Not that Pattie was ever resentful or sulky, thank heavens. The girl would never set the world afire with her wits, but when King Solomon had set a good woman’s value above mere rubies he’d clearly displayed his shortcomings as a housekeeper . . . A reliable servant’s is above the stars in the sky.
Which is what comes of having kings write scripture and not housekeepers.
I must remember to bake extra tomorrow, and send something to Orion.
She turned the corner into Queen Street, and saw bright as the blood-stream on Rebecca’s doorstep that morning the scarlet of soldiers’ coats.
Not for a second did she doubt at whose door the men stood.
John. There was a list that we didn’t find, and the Watch did . . .
Abigail went cold down to her toes.
Over a dozen neighborhood children milled around them, at a safe distance precisely calculated, like blue jays teasing a cat. “Bloody-backs, bloody-backs,” chanted Shimrath Walton, and shied a knob of pig dung at the smaller of the men: not the first such missile, to judge by the state of the boy’s hands and the man’s uniform. The little soldier’s face turned as red as his coat and he took a stride toward the offenders, but they scattered, shrieking with laughter, only to reform a few yards away. “Lobsters for sale!”
“Sure now, what’ll your Ma say, you chuckin’ your lunch about like that?” retorted the taller soldier, which got a laugh from the children in return.
“Shimrath,” said Abigail sharply, “come here this moment. You, too, Jed,” she added, picking out the leader of the little band, and before she could single out a third, her own Nabby and Johnny darted out of the alley that ran beside the house:
“Ma, the redcoats have come to arrest Papa—”
“We tried to stop them.” Nabby flung plump arms around Abigail’s waist and held her desperately tight. “We tried—”
“Are they still in there?”
Both children nodded. Nabby was a silent girl, even at eight years of age worrisomely withdrawn. Her composure shattered, she looked like she’d been weeping: She adored her father. All Johnny’s blunt-spoken sarcasm seemed to have deserted him as well.
“Nabby.” Abigail bent down to her daughter to whisper, “You run at once to Mr. Revere’s shop—Johnny, you go with her”—Johnny would never tolerate seeing his sister dispatched on an errand if he were not given one as well, and never mind that he was barely out of dresses—“and tell Mr. Revere that soldiers are here—How many are there?”
“These two and an officer inside,” reported Johnny promptly. “He’s from the Provost Marshal.” In addition to studying Latin and the beginnings of Greek under his father’s eye, the pale, fair-haired boy had lately become the neighborhood expert on the facing-colors and insignia of the regiment stationed on Castle Island.
“Tell Mr. Revere that. He’ll know what to do. Shimrath, run tell Mr. Sam Adams. He may be at his house again and he may still be at Mrs. Malvern’s house in Tillet’s Yard—Jed, you go to Tillet’s Yard. I’ll hold them here.”
The children bolted in all directions. The shorter guard, not having been privy to Abigail’s murmured instructions, grunted, “Thank you, m’am. Those brats are a nuisance, no error.” The taller—a young man with a snub nose and wide-set blue eyes—regarded Abigail worriedly as she moved toward the mouth of the little alley that led to the yard behind.
“Sorry, m’am.” He stepped in front of her. “Just but family permitted in.” His English was one step from Gaelic, and not much of a step at that. “Lieutenant’ll be done in a minute—”
“I am Mrs. Adams.” Abigail handed him her shopping basket and the pumpkin. “If you would be so good as to carry this in for me?”
The young man cast a disconcerted glance back over his shoulder, and the older one waved him impatiently, adding, “And keep hold of your damn musket!” when he would have set it against the wall.
“Yes, sorr. Sorry, sorr.” With his weapon tucked awkwardly under one arm, the pumpkin under the other, and the heavy basket in both hands, he followed Abigail around to the yard and the kitchen door.
“Put it there.” Abigail nodded toward the broad table of scrubbed oak in the center of the big room: kitchen, workroom, dining-hall, nursery, schoolroom, and stillroom combined, the warm heart of the house where everything of importance was accomplished. When the children were in bed it was here she and John would work on pamphlets, letters, reports to the Committees of Correspondence in other colonies, and it was here, upon occasion, that members of the small, unofficial committee that headed up the Sons of Liberty sometimes met as well.
At the moment Pattie, bless her faithful heart, was finishing with the lamps for the day, setting the cleaned tin triangles aside on their shelf—wicks neatly trimmed—to await the fall of night. This task she abandoned, face flooded with relief, at her mistress’s entrance. “Oh, Mrs. Adams—!” At the same instant three-year-old Charley—ordinarily the household’s most outspoken supporter of the Sons of Liberty and Death to King George—flung himself against Abigail’s skirts and buried his face in her cloak, clearly not up to the task of fighting full-grown British soldiers after all. Tommy, sixteen months old and Charley’s most loyal follower, wasn’t far behind.
“Flogged them, have you?” Abigail pressed both fair little heads reassuringly, and regarded the abashed soldier with a chilly eye.
“M’am, I swear—”
“Never mind. Pattie, I abase myself with shame for having abandoned you so heartlessly; there’s molasses candy in the basket which this nice young representative of His Majesty’s government has so kindly carried in for me. It is for you and for them. Is that cider I smell heating? Please pour some out for—what is your name?—Please pour some out for Mr. Muldoon, and bring in three cups of it on a tray to the parlor: the good cups. Don’t set your musket down there, young man, unless you want my son to shoot either himself or you with it—not on the table, either, if you please. We’re going to prepare food there. Pattie, may I trespass upon your good nature still further and ask you to start getting the chickens ready to roast and the lobster to boil, and the pumpkin to cook with apples and corn? I shall be in to help you as soon as matters have been dealt with in the parlor. And fetch one of the clean rags and lay it on the sideboard for that fearsome piece of artillery. Charley, you and Tommy may help Pattie with that.”
Having kicked off her pattens, hung up her cloak, removed her bonnet, straightened her day-cap, and donned a clean apron while she spoke, Abigail made her way through the door and into the parlor where John stood facing the representative of the British Army’s military law.
“Mr. Adams,” she greeted the short, chubby, round-faced little man beside the cold fireplace. “The house appears to be singularly well-protected today. To what do we owe the honor of this visitation?”
“Mrs. Adams.” John took her hand. “Allow me to present Lieutenant Coldstone, of His Majesty’s Provost Guard. Lieutenant, my wife.”
“I am honored.” Coldstone bowed.
He was well-named, Abigail reflected. His features had the appearance of something carved from marble: delicate, icy, and rigidly composed. The snow-white powder of his wig somehow added to the colorlessness of his features, rather than showing them up pinker, as the (admittedly ill-powdered) Muldoon’s did. His eyes were dark, and chilly as a well digger’s backside.
“The Provost Marshal,” said John, lifting from the mantelpiece a folded sheet of paper, “seems to believe I have some knowledge of the death of Mrs. Perdita Pentyre, if no worse involvement, and the disappearance of Mrs. Malvern, in whose house Mrs. Pentyre’s body was found. Did you know anything about this?”