The Puritans (American Family Portrait #1)

by Jack Cavanaugh

  He handed the book back to Drew and then continued.

  “Internal enemies … they’re the hardest to spot. It was easier in my day. You knew who your enemies were. They were the ugly ones swarming over the side of your ship, cursing in Spanish, and trying to run you through with a sword.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t go to London?” Drew asked.

  The admiral pondered for a moment, started to speak, then was racked with another coughing fit. When the coughing finally subsided, he was left gasping for air.

  Finally, he said, “No, I didn’t say that. In fact, I think you should go. Tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t go now. If I go now, Father will give Morgan Hall to Philip. I don’t want to lose Morgan Hall, especially to Philip. I want to save it for you, Grandpa, restore the sea paintings, make it like you once had it.”

  The admiral leaned back in his chair and fought for a breath of air.

  “No one knows better than I how hard it is to leave Morgan Hall,” he wheezed. “But there’s more to life than Morgan Hall. And sometimes when you allow yourself to wander from the things you love, you find something you love even more. Like my Georgiana.”

  At the mention of his wife, the admiral’s eyes turned moist.

  “You know, we had a system, Georgiana and I, whenever we’d leave Morgan Hall. I’d set out the trunk. She’d pack. Then we’d go on a holiday. Whenever I was with her, I forgot all about ships and adventures. I even forgot about Morgan Hall.”

  As he turned to Drew, a single tear worked its way down a wrinkled ravine on his cheek.

  “Nothing in this world means more to me than Morgan Hall. Except you. Drew, don’t stay here for me. Go. Tonight. Discover your own adventures. Build your own Morgan Hall. Go out there and find your Georgiana.”

  “No, Grandpa. I can always go later—”

  The old man raised his hand to stop Drew from saying anymore.

  “Every captain worth his salt would willingly give his life to save his ship. But there are times when the ship can’t be saved, and it takes a wise captain to recognize that time and to give the command, ‘Abandon ship.’ My son, Drew, the battle is lost. Abandon ship.”

  Drew was torn. He wanted to go to London, but he didn’t want to leave his grandfather. And the thought of Philip inheriting Morgan Hall was unbearable.

  “I want you to have this.” Admiral Morgan held out his sheathed cutlass.

  “Grandpa! Your cutlass? I can’t take that!”

  “Nonsense! You’ll need it if you’re going to protect England from her internal enemies. I’d like to give you my books.”

  His eyes gazed lovingly over the rows of volumes.

  “But there are too many of them. This you can carry with you. And it will always remind you of me.”

  Reverently, Drew accepted his grandfather’s cutlass.

  “I’ll try to make you proud of me,” he said. Then he added, “But I still haven’t said I’m going yet.”

  That night Drew was awakened by coughing noises in the hallway outside his room. It was the admiral. Drew listened as the sound made its way slowly past his door. He started to get up, then stopped. Maybe Grandpa was resuming his nightly inspection ritual. If so, he wouldn’t want to be disturbed.

  Drew listened as the twin sounds of shuffling feet and coughing made their way to the end of the hallway, turned the corner, and proceeded along the far side of the house. As the sound grew distant, Drew could no longer hear the shuffling sound, but the cough was still clear. His grandfather apparently had rounded the far corner and was on his way back, because the cough was getting louder.

  Then there were voices. Curses, actually. Both Lord and Lady Morgan were yelling at once. Lord Morgan called the admiral stupid for wandering around at night, and Lady Morgan screamed at him for opening all the doors and windows along his route. The shouting continued as they took the old man back to his room. Drew heard a door slam, then nothing.

  The next morning, Drew rose late. He wandered downstairs to the kitchen to find a servant to get him something to eat. No one was there. He wandered down the hall past the servants’ quarters. They were vacant. The dining room, the drawing room, still no one. It wasn’t until he was through the entryway and into the great hall that he saw something that alarmed him.

  The double doors leading into the library were standing wide open. Grandpa rarely kept those doors open. As Drew approached the doorway, he saw that the library was darker than normal, because the garden doors were closed.

  He walked closer and saw the first sign of life that morning. Alicia, the maid, was dusting the bookshelves. All the other servants were scurrying about, moving things and cleaning. Standing in the center of the room was his mother, hands on hips, directing the servant traffic.

  “What are you doing in Grandpa’s library?” he shouted. “He told you never to come in here!”

  “It’s my library now,” she said coolly.

  “It’ll never be your library! Not while Grandpa’s still—”

  Drew couldn’t finish the sentence. The smile on his mother’s face was the same painted smile she wore yesterday when she thought the admiral had died.

  “He can’t be dead!” Drew shouted. “I heard him in the hallway last night!”

  “You heard an old man dying.” she said curtly, then ordered two of the male servants to remove Grandpa’s chair from in front of the fireplace and put it in storage.

  Drew couldn’t witness any more desecration of his grandfather’s library. He wheeled around and ran from the room. Up the stairs he flew to his grandfather’s room.

  The admiral lay uncovered on his bed when Drew entered his room. He was in his nightclothes, cold and still on top of the bedclothes. No one was attending him, no one mourning him. His son was probably in the garden, feeding his fish. Who knew where Philip was? And his daughter-in-law was busily removing the last vestiges of the admiral from Morgan Hall.

  Drew found a blanket and covered his grandfather. Drew had never felt much need for religion, but now he wished he knew a prayer to say. He struggled to formulate some appropriate words in his mind, but his thoughts were far from anything resembling a prayer. They were thoughts of mounting fury. Drew Morgan looked at his grandfather’s covered form one last time and knew what he had to do.

  Driven by his rage, he ran to his own room, grabbed the admiral’s cutlass, and headed downstairs to the library. He burst into the room like a one-man army attacking a stronghold.

  “Out! Everyone get out!” he shouted, slashing the cutlass at frightened servants who dropped books and whatever else they were carrying and ran in horror.

  “Drew Morgan! Just what do you think you’re doing?” his mother screamed.

  Drew whirled to face her. Years of hatred welled up inside him. Later when he would think back on this incident, Drew would testify that he had murder in his heart and that the only thing that kept him from killing his mother was the restraining hand of God.

  “You!” he leveled the tip of the blade at his mother. “Get out of this room! This isn’t your room. This will never be your room! Get out!”

  “How dare you!” she screamed.

  She not only stood her ground, but also took a defiant step toward Drew.

  Drew countered with a swipe of the sword, clearing the top of the table with one stroke. A vase, a couple of books, and an empty cup flew halfway across the room.

  “If you’re not out of here by the time I count to five,” he threatened, “you’ll join Grandpa on the count of six! One!”

  “Drew, don’t be stupid.” She didn’t retreat, but she didn’t advance either.

  “Two!”

  All the servants fled the room.

  “Three!”

  Drew took a step toward his mother. She began inching her way toward the double doors leading to the hall.

  “Four!”

  Just inside the doorway, she planted her fee
t and took a last stand.

  “Five!”

  Drew charged at her, sword raised. Lady Morgan fled, but not before vowing to return with Drew’s father.

  Drew slammed the double doors behind her and locked them. Then he locked doors leading to the garden and stationed himself in the middle of the room, prepared for the siege he knew would come.

  A barrage of threats and curses from behind the doors followed. For hours Lord and Lady Morgan screamed and shouted at the doors of the library. Philip let loose an occasional taunt, but he tired quickly, and the battle came down to Drew and his parents. Late into the night they grew hoarse and finally retreated.

  There, in the silence of the library, Drew mourned the death of his grandfather. He ran a reverent hand across books on the shelves as he whispered the titles; for some of them he remembered his grandfather’s assessment of the authors’ abilities or lack of them. He sat in a chair and recalled stories he had heard in this room, expecting to look up and see the storyteller—head back, eyes closed, in his usual storytelling position; then, at times, he sat on the floor in the middle of the library, his arms wrapped around his knees, and just wept.

  Shortly before morning, as the dark on the other side of the glass doors grew lighter, Drew evaluated his position. He had no food, no supplies of any kind. How long could he hold out? Then what? Reclaiming the library seemed the right thing to do, but holding on to it was a completely different matter. Now that rational thought regained a foothold in his thinking, holing up in a library seemed rather ridiculous, unwise …

  “It takes a wise captain to recognize the time to give the command, ‘Abandon ship.’” Isn’t that what Grandpa said? The battle is lost. Abandon ship. Abandon ship.

  As the first rays of the day slipped over the eastern horizon, Drew went up to his room and gathered his things, including the bishop’s book and the dagger. With his grandfather’s cutlass leading the way, he crept downstairs and out the servants’ door toward the stable. He saddled Pirate, careful not to awaken the stable workers, and rode away from Morgan Hall.

  Looking back one last time, he saw the sea chest sitting on the front porch next to one of the huge Corinthian columns. In all the commotion of the day, the servants hadn’t found time to put it away. Just then his grandfather’s words came to him:

  We had a system, Georgiana and I, whenever we’d leave Morgan Hall. I’d set out the trunk. She’d pack. Then we’d go on a holiday. Whenever I was with her I forgot all about ships and adventures. I even forgot about Morgan Hall.

  The admiral had left Morgan Hall for the last time. He was with Georgiana again. Undoubtedly enjoying a holiday.

  Chapter 7

  “Ever killed anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bugs. Flies. You ever kill ’em?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Anything larger?”

  Drew didn’t like the direction this conversation with Eliot was taking. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said.

  Eliot Venner made a snorting sound. “No. Not till you answer my question. You ever kill anything bigger than a bug?”

  Drew looked at his Sunday companion as they walked down a dirt road leading away from London. He had known Eliot only a few months, but he knew enough about the strange redheaded boy to realize that this conversation was nothing unusual for him.

  “There was a snake once, in my father’s garden,” Drew said warily. “My brother and I cut it in half with a shovel.”

  “Did it feel good?” Eliot’s eyes lit up as he asked the question.

  “What do you mean, ‘Did it feel good?’”

  “Did you feel good after you killed it?”

  “You’re sick, Venner.”

  “I know.” Eliot smiled as he said it. “When I squish a bug, I get a tingly feeling all over me.”

  There was a moment of silence when Drew didn’t respond.

  Then Eliot asked, “Ever wonder what it would feel like to kill a man?”

  “Shut up, Eliot.”

  Eliot shrugged. He was a wild looking boy who had led a wild life. His savage appearance came from two pronounced features: a pair of frightful eyes and a head of strikingly red hair. The pupils of his eyes were engulfed by an abnormally large sea of white, making him look like he was in a constant state of shock. More than once Drew had seen Eliot use his queer eyes to his advantage by combining them with a truly wicked grin. The effect was eerie and intimidating. Once you were able to get past those eyes, you saw his unruly red hair. Beyond unkempt, his hair looked like it had exploded from his head.

  Shorter than Drew, Eliot was actually a few years older. His face was heavily pockmarked, and he walked with slight limp, both maladies resulting from a hard upbringing on the streets of London. Eliot Venner was tough and intimidating, but Drew liked him. There was a remnant of a little boy in Eliot, and he was fun to be with, except when he started acting weird like he was now.

  “How much farther?” Drew asked.

  The two boys trudged north along the dusty road. It was a sunny afternoon, and road traffic was busier than usual for a Sunday, all heading the same direction. Drew hoped the amount of traffic wouldn’t cause too much attention. The last thing he wanted was to be arrested attending an illegal event on the day before his first assignment.

  “Another mile,” Eliot said. “It’ll be worth it. Trust me.”

  “I don’t know. Bearbaiting doesn’t sound like entertainment to me.”

  “You’ll love it!” Eliot squealed. “I was right about Rosemary, wasn’t I?”

  For three months Eliot Venner had served as Drew’s tutor in everything from the basics of spying to an introductory course on London’s late night entertainment. When it came to ferreting out Puritans, Eliot was Bishop Laud’s most successful operative, though his motives were hardly spiritual. But for a boy who was weaned on the streets of London, it was the perfect job. He could lie, steal, sneak around, and get paid for it.

  The bishop had paired the young men together because he wanted Drew to learn from his best operative. But he was disappointed when Drew willingly joined Eliot’s late night escapades.

  The bishop knew all about Eliot’s carousing; he didn’t approve, but he allowed it. He knew how difficult it was for Eliot to act like a Christian for weeks or months at a time in order to gain the confidence of his prey. After all, the young man needed a release for his youthful lusts. Between assignments was the best time for him to do it. Bishop Laud didn’t expect moral behavior from Eliot, nor did he cultivate it; it would only interfere with the young man’s work.

  As for Drew, the bishop had more noble plans. But knowing the intensity of young male desires, he decided it would be a mistake to forbid Drew to accompany Eliot. So, for the moment, Bishop Laud looked the other way. The time was coming when Drew’s training would end and the two young men would part company.

  Meanwhile, Eliot Venner acquainted Drew with the diversions of local taverns. Drew preferred solitude to social gatherings and had never developed a taste for wine or beer. Even while a student at Cambridge, he preferred staying in his room and reading to going on drinking binges with his classmates. But Eliot taught him to drink, and Drew became his willing student. It wasn’t unusual for teacher and pupil to wake up in a heap on the cold stones of a London street, lying in their own mess.

  Getting drunk wasn’t the only social disgrace Eliot taught Drew. He also initiated his pupil into the ways of working women. At a tavern on Mile End Road, Eliot introduced Drew to Rosemary. He said it was Drew’s reward for successfully completing his first week of lessons. When Eliot presented the girl, Drew had already crossed the threshold from sober to drunk; he thought Eliot was setting him up for a date and politely declined.

  Appalled at Drew’s slowness, the entire tavern burst into ribald laughter. Everywhere he looked black, gap-toothed mouths howled in derision as Rosemary slinked seductively toward him. Drew’s face flushed hot. He pushed past the jeering tro
llop. He had to get away, to get out of there.

  The next morning he awoke sick—physically from the drink, but also sick at heart over his encounter with raw lust. He had always fantasized his first time would be a romantic interlude with his version of Guinevere, a fair-skinned beauty for whom he would willingly sacrifice his life. He doubted anyone in the tavern last night shared his romantic fantasy. Had Eliot really expected him to sleep with a tavern wench who smelled of sweat and stale beer and who was willing to accommodate him with the passionless effort of a common worker earning a wage?

  Drew ferociously washed himself and vowed never to carouse with Eliot again. But a few weeks later, when the disgusting memory dimmed, Drew celebrated another training milestone with his tutor at a different tavern.

  Now as Eliot and Drew approached Fleet Ditch, the proposed site of the Sunday bearbaiting event, they saw hundreds of spectators, a pagan congregation of London commoners. As the time for the event drew near, there were the usual sounds of anxious anticipation—raucous laughter, boisterous wagering, and crude jokes. The illegality of the event only sharpened the crowd’s excitement. As Eliot led Drew through the crowd, it was evident that he felt at home; Drew, on the other hand, had never been around so many unwashed people in his life.

  The center of attention was a caged brown bear that looked sickly and was obviously frightened by the noise. One eye was clouded and half-closed; the bear’s left side and shoulder bore massive scars where its fur had never grown back. A murmur passed through the crowd that the animal was too old and broken down, that the promoter of the event was cheating them. When word reached the promoters, one of them grabbed a long pole and viciously jabbed at the bear through the bars. It responded with a roar that made even the seasoned spectators jump back. A ripple of laughter followed as those closest to the cage ribbed each other about being scared. Thus, the critics were satisfied, and the promoter was pleased with himself.