by Jodi Daynard
“Cousin, dearest, why do you cry?”
“I hate crying!” Kate continued to sob into a delicately embroidered handkerchief.
“It does fog your glasses quite a lot,” Johnny offered.
She smiled, removed her spectacles, and wiped them with the edge of her petticoat. “Do you know, Johnny, I’m not even sure why I’m crying. I have been so delighted—so very happy—these past few months in our little society. I fear . . .” She placed a hand on her heart. “I fear this is the end.”
Johnny laughed at her. “It shan’t be. Why should it? We’ll reconvene upon our return in August. I promise.”
She looked up at him gravely, her tears stanched:
“Do not make promises you can’t keep, Johnny.”
22
THE BOYS LEFT THE FOLLOWING MORNING, AFTER receiving word from the overseers that they had both been given commendations and would be moving on to their third year.
The family, hearing the carriage come down the lane, raced out to greet them. Miriam looked up at the carriage and, at the sight of Johnny’s companion, frowned. “Who is he?” she asked.
“Not another word!” Eliza hissed.
Fortunately, Eliot had not heard this exchange, having turned to say something to Johnny. Lizzie, who had just emerged into the yard, wrapped an arm around her daughter’s neck as if she might strangle her. She looked up and smiled at the boys.
“Miriam has grown very headstrong, Johnny. Don’t let her order you about.”
“I shan’t.”
Once they entered the cottage, Eliot said, “I fear I shall prove rather useless for children’s games.” He collapsed into Lizzie’s wing chair.
“Nonsense,” Johnny replied. “You can keep score. Be on your guard, though, for Miriam cheats.”
“I do not!” Miriam objected. Feeling contrite for her previous rudeness, she now sidled up to Eliot and casually wrapped the fingers of her right hand around his cane. “What’s this for?” she asked.
“To aid me in my decrepitude,” he replied.
Miriam giggled.
“The winds grow strong by the water,” Lizzie said. “It’s best to play now, before they pick up.”
Abby and Sara were drawing pictures at the kitchen table. Tom said a cursory hello, his bright eyes taking a curious glance at Eliot before he moved off into the fields.
Eliot coughed discreetly, and Lizzie, quick to observe the true state of things, said, “You must be exhausted. Do you wish to rest a while?”
Eliot looked up at her gratefully. “Yes, I am a bit tired.”
She guided Eliot to her own and Thomas’s chamber. Once the dairy, it was now a bright, pleasing room that looked out onto the dunes. Leaving Eliot to rest, Lizzie moved into the kitchen, where Eliza was just finishing the washing up.
“That poor boy,” she sighed. “He’s quite ill.”
“Yes, I suspected as much,” said Eliza.
“It is wearing him out to pretend.”
“Are both boys to remove to the Adamses’?” Eliza asked dubiously. The Adamses had graciously extended an offer for Johnny and Eliot to lodge with them at Peacefield.
Lizzie replied, “I will recommend to Johnny that he go on to Peacefield, for a few weeks at least, and leave his friend here. John will be vastly happy, for you know he plans to build a wall this summer.”
“I thought he was planning to chop down a cedar tree and build a fence.”
Lizzie said, “I suppose Mr. Adams shall endeavor to accomplish all three.” The women laughed.
That evening, Eliot finally met the object of the women’s laughter, and the rapport between them was nearly instantaneous. It seemed they both had a streak of wickedness, and with great delight were soon finishing each other’s malicious sentences.
“If only they could send Benjamin Bache out to sea—”
“—into a school of sharks.”
Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was the editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, a Republican newspaper highly critical of Washington and Adams.
“If only someone would publish—”
“Mr. Madison’s execrable poetry.”
“If only—”
“No more!” Abigail finally cried, placing her hands over her ears. “My head aches.”
Later, when Johnny finally mounted the Adamses’ carriage for the short ride to Peacefield, he leaned down and grasped his friend’s hand.
“Eliot, I feel I’m abandoning you.”
“Go on, Johnny,” Eliot said. “Mr. Adams may make free to work you to death now, for he shall have no witnesses.”
The man being spoken of heard nothing. He had already fallen asleep and snored loudly enough to drown out the crickets.
There were posts to set for the new fence, and for the first week, Johnny helped with these. The weather grew hot and humid. Johnny worked so hard that, by the end of the day, he longed for nothing so much as a cool dip in the sea and solitude to read.
But one muggy, rainy afternoon, when Mr. Adams announced that he would work in his study, Johnny took himself off to the cottage, where he found Eliot sitting in the kitchen. His friend looked happy and rested, although on his cheeks sat two hectic spots of color that had not been there before. The women had gone to town with the children, and they were alone.
“Would you like some tea, John? I can make it.”
“Not just yet, thank you. So, what have you been up to in my absence?”
Eliot tapped his spoon upon the table. “Oh, helping the ladies, mainly.”
Johnny smiled. “How is it you help the ladies, pray?”
Eliot blushed. “Well, sometimes, Lizzie has me weighing and measuring herbs. Or I fold laundry off the line. When she is abroad, I converse with your mother.”
Johnny nodded, and Eliot grinned sheepishly. “Don’t worry, John. Mrs. Boylston and I do not speak about you. We have other things in common.”
“Such as?”
Eliot struggled to think of something. Then he grinned and said, “All right. We talk constantly about you and interest ourselves in little else.”
Johnny laughed. “I must keep better watch on you both, then.”
That day, after tea and before returning to Peacefield, Johnny told the family stories about Barbados. The children had long been begging him to do so. He told of riding upside down on the windmills till Cassie was sure Johnny would break his neck. He told them of how he rode on the backs of the sea turtles, sometimes riding on them as they moved into the water and swam out to sea.
“Oh, did you drown?” asked Hannah, and everyone laughed.
He spoke of Mammy Apples as large as pumpkins, and of pomegranate trees from which the strange red fruit hung in profusion. “Oh, friends, if you only knew the pleasure of drinking a coconut’s sweet ambrosia through a bamboo straw!”
The children’s mouths hung open, and at the end of Johnny’s narration, both he and his mother had tears of homesickness in their eyes.
As the time to return to Harvard approached, Johnny realized that this time he did not look forward to returning. In Quincy, he was able to forget about Peter, and his all-too-vivid memories of Virginia.
The day before he was to leave, Johnny and Mr. Adams worked on the wall at Penn’s Hill. The old man asked him whether he had given any thought to his future.
“I have, somewhat,” Johnny said.
“Well, what are your thoughts, child?”
“I should first of all like to be a lawyer, like you, sir.”
“First of all?” Adams laughed. “What comes second, lad? The presidency?”
Johnny blushed. He had just confessed his ambitions to the man who most likely would be the next president.
Suddenly, Adams blurted, “Blast! My mind’s going! Why, I know just the man. His name’s Wilson. He resides in Philadelphia and has a mind like an encyclopedia. Personal friend of Washington’s, too. What have you left at school? One year?”
“Two, sir.”
“Two! Time creeps its petty pace. Well, hurry it up. Old Wilson’s not getting any younger. Luckily, that’s not true of me.” Then Adams bent down and with a grunt heaved another rock upon the wall.
Johnny left work that day enchanted by the prospect of leaving Harvard early. Perhaps he could graduate in three years instead of four. He would inquire of President Willard the moment he returned to the college.
That evening, Johnny began to pack his things. When he was nearly finished, he walked over to the cottage to see how Eliot was getting on with it.
Johnny found him in the kitchen, chatting with Eliza. His friend’s feet were raised upon a chair, and a cotton blanket was draped about his shoulders, though it was stiflingly hot within. He had not even begun to pack.
Johnny sat down across from Eliot at the table. “Say, you’d better get a move on,” he said. “We leave rather early. By the way, I was thinking: What if we discussed the Bill of Rights at our next meeting of the Slotted Spoon?”
Eliot looked at his friend tenderly.
“I’m not going back with you, John.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t do it. It’s no use my pretending.”
At that moment, Lizzie entered the kitchen and moved quietly to the hearth. But her presence seemed to give Eliot the courage he sought to continue. “Mrs. Miller says that the effort of pretending robs me of energy.”
Johnny stood up from the table and glanced accusingly at Lizzie.
“Pretending what, pray?”
Lizzie’s shoulders flinched, but she did not turn from her task at the hearth.
“Pretending that I’m well enough to attend class and study till all hours, in a frigid chamber.”
“It shan’t be frigid.”
“Not immediately, John, but think of December.”
Johnny felt tears come to his eyes.
“I shall bring you your meals, Eliot. I shall purchase a mountain of firewood—”
“It’s all arranged,” Eliot replied with a forced lift in his voice. “My parents arrive next week. It seems the prospect of my imminent death has softened their stony hearts.”
“They do not take you home with them?”
“Oh, no, that would be too much of a burden. Why should they, when I am so ably cared for here? Besides, I told them I had no wish to leave.”
“Oh, Eliot—”
“Never mind. At least they arrive.”
“That will be a comfort, I’m sure.”
“A comfort?” Eliot laughed mirthlessly, then coughed into a handkerchief. “I doubt it. Your family is my comfort.” He glanced over at Lizzie, now joined at the hearth by Eliza. They both smiled at Eliot.
Johnny said nothing, but he was seized by an unreasonable, crushing sense of betrayal. “But what about the Slotted Spoon Society? What about the Bill of Rights?”
Eliot saw Johnny’s emotions for what they were and pitied him. In this business of mortality, he knew himself to be far better versed than his brilliant friend.
Johnny already understood that his outburst had been childish and selfish. He endeavored to strike a lighthearted note when he asked, “All right. What devil’s bargain have the witches offered you?”
“Witches? Ha!” Lizzie blurted.
Eliot replied, happy to explain, “Well, I am to have my very own chamber overlooking the dunes, and the Millers, poor souls, shall go upstairs with the children. Your mother remains in the parlor. It was at their insistence, but I must admit it consoles me vastly to open my eyes to the sea and close them to the smiling moon. Your mama shall attend me when Lizzie is abroad.”
“But surely you won’t be content to while away your hours in gossip? Surely you’ll continue to write?” Johnny knew he sounded petulant.
Eliot turned to the women. “Gossip, he says, Lizzie! That’s how greatly he esteems you all!” He then turned back to Johnny. “Mr. Adams has told me I may borrow books from his library. I expect I shall see him rather often until he returns to Philadelphia in November. We are both very wicked and enjoy being so. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m already slated for Hell. What harm can a little more wickedness do?”
Eliot coughed discreetly. Then he said, “There is but one thing I shall lack, apart from you, dear friend.”
“What is that?” Johnny asked.
Eliot coughed again. There was blood on his handkerchief. “Time,” he said.
23
August 1796
ON THE WAY BACK TO CAMBRIDGE, JOHNNY’S eyes blurred with tears. His chest felt tight, and he could not seem to catch his breath. By the time he reached Cambridge, he had perspired through his shirt, and his curly hair stuck to his neck. He wiped his brow and looked down at the Charles as they crossed the Great Bridge. The river was as languid and as picturesque as ever, with its small boats drifting by and strolling couples on the banks. Ladies twirled their parasols and children chased balls or fed the ducks. Johnny stared at the river, willing it to console him as it usually did. I must prevail, he thought. I must. Eliot has not given in to despair, so what should be my excuse?
It had been more than four weeks since Kate had seen Johnny, and she could not wait a moment longer. In previous summers, she had always delighted in reading by the river or playing with the children. Now these activities felt dull. She felt impatient, but for what she didn’t know. She was fractious with the children and even got into an argument with her mother.
Martha had told her daughter that she had heard from Lizzie about Johnny’s return. Kate wished to depart for the college at once. But at the door, her mother stopped her and asked, “Kate, dear, are you very sure it’s wise to visit Johnny so soon upon his return?”
“Wise, Mama? How so?” Kate asked as she donned her bonnet.
“He has only just arrived. You would not wish to seem too eager, surely.”
Kate faced her mother squarely. “What would you have me do, Mama? Remain a recluse, like an ancient Greek princess? I’ve hardly gone abroad all summer.”
Kate had made it seem as if she were merely “taking the air,” but Martha was not fooled. She laughed and said, “You can hardly blame your indolence on me. Twice I asked you whether you wished to join me at the Society of Friends and you declined.”
Here, Kate rolled her eyes with exasperation. What did she want with a crusty old Quaker meeting?
“Besides,” her mother continued, “a true Greek princess would not dare speak to her mother so, for fear of being set upon a broiling rock.”
“Oh, but I’m going! I can’t breathe!” Then, suddenly doubting herself, Kate asked, “Mama, do you really think I shall seem too eager?”
Martha gazed at her daughter with a stab of compassion. “Oh, well. What if you do seem eager? All I really meant to say was that boys are so easily frightened by a woman’s feelings. Perhaps you could go armed with a ruse of some sort.”
“A ruse, Mama?”
Here, Mrs. Lee reflected for a moment. “I know. There is to be a play at the Haymarket next month. Why do you not invite him along? You can say we wish to celebrate his birthday in town.”
“Excellent idea!” Kate exclaimed. “Though probably not necessary. If I know Johnny, his fear of my ‘womanly’ feelings shall be mitigated by his failure to comprehend them.”
At these words, Martha hugged her daughter to her, and they united in merry laughter.
Johnny had not been expecting anyone. He was sitting at his desk in his nightshirt, where he had been for several hours, poring over the pages of Saint Augustine’s City of God. Immediately upon returning to college, he had asked President Willard to grant him leave to graduate in July. The president had approved Johnny’s request. But he would need to fulfill all the requirements of the fourth year of study. These included advanced tutorials in Latin, Greek, and composition. Johnny was glad of the extra work. Without it, he should have gone mad with loneliness.
Suddenly he heard a light, irregular tapping against his window. It so
unded like hail. He stood, stiff from sitting, and looked out. It was Kate, once more throwing pebbles at his chamber window. He opened the window and called down to her, “You shall break the window.”
“Now that you’ve opened it, I shall break your head.”
Johnny shut the window and threw on a dressing gown. He found Kate standing at the entrance to the building and was so unaccountably happy to see her that he nearly hugged her. But she pulled back slightly and curtsied, and so he bowed.
“Hello, Johnny.”
Johnny brushed his hair off his face and felt about his chest as if to make certain he was not naked. “I was just reading and—”
“Don’t speak.” Kate laughed. “You look a fright. Run and dress.”
Johnny nodded, ran up the stairs, threw on his shirt and breeches, extinguished his lamp, cleaned his teeth, and then ran back down the stairs and into the yard with Kate.
They sat beneath a maple tree, and Johnny was out of breath. Kate finally asked, “How was your summer?”
“Oh, excellent,” he said. “I was only sorry to leave Eliot behind.”
Kate looked stricken. “Leave Eliot? What mean you? Did he not return with you?”
“Oh, God, I thought you knew.”
“Nay. Why has he not returned?”
“He grows weaker. He fears he can no longer manage at college. But take heart, Kate.” Johnny grasped her hand. “He’s happy. If only you could see him, you would be reassured.”
Kate was silent. “I suppose this is the end of our little society.”
“We can talk, Kate. Always. That is—” he was about to tell her he was leaving at the end of the year. Then, for some reason, he decided to wait.
“It’s not the same though, is it?”
“No.”
They sat in glum silence. Then Kate brightened. “But, oh, I nearly forgot. There was a particular reason I came to see you.”
“There doesn’t need to be, you know.” He locked his blue eyes on her amber ones, and she blushed. She was no longer able to look Johnny in the eyes, she realized.
“Well, but as it happens, Mama—we—would like to go to a play at the new theater for your birthday. Would you like that?”