by P. N. Elrod
Almost as though my thought had leaped into his head, Warburton flinched and backed from her, but she held fast to his arm, using his impetus to regain her feet. He tried to shake off her grip. Failed. Desperately, he clouted her head with his free hand. She didn’t seem to feel it. Their natural difference in size and strength should have worked in his favor but it was as though none existed, and he was suddenly aware of it.
There was a dull snap, Warburton cried out, and the sword-stick dropped from his nerveless fingers. Gasping, I was just able to crawl toward it, take it up.
But Nora did not need my help.
Her eyes burned with something beyond fury. She was still beautiful, but the hellfire blazing in those eyes had transformed her from goddess to Gorgon; to look upon her now was to see your own death . . . or something worse.
And Warburton looked.
His jaw sagged as though for a scream. No sound came forth. I glimpsed in his face a reflection of the horror he saw and that was enough. No shriek or howl or cry flung up from the depths of hell could have possibly expressed it.
Silence, dark and heavy and alive and hungry. Silence, like an eternity of midnights condensed into a single moment, ready to burst forth and engulf the universe. Silence, except for my own pained breath and the hard laboring of my heart.
No one moved. Warburton was like a man of stone, frozen in place by terror like a sparrow before a serpent: aware of what was to come, but unable to fly from it. Only his face changed, the sane insanity evaporated, exposing the pitiful, raw anguish beneath.
Then Nora whispered, “No,” and released him, soul and body. There was a thump and thud as he toppled to the floor.
She stood over him, hands loose at her sides. He cowered away until stopped by a wall, then curled his legs up to his chest, arms wrapping tightly around his head. He choked convulsively once, twice, then began to weep like a heartbroken child, long keenings of pure despair.
I wanted to weep as well, but for another reason. Dragging myself up, I stumbled toward her.
* * *
It was an hour before I stopped trembling. The churning in my guts never quite settled, and the back of my head put forth lances of pain whenever I moved too fast. Nora wrapped a piece of ice from the buttery in a cloth for me to hold over the spot. She said the skin was broken, but would not need to be stitched.
Her manner was as smooth and cool as the ice. Her gaze roved everywhere, never quite meeting mine. She’d withdrawn from me without leaving the room. When I put my hand out to her, she would only touch it briefly and then find some other task to distract her away. At first I thought it had to do with me, until I perceived that her mind was turned inward, and what ran through it was not pleasant.
The sad drone of Warburton’s crying finally ceased and after a bout of prosaic sniffing and snuffling, he’d fallen asleep. We left him on the floor where he’d dropped and kept our distance as though he carried pestilence.
“Shall I take him home?” I asked.
“What?” She stirred sluggishly, having lingered over the lighting of a candle. Dozens of them burned throughout the room except for a dim patch around Warburton.
“It will cause less notice if I’m the one to take him home.”
“What will you tell Oliver?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Lies, Jonathan?”
“Better than the truth. More discreet.”
I’d meant this to bring her comfort. Her lips thinned as she chose a more ironic interpretation.
“Everything will be all right,” I told her, hoping she would believe it.
She shook her head once, then looked past me toward Warburton. “He tried to murder us, Jonathan. I can forgive him for myself, but not for what he nearly did to you. I was the cause of that.”
“He was mad, it’s past now.”
“He is mad . . . and will probably remain so.”
“What do you—”
“I’ve seen it before. I may have stopped myself in time, but who’s to say how it will be for him when he wakes up?”
“Stopped yourself?”
“From totally destroying his mind.”
There was no need to press for further explanation; what I’d seen had given me more understanding than I wanted. I shifted, made uncomfortable by the memory.
Nora opened a cupboard and produced yet more candles and lighted them all.
“What darkness are you trying to dispel?” I asked.
“None but that which lies within me. These little flames help drive away the shadows . . . for a time.”
“Nora—”
“I live in the shadows and make shadows of my own in the minds of others. Shadows and illusions of life and love that fill my nights—until something like this happens and shows them up for what they are.” Her hand brushed over the front of her ruined dress. Certainly the sword had pierced her heart, yet she’d recovered and lived. What manner of creature was she? Goddess or demon?
Though I but dimly perceived her meaning, her words and how she said them frightened me. Instinct told me she was working up to something, but I didn’t know what, and in my ignorance I was unable to gainsay her.
“At least you’re not a shadow, Jonathan. I can thank God for that comfort, whatever may come.”
This sounded ominous. “What do you mean?”
She sat by me and looked at me fully. “I mean that I love you as I’ve loved few others.”
My eyes filled. “I love you, too. I would sooner cut my heart out than leave you.”
“I know,” she said with a twisted smile. “But others need you, and I am needed here.” She glanced at Warburton. “To correct my mistakes, if that’s possible.”
“What are you—” But I suddenly knew what she was talking about, and she gave me no chance to alter her decision. It was now my turn to learn of betrayal and in the learning, to forget it.
To forget many things.
“Please forgive me,” she whispered.
And I did.
Without struggle, I slipped into the sweet darkness of her eyes.
* * *
It had taken no small amount of time and trouble to arrange my passage home. I had to find the right sort of ship and a trusty captain with a long history of successful crossings, then wait for his arrival in port. Then there was the packing. I’d acquired many more books and clothes since coming to England and all had to be put into boxes and trunks, carefully wrapped in oilcloth against the sea damp.
My instructors had an understanding of my situation and obligingly made concessions about my studies. I crammed several months of learning into one, and happily passed with honors in late March. My university training was yet incomplete, but perhaps I could finish things out at Harvard later. This year’s course was over, at least.
Fresh April loomed, bringing more rain, but I was not looking forward to the voyage taking me away from it, though the shipping company had assured me the winter storms of the Atlantic were over.
What about the spring ones? I wondered glumly.
Ah, well, there was no turning back at this point. I’d have to pray that Providence would be kind and brave it out with the rest of the passengers. My things were packed, I was ready and waiting at the port, and in two months, God willing, I would see Sag Harbor low on the western horizon and soon after that my welcoming family.
My companions for the trip looked to be an interesting lot: some clergymen and their wives, a bright-looking fellow who said he was an engineer, an artist and, inevitably, army officers. The growing rebellion in the colonies demanded more and more men for His Majesty’s service. In the next few weeks we would doubtless grow quite sick of one another, but things were all right for now.
As he had been the first to greet me, my good cousin Oliver was now the last to bid farewell. We waited
in a tavern by the docks until the ship’s launch could come for the passengers. We’d secured seats by the only window to be the first to know of its arrival. We drank ale to pass the time. I didn’t care for mine much. Ale was for celebrations, not for partings.
“I stopped by the Warburtons’ on the way over,” Oliver said, his expression falling as it always did about the subject of his friend.
“How is he?”
“The same.”
It was a great mystery, what had happened all those months back, to Tony Warburton. Oliver had initially noticed something was wrong, but had mistaken it for drunkenness. Everyone was well-used to seeing Warburton drunk. This time, he simply hadn’t sobered up. His clothes were sopping wet from the weather and—Oliver discovered—his right wrist had been badly broken. He could not tell anyone how he had come by his injury, nor did he seem concerned about it.
He still smiled and joked, but more often than not what he said was incomprehensible to others, as though he’d been carrying on a wholly different conversation in his head. He made people uneasy, but was unaware of it. He hardly turned up for his studies, and then had no concentration for them. Sooner or later he’d wander from the lecture hall. His friends covered for him until his tutor had enough and called him in for a reckoning. After that interview, his parents were quickly sent for and Warburton was taken back home to London.
Like Oliver, I’d also stopped in at the Warburton home see him and say good-bye. I was received with absentminded cordiality. He favored me with his old smile, which imparted a feeling of horror in me. I tried talking to him; he paid scant attention. The only time he showed any animation was when his eye fell upon my sword-stick. His face clouded and he began rubbing his crooked wrist where the ill-healed bones still ached. He shook his head from side to side and the watchful footman whose job was to keep track of his young master stepped forward and suggested that I should leave.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?” I said. It was a bleak gray day out. A perfect match to our mood.
Oliver agreed. “I plan to look in on him, though. Now and then he has a lucid moment, the trick is to get them to last. Wish I knew the cause of it. The doctors they’ve taken him to say anything from the falling sickness to the flying gout, which means they haven’t any idea. And the treatments! Everything from laudanum to bathing in earth.” He looked both grim and sad. Warburton had been his best friend.
“That’s probably the launch,” I remarked, pointing.
“Not long now,” He turned from the view and craned his neck toward the crowds strolling up and down the quay.
“Looking for someone?”
He shrugged. “I just thought that . . . well, that your Miss Jones might have come by to . . . you know, see you off.”
No, she wouldn’t be coming. It was daylight and Nora never . . . never . . . something. I’d gone blank on whatever it was. Annoying, but probably of no importance.
“She’s been very busy lately,” I told him. “Poor Warburton’s condition deeply affected her, y’know.” Soon after Warburton had left for London, Nora had also moved back. “His mother told me that she often comes to visit him. Seems to do him good, though it doesn’t last for long.”
Nora’s sudden departure from Cambridge had puzzled Oliver. “You and she you didn’t have a quarrel or anything, did you? I mean, when you got that letter to go back . . . ”
“What an absurd idea.” But he did not appear convinced. “Let me assure you that we parted the best of friends. She’s a lovely girl, truly lovely. It’s been a delight to have had her friendship, but all good things must come to an end.”
“You’re pretty cool about it, I must say I thought you were madly in love with her.”
My turn to shrug. “I loved her, of course. I shall certainly miss her, but there are other girls to meet in this wide world.” I winced, feeling a sudden lurch of illness in my belly.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing, really. Just a headache.” I absently rubbed the back of my head and the small ridge of scar hidden by the hair. Acquired on some drunken debauch earlier in the year when I must have stumbled and fallen, it occasionally troubled me. “You’ll look in on her, won’t you? Now and then?”
“If you wish. Won’t you be writing her yourself, though?”
“I . . . don’t think so. Clean break, y’see. But I’d feel better if you could let me know how she’s doing. It strikes me that though she has many friends, she’s rather alone in the world. I mean, she does have that aunt of hers, but you know how it is.”
“Yes,” he said faintly. Oliver didn’t much approve of Nora, but he was a decent man and would do as I asked. I looked at him anew and realized how much both of us had grown in the nearly three years of my stay; in many ways he’d become the brother I’d never had. The weight of the world fell upon my spirit as I again faced the awful possibility that I might never see him again.
The launch glided up, and ropes were thrown to hold it to the dock; the oars were secured. A smart-looking ship’s officer jumped out and marched purposefully toward our tavern. It was time.
“God,” I said, choking on the sudden clot of tears stuck in my throat.
Oliver turned from the window and smiled at me, but the corners of his mouth kept tugging downward with his own sorrow. He made no comment. We each knew how the other felt. That made things better and worse at once.
“Well, I’m damned sorry to see you go,” he said, his own throat obviously constricted and making the words come out unevenly “You’re the only relative I’ve got who’s worth a groat and I’m not ashamed to say it.”
“But not in front of the rest of the family,” I reminded him.
“God forbid,” he added sincerely, and the old and bitter joke made us both laugh one more time.
Ignoring the stinging water that blurred our vision, we went out to meet the officer.
CHAPTER NINE
LONG ISLAND, SEPTEMBER, 1776
“They was my hosses ’n’ wagon, Mr. Barrett, ’n’ still mine but for that bit of paper. I figger ’twill take another bit of paper to get ’em back ’n’ want you to do it for me.”
Thus spoke our neighbor, Mr. Finch, seated in Father’s library. Our guest and future client was angry, but holding it in well enough; I would have been in an incoherent rage over the theft. Father only nodded in neutral agreement.
Finch’s problem had become a familiar story on the Island as the commissaries of the occupying army diligently worked to fill their own pockets as well as the bellies of the imported soldiers they were to supply.
“What sort of paper?” asked Father, looking grave.
“It were a receipt for the produce I were sellin’ to ’em. I had my Roddy read it, but they left out how much I were to be paid ’n’ said it would be filled in later.” He placed the document before Father.
“And you signed it?” He tapped a finger against a mark at the bottom of the sheet.
Finch’s weather-reddened face darkened. “They give me no choice! Them bloody soldiers was standin’ ’round us with their bayonets fixed to skewer us ’n’ grinnin’ like devils. I had to sign it or they’d a’ done God knows what ’n’ more besides. Damned Hessians they was, ’cept for the officer ’n’ ’is sergeant. Couldn’t make out a word of their talk, but the way they was lookin’ at my young daughters was enough to freeze your blood.”
Another too-common evil. We’d all heard of the outrages committed by the soldiers on helpless womenfolk, and when their men tried to defend them they were often as not murdered. The army sent from England made little distinction between the rebels and the king’s loyal subjects, not that a war was any excuse for their mistreatment.
In addition to wholesale theft and the occasional riot, many of the military had taken to using unprotected women as their own private harem whenever they pleased, whether the ladies we
re willing or not. There had been courts-martial held, but the attitudes of the officers more closely resembled amusement rather than intolerance for the brute actions of their men. Thinking of how I would feel should Elizabeth face such a threat, I could well understand why Finch had readily cooperated.
“So I made my mark,” he continued. “Then one of ’em hops up and makes to drive away ’n’ when I asks the officer what he thinks he’s doin’, he says the receipt included what the goods come in as part of the sale. ‘The king needs bosses,’ he says as cool as you please. I was a-goin’ to argue the point with ’im, but those men was licking their lips ’n’ my girls was startin’ to cry, so it seemed best to leave ’n’ try another way The poor things only come along to help me ’n’ in return git shamed ’n’ have to see their da shamed as well. Roddy felt awful about it, but he read the paper over ’n’ couldn’t find a way around it. Said that the way it were written could be taken as havin’ mor’n one meaning.”
Fairly well off compared with other farmers, Finch still could not afford to lose a pair of good work animals and a wagon. Still less, though, could he afford harm to his family.
“Anyways, if you c’n see yer way through to gettin’ my property back, you’ll not find me ungrateful, Mr. Barrett,” he concluded.
Father’s desk was stacked with similar complaints. He was himself a victim of the rapacious commissaries and their clerks. With a signed receipt from a farmer selling his goods, they could fill in whatever amount they pleased on the sale. It was usually a more than fair sum of money, but none of it ever reached the farmer, for that went into the pockets of the commissaries. Any complaint could be legally ignored, for the victim had signed, hadn’t he? He was only trying to squeeze additional money from the Crown, the cheat. Any who refused to sell their surplus could have the entire crop confiscated. That, too, had happened.