Infernal Revolutions (37 page)

Sophie reluctantly agreed to my suggestion, and after forcing Mr De Witt to tell us where the rope was kept, we busied ourselves at our work. Clara and Mr De Witt were soon bound and gagged and locked in their rooms, but then came the dreaded request to help with the binding of Eloise, who was proving unexpectedly fractious.

‘Come on in, sweetie. Don't be scared – she's just having a bit of a swansong.'

I gingerly stepped in to the demolished bower, and looked over at the shape huddled under the blankets. Sobs and groans emanated from it, and I remembered with shame the letter I had written to Eloise from my prison cell, all love and forgiveness for her sins. Some Jesus I had turned out to be.

I dithered nearer the bed, and was awaiting Sophie's instructions when Eloise's head shot up and scared me out of my wits. For instead of the slightly-crumpled-but-still-beautiful face I was expecting, I was confronted with a veritable spitting Gorgon, unrecognizable as Eloise, with bloody hair sticking out at all angles and eyes wilder than a witch's. Had she not spoken, I would have sworn on any Bible that this beast was not the same bewitching girl I had exchanged bodily fluids with a month earlier.

‘This is your doing, Harry!' it howled. ‘You have set your attack dog on me because I did not let you have your way with me. I am punished for being virtuous.'

‘No,' I said quickly, glancing over at Sophie, who was all ears as she stretched out the rope, ‘you are being punished for nearly killing me, for betraying me as a spy.'

‘What are you talking about? I painted your picture, that is all.'

‘Aye, and then what?'

‘Then Papa took it, as he takes all the portraits I do. He sells them to his friends and gives me the money for them.'

My heart sank.

‘You mean you don't know what they are really used for?'

‘OF COURSE I DON'T!' she screamed unexpectedly, before suddenly lunging towards me with both hands outstretched, my neck their destination. I jumped back terribly affrighted, but Sophie moved in quickly to restore order, administering a neat clonk on Eloise's forehead with the butt of her pistol.

‘She's a lying bitch,' said Sophie, as Eloise flopped back cross-eyed on her pillow, unconscious. ‘Anyone can see that.'

I wasn't so sure, and as we started to tie up the limp body – me trying very hard not to fondle any of Eloise's still-tempting flesh in full view of Sophie – I expressed my concern that perhaps she had misspent her time
sorting out
the wrong person.

‘No,' said Sophie, grunting as she made the knots super-tight, ‘I am quite satisfied I have nailed the main culprit. She knew what she was doing. The question is, did you, when you
tried to have your way with her
?'

I knew this was coming, though why it should be of concern to Sophie I could not understand.

‘Sexual frustration, that is all, my dear.'

‘But she is – sorry, was – beautiful, wasn't she? Much more so than me.'

This was a vicious, twisting ball to negotiate. I ventured to play, but then drew back my bat at the last moment, trusting to luck that the ball's trajectory and bounce would take it safely past my wicket.

‘Not at all, my dear. She was always the Moon, a mere stepping stone on the way to the glorious radiance of your Sun, which I knew was shining out there somewhere.'

I peeped down surreptitiously at Eloise as I said this, hoping she was still out. She was, and this encouraged me to sally forth even further on the wings of Eulogy until I lost sight of land completely, and had not the faintest idea of who or what I was praising. Eventually Sophie could stand no more.

‘Stop, Harry. Your verbosity is answer enough. But what does it matter if she is more beautiful than me? She had her chance and she didn't take it. You are mine now, and what I lack in beauty, I will make up for in loyalty and passion.'

I had been bowled, but sweetly, and I was just kissing her when a groan from below brought me to my senses. I looked down and saw as if for the first time the bruised, defiled face of the girl who had so recently captured my heart. Belatedly, I felt intense anguish at her suffering, mixed with exasperation at the messy, tangled web of loyalties which had led to it. I did not know who I hated the most: Sophie, for being so cruel and vindictive; myself, for being so weak; Mr De Witt, for desecrating the holiness of a father's office; or Eloise herself, just for being a victim. I was angry and confused, and recoiled from the bed with a start. I stormed towards the door, with the intention of getting as far away from the contaminated house as I could.

‘Sweetie, where are you going?'

‘Outside. To think.'

‘About what?'

Quite beside myself with passion, I stopped, turned around and blurted it out.

‘About who is the most guilty person here!'

The remark caught Sophie by surprise. She frowned, as if trying to divine my meaning, then continued uncertainly in the old vein.

‘Why, this trollop, of course. She knew what she was doing, I told you; a woman's instinct is never wrong on these matters. She embroiled herself willingly enough.'

‘And you tortured her willingly enough!'

A steely look entered Sophie's eyes. She penetrated me with this for a few moments, then answered in a voice that could have frozen the blood of Beelzebub.

‘I was making the punishment fit the crime. But I see now I have done wrong. I also see now who it is you really love. Here, untie her. Revive her. Care for her. Marry her. Love her for the rest of your treacherous life. I am done with you both!'

Smoking hot, she dashed the slack of the rope onto the floor and tried to barge past me to the stairs. I would not give way, and we rushed for the door together. The unfortunate result – for neither of us wanted low comedy at this moment of high frenzy – was that we both became jammed in the doorway, wriggling desperately for freedom like a pair of stuck chimney sweeps. Unable to strike physical blows, we hurled verbal abuse at each other at point-blank range until Sophie finally popped out onto the landing and clattered against the facing wall, which she slid down dismally. Dragged off-balance myself, I grabbed the jamb of the door for support, but only succeeded in spinning round and toppling backwards on top of her. She let out a groan, pushed me off her, then beat me about the head in a flurry of fists. I was about to retaliate in kind when I discovered to my surprise that all my anger had spent itself in the verbal exchanges. I suddenly realized I did not wish to lose her, and that even a physical thrashing by her was better than no contact at all. Perhaps Sophie felt the same way about me, for an odd stillness followed, when all I could hear was our panting and the thoughts racing around my head.

‘Our position, madam, is ludicrous,' I ventured, when our breathing had returned to normal. ‘A good job Eloise is in no state to paint us.'

‘Oh, it's a good job now, is it?' Sophie replied in a softened tone. ‘A few minutes ago it was a very bad job.'

‘My allegiance is with you; it always has been,' I said quietly. ‘I do not love Eloise. I would have expressed the same concern at the degree of punishment you were meting out whoever the recipient was.'

‘Caring man!' said Sophie, putting her hand on mine. ‘And did you hear that, Fish Face?' she yelled into the room. ‘He doesn't love you! Never did!'

‘Sophie, there is no need to make her suffering worse than it already is.'

‘On the contrary,' came back a faint broken sobbing voice, ‘she has eased my suffering. Now I know I am free to love another.'

‘Right, that does it,' said Sophie, starting to rise to her feet in another fury, ‘I'm going to sort her out once and for all, the impertinent cow.'

‘Look,' I said, holding her back and shaken to the core by Eloise's declaration of love for me, ‘stop this. You are rubbing an open sore that will never heal unless you leave it alone. Let us get out of the house quickly, as was the original plan. Leave her, leave them all, and come with me.'

I grabbed her by the hand to lead her down the stairs, but she broke away to go back into Eloise's room.

‘Where are you going? No, no more!'

‘I need to finish tying her up!' exclaimed Sophie in exasperation. 'Otherwise she will quickly release the other two and they will set about coming after us in some shape or form. I would have thought that was obvious. '

‘Very well. But do not hurt her further.'

I waited on the landing, not wanting to come face to face with my
lover
again, for various reasons all centring on shame. Though ready to dash in if absolutely necessary, all I heard were the grunts and groans one would normally associate with a person being tied up. Meanwhile, to fill the vacuum while waiting, my brain started hammering phrases in my head –
so she did love me after all
and
I could have had a beauty like Eloise De Witt
being the main two. I blew hard and shook my head with anguish, before managing to silence the tormenting voices by telling myself that she was probably lying anyway, merely practising emotional sabotage of the sort I had practised on others. Nevertheless, I wished Sophie would hurry up.

Eventually she emerged, shutting the door behind her and dusting down her hands in a satisfied
Job Done
gesture.

‘To Paulus Hook then, Lover!' she said brightly.

‘Yes, to Paulus Hook,' I said, less brightly. ‘But first there is one thing I wish to do. Follow me.'

‘Oooh!' exclaimed Sophie excitedly. ‘What is it?'

I led her downstairs into Mr De Witt's study, where we rummaged around in search of a safe or money box. Fearful of lingering too long, we were just about to give up when Sophie squealed with astonishment at a painting she had lifted from the wall.

‘Look at this,' she said, turning it over, ‘King George on one side, George Washington on the other. The devious devil!'

‘And look at this,' I said with greater astonishment, ‘a little door behind it. And inside the little door…' I gave Sophie a kiss as I opened it, ‘…a great big fat safe!'

‘But sadly locked,' said Sophie, as I beat and shook it with increasing frustration.

‘The key cannot be far,' I said, redfaced. ‘The man is not a genius.'

This proved to be the case, for the key was soon found inside a nearby tobacco pot. I opened the box with great satisfaction, and took the money Dick and I had given Mr De Witt for the privilege of being hanged. Though hundreds of pounds seemed on offer, I took only three guineas, no more and no less.

‘'Tis tempting to take it all,' said Sophie, licking her lips at the astounding sight, and fingering some of the wads of paper denominations.

‘Yes, but the dog needs a lesson in morality. If he sees others behaving well, turning their noses up at Mammon and acting with mercy, then there is a chance that he will see the error of his own ways in time, and become a beneficiary to the world, instead of a nuisance.'

Sophie looked at me as if I were an idiot, so that I was forced to diminish the effect by adding: ‘Anyway, where would we keep it if we took it?' Sophie was about to answer when I took her hand and led her outside, brooking no further argument.

‘You seem to forget that the De Witt's are mainly on your side in this war – there is no point taking from them the means of their livelihood. We have done what we came to do, and more, so let us leave it at that.'

Trying to remember which way to go, I stood in front of the house and looked around at the familiar surroundings. As I did so my eye caught sight of the well and the horse trough, now shrines to a lost love, and therefore lacerating emotional reminders of a Road Not Taken. As I stared at them, trying to milk them of their meaning, a powerful urge to cry came over me, but I managed to pull myself together and call out a spuriously cheery: ‘Now, which way is it back to the fort?'

‘Just follow the post road, of course,' said Sophie, getting up on her horse, ‘no other way as far as I know.'

‘I'd better start preparing a story again,' I sighed, as I climbed up behind her. ‘General Mercer will want to know what I've been up to before we travel back to New York.'

‘No need for that, sweetie,' said Sophie, ‘Paulus Hook is in British hands now. Just like I am.'

‘What!' I exclaimed. ‘When did that happen?'

‘A day or two after you left it, by my calculations. General Mercer abandoned the place for strategic reasons. The British just sailed across and occupied it with an invalid regiment.'

‘Well,' I said, astonished. ‘We'd better get there as quick as we can, before it changes hands again.'

‘Hold on tight then,
lover boy
.'

I did as bidden, even groping her bubbies facetiously in imitation of good British handling, but as I did so I could not resist a last long lingering look at the homestead of the divine Eloise De Witt, even though I knew that the image would always torment me. Imprinted on my brain, ready for retrieval whilst versifying or carrying out some dreary domestic chore, it would serve as a symbol of the inexplicable knottiness of human relationships, and a reminder of the days when I was a romantic, adventurous, free dog, beloved of a true beauty.

Early morning in the fort of Paulus Hook looked drab enough to me, but Sophie drank it all in with avidity. Her eyes were everywhere, as though she had suffered an apoplexy, and was trying to make sense of the world again. She watched entranced as soldiers went about such dreary tasks as making fascines, building abatis, burying refuse and sweeping out the grounds. She even stumped up to a group of veterans making cartridges, observed their techniques at close quarters, and told them they were not doing it right. Their response typified the mood of the whole place: ‘'Tis the way we have been shown to do it, and do it this way we always will. Now push off.' It was not an enterprising garrison.

Though not expecting a hero's welcome in Paulus Hook, a cordial handshake from an officer thanking me for my services to King and Country would not have gone amiss – especially as I now had Sophie to impress all over again. But the only things forthcoming were enquiries as to popular Dick's whereabouts, and the grudging offer of tea and hardtack; which, though starving, I spurned haughtily. No-one, least of all the few officers who had risen from their beds, had the slightest interest in life beyond the boundaries of the garrison. ‘We will find out about that,' wheezed one raddled old Invalid optimistically, ‘in our own good time.'

Even Sophie, to my combined chagrin and relief, did not elicit from the sentries more than the passing glance accorded to any camp follower, so that all-in-all I was glad to be on my way, fearful of lingering in case Our Love caught the prevailing mood of resignation. ‘Twas like introducing her to my family, and deeply regretting it.

‘They were a dispirited lot,' said Sophie, as we rode out unescorted to the Paulus Hook landing stage. ‘Which Feet were they again?'

‘Not Feet, Foot. The 47th anyway.'

‘And which Foot are you in?'

‘The 85th.'

‘What number does it go up to?'

‘It stops at us.'

‘Well, I hope the spirit rises with the numbers, otherwise you have lost this war, sweetie.'

‘You should see them in battle though,' I felt obliged to defend. ‘Ferocious.'

‘Seen them in battle, have you?'

‘No-one living has, except themselves; they are that destructive. Anyway, everyone is subdued at this time in the morning.'

‘I'm not.'

Indeed she wasn't. Her face glowed, her eyes shone, she sat bolt upright in the saddle, and she emitted a particularly strong bouquet of blackcurrant. I gazed at her in admiration, the complete woman.

‘Excited, sweetie?' I enquired, patting her thigh.

‘Enormously, my dear. I cannot believe that all this is taking place so close to Hackensack – ‘tis another world.'

There was even more rapture a few minutes later, when we turned the corner of the road and saw laid out below us a great swathe of the mighty Hudson River, on which sailed proprietarily what looked like every galleon, frigate, schooner and sloop in the British Navy. Having never seen the river myself in proper daylight before, I was just as impressed as Sophie, and I marvelled at its beauty, breadth and utility. Broad at the mouth as it washed into the Atlantic Ocean, the river appeared to narrow above Manhattan, until it rounded a bend and disappeared from view behind a wooded promontory. Along this upper length, variegated shades of brown, red, pink, yellow and gold foliage enrobed both banks, while directly across from us sparkled the city of New York, still with enough of its beautiful skyline left to excite the most jaded traveller. Sophie's eyes lit up as though she were viewing Heaven itself.

‘So, do you still think we're going to lose this war, my dear?' I said with great pride, as I surveyed the glorious array of floating firepower.

‘Yes,' said Sophie pleasantly, looking down with interest at our immediate destination, the Paulus Hook landing stage, whose difference in daylight was astounding. ‘By a mile. You might win a few early victories, but our boys – and more, the size of our country – will whip you in the end.'

‘Yes, the terrain might,' I said grudgingly, not willing to give any credence to the view that Colonials were better than Englishmen, ‘but I hardly think your boys will.'

‘We'll see, won't we?' said Sophie, a look of infuriating smugness on her face, which I tried to remove by airing a vision I had been thinking about for some hours.

‘No, we may not actually see anything, my dear. Except in print. Because long before the war is over we may well be safely ensconced in England.'

The smug look on Sophie's face quickly changed to one of horror, and for the first time since my rescue the sparkle went out of her eyes. I tried to revive it with an onrush of rhetoric.

‘Yes, yes, I can see it clearly now. I will come down to breakfast one morning in my dressing gown and nightcap, yawning in preparation for another hard but successful day's wrestle with the quill. You will be in the kitchen, baking the day's bread with a baby at your breast. I will pick up the week's
Sussex Advertiser
, and there it will be – one month late –
Terrain Beats British. Colonies Gone. Commons In Uproar
. You will give a little whoop of joy, and say I told you so, and we will reminisce about our meeting and the part we played on the pages of history, and then we will both get on with vastly more important things, viz. our happy domestic life together, and the bringing up of our children.'

By this time not just her eyes but her whole demeanour had lost its sparkle, so that I had to enquire if anything was wrong.

‘Just a little colic, sweetie.'

We both knew that this was untrue, and we both knew that the other knew that it was untrue, but it conveniently postponed a row, and allowed me to change the topic, which I did with a fair amount of gloom, my tentative proposal of marriage having been effectively rebuffed.

‘You need food, my dear. In fact we both do. ‘Tis a long time since we ate. Come, let us get across to Manhattan as quickly as we can, there to fill our bellies with cabbage and real English chops.'

Each of us preoccupied with our own thoughts, we made our way in silence down to the landing stage, where we waited for the arrival of our ferry to Manhattan. As we did so, we stood chatting with a little crowd of other misfits, all of whom remarked on the glory of the weather and the scenery, but were strangely silent about the war. I thought that only two factors could account for this omission: either all had had enough of it, and felt a compensatory desire to discuss the eternal verities of life, or all were spies like me, from one side or the other.

Whatever the reason, we were still waiting two hours later. By now thoroughly sick of eternal verities and magnificent views, we applauded sarcastically when Fatty Van Vorst's ferry came weaving through the shipping, missing enormous men o' war by what looked like inches. As it neared I could make out the ursine figurehead of Cedric, complete with aureole of leaping fleas.

‘Sorry I'm late,' said suave Fatty, throwing a rope around a mooring post and disembarking with the lumbering Cedric. ‘But nature in the form of a monstrous fat whore delayed me.'

The more delicate in our group, faces aghast at either Cedric, the state of the ferry, or the state of the clearly debauched Fatty, simply turned around and rode back into the hinterland of New Jersey. The less refined, the more foolish and the plain desperate – categories which included Sophie and I – stayed where we were and waited for the ill-looking passengers to disembark. One of them, a frail man with wet lips and collapsed cheeks, made plain his need for a horse, though for what reason was left open to the imagination, as he did not look as though he could ride one. Having no emotional attachment to ours, and thinking we would not need it again anyway, we quickly concluded a deal with the oddity, and pocketed the money. Then, seeing that Sophie did not like the look of the slippery gangplank, I gave her a piggyback and we staggered on board. As we did so, Cedric stood on his hind legs and made little circular movements with his front paws, for all the world as if ushering us to our seats.

As it was likely that some of our fellow passengers might be American spies or militia members, I was relieved that Fatty was too far gone to recognize me. Cedric, however, was a different matter. He kept darting suspicious glances in my direction as we ventured out into the middle of the river, and perhaps would have swiped me overboard had not a gun door shot open when passing directly beneath the massive bow of
HMS Hurricane
. This startled Cedric, and he hardly had time to look up before there came the flash, fire, and hellish roar of a cannon ejaculating. There followed in the smoky confusion the no less hellish roar of Cedric agitated, and soon he was upright on his feet, head back, teeth bared and paws swinging like mallets. The ferry rocked wildly, ladies screamed, gentlemen screamed louder, and all seemed lost, until fish rained down from laughing sailors on the upper gundeck. Fortunately, this gesture of appeasement did the trick, for Cedric – whose hunger was obviously greater than his ancestral fear of being shot in the woods – instantly calmed and started ripping away contentedly at the flapping refreshments.

‘Ye scoundrels!' called up Fatty when a modicum of order had been restored. ‘May General Washington skin your hides!'

Such a blatant declaration of partisanship was quite shocking to a natural dissembler like myself, and instinctively I made frantic
He's not with me!
gestures to the jeering sailors, for the general safety of us all. This was disapproved of by the colonials in the boat, especially my darling Sophie, and I was made acutely aware of the pain of divided loyalties. Should I side with my wife, my countrymen, or Right In General? ‘Twas a new dilemma that would no doubt continue to tax me until I was on that ship back to England, and perhaps even beyond that if Sophie returned with me. The war, if nothing else, had given me much to think about.

Sophie on my back, I jumped onto the Manhattan wharf with all the confidence of one who had nearly slipped off it not six weeks earlier. Friction this time deigned to favour me, however, and I managed to stagger several yards up the wharf before buckling at the knees with my burden. This amused the idle crowd of onlookers, but I was so relieved not to be bobbing in the Hudson that I was impervious to their ridicule. On the contrary, I felt elated that my ordeals were over. A successful Orpheus, I had retrieved my Eurydice from the Underworld of New Jersey, and now all that remained was a quick ride home on the back of a westerly, and a lifetime of lawful lovemaking – subject, of course, to PP's keeping of his promise. Indeed, ‘twas eagerness for reassurance on this point that dictated the order in which we conducted our necessary business affairs.

‘You will like Pete,' I said to Sophie, dragging her away from the cowering mob. ‘He is that rare creature – an approachable English aristocrat.'

‘Or perhaps by now that even rarer creature,' panted Sophie, in between stick-thrusts at a few of the braver souls, ‘a grilled English aristocrat.'

This was true, and in my desperation to find out I hurriedly led the way through the singed streets to the place where Pete was last resident. Along the way, however, we passed so many chop houses that we could resist the smell of them no more, and stopped to dine at one. The result was the most atrocious meal I had ever had in my life, at the most extortionate price, so that we left feeling both grimy and robbed.

‘That was probably Pubescent Pete we were eating,' observed Sophie, unsuccessfully trying to wipe grease off her mouth and hands. ‘Truly, Sir, that was a most disagreeable experience. Indeed, if that is the sort of cooking England is foisting upon us, then there needs to be a revolution in the culinary world as well.'

‘There is one underway,' I said, bitterly aware that my advocacy of English supremacy had been undermined yet again, ‘and its leader, if you remember rightly, is Dolly Potter. Squirrel pies, geese with cherries and boiled maple syrup on snow.'

‘Far superior to the muck we have just been served.'

‘Aye well,' I was forced to concede, ‘'twas not of the best quality, I agree. But to eat the best English meal you must actually be in England.'

‘Must you?' said Sophie, with devastating intonation. ‘'Tis a long way to go to risk disappointment.'

Again I kept my counsel, wishing to postpone the inevitable confrontation for as long as possible. So, in brooding silence once more, we walked on, until we came to a rough-looking area that I was sure had not been there before the fire. This was located at the foot of Broad Street in the south-west corner of the town, and seemed to contain every drunk, derelict, prostitute and runaway slave in America. The sights, sounds and smells of the place rivalled even Portsmouth for horror. Street copulation thrived, as did begging, stealing, drunkenness and cruelty. Living quarters, such as they were, seemed to consist of hundreds of dirty tents, and the skeletal remains of burnt-out buildings.

‘Sodom and Gomorrah!' was Sophie's enthusiastic response to all of this.

‘Aye, life in the raw,' I pontificated, ‘and the natural outcome of your little revolution. These poor people are victims of a war they do not understand.'

‘I wonder if that slave of the De Witt's is here. What was his name?'

‘Elzevir Black,' I coughed, as the smoke from hundreds of camp fires began to infiltrate my lungs. ‘Well, I suppose he might be, but now is not the time to start looking. The sealer of our Fate awaits.'

Reluctantly, Sophie dragged her eyes off the bare chests of passing negroes, and we traversed down quieter streets where the sound of our own footsteps on the cobblestones was the only noise. Indeed, there was nothing to suggest a war was going on at all until we turned a corner and had our ears assailed by a stirring parcel of drums and fifes. Looking around, we saw a battalion of redcoats goosestepping towards us with great precision and purpose. Pinning ourselves to the wall to let the automatons pass, we saw from the numerals on their hats that we were in the presence of the 79th Foot, an outfit formerly so ramshackle that even my own battalion had mocked it.