Sup with the Devil (12 page)

He shot her a sidelong glance—clearly thinking of Wily Cousin Sam—and murmured, “Just so.”

“The circumstance of their theft so soon after their acquisition, and of poor Diomede—Mr. Fairfield’s man—being drugged to prevent his waking during the theft, seem to me sufficient grounds to merit investigation, and intervention on your part to have the matter tried here in Massachusetts, where witnesses in the man’s defense can be brought forward. Objectionable as the condition of slavery is, I do
not
see it as ipso facto proof of a slave’s guilt in his master’s murder when there are circumstances that so clearly point to another cause.”

“I quite agree, Mrs. Adams. And yet, the law is established to defend a man’s rights to his property, and I cannot subvert it—”

“The law is established, Your Excellency, to defend a man’s
life
. And the slave Diomede’s life will surely be forfeit if he is taken back to Virginia, for whatever witnesses can be found as to another motive for the murder will most likely not follow him there. In their absence, I very much fear that the courts—if a slave is even entitled to a hearing before Virginia courts—”

“He is,” put in the Governor drily.

“I am thrilled to hear it,” she returned. “But do you trust them? Do you trust them even to read the affidavits? Do you trust them not to take the simplest reading of the matter and avoid putting themselves to the inconvenience of delving for the truth? Would you wish to rely on such a court to defend your own life? Or the life of one of your sons?”

His thin lips pressed together—annoyed at her vehemence, she suspected, yet unable to refute her words. “I see what you mean, Mrs. Adams,” he said at length. “Yet your position is based upon supposition, and your assumption of what a certain body of men
may
do or
might
do. Mine is based upon the law. It is beyond my power, as Governor of this colony, to abrogate the rights of property, particularly the rights of a citizen of another colony—and it is moreover quite properly beyond my power. Heaven forfend that a man should take a legal action based upon suspicion of what
might
be in another man’s mind. Yet I shall certainly write to Mr. Congreve,” he added, as Abigail opened her mouth to object, “that he is not to release this Negro man into the custody of Mr. Fairfield, Senior’s, agents until he has communicated with me. I assume”—his voice thinned a little, like one forcing himself to be absolutely just—“that your husband will take it upon himself to defend this unfortunate valet?”

“He will.”

“Then your best course of action—and his—will be to ascertain the facts of the case as quickly as possible, before communication from Virginia forces the issue one way or another. It will be at least two weeks, perhaps more, before Mr. Fairfield, Senior, arrives on these shores. With concrete evidence of a third person involved, I shall have more leverage against the law of property. Without it, I must yield. I hope you understand my position, madame?”

“I do.” Abigail rose, and held out her hand. Her whole Christian soul revolted against what the Governor had said, and yet, as a lawyer’s wife, she understood the principle from which he spoke. She forced back her temper, and said with an assumption of warmth that she barely felt, “And I thank you for what you can do, sir, and for what you are willing to do in this poor man’s defense.”

The Governor’s slim fingers—cool and dry as a snake’s back—closed around hers, and he led her to the door. “Mr. Oliver—?”

His secretary materialized, bowing, to conduct her out.

 

 

M
rs. Adams!” Joseph Ryland got to his feet in surprise as she came back into the parlor, which was—despite the dimming of the daylight from the windows—more crowded than before. Nabby—to Abigail’s approval—who had been about to leap to her feet and scamper to her mother’s side, yielded at once to the dictum that the affairs of adults took precedence over the discomfort of eight-year-old girls abandoned in roomfuls of strangers, and settled back in her chair, grateful at least that her mother was in the range of her sight.

“Mr. Ryland.” Abigail held out her hand, over which the young bachelor-fellow bowed. “Are you here also to speak to His Excellency on behalf of poor Diomede?”

He looked momentarily nonplussed. “Of course, I shall speak as to his innocence—”

“Not necessary,” she assured him, a little drily. “Governor Hutchinson has agreed to intervene, insofar as the laws of
property
permit, to at least give us time to find the true culprit.”

“I would have expected nothing less of the man.” Ryland’s shoulders relaxed, as if relieved of the weight of a water-yoke. “I know that your husband finds his politics objectionable.” He spoke diffidently, but who in the colony wasn’t aware—Abigail reflected—of the diatribes John had had printed, under his own name and pseudonyms like Novanglus and Mrs. Country Goodheart? “But in truth, m’am—as I’m sure you have learned, in even the briefest of encounters with him—that his nature is not only just, but generous and noble. Will your husband indeed take on poor Diomede’s cause?”

“I shall see to it he does. But I did mean to ask you—”

He glanced around as another young man, trim and elegant in a suit of plum-colored velveteen, was shown into the parlor. “Mr. Ryland,” the newcomer greeted him affably, casually handing off his hat to the secretary, and Ryland bowed.

“Mr. Heywood.”

“Shocking business about poor old George, isn’t it? So much for La Woodleigh’s schemes to snabble his acres for her daughter—”

Abigail tardily identified La Woodleigh as the wife of Montgomery Woodleigh, who lived in Cambridge and owned five ships and considerable property in Boston.

“Anyone know if she’s heard?”

“I myself informed Mrs. Woodleigh this morning.” Spots of color appeared on Ryland’s cheeks, and Mr. Heywood grinned.

“Not wasting a moment, are you, old boy? Going to get your bid in with the beautiful Sally?” But he laughed as he said it, as if he’d asked, did Mr. Ryland have plans to be crowned King of England in the near future? An absurdity, to think that a young Fellow of the College whose out-of-date coat was worn threadbare at the elbows and whose stockings showed neat mends above the re-dyed backs of his shoes would offer for the hand of a Woodleigh. Abigail felt a flush of anger rise along her neck, at his look of carefully controlled chagrin.

“More to the point,” spoke up another young gentleman seated nearby—Abigail half recognized him as one of the younger Apthorps, whom she’d seen with his extremely wealthy parents at the Brattle Square Meeting-House—“d’you know when the Volunteers will be meeting, to select a new captain? I mean, we’ll miss old George terribly and all that, but trouble could break out at any moment, you know. We can’t be caught leaderless when it starts if we’re to get any kind of preferment when the King sends in his regular troops.”

“You sound very sure that he’ll be sending troops, sir,” said Abigail, and the young Apthorp rose to bow to her, Mr. Heywood acknowledging her with a deep salute as well.

“Mrs. Adams,” introduced Ryland in a colorless voice. “Mr. Heywood, Mr. Apthorp.”

She saw the glance that passed between them at her name.

“
Lieutenant
Apthorp, of the King’s Own Volunteers . . .”

“If you’ll excuse my saying so, m’am,” replied Mr. Heywood politely, “the King can hardly do anything
but
send troops, you know. I mean, whatever is finally decided about colonists’ rights and all that”—his gesture dismissed the question as if it were one of how many beads to pass along to the Indians—“Parliament isn’t going to let itself be dictated to by a gang of hooligans dressed up as Mohawks. If you ask me, m’am, your husband and his friends did themselves a great disservice, resorting to violence that way. They’re never going to get away with it.”

“I’m not sure who you think my husband is,” responded Abigail, “as there are a great many Adamses in Massachusetts—but if violence is not the answer, as you say, I don’t entirely see how sending armed men into the situation is going to calm it. Surely—”

Young Mr. Oliver appeared in the doorway of the inner study. “Mr. Heywood?”

Mr. Apthorp went in with his friend; the secretary raised no objection. Nor, evidently, did the Governor, because the door remained closed.

Ryland turned back to his chair but waited until Abigail took the seat next to his before sitting down himself.

“And is Mr. Heywood a
lieutenant
also?”

A small sigh escaped his lips. “I had hoped—” he began, and then was silent.

Abigail said nothing, and in time, Ryland went on, with suppressed exasperation, “I shouldn’t mind it, you know, if either of them had the slightest experience of arms or command—other than telling their grooms to saddle their horses, that is. George served in the Virginia militia; for my sins I volunteered, like the idiot boy I was, to join the King’s forces when Pontiac and his Indians attacked in the west of Pennsylvania. I’ve
had
experience in war. And, His Excellency knows me. For six years I’ve worked in his library . . .”

He stopped himself again, and simply finished, “Well.”

And you still ask why men in this colony find fault with Crown Governors who give positions of advantage only to those whose wealth will help them or to friends of the King?
She didn’t say it, but Ryland, looking at her face, must have seen the words there, for he sighed again, and said, “
Dura lex, sed lex
. . .”

“
The law is harsh, but it is the law
,” repeated Abigail softly.

“And things as they are, are harsh,” said Ryland. “But the alternative—turning the country over to men who think the answer to a legal problem is the destruction of other men’s property—is, I think, a solution worse than the problem.”

He folded his hands and sat for a time looking at them. The Governor’s butler came in with yet another petitioner and, as he passed Ryland’s chair, nodded to the young man in a friendly way. She remembered someone saying yesterday—Weyountah?—that Mr. Ryland was one of the several young men whom Governor Hutchinson was sponsoring into Harvard, supporting not only the cost of their tuition and books, but in cases providing clothing and fuel in the cold New England winters as well. His faded green coat, with its old-fashioned, too-full skirts and threadbare cuffs, was of expensive wool and might well have belonged to the Governor himself ten or fifteen years ago. It was nothing a young man would buy for himself, even if he had the two or three pounds that such a garment would cost new.

At length he said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Adams. There was something you wanted to ask of me, and I’ve let myself become distracted—”

“No, ’tis no matter.” She put a hand briefly on his sleeve, and he raised his head a little, brown eyes meeting hers, then moving to the blue twilight beyond the windows. A servant came in with a taper and proceeded to light the candles in their holders all around the walls: beeswax and bayberry, not tallow, and all of them new. Abigail wondered what the Governor paid for lighting this great house, first and last, and if his half-burnt candles were passed along to his protégé?

“It is, though,” he said. “And I see your very faithful and patient daughter is hoping that all of this will be over soon.” He smiled at Nabby, which made Abigail smile in her turn.

“And so it will,” said Abigail. “I wished only to ask you, Mr. Ryland . . . How difficult would it have been for someone to drug Diomede? To get into Mr. Fairfield’s room, and to put laudanum into his rum? I think it must have been someone in the college, someone who knew the doors have no locks, who knew that Diomede was in the habit of sneaking his master’s rum when Mr. Fairfield was out at night. Was Diomede generally in his master’s rooms when his master was at lecture or in the library?”

“Either there or close by,” replied the young man. “Or Horace was there—doing George’s work as well as his own, I fear.” Disapproval deepened the lines at the corner of his mouth. “Two years ago—not long after the Volunteers were formed—Fairfield’s rooms were vandalized: books torn up, clothing and bedding defiled. No one was ever punished for it.”

Given Dr. Langdon’s political views, this didn’t surprise Abigail, but something inside her cringed. Though in principle she understood it when Sam said that the King and his minions would not pay attention to mere words, still she sensed that this kind of random violence did their cause no good, particularly with men such as Joseph Ryland.

“Surely students—” she began.

“It wouldn’t have to be a student,” said Ryland. “Laundresses, scullions, the cooks who work in the Hall . . . everyone knows everything in Cambridge. I daresay the Sons of Liberty know which staircase George lived on, and when he came and went.” Bitterness tightened his voice like alum, and it occurred to Abigail to wonder what challenges and indignities this young man had encountered, both as a freshman and later, in a college population three-quarters or more given to the cause of the colonists. Every man in Harvard, practically, had been reading the broadsides John and Sam and Josiah Quincy had written denouncing his patron’s venality and pigheadedness: who was it who had said that old Professor Seckar had abused him more for being Hutchinson’s protégé than for his own—admittedly variant—views on a mere man’s ability to alter by any human deed the abiding judgment of the Lord?

“Surely you don’t think it was the Sons of Liberty who killed him?”

“Can you doubt it?”

“I’ve never heard that they sink to murder—”

“Have you ever seen a man who has been tarred and feathered, m’am?” The young man’s voice dropped and his glance touched Nabby—engaged in a shy conversation about her schooling with a stout and fatherly merchant—then passed to his patron’s shut office door. “Have you ever been there the next day, when his family and his doctor are trying to pull cold tar off his skin? Or the day after that, when the raw flesh suppurates? The mob covers their victim in feathers to make him look ridiculous, so that the onlookers don’t fully realize what is being done in the name of this ‘liberty’ they’re proclaiming . . . So those who hear about it think the object is to make a man look foolish, rather than to kill him in great agony and to terrorize the onlookers into acquiescence.”