by Annie Proulx
Sarah, the only daughter of the wealthy molasses and sugar importer James Pickering, had been a beauty with dark oiled hair and melting hazel eyes. She rejected hoops in favor of stiff petticoats that swelled out her skirts at the ankle, showing pink silk stockings, an unseemly mode for a woman in her fifties. Their oldest son, George Pickering Duke, had recently returned from reading law at the Inns of Court in London. For years he had struggled against being pushed into this profession, saying he wished to go to sea, not as an officer but as a common sailor, to visit other lands.
“George,” said Jan, “it is necessary to the business to have a trained legal mind among us. You will have a good income and in later years you can see the world in a more comfortable manner than you would before the mast. Only ask Bernard what that life is like.”
He had, in fact, talked with Uncle Bernard, who froze his bone marrow with stories of typhoons, men overboard, the paralyzing Doldrums, the boredom, the eternal work, the noisome ports, the capricious cruelty of captains. George Pickering Duke was dissuaded and took his adventure in books.
Bernard spoke to Joab Hitchbone, young Piet standing with them. “Old Forgeron would have taken joy in knowing the day started with good weather.” Hitchbone sucked at his cup of syllabub. “And how goes your pitch production? Do you still travel down to the pinewoods in the Carolinas?”
Bernard made a wry face. “Oh no. I have ever preferred the Québec end of the business. We still operate logging enterprises in the north. As for Carolina, young Piet here”—Bernard touched his nephew’s shoulder—“took on that responsibility. He works two hundred black slaves and our pitch and tar are best quality. We’ve done well despite England’s punitive laws.”
“I return to the plantation in several days’ time,” said young Piet. The older men ignored him.
“Forgeron,” said old Hitchbone, “a good man, but you know—he had some strange ideas. His outlook remained both French and English, surely an uncomfortable mixture.”
Bernard’s eyebrows rose. “Perhaps you do not know that Forgeron was born in Ostende, not France. He encouraged our father to deal with the Low Countries. Father always said that Hollanders had an innate sense of landforms. That was a talent, he said, that made good timberland lookers such as Forgeron.”
But old Hitchbone went on. “He deplored wholesale cutting, those who felled trees but took only the trunks and burned the rest. He had a frugal mind.”
“Oh, he was ever a leading spirit in controversies,” Bernard said. “I well remember his sentiments. He believed that men, when confronted with a vast plenitude of anything, feel an irresistible urge to take it all, then to smash and destroy what they cannot use.”
Old Hitchbone peered at him. “Hah! As we might descend on our host’s table, gobble the dainties, then shiver the cups and plates on the hearth?”
“Few of us feel that urge, I trust,” said Bernard.
“I meant it as an example of Forgeron’s thinking. Better you remember your Bible: ‘And God said replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and every living thing that moveth, and every green tree and herb.’ Of course, here in New England there is such bounty of every wild resource that there is no limit to the assets, whether fish or furs or land or forests.”
Bernard did not correct Hitchbone’s misquotes; the old man was known for twisting scripture to suit his intent.
“Then perhaps, with all this bounty, you will explain the shortage of firewood in Boston and its ever-rising price? A good thing for Duke and Sons, but driving some inhabitants away from the city.”
Old Hitchbone refused to be drawn; he examined the low level of syllabub in his cup. “The Indans. That is our problem. The Indans do not use land correctly because of their raw roaming and hunting. As the Bible tells us, it is a duty to use land. And there is so much here that one can do what one wishes and then move on. You cannot make the Indans understand that the correct use is to clear, till, plant and harvest, to raise domestic stock, to mine or make timber. In a nutshell, they are uncivilized. And un-Christian.”
Bernard dipped his head, not wishing a quarrel, but thought to himself that King Philip’s War had not come about through some vague whim of the Indians. They had fought like rabid dogs to keep their lands and they had lost. Why was hunting and plucking berries not considered as use of the land? But he kept this question to himself. “Well, sir, although Forgeron scalped Indians for the bounty, he also had Indian friends. And he once or twice remarked that the reason New France did not prosper was because of the fur trade, which pulled all the able men away from the settlements and thereby cost a great deal in enterprise and development.”
“There may be something in that,” said old Hitchbone. “But I might advance popishness being their great pitfall. And their low population for all that they breed like mice.”
Bernard ignored this and went on. “He was ever a man of contradictions. He urged Duquet et Fils to keep a hand in the fur trade—which we have done in a small way. He thought that if a certain military triumph occurred, trade could revive.”
“They say the Ohio valley is stuffed with beavers. If the English are successful in seizing New France—the inevitable triumph you avoid naming—that trade might become lucrative once more.”
“Yes, Forgeron said much on various points which did not always make him agreeable company. One felt extremely nervous near him, not only because he attracted lightning and high winds. And yet he himself did more to drive down the forest and the Indans than anyone else.”
“And so in him we see the double nature of man quite revealed.”
“He profited in many ways,” said Hitchbone, who had himself profited in those ways.
“I only saw our father angry with him one time. They were speaking of the Wentworths and Forgeron had the temerity to tell Father that he—Father—could never hope to become one of the merchant aristocracy. That the Wentworths had connections with the English peerage and knew well how to move in those exalted circles. By my God, Father flew into a fury.”
Hitchbone smiled, returned to the Wentworths. “I remember what your father used to say about old Wentworth. ‘His foot shall slide in due time.’ Deuteronomy.”
Bernard laughed. “It ain’t yet slid. A wily and unscrupulous man.”
“Forgeron amassed considerable wealth, but I was always surprised that he lived as a wild Indan on game and maize. His was a lonely life.” He lowered his voice. “I wonder who will inherit his properties.”
Bernard’s eyebrows rose. He ignored the question. No doubt everyone in the room was squirming with curiosity to know Forgeron’s bequests, not the usual tiresome accounts of linens, laying hens and chairs, but his timberland holdings. “Perhaps not so lonely. I have heard he had a dozen Indian consorts. May I fetch you another dollop of syllabub?”
“My dears,” said Birgit, striding up to them, “the syllabub is quite finished. Do try the maple cream cakes. Piet, dear boy, come with me instead of standing here like a fence listening to these old fogies mumble. There is a gentleman I think you would like to know.” Joab Hitchbone thought once more that she had an especially sweet and gentle voice, the voice of an innocent girl, not the tough old matron she looked.
• • •
While the Indian slaves cleared the table the women followed Mercy into the second parlor, where there were turkey-work chairs with the look of wooden animals, four or five small tables scattered among them like waterholes. The women sat in front of the fire sipping China tea and laughing over rumors that the pope worshiper Duc de Richelieu had invited dinner guests to dine in the nude. “And,” said Birgit, “we have heard that after his spring ‘success’—if we may call it that—over the English at Port Mahon, his chef invented a sumptuous dressing of olive oil and egg yolk. The duke called it ‘mahonnaise.’ ” They made some wordplay over the juxtaposition of nude diners and dressed viands.
“The table looked brilliantly handsome tonight, dear
Mercy,” said Birgit.
“Oh, pshaw! Nothing compared to your exquisite collations—those blue dishes with gold rims.”
“You really are too kind, my dear. But, you know, four of them slid to a smash in that untoward earthquake a year past. We nearly fell out of the bed. I told Bernard that if this is one of the delights of New England I would prefer Chimborazo. I still do not understand how, if the tremor was located at Cape Ann as they say, it damaged so much in Boston.”
Mercy sighed and said, “I expect there will be more such grief in our days as human depravity continues to irk the Omnipotent.”
• • •
The evening wore on, Mercy several times raising her hand to her temple and sighing. At last she admitted what they all knew.
“My dear guests, what I dreaded has come to pass.” She called the slave girl to bring cold water and her headache powder.
“I must retire,” she said and went to a back room scented with orris root and reserved for headache recovery, murmuring general farewells.
“Poor Mercy,” said Sarah. “Those headaches are truly her cross. A pity after such an evening.”
“Yes, but a great deal of work. Mother is not really strong enough for this,” Patience said and waved her hand at the room and all that was in it.
The guests, taking the hostess’s retreat as a signal, began to leave by ones and twos. Nicolaus pressed their hands, made apologies for Mercy and begged them to come again soon on a happier occasion. Henk Steen the bookkeeper bowed, bowed and grinned as he backed toward the door. Nicolaus half-expected him to tug his forelock.
“Peace be with you and your syllabub,” murmured Joab Hitchbone, doddering down the steps.
33
an interesting case
Then the outsiders were gone except for Jan’s hollow-chested father-in-law, James Pickering, once a notorious molasses smuggler, and the judge, Louis Bluzzard. The judge’s trousers were too thin and emphasized the manly bulge, the more disturbing as he was elderly.
“Judge, do show my brothers that paper,” said Jan, his long fingers tapping the side of his rum glass. Jan was the one who clinched deals with merchants and arranged contracts; he worked out complex shipping arrangements. He had the duty of smoothing the ruffled feelings of men who were aggrieved by Duke & Sons’ business proceedings, in part because he had the dispassionate nature of one who cares for nothing, too often mistaken for neutrality. In his private mind he wished the ax for all royalists.
The judge passed around a rather grubby newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. The page showed an illustration of a snake cut into many parts, each segment with the label of one of the colonies and the motto below, JOIN OR DIE.
“There are so many papers these days,” George said, rolling his eyes.
“Ha!” said Nicolaus. “That’s that fellow Franklin. I knew his brother James. A family distinguished for their seditious bosoms. Ben is back here or in Connecticut now and I can tell you that this joined colonial snake he calls for can never happen. There are too many here who are English to the bone, for all they were born here. And the tobacco colonies are markedly different from the fish and forest colonies.” For decades Duke & Sons had managed a precarious balance between their French allegiances and the new ambitious generation of American-born men. A separation of opinions was beginning to surface.
Young Piet ventured a comment. “The forest legislation the Crown has imposed on us has driven a wedge between colonists and England, has it not?” The older men ignored his dim-witted observation.
James Pickering, showing a violet silk waistcoat, spoke. “Let me remind you, dear friends, that this city harbored two of the regicide judges a century back. There are loyalists sprinkled about but the colonial heart desires independence and cherishes a distaste for kings and their men. It is nothing new. And is not forest legislation despised by all American businessmen?” He turned and spat gracefully into the fire.
Jan said, “The tangled situation grows more tangled every day. Louis, tell them what you told me.”
“Ah. That. I ventured to say that England’s plans of attack increase the danger to your forest property in Québec. When they take Québec they will take your woodlands.” The judge flicked a glance at Bernard. He considered him a little too fond of French Canada.
“Perhaps,” said Bernard, “but remember that New France has a strong militia. The regional troops are excellent and we have good aid from our Indians. Governor-General Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, I think, is intelligent and knows the country. I have heard that this Montcalm prefers to fight in European style, sieges and rigid opposing lines—Braddock’s great fault. But in New France we have developed the stealthy woodcraft style of the Indians.”
“That is the situation here as well,” said the judge, sneering a little. “Your French half-breeds are hardly singular in their fighting abilities. But beware—there are many houses in Boston where your opinions would sound as treason.”
Bernard ignored this dart. “I have heard also that Montcalm and Vaudreuil loath each other and show it openly.” He sighed. “When the French defeated and killed Braddock I thought that would be the end of it.”
The judge shook his head and gave a hard barking laugh. He stared at Bernard. “I think not. I thoroughly believe England will seize New France using colonial troops however long it takes. The battle on Lake George last September shows their perseverance.” His tone was combative.
Jan thought it time to raise the question. He looked at his son. “George, after your study of the law, what is your opinion on this difficult matter? Where should Duke and Sons bestow its allegiance? France or England?”
“Would it were that simple,” muttered Bernard.
“In our law readings this particular situation never arose, but there were several of us from the colonies who discussed it privately among ourselves.” George puffed himself up a little.
“And what did you think?” Bernard suspected that there in the heart of London studying English law, George would have been and probably still was an advocate for eternal obeisance to England.
“We thought that in terms of law and jurisdictions the colonies were drawing ever more distant from England. The veer became sharply evident in 1686, when the British government, concerned that we were growing too independent and too wealthy on our own abilities, sent Governor Andros to us and revoked our colonial charter.” Well, thought Bernard, so much for obeisance.
Nicolaus said, “After two generations of colonial self-government this was a gross error on their part. Nor did getting rid of Andros repair the situation.”
George boldly put in his oar. “And what do we have today! Englishmen in positions of power who make the decisions that affect us, who rarely know anything of the colonies, have no real experience here nor do they wish to have. They put forth their ukases and rules based on ignorance and self-interest. What matters to them is how much they can squeeze from the colony into their personal strongboxes.”
“It seems not so different in the example of France and New France,” said Bernard, rather surprised at lethargic George’s impassioned tone. “It may be the misfortune of all colonies.”
“If the rancorous discontent continues—well, I can point out a legal example that is particularly telling for Duke and Sons as it concerned cutting the forest.” George felt his importance.
“I wonder if I know your reference,” said Nicolaus, squinting his eyes. “Do you mean the Dregg case of about ten years ago?”
“No, I had in mind the Frost case—somewhat earlier than Dregg. In our private discussions we student colonials thought it an important case. It came up only once with the faculty. A lawyer at Inns of Court saw it as evidence of the sly and impudent colonial character.”
Bernard looked at young George. “Will you relieve us of our ignorance? What was this ‘case’?”
“On the face of it, Uncle Bernard, it could have been construed as yet another example of the common tendency of Mass
achusetts court judgments in favor of colonial lumber millmen accused of trespassing on private land and cutting what they found there.”
“Yes,” said Nicolaus. “Those liberal courts were one of the attractions of the region for our father. And we have endured Surveyors General of His Majesty’s Woods, those damnable wretches, for more than sixty-five years. It is right that they suffer in the courts.” He gave a small whinny.
“And how does this dispute you mention differ?”
George looked at Judge Bluzzard.
The judge refilled his glass of rum. “It started, as many of our problems do, in London—think of the massive land grants to Mason and Gorges.” He swallowed.
“To the point, in 1730 the Crown granted a five-year mast procurement license to Ralph Gulston, a Turkey merchant, one of those swarthy fellows who trade with the Levant. The license allowed him to enter any Maine lands belonging to the Crown in 1691—id est, public land—and cut mast pines for the Royal Navy.” He nodded at George.
George set out the case of trespass, which hinged on the date of 1691, when the land in question belonged to the Crown. “After some delay, Gulston hired a colonial logger, William Leighton, to cut the pines for him. And through the winter of 1733–34 Leighton cut them and dragged them out. No one objected. However, in the passage of years since 1691, title to the land had passed to an American, John Frost, of Berwick, Maine. The Royal Surveyor General chose to ignore Frost’s title. When spring came in 1734, John Frost, waving his legal title, sued Leighton for trespass.”
