Chains (25 page)

Curzon coughed again and moaned. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

“And the doctor would see to my brother,” I said.

Dibdin hesitated, then gave a nod. “Aye.”

“And he gets a blanket and food.”

Dibdin said something to a man I couldn't see. A blanket appeared on Curzon's shoulders. Curzon clutched it around himself.

“And his hat.” My voice was ice.

Dibdin removed the hat and placed it on Curzon's head. “Lay him down,” he instructed. “On the rushes, not the bare floor.”

Someone helped Curzon away from the window.

I had no choice.

I handed the jam-covered burnt scones up to the window. Dibdin stuck the first one in his mouth, then passed the others to the men who suddenly crowded the window.

“If he dies, you'll not see me again,” I warned.

“Understood,” he said.

I found Captain Morse carrying out rubbish for the tavern keeper. He was a well-fed man wearing the brown coat trimmed with white that signified he was a prisoner of war. There was a big gap between his front teeth, but they looked clean enough.

He joined me in the shadows of the alley and listened as I quickly explained my mission.

“I'll try to get word to Bridgebane's family tonight. It is against all the laws of war to treat prisoners so badly.” He paced angrily. “How often can you stop here?”

“Every morning.”

“Good. Tell Dibdin I'll see what I can do to ease their suffering, though I fear it will not be enough.”

“My brother is among the prisoners,” I said. “He's ill. Can you … ?”

“Can I see to it that he is given his share of whatever Bridgebane provides? I surely will. Your brother was calm and brave during the final battle. He's a true soldier.”

The crow of a rooster interrupted him. The sun was fighting through the leaden clouds.

I picked up the buckets. “I have to hurry.”

He nodded. “Thank you for your help … my apologies, but I do not know your name.”

“I am called Sal.”

“Do you carry a last name as well, Sal?”

I hesitated. According to Madam, my surname was Lockton, but it tasted foul in my mouth. I shook my head.

He smiled. “Just Sal, then. Good day to you, Just Sal.”

Lucky for me the overcast morn caused the other servants to sleep past their normal time. By the time Hannah and Mary staggered up from the cellar, I had the porridge bubbling and the tea steeping.

I could not eat nor drink a thing for my belly was tied up with fear. My thoughts chased round and round my brainpan. I could not visit the prison daily. I was sure to be caught and punished. But I had to visit the prison daily. Curzon's life depended on it. But someone would see me and was sure to remember the mark on my face. Word would get back to Madam, and she would tell Colonel Hawkins and he would set someone to follow me and Captain Morse would be flogged for passing on messages and the prisoners in Curzon's cell would all be hung and buried in the pit.

When I thought what they might do to me, I ran to the necessary and had me a good puking. But the next day, I made my way up there again—food for the prisoners, water for the Locktons, and every once in a while, a message to the gap-toothed man in the brown coat at the Golden Hill Tavern.

A few nights later, there was a terrible hullabaloo between Madam and the master when he announced at supper that
he was planning to travel on the next ship to London. He would carry messages to Parliament, conduct his own business, and likely return to New York by the summer.

Madam was not pleased. First she argued that he ought not go, then she argued yes, he should go, and he should take her with him. When he refused, she threw a goblet in the fireplace and carried on so loudly that the Master and Colonel Hawkins finally called for the carriage and left for a tavern.

Madam dosed herself with strong wine after that and went to bed.

That night the temperatures fell so far below freezing that the biggest fire could not keep away the chill. I moved my pallet as close to the hearth as I dared and sat with all my clothes, my cloak, and my blanket wrapped around me. 'Twas so cold, I could not sleep. General Washington and his men were holed up in Morristown. Folks said they were in desperate need of stockings and food. I could scarce credit how hungry men with frozen feet could win a war. They were fools to even try.

I waited as the clock first chimed eleven times, then twelve, watching the firelight and trying not to ponder. When I got up to add wood to the fire, my feet wandered themselves to the pantry, and my hands pulled the loose board there. Under the board were some sheets of newsprint I had saved, the lead piece from the statue of King George, my seeds, and the book given me by the stationer. I carried the book to my warm pallet and quietly untied the twine and removed the paper wrapping.

I opened the cover. A fellow named Thomas Paine wrote the little book. He called it
Common Sense.

Momma always said that common sense was far from common, that's why it was so special when you found it.
The first sentence in the book did not seem to contain any.

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness …”

It took four readings to figure out the meaning, which I took to be that the life of folks is different than the world what rules over them. Paine sure did dance a long time with the notion before he said it.

I closed the book and longed for Robinson Crusoe, still stranded in the study where Colonel Hawkins was asleep. I dared not rescue him.

I opened the book again and attacked the next sentence.

CHRISTMAS IS COME, HANG ON THE POT,
LET SPITS TURN ROUND, AND OVENS BE HOT;
BEEF, PORK, AND POULTRY, NOW PROVIDE
TO FEAST THY NEIGHBORS AT THIS TIDE;
THEN WASH ALL DOWN WITH GOOD WINE AND BEER,
AND SO WITH MIRTH CONCLUDE THE YEAR.
–ROYAL VIRGINIA ALMANAC

I spent the day before Christmas fighting a holly bush with a pair of scissors. Madam required its twigs and berries for her decorating schemes. My morning dash to the prison, pump, and tavern had gone wonderful fast. There were no new messages to pass from Curzon's companions to Captain Morse, and the doctor secured by the rich Bridgebane family had delivered potions and bleedings to all, as promised. Curzon was spending most of his days sleeping, but he was not dead.

And it was Christmas Eve day.

The holly bits were tied with pine branches and set on the sills of the street-facing windows. Glass bowls of red berries were set on small tables in the drawing room, library, and
the front parlor. Madam had two soldiers hang a ball of mistletoe in the front hall. This provided great merriment amongst the men and some blushing on the part of their wives.

I had never seen a house decorated with tree branches to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, but it did pretty up the place. The best was when Madam told us to hang dried rosemary throughout; that cut right through the lingering stench of boots and belchings.

In keeping with tradition, I was to have Christmas Day free from work. I pondered hard on what I should do with so many hours for myself. Christmas at home had meant eating Momma's bread pudding with maple syrup and nutmeg, and reading the Gospel of Matthew out loud whilst Ruth played in Momma's lap. I was miles away from celebrating like that. I tried to bury the remembery, but it kept floating to the top of my mind like a cork in a stormy sea, and foolish tears spilled over.

I finally decided to treat myself to a long stroll through all of New York: from the waterfront north to Chambers Street, and a side-to-side wander from the East River to the North River, which some had taken to calling the Hudson. For one day, my legs would be my own, not at the beck and call of others.

On Christmas morning, Lady Seymour presented me with a new pair of black leather shoes that did not pinch any of my toes. Madam gave the soldierwives each a coin. She gave me nothing.

When we returned home from the service at St. Paul's Chapel, Madam explained that my day off would begin
as soon as I had finished serving the midday meal. Sarah had cooked it in advance: a sirloin of beef, smoked ham, onion pie, and a plum pudding for dessert. Master and Madam both filled up on the onion pie and hardly touched the fresh-baked bread. Lady Seymour ate enough for an undersized mouse.

I et porridge and beef for my Christmas dinner, a right curious combination but a tasty one.

As I cleared away the table, Madam informed me that my day off would begin after I brought in wood and washed up the dishes. Lady Seymour fired off a cannonblast of a glare at her, but Madam pretended not to notice, and the master kept his face planted in his newspaper. There had been heat rising between the two women for days. Madam was prepared to row the aunt to Charleston to get rid of her.

After the meal, the Master went to order the carriage to take them to some admiral's house for eggnog. Lady Seymour said she was going to rest and required nothing of me. As the lady limped to her chamber and the master disappeared down the stairs, I picked up the tray that held the last of the dishes. Madam poured herself another cup of tea.

“One moment, girl,” she said.

I paused. “Yes, ma'am?”

Madam said nothing while she stirred the sugar into her tea. She sipped, wrinkled her nose, added another spoonful, stirred, then sipped again. She set the teacup in the saucer and examined the walnut tarts on the plate before her.

I stood like a statue holding the tray. Would she take away the rest of my day? Force me to wash the table linens or starch the master's shirts?

Madam gave her tea another stir. “You have been idling around the Bridewell prison.”

My heart stopped.

She picked up a tart, considered its scorched bottom, and returned it to the plate. “My husband's aunt says that you visit the prison at her direction, bringing tablescraps not good enough for pigs. She declared that forgiving and caring for the enemy is doing the Lord's work.”

My heart started up again, racing so fast I thought it might escape my body.

Madam picked up a second tart and scratched off the scorched bits with her knife before taking a bite. She chewed, sipped more tea, and swallowed. “My husband's aunt is a blithering idiot who has completely lost her wits. You should have told me of her requests at once.”

She finally looked at me, her eyes cold as frozen coins. “You represent this house, girl. Your visits could put us under suspicion of having rebel tendencies. I will be not ruined by you, be it through innocence, as Aunt proclaims, or insolence, which I suspect. I forbid you to go to the prison.”

My arms shook from the weight of the tray as well as her words. She could do anything: order me to the stocks, another branding, or a public whipping of hundreds of lashes. She could beat me herself. She could sell me as she had done Ruth, only place me with the cruelest master, who'd work me to death in days.

A pearl of sweat trickled down my cheek.

Madam finished the tart and wiped the corners of her mouth with her fingertip. “While my husband's aunt lives here, my hands are tied.” She reached for another tart. “But she'll be soon gone, one way or another, and Elihu will be in England.” She popped the entire tart into her mouth, chewed, then licked her fingers.

“That is the day you should fear, girl.”

*   *   *

After the carriage left and dishes were washed and Lady Seymour was sound asleep, I started my free day, still trembling from Madam's threat. How could I get word to Curzon that I couldn't bring food any longer? Would Dibdin let him starve if I stopped being his messenger? What if I ignored Madam's rule and continued to visit the Bridewell?

I walked block after block pondering. I walked past the ropeworks and the brewery, to the orchards on the east side, silent under the snow. I walked past houses that had letters “G R,”
George Rex,
carved into the front door, property stolen in the name of the King.

Like Madam had carved her letters into my soul, burned the mark into my skin.

She can do anything. I can do nothing.

The ashes of sadness and the buzzing bees of my melancholy all spun a storm inside of me, and I walked and walked until my new shoes rubbed blisters all over my feet and the blisters popped. I took off the shoes and walked in the snow. Once my feet were froze enough, the blisters didn't hurt.

As the sun ran for the west, rowdy songs started up in the taverns and groggeries. I found myself on the shore of the North River, just above the Battery. Empty rowboats were tied up to a wharf. As the tide pulled out to the ocean, they bobbed and bumped against each other. A few lights twinkled across the water in faraway New Jersey. I thought of all the ancestors waiting at the water's edge for their stolen children to come home. Waiting and waiting and waiting …

A thought surfaced through my ashes.

She cannot chain my soul.

Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so. But what was one more beating? A flogging, even? I would bleed, or not.
Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could no longer harm Ruth, and she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave it to her.

This was a new notion to me and a curious one.

A group of soldiers singing loud as they could swayed down the street, very muddy in drink. I hid in the shadows until they were gone, then headed back to Wall Street. I passed several houses filled with Christmas carols: “Joy to the World” and “I Saw Three Ships” and “The First Noel.” A fat candle glowed on a parlor windowsill of a house on a corner, set there to guide someone home.

The Locktons and Lady Seymour were all retired for the night by the time I returned. The house was still empty of soldiers and their wives. I built up the fire in the hearth, set my shoes and damp stockings to dry in front of it, and rubbed a calendula salve on my blisters.