Sam smiling at this man, clapping that one on the shoulder, or gripping that one’s arm. She could almost see him commanding Brother Lament-Sin to put her and Thaxter up for the night (in that atrocious, freezing loft with his daughters), or directing Brother Mortify to guide them on their way again.
And Sam would react, thought Abigail uneasily as she bade them good-night, exactly as the Hand of the Lord would react to the smallest suggestion of unbelief, should she, Abigail, say to him: I think Perdita Pentyre’s killer is a Son of Liberty. I think your organization numbers a madman in its midst.
John was gone in the morning. Whether under bond for thirty pounds or three hundred, reflected Abigail wryly, it wouldn’t keep him from committing sedition against the Crown right here in Boston. Her two days of absence had left a staggering backlog of tasks which Pattie had simply not had the time to accomplish—from cleaning lamps and candlesticks to bringing the household account books up to date—so although her bones ached with weariness and rheumatism, Abigail forced herself to rise when John did, milk the cows, and set about making breakfast while Pattie rinsed and scalded the milk-pails. John kissed her when she brought his cider and oatmeal to the kitchen table: “ ’Tis good to have you home.” And then vanished through the back door, to meet with Sam and the others before the main meeting of Friends, Brethren, etc. at nine.
The bells had tolled all night, and were tolling still. A warning of peril, of invasion, their sound would carry across the bay to Charles Town and Winnisimmet, to Braintree and Lynn; inland to Medford and Concord. Summoning Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen into Boston, to make their stand against the King’s assumption that he could arbitrarily clap a tax on whatever goods he thought people couldn’t do without—that he could with a scratch of his pen inform the colonists that they must buy their goods only from his friends.
In Scotland, in times of invasion, the men of the clans would burn a cross on the highest hill, that the men of the clan would know to assemble in arms. Even so, thought Abigail, as she dipped water from the boiler on the hearth into the washbowl for the dishes—even so the sound of the bells went out, to that great clan that Cousin Sam had formed with his skill and his charm and his wily understanding of human nature. And in Medford and Dorchester, Cambridge and Lynn, men were turning the management of their farms and shops over to their wives and mothers, and starting out for Boston.
Is it someone in the Sons of Liberty? She probed and tested at the thought, as if trying to untangle a necklace without breaking its delicate links. Is that why he bound Rebecca, shut her up in her room? Or did he do that because he wanted her alive, wanted her to return to him . . .
Yet she couldn’t imagine Charles Malvern taking a knife to a girl of twenty. Exposing her affaire with this second Adonis—if indeed such an affaire were not merely Lisette’s rather Gallic interpretation of an innocent admiration—certainly. And possibly Malvern’s vindictiveness would have extended to spying on Rebecca, by which means he’d have learned of the misdeeds of his rival’s flighty bride in the first place. But further than that . . .
Her mind chased itself in a circle, trying to fit what she knew into what she could only surmise.
Richard Pentyre would be hearing the bells, in that handsome house on Prince’s Street. They’d passed it last night, riding back from the ferry, its old walls of timber and stone covered over with handsome brick, its old gabled attics remodeled with a fashionable mansard roof. There’d been a handbill plastered to the door already, demanding that Pentyre report himself to the Liberty Tree and resign his appointment, as the tea consignees in Philadelphia and New York had resigned theirs. None of the Massachusetts consignees had yet done so: Probably, reflected Abigail wryly, their father the Governor wouldn’t let them. If—
“Mama!” Johnny and Nabby flung themselves panting through the back door, red-faced with the cold. “Soldiers are coming!”
Had Abigail been a swearing woman, she would have sworn. She hadn’t yet taken her hands from the washbasin when she heard knocking at the front door, and Pattie’s swift step from the parlor where she’d been cleaning the grate—
Abigail strode into the little hallway in time to see the girl open the door and yes, for that first instant the aperture seemed to be filled with the color of the King’s Men and blood. She was conscious of Nabby and Johnny at her side, half hiding behind her skirts but at the same time determined not to leave her. The thought flashed through her mind, Johnny’s six! He shouldn’t have to be trying to protect his mother from soldiers. In the kitchen, Tommy started to wail in fright, and from the street outside came the unmistakable thunk of a thrown glob of mud and a child chanting, “Lobsterbacks, lobsterbacks . . .”
There’s only two of them . . .
Lieutenant Coldstone stepped forward across the threshold, removed his hat, and bowed. “Mrs. Adams? Please forgive this intrusion. May I beg a few minutes of your time? I’ve come to ask your help.”
Fifteen
“In the past eighteen months, two other women have been killed in the same fashion as Mrs. Pentyre.” Lieutenant Coldstone stretched his hands to the small blaze in the parlor hearth, newly kindled and struggling, but his coffee-dark gaze remained on Abigail’s face.
Abigail stared at him, feeling as if she had been struck. Two—? And then, sickened that she had not thought earlier to ask, Why did I think she was the only one?
She took a deep breath, yet could think of nothing to say.
“One was a whore, the other a hairdresser—common women—”
“And does a woman’s poverty or morals make her more deserving of that horror?” She fought the urge to pick up a stick of firewood from the box beside the hearth and smash it over that immaculately powdered wig.
“No, of course not,” he replied calmly. “But it does make it curious that the third victim was a wealthy woman, a married woman, and a woman who under normal circumstances could not be easily got at by a stranger who did not have an introduction to her.”
Abigail opened her mouth again to snap a response, then thought about his words, and closed it. Her mind darted at once to Charles Malvern’s house, and how it was never entirely stilclass="underline" always the distant tread of a servant, the sense of other people at call. When Rebecca had taken up her first set of rooms in that cheap lodging house on the North End, after six months of living with the Adamses on Brattle Street, she had said, It feels so queer, to come in from the market, and know I’ll be there alone.
She said, slowly, “And Mrs. Malvern was poor, and she lived alone . . . as I presume the other two did. And though her landlord had servants and prentice-boys, they were not in the same house with her. She fits the pattern, not Mrs. Pentyre.”