The Seekers Page 26

  Gilbert said contemptuously that because of “fossilized adherence to Federalism,” Massachusetts and its neighboring states were becoming an alien island in the republic. He claimed most upper-class Bostonians were hysterics, falsely convinced that New England was being “submerged” by a “Virginia junto” which controlled the government.

  Much of the current disagreement between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans had to do with the French conqueror, Bonaparte. Bostonians called him the Antichrist. In an effort to keep America from becoming embroiled in hostilities between the so-called Antichrist and his traditional enemies, the English, Jefferson had bottled up American shipping. Imposed something called the embargo. Dambargo was New England’s name for it.

  The embargo was the only one of Jefferson’s policies that Gilbert had reluctantly disavowed. It was disastrous for New England’s economy. Her merchants could not trade with England, France or any other foreign country. Her ships stood idle in port, protective barrels capping their masts. The other boys at Jared’s academy jeeringly referred to the barrels as “Mr. Madison’s teacups”—Madison, then Secretary of State, supported and implemented the president’s strategy.

  Finally, the embargo was canceled—only to be replaced by the Nonintercourse Act. The Federalists considered it just as noxious as the embargo, since it still prohibited trade with Britain. That it also prohibited trade with France made no difference—France was the enemy, the Federalists shrilled, and why didn’t America wake up to that fact?

  Meantime, both Britain and France continued to interfere with American shipping. The British were particularly guilty. Their squadrons blockaded the American coast. Their frigates and ships-of-the-line stopped and boarded American vessels at will, supposedly searching for runaway English seamen who preferred to sail under the stars and stripes because American naval discipline was less cruel and capricious. The tensions at sea had all but nullified Jefferson’s attempts at neutrality—and had produced an atmosphere in which the word war was mentioned more and more frequently.

  New England wanted no part of a war with Britain. The rest of the country felt differently. Everywhere but in the northeast, people had cheered the preceding May when they heard the news of an encounter between a United States frigate and a British corvette.

  The frigate President had mistaken the corvette Little Belt for a much larger and more infamous vessel, Guerriere, which had a long history of causing trouble for American ships in coastal waters. When Little Belt refused to answer President’s hail or raise identifying flags, there was a chase, then an exchange of salvos. The engagement ended with nine dead and twenty-three wounded aboard Little Belt.

  Although the U.S. government offered to settle the resulting claims, many people said President’s action was completely justified, considering that three Americans had been killed, eighteen wounded and four alleged British deserters seized when H.M.S. Leopard stopped and searched America’s Chesapeake in international waters in 1807. That four-year-old incident hadn’t been forgotten. President had settled the score—and if the British wanted more of the same, they could have it! Were, in fact, begging for it. Despite diplomatic attempts to get the British to cancel their Orders in Council—the orders authorizing seizure of seamen on American vessels—the orders still stood.

  So now, in 1811, practically all the nation except New England felt Britain should be called to account. Jared had heard Uncle Gilbert say that the settlers in the states and territories of the west were actually demanding war, to stop a rash of new forays by the Indian tribes supposedly taking orders from Canada.

  Just a month ago, the activities of the tribes had driven the Americans to action. The prime troublemakers, the Shawnee Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet, who preached a mystical doctrine of Indian supremacy, had been fomenting a union of all the tribes, a union whose purpose was to halt the encroachment of white settlers. As Tecumseh’s voice gained more and more listeners around council fires in the north as well as the south, General William Henry Harrison took to the field to stop him. In a stunning defeat, Harrison’s small army routed Tecumseh’s braves and razed his headquarters, the Shawnee village on Tippecanoe Creek in the Indiana Territory.

  But Tecumseh was only at bay, not defeated. The Indian threat could materialize again—particularly since the British had a financial stake in driving the Americans from the fur lands around the Great Lakes and beyond the Mississippi.

  Furs remained the west’s prime commodity. The expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark had only heightened the fever for exploration and exploitation of the Louisiana Purchase. Near the slopes of a great north-south mountain chain in the far west, Lewis and Clark said, beaver and other fur-bearing animals teemed. Thus America was in a race for control of the territory—

  One evidence being the 1808 chartering of the American Fur Company headed by John Jacob Astor.

  The German was already something of a national legend. Every boy Jared’s age knew his name and his story.

  A butcher’s son, Astor had been born in a village called Waldorf, not far from the Rhine. He crossed the ocean and landed in America in 1785. His wealth consisted of seven expensive flutes which he hoped to sell at a profit.

  The music business lost its appeal, however, as young Astor became interested in the growing fur trade. He made trading trips to the forests of upstate New York, returning with small collections of pelts. That was the beginning. Now he was incredibly wealthy, controlling his fur empire and his real estate holdings from a countinghouse in New York City’s Liberty Street.

  The Waldorf Astors would undoubtedly have been astonished to see how far their descendant had come in his lifetime, Gilbert said—but he predicted that Astor meant to go even further.

  Long a familiar figure at the Montreal fur market, and closely connected with Canadian firms such as the North West Company, Astor knew the trade intimately. Gilbert believed Astor’s formation of the American Fur Company was a naked grab for control of the fur business in the Louisiana lands—where the Canadians already operated freely. Gilbert supposed that if Astor’s private ambitions were not at odds with the expansion plans of the United States—and on the surface they were not—Jefferson had been wise to throw his influence behind the granting of Astor’s charter.

  All in all, the reasons for a debate about war were many and tangled. None was considered valid in Boston, however—except in the Kent house. Gilbert steadfastly aligned himself with the American majority, and scoffed at those wealthy men who still talked of the New England states, seceding in order to form a separate country, friendly to England.

  As Jared and Amanda neared the familiar streets in the vicinity of the Common, the boy recalled the elaborate dinner being arranged for tomorrow evening. The servants hadn’t been told the names of the guests—nor had the cousins. The guests were supposedly arriving by private coach, from another city.

  And the meal was scheduled for the unlikely hour of seven in the evening—after dark. Normally, dining began at two in the afternoon.

  Could the mysterious preparations and the unidentified visitors have anything to do with all the talk of war?

  iii

  On Beacon Street, Jared pushed his cousin toward the curb suddenly. A dairyman’s wagon went rumbling by, much too fast. Speeding vehicles were just one of the many manifestations of change about which Jared’s aunt complained.

  Jared supposed he should be grateful that Uncle Gilbert’s wife tolerated him as part of her household. But he couldn’t find it within himself to feel even a moment’s gratitude. Aunt Harriet made it obvious that she’d thoroughly disliked Abraham Kent, who had disappeared and not been seen again since the year of Amanda’s birth, 1803.

  His aunt also seemed to know a good deal about Jared’s mother. The boy had been told she was fair-haired and blue-eyed, as he was. Her maiden name had been Fletcher. Her roots went back to a fiery-tempered Virginia family.

  Jared had long since conditioned himself to avoid thinki
ng too much about the parents he’d never known, though that was difficult. Harriet Kent constantly reminded him of their flaws, and their unhappy ends—

  Her attitude made the Beacon Street house a hostile place. But slowly, after much pain and inner turmoil, he had become resigned to that, and to his position in the house. No matter how kindly Uncle Gilbert treated him, he was an outsider, and an undesirable one.

  Accordingly, he had come to realize that he would have to make his way alone, always fighting back his doubts about his ability to succeed at anything. His determination, however, only seemed to reinforce Aunt Harriet’s feelings about him.

  Whatever the source of his independent, even rebellious, nature, one thing was certain. He wasn’t too young to indulge it—and much more completely than he had up to the present moment. Many young men ventured into the world at age twelve or thirteen. It might be time he joined their number. He was growing less and less willing to accept Aunt Harriet’s criticism and discipline. The only reason he accepted them at all was Uncle Gilbert.

  As he walked with Amanda, he pictured his uncle and felt a touch of sadness. Stoop-shouldered and already turning gray, Gilbert Kent was not yet thirty years old. A gentle, thoughtful man, he was burdened with too many worries. Everything from poor health and his complicated business interests to his lonely position as an opponent of men who should have been his friends—

  Jared noticed a piece of paper blowing in the street. The type looked familiar. He picked up the paper and saw more evidence of his uncle’s unpopularity.

  The piece had been torn from the front page of the Bay State Republican. At the head of the central news column Jared saw a familiar black-ruled box surrounding four numbers set in a heavy face, in the style of a death notice:

  6257

  The number was carried on the front page of every issue. More symbolic than accurate, it represented the best available count of American seamen seized by the English navy as runaways from the King’s service. The count had begun in the early 1790s, and the number had one objective—to inflame war fervor.

  In the case of the person who’d bought this copy of the Republican, then ripped it up, it had inflamed something else. The words Gilbert Kent Editor and Publisher appeared in small type directly beneath the paper’s masthead. Across them, another word had been crudely scrawled.

  Turning around and seeing Jared stopped on the curb, Amanda skipped back.

  “Is that Papa’s paper?” she asked, brushing at the dried mud on her cape. She craned her head over. “Someone’s scribbled on it—”

  “A filthy word.” He balled the paper and pocketed it quickly. Amanda was bright; she might understand the meaning of traitor.

  “You mean a word as wicked as corset or shirt?” She tried to smile. But it was evident that her fear of returning home was undermining her spirits.

  “Worse,” Jared said. “Forget about it. We’d better decide what we’re going to tell Aunt Harriet.”

  “Tell her?” The girl’s eyes rounded. “You mean a lie?”

  “Who said anything about lying? We’ll just doctor the truth a bit! Now listen carefully. The alley was a mess of mud. I slipped and fell, then you fell trying to help me up. It’s partly true, you know. We both tumbled pretty hard. We just won’t mention that we started from Mr. Dawlish’s roof.”

  Amanda looked dubious. “It’s still fibbing. I never fib to Papa or Mama.”

  “Well, this is one time it’s necessary! Even if we get away with the story, we’ll probably take four or five whacks apiece, just for dirtying our clothes.”

  He gnawed his lip. But there was a sly gleam in his eyes. “However—I won’t fib unless you agree to it. So what’s it to be? A fib to help me out? Or the truth—to get me in trouble?”

  “That isn’t fair! You mustn’t make me take sides!”

  A cloud hid the sun, throwing Jared’s face in shadow. It was a handsome face, yet it turned ugly in the brief darkness. Something in him took pleasure in admitting that he did spite Harriet, and spite her well, by playing on the bond of affection between himself and his young cousin, whom he loved without reservation. He did it because it was one of his few means of striking back at his aunt, repaying her for the hurt she inflicted—

  Abruptly, shame overwhelmed him. To use Amanda that way wasn’t right, and he knew it. He squeezed her glove. “See here. I wouldn’t make you take sides for the world.”

  The cloud drifted away. So did the wrath on his face.

  “Here’s what we’ll do instead: When we get home, you rush straight up to your room. Change those clothes while I handle the explanations. I’ll insist what happened was completely my fault. I teased you so hard, you ran away—that’s how you fell. I expect Aunt Harriet will believe it.”

  Amanda nodded in a grave way. “Yes, she might.”

  A bit startled, he smiled. “You agree very easily. You must think as little of me as your mama does.”

  “You know that’s not so. But she—oh, I don’t know how to say it right. She wants me not to like you.”

  His fair brows hooked together. “Does she tell you that straight out?”

  “No, never. But she—I mustn’t.”

  “Yes—” Jared’s voice was flat. “Yes, you must. Go on, Amanda. What does Aunt Harriet tell you?”

  “A great many bad things I know aren’t true.”

  “That I’m disrespectful? Won’t go to church? Slide through my studies at that wretched academy?”

  “Things like that, yes.”

  Although he’d suspected as much, the confirmation hurt. It took him a moment to continue. “And what do you say in reply?”

  “Mostly I listen. I—I care for you, Jared. So I keep still and pretend I believe her.” A hint of tears showed in her eyes again. “I suppose that’s a kind of fibbing too. But I can’t help it.”

  He touched her gently. “I never want to be the cause of your deceiving your mother and feeling bad—”

  “I don’t feel bad. Well—not too much.” Her small, grave voice added years to the sound of the simple words. “It’s just that—part of me belongs to her, Jared. Part belongs to you, and another part to Papa—and you’re both ever so much nicer than—well, I mean I try to be good with Mama even when she speaks false, wicked things against you. But she makes me afraid. She says she won’t love me if I stand up for you. I suppose all mothers act that way—”

  He evaded the truth with a smile. “You know I can’t speak from experience.” A pause. “Does she talk to Uncle Gilbert about me?”

  “All the time.”

  “Never when I’m present, of course.”

  “That’s right, never.”

  “And—how does he take it?”

  “Papa doesn’t get mad very often, you know that. But I can tell that everything Mama says makes him terribly angry because he puffs out his mouth”—she imitated Gilbert Kent’s pursed lips—“the way he does when something goes wrong at Kent’s and they come to the house to tell him.”

  Quietly, Jared said, “I didn’t realize I’d become such a burden to him.”

  “You haven’t! He loves you just as I do!”

  “But if Aunt Harriet’s constantly carping about me, that’s one more load he must carry—”

  The blue eyes chilled. How careless and oblivious he’d been, not to sense that his aunt would actively work against him whenever he was absent—

  With a gravity that outdid his cousin’s, he said: “No, I can’t have Uncle Gilbert worrying on my account. Here’s one more story—and this is the one I’m definitely going to tell.” Rapidly, he repeated it for her:

  After leaving Dawlish’s ice house, he had insisted on climbing the roof. She begged him not to, but he went ahead. He slipped and fell to the alley. When she tried to help, he grew quarrelsome. Grabbed her cape, then pushed her down—

  “That’s how your clothes got all dirty and torn.”

  “It’s just as much a fib as the other two stories, Jared.”
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  “Yes, but it’s the sort of fib your mother will believe without question. No mights, no maybes—”

  “Are you trying to make her dislike you all the more?”

  “Perhaps I am. Things can’t go on as they are. I’m getting too old to stand for Aunt Harriet’s punishments without—”

  He stopped.

  “Without what?”

  “Without doing something about them.”

  “What can you do?”

  He was silent a moment. Then, impulsively, he said, “Take myself away from her. Out of Boston—for good.”

  “Oh, no, Jared!” She clutched his arm. “I’d be so unhappy without you—you’re the only true friend I have.”

  “But it’s time I made my own way.”

  The thought had already solidified into a conviction. His mind raced at the new possibilities. Perhaps he could apprentice himself to a craftsman in another city. He’d need Uncle Gilbert’s permission, though—

  A sudden insight told him how to speed the arrival of that permission. Amanda seemed to sense what he was thinking. “You’re being so foolish! You want to take all the blame. You want to—!”

  He patted her cheek affectionately.

  “For eight years old, you’re not only a beautiful child but a damned smart one.”

  “There you go cursing again—!”

  “I’m sorry. Come along.”

  “Jared, you’ll make me miserable if you go away—”

  “And I’ll stay miserable if I don’t. If you really care for me, you’ll let me do what I must.”

  Her dark hair shining as brightly as her silent tears, she hung her head and held his hand as they walked on toward the entrance to the Kent house.

  iv

  The cousins were hardly given a moment’s notice by the servants scurrying through the downstairs, arranging furniture, dusting, polishing—preparing for the Sunday evening guests. Disappointingly, there was no sign of Harriet.

  Jared and Amanda went up to the third floor, to their respective rooms. Jared’s had once belonged to his father. It was small—and made even smaller by his passion for collecting. Over the years he’d turned the room into a miniature museum and library—a junk shop, Harriet preferred to say.