The Messenger (33 page)

She was so infuriating!

And I still hadn’t managed to purge her from my thoughts by the time I’d walked home from Pennington House and taken myself to bed. How could Hannah Sunderland be so brave and courageous and . . . and
pretty
 . . . and not realize how astoundingly dim-witted she was being? So now there were Doll and Betsy and Polly to keep from being interrogated. As well as the prisoners at Walnut Street Jail.

Three more people. No. No, she’d said
four
more people. Or
five
.

It was no use. I got up and splashed water on my face by the dying fire’s light, certain I wouldn’t be able to sleep now. Not even if I’d wanted to. How could I when there were so many cursed people on which my fate—and the lives of the prisoners—depended?

What was wrong with Hannah that she couldn’t understand the danger? I had tied myself to a maddening, exasperating, infuriating woman who would never learn how to be a spy.

But what if fortune smiled upon us and the prisoners did escape? What would the men do once they left the tunnel? The jail was at the wrong end of the city. They’d have to not only get past the British but walk five miles toward Germantown before they could be assured of encountering any allies. It was no good to tell them to construct the tunnel and then wash my hands of them once they’d escaped. Forty-eight people couldn’t walk through the city without being noticed. Even in the dead of night.

I had to make a plan.

Perhaps I could persuade one of the night watchmen to our side. Especially since it was all but certain now that the British were going to leave. If the prisoners could disguise themselves as a citizen’s militia . . . perhaps.

There might just be a way.

I made it a point to look out for the watchman. Began to give him drinks without marking them down to his account. When I thought him sufficiently amenable to persuasion Thursday evening, I engaged him in conversation.

“So what are you going to do when the British leave?”

He sighed. “You don’t think that’s a rumor, then?”

“I think the army’s ready to take up the fight again. They’ve been resting up all winter. And they can’t fight the rebels from Howe’s headquarters.”

“No. I suppose not.” He said it as if he was none too happy about the prospect. “Any word on if they plan to take along those that are loyal?”

“They’ve done it before.” They did it when they’d been forced to leave Boston for Halifax.

“My wife has been after me to find room for us on one of those ships. I keep putting her off, but if you say they’re planning to leave . . . ?”

“Come now. You think it will be as bad as that once they’ve gone?”

“Don’t want to be here if those rebels take back the city again. They might not look too kindly on those who worked for the British while they were gone.”

I frowned. He didn’t sound as if he was cheering the return of the patriots. In fact, he sounded decidedly hostile toward them. I’d guessed wrong, and now I’d have to find another man. Another plan. And I’d less than two weeks’ time to do it.

Hannah

As the Meeting sat in silence on first day, waiting for God to speak, I slid my hands beneath my thighs so that I would not forget myself and draw attention where attention was not wanted. And I pressed my lips together so that I would not speak.

Remember those in prison.

Remember those in prison.

Remember those in prison.

I closed my eyes to try to stop the words, but still they resounded in my head. And when I opened my eyes, they fastened upon Jeremiah. To the great delight of some Friends, he had apparently decided to return to Meeting.

Between trying to ignore God and trying to ignore Jeremiah, my nerves were worn thin by the time Meeting ended. I tried to keep the whole of the women’s side between myself and him as the Meeting emptied, but soon there were just the two of us left in the room.

He nodded. “Another silent meeting.”

“Yes.”

“Surely you people must be thinking something while you’re sitting here.”

“We are.”

“And what would that be?”

“Some of us pray. Some of us bring to mind the Scriptures. Some of us listen to our thoughts to try to discern if they’re from the Spirit.”

“And if you decide you’ve been given something to say, what would you do about it?”

“It depends on what that word is.”

“So even if you think you’ve heard from God, you’re not obligated to share it? If, as an example, it’s not what the others want to hear? Or if you don’t agree with it yourself?”

“It’s not a debate, Jeremiah. ’Tis a Meeting. A Meeting to discern the will of God. How irresponsible I would be if I simply spoke every word that came into my mind!”

“No more irresponsible I suppose than if you did not speak those words that came into your mind. The ones you know that God has given you to speak.”

How did he know my secret thoughts?

He leaned close. “What is it that you’re trying so desperately not to say?”

“How do thee—?”

“Only a person who doesn’t know you could fail to understand the look on your face.”

I could not lie. I had never been able to lie. “Remember those in prison. Those were the words that I heard.”

“That’s it?”

I nodded.

“Remember those in prison. They hardly sound subversive.”

“It is when the Yearly Meeting specifically prohibited ministering to the prisoners.”

“Maybe the Yearly Meeting is wrong. Cunningham certainly couldn’t have harassed the prisoners like he did if more people had remembered those in prison.”

That was true. If more people had visited, then Cunningham’s actions might not have been tolerated. “But thee don’t understand how it is.”

“Then explain it to me.” There was no annoyance, no impatience in his voice.

I shook my head. It was no use.

“I want to understand.”

“The prisoners in the jail are only there because of their rebellion against the king.” I waited for him to interrupt with some vexatious tirade about the king’s abuses, but he did not. “What moral purpose does it serve to allow them to escape the consequences of their choices?”

“Does the King have the right to starve them to death? To leave them for dead?”

“The Meeting refuses to believe that they aren’t being fed.” That was part of the problem. If only they would listen to the truth!

“But how would the Meeting look upon Captain Cunningham stealing the prisoners’ food for profit? Or deliberately spoiling that which was intended for their mouths?”

“They would condemn it, normally.”

“Normally.”

“If the prisoners weren’t rebels.” That was the other part of the problem.

“So they condone the King’s practices, but should the Continental Congress render British soldiers the same treatment, they would condemn it?”

“They would have to.”

“I don’t see anything very friendly about that, and it does not sound like justice to me. What’s right ought to be right for any man. For every man.”

I agreed. Though I did not want to, I agreed!

He looked at me, with something very much like compassion in his eyes. “Now what is it again that you don’t want to be responsible for saying?”

“Remember the prisoners.” Though it was a message that burdened my heart, it was a message not one of the Friends in Meeting would want to hear.

“Is it reasonable?”

I nodded.

“Is it honorable?”

“Yes.”

“Then why won’t you say it?”

I would not say it because I was afraid to.

What would happen if I said it?

I couldn’t sleep that night for the questions that filled my head. I
could
say it. Of course I could say it. The thought was only three words long and people had said contrary things in Meeting before. They had been words that had changed everyone’s mind on how things should be. And if the message was truly from God, then wouldn’t people somehow realize it? What was so terrible about remembering prisoners?

Only the prospect that I might be disowned by the Meeting altogether.

In a religion that had little to do with politics, things had become very political indeed. I had been given a message I could no longer ignore. But it was a message no one wanted to hear.

As I lay there listening to Polly’s deep breaths and soft snores, I considered whether I truly wanted to be part of a Meeting that turned its back on injustice. Whether I wanted to be part of a group that did not want to be reminded of the truth. I had a chance to do what was right, and I had no doubts about the message I had been given. But if the worst happened, if I were no longer allowed to be called a Friend, then what would I be?

By the next first day, my heart was no longer divided. I pushed to my feet at the earliest opportunity. I did not wish to wait even one moment longer. If God had given me a word, then there must be no delay in sharing it. As I stood on trembling legs, I found courage in Jeremiah’s steady gaze. “Remember the prisoners.” I sat.

There was silence for quite a while, but then there came a rustling from the men’s side as someone stood. I closed my eyes as I waited to hear the voice speak.

“I fail to see the meaning of Friend Sunderland’s words. Remember the prisoners? What is it that we’re being asked to do?” The man sat.

A woman took his place. “God always urges us to remember those in chains.”

As she sat, Betsy’s mother stood. “Those in chains for
His
cause, not the rebel’s cause.”

The man rose once more. “But isn’t that verse from Hebrews? Doesn’t it go on to say, ‘Share the sorrows of those who are being mistreated’?”

From the facing bench, the recording clerk was nodding. “I agree with our Friend’s statement. Share the sorrows.”

The first man spoke again. “Perhaps that’s what Friend Sunderland’s words were meant to do: Spur us on to remembering to share each other’s sorrows.”

Though there were words being spoken at Meeting again, they were the wrong ones! I debated, while they talked, whether I ought to clarify my words. I closed my eyes and prayed for forgiveness and guidance. I ought to have spoken much sooner. Had I said the words when I had been given them, perhaps the Meeting might have accepted them without such confusion. By not giving them a chance to do so, I was a party to their sin. I closed my eyes and finally felt the quietness and peace that I knew was of God.

I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me.

No. Please don’t make me say those words. But how could I repent with one breath and then ask to be spared the work of repentance in the next?

Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.

Resigned to my duty, I opened my eyes with a sigh and then stood once more. “ ‘I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me.’ ‘Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ What I said before: I meant that there were those who were sick and in jail in the city and not one of thee ever visited them. The captain charged with supervision of the jail sold some of the food meant for the prisoners and deliberately spoiled what was left. Had Friends been there, we might have prevented many deaths. ‘Remember the prisoners’ meant exactly that. Worse than forgetting them, we failed to remember them. I ought to have spoken this word sooner, but I did not do it. I was afraid to. And for that I beg thy forgiveness.” I sat.

As words were spoken and opinions exchanged, I caressed the soft, worn wood of the pew. I gazed at the stark, plain walls. I looked at every beloved inch of that space, trying to engrave it in my memories, because I knew that I would never be coming back.

Father drew me into the parlor once we reached Pennington House. “I’ve been placed in a rather delicate situation. The elders want to know if thee have taken up the rebel cause.”

“No.” I was done with causes. I much preferred people to political positions.

“Then I must know what it was that thee meant to say this morning in Meeting.”

“I said exactly what was meant.”

“But then . . . it must not have sounded as thee meant it to.” His voice was pleading.

“It sounded exactly as I meant it. I said what I meant to say.”

“Thee know the position the Yearly Meeting took on the prisoners.”

“I do. And I don’t believe it was right.”

“We couldn’t just abolish the consequences of the prisoners’ rebellion.” He had come as close to arguing with me as he had ever done. And yet that same beseeching look was still resident in his eyes.

“The consequence of the Yearly Meeting’s pronouncement was that the prisoners were thrown into a jail with no food, no blankets, and no fire. Another consequence was that the captain who was to have given them these things sold them all before they could ever reach the prisoners, and then placed the money into his own pocket. Most of the men inside that jail will die by illness or through starvation.”