A Marked Man

farther behind—Abigail would have suggested a detour down the frozen muck of Rawson’s Lane, to have a look at the scene of the crime.

First things first.

“Did Sir Jonathan write your father while he was in Maine?” she asked as they walked. “I understand he was to stay with your father’s agent in Boothbay.”

“Mr. Bingham,” affirmed the girl. “He’s in charge of collecting the rents for that whole section of the coast, from Moscongus Bay down to the Kennebec, but half the time he doesn’t send much. The whole section’s in a state of revolt against the Proprietors, and only a month ago Mr. Bowdoin’s agent was beaten up and sent back to Boston in a load of bad herring.” She laughed her schoolgirl laugh, and Mrs. Sandhayes looked shocked.

“No, he didn’t write—neither to Papa nor to Governor Hutchinson, which I thought pretty high-handed of him, considering he was going to be guest of honor at a dinner and a ball, and I don’t think he would have written to Mr. Fenton, either. From what Mr. Barnaby told me, he treated Mr. Fenton worse than any dog.”

“There,” declared Mrs. Sandhayes gloomily, catching up with the other three. “Now tell me servants can be trusted to keep their mouths shut about anything.”

Philomela, carrying extra scarves and shawls for the others, turned her head as if to admire the tall steeple of Old South Church on the corner and pretended she had not heard this remark.

Mr. Barnaby, who opened the door to the four women and clucked over the coldness of the weather, confirmed all of Lucy’s information about Sir Jonathan’s manservant. “It’s not unusual for a gentleman to have so little regard for his man, and I’m sorry to say some of the gentlemen from the home country are the worst I’ve seen in that regard.” A stout, genial, middle-aged man with a deeply pockmarked face and the accent of London to his voice, he bowed and signed a liveried footman to collect their wraps. “Most vexed he was that poor Mr. Fenton should have been taken sick the night before their departure, leaving him no time to replace him before he left. He said if Mr. Fenton didn’t follow him within two days, he could consider himself discharged and find his own way back to England or wherever he wished to go, but I wouldn’t have wanted to think he meant it.”

Mrs. Sandhayes, emerging from the chrysalis of whaleboned hood and two woolen cloaks, looked surprised at this view of the matter. “Whyever not? One can’t let people of that order start believing that claiming a bellyache will excuse them from their duties. The man should have taken better care of himself.”

Lucy ignored this remark. “So what will Mr. Fenton do now?”

“That I don’t know, Miss. It’s the worst case of the grippe I’ve seen; the Governor’s had a surgeon in twice to bleed him, and he’s worse, if anything.”

Abigail sniffed. “You astonish me, sir.” She had a deep mistrust of physicians other than her friend Joseph Warren, having seen too many at work. “Is he well enough to speak to, do you think?”

“Oh, yes, m’am. He’s never had a fever, nor lost track of his senses, or anything like that. Would you like me to arrange it?”

“What on earth for?” inquired Mrs. Sandhayes, from the pier glass where she’d gone to readjust the high- piled edifice of her coiffure with an ivory comb. “The man’s not been out of his bed. It sounds to me as though some of these Maine ruffians followed Sir Jonathan back from his journey and lay in wait for him on his return to the Governor’s house. I daresay they’re safely back home in Obseybobscott or Pennywayback or whatever outlandish place they come from, and so the Admiralty Court will see, once they’ve heard the whole story.”

“Will they?” said Abigail drily. Despite aching gratitude for the warmth of the parlor after the morning’s bone-breaking cold, she could not keep from her mind John’s descriptions of the houses he had seen in Maine— two-roomed, primitive, buried beneath snow for months at a time—as she considered the curtains of pea green velvet, the printed Chinese wall-papers, and the delftware bowls displayed in the mahogany cabinets. “I am not, myself, quite so sanguine about what three Crown servants in Halifax are going to see.”

On the opposite wall, a portrait of Lucy’s mother—whose father had talked then-governor Dunbar and the Board of Trade into granting him the Maine land—smiled stiffly into middle distance. Her pink and silver gown was rendered with such meticulous attention that Abigail could recognize that the lace was Dutch rather than French, but her face might have been a whittled doll’s.

“Was there anyone at the Governor’s ball Saturday night, who might have wished Sir Jonathan ill?” she asked, interrupting Mrs. Sandhayes’s raptures over the entrance of her hostess’s overfed lapdog Hercules. “Anyone who disappeared for a period of time—”

“My dear Mrs. Adams, you are not suggesting that one of the Governor’s guests might have been responsible for this—this outrage?”

“Does social standing exempt a man from vengeance, or greed?” demanded Lucy indignantly. She added wryly, “Sir Jonathan himself is proof that it doesn’t exempt one from lust.”

“Lucy!”

Lucy turned eagerly back to Abigail. “People were coming and going all the time, m’am, but I think I can remember who I danced with, and the order of the dances. And Margaret was in and out of the cardroom—she plays like a Greek bandit! We can surely come up with some idea of it, if someone was absent for any period of time, especially if I gossip about among Mama’s friends. They all tear up characters like Harpies! I’ll ask if anyone knew anything to Sir Jonathan’s discredit or if he had a mistress—”

“You had best let me do that, dear,” said Mrs. Sandhayes firmly. “Your mother would expire of horror if she thought you even knew what a mistress was, and I would certainly be blamed for not giving you a more elevated tone of mind. Ah, Mr. Barnaby! A la bonne heure! What ambrosial delights has dear Mrs. Prawle prepared for us? Not her wonderful molasses tarts! There now, Mrs. Adams, I told you Barnaby was a genius: he’s even thought to prepare you some of that nasty tisane that dear Lucy has taken to drinking in preference to tea—”

“It’s rose hips and licorice-root,” said Lucy, with shy pride. “I tried getting coffee, but it’s Dutch, and Papa wouldn’t have it under his roof, and it’s a terrible nuisance to roast and grind the beans, and you can smell it all over the house. Philomela went down to the market and got me this, and I keep it hidden in my dresser-drawer. Thank you, Barnaby.”

“Think nothing of it, miss.”

“Mr. Barnaby.” Abigail lifted a finger to stay him. “Before you leave—what was Bathsheba’s reaction to Sir Jonathan’s departure? Was she relieved, as you’d expect, or was she troubled?”

“There now!”

Abigail was conscious again of a twinge of un-Christian pride, at the expressions of astonishment on the faces of both the butler and Mrs. Sandhayes.

It was Mr. Barnaby who spoke first. “How the—? M’am, I don’t know how you’d know of it, but you’re dead right. Poor Sheba . . . Well, he pestered her, as he did all the women of the house—”

“Pestered nothing!” exclaimed Lucy hotly. “He broke into her room one night, after he was supposed to have left here, and got into bed with her—”

“Lucy, really!”

“Well, he did. He told her if she didn’t shut up he’d buy her from Papa and use her how he pleased! Papa claimed he ‘took care of’ the matter,” she added mutinously, “but of course Sir Jonathan denied he’d done any such thing—”

“Dear child,” protested Mrs. Sandhayes, “your Papa could scarcely take the word of a servant over that of a King’s Commissioner, and a Negress at that—Dear Philomela, run and take Hercules outside, I see him contemplating his favorite corner of Mrs. Fluckner’s carpet in a way that I mistrust. Mind you”—she turned back to Abigail—“I wouldn’t put anything past the man.”

“Bathsheba’s as truthful as you or I,” protested Lucy. “Far more truthful than me, in fact . . .”

“Be that as it may, m’am, miss,” Barnaby interposed tactfully. “It’s true, as you’d expect, the day he left, poor Sheba went about like she’d just been let off a whipping, knowing he wouldn’t be coming to the house for a week and more. But Friday evening, it was like she’d seen a ghost on the stair: not able to settle to her work and barely did a third of what she’d usually accomplish with her needle. Mrs. Barnaby spoke of it—my good wife has the charge of the maids and the sewing,” he added almost shyly. “Showed me some of it, too—as badly mended and clumsy as if she were a girl in love with her mind a thousand miles away, and Sheba generally so neat and particular. There was something weighing on her mind, I’ll swear to that.”