Time Enough for Drums (12 page)

“You can trust me.”

“That remains to be seen. You are sixteen today, but it’s up to you to prove to me that you are a grownup. You can start proving it this evening at supper. There will be company, but you must pretend nothing has happened between us. I’ll talk to your parents about it tomorrow. But tonight you will act polite and agreeable and give away nothing, or tomorrow I’ll have your head, I can promise you that.”

At supper, as I sat in my new gown at a table surrounded by friends and family, with John Reid dressed in his best dove-gray breeches and coat and whitest linen, it was as if our quarrel had never happened. He was the witty schoolmaster, reciting stories about the boys he taught each morning, the surrogate son to my parents, the cordial dinner guest, always attentive to my mother. He talked about hunting
with David, discussed the merits of Miss Rodger’s School with Mrs. Moore and Betsy, and entered into a lively discourse with Reverend Panton about the recent imprisonment of New Jersey’s Tory governor Franklin. Once or twice he caught my eye in warm approval. I watched him in amazement. The man was an actor. He should have been in plays, and it was obvious that everyone was captivated by his dark good looks and debonair manner.

He gave me a book for my birthday called
Paradise Lost
. The look in his brown eyes as I opened it made me feel that the title was especially significant. And I was conscious, suddenly, of the scooped neckline of my gown and the way Mama had arranged my hair, with high curls that cascaded down the back of my neck. I felt my face go hot under his gaze.

Thankfully, Father got up to give a toast just then. Over the table laid with Mama’s fine white linen and pewter and silver serving pieces, he stood, his spectacles resting on his finely chisled nose, his hair curling in wisps around his ears.

“These are not joyful times for any of us,” he said, “but let us not discuss the war tonight. We drink to absent friends and family members and keep them in our hearts. I’m sure they would want us to be happy tonight in each other’s company, and for my beautiful daughter, Jemima, who is sixteen years old today and a lovely young lady indeed.”

“Hear, hear,” I heard John Reid intone. My face burned all the more.

“Everyone does his part these days, no matter what road the good Lord has given us,” Father continued. “No one knows what the future will bring, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of our dear, faithful Lucy’s philosophy a few times lately when there was some discussion about David
joining the militia. Did I say discussion? It was more like heated argument.”

Everyone laughed. He went on.

“During one of these discussions, I overheard Lucy mumbling, ‘Time enough for drums.’ ‘What do you mean, Lucy?’ I asked her. ‘Drums on the battlefield,’ she said; ‘time enough for drums.’ ”

There was silence all around the table. “Well, tonight let us enjoy each other’s company,” Father finished. “There is time enough for drums.”

It was court week in Trenton. All up and down Queen Street there were wagons and gigs and sulkies. Since Trenton was the seat of Hunterdon County, the roads were lined with traffic. Lawyers stayed in town the entire week for court, which was good for business. The inns and public houses were always filled. Stagecoaches brought all kinds of people, while others came by horse and boat from New York and Philadelphia.

I looked down the long white pine counter to where my father was talking with a customer, a man in a powdered wig and fancy brocaded waistcoat. My father was exhausted already and it wasn’t even noontime yet. It seemed like half the town had come in during the morning, needing new hats or sleeve buttons or razors or tobacco or snuff or watch chains.

“Nine other merchants besides yourself are involved,” the man was saying.

“I’m not involved,” my father told him. “I don’t wish to hold shares in a privateer ship.”

“I know it’s a financial risk, James.”

“Damnation, I’m not afraid of risk,” my father said. “Life is a risk. So is marriage and being a Patriot. But I won’t profit from the miseries of others. Now, it’s going to be a long day, Andrew. Do you want your tobacco or don’t you?”

“You know I do. You carry the best in town. We of the merchant community in Philadelphia have heard that elections for New Jersey’s Third Provincial Congress are being held this week, James. The talk at the Indian King Tavern is that you will be elected as one of the deputies. You have our best wishes.”

“I’ll need them,” Father said, “but I cannot discuss it. You understand.”

“Of course. Will you be at the tavern tonight? It’s the best place for hearing news and discussing politics.”

“I’ll try to be there, Andrew.”

He left. I ran over to Father. “You didn’t tell me about the Congress!”

“It’s best not spoken of, Jem. We face many problems. There are heavy demands being put on New Jersey’s military resources. We have a shortage of arms. In spite of our appeals to the Continental Congress, they refuse to supply us, yet we must assist both Pennsylvania and New York when they ask for battalions of minutemen for protection.”

“But you said there is more and more feeling these days for independence.”

“Hush. We don’t say that word freely yet. Yes, there is. And I credit Tom Paine’s little pamphlet for that. It’s really roused people to our cause and made fence-sitters on the subject make up their minds.” He patted the stack of
Common Sense
pamphlets that he kept on the counter. Everyone was talking about Tom Paine and his wonderful writings.

“But look here, if I do get elected to the Congress, I’ll have to go to Burlington in June. Your mother will take my
place in the shop while I’m away, but you will have to assist her.”

“I will, Father, I promise.”

“What is she promising now?” John Reid appeared in the doorway.

“Good morning, John. Or is it noon already? It is, by heaven. Lucy will be bringing my meal over in a minute. I can’t leave the shop today. We’re too busy. You’ll be happy to know that Jem was indispensable to me this morning. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

“Good, good.” Reid picked up one of the pamphlets and laid down some coins. “I’ll have one, sir. Jemima, I think it’s time you read this. For its literary content, that is.” He winked at my father. “I’m going to steal her from you now, James. Here, Jemima, you carry it. It wouldn’t look right if I were carrying such Patriotic drivel.”

It was the first time in the weeks since I had found out about his spying activities that he had ever referred to anything political. He still spoke like a Tory, although at that moment in jest. My father smiled at him as we walked out.

I followed him into the warm May sunshine. On the wooden walk outside my father’s shop was a pile of goods tagged and boxed and ready to be taken to the river for shipment by barge to Philadelphia.

He paused. “Do you know what this is?”

Was this a lesson? It might be, for recently my education had been going beyond the boundaries of books. One fine April day a few weeks before, he had announced in the middle of my studies that we were going for a walk. We ended up going to the market in King Street for Mother. I loved to go to the market with Mother or Lucy, but with John Reid it was an adventure. He pointed out the farmers in their stalls, told me where they came from, and speculated
on what profit they were making. Then he gave me some money and I purchased the fish, lemons, and nutmegs Mother had asked for, under his watchful eye. He bought a small sack of sweetmeats, and we ate them on the way home.

Now he was poking at the goods with his shoe. “This is the last shipment of goods your father will be sending to his friend Thomas Riche. Flour, pork, flax, seed, let’s see what else … wigs, stoneware, and lumber. Your father has found out that Riche is shipping to the British. Do you know what that means?”

“It means my father has lost a very dear friend.”

“It also means Riche won’t be sending your father any more sugar, wine, salt, saltpeter, coffee, or molasses. And he’ll miss having those items in his shop. The war has its price, Jemima, and we feel it more and more each day.”

I matched his stride on the wooden walk to our front door, happy that he was talking to me as an equal. He’d done it most often over the last five weeks. I hadn’t once referred to his spying; I’d worked in the shop every morning and sat with the utmost decorum and attention at lessons each afternoon. Only once in the last month did he have to scold me, and that was for gazing out the open window into the inviting April day.

In the wide entry way to our house he took off his tricorn hat and linen coat.

“Good day, Mr. Reid.” Lucy came out of the study and gave him a quick curtsy. “Hello, Jemima,” she said to me. She’d just left our noon meal in the study, where we ate every day after he came from his boys’ school and I from the shop.

“A fine day it is, too,” John Reid said, nodding to her.

Our midday meal had become a ritual. He would pull
out my chair and serve my food, and pour me some milk or cider, then serve himself. He might glance at the
Pennsylvania Gazette
that Lucy had set by his plate and ask about my morning in the shop. As I recited the morning’s events, he would question me, making sure I understood why so-and-so would say such a thing or why the cost of coffee or sugar cones was rising or where my father’s imports were coming from and how.

Occasionally he still corrected my speech or manners, and if I wanted to go anywhere, even to Betsy Moore’s or Grandfather Emerson’s, I had to ask his permission. It was only right, my father said, since I had taken it upon myself to go through his papers, and his life was more or less in my hands.

That day he didn’t ask about the shop, however. “You didn’t respond to Lucy,” he said.

I looked at him, uncomprehending.

“She greeted you good day. You ignored her. I’ve noticed you do a lot of that with Lucy. Sometimes you are outright insulting to her.”

“It’s always been that way with Lucy and me.”

“Why?”

I could give him no answer.

“I despise slavery,” he said. “It’s a loathsome practice, and someday we’re going to pay for it in these colonies. It’s one of the reasons I came late to the Cause. All that talk of liberty when we were keeping slaves.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“When I went to Boston for Rebeckah’s wedding and I saw the arrogance and pompous stupidity of the British troops there. I was loyal to the King until I saw his troops quartered in the houses and on the Commons. Mobs roamed the streets at night and refugees constantly streamed into
the city. There were empty warehouses and British ships in the harbor, and everyone was hungry, it seemed. I went to Harvard College and I loved Boston. It broke my heart as much as seeing Rebeckah marry that British officer.”

I was under his spell. He had never confided such things to me before. “So, when I found out spies were needed by Washington, I volunteered on the spot. But we were talking about your rudeness to Lucy. Your father plans to free her and Cornelius one day soon. I would like you to make an effort to be decent to her. I don’t like it when you hurt people by being thoughtless or superior.”

“All right, Mr. Reid, I’ll try.”

He smiled. “And when are you going to answer the latest letter from Raymond Moore? You’ve put it off for a week. Is there a reason?”

My heart became chilled, like a cold meatcake inside me. There was a reason, but how could I tell him? Raymond’s letter suddenly seemed stilted and childish. I’d come to realize, under John Reid’s tutelage, that I had grown much older and wiser. Raymond was just a childhood friend, and I was no longer a child.

But there was more, and my heart, the cold meatcake, was bursting for being unable to say it.

“Well?” he insisted.

“I don’t know how to answer his last letter.”

“Why?” His brown eyes scrutinized me.

“He …” I stammered it out, “… He’s asked to court me when he comes home, and I don’t want it.”

He nodded, sipping his coffee. “Why don’t you want to?”

“Well, goodness.” I blushed. “I feel a great distance between us—not because he’s away, but because I’ve grown up so and there is no common bond with us anymore.”

“Don’t you want to marry someday, Jemima?”

“Yes, sir, but not Raymond Moore.”

“Who, then? Have you someone in mind? Your mother tells me you languish about the house and stare at nothing. She thought you were smitten with Raymond.”

I did not know where to look. At my hands in my lap? Why wouldn’t he stop staring at me? I worked my linen napkin between my fingers.

“Stop twisting your napkin in that distracting way and look at me,” he said quietly.

I did. My eyes filled with tears as I raised them and looked full into the dear, familiar face of the man who had been my hated teacher, who had teased and tormented me and made me suffer. The man who had taken the trouble to teach me to curtsy correctly and hold my fork right, who had berated and shamed me into being a lady, even while he hammered French and Latin and geography into my head. We had made a long journey together. I knew I pleasured him, for I saw the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t taking notice. Yet never once in our long hours together did he dishonor the faith my parents had in him by so much as touching my hand with his own.

He saw the anguish in my look and more. He got up. I thought I heard him murmur, “Dear God,” as he turned away, but I couldn’t be sure. He went to the window and stood with his back to me, looking out on the fine May afternoon.

“You must write to Raymond. You promised, and I’ll not have you go back on your word.”

“But—”

“No buts. He’s far from home, waiting for your letters. You must not treat him the way Rebeckah treated me.”

“I’ve angered you.”

“Yes, you have. You had no right to get yourself into this. Now you must get out—as gracefully as you can, without destroying him.”

“But how could I destroy him?”

“A woman can destroy a man, Jemima. I will not have you be that kind of woman!” He turned from the window. “Now you know the consequences of giving your kisses so freely. He took them for more than you intended.”