Mood Indigo Read online

  The young woman might awaken while he was absent, might attempt to run away. He sighed, rose, and tucked about her shoulders the quilt she had tossed off. Better for him if she did.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Under the sullen stares of Boston’s unemployed, the British officer made his way among the soldiers’ tents pegged out in lines on the Boston Common. That June, the Boston Port Bill had closed the harbor to all commerce until the city paid for the tea the supposed Mohawk Indians had dumped into the water the previous December. Thusly were nearly twenty thousand Bostonians “paying the fiddler’ ’ for their tea party, as was predicted by the admiral of one of the British ships in port that fateful December night.

  At the British headquarters in the Provincial House the officer was immediately ushered into General Gage’s office by the ruddy-faced secretary. The officer entered and saluted Gage, which was becoming the proper form of military greeting now that the high wigs made the wearing and doffing of a hat impossible.

  The stout general indicated the Queen Anne armchair in front of the desk he occupied as the new military governor of Massachusetts. Over the pyramid of his fingertips he studied the officer. What he saw augured well. The man stood an inch or so short of six feet, with a trim, sinewy build. The age was more difficult to judge, but he was most likely in his early thirties. The officer wore no powder on his sunstreaked hair, which pleased the general. Against the hair’s blond color, the face seemed dark and was faintly lined by the elements. The features might be deemed handsome in an arrogant sort of way. No doubt, Gage thought morosely, his American wife would find the man bloody attractive.

  To Gage, the man appeared to be one of those few who maintained a command of himself, of his emotions. But the eyes bothered him. No indication of the man’s thoughts could be detected in those pale blue orbs. Gage felt a pinprick of unease. Were there any emotions? Like all soldiers trained by order and policy, he disliked anything that smacked of the unmanageable.

  “You come highly recommended from the command at Quebec, MacKenzie.” He leaned back against his chair and folded his hands across his paunch.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Gage shifted in his chair. “Your record indicates that you performed a number of delicate missions against the Punjabi tribes . . .”

  “I went among the Punjabi as one of them.”

  “Well, yes. And I have a, er, a mission of similar delicacy I would like to discuss with you.”

  “You want the Boston countryside reconnoitered to locate storehouses of weapons and powder. ’ ’

  Gage managed to control his surprise. “Exactly. You had access to my report?”

  “No. I used my eyes and my ears.”

  Gage did not fail to notice MacKenzie’s lack of formality in omitting the respectful “sir” from his reply. He leaned forward, interlocking his fleshy fingers. “Tell me more, MacKenzie.”

  “In the three weeks I have been stationed in Boston, I have observed that certain of your soldiers are selling uniforms and arms to the colonists. Moreover, despite the curfew you have imposed, pairs of colonists still amble about the waterfront, where your military strength is obviously displayed by the number of British vessels arriving and departing. Talk runs high against the Crown in the ordinaries.”

  The man paused and shrugged nonchalantly before continuing. “There are other signs. The Massachusetts colonists are riled by this closing of their port, which is an important source of livelihood. They do not intend to accept passively your total British rule.”

  Silence settled over the oak-paneled room. Then Gage spoke. “MacKenzie, you said ‘your’ British rule. Not ‘our.’ ”

  A lean, feral smile curved the officer’s lips. “You are observant. Do not mistake me, General Gage, I am British. But you are motivated by patriotism and idealism, and I—”

  “Yes?”

  “Another goal motivates me.”

  Gage had served in the colonies during the French Indian War, more than fifteen years earlier. He was a formidable soldier, and he understood enough about violent men to recognize that the man before him would suit his purpose very well. “Your mission will mean traveling incognito. You will need to go by a code name.”

  “I expected as much.”

  “You realize that I cannot command you to accept the mission? If you are caught—without your uniform—well, while we are not officially at war, it could mean a very untidy mess should your identity be discovered.”

  “I won’t be caught.”

  “No one can be sure of—”

  “I can.”

  The words were spoken with such conviction that Gage blinked in surprise. “Just why are you so certain?”

  Terence MacKenzie rested his hands calmly on the chair’s arms. He could tell the general he had learned in India everything there was to know about destruction; that he had trained himself to be an expert in fighting with all weapons—the saber, the rifle, the stiletto, the claymore— as well as in unarmed combat; that he had acquired the art of subtle torture as well as silent assassination.

  Instead he replied, “Because patriotism can be misplaced under the right persuasion, idealism can sometimes flag under materialistic conditions. I don’t profess a nobility of spirit. Should the necessity of killing a man arise, I will do so as automatically as I would step on a cockroach.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ethan Gordon—a commonplace, ordinary, bumptious backwoodsman, she told herself as she dressed for the first time in the week since she had become ill after arriving at Mood Hill.

  Her scorn for the indigo farm—for it could not be compared to the grand tobacco plantations she had seen—vied with her reluctant gratitude for the care he had shown her since that night when she became ill with the smallpox. She remembered little of those first few days . . . only the coolness of his hand on her forehead and the gentle drawl of his deep voice. But then the fever, the pustules that scabbed her flesh—and the resulting pox scar at the tip of her chin—had been his fault to begin with!

  Her anger was exceeded only by her acute embarrassment at whatever intimate services he had performed for her during her illness. Her first memory was awakening to find herself clad in Meg’s muslin nightrail, so different from the brilliantly colored, soft silk banyans to which she was accustomed. Then the horror slowly dawned on her— Ethan Gordon had seen her nude!

  Lacing the bodice strings of her dress, she groaned at the thought. As it was, whenever he entered her small, windowless room, consuming it with his solid breadth and height, it was difficult to meet those steady black eyes without flinching with shame.

  She had to admit that the soups and porridges he brought her were tasty. Better than she could do—which worried her somewhat. How was she to earn her keep? From the kitchen she could hear Ethan’s baritone voice along with those of the field hands as they left the breakfast table for work. Soon she would be expected to prepare the meals herself. If she could only stay in bed . . . yet she chafed to be about after the week of inactivity.

  When the voices faded away, she deemed it safe to venture from her cubicle. The tantalizing smell of fried ham drew her to the kitchen, which adjoined her maid’s quarters. Wooden tumblers and trenches were scattered over a long, roughly hewn trestle table. Her gaze swept dismally over the rest of the rustic kitchen, which was apparently to be her domain.

  Copper and brass sauce pots, looking as if they had never been used, hung from heavy oaken rafters blackened by smoke. Three white-washed, limestone walls were less smudged. Red brick, the same as the floor, spanned the fourth wall and housed a small oval-shaped oven and an arched fireplace large enough for a dozen people to sit within.

  Below the table, a raccoon lapped at a plate of left-over fried tomatoes, morsels of grits, and charred ham fat. Jane dimly recalled the bizarre sight of the raccoon perched on Ethan Gordon’s shoulder one of the times she awoke during those first feverish hours. In her delirium she had attributed the furry gray creature to an
hallucination.

  She crossed to the table and stooped to run her hand along the docile animal’s back. The raccoon’s sharp little black nose wrinkled. “One of us is going to have to learn how to wash dishes, my fine pet.”

  “I doubt that it’s going to be King George, mistress.”

  Startled, Jane straightened, only to bump her head on the table’s edge. “Damnation!” she muttered.

  “Tsk-tsk,” a tongue clicked. “Swearing—from such a fine lady.”

  Ethan leaned through the upper half of the kitchen’s Dutch door. The brilliant morning sunlight streaming in behind him cast his face in shadow. But she could make out the way he eyed the frazzled mop that was her hair. She had forgotten the mobcap. Frustrated, her hands went to her hips, and she deflected his amusement with an imperious glare. “And you think you’re a titled gentleman, sir?”

  “I think ’tis time thee baked bread before the morning grows any later.”

  “Bake bread? I don’t know how to bake bread!”

  He pushed open the door’s lower half and strode over to her, walking around her slowly, eyeing her length. She flushed under his penetrating regard, but did not deign to look at him. Rather she stood as haughtily as a princess until he came around to face her again. “ ’Tis a shame, then, because I don’t think thee will fetch a goodly price on the market,” he said blandly.

  Too quickly she recalled the fox-faced Wainwright, and she knew she could be much worse off. “You wouldn’t dare sell me!”

  “I would.”

  The glint in his eye told her he would only be too happy to rid himself of his misbegotten purchase. “Then you’ll have to instruct me.”

  “Done!” Crossing to the flour bin, he pushed up the full, gathered sleeves of his linsey-woolsey shirt. He dug out a gourd of stone-ground brown flour, saying, “I’ve had to make do with my own cooking, mistress, and for that reason, among others, purchased thee.”

  Her mind would have questioned what other reasons, but her attention was diverted as she watched in amazement while he adeptly filled a large wooden bowl with flour, honey, salt, and warm water. The sight was so ludicrous—a man of his massive build making bread—that she began to chuckle.

  He flicked her a disgusted look. “ ’Tis thy turn.” He shoved the bowl across the table toward her. “Knead the dough.”

  She smiled sweetly. “I don’t know how.” The two of them were battling wills, but with a little Machiavellian finesse she would win out over this oaf.

  He braced his hands on the table and studied her for a long moment. “Thee needs to be humbled,” he said slowly.

  Her eyes widened in wariness. “I’ll try to knead the dough.”

  He straightened. “Good.”

  She wanted to hurl the bowl at his departing back, but when he forgot to duck his head and banged it on the door’s lintel, a small smile of satisfaction curled her lips. The smile faded as the morning progressed. The dough was pasted all the way up her forearms, and flour ringed her eyes the same way black fur ringed King George’s.

  By the time she plopped the sticky globs of dough in the black iron kettle and set it to rise on the hearth next to the ash-covered coals, she resolved that she was not staying a day longer than necessary.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Jane wiped the dust from one cheek with the back of her arm and went back to drawing the hackle’s teeth through the flax. It was dirty work, and, despite the early-morning hour of the mild October day, it was stifling in the airless ell of the house’s main room, reserved for the hand loom and spinning wheel.

  After all the hackling it constantly surprised her to see how little good filament was left from such a large mass of fiber. But then it was equally surprising to see how much linen thread could be made from the small amount of fine flax. Unfortunately, she often had more tow, the short broken residue of the fiber, than the long, fine filaments that would be converted into spinning thread.

  From the kitchen Josiah, the scarecrow-thin deaf mute, spied her predicament and crossed the parlor to squat next to her. She thought the field hand’s kindly eyes beneath the thatch of straw-colored hair were almost eloquent, as if God had given his eyes the gift of communicating that his tongue lacked. She saw in their hazel depths a wry humor at her inferior product.

  He picked up the thick, poorly hackled linen thread she had combed and rolled it between his callused fingers. His head shook in a sad commentary on her work. Holding up a forefinger to catch her attention, he took up the hackle and a handful of damp flax, then deftly drew the fibers through the hackle. Little tow was left, and the resulting thread he passed her was fine and silky to the touch. His eyes caught hers to see if she understood the way he had done it.

  She nodded and touched his shoulder in gratitude. “Thank you, Josiah. But I don’t think I shall ever make an adequate spinster.”

  After he left, she rose and stretched, rubbing her hands along the back of her narrow waist. Holding her hands out before her critical eyes, she reflected that not even her maid Meg’s were so chapped and red. But then Meg had not washed linen in burning lye soap.

  This much deterioration in the space of a fortnight! She alone was doing the tasks Wychwood’s numerous servants performed: Betty the cook, Becky the scullion, Jenny the washwoman, Mimia who ironed, Sally the seamstress. Jane’s life had been one of unbroken elegance, of rustling silks, of feather boas and belt knots, of tuckers and lace flounces, of French perfumes and rose-scented soap. And now all she knew was drudgery from dawn to long past dusk.

  And then there was her complexion. Her hand went to the fresh red scar that pitted her chin. A glimpse in the looking glass Ethan Gordon used for shaving revealed that her hair, tufting from below the mobcap, resembled frizzled, carrot-red flax tow. What would she look like after a year in this God-forsaken land?

  Longingly her gaze went to the delicately beautiful harpsicord in the parlor’s corner. It, like the elegantly furnished bedroom opposite that of Ethan Gordon’s, was so out of keeping with the rest of the rooms, which bore a distinctly sparse, masculine stamp. The back-country house had been constructed from heavy timbers, with thick doors meant to withstand Indian attack.

  He had built the house with tall door lintels to accommodate his enormous height; yet both the kitchen and the bedroom across from his had shorter door frames, so that if Jane forgot to stoop, as she often did, she, too, bumped her head. And what of the gleaming new copper sauce pots? Why were they unused?

  When Ethan Gordon built the house, he evidently had a wife in mind. Whom?

  Her fingers itched to run along the harpsicord’s ivory keys rather than rub themselves raw on the spinning wheel. But she had no choice. Ethan had set before her the task that morning—with some impatience at her ineptitude for keeping house. If she failed at this, as she did more often than not at cooking, he might just sell her, as he had threatened.

  Ethan Gordon did not yell at her, nor did he whip her. No doubt most masters would have done so immediately upon discovering their maid’s lack of domestic skills.

  Most important, he made no untoward advances. But then, could she expect a lusty eye from him, or any male, when she presented such a bedraggled spectacle? He seemed totally unaware of her presence, except when she broke a dish or burned the bread or tore his shirt while trying to wash it.

  Her lips flattened with frustration at her predicament. She was no nearer joining Iterance than the day she signed her indenture papers almost two months before. She began to pace, her feet taking her from the ell into the parlor with its hearth, then back again to stand before the spinning wheel. She had to start laying plans.

  Ethan, she knew, was working at the smokehouse, hanging from the rafters the last of the ham he had butchered. She gathered her skirts and hurried up the roughly planed staircase. Her petticoat snagged on a splinter, but she yanked it free and sped on up to his bedroom on the second floor.

  Opposite the fireplace was the gigantic bedstead, obviously built special
ly to accommodate his great frame. But it was the high scrolled desk she sought. Only God knew what he used it for. She had doubted the lout could even read, but evidence to the contrary was found on the shelf above the desk. Her gaze scanned some of the titles—The Treatise of Agriculture, A New Agriculture, and, of course, a Bible whose edges were charred.

  With little time to waste, she pulled out the top drawer and began to rifle through the contents—bills of sale, unsharpened quills, an account ledger. Another drawer produced fresh vellum. After locating an ink bottle, she grabbed up a quill, dipped it in the brown ink, and hastily began to scribble.

  Terence—

  You last asked if a certain party’s disapproval would stop me. It has not. I can be found at the indigo plantation of the Quaker, Ethan Gordon, on the Chickahominy River below the Piedmont fall section of Virginia.

  Could Terence find her in such a wilderness area with no convenient street address such as those in London to go by? He would. She dashed off her name—Jane Lennox of Wychwood – and with the perforated wooden sander quickly sprinkled fine sand across the page before folding the missive. There was not enough time to search for a wax wafer with which to seal the letter. On the outside she penned Terence’s name and regiment and the only address she knew—that of General Carle-ton in Quebec, though there were many other posts in Canada, most of them mere forts, where he could have been sent.

  She could only hope the letter would be forwarded to him. But how to get the letter to the post rider in Williamsburg without alerting the Quaker? Absently she tapped the edge of the folded vellum on the desk top. Somehow she would have to inveigle her way to Williamsburg when the colonial made his next trip. Dear God, that might be another six months!