More Than Sorrow Page 9

  “Like so many simple ideas,” Jake said, “this one was almost lost in the rush to mass-scale, factory farming.”

  Connor spread out his big hands. “That’s why I’m glad I’m here. To learn this sort of stuff from you guys.”

  I brought out slices of cake left over from the previous night’s dinner, and Joanne assigned the afternoon tasks. Liz was to weed the tomato fields, Allison to plant carrots, and Connor to work the rows of peas which were germinating under landscape fabric at the back of the property. He groaned and said he’d rather babysit the chicks and everyone laughed.

  The workers trooped back outside, farm work certainly doesn’t stop because of a bit of rain, and as usual Connor and I did up the dishes.

  When we finished, he went back to work and I headed for the shop to see what needed replenishing.

  As I splashed my way across the yard, with an escort of two chickens, a shiny black SUV pulled into the parking area. A couple got out, city people by the look of their immaculate perfectly-ironed clothes. I caught myself smiling. Since when did I come to regard city people as outsiders?

  I helped them buy eggs and lettuce, popped their money into the cash box, and headed back to the house.

  Other than the occasional pass-by with the mower, Jake and Joanne’s yard isn’t looked after. The lawn’s as much dandelions and crab grass as grass and once the annuals are planted, weeds are allowed to have their wicked way with them. Vegetation, whether weeds or grass, is thin where family, farmworkers, customers, visitors to the seedling day or harvest party march across the lawn. Masses of orange tiger lilies grew wild in the ditch, as they did at the side of roads all over the county, and tall hollyhocks bursting with pink and red flowers were clustered around the mail box. I was thinking that the shop needed more eggs and wasn’t watching where I was going. As I rounded the back, passing the entrance to the root cellar beneath, my foot hit a patch of mud. Before I knew what was happening, I was down, sliding toward the door. My head struck a rock half-buried in the soil.

  ***

  September 12, 1775

  Mr. and Mrs. Hamish Macgregor returned from Charleston to the Mohawk Valley in September, and it became impossible for Maggie to ignore the talk. War was in the air. Revolution.

  Such nonsense. Men’s nonsense.

  She had a household to set up, a staff to assemble. Hostess duties and wifely duties to perform. Which she did with great joy and considerable competence.

  She was in the library, writing a letter to the youngest of her brothers. She chatted about the delights of married life—not quite all of the delights!—and news of the family in South Carolina, and all of the wonderful things she and Hamish had done there. She was closing the letter with a few words about the weather when she became aware she was not alone. She turned to see Hamish standing in the doorway. He held a scrap of paper in his hand and was watching her with a look of sadness she rarely saw on his handsome face.

  She lifted a hand to the lace at her collar. “Dearest? Is something the matter?”

  He crossed the room in quick, angry strides. “A note from George Burkart. He had another visit from the gentlemen of the so-called Committee of Public Safety,” Hamish’s mouth turned up in a sneer, “Suggesting that he and the rest of the men in his family sign their blasted American Association.”

  Maggie signed her letter with a flourish of an “M.” “Would they prefer not to?”

  “Yes, my sweet. They would prefer not to. As would I. The Association binds its signatories to promise not to trade with Britain or buy British goods.”

  “If they don’t want to sign it, then they shouldn’t,” she said, quite sensibly. She folded the letter.

  “George says he has decided he will have to sign. The suggestions are getting stronger. I’m hearing the same thing from other men in the valley. These men calling themselves Patriots are refusing to frequent the shops or otherwise do any business with those of us who are not prepared to renounce the loyalty we have sworn to our King.”

  Maggie lifted her shoulders. There was a bad streak on the window, most visible in the lovely morning light that was streaming in. Hadn’t Mrs. O’Malley, the housekeeper, said something about the maid leaving?

  “There’s been talk of making reluctant men sign.” Hamish paced back and forth across the carpet.

  Maggie had no interest in politics, but she did care about Hamish. “Jane left yesterday,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Jane. Or was it Joan? The small dark-haired maid.”

  He threw up his hands, “I don’t care how you run your household, Maggie. Get another maid.”

  “Something about her father refusing to let her work here any longer,” Maggie said.

  “Oh. I see.” He approached her chair and smiled down at her. He reached out a hand and touched a tendril of hair that had escaped from her bonnet.

  “I’m going to New York,” he said. “I’ll be several days, a week maybe.”

  “But we just got home! I am so wanting to have a dinner party soon. My first as a married woman at my own table.”

  “Your party will have to wait. A lot of things,” he stroked the lock of hair, “will have to wait.”

  ***

  May 25 1776

  Even Maggie had been unable to ignore the talk of war and revolution that filled the towns and the countryside that winter.

  She lost another maid and could see that work on the farm was falling far behind. The crops were late to be planted and eventually Hamish himself was spending hours behind the plough. Most of the men had left. The young and strong ones, he told her, some to join the Continental Army, some to join haphazard assortments of makeshift militia loyal to the King. He had returned from New York as the leaves turned scarlet and yellow and orange, his handsome face dark and troubled, to spend most of the winter reading and writing letters and touring the countryside.

  He had no sympathy for the rebels, thought that if they just sat across the table like Englishmen should, they could work out their differences with King and Parliament. But he didn’t want to fight for the King either. His maternal grandfather had been with the Bonnie Prince at Culloden. Where he’d died, his wife and children evicted from their land. Hamish didn’t talk much to his wife, to Maggie, and she didn’t ask. Politics weren’t women’s business.

  It was too late to insist upon being neutral. A man, Hamish explained, was expected to stand for one side or the other. If you weren’t for one side, they’d assume you were for the other.

  He told her, one morning over breakfast while outside the snow fell heavy onto the dark fields, that he wanted simply to do the right thing. And, he had decided, the right thing was not to take sides. To hope that men of reason could come to a reasonable arrangement. Matters of taxation should never be allowed to result in open war.

  Maggie thought that an eminently sensible idea. But, it appeared, not many others did. She and Hamish became increasingly isolated, as their neighbors declined her invitations and women turned their heads if they happened to pass on the streets or in the shops of Schenectady.

  Letters began to arrive from Maggie’s parents. Mother was worried about her, begging Maggie to visit. Hamish did not read the letters aloud he received from her father, but his face grew dark.

  “Your father,” he said, tossing one such missive into the fire, “has been infected with this disease the foolish call liberty. I call it treason and warmongering. He is ordering me to appear in front of him and accompany him to a meeting of his committee to explain why I have not joined them. I doubt that even if I did agree I would get much explaining in. Until I do so, it would appear I am no longer welcome in his home. Which is of no consequence because I do not wish to be there. But it will make it most uncomfortable for you to visit.”

  She gave him a smile. “This is my ho
me, here, with you, and the only place I want to be.”

  By May of 1776, Maggie was joyously, delightfully, radiantly pregnant. The birth would be in November, and she was confident that the troubles would be over and she’d be able to restaff the house and get everything ready for the arrival of their baby. Hamish was overjoyed and some of the darkness that had lain behind his eyes all winter began to lift.

  She was embroidering patterns of roses onto baby blankets when the front door slammed. Hamish came into her parlor, followed by one of the older men, one of the few still working on the farm. She got to her feet at the look on her husband’s face. He had been in the barn, seeing to a horse about to foal for the first time, and his boots were thick with mud and straw. The man with him did not even bother to remove his cap.

  Maggie lifted her hands to her mouth. “What…” she began.

  “Old Robbie Hendricks has been tarred and feathered and run out of town.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? For no reason, that’s why! He’s an old man who scarcely knows his own name any more. He was stopped in town by a gang of drunken militiamen who demanded he declare his allegiance. ‘Patriot or traitor?’ they asked. He replied ‘Traitor?’ as a question. He’d forgotten the meaning of the word. Well, that was enough for them. They set on him, tarred and feathered him and rode him out of town on a rail.”

  “A misunderstanding, I’m sure,” she said.

  “Do you not know what tarring can do to a man, Margaret?”

  He hadn’t called her by her proper name since their wedding. She shook her head.

  “This happened a week ago. Robbie’s dead. The hot tar burned him, badly, and the burns were not healing well. But it was the rail that did him in. It emasculated him.”

  Maggie blinked, not understanding at first. Then all the blood drained from her face and she collapsed. Fortunately her chair was behind her knees; Hamish scarcely noticed her distress. “There is no law now, no justice. No one will be held to account for the death of Robbie. It’s tyranny by the mob, as the Loyalists have long feared.

  “Ben here will take you to your parents. Pack a few things quickly. I’ve made up my mind, Maggie, and I’m sorry to have had to do it. But if they’re forcing us to take sides, then I will not side with a mob of hooligans. I’ve been in touch with Sir John Johnson and am leaving, now, to join The King’s Royal Regiment of New York.”

  “Hamish! You can’t be serious.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her. He took both of her hands in hers and looked into her eyes for a very long time. “I’ve waited too long, Maggie. I thought it would settle down, but the course has been set and it will be a fight to the finish. No civilization can be built on treason and lawlessness. These Patriots don’t know what they’re doing. You,” his eyes dropped to her stomach, “and our child will be safer at your parents.” He pressed her hands to his lips and then rose to his feet in one swift liquid movement. “It will all be over soon, and I’ll be back. Get ready now, quickly.”

  With a few long strides he was gone and all the sunlight fled the room.

  ***

  July 11, 1776

  Maggie’s father was a member of the Colonial Assembly. A constant stream of men passed through their house, and all the talk was about raising an army to fight the forces of the English King. The Americans, Maggie’s mother explained, had declared their independence from Britain and they would have to fight to keep it. “There is no more King,” she explained. “All men are now equal.”

  “Women too?”

  “Don’t be foolish.”

  “Mr. Hudack owns some Negro slaves. Will they be free now?”

  “Don’t ask such questions. This is men’s business. Nothing to do with us. Go and change your dress. Mrs. O’Reilly and her daughters are coming for tea. What Eunice is going to do with that third daughter of hers, I have no idea. They certainly don’t have enough money to make up for the fact that she looks like a particularly stupid horse.”

  Maggie had not told her parents Hamish had joined a Royal regiment. She’d muttered something about troubles on the farm and meetings in New York and his suggestion that she take the opportunity to rest at the home of her parents.

  Maggie’s mother hadn’t much cared why Hamish was gone from home; she was simply delighted by the opportunity to fuss over her daughter and to assemble clothes and other goods for the arrival of her first grandchild. Her father had puffed on his pipe, ran his eyes over Maggie’s face, and said, “Better he be gone then,” and left his wife and daughter to women’s business. Two of Maggie’s brothers had joined the Continental Army.

  That evening they were entertaining guests at dinner, three gentlemen travelling to a meeting of the Committee of Safety. Although she was five months into her pregnancy, it was not yet showing, and so Maggie was allowed to join the company for dinner. She listened to the men talk—not one of them had said a word to her since the initial greetings—pushed the overdone roast beef around on her plate and said, “Hamish says we have a duty of loyalty to our King.”

  One of the visitors, a fat man with a giant red ball for a nose, who’d earlier tried very hard to peer down her décolletage, snorted. “We have no duty to a tyrant three thousand miles away. We are free men.”

  “Hamish says people are getting far too overwrought. He says a matter of taxation can be settled between right-thinking men without resorting to war.”

  The second of the visitors, a tall thin man with a hooked nose and pale blue eyes, turned to Maggie’s father. His voice was very low. “You allow support of tyranny in your home, sir?”

  “I most certainly do not. The lass doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  “Hamish says that once men begin to use words such as tyranny and liberty they lose all meaning, and men of sense no longer communicate with one another.”

  A chair crashed to the floor. The fat man was on his feet. His eyes bulged and a trail of brown gravy tricked out of one corner of his mouth. “Who is this Hamish, who dares to presume he can lecture free men on the meaning of words?”

  Maggie’s father gave her mother a jerk of his head. She rose to her feet with considerably more grace than had her guest. Her fingers were entwined in the length of pearls around her neck. “My daughter is overtired,” she said. “I beg your forgiveness, sirs. It’s her…condition.”

  The men paled at the word.

  “Come dear. You need to rest. Gentlemen, please continue with your dinner.”

  Maggie remained in her seat, not quite sure why her mother would have been so shockingly unmannered as to mention that a lady was expecting. “Hamish says…”

  Father’s fist hit the table. Wine sloshed in glasses. “Hamish is mistaken. We will excuse him on the grounds that he is not here to express himself, and no doubt you, foolish girl, have mistaken his words. Leave us.”

  Maggie felt Richard, the butler, behind her, trying to move her chair to help her rise. She gathered her skirts and stood up. Her father looked as if he might have a heart attack any moment. The visitors glared at her in something approaching pure rage.

  And Maggie had been very, very frightened.

  ***

  July 12, 1776

  The morning following the disastrous dinner, Father summoned Maggie to his study.

  She had rarely been in there. As children they were called to Father’s sanctum only if punishment was to be dealt out. As Maggie had been a quiet, obedient child, she had never been marched before Father’s desk to hold her hand outstretched awaiting a thrashing. It was a man’s room, with leather chairs, wooden furniture polished to a high shine, a large fireplace, and paintings of hunting scenes on the walls. It smelled of tobacco and men’s sweat.

  She stood in front of his desk, hands clasped over her stomach, while he read a long letter. Rain beat against the
windows and the branches of the trees swayed in the wind.

  He dipped the end of his pen into the ink well and scratched out his signature at the bottom of the page. He carefully placed the pen in its holder before looking up. The corner of his left eye twitched. “You can no longer remain in the house of a tory. I will arrange to have your belongings fetched and brought here. You will have no further contact with Macgregor. There will be no traitors in my family. If we’re lucky the scoundrel will be hanged for the traitor he is. Otherwise, in time we will be able to dissolve the marriage and find you a new husband and a father for your child.”

  He picked up the next letter on the pile. “Good day, Margaret.”

  “No,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Hamish is my husband. We are one in the eyes of God. He is the father of my child. Of your grandchild.”

  “He is a tory traitor.”

  Rebel or tory, she didn’t care one whit for either side. What did women care about who ruled or who made the laws or imposed the taxes? Life went on, regardless. All she knew was that she loved Hamish Macgregor beyond all reason.

  “He is the man I love, to whom I have promised my life.”

  Father put down the letter. “If a man can betray his countrymen, then his promises mean nothing.”

  “They mean everything to me, Father. If you cannot, will not, understand, then I fear I will have to take my leave and return to my own home.”

  “So be it, then.”

  She walked out of the room, her head high, her stomach churning. Behind her, a pen scratched against paper.

  Mother was waiting outside. Maggie closed the door softly behind her. They looked at each other for a very long time but did not reach out. Maggie’s mother would side with her husband in all that he commanded, as was natural.