Murther and Walking Spirits Read online

  No retreat, no retreat

  We must conquer or die

  Who have no retreat!

  The Americans sang it without ever tiring of it. Never tiring of the joke, never tiring of the tune. Sang it, moreover, in tones of whining despair, as if they would gladly have run away, even when they were advancing briskly. When the British heard them singing, and laughing, they were puzzled. This had been called a war of brother against brother, but how unfamiliar these brothers had become! To allow the word retreat even to pass the lips of the troops – it was totally contrary to the disciplines of war. As of course was the American custom of deserting whenever he felt like returning to his farm. Poor Washington!

  New York remained in British hands until late in 1783, and to the end of his life Roger remembered George Washington’s triumphal entrance into the city. City – it was a little more than twelve thousand people, but it was already a metropolis.

  (11)

  IT IS DINNER TIME – four o’clock – on November 25, 1783. Anna sits at table with her two older children. Little Hannah is being given soft food in her bedroom, by her black nurse.

  “Why did you go to the parade on Broadway?” she asks her son. She is stern, he formal.

  “To see General Washington, madam. It was his triumphal entry into the city.”

  “Not the place for the son of a brave British officer, who died to defend us against such upstarts, I should have supposed. ”

  “But madam, it was like Plutarch. A conqueror entering a capital city. How often does one have a chance to see that?”

  “Plutarch wrote of heroes. Of noble men.”

  “General Washington looked like a hero today.”

  “A fine hero!”

  “How does General Washington look?” asks Elizabeth, somewhat fearful of her mother.

  “He is the tallest man I’ve ever seen. And he had a splendid horse. And such a look! Stern, implacable. He raised his hat now and then to the crowd, when they cheered him, but not a smile did he give.”

  “He cannot smile,” says Anna, who has heard much about the conqueror from her coffee cronies. “His false teeth will not allow it.”

  “False teeth!” says Elizabeth, incredulous. “Oh Moeder, are you sure?”

  “It is well known,” says Anna, pleased to have given the conversation the proper Loyalist tone. “They are joined – the tops to the bottoms – at the back, with springs. If he does not keep his jaw firmly shut, they will fly open and you will see the inside of his mouth, which no gentleman ever shows. His teeth are as false as his heart.”

  “He looked like a conqueror,” says Roger, who is sullen. “I should know, madam. I was there.”

  “He has not conquered me,” says Anna.

  “He has conquered us all, and we shall have to look to it,” says Roger.

  “Roger, you are too old for me to tell you to leave the table, but you must understand that I will hear no more of this adoration of Mr. Washington.”

  “I’m not adoring him. I’m facing a fact.”

  (12)

  SOME PEOPLE ARE quicker to face facts than others. Anna knows that hundreds of Loyalists have already made their way north, to the Canadas or the British colonies on the northeast coast, or to the warmer islands in the Caribbean. Anna is phlegmatic – stubborn indeed, with the stubbornness born of ample funds. But Anna is not a fool and she listens carefully to the last sermon preached by the Reverend Cephas Willoughby to his flock at Trinity Church.

  His text is from the one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm: How shall we sing the Lord’s song, in a strange land? For is not this land now strange to us? The songs we know of loyalty and gratitude toward our Motherland may no longer be heard here. Have we not seen the British force withdraw from New York, marching with heads high, in splendid order? And what was the tune the band played, as they marched toward their waiting ships? Was it not “The World turn’d upside down”? Dearly beloved, what a comment was made thereby upon the state in which we now find ourselves. What solemn truth was borne upon our ears by that air, once thought a merry tune, but now heavy with comment upon the present and foreboding for the future?

  And much more to the same effect, but in the end what it came down to was that the Reverend Cephas had received hints that his style of pulpit rhetoric was no longer popular in the city which was now the capital of the United States, and that he might be wise to embrace the facts of conquest. Not all of his parishioners were of his way of thinking, for some were won to the rebel cause, and others thought that a judicious acceptance of realities might serve them best in a city where they had been born and hoped to die. There were Loyalists among them, certainly, but they were not easy in their minds. Loyalist windows had been broken, and rude messages had been daubed on Loyalist walls. But the Reverend Cephas was not a man to admit defeat. He had heard a call, and that call came from the northern city of Halifax, still staunch under British rule, where he had been invited to go, and sing the songs of Zion in a more favourable climate. Would he be true to his principles if he refused to heed such a call? Who among his parishioners could imagine such a vain thing? So the Reverend Cephas had packed his bags and he and his wife and children (whom he referred to only as his olive branches) were shortly to take ship, and Trinity would see, and hear, them no more. It was a splendid sermon, and some of his hearers wept. There were a few, infected perhaps with the new-born sense of Yankee humour, who knew that the Reverend Cephas had been intriguing for this call for several months, but they were polite enough to conceal their smiles.

  (13)

  OTHERS RECEIVED THE message in a more reflective spirit, and Anna was one of them, for during the preceding week she had had a disagreeable talk with Dr. Abraham Shanks, headmaster of the school that Roger attended.

  “Have you reflected, Mrs. Gage, that Roger is now almost fifteen, and might well be thought ready to meet the world and find his fortune there?” Dr. Shanks had asked, all smiles.

  No, Anna had not thought any such thing. She thought that Roger should have at least another year of schooling, before he sought entry to Harvard College, with a view to equipping himself for a life in the legal profession.

  “Then I must be frank, Mrs. Gage. These are troubled times, and I have in my school many boys who are sons of British officers, and I am sorry to say that they are a disruptive influence, and hard words and even open fighting are becoming common. The boys whose parents are supporters of the new government are patient. Oh yes, very patient indeed, but you must know that boys are high-tempered, and such disruptions are not friendly to the spirit of education, which it is my duty to foster. Absit invidia, madam, as I am sure you understand, and no rebuke to Roger ad personam, but the amor patriae of another day must submit to the tempus edax rerum. The ultima ratio regum resides with our new government, and my own situation must be governed by the maxim volenti non fit injuria. So I must, with the uttermost reluctance, I assure you, request that Roger be withdrawn. Salus populi suprema est lex, and whatever my personal feelings must be, I am obliged to think of the good of my school. And so, madam – ?”

  Thumped with Latin, Anna withdrew, very angry with the schoolmaster. Roger went to school no more.

  (14)

  ANNA IS VISITING her man of business. This is not old Claes van Someren, but his successor, Diedrick Potter, a small worried man instead of a large phlegmatic one.

  “But the Greenbush rents have been collected as usual? There was no default there?”

  “Oh, none in the least, madam. The tenants are prompt and good. The money is perfectly safe. But as I say, it is not available to you at present.”

  “Because this new government has put some sort of stop on it. How can they do that?”

  “Not precisely a stop. The money is quite secure, but some arrangements must be made before we can lay hands on it.”

  “I thought you said it was in your strong-room in your vaults?”

  “Oh yes, indeed, the substance is in our vaults, but t
he spirit is not, so to speak, in our possession. It is in escrow, madam.”

  “What is this escrow?”

  “It is a law term, and it means that the money, though held by us, is not available to you until a future condition has been fulfilled.”

  “Yes, yes; but what future condition?”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it, Mrs. Gage, until the present government – the new government of the sovereign state of New York – has determined what damages are owing to the state, and its citizens, by the British who so long occupied the state capital, and who may be held responsible for the damage sustained during the siege and liberation of the city.”

  “So I have to pay damages because the British lost the war? Who says so?”

  Tears came into the little man’s eyes. “Oh madam, if only I could tell you! But you have not had to deal with governments, where there are only spokesmen who interpret somebody or something which is never seen, and has indeed only a mystical being. The people I talk to at Federal Hall are so polite, and so ready to listen when I talk of injustice, but so determined in saying that it is not their desire, but that of the newly formed state, and that their sole responsibility is to see that the laws are administered equitably. And when I ask to see the statutes, they say that they are still being put in final form, but that they have nevertheless the effect of laws. Oh, madam, need I say that they are every man jack of them Whigs, and we are Tories, and they have us at the pistol’s point? When the flag was lowered on the City Hall, was not Cain’s flag raised? They talk so smoothly about ‘natural justice,’ which excuses this spoliation of the defeated. For we are defeated, and we must bow to it. When the Royal Arms were torn down at the City Hall, I tell you without shame, Mrs. Gage, I wept! These were our guarantees of order and justice, and what have we now? A parcel of Whigs! Think of what Mr. Willoughby said on Sunday last!”

  Think of it indeed. Mr. Willoughby had raged against Federal Hall, but he had not come right out and said that the new government was sequestering the monies of the Loyalists to pay its own debts. Instead he had insisted once more that Cain was raised; he took refuge in Milton and spoke of

  … what the grim wolf with privy paw

  Daily devours apace and nothing said

  by which those in the know, like Mr. Diedrick Potter, were well assured he meant the lawyers at Federal Hall, who took what they wanted, and could not be asked to account for it.

  “So I have no assurance about when I may get my money?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Gage, I wish I could say otherwise, but I fear you may never get it. Every day I expect news that the Greenbush farms have been sequestered. They are garnering every penny piece that can be found among people like ourselves.”

  “But it is utterly unjust!”

  “Mrs. Gage, I am sorry to contradict you, but when it is a question of war, our notions of justice have no application whatever. Just as it was in pagan times, the cry is Vae victis – Woe to the vanquished! We are lucky not to be shot or beheaded, I suppose. This new government puts its faith in the treasury and not in the armoury. Very modern, I suppose. ”

  “So I have nothing left?”

  “Oh, not quite that, Mrs. Gage. You have never spent your whole income in any single year since you came into your property, and those residuary funds are in our vaults, and we did not think it necessary to mention them to the taxing men, as they were neither income, nor yet capital, but just – just trifles, shall we say, hardly worth bothering about.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Potter. And what do these trifles come to, can you tell?”

  “They come to six hundred and forty-six guineas, eleven shillings and ninepence, Mrs. Gage. I thought it better to get this money into gold.”

  “I thought you would be exact. And how may I put hands on this six hundred and forty-six guineas, eleven shillings and ninepence?”

  “It would relieve my mind greatly if you would take them out of our vaults as soon as you can, for the tax men are demanding another accounting and if it is not precise – well, Vae victis it will be.”

  “Carry them off with me this instant?”

  “You could not do better. Shall I have them made ready? A trusted person will do it in a very short time.”

  So, while the trusted person is doing it, Anna and Mr. Potter entertain each other very agreeably by abusing the Whigs and the conquerors, and assuring one another that “The World turn’d upside down” is the only tune for the times.

  At last the trusted person taps at the door, and enters with a large leather bag. He puts it on Mr. Potter’s table and leaves without a word, but perhaps the wrinkles of his coat-tails might be interpreted as a wink. When Anna tries to lift it she finds so much weight in a small bag unwieldy, so Mr. Potter arranges that she shall go home in a coach, and that the trusted person shall carry the duplicitous bag for her.

  He does not think it proper to ask for a receipt for the bag. Too much attention to the details of business can be as bad as too little.

  (15)

  DINNER THAT afternoon at the house on John Street is an exciting affair, and the manners of the dancing-school, and of parental instruction, suffer because of it.

  “Hurrah! When do we set out?” Roger wants to know.

  “Not until spring. Christmas has not yet come and we shall need all the time until Easter to prepare. For we are not running away, my dears. We are making a considered journey. We are going to visit your Uncle Gus in Canada. We must choose what we will take with us, and we must prepare for hardship. But whatever can be done by care and planning must be done, and not a word to anyone.”

  “But people are going all the time, madam. Last week the Bertrams went to Jamaica, with a mass of things.”

  “Yes, and when their ship dropped its pilot in the harbour the American revenue people took every trunk and bale, and the Bertrams will reach Jamaica with nothing but what they stand up in.”

  “Parson Willoughby went, and nobody bothered him.”

  “We don’t know that for a certainty. Leaving the harbour is not the same as arriving with all your packages. For anything we know, the Willoughbys may have been stripped to the skin before they reached Halifax.”

  “I should be glad to see that.”

  “Roger! Let me hear no more of that!”

  “Do the servants know?” asks Elizabeth.

  “I shall tell them at the proper time, but they are not coming with us.”

  “Not even Emmeline?” says Elizabeth, looking very downcast.

  “Canada is not a climate for black people,” says Anna. “And James is almost a cripple now, so he would be a hindrance on our journey.”

  “A hindrance on our journey,” says Elizabeth, reflectively. And then – “So there will be nobody to turn down our beds?”

  “What beds?” says Roger. “Do you suppose we shall have beds on this journey? Miss Ninnyhammer!”

  “Do not speak to your sister like that, Roger.”

  “But she is being stupid. This is going to be an adventure. Nobody has beds on an adventure. Lizzie had better wear some of my clothes.”

  “Oh Roger! Whatever for?” says Elizabeth.

  “To protect your virtue, Miss,” says Roger. “We shall meet Indians and Whigs and God knows what in the forests. You had better cut your hair, too.”

  Elizabeth screams.

  “Roger, what sort of journey do you think we are undertaking?” says Anna.

  “We are escaping. We are fleeing. Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit!” Roger is shouting, flown with the spirit of adventure and with all the masculine zest for Latin – in this case wildly unsuitable to number and gender.

  “If we travel in that spirit I doubt if we shall get past Spuyten Duyvil,” says Anna. “No, Roger, no. All must be as orderly and as ordinary as it can be made. I have thought carefully. We cannot go by wagon and packhorse. Travellers by land have to pass too many turnpikes and inquisitive people. We must travel on the water.”

  “Hurrah! I sha
ll paddle!”

  “You will not. I shall paddle.”

  “Have you ever paddled in your life, madam?” says Roger with heavy sarcasm.

  “No, but I do not suppose it is beyond me.”

  “Well, God be praised, I can paddle.”

  “You may paddle as well. You are a strong boy. I must say now, a strong young man.”

  Roger is appeased. “Well, I shall carry the pistols,” says he. His father’s pistols have long been in his envious eye.

  “I think I had better carry the pistols, and they will be very well concealed,” says Anna.

  Elizabeth has been thinking, and not happily.

  “Moeder, you spoke of hindrances on the journey,” she says now, in a very small voice. “Have you thought at all about Hannah?”

  “I have. Hannah shall be your care, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth bursts into tears.

  (16)

  A CARE HANNAH is certain to be. Poor wretch, not yet quite eleven years old, she suffers dreadfully with her teeth. She can eat only the softest foods, and has not yet been promoted to the adults’ table because of her unpleasing habit of chewing whatever juice she can from her meat, and placing the grey, unswallowed lumps on the side of her plate. Because she eats so little, her growth is stunted and she looks like a child of six, and a poor child at that. Because of her misery she has already a marked kyphosis, which Anna will not hear called a hunched back; it will vanish, she is sure, once Hannah has been delivered from the grief of her teeth. But when will that be? Dentists are few in New York, but Hannah has been taken to one of them, whose resort was to make room for her incoming teeth by screwing out a few of her baby teeth with an instrument called a pelican, as Hannah screamed with a force extraordinary in so small a creature. Hannah is a living, breathing toothache and it seems that nothing can be done for her. In addition to her teeth, and probably because of them, she suffers from what the physician calls catarrh of the ears, and a noisome yellow mess leaks out onto the bandages that the devoted Emmeline changes every day. Hannah seems marked for deafness, and is already a child whom Anna finds it difficult to love. Elizabeth, who has a tender heart, pities her, but Hannah does not respond well to pity. She is hateful, and pulls Elizabeth’s beautiful auburn hair and screams against the fate that has made her ugly and a little bundle of pain.