by Jodi Daynard
Johnny replied with news of his own, sharing all that happened at the office: the miles and miles of writs to copy, letters in need of replies, and documents to file.
Mr. Martin is all affability though I learn little from him. Baltimore is a charming city and seems to be growing at a rapid rate.
To Johnny, his letter lied a great deal by omission, and he did not take his usual pleasure in writing it.
Miss Burnes went home to visit her father, and for Johnny, that time passed slowly. But when she finally returned, her wan face beamed with joy to see him.
“How’s your father?” he asked as they shared a light supper with the Martin family.
“The doctor believes he has a cancer of the stomach.”
“Oh, goodness. I’m very sorry.”
“I shall have to return to see him frequently from now on. He says he doesn’t wish to remove me from my current situation as I appear to him so contented.” Marcia glanced at Johnny with tears in her eyes. “Oh, he is so good!”
Here, Miss Burnes began to cry. She wiped her eyes with her table napkin.
Johnny’s resolve to show no affection to Miss Burnes vanished. He reached for her hand beneath the table and pressed it reassuringly.
As autumn moved into winter, the foursome took to walking westward in the afternoons, provided it wasn’t too cold. They called the western edge of the city “the frontier,” for it was here they could see the great covered wagons that stopped for the night along the densely forested road leading into Baltimore. One afternoon, as they strolled arm in arm to keep warm, Rosa remarked, “Marcia tells us you’re from Barbados, but you don’t have an accent. If anything, you sound British.”
“I can sound quite Barbadian when I choose to.” Johnny smiled. “Shall I give you a sample?”
“Yes, please!” the twins cried.
“All right, here is a lullaby my dear Cassie used to sing to me.” And without needing further encouragement, Johnny began to sing:
Da cocoa tea is a poison to me,
Ev’ry time I drink it,
I don’t know where I be.
If you want to find me
You gotta look for me,
For she got muh head up-sided down
Wid a cup o’ da cocoa tea.
I was once engaged to a lady,
Her love was all for me
No matter the distance she did live
It was no trouble to me.
But another girl she did love me
An tek me away from she
An’ the only t’ing dat bring me back
Was a cup o’ da cocoa tea.
This exotic recitation made the twins giggle with delight, but Marcia had covered her ears.
“It is too much! You sound like an absolute stranger.”
“Then as a stranger give it welcome,” Johnny said, bowing slightly.
It was a reference to Hamlet that Kate would have thoroughly enjoyed. But Marcia merely stared blankly at him for a moment and then turned to watch as snow began to fall on the wagons.
As they stood looking at the snow, Miss Burnes said brightly, “I’ve had a letter from Peter today.”
“Peter?” Johnny frowned. “Fray?”
“Yes. He’s in Richmond just now. You’ve not spoken of him, I notice. Are you no longer friends?”
“No.” Johnny offered nothing else. Peevishly, he felt no inclination to apprise her of such a dark, unhappy story, when neither his childhood nor his mellifluous native tongue aroused her interest.
“That is too bad.” She shrugged. Suddenly Miss Burnes turned to him. “But say, shouldn’t you be in your fourth year now, as Peter would have been?”
“I received my degree in three years,” he replied tersely. “So, what does Peter have to say?”
“His family, as you perhaps know, suffered a great tragedy. Fred was murdered.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, they nearly lost the plantation. Peter was certain they would lose it. But they have sold off a piece of land and by this means forestall disaster. Their debts, however, remain enormous.” She lowered her voice. “He doesn’t like to speak of it.”
Johnny said, “Apparently he does.”
He glanced at Marcia, at her unsuspecting face, and suddenly berated himself for his impatience with her. It was not the usual province of women to concern themselves with the relationships of men.
Marcia asked, “Have I offended you somehow? If I did, I apologize.”
“No. I’m sorry. It’s just—Peter and I parted ways. Our friendship fell victim to the current divisions that threaten our country.” This at least was partly true.
Johnny thought Marcia would be thankful for his apology. But she drew herself up and said with a curl of her lip, “You think me ignorant and lacking in understanding.”
“Nay, I did not—”
Her eyes flashed a warning. “It’s not understanding I lack, Johnny. When I fail to see, it is rather because I close my eyes. There are simply things I don’t wish to know. Relations between men can be so very ugly. Why should I torment myself with knowing when I can do nothing? As for my education, I have had a father to tend to, and it has been just the two of us. We didn’t always have a vast fortune . . .”
Johnny, suddenly remorseful, touched her arm. As they descended the hill, a more cheerful mood seized her.
“Is Baltimore very different from Cambridge?” she asked.
“Oh, yes.” He looked thoughtful.
“How so?”
“It is so much—warmer here.”
Miss Burnes giggled.
“And how find you working for our dear papa?” Claire asked, relieved that the couple had resolved their argument.
“Oh, excellent. He keeps me quite busy.”
The shrewd sisters heard the lie at once.
“Busy!” Claire objected. “I should say so. Come, come, Mr. Boylston. We know our father quite well. You cannot fool us. He’s a dear soul. But we suspect his office is rather like the interior of his mind.”
“A library—” began Rosa.
“—after a hurricane,” finished Claire. At this, they all laughed.
“Well, perhaps you’re right. There’s a great deal of organizing to do.” The truth was, Johnny had been with Martin nearly three months and was yet to learn anything from him.
They had reached Market Street and made their way toward the house a few blocks away. It was now nearly dark, and white snowflakes shone upon their dark clothes and Johnny’s hair. Marcia smiled maternally and wiped them off of him. At the house, Claire curtsied and said, “We take our leave.” Rosa curtsied and followed her sister up the stoop, soon disappearing into the house. The couple was now alone, in the darkness, with the season’s first snow falling gently upon them.
“Shall we go in?” asked Johnny. “I fear you freeze.”
“Nay. You shall warm me.” Marcia moved closer to him. She took his hand and led him beyond the house, away from curious eyes. She then wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.
“Well, well,” he murmured. “What’s this?” He held her close, feeling, in the press of her flesh, a painful, mysterious regret.
“I fear I’m not worthy of you, Johnny, that I fall short in your eyes.”
“What mean you?”
“I know you’ve been among educated women. Boston, Cambridge—things are different there. Of all things on earth, I fear being ornamental. I know I am pretty, but I’m not ignorant enough to believe that beauty is a virtue. I may take no more credit for it than I can the fact of my sex.”
“You are not pretty, Marcia,” Johnny said, feeling a swell of tenderness for her. “You are beautiful. You’re a feeling, intelligent being. Oh, I love you, Marcia Burnes!”
He bent down and kissed her. She kissed him back but then pulled away. Taking his hands, she said, “You should write your friend, if you haven’t already.”
It was a splash of cold water, roundly deserved. Marcia m
oved toward the house, and Johnny followed her. In the foyer, parting, he looked into her eyes and said, “I shall. I promise. Until tomorrow, my love.”
Johnny retired, but, as was often the case, he could not sleep. Too many thoughts crowded his mind. Marcia had stood up for herself in the face of his critical judgment. She had been forthright with him, and displayed a keen understanding. He knew himself to be in love with her. Why, then, did he hesitate to write to Kate? Why did he feel ashamed to admit the truth? If there had been no definite understanding between himself and Kate, then there could be no breach. So why did he lie awake weighing and measuring, when he knew well that to do so was folly? It was around three in the morning when Johnny finally understood the answer: because he loved them both.
35
April 1798
THE WINTER HAD PASSED IN QUIET ENTERPRISE, but spring brought a sudden escalation of tension throughout the country. Adams released news that the peace mission to France, set in motion the year before, had been a catastrophic failure. The French foreign minister Talleyrand attempted to extract a bribe from the American ambassadors. Rather than barter for peace, the delegates turned around and came home. War with France seemed imminent. Irate mobs took to the streets in protest, exchanging their tricolor hats for good black American ones.
A letter from Kate to Johnny during this time seemed unreal to him in its contentment. She had moved to Quincy, she said, as the town had a “bumper crop” of babes. Aiding Lizzie and Johnny’s mother seemed as good a use of her time as any. She wrote,
Being close to Lizzie and your mother makes me feel close to you, just as being useful makes me feel close to God. I discover the pleasures of being a “farmeress,” as Abigail likes to call herself. In spare moments, I even keep a journal. My greatest pleasure when not helping Lizzie is to reflect upon the current state of womanhood. In my more confident moments I think I should like to devote myself to creating a magazine. Not one of those dreadful fashion rags, but something of real substance. It could be a refuge of sorts, a place for women to read about ideas and culture, to realize that they are not mad, not freaks of nature, not alone. I myself should have felt woefully alone had I not been surrounded by the best and bravest of women. How might I have challenged the great John Adams—or the great Eliot Mann and Johnny Boylston—were it not that I had seen Abby and Lizzie do the very same over the years? Anyway, what think you of my bright idea, John? Is it merely the fancy of an idle female mind?
Johnny replied that he thought it a most excellent idea. But his exchange of letters with Kate gave him little pleasure. His guilt at failing to mention Miss Burnes deepened the longer he put it off.
Just as he thought the political news could get no worse, word reached Johnny that Congress had passed several acts of dubious constitutionality. One made it difficult for foreigners to attain citizenship and allowed for deportation of immigrants deemed inimical to peace. Another, called the Sedition Act, criminalized the making of false or scandalous statements against the government or criticizing its leaders. The country had fallen victim to the gripping delusion of its having enemies everywhere, though Johnny had seen no evidence of such foreign enemies. Now, to watch their own government give credence to these absurd fears was more than he could bear. How could Mr. Adams have approved these acts? At once, Johnny wrote a letter to his mother:
As you know, I was meant to join Mr. Wilson in Philadelphia next month, but the yellow fever there is even worse than last summer. Many flee or have already fled, and many have died. I expect our esteemed friends have already left for home. News of the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts has many here literally up in arms. My belief in the Old Man is shaken. Thank goodness you bore me in America, Mama, for I should otherwise have had to wait another decade to become a citizen! I know not what shall come of things. The senators attend their meetings armed with pistols and dirks. Never mind war with France. To me it feels like civil war.
Johnny considered cutting out this last paragraph to avoid alarming his mother, but then he chose to leave it in. She would hear it all from Abigail anyway.
After this, Johnny took special care to peruse the Republican papers for responses to the Alien and Sedition Acts. He knew there would be fervent condemnations, and that these would serve to broaden the rift between the parties. But he read every scrap of paper in Martin’s office anyway, searching for particularly troubling news.
During his search, Johnny came across many papers written by Mr. Jefferson, going back to his days as governor of Virginia. One work was called Notes on the State of Virginia and had been published in England. Johnny perused its pages. He read quickly, and with growing horror. In this work, Jefferson posited a theory that whites were a superior race. While he believed it self-evident that whites were more beautiful, he also went on to argue the Negro’s inferior judgment and imagination:
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one [black] could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.
Tears came to Johnny’s eyes. As a child, Johnny had often heard his parents praise Jefferson for his courage in speaking up against slavery. His draft of the Declaration of Independence spoke of slavery as a “cruel war against human nature itself.”
Oh, falling idols!
Johnny abruptly abandoned his search in Mr. Martin’s office; he could not bear to continue for fear of what else he might discover. For the rest of that spring into summer, Johnny occupied himself with filing and copying, advancing neither his understanding of America nor of the law.
It was soon August, and Baltimore became infernally hot, well beyond ninety degrees most days. Johnny could do little either in or out of Mr. Martin’s office. On the hottest days of that month and of early September, he eschewed the office altogether and joined the ladies beneath the shade of the willow trees down by the river. They played cards and told stories. Miss Burnes came and went, sharing with them news of her father’s failing health. Of late, Johnny had heard less frequently from his mother, but in September he received a letter that contained grievous news:
Abigail is perilously ill. I dare not express a shred of confidence that my beloved friend will survive.
Johnny started up from the grass where he had been reclining.
“Why, what is the matter?” Miss Burnes asked.
“I’ve had bad news from home. Mrs.—” he nearly said “Mrs. Adams,” but stopped himself. “Mama’s dearest friend is gravely ill. I must go home at once.”
“But surely you shan’t do any such thing? That cannot help her. You shall be obliged to pass by Philadelphia, and all those poor exiled inhabitants in their tents. Your mother shall have yet another thing to worry about.”
In his haste to act, Johnny hadn’t thought of that argument. The twins murmured their assent, and he sat back down on the grass with a sigh of frustration. “We shall see what else the post brings,” he concluded.
A second letter from his mother arrived two days later. This one told him that Abigail was “a little better, yet gravely ill.” His mother then relieved his mind by saying,
I know you well enough to know that you consider returning home, but I beg you remain where you are. Abigail gets the best of care, and knowing you are traveling, and with the yellow fever all about, shall only fuel my anxiety.
“You see.” Marcia nodded.
Johnny glanced at her. It annoyed him that Marcia had been right. But it annoyed him even more that he was glad of it.
It was not until the end of September that Eliza Boylston wrote with any confidence of Abigail’s recovering. By then, she had also heard from Cassie that her mother had suffered a bad case of pneumonia but was slowly recovering. His mother ended her letter by saying,
I shall need to return to Barbados before too long, John. I save my
pennies to do so.
Johnny understood what his mother meant, that, henceforth, he could not rely on her for any loans or gifts of cash. But that was all right; Johnny had no intention of asking her. He would find a source of income.
In October, Marcia decided to host a party for Johnny’s twentieth birthday. When she saw the suit he proposed to wear for the occasion, she wrinkled her nose.
“It’s far too Bostonian,” she said.
“What’s wrong with a good Boston suit?” Johnny objected.
“It’s so grim. Do save it, though. It’s a perfect suit to be buried in.”
Johnny laughed. Then he admitted, “Well, I daren’t ask for money from Mama just now. She saves for her return to Barbados.”
But Marcia was not to be contradicted. “Very well. I shall get Mr. Martin to waive his fee.”
Most attorneys collected a fee from their protégés in exchange for mentoring them. As it happened, Mr. Martin’s fee was the exact amount of a new suit. “Oh, do let me have my way on this point, Johnny. I should like to be proud of you at your party.”
“You are not already so?” he asked, surprised.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do,” he replied. “Are appearances so very important to you?”
Her words brought to mind sickly, heron-like Eliot, whom the boys at college first teased and then cruelly shunned. He recalled the women slaves of Bridgetown, clothed in their one petticoat and blouse, both worn transparent with scrubbing, and the hucksters whose only possessions were the trinkets they fashioned. Some days, if they had nothing to give, then they gave Johnny a colorful smile and combed their strong fingers through his salt-soaked hair.
His eyes opened to look at Miss Burnes once more, and he felt a sudden pity for her. She could never know what that fine suit represented to him, or what joy it was to be loved by those who had nothing to give except themselves. What’s more, since coming to America, Johnny had been spoiled living among such women as Kate, Aunt Martha, and Abigail Adams. By what impossible measure did he judge this lovely woman?