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TWO GENTLEMEN OF NANTUCKET

A Romantic Episode of the American Revolution

1

A BROKEN WINDOWPANE was the only blemish on the Weamish residence in Sherburne, one of the finest houses on the island—certainly the finest on Main Street, and one of the few in town made entirely of brick. As he sat that morning in his upper-story library writing a letter to his widowed mother, Judge Thomas Weamish frowned in anger and pain each time he looked up at the glassy wound. To be sure, rosy-cheeked and chubby in his morning robe and slippers, he appeared more like a man accustomed, at the lovely age of forty, to cheer than to distress. Yet these were distressful times, and Weamish was conscious of them as he concluded his letter, written in a consciously elegant hand, with frequent dippings of the pen into the inkwell. “For the rest, my dearest mamma, the weather today is all radiant sun, as if to invite a swift return from the mainland of one whom not a few among the natives of the island call the queen-mother of Nantucket. Speed, speed to these shores again, for our human storms require a hand such as yours that knoweth how to chide the weak and chastise the guilty. Ever your devoted son, Thomas. Mailed at Sherburne, Nantucket. Tuesday, the 20th of June, 1775.”

He dried the letter and rang a little silver bell. Jenny the motherly housekeeper came up from the kitchen.

“Jenny, when the post boy comes by, tell him I have a letter for him,” said Weamish.

“I will, Mr. Weamish. And I thought you’d like to know, sir, that I saw Josh Mamack dragging down the street.”

“It’s about time! Catch him and send him up at once.”

When she was gone, Weamish rose from his chair, letter in hand, and took it to an unbroken window for a better light. He was rather proud of his epistolary skills and unwilling to fold and seal the letter without re-reading it. This he did, half aloud, with subdued but eloquent gestures.

“Dearest mamma,” said the letter; “God grant that this missive find you in the full enjoyment of your customary health and cheerful spirits. Need I tell you how sorely you are missed by all your friends in town? To fly to an ailing sister, a despondent and helpless brother-in-law, in the midst of an embattled Boston, within hearing of cannon fire, insulted daily by a rabble of treacherous and unprincipled villains, who, like froward children, dare to question the mild authority of a monarch beloved of all his rational subjects; to rush, I say, to a sister and brother cruelly expelled from their ancestral home at Cambridge; to nurse them in their affliction; to comfort them for the loss of property, familiar grounds and acquaintances; all this proves you a Saltonstall, the proud daughter of a governor, and sister-in-law to a royal Councillor of Massachusetts. But let me descend from these heights and commend myself to Dr. Brattle and to your dear sister, my aunt. Pray tell them they acted wisely in taking shelter at Boston under the victorious wings of his Excellency our governor and general, who, if reports tell true, hath recently beaten the impudent rebels out of Charlestown, and will now drum them handily out of the entire province. Alas, how I wish that I myself could wield a sword in these stirring times, rise to defend my king, and scourge the contumacious mob! But the robe enjoins its own duties, the law hath its own heroes. My sphere, at the moment, is our dear county of Nantucket, and here I mean to sustain his Majesty’s mild rule and enforce his just decrees. What if you and I, my dear mamma, permit ourselves, in the intimacy of our household, to nurse the virtuous hope that Governor Gage will see fit presently to call me to his side, perhaps into his Council, to serve my king in a wider and nobler field of activity? I make no secret of my feelings. I do not care if a hint should come to the governor’s ear that Thomas Weamish, who suffered for his king in the time of the Stamp Act, and who now once again beholds his windows shattered as the reward of his loyalty, that this same Thomas Weamish burns with a noble ambition to sacrifice his repose on the altar of our cherished colony. But you, my dear mamma, will know better than anyone how to convey these not unworthy sentiments to General Gage. Speak to him apart at the next assembly, when music hath made him cheerful. For is it fitting that a son of yours should pine away in a rude colonial outpost, among uncouth whalemen and Quakers, distant from elegant society—”

But the door opened again at that moment and Jenny entered, followed by Joshua Mamack, carrying tools and a sack. “Here’s Josh, Mr. Weamish.”

The Indian took off his cap with a respectfully cheerful “Good day to you, sir.”

Weamish gave the man in return a sarcastic “Well well, Mr. Mamack; very good of you I’m sure to call on us at last.”

The Indian looked dumb and scratched his head. “Never mind,” said the Judge; “I’ll attend to you in a moment.”

He sat down to fold and seal his letter, which he handed to Jenny. After she had left, he turned to the Indian and pointed tragically at the broken window-pane, the sharp edges of which remained as if to bear witness. “Here, Mr. Mamack, here.”

“Yah. I seen it,” said the Indian. “Near same one they break nine years ago. Mamack good memory. I seen it from the street days ago and I brung the replacement. Here.”

Mamack produced the bright new pane from his sack. The Judge examined it.

“Very well, Mr. Mamack, but why has it taken you four days to find your way here?”

Mamack had learned long ago that this looking dumb of his was the canniest way to cope with the white world. “Find my way?” he asked.

“To answer my summons, Mamack,” Weamish shouted. “Am I to sit in this room for an entire week while the wind whistles through a broken window?”

“I mean to come right away quickly, Judge—”

“But?”

“Well—”

“Well well well! Well what?”

“Well—I got five kids to feed, I got a position in the community—”

The Judge’s cheeks puffed and went from his customary rosy to red.

“A position in the—! A carpenter—a glazer—a jack Indian with a position in the community! So this is the new spirit blowing over the land! And what has your precious position in the community to do with my broken window, Mr. Mamack?”

“Yah, I was only talking, Judge. I fix that window fast.”

“I insist that you tell me!”

“Well—”

“Well?”

Up to this moment, Mamack had been looking down and sideways as though interested in the Judge’s carpet, but now he gazed slyly into the Judge’s face: “Well, the folks around here see you comfy cozy with Sergeant Cuff and Mr. Applegate—”

“Aha!”

Just then, in the distance, came the sound of a fife and drum. It had become a familiar one to the Sherburne folk from the time when, months ago, thirty Redcoats, commanded by Sergeant Alexander Cuff (detached from the nth Regiment of Foot) had landed on the island to keep the peace. Mamack became a little bolder.

“There’s a heap of bad feeling on the island, Judge,” he said, “like a wind, speak East, speak West, a cold wicked wind. But I don’t meddle none in white man’s business. I don’t sit down into no committees.”

“Committees, eh? I assure you I know all about their rebel committees.”

“They know all about you that you know all about them,” replied Mamack with a grin. “They say you and Mr. Applegate hush hush at night, in the dark, only one candle, you write names with ink in a book.”

“Rubbish!”

“But maybe they write names too, eh?”

“Let them!” The military note was coming closer. “We have ways,” he added, “of slapping their writing hands. As for you—”

“I better fix that window. Big storm step out of sky any day.”

“Not yet! Tell me, have these patriotic gentlemen tried to keep you from mending it?”

“They call a small meeting about it, sir.”

“A meeting! A meeting about my window!”

“Small meeting, Judge. A bowl of cider and a pipe in Swain’s tap room. I said to them, I said, ‘Gentlemen, who am I? Josh Mamack, Pokanoket tribe, honest worker, no rum hardly ever, I must mend the Judge’s window, not decent to keep the Judge in draft.’ And they said, ‘Go, friend, go in peace.’”

“So now it’s the rebel committee that runs Nantucket! The magistrates and the selectmen no longer count. Tell me, Mr. Mamack, while you gentlemen were guzzling cider and puffing on your pipes, was not the vandal’s name mentioned by chance?”

“Who?”

“The window breaker’s name!”

“The window breaker? O Lord—I don’t know—”

Weamish, who had been standing, now sat down behind the desk and spoke with the voice of a judge addressing a sheep-stealer. “Mr. Mamack,” he said, “I am the chief magistrate of this county.”

“I know, sir. We’re mighty proud of you.”

“I order you to speak. Who broke that window? One of the Coffins? Young Macy? Coleman? Hussey’s children?”

“How would I know? How would anybody know? But I have an idea, Judge.”

“Aha!”

“Because as I said it’s near the window what break when you was stamp distributor.”

“What of it?”

“I better fix that window. I talk too much.”

That the Indian was hugely though slyly enjoying himself escaped the good judge, who now slammed the desk and knocked over a small British flag set in a silver base.

“Don’t go near that window! Finish what you were about to say!”

“Yes, sir. I figure the moment I come in, I says to myself, by cod, Mamack, it must be the same Spirit which done it in sixty-six. Spirit, he smashed like he was trying to tell you, ‘Watch out, Judge Weamish, the people don’t have forgotten!’”

Mamack uttered these words in his best sepulchral tone.

“Spirit be damned!” Weamish now trembled and blustered at the same time. “Rogues and rascals! They will not forgive a man for carrying out British law.”

By this time a squad of Redcoats was nearing the house, and Weamish took comfort in the drum’s rat-tat-tat.

“Thank God for Sergeant Cuff!” he said. “Thirty-odd Redcoats will suffice to curb these Sons of Liberty.”

“We don’t see so many soldiers since the French War,” said Mamack, who now brought out his most innocent tone. “How long they purposing to stay, Judge?”

But this time he was disappointed. “Forever, damn it!” Weamish replied. “Go mend that window!”

“Yes, Judge,” and he began to work, while Weamish went to another window, and opened it to wave at the Redcoats in the street below. There were ten of them, led by Sergeant Cuff himself, a tough-jawed man in his fifties, carrying a sword hanging from his shoulder and a pistol wedged into his belt. He had halted his men just beneath the window. It was evidently the Sergeant’s wish to greet the Judge.

“Proud looking lads!” shouted the Judge down into the street. Mamack also peered out the broken window.

The street was wide enough to allow for a little complimentary drill with musket and bayonet, to the sound of drum and fife, honoring the Judge, whom the Sergeant saluted by taking off his cocked hat and waving his sword, while shouting commands. A horse-drawn cart rumbling by, driven by a pair of disapproving Quakers, gave the soldiers a squeeze, but Weamish waved, Cuff saluted, and Mamack thought he would try again when drill and drum were over and the detachment marched away.

“What’s your opinion, Judge? They going to hold down the harbor? Put a few fellows in jail? Take our ships away from us?”

“We’ll see,” said Weamish smugly, and he could not help adding (because one does sometimes boast even to an underling), “Sergeant Cuff has orders from Colonel Montague at Boston to make no move without my consent.”

Mamack let out a whistle. “One day, Spirit tell me and tell me sure, one day you going to be Royal Duke in London. Mark Mamack’s words, your mummy, she be the proudest lady from here to Boston.”

Weamish inspected Mamack’s work. “I see you’re almost done. Good.”

Now, catching sight of a gentleman on horseback trotting down Main Street at leisure, he opened the intact window again and called out.

“Mr. Applegate, do dismount and pay me a visit. There’s a cup of chocolate for you if you don’t mind finding me in my morning négligé.”

John Applegate, a wealthy Tory landowner from Concord, was on the island for what he hopefully called a “short visit” with his relatives the Rotch family, his property, perhaps his life, having been threatened at home by the Rebels. His wife (they had no children) had remained in timorous charge at Concord.

Looking up from his saddle, he replied to the Judge’s invitation, “Thank you, my friend, but I’ve no wish to intrude on preparations for your elegant visitors.”

“What elegant visitors, Mr. Applegate? This is Joshua Mamack, a common laborer.”

“Mamack indeed!” cried Applegate with a laugh. “I mean the two ladies who came ashore from the New York packet this morning.”

“I know nothing about it! Two ladies? I beg you, sir, do come up for a moment and explain.”

“I will,” replied Applegate, dismounting and tying up his horse. Jenny had already opened the door, and he climbed the stairs into the library.

“Sit down, sir, sit down; two ladies? I’m dumbfounded.”

“Well then, I am the bringer of good tidings, or so I hope. I was at the wharves early this morning, hoping the Boston gazettes had arrived. Colonel Mayhew and his sparkish nephew were overseeing the unloading of I do not know what merchandise, while two ladies, most elegant ladies—and I have seen some in Boston—all frills and ribbons—came ashore, escorted with many a flourish by the captain himself—Frobish by name, I know him well. I heard them babble to each other in French. A gig was waiting for them, though ’tis only fifty paces to Swain’s Inn. A mighty load of luggage was loaded into a cart, and off they all drove. I do not think that the Mayhews saw them. But to the point. Frobish told me that the older of the two ladies had asked for directions to the house of Judge Thomas Weamish. They will undoubtedly be calling on you before long.”

“I’m speechless!” cried Weamish. “Allow me, sir, if I may—”

“Oh, I’m off!” said Applegate with a chuckle, “but I’ll stop by this evening for news.” A minute later he was on his horse again.

“Jenny! Jenny!” Weamish shouted over the landing, “Two French ladies are calling on me! Come up at once!”

The excitement was understandable. The chronicles of Nantucket do not report any previous visits to the island by Frenchwomen, elegant or otherwise.

Jenny came up the stairs.

“Hurry down again and tidy the parlor! French ladies! Perhaps they speak no English.”

“The parlor is always tidy, Mr. Weamish.,” said Jenny peevishly.

“Well, prepare a collation. And use the silver, not the china. Hurry while I dress. And let me not hear any farmhand familiarities when they come.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Weamish,” said Jenny even more peevishly, as she descended the steps. About to rush into his dressing room, Weamish became aware of Mamack again, who had been watching rather more attentively than attending to his work.

“That will do for the day, Mamack,” cried the Judge. “Go down to the kitchen, have Cook give you something to eat and drink, and come back tomorrow.”

Without waiting for a reply, Weamish dashed into his dressing room. His clothes and wig had been laid out as usual by Jenny, and it did not take him long to dress and scent himself—a little more generously, perhaps, than usual. Mamack had disappeared by the time Weamish returned to his desk, where he busied himself, or tried to busy himself, with some legal papers.

After a while, he heard a carriage approach his house and stop at the door. He peeked down through the window as two women descended from the chaise, which was being driven by old Moses. The elder of the two knocked at the door. As Weamish gave himself a final preening, he heard Jenny, fussy and flustered, invite the ladies into the parlor. Then she called her master, who took hold of his dignity coming down the stairs as he entered the parlor, closing the door behind him.

“Allow me to welcome you in my house,” he said; “I am Judge Thomas Weamish.”

“And I am Aimée de Tourville,” said the lady, raising her head. “This is my daughter Madeleine. I hope you will forgive this unannounced intrusion. I have come to you from the inn without changing, because the matter is urgent.”

Madame de Tourville spoke with a surprisingly slight French accent. Her daughter, it may as well be reported here, had none.

“Pray sit,” said the Judge.

2

THE FORTY-FIVE-YEAR OLD Aimée de Tourville was not simply fine-looking; she had eyes and lips that showed her, even to the most obtuse observer, to be a creature of high spirits. She was probably more attractive and more striking in her dark-haired maturity than she had been as a young girl. Her daughter, growing up under that radiance, showed more reticence in looks and dress, as well as an intelligence that kept to few words.

Who were these women?

Candor is best. The Marquise Aimée de Tourville was in fact Aimée Binette, only child of an honest Lyon locksmith, who married her off, naturally enough, to a Lyon jail-keeper named Jean Pichot when she turned seventeen. High luck befell her two years into her marriage when the Vicomtesse de Brion was incarcerated for poisoning her husband instead of only crying over his brutalities, as the law required. Before the vicomtesse was hanged, Aimée spent hours, days and months in the lady’s cell. That bold woman taught the whip-smart turnkey’s wife to speak, walk, sit, behave and even think like an aristocrat. As a result, even before Monsieur Pichot died, she easily became the mistress of an aging nobleman, a relation of the vicomtesse, who had occasionally called on the lady in her cell. Aimée had taken over her father’s rather successful keyshop, but the baron enabled her to live at a station higher than what selling keys, even many keys, would have allowed.

Intimacies with the baron—the aging baron, as mentioned before—satisfied only a fraction of Aimée’s large capacities for pleasure. Though ever kind and charming to the gentleman (Aimée had a heart) she became the mistress of one of her much younger clients, a sturdy sergeant by the name of Christian Deudon. A couple of years later—in 1752, to be precise—the baron was called to Paris by the king and Madeleine was born, tenderly acknowledged by both the baron and the sergeant. The girl was destined so to resemble her mother, physically speaking, that the question of who was her father would have been impossible to resolve by the method of comparison. Aimée never did resolve it.

In the last days of the year 1756, the sergeant slapped his lieutenant’s face. This pre-Jacobin act obliged the couple and their baby to flee to Montreal, where Aimée taught the sergeant what she knew about the business of selling keys and repairing locks. But unable to bear the cold, Deudon, though sturdy, succumbed to a weakness of the lungs. He left mother and child a dented sword and a tunic with braids out of which Aimée made a pretty skirt for the baby.

In 1760, during a dreadful winter in the first year of English rule, mother and daughter nearly froze to death. But this low kind of death was not meant for Aimée. General Thomas Gage had given an order—in French and English—that beef was to sell at no more than ten sous the pound. Aimée had not been in Montreal long enough to deserve special favors from the butchers. To keep her baby alive, she ran from one to the other, an ounce here, a slice there, sometimes as far as the Arsenal, knee-deep in snow or falling on the ice. Yet somehow she was always dealt the worst cuts, meat that stank in spite of the cold, never a bite more than her ration, and her pittance handed over the counter with sour distrustful faces. Pretty soon, however, she noticed a detail. Every butcher displayed an alms box for the hospital or the Ursulines that no eye could miss. Aimée thought, “How wonderfully generous they all are! Everybody’s freezing and starving, but never a trip to the butcher’s without a few pious coins into those boxes.” One day she saw one of the good ladies of Montreal drop a coin and throw the butcher a wink. That wink was sufficient. Aimée sent a note to Monsieur Maturin, who was Gage’s secretary, named herself, humble widow of a late sergeant in the light infantry, the butcher got ten lashes, the alms boxes disappeared, and Aimée quietly entered the Governor’s service, sending elegant and witty notes at STORIES 25 a regular pace concerning the doings and the temper of a restive French population. The two called it “taking the pulse” of the people. They also took that of each other.

Presently General Gage was transferred to New York. Aimée, though she kept her little étage in Montreal (one never knows), followed soon after. That was where the key-shop persona disappeared once and for all, and where the Marquise de Tourville settled with her daughter in unpretentious but comfortable quarters, enjoying a monthly retainer quietly paid by the British crown. Tutors gave little Madeleine lessons in French and English. Aimée herself mastered the new language with ease. As a Frenchwoman she appeared in New York, and made sure that she so appeared, as the natural enemy of England and the admirer of the Sons of Liberty, very active in New York in the years of the Quartering Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act and other offenses to colonial interests. Aimée’s social life was thoroughly American. This was not difficult for her, because the Patriots, in New York and elsewhere, were decidedly among the “best people,” among whom she moved with the brilliant grace that was natural to an uprooted aristocrat. On two occasions—one in a drawing-room, the other in a ballroom—she was thrown in with French nobility—a count and his wife, and then a baron; but she had foreseen such meetings, and had memorized from the Armorial général de la France, while still in Montreal, all that she felt she would ever need to sustain her personage with panache. A few of the “best people” just mentioned were compelled to move from drawing-room to prison as a result of notes from Aimée to Gage. But her personal meetings with Gage remained, needless to say, rare and discreet: New York, in those days, was poorly lit at night.

When Gage became Royal Governor of Massachusetts—in the year 1774—Aimée continued her work in New York, but she received regular dispatches from him. She did not much care that Madeleine, now grown into a much-admired but very uneasy young woman, was acquainted (somewhat vaguely) with her game, disliked it, feared to talk of it with her, and was openly charmed and thrilled (such is youth) by the ideals of Liberty. Indeed, her unconcealed sympathies helped Aimée’s work. Aimée herself, need one say it? thought both parties fools for whipping themselves into states of political excitement, but fools, she believed, were manna for the clever.

By 1775, rebellion in and around Boston was at a boil. Gage sent Aimée on a mission to Nantucket for which he believed her to be well suited.

3

WEAMISH HAD TAKEN a seat facing the two women. Aimée brought a sealed letter out of her reticule, and invited the Judge to break the seal and read. Weamish obeyed, cried out “From Governor Gage!” and sprang to his feet. Aimée was amused.

“Do read it, sir. I know its content, of course, but shall be glad to hear it in so many words. Don’t fidget, Madeleine.”

The Judge began to read. “The person who has given you this letter is the Marquise Aimée de Tourville—”

“Marquise!” uttered Weamish, gaping but delighted.

“Come, my dear Judge, we are two-legged animals all the same. Read on.”

The letter continued as follows: “The Marquise de Tourville” (and here Weamish, still erect, bowed to Aimée), “accompanied by her daughter” (and now he bowed to Madeleine), “is sent to the island of Nantucket with verbal orders that you are requested to obey without question. She will name the gentlemen who are the objects of our present concern and inform you of the high importance we attach to her mission.”

This was followed by a noise of something falling outside the parlor door. Aimée pointed and Weamish strode to the door and bruskly opened it. There stood Mamack. “What were you doing behind that door?” thundered the Judge. “I dropped my chisel,” said the eavesdropper sheepishly, picking up the tool and dashing out of the house.

“War, Judge Weamish, war,” said Aimée.

“To be sure; although an untutored Indian—”

“Will you be so kind as to sit beside me?”

“Certainly. And allow me to assure you at that you will be punctiliously obeyed.”

“Here is the heart of the matter,” said Aimée; but at this point Jenny, not accustomed to knocking, entered holding a large tray. “Chocolate and buttered buns,” she announced.

“Get out! Not now!” the Judge roared.

“Tut tut,” said Aimée, “why not now? Madeleine, you haven’t said a word all morning. Do you fancy a little refreshment?”

“I should love a cup of chocolate,” said the girl.

The ceremony of serving and partaking was properly performed and Jenny had left, closing the door behind her, when Aimée resumed.

“Here, as I said, is the heart of the matter. My daughter and I have been sent to Sherburne to investigate Colonel William Mayhew and his nephew Nicholas. You look surprised, Judge Weamish.”

The Judge had in fact opened his mouth wide.

“Surprised?” he cried, “oh, not I!”

“Can it be that you entertain no suspicions in that quarter?”

“I do entertain suspicions. This island is a hatchery of rebels!”

“That is more than I can say,” said Aimée, looking sharply at the Judge. “My instructions are limited to the two Mayhews. Are they presently on the island?”

“They are, my lady; indeed, they were seen at the wharf where you and your fair daughter disembarked, looking for their mail. Tell me, Marquise, what are they guilty of? I’ll proceed with every severity known to the law.”

“Who said they were guilty of anything? I spoke of suspicions. You know of course that Colonel Mayhew fought side by side with Colonel Washington in fifty-nine. And with General Amherst at Montreal in 1760. Fought for the Crown, to be sure, and against us of France. But that is neither here nor there.”

“Precisely,” said Weamish. “Neither here nor there. And allow me to inform you, Marquise, that Colonel Mayhew has a brother serving at this very moment in the congress of traitors at Philadelphia.”

“A cousin, I believe.”

“Though he himself laughs at the matter, babbles about his loyal relations in Boston, and tells the world he has been a peaceful merchant for a dozen years. ‘Mayhew & Mayhew’: a thriving commercial enterprise.”

“That brings me to the nephew,” said Aimée.

“Dashing Nicholas!”

“Yes. Soldier, sailor, captain’s mate on the Lively, but before that, a special commendation by General Forbes in fifty-seven though he was a mere lad. Has killed many a Frenchman and Indian. Sometimes, to be sure, I feel that I am betraying my people by so firmly supporting King George, but these brawls are of long ago, and wounds do heal.”

“Indeed, indeed,” said Weamish, trying to follow these delicacies of feeling.

“To the point. It appears that Colonel Washington is to be appointed by the Rebels to a particularly brilliant post of command. This cannot have reached you yet.”

“I assure you, Marquise, that we receive prompt and accurate intelligence here.”

“Then you know that the Rebels who now besiege Boston are anxious to enlist capable officers to lead their ragged bands.”

“They’ll never find them.”

“Perhaps you will put two and two together. Or, if inconvenient, one and one.”

“Of course. A terrifying plot—”

“What terrifying plot?”

A diversion seemed advisable. The Judge turned to Madeleine.

“Sugar, mademoiselle?”

“Thank you,” said Madeleine.

“You too, mademoiselle, you too no doubt hate rebellion.”

“I am unable to hate,” replied Madeleine, looking boldly into the Judge’s eyes.

“Noble words!” Weamish exclaimed. And, turning again to Aimée: “You were saying, Marquise?”

Aimée sighed. “We believe—that is to say, Governor Gage believes—that Colonel Mayhew and his nephew have both been secretly approached to play a considerable part in the siege of Boston and beyond.”

“No wonder. The Mayhews, as I intimated just now, are considerable men in Nantucket.”

“That is precisely why I am ordered to proceed with caution. Before risking a popular uprising, I must have proof, proof, proof that they are plotting to escape from the island. We hope that the rumors are false. My mission here is to take accurate soundings and to instruct you accordingly. Fortunately, if I may repeat myself, as Frenchwomen we are thought to be the Yankees’ natural allies and Britain’s natural enemies. As such, it will be easy for me to make friends with the Mayhew gentlemen, and many others. Living quietly at the inn—what is it called again?”

“Swain’s Inn, mamma,” said Madeleine.

“Thank you, my dear. There we shall find occasion to chat with the natives, place a few questions, distribute a trifle of coins, and meet the Mayhews themselves. As the old one’s a widower, and the young one a bachelor, both are sure to be found in a tap room. I expect to have all the facts within a week. Our story will be a simple one. My daughter has not been well. Witness her pallor. New York in summertime is stifling. Our physician has recommended a cure of fresh ocean air, and we have complied. Naturally we have begun by paying our respects to the chief magistrate of the island, but that call is to be understood as purely formal. We must hint left and right at our sympathy with the Whigs and keep our distance from yourself and other Tories.”

“This is a disappointment for me,” said Weamish, looking at Madeleine. “You land on this poor island of ours—diffusing the radiance of Versailles—music in the gardens—ridottos—rank and fashion—and now you dash all my hopes by telling me that we must be strangers.”

“I have not been at Versailles since 1758, my dear Judge, the year my husband, may God have mercy on his soul, took his regiment to Canada.”

“You followed him.”

“Of course. I am a Fapignac!”

“Ah!” cried Weamish, looking meaningfully again at Madeleine. “Poor child!”

“Poor child indeed,” said Aimée; “at the age of three she was fatherless in Canada.”

“The horrors of war.”

“The Marquis was carried off by the cold weather.”

Madeleine was gazing deep into her cup.

“Bitter, bitter,” said the Judge. “What can I possibly do to comfort you during your stay? Needless to say, I would have offered you my house.”

“True American courtesy, Judge Weamish. But the neutral ground of Swain’s Inn, where we have been shown fairly comfortable apartments, will be a more favorable place for my mission.”

“Confortable enough for our islanders, I daresay,” said Weamish. “But, my dear ladies, you cannot conceive what it is for a man of breeding to live among whale-men, Quakers, farmers—with never a ball, a concert, or a play to relieve the tedium. I am—if I may take the liberty of mentioning it—the grandson of a governor.”

“Governor Saltonstall, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“I am told that your mother, Mrs. Weamish, is presently in Boston.”

“To my sorrow, she is. Nursing her sister and her brother-in-law, both refugees from Cambridge, and sadly come down since their flight.”

“What is the news from Boston? We have been on board our wretched vessel since Saturday.”

It was the Judge’s turn to take the upper hand. “Ah Marquise,” he exclaimed, “I am in a position to give you news of capital importance. A magnificent victory at Charlestown.”

“Under Gage’s command?” cried Aimée happily though only vaguely aware of where the place was.

“Indirectly, madam. He dispatched General Howe across the bay to give chase to the villains who had occupied the hills overlooking Boston. Their leader, a firebrand named Joseph Warren, was left dead on the field, and the Whiggish dogs were driven from the peninsula licking their desperate wounds.”

“I pray they can still be reconciled,” said Madeleine. “Your country is so beautiful—so plentiful—I feel that God has meant it for peace.”

“They shall have peace shortly, mademoiselle,” was the Judge’s reply. “Our generals are making ready to sweep the province clear of rebels. They are a loose collection of shallow rascals, all brave enough behind their fences, but routed by the first volley of our muskets. They cannot enlist respectable officers—ah, you said so yourself, Marquise. This is June. We shall have peace before winter, I assure you.”

“Good. Now let me speak of Sergeant Alexander Cuff.”

“Reliable, I hope!” exclaimed the Judge.

“Undoubtedly. I must meet with him as soon as possible. I have a letter for him as well. You and he must be the only persons on the island privy to my mission. May we meet again in this very place tomorrow at eleven o’clock in the morning—I, you, and the Sergeant?

“Of course.”

“I shall pretend to be strolling as a newcome visitor would, and knock at your door, or ring the doorbell, when I see no one in the street. I am leaving it to you, sir, to advise the sergeant.

Just as they were all rising from their chairs, a series of strong knocks at the front door was heard, the door was opened, and Jenny came hastily into the parlor. “Begging your pardon,” she cried, curtseying, “but there’s Mr. Mayhew, the young one, in the hall, wanting urgently to see you, Mr. Weamish.”

“Splendid!” cried Aimée; “have him come in. What luck!”

“Yes, madam,” said Jenny. A moment later, Nicholas Mayhew appeared, tall, lean, hale and resolute. He seemed to bring with him, from the outside, a wave of fresh air. “Judge Weamish,” he said, doffing his hat (the Mayhews wore their own hair, slightly powdered), “where is our mail? I know you are entertaining distinguished visitors; I took note of their vehicle; pray accept my sincerest apologies.” And here he bowed and addressed himself to the ladies. “I am Nicholas Mayhew, gentle ladies, often called Young Nick, my bad temper was given me by the devil, I was not consulted.” And he swiveled again to the Judge. “Sir: myself and my uncle are expecting important commercial letters from the mainland. Three weeks have gone by without a single message. Today the New York packet arrives.” Now again to the women: “And by the way, allow me to report that I happened to see your trunks safely delivered at Swain’s Inn.” Then back to Weamish. “Today, I repeat, the packet from New York puts in. Several sacks of mail emerge from the captain’s cabin. Your constable George Hackbutt removes them. Now sir: I make no accusations, but I demand of you, as chief magistrate of this island, whether orders have been issued to seize, withhold, or destroy our mail, merely because it is universally known that a Mayhew, of whom by the way we know next to nothing, is sitting presently at the Congress in Philadelphia.”

Weamish winked significantly at Aimée and said, “My dear Mr. Mayhew, calm yourself.”

“I am enraged, but in full control of myself.”

“Sir,” said Aimée to the Judge, “will you introduce us to this most sympathique gentleman?” This was soon done, Nicholas declaring that he was honored, and Aimée hinted that she sympathized with his anger.

“And so do I,” said Weamish. “Nothing is being withheld here, Mr. Mayhew. What is confiscated in New York, or intercepted on the way, I cannot tell. My orbit is limited to these few islands. Come, sir, sit down with us. I predict that you shall have your letters before the week is over. Let me propose something a fillip stronger than warm chocolate.”

Opening the door of a sideboard, Weamish produced a flask of rum and several tumblers. Nicholas took a chair, saying, “Judge Weamish, if I’m not mistaken, this is a product of contraband.”

Weamish laughed. “Justice is blindfolded.”

“A little concession to the good life, eh?” said Aimée.

“Ah, how else can a gentleman survive? Nothing but sperm oil, tar, pitch …”

“All the same,” said Nicholas, “your worthy ancestor made a pretty thing out of your despised sperm oil. Manufactured sperm candles,” he added, turning to the ladies, and then, in a mock aside: “A fortune!”

The Judge gave his mouth a deprecatory bend. “To be sure, he said, we colonials must be content to derive from trade and industry.”

“Don’t apologize, sir,” said Aimée, “I have lived on your continent long enough to value the spirit of commerce.”

“This is true elevation of mind! Ah, how I feel the absence of my mother. She is worthy of your acquaintance, Marquise.”

“Let us drink to her prompt return, shall we? Shall we, Mr. Mayhew?”

“With pleasure.”

The glasses clinked, the Barbados was drunk or, in Madeleine’s case, tasted.

“Thank you,” said Weamish, adding—rather shrewdly—“and now, I propose a toast to His Excellency, Governor Gage. Will you join us, Mr. Mayhew, in spite of your cousin?”

“Of course I will. Let it be noted that the sympathies of Mayhew & Mayhew are universal, for it is trade that makes us what we are. May Tom Gage live to be a hundred!”

“As Frenchwomen,” said Aimée, lifting her glass, “our good-will can hardly fly towards the English, who are now occupying our beloved Canada. But in the interest of peace—I have it! Madeleine, you shall not toast, but half of us will, in the interest of universal love. To Tom Gage!”

“And to his brilliant victory at Bunker Hill!” added Weamish.

Nicholas frowned.

“What brilliant victory?” he asked, setting down his glass.

“He doesn’t know!” cried Weamish. “Come, come, you’re jesting, sir.”

“No, I protest. No jest intended. At Charlestown you mean?”

“I do mean at Charlestown, Mr. Mayhew, on Saturday, three days ago. Nonsense! You do know! Wait. Jenny! Jenny!”

Jenny came to the door; Weamish ordered her upstairs to his library—his “chambers”—to fetch the Gazette and Post-Boy lying on his desk. When she returned with the paper, Weamish opened it for Nicholas to read. The young man did so, half aloud, half mumbling.

“So that’s the battle, is it?” said Nicholas in conclusion. “Upon my word, the engagement is so differently described in The Spy that I become confused.”

Whereupon he produced a gazette of his own that stood out from one of his pockets.

“Rubbish!” cried Weamish. “The Spy! A well-deserved name. How came you by it, Mr. Mayhew?”

“I found it crumpled on the floor of the Custom Collector’s office.”

Aimée could say with perfect sincerity, “You pique my curiosity, Mr. Mayhew. Tell us more. What really happened at Charlestown?”

“Perhaps this Rebel sheet is lying, Marquise, but it reports that over a thousand Redcoats were killed or maimed.”

“How dreadful!” cried out Madeleine, her hand rising to her mouth. A quick thought came and went in Nicholas’ head as he glanced at the girl. “A lovely loving lass!” But Weamish was saying, “Stuff and nonsense! The Rebels were driven from the peninsula!”

“The writer,” said Nicholas, pointing with his finger at the article in question, “manfully confesses it: an admission which throws some flickers of likelihood upon the rest of his account. And if the rest be true, the British are broken at Boston.”

“Pah! Your gazette cannot impose on a rational observer. Trust me, my kindhearted mademoiselle, the rabble is not born that can slaughter the king’s army in fair battle. But do I detect a note of glee in your voice, Mr. Mayhew?”

“Nothing of the sort. Long live King George, third of the name, and long may he rule over England.”

Another opportunity for Aimée.

“I perceive,” she said, “that my daughter and I must keep our opinions to ourselves while residing at Sherburne. Before you came in, Mr. Mayhew, and before I knew, indeed, where the Judge’s allegiance lay, I spoke rather too freely in favor of liberty.”

“They being French, you see,” Weamish thought it wise to add. “But oh, had ever England a sweeter enemy?”

“You are a charmer, sir. I am beginning to feel quite at home in Nantucket.”

“You will all remain for dinner, I hope. I shall give Jenny orders at once.”

“Not I, thank you,” said Nicholas. “I’ve accounts to settle with Obed Coffin—that’s our cooper, Marquise, if I may use the low word.”

“And we had better unpack and dine quietly in our rooms today, which we have barely glimpsed. Another time, Judge.”

They were all rising from their chairs, when Jenny broke in again. It was decidedly a lucky day for Aimée, who was pondering, amidst all the niceties, the best way or ways of meeting and befriending her major prey; and there he was, being announced, and entering the room with a bow and a handshake with Nicholas. That he and the latter were related was immediately clear: a firm jaw, the straight shape of a nose, in both men, were sufficient to establish the resemblance. Introductions were made. Mayhew expressed the hope that the ladies would spend the summer on the island. “Not so,” said Aimée; “as soon as my Madeleine is restored to full health—she’s a delicate child, unlike her mother, who’s as sturdy as a jailer’s wife—we move to our place in Montreal and the good fight for our French liberties under the heavy-handed British yoke. But pardon my outburst. I am sure, Colonel, that you came on business.”

“I did indeed. First, to have a word with the Judge about another wearisome dispute concerning a sack of forbidden tea, and second, to take Young Nick home, to pore over our bills of lading.”

“Upstairs, to my library, sir,” said Weamish. “Will you wait for us, my dear ladies?”

When the two men had left, Aimée shook her head. “Do remind me, Nicholas—may I call you Nicholas?”

“No, Marquise—unless you allow me to call your daughter Madeleine.”

“Shall we petition her directly? Well, my child?”

“You may call me Madeleine, sir,” said the girl shyly.

“This is a high privilege.”

“Now Nicholas,” said Aimée, “tell me about this wearisome tea. Why such pother about something so very quotidian?”

“Have you forgotten, mother?”

Needless to say, she had not (that naive daughter of hers!).

“I forget what I’ve forgotten. I know so little about your politics, Nicholas. This tea….”

“A symbol, Marquise, nothing more. Our brothers in Britain granted themselves a monopoly of the tea trade in the colonies—”

“Ah, now I remember.”

“And the colonies object.”

“You men! If you cannot make war over the gold mines of Peru, you will do it over a tea leaf.”

“Tea leaf is perhaps unjust, Marquise. Our Whigs speak of Liberty.”

“Are you a Whig, Mr. Mayhew?”

“Like yourself, Marquise, I forget. I attend to my bills of lading.”

“You disappoint me. Or rather, I hope you are using discretion in front of two strangers, and there I commend you. I, who am here simply de passage, may freely confess that my heart pounds to the drums of liberty. But I pray you do not mention this to Judge Weamish, who, entre nous, appears to be an ultra on the Tory side.”

“I promise to keep the peace between you and our excellent magistrate.”

“Yes,” said Aimée, who believed in reinforcing a won position, “were I a man, I would swim away from this island if need be and make for the hottest sector of the battlefield!”

“You too, Madeleine?” asked Nicholas, looking at the girl with some tenderness.

“I am an obedient daughter,” she replied, smiling.

Upon the Judge and Mayhew reappearing, the little party finally broke up, with promises of further delightful meetings. Outside, as the Mayhews were helping the two ladies into their little carriage (Old Moses had fallen asleep sitting on the box, reins in hand), Nicholas exclaimed: “Why not an excursion as soon as you are both settled? While my dear uncle inspects barrels, sacks and hogsheads, I propose to take Old Moses’ place and show you our windy island.”

This was all the more readily accepted as it proved to Aimée that no immediate plot of escape existed (if any existed at all), and that her instructions to Sergeant Cuff could safely wait till tomorrow. After more niceties, uncle and nephew walked away while the chaise carried Aimée and Madeleine to the inn over the unpaved but decent Main Street. None had far to go. Swain’s Inn looked at the waters just above the North Wharf, and the Mayhew residence, with its considerable counting-house in the rear, stood nearby in Oak Street. A chaise, in these circumstances, was meant for dignity rather than for convenience.

That Aimée and Madeleine were the only guests at the inn would have surprised no one in Nantucket. Visitors to the island were almost invariably relations or business friends, and these were given hospitality in homes as a matter of course. Swain’s Inn catered principally to drinkers and diners, whether on the occasion of “important” meetings or without noble pretext. That was where Mr. Swain’s chief interest and profit lay. Still, the house had some fine rooms, occupied, after all, now and then by a voyager and his family. The elegant strangers, greeted with homely courtesy, could count on sufficient comfort.

As soon as the two gentlemen were alone among passers-by, with most of whom they exchanged tippings of the hat, the Colonel said to Nicholas, speaking casually as if the subject were merely the weather: “The captain of the New York packet told me that the whale-ship Enterprise will be mooring offshore in the very near future. A dinghy will enter the harbor. One of the men in it will be our own Henry Wallace. They will ask to be directed to Obed Coffin so they can purchase a few barrels for their sloop.”

Here the Colonel took his nephew’s arm. “Henry,” he continued, lowering his voice a little, “will give Obed important letters for us. That is all the captain knew.”

“And here I came storming after the mail!” said Young Nick with suppressed excitement. “Uncle!” he whispered, “They want you in command against Boston.”

“They can have me as a private,” said Mayhew simply.

General Gage had been no fool to send Aimée on her mission.

4

COLONEL MAYHEW cared about his island’s reputation for civilized courtesy and hospitality to newcomers and visitors. Besides, he could not fail to be fascinated by the mother and beguiled by the daughter. Accordingly, the morning after the ladies’ arrival—but not unseemly early—he walked over to Swain’s Inn and announced himself. Aimée graciously came downstairs, and the two went to sit in Swain’s homely but honest parlor. Mayhew wished to know, in his and his nephew’s names, whether the two women had rested and whether they found their accommodations satisfactory. “This is no château,” he quipped. He found that all was well. A girl had been hired to serve the ladies, and Madeleine, it seemed, already looked healthier than but a week ago in New York.

The main purpose of the Colonel’s visit, however, was to invite the ladies to tea at the Mayhew home that same late afternoon. It may be guessed that Aimée accepted with delight. “I do so want to see how you islanders live!” she exclaimed. Mayhew promised to introduce her to several of the leading Nantucket families. “I assure you that they will be as eager to meet you and your sweet daughter as you are to have a look at them.”

After expressing her thankful sense of the kindness she was being shown in Nantucket so soon after her arrival, Aimée thought it wise to tell the Colonel that, “unavoidably,” (as she put it), she had accepted Judge Weamish’s invitation as well, namely for that very morning. “You are indeed becoming one of us!” he exclaimed as he left.

At eleven o’clock, as arranged, Aimée walked, parasol in hand, to the Judge’s home, where Weamish and Sergeant Cuff awaited her.

The two men had been in conversation for some minutes in the parlor.

“Why should I be meeting with that Marquise of yours?” the Sergeant had wanted to know.

“You will be told in a few minutes, my friend; be patient,” answered the Judge.

Not much interested—he thought that some social flummery was at hand—Cuff turned to the worries that beset him.

“I’ve but thirty men under me,” he grumbled, “and two or three of them sick any day of the week. Everywhere we go we’re surrounded by swarms of urchins. The urchins run ahead to warn their elders and by the time we reach a spot it’s been swept clear of weapons and ammunition. Now, if your so-called Loyalists showed more spunk—”

“Most of the islanders—many of the islanders—are actively loyal, Sergeant. Need I remind you that half a dozen of our vessels are secretly supplying General Gage and Admiral Graves, at great risk to themselves?”

“What of it? You’re giving us tuppence with one hand and picking our pocket with the other.”

Just then Aimée was announced. She entered, brisk as she always was.

“No ceremony, please. Good morning, Judge. And Sergeant Cuff, no doubt, the man I needed to see.” And, turning to Weamish, “Have you informed the Sergeant of my mission? Not yet, I hope.”

“Not yet, Marquise.”

“A mission? The foreign wench?” thought the nonplussed Sergeant, looking at Aimée in a new light.

The lady sat down, produced another, and gave it to the Sergeant. Unlike the Judge, Cuff did not leap up. He too was being informed that he must comply with any orders given him by the Marquise de Tourville. The notion of a Frenchwoman, noble or otherwise, being placed above him irked the Sergeant, but what could he do?

“Tell me, madam, what are Tom Gage’s orders.”

“You may or may not be aware, Sergeant, that the two Mayhew gentlemen are former soldiers and that one of them was a sailor.”

“I am not aware,” said Cuff; “what then?”

“Well, they are now suspected of wanting to join the Rebels as officers in their army. It is our duty, mine, yours, that of the Judge, to discover whether this is true, and to arrest them if it is.”

“And I,” Cuff cried out, shooting up from his chair, his sword hitting one of its legs, “not a week ago—damnation!—I was asking the young one to help me find—and he said he would—I’ll arrest them at once, damn my eyes! Good day!”

“You are not arresting anyone, Sergeant,” said Aimée with perfect calm. “Not until I’m vastly more confident than I am now. Pray sit down again.”

But Cuff would not sit; that little disobedience was a comfort. “I’m to twiddle my thumbs, am I,” he cried, “while your rebels bubble the King of England? The house is burning, says Alexander Cuff; don’t wait for the fire engine, man the buckets and pour!”

“What house is burning?” the Judge exclaimed. “You say this after our glorious victory at Charlestown?”

“Judge Weamish: with all due respect, you civilians are dreamers. We got trounced on the confounded hill, what d’you call it. Y’are a fool, let a soldier tell you.”

“Sir!”

“A fool! Hang the pussyfooters!” And he looked straight at

Aimée, who was now, as it happened, hugely interested.

“Sergeant Cuff, gently, gently will do it. Did we or did we not rout the Yankee mob?”

“First of all, my dear Marquise, with due respect once more, y’are a fool to talk about a mob. That mob bled us white afore they took leave of the peninsula. Y’are a friend of General Gage’s are you? Then tell him from Sergeant Cuff, he has heard of me, tell the fine gentleman he’d be wise to clear out of Boston altogether, for he’ll never set foot on another inch of Massachusetts soil. The fop hasn’t so much as a good map of the country. He pinches actresses at the playhouse while the enemy is mustering. He waits for reinforcements from England instead of peppering the rebels from cock-crow till curfew. When he does fight them, what does he do? Climbs up the confounded hill in a frontal attack, because, don’t you see, the enemy is nothing but a cowardly mob, show ’em your teeth and they’ll run. Well, they forgot to run. They chopped us into little pieces and strolled away at their own sweet leisure.”

“Is this true?” asked the dumbfounded Aimée of the Judge. “Is it then as Nicholas Mayhew suggested yesterday?”

“Aha; Nicholas Mayhew suggested, did he? He’ll suggest from the jail-house as of today, him and his uncle, who smirked at me the other day. Without further ceremony—”

“No, Sergeant, I forbid it all the same.”

“A Frenchwoman forbids Sergeant Cuff? Ha ha ha!”

Aimée stood up and went, so to speak, nose to nose with Cuff.

“In the name of Governor Gage,” she said wrathfully, “I forbid you to arrest them. Disobey me at your peril. But you deserve an explanation, my friend.”

Aimée took the Sergeant’s hand, led him gently down to his chair again, and pulled her own close to his. “The Mayhew pair, you understand, have committed no illegal act. Arresting them at this point would turn a thousand Loyalists into as many Rebels and possibly get us nothing in return, if the two men are innocent. Governor Gage is interested in winning more hearts, not in making more enemies.”

Weamish broke in. “The Colonel is one of our selectmen this year. An old, highly regarded family, with numberless influential relations, here and in Boston.”

“When these courtesies are over, Judge, your colonies will have whistled off the King for good.”

“In the meantime, Sergeant,” Aimée resumed, “you are to set your men on patrol—discreetly—along the harbor, and also at other points from which the two men may try to sail. I myself shall pursue my inquiries. My daughter will be working on Young Nick; I shall attack the uncle. Never fear. I know my business.”

“I take my leave,” said Cuff, rising again. The tone was surly.

“Don’t violate your instructions, Sergeant.”

“I shan’t touch either of the Mayhews. For the moment. Good day to you both.”

And he was gone, slamming the door.

“Bear in mind, Marquise,” said the Judge, “that our Sergeant is none too happy at having been posted by his superiors to the fringe of important events. Thoughts such as these cloud his perceptions.”

“His perceptions look sufficiently clear to me,” replied Aimée, in whose mind the Sergeant’s words concerning the action at Boston kept resonating. The Judge’s mind was running on other matters.

“Marquise,” he said, “to distract us all from the tempests that agitate the land, I have decided to offer a ball in your honor this Saturday. If you would condescend—you and Mademoiselle Madeleine—to grace the soirée, it would, I assure you—”

“Let me cut you short, my dear Judge. Not to be rude—I am utterly grateful for your delicate attentions—but I came to Nantucket with an important charge. And remember: I must not appear cordial in my connection with you. Let us talk about dancing when our work is done.”

“I defer to you, Marquise. Stern is the word for now.”

5

THAT AFTERNOON Aimée and Madeleine shared a serving of coffee and various sweet things with the uncle and nephew. An immediate sympathy made them converse almost as intimate friends. The two gentlemen had much to say about their ancestors on the island, their own previous lives, the Colonel as soldier and Nicholas as seaman, and their taking up the commercial line, following their forebears, in ’63, without however becoming ship-owners. Aimée, on her side, entertained them with anecdotes about her grandfather, the second Baron de Fapignac, who had lost a leg fighting the British at the Battle of Blenheim, but not without making the enemy pay dearly for that destroyed limb. “Our antipathy for the English has roots, you see!” she exclaimed. And later, at an appropriate moment: “Does not your heart beat to take up arms again, but this time in the interest of Liberty?” However, the Colonel only replied “Oh, yes,” with the voice of a man giving assent to a vague, remotely interesting philosophical proposition. Still, it was a beginning.

The Colonel, as promised, made arrangements for the ladies to meet with other good families of Nantucket. This was not hard to do. A Marquise walking about town silked in pink and blue, and alongside her a lovely girl with touches of yellow and green, aroused enormous interest high and low on the island. The Quaker women stared, some muttering about whores and Babylon, others sighing forgiveness. Their husbands averted their eyes, or pretended to. The Presbyterian ladies, on their side, would not admit that they were surprised and outmatched in elegance; the Marquise, as far as they were concerned, was one of their own, though, of course, a Papist.

Thus the two women were happily received the day after for coffee in the home of the Starbucks, where the Rotch and Folger couple were also present. Clearly, they were all Whigs, but they seemed bent, the men on business, the women on Boston fashions. Interrogated about what was worn in France, Aimée had to confess her complete ignorance; she was dressed in old things from New York. Mr. Starbuck was a grandfather; Mr. Rotch limped; Mr. Folger was barrel-bellied; evidently, Tom Gage need not fear them. By contrast, the two Mayhews stood splendid among them, and (she thought) fearsome.

Still, the conversation could not help turning to the recent fighting around Boston, but listen as she did to undertones and implications, Aimée could find no hint of an intention to volunteer for battle on the Mayhew side, nor of some pertinent knowledge on the side of their friends. She was to find out, in the end, that the Mayhews had punctiliously kept their plans to themselves.

The Starbuck parlor prided itself on a spinet. When it was discovered that Madeleine could play and sing, the young woman gave them Handel’s “There in myrtle shades reclined” with such sweetness that the tears swelled in the Colonel’s eyes. Nicholas was deaf to music, but his eyes showed that he was alive to other charms a young woman can spread.

6

THE SUN SHONE the next day unperturbed by a few playful cloudlets strewn about the blue sky. Nicholas demanded that he be allowed to drive the French visitors around the island, as had been proposed the day of their arrival. But Aimée had other thoughts. An opportunity of “launching” Madeleine at one of the suspects—obviously attracted to the girl—was too good to neglect. Accordingly, she pleaded fatigue and a mild headache, and the two young people, expressing half-insincere regrets, set off by themselves in Young Nick’s carriage, she sitting beside him on the driver’s seat.

Young Nick showed the girl meadows and ponds, gardens and well-tended farmlands, a couple of windmills, the old villages of Sesachacha and Siasconset (where they lunched), sheep and cows in abundance, and from a hillock, in the limpid distance, beyond the harbor’s lighthouse, two whaling-boats a-sailing. Nicholas gestured toward the east, toward Europe. “They have cathedrals, we have cod, they have palaces, we have peat,” he said smiling and chuckling. Madeleine, on her side, was happy to breathe an air freed from the odor of whale oil which only visitors noticed, reminding them of the main source of the island’s wealth, and happy in the company of the young man, who spoke with modest pride of the Mayhew family, to which the island had been deeded in 1641.

At Siasconset, they met with four Redcoats who were digging with picks and shovels at the foot of a windmill. Madeleine wanted to know what they were looking for. “Ammunition,” said Nicholas, “not buried doubloons!” Of course, he was urged to elaborate, and he did so imitating Sergeant Cuff’s speech and manners. “The other day, it may have been a week ago, Sergeant Cuff found me slaking my morning thirst in Swain’s tap room. ‘Young Nick,’ a says, ‘you and your uncle must help a fellow soldier. I know y’are kith and kin with the natives here, but then again y’ave travelled, y’ave fought for your King, y’ave killed your share of Frenchmen from the Carolines to Quebec. Now comes the time again to show whether there’s blood or muck in your veins.’” Nicholas’ imitation of Cuff made Madeleine laugh, and he continued: “That’s a mighty diplomatic speech, Sergeant Cuff,” says I. Says he, and you must excuse the language, ‘True by God’s gut—I’m brushing your fur a bit, but I’ve heard about you, Nick. Before you took to sailing the seas you was an ensign at Montreal—you wasn’t shaving yet—and you fought the savages near Niagara Falls when General Amherst was commanding.’ And he adds, ‘I can name you the officers of every regiment that’s been raised since the French wars began in the year fifty-four.’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘that’s all water long ago under the bridge. What’s on your mind, Sergeant?’ He leans forward and whispers, ‘Look you, my friend: sure as my mother bore me, I know there’s powder, flints and bullets stowed away in a dozen holes up and down the island. And they’re not meant for shooting whales, says Sergeant Cuff.’ That ‘says Sergeant Cuff,’ by the way, was Sergeant Cuff saying it, not I saying it to you. The Sergeant likes to conclude his remarks with ‘says Sergeant Cuff.’”

“Well,” asked Madeleine, “was he right? What did you say to him?”

“I said, ‘Why should anyone be hiding ammunition? Our island is defenceless. Three of your frigates could level every house upon it, and never a man living on the mainland would lift a finger to help us.’”

“You answered his question with a question. That was clever of you.”

“And it was clever of you to notice.”

“Well, I am a noticer. How did the Sergeant respond?”

“Forcefully. ‘You tell this to the whaling crews, young Nick—do—they need to hear it. Because all the same they’re making cartridges, and there’s many a cache under a windmill or a meeting-house that could tell a tale on my side.’ And that, my dear Madeleine, is what these men are looking for. I had to promise the Sergeant that as loyal sons of Britain my uncle and I would make discreet inquiries and report to him.”

“And you did?” asked Madeleine mischievously.

“Enough about politics!” cried the young man as he made Old Moses trot away from the scene. “Your life interests me far more.” And he questioned her closely—he was, in fact, truly interested—about her life in Montreal and New York. Madeleine spoke much of schoolfriends and of the towns; she mentioned that she was immersing herself in the French classics in order not to forget her first language; but asked about the Tourville family, she only laughed and said, “For such high matters, you must query my mother,” and then added, taking refuge in a generalization, “One can be noble yet poor.” Nicholas took the liberty of squeezing her hand. All the same, “Not Indian-poor” he mused, thinking of Aimée’s silks and brocades.

7

THAT EVENING, Amée questioned Madeleine closely about her excursion with Nicholas. What had she found out? Had he hinted at work to be done by the Mayhew pair on the mainland? No, no hint. That his heart was with the Patriots, of that there was no doubt, but Gage was not interested in their hearts. Madeleine could report on no sign of a projected flight from the island. Aware of her daughter’s own Whiggish sympathies, Aimée was not altogether sure that the girl would have mentioned hints and signs. Obvious moves she could hardly, in good conscience, have concealed from her mother, but she might have decided not to hear a word or two uttered by the young man. In the end, Aimée could trust only herself.

By the next day, summer clouds had gathered over Nantucket. A great storm was churning over sea and land. In the early afternoon, heavy raindrops were making the Redcoats watching Sherburne and Madaket harbors uncomfortable. Aimée contrived to be drenched very near the Mayhews’ house and asked for refuge with a hundred apologies. She was received with pleasure. The housekeeper Priscilla lit a fire and prepared a collation. Aimée looked around for signs of imminent escape and saw not a single open portmanteau standing guiltily in a corner. In the midst of a thundering storm, she was drinking the chocolate and eating the cake of a well-ordered, peaceful merchants’ dwelling. Suddenly a series of violent knocks shook the front door and they heard the voice of a boy who was yelling “Man overboard! Man overboard!” Nicholas yanked the door open; a flood of rain accompanied the boy, who kept yelling “Man overboard! Man overboard!”

With a sudden foreboding of disaster, the Colonel and Nicholas rushed out, followed by Aimée, the Mayhew’s clerk Abishai Cottle, who had run in from the counting house in the rear, and even Priscilla and Ruth the cook. Nicholas had just had time to find a spyglass. They did not have far to go. At the wharf, a crowd had rushed to see, in the distance, a rowboat with two seamen at the oars struggling against the waves and at the same time trying to save a fellow seaman fallen into the water and flailing helplessly about. From the nearby inn, Madeleine came running. She had been reading Athalie in her room when the clamor had roused her. On her way out, she stumbled against Sergeant Cuff, wiping his moustache after drinking his pint of ale in the tap room. Madeleine ran through the shouting and waving crowd to join her mother. A violent rain was rushing from the black clouds, thunders rolled and fearful lightning zigzagged after the rolling and roiling noise.

Pushing their way to the edge of the dock, uncle and nephew peered into the darkness of thunder, wind and rain. Young Nick trained the spyglass at the head bobbing about the water. “It’s Wallace! Damn damn damn!” he whispered into the Colonel’s ear, while the crowd shouted “He’s lost! Where is he now? He’s gone for sure! There he bobs again!” and Cuff cried out “Who’ll save him? Dive in! I can’t swim! Cowards all!”

Nicholas had not needed Cuff’s shouts (which in any case he could not hear across the roaring crowd) to thrust the spyglass, his doublet and his shoes into Cottle’s hands and to dive into the water. A great clamor went up on all sides. Mayhew closed his fists in fear. Madeleine uttered small cries. Aimée was speechless. And Nicholas swam and swam, shoving the waves aside. Fortunately, Wallace—Young Nick had not been mistaken—managed to grasp one of the oars. But the two sailors were unable to lift the exhausted man—more used to handling contracts than fighting the ocean—into the boat. It took Nicholas, when he reached the boat, to give the final push that lifted Wallace to safety. He himself was strong enough, of course, to swing himself, with the sailors’ help, into the boat as well, and presently they were all on land, surrounding the half-unconscious Wallace lying on his back on the wharf.

A Nantucket constable arrived. He interrogated the two sailors, who informed them that the man’s name was Tom Bates, and that the three of them had orders to purchase a set of barrels for the Enterprise. The rain still pouring, the crowd began to disperse, while Wallace was carried by the two sailors, helped by Cottle, to the entrance-way of the inn, followed by the drenched Mayhew gentlemen, the two Frenchwomen, Priscilla, Ruth, and Sergeant Cuff. Now, lying on the ground on a blanket Mr. Swain had supplied, he was clutching, in his half consciouness, a pouch that was hanging from his neck, held by strong twine. Aimée had never been more attentive. “This fellow is at least fifty years old,” she muttered to herself; “what was he doing in that boat?” (“Que fichait-il dans cette galère?” were the actual words that went through her head.) Madeleine, instead, saw only Nicholas. “You must dry yourself, you must, you must!” she kept crying, though she badly needed drying herself. “I will, my dear, I swear,” he replied, “but first we must take care of this poor seaman.”

“Why is he holding that pouch so hard?” Aimée wanted to know. “Let us look at it.”

The Colonel grasped the pouch in an instant, managed to pry it open, gave a quick look and proclaimed, “It’s the picture of a woman. Naturally! Well! We shall move him to my house, which by God’s mercy is next door to that of Dr. Phelps.” And the pouch slipped into his pocket.

Aimée, who wanted the man to remain at the inn, could think of no objection to raise, though she strongly felt that mischief was in the air. Not so Sergeant Cuff, who quickly lost interest, shrugged his shoulders and returned to his unfinished pint of beer. The two sailors declared that if Tom Bates proved too weak to return to their ship, he could remain on Nantucket island and rejoin them upon their return voyage. And there the episode ended. The Nantucket folk were used to the likes of it. No one had recognized Wallace; he was in fact almost entirely unknown on the island, which he had visited from the mainland but twice in five years. Only Madeleine remained with tears in her eyes at such danger and such bravery, while Mayhew, Cottle, the extremely wet but hale Nicholas, assisted by Ruth, carried the false Tom Bates to the Mayhews’ house, Priscilla carrying the young man’s doublet and shoes.

8

THAT EVENING, as Aimée and Madeleine sat at supper in their rooms, and the young woman grew expansive on matters heroic, her mother only muttered, “A strange affair, a strange affair….”

“Why strange?” Madeleine wanted to know. “The only thing strange was the scene of courage we saw.”

“Look at you! Dieu me damne! You’ve fallen in love with that American Leander.”

Madeleine’s tone was playful. “Why do you say that, mother? Didn’t you order me to be friendly with the suspects?”

“Pooh! I’ve never yet seen you so keen to do your duty.”

“Don’t scold me, maman! You must admire him too. How brave he was! For the sake of an absolute stranger—no one else so much as removed his coat—and he plunges in—swims like a Neptune—”

“Swims like a Neptune! A duck can swim as well. Now we’re in love with a fellow because he can swim.”

“Have it your way.”

“As for being selfless—”

“To be sure. This seaman is a pasha in disguise who will leave his millions to Nicholas.”

“He may leave him something more important. Seaman be hanged! You must be blind, my girl! Thank goodness I know how to snap at details.”

“What details?”

“You weren’t struck by that sealskin pouch? How worried he was about it?”

“It was lovely of him to think of his sweetheart or his wife the moment he came to.”

“The girl’s determined to be an idiot! To think that I raised you on Plutarch and Tacitus! I don’t suppose you noticed how anxious the Colonel was to dive into that pouch.”

“You’re right; I didn’t notice.”

“And you didn’t think it was odd that a common seaman should be wearing a silk shirt with ruffled wrist bands that peeped out under his smock; mind you, got up like a man of condition when he was out rowing a dinghy to take on a barrel of whale oil or whatever. And that a man his age should be put out to sea in a storm to pick up supplies? Silly details, of course. But details, my dear girl, make all the difference between a master and an apprentice. Without details I’d still be Madame Pichot selling keys in Montreal.”

“I would have been glad to remain plain Mademoiselle Pichot, and run your key shop for you, mother. Such a life!”

“You have a low mind. Chin up, curls in place, tidy drawers, and an eye that can pick out a flea in the fur of a dog at fifty paces: that’s how a woman makes her way in the world.”

“I wish I had your fire—but I can’t manage it.”

“Well, you’re a goose—or a kitten by somebody’s fireplace. But not Nicholas Mayhew’s fireplace—not if he is what I think he is.”

“Namely?”

“A rebel officer in the making. He and his uncle both. So my nose tells me. I’m tempted to look no farther and order the Sergeant to arrest them and ship them off to Gage. But I daren’t yet, because if God forbid I’m mistaken, my five hundred pounds are gone and Gage crosses me from his books. Never! I mean to work for him—wherever they send him in the colonies.” Here Aimée, buttering a slice of bread, became thoughtful. “Still, if the low truth ever peeps out, as I hope it won’t, we’ll sail back to France in state and settle in Lyon like pigeons come home to roost. I’ll be plain Madame Pichot again. Not so plain, after all, and nicely rich. I’ll marry you off to a steady barrister, and I’ll engage two or three pretty footmen to keep the dust from settling on me.”

“Let me teach schoolchildren instead of marrying the barrister.”

“How did I ever beget this marshmallow of a child? Well, dreaming never filled a purse. I must look into that so-called seaman, and you must go on petting Mr. Nicholas. That’s not too painful a task, is it?”

“Now it is.”

“Twaddle! You’re to tickle the truth out of him, d’you hear, whether by godly means or otherwise. Five hundred pounds! Your mother forgives you in advance.”

9

AT ABOUT THE TIME mother and daughter were conversing over chops and wine, William Mayhew and Young Nick read the letters they had taken from Wallace’s pouch, while the poor castaway was yet half asleep on a sofa in the parlor, well dried and covered with a blanket. Nicholas, sneezing a great deal, had of course quickly changed clothes. The little group had made its way from the wharf to the Mayhew house without incident, escorted by ten or twelve well-wishers. The house on Oak Street was quickly reached, the door sharply shut on unwanted curiosity. As Wallace could fit into into the younger Mayhew’s clothing, he was quickly stripped naked, dried, and clad, and gently given some rum to drink. He promptly fell asleep. Priscilla was asked to keep an eye on him while Ruth was preparing supper for all. Abishai Cottle, though never was a man more trusted by his employers, was sent to Dr. Phelps for consultation. Finally the two men went into the counting-house, where Mayhew took the pouch out of his pocket and carefully reopened it. Two sealed letters were in it, both blessedly dry, one addressed to Colonel Mayhew, the other to Lieutenant Nicholas Mayhew. The men spoke low, as if fearing to be overheard.

“You first, uncle; break the seal and read and tell me whatever you wish me to know.”

The letter was opened. Mayhew’s hand trembled. He read in silence, Young Nick’s eyes darted on his. Then, solemnly, Mayhew lowered the letter and said: “It is written to me by General Washington. My old friend has been promoted. I am asked to accompany General Schuyler into Canada.”

“Into Canada? That is news!”

“We took it away from France, and now we must take it away from England. Here are the words. ‘Our capture of Fort Ticonderoga on the 26th of May has encouraged the Congress to strike boldly into Canada. General Schuyler has been appointed to lead the northern expedition. He will not pause until Montreal and Quebec have fallen into our hands and our Canadian brethren are embraced into the common cause. Your task, my dear friend, will be to assist General Schuyler as his brigadier.’”

“Brigadier! Dear Friend! General Mayhew! This should be sung by a choir!”

“Hush. There’s more. Listen to this. ‘I entreat you to meet me at Cambridge in the first days of July, for I may as well make known to you here and now what you shall undoubtedly be reading in the gazettes, to wit that the Congress has seen fit to entrust me, for the time being, with the defense of our sacred interests. I am proceeding immediately to Cambridge to take command of the army surrounding Boston.’”

Nicholas jumped up. “Blow, ye trumpets!” he shouted, laughing.

“But not too loud! For at the end of the letter Washington recommends caution and secrecy. ‘There is a rumor here that you are being spied upon. The Tory element on your island is strong. Shroud your departure from Nantucket in secrecy.’”

“We will! Uncle—to think Wallace might have drowned!”

“Your letter, sir, your letter now.”

Nicholas had been hesitant about opening his letter in the Colonel’s presence—the reason will appear shortly—but now he did so and read aloud: “‘You, Nicholas Mayhew, may, as captain of a man-of-war, by force of arms, attack, subdue, and take all ships and other vessels belonging to the inhabitants of Great Britain. You shall—’ and so forth. Just as I had hoped, uncle! My years at sea are remembered. Ah! They can count on me!”

“May God bless our cause,” said Mayhew simply, unafraid of expressing high thoughts.

They looked in on Wallace, and discovered that he was now awake and that Priscilla’s ministrations had made him perfectly ready for supper and talk. He said much, to begin with, of his gratitude to Nicholas, who reciprocated with like gratitude to the agent. “Indeed,” added Mayhew, “impossible to think of you as our agent. As anything except a most precious and reliable friend.”

“I don’t know what to say, Colonel,” said Wallace, much moved. “Mine is a family of humble clerks—” and then his eyes teared, and arms and hands were tightened around three pairs of shoulder.

But Wallace had brought verbal news or commands along with the letters. Again Nicholas had to cry out “Uncle, if he had drowned!” It was now specified that within a week or so the same whale-ship Enterprise, under Captain Fleming’s command, was to return to Nantucket, but bringing the vessel this time round the island and dropping anchor off the south coast between Weweeder and Nobadeer Pond. Fleming would wait for light signals from the little beach, telling him that all was well and that the two men would be rowing out to the ship in short order.

And vanish from the island for who could tell how long? The three men decided there and then that after the Mayhews’ flight to the mainland, Wallace and Cottle were to run the business until peace returned to the land—a matter, they thought, of a year or so, but could one really tell? Wallace was a bachelor. Terms were made attractive to him, and to be sure, the new assignment was a step up for the man. Furthermore, should the Mayhews’ flight be successful—and it appeared to be an uncomplicated if discreet operation—it would no longer matter that Wallace suddenly turned from being an unfortunate sailor to an associate of Mayhew & Mayhew.

But it was time for bed. A room was ready for the agent. “Henry,” said Mayhew as they parted for the night, “few people know you on the island. All the same, for the time being I recommend more time indoors than outdoors for you.”

10

NEXT MORNING proved to be a true early summer day, and after Sunday service, Colonel Mayhew mounted his horse for an innocent ramble to the south shore, followed by Josh Mamack in his cart, loaded already with logs and twigs for the future blaze. The two seamen (they had been lodged in a modest inn in Summer Street) met with Obed Coffin that same morning, purchased two barrels (not really needed by the Enterprise), and thus completed their mission. A Nantucket lad promptly rowed them back to the ship.

Mayhew’s absence was a boon to Young Nick, who had much to hear from Wallace out of his uncle’s earshot. Priscilla had set breakfast for the agent in the dining room, but the man slept long and deep. Nicholas was waiting for him at table when he finally appeared, excusing himself.

“Eat and speak!” cried Nicholas.

And here, between fresh eggs, bacon, toast and coffee, is more or less what Wallace reported, halting only at a sign from Young Nick when Priscilla appeared. A Mayhew relation, a certain Mr. Pigeon, presently commissary general for Massachusetts, promised to purchase whatever Nicholas—were he given a brig to command—would capture. “He’ll purchase lace doilies for the Army,” said Wallace, “if lace doilies is what you take at sea. We were sitting in a private room at the City—that’s the tavern of our true-hearted Whigs when the speechifying has made them thirsty—and he was laughing till the tears rolled from his eyes and his belly bobbed like a lifebuoy. Doilies and diapers, he kept repeating, Cousin Pigeon will buy for Massachusetts! You can’t miss, Mr. Mayhew.”

“He gave you nothing in writing?”

“Pigeon don’t put anything in writing except birthday wishes to his mother. So he said, sir.”

“But is Fillmore going to believe this in Salem? Verbal promises reported at second hand?”

“The question occurred to me, sir. Pigeon agreed to send a trusted messenger to Salem; the man will tell Fillmore what I have told you. Nothing in writing.”

“That will have to do. And Pigeon himself—what are his terms?”

“Ten percent; plus an eighth share in Mr. Davis’ chocolate mill.”

“An eighth? You didn’t agree, did you? A full eighth?”

“I argued; ordered more rum; but Mr. Pigeon is quite above rum. It was an eighth or nothing. ‘Young Nick ain’t the only cannon in the Atlantic,’ says he. I must report honestly, Mr. Mayhew.”

“You must indeed. An eighth it shall be. I need him more than he needs me, damn his bloated belly!”

“There you are.”

“And on a Sunday the wise man knoweth how to give in order to take. The pieces are falling into place, Wallace! Christ—if we’d lost you yesterday! One missing nail will bring an empire down.”

Here Young Nick took a letter from his pocket. It was in the hand of Mr. Davis, owner of the chocolate mill. It concerned Mrs. Applegate at Concord, and informed Nicholas of a very important point, namely that she had the legal power to sell “every blessed acre” which that most Tory of couples owned in and around town. It also mentioned that Mrs. Applegate was suffering many vexations being alone at Concord as the wife of a fugitive Loyalist. One or two more frights, said Mr. Davis, and she would sell for ten shillings in the pound. Davis had her confidence and would buy for Nick when the time was ripe. “I’ll make it ripe once I arrive,” said the young man, waving the letter. “But not a word…to anyone,” Nicholas added, looking significantly up toward the Colonel’s part of the house.

Shortly thereafter, Abishai Cottle came in for work, and the three men went into the counting house, mostly to make Wallace familiar with the firm’s daily routine. After an hour or so, Nicholas returned to his rooms and prepared to set off for his daily brisk walk along the seashore. He took “staying fit” seriously. Glancing out the parlor window to look at the sky—the June sun was shining and the ground was dry—he suddenly noticed, at the corner of Main Street, Madeleine stopped as if undecided whether to continue her walk (presumably) on Main or turn into Oak Street, where the only possible goal would be the Mayhew place. She stood there for a moment, her parasol twirling slowly, then stepped resolutely into Oak Street. Nicholas jumped back from the window.

A torrent of thoughts raced through his mind. Her beauty, her coming to inquire after his well-being after the great event of yesterday, her inclination for him, but also something grander, something utterly new, as it may happen, once in a lifetime, that at the flicker of some unexpected sight or event, a magnificent world unsuspected until that moment opens suddenly in a man’s mind. “The daughter of a Marquise! My bride! Be bold, Nicholas, be bold!”

He had time to look at himself in a mirror hanging in the small vestibule and ascertain that he was presentable, and then the doorbell rang. “I’ll open, Priscilla!” he shouted to the upstairs.

“I spied you coming this way, dear Madeleine,” he spoke before she said a word. “Welcome again under our roof. Come in, come in, come in!” He led the girl into the parlor and invited her to sit in a comfortable armchair. For himself, he took a footstool and sat at her knees.

“Thank you. I came because my mother and I are ever so anxious about you. After that terrible swim. That storm. So much danger. But you seem to be well.”

“You are so kind. I did sneeze a few times. And I slept rather more hours than usual. But you find me fit to swim from here to Martha’s Vineyard.”

“And the seaman?”

“Still a bit unsteady. My uncle feels that we should keep him until he is quite himself again.”

“I hope he is grateful to you.”

“Oh yes—but, my dear—” and this seemed like a fair occasion for taking Madeleine’s hand in his. She pulled a little but did not withdraw it. Young Nick’s voice became very soft. “My dearest Madeleine (if I may), what I did yesterday is an everyday occurrence among us. We live from the sea, and alas we are apt to die in the sea. These rescues are like helping someone from an overturned carriage in Paris.”

“And yet, who else threw himself into these monstrous waves—and for a stranger? Don’t say any more; I shall believe in you, Nicholas.”

Nicholas took the plunge. His voice grew even softer.

“Forever?”

She withdrew her hand.

“Forever? What do you mean?”

“Madeleine—I cannot be near so much beauty—such grace—so much tender regard—without saying ‘Forever.’”

He had stood up saying this, taken both her hands, and drawn her gently to him. She only half resisted.

“This is not why I came,” she whispered, “believe me—do believe me.”

But Nicholas was not listening. He kissed her. She allowed him. She kissed him most tenderly in return. He gently made her sit down again, and again sat on the footstool holding her hand.

“Madeleine,” he said, “we have met only three or four times—”

And already she had kissed him! “You despise me!” she exclaimed.

“Angel of heaven! My presumption is what makes me tremble. You will think me rash—brutal—to ask you—after so brief an acquaintance—but war is impatient. Would you be a sailor’s bride—take your share of my hardships and rewards—sail with me to the end of the world—”

“I would, Nicholas, and I say it because it can never be. If I came here, it was to warn you.”

“You’re trembling, my angel.”

“To warn you,” she repeated. “You have allowed me to guess that you are Whigs, you and your uncle.”

Politics at this high moment? Nicholas’ eyes opened wide. “Of course, yes,” he said somewhat hesitantly.

“Forgive a silly girl, a stranger, a passer-by, for meddling to no purpose. But—beware, I beg you, beware!”

Nicholas was puzzled; the conversation was taking a strange turn, and going astray of his bold purpose.

“How is it you know so much, Madeleine? Because I rattled away about this and that while showing you our island?”

“Yes. And then, I have been hearing rumors, tales….”

“Our tavern’s a fine place for that! But rest assured. The island is half Whig, half Tory, and we live in peace.”

“True. But with you—there is a difference.”

“Why? Why is there a difference?”

How to reveal and yet not to betray? She whispered “Don’t speak of …things …before my mother. She—she is quite wonderful, but not always…discreet. Do you understand?”

“I do, trust me.”

Madeleine rose as if to leave, but Nicholas gently detained her.

“You shall not go with tears in your eyes.” He made her sit again and held her two hands in his. “Calm yourself, lovely, kind Madeleine. I’ll not babble in front of your mother, I promise. She is so very lively! I understand. I shall speak to her only about us, Madeleine and Nicholas. Or will you become simple Madelyn in our homely English?”

He had pronounced his own name in the French manner.

“It can never be, Nicholas, never never never.”

“Because of your rank?”

“No no no….”

“How little you know about this America of ours! Between you and me I recognize neither moat nor wall. Here we begin fresh, as in a new Garden of Eden.”

“I know. But—”

“Don’t answer yet. Will you listen to me a little while longer?”

“Of course.”

“You land among us for a few days of rest. You discover our unpolished seamen and farmers, so different from the elegance you have known. No fine carriages, no jewels, no mansions—”

“How wrong you are! I—”

“But you haven’t probed beneath the surface. Let me tell you my story. When I’m done, you shall lead me proudly to the fearsome Marquise, and I trust that she will give us her blessing.”

“Never, my dear, never.”

But Nicholas was not listening. It was common knowledge that young ladies feigned reluctance. Besides, he had plunged, and he must, and he wanted to, complete the plunge.

“The man I rescued yesterday was our agent.”

Madeleine’s mouth opened. She stared at Nicholas and then brought out, “And you knew it?”

“Of course.”

Something came into Madeleine’s eyes that would have alarmed Nicholas had he not been intent on the plunge.

“We were expecting him with important messages from the mainland. They proved even more important than we thought. I love you, Madeleine. I will tell you my deepest secrets.”

“Don’t,” she whispered.” But he was listening only to himself, plunging.

“We have been summoned, my uncle and I, to meet the new commander-in-chief at Cambridge.”

“If my mother heard this!” was the thought that crossed Madeleine’s mind. But what she said was, “To do God’s work.”

“I knew you would think so. I am nothing now, Madeleine, but the doors are opening to me. Your Nicholas is now a privateer.”

“What is a privateer?”

“Almost a pirate!”

“I understand—a corsaire—for your people’s sake.”

“Yes. But this is only the first link. At Salem a great man is waiting for me. He wants to equip the brigantine which is to sail under my command. My private share of the booty is an entire fifth, Madeleine, nothing to be sneered at. But now comes my second man. A gentleman in a high place in the army, who undertakes to purchase whatever I capture, sight unseen, lock, stock, and barrel. Do you follow me?”

“I think so,” said the girl faintly.

“My third man is a banker in Philadelphia. The moment I have got my first two winnings in my pocket, he will advance me, what shall I call it? a majestic sum of money. And then—”

“You will be a nabob.”

“We shall see! A year ago, when the Parliament ruined our sea trade, I joined in an expedition against the Shawnees, deep in the West—”

“Did you kill many Indians, Nicholas?”

“Kill or be killed. And they have nearly killed me more than once! At Niagara Falls—but that’s another story. In Virginia I met a fascinating person—a Judge Henderson—I can’t tell you all the particulars now, Madeleine, but they’re magnificent! Henderson bought land from the savages for next to nothing—a few pounds sterling—a sack of trinkets—plenty of rum, too! More land than your French king possesses. Tell me, how well do you know our country?”

“I’m very ignorant.”

“Have you heard of the Kentucky, the Ohio, the Cumberland?”

“Yes. They are mountains and provinces.”

“They are also rivers. With land in between. A country unto itself. We’ve given it a noble name—Transylvania—and in that country Henderson is holding a splendid tract for me. No one knows about this, Madeleine, except you.”

“And your uncle.”

“I should say not! Not about this nor about anything else I have told you. He has more important concerns. General Mayhew is going to lead an army. You needn’t be ashamed of us, you see. But where was I?”

“Your land, and the savages.”

“I am entrusting you with my secrets, Madeleine.”

“They will die with me,” said the girl, but the image of her mother’s face took space in her mind. She felt a strong wish to stop Nicholas, but strong too was her curiosity. As for Young Nick, why, he had never spoken, never revealed, never discoursed, never had a confidante, and now, joyously completing the plunge before a charming girl, he exulted in his vision.

“Land!” he cried, holding her hand, “Land and more land! You and I will be lord and lady! Your princes of the blood will come and kiss our hands. But Henderson wants hard cash on the table. And that is why I forged that long beautiful chain.”

“You’re extraordinary” was all Madeleine would say.

“With special beauties in it. An estate at Concord, a chocolate mill …But we’ll not live in Massachusetts, you and I. Virginia is the place for us.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll feel at home there. They will treat you as you deserve. You’ll be waited upon by a retinue of glistening Blacks. Oh Madeleine, I’ve been prating like a fool this half hour—sordid mercantile affairs, but how else could you learn that we are not unworthy of you? I love you. You are as beautiful—”

“As the chain you forged?” she asked with a sad smile.

“The chain is to bind you with,” was his tender reply.

Madeleine gently withdrew her hand.

“Nicholas, I’m a little dizzy.”

“And I’m a boor! I haven’t even offered you—”

“A glass of water will do. My mother is expecting me for dinner.”

Nicholas called Ruth, who brought a pitcher of water and a glass from the kitchen. “Such marvelous stories,” said Madeleine, and again Nicholas failed to hear the sadness in her voice. “Only in America can one hear such stories. I feel so old. Let me go back now to my inn.”

“But have I no answer from you? No hint? No kind word? I must be gone within days, and I love you. But are we still not worthy of you?”

Of course, she wanted to cry out, “Are we worthy of you?” but she said, “My mind is troubled. Except for this, Nicholas: Your secrets are safe with me. But not with everybody. Remember the one important thing I said when I came to your house.”

“Which one, Madeleine?”

“Not to speak—”

“Before your gossipy—”

And she was gone, more troubled than he could guess. He was not untroubled himself as he watched her from a window. “I babbled and babbled,” he thought. “Was this a blunder? No, the French are with us. And though I worship her, that was love in her blue eyes too, and love on her thirsty lips, as sure as fish can swim.”

11

MADELEINE DID NOT know that her mother, from the top floor of the inn, had seen her turn from Main into Oak street and understood that she was going decidedly toward the Mayhew house, obviously out of concern for Nicholas. She had to admit to herself that this time, Madeleine might do better work than her mother.

Soon after, Aimée strolled to the fruit and vegetable market, where she bought a peach and ran into Ruth, the Mayhew cook who also helped Priscilla in her household chores. Ruth was an elderly, cheerful, chubby, red-cheeked woman born and raised on a Nantucket farm. Being talked to—affably, too!—by a French marquise was destined to be entered as a choice page in the book of her memory. Their talk was of fruit and vegetable, of prices, of market customs, of Ruth’s duties, of the fine Mayhew house, and then Aimée asked, “If the Mayhew men decide to travel, will you be going with them?” To which Ruth replied, “Oh no, not I, madam, not at my years!” But Aimée realized suddenly that she ought to have asked “when,” not “if.” It was too late.

Returning to her rooms, she was glad and eager when she heard her daughter climb the stairs. Let dinner wait! She must hear Madeleine out. “I know where you have been,” she said as the girl was taking off her hat. “How is the charming young man?”

“Oh, Mr. Mayhew is quite well. A little sneezing, he told me, no other consequence.”

“Did you see the so-called seaman? This is capital.”

“I did not.”

“Did you notice any signs of an imminent departure? Locked armoires, curtains drawn, a portmanteau or two ready for a journey?”

This was a difficult moment.

“No, mother, nothing.”

“So you babbled about swimming and accomplished nothing.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Madeleine paused and then took her plunge. “Nicholas Mayhew proposed to me.”

Aimée stared. Was she—No! she was serious!

“Nick Mayhew proposed to you? What—what made him…?”

She felt too late that the question was less than flattering, but Madeleine took no notice.

“I suppose because he likes me. He likes my noble lineage too.”

“A miracle has happened! Suddenly the girl’s an expert! Come here, Madelon!” and she hugged her daughter. “You’ll make your fortune after all. I take back the marshmallow. Tell me all about it, and don’t leave out the erotic details, you naughty baggage!”

“Well, he wants to marry me. We talked for a long time. He was very wild, very eloquent, but of course my rank made him keep his distance—most of the time.”

“If he talked so much, he must have given you what we require to deliver him and his uncle to Gage.”

“He did not, mother; he talked of other things altogether. I can tell you that Mr. Mayhew is a man with a very large future.”

“A firing squad is not a future.”

“I’m not so sure about the firing squad. He has a very keen mind for business, mother. I wish you’d been there to listen to his projects. A brigantine under his command; an estate at Concord; huge tracts of land in the West; a chocolate mill; shiny slaves; bankers urging loans and credits upon him—I tell you my head was spinning. I kept thinking how much you’d have enjoyed it.”

“And why was he giving you this inventory?”

“To convince the daughter of the Marquise de Tourville that she wouldn’t be taking a dreadful tumble down the social ladder.”

“He may have been bragging.”

“Such details, such confirmations! No, he was extremely not bragging.”

This prompted Aimée to go to the door, open it, look about on landing and staircase, shut the door again, pull Madeleine down into an armchair, and continue in a voice gone much lower.

“Madeleine,’ she said, “this is serious. Stupendously serious. I am ready to forestall that British bully of a sergeant and strike. But which way? Aren’t we blinding ourselves to the wider landscape? To hear Sergeant Cuff talk, the Yankees are not the sheep we’ve been told they are. And the Mayhew men prove him right. There must be thousands of these sturdy rogues arming up and down the continent. Providence may have placed the uncle and nephew in our path to show us we were about to commit a terrible sin. If you married Nicholas….”

“You would betray Tom Gage, your employer, your…whatever? Is that quite correct, my dear mother?”

“Quite correct. Tom Gage is a man of the world. And I need to provide for you.”

“Thank you, mother. Yet I don’t want to marry Mr. Mayhew.”

“Why in heaven not? Handsome, rich, a hero, a rebel!”

“A rebel, mother, whom you intend to deliver to a firing squad?”

“A rebel with a ship of his own, and land in the West, and confirmations, is no rebel until I’ve made up my mind.”

“You’re a whirlwind, mother! One moment we’re arresting Nicholas and the next we’re marrying him. I say let’s leave the island. No plots, no machinations this time, no marriage, no wretched five hundred. Please, mother. General Gage will have other work for you wherever we go.”

“There is nothing wretched about five hundred pounds. Yet I may let them go. Tell me, did he go too far, was he gross, is that what troubles you?”

Madeleine smiled. “Far from it. He remained a true gentleman.”

“Then I may be obliged to make you change your mind. Or not. I need time to think. To think profoundly.”

Whereupon she rose and rang the bell for dinner.

Afterward Aimée took her wonted nap—it was good for one’s complexion, she said—and Madeleine wrote a note she intended to give Colonel Mayhew. She recalled Nicholas mentioning, during their excursion round the island, and a propos of—she could not remember what, that his uncle liked to sit and read, afternoons, by the Brant Point lighthouse, weather permitting. She would give herself a little more time to steady her resolve and then find the Colonel.

The note she wrote was a short one. At ease with her conscience, Madeleine returned to a serene reading of Athalie, where she had reached the third act and made little pencil notes of her very own in the margins. For her dream was to be modest Mademoiselle Pichot teaching school in Lyon some day not too far in the future.

12

AT THE MAYHEW residence, the midday meal in the dining room, cooked by Ruth and served by Priscilla, was shared with Cottle and Wallace, and the conversation, discreetly alluding to the imminent departure of the principals of the house, concerned itself chiefly with the business duties of the two others. There was talk of timber and whale oil and pitch and tar and tobacco, orders to fill, merchandise to receive, accounts to settle, customers to please. The Colonel’s probity was universally known, and he meant his house to maintain its reputation, as well as its efficiency, during their absence.

After coffee, Cottle and Wallace withdrew for an hour’s leisure, and Nicholas, saying he had something particular to impart to his uncle, took the latter to his sitting-room upstairs, inviting the Colonel to make himself comfortable. He looked unusually grave. Mayhew lit his pipe.

“Nothing suddenly amiss, I hope,” he said.

“Oh no! Perhaps on the contrary. At least I hope so. I must tell you, my dear uncle, that this morning I spoke at length with Madeleine. I—I am in love with her.”

The Colonel smiled paternally.

“You cannot be blamed for that, my fine fellow. Who wouldn’t be? You told her so?”

“I did. And I proposed to her.”

“That was a tremendous next step. She was delighted?”

“I think so.”

“And you will be married when the—what shall we call the thing?—when the troubles are over?”

“I hope so. Perhaps before. However, she did not quite give her consent, I mean, not in so many words.”

“Perhaps a little maidenly reserve.”

“I don’t think so. Uncle, she is an aristocrat.”

“Ah, I see. And we are but commoners. I see.”

“Yet at heart she is ardently with us.”

“As is her mother; so that is good. And then?”

“This is the difficult part, my dear uncle. I found myself obliged to speak to her at length about our…our means…our wealth…our standing…our prospects…persuade her that, commoners though we may be, we are not nothing.”

“I cannot blame you, nephew.”

“And then—I swore her to secrecy. But I needed to say more. It was necessary to tell her everything. She swore—”

Mayhew interrupted, pipe aloft in alarmed surprise.

“You told her about our leap to the mainland?”

“I needed to. The call that has come for us. The important call. Your rank. That was important. She was in rapture.”

Mayhew puffed at his pipe. Nicholas went on.

“She will not even tell her mother. ‘Your secret shall die with me’, she said.”

Mayhew nodded. There was a rather long pause.

“You may have said too much, Nick,” he brought out at last; “but—I believe the girl. Will not even tell her mother, eh? I believe her.” Then, standing up, he shook Young Nick’s hand. “I judge her to be a fine, honest and very smart young woman. Besides, the time has come for you to be married. I was much, much younger than you when my turn came to the altar. So fine a girl she was, so fine, so honest, and very smart. But so brief our bliss…. However, my boy, there will be a mountain of details. Presbyterian and Catholic. American and French. The Tourville family, unknown to us: who are they? Marriage contract. But of course the chief point is love, the Yes on both sides.”

“She hasn’t yet said Yes,” Nicholas reminded his uncle, smiling.

“A detail! You must attack again.”

“I will.”

And there, trifles aside, the conversation ended.

Later that afternoon, Josh Mamack was shown in by Priscilla. It was going to be his business to drive his cart twice a day to the southern cove to look for the Enterprise anchored off-shore. No one would be suspicious, since Mamack the jack-of-all-trades was ever on the road looking for work or performing it. He would also discreetly transport a solid rowboat to the place.

13

NEXT MORNING Nicholas tried to call on Madeleine at the inn but was told that she was indisposed. He returned home slightly but only slightly alarmed. To some extent it may be said that the young woman was indeed unwell, but the trouble was purely spiritual, it came of reflections about her ungrateful enjoyment of the pampered life she led thanks to the mother she was betraying by her silence. Five hundred pounds! Still, Madeleine was not a brooder. A mission awaited her. When she rose to it that afternoon—a sunny afternoon, the mildest of winds giving a freshness to the land—her spirits were high again. This weighed against that, she was doing what was right and best.

The lighthouse was clasped round its base by a long circular bench. One could thus sit in the sun or the shade as the day went by. The Colonel, however, was not to be seen when she arrived. She sat where she could watch the harbor alive with all the prosperous bustle that was going to be so cruelly diminished by the long war, and where she saw again the waters in which, so recently, a handsome young man had leaped to save—not a stranger, but a needed business agent of his.

Deep in her thoughts, she was almost surprised by the very person she had been waiting for. The Colonel had arrived, book in hand. His face lit up, as one says, when he saw and greeted her. She invited him to sit beside her. Doing so, he quickly decided not to speak to her of what was, after all, not yet an engagement. She on her side intended to keep the conversation as light as possible before coming to the point. After replying to his inquiry about the well-being of her charming mother, she asked him, “What is your book, Colonel? Perhaps a treatise on whaling ships?”

“No,” he replied with a smile; “guess again.”

“The poems of some refined but ailing gentlewoman of Connecticut.”

“Not quite.”

“I give up. You must tell me.”

“Well, I must be honest with you. It is a manifesto.”

“Ah, that’s dangerous.”

“More than you think. It came in the same bottom that brought you to Nantucket so recently.”

“Come, tell me what it is.”

“The author is one Thomas Jefferson.”

“Read to me, Colonel. You have reason to believe that you are safe with me. Safe, safe, safe.”

“I know it. I know everything. You understand me.”

She nodded. He leafed through the little book. “Here’s some passable rhetoric,” he said, and he began to read, his voice becoming more and more powerful as he went on. “‘The common feelings of human nature must be surrendered up before his Majesty’s subjects here can be persuaded to believe that they hold their political existence at the will of a British Parliament. Shall these governments be dissolved, their property annihilated, and their people reduced to a state of nature, at the imperious breath of a body of men whom they never saw, in whom they never confided, and over whom they have no powers of punishment or removal, let their crimes against the American public be ever so great? Can any one reason be assigned why one hundred and sixty thousand electors in the island of Great Britain should give law to four millions in the States of America, every individual of whom is equal to every individual of them in virtue, in understanding, and in bodily strength? Were this to be admitted, instead of being a free people, as we have hitherto supposed and mean to continue ourselves, we should suddenly be found the slaves not of one but of one hundred and sixty thousand tyrants.’”

“I like that!” cried Madeleine. “Who is this flaming orator? Is he a friend of yours?”

“I don’t know the man.”

“Do you think he is in jail?”

“No; for I’ve been told that he is presently a delegate in Philadelphia. But you see now, do you not”—and he looked intently at her—“why my nephew and I must go.”

“I do, I do! What else does this delegate say?”

“Many wicked things—oh, if I were George the Third, I should not sleep easy until I did see Mr. Jefferson in fetters.” Mayhew was leafing again. “For example: ‘By an act passed in the fifth year of the reign of his late Majesty, King George the Second, an American subject is forbidden to make a hat for himself of the fur which he has taken, perhaps, on his own soil—an instance of despotism to which no parallel can be produced in the most arbitrary ages of British history.’”

But this time the Colonel failed to impress, for Madeleine burst out laughing. “Stop! Here I think your Mr. Henderson begins to foam at the mouth! What? Not to be allowed to make your own hat is a piece of brutality without parallel?”

“I shouldn’t have read you this passage. It is followed by a weightier one on the manufacture of iron. Wait. Here is one you must hear.”

“With pleasure. You read so beautifully!”

“Thank you. Let me boast that I sing in our choir on Sundays. But here it is. ‘The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was, unhappily, introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this, by prohibitions and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his Majesty’s negative, thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States and the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.’ Does this not touch you? ‘This infamous practice.’ Such words are quite beyond faction—we’ll say no more about the beaver hats.”

These words had in fact moved Madeleine more than the Colonel suspected. She asked him, softly: “Had you the opportunity, would you not engage in the slave trade yourself, Colonel Mayhew? It is so very profitable.”

The response was an indignant “I—in the slave trade? I would raise my tent in Muscovy or turn heathen before I’d handle a man like a bale of merchandise.”

At this, with the utmost gravity, she asked: “But is there not pleasure in being waited on by glistening black slaves?”

“Is this you speaking, Mademoiselle?” asked the Colonel, deeply grieved.

But she placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

“God forbid,” she said, and then she took a deep breath. “I was quoting your nephew.”

Mayhew lowered his head, and one of his hands went to his brow. Perhaps her words had not come to him as an overwhelming surprise.

“Can you not forgive what must have been a flip word or two?” he brought out, raising his head. “Nicholas has such splendid qualities. And I believe in my heart that you will not be sorry to—you will not be sorry.”

“I think I would be,” she said in a low voice. “And I came to the lighthouse just now, not by accident, but meaning to find you, and to give you this.”

She had taken her folded note from a satchel and now placed it in his hand.

“Please give him this for me. Please read it.”

He did so. And then he said, “Nicholas is one of best, Madeleine. A plain dealer and a gallant fighter. He lost father and mother when he was a boy. Perhaps he wants the softer counsels of a woman to complete him as a man. But he is generous, quick- witted, exuberant in imagination. We shall need men like him. They will be our especial glory.”

“Or your particular downfall.”

“No. It must not be, it must not be,” and he tried to return the note to her, but she refused with a gesture and quickly moved away.

14

THAT SAME AFTERNOON, Aimée saw to it that she would run into Nicholas. Minding what Madeleine had said to her, she naturally made no allusion to the marriage proposal. She only told him merrily that she was jealous of the excursion through the island he had offered her daughter, and that she desired one of her own, especially to the Eastern end of the island, where the view was said to be superb. Nicholas was happy to assent: not only was the Marquise excellent company, and most attractive simply as a woman, but he wanted to have her on his side when the moment came of Madeleine’s “sweet avowal,” namely by giving her, as he had given the girl, a large view of his prospects. He had reason to believe that the Marquise de Tourville was poor though noble—this was such a common occurrence!—and if that were the case, she might, in spite of her rank, snatch at the chance of an alliance with an affluent old American family. Ancient rank allied to new wealth: that too was a common occurrence. Besides, he would remind her that the Mayhews had been among the first to Christianize the Indian natives.

Of course, these dreams and intentions were shattered when he read Madeleine’s note, which the Colonel reluctantly handed him in the young man’s sitting-room, without saying a word.

“This is a disappointment, sir,” said Nicholas peevishly. “The young lady is prouder than I thought. But I do not give up so easily. Tomorrow I am spending the day, or a good part of it, with the mother, and I intend to attack again.”

The Colonel doubted that his nephew would succeed, but he kept that thought to himself, and only said, “If you speak very freely to her, as you did to Madeleine, ask her as well, most solemnly, to be secret. If gossip were to reach Applegate!…”

“I’ll be most careful,” replied Nicholas, remembering at this point Madeleine’s warning to the same effect.

If the young man felt less than his hearty self at supper that evening, he showed so little outward change that neither Wallace nor Cottle noticed anything.

Mamack once again was obliged to report that the Enterprise was not to be seen from the southern cove.

Next morning, the day announcing itself as bright as anyone could wish, Aimée jokingly sought permission of Madeleine to spend the day with her rejected lover roving, as the girl had done, over the island. “I must pry secrets from him, but also, I want to see for myself why you are in love with him but will not marry him, or so you tell me.”

“Mother,” Madeleine implored her, “let’s have done with the Mayhews and return to Montreal. They are fine people; leave them alone. You’ve served Gage so well in the past, he will never dismiss you.”

“Well,” replied Aimée, “perhaps you are right. And yet I want my day with Nicholas. At worst, it will be my holiday.”