To make sure he did not lose the election, Slocum stationed armed militiamen at every polling place in the county. No one was allowed to vote without taking an oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress and an oath disavowing loyalty to George III. These oaths automatically disenfranchised many Quakers in south Jersey who would have voted against Slocum for his violent ways. It was against their religion to swear oaths. Many other would-be voters were frightened away from the polls by outright threats of force, even when they were willing to take the oaths. My father asked to see Colonel Slocum’s authorization for requiring the oaths. Slocum pointed to a dozen musket-wielding militiamen. “We will be glad to send you pieces of it,” he roared; “as wadding for these here guns. We’ll blow it right through your goddamn carcass and you can read it at your leisure in hell; you Tory son of a bitch. We know who you are going to vote for and we won’t forget it.”
My father retreated to his horse and went home without voting. When Jonathan Gifford asked Kemble what he thought of these tactics, he got an answer that revolutionaries have used to justify breaches of ethics and humanity since time began: “They’re necessary,” he said.
Slocum’s candidates won an overwhelming victory. That night in the residence, Kemble scoffed at Jonathan Gifford’s warning that he would regret his support of Slocum. “He’s a fighter. He has energy. That’s what we need.”
“What really disgusted me is the way he used your name, calling you young Squire Stapleton and puffing you as his strongest backer.”
“I told him to do it. What do you care? It’s not your name.”
Kemble had no idea how deeply those words wounded Jonathan Gifford. The Revolution seemed to be carrying his son further and further away from him. The next day a letter arrived from General Putnam, adding physical distance to his sense of separation. In a scrawl replete with some of his finest misspellings, Old Put declared that he would be delighted to have Jonathan Gifford’s stepson on his staff. Before the day ended, Kemble rode off to the Amboy ferry with a single change of clothes in his knapsack. They would ship a trunk to him when he was settled in New York.
Two days later, a message from the King’s side of the quarrel threatened a similar separation from Kate. Jonathan Gifford was transplanting another American Tudor rose from his greenhouse to the garden when post rider Abel Aikin interrupted him. “Captain,” said Abel, “I was told to give this letter direct to Miss Kate without fail, or risk having my brains blown out.”
Jonathan Gifford took the letter from Abel’s outstretched hand. “Who gave it to you?”
“A man in a green coat, who hailed me from the wood just beyond Wemrock Brook.”
“Tell Barney to stand you a pint of Barbados rum.”
Jonathan Gifford limped down the hill to the brook and along its bank to the red brick residence. Kate was sitting on the side porch overlooking the brook, reading The Sorrows of Young Werther. Tears were streaming down her face.
“Kate,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Is there anything wrong?”
She looked up, wiping her eyes. “Oh no, Father. It’s such a good novel. Every time I read it, I cry as much as I did when I read Tristram Shandy.”
Jonathan Gifford sighed. He constantly forgot it was the fashion among Kate’s generation to weep over a novel. The more tears, the higher the book was rated.
Kate was wearing an old blue chintz dress. Her feet were bare. Her red hair was streaming down her back, not even tied by a bow. If it was not for the ripe rise of her breasts, the Captain could have imagined himself hack in time five years. Kate was innocent thirteen again, she would spring up to give him a daughter’s hug, and Sarah, in one of her better moods, would dash out on the porch to add a wife’s kiss.
He gave her the letter and told her how Abel had gotten it.
“He should have given it to me,” Kate said. “I am not a child.”
“He’s an old friend. He still thinks of you that way.”
Kate was not listening. She was reading the letter in one swift glance. She looked up and saw sorrow, concern on her father’s face. He knew. it was from Anthony Skinner. She had seen the same expression on his face when he stood in the doorway of the tavern watching Kemble ride off to join General Putnam in New York. Now she was deserting him, too, Kate thought. Perhaps in a more irrevocable way. Should she show him the letter, ask his advice? She knew in advance what he would say. The same thing he had been telling her to do for a year: wait. But the time for waiting was over. That time ended when she walked into Anthony Skinner’s room to help him escape. For Kate that had not been a political act. It had been a blazing personal commitment.
“I must - I must think about this,” she said, and retreated to her bedroom to read the letter a second time.
My dearest one:
I am returned and cannot wait to see you, even if it is only for an hour. Between ten and eleven tomorrow morning, be at the crossroads outside Shrewsbury Town. A friend will meet you there and guide you to our rendezvous. Wear old clothes. We live in the swamps like hunted animals. But our day will come, and until it does danger will add spice to our kisses.
Devotedly, Anthony
Immediately after breakfast the next morning, Kate called for her horse. She wore her forest green riding habit, with its mannish double-breasted jacket and small black silk tricorn hat. As she mounted in the tavern yard Jonathan Gifford came out on the porch.
“There is no way I can stop you from going?”
“What do you mean, Father? Am I a prisoner? If I am, I surely have the right to sign a parole and go for a day’s ride.”
“I know where you’re going, Kate.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Father.”
She gave her horse a lash with her riding crop and left the yard at a full gallop. Jonathan Gifford watched her go thinking: wildness.
What should he do about it? Kate’s intransigence left him helpless in the grip of conflicting emotions - the angry impulse to treat her like a child and the need - almost a compulsion - to seek her love. Jonathan Gifford was not wholly aware of these impulses. He was not by nature an introspective man. But he did recognize his male helplessness and decided to seek advice from a woman. He too called for his horse and rode south to Kemble Manor.
There he found neither solace nor advice - but chaos. His face magenta, Charles Skinner stamped up and down in the hot still air of his library, already half drunk on his day’s decanter of brandy, and half mad with fury. The object of his wrath was Daniel Slocum.
“Look at this,” the Squire roared, thrusting a letter at Jonathan Gifford. “I just got it from that damned rogue.”
Sir: Several complaints have been made to us respecting your conduct, especially that of giving information to a party of Tories and British commanded by your son, Anthony Skinner, now a refugee, by which means your son and his party escaped the pursuit of a body of militia sent to attack them. I do therefore enjoin it upon you that you do for the future confine yourself to your farm at Middletown and do not reattempt traveling the road, under the risk of being treated as a spy.
“He is trying to drive me out, that is what the bastard is doing,” Charles Skinner said. “He sent one of his damn family by here only a day or two ago and boldly asked me what price I would take for my land.”
At first Jonathan Gifford could not believe it. “Daniel Slocum - wants to buy the manor? Where would he get the money?”
“Aye, where indeed,” said Charles Skinner. “But what am I to do, Gifford? If I obey his order, how can I run my grist mill three miles down the road or superintend the Colt’s Neck farm?”
“You will have to let the servants run them for the time being.”
“I can’t do it,” cried Skinner, collapsing into a chair. “There is the devil to pay with them, too. They keep asking me why that damnable Declaration of Independence did not free them. I swear to God I am afraid Mrs. Skinner and I may be murdered in our beds.”
“I always de
tested the idea of running this place with slaves,” Caroline Skinner said. “I would have much preferred hired labor.”
She stood in the doorway of the library, looking grave.
“But you would also prefer that London dress you have on your back, madam,” said Charles Skinner. “You would be wearing old clothes, madam, if you tried to run a farm these days paying wages.”
“Let us not have that argument again,” Caroline Skinner said. “I’ve told you a dozen times, I would rather wear old clothes. But more to the point, Mr. Skinner, it seems to me the best solution is for me to run the grist mill and the Colt’s Neck farm.”
“Now you are being totally ridiculous, madam. A woman knows nothing about such matters.”
“She can learn. What do you think, Captain Gifford?”
There was a challenge in her words. He had to respond to it even though he knew his friend, her husband, would not agree with him. “I think it is a very sensible, idea - and a generous one. I only hope your health won’t suffer from the heat of the season.”
“I’ve never been sick a day in my life, Captain. While Mr. Skinner - you remember the gout kept him in bed most of last summer.”
“Madam, it is out of the question,” growled Skinner. “No doubt it is generous of you. But I fear the damage done by your incompetence would hardly he worth the gesture.”
Caroline Skinner flushed at this insult. She lowered her head and twisted the gold wedding hand on her finger. “As you say,” she murmured. “But you will have to do something about the servants or you will have none. Jesse tells me Cato has run off.”
“What? Goddamn that fellow, why does he tell you instead of me?”
“Because he thought you were drunk.”
“Why did you not tell me immediately?”
“I came here to tell you.”
“My best field hand. You tell Jesse I’ll get a white man to run things around here, a white man with a whip, and Jesse shall be out there planting with the rest of them.”
“Then he will run away.”
“God Almighty, Gifford, what shall I do?”
“I say you should free them at one stroke and hire them back on wages,” Caroline Skinner said. “It would force every Whig in New Jersey to examine his conscience and do the same thing.”
“I’m afraid I disagree with you, Mrs. Skinner. It might have a very opposite effect,” Jonathan Gifford said. “The British have tried to start a slave insurrection in Virginia. It’s on everyone’s mind. People might see the same policy at work here. It could bring another mob to your front door - and this time they would not listen to reason.”
“You really think that might happen, Captain Gifford?”
“Men’s minds are terribly inflamed,” he said. They have guns in their hands, Mrs. Skinner.” He turned to the Squire. “If I were you, Charles, I would begin to pay them. Not full wages if you can’t afford it, but say half. If they save their money, they can buy their freedom at the end of a year or two. That’s what I did with Black Sam, years ago. It worked well for me. I don’t think there’s a more dependable man in the state, black or white.”
“But paying them - it will give them notions. In a month or two they will be demanding double and double again a month after that.”
“I would give Jesse double to start,” Caroline Skinner said.
“I do not need advice from you, madam.”
Caroline Skinner’s mouth hardened. Anger glowed in her green Kemble eyes, but she did not express it. She closed the library door softly behind her. Jonathan Gifford found himself admiring her self-control. A remarkable trait in a woman. Perhaps he could persuade her to communicate her secret to Kate. He spent another ten minutes with Charles Skinner, discussing how to deal with Daniel Slocum. He advised him to write a letter to Governor William Livingston demanding that Slocum charge him with a specific crime or leave him alone. As for the grist mill and the Coles Neck farm, he would stop by every second day or so and check on them.
He felt a sense of release, like a man escaping from a prison cell, when he left Charles Skinner. It troubled him. The man was still his friend, no matter how trapped he was by his emotions and opinions. In the hall he asked one of the servants to find her mistress. He was told she was walking in the garden.
He found Caroline Skinner beyond the garden in the park, feeding the deer. She was talking softly to them. He did not get close enough to hear what she was saying. They scampered away at his approach.
“These days I find the company of those dumb creatures more soothing than my own flesh and blood,” she said.
“I don’t blame you,” he said impulsively, not realizing its implication until the words were spoken. “I - I really came here to - to see you,” he stammered. “I have a problem that’s,” he smiled ruefully, “beyond the competence of us all-knowing. males.”
“What a confession, Captain Gifford. Around here I get the feeling that such a dilemma could not exist.”
“It’s rather serious. It’s - it’s about Kate.”
He told her what he thought - in fact was sure - was happening between Kate and Anthony Skinner. Caroline listened with the gravest concern. “Her mother’s child,” she said.
She felt two red spots burning in her cheeks. The words came so naturally to her, only after they were spoken did she recall the violent emotions that assailed her the last time she had discussed her sister, his late wife, with Jonathan Gifford.
He seemed equally disturbed. “I’m - I’m afraid you’re right.”
With unexpected intensity Jonathan Gifford found himself wanting to know more about the past Caroline shared with Sarah beyond the tantalizing glimpse she had given him in their last conversation. But Caroline concentrated on Kate.
“I’m not sure what good I can do,” she said. “I fear her mother turned her mind against me a long time ago. I thought - I thought she had done the same thing with you.”
“I never heard Sarah say that much against you,” Jonathan Gifford said. “She used to call you Miss Solemn Sides. Once she said you should have been a parson. I thought it was a compliment to your good education.”
Three does and a fawn moved timidly among the trees. They were a perfect image of her feelings. With an effort of the will, Caroline looked him in the face. “You don’t really mean that, Captain Gifford. You know perfectly well what she meant. I was a dull weed. Something to be thrown aside, dismissed.”
He looked past her at the deer. “I learned - rather early - that I could not share all your sister’s opinions.”
Caroline smiled mournfully. “Yes. I remember Sarah remarking that you didn’t listen to her any more than her first husband.” “She did run on.”
“Yes - that’s what charmed you all.”
She realized it was impossible to be lighthearted about Sarah. She had hurt them both too much. “My father was a rather outrageous man. No doubt you heard Sarah talk about him. He wanted a son. He never forgave his daughters for being women. Sarah revenged herself by being outrageously feminine. I suppose I tried to be a man. Or at least to show him I had the mind of a man. I see now we were both trying to persuade him to love us.
He nodded. “I sensed something of the sort. When Sarah was in a temper she would tell me I was just like her father.”
“She was a damn liar!”
They stood there in the sun-dappled park, both embarrassed by the turn of the conversation.
“I - I will send Kate to you.”
“I will do what little I can.”
IT WAS ALREADY too late to give Kate good advice. An hour before her stepfather discussed her with her aunt, she bad left her horse in a loyalist’s stable and was soon seated in the rear of a riverboat poled by an old weathered fisherman into the marshes along the banks of the lower Shrewsbury. She fingered a metal talisman she wore on a gold chain around her neck. Her mother had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday. Sarah Gifford had been a devout believer in unseen powers. The talisman, two tria
ngles, joined at their apexes, had supposedly been drawn by King Solomon himself. It was called the Third Pentacle of Venus and according to the ancient book in Dr. Davie’s library, “This, if it be only shown unto any person, serveth to attract love. Its angel Monachiel should be invoked in the day and hour of Venus, at one o’clock or at eight.”
A blue jay’s call and what looked like an impenetrable mass of mud and weeds swung open. Behind it stood a husky green-coated sentry with a gun in one hand, a rope attached to the water gate in his other hand. He smiled broadly at Kate and said, “The Colonel can’t wait to see you, miss.” Another five minutes along a narrow watercourse and the boat grounded on an island in the center of the swamp. Anthony Skinner emerged from a tent and strode toward her. He was wearing buff breeches and a green coat liberally dashed with gold lace. He swept Kate into his arms and gave her a passionate kiss.
“My dearest,” he said. “I have lived for this moment.”
He stepped back and held her at arm’s length. “I didn’t think it was possible, but you are more beautiful than ever. It is a tribute to the power of love.”
After a twenty-mile ride on a dusty summer road, Kate knew she was not looking her best. But she told herself love permitted this exaggeration.
“I do nothing but think about you, dream about you,” Anthony said. “I have your miniature about my neck.”
He drew from beneath his shirt an ivory locket containing a tiny portrait of Kate, done by a traveling artist whom Jonathan Gifford had hired a year ago.
Kate found herself almost overwhelmed by Anthony’s extravagance. “Is this your uniform?” she asked, touching the green cloth.
He nodded. “If I’m caught without it I can be shot as a spy.”
The Heart of Liberty Page 16
