Caxton (9 page)

Then he felt an inquiring hand on his shoulder, and turned with a start to
find Mrs. Talbot looking down at him, a candle in her other hand.
“Excuse me, Hugh,” she said, “but I have been knocking on your door for the
longest time to inform you that supper is ready…. Good gracious, Mr. Kenrick!”
she exclaimed, bringing the candle closer to his face. “Are you ill?”
“No,” said Hugh. “No, I am not ill.” He paused. “I shan’t be joining you and
Mr. Talbot for supper. Please convey my excuses.”
Mrs. Talbot glanced at the letter that was still clutched in one of Hugh’s hands.
“Oh…I see….” She frowned. “Dire news from home, is it? I hope not.”
Hugh shook his head. “From home? No, Mrs. Talbot. Not from home.”
“Well,” said the woman, unsure of what to say or do, “I’ll have Rachel fetch
up a plate of something for you later…if you gain an appetite.” Then she turned,
left the room, and closed the door gently behind her.
Akind of fever possessed Hugh’s mind for weeks, tossing him from mood to mood.
For a while, he was uncharacteristically morose and reticent. This mood was
deepened when he received a letter from his mother, who wrote:
“Reverdy seems to have been persuaded by Mrs. Brune of the knottish dilemma
posed by a match between you and her. Mrs. Tallmadge, who has been kind enough
to take up the spy for me, reports that Mrs. Brune exhibits an angry blush when
the subject of your London affairs is broached. Apparently the woman now views
you with the same abhorrence she would express had she found you out to be a
member of the Mad Monks club of Sir Francis Dashwood’s, and could no more imagine
her daughter marrying you than she could Lord Chesterfield or that rake Mr.
Wilkes. We have not consorted with the Brunes for months, and Mrs. Tallmadge
has not the indelicacy to query Reverdy herself, and so I cannot report to you
what may be the girl’s views on this unfortunate matter.”
Hugh eventually roused himself from despondency to a furious, almost uncontrollable
bitterness. This new state of mind was exacerbated by a letter from his father,
who wrote:
“Your uncle has been insisting that I order you home so that you may challenge
Mr. McDougal for Miss Brune’s hand. I do not order you so, not to spite your
uncle, but because it is a matter of your own choice. I believe you are wise
enough to see that this is not an issue of honor. In your uncle’s view, you
would be redeemed somewhat in his estimate were you to risk your life by acting
out some silly duel.
“But in this affair, Mr. McDougal is near blameless.
Viva voce
, Mr. McDougal
is a most inoffensive and obliging person who sports the prunella of arid constancy,
and is liberal to a fault. Neither Miss Brune nor her mother will have difficulty
managing and moulding him. I suspect he was pushed into Miss Brune’s attentions
and affections by his father, just as she was to Mr. McDougal’s by her mother.
The alliance of him and Miss Brune is taken by your uncle as a personal affront
authored by Squire Brune, chiefly because it scotches an opportunity to acquire
an interest in the Brunes’ holdings, which a marriage of you and the lady would
naturally have given our family. I once conveyed to you my thoughts on such
a union, and they have not changed.
“One thought, however, which neither I nor your mother expressed at the time,
because you could have easily contradicted us with your authority on the matter,
was that we had the mutual impression that Miss Brune unwillingly nurtured a
curious fear of you. Forgive me for saying it, but perhaps she did not need
to be convinced by her mother of the truth of Mr. Addison’s dictum, that ‘there
is no glory in making a man a slave who has not naturally a passion for liberty.’
Because such a ‘glory’ was manifestly impossible through you, the illusion of
it could be achieved in the person of Mr. McDougal by means of his effortless
complaisancy, conscientious respectability, and conjugal contentment. Please
do not be angry with me or your mother for having had these doubts about your
lady. Our vantage is that if she is now more disposed to settle in matrimony
for a clipped shilling over a gold guinea, perhaps she has spared you both the
misery of a disagreeable denouement as husband and wife….”
Hugh was able to lose himself, at times, in the demands of his studies and in
his work in Otis Talbot’s office on the Philadelphia waterfront. But the madness
would well up in him unbidden, and distract him from his work at the Academy
and in the partnership. The simplest tasks would then require a special, dumbfounded
effort to perform, as though he were an illiterate street hawker who had never
learned to read or cipher or think beyond the next day. His schoolwork and merchant’s
duties thus became only temporary refuges from the storm of his emotions.
It was only when the twin conflagrations of anger and pain had subsided that
he was able to reflect calmly on Reverdy. The anger was reduced to the residue
of indifference, the pain to an ash of regret. The regret was that her courage
to love him had failed. He still loved the idea of Reverdy, but accepted the
fact that what he had been in love with did not exist in her. The actual person
of her began to diminish in his mind. This in turn transmuted into the indifference.
He wrote his parents, assuring them that “the man of reason had fought a duel
with the man of blind passion, and vanquished him.” He did not reply directly
to his father’s remarks about Reverdy. He respected his father’s perspective
and conceded that there was some substance to his allegations. And, a suspicion
of the truth of them sat in the back of his mind; perhaps in all those years,
Reverdy had seen him, but ultimately concluded that what she saw, could not
be conquered or tamed. Perhaps she had rejected him for the same reasons his
uncle hated him, and instead of subjecting him to invective and malice, wrote
him a kind letter of forgiving apology.
He reached the point, at last, when he regained his objectivity, and was able
to write Reverdy a cordial note of congratulations, cold in its formality, dismissive
in its brevity, and brutal in its justice:
“Mr. McDougal is, I do not doubt, deserving of your love, as you must be of
his. You both will always be what each of you expects the other to be. I feel
obliged, however, to caution you that in future, you will find that love
can
be subjected to a most private and honest rational scrutiny. Perhaps, by that
time, nature will be kind to you, and, having followed its own inexorable course,
rendered you insensible to the weight and wisdom of its just and dutiful verdict….”
One thought did not occur to Hugh throughout his emotional turmoil: He never
once compared himself to or with Alex McDougal. His self-respect was so secure
in his character that his rival was virtually nonexistent, except as an incidental,
secondary measure, as an afterthought, as a pathetic, difficult-to-remember
foil. He neither hated the man, nor despised him. Nor envied him — now that
he knew the reasons for Reverdy’s decision.

* * *

Reverdy’s decision led Hugh to the realization that not only was there no pressing
reason for him to return home after he graduated from the Academy, but that
he did not wish to. At least, not for a while. He felt strangely at home. A
few months after sending his last letter to Reverdy on the
Sparrowhawk
,
he resumed the routine of a life divided between the Academy and the business
of Talbot and Spicer. As his second and final year at the school neared an end,
an idea grew in his mind. He wrote his father about his desire to stay in Philadelphia
longer than had been planned, and broached the idea of purchasing a plantation,
which he would manage and own in the family’s name.

“There is now nothing in England that requires my immediate presence. A plantation
here, intelligently managed, would help buttress the family fortune. The papers
here carry many notices of these places for sale, either in whole or in part.
I know that our
Ariadne
and Mr. Worley’s
Busy
call regularly in
Virginia, which is where the best tobacco plantations are to be found. Managing
such an enterprise here would better prepare me for managing our own lands,
once I return to Danvers. Not least important to me, it would be something of
my own….”

Garnet Kenrick said:
“I not only think your idea a good one, for all the reasons you cite, but your
continued sojourn so far away from our affections may help to alleviate relations
between your uncle and me. If you notice any property for sale that suits your
fancy, I would gladly underwrite its purchase, provided the price was reasonable
and our own vessels could be guaranteed a portion of its trade. I would also
insist that Mr. Talbot, who has some knowledge of the planting business there,
appraise any property. In separate correspondence I have sent him a letter appointing
him my proxy in such a transaction, together with a draft on Formby, Pursehouse
and Swire in the amount of five thousand pounds. I have given Mr. Talbot other
instructions concerning this matter…. Your mother, Alice, and I all earnestly
hope that, though your endeavors are ambitious, you mark some time for a visit
here, once this dreadful war is concluded….”

* * *

Once he and Otis Talbot returned to Philadelphia from Caxton, Hugh found a
letter waiting for him from Roger Tallmadge, in which his friend regaled him
with the details of the battle of Minden:

“…The French horse were confounded by the sudden and steady advance of our
grenadiers and regulars, with the Hanoverian troops behind us. We would march
boldly, yet with admirable calmness, toward the cavalry, then stop to fire volleys
by platoon, emptying more and more saddles as we went. This we did many times.
Some of their dragoons tried to engage us and check our progress, and their
hot fire brought down many of our men. But we were not to be deterred. The senior
ensign before me was felled by a dragoon’s ball that struck his head. He was
Ensign Michael Ramsey, of Croton-Abbas, Devon. I suppose he was dead before
he went down, still clutching the King’s Colours. Before I could think to do
it, because it was my duty, I paused in my stride to pick up the Colours, then
raised them high for all our men to see, and found myself in front of our company.
We advanced and fired twice again, and I must have sweated a gallon of salt,
for I was now a fair target and the bullets sang past me all the while to smack
into the cloth of our conspicuous Colours or some brave but unfortunate fellows
behind me.

“Finally, the French horse, seeing that they had lost their momentum, and perhaps
fearing that we would any moment charge with bayonets fixed to our muzzles as
they milled about in the disorder we caused in their ranks, removed themselves
from the contest in great confusion. Our colonels ordered us to halt, to allow
our own horse to sweep in and pursue the French. But, to our amazement and consternation,
Lord Sackville’s men, although drawn up for just such an action, did not act,
and sat immobile at the far end of our lines, thus permitting the French horse
to retire without further abuse. Some say that Sackville did this to spite Prince
Brunswick, whom he constantly criticized and quarreled with bitterly; others
whisper incontinent skittishness. Brunswick was furious, and swore that he would
take up the matter with our George and see Sackville punished and ousted.

“For my courage, I have been brevetted a lieutenant, and now wear a gorget….
The Duke is determined that the French shall not traipse through Hanover, nor
roam through Germany unmolested. He is an able commander, bolder and wiser than
was Cumberland. The French know that if they can capture and hold Hanover, they
could treat separately with our sovereign and deny King Frederick an army in
the west and Mr. Pitt’s money aid, and leave Prussia open to French mischief.
We shall remain under Brunswick’s command for the duration…. I was granted leave
to visit Francis’s grave near Hastenbeck. He was not a loving brother, and tormented
me no end, but I nevertheless felt sorrow for him, and pray that my conduct
has balanced his loss. He did not survive his gallantry, and I thank God I have
survived mine….

“At the Marquis of Granby’s suggestion (he is the ranking British officer here),
we junior officers were feted at a victory supper by an aidede-camp, Lord Charles
Brome, who was shortly after the fight promoted captain in the 85th Regiment,
and has since returned to London. He studied at the military academy in Turin,
and is a lively, keen fellow who reminds me somewhat of you in age and manner,
and also because he, too, will someday become an earl….”

Roger went on in his letter to describe German towns and culture, and the rigors
of camp life. Hugh envied his friend a little; in a way, Roger was on a kind
of Continental tour, something Hugh had not had a chance to experience himself.
He smiled when he read Roger’s postscript:

“I remembered what you told me that day we went shooting, and have been practicing
with a firelock I borrow from one of our grenadiers. I can now load and fire
it four times in a minute, almost as quickly as a Prussian. My fellow officers
are either amused or scandalized, and chide me for the diversion. But, I tell
them that I may some day see service in the colonies, and the skill may be an
opportune one to have there….”

* * *

In between packing his possessions and arranging with Otis Talbot to have most
of them follow him to Caxton on another vessel, Hugh wrote his last letters
in Philadelphia to his parents and Roger Tallmadge. A quiet excitement grew
in him now, one rooted in many causes: a determination to begin anew; the prospect
of making something his own; a break with a painful part of his past. The neglected
state of Brougham Hall sat in his mind like an island of virgin land waiting
to be tamed, cultivated, civilized, and made prosperous. If the place had had
any repute before Amos Swart’s ownership of it, Hugh was resolved to surpass
it.

A letter arrived two weeks after Hugh’s return to Philadelphia, cosigned by
Arthur Stannard and Ian McRae, stating that the purchase of Brougham Hall was
registered with the court of Queen Anne County and that all fees, charges, taxes,
and tithes were paid, and that Hugh could invest himself in the main house at
his pleasure. It also informed him that Amos Swart had returned from his other
properties and was informed of the purchase, and removed from Brougham Hall
together with what movable possessions he could lay legal claim to.