Authors: Beverly Jenkins
S
unday morning, Faith and her father drove the wagon into Boston for church. They attended services with the Friends. Many members of the sect educated their slaves and freed them upon the age of eighteen. The members were also vocal in denouncing the continuation of the slave trade, they supported equal representation under the law for all, and the free Black community considered them friends indeed. However, that friendship only applied to the world outside Quaker churches. Inside, Blacks were set apart from the main congregation and made to sit in the small cramped balcony in the back of the sanctuary, a practice mirrored by most Christian churches throughout the colonies.
After the service, Faith and her father stood outside and talked with friends. Faith joined Blythe and a small group of ladies. Now that the weather was breaking, more people were able to venture out. Some in the congregation hadn’t seen each other since mid December when the snow began to fall in earnest, and were now pleased to be able to lay eyes upon their acquaintances and relatives.
Faith turned to say something to Blythe but froze at the sight of the redcoats marching up the street. They were six abreast, their bayoneted guns prominently displayed. From the length of the line of men trailing behind the officers there looked to be at least three hundred. As they marched, they sang a stanza from the British version of “Yankee Doodle.”
Yankee Doodle came to town
For to buy a flintlock.
We will tar and feather him—and so will we John Hancock!
It was an impressive show of force. On the walks in front of the shops, tavern, and homes, colonists stood watching with anger and contempt, while others hissed and booed. Her father, however, was beaming. He and a few other Tories began applauding the display, which only drew the ire of the colonists standing near, but Faith kept her face impassive as the King’s hated troops streamed by.
The captain in charge called a halt to the procession and the spectators looked on warily. No one knew why they’d stopped. Were they about to arrest someone? The answer lay in a liberty pole planted in the earth in front of a tavern. The poles were one of the symbolic signs of the rebellion. They varied in size and shape but all flew a standard upon which a variety of messages were written or embroidered. This one read
RESIST!
The officer walked over, snatched it out of the ground, then broke it over his thigh. Hisses and curses from those on the walks greeted the action, but he paid them no mind. After contemptuously tossing the pieces aside he signaled, and the march and singing taunts resumed.
Her father looked happy as a child at Christmas, but Faith knew this would be yet another mark against the King’s forces. After all, it was Sunday; not that wars cared, but the people did, and for the captain and his men to be strutting around on the Lord’s Day putting the rebels in their place made the British appear to be the godless heathens the opposition claimed them to be.
Once the troops had passed from sight, the congregation bade farewells to their friends and hastened to their vehicles for the journey home.
“Wasn’t that something to see?” her father asked excitedly. They were now on the outskirts of the city.
“It was,” she said, hoping he didn’t hear her lack of enthusiasm.
“Those rebels will rue the day they decided to tweak the King’s nose.”
And a very large nose it was indeed from what Faith understood. King George was the third Hanoverian king to wear the English crown, but only the first in his royal line to speak English.
Her father glanced over at her. “You do remember the soldier is coming for dinner this evening.”
“I do.” She wasn’t looking forward to it but she did remember.
“And you promised to be pleasant.”
“He isn’t going to ask for my hand.”
“And you promised to be pleasant.”
“I did promise and I will honor it.”
“Good,” he replied, sounding satisfied.
Later that afternoon, as Faith watched over the food cooking in various spots inside the big grate, she wondered if other women meeting a man for the first time had to cook the dinner themselves. One day before she died, she wanted to have a special meal cooked for her that was prepared by someone else’s hands. It would probably be her funeral dinner, she noted dryly and put the thoughts aside. She padded her hands with two towels and lifted the Dutch oven out of the ashes. Inside was a loaf of bread. Her special bread, made from meal, flour, and molasses. The recipe had won her much acclaim at the local fairs and it was said that no one made bread as tasty. However, molasses were getting harder and harder to come by due to the ongoing blockade of Boston Harbor by the British Navy. It was one of the first of the Intolerable Acts implemented by General Gage upon his return to the colony last year. Luckily she’d laid in a large stock before the blockade went into effect, so she had plenty on hand.
With the bread cooling and the hens on the spit, done roasting, Faith pulled her skirts free from her waistband, smoothed the wrinkles as best she could, and left the kitchen to be pleasant to Henri Giles.
Dinner went well. Giles played the perfect gentleman and her father refrained from asking the man to marry her before he took his seat at the table. Giles talked about living in Quebec and asked her father about his past.
“I was born in Jamaica to a slave mother and grew up working in the house. Her master liked how industrious I was, and when he left to return to England he took me with him as his manservant. As I aged, he promised to free me upon his death, and when he died, he did.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty or thereabouts. Came to the colonies a few months after the burial and been here since.”
Faith noted he’d left out meeting her mother and the marriage that resulted but she supposed her father felt that too personal a detail to reveal.
He added, though, “Lost Faith’s mother to the pox outbreak during the fifties, so she hasn’t had much female influence in her life.”
Giles looked Faith’s way. “It doesn’t seem to have affected her in a negative manner.”
Her father offered a smile. “Made the mistake of letting her learn. Haven’t been able to control her since.”
Giles asked Faith, “You can read?”
“Yes. A good number of colonial women can, although some people believe it a waste; after all, what use is a learned woman?”
Her father said warningly, “Faith.”
Giles was studying her as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.
Her father added a bit hastily, “I’m sure she’ll make some man a fine wife one day.”
But to Faith, Giles appeared as if he wasn’t sure he agreed. She sighed inwardly, but determined to remain pleasant, asked, “Can your sisters read and write?”
“No.”
“Ah,” was all she said.
“Although they have expressed a desire.”
“They are to be commended then.”
But he didn’t appear as if he agreed with that, either.
Inevitably the conversation turned to the chances of war becoming a reality.
Her father said, “We saw a column marching through the streets this morning. Made this old Tory heart beat proudly.”
Giles asked, “And you, Miss Kingston?”
“It was quite a sight,” she responded smoothly.
Her father said, “I’m hoping that Gage will just get on with it so that some semblance of normality can be restored. The ships holding the harbor have put a strain on everyone.”
“There are signs that something will happen soon. Once we arrest Hancock and a few others, the rabble may quiet down.”
Faith said, “I’d approve of normalcy. Will these arrests come soon?”
“From all indications, yes.”
She kept her face void of reaction. She assumed Hancock and the Sons were on the alert and taking precautions to prevent such a thing from happening, but she decided it was information that needed to be passed along to them. “Well, enough about war. Who’s ready for dessert?”
Both men were, so she stood. Giles chivalrously rose to his feet, and she inclined her head in acknowledgment. Her smiling father sat and watched.
While they ate the pudding she’d made for dessert, she had to admit Giles was handsome and looked very dashing in his uniform. His light-colored eyes reminded her of Ingram but he was much taller and more muscular. His build was more similar to Nicholas’s. Thinking about Nick opened the floodgates and she found herself comparing the two. Both were handsome, but Giles didn’t make her feel the heat that plagued her so when Nick was near. In fact, she wasn’t moved by Giles in any way. She wondered if that was because lust was reserved for dalliance and scandal and not for marriage. Having been very young when her mother died, Faith had no memories of how her parents interacted with each other, nor did she have any other married couples in her family. She’d heard of so-called love matches and it was her guess that Charity and Ingram’s marriage could be considered that, but she wasn’t privy to the private aspects of their life, either. For all her book learning, she was ignorant about how a man and a woman got along day to day, and she wasn’t sure if that was a hindrance or not, but considering she had little chance of being a wife, she supposed that ignorance didn’t matter. However, Giles was employed, handsome, and polite, and would undoubtedly be a good provider and husband to whomever he chose.
It came time for him to leave, and as he gathered up his overcoat and gun, her father said, “Faith, why don’t you send him back with some of the leftover food?”
She nodded and in the kitchen put helpings of everything into a small crock and returned. When she handed it to him he thanked her.
“I promise to return it,” he pledged. “In hopes that you will fill it again.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you enjoyed my cooking.”
“Faith, why don’t you walk him out to his mount? We wouldn’t want him to get lost in the dark.”
She gave her father a look and wondered if he was purposefully trying to put her in a compromising position. A single woman wasn’t encouraged to walk in the dark with a man not of her family. It wasn’t done.
As if reading her mind, he waved a hand. “Go on ahead. I’m not going to force Giles to marry you.”
She wanted to sink into the floorboards at his jest. Instead she said to the amused soldier, “Are you ready?”
“I am.”
Outside in the brisk night air, Faith pulled her shawl closer. “My apologies. My father is determined I find a husband, which is why he spent the evening throwing me at you like oysters to a hog.”
He chuckled. “None needed.” Looking down at her in the moonlight, he was silent for a few moments. “You’re a very unconventional woman, Miss Kingston.”
“Too unconventional some might say.”
“I’d have to agree. No offense, but I want the woman I marry to be traditional.”
“I’m not offended.”
“But I must admit, having met you has made me rethink some things.”
“Then the evening was a success.”
“Your father will not think so.”
“He’s accustomed to being disappointed, believe me.”
She saw his smile.
He said genuinely, “I would like to visit you again, if I’m allowed to ask for such a boon.”
Faith decided she liked him. “You are, and I’m sure you’ll get no argument from Father.”
“I had a nice time, and thanks for the food.”
“You’re welcome.”
He mounted his horse. “Good evening, Miss Kingston.”
“Good-bye, Lieutenant Giles.”
“Will you call me Henri?”
“If you will call me Faith.”
He nodded.
She smiled.
He rode away.
When she stepped back inside her father was watching her eagerly, so Faith said, “I’m not for him. He said he wants a more traditional woman.”
His face deflated.
“However, he would like to visit us again, and I told him it would be all right.”
“Then there is hope,” he told her while yawning tiredly. He pulled out his timepiece. “Had no idea it was so late. Think I’ll retire. Will you lock up?”
“Yes.”
“See you in the morning.”
“Pleasant dreams.”
As he went upstairs she wondered how the courting was faring but since she knew better than to ask, she set aside the curiosity because she had a more pressing issue to contemplate. The Sons of Liberty needed to be told about what Henri had innocently revealed. John Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the colony and a leader of the rebellion. His arrest would put quite a feather in General Gage’s cap. Hancock in chains would devastate morale, and maybe make the farmers and merchants supporting the movement rethink their allegiances, because if a man as well-to-do and moneyed as Hancock could be tarred with the treason brush, what chance had they?
She locked up, doused the lamps, and went to her room. Entering it, she continued the inner debate. Of course it was possible that the Sons had already ferreted out Gage’s plans to arrest Hancock, but what if they hadn’t? Either way she had to pass the news on, and therein lay the stumbling block. With Blythe leaving for New York in the morning, and Charity nursing a sick infant, she had to go to Nicholas. She did not want to see him, not as herself and certainly not as Lady Midnight, but to do nothing could enable the British to strike a killing blow that might stamp out the rebels and their cause for some time to come.