On Sunday next, I sat between Alice and Dolly, listening to Reverend Clarke, myself still unable to speak. My throat ruptured and bled anew if I spoke. Rather than Bible texts, he used my husband as an example of our rights being trampled by a Crown that had no feeling for its own people. He read aloud the Declaratory Act, which proclaimed that “in all cases whatsoever, Parliament had taken away the rights of all British Citizens to an open trial by jury.” At the end of the reading of the act, the last paragraph said that anyone arrested for any suspicion named upon them would be transported to the Vice-Admiralty Court in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and tried by a single judge in the employ of the Crown. There would be no defense, no witnesses called, only a reading of the charge and judgment by a Crown appointee. No longer were colonists to hire their judges. The Crown owned them, and rewarded them for the fines they levied. Reverend Clarke said, “If we can no longer control the hiring of those whom we see fit to judge us of our wrongs, we have lost the rights of free British citizenry granted by the Magna Charta.”
Those around me were enraged on our behalf. They patted my hands, said soothing words. But that did not bring Cullah home. Several of the men who were in the practice of law offered to write letters to Parliament, and to those I agreed. “I will pay you,” I offered, though they all declined to accept my money. At home, I wept. I wandered through the house, calling his name, crying out. Dorothy feared I had gone mad, I believed. Perhaps Alice did, too. I cared not. I could not lie down for blood from my throat choked me. I was mad. Mad with fear and anger. Raging, yet mute, for my throat, said Dr. Warren, might never heal.
During those first weeks, visits from Reverend Clarke kept me thinking there was yet hope, but when he left, and I closed the door, though I had tried to smile, as soon as the latch slipped into place, I wept anew. I woke up at night, hearing Goody Carnegie howling in the wind. I tried to cry out, but my muteness felt as if the cleaver Cullah had thrown had landed in my own throat. It hurt as if an egg-sized scar had formed, and I could make nary a whisper. I wept and sobbed so that my inhalations made cawing sounds like a child taken with throat distemper. It pained me so not to be able to hear his name from my own lips, that I cried the harder, and wept myself to sleep. I dreamed of my childhood. Of running across the widow’s walk to watch gulls diving in the air. Of Ma and Pa, and Allsy. And of jumping over a candle. I sat up in bed, crying out, “Eadan!” Had I doomed all I loved by that one candle?
*
October 26, 1767. Cold weather made chills in my feet and ankles as I walked to Boston to see Margaret Gage. I hoped to implore her to seek her husband out on my behalf, though I had not seen her since that terrible day. I had not been able to locate Brendan, who I hoped would help me appeal to some commander or other. Since Margaret’s husband was the general and the troops who had taken Cullah were his men they could as easily bring him home. I feared she might not receive me, though her butler showed me in just as always. I sat in her parlor, fidgeting with my bonnet ribbons. When she entered, I stood and cleared my throat, for I was still quite hoarse. I whispered, “Margaret, if you would rather I leave, please say so. We have too much honesty between us for you to act as if nothing were wrong between us.”
She lowered her chin and looked at me under her frown. “I would not rather you left, Ressie.”
“Let me speak frankly with your husband.”
“Thomas is not here to ask, dear friend. They are shipping thousands more soldiers of foot here this month and he is dashing everywhere at once.”
I sobbed, saying, “They have taken my Cullah. He will not live through this, Margaret. I know him. His anger will betray him like no accusation could.”
“Who has accused him?”
“Wallace Spencer.”
“Oh, no.”
I waited.
“Did he do the things of which he is accused?”
“Even if I knew, I could not claim it against my husband. I only know he is accused.”
“Spencer is making specious claims to torment you?”
I said, “I know he would do anything to hurt me. It has been his lifelong passion.”
“You hurt him so much?”
“I hurt him? He deserted me, at night, alone in a filthy wharf tavern. He disappointed his mother so much that she left her house to my brother August.”
“He resents your happiness, and longs for your love, or he would forget you rather than chase you. Perhaps,” she said, taking a long breath, “perhaps you should ask him to withdraw the charges.”
I stared at the rug. “I will. I will ask him that. I know not whether he still resides in Boston.”
“He does. He has already returned to their house. I am sure it is deliciously ghastly, the two of them alone there. Did you hear one of their sons took a sack and unloaded the silver service and ran off to New York with one of their yellow African slaves? Another one is a cripple for taking opium, and it is told one of their daughters does the same.”
“The thought of talking to him sickens me. I would have to find him without Serenity near, for when she is about everything becomes a mere aside to her jealousy. Would you come with me?”
“What would you say to him?”
“That I would do anything to save my Cullah.” Tears coursed down my cheeks.
Margaret hugged me, and I her. “Don’t tell him that. You know what he’d require. The man’s a he-goat and he’d use you under pretext and still not help you. Tell me when, and I will arrange an invitation for Serenity so you’ll have him alone.”
“Tomorrow?”
“As good as done.”
“Thank you so. This may do more to help him than all the lawyers in Boston.”