The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Read online

  “No—no, thanks,” said Philip, a little queasy. When he’d been starving in the streets, he’d eaten gobbets of oyster from garbage heaps—and thankfully. This morning he could barely stomach the sight. Another sign his life had changed, he thought, fighting back a sour taste in his throat.

  He glanced around the book-lined study as Adams began to scratch with the quill again. Most of the books had titles suggesting their subject was politics. Among them Philip recognized works by Locke and by Rousseau in translation.

  Humming again, Adams finished the copy with a flourish, then began to blow on the manuscript.

  “Ben Edes tells me you’re working out well for him,” the older man stated between puffs at the paper.

  “I hope so, Mr. Adams. I very much like the job.”

  “I apologize for my somewhat rude behavior that first evening at the Salutation. But these are dangerous times. We can’t be overly careful—”

  He handed across the sheet, popped another oyster into his mouth, swallowed with relish. Philip winced.

  He studied the copy Adams had given him. It was a strong appeal to Boston’s citizens to promote the idea of the correspondence committees. The broadside ended with a warning:

  Those who Fail to Adopt the position of the Reasonable and Fair-minded Mr. Adams will Earn our deepest Displeasure.

  The signature was one Philip had seen on other pieces in the shop—Joyce Jun’r. He raised his eyebrows at that; the communications of Joyce Junior were usually threatening, even sinister-sounding.

  “Is this another of your pen names, Mr. Adams?”

  “When a little honest fear must be stirred in the public breast—yes.”

  “I thought perhaps there really was someone by this name.”

  “You mean you don’t know who Joyce is—or was?”

  “No. I’ve asked Mr. Edes a couple of times. He always breaks out laughing.”

  Adams’ slate-blue eyes sparkled. He laced his hands together, a bit of oyster still clinging to one corner of his mouth. His head continued to bob, but the twined hands shook less visibly. He said:

  “Joyce Junior has been a legendary, if unreal, personage around Boston for years. The real Joyce —Cornet George Joyce of the British army—was the chap who captured that damned Charles I. An evil king if ever there was one! Some say Joyce actually wielded the axe that lopped off the King’s head, but that part’s apocryphal, I believe. On this side of the Atlantic, we call him Junior. And reserve him for tasks or appeals that might be beneath the dignity of more law-abiding citizens. ‘Brittanus Americanus,’ for example, would never think of calling out a mob. But stout Joyce has, many a time.” Once again the slate-blue eyes held a cold brilliance that made Philip shiver.

  “I don’t doubt we’ll be hearing often from the ghost of the good Cornet in the days and months to come,” Adams concluded. “Be sure you heed his advices, Mr. Kent, or you’ll find yourself in trouble.”

  Philip matched Adams’ smile. “Out of a job, you mean?”

  “That’s part of it. But only part. No man can remain neutral in the coming struggle.”

  Despite the surface cordiality, Philip was glad to say a quick good morning and retreat from that cramped, musty little room where the politician hunched over his plate, smacking his lips and lifting oysters to his mouth with a shaking hand. As he hurried to the front door, Philip heard the dog barking furiously, a child wailing—and Mrs. Adams crying out in dismay and frustration somewhere at the back of the house.

  Relieved to be on the street again, smelling the fresh harbor wind, Philip thought it was no wonder those in power in England found Adams a dangerous enemy, a man determined to unsettle the future. He might have failed in business, but he would never fail in his current mission—that much, at least, communicated itself in every glance of the almost eerie eyes. Philip felt that by going into the Purchase Street house, he’d stepped into the center of a spider’s web. He hoped Edes wouldn’t soon send him back again.

  iii

  On a dark, gloomy morning later in that same month of October, Philip was alone in the shop. He was busy setting type for next Monday’s issue of the paper, which would contain yet another piece by Adams proclaiming the value of the committees in promoting colonial unity. The bell over the door jingled. He looked up to see a young woman entering.

  She acted unhappy to find Philip the only person present. Throwing back the cowl of her cloak, she pulled foolscap sheets from under the rain-spattered garment and asked:

  “May I see Mr. Edes, please?”

  “He’s gone off to the Green Dragon, miss. Mr. Gill too.”

  The young woman scrutinized him. “Are you a new apprentice?”

  Annoyed by the stare, Philip told her, “I work for Mr. Edes on wages. I am not bound to him.”

  The girl flushed a little at the sharp reaction. She was an inch or so taller than Philip, though about his age, he judged. Her eyes were brown, her hair chestnut, her mouth generous but firm-looking. Her skin had the lustrous, wholesome color of one who spent time outdoors. He noticed a few freckles on either side of her nose, as well as an ample figure beneath the cloak. Though not dressed with great elegance, the girl carried herself with a certain no-nonsense air that rankled Philip for no clear reason.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” he asked finally.

  The girl held out the foolscap. “I’m Mistress Ware. This is copy from my father, to be set immediately. He’d have come in person but he’s meeting with a client.”

  Philip took some time to scan the three closely written sheets, noted the Patriot signature and the nature of the message: an appeal to the citizenry to openly support Adams’ plan to establish the twenty-one-man Committee of Correspondence for promulgating the “Boston view” to the other colonies—and, as it said near the end, “the World.”

  He heard the girl give an impatient little sniff, glanced up, found the brown eyes sparkling with irritation:

  “I trust the writing has your approval?”

  “It seems excellent, yes.”

  “I’m so pleased. I wasn’t aware an ordinary devil approved or disapproved copy. I thought his function was to set and print it, nothing more.”

  Philip placed the foolscap on a stack of freshly printed handbills, his grin a shade insolent. “But I’m not an ordinary devil, Mistress Ware. May I ask what’s annoying you? The dark weather, perhaps?”

  Red glowed in her cheeks. “Young women are not accustomed to being so smartly addressed by apprentices!”

  Philip’s grin hardened. “I told you—I am a free laborer, not an apprentice. But I do believe you knew that when you said it the second time.” Then he moderated his tone. “I’ll pass the material into Mr. Edes’ hands the moment he comes back.”

  “Thank you.” The girl looked embarrassed; Philip’s accusation had struck home. She hesitated, then said, “I did address you sharply—”

  “And I returned in kind. I apologize.”

  “So do I. This article’s terribly important, you see. The town’s buzzing with talk about Mr. Hancock’s reluctance to lend his support to the plan for correspondence committees.”

  “I’m sure your father’s usual fine phrasing will help persuade him.”

  Startled, she asked, “Are you familiar with his writing?”

  “Certainly. I read most everything Mr. Edes gives me to set at the font. Some typesetters, I’m told, see only letters, never whole words. I’m not one of them.”

  “Then I indeed mistook you,” the girl said, a little more friendly now. “The apprentices who’ve worked for Ben Edes before cared for nothing except counting the days till the Sabbath, when they could sleep.”

  “Well, I do that too. But I came a long way to live in this country. If I plan to make my future here, I should know its affairs.”

  “A long way?” Mistress Ware countered. “From where?”

  “France. Then England. My name is Philip Kent.”

  Once the opening
hostilities had subsided, he’d decided he rather liked the girl’s prickly manner and her frank way of speaking. But the friendly overture in the form of his name produced no similar response. Mistress Ware had evidently learned as much about him as she cared to know. She tugged her cowl up over her brown curls and started for the door, saying:

  “As soon as the material is proofed, my father would welcome a message to that effect. He may wish to make last-minute corrections. If you will so notify Mr. Edes—”

  “Please.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “ ‘If you will so notify Mr. Edes, please,’ ” Philip said softly but firmly. He was teasing, but not completely.

  The girl stood framed in the doorway, the rain slanting down in Dassett Alley behind her. She gave him another of those challenging looks. The cloak shaped to her body showed high breasts; he felt a physical response that had lain dormant months now, except in sweating, unwelcome dreams of Alicia.

  Mistress Ware’s tart reply put an end to the possibility of getting acquainted:

  “I thought I made a mistake about you. I was in error. You have the boorish mentality of an apprentice after all. Good morning.”

  She whirled and stamped out into the rain.

  iv

  Benjamin Edes returned shortly after noon. Philip delivered Patriot’s latest article into his hands, then inquired about the first name of the daughter of the author.

  Riffling through the copy, Edes answered absently, “Her name’s Anne. Nice-looking girl. But inclined to a sharp tongue.”

  “So I discovered.”

  “In my opinion, Abraham’s permitted her too free access to his library. A woman should keep to sewing and cooking meals. It’ll take some man with backbone and a large fist to wed and bed that one. Anne’s nineteen already—well past marriageable age. No regular beaux, to her father’s chagrin. He fears she’ll turn into a spinster. Too smart for her own good—and failing to fulfill a woman’s natural role.”

  “I can’t imagine that someone isn’t courting her.”

  “True, though. Oh, she draws attention from some of the British officers. But she’d as soon spit on them as curtsy. In that respect, she’s Abraham’s flesh, all right.”

  A few moments later he handed the foolscap to Philip.

  “Stirring, stirring.”

  “Ware’s daughter said he wanted to look it over when it was proofed.”

  Edes nodded. “As soon as you’ve set it, take the galleys to his house in Launder Street. We’ll run it on page one, in place of that item about the ropewalk fire. The outcome of the town meeting remains doubtful. Hancock is still balking at the committee idea. Says it’s too overt and radical—”

  He noticed Philip’s distracted look, nudged him. “To work, boy! Don’t stand staring at the rain or we’ll never get the paper printed.”

  v

  Early next morning, with the sky clearing and a sharp noreaster hinting of winter, Philip set off with the proof sheets of Patriot’s call for support of the Committees of Correspondence.

  Following Edes’ directions, he located the prosperous-looking two-story home in Launder Street. But he was informed by the cook who answered the door that Lawyer Ware and his daughter had already left on errands. They might be found toward ten o’clock at a place where they frequently stopped, the London Book-Store of Mr. Knox in Cornhill, opposite William’s Court.

  The moment Philip walked in the door of that establishment, he wondered whether he’d been given wrong information. At first glance, the London Book-Store resembled a salon more than a commercial establishment.

  The place was packed. Among the clutter of books, flutes, bread baskets, telescopes and rolls of wallpaper, finely dressed ladies and gentlemen of the town conversed with British officers in friendly, animated fashion. As Philip stood staring, he saw a fat, pink-faced young man speaking with an older officer. The young man wore a silken bandana wrapped around what appeared to be a crippled hand. A memory of Roger Amberly fleeted through Philip’s mind.

  The fat young man noticed Philip’s lost look, bustled over to greet him:

  “Something, sir? I am the proprietor, Mr. Knox.”

  “I’m from Edes and Gill. Hunting Lawyer Ware.”

  “In the back. Talking with the grenadier captain. I’m afraid the conversation is a bit one-sided. You’ll be a welcome distraction.”

  The fat man waved and hurried back to the officer with whom he’d been speaking, an even fatter colonel of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, resplendent in blue coat with red facings. As Philip moved toward the rear of the store, he heard Knox say enthusiastically:

  “I’ve a new work just in from the continent which contains some interesting theoretical material on the deployment of cannon. Be most interested in your opinion—”

  Proceeding past the assorted merchandise displays—and ignoring the amused glances given his poor clothing by some of the chattering ladies and gentlemen and most of the officers—he bore down on the frog-eyed lawyer and his daughter. They were plainly fretting under the attentions of a tall officer in his mid-twenties.

  The man’s yellow-faced uniform identified him as a member of the grenadier company of the Twenty-ninth Worcestershires. Philip had learned enough about the British troops stationed in Boston to know that the grenadier units were the elite shock troops of every regiment. The men who filled the ranks of such companies were selected for great physical strength and stature. The officer in conversation with the Wares was no exception. Big, long-nosed, not unhandsome, the captain had a scar on his chin and an impeccably powdered wig.

  As Philip approached, he heard the captain say: “—would welcome your permission to call upon your daughter, Mr. Ware. Despite our political differences.”

  The man’s humor was condescending. It produced a moue from Anne, who was pointedly focusing her attention on a display of vials. A placard announced that they contained Hill’s never-failing cure for the bite of a mad dog.

  Lawyer Ware replied, “As to that, Captain Stark, you don’t need my consent so much as the young lady’s.”

  “And the granting of that is an impossibility,” Anne said in a cool tone.

  The captain couldn’t repress his distaste. He said to Ware, “You have no control over your daughter’s behavior?”

  “Why, of course he does,” the girl replied. “My father supplies me with what Mr. Locke called ‘a standing rule to live by’—”

  “Locke!” the officer exclaimed. “That damned radical—they should have burned his books, and him too!”

  The girl shrugged. “In your opinion. I feel he put it well. He meant his remarks for men living under a government, but they apply equally to children living with their parents.” Lawyer Ware sighed loudly as his daughter continued, “Once I know the ‘standing rule to live by’—the broad rules set down by my government or my father—then I want ‘a liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not.’ I won’t be subject to the ‘inconstant, uncertain, unknown arbitrary will of another man.’ ”

  “Is that you speaking?” sneered the officer. “Or Mr. Locke?”

  “Some of both, sir.”

  “By gad, you Whigs are a peppery, windy lot,” the captain complained. “I thought Mr. Knox’s emporium was considered neutral territory. Politics forgotten in lieu of more pleasant topics—”

  Lawyer Ware’s eyes seemed to pop even more than usual. “Well, sir, since you’ve mentioned politics—”

  “No, sir, it was your daughter.”

  Ware ignored him: “—the abridgment of liberties can never be forgotten. Although the King’s simple-minded ministers continue to seem unaware of that elemental fact.”

  Philip had stopped a few steps behind the captain’s broad back, awaiting a chance to interrupt. He was struck by the sight of Abraham Ware’s daughter. Her opened cloak revealed a simple but well-cut gown of sprigged yellow muslin that Philip found overwhelmingly lovely. The folds of the material
couldn’t conceal the ample swell of her young breasts.

  He wondered whether his reaction was merely general—that is, the same as he would have felt in the presence of any attractive female—or whether it was due to the qualities of this one in particular. Speculation was cut short as Anne Ware noticed him, smiled with startling warmth and brushed past the elegant and powerful Captain Stark.

  “It’s Mr. Kent from the printing house,” she said as she took his arm. “Good morning to you.”

  “Mistress Anne,” he nodded politely, quite aware of her breast against his forearm and the fresh smell of lavender soap she radiated. He couldn’t resist a sidelong smile and whisper:

  “Your greeting is somewhat different today. For practical reasons?”

  Her quick flush admitted guilt. But he didn’t mind her strategy of clinging to him as they walked by the huge grenadier. The officer gazed at Philip as if he were something less than dung.

  “Your daughter keeps company with mechanics?” remarked Captain Stark to the lawyer.

  “That’s correct, sir,” Anne replied. “By preference.”

  Disliking the soldier’s stare, Philip said, “I trust you have no objections to that, Captain?”

  His tone made the grenadier stiffen his shoulders, as if to emphasize the difference between his overpowering height and Philip’s relatively small stature.

  “I might, sir, if we were to meet privately, and you were to continue your sarcasm.”

  The threat in Captain Stark’s eyes was not merely the routine arrogance Philip had seen in many of the British troops in town. It was a personal, male reaction to Anne’s deliberately insulting attention to Philip. She still gripped his arm as if they were the closest of friends.

  Philip’s chin lifted. “I wouldn’t shrink from that kind of encounter. I’ve some small skill with a sword.”

  In response to the bluff, the grenadier’s flecked green eyes grew uglier. “Every democrat apes the aristocrat here, it seems. Well, Boston is not a large city. Perhaps I’ll indeed have the pleasure of meeting you again.”