Benjamin took the journal, sat down in a chair at the small table, opened the cover.
Journal of Dr. Thomas Woodrow Wainwright was written there in the same precise hand.
The writing was so like his father: solid, staid, respectable. And slightly obsessive in its neatness.
Yet, for all his compulsiveness, there'd been nothing arrogant about his father. In fact, the two things he disliked most in others were arrogance and intolerance.
"They go hand in hand, Benjamin," his father had said once. They'd been discussing one of his colleagues at Georgetown, an academic with a brilliant career-one built almost entirely by demolishing the careers of others. "Believing you have the flawless answer," he'd said, "is perhaps the biggest flaw of all."
Benjamin felt the usual twinge of regret that his father hadn't lived to see him complete his own degree, start his own career…
He shook off the sentiment. He began flipping through pages, looking for the copies of the few known letters of Harlan Bainbridge which he knew his father had copied verbatim into the notebook.
The first was a letter Harlan had written to his aunt soon after his group arrived on the land Coddington had purchased where they might begin their "New Jerusalem," their utopian Prayer Town, a place far beyond all other English settlements of the time. Above the letter his father had written Establishes claim to land; chronicles exodus from New Jersey, and then the text of the letter: Honor'd Aunte- -I've sent this with Elder Sassamon in greate haste, and he is trusted and that God's Speed did see him to you is my prayer-for the papers here be disposed as quickly as you mighte seeke a counsel with the Capetown Elders, that they may Recognise and Grante our Claime.
– Nosce teipsum reade the Scriptures, and this done, and trusting in the Wisdome of the Lord, so with my few and trusted people this Lent just passe'd fled much as Brother Bradford fled the Dutch truse with Spain, the Inquisition promising too near and hot a fire for his heels-and, passeing through the County of Mattekeesets and thought to abide meantimes in the Plantation of Providence, onely to find there no reall peace from Persecution and in feare of Salus Populi and againe, as the wandering Israelites, faceing West-so made discovery of this place by the Savages called Pettaquamscutt, but with the agreement of the whole community drawne as the Christian settlement of Bainbridge Plantation.
[an entire half page was illegible]
… but the Savages revere this place as welle, and their pagan gods be of a like not so tamne as weake, and they did in tragick form reape the Smallpox this winter laste as great as that of 1634.
– Unto you I commit theese papers, and so do I here note on this day of Our Lord, March 15th, Sixteen Hundred and Sixty-Six.
Your Trusted Nephew
The Right Reverend Harlan P. Bainbridge
At Bainbridge Plantation, his sign
How typical of the Puritans, Benjamin mused, to assume a smallpox epidemic was a punishment visited upon the Natives by a Christian God offended by their pagan forms of worship; when in fact the smallpox, Benjamin knew, had come from infected blankets given to those Natives by those same "righteous" settlers. Also typical was Harlan's portrayal of himself as a latter-day Moses leading his small congregation to the Promised Land. How frustrating it must have been for him to discover that the Wampanoags thought the land had already been promised to them.
The journal continued with entries about further communiques between Harlan and his aunt, most reporting the slow-but-steady progress as Harlan's group established the Bainbridge Plantation and began to work toward Harlan's utopian goal. His father had noted, for instance, that Harlan's group was one of the first in the region to actually sign treaties with the Natives and to begin bartering with them on a regular basis.
The second full Bainbridge letter was the last one he'd ever written, penned sometime before the plantation's destruction. Above this letter, his father had written Fears sabotage-from C.E.P.? Benjamin had never deciphered what his father had meant by that abbreviation. Thomas had all sorts of shorthand symbols he employed in his notes, working always to be more efficient, but he kept no glossary or index of them. He shook his head in frustration at his father's unique obsessions and read on: Honor'd Aunte- -Despite all the Perfidies practiced upon us by those who beare the marke of Puramis as Satan beares the Trident forke, The Lord has ordained that we shoulde establishe the Commandments of Piety and Efficiencie in all acts stemming frome and displaieing their respecte for God and His selfe-made workes, which, in their echo of our Creater, canne be not but sensicall, propere, and prosperous.
– The heathens may worshipe their god 'neath any randome sycamore, but a Christian knows Nature to be a chapel, which conceals not the ugly face of Death, but the abundante manifestations of a Supreme God, in whose Bosom we freely place our Truste and Fate; and we suffere not to be disheartened nor dissuaded from our Course by those who hide in Shadow and sow Feare on all Mankinde…
[rest of the letter missing]
And that was it. While there were still many entries about the Puritans and their growing success in the New World, Benjamin knew there was nothing further about Bainbridge, either pater or fils. But as he was closing the journal he noticed, for the first time, a single, very faint mark in the margin next to the word Puramis. It looked partially erased. Leaning down so his face almost touched the paper, he saw that it was a small triangle, with what might have been a single dot in its center.
It might have been another of his father's shorthand codes, but Benjamin couldn't remember ever having seen this one anywhere else in his notes.
It was then a knock came at his door. He looked at the clock on the table-almost an hour had passed while he was reading his father's journal. Before he could say anything, the door opened and Wolfe entered. He was wearing an immaculate white dinner jacket.
"Chop chop," he said. "We're wanted for dinner."
"Dinner? Uh, why don't you go on without me. I'm a little busy here. And I haven't changed…"
"You're fine. Hurry, we don't want to miss the cocktail hour. I'll wait in the hall."
Benjamin went into the small bathroom, splashed some water onto his face, combed his hair and straightened his tie, then went back into the bedroom. He found his shoes where he'd tossed them next to the bed, put them on.
As he bent down to tie his shoes, he saw something under the bed. He squatted down and reached, slid it out from under the bed with two fingers.
It was a yellow piece of paper with blue lines-a page from a small legal pad, folded in the middle. He was about to open it when Wolfe shouted from the hallway.
"Benjamin! I hear the ice clinking!"
Benjamin threw the paper, still folded, on the bedside table, switched the lamp off, and left.
CHAPTER 10
The dozen or more round tables in the dining room had been set with white tablecloths, gardenia centerpieces, candles, and white china. At the head of the room the massive antique table was covered with a deep red tablecloth. The crystal chandeliers were aglow, there was a modest fire in the fireplace, and light reflected from the gilt-edged mirror over the fireplace and the deep brown walnut wainscoting.
"Eureka," said Wolfe, ignoring the elegance of their surroundings. He guided Benjamin to a bar on one side of the hall, somewhat forcefully elbowing his way to its edge. He handed Benjamin a drink, something amber.
Benjamin took a sip, winced. "Scotch again?"
"Yes," said Wolfe, looking about the room. "Because you liked it so much last night."