John Reid left for Boston in the middle of February and was back before the middle of March. I spent time every day in Father’s study with my lessons, but it was difficult to keep at them on my own. I was lonely and would have preferred even Reid’s stern presence to the silence in the room, broken only by the crackling fire and occasional footsteps in the hall. I was easily distracted. A few times Betsy Moore came to call, bringing a book and promising Mama that she would sit and read or hear my French. But we ended up talking. And then Hannah Fry, one of the women in Mama’s Society for the Promotion of Industry and Frugality, with whom I sewed for the army twice a week, gave me a novel to read and I spent a lot of time with that. It was reading, after all, wasn’t it?
I received another letter from Raymond Moore.
Dear Jemima,
We travel to the north more and more and since this is the first time I have been away from home I note, with much interest, the changes in scenery. I am enjoying the February thaw. The men have received me well into their midst, and, although they do taunt me, it is all in good spirits and they treat me as a comrade in arms. Thy brother is most esteemed by the men and I am fortunate to serve under him. And to have the prayers and good wishes of his sister, whom I hold in highest regard. I keep thy letter and read it every night by the fire. Thy memory burns within me as brightly as the flame in front of my eyes.
Thy dear friend,
Raymond Moore
I was glad that John Reid was away and unable to see the response I composed in return, for I took the opportunity to pour my heart out to Raymond before Reid would once again be reading my letters.
A letter came from Daniel:
Dear Jemima,
I’m glad to know your lessons go well and you have reached some accord with John Reid. I have learned very much about the men under me and they have become close to me. I pray every night that I can behave with humanity and consideration toward them and with conduct that befits an officer. Already on this trip one man in my company has died and was buried with the whole Regiment and chaplain attending. Afterward, ten of my men fired three rounds over his grave. I have already engaged in one court-martial, as another of my men was tried for desertion, drunkenness and disobedience. He was sentenced to twenty-five lashes. But most of them fulfill the trust I have in them. Pray for me, that I may serve my country with fidelity.
Your affectionate brother,
Dan
On the twelfth of March John Reid came home.
I was in the upstairs hall when I heard a horseman ride into our stable yard in back of the house. I ran to the window to see who it was.
I recognized the horse, Star, but not the man who dismounted. He wore a rifle frock, much like one of Dan’s regulars, frontier leggings, and a wide-brimmed hat pinned up on one side and decorated with a turkey feather. And he carried a long musket. As I watched him hand the reins to Cornelius and dislodge his saddlebags, he turned in the direction of the house, saw me at the window, and waved.
I had always considered John Reid somewhat of a dandy, for I’d never seen him dressed in anything but his finest-cut coat and breeches with his hair tied in a perfect queue. Now he looked like a backwoodsman. He had a beard, and if not for the horse I wouldn’t have recognized him. I knew he’d taken Star as far as New York and left her there with friends and taken a carriage the rest of the way to Boston.
You would think the Prodigal Son in the Bible had returned, the way Mother and Father carried on.
“John, we’re so happy your mission was a success,” Mother was saying as I walked into the parlor. Father was serving brandy, and John Reid stood in front of the fire.
“Jemima.” He bowed, and I stared at the tall, tanned figure in the rifle frock with a leather belt cinching the lean waist, from which hung a sheathed hunting knife. Surely this was not my tutor! But it was. He straightened up, and I saw beyond the growth of beard and sunburned face to the intense brown eyes twinkling mischievously at me. “You look well. It seems you’ve grown an inch taller in my absence.”
I curtsied. “Hello, Mr. Reid. I was about to say how different you look.”
“A fine mess is what I look. Have you been doing your lessons?”
But I could only stare, speechless. “Every day, John,” Mother said.
“And her behavior?” He smiled at Father.
“We have no complaints,” Father said. “Jem has been studying religiously. And she’s been helping Sarah with the sewing for the army.”
“Good.” He reached into his saddlebags and brought out gifts—a book for Mother, some tobacco from Boston for Father, and a hunting knife for David.
“He’ll be home for supper, John,” Father said. “I hope you can join us.”
Reid ran his hand over his face. “If Lucy could supply me with some hot water for washing and a shave. I have a clean shirt in my haversack.” And then he handed me a packet. “To go with that beautiful blue dress,” he said.
I opened it to find three hair ribbons, one blue, one lavender, and one yellow. I fingered them lovingly, for they were much finer than the ones Father had in his shop. When I looked up, I saw him studying me with satisfaction. I could barely find my voice to thank him, for something in his gaze disquieted me. “I’ll see you in the study after supper to look at your work,” he said firmly as he picked up his things. “Let’s hope it’s all in order.”
I trembled, watching him take his leave of the room. I had forgotten what it was like to have him in the same room with me, and now he was back, more arrogant than ever, filling the house with his presence.
“This French is not complete, Jemima. I left more than this for you to translate.”
John Reid’s shadow slanted against the wall in the candlelight as he stood over Father’s desk examining my work. He had shaved and tied his hair back in a queue. But instead of his usual coat and waistcoat he wore a clean white shirt and a black silk stock at the collar. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing muscular arms.
“Well?” he looked at me. “Why is the French incomplete?”
“I did as well as I could without assistance.”
He nodded and went through my sums. “These seem all right, although I can detect some errors upon a glance. Have you read all your Shakespeare?”
“No, sir.”
“And why? Your mother said you spent the required hours each day studying. Or were you in here writing to Raymond Moore?”
“I’ve only written him two letters in your absence. I did a lot of reading.”
“But not Shakespeare? Or the Milton or Dryden I assigned?”
“No, sir.”
“What, then? Come on, out with it.”
“Henry Fielding.”
“A novel?” He scowled in disbelief, for novels were looked upon as frivolous and time-wasting. “Where did you get it?”
“From one of the women in Mama’s Society.”
“Yes, Mr. Reid.”
“Then get it for me, please.” His face was white with anger, even under his sunburn.
“It isn’t my book. I have to return it.”
“Will you get it for me, please?”
I went to Father’s bookshelves, where I had hidden the book behind some others, and gave it to him.
“Tom Jones! Romantic nonsense! Whose is it?”
“Mrs. Fry’s.”
“So this is what you’ve been doing while you told your parents you were studying. What do you think they would say about this?”
“Will you tell them?”
He set the book down. “There is no need to. I’m capable of handling this myself. The first thing I’ll do is return the book to Mrs. Fry.”
“But I haven’t finished it yet!”
“And you won’t, either. As your tutor it’s my job to guide your reading habits.”
“But that’s not fair! You read what you want! And while you were off in Boston, enjoying yourself with your Tory friends, I had to sit here and read dry old Milton and Dryden. I’d rather read Poor Richard’s Almanac! Benjamin Franklin makes more sense! Do you have any idea what it’s like to sit here alone, day after day?”
“I take it you missed me, then.”
I only glared at him in response.
He smiled, but it was not kindly. “You’ll go back to reading Shakespeare and Milton and Dryden tomorrow, in double doses. And for your wasting of time and deception, I’m taking Bleu away from you for two weeks. You’re not even to exercise him. Cornelius can do that.”
The unfairness of his punishment brought tears to my eyes. I looked forward each day to my winter rides on Bleu. “I hate you, Mr. Reid. And I’ll find a way of getting back at you!”
The smile quickly faded from his lips. He looked at me fully and deliberately for a long moment, but with such confusion and pain in his eyes that it frightened me. Then he looked silently at my work on the desk. I waited. I saw the muscle in his jaw twitch, but I could not see much else, for his eyes were hidden.
“I shall look forward to the challenge, Jemima.” He did not raise his head as he answered, and he sounded more sad than angry.
I stood looking at him, satisfied that my intent to hurt had found its mark, but confused as to why. Certainly I had told him before that I hated him. Usually he would just laugh and pull my hair as he walked by my chair and say something clever.
“Do you have any other kind sentiments you wish to impart to me at the moment, Jemima?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you may go.”
I left. Still he would not look at me.
The next morning I awoke with an aching, stuffed head I’d ridden Bleu to my heart’s content in John Reid’s absence, and the cold that had been threatening me the last day or so came with a vengeance. With the exception of measles, I had always enjoyed the best of health, so much so that Mother had often remarked that it was almost scandalous for a girl to be so robust. But that afternoon I dragged myself to lessons, where I managed to stay attentive for two hours. John Reid was especially demanding, but after two hours I felt as if my head were filled with goose down, and I couldn’t even form my answers properly. When I had, twice in a row, given him an incorrect answer in geography, he slammed his book down on the table in a way that echoed most unpleasantly in my head.
“Jemima Emerson, do you provoke me intentionally because I’ve taken your horse away from you? Or have you become more adept at stupidity in my absence?”
“No, sir.” But I could not even comprehend the question.
He scowled, no doubt suspecting impudence. “No, sir, what?”
I shook my head numbly.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I think I’m not feeling very well.”
He got up and came to scowl over me. I leaned back in my chair, clutching my book, but he reached out and put a hand on my forehead as gently and practiced as Mama would have done. Then he took my book from me. “Go and tell your mama that I said you have a fever and you’re to be put to bed. There will be no lessons tomorrow. In heaven’s name, child, why didn’t you tell me?”
For two days I lay in bed, pampered by Mama and Lucy, feverish and sleeping and giddy-headed. On the third day the fever left, although I was sneezing and sniffling. The March weather had turned cold and blustery again, so Mama said I could sit by the fire in the parlor, where it was warmer than my room. I was curled up with a quilt around me, in the afternoon, trying to concentrate on some Milton, as Mama had suggested, when someone came across the carpet. I looked up to see John Reid in boots, breeches, his rough brown cloak, and a tricorn hat. He took the hat off and gave his little half bow. “I trust you’re feeling better?”
“Yes, sir.” He looked very healthy, and he brought in the freshness of the outdoors with him.
“Your mama says I may visit if I don’t tire or berate you. I have promised to do neither.” He unfastened the cloak and put it carefully over a chair, also setting down his hat and a small package. “Do you mind my presence?”
“No, Mr. Reid.”
At that moment Lucy came in with Mama’s silver coffee service and some delicious-smelling corn bread. “Thank you, Lucy.” Reid turned from warming his hands by the fire and poured two cups of coffee. “I’m told that you haven’t been eating. You must if you want to get well, you know.”
“I feel as if I could eat some of that corn bread.”
“Good.” He buttered a piece and set it down with the coffee on a table next to me. He smiled wryly. “What are you reading now? Another contraband novel?”
I blushed and shook my head no. He took the book from my hands, saw what it was, and raised his eyebrows in amusement. “You are voluntarily reading Milton?”
“Mama said I should try to make up for lost time.”
“We’ll do that when you get well, I can promise you.” He put sugar and cream in his coffee and sat down in a nearby chair. “I’ve been riding Bleu.”
Oh, and was he here to tease me, then? How cruel!
“He needed the run. And since you were indisposed …”
“I wouldn’t be able to ride him even if I were well.”
“Yes, that’s true. But David has offered to take him out on the days I can’t.” Again the wry smile. “Come, now, don’t pout. You openly provoked me. What else was I to do?”
I raised my chin defiantly. “You know how much I enjoy riding.”
“Yes, I do. And I can understand why. Bleu’s a marvelous horse. When these two weeks are up, we’ll go for a ride, you and I, to Otter Hall. Would you like that?”
“Yes, sir.” But I would not look at him.
He finished his coffee and stood up. “I sense that was more a dutiful reply than anything. And I also sense that I am tiring you. I shan’t force you to ride with me, Jemima.” He put on his cloak, then picked up the small package he had brought and set it in my lap.
“What is it?” I looked up at him.
“A little something to … make up for the book I took away from you.”
I undid the brown paper. It was a slender, richly bound book with gilt edges. I opened it. The Love Sonnets of William Shakespeare.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. The paper was delicate and the cover was made of rich leather. Inside he’d written something: “Some romantic nonsense to fill your leisure hours until you can ride your horse again. Your devoted tutor, John Reid.”
I felt a stab of poignancy. The color rose to my face as if the fever had returned. But when I looked up to stammer my thanks, I could only stare at him, tongue-tied. For his look had changed to one of such troubled intensity as he contemplated me that I became twice as confused. Then, in an instant, he clapped the tricorn hat on his head. “Be well, Jemima,” he said. And in a whirl of brown cloak he turned and was gone from the room.
But I had not thanked him. All afternoon I sat by the fire with the book in my hand, examining it, going over his written words and seeing him standing there, waiting for me to acknowledge the gesture, then turning on his heel and leaving. The recollection of how he’d stood there and the look on his face troubled me. For I had seen, in that instant, a John Reid I had never seen before. There was uncertainty in his eyes, a question where uncertainties and questions had never shown before. Was the fever still with me? Had I imagined it? Had he been waiting for something from me? And what? Forgiveness? Yes, that, but more. Oh, my head ached again thinking on it. I closed my eyes and slept with the book still in my hands.
On the fifth day, when Mama said I was well enough to go back to my lessons, I approached them with great apprehension.
“Ah, you’re well again, Jemima.” John Reid looked up from the book he was reading in front of the fire.
“Yes, sir, I’m better.”
“Good, we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Mr. Reid, may I say something first?”
“Yes, of course.”
I twisted the corner of the apron that Mama always made me wear to lessons because I stained myself so with ink. “I want to … to thank you for … for the book of poetry.”
He nodded, but the look in his eyes was veiled. “You’re quite welcome. Come now, let’s get to work.”
He never asked me about the book again. Indeed, it was as if he had never given it to me, never written those words inside it. Our sessions progressed as always, except that he was now twice as demanding, trying to make up for lost time. I began to wonder, under hours of grueling study, when my head seemed to burst from fatigue and my fingers became stiff from writing, if I had not imagined the whole episode in my fever.
But I knew I hadn’t, for I was reading the love sonnets every day and enjoying them so much that I didn’t ache with longing to ride Bleu. Not as much as I’d thought I would, anyway. Oh, I visited Bleu in the barn each day and talked to him and gave him some dried apple, but I was so tired that I couldn’t have ridden him even if I’d been allowed to.
I was under a strain, that was the heart of the matter. I didn’t know how to act with John Reid. His kindness had thrown me off balance. It’s quite one thing, after all, to have someone be mean to you and another to have that person suddenly exhibit kindness. I found it most disconcerting. I had always known where I stood with him, and now I did not.
But all this didn’t change the fact that I still intended to get back at him for taking my novel and Bleu away. It was a matter of pride that I do so. And he expected me to, I was sure of it.
One night when he was having supper with us, as he seemed to be doing all the time lately, my father looked at him across the table. “Jem looks pale, John. Are you sure you aren’t bearing down too hard with the studies?”
“Jemima wasted quite a bit of time while I was away, contrary to what she told you. And then with her sickness … we’re trying to make up for it.”
“You haven’t been riding your horse, Jem,” Mama said. “Are you sure you’re fully recovered?”
From across the table John Reid caught my eye, warning me to be silent. I preferred it that way, for if Father found out about my deception and novel reading, it would be worse than having only my tutor know.
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“Jem is being punished,” John Reid said patiently. “I took Bleu away from her for two weeks.”
“For what?” Father asked.
He took a sip of wine. “For insubordination,” he said simply. The tone of his voice was polite but indicated he did not wish to elaborate. Thank goodness my parents changed the subject.
Before the two weeks were up we received word from a messenger who rode into town that the British had evacuated Boston on the seventeenth of March. Washington, strengthened by cannon and mortars that Colonel Henry Knox had brought down from Fort Ticonderoga by sled, moved to Dorchester Heights, south of the city. Forced to either fight or leave, British General William Howe chose to leave and sailed out of Boston. It was reported that Washington’s army was on the way to New York City.
I couldn’t wait to tell John Reid about it and see his face. I found him waiting for me in Father’s study.
“You’re late, Jemima,” he said, looking up from his papers.
I remembered to curtsy. “I was in Father’s shop. People have been coming in all morning and lingering to talk about the news.”
“Oh? What news is that?”
“Haven’t you heard? General Howe has evacuated Boston.”
“Oh, that, yes. I heard earlier this morning.”
“What a victory for Washington! Howe left rather than fight! Don’t you think it’s wonderful?”
“Anything is wonderful that means an end to war and an attempt at reconciliation.”
“This has nothing to do with reconciliation. Howe simply fled under Washington’s guns!” Now he was being the Tory, and that made me angry. “It’s too bad you weren’t there. You might have fled with him.”
“Do you really wish I had been there, Jemima?” He was looking down at his papers as he said it, but then he raised his eyes. And once again he was looking at me as he had done the day he’d given me the book, with a gaze I can only describe as troubled intensity.
“I … well, I … no, sir, I didn’t exactly mean that. What I meant was …”
“Why don’t we just get on with lessons,” he said, smiling wryly, “and leave General Howe to his own problems?”