Time Enough for Drums (21 page)

“I’ll call her in. She can get the cradle. Do calm down, Becky. We don’t have tea, but Lucy can fix you coffee.”

“Coffee! Oh no, Jemima Emerson, don’t you dare tell me you still don’t have tea in this house.”

“We haven’t had it for years, Becky.”

“Well, I’m home now, and I will have it. Have Lucy bring some in from the shop.”

“We don’t stock it in the shop either.”

She looked exasperated. “I am here, Jemima Emerson. I am home. I have had enough of this insane war. And I will have my tea. You and Lucy can drink your precious coffee until it comes out of your ears. Life is not bearable without tea. Do you understand?”

“Life has not been bearable for a long time, Becky. Not since Father was killed.”

She sighed. “Oh, I still can’t believe it! Father dead. Mother out of her senses. And for what? I ask you. All for tea. Do you realize that’s what started this whole mess? The stupid tea?”

“It was more than that, Becky.”

“More? More?” She looked as if she were going to kill me for a moment, and I became frightened, the way I used to when she’d put the fear of God into me in the old days. But only for a moment.

I drew myself up straight. “We shouldn’t discuss politics,” I said. “I’ll ask Lucy to get the cradle and put up some coffee.”

“Mama, Becky has a baby now, an adorable little boy.”

I watched her eyes closely, but they were dead. How could that be? How could she not care about her first grandchild?

I had gotten Bleu back from Otter Hall in March and twice a week rode to the Moores’ to see my mother. But it pained me every time I went. I couldn’t stand seeing her as she was, still under her spell of grief. She had always been busy, attending to seven things at once, running the house, managing everything. I needed her so desperately, and she was not there for me.

What right had she to melt away like a candle in front of my eyes? I was just about an orphan now, with Grandfather Emerson and Daniel away. I was growing, I needed new clothes, it was spring and time for a garden. And all I had was Lucy to help me, and she was so overworked, she never even knew what was going on.

If Becky had gone and seen Mother, that might have helped, but Becky wouldn’t go. She was comfortably settled in Mother and Father’s room, and she pleaded headaches
every time I suggested she pay Mama a visit.

Headaches from what? From afternoons of visiting with her Tory women friends? She’d been having tea in the parlor with two of them when I’d left. Tea! In our house!

The fragrance of it had nearly driven me wild. She drank it in front of me at the table, too. The first time she did it, how my mouth had watered! My very eyes had teared!

All day long I worked in the shop, which accounted for the fact that Becky and I had not yet come to blows. We didn’t see each other that much. In the evening she insisted on a formal supper. She had an indentured servant girl now to care for her clothes and the baby. The girl was fourteen and terrified of her.

“Mama, the baby’s name is Oliver James.”

Still nothing. “Perhaps Becky will let me bring him sometime.”

She went on with her stitching. She was making a chemise. I didn’t know who it was for, but I sure could have used a new one myself.

“Mama, I’m betrothed to John Reid.” I was sure that would elicit a response. She had always loved John so. Hadn’t she been the one to always bring up his name to me? I had been too young at the time to realize that both she and Father had wanted John for me long before I wanted him myself.

She held the chemise up for my inspection. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “Your stitches are so fine.”

“You look as if you could use a new one, child. Would you like me to make one for you?”

“Oh, I’d love that.” She’d given me the apron she had made. What would I tell people if they asked? My mama made this for me, only she doesn’t know she’s my mama?

Each time I left the Moores’, I felt so confused inside it
took me two days to sort everything out. And then it was time to see Mama again.

I kissed the top of her head. “I have to go, Mama.” As always, there were tears in my eyes when I walked out.

In May another letter came from John. He said he was fine and taking full advantage of his parole. I could write to him, provided I remembered everything he had taught me and was especially careful of my penmanship. For he had told the British who opened his mail that his pupil might be writing to him. They very much enjoyed the story of how we were now betrothed, and he did not want them to see a sloppy letter, so I should be careful in my writing.

I knew that he meant that I must not say anything to give him away, for he was still carrying on his spying activities. Somehow he was managing to get information from New York through to the Americans.

I wrote to him that night. Once a week he wrote to me from New York, and once a week I responded. Always he said he was fine. He walked about town freely, he said. He had even made friends with the British officers. He was a familiar figure around Manhattan’s streets, and I was not to worry.

His letters kept me alive. Daniel had written that the army was leaving Morristown in May, but he could not tell me any more. In June David wrote from the hills above Boundbrook, saying they were well but he couldn’t wait to get back into action again. Mama still did not know me as June and July passed. Becky and I had each staked out our own territory in and around the house, so we didn’t have to converse often.

And then one day in early August, Canoe came home.

I was waiting on a customer in the shop when a shadow darkened the doorway. No sound accompanied it. I finished with my customer and looked up. “Canoe!”

Then, in a manner that was not at all proper, I ran across the floorboards and right into his arms. I had never done that before, but he picked me up and held me as Dan or David might have done, then set me down, smiling.

“So, you’ve grown up and taken your father’s place. I always knew you would be the one to do it.”

“Oh, Canoe, you know about Father’s death!”

“We heard.”

“Where is my grandfather? I do want to see him! Oh, Canoe, everything is awful! Mama is sick and I haven’t heard from my brothers since June and John Reid is a prisoner and—”

“Not now,” he hushed me. “Your grandfather is fine. He sent a wagonload of supplies. I must unload them.”

Outside the shop I squealed in delight over the salt, molasses, pepper, bolts of linen, tobacco, needles and pins, and silk thread.

“Canoe, where did you get all of this?”

“I came by way of Philadelphia.” That was all he would say.

He brought everything in the shop and put it on the shelves while I told him what had happened in their absence. “You must come in for supper, Canoe. Lucy will want to see you. We have plenty.”

He shook his head and smiled. But he wouldn’t look at me.

“You must, please! There’s so much more I want to hear about Grandfather. I can’t
believe
he’s coming home! It’ll be
like having Father back again, almost! Oh, Canoe, please?”

He stood in the middle of the shop, his eyes sad, yet amused too. “Your sister …” he said.

“What of her?” But I knew. “Canoe, I’m mistress of this house. Dan has arranged for Grandfather Henshaw to send me an allowance to run it in his absence. I keep accounts of everything I do to show Dan. And of the shop, as well. Rebeckah is only visiting.”

He looked at me hesitantly. “Oh, Canoe, come, please. It’ll be like being with family again.” I stopped, hoping I hadn’t offended him.

I hadn’t. “All right,” he said, “for you.”

I brought him into the kitchen, where he could have coffee. Lucy greeted him warmly, and then Becky appeared in the doorway, the baby in her arms. Canoe stood up respectfully and inclined his head.

“Hello, Canoe,” she said curtly. “Jem, I’m desperately in need of help with the baby. I can’t find that lazy Molly anywhere. Could I bother you for a minute?”

In the parlor she closed the door. “How dare you, Jemima Emerson! You know how I’ve always felt about him. Here I am, stuck in this ungodly town with a baby, trying to bring some decency back into this house, and you invite that …” She closed her eyes. “I want him out of the house immediately.”

I felt as if she’d struck me. “Becky, he’s practically family!”

“That’s just
it!
”

She stared me down fiercely. And all the months of war and struggling, of facing Hessians and British, of seeing Father dead, of the work in the shop, all of it melted away. I was once again the little sister in the upstairs chamber being scolded for being unladylike.

“Please, Becky! He brought me supplies!”

“I don’t care if he brought you four hundred Spanish dollars! I want him out!”

“I can’t. I’ve invited him for supper.”

“You can and you will. I have a baby in the house. Who knows what diseases he brings! Tell him the baby is running a fever. Tell him anything. But get him
out!
”

I was trembling when I left the parlor. But in the kitchen I found only Lucy, stirring the stew over the fire. “Where’s Canoe?”

She just looked at me, and I knew he was gone. I went to bed early that night without supper, hating Becky more than I’d ever hated her. And hating myself more.

“Hello, Canoe.”

He looked up from the harness he was fixing in the barn at Otter Hall. He was not surprised to see me, although it had taken me almost a week to get up the courage to ride over.

“It’s hot to be out,” he said.

“I should have come sooner. I couldn’t get away.”

“How are things going?”

“The supplies you brought me came from heaven.”

He looked down at the harness. “Only Philadelphia. Hardly heaven.”

“Have you heard from my grandfather?”

“He will be here by the end of October.”

“I can’t believe it. I’ve been so long without anyone in the family. Except Rebeckah.”

He said nothing.

“Have you heard about Bennington, Vermont? We heard there was a British defeat up there.”

“It’s true,” he said. “Captain Johnny Stark won a battle.”

I sighed and looked out over the fields that lay in the
unreal blue-green haze of August. “The farm looks good Canoe.”

“You know better,” he chided gently. “Most of the fields lie fallow. The repair work is piling up. But it will improve.”

“Canoe, I’m sorry about last week.”

“There is nothing to be sorry for.”

“I should have stood up to Rebeckah. You had every right to stay.”

His dark eyes smiled. “You’ve done enough standing up to people for a while, perhaps.”

“No, Canoe. It never stops. It has nothing to do with war. It just never stops.”

“You learned that too soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

“You’ve crowded too much into one year. Give yourself time.”

“Canoe, I never wanted to hurt you. Grandfather will be furious with me when he finds out. And John Reid, why, he’d lecture me into next week if he knew. I’ve failed everybody.”

“They don’t have to know. And you haven’t failed, because it didn’t come from you.”

“It did, because I did nothing. Because I didn’t do what I should have done.”

He was struggling with the harness. “You will when the time comes,” he said.

“When will that be, Canoe? How will I know it? How can I be sure?”

“You will be,” he said. “Now why don’t you give that horse some water?”

By late August of 1777 all we knew was rumors about the war. I hadn’t heard from my brothers since June. In mid-August John wrote from New York and said that he had been exchanged as a prisoner and freed from his parole. “I do not plan on returning to the American army yet,” he wrote. “I have made such good friends here in Manhattan, I think I shall stay on awhile and rest. I have a bit of a cough.”

Was he pretending to be sick in order to stay and gather information, or was he really ill? I had no way of knowing, and it maddened me.

In August Becky received a letter from Oliver saying that the British were pushing off in a fleet of over two hundred ships from Sandy Hook in New Jersey. If Becky knew where they were headed, she did not tell me. We didn’t talk at all anymore.

Late in August Canoe had word that the Continental army was in Pennsylvania, heading toward a place called Brandywine. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. And I was so exhausted I didn’t care.

You couldn’t believe anything you heard about the war, anyway. One minute we’d hear about a victory, the next a defeat. Becky let something out about Howe’s junior officers being dissatisfied with the way he was running the campaign of 1777, since he seemed to be constantly stalling and letting the Americans elude him.

I was weary of it all. The war was practically ruining my father’s shop. Canoe set off again the last day of August and brought me another wagonload of supplies. I didn’t inquire where he’d gotten them. And I didn’t invite him home for supper. But the supplies picked up my spirits the same way the pemmican used to when he gave it to me in the old days before I was grown up.

There comes a day each September when you wake up and know the summer is over and fall has arrived. The slant of the sun looks different and something is in the air—a coolness, a hint of frosty mornings to follow. I woke early on the morning of September 24 and reached for a warmer petticoat. In the kitchen I sat at the side of the table closest to the fire rereading the letter that had arrived from Dan the day before.

The news was not good. Washington’s army had suffered a defeat at Brandy wine on the 11th of September. But both Dan and David were still fine. I ate my breakfast and went to the shop.

Shortly after noon, when I’d finished the bit of stew left over from last night’s supper, there came a knock on the shop door.

I sighed in exasperation. “Ought to make them wait,” I mumbled, even as Father would have mumbled to himself. “A person can’t even have a minute to have some nourishment.”

But something about the shadow of the figure cast through the window caught my eye. It was not a civilian who had come to buy shoe buckles. It was a soldier. I shivered as I crossed the floorboards and fumbled with the door.