In contrast to the stately balls held at the Ocean, the Aquidneck House offers more democratic “hops.” Each morning a wagon appears outside after the breakfast meal with a sign announcing it is “For the Fishing Ground Direct.” They seem to hire only Negro servants, and the sight of their dark skin against the white of their collars and cuffs produces an effect. Notable for its indoor roller-skating rink, which might serve as a most original setting.
Behind all of these great hotels there are the little alleys and couloirs that act as service lanes. In these are found the stables and carriages houses, quarters for servants and hotel personnel.
Among those who live year-round in Newport there is some talk that these great hotels, though they are not yet twenty years old, are in danger of losing the very best of their clients to the private houses that are being built up and down the Avenue. The war has calmed that building paroxysm, though even now one can hardly walk anywhere in town without the sound of hammering or of a planing mill incessantly in one’s ears.
~Observed today the Huntress at the hunt. For my Diana was much engaged with a young gentleman of the barber’s block type, so fashionably turned out and shaven was he! He wore his hair parted in the middle à la Fremont, and had a cane with silver embellishments which he used to point at this and that, illustrating his conversation like an impresario, and when once I was close enough to see, a thin little mustache that looked like some theatrical assistant had painted it on with a rigger brush. They were of a party that left the Ocean House to walk down to the harbor, where there was to be a steam organ concert from on board one of the great yachts at anchor. There were other such parties from the other hotels. They went out to the end of Da Silva’s wharf, talking and laughing and heedless of their finery amidst the workaday iron and casks and the pier toughs watching them. I followed at first at some distance, and then as the crowd gathered, ventured closer. The mother-aunt was there, as was the brother (about twelve years old, I think), and altogether some hundred or so music lovers to provide me paling from behind which to observe.
I jotted some notes of his manner toward my dressmaker: his way of inclining solicitously toward her as they walked; his placing of his hand behind her back (but never touching her); his way of being aware of the figure he cut by such gallantries; his taking the liberty of pointing the tip of his cane first at one of her shoes, then at the other, illustrating some witticism (to which she lifts her chin in lovely renunciation!); the carnation in his gray lapel, the silver sleeve-links, the way the white uppers of his camp shoes flashed out now and then from under his trouser cuffs; and always about his person a look that he knew just what he did, and what effect it was intended to produce, for (he seemed always to be saying) was not one fortunate to be invited to partake of the luxury of his manner?
As to the steam organ, Balzac has none such! It sounded a most burlesque note: the wind whipping the wheezing music to and fro, and the laughing, blabbing crowd. All quite in contrast to the blue of the sky and the harbor dotted with yachts whose candy-colored streamers winked in the wind, and beyond, the sun-flecked bay melting into the horizon.
Spring 1778
Mar 1
I went this morning to Pettibone’s Wharf that in my capacity as Master of Genl Pigot’s spies I might view the maps. A detachment from the Hessians was pulling up the planking of the Wharf next over. I was lately informed the Army needs 400 cord a week. At this rate there will not be a House or Tree standing on the Island by the end of Summer.
Indeed the British Army has gone about the Destruction of Newport with no want of Enthusiasm. What was Twelvemonth past a lovely prospect has suffered an ignoble Devastation. Our chief Duty would seem to be to overawe and terrify the Inhabitants of this place, and by our Contempt to ruin their homes and their places of employ. When first we came it was said there were 9 thousands of Population and now that number is more than halved. And where there was Business and Commerce there is Inactivity and Rebellion. The Navy is anchored in the Harbour and there is no Merchant shipping, and the Chandlers & Coopers & Distillers & all the sundry other trades that depend upon the sea are Gutted & Ruined. ’Tis the Colonists’ fault of course, this Blight, at least the fault of those who are disloyal. But all the same it is a sight to see this city that is reputed to be the most Comely of all the American Seaboard looking like a Drunkard in a ditch. Tho’ the Superior Officers are billeted in lovely if quaint wooden houses along the Harbour and on the Point, the Fusiliers and other Regt of foot are otherwise Barracked wherever they may fit, in sugar Refineries, tallow-works, sail lofts, Warehouses & Distilleries all of which have fallen into disuse and are ill-treated by the troops. Houses that have come empty are dismantled for firewood, as are the Wharves, so that the face of the town appears as scarred from the Smallpox. The Redwood Library, which I am led to believe is the first and most Elegant of its type in the whole Country, is plundered, its books taken, and Furniture scattered. Indeed the other night I saw Bradshaw lighting his Cigar with a page of Voltaire. The Churches & Meetinghouses, of which there are many, are taken over for Barracks & Hospitals. Even the Synagoge, again the first of its type in this country, is seized. All the Jews are fled, except Da Silva who shows no anger over the fate of his people’s House. Tho’ that may be but further Smoke on the Jew’s part.
Leaving aside the merchant Aristocracy (of whom there is not one in five left in the town) the remnants are a Motley rabble of impudent boys, Irish teagues, Negroes and Molattoes, and brassy jack tars.
Tho’ the Whores have stayed. ’Tis their Golden Age.
Mar 3
Fair. Wind SW. No birds seen yet except such as remain here for the Winter. I will make a hunt of it when the Spring birds come through, go out to Doubling Point and pretend I am back on the grounds of Clereford and my damned elder brother, the future Lord Stevens, the Victim of an unfortunate Accident.
Smithson very amusing this evening, says he is to blame for the Inaction of the Regt, says wherever he goes looking for War, he finds Peace. He is bad luck, he says, a regular Jonah. Pitch me overboard, fellows, he says, ’tis the only way.
Mar 4
Saw her today, a most Fortuitous meeting. Evidently the Gods of Love disport themselves even here in the midst of War.
It happened as I was coming down the Wooden planking of Thames Street in the company of Smithson and two or three of the others with whom we are Quartered. I paused for some Trifle, and when I looked up, who should be before me, just coming out of one of the Shops and looking herself Stricken at the sight of me, but the Jewess!
She was in the company of a Negroe Servant laden with Parcels, a boy whom I had seen about Da Silva’s house, and who I took to be about her own Age. We recovered ourselves and asked Politely after each other, but it seemed to me we had each Betrayed ourselves, that as she inflames my Thoughts when I am away, so do I hers.
She with her Dark Jew’s eyes and her exotic Complexion! No Devonshire Rose, she!
I left her with a promise to call upon her Father soon, voicing the Gallantry that even the Exigencies of War would not keep me from the Pleasure of her family’s Hearth, and with such a look in my Eye as to have her know that these Social calls were but a Ruse that I might be yet again in her Company.
And all the time forbidding myself the lowering of my gaze to the Swell of her magnificent Bosom!
Mar 8
Tonight we had one of the Colonial rags which was full of news of Genl Burgoyne’s arrival in the eastern Massachusetts. Smithson expresses the opinion that Gentleman Johnny, having lost 1000 men at Saratoga and surrendered another 6000, should be feted by the Colonials. Says the Rebels have no General themselves so adept at assisting their Cause. Says Burgoyne ought to be placed over Washington, and look out then, boys, he says.
The surrendered Army is also come into Massachusetts, shorn of their Arms. The Newspaper makes a high time of calling it the “Convention Army,” B
urgoyne having insisted upon calling the terms of his Capitulation by that name instead of the Surrender it was. It is rumored he will be escorted here to Newport from where he is to sail on his parole to never return to the Americas. He will have to find some other War to lose.
Have not seen the Jewess since I recorded in these Pages our encouraging Colloquy four days ago. On the Chessboard we call this a Quiet move.
Mar 9
This afternoon in the Newport Cemetery the body of Corpl Whitcomb was interred without Ceremony, no Prayer allowed. I went and stood in the rain to make a show of it. Smithson is of the mind that Whitcomb is but the beginning if we do not move soon. The inaction of the Regt is its own worst Enemy, he says. How d’ye make a Noose, he says.
The rain froze as it fell.
In the late afternoon word came that the merchant Mr. Goldthwaite is found guilty of Insolence by the Garrison Court-Martial. He had publicly abused a Lieut Kersteman of the Engineers whose conduct the Court found had in no way warranted such Abuse and is so ordered to pay 5 pounds Sterling for the use of the Poor.
We had a good fire and smoked and had some Idle discussion of this, and of the late Sheep-stealing incident that led to the execution of three of the Colonists. Richards maintained that a sterner sentence was needed to which Smithson responded sterner than hanging? He meant the fine levied on Goldthwaite, Richards said, which was no punishment at all for a Slave-trading, rum-smuggling Merchant of this town. Insolence to a British officer was worse than sheep-stealing, the way he saw it. It is open Rebellion and ought to be dealt with as such.
The Colonies were as a Child to a Parent, I answered. One does not execute a Child for misbehaving.
If they be Children, Richards countered, yet they are children who have Cannon and Firearms.
I said then what I had been thinking of late, that the only Immoral action is to treat an Inferior as an Equal. All other actions if they be between Persons of adult Intellect and Power are moral, even those that Religions call immoral, or that the Courts call illegal. But to treat any Inferior with force or Guile or Cruelty or any other adult Manoeuvre, because one can, is to be guilty of the Immoral. Addison said he had never realized I was such a sentimental soul, to which all laughed, but I persisted. The only Immorality is to take advantage of an unequal Contest, I said, that and only that is immoral. To betray, trap, trick, gain the Advantage of, that is the Life we are engaged in and all who are of Age should quicken themselves and be on their Alarm. ’Tis a game of Chess, I maintained, equal Forces arrayed. Victory to the skilled.
Surely, the others objected, I did not mean that all actions as long as they be between those of Age are equally moral.
I said I did. I said we are Men, and have about ourselves our full Faculties. We know the moves of the Chessmen. We know their relative Strength & Weakness. We know ’tis a Game of feint & trap & capture. Let all be on their lookout.
Was it moral, in the playing of this game of Chess, to cheat? Smithson said as if he had caught me in an Illogic.
It was, I said. Indeed I said there was no such thing as cheating. Cheating was just another Tactick available to each side, dependent upon each side’s Skill, to be used or discarded as the Position on the Board demanded.
And the whole time I had Da Silva in mind. For it is my Nature (and my Pleasure) that I must have an Opponent, and in this Godforsaken land it is the Jew who has sat down across the board from me. It is against him I strategize, against him I deploy my Pieces. His young daughter is but the luxuriant Prize!
Mar 10
Several letters have come today aboard the Lark. Mother tip-toes around the matter of the Scar on my throat. Asks in her roundabout way if I have been well, has the Melancholia returned? Says she has spoken in confidence to Doctor Edgerton who has informed her that such Ebbing & Flooding of Mood, and any Injury the Patient inflicts upon himself, are held to be the result of a Disturbance of the Soul due to inner moral Conflict. Asks delicately what inner moral Conflict I might have.
Damn my eyes but I should have told her I’d been in a Tavern fight!
That I am subject to these Fits with their great Upheavals of mood is but a Testimony to the Force of my Passions. I would not have it any other way. Yet there is a part of me that quakes still at the Memory. The Razor, the Rage, the Sinking, the slashing Madness: What was it?
Mar 11
Went finally to Da Silva’s with my best Gentleman’s manner only to find Judith out with the Negress Phyllis on some errand. Had to mask my Disappointment. Played Chess with the Jew and was somewhat irked to find him with a strong Kingside attack. Did he find this Symbolical? I pointedly asked, to which he just as pointedly laughed. Could not hold him off.
Afterwards he brought out his Port and as we drank and smoked he spoke some of his youth in Portugal and in the West Indies as he has done of late. I cannot imagine an English Jew so presuming. But I am at pains to present myself a tolerant soul. ’Tis a Gambit that I hope later to show he should not have accepted.
Interesting History of his family being of those Jews who were forced by the Papists to convert to the Roman Faith or face Persecution and likely Death. Indeed, he said, all the Jewish families of Newport, and they were many tho’ they are nearly all now fled, were of this history of forced Conversion. Of these Marranos or Conversos, as they are variously called, many gave an outward show of Christianity but practiced their Judaical beliefs in secret. He told one story that was a legend in his town of the Inquisitor taking the Regent of Aveiro into the tower of that city to show him the Heretics that he lived amongst. When the Regent protested, the Inquisitor pointed out house after house, each a Marrano household, he said, Heretics from great-grandfather to babe, for you saw no smoke rising from any of their Chimneys, in spite of the cold, for the Jews have no fire on their Sabbath.
He had me understand that this was no new state, that his family had been Christian for two hundred years before he was born, that they had kept their Judaical practices in secret those two Centuries, that he was himself christened Sebastiao, tho’ he bore the secret name Isaac. When I asked how he as a child understood these Strange things, by which I meant going to Church as a Christian and practicing these other ways at home, he said a child did not need to make Sense of things. The world just was, to a child, he said. And so he had been Sebastiao outside the house, and Isaac inside.
One other thing he said of interest, I remember now. He said he was taught to ignore the Tortured figure on the cross in his Romish church, and instead to pray to the Holy Ghost. For this was a way of performing an act of Devotion meaningful to his private self, while seeming to enact the Worshipful motions of the larger world. Is this not the mind of a man steeped in Duplicity?
Marrano, of course, means pig in Spanish.
Mar 12
Played Chess, played Loo, slept, stared at my second-son face in the Glass.
I must wait a decent Interval before I go again to the Jew’s, and content myself with the mere Memory of her Face & Figure.
Mar 15
Summoned the Negress Phyllis without anyone in Da Silva’s household knowing. Brought her back to the room, gave her half a Crown and had her wake up the Snake and then put him well-exercised to bed. The damned one-eyed Fellow. I’d take a razor to him if I could.
When she was gone I sat and smoked and looked out the window at the Fleet. It was quiet & pretty, the Masts and Spars in the moonlight, and the forge-fires of the Engineers out on Goat Island. There was a Sloop coming in, its sails luffing as it came nearer the wind. Someone in the streets was singing The Vicar of Bray.
The Jewess is sixteen. Is she a Child or a Woman? She has a woman’s body and a woman’s look in her eye, but does that signify?
Mar 19
Took the bottle of Amontillado I won off Smithson and carried it (along with Smithson that he might prove a diversionary Tactick) to Da Silva’s in the
early evening. This time Judith was at home and we all sat in the drawing room with a good fire. Phyllis came in to set an Impromptu treat. The Negress is a skilled Actress and performed her Duties without giving me a notice.
Da Silva’s house is one of the three or four best in Newport. Best, I should say, in relation to other Colonial houses for I have yet to see a house made of Stone in either Massachusetts or Rhode Island, and the wood which in Devon we might make an Outbuilding of is here used as a Principal material. The better Houses have a rude elegance to them, as the Classical elements are here in evidence, tho’ greatly reduced in scale and Ornamentation. Most unusual in Da Silva’s house are a Quartett of Cherubim which face onto the mantelpiece in the Drawing room, carved in high relief representing the Four Corners of the Earth, with the central panel a painting of a merchant ship in its Voyages. The wood is not the limewood that such an Ornament would be made of back home, but it is a goodly Imitation. There are reputed to be very skilled Cabinet-makers in Newport, tho’ those of that Trade are distressed and dispersed by the Hostilities as are so many others.
Judith was sumptuously dressed in a Silk frock over a slip of peach-colored Satin with drooping sleaves. Smithson, of course, is stupid around women, and the prettier they are, the stupider he becomes, and so he sat beside the girl most awkwardly while Da Silva showed me a Portuguese rapier we had talked of the last time I visited. I asked how his Wife & Sons were, for I knew that they had gone into the Interior as many others had done to escape the Strife, and then turning to Judith asked did she not wish she could join them? To which the girl replied that she was not afraid of Deprivation, or of life during War. Indeed, she considered it a rare Education. But you must miss your Mother and your young brothers, I continued, at which she gave me a look, for her own mother died when she was young, and she had told me once that there was no Love between herself and the second Mrs. Da Silva, and the three boys were but her half-brothers. I gave her a small smile to let her know that I was but referring to our Confidence.
The Maze at Windermere Page 4