The Ninth Daughter

“By the by, this came for you this morning.” He held out a thick little letter, addressed in Scipio’s neat hand. The outer sheet enclosed a second missive on much finer paper—though not, she observed, anything like that of the forged note. In nearly illegible French handwriting, it informed her that M. Pentyre had indeed visited the house of Mme. Belle-Isle Wednesday night, leaving shortly after eleven. Clarice, the maid of Mme. Belle-Isle, would not drink rum and so Lisette had been obliged to purchase a bottle of smuggled French cognac for two dollars with which to ply her to obtain this information.

Feeling as if she had stumbled into a more than usually tawdry novel, Abigail brought up a couple of tallow work-candles and wrote out a little invoice for Charles Malvern: I feel the woman’s information is truthful, so far as she has been told the truth. If nothing else, it clears the ground for further inquiry . She then brought out the packet of letters that Catherine Moore had given her.

Though they—and the remainder of Rebecca’s letters to herself, that she’d started to read the previous Saturday—brought back clearly the memories of those times, and stirred anew her anxiety for her friend, they told her nothing new. Rebecca rarely mentioned her family, or the friends she had known in Maryland in her youth. Those were very much of the “Jess will be old enough to start school now,” variety—whoever Jess might be.

Abigail blushed once to find her own name, coupled with grateful praise: “She is so patient with my stupidity in the kitchen . . . One day I hope to have her steadiness of heart . . .”

If you think my heart is steady, my dear, it’s only because you haven’t been around when Charley pissed in the kitchen fireplace. Abigail lowered the page to her lap. In the overcast dark, church bells all over the city had begun to toll, summoning Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen to Faneuil Hall. The strange, slow ringing had a sinister note, profoundly unlike the brisk music of Sunday. Could Rebecca hear them, wherever she was? Sam had had word out for a week now, for all those Friends, Brethren, etc. to be looking for her, and there had been no word of her nor word of her body.

If she were free to leave Boston, why would she not have come to me?

It was nearly midnight when John returned. Abigail, still reading by the fireplace, looked up at the sound of the latch. The men slipped through like fugitives: all the group who met at the Green Dragon regularly over matters of coordinating the patriots in the various Boston wards, and corresponding with like-minded men in far-flung colonies like New York, Philadelphia, Virginia. Her fair-haired, delicate-looking cousin Josiah Quincy, young Dr. Warren, smooth-voiced Dr. Church, and dark Ben Edes, Sam rubbing his hands and smiling with a self-satisfied twinkle in his eye, for all the world like the Reverend Atonement Bargest out in Gilead, soaking up praise for his excellent sermon on the dangers of demons that only he could see.

The resemblance doesn’t end there, thought Abigail, smiling a little to herself as the men clustered around her, gripped her hand, all talking a mile a minute and all about their own affairs. She could have been Queen Charlotte or Helen of Troy for all they actually saw her, so preoccupied were they about the announcement to go out tomorrow that all the East India Company consignees for the Dartmouth’s tea must report to the Liberty Tree—at the head of the Neck—to resign their appointments, and the plan to have riders go out to farther-flung towns. So many hundred pamphlets from Edes, so many from Hazlitt, so many from Thomas over at the Spy—meet again tomorrow to coordinate details—John, you’ll get us up a draft of what we’re to say to the harbormaster about refusing to unload the ship . . .

Sam smiling at this man, clapping that one on the shoulder, or gripping that one’s arm. She could almost see him commanding Brother Lament-Sin to put her and Thaxter up for the night (in that atrocious, freezing loft with his daughters), or directing Brother Mortify to guide them on their way again.

And Sam would react, thought Abigail uneasily as she bade them good-night, exactly as the Hand of the Lord would react to the smallest suggestion of unbelief, should she, Abigail, say to him: I think Perdita Pentyre’s killer is a Son of Liberty. I think your organization numbers a madman in its midst.

John was gone in the morning. Whether under bond for thirty pounds or three hundred, reflected Abigail wryly, it wouldn’t keep him from committing sedition against the Crown right here in Boston. Her two days of absence had left a staggering backlog of tasks which Pattie had simply not had the time to accomplish—from cleaning lamps and candlesticks to bringing the household account books up to date—so although her bones ached with weariness and rheumatism, Abigail forced herself to rise when John did, milk the cows, and set about making breakfast while Pattie rinsed and scalded the milk-pails. John kissed her when she brought his cider and oatmeal to the kitchen table: “ ’Tis good to have you home.” And then vanished through the back door, to meet with Sam and the others before the main meeting of Friends, Brethren, etc. at nine.

The bells had tolled all night, and were tolling still. A warning of peril, of invasion, their sound would carry across the bay to Charles Town and Winnisimmet, to Braintree and Lynn; inland to Medford and Concord. Summoning Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen into Boston, to make their stand against the King’s assumption that he could arbitrarily clap a tax on whatever goods he thought people couldn’t do without—that he could with a scratch of his pen inform the colonists that they must buy their goods only from his friends.

In Scotland, in times of invasion, the men of the clans would burn a cross on the highest hill, that the men of the clan would know to assemble in arms. Even so, thought Abigail, as she dipped water from the boiler on the hearth into the washbowl for the dishes—even so the sound of the bells went out, to that great clan that Cousin Sam had formed with his skill and his charm and his wily understanding of human nature. And in Medford and Dorchester, Cambridge and Lynn, men were turning the management of their farms and shops over to their wives and mothers, and starting out for Boston.

Is it someone in the Sons of Liberty? She probed and tested at the thought, as if trying to untangle a necklace without breaking its delicate links. Is that why he bound Rebecca, shut her up in her room? Or did he do that because he wanted her alive, wanted her to return to him . . .

Yet she couldn’t imagine Charles Malvern taking a knife to a girl of twenty. Exposing her affaire with this second Adonis—if indeed such an affaire were not merely Lisette’s rather Gallic interpretation of an innocent admiration—certainly. And possibly Malvern’s vindictiveness would have extended to spying on Rebecca, by which means he’d have learned of the misdeeds of his rival’s flighty bride in the first place. But further than that . . .

Her mind chased itself in a circle, trying to fit what she knew into what she could only surmise.

Richard Pentyre would be hearing the bells, in that handsome house on Prince’s Street. They’d passed it last night, riding back from the ferry, its old walls of timber and stone covered over with handsome brick, its old gabled attics remodeled with a fashionable mansard roof. There’d been a handbill plastered to the door already, demanding that Pentyre report himself to the Liberty Tree and resign his appointment, as the tea consignees in Philadelphia and New York had resigned theirs. None of the Massachusetts consignees had yet done so: Probably, reflected Abigail wryly, their father the Governor wouldn’t let them. If—

“Mama!” Johnny and Nabby flung themselves panting through the back door, red-faced with the cold. “Soldiers are coming!”

Had Abigail been a swearing woman, she would have sworn. She hadn’t yet taken her hands from the washbasin when she heard knocking at the front door, and Pattie’s swift step from the parlor where she’d been cleaning the grate—

Abigail strode into the little hallway in time to see the girl open the door and yes, for that first instant the aperture seemed to be filled with the color of the King’s Men and blood. She was conscious of Nabby and Johnny at her side, half hiding behind her skirts but at the same time determined not to leave her. The thought flashed through her mind, Johnny’s six! He shouldn’t have to be trying to protect his mother from soldiers. In the kitchen, Tommy started to wail in fright, and from the street outside came the unmistakable thunk of a thrown glob of mud and a child chanting, “Lobsterbacks, lobsterbacks . . .”

There’s only two of them . . .

Lieutenant Coldstone stepped forward across the threshold, removed his hat, and bowed. “Mrs. Adams? Please forgive this intrusion. May I beg a few minutes of your time? I’ve come to ask your help.”