The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (15 page)

One candle was lit to write a most reprimanding letter to Hannah’s man. I had a piece of parchment on a small board. The ink and quill I placed on our bedside night table when I turned to look at my sister’s beaming face.

“Oh, I’ve written to him long ago, Violet. I couldn’t stomach to wait for you to help me. And he’s already written me back. I had his letter completely misunderstood. He’s set me right though.”

“When? When did this all happen? It’s only been a few hours since—”

“I lied . . . earlier in the field. I had already written to him, but I didn’t want to admit as much to you because the note I sent off was rather juvenile, but it must have worked as he sent an instant message back.”

I consciously relaxed my on-edge teeth. I set the board and paper beside the quill and gave my sister my entire attention, complete with high arched brow.

“Oh, I hate it when you look at me like that.” Hannah squealed, nestling under the bedding and flinging the quilt over her head. She murmured under the covers, “Yes, I am wretched for lying, but that face you make . . . I feel as if I’m but seven years of age!” 

I frowned down at the lump under the covers. “First tell me how you had all this quick communication today. Boston is still more than twenty miles away, is it not?”

Hannah peeked her eyes and nose over the quilt. “Not when you can travel by ferry over Charles River; it’s only eleven miles then. All right, I’ll tell you! Just quit with your eyebrow. I gave my letter to Dr. Prescott, who I knew would be traveling to Lexington to visit his Lydia Mulliken. Good Lord, when are they going to get married? Have you heard how late Dr. Prescott was returning from Lydia’s house last week? Two in the morning, that’s when Dr. Prescott finally returned from Lexington. I dare say what they were doing at two in the morning.”

“Hannah!”  I inhaled deeply to extend some desperately needed patience.

Hannah knitted her light colored eyebrows together. “Dr. Prescott, upon getting my letter, said there was some silversmith in Lexington who happened to be going all the way back to Boston, and that if he hurried, my letter could get to my beloved within a couple hours time. That silversmith must have really flown because I got a reply right before we supped together. Didn’t you notice my happy face?”

“I did.” We had had a marvelous meal together. Neither Mathew nor I had to poke at Hannah to become cheerful. Not even once. “I just thought that you were happy being in the company of Mathew and the Joneses.”

Hannah finally let the rest of her face emerge from the bedding with a large smile. “I was, but mostly I was so content because Mark had written me back, and hastened his letter to me. It must have cost him a small fortune.”

“So now he’s not worried about £5000? Why did he write such an un-gentlemanlike letter to you in the first place?”

“Violet, I appreciate knowing his worries.” Hannah scowled at me, as if I was an errant child, needing my lesson in adulthood. “I don’t think there was one ounce of un-gentlemanly demeanor in his letter. After all, we are going to be partners in life, and I need to know what is resting heavy on his mind. But he’s not worried about the money any more, as his mother’s visited their family’s lawyer, and found a loophole within the will. My clever man will be wealthy and have me as a bride as well.”

“All of this happened within just a few hours time today?” I asked incredulously. “Your lieutenant hears back from his mother who is in England within a few hours? The fastest sail boat from Massachusetts to England is more than three weeks. Hannah, some of this does not make sense, don’t you think?”

Hannah’s bottom lip trembled, but she lifted her chin. “He’s promised me to clarify everything soon. In fact we are meeting soon. Very soon, and he will also explain everything to you and Mother. He’s promised me, and I believe him. Please, give him a chance.”

I sighed and nodded. “Of course. I just . . . I’m now worried that you’ve given him too many chances.”

Hannah took my hands in hers. “I know you say these things to me because you love me and want the best for me, but I think I’ve found it, Vi. I really believe I have found a wonderful man.”

I squeezed her hands and felt my eyebrows descend to their less suspicious pose. “Very well. And when are we to meet this tall, gorgeous creature of yours?”

Hannah giggled. “Almost immediately. Sleep, and perhaps in the morning you might meet your new brother.”

With another sigh, I hugged my sister, hoping she had more than just faith for this soldier, hoping she might find truth in him too. Then I let a worried sleep take me over into the true-to-my-country bitterly cold, black night.

I woke with a start. I didn’t scream or holler. I clawed in the air hoping to catch hold of some apparition within my dream that I forgot immediately upon awakening.

The sun was bleeding orange and crimson in the dark purple sky. Hannah was already gone.

My sister always woke before me, getting to the morning meal before I was even out of bed. Usually I would read late into the night, sometimes into the witching hours, which would make the morning a drudgery for me. But last night I’d just curled my toes around my sister’s, like we usually did, and let anxiety-filled sleep wash over me.

I rinsed my face with cold lavender water that lay in our shared basin on our night table. I wondered just when my sister had had the time to fill the bowl with so much perfumed liquid. Then I saw my sister’s elegant handwriting on the parchment I’d brought to bed last night.

3 April in ye Lord’s year 1775, midnight

My dearest Sissy,

I am so very sorry to have been secretive with you. Nothing pains me more than to keep something from you, but my Mark thought it best to not tell you until it was all done and said. I’m running away with him to elope. Mark has made all the plans, and my part was just to meet him, which I’ve asked him to find me at the heart-tree.

I know you and I, dear sister, had made plans to marry together, but I couldn’t wait. Besides, although I am now keeping a secret from you, I’ve known for the last month you’ve been keeping a secret from me–something that would postpone you from getting married, perhaps?

I’ll come back to you a married woman, darling-girl. But I’ll come back to you. I promise.

Your ever loving sissy,

Hannah Beatrice Buccluech, soon to be Mrs. Hannah Kimball

I shook as I finished reading. Did she really run away? How could she leave me?

In one move I flung my night chemise off. Binding myself in my stay took a few seconds longer than I’d intended, but soon enough I was in my breeches and work shirt. I fisted my sister’s lovely written note and scrambled for my mother’s room, but she wasn’t there either.

I raced down the stairs to the kitchen. It was as silent as a grave. Where was my mother? If my sister wasn’t starting breakfast, than my mother or Mrs. Jones was usually busy humming and stirring something.

As if she had read my thoughts, in walked Mrs. Jones with Jonah. They burst through the kitchen door laughing, but their laughter subsided the minute they saw me.

“What is it?” Jonah asked.

Should I tell them? Eloping, although my idealistic sister would think it romantic, was something that many in my hometown would frown upon, scrutinize about, and the gossip mill of Concord could ostracize my sister for her act.

Jonah reached for my arm, the one that held my sister’s note now crumpled in my fist. He was the closest man I’d ever had to a brother. He was a good, cherished friend as well.

Timorously I gave him the wrinkled note. His wife, he’d told me, was only learning to read now that she lived with us. Bethany Jones looked to Jonah for answers to my silence.

“Lord,” Jonah whispered.

My mother rushed through the kitchen doorway, a basket full of eggs in one hand and our one goat’s milk in a pail in the other.

“Violet, go get that ingrate sister of yours awake. I had to do all her chores this cold morning. A frost on everything, including my hands now. How ever did I manage without you girls to retrieve the milk from that sour old goat? And that rooster has got to go. Why, he tried to chase me down, black scoundrel, he is.”

After she placed the pail and basket on the counter space provided by a large blue pantry, she finally turned to me.

“What is it, darling-girl? Are you not all the way awake yourself?”

“Mama . . .” I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t say another word.

My mother’s smile disappeared as Jonah handed her the note. He rasped to his wife what the note indicated as my mother read. She grasped at her heart as she finished the letter, seized at her chest as if the emotional pain were physical, was a lynch tightening around her chest. Her child had run away from her, perhaps the pain
was
physical.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I had been so obsessed with my grief at losing Jacque that I hadn’t noticed my sister as of late; wasn’t able to tell that she would rather give up her family and run to her mystery man than stay one more minute where she was being ignored. I had given up Jacque, love, for her! I had sacrificed, but it wasn’t enough or mayhap it came too late. I’d been paying no heed to her, in a sense turning my back on her. I was a traitor in so many ways, and she must have sensed it. The strange line about me not having a marriage was answer enough that I hadn’t been giving her the regard due to her.

If I’d been a better sister than I would have protected her more, told her the dangers of eloping with a man she hardly knew. Their correspondence was every week, but still, what could she learn of a man through his letters? He could have lied about every detail, and she would have never known the difference. Why hadn’t I talked to her more? Why hadn’t I shared more of the world with her?

Because I’d been thinking too much of myself and my heartache as of late. Because, quite simply, I had betrayed every single soul I knew when I allowed myself to fall in love with Jacque.

Even admitting the plain truth to myself as I did just then, I also yearned for Jacque. How I wished I could lean on him at that very moment, have him help me figure out what to do, how to find my sister.

“Mrs. Buccleuch,” Jonah interrupted my shame, “shall I go to Lexington and fetch Mr. Adams? He could help us.”

My mother shook her head. “We can’t risk having people know.”

I blinked through the biting sand in my eyes. “He—he’s going to be my husband, Mother. He’s basically been a member of this family since I was eight years old. He wouldn’t tell a soul.”

My mother began to slump toward one of the chairs surrounding a long wooden table that I’d had every meal at since I could remember. Jonah helped her to a seat. My mother’s eyes became glazed and she sat mute, looking out the thick glass of our eastern window, as if searching for Hannah. I guessed she was too overwhelmed to talk anymore, to think anymore. Her daughter had run away.

When Jonah straightened, I reached for his shoulder. “Yes, please go get Mathew. He could help. Do you think we should go to Boston to hunt her down? She doesn’t state that that’s where she’s getting eloped, but I’d imagine her lieutenant can’t leave Boston, even if to get married.”

Jonah nodded, but it was his wife that spoke first. “My master knows the admiral of the Navy’s boats docked in Boston. I met the man on several occasions. I’m sure he’d remember me. I could ask him to help.”

A tear of mine strayed from my eye as I realized that Mrs. Jones was not only offering her help, but to call upon a man she’d served when she had been a slave must have been a terrifying thought, but she easily volunteered. I knew that my sister had made her mark on Mrs. Jones. My sister was impossible not to love, not to adore. Hannah had already made two dresses for Mrs. Jones, and the first time Mrs. Jones had tried on one of the dresses she clutched a fist at her mouth and started to huff. My sister had raced to her, declaring that if Mrs. Jones didn’t like it she could make another she’d favor more. After a few moments of gasping for air, tears sprang out of Mrs. Jones eyes. She had never been allowed to wear anything remotely like what my sister had made for her. My sister had rolled her eyes. “Why, this is just your cooking gown, Mrs. Jones. This isn’t near the glamour I plan to prepare for you.”

After that Mrs. Jones started to sing while she made us maple cakes.

And now Mrs. Jones was proffering so much. I numbly nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Jones. Let us hope that Hannah comes back before we have to play that card.”

Jonah left after that for Lexington, and Mrs. Jones busied herself in the kitchen, while my mother kept watch out the window. It had been at least three years since I’d been very much help in the kitchen but I tried to assist Mrs. Jones. After breaking a bowl, she took my hands in hers.

“Honey.” She’d never called me something so sweet, and it was as comforting as my mother had been when I was a child in need of a kiss and a cleaning after I skinned my knees. “You need to go outside. Go make those horses do some running. Plow the field again. Just do something with your arms and your legs.”

I nodded and obeyed.

I slipped into my boots and decided to run through the woods to the north of the farm. It was still early morning, and indeed there had been a frost. The few sprigs of green grass that shot up around the porch of the house were laced in white. I looked out to the copse. The trees looked a dull gray. As uninviting as the forest appeared, I knew I would burn off my nervous energy by running.