The Ninth Daughter Part 5

"Nonsense!" stormed John. "My wife has been kept sitting here, in a cold and drafty hallway, since nine o'clock! I do not propose to leave her alone in the midst of an armed camp, exposed to the comment of every servant and laundress who happens by! You tell your Colonel-"

"I'm quite comfortable, thank you, Mr. Adams." Abigail laid a quick touch on his elbow. "I have brought a book with me."

"I will not have you treated-"

Though she was s.h.i.+vering with the cold, she shook her head again, meeting his eyes. "It is of no consequence. We have been delayed long enough already."

John looked about to say something else, but at that moment Lieutenant Coldstone appeared in the archway from outside, a leather sabertache beneath his arm and his Irish sergeant at his heels. "My apologies for the inconvenience, Mrs. Adams, Mr. Adams. Unfortunately there is no other place to wait. Sergeant Muldoon, would you be so good as to bring Mrs. Adams a cup of tea? Or coffee, if you would prefer, Madame."

"Coffee," said Abigail drily, and the Lieutenant bowed, as if the whole of the colony were not aflame on the subject of tea.

"Coffee, then. Mr. Adams?" He held open the door, and closed it behind them.

Three hours. Abigail opened the book she had brought, then let it rest on her lap. The gauzy quality of the noon overcast brought other clouded days to her, in the little kitchen on Brattle Street: one of those wet mornings when she'd patiently attempted to teach Rebecca how to make Indian pudding that did not end as inedible clots. "He sent her away," Rebecca had said, holding up the note that had just come to the house. "Without a character, Scipio says. Only for having served me." "Does she have family?" Abigail had asked, and Rebecca had said, "A brother. She fled the place; she wanted something other than to be a farm drudge-"

At that point Johnny, who had just turned three, had staggered purposefully toward the fireplace and the discussion had ended, and Abigail never had learned where Catherine's brother lived. From time to time over the ensuing years, Rebecca had spoken of receiving letters from her former servant: a farm somewhere, in the harsh backcountry that still crowded close to the cities of the seaside. Charles Malvern had not scrupled to- Raised voices came dimly through the office door, faded almost at once. Abigail blinked, frowned. How long do they need, for John to sign a bond? How long do they need, for John to sign a bond?

Is there another door out of that office?

She waited for a moment when the corridor was empty-servants were coming and going with greater frequency now, bearing dress uniforms to be brushed, trays of tea things or port bottles-then stepped to the door. Putting her ear close to the crack, she heard Coldstone's chill, measured voice asking something, and John's, loud with his anger, reply, ". . . liver bay, about ten years old, white stocking on the off hind . . ." Balthazar, in fact: John's horse. Had John dispatched his clerk, young Thaxter, to return the post-horse he'd borrowed to get back to Boston on? He must have-she hadn't seen the young man at dinner yesterday afternoon, though he often stayed to eat with the family. She shook her head at herself. I must have been more tired than I knew . . . I must have been more tired than I knew . . .

"Purley himself, for one," John was saying. They must have asked him, who saw him at Purley's Inn. They must have asked him, who saw him at Purley's Inn. "Mrs. Purley, for another. A couple of the Uxford boys, and Elias Norton from Danvers . . ." "Mrs. Purley, for another. A couple of the Uxford boys, and Elias Norton from Danvers . . ."

"The same Elias Norton, who has been accused of smuggling? I understand, too, that Mr. Purley's sympathies are strongly with the so-called patriots-"

"The sympathies of half the men in New England are with the patriots, man! Will you discount a man's testimony on the grounds of his politics?"

"M'am?"

She turned, sharply, to see young Sergeant Muldoon behind her with a tray of coffee things, and a sort of folding camp table hung over one immense shoulder. Her cheek-bones heated with embarra.s.sment at being caught eavesdropping, but she asked, "Is there another door out of that office?" and reached out to take the tray from his hands.

"That there is, m'am," he said, gratefully handing it over and unfolding the camp table. "Into the Colonel's bedroom, it leads, and out into the parade. The cook says, there's precious little cream this time of year, but I got you some, I have, and a bit of cake."

Abigail made herself smile, spread her skirts, and settled on the bench again, there being no way that she could think of to check whether a company of armed men waited in the Colonel's bedroom to drag John away in chains. "Thank you, Sergeant," she said. "Lieutenant Coldstone didn't happen to mention whether anything was found in Mrs. Pentyre's chaise, to hint at whoever might have driven it from the house where Mrs. Pentyre's body was found, to . . . was it Lee's s.h.i.+pyard?"

"That it was, m'am!" The young man regarded her with admiration. "Think of you askin' after that, same as the Lieutenant did, when he looked it over so careful. A chaise is a chaise for my money, and himself that angry that it'd been tipped off the end of the dock there where the water's deep, not to speak of it spucketin' rain like Noah's Flood. Looked it over like somebody'd hid a treasure map under the seats, he did. And And looked over every inch of the horse they found, like he meant to buy it. He's a caution, he is, m'am, beggin' your pardon, m'am." looked over every inch of the horse they found, like he meant to buy it. He's a caution, he is, m'am, beggin' your pardon, m'am."

"Pardon freely granted." Abigail smiled, and poured herself out some coffee from the small earthenware pot. "And did did he find aught?" he find aught?"

"Not on the horse nor the chaise, m'am, given they was out in the rain all the night. But just lookin' at the poor lady's shoes, an' at the hems of her petticoats, if you'll excuse me mentionin' such a thing, m'am, and her poor face, he says she wasn't tidied up and laid on the bed by him what killed her, but by others, hours later, for what purpose G.o.d only knows." He gave her a bow, and then-not to omit any sign of respect-saluted her as well, before excusing himself and hurrying off.

A caution indeed, Abigail reflected, reopening Pamela Pamela and taking a nibble of the regimental cook's excellent cake. Wet hems and wet shoes meant she'd arrived in the rain, and the settling of the blood that Dr. Warren had spoken of told its own tale of how long she'd lain on her face before she was put on her back on the bed. and taking a nibble of the regimental cook's excellent cake. Wet hems and wet shoes meant she'd arrived in the rain, and the settling of the blood that Dr. Warren had spoken of told its own tale of how long she'd lain on her face before she was put on her back on the bed. Just because he knows someone tampered with the house doesn't mean he knows who. Just because he knows someone tampered with the house doesn't mean he knows who.

Was that why he suspected John? Because Rebecca would have admitted him to her house without question?

Try as she might to absorb herself into her favorite book-not, as Rebecca had described it, "the world's longest s.h.i.+lly-shally," but (Abigail had repeatedly pointed out to her) a serious look at how men and the world regarded a woman's right to choose her own destiny-Abigail found her mind returning again and again to the riddle that lay before her, like a labyrinth plunged in darkness and reeking with the smell of blood.

It was close to two when John emerged at last from Colonel Leslie's office-Abigail checked twice more at the door, as the hour had dragged on, to make sure she could still hear his voice-and he was escorted only by the subaltern who had shown him in. She would have given much to have been able to hear what Lieutenant Coldstone and Colonel Leslie had to say to one another in private, but even had John not worn the watchful look of one who isn't certain he'll actually be allowed to board the departing boat, she couldn't think of an un.o.btrusive way of listening at the door.

"d.a.m.n Sam and his myrmidons," said John softly, as they pa.s.sed between the red-coated guards at the Castle's gate and picked their way through the straggle of tents, boxes, and sheep pens toward the wharf. "Too many times they've run up against witnesses who'll swear that one or another of the Sons of Liberty was elsewhere than where they know he was, or smugglers who'll slip a man across the harbor at dead of night when the gates are closed."

"That's what they a.s.sume you did?"

He nodded. "Left my horse in one of the smuggler barns on Hog Island and crossed in a rowboat, did the deed, then slipped back-"

"But why why? Why Why do they believe this of do they believe this of you you, of all people, and why would you have done such a thing? It was an atrocity, John. Do they honestly think you would be capable of performing those acts-"

"They don't know that." John's voice was grim. "Thanks to Sam, all they saw was her body-slashed, yes, but laid neatly out on a bed, and the blood all mopped away. And we cannot tell them otherwise. You're frozen," he added, chaffing her gloved hand as they descended the muddy path to the little wharf where Linus Logan waited for them in the Katrina Katrina. "You should not have-"

"They gave me very nice coffee," replied Abigail. "And had I not come, in all this time waiting I'd have gone mad at home, and murdered the children in my rage, and then wouldn't we both have felt silly when you came back safe after all."

No message had come from Sam, or Revere, or Orion Hazlitt in their absence. But after a dinner of yesterday's chicken stewed, when Abigail had milked "the girls" (as she called Semiramis and Cleopatra) and was pouring out milk by lantern light in the icy scullery, Pattie came in with a note. "A boy brought it, m'am. Is it about Mrs. Malvern?" Her elfin face puckered anxiously, as she watched Abigail unfold the sc.r.a.p of kitchen paper and angle it to the light.

Mrs. Adams- Forgive me the inconvenience to you entailed in a meeting at six thirty tomorrow evening, in the yard of Mr. Malvern's house, to tell you what I know of Mrs. Moore's whereabouts. These are the only time and place available to me. I will arrange that the gate be open, and that an escort is provided to see you to your home.

I am your ob't etc, Scipio Carter

Nine

Whatever Charles Malvern might feel-and say-about those would-be imitators of English society who ate their dinners by lamplight, Abigail guessed that with a fas.h.i.+onably minded daughter and son in the house, six thirty was probably the earliest any servant there was going to have a moment's leisure. Which was, she supposed, to the good. Her conscience nagged her painfully about her own work, neglected or, more reprehensibly, shuffled off onto poor Pattie's slim shoulders.

Yet the next morning, instead of setting briskly forth to the market the moment Nabby and Johnny led the cows out of the yard toward what little pasturage the Common offered these days, Abigail brought out her writing desk, and began reading through the twoscore letters that Rebecca had sent to her, in the eighteen months between the family's removal to the Adams farm in Braintree in April of '71, and their return to Boston nineteen months later, in November of '72, scanning for names. In hundreds of desultory conversations, Abigail recalled her speaking occasionally of friends, cousins, her brother's comrades from Baltimore, to any one of whom she would have opened her door on a rainy night. Names Abigail recalled only vaguely, and sought now, in the letters, grimly fighting the temptation to linger on the memories they stirred.

Her anger came back to her, reading of how Charles Malvern had harried her from first one set of chambers and then another; the sadness and pity, at that letter when Rebecca spoke of Orion Hazlitt's growing love for her; grief at the account of little Nathan Malvern's death. And like a mirror in her friend's words, the recollection of her own days on the farm, with John's two brothers and their wives and children, John's indomitable little mother and her easygoing second husband . . . No lying jealousies about stepparents there.

It was well and truly eight o'clock before she set out for the market. Coincidentally, just about the time the Tillet cook Queenie-in Abigail's mind one of the laziest women in New England-generally made her appearance there.

"Wait your turn, you pushy slattern!" the stout little woman shrilled at a young housemaid who was trying to get past her to a golden heap of pears. "The nerve of some people!" she added, loudly, as Abigail came up beside her. "Think they own the market-not that these nasty things have any more juice to them than ninepins, or flavor either. And a penny the s.l.u.t wants for two of them! Why would anyone want two of the things, or one either-don't you pay her prices, Mrs. Adams, I refuse to stand by and let a good woman be cheated." She dragged Abigail away. "What Mrs. T will say sweetening the fruit, with sugar at three s.h.i.+llings for a loaf, and blaming me that there's nothing fit for the family to eat-"

"How horrible for you," sympathized Abigail warmly, "after the shocking day you had Thursday! I had meant to come yesterday, to see how you did-and I confess I'm astonished you were not felled by it all!-but that vain, arrogant arrogant officer dared to come and order officer dared to come and order John John to go out to the camp, only because he was Mrs. Malvern's lawyer-" to go out to the camp, only because he was Mrs. Malvern's lawyer-"

"Oh, my dear, you don't know," gasped Queenie. "You can't can't know how things have been since then! That horrible Lieutenant Coldstone, and those dreadful soldiers, asking me if I'd heard anything in the middle of the night-What would I have heard, sleeping as I do in the west attic and the whole house locked up, and at midnight, too?-and Mrs. Tillet coming home in the midst of it all, and such a row there was, with all the luggage brought in, I swear my head was pounding fit to split! You know the headaches I get-" know how things have been since then! That horrible Lieutenant Coldstone, and those dreadful soldiers, asking me if I'd heard anything in the middle of the night-What would I have heard, sleeping as I do in the west attic and the whole house locked up, and at midnight, too?-and Mrs. Tillet coming home in the midst of it all, and such a row there was, with all the luggage brought in, I swear my head was pounding fit to split! You know the headaches I get-"

"Oh, dear dear, yes!" agreed Abigail, having been treated to minute descriptions of every single headache whenever she came to call on Rebecca over the course of the past year. If Nehemiah Tillet had a habit of dropping in on his tenant to advise her on how best to arrange the wood in her fireplace, and Mrs. Tillet was constantly in and out of Rebecca's little house to bring s.h.i.+rts for Rebecca to sew and errands for her husband that could not be put off, Queenie was just as intrusive, crossing the yard a dozen times in the course of preparing dinner, with items of gossip, complaints about her health and the ill treatment she was obliged to endure, or simply queries: Who was that who was just here? Is he a gentleman friend of yours? Don't think I didn't see Mrs. Wallace coming to call on you-is it true she's a spendthrift who has nearly bankrupted her husband . . . ? Who was that who was just here? Is he a gentleman friend of yours? Don't think I didn't see Mrs. Wallace coming to call on you-is it true she's a spendthrift who has nearly bankrupted her husband . . . ?

But when Abigail interrupted the catalog of further symptoms to ask, was there anyone Rebecca had spoken of, to whom she might have fled, the cook only bristled, and snapped, "Belike she's run off with her man-after all her talk of how she's pure as driven snow-"

"Her man?" asked Abigail, startled. "Not Mr. Hazlitt-"

"As if her sort stops at one." Queenie sniffed. "The one she let in through her parlor window from the alley."

"Did you see him? Was this at midnight? It could have been-"

The protuberant brown eyes s.h.i.+fted suddenly, and Queenie said, "No, of course not! That is, it wasn't at midnight-What would I have been doing in the alley at midnight? It wasn't Wednesday night at all. I mean to say, I've seen her do so at other times, many other times, and everyone in the neighborhood knows it, too!" she added defensively. "What I mean to say is, this Mrs. Pentyre, if she she was carrying on with the Colonel of the British Regiment, and had someone else she wanted to meet, a woman like the Malvern is just the one who'd have let her use her house. And I'm sorry to say it," she went on doggedly, as Abigail opened her mouth to protest, "being as I know you were taken in by her cozening ways, but taken in you were, Mrs. Adams." was carrying on with the Colonel of the British Regiment, and had someone else she wanted to meet, a woman like the Malvern is just the one who'd have let her use her house. And I'm sorry to say it," she went on doggedly, as Abigail opened her mouth to protest, "being as I know you were taken in by her cozening ways, but taken in you were, Mrs. Adams."

"No!" Abigail stopped still in the midst of the market crowd. "How dare-That is," she collected herself, seeing Queenie's face redden dangerously, "how could I have been so deceived? Are you sure of this man you saw?"

"Other nights," said the cook. "Dozens of other-"

"Mrs. Queensboro!"

So engrossed had Abigail been in Queenie's rather confused tale, that she had completely neglected to keep an eye out for Hester Tillet. The draper's wife swept up to them now like a Navy Man of War in her dark gown and tall, starched cap, her voice like a bucket of coals falling down a flight of stairs. "I don't come to market to have you stand prattling of our affairs to all the world-your servant, Mrs. Adams." She accompanied her bobbed curtsey with a poisonous glare.

"M'am, I would never-"

"Don't you tell me what you would do and what you wouldn't," snapped Mrs. Tillet. "I won't have it. Come away at once."

Though Queenie was a good decade older than her employer she bowed her head at once and retreated.

" 'Twas my fault, m'am," said Abigail quickly, hoping to win herself enough of Queenie's goodwill to elicit further confidences later. "I but asked after Mrs. Malvern-"

"Then shame on you for gossiping with servants," retorted Mrs. Tillet. "The lazy trollop has come to her just and fitting end, and I make no doubt they will find her body, too, in time, at the bottom of the harbor, with her throat cut like her friend's." She closed her hand around Queenie's arm-a mighty handful of flesh, but the linendraper's wife had a grip to accommodate nearly anything-and thrust her away ahead of her into the crowd toward the oyster seller's stall.

Though her own market basket was still nearly empty, thanks to her companion's determination not to let her purchase from any farmer to whom she herself had taken a personal dislike, Abigail-with a backwards glance to make sure the towering Tillet bonnet was still moving among the stalls-hastened her steps around the corner of the market hall and out of sight. A small bridge crossed the opening of the town dock, leading to the tangle of lanes that eventually gave onto Ann Street, then Fish Street, along the brisk and crowded waterfront of the North End. It was a walk of only minutes to the alley that led to Tillet's Yard, shadowed still with the wet light of the chilly morning.

The gate was still closed-and still barred, though Tillet and the younger of his two prentice-boys were obliged to help a carter unload several quires of paper, a roll of buckram, and a box of what appeared to be shoes in the street beside the shop's front door, to the great inconvenience of traffic. But Abigail didn't need to enter the yard to refresh her memory. Rebecca's parlor window-shuttered again now-looked out onto the alley, and there was no way that it could be seen from either the main Tillet house, or from the yard.

Had Queenie seen a man entering Rebecca's window, either Wednesday night or on some other occasion? Despite the vindictiveness in her voice, the cook's words had had a ring of truth, before she'd begun to go back on her story and obfuscate . . . What, indeed, Queenie seen a man entering Rebecca's window, either Wednesday night or on some other occasion? Despite the vindictiveness in her voice, the cook's words had had a ring of truth, before she'd begun to go back on her story and obfuscate . . . What, indeed, would would she have been doing in the alley, on a night of threatening rain? On a night, moreover, when her master and mistress were away? Selling a pound or two of the Tillet cornmeal, or a loaf of sugar, to put the money in her own pocket? she have been doing in the alley, on a night of threatening rain? On a night, moreover, when her master and mistress were away? Selling a pound or two of the Tillet cornmeal, or a loaf of sugar, to put the money in her own pocket?

Abigail couldn't imagine the self-pitying little woman possessed a clandestine lover of her own. Either way, reason enough to come up with any kind of slander to undermine Rebecca's credibility, had Rebecca, for instance, seen her from that parlor window when she opened it to pull the shutters to. Still- The only window of the L-shaped Tillet house that overlooked the alley was the small gable window of the south attic, a room which Abigail knew had for years been given over to storage, after the overhasty marriage (in her opinion) of the youngest daughter of the house. According to Rebecca, the cramped and stuffy little chamber had been shuttered and out of use for years.

But as she looked up now, she saw-a little to her surprise-that the window's shutters stood open. And just for a moment-though admittedly the angle of her vision was a narrow one, looking up from the straitened confine of the alley-Abigail thought she saw pale movement behind the dingy gla.s.s.

Mrs. Tillet's unmistakable voice boomed from the street, shouting to her husband. Abigail moved off further up the alley, to cut through a neighbor's drying yard and garden, and so out onto Cross Street un.o.bserved.

There was no message from anyone, by the time she came belatedly home.

As she swept and cleaned the upstairs rooms, scoured lamps, listened to Nabby and Johnny's lessons, mixed a batch of bread and prepared dinner-with extra provision for tomorrow's cold Sabbath meals-Abigail's mind chased memories.

Rebecca Malvern at eighteen, coming for the first time into the Brattle Street Meeting-House as a bride. She recalled how the dark, self-consciously sober fabric of her dress had been cut and trimmed with a stylish flare that no Boston woman would ever display. In her own family pew, Abigail had overheard the whispers from the pews on all sides: Maryland . . . dowry . . . Papist . . . Poor little Tamar Malvern told me only yesterday she said, "I'll teach you to pray to the Virgin and the Pope." Maryland . . . dowry . . . Papist . . . Poor little Tamar Malvern told me only yesterday she said, "I'll teach you to pray to the Virgin and the Pope." Tamar, mincing with downcast eyes behind her new stepmother, had looked smug; Malvern icy; Rebecca wretched, but head still high. Tamar, mincing with downcast eyes behind her new stepmother, had looked smug; Malvern icy; Rebecca wretched, but head still high.

October of 1768. Abigail herself, she recalled, had been great with the child who had become Susanna-her precious, fragile girl. That was the week the redcoat troops had first come ash.o.r.e in Boston, setting up their tents on the Commons, and jostling everywhere in the streets. A group of them had pa.s.sed the meetinghouse after the service, and while Malvern had paused to ask John some question about the vestry-on which they were both serving that year-Rebecca had commented to Abigail, Are we expecting French invasion, or does the King just think that eight hundred of his armed servants in the town will cause us to sleep better of nights? Are we expecting French invasion, or does the King just think that eight hundred of his armed servants in the town will cause us to sleep better of nights?

Some in the congregation didn't hesitate to ascribe her objection to the King's troops to a secret Papist's natural sympathy for the Irish, or perhaps the French. But despite the difference in their ages, in Rebecca, Abigail had found a kindred soul. Before long she was inviting the girl to take potluck tea in the kitchen while she herself did the household mending, rather than sit formally in the parlor, and Rebecca had watched in wide-eyed consternation as Abigail performed whatever household tasks needed doing: churning b.u.t.ter or sc.r.a.ping out candlesticks or kneading bread, things that had been done by slaves in the home of Rebecca's father. Later, when Rebecca was living with them-sharing the bed with Nabby and Johnny in the other small upstairs chamber-they'd laughed together about her dismay. "I wish I'd paid closer attention!" Rebecca had moaned during her first lesson with the b.u.t.ter churn. Abigail had replied in her primmest schoolmistress voice: "At least you've seen one before and aren't frightened." Rebecca had flicked droplets of the skimmed milk at her from her fingertips, like a schoolgirl, and they'd both laughed.

How good it had felt to laugh, Abigail remembered, after all those weeks of grieving Susanna's death.

John had promised to return from consulting a client in good time to walk Abigail to the Malvern house, a distance of barely a quarter mile. With the Sabbath on the morrow, and John confined by his bond to the town limits of Boston, Abigail didn't really expect him to conclude his business that quickly, and when the dinner dishes were washed and the pots scoured, the kitchen swept and all the lamps filled and set out ready, she'd gone two doors down Queen Street and made arrangements with young s.h.i.+m Walton the cooper's apprentice. "I wouldn't dream dream of trespa.s.sing on your master's beliefs, s.h.i.+m, by asking you to do paid work once the Sabbath Eve has begun! But I've had a premonition that I may accidentally drop a halfpenny in the street first thing Monday morning as I go past your master's shop . . ." of trespa.s.sing on your master's beliefs, s.h.i.+m, by asking you to do paid work once the Sabbath Eve has begun! But I've had a premonition that I may accidentally drop a halfpenny in the street first thing Monday morning as I go past your master's shop . . ."

A carriage was drawn up before Malvern's front door, as it had been on Thursday afternoon. From across the street, Abigail watched the merchant climb inside, stiff and self-conscious-looking in a satin coat and hair powder. Cloaked shapes that had to be his two surviving children followed him, tall Jeffrey and slender Tamar, trailed by the more robust shape of the giggling maid. Scipio, in his evening livery, bowed them away from the house's single, shallow step, then turned back inside. As he did so, another servant on the ground floor leaned from a window, and closed the shutters against the night.

"I'll be all right now, s.h.i.+m," said Abigail softly, but the boy insisted on escorting her across the street and down the carriageway to the yard. Scipio must have come straight from the front step to the kitchen's door to meet her, his candle glinting on the bra.s.s of his livery b.u.t.tons.

The fire had already been banked in the kitchen, but the room still pulsed with warmth, exquisite after the night's brutal cold. The glow of the oil-lamp on its chain dimly outlined cauldrons and skimmers, trammels and oil-jars in the shadows, and the brick floor still smelt of the after-dinner wash up. The butler had kept coffee from dinner for her in the pot on the hob, and served her in one of the family cups: blue English porcelain rather than servants' pottery.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come up with the direction of Miss Catherine's brother any sooner than this, m'am," Scipio explained, when Abigail had gestured him to sit. Since it was the house he lived in, she felt strange and awkward inviting him to do so, slave or not, even as she stopped herself from inviting him to share with her the coffee he'd made. What is the proper behavior between slave and free in this situation? What is the proper behavior between slave and free in this situation? she asked herself irritably, and concluded that there wasn't any. A truly proper servant wouldn't have admitted a stranger to his master's house in the first place, nor discussed the family's affairs with an outsider. "She wrote to me, and to Ulee in the stables, once or twice over the last year. But we had to look through the letters to find mention of the nearest town to her brother's farm. It's Townsend, but where that might be I don't know. Wenham is another place she speaks of, but she writes as if it's some ways off from her, it sounds like." she asked herself irritably, and concluded that there wasn't any. A truly proper servant wouldn't have admitted a stranger to his master's house in the first place, nor discussed the family's affairs with an outsider. "She wrote to me, and to Ulee in the stables, once or twice over the last year. But we had to look through the letters to find mention of the nearest town to her brother's farm. It's Townsend, but where that might be I don't know. Wenham is another place she speaks of, but she writes as if it's some ways off from her, it sounds like."

"Wenham is some ways off from any spot on the civilized earth," muttered Abigail. "Always supposing Mrs. Malvern could get across the river or through the town gate."

"I understand-" Scipio cleared his throat delicately. "I understand that Miss Rebecca had friends who might have skiffs or whaleboats that could get her across the harbor, even on a falling tide and a rainy night-"

"If she had such," replied Abigail, with equal tact-since no one in Boston, not even the slaves, admitted to knowing anyone either engaged in smuggling or involved with the Sons of Liberty, "and of course I don't for a moment imagine she would know such people-I think they would undertake inquiries amongst themselves, and quickly learn if that had in fact been the case. It does not seem to have been."

"Ah." Scipio nodded. "I didn't think you would be asking after Miss Catherine, if it had. Mr. Adams-"

"-has some fairly low acquaintances. Did Lieutenant Coldstone ask about Mrs. Malvern's possible friends friends?"

The slave shook his head. "Not of me, he didn't. And I think if he had asked Mr. Jeffrey or Miss Tamar, I would have heard. Myself, I don't even know for a fact if she had such friends, though I know that being friends with Mr. Adams, and Mr. Revere, and reading the newspapers and arguing with Mr. Malvern as she did, I shouldn't be surprised to hear of it. As to what Mr. Jeffrey or Miss Tamar might have told him-or their father-I can't answer for that."

Abigail was silent for a time, gazing into the dense shadows of the kitchen. Even under the relatively strong glow of the oil-lamp overhead, the long sideboards, the st.u.r.dy bin-table and homely water-jars were barely distinguishable in the gloom. After a time she asked, "Do they hate her so much still?"

The butler sighed. "Not hate, I don't think, so much, Mrs. Adams," he said. "They were her enemies before they even met her. I think Miss Tamar talked herself into hating her-and talked Mr. Jeffrey into it-because it's easier to do evil to someone you hate, than to admit to yourself you're only telling lies and making trouble because you don't want another little brother or sister to come along and cut into your inheritance. That's what it came down to."

"Rebecca-Mrs. Malvern-told me once that Tamar would search her room while she was away, and stole her letters. She said she always suspected it was Tamar who learned, and told Mr. Malvern, about her arranging to pay her brother's gambling debts with part of the household money, and backing her father's bills with Mr. Malvern's name. Mrs. Malvern said she knew she shouldn't have done it, but-"

"People do foolish things for those they love." Scipio poured her a little more coffee. "It's true Miss Tamar doesn't like the idea of having her father's estate cut up into five or six rather than just in two, but it's for Mr. Jeffrey that she started working to turn her father against Miss Rebecca. For Mr. Jeffrey and little Master Nathan-she did her possible, to turn that poor little boy against Miss Rebecca, for his own good for his own good, as she said. He'll thank me for it He'll thank me for it, she said, 'specially after Miss Rebecca left. But when he was ill there at the end," added the butler softly, "it was Miss Rebecca he would call for."

And it was for Nathan, Abigail knew well, that Rebecca had chosen to remain in Boston, the summer of '72. Hoping against hope that she would have the opportunity to go to the child's bedside.

"Does Miss Tamar still have Miss Rebecca's letters?" asked Abigail. And, when Scipio looked uncertain, she went on, "I'm not fis.h.i.+ng for servant-hall gossip, Scipio. Mrs. Pentyre was deliberately lured to Rebecca's house-I know this," she added, seeing the surprise in his face. "Believe me, it is true. She was lured there, and murdered, by someone who knew Rebecca: someone who knew that he could get Rebecca to let him into the house, one way or another. I think she saw him, and I think that's why she fled. It may be someone she knew in Boston-someone I would know, or Mr. Adams, or even you . . . and it may be someone she knew before she married Mr. Malvern."

"Who?" asked Scipio, baffled. "Most of her people-her brother and her father-are dead. The rest of her family cut ties with her, when she gave up her faith."

"That's why I need to see her letters," said Abigail. "Because whoever he is, I suspect that he knows she saw him. And unless we find him-and find her her-he may reach her first."

Ten

"What I don't understand, m'am, is how Miss Rebecca even knew this Mrs. Pentyre." Scipio kept his voice to a near-whisper as he led Abigail up the servants' backstairs to the upper floor. "She was only a young girl, not even wed to Mr. Pentyre when Miss Rebecca left this house. Unless Mr. Pentyre for some reason thought to learn something from Miss Rebecca, that would damage Mr. Malvern-"

Abigail said, "Good Heavens!" It was something she hadn't even considered. "Would he? I've never met the man-"

"Nor I." They reached a tiny landing and the butler opened the little door there. The hall was near pitch-dark, save for the dim glow of the candles he bore in a pewter branch, and cold as the back corridors of h.e.l.l. "Ulee-that's the head groom-has a cousin in Pentyre's stables, though, so every time Mr. Malvern sues Pentyre, or Mr. Pentyre gets the Governor or the Royal Port Commissioner to fine Mr. Malvern or hold up one of his cargoes to search-"

"My goodness. I had no idea. Every time Every time . . . Is this a common occurrence? Do they hate one another so?" . . . Is this a common occurrence? Do they hate one another so?"