by Lake, Deryn
“Who is it?”
“I’ve come to see Sara,” Tom answered, still hiding in the shadows. “Best enter then.”
The door was opened wider and the Governor slunk past the fellow, holding his cloak tightly round him to hide the uniform beneath.
“You’ll know your way, no doubt,” the young man continued, with more than a note of sarcasm.
The Governor did not speak but walked stiffly up the stairs and knocked on the door of Sara’s room, aware of a pair of eyes following his every move. There was no answer so he knocked again, this time more urgently. Once again there was no reply but Tom could not bear the close scrutiny from below a second longer. Turning the handle, he went inside.
Sara was fast asleep, her face lit by the moonshine, which had turned it from ebony to silver. The Governor stood silently, regarding the darkened planes of her cheeks, the droop of her silvered eyelids, the exquisite nose and mouth etched against the argent rays. Her long hair was tumbled about her, spread over the pillowcase like lace, and one hand tossed carelessly back resembled a flower, the curling fingers dark stamens.
Every emotion he had welled inside him at the sight. Quietly, sitting in the only chair, the Governor put his head in his hands and cried out his grief.
He must have made a sound, for Sara woke and said, “Governor, are you ill?”
He looked up at her, smiling through the tears that were running down his cheeks. “No, my dear. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”
She sat up in bed and her hair cascaded round her shoulders. “No, Governor, I can’t do that. You have come to see me. Let me give you some refreshment.”
He shook his head. “Sara, I’ve had enough to eat and drink today. I don’t want that.”
She smiled at him. “Then what do you want, Sir?”
He looked at her and said very simply, “You.”
If she was surprised she did not show it. Instead she pulled back the bedcovers and answered, “Then come in, Master Governor.”
He stood up and removed the all-enveloping cloak, then his coat, then started on his waistcoat buttons. In a second Sara was out of bed and helping him. And suddenly it was fun to get undressed with a woman to assist. Thanking God that his years of service had kept him lean and muscular, Tom just stood there and, wiping the tears away, started to laugh as she took off his boots and finally his trousers, till eventually he stood before her as naked as Adam.
“You’re finely made, Sir.”
“Stop calling me Sir. If I am to be your lover you must call me Tom.”
“I never could be that familiar, Governor. I must always address you by your title.”
“Do whatever pleases you,” he answered carelessly. “Just kiss me.”
The girl needed no invitation, nestling in his arms as if she had always been there. She raised her head to his and he caressed her lips with his own until they were kissing deeply and long. Then, feeling himself grow hard, he carried her to the bed, pulled off the long, white nightdress and mingled his flesh with hers with utter enjoyment. But it was not easy for him and he realised that Sara had been a virgin until he had taken it away from her. Yet by now he was shuddering in the throes of ecstasy and, crying out, released into her with a great shout of triumph. Then slowly he relaxed, and turned to her.
“Did I hurt you, Sara?”
“Yes, Governor. It was painful.”
“I’m sorry. I should have realised. It just never occurred to me that I would be the first.”
“Didn’t it?”
“No, not for a second. You’re such a beautiful girl.”
His hand was running over her as he spoke, caressing her breasts and lower. Then he began to fondle a certain spot, rubbing and kissing it until she too let out a cry of triumph.
“Oh, Governor, that was good,” she gasped.
Tom smiled and kissed her, before he entered her again.
*
The three men crept across the street in total silence. Paul Revere, having whispered their instructions to them, had vanished into the night about his own affairs. But by now they were anxious to carry out his wishes and so, looking round to see whether anyone was watching and finding the place deserted, Robert Newman inserted his sexton’s key into the lock of Christ Church.
“Thomas, you stand guard,” he whispered. “John and I will make the signal.”
A quarter of an hour later it was done. The two men, the lanthorns hung around their necks, had climbed the creaking staircase then ascended a narrow ladder above and gone, rung after rung, past the sleeping bells, to the uppermost window in the steeple. Throwing open the sash, they hung two lights out into the night, clearly visible to the watching eyes across the water in Charlestown.
But their descent was somewhat more perilous. Having at last regained the safety of the church and hidden their lanthorns in a closet, they were just preparing to leave when they saw a detachment of soldiers in the street near the church door. Of Thomas Bernard there was no sign. He had presumably been sensible and made his way home at the first hint of danger. Running through the church, Newman indicated a window near the altar. Both uttering a silent prayer, the two men pulled a bench up to it and climbed safely through. Their mission had been accomplished.
*
Tom, though he was longing to fall into a deep sleep and spend the night with the wondrous girl who had changed his life, reluctantly forced himself to get up and dressed, gazing out at the moon which was rising, almost full, behind Boston. He stood still for a moment, memorising the scene, thinking about the beauty of the sight and the beauty of Sara, who had given herself to him so totally and without inhibition.
“What are you looking at?” asked her voice from the bed.
“The moon rising. It looks wonderful. Come and see.”
She got out and stood beside him, the silver light once again highlighting the beauty of her body.
“How glorious it seems.”
“Glorious to light an ugly scene.”
He felt her grow tense. “What do you mean, Governor?”
“I mean that before it rises again a lot of people will know fear.”
“And death? Are men going to their death?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” he said glibly.
But he was worried. Worried by what Lord Percy had said, worried suddenly that his men were going to meet resistance from the colonists.
Sara reached up and turned his face to look at her. “I hope not,” she said. “I do hope that people aren’t going to lay down their lives.”
“Nobody could wish it more fervently than I,” he answered her. He turned away, picking up his cloak from where it lay on the floor. “Goodbye, my darling, and thank you.”
“That sounds as if you are never going to see me again.”
The Governor turned to the girl and looked at her most earnestly. “Sara, you will never know how much I needed you tonight. I felt as if the whole of my life – well, the last twenty years of it at least – had been for absolutely nothing. I was desperate to find some solace and I found it with you.”
“So you will come back?”
“Of course I will. Every night I can. But I think you should find somewhere more private to live. Will you look for such a place in the morning?”
“But Master Governor…”
“I will cover the expense, Sara. You needn’t worry about that.”
“And you, Sir? Are you going to be all right?”
“I’ll get through this with your help, my girl, don’t you worry.” And so saying, the Governor kissed her once more and took his leave.
*
Margaret lay in bed, wide-eyed, unable to sleep at all. She had crept back from the stables unseen and had cautiously gone upstairs to her bedroom. There, without calling her maid, she had undressed herself and got into bed, expecting Tom to come upstairs eventually. But despite the fact she had not heard him go out, though there had been the sound of somebody calling later than planned, he h
ad not come and for some reason she had felt uneasy. And that unease had grown with every passing hour. Lighting a candle that stood beside her bed, Margaret stared at the decorative clock that stood on the mantelpiece. It was two o’clock in the morning and Thomas had still not come to bed.
Slipping a night-rail round her shoulders, Margaret took the candle and started to make her way along the corridor, then down the stairs that twisted round before they reached the bottom. The ground floor was shadowy and somehow sinister, full of pools of impenetrable darkness that seemed to reach out with long fingers to pluck her into their depths. Skirting round them, she made her way tremulously into the study and, lighting more candles, gazed round.
There was no sign of Tom and no indication whether he had left in a hurry. Trying to recollect whether he had gone into the library, Margaret made her way there. And here she found the clues she needed. There were two glasses that had once contained brandy, still standing where they had been put down, and a sheaf of papers had been left tossed carelessly on the floor. She stood stock still trying to work it out.
Then the thought came that he had gone to see the men embarking, had been called for by Lord Percy and had accompanied him to Back Bay to watch the men set forth. Without really knowing what she was doing, Margaret poured a drop of brandy into one of the two dirty glasses and sipped it. And then she heard the front door open.
She stood frozen to the spot, racked with guilt for betraying her husband’s secret. Then the thought of Joseph’s passionate kisses came to taunt her and make her feel even worse about the meeting in the stable. Utterly still, Margaret waited and eventually saw the study door open and Tom stand in the entrance. He stared at her, dumbstruck.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
A thousand thoughts ran through Margaret’s brain, the most paramount of which was to bluff it out should he accuse her.
“I got up to look for you, Husband. You did not come to bed.”
“I do not sleep with traitors,” he answered flatly, and turned away from her.
At that moment of death, the death of everything they had ever meant to one another, Margaret felt nothing at all, just a blankness that seemed to start inside her stomach and spread throughout her body.
“What do you mean?” she heard someone say, and realised that it was her own voice that had just spoken.
He turned back to her. “Don’t try and deceive me, Margaret. I only told two people where we were heading, and the other one I would trust with my life. The fact that you betrayed me speaks loud and clear. As far as I am concerned our marriage is at an end.”
She stood, icy and frozen, looking at him, while he returned her glance calmly.
“I shall send you back to England on the first available ship,” he said. “Now I bid you goodnight.”
He had dismissed her, just as if she had been someone from lower ranks that he had become bored with.
“Let me speak…” she started.
“No,” he said crisply, “we have nothing further to say to each other. Now, may I suggest that you retire upstairs. I shall sleep here tonight and will make other arrangements in the morning.”
And with that he blew out the candles, handing her one to light her way to bed.
Margaret went up the stairs with her thoughts in turmoil. It was obvious that she could not plead her cause now. Matters like that must wait until tomorrow. So thinking she got into bed and finally fell into a fitful sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
April 19th, 1775
While Margaret slept, the American War of Independence, also known as the Revolutionary War, began. Dawn was just breaking in the hamlet of Lexington when the weary troops – they had left Boston five hours earlier and still had not been told where they were going or why – came marching round a bend in the road. Before them lay Lexington’s meeting house, the largest building in the place, standing just beyond a big oak tree. Beside it lay the wooden bell tower, still pealing the alarm that the Redcoats were on their way. Beyond that again lay the Buckman Tavern. And there, standing on the village green, silently awaiting their arrival, were the men of Lexington, armed and ready.
“Bugger ’em,” said Major Pitcairn, seeing the sight. “They’ve had warning.”
Paul Revere had indeed escaped from Boston that night, as had William Dawes, despite the order that no one was to leave the town after nine o’clock. Crossing the Charles River, rowed by two friends with muffled oars, Revere had reached Charlestown by the skin of his teeth, sailing right beneath the hulk of the great ship Somerset, yet remaining unseen.
He had been greeted by William Conant and various other revolutionaries from the village. They had seen the signal in the church steeple and had prepared for his arrival. A good stout mount called Brown Beauty, one of the fastest creatures in the neighbourhood, had been lent to him and stocky Revere, his dark French face burning with intensity, had set off for Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams to make haste and go.
He had arrived at Lexington’s parsonage, having escaped from a British roadblock, where the two men were staying, guests of the clergyman Jonas Clarke. The house was in darkness, guarded by local militiamen. But on his shouted insistence that the Regulars were on their way, he had gained admittance and delivered the warning to Hancock and Adams. Half an hour later William Dawes had arrived and the five men had gone to the tavern on the green to refresh themselves. Then, with Lexington’s bell tolling a warning, Revere and Dawes had set off for Concord.
Now Major Pitcairn said, “Bugger ’em,” once more.
He had ordered his men to load as soon as he heard the clarion, much to their surprise. They had not imagined that they would be attacked or even molested on the march. But things were turning out very differently. So it was with loaded guns that they rounded that fateful bend in the road and heard a military drum beating a call to arms.
Nobody was quite certain what to do next, though they could hear the orders being passed down the line of Lexington men. “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they want to have a war let it begin here.”
Then a young Marine lieutenant, Jesse Adair, fighting on the British side, made a momentous decision. The main road divided by the meeting house, left going to Concord, right to the Buckman Tavern and other village houses. He led his column to the right, shouting,
“Damn them, we will have them.”
Major Pitcairn galloped forward, leading his company to the left, then halted them, managing to stop three of Adair’s companies from advancing. But two units, following behind the charging lieutenant, were going at full thrust. Pitcairn was powerless and could only look on in anguish as the men broke into a run and started to shout the British infantry’s battlecry, “Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!” Seventy yards from the men of Lexington, they deployed into a line of battle. The men in the rear came hurtling forward, the sergeants and subalterns dropped back. Major Pitcairn galloped his horse forwards, shrieking, “Disperse, you bastards. I order you to disperse, blast you.” Then turning to the Lexington men, he shouted, “Lay down your arms, you damned rebels!”
The Lexington force’s commander turned to his men and ordered that they comply, and some began to scatter, moving backwards and to both sides, though some did not hear the order and stayed where they were. And then a shot rang out, a shot whose echo would be heard right round the world. Nobody knew who had fired it or from which side it came. But to the British infantry, worked to a frenzy by their charge and repeated battlecry, it was a signal and they started to fire in response. Thus began the Revolutionary War.
*
Margaret having left the room, Tom threw himself into a chair and closed his eyes. Without doubt this had been the most terrible, yet the most exciting day of his entire life. Yet he could not push away the feeling of unease that lay upon him. Indeed before he had faced Margaret with the truth, before he had fled through the night to Sara, he had written one last note to the brigade major o
f Hugh Percy’s regiment, Captain Thomas Moncrieffe. In it he had asked that Lord Percy’s crack troops be under arms at four o’clock the next morning, ready to march if needed. He had given this note to a messenger, and then Tom Gage had faced his own nadir.
Now, though, thoughts of the fate of the men whose embarkation he had gone briefly to watch, haunted him. He had visions of the Yankees fighting back, of gunfire and wounding and death. Getting up and pacing the room, Tom eventually flung himself on a chaise longue and fell into an uncomfortable sleep.
He was woken at five o’clock by Robin’s hand shaking his shoulder. Instantly Tom was fully conscious. He sat up, alert.
“What is it, Robin?”
“A rider is here from Colonel Smith, Governor.”
“Show him in at once.”
A minute later a dust-streaked and exhausted young man entered and gave a tired salute. “Sorry to disturb you, Governor, but I come from Colonel Smith. Sir, the country people have risen against us and we are in urgent need of reinforcements.”
Tom struggled into his coat. “So the worst has happened.” It was not said as a question.
“Yes, Sir. It started in Lexington and continued in Concord. They’re fighting well organised, Sir.”
“I’ve ordered Lord Percy’s 1st Brigade to go on stand-by in case this very thing should happen. I want you to ride and see that Captain Moncrieffe has them ready. I’ll follow in about ten minutes.”
“Very good, Sir.”
“Then you can go and get some rest,” Tom added. To Robin, who entered as soon as the galloper had gone, he said, “Robin, bring me some coffee if you would. I shall wash myself then go out immediately.” To the slave’s unspoken question, he answered, “I slept down here last night for fear of disturbing Mrs. Gage.”
Making his way upstairs Tom passed through his bedroom on the way to his dressing room. Margaret lay with eyes tightly shut, not moving. Her husband had the strongest impression that she was actually awake but feigning sleep because it was the easiest course. He felt a cold fury sweep him and walked swiftly past the bed which, up till the moment of her betrayal, he had happily shared with her. Ten minutes later he had hastily shaved and washed in cold water. He was ready for another day.
