No Rest for the Dove (15 page)

“You mean … that he is famous? And the cause of it?”

“Exactly.”

“This isn’t known in town?”

“He seems to have left Boston the day after his arrival, without revealing himself. And with my wife’s condition, I believe the less she knows of Lahte and theatrical life, the better. Though I realize it may be difficult to keep her long in the dark.”

“She already seems to think I might have a particular interest in our new friend.”

“You? Is this true?” Edmund Montagu bent a little to look directly into her face.

“He
is
a fascinating man of the world,” she replied
honestly. “His experiences promise interesting conversation. And he tells me he can milk a cow.”

“All fine recommendations. But I suppose you tease me.”

“Perhaps I do. Though do you really think such a man could ever be drawn to a woman from such a place as this?”

“Who knows what draws two souls together? Sometimes, I’m even tempted to wonder about myself, Charlotte. The heart is a thing none will ever fully understand, I fear—even those of us familiar with Natural Law.”

The jab at her neighbor, offered between friends, made her smile; but Charlotte added the hope that the two gentlemen might swiftly mend their latest rift.

“Let us go and enjoy our dessert,” said the captain, “and be finished! It begins to feel too warm here, and I long to sit in the shade of Richard’s arbor and doze. Diana must certainly rest, for none of us will enjoy ourselves should she tire.” On this point, Charlotte agreed.

Before long, those by the taproom windows watched the party of six make its way down the walk and across the road. Thomas Pomeroy, especially, followed their progress with particular interest, before turning back to the business of the inn.

A
S THE MIDGE-FILLED
light waned, a familiar crowd sat in the Blue Boar Tavern, once again lubricating their opinions as well as their dry, wagging tongues.

Near an open door, Jack Pennywort—clearly feeling the effects of ale—called out for another pint, intending to pay with winnings coaxed from a pack of greasy cards.

As he watched the smaller man across the table, Nathan Browne smiled behind the lip of his own tankard. Hours earlier he had realized it was too hot to be striking red metal in a smithy. No sense asking for your legs to throb, or your head to ring as loud as your anvil. And by spending the afternoon helping Jack keep his few coins in his pocket, he’d managed to put himself into a better mood. Soon, he would amble home to Sabina, whose curiosity
that morning about
a certain gentleman
had made her husband feel less than charitable.

All of the women were twittering like so many linnets at this Italian, whose strange voice could be heard singing clear across the road, when he exercised it. Not that the visitor seemed a bad sort when he came into the forge, to take a look at the dead man’s horse. He was hoping for a quiet mount, he’d said—but he gave up on that after viewing the wily beast up close. It was just as well, for the signor didn’t look like much of a rider, Nathan thought with a grimace. More likely he was used to being ferried about the countryside in carriages, never asking so much as the name of a four-footed animal. Still, Mrs. Willett seemed to enjoy his company. Or so he’d heard from several gossips. He thought he might ask her about this himself in a day or two, when she next stopped by for a chat.

Another idler at the table finished his third pint of sharp cider. During the game of cards between his old friend Jack and the smith, Dick Craft had been more attuned to a voice in his own head. Now, as the landlord walked by, Craft asked a careful question.

“Mr. Wise—”

“Another, Dick, already? I should say—”

“Uh, no, Mr. Wise. On Saturday, someone said that this gentleman, the one staying with Mr. Longfellow, came to us from Italy.”

“He did, indeed.”

“And is that place not the center of the world’s du—dup—duplicity?”

“Who told you that?” asked the landlord with a new look of suspicion.

“Someone—on the Sabbath. It is even said,” Dick continued slyly, “that their Pope may be the Devil himself, come to lead us from the Truth!”

“I doubt that. But it would seem to make no difference in this case, for Signor Lahte intends to follow Roman ways no longer.”

“But can he be trusted?” asked Dick, his eyes protruding a bit more.

“Many’s the man with friends in Québec, who don’t seem the worse for their religion—unless it is in their pockets. For they do love grand churches, it would seem.”

“Down in Baltimore,” put in a genial lad who’d wandered over with an empty tankard, “only last year, someone pointed out to me a new church built for Catholics, who now attend with no penalty. Though I also heard many have long practiced their rites in private in that colony.”

“May it never be so in this one!” cried Dick Craft. “Or some of us will know what to do about it!”

“What is wrong with the Catholics, Dick, in your opinion?” asked the landlord, taking the tankard and moving to fill it.

“For one thing, they dress in women’s skirts, don’t they! Pope and cardinals—who must be queer birds, indeed. But men may do even worse where this musico comes from. Unnatural things … as I believe others have mentioned here in recent days.”

“What’s that?” demanded another.

“I was also told …” Dick went on, pausing for a belch, “that in Italy, which is a country not far from our old enemy France—”

“I think,” someone else offered, “the Boot is no
real
country, but more like a lot of towns all lumped together—”

“—in Italy,” Dick continued, sweeping the table with a red eye, “and worst of all in a town called Venice—which I don’t suppose is far from Hades—”

“Ahh!” came a receptive chorus, as others moved closer.

“—there, they often gather covered by cloaks, and masks—”

“Dominoes, they call ’em,” old Mr. Flint weighed in wisely, from his customary seat by the fire.

“—and both ladies and gentlemen dance and carry on any way they please, all night long! I doubt the results of
that
are harmless! Masks, to keep from knowing who’s who—”

“And what’s what, maybe?” piped a new voice.

“It would keep down the cost of clothing …” muttered a man on his way home to his wife in Boston.

“From what I’ve learned,” said the younger traveler who had been to Baltimore, “on some days in most of Europe’s cities, any man is allowed to dress in women’s clothes—or even those of a king if he wishes—and wander about the streets at all hours. Carnivals, I think these festivities are called. Something to do with Lent, I believe,” he added, accepting his recharged tankard from Phineas Wise.

“A Christian holiday, kept in such a manner?” asked a man by the windows with a shake of his graying head.

“Well, now,” replied Flint, “you know there’s plenty of Harvard lads who like to put on a skirt now and again, for their dramatics. And is there anything wrong with them?” Several wits ventured answers to this, but Flint soon went on. “I remember a time—”

He stopped to consult Mr. Tyndall, who had earlier suffered from dyspepsia, and had dozed off in his chair. Meanwhile, respect for an elder (or it may have been the anticipation of a promising tidbit) made the others wait quietly.

“Back in ’19, was it not, Mr. Tyndall? The old Exeter writ business?” Tinder awoke with a start, and Flint repeated the question.

“Aye, it was, as I recall.”

“Yes, I believe that was the year I saw your grandfather, Dick Craft, put on a petticoat himself one evening—along with the sires of some others here. And all of them went out onto the streets …”

“No!” came a chorus of excited voices. Dick flushed furiously. He might once have joined their amusement, but in the last two years, since the death of the village miller, he had gravitated to religion in an effort to replace the man who had led his thoughts for years.

“All in a good cause,” Flint assured them. “All in a good cause.”

“What might that have been, sir?” called a callow voice, which made the elder smile.

“I always like a lad who is interested in history, and polite about it,” Mr. Flint said. “A fine thing, and let none forget it! Well, boys, it seems that up in Exeter there lived a sheriff, who one day was sent to take a man to jail, his excuse being a particularly nasty writ. For what I can’t easily say now, but I do know the town would have none of it. First, there was a great deal of talk, of course—and some of us here rode up there to see what would happen next. What happened was, a crowd of good women came and kept the sheriff at bay, while a few others set the man free. The most peculiar thing was, not a dame there that evening didn’t pull on his pants the morning after, and go out to plow!”

Laughter rose and rang between the walls so loudly that some chatting outside stuck their heads in through doors and windows, to see what had occurred.

“Maybe we should call on such women to come and join us now, in rising up against the damned Stamp men!” someone suggested in a piercing voice. Though largely ignored, this thought caused a few to change their seats, and begin to speak together in lowered voices.

Phineas Wise moved off to distribute further libations. Then, Nathan quietly addressed Dick Craft with a concern of his own. “I don’t see how this Lahte has shown he wants to bother any here, man or boy, or even the ladies who find him such a marvel! I do know I would
blush to see them follow me with their eyes, the way they watch
him
—”

“Nathan, just tell me how it is that he came from the same town in Italy as the dead man on the road,” Dick insisted. “Just what are we to make of that?”

For this, the smith could think of no answer.

“About your dead man,” said a Worcester merchant who had walked in a few minutes before. A glass of restorative rum now in hand, he sat down. “Is it known yet who he was, Nathan?”

“Captain Montagu came from Boston this morning, and gave Mr. Longfellow the name of Sesto Alva … according to Mr. Pratt.”

“Oh. Well, then there’s no reason to tell them what I saw last week, I suppose. I happened into Pratt’s house an hour ago, and I saw a drawing put there by your Mr. Longfellow. I didn’t know right away who the fellow was, but I thought I’d seen him somewhere; now, I recall where it was. Last week in Boston, at the Green Dragon, where he sat over his dinner. At the time I remarked he seemed unwell.”

“You’re sure it was the same man?” Nathan inquired, leaning closer.

“Fair certain,” replied the merchant. “But that’s not the most curious part of it.”

“No?” asked Jack, swallowing a new story, and his replenished supply of ale, with equal pleasure.

“As I got up to leave the place,
damme
if I didn’t see what appeared to be the very same man, coming in through the door! Same clothing, same face, more or less, same reddish hair—but this new one a good deal more lively, I’d say. One to steer clear of, I thought, for the long scar below his eye most likely came from a knife fight. In fact, the first appeared almost to be the ghost of the second,” he concluded.

“A
doppelgänger
!” cried a customer near the cider barrels.

“A what?” Jack sat up with alarm at another new and foreign word.

“A spirit double,” came his answer. “Everyone’s said to have one, somewhere. At least, that’s the theory of the Dutchmen down the Hudson. It’s death, they say, to meet your own, face to face.”

“I’d hate to see another of me, then,” said Jack with a shiver.

“No more than we,” Dick Craft returned.

“It’s quite true neither of these fellows seemed happy to see the other,” said the merchant, getting up. Then he drifted off to join another group a little distance away.

Nathan thumbed an ear, pondering what he’d heard. At last, he drained his tankard. Tomorrow morning, he thought, while he pounded hot metal, he would have time to consider whether this long afternoon had provided anything beyond the usual tavern nonsense, after all.

THAT EVENING, WHEN
Charlotte tired of reading alone in her study, she took up her candle and went to make herself ready for bed.