Johnny Tremain (32 page)

'Isannah,' said Cilla gently, 'you can't go off and leave me like this. It's no matter what Mother says. Look, dear, if you go to London, maybe you will never come back. Isannah ... don't go away ... from me.'

Lavinia was smiling under her dark hood.

'I will leave the decision entirely to her. She shall be perfectly free to choose between us. Precious, would you rather go with me to London and be a great lady and wear silks and jewels and ride in coaches, or stay here and be just another poor working girl?' And then, to make the choice doubly hard for the child, she added a little maliciously, 'Which do you love most, Cilla or me?'

Still Isannah said nothing. But even in her silence Johnny could detect something of her desire for drama. At the moment silence was more dramatic than anything she could say. Izzy is no good, thought Johnny. She'll go.

Cilla was standing quietly, well away from the child. She was too proud to make any further appeal to her. Perhaps like Johnny she knew what the answer would be.

'Well,' said Lavinia, 'I haven't got all day. Which do you love the most?'

Isannah began to cry. It was perfectly natural crying. Not even Johnny could believe it was done for effect.

'I don't know,' she sobbed.

'Which would you rather be, a common person like your sister or a fine lady?'

'Fine lady,' she sniffled, and went on dreamily, 'and I'll have a gray pony and a pony cart. I've got the gold locket already.' Her hand went to her throat. Next she'd be saying she wanted a little sailboat. Even now she was only reflecting old desires of Cilla's. Isannah never could think up anything for herself.

'Yes, dear, you will—when I am Lady Pryor-Morton and you my little protégée.' She explained to the others: 'I've been betrothed to marry my lord ever since I last came back from London. Papa is a very sick man. He could never live through a civil war over here. Never. He doesn't want to leave all his property to the mob—but what does it matter? My lord is so rich—this miserable house, our ships, shops, are nothing to him. And my lord never liked it that my papa was in trade. Until now Papa would not give up his trade—nor could I bear to leave him.'

She turned to Cilla, 'And I promise you, I will be in a position to give your sister the best care and training.'

'Training,' said Johnny. 'What's she going to be trained for?'

'Isannah shall be an actress. I would have been myself—but my station in life prevented me. And then, I am too tall. And, besides, I can't act. Isannah shall be the toast of London. You'll be proud someday. Even over here in this dreary wilderness you shall hear her name and boast that once you knew her.'

Mrs. Bessie said smartly, 'I'd welcome the day I was proud to know that Izzy.'

Cilla was not taking the parting as hard as Johnny would have expected. Now he knew that she had been through the worst of it months before when first the two sisters had come to the Lytes'. She had lost Isannah long ago.

'Now, Cilla,' said Miss Lavinia, 'I want you to have some time alone with Isannah. You've been a good girl, Cilla—better than Isannah—but happens she is what I fancy. Now go with her and help her pack her duds.'

Cilla said nothing, but curtsied and went upstairs with Isannah who was once more sobbing.

'You, too,' said Lavinia irritably to Mrs. Bessie. 'You leave me. For I must talk to Johnny alone.'

Mrs. Bessie heaved herself up out of her comfortable chair and shut the door after her.

The young woman sat at last and murmured, more to herself than to Johnny: 'I must talk to you, Jonathan Lyte Tremain.'

Johnny raised his eyes in amazement.

'I wanted to tell you before we left. First of all, Papa never meant to trick you out of your cup. He honestly thought it was an attempt at swindle. I mean that someone here in Boston stole the cup and then found a boy to pretend to be a long-lost relative—and used the cup as proof. Your mother did leave Boston with one of those cups. Papa did not mention that fact in court. There really were five! He implied no more than four ever came to this country.'

'He didn't imply it,' said Johnny. 'He swore it in court.'

'Oh, well—what of it? Let me talk.

'You see, he never knew that his niece, Vinny Lyte, had a child. He had it from your father's family that both she and her husband died of cholera almost as soon as they reached Marseilles. You see, your father was a naval surgeon, a prisoner of war while here in Boston. Oh, nothing very much,' she added scornfully, 'no great fortune or title. And Vinny Lyte fell in love with him. He was everywhere in society that year, although a prisoner of war, and, of course, the Lytes wouldn't hear of a marriage. He a Frenchman and a Catholic. And they told her if she ran off with him she would be cut off and she was never, never to return.'

'But she did?'

'Vinny was so wild she went right ahead. A ship's captain married them. Then his family, of course, would have none of her, she being a heretic. And then he died. They sent word to Papa—your grandfather was dead—that both had died. But his family sent Vinny to a convent—hoping the sisters would convert her, and there—three months after your father died—you were born. You were born in a convent in the south of France. Odd, isn't it?'

'Why do you call my mother Vinny?'

'We all did. Vinny Lyte, the wildest, handsomest girl in Boston. I was only a schoolgirl, but she was so beautiful and so gay. Oh, if you could but have seen her...'

'But I did...' He remembered the sweet, sad face of his sick mother. Was the wild and beautiful Vinny Lyte really the same woman? His mother patiently sewing and sewing to keep life in her son's body. She wanted no more life for herself. Teaching him to read. Making him those smocks. Knowing she had changed so much in such few years, she dared as Mrs. Tremain return to Boston, so her boy could grow up there, learn a decent trade. He thought of her agreeing with Mr. Lapham for his indenture. Smiling as she told him that when she died he was to go there.

'When I first saw you,' Miss Lavinia went on, 'I noticed one thing—but it set me thinking. I did nothing for a while, but this spring I asked one of my father's captains, bound for Marseilles, to feel about and find out the truth. I did so behind Papa's back. Papa was already too ill to be bothered, but I knew he would want to do right.'

'Like swearing in court there never were but four Lyte cups.'

She colored angrily.

'Please let me do the telling. Don't you dare criticize the best man ever lived.'

Johnny had his own opinion on that.

'What was the one thing?' he asked.

'The way your hair turns down upon your forehead. That little peak. She was a dark girl. That widow's peak on her was very striking. And then that day in Mr. Dana's court. I did notice you walked like her, light and wild—like a panther, or'—she shrugged—maybe only like a tom-cat. I admired my cousin so, I may tend to exaggerate her qualities.'

'And what did your captain find out?'

'What I have just told you. And one thing more. Your father, the naval surgeon, was ashamed to be a prisoner of war. He told folks here his name was Latour. That's why your name Tremain meant nothing to us.'

'That is my true name?'

'Yes. But I haven't much time to talk. Only yesterday I told Papa. He's too ill to speak to you himself. He does want you to know that he did not deliberately cheat you—steal your cup.'

'Mother did take it with her?'

'Yes. It belonged to her. And her maid, Mrs. Dennie, went with her. It was Margaret Dennie who got her and you out of the convent and onto a ship her brother commanded and so to Townsend, Maine.'

'That's where I grew up. I remember Aunt Margaret. She died just before Mother took me to Boston.'

'Yes. And Papa says I am to promise you that he will write the whole thing out in black and white. When the war's over'—she shrugged—'you can put in quite a claim for property—if there's any property left, which I doubt. Anything more you wish to ask me?'

'Yes. What relationship are you to me? What ought I to call you?'

She laughed out loud. 'Mercy, I don't know. What am I? Why, I suppose I'm sort of a cousin—but you'd better call me Aunt. Aunt Lavinia.'

He said it tentatively.

'Aunt Lavinia?'

You couldn't even secretly have a romantic passion for an aunt. The queer hold she had had on him for a year snapped.

She went to Johnny, stretched out a hand, and touched the widow's peak—all that he had ever got from the beautiful Vinny Lyte. Then she was gone.

Johnny almost forgot the principal reason for his visit to the Lytes. He would have liked to sit quietly for a moment, brood over what Miss Lavinia had told him. Now was not the time to brood. Cilla and Mrs. Bessie came back together. He told them he must have Pumpkin's uniform. Mrs. Bessie said he was not to think of such a thing.

'If they catch you, Johnny, they will shoot you for impersonating a British soldier in wartime.'

'Lots of better men got shot today—Lexington—Concord ... The British are sending boats back and forth tonight, taking off their men from Charlestown. I can sneak along over with them.'

'No, I forbid you, Johnny. You're going to stay right here and help Cilla and me look after this house.'

'I've got to go.'

'Who's going to look out for the Lyte horses if you walk out on us? General Gage has given his word no person or horse or any household gear will be touched, but we need a man to mind the stable.'

Johnny had an idea.

'Cilla, there is a thing you can do for me.'

'What?'

'Go to the Afric Queen and get my Goblin. Take him up here and turn him out to pasture with the Lyte horses. I guess he won't mind being a Tory for a while.'

'Can I ride him?'

'Yes, if you don't mind falling off.'

'I don't mind.' She looked excited and pleased.

Mrs. Bessie shook her head. 'And who's to care for the animals? You adding your Goblin makes things worse—not better—for us two womenfolk.'

'The coachman's going with the Lytes?'

'Of course. He's English-born.'

'Look here, Mr. Lorne, the printer—he's not what you'd call a coachman, but he was reared on a farm and he's in trouble.'

'British haven't arrested him yet?'

'He hid in a feather bed. But he can't stay there until we've driven the British out of Boston. Couldn't he and his wife and child move up here into the coachman's quarters and you sort of act as though he had always worked here?'

'Of course, they could. I'd be proud to have them. Cilla, just as soon as the
Unicorn
sails, you go to the Lornes and tell 'em to come right up and settle in.'

The girl nodded.

Johnny said, 'If he can get his little press to working again, I think he might like to bring that with him—go on with his "sedition," as they call it. He just about has to print.'

'We can hide his press, too. Nobody would dare hunt here for sedition—not after what Gage promised.'

'He'll be a very happy man, and now I've got to go. Cil, where's that uniform of Pumpkin's?'

'I hid it under my bed. I'll fetch it down.'

Mrs. Bessie shook her head, but she wasn't going to argue any more.

'How old are you, Johnny?' she asked.

'Sixteen.'

'And what's that—a boy or a man?'

He laughed. 'A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.'

'Well, men have got the right to risk their lives for things they think worth it. God go with you, my young man. But if they shoot you, remember, I warned you.'

'I'll remember all right.'

Pumpkin had been a little stouter than Johnny. The uniform went on easily over the boy's breeches and jacket. Mrs. Bessie braided his hair for him and tied it tightly as the British regulars wore theirs.

'You couldn't say, could you,' Cilla asked him, 'why it is you have to get out tonight?'

'Yes. Doctor Warren told me to. Told me things to watch for and report on to him. I've got to find him—and Rab.'

'Rab?'
The girl's voice sounded frightened.

'He was with the Lexington men. They stood up at dawn and the regulars killed quite a few of them.'

'Oh, but Rab?'

Johnny did not answer immediately. He was sitting at the kitchen table and Mrs. Bessie was still fussing with his hair. Not once since Doctor Warren had left had he spoken his name. He hadn't dared to let himself begin thinking about him. If he did, he knew he could not think of anything else. Now he had spoken his name, and emotions, fears, that he had held in check all day surged up through him. But he said quietly, 'I've got to find him. So be a good girl, Cil, and mind Mrs. Bessie.'

He stood up and put on a shiny black hat with a silver cockade on it and saluted smartly. He knew that the last man to wear this uniform had been shot for putting it off and there was a chance he'd get shot for putting it on.

The scarlet tunic, with its pale blue facings, the white crossbands on his chest, the white breeches, made him feel like a different person. Now he was a private of the King's Own. He felt confident and happy. And Rab? Of course, he was all right. You couldn't kill a fellow like Rab with just a handful of bullets.

He shook hands with Mrs. Bessie and, because his uniform made him feel grown up, he kissed Cilla goodbye just as he had the Sunday before seen Rab kiss his aunt. Not at all like a child being kissed by female relatives. But Cilla said mischievously, 'Why, I feel as if I were kissing Pumpkin.'

So Johnny stalked off down Beacon Hill with the proper martial strut. The littler they are, he thought, the more they strut. The physical act of strutting lifted his spirits. Made him feel bigger than he was. Of course that was why the little fellows do it.

And he wondered what had happened to Sergeant Gale.