by John Smolens
“Quite,” his father said. “Even the general’s lovely wife has fled.”
“She was sent,” Abigail said. “Sent to England by her husband, the gentleman.”
“Yes, a wise precaution,” Father said. “Perhaps she can write letters to you, James, informing you of the weather in London?”
“She’s the victim of rumor and speculation, nothing more,” James said.
“She couldn’t hide her true sentiments,” Father said, and then he laughed. “Not beneath those … Turkish turbans.”
When no one joined him, he stopped laughing abruptly. He leaned toward his son and said, “If you leave Boston, you might find the odds more to your liking out there—in Dorchester and Cambridge and Charlestown, where they have this city you claim to love so much surrounded.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Mother said. “Not in his condition, and not with another child on the way.”
James considered her a moment, his eyes softening. “No, I’m not leaving for the country, Mother. Though I would if I could.”
“Better to stay here,” his father said, “and compose your secret missives.”
James lowered his hands to the table.
“Sympathetic ink,” his father muttered.
James only stared at Abigail.
“Informers, you realize,” his father said, “commit acts of treason.”
“Action not taken lightly,” James said. “Taken after much careful consideration.”
“Of what?”
“Years of injustice.”
His father mumbled something in Latin. Abigail caught the word officium—duty.
“You know, for years—ever since I can remember—we’ve sat at this table and voiced our differences, with passion and well-churned butter.” James smiled at Abigail. “But it wasn’t until just now that I understood that when Father begins to spout in Latin he realizes that his argument is weak. When I was a boy, he could wield Latin—and Greek, and French—”
“Moi!” his father said. “No!”
“But it was always an act of desperation, a debater’s ploy.”
“I only heed the word of God,” Father announced, “and seek the light of truth.”
“School’s out,” James said. “We converse only in English now.”
“I agree, James,” Father said. “And, sadly, we can’t understand each other at all.”
For a moment, no one spoke, no one moved, and then James got up from the table, leaned toward his mother, kissed her on the forehead. As he walked out of the dining room, Father stared down at his tea cup. They listened to James close the front door behind him.
“You see how gingerly he walks?” Mother said. “Can’t you see he’s ill?”
“I know,” Father said.
“We’ve one son missing and the other—”
“Lost,” Father said. “Missing and lost. It aggrieves me terribly.” He considered Abigail for a moment. “But you, dear, are still with us.”
Abigail looked down at her untouched cup of tea.
“See, Mother?” he said with sudden delight. “See how our pretty girl blushes?”
Abigail got up from her chair. “Thank you, Mother, but if you’ll excuse me.”
“She has a beau,” her father said in a proud whisper.
As she left the room, Abigail hesitated, but then continued out into the hall.
Her father said, louder, “An officer and a gentleman, he is, too!”
She collected her shawl and bolted from the house.
At first she considered following James home. But to do what? Commiserate? Weep? Drink some contraband tea and rail against their mercurial father? As long as she could remember, there had been such encounters, often at table. Countless meals ruined. As children they fled, yelling, screaming, in tears, and in that there was some sweet release, whereas now her anger seemed to boil inside, and Abigail realized that the only comfort was walking.
So she walked, swiftly, gazing at the ground before her. Packed earth and cobblestones. When she did look up, what she saw, despite the fact that it was a sunny morning, with the faintest sea breeze cooling the air, was truly a different city—much changed from just a few weeks ago. Bostonians didn’t look at each other in the street the way they used to; there was something furtive and distrustful about how they regarded each other in passing. Tories tended not to look directly at anyone, their haughty gaze averted (Abigail was certain she could tell which ones were newly arrived from the country), and those who sympathized with the patriots now looked beleaguered, fearful.
The military presence had changed as well. For years the sight of redcoats was all too common, but now that Boston was in a state of siege there were more patrols, more marching drills (the beat of the drum so frequent, beckoning from different neighborhoods, that she only took notice when the distant rattle ceased). There was a greater exercise of British authority. They now treated the peninsula not so much a city as a fortress. Indeed, they were building a massive redoubt on Copp’s Hill, its earthen walls facing Charlestown, and at the Neck the gate was being substantially fortified. There was among the soldiers an alertness that had not existed before, which resulted in encounters with the natives that were often formal and stern.
Natives: this was the word Samuel used in his last letter, as though he were reporting from some remote, exotic island in the South Pacific. He had written to Abigail often over the past few weeks. Days would pass when he was too occupied and could not see her. Happily, he said, the command once again, after the disastrous expedition to Lexington and Concord, fully appreciated the role of artillery, thus he had been deeply involved in the fortifications at both the Neck and Copp’s Hill. But the letters (always delivered by a young Regular) sometimes lamented the dullness and routine of his days, as well as the fact that he was unable to see her more frequently; other letters tended to reminisce about home, particularly his family’s country estate in Surrey. What I would give to walk those fields now, to show you the gentle contour of the land. And there were moments recently when Abigail dwelt on such a possibility, and this was an occupation of another sort: an invasion of the mind by daydreams, stupid daydreams. Life in Boston, never easy, was getting harder by the day. By contrast Surrey, where Abigail imagined green hillocks dotted with grazing sheep, and a house maintained by a fleet of servants, offered images that were too rich for a colonial schoolmaster’s daughter. But then there was Margaret Kemble, Pennsylvania-born, who became Mrs. Thomas Gage, and who, for whatever reasons, whatever transgressions, had been put on board ship, bound for the safe, distant shores of England.
And when Samuel did get away from his duties for an evening there was now something different about how they talked. There was restraint, and there was tenderness, of course; but there was also a sense of urgency, and before parting they would find some place to be absolutely alone, invisible except to each other. She welcomed his hands, how they seemed to shape her, remake her, while they kissed and burrowed into each other. It was always swift, febrile, and then it was over and she was alone again. The last time she had seen him, they had strolled at dusk beneath the trees along the Mall, before she was driven home in a closed carriage. They clung to each other as the vehicle jounced through the streets, and just as they arrived in front of her house he talked frantically about a room, how he could acquire a room. She said nothing, but alighted and rushed inside.
Now Abigail found herself climbing the slope of Trimount. Alone. Soon the city began to spread out beneath her, punctuated by church spires, with an apron of blue water extending from her jagged shores. The harbor was speckled with patrol ships, with patrol boats, the sails of fishing smacks.
She paused to sit on a rock at a turn in the path and looked down at the deep, angular trench that had been dug into the side of Copp’s Hill. The sounds of labor—hammers, saws, the clap of boards—came up to her, and almost seemed to soothe the anger she had brought away from the house. More walking, more climbing was required, sh
e thought, but as she stood up she looked back down the path, and there she saw red.
Corporal Lumley. Again.
Looking up the path, she realized that in her fury she had failed to take into account that here on Trimount she would be very much alone. Turning, she watched him climb the path. He made no attempt to hide this time.
And she started back down the hill, long, determined strides that caused him to stop and watch her approach with a combination of fear and relief. He appeared winded, his face flushed, his damp hair plastered to his high forehead.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“I’ve been—” He took a deep breath. “Following you.”
“I know that.”
“You, you set a good pace.”
“Not good enough.”
“I wanted to hail you down in the streets, but you moved so fast—and I thought it best that we not be seen talking as it might, it might be misconstrued.”
“Corporal Lumley. You have followed me before, though never this boldly.”
“I apologize,” he said. “I have only wished the proper opportunity to speak with you … about matters … about my … situation.”
“Your situation?”
“Yes, but at the moment there’s something more pressing that I must convey to you.” He was standing downhill from her, which made him seem small and frail. “It’s about your brother.”
“James?”
“No, Benjamin.”
She grabbed him by the shoulders, and then, realizing what she had done, pushed him away. “What of Benjamin?”
Lumley took a deep breath. “He was captured last night.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“In Boston?”
“Yes.” Lumley looked up at the sun and said, “It’s getting warm. Might we—” He took a few steps off the path until he was in the shade of a tree. He waited for Abigail to join him, and then continued, seeming relieved to be in the cooler air. “We were on patrol last night, me and Munroe, and we came upon a fellow who seemed to be up to something, he be gazing in the window of a house on the shore in the North End there, and so we call out to inquire about his business and he immediately sets to running off, and I tell you he is swift, runs like you walk, if I might say so, Miss, so I conclude it be in the family blood.” He offered a thin smile to indicate he was attempting humor, but it disappeared almost immediately.
“You chased after him.”
Lumley nodded.
“But you said he was captured.”
“It be some chase, I tell you, yes, and we did collect him after he took a spill on the beach, being tripped up by the kelp and such.”
Abigail looked back down the path. “Where have you got him? I must go—”
As she began to move out of the shade, Lumley placed one hand on her shoulder, held her in place, and then, rather politely, removed his hand. “We don’t have him, Miss.”
“What do you mean? Where is he?”
“Don’t quite know. He skipped off.”
“Escaped?”
“He did, yes.” Lumley seemed pleased with himself. “Had a little assistance there.”
“What are you saying, Corporal?”
“Well, there wasn’t much to it, really. We brought him to the jailhouse on Court Street, where he was thoroughly examined. This went on for hours, quite through the night, I tell you, until the captain he tires of it.”
“Tires of what?”
“The interrogation. Exhausting work, it can be.”
“My brother, was he hurt?”
Lumley looked away. “Some, indeed he was, but he’ll be right soon enough. He’s young and—and you see it was Munroe who, on the beach, he was a bit rough with the lad. But the important thing is they didn’t get anything out of him. Your brother, he’s strong-willed, which I suspect also runs in your family. Very frustrating for the captain, who’s skilled at getting a man to talk.” Now Lumley faced Abigail. “But you see, the lad had an ally, and there was nothing for him to give up, and it helped him endure the interrogation.”
“What ally?”
Lumley stood up straighter.
“You?”
He nodded.
“I don’t believe it.”
“When the captain was through with him, I took the lad to his cell, and there I allowed him to escape. Look, Miss, I’m going to catch hell for it, I can tell you, but they’ve been in for me a long time now, so I figure I got nothing to lose anymore.”
“You let him escape—please, Corporal.”
Abigail began to turn away, but paused when Lumley began to fidget with the buttons on his uniform, saying, “Miss, I can prove it.” He undid the top buttons and reached inside his tunic. “Your brother couldn’t be made to talk because he didn’t know anything, you see. Because he was carrying letters.”
“Letters?”
Lumley removed several envelopes from inside his tunic and held them out to her. Reluctantly, Abigail accepted them, three envelopes, tied between two flat stones, their wax seals unbroken. She looked at the corporal as he fastened up his tunic.
“I got them off your brother shortly after we apprehended him on the beach. We were walking through the streets to the courthouse and Munroe takes a moment in an alley for the call of nature, and I found the letters on the boy. You see, at that point I near had to carry him.”
“Because he was injured.”
“Indeed.”
“The result of Munroe—”
“The butt of his Brown Bess. Gave him a good crack in the face, he did. And the lad hurt his knee when he took the fall in the sand.”
Abigail turned and walked away from the corporal, looking at the envelopes in her hand. “There’s no way of knowing if these are genuine.”
“That be true, Miss. But perhaps you might let your brother James examine them? I suspect the lad intended to deliver them to him.”
“But he didn’t tell you this.”
“No, not exactly.”
She gazed down toward the North End, where the noise from the construction of the redoubt on Copp’s Hill continued to fill the warm spring air. “You say they have it in for you. What do you mean?”
“It be a long story, Miss. But I tell you they want to make an example of me.”
Abigail turned to Lumley. “Why did you do this?” she said, holding out the letters. “What is it you want?”
He took a few steps toward her, though he hesitated from getting too close. “Out,” he said. “I want out of Boston, out of this army.”
“You want to desert?”
He nodded. “We hear of the offers from the provincials. Land, in New Hampshire, in Vermont, if we come over.” His eyes brightened, a child conjuring a dream, a daydream. “They say there are valleys in Vermont with swift running streams full of trout, and good soil.” Then he took a few steps closer. “What I want, what I ask, Miss, is that you help me. You ascertain that these letters be genuine, and then you give me assistance in getting free of Boston. I will fight, I will fight for your provincials, I tell you. I will earn my land.”
“You want to be smuggled out.”
He took one last step toward her. “I need someone I can trust.”
Abigail tucked the letters away beneath her shawl. “Well, I need to find Benjamin.”
“I wish I knew where he be.”
“You said you and Munroe came upon him looking in a window?”
“North End. Down by the shoreline.”
“A fisherman’s house?”
“From the looks of it, yes, Miss.” Now Lumley averted his eyes.
“What?”
“On the beach, there were others—an old man and a girl. The girl, she showed affection for your brother after he was struck, but Munroe, I fear he did worse by the old man.”
“Cole,” Abigail said. “Anse Cole.”
“Munroe, you understand, he believes only in force. You’ve seen it yourself, Miss.”
“That, Corporal, is the truth.” Abigail began walking down the path. Lumley followed behind. “No, Mr. Lumley,” she said over her shoulder. “We shall not be seen together descending this hill.”
“But will you help me?”
She walked faster down the path.
XI
Services, of a Certain Nature
FROM THE LOFT OF THE GRANARY, BENJAMIN COULD LOOK OUT a window and see across the graveyard to School Street. The granary was a large building where corn was stored, and since he’d been a boy he’d gone there often, drawn by the noise, the bustle; it fascinated him as much as watching a ship’s crew as it made ready for the sea. There were dozens of men who drove wagons and worked with shovels mostly, strong men who were very kindly toward Benjamin. Obadiah was a Haitian, owned by the granary manager Reginald Fiske, and he had worked there so long that he was often referred as the Turnkey, because he had been entrusted with the keys to all the granary doors, large keys that hung from his belt and jangled when he walked. When he arrived at dawn to open the building, he found Benjamin lying in a hay pile half unconscious, and he carried the boy inside, all the way to a vacant storage room on the top floor. During the course of the day, he tended to Benjamin’s wounds as best he could, washing the laceration that ran across his purple, swollen left cheek, and in the evening he brought some bread and soup, prepared by his wife. He also provided a crutch, fashioned out of a maple branch, which he said he’d used after taking a fall on some ice the previous winter.
“You know, there be talk about you,” he said, watching Benjamin carefully insert the spoon between his swollen lips—the teeth on the left side ached terribly from the blow from the soldier’s rifle, coupled with the beating he’d taken while being questioned in the jailhouse. “You help Billy Dawes get through the Neck that night before Lexington and Concord. You must be hiding from the Brits.”
Even a simple nod caused pain that ran down his neck to his shoulders.
“You kin stay up here. We’ve cleared all the corn from this floor, so nobody’ll be takin’ the lift all the way up here.” Obadiah had enormous shoulders and his clothing was powdered with corn dust. He nodded toward the small window that looked out on School Street. “You don’t want to be going home just now.”