settling in Coventry twenty-five years before. He had not enjoyed his descent into controversy.
Then, too, Alice was unfit to be a preacher’s wife. Though Nathan had not yet committed himself to the ministry, it had been his mother’s dying wish and was the Deacon’s hope too. But so far, when pressed for his plans after graduation next year, Nathan would murmur vaguely about teaching school. His father frowned on that as a catchall for boys who had no idea what to do with their lives.
No matter: Alice was unsuited as a schoolmaster’s wife, too. Indeed, the Deacon couldn’t picture her as anything other than a rich man’s pet, arrayed in the silks and jewels her comeliness demanded. She had an alluring beauty about her, an unspoken invitation that marked her mother as well, that set them both apart from the serious, sacrificing women who married ministers and schoolmasters. He could imagine the stir Alice would cause among the men of a congregation, not to mention their wives.
All in all, it was a blessing that he must proscribe this romance. Now here was Nathan, his favorite though he tried to hide it, persisting in an impossible affection.
“Son, I...” He struggled to control his voice. “I—believe me, ’tis your interests I’m thinking on here. You can’t marry that girl. There’s lots of girls, good ones, here or in New Haven. Find another and forget Alice.”
Alice burst through the door, dashing tears from her eyes, to find the family gathered around the table with their usual hubbub. She was glad for that: it ought to shield her until she gained her room.
She was halfway to the stairs when her mother’s voice stopped her. “Alice?”
She turned reluctantly. The others hushed at the sight of her wet face. “Please, Mama, I—”
“Alice, I need to talk to you.”
Her mother followed her upstairs to the chamber Alice shared with Beth and Joanna and shut the door behind them. “What on earth got into you this afternoon that you’d be so disobedient?”
“I’m sorry, Mama, really, but I—I had to—to talk to Nathan—”
“Alice, listen to me. We’ve already discussed this. You can’t marry Nathan. You hear me? You can’t.”
Of course she couldn’t. She had offered herself to him, brazen as that Etta Floose woman in town, and he rejected her. She ought to hate him.
Instead, she snapped, “I know, you always say that. But why can’t I? Sarah married John. I don’t see why she gets to marry Nathan’s brother, but I can’t marry Nathan.” In a softer voice, she pleaded, “Mama, he’s so…so electrifying. Can’t you see? I’ll never be happy without him.”
“You can’t marry Nathan because your father and I won’t allow it.”
“My father’s dead.”
“Please, Alice, don’t be difficult. Richard and I won’t allow it.”
No one else called the Deacon by his given name, and each time her mother did, it reminded Alice of the intimacy they shared but would withhold from her and Nathan. “Mama, please. Can’t you talk to—to Father and make him change his mind?” She smiled. “We’ll name our first baby for you, even if it’s a boy.”
Abigail stepped close and slapped her face. Alice stood stupefied. Her mother had seldom struck her, certainly not recently. “That isn’t funny, Alice. It’s forward and—and shameful. Your father won’t change his mind, and Nathan loves him too much to disobey. You’ll make him miserable asking for something he can’t give you. That what you want for the man you love?”
She said nothing, her cheek stained with the mark of Abigail’s hand.
“There’s lots of men out there, Alice. You’ll meet someone someday. I know it seems impossible now, but one day you’ll see that your fath—Richard and I were right. You’ll only make yourself and Nathan unhappy with this, so let it rest. You leave Nathan alone.” She left the room, slamming the door.
Alice went to the window and cooled her face against the glass. Something jabbed her thigh: the pocketbook. She had missed her chance to give it to Nathan today, and just as well, for it looked as sad as she felt.
But Nathan alone did not rule her thoughts. The stranger, Guy Daggett, kept intruding. However preoccupied she had been that afternoon, she recalled him now with fascination. His clothes
and manner were frivolous, sensual, not grave and reserved as was almost a religion among the men of Coventry. He was as different from Nathan as London was from Connecticut, and that intrigued her. Nathan was upright, kind, courteous—and, above all, honorable. Guy Daggett seemed reckless and daring, as though he cared more for the ladies than he did for fine notions. He was the sort to pursue a woman regardless of consequences, and he had stared in a way that bespoke his interest.
Alice’s fancy lingered on the newcomer as sounds of merrymaking rose from below.
CHAPTER 2
He would remember the horror of that moment last harvest, the Deacon shuddered, if he lived to see his children’s grandchildren.
It had been a hot, drowsy day, a final blast of summer, with the corn hanging full to bursting. The household wakened before dawn for breakfast as they did all other mornings that frantic season. They were swallowing the last of Abigail’s hasty pudding when he led his sons, including Nathan and Enoch, home from Yale, to the fields. They stripped ears from stalks without pause until dinner and a reprieve in the shade as the girls passed around chicken, pickles, apples, fried pies. Then back to their rows until twilight. When they could hardly tell ears from leaves in the dimness, he raised his voice in a hymn to signal the end of the day’s labor. They trooped to the house, to a supper they were too tired to enjoy and beckoning beds.
John and Sarah had published their banns the week before. He was enduring the first whispers and stares from those who disapproved, though they were still hesitant and polite, respectful of the Deacon’s piety and his standing in Coventry. When Abigail told him that night as he unbuttoned his breeches that she had somewhat to say to him, that she hoped he would not despise her for mentioning it, he thought some busybody had delivered his opinion on the “incest” to her. He was sitting on the edge of their bed, his back to her, as he struggled to pull the sweaty breeches from his body, so he didn’t see how her hands were working, nor the tears pooling in her eyes.