The Seekers

by John Jakes

  Harriet pressed her shaking hands into her lap. “Intensely. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Mr. Piggott had been imbibing. To be honest, I didn’t believe what he said about the press. I thought it was a drunkard’s joke—else I’d have consulted Mr. Benbow before today, I guarantee you. In any case, Jared was working close by. There were—remarks exchanged. At one point, Master Jared completely lost his temper. I thought he was going to attack your husband. I prevented an actual fight, though—”

  In the midst of her misery, Harriet felt a brief twinge of pleasure hearing about Jared. But the pleasure faded quickly. “What did my husband say?”

  “First he maligned Master Jared’s character—unjustly. The boy has worked hard and done well in the press room—” The statement displeased Harriet, but she said nothing. “I told Piggott as much, too. He then made one utterly indecent reference to your daughter. About her—physical appearance. I hesitate to say more—”

  Dread closed over Harriet then. On several occasions she had noticed Piggott watching Amanda closely. Amanda was a beautiful child. Much too beautiful for her own good.

  Pleasant was waiting for a reply. She composed herself. “You needn’t say any more, Franklin. I understand.”

  “That was the remark which sent Master Jared into a fury. Mr. Piggott had to flee for his own safety. I”—Pleasant started; Harriet had buried her face in her hands, weeping uncontrollably—“I agreed with Jared to say nothing about it. But when the disposal of the press proved to be anything but a joke, I changed my mind—”

  His voice trailed off. Harriet gave no indication that she’d heard.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Piggott,” he whispered, picking up his hat and stealing out.

  v

  “Be damned to you, woman!” Andrew Piggott exclaimed.

  “But you have no right to wager—”

  “I said be damned to you!” Piggott shouted, raising his hand to her.

  Harriett dodged away. She had asked her husband to come to the library when he returned to the house two days after Pleasant’s visit. She hoped privacy would allow them to have an amicable discussion. The hope was misplaced from the beginning. Piggott had proceeded to grumble about needing a change of linen. He barely listened to her pleas. Now, at the end of the confrontation, he got control of himself and lowered his fist, saying, “We share tenancy of all the assets of this family, Mrs. Piggott.”

  “I’m sure you made certain of that before the wedding,” she said in a bitter voice.

  He smiled. “I did. And I couldn’t afford to be embarrassed during the game in question. I had to find some way to recoup—”

  “So you gambled something which wasn’t yours, and lost that too!”

  He fussed with his stock. “Your shrillness is annoying. I’m going upstairs and then I’m leaving. I’m overdue at the Exchange Coffee House. Met a couple of Maryland gentlemen there only this morning. They’re in metal refining. Pig iron into wrought—think that’s what they said. A new version of something called a puddling furnace has been perfected on the Continent but they can’t secure any information about it because of the blockade. They’re hoping to put an inquiry agent aboard one of the neutral ships calling at Boston. Most agreeable chaps—”

  “What’s the point of all this?” Harriet demanded.

  “Why—just that we’re playing this evening, Mrs. Piggott.”

  “With your money!”

  At the library door, he gave her a murderous look.

  “With ours, if I choose. And there’s not a damned thing you can do about it, my dear.”

  He raised his beaver hat to his forehead, tipped it and walked out.

  Chapter II

  Act of Vengeance

  i

  AMANDA KENT COULDN’T KEEP her mind on the book she was supposed to read by Monday, as part of her study of what the mistress of the dame school termed “fine literature.” The book was a handsomely bound edition of a long poem that had something to do with a lady and a lake. The story took place in Scotland, but Amanda only succeeded in reading part of the first canto. The poem was as dreary as the weather!

  She wandered to the library window. Watched dead leaves blowing across the Common. Noticed a few snow-flakes in the air. Pedestrians passing the house looked chilly and uncomfortable.

  Despite the darkness of the day, no lamps had been lit as yet. It was a Saturday afternoon in early November, and no one was home. No one, that is, except the servants. But they were virtually invisible. Very faintly, back in the kitchen, Amanda could hear cook singing to herself. The rest of the house was silent.

  Amanda picked up an unfamiliar newspaper. Mr. Franklin Pleasant had brought it to the house only the day before. Of late, Mr. Pleasant called on Amanda’s mother quite often. Amanda had asked why, but Harriet refused to answer, saying only that Mr. Pleasant’s visits would soon change their lives for the better.

  What could that mean? she wondered, idly scanning the front page of the paper which Mama said had been started up in competition to Kent and Son’s Republican.

  Amanda found the family newspaper totally boring, packed as it was with paragraph after paragraph about the war. This new one, the Boston Daily Advertiser, seemed a little more lively. One story had to do with Indians in the Mississippi Territory; that was down south, wasn’t it?

  The Indians were called Creeks. Amanda hadn’t heard the name before. It struck her as funny. But there was nothing amusing about the paper’s vivid description of a massacre of white settlers at a place called Fort Mims. Near the end of August, a fanatical Creek faction, the Red Sticks, had slaughtered at least two hundred and fifty men, women and children.

  Amanda wasn’t familiar with the word “fanatical.” After reading of the grisly activities of the Red Sticks, however, she thought she understood its meaning. The paper declared the Red Sticks would rue their brutality. A man named Jackson, a major general of the Tennessee militia, had raised two thousand volunteers to fight the Indians. The Advertiser stated that the former congressman and judge whose nickname was Old Hickory would punish the bestial savages in fitting fashion.

  Amanda enjoyed several delicious shivers while reading the article—and another giggle over that nickname. Imagine a soldier being described as an old tree. Americans had such a passion for funny names!

  Another item on the front page diverted her for a few moments. It described the death of a well-known New England witch, Moll Pitcher, who lived out in Lynn. The story said Moll had been famous for her ability to predict the future, locate lost articles and brew love potions.

  With a sigh, Amanda put the paper down. How she wished she had a potion! Several, in fact. One to correct each of the unhappy circumstances that were making day-to-day existence so miserable. Glumly, she walked back to the window, planting her elbows on the sill and twisting the bracelet of tarred rope.

  Amanda had grown taller in the first half of 1813. Mama said she’d soon have to wear a bandeau with her chemise, to contain those fleshy bumps that had appeared shortly after that hateful flow began—

  If she’d had access to magic potions, she’d certainly have used one to stop the strange and alarming changes taking place in her body. Though Mama assured her the flow was perfectly natural, it made her head hurt whenever she got it. And it was an untidy nuisance besides.

  Another magic potion to restore her flat chest would have been welcome, too.

  Then one more—to bring Papa back. If only he were here, he’d set things right in the house. In its vast and almost incomprehensible finality, her father’s death had left an empty place in her existence. No one, not even her cousin Jared whom she worshipped, could fill it.

  But if no potion were available to restore her father to life, she’d certainly wish for one to put her mother in better spirits. Amanda often felt guilty because she loved her mother out of a sense of duty, rather than spontaneously and with joyful abandon, as she’d loved Gilbert. Still, she hated to see Harriet u
nhappy, because that unhappiness affected the entire household. And Mama had been miserable ever since her marriage during the summer.

  Well, it was no wonder! How could she be happy as the wife of that Mr. Piggott with his syrup voice? His squinty eyes—?

  And his hands. Amanda despised his hands most of all. They strayed in a too familiar way over her arms and shoulders whenever she was unlucky enough to be alone with him. He pretended he was touching her because he was affectionate, because he wanted to be a second father to her.

  She didn’t believe him. She was sure Papa would never have touched her breasts and then claimed it was an accident.

  Yes, a potion to forever banish Mr. Piggott from the house was perhaps the most desirable potion of all, provided she could have her real father back at the same time. What a pity the witch had died! If she hadn’t, Amanda fancied she might very well have gone all the way to Lynn to consult her.

  She did count it a blessing that Mr. Piggott played cards. That pursuit, which all preachers condemned, took him away from Beacon Street for long periods. In fact he hadn’t been home during the past week and a half except for brief visits to change his clothes.

  Late in the evening two days ago, Jared had revealed a piece of shocking news about Mr. Piggott. The family—except for Piggott, of course—was gathered in the front sitting room just before Amanda went to bed. All red in the face, Jared told his cousin that Mr. Piggott had gambled away one of the company’s printing presses.

  It was the first time in a long while that Amanda had seen her cousin genuinely angry. Since coming back from the navy, Jared didn’t act like his old self. He spent most of every day and often part of the night at the printing house, and when he was home, he said very little. He no longer proposed deliriously dangerous adventures, such as climbing the roof of an ice house. He was obviously trying to behave properly, but he frightened Amanda a little because he looked so severe. He seemed to be keeping all his feelings locked up inside himself—

  He didn’t keep them locked up while describing what Mr. Piggott had done, however. He growled that Piggott had better not do anything like that again. In a way, Amanda was glad to see her cousin angry. He was more, like the Jared she remembered—

  The rest of the evening was puzzling, though. Instead of expressing anger toward Mr. Piggott, Mama grew upset and argued with Jared. He had no right to reveal such matters to Amanda, she said. And besides, the loss of the press was a good thing. It had opened her eyes to the need for drastic steps. Ever since then, Amanda had been trying to form a mental picture of someone hurrying along the street taking drastic steps. But she still couldn’t imagine what such steps looked like.

  The same evening Jared blurted the news about the press and incurred Harriet’s wrath, he stole into Amanda’s bedroom after she was tucked in. Like a conspirator, he led her to his own cluttered room and latched the door. From under his pillow, he took something that both frightened and fascinated her.

  A pistol.

  He’d bought it with his wages, he said. He meant to keep it down at Kent and Son, in case Piggott dared to gamble away any more of the firm’s equipment. He looked quite angry and determined, and when Amanda reminded him that Mama said Mr. Piggott had the legal right to gamble a printing press, Jared turned red a second time, flew into a fury and called her stupid.

  She was hurt. Yet, oddly, she was comforted too—just as she had been earlier. Jared was Jared again—

  He told her courts and lawyers were useless in dealing with rascals such as Piggott—only he used a much more wicked word than rascals. He said courts and lawyers actually helped men like Piggott steal what wasn’t theirs—but no one was going to steal from the Kent family.

  Mr. Piggott might have a legal right to bet a Kent press in a gambling game. But the next lawyer who showed his face at the firm with such a claim would answer to a higher law. The law of possession—

  When he said that, he raised the pistol.

  It was all rather mystifying to Amanda. So many large words and complicated concepts. But Jared’s feelings certainly weren’t secret any longer. She begged him not to do anything that would land him in trouble. The red faded from his face and he promised he wouldn’t. But she knew he was fibbing. She had never seen his blue eyes so unpleasant.

  Amanda hoped there would be no trouble. No more terrifying shouts and thumps from behind the closed doors of the library as Mama and Piggott screamed at one another.

  She hoped there wouldn’t be any more gambling of the kind that provoked Jared, either. But that hope was probably foolish. Just yesterday, Mama had let slip the admission that Mr. Piggott was again involved in a card game somewhere in the city. This particular game had been in progress for more than a week, and Mama was worried. Amanda had suspected the reason for Piggott’s prolonged absence, naturally. She prayed the man was wagering money and not printing presses—

  Oh, it was such a dreadful muddle! And to top it off, she just couldn’t work up enough interest to finish Scott’s tedious poem by Monday. That would earn her a bad mark—

  Life had been so good until Papa died! Why couldn’t he come back? Tears appeared in the corners of her dark eyes. Leaning on the sill, she twisted the cordage bracelet one way, then another—

  With a little cry of fright, she straightened up. She saw a familiar figure lurching toward the stoop. It was Mr. Piggott, red in the cheeks and clutching his hat against the wind!

  Amanda bolted out of the library, raced across the dim hall, started up the stairs. Piggott opened the front door before she’d climbed half a dozen steps. He called her name.

  She felt a blast of cold air on her neck. Letting go of the heavy rail of the stair, she turned. Saw her stepfather silhouetted against the gray light of outdoors.

  He closed the door. Its click echoed loudly in the still house.

  “Amanda dear? Come here a moment.”

  He stood in the deep shadow by the closed door; she could barely see him. But his voice was quite loud, harsh. It started her heart beating fast under her frock of yellow percale. She climbed another step. Her high-topped cloth shoes seemed to weigh pounds apiece.

  “Do you hear me, child? I said come here.”

  Piggott shuffled out of the shadows, looming in the cross-light from the library. Digging her nails into her palms, Amanda descended the stairs.

  Where were the servants? Why had she been caught by herself like this—? Oh, if only she were a witch from Lynn! She’d cast a spell and strike him dead—

  At the foot of the stairs, she stopped. He approached, bent down, laid a hand on her forearm. She was certain she was going to faint dead away.

  ii

  Piggott dropped his hat as he squatted beside her. She wriggled but he wouldn’t release her. He acted quite agitated. “Where is Mrs. Piggott, Amanda?”

  “Mama’s gone out.”

  He looked relieved. “Do you know where?”

  She hesitated before answering. “She didn’t say.”

  “You’re lying to me, child.” His fingers tightened. “I want you to tell me where Mrs. Piggott has gone, and how long she’ll be away.”

  “I don’t know how long—”

  “Ah!” He smiled in a sly way. “But you do know where?”

  “No, I—”

  “No lies! I am your father, remember.”

  “You’re not!” Amanda cried. “You’re not and you never will be! Mama went to Mr. Benbow. About you!”

  Shrieking the last word, she wrenched free and leaped toward the stairs. Piggott caught her, ripping her silk sash as he dragged her back.

  Amanda stumbled, sprawled across the lowest stair. Piggott crouched, clasped both arms around her, pulling her against him. She smelled the bad odor from his mouth, and his cologne, and rum.

  “She went to the attorney’s? Why—? Put your hand down! If you dare strike me—”

  “Mr. Piggott?”

  Pinned on the stairs, Amanda saw him go rigid. He released her, leaped
up and whirled toward the dim spill of light from the dining room. Amanda recognized Florence, the downstairs maid.

  “I heard someone cry out,” Florence said. “Was it you, Miss Amanda?”

  “Yes, he—”

  “She fell,” Piggott interrupted. “Leave us alone.”

  The maid looked uncertain. “But if Miss Amanda’s hurt—”

  “I’ll see to the child. Get out of here!”

  Florence fled. The door to the kitchen crashed shut, sealing off the light.

  Piggott breathed loudly. He leaned toward the ten-year-old girl, cupped a hand beneath the small swell of her right breast. “In other circumstances I’d strip you naked and give you a hiding you wouldn’t forget, my girl—yes, and something else, too.”

  Amanda tried to cringe away from him. Away from that wicked, fondling hand. But Piggott was too big. And she was trapped on the stairs, pinned between the man on her left and the wall on her right.

  All at once he drew his hand back.

  “But I’ve no time. I’m going upstairs for a valise”—Amanda thought the front door had opened; Piggott apparently failed to hear; his voice was very loud—“and if you call the servants or interfere in any way, I’ll punish you as you’ve never been pun—”

  “Punish her for what, Andrew?”

  He straightened up as if he’d been whipped.

  Amanda scrambled past his legs, hurled herself at the dim figure near the front door. “Mama—Mama!”

  Sobbing, she wrapped her arms around Harriet’s skirt. She felt her mother’s hands on her hair. Those hands trembled almost as badly as her own.

  “What was he doing, Amanda?” Harriet asked.

  Controlling her tears, Amanda gasped, “Making me tell—where you’d gone.”

  “You have some special need to know that, Andrew?”

  “None of your damn business, Mrs. Piggott.”

  “He said he’s going to pack, Mama—”

  “Is that right?”

  Harriet approached the foot of the stairs. Piggott had moved up to the fourth riser, an indistinct hulk in the chilly darkness. Some of Amanda’s terror passed, driven out by the strange, almost happy tone of her mother’s voice. “You’re leaving, Andrew? Good. You’ll save me considerable trouble.”