The Search for Joseph Tully

by William H Hallahan

  She stood pondering a file folder, stood in front of the very large arched window of the Hammett townhouse, stood with a halo of hair lit by the pale winter light Light through the mullioned branches of the bare trees.

  She glanced doubtfully at him and returned to the desk where he sat. “This is the genealogical chart of the Tully family in New Haven and the collateral lines.”

  “I’m familiar with that, Miss Polsley. I’m more interested in what you have on Joseph Tully’s son, Roger.”

  Miss Polsley studied his face doubtfully. “Mrs. Hammett would be more cooperative, Mr. Willow, I’m sure, if you’d be more explicit about your reasons for studying her family tree. To be quite honest, Mr. Willow, I think you may have more information than she does.”

  “Oh? Well. You mean you have nothing on Roger.”

  “Very little, I’m afraid.”

  “Strange. He’s a collateral line to Henry. His brother, in fact.”

  “Well, it seems he wandered off into Connecticut and wasn't heard from again. There was a falling-out among the brothers over the Revolution.”

  “And the other two brothers. .

  “Ah, yes, well. Mr. Willow, what did you say was the reason you—”

  “Miss Polsley. In this business of genealogy, information is the currency. It’s the medium of exchange, the barter material. Now it’s swaps-time. You tell me something and I tell you something. You see? But Mrs. Hammett has no stock to trade with. No information. She’s not in the game. Shall I hint darkly at family secrets she doesn’t know about? What will I get in return?”

  Alice Polsley studied his eyes and suppressed a grin. “You're a very clever fellow, Mr. Willow.”

  “No, Miss Polsley. I’m not. I'm a simple-headed man and I look at your legs and do you know the only word that occurs to me?”

  Miss Polsley was shocked. Embarrassed. She stepped behind the table. “Legs?”

  “Yes. Legs. I look at your legs and all I can think of is one word.”

  She frowned fearfully at him.

  “Seaworthy.”

  “Seaworthy!” She put two hands over a child’s grin.

  Don’t laugh. If she laughs, I’m done for.

  10

  “Culper, Jr.,” he echoed politely, looking at her eyes. They looked back at him over the large menu card.

  “Yes. An American spy. That was his code name: Culper, Jr. He was a member of the Townsend family in Oyster Bay and he was a spy for George Washington. The British officers lived right in his home. Any information he got was rowed across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, then carried to General Washington.”

  “Hmmmm. And he was an ancestor of yours?”

  “Yes. It’ll make a wonderful biography. I’ve been working on it for five years.”

  Willow shook his head. “I know this story from somewhere.”

  “James Fenimore Cooper.”

  “Right! Of course! The Spy”

  “You read it.”

  “Absolutely. And now I remember it clearly. I was fourteen, I think. And I read it in a bunkhouse in Wyoming.”

  “Wyoming!”

  “Yes. You wanted me to say I’d read it in an ivy-covered castle overlooking a British moor?”

  “Wyoming?”

  “Sorry. But I spent my summers in Wyoming right through college.”

  “In a bunkhouse? A British cowboy.” She smiled at him in disbelief.

  “It’s true.” He held up a pledging hand. “Relatives on my mother’s side. They own a vast ranch in Wyoming. Have you ever been to Wyoming, Alice Polsley?”

  “Yes. But it’s hard to believe that you—”

  “I did. I did. In fact, for one whole summer, I was an apprentice blacksmith. Jeans, boots, ten-gallon hat and a leather apron. I must have shod half the horses in the state. Before the end of the summer, I was graduated to ranch tools and implements. I could take a piece of cold steel, heat it and make nails, files, harrowing blades, metal fence straps, barndoor latches, horseshoes—you name it. I’ll make you a three-penny nail sometime.” She put down the menu, put her arms on the tablecloth and leaned forward. She watched him solemnly. “What’s it like— a ranch in Wyoming?”

  “Well, the first time I saw the ranch, I wanted to hide somewhere.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “Well, the ranch was in a basin between three mountains— a vast bowl of grass. And the sky overhead has no end. And the clouds are like whipped cream and enormous. The whole feeling is one of incredible immensity, of limitless height and breadth. I felt two inches high and terribly exposed.”

  “Now I believe you. That’s Wyoming. Are you a genealogist by profession?”

  Willow clasped his hands in front of him on the table. “Okay, back to business.”

  “No. Please don’t answer if—”

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Oh.” She looked at him for a moment. “I see. You’re settling an estate?” She tilted her head at him quizzically. She did that with each question and he liked it.

  “Something like that. You know, Mrs. Hammett has a lot of people impressed with her dedication to genealogy.”

  “Oh, yes. Very active woman, Mrs. Hammett. And very conscious of her background and social position.”

  “Yes, I gathered that in my telephone conversation with her.”

  “She would have loved to meet you.”

  “Oh?”

  “She loves the English. She—ahh”—Alice Polsley paused, weighing the expression on Willow’s face—“well, she thinks all well-spoken Englishmen are lords. But you—well, you were evasive, and Mrs. Hammett doesn’t approve of that.”

  “The evasiveness, you mean?”

  “No. The threat.”

  “What threat is that?”

  “Well, you see, as a member of the Federalist Dames of the Revolution, she is obliged to open her historical and genealogical archives to any bona fide research effort. But if the researcher refuses to divulge the purpose, then she gets doubtful and aloof. She is always concerned that her credentials will be challenged.”

  “Why? Is she doubtful about their authenticity?”

  “Oh no. She believed in her genealogical credentials even before they were proven. No, that’s not her problem. You see, Mrs. Hammett has a very high opinion of herself. She works very diligently to create her superiority in the minds of other people. If someone found a defect in her pedigree, she’d lose face among inferior people.”

  “My God. How did you ever manage to get a position with her?”

  “Oh. Genealogy, to be sure. The Townsends are very ‘American Revolution.’ The Spy, Richard Townsend, and then there was the chain that was forged and stretched across the river to block the British fleet. Another Townsend family opus.”

  “Okay. You qualified.”

  “Yes. At least at the personal-secretary level. I think that the best example of her patrician attitude occurred last spring. I arrived for work one morning and had a number of papers that required her husband’s signature. And Mrs. Hammett told me”—Mice Polsley elevated her face and crooned in a fruity voice—“ ‘Mr. Hammett shan’t be in today. He’s on jury duty.’ ” She paused. “ ‘Grand Jury, to be sure.’ ”

  Willow chuckled. “Oh marvelous. You’ve taken her off in three sentences.” He studied her face for a moment. “Alice Polsley, you and I are going to have a private little laugh at Mrs. Hammett’s expense.”

  Her smile dropped and she frowned. She looked at him dubiously. “Mr. Willow. I may have gone a little too far in my comments about Mrs. Hammett. I didn’t mean to maliciously ridicule her.”

  “Ridicule is not what I’m suggesting, Miss Polsley. I live in a country where genealogy is a disease—where utterly worthless people, the shabbiest creatures that God ever made, walk about swollen with self-praise because of their potty little genealogies. No, I wasn’t suggesting a back-ripping episode. But I would like to tell you an amusing tale about Mrs. Hammett’s family tree. I have to share it
with someone discreet, someone with an appreciation for the ridiculous.”

  Alice Polsley frowned. “Ridiculous?”

  “Yes. Did you ever hear of Alexander Gorges?”

  “Oh, of course. He published a Loyalist newspaper in New York during the Revolution.”

  “Yes. That’s the one. Well, he originally came from Boston, a printer’s devil. This is fresh information. None of his biographies give any inkling of it. As was the custom of the day, he lived with a printer and worked in the print shop in return for room and board. When he was sixteen, he found himself betrothed to the printer’s daughter, a very pretty girl of fifteen. In fact, there’s good reason to suppose that he had to marry her. It was the custom of the time for parents of a marriageable daughter to look the other way at appropriate moments. The need for haste eliminated arguments about dowries. In any case, Gorges found himself the father of three sons before he was twenty.”

  “Oh, my heavens.”

  “That must be what Gorges said, because he fled. Left his wife, his apprenticeship, his employer and his three wee ones. He disappeared for two years, then appeared in New York City and soon had his own printing business. Shortly thereafter, he began a newspaper. I suppose you know the rest.”

  “He was bitterly hated by the Revolutionists. He was the most ardent Loyalist in the colonies.”

  “A noble patriot, loyal to his king,” said Willow.

  “Patriot!” She looked at him with surprise, then comprehension. “Oh. English patriot.” She considered for a moment. “If what you’re saying is true, then you’ve opened up a new area of biography on Gorges. It’s a major development.”

  “Miss Polsley, as they say west of the Pecos, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Attendez: After Gorges debouched, his wife waited the prescribed seven years and filed a petition with the court to have him declared legally dead, which was done.”

  “You mean the people in Boston never connected the New York Loyalist with—”

  “Later, Mrs. Gorges did, but then... well. You see, Mrs. Gorges, now legally a widow, married again. Then she discovered that her first husband was alive and, in her eyes, notorious. By this time the Revolution was on, and she protected herself and her family in two ways: she gave the boys the name of her second husband, and she moved out of Boston. Now, are you ready for the big news?”

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  “Mrs. Gorges’s second husband was—”

  “Tullyl Henry Tully!”

  “Yes. Those three boys are not his sons. They’re Gorges’s sons.” Willow pulled a packet of papers from his inside coat pocket. He unfolded the topmost sheet. ‘This is Henry Tully’s will—certified copy.” He pointed to a sentence in it. She read...

  “—having been denied the natural issue of my body, I rejoice in the sons of my wife who were like true sons to me and to whom with great pride I lent my father’s name—Tully.”

  Alice Polsley sat back and studied Willow’s face, astonished. “That means that Mrs. Hammett is not a descendant of an American patriot. She’s the descendant of an anti-Revolutionary Loyalist fanatic.”

  “Yes.”

  Alice Polsley laughed.

  Across the table, thence throughout the dining room, merrily her laughter tinkled.

  11

  TO: Matthew Willow

  Mr. Willow.

  I have taken the liberty of excerpting a rather longish piece from the private and hitherto unpublished papers of Peter Pounell, who, as you are well aware, was a King’s Magistrate at the time of Joseph Tully’s death. I have excised only those passages that are clearly digressions. The whole matter would have passed unnoticed, as your reading will discover to you, had not Pounell conceived a strange interest in Mad Tom, an itinerant and harmless thread seller—and probably a thoroughly unreliable witness. Mad Tom was the only witness to Tully’s death, and only a curio collector like Pounell would have bothered to note down his incoherent testimony. Mad Tom merited his name—but read for yourself.

  J.H.

  Notes excerpted from the unpublished papers of Peter Pounell, King’s Magistrate, pertaining to the sudden death of Joseph Tully, London, England, February 19, 1779:

  I feel obliged to discourse at length on a peculiar set of occurrences that took place this evening a short walk from my very door.

  Joseph Tully, a wine merchant of this city and a gentleman who has held public office on occasion, who has been honored from time to time by his fellow citizens and merchants for his many acts of public weal and goodwill, fell dead this night in his doorway.

  Mr. Tully being a very aged person, some averring him to be in excess of seventy-five years on this earth, to be stricken so suddenly would merit no great notice. Indeed, his commodious home lying above his warehouse wherein he was wont to store his spirits and vintages, the descent of the stairs alone might engender that extreme splenetic condition that would induce stroke and, concomitantly, death.

  Yet due to the lateness of the hour and the vileness of the weather—fog with freezing needles of ice and very uncertain footing—no one was abroad to bear witness to the event except the indigent thread seller and ward of the church, Mad Tom.

  I summarize his testimony for the virtue of brevity, admonishing he who reads these private journals to keep in mind that Mad Tom is blind in one eye, senile, mentally incompetent, being able to neither read nor write. All these attributes would render his words utterly worthless except for the vigor with which he delivers them. Indeed, he repeats the tale without variation to any who will listen.

  I suggest that something happened in the doorway of Joseph Tully that may never be explained to us.

  This evening, Mad Tom was afoot and with the aid of his staff, finding his way to his bed. He heard whilst still a distance from Tully’s residence and out of sight around a corner—heard a sharp pounding on Tully’s door. As he approached, he heard Tully’s door open, then a great gagging sound. A moment later he haled into view of the doorway and he perceived Mr. Tully prone upon the doorsill, his arms hanging out into the cobbled street.

  Mad Tom further states that he saw an angel in a long cloak bearing a flaming sword round a corner, slowly rising heavenward.

  No amount of interrogation will sway Mad Tom from his description of this picture of an angel, wearing an English gentleman’s boot cloak and bearing before him the flaming sword of the Lord.

  Matthew Willow stared thoughtfully at the excerpt, then laid it aside. He looked up at the large area of construction paper

  fixed to the wall between the two window’s. There were still five names at the top:

  JOSEPH TULLY

  (1701-1779)

  HENRY THOMAS ALGERNON ROGER

  (1728-18H) (1729-1798) (1732-1807) (1735-1825)

  He stared at the name Roger for a moment, then extracted a file from the desk drawer. The tab read: “Roger Tully 1735-1825.” He riffled the pages in the folder thoughtfully, then climbed the stepladder to the top of the wall poster.

  He drew a line through Henry’s name, with the initials: N.I. No issue.

  He turned his attention now to the youngest son.

  Roger.

  Chapter The Fifth

  1

  Richardson waited...

  He sat slumped on the examining table in an unironed lumpish surgical gown, his dignity crumpled, his confidence shattered, feeling his heart throbbing rapidly, feeling the never-gone cold spot of fear in his gut. He rubbed wet palms together. Seeing a vein beating in his arm, he watched it with foreboding. Time. Life. Going. He raised his eyes.

  Doctor Edward Eddy, brain surgeon, sat reading reports. He sat amidst his medical paraphernalia, a latter-day alchemist, shaman, soothsayer, a transistorized warlock, surrounded by the impedimenta of the physician’s trade, a collection of shiny junk calculated to lull the patient and to conceal medicine’s bottomless ignorance.

  Deft surgical fingers lifted thin sheets of medical information on a clipboard. Once, he glanced significantly
at Richardson.

  Traffic sounds from the street were far away. Richardson turned his head and looked out through a cleft in the fluted white curtains. He saw cars moving in the street, saw streams of pedestrians crossing at the light. Immortal, remote, filled with other concerns, the immemorial people of the world, bundled snugly against the winter and hurning to places of warmth and sanctuary.

  A woman crossed. She was striking, well dressed; she guided a little girl in quilted garments. From a small child’s cap, a wisp of hair protruded and undulated like a merry banner. The child half-skipped, half-hopped eagerly, holding her mother’s hand. At the corner, she hurried to a man who picked her up and hugged her. The three moved quickly, happily down the street, impelled by the cold, the little pennant of hair fluttering in the wind. He felt overwhelming pity for the little girl. Richardson looked again down at his arms, reading eternity in his pulse beat.

  He wiped wet hands on his surgical gown. So far, it had been altogether like a scavenger hunt, traipsing along shining corridors from medical station to medical station, in disposable slippers and ugly gown, an ambulating problem in medical chemistry. He had followed that menacing and slowly fattening clipboard and was followed by growing apprehension. Like a piece in a game board controlled by the roll of dice. Advance three squares to urology, proctology, cardiology, hematology, specialty after specialty.

  If I survive, yea, if I survive this, if I’m granted a stay of execution, I’m going to change the way I strut my stuff. Hear me, stupid: I’m going to take my dragging little butt down to Absegami Camper’s Supply and outfit myself for a walk across Death Valley. Yes. I’m going to outfit myself right and do it right. I want the best hiking boots. Pivettas from Italy, you bet your blue booties. Wool socks with ten percent nylon, and with heels and toes forty percent nylon. A new Trail wise pack-frame. Yes. That new number, 502, with single nylon mesh instead of the double bands, with the three-inch wide yoke and padding plus the wide waist belt. For a stove, I want a new Svea number 123. And that Wilderness Tent from Sierra Designs with the nylon fly sheet. I’ll make a new Colin Fletcher hiking staff. Bamboo, fifty-four inches long. Diameter just right for the hand, an inch and three eighths. Yes. Exactly. Banded with rip-stop tape, top and bottom. Bamboo for lightness. Find one in a carpet store when they unroll new shipments of rugs. A new hat, leather, Anzac style. Lightweight, loose-fitting, oversize cotton shirts, three-quarter-length sleeves, porous. Water caches placed strategically across the desert floor beforehand. Yes. Sealed and concealed. And for food, ah, let’s see. . .