Captain Putnam for the Republic of Texas

by James Haley

  Bliven raised his hand. “Waiter? Waiter! What is this commotion outside, do you know?”

  “Have you not heard, sir? The nunnery is on fire on Mount Benedict Hill.”

  “Oh, my heavens!”

  “Well, they have been asking for it, sir, haven’t they? The word is that at least one of their students is being held there against her will and forced to participate in all that bizarre kneeling and crossing themselves and whatnot.”

  “Yes,” intoned Beecher, “it has been an outpost of the devil these past seven years. If they are ablaze now it is but a foretaste of their future.”

  “I am not so certain, Reverend,” said Clarity. “I have heard that only very few of their students are of the Roman faith and that the education they receive is of the best quality. You know the majority of them are needy and would otherwise receive no schooling at all.”

  “Exactly the class that they prey upon!” insisted Beecher. “They are the perfect combination of ignorant and vulnerable—and grateful!”

  Bliven gave a single swipe at his lips with his napkin. “Freddy, come quickly. We must go see if we can help. Reverend, will you come?”

  Beecher stared down at his plate. “God’s will be done.”

  Bliven stared at him in a moment of disbelief. “God’s will be done and the devil take you, then. Come on, Freddy!”

  As they sat, suddenly alone, Beecher cut once more into his meat. “My dear Mrs. Putnam, I am shocked. Your husband has not seen you for the greater part of a year, and on the evening of your reunion he not only deserts you but does so to fly to the aid of a nest of papists. I say, I am shocked. Whatever shall you say to him when he returns?”

  Clarity rose from the table, so slowly and evenly that she seemed to levitate, her eyes never leaving Beecher’s, disbelieving that he would ask such a thing, and he also stood according to custom but uncomfortable in the movement. “He has gone to help fight a fire in the hottest time of the summer,” she said. “When he returns, I shall have a basin of cool water waiting for him, and towels. I shall wash the soot from his face and I will say, ‘Well done, my dearest love.’ Good night, Reverend.”

  Taken aback, he bowed. “Your servant, ma’am.” When she had left the room he observed his unfinished portion, sat again, and tucked the napkin into the front of his collar.

  * * *

  * * *

  Together Bliven and Freddy walked fast across the Training Field to its northern corner, where Adams and Winthrop met to become High Street. They followed the throng as they passed Bunker Hill and, to their astonishment, heard curses uttered against the portion of it that had become the Catholic cemetery. “Look at that,” spat one. “This sacred spot of American freedom, taken over as a burying ground for the damned Romanists. If their convent is burning, it is well and truly done.”

  They followed on perhaps a third of a mile to the Neck, where Charlestown’s principal streets angled together, and saw the two bridges on their right that crossed the Charles River. Ahead of them they could clearly see the glow and occasional lick of flame. The crowd, far from growing tired, quickened its pace.

  They reached the foot of Benedict Hill and saw at its low summit an imposing three-story building, fully engulfed in flames. Just inside the property’s gate they stopped short and stared in disbelief. “What is this?” breathed Bliven. “I had thought these people were coming to fight the fire. Look: they are making fun and parading and celebrating!”

  At forty-seven, Bliven Putnam had never yet seen a riot. He had seen Berber corsairs on the deck of their xebec, hooting and gesturing, and seen the glint of their scimitars brandished to frighten their quarry into a quick surrender. And he had seen Malay Boogis and Hawaiian kahunas employing the same intimidation, but these were Americans.

  He had always assumed, without actually dwelling in thought on it, that by living under the same government, with similar educations and shared values and experience, riots would never occur to them. Even more so, this was Boston, the center of culture and learning. Yet here they were, with clubs and pitchforks and firebrands hefted above their heads. Several barrels of pitch had been set alight around the grounds to better illuminate the revelry. Some men stood together in groups, smoking cigars. “This is an outrage!” He stepped forward, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword.

  Meriden caught him by the arm. “I wouldn’t, Captain. I make at least five hundred men to your one. You would be lucky if all they did to you was douse you in tar and feathers and ride you around the grounds on a rail. I could not answer to your wife if I let that happen.”

  Bliven’s shoulders sagged. “You are right, of course. Look, there.” He pointed to a bonfire some hundred feet in front of the burning building, around which cavorted a dozen or so men wearing the Ursuline habit over their own clothes. To one side lay a giant mound of books. “It is obvious that they ransacked the building before torching it, which gives ample evidence of the forethought of their actions, and that will weigh against them at their trial.”

  “Trial?” Meriden looked at him quizzically, his eyes wide. “Do you see anyone here to arrest them?”

  “Come, then.” He pulled Fred Meriden by the elbow. “We shall mingle in an approving manner, but mark well the faces of the leaders, that we may identify them later.”

  They approached the book burning and discovered it presided over by one particular man, tall and with an angular face and a beard like a whaling captain. He had draped himself in a black scapular, but not knowing how to assemble the headgear satisfied himself to drape a white underveil over his head. Before a part of the throng, he picked up each book in turn, opened it and announced its title, and asked the mob, “What shall we do with it?”

  “Burn it!” they roared, and cheered as he cast it into the blaze.

  As they stood there they saw one clot of men enter the chapel, which was a small building that stood a distance apart from the school. Within seconds six of them emerged carrying a coffin, and they came at a run across the hill to the bonfire. There they broke it open and extracted the desiccated remains of a nun in her habit and cast her into the fire.

  One of the ladies in the mob cried out, “Burn in hell, you witch!”

  Meriden put his lips at Bliven’s ear. “How appropriate. Reliving our history.”

  They heard one woman ask a laughing pall bearer, “I heard that is where they have also buried the babies that were born here. Have you found their bodies?”

  “No,” he answered. “You may be sure they have been very cleverly hidden. The crypt is full, but rest assured we will find them.”

  Further men came with a second and third and fourth coffin. Each one they broke open and threw its deceased nun into the flames.

  Leaving Meriden to make his own exploration, Bliven stalked around the side of the building, a safe distance from the wall should it collapse. He passed a party of eight or ten men stretched out on the grass, cutting cheese on a plate and eating it on crackers, and stopped to stare at them. “Glass of wine, Captain?” offered one.

  “Thank you, no, I am . . . looking for someone.”

  Continuing to the rear of the building, he saw in the distance a nun standing in the convent garden, gazing at the fire. She observed him when he was yet a distance away. He approached her, giving a quick but correct salute. “Captain Putnam, ma’am, United States Navy. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thank you, Captain. I am Mary Edmond St. George, the Mother Superior of the order here.”

  “Are your people safe?”

  “Yes. There was sufficient warning for all the sisters and the students to escape to the house of a friend of ours, on Winter Hill. It is not far.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  “Most importantly, we were also able to save the Eucharist.” She smiled sadly and pointed to some freshly turned earth in a large patch of tall, feathery gr
een ferns. “It seems the Host is now defended by spears—of asparagus.”

  Bliven smiled. The asparagus in mention was long past its stage of harvesting the spears, and had been allowed to grow up to flower and seed; he appreciated her presence of mind, and her humor. He shook his head. “Reverend Mother, I am so ashamed of all of them. Did you not see, they emptied the chapel of your dead sisters and cast them onto the fire.”

  “I did see, my son, and it caused me great pain. I served with those sisters for many years and they were dear friends to me. But the Bible tells us that this corruptible shall put on incorruption. My departed sisters are safe in the arms of the Lord. This vandalism of their bodies does not alter their bliss in paradise.”

  He stared at her, astonished and searching. “I am at a loss, ma’am. Until this moment I never could have supposed my countrymen capable of such lunacy.”

  “Captain”—she laid her hand on his arm—“did you suppose that just because you live in the United States, with your aspiration to all that lovely equality and democracy, that your people are not prey to the same ignorance and prejudice as people everywhere?”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose I did.” Through his coat sleeve he felt her squeeze his arm hard, and he studied her face. He guessed she was fifty, pale and lined. Above her long black scapular her face was framed in the white of her coif and guimpe, her crown band and underveil, all white, either bright or pale according to the rage of the fire. “Is there no one to fight the blaze?” he asked.

  “Indeed, yes,” she said with a kind of sarcastic enthusiasm. “They are on the grounds at this moment, four different volunteer fire brigades.”

  He stared at her, his face slack.

  “You just passed by one of them: those gentlemen there, lying on the grass, eating cheese on crackers. If they tried to fight the fire—that is, if they had such a disposition—the mob would prevent them, and there might be violence. We would not wish that. The rioters will disperse when they have vented their evil. We can rebuild the convent and we can replace the books. We just give thanks to God that no one has been hurt.”

  “Your accent is French, Reverend Mother.”

  “I am québécoise, a safely Catholic place. We came here at the call of your bishop in Boston to open the school for the children of your poor, and the immigrants.” Her voice took a tone of censure. “Your own wealthy class have done nothing for them.”

  “Yes, my wife has told me that your school’s reputation was—is—quite excellent.”

  “Your wife? Oh, forgive me, Captain! Is she the famous Mrs. Putnam, the authoress of the adventure novels?”

  He laughed quickly and loudly. “Her fame outshines me once again.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Hers are among the few novels that we allow our girls to read. Her account of your missionaries in the Sandwich Islands was quite thrilling.” She shrugged. “They were not Catholic, of course, but the larger lesson was the lengths to which they went to help those poor natives.”

  “It will not surprise you, Reverend Mother, to learn that my wife was truly there and that she knew intimately the people of whom she wrote. My wife may write stories that are fiction, but she infuses them with so many true events that they could well stand as histories.”

  Mother Mary Edmond St. George nodded. “I am not surprised.” Just then they heard a series of tremendous crashes. Their gaze shot up to the convent in time to see its roof collapse into the third floor, which further collapsed into the second and then the ground floor. The garden grew suddenly bright as day in the tall geyser of flame and sparks that shot up from the burning shell, and they heard a distant cheer rise from the mob.

  Bliven thought, This is ridiculous. “Reverend Mother, we are standing in the light of your burning convent, and you register no grief, no outrage. You converse as calmly as if you were at a garden party.”

  She inclined her head at the spectacle. “Things, my son. A grand building, to be sure, with simple but solid furnishings. It is a mistake to attach one’s self to things. Attachment to God is the only permanence, and this the mob cannot touch. That is the lesson I am trying to draw from this tragedy.” She sighed heavily. “And now I beg you to excuse me, I must get back to our friend’s house and see to the comfort of the sisters and the students. We will come look tomorrow”—her face grew ineffably sad—“and we will see if there is anything left to salvage.” She extended her hand, and he took it. “Captain Putnam, I thank you for your kindness. Bishop Fenwick shall hear of it.”

  * * *

  * * *

  It was past two o’clock in the morning when he opened the door to their room in the inn on Putnam Street and found Clarity still awake and dressed. “Dearest,” she asked, “how was it?”

  “I hardly know what to say.” He unbuckled his sword, flung his coat into a chair, and sank onto the couch. “The fire was deliberate. It was arson. There was a mob, jeering and hooting. I never saw such a thing in the darkest corners of the world. And do you know what else? Not content with burning the school, they took the trouble to loot their library first and made a separate bonfire on the lawn before it. One of their ringleaders read out the title of each book and was cheered as he cast it into the blaze.”

  “God in heaven! Please tell me that no one was injured.”

  “Thankfully, that was a mercy. The nuns and the students all reached safety. I found the Mother Superior in the garden, alone, watching the fire. And do you know? She uttered not one word of condemnation.” He felt he was at the edge of weeping but forbade himself. “She regretted their violence but ascribed it to their fear and ignorance. And I have no doubt in my mind that as she says her prayers even at this moment, she is forgiving them.”

  Clarity wrung a cloth above a basin of cool water and then sat by him, cleansing his face of sweat and soot.

  “And shall I tell you the worst of it?”

  “Good Lord, what more can there be?”

  “The mob, as they burnt the books, called out praises on your Reverend Beecher.”

  She drew back. “Oh, no.”

  “Has he never heard that incitement to riot is a serious crime?”

  “Dearest, you are shaking. I have never seen you so overwrought.”

  “No. No, I shake a little. It is a small affliction that I acquired in the Caribbean. It will pass. Now, there is something I must ask you.” She quieted and looked at him, worried and expectant. “How many of his sermons did you attend on yesterday? All of them? Did you escort him from church to church?”

  “No, dearest, I attended only the last one, here at the Town Hill Church.”

  “And did he hold forth against the Catholics?”

  “Of course. That was his topic; he delivered the same sermon three several times. Dearest, you truly are shaking.”

  “It will pass. Now, think on this carefully: Did he preach against letting Protestant children be educated in a Catholic school? If so, what did he say, exactly?”

  “Yes, of course. He said that a sect so avid for their perversions could not pass by such an opportunity to indoctrinate the young and innocent.”

  “Oh, good God. Did he utter any call to action? Did he even say something on the order of ‘Somebody should do something’?”

  “Certainly, Bliv. That was the whole point of his message, that it was up to the people of Boston and Charlestown and the surrounding communities to act, and to act decisively, lest their children be seduced and in time all be led into popery.”

  “Oh my God. Is it possible that he does not realize what he has done? If he incited them, then he is guilty along with them.”

  “Oh, nonsense. He had no hand in burning down the convent. And now I am going to insist that you go straightaway to bed and rest. You are clearly not well.”

  “No.” He started to rise. “Which is his room? He must be warned that the law may come for him, even so s
oon as tonight.”

  “Oh, very well.” She pressed him back onto the couch. “I shall go and speak to him. You get yourself into the bed this instant; I insist upon it.”

  Bliven calmed and relaxed. “Very well, my love. Send Freddy to the stable to hitch the coach. Tell Beecher that unless he wishes to be arrested, he must clear out tonight—right now. He must not pause or feel safe until he gets back to Ohio. Tell him that we can advise him in future whether he has been indicted, and when, if ever, it is safe to return. Or, if he is so certain that he has done a righteous thing, he may return and stand trial. He might exult in that, for never would so many eyes be on him. And if he is convicted, think of his joy in martyrdom.”

  Clarity squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. “I shall return directly.”

  As soon as the door closed behind her, he stood, pausing to find his balance, and made his way to the bed. He sat on it and laughed softly to himself, perhaps in shock, for just a second. He felt cold, August though it may have been, and unfolded a quilt from the foot of the bed.

  Clarity was gone so long that he fell asleep, but was alert again the instant the door opened. “What did Beecher say?”

  “I knocked and there was no answer. When I tried the door I found it open and the room was empty, the bed was unmade. I went downstairs and found the proprietor still at his desk.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Yes. It was the reverend who had awakened him. He informed me that Mr. Beecher was called away to urgent business. Two men came for him and helped him gather his things, and they all left together.”

  Bliven harrumphed. “Well, at least he has an instinct for self-preservation, like any beast of prey.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “The spell has passed, I think—and better now to know that we did not have to risk our own reputations to aid the flight of a fugitive.”

  “Now, we do not know that he is any stripe of fugitive, do we, dearest?” She looked to him for a reply but saw he had sunk back into deep slumber.