“I knew he was at the taverns, for Sarah told me so, but he wasn’t there for the drink. He was there for the talk. You and I are too old to understand the lure of rebellion, Thaddeus, too old and settled to know how a call to arms can so easily stir a young man to action. There was talk of glory, talk of a new order, and all the things that rubbed and chafed for so long came bubbling up and threatened to choke them with their injustice. Francis was never meant to be a farmer. Oh, he tried. For the sake of Sarah and Martha both, he tried. But Mackenzie beckoned and he couldn’t help but answer. None of them could. In their eyes it was such a noble cause, and the fine words disguised the truth of the affair — that it was nothing more than the wish to have a little excitement in their lives.”
Lewis thought of himself as a young man in 1812, marching so readily off to the horrors of battle; of the young American boy whose hand he had held while the surgeon chopped away his future; of Matthews and Lount hanged and many more sent across an unfathomable distance to an unimaginable fate, and he knew Betsy was right. A high-flown phrase could set in motion a series of events whose disastrous culmination was impossible to see.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“At first because Sarah asked me not to. She was afraid that you would confront Francis and make it worse. Then later, when she died, I tried to talk to you about it, but you weren’t prepared to listen.” She hesitated, worrying a callus on one finger. “After a time,” she said slowly, “it came to such a pass that I was loathe to even speak the name Francis Renwell, for it would set you off again. I was sure that if you knew where he’d been that night, you would see that he was hunted down like so many of the others were, not because you have anything against the rebels particularly, but as revenge for Sarah. But she was gone, and no act of yours would ever bring her back. To my mind it was a choice between the living and the dead. I chose to tend the living as best I knew how.”
Of all the things that Betsy had told him, this was the worst — that she had been unable to unburden herself to him, to tell him what she knew, all because he had deliberately chosen not to hear her. So much for the honesty he prized. He knew she was right, he had refused to listen, even when he knew full well that she was often far more astute than he, and more in Sarah’s confidence. He had let her shoulder the burden of her knowledge alone. Like Renwell, he felt that he had betrayed everything that meant the most to him. At that moment he would have welcomed a return to the blackness, such was his sense of utter failure. He closed his eyes but, like the devil, insensibility never came when you needed it.
He forced a small smile instead. “Is that all, or are there other things you haven’t said to save me from myself?”
“Oh, no, that’s it,” she said placidly. “There’s not much I don’t say to you Thaddeus, and when I don’t it’s usually for your own good.”
“Oh, Betsy, I am so sorry, sorrier than I can say. I was blinded by hate. I know that now, and not only have I done a disservice to you and Francis both, but to the women who died as well, for I’m no closer to discovering the culprit than I was at the beginning. Francis has forgiven me, and I hope you will as well. I just don’t know whether I can forgive myself.”
“We’ll put it behind us. Just get well again.”
As always, Lewis was astounded at the practicality of this woman he had had the good fortune to marry. He tried to follow her counsel, but during the weeks of his convalescence his mind would return to one nagging thought: someone was killing, wantonly and without consequence, and his own self-absorbed obstinacy had jeopardized the likelihood of ever finding out who it was.
Part IV
Bath 1841
I
It was evident to everyone, including Lewis himself, that he was not fit to ride a circuit in his present state and that it would be some time before he could return to it — if ever.
However, had he been able to choose a time in which to be an invalid, he could scarcely have picked better. The Methodist Episcopal Church had finally grown weary of wrangling with the Wesleyans, and the union had fallen apart. After years of labouring hard to keep the Episcopal discipline alive, the ranks of the faithful had been joined again by its main body of ministers. Lewis felt vindicated by this — he had felt from the beginning that the union was unwise, but the extent of the folly became all too evident as time went on. It was clear that although the Episcopals had arrived at the union with a substantial portion of property, they would leave with none of it. The Wesleyans intended to keep it all, and had ensured the legalities that would allow them to do so. This blow might have been devastating to any other denomination, but for the Methodist Episcopals it was merely another challenge. They had arrived in this colony with little more than a horse and a Bible and had built a congregation from the back of a saddle. If they must return to preaching in kitchens and dooryards, then so be it. The loss of the churches they had built rankled, but in the grander scheme of things these were merely material trappings and they would do without until they could rebuild.
Lewis felt more optimistic than he had in a long time, but he was still faced with some serious personal challenges. He needed to find something to do while he mended, something that was not too physically strenuous — he still had days when the fever flared and his hands shook — but that was absorbing enough to keep his mind active and his interest alive, not to mention providing some means of support for himself and his family.
According to Betsy, little had changed at the farm. He wondered briefly if he should go there and spend his time setting it right, but she suggested that it would only make matters worse.
“Maybe you landed Will with too much. If it were just he and Nabby, they’d have only themselves to sort out. I don’t think it helped that he had all the rest of us to try to please as well.”
“That wasn’t my original intention,” Lewis said. “I thought it would be easier for him that way, if he had help in the fields and in the house.”
“I know you meant it well,” she said. “It’s just that he didn’t take it well. I thought it was a good idea at the time, just as you did. I guess we were both wrong.”
Lewis was beginning to seriously wonder if he had any good judgment at all when it came to his family. This time he would listen to Betsy and stay out of it.
In the end, he went back to one of his old professions, that of schoolteacher. He even went back to his old school in Bath. Upon his inquiry, he had been told that the trustees were looking for a man with experience who wasn’t afraid to use the leather on the older boys who got rowdy when they were forced to attend. The previous schoolmaster had left quite suddenly. He was a young and rather frail-looking man, marked as a victim as soon as he started. The boys reduced him to tears one day when during recess they locked him in the outhouse and then tipped it over. Lewis would need to start right away, as the masterless school had some months to run until the summer break, and the trustees needed the students’ fees to maintain the building. The situation would do for a time, until he was well, but if he was going to be settled he was determined to have his wife with him.
When they returned to the farm, Lewis managed to get Will alone while Betsy and Luke were packing up for the move. “Look, boy, I understand that you want to stand by your wife, and I can admire that, but you need to take a firmer hand here. I’ll give you a year on your own. If you haven’t sorted things out by then, there’s no help for it, I’ll have to give up the farm and you’ll be on your own. I can send you no money, for a schoolmaster’s pay is barely enough to keep my own household.”
He could only hope that Will would reflect on his words, and take some action that would remedy things. Perhaps, given time and space, he and Nabby could make it work.
Lewis had just enough money to move their things to Bath, though their household goods were far fewer in number than they had been, having left a great many useful items and much of the furniture behind. He had found a tiny house that would accommodate them without much expense and which would be easy for Betsy to keep. Martha was big enough