Silence lay between them, and Abigail drank her tisane. Pattie and the children went out into the scullery—Pattie had promised to make a syllabub for after dinner—and the kitchen was quiet. Oddly so, it seemed, without the church bells that had rung over Boston for two weeks. Indeed, the silence seemed a little ominous.
“I must say I’m a little surprised, that the Indians unloaded all three ships,” remarked Abigail after a moment. “What came of the rumor that someone was going to unload the Beaver secretly—?”
Rebecca laughed, and flung up one hand in exasperation: “Do you know who was behind that? Richard Pentyre. Sam told me only yesterday: ’tis what Pentyre was trying to arrange on the Wednesday night, that his wife—” Her voice faltered, and she put her hand quickly to her lips.
To call her thoughts back, Abigail said, “He guessed there’d be trouble, and sneaked off after seeing his mistress, to hire smugglers to circumvent it?”
Rebecca nodded, and made herself smile. Abigail saw the tears flood to her eyes.
“And of course he guessed there’d be trouble because that wretch Bargest had sent him a note, threatening his life.”
Rebecca drew breath, to steady herself, and let it out again. “ ’Tis lucky he had the note, or he’d have been a suspect himself.”
“Don’t think I didn’t suspect him.” Abigail refilled her cup. The silence returned.
At length Rebecca said, “I dreamed about it last night. Again. In daytime I barely remember it, but at night—”
“ ’Twill pass.”
“I know.” Rebecca pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment, and sighed again. “I don’t even know if the things I see in my dreams really happened or not. I remember—I think I remember—waking up lying on my bed with my hands tied, in the dark, but I have no idea how I got there. Orion had come earlier, of course, with some more of the Hand of the Lord’s wretched sermons, but I know he left. And I remember going out a little later, and seeing Queenie standing in the alley gate, talking to one of the men who buys kitchen leftovers—grease and suet and such, only of course Mrs. T. forbade her to sell them. The way she started when I spoke to her, I suspect she was selling other things, like the odd spoon, or a few ounces of Mr. T’s cognac.”
Abigail sniffed. “I wondered if ’twas something like that. The way she lied and prevaricated about having been in the alley, or having talked to you—”
“Miserable woman. I suppose,” she added, “that living under the same roof with Mrs. Tillet would make anyone miserable, let alone a thief and a liar. I remember talking to her, and going back into the house as the rain was starting, but nothing after that.”
“We think—John and I,” Abigail said slowly, “that Orion must have unlatched the window in the parlor when he was there earlier, and slipped back in that way while you were out talking to Queenie by the gate. Yours was the only house, you see, that he knew he could get Mrs. Pentyre to come to alone.”
It was the blood, Orion had said. I thought I could kill her without . . . But then I saw the blood. Smelled its smell . . .
Had Bargest told him, You’re a Weapon in the Hand of the Lord, but for God’s sake don’t go crazy and cut the woman to pieces like you did those others . . . ?
A Weapon in the Hand of the Lord.
Was Sam? Was she herself, as Lisette Droux had hoped?
“I dreamed—I don’t know even if this really happened,” whispered Rebecca. “I dreamed I saw him through the kitchen door, standing above her body . . . Blood all over his hands—”
“Don’t—”
She shook her head, pressing on as if driven to purge the scene from her thought. “Blood all over his hands, and he looked down at them, at her, as if he knew not for a moment how it had got there. Then he looked up, and in my dream I swear I saw the light of Heaven, falling from far-off on his face, and he cried, Why have you done this to me? Why did you create me this way? Abigail, why would God create a man that way? Will he be punished—is he now in Hell—for being as God made him?”
Abigail murmured, “Only God knows what was in his heart.”
“That’s no answer.” Her brown eyes blazed with anger, with helplessness—with a passion, Abigail thought, that would never let her rest.
“No more than ’tis to say, The man was born a monster, for reasons no one knows. But ’tis the only answer God gave Job, when he spoke to him out of the whirlwind. And poor Orion was not the worst monster in the case.”
She looked up as John walked into the kitchen, passed through it catching up his hat and greatcoat, and on out into the yard. “I see Lieutenant Coldstone has come to call,” she remarked.
An instant later, Thaxter appeared in the hall doorway. “Mrs. Adams? Lieutenant Coldstone is here.”
“Is there a fire in the parlor?” She tidied up the legal notes, the morning papers with their account of the drowning of the East India Company’s precious tea. “Well, I suppose ’twill warm up soon—Pattie, would you bring us some coffee? Lieutenant,” she greeted him, as she and Rebecca entered the small—and icily cold—chamber where the officer was trying to warm his hands before the newly kindled hearth. “I’m sorry Mr. Adams is away—”
“You astonish me, Madame,” said Coldstone drily. “Your servant, Mrs. Malvern. I hope you are recovered? And yourself, Mrs. Adams—”
“Have you come to question me instead, about the events of last night? I assure you I’ve only just finished reading the Gazette’s account of them—”
Somberly, the young man replied, “My business is justice, m’am, and the law. What took place last night was an act of insurrection, nothing less. I came only to see how you go on. And I must say,” he added, with a bow that took in both women, “I am extremely pleased to see you looking well. You especially, Mrs. Malvern. And I came to inform you,” he went on quietly, “that the body of Orion Hazlitt was found yesterday evening, in a wood not far from Salem. He had been dead about a week, shot through the head.”
“God have mercy on him.” Rebecca put her hand again, briefly, to her lips. “He had to be stopped—and I think that only death could have stopped him—but he did save my life. And yours, Abigail. It should count for something.”
“Were the world just,” replied Abigail softly, “it might. Thank you, Lieutenant. How is Sergeant Muldoon?”
For the first time an expression of human warmth cracked the young man’s face, and he smiled. “Recovering—and cursing at the regimental sawbones for keeping him in quarters. The ball broke his collarbone, but did little other damage beyond the loss of blood—and the lad’s tough as boot leather. I cannot say I was particularly pleased to get word from you that you’d kidnapped him as you did, but following Hazlitt that night, when he fled Castle Island, I was glad that it was Muldoon you were with.”
“So that’s how you turned up so pat,” remarked Abigail. “I wondered how you knew where Gilead was. Even some tribes of Indians,” she added wryly, “got lost looking for the place.”
Coldstone’s face stiffened. “In fact, it was Miss Fluckner who alerted me to the fact that Hazlitt had come out to Castle William,” he said. “With so many true citizens of the Crown on the island, it was easy enough for anyone to conceal himself among them, which I suppose is what he counted on. He could have come upon Pentyre at any time, stabbed him, and disappeared into the crowd. He had this upon him.” From the pocket of his cloak Coldstone took a long, thin-bladed knife, of the kind stationers sell, to cut open the pages of books. It had been sharpened to a razor keenness. Abigail turned her eyes from it, remembering not only Perdita Pentyre’s mutilated body, but the fact that Hazlitt had also slaughtered Zulieka Fishwire’s cats.