Johnny Tremain (22 page)

Cilla evidently knew what would be wanted. She came running with smelling salts, but she got it too close to her mistress's nose. Miss Lavinia was gagging.

'Oh, you stupid, stupid girl! You've half-killed me. There, take it away.'

Isannah ran up and hid her flushed face in Miss Lavinia's lap. She was half-frightened at the attention she had been receiving and half-squirming with delight at being the center of so many eyes. As Miss Lavinia was scolding one sister for a clumsy servant, she was fondling the flying, soft yellow hair of the other.

Suddenly Johnny saw red. He hated Miss Lavinia and the giggling officers and Isannah. He had already guessed that the two sisters were treated very differently, but he had not before actually seen the situation with his own two eyes.

Cilla had backed out of the picture, standing aside ready to serve if called upon, or ready to be of no more importance than a piece of furniture if not spoken to. Johnny went to her.

'Cilla,' he said, 'don't you stay here any more. I don't want you to. These people are nothing—just a pack of playing cards—tear them up and get out. And that goes for the whole collection of them—Miss Lavinia and Izzy too.'

Miss Lyte had regained her composure.

'I will not have Isannah called "Izzy" by my servants.'

'I'm not your servant, and if she acts like an Izzy, she gets called Izzy. But as I was saying, Cilla...'

'I will not have my servants intruding their personal affairs into my drawing room. Priscilla, if you are not satisfied here, I can arrange for your return to your mother, but you are not ever to bring in street boys, horse boys, riffraff...'

'You told me to fetch him in.'

'I did
not
tell you to fetch him in.'

'Yes, you did.'

'I said a clever metalworker and you came back with this boy ... this saucebox, who couldn't do the work anyway, because he...'

Johnny waited grimly for her to finish her sentence. If she dared say what was in her mind—because he has a crippled hand—he was going over and take her by her long throat and shake her—even if she did look pretty well defended by His Majesty's forces. Her eyes wavered and she did not finish her sentence.

'Now, Cilla, I want you to go to your room and lie down. You are too tired. If you had not been, you would never have been so impudent as to contradict me.'

'Yes, Miss Lyte.'

'And you'—she turned to Johnny—'get back to the gutter or wherever boys like you keep themselves.'

'Yes, Miss Lyte,' he said, mimicking Cilla.

Mrs. Bessie said nothing, but she evidently knew what had been going on in the drawing room.

'There, Johnny,' she said mildly, 'you sit. This is not real tea, but I've put just a mite of brandy in it and it's good and hot.'

'Miss Lavinia is just about making a monkey out of Isannah,' he said at last.

'Nobody can make a monkey out of anyone who isn't a monkey to start with.'

'Is Cilla happy here?'

'Oh, happy enough. What do you expect? She knows she's lost Isannah. At first she used to cry, but now she accepts it. It's exciting for her and there's always a flurry and goings-on. The ball tonight—and next week we move out to Milton for the rest of the summer. We won't stay long.'

'Why?'

'Because the Sons of Liberty there are out to get Mr. Lyte. That's why they haven't yet been rough with Tories out there. Hope to tempt him to move out, same as usual. They are going to get him and tar and feather him. They are going to ride Miss Lavinia out of town on a rail. They are going to smash his great country house down—once he's inside.'

'But the girls ... won't they get hurt?'

'I'll be there. It's my secret, so I suppose I can tell you, but I'd take it kindly if you'll keep your mouth shut. If there were Daughters of Liberty, I'd be one. You ask Sam Adams about me. I've been helping him secretly for years.'

Johnny had taken it for granted that an old servant in a Tory house would also be a Tory. They usually were. He looked at Mrs. Bessie with admiration.

'The Lytes will stay in Milton about a month,' she whispered. 'You mark my words.'

I
T WAS
by chance Johnny saw the Lytes' ruby coach trundling slowly down Orange Street, heading for Milton and a little country air. The bright sun glittered on the gold eye, rising on the coach door, on the black sheen of the strong horses. He half-wanted to stop the coach—Don't you go to Milton, Miss Lyte, they are lying in wait for you out there. He could not bear to think of her tossed about by rough men, ridden on a rail. He could see her profile through the window. Cilla sat facing her. Isannah, as befitted her higher station in the household, sat next to Miss Lyte. Only Isannah was staring about, observing the 'lower classes' milling about in the street. She looked straight at Johnny and he at her. Neither gave any sign of recognition.

It was not by chance Johnny next saw that ruby coach. Late in August, word was spread through Boston that Merchant Lyte 'had got it' or was 'going to get it' out in Milton. If driven from their country house, there was but one safe refuge for them—behind the British lines in Boston.

Toward evening, Johnny began to hang about the gate. The farm carts, carrying food and fuel to Boston, were still coming in over the mud flats connecting the town with the mainland. These the British guard at the gate (nearly two hundred men were kept stationed there night and day) let pass, but when night really fell, the gates were closed and most of the soldiers returned to the barracks. There were a few sentries on duty and a handful of men, with a corporal, in the guardhouse. Johnny settled down to wait. He had been dozing, but woke quickly, hearing the sentries yell and the corporal commanding the gates to be opened.

Then, coming closer through the still summer night, the clatter of hoofs, the rumble of a coach, was a sickening, hair-raising howl ... the howling of a human wolf pack. The corporal had not had time to get his tunic on, but he recognized the situation—another of His Majesty's loyal supporters fleeing to Boston with the mob at its heels.

'Torches only,' he was crying to his men. 'No muskets. Death to any man who fires!'

The unarmed soldiers ran out to meet the coach with great flaring torches in their hands. The mob already had stopped and was drifting back from whence it came. Through the canopy of shaking orange light and through the smell of burning pitch black horses, whitened with lather and dragging a heavy ruby coach, slowly crawled to the safety of the gates. The gates shut behind them. The coach seemed disabled, the horses were almost spent. A torch flared up onto the coachman's face. It was twisted with fear.

'Mr. Lyte yourself, sir,' the young corporal was saying, as he opened the door of the coach, 'let me assist you, sir. You've lost a wheel off your coach. Please to come into the guardhouse while you wait for another vehicle.'

Mr. Lyte, helped by the corporal, but even more by Miss Lavinia, did crawl from the coach. He tried to smile, but his lips drew back from long, yellow teeth. Johnny had seen the identical expression on the face of a dead woodchuck. He was a desperately sick man.

Lavinia's face showed no fear—only concern over her father's condition. Now she was telling the corporal that a doctor must be fetched—and she wanted Doctor Warren.

'I know he's a rebel—but do get him for me. He's the best doctor we have in town, and Papa—Papa must have the best.'

Her father safely inside the guardhouse, Miss Lavinia came into the street a moment, gazing blankly at the disabled coach and at the men carrying from it, into the guardhouse, such of their most precious possessions as they had had time to rescue from Milton. For the first time Johnny saw Cilla. She had been sitting on the box with the coachman. Now she went to Miss Lyte.

'Somehow,' she said, 'the silver got left behind.'

'The silver?' Miss Lyte did not seem to be able to take in anything but her father's sickness.

'You told me to pack it up, but just as I had begun we heard the mob coming and then Mr. Lyte had a fit...'

'Oh, yes ... I remember ... all that silver ... well...'

She was standing there in the street, watching for the sight of Doctor Warren's chaise. Isannah, very good and quiet, was snuggled close to her, her hand in that of her patroness.

'Oh, never mind, child,' she said, with absent-minded kindness. 'At least we are all safe, and if only Papa is well and...'

'I'm going back to Milton, Miss, to get that silver before the riffraff steal it.'

'Most like they have it already.'

Doctor Warren's chaise was drawing up beside the guardhouse. He was getting out. Miss Lavinia had no more thought of her silver.

Johnny went up to Cilla.

'Look, Cil,' he said, 'I'm here.'

'It was so mixed up at the end.' The girl seemed to be trying to explain her error more to herself than to Johnny. 'Mr. Lyte turned purple and fell. The mob was getting closer. It came earlier than Mrs. Bessie warned us.'

'Mrs. Bessie?'

'Yes. She found out some way in the village.'

Johnny liked the old woman all the better that in the end she had been unable to see a considerate master, whom she had served for thirty years, a young woman whom she had taken care of since she was a baby, humiliated, tossed about, torn by a mob. Sam Adams might respect her the less for this weakness. Johnny respected her the more.

'Johnny—I've got to get back to Milton. I'm going to save that silver. It was my fault.'

'But Miss Lavinia didn't seem to care. She didn't scold you.'

'If she had, I wouldn't go.'

'She thinks it has been stolen already.'

'No. After smashing the gates and some windows, the mob left the house to chase us. We didn't dare leave by the front drive. We started out through the haying fields, but they heard us and caught up, and we were getting away all right until just on the Neck a wheel came off the coach. It was terrible. I've got to go back, though—and now.'

'I'll go with you. But looks like we'll need a horse and chaise. It's seven miles.'

Doctor Warren was standing on the guardhouse steps, telling Miss Lyte that her father must be allowed to finish the night out on the bed the soldiers had made up for him. He was not to be moved, and never again must he be so upset over anything. From now on, as long as he lived, as she loved him, he was never to be angered or worried. The handsome girl was nodding, promising these impossible things. She went back to her father, still clutching Isannah by the hand, and Johnny went to the doctor.

Obviously, Doctor Warren did not want to lend his horse and chaise. He did not care what happened to the Lyte silver, but he was a generous man. He let Johnny have his rig and also wrote him a pass which would prevent any molestation from the Whig mobs and told Cilla to get a similar pass from the British soldiers. Then they would be safe from either side. So at last the gates once more swung slowly, heavily, in. Beyond was darkness and a dreary waste of land and sea. The Doctor's little rabbit-eared mare flung herself forward. It would not take such a fast pacer long to get to Milton.

Although once or twice the light chaise slurred as it caught in great ruts made by the disabled Lyte coach, there was no other sign of the late violence. The mob was utterly gone. It was not until they reached Roxbury that they knew the time. The village clock struck two. Thus far they had not met one single human being. But here were a few turbulent fellows hanging about an inn door, and in Milton itself they were signaled to stop by a group whose faces they never did see. But Doctor Warren's chaise and horse were recognized.

'Go ahead, Warren ... Good luck, Warren.'

They went up the steep road from Milton. It was here Mr. Lyte had his country seat. Then Johnny got out, struck tinder, and lighted the lantern he had found in the chaise. He stood by the entrance gates. Yes, Cilla was right. They had smashed the arms carved upon the gates. The poor people of Milton had had enough of that rising eye. Johnny wasn't sure but he had as well.

He walked ahead and Cilla drove the horse. Thus half-seen, and in the dark, things did not look too bad. Cilla had a key to the back door which showed hatchet marks, but was not broken down. They went into the dining room and from the lantern Cilla lit the candles in the two candelabra on the table, twenty candles in all, and the room filled with light.