Infernal Revolutions (48 page)

Rounding a bend on two wheels, the town came upon us sooner than expected, so that we shot down the main street at a furious pace, like competitors in a Roman chariot race, lost in time and space. Townspeople, geese, pigs and chickens scattered before us in cacophonous panic. Hats flew, babies were thrown in the air, ministers did the splits and housewives slithered on the mudlakes, so that after eventually reining in the horses we were forced to turn around and make a sheepishly sedate re-entry from the north-west.

‘Sorry, brethren,' called out Sophie, as the mudspattered citizenry advanced threateningly towards us like the dead on Resurrection Day. ‘But the British have taken Fort Lee! They'll be here by nightfall!!'

This news, considering the progress of the war so far, cannot have been unexpected, but the desperate exclamation marks in Sophie's voice gave the impression that Hell's legions themselves were on their way, and gave vent to dramatic outpourings of factionalism and delirium. Tories threw their hats in the air, and huzzaed the king. Patriots spat and skulked away down sidestreets, to be followed shortly afterwards by gangs of the more vengeful Tories carrying horsewhips. Modest beauties ran squealing to their homes. Brazen beauties clapped their hands in delight. Preachers began preaching. The repentant fell to their knees in the mud. The only ones not affected by the news were the stupid and the moribund, and it was of these that Sophie enquired the whereabouts of her cousin, Abigail Bartlett.

‘Never heard of no-one by that name,' came the eventual response by the spokesman of the group, after much debate.

‘Then do you know of any Abigails around the age of twenty-five? She might have married since I last knew her.'

The jury retired for further deliberation, leaving Sophie and I to fret at the delay, and pretend to admire the architecture of the town, until the spokesman returned its verdict.

‘There's a choice of two, we reckon. Abigail Morrissey, up at Platt's Farm, and Abigail Bush, wife of our local congressman over at Tyrannicide House.' The old man turned jocularly to his fellows. ‘Though I can't see it being called that much longer.'

‘Can you describe them?'

‘Abigail Morrissey is tall, thin and blondish, with pinched features; looks like she fell into a mangle as a baby. Abigail Bush is tall, dark, and serious; walks around with her nose in the air. Nice eyes, though, oddly enough. Serene.'

Sophie chewed her lip, and pondered.

‘'Tis Abigail Bush, then, by the sounds of it. I have a vague impression of someone a bit sure of herself. Congressman's wife now, is she? My, my, my…'

I gave Sophie's arm a reassuring if-we-ever-get-out-of-this-mess-you'll-be-the-wife-of-someone-big-one-of-these-days squeeze, and soon we were off in the direction indicated, leaving Paramus a town in turmoil, tocsin bells ringing frantically.

‘Now is the time to revert back to your male plumage, sweetness,' said Sophie, stopping the wagon at a deserted crossroads, under a signpost which read
Bergen County – Home of Heroes
. ‘You may fool goatish soldiers and otherwise distracted strangers in that guise, but I suspect Abigail Bush's eyes will be keener.'

‘Keener yet serener,' I said, looking at the clearing horizon of distant forests and beginning to strip off quickly. ‘So, what is our story to be this time, now that we know she is a rabid Patriot?'

Sophie leaned back on her elbows and watched as I struggled out of my petticoat. That she did not laugh was proof enough that she was lost in Mental Realms.

‘Yes, I've been thinking about that. Simply newlyweds, I suppose. On the run from the beastly British. Very like the truth, in fact. Not much active lying to do, really.'

‘My origin? My trade? Why am I not running to Philadelphia with the rest of the Continental army?'

‘Your old bookseller ruse will do. It fooled me easily enough; though whether it will fool Abigail and her husband is another matter. They're probably the sharp lawyer types, clever and heartless.'

‘They will be no cleverer than you, sweetness, of that I am sure.' I leaned over and planted a patronizing kiss on her forehead. ‘Though admittedly the absence of love interest may make her more suspicious of me that you were.'

Immediately there was a drop in temperature, and I realized I had said The Wrong Thing.

‘Do not flatter yourself, Sir,' Sophie immediately shot back. ‘I may have been gullible, but ‘twas not because of
love interest
; ‘twas because of desperation to leave Hackensack and see the world.'

‘Yes, of course it was,' I capitulated instantly, ‘I remember now.' However, knowing that she was lying and trying to goad me again, I mentally vowed to spew up my humble pie and utterly dominate her the next time I boarded her – a thought which made the pulling on of my breeches an even more difficult task than it already was. Eventually though, I was squeezed into my manly business suit, and we were on our way once more.

‘But whether you love me or not, dearest,' I ventured meekly, as the clopping of the horses and the rattles and creaks of the wagon became oppressive, ‘you cannot deny that you are seeing the world.'

Sophie scowled sidelong at me for signs of facetiousness. Finding none, she deigned to speak to me.

‘I did not say I did not love you now, did I?'

‘No.'

‘Well then, what's the problem?'

The painters, I was sure, were the problem. They were in, I fancied. And so, when we arrived at the impressive Tyrannicide House at sunset, was the person who fitted perfectly the description we'd been given of Abigail Bush.

‘Yes?' she said suspiciously, her eyes probably not at their serene best, ‘What do you want?'

‘Don't you remember me, Abigail? ‘Tis I, Sophie. Your cousin.'

The recognition scene was delayed while Abigial visibly sifted through the Cousins section of her memory bank. After a few moments there were stirrings of a sort.

‘Sophie…er…Becklenburger or something like?'

‘Sophie B. Mecklenburg, that's right. Bastard daughter of Henry Placquet over in Hackensack.'

‘Oh yes! Oh yes, yes, yes! How are you, my dear? Come on in, do.'

The sudden and unexpected warmth of the reception was very heartening. I stepped in after Sophie, smiling my suavest smile.

‘And this is?' said Abigail

‘This is my husband, Harry Oysterman. A bookseller temporarily displaced from his work in New York by the British scum. We were passing, so I thought we'd drop in. Hope you don't mind.'

‘Oh no, of course not. ‘Tis a fine thing to have company, what with my husband being away in Philadelphia so much of the time.'

‘Oh, so the villagers who gave us directions to your house were right: he is a Congressman then?'

‘Yes, he is, the Darling. And a very clever and hardworking one, too.'

Immediately my low view of humanity shot into my brain a vision of Congressman Bush reeling drunkenly from whorehouse to well-lit whorehouse, begetting Pennsylvanian bastards by the score; but I kept on smiling.

‘As of course he needs to be in times like these,' went on Abigail, tragically besotted.

‘Indeed,' I murmured, ‘indeed.'

‘But let's not talk about the war. It will come and it will go. It is not important in the wider scheme of things. Marriages and babies and books – they are the important things in life, as I am sure you will agree, Mr Oysterman.'

Feeling a literary quiz coming on, I wondered whether I should show off my knowledge by making reference to Dr Johnson's asservation that drinking and fucking were the most important things in life – but decided against it on grounds of decorum.

‘You are probably right, Madam, all things considered.'

‘Good. That's agreed then. Now come through into the drawing room and let me arrange for a pot of tea to be brought in.'

I turned to thank her as we passed her in the hallway, and caught a nose-crinkled look of agony on her face.

‘…unless, of course,' she panted blindly, staggering back against the wainscoted wall, ‘you would care for a bath first, Harry?'

I looked away quickly before she opened her eyes, so as not to embarrass either of us, and mellifluously agreed that, yes, that might be a good idea, in the circumstances – though for all my early-morning exertion climbing the Palisades, and the sweat-inducing fear of seeing Burnley Axelrod, I liked to think it was Doll's clothes rather than my body that was causing offence. Before further instructions could be issued to the unknown servant, however, there was a rising clatter of tiny feet, first on the gravel outside the house, then on the stone floor of the hallway behind us.

‘Is it Daddy, is it Daddy?' came shrill, excited cries in unison.

‘No, my dears, ‘tis my cousin Sophie and her husband from New York.'

‘WHO?' demanded one of the voices incredulously, before its owner appeared as a spruce little boy in a blue frockcoat.

‘Cousin Sophie and her husband, Deafhead,' came a smaller voice behind, belonging to a younger girl, who peeped her head round her brother's waist, and stared at us wide-eyed. ‘That's them there, look.'

Sophie and I were regarded wonderingly for several seconds, before the boy stepped forward without the slightest prompting from his mother and introduced himself to us with great self-possession.

‘Pleased to meet you Cousin Sophie and Husband Harry. I am Timothy Bush and this is my little sister Betsy Bush. Betsy, step forward and greet our guests.'

Betsy slowly did as bidden, and we solemnly shook hands with each other, until Betsy broke away and buried her head in her mother's dress.

‘I was just about to call Martha to run Harry a bath, dear. But perhaps you would like to do it for him?'

‘Yes, most certainly, Mother, I would. Come this way, Harry.'

I accepted the outstretched hand, and, smiling back at the proud smiles of his mother, I allowed myself to be led away down a dark portrait-lined corridor into a scullery, where a bathtub loomed centre-stage in the fading daylight.

‘It is good to be away from the company of women at times, I find, Harry. They are divine creatures in their way, of course, but my do they squawk a lot of hot air about nothing. I have spent the afternoon pushing Betsy around in a little cart that Father built for us before he went away. Her childish prattlings about clothes and love and toys are charming and perfectly normal, even for a girl older than her, but after ten minutes of it I am ready to immure myself in a monastery forever.'

As someone whose opinion of children was at best low, I found myself stunned at this revelation. The elegant force of his expressions, the clean arrangements of his arguments, the melody of his voice and the ease and grace of his gestures all impressed themselves most forcibly on my mind. I eyed askance the Phenomenon as he reached up and drew the curtains, lit some candles, and began heating a pitcher of water over a stove. Asking his age seemed an impertinence, as did any other question, so I was glad when he spoke again.

‘Shut the door, Harry, there's a good fellow. We don't want Martha bursting in, now do we?'

I did as I was told, and waited for my next instructions.

‘So, while we wait for the water to heat up, tell me a little about yourself, Harry. And about Cousin Sophie while you're at it; I've never heard of her, which is why I behaved rather boorishly upon our first meeting. Boorishness is a fault I am trying to eradicate in my nature, by the way.'

‘I did not think you were boorish at all, er….may I call you Timothy?'

‘Of course you can, Harry. There was a time when mother insisted that I be addressed as Master Bush by strangers, but I soon put a stop to that. What chance is there of universal brotherhood when artificial barriers of social standing are erected?'

‘You must despise the British and their ways then?' I said, glad of the opportunity to deflect the conversation away from all talk of Sophie and myself.

‘Not at all. I despise no nation or person's ways. In Great Britain's case – indeed in the case of all European countries – the class system is a natural consequence of the feudal system, which prospered between the fourth and the tenth centuries. Though, if I remember rightly, in Britain there was no stress laid on social status until around 1350, when an outbreak of the Black Death made the rich want to cut their social ties with the poor. Understandably, neither countries nor people can throw off such an ancient heritage overnight – but here in America we have no heritage to throw off, the slate is clean, as it were. We have no tradition of anything, so we owe it to the rest of the civilized world to experiment with ideas and forms of government that our friends in the Old World have dreamed about for centuries. That is why it is so important to get the foundations right. If we succeed, they can come and join us or they can implement the same changes in their own countries. If we fail, then they will be more content with their lot, and are free to dream other dreams. Either way, humankind is the benefactor in the long run.'

‘Indians do not benefit now, though, do they? Nor Negroes.' Then I thought of Elzevir and amended this to, ‘Well, not unless they make the long run to freedom.'

A dark cloud swept over the youngster's face.

‘No, they do not, Harry, that is true. But there must be ways to circumvent the problems of mixed races and creeds. We must strive to integrate all disparate elements into one united whole. We need to live up to the motto adopted by the Continental Congress in the Declaration of Independence – Virgil's
E Pluribus Unum
, or One From Many. Indeed, I think that would do very well as a motto for our country when it is finally united, as it inevitably will be. I am glad I suggested it to my father, because he in turn suggested it to Congress.'

‘
You
suggested it?' I said, amazed.