away.
“Mama, do not do that! I am a big boy now! Grandpapa, I had such a good time today! I ran ten times around the yard, I fell over and hurt my knee, I made a whole row of a’s on my slate, and Mr. Simpson says I am so advanced for my age that he is going to put me up into the next class. Except that that don’t make sense. He teaches the next class too, and in the same place. Mama, my knee is a
badge!
Do not fuss so!”
Richard filled in the rest of his afternoon by nailing up some planks to make William Henry his own cubicle at the far side of the bedroom; he slept in a bed these days anyway. The activity was as soothing as it was removed from the turmoil downstairs, from whence he could hear William Henry regaling every newcomer with a censored version of his day at school. Talk! He had not shut up—William Henry, who never said more than two words together!
For Peg, Richard felt an enormous pity tempered by the icy wind of his own common sense. William Henry had flown from the nest, and could never be confined again. But how much of what he had displayed in the stunning space of one small day had he harbored through the years? One day could not possibly have produced so many new thoughts, for all that it had endowed him with a new code of behavior. William Henry is not the saint I deemed him after all. William Henry, God bless him, is an ordinary little boy.
And so he tried to tell Peg, but without success. No matter how he attacked her, Peg refused to accept the fact that her son was alive and well and hugely enjoying a brand-new world. She sought refuge in tears and suffered such black depressions that Richard despaired, tired of her waterworks and having no idea of the depth of her guilt, her consciousness that she had failed in the only task a woman truly had: to give birth to children. His patience with her never diminished, but on the day that he caught her drinking a mug of rum it was sorely tried.
“This is no place for you,” he said kindly. “Let me buy that house in Clifton, Peg, please.”
“No, no, no!” she screamed.
“My love, we have been married for fourteen years and ye’ve been my friend as well as my wife, but this is too much. I do not know what ails your heart, but rum is no cure for it.”
“Leave me alone!”
“I cannot, Peg. Father is growing annoyed, but that is not the worst of it. William Henry is old enough to notice that his mama is behaving strangely. Please, try to be good for his sake.”
“William Henry does not care about me, why should I try for his sake?” she demanded.
“Oh, Peg, that is not true!”
Round and round in circles, that was how it seemed to be; not sweet reason nor Richard’s patience nor Dick’s irritation served to help placate whatever monsters chewed at her mind, though she did abandon the rum when William Henry asked her outright why she was falling-down drunk. The directness of his question appalled her.
“Though why I do not know,” said Dick to Richard later that day. “William Henry is a tavern-keeper’s child.”
Late in February of 1782, Mr. James Thistlethwaite sent Richard a letter by special courier.
“I write this on the night of the 27th, my dear friend, and I am the richer by £1,000. Paid by a draft on my hapless victim’s bank. It is official! Today the Parliament voted to discontinue offensive warfare against the thirteen colonies, and soon we will begin to withdraw our troops.
“I blame all of it on Franklin’s fur hat. The Frogs have proven themselves staunch allies, between Admiral de Grasse and General de Rochambeau—which goes to show that if a man captivates the French sense of fashion, anything is possible. George Washington and the Frogs ran rings around us at Yorktown, though I think what decided the Parliament was the fact that Lord Cornwallis
surrendered.
Yes, I realize that Clinton was having too good a time of it in New York to sail down and relieve Cornwallis, and I realize that it was the
“Mama, do not do that! I am a big boy now! Grandpapa, I had such a good time today! I ran ten times around the yard, I fell over and hurt my knee, I made a whole row of a’s on my slate, and Mr. Simpson says I am so advanced for my age that he is going to put me up into the next class. Except that that don’t make sense. He teaches the next class too, and in the same place. Mama, my knee is a
badge!
Do not fuss so!”
Richard filled in the rest of his afternoon by nailing up some planks to make William Henry his own cubicle at the far side of the bedroom; he slept in a bed these days anyway. The activity was as soothing as it was removed from the turmoil downstairs, from whence he could hear William Henry regaling every newcomer with a censored version of his day at school. Talk! He had not shut up—William Henry, who never said more than two words together!
For Peg, Richard felt an enormous pity tempered by the icy wind of his own common sense. William Henry had flown from the nest, and could never be confined again. But how much of what he had displayed in the stunning space of one small day had he harbored through the years? One day could not possibly have produced so many new thoughts, for all that it had endowed him with a new code of behavior. William Henry is not the saint I deemed him after all. William Henry, God bless him, is an ordinary little boy.
And so he tried to tell Peg, but without success. No matter how he attacked her, Peg refused to accept the fact that her son was alive and well and hugely enjoying a brand-new world. She sought refuge in tears and suffered such black depressions that Richard despaired, tired of her waterworks and having no idea of the depth of her guilt, her consciousness that she had failed in the only task a woman truly had: to give birth to children. His patience with her never diminished, but on the day that he caught her drinking a mug of rum it was sorely tried.
“This is no place for you,” he said kindly. “Let me buy that house in Clifton, Peg, please.”
“No, no, no!” she screamed.
“My love, we have been married for fourteen years and ye’ve been my friend as well as my wife, but this is too much. I do not know what ails your heart, but rum is no cure for it.”
“Leave me alone!”
“I cannot, Peg. Father is growing annoyed, but that is not the worst of it. William Henry is old enough to notice that his mama is behaving strangely. Please, try to be good for his sake.”
“William Henry does not care about me, why should I try for his sake?” she demanded.
“Oh, Peg, that is not true!”
Round and round in circles, that was how it seemed to be; not sweet reason nor Richard’s patience nor Dick’s irritation served to help placate whatever monsters chewed at her mind, though she did abandon the rum when William Henry asked her outright why she was falling-down drunk. The directness of his question appalled her.
“Though why I do not know,” said Dick to Richard later that day. “William Henry is a tavern-keeper’s child.”
Late in February of 1782, Mr. James Thistlethwaite sent Richard a letter by special courier.
“I write this on the night of the 27th, my dear friend, and I am the richer by £1,000. Paid by a draft on my hapless victim’s bank. It is official! Today the Parliament voted to discontinue offensive warfare against the thirteen colonies, and soon we will begin to withdraw our troops.
“I blame all of it on Franklin’s fur hat. The Frogs have proven themselves staunch allies, between Admiral de Grasse and General de Rochambeau—which goes to show that if a man captivates the French sense of fashion, anything is possible. George Washington and the Frogs ran rings around us at Yorktown, though I think what decided the Parliament was the fact that Lord Cornwallis
surrendered.
Yes, I realize that Clinton was having too good a time of it in New York to sail down and relieve Cornwallis, and I realize that it was the
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