The Messenger (22 page)

As we gripped hands, I dropped the message into her palm. Bowed . . . and then left.

Hannah

I could not credit it. The Evanses had invited Jeremiah Jones to dinner and then treated him as an honored guest. They labored over his contribution to the Meeting as if he had said something worth saying. As if it had been from the mouth of God.

Mouth of God!

If only they knew he believed in nothing at all and that he was scheming that very moment to do exactly the opposite of what the Yearly Meeting had commanded. If I was to tell them that he was working to free the prisoners, they would cast him out of their home. Perhaps even turn him over to the authorities for treason.

Mother took me by the arm as we left. “Thee were quite rude to Jeremiah Jones this afternoon, Daughter.”

“It angered me that he had the gall to speak in Meeting.”

“But there is that of God in everyone. Thee know that.”

That of God in everyone. It’s what the founder of our faith had believed and what I believed as well. The Creator of our souls had left a part of Him inside us, and the more we responded to and came to resemble Him, the more our inner lights increased.

“Perhaps he was led to our Meeting to speak the wisdom of God into our midst.”

Led
to our Meeting? To speak
wisdom
?

“I think thee should soften thy heart a little. So as to encourage his fledgling faith.”

Fledgling faith! “If his heart truly seeks God, then he does not need my encouragement.”

“Tsk. We all need encouragement. Especially during these dark days.”

Well . . . that was true. And perhaps I was being a bit churlish. He’d only come to deliver a message. And he had been encouraging. He’d helped the widow Smythe into her seat at the table. He’d spoken to the Evanses’ children—to my own brothers and sister even—as if they might have something interesting to say. Had I not known his true motives, I would have been deceived as well.

I went to Meeting the next week with no little satisfaction, knowing from my visit to the jail that work on the tunnel was quickly progressing. I also went with a measure of relief, knowing Jeremiah Jones would not be there. But he was. He did not speak in Meeting, though he did pass me a message afterward. It was he who had devised the scheme with the bookseller, so I did not see why he would not use it. I was beginning to think that his only purpose was to vex me.

“What is wrong with thee, Hannah?” Mother took my hand in hers as we walked out of the Meeting House. “All I felt at Meeting was thy bitter spirit. And all I saw was thy sour expression.”

“Everyone thinks Jeremiah Jones is so honorable, but he’s not!”

“And how would thee know this?”

Once again my words threatened to land me in trouble. “He was a soldier during the Indian Wars.”

“People change, Daughter.”

That’s what I had once thought as well. But now . . . I didn’t know what to think. Meeting used to be the one place where I could be free from the specter of Jeremiah Jones. The one place where I could lay aside my deception. But now there was no place in this city where he was not. Somehow he had managed to prosecute a wholesale invasion of my life. If it weren’t for Robert’s sake, I could not have borne it.

She patted my cheek. “There’s a good girl. The Hamiltons have invited us to dine with them and several others as well. Jeremiah Jones will be among us. See that thee are kind to him.”

I would have done so if he had been kind to me.

He fell into step beside me as I walked behind the children, passing me his message as I bumped against him in walking.

“I wish I could tell you that you’re rid of me. You can hardly stand to look at me.”

It was true. I could not deny it. “I hate thee, I loathe thee, and I despise thee.”

He fell back as if I’d struck him.

I fell back as well, letting the others continue on. “If it was not for thee, I could be . . . I could be
happy
right now.” Or at least not quite so confused or nearly as angry.

“Happy—?”

“If not for thee, I would be fine.
Everything
would be fine. I wouldn’t have to worry about delivering messages or trying to keep my neck from the gallows. I wouldn’t have to lie to my parents or deceive my Meeting. I wouldn’t have had to choose sides!” I would have yelled those words if I wasn’t so concerned about others hearing them.

“It’s not my fault that—”

“It is too thy fault. Everything is thy fault! Every bad thing that has happened to my family started with thee.”

“I hardly think that’s fair!”

“My father was arrested last September.”

“And I had something to do with that?” His voice had gone hoarse from the strain of whispering his objections at me.

“The men who came for him came straight from thy tavern. They were drunk from the liquor thee sold them.”

“I didn’t make them drink it.”

“But thee made them welcome in thy place of business.”

“I welcomed their
coin
into my business.”

“And they accosted me!” It was the first time I had ever spoken those words aloud. It had happened as my mother and the children had followed my father’s captors out into the street. No one had known. And now my soul felt dirty with shame.

“I—” The exasperation was swept from his face by shock, only to be replaced a moment later by a dark and terrible rage. “Did they . . .?”

“They put their hands all over me.” I didn’t want to tell him, but some strange compulsion to speak had overcome me. “And they . . . they made themselves free with me.” It made me tremble to remember it. Afraid I might start to heave, I put a hand to my mouth.

He put his hand to my shoulder, trying to turn me toward him. “But they didn’t—they didn’t use you?”

“No.” No, they had not. I had been saved that final indignity when Mother had sent the children back into the house. I could not bear to look at him now. I was used to Jeremiah Jones towering over me, but I had never felt so small beside him. “They did not. But they made me feel as if they had. And now—thee’ve asked me to—I must—”

“I’ve asked you to save men just like them.”

I looked up at him then and saw such compassion in his eyes that I began to weep. “I don’t want to do it.” I drew my hood further over my head as Friends from Meeting approached. I longed to throw myself into his arms, but pride—and propriety—would not allow it.

Jeremiah Jones must have understood, for he made no move toward me. But after a moment he did speak. “Those men in the jail are not the men who misused you.”

“Aren’t they?”

“They aren’t the same.”

“I just want to help Robert. That’s all I want to do.”

“You are.”

“I don’t believe in war.” I didn’t believe in much of anything anymore. I chanced a look up at him. “I wish thee had not served them.”

“I wish I had not either. And if I have my way, they’ll never drink again.” As he looked down at me, the hard lines around his mouth softened. “Can we be friends, Hannah Sunderland?” He actually looked sincere.

I was a Friend by persuasion. Now he was asking me to be a friend by predilection. And I discovered that I wanted to. I swallowed back a sob, turning it into a hiccough instead. “Aye. Perhaps. I think we can.”

His lips turned up in a cautious smile. “Nothing would please me more.”

It was a courteous and gracious reply. A reply I might have expected him to give to one of the city’s Tory belles in the candlelit glow of Aunt Rebekah’s parlor. Not to a plainly dressed Friend in the middle of Second Street, who had just revealed to him the darkest secret of her soul. So when he held out his arm to me, I put my own around it.

“You will always be safe with me.”

I nodded, though still I was reticent to look at him. But I knew that what he said was true. Somehow I had always known it. I had always felt safe with him.

As I sat in a chair on fourth day, embroidering, Polly sighed from the luxurious confines of her bed as she turned a page in
The Magazine a la Mode, or Fashionable Miscellany
. Sighed again as she shut it up. Then she threw it across the room toward her dressing table. “There’s no use in looking at new fashions if one isn’t allowed to go out anywhere to display them!”

A soft rapping came at her door and then it opened. Sally peeked in. When she saw me, she stepped into the room and addressed herself to Polly. “Caroline said to ask, Can we borrow thy dolls?”

Polly pushed herself away from her pillows. “Why didn’t Caroline come to ask me herself?”

“She said that thee would say no.”

“Did she now.” Polly scowled for a moment. Then she brightened and pushed from her bed. Kneeling in front of her trunk, she opened the lid, removed three dolls, and then handed them to Sally. They had painted china faces and were wearing costumes more elaborate even than those Polly generally wore. “I’ll give these to you, but on the condition that only you can use them.”

Sally agreed so readily to that injustice that it made me wonder what they were doing. “What are thee playing at that thee need so many?”

“We’re having funerals. For all the children who have died of measles. Caroline will pronounce the rites for the Episcopalians and I shall do for the Friends.”

I had trouble hiding my smile. “Thee must be feeling better, then.”

She nodded and cradled the dolls in her arms as she left.

Polly pouted as she resumed her pose on the bed. “I can’t believe they all had to get sick. And then fall sick again!”

And I was afraid to believe that they might actually be growing better. The grippe had been bad, but the measles were a frightening and dreaded plague. “I’m sure no one ever asks to become ill.”

“It’s ruined everything! No dancing parties, no dinners. It’s just not fair.” She rolled to sitting and faced me. “Help me escape.”

Escape! That word brought a sudden chill to my spine. I reminded myself that she could not possibly know of the plans for the prisoners at the jail. “Escape from what?”

“This house. Mother won’t let me go anywhere. Not as long as young Edward is still feeling poorly. I’ll go mad if I have to spend another day shut up here inside.”