The two men tried to maintain their composure, but I saw John Adams’s eyes flick nervously to John Hancock’s, and he turned as if his attention were caught by a robin whose russet fluttering crossed the window. Hancock smiled and said softly to me, “Dodsil and wife are Tories to the bone.”
“Ah,” I said. “I feared it was a trap. She brought stockings for the militia. I have them hidden in the wagon.”
“Deliver them to the first British soldier you come across, Mistress. No doubt they have something in them of the nature of itching powder or poison.”
Adams pursed his lips and added, “Or a length of rope.”
* * *
Alice and I removed our bonnets in my parlor. It had been that simple. This gave me a joyous feeling of being part of something wonderful, and the great relief of having escaped a trap by such a sweet-voiced neighbor.
Late the following night, the sounds of a horse in full gallop stopped just outside our door. A hand rapped. Cullah opened the door. August darted in. “Ressie, put out the candle.”
“Yes, but why?” Without answering, he pulled his horse right into my parlor, straight through the kitchen, and down the narrow passage to the barn. I followed him and yelled, “Take it all the way to the far stall. There are two cows on either side, and the smell will mask a run horse.”
Cullah ran after him, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll tether it. Ressie, you go in the house and sit by the fire as if nothing happened. I’ll watch from the doorway. Tell Alice to hide Bertram.”
August turned, saying, “I’m going into the hidden room. Sweep your floor. Trust no one except my man Nathaniel—do you remember he came with the messages?—or Rupert, unless they give you the word gumboo.” Before I could say another word, he crawled behind the stairway panel.
In the kitchen, Alice already had the floor swept and leaned the broom against the chimney just as we heard more horses at a gallop headed this way. I blew out all but one candle, took off my apron and house cap, pulling my hair loose about my shoulders as if I had been ready for bed. Bertie hid at the staircase with Alice. I sat in the settle with a book close to my nose, as if I were too poor to light another candle.
Their words came through the door, “This way. In here.” One of them put his hands around his eyes against the window in the kitchen. I was sure he could see me but I did not look up. A few moments later, they opened the door. “We’re chasing an outlaw, Goodwife. Did anyone come by here? Did you hear a horse? Anyone enter this house?”
I closed the book. I cupped my hand behind my ear and asked, “I am gone deaf, young man, you will have to speak up. Did you say you were raising dust? I should say. Look at this floor!” I looked beyond him to the soldier behind him. “What did he say? Can you not understand English? Now, do not mumble. Is he speaking to me?”
With frustration upon their faces, they left. I waited until I heard horses’ hooves striking the stones in the road before I dropped the bar inside the door.
CHAPTER 38
April 17, 1775
That Monday afternoon, Cullah, Bertie, Alice, and I were sitting in the shade of the flowering apple trees, petals so delicately scented as a whisper drifted about the shadows like lights falling at twilight, when a messenger arrived. He was sent from the governor’s house, with another invitation from Margaret for me to come to tea on Tuesday at four. It was handwritten, folded and sealed with her husband’s seal and a very large glob of wax holding her own. When I opened it and the wax came off, a shilling was pressed under the red wax. In truth, I felt so busy, so exhausted, and so weary of the soldiers in Boston, that I wished to tell her my regrets. But her last line said, “Make me no excuses, dear friend. I shall have no greater joy in my life than the sight of you that day. As a candle warms the night.”
“Terribly dramatic of her to write such a thing, is it not?” I said.
Cullah said, “That’s odd.”
Suddenly, without explanation to them, I ran with the message to the house. I pulled a stob from the fire and lit a candle, holding the paper across the flame. After a couple of minutes of warming the whole thing and worried it would burst alight, writing appeared at the side margin. “The tide turns tomorrow. Come.”
Cullah stood behind me. I watched the mysterious lettering disappear as it cooled. “I must go.”
He said, “I’ll drive. Take the note with you. If soldiers stop us, we will need it.”
We left in the morning after sending Bertie and Alice to Dorothy’s house. While Lexington had been busy with troops, commerce had not stopped. Boston, however, was closed down, a city under siege. So many streets were blocked, so many soldiers crowded the way, that getting to the governor’s mansion was an hour from the Neck, where it had used to be but a few minutes.
“Will you come inside with me?” I asked him. “I may be an hour or more.”
“To a lady’s tea? No, my love. I have suffered my share of torments. No, I will sit here. I will be your patient lackey. An hour’s quiet thinking will do me no harm.”
Margaret’s parlor fluttered with the silks and voices of many ladies. Most of them were well-dressed Tory wives making the best of their husbands’ dreary assignments when they had rather be in a drawing room in London. Margaret rushed to kiss my cheek and pet my hands. She was too flawy in her words, too demonstrative of affection, her fan waving about my head as she kissed me. When she drew away at last, I saw in my palm another silver shilling. Quickly as a butterfly in flight, she murmured, “Find a reason to go to the library and I shall meet you there.”
In the library, Margaret closed the doors. She all but scurried through the room, checking every nook for the presence of another. Then she came to me. “We must make a ruse that we are discussing books I should donate to a dame school you may plan to run.”
I paused. “Very well,” I said.
“Tonight. It is tonight. You must get home before sundown.”
“What is tonight?”
“Ressie, do not ask me to speak more plainly. Do what you have to do to get word to the committee as quickly as possible. Do not wait so much as an hour.”
“You know about the committee?”
“Everyone does. We don’t know who they are but we know that they exist. Thomas invited all these women here as a diversion for me. He thinks I have paid no attention. I can do no more than this, my friend, except to pray for your safety. They plan to break the rebellion starting tomorrow morning. Soldiers are mustering tonight.”
“How shall I make my exit from you?”
“Headaches are always convenient.” There was a rattle at the door. She raised her voice a bit. “And I should like you to mark every book that it was donated from my generous collection. I think that is nice, do you not?”
“I will not forget your generosity, my dear friend. The schoolchildren will always know it was you they should thank. May I send my maid for the volumes later, after you have chosen them?”
“Please do. Next week will be soon enough.”
“I find I have a dreadful headache and travel is preposterous with the conditions on the road. Would you feel slighted if I am excused, then?”
I turned to find there was indeed a woman standing at the door, listening to us. She said, “Margaret, dear? We wondered if you could tell us which of your cooks made the apple pudding. I should like her to teach it to my cook before Friday.”
Margaret tittered and flapped her fan before her face. The woman wanting pudding preceded us, I followed, and Margaret in the rear. I stopped at the front door where a butler held it ajar and bowed. I looked into Margaret’s eyes and saw there a flicker of emotion that stunned me. Her lips smiled but tears filled her eyes. She kissed my cheeks. “Fare well, my friend. Godspeed.” As soon as that, she smiled her winning smile and swept her gown up with her hands to join the other women. Violins played a duet somewhere in that grand room. As I slipped out the door the chatter of careless women nearly drowned out the music.
I told Cullah what Margar
et had said as I stared at the bright shilling in my palm. He turned the wagon and drove down a side street to a wooden building with no sign out front. As he pulled to a stop, he leaned against my bonnet and whispered, “This is the back of the silversmith’s shop.”
Cullah went inside and I followed him. I could barely see for the darkness. He tapped his head twice. I made as if to adjust my bonnet, and touched the brim twice, also. At last the man said, “This is a private house. Looking for someone?”
Cullah said, “A friend of liberty.”
“Have you any news?”
“A little that needs telling, tonight.”
“Aye?”
“Tonight.”
“Who declares this?” It was Dr. Warren!
Cullah looked at me. He said, “Wife, tell him where you heard this.”
I gulped. “From a Patriot in the governor’s mansion.” I handed him the silver coin.
Dr. Warren took a breath and held it. “God preserve you on your way,” he said, and ran from the room.
Cullah inclined his head toward the door, took my elbow, and escorted me to it. Then, rather more loudly, he asked, “Will you give our regards to Benjamin? Tell him his father needs him.”
Getting home to our house, beyond Lexington on the road to Concord, was never as difficult as it was that night. Everywhere, I saw women with their maids and children shopping, craftsmen at work at bellows and wood lathe, yet scores of soldiers walked the streets and it seemed as if one or more of them would stop us at every corner. They wore pistols in their belts, some carried muskets with bayonets affixed. After no less than seven times when we were bade to stop and alight while they looked fore and aft in the little wagon, the sun was down and mist rolling in from the bay made every step of the road treacherous.
At the last search, I laughed in the soldier’s face. “It is not enough room to hide a dog or a boy, this small wagon. You can see the back is empty. What do you think we are doing? Smuggling?”
Cullah sat like a statue. He seemed half asleep, but I saw the flicker of a muscle in his jaw.
“It is orders, Mistress. We have word traitors are hiding under women’s skirts to get in and out of town, and that some pockets are full of lead. Move along.”
As we drove along, I asked, “Margaret said tonight. What if it is not?”
“The minutemen would rather be called out falsely than be called not at all.”
I remembered so many years back when I had offered to carry a message, and had been soundly rebuffed by the men in Lexington, including my own husband. “A woman? It’s terrible. It’s ungodly. It’s brilliant. It’s heresy.” This night, I had done just that, in a way no man could ever have done. I wondered how many of men’s bold plans throughout history had actually turned on the passing of a shilling between two women? It was past midnight when we got to the house. Bertie and Alice came downstairs. Cullah went to the barn to fetch his musket. I heard church bells. Any joy I felt at having stayed on our mission was soon lost with the face of this boy before me, so eager to see battle.
“What is that sound, mum?” Bertie asked.
Cullah answered for me when I hesitated. “Church bells from Lexington and Concord.” He reached for his fowling piece, a pouch of shot, and a powder horn.
Bertie jumped from his seat. “Is it the call to arms?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
Bertie jumped to his feet. “I’ll get Pa’s drum.”
I blinked back tears. “Very well, Bertie. Go with Grandpa.”
Before long, Dolly and her children came to the door. They hid downstairs by the loom. Roland fetched a musket and a lantern while Alice and I climbed the stairs to watch that dim light cross the road and descend the slight hill toward the green of town. Bells rang across the countryside. Drums sounded from every direction.
We made tea. We sat in the parlor and tried to rest, but there was no rest. Surely, surely, until there was bloodshed, there could still be peace. The answer came to me as drums echoed across the hills. I opened the window and leaned out. The night was clear, though the moon rose late, and every echo of every bell seemed to make the stars move.
And then I heard it. Dozens, perhaps, or hundreds most likely, of boots, marching in step. British soldiers marched up the road, among them, cavalrymen and officers.
“I am going,” I said to Alice. “I stayed behind before. Always waiting, wondering. Benjamin is no doubt there, Cullah and Bertie are, too. I am going.” I pulled on my bonnet and tied it under my chin.
“Mistress, you can’t go up there. Them men are going to start a war.”
“I have spent too much of my life waiting for Cullah to come home. I can be there to bring him home if such is the end.”
“I will come with you.”
We took a lantern and made for the road then into the woods until I found the old trail Cullah had shown me. We hurried to the edge of the swamp, across a stream, and over a small meadow, then on through thick maples, birch, walnut, and hemlock. I stopped at the edge of the woods where we could see the village green, for to move forward would have put us in the ranks of the British army. There looked to be hundreds of them. Our fellows gathered on the green, bonfires and torches still alight, adding heavy smoke to the scene. The regular soldiers bristled in their ranks, so precise, so practiced. Our men looked as they were, men who had just stumbled out of bed and off a farm. In the distance, horses rode at full gallop. Men called to one another.
Alice warned, “Find a big tree. Any balls come this way going to kill us, standing here.”
One of the British officers shouted at our men to disperse. Cullah, I saw, stood right out in front. I had just slipped behind a wide tree to get my footing betwixt the roots. My head was down, my sight in shadow. Clearer than the beat of my own heart I heard the hiss of a flash in a pan. A chorus of sound filled the air, the clash of metal and clatter of musket fire. I could see nothing for the smoke. I knew not whether our Bertie lived or died. Alice and I held each other in the shadow of that tree, and in a few minutes, British Regulars began to stream through the woods.
I took her hand and screamed, “Run!” I ran, pulling Alice as fast as we could move, though she and I both stumbled. We splashed through the swamp. Men ran behind us. Someone came closer and closer. I could hear him breathing, running, and then he seemed to have fallen back. I crossed the stream. Musket fire rattled behind us, and shot riddled the trees beside us.
Alice fell. “My knee,” she said.
“Are you hit?”
“I tripped.”
I pushed her and followed her into the shelter of a holly. We wrapped our arms about each other. The prickling leaves tore at my face and hands. “Be still,” I mouthed. Feet thundered past us, first one man, then a dozen. We caught our breath. I counted twenty men passing us. “Can you stand, now?”
“I will wait here. You run.”
“I cannot leave you, Alice.”
“No one will t’ink anything. I’ll tell them I am hunting berries.”
“Come on, lean on me.”
“Go, Missy. You run.”
“Not without you.”
Alice began to weep but she came when I took her hand. In a few more minutes, we were almost home. Through the trees I could see the open soil of the road, and flashes of red coats as soldiers moved upon it. “Run for the house now, and bar the door. I will come the long way around, through the barn.”
She nodded and hobbled across the road, reaching the oak on the other side just as another Regular soldier came down the road. I waited, then stepped from the shadows just after five mounted officers went barreling by. I dropped into the grass at the side of the road until the thunder of hooves passed me. I raised my head. They did not look back.
I thought of Cullah’s words about soldiers in pursuit not looking back. I ran up the road, across the field, toward the barn. Someone followed me. I heard feet, the heavier tramping of a man. A man in boots. More steps! There were
two at least, I was sure. I felt I would choke, my throat so dry I could not swallow; I needed to cough. The men wore metal. Perhaps a sword. A musket or pistol or both. I ran until, breathless, I fell against the barn door and then got inside the barn. The cows and geese made a racket. Rather than going for the kitchen, which was well seen and obvious, I headed for the narrow opening hidden behind the farm implements, crept between them and a useless shock of dried cornstalks, and slid through the door. Alice went to the basement to hide with Dolly and the children.
I made my way up the steps, trying with every footfall to make no noise. When I reached the top and stepped into Gwenny’s bedroom, I tripped and fell to the floor. A chair stood by the opening where I had used it to stand upon to ring the bell. I heard a loud knock below me on the front door then another anxious knock and a voice called out, “Open the door, Ma. It’s I, Brendan. I’ve brought Bertie and a couple other ragged boys you should feed.”
I came down the stairs. Alice was panting, sitting at the table with a huge carving knife in her hand. I asked, “Are you going to open it?”
She answered, “Do you know it’s him?”
I flung wide the door, to see Bertie, hung by his collar and grinning, held by his father in full Redcoat uniform. He pulled off his hat and rushed inside.
“Brendan! What is the meaning of this?” I asked, though I was barely able to speak. On Bertie’s heels followed Benjamin and Cullah. “You are safe!” I cried.
Brendan said, “Roland went home to get his kit. Ma, Pa, don’t think me a coward. I saw what happened. I’ve turned ‘cat-in-pan’ against them. I could not fire upon my own friends, my own son, my pa and brother. The Lexington boys made good show of it, but they seemed hopeless. Unkempt, untrained, and most of them unarmed. It was meant by the Regulars to be a massacre. In the end, it was the pathetic Patriot who gave us a rout. Perhaps some of the Regulars were loath to fire, I cannot speak for them. I have fought for my country and my sovereign but I cannot go on if we are to war against our brothers. I think I scared poor Ben out of three years’ growth when I caught up to him, him thinking he was a prisoner of war.” Brendan stripped off his coat and buckler and untied his neckerchief as he spoke. “Have you a plain coat, Ma?”
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