Middletown, Connecticut
April 1, 1827
“So how was the old church? Looks like they spared you the tar and feathers!” Edward called from his chair on the porch as Samuel rode up to the old homestead.
“Barely!” Samuel laughed, tying his horse to the hitching rail in front of the old house. “From the looks of those folks, they just might have strung me up if I’d stepped into the church itself!”
He took a seat next to his younger brother and started rolling a cigarette.
“Silk and tea coming into Middletown, ginseng going out to China,” Edward said. “Oh, the scandal!”
“I wouldn’t laugh too much, Ed. You were pretty young when Dad died, too young to really know. The gossip around the church and the town was horrible. I think that almost broke mother as much as, well, you know.”
“Anyway, how’s our kin?” Edward asked, taking his brother’s cue, changing the subject.
“Healthy and handsome as always.”
Glancing at Edward, though, Samuel wished he could say the same about his brother. While his little brother was eight years younger, he looked shrunken, shriveled, and aged well beyond both of their years. Before leaving Canton, Edward had turned yellow and the color, while fading, still had not completely left his skin. He’d lost a quarter of his weight before leaving China and all of his strength, needing to be carried to the ship bringing them home.
While he wasn’t certain, he strongly suspected that Edward had been poisoned by one of the Hongs trying to gain advantage in the competitive Cantonese market’s foreign trade against his friend and mentor, Howqua. By the time they arrived back in Middletown, Edward had at least regained the ability to stand on his own, though he had still needed assistance walking.
Off the ship and safely back at home, Edward’s condition improved quickly and he was soon back on his feet, though still lacking the endurance he had before. In hindsight, Samuel was surprised that the voyage didn’t kill his brother, but the fact that he improved on the ship only added to his suspicion of poison.
Once Edward was out of bed, Samuel made sure that he stayed on the homestead, out of sight. The rumors about their enterprises in China were bad enough already.
At least there hadn’t been a ruby involved, Samuel thought. If there had been, his brother would be dead and everything Samuel had spent his life building would have been doomed.
After lighting his cigarette, he said, “George will be coming out soon, it’s time we bring him more into the fold, especially if you are convinced on abandoning me for New York.”
“Speaking of, I received another frantic letter from Elizabeth yesterday demanding that I return at once upon pain of death.”
“You married a fiery woman, I’ll say.”
“Aside from me missing her, as well, Sam, I’d best not keep Douglas waiting much longer. I keep telling you, he’s made me a very attractive offer should I see fit to return.”
“Insurance? I still don’t get it. Seems rather dour after all that we’ve built with Russell and Company. That’s your name there as well as mine.”
“All you’ve built. Canton almost killed me, and I’ll be more than happy leaving those midnight Huangpu runs to Sheldon. He has a flair and a lust for such adventure that I lack.”
“Even Jay is tired of that nonsense. While you were ill, I put him in command of one of the Turkish vessels. He’s young but he’s proven himself, I believe. But that is all the way around the world from here. I wouldn’t let you go back to Canton if you wanted to, but I could use you here. George is a good man, but you know the business better than he ever will after the last couple years.”
Edward laughed.
“Elizabeth would leave me before giving up the city for Middletown! We’ve discussed all of this too many times already. It’s been fun, and profitable, but I have no interest in making my fortune riding on your coattails. I’ll stay here until your ship sails in a couple weeks, but then I must make my way home.”
“Middletown is our home.”
“But Elizabeth is in New York.”
“Fine.”
Samuel extinguished his cigarette and started rolling a new one.
“Roll one for me, will you?”
“Sure, but don’t let Frances catch you, she’ll have my hide and you might be on your way back to the city quicker than you think. She is certain that tobacco is toxic to those with weak dispositions.”
“I don’t have a weak disposition. If I did, I’d be dead.”
“Well, explain that to the one who was nursing you back to life the last few weeks.”
Samuel rolled out the two cigarettes and they sat smoking in silence, looking out over the overgrown yard that, Samuel, at least, had spent precious little time playing in when he was a kid. While the town had moved in closer since their Great-Great-Great Grandfather settled here back in 1688 after being ordained as the second pastor of Middletown’s 1st Congregational Church, the property still retained the feeling of being deep in the country. Over the next century, the family had built that initial spartan homestead up into a solid, working farm with a large, two-story house that generations of Russells grew up in.
For the homestead, though, things took a turn for the worse when their Great Uncle came of age and took his divinity degree from Yale while his father still remained hale and healthy behind the pulpit of the church. Accepting ordination elsewhere, never to return, the farm passed down to Samuel and Edward’s Grandfather, who decided to pursue his fate and fortune on a ship instead of in a church.
While eventually rising to the point where he was the captain of his own vessel, their Grandfather was rarely home, and rarely sent back more than a meager few coin from his travels while his wife and children desperately tried to keep the farm running just to keep from starving.
The situation only took a darker turn when Samuel and Edward’s father, John, swayed by the largely fictional tales he'd heard from his father on his few visits home decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. While John quickly achieved command of his own ship, after landing in port with a particularly lucrative cargo then gambling all his earnings away, he came home one last time to see his increasingly desperate family before hanging himself in the barn.
Through the years that the old homestead had been in Samuel and Edward’s line, it had fallen to pieces. The livestock was long gone, the expansive gardens became overgrown, reverting back to a forest once again, and the once grand house was near the point of collapse by the time Samuel had earned enough to begin paying for repairs on it.
As if to prove the point, Sally, the mare Samuel had ridden into town that morning, neighed and pulled against the hitching rail, trying to reach a tuft of grass growing just out of her reach. As she leaned hard into her tethers, the posts cracked loudly and the whole rail took on a new and troubling slant.
“Ed,” Samuel said calmly. “If I forget, remind me to have Hubbard take care of that when he comes out this afternoon to work with Frances on the new house. The yard too, and soon. It would be nice to sit here for the next couple weeks not having to look at all of this mess, to get some real landscaping work done out here.”
“Sure enough,” Edward said, puffing at his cigarette. “Wetmore’s coming too, don’t forget about that. You have a full afternoon. George, Samuel Hubbard, Samuel Wetmore, Samuel Russell. Too many Sams in one house for me. I’ll pay my respects to Wetmore and then go for a ride, I think. I think it’s time to get back in a saddle.”
“Hubbard is no bother, he’ll mostly be working out the details on the new house with Mary, and Wetmore can fuck all the way off back to New York, for all I care. He only came here to hound me about relocating our Middletown operations down there or to Boston to save on costs, but our ships are helping keep this town afloat and I won’t do it.”
“I know you don’t forget, but Wetmore was like a father to me for a lot of years when you first left. Raised me like his own son, in his own house, and you, Sam, wouldn’t be worth a dime if he didn’t help get you started with Carrington.”
“I don’t forget. That is why I still put up with him.”
One of the farmhands Samuel hired wandered into the yard from behind the house. Seeing Sally tied to the rail, he called out, “Should I get her squared away, Mr. Sam?”
Samuel just nodded, flicking his cigarette butt into a spittoon next to him. He started rolling a new one as the boy led the mare away to the recently refurbished barn.
“George is taking his time. I don’t like it,” he said. “As you pointed out, I have a busy afternoon.”
“You know, you could always just stay here,” Edward suggested. “Things are solid in Canton. Cushing is more than capable of handling the details of the merger with Perkins.”
“Ed, if it were only that, I’d stay here and never look back. Unfortunately, there are some aspects to our business with Howqua that I must resolve before I’ll be free to return permanently. Aspects that you are glad you are unaware of and that you should forget I ever mentioned. Until then, there will be no restful retirement for me.”
The front door swung open and Frances came out, glaring at them playfully.
“Look at you two, sitting out here like a couple of tramps while I’m in there fending off assaults from both your mother and your boys!”
While his own wife was very attractive, Edward couldn’t help but to admire his brother’s wife’s unique beauty, even while looking haggard from dealing with his mother’s difficult needs and his rambunctious nephews all morning. Frances was in her early thirties, with long, curly red hair that she left flowing around her long neck and shoulders, piercing green eyes, and a fit and firm figure. She had an ageless air around her. Like her husband, she looked much younger than her age but, also like Samuel, she had the same faint lines around her eyes that betrayed her actual age, and she carried herself with the experience and wisdom of a woman much older than her years.
She was the younger sister of Samuel’s first wife, another remarkable beauty. After they married, the three of them took up residence in the old homestead with Edward and Samuel’s troubled, aging mother, Abigail. Originally, everyone figured that Frances would soon find a husband of her own, but when her sister died while giving birth to her second son, John, in 1819, just months after Samuel first departed for China, she’d stayed on to raise her nephews and to look after their grandmother.
A couple years before, the last time Samuel had returned from China for a visit and a break, he and Frances married. It was done with the utmost discretion so as not to further enflame the lingering rumors drifting about the town of a possibly unnatural relationship occurring at the old homestead before Samuel had first departed for Canton.
Frances and her sister had always been close, being orphaned young when both of their parents died under mysterious circumstances in Jamaica. While not technically orphans themselves, both Samuel and Edward felt great sympathy for the sisters since, when they lost their father, they essentially lost their mother, as well. Even before her sister’s death, the two of them had been so busy with the first baby, taking care of Abigail, and trying to get the dilapidated house and farm rebuilt that Frances had little interest in courting, contributing to the town’s seemingly unbridled lust for scandalous rumors.
Even Edward himself, one night after putting down a bottle of rum with his brother, couldn’t help but to jokingly pry into the subject.
“You know what the stories are about you three.”
“Of course, let them wonder. We’ve been through these things before. It will blow over in time.”
“Of course, but... Well?”
Samuel let out a sly chuckle.
“I will go to my grave before I ever validate that question with an answer.”
While Edward felt a little chided by the response, he still noted that his brother did not deny the accusations.
Frances pulled a stool over to join the brothers and pulled the cigarette out of her husband’s hand, taking a long, satisfying drag from it. Realizing that she wasn’t giving it back, Samuel started rolling a new one for himself.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Frances cheerfully scolded. “Put your pouch away, I’m taking a break. You’re the one who gave Harriet a few weeks off after Ed quit loafing around in bed, saying you wanted to spend some time being a father and a son, so get in there and get to it. I’ve been stuck here on my own all morning! Abigail’s been asking for you, so Ed, go find your nephews and do some uncle stuff with them.”
“Remember Frances,” Samuel said with a sly look in his eye. “Duties are ours, events are God’s.”
“And your duties, not mine, Sam, are upstairs with your mother.”
As they were walking into the house, Edward chuckled, “I wasn’t the only one who married a firebrand!”
“What was that, Ed?” Frances asked, winking at her brother-in-law.
“I love you, Fran,” he called back as the brothers escaped into the house and went about their duties.
***
Upstairs, in the room she’d slept in for all the years she’d been married into the Russell clan, Abigail sat in her rocking chair, trying to figure out who the stranger was who’d just walked in and sat on the foot of her bed. Then she felt like a silly young girl, wondering how she could be so confused.
“John, you are home!” she happily exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting you at all! I’ve missed you so, come over and kiss me and tell me all about, oh, where was it this time? London?”
“No, Mother,” Samuel said sadly. “I’m Samuel. Your son, Samuel.”
Abigail’s excited look changed to one of relieved gratitude.
“Oh, Samuel. It is so good to see you. Eddie has been such a handful. I just can’t keep up with him anymore now that Sam’s left us. It feels wrong for me, but I am so grateful that he can stay with you. Just for awhile until I am feeling more myself. I feel like just a little rest is all I need, then Eddie will be home again, and we’ll be right back to where we need to be. But I do worry about his brother. He’s got the same bug that plagued both John and his father, but he does seem much more sensible than the two of them ever did. He’s started a big firm in China, you know? Imagine that, little Sam being such a big man all the way over there in China!”
Samuel was concerned. While she had never been mentally well, her growing senility had settled in even deeper since his last trip home, and where she used to have long periods of lucidity between spells, since he returned, she yad yet to recognize him once. Even worse, as her mind drifted through her memories from year to year, her recollection of the past was becoming even more jumbled and disoriented. Edward had moved out on his own from Wetmore’s years before the start of Russell and Company in Canton.
He rose from the bed and knelt down at his mother’s feet, wrapping her frail hand in both of his own and looking deep into her eyes.
“Mother, I am Sam, not Mr. Wetmore. Eddie is here too, down with your grandchildren. We’re all together here, for now, all of us back home.”
His mother just stared down at him with sad, uncomprehending eyes. After some time, it was more than he could take. He rose, kissed her gently on the forehead, and retuned to his seat on the edge of her bed. At least she wasn’t suck in the barn. Too often, her mind carried her back to that horrible moment of discovery and the dark days that followed.
“All right, Ma,” he said. “Tell me, what is new and exciting in your life right now?”
A sly look came over her face.
“On the way home from church yesterday, I saw the most handsome boy. I know it is not entirely proper, but I made up my mind to go introduce myself to him. I’d never seen him in church before, never seen him anywhere at all, and I would have remembered. Mother stopped me though. She was aghast, and said, ‘I won’t have it, not with that scoundrel John Russell.’
“But, oh my, that just made my heart flutter even more. How exciting, he was a scoundrel!”
“Yes, Abigail. I believe he was. In fact, I am sure of it.”
There was a quiet knock at the door and Frances stuck her head in.
“Both your cousin and Mr. Wetmore have arrived. They are waiting for you downstairs. Edward is going to take the boys riding with him, so I can sit with her for a while. She’ll be ready for her nap soon enough. There’s some fresh coffee and sandwiches in the kitchen, if anyone will have them.”
Down in the parlor, the two men were sitting on the sofa as Samuel came down the stairs and as Edward was ushering the boys out to the door.
Samuel waved his cousin over.
“Boys, this is another Russell, our cousin George!”
“Really,” his oldest boy said, eyes wide. “My name is George too!”
George laughed and shook his hand while Samuel knelt down and fake whispered in the boy’s ear, “You know, I’ll tell you a secret, only the finest of men are named George!”
John gasped, “But what about men named John!”
Samuel winked at him, “Johns have a bit more to prove.”
“Dad!” the boy groaned, realizing that his father was pulling his leg.
Laughing at the whole exchange, George announced that all he saw was two of the finest boys ever, who were sure to grow up into very great men, if they were anything like their father.
“Now, off with you, go have an adventure,” Samuel said, pushing them toward the door. “And Edward, do me a favor, stick to the river road. It wouldn’t do to have you seen in town right now.”
“Don’t worry about that. I moved away a long time ago. You are the one who wants to move back here, not I.”
As Edward followed the boys out the front door, Samuel turned to his cousin and said, “Speaking of fine young men, William sure has grown up. Aiming for West Point, is he?”
George sniffed somewhat dismissively.
“I’m not sure that he’s sure about much of anything yet, but he has taken well to the Academy.”
“He’s come a long way from since I saw him at our wedding in New York all those years ago.”
“That he has, for sure.”
“It’s your call, but as far as I am concerned, we’ll always have a position open for him, if he is looking for a place to land after he graduates.”
Samuel beckoned for Wetmore to join them and led them to the dining room.
“Since all of our business today is the same business, let’s sit down together in the dining room. I believe that Frances has prepared a bite to eat for us if either of you are hungry. As for myself, I am famished.”
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