The Ninth Daughter Part 13

"You think it was the same man?"

"I don't know," said Abigail. She told him of her words with Coldstone, of the help Malvern had given her, and the accounts of Zulieka Fishwire's neighbors. "Sometimes it looks to me like the act of a lunatic, and at others, like a cold-blooded crime masquing as one."

"Why the delay?" he asked. "Zulie Fishwire was killed-what? A year ago last September? If it is the same man, why did he stop? And why did he start again?"

"I thought he might have left Boston and come back. If he were a sailor on a deepwater vessel, for instance, or a whaler. Lieutenant Coldstone is writing to the authorities in Philadelphia and New York. John says he thinks the note we found in Mrs. Pentyre's pocket, arranging the meeting, is a forgery, but whether that means the killer is in the Sons, or Mrs. Pentyre had simply given him the code for another reason, or whether he just had access to her correspondence, I don't know."

Quickly, she sketched out to him all that Lisette Droux had told her about the young gentleman, beau comme Adonais beau comme Adonais, and what the inhabitants of Love Lane had had to say about Abednego Sellars. "I suppose it would lie beyond the bounds of coincidence for him to be Mrs. Pentyre's mysterious lover-"

"Not unless Mademoiselle Droux is singularly desperate or singularly blind," put in Revere. "Abed is a well-looking man-and G.o.d only knows what women see in any man-but beau comme Adonais beau comme Adonais? Never." He shook his head. "And yet-he's never been the same, since word came to him of Davy's death. In the time between their getting word that he'd been pressed into the Navy, and word of his death-over a year, that was-he was . . . I feared he'd go out of his senses. I think it was that, put a wedge between himself and Penelope. He'd take out his rage on her, then go try to drink himself unconscious, and all the while keeping up his position in the church, and running his business." He fell silent, and a muscle in his temple stood out, with the clench of his jaw.

In time he said, "He was one of the constables of the Cornhill Ward, during the summer of '72. He would have heard the details of the other murders. And," he added with a sigh, "he was in town the night of the twenty-fourth, for all his prentice-boy said he was in Cambridge. I know, because I saw him, drinking at the Green Dragon."

"At what time?"

"About seven. Long after the gates had been closed." Revere poured her out tea. "It does seem like two criminals, doesn't it? One mad-and maybe dead by this time-and the other . . . pretending to be him, for his own ends."

"And Lieutenant Coldstone is certain-for what reason I don't know-that that second criminal is John." She folded her hands around the teacup, grateful for its warmth. "Not you, not Sam, not any of the actual leaders of the Sons of Liberty . . . specifically John. And in all of this, Rebecca has still made no appearance, nor has her body been found. I think-" She turned her face aside, and found herself suddenly having to work to keep her voice level. "I think it would actually be rather difficult to conceal a body in a town this crowded, for this length of time."

"Easier in winter than in summer," said Revere gently, and Abigail nodded.

"There is that. Now tell me-" She took a deep breath, and brought her gaze back to his. "Now tell me about Jenny Barry."

"Jenny Barry." Revere handed her a two-penny pottery sugar bowl-he who made the most exquisite silver ones in the colony-and sat for a time, collecting his thoughts.

"Myself, I think it was only a matter of time, before she met the end she did," he said at last. "She was one of your bawdy wh.o.r.es, who reveled in being a disgrace. A big well-made Irish girl, with hair like a bunch of carrots. If she had money she'd spend it, on gimcrack ornaments and rum. I doubt she drew a sober breath since before she was a woman, and she could not have been twenty-five when she died. Everyone on the North End knew her, if not to speak to then by sight: There wasn't a man who crossed the Mill Creek by day or night she did not approach. There's a story-" He grinned suddenly at the recollection. " 'Tis said one day Governor Hutchinson's coach was stopped by some pigs in the lane, and she climbed in and sat on his knee, and offered him a drink from her bottle. She followed me once the whole length of s.h.i.+p Street, shouting to the world how I was afraid of a real woman, as she called herself . . ."

"And were you?" asked Abigail, amused.

"Petrified. Still," he said more quietly, "her death was an obscenity. I don't know why I didn't think of her, the moment I saw Mrs. Pentyre."

"Possibly because hers was a death that falls more often to poor wh.o.r.es, than to rich ones?"

"Possibly." He sounded sad.

"Lieutenant Coldstone says she was killed somewhere else, and brought to the wharf-"

"Lord, yes. In the summer the whole world's out on the waterfront 'til all hours." Revere's fingers, long and deft, toyed with the carved-horn spoon. "Jem Greenough-he was constable of the ward that summer-said he thought it must have been done at the Queen of Argyll, across the way, which was where she generally took her men-friends. The landlord there is a cold-blooded rascal, and keeps open 'til dawn in the teeth of church and Army and all. He has rooms on his yard that n.o.body sees who goes in and out; all the girls use them. If he found her in one of them, as we found poor Mrs. Pentyre, he'd have done as we did."

Abigail sniffed. "At least Sam didn't put Mrs. Pentyre's body out in the road. Or was that only because Mrs. Pentyre wasn't found until daylight?"

"Where Sam is concerned, and the liberties of Englishmen," returned the silversmith quietly, "I would put nothing past him."

"You said Abednego Sellars was constable over in the Ninth Ward, in '72 when Mrs. Barry was killed," said Abigail after a time of thought. "Davy Sellars was taken in '68 or '67, so Sellars would have been frequenting the taverns in the North End pretty heavily by then-"

"Well, he always did," said Revere. "And he knew Jenny Barry, if that's the direction I think this is heading. I saw them together on three or four occasions, at the Queen or the Sh.o.r.es of Paradise. Did it mean anything?" Revere shrugged. "For that matter, she'd had a kiss or two off Sam, at a Pope's Night parade . . . and there was more in one of Mrs. Barry's kisses than there is to some marriages I've seen. Certainly to Abednego's. But whether that means he'd murder the woman, and two others, and lure one of them to the house of one of our own pamphlet-writers instead of out to someplace like the Commons or the far side of Barton Point . . ."

He looked up at the tinkle of the shop-bell, and the boy's voice called from the shop, "Pa? It's Mr. Adams."

Abigail said, "Drat!" and Revere handed her to her feet, gave her her marketing basket, and led her to the small door to the yard.

"The gate there past the shed will take you out to Wood Lane, by the c.o.c.kerel Church." He pointed. "Just one request, in trade for the information I've given you, Mrs. Adams. Talk to me-or to John-before you take any steps."

She tilted her head warily. "So you can forbid me, for the good of your endeavor?"

"So we can make sure someone goes with you," he said quietly. "Good luck." He stood in the rear door of his shop until she was through the little gate.

Abigail turned them over in her mind, as she walked back toward Queen Street. Jenny Barry, Zulieka Fishwire, Perdita Pentyre. Coldstone had spoken several times of the differences between them: In what way In what way, she asked herself, are they alike are they alike?

Are we in fact seeking two criminals here, or one?

Just because Perdita Pentyre received a note luring her to the place of her death, it does not mean that the other two did not.

One killed in a tavern, another in her house, a third in the house of a friend. She saw again the single column of smoke rising above the mansarded slates of Richard Pentyre's mansion; heard the constant soft stirrings and creakings that had murmured at the edges of her interviews with Scipio, with Charles Malvern, with Lisette Droux in the Malvern kitchen.

Maids, butler, grooms at Pentyre's house had been the guarantee of Perdita Pentyre's protection. Those servants who knew everything, who slept beneath the same roof albeit in their maze of little attic chambers up beneath the rafters. Had it been chance only, that the murder had taken place on the night the Tillets were away?

A group of men pa.s.sed her, newly in from the country, rifles on their shoulders and powder horns at their belts. They stepped respectfully out into the center of the street, to let her keep the higher and less mucky ground close to the wall. In their way, they were precisely like the Pentyre servants. Their mere presence was a guarantee of protection. It is when we are alone that we are vulnerable. It is when we are alone that we are vulnerable.

She wondered if she were insane, for agreeing-nay, demanding-to go across the harbor to Castle William that afternoon. Of course, she told herself, Colonel Leslie was highly unlikely to clap her into a cell and send word to John to present himself alone and unarmed somewhere at midnight or he'd never see her alive again . . .

Considered in that light, her peril (if there was one) sounded as far-fetched as the situation in Pamela Pamela, which always caused Rebecca to roll her eyes at the ceiling. John, too-last night, as they'd gotten into bed, John had said, "That farrago is honestly honestly your favorite novel?" Rather defensively, Abigail had replied, "And why would it not be?" your favorite novel?" Rather defensively, Abigail had replied, "And why would it not be?"

"You honestly think that a rich and powerful gentleman would-or would be able to-hold a young woman prisoner in the attic of a country house, with the connivance of not one but two entire staffs of servants, and and of every other person in the countryside-" of every other person in the countryside-"

"You've obviously never seen a family putting pressure on a girl to marry a man of property and power whom she doesn't like," she'd retorted, and the quibble had pa.s.sed to other matters. Perhaps it was that discussion which had touched her thoughts, perhaps her dream of rain and darkness.

But as she walked along the street with the morning sky pale pewter beyond the line of the gables above her, she thought, An attic An attic. Sam's patriots had been poking into cellars, snooping around smuggler-caches, investigating warehouses for nine days, finding nothing . . . All those places where the smugglers hid their packets of tea and casks of cognac and other goods that the English Crown forbade English colonists to buy from any but English merchants. And those places all had this in common: that they could be entered by a stranger from the street.

With the complicity of the household, Rebecca could be hiding-or be hidden in-any house in town.

Or her body could be buried in any cellar.

The thought halted Abigail in her tracks, in the middle of the street; a coldness fell on her like the shadow of a storm. She's being held. She's being held.

And the next instant: That's ridiculous That's ridiculous . . . . . .

Isn't it?

But her heart was beating fast, and she felt as she'd felt when, as a child, she'd grasped the logic that linked mathematical principles, or had understood for the first time why G.o.d must must know who would be saved and who d.a.m.ned: that sense of seeing gears mesh, of facts falling into place. Before the eye of her mind flashed the open shutters of the Tillet attic, closed for the year that she'd been visiting Rebecca on Fish Street. With the Pentyre household in an uproar over its mistress's murder, would Lisette Droux even be aware, during that first day or two, of someone being kept in one of those myriad little chambers marked by the stylish mansion's dormer windows? Would she have thought to mention it? Particularly if some other explanation had been given that required her silence. know who would be saved and who d.a.m.ned: that sense of seeing gears mesh, of facts falling into place. Before the eye of her mind flashed the open shutters of the Tillet attic, closed for the year that she'd been visiting Rebecca on Fish Street. With the Pentyre household in an uproar over its mistress's murder, would Lisette Droux even be aware, during that first day or two, of someone being kept in one of those myriad little chambers marked by the stylish mansion's dormer windows? Would she have thought to mention it? Particularly if some other explanation had been given that required her silence. We must make our nest against a storm- We must make our nest against a storm- Ludicrous. The immediate, overpowering sense of reasonableness faded as swiftly as it had come. John was quite right: You honestly think You honestly think . . . . . .

No. She didn't. Not honestly.

But the case Mr. Richardson had made-for a young girl who was powerless, with no family connections and no one to inquire after her, being held captive-returned again and again to her mind as she hurried her steps toward home.

She reached Queen Street in time to do her own share of the housekeeping-sweeping, cleaning the lamps and candlesticks, making up the aired beds with Nabby's a.s.sistance-before plucking and dressing the ducks she'd bought and putting into the oven the bread she'd set early that morning to rise. She should have done laundry Monday and Tuesday, while she was out gallivanting through the countryside, she reflected. It must certainly be done this week. It must certainly be done this week. And . . . and . . . and . . . And . . . and . . . and . . .

Charley and Tommy clung to her skirts one moment, then caromed off back to their blocks and gourds.

In between all that she ate a quick nuncheon of bread, b.u.t.ter, and cheese, knowing she'd get nothing until supper. When everyone else was eating dinner she, G.o.d preserve her, would be on her way across to Castle Island-and probably too seasick to even think of food.

The thought brought another one. Before she left to meet Lieutenant Coldstone, she wrapped up a small crock of b.u.t.ter, a wedge of her mother-in-law's justly famous cheese, half of one of her new-baked loaves and some of the pears she'd bought, put them in one of her baskets, and left the house slightly early, to give herself time to carry this offering to Hanover Street. The Hazlitt bookshop was closed. When she went round to the back, she could see through the shed windows a great stack of paper beside the printing press, a much smaller pile of finished pamphlets, and a dozen hung up to dry. From the half-open door of the keeping room came the sound of voices, Mrs. Hazlitt's very fast, running over Orion's interjections- "-Don't interrupt me, darling, you never listen to me now, you used to care what I had to say. Now you don't even care that I love you. That I have given up everything, everything in my life for love of you-"

"Of course I love you, but-"

"Then listen to me! Please, sit down and listen to me for once-"

"Mother, I always listen-"

"You don't! You're always thinking about just dosing me with that horrible laudanum-don't go looking around the room for it while I'm speaking, please, please, my darling-"

Orion caught Abigail's eye as she stood in the doorway. He'd clearly been interrupted in the midst of a print run, his sleeves rolled to his biceps, his s.h.i.+rt, ap.r.o.n, flesh all smudged and sticky with ink. He moved his head, with a slight, desperate jerk, toward the open door of the staircase (And with the cost of wood it's no wonder he can afford no better help than Miss d.a.m.nation, with the heat wasted . . .). Remembering what he'd told her about laudanum, Abigail set her basket on the sideboard and moved swiftly to the narrow door. . . .). Remembering what he'd told her about laudanum, Abigail set her basket on the sideboard and moved swiftly to the narrow door.

If the house itself, shop and all, covered more ground than a couple of good-sized tablecloths she would have been surprised. The second floor boasted one moderate bedchamber and a sort of windowless cupboard where paper, ink for the press, and the slender stock for the store were kept. When Abigail had first encountered Orion Hazlitt, upon moving to Boston, he'd had an apprentice who'd slept downstairs in the shop, and an elderly and crotchety housekeeper who'd slept in this cupboard. This good woman had left the household in high dudgeon when Lucretia Hazlitt had arrived, bag and baggage, and had informed her son that she would now live with him and keep his house. The bedchamber that had been Orion's was, when Abigail ducked into it in quest of the laudanum bottle, crowded with trunks of his mother's dresses, and the housekeeper's sleeping-cupboard crammed with printing supplies. Rebecca had written to her that Orion kept that room locked at night and frequently during the day, for his mother had a tendency to go in and dump the contents of the household chamber pots there, if she felt she was being ignored or put off with excuses.

The laudanum bottle stood on the corner of the mantel-a fresh one, by its fullness-and Abigail noted that a cozy fire burned to warm the room despite the fact that Mrs. Hazlitt spent most of her day in the keeping room. The bed had been neither made nor aired nor, by the smell of the room, had the chamber pot been emptied. Poor Orion! Poor Orion! There was a trundle bed half pulled out beneath the big one, presumably for d.a.m.nation. At a guess, Orion would be sleeping on a pallet in the keeping room . . . There was a trundle bed half pulled out beneath the big one, presumably for d.a.m.nation. At a guess, Orion would be sleeping on a pallet in the keeping room . . .

At the head of the stair, laudanum bottle in hand, Abigail paused, her eye caught by the ladder that led up to the attic. On impulse she went back to it, and climbed to the trapdoor- The tiny s.p.a.ce below the steep-slanted roof was crammed with more trunks, all the things Mrs. Hazlitt had bought in the nearly two years she'd lived with her son: dresses, sets of chinaware, clocks, birdcages, an ostrich egg packed in straw. One couldn't have imprisoned a lapdog up there, let alone a full-grown kidnapped maidservant.

You have indeed read Pamela Pamela too many times. too many times.

Abigail descended to the keeping room once more.

Mrs. Hazlitt was in tears by the time Abigail emerged from the staircase (and thriftily closed the door after herself), Orion holding her in his arms and covering her face with kisses. But in his own countenance was only exhaustion and revulsion, and the haggard desperation of a man who sees no light at the end of his road. He beckoned Abigail up, and it took the two of them to get his mother to swallow the medicine: She spit the first mouthful at him, cried when he forced her to swallow the second by holding her nose and keeping a hand on her mouth.

"When she gets excited like this, I'm always afraid d.a.m.nation will give her too much of the stuff," he said, when they'd finally guided the stumbling, disheveled woman to her chair by the keeping room fire. "I must must finish the pamphlets, and I finish the pamphlets, and I must must get to the meeting this afternoon. Please don't think-" he began, with a glance back toward his mother. He brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, making the mess worse. "She wasn't always like this, you know." get to the meeting this afternoon. Please don't think-" he began, with a glance back toward his mother. He brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, making the mess worse. "She wasn't always like this, you know."

"I know." Though in fact, Rebecca had written to her last year that according to her son, Mrs. Hazlitt had always been a horror.

"Bless you-" He lifted the napkin from the basket, his tired face lighting up. "You are indeed an angel, Mrs. Adams. Now I must fly-" His face altered, suddenly twisted with dread, fatigue, grief. "You have heard nothing, I suppose?"

Looking up at him, she wondered when he had last slept. She shook her head. Now was not the time, she knew, to lay upon him her own inconclusive findings and nightmare surmises. He was a man who bore trouble enough.

"It will be over soon." Abigail placed her hands over his, on the basket's plaited handle. "I'll make a little extra for dinner tonight, and send Pattie over with it. John tells me the Dartmouth Dartmouth must unload her tea by Sat.u.r.day-a week from today-else it will all be confiscated to pay the harbor tolls. Whatever happens, it will only be a week." must unload her tea by Sat.u.r.day-a week from today-else it will all be confiscated to pay the harbor tolls. Whatever happens, it will only be a week."

He caught her wrist as she was turning away, looking up at her with ravaged eyes. "And then what?" he asked softly. "Rebecca-Mrs. Malvern-"

Saved or endangered, dead or alive, femme seule femme seule or spouse abused . . . Rebecca would always be some other man's wife. or spouse abused . . . Rebecca would always be some other man's wife.

Abigail said quietly, "G.o.d knows. But G.o.d does does know-and will inform us, in due time." know-and will inform us, in due time."

Twenty-one

Visiting Castle Island on the previous Friday, Abigail had received the impression of crowding and bustle, in the brick corridors of the little fortress, and in the village of tents, huts, cow-byres, sheep pens, and laundry-lines that had grown up around its walls. When the two sailors from the c.u.mberland c.u.mberland landed her there today-in company with the family of an English customs clerk named Burrell, two gentlemen related to the Olivers, and towering mountains of luggage-Abigail saw her earlier error. It seemed to her that at least as many tents and huts again had been newly erected, not only for the servants of the refugee Tories but for all the lesser officers and their clerks and servants who had been displaced from the fort, so that the likes of the Hutchinsons, Olivers, and Fluckners could have its st.u.r.dier roof over their heads. Smoke from cook-fires wreathed the walls and stung Abigail's eyes as she and Thaxter picked their way up from the dock. Every step was impeded by camp servants putting up shelters, sheep penned in the thoroughfare, bales of provisions, and prost.i.tutes. The whole place smelled like a privy. landed her there today-in company with the family of an English customs clerk named Burrell, two gentlemen related to the Olivers, and towering mountains of luggage-Abigail saw her earlier error. It seemed to her that at least as many tents and huts again had been newly erected, not only for the servants of the refugee Tories but for all the lesser officers and their clerks and servants who had been displaced from the fort, so that the likes of the Hutchinsons, Olivers, and Fluckners could have its st.u.r.dier roof over their heads. Smoke from cook-fires wreathed the walls and stung Abigail's eyes as she and Thaxter picked their way up from the dock. Every step was impeded by camp servants putting up shelters, sheep penned in the thoroughfare, bales of provisions, and prost.i.tutes. The whole place smelled like a privy.

Lieutenant Coldstone met her a few yards from Castle William's gate.

"Mrs. Adams." He bowed over her hand. "I beg your pardon. I had meant to come to fetch you-"

"Good heavens, Lieutenant, with this many soldiers s.h.i.+fting their arrangements about I'm astonished you have a few minutes to meet me here. Did you have civilians quartered upon you?"

The chilly reserve broke into a grin at this reversal of the usual civilian complaint of the military being quartered in private homes, swiftly repressed: His eyes still smiled. "I have lived under canvas before, m'am; and that, recently enough that it is no catastrophe. The civilians forced to take refuge here, from fear of the mobs in Boston, have been neither trained to it, nor are they for the most part physically suited to such hards.h.i.+ps. Not only the men by whom your husband and his friends feel wronged, but their wives, who have surely wronged no one, and children as well."

"And, as the Lord says to Jonah, also much cattle also much cattle," remarked Abigail, stepping out of the way of a girl in a dirty skirt, driving half a dozen pigs through the gate. "Lieutenant Coldstone, you recall Mr. Thaxter, my husband's clerk? I a.s.sume Mr. Pentyre has consented to see me?" She took Thaxter's arm again and followed Coldstone after the pigs up to the gate, the muck of the path sucking and clinging to her pattens.

"With certain stipulations, yes."

"Stipulations?" Abigail raised her brows, and got an enigmatic glance over Coldstone's epauletted shoulder in reply.

"He has asked that I be present at the interview-at a sufficient distance that conversation in a low voice should be private enough if you choose," he added, antic.i.p.ating Abigail's protest, though in fact what she felt was relief that she would not be obliged either to broach or explain the matter of his presence herself. "And he has requested that you be searched."

Abigail stopped short under the low brick tunnel of the gate. "Searched?" "Searched?"

"With all due decency." Coldstone's voice, like his features, seemed wrought of polished marble, ungiving and absolutely smooth. "I have asked the wives of five of the sergeants major here: respectable women, and honest. You may choose which of them you will, to perform the office. He would not meet you, else."

Abigail opened her mouth, outraged, then closed it again. Why would he ask that? Why would he ask that? Her eyes searched the face of the man before her. "He sounds like a man in fear for his life." Her eyes searched the face of the man before her. "He sounds like a man in fear for his life."

"Were he not," replied Coldstone civilly, "he would not be living in a single clerk's room on this island. Nor would any of the other lawyers, Crown officers, merchants, and their families currently eating Army rations. Your husband is, I might remind you, known as one of the leaders of the Boston mob-"

"He is not not!"

"Forgive me for contradicting a lady, m'am, but he is indeed known known as such, whatever his true position might be. And if he will take such a position, his wife must needs suffer for it, even as Mrs. Oliver and Mrs. Fluckner and the Apthorp ladies do-and, I might add, suffer to a considerably lesser degree. Will you agree to submit to the conditions?" as such, whatever his true position might be. And if he will take such a position, his wife must needs suffer for it, even as Mrs. Oliver and Mrs. Fluckner and the Apthorp ladies do-and, I might add, suffer to a considerably lesser degree. Will you agree to submit to the conditions?"

Abigail smiled. "I would not miss it for worlds."

The wives of the sergeants major were red-faced, thick-armed, good-natured-looking women of the kind one would meet in the marketplace any day, not the slatternly trulls described in pamphlets from one end of New England to the other (I have have been listening to too many of Sam's diatribes been listening to too many of Sam's diatribes). Abigail selected the one who looked most talkative, and remarked, as they retired behind a screen (there being no spare rooms in the fortress at all besides this single office), "I had no idea I was considered so formidable. Does Mr. Pentyre truly expect me to a.s.sault him?"

"That I don't know, mum. He's sure no so fussy about others that see him-and his poor wife did did come to a terrible end." come to a terrible end."

"Were you acquainted with her, Mrs.-?"

"Gill. Maria Gill. And only to give a good day to; as sweet and condescending a lady as you could ask, which is somethin' you don't often find in Americans, begging your pardon, mum. Not like that nasty-" She stopped herself. Abigail could not but wonder if the next words out of her mouth would have been, that nasty Mrs. Belle-Isle that nasty Mrs. Belle-Isle. "She'd often stop and talk with us, or with the women who did laundry or sewing here-not the girls that do for the men, you understand, but the town women who do fine work for the gentlemen. She had what my mum used to call 'the common touch': permittin' no liberties, of course, but not bein' so high in the instep as some I could name, that treats honest women as if they were the dirt in the streets."

"She was here fairly often, was she?" Abigail stepped out of her skirt and stood back while Mrs. Gill pinched and shook her petticoats ("With your permission, mum-"), turned her bodice inside out, and conscientiously removed and held up every item in her pockets and set them on the chair in their screened sanctum ("Are you sure you're warm enough, mum?").

"Well"-Mrs. Gill half hid a little conspiratorial smile-"all those town ladies, they were back and forth to dine, of course. And the officers would invite them sailing, or to reviews, or to hear the regimental band. So yes, Mrs. Pentyre was often here."

"With her husband?"