My Name is Resolute (35 page)

I sighed so deeply I almost fainted. Home. Ma. Two Crowns. At last, at last. “How long will the voyage take?” I asked. “How shall it be paid for? What—”

“About two months. And think nothing of it. Anything you want onboard is already paid for. You will of course need a chaperone.”

“And you arranged for me a cabin, not just a place in the hold?”

He laughed. “You have a cunning sense of humor, dear Miss Talbot.”

Serenity took my arm and we hugged each other. I was happier than I knew I could be. So many wonderful things in a single day. I looked at Wallace and thought, Oh, my blessed betrothed, thanked him with my eyes and a small smile. We pulled away from the Neck talking of any and every thing and nothing of import.

Two days later, the Spencer family sent to me a gift of a traveling trunk for my voyage. When next Wallace called, I found myself surrounded by the Roberts family, with no chance of speaking to him privately. A game of whist, an afternoon tea, and a light breeze though it threatened of rain later, we girls were aglow with happy chatter. It was Herbert who caused everything to change. He came to Wallace, smirk on his face and hands on hips, and demanded an audience. “I will speak with you, Master Spencer,” Herbert said, drawing himself up to his fullest.

Wallace said, “You address your elders as ‘mister,’ not ‘master.’ That is for boys. As yourself.”

“I say, sir. I am now the man of this family. I just intend to know if you are going to marry Miss Talbot.”

His sisters erupted in laughter. Serenity said, most condescendingly, “Herbert, that is not the type of question you ask an adult. You are far too impertinent.” Uneasiness settled upon us all, then. Wallace excused himself early, before dinner, and his empty place already set at table seemed a burning firebrand in the room, a thing we could not explain or condone.

Before the pudding came out, I excused myself claiming a headache, but in truth it was my heart that troubled me. I promised them I would be recovered by morning if allowed to retire early. I had never before been given to fits of dramatic anguish, such as was common in this family. I had witnessed America Roberts throwing herself upon her coverlets and weeping, or the twins clubbing the floor with fists and feet and felt ashamed of them, yet I felt compelled to do just that. I supposed they were excused by their youth for such villainy, and composed myself to dress for bed and then sit at my dressing table and cry. A soft tapping at the door gave me to sigh, for I had no wish to discuss my sorrow, could not do so, for I knew not why I was disconsolate. “Please enter,” I said.

Serenity opened the door. She had on her dressing gown of violet satin, the collar of which I had embroidered with lavish white and gold roses. “Why are you so disturbed? Was it because of what Herbert said? He is just a child, you know. You will find a love, someday. Wallace and I have been closest friends since we were children.”

I felt my resolve for honesty melt like candle wax. “My mother is my only hope. At least you have yours here to be with you in any sadness or joy, to help you.”

She made a sound, pursing her lips. “I never pictured Mother helping me. I hardly knew Father. He sat in his office and went to town. He treated us no better than he treated the servants. In truth I feel as if a great weight were lifted off my shoulders, not having to please him all the time when I never knew how.”

I wept anew. “That is so—” I meant to say pitiful, but stopped the word. “Sad. My father was heroic and kind. He would sooner wink at me than scold me. It pains me now that I ever gave him distress.”

“How sad for you.”

I straightened in my seat. “If he had lived, I would never have suffered so.”

She paced a bit, and then settled in the other chair, a cushioned wingback next to the fireplace. “What have you suffered? You seem so elegant. So knowledgeable. Two languages learned well, fine handiwork. Father told us nothing of whence you came, only that you were to be our ward. Only your want of returning to your homeland would suggest you were not as Bostonian as any of His Majesty’s subjects.”

“I have lived my life waiting to return home. I am going, thanks to Mr. Spencer.”

A look of displeasure crossed her face, as if my saying his name were an affront to her. “He is most kind. You must have accompaniment, and protection. Perhaps Wallace and I should go. The West Indies? Could be adventurous. A memory to last all our lives.”

“Serenity, I should tell you about Wallace and me.”

“Tell me what?” She seemed to shrink into her clothing then, as if a blow had been dealt, a real blow, much closer to the bone than her father’s death. “
He’s
going with you? Is that it? But not I? Does he not intend to take me along? You have plotted behind my back, whilst I show you the tenderest affection?”

“I implore you, Serenity. I cannot deny our affections.”

“Your affections? You have seduced Wallace? You cannot presume to speak for him as well for I have known him my whole life.” She stamped one foot, rose and made for the door. My new bonnet hung on a hook near it. She clutched it and threw it toward the fireplace as she went out. One of the ribbons caught fire but I pulled it out before more damage was done.

Mistress Roberts came to me an hour later. “Your scheme will not happen. I have sent a letter to Lady Spencer with all the details. The only person who will convince me of it is young Wallace himself. I hope you know how ashamed I am of you. How sorry that we showed you all the kindness of family, to be repaid by this.”

“Madam, he and I are quite in love.”

“Love? What has that to do with it? Men have their dalliances. It means nothing compared to a proper marriage.”

“But we will marry. In Jamaica.”

“You shall not. He has promised Serenity. Even if you travel as a paramour with him and go around the world, you shall not marry him.”

After that night, my presence in their house was tolerated but coldly. I made a promise to myself to suffer any bitterness until I could leave. For a few more days, I could stand anything.

Three days later, when Mistress Roberts’s personal serving maid unbolted the door to a knock in the morning, I thought nothing of it until I happened to look up from my packing and see out the window. A file of eight uniformed men on horseback waited in two lines under the carriageway. It was too intimate a place for a cadre of uninvited soldiers. I joined the Roberts daughters on the stairway as Mistress came into the receiving parlor. We heard shouting, Mistress crying out. Betsy and Tipsie ran down the stairs and I followed close on their heels with Serenity, America, Herbert, and Henry.

The boys darted between us to plant themselves squarely in the midst of their mother and the men with whom she argued. Between Mistress Roberts’s cries and the sobbing of the staff and daughters, what we learned was that Mr. Roberts had put up his house against the promised boon from a ship that did not exist. The Roberts family had been cheated out of everything by Peterson Cole, who before the ink was dry had sold the wager to another and disappeared. The new owner, Mr. Barrett, had called in the debt and was taking possession of the house and all its contents. We were to be put into the street that very day with what personal effects we could carry. Mistress begged for more time, but the man in charge told her she had already been given two months in which to make things right.

I ran to the carriage house. After I pleaded with the groom, he drove me to Lord Spencer’s mansion on the finest avenue in Boston. I walked inside the cool entrance, breathing in the smells of wood and coffee, rum, tobacco, and old wool carpets. It smelled like home.

I followed the butler to where Wallace sat reading in a drawing room furnished in shades of umber, so dark that it needed candles lit at noon. “Oh, my dear,” I said when I saw him. I ran to him and knelt at his knee. “There is terrible news at the Roberts home.”

Wallace raised one hand. “Bring us tea, Oswald.”

When Oswald left, I said, “They are to be turned out.”

Then he faced me. “Turned out?”

“Soldiers came this morning with a magistrate and constable. Mr. Roberts had lost everything to the Seaman’s Mercantile. The owner is calling in the debt, taking the house. Mistress Roberts has to leave immediately and will be guarded so that they take nothing of value.” My heart was not brought down for them, for I had my own life ahead of me. I had Wallace ahead of me. I would be in the arms of my mother in two months or less.

“Are you asking me to take it on? You know, do you not, that I am dependent. I could not ask my father to assume such a debt.”

“I am asking you to marry me now. Take me off their hands. We are promised. Let us marry and be wed, and they will have that much less with which to concern themselves. When I am come to Jamaica, my estate will be yours. Then if you agree with my wish to help them, we shall be able to do it.”

Wallace grew still and silent. He lost all his merry ways and gentle looks. He said, “There’s one thing to be said for changing horses in the middle of the lane.”

Oswald appeared carrying a tray. I poured tea into the delicate porcelain cups. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Nothing. Tell me how it happened, for I have been so busy preparing our new lives I gave it no thought at all. I knew the old man had a weak heart. It was spoken about town. He was known, you know, among
our
circles.”

“His heart did not fail him. His financial partner did.”

“I insist on knowing, dear one.”

“I thought you knew and were just being polite. He hanged himself from a rafter in his study. Hard to believe the servants have not passed that around the town.”

“Lord,” he said, and downed the last of the tea in his cup.

I reached for his hand and he took it as I said, “Yes.”

“They were notified today, this very day, you said, yet the magistrate insisted they had had prior knowledge? I must go there at once.”

“I came in their carriage.”

“Wait for me in the hall.”

I felt hurt by his brusque tone, but thought of Mr. Roberts’s manner of speaking. Perhaps it was the way with these New Englanders.

At the Roberts estate, soldiers stood by each door to the outside. Wallace marched past them as if they were curtains, going straight into Mr. Roberts’s study. He sat at Mr. Roberts’s desk and leafed through papers, tossing down one after the other, causing the stack to collapse. The letter from the solicitor of Two Crowns slid to the floor with several others. If I were to write to him directly, bypassing the use of the lawyers at Foulke and Harrison, I would need it. I put it in my pocket. By then the rest of the family had entered the room and he came up with one written in Mr. Roberts’s hand, a sort of apology for the state of his affairs, and another from Mr. Barrett’s solicitor dated two months prior. I said, “It is late, Wallace. There is nothing you can do.”

Wallace turned a stern countenance to me as if he were a father, or worse, a master, and said, “Do not pretend to know what I am about. It makes you unseemly. A man’s bride must not presume to know his business.” Serenity gasped, threw her hands to her mouth, and ran out, sobbing. Her sisters and mother shrieked and followed her.

I felt chastened as if Birgitta had thumped me with her stick. My heart wrenched in its place, tears welled, and I felt shocked. “Of course not,” I said.

He managed a smile but I could see through my own tender feelings that it strained him to do so. “First lesson. When it comes to business, you mind your tatting.”

Why they let Wallace go through their father’s and husband’s papers, scattering them as any mouse searching for crumbs might do, I surmised was the result of years of convincing that anything a man said or did was not to be questioned. I wondered then if I would ever have the patience to bear such indignity as they, and with such peaceful countenance. Was it true what Patey had said about needing a man for business? I hoped his sharp tone was due to his concern for the family.

Finally, he held up a sheet of paper and said, “So it is the Honorable Alexander Barrett who has claimed this house.”

Mistress Roberts returned in time to hear his last words. Her face streaked with tears, she held a kerchief to her mouth. Her hair hung in frenzied coils, her fichu askew.

“I don’t know how he could do this,” I said.

“Legally,” Wallace said. “That’s how. That rascal gypsy Cole no doubt convinced both men the risk and the ship were real, took the cash, and left. Now Barrett has no other option but to foreclose to recover his losses.” He stood and straightened his coat, moving toward the door.

“But,” Mistress Roberts asked, “could he not see we’ve lost everything if he takes this house? Where will we live? How shall we eat?”

I said, “Could you speak to Mr. Barrett for Mistress Roberts? Or introduce her to him so she could ask for the house?”

Wallace’s eyes searched mine. His expression told me I had overstepped yet again. He glared at me while addressing her. “I will see what I can do, Madam.”

Mistress Roberts hugged her daughters joyfully, one after the other, praising Wallace even as he made his way out the front door. He borrowed a horse and rode back to town, leaving me there with no further words. She thanked me for bringing him there, though she caught herself in mid-sentence. “Though I am still peeved at you for taking him from my Serenity. If it weren’t for you, we should have no fear at all of losing this house.”

I said, “I assure you with all my heart, if I could have stopped our falling in love, if I could have known, if I could have saved Serenity—”

Serenity had returned, and now stood behind me. “Oh stop,” Serenity said. “If you believe what you say, then walk back into that woods whence you came and never return. Leave him to me where he belongs.”

“Would you have me out on the street?” I asked, cursing the plaintive note in my voice. I had wished to remain aristocratically above begging.

“Yes!” cried Serenity. “We are all on the street because of you, you witch.”

“No!” cried Betsy, America, and Herbert.

Finally, red-faced, Mistress Roberts added, “
We
are not as those who would throw someone out into the street. Now we are to become beggars among our friends.”