So he turned for the river.
ON THE SAME afternoon, Will Pike sat in a coach bouncing over the frozen ruts on the Middle Post Road. His toes and the tip of his nose were numb with cold, but he and the man beside him shared a bearskin lap blanket that kept them both passably warm.
Some masters would have kept the bearskin for themselves and let the apprentice freeze, but Rufus King had treated Will like a colleague rather than an apprentice.
King had graduated first in his class at Harvard, had established himself as one of Boston’s brightest lawyers, and at thirty-three had taken a seat in the Confederation Congress. He dressed well, even for travel, in a suit the color of port wine. And he was considered a handsome man, though to Will his sharp features bespoke sharp intelligence. His aquiline nose seemed like an exclamation mark whenever he made a point, and every point he made was concise.
He cocked an eyebrow at Will and said, “Eight hours out of Boston, and still you’ve not read a page of contract law?”
“It’s just that there’s so much to see, sir.”
King glanced out the window. “Fields and forests and small crossroads towns. Stare at things worth staring at, like your law books.”
“Yes, sir.” Will began to dig into the carpet bag at his feet. He had resolved from the start that he would never disappoint Rufus King, because King had given him an opportunity to fulfill his dreams, to soar like one of those Hampshire County hawks.
Then King put a hand on his arm. “We’ll be stopping soon. Enjoy the rest of the ride. Read tonight.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“You did well in Boston. We move to a larger stage at Congress in New York, and come spring, the convention in Philadelphia, which I expect will work with great urgency, considering the scare that your brother and the Regulators have put into our governments, north and south.”
“Do you believe we need a stronger central government, sir?”
“Without it, we’re doomed. So work hard, for the better you do, the more I’ll ask of you.”
“Yes, sir. It’s what I hope, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Henry Knox. I’ve taken you on ahead of several young men who have bachelor’s degrees, all because of this letter.” King reached under his cape and drew the letter out. “I think you should keep it. A recommendation from such a great man might be of value to you again someday.”
Will took the letter, read it, remembered the day that Knox wrote it.
Then the coach began to slow, and the driver called down to them, “Millbridge comin’ up, gents. MacReady’s Tavern for the night. Good stew, soft beds, and they buy their cornmeal from the Cousins gristmill, where they grind so fine, the Indian puddin’s as smooth as mother’s milk.”
FOUR
“UP AHEAD IS MACREADYS, the old coach stop,” said Peter Fallon. “It’s still a restaurant.”
“Maybe we should have lunch there.” Evangeline Carrington looked at her watch. “Or dinner, we’ve been driving so long.”
“I’m giving you material for your next article, and you’re complaining. Take notes instead. We’re on the George Washington Heritage Highway. The sunroof is open. The autumn colors are glorious. Call it, ‘Route 16: Washington Passed This Way.’ “
“How about, ‘Washington Passed Wind This Way’?”
Peter rolled his eyes and kept driving.
They had met in their twenties, when he had been searching her family’s history for clues to a lost tea set. They had lived together for a time, when he tried teaching history in a midwestern college. They had found each other again in their forties, when each was recovering from a divorce.
This time, it seemed to be working, despite their differences. He came from the neighborhood and had made good selling rarities to the upper crust. She came from the upper crust and didn’t much care. And while they spent more time together than apart, they practiced what experience preached: no sharing of toothpaste or utility bills.
As they went by MacReady’s Family Restaurant, Peter said, “Washington really did pass this way.”
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“If I did, you and I might never have gotten together again.”
“The road not taken … unlike this one.” She looked out at a strip mall, which was followed by a wooded lot on which an old farmhouse was falling to ruin, which was followed by a half-acre of used cars arrayed around a little shack. “Where are we, again?”
“On one of the three main roads to New York back in the eighteenth century, known then as Middle Post Road. Coach left Boston at three a.m. Breakfast in Medfield—”
“Read a magazine and then you’re in—”
“Millbridge, below Uxbridge, where Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island meet.”
“New England’s very own middle of nowhere,” she said.
“Coaches would stop here for the night—”
“You know, Peter—”
She turned to him and a strand of blond hair caught in one of her earrings. She brushed it back, and he thought she looked as good in her forties as she had in her twenties, even when she was about to zing him.
“—sometimes I wonder how you find room in that brain for things like phone numbers and computer passwords, considering all the useless knowledge you’ve stored.”
“Knowledge is never useless. As I always say, history matters. Washington took this route home after his presidential trip to New England—”
“After they gave him the Golden Eagle Tea Set?”
“Which brought us together.”
“Proof that history matters,” she cracked, “more than it should.”
“Washington had come into New England on Upper Post Road,” Peter continued. “He wanted to go back by a different route. But he wouldn’t take Lower Road because it went through Rhode Island, which hadn’t ratified the Constitution—”
“So they were fighting over the Constitution even then,” she said.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same. The lesson of history.”
“Do you really think we’ll be able to repeal this Second Amendment?”
“What do you mean, we?”
“Peter … we’ve been over this already. If you’re against the repeal, you’re against gun control. If you’re against gun control, pull over and let me out.”
Peter fixed his eyes on the road. “We’re looking for the Millbridge Historical Society. It’s in the old Pike-Perkins Mill complex.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“You changed the subject. We were talking about George Washington.”
“We were talking about the Constitution,” she said. “And these days, the only talk is about the repeal movement.”
“Can we get back to the business at hand?”
“What? History? We can get guns off the street for good, and you want to talk about history.”
“I told you, history matters. Even on this trip.”
“I thought we were here to see a guy about a letter you sold for him.”
“A letter to Rufus King, who helped write the Constitution that everyone is fighting over.” Peter reached into his pocket and handed her a copy. “Read it.”
She started to singsong through it: “ ‘October 26, 1786. Dear Mr. King, It is my pleasure to recommend to you a young man of good character and background, his father having served with distinction in one of my regiments. William Pike is sober, serious, and possesses instinctive skills for debate. In discussion with me over the rule of law, he said, “There are God-made laws, and there are man-made laws. We cannot change God’s laws, but a wise man should know enough to change an unwise law….” ’ ”
Evangeline looked up. “He could be talking about today.”
Peter just nodded.
“Don’t look so smug.” Then she read on: “ ‘Such well-phrased sentiment alone makes him worthy of consideration. Your Obedient Servant, Henry Knox.’ �
�
“See?” said Peter. “History matters. Why would a professor of constitutional history be so interested in this letter? And in the death of the man who, if my instincts are correct, sold it through Morris Bindle? And why now?”
THE PIKE-PERKINS MILL was set back from the road, behind a stand of sugar maples planted by some enlightened mill manager a century before. The driveway cut a graceful arc under the trees, so that the visitor’s first impression was of entering a park.
But this was no park. A pair of buildings flanked the main gate. Beyond them rose the mill itself, a huge utilitarian cathedral of brick and glass—flaking brick and broken glass—four hundred feet long and four stories high, with a five-story clock tower that looked like a steeple grafted onto the front.
Peter pulled in under the trees. There were no other parked cars and hardly a sound, except for the traffic speeding by.
Across the road was a row of little story-and-a-half houses, and another row beyond, and perhaps another beyond that. Worker housing, thought Peter, built back when there was work.
It had rained the night before, so there was a powerful smell of damp wood and decay in the air. Peter realized it was coming off the mill.
“Welcome to the land that time and the Superfund forgot,” said Evangeline.
“Welcome to the New England your editors never ask you to write about,” said Peter. “Nice trees, though.”
The building to the right of the gate was a large Colonial house, dating from the days when the mill was no more than a granite wheel grinding grain for country farmers. What windows weren’t boarded up were broken, and the only paint that hadn’t peeled was the sign on the door: MAIN OFFICE: VISITORS PLEASE REGISTER.
The building on the left was bigger and in better shape: two stories of brick with a slate roof, an old loading dock by the gate, a millrace running past the foundation at the far end. When belts and looms replaced granite wheels, this building replaced the wooden mill house; then it had given way to the structure now looming behind it. There was a sign at the loading dock door: MILLBRIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. OPEN SUNDAYS AND TUESDAYS, 11 A.M.–1 P.M.
“Historical society,” said Evangeline. “Looks like history is all they have left.”
A smaller sign said, PLEASE ENTER.
So they did … into a jumble. Small town historical societies were often defined by the word. Jumble. Jumbles of stuff, usually displayed with little regard for the niceties of museum science but with plenty of enthusiasm and occasionally a bit of artistry.
This was a large room, maybe twenty-five by fifty, perfect for a jumble—an old loom, a cabinet with a collection of tools, two crammed bookcases, a musket, a diorama of the original Cousins Mill, a clothes dummy wearing a union suit—one-piece underwear “made from Millbridge weave.” On the walls—a collection of old doorknockers, framed prints from nineteenth-century newspapers, photographs of young men in military uniforms and women in high-necked dresses, all staring severely out of the past….
At the far end, above an ornate desk, a huge photograph hung from a ceiling molding. It showed scores of people standing in front of the mill. “The Men and Women of the Mill, 1861” was carved into the frame and on the matte above the photo was etched the legend, “In America, we get up in the morning, we go to work, and we solve our problems.”
The room had a musty smell that suggested mold, which suggested to Peter that he should not handle any of the old books and should change his clothes before he carried any spores back to his office. The smell mingled with the aroma of brewing coffee and the stink of stale cigarettes.
“Mr. Bindle!” shouted Peter.
“Hello?” Morris Bindle popped out the bathroom door, just off the display room. He was holding three coffee cups he had just rinsed. “Mr. Fallon! This is a surprise. I wasn’t expecting—” His eye fell on Evangeline, and he went speechless.
She could do that to some men … especially when she was wearing the jeans, the leather sportcoat, the cowboy boots, and the blue blouse that brought out the blue of her eyes … and especially to men like Bindle—balding, big-bellied, fifties, no wedding band, wearing brown corduroy trousers and a New England Patriots sweatshirt with cigarette ashes down the front.
Peter introduced her, and she offered her hand. Bindle extended his, even though there were three cups in it.
“I’d love some,” she said.
“Oh, yeah.” Bindle looked down, seemed surprised at the cups twined into his fingers, gave a little laugh. “Like I say, I wasn’t expecting beautiful women and famous booksellers.”
Peter pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket. “I’ve brought your money.”
Bindle went behind his desk and filled the three cups. “It sold fast, eh?”
“Not for a Henry Knox letter. Collectors love Knox.”
Bindle handed cups to Evangeline and Peter and gestured to the cream and sugar on his desk. “Who bought it?”
Peter said, “He wanted to remain anonymous, like your seller.”
“Fair enough. I’m just glad it sold. But you didn’t have to drive all the way down here. The mailman knows where Millbridge is.”
Peter tapped the envelope against his cup. “I have a few questions.”
“About what?” Bindle’s eyes shifted to Evangeline, then back to the envelope.
Peter said, “You told me the Knox letter belonged to a Pike descendant.”
“Right,” said Bindle, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice.
“Can you tell me who the descendant is?”
“Like you said, the seller wanted to remain anonymous. That means—”
“I know what that means,” snapped Peter.
Evangeline changed the subject. “This is a very interesting location, Mr. Bindle.”
Peter took the hint and backed off. “She’s right. How did the historical society end up in a defunct mill?”
“Not defunct for long,” answered Bindle. “The mill closed down twenty years ago. Now we got a developer—local boy—buying it out of bankruptcy. He’s planning condos, restaurants, shops. It’s the happy ending for a lot of old mills around here.”
“And you just stumbled in?” asked Evangeline.
“Oh, no. The historical society’s been here for twenty years. We used to have a corner in the library. But we needed space, and the town wanted a presence here.”
“Are you the president of this society?”
“Nobody else wanted the job, and since I dabble in antiques, too, I can give the expert eye to things that people donate.”
Peter looked out the back windows at the mill. “An amazing pile of brick.”
“A two-acre footprint,” said Bindle. “You couldn’t build something this big today, not on the Blackstone. You’d need so many easements and permissions, the lawyers would suck you dry.”
“Well, they won’t suck this.” Peter held out the envelope containing the check. “Not unless there’s an estate lawyer around.”
“Estate lawyer?” Bindle eyed Peter. “Why?”
“The death of a retired mill manager named Buster McGillis.”
“I found him. Dead in his easy chair. So?”
“Did he own the letter?”
Bindle pulled himself up. He was not just bigbellied; he was burly, and as tall as Peter, too. “What are you after?”
Peter took a step back. “Relax, Morris. There’s fifteen g’s in here. A cashier’s check. And I’m hoping there are more letters, so there’ll be more money. But I can’t keep selling material without knowing its source.”
Bindle looked at Evangeline, then at the envelope, then at Peter.
“Come on, Bindle,” said Peter. “You know my predicament.”
“Well, yeah.” Bindle seemed to stand down a bit. Then he chuckled. “I wasn’t going to offer you more till you proved yourself. The letter was in a scrap-book.”
Peter held the envelope over Bindle’s hand. “Scrap-book?”
“From McGillis’s
attic.” Bindle snatched the envelope.
“That’s all I wanted to know,” said Peter.
Bindle opened the envelope and gave the check a quick look. “A nice payday. Would’ve been a nice one for old Buster, too.”
“That means you’re just taking a commission?”
“Buster was my friend,” said Bindle. “I look out for my friends.”
“But now the money goes to the estate,” said Evangeline.
Bindle grunted. “Closest living relative, the only one who cared, is Tommy Farrell. And he’s not a blood relative. He lives in Newport, but he’s still a local boy. He bought the mill. Bought it at auction. Not sure if I’m glad about that.”
“So you’re sending him the check?” asked Peter.
“No. It goes to a probate account.” Bindle dropped into the chair and put his feet on the desk. “But I get my commission.”
“Why did Buster decide to sell now?” asked Evangeline.
“He said he wanted to sit in the EMC Club at Fenway once before he died. He loved the Red Sox. But he didn’t have much cash. So I reminded him of the Pike family motto.”
“What was that?” asked Evangeline.
Bindle jerked a thumb at the picture on the wall behind him, “ ‘In America, we get up in the morning, we go to work, and we solve our problems.’ Buster always liked it. Then I told him what I thought the Knox letter would bring.”
Evangeline studied the picture on the wall, then picked up the smaller framed photograph on Bindle’s desk. It showed a man with a mustache in a 1930s three-piece suit, standing before the very desk, before the very picture.
Bindle said, “That’s Jack Choury. That picture hung in his American Immigrant Bank of Millbridge. His daughter donated the desk and the picture.”
Peter wasn’t interested. “The Knox letter, Morris. Did Buster say where it came from?”
Bindle shrugged. “An old family thing … in the scrapbook. I told him it was the most valuable letter he had, and if he sold it, he’d have enough money to sit in the dugout if he wanted. So he gave it to me on consignment and sold me the rest of the scrapbook outright.”
The Lost Constitution Page 6