Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (31 page)

May passed; June arrived. We worked without cease, and all that time I heard not a word from John or Isaac. Neither had Abigail heard from her John. We drew strength from our mutual widowhood, though neither of us spoke of it.

June was hot and dry. One afternoon, after a morning of tending the gardens, I gave Johnny to suck but found I had no milk. He tried twice, then turned his head aside in disgust and wailed.

The heat of the sun had robbed me of my milk. Lizzie, who had been working several rows ahead of me, heard Johnny’s cry. She and Martha wiped their hands and came over to us.

“You’ve exhausted yourself, Eliza. It’s my fault. Come back to the house now,” Lizzie said.

I might have argued except that, standing up, I felt quite dizzy. The hot air and the rows of corn spun sideways before my eyes, and I nearly fell with Johnny in my arms. Martha took Johnny from me and endeavored to calm him. Lizzie ordered me to bed at once, then set about feeding Johnny with a bottle of watered-down cow’s milk and a smooth mash of leftovers. Johnny soon settled, and I fell asleep to the sound of him banging his favorite pot once more. Martha remained within to tend him, but Lizzie returned to the fields.

I lay in bed, bored to tears, for near a week. Lizzie served me tea, milk, and cider throughout the day. At the end of the week, I felt buoyant enough to float off to sea. Then one morning I awoke to find my breasts aching, and, at Johnny’s cry, the milk burst forth and ran plentifully once more.

42

ONE DAY THAT JUNE, I ESPIED ABIGAIL
walking down our lane with a quick, determined step. We were already abroad, feeding the animals, and when she got a little closer to us, I saw that in her hands she held a letter. She stopped before us and extended the folded paper.

“It’s from Colonel Langdon.”

I took the envelope from her and looked down at it; the handwriting was not that of my John. I hesitated before opening it. Abigail and I stood in the kitchen garden. Seeing my hesitation Abigail said, “Let us sit.” She moved us toward two low gardening stools, and we sat upon them. I held the letter in my lap, thinking that whatever events it described had already transpired. My not knowing the letter’s contents would change nothing.

I broke the seal and read:

Dear Miss Boylston:

Forgive me for not replying sooner. I only received your letter yesterday, upon returning to Portsmouth after a long and unavoidable absence. I myself was in ignorance of the events of this past winter, when thirty-two men were banned from the town of Portsmouth. They fled, and their property was confiscated. Your uncle was among them . . .

“So, the worst has happened,” I said aloud, endeavoring to remain composed. Abigail placed an arm around my shoulders.

“Courage,” she whispered. “All is not lost.”

I read on:

Miss Boylston, it grieves me to report that your uncle is dead. He fled to New York, and was two weeks ago found in a hotel room, beside an empty vial of laudanum.

“Oh, poor, foolish man,” I cried. “I wonder if Mama has heard?”

“Heard what, dear?” asked Abigail, but I continued to read without replying:

Before leaving Portsmouth, your uncle brought John and Isaac to auction, at Stavers’s tavern. The sale had been announced in all our surrounding towns. Apparently, a man from Kittery, one Mr. Richards, attended this auction. When he espied Isaac, a great hullabaloo broke out. This Mr. Richards insisted that Isaac was his, and he wouldn’t pay a cent for him, and if Mr. Chase knew what was good for him h
e’d
throw Watkins into the bargain or be arrested. Your uncle took the deal and vanished, with what results you now already know.

I set the letter down. “I feel I am to blame, somehow,” I said. I could feel my legs swaying beneath me.

Abigail rose from the stool. “Eliza, you look very ill. Might I bring you something?” Then, as I made no reply, she said, “Yes, you must take something.”

“No, thank you.” I wavered on my feet.

“I insist. A dish of tea—with rum. I’ll return by and by.”

Once Abigail had left, I paced in circles in the kitchen garden. Colonel Langdon’s words could only mean one thing. Isaac and Watkins were now in the grips of Isaac’s former master. I knew not what to do. I could not sit, could not stand, could not
be
.

Abigail returned with the tea and insisted I drink it. My hands shook; my entire body began to tremble.

“You are not well. Come inside and lie down.”

“Nay,” I said, refusing to comfort myself. For, though I suffered, the idea of fleeing my pain was anathema to me. I sat upon one of the stools and finished the letter:

Miss Boylston, I discovered these events only yesterday, when I returned to Portsmouth to find Johnny and the child absent from the shipyard. By then, the news had spread around Portsmouth, and I have taken the liberty of sending a messenger to Cambridge to relate the news of your uncle’s death.

Please know that with regard to the other subject of my letter, my feelings are by no means neutral. You have friends who shall not let sleeping dogs lie. I daren’t say more. I remain in Portsmouth for several days but then must away.

Yours most faithfully, JL

“Oh, God, God. The worst has happened. And I was not there!”

At that moment, Martha and Lizzie arrived from the fields. Johnny was asleep in Martha’s arms. My friends glanced at Abigail, who gravely shook her head.

“What news?” asked Martha.

I proffered the letter. Lizzie bent down to take it up. She and Martha read it in silence.

“I must go at once,” I said. I rose, as if I might leave for Portsmouth that very moment. Then I recalled my babe, still in Martha’s arms. He slept peacefully, his breath coming in soft puffs between sweetly parted lips. His long, black lashes were curled and damp with sleep.

“Let us go inside,” said Lizzie gently, “and think what’s best to do.”

“You don’t understand.” I resisted the gentle tug of her hand. “He would sooner die than live under such a one. Oh, he shall do a harm to himself!”

“Not while you and his babe are in the world,” Abigail assured me. “For the thought of you and Johnny would give even the most foolish man pause.”

Despite my friends’ assurances, however, my legs gave way, and I needed them to help me to my bed. As I lay there, images of John and Isaac danced against the scrim of my closed eyelids. I could hear my friends speaking in low voices in the kitchen. Abigail said I must write Colonel Langdon immediately. Lizzie favored leaving at once. But Abigail had heard of skirmishes in Boston and was frightened of going without a man in tow—someone younger and stronger than either Lizzie’s inebriate farmhand or Uncle Quincy’s ancient coachman.

I could tolerate but two extremes: the oblivion of sleep, or action. But sleep would not come, and I hardly knew what action to take. Then, from somewhere deep within, I found the will to rise up from the bed.

“Lizzie, have you paper?” I called.

She looked at me, surprised, and moved to her desk, where she found paper and quill.

I pulled the room’s one chair over to the desk and wrote to Colonel Langdon.

Dear Colonel,

You will understand my distress at your news, and as I am eager to be off, I wish to let you know that we leave for Portsmouth as soon as we can arrange it—I know not what I can do, but I must be there. We will install ourselves at Stavers’s and await word from you. I hope this letter reaches you in time, as you mentioned having to depart Portsmouth. God bless you. —E. B.

Abigail found someone heading north that afternoon and gave him the letter, along with admonishments about the need for haste. We readied to leave as well, though Abigail still had her anxieties about our riding the roads alone. In this, Providence intervened when the following day we learned that our field hand, Thaxter, planned to leave us. I had barely noticed his existence since my arrival in Braintree, particularly since he had an uncanny habit of disappearing whenever he was needed.

As it happened, Thaxter—whom we had not paid in many months—had decided to return to his family who lived just north of Portsmouth. He planned to leave the following week, but with a little liquid incentive from Lizzie’s stash, he agreed to travel with us that same day.

“I shall tell Uncle that we have need of his coach,” Abigail announced. She had returned to our cottage early that morning and was present for Thaxter’s announcement. She then moved off through the dunes to the colonel’s house.

Martha began to pack our clothing and a sack of provisions for the road. She would not be joining us, though she would have liked to, for someone needed to remain behind to feed the animals and attend the crops.

We set off that afternoon in Colonel Quincy’s carriage, stopping at Abigail’s for twenty minutes or so while she packed a bag and gave instructions to her field hands. She gathered up her boys, who had been playing in one of the fields out back. They began to whine and complain until she sent them a look that silenced them, for at once they moved off to pack a few items. Abigail and her family could accompany us as far as her sister Betsy’s in Exeter.

We were elbow to elbow in the carriage. It was hot and uncomfortable, and our bodices were soaked through with perspiration by the time we reached Cambridge, where we stopped the night at Lizzie’s ancestral home, continuing on early the following morning. Bessie, Lizzie’s old family servant, and Giles, their former slave, formed an attachment to Johnny and were loath to let us go, but Lizzie, without giving details, impressed upon them our need for haste.

At last we arrived in Exeter, around ten the following evening, greatly fatigued. I had no breath for speech and retired at once. Yet, brief as it was, my impression of Abigail’s sister was highly favorable. Betsy was everything kind and intelligent, and I later learned that she was an accomplished writer.

My sleep that night in Exeter was profound but brief. I woke at dawn, nursed my babe, and then woke Lizzie, who slept beside me. She rose at once, and after a quick breakfast of coffee and eggs, we were ready to depart. Abigail, hearing us, emerged from her chamber, her nightcap still perched upon her little head. “Are you off so soon?”

“Yes, dearest,” said Lizzie. “But we will write when we have news.”

“Oh, do, please. I shan’t rest until I know what there is to know.”

We hugged her and promised that we would.

43

“I’M FALLING DOWN,” LIZZIE ANNOUNCED UPON ENTERING
our chamber at Stavers’s tavern. There was but one available, and we shared it. It was in the front of the house overlooking King Street, and we could hear the noise from the street below. But Lizzie was grateful to be out of the coach. “Thank goodness we are arrived at last. I slept quite poorly last night.” I nodded but did not reply. I had lost the urge to speak, even to Lizzie. The world seemed leagues away.

Lizzie undid her gown and stays and fell upon the bed; I myself could not rest. I placed my sleeping babe beside Lizzie and moved to the window, where I looked down upon King Street. There, across from Mr. Fowle’s old printing house, stood Mr. Henderson’s English and India Goods, now closed. Next door was Mr. Brewster’s bookstore, at whose display I had often stopped to gaze. And just there was Mr. Bass’s establishment, with its display of coats, hats, and fine kid gloves.

Oh, Portsmouth! It seemed an age since
I’d
lived there. Though only twenty-three, I felt that
I’d
lived through a hundred years of gain and loss, and was regretful that John had not known this seasoned woman; he had known the girl with her bits of silk still clinging to her.

As I looked out the window, I recalled the pipe-smoking ferryman and Captain Jones, and fishing with that impossibly long pole on the eastern end of Badger’s Island. I recalled Langdon’s shipyard, taking the cure on Pest Island, and our laughter as John and I got to know each other, and my soft bed that one time . . . gone, gone.

“Lizzie,” I said abruptly, my voice sounding far away. “Would you kindly walk over to the Whipple house and inform Cuffee and Prince that we are arrived? It is but three streets away, directly up Front Street. The house is blue, and there’s an enormous oak tree before it. You can’t miss it. Would you have one of them send word to Colonel Langdon that we are arrived?”

“Oh, of course,” she said, though she did not move. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to doze. After a few moments she sat straight up, donned her stays and gown, and set off.

While Lizzie was gone, I rested and nursed Johnny. I gave him some crushed blueberries, which Betsy had sent with us in the carriage. Johnny plucked the berries one by one in his dainty little grip before putting them in his mouth. He fell asleep with a purple tongue and lips, and I fell asleep beside him. I knew not how long we had been asleep, but we were both dead to the world when a hesitant rap on the door woke us.

“One moment,” I said, righting myself. It was dark in the chamber now—no moon shone beyond the window—and close. My mouth tasted stale, but I had no opportunity to clean my teeth. I moved to the door and opened it.

Standing before me were Prince, Dinah, Jupiter, and, to my very great surprise, Colonel Langdon himself. Lizzie stood beside the colonel and looked on in astonishment as I was hugged and fairly smothered by the Whipples.

Then they turned to my sleeping babe. Sighs, exclamations, and tender clasping of hands all finally served to wake him, which had no doubt been their aim. They then took him up in their arms, each begging for a turn. None of them seemed in the least surprised by his existence, and from this I concluded that all the slaves of Portsmouth had long known my “secret.”

Colonel Langdon, who remained at the threshold, seemed embarrassed by this unbounded display of affection.

I curtsied to him. “Come in, Colonel.”

Lizzie added hastily, “It’s dark as a tomb in here, Eliza,” and lit a candle.

“Lizzie,” I said, steering her first to Prince, who stood hunch-shouldered in a corner of the chamber, “this is the soldier who taught me to use a musket.”

“A most useful skill, indeed,” said Lizzie archly. But Prince, intimidated, did not hazard a reply.

Johnny suddenly pointed to Jupiter, who took that as a sign to take him from my arms. Jupiter grasped him tight and held him high in the air, grinning his broad, white grin. Johnny took fright, frowned, and reached for me.

Jupiter merely laughed good-naturedly. “He thinks I’s de Devil hisse’f, Miss Eliza!”

“Jupiter,” I said. “I am very glad to see you. But tell me: How is it you remain in Portsmouth?”

“Before he leave, Master Robert, he tells me I ain’t worth nothin’ and lets me go. Says the same of Dinah—he never did take to her cookin’. Well, I had nowhere
to
go, so Colonel Whipple take me in. I’m a free man, Miss Eliza.” Here, Jupiter allowed himself a small, proud grin.

Regretfully, all but Colonel Langdon soon had to return home, and I felt sad to have to cut short our reunion. I knew not when
I’d
see them again. After several more hugs and many more tears, they all departed.

Colonel Langdon entered my chamber. Lizzie stood at the transom, turning toward the hallway to give us privacy.

The colonel strode anxiously from one end of our chamber to another. I waited. Finally, he said, “Miss Boylston. I see you have earned the love and trust of those who usually find us undeserving of either.”

“They were kind to me when others were—less so. Do you wish to sit?” I said, pointing to the lone chair.

“Nay—please,” he deferred. I sat with Johnny on my lap, and the colonel sat on one corner of the low bed, his long legs bending at an uncomfortable-looking angle.

“Miss Boylston. I mustn’t be so cruel as to delay. I have news as will gladden and pain you at once.”

“Tell me,” I said. I thought I saw a flinch of anticipation in Lizzie’s shoulders.

“Yes. Watkins—John Watkins—”

“Is he well?” I interrupted. “And Isaac?”

The colonel paused in his account, as if deciding how to proceed. “I was going first to say that this Richards character is well known to us. He’s a notorious swindler whom Kittery folk call Mr. Wretched. I’m afraid it has not been easy for our boys. Isaac is well.” The colonel smiled wanly and pushed a heavy lock of hair off his forehead. “He has grown.”

“Oh, Cassie shall be overjoyed to hear it. And Watkins?”

The colonel looked at his feet, then at me. There was much regret in his eyes.

“He is better than he was.”

My heart began to pound uncontrollably. “What mean you, sir?”

“The good news is that I have succeeded in procuring him once more for the yard.”

By this statement the colonel gave me to know that John was alive, but nothing more. He continued, “When I returned to Portsmouth and learned what had happened, I offered Richards a thousand pounds for them both. But old Wretched refused. It seemed that the very idea I wanted them made him cling to them all the more. I finally offered the scoundrel a king’s ransom to have them both returned to the shipyard—hiring them, as it were. Well,
that
the old devil couldn’t resist. But the day Johnny returned to me, I saw . . . he kept it beneath his shirt, attempting to hide it . . .”

I rose from the chair. “Kept what from you, sir? What did he attempt to hide?”

“His
hand
,” the colonel blurted at last. “His hand has been broken. The bones of all but his thumb were—all smashed.”

“Oh, God!” I rose from the chair and placed Johnny on the bed. I felt cold and began to tremble. I turned to Colonel Langdon in desperation. “Are you certain? He can do nothing without his hands.”

Langdon approached me and gently took my arm.

“He heals, Miss Boylston. Someday, perhaps . . .”

“Someday! Oh, this evil, evil world. His work—his work is all he has. Without that—oh, why has God put us here to suffer so?”

Lizzie abandoned all pretense of not hearing us and came to my side.

“Miss Boylston,” the colonel said, moved by my despair, “he is safe for now, and the hand shall heal in time.”

“But
why
?” I said, more to myself than to him. “Why would Mr. Richards do such a thing?”

“Apparently he believed that Johnny knew the whereabouts of certain—armaments.” Colonel Langdon looked at me, doubting whether to proceed.

“Have no fear, colonel. I know about them.”

“Yes. Well, as you can imagine, they’re worth a great deal. The greedy wretch wished to procure them, sell them to his Tory friends. After breaking four of Watkins’s fingers, Richards realized that the man would sooner die as give up the whereabouts of the arms.”

My eyes closed for a long moment. The thought of Watkins’s suffering was unendurable. What reassurance had we that it was over? None.

I finally said, “Perhaps they are with you during the day, but they must return each night to that . . . place . . .”

“Mr. Richards won’t harm Johnny now, I am fairly certain. I’m a daily witness of his condition. Should I not like what I see, I could easily find a means of having Richards arrested. Then, as you know, accidents often happen in jail. Most unfortunate accidents.”

Here, the handsome colonel gave me a mordant smile, though his eyes were hard. O, for such a backbone! There must be no remorse for the remorseless. I wiped my tears and curtsied deeply. Then, impulsively, I embraced him. “Thank you, colonel. There is a special place in Heaven for people like you.”

He nodded, hiding a deep blush in the room’s penumbral gloom. Then, after some hesitation, he asked, “Would you like to see him? See Johnny, I mean? I might be able . . .”

“Oh,” I burst into tears at the very thought. “Do not promise such a thing. The hope alone should kill me if—”

“No, I won’t promise. But I think I know a way.” He looked at me as if actually seeing me for the first time since his arrival. “But I have stayed too long. You are exhausted.” Then, blushing, this remarkable man quickly took his leave.

The moment he left, Lizzie lit another candle.

“My love is grievously hurt,” I said.

“Yes. I heard.”

“But he lives. Lizzie, he lives.”

I curled up on our bed beside Johnny who, perhaps sensing his mother’s misery, whimpered in his sleep.

Lizzie sat on the edge of the bed, caressing the sleeping child’s head. “You know,” she began, “until this day, I don’t believe I truly knew you, Eliza. Though we have been as sisters these ten months, I didn’t understand your character. I am frankly in awe. Well and truly in awe.”

I smiled wearily, “You thought me as prim and proper as one of Mr. Copley’s portraits.”

“Nay—well, in a way, perhaps—”

“You didn’t realize the depth of my feelings for—those you would not have expected me to love.”

“No,” she said. “This much I freely admit.”

I took Lizzie’s hand and grasped it. “I may be cowardly, but my heart is not. Isn’t that odd? Besides,” I continued, suppressing a smile, “I thought, I still think, John Watkins by far the handsomest man I ever saw—”

“Well!” she looked at me. “Why did you not say so at once? Surely a woman needs little more incentive than that?”

We laughed. Suddenly, Johnny sat straight up, annoyed at having been awakened.

“Mama!” he cried. Lizzie and I looked at each other in amazement. We had just heard his first word.