by Edward Cline
He had taken quick stock of the brash young Kenrick — whom he did not at first recognize — during that brief confrontation. He had been subjected to a taste of his character, and could now plan how to fulfill his father’s wishes. It would not be easy, and it would take time. He knew that he had time.
War would not happen for a while.
As the Fowey gathered way down the river past Caxton, he speculated how much damage could be done to the town by the ship’s guns. He thought: They wouldn’t even need to aim.
* * *
Reverend Acland observed with surprise the party that had debouched from the Fowey returning to it so soon. He could see the Morland pier upriver, and noted that no objects had been deposited on it to be loaded into the galley boat and then taken to the warship. That was very curious, as well. He could see only the outermost part of the pier, and Morland’s small flatboat and ketch moored on the other side of it, and the riverbank not at all.
As the warship coasted back down river, the minister paced back and forth on the bluff, deep in speculation. He wondered if the precipitate departure of Hugh Kenrick and his friends from the bluff had something to do with this development. He was certain that Jack Frake had been secreting something illegal. He had observed, from his home near Stepney Parish Church, strange nocturnal comings and goings over the last few months.
He had heard that the master of Morland had dug an ice cellar, a very strange project to have undertaken so close to spring, when there would be no ice to bring down from the Piedmont. Reece Vishonn of Enderly, he knew, stocked his ice cellar with ice in January, when the frozen stuff was transportable, and often available and plentiful in the brooks and streams that bordered his plantation. The minister hoped that he had not made a fool of himself and erred in his judgment. After all, he had signed the letter with an ebulliently sanctimonious relish.
The minister learned later, by means of jubilant gossip overheard in some of the shops he patronized, that the Customsmen had been foiled in their mission to rummage the great house of Morland by none other than Hugh Kenrick, his friends, and the tenants themselves.
In his private moments, the minister queried God about why He had chosen to place him in such iniquitous company. Then, by the logic of his beliefs, he answered the query himself, knowing that he was here to do His and the Crown’s bidding. He took satisfaction in knowing that he was a tool of divine and imperial intervention, but managed to persuade himself that this personal felicity was of the virtuously disinterested kind. “My malice is pure and heaven inspired,” he often thought to himself, “and it will be sated according to His merciful justice.”
* * *
Edgar Cullis, also a burgess for Queen Anne County, sat in his father’s library at Cullis Hall, which neighbored Enderly, reading back issues of the two Virginia Gazettes, desiring to catch up with news from abroad and from the northern colonies, unaware that His Majesty’s servants had attempted to heed his written advice to raid Morland Hall for what he suspected were contraband arms. He, too, had heard about the new ice cellar at Morland Hall, and had paid some of his father’s servants to spy on the goings-on there. They had reported that at night, small fishing vessels and other river craft had called on the Morland pier to unload longish crates, kegs and other suspicious-looking cargo, and that they had been met by Mr. Frake and some of his tenants, who carted the goods to the great house.
Edgar Cullis had not spoken of any of this to his father, who was inclined to sympathize with Hugh Kenrick and other recalcitrants in the House. But the law was the law, he thought, and until an arguably oppressive law was repealed, or amended to correct its severity, flouting it deserved a commensurate penalty. Neglecting to enforce it could only lead to anarchy, mob rule, and destruction. Jack Frake, for as long as Cullis had known him, had been a leading flouter of the law. And now he was a ringleader in a concerted movement to defy the Crown. It was time he was reined in and taught the value of obedience. With his incarceration and punishment, the “patriot” movement in Queen Anne County would collapse, and the county would not suffer the reprisals that were certain to be visited on other lawless counties and towns, once the Crown decided to restore order in its dominions.
Edgar Cullis, attorney, loyal citizen of Virginia and steadfast subject of the Crown, believed in moderation in all things.
* * *
“I see you hurtling toward some needless tragedy, Hugh,” she said, not looking at him, but at the Fowey as it passed slowly downriver, “and I don’t want to be here to witness it.”
“Hurtling?” he answered. “Yes, I concede that I am hurtling towards something. To a needless tragedy? No. Rather, towards necessary action.”
When he returned to Meum Hall, after a search in the great house, he found Reverdy standing alone near the edge of the riverfront lawn. He knew how disturbed she was; she was absently worrying the riding chair whip she still held in both hands, having left the conveyance at the stable. And all he had said to her, as he came to stand by her, was “Reverdy.” And she had answered.
“It is your friendship with Roger,” she continued in answer to an unasked question, “and how you greeted each other yesterday, that led me to think that perhaps I was wrong to want to leave. You, and he, and his being in the army, and why he is here — they all led me to think that perhaps I was mistaken, that perhaps some meeting of the ways was possible.” She added with some bitterness, “But then I saw the both of you just now at Morland, with all those weapons at the ready, and I realized that I was deluding myself.”
Hugh shook his head. “What you were afraid would happen, did not. If that incident were emulated all over, on larger scales, throughout the colonies, then what you are afraid of, will not — cannot happen. The Crown’s determination must be doubly matched by our own, and then there will be no tragedies.”
“By your own determination,” said Reverdy in the manner of a mild accusation. “And I am certain that some day, some time, in such a circumstance as you describe, someone will be angry enough to fire his musket, a friend or an adversary, and you will be there, and that will be the end…. ”
“Or perhaps the beginning…. ” remarked Hugh wistfully.
“Must you turn round everything I say?”
“You know that is my style. It has usually amused you.” Hugh allowed himself a smile. “Perhaps the present unpleasantness can be turned round, as well.” He paused. “I wish you to stay to see that, my dear…to help me accomplish it.”
“You will not accomplish it, Hugh. You will only bring…retribution, and grief, to us, to everyone we know, and ruin to everything we hold dear.”
Hugh reached over and took one of her hands. “I may well not accomplish it, if you…are not here. That would be my grief.”
“You will not accomplish it, whether or not I am here.”
“Such prophetic gloom,” he sighed, “and such an intimate reproach.”
Reverdy winced, as though hurt. “It is not a reproach, Hugh! It is…caring!”
Hugh took Reverdy by the shoulders and held her. “My dear, you applauded me in the past, when I composed and signed petitions against the Crown, and when I spoke in the House against the Crown, and advocated boycotts of the Crown’s merchants, and assailed the Crown in seditious pamphlets. You have even regaled visitors with the story of how I led the obstruction of the stamps at Caxton pier years ago. What is the difference between all that, and now? How can you care the less?”
Reverdy shook her head. “I care the more, Hugh. And, if one is so certain of the fate of a particular thing, is it so wrong to express a natural prophetic gloom?”
Hugh let her go. “No, perhaps not, my dear. But, for my part, such certainty is the better part of resolution. I have been gloomy over events for many years, but I have always managed to turn the gloom into glory. You know that.”
Reverdy bowed her head in defeat. “So many words to compose an epitaph! My fear is that you will oblige me to order a stonemason to carve th
em into a tombstone — yours!”
Hugh frowned, and replied, partly in defiance, partly in anger with her bitterness, “Or, in an epigraph, etched in gold letters on the finest mahogany, to affix above my study door, at Meum Hall!”
Reverdy glanced up at him, hurt in her eyes, and tears. Then she fell against him, resting her head on his chest, her sight locked on the menacing Fowey growing smaller on the river. “The simple explanation, Hugh, is that…I am a coward!”
Hugh’s arms encircled her, and he crushed her to him. He buried his face in her hair, and whispered into her ear, “What courage it took to confess that!” After a moment, he held her away from him, but grasped her shoulders. “Reverdy, you shall go to England. To rest from me, from the circumstances here, to recover the balance of your spirit. And then you shall return here to me, to Meum Hall, your true home, renewed and reinvigorated from the perspective of distance, and encouraged to stand with me again.”
Reverdy sobbed once, and embraced him with passionate gratitude.
Hugh held her close, thinking suddenly of the time he was last in London, and was wandering through Vauxhall Gardens when he chanced upon a concert. He remembered standing in a crowd, listening to an opera singer in a box above them, performing with an orchestra behind her Scarlatti’s “Christmas Cantata.” Reverdy had sung it for him years ago, and shamelessly told him afterwards that the cantata more suited him than its original subject. He remembered being enthralled by the singer’s performance, but thinking also that Reverdy sang it so much more convincingly than that opera singer. He remembered how hearing the cantata then struck him with a wrenching homesickness.
That was the Reverdy he wanted back. He was certain that some time in England would cause her to rediscover him and become equally anxious to return.
Chapter 7: The Guests
“Thank you for your gallantry, sir,” said Jack Frake, “and for your honesty.”
When he had ridden back to Meum Hall with Lieutenant Manners, he had found Hugh and Reverdy returning to the great house from the riverfront lawn. He had conveyed to them an invitation from Etáin to supper at Morland that evening.
At the supper table now, Roger Tallmadge nodded in silent acknowledgement. He had just finished explaining his presence in the colonies to his host.
Jack Frake had returned with Mouse early in the evening, before supper and the expected guests, and was immediately besieged in the front yard by Etáin and others with the story of the confrontation with the Customsmen. As he absorbed the details of the incident, the anger in his eyes abated as his sweaty mount regained its wind from the hard ride from Yorktown.
Now he looked bemused. “Which leaves me to wonder, Mr. Tallmadge: Why did you draw your sword against that man? Your loyalties seem to be divided.”
Roger smiled and glanced once at Hugh down the table. “Not at all, Mr. Frake. In all the years that Hugh and I have been friends, I had never had the opportunity to join him in a caper, not until today.” He paused, then added, “There was that, together with a dislike of the man we faced.”
“Had you never before witnessed Customsmen at their calling?”
“No. I confess I have not. Not even in England.”
“A press gang?”
“Once. At Great Yarmouth. A brutal and ignominious affair.”
“Why do you think those men appeared here, and not at some other plantation near Caxton?”
Roger shrugged. “Presumably they received information that you ought to be searched. For what, I can only imagine. Perhaps it was for a cache of French muskets and powder, or a chest or two of Dutch tea. Or bolts of Italian cambric.”
Jack Frake smiled. “Would you have objected to my possessing any of those commodities? Illegally, of course.”
“Personally, no. When I have attended the Commons, without exception I have voted with the free-traders in the House, scarce as they are, and against every act that now burdens these colonies.” Tallmadge smiled in modesty. “I owe that record to the persuasiveness of Hugh here, and to that of the late Sir Dogmael Jones. And, to that of Hugh’s father.”
“Yes,” remarked Jack. “Hugh has boasted of your record in the Commons. Well, sir, perhaps, when you have completed your mission here, you will return to London and vote in that manner again.”
Tallmadge could not decide if his host’s words were friendly or hostile. He knew that his host was making an exception for Hugh’s sake, not for his own, by allowing him to sup at his table. He replied, “That is my earnest hope, Mr. Frake. Why, upon my return, I may even resign my commission, and seek employment with Hugh’s father’s bank.” Tallmadge paused. “Or, I may apply for a posting as a consular military attaché on the Continent. It’s plum duty, and I could take my wife Alice with me. Her father would gladly supplement my half-pay to ensure a comfortable residence. And I’m certain that promotion to major would come with it, for the examiners of my past postings have given me exemplary marks in the diplomatic.” But the gaiety of his words seemed to shatter on the rocky reticence of his host’s expression.
After a long moment, during which he seemed to be making a decision, Jack Frake said, with some genuine humor, “I earnestly hope that you succeed in one of those ambitions, Mr. Tallmadge. It may save me the trouble of facing you with a drawn sword, as well, in the event that war comes.”
Tallmadge answered with reciprocating humor, “In that event, sir, I shall endeavor to remain beyond its point.”
Lieutenant Manners spoke up, and remarked leisurely. “Begging your pardon, sir, but it is not likely that war will come. That is too grandiose and undeserving a name for it, it seems to me. When mobs cause chaos and jeopardize lives and property in London, as they often do, His Majesty simply approves a request from the authorities to employ troops to restore order. That is not war. Wars occur between nations, and none of the colonies is a nation. They are all dominions, as much as any English county, and if their inhabitants misbehave themselves, deserve the same modest civil corrective.”
The table became silent. Tallmadge’s face flushed red with anger and embarrassment. Hugh stared with disbelief at the junior officer. Jack Frake eyed the lieutenant with steely contempt. Etáin glanced with sudden worry at her husband, knowing that he was within a breath of demanding that the officer leave. Reverdy stared into the remains of her supper on the plate in front of her, bracing for an explosion she was sure to come. Even the waiting servants, Ruth Dakin and Israel Beck, stood blinking in shock.
Tallmadge removed his napkin and dropped it on the table beside his plate. Without rising or looking at his subordinate, he said, “Mr. Manners, you will please apologize to Mr. Frake for those unsolicited and unkind remarks.”
Lieutenant Manners looked stunned. He gulped once, and asked, with diminished audacity, “Do you wish me to withdraw my remarks, sir?”
Tallmadge turned to face the officer, and replied with an ice that matched his expression, “Or yourself from the company, sir, if you cannot oblige him or me.”
The junior officer glanced around the table and saw no defenders. He gulped again, uncontrollably, when his eyes met those of Jack Frake’s; the hard gray eyes of that man caused him to imagine that a pair of musket barrels was aimed at him. Unlike his superior, Manners had never experienced combat; he had the wild idea that his present paralysis was what he would feel facing an enemy’s fire the first time. He had chanced an opinion, but lost the bluff. He seemed to collapse into himself. With a quick, furtive nod to Jack Frake, and with a reddened face, he stammered, “I withdraw my remarks, sir.” He did not look up for the rest of the occasion. It was the first time Captain Tallmadge had ever upbraided him for his behavior, at least in front of others.
“Thank you, Mr. Manners,” said Tallmadge. He glanced down the table to Jack Frake. The host nodded briefly once in acceptance. Tallmadge smiled tentatively, then said, in an effort to change the subject and relieve the tension, “Where is this Mr. Proudlocks Hugh has written me so much about? I know
that he was in London, reading law, and that he has returned.”
Etáin asked, “You did not meet him when he stayed with Hugh’s parents?”
“No,” Tallmadge replied. “Only once, and briefly, on the fly, at Hugh’s parents’ home in Chelsea. But, I was shuttling between London and the Continent on various diplomatic postings, and on my way to another then. Alice has written me that he is quite the gentleman and scholar.”
The conversation continued on that and other subjects for the rest of the evening. It was cordial but muted talk, dampened by Lieutenant Manners’s remarks. When Hugh, Reverdy and the officers prepared to depart for Meum Hall, it was with a curious relief felt by all. Hugh did, however, extend to Jack and Etáin an invitation to supper at Meum Hall on June 1 in order to observe the day of “fasting and prayer” voted by the House of Burgesses.
“We shall commiserate with the Bostonians in our own fashion,” said Hugh, “with bountiful fare and good cheer.” They stood on the porch of the great house. Lieutenant Manners had gone to the stable to fetch his and Tallmadge’s mounts, while the captain sat waiting in the riding chair with Reverdy. Etáin stood by the conveyance, chatting with them. “And Etáin and Reverdy will perform for us, as well.”
Jack replied, “Of course. As long as Mr. Tallmadge’s companion opens his mouth solely to fill it with your fare.” He paused. “You don’t know how close I came to chucking him out the door.”
“I’ve a very good idea, Jack. But, trust Roger to instruct him in some rules of civility.”
Jack Frake studied his friend for a moment, then said, “Your friend is a man of honor.”
“Yes, he is. It is my hope that you both may become better acquainted, in less circumspect times.”
Jack nodded. After another moment, he remarked, “When they’ve gone, I have something to show you.”