The Family Greene (4 page)

***

B
ENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S
daughter, Sarah, was a student of the harpsichord, and during their stay she played it constantly. Uncle Greene went to Providence almost every day, and on two days he took the esteemed Mr. Franklin with him, thank heaven. Or Lord knows what might have transpired in our house. Twice Aunt Catharine took me and Sarah on visits to friends.

It soon became plain to me that Sarah adored her father, who often put his arm around her and told her how wonderful her harpsichord playing was. My heart ached for my own father, now happily married to Rebecca Ainslie, who was expecting their first child. Pa was building another family now.

In that week I became morose. My spirits fell low. I scarce spoke at the table.

Of course, Aunt Catharine took notice right off, she who was training me to be a social butterfly. "Caty, what's wrong, child? You're not eating."

It was not the evening to be unsociable. We had other guests, too, some of Uncle Greene's Whig friends.

I looked up at her. I did not answer.

"Caty?" she asked again.

This time I answered. "I miss my pa," I said.

She sighed. "Caty, this is not the way I expect you to behave when we have guests. If you can't behave, you must apologize and go to your room. Now."

One of the Whig friends, a young man named Nathanael Greene, had frequently been a visitor at Uncle Greene's house. I'd never paid mind to him. He was some distant kin to Uncle Greene and had usually been morose in his own right.

My cousin Sammy had told me Nathanael had been totally smitten with Sammy's older sister Nancy, and that she had grown tired of him and severed the romance and broken Nathanael's heart.

I had never known anyone with a broken heart before. I did not know how to speak to anyone with a broken heart. So I had studiously avoided Nathanael Greene, except to notice that he limped. Did that come from a broken heart as well?

Now he spoke up for me.

"I know what it means to miss one's pa," he said, in a rich, mellow voice. "I live with my pa. And I miss him."

What a curious thing to say!
Our eyes met across the table.

He had clear, quiet eyes. He was a large man—I had noticed that—at least six feet. He had a firm, no-nonsense face, a mature face. He must have been at least ten years older than I, but there was, somehow, a twinkle in his eye when he looked at me, as if to say "I know all about pas—don't you worry."

Only what he did say to Aunt Catharine, without looking at her, but still looking at me with that twinkle in his eyes, was "Don't make her go to her room, please. She's going to eat. And if she isn't making conversation, well, I'm sure it's because she hasn't got anything to contribute to this tired talk about politics. Isn't that so, Caty?"

I blushed. Just because of the way he was looking at me. No man had ever looked at me that way before. "Yes, sir," I said, "that's so."

"Don't call me 'sir,' please. It makes me feel old. Call me Nathanael. And Mrs. Greene"—he nodded at Aunt Catharine—"Mr. Greene"—he bowed his head at Uncle Greene—"much as I'd hate to miss the lively discussion I know is to follow this scrumptious dinner, I would be delighted if you'd both give me permission to take a walk in the garden later with Caty. I can't help but notice how she's grown up over the time that I've been coming here. I promise to be nothing less than honorable."

***

H
E WAS
, in reality, twelve years older than I. And when we sat down on the bench in Aunt Catharine's garden, he fair made me shiver and shake and aware that I was a woman and he was a man.

It was the first time in my life I had ever felt this quickening.

He sat close to me though he could have left space between us. I was well aware of the closeness, but he never touched me, not even my hand. His mere presence was sufficient to put me in a state of terror. To think that this man, this handsome man, wanted to take time to pay mind to
me.

We talked. He left no spaces, no silences.

He was the son of a Quaker preacher. His mother had died when he was eleven. He was curiosity driven. He loved reading—Locke's
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
Ferguson's
Essay on the History of Civil Society,
not to mention Roman history—but he did not lord it over me.

"Why, until a certain age, my only education was the Bible," he said. "I had to beg my pa for a tutor."

"And do you spend most of your time at books, then?" I asked.

"I wrestle iron into anchors. I stoke furnaces. I plow fields. And now, with the help of some of my brothers, I'm building myself a house in Coventry. But I still live in the family home in Potowomut. And I've often seen you, Caty, when you ride your horse by my house."

I stared at him. "You
saw
me? Did you know who I was?"

"Of course. I'd been here in this house to your uncle's meetings many times, though you'd never spoken to me. I thought you didn't like me. Or thought me a pipe-smoking old man who cared nothing about anything but politics."

"You're not an old man. And no, it wasn't that."

"What was it, then? Why did you never so much as give me a glance?"

So he'd noticed! And he'd cared! And here I'd thought all along that he hadn't even known I'd existed. I felt my face flush, knowing I had to say some words, make some sense, or come off like a complete idiot.

"I heard from my cousin Sammy Ward that you had a broken heart. I was afraid to talk to you."

His face went sad of a sudden, but just for a moment. "His sister Nancy. I'm over that now."

"Since when?"

"Since tonight, when I got to know you."

I gulped. What did one say to that? I wished Sarah were here. She'd know. But I found then that I knew, too.

"But you are so much older," I protested. "Why would you even be interested in me?"

"I warn you, Caty, I am. And tonight I intend to ask your uncle if I may begin to come round and see you on a regular basis. We both have time to get to know each other. I can wait. Are you agreeable to that?"

I said I was. Then he said he thought we ought to go back into the house. He must keep his word to my aunt and uncle. For, after all, he had promised to be nothing less than honorable. Could I abide with that, he wanted to know?

I told him yes, I could. He took my arm and guided me back into the house. And his touch thrilled me, even though it was honorable.

N
EVER DID
the word
honorable
translate into so much fun for me, and pain, as over the next few years of courtship.

It had taken me a while to get accustomed to the fact that the handsome young man who came a-knocking at Uncle Greene's front door was knocking for me.

Of course, he still came for Whig meetings and I would wait in the parlor, distractedly doing needlework while the meetings went on, praying for them to be over, while Aunt Catharine scolded that I should not appear so anxious.

"Be a little less interested," she would whisper. "Go upstairs to your room. Let him wait for you!"

"Wait for me?"
Is she daft?
"Why should I act disinterested? Don't you remember how it was when you and Uncle Greene were courting? How the minute your eyes met across a room you were together? Couldn't you feel each other's hands? And faces, side by side?"

"And what would you know of faces, side by side?" she would ask. "I hope he is behaving with you. I hope you are behaving as you are supposed to be."

I would sit there and think of Nathanael's broad shoulders when he took his jacket off, of his strong hands, of the way his face felt when he needed a shave. I would close my eyes and thank God for having made men the way he made them because He, God, had been so clever about it. The way He'd know what we women would want and need.

***

O
NE DAY
, Nathanael and I had ridden over to the house he was building in Coventry. It overlooked the Pawtuxet River. Along the river a family was picnicking. Of a sudden we heard a scream from the mother. A little boy had ventured to the edge of the water, fallen in, and was being carried downstream.

In a second Nathanael was off his horse, had torn off his boots and coat, dived in, and brought the boy out. I sat my horse, mesmerized by the sight of him so strong and dripping wet as he handed the boy back to his parents and lingered to make sure the child was all right.

My Nathanael had dove into the river without a thought of his own safety at all! I was besotted with him, and the word
honorable
became more difficult by the day as our courtship went on.

But if it was difficult for me, what was it for Nathanael?

I saw the difficulty for him, as in winter he visited our cozy parlor regularly, as he took me to dances, concerts, fish fries, skating parties. Summertime we went picnicking, sailing, and riding—and more dancing. He was inordinately fond of dancing because when he was young, his Quaker father had never allowed him to dance.

"Once I got beaten because my father was told that I was just
watching
a dance," he told me. So he constantly ran away from home to dance. And was often beaten for it.

But much of the time in our courtship, we gathered in Uncle Greene's house with other Whigs and spoke of the rising rebellion, and many terrible things that happened after the Stamp Act was repealed, like the Boston Massacre in 1770.

By this time, when we said good night, he kissed me, held me close, murmured my name, over and over, then pulled away abruptly. "God," he would say. "God." And I knew it was not an oath, that it was a prayer, as he would turn on his heel and walk away.

It was in that year of 1770 that Nathanael's Quaker minister father died. And upon his death I learned he was not only a minister but a shrewd businessman who owned not only many forges and mills in the area but a merchant ship that was engaged in the Caribbean trade.

The slave trade, Nathanael explained to me.

Of course all of the fruits of his father's industry now went to Nathanael and his seven brothers.

"The merchant ship is called the
Fortune,
" he told me, "and we've got to get out of that business soon. But it isn't so easy getting out, once you partake of it. Right now the
Fortune
is carrying fourteen hundred gallons of rum, a hogshead of brown sugar, and forty gallons of Jamaican spirits."

"Who captains the
Fortune
?" I asked.

"Our young cousin Rufus Greene."

"There are Greenes all around me," I accused.

"Yes, dear, and they are all watching how I treat you."

We did not discuss marriage, though the word hung in the air between us, constantly. For, though we were courting, most of the time I did not have him to myself.

It wasn't long before I decided that if I wanted Nathanael Greene at all, I would have to share him with his books, his work, and his politics.

He always had a book in his hand. Heavy reading, I decided, too heavy for me. He read Frederick the Great's
Instructions to His Generals,
for instance. And
An Apology for the True Christian Divinity,
by Robert Barclay.

Right after his father died, Nathanael moved into his own house in Coventry. With permission from Aunt Catharine and Uncle Greene, I helped him move. I assisted with the lighter household things—curtains and pots and dishes—although his brother Jacob's wife, Peggy, was really in charge.

The house, called Spell Hall, was on a small hill overlooking the Pawtuxet River. The first and second floors had four rooms each, with hallways in the center. The third floor was a garret.

In back, overlooking the river, on the first floor, Nathanael had his library. He had at least three hundred books lining the walls.

I could fancy a rainy afternoon with a fire crackling in the hearth, a tray of tea sitting on a low table, and Nathanael sitting at his desk, while I, in that comfortable chair over there, sat reading. What a wonderful way it would be to start a marriage!

Nathanael worked hard most days in the forge that was situated a short distance from the house. He often made miniature anchors, which he sold on his business trips to Newport.

He gave me one. I would treasure it always.

In his "spare" time, he worked in the fields surrounding his house, planting wheat and corn for the animals.

***

I
N FEBRUARY OF '72
, the
Gaspee,
a royal schooner that patrolled the waters off Rhode Island to make sure the Revenue Acts were enforced, seized the Greene brothers' merchant ship, knocked about young Rufus Greene, and towed the
Fortune
into Newport Harbor.

Nathanael would not abide this. He brought a lawsuit against Lieutenant William Dudingston, commander of the
Gaspee,
won the case, and became a hero all over Rhode Island.

On the ninth of June, the
Gaspee
was going about its business again when its upstart captain, Dudingston, fired a shot across the bow of an American ship, the
Hannah.
Captain Benjamin Lindsay of the American merchant ship outraced him and led the
Gaspee
aground into shallow waters at Namquit Point, just below the town of Pawtuxet.

I was with Nathanael, Uncle Greene, Aunt Catharine, and other leading citizens in the Green Grapes Tavern that very night in Pawtuxet, taking a supper of fish and chips, when the news came about the
Gaspee
being run aground after what it had done.

Immediately the group of enraged citizens urged Nathanael to row out and destroy her. I could see Nathanael wanted to. I could see them all plotting over their glasses of ale.

Two other women, sweethearts of two men in the group, were planning on joining them.

I had long since decided that when next I saw my chance, I would be part of what Nathanael was about. I wanted to be included in what he did. And I knew I might never again get the chance.

"Can I go, Nathanael?" I begged. "Oh, please, can I go?"