The Messenger Read online

  “Please. You’ve got to give me something to say to her. Something that will make her think I’ve mentioned her concerns to the right person.”

  “If you think so highly of her . . .” He shot a glance up at me before taking up his quill. “I’ll mention it. I don’t care what the provost is doing with their food, but if he’s selling it to line his own pockets, that should come to the attention of General Howe. Might even be he’d reward a staff officer for information like that.”

  I had to fight to keep from smiling. Because that’s what I had counted on: John’s finely tuned sense of self-aggrandizement.

  29

  Hannah

  I had the dream every night the next week. So on seventh day I approached the jail with fear and trembling. Though I desperately hoped that I would see Robert sitting against the wall, I did not see him at all.

  “Where is he?” I asked the question of William Addison as I knelt beside him to unpack my basket. I hid my nose in my shoulder as I did so, trying to keep that dreadful smell from my nostrils. Spring’s warmth had done more than just melt the snow; it had released new and noxious odors in the jail.

  His eyes slid away from mine as he inclined his chin, same as before, toward the tunnel.

  “But can thee not get him? Can I not speak to him?”

  He shook his head. “Not now. ’Tisn’t safe. Not with the guard walking about. Night is when we change out men.”

  “But I cannot come at night.”

  “Leave a message. I’ll give it to him.”

  I could have, but I didn’t want to leave a message with this rebel. I didn’t trust him. I wanted to speak with Robert. I wanted to look him in the eyes and know how he was feeling, understand what he was thinking. “When I come next week, could thee arrange it so I can see him?”

  He looked at me with such an odd expression. “I’ll try. Do you have a message for me?”

  For him? I’d been so worried about Robert that I had forgotten my reason for being there. I shook my head.

  “Nothing? They’re so set on us escaping, you’d think they’d bother to keep us informed now and then.”

  “Do thee have any messages for them?” I’d never passed a message back the other way, to Jeremiah Jones, but he must have some way to get information to General Washington.

  Indecision was etched into William Addison’s frown. “It’d be nice to know what’s out there, above the tunnel. And nice to know which way we’re digging.”

  “Thee would have to dig west, wouldn’t thee? Or thee might end up in the cemetery.”

  “And we might end there still, in spite of all this work. Two more died during the week. In any case, perhaps you could pass a message. It’s fine to tell us to dig west for fifty-three feet, but I’ve no way to tell which direction we’re headed.”

  I held out an arm toward the west. It did not seem that difficult.

  “Aye. But you’ve no idea what it’s like down there. How a man can get turned around. We could be digging toward the provost’s own house and I’d never know it.”

  I’d thought nothing at all of the actual digging of the tunnel. “How far have thee dug?”

  “Twenty feet.” He said it as if it was a great accomplishment.

  “But thee’ve not yet accomplished the half!”

  He shrugged. “You think you could do better?”

  “What’s taking so long?”

  “You want to try to dig through clay? Fifty-some feet of it? And then scoop the dirt into a hat and drag it back through the tunnel into the room?”

  “They bring the dirt back here?”

  “What else is there to do with it? It has to go somewhere.”

  “But . . . where is it?” I hadn’t noticed any kind of pile.

  “You’re standing on it.”

  “I’m—but—”

  “I figure we’ve raised the floor over two inches since we started.”

  “And they bring it out in a hat?”

  “Nothing else here to use.”

  “Take this.” I thrust the basket at him.

  He pushed it right back at me. “They’re sure to notice you’ve left it.”

  “They won’t.” At least . . . I didn’t think they would. I hoped they wouldn’t. Anything that would ensure Robert’s escape was worth the risk.

  When the guard came to get me, I walked behind him, trying to keep from him the fact that I had left my basket behind. And when I passed through the door, I went as swiftly as I could up the stair.

  “Hey!”

  I stopped, not daring to move.

  “Hey, you. Miss!”

  This is what had happened when Father was arrested. I’d been called back from following the others into the street. I’d almost been safe. My gorge rose in my throat as I turned, gripping the rail with a hand gone suddenly cold. “Aye?”

  “About the basket you always come carrying.”

  I was afraid even to breathe.

  “I was thinking, when you come next time, could you put a roll in it for me? I’ve a hankering for some good bread.”

  “A roll?”

  “Along with the cheese.”

  A roll and some cheese. I nearly sunk to the floor in relief.

  I left the jail, collected Doll, and walked with her round the block, paying careful attention to the space around the southwest corner. What would happen if the tunnel didn’t come up at the right spot?

  They might crawl up into the cemetery.

  In the other direction?

  They might find themselves in the middle of a stream.

  If they managed to dig straight in the westerly direction, they would reach the other side of Sixth Street, and would end up in the fenced yard of a wheelwright. Well. That was quite clever. And it made me wonder who it was that lived there. I walked past the door, listening for any clues as to the inhabitants, but there was nothing. And the windows were too covered with grime to peer inside.

  I spent the rest of the day trying to fix upon a way to help William Addison. There must be some way to determine whether they were digging in the right direction. I wondered if they could hear the rattle of carts and the clomping of horses on Sixth Street as they dug. That might be a help . . . but then it might sound just the same as Walnut Street. If they’d mistakenly turned in that direction, there would be no cover once they emerged. There had to be some other method of guidance. They needed something straight that would not bend itself to their efforts. A kind of inviolable guide.

  But what could be placed at one end of the tunnel and remain unbending at the other end, across a distance of fifty-three feet? What else could I smuggle into the jail that would help to solve such a puzzle?

  The question still pressed on my mind as I sat in Meeting the next day. My pondering had not provided me with any solution. The problem remained: A tunnel of fifty-three feet could be dug, but there was no way to guarantee where it might end. The effort might not produce the desired result, and if it did not, then all the work would be for naught. Robert could be arrested just as he came to escape.

  Several points of business were conducted. A marriage was approved. A concern was put forth about the Friends in Virginia. Then worship began, and along with it the waiting and the silence.

  I was glad that Jeremiah Jones no longer came to Meeting. I’d spent my time those two first days wondering what he must think of us. It changed things, made me look at our Meetings differently as I tried to see them through his eyes.

  Please, God. There must be some way. Please show me how to help them dig straight.

  I don’t know why I prayed. I expected no answer. Indeed, I had not received any answers to my petitions in many months.

  Several minutes later, Betsy’s mother stood. I could feel a flare of expectation as heads turned in her direction. God was going to speak!

  “Go ye therefore and be Children of Light, whose flame never fades, whose light always goes forth, shining in the darkness. Be Children of Light whose courage
never wavers, whose light always goes straight from its source.” She stopped speaking for a moment as a look of befuddlement crossed her face. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it once more. “Unbending.” She sat down.

  Children of Light.

  What was God saying? Of course we were to be Children of Light. That’s what Friends had always been. It’s what George Fox had called us from the start.

  No one else spoke. The Meeting ended some time later. But by that time I realized I’d been given an answer to my prayer.

  I emptied my basket on my next visit to the jail, of onions and rolls and half of a chicken. And then I took from it one thing more. “This is for thee.” I held it out to William Addison.

  He took it from me. “A candle.” Looked up at me. “So I can see more clearly this squalid mess we’re living in?”

  “So thee can tell if the tunnel is straight.”

  He looked a question at me.

  “If thee set it at the entrance to the tunnel and thee can see it still at the end, then it must be straight. And if thee cannot see it, then thee will know the tunnel deviates in direction.”

  “Ah. Very clever.” He held it up, rolling it between his fingers. “Though it might help, of course, if there were some way to light it. And relight it.”

  “Why, thee just—” Oh. One of the luxuries of wealth was having a fire that rarely went out and servants to relight it if it did. “I’ll bring a char cloth and a flint next week.” I scratched at an itch on my arm and then scratched at it again as I looked around the room. Just standing there in the filth and the mire made everything within me start to itch. I’d been hoping Robert would appear as we were talking, but he had not, even though William Addison had promised his presence the week before. There were several men sitting against the wall who could have taken his place in the tunnel. I didn’t understand why my brother need always be absent. “I want to see Robert.”

  He nodded toward the wall.

  “I thought thee were going to keep him out this once. That’s what thee told me last week.”

  He looked at me again, with that same odd sadness in his eyes. It was then my heart understood what my mind had refused to comprehend. “Is he . . . has he . . . ?”

  William Addison put the candle down and took up my hand. “He died.”

  I sank to my knees in that filth and squalor. A slow disintegration of the earth, the sky, of everything around me. An abrupt and stifling absence of air. And then . . . nothing. A complete absence of everything. I lowered my head to my knees as the damp soaked through my stockings to my skin and the stench seeped into my skirts. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. Robert was dead. “How—?”

  “He was digging. The tunnel collapsed. We couldn’t pull him out in time.”

  A howl escaped my lips.

  “Hush! No one’s noticed. Not anyone outside this cell. And if his death is discovered, then they’re going to start asking questions.”

  He was right. Of course he was right, but I could not keep silent. A keening moan escaped my lips. “I want to see him.”

  “You don’t. You don’t want to see him. It’s already been three weeks.”

  I pushed from my knees to standing. “I want to see him.”

  The men had been watching me; I knew it from the way they turned their heads as I glanced around the room. Robert was there, he had to be there, but I could not discern where they had hidden him.

  William Addison nodded toward one of the men, who was sitting in the corner opposite the tunnel. That man moved aside, exposing a pile of straw. He swept some of it away. As I approached, I discovered it was from there that the peculiar smell had emanated. It had come from my brother.

  I would not have known it was him, but for his clothes and the cowlick at the center of his forehead. It was the twin of my own. His body was bloated beyond recognition, his neck crawling with maggots, but it was plain to see how he had died: He’d been buried alive. His hands were stained with earth, his fingernails packed with dirt. But what made me weep was his mouth. It was ringed with a dirty froth.

  I always woke from my dream with a soundless scream.

  No wonder I’d felt such great terror. He had felt great terror. I was comforted knowing that it had been assuaged by such great peace. I knelt beside him and put a hand out to smooth his hair, pulling bits of straw from it. I wiped the dirt from his brow and then took the hem of my skirt to wipe the froth from his mouth. When I could do nothing more to improve his condition, I swept the straw back over his body.

  The prisoner resumed his position.

  William Addison cleared his throat. “We mean no disrespect, miss. We’re just trying to keep the rats away.”

  “Why did thee not tell me?”

  When he looked at me, I saw shame in the depths of his eyes. “I was afraid you would stop coming. We all knew you were only coming to see him. But the rest of us need you too. They say the British are leaving soon. If they evacuate the city, they’ll have to put us on ships. This jail is bad, but those ships are worse. Wouldn’t none of us survive them.”

  “Thee shouldn’t have kept this from me.”

  “I know it and I’m begging your pardon, but if you don’t come the guards will wonder why. They don’t know Robert died. So . . . will you do it? For us? Will you keep coming?”

  30

  Jeremiah

  The tailor had finished the rest of my new suits several weeks ago. I’d hung them up on pegs and had gotten in the habit of eyeing them as I was getting dressed of a morning.

  English blue.

  Myrtle green.

  Yellow.

  I don’t know why I’d let him talk me into them, though I suspected it had to do with Hannah Sunderland. I didn’t really want to work out what, exactly. I needed her to deliver messages to the jail more than I needed . . . what I wanted. And going to her church had provided quite an education. Those people actually sat around waiting to hear from God.

  As if He weren’t busy enough attending to other matters.

  It was fine and good to pray and hope for some sort of answer, but some things you didn’t need someone to tell you. When the world had been turned upside down, and right was being treated as wrong, any Christian person would try to do something about it. What were those people waiting for? Were they so afraid they might do the wrong thing that they failed to do anything at all?

  English blue and bright yellow.

  Decidedly not for Quakers.

  I grabbed the yellow coat from its peg and put it on. The tailor had been true to his word. As I descended the back stair, the coat remained fixed to my shoulder.

  Dinner wasn’t as busy as normal so I had time to talk to my barkeeper about the hosting of the coming night’s ball. I had him write up an order for new cloths. Went into the kitchen and asked the cook to undertake an inventory of pewter.

  “What? Today?”

  I shrugged. “Or tomorrow.”

  “If I had some decent help, I might be able to accomplish something around here!” She glared at her daughter as she spoke.

  I left before she could turn her sights on me. As I walked back into the public room, John and his comrades came through the door. He ordered bowls of punch for them all. I called for the cook’s daughter to serve them and then pulled a chair up to their table.

  John glanced up from his conversation. Cocked his head. “Love suits you, Jonesy. Haven’t seen you looking this good since we were lieutenants together.”

  The line between compliment and criticism must have been a very thin one in John Lindley’s mind. I smiled anyway. “And how are your plans coming for the general’s fete?”

  John shrugged, pulling a face. “We’ve talked of plays, but we’ve performed nearly a dozen already this season. If we do another, it has to be something more. Something . . . different.”

  Something more. Something different. Something completely extravagant and wholly inappropriate to fete a general whose victories were dubious at
best. It was ridiculous to send him sailing home as if he deserved all the adoration that his officers had lavished upon him. It was almost as if he were some medieval sovereign surrounded by chieftains who were pledged to fealty, no matter the truth of who or what he was. “You ought to have a joust.”

  “A what?” John was looking at me with some interest.

  “A joust.”

  He scratched at his jaw. “A joust. Knights and their ladies, horses and spears. That would be a spectacle.”

  Indeed it would.

  “How many officers are we?” John asked the question of André, who had become his shadow of late.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Twenty-one knights, so there must be twenty-one ladies.”

  André’s smile matched John’s. “A tournament held in honor of General Howe’s honor. Perfect!”

  Perfectly absurd. “You ought to have the jousters compete for the ladies’ honor in honor of the general’s honor.”

  “How cunning—yes!” John and André toasted each other. “For the ladies’ honor. And they have been delightful, these Philadelphia belles.”

  “Though they couldn’t hold a candle to London’s society.” There was general agreement with André’s sentiment.

  But of course they couldn’t. For the most part, colonial girls were meek, kind creatures who expected truth where they encountered lies and virtue where there was only vice. They’d adopted British fashion with the enthusiasm of converts. And yet they’d been secretly scorned as provincial the entire season, though they hadn’t even noticed. They were pretty in their way. They were exotic. But they weren’t quite suitable.

  “We can’t pretend they’re genuine ladies.” John was only saying what they were all thinking.

  “That’s true. They’re not. Not really.”

  It seemed as if they were ready to discard the whole idea. The Crusaders hadn’t been so quickly defeated. And heaven knew they’d collected nearly as many girls for their harems, leaving them all behind when they’d sailed for home. “You ought to style them as Turks.”