Revolution (25 page)

Reverdy nodded, but seemed confused about her husband’s purpose. “Why did you wish me to see this?” she asked.

“So that when you hear Mr. Vishonn and other planters complain about their debts and credit and troubles with their London brokers, you will understand why I do not similarly complain. And you must keep this secret of mine.”

“Of course, Hugh.”

* * *

The Christmas Day concert at Enderly was one of the finest in Caxton’s memory. The snow from a few days before did indeed melt away, but was renewed by a fresh blanket on Christmas Eve. Those who dutifully attended Reverend Acland’s service on Christmas morning were happy to escape the drafty, clapboard confines of Stepney Parish Church and to forget their pastor’s dour sermon and make their way home to prepare for the journey to Enderly.

The supper room and ballroom of the great house of Enderly were decorated with sprigs of holly and scrub pine bedecked with colored ribbons. The gaming room was stocked with the finest liquors from Reece Vishonn’s cellar, and an extra room was set aside for guests’ younger children to amuse themselves under the watchful eyes of their governesses. Liveried servants tended to guests’ mounts and carriages and treated the horses to water and oats. Vishonn himself greeted his guests at the door and handed each guest a card that contained a printed number. “It is a form of lotto,” he explained jovially. “After our supper, I shall draw a card from a silver bowl, and the owner of its mate shall receive a sack full of pineapples I procured from a correspondent in Barbados. They are the sweetest and juiciest I have ever tasted.”

Inside the ballroom the guests were served punch by servants and entertained by an ensemble of musicians composed of the Kenny brothers — Jude and Will, corn and bean farmers from the outskirts of Caxton — and some hired musicians from Williamsburg. Vishonn had acquired a
French-made spinet to complement his pianoforte. Jude Kenny had enlarged his musical skills to include the flute and French horn, while his brother remained with the violin. Many guests expressed pleasure when they saw a harp sitting unoccupied among the musicians; Etáin “Angel” Frake was to perform tonight. They saw her standing in a corner of the ballroom talking with her husband and some friends. She was garbed in the familiar green riding suit, and her mobcap sported ribbons and holly berries.

They also noted Hugh Kenrick and his wife, Reverdy, a striking Englishwoman with black eyes and black hair. She wore a blue gown, no wig, and a mobcap as gaily decorated as Mrs. Frake’s. The Kenricks looked as formidable a couple as the Frakes, almost devilish. All kinds of rumors had circulated around Caxton about the captivating newcomer, including stories of a scandalous past and a talent for singing.

Muriel Tippet, wife of Sheriff Cabal Tippet, had seen her shopping in Mr. Rittles’s store and Lydia Heathcoate’s millinery shop for feminine wares and clothing, and remarked to her husband as they crossed the ballroom at a distance, “Look at the Kenricks, Mr. Tippet! Some marriages are made in heaven, but I swear that one was made in hell.”

“Muriel!” admonished the sheriff in a hushed voice. “What a terrible thing to say about anyone! You have not even made their acquaintance! And what language!”

Muriel Tippet’s pique was founded on an imagined snubbing she had received from the new Mrs. Kenrick, who, while passing her on Queen Anne Street, mistook her for a servant on an errand and did not return her greeting. She and Louise Rittles, wife of Lucas Rittles, the storekeeper and innkeeper, were responsible for most of the dark rumors about Reverdy Kenrick, lately Reverdy Brune-McDougal, widow. Louise Rittles, famous for her culinary fare, had been hired by Barbara Vishonn, Reece’s wife, to help her kitchen staff prepare the Christmas supper.

The whole town seemed to have climbed the gentle slope of Enderly’s private, cresset-lit road to celebrate the holiday. Vishonn’s guests included the Granbys, the Otways, the Cullises, Thomas Reisdale, the Tippets, the Stannards, Steven Safford, Carver Gramatan and his wife, and other town and county notables. Vishonn’s son, James, with his wife, Selina; and his daughter, Annyce, with her husband, Morris Otway, also came from across the river to be here. Reverend Acland even accepted the invitation, though he avoided the company of some guests, and sought out that of others. His
known disapproval of the town’s opposition to the stamps in November worked against him, and he had to inveigle his way into conversations, which invariably died soon after he joined them.

At one point before supper was announced, Jack Frake took John Proudlocks aside. Jack was dressed in his best finery, as was Proudlocks. The Indian had helped Etáin bring her harp to Enderly and set it up for her in the ballroom. “I have asked Mr. Vishonn to allow you to sit at his table this night. He declined, saying that he would not mind it, but many of his other guests might. I’m sorry.”

The Indian shrugged. “I had expected it, Jack. It is Mr. Vishonn and his guests who should be sorry. But I am welcome at your own table, and at Mr. Kenrick’s and Mr. Reisdale’s, and that more than compensates for the rudeness.” He smiled. “Then I shall eat with the servants in the kitchen. They are a good source of information, as well.”

The objection was more Barbara Vishonn’s than her husband’s. She could barely tolerate Proudlocks’s presence in her house as a guest, and she harbored a secret disgust for Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick for their treating the man as a friend and an equal.

At the long, damask-covered table in the supper room, under two chandeliers fixed with the best and brightest-burning candles, the guests were plied with roast goose and beef, chicken, various side dishes, mince pieces and puddings, dry and wet sweetmeats all on exquisite china, and complemented with a variety of wines and ales. The conversation was lively and merry, hardly touching on politics, nor dampened by complaints.

Reverdy and her brother, James, were the special focus of questions about conditions, fads, and fashions in England. Edgar Cullis kept a civil but discreet distance from Hugh Kenrick, his fellow burgess. Carver Gramatan, owner of the Gramatan Inn in Caxton and of farmland throughout the county, and who had resigned from the Sons of Liberty in protest of that organization’s plans to resist the stamps and over certain of its members’ untoward remarks about the Crown, refrained from venting his anger and opinions at the table. He merely turned a light red when Etáin Frake, in answer to someone’s question about what she planned to play this evening, began her answer with “I shall start with ‘Brian Boru’s March,’ which I have taken the liberty to rechristen ‘A Meeting at Caxton Pier,’ to commemorate our stand against the infamous stamps.”

“That is an Irish tune, is it not?” asked Damaris Granby, wife of Ira.

“Yes, and a solemn one, as well. I believe it was inspired by the legend
of an ancient Irish king who led his army against the Danes, and died in the battle. The composer is not known.”

“Well, I suppose that is appropriate,” remarked Mrs. Granby doubtfully.

That was the closest the conversation ever came to politics.

“And what else, my dear?” inquired Reece Vishonn.

Etáin said, “Mrs. Kenrick here will sing a cantata on the Nativity by Alessandro Scarlatti, accompanied by all the musicians. I will play a transcription of Mr. Handel’s ‘See, the conquering hero comes’” — she turned with a smile at her husband, Jack, who looked surprised, adding, “That is in honor of my husband — and a number of other tunes. And I shall introduce a composition of my own, a quadrille, which I call ‘Squaring the Circle,’ which employs the tempo and movements of the ‘Charlotte and Worter,’ with which I am certain you are all familiar.”

Hugh chuckled and leaned forward to remark to Etáin from across the table, “But a circle cannot be squared.”

Thomas Reisdale, who could not in any event dance, asked with some mischief in his words, “Like all quadrilles and contra dances, I am supposing that your own composition could go on forever,
infinitely
, so to speak?”

Most of the guests laughed at this remark.

Etáin looked impish. “This is true. But the number will end abruptly, on a low note, leaving someone without a partner.”

“What a novelty!” exclaimed Reece Vishonn.

“A mathematical novelty, at that!” said Reisdale.

“As for some other numbers we shall play,” said Etáin, “we lack the requisite trumpets, but hope you will not enjoy the pieces any the less for their absence.”

Reece Vishonn said, “And I am certain that Mrs. Kenrick will cause us to forget that she is not accompanied by a choir!” He picked up a glass of wine, then rose and proposed a toast to the newlyweds.

The company rose. Vishonn said, “May you both live long and prosper in this bountiful land and time!”

“Hear, hear!” said Jack Frake.

“Hear, hear!” echoed the company.

Near the end of supper, Reece Vishonn called for the silver bowl and the silk sack of pineapples. A black servant appeared with those items. Vishonn’s wife covered his eyes while he picked a card from the bowl, then read out the number on it.

Reverdy rose and waved her card. The company applauded her. “What an
auspicious beginning!” remarked the host as he presented her with the sack.

When supper was finished and many of the men made their way to the gaming room for a pipe or cigar before the concert began, Jack steered his wife to the side in the ballroom. Holding her by the elbow, he asked, “How did you know?”

“About ‘See, the conquering hero comes’?”

“Yes.”

“You told me about it,” answered Etáin simply.

Jack shook his head once. “When? I don’t remember.”

“Before we were married. About a year after Hugh came here.”

Jack grinned helplessly. “And you remembered? I am surprised, and pleased. Thank you.”

Etáin said, “You said then that when you heard it in the King’s Theater in London, you were truly awakened to all the glorious possibilities to you in your life. That is how you described the moment to me. How could I forget that?”

After a moment, Jack said, “You are looking especially lovely tonight.”

Etáin bussed her husband on the cheek, as much of an expression of her love as she would allow herself in public. “Now, go and have your pipe before Mr. Vishonn commences the concert, my hero.”

Jack passed a loving hand over one side of her face, and obeyed.

In the gaming room, Jack encountered Hugh. As he packed and lit his pipe, he said, “It’s a fine Christmas, is it not?”

“It’s a fine Christmas,” concurred Hugh. “Things have happened so quickly, all I could think to give Reverdy as presents were copies of Elizabeth Carter’s translation of Epictetus’s
Enchiridion
and her
Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy Explained for the Ladies
. They were all that was handy on such short notice.”

Jack’s brow furled in mild disbelief. He asked cautiously, “How were those presents received?”

Hugh smiled. “With more felicity than I had a right to hope for. Miss Carter also writes for
Gentleman’s Magazine
, which Reverdy reads. Miss Carter happens to be one of her favorite versifiers and essayists.”

After a moment, Jack frowned without losing his grin. “I’ve read most of the pamphlets you loaned me, Hugh. So has Mr. Reisdale. Perhaps we can talk about them some time soon.”

“Why not now?”

Jack shook his head. “No, not tonight. I’m in too pleasant a mood to
discuss politics.”

“All right.” After a pause, Hugh asked, “That Handel piece that Etáin said she would play in your honor — what is its significance?”

“I’ve heard it only once, long ago, when Redmagne and I went to London. I remember it, now and then. It became a kind of anthem for me.”

“I see,” said Hugh. “It’s curious that you should say that. I have written a fragment on that very subject. Personal anthems, that is.”

“More reading for me?”

“If you wish, and only after I have polished it.”

They talked of other things for a while, their conversation for once mutually light and airy, in spontaneous conformance to the holiday and as an expression of their own happiness.

Then a servant appeared at the gaming room doors and announced the beginning of the concert. Hugh said, as Jack emptied his pipe in the gaming room fireplace, “Well, let’s see what else our wives have in store for us. Reverdy intimated that she has a special present for me, as well.”

“You have not heard any of the music?” queried Jack.

“Not a note of it,” said Hugh.

“You have not even heard Reverdy sing?”

“No. I am not even familiar with the cantata she is to introduce.”

* * *

Beneath the lustre blazing with dozens of candles, servants had set up a semicircle of chairs around the musicians and their instruments. Jack, Hugh, and John Proudlocks sat together in the rear row.

When his guests were seated, and the older children fetched to sit with their parents, Reece Vishonn introduced the musicians, each of whom was given a welcoming applause by the guests. Barbara Vishonn had ordered the curtains of the wall-length windows opened in back of the musicians; the guests could see faint ghosts of snowflakes fall outside.

Etáin indeed opened the concert with “Brian Boru’s March,” which was a grim, determined melody that spoke of a life-or-death purpose. She reminded the guests that she had renamed it “A Meeting at Caxton Pier” to commemorate the town’s foiling of the stamps. It lasted all of two and a half minutes, and received an ovation almost as long.

Next, she and the hired musicians played “See, the conquering hero comes,” from Handel’s
Judas Maccabaeus
, with James Vishonn on the
spinet. During the performance, Jack rose and paced restlessly back and forth behind the last row, and cast glances of loving gratitude at his wife across the room. When they were finished, Etáin and her accompanists received an even more enthusiastic ovation.

James Vishonn sat at the pianoforte and played two Domenico Scarlatti sonatas as a prelude to the “Pastoral Cantata on the Nativity,” composed by the son, Alessandro.

Then Reece Vishonn rose and came forward to introduce Reverdy. After some complimentary remarks, he took his seat next to his wife. Reverdy stood up, holding her sheet music. A hush invaded the ballroom, a silence so complete that some guests thought they could hear snowflakes fall outside the window behind her. James Vishonn, the Kenny brothers, and the hired musicians opened with the establishing bars, and Reverdy sang the “Recitativo” that usually preceded the cantata.