Measure

(Some days after "Murder", and Anna Strong's unexpected call)

It is being gossiped among the King's Men here: 'twas Abraham Woodhull of all people whose blood is most likely stained upon Corporal Eastin's breeches.

The officers in our house (I believe) at times forget—or choose to ignore—that I share a room and bed with Sally B., and this morning that were outside that door, discussing the news of their day and week. I could not hear all their speech upon the matter (Lieutenant Williams seemed determined to shush them), but it seems abundantly clear that their Captain Simcoe has not only returned to Setauket after being presumed dead in an ambush (and in fact having been captured by the Continentals during it), but that he has challenged Abraham to a duel down at the mill pond.

The duel-they waste no breath in speculating, but state as truth-the duel was over the honor of Anna Strong.

And so it is no wonder she was wild that morning to reach Whitehall and Judge Woodhull before sun-up.

I have never seen a duel (or even a challenge), and I daresay it is not likely many (if any at all) have been fought here in Setauket.

There is apparently a great deal of unsavory speculation about Mrs. Strong's role in the matter and her preference between the two men. This I know Mama would not settle for being bandied about her home—true or not.

It is generally known in the village that Anna and Abraham were once expected to marry. But they are hardly unique in that. Plenty of other youthful romances have also taken different paths. So the notion of an alliance between the two of them (innocent or not) is no great leap.

But without her husband here to take her part, it seems to have left only Abraham to the job.

Or (and this is a far less-pleasant notion), 'twas Abraham who is believed to have assaulted her honor, and made Captain Simcoe (with Eastin by his side, I have surmised) the one attempting to redress the damage.

Certainly this is the interpretation of events the officers prefer, and Simcoe the horse they'd rather back in the race.

And yet it is the British who have made any such mess. The British who have taken Anna's husband off to a fate in which she cannot share, and it is the British who have left her without protection or home or means.

And now it is the British bandying her name about among her own village as though she had no more dignity than a camp follower.

I do rather hope that she and Mary Woodhull's husband are not behaving in a way that would garner the proper disapproval of a lady like Mama. And if they are, I rather hope never to learn of it.

I shall instead choose to believe they are childhood friends whose friendly bonds have endured over time, and whose present situations have brought them into the light for scrutiny by all.

I spent my time at schooling the children this morning, trying to think of the worst words I could to describe the King's Men (and wishing I'd paid more mind to Caleb Brewster's wretched—but colorful-tongue).

Since Major Hewlett requisitioned the school so that the schoolhouse might be used for his powder stores, the task of teaching Nan and Abner has fallen to me. I have not minded it greatly, even when they turn trying. I feel sad they have no school or school fellows to go to. They are both young enough that I can dare hope this will change, and that their elder sister will not be the only schoolmistress they will ever know.

This morning, before we started our lessons, Mama took me aside and asked if I would consider taking on Alexandra Robertson, the ten-year-old daughter of our close neighbor. Like my brother and sister she has been suffering from missing out on the society of a school room of children. Alexandra is a pleasant girl, whose academic prospects are not so daunting that I mightn't feel competent as her tutor. She is younger than Abner who is twelve, and will make a nice role model for Nan (who I confess, will soon likely outstrip her in grammar and sums), who is but eight.

I agreed with Mama that she might let the Robertsons know by note or by calling on them that we would be pleased to have Alexandra join us each day.

As Mama left to plan on doing so, I realized with that cool understanding that seems to take hold of me sometimes, that my opportunity had come.

It would be a perfectly reasonable thing for me to do to enter Papa's study in order to seek out a few supplies to add to what we used for our lessons. It was generally known that he had a nice, larger slate that would be more than natural for me to wish to make use of now that I would be instructing three pupils daily.

No one in the house would think to question my doing this.

And 'tis possible Sally B.'s patience (like my own) to prove (or, for me, to disprove) Amos Hayman's idle words regarding the future of Outerbridge slaves was wearing thin.

I said something of a prayer for this dubious action on my part before I entered through the connecting parlor door (his study also having a door to the outside for clients to use when he was present, without them having to call at and walk through the house), using the key from Mama's chatelaine which I had received with her absentminded blessing (certainly she could not have suspected I wished to have it to break-in and steal). But it was a non-religious prayer aimed more at the forgiveness of my earthly father than that of my Heavenly one.

In the days since Papa had set off for York City with Bess and Cleopas, as the workload for our slaves had grown heavier with the addition of another officer, they had been excused from taking the same level of care in maintaining this room to the level of the rest of the house. (And once Papa's fate had become uncertain, it was thought a necessity even less so.) And so it was no surprise the room felt shut-up, that some dust had settled about on ink pots and blotters—the frames of the two windows flanking the exterior door.

The light was not good, despite those windows (which brought in afternoon, not morning, sun), but I did not need to light a lamp to find what I was looking for, I knew the spot where the most important documents were stored could not be found by aid of a lamp—only by fingers knowing where and how to uncover it. I located what amounted to a latch quickly, and thrust my hand in without letting myself acknowledge fear of mice or spiders in cohabitation with the usually undisturbed papers there. There was the small, pocket-sized ledger book and several documents rolled together. I had no intention of going over them there (that would have required the lamp). I knew that now to keep up my ruse I must gather supplies for school teaching, and locate the large slate.

But before I could seriously set-to this, there was a terrible scrape and creak at the exterior door (I had closed the interior door to the parlor behind me), and what stood for a lock upon that door was broken, and the door thrust open.

I froze in my place, confused, not understanding why if my father was returned home he should need to break into his own property. Nor why he might visit his study before his family.

But it was not my father, standing just inside the doorway, the village track that ran beside the door visible behind him. What there was of the early morning light still not upon it.

"John Robeson!" I said, "What are you doing here?" I could not recall him having business dealings of any kind with my father. He is not a man who appears to do much business of any kind, unless such business occurs chiefly in the tavern, and among the officers that agree to tolerate him.

"You best leave, Miss Jenny," he said, though his polite address did nothing to sway me to his suggestion. He is a most wayward and unpleasant person, and hearing him speak my name—after having broken a lock to enter my family's home—only increased my dislike of him.

"What business can you possibly wish to accomplish here when it is no secret to the village that my father is gone away to York City?"

"You listen here, Girl," he said to me, having given up on using my name. "The British are looking for a paper—the petition to nominate Selah Strong to the New York Convention. And I happen to know your father has a copy of it, locked up in here for safekeeping somewheres."

He is lucky the hearth was weeks cold, and that I was not near the poker, hearing him speak of my father's business matters as though he had any understanding of them.

"It is true that he sometimes agrees to act as holder for copies of important documents," I said, and I felt myself tossing my head in a show of bravery I was no longer certain I felt—so many strangers telling me the business of a man I knew intimately. "But he has no copy of that document," I assured him, "He does not even know such a document exists."

"Quit with your mouth, Miss Jenny," Robeson said, and it appeared he had been doing some drinking already in the day, some of it held over from the night before. "You are prettier to look at when you talk less. I know he has it."

What a queer way to speak to a young lady, to compliment and insult her in a single breath. Not that I should have expected a pole cat such as Robeson to know aught of manners. "Then why not bring Major Hewlett here?" I asked. "Send his soldiers to ransack our home until they find it?"

He took a step that was either a stagger or the beginning of a threat forward (I could not tell between the two possibilities). "Because once, long ago, your father did a kindness for my mother," his mother had died some five years earlier. "He forgave a small loan she owed, required no payment of her. And I've no wish for him to lose his position—and your home—by being found to be in possession of seditious papers—though a good Tory like Malachi is only holding them in safety for their owners, as his business requires of him. He's no rebel. Now step back into your house," his eyes flicked over toward the closed door to our parlor. "And I will find it for myself."

I had no intention of leaving him alone here, for there was plenty private bookkeeping among my father's papers in plain sight, without taking into consideration what I held hidden in my hand. That, and I would not leave a man who had come into my house like a thief in any part of that house. "What," I challenged him, "and take it to the British who will know where you have been? You cannot trick them, John Robeson. Unless it is that you already have such a paper on your person, and you mean to present it to them AFTER having ransacked my father's office, and say that it was here you found it—earning you your position as their lapdog, and earning my father unjust time in the stocks. I tell you; my father has no copy of such a document, nor any knowledge of it. No doubt you think it very clever of yourself to come here when he is not in residence to defend himself, and break-in to his place of business. What other secrets and private matters might you hope to become privy to amongst his personal papers and account books?" I was not keeping my voice quiet, I wanted someone to hear us, someone to come in and also shout-down what slander he was speaking about Papa.

His jaw had grown hard, and his face half-contorted at his being frustrated in his plans so. "If I do not find it," and here was his threat, "rest assured they will. And not even your pretty frocks—nor your sister sent away to York City—will remain untouched by their response."

"Get out of my house," I said. I already had the bundle I had discovered in my hands and hidden between the folds in my skirt and apron. I saw the slate but an arm's length away, and wondered if I could get to it how many steps toward him it might take to bash it over his head. Wondered whether such a blow might send him unconscious.

There was a flurry at the door behind him, boots first upon the snowy packed dirt of the village track, and then upon the wood of the threshold.

Someone had noted the door hanging open.

To both our surprise it was Lieutenant Williams. He gave John Robeson a distrustful look, which is more than Will Robeson has ever deserved.

"Miss Outerbridge," he addressed me, "I was given permission to come straightaway and tell you; your father has been sighted upon the North Road by Dr. Mabbs who was traveling home, and sends his greetings to you and your mother. He brings news from his dealings York City, and letters from Miss Outerbridge. He is well, Miss. He is well."

The lieutenant must have thought me something rather other than a caring daughter, as my response to him was half-hearted at best. I was stunned by his announcement, more so by his arrival in the midst of the stand-off that had grown between myself and this burglar.

And so in that moment, it was Lieutenant Williams of the King's army who proved the only person in the Outerbridge home to show any true feeling or pleasure at learning its master was safe, and soon to be returned to us.

I have risen early this morning to recount these occurrences, and no doubt in anticipation of when Papa might arrive (though I know not if today or tomorrow), and as I stepped out on the front stoop this chill day, it was Abraham Woodhull, a wagon full of cabbage or some such crop, and Anna Strong, sitting side-by-side as they pulled away from (what is now) DeJong's Tavern on their way to the North Road and York City, leaving Mary Woodhull holding their son, with only the cold company of Rachel Clark to comfort her.

[added at a later time]

There are two addendums to this account of which I feel the need to make note.

The first being that I asked Lieutenant Williams to stay and watch over the study as I had to leave straightaway to consult the smithy on an interior wood plank and iron slots for it to bar that door from the inside, as I had only just discovered someone had broken in and the lock was shattered.

I did my best to keep from sending an arch expression toward Will Robeson.

The lieutenant proved amenable to this, and granted me the favor. And when I returned, assured me John Robeson had left but a moment after I—going thankfully (so the lieutenant reported) in the opposite direction of the smithy.

The smithy shall have the plank to bar the door in place by sundown.

The second (of which I am not proud, but feel I must render here) is that upon the matter of Anna Strong and Abraham Woodhull, I confess I have allowed myself at times to believe the worst about how their history might be at play in their present relations as a man and woman wed to other people.

And in those times, when I have believed the worst of them, I have felt shock, but more so pride. And I fear it is an unearned pride coming from my true heart. For can I truly bear witness that were their situation mine-were I to discover you had wed, or were now betrothed to another—would I be able to bury my feelings in a casket, or box them upon a shelf?

Or would I still seek you out, still pray for your own heart to find mine?

Am I generous and unselfish enough to surrender you to another, to congratulate you upon such news? And yet to see you about the village daily (as they must and do) and not desire you for my own?

I recall well enough your father's sermons upon that passage in Matthew's Gospel: "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

And I find I've no right to any feeling of pride or superiority in such a matter as concerns Abe Woodhull and Anna Strong.

A/N::

measure
1. To calculate (as in, Jenny's father's ledgers are ways to measure his clients and his business)

2. To consider one's words, deeds, or actions carefully (as Jenny often does within the pages of her diary)

3. a plan or course of action taken to accomplish a specific purpose (as Jenny's measured decision to take the measure or steps to get into her father's study)

4. to take someone's measure, to make a judgement about a person in reference to a set or agreed upon standard (as Jenny does here with Will Robeson)