“Can’t we be together for even five minutes without a political argument?” Caroline Skinner said.
She toyed with the death ring on her finger. Jonathan Gifford was wearing an identical ring - gold with a crest of interwoven hands. Sarah had designed it herself as she lay dying of fever in Antigua. It was so like her to insist on this funeral custom. She knew that all the members of the immediate family would wear these rings for at least a year and occasionally thereafter around the anniversary of her death. Caroline could almost hear Sarah saying with confident mockery: You will never forget me.
My father was responding to Caroline Skinner with an edge of hysteria in his voice. I suppose he felt especially vulnerable because one of our Kemble cousins was married to the British general Thomas Gage. Her brother, Stephen Kemble, was currently deputy adjutant general of the British army that was cooped up in Boston by some eighteen or twenty thousand Americans under George Washington.
“I would like to have a formal promise from this young man, that anything spoken in this room will never reach the ears of a county committeeman. Or one of their officious lackeys.”
“He is one of their officious lackeys,” Anthony Skinner said.
My mother emphatically agreed with my father. Most of her family had already fled Massachusetts for England. She touched her gauze-wrapped head and huffed: “A proper subordination is what these people must be taught. They should have learned it in the cradle - or soon after.”
She aimed a glare at Jonathan Gifford with these words.
I writhed in my seat, almost ashamed to acknowledge them as my parents, yet too cautious to be an all-out rebel. On January 1, 1776, no one knew where the Revolution was going. A few thoughtful’ men may have glimpsed the future. But for most of us it was a murky, New England-spawned cloud into which prognosticators looked and saw what they hoped or wanted to see.
I could see this much - Kemble was about to treat us to some radical fireworks. Jonathan Gifford saw it too. “I will vouch for Kemble’s silence - though I personally think it is unnecessary for me to do such a thing.”
“I could not agree more,” Caroline said, giving Kemble one of those bright smiles that remarkably illuminated her small, ordinarily solemn face. “It’s bad enough that members of the same nation have bayonets at each other’s throats. I hope we shall never reach the point where members of the same family -”
“God forbid, my dear,” Charles ‘Skinner said.
“Which does not mean,” Caroline said, “that I think we should abandon the defense of our rights. If we stand firm, I am sure England will give us what we ask.”
“I fear that may be a vain wish, Mrs. Skinner,” my father said. “If you act the rebel, you cannot expect your sovereign to treat you generously.”
“I think history will justify us, Mr. Kemble. You may imply I am a sentimental, foolish woman - but I think we should refrain from calling each other rebels. Or Whigs or Tories or violent democrats or dangerous republicans. Refrain until the last extremity.”
“Those names mean something, my dear Mrs. Skinner,” Charles Skinner said. “Perhaps they may shock sense into some who need it.”
“In my opinion,” Kate said, “whether a man is a Whig or a Tory, a radical or a moderate, is not half as important as the quality of his - his heart.”
She turned to Anthony Skinner as she said this last word. He smiled and took her hand. Kemble’s jaw tightened. He had never liked Anthony and it infuriated him to see his sister in love with a man who was now his political antagonist. Jonathan Gifford wished for the hundredth time that Anthony had stayed in England to practice law, as his father and Governor Franklin had urged him. Caroline Skinner saw some of this on Jonathan Gifford’s face and understood his feelings. Few mothers have been closer to the children of their blood than she had been to Anthony when he was growing up. She had taken a personal pride in his precocious interest in law and politics. It had stunned her when he returned from three years in England a convinced Royalist, full of sneers at the men who were leading American resistance to Parliament’s greed. He had become one of Governor Franklin’s favorite house guests; in fact, the young favorite of all that wealthy circle of judges, customs officers, doctors, and Church of England clergymen who clustered around the governor in Perth Amboy.
A moment after Caroline Skinner looked into Jonathan Gifford’s face, an absurd drama performed itself in her mind. It was night. She was in a boat with him, being rowed toward a ship in New York Harbor. She was stepping on board it, his strong arm around her waist. A mate was shouting orders, sails crackled, masts creaked, they were under way for an unknown island, Martinique, Cuba, Jamaica. All in a blinding, impossible flash, invisible to everyone, only freezing her hand on the silver teapot for the briefest moment. Then she heard her own voice asking, “More tea, Captain Gifford?”
“No. No thank you, Mrs. Skinner,” Jonathan Gifford said. “I think we had better go. The Committee of Safety is meeting at the tavern tonight. I must see to their dinner.”
“You take their paper money?” Charles Skinner asked. “What else can I do? It’s the coin of the realm.”
“It’s no coin for me, sir. Nothing short of bayonets will persuade me to take it. I am extending credit to every man who grinds at my mill, rather than take it.”
“What will you do when you bring your crops to market?” Jonathan Gifford asked.
“I think a British fleet and army will settle that question before harvest time. Don’t you yourself think so?”
Before Jonathan Gifford had to answer that difficult question, the beat of a galloping horse’s hoofs sounded on the drive. A moment later, a hand pounded on the door. One of the servants opened it and as all of us peered into the center hall, Cortland Skinner, attorney general of New Jersey, burst upon us. He was wearing a dark blue cloak which had done little to protect his breeches and stockings from the mud flung up by his horse’s hoofs. Ordinarily a rider in bad weather wore sherryvallies, a long, tight pantaloon that reached to the ankles. Skinner’s shirt was soiled, his waistcoat was a greasy leather item he obviously wore when strolling about his farm. The same was true of, his square-skirted, sad-colored coat, which he must have inherited from his father. He was wigless and his hair was unpowdered - by and large a strange costume for a man who prided himself on always being in fashion. But the agitation on his face made us forget the attorney general’s undress.
“Cousin Charles,” he said, “I thought your company would be gone by now. I see I must throw myself on all your mercies.”
“What in the world are you talking about, my dear Cortland?”
I just received a message from Governor Franklin,” Skinner said, his sensitive mouth twitching, his sallow aristocratic face contorted with anger and fear. “He tells me his confidential letters to the Secretary of State have been intercepted. In the packet was a letter of mine to my brother William in which I spoke freely about the pretensions of our treasonous friends.”
Charles Skinner’s face turned an unwholesome magenta. “By God, they have overreached themselves this time. The King’s mail - “
“Nothing is sacred or illegal to these people once Congress approves their conduct. Have you not heard about their latest resolution?”
It was obvious that none of us had heard about it. New Jersey did not have a newspaper. We depended on the New York papers, which took several days to reach us.
“They condemned unworthy Americans,” Cortland Skinner said, sarcastically reciting the text, “‘who regardless of their duty to their Creator, their country, and their posterity, have taken part with our oppressors.’ They said they ought to be disarmed and the more dangerous among them kept in safe custody.”
The silence in the room was funereal. Every face, including Jonathan Gifford’s, was grim. Only Kemble Stapleton’s eyes were aglow with fierce delight.
“Do you think you’ll be arrested, Mr. Skinner?” Jonathan Gifford asked.
“There is no questi
on about it. They arrested two judges and a justice of the peace last week in Hunterdon County. Any man who dares to speak his mind against these people is their enemy.”
“What did you say in your letter?”
“Much the same thing that the governor said in his letter to the Secretary of State. These people were aiming at independence and nothing would stop them but a British army and fleet.”
Confusion now replaced the wrath on Charles Skinner’s face. Those words were virtually an echo of what he had just finished telling us. “I don’t see how we can keep you concealed here. The servants come and go about the house and gossip with the field hands. They know who you are.”
“I realize that,” Cortland Skinner said. “I only intend to stay until the night is well advanced. A sloop will pick me up from your beach about eleven o’clock. By morning I should be aboard one of the King’s men-of-war in New York Harbor.”
“Is Governor Franklin going with you?” Anthony Skinner asked. William Franklin was one of the last, if not the very last royal governor at his post. In North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, New York, the governors and other royal officials had retreated to British warships offshore.
Skinner shook his head. “He intends to stand his ground. His lady is almost beside herself with anxiety. I urged him to come. A single man cannot fight a mob.”
“I could call out the old militia,” Charles Skinner said. “I dare say a good third of the old regiment would turn out. What do you think, friend Jonathan?”
The royal militia and its officers had been dismissed by Congress and a new militia organization created in its place. The old regiment still existed in the minds of many, particularly the officers. But Jonathan Gifford knew from listening and talking to the hundreds of men who drank in his taproom that Skinner was dreaming.
“You would get no more than a tenth, and expose yourself and them to insult,” he said.
Charles Skinner obviously did not believe him.
“They have created a government,” Jonathan Gifford continued. “Committees of Safety in every county. A legislature. At least half the people support them. It seems to me all we can do is wait and see how this government conducts itself. And what the government of Great Britain does about it.”
“I think the Captain is quite right,” Cortland Skinner said. “We must bide our time. Let’s be consoled by the thought that the longer we wait, the sweeter will be the revenge.”
Jonathan Gifford thought Charles Skinner looked dubious at these words and my father was clearly shocked. A scholarly, rather shy man, Father’s deep reverence for the law made the Revolution abhorrent to him. But counterrevolution, the Moody business of attainders and confiscations- and beheadings, was even more detestable.. Political revenge was equally foreign to Charles Skinner’s nature.
“I will most certainly offer you every aid and • protection in my power until you leave the house tonight,” he said. “A change of clothes, a good dinner, everything and anything is yours to command. As for the rest of us . . .” He turned to our little band of tea drinkers. “Our joking talk about keeping silent about certain matters has now become very serious indeed: I have no doubt that we are all men and women of honor and will say not a word about Mr. Skinner’s visit.”
He stared particularly hard at Kemble as be said these last words.
“I suggest you get his horse into your carriage house as soon as possible,” Jonathan Gifford said.
“Quite right. Tend to that, will you, Anthony?” Charles Skinner said. “Hide Mr. Skinner’s saddle in the hay for the time being.”
The party was clearly over. Goodbyes were subdued,
Outside the snow was blowing and whirling into a blizzard. Kate was wearing a crimson capuchin lined with ermine. She drew the cloak around her and put the hood over her glowing hair, making a rare combination of colors. My mother and sister Sally looked perfectly ridiculous in huge calashes, hoods of light green silk a foot and a half in diameter. Nothing else fit over their absurd “heads.” Kemble mounted his big black gelding, Thunder, and glared while Kate and Anthony Skinner had a final tete-a-tete. Captain Gifford gathered his old dark red officer’s cloak around his shoulders and mounted his chaise, where he sat patiently Waiting for Kate. With an angry gesture, Kemble swung Thunder’s head into the road and cantered off.
Watching, Caroline Skinner felt a rush of sympathy for Jonathan Gifford. “Kate,” she said, “your father’s waiting in the snow.” Kate extracted her hand from Anthony Skinner’s grasp and took her seat beside Captain Gifford in the chaise. He handed her a big bearskin muff and arranged her capuchin to give her the best possible protection, then covered her knees with a sable blanket.
Was it all paternal affection, Caroline wondered, or testimony that his love for Sarah was still a living thing? Why, she wondered, did she wish so hard against that last idea? She stood in the doorway, watching them until the chaise turned into the main road and vanished in a whirl of snowflakes that seemed to obliterate everything but the gray, lowering sky.
FOR MOST or the half-hour’s ride home, Jonathan Gifford and his stepdaughter said little. He was concentrating on safety. The snow covered many of the worst rocks and ruts in the road and he was soon reining in the sturdy little Narragansett pacer between the shafts of the chaise. Ordinarily Captain Gifford traveled at what some people thought a reckless pace, considering the awful roads. But he was an expert horseman, remarkably deft at avoiding obstacles on the road that sent many a chaise and rider into the ditch.
Kate thought her father’s silence was caused by what was absorbing her mind. When she finally spoke, it was with caution. “Anthony pushed me again - for an answer.”
“The way you were looking at him, I thought you had said yes.” “I would like your approval.”
“Nothing I heard today was likely to change my mind.”
“Sometimes I wish I’d never heard the word ‘politics.’”
“Wishing doesn’t change the way the world turns, Kate,” Jonathan Gifford said, giving the pacer his head down a straight stretch of road which he knew was reasonably safe. “Sometimes you sound as Irish as my mother.”
“Anthony says these committeemen and their soldiers will run away at the first sight of a British grenadier.”
“Maybe they will. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to grenadiers. I simply don’t think you should marry a man with such extreme views in times like these.”
“Goddamn it to hell, what am I supposed to do? Grow old and wrinkled waiting for the politicians to settle matters?”
Jonathan Gifford sighed. There was no hope of correcting Kate’s language. Her mother had displayed a similar kindness for oaths that shocked the prim and pious. “Kate, you’re eighteen. Give politics a year. Give Anthony Skinner a year. Maybe once the glow of London wears off him, he’ll look like a very different fellow.”
“What do you mean by that? Are you reminding me he’s a bastard; whispering behind his back like all the other damn hypocrites in this state?”
“No.”
“I know how he feels. I go through the same thing whenever I go out these days.”
“Kate - that is nothing but imagination.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to put up with the looks and sniggers. I can practically hear them sneering ‘like mother like daughter.’”
“Kate - ”
She was looking away from him, knowing she had broached a forbidden subject. “Oh, Father, why don’t you like him? I thought you’d appreciate his good manners, his sense of style, his - his manliness.”
“Kate. I’ve told you before, I don’t think he’s the husband for you. But if your heart chooses him, I will never stand in your way. No man can bind a woman’s feelings. Only she can do that. But she may regret it - “
“Yes,” Kate said. “I know all about that.”
He was tempted to tell her she knew nothing. But that would only bring them back to the forbidden subject. Not that S
arah was literally forbidden. It was the pain she had caused and was still causing that made it impossible to talk about her.
Jonathan Gifford took his eyes off the road to study Kate for a moment Her face was as beautiful as any idealized image of the court paintings of Louis XV or England’s Stuarts at the height of their licentious glory. But it was purified by youth and a peculiarly American innocence of the worldly dross which cast a subtle stain upon European images of beauty. Kate had her mother’s dark red hair and green Kemble eyes, full of the kind of light created by sunbeams on deep grass. Her mouth was strong and wide, with a ripe underlip that was said to be proof of a passionate nature. By the more fragile standards of aristocratic beauty, her body may have seemed too solid, almost muscular, especially in the athletic arch of her back and firm, supple neck. But this was an American girl, bursting with a vitality that most European women never experienced in their constricted lives. Did this mean she would be tormented by the same wild, willful spirit that had destroyed her mother? Jonathan Gifford did not know the answer to that question.
Ahead the lights of the tavern and the little village that had grown up around it were visible through the snow. They passed Parmenas Corson’s blacksmith shop, Ruben Husted’s cooper’s shop, the dry goods store of our reigning merchant, Isaac Low, the shops of Auke Wikof, the gunsmith, and Job Allen, our shoe- and boot-maker. Finally there was the tavern looming up in the twilight. It looked even bigger than it really was, with its outline blurred by the gathering darkness. Seeing the blaze from the huge fireplace glowing in the taproom windows, Kate was stirred by a warm rush of memories. How many other evenings had she come home around this time from visiting Sally Kemble or some other cousin or friend and been cheered by the bulk, the solidity of this building.
The Heart of Liberty Page 3