by P. N. Elrod
Washington fumed, the New York convention stalled, and in the meantime General Howe’s brother, Vice-Admiral Richard, Lord Howe, arrived with his hundred-fifty ships crammed full of hungry soldiers. Washington’s attention became engaged elsewhere. Later, General Howe made his landing at Gravesend Bay and saved the king’s loyal subjects from the threat of ravaging rebels.
Unfortunately, he had scant interest in saving them from his own men.
“We’ll have to have a meeting,” I said. “Perhaps at the church after services. It’s the best way for everyone to hear it all.”
“Aye, including the soldiers, I think,” said Father, reminding me of the new additions to our congregation. Some of us still hadn’t determined whether the men were there to worship God or to make sure sedition was not being preached. “This is the stuff that charges of treason are made of. They’ll think we’re conspiring with those rascals over in Suffolk County rather than looking out for our own.”
Instantly, I jumped to an alternative. “Then we’ll call upon only those we trust and inform them directly.”
Father’s eyes glinted. “Which means there’s nothing in writing that may be held against us. I think you’ve a talent for this, laddie.”
I couldn’t help but grin. Having grown used to the physical and mental stimulus of Cambridge, I sorely missed a challenge; this business promised to be rare entertainment. It might also prove to be much more interesting than those old university amusements, which chiefly consisted of getting drunk whenever the chance presented itself. “I can start at first light tomorrow.”
“But not alone. Dr. Beldon, do you not go on mercy calls?”
“You know I do, sir,” he said, wiping his brow once more, then pausing as he pondered the reason for Father’s query.
“I think you should go with Jonathan on his errands.”
I started to ask why Beldon’s company was necessary and bit it off as comprehension dawned. A doctor had an infinite number of reasons to be riding from house to house. Beldon’s profession would provide us with excellent cover should we be questioned by suspicious folk, whether they be rebels or soldiers in the king’s army.
“Very good, sir,” said Beldon wryly, understanding and approving.
“And what shall I do?” Elizabeth gently demanded. She clearly wanted to go with us, but the unsettled state of things abrogated her unspoken wish. She, too, had heard of the outrages and was not so foolish to think herself immune to such insults.
“With Jonathan gone I shall need you to help me with the work here,” said Father. “You write faster and more clearly than he does, anyway.” I took no umbrage at Father’s opinion of my penmanship, for it was true.
Elizabeth’s archness vanished. She enjoyed helping Father and had done so in the past. Mother disapproved, of course—for it was not ladylike to play the clerk—but not so much as to forbid it.
“Between us I want to plan out how to conceal the surplus to last through the winter. I’m keeping in mind that we may have more than our own to feed. Your mother”—here he paused as though trying to overcome an indigestible bite from his last meal— “has written to those cousins of hers offering them asylum until the rebellion is past. They have yet to reply, but we will have to be prepared. We’ll need a second buttery, someplace to store the smoked meats. . .”
“Flour, sugar, spirits, yes.” Elizabeth’s face lightened. “I shall talk with Mrs. Nooth and Jericho. We’ll have more hidden treasure than Captain Kidd.”
“If I might recommend one more suggestion,” said Beldon. “That is, I’m sure dear Deborah would be mightily interested in offering her assistance to you, but she is, after all, a rather busy lady.”
This was met with another awkward moment of silence, then Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, Dr. Beldon. I believe it would be better not to disturb her or Mother with such mundane chores as these will doubtless prove to be.”
Beldon looked relieved. And so he was able to politely pass on his lack of confidence that his sister could hold her tongue in the wrong company.
* * *
“He’s not such a bad fellow, is he?” Elizabeth said as we strolled slowly around the outside of the house in the somewhat cooler air of the early evening.
“Beldon? I suppose not. I think he’d be better off without her, though.” There was no need to mention the lady’s name.
“Wouldn’t we all?”
A few steps to the side of us, Jericho stifled something that might be interpreted as a cough. Or a laugh. It was quite a display from a man who took so much pride in a lofty household station that often demanded great reticence. However, he was away from the house and treading the same grounds we’d tumbled over as rowdy children; he could allow himself to be himself to some extent. We could not go back to those days, but the memory was with us and comforting company.
“I think that staying here has been a beneficial experience for him,” she said.
“In what way?”
“He’s allowed the chance to be with a less demanding company of people, for one thing.”
“He was hardly in isolation in Philadelphia.”
“Yes, but his social life was certainly limited, if Mother and that woman are anything to judge by. Like attracts like, y’know.”
I had no trouble imagining Beldon surrounded by a large group made up of the sort of people Mother would approve of, and shuddered.
“Since you’ve returned I’ve looked at him as though through your eyes and noticed that he’s not the toad-eater he was at first.”
“I’ve noticed no change.”
“That’s because you avoid him.”
True.
“When he’s away from her he can be quite nice.”
“Good God, you’re not thinking of—”
Elizabeth laughed. “Hardly. I’m just saying that he has a gentle nature and more than a spoonful of wit, but marriage to him is the last thing on my mind. His as well, I will confidently add.”
“More’s the pity for Mrs. Hardinbrook, then. She does so want to be your sister-in-law.”
Elizabeth shuddered in turn. “What about you, little brother? Did you not meet anyone in your wide travels? You mentioned going to parties with Cousin Oliver. Surely there were young ladies there . . . .”
“Indeed there were, and the lot of them as interested in the Fonteyn money as Mrs. Hardinbrook.”
Except for one. Heavens, I hadn’t thought of Nora in months. Perhaps if I’d asked her, but no; she’d said she never wanted to marry. She really couldn’t because . . . because . . . well, for some reason. I absently probed for the scar on the back of my head. It was mostly gone by now. Harder to find.
“Something wrong, Mr. Jonathan?” Jericho inquired.
“Touch of headache. Must be the day’s heat catching me up.” I dismissed it and turned my mind to other things. “Remember the Captain’s Kettle?” I asked, using our childhood name for it. We’d spent hours there, playing treasure hunt.
“Where you nearly broke your neck? Of course I do,” Elizabeth replied.
“I was thinking that it would be an excellent place to hide our cattle.
“It’s away from the usual roads and has shelter and fodder a-plenty” Elizabeth murmured her approval and added the idea to the growing list of things to be done that she kept in her head.
“I’ll ride by there tomorrow and look it over to be sure.”
“Do you wish me to come along, Mr. Jonathan?”
Jericho knew all about my errands. How he knew was a mystery. “I suppose you could, if you want to. But won’t you be busy here?”
“Jericho is offering to play the chaperon for you,” Elizabeth explained.
I chuckled and shook my head. “I’ve nothing to worry about. The good doctor and I understand one another.”
“A pity his sister doesn’t. Th
e year you left she got so tiresome about him that I spent two months with the DeQuincey girls just to get away from her.”
And from Mother. Elizabeth had given me every detail in her letters. Unable to stand the constant judgmental scolding any longer, she’d arranged an invitation to visit her friends, packed some trunks, and departed with her maid. Mother had been livid about it, for Elizabeth hadn’t shared her plans with anyone except Father, who pretended a detached interest in the matter as if it were unworthy of his notice. Eventually Mother seemed to adopt the same attitude (with Mrs. Hardinbrook aping her, of course) and things settled down again. So Jericho assured me when he wrote. When Elizabeth finally returned, she found Mother’s disinterest in her to be a welcome improvement over their previous relationship.
But even with such respites, three years of tension and temper had had a wearing effect on my sister. She was older and certainly wiser, but much of her natural lightness of spirit had vanished. There was a watchful weariness in her expression that was forgotten only when she was away from home or with me. The rest of the time she wore it or assumed a bland mask as hard as armor. It was a trait she’d picked up, unconsciously I thought, from our long-suffering servants.
Some of them had left after they’d decided Mother’s “brief stay” was permanent. We’d lost two cooks, several maids, and five stable lads to her ire. All had been replaced as needed, and we still had the slaves, but when Mother was around, none of them had an easy time of it. Mrs. Nooth had remained, thank God, or the whole household might have fallen apart.
“I think,” said Elizabeth, pausing in her stroll, “that this would be a good place for the second buttery.”
“But this is the buttery,” I pointed out.
“Yes, and what better place to hide it? Don’t you see? We’ll have some of the lads dig the present one that much deeper, make a false wall only we know about.”
“Like a priest’s hole?”
“But much larger.”
“We can do the same thing for our other stores as well.”
“Be sure to suggest it to those you talk to tomorrow. And please do be very careful, Jonathan.”
I was thinking of making a jest at Beldon’s expense, but the somber look on Elizabeth’s face stopped me. Should the commissaries, should anyone either on the rebels’ side or simply up to mischief find out what was being planned, everything we had could be confiscated. With no notice whatsoever Father and I, Beldon too, could be arrested for treason and hanged. By our own countrymen. The only worse punishment could have come from the rebels. Had they been in charge of the Island, I doubt that things would be much different except they would not have left us out of their battles. Their rabble’s maxim that anyone not for them was against them had caused much grief and suffering. More than one man had been tarred and feathered by mindless mobs and died horribly from it.
“I shall be very careful,” I promised her. “Anyway, this won’t last long. Just for the season, I’m sure. Beldon thinks that once Washington’s great Continental Army gets a taste of real winter, they’ll scurry back to their hearths like rabbits to a burrow. Then General Howe can round up that so-called Congress and put an end to the matter.”
“I hope so. Do you think they’ll be hanged?”
“Only if they’re caught. They were foolish enough to sign that treasonous declaration two months ago. What presumptuous gall they had to imagine they represented everyone. . . .” I’d read a copy of the ridiculous document along with Father and like him had raged against the inflammatory language of the charges against the king. (Though under our present circumstances I thought that the point about the military being independent of and superior to the civil power was well made. Now, issues that should have been decided in courts were being contested in battle.) We both concluded the absurd paper should be consigned to the flames and its writers and signers to the gallows.
But . . . that was General Howe’s problem, not mine, I reminded myself. I had other matters to worry about.
* * *
Well before dawn Jericho woke me out of a lethargic dream state as he came in with my morning tray. A vivid picture of Nora Jones had been before my mind’s eye, but faded rapidly as I tried to hold on to it. Then it was gone and I gave up in mild frustration to the inevitable. Everyone’s mind is full of doors that open only during sleep, and mine were the sort to slam solidly shut at the slightest hint of waking.
The dreams troubled me, for their content—whenever I had the rare instance of recalling one—was disturbing. Now and then my drowsy mind would throw out a bit of memory that made no sense, yet during the dream itself I had no difficulty in understanding. The most familiar one concerned Nora. We were at the Bolyns’ party again; I danced with her in the maze, kissed her, made love with her. Pleasant enough, and true enough, in the way of a dream, but both of us were splashed from head to toe with blood. It was warm and just turning sticky, the heavy smell of it clogging the air. I could almost taste it. Neither of us and no one else ever seemed to notice, though.
The other dream memory was more mundane, but for an unknown reason much more frightening. It was really nothing: only Tony Warburton smiling down at me from some high place. The first time I remembered having it I’d awakened in a cold, slimy sweat, lighted every candle in the room, and shivered under the coverlet like a child. This reaction eventually passed, but I was never quite comfortable with that one.
“It will be very hot today,” said Jericho as he went to the wardrobe to choose clothes for me.
I sipped tea, holding the cup in both hands. “It was hot yesterday.”
“More so today. Eat what you can now. You won’t want to later.”
He was always right about such things. I worked my way through the food he’d brought, slowly adjusting my thinking away from senseless dreams to the tasks awaiting me this day. Even with Beldon’s company, I planned to enjoy myself.
“Do you wish a shave?” Jericho asked.
I brushed a finger along one stubbled cheek. He’d shaved me yesterday and had we been following our usual routine, I wouldn’t need another until tomorrow Should I have a clean chin while calling on our neighbors, or not? Not, I decided, and said as much to Jericho. Most of the farmers and other men shaved but once a week for their churchgoing and thought it good enough. I didn’t want to put them off by playing the dandy. That was Beldon’s province.
“Is Dr. Beldon awake yet?” I mumbled around some biscuit.
“Oh, yes. Sheba just got his tray for him.”
No need to comment how inappropriate it was for a young girl to be taking up Beldon’s breakfast rather than one of the house lads. Not that Beldon made himself offensive in any way with anyone of either sex. The girl was safe enough with him, as was any lad in the house, for he was really a decent sort.
Except for the toad-eating, I reflexively reminded myself. Upon consideration, I found it odd that Mother was capable of throwing herself into a foaming rage at an erroneous assumption of impropriety between myself and Elizabeth and yet could entirely ignore the doctor’s preferences. I’d once mentioned it to Father, who opined that Mother simply did not know or, if she did, contemptuously disbelieved the possibility. Whether her ignorance was willful or not, Beldon was aware of it, and like many other facets of life, it seemed to amuse him.
Jericho laid out my old claret-colored coat. I had put on some muscle since I’d last worn it and the seams had been opened to enlarge it, the work carefully covered by braid trim. While nowhere near being threadbare, it was less than new and thus the correct item to wear while making informal calls upon our neighbors during their working day. Next to it he unfolded a fresh linen shirt, breeches, and my second-best riding boots. When I expressed a partiality for a straw hat to wear against the sun, he pursed his lips, shook his head, and brought forth the correct head covering for the coat.
“No wig?” I queried lightly
.
He started to reach for a box, but I hastily called him off.
Since Beldon had no valet to help him he came down to the library ten minutes ahead of me. Father, in his dressing gown and silk nightcap, was with him and once more going over the names of the people we were to see. Beldon thought it was too short a list, but Father pointed out that it was better to see a few at a time rather than rushing about in noticeable haste.
“You’re a doctor making your usual calls on your patients and Jonathan is along to visit with their families.”
And to act as guide. Beldon knew most of our neighbors by now, if only from seeing them every Sunday at church, but he was less sure of where they lived unless they were regular patients. Rapelji, for example, was not in that number. His housekeepers, Rachel and Sarah, were adept at keeping him in excellent health with their herb lore. Many of the local farmers were content to see the sisters for their illnesses as well, sparing themselves from paying a doctor’s fee.
I noted that Father’s mistress, Mrs. Montagu, was not among those named, though her home was along the route we would take. Perhaps he would see to informing her himself later. I hoped so. With all our late troubles, I felt that he was in need of some pleasant, relaxing company.
Father let us out the side door facing the stables and wished us good luck. Our mounts were ready, the doctor on a hack he’d purchased some time ago, and a similar working horse for myself. Rolly would have been a better ride, but could draw unwelcome attention. I had no desire to lose him on the high road to some avaricious officer with a sheaf of blank receipts in his pocket.
Beldon spent a moment fussing with his box of medicines, making sure it was secure, then swung up. The horses may have sensed a long day was ahead and made no effort to use up their strength with unnecessary prancing or high spirits. We paced sedately down toward the front gate.
“It’s good to finally be off,” said Beldon. “I hardly slept last night, thinking of this.”