Halestorm

by Becky Akers

  Hours seemed to pass before the Deacon finally said, “You got no objections, Mr. Daggett, we’ll draw the body out tomorrow, when it’s light.”

  Guy was neither the first nor last to amble to the well the next morning. He fell back with the others and allowed Mr. Wright, the best among them with a rope, to snare Elijah’s legs. He worked hard but no harder than the rest at turning the windlass and cranking the corpse from its tomb. He permitted himself only as many shudders as shook the other men, though Elijah’s face appeared as it had in his dream to set him wondering whether he might meet his ghost one dark night.

  He also forced himself to wait until after the new year of 1775 had dawned before he called on Alice. When at last he mounted the steps to her door, he was trembling, both from thought of vengeful spirits and joy at the fulfillment of his dreams.

  As he expected, Alice had accepted her husband’s death stoically. She was little changed aside from the mourning ring she wore, a ludicrous contrast to her glowing face. Guy sipped wine in her parlor and watched as her previous guest, the town’s half-wit, stammered his condolences. Alice tried for a sorrowful look, but her foot tapped impatiently, and her gaze strayed too often from Asher Wright to the window behind him.

  When at last the younger man stumbled from the room, Guy chuckled at her possessively.

  “Well, Mrs. Ripley, you’re not very good as a grieving widow.”

  She blushed. “Why not?”

  “I was the last man to see your husband alive, but you haven’t asked me once what his dying words were, whether he had any messages for you....”

  She twisted the mourning ring. “Did he?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you taxing me with it?”

  “You didn’t care anything about him, did you?”

  She got to her feet and paced to the window, playing with the curls escaping her mobcap.

  “That being so, Mrs. Ripley, I hope you’ll excuse my haste.” He paused to prolong the moment’s ecstasy and to catch his breath. He was gasping, heart pounding, as if he and not his horse had galloped the miles between Alice’s home and his. “Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  She stared out the window so long Guy wondered whether she’d heard him. Certainly she wasn’t rushing to smother him with the wild, jubilant kisses he had fantasized. But at last she said, albeit distantly, “This is a bit soon.”

  “Well, we’ll marry whenever you want, three months, six months, just name the day.”

  “Mr. Daggett.” She sighed and turned to face him. “I—I’m fond of you—but I—um, I don’t want to marry anyone.”

  His world reeled. But I’ve done murder for you! he wanted to shout. They may find me out yet and hang me higher than Haman! He gaped as she stood with the weak winter sun sneaking through the glass behind her, the pearls at her ears gleaming, a black velvet ribbon around her throat emphasizing its creaminess.

  He uttered the only argument his scattered wits could marshal. “But your—your boy, your son! He needs a father.”

  “He’s got plenty of uncles and a grandfather who’ll never let him lack for a father’s guidance. I’d wager my last pound on it.” She raised her brows, and he stood in shocked silence.

  When he could speak, he said, “You mean you’re going back to the Hale farm? You’d rather do that than—than marry me?”

  And then he understood even as he damned himself for the world’s biggest fool, one with less sense than Asher Wright. Sooner or later, Nathan Hale would visit his family. When he did, Alice would be waiting, free, determined. Guy cursed as she lifted her magnificent eyes to his.

  “That was my home for five years before my marriage, Mr. Daggett. Why wouldn’t I go back to it? I want to sell this place and forget—”

  “Because you were miserable there. Because I could give you so much more. You need me, Alice, as I need you.” He was on his feet now and beside her at the window. He cupped her chin, tilted her face to look full at his. The crystal blue of her eyes mesmerized him. He forgot everything but how he wanted those eyes to mirror the desire that was overwhelming him. “Alice—”

  She broke away from him. “Mr. Daggett, I’m not ready to marry again.”

  “Not ready to marry? Alice, you were born for marrying.”

  Her cheeks flamed, her voice was icy as she hissed, “I beg your pardon!” But he plunged on heedlessly, intimately.

  “Oh, Alice, we’d be so happy together, don’t you see? I understand you. You were made for lovemaking, for long nights of pleasure. You know it. I’ve seen you feel it. I could show you such passion, ecstasy like you’ve—”

  “That’s enough!” She drew herself to her full height, none too impressive. What did impress him was the strangling shame on her face. “How dare you speak to me like that, like I’m a common—a common—you know, one of those women. Get out of my house! Jenny!”

  Guy put out a placating hand. “Alice—”

  The hired girl burst through the door. “What is it, ma’am?”

  “Show Mr. Daggett out, please. And then mix some ink. I want to write Nathan.”

  It had been the gratuitous reference to her brother that galled him most, Guy decided as he stewed over some of the apple brandy that evening. He was an imbecile, thinking she would consider his proposal as long as Nathan Hale breathed. Guy snorted. He had met few men of honor, but all were as annoying and impractical as Hale. Having determined that something was honorable, they stuck to it as normal men did to money. For whatever reason, Hale thought it dishonorable to marry Alice. He could rest assured, then, that Alice would not receive an offer from her brother. The trick lay in convincing her of that.

  Guy sent several notes over the next month, begging her pardon for his unfortunate words, blaming them on his ardor. Finally, unable to sleep or eat, desperate, he made the trip to her home once more. Jenny showed him past barrels belching straw, opened trunks, and half-filled crates into the parlor, a good sign, he thought, as he fidgeted and awaited Alice’s arrival. At least he had not been summarily dismissed.

  When Alice appeared, she was carrying Jonathan. The child resembled his Uncle Nathan uncannily, no matter how often Guy reminded himself that Alice and Nathan shared no blood. He made a show of exclaiming over the boy, though he had never been one for children. They were pesky things, useless, and prone to spoiling romance. Jonathan proved this truth by beaming as Guy accepted him from Alice only to soil his diaper. Alice summoned Jenny, but the odor lingered after she whisked away the culprit.

  Guy cleared his throat when they were alone and again made his apologies. Alice nodded, even smiled tremulously, so that he was emboldened to repeat his proposal. And again, she refused.

  “Mr. Daggett, why do you want to marry me when you know I love someone else? You say you want me, but your love would wear thin when I didn’t return it. I—I know what it is to—to live like that. My—my husband—he....”

  “What?”

  “He found some—some letters from Na—my brother I’d been saving.” Her face was tucked to her chest, her voice so low he strained to hear. But then she raised both face and voice. “He ripped them to shreds. Letters from my brother, can you imagine? They were my property. He had no right—. Then he wouldn’t speak to me for months, except to accuse me, and he’d plead with me, and—and demand that I—that I—”

  “What? That you love him, your husband, not your brother?”

  She flushed. “’Twas a bitter time, Mr. Daggett, and I’m glad he’s—that it’s over. It’ll take me a while to sell this place, big as it is, but I don’t care. I’m going home. And I won’t marry again unless Na—I mean, I won’t marry again.”

  He had his trump card ready this time. “Alice, I hate to tell you this....” He coughed and tried to look regretful. “I came up through New London on my trip last month, you know.”

  At mention of Nathan’s home, her gaze fastened on him luminously. The gray mourning powder on her hair made her eyes e
ven bluer. “Did you, ah, did you...?” She hesitated, and Guy continued silkily.

  “I thought you’d want to hear this from a friend, Alice. Seems your brother Nathan has, well....”

  “What?”

  “He’s gotten a girl, one of his students, with child. I wasn’t going to mention it, of course, except that, um....”

  Almost on its own, her head began shaking. “No, he would never—I don’t believe you.”

  “’Tis true. She’s about seventeen and—”

  “’Tis a lie.”

  “Oh, come on, Alice. You know how the ladies like your brother. There’s twenty of them shut up in that schoolhouse with him every morning. They’re forever making eyes at him, and giggling, and—”

  “Nathan wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s too honorable.”

  “Even the most honorable men can slip, Alice. I saw the girl and talked to her myself.”

  “I don’t believe you.” But the barest doubt tinged her voice.

  “I expect, being so honorable and all, your brother will marry her, don’t you think? Probably already has. But he’ll never marry you, Alice. He promised his father. So I’m telling you again: I want you to be my wife.”

  “Mr. Daggett, I married one man I didn’t love. I won’t do it again.”

  Guy could have stood almost anything but her admission that she did not love him. Something inside him snapped, plunging him into anger’s abyss. “Always the fool for that brother of yours,” he hissed, “even when he’s marrying someone else. Alice, don’t you understand? You better take me while you can.”

  “You’re lying. I know Nathan, how fine and noble he is. He’d never do something like that. And even if he had, I wouldn’t marry you, Guy Daggett.”

  That night, Alice sat long at her desk, a single lamp burning. She began one letter after another, crossing off the sentences as she wrote them, hoping to find a way to inquire of Nathan, without giving offense, whether Guy’s story were true. But she had set herself an impossible task. She finally laid aside her quill, rested her head on her arms, and cried.

  CHAPTER 9

  When he received word of Elijah Ripley’s death, Nathan stared long into the January twilight. In the same sentence in which the Deacon informed him of Alice’s widowhood, he wrote, “but Your Mother and i am stil perswadded as we were befor, and I remine you of yer Promiss.”

  Why had his father told him at all? Knowing she was free again ripped open his heart as it had begun to heal, harrowing him with the old tension between honor and love.

  Nathan rose each morning before dawn to read for an hour before setting out in the frigid daybreak for the schoolhouse. He started the fire, then determined the lines for the day’s translation. He joked and debated with his class. He swept the room and the hearth and laid more wood there before leaving at day’s end. Most likely, he would dine with a student’s family in the evening or dance at a party. But through it all, he pondered Ally and their love. As February’s fury lashed New London, he decided as he had two years before: he must marry her. Once the weather broke, he would head to Coventry and convince his father to release him from his vow.

  His proposal rejected, Guy slunk back to his farm and the last of the brandy. He lay in a stupor for two days until the decanter was empty. Then, though the winter winds were biting, he stripped for a head-to-toe washing. He donned fresh clothing and shivered before the fire, considering his options.

  His rage at Alice’s refusal gave way to concern over finances. Alice was not cooperating in making him rich, thanks to her brother, and he must scramble for his livelihood. In England, he had seen that wealth was bestowed, not created. It descended through the family from father to first son. Failing that, a man could improve his estate courtesy of the government, whether the king smiled on him and granted him lands, or whether, as one of the poor, he signed with the army or navy, where brutality and endless labor bought meals and lodging. Guy had not realized that another system prevailed in the colonies, where anyone willing to work could prosper.

  Now, reduced to his few remaining pounds, he saw how wrong he had been. The only business he understood was that of his father: milling gunpowder. He knew the most reliable sources for saltpeter, the care one should exercise when mixing it with charcoal and sulfur, how alders’ wood yielded the best charcoal. He must recruit suppliers and find a location for his manufactory, living frugally until then. With the trouble in New England, the violence from the Sons of Liberty and their challenges to the authority of king and Parliament, the government would sooner or later respond with force. And that required gunpowder. But the colonies produced little of it, thanks to Parliament’s strictures, so the army must send across the ocean for powder every time it fired a volley—unless enterprising fellows stood by with stocks of it.

  During February and March, Guy read treatises on the production of gunpowder, wrote to suppliers, felled some of his trees for charcoal. When news of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord reached Coventry in the middle of April, he drew a pleased breath. With any luck, this meant war! Or at least a couple of more scuffles before the Redcoats arrested the ringleaders for execution. Guy could already hear the jingle of British sterling in his pockets.

  He continued courting the Widow Ripley. She disdained him at first, but became more agreeable as the weeks passed—especially when she moved back to the Hales’ farm, and his presence could once again irk the Deacon. But she was friendliest when he exclaimed over her son, acting as if Jonathan were the first baby in history to take a step or to lisp a whole sentence. The boy developed an annoying cough, and Guy listened patiently to Alice’s fears about this. “My father died of consumption, you know,” she would whisper, eyes fastened on Jonathan.

  Guy tolerated the child for her sake—until one day when they were feeding him in the Hales’ parlor. Guy was holding Jonathan and hoping that Alice would not spill porridge on his breeches, the only ones left to him without a rent, when the Deacon invaded the room.

  Despite Guy’s tongue-biting any time they discussed politics, and his occasional, hypocritical support for the colonies, the Deacon still mistrusted him. But Guy noted with delight that this worked in his favor. As Alice had first welcomed his attentions in part because her stepfather disapproved, so she now defended Guy’s sympathy for freedom, the more so as the Deacon scoffed. She convinced herself, even if she persuaded few others, that Guy was as much a Patriot as Nathan. And all Guy had to do was keep quiet.

  Now Deacon Hale nodded sourly to him. “Morning, Mr. Daggett.”

  “Good morning, sir.” Guy watched nervously as Alice plopped a spoonful of gruel into Jonathan’s mouth.

  “Oh, that’s my big boy, yes ’tis,” she cooed.

  The Deacon bent to kiss Jonathan, a rare smile lighting his features. “How’s my little man?” he asked, whereupon the child coughed, spewing porridge into his grandfather’s eyes. Guy nearly choked as he stifled his laughter, and he looked more fondly on Jonathan after that.

  Still, guilt plagued Guy as he flirted with his victim’s widow and dandled the boy he had made fatherless. He forced himself to speak with the Deacon as formerly lest he rouse suspicion, but he was certain the man knew everything, that he was toying with him. When he could stand it no longer, he would flee to his farm, to chop trees until his hands bled or read another of Antoine Lavoisier’s tracts on saltpeter. But he could not escape the terror that someone might yet accuse him of Ripley’s death, nor the thought that he had done murder and received nothing for it. How dare Alice refuse him, cast him aside on the chance that Nathan Hale might one day act a man’s part! She belonged to Guy. He had shed blood for her, had bought her with the sound of Elijah Ripley’s skull cracking. Her brother owned no share in it. Guy would whack at a slender trunk, slicing through it with one stroke, his jaw clenched at thought of Nathan Hale.

  On an afternoon in April, Nathan stood in the schoolhouse’s doorway with Anne Hallam. He had dismissed class ten minutes ago, at
which time Anne had appeared with a book of plays Nathan had lent her. A breeze ruffled the frill on her mobcap and lifted Nathan’s hair to expose the scars from his powder-burn. Birds caroled deafeningly, raising his spirits further.

  April 1775 had opened warm and gentle, and he rejoiced in the mild spring. The weather had held for a fortnight. Barring torrential rain or a freak snowfall, he would close the school tomorrow and ride north to Ally, to happiness as her husband. He thought of little but wedding her, making his apologies to his father, and returning to New London with her as his bride. He itched to start before the Deacon married her to someone else. He had never learned how that had happened the first time and feared his father would pull the same feat again.

  “Master Hale,” Anne was saying, “I liked Mr. Addison’s theme, of course, but I thought ‘Cato’ was poorly written, and none of the characters acted as real people would.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I don’t care how patriotic a man is, the first thing he says when he sees his son’s dead body isn’t going to be, ‘It’s too bad he can only die once for his country!’ My brother died last year—” She stopped. Tears flooded her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded, fighting for composure. “My father still cries if anyone mentions—” Again she stopped, then tried to smile. “Oh, well…Mama wants me to remind you we’re expecting you for supper tonight.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, though I’ll have to make it an early evening, I’m afraid. You know I’m leaving for home tomorrow.”

  “Mama says we’ll finish up by sunset so we don’t keep you out too late.”

  “That’s very kind. I’ve got a few more things to do here, and then I’ll be right down.”

  Mrs. Hallam was renowned for her way with salt pork, never one of Nathan’s favorites. He was restive about his journey, too, and glad to end the meal, though he did his best to hide that from his hosts. He made sure to linger after the dried-peach pie lest they sense his impatience.