Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Yet, it wasn’t the boys’ schooling or money that kept me awake at night. It was the question of why I had said I’d consent to John staying away longer. Was it because I feared we might never again be to one another what we were before the war?
I disliked the cold, distant, scolding man he had become in Europe. I still grieved the husband I once knew. The husband I
still somehow longed for . . .
Whatever I might think of the inequalities of marriage, life was meant to be done with someone else, wasn’t it? Despite all,
I wanted companionship.
However hard I’d made my heart against John these past years, it had only encased the remains of our love and preserved it
like a flower in amber. I’d never know if it could blossom again unless I persuaded John to come home.
I wrote to him frankly, begging him not to accept another appointment from Congress. In case my pleading was not enough, I
resorted to bribery, hinting at my pin money. “If you come home and take the farm into your own hands, I can assist you in
getting our living this way instead of running away to foreign courts and leaving me half my life to mourn in widowhood. I
have a hundred pounds sterling I could command upon such an occasion.”
In letter after letter, I beseeched him to come home.
I could have never imagined his reply.
For now, in letter after letter, John beseeched me to join him in Europe.
At Weymouth, where I joined my older sister in caring for our ailing father, Mary asked, “Abigail, why do you sound as if
this comes as an unwelcome shock?”
“Because it is an unwelcome shock!” Years ago, John insisted it was too dangerous to join him, financially impossible, and that there was
nothing so disagreeable as a woman at sea.
Now his feelings had changed, but so had mine.
I’d once begged my husband to take me with him, but in the five years he’d been gone I’d built my own life here. “The notion that I must
drop everything, including the happy company of my sister and the care of our father, does not appeal.”
Mary sighed. “I’m flattered to think my company might rival the glories of Europe, but I fear our father will not much longer be a tie that binds you here.”
She wasn’t wrong, though my eyes stubbornly refused to see until the last possible moment when we sent for Elizabeth to say
her farewells. Before he died, my father blessed us and whispered, “God gave me for children three comforts and one affliction.”
Our brother, the Affliction, did not attend the funeral. No doubt Bill thought himself justified in staying away to avoid
his creditors—especially since my father broke custom and left his property in trust for my brother’s wife and children. That
was surely a humiliation for him.
But the parson was deliberate with his arrangements, including for my sisters and me, and those for Phoebe.
Because Mary was the oldest, we let her explain it to our old nurse. “Papa’s will gives you the choice, Phoebe. You may have
your freedom, or you may belong to me or Mrs. Adams or Mrs. Shaw as you please. It would be ownership in name only, of course.
To provide you security. None of us would demand services of you.”
Slavery in name only was still slavery, and I tried mightily not to remind everyone that Phoebe was already entitled to her freedom according to recent court cases in Massachusetts. She was free due to the state constitution my own
husband had drafted. But I knew that both my sisters feared for Phoebe’s safety to live as a freedwoman, so I only added,
“Whatever you choose, there’s also a behest to support you in old age.”
Phoebe didn’t hesitate. Eyes shining with deliverance, she said, “I will have my freedom.”
“Yes,” I said, scarcely restraining myself from leaping up to embrace her.
“You’re certain?” Mary asked.
Phoebe stood taller, her eyes gazing heavenward. “Miss Mary, I’m more certain than I’ve ever been in my life. Should a bitter
cup come to me from the choice, I’ll still savor it for having been my choice.”
We were all struck by these words. By her willingness to leap out into the unknown with faith in the future. She was, I thought, a remarkable woman, and we each owed much of ourselves to her example.
Would that I could be as firm in a decision whether to join my husband in Europe. Later, after we’d toasted Phoebe’s freedom
and reminisced of loved ones passed, conversation turned to my dilemma, and my sisters fretted over the dangers of a sea crossing.
“I cannot go in any case,” I said. “What would I do with the farm?”
Mary suggested, “Put it in the care of your tenants and Uncle Tufts.”
Elizabeth groaned. “Mary, why do you encourage her? I scarcely see Abigail as it is. She’ll be even farther from me in Europe
than now.”
“You’re a reverend’s wife,” Mary said, her tone scolding. “Surely you know that if Abigail’s husband calls, she must go. It
cuts me to the quick to part with her, but we ought to make it easier for her to obey.”
Well, I might not obey, I thought.
John hadn’t commanded me to come. And even if he had, it’d never been my way to meekly submit. For that matter, it’d never
been the way of my once-spirited little sister, Elizabeth, either. Yet at the mention of her stern husband, the Reverend Shaw,
she shrank into herself in a way that pained me.
Apologetically, Elizabeth suggested, “I’d care for your boys while you’re away, Abigail. You needn’t worry for them.”
We all knew that Charlie and Tommy were destined for Harvard. John didn’t wish to interrupt their schooling with travel, and
neither did I. But how could I abandon them? “It’s impossible. Who would take on our account books and collect from our debtors?”
Biting her lower lip, Elizabeth said, “Prevail upon young Mr. Tyler. I’m told he’s a fine young lawyer.”
With a sharp brow raised, I glanced to the parlor, where my daughter was engaged in close conversation with her cousin Betsy
Cranch. “I wonder where you hear that from . . .”
“Your boys,” Elizabeth explained. “They say Mr. Tyler is Nabby’s very special friend.”
Well then, there was no use denying it. While the behavior of the two was without fault, my daughter and Mr. Tyler were so terribly in love that anyone could see it.
And, in truth, Mr. Tyler was a convenient man to have around.
He made himself useful chopping firewood.
He helped collect rents. He ran errands for me.
All welcome behavior from a potential son-in-law.
I was also impressed by the large and stately house he’d just purchased in the north precinct of Braintree. It was a very fine house in which Nabby might go into housekeeping and bring forth children. Certainly, it was finer than the saltbox in
which I’d raised her. No doubt every time Nabby passed Mr. Tyler’s new abode, with its elegant front door, she imagined herself
its future mistress.
As if following my train of thought, Mary said, “Take Nabby with you to Europe.”
I winced. “And separate her from her special friend?”
“It will do her good,” Mary advised. “If their love is true, it will survive the separation. Yours has.”
I wasn’t certain that was true. There had been hours, days, and weeks when I wandered from room to room, feeling myself deserted
by John, despairing of lost love. Moreover, I was comfortable without him now. Did I not deserve to enjoy the comfort of the
community I’d helped sustain through all the long years of the war?
The truth was, I did not want to go to Europe.
I did not need to go.
So, I did not go.
Instead, I delayed. I answered my husband’s letters only sporadically. Perhaps realizing that he had no means by which to
force me, John invoked my sense of marital duty. “I am in ill health and cannot live much longer without my wife and daughter.
I want two nurses at least.”
When that failed, he appealed to my sense of adventure. “Come to Europe with Nabby as soon as possible, satisfy your curiosity,
and improve your taste by viewing these magnificent scenes. Go to the play—see the paintings and buildings—I am in earnest.”
When that, too, failed, he finally—unexpectedly—appealed to my heart.
“Abigail, I cannot be happy, nor even tolerable without you. Pray embark as soon as you can. The moment I hear of your arrival, I’ll race with post horses to receive you.
And if the balloon should be carried to such perfection as to give mankind safe navigation of the air, I will fly to you. ”
The warmth of this last letter gave me hope that we might rekindle a love that had nearly been snuffed out. I found myself
at my jewel box, thumbing the pendant. The one of the woman and her shield, staring longingly after a ship at sea.
That woman yielded. That woman waited. That woman did not make her own fate.
But I would.
I wouldn’t risk everything for marital duty. Nor for adventure. But always in my life I’d risked everything for the call of
love. And despite all the pains of recent years, it was still a call I could not deny.