The Schoolmaster's Daughter (21 page)

“I believe him,” Abigail said.

James smiled wearily. “I gather that you do.”

“I will meet him as planned.”

“You know what happens to most Boston women who meet soldiers up there?”

“They sell their services.”

“Or they're simply taken.” James stared at her. “It's not safe. You can't go.”

“I can.”

“We don't need him, Abigail.”

“We owe him,” she said. “I believe he helped our brother, and we owe him.”

James turned toward the fireplace and for a moment his hand touched his wig. Then he sighed. “I was afraid that Benjamin had been killed during the engagement. I have heard that there are a number of provincials who still are not accounted for.”

“I feared this, too. I've thought of little else.”

“You and he,” James said, looking at her, his eyes surprisingly fond. “You and Benjamin, you've always been so close.” His smile was weak. “There were times when I envied you that, both of you.”

“We always looked up to you.”

“Yes, the older brother, but it's not the same thing. Yours is a most genuine love, and believe me, all of us, Mother, Father, and I, basked in it.”

Abigail's legs suddenly felt unsteady. There was a chair next to the desk and she sat down. “It was not intended to exclude you.”

“No need to explain.” He picked up the stone that Abigail had placed back on the desk; the way he held it, rubbing it with his fingertips, it might have been the rarest of gems. “Now if we could just find Benjamin.”

Benjamin slept fitfully on the straw bed, awakening periodically, chilled, feverish, and his foul-smelling clothing drenched in sweat. In the morning Obadiah's son came up to the loft with a jar of milk, some bread and cheese.

“Father says you must remain here. British come and go downstairs all day long.”

“What's your name?” Benjamin soaked a piece of bread in the milk and then eased it into his mouth.

“Ezekiel.” He stole a glance at Benjamin's bruised face.

“Your father likes to fish, dig clams. I see him out on the harbor or in the flats. You a good fisherman, too?”

The boy nodded uncertainly.

“How old, Ezekiel?”

“Twelve, this summer.” He was a lean boy who looked like he had swift feet.

“I need a courier. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes.”

It started with this, running through the streets of Boston, bearing a message.

“Good. I want you to go to the waterfront for me. You must ask your father's permission. If it's granted, go to the house of Anse Cole, a fisherman who lives not far from the Mill Pond. Can you find that?” The boy nodded. “Then I want you to talk to Miss Cole, Mariah Cole, nobody else. Ask after her father. Tell her I am safe and will see her as soon as I can. Ask her to get word to my sister. But don't say where I am. Understand?”

Ezekiel nodded.

“Now go.”

The boy turned and ran across the loft and his boots clattered loudly as he descended the stairs.

Benjamin slept through the morning, until he was awakened by the rattle of drums, accompanied by an officer's shouted commands. He looked out the window, shielding his eyes from the midday sun, and watched a detail of redcoats as they marched past King's Chapel, on the way to the Common. Farther down School Street he saw a chaise, stopped before the front door of his house. Several well-dressed men were being welcomed by his father. Tories. It was a city full of loyalists now.

There would be no returning home. This had started years ago, when he was about Ezekiel's age. The lessons in his father's classroom had never sat well with Benjamin. Greek and Latin: Abigail was right to ask why there wasn't just one language. His father singled him out for punishment, as an example for the other boys: frequent verbal reprimands, and the ferule—lashings on the palms, the backs of the legs. Until one day, it was a cold morning in February, just as his father was about to strike again, Benjamin reached out and grabbed his wrist. The boys at their desks gasped: it was forbidden to touch the schoolmaster. But Benjamin didn't let go and he was strong enough to stay his father's hand.

He was expelled, and never readmitted to the Latin School, despite the protests from his mother and sister; even James, who was perhaps a harsher disciplinarian than their father, advocated for Benjamin's return to school. Father refused, citing that principles must be enforced if they were to instill their pupils with the character and integrity necessary to become civic leaders. In lieu of a formal education, James made certain he could do his sums and he read with Abigail, though he never had the patience for a book. They provided surreptitious instruction, which he valued far more than anything he'd ever been taught in a classroom. And he spent his days learning the water from fishermen, clam diggers, sailors, cordwainers, and shipwrights. One day, when the port was reopened, he wanted to go to sea.

Again, there were duties of hospitality while Father entertained a succession of prominent Tories. Mother worked in the kitchen, while Abigail served tea and cake in Father's study. When she returned for more cream, she saw one of the Revere girls, Frances, standing outside in the kitchen dooryard.

“Rachel has sent for you,” Mother said. “She says it's urgent.”

“But I must help here.”

“I can manage.” Mother refilled her glass creamer. “Besides, I dislike the way some of these men leer at you. So go.”

Abigail went out the kitchen door. Frances Revere was firmly built, like her father. “They are in the granary burying ground.” She was only about ten and she took Abigail's hand as they walked down the alley that would come out near King's Chapel. “We go there often, to pray at Mother's stone.”

From the Common there was the sound of drums and marching. Daily, the redcoats conducted exercises, and the constant noise seemed to charge the air in Boston. Mother claimed it affected her nerves and made her blood hot, disturbing her sleep. There was also in the distance the sound of hammering and boards falling—deconstruction: the British were tearing down certain houses which had been abandoned by rebel sympathizers. It was claimed that they needed the wood for fuel, but also the materials were used to build the redoubt on Copp's Hill.

“The church in North Square,” Frances said. “It is rumored they will take it down. And the steeple in the West End church also, because they believe it was used to signal Charlestown. Nobody dares correct them, for fear that they will tear down Christ's Church instead. Grandmother says they mean to level Boston.”

They entered the burying ground. All the Revere children were there, placing wildflowers at the gravestone of Sarah Orne, the first Mrs. Revere, who had been laid to rest not two years earlier. Rachel sat on a nearby bench, her baby in her arms.

“Thank you,” she said to Frances. “Now you go and join the others.”

The girl ran off through the shaggy grass.

“Have you heard?” Rachel said, shifting her infant son to her other shoulder.

“About North Church? Frances just told me.”

“Yes, but something else is causing a great stir in the North End.” She looked toward the granary, looming above the burying ground. “The fisherman Anse Cole, he was assaulted by redcoats.”

“I heard, yes.”

“He died last night.”

Upon hearing this, Abigail needed to sit down on the bench.

“You know about Mariah,” Rachel asked. “About her and your brother?”

“Yes, yes, I know. I saw her just yesterday.” She sat still, without speaking. Rachel gently patted her son's back, while in the distance the Revere children prayed at their mother's grave.

“These damned street patrols,” Rachel said, her eyes welling up. “But why Anse Cole?”

Abigail couldn't stop fidgeting with her cap, and finally she took it off, allowing her hair to swirl about her face in the breeze. And tears blurred her vision as well, the children, the rows of stones, the granary in the distance all appearing to slide together. “It's because he's was one of us,” she said.

“That is not a reason,” Rachel said. “But for them it's reason enough.”

Benjamin wanted to shout.

He wanted to lean out the window and call down to his sister in the burying ground. But he didn't. He couldn't. So he watched her and Rachel Revere, and even from this distance, this seagull's height, he could tell that something had happened. Rachel said something that caused Abigail to sit next to her on the bench, and then she kept touching her cap until she pulled it off. He loved Abigail's fine dark hair, the way the wind tossed it about her face. She and Rachel never looked at each other. They barely spoke. He realized that they were crying. He was certain of it, two women, sitting in a graveyard crying.

That evening, Abigail climbed Trimount and found Corporal Lumley standing beneath the tree where they had met the day before. He looked up and down the path nervously as she approached. “We should not remain here,” he said.

“You are afraid to be seen on this hill with me?”

“No, it's just—”

“All too common, I understand, trysts with a Boston woman.”

“Certainly, you could not be mistaken for, for
that
, Miss.”

“Such high compliment. I should be flattered.”

“Please.” He took a step closer. “There is a rock only a little farther up the path where we might be better concealed.”

“To what purpose?” Abigail started up the path, with Lumley close behind.

“I did not come up here alone, you see.”

She looked over her shoulder. His face was drawn, even haggard. “Who else?”

“Munroe,” he said. “He insisted we go together.”

“But what is his purpose? And where is he?”

“His purpose—it be the usual thing, and he continued higher up. After mess we found our way to the tavern, as we often do—tonight we are off-duty. He told me he had received a note from a woman … and they agreed to meet up here.”

“One of
those
Boston women.”

“Yes. They can be bold. They send letters to us, offering of various—”

“Services, of a certain nature. And Munroe finds it flattering.”

“In a word, yes.”

“He engages in this sort of thing often.”

“Yes.”

“You, of course, are of a different disposition.”

Lumley cleared his throat. “Please, Miss. Here are the rocks.”

There was a large crevice which formed a cave between the rocks. “You want me to go in there, with you?” He looked up the path and then back at Abigail. “Very well,” she said.

She had to stoop to get into the cave, but found that inside it was open to the sky and quite spacious, illuminated by the last light of day. Overhead there were birds twittering in nests they'd built in the rocks. Lumley ducked until he too was inside the cave and, as if to confirm that he was of honorable intentions, he walked to the far end of the cave, keeping his back to her.

“I must leave Boston soon.” His voice reverberated off the rock walls. “Increasingly, there is great suspicion within our ranks. If I stay longer, I will be found out.” He turned around and faced her. “Those letters. Did you deliver them to your brother James?”

“I did.”

“And he found them to be genuine?”

Abigail merely tipped her head to one side.

“You will assist me?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “You have no idea what has happened to Benjamin?”

“No. If I knew, I'd tell you.”

“I heard news today, terrible news.”

Even in the failing light she could see Lumley's eyes grow large with fear. “You've heard, then?” She waited. “It wasn't me. It be Munroe that struck them. Your brother and that old man. Our patrols in the North End today—they were greeted with much anger and hostility.”

“If what you say is true—”

“It is.”

“And if you want to serve the patriotic cause, then perhaps you should identify Munroe as Anse Cole's murderer.”

He stared at her now, horrified. “I couldn't do that. I—I wouldn't survive.” Again, she waited. “You see, some officers suspect me already, because I have said things and shown a certain sympathy for the provincials. You're either with them, or you're not—there be no middle ground, not since Lexington and Concord.” He took a step toward her, but stopped as though he was afraid to get too close. “If I accused Munroe, they would only see that as confirmation. He is much liked. They would wrap me in a white shroud and hang me from the Great Elm on the Common—that's what they do when they want to make an example for the troops. It's being inside the white shroud that is so frightening, the anonymity of it.…”

Lumley had a long, sleek nose and Abigail watched a bead of sweat run down the bridge, dwell at the tip for a moment, and then fall to the ground. “And you wish to fight for the provincials?” she said. “We need sterner stuff, Mr. Lumley.”

“I can provide information,” he said hastily, “tactical information. And plans.”

“Plans? Such as?”

It was so dark now that she could not see his eyes. “Noddle's Island.”

“What about it?”

“I would first require assurances that you will help me get out of Boston.”

“It's getting too dark in here,” she said, turning toward the opening in the rocks. “I need to think about this. I need to talk with—”

“But I haven't much time!”

She ducked through the opening in the rock and came out into the path, where cooler air came up the hill, smelling of low tide. Lumley passed through the opening as well, and then he grabbed her upper arm he said, “You must needs understand my predicament, Mistress, that I'm—”

There was a scream from higher up the hill. Abigail heard running footsteps coming toward her. Lumley let go of her arm and disappeared downhill. The footsteps from above were coming closer and she moved toward the tree by the side of the path, but just as she placed a hand on the trunk, her forehead struck a branch and she fell down in the grass.