SH03_Sparrowhawk: Caxton

by Edward Cline

  “The Quaker women here are pious and intelligent, often outspoken, very resourceful, and dress as plainly as their men. They do not wear veils. At times, however, their bonnets are so large and umberous that their features are in shadow, and one must peer into their depths to properly ascertain the age and phiz of the speaker, and to hear her muffled words. You have been reading low magazine accounts of the Indians. Most of them are at sixes-and-sevens and have been pacified by the preachful emissaries of various denominations. They are so stunned and stupefied by the arrival of so much civilization that they remind me of our own country folk when they learn that a manor and its adjacent lands are to be enclosed. The assembly here tries to assuage them with settlements and charity. They have little notion of property, and cannot fathom wheels. They are doomed. The only cannibals I have heard of are the western tribes, who are often engaged by the French to extinguish our settlements beyond the mountains.

  “When Fort William Henry fell to Montcalm, hundreds of these beasts violated the terms of the surrender and descended upon our soldiers and the militia men, who carried muskets but no powder and ball. They were to be escorted by the French to another British fort, but neither the Canadians nor the French regulars moved to protect them. The Indians beheaded or scalped the wounded in the fort’s hospital, then butchered the camp-followers — mostly women and children — in a similar fashion, and finally turned on the men, taking their clothes and useless weapons and often their lives. Montcalm and his officers are reported to have intervened, but quit the effort because it was too risky as the beasts were drunk on rum and blood. Montcalm bought most of the hostages back, and saw that they were safely escorted to Fort Edward. Many of the Englishmen, however, were kept by the savages, and were forced to porter the rum and gunpowder Montcalm had paid the savages, then were tortured and made meals of on the trek back to Canada. The last one was flayed alive and boiled in Montreal and consumed there. This I have from a French deserter who has settled in Philadelphia and established a tannery.

  “The forests beyond the settled regions must be salted with the bones and skulls of many who journeyed here to escape the wars, conditions, and persecutions in England and on the Continent. An expedition through these dark woods must follow morbid trails and come upon sad instances of families and farms come to grief. It is, I suppose, difficult enough to tame this wilderness and try to wrest a living from it, and to be on guard against hazards such as panthers, bears, wolves, and snakes. It must be more difficult to take precautions against human predators, whose notion of manhood is the number of scalps they can lift from especially women and children. However, whether they are Christianized or savage, the Indians are doomed by their manner of living and customs, which encourage neither industry nor measurable increases of their numbers….”

  Hugh wrote Reverdy many such letters, eagerly composed to share with her the wisdom and knowledge he was acquiring. Their unintended consequence was to cause her to reconsider his value to her. For a year or so, there was no hint of the McDougals in her letters to Hugh; her letters could have been penned by an acquaintance or a stranger.

  Then, at the beginning of his second year at the Academy of Philadelphia, he received a long apologia from her explaining her engagement to Alex McDougal.

  “You are a man,” she said in one part of the letter, “in whom any discriminating woman could count dozens of reasons to love him. But these reasons can only be docketed like goods on a merchantman. They are worthy and commendable reasons, but a cargo of virtues cannot inspire love of its owner. Love springs from the inscrutable but feckful heart, it cannot be analyzed or measured or subjected to rational scrutiny, not without causing it to wither and die. Love can only be felt or observed, never judged or justified. I have tried to love you in the manner you expect me to, and cannot. I have imagined loving you in that manner, and have come to know that I have not the strength to sustain that mode without regarding it in time as an unfair, cruel trial that would exhaust my endurance….”

  This was the only section of Reverdy’s rambling letter that Hugh could make sense of. He read it over and over, unbelieving of its meaning, but eventually being convinced of it.

  He sat still at the desk in the room he occupied in Otis Talbot’s house, not moving for a long time, holding a letter in his hands he could no longer read. It was such a mortal, unexpected blow that he was in a numbed stupor, unconscious of time and sound and light. As the growing dusk claimed the corners of his room, it seemed also to claim his soul. He felt that Reverdy had died, and that he would soon follow her.

  Then he felt an inquiring hand on his shoulder, and turned with a start to find Mrs. Talbot looking down at him, a candle in her other hand.

  “Excuse me, Hugh,” she said, “but I have been knocking on your door for the longest time to inform you that supper is ready…. Good gracious, Mr. Kenrick!” she exclaimed, bringing the candle closer to his face. “Are you ill?”

  “No,” said Hugh. “No, I am not ill.” He paused. “I shan’t be joining you and Mr. Talbot for supper. Please convey my excuses.”

  Mrs. Talbot glanced at the letter that was still clutched in one of Hugh’s hands. “Oh…I see….” She frowned. “Dire news from home, is it? I hope not.”

  Hugh shook his head. “From home? No, Mrs. Talbot. Not from home.”

  “Well,” said the woman, unsure of what to say or do, “I’ll have Rachel fetch up a plate of something for you later…if you gain an appetite.” Then she turned, left the room, and closed the door gently behind her.

  Akind of fever possessed Hugh’s mind for weeks, tossing him from mood to mood. For a while, he was uncharacteristically morose and reticent. This mood was deepened when he received a letter from his mother, who wrote:

  “Reverdy seems to have been persuaded by Mrs. Brune of the knottish dilemma posed by a match between you and her. Mrs. Tallmadge, who has been kind enough to take up the spy for me, reports that Mrs. Brune exhibits an angry blush when the subject of your London affairs is broached. Apparently the woman now views you with the same abhorrence she would express had she found you out to be a member of the Mad Monks club of Sir Francis Dashwood’s, and could no more imagine her daughter marrying you than she could Lord Chesterfield or that rake Mr. Wilkes. We have not consorted with the Brunes for months, and Mrs. Tallmadge has not the indelicacy to query Reverdy herself, and so I cannot report to you what may be the girl’s views on this unfortunate matter.”

  Hugh eventually roused himself from despondency to a furious, almost uncontrollable bitterness. This new state of mind was exacerbated by a letter from his father, who wrote:

  “Your uncle has been insisting that I order you home so that you may challenge Mr. McDougal for Miss Brune’s hand. I do not order you so, not to spite your uncle, but because it is a matter of your own choice. I believe you are wise enough to see that this is not an issue of honor. In your uncle’s view, you would be redeemed somewhat in his estimate were you to risk your life by acting out some silly duel.

  “But in this affair, Mr. McDougal is near blameless. Viva voce, Mr. McDougal is a most inoffensive and obliging person who sports the prunella of arid constancy, and is liberal to a fault. Neither Miss Brune nor her mother will have difficulty managing and moulding him. I suspect he was pushed into Miss Brune’s attentions and affections by his father, just as she was to Mr. McDougal’s by her mother. The alliance of him and Miss Brune is taken by your uncle as a personal affront authored by Squire Brune, chiefly because it scotches an opportunity to acquire an interest in the Brunes’ holdings, which a marriage of you and the lady would naturally have given our family. I once conveyed to you my thoughts on such a union, and they have not changed.

  “One thought, however, which neither I nor your mother expressed at the time, because you could have easily contradicted us with your authority on the matter, was that we had the mutual impression that Miss Brune unwillingly nurtured a curious fear of you. Forgive me for saying it, but perhaps she
did not need to be convinced by her mother of the truth of Mr. Addison’s dictum, that ‘there is no glory in making a man a slave who has not naturally a passion for liberty.’ Because such a ‘glory’ was manifestly impossible through you, the illusion of it could be achieved in the person of Mr. McDougal by means of his effortless complaisancy, conscientious respectability, and conjugal contentment. Please do not be angry with me or your mother for having had these doubts about your lady. Our vantage is that if she is now more disposed to settle in matrimony for a clipped shilling over a gold guinea, perhaps she has spared you both the misery of a disagreeable denouement as husband and wife….”

  Hugh was able to lose himself, at times, in the demands of his studies and in his work in Otis Talbot’s office on the Philadelphia waterfront. But the madness would well up in him unbidden, and distract him from his work at the Academy and in the partnership. The simplest tasks would then require a special, dumbfounded effort to perform, as though he were an illiterate street hawker who had never learned to read or cipher or think beyond the next day. His schoolwork and merchant’s duties thus became only temporary refuges from the storm of his emotions.

  It was only when the twin conflagrations of anger and pain had subsided that he was able to reflect calmly on Reverdy. The anger was reduced to the residue of indifference, the pain to an ash of regret. The regret was that her courage to love him had failed. He still loved the idea of Reverdy, but accepted the fact that what he had been in love with did not exist in her. The actual person of her began to diminish in his mind. This in turn transmuted into the indifference. He wrote his parents, assuring them that “the man of reason had fought a duel with the man of blind passion, and vanquished him.” He did not reply directly to his father’s remarks about Reverdy. He respected his father’s perspective and conceded that there was some substance to his allegations. And, a suspicion of the truth of them sat in the back of his mind; perhaps in all those years, Reverdy had seen him, but ultimately concluded that what she saw, could not be conquered or tamed. Perhaps she had rejected him for the same reasons his uncle hated him, and instead of subjecting him to invective and malice, wrote him a kind letter of forgiving apology.

  He reached the point, at last, when he regained his objectivity, and was able to write Reverdy a cordial note of congratulations, cold in its formality, dismissive in its brevity, and brutal in its justice:

  “Mr. McDougal is, I do not doubt, deserving of your love, as you must be of his. You both will always be what each of you expects the other to be. I feel obliged, however, to caution you that in future, you will find that love can be subjected to a most private and honest rational scrutiny. Perhaps, by that time, nature will be kind to you, and, having followed its own inexorable course, rendered you insensible to the weight and wisdom of its just and dutiful verdict….”

  One thought did not occur to Hugh throughout his emotional turmoil: He never once compared himself to or with Alex McDougal. His self-respect was so secure in his character that his rival was virtually nonexistent, except as an incidental, secondary measure, as an afterthought, as a pathetic, difficult-to-remember foil. He neither hated the man, nor despised him. Nor envied him — now that he knew the reasons for Reverdy’s decision.

  * * *

  Reverdy’s decision led Hugh to the realization that not only was there no pressing reason for him to return home after he graduated from the Academy, but that he did not wish to. At least, not for a while. He felt strangely at home. A few months after sending his last letter to Reverdy on the Sparrowhawk, he resumed the routine of a life divided between the Academy and the business of Talbot and Spicer. As his second and final year at the school neared an end, an idea grew in his mind. He wrote his father about his desire to stay in Philadelphia longer than had been planned, and broached the idea of purchasing a plantation, which he would manage and own in the family’s name.

  “There is now nothing in England that requires my immediate presence. A plantation here, intelligently managed, would help buttress the family fortune. The papers here carry many notices of these places for sale, either in whole or in part. I know that our Ariadne and Mr. Worley’s Busy call regularly in Virginia, which is where the best tobacco plantations are to be found. Managing such an enterprise here would better prepare me for managing our own lands, once I return to Danvers. Not least important to me, it would be something of my own….”

  Garnet Kenrick said:

  “I not only think your idea a good one, for all the reasons you cite, but your continued sojourn so far away from our affections may help to alleviate relations between your uncle and me. If you notice any property for sale that suits your fancy, I would gladly underwrite its purchase, provided the price was reasonable and our own vessels could be guaranteed a portion of its trade. I would also insist that Mr. Talbot, who has some knowledge of the planting business there, appraise any property. In separate correspondence I have sent him a letter appointing him my proxy in such a transaction, together with a draft on Formby, Pursehouse and Swire in the amount of five thousand pounds. I have given Mr. Talbot other instructions concerning this matter…. Your mother, Alice, and I all earnestly hope that, though your endeavors are ambitious, you mark some time for a visit here, once this dreadful war is concluded….”

  * * *

  Once he and Otis Talbot returned to Philadelphia from Caxton, Hugh found a letter waiting for him from Roger Tallmadge, in which his friend regaled him with the details of the battle of Minden:

  “…The French horse were confounded by the sudden and steady advance of our grenadiers and regulars, with the Hanoverian troops behind us. We would march boldly, yet with admirable calmness, toward the cavalry, then stop to fire volleys by platoon, emptying more and more saddles as we went. This we did many times. Some of their dragoons tried to engage us and check our progress, and their hot fire brought down many of our men. But we were not to be deterred. The senior ensign before me was felled by a dragoon’s ball that struck his head. He was Ensign Michael Ramsey, of Croton-Abbas, Devon. I suppose he was dead before he went down, still clutching the King’s Colours. Before I could think to do it, because it was my duty, I paused in my stride to pick up the Colours, then raised them high for all our men to see, and found myself in front of our company. We advanced and fired twice again, and I must have sweated a gallon of salt, for I was now a fair target and the bullets sang past me all the while to smack into the cloth of our conspicuous Colours or some brave but unfortunate fellows behind me.

  “Finally, the French horse, seeing that they had lost their momentum, and perhaps fearing that we would any moment charge with bayonets fixed to our muzzles as they milled about in the disorder we caused in their ranks, removed themselves from the contest in great confusion. Our colonels ordered us to halt, to allow our own horse to sweep in and pursue the French. But, to our amazement and consternation, Lord Sackville’s men, although drawn up for just such an action, did not act, and sat immobile at the far end of our lines, thus permitting the French horse to retire without further abuse. Some say that Sackville did this to spite Prince Brunswick, whom he constantly criticized and quarreled with bitterly; others whisper incontinent skittishness. Brunswick was furious, and swore that he would take up the matter with our George and see Sackville punished and ousted.

  “For my courage, I have been brevetted a lieutenant, and now wear a gorget…. The Duke is determined that the French shall not traipse through Hanover, nor roam through Germany unmolested. He is an able commander, bolder and wiser than was Cumberland. The French know that if they can capture and hold Hanover, they could treat separately with our sovereign and deny King Frederick an army in the west and Mr. Pitt’s money aid, and leave Prussia open to French mischief. We shall remain under Brunswick’s command for the duration…. I was granted leave to visit Francis’s grave near Hastenbeck. He was not a loving brother, and tormented me no end, but I nevertheless felt sorrow for him, and pray that my conduct has balanced his loss. He di
d not survive his gallantry, and I thank God I have survived mine….

  “At the Marquis of Granby’s suggestion (he is the ranking British officer here), we junior officers were feted at a victory supper by an aidede-camp, Lord Charles Brome, who was shortly after the fight promoted captain in the 85th Regiment, and has since returned to London. He studied at the military academy in Turin, and is a lively, keen fellow who reminds me somewhat of you in age and manner, and also because he, too, will someday become an earl….”

  Roger went on in his letter to describe German towns and culture, and the rigors of camp life. Hugh envied his friend a little; in a way, Roger was on a kind of Continental tour, something Hugh had not had a chance to experience himself. He smiled when he read Roger’s postscript:

  “I remembered what you told me that day we went shooting, and have been practicing with a firelock I borrow from one of our grenadiers. I can now load and fire it four times in a minute, almost as quickly as a Prussian. My fellow officers are either amused or scandalized, and chide me for the diversion. But, I tell them that I may some day see service in the colonies, and the skill may be an opportune one to have there….”

  * * *

  In between packing his possessions and arranging with Otis Talbot to have most of them follow him to Caxton on another vessel, Hugh wrote his last letters in Philadelphia to his parents and Roger Tallmadge. A quiet excitement grew in him now, one rooted in many causes: a determination to begin anew; the prospect of making something his own; a break with a painful part of his past. The neglected state of Brougham Hall sat in his mind like an island of virgin land waiting to be tamed, cultivated, civilized, and made prosperous. If the place had had any repute before Amos Swart’s ownership of it, Hugh was resolved to surpass it.

  A letter arrived two weeks after Hugh’s return to Philadelphia, cosigned by Arthur Stannard and Ian McRae, stating that the purchase of Brougham Hall was registered with the court of Queen Anne County and that all fees, charges, taxes, and tithes were paid, and that Hugh could invest himself in the main house at his pleasure. It also informed him that Amos Swart had returned from his other properties and was informed of the purchase, and removed from Brougham Hall together with what movable possessions he could lay legal claim to.