Time Enough for Drums (22 page)

He just stood there. So did I, staring. I don’t think I even blinked once. I’m sure he didn’t. I went hot and then I went cold, then I closed my eyes for a moment, sure I would faint. Yes, it was a soldier, an officer in the Continental army.

“Well, aren’t you going to invite me in, Jemima Emerson? Or have you forgotten your manners again?”

I backed into the shop. He followed, leaving the door ajar. Inside I stared at him, wide-eyed, unable to speak. I could see that he looked thinner and older.

He stood, looking very authoritative and handsome in his uniform, sizing me up. He walked around me as I stood in the middle of the shop, his boots clicking on the wooden floor. His eyes went over me from head to toe, and I flushed.

“Well, Jemima Emerson, you do look very grown up.” He came full circle around me and stood surveying me sternly, his hands clasped behind his back.

“But you haven’t curtsied. You do know how to curtsy. I’ve seen you do it. Can you do it for me?”

I was shaking so, I could barely manage it. But I did execute a fine curtsy, if I do say so myself. I raised my eyes to look at him.

“Your head and shoulders could be held a little higher, but it will do for now.”

I straightened up. “How do you know so much about it, Mr. Reid?”

“I’ve been in the company of a few fine ladies in my time.” A smile played about his lips, although he was doing his best to frown.

“I’m afraid I don’t look anything like a lady today, sir.”

“You look perfectly fine to me, Jemima Emerson.” And then he smiled, gave a whoop, threw off his hat, and opened his arms. I ran to him. He embraced me and kissed me.

“John!”

Still kissing me, he turned and kicked the door shut with his foot.

At first I thought that John was just thinner than before and that he needed some home-cooked food. But after our first fierce embrace in the shop, he started to cough. And although he was sunburned from his travels, there were circles under his eyes.

“John, you
are
ill,” I said.

“Just seeing you will make me well again.”

“I thought when you wrote about having a cough, you were just pretending, so you could stay and gather information.”

“I didn’t have to pretend. But it came in handy, the cough. The British treated me beautifully, and I made friends with the officers and managed to send my superiors all kinds of information about British troop movements, shortages of supplies, and leading British officers.”

“Why did you finally leave?”

“It was getting dangerous. My superiors knew I was sick and ordered me home for a rest. I’ve been traveling for a week, and it wore me down.”

“And are you finished with all this now, Captain Reid?”

“For the time being. I was ordered to rest and recover. But I will go back. My services are needed.” He coughed again.

“I think what is needed, John, is a good bowl of Lucy’s soup. For your cough.”

He ate the soup but not much else for supper. And I ate little more. I couldn’t stop staring at him across the table. I couldn’t believe he’d really come home. He looked around the dining room as if remembering it from some dream. He put up with Rebeckah’s chatter, but always, it seemed, he was listening for something else. He had the soldier’s trained eye and ear; nothing escaped him. And although I knew he was not feeling well, he did make a fine appearance at the table in a clean white shirt with a black silken stock under his collar.

“Stop staring at John,” Rebeckah ordered. “You’ll make him uncomfortable.”

“How was the food when you were a prisoner, John?” I asked.

“Jemima!” Becky scolded. “Have you no feeling at all?”

“It’s all right, Rebeckah,” he said. “Jem should learn about such things.”

“And you, I suppose, are still playing the tutor? Well, if you are, then you should tell her what it was like when Boston was evacuated a year ago last March. And how all those good Americans, whose only crime was being loyal to the King, were forced to leave their homes and possessions and sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Tell her how her aunt Grace was one of them. And you should let her know what it was like for them once they got to Halifax, with little shelter and food available.”

“You were not there, Rebeckah,” John said, “either for
the evacuation of Boston or the confusion in Halifax.”

“Oliver was. And he wrote to me of it. What kind of a tutor are you if you only give her one side of the argument and withhold the full truth? Aunt Grace has now sailed for England, as have many of our good neighbors and friends who were Tories. Does she know that?”

“You are right, Rebeckah, I won’t deny that,” John said calmly. “We’ve lost many good Americans who had to flee because of their politics. And I shall educate Jemima about the matter when I have the time. But now I will answer her question. My provisions were sufficient, Jem. I wish I could say the same for other American soldiers who were prisoners in New York and weren’t lucky enough to have privileges because they weren’t officers. I visited some prisons and tried to help some of them, but the British didn’t like my seeing all of that and they soon put a stop to it. I did find out that many American prisoners could have gotten out, had they agreed to enlist in the British army. Some did, with the plan to desert as soon as they could, but most of them died rather than defect to the enemy.”

The candles were so bright in the room as I looked at him across the table. Or did it only seem so because of the tears in my eyes?

“This war has ruined the lives of many good people on both sides,” John said. “But wars usually do that.”

We took our coffee in the parlor. “You’ll stay the night, John,” I said. “Dan’s room is empty.” He reached out to take my hand as I went by his chair, and I could feel the warmth of his grasp.

“John, you’re feverish.”

“The fever always comes back at night,” he said.

“You’ll stay as long as need be,” I amended. “You need to be looked after. Living alone, with no one to care for
you, will only make you worse.”

“I’ll give you no argument tonight, Jemima,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m pure exhausted. We can talk about it in the morning.”

I had to take the cup from his hand, for he had the shivers then. Lucy had to help him up the stairs to bed.

I stayed in the parlor. The candles sputtered in the pewter holders. I would have given an arm if Mother or Father had been in the room so I could discuss John’s homecoming and what it meant to me. I was unbearably happy, yet unbearably sad at the same time.

“Jemima.”

Becky had left to see to the baby but now stood in the door of the parlor looking at me. “Jemima, I don’t want to go through this with you again. I thought you had sense enough to spare us a second time.”

What was she saying?

“I think sometimes you do things just to provoke me.”

“Rebeckah, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t pretend. You’re no longer a child.”

“That’s news to me, coming from you. You always treat me like one.”

“Perhaps because you insist on acting like one. How can you be anything but a thoughtless child when you invite him to stay here as long as need be?”

I felt every part of me come alert. “He’s staying, Rebeckah. As long as need be.”

“He has his own place.”

“He’s sick. He needs looking after and tending.”

“And you’re just the one to do it, I suppose. Wouldn’t that look nice getting around town?”

“Becky, how can you? Are you afraid it wouldn’t look
proper in front of your Tory lady friends who have nothing better to do than gossip? John is
sick!
There is nothing improper in this. Lucy is here with me. She’ll do most of the tending.”

“I have a baby in the house. We don’t know what diseases he carries.”

“Oh, Becky, don’t say that again. You just don’t want him here, admit it.”

“All right, I will. Why should I have him under this roof? My husband is serving in the British army. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. And you invite a Continental soldier to stay in the house.”

“This is
John
, Rebeckah. Our friend! He isn’t just any soldier. And if he were just any soldier, I’d do it anyway. They starved for us, they died. You heard him.”

“Fools.”

“You
would
say that. What those men went through for us nobody can make up to them.”

“I strongly suspect you’re about to try.”

I whirled on her. “Now what is
that
supposed to mean!”

“You’ve been making a fool of yourself over him all through supper. It isn’t seemly, betrothed or not.”

“Isn’t
seemly!
I suppose it was seemly to have the Hessians and British in the house! You act as if the war never happened!”

“Oh, I know the war happened. But I feel it my responsibility, as your older sister, to keep this a decent Christian home.”

“A decent Christian home is what it is. It’s what Mama would do, taking John in.”

“Mama! Don’t talk to me of Mama or what she would do. I’m sick of your endless prattle about Mama. You’re just like her, for heaven’s sake!”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“You don’t know?”

“I fail to see anything wrong with it, Rebeckah.”

“You really don’t know, do you? They never told you.” And she laughed that bitter laugh of hers. “It’s right you should know. It would take you down off that high horse of yours.”

“If you have something to tell me, Becky, I think you ought to say it plain.”

“All right, I will. She was responsible for Father’s death.”

A candle went out on the small round table in the corner. My mouth went dry. “What are you saying, Becky?”

“The truth. Father was killed, not for refusing to sign the loyalty oath to the King. Not even for serving on the Provincial Congress that voted for independence. He was killed because of those essays Mother was writing for the
Gazette
.”

“You lie, Becky.”

“Do I? The British killed him after they traced the letters to our name. The British, not the Hessians. They lured him out of town with that note to deliver supplies to the militia. That note came from the British, not Dickinson’s militia. There were copies of Mama’s essays pinned to his body when he was found in the shop the next day. They never told you, that’s all.”

“It isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it? Ask the Moores. They know.”

I sat down, trembling.

She went on. “Why do you think Mother went mad? It’s from guilt. She can’t forgive herself. She was told by Grandfather Henshaw to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. Her precious principles were too important to her. She was a fool, getting involved in things a woman has no right getting
Involved in. And you’re turning out to be just like her!”

“Stop it, Becky!”

“I won’t! It’s time you were told! You’re spoiled. You always were. Mother and Father spoiled you. By the time they realized it, it was too late. They had to turn you over to John because they couldn’t do anything with you anymore. There are plenty of things you don’t know, Jemima.”

My head was spinning. So this was what Mama’s courage had wrought! What good was it all? I felt everything I believed in destroyed. No wonder Mama had gone daft. How did a person live with such a thing on her conscience?

Becky went to the door. “They should have told you a long time ago. I suggest you pray on it and act accordingly.”

“Accordingly?” I looked at her.

“Learn from it. I also suggest you tell John in the morning to go home. There are indentured servants he can get to care for him. Or he can pay servants. He has money. If you don’t, Jemima Emerson, within three days I will leave with the baby. Make your choice. Grow up, finally, or have us on your conscience.”

She left the room.

I sat there a long time. The other candle in the corner went out. It was late, and the only light in the room came from the dying fire. It grew colder, but I still sat there, for the cold was mostly inside me.

The next morning when I visited John he was sitting up in Daniel’s bed, sipping something hot and steaming out of a mug. He looked rested but still weak. “Whatever it was that Lucy gave me last night helped. The fever is down.”

“It was Mama’s medicine.” I felt a stab of remorse talking of her.

“It does me just as good to see you looking so bright and pretty this morning. Where are you off to so early?”

“To the Moores’. To see Mama.”

“If I were up to it, I’d ride over with you on such a fine day. Look at that sky out there. It makes a man feel good to be alive.”

“You aren’t up to anything, John Reid. Lucy says you’re to stay in bed today and rest or you won’t be alive. We’ve sent for Dr. Cowell to come have a look at you.”

“The devil you have. I won’t have it.”

“I’m afraid you must.”

He took my hand, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Is that how you take advantage of your tutor when he’s had his horse shot from under him?”

“Yes.”

“You always did want a way to get back at me, didn’t you, Jemima Emerson?”

I kissed his forehead. “Yes, I have you now and you’ll listen to me for a change.” I smiled at him wishing I felt as sure as I looked walking out.

The Moores were in their barn. They came out when I rode into the barnyard. “That’s a bit of hard riding for someone who should be in the shop this time of day,” Mr. Moore said. “Is it not?”

I didn’t have to pretend with the Moores, which made me glad. “I’ve come to see my mother,” I said.

“Thee can see her anytime thee wishes,” Ruth said.

I stood in the September sunlight looking at those two good, dear people who loved me as their own. “I have to ask you something, both of you.”

They nodded and glanced at each other, waiting.

“Is it true about my mother and the letters? That my father was killed because of what she did?”

Mr. Moore looked at the ground. Ruth reached and touched my arm. “It is the truth,” she said. “We hoped thee wouldn’t have to hear it.”