A Marked Man (14 page)

“I won’t let that happen,” said Abigail firmly, seeing the tears start in Lucy’s eyes. “And who told you it wasn’t your business, what becomes of the children of a woman whom you’ve known since you were Marcie’s age I daresay? This”—she scooped up a handful of the heavy silver coins—“will vastly help matters, if it comes to that. But as you say,” she added shrewdly, “’tis a great deal of money for a man to give a slave-woman when there are others who can be bought for less . . . If that’s what he was buying.”

Lucy frowned, puzzled. “What else would he have wanted to buy from a woman?”

“Silence.”

“About what?”

“About whatever was worth twenty-three pounds to him—maybe. And twenty-three pounds may not be the whole sum of what he gave her, if she took some with her when she left.”

Lucy knelt beside the bed and ran the coins through her fingers, listening to their heavy, musical clink. “Why would she leave any?”

“We can’t know that until we know why she left.”

“Could that be what she meant, when she said to Margaret,
Something terrible has happened, and I don’t know what to do? Could
she have been pregnant?”

“I’ve been told a woman
can
become pregnant while she’s still nursing,” said Abigail, “but I’ve never known it to happen. And I’ve never known a white man who considered impregnating some other man’s servant-girl—by seduction or by force—sufficiently shameful to pay twenty-three
pence
to the girl to keep quiet about it, much less twenty-three pounds.
Something terrible has happened
,” she repeated slowly, “
and I don’t know what to do
.” She replaced the lid on the teapot, folded the silver together in the apron again, and tied its bands into a loose bundle. “And this on the Friday,
after
Sir Jonathan had departed but nine days before his death. May I keep these?” she asked, rising to her feet. “I’m sorry,” she added, as Lucy preceded her out the door into the main attic. “I didn’t mean it to sound—”

“No, it’s all right.” The girl laughed. “I know what you mean, and yes. I mean, if I left them here, or even in my room . . . I know at least one of the footmen steals. Mama’s like Margaret and says all servants always steal, but your girl doesn’t, does she? Neither does Sheba, nor Philomela, nor Mr. Barnaby, though I actually wouldn’t put anything past Mr. Barnaby if he was protecting his wife. He dotes on her. I think it’s sweet, really,” she added, as they crossed through the upper hall toward the main stair. “Let me get you something to carry those in, so if Papa comes home for his dinner early, he won’t accuse you of stealing a teapot.” She dodged into her room, emerging a moment later with a hatbox, into which teapot, apron, and coins were tucked and tied. “Will you stay for some tea?” she asked, when they were in the downstairs drawing room again.

“Thank you,” said Abigail, “but I honestly can’t. With John away there’s always more to be done. Really, Miss Fluckner, if you don’t stop beating and starving this poor dog”—she stooped to scratch Hercules behind the ears as the obese pug waddled up to her, its curled tail wagging so that his whole backside threshed—“your reputation will never recover. I’m sorry, sirrah, my hands are empty. No food. See? There is nothing edible in that hatbox, either—” She turned her head at the sound of the outer door opening, and a moment later, Hannah Fluckner’s rich, slightly overloud tones.

“Good Heavens, Barnaby, company before
noon
? What on
Earth
was the girl thinking?”

“Just in time,” Lucy whispered.

“My dear Hannah,” laughed Mrs. Sandhayes, “they all go to bed at sundown here! Of course they’re all up and doing at the crack of dawn—”

“Should I tell Margaret about this?” Lucy nodded toward the hatbox. “She blithers like a perfect nincompoop, but she’s really very clever. You should see the list she’s putting together, of people who were in the ballroom that I didn’t even remember, and when people came and went out of the cardroom.”

“Caroline Hartnell?” Mrs. Sandhayes’s voice lifted in reply to some remark of her hostess. “Dear m’am, there’s no sense expecting
her
to contribute a penny. She lost
five hundred guineas
at silver-loo Wednesday night . . .”

“Great Heavens!”

“I almost fancied myself in London again. And playing so
badly
! I wanted to go around the table and shake her, except that I was winning at the time—”

“I don’t think so,” murmured Abigail. “And she complains of
servants
gossiping!” She stroked Hercules’s little round head, and though she did not approve of lapdogs, smiled as her fingers were thoroughly licked. “As we’re going on the assumption that Harry
didn’t
murder Sir Jonathan, it follows that someone else
did
. . . and that someone might just as easily be a member of the Governor’s circle of friends, as some poor disgruntled ruffian from Maine.”

“—La, my dearest Hannah,
surely
you know about her and that
dashing
Major Usselby . . .
such
a name, Usselby . . . ! The one who always seems to win, when she plays across from him . . .”

“Until we know more about who might have done it and where they were just after full dark fell on Saturday night, I had rather we keep whatever we might learn between ourselves. My dear Mrs. Sandhayes,” she smiled, turning from Lucy’s protesting headshake to greet the chaperone as she appeared in the doorway.

Lucy sprang to her feet: “How went your shopping, Margaret?”

“Astonishing—I positively
made
your mother purchase the most
exquisite
yellow silk for you—”

In the hall beyond Mr. Barnaby’s shoulder, Abigail could see a parade of footmen bearing parcels and hatboxes up the stairs, sufficient to have furnished an expedition to China.

“I’ll take oath it was French, for all that pirate who was selling it claimed it was Indian and
perfectly
within the regulations of the Board of Trade. It should make up divinely into one of the new polonaise gowns—
le dernier cri
, my dear:
nobody
but dowdies like me are wearing panniers anymore. Has Mrs. Adams seen young Mr. Knox again?” she asked more softly, drawing close. “Is he well? They’re not
really
going to be such imbeciles as to ship him off to Halifax . . .”

“Well, they’ll need a ship to do it on, first,” said Abigail, shaking hands. “And given the weather, I doubt that will appear any time soon. The fact is, I came to ask about Mr. Fluckner’s plans regarding that poor girl Bathsheba’s children, if their mother does not return.”

“Poor little mites,” sighed Mrs. Sandhayes. “Worse of course that the older one’s a girl, because one
can
sell boys as young as five for pages, if they’re pretty enough.” She shook her head. “I cannot even
imagine
what sort of despair a woman would have to be in, to walk away from them like that . . .”

“Do you think it was what she intended to do?” asked Abigail, as a footman—the same young African who had brought Lucy’s letter earlier that morning—relieved the Englishwoman of her half-dozen shawls and scarves, and of her faded cloak with its elaborate whaleboned hood.

“I wish I could say yes or no. But honestly, Mrs. Adams, I don’t know.” She drew off her gloves, resettled the Medusa cameo on its ribbon at her throat, tucked and patted and twitched the powdered mass of hair—genuine and false—into order again. “She loved her children, and I know she would never have gone away from them in her right mind . . . But had you seen her, weeping, and shivering, and . . . and turning about as she did, at any noise or movement nearby . . . I should have spoken to her then. I should have taken her aside . . .” She limped to the nearest chair, sank carefully down into it, and propped her canes against its arms. “I should have done
something
. But I did not.”

Lucy walked Abigail to the door, carrying the hatbox for her carefully, so that the coin inside neither jingled nor shifted its weight. Mr. Barnaby brought Abigail’s wraps to the hall, and as she donned them one by one, Abigail asked quietly, “Mr. Barnaby, the last time I was here you spoke of the chance that I might see Mr. Fenton, at the Governor’s house. Can that still be arranged?”

“I’ll ask my sister about it,” said the butler. “But I can’t see why not. I can’t imagine His Excellency would deny the poor man a little company in his illness. He’s barely able to eat, Mattie says—my Emma’s sister—and weak as a babe.”

“Then I shall make him a blancmange,” said Abigail.

By which form of bribery, she reflected, she might very well be able to find out whether Sir Jonathan Cottrell had indeed handed over the cost of a good horse to a slave-girl . . . and possibly, why.

 

 

T
wo notes lay on the sideboard when Abigail came into her own kitchen again, to find Pattie telling Charley and Tommy the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff while she chopped up yesterday’s chicken into a stew for today’s dinner . . . a task which Abigail knew she herself should have been doing. Yesterday’s laundry, like a maze of whitewashed planks, swung awkwardly on the lines that crisscrossed the yard, and a glance into the shed told her that Pattie had not yet had the time to churn the small amount of cream into butter.

Good. There were still three crocks of last fall’s butter in the cellar—tired as everyone was of the salt taste of it. Even this modest contribution from that morning should suffice for a blancmange.

She turned her attention to the notes. The one from Lieutenant Coldstone contained a neatly drafted plan of the mews behind the Governor’s house, the alley, and the mews gate, with the location of Sir Jonathan’s body, of the lanterns on the gate, and of the farthest range (ascertained by experiment by the Governor’s head-coachman Mr. Sellon) at which a hundred-pound sack of corn could be distinguished on the ground once full dark had fallen. There was also a list of the names of all footmen, coachmen, and stable hands present in the yard that night.

The other message was from Paul Revere.

T
he city jail of Boston stood on Queen Street, not a hundred feet from Abigail’s front door. Because Hoyle—the dour and rum-breathing jail keeper—knew John of old, there was only cursory bargaining for the use of a penitential cubicle that had been built to one side of the grim brick structure, rather than obliging them to conduct the meeting through the judas of the cell door. Because John knew Hoyle of old, Abigail knew enough to bring her own firewood to warm the interview chamber.

“Two Maine men, eh?” grumbled the jail keeper. “Fat one and tall one. Sometimes the one calls himself Smith, sometimes Jones. Magistrate’ll sort ’em out.”

“When will they be up?” Revere asked over his shoulder asas he clacked flint to steel over the kindling in the disused and spidery fireplace. “I’m surprised they’re still here.” He paused, used a billet of the kindling to shovel aside what looked like several weeks’ accumulation of ashes, and rearranged the sticks to try again.

“Won’t give names like honest men.” John always said Hoyle gave him the impression of charging for his own conversation by the word. “Monday, he’ll sort ’em out.”

Abigail and Revere traded a glance as the jailer retreated in a clanking of long iron keys. Though the jail was barely five years old, already this room was acquiring the old jail’s lingering stink: of mold, of dirt, of old vomit and filthy garments. Abigail was only grateful to be in a position to pay for the use of this room. Both John—who had interviewed clients there—and Abigail’s younger brother William—who had fetched up in the place himself upon occasion—had described to her the single long chamber, freezing as an icehouse in this season and reeking like a cesspit in the summer.
Hell on earth
, one journalist had described it when he’d had the misfortune to learn that fact firsthand.

She settled herself on one of the benches that flanked the little hearth, pulled her cloak closer around her slender shoulders, and watched as Revere coaxed the fire into being. Abigail prided herself on her judgment of cooking-fire and coals, but as a silversmith, Paul Revere was an artist with flame. With air-draft, too, she reflected, coughing, and retreated as her companion adjusted damper and flue. Though it was far colder near the window, it was out of the smoke—through the wavery and unwashed glass she had an impression of a yard blotted with dirty snow, of the brick jail building itself and a window shuttered tight.

Because the opening was unglazed, behind those shutters?

What had “Smith” and “Jones” used to pay Hoyle for food, she wondered. The only person they knew in town—poor little Eli Putnam back on the
Magpie
—didn’t even know they were there. Her brother had told her, and John had confirmed it, that Hoyle and his wife routinely sold half the foodstuffs the city allotted them for the prisoners. A man who had no family to bring him extra rations—as she had tried to do for Harry—went hungry indeed.