The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (22 page)

“Only one—and that not very satisfactory. I’ve concluded that in this world, certain men are stronger than others. The weaker ones are unable to accommodate themselves to normal behavior—and finding themselves not fitting the pattern, they’re destroyed by the situation. Or destroy themselves—”

“Are you sure that’s not merely the wine talking?”

“No.” He tossed off the rest of the Madeira. “My father. On numerous occasions.”

“It’s idiotic to surrender to that sort of defeatist philosophy.”

“I’m a misfit, Tom. I always will be. Recognizing that, I’ve at least carried out one of my father’s wishes.” Judson’s eyes grew bitterly amused. “He cautioned me against ever marrying, since if I did, I’d surely pass along my waywardness to generations of helpless, suffering grandchildren—”

“Nonsense. You’re indulging in self-pity.”

Judson smiled again, this time with utter charm. “But that goes with being a misfit.”

Jefferson refused to be diverted: “If we bring about independency, Judson—if we can finish this war soon—”

“A pair of mighty tall
ifs.”

“Granted, granted. But think of what’s to be won! All the chances you have to break out of this—this pattern you claim you despise—”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you have any notion of the size of this continent, Judson? We’re only crouching on the edge! It stretches from the Floridas to Hudson’s Bay, and beyond. Out west, past the Ohio, the French fur traders have traveled a river that beggars the imagination! The Sieur de La Salle named it the Colbert but the Indians call it Big River.
Misi Sipi.”
He was striding now, caught up in his vision.

“We’re getting off the subject, Tom.”

“No, no, we’re not! This land mass is huge! Bountiful as well. Who knows the full extent of the wealth it holds between that big river and the Pacific? I tell you the Spanish are doing their best to learn the answers—with their presidios and missions in what they christened the New Philippines. Imagine if even a portion of that territory were ours! If the foreign flags came down—the lions and castles of Leon and Castile flying right now in the southwest—the area they’re coming to call
Tejas
—think of the opportunity for settlement! Agriculture and commerce! The general increase of human knowledge! All I’m saying to you, Judson, is that with such vast lands still contested in the west, no man should feel hemmed in by his immediate surroundings. By the Lord, I don’t intend to be. Before I die, I mean to see a scientific expedition walk that whole wilderness to the Pacific!”

After a moment of silence, Judson said, “I understand a little of what you’re saying. One of my good friends has already traveled past the Blue Ridge. Sometimes I’ve thought I belonged out there with him—”

“Who is your friend?”

“George Clark.”

“George Rogers Clark?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s already made a distinguished name scouting with the Virginia militia. But leaving the opportunity in the west aside for a moment—”

“Yes, because the idea’s unrealistic. I’ll never get there.”

Judson’s emphatic statement checked Jefferson before he could begin another sentence. His enthusiasm vanished, replaced first by a look of regret, then by an expression faintly stern and righteous:

“Very well, that may be so. But no matter what his condition or location, a man grown to adulthood is at least called to exercise self-control.”

“That’s another lecture I’ve received from my father.”

Jefferson gnawed his lip. Then:

“In short, you won’t try to moderate your behavior? Keep your eye on greater possibilities than what’s up a skirt or down in the bottom of a glass?”

“I try.” A pause. “I always fail.”

“Does that mean you won’t reconsider the Trumbull matter?”

“At this late hour—I can’t.”

“Not even in view of the probable consequences? Hancock will almost certainly insist you withdraw and return to Virginia.”

“Let him.”

“Judson, what are you trying to prove about yourself?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“To whom are you trying to demonstrate your independence? Your manhood—?”

Judson set the Madeira glass down, noisily. “I’m in no mood for subtle discourses—”

“Nothing subtle about it,” Jefferson waved. “I see you as you can’t see yourself. Sometimes you permit your essential nature to shine through. A good mind, moral courage of the highest order. Then you seem to lose sight of those qualities. Or quell them deliberately. I think only a man overcome with loathing for himself acts that way. You’ve mentioned your father—is he the one you’re constantly—?”

“Good day, Tom.” A muscle in his neck bulging, Judson started out.

“Wait! Listen to me! You’ll destroy yourself, trying to prove something that doesn’t need prov—”

The slam of the door shut out the rest.

Judson rushed down the stairs toward High Street, noisy with wagons rolling in from the country laden with farm produce. The astute Mr. Tom Jefferson had struck into depths Judson didn’t care to plumb. Very uncomfortable depths—

As he walked through the hazy gray afternoon, ignoring several stares directed his way—the forthcoming duel was a town scandal—an image of Alice loomed in his mind.

The Trumbulls had driven her to her pathetic state. That angry conviction was validation enough for what he meant to do.

The image of Alice dissolved into another. His father—

Yes, Jefferson had struck much too close to the truth. Whatever the causes, he was poisoned by a frequent, almost wholly uncontrollable desire to defy convention, or any authority; to choose one road when he knew another was the accepted way—

Who was to blame? As if it mattered any longer! Or would change anything—

Instead of returning to committee session, he turned in at the first available ale shop and lost himself in the airless gloom, safe for a while from the reality of the world outside. It wasn’t long before his inner world was similarly deadened and remote.

Thunder shook the State House. Bursts of lightning glared like infernal fire let up from the bowels of the earth. The storm ripped across Philadelphia, slamming rain against the tightly shut windows and reverberating through the chamber where John Hancock again occupied the presidential dais.

The air in the room was boiling. Judson’s face streamed with sweat. He swatted at one of the mammoth horseflies that had somehow invaded the chamber to bedevil the perspiring men listening to John Dickinson defend his position:

“—and I therefore cannot in conscience support the resolution yesterday debated by this Congress sitting as a committee of the whole with Mr. Harrison as chairman—”

The fuzzy-sounding voice irritated Judson. He was starting to sober up, and didn’t feel at all well. He wanted to leave, find a tavern, quench his thirst.

Exactly what day was it? He’d lost track—

With a jolt he realized it was the second of July. Tomorrow, unseconded, he’d face Trumbull. Perhaps the steady approach of the day of the duel was what had kept him in a constant stupor for the past week. That, and no word about Alice; she had utterly vanished.

He blinked, feeling more bilious by the moment. He changed the position of his chair noisily. He was aware of the disapproving stares of the Lees and George Wythe at desks nearby. Even Jefferson, nervously fingering a copy of his completed draft declaration, appeared less than friendly. Dickinson’s damnably boring voice droned on.

Judson slouched, dull-headed, callously indifferent. To hell with all of them. He had no business in this lofty gathering. He was exactly what Angus Fletcher had always said he was. A wastrel—

What in God’s name was that idiot Dickinson saying now?

“—I have long stood firmly against abuses perpetrated by His Majesty’s ministers—”

A few canes rapped agreement. There was another crackle of thunder, then blinding whiteness outside the rain-rivered windows.

“—and in fact have publicly condemned those abuses in publications of which you are fully aware. But I see nothing save disaster in the resolution it is proposed we vote on today. To favor independency is akin to torching our house in winter before we have got another shelter: I beg you to consider the consequences of the total war which will surely follow such a declaration. Think of great cities such as Boston not evacuated quietly by His Majesty’s armies, but burned and razed to ruin. Already agents bring us reports that British officers are swarming across the frontier, rousing the Indian tribes as allies. What can that mean but butchery for the settlers who, for example, chose homesites in the western reaches of my own Pennsylvania? Furthermore, a war of long duration cannot but bankrupt both sides. Ruin England financially, and ourselves as well—”

“Dammit, this is tedious and insufferable yellow coward’s talk!” Judson yelled, lurching to his feet. “I submit that we are not arguing what is or is not good business. We are arguing the choice of liberty or tyranny. Courage or cowardice!”

Shocked whispers ran around the chamber. Hancock glared and rapped for silence:

“If you please, Mr. Fletcher! You will be recognized in proper turn.”

Flushing, Judson sat down. He felt queasy again. Received more than a few angry looks. Dickinson, obviously enraged, concluded with a single clipped statement:

“I cannot continue to be a party to these proceedings.”

Stunned silence.

Upset, Hancock asked, “Are you indicating that you wish to absent yourself from further deliberations of this Congress, Mr. Dickinson?”

“I am.”

In the pause, thunder boomed like cannon in the black sky. With an agonizing sincerity, Dickinson added:

“I am aware that my conduct this day will give the finishing blow to any brief popularity I may have enjoyed as a result of my defense of Englishmen’s liberties. Yet I had rather forfeit popularity forever than vote away the blood and happiness of my countrymen.”

John Dickinson sat down amid another flurry of cane-knocking, approval of his moral courage if not of his final stance. Judson stifled a belch. Thank God he wasn’t burdened with such niceties of conscience—though he probably shouldn’t have attacked Dickinson so rudely; should have waited his turn, framed a reasoned rebuttal—

A lightning-glare startled him. He whipped his head around as John Adams clamored to be recognized. On the white-shimmering surface of a tall window, he saw a ghostly image.

Lank hair.

Slack lips.

Haunted blue eyes—

Trembling, Judson covered his face. He broke out in a cold sweat, nauseous.

Tom Jefferson leaned close, whispering:

“Judson? Are you ill?”

“Drunk,” someone else sneered.

“Spoiled sausage—” he said hoarsely. “Breakfast, I think—” His stomach began to churn more violently. Sourness climbed in his throat—

He stumbled up from his desk, hearing exclamations in the chamber. Hancock turned an unsympathetic eye on him as he ran toward the closed doors, afraid he’d be sick before he got outside.

His illness had nothing to do with breakfast. He’d eaten no sausage that morning, spoiled or otherwise. He’d eaten nothing. He had consumed four—or was it five?—pints of ale.

In the pouring rain in the State House yard, he vomited. When he tried to walk back inside, he slipped on the steps, seeing Trumbull’s porcine face in a lightning burst. He sprawled on hands and knees, retching, delirious—

And then the step slammed up to strike his face.

Eventually he heard a voice. Familiar, somehow—

He rolled his head back; heard his name spoken again. Against the black sky he saw Tom Jefferson, rain-drenched. Jefferson leaned down to pull him to his feet:

“Stand up, Judson.”

“Sorry,” the younger man mumbled. “Sorry for the spectacle. Plagued bad sausage—”

Sadly, Jefferson glanced at Judson’s befouled clothing. “Whatever the reason, it’s the consensus of the delegation that you should withdraw. Immediately. I am sorry to tell you that, but you’ve exceeded reasonable bounds. Hancock is still in a fury over your interruption of Dickinson. Whatever his views, Mr. Dickinson is respected—and treated accordingly. Hancock would have come out and caned you if there hadn’t been such important business before the chamber.”

Thunder; roaring as if the earth would shake apart. The rain drove between them, and Judson hated Tom Jefferson’s quiet power as much as he loathed his own weakness.

He wiped sourness from the corner of his mouth. “Sorry too. Wanted to be seated when the resolution—”

Jefferson shook his head. “It’s done. You’ve been lying out here almost two hours.”

“The voting’s done?”

“Yes.”

“How—?”

“Twelve for, none against, New York instructed to abstain. Tomorrow we begin work on the final phrasing of the document.” Jefferson couldn’t conceal his disgust. “But you have a more pressing engagement. You lent strength to this gathering for a time, Judson. I wish you’d had enough strength to see the venture to its end.”

He turned and disappeared into the State House. The door closed loudly.

Judson felt humiliated; unclean. Still sick to his stomach, he stood with the rain pouring over him. It had washed the worst of the mess off his clothes but it could do nothing to cleanse the stench in his mind and soul.

At first light the next morning, Judson faced Tobias Trumbull and the tall, smirking servant in a maple grove beside the Delaware River. Judson’s horse was tethered nearby. Further away in the mist, a large, splendid coach-and-four showed blurs at the windows: a few well-wishers come to offer Trumbull encouragement.

Nervously tapping a thumb on the side plate of his pistol, the Tory wheezed:

“I ask you one more time, sir. Where is Alicia?”

“I haven’t seen her and I don’t know.” Judson felt abominable. Hung over. His stomach was still unsettled. His hands shook.

“Liar,” Trumbull said.
“Damned liar!”

Judson almost struck the fat fool. Instead, he turned to the servant:

“Let’s have done.”

Pleased, the servant indicated a fresh slash on the muddy ground: