Poison to Purge Melancholy (12 page)

“I’ll not fire off more than five or six shots all night, sirs,” Jim said. “Congress no longer supplies my powder, and money is too scarce these days to send it up in smoke, with no venison or pheasant to be supped upon for the effort.”

Alex and Will fervently agreed and, for a moment, Sam was silent—though his face was concealed by his mask, I imagined him crestfallen, so I said, “Then I must play my fiddle all the louder,” praying the horsehair would last out the evening.

“So you shall, Ben,” Sam laughed, his good cheer restored. “And we shall collect enough coin this night to provide us all ample firepower for the New Year. As I passed the square earlier, I saw guests arriving at Captain Underwood’s—gentry in carriages driven by liveried slaves. Enough wealth is enclosed in the captain’s house this night that we need only to walk through, and come out the other side with pockets full of gold. We’ll begin there.”

“Are you mad?” I exclaimed. “Captain Underwood would sooner entertain the devil than invite us into his home. Above all you, Sam.” Underwood had overseen our company the last years of the war and a man more drunk of his own power did not exist. Sam, with his free tongue and brash spirit, had oft run ill of the captain, and carried flogging scars to show for it.

“All the more reason to take his coin now, Ben. Think of it as recompense for Monmouth, where his blundering nearly handed all us lads over to the Lobsterbacks.”

“Aye,” agreed Will. “And for Paulus Hook, when I thought sure he’d ruined the raid by sending us forward too soon.”

“And for all his other sins against us.” Sam slid a flask from his frock pocket and, after a nip himself, offered it round. “The captain should have donned a redcoat himself, for all the good he did our cause. Besides he shan’t know us in our masks. Remember, gentlemen, change your voices, as we rehearsed. Give us a tune as we go along, Ben. ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ would be fitting, eh?”

Indeed, yet I felt no jollity as I struck up my bow.

We returned to the
parlor, Horse in front of me, Hugh behind, one of his big paws on my shoulder, thumb and forefinger kneading my neck muscles. I was still mad at him, but I didn’t shrug off the massage; (a) it felt good, (b) it was Hugh’s way of making amends, and (c) it seemed to keep the Carson house bogeyman at bay. Whatever the reason, I felt no uneasiness as we walked down the hall.

We’d barely reached the parlor doorway when Glad called everyone into the dining room.

“Supper time,” Hugh said with his usual mealtime enthusiasm, and he steered me toward the food. Horse was already heading that way and everyone else followed us from the parlor.

I stopped, stunned, right inside the door, creating a logjam behind me. The room was lit by candles—two tapers on the table, two under hurricane glasses on the mantel, and of course the electric ones in the front windows. Evelyn and Glad stood at the head of the table, both in colonial dress. Evelyn looked as I’d first seen him that afternoon, but now wearing an unadorned brown coat, the kind I’d seen in paintings of Ben Franklin. Glad, rather than wearing her Marie Antoinette gown, had donned more of a Betsy Ross outfit—blue skirt, white apron, peasant blouse with a brown-striped waistcoat over top, and a frilly cap on her head.

But that wasn’t why I was stunned. I’d never seen so many dishes of food on a table at one time. Oh, being Italian, I’d seen this kind of quantity, just not the variety. In the center were two large platters of turkey—one with sliced white meat, one with bite-sized dark meat, no whole drumsticks or wings. Both trays were garnished with mushrooms and pickled peppers. In front of the settings at the head and foot were open tureens—a pale yellow soup in one, what looked like stewed cabbage in the other. At the corners were serving dishes of yams, thick sausages, a half-dome of something green (peas pudding?), and a pie of some sort, all elaborately adorned with herbs or slices of citrus fruits. On one side of the table was a pyramid of cornbread squares, on the other, neat slices of bread stuffing. Squeezed in around the edges were place settings of thick maroon dishes, blue and white mugs, and pewter utensils.

“Gather ’round,” Glad said, meaning I should quit blocking the door. She began to assign seats. “Ev will sit at the head and I’ll sit here.” She clutched the chair at Evelyn’s right hand. “Then Beth Ann. Where is she?”

She was sulking in the back of the crowd. We let her through, then Hugh went forward, towing me by the hand.

“That’s it,” Glad said. “Fitzhugh, Pat, then Magnolia at the foot. Francis, Lighthorse, Ann Carter, and, er, Kevin on the other side.”

So I ended up right across from Dr. Weisel, which didn’t do my appetite any good. Because of him, I’d be having a lung scan next week. I felt Hugh’s hand tighten on mine. Glancing up, I expected to see him making eyes at me, but he was looking at Dr. Weisel, too—glaring at him—and his hand had tightened in anger.

Miss Maggie, I noticed, wasn’t wearing her reindeer antlers. Not proper dinner attire? More likely she thought they’d get in her way while she was eating. Leaning close to me, she murmured, “What do you think, Pat?
This
is how people in the eighteenth century decorated for the holidays.” She waved her arm over the spread on the table. “Note the symmetry of how the dishes are laid out, and the presentation. It was quite an art form.”

“I have an announcement to make,” Glad said as we took our seats. “Now that I’ve retired, and with volunteering for the Foundation taking up a lot of my time, Ev suggested that our Christmas Eve dinner this year be somewhat scaled down. We’ve decided to cut it back to two courses.”

Two? Like this?

Miss Maggie grinned at my disbelief. “She usually puts out four, in the eighteenth century tradition—two main courses followed by two dessert courses. Ten to twenty dishes apiece.”

“
Madonne
!” I mumbled.

Glad’s announcement had been met with silence from her family. She went on. “We’ve decided to serve this evening a Christmas meal similar to what Elizabeth Carson might have prepared in the leaner years, during and right after the war, when she had to take in lodgers to make ends meet.”

Lean? I thought. Ten dishes instead of twenty. Good grief.

“Ev helped me with the menu this year,” Glad said. “The pumpkin soup, peas pudding, boiled cabbage, and oyster pie are all from colonial recipes.”

“And,” Evelyn said as he took up two metal pitchers from the sideboard, “most of the ingredients were easily obtained and affordable in Williamsburg at the time.”

Foot looked down his nose at the pie beside him. I wondered which he didn’t like: oysters or cheap food.

“We’ve also decided,” Glad added as she began to ladle out the soup and pass small bowls of it down the table, “not to have wine with this meal, but what Elizabeth more likely would have served: beer.”

“All right!” said Horse at the same time Beth Ann said, “Oh, gross!”

“Water for you, dear,” Glad said to her granddaughter, “and anyone else who prefers it, of course.”

“It’s brown ale, actually,” Evelyn said, bringing his pitchers to our end of the table to pour Miss Maggie’s first. “Closer to the English brews served in colonial taverns than modern American beers are.”

“In the interests of authenticity,” Miss Maggie said, “I’ll have a mix of both ale and water. ‘Small beer’ it was called. The most common drink of the era. Even children drank it. The water wasn’t safe by itself.” The brew Evelyn poured was a rich red-brown hue and with one sip, Miss Maggie gave it her stamp of approval.

I went with straight water—I’d be getting my usual evening sleepiness soon and didn’t want to help it along. Besides, in my opinion, yeast was better off baked into loaves.

I passed a soup bowl to Miss Maggie and she sniffed it appreciatively. “Gladys, you’ve outdone yourself this year.”

Hugh’s mother beamed. “You’ll want to be careful of the peas pudding, Magnolia. Ev put in a half stick of butter.”

“And the oyster pie has ten egg yolks,” he admitted. “But we tried to go easy on the fat, cholesterol, and salt in all the other recipes.”

The soup was creamy, with Glad’s fried diced pumpkin floating in it along with homemade croutons.

Hugh had to surrender my hand so I could eat. Since I was on his left side, he didn’t need that hand to slurp soup, so he caressed my thigh under the tablecloth. Beth Ann didn’t notice because she was busy scrutinizing each bit of pumpkin—she viewed most vegetables with suspicion. I wasn’t sure if Hugh was still apologizing or what, but I didn’t discourage him. The moment was short-lived, though. Once Glad began passing the other food, Hugh needed both hands.

Nothing happened until I had a full plate in front of me, a little bit of everything. To satisfy my curiosity, I tasted the peas pudding first. It was a thick paste, but seemed to be no more than peas whipped up with butter. I liked it, though, and for once, no peas rolled off my fork.

I was about to move on to the sausage when a metallic taste seemed to coat my tongue. From the pewter fork? I took a sip of water and that washed the metal flavor all over my mouth. The yams had been cooked with chopped apple and brown sugar—sweet, I thought, that’ll kill the taste. No, that made it worse. Starch’ll absorb it, I reasoned, so I took a bite of cornbread. Not only was it worse still, I became suddenly thirsty.

While I gulped water, Hugh leaned toward me, his arm nudging mine, and in a low voice said, “You okay?”

The metallic taste disappeared. Totally. Which was when I suspected it hadn’t come from the utensils or something I ate. All the shadowy corners of the room seemed to grow darker. “I’m fine,” I lied and he went back to eating, his left hand once more finding my thigh.

I glanced at Miss Maggie. She was dragging the morsel of turkey breast on her fork through yam and apple drippings on her plate. As she raised it to her mouth, though, her expression said she hadn’t missed my performance.

I did a quick scan of the table. Acey, Horse, and Foot, their faces stark in the wavering candlelight, were discussing anti-inflammatory drug effects on cancer. Horse was shoveling food in, but Foot was barely eating. He was only marginally contributing to the conversation—quite a difference from the talkative whiner of the afternoon.

Glad was asking her granddaughter if she wanted more stuffing—that, yams, and cornbread were all Beth Ann had in her plate. Beth Ann was slouched back in her chair, so I couldn’t see more than her arms. The fork in her hand wasn’t moving other than to poke at her food. Evelyn was eating quietly, eyes down. No one was paying attention to him—in fact, Foot had his back turned to Evelyn, pointedly, it seemed.

I wasn’t even going to look at Dr. Weisel, not caring what, if anything, he’d seen me doing, but as I turned my face back toward Miss Maggie, the rat caught my eye and he leered. No, I didn’t misinterpret his grin simply because I wanted another reason to hate him—this was a definite leer. First, I was shocked and shifted my gaze. Acey was sitting right next to him, for Pete’s sake. Then I wanted to kick him. I would have if the table hadn’t been so wide and my inseam so short.

I tried eating again. The sausage was sausage this time, and the chunks of drumstick, turkey. I’d almost forgotten the metallic taste when a knock sounded at the front door.

A beat of silence went by as everyone looked at each other. Hugh pushed back his chair first. “I’ll get it.”

No sooner was his hand off my leg than the turkey in my mouth once more tasted like fresh dental fillings.

“No, no,” said Evelyn, sliding out of his own chair. “Keep eating. I’ll see to the door.” He strode into the hall.

Hugh pulled his chair back in, bumping my arm in the process. The bad flavor vanished.

His touch? Was that the off-switch?

“Rich!” Horse exclaimed, and everyone turned toward the hall. First, against the hall light, I saw only a giant silhouette. Then, as he walked into the circle of candlelight, he turned into an older version of Hugh and Horse, though his hair and neat Henry VIII beard were salt and paprika instead of cinnamon red. Under his unbuttoned dress coat, he seemed less muscular and more rounded than his brothers. I got the impression of a man who enjoyed life. I also got the impression he wasn’t enjoying it at the moment.

“Am I too late for dinner?” he asked—almost a demand, really—as he set down the kind of gym bag that’s carried into upscale health clubs, except this one had the name of a prescription medicine on the side. I’d seen ads for that drug on TV, showing blissful people taking walks at sunset, with no mention of what condition the drug treated. Still, we were told to ask our doctors about it. I wondered what sort of folks did.

Glad seemed stunned by Rich’s arrival, but said, “No, no. We’ve barely started eating—”

“You’re just in time,” Horse said, standing and crossing the room. “Acey’s been arguing that the pharmaceutical companies are the Evil Empire. We need you on our side.”

“My car—” Rich gestured outside. “Someone’s parked across the street, but I assume the ‘no cars’ rule is still in effect?”

Horse held out his palm. “Give me your keys. I’ll put it around back for you. Have a seat.”

“Let me get another place setting.” Glad popped up, looking worried, and headed for the kitchen.

Miss Maggie sighed, watching after her. “There goes the symmetry of Glad’s table, but it can’t be helped. Move your chair over a bit, Pat. I’ll squeeze in next to you and give Rich the end.”

Made sense, considering his size, and since this gave me an excuse to touch shoulders and hips with Hugh, I didn’t mind a bit. Glad returned with the extra setting, while Evelyn made a trip to the closet near the back door to fetch a folding chair. Hugh volunteered Beth Ann to sit on it, which made her brood all the more.

In my family, a newcomer would go around the table, kissing and hugging everyone, or if guy to guy, clapping on the shoulder or shaking hands. Rich took off his coat and sat down, without so much as a “Merry Christmas” to anyone, or a smile for his niece. He also didn’t say why he was here, alone, when he should have been at his in-laws with his wife and kids, and no one asked him. The question hung over the room while we ate, like stale cigar smoke, dulling all our appetites. Except for Dr. Weisel, who helped himself to a big second helping of oyster pie and another beer.

I pictured my Aunt Lydia’s house tonight, where the main topic of conversation would be what a scumball Ronny was. Candid and emotional, while everyone downed white macaroni with anchovies. Well, maybe Marcella wouldn’t be too hungry, but at least she’d be surrounded by family support.