The Rebellion of Jane Clarke (14 page)

Knox peered at her. “Indeed. Yes.”

Jane moved the subject. “I observed the other day that you and my brother were acquainted?”

“Acquainted, yes, but not well enough. I hope to remedy the situation as soon as I’m able.”

“And have you had occasion to meet my father on any of his visits to town?”

“I have not. Although I have heard tell of him.”

“No doubt you dislike his politics.”

“No more than he must dislike mine. Which evens us nicely, wouldn’t you say?”

She might. Some others might not. A wild desire to tell Knox about Winslow’s horse bubbled up in her, to ask him what he thought of a man who could do such a thing—perhaps in town such acts were common—but as fast as the desire had risen it sank. She said, “I fear I’m greatly fatigued. I must beg to say good night here.”

“Well, then, we shall say good night here.” He took her by the shoulders and ran his thumbs over the bare skin just below her collarbone, causing her flesh to ripple. He touched his lips to her temple, where the scar had faded to a small, white line. It was no Woollen. It was no Phinnie. It was . . . Jane had no idea what it was, but whatever it was, it was not the night for it. She slid from under his hands and ducked inside.

THE NEXT WEEK JANE
discovered an embroidered bag in a shop not far from the mantua maker’s and gave long thought to making it her month’s purchase. But at her next trip to Wharton & Bowes she also found a novel called
Clarissa,
whose frontispiece promised to include “The most Important Concerns of Private Life, and particularly shewing the Distresses that may attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage.” She chose
Clarissa
.

But when she handed it to Knox with more of her aunt’s letter paper he frowned. “Oh, no, Jane, I think not
Clarissa
. Allow me to find you something more to your liking.” He began to come around the counter, but Jane only pushed the book back, snapping her coins onto the counter. Why did no one credit her with the wit to make a decision for herself?

“
Clarissa,
” she said.

It took her some portion of the walk home before she realized that she had turned from
Miss Clarke
to
Jane.

CLARISSA’S PARENTS’AND BROTHER’
wished her
to marry a particular man, which Clarissa refused to do. In the meantime another man began a pursuit of her—a rake who had some sort of business dealings with her family—and for reasons not made clear to Jane, Clarissa felt called upon to correspond with this man in order to keep her family from ruin. Jane disliked Clarissa at once, which made her irrationally annoyed with Knox for knowing she would. Just the same, as with
The Nun,
she brought a candle above-stairs with her that night so she might continue to read.

T
HE STORIES IN THE PAPER
grew worse—more stabbings, beatings, attacks on women. Having been at the center of an episode and seen how it had gotten twisted and turned, Jane knew better than to believe all she read, and yet she continued to read it, all of it, as if reading what wasn’t true would somehow magically flip the mirror and show her what was. One day as she was reading a particular account of a single soldier who had apparently chased and beaten seven boys all at once, she found an old thought of her father’s rise up as if it were one of her own:
if all this were true, there wouldn’t be a British soldier with the strength to stand.

Jane turned from the newspaper to
Clarissa
but fared little better there. Clarissa had been disowned by her family, kidnapped by the rake, and forcibly married, but she continued to defend her virtue against his advances unto her untimely death. The rake was to be despised as a matter of course, but Jane found herself unable to admire Clarissa’s virtue as she should. In fact, once it became clear that Clarissa appeared content to waste away, Jane decided she disliked her intensely.

ON THE FOURTH OF
September an item appeared in the paper:

THAT NIGHT HENRY KNOX
took Jane to a concert of strings, and Phinnie Paine being absent, she was better able to attend than she’d been able to attend at the play. She was able to attend Henry better too, Phinnie having been purged from her mind, but perhaps she also thought some of the detestable Clarissa. On the walk back to Aunt Gill’s Jane was thinking of nothing but Henry’s physical self and how close it was, how easily she might touch his hair or cheek or chest, when he reached out and clamped his arm around her shoulders.

“Look!” he said, pointing at the sky.

A brilliant comet with a long, sparking tail careened across the heavens in a lazy arc, as if determined to hold itself above until all below had seen. Jane took in her breath and forgot to let it go until not even the after-image remained.

“ ’Tis a sign,” Henry said. “ ’Tis for us a sign. Did you not see how it hung over us as if to say—”

Jane reached up and touched her fingers to his lips, not yet ready for something as earthly as speech. She looked up at the forever-diminished stars, exhaled, and slipped her arm through Henry’s. They walked the rest of the way to Aunt Gill’s in silence.

No doubt Henry expected that Jane would invite him inside, and certainly Aunt Gill expected it, considering the repast she had promised, but for once the world outside Aunt Gill’s door seemed too sane, too peaceful, too
hers
for Jane to give it over to the aunt so soon. And indeed, Henry seemed in no great hurry to go in. She felt his fingers caressing her neck, his lips on her temple. The door opened.

Henry started. “I say!”

Jane pulled back to see Prince, a dark shape against the weak light, but certainly Prince just the same, looking equally startled. He slipped past them and hurried down the lane without words. It was late for a servant to be abroad, especially for a servant in such haste.

Jane said, “I must go in,” and left Henry at the door.

Aunt Gill was asleep in the front room. Jane listened but heard no sound anywhere in the house. She picked up the old woman’s work basket, searched out the needle case, and found the key. She made her way to the back room, looking for but not seeing anything of Martha. She turned the key in the desk lock and opened the drawer. The coins, all ten of them, were still there.

JANE AND HER AUNT
were still at their supper the next night when someone began to abuse the knocker with violence. Prince made speed to the door and returned with a strange Negro behind. He greatly surprised Jane by stepping up to her and handing her a note written in her grandfather’s hand.
Jane—If you please—come—at once—to Otis’s on School Street—he’s received a grievous wound. You may trust George who carries this to see you safe there and back. E. Freeman.

Jane handed the note to her aunt. The old woman made to rise but tangled with her chair and sat back down. Jane took a step toward her, but she pushed against the air with both hands. “Go, child. For heaven’s sake, go.” She plucked her shawl off her shoulders and held it out to Jane. Jane wrapped the shawl around her and followed the Negro out the door.

The man walked fast, just ahead of her, nearly breaking into a jog; Jane hauled up her skirt so she could trot alongside. They traversed King and crossed onto Corn Hill, turned again onto School, and paused at the largest house on the street; the Negro led Jane up the steps and inside. The width of the hall, the mirrors, the paintings, the finely turned banister, all confirmed the outer promise of elegance. Jane climbed the stairs behind the Negro and entered a room that she couldn’t have described later beyond the curtained bed and the man that lay on it.

Every lamp and candle in the room had been lit and drawn near the bed to better illuminate the patient; Otis’s head was wrapped in a towel, and the towel, the shirt, the bolster, and the coverlet were all awash in the ruddy tide that still seeped from his wound; multicolored scrapes and bruises covered all that remained visible of his face, neck, and chest. He rolled his head back and forth against the bolster, his eyes closed, his mouth wide, shouting nothing that made any sense to Jane. Crows. Cows?

Jane’s grandfather and a young stranger stood nearby, their shirtsleeves blood-smeared. A servant girl hovered just behind, her own apron clean. Jane’s grandfather nodded to Jane, and she stepped up to the bed. “Mr. Otis, ’tis Jane Clarke. You must lie still now; I’ve come to check your wound.”

Otis opened his eyes. “Miss Clarke?”

“Indeed, sir. Now you must keep as still as you can and let me see the damage done.”

“Damage done.”

As she pulled the towel back from the wound her bile rose; Otis’s scalp had been cleaved so deep she could see the white of the bone. She turned to her grandfather. “Is there no doctor who can come?”

“The regular man could not be found. I’ve sent George to try to shake out someone else. But my wife tells me you’ve engaged in some nursing at Satucket—?”

“Alongside Granny Hall. Nothing like this, not on my own.”

“Can you do naught?”

“I might clean and bandage, but the bleeding—”

“Can you not stitch it closed?”

Could she? She’d paid close attention as Granny Hall had stitched up Jabez Snow; for that, she had paid close attention when she’d been stitched up by Harry Nye; she believed she
could
stitch it closed. “But what’s wrong inside—”

“For the love of God, Jane, do what you can.”

Jane commandeered the girl’s apron and sent her for needle and thread, and remembering both Snow and Nye, the brandy. She applied the last first, and generously, which went a long way to easing the rest in—through all the pricking and tugging Otis moaned and spoke unintelligible words but kept still enough under her grandfather’s and the young stranger’s hands for Jane to get the job done. As she worked the stranger began to talk.

“He was at the British Coffee House. They said he went after satisfaction from the customs commissioner, Robinson, for calling him traitor in the papers. They said he asked Robinson to step outside, and the man made as if to come, then whirled around and caught Otis by the nose. Otis lifted his cane to fend him off but Robinson got his in first. The room was full of officers—navy—army—no friend of Otis’s to be seen—till I came along. When I walked in Otis was being held by the arms while Robinson beat him with the cane. Held! While they beat him! I pushed my way into it and took Otis’s part—also a crack on the arm that looks to have broken the bone.” Jane took a quick look at the young man; indeed, his arm hung wrong.

“Gridley,” Freeman said with feeling. “You’re a noble man. We’ll see to that arm as soon as the doctor comes.”

The stranger named Gridley went on. “The lights were knocked out; I could see naught; but I heard the officers shouting—
kill him, kill him
—it took all Otis’s strength and mine to batter our way free of them, but not before his head got carved near in two. I managed to get him home—there was no one in the house but the Negro and the servant girl; I sent the Negro for the doctor, and for you, Mr. Freeman—”

And Jane’s grandfather had sent for Jane. “Why, Jane,” he said now. “You’ve done a fine job there.”

Jane had indeed managed to pull the gap together and bandage it, but there was more to be done. She went with the girl to the kitchen and mixed up a tincture of honey and camphor to treat the other wounds. She sent the girl for clean linens for both patient and bed, and with the men’s help was able to shift Otis’s large body and replace the soiled sheets and clothes. Otis began to moan and speak as if in tongues of people and places Jane didn’t know. He didn’t know who Jane was. He thought her his wife, Ruth, or someone named Louisa who had apparently done him an injury in his youth. He called, in turns, for his father and his king, as if not sure which was which anymore. Jane allowed him a sip of brandy at a time, and after a fair amount of it had gone down he passed into something like sleep, if not the thing itself.

The Negro George returned with the doctor, who found little more to do for Otis, but he set and bound Gridley’s arm right there at Otis’s kitchen table, Gridley telling the story again much as it had come from him the first time, sounding only worse in the repetition. The doctor seemed especially incensed by the grabbing of the nose, which appeared to be an act of such insult that it carried nearly the weight of the beating with the cane. What happened after the lanterns broke was no clearer in Gridley’s second telling, but he repeated with exactitude the cries of “Kill him! Kill him!” that had come from the officers of the king.

THE NEXT MORNING JANE
brewed up a tea of yarrow, catnip, mint, and sage to treat Otis’s fever and received permission from Aunt Gill to carry it around. At the corner outside the tavern she recognized Colonel Dalrymple, the officer Phinnie Paine had introduced her to, and slowed. He was speaking low to another red-coated officer, “Between us, sir, Mr. Robinson beat the other most excessively.”

Dalrymple’s remark may have been the first Jane heard on the street but not the last.
Otis was very rascally treated . . .’Tis a man’s right to ask for satisfaction and to be answered like a gentleman . . . An attempted assassination is what it was!
And twice the same rumor blew by on the breeze—that the customs commissioners had gathered after the brawl to pass and receive congratulations all around.

In the front hall at Otis’s Jane found her grandfather and Adams, deep in conversation. Jane’s grandfather’s angular face would carry the wear of life more plainly than Adams’s plump one, but between them the pair looked as carved up as a postdinner fowl.

“We’ll get naught against the military,” Jane’s grandfather was saying.

“A civil action, then,” Adams answered. “Breaking the king’s peace.” He saw Jane and broke off. “Ah, Miss Clarke. Perhaps you might help us as to the nature of Mr. Otis’s scalp wound. ’Tis being said a cane—”

“ ’Twas no cane did that. He was cut to the bone.”

“They found five bludgeons and an empty scabbard on the floor.”

“The scabbard. A sword. I might have laid two fingers in the wound.”

The men stood silent.

Jane said, “How does he fare?”

“Fevered now.”

“And the state of his mind?”

The two men exchanged a look.

Jane climbed the stairs to Otis’s room and heard him before she saw him. She thought that perhaps by now his wife had been fetched back to town, but it was only the servant girl sitting by the bed, looking almost as wild-eyed as her charge. “He calls out. He calls out nonsense. He thinks me his sister now!”

Jane went to the bed and picked up the cup on the table next to it. It was half-full of brandy. She filled the cup the rest of the way with the tea and held it to Otis’s lips. When her hand was at a distance he didn’t seem to see it, but as she drew closer he saw the hand and followed it to her arm, from there on up to her face. He said, “You.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve a good brew here to heal you.” She held the cup closer; he covered the hand that held it with his own. She could feel the weakness and didn’t dare release the cup to him, so he drank with their hands combined, his eyes fixed on her. He said again, “You.”

She put her hand against his forehead and felt the heat. He said, “ ’Tis a great bird—I think a gryphon—he claws at me. He darts about trying to blind me. I should greatly appreciate it, miss, if you would chase him off.”