Sup With the Devil

“Mr. Ryland.” Abigail held out her hand, over which the young bachelor-fellow bowed. “Are you here also to speak to His Excellency on behalf of poor Diomede?”

He looked momentarily nonplussed. “Of course, I shall speak as to his innocence—”

“Not necessary,” she assured him, a little drily. “Governor Hutchinson has agreed to intervene, insofar as the laws of property permit, to at least give us time to find the true culprit.”

“I would have expected nothing less of the man.” Ryland’s shoulders relaxed, as if relieved of the weight of a water-yoke. “I know that your husband finds his politics objectionable.” He spoke diffidently, but who in the colony wasn’t aware—Abigail reflected—of the diatribes John had had printed, under his own name and pseudonyms like Novanglus and Mrs. Country Goodheart? “But in truth, m’am—as I’m sure you have learned, in even the briefest of encounters with him—that his nature is not only just, but generous and noble. Will your husband indeed take on poor Diomede’s cause?”

“I shall see to it he does. But I did mean to ask you—”

He glanced around as another young man, trim and elegant in a suit of plum-colored velveteen, was shown into the parlor. “Mr. Ryland,” the newcomer greeted him affably, casually handing off his hat to the secretary, and Ryland bowed.

“Mr. Heywood.”

“Shocking business about poor old George, isn’t it? So much for La Woodleigh’s schemes to snabble his acres for her daughter—”

Abigail tardily identified La Woodleigh as the wife of Montgomery Woodleigh, who lived in Cambridge and owned five ships and considerable property in Boston.

“Anyone know if she’s heard?”

“I myself informed Mrs. Woodleigh this morning.” Spots of color appeared on Ryland’s cheeks, and Mr. Heywood grinned.

“Not wasting a moment, are you, old boy? Going to get your bid in with the beautiful Sally?” But he laughed as he said it, as if he’d asked, did Mr. Ryland have plans to be crowned King of England in the near future? An absurdity, to think that a young Fellow of the College whose out-of-date coat was worn threadbare at the elbows and whose stockings showed neat mends above the re-dyed backs of his shoes would offer for the hand of a Woodleigh. Abigail felt a flush of anger rise along her neck, at his look of carefully controlled chagrin.

“More to the point,” spoke up another young gentleman seated nearby—Abigail half recognized him as one of the younger Apthorps, whom she’d seen with his extremely wealthy parents at the Brattle Square Meeting-House —“d’you know when the Volunteers will be meeting, to select a new captain? I mean, we’ll miss old George terribly and all that, but trouble could break out at any moment, you know. We can’t be caught leaderless when it starts if we’re to get any kind of preferment when the King sends in his regular troops.”

“You sound very sure that he’ll be sending troops, sir,” said Abigail, and the young Apthorp rose to bow to her, Mr. Heywood acknowledging her with a deep salute as well.

“Mrs. Adams,” introduced Ryland in a colorless voice. “Mr. Heywood, Mr. Apthorp.”

She saw the glance that passed between them at her name.

“Lieutenant Apthorp, of the King’s Own Volunteers . . .”

“If you’ll excuse my saying so, m’am,” replied Mr. Heywood politely, “the King can hardly do anything but send troops, you know. I mean, whatever is finally decided about colonists’ rights and all that”—his gesture dismissed the question as if it were one of how many beads to pass along to the Indians —“Parliament isn’t going to let itself be dictated to by a gang of hooligans dressed up as Mohawks. If you ask me, m’am, your husband and his friends did themselves a great disservice, resorting to violence that way. They’re never going to get away with it.”

“I’m not sure who you think my husband is,” responded Abigail, “as there are a great many Adamses in Massachusetts—but if violence is not the answer, as you say, I don’t entirely see how sending armed men into the situation is going to calm it. Surely—”

Young Mr. Oliver appeared in the doorway of the inner study. “Mr. Heywood?”

Mr. Apthorp went in with his friend; the secretary raised no objection. Nor, evidently, did the Governor, because the door remained closed.

Ryland turned back to his chair but waited until Abigail took the seat next to his before sitting down himself.

“And is Mr. Heywood a lieutenant also?”

A small sigh escaped his lips. “I had hoped—” he began, and then was silent.

Abigail said nothing, and in time, Ryland went on, with suppressed exasperation, “I shouldn’t mind it, you know, if either of them had the slightest experience of arms or command—other than telling their grooms to saddle their horses, that is. George served in the Virginia militia; for my sins I volunteered, like the idiot boy I was, to join the King’s forces when Pontiac and his Indians attacked in the west of Pennsylvania. I’ve had experience in war. And, His Excellency knows me. For six years I’ve worked in his library . . .”

He stopped himself again, and simply finished, “Well.”

And you still ask why men in this colony find fault with Crown Governors who give positions of advantage only to those whose wealth will help them or to friends of the King? She didn’t say it, but Ryland, looking at her face, must have seen the words there, for he sighed again, and said, “Dura lex, sed lex . . .”

“The law is harsh, but it is the law,” repeated Abigail softly.

“And things as they are, are harsh,” said Ryland. “But the alternative—turning the country over to men who think the answer to a legal problem is the destruction of other men’s property—is, I think, a solution worse than the problem.”

He folded his hands and sat for a time looking at them. The Governor’s butler came in with yet another petitioner and, as he passed Ryland’s chair, nodded to the young man in a friendly way. She remembered someone saying yesterday—Weyountah?—that Mr. Ryland was one of the several young men whom Governor Hutchinson was sponsoring into Harvard, supporting not only the cost of their tuition and books, but in cases providing clothing and fuel in the cold New England winters as well. His faded green coat, with its old-fashioned, too-full skirts and threadbare cuffs, was of expensive wool and might well have belonged to the Governor himself ten or fifteen years ago. It was nothing a young man would buy for himself, even if he had the two or three pounds that such a garment would cost new.

At length he said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Adams. There was something you wanted to ask of me, and I’ve let myself become distracted—”

“No, ’tis no matter.” She put a hand briefly on his sleeve, and he raised his head a little, brown eyes meeting hers, then moving to the blue twilight beyond the windows. A servant came in with a taper and proceeded to light the candles in their holders all around the walls: beeswax and bayberry, not tallow, and all of them new. Abigail wondered what the Governor paid for lighting this great house, first and last, and if his half-burnt candles were passed along to his protege?

“It is, though,” he said. “And I see your very faithful and patient daughter is hoping that all of this will be over soon.” He smiled at Nabby, which made Abigail smile in her turn.

“And so it will,” said Abigail. “I wished only to ask you, Mr. Ryland . . . How difficult would it have been for someone to drug Diomede? To get into Mr. Fairfield’s room, and to put laudanum into his rum? I think it must have been someone in the college, someone who knew the doors have no locks, who knew that Diomede was in the habit of sneaking his master’s rum when Mr. Fairfield was out at night. Was Diomede generally in his master’s rooms when his master was at lecture or in the library?”

Or meeting with “friends” behind the college barn—a practice which seems to have been common knowledge.

“Either there or close by,” replied the young man. “Or Horace was there—doing George’s work as well as his own, I fear.” Disapproval deepened the lines at the corner of his mouth. “Two years ago—not long after the Volunteers were formed—Fairfield’s rooms were vandalized: books torn up, clothing and bedding defiled. No one was ever punished for it.”

Given Dr. Langdon’s political views, this didn’t surprise Abigail, but something inside her cringed. Though in principle she understood it when Sam said that the King and his minions would not pay attention to mere words,