Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel. Chapters 61 and 62

 

Chapter 61

Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts

March 5, 1775

 

 

“THIS IS THE best horse we have.” The stablemaster stopped at the stall of a brown stallion who was moving about as much as the space allowed. “He needs some exercise.”

Not with me, James thought. The horse was a beautiful specimen, but he could think of many reasons not to choose him and not just because he would be too much for him to handle. With his lack of horsemanship skills, he would never have qualified for the cavalry.

Thomas could have brought this animal under control. The thought of his lost friend made him forget for a moment why he was choosing a horse. He shoved the tide of grief aside to concentrate on his mission. General Gage has ordered him to go to Lexington and Concord to find out if the cannons were there. He was to dress in farmer’s clothes.

A farmer would never have such a high-quality animal. “I need a regular horse, maybe one a little bit, but not too much, past its prime.” He wanted to add, who is gentle and won’t mind that I’m not a very good rider, but he didn’t.

The stable smelled of horse shit. It needed a good mucking out, James thought. The snow had melted, but there were no buds on the trees or grass sprouting. The horses had been mostly kept inside their stalls since November with only an occasional outing.

The stablemaster led James up and down the rows of stalls, citing the merits of each beast. When he came to a stall with a mare, he said, “This is Cranberry. She’s gentle. We’ve used her to give children rides. We were trying to convince them lobsterbacks aren’t terrible.”

The stablemaster spat. For the first time James noticed he’d been chewing tobacco. Must have been a very small chunk. It was a habit he’d never taken up. He’d tried once and found the taste not only disgusting, but it lingered the way taking a bite of a raw onion would stay in his mouth.

“I need a non-army saddle, bit and rein.”

“You aren’t thinking of deserting, are you boy?” The stablemaster, James guessed, was probably in his late fifties, if his gray hair and wrinkles were any indicator. The man limped, which meant he wasn’t fit for active duty, although he wore the regimental uniform, which bore the 10^th Regiment of Foot buttons and insignia. Probably his role as stablemaster kept him in the regiment.

He had no written orders to show the stablemaster. Gage had said that would compromise his safety if the rebels captured him. Outside Boston was almost all rebel territory. “Absolutely not.”

“Then you must be on a spy mission.”

“Shh.”

******

As James rode Cranberry through the countryside. He could hear birds singing. Perhaps they were beginning to build their nests.

Cranberry’s preferred speed was an amble, which James appreciated. If the General was angry with the amount of time James took to complete this mission, James would claim he’d taken time to talk to people although he was halfway to Lexington before he saw anyone to talk to. Mostly he was riding through unsettled land. Farms were outside the villages. Despite it being almost April, the ground was still too frozen to be tilled.

He passed a farmer fixing the stones on his wall. “Hello there.”

“I don’t know your face,” the man said.

“Nor I yours.”

“Not from around here.”

“Beyond Worcester. Heard that the militia might need some recruits.” James hoped the man wasn’t pro-English.

“Stupid idiots. You can’t fight the Crown.”

James didn’t know how to answer. He had guessed wrong about which side the man was on. He looked to the man’s house. A woman was hanging sheets on a line. Two small children ran in circles. He would have to report the people who were loyal to the Crown.

“Do you know of anywhere to eat around here?”

“There’s Howe’s Tavern, up the road in Sudbury. Big red building. If you keep on this road for about a half hour, you can’t miss it.”

The man was right. The two-story building had a double chimney.

James was relieved to get off his horse. His rear and inner thighs ached.

There were several horses tied to a hitching post. After letting Cranberry drink at the trough, he fastened her at one end of the post.

Inside, the inn was dark and smokey. Almost every table was filled with men deep in conversation. He could tell by the way they were hunched toward each other.

There was the smell of roasting chicken and beer. As James walked toward the bar at one end, he saw Dr. Benjamin Church at the same time Church saw him. The doctor stood. “William! Over here!”

Had Church forgotten his name or was he talking to someone else?

The doctor walked over to him, put his arm around James’ shoulder and led him back to the long oak table where he’d been sitting. “Go along with what I say,” he whispered. At the table where Church had been sitting, he said with a voice that could be heard throughout the room. “Friends, meet William Smith. Has a farm beyond Worcester. Used to live in Boston. I operated on his mother. How is she?”

“As good as new,” James said. He had no idea where the conversation was going, but if Church wasn’t going to reveal his real identity, he wouldn’t reveal Church’s.

“There were six men, all dressed as farmers, sitting at the table.

“What are you doing way out here?” the man who looked the oldest asked.

“I want to find a wife. There are almost no unmarried women near me or if they are I haven’t found one for me.”

“I know someone you might find appealing. I’ll introduce you after we eat. Join us?” Church looked at the men. “We’ve talked about everything we need to, haven’t we?”

Four heads nodded and two voices said, “Yes.”

“Three men crammed together to make room for James. He swung his leg over the bench without kicking anyone.

*****

Unlike Cranberry, Dr. Church’s horse was a young, brown gelding. Its coat had been brushed to almost a polish. “Follow me,” he said.

As soon as they were out of sight of the inn, Church signaled that James should dismount. “This is fortuitous. I need to send a letter to the General. Carry the letter as fast as your horse can travel.” He patted Cranberry on her right flank.

Chapter 62

Boston, Massachusetts

February

  "I DON’T BELIEVE it,” Florence DuBois said to Daphne Andrews. They were texting on Facebook Messenger. Daphne sat at her dressing table/desk. Her bed was covered with completed artwork for the comic book. It had been printed double size for easier final editing.

Florence had left the pages yesterday. “It may be useless, and we’ll have to publish them ourselves. I thought Jason might be interested, but we haven’t heard a peep from him, and he hasn’t answered my e-mails or taken my phone calls. And the marketing meeting he talked about has never happened.” She sighed, “I thought we were better friends than that. At least he could have had the guts to tell me the others thought our work sucks.”

Daphne couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s combination of American slang mixed with her slight French accent. “From everything I’ve heard,” she’d said, “getting published is harder than creating the book.”

Although she tried to imagine Gareth coughing up the money for self-publishing: she couldn’t.

 Gareth and Yves DuBois had played squash twice and both times he’d come home furious. Yves had bragged about his wife’s work and how lucky she was to find a partner like Daphne.

Gareth had taken her laptop and locked it in the storeroom closet. Daphne found it necessary to finally tell Florence about Gareth’s attitude after their meeting with Jason.

“Con, prick,” Florence had said. She had told Yves, who after hearing the problems Daphne was having, had other commitments when Gareth tried to make a squash date. Since Gareth had little free time, he wasn’t all that upset.

What Gareth didn’t know, there were duplicate keys to the storeroom. Each day when Daphne was sure he was safely from the house, she would retrieve her laptop. Her alternative was to use Boston Public Library computers, which required a reservation and there was a ninety-minute limit. However, she had made friends with two of the staff, who let her extend the period if no one else needed the computer.

“I’m trying to be a 1950s wife and have everything perfect when my husband comes home,” she’d said to Gareth’s secretary one day when she’d gone to the embassy to have lunch with him. He’d gone to the men’s room. “Maybe you might tell me when he leaves?”

“I usually leave first, but I will when I can.” She flashed a conspiratorial smile.

“Thanks, it’s a newlywed thing, too,” Daphne had winked.

Daphne didn’t feel like a romantic newlywed. She felt like a woman who made a huge mistake in marrying.

When he had locked up her laptop, she had suggested counseling. He said that if she were more obedient, there wouldn’t be a problem.

The word “obedient” had been the proverbial broken-backed camel from the one straw too many. Instead of continuing the fight, Daphne had said, “I’ll try harder.” What she didn’t say was, “I’ll try harder, until I find my way out of this mess.”

One of the mistakes that Daphne realized that she had made, was that she really hadn’t known that much about his childhood other than he was unhappy at boarding school. When she’d met his mother, she felt the need to put on a coat, hat and gloves to survive the cold.

Her childhood overall had been happy. Her parents were contentedly married, if not happily. They supported whatever she wanted to do or didn’t want. They were in the habit of giving the pros and cons of any of her ideas, then letting her decide. She suspected sometimes their tongues might have been shortened rather than say, “I told you so.” She still had not indicated to them that anything was wrong.

Where she had rejected showing up on their doorstep earlier, she now thought, in retrospect, that that would have been the best thing to do. Gareth had canceled her credit cards. At the time, it bothered her, but she hadn’t said anything. She’d had three. She gave him the two he knew about. She wasn’t about to comply and leave herself stranded financially.

The bank account was in his name only. He had upped her allowance to $100 a week. It had made her feel like a child. Still, much to her annoyance at herself, she said nothing. It was a good thing that local merchants still accepted cash.

It was a good thing that Gareth didn’t ask how she spent her allowance, which was as little as possible. Over the last few months, she had managed to save close to $1,500. The idea of arriving at her parents without any money bothered her. Already she’d begun searching and applying for jobs in Edinburgh.

Academia, such as the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow or St. Andrews had openings for the spring and fall semesters, but she wasn’t sure if her experience would qualify her to look up crime statistics in different countries or women’s laws in China. Perhaps she could combine it with more study. Dr. Daphne … she liked the sound of that.

She had quickly discovered when she checked flight schedules and prices, when she went back a second time to book, the prices had gone up. Shit!

“Are you still there?” Florence’s voice brought Daphne back to her bedroom on Comm Ave. in Boston.

“I’m here. What can’t you believe?”

“Jason FINALLY got back to me. And it’s good.”

“What did he say.”

“It took him a while to convince senior management, but they will publish us.”

“You’re joking.”

“I am not. They want it to be the beginning of a series, all with twins who participate in different historic events. You will write it. I will do the graphics.”

Daphne was unable to respond for a full minute before gasping out, “How many? For what events? How much will they pay?

“At first he wanted to bring us on staff. The problem is visas, but they are willing to try. If that does not work, we will be freelancers.”

Daphne took a deep breath. “I’m going back to Scotland.”

“Merde!” There was silence. “We can still do it. You can research and write from Scotland. I can work from here. Maybe we can get them to give you a travel budget if we have to visit the places, but with the internet …”

Daphne wasn’t sure that the money would be equivalent to a full-time post, but it would be something. Florence was gushing about the libraries and schools that already were customers of the publisher, that would guarantee certain sales. “We need to negotiate a lot of things. Yves already has spoken to a lawyer for us. Or maybe we need an agent.  The books could be in print for years with royalties for years.”

Maybe they could make it work, Daphne thought.

“I’m sorry. You just said you were going to go back to Scotland?”

“Yes, I’m leaving Gareth.”

“Good. If you need to stay here temporarily, you are welcome to.”

Her first impulse was to say, “That would be too much of an imposition,” but what she said was, “If you’re sure, when?”

“Anytime.”

“You may want to check with Yves.”

“I’ll message you back.”

Daphne sat, not sure what to do. She got up and went to the toilet. Her period had started. Well at least she didn’t have to worry about being pregnant. When she returned to her laptop there was a message, “Yves says welcome as long as you need to. He also said congratulations on writing the comic book. Now when?”

“If you really mean it, Gareth has to go to D.C. Tuesday next.”

“As soon as he’s gone, I’ll come over, help you pack.”