The Rebel's Return (4 page)

“I think Nicholas must have dropped this,” she said to the other two, frowning. “He likely intended to deliver it tonight. What should we do?”

Edmund broke off in the middle of his sentence and stared at the paper in her hand.

“Where he is staying?” Alice asked. “We could send someone after him.”

Phoebe frowned and shook her head. “He didn’t say.”

“And there are dozens of taverns; he might be in any one of them,” Edmund added. “Who is the letter addressed to?”

Phoebe showed him the name. He took it from her hand and studied the name.

“I know who that is. In fact, I will be going near his home tomorrow. Let me take it with me and deliver it myself.”

“That’s a good plan, Edmund,” Alice exclaimed, “if you truly don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Edmund stuffed the letter into his pocket.

Phoebe hesitated, for she felt sure that sooner or later Nicholas would realize he had misplaced the letter and come looking for it. But she did not know where to find Nicholas either, and it would seem churlish to refuse to let Edmund perform the service he had offered. Besides, she was not used to opposing a scheme approved by Alice.

But later, as she lay awake recalling her conversation with Nicholas, she also remembered George’s opinion of Nicholas and his warning. Perhaps, after all, she had been foolish to be so pleased by Nicholas’s attention. Perhaps it would be better to stay away when he visited. On the other hand, there was no harm in ordinary politeness. It would have been rude to refuse to carry on a conversation with him. She sighed in the dark. It would be much easier to possess a heart of stone, for then she need never question how she should behave.

Chapter Three

“Now these stitches look very nice.” Phoebe nodded in approval as she examined the sampler spread out in her lap. “The flowers are very neatly done, and that bird in particular is very clever.  Did you make it up on your own?”

“I copied it off of one I saw on your sampler.” Sally pointed to the sampler hanging on the parlor wall.

“Did you indeed? I thought it looked familiar. But look here, Sally, some of these x’s are crossed over the wrong way. You must always cross over from right to left on top, or the stitches won’t have a smooth appearance.”

Sally’s face fell. “Do I have to take all those letters out and do them again?”

Phoebe frowned, glancing from the sampler to her sister’s gloomy face. “The stitches up here don’t look so bad. Mother might make you do them again, but for now just pull out these few letters and start here.”

Sally sighed and took the sampler back. Phoebe thought her sister looked unduly distressed. “Don’t worry. You can fix all that in fifteen minutes.”

“I know.” Sally hesitated, then glanced up at her older sister anxiously. “Phoebe, there is something I need to talk to you about.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Something bad has happened and I don’t know what to do about it, and I’m afraid to tell Mother.” Sally twisted her hands in her lap, biting her lip, her eyes batting. “You see, Peggy’s grandmother gave her a little flute for her birthday, and when Peggy saw how much I liked it, she told me I could take it home with me for a few days. But Kit found it and played with it, and it broke. I’m afraid to tell Mother, because she will say I shouldn’t have borrowed Peggy’s toy, and when Peggy’s mother finds out, she will likely give her a whipping.”

Phoebe privately thought it rather hard to whip a child for a simple accident, but did not doubt the likelihood of it.

“Peggy should have asked her mother before she lent you her toy, I suppose,” Phoebe admitted. “But perhaps we can try to improve the situation. I will look at the flute and see if it is past mending, and if it is, we can try to buy a new one to replace it. Perhaps Peggy’s mother will be less angry if we try to make amends.”

Sally’s face brightened. “Will you do that, Phoebe? And do I need to tell Mother?”

Phoebe puckered her brow. “I suppose you must.”

Sally sighed, but she did seem much relieved, and scampered up the stairs to find the broken flute. Just then Phoebe heard a knock on the door and went to answer it.

Nicholas stood on the step.

Her heart leaped, for she had not seen him in several weeks, since the night he and Edmund had both come calling. She hoped her pleasure was not too obvious, but would not have wagered on it, for she was aware of her own transparency. “Come in,” she greeted him, smiling.

Nicholas stepped into the passage, glancing into the open doorways, for the house was remarkably quiet. “Is everyone else away from home?”

He was thinking of Alice, of course. “My mother took Alice and the boys to my uncle’s farm to help with the harvesting,” she explained. “My father is working in his shop, and I am here with Sally.”

“Then perhaps you cannot leave,” he said. “I have some errands to run in town, and I thought you might like to come along with me, see the fair and have some supper somewhere. But perhaps today is an inconvenient time.”

Had it been the most impossible time in the world, Phoebe would have found a way somehow. Supper for her father and sister was a minor obstacle under the circumstances. “I need a few minutes to get ready,” she assured him, “if you are not in too great a hurry.”

She ran into the pantry, hunting right and left for something to set out for supper. The lettuce and cucumbers she had just picked from the garden that morning would do, along with the fresh-baked bread and butter. And there was a half of a cherry pie that would make three adequate slices. She would give her father the last piece of shad left from dinner, and persuade Sally to do without. Sally did not care for shad much anyway.

She hurried into the kitchen, dropping the food on the table and fetching plates and spoons. She carried the plate of fish to the fire and set it in a pan to warm. Martha, the housemaid, watched her racing in astonishment.

“I’m walking out with Nicholas Teasdale,” she explained, pausing to catch her breath. “The fish is for my father. Just serve the supper when he comes in from the shop. And oh, Martha, please keep an eye on Sally for me, can you? She is working on her sampler and won’t be any trouble. Thank you
so
much.”

Martha shrugged and turned back to her scrubbing. Phoebe ran up the stairs to the bedroom she shared with her sisters.

She stripped off her soiled apron and her worn waistcoat, then slid into a fresh, clean flowered muslin gown, one with blue ribbons around the neck and sleeves. She pulled off her mobcap, re-pinned her hair, and replaced it with a pinner cap trimmed in lace. Her petticoat, she decided, was clean enough; she did not need hoops for such a casual outing as this, but at least she was wearing her corsets. After a moment of hesitation she wrapped a blue kerchief around her neck and into the low square neckline of her gown, for modesty’s sake. Then she picked up her mirror.

Her heart-shaped face looked back at her, very tanned from the summer sun, but her cheeks were flushed a becoming rose, and the blue of the kerchief brought out the sparkling blue of her eyes. Overall, she decided, she looked quite well. Not as fair as Alice, perhaps, but that couldn’t be helped. Certainly much more elegant than on the day in July when he had tripped over her at the State House. She picked up her handkerchief and skipped down the stairs.

“All right, I’m ready,” she called.

He smiled to himself at the sight of her, and she wondered if he had heard her mad racing around the house. Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink, and with all the dignity she could muster took the arm he offered her. For the rest of the day she was determined to be proper and lady-like and well-behaved.

It was late August, but the weather was cooler than it usually was during the heat of the summer. The sky reflected a clear azure without the heavy whiteness of humidity, and a brisk breeze fanned their faces. They walked toward Market Street, where the fair had come to town, and as they walked, Phoebe asked Nicholas for news of the army.

“I haven’t heard of any battles yet,” she remarked, thinking of George.

“Not yet,” Nicholas agreed, “but ‘twill be any day now. The British are building up on Staten Island, and a new fleet arrived this past week with some eight thousand Hessians.”

“Hessians!” Phoebe turned to look up at him. “Who are the Hessians?”

“Why, they’re mercenaries, of course,” Nicholas returned, looking amused. “King George bought them from some prince in Germany. You don’t think he would kill off his own soldiers when for a few pence he can kill off the Germans instead.”

Phoebe, mystified by the craft of war, shook her head at the idea. 

“He certainly respects the Hessians more than he does our army,” Nicholas added. “Would you believe, Lord Howe tried to send a letter to General Washington, but refused to call him General, addressing the letter simply ‘George Washington, Esquire, etc.’  And Howe’s adjutant tried to convince Washington to accept the letter by arguing that the ‘et cetera’ represented all his titles. Do you believe it?” Nicholas chuckled at the memory.

Phoebe stepped over a broken section of cobblestones. “What did Washington do?”

“He refused it, of course. He told the adjutant to deliver it at the end of the war to his estate in Virginia, because that’s where ‘George Washington, Esquire,’ lives.”

“Good for him!” Phoebe exclaimed warmly. “That will teach Lord Howe to show him proper respect. But Nicholas, I heard a rumor once about a plot to kill General Washington. Was there any truth to it?”

“Aye, they arrested a dozen or so conspirators, and hanged one of them after a court martial. They even arrested the mayor of New York, who is a Tory, but haven’t hanged him, at least not yet.”

Phoebe almost stumbled as she looked at him in horror. “The mayor! George told me that New York is full of Tories, but I had no idea. Poor Mr. Washington, he must have no idea whom he can trust.”

“There are Tories everywhere, and no one knows whom to trust.” His tone matched his grave expression, and then he grinned. He lowered his voice. “There is another part to this story most people don’t know; I am only privy to it because of my position. One of the conspirators claimed he actually shared a mistress with Washington, and this woman stole military secrets from Washington and delivered them to the Tories.” 

“How dreadful!” Phoebe exclaimed, unsure whether to be more shocked that Washington would have a mistress or that the woman would plot to kill him. Did men in high places always behave in such ways?

Nicholas took Phoebe’s arm to direct her around a young mother in their path who was trying to round up her four small children. “For my part, I don’t completely believe such a story. General Washington may have known this woman, but I can’t believe he would be such a ninny as to let her get her hands on military secrets. More likely to my thinking is that she invented the secrets to lend herself importance with her fellow conspirators.”

By now they had reached the center of the fair and were distracted from their conversation by the rows and rows of little booths and the sellers hawking their wares. A fiddler approached Nicholas and Phoebe and played them a lively tune, and Nicholas tossed him half a shilling for his effort, which Phoebe, fresh from her mother’s frugal influence, considered both generous and extravagant. Nicholas, dressed in his officer’s uniform, had the appearance of a gentleman, and Phoebe was conscious of the glances of envy, admiration, and deference with which the more common people drew aside for them.

“Perhaps I can find a new little flute for Sally,” she said to Nicholas, and told him the story of the broken gift.

Nicholas chuckled. “And you are assisting your little sister in this deception?” he asked in a tone of mock reproach.

“’Tisn’t deception,” Phoebe insisted. “We will tell my mother and Peggy’s too, but I thought it would help if we could replace the broken one.”

She found a little flute she hoped would be adequate, and while she was making her purchase noticed that Nicholas had wandered away and was engaged in conversation with a man in the crowd, a tall hawk-nosed man with bushy black locks that hung over his shoulders. She saw him slip the man a piece of paper before he turned to rejoin her.

They continued examining the stalls, laughing over some items and exclaiming over others. Nicholas bought Phoebe a pretty painted silk fan she admired, and tried to buy her a pearl bracelet, which she refused with difficulty. It was too expensive, and her mother would never approve such a gift from a young man. They ended up at a stall that sold confections, where a skinny little girl in a ragged petticoat stood gazing at the sweets. Nicholas smiled and bought her a piece of rock candy, and then a box of marzipan for Phoebe.

“It will ruin our supper,” Phoebe said when he urged her to try a piece.

“Nonsense, I’m still hungry enough to eat a horse. Come, Phoebe, enjoy yourself; your mother isn’t here to scold you now.”

So she took the offered piece, and because the candy was sweet and the weather was beautiful, because she felt pretty and happy and her escort was lively and the handsomest one at the fair, she wanted to sing. As they strolled along she began one of the hymns from the Methodist service.

Come we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known.

Join in our song with sweet accord and thus surround the throne.

Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God,

But children of the heavenly King should speak their joys abroad.

Nicholas listened to her first song in silence, but when she began the second song he asked, “Are those church hymns? I’ve never heard them before. They’re unlike the hymns at the church where I was raised.”

“That one was written by Mr. Charles Wesley. He and his brother started the Methodist societies where my family and I attend.”

Nicholas studied her for a moment with a thoughtful expression. “Are you as devout as the rest of your family, Phoebe?”

“I hope so,” she said earnestly. “I try to be, but I feel like I never measure up.”

“Measure up according to whom?”

“I don’t know.” She considered for a moment as they walked past the next few stalls. “My mother perhaps, or my sister, or God.”

“And do God and your mother always agree?”

“I don’t know.” She tried to laugh off the strange question. “My mother probably thinks so, and I’m sure my sister does.”

“You need to stop worrying so much what your family thinks.”

Phoebe glanced at him, startled by such heresy. Hadn’t Rhoda said the same thing? It still seemed wrong to her. “But I should worry what God thinks, shouldn’t I?”

“Perhaps.” He shrugged and grinned. “For my own part, I’ve concluded that God and my father are both impossible to please, and I gave up trying years ago.”

Phoebe turned to study his face, troubled by his words, but he laughed and squeezed her arm then as if the whole were just a good-natured joke, and changed the subject.