The Schoolmaster's Daughter (33 page)

“Who?” Clinton asked.

“Everyone. But Lodge and Dayton, they sobered up right quick, I tell you.” Molly smiled, but only Burgoyne complied.

“Who was this other soldier, running down the hill?” Clinton asked.

“That would be Corporal Lumley, I believe,” Molly said. “Yes, it was definitely he.”

“So you didn't see—” Samuel began, but paused when Clinton placed a hand on his arm.

“What happened then?” Clinton asked.

“We was told to go down the hill, Eliza and me. That's what Lodge told us to do. And glad to go, I was. So we rushed down the path after Lumley.”

“You're sure it was Lumley?” Clinton asked. “It was dark.”

“It was Lumley.” Molly hesitated a moment. “Gone missing, ain't he?”

“That is true,” Clinton said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Indeed I do.” She took a moment to fuss with her sleeve, the lace there frequently mended.

“What can you tell us about Corporal Lumley?” Clinton said impatiently.

Molly continued to fidget with her garment as she said, “He was right jealous, if you ask me.” And looking up at the officers, she said, as though it were obvious: “Lumley, he and Munroe they was mates, you know, on patrol together and such. But then they both became enamored of—” she tilted her head in Abigail's direction—“of this schoolmaster's fine daughter.”

“Lumley and Munroe?” Clinton asked.

“The bot' of them, yes,” Molly said, surprised at such lack of understanding. “Lumley, you know he was billeted there in School Street, but a few houses from where she resides. And Munroe, he was the mouthy kind, you understand, and in the taverns and such he was bragging about her, her attributes. Oh, he had it bad. She gave him a taste and he was besotted. Mind you, what I don't know for certain is which of 'em got to her first, or perhaps she was playing them bot' at the same time. But they was bound to find out eventually, being mates, and when they did they had this grand argument—on that very night—and not long after dark they're all up there on Trimount and it's Munroe that ends up with his throat cut. It's kind of prophetic, in'it? Trimount, meaning three hills, and here you have your love triangle all played out on its slopes there. Like a bard's tragedy, it is.”

“There is no truth to this,” Abigail said. “None at all.” Though Clinton held his hand up to stop her, she continued. “The fact that Lumley billeted on my street doesn't prove anything, and as for Munroe—” She gazed down at her hands in her lap and saw that they were shaking. Looking at Clinton, she said, “One night I encountered them while I was on my way to my brother's house. It was April eighteen, a Tuesday, the night that the British troops ferried across the Charles and marched out into the countryside. Munroe and Lumley remained here on street patrol. You must have records of that—you could check. They were on patrol and they were both quite drunk and they stopped me and by force they fondled me in the rudest way.”

“Both men?” Burgoyne asked.

Abigail nearly stood up, but she only came to the edge of her seat. “Lumley held me by the shoulders, pressing me against the wall of the house, while Munroe put his hands on me. They both reeked of rum.” She glanced at Molly, who was looking at her as though she were a child spawning an outrageous fib. “They took from me what they pay to get from the likes of Molly Collins. Ask her how many of your soldiers have had their hands on her.” She looked at Samuel. “How many, Colonel? You've been in Boston for some time. How many of you have bought her paltry favors?” Again, Clinton raised his hand, but Abigail said loudly, “You can't possibly take her word for any of this. If you do so, it is only because it suits your own purposes. This is not a court. This has nothing to do with justice. Why are you here, in this room? Why are you all here, in Boston?”

Clinton slapped the tabletop repeatedly, the sound reverberating throughout the room. “That will be enough, do you hear?”

Abigail sat back and folded her arms. She took long slow breaths.

None of the officers seemed to know what to do, and for a moment Burgoyne leaned over and whispered in Clinton's ear. Samuel gazed at the tabletop, shaking his head slowly.

“If you please,” Molly said with remarkable poise. “Sirs, you wish to know about Lumley. Let me tell you about your corporal that is gone missing.” She turned away from Abigail ever so slightly and glared at the officers.

Clinton said, “Go on.”

“I'll tell you,” Molly said, her voice now hurt, deeply insulted. “I'll tell you about this fine daughter of a schoolmaster. Lumley and Munroe they took her younger brother Benjamin into custody on suspicion of espionage, and, lo, the boy manages to break free. How? Lumley, that's how. And then they both escape Boston together. That's the truth.” Now she extended her arm, pointing at Abigail. “This woman—
this
woman arranged for them to be ferried across the harbor in a working boat. I was
there!
I tried to stop it, and what does she
do?
She throws me into the water, she does. With one great shove, just as the boat is pulling away from the dock.”

Abigail slapped Molly's hand away from her face and got to her feet. “It wasn't like that at all,” she shouted. “You know that!”

Folding her arms and turning her back on Abigail, Molly said, “I speak the truth.”

“All lies,” Abigail shouted. “This
isn't
justice!”

And then she was grabbed from behind as one of the guards took her by the shoulders and forced her to sit down in the chair. She shrugged until he released her, shouting, “Take your hands off me!”

All the while, Clinton was again slapping his hand on the table. Finally, when he stopped, the room was quiet for a moment and no one, it seemed, dared to move. Then Clinton gathered up his documents and got to his feet. He was not a tall man, and quite stout, less imposing without a fine table in front of him. Burgoyne and Samuel also got to their feet, all seeming eager to leave, but then Clinton had a change of mind and put his papers down. “You are right about one thing, Abigail Lovell,” he said, placing his fists on the tabletop and leaning forward as though making ready to pounce. “It is my understanding that, sadly, the legal system in this colony has by and large ceased to function. And the reason that is so has to do with numerous provincials' threats against judges and lawyers, against any person who would participate in a court of law in any way. Death threats—death threats have been posted on lawyers' doors. Damning letters have been published in local broadsides and journals. There is no court in Boston, at the moment. But there
is
justice. Here in this room, there will be justice. Now I will confer with my fellow officers and you will be summoned shortly—in a matter of days—and then you will hear our determination.” Looking toward the guards, he said, “Take her out to her father and see that they are away from this house promptly.” Then, looking at Molly Collins, who was still seated, he added, “And see to it that this young woman is provided with a coach and four to convey her home.”

XX

Bête Noire

“I
T
'
S HARD TO LOOK AT HIM
,” R
ACHEL
R
EVERE SAID.
“B
UT
after a while you don't notice it so much. What comes through is the kindness in his eyes, and his gestures—I don't know where we'd be if it weren't for Mr. Van Ee taking us in.”

Benjamin looked down toward the riverbank, where the man was sitting, smoking his pipe, minding Rachel's little ones. It was a long, sloping plane of grass, between two fields of vegetables above the Charles. Now, approaching sunset, the river mirrored pink clouds and a lambent hatch of flies drifted in the angled light.

“What happened to him?” Benjamin asked.

“He's Dutch,” she said, as though that explained everything. “Didn't have a farthing when he came over some thirty years ago. Now, this.” She nodded toward the house that lay at the top of the slope, a three-story manse with chimneys and ells as testimony to decades of accumulation. “When he first arrived he worked as a farmhand, and he promptly fell headfirst into a wagonload of manure.” Rachel's eyes sparkled with the delight of telling. She found lustful humor in the lurid and grotesque; Abigail said that no one could make her laugh like Rachel. “He was stuck, up to his waist, and about to suffocate when they grabbed him by the heels and yanked him out. Potent stuff, that fertilizer. Burned and deformed his head and hands. But he likes to say it had no effect on his better half.” Her grin was sly, conspiratorial. “Sired fourteen children—all in the dark of night, I presume—which accounts for so many additions on the house. A fireplace in each bedroom. Can you imagine?”

“So now he's here alone?”

“Wife long dead, children grown and dispersed,” she said. “Alone, save for this fleet of maids.” She looked down the table at two of the girls who were clearing away the dinner plates. “I was cooped up in that little house in the North End with Paul's brood, his mother, plus our own little one, and now—” she leaned back in her chair, clasped her hands behind her head and gazed at the sky. “I could get used to this life of ease. Paul wants still more children, and I would be happy to oblige him under these circumstances. But, alas, our time for making babies will have to wait.” She sat up and eyed Benjamin closely. “Revolution tends to make for hasty lovemaking, don't you think?”

Embarrassed, he turned toward the river. Rachel laughed.

“Abigail tells me you're sweet on the fisherman Anse Cole's daughter.”

He watched the sun's slow descent behind trees on the far bank of the Charles. The hatch, now aglow like embers, danced a reel above the water's sheen.

“You're becoming such a pretty young man,” she said, taking his hand. “You don't notice how the younger maids watch you?” Alarmed, he looked down the table, where one of the girls hastily lowered her head, shielding her eyes with the brim of her bonnet as she scraped fish bones from a plate into a slop bucket.

“What's her name?” Rachel coaxed.

“Her name?”

“Your girl's.” Rachel released his hand, and her fingers crawled up his forearm.

With reluctance he volunteered, “Mariah.”

“Mariah!”

Rachel's hand jumped from his arm down to his knee, which she squeezed, making him sit up. Her laugh now was akin to a cat's purr. And down by the riverbank the children screamed with delight, chasing bubbles, which Mr. Van Ee was blowing through a ring.

“Rachel, can you tell me something—something that a younger brother isn't supposed to know about?”

“You need a lesson in love, for the benefit of your darling Mariah?” She then leaned forward in her chair, her hand still on his knee. “What do you want to know, dear?” Her voice was frighteningly coy and playful. “Is there something your schoolmaster father, fine, educated man that he is, has not explained to your satisfaction?”

“No … um, it's about my sister. Abigail and Ezra. Do you know what happened?”

Rachel's hand fell from his knee. “Dear Lord,” she sighed. “That. I don't know for certain. Abigail is like a sister to me, you know that, but she does hold her feelings tight within her bodice. If anyone can prod and pry it out of someone, it's me, but with her it's like scratching at a stone. I only know that there's the blackest heartbreak. After Ezra left Boston, she was clearly distraught. In a strange way, I think this war benefits someone like your sister. It distracts her, preoccupies her.”

“With Ezra, too,” Benjamin said.

“You mentioned him earlier. You've seen much of him since Lexington and Concord.”

“He and I are mates. He's asked that I promise not to tell Abigail that I've seen him.”

Now it was Rachel who stared down toward the darkening river in need of solace. “It's like he wishes to be dead to her. When Paul began courting me, not long after his first wife Sarah died, he refused to speak of her. It was my hardest work, truly, to convince him that she could live on in his thoughts.” Her eyes sought Benjamin's. “When he understood that, when he began telling me about her, it was then that I knew that he loved me. The heart, such a dark, strange chamber.”

“Soon Dr. Warren is sending me back into Boston, and I feel I should tell her something. Especially since she saw us together on shore at Noddle's Island, plus the fact that Ezra acted so queerly. He would not even wave back to her.”

Again Rachel took his hand, but this time it wasn't playful. “No, you must honor your friend's request,” she said, barely a whisper. “These things cannot be manipulated, as much as one would love to try.”

He nodded. “It's for them to sort out.”

She held his hand tightly. “But you can tell your sister that I miss her greatly.”

“Yes, of course.”

“There's also something I'd like you to tell her—” Rachel said, but she then turned as her children screamed. They were running barefoot up the grassy slope, shouting out, “Mother! Mother, we have found a
bullfrog!
And Mr. Van Ee says we must ask you if we can keep it in a
jar!”

The dooryard was silent. It had been coming for weeks, Abigail realized, this loss of sound. All the neighbors' yards, boxed off by fences, were silent. No cackle of chickens, no grunting and squealing of pigs. They'd all been eaten. Or stolen. Too much of that lately. Too little food; too much theft.

Samuel didn't notice any of this. He had arrived at the front door, polite, as always, but with a sense of urgency that none of them had ever seen before; after paying cursory respects to Father and Mother, he insisted that he and Abigail talk somewhere privately. So here they came, out to the dooryard, with the last light of day cutting across the rooftops.