Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  Boston

  February 27, 1787

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  * * *

  In frigid, late afternoon sunlight, Captain Theodore Pettigrew closed the office door against the freeze that had set four inches of ice reaching from the shores of Boston harbor out two hundred yards into the bay. He felt the foreboding the moment he saw the four of them clustered about Matthew’s desk. Matthew was facing him and Billy, Thomas Covington, and Caleb were seated with their backs to the door. They turned to look, faces blank. Matthew gestured to an open chair, and Pettigrew loosened his scarf as he raised the gate and took his place with them.

  Matthew lifted a piece of paper from his desk.

  “From George Washington. Written four days ago.”

  Pettigrew straightened, caught by total surprise.

  “Let me read from it,” Matthew said. For a moment he searched, then began.

  “ . . . much encouraged with the letters lately arrived from the Boston Committee of Merchants . . . informative . . . nor am I forgetful of the welcome letter received some time ago from Mr. Billy Weems concerning conditions in Vermont and locations northward as related to him by Mr. Eli Stroud . . . it is with much concern that I take this occasion to inform, . . . have lately rec’d letters from Henry Knox, Esq., Secretary at War, Congressman Henry Lee, Esq. . . . Congressman James Madison, Esq., and others . . . each much concerned of destructive events now spreading in many states . . .”

  Matthew paused for a moment to scan down, then continued.

  “ . . . am reliably informed this date that on January 25 last, citizens of Massachusetts in the vicinity of Springfield assaulted the federal arsenal with the object of acquiring gunpowder, cannon, and muskets . . . under leadership of one Daniel Shays . . . formerly a captain in the Continental Army . . . Governor Bowdoin ordered General Benjamin Lincoln to protect federal property with 4,400 militia . . . a battle ensued . . . four of Mr. Shays’ followers were killed . . . many wounded . . . the remainder fled . . . the militia followed and engaged them again in a snowstorm on February 4 at Petersham—it is feared these incidents excited them to organize and strike back . . .”

  Again Matthew stopped, raised his eyes for a moment, then finished.

  “ . . . your Committee of Merchants appears to be well connected in Massachusetts . . . should it be consistent with your beliefs and goals I very strongly encourage you to spare nothing in your exertions to quell the uprising led by Mr. Shays in any manner necessary to avoid further armed conflict—induce both sides of this lamentable affair to seek their remedy through peaceful petition . . . am deeply saddened at old comrades in arms now engaged in mortal combat one against the other . . .”

  Matthew dropped the paper on his desk and looked the other four in the face. “There it is. What do we do about it?”

  For a moment all four stirred in their chairs while they brought their startled thoughts under control. Matthew cleared his throat and continued.

  “If General Washington has taken the time to write us, this whole affair must be bad. I think we’d better pay attention. Someone better go over there and see what can be done.”

  Caleb cut in, anxious, eager. “I’ve been there. The Tredwells live at Springfield. I’ll go.”

  Matthew nodded. “What about the rest of us?”

  Billy spoke. “We’ve got a business to run. A big one.”

  Covington raised a hand. “I’ll stay. I can handle the business end of it.”

  Matthew looked at Pettigrew, asking the silent question.

  “I’ll stay. We’ve got four ships carrying cargo now, and contracts for the last two. Someone has to be here to handle it. I think Tom and I can do it alone for a while.”

  Matthew glanced at Billy, and Billy said, “The general didn’t say it in his letter, but I think he’s remembering assignments he gave us. Hard ones. You and me and Eli. I think he’s expecting something from us.”

  Matthew pointed at the letter. “I think it’s there, between the lines.”

  Billy said softly, “We’d better go.”

  Matthew turned to Covington and Pettigrew. “You sure you can handle this for a while?”

  They were sure.

  “There’re a few things I have to do here, and I’ll have to go home to help Kathleen. Cut some firewood, be sure she’s got enough food in the root cellar. I can be ready by morning.”

  Billy nodded. “I’ll have to do the same.”

  Covington broke in. “You’ll need a way to get over to Springfield. Take one of the light freight wagons and two of the horses. We can make do while you’re gone.”

  Caleb stood. “Mother isn’t going to take this very well, and there are some things I should do at home. Any reason I can’t leave now?”

  Matthew shook his head. “You go on. Meet at the warehouse in the morning, eight o’clock. I’ll have the wagon ready. All right?”

  It was.

  “Bring your own food. Billy, you bring some coin, and this letter from George Washington.”

  At four-thirty that afternoon, Caleb walked out of the office into the setting sun, and at five o’clock Matthew and Pettigrew wrapped their scarves and followed him into the gathering twilight. Covington turned to Billy, still hunched at his desk, working to bring all books of account current.

  “Want me to stay?”

  “No. I’ll be a while. You go on when you’re ready. I’ll leave these books on my desk if you need them. Lock the door on your way out.”

  At twenty-five minutes past six o’clock, Billy closed the last ledger, stood, stretched, yawned, and walked to the safe where he counted sixty pounds in coin into his purse and stuffed it into his coat pocket. He banked the coals in the fireplace and was buttoning his heavy coat when the front door rattled. He stopped, puzzled at who would be calling at this late hour, then walked to the door, turned the key, opened it a foot to peer out, and froze in shock. Facing him in the yellow shaft of light, clad in a heavy coat with a scarf wrapped tight and a heavy knit hat pulled low, was Brigitte Dunson.

  “Do you have a little time?” she asked.

  “Brigitte! What? . . . Come in here.” He stepped aside, and she came through the door and he closed it.

  He was nearly scolding. “You shouldn’t be on the waterfront alone after dark. Don’t you know—”

  “I know. Caleb said you’re leaving in the morning. That there could be trouble. I had to talk to you before you go.”

  The grab in his stomach took his breath for a moment. Here it comes. Ten years. Here it comes.

  He led her to the fireplace and arranged two chairs facing each other. The fading coals and the single lamp on Billy’s desk cast the room in a shadowy twilight.

  “Is this all right?”

  She sat down. “Fine.” He sat down facing her, straightened, brought his eyes to hers, and waited. Never had he felt so inadequate, so plain, as he listened.

  Holding her hands in her lap, she said, “I hardly know where to begin. You know you are a part of my life. When I look back, you’re there in everything, like Matthew. Caleb. If I try to take you out of my memories, there’s a hole that leaves it all a little disconnected. Can you understand?”

  He nodded but remained silent.

  “It never occurred to me that I loved you, just as I did my brothers. When they brought you home from Concord twelve years ago, shot, I died inside until Matthew said you would live. I would have felt the same about Matthew if it had been the other way around—if you had brought him home half-dead.”

  Never had Billy seen such need in Brigitte’s eyes, heard such earnestness in her voice. She went on.

  “I look back now and wonder why it never occurred to me that those feelings could be anything other than what they were. Then you gave me those letters, and nothing in my life had prepared me for the shock. It took me days to understand what it all meant.”

  She leaned forward, searching Billy’s face before she continued.

  “You know the fe
eling I had for Richard Buchanan. Ten years ago—I was young, he was young. We knew the difficulties, but we were certain our love would allow us to rise above the fact he was a British officer and I was an American girl. We couldn’t see it was doomed. Then he was called away, and the next message I received was that he had been killed in battle.”

  She stopped, and Billy saw the pain in her eyes, and he could do nothing but remain still and silent.

  “I loved him. When he died, something in me died with him, and there was nothing I could do about it. In a real way, I still love him, and I think always will. But now, I know that I have to put it behind me and move on. Life flows. It won’t wait. I’ve mourned Richard too long.”

  Billy held his poise. Brigitte took a deep breath, and in the dim light of the glowing lantern and the dying fireplace embers, looked him in the face and quietly went on.

  “I’ve nearly memorized your letters, and your feelings are clear. Before you leave for what could turn into a shooting war, I think I must tell you of my feelings. I love you, Billy, for the good man that you are, but not in the way I loved Richard. I wish I could, but I can’t. And there will always be a part of me that belongs to him. Do you understand?”

  He nodded faintly but said nothing. Brigitte went on.

  “I believe that what I feel for you, and what I think you feel for me, is enough to make a marriage. A family. The question is, can you accept me, knowing what I have told you?”

  Billy straightened, struggling with what Brigitte had offered. A heart divided between a living man and a dead one. Compromised. Less than complete. In all the months and years Billy had yearned, waiting, he had never expected it. For a time he sat in the gloom of the office, head tilted forward, eyes downcast, while he put her words in the scales and weighed them, again and again, while she sat still, waiting.

  The realization came to him slowly at first, then quickly, that he had never truly considered the depth of her suffering over the loss of her first young, imprudent, impossible love. Only now did it come to him that she had lived with life’s worst pain in her heart every day for ten years. With that understanding came a realization of the wrenching turmoil he had caused in her when he forced his letters upon her. Then it broke clear in his mind that she had reckoned with her own broken heart and seen what it was doing to her life, and she had risen above it. He could only guess at the price she had paid to come to the waterfront at night, to open her heart to him as honestly as she could, not knowing if he could accept that there would always be a part of her that belonged to Richard Buchanan. A lump rose in his throat, and he waited until he could speak before he raised his eyes to hers.

  “I never dared hope you could see me as you do. My heart is yours, Brigitte. I’ll spend the rest of my life in your debt. When I get back, can we talk of marriage?”

  Brigitte’s chin trembled. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Billy stood. “I’ll see you home.”

  She rose to face him, and she stepped close and reached for him, and he wrapped his arms about her, and he held her close, heart pounding, and she drew her head back, peered into the plainness and the strength and the goodness in his face, and she kissed him, and he kissed her.

  There was little said as they walked steadily through the cold streets, linked arm in arm. He left her at her front door and walked back to his own small, austere home, where his mother and sister were waiting with hot soup and homemade bread. Dorothy saw the change in him, but waited for him to speak of it. He finished the last of his bread, then gestured, and Dorothy and Trudy sat down at the table, waiting.

  “Today we received a letter from George Washington.”

  Dorothy’s mouth fell open, and she exclaimed, “General Washington?”

  “Yes. There’s been fighting over at Springfield and Petersham between the farmers and the militia. The farmers are led by a man named Daniel Shays from Pelham. Four of Shays’s followers were killed, and many more were wounded. We talked about it at the office. It’s clear Washington wants us to go do what we can to stop it, although he did not say that directly. Matthew and Caleb and I have decided to go. We leave in the morning, early.”

  For several seconds neither of the women moved, then Dorothy said, “Shooting?”

  “Yes. But you’re not to worry. They’ve sent more than four thousand armed militia. There should be no more shooting.”

  Once more Dorothy bit down on the fear in her mother’s heart, as she had done so many times before. “You’ll need food. I’ll put some things together.” She started to rise, and Billy raised a hand to stop her.

  “One more thing. Brigitte came to the office tonight just as I was leaving. We were alone. We talked. When I get back, she and I will discuss marriage.”

  Trudy gasped and Dorothy blurted, “Marriage?”

  “Yes. We will be married.”

  Trudy threw her hand over her mouth and began to sob. She didn’t know why. Tears welled up in Dorothy’s eyes, and for several seconds she could not speak. Then she stood, and Billy stood, and she embraced her only son and buried her face in his chest, shoulders shaking in silent tears. Billy held her until she quieted, then stepped back and raised her face to his, and there was a light in her eyes Billy had never seen before.

  “Billy. Oh, Billy. You can’t know how happy I feel.”

  He drew her to him again, and for a time they stood in an embrace, while Trudy sat staring through tear-filled eyes, not knowing if she should stand and join them or give them their moment, as she struggled with emotions she had never felt before.

  They waited until they had accepted the newness of it, then cleared the table. While Dorothy and Trudy washed and dried the dishes, Billy went to the frozen wood yard and stacked the kindling, then split half a cord more and stacked it before he came back in, face white from the cold, hands and fingers numb.

  “There’s enough firewood out there for about three weeks. Is the root cellar all right? Do you have enough money?”

  “Yes. We’ll be fine.”

  “I’d better get packed.”

  * * * * *

  The morning sun was an icy ball on the eastern rim of the world when Billy opened the front door and paused long enough to wrap Dorothy, then Trudy, inside his arms. “I’ll be back in two or three weeks. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Be careful.”

  “You know I will.”

  He draped his ammunition pouch over his neck, shouldered his bedroll, picked up his musket, and walked out into thick frost that crunched underfoot and turned sunlight into tiny, numberless jewels of red and green and blue, and they watched him stride out the front gate with a great cloud of vapor following from his breath.

  The wagon was waiting at the waterfront warehouse of DUNSON & WEEMS SHIPPING, with two Percheron draft horses hitched and waiting, long, shaggy winter hair hanging from their jaws and bellies. Steam rose in clouds from their nostrils as they moved their feet, thumping on the timbers, anxious to move, to be in action, in the piercing cold. Billy dropped his bedroll and musket into the wagon box next to Matthew’s, and at that moment Caleb came in his swinging gait to lay his bedroll and rifle beside the others, all the while looking at Billy.

  Billy waved Matthew over and faced the two brothers.

  He swallowed and ducked his head, not quite able to suppress a smile. “Last night Brigitte and I talked. When we get back from Springfield, she and I will be discussing our marriage.”

  Matthew stood stunned while Caleb grinned. It was Caleb who broke the shocked silence. He thrust out his hand and seized Billy’s and exclaimed, “Brigitte told us last night. I can’t tell you how happy we feel. Mother and Prissy laughed and cried half the night. Adam thinks it’s nonsense. But, Billy, I couldn’t feel better about it. I give you my best congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  Matthew moved as soon as he could, and he wrapped his arms about his friend who was dearest in his heart, and Billy clutched Matthew to him for a time, before Matthew
drew back, grinning.

  “You don’t know how I’ve prayed. You don’t know.”

  No other words passed between the two of them, because none were needed. They stood in silence for a moment before Matthew broke it off.

  “Ready?” he asked, then climbed to the driver’s seat while the others got into the wagon box. Matthew slapped the reins down on the rumps of the Percherons, and they lunged into their collars, snorting in the cold, stepping high, anxious to be on the move.

  The days passed beneath freezing sunshine, the nights in bitter cold. The three men took turns driving the team as they moved steadily west, jolting in the freight wagon on snowy country roads frozen as hard as Massachusetts granite. They stopped at midday only long enough to feed the horses, build a small fire to heat water for tea, eat bread, dried beef strips, and cheese, and move on. At night they built a large fire and boiled potatoes and turnips and frozen mutton, then went to their blankets fully dressed. In the afternoon of the third day the wagon rattled through the town of Springfield, where the men sat in silent awe as they passed the armory and the foundry, with broken windows and smoke-stains on the walls. Minutes later Caleb turned into the lane leading to the farm of Nathan Tredwell. He hauled the wagon to a halt in the frozen, deserted yard and was climbing down when the window opened and the muzzle of a musket was thrust through. Caleb stopped in his tracks and raised his hands.

  “Hello, the house,” he called. “It’s Caleb Dunson. I’m looking for Nathan Tredwell.”

  The musket muzzle disappeared, and the voice of Rachel Tredwell came across the yard.

  “Caleb Dunson? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Mrs. Tredwell. I have my brother and a friend with me. We need to talk to you about what’s happened.”

  The door swung open and Rachel Tredwell, with a shawl thrown about her shoulders, took two steps into the yard. “Come on in.”