by Lake, Deryn
Sara slipped her hand in his. “Tom, do you love me?”
“You know I do. And I shall love our child when it is born, I promise you. But now I must go. There is a battle raging over on Breed’s Hill and I should have been in Province House some time ago.”
The girl sighed. “It seems as if we are always saying goodbye.” Tom tightened his grip. “One day, when all this fighting is finished, I’ll take you back to England with me.”
She regarded him thoughtfully. “And what about Mrs. Gage? What will happen to her?”
“She will have left me, I feel certain of it.”
“Why do you say that?”
Suddenly, Tom felt irritable, not with Sara but the situation in general. “My darling, I can stay with you not one second more. When I come again I will tell you exactly why the relationship between my wife and myself has broken down. And before you start blaming yourself for being the cause, the answer is that you weren’t. It was something else entirely. Now, I must go.”
And kissing her swiftly on the lips, Tom went out, mounted his horse, and rode rapidly back to headquarters.
*
That night, after the battle, there was almost total silence in Province House. The British had won the day but it had been a dark and bitter victory. Of the soldiers who had gone to Breed’s Hill, two hundred and twenty-six had been killed and eight hundred and twenty-eight wounded. And many of the wounded were going to die anyway. Gage’s particular friends Colonel Abercromby and Major Pitcairn were amongst the dead. It had been a terrible and sobering affray and one that the Governor had no wish to see repeated.
He had arrived home to find his wife had left the house without speaking to a soul and refusing any form of transport. Apparently, according to Robin at least, she had been dressed very soberly. The Governor, feeling he had enough to think about, closeted as he was with Lord Percy, had merely nodded when he had heard that Margaret was out.
“Will Mrs. Gage be returning to dine, Sir?”
“How would I know? Possibly.”
“Very good, Governor.”
And Robin had shaken his mournful black head and left the room, the gloom of the situation reflected in the droop of his shoulders, the slowness of his walk.
*
Margaret had gone to watch the battle, standing amongst a group of women who had turned out to be army wives and camp followers. Dressed in a black skirt and shawl, she had stood a little apart from them and had seen Charlestown go up in flames, then heard the rattle of shot coming from the opposite shore. But though some of the women had drifted off, several had remained, anxiously scanning the casualties as they were rowed back, lying in the bottom of the longboats, too weak to stand.
As it grew darker, she still waited, though what for she was not certain. There would be no news of Joseph on this side of the water. But some vague hope kept her standing there in the gathering dusk, watching the scores of pitiful wounded, some of them bleeding to death, being ferried back in those hard, uncompromising boats to the stark realities of military hospital.
One soldier, unwounded and standing, was helping an injured colleague ashore and passed quite close to her. Over his arm he had a coat and as he walked by she thought she recognised it.
“What’s that?” she asked, her voice strangely high pitched.
He turned to look at her, a hard-faced individual with not a shred of pity in him.
“A coat, lady. Want to buy it?”
“Let me see it.”
He passed it to her without comment and just for a moment the world spun. It was a light lavender in colour and it had a sprig on the buttons. Joseph had often worn it when he had met her in another life, another time, and watched the soldiers drilling.
“Where did you get this?”
The soldier stared at her curiously. “Ain’t you the Governor’s lady?”
“No, no, I’m not. Where did you get it?”
“Up on the hill. It was on a dead man. I nicked it off ’im along with his westkit. Well, he won’t have no use for it now. So I brought it back to sell.”
Margaret grabbed his arm. “Did you know this dead man? Who was he?”
“Dr. Warren, Mam. Now do you want the coat or don’t you?”
But she did not answer, instead flying towards the harbour where the boats were coming in, packed with the groaning and the near-dead. There were several women there before her, telling the sailors that they needed to go across and help bury their men. Because they knew them, because they were wives, or good as, of the Regulars, the soldiers were letting them into the boat, to sit amongst the blood and urine. Margaret, pulling her shawl up over her head, just went with them as if she belonged, speaking to no one and keeping her face averted as she crossed the Charles River to the ruins of what had once been Charlestown.
On the opposite bank the injured were gathered in sad groups, waiting their turn patiently to be taken back. Many men were stretched on the ground and Margaret found herself picking her way round them as she headed up the slopes of the now quiet hill. Behind Breed’s Hill stood Bunker Hill, its top turning purple in the fast fading light. But it was to Breed’s Hill, alive with British soldiers digging graves for the fallen, that Margaret’s eyes were fatally drawn.
As she drew nearer the top she felt her calmness begin to crack. Hesitatingly, she leaned down and touched a body, rolling it over so that she could see the face. A pair of sightless eyes gazed into hers and she felt like screaming out her distress. But if she had done so they would have known that she was no army wife, used to such things, and she would be turned off the hill and sent back to Boston, at least that is what her imagination told her. In fact, as is usual at the scene of a terrible battle, nobody was taking any notice of anybody else, every man getting on with his own particular job.
She climbed higher, turning bodies as she went, her shoes hurting her, sticking occasionally where a dying man had urinated before he died. But she felt that she no longer cared what happened, as long as she could hold Joseph close to her heart before he was committed to the earth. Up she went until at last she reached the top and stood by the redoubt made by the Yankees.
“Joseph,” she called, very softly, in case there was a chance of him being alive.
Ever afterwards she could have sworn that a voice answered, “Here,” though of course it was only the chill little breeze that had come up.
She turned her head and then she saw him, naked except for a sad pair of linen drawers, lying face down, the blood on his hands dried long since. She ran to his side, kneeling beside him, turning him, lifting him, embracing his poor wounded face, half of which had been shot to shreds. Then she saw to her horror that he was covered in earth as if he had already been buried, then disinterred.
“Oh my darling,” she said, rocking him as if he were a baby. “What have they done to you? What have they done?”
“Excuse me, Mam,” said a voice, “are you a relative of the deceased?”
She looked up to see a soldier regarding her, leaning forward on his spade.
“Yes,” she shrieked, “I am his wife. What have you done to him? He looks as if he has already been buried.”
“Well, he has. But discovering that he was famous-like, we dug him up again. Just as well from your point of view, ain’t it.”
“Leave him alone, you animal,” Margaret hissed at him. “Leave him in peace.”
The soldier shrugged and moved away, continuing his macabre trade of burying the bodies, seemingly with no thought to the fact that they had once been people.
In the darkness, Margaret sat, holding Joseph’s icy corpse close, aware that she herself was growing cold as the grave. The bullet had entered the left cheek, just below his eye, and consequently that side of his face had been badly damaged. But she sat pressing the right side of him to her, feeling her heart grow heavy as the flesh which she held so tightly.
As dawn came up she knew what she had to do. Scratching at the earth with her bare hands, s
he started to dig a grave for Joseph Warren. Another soldier, taking her for an army wife, helped her and soon they had a hole big enough to put him in. Looking into its depths Margaret saw that another body lay within, a country fellow wearing a farmer’s frock.
“You’re going to have company, my darling,” she whispered as, without ceremony, the soldier tipped the poor, sad corpse, wearing nothing but his linen drawers, into the dark hole.
“Wait one second, please,” she called out, and the soldier stopped his shovelling of earth and stood silently while she dropped a brooch, the only jewellery she was wearing, into the place where Joseph lay.
Then she watched as slowly he disappeared from view beneath the rich soil of New England, he and the farmer side by side, forever joined in the earth they had died to protect.
Chapter Thirty
August, 1775
A ship suitable to take Margaret to England arrived in Boston Harbour in July, a month after the battle of Bunker Hill. It was called Charming Nancy and was due to carry back widowed army wives and wounded men, together with the orphans of the soldiers who had died on active service. The Governor at once booked a place for his wife and daughter on board, then plunged himself into the usual workload in order to avoid Margaret as much as possible.
They had hardly spoken since the battle, she utterly silent and withdrawn, he so sickened by recent events that he could no longer make the effort to talk. For to add to his wretchedness at the number of British casualties, the news about Sara was not good. The two doctors had examined her for an hour, removed the bullet, then had both come up with the same prognosis: the slave girl was destined to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, her pregnancy bloomed, the coming child clearly not affected by its mother’s condition.
Then one day when the Governor was feeling desperately low, Calico Joel walked back into his life. Or rather sauntered nonchalantly, finding Tom in his study.
“Where the devil have you been?” was all that Gage could say.
“Ah, mon Gouverneur, do you remember me telling you that I got a job in Concord working with a widow woman?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I returned there after the battle to see if she needed help. She did, so I stayed.”
Tom stared at him severely. “I suppose that it did not occur to you that I was desperately worried. I saw you ride off but never saw you return. I thought you had been killed.”
“Then why worry about me?” Calico Joel asked simply. “I would merely have gone to join my ancestors. What is the harm in that?”
Tom stared at him, too tired to argue, and the Indian immediately sensed his mood. “You have problems, my Governor?”
“A million,” came the reply.
“Tell me of them.”
“Let me get myself a drink first. Would you like one?”
Calico Joel shook his head. “You save it for yourself. I hear that food and water are short in Boston.”
“They are indeed. We’ll all lose weight at this rate.”
“Perhaps that will be a good thing for some. Now, tell me what ails you.
Suddenly it was refreshing to speak to this impartial man to whom Tom would trust his life. But even though he had decided to censor what he said, the Governor found himself pouring out the whole story, from Margaret’s betrayal just before Lexington and Concord, to his impregnating Sara and the ghastly fate that had befallen her subsequently.
Calico Joel sat silently for several minutes, during which time Tom finished his drink and poured himself another. Then he spoke.
“Do you not think, mon Gouverneur, that you and Margaret have betrayed each other? And might not these acts of betrayal cancel one another out?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. It seems to me that both of you are at fault so why not forgive and start again?”
The Governor sighed. “You forget, Joel, that I must take Sara and her child into consideration. She is totally my responsibility. Soon they both will be.”
“And Mrs. Gage would not overlook this fall from grace?”
Tom gave a short bitter laugh. “What a hope. She hates me enough as it is. If she found out the truth she would leave me for good.”
“But she is leaving you anyway.”
“I’m sending her back to England to get away from the situation.
Eventually I hope to join her.”
Calico Joel said nothing, merely nodding his head.
“Joel, will you visit Sara? She needs all the friends she can get,” the Governor asked suddenly.
“I shall call on her today.”
“Thank you. Tell her that I am ordering a bath chair to be especially made and that it will add greatly to her comfort.”
“Yes, mon Gouverneur. I shall tell her.”
On his way out, Calico Joel met Margaret coming through the front door. She had lost some weight, he thought, and was terribly pale.
Under his breath he uttered an Indian prayer for the happiness of her marriage. Visibly, he bowed his head.
She looked at him as though she did not know him, then recognition dawned in her eyes.
“Oh Joel, how are you?”
“I am in good health, Madame. Are you also fine?”
“I am going back to England with Charlotte soon.”
“That is as well,” he answered. Then he bowed again and left the house.
*
In August, fully loaded, Charming Nancy sailed out of Boston. Tom had gone to the harbour with several other officers to see Margaret off. He had also been joined by Lord Rupert Germain who stood – pale and quite grey about the hair, defying fashion and not wearing a wig as he did Margaret was in black, as she had been quite frequently since Bunker Hill, Tom noticed, almost as if she had lost someone in the conflict.
Stooping he picked little Charlotte up in his arms, thinking what a delightful child his baby had grown into. Then realising with a jolt that she was not destined to be the last of his children. That Sara, entirely paralysed yet still, despite everything, possessing that strange haunting beauty, was due to give birth in January. Guiltily, he looked at her as Margaret spoke to him.
“Goodbye, Tom. I wish you well.”
She could have been addressing a stranger he thought. He made one last ditch attempt to behave like a husband.
“Goodbye, Margaret. I shall return to England as soon as we’ve sorted out these rebellious colonists.”
She gave a twisted smile. “Is that how you think of them? But then it was ever thus. You have taken on a formidable enemy, my dear, as one day you will come to realise.”
“I do realise it,” he answered angrily. “I shouldn’t have used that phrase to you who, after all, believes in everything they do.”
“Yes, I am an American,” she said with dignity, “and of that I am proud. Come Charlotte.” And taking the child from his arms, she set her on her feet, turned, and made her way onto the gangplank.
“Margaret,” called Tom in a sudden panic, beginning to pursue her on board.
She turned and gave him a look that he would never forget, because he saw in it that he had lost her, that she no longer cared whether he lived or died. She stared at him for almost a minute without speaking, then turned on her heel and slowly continued on her way aboard ship, the child trotting along beside her. Tom also turned, and in that turn knew that the future no longer contained the woman he had once loved with so much warmth and passion.
*
It was Rupert Germain who sensed that something was wrong. Tom found himself thinking that it would be, that of all the people in the world that he would prefer not to know, it was poor Rupert who won. Yet one couldn’t help but pity him. He had lost his glorious home and his newspaper business had collapsed round his ears. Indeed if it weren’t for the fact that he was enormously wealthy, one could regard him as practically destitute.
“Well, she’s gone,” he said, as the ship slipped its moorings, the band played and those
who were capable of standing waved from the rail.
Tom ran his eye over the vessel, seeing that his daughter and her nurse were waving enthusiastically but that Margaret had remained below. He raised his arm in response and waved to the child for a good while, Lord Percy and Rupert joining him. Then when Charming Nancy was well out to sea he turned, feeling suddenly hopeless.
“Would you gentlemen care to join me for dinner?” he asked. Somewhat to his chagrin, Hugh said, “I’m sorry, Sir, I have to get back,” but Rupert answered, “That would be delightful. Thank you very much.”
“Shall we say six o’clock? I have some work to do beforehand.”
“Thank you. I’ll bring a bottle of very good wine that I managed to rescue from my cellar before I left.”
“That would be splendid. Thanks.”
Despite the fact that they had fallen out most bitterly, despite the fact that he was sleeping with another woman, the audible silence that had descended over Province House was almost tangible. It hit the Governor as soon as he came through the front door and enveloped him as he walked up the stairs and entered what had once been his bedroom. The essence of Margaret was everywhere, filling his senses with the strange, alluring perfume that she always wore.
He stopped dead in his tracks for a moment, wondering how he could have let things come to such a miserable condition. Stuck in a hell-hole of a town, with no option that he could see other than to engage in an all-out war with these wretched colonists. And to compound his felony he had managed to impregnate one of his slaves, who had paralysed herself whilst saving his wretched and undeserving life.
“Oh, fuck everything!” said the Governor loudly, and took a swiping kick at a low stool which sent it flying.
He sat down heavily on the bed and hung his head, feeling the tears start behind his eyes. Then he told himself not to be such a fool, that no weeping or kicking would right the situation and that he must try to make the best of it. Every instinct he had to survive manifested itself and, getting up, he went to the spare room and started to move his personal belongings back into the main bedroom. At least he would be in a comfortable bed from now on. And this set his thought-stream onto Sara and he determined to go and see her this very night.