The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Page 29

  Molineaux described the street incident in a rather loud voice. Those at nearby tables listened. At the end, Philip drew a round of applause. Campbell grinned, promised Philip a meal, lodging in the tavern’s outbuilding, and a few days of manual work to earn his keep while he looked for other employment.

  The tobacco haze and tar and alcohol fumes were making Philip more and more dizzy. But he thanked Campbell, then turned to thank Will Molineaux. He discovered the latter already moving toward a shadowy doorway at the very rear of the taproom.

  Molineaux had been joined by a shabbily dressed man of middle years. The man’s hands and head trembled with palsy. Where the man had come from, Philip hadn’t noticed.

  Philip started after them. Campbell caught his arm. “Where you going?”

  “Into that back room, to speak my appreciation to the gentleman who—”

  Campbell shook his head, no longer smiling. “That’s a private chamber, Mr. Kent. Provided so Will and Mr. Adams—” He indicated the palsied fellow disappearing beyond the closing door “—and a few other close friends can confer without disturbance. No one in my employ enters that room unless I send them. Keep that in mind while you’re ’round the Salutation. Now do you want to eat or do you want to sleep?”

  “As a matter of fact—both.”

  “Come along then. I’ll wake you at sunup and start you working. Even a Son of Liberty must earn his way. I’d say you’ve joined the organization whether you realized it or no.”

  With a comradely arm across Philip’s shoulder, he conducted him to the kitchen and, soon after, to the welcome sanctuary of a smelly, rickety outbuilding. There, Philip dropped into exhausted sleep on straw, while a milk cow lowed nearby.

  iv

  What began as a short stay at the tavern on the corner of Salutation Alley and Ship Street lengthened into a week. Then into another. As Philip’s natural strength gradually overcame the feverish illness, he sought every possible means to make himself indispensable to the landlord.

  He hammered up plank siding to repair the outbuilding where tipsy guests sometimes slept off their revels before tottering home to their wives. He clambered over the roof to nail new shingles onto the Salutation itself, Campbell having idly remarked that during heavy storms, water dripped from the beams near the taproom hearth.

  Campbell obviously liked the young man’s eager industry. But what held Philip at the Salutation with Campbell’s unspoken consent was not merely finding a temporary haven, important as that was. What held him was a realization that had come to him when he woke the first morning after his arrival.

  The seedy, palsied fellow glimpsed in company with Will Molineaux bore the name Adams.

  He’d inquired about the man when Campbell had a moment’s leisure. He was told the gentleman’s first name was Samuel. So it was the same radical politician whom Mr. Fox had described at Tonbridge and Lord North had scorned at Kentland!

  At first, Philip could hardly believe that such a frail, badly dressed person could be a serious threat to George III—let alone the fomenter of rebellion.

  On the other hand, he supposed it took neither good looks nor rich apparel to produce a temperament opposed to royal tyranny. Perhaps the requirements were just the opposite: ugliness and poverty. In any case, the frequent visits of Mr. Samuel Adams and like-minded men to the private room at the Salutation fired Philip with curiosity and a determination to get into that room at the first possible chance. So he searched for ways to keep himself busy, reported failure to Campbell after his occasional expeditions to look for work elsewhere—no lies required there—and awaited his opportunity.

  It came one afternoon during Philip’s third week on the premises. Embarrassed, Campbell confronted his helper with the news that he could think of no other work that needed doing. The opening gambit to politely asking him to move on?

  Instead, Philip immediately suggested, “You could let me serve the gentlemen who meet in back, sir.”

  “What?”

  “I can be trusted to say nothing about what I hear. And I want very much to meet Mr. Adams.”

  “For what reason?”

  Aware of how incredible it would sound, Philip still brazened ahead: “The Prime Minister of England once told me I behaved like one of his pupils.”

  Polishing a tankard, Campbell gaped. “The Prime—?” He guffawed. “Oh, you had an audience with him, did you?”

  “No, sir, a chance encounter. At my father’s home in England.”

  Campbell squinted at him in the buttery yellow sunshine falling through the leaded windows. “You speak good English, Philip. I think I recognize some French overtones too. But I still find it hard to believe that a lad who arrived penniless in Boston could have encountered that sow-faced North.”

  “But I did, Mr. Campbell.”

  “Where do you really come from, Philip? More important—from what are you fleeing? Or should I say who?”

  “From my father’s family,” he answered at once, deciding that candor was the only workable course now—and that the chances of being harmed by it were slim. “My father’s a nobleman. I’m his son by a woman he never married. He promised me part of his fortune, but when I journeyed to England from my home in France to claim what was mine, my father’s family tried to have me killed. I came to America to escape them.”

  “Why America? Why not back to France?”

  “I worked in a London printing house for a time. I got to like the trade, and thought I might have a better chance to pursue it here. And I met a Dr. Franklin—”

  “The trade representative for Massachusetts.”

  Philip nodded. “He convinced me to come to the colonies. He said that in America, people were resisting those who wanted to enslave and oppress others.”

  Campbell now looked thoroughly astonished. “ ’Fore God! The Prime Minister and Ben Franklin too!”

  “The doctor was extremely kind to me. I spent a whole evening in his rooms, talking with him about America.”

  Campbell studied his hands. “You visited his quarters on Marrow Street in London, then.”

  “No. Craven Street.”

  Campbell relaxed, nodded. “Of course—Craven Street. I was mixed up.” But the words were a shade too casual; Philip knew he had been tested.

  He went on, “The doctor really had many good things to say about the freedom here, Mr. Campbell.”

  “Preserving that freedom requires struggle, Philip. Just as important, it requires secrecy. What is said in that back room would not find favor with Governor Hutchinson. Or the Tory citizens of this town, for that matter. But damned if it doesn’t sound like you have good credentials. I joked about it the night you arrived, remember?”

  “I surely do.”

  “But now I really do think you have the makings of a fellow who might wear one of these—”

  He tugged a chain from inside his shirt. At the end of the chain, a medal gleamed. Philip bent closer to see the symbols on it: a muscled arm grasping a pole, on top of which perched a peculiar-looking cap. Engraved on the medal were the words Sons of Liberty.

  The street door opened. Half a dozen redcoats stamped in and headed for a table. Campbell hastily hid the medal, but not his distaste, as the soldiers loudly called for service.

  Campbell ordered one of his girls to wait on the soldiers. This done, he scratched his chin and returned his attention to Philip. After a moment of silence, he said:

  “All right. I’ll risk it once and see what happens. The gentlemen plan to gather this evening. I’ll send you in to serve the flip.”

  v

  Later, Philip would look back on that stifling night in late July and consider his entrance to the private room as a passage of great significance in his life. But at the time, his main reactions were immediate excitement and curiosity. If that closely guarded room was the meeting ground of men who had allied themselves against oppression represented by aristocrats such as the Amberlys, then he wanted to know more about such men�
��and their ideas.

  Accompanied by Campbell, he went into the room about eight in the evening. He was carrying a heavy tray of tankards filled with a mixture of rum and beer fresh-heated with a poker.

  The room was plainly furnished, windowless. Tonight it contained but five men. Philip had only seen two of them enter the Salutation. Then he noticed a rear alcove, a door in shadows. All five men turned as Campbell and Philip came in.

  Will Molineaux saw Philip, gave the landlord a startled look. As Philip set the tankards on the table, Campbell explained quickly:

  “I’ll vouch for the trustworthiness of this young man, gentlemen. Will knows him too.”

  “Slightly,” Molineaux said, on guard.

  “Philip Kent’s his name,” Campbell went on. “He’s newly arrived from England. And Samuel—he encountered Lord North by chance over there. The Prime Minister told him he already behaved as if you personally had taught him his political catechism.”

  “Indeed, is that so?” returned Samuel Adams. The man’s clothing, Philip noticed, was as threadbare and disreputable as before. Food stains, and a smear of what looked to be printer’s ink, suggested that he cared nothing for his personal appearance.

  Adams fixed Philip with a slate-blue stare. His pale hands shook continually. Now and again his head jerked. Yet those eyes held Philip’s’ and burned. In a high, quavery voice, Adams asked:

  “And how did this remarkable confrontation come about, sir?”

  In much the same words he’d used with Campbell, Philip described the circumstances. Adams digested the story with no change in his expression. At the conclusion, he said:

  “We always welcome recruits to the cause that must inevitably triumph. From what you say as well as what you don’t, I infer you’ve no love for the English nobility.”

  “Not for those who treat ordinary folk like property.”

  “There are no other kind,” Adams told him.

  A light-haired, exceedingly handsome man in his early thirties, prosperously dressed in dark green velvet, chuckled and turned a long-stemmed clay pipe in fine, slender hands. “You’ve a foolish consistency sometimes, Samuel. You dismiss our friends like the Earl of Chatham—”

  “Principiis obsta, Dr. Warren, principiis obsta!” Adams retorted, shaking a finger.

  The man identified as Warren laughed again, glanced at Philip. “Samuel is constantly quoting Ovid to us. ‘Take a stand at the start.’ ”

  Adams’ slate-blue eyes shone with that ferocity Philip had already found unsettling. Whatever his personal motives, the man had an unsmiling, almost fanatical air about him—one that did not seem common to the others, who occupied themselves with their tankards as Adams retorted:

  “The first appeasement leads only to many more, be assured of that. And at the very moment when we’ve no issue to stir the citizens of Boston to our purpose—then are delivered two—two!—in June—” He swept the gathering with an accusing hand. “You hesitate! It’s unforgivable!”

  Campbell plucked Philip’s sleeve, nodded toward the taproom door, obviously intending for the younger man to leave now that the introduction had been performed. But Adams jumped from his chair, strode toward them with quick, nervous steps.

  “No, Campbell. Let him stay. If we hear our remarks abroad tomorrow, we’ll know who to blame.”

  “And who a few members of the mob may wish to visit,” Molineaux added with an easy smile. But his undertone of meaning was unmistakable to Philip. Here was another, more critical test of whether he was trustworthy. This one, he had no doubts about passing.

  “Come, come—he seems the right sort,” a new speaker put in. The man was short, square-jawed, with dark eyes and hair neatly clubbed. He wore plain clothing, considerably less expensive than that of the others.

  Dr. Warren smiled. “I’d expect you to say that of a fellow Frenchman, Paul.” To Philip: “This is Mr. Revere of North Square. Our resident silversmith—”

  “More important,” said Adams, “the one man among us who never sniffed the somewhat rarefied air of Harvard Yard. Paul alone has the ear of the huge numbers of artisans and mechanics in town—”

  “Because I’m one myself,” said the stocky man. He was in his late thirties or early forties, Philip judged. His blunt-fingered hands looked calloused, muscular, testimony to his position as a craftsman. “Mr. Kent, let me welcome you, and suggest that if you’re ever in the market for replacement of a fine silver button—”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any of those, Mr. Revere.”

  “You have teeth,” Campbell said. “Paul replaces them, too.”

  “A necessary sideline to feed all the mouths at my table,” Revere shrugged. “Mr. Kent, you mentioned your home originally being in France. So was my father’s.”

  “Where, sir?”

  “Riaucaud, near Bordeaux. My father’s people were Huguenots.”

  Philip nodded slowly. “We had few in Auvergne. But I know how the Protestant French were persecuted—driven out—”

  “Which is why Monsieur Apollos Rivoire emigrated here, apprenticed himself to a goldsmith, and as soon as his first shop on Clark’s Wharf began to prosper, changed his name to something more American. I suspect you’ve already done that?”

  “Yes. Our family’s name was Charboneau.”

  “You see?” Revere smiled at the others. “I told you he was all right.”

  Philip had taken an instant liking to the clear-eyed, forthright artisan, a liking intensified when Revere had the thoughtfulness to add, “You’re no doubt confused by all this clack about recent affronts to the cause of Englishmen’s rights—”

  “I am, Mr. Revere. I’d be grateful for a little explanation.”

  “The first incident Samuel made reference to involved His Majesty’s customs schooner Gaspee. In pursuit of smugglers—”

  “Real or fancied,” said Dr. Warren, with some cynicism.

  “—she ran aground on a sandbar below Providence. Now you must understand, sir, that among we coastal colonists, smuggling of Holland tea and similar commodities is a highly respected occupation. But not to be brooked by the Gaspee’s most unpopular master, Lieutenant Dudingston. Before his unhappy grounding, he had, in fact, been stopping and searching our ships up and down the coast. Harassing American captains and crews viciously and vindictively. Well, sir, the Gaspee aground brought a swift reaction. The high-handed lieutenant and his crew were driven off. Then a group of patriotic citizens burned her to the waterline. As a result, it’s been proposed that the offenders be tried in England. If they can be brought to justice.”

  The square-jawed man allowed himself another little smile. “Which is doubtful. Who among those who set the Gaspee afire will identify his neighbor?”

  Dr. Warren put in, “The second issue Samuel wishes to seize upon is the announcement by the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Hutchinson, that commencing next year, his salary will be paid not by our Provincial Congress, but by the Crown.”

  “Two provocations of excellent quality!” Adams cried. “We must exploit them!”

  “We are all agreed on that,” Warren retorted. “But the wish doesn’t guarantee the deed. Since the last taxes were rescinded—”

  “Not their damned tea tax!” Adams said.

  Warren went on with forced patience, “Still, the rebellious mood has quieted considerably here. And virtually vanished elsewhere.”

  “But the June announcements are the most noxious threats against our liberty thus far!” insisted Adams.

  Warren gave a weary shrug. “I can only proselytize so many from my surgery, Samuel. And I cannot reach into all the other colonies. As Franklin once observed, the need is to make thirteen clocks strike as one. Not easy.”

  A heavyset man who had thus far remained silent spoke up:

  “I’ve published articles—yours, Samuel—your cousin John’s—Abraham Ware’s—in the Gazette, and I’ll continue to do so. But like Dr. Warren, I fear it isn’t enough. The people have
simply relaxed with the complacency of prosperity again.”

  Philip, who had been standing somewhat selfconsciously with the serving tray dangling from one hand, perked up at once:

  “You’re a printer, sir?”

  The stout man’s nod was brief. “Benjamin Edes. The firm of Edes and Gill, in Dassett Alley behind the State House.”

  “I learned the printing trade in London—”

  “Did you, now?”

  “I also learned that it’s a worthy, important trade. I told Dr. Franklin it’s the one I mean to take up here, if I can.”

  Adams perked up. “You encountered Benjamin in London?”

  “Yes, sir. He welcomed me at his rooms. In Craven Street.”

  He glanced at Campbell. The landlord smiled, realizing Philip had seen through the little test of veracity.

  Philip had decided to say nothing of the lost list and letter. Instead, he told the men, “Dr. Franklin felt I could find work in this country. So if you’ve ever a need for a devil, Mr. Edes—”

  “Constantly,” Edes sighed. He ranged his glance up and down Philip, gauging him. “I can’t hold ’prentices for long. Most of ’em are frightened of running afoul of the King’s justice. It keeps my partner John Gill hovering far in the background, too. You see, I publish not merely a paper, the Gazette, but what many Tory citizens label sedition. Samuel, for instance, must cloak his articles under Latin pseudonyms such as Brittanus Americanus. So must some of our other authors. If you’ve a belly for that sort of risk—” A pointed look toward Campbell. “Perhaps our host didn’t err in appointing you to help him serve.”

  Philip didn’t ponder a decision for long.

  “When may I come around to talk to you, Mr. Edes?”

  The abruptness shocked the other man. But he recovered quickly.

  “Why, on the morrow, if that pleases you Meanwhile, I’m plagued thirsty.” He shoved his empty tankard at Philip handle first.

  Edes asked the others their pleasure. All wanted refills save for the silversmith. Edes’ laughter stirred the tobacco clouds.