I looked at the fine velvet draperies hanging at her windows. I remembered how proud I had once been of the linens I had made that once filled our home, how they filled my heart with pride in my own labor and joy that my children were warm. How the soldiers had slashed at their rings with swords and carted them all away. “You are correct. It is not only your husband’s occupation. Everything is wrong, Margaret. Good day.”
Margaret followed me to the door, leaned her cheek against the jamb, and whispered, “Good day,” as I walked down the promenade to the street. I stilled my expression, even managed to smile warmly at a lady and gentleman, though I wept inside the entire way home. It was only after I got there and removed my bonnet that I found tucked in its brim a silver sixpence. I spent two days just staring at the sky. It seemed as if it might just fall, I thought, and I wanted to be forewarned.
Cullah left the house at midnight a few days later, and did not return for a week. He brought August with him, along with a cart full of barrels of black powder. They stored it in the barn and ate as if they were growing boys, then both slept almost around the clock. Soon as he could leave, August slipped away in the small hours before dawn. I did not ask where they acquired the powder nor where it would go from here. It was enough for me that Cullah had become himself again, and right or wrong, pirate or Patriot, my brother was part of that transformation.
*
Almost a year later, in March of 1775, I received yet another invitation to visit Margaret. This time the lettering was printed on expensive paper. “The Lady Margaret Gage begs the honor of your presence at tea, Tuesday next at three in the afternoon.” I told the messenger, a young man Bertie’s age and dressed in livery, riding a fine horse, that my answer was simply, “No, thank you.”
Alice stood at my side as the fellow rode away. “Why did you say no, Mistress? You have been more than one time in tears for lack of your friend.”
“Alice.”
“I am sorry, Mistress. I know it not my place to say this t’ing.”
“I was not going to chastise you, Alice. I meant to say that you are my friend. I do not wish to have a friend whose love for me moves upon the rise and fall of the waves of fortune.”
“Am I your friend, Mistress?”
“I consider you as much.”
“I may speak free?”
I turned to her, seeing Alice’s familiar face as if anew. “I presumed, because you have long ago earned enough to leave my employ, that you have chosen to stay. You never again asked me about returning to Jamaica. Of course you may speak within the bounds of friendship.”
“Then I t’ink Mistress Gage love you, Mistress. I t’ink she caught in her husband state. He get closer to the king with every move. It hard for her to claim a friend except women that step in that same place.”
“Six weeks ago Gage’s men rifled my barn and house yet again, claiming I had stores of black powder.”
“I remember.” A slow smile brightened her features and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “They didn’t find any, did they, Mistress?”
I returned her smile. “No, they did not.” August had come and removed the wares the very next day. Still, Gage’s men had ransacked our house five other times before that.
“Mistress, I know most men will not be governed by they wives. Mistress Gage does not guide her husband here or there. He does what he want. She goes to tea with his friend. She has to make his friend her own because of him. What woman has her own way? Not many I can name.”
“I know, Alice.”
“I say, she was once your friend, see if she is still.”
“You are right. I should have sent the young man away with an invitation for her to come here.”
“I will carry your word to her. It only decent.”
In the morning, Alice left with my message in her head and a shilling in her pocket, and for this I had to trust to her loyalty, for one word amiss could alter everything. Yet, what was I to do, for I had not so much as a strip of paper?
“She’s right,” Cullah added. He held a brace of grouse by the feet and flopped them onto the table. “You should go. Take the invitation, for that’s why she sent it, you will need it to get through the barricade. If she will come here, so much the better, but if she calls for you again, you should go. Take Alice with you.”
“Cullah, do you think Margaret means this as a signal?”
“You said yourself, she is an American.”
*
On the following Tuesday, Margaret came to my house, escorted by our old friend Dr. Warren. I served them tea such as I had, for it was not real tea but stewed of herbs and mint though they were gracious and took it. Dr. Warren asked about my health and I replied it was fair. “Samuel Prescott asked after Miss Dorothy,” he added.
“She has married,” I replied, without telling him more. I cast my eyes back and forth between them. Bertram sat in a corner pretending to be reading a book, but I looked in his direction, for I felt sure he was listening. I said, “Bertram, would you come here, please? I want you to take that satchel of candle wicking to your aunt Dorothy.”
“May I take my drum?”