“Farewell, August.” I kissed him, barely a brush from my lips to his.
He pushed his way through the stumbling soldiers in the gallery, straight up to the last door, the one to the east room where I had once slept. With one great kick he sent the door splintering into the room, entered it, and vanished. I ran after him. There was a window open. A rope hung from it. I watched as in the courtyard below Rupert held a horse. August’s black cloak and black tricorn hat gave him the look of a phantom though the day was clear and bright.
I turned to leave just as soldiers entered. I knew I had to act a part if I were to survive this day, too. I pointed to the window. August was away. I knew he was safe. I shouted, “Look! He went down the rope. Follow him, you! He is escaping!” I continued as if I were a child watching a play, calling, “That man is getting away. After him. Go, go!” I urged them on, amazed at how my words stirred them to act. They ran from me and down the stairs.
More was astir in the grand bedroom. The dead guards had been found. I reached in, crouching low at the door, and pulled Wallace’s cloak from the floor where he had left it. As I did, I raised my hand and bent my elbow. It crinkled with the sound of paper. August had tucked into my sleeve some sort of message. I pulled it forth.
Honorable Sir, everything is arriv’d. Seventy-five kegs of raven eggs and two hundred h.k. blk powder, deliv’d to store, half that more deliv’d your Res this night under cov. dkness. Our honor’d friend W. will X for his service. J.H.
This letter had been meant for August. Raven eggs were cannonballs and “your Res” meant Resolute, not residence. More powder was on its way to my house! The signature, a work of artistic frills and ruffles, was unmistakably that of John Hancock. I liked John a great deal, yet I smiled, knowing those who scoffed at his penchant for showmanship led them to call him “Jonathan Peacock.” Thank God for such a worthy peacock, and thanks also to Margaret, that he, Dr. Warren, and John Adams had escaped the night before the battle at Lexington. I knew one small thing I could do.
I refolded Wallace’s cloak, searching for and finding a slit pocket in the inside right-hand seam. I slid the note into it so that one end of the paper was exposed. Then, as if I had actually come to participate in the search of my brother’s house, I carried the cloak across my arms as I descended the stair. In the main parlor, I approached Wallace Spencer and the colonel as they shuffled through papers, hunting, perhaps, for this very note. “Lord Spencer?” I called. “Your prisoner has escaped. You should have taken him yourself.”
Wallace shouted. He cursed. He ran up the stairs.
I faced the colonel. I said to him, “Sir, do you know subterfuge when you see it? Have you ever been in the presence of an actor so cunning at lies that not a word from such a one can be trusted? I hear the Patriots have such in their employ.”
The officer said, “I have not time for you, woman. Get out of this house. We are trying to conduct business here.”
“Lord Spencer is such a gentleman, is he not?”
“Yes, yes, I suppose so.” He stacked some papers, straightening the edges.
Wallace returned to the room in full run, grasping at the doorjamb as he came. “The villain is away! Why did your men fail? We had him! Blast your eyes, man.”
“I am sorry, your lordship,” the colonel said.
I held Wallace’s cloak, gesturing. “Here, Wallace. Lord Spencer, I brought your cloak so it would not be soiled by the villainy afoot.”
He shook his head, his teeth gritting together so that I heard the squeak. “There it is. I thought the man had taken it, too. Give me that.” He whipped it from my arms and the note whisked out of the pocket, flew through the air, and spiraled to the floor at the feet of the colonel as Wallace stormed toward the front door.
The colonel looked at the note for a count of three before he knelt and picked it up. He read it. I counted three ticks, like the circling of a spinning wheel. Tick. Tick. Tick. The colonel shouted, with a voice I expect had been trained on a battlefield, “Stop! Arrest that man! Arrest Lord Spencer!”
In the ensuing chaos, I slipped from the house and ran for the wagon. Alice helped me in. She said, “Mistress, the servants at Mistress Gage’s home would not let me in the door. I went to the back and say some words with the cook. Mistress Gage is gone. Her husband shipped her to London this morning. The ship sailed before dawn.”
I was breathing hard. I hung my head. “Poor Margaret, but I may write to her?”
“The cook told me to ask you not to do that. She said, Mistress Margaret give you her last, best gift. Best way to accept it, is to leave it all be.”
I would weep for her later. I would not weep in the street. “You are right. Let us get home immediately.”
“What of your brother, Mistress? It look like there are soldiers there.”