Martha Peake (38 page)

The next morning New Morrock awoke to the knowledge that it now sheltered a detachment of redcoats and a crew of English seamen in the port. The redcoats were billeted in the George and the seamen were aboard the
Queen Charlotte
, and Martha was not alone that morning in running at once to the window and looking down to the harbour, and the hulk tied up off the end of Rind’s Wharf. The weather, instead of throwing up tempests and hurricanoes to match the passions that simmered in every heart that day, instead unfolded the first of a string of still, cold, cloudless days in which the world in its physical vestments shone forth with a terrible clarity, the most vivid element of that shining world being the faded red coats of the English soldiers as they emerged from their billet on Front Street. That, and the
Queen Charlotte
, visible to every household in the town, so that not for a second could they forget this monstrous broken alien vessel riding at anchor in their harbour.

When Martha went downstairs Silas had already gone out. She spoke briefly to Adam before he too left the house. Dear good Adam, he stole what moments he could with his love before kissing her at
the back door then hurrying off down the hill to Pierce’s. There he was publicly delegated by his father to lead a squad of redcoats into the woods to select a good straight pine for a mainmast; and it surprised nobody that he set off to the south, away from Scup Head, away from his father’s sawmill, with Caesar at his side and the soldiers in rank behind them.

Now Martha began to glimpse the delicacy of the predicament into which Silas Rind was plunged by the arrival of the
Queen Charlotte
. She spoke to Sara, and came to understand the necessity Silas faced of making an ally of the Englishman, almost indeed a friend. The
Lady Ann
was moored behind Scup Head, just a few miles away, and not far off the sawmill was packed to the roofbeams with materials of war. Silas wanted no suspicions aroused. He did not want those redcoats out searching the countryside. He wanted them away from New Morrock as quick as possible, and as they could not leave until their ship was refitted, he had sent them off into the woods for a mast, and given Captain Hawkins his word there would be no ambush.

27

T
here was no ambush, and late in the afternoon came the news that a tree had been felled and trimmed; they would go back the next day with horses and chains to drag it out. The family was sitting down to dinner when Adam and Caesar returned to the house, and Silas told them they had done well. They then fell to their food and Silas said nothing more.

Not until the meal was over and the table was being cleared did he make his announcement. To general astonishment he told them that Captain Hawkins would be coming to the house that night, and would they all please show a civil face to the man. This he said in that dry, grim way of his that was not without humour, but it was that desiccated humour which Martha now recognized as a Massachusetts variation on a certain laconic English wit. Silas Rind was a man of some severity, even in his levity.

Her heart sank. She had no desire to confront the man again; he was a British officer, and any connection with him must compromise her. She had a wild hope that she might be able to avoid him when he came, but that hope was soon dashed, for Silas was looking at her as he had the day before, and she could have no doubt that some scheme was afoot that concerned her. She was not surprised then, when the meal ended, that Silas asked her if she would come to his
room. Without waiting for an answer he rose to his feet and left the kitchen and Martha, also rising, and casting a look at her aunt, so as to excuse herself, followed him out with lowered eyes and the sensation of moving through quicksand.

He was in his parlour, in his great chair, and she stood before him with all the humility of the family dependent in the presence of the master. It was a room in which she had rarely felt at ease, particularly at night, when the dark leatherbound tomes crowding the bookcases, and the black paneling on the walls, and the glass cases and stoppered jars that gleamed on the high shelves, all exhaled the heady forbidding fumes of male knowledge, male mysteries, male power. And there in his great chair, that great carved throne of his authority, with his stout-shod feet planted firmly on his own firm floor, and his big strong hands with the black hairs fleeced across their backs laid flat on the arms of the chair, and his face all crags and clefts in the shadows—oh, Martha Peake was a girl of strong heart, but Silas Rind, when he waxed severe, he put the fear of God in her.

But she showed nothing of this, she stood before him in a guise of meekness and willed the child in her belly to be still. What he had to say to her was simple but it confused her all the same. He wished her to be present when Captain Hawkins came. She asked him why. He said that she had known more Englishmen than he had, and that she could judge the captain’s intentions. I want, he said, another pair of eyes.

Silas, I believe, did not deceive with skill on this occasion. He said these words with a certain shrugging vagueness, as though they occurred to him in the moment of speaking. Martha sensed at once that he had another purpose which he wished to hide from her. She began to say she knew nothing of army officers, but he lifted a hand and she fell silent. They heard a footfall on the path outside the house, and Silas went to the window.

“He is here,” he said. “Sit in that chair, Martha. Say nothing unless I address you. Listen close, and afterwards you will tell me what you think of him.”

“Yes sir,” said Martha, and retired to the back of the room where he directed her.

The captain was brought into the parlour and on being introduced to Martha betrayed only the slightest hesitation of recognition; and said nothing. It seems he grasped at once the delicacy of her position, an English girl alone among the colonists. He wore a powder-blue coat streaked with salt and less than splendid. His bulldog features were grave, composed, watchful.

“Captain Hawkins,” said Silas, “this is Martha Peake, my niece. She is lately come from England, and advises me in matters that concern your country. I value her judgment. You will not mind if she is present at our conversation.”

Martha saw that Captain Hawkins found it as implausible as she did that Silas Rind should seek the advice of a girl, but he showed nothing of it. He bent over her hand, as she rose from her chair, and as his head came up she saw his eyebrows lift, and his eyes gleamed in the candle-flame as he caught the creamy flawless radiance of her skin; and there was, too, I believe, in his eyes, a whisper of friendship, a warm memory of the hour they had spent together aboard the
Plimoth
.

“Mistress Peake, honoured,” he murmured, and there it was, the peculiar rich cadence of his accent.

“Captain Hawkins,” said she, keeping her eyes down, for she wanted no traffic of looks and lashes here in her uncle’s sanctum.

The two men then threw back some rum—she should have liked to drink some rum herself, but was not offered it—and Silas led the captain to the far end of the room where Martha could not hear what they said. She had the opportunity then to examine Giles Hawkins at her leisure; and there was, she saw it now, as he patronized Silas, and played the English gentleman, an arrogant streak in him, a pridefulness that set him apart from those he considered his social inferiors; her uncle, it was clear, being one such. You must play him,
she thought, like a big fat trout, glimpsing the vanity that lay behind his pride.

But was this not what her uncle was doing, even as Martha thought the thought? He knew it before she did—that there was one thing only the captain did not see clearly, and that was himself! So she watched Silas impersonate the rustic colonial, she watched him flatter the captain, but with such subtlety that nobody who did not know Silas Rind for the man he was would see it. Silas Rind did not grin at Englishmen! He did not scratch his head, nor slap another man on the shoulder, and he certainly never showed the effects of a glass or two of rum; but now he was doing all these things, and the Englishman watched him with an amused condescension that confirmed him in his assumption of his own superiority.

Then Silas was calling Martha over, telling her to go to the kitchen and fill the jug, and as she took it from him he grasped her by the cheek and turned her toward the captain, saying something about the flowers of England, and she guessed at once that he wanted her to show his guest how she bridled at being thus handled, but was forced to endure it—and the anger blazed up in the Englishman’s eye, but he, like her, could not show it under Silas’ own roof—and in that moment a new sympathy was born in him, as he saw Martha Peake as a maiden trapped in the house of a monster, the maiden an English maiden, and the monster—American.

She knew it for the bold tactic it was. Silas wanted the Englishman not to know his strength. He must think Silas a boor and a fool, and he must sail away from New Morrock believing the colonists a set of coarse buffoons incapable of fighting a war. Thus did Martha reason it as she left the room with the empty jug and filled it from the keg in the kitchen.

They were again deep in talk when she returned, and from what she could hear she understood Silas to be warning the captain that the men in the town were hard to control, and the less the British soldiers showed themselves the less the risk of confrontation, which neither of them wanted. The captain was nodding his head as his eye
strayed from Silas to Martha, and she knew the bait was taken, the hook was in.

Thus far Martha had played her uncle’s game. Now, as she poured each man another tot, she asked herself: and what is my game here? What am I to have from all this? And then she thought: it is not what I want that matters anymore, but what my child wants—what can I do here in his best interest?

Later that night, in bed, her hands on her belly to keep him warm, she reflected that her child’s presence within her had again changed the direction of her thoughts, indeed their very nature.

But before she got to bed she had still to navigate the treacherous waters below. Captain Hawkins and her uncle completed their business and the Englishman left soon after, though not before once more taking Martha’s hand to his lips, and again his eyes spoke with some eloquence as his head came up. Nor was Silas blind to this. He saw him out. When he returned he sank into his chair and his head fell back and for a few seconds he closed his eyes. He sighed. Then he sat up.

“Ah, Martha,” he said. “Martha Peake. If you knew what all this costs me.” He gazed at her a moment, his fingers drumming on the arms of the chair. “Perhaps you do,” he said. “But I am pleased with you. Now tell me, what did you make of that fine fat enemy of ours?”

Martha had had but a few minutes to prepare herself for this question. But she knew it was the interest of her unborn child she served now. I am weak, she told herself, I must survive if I am to protect him, and so I must ally myself with the strong party. She had decided in those few minutes to ally herself with Silas. So once more, deeper now, ever deeper, did she come over to the American side. For it had occurred to her that she might have gone with Giles Hawkins, had she so chosen.

She picked her words with some care. “His pride makes him blind,” she said. “He is not a match for you, sir.”

There was a silence. Had she said too much? Had she flattered when she should have been silent? But no; all was well. There came a brief loud shout of laughter and Silas leaped up and crossed the room with outstretched hands.

“You have it all!” he cried, pulling her to her feet. “You understand me, Martha Peake! Of all the children in this house, you alone understand me.”

For a few seconds he held her hands and with narrow bright eyes and a small tight smile, his head pushed forward and his whole body tense and trembling with the impulse of his soul, which was toward Martha, he gazed into her eyes. She held his gaze and kept it from the secret thoughts within.