Sup With the Devil

just laundered, and I know you’ll want a clean one in the morning . . . No, no, just send it back when you’re home . . .”). Unfair, of course, to abandon her children to Pattie and Aunt Eliza—to whom Pattie would unfailingly take them, once it was clear that their mother had missed the ferry. Six-year-old Johnny had an instinctive dislike of change, and little Tommy—at eighteen months—was of an age to want things to remain the same . . . and Nabby would worry. Abigail wished, as she brushed out the raven cloak of hair that fell to her hips and braided it for the night, that there was a way that she could have sent them a note, at least, reassuring them, though it would be obvious what had happened . . .

In time, she hoped, Johnny would be coming to Harvard, as his father had. Abigail hopped quickly between the spotless sheets, blew out the candle . . .

But in ten years, she could not keep herself from asking, would the college still be in existence? A year ago, or two, the question would have been unthinkable. Harvard College was the best and oldest school in the colonies. Yet in throwing the King’s tea into the harbor, the Sons of Liberty had effectively declared their rebellion against the King’s authority. Only a fool or a child would talk himself into believing that the retribution for this behavior wouldn’t be severe . . .

And her acquaintance with the Sons of Liberty convinced her that whatever the King did, their reaction would be equally violent.

As she drifted toward sleep, she heard again, on the edges of her dreams, the angry shouting of mobs that had at various times attacked the shops and businesses of men who’d denounced the Sons. Remembered the sparkle in Sam’s eyes when he’d related to her how he’d egged on a mob to even sack the house of the Governor: the building had been gutted, and the collected records of the first years of the colony, painstakingly collected by that scholarly gentleman in order to write the first comprehensive history of Massachusetts, had been torn and trampled in the gutters . . .

Remembered, too, the crack of guns in King Street, the black pools of blood in the blue evening snow. It was too easy to picture in her mind the college buildings in flame or occupied by troops . . .

Though she had knelt by the bed to say her prayers before undressing, Abigail propped herself on the pillows a little and again folded her hands. Whatever paths they tread, she prayed, ten years from this night or with the coming of this night’s dawn, You have already laid out for them, for their good and Your best purposes. But as their mother, I beg of You, keep them safe, hold their hands in Yours . . .

She must have fallen asleep in midprayer—as she almost invariably did when she prayed in bed with the featherbed up to her chin—because the next thing she knew, it was morning, and Mrs. Squills was knocking on the door of her room with the news that George Fairfield had been murdered in the night.

Four

They’re saying Diomede did it.” Horace’s face was white as paper, save his eyes, which were swollen and red—he had been weeping for his friend when Abigail had come into the Golden Stair’s private parlor.

“Who’s saying?” She took the chair on the other side of the small fire. Beyond the window, mist still lay on the Common, and the birds she’d heard twittering themselves to sleep last night when George was alive were waking in every tree and shrub.

“The Dean, and Dr. Langdon—the President of the College—and the sheriff, Mr. Congreve. He was drunk— Diomede was—but just because a man’s had a dram or two . . .” Horace broke off in some confusion, with an expression of helpless guilt, remembering no doubt the numerous family discussions in which the consumption of alcohol was roundly denounced as the root of considerably more evil than grew from the greed for money.

“Of course not!” It said much, in Abigail’s opinion, that Horace’s tolerance for the foibles of others had widened to that extent. Two years ago the boy had been an unconscionable prig on the subject. One gift of a Harvard education . . .

“Diomede would never have raised his hand against George.” These last words came out as a whisper, and Horace sank into the chair in which he’d been sitting when Abigail—hastily dressed and tying a fresh, clean, and borrowed cap of Mrs. Squills’s over her hair—had hastened into the room.

With astonishing good sense, the landlady—who must have been nearly as upset over the murder as Horace was—brought in a tray of coffee things. Abigail poured a cup for herself and hot water for her nephew, to which she added a little honey. “Drink that.” When Mrs. Squills went out, through the open door of the ordinary blew the voices of men discussing the crime: murdering nigger—drunk as David’s sow—knife still in his hand . . .

“What happened? You’ll feel better. Who’s there now?”

“Weyountah,” whispered the boy. “He waked to the sound of George shouting at someone—not shouting, really, just raised voices . . . His room is across the landing. Mine is above Weyountah’s—Mr. Beaverbrook from New York is above George, and you couldn’t wake Beaver if you set his rooms on fire. But George often shouts at Diomede, you know . . .” He put his hand quickly to his mouth as if to catch back the present tense.

“What time was that?”

Horace shook his head. “When the bell rang for chapel this morning, Weyountah went across and knocked at the door—We all have to work to make sure George gets to chapel. It’s Diomede’s job, but the last two times Dio had a few drinks, George was fined, and Dr. Langdon warned him . . . So either Weyountah or I will check. When Diomede didn’t answer, Weyountah went in and found him asleep—”

“In the study?” She remembered the small leather chest in the corner of George’s little study, which contained the slave’s pallet and, no doubt, every other item the man owned. In Virginia, she had been told, the house-slaves often slept on the floor of their masters’ rooms, like dogs.

Horace nodded, struggling to speak in something resembling normal tones. “There was blood on his hand, and on the sheet—” His voice cracked, and he raised the cup to his lips, needing two hands to hold it steady. “Weyountah ran into the bedroom. George was lying in his bed, in his nightshirt. He’d been stabbed—there was blood all over the bed—”

Abigail put both of her hands over the boy’s cold one. “Was there a knife?” She knew better than to believe what the men in the next room were yelling to one another.

Horace nodded. After a moment he recovered himself enough to reply, “On the floor next to Diomede’s pallet, covered with blood.” Then, when she came around to kneel beside his chair, he threw his arms around her shoulders and held her desperately, his body trembling with the impact of the first great grief, the first blow of loss and violence in his life.

Abigail held him, stroked his back as she did Tommy’s when the little boy had a nightmare, saying nothing. But her mind raced. Her grief at the young man’s death seemed to run in tandem with her shock at the manner of it, and totally separated from the thousand questions that formed themselves up, sharp and clear as if she saw them written down on a paper before her. What kind of knife? Was it one of George’s, or strange to the establishment? Diomede would know that—probably Weyountah also, he seems an observant young man . . . Was there anything missing from the room? When did George come in last night? Was Diomede dressed?

Was there anything in the bedroom that seemed out of place?

But Horace was barely seventeen years old and had just taken a wound as agonizing as the one that had killed his friend, and for a time she did nothing but hold him, letting him know that there was someone to hold.

He took a deep breath, let it go. Let go of George, as if he had been clinging to his friend’s hand. He began to say, “I’m sorry—”

“Shush. Can you take me back there now? Are you able for it?”

Horace nodded, pushed his steamed and tear-blotted spectacles back into place, then removed them, and fumbled to clean them on the end of his neckcloth. “Diomede would never have done it,” he said.

“Was he drunk? George said he drank . . .”