War (12 page)

Jack Frake smiled. “That’s no reason for going to England.”

Hugh grinned in concession. “As you know, the Governor has already prorogued the General Assembly. He is likely to do it again. The House may not sit again until spring of next year. I cannot brook artificial idleness, especially one enforced by that scion of the Stuarts.”

“Still not a good enough reason,” said Jack, amused.

“I wish to see if I can help my father in the Commons. He writes that Parliament will sit again in late November. Perhaps I can speak in his place.” Hugh paused, and added with less confidence, “And, there is Reverdy. She…left me a note saying that she cannot return here until there is a reconciliation. It may be possible that I can have a hand in effecting one.”

To this, Jack and Etáin had no immediate reply. They were not certain which reconciliation their friend meant, but they doubted the likelihood of either of them if they were mutually dependent. After a moment, Jack remarked, “Hugh, if you speak in the Commons, you will not be addressing your
peers
.”

Hugh nodded once. “I will accept that as an unfortunate compliment.”

“It was a compliment. What is unfortunate is that you think it necessary to address them at all.”

“I will not argue that point with you, Jack. I must try.”

“Still trying to salvage the epergne of empire?”

Hugh shut his eyes for a moment at the slight. Then he realized it was not a slight. He replied, “If as notable and esteemed a gentleman as Benjamin Franklin believes in it, I can only second him.”

Jack shook his head. “It’s not like you to defer to authority, Hugh, not even to one as esteemed as Mr. Franklin’s.”

“I do not defer to his authority. I have been here longer than he to witness the events of the last fifteen years, and my appraisal is based on my own authority.”

Jack said nothing more.

After a moment, Etáin said, “We shall miss you, Hugh.”

“And I shall miss both of you. I should return by early spring.” He smiled and picked up his hat. “Well, I will visit Mr. Proudlocks now. My plan is certain to displease him, as well,” he added lightly. “Is there anything
you want from London?”

Jack said, “Their recognition of our independence.”

“We are not displeased with you or your purpose, Hugh,” Etáin said. “We are saddened that you should choose to leave at such a time.” When she saw the controlled hurt in her friend’s expression, she rushed to add, touching his arm, “We shall see you off at the pier, of course.”

“Thank you.” Hugh turned and left the room.

* * *

Two days later, he boarded the
Anacreon
, and stood at the shrouds, waving at the crowd of friends on the pier as the merchantman gained the river current. Jack and Etáin, John Proudlocks, Beecroft and Spears, William Settle — who had already proven his ability to look after Meum Hall during his past absences — even his housekeeper and many of his tenants, were there to bid him farewell.

Other planters were there, too: among them Reece Vishonn, and Jock Fraser, whom he had encountered in Safford’s Arms the day before, when he went there to ask for any last mail that might have been left. Jock Fraser had treated him to a pint of ale, and boisterously sung him a song that underscored his best wishes for a good voyage and safe return, “Will Ye No’ Come Back Again.” When Hugh, laughing, asked him what he meant, Fraser slapped him on the shoulder. “It’s a Scots marchin’ song, laddie! I will tell you that I’d like to hoot it to that devil in the Palace when he leaves for the frontier. I’d mean something else by it, though,” he had added with a wink.

The last words Hugh heard, before the growing distance between the
Anacreon
and the pier reduced the farewells and Godspeeds to mere sounds, were Jack’s, who waved his hat up at him, shouting, “Come back to Hyperborea!”

Hugh waved his hat in answer, and shouted, “Hyperborea forever!”

A while later, as the vessel rounded a bend in the York, he watched Caxton vanish and blend into the summer haze.

J
ared Hunt, in the meantime, came away from his interview with Governor Dunmore less satisfied than he might have been, but content with the results nonetheless. Upon his arrival in Williamsburg, he had been made to wait for it for two consecutive days in the grand foyer of the Palace. His Excellency, explained the officious Captain Foy, the Governor’s secretary, was busy with the onerous gubernatorial business of the colony, and in addition was making preparations to march to the frontier to put down an Indian uprising.

Contrary to his expectations, the documents he had brought with him did not expedite an audience with the Governor. He was not sure if they served him well or ill. These were his letter of introduction, signed by the Earl of Danvers, and his extraordinary commission, signed by the Earl of Rochford, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, and the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, under the signature of the president of the American Board of Customs Commissioners. This second document gave him discretionary authority over any and all Customs officers in the colonies.

Hunt speculated that the Governor was overwhelmed by all the power represented in the signatures, and postponed a meeting with the bearer of those instruments in a peevish demonstration of his own importance.

When at last Hunt was escorted to the Governor’s office, His Excellency remarked, “What a broadside of recommendations, sir! You must be a man of
particular
talents.” He handed the papers back over his desk to his visitor.

Hunt smiled, rose from his chair, took the papers and put them back inside his coat, then reseated himself. He was sensitive to the sneer beneath the compliment and its insinuation that his talents, while practical, worthy of emulation and perhaps even to be envied for, were hardly laudable in the normal sense. But he was not offended. His talents were his career. He replied with brazen lightness, “I am fortunate that my modest abilities are recognized and commended to broader service, your lordship. I have been in the personal service of his lordship the Earl of Danvers for many years now.”

“Danvers? Don’t know him,” remarked the Governor with perfunctory haste, shaking his head.

“Of Dorset, your lordship,” said Hunt, certain that His Excellency had lied. “The Earl has been a champion of the policy of exacting deference from the colonies for as long as I have known him. And he was one of those in Lords who some years ago campaigned to have Mr. Pitt elevated to reduce his obstructing influence in the Commons. The consequences of that elevation are known to all but Lord Chatham himself, whose influence in Lords is predictably negligible, even when he manages to attend.”

“Yes,
Lord
Chatham,” said Dunmore, groaning with stressed boredom. He had indeed made the acquaintance of the Earl of Danvers, but did not wish to concede his visitor’s obvious familiarity with political machinations, of which that specific one he himself had full knowledge. “Yes. Fie on the foolish man. Now, what is your purpose here, Mr. Hunt?” He leaned back in his chair, as though prepared to listen to his visitor’s plea and to weigh whether or not it was worth considering.

Hunt paused to cross his legs and to choose his words carefully. “I am here on a special mission, your lordship, to foil the designs of some gentlemen to deny His Majesty and Parliament rightful sovereignty over these colonies, and over Virginia, especially. You have noted that my Customs commission grants me latitude in that purpose. These gentlemen have been conspiring to stir up disaffection with the Crown.”

Dunmore scoffed. “I daresay half the burgesses here are guilty of stirring up disaffection! Even some of my Councilmen, not one of whom, by the bye, moved himself to castigate the villains behind that offensive day of fasting and prayer. But, pray,
which
gentlemen?”

“My profuse apologies, your lordship, but I am not at liberty to divulge their identities. My instructions in that respect are strict. Were I to be asked that question by His Majesty, I could not make an exception even for him. However, I can safely tell you that they are Virginians — no more are they Englishmen! — and that when I have foiled them, you shall know it.”

Hunt had no instructions of the kind. He had taken stock of His Excellency and suspected that if the Governor knew the name of Hugh Kenrick, he might be tempted to act himself, and have the man either hanged, jailed or otherwise ruined, just to exercise his power. The Earl, Hunt knew too well, might be half pleased with such an episode, but at the same time feel cheated. His employer was obsessed with personally and directly punishing his nephew Hugh Kenrick and thereby hurting his own brother, the Baron
of Danvers, for offenses that he, Jared Hunt, did not permit himself to think merited such vindicatory purposes. Hunt knew that his future security rested on catering to that obsession. It was none of his business what the Earl did to assuage his injuries.

He noted without surprise that His Excellency did not like his delicately put answer. The man’s face, rigid in resentment, grew a shade red in anger.

But Dunmore decided that tact was the better part of discretion. He sniffed in feigned indifference to the answer, and asked, somewhat imperiously, “Well, sir, what is it you want from me?”

“Nothing, your lordship. It is a courtesy call I make, merely to inform you that Virginia is on the Crown’s mind, and that it is taking appropriate action to retain this His Majesty’s most prosperous dominion.”

The Governor hummed in tired approval of the Crown’s concern. “Yes. Well, all sorts of strangers are calling on me these days. Not two weeks ago an army officer on his own secret mission called on me to ask for militia figures.”

Hunt frowned. Army officers were less numerous in this colony than Customs officials. He could not recall encountering a single one since his arrival in Virginia, except at Morland Hall that shameful day. He asked, “Your lordship, was it a captain in gentleman’s garb?”

“Yes, sir. It was.”

“Was it Captain Roger Tallmadge, perhaps, of the Grenadier Guards?”

Dunmore looked interested now, and sat forward. “Why, yes, I believe that was his name. I don’t recollect his regiment, but his papers were in order. Had him to supper, and invited him to my ladyship’s ball at the Capitol. An amiable chap, but too stealthy to my tastes.”

Hunt smiled. Here was an opportunity to wreak his own vengeance. He braced himself and related to the Governor the incident at Morland Hall.

When he was finished, Dunmore was livid. “Well, that is a chargeable offense!” he bellowed. “Interfering with Crown officers in the performance of their duty! And siding with a rebel! What disgraceful behavior!” The Governor paused. “Now that I think of it, it might explain some of his comments to me in this very office, which at the time I placed no importance on. Something must be done about him. What was it you were searching for, sir?”

“Arms, your lordship. The office in Hampton had received information
that some suspicious activities were to be observed at that plantation.”

“Did you return to it?”

“No, your lordship. Doubtless the contraband, if it exists, would have been moved soon after my visit and secreted elsewhere. And one of the gentlemen it is my task to compromise and bring to justice was involved in that treasonous behavior, as well. Apparently, he is a friend of Captain Tallmadge’s. He is very much esteemed in that county, and to move against him now would be tantamount to inviting open rebellion by many of its inhabitants. I would not act so recklessly, and would rather wait until conditions are in my own favor.”

The Governor hummed in thought. “Which vessel brought you and the marines up?”

“The
Fowey
, your lordship, captained by Mr. Montague.”

“I see.” Dunmore pounded a fist once on some paperwork in front of him. “Well, Mr. Hunt, I shall write General Gage in Boston about this incident so that he may prepare a surprise for Captain Tallmadge! A court martial and a hanging will end that chap’s duplicity!”

“Thank you, your lordship. I have also written General Gage about the affair.”

After some further chitchat about the weather, the charms of Williamsburg, and how His Excellency planned to deal with Cornstalk, the Shawnee chief behind the frontier uprising, Jared Hunt left the Governor’s office in a good mood. The next day he rode out on a journey to Richmond, and from there to Petersburg, to note the condition and temper of the people in those towns, and returned to Williamsburg nearly two weeks later. After another night there, he ventured back to Caxton before beginning the ride back to Hampton.

Cautiously he reconnoitered Meum Hall, which he had seen only once from the
Fowey
the day of the incident at Morland. He did not want to encounter any of the parties who had participated in that affair. Following the directions of a passing Indian curiously attired in colonial dress and who rode a horse on a fine saddle, he drew up his mount at Hove Stream, where some slaves were busy pouring buckets of water from the stream into some contraption that seemed linked to a length of bamboo. The gray-green arm of bamboo stretched into a vast field of tobacco and corn, until it disappeared halfway through them, its most visible end pointing to a cluster of houses the size of pebbles in the distance.

The slaves paused to study him. He asked them if the large house was
Meum Hall.

“Yassuh,” replied the slave who held a rag flag on a stick. “That’s Mista Kenrick’s place.”

“Is he about? I’m an old friend, and may pay him a visit.”

“He gone sometime, Mista, on a boat. For England. Won’t be back ’til spring.”

Hunt managed to repress his disappointment. “Well, I’ll call on him then.” But anger and curiosity got the best of him. “
Why
did he go to England?” he abruptly demanded, as though his prey had no justifiable right to move beyond his power.

The slave with the flag shrugged. “Don’t know, Mista. Not our business. Heard he might talk in the big burgess house there, and he went after Missus Reverdy, too, to bring her back. That’s what we hear.”

Hunt nodded thanks, reined his mount around, and began the ride back to Williamsburg. Damn! he thought. The whelp has sailed for England! That meant either pursuing him in another vessel, or writing the Earl a letter that contained the unpleasant news. Now he would need to amend his own plans and postpone a triumphant return to London. Either alternative would upset the Earl, for Hunt knew that his employer and patron wished Hugh Kenrick to meet his end or his disgrace beyond the help of his caring and anxious father.

Hunt resigned himself to writing a report to the Earl. And what would he do with himself until Hugh Kenrick returned, other than accompany Customsmen on their raids? It had become so dull an occupation! How could he justify his time to his patron, and explain his inactivity? Something tickled his memory, and he recalled the oddly attired Indian who had given him directions to Meum Hall. That was it! He could claim that His Excellency, Governor Dunmore, had pressed him into service on the frontier campaign! How could he refuse such a request? The Governor planned to end the uprising by the end of December. That ought to kill so much time! And then spring would be upon him in no time! Hunt even convinced himself that it might even be an interesting adventure!

Jared Hunt felt much less angry, now that he had hit upon a plan. He would again seek an interview with the Governor to volunteer his services on that campaign, in whatever capacity His Excellency wished to accept them.

The extraordinarily commissioned Customsman urged his mount into a trot on the road back to Williamsburg.

John Proudlocks, watching from the woods that bordered the road, wondered when and where he had seen the stranger before, and what possible business he could have at Meum Hall.