Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) (5 page)

Mama cried, “But what shall we say to the Inmans?”

Jeb shrugged. “Perhaps you could say I have strained my back and cannot sit.”

“Jeb, that is hardly credible,” I objected.

“Well, then, tell them that I am dead and lie in state. What do I care what you tell the Inmans?”

Out of nowhere, a hand came through the air and slapped Jeb across the face.

“How dare you speak to your mother like that,” Papa said. “Go to your chamber.”

I grabbed Jeb’s arm and led him aside as he massaged his stinging cheek.

“Jeb, you
are
cruel. Only think how Mama has suffered,” I whispered. “And really, your timing could hardly be worse.”

“Why is that?” Jeb looked at me questioningly.

“Haven’t you heard? Mr. Inman plans to pay me a visit on Saturday.”

Jeb frowned but made no reply. To Mama, however, he turned back and said, “I’m sorry, Mama. But surely you must feel the winds of change. Our citizens will fight for the rights denied them. Perhaps you women are content to remain children, being told what to do, but our men will be men. Very likely, we shall soon be at war.”

Mama took a step away from Jeb. “I don’t know how you can say such things,” she replied. “I shall say to anyone who asks that you are unwell.”

“Say what you like.” He shrugged. “I shall go neither to church nor to my chamber.” Taking only his cap with him, Jeb pushed past us and walked swiftly toward the stables. “Juno! Ready my horse!” he called. Then, as an afterthought, he turned to us and said, “Do not wait for me for dinner, for I shan’t return before tomorrow.”

Mama, cold and hard a moment earlier, now burst into tears. Papa bellowed, “Blast that confounded child!” and moved to console her. I was left to wonder why Jeb disapproved so of Mr. Inman.

The following Saturday, Cassie spent the better part of the morning preparing me for Mr. Inman’s visit, beginning with a bath, then a powdering that masked the remains of my tan.

“Cassie, you’ll make me look like a statue.”

“Den ’ee worsheep you like ’ee
should
.” She nodded for emphasis.

I glanced behind my shoulder at her and sighed, upon which Cassie trussed me tight as a turkey. Then she helped me into a new blue silk damask gown, whose fluttery sleeves were the very height of London fashion. I sat upon my bed and, on my feet, Cassie placed a pair of brocade shoes so new that they posed a slipping hazard on our freshly waxed floors. Carefully, I stood up. “How do I look?” I asked her, circling slowly about.

“Good enough to eat, Miss Eliza. You just watch he don’ try ’eet.”

“Cassie.” I frowned. “Mr. Inman is a gentleman.”

“Dere no such ting, Miss Eliza.”

“You’re a little fool. Go back to the kitchen and get ready.” Cassie bowed her head and was off. Over the summer, we had let go a number of servants, and Cassie was now but three remaining ones, not counting the stableboy, Juno, and our old coachman.

I was soon demurely waiting for Mr. Inman in the front parlor. Mama paced the foyer.

“Mama, would you kindly find an occupation? You shall embarrass me by hovering about like that.”

“Oh, but this is so exciting, is it not?” She smiled warmly at me. Such a smile from her was a rare occurrence.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I feel quite nervous, somehow. Cassie says he might try to eat me, and the truth is, I do find his pale eyes rather wolflike.”

Mama’s smiled vanished. She glided quickly over to me as if her feet had turned into wheels. “Cassie is deranged,” she said. “And I’m beginning to think you are, too. How could one not like Mr. Inman?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but—
please
go. Papa!” I cried. At the threat of Papa’s intervention, Mama wheeled herself out of the parlor and disappeared up the stairs. Five minutes later, I heard the clop of horses’ hooves. I peered out the window to see a very fine carriage with two sleek pacers and an ebony coachman stop before the house. Mr. Inman descended, and I turned back quickly, so that he would not see me waiting for him.

Our butler went to open the door, and in Mr. Inman strode. He looked about him, and I watched with bursting pride as his gaze came to rest on our glorious staircase. Mr. Inman turned, and I stood to greet him. “Mr. Inman,” I began with a curtsy. “It’s very good to see you.” From the corner of my eye, I caught Mama peering down at us from the top of the stairs, and my heart thumped with irritation. “Please, have a seat. Have you been well, Mr. Inman?”

“Indeed,” he grinned. His cool blue eyes assessed me boldly, which made me blush. “I’m infernally busy, though, what with our upcoming exams, and a declamation I must give for the Speaking Club.”

“Oh? A declamation? Upon what topic, pray?” Here, thank goodness, was something to discuss.

But Mr. Inman replied, “I’ve no wish to bore you, Miss Boylston. At least, not on my first visit.”

“No, sir,” I smiled encouragingly, favorably impressed by his willingness to poke fun at himself.

“Very well, then. It is on the story of Dionysius and Damocles. Do you have an opinion on that?”

“Indeed, I do. Do you wish to hear it?”

Mr. Inman was all astonishment, whether feigned or no, I knew not. “Do you mean to tell me that you know who those men were?”

“Of course.” I laughed. “My brother, Jeb, would say that such a legend about the evanescent nature of power is an apt one for our time.”

Mr. Inman nodded thoughtfully, and I believed we would then discuss the topic. But he changed tack. “I was sorry not to have the pleasure of attending your party last year. Am I to have the pleasure of attending another?”

I could not at first reply, so swift and unexpected was the pain he caused me. Surely he knew why we had cancelled the party? I managed to say, “We haven’t discussed such a thing as yet.”

Seemingly unaware of my change in tone, he said cheerfully, “Well, I have already begun to plan my graduation party next summer. Or, that is, Papa has. Everyone shall be there. Including you, I hope.” I knew he sought my eyes, but they were fixed upon the pattern of my brocade shoes.

“If you wish it,” I said.

“Well, then, that’s all settled.”

After making a few easy remarks upon Mr. Curtis’s dance studio and the poor pianist, Mr. Inman took his leave. I remained sitting in a whirling vortex of emotion for several minutes.

Jeb returned just as Mr. Inman’s carriage left. Upon entering the house, he accosted me at once. “Eliza, how can you be so foolhardy as to entertain that fellow?”

I looked up out of my fog. “Why, what can you mean? Mama says it’s an honor that he has chosen to single me out. The girls at Mr. Curtis’s school were green with envy.”

“Know you nothing at all? Is that pretty head filled with air?” he replied.

“What should I know about Mr. Inman that I do not? He is a student at the college and shall graduate this summer. He has plans to work for his uncle in Boston.” I recalled how Jeb had failed his Harvard entrance exams and now, it seemed, refused to take them again. How he planned to support himself was an endless topic of concern for our parents.

“Eliza.” He grasped my arm and then whispered, “His reputation is by no means stellar. He plays at cards and loses a great deal of money. He is at the bottom of his class, or very near it—”

I laughed. “You are not even
that
high!”

Jeb took no offense; he merely shrugged, as if to say that school was for boys, and he was a man.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mama’s skirts on the stairs above, swishing as if they would descend.

“Eliza.” Jeb grasped my hands. “There are other things as well. Rude things not for a sister’s ears.”

“
Things
,” I said dismissively. “You know nothing for certain, do you?”

“I know that Mr. Inman’s distinguished uncle, as you call him, aids the East India Company, which shall soon enough be our mortal enemy.”

“Our mortal enemy? Come now, Jeb. How can a company selling tea, of all things, be anyone’s mortal enemy? Mama is right, I think, when she says you tend to exaggerate.”

Suddenly, Mama was beside us, having heard but a few words.

“I am right? In what respect, pray?”

Jeb ignored her question and continued, “You must know by now that our town is entirely divided, and that Mr. Inman and his family shall soon be pariahs.”

“By that measure, so shall ours,” I replied. “At least we shall be on the same side.”

“But not on mine,” said Jeb.

Mama, ignoring Jeb, turned to me and inquired, “So, Eliza, how did Mr. Inman’s visit go?”

5

SO LONG AS I ORBITED MR. INMAN,
my star rose into the heavens. But the rest of our country seemed to be heading in quite the opposite direction. Five days after Mr. Inman’s visit, a band of men with faces painted like Indians mounted three British ships and dumped three hundred and sixty cartons of tea into Boston harbor.

“They’ve gone mad. Completely, utterly mad,” said Papa at dinner, reading the broadside about the event the following Monday. “Honestly, I know not what shall become of us.”

Neither Mama nor I had any comment to make. Jeb was absent, having spent the past several days in Boston with friends.

“Perhaps we should write Jeb to come home,” Mama said at last. “I like not that he’s in town just now. It’s not safe.”

“Oh, I imagine he’s safe enough. Besides, it would serve him right to get into some trouble,” grumbled Papa.

“Oh, but what now? They’ll close the port altogether, and then we shall all starve.”

“That is going too far, Mr. Boylston.” Mama frowned.

“We shall see,” Papa answered her, unconvinced. But even I had begun to notice that the atmosphere in Cambridge had grown tense. When once our family had been at the apex of society, we now had to lower our eyes on the way to church as the cool, unfriendly eyes of local militia and townsfolk followed us the entire way. How unfair, I thought, that
we
should be blamed for taxes imposed by a distant king!

Toward the end of that afternoon, Jeb arrived home. He was filthy, and upon his face were faint traces of black tar. We all ran out to greet him as he, scant of breath, confessed, “Mama, Papa, I fear I’m in danger.”

“Son, what has happened?” asked Papa, reaching to pull him indoors. He had not noticed the tar, as I had, nor reached my alarming conclusion.

Jeb paused in the doorway, as if unsure of how to continue. “I have—I have been involved in something in Boston, and I hear they pursue us.”

“What have you done, Jeb?” I approached him, moving between him and our father, who seemed slow to comprehend.

“Hear me out. I may be arrested at any moment.” We quickly entered, and Jeb paced restlessly in the foyer as he spoke. He would not remove his cape. Mama looked as if she might faint. Jeb kept glancing out the windows every other moment.

“Tell us,” Papa said sternly. “We will know the truth!”

“Then you shall have it!” Jeb replied angrily. “For near two years, I have been a member of the Sons of Liberty. It was I who dumped the tea into the harbor. I and my mates. It was high time for
someone
to take a stand.”

“Oh, Jeb!” I cried, reaching out to him. I had heard of the Sons of Liberty. They were the same dastardly group that had set fire to the
Gaspee
the previous June.

Mama and Papa were perilously silent. Papa finally looked at his son. “I shall protect you as far as I am able, because to do otherwise would be
our
ruin. But be it known that henceforth you are no son of mine.”

“Papa, you can’t mean it,” I said.

“I can and do.” He turned away, and Mama followed him.

“Jeb, why?” I grasped his arm. I fervently wished to understand my brother’s frustration, but I could not. All I could see was the danger, the foolhardiness of what he did. “You might have been killed.”

“I follow my beliefs, Sister, as each of us must do.”

“Surely you understand that we can bear no more heartbreak. Promise me you shall stop these treasonous, dangerous activities.”

He leaned into me and whispered, “I love you very dearly, Eliza. But I can make no such promise.”

We every moment expected a knock at the door. Henceforth, we would live in constant fear of reprisals, and we suspected everyone of knowing what Jeb had done. Thankfully, however, Papa did not make good on his threat to disown Jeb. He might have, once. But I believe he simply had not the heart to lose another child.

I ceased going to Mr. Curtis’s dance studio; it was now late November, and the weather was growing cold. What’s more, Mama did not like the idea of my visiting town under the circumstances. I was gratified to know that she cared more about my life than my marriage prospects, if only slightly. In any case, Mr. Inman visited me several times during his vacation from school. Each time, my feelings were most puzzling: as he descended his carriage, my heart contracted with excitement. Yet within moments of speaking to Mr. Inman, this positive impression faded, and I was left with the uncomfortable sensation that I can only describe as . . . something cold and rapacious in his eyes, at odds with his words, smiles, or erect bearing.

It was to avoid those eyes that, on Mr. Inman’s third visit, I asked him if he cared to play a game of chess.

“Maria and I often played. And I often lost,” I added, guiding him, under Mama’s watchful gaze, to the library. “But then winning or losing hardly matters, does it?”

“Certainly not.” Mr. Inman grinned. “Unless one happens to like winning.”

“Do you like winning, Mr. Inman?”

“Of course,” he laughed easily.

Ten minutes later, however, he was not so smug when I removed his queen and said, “Check.”

“Blast!” He lifted himself off his seat slightly, the better, perhaps, to see what he had not noticed before. Then Mr. Inman, beginning to panic, searched for a way out. He evaded me but two more turns before I said, “Mate.”

Mr. Inman stood up abruptly and gave the table a little shove with his thigh. The pieces clattered and shifted, and for a moment, I thought the entire board would come crashing to the floor. However, it just managed to right itself in time to avert disaster. “Confounded luck!” he said.

“Precisely,” I said mildly. He turned toward me with an unfriendly, almost hostile stare.

“Beaten by a green girl. Not every man could take it so well as I, you know.” Mr. Inman endeavored a smile, though I thought it not quite sincere.

“I’m sure you’ll have better luck next time, Mr. Inman.” Then I thought that perhaps there would not be a next time, for it was almost certain that I had offended him by winning. I silently cursed myself for being so tactless.

Mr. Inman soon took his leave, but he returned twice more during his vacation and then later, in the spring. Each time we played chess, I made sure to let him win.

Mama could not have been more pleased by my growing connection to Mr. Inman. She prevailed upon Papa to buy me two more gowns. Louisa, drawn to my rising status, began to visit again as well.

“You are the luckiest girl in all of Boston,” she said one day as Cassie helped me into a new gown.

“Do I look very fine?” I asked, smiling. I already knew the answer.

“That color suits you well. And, oh, your waist! If only I had such a waist!” Louisa did not have a narrow waist, but she did have an ample bosom, which I lacked. She whispered, “I have a secret to share that will greatly improve the fit of your bodice.”

“Do tell,” I said, amused.

When Louisa had taken her leave, Cassie turned to me: “Dere is nutteeng wrong wit’ yah bosoms, Mees Eliza. Yah got the sweetest little bosoms I ever seen, and a man would count himself lucky, ’ee get his hands on dem.”

“Cassie!” I cried. “You’re incorrigible.”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, Mees Eliza.”

Papa’s wild predictions from the fall turned out to be prescient, for in March, Parliament voted to close Boston Harbor and demand reparations. In June, General Gage, our governor, sealed the harbor tight, using the formidable British navy to do so. But instead of being angry with England, Papa kept muttering, “This is our own son’s doing. If only the damned Rebels would let things alone! Let us pay the fine and be done with it.”

What shipments arrived now had to make their slow way down from Portsmouth. Staples of our existence such as tea and meat became scarce. Papa announced over dinner one afternoon that he would let go of the butler.

“Who is to answer the door, pray?” asked Mama.

“With any luck, we shan’t have to answer the door,” said Papa wryly.

For those in Boston, it was far worse: people soon took to the town middens after market, in search of food. Our circumstances were not so dire, although going without tea did give me a terrible headache.

As for Mr. Inman, the closing of the harbor put a damper on his high spirits, for the Harvard overseers had decided to cancel commencement. Normally commencement was a giddy, weeklong debauchery, something the students looked forward to almost from the moment of their entrance to college.

I was disappointed for the boys, but Papa said it was just as well to rid our town of such havoc, since the real thing was nearly upon us.

“Oh, Mr. Boylston, you exaggerate,” said Mama. “At least the Inmans shan’t cancel their party.”

“Perhaps they should, though.”

Mama was right, however. When next I saw Mr. Inman, he mentioned the party once more.

“Mr. Inman,” I asked, “how is it your family is able to host such an event when goods are hardly to be had at any cost and must be hauled all the way from Portsmouth?”

“Oh,” he replied, “that is no very great obstacle for my family. We have ships in Portsmouth.”

“I see.”

Mama suddenly entered the parlor where we sat conversing. She turned to Mr. Inman, and my heart pounded, for I could not guess what she might wish to say to him.

“Mr. Inman.” She smiled warmly. “I am very glad to see you again.”

Mama behaved as if we had always socialized with the Inman family, but we had not. She had been great friends with the first Mrs. Inman but didn’t care for the second and current one, finding her a “poseur” and rather “vulgar.” However, this did not change her conviction that the younger Mr. Inman would be an excellent match for me.

“And I you, madam.” He bowed.

“My husband—Mr. Boylston and I were very sorry to hear of the college’s decision to dispense with commencement this year.” This I knew to be a lie, for Papa had only that morning expressed his relief at this turn of events. “I know it is an event to which you all look forward.”

“It’s true, madam. My fellow students and I were ready to get ourselves up to all sorts of mischief.” Mr. Inman winked at me, as if to say, “Oh, but you know I am not that sort of fellow.”

“Mischief—oh!”

“Mama.” I sighed. “I’m sure Mr. Inman is joking.”

“Oh, yes, of course. But if I may . . . we should like to invite you to dinner Saturday next. To condole, as it were, with your disappointments. We shall, of course, be inviting your parents as well.”

Mr. Inman bowed once more. “It is an honor, and, for myself, I accept with alacrity.” He flashed me a complicit grin, and I returned the smile, though dinner with the Inmans put far more terror in my heart than joy. I had little doubt but that it was for them to observe—and approve—the merchandise.