How Dark the Night (2 page)

Great Britain was not, however, entirely amenable to American interests. With the lapse of the Jay Treaty in 1803, Great Britain applied with a vengeance its long-held right to board American vessels to capture Royal Navy seamen suspected of jumping ship and signing on with an American merchant vessel or man-of-war. Any British citizen, in fact, could be forced into service. Although maritime Americans viewed impressment as nothing less than kidnapping on the high seas, it was not an issue subject to adjudication in British courts, as was, for example, the disposition of American merchant vessels and cargoes seized by the British. The right of impressment was considered a prerogative of the Crown. The Royal Navy desperately needed sailors to man its thousand-plus warships and was determined to take them wherever it could find them, regardless of such diplomatic niceties as naturalization papers, which could easily be,
and often were, forged. If in the process of exercising the king's prerogative American citizens were impressed into the Royal Navy either by mistake or on purpose, no one in Great Britain was inclined to give it much thought.

These events and outcomes abroad were vastly unsettling to New England shipping families such as the Crowninshields and Endicotts. The golden goose that was their carrying trade depended on good relations with the former mother country. Britain was America's chief trading partner, accounting for nearly 80 percent of all imports into the United States and a healthy percentage of its exports. What would become of this country, they asked, if the artery conveying its lifeblood was blocked or severed? More important to many of them was the question of what would become of the families. In the fall of 1805, no merchant or trader or politician had a ready answer.

As ominous as the dark clouds beginning to gather over the eastern horizon might be, one New England shipping family—the Cutlers of Hingham, Massachusetts—had a more immediate and pressing concern to address, one that was at once both life-defining and life-threatening.

One

Hingham, Massachusetts

September–October 1805

“R
ICHARD
? I
'M SORRY
to wake you, but it's almost nine o'clock.” The voice seemed to come from a faraway place, a different dimension, yet it was a sound familiar since his earliest childhood. His eyelids fluttered open, then his gaze shot to his wife lying on the bed next to the wingback chair that for the last three days and nights had been his watch post. To his relief he found her peacefully asleep, her chest rising and falling steadily, the shipshape bedsheet and blanket across her chest attesting to serene dreams. He had seen the same sight throughout the night, at least until the wee hours when exhaustion had finally claimed him.

He glanced up at his sister. “Nine o'clock you say, Anne?”

“Yes. Dr. Prescott just arrived. The family is gathering in the parlor.”

“Right. Give me a minute. I want to tidy up a bit and stoke up the fire.”

“Take whatever time you need,” Anne Cutler Seymour said. She squeezed her brother's shoulder before walking quietly out of the room.

Richard leaned forward in his chair and stared intently at his wife. He longed to touch her, to take her hand or caress her bare lower arm, but he did not want to wake her. As if reading his thoughts, she stirred slightly and turned her face toward him. But still she slept.

He rose and stretched out the soreness in his legs and back and neck. He realized that such would not have been necessary had he followed the advice of his siblings and children and gone upstairs to sleep in one of the spare bedrooms, perhaps the one he and his brother Will had shared
as boys. But Richard would not, could not, leave his wife's bedside. The downstairs study, which had once been the purview of his father and was now that of his brother Caleb, was hardly large enough to accommodate the bed and other extra furniture it held. But it was on the first floor, in the quietest part of the house; and it was off the kitchen, where boiling water was quickly available to sterilize sheets and bandages and surgical instruments. Caleb had insisted that for the procedure Katherine be brought here to the family seat on Main Street where he and his wife, Joan, and their infant son, Thomas, resided. Richard had not argued. This house was considerably larger than Richard and Katherine's home on South Street, and it contained more amenities.

He tucked in his shirt, buttoned his brown cotton waistcoat, and rolled up his sleeves. From a pitcher set on a table before a mirror he poured water into a porcelain basin. After splashing some onto his face, he smoothed back strands of near-shoulder-length blond hair that retained a youthful thickness and luster belying his forty-five years. Late last evening he had shaved with soap and razor in anticipation of this morning's gathering. As he ran his fingers back and forth across his chin he felt no residual stubble, although he did note, more with passing interest than concern, the bloodshot eyes looking back at him in the mirror and the puffy gray skin around them. He dried his face with a towel and, turning around, found to his surprise and delight that his wife was watching him.

“Well, good morning, my lady,” he said cheerfully as he walked over to her. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her left hand in both of his. “Sleeping in a little, are we?”

A faint smile graced her chapped lips.

His tone turned serious. “How do you feel, Katherine? Is there anything I can get for you? Water? Soup?”

She shook her head and glanced down at her chest, which was covered by layers of bandages, a sheet, and a blanket. She lifted her gaze slowly back to his. “It's over, isn't it?”

“Yes. It's been over for nearly a day. You've been drifting in and out of consciousness, so I doubt you remember much. Dr. Prescott has been in to see you and gave you a dose of laudanum for the pain. He's here right now, in fact, in the parlor. He wants to meet with the family to explain things. After that, he'll be in to check on you.”

“Then you must be going,” she rasped. “You must not keep the good doctor waiting.”

“I won't. But I won't be gone long. Rest now. We need to get your strength back, and I must tell the family the good news that you are awake.” He raised her hand to his lips. As he kissed the warm, silken flesh, emotion whirled within him. “In fact,” he added with a broad grin, “it seems I must tell the entire town, for most of Hingham has been keeping vigil outside along Main Street for the last two days. Some people stood in the street all night holding candles. Many of them are still out there.”

“Dear God,” she murmured. “How very, very kind.”

“They love you, Katherine. You have touched many lives during our twenty-three years in Hingham.” He forced himself to stop there, although there was more, much more, that he ached to say to her. But he dared not continue lest his emotions overcome him. He had resolved to remain upbeat in her presence during the early days following the procedure. They both knew that her reluctance to admit to her condition and seek treatment had made matters worse than they might have been, but he was determined not to mention that. And there was, after all, no reason
not
to be upbeat. What he had been told privately by Dr. Prescott—and what he would no doubt hear repeated in a few minutes—was that there was every reason to be hopeful. Holding that blessed thought in mind, he placed his hand on her forehead and looked deep into her hazel eyes, “I love you,” he said softly and leaned down to kiss her lips.

She lifted her hand to touch the side of his face and mouthed the same words back at him. Then the opiate took hold again and she drifted back to sleep.

Richard stood, walked over to the hearth, and placed thin sticks of white birch on the hot embers. When the flames blazed up, he added a slab of heavy oak to keep the fire going. Then he slipped away through the kitchen and down the front hallway to the parlor near the entrance of the house.

Most of his family was waiting, seated on sofas and chairs. His younger son, James, was not present—he remained on station off the Barbary Coast in
Constitution
—and Agreen Crabtree, Richard's closest friend and his first officer in
Portsmouth
, was still at the naval base in Hampton Roads, Virginia, attending to the peacetime disposition of the 36-gun frigate that had been their command during the war against Tripoli.

The subdued conversation ceased abruptly as Richard entered the room. All eyes followed him as he walked over to where Dr. Prescott stood in the middle of the gathering—dressed entirely in black save for the silver buckles on his shoes and the blood-red buttons of his waistcoat.

“She is resting peacefully,” Richard said to the doctor in a voice loud enough for all to hear. “She awoke for a few minutes and spoke. She says she is comfortable and in no pain.”

“That is most encouraging, Richard,” Prescott said. “We can all take comfort in that news.” He motioned Richard to a seat on a sofa next to his younger sister, Lavinia, and her husband, Stephen Starbuck, up from Duxbury. Lavinia took Richard's hand and gave it a brief squeeze of sympathy.

Prescott cleared his throat. “Thank you for the gift of your family,” he started in. “That may seem an odd thing to say at this moment, but you are the key to Katherine's recovery. Never in my many years of practicing medicine have I encountered another family so beloved by each other and by an entire community. Have you looked outside? Those good people, waiting there, your friends and neighbors, reflect that. They stand there for Mrs. Cutler, of course; but in truth they stand for you all.”

Diana Cutler, the mirror image of her mother when she was seventeen, gave a wrenching sob, overcome by her fear and despair. Adele Endicott Cutler, who was sitting beside her, raised a hand and began gently kneading the nape of Diana's neck. Adele's husband, Will Cutler, could only gaze helplessly at his distraught sister.

Dr. Prescott addressed Diana directly. “It is good to weep,” he comforted. “Tears express love and they cleanse the soul. Your mother's travails in this process have been many, and they have been difficult, as they have been for you all. But I assure you that the worst is over now, certainly for the time being. As I have told Captain Cutler, we have every reason to be hopeful.”

Diana nodded and hid her face in her hands, grateful for his comfort but unable to utter a word.

“Then in your estimation the surgery was a success, Doctor?” That question came from Frederick Seymour, Anne's husband. Everyone in the room had expected him to ask that most vital question. Direct and candid language was not only at the root of his nature, it also was at the root of his own medical practice in Cambridge.

“In my opinion, yes it was, Doctor,” Prescott stated. “My assistant Dr. Thorndike and I removed Mrs. Cutler's left breast without complication or compromise. I do not believe the surgery could have gone better.”

Joan Cutler was about to ask the inevitable follow-up question when Lizzy Cutler Crabtree, Katherine's closest friend since their childhood together in England, asked it instead. She had been the first person in
whom Katherine had confided back in April, when Richard was off waging war in the Mediterranean, and had borne the secret alone until he had returned. “Were you able to remove all the cancer?”

Prescott hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat and stared solemnly at the floor for a moment, as if to contemplate his answer or to underscore its significance. “Regretfully, we cannot determine that, Mrs. Crabtree. It's really anyone's guess. Medical science knows very little about this dreadful disease. For now, everything is in God's hands. But as I said, we have every reason to be hopeful. You are aware, of course, that President Adams' daughter had the same procedure for the same reason and is now living a normal life.”

“When will we know for certain if the cancer is gone?” Lizzy persisted.

“Again, I cannot tell you
when
we will know, or even
if
. The cancer may return, but in the meantime she may have months—even years—of a perfectly normal life. We'll just have to take each day as it comes and be grateful for that day. I realize that you want specifics, but those I cannot give you. Certainly we can all pray for her full recovery. I can assure you that I will do so.” What remained unsaid—that Katherine's prognosis would likely have been better had she agreed to the surgery earlier—was best left unsaid. The family understood what lay behind that decision, and nothing would be gained by reexamining it now.

“But my mother
will
get better, at least for a while?” Diana threw out her question as a plea, her delicate features a study of desperate hope. Yesterday there had been no consoling her; neither her father nor anyone else had been able to ease her pain. She had soldiered on nonetheless, determined to keep her dark fears and anguish bottled up to the extent possible, waiting in agonized suspense for this moment.

Prescott smiled at her. “Yes, Diana, your mother
will
get better.
That
much I can promise you. She was living a normal life
before
the surgery, was she not? So why not
after
the surgery? I daresay that if this splendid weather holds, in a few weeks' time you and she will be riding your customary route at World's End. At a walk or a canter, mind you,” he added, wagging a finger at her in mock sternness, “
not
at a hard gallop.”