The Midwife's Revolt (31 page)

36

NEWS QUICKLY SPREAD of the attack upon
my house. By the following day, we began to receive a steady stream of visitors giving what aid they could. Susanna Brown came by with pins. Gaius brought salt cod. Still others brought eggs or a chicken. I was moved by my neighbors’ kindness, for they had even less than I.

Ann Quincy arrived with an entreaty to join them in the great house for the winter.

“Elizabeth,” she said, as she always insisted upon using my Christian name, “you will be far safer with us. You cannot remain here, three women and one child, all alone.”

Ann and Josiah Quincy had met Eliza and her child soon after the babe’s entrance into the world. Eliza had been anxious and fretful, but the two old people made a mad dash for the child, falling instantly in love, and nary a word was said either about Eliza’s matrimonial state or the dusky color of the child.

Eliza glanced at me with longing, but I thanked Ann warmly and declined. She left us then, but only after we had promised her that, at any further hint of danger, we would hasten to her house up the hill.

After she had gone, I heard a relieved sigh from Eliza. “Oh, Lizzie, I nearly succumbed. Just think of it: tea in a warm bed, and a
real
servant!”

At that we glanced over at Martha, who was absorbed in some sewing. She was edging some cloths we would add to our stock of trade goods. She looked up, not knowing what we had said, and Eliza smiled sheepishly. Martha and I had not spoken since the previous day.

“Far be it from me to imperil your safety.” I addressed my comments to Eliza. “Indeed, I think it an excellent idea for you to repair to the house.”

“And leave you here? I could not be so selfish, whatever you may think.”

Later that afternoon, Eliza and I had managed to restore some order to the dairy and were resting a moment when Martha, whom we had not seen for several hours, suddenly appeared on the stairs with a small trunk in her arms.

We gaped at her.

“Hello! What do you do there?” I asked.

“I’m leaving.”

“Leaving? For where? Is Thomas ill?” I must admit that my first thought was for him whom Martha had forbidden me to love.

“No, he’s well. I shall go to him. It’s all arranged.”

I approached her, little Johnny in my arms. Seeing him, her hard face softened, and she smiled. To see her smile for him but not for me was almost beyond endurance.

“Have you sent for him?” I asked.

“No,” she admitted. “I have not had the opportunity.”

“Then how do you plan to go? And why?”

“I shall find a ride upon the road to Boston.” I glanced entreatingly at Eliza.

“Martha, there are four feet of snow about the house. You shall be frozen through before you make the road.”

“Nonetheless, I cannot remain here.”

“But what has happened?” I felt the tears finally release themselves.

“I have harmed you, Lizzie. I shall continue to harm you, and perhaps Eliza and Johnny, too, if I remain here.”

“But why? Because you told me what I already knew? That I must not love your brother? That in these times I must keep to my small circle? I know it all full well. You’ve told me nothing I have not already told myself a hundred times.”

“But you sought solace at Abigail’s breast for something I did, and I’m mortified. I could never meet her eyes again.”

“She defended you,” I said. “She said it is because you love me and wish to protect me.”

“Well, that’s true,” she said. “Though I have no illusion that I can protect you. Or this little man,” she reached out to Johnny, who himself was reaching for the glint of silver about Martha’s throat. It was a locket I had not seen before, a pretty thing etched with a floral design. I presumed she wished to wear it on her person while she traveled.

I embraced her then, Johnny between us.

“Martha, don’t leave. I beg you. I shall be good.”

“Good? I doubt that.” She looked up at me. When I saw her disbelieving eyebrow, I smiled, for I believed she might reconsider, if only to keep me from further mischief.

Martha did not leave us then, but so much damage had been wrought that I was obliged to sell some furniture. I parted with my mother’s bedstead in the parlor. It was a family treasure that had sailed from England fifty years earlier. It brought tears to my eyes to see it disassembled and carted out through the snow by rough and careless men. But I now had eight pounds silver in my pocket, with which I was able to buy another cow and a sack of corn flour. With these things we would survive the winter, which was already ominously cold.

Our spirits grew very low. Little Johnny caught a heavy cold, and for three days we took turns standing with him over a kettle of boiling water, until we were soaked and fairly boiled ourselves.

News of the massacre at Cherry Valley sank us further. We heard of women and children scalped, and other barbarisms as well. We discussed these events among ourselves and agreed: mankind was capable of ungodly evil. Our conversations depressed us, and at one of our lowest moments, I reflected, “I wonder whether our species is worth saving. I doubt that even our liberty will change man’s essentially bad nature.”

At the time, my friends did not disagree.

I took to sleeping with Jeb’s musket by my side. All of us slept in my chamber now, my chest of drawers pulled up against the door, so as to have a fighting chance should we come under attack again.

Babes did not cease coming into the world simply because I had lost my supplies, however. December of 1778 brought three births. Poor babes! Mothers near starved, with hardly a sniff of milk for the infants. And yet, however dire conditions might have been, the sight of a healthy baby never failed to delight its mother and bring hope into the most dejected household.

The three births brought us material sustenance as well: we received a good bottle of rum, a fine piece of linen, and, much to our delight, a jar of apricots preserved in honey.

The apricots put us all into a swoon. The night we received them, we did not taste them but simply sat by the fire and stared at each and every apricot within the jar, remarking on its fine qualities, savoring each one in our imaginations.

We were staring at this same unopened apricot jar one frigid evening in late December when we heard the roll of carriage wheels upon our little road. We were in such an excited state of imagination that at first we assumed the carriage sound to be imaginary as well.

It was not. We all ran to the window and saw a lady dressed in an admirable cloak, fur collar, and muff. She descended her carriage with the help of her coachman.

Mrs. Boylston.

Seeing her through the window, Eliza cried, “What punishment has my Redeemer in mind for me?” I do believe Eliza was more frightened by the sight of her own mother than she had been at the sound of the vandals’ footsteps.

“Dearest, nothing shall happen,” I said, gently leading her away from the window. “Your mother can have no power here.”

Eliza’s mother did look daunting, however. She was still quite beautiful and perfectly appointed, but her grim slit of a mouth told of no happy mission.

She was at the door, and I was obliged to give her entrance, as it was glacial outside. The coachman unhitched the horses. I watched Thaxter, teetering, lead them to the stable. “Unless he wishes to assist me in birthing the next babe, he had better not be dipping into
our
rum,” I muttered to Martha.

“We must have a word with him by and by.”

Mrs. Boylston stood in the middle of my parlor as she removed her things and set them down on a chair by the fire. Her face looked pinched. She was clearly ill at ease, but also curious, for she had never been within these walls before, not even to visit when Jeb was alive. She studied the lively industry about her with some surprise. Her daughter stood before her with little Johnny in her arms. He had grown in leaps and bounds these two months, oblivious to our own wounded universe.

“Mother.” Eliza bowed her head.

Would she not embrace her own daughter? She would not. Wicked, Pharaoh-hearted woman! Martha and I involuntarily placed our hands to our hearts.

“You must be frozen.” I remembered my manners. “I shall bring some tea.”

“Thank you,” she said. Then she offered, “You all seem quite cozy here.”

“We are quite busy,” I admitted, “what with one thing and another.”

I brought chamomile tea and oatcakes, and we all sat about the fire in the parlor.

Mrs. Boylston sat resolutely not looking at little Johnny. The infant kept grinning at her, but each time he did so, she looked away. Oh, she was made of inhuman stuff! Forgive me, but I abhorred her then. Someone who is able to resist the love of a child must be damaged beyond God-given humanity.

She soon got to her business. “I want you to return home. I am all alone now.”

“As was I,” Eliza countered, “until dearest Lizzie took me in. This is my home.”

“You cannot possibly wish to stay here,” said Mrs. Boylston, casting about her at the many chores left undone.

Eliza smiled nervously. “It is simple and crowded, I agree. But it is more to my liking than our cold and drafty house with all its useless finery. And, as you see, Johnny thrives here.”

Johnny was busy grasping his mother’s pendant and putting it in his mouth. She kept gently removing it from his clutches.

“I care nothing for it,” she said, meaning her grandchild.

“Care or not, ‘it’ is still your grandson. His name is John.”

“There is an inheritance waiting for you when I die,” replied Mrs. Boylston.

A resigned smirk fell across Eliza’s face. Mrs. Boylston could not have known the crucible of emotions that Eliza had passed through and that had made her, at long last, indifferent to either status or money.

“Let me have it then. Or, if you are not inclined, don’t!”

Then, perhaps remembering their uncertain future, she grasped the boy to herself and turned away.

I rose at once.

“Shall I call for your horses, ma’am? There can be little more for you to accomplish here.”

Mrs. Boylston looked at me, her eyes glittering with some well-pondered intent. “If you would keep the bastard, I’m certain I could persuade my daughter to return home, where she belongs. I am in a position to recompense you.”

“Keep Johnny?” I looked at Martha, who had remained silent during this interview. “Oh, we have not the means to keep a babe, ma’am.”

“I will never part from Johnny!” Eliza glared at her mother.

“Well, perhaps a winter of
this
will alter your thinking,” said Mrs. Boylston, gathering her things. She cast a withering glance about her.

“Never!” And with that, the daughter fled into the kitchen. In a few moments, after bidding good-bye and good riddance to the mother, we moved to console our friend.

37

WINTER, 1779. APART from this unwelcome visit,
the end of ’78 saw us in relative tranquility. We all lost flesh, except for little Johnny, but we suffered our hunger in genteel silence. We kept busy working to “turn water into wine.” We wove the last bits of flax, baked the last pompions, made soup from fish bones, and fried cod in lard. We none of us went abroad, not even for meeting. We were too frightened, and besides, there was no coal to warm our little coal foot warmers.

It was after the New Year that I decided to resume my spying activities once more, to the great objection of Martha, who threatened to leave me for good should I do so. But I knew it to be an empty threat.

My modest hope was that I would stumble upon something important—perhaps some news of this Mr. Holland or Mr. Thompson. This was precisely what my friends feared. Indeed, Martha insisted that it was only because I had left off my spying that our enemies saw fit to leave us in peace. There was logic to my friend’s words, but I heeded them not.

On the Saturday after New Year’s, just as I had amassed my gear and donned my mustache and smelly vestments, I heard voices approaching. A loud rap on the door followed. I started up and peered through the newly glazed parlor window to find Colonel Quincy and Richard Cranch stomping the snow off their feet.

“You are in for it now.” Martha smirked. I had begun to pick at my mustache when the two men fairly burst open the door. I stood.

The colonel stepped back, unsure of whom he had found sitting in Elizabeth Boylston’s parlor.

“Excuse us,” said the colonel, “but we were looking for Mrs. Boylston on a matter of utmost urgency.”

Richard Cranch grinned. “Uncle, do you not recognize your own relation?”

But such a spectacle was beyond the old man’s imaginings. “Why do you smirk, man?”

By this point, I had succeeded in peeling off the mustache. Upon seeing my gesture, the colonel actually began to sway, believing a man to have forcibly removed his own mustache.

“Martha, some whiskey at once,” I called to her.

“Is this a joke, Elizabeth?” asked the colonel, now recognizing me.

“No, sir. It is no joke.”

“Well, I’m certain you’re up to some dangerous foolishness, but we have news that cannot wait.”

“May I sit?” asked Richard, who stood in his dripping coat. In the excitement of the moment, we had all forgotten our manners.

“I’m very sorry. Yes, do,” I said.

Richard wasted no time. “I have made inquiries into the name of Benjamin Thompson that your man in Cambridge learned of, and I’ve discovered some interesting facts. Apparently there has gone into hiding one Benjamin Thompson, age twenty-five, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who disappeared around the same time Mr. Holland did. He has a wife—a wealthy heiress, one Sarah Rolfe—through whose connections he was able to gain an appointment as a major in a New Hampshire militia. But he abandoned her after Rebels broke into his house last year, and he fled with Holland. This Thompson fashions himself a natural philosopher. Indeed, it seems he has even published a paper of some sort. Now it is said that these men are here in Boston.”

The news sent a thrill of danger through me and, unbeknownst to my guests, made me even more eager to set off. I now believed that I would make significant discoveries at the Rose and Crown.

“All the more reason why you must entertain no wild thoughts of roaming, Elizabeth,” the colonel added.

I nodded demurely. Martha looked at me askance. She knew me better. After downing their whiskey, the colonel and Mr. Cranch made to leave, but not without the colonel wagging a finger at me as he left. “Take heed of what we’ve said, Lizzie. A woman’s place is in the home.”

I now waited until early the following morning to set off, and during this time I came to doubt my purpose. Or, not my purpose, but the sagacity of leaving the farm. Yet I saw no other way to find the truth.

Fear for my friends held me back a moment. Yet, let it be said in my defense that I never have liked mysteries. If I do not know something, I usually wish to know it as soon as may be. I have never understood those who are content with a mere scrap of a story; no, I must know the end—and the middle as well, if possible. Furthermore, I saw no reason why this God-given curiosity should be the province of man alone. We women are just as curious; yet we are taught that curiosity is not seemly. Foh! The destruction of my home and livelihood gave legitimacy to my desire to know who lay behind it.

But I must also include a second reason for my pursuing this foolish course: the slender hope of seeing Mr. Miller again. Oh, I had no hope of anything coming of such a meeting. The sight of him alone, the thrill of looking into his eyes and fancying I saw some fleeting tenderness—this must, I knew, be the end of it. Yet even this thought of one fleeting moment gave me great pleasure. Several such moments might afford me years of memories.

Having tossed and turned for several hours, I finally rose at three to prepare my disguise, waking Martha in the process. She rose but refused to help me. “Go ahead. Get caught, land in a stinking prison, and hang by your neck until you are dead.”

“Would you not care even a little?” I said, standing there in my costume, my lips moving beneath the heavy mustache.

“Not in the least.”

But one glance at my face had her running into my arms.

Eliza, overhearing, rose to join us. Seeing me from the kitchen doorway, she frowned. “Oh, you’re a trial. Did you not hear Colonel Quincy?”

“I heard him.”

She came up to me and tenderly straightened my mustache. “Do be careful.”

“I always am,” I replied.

Dawn was just rising as I rode back to the Rose and Crown tavern. My mustache was somewhat the worse for wear; it now resembled a small, dead rodent. No one was abroad, and I was alone on the road; whiteness surrounded me. I saw no bird or other living thing save a snow-dusted opossum that scurried in front of Star on the icy road and nearly caused my demise. Star faltered, his front hooves rising off the frozen ground; but he recovered quickly at my soothing voice, and we soon arrived at Milton. There, a few hardy souls were about, tending to their chores.

At Roxbury, I could no longer feel my feet, and so I thought it prudent to stop at the tavern, though I did not tarry. By midday, I once more found myself at Rowe’s Wharf. Unlike in the fall, the wharf was desolate. The odor, however, owing to the cold, was slightly better. Feeling little need to dissemble, I gave Star directly to the stable boy, kicked my frozen feet against the iron scraper, and entered.

Within, I took myself a seat in my usual corner so as not to be noticed. The air seemed smokier and more fetid, the men nearly paralyzed with drink, and the floors more tacky with spilled cider than I remembered. Mr. Smythe was there, looking somewhat more stooped and pale. I was glad to see him.

“Back in town with another package, eh?” he asked. “Didn’t erase the directions this time?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Well, live and learn.” He shrugged philosophically. “What’ll you have? You fancied the punch, if I recall.”

“Indeed. Kind of you to remember, sir. The same, please, sir.”

I looked around me when he had gone. Through the smoke, as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw various groups of men hunched over their mugs. Some played checkers, taking a glacially long time between moves. Others looked my way, but, finding nothing of interest, turned back to their conversations.

Someone guffawed, and I turned to see a red-faced farmer exclaim, “I’ll wager you ten shillings he’ll surrender before you have your corn sowed. The papers is saying he can’t get men to join, not for all the money in the world.”

At this proclamation, I stood. The men turned toward me, expectant. But I had not the courage to confront a drunken group of Tories. Nor did I think it would serve my purpose. I made as if to adjust my trouser leg, and when I sat once more without having said anything, I felt a presence looming behind me.

I turned to find Mr. Cleverly.

“If this be your true bent, Lizzie, it is well I did not remain in Braintree.” He smiled. “May I join you?”

I was too shocked to utter a syllable.

But Cleverly continued easily, pulling a chair and crossing his legs, “This boyish garb oddly suits you, Lizzie.”

“Please, Mr. Cleverly,” I whispered, “keep your voice down. It is my fervent wish that no one know.”

He laughed. “Doesn’t everyone know? Certainly Mr. Cranch does. And besides, whom do you presume to fool? Only fools would be fooled by your costume.”

“That has not been my experience.”

“Oh, and so you have been at this before? I
thought
I recognized you,” he exclaimed. “When was that? Let’s see—September? October? One would think you’d have given up such foolishness by now. What can it serve?”

“You think women incapable of making any contribution?”

“No, indeed.” Cleverly’s eyes narrowed. His face came close. “I think you capable of doing a great deal of harm, all for the so-called ‘good’ you do.”

I was about to make a bitter rejoinder when we were interrupted by the arrival of my punch. I reached into my breeches and paid Mr. Smythe what I owed him.

“Two pence, is it?” I said in a rough voice.

He nodded, casting a puzzled glance at Mr. Cleverly. When he had gone, Cleverly resumed his discourse.

As I observed him now, I saw a great deal I had not seen before. He was glib and easy, but his eyes were cool blue discs. On his left hand, which tapped out a rhythm against his thigh, I discerned a faint band of light skin around his ring finger.

Upon seeing Cleverly’s pale band of skin, the mist cleared, and I finally discerned the truth. And this truth frightened me like nothing had since I woke to the cannons in Charlestown.

“Alas, these are not times for domestic pleasures,” he was saying, “much as I long for them.” Here he sighed deeply and added, “Love and war are an unhappy equation.”

Preservation told me to flee. But I stayed. “Why do you tarry here?” I inquired pointedly. “We had all thought you returned to New Hampshire after Mr. Thayer’s death.”

“I might ask you the same question,” he returned. “For surely you have no wish to leave your farm exposed to those who wish you ill.”

The way he emphasized the words
wish you ill
made my heart pound violently. Constricted as I was by the board upon my breast, I felt that I could hardly breathe. Yet I managed to say, “Are there those who wish me ill, Mr. Cleverly?”

“It is common knowledge,” he said mildly. “And I for one was very sorry to hear it.”

I knew then he was lying. No one beyond our parish knew of our misfortunes. I had to leave, and now. I left my punch untouched and began backing away.

“I see you are eager to leave.” He smiled. “And so must I. I underestimated you, Lizzie,” he continued. “For that, too, my sincerest apologies. You are a strong, admirable woman. But I am concerned for you.”

“Concerned, sir?”

“Yes, for you may find that to be too busy is some danger. By the way, was that horse I saw beyond the window yours? It is a beautiful animal.”

“Yes.”