My Name is Resolute (61 page)

Another slave appeared with a small dustpan and a brush. The girl looked into my eyes for just a split second, then lowered her long lashes and said, “I will send it immediately, Mistress.” I heard Jamaica in her words.

Gwenny approached, her arm upon August’s, her face flushed and moist with perspiration. “Mother? I should like to go outdoors and cool off. Uncle says I must not.”

I said, “That would harm your health, Gwyneth. It is bitter cold outside.”

She curtsied, laughed, and changed her tack. “Uncle August is quite a gallant. He knows all the dances. I will have no problem now with any of them.”

“Is that so?” I asked, turning to him.

August said, “It is only to save her from the rubble at this party. Not a one of them suitable as a potential husband for her.”

“Oh, Uncle! I quite enjoyed speaking with Mr. Hallowell and Mr. Hancock. Did you see him, Mother? Mr. Hancock? The dandy young man in the cream coat?”

“I believe I have seen him,” I said. I saw in her face the longing I had felt when first I loved a young man already in his grave.

“Oh, Ma, there are only three more dances. I could dance until the sun comes up!” Almost as if on her words, the young man with unruly hair approached us. I recognized the young John Hancock. Without the wig he had worn before, he seemed younger still. His cream-colored clothes were expensive, despite his somewhat comical hair arrangement. As he bowed and asked her for a dance, I decided that the hair gave him a look of startlement, and I felt a sense of pleasure and amusement as they went to the floor. Then I accepted my brother’s hand and danced a minuet during which I was astonished at his gracefulness. When it was done, I hugged him and kissed his cheek, so happy was I to have him home again.

The party had grown in excitement, and every inch of floor held a foot tread in the next reel. I watched every square. And suddenly I could not find Gwenny. I located August, smoking a pipe at a window where he had opened the pane a couple of inches to draw in fresh air. “August? Where is Gwyneth? After that minuet I have not seen her.”

His face lost its charming appeal and assumed the character of a hardened man used to having his orders followed. “You.” He accosted the man next to him. “Have you seen the young lady coming out tonight, in the pink and lace frock?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “Fair as— Pardon, sir. I saw her, but not since the minuet.”

August’s face became frightening. “Find her. Search the house.”

The young man ran to do as he was told. I laid my arm upon August’s, finding it held none of the comfort as before, but was gone to stone. “I am sure she is dancing,” I said, trying to smile at another man who was now backing away at the tone of August’s order. “At least be discreet, sirs.”

August strode about the room, through the reel itself, upsetting three of the squares, and walked right through the hall made by dancing pairs, his eyes this way and that. I began scouring all the side rooms that led from the ballroom to alcoves and windows. At the far end, I opened the door to a room so dark that were it not for a reflection on her pink silk from the hall behind me, I would never have seen her. August reached my side as I threw the other of the double doors wide. There stood Gwenny in the arms of Wallace Spencer, his lips upon hers, his embrace swathing her. He looked up without a care on his face.

“Mother!” she whispered, her eyes wide and terrified. “I’m sorry.”

August pushed past me and said, “Unhand her, Spencer.”

“This is my house,” Wallace replied, though he did let her go and began adjusting his coat collar and vest, brushing at his sleeves as if she had left something there by her touch. “And the lass wanted her first kiss. She’d chosen someone quite unworthy to give it to her. Now, let us have no more about this and return to the ball.”

I rushed to Gwenny and clutched her shoulders, searching her face. I heard August talking to Wallace behind me as I asked her, “Did you ask him for a kiss?”

“No, Mother, but when he kissed me I couldn’t let go.”

“Where is the young man?”

She began to cry. “Out the window. Lord Spencer hit John in the face and tumbled him off.”

I went to the window. The young man lay sprawled below. “Is he dead?” I asked.

Gwenny cried louder. “I don’t know. He might be.” I turned. August’s and Wallace’s voices had grown louder and the music stopped behind the door.

“Are you challenging me, sir, in my own house?”

“You must apologize to my niece.”

Wallace snapped his fingers and from behind a set of drapes appeared two armed guards. He smiled. “It is a party, sir, and the crowd is quite gay. Kisses and little freedoms are part of the happy occasion. But to insist I apologize for kissing the child of a slave?” He hissed out that last word as if there were nothing lower on earth. “You, sir, astound me. Step aside or throw down your glove.”

At that, the slick of metal against metal heralded the two guards drawing small swords. August seemed not to watch them at all, but I felt he sized them up. He said, “Sir, I am sure you are aware that dueling is against the law. Perhaps we should meet alone at another place to finish our—discussion.”

Wallace looked at me with cruelty in his eyes. “Over a petty wench? I doubt you know who her father is, but if you should find him, tell him for me she is a choice little peach waiting to be plucked.”

I gave a cry of shock.

August said, “He is trying my bluff.” He turned to the two men with swords at the ready. “Captain August Talbot, at your service.” One of them developed a rain of sweat from his brow, his sword hand trembling. August said, “Ladies? I suggest you find Miss Roberts. Our host seems to have lost affection for our presence.”

He pushed us behind him as he backed out of the room. I shielded Gwyneth with my body and she turned her face toward the wall as we edged toward the large hall. August told the doorman to get a torch and help him find the poor man lying in the snow. America joined us and we followed him, tramping through snow and damp in our thin slippers. At last we came upon him. “Is he alive?” I whispered. “He is a most gentle man, the son of a minister.”

August jostled John and patted his face. He was but a boy, I thought, perhaps just a year or two older than Gwyneth. “There you are, good fellow. How is that head, now? Quite a blow you received.”

“Sir, I beg pardon,” John began, his speech a little slurred.

“Not at all, not at all,” August cajoled. “Hit your head, did you?”

“I fear I have had too much wine,” he said. “Oh, look, my new coat. Is the ball over?” He caught sight of Gwyneth and squinted as if trying to remember something. She turned away. “Miss MacLammond? At your service, I think. My head feels as if hit by a cannonball. I have been so hard at the books I have not danced or had wine in three years. I am quite embarrassed to have made such a fool of myself.”

August said, shouldering up the boy, “I warrant you had a great deal of help. Someone scuttled your jib and sent you off the boards there. Let us get you to a bench. As the morrow is Christmas, you may rest.”

“Christmas? Alas, no. I must be in Meeting at the earliest. Oh, I shall rue this evening, I fear. Oh, please forgive me.” He spoke to Gwenny.

As we rode home, I asked August, “What do you know of that man?” The mere fact that John Hancock was no doubt on bad terms with Wallace Spencer made him all the more appealing than had his cream-colored coat and breeches.

“Spencer, that hack-slaver? As black a bilge rat as Rafe MacAlister.”

“I meant Hancock. Other than that his hair was astir, he seems gentle and striking fair. I might be pleased to have him suitor to Gwyneth.”

August chuckled. “You choose well, for he’s heir of the richest family on this shore, I would wager. Half my cargo is whale oil and rum to England from the Hancock company. Would a minister’s son want me for an uncle?”

“He might make her a good husband.”

“He might, indeed. There. She is asleep now. As is our America. The shame will be when anyone finds out what happened.”

“You are not really going to duel with Wallace, are you?”

August smiled, letting the expression harden on his face. “I might look forward to it. But sister, it is against the law. And I would never do aught against the king and Crown.” He pointed with one finger toward the ceiling and the coachmen.

I mouthed, “Can they hear us?”

“Assume it so,” he whispered. “At any rate, though a first kiss ought to be a delightful mess between two untried and willing souls, it was but a kiss, and there will be others. You have pretty children, Ressie. Very pretty.”

“Are you fond of America Roberts?”

“Well, of course.”

I raised my brows.

He said, “Not that way. She is too beautiful.”

I wondered if some disagreement had occurred that night I left them alone with only blind Jacob and the children. “You danced with her several times,” I prodded.

“Were you counting?”

“Yes. And what man scorns a beautiful woman?”

He shifted his legs and said, “The cold this time of night is cruel, isn’t it? It is well past midnight. Don’t tell me you shall turn right around and make your children go to church meeting? I don’t intend to go.”

“Fine example you are, uncle.”

CHAPTER 28

January 18, 1756

August meant to stay with us until Cullah and Brendan returned. Everything changed the second week of January, when a sudden thaw left the roads passable but not yet muddy. If he had been present, rather than down in Boston at the harbor on business all day, he might have balanced things, or taken them into hand himself. Jacob was not in the house; he was feeding the goats and fowl, doing the milking. The children were upstairs with America and Gwyneth at their books. A gig that I recognized as one of the Spencers’ pulled up to my house. Serenity alighted and left the entire rig with four men and six horses stamping against the cold, waiting in the road.

I invited her in, of course. It was what must be done. “Will you have coffee?” I asked after she had been seated.

“Tea, if you have it. All England is mad for tea now. We were there last spring. Oh, have you ever seen Hyde Park in spring? Just lovely. You cannot imagine it if you have not been there. You must go sometime.”

“I have no tea but there is coffee,” I said, “and biscuit.” I heard children playing overhead and smiled. “My youngest two. Benjamin hates being confined to the house in this weather. They are playing at knights and castles as they learn their history. I believe we are up to the reign of King John.”

“I do not care for coffee.”

“Well, then. Beer?”

“No, thank you. I am on my way to Concord to see a dear friend of mine. And my mother is ailing, did you know? I am going to interview another doctor for her.”

“Yes, I knew. Lady Spencer—”

“Not Lady Spencer. I mean my mother, Mistress Roberts-Brown. Quite lost her mind, poor soul. Rambles on, saying the same things over and over.” Serenity seemed to be squirming in her seat. Something had brought the woman here, that I knew.

“How sad.” To be kind, I said, “Often when people are old, they forget what they have just said. It is not madness, just aging.”

“Well, that may be so for your mother, but my mother is daft as a drunkard most of the time. I hope I never live so long as to become idiotic. I was quite taken with your gown. Who made it? Oh, dear. That’s not why I called. Oh, well. You know, don’t you?”

“Know, Serenity?”

“Well, that we’re apologetic. Wallace and I are monstrously sorry for the incident that happened in our home and trust you will say nothing at all about it. We are both very sorry you became upset. There. That’s it.”

“Is that why you called?” I asked, bridling a cauldron of anger that she was stirring. Perhaps she was only here to forestall another meeting between Wallace and my brother. “Why, Serenity, you cannot be sorry that I was upset.”

“Why not?”

“You cannot apologize for my feelings. You may apologize for your actions. You may even try to apologize for your husband’s taking advantage of my daughter and disgracing her, and throwing an honorable young man out a window with a fist to his jaw. But”—I slowed my words, emphasizing each one—“you may not apologize for my feelings. My feelings are my response to your husband fondling my daughter. He all but called out my brother to a duel. No, Mistress Spencer, you must apologize for your husband’s actions.”

“Well. Well. I told him he was mistaken sending me here. You are not our level of society. You were a slave. Everyone knows what slaves are like.”

“Why, Serenity, I lived with you. I was your companion and friend. Indenture was in my childhood. Perhaps I lack understanding, not being so refined as yourself. What are you implying?”

“Your children are from all different masters.”

“How many children on your plantation look like Wallace?”

Serenity stood with a hop, nearly tumbling over the chair in which she had been sitting. “How dare you.”

“Fifteen, by now I should say, at least.”

She stomped toward the door. There, she stopped and looked from her gown to a bolt of fine blue wool I had laid there on a small table, waiting to be wrapped and taken to town. She gasped. They were the same fabric. She whirled at me. “You may think you belong in our society, Miss Talbot, but you do not. You are nothing but a tradeswoman, a crafter. You and your family will never darken the door of my home again.”

I thought of Lady Spencer’s grand home, now already pledged to my brother, and realized that Serenity had no knowledge of that. “I would not let Gwyneth’s shadow fall upon so much as your coffin. I am a crafter. Had not the Crown taken my plantation from me, I might have grown up to be much more like you, Serenity. So for that, I am thankful I learned to weave.”

She sniffed, patting her own cheeks as one might soothe a pensive child. “One must make allowances for the lower class of society. God sent you to be a slave so you could learn to weave and make your living outside of good society as a crafter.”

“God sent me to be a slave?”