The Messenger Page 16

  She had a point. “Then at the end of each message we shall name a new book to ask for the next time.”

  She nodded after a moment, though the gesture lacked somewhat in confidence. “And how will I know that thee have a message to pass?”

  “You will see me outside the tavern as you walk past.”

  She nodded. “And what if I have a message for thee?”

  “Then . . .” Then what? “You must carry a basket in your hand.”

  “I usually carry a basket in my hand.”

  “Then you must not carry a basket in your hand.”

  She took her time in replying, but eventually she nodded. “Does the bookseller know of this arrangement?”

  “No one knows of our arrangement. And we must keep it that way.”

  She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but then she shut it. A frown furrowed her brow.

  I eyed John, who was looking at us. “Please try to look as if this is diverting.”

  “I would if I didn’t know that my very life depended upon their ignorance of our plans.”

  “The only way they would suspect anything at all is if we didn’t act like the lovers they think us to be. If nothing else, we should be glad to be about in this fine weather.”

  A shade of something passed through her eyes. “Then we must enjoy this delightful walk.”

  It turned out that John had more on his mind than a walk. There was a pinnace waiting at the end of the wharf. “To take us out to the flagship!”

  Hannah Sunderland, Quaker that she was, would not be impressed by any warship, but Miss Pennington might. My estimation of John Lindley slipped several pegs. He may have been worried about the state of my lonely heart, but not nearly as worried as he was about his.

  John helped Miss Pennington onto the pinnace, then held his hand out for Hannah. She looked askance, at me.

  I nodded. We might as well go along for the excursion. Because I was more than certain that if we stayed behind, she would turn tail and run back to Pennington House.

  A crew of sailors rowed us out past the dozens of merchant ships that crowded the now ice-free port. And then out farther still toward a ship that was anchored by itself on the river.

  As we neared, I realized why.

  Polly put a handkerchief to her nose. “They really ought to do something about the smell! Are those . . . ? Why—they’re staring at us!”

  “What’s that?” John had turned in the direction of her outflung finger. “Oh. It’s a prison ship.”

  I heard Hannah gasp as our proximity revealed the silhouettes of prisoners crowding the decks and the windows.

  “What poor manners they have—to stare at us that way!”

  Hannah’s face had drained white, but now it had flushed red. “They’re not staring. They’re dying! They’re trapped on that deplorable ship and they’ve nothing to do but wait to die.” Hannah was looking at Miss Pennington with something akin to hatred in her eyes. I could not blame her. But I could try to restrain her words. I laid my hand on her arm.

  She jerked toward me.

  I shook my head.

  She ignored me. “I suppose thy king condones such treatment.”

  John had taken Miss Pennington’s arm and turned her from the unpleasant sight. Now he took it upon himself to respond. “My King? He’s your king too.”

  I closed my eyes against her indiscretion, trying to think of something to say. “You know how it is with Quakers. They don’t hold with any authority but God’s.”

  John smiled a tight smile. “Yes. Of course. I’m sure that must be why you find her company so charming.” He looked at me as if he was certain I’d gone mad.

  John slipped a hand around the back of Miss Pennington’s waist and drew her off to the side.

  I looked down at Hannah. “There’s no need to make so public your loyalties.”

  “I had not meant to. I hadn’t known I had any. But he’s just so . . .”

  Arrogant? Conceited? Haughty?

  “. . . so cruel.”

  “To people like him we’re just colonials. We have never been, nor will we ever be, quite so good as those English born and bred.” I knew it from bitter experience.

  “Had they bothered to treat their prisoners with anything other than cruelty and disdain, had they thought to treat us like equals rather than intractable children . . .” Her gaze still rested on that hulk of a ship.

  “If they had done, they might have already won this war.”

  “Why do they have to be so condescending?”

  “From their absolute conviction that we’re so much less than they are.”

  She pressed her lips together and spoke not another word, though a flush continued to ride the tops of her cheeks.

  “We’re going to have to rejoin our friends. And I’m going to have to ask you to keep your politics to yourself.”

  For a moment she looked like she might cry. “I should not even have any. But . . . I’ll try.”

  “If you don’t, if you can’t, then you’re likely to end up on one of those.” I nodded at the prison ship that floated listlessly beside us. I nudged her into motion. As we approached the flagship that had been anchored farther out, John pulled a bottle of Madeira from someplace, poured a glass for each of us, and raised it in the direction of the prison ship. “To the prisoners! May the rebellion and its ideals die as painful a death.”

  Miss Pennington echoed his words with a giggle.

  He offered a glass to me.

  I declined it.

  “What? You aren’t drinking?”

  “Motion of the boat. There was a reason I joined the army and not the navy.”

  “Ah. Miserable sort of luck. I’ve never been affected myself. Miss Sunderland?”

  To my surprise she did not insist upon his calling her Hannah. She simply declined his offer.

  He shrugged. “More for us, then.”

  Once the pinnace reached the flagship we were assisted aboard. Captain Hamond himself greeted the women. Miss Pennington bloomed with the attention bestowed upon her. Hannah shrank against me. When John introduced her to the captain, she did not even give him the honor of blushing at his compliments.

  It was a mistake to have come. But once on the ship we could not leave until the entertainments had been concluded. And they were many: a concert by the admiral’s band, a tour of the top deck, and refreshments afterward.

  At last, as the others sipped at port, we were afforded a few moments of peace.

  “Thee call him thy friend.” It was quite clear that Hannah questioned my judgment in terms of John.

  “I called him my friend, but that was many years ago. And I was a different man.”

  She peered up at me with puzzlement etched on her brow. But then it cleared. “I see. Thee hope for him. Thee hope for change.”

  I snorted. “I despise him.”

  “Then why are thee so often in his company?”

  “Because he’s useful to our endeavor, and I find it fascinating to observe firsthand the object of my abhorrence.” I did. Truly. I saw in him the man I might have become. It was perhaps more than a simple fascination. If I could be honest with myself, I wobbled at the edge of obsession.

  When she looked up at me, there was sadness in her gaze. “Then it is a hard path thee have carved out for thyself. For I think, despite thy words, thee care about him still.”

  23

  Hannah

  What was happening to me?

  Somehow, at some point, my heart had decided to take sides in this rebellion. If I could not support the king, did that mean I supported the king’s enemies? Did that mean I had become a patriot?

  And what of Jeremiah Jones?

  I’d felt safe in his presence, even on board that horrible ship. I had pretended to be enamored of him just as he’d requested. Only . . . I hadn’t thought to enjoy it so much. It was to have been a pretense, but I had never known how to lie. And now my heart had decided to create
its own truth.

  I was sorely in need of redemption and peace. I awaited the coming of first day in great expectation of all the peace that it would bring. But going to Meeting didn’t help. There was a restlessness and turbulence inside me that only grew as I sat there. I had turned traitor to my faith and I knew my heart had grown dull because of it. Peace would only come with confession. And that confession must be made in front of the Meeting.

  But what then?

  The knowledge that I had gone against the expressed testimony of the Yearly Meeting by visiting the jail would cause the Meeting no little distress. For certain I would be labored with by the elders. But the knowledge that I was conspiring to help the prisoners escape? That would be grounds for disownment. Worse, some might feel it their bounden duty to report my activities. And then I would be hanged as a spy. There could be no other judgment.

  I must confess in order to save my soul.

  But I could not confess in order to save my life. And Robert’s life as well.

  I had wandered from my faith and now it threatened to betray me. Was there no escape from this web in which I had been caught?

  I walked with Mother from the Meeting House, offering her my arm as an aid down the steps, but she did not release it at the bottom. “Thee have been heavy of heart of late.”

  “The winter has been long.”

  “Aye. But spring is here and summer is coming. We must look ahead with expectation to those things we cannot yet see.”

  Look ahead with expectation? I had done that! I had expected great things of this first-day Meeting, but it had only led to disappointment.

  Mother patted my arm and then set me free so she could talk with Rachel Evans.

  Though I knew I ought not, I used that freedom to make my way to the King’s Arms Tavern. I went around back and asked one of the servants for Jeremiah Jones. There was something I needed to say to him and the opportunity to do it was worth more to me than my father’s ire.

  He greeted me with a raised brow and a searching glance. “I suppose this wouldn’t be considered arranged since I didn’t know about it?” Clearly he was confused by my presence.

  “Thee have taken my faith and thee have stolen my peace and now I have nothing left at all!” To my horror, tears began to prick my eyes.

  His brows lifted another inch higher. But they sunk as he approached me. Annoyance flashed in his eyes. “You’re the one who agreed to do it. I didn’t hold a pistol to your head. You agreed to do it of your own free will.”

  “But I didn’t know how much it would cost me.” It had taken from me everything I valued.

  “Cost you? It’s cost you practically nothing! Think about those poor—”

  “Nothing? It’s cost me everything! I don’t know what to believe in anymore. Tell me what to believe.”

  “You’re asking me what to believe? I couldn’t lead a blind man into a church. But I do know this: You have to come to faith on your own. Otherwise it’s just words and rules.”

  Words and rules. I blinked. Words and rules. It was true, wasn’t it? In a sense? “Then . . . what do thee believe?”

  He took my hand in his. “I believe all men are created equal. And I believe that man’s cruelty toward man must be answered by justice. No matter what side of the rebellion he is on.”

  He sounded more Quaker than I felt. “But there has to be something more. Something beyond us . . . beyond the rebellion.”

  He laid a finger across my lips. “You didn’t let me finish. The problem with you people is your politics.”

  “But we’re not wed to any—”

  “Refusal to bear arms isn’t a religion, it’s a position. You can’t base your faith on a position. You can’t live your life as a protest. Sooner or later positions resolve themselves, and then what’s left? They’re temporary. And subject to things like kings and rebellions more than your sanctimonious, self-righteous leaders would like to think.”

  Sooner or later positions resolve themselves. That’s what had happened: I’d changed my position. I hadn’t set out to, but that’s what I’d done and now there was no place for me at the Meeting House. Tears began to fall from my eyes. I might have made a swipe at them, to try to stem them, but I felt the pressure of hundreds more.

  Jeremiah Jones reached out his hand and pulled me close. Pressed my head against his chest. “There will be justice. Whether it happens in this world or the next, I have to believe that there will be justice.”

  Justice.

  I thought about it all the way back to Pennington House, and it gave me the strength to face the deception that my life had become. We had dinner, all of us together, after Aunt and Uncle had returned from their church service. Boiled goose, chicken pudding, and pickled oysters were brought to the table in turn. It was after the last course, some jumbals served with a very fine cottage cheese pie, that Father spoke.

  “I would like to offer payment to those who have cared for us during our time here.”

  The Pennington children stared at Father through wide eyes. My own brothers and sister seemed more interested in examining the table. Uncle’s face bloomed red. “Payment? For pity’s sake, why?”

  “For the work they do on our behalf.”

  “They would do the same work whether you were here or not.”

  “But we add to their labors.”

  Polly was looking at me as if she did not quite understand what my father was about. Aunt Rebekah was looking at Mother in just the same way.

  Uncle cleared his throat. “In any case, what do they need with money? I feed them. I clothe them.”

  The servers of the meal, Davy and Doll, seemed acutely uncomfortable.

  “It isn’t right to enslave people.” Father’s voice was respectful though insistent.

  “They aren’t people. They’re Negroes. And it goes a lot better under my roof for them than it does under many others. I’d like to see them complain.” He sent a glance toward Doll and Davy as if daring them to do the same. “I’d send them on down to one of those plantations in Virginia. Let this be the end of such foolish notions!”

  “I only want to—”

  “You only want to meddle in other people’s affairs. Why are none of us ever good enough for you? When I accepted you as a guest, I didn’t expect that you would pack up your morals and bring them with you.” Uncle shoved his chair away from the table and stalked from the room. After offering an apologetic look at Mother, Aunt did the same.

  “I’m only trying to do what’s right.” Father said it to himself more than to any of us.

  Mother placed a hand on his arm. “I know thee are. And God will reward thee for it.”

  But what was the difference between his trying to do right and my trying to do right? Why should his actions be applauded by the Meeting when mine would see me disowned?

  That afternoon a group collecting money for the poor came soliciting. Aunt invited them in, and she and Mother hosted them in the parlor. Mother bid me sit with them as they talked over tea.

  It galled me that so much trouble be taken for the poor, to whom one of the Friends’ Meeting Houses had been given over, when the prisoners suffered from conditions much worse.

  “Just this January past, Hannah gave up her own cloak to one in need.”

  To prisoners in need!

  They all smiled at me and then began to speak in earnest of the effort to help the poor. Finally I could not help but interject. “I’ve heard the prisoners in the new jail are also in need of food and clothing.” And medicines and blankets and wood.

  Aunt Rebekah smiled. “I’m quite sure you’re mistaken. In any case, General Howe says Mr. Washington is charged with their upkeep. If they’re short those supplies, then the blame falls to the rebels.”

  “But what if they’re not receiving those supplies? It isn’t right that the prisoners become victims of the politics of war.”

  Mother was raising her brows at me, a certain sign of her disfavor. “If they’re in th
e jail, then I’m sure it’s their own fault for taking up arms against the king. Really, Hannah, thee sound as if thee support their cause.”

  “I’m only suggesting that perhaps some of the money from the collection be diverted to their needs.”

  One of the visitors clucked in dismay. “But the poor don’t choose to be so. They have no other help but this.”

  “The prisoners didn’t choose their lot either!”

  Aunt Rekebah had begun refilling teacups. “It can’t be so bad as you’ve heard, Hannah. If I know nothing else about General Howe, ’tis that he’s an honorable man.”

  If I heard one more word about General Howe’s supposed honor, I might have to bring up the fact that he was known to be carrying on with his Commissary of Prisoners’ wife! As it was, I rose from my chair, bobbed my head, and took myself up the stair to the sanctuary of Polly’s bedroom.

  Unfortunately she had sought retreat there as well.

  “Have they gone yet?”

  “No.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I despise all those do-gooders.”

  “They’re only trying to aid the poor.”

  “Well, they don’t have to make everyone else feel so shabby about it. They can be so tedious about such things. It’s all they ever speak of.” She yawned as she put down her embroidery. “They always make me feel so lazy. As if they expect me to try and right all the world’s wrongs.”

  “Shouldn’t thee?”

  “Why, I haven’t the time! There are gowns to be fitted and dances to be attended. And besides, if I went about with such a dour look on my face, I might well see the bloom of my youth vanish without ever having been married. And that would be tragic.”

  Indeed. “Do thee ever wonder what it’s like on the other side?”

  “The other side of what?”