The Messenger (27 page)

Hannah

Robert had died and there was no one I could tell. If I did, everyone would want to know how I had found out. And what could I say? That I visited the jail every week? That Robert had died digging a tunnel? That I was involved in a plan to help the prisoners escape? Perhaps I ought to have told Mother, but how could she have kept that terrible knowledge to herself? Once she shared it with Father, my visits to the jail would be forbidden.

I kept the information to myself. I had to.

Observing a private vigil of grief, I swallowed sobs as I ate my breakfast and stifled tears as I pushed food around my plate at supper. The early hours of the morning found me weeping into my pillow.

Robert was gone.

I was angry. I was furious. I wanted to march right over to Penn House and box General Howe’s ears. How dare he? How
dare
he take upon himself the welfare of hundreds of prisoners only to let them die? A pitiful choice those men had been given: starve to death or dig their own grave.

That rage was the most sensible, reasonable feeling I’d ever felt. Everything about me was a lie now. I was no Friend. It had all been an illusion. I was no pacifist—I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted someone to pay for what had been taken from me.

I kept mostly to the house that week. Polly and Aunt Rebekah were constantly out making unending rounds of calls while Mother made her own. It was rumored that the Friends from Virginia would finally be freed and there was a frenzy of visiting that accompanied the welcome news. I stayed in Polly’s bedroom, unnoticed and unsought, and worked at one thing or another as I blotted the tears that fell from my eyes. But sixth day afternoon, Polly invaded the space with new wigs and gowns and other finery.

“Look!” She stood across the room, examining her image in the wall glass. She had adorned herself in a wig two feet tall and skirts twice as wide as they were long. Her gown glittered as she stood there, with silver embroidery and cascades of ruffles and lace with ribbons and pearls and spangles tucked among them.

“I hardly look myself!” She beamed with apparent delight.

It was true. I hardly knew her from any of the other dozen Philadelphia belles that sashayed in and out of Pennington House’s parlors.

“Here.” She picked up the gown she had just discarded and held it out to me. “Try it on. I think the color will suit you.”

I looked away from the dazzling spectacle she’d become to the amaranth-colored gown she was offering. I had so little energy and no desire to do anything much at all since I’d been told of Robert’s death.

She picked up my hands and pulled at them. “Please. You’ve been poor company this week. So dull and drear.”

I tried to tug my hands away.

She only grasped them tighter and drew me to standing as my handiwork tumbled from my lap.

“My embroidery!”

“You can dust it off later. After you try this on.”

Jenny was already doing Polly’s bidding, having loosened the laces of my sleeved waistcoat. I did not have the spirit to resist her, so I let her remove it and then fasten the open robe gown to my stomacher. It had a nice hand. I stroked the length of the skirts as Jenny laced it.

Polly clapped her hands as she watched. “You look so much better!”

Jenny pointed toward the gilt-framed wall glass.

I put a hand to the bodice as my double in the looking glass did the same. Better? With lace frothing from my bosom like milkweed and so many ruffles bunched about my elbows that I doubted I could do anything useful?

“Don’t you like it?”

The color was so bright that it was almost cheerful. For a sliver of a moment I wished I could feel that way and that Jeremiah Jones could see me in it. “It’s lovely. Truly lovely.”

Polly grinned. “I knew you would like it.”

“Aye.” There was no reason to pretend otherwise. The fripperies and the flounces I could do without, but the color . . . there was something about it that cheered my heart. It had done me some good to look at myself in it. “Help me from it.”

“Keep it on—you can wear it. I insist upon it.”

“It would give my mother apoplexy.”

She didn’t even try to smother her laughter.

I shook my head. “Such gowns are not for me.”

“But they could be. The Brookingdale girls wear gowns like these. And they’re Quakers, aren’t they?”

They did and they were. But they were not me. “I cannot be other than who I am.” But who was I truly? A Friend who was working on behalf of the rebels? A daughter who was disobeying her father? A woman who found her heart bent in the direction of a man who was not at all like her? I was not who I once was. But who was I in the process of becoming?

As I worked at embroidery on seventh day, William Addison’s words kept echoing in my head.
Will you keep coming? The rest of us need you too.
Should I return to the jail or not? They had a candle now, but they lacked the means to light it and I had told them I would bring a char cloth and a flint. I had given my word.

But that was before I’d found out about Robert.

They’d killed my brother. They’d made him work for the food I’d brought for him alone. Anyone could see that he’d been sick.

They are my brothers.

They were
not
his brothers. Why should I do anything else for them at all?

Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.

They were in prison because of their own stiff necks and their willful rebellion. Isn’t that what the Yearly Meeting had decided?

They are my brothers.

How could Robert have thought of them as brothers? Why had he joined them at all? Even before I asked myself the question, I knew the answer. I knew it just as surely as Robert had whispered it into my ear. He’d joined them because of Fanny Pruitt. He was no supporter of causes; he’d been a supporter of justice.

Justice.

If I did not go back, then the rest of the men would die. And if I did not go back, then I would have to tell Jeremiah Jones why. At that thought my spirit cowered within me, not from the rage that would most certainly overtake him and not from the way I knew he would yell at me. It was for the disappointment, the resignation that I was sure I would see in his eyes. He had come to rely upon me, to respect me. I could tell it by the way his lips softened at the corners—just a little—when he looked at me. I had earned that trust and I . . . I cherished that hard-won respect.

At that moment I realized I had to return. I had to preserve the lie that Robert was still alive. I had to help the men make the tunnel straight, and I had to keep Jeremiah Jones’s regard. Though the beneficiaries of my efforts did not deserve them, though my neck be bound for the gallows, there was injustice here that I could right. A life to be paid for. And a man’s regard that I did not wish to lose.

There was no choice in the matter. There never had been. That too had been a lie.

I felt no little satisfaction at the surprise that flared in William Addison’s eyes when he saw me that day. I delivered the flint, steel, and char cloths, along with some food and a bag of grain. But I left the prison, scratching at an itch on my arm. It put me in mind of the previous week’s visit when I’d found a louse crawling on my skin. As I walked up the street, I brought out my arm from the confines of my cloak and . . . just there! I killed another one with a squash from my thumb and then gave the itch another scratch for good measure.

Doll clucked as she saw me. “Not enough to drag your skirts through all that muck and filth? You got to bring them creatures home with you too?” She shook her head. “I know you got to help them poor souls, but do you have to get right down and wallow in their mess in order to do it?”

“I don’t wallow on purpose.”

I shed my gown and skirts in the stables while Doll made sure no one entered. She used her hand to try to fan the stench away from her nose as I handed her my clothes for boiling. I went up the back stair and returned to the embroidery I’d been doing. As I worked on my piece, the room grew warmer. I shifted my legs and rolled my shoulders. Aches seemed to have sprung up all over my body. I dabbed at my forehead with a handkerchief. Though the day was warm, I had not thought it unseasonably so.

Polly burst into the room near supper, wasted no time in flinging her hat upon the bed, and then began to pull gowns from her trunk. “Do you think I should wear my amber or my salmon-colored gown to the ball tonight?”

They were both far too vivid for my taste. “Which one pleases thee the most?”

She viewed them with an appraising eye. “What I’d truly like is a gown made of that new ribbon silk that the mercer got from the latest ship.” She looked at first the amber and then at the salmon-colored gown. Sighed. “But one of these will have to do.”

“Choose the salmon.” It made her look far less like a fashion doll and more like a woman. At least . . . as I looked upon them, the gowns wavered and then blurred together. I blinked—hard—to clear my vision. Perhaps yesterday’s headache had affected my sight.

“The which?”

“The . . .” I wasn’t quite certain anymore, and I felt a sudden longing to lie down. “Pardon me. I don’t think . . .” I let my work drop from my lap and pushed away from my chair. I had meant to go to my bed, but it seemed such a very great distance away. “I don’t think . . .” Why had it become so bone-chillingly, frighteningly cold?

“Hannah?”

I tried to turn my head toward Polly, but I couldn’t do it. My legs wouldn’t move, my arms wouldn’t bend, and I could hardly hear anything at all. “I don’t think . . .” What was it I didn’t think? I couldn’t remember anymore. I just needed . . . I needed . . .

“Hannah!”

I heard Polly shriek, but I couldn’t imagine what for. Everything had gone so cold. And so. . . . white.

Jeremiah

“They say it’s the putrid fever.”

I felt the color drain from my face as Miss Pennington kept speaking. I tried to make sense of her words, but I couldn’t do it. Perhaps I’d misunderstood. Though myriad candles glowed about the room, I still had trouble making out her face. And the noise of the instruments didn’t much help either. “She has what?”

Miss Pennington leaned closer. “The putrid fever. That’s what the doctor says.”

Putrid fever? I glanced up at John.

He frowned. Shook his head.

“How would she get putrid fever?” I don’t know why I asked the question. I knew the answer of course. Just as John did. She’d got it from the prisoners.

“She got it from the jail, didn’t she?” Miss Pennington fairly shouted the words.

John laid a hand on her arm. “Please! Don’t speak so loudly. Visits to the prison have been forbidden.”

I reached out and gripped her arm. “Is it bad?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

Hannah Sunderland was lying abed with putrid fever, and I was trapped at an abominable Saturday evening ball. A ball I hadn’t even wanted to attend.

“I was going to try to get her to come tonight. I had her try on the most delicious gown the other day! In amaranth, that lovely reddish purple. The style was not so outmoded as her own . . .”

Miss Pennington babbled on as I excused myself and went to collect my hat. I pushed out into a night mild and drenched in moonlight.

Putrid fever. Not many survived it. She’d caught it from the jail—she had to have. And it was all my fault. I started out through the night at a run toward Pennington House. I was halfway there before I realized the futility in going. The hour was late. They would never let me in. And even if they did, what reason could I give to persuade them to let me see her? The fact that I was the one who arranged for her visits to the jail? That I was the one who insisted that she keep going?

They wouldn’t welcome me. They would probably turn me in as a spy.

But what if I gave them the other reason? The one that really mattered? I loved their daughter. If she were going to leave this earth, I wanted the chance to be with her one last time. To see in her eyes once more the man I wanted to become.

I raised my fist toward heaven.
What have I ever done to you?

That was a feeble argument if I’d ever heard one. I’d done plenty. And we both knew it.

What has
she
ever done to you?

There. That was better. Much better. I hadn’t a chance arguing on my own merits, but I could expound upon hers forever.

What has she ever done to you?

I dropped my fist. It was pointless. There was no use arguing with someone who wouldn’t argue back. I’d never gotten much satisfaction from a God who didn’t seem to speak or see or hear. I had to see Hannah, but I knew better than to trust God to help me. I had better contacts than He did anyway. I had friends in high places.

Miss Pennington’s eyes sparked with mischief the following Tuesday night. “So Major Lindley will invite all the parents out for the review of the troops. They won’t be able to refuse!”

That was the idea.

“You’ll be waiting at the corner. And when they leave . . .” She looked at me with great expectation.

“I’ll come in.”

She clasped her hands to her chest. “This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever been party to.”

John, however, didn’t look quite so enraptured. He took Miss Pennington’s hand up in his. “Has there been any talk about how she caught it?”

“Caught what?”

“The putrid fever.”

She frowned. “No.”

“If there is, just say . . . that it’s going around.” He eyed me. “No one knows I wrote that pass. I want to keep it that way.”

I certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone.

Miss Pennington pouted. “Don’t you trust me?”

He smiled. “Not for a moment.” He pulled her hand up around his arm. “Shall we dance?”

They walked off and left me in my chair against the wall, planning what I was going to tell Hannah when I saw her the next afternoon.

Whatever words I’d had failed me as Miss Pennington left me alone in that bedroom. Hannah was so very ill. Why had no one warned me! Her face was pallid. Dark circles had made ashen hollows where her eyes had once been. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. She was sleeping. And peacefully, by the sound of it. She didn’t need me to interrupt her. I turned toward the door.

“Jeremiah.” Her whisper reached out and touched my heart.

I turned back toward the bed.

She reached out a hand to me.

I took it up as I sat in a chair beside her bed. “They told me you have the fever.”

She tried to smile. “It doesn’t feel like it. I’m so cold.” She was quivering beneath her blanket. I looked around for another one, but there were none. I took off my blue-colored coat and laid it atop her.

Tears began to seep from her eyes.

“No. Don’t! Don’t cry.” I hadn’t planned on her crying. I didn’t know what to say now. She’d always been one to berate me. If only she’d yell at me, I’d know exactly what to do.

“Thee are such a gentleman.”

Her small hand was so cold. I wished I had another to cup it in. “Not such a gentleman as you’d think.” I had too many thoughts in my head to be accused of that particular vice. They mostly had to do with her soft, lovely eyes. And her mouth.

“I mean . . . thee are not a Friend.”

I’d been accused of that before and I had tired of it. “And neither are thee!”

She smiled. Or tried to.

“I mean: neither are
you
.”

She frowned, making me want nothing so much as to smooth her cares away. “I meant to say, there is no peace about thee.”

“There will be once the British leave.” I had tried to make her smile, but I failed.

“ ’Tis not a lack of opportunity. ’Tis a lack of . . . of . . . serenity.”

“But we’re the same, you and I. Outcasts. You don’t have your faith anymore, and I . . .” Well. Enough said about me.

Tears had made a trail from her cheek to her neck. “We are not the same at all. A woman of peace persuaded to join a rebellion, and a man of war frustrated because he must use less violent means.”

“But—”

“I feel nothing but confusion when thee are near.” She said it as if she wished it weren’t so. And those pitiable tears kept coming. If her hand weren’t so cold, I might have let go of it to fish for my handkerchief.

“Truly? I’d thought . . . I mean . . . since I’ve known you . . . I feel much less troubled.”

“Then I am glad.” She glanced away. Sighed and closed her eyes.

This was it? This was all the time there was? But there was so much more to be said! Only . . . what should I say first? Should I tell her how much I depended upon her? How proud I was of her? How she was the finest woman I’d ever had the chance to meet? Should I thank her for making me feel like I could be more instead of less? For making me think I could be a man again? Perhaps . . . I should just start with the truth. “I love you, Hannah Sunderland.”

Her only response was a dainty snore. Then a soft sigh.

“I love you.” I’d spoken those words but once and now the only thing I wanted to do was repeat them forever. I watched her sleep, keeping her hand warm until Miss Pennington came for me.

That night, for the first time in a long time, I prayed. I even knelt beside my bed to do it. I was hoping God might tolerate a prayer from me if it was on behalf of someone like Hannah Sunderland.

Please help no harm come to her. On account of me.

Because that wouldn’t be fair. Of all the injustices in the world, that would be the worst. That a woman like her would pay the price for a wretch like me.

We are not the same at all.

She was right. We weren’t. But she was only looking at the places we’d come from. I was more interested in the place we’d gotten to. It’s not that she didn’t love me. Not necessarily. And it’s not that she didn’t want me. It’s that she wanted her religion more. But, dash it! Couldn’t she see she didn’t have it anyway? She may have been a Quaker once, but she wasn’t a Quaker anymore. I sighed, thinking of her small, cold hand in mine. Thinking of how I’d wished I could do more than just sit beside her bed and hold it.

Who did I think I was, hoping for some kind of ordinary life? I was no longer an ordinary man. But dash it again! She’d made me hope. Made me believe. If she’d been a man, I’d have made her answer for it. But she was just a small, pretty, indescribably infuriating . . . possibly dying . . . woman. And she held my heart between those small, chill hands.