The Flight of Sarah Battle (21 page)

‘Martha, I'll talk to Robert.'

‘He not want to hear it, Mr Cranch.'

‘He should divorce his wife and marry you. There's a law in Pennsylvania that would enable him to do so. For his wife deserted him, did she not? We've heard about this law recently.' He winks at Sarah who frowns.

‘I tell Sarah he not want to marry me.'

‘Some men here are quite open about their mistresses, Martha. Governor Mifflin, for instance. And Rev. John Hay travels about the city with his mistress and child.'

‘They're important men,' Sarah says, ‘perhaps they can do as they like. It's more difficult for a lesser man to brazen it out.'

‘Well, I'll talk to him all the same. Really I shall.'

Now they are preparing for bed. Their blissful bower, their shadie lodge. He'd shown her the lines in
Paradise Lost
. Living with him, he'd warned her much earlier, meant living with Milton.

‘It's time for us to break up with Robert, Sarah. To set up on our own. There are too many differences between us, we disagree too much. What does he care about? Sometimes I think he just wants to make money. He's blinkered in his attitude, creeping along.'

‘Shouldn't you heed his warnings?'

‘Nothing would ever change if we all stayed at home! I must circulate more pamphlets. But I also want to publish a newspaper, and sell cheap reprints to pay unknown writers.'

‘He'll see us as rivals, Tom.'

‘Not necessarily. Our publishing will be more radical than his and we shan't take that many clients from him.'

‘He'll resent any loss at all.'

‘Well, I hope not. I'd rather not quarrel with him. Yet I'd also need the money back that I gave him, to buy premises.'

‘Will you tell him soon? Shouldn't we wait until the election is over?'

‘No. It must be soon; I'll take the first opportunity. Meanwhile, come with me to see the new ship. They're building a frigate called
Philadelphia
in Southwark, near the Old Swedes Church, which, by the way, is where the minister refuses to marry black and white couples, though fortunately it's not Robert's church. I gave out dozens of pamphlets to sailors on my way to the shipyard, so I heard about it. Goodness, they're a motley crowd, sailors! Men from everywhere. It's some distance along the river. We can ride some of it if you don't feel strong enough to walk, my dearest.

‘The ship's half built. It's for the infant American navy to protect merchant ships now that the French are hostile. Great poles of scaffolding like trees. A huge sloping gangway, ever more timbers to raise the height of the hull. Axing, sawing, hammering and the great bow like a mighty whale beached above the river.'

‘How wonderful! Let's go at the end of the week.'

‘I feel a strange attraction to it. As, though the ship were an emblem for our life here, that we're building so strongly, so stoutly.'

When they are in bed, she says surely Wollstonecraft is wrong that a man and woman should no longer love each other with passion when they have children. ‘She even says a neglected wife is the best mother, Tom.'

‘She can't be right about everything, Sarah; she's not a goddess! She's certainly wrong about that. We'll prove it.'

*

At the end of the week they postpone their visit to the
Philadelphia
because Tom has a headache.

‘Pain makes me impatient. I'd be vile company; let's go on Monday.'

But by Monday he's running a fever, shivering, aching all over and goes to bed. Sarah bathes his forehead, encourages him to take Martha's broth, works through the proofs of his latest pamphlet with him.

Robert comes and stands at the foot of the bed, observing Tom's restless doze. He takes Sarah out of the room.

‘Send for a doctor immediately, Sarah. I shall go and stay with Groff in Chester.'

‘Robert, why?'

‘I've seen it before. You should consider leaving yourself. It's what everybody with the means did in ‘93.'

Tom calls out from within the room.

Robert says: ‘Goodbye, Sarah. Tom may be an innocent, but this was folly. I told him not to get too close. Och, does he think he needs to be a martyr for the cause of democracy? Worse than folly!

‘Here's my address. Say goodbye to him for me.' She hears him run down the stairs.

Tom is delirious, seems unaware of her, focusses on some invisible threat in the corner of the room.

‘Get away, get away from me!' He struggles to sit up, back against the wall, his hands held out before him. ‘Go! Go!' Clutches at and fights the air.

‘Tom, it's all right. Nothing's there. It's all right. You're safe. I'm here.' She strokes his hand and his arms collapse onto the bedclothes. She takes a hand and holds it.

‘Tom, I'm here. Nothing will hurt you.'

Shudders shake his body and again he rears up, thrashing his limbs so that she can hardly avoid being struck.

‘Away! Hideous! Great wings. Great body rising from the burning lake. Away from me! Away!' He cowers, borne down by the huge, unseen weight, trembling with terror. Powerless. Not the man she knows.

Martha knocks and comes in.

‘What I bring him, Sarah? More water, more broth?'

‘Both please, Martha, though I doubt I'll get him to take any nourishment. He's keeps seeing horrors in the room.'

‘He so tired, poor man; he sleep soon. You want me stay a while?'

‘Thank you, but no, I must be with him.'

‘Mr Wilson, he left. He think it yellow fever.'

‘Will you leave, too, Martha?'

‘No. I stay with you. Mr Cranch he maybe get better. Not all people die.'

Martha is right. Tom sleeps, though fitfully, and Sarah half rests at those times, lying next to him on the bed, ready to hold the bowl for him should he vomit again, to soothe him when he wakes. She bathes his head, fiery with fever, makes him sip water when she can. It is a long night, longer than when the men danced on the roof of Newgate aflame. She dulls her mind, considers nothing except the immediate.

In the morning Tom shakes her gently.

‘Awake my fairest, my espous'd… Awake, the morning shines.'

She looks up into his face, unshaven, newly gaunt, its dear smile.

‘Tom!'

‘I'm well again. The fever's gone, I'm not aching and I feel extremely hungry. Let's have breakfast. I could eat a whole pan of eggs and ham.'

He's unsteady going down stairs but much strengthened by food and strong tea.

‘And I was about to ask Martha to fetch a doctor! Robert has deserted us, you know. Gone to Chester in a fright.'

‘What nonsense! We'd best write and haul him back. He can't just leave the business like that. I'll put on clean clothes and go to the shop. And the proofs need to go back to the printer.'

‘They do. But, surely you should rest first? I'll return the proofs.'

‘I feel perfectly well, my love. Come with me, though, won't you?'

*

They write to Robert but his reply says that he'll only return when Tom is certified well by a doctor. He's told the bookbinder to delay delivery of the latest
Guide
for a week. If Sarah can open the shop occasionally that would be good, but he expects they can absorb loss of revenue for a short while.

Because the shop has been shut for a couple of days there are not many customers. They draw up lists of titles to exchange with the other major booksellers and publishers. Replace books on their right shelves. Tom sits down to draft a new pamphlet, but can't put his mind to it.

‘When I was a boy I was mad for reading, Sarah. My mother taught me, as she taught us all before we went to school and sometimes I read to her when she was nursing a younger child: Hooke's
Roman History
, Hume's
England
, pieces from
The Spectator
,
The Rambler
. There were plenty of books in the house of course, though strangely enough Father thought meditation better than reading. Too much reading oppresses the mind, he said. Perhaps that's why he wasn't much good as a bookseller! But I always read in bed. Took a flat candle with me. My favourite was
Robinson Crusoe
. Now it's
Paradise Lost
as you know. I was sure I'd sell books in my own shop one day; was determined to do better than my father.'

They are in Robert's office. One end of the huge desk is Tom's. Sarah enjoys surveying the shelves of earthenware ink bottles that Robert still sells. She loves to listen to Tom talk even though it's strange to be idle in this place.

‘You have your memories of Newton, my dearest. I never had one best friend, but a group of us boys would get together for the purposes of, well, experiment. Once, it must have been November as it is now which is why I think of it I suppose, we collected between us several crackers and squibs and a neat pile of gunpowder.

‘We crept down to the kitchen. My father was at home that night and was in earnest conversation with his Quaker friends two floors above; my mother will havde been reading or dozing. We achieved a few pleasing bangs without discovery. But then came the gunpowder which, we were annoyed to find, was too damp to light. So I tipped it into a frying pan and held it over the fire to dry out.

‘You can imagine what happened: an explosion that knocked us all down, blew out the candles and sent the adults running down the stairs to drag out the bodies. But not one of us was hurt!'

‘You always acted on impulse, even in your boyhood.'

‘Yes. But my impulses are usually right!'

She smiles. ‘Yes, you changed my life.'

‘And my own. Sarah, let us go back. I think I might rest a while.'

The fever returns that night. Sarah cools his forehead continuously, fearing delirium again and when he groans at fierce pain in his abdomen she calls down to Martha to fetch the doctor.

Hears with dread his horse on the dark street, his hearty knock, his approaching footsteps.

‘Dr Kammerer, Mrs Cranch. Your husband?'

‘Yes. He was well for three days,' she says as if to prove he's not ill.

When Kammerer sits on the side of the bed Tom opens his eyes. ‘Heinrich Kammerer, Mr Cranch.' He touches Tom's head, holds his limp wrist, peers closely at his face.

‘Do you work near the waterfront, Mr Cranch?'

‘No. Chestnut Street.'

‘But, Tom, you went to the docks and yards ten days ago. He was handing out the pamphlets he had written, doctor.'

‘The waterfronts are not a good place. Not good for disease. Or rather, too good for disease. Dr Rush would have us bleed and purge the fever, but I am not happy with this treatment.

‘Cool him as much as you can, Mrs Cranch, make him drink water as often as you can. Mr Cranch, I will call again in twenty-fours hours' time.'

He takes Sarah aside. ‘The skin is yellow.'

‘In candlelight all skin looks yellow.'

‘Mrs Cranch, his skin is yellow. The whites of his eyes are yellow. You will need a bowl for vomit, many cloths and towels. You may send your woman sooner if necessary.'

*

‘Where has he gone, Sarah? Where? Tell me! I mean Death. He was here just now, I know he was.'

‘Tom, that was the doctor. Dr Kammerer. He has told me to keep you cool and make you drink.'

‘No, no. I recognised him. He was Death.'

His face is burning. ‘He will come back. He'll drag me into the deluge, the fiery deluge. Torture without end! He's coming back. Coming to drag me. Rising up from the flames!'

He's too weak to struggle against his imagined enemy and falls back.

But then he stirs and groans. ‘Sarah. Oh Sarah I haven't done it! My promise to Martha. To confront Robert.'

‘Dear Tom. It doesn't matter. It's not important. Rest now.'

‘It is! Robert must…' For a moment a flash of that anger he'd shown when Leopard made his first appearance burst over his face. ‘I promised! And now I cannot do it.'

She wants to tell him that in time he will. But she mustn't lie.

‘Sarah, you talk to Robert. Promise me!'

Her promise is a farewell.

She holds a cup to his lips and then he retches into the basin. He's vomited all before: there's nothing now but blood, black clots of blood. She bends to place the basin on the floor.

‘Sarah, you've gone! Where are you? Where have you gone?'

‘Here, I'm here. I haven't gone. I shan't leave you. I'll never leave you.'

‘Best of women, best of wives, best of friends.'