The Seekers (13 page)

Abraham paced back and forth in the downstairs hall. He was dressed in his best suit. From time to time he glanced anxiously up to the second-floor landing.

Luggage had already been carried to the hooded chaise awaiting the young couple at the ring-block out in front. Abraham had intended to pay for all expenses connected with their wedding journey. But through Peggy, he discovered that Philip had hired the chaise himself, just as he was financing this large, noisy party.

Since leaving Christ Church, Abraham had had no good opportunity to speak to his father. Outside the church, Philip had shaken his son’s hand, murmured some word of congratulations, and gone immediately to his own carriage. Once the party started, Philip seemed to be everywhere—except alone, where his son might catch him for a private word. Abraham was hurt and angry at the way Philip seemed to be withholding his emotions—his affection—while he displayed his material generosity.

Through a doorway, Abraham could see his father’s back. Philip was in the midst of a heated discussion with huge-bellied General Knox, Lumden the iron-maker, and the slender, elegantly dressed banker, Royal Rothman. Suddenly Abraham felt a tug on his arm. Startled, he turned to discover Gilbert—at thirteen already taller than his half brother.

“Aren’t you anxious to be away, Abraham?” Gilbert asked, trying to invest the question with a manly wickedness.

Abraham put on a smile he didn’t feel. “Of course I am.”

“Where are you and Elizabeth going?”

“That, Gilbert, is our secret.”

“You must be sure to speak to Papa before you leave.”

Abraham frowned. “Yes, I do wish he’d take the trouble to say goodbye—”

Philip’s haughty back—and his loud harangue about the danger of Jefferson standing for election and receiving enough votes to become vice president or, worse yet, president—gave him little encouragement.

“Oh, he definitely wants to speak with you.” A mischievous smile curved Gilbert’s colorless lips. “I have it on Mama’s authority.”

But Philip still showed every sign of being engrossed. The older brother shrugged in a weary way. “Mama may be expressing a hope, not a fact.”

The slim, white-faced boy stepped closer. His expression showed a maturity beyond his years as he asked: “You’re unhappy with Papa, aren’t you?”

“I’d say it’s the other way around.”

“Well, I want you to know I think it’s splendid you and Elizabeth made a match. Just splendid.”

“Thank you, Gilbert. You’re the first person to really sound sincere about it.”

“You’ll be a good influence on her, too.”

“What?”

“I mean you’ll keep a good tether on her, so she won’t grow moody and tearful, and fly into her rages—yes, it’s all turned out very well.”

Abraham failed to share Gilbert’s enthusiasm. “I don’t believe Papa sees it that way. He still blames Elizabeth for our plans to move west.”

“I think it’s wonderful you’re going.” Gilbert’s eyes brimmed with admiration. “I just wish I were strong enough to see the new country. I know I’m not. So I’ll help Papa look after Kent’s. It’s probably the only sort of life I’m cut out for anyway—” He touched his half brother, fondly yet with a certain shyness. “I’d like to be as big as you—”

“You’re taller.”

“As strong, I mean. With good shoulders. Hands that can chop wood, or plow—”

“A fine compliment! Comparing me to a plow horse!”

Gilbert reddened. “I know I’m not saying this exactly right—”

“I’m only teasing.”

“I just don’t want you to have any bad feelings about leaving. You’re doing what you were meant to do—”

“Let’s hope so,” Abraham said, uncertain.

“There’s only a problem because Papa needs someone to carry on the business. I’m the one. He’ll get used to it one of these days, don’t you worry.”

Abraham was touched by his half brother’s words, even as he was a little saddened by their hint of sorrow. Suddenly Gilbert’s eyes flashed past Abraham’s shoulder.

“I told you!” he hissed. “Papa’s coming—”

Abraham didn’t face around. He waited, feeling his father’s presence almost like a physical force. He prayed there would be no stormy scene—

Moments later, in response to Philip’s toneless request, Abraham followed the older man past groups of boisterous well-wishers to the library. There, Philip closed the double doors. He swung to face his son.

Philip’s dark eyes caught light from the single lamp on a small Phyfe table. Without knowing precisely why, Abraham shivered.

Philip spoke a low voice. “Before you and Elizabeth leave this house, Abraham—”

“Don’t sound so grim, Papa. We’ll be back after our honeymoon.”

“Only for a short time. This is a day of parting. Because you’re my son, I felt we should have a moment alone. In addition to all the items your stepmother has provided for your new household, I am adding a family gift.” He paused only a moment. “The sum of five hundred dollars.”

“Five hundred—!”
It took Abraham a few seconds to recover. “Sir, forgive me, but I don’t understand.”

“What is it you don’t understand?”

“A gift like that. You don’t approve of this match.”

“Perhaps not,” Philip agreed. He rolled his tongue in his cheek, and nearly smiled. “However, I’m not so insensitive that I failed to grasp the meaning of the rector’s text. I’m sure he chose it deliberately. But let’s not discuss that. The reason for the gift is very simple. Eventually you’ll need funds to purchase land. Just as important, you’ll need money for transportation. Wagon travel, river travel—I am informed they’re not cheap.”

“I’ve put aside most of my cornet’s pay from the army for that, Papa.”

Philip stiffened. “Are you trying to say you refuse the gift?”

Abraham swallowed. “No, sir, of course not. I’m extremely grateful for”—he hesitated over the rest; emotion brought it forth—“for an expression of your love.”

Features still stony, Philip seated himself in a chair. He placed his hands on the knees of his fine gray breeches. “I won’t pretend I believe you’re doing the right thing. Nor will I deny I want to keep you here for selfish reasons.”

“Gilbert has a much quicker mind than I do. He’ll be an asset to the firm after he gains a little experience. He’ll be able to discuss finances with men like your friend Mr. Rothman, for instance. I get lost just doing a few simple sums—”

“Yes, even as young as he is, Gilbert shows great promise. But he is also not in the best of health. That may reduce his value to Kent’s, though I sincerely hope not—”

Philip’s dark eyes locked with his son’s.

“I not only wanted to keep you in Boston for my own sake, but for yours. You have great strength and vitality, Abraham. But enthusiasm often blinds a young man’s eyes to hard reality. I do believe you underestimate the rigors of life in the west. You yourself may be fit enough for it. But you are not one person any longer. You are two. A family—”

Refusing to dodge the issue, Abraham blurted, “Papa, this is no time for anything less than complete candor. Do you dislike Elizabeth so much? Would you rather I not have married her?”

Philip glanced away. “That choice wasn’t mine to make.”

“Please answer.”

“No. To do so might be uncharitable.”

“That makes it very clear that you—”

“Permit me to finish. I took your wife into my house when I married Peggy, and I have tried to give her every advantage you and Gilbert have received. I have tried to give unstintingly—regardless of my feelings. Elizabeth has good qualities. She’s certainly beautiful, and I can readily understand why you would fall in love with her. But she’s frail, like Gilbert. And sometimes her behavior, as you’ve seen for yourself, suggests a reckless, even unstable temperament. I don’t mean any unkindness when I say she may be quite unsuited for the sort of existence you’ve both chosen.”

Abraham struggled to forget that the same suspicion had troubled him on the family trip. He shook his head. “I’m sure she’ll get along with no difficulty, Papa. We both will.”

Philip sighed. “Youth’s optimism. Seldom tempered by reason until”—he seemed to grieve as he studied Abraham—“until it’s much too late.”

“Papa, I’ve said I appreciate your gift. But to present it along with these dire warnings—”

Philip held up his hand to interrupt: “Don’t be angry with me. I realize the decision’s made. I accept it. I would have struggled even harder—kept trying to persuade you to change your mind—except for one fact.”

His eyes drifted toward the windows overlooking the dark Common.

“I would have been forced to employ the same weapon my mother employed with me. The bribery of love. And you needn’t say I
have
employed it, because I know I have. But not to the extent—well, someday I’ll tell you the story of what she wanted for me. How she almost destroyed me as a man by insisting I would destroy
her
if I didn’t follow her plan for my life. Much as I loved her, I couldn’t allow that, because I
was
a man. Experience does knock a few lessons into thick old heads, you see. Difficult as it is”—Philip’s voice had grown almost hoarse; he rose, limped toward his son, suddenly gripped his shoulders—“I let you go. With bitterness, yes. With regret, yes. But also with the deep and honest hope that your dreams won’t be shattered. I can’t help how I feel, Abraham—even as you can’t help going your own way. We are all guilty of being human. If I have committed any sins against you, I have committed them only out of love—just as my mother did. What a paradox, eh? What a damned, terrible par—”

His voice broke. He embraced his son.

Head bent against his father’s shoulder, Abraham heard the tears in the older man’s voice. “God keep you, Abraham. God keep you
and
your dreams.”

With sadness and a strange sense of foreboding, Abraham held Philip close for a long, silent moment.

While Peggy cried and Gilbert capered and a crowd of guests shouted good wishes along with a few somewhat ribald encouragements for the evening, Abraham and Elizabeth hurried into the hooded chaise for the start of their wedding journey. Abraham whipped up the horse and they rattled off through the summer dark with the shouts and laughter dwindling slowly behind.

Abraham’s new sense of responsibility sat heavy on his shoulders for a little while. He was launching out on his own at last. And, as Philip said, he was a new, different man. He was accountable for his wife’s future as well as for his own—

But with Elizabeth close beside him in the bouncing chaise, chattering gaily and caressing his arm from time to time, the responsibility quickly changed from an ominous burden to a joy. He tingled when Elizabeth pressed her lips to his cheek and whispered that she hoped they wouldn’t take too long to reach the night’s stopping-place.

Their eventual destination, some miles northeast along the coast, was the town of Salem. They planned to spend a week at the town’s best inn, enjoying the sea air and taking in the sights of the booming seaport.

Salem’s harbor was crowded these days with tall-masted ships whose enterprising captains were carrying the country’s flag and the country’s products to Europe and around the world. Some of the ships that transported beer brewed in Philadelphia and butter churned on Massachusetts farms voyaged as far as the Chinese port of Canton, there unloading another part of their cargo—American-grown ginseng, an aromatic root highly prized by Oriental physicians.

The same ships often returned to Massachusetts bearing Chinese opium for the valises of American doctors, as well as pepper, madder dye, Turkish carpets, figs and other exotic goods from ports along the way. People said marvelous curiosities such as African monkeys could be seen on the Salem docks—and, nearby, evidence that the thriving ocean trade was creating fortunes overnight. Mansions were being raised by captains or shipowners who often realized as much as a seven hundred percent profit on a single voyage.

Both Abraham and Elizabeth had considered Salem an ideal spot for a honeymoon. This evening, however, they only planned to go part of the distance, to a country inn where Abraham had reserved a sitting room with an adjoining bedchamber. Amused, he supposed that when they got there, they’d probably find Philip had prepaid the bill.

As the ferry bore them across the Charles to the peninsula, Elizabeth seemed to grow less animated. At one point, she pressed a hand to her stomach.

“Elizabeth, are you feeling poorly?”

“No, darling, don’t worry.”

He peered at the dim oval of her face, beautiful under the summer stars. “You’re not telling me the truth.”

“Only a minor dizziness. It will pass.” She tried to smile. Her eyes reflected the glint of the rising moon on the river. “Caused, I’m sure, by the excitement of finally being married—”

But her face remained white. Abraham saw that when the ferryman lifted his lantern and motioned the chaise forward across the end of the scow that had dropped down to rest on the dark shore.

Abraham leaned over and blew out the lamp.

He heard rather than saw Elizabeth slip toward the bed from the concealment of the screen where she’d retired to remove her traveling clothes. The country inn was quiet, save for one last customer bidding the landlord a tipsy farewell beneath the open window.

The summer air was fragrant with the smell of scythed grass. The brilliant moon turned the planes of Abraham’s chest white above the coverlet drawn to his waist. Expectantly, he swung toward the whisper of Elizabeth’s bare feet—and caught his breath.

Her hair hung unbound, a waterfall of gold across her shoulders. The moon lit her eyes until they glowed like blue gems.

Her breasts, remarkably large and firm for one so slender, bobbed as she neared the bedside. The moonlight burnished the soft golden thatch below her smooth stomach.

Without embarrassment or hesitation, she raised the coverlet and slipped in beside him. Her bare hip touched his, a velvety sensation. Her hand stole over to grasp him as her other arm slipped around his neck. He pressed her to the pillows, his lips eager, hers responding, opening—

Transported beyond himself by the sweet smell of her clinging mouth, he seemed to float in a dazzle of summer moonlight that spilled over the bed. He stroked her body with mounting excitement. Felt the heat of her flesh as it warmed—