The Seekers (7 page)

Below the rifle and sword on the mantel proper stood a small green glass bottle with a quantity of dried tea leaves in the bottom. This Abraham’s father had acquired on the night of Mr. Samuel Adams’ famous tea party in Boston harbor.

The tea had accumulated in Philip’s boots during the opening and dumping of the chests. Later that same night he had put the tea in the bottle, to save as a family souvenir. Years afterward, he’d adopted the symbol of the partially filled bottle for the signboard identifying Kent and Son.

Despite the crackling fire, the sitting room was chilly. All at once Abraham noticed the tea-bottle symbol on the masthead of a single-sheet; four-page gazette lying on a small table. The title of the paper was the
Bay State Federalist.
That and a quick glance at its columns identified the paper’s slant; Abraham noted an unfriendly story referring to the ex-secretary of state, Mr. Jefferson, and his
Jacobin cohorts.

“I’ve a great deal to catch up on,” he said while Philip poured two glasses of port. “No one’s bothered to tell me you’ve gone into the newspaper business as well.”

Philip handed a glass to his son. “It’s merely a weekly at the moment. Still, the more voices speaking out against these imbeciles who’d entangle us with the French, the better.”

Abraham laughed.

“Pray tell me what’s so amusing,” Philip snapped.

“Forgive me, Papa—it’s just that your attitude’s a bit surprising. I mean, you
were
born in France.”

“The people living there now have collectively lost their minds. And some of the revolution’s friends in America are in equally pathetic shape. I’ve heard educated gentlemen who should know better aping the French barbarians by addressing one another as ‘citizen.’ Proudly! Can you imagine—?”

He capped his little oration with a scornful sniff. Abraham sipped his port, then said: “So your sympathies are entirely with Mr. Hamilton and his faction?”

“Indeed they are. Alexander Hamilton is the one authentic genius in the president’s cabinet. An absolute master of financial affairs. It’s Hamilton who untangled the debt mess left at the end of the war, you know. He and he alone put this nation on a sound monetary basis. I agree wholeheartedly with his contention that we must strengthen our commercial ties with England now that we’ve settled our differences.”

“I’m not sure they’re settled.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No, Papa. For one thing, the British haven’t yet withdrawn from their forts in the northwest.”

“But they signed Mr. Jay’s treaty last year, agreeing to do so! They can’t delay forever,” Philip declared, seating himself as if the subject was closed.

Abraham still looked skeptical. “The treaty is all right as far as it goes. But as I understand it, the treaty said nothing about some vital issues still outstanding. Interference with our shipping—that absurd ploy of boarding American vessels to hunt for British seamen who’ve deserted. The real object as everyone knows is to seize Americans to fill the Royal Navy’s press gang quotas.”

“The treaty may have its weaknesses,” Philip said, somewhat huffily. “But by and large, I approved of Mr. Jay’s endeavors.”

“I heard that others didn’t. Quite a few others.”

Philip waved. “Ignorant rabble.”

“Is it true they burned Jay’s effigy in various cities?”

“Yes, and stoned Hamilton when he spoke for the treaty in New York! But I can cite you an outrage closer to home. Do you know what those filthy Francophiles painted on the wall of my own establishment—right here in Boston?
Damn John Jay! Damn everyone who won’t damn John Jay—!”

Philip noticed his son smiling again. “You are easily amused, Abraham. Such outbursts against public order—deprecations of the effort of decent, patriotic men—they’re a disgrace!”

He lowered his voice until it sounded almost threatening. “I trust you haven’t acquired a different view. Haven’t fallen in with a pack of republican radicals during your army service.”

Straight-faced, but marveling anew at the way wealth and position could alter a man’s politics and tame his passion for upsetting the status quo, Abraham answered, “I don’t believe so, sir. We were a little too busy with the tribes to discuss political theory.”

“I had some doubts about permitting you to go off to military duty—as you well know. I allowed it because I suspected the outcome—that you wouldn’t find it to your liking.”

“You knew that ahead of time? How?”

Philip shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “I never liked soldiering either.”

“I see.” Again Abraham wanted to chuckle. But he didn’t.

Philip went on. “I confess I’m not entirely happy to see the new territory secure. It only means the creation of new states. The settlers will be nothing but farmers—artisans—”

“Mr. Jefferson’s sort of people,” Abraham returned wryly.

“The fool is wrong to believe government should rest in the hands of all! Hamilton sees the issue correctly—”

“Only the rich—the well-educated—are competent to administer the affairs of the nation? Forgive me a second time, Papa, but I thought that was exactly what you fought against in the late war.”

“Times change! So does a man’s thinking. However, I don’t wish to discuss my views. I wish to discuss your future.”

“I’ve only been home a week—”

“And I expect to give you sufficient time to acclimate yourself to civilian life. But I do want to inform you of one fact, Abraham.”

Philip looked so serious, Abraham lost even the slightest desire to laugh. He asked: “What fact?”

“I am relying on you to join the printing house as soon as possible. I’ll give you as much responsibility as I think you can handle, and—”

Quickly, Abraham raised his glass to interrupt. “Papa, Papa—wait! I’m not certain that’s what I want to do with my life.”

“A career with Kent and Son offers you everything!” Philip exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t you want a comfortable, secure existence? Influential friends? A position of respect within the Federalist community—?”

“Perhaps because I’m not yet a Federalist.”

“You’ll change.”

“How can you be so sure?”

The dark eyes caught the hearth’s glare. “You are my son.”

Softly, but without hesitation, Abraham said, “Yes—and that’s the very reason I prefer to do exactly as you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“The story, Papa.”

“
What
story?”

“The one you told me so often when I was growing up. How you refused to accept what was planned for you by your mother—how you struck out on your own instead. Made your own way. Will you deny me the same opportunity? It’s a tribute to you that I want it that way—”

“I do
not
consider it a tribute,” Philip said. Abraham felt a sudden hurt. “I will be exceedingly disappointed if you refuse to come into Kent and Son as your half brother will surely do.”

“Gilbert’s a different case. Bright, but too frail for any kind of work except commerce. In a business he can use his true strength—his mind.”

Philip sat in stony immobility for a moment. Then: “If you don’t care to accept my suggestion, be kind enough to tell me what alternative you’ve chosen.”

“The truth is, I can’t.”

“And why not, sir?”

Silence.

“Answer me!
Why not?
”

“I—I just haven’t found it yet. The alternative—”

Abraham’s sentence trailed off in lame fashion. Philip’s lip showed his scorn—and perhaps concealed pain as deep as Abraham’s own. Philip turned defensive, sarcastic.

“You don’t know what you want to do, yet you already know my proposition is unsatisfactory. Odd—”

“Papa—”

“
Damned
odd!”

Abraham set his unfinished glass aside. “Sir, I’d like to ask that we postpone the rest of this discussion.”

“Until when?”

“Until I’ve had a chance to think things out.”

Abraham was uncomfortable in the evasion. But he couldn’t bear to continue the talk—the argument—now.

His father was growing too angry. It showed in the seethe of his next sentence.

“I do hope you haven’t entirely closed your mind against me.”

“No”—Abraham faced away quickly to conceal the he—“no, of course I haven’t. Good night, Papa.”

Philip rose and walked into the shadows near the front windows. He remained gloomily silent as his son left the room.

“Good night, Mr. Abraham,” said the nasal-voiced octogenarian who served as footman in the Kent house. Climbing the stairs to his old room in the third story—a room only occupied for a short time before he left for Pittsburgh and Wayne’s service—Abraham called a reply over his shoulder. The reply was more grumble than anything else.

Yes, he had lied to his father. No point in denying that. On the long, arduous journey home, he had thought a good deal about the future. He wasn’t content to fit pliably into the mold prepared for him by Philip Kent.

In many ways service in the northwest had been an unsettling experience. It had shown him the world was not confined to paper and presses—all he had known as a child. His most vivid early memory of his father was sensory: the smell of ink in the first loft Philip had occupied; a loft above the chandler’s store operated by the patriarch of the powerful Rothman family, now respected Boston bankers.

Some of what Abraham had told his father was true. He didn’t yet know what he wanted to do with his life. Not in detail, that is. His central goal was much as he’d stated it: to strike out on his own. That was clearly imitative admiration of Philip—though he realized his father would always refuse to see it as such. God, how the man had changed in just three years—!

During Abraham’s first twenty-four hours in the house, he’d literally gaped at the lavish new furnishings—the obvious signs of Philip’s continuing ability to pyramid his profits from his initial business venture: an investment in shares in privateering vessels during the Rebellion. The venture had cost Abraham the mother he didn’t remember. She had been abducted by one of the privateer captains, and had perished at sea trying to escape from her kidnapper.

Abraham really hadn’t appreciated how rich Philip had become until he’d been away from Boston a while, living in altogether different and less luxurious surroundings. Following his return, however, he very quickly found the wealthy household stultifying; too formalized and proper. That spurred him to make up his mind to go his own way.

Because he didn’t want to hurt his father, he had tried to hide that truth just now. But he couldn’t hide it from himself. So there remained two obstacles for him to overcome.

The immediate one of convincing Philip that he deserved the right to shape his own destiny.

And the more difficult because less clear-cut one of determining what that destiny ought to be.

With a shake of his head, Abraham realized he’d paused on the second-floor landing. As he started up toward the third, he heard his stepmother’s voice murmuring in Gilbert’s room. He called the obligatory good night. Then, aware of Peggy hurrying to the door to speak to him, he rushed on up the steps into the relative gloom of the cramped upper story.

Peggy didn’t call out to summon him. She was a wise woman, and he admired her wisdom. She would sense from his quick passage upstairs that the interview with Philip hadn’t gone well, and he wanted to retire undisturbed.

Servants had lit a small fire in the grate in his room. He could smell the wood smoke as he touched the latch, thrust the door inward—

“My God—!”

“Sssh!”
Elizabeth Fletcher put a warning hand to her lips. “Don’t be a ninny and make noise or you’ll spoil everything.”

Shaking a little, Abraham stepped into the room, closed the door.

“What the devil are you doing here, Elizabeth? Dressed like that—it—it isn’t proper.”

“Oh, don’t start talking like the others!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I’ve already had another tedious lecture from Mama this evening.”

She was standing barefoot before the hearth. Thus Abraham could see—most disturbingly—the details of her figure through the filmy material of her nightdress. Her young woman’s breasts were clearly defined, nipples and all. And—was her pose deliberate?—he even glimpsed the area between her legs where the clearer outlines of her thighs joined, blurring into a hint of—Quickly, he looked away.

“Please do keep your voice lowered,” she whispered. “Before I crept down the hall, I shut my own door with a great show of going to bed.”

She walked slowly toward the turned-down coverlets, plumping herself on them. “Anyway, why shouldn’t I be here? We’re not brother and sister.”

“I know, but—”

“And I’m already condemned as perfectly scandalous by the rest of them”—the pale blue eyes challenged him—“excluding you, I trust.”

“Yes. Yes, certainly,” Abraham told her, dissembling desperately. He felt both awkward and terrified.

She patted the bed next to her leg.

“Then sit with me, and talk. There’s no one else I can talk to in this house, you know.”

He continued to stand motionless. She brushed back a lock of fair hair, her expression by turns defiant and devilish.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been alone with a woman, Abraham Kent. Not after three years in the army.”

“Why, I—I’ve been with a woman several times.” The truth of it was, it had happened just once. In the village of Cincinnati, on his way home, he had paid a whore. At the time the whole business had been quick and embarrassing, though in retrospect it had a certain nostalgic charm.

“So do sit down!”

He stared at her a moment longer, seeing something strange, even wicked, shining in her blue eyes. It was a reckless unconcern for propriety that lent her lovely face an almost unholy radiance in the flicker from the grate. Was this what she’d inherited from the Fletcher fellow who had carried on so disgracefully before his death?

The thought frightened Abraham all the more. Yet he didn’t pull away, or order her out. Instead, he eased himself gently onto the bed. Elizabeth seized his cold hands in her warm ones. He felt the first hardness of arousal.

“Abraham,” she said, her face close enough so that he could smell the sweetness of her breath, “you understand what they’re trying to do to both of us, don’t you?”