“Hamilton?” asked Bliven. “Nothing that he said today indicated such an opinion.”
“No, indeed he did not. The President has stated his policy, and Hamilton is obeying and implementing it. And we suppose it is possible, that his previous advocacy to dispense with us was for the sake of argument only, to be certain that the entire range of options was discussed. But we cannot be sure. We must remain alive to the chance that he would sell us out in a snap.”
Bliven shook his head. “I had no idea.”
Hull gestured with his emptying mug at the bulge in Bliven’s pocket. “So you will understand that your report is not for Mr. Hamilton. Do not trust it to the mails, bring it down to Barron, if you do not hear otherwise, and a copy for me.”
It was four days by stages back to Connecticut; evening had deepened by the time Mr. Strait deposited Bliven at his door on the South Road. He could see candles burning behind curtains and smoke curling from the keeping room chimney, but not heavily. His father had always prided himself on making efficient fires. A smoking fire, he’d always said, is a wasteful fire. A glance across the yard reminded him straightaway, upon seeing the shrinking wood cache, to lay in sufficient firewood to see them through the winter, and, not knowing the outcome of the impending war, he would prefer wood for two winters. The countryside for many miles around had been so extensively improved into farmland that people remarked on the scarcity of remaining mature forest with a portion of large hardwoods from which to split and age logs. The winter after he and Clarity married, the woodcutters had done such a profitable trade, and firewood was so dear, that Bliven feared his father would endanger his and his mother’s health by flapping around in a constant frost before consenting to pay their rate.
Benjamin Putnam greeted him in the hall, taking both his walking sticks in one hand and grasping him by the arm with the other. “Ah, my son, home at last. How was your trip?”
“Very full,” said Bliven, “very, we can say, substantive.” Suddenly he noticed that new slim, translucent tapers rose from the mirrored sconces on the hall wall. “Well, now, these are very fine.”
“Do you see, do you see what that wife of yours has done? We had need of candles, and we sent her to the butcher for tallow. Your mother dips perfectly fine candles, as I need not tell you. Do you know what she did? She went not to the butcher but to the chandler—and came back with an entire parcel of beeswax tapers. Beeswax! When have we ever afforded beeswax?”
Bliven regarded again the elegant candles in their sconces. “I confess my surprise, Father.” He well knew that beeswax candles were had at six to eight times the price of tallow. “I am certain she must have been thinking of your and Mother’s comfort.”
“Comfort? How comfortable shall I find debtors’ prison when I am taken hence?”
Bliven patted Benjamin on the arm. “I will speak to her. Meantime, you have our permission to enjoy them. Ah, Mother.”
“Welcome home, dear boy.” They kissed on both cheeks and she led them into the keeping room. “There is warm cider. Would you like some?”
“Oh, yes. Where is my wife?”
Benjamin worked his way over to his pillowed parson’s bench. “Dining with her mother. I will have a cup of cider, too, my dear, if you will be so kind.”
“Oh, what is that?” Bliven pointed across the room to a piece of furniture abutting the large pine sideboard where food was prepared. “A new acquisition?” It was a stout cabinet on eight-inch legs, with doors of pierced metal.
“Yes, my dear. When Frederick took the wagon of cider to the Dutch towns on the Hudson, he filled the accounts and had several jugs remaining. There was a carpenter who desired them, but he had not the money to buy them. Frederick agreed to take this pie cabinet in exchange.”
“Perhaps hard currency would have been better,” mumbled Benjamin.
She harrumphed back at him. “You will not say so after your pie cools, I’ll wager.”
“Ha!”
“It is well made,” she affirmed, “and I am glad to have it. And look, Bliv dear, he put new tin in the doors, punched with anchors and dolphins, especially for you. What nice thinking that was. Clarity will be back any moment. The post rider brought us your letter yesterday that you would be home today. Are you hungry?”
“I am, in fact. Mr. Strait was behind his time and did not stop in Watertown as he is wont to do, so I have not eaten. I feel I could eat a whole deer.”
“Funny you should say so, you needn’t eat the whole animal, but you may have as much as you like. Frederick went hunting and was favored with a fine large buck which he has shared most generously.” She loaded a plate with roast venison, sweet potatoes, and fresh yellow bread made from Indian meal. She poured cups of warm cider, took one to Benjamin, and set Bliven’s supper before him, then drew up a chair beside him. “Well, now, we have been waiting most patiently. What news do you bring us?”
“You would have me speak with my mouth full?”
“Yes. You are excused from manners for the evening.”
“I am promoted, to the rank of master commandant. I am to have my own command, a twenty-gun sloop-of-war. She is on her way from Jamaica and will start fitting out for me in Charleston. That will take some time, however.”
“Well, good,” she said. “One hopes a great deal of time, not to sound unpatriotic.”
“Don’t get too hopeful. If there is a war, I am to sail with Hull on the Constitution until my own ship is ready.”
“Well,” said Dorothea, “better on her than on a lesser ship.”
“And what is the name of your ship, son?” inquired the elder Putnam.
“The Tempest,” he said with evident pride.
“Really?” His mother registered surprise. “Why Tempest?”
“Well, I suppose after wasps and hornets they ran out of stinging insects.”
“Yes,” she said, “the U.S.S. Honey Bee would not sound very ominous.”
“Father,” said Bliven, “you will be pleased to know that the President inquired after your Uncle Israel and his famous exploit at the wolf den.”
Dorothea gasped. “The President?”
“Yes.”
“What have you to do with the President?”
“Well, there was a conference of sorts. Believe me, I was the least one present. For the time being they want me to study our defenses and recommend improvements.”
They heard the carriage approach and stop outside the keeping room’s side door; Bliven excused himself and hurried outside in time to help Clarity down. It had begun to snow lightly, and flakes were sticking in the fur trim of her hooded cape. “Oh, my love,” she almost squealed, and jumped down into his arms.
They clasped tightly before she looked back up to the carriage. “Thank you, Freddy.”
“Hello, Freddy.” Bliven reached up and they shook hands.
“Welcome home, Lieutenant. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”
Bliven held Clarity about the shoulders, swinging her lightly forward and back. “Pleasant enough to have left a lieutenant and come home a commander, thank you.”
“Well, Commander, then, congratulations.”
“Thank you, and thank you for looking after everything so ably in my absence.”
“Of course.” He tapped the horse lightly with the reins. “Home, Cassius.” And the carriage started forward into a tight turn.
Inside, Clarity shed her cloak and warmed herself by the fire. While Bliven was outside, his mother had begun preparing coffee and had placed cups in their saucers around the table. “If I were a gambling woman,” she said, “I would wager that we all would like some pie before we retire. My dear, do you feel like joining us at the table?”
“Ha! Yes, yes.” Benjamin pushed himself up from his parson’s bench and made his way over, taking some satisfaction in once again heading his tabl
e. As Clarity poured the coffee, Dorothea busied herself at the sideboard and returned with two dessert plates in each hand, seating herself after they were served.
Putnam leaned back in his chair. “Well, here, now, what is this?” On his plate he regarded a wedge of custard, dark orange brown, underlain by a pastry crust.
Dorothea’s and Clarity’s eyes met, merry.
“Why,” said Clarity, “pumpkin pie, Father Putnam.”
He turned his plate as though expecting the wedge to change its shape. “No, ’tisn’t.”
“Try it, my dear,” said Dorothea. “It is the new fashion of pumpkin pie. This is the way the best families have it now.”
Putnam sank his fork through the custard and placed the piece dubiously in his mouth. He pressed it against his palate with his tongue. “’Tis well enough for taste, I grant you.” He worked his way rapidly through two-thirds of his slice. “Yes, I will concede its qualities, but I confess, it is not the real pumpkin pie that I had my heart set on.”
“Well, I suspected as much.” Dorothea pushed herself back from the table and crossed to the fireplace, from which she removed a cast-iron Dutch oven. Onto the counter she turned out a roasted whole pumpkin, and from it she cut a wedge through to the center, revealing as she removed it a center of pale spiced custard, and within it the pale sheen of cooked apple slices.
She returned and set it before him, kissing him on top of the head. “You are a creature of habit, my dear.”
“Oh, oh, you are good.” Carefully he carved out a portion of the custard with a slice of apple, and added to it a peel of the spiced pumpkin meat. He let the whole assemblage of flavors roll around in his mouth. “Oh, incomparable,” he said at last. Putnam placed his hands flat upon the edge of the table with a satisfied demeanor. “There, now, my son, do you see how it works? Remember this for your future. Just the tiniest and most delicate of complaint, well timed, will gain you two desserts instead of one!”
“Well done,” Bliven agreed. He pushed himself up from the table and kissed his mother on the top of her head. “I give you the pumpkin pie was new-fangled, but I pronounce it delicious. I”—from a hook by the door to his and Clarity’s room he took and donned a dark greatcoat, and settled his bicorne upon his head—“will just go make sure our menagerie is bedded down well before I turn in.” From the mantel he took and lit a lantern and exited.
“You cut a fine figure, my son,” said his mother after him, “but we really must find you a less ornamental hat for everyday use.”
In the hen yard immediately behind the house he found their dozen chickens warm in their coop, and beyond them the pigs content in their sty shed. From the barnyard the cow had entered the barn of her own accord. He checked on her and closed up the barn; a cold pale moon had risen, and beyond the barn he surveyed their orchard of dormant apple trees. There was no need to walk to the edge of the orchard and peer down its rows, but he did so anyway, realizing as he did that he was surveying this dearly loved life because he must leave it once more. It made him want to weep. Warmth, good food, convivial family—his need to experience the world had led him to sea, his passage paid by serving the country as a naval officer. It was a post at which he acknowledged he had acquired skills that the nation now had sore use of, but to leave this hearth and these people was a heavy cost.
“Belay that,” he muttered. Back out at the road he looked up and across to their livery establishment. It would have been superfluous to walk up and check on the horses, for Freddy always groomed and bedded them down with the most admirable attention.
Once he ascertained that everything outdoors was in order, Bliven passed through the keeping room, his lamp a moving small yellow circle of illumination. At the fireplace he set the lamp on the mantel, picked up the shovel, and scattered coals into a warming pan before entering their suite and latching the door behind him.
Clarity sat at her writing desk, at her elbow a silver candelabrum holding five of the new beeswax tapers amply lighting the papers before her. She leaned over the desk, perusing a small book, her hand over her mouth, shaking with mirth.
“What is it, my love? What are you reading?”
“One of your mother’s cookbooks; she gave it to me this afternoon. I protested, but she insisted that it was time to pass it down to the new generation. Her reason was that she had long since committed to memory everything that your father would eat, and the rest she did not need to know.”
“May I see?”
Clarity handed it up, and he read aloud, “‘American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, an American Orphan.’ Why, I remember this from before I joined the Navy!”
“Here.” She took it back. “Let me read it to you.” Her voice took on a tone of knowledgeable and somewhat condescending explanation.
The world, and the fashion thereof, is so variable, that old people cannot accommodate themselves to the various changes and fashions which daily occur. They will adhere to the fashions of their day, and will not surrender their attachments to the good old way—while the young and the gay, bend and conform readily to the taste of the times, and fancy of the hour.
She pealed in laughter. “There. Does that not sound like anyone we know?”
“Surely it does. Which reminds me, that that one particular old person bids me protest to you the extravagance of beeswax candles. He is quite alarmed at such an expense.”
Clarity stood beside her writing table. “Dearest.” She squared herself. “Tallow candles burn ill and smoke. I have designs to work harder to finish my novel, and I cannot be forever fighting headaches caused by the candles. Nor could I very well provide beeswax for my work and then consign your parents to smoky tallow in the rest of the house. If your father thinks that I have spent too lavishly on them, you must let him understand that beeswax is now well within our means and I am quite happy to provide them. Do you not agree?”
“Yes, yes, when you pair generosity with common sense, you do overcome all obstacles. I will have a talk with him.”
He held her briefly and released her, folded down the quilts from their pillows, and began pushing and pulling the warming pan between the sheets. Clarity watched him with amusement. “I rather thought we might be making our own heat this night.”
He smiled as she blew out the candles and removed her layers of clothing by degrees, eventually slipping a nightgown over her head, as he exchanged his uniform for a night shirt. Beneath the covers he drew her close. “Are you not apprehensive at perhaps being left with a child when I must go back to sea?”
The palms of her hands framed his face. “Is that not what sailors do?”
He kissed her. “Not those with a conscience about such things.”
“Well, never mind your conscience.” Her fingers combed through his hair. “My dearest heart, what, what do you think would give me the greatest pleasure in this world than to have a little son or daughter to present you when you return? To give your parents a grandchild while they are still here to savor that experience? Would that not complete our family, our joy?”
He nestled her head to his chest. “Yes, it would. But childbearing is a dangerous undertaking. I would wish to be here.”
She pulled back, her eyes finding his in the dark. “So would I, but you can’t be. I knew this when I agreed to marry you.” She kissed his throat. “The risks are the same whether you are here or no. I can face it. Your mother and mine are strong women, they will look after me, and this locale is hardly wanting for the medical attention. So fear not, and do your duty.”
He kissed her more deeply, exploring with his hands as though it were their first time, discovering her anew. God, he thought. God, I don’t want to leave here. God, never let me take this woman for granted.
Bliven awakened before it was light, and realized that neither he nor Clarity had moved a muscle from the moment they had expended their passion. She was sleeping soundly, an
d he could not disentangle from her without waking her, but he was content to study her features at rest in the warmth of the bed. He thought to doze back off but was no longer sleepy. At length in her sleep she shifted away from him, and quickly he slipped out of bed before his leaving would disturb her.
He slid into slippers and tiptoed into the dark keeping room. The fire had died down to where it could not be built up from surviving coals. He knew by feel in the dark where the tinderbox reposed on the mantel, but, having felt it, moved his fingers a few inches to the right for the implement he had come to prefer, a fire syringe he had purchased in Martinique the year before, along with a quantity of amadou—that tree fungus, pounded flat and impregnated with nitre. The fire had burnt down to where new kindling would not catch, so he placed a quantity of dried wool and straw on the ashes, and small kindling atop that.
Working quickly and by feel, he removed the plunger from the syringe and placed a generous pinch of the amadou into the notch at the end of the plunger and blessed whatever ancient alchemist first concocted it. He knelt upon the hearth, inserted the plunger into its cylinder, and struck it down forcefully. There was an explosion of light and fire in the bottom of the apparatus, and withdrawing the cylinder revealed the amadou in a burning flame. This he touched to the wool and straw, which in only a few moments he parlayed into a fire over which he swung a kettle of water. Why anyone would continue to fiddle with old-fashioned tinderboxes when a new wonder like this existed was beyond him. But then, fire syringes were not widely available and were considered exotic, even French. And old people do prefer to hew to the old ways—he smiled at the memory of the night’s pumpkin-pie adventure. He opened the new pie cabinet, noting with appreciation the dolphins and anchors punched in the tin panels of the doors, and as the coffee brewed he cut himself a slice of the newly fashionable custard.
With coffee and candle in hand, Bliven quietly pushed open the door to their room and saw Clarity still fast asleep. Seating himself at her desk, he lit the five beeswax tapers in their candelabrum and broke the wax anchor seal on the thick sheaf of papers given him to labor over until he was recalled. He started and paused, raised partly out of his chair, leaned to one side, and sniffed at the beeswax. It was faint, but there was the definite scent of honey. Of course, he thought. What else should beeswax smell of? But it was pleasant, a luxury unknown through his youth in this house—and Clarity was right, the beeswax did burn brighter and more evenly.
The Tempest--Commander Putnam and Mr. Madison's War Page 8