"I take it," she said after a time, "that you have spoken to Mr. Pentyre?"
"I have," said the Lieutenant.
"And did he have an account of his own whereabouts on the night of his wife"s death?"
"He did."
"Did you believe it?"
"Madame," said Coldstone, "there is no question of Pentyre"s involvement in his wife"s death-"
"Why is there no question?" asked Abigail. "Because Mr. Pentyre is the Governor"s friend?" is there no question?" asked Abigail. "Because Mr. Pentyre is the Governor"s friend?"
One corner of Coldstone"s mouth turned down, hard, a prim fold of exasperation.
"Why are you so so convinced that my husband-and not, I notice, any more obvious member of the Sons of Liberty-had a hand in the killing?" convinced that my husband-and not, I notice, any more obvious member of the Sons of Liberty-had a hand in the killing?"
"Perhaps because the only people who claim to have been with your husband at the time of Mrs. Pentyre"s death are known to be speakers of sedition, if no worse, against His Majesty"s government?"
"Ah. And only traitors will lie to cover the movements of their friends?"
"You will admit that those who are known to be engaged in smuggling would be less likely to question a "friend" if he asked them to lie."
"I will admit that they might oblige if asked for an untruth, but I will not admit that they"re readier to such a lie than anyone else in Boston, up to and including members of the Governor"s family."
It was probably physically impossible for Lieutenant Coldstone"s natural stiffness to increase by much, but the slight turn of his head, the flare of his nostrils, informed Abigail that Lisette Droux had at least told her the truth about Pentyre"s alibi. She went on, "If I"m wrong, of course, and Mr. Pentyre is genuinely distraught at what happened, I would be the last person to press him with questions about whether he had a hand in it. It is one reason that I do want to see him, if it"s possible. Not to ask if he killed his wife, but to see if he knows anything about where my friend may have fled: any fact about the connection between his wife and Mrs. Malvern. Because I very much fear that Mrs. Malvern saw the killer, and that is why she has gone into hiding. We must find her, before the killer finds her first."
There was something about her words that made Coldstone"s eyes shift. Something that made him hesitate.
At length he said, "Mr. Pentyre has removed to Castle Island. The families of all the tea consignees, and of every Crown official and clerk in Boston, have been crossing to the island all the morning, asking for the protection of the King"s troops against rioting and insult in the wake of agitation by the political organization to which your husband-and apparently Mrs. Malvern, and you yourself-belong. Surely you saw the broadsides," he added drily, "demanding that Mr. Pentyre and the others present themselves at this Liberty Tree and resign their commissions to sell the tea?"
"And yet," returned Abigail quietly, "you-or at least the Provost Marshal-were convinced that Mr. Adams had to do with the murder, while the Dartmouth Dartmouth was yet far out at sea and no broadside had yet appeared on any wall." was yet far out at sea and no broadside had yet appeared on any wall."
Coldstone set plate and cup aside-the handle of the cup, Abigail noted, lining up perfectly with the edge of the table. "Mrs. Adams," he said. "You and I are like card players, each guarding the contents of their hand from the other, because there is too much at stake on the table to lay it down. I think-" His frown deepened, as if at the command of that interior blackmailer who was forcing the words from him. "I need your help. I do not think I can find this man without it. And, I think you want to help me, both as a woman, and as a seeker after truth."
"If truth is indeed what you seek, Lieutenant."
Coldstone looked for a moment as if he would have said something else-perhaps, she reflected uncomfortably, turned her statement back upon her. But he only nodded. "I seek the man who would do this to a woman," he said. "I have seen cases like this in London, and such a man will go on killing, until he is stopped. Will you help me find that man, whoever he may be?"
"I will," she said, "if I can. If you will-No." She stopped herself. "I will help you, regardless."
He inclined his head. "Thank you."
"Who was this Mrs. Fishwire? What do you know about her?"
"Only that she was a hairdresser: what they call a woman of the people, meaning she was poor. She was close to fifty, a mulatto from Virginia. The office of the Provost Marshal wasn"t concerned in the matter, and only took the report of the city Watch."
"No Mr. Fishwire?"
"None in the report. She was found by a neighbor, a Mr. Ballagh."
Found in the same tight-packed labyrinth of alleys and byways that Rebecca Malvern had perforce made her home. Did that mean anything, or not? Did it mean anything that Richard Pentyre"s handsome house lay not half a mile distant, as so many wealthy houses did?
Whose hair had she dressed? Perdita Pentyre"s?
"It was over two years ago," Coldstone went on. "Yet surely there will be people in the neighborhood still, who remember the circ.u.mstances. If I can track the man from that end of the trail-"
"You?" Abigail"s eyebrows shot up. "Lieutenant Coldstone, I may be a suspected traitor, but I am nevertheless a Christian woman. I would not want it on my conscience, that I had sent a British officer into the North End, with or without escort, tea ship or no tea ship."
Stiffly, Coldstone reproved, "I would not go in uniform."
"With that voice and that posture and hair cropped for a military wig, you would not need to. They"ll cut you to pieces and feed you to their pigs, Lieutenant. Best let me see to this."
Sixteen
To Abigail, the tight-tangled alleys and narrow, anonymous rights-of-way that made up the North End always smacked more of the village Boston had been a hundred and fifty years ago, than of the thriving colonial city it had become. In fall and spring, the bustle and variety in the crowded streets went to her head like a gla.s.s of wine: book-shops, silversmiths", the closeness of the wharves with their tall ships; the smells of sea salt and pine. In the stench and heat of summer, with pigs and chickens and the occasional milk-goat blocking the narrow alleys, she invariably felt a longing for the green quiet and fresh food of Braintree, and today-with winter closing in, and the bells of the city tolling, and an edge of violence in the air-it seemed to her that here in this cramped islet could be found the concentrated solution of the worst of what Boston was.
Boston was a seaport town: sailors, both coastal and deep-water, were to be seen everywhere. The tenements that crowded these narrow streets housed them in their hundreds and-cheek-by-jowl with them-the chandler ies, slopshops, and harlots that made up their world.
Boston was a wealthy town: Amid the crumbling squalor of dockside poverty, handsome brick mansions reared, where merchant families had held land for generations while the neighborhood decayed around them. Up until eight years ago, Governor Hutchinson had resided here with his family, in a splendid house up the hill from his wharf. Then in "65-enraged by Britain"s arbitrary decision to tax everything printed, from bills of lading to playing cards-rioters had gutted the building, burned the Governor"s painstakingly collected library of the colony"s oldest doc.u.ments, and driven his family out into the night. The family lived in Milton now, in the countryside, and the Governor, when in town, had a newer and larger brick mansion on Marlborough Street close to the Commons. The Olivers-relations of the Hutchinsons and the Governor"s appointees to the most lucrative colonial posts-had a house on the North End as well, but as Abigail pa.s.sed it, she noted that its shutters were up, and the knocker taken from its door.
Boston was a town of pa.s.sions: for religion, for liberty, for riotous street fighting that broke out every fifth of November-Pope"s Day-in parades, brawls, battles between North-Enders and South-Enders. As she followed Sam"s maid Surry along the cobbled pavement, Abigail could hear voices arguing in taverns, in tenements, in alleyways. In addition to the homes of the rich, the North End held a large concentration of Boston"s poor, and though it outraged Abigail"s Christian soul, she knew that the refuge of the poor (if they have not the spiritual mettle to either resign their souls or to better their condition) was drink, of which plenty was available. The liveliness that elsewhere characterized Boston seemed here to be only a step from violence. On this very cold morning most of the local dwellers were on their way to or from the market in North Square, but gangs and groups of countrymen cl.u.s.tered around the inns and taverns, with rifles on their backs, tomahawks at their belts, and little parcels of clean shirts and spare stockings under their arms.
"Do you remember hearing of the two murders, three summers ago?" she asked her companion, and the slave-woman nodded.
"Was there two? I only heard of the one. Kitta-Mrs. Blaylock"s cook"-Mrs. Blaylock was Sam Adams"s neighbor-"says Mrs. Fishwire was cut up something horrible. A judgment on her, Kitta says, though to my mind that don"t show much of the Christian charity she"s always braggin" on that she has." Having been the property of Sam Adams for many years, Surry was easy-tempered and virtually unshockable: a pretty mulatto woman of about Abigail"s own age, to whose speech still clung the lazy accent of Virginia.
"Why a judgment? I thought Mrs. Fishwire was a hairdresser."
"Oh, Lord, nuthin" like that." The maidservant shook her head. "For one thing, Zulieka Fishwire was older than Mr. Adams-not that that"s ever stopped a woman with a good man," she added with a pixie grin. "But Kitta-and some other folks in this town-thinks that because a woman learned herb-doctorin" from the Indians, and maybe from the country Negroes that come in from Africa, she"s got to be learnin" it from the Devil." She sniffed scornfully. "Some of those white white doctors can"t tell the difference between p.r.i.c.kly heat and the smallpox . . . Well, Mrs. F. doctors can"t tell the difference between p.r.i.c.kly heat and the smallpox . . . Well, Mrs. F. did did dress hair, and did it well. But folks knew, if they didn"t want to be bled or purged or dosed with some of those awful things doctors"ll make you swallow, she was the one to come to, to get you well." dress hair, and did it well. But folks knew, if they didn"t want to be bled or purged or dosed with some of those awful things doctors"ll make you swallow, she was the one to come to, to get you well."
The blocks of the North Street Ward had originally been plotted deep enough to permit gardens behind them, but during the course of time this land had been sold, and divided, and built upon for rentals and barns and work-shops. In much the same way, old Ezra Tillet had built the narrow little house behind his own, that his son Nehemiah had rented to Rebecca Malvern. The result of this rear-yard building was that much of the North End was a maze of yards and cottages, and alleyways that would admit no more than a wheelbarrow. Down one of these, past the Blue Bull tavern and behind Love Lane, Surry led Abigail, to a sort of cobbled courtyard surrounded by three or four ramshackle structures of various sizes, aswarm with grubby children barefoot in the cold.
Washing-lines stretched from house to house, and a bonfire burned in the middle of the court under a black cauldron that looked as if it had begun its career on a whaling vessel. Two children who should have been in school were feeding the fire beneath it. A third, slightly older, stirred an acrid burgoo of shirts and chemises simmering within it. The heavy air smelled of woodsmoke, lye, and privies that needed cleaning.
Abigail walked up to the older woman engaged, with yet another child, in hanging shirts of white ruffled linen over the stretched ropes, and asked, "Begging your pardon, m"am, but does Hattie Kern still live hereabouts?" Rachel Revere, who lived two streets away on North Square, had given her this name along with the information that Mrs. Kern took in washing. Sure enough, the woman said, "That"ll be me, m"am."
"I"m Mrs. Andrews, from Haverhill." She held out her hand to the warm, laundry-wet grip of those rough fingers. "And this is Lula." Surry curtseyed. "I understand a woman named Fishwire used to live near here; Lula was her niece. We only heard this past summer about the poor woman"s death"-in an isolated township like Haverhill, this was not beyond the realm of possibility-"and Lula being her closest relative we had wondered, if any of her things remained?"
"Lord save you," exclaimed Mrs. Kern, and dried her hands on her ap.r.o.n. "I have some of her things-a good few, anyway-and Georgie Ballagh still has that poor cat of hers. Nannie"-this to one of the children feeding the cauldron fire-"run get Mr. Ballagh, there"s a good girl . . . Not you, Isaac, you stay with the fire. To think of her having a niece after all!"
"What happened?" asked Abigail, though Rachel Revere had last night given her the armature of the story: that sometime during the night of the twelfth of September, 1772, Zulieka Fishwire had been slashed to death in her house on Love Lane-a house now rented to a tailor named Gridley and his family. ("And a very pleasant gentleman he is, when he"s himself," affirmed Mrs. Kern loyally.) Paul Revere"s wife had, like Lieutenant Coldstone, described Mrs. Fishwire as a hairdresser, "But that was just so the church elders wouldn"t come pokin" their long noses into her affairs," provided Mrs. Kern. "Between black eyes from the Bull"-she nodded in the direction of the public house-"and round bellies from the girls down at the wharves, if you"ll excuse my mentioning what"s in front of everyone"s noses hereabouts, and children hereabouts comin" down with fever and what-have-you every summer, not to speak of breakin" their arms like my Timmy did climbin" on the back of the butcher"s cart like a young id jit . . . Well, Mrs. F. barely had time to fix her own own hair, poor lady." hair, poor lady."
"It"s why n.o.body thought a thing of it, that strangers were in and out of her house all the day and of an evening," confirmed Georgie Ballagh, a bent little man who"d lost a leg and a hand fighting the French at Louisburg, over a decade ago. "Mysel", I don"t hold with a woman gettin" shut of a child she"s carryin", but what"s the odds, if the poor mite"ll be born to a mother who"s workin" the streets for her livin"? Sailors"d come in with their doxies, or by theirselves to be rid of the pox-beggin" your pardon for mentionin" it, m"am-at all hours of the day and night."
He frowned, and ruffled at his thin, colorless hair with the iron hook that had replaced his left hand; Abigail told herself firmly that she must not speculate how many scars he had on his scalp from this habit. "We think a sight more of it now, I"ll tell ye. There"s not a man or a woman on this yard, that don"t p.r.i.c.k up their ears when they see a stranger come "round. But all that"s after closin" the barn door when the horse is already gone."
"Did anyone not see who was the last person to visit her house that evening?" Abigail made herself look shocked, and Mrs. Kern, Mr. Ballagh, and three other neighbors poured out a confused tale: it was a lady, at about the time Mrs. Kern was setting out to find where Nannie had got to-no, no, it was a man in a green coat (only Lettie Grace said it was gray) who"d come in a chaise, she thought-No, that chaise belonged to that French feller stopping at the Bull. Mrs. Russell said it was a Negro, but then Mrs. Russell had no use for Negroes on the whole- As Abigail had coached her, Surry, upon being shown the few effects that Mrs. Kern (and several other neighbors) had taken from the house once the constables of the Watch had been there, asked, "Did no one find among her things a coral necklace? There was a gold bead on it. It was my mother"s, that she"d brought from Africa when they came over," which gave Abigail the chance to describe both Rebecca Malvern and Perdita Pentyre, as the possible thieves.
It was a bow drawn at a venture, and if either of those women had visited the tiny shop that Zulieka Fishwire had kept on the ground floor of the little house, n.o.body had particularly noticed them. Given the proximity of the Bull, and the wide variety of Mrs. Fishwire"s clientele, this was scarcely surprising. Mrs. Gridley, whose husband now rented the shop, added that it had costed the landlord six months" rent, that killing had, as no one would rent the place, and she and her man wouldn"t have, neither, except the asking price came down so cheap, and then they"d got Father Scully that looked after the Irish in His Majesty"s Forces to come over from Castle Island and say prayers, and Mrs. Gridley still still wouldn"t go into that room after dark, not for ready money. wouldn"t go into that room after dark, not for ready money.
"Slack your fire, la.s.s," said Mr. Gridley easily, from where he sat beside the front window st.i.tching a waistcoat of yellow silk. "There"s no such a thing as ghosts." He nodded a genial greeting to Abigail and the rest of the procession that followed her in, agog to display their knowledge of the old crime.
The floor was sanded, after the old country habit, and the ceiling low. The building itself was even more rickety than Rebecca Malvern"s dwelling, so that the dashing footsteps of several little Gridleys (there were at least four of them that Abigail could see, and Mrs. Gridley didn"t herself look old enough to be out without her own mother) almost vibrated the house. Nails and hooks had been driven into the walls of the small front room: "She had strings back and forth between "em, with her herbs dryin"," provided Mrs. Kern. When Abigail looked up at the little cl.u.s.ter of hooks in the low ceiling, the washerwoman added, "She"d hang skins up there. Snakeskins, enough to make a Christian"s flesh creep. Mornin"s, she"d go out to the Commons and catch "em by the Mill-Pond, or pay the boys hereabouts. Lizards, too. She"d have "em up there to keep the cats from "em."
"Had she many?"
"Three," said George Ballagh. "My lad Pirate was one of "em-" He looked out the open door of the little house, and pointed to a thin, rather delicate-looking black cat sitting on an upper windowsill of a tenement opposite, washing itself with the stump of a missing forepaw. "He a"n"t crossed this threshold since that day, an" I can"t say as I blame him."
"Because he still smells the blood, do you think?" Abigail knew plenty of people who"d disagree with the enlightened Mr. Gridley and attribute such reaction in an animal to ghosts.
The little ex-soldier"s face hardened with hate. "Blood my a.r.s.e. The man who did it killed the other two, and I found my poor lad hid behind the cupboard with his paw all but sliced off, and cuts on his back where the man"d gone after him as he ran about. There was blood on the step"-he nodded toward the scuffed oak threshold, the shallow brick step outside-"where they three would sit after dark, waitin" for the Fishwire to let "em in for their dinners, an" the two of "em gutted like fish here in this room, an" the poor old Fishwire herself in the doorway there, that goes to the back-kitchen. I was one of them as helped clear the dead from Fort William Henry, after the Abenaki had ma.s.sacred the settlers there." He shook his head. "This was near as bad."
"That Father Scully," put in Mrs. Gridley insistently, "he blessed both this room and the kitchen, and the doorway between "em. There"s nought of evil, that remains here of the deed."
"No," said Abigail softly. "Of course not." While Mrs. Gridley, Mrs. Kern, and others explained to Mr. Gridley every detail of Abigail"s story about being the mistress of Mrs. Fishwire"s niece, she walked around the little room, set up now as a tailor"s shop, with boxes to hold the fabric for various jobs and a little rack of spools of thread of various colors. The resemblance between this place and Rebecca"s house lifted the hair on her nape. And yet, she told herself, there was little variation possible in these ramshackle dwellings. It was such a place as any woman obliged to make her own living in the world would take, if she could: a small house on one of Boston"s many inner courts, that would be black as pitch once the sun was down, save for the dull gold c.h.i.n.ks of closed shutters . . .
"Were the shutters closed?" she asked. "The night of the murder?"
"Oh, aye." Mr. Ballagh nodded, from the doorway where he"d gone to stand talking to Mr. Gridley. "With the species of ruffians that spend their time in the Bull, you want to keep things locked up tight, once the sun goes in. The Fishwire"d keep her door open later nor most, for her trade, an" she was always havin" trouble with "em."
Another neighbor nodded. "We was all ever havin" trouble with "em, m"am. One or another-sailors, sometimes, sometimes just the riffraff that unloads the boats-"
"She"d get a gentleman, now an" now, though." The informant-swarthy as an Indian with an Irish brogue that could have been cut like cheese with a wire-explained to Abigail. "From the Bull, y"see. Gentlemen"ll come for the cards, an" maybe so-be-it the deacons of their churches won"t see "em takin" a drink-"
"Maybe so-be-it they"re deacons theirselves," added a Mrs. Bailey, and got a general laugh.
"Well, sailor or gent, they"d come down here, see the light, an" maybe think it was a wh.o.r.e"s house. Or others"d come and pound on her door and curse at her, and call her witch-"
"I throwed a man out, just the week before the killing happened," a.s.sented Ballagh. "One of the gentlemen, he he was, and cursin" like a sailor at her, because he couldn"t do his rifle-drill-beggin" your pardon, m"am-with some drab over at the Bull." was, and cursin" like a sailor at her, because he couldn"t do his rifle-drill-beggin" your pardon, m"am-with some drab over at the Bull."
"Lord, yes!" Mrs. Kern laughed. "And he wasn"t the first or the only-You mind Abednego Sellars, that"s deacon at the New South Meeting? He had a ladyfriend lived in rooms at the Mermaid, in Lynn Street; he was here all the time at evening, all cloaked up like he thought n.o.body here would see his silver shoe buckles, to buy the where-withal to do his doxy justice. Then when things didn"t work out just as he"d planned, he"d be back, midnight sometimes, a-poundin" on the Fishwire"s door and screamin" at her that she was a witch who"d put a word on him, to keep him from doin" the deed."
There was general laughter, and Abigail traded a startled glance with Surry. Both of them knew Deacon Sellars, if not well, at least for a number of years. He was a pious and prosperous chandler, a pillar of his church and-Abigail knew-likewise a pillar of the Sons of Liberty, whose pamphlets he was in the habit of taking out of Boston in his deliveries of soap and candles to surrounding towns.
While it was true that Boston was a bustling town that seemed both enormous and crowded to her-particularly when first she had come to live there-she realized that in the five years that she"d lived on and off in Boston, she had come to know, at least by sight, scores of its inhabitants to whom she had never spoken, and by reputation, many more. Those who, like Deacon Sellars, had lived all their lives in the town would know its byways, and where to come if they wanted to deceive their wives or play cards or get drunk out of sight of the elders of their respectable churches.
And heaven knew, you couldn"t throw a rock in Boston without hitting someone at least sympathetic to the Sons of Liberty.
On the other hand, she reflected, as she and Surry made their retreat past the Blue Bull and out into Love Lane once more . . . On the other hand, it was was curious. curious.
And it might behoove her to find out a little more about Abednego Sellars. And she couldn"t keep herself from mentally adding, Carefully Carefully . . . . . .
It was nearly ten in the morning-and poor Pattie was once again saddled with keeping the children at their lessons and beginning preparations for dinner in between her own, heavier tasks-and Abigail turned the corner onto Middle Street with a pang of guilt. A door opened just ahead of her and three men staggered out, dressed for some evening party and laughing with the exhausted silliness of men who"ve spent the night in the back room of a tavern (and the door was, indeed, of that description). Surry leaped nimbly aside. Abigail, less quick, found herself with one of them in her arms.
She stepped back and released him with an exclamation of disgust.
"Pardon, m"am-pardon, m"am," mumbled the stumbler"s friend, catching the stumbler by the elbow. "M"friend"s not well, not at all well . . ." The third member of the party hooted with laughter.
"There, Percy, you"ve gone and offended a respectable matron! Your wife will have words to say to you!" He caught his two friends by the shoulders, and the three of them staggered away down the hill toward Lynn Street, leaving Abigail gazing after them, not certain if she should be troubled or merely bemused.
The young man who"d spoken to her-drunk as a lord and elegant in a coat of blue satin beneath his caped gray greatcoat-looked a great deal like Jeffrey Malvern.
Seventeen
Scarlett"s Wharf, where the body of the prost.i.tute Jenny Barry had been found, lay barely four hundred yards from Love Lane. "There won"t be anythin" to see now, m"am," warned Surry, as they descended the hill, past taverns and tenements, past public houses where men from the country gathered, quietly talking, and when they fell silent, the tolling of the church bells filled in like the heavy scent of lightning in the air.
"I know."
Had her hair been red? Blonde? Coldstone hadn"t said.
Had she been young? So many of the girls who came and went through the doors of the Queen of Argyll tavern near the head of the wharf seemed, to Abigail"s eyes, barely children. Others had the bitter faces of crones, though probably no older than her youngest sister Betsy, who was barely twenty-three. Despite her decent upbringing and wary loathing of drunkenness, Abigail felt her heart contract with pity at the sight of them. You could not open yourself to six or eight or ten men a day, she thought, without the a.s.sistance of alcohol-of something to keep your mind from what you did and what you"d become. Her thoughts went back to Mrs. Kern and her daughters, hanging gentlemen"s shirts on the stretched lines, their hands red with lye. The youngest one-whom Mrs. Kern had sent without a second thought to fetch Mr. Ballagh from the tavern-had looked barely six.
More men loitered on the wharves, waiting their time to take a shift at guarding the Dartmouth Dartmouth"s cargo to prevent it being unloaded. She crossed Ship Street, pattens clanking on the bricks, to the short wooden platform that stretched out over the salt-smelling waters, and behind her caught the words "liberties of Englishmen . . ." ". . . Parliament . . ." ". . . make us slaves, sure as if we was Negroes ourselves!"
From the head of Scarlett"s Wharf the Dartmouth Dartmouth was hidden by the weathered buildings erected on the quarter mile-plus of the Long Wharf and the cl.u.s.ters of masts beyond; by the shoulder of Fort Hill and the gray stone ma.s.s of the Battery. "You think the Governor"s gonna call the soldiers, to get that tea ash.o.r.e, m"am?" asked Surry, when Abigail"s eyes turned in that direction. And what did was hidden by the weathered buildings erected on the quarter mile-plus of the Long Wharf and the cl.u.s.ters of masts beyond; by the shoulder of Fort Hill and the gray stone ma.s.s of the Battery. "You think the Governor"s gonna call the soldiers, to get that tea ash.o.r.e, m"am?" asked Surry, when Abigail"s eyes turned in that direction. And what did they they make of it, Abigail wondered: the Scipios and Surrys of the world. Men and women who not only could not vote, but whom the law permitted to be bought and sold, as if they were truly the cattle that Virginians sometimes called them. What did make of it, Abigail wondered: the Scipios and Surrys of the world. Men and women who not only could not vote, but whom the law permitted to be bought and sold, as if they were truly the cattle that Virginians sometimes called them. What did they they make of all this furor among the whites, over three-pence a pound on tea? make of all this furor among the whites, over three-pence a pound on tea?
"I shouldn"t like to be the commander of the regiment trying to implement the order." She nodded toward a group of newly arrived youths, making their way along the quay under the watchful eye of a bearded older man. "I understand that the Dartmouth Dartmouth"s captain has offered to take his cargo back to England, but Governor Hutchinson has ordered the vessel to remain until the tea is unloaded and delivered to its consignees."
"I will purely like," remarked Surry, as they turned south and started to walk along Fish Street toward home, "to see him try." She had, Abigail reflected, been with Sam Adams a long time.
Abigail pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders as the gray wind cut at her, tucked her chin into the layers of scarves that swaddled her neck. At any other time, I would be rejoicing. At any other time, I would be rejoicing.
At any other time-ten days ago-I would have cried out against anyone who tried to stop any of the Sons of Liberty from their endeavors, for any reason. Our liberties-our rights as English citizens-take precedence over the misdeeds of any individual.
In her mind she saw the little black cat on the windowsill, washing itself philosophically with the stump of its paw.
. . . deacon at the New Brick Meeting . . . a-poundin" on the Fishwire"s door and screamin" at her . . .
Surry strolled beside her, half a pace behind as behooved a slave, but commenting now and then on this or that ship, this or that group of countrymen . . . Comfortable with Abigail, as with a member of the family. And so she was, reflected Abigail, glancing at her: plump and quite pretty in her spotless white head-wrap and calico dress. She had long ago guessed that Cousin Sam used this woman as a concubine, and that Sam"s wife, Bess, if not precisely delighted by the arrangement, had accepted it. They were both good-natured women, they were both dearly fond of Sam, and both would rather work together to keep the household comfortable than rend it with recrimination and jealousy. Had she been white, and a free man"s wife, Surry would have been precisely what Bess was-as respectable a housewife as she was an "honest" slave.
Thus it was no good asking her if she knew anyone who might have known Jenny Barry. The gulf that divided the respectable from the raffish was deep, and cut across both slave and free. Even a woman as poor and as slatternly as Hattie Kern would feel deeply insulted, had Abigail asked her about the dead prost.i.tute"s friends, enemies, clients. What makes you think I"d know a woman like that? What makes you think I"d know a woman like that?
A man could cross that gulf, of course. As Jeffrey Malvern obviously did, coming to the North End taverns to play cards and drink-it occurred to Abigail to wonder if he, like Abednego Sellars, had a "ladyfriend" with "rooms" somewhere among these anonymous little rear buildings and yards. No man-anger p.r.i.c.kled behind her breastbone at the thought-would suffer ostracism from friends and fellow members of the Congregation, merely for speaking to a publican, a wh.o.r.emaster, a thief.
Paul Revere could help her there. But Revere was still away, carrying pamphlets and broadsides to every town in the colony, bidding all men who loved their country to come to Boston and stand against tyranny.
As they pa.s.sed Hitchborn"s Wharf, Surry pointed to the whaleboats that were putting out for Castle Island, carrying the families and property of the tea consignees, seeking protection from the Crown against the mob that was growing larger by the day.