The Tory Widow (2 page)

“Anne Peabody, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honor and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as you both shall live?”

“I will.”

The moment she uttered the fated words forsaking her happiness, her future and all she'd ever known, a distant church bell tolled. The one bell was soon joined by another, and another, till it seemed every steeple and belfry in the city echoed in an unending, doleful peal.

The minister grew agitated and rushed to finish the service. Erratic bursts of musket fire and the far-off boom of a cannon added to the clamor coming from the street. No longer able to withhold curiosity, the two carpenters and David sprinted out the sanctuary door.

Pronouncing bride and groom “man and wife,” the clergyman clapped his book shut and also abandoned the wedded pair.

The father of the bride stepped forward. With a hurried, “Congratulations!” accompanied by an abrupt slap to the groom's back, he, too, was quick on the minister's heels, out the door.

Peter Merrick turned and faced his new wife. He bent awkwardly at knees and waist to plant a tight, dry kiss on her cheek. Without further ado, he rushed to join the others.

All alone, Anne Merrick gave herself over to all the self-pity, anger, loneliness and fear she'd suppressed for weeks. Sobbing, she wadded her tear-drenched hanky and scrubbed hard at the spot on her cheek where Mr. Merrick had sealed their union with a kiss.

Heaving a ragged sigh, she sniffed and fussed with the lace at her elbows and adjusted the gauzy kerchief at her neckline. Somewhat composed, Anne gathered the beryl blue silk of her best dress, and joined the men congregated near the northernmost stone column supporting the portico roof.

The air was alive with bells clanging and sporadic gunfire. Across Broad Way, a sizable crowd formed on the green of the Commons, and people spilled from shops, houses and narrow alleyways onto the dusty road. Her brother, David, stood at the far end of the chapel stoop in a glum huddle with the two carpenters, the minister and Peter Merrick.

“What news?” Anne asked.

David shrugged. “Father went to find out. He bade us all stay put.”

The minister lamented, “It takes some time for word to make its way here, to the edge of town.”

“There come the newsboys now.” Peter Merrick nodded, folding his arms across his chest.

Several young men in shirtsleeves and leather aprons ran down Broad Way armed with thick sheaves of paper. Fresh off the press, the broadsides being distributed were greeted with rousing cheers. One of these fresh-faced young men ran up to St. Paul's, handing his last pages to Merrick and the minister. Breathless he blurted, “Arrived on the express from Boston . . . the Stamp Act's been repealed!”

“Huzzah!” David and the two carpenters leaped up and punched the air. “We did it! We did it.” The ridiculous trio of instant friends ran out to the crowded street in a tumbled camaraderie of backslapping and jovial shoving. They linked arms and marched onto the Commons to join with the singing and dancing celebrants.

“I-I don't believe it!” The minister patted his pockets for his spectacles.

Grim-faced Merrick held the paper at arm's length, squinting at the news. “Our King would never accede to the whim of Whig radicals.” He rattled the sheet at the messenger. “Who is your master? Which Whig press manufactured this flummery?”

Unflinching, the young man squared broad shoulders. “I'm Jack Hampton, sir, apprenticed with Parker's Press, and that”—Jack tapped the broadside in Merrick 's hand—“is excerpted word for word from the
London Times
, that is.”

“Parker's Press? A rabid dissenter—he is no friend to the Crown.” Peter Merrick crumpled the broadside into a ball and flung it to the ground. “Your master ought think twice before publishing lies that excite the rabble into disobedience and sedition.”

Dark brows knit, jaw tight, fists clenched, Jack Hampton mounted the stoop. “John Parker is nothing but a true Son of Liberty, sir, and he publishes only the Truth.” The young man turned and noticed Anne and the minister, standing off to the side. He stepped back, took a breath and brushed back a shock of black hair that'd escaped his queue. “But I think this is neither the time nor place for a debate on the rights of freemen and the merits of civil dissent, is it?” A white-toothed grin flashed and with a brash wink he turned to Anne and said, “Cheer up there, lass. We stood toe-to-toe with Parliament and we showed 'em what's what!”

Jack stepped forward, grasped Anne round the waist with ink-stained hands and swung her up through the air, shouting, “Joy to America! Huzzah the Liberty Boys! Huzzah the King!” Setting her back to her feet, he pulled her close and kissed Anne full on the mouth.

Peter Merrick sputtered, “Why . . . I . . . you—you . . .” But before he could enunciate his outrage, one of Hampton's likewise apron-clad cohorts called from the street.

“Hoy, Jack! Quit sniffin' after petticoats—the lads are a-waitin' on us . . .”

Bold young Jack took Anne by the hand and raised her fingertips to his lips in a gesture so suddenly genteel as to take her breath away. In that moment, Anne's life seemed in her grasp—the bells rang bright, the world was happy—then Jack Hampton bounded down the stair and out onto the street to join his mates.

“Scoundrel!” Peter Merrick shouted, with fist raised. “I shall make a report to your master!”

Jack turned and thumbed his nose. “Take heart, you ol' Tory! Meet me at Montagne's—bring your pretty daughter . . .” He blew Anne a kiss. “We can all toast our good King's health!”

While Merrick cursed and grumbled, Anne marked Jack and his friend dodging their way across Broad Way onto the Commons. She so wished she could drum up the courage to shed her misspoken vows and forced-upon obligations—the courage to run after the wild lad and take him by the hand. As Jack Hampton disappeared amid the raucous throng, Anne felt her heart spin away and clatter, like a bucket lost down the depths of a deep, deep well.

No.
It was never in her nature to own that kind of reckless courage.

Anne flinched when Peter Merrick grasped her by the shoulder.

“Come along, Mrs. Merrick . . . your father assures me you've a deft hand at setting type. We've work to do today—a special edition at the least.”

Anne took her husband's proffered arm and he led her beyond the joyous din to begin her new life.

PART ONE

Revolution

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

CHAPTER ONE

THOMAS PAINE,
Common Sense

 

 

 

 

 

A
strong breeze blowing in off the bay caught in the black wool of her skirts, propelling Anne Merrick across Broad Way at a smart pace. Dodging carriages and carts, she clutched the jute string wrapped around the package with her right hand, kept the plain cotton bonnet from flying off her head with her left, and zigzagged a path across the cobbled thoroughfare.

Anne was not in the habit of making deliveries, but her pressman, Titus, was busy finishing a print run, and Sally, her servant girl, was late in returning from the ink seller. The rector at St. Paul's paid a premium to have copies of his latest sermon delivered by Evensong, and times being what they were, Anne could not afford to lose yet another customer.

Merrick Press & Stationers was located at the tip of the island off the corner of the narrow alley connecting Duke and Dock streets, and Anne did not often find reason to stray to the west side of town. With French heels tapping a brisk rhythm on the redbrick walk, she coursed a straight path past a row of stately mansions, noting many were shuttered and deserted by their owners. When news of Lexington and Concord galloped into town, more than a few Loyalist New Yorkers fearing Patriot malcontents closed their homes and boarded the first available packet bound for England.

How quickly the tides had shifted. Rebels and Englishmen was how Mr. Merrick would refer to them if he were yet alive. Her husband's Loyalist sentiments had earned him the custom of a likewise devoted clientele and he prospered by his beliefs. A staunch supporter of the Crown until his dying day, Merrick was.

Anne had once been avid to follow the politics of the day, collecting pamphlets and broadsides, always combing the papers for the latest news from London, Boston and Philadelphia. She weathered several of Merrick 's stern rebukes in regard to her pro-Whig sympathies, and quickly learned to keep her reading material and her opinions to herself. After Jemmy was born, Anne found little opportunity to indulge in clandestine intellectual pursuits, and her interest in current events waned.

In truth, the simultaneous loss of both her husband and her little boy to smallpox three years before sapped Anne of ardent feeling for anything—politics in particular. On most days, it was all she could do to swing legs from bed and tend to her printing business, much less give a fig for the ever-fickle ideologies of men. Anne lifted her skirts and picked a path through a rank pile of dung occupying the center of the walk.
Loyalists and Patriots . . .

The city teemed with newly professed Patriots who'd not a month before boasted lifelong fealty to their Sovereign. It was beyond her ken as to who were the worse—those with ideologies malleable enough to bend with whatever wind enriched their purses, or the fanatics, who by threat and violence forced their unyielding notions down the gullets of all.

Taxation, tyranny, the rights of free men—Anne spent no time trying to make sense of the concepts and ideals filling newspapers and pamphlets, posted on walls, and spoken on street corners at every turn. She was only concerned with the rights of one woman. Keeping Merrick's Press prosperous enough to remain free of her father's tyranny and predilection to marry her off again—that was what kept Anne fully occupied.

The word alone was enough to set her teeth on edge. As a propertied young widow, she drew many a zealous suitor to her shop these days, but she had no problem rejecting every offer. She'd had more than enough marriage for one lifetime.

Anne skirted around the tea-water peddler's cart and donkey blocking the walkway, the sight making her wistful for the convenience of fresh, clean water delivered to her door. Merrick's death coupled with new taxes and political strife had severely affected trade, forcing her to dispense with many such luxuries. Still, she could not bear for her coffee to be tainted by the brackish water drawn from the nearby public well, so every dawn she and Sally joined the stream of women toting buckets, making their way to the city's only truly potable source, the Tea-Water Pump in Chatham Square.

A trio of denizens came up from the dingy streets west of Trinity Church and fell in behind Anne on her northward trek up Broad Way. She glanced over her shoulder.

It was a bit early in the day for these women to have emerged. As a port and garrison town, New York City proved a haven for such women of ill repute. Doxies and whores of every ilk had, until recently, plied their trade with ease. But when the British military vacated the city to take up arms in Boston, these garish women in their ridiculous wigs and brassy petticoats suffered a harsh economic adjustment.

How ironic,
Anne thought.
Losing all their Loyal customers, just like me.

To Anne's relief, and contrary to a typical streetwalker's languid stroll, the women set a brisk pace and the threesome was quick to pass her by.

Half a dozen dockworkers in red knit caps with lading hooks dangling from the waistbands of their baggy sailcloth trousers swaggered out from the Boar's Head tavern across the street. One of them shouted, “How much?”

Without a hesitation, a prostitute squawked, “Only four shillings, darling!”

“Hoy!
Ladies!
” the shortest and slightest longshoreman called, wagging his hips. “How about
you
pay
me
four shillings and I'll treat yiz to the biggest and best cock in Christendom.”

The women stopped dead in their tracks, causing Anne to halt abruptly as well.