Just Jane (4 page)

Most of all, Jane enjoyed Mr. Cordwyn's school—where she was soon speaking up as often as the boys. And she enjoyed spending long hours in Arthur's library, working on reading and writing assignments. For her first essay, she chose a topic from one of Shakespeare's history plays. It dealt with the Wars of the Roses, terrible civil wars that had torn England apart three hundred years before. She was deeply moved by a scene in
King Henry VI
, in which a boy is killed in battle by his own father as they fight on opposite sides. The father cries out in anguish, “What showers arise, blown with the windy tempest of my heart, upon thy wounds . . .”

Jane worried constantly that the colonies' quarrel with England might result in such a war in America. In her essay, she wrote with deep feeling about this fear, expressing the hope that both sides would calm their anger and work together to preserve peace. Her work earned the notation
Excellent
from the schoolmaster, setting her aglow with pleasure and pride.

But she soon noticed that despite Mr. Cordwyn's policy of encouraging classroom discussion, “the troubles,” as they often were called, were a strictly forbidden topic. One day she lingered after class had been dismissed and inquired as to the reason for this.

“Some of these boys come from Loyalist families, some from families with rebel sentiments,” the schoolmaster explained. “The minute the subject is touched upon, heated argument ensues. The next thing I know I've got a brawl on my hands, and the classroom is in chaos for the rest of the day. The only thing to do is to ban the topic altogether.”

“I see. Well, I was just curious, so—”

“That's fine, I'm glad you are. You're curious, you're observant, and you think about things. As a schoolmaster, I take great delight in that.”

Encouraged by his friendly attitude, Jane fell into the habit of lingering after class for further discussion. At first their talks centered on “the troubles.” But gradually—almost without Jane's realizing it—they drifted over into personal subjects. Curiosity, an element he admired in her, was something he demonstrated as well, asking Jane detailed questions about her life in England and listening intently to her answers. Thus he learned that although she possessed all the poise, dignity, and elegant manners expected from the daughter of an English earl, she had come from shabby surroundings. Her mother long dead, her dissolute father usually absent, she had survived a lonely childhood in diminished circumstances, cared for by her nanny, the widow Mrs. Morley, who was her only constant companion.

“But I'm embarrassed to be telling you all this, Mr. Cordwyn,” she said in the end. “It sounds as if I'm complaining, and I don't mean to. I really feel that, considering everything, I've been lucky.”

Simon nodded in sympathetic understanding. “And considering everything, Jane, I'd have to say you are a most remarkable young lady.”

Coaxed by Jane, he, in turn, talked about his own background. Born to hardworking Pennsylvania farm folk, he and his older sister, Rebecca, had been orphaned before they were fully grown. Rebecca, called Becky, had looked after her brother until they parted company a few years later, when Becky got married and Simon went to Philadelphia in pursuit of education. Becky had married a man named Jack Herndon, a prosperous owner of a mercantile store in the town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“I owe everything to Jack and Becky,” Simon told Jane. “They sent me to college. I would have settled in Lancaster and opened a school there, except that it was already overcrowded with schools and schoolmasters. I do miss them. And especially do I miss my niece and nephew. Jack Junior was just three when I left, and the little girl, Frances, was a baby. They're eight and six now. I love those children as if they were my own, and I hate not being there to see them grow up.”

“I understand how you feel,” Jane said sympathetically. “But we need you here.
I
need you here, to stuff some education into my head.”

This made him chuckle. “Jane, my dear, stuffing education into your pretty head is a pleasure I hope to enjoy for a long time to come.”

“Good.” She said it with a smile, wondering what it was that had made her tingle—his calling her pretty, or his calling her
my dear
? Either or both, it didn't matter—the tingle was lovely and strange, something she had never felt before.

 

Each time Brandon came home from one of his racing excursions, he complained anew to Jane about her going to Simon's school. “Why must you do that?” he demanded one day. “Didn't you get enough education in England?”

She looked up from the book she had been reading. “No, Brandon, I didn't. I attended a village school run by a doddering old gentleman who couldn't remember my name, let alone anything else. Mr. Cordwyn is the only competent schoolmaster I've ever had, and an excellent one he is.”

“He's also suspected of being tainted with rebel sympathies.”

“Suspected? By whom?”

“By me, for one. And Uncle Robert, for another. I warn you, Jane. When Uncle Robert hears about this, he'll be very upset.”

“Oh, I hope not, Brandon. Because I'm not doing anything wrong. But I thank you for your concern. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a reading assignment for tomorrow.” She gave him a smile and returned to her book.

 

Often when alone, Jane found herself thinking of the gentle schoolmaster—and realizing that it was not solely for education that she valued their time together so highly.
What else, then?
she wondered. In pondering this mystery, she remembered something he had said to her the day they met.

We have something important in common, you and I. We're both aliens in a foreign land, trying to find our way
.

Never mind being called pretty, or addressed as
my dear
. It was in
that
statement, coming back to her again and again, that Jane found real meaning. In a few words it seemed to identify the two of them as kindred spirits.

There was no doubt in her mind: A strong bond was growing between them.

So the summer days passed tranquilly. Then one sultry morning in late June, the tranquillity was shattered. Jane sensed an undercurrent of anxiety flowing through the house. Arthur and Harriet spoke in low, worried tones. The servants whispered to each other. Grim-faced men came to see Arthur, and Jane, hovering near his closed study door, caught fragments of their ominous conversation.

“ . . . an enormous fleet . . . hundred guns . . . gallant fools on the island . . . people evacuating the city . . . a tragic sight . . .”

Looking down from an upper-floor veranda later, Jane saw the “tragic sight”—families, their possessions piled high on carts, hurrying up the street, as if fleeing an unseen menace.

Suddenly Brandon was standing beside her. “Don't waste your sympathy on them, Jane. Last year they forced our English governor to run for his life. Now he's coming back, and they'll pay for their insolence.”

“And you take pleasure in their wretchedness?” Jane asked coldly.

“Not pleasure, of course not. But neither do I sympathize with them, as I fear my foolish father does. And I should think that as a loyal British subject, Jane, you certainly should not.”

“Nevertheless, I do.” Tugging at the locket around her neck—a sure sign she was upset—she turned away and went to her room.

A while later, Mrs. Morley joined her there, her face clouded with worry. “Something's wrong, Jane. I can feel it in the air.”

Jane was just about to reassure her when a deep boom in the distance shook the room. Hurrying out onto the third-floor veranda, she looked toward the harbor. Far away, visible over the rooftops and church spires of the city, a puff of black smoke curled toward the sky. Three more booms came in quick succession.

Mrs. Morley peered fearfully out. “What is it, Jane?”

“I'm not sure,” Jane replied quietly. “It must be cannon fire.”

“Oh, Lord, have mercy! Come back inside, quickly!”

But Jane had caught sight of the schoolmaster rushing toward the front gate. “Mr. Cordwyn!” she called down to him. “What's happening?”

He glanced up at her without slowing down. “No school today, Jane.”

“But where are you going?”

“To tell my friends on Queen Street to get out while they Still can!” He was out the front gate and down the street in an instant.

With the booms rumbling and rolling across the sky, Jane was suddenly seized with a wild impulse. Queen Street! Cousin Hugh!

She ran for the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “I'll be back later, Mrs. Morley. I'm going with Mr. Cordwyn to Cousin Hugh's!”

“No, dear, you mustn't!” Mrs. Morley cried. “You know your uncle—”

But Jane was already gone.

 

Mr. Cordwyn, wait!” Breathless, she caught up with him a block away. “I'm coming with you!”

Scowling at her, he swept an arm toward the invisible rumblings. “You hear that, Jane? British warships are attacking Charlestown Harbor. You shouldn't be out on the streets. It's not safe. Go home and stay there.”

“Mr. Cordwyn!” Jane stood her ground, eyes ablaze. “For all their kindness, the Ainsleys treat me like a child. You're the only one who has been honest about what's going on. Please, don't let me down. I need to go with you.”

Simon hesitated, struggling with indecision, then finally sighed in resignation. “I'll regret this. But all right, come along.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Cordwyn!”

Over the rumbling cannon fire, Simon explained more as they walked on, threading their way through a mass of fleeing refugees.

“The Patriots are holed up on Sullivan's Island, outside the harbor. All they've got is a couple of guns and a little powder, behind a few palmetto logs they call a fort. With that they plan to turn back a huge British fleet! It's positively pathetic.”

Soon after turning onto Queen Street, he knocked on a door beneath a swinging sign reading, hugh prentice, cabinetmaker. Tacked on the door was a handwritten note reading, CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

“Perhaps they've come to their senses and left,” Simon remarked.

Then a bright-eyed woman with abundant red hair stuck her head out of an upstairs window. “Simon—what a nice surprise! I'll be right down.”

“That was Lydia, Hugh's wife,” Simon told Jane while they waited. “Prepare yourself, Jane, you're about to enter a nest of rebels. But you're also going to learn that rebels can be very nice people.”

 

It was, Jane would decide later, a remarkable learning experience. First there was Lydia, who ushered the visitors into a large, stone-floored room littered with wood shavings, pieces of decorative woodwork on several tables, and a clutter of carving tools. The cabinetmaker's workshop.

Lydia's lively personality seemed to match her flame-colored hair, and she enveloped Jane in a great hug upon being introduced. “You'll call me Lydia. We're all family here,” she said. “Now come on upstairs. Hugh and my son, Peter, are up on the third floor watching the battle through a spyglass. And oh my, Hugh's going to be delighted you're here!”

She led them upstairs and through a second-floor kitchen and eating area. At one end, cooking utensils hung on the wall next to a huge stone fireplace. At the other sat a large oak table and chairs. Hugh's work, Jane assumed, admiringly. At the top of another flight of stairs, they entered what appeared to be a large storage room. Before high windows stood two men, the younger one peering through a telescope. Both turned at the sound of footsteps. When the older man's eyes fell on Jane he stared in disbelief.

“Can this be . . . Jane?” he breathed.

She smiled. “Yes, it's Jane. And you must be Cousin Hugh.” In a few seconds, she found herself wrapped in another enormous hug.

“Jane, my dearest girl! I never thought it would be here in my humble American home that I'd finally meet Lady Jane of Almesbury. But fate has so decreed it, so welcome, Cousin, welcome!” Beaming, he kissed her cheek.

She already knew he was thirty-nine. And now she saw that he was a large, broad-shouldered man with thick dark hair and a roundish face. And when he held her at arm's length for a better look, she realized that in spite of his size, there was a gentleness in his eyes and in his touch.

“Thank you, Cousin Hugh,” she said, and thought:
I like him
.

Then as Hugh turned to shake hands with Simon, the younger man stepped forward to greet Jane. He was nineteen or twenty, she guessed, with his mother's vivid red hair and twinkling eyes.

“I'm Peter Quincy,” he announced with a grin. “Hugh's stepson and apprentice, and the despair of Mr. Cordwyn, who thinks I'm much too belligerent in my devotion to the Patriot cause. He, of course, pretends to be neutral, but—”

“I
am
neutral,” Simon put in sharply. “Seeing nothing but foolish belligerence on both sides, I find it the only sensible course.

Peter's grin disappeared. “There can be no neutrals in this fight, schoolmaster! Sooner or later you'll have to decide which side you're on. The side of tyranny, or the side of freedom!”

“Hush, Peter!” Lydia scolded. “Remember, Jane's an English lady.”

His amiable grin returned as quickly as it had vanished. “Don't mean to offend you, Lady Jane. You're among friends here.”

“Oh, please, don't mind me,” Jane said. “I want to listen and learn all I can.” And once more, she patiently asked to be called simply Jane.

“Come over here. Let me show you something.” Peter led her to a high window where a panoramic view of Charlestown Harbor lay before them. Drifting black smoke hung low, darkening the water. The booming guns were unseen,
but were still booming, and their sound seemed alarmingly closer.