by Ann Rinaldi
“Tom Jones! Romantic nonsense! Whose is it?”
“Mrs. Fry’s.”
“So this is what you’ve been doing while you told your parents you were studying. What do you think they would say about this?”
“Will you tell them?”
He set the book down. “There is no need to. I’m capable of handling this myself. The first thing I’ll do is return the book to Mrs. Fry.”
“But I haven’t finished it yet!”
“And you won’t, either. As your tutor it’s my job to guide your reading habits.”
“But that’s not fair! You read what you want! And while you were off in Boston, enjoying yourself with your Tory friends, I had to sit here and read dry old Milton and Dryden. I’d rather read Poor Richard’s Almanac! Benjamin Franklin makes more sense! Do you have any idea what it’s like to sit here alone, day after day?”
“I take it you missed me, then.”
I only glared at him in response.
He smiled, but it was not kindly. “You’ll go back to reading Shakespeare and Milton and Dryden tomorrow, in double doses. And for your wasting of time and deception, I’m taking Bleu away from you for two weeks. You’re not even to exercise him. Cornelius can do that.”
The unfairness of his punishment brought tears to my eyes. I looked forward each day to my winter rides on Bleu. “I hate you, Mr. Reid. And I’ll find a way of getting back at you!”
The smile quickly faded from his lips. He looked at me fully and deliberately for a long moment, but with such confusion and pain in his eyes that it frightened me. Then he looked silently at my work on the desk. I waited. I saw the muscle in his jaw twitch, but I could not see much else, for his eyes were hidden.
“I shall look forward to the challenge, Jemima.” He did not raise his head as he answered, and he sounded more sad than angry.
I stood looking at him, satisfied that my intent to hurt had found its mark, but confused as to why. Certainly I had told him before that I hated him. Usually he would just laugh and pull my hair as he walked by my chair and say something clever.
“Do you have any other kind sentiments you wish to impart to me at the moment, Jemima?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you may go.”
I left. Still he would not look at me.
The next morning I awoke with an aching, stuffed head I’d ridden Bleu to my heart’s content in John Reid’s absence, and the cold that had been threatening me the last day or so came with a vengeance. With the exception of measles, I had always enjoyed the best of health, so much so that Mother had often remarked that it was almost scandalous for a girl to be so robust. But that afternoon I dragged myself to lessons, where I managed to stay attentive for two hours. John Reid was especially demanding, but after two hours I felt as if my head were filled with goose down, and I couldn’t even form my answers properly. When I had, twice in a row, given him an incorrect answer in geography, he slammed his book down on the table in a way that echoed most unpleasantly in my head.
“Jemima Emerson, do you provoke me intentionally because I’ve taken your horse away from you? Or have you become more adept at stupidity in my absence?”
“No, sir.” But I could not even comprehend the question.
He scowled, no doubt suspecting impudence. “No, sir, what?”
I shook my head numbly.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I think I’m not feeling very well.”
He got up and came to scowl over me. I leaned back in my chair, clutching my book, but he reached out and put a hand on my forehead as gently and practiced as Mama would have done. Then he took my book from me. “Go and tell your mama that I said you have a fever and you’re to be put to bed. There will be no lessons tomorrow. In heaven’s name, child, why didn’t you tell me?”
For two days I lay in bed, pampered by Mama and Lucy, feverish and sleeping and giddy-headed. On the third day the fever left, although I was sneezing and sniffling. The March weather had turned cold and blustery again, so Mama said I could sit by the fire in the parlor, where it was warmer than my room. I was curled up with a quilt around me, in the afternoon, trying to concentrate on some Milton, as Mama had suggested, when someone came across the carpet. I looked up to see John Reid in boots, breeches, his rough brown cloak, and a tricorn hat. He took the hat off and gave his little half bow. “I trust you’re feeling better?”
“Yes, sir.” He looked very healthy, and he brought in the freshness of the outdoors with him.
“Your mama says I may visit if I don’t tire or berate you. I have promised to do neither.” He unfastened the cloak and put it carefully over a chair, also setting down his hat and a small package. “Do you mind my presence?”
“No, Mr. Reid.”
At that moment Lucy came in with Mama’s silver coffee service and some delicious-smelling corn bread. “Thank you, Lucy.” Reid turned from warming his hands by the fire and poured two cups of coffee. “I’m told that you haven’t been eating. You must if you want to get well, you know.”
“I feel as if I could eat some of that corn bread.”
“Good.” He buttered a piece and set it down with the coffee on a table next to me. He smiled wryly. “What are you reading now? Another contraband novel?”
I blushed and shook my head no. He took the book from my hands, saw what it was, and raised his eyebrows in amusement. “You are voluntarily reading Milton?”
“Mama said I should try to make up for lost time.”
“We’ll do that when you get well, I can promise you.” He put sugar and cream in his coffee and sat down in a nearby chair. “I’ve been riding Bleu.”
Oh, and was he here to tease me, then? How cruel!
“He needed the run. And since you were indisposed …”
“I wouldn’t be able to ride him even if I were well.”
“Yes, that’s true. But David has offered to take him out on the days I can’t.” Again the wry smile. “Come, now, don’t pout. You openly provoked me. What else was I to do?”
I raised my chin defiantly. “You know how much I enjoy riding.”
“Yes, I do. And I can understand why. Bleu’s a marvelous horse. When these two weeks are up, we’ll go for a ride, you and I, to Otter Hall. Would you like that?”
“Yes, sir.” But I would not look at him.
He finished his coffee and stood up. “I sense that was more a dutiful reply than anything. And I also sense that I am tiring you. I shan’t force you to ride with me, Jemima.” He put on his cloak, then picked up the small package he had brought and set it in my lap.
“What is it?” I looked up at him.
“A little something to … make up for the book I took away from you.”
I undid the brown paper. It was a slender, richly bound book with gilt edges. I opened it. The Love Sonnets of William Shakespeare.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. The paper was delicate and the cover was made of rich leather. Inside he’d written something: “Some romantic nonsense to fill your leisure hours until you can ride your horse again. Your devoted tutor, John Reid.”
I felt a stab of poignancy. The color rose to my face as if the fever had returned. But when I looked up to stammer my thanks, I could only stare at him, tongue-tied. For his look had changed to one of such troubled intensity as he contemplated me that I became twice as confused. Then, in an instant, he clapped the tricorn hat on his head. “Be well, Jemima,” he said. And in a whirl of brown cloak he turned and was gone from the room.
But I had not thanked him. All afternoon I sat by the fire with the book in my hand, examining it, going over his written words and seeing him standing there, waiting for me to acknowledge the gesture, then turning on his heel and leaving. The recollection of how he’d stood there and the look on his face troubled me. For I had seen, in that instant, a John Reid I had never seen before. There was uncertainty in his eyes, a question where uncertainties and questions had never shown before. Was the fever
still with me? Had I imagined it? Had he been waiting for something from me? And what? Forgiveness? Yes, that, but more. Oh, my head ached again thinking on it. I closed my eyes and slept with the book still in my hands.
On the fifth day, when Mama said I was well enough to go back to my lessons, I approached them with great apprehension.
“Ah, you’re well again, Jemima.” John Reid looked up from the book he was reading in front of the fire.
“Yes, sir, I’m better.”
“Good, we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Mr. Reid, may I say something first?”
“Yes, of course.”
I twisted the corner of the apron that Mama always made me wear to lessons because I stained myself so with ink. “I want to … to thank you for … for the book of poetry.”
He nodded, but the look in his eyes was veiled. “You’re quite welcome. Come now, let’s get to work.”
He never asked me about the book again. Indeed, it was as if he had never given it to me, never written those words inside it. Our sessions progressed as always, except that he was now twice as demanding, trying to make up for lost time. I began to wonder, under hours of grueling study, when my head seemed to burst from fatigue and my fingers became stiff from writing, if I had not imagined the whole episode in my fever.
But I knew I hadn’t, for I was reading the love sonnets every day and enjoying them so much that I didn’t ache with longing to ride Bleu. Not as much as I’d thought I would, anyway. Oh, I visited Bleu in the barn each day and talked to him and gave him some dried apple, but I was so tired that I couldn’t have ridden him even if I’d been allowed to.
I was under a strain, that was the heart of the matter. I didn’t know how to act with John Reid. His kindness had thrown me off balance. It’s quite one thing, after all, to have someone be mean to you and another to have that person suddenly exhibit kindness. I found it most disconcerting. I had always known where I stood with him, and now I did not.
But all this didn’t change the fact that I still intended to get back at him for taking my novel and Bleu away. It was a matter of pride that I do so. And he expected me to, I was sure of it.
One night when he was having supper with us, as he seemed to be doing all the time lately, my father looked at him across the table. “Jem looks pale, John. Are you sure you aren’t bearing down too hard with the studies?”
“Jemima wasted quite a bit of time while I was away, contrary to what she told you. And then with her sickness … we’re trying to make up for it.”
“You haven’t been riding your horse, Jem,” Mama said. “Are you sure you’re fully recovered?”
From across the table John Reid caught my eye, warning me to be silent. I preferred it that way, for if Father found out about my deception and novel reading, it would be worse than having only my tutor know.
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“Jem is being punished,” John Reid said patiently. “I took Bleu away from her for two weeks.”
“For what?” Father asked.
He took a sip of wine. “For insubordination,” he said simply. The tone of his voice was polite but indicated he did not wish to elaborate. Thank goodness my parents changed the subject.
Before the two weeks were up we received word from a messenger who rode into town that the British had evacuated Boston on the seventeenth of March. Washington, strengthened by cannon and mortars that Colonel Henry Knox had brought down from Fort Ticonderoga by sled, moved to Dorchester Heights, south of the city. Forced to either fight or leave, British General William Howe chose to leave and sailed out of Boston. It was reported that Washington’s army was on the way to New York City.
I couldn’t wait to tell John Reid about it and see his face. I found him waiting for me in Father’s study.
“You’re late, Jemima,” he said, looking up from his papers.
I remembered to curtsy. “I was in Father’s shop. People have been coming in all morning and lingering to talk about the news.”
“Oh? What news is that?”
“Haven’t you heard? General Howe has evacuated Boston.”
“Oh, that, yes. I heard earlier this morning.”
“What a victory for Washington! Howe left rather than fight! Don’t you think it’s wonderful?”
“Anything is wonderful that means an end to war and an attempt at reconciliation.”
“This has nothing to do with reconciliation. Howe simply fled under Washington’s guns!” Now he was being the Tory, and that made me angry. “It’s too bad you weren’t there. You might have fled with him.”
“Do you really wish I had been there, Jemima?” He was looking down at his papers as he said it, but then he raised his eyes. And once again he was looking at me as he had done the day he’d given me the book, with a gaze I can only describe as troubled intensity.
“I … well, I … no, sir, I didn’t exactly mean that. What I meant was …”
“Why don’t we just get on with lessons,” he said, smiling wryly, “and leave General Howe to his own problems?”
CHAPTER
16
I turned sixteen on the thirtieth of March, and Lucy and Mother were planning a supper in my honor. Mother had found time in the middle of her sewing for the army and her letter writing to make me a new English gown of printed fabric Father had imported from France months back. It was an arrangement of brown and red and blue flowers on a background the color of fresh cream, and I felt very grown up in it.
“You look so lovely, Jem,” Mother said as I tried the gown on.
“Am I as pretty as Rebeckah?”
“Prettier. And I have it on the authority of John Reid.”
“Well, I don’t want to be pretty if he says so.” I turned away. I had caught Reid looking at me quite a lot lately, with that same strange intentness he’d exhibited the day he’d given me the book. It confused me, yet at the same time pleased me in ways I didn’t want to think about. “Mama, why do you always bring John Reid up to me? You know I dislike him.”
“Do you, Jem?” In the mirror I saw her lean her head against mine. “I wonder if you are not just covering up something you can’t face at the moment.”
“Mama, you know I’m corresponding with Raymond Moore!”
She fussed with my gown. “Well, at least you’re talking about young men this year. Last year when your father wanted to make you a chest for your linen dowry, you wouldn’t hear of it. Now he’s made you a fine one for your birthday. We’ll have to get started sewing your linens soon.”
“Mama, there’s time. And you have enough to do. You look tired as it is.” It was true. She looked pale and thinner these days, but she had always been slender, with graceful hands. She was everywhere at once in the house, capable and serene. But now there were tired lines in her face that had nothing to do with the usual crinkles around her blue eyes.
She tucked the wisps of yellow hair under her neat cotten mobcap. “Yes, I am tired, Jem. But I must stay busy. It keeps me from worrying about Dan. And now David’s talking about joining the local militia.”
“He’s only fourteen!”
“He’ll be fifteen in a month, and he’s tall enough for seventeen. We won’t be able to keep him a merchant’s apprentice long, with the war coming.”
She would take this in stride too, as she took everything else—sending Dan off, sewing for the army, writing essays, teaching Lucy to read, running the house smoothly, making herbal concoctions for our medicine, and overseeing the cooking and the dye and soap making.
I hugged her. “I love you, Mama.” She felt so fragile in my arms.
“My, what brought this on?”
“I just do. May I wear the dress for lessons today?”
“I thought you didn’t care what John Reid thought of you. No, you may not. You come from lessons ink-stained. Wear your old petticoat and chemise and short gown. You may change later for supper.”
I was startled to find John Reid waiting for
me in the study, for I thought I was early. He was leaning over Father’s desk, and I was halfway in the room before he saw me. He looked up, startled. His tanned face went ashen when he saw me. “Jemima, you’re early.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Mr. Reid.”
“I was engrossed in what I was doing.” Hastily he covered the papers on the desk.
“Your correspondence seems to take up almost as much time as my mother’s.”
“I have many business dealings to wind up concerning my estate.”
I had not curtsied and he had not noticed. “Will you be a very rich man when you are done?”
“Very rich indeed, Jemima, in spirit if not entirely in funds.”
I could not understand his meaning. Reverend Panton talked about being rich in spirit. It was clergyman’s talk, not the talk of a schoolmaster, and certainly not of a Tory! But what remained with me more than his remark was the ashen color of his face when I’d surprised him. Something was in those papers, I decided, that was far more important to him than the settling of an estate. I pretended innocence, however, and kept my voice cheerful. It was, after all, my birthday, and I teased him, sensing his discomfort at being surprised.
“I’m sixteen today, Mr. Reid. Now you have to treat me like a young lady.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you for the last year to act like one, Jemima. You certainly look the part. If you think I haven’t noticed, you’re wrong. I’d be most happy to treat you that way if you would act accordingly.”
In the middle of French Mother knocked on the open door. “John, I hate so to interrupt, but Cornelius is busy in the barn and Lucy is out to market, and I need help with the fire.”
“Certainly, Sarah.” He instructed me to read the next few pages of French and left. I listened to their footsteps receding down the hall. Then I dashed over to the desk, reached across it, and turned his papers around. One paper was lying on top of another one and had peculiar openings cut into it. I had never seen anything like it. There was nothing written on it. But the second paper underneath was a letter. I read it quickly, and it was only an ordinary letter from one of his Tory friends in Boston. Then I went back to the paper with the peculiar openings and couldn’t resist placing it over the letter, for when it had lain on the desk, a few words had been visible through those openings.
