The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (14 page)

“You’ve only been with her two days and you’re already talking to animals? Didn’t take her long to drive you mad.” Caleb’s voice startled Clara, and she jumped back, alarming the horse as she did so.

“Didn’t mean to spook you.” Caleb walked toward her, his arms raised apologetically, from the back of the darkening barn.

“Pardon me, I didn’t realize there was anyone else in here,” Clara answered, embarrassed.

“Just taking a moment away from that crowded kitchen.” Caleb grinned. “Looks like you’re doing the same.”

“Aye.” Clara nodded.

“I actually stay out here during the warm months. Up there.” Caleb pointed toward the hayloft.

“Really?”

Caleb nodded.

“Why do you live out here when there are all those empty bedrooms in the servants’ quarters?” Clara edged back toward the horse and resumed her petting of its coarse, short hair.

“I like having my own space, getting away from that house at least once a day. Otherwise, I’d go wild.” Caleb paused beside her, a piece of straw dangling from his mouth. “That, and I prefer the company of the horses to the Shippens. Find ’em to be more polite.” Caleb leaned his elbows on the door of the stall, standing beside Clara as they both stroked the horse.

“Right, Hick? This is Hickory,” Caleb said.

“Nice to meet you, Hickory.”

“Miss Peggy’s horse.”

“I had guessed that.” Clara stroked the horse’s long nose, blushing when her hand accidentally brushed against Caleb’s fingers.

“What do you say, Hickory, you think Miss Peggy goes easier on you or on Clara?”

“Well, she has yet to use the crop on me,” Clara answered. “How about you, Hickory?”

“Just a matter of time,” Caleb quipped, and they both laughed. After several moments of comfortable silence, Caleb continued. “How are you doing, Clara? With everything? I imagine it’s quite different here than at a farm in the countryside.”

Clara nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing. How different it is here.”

“So then, how are you managing?”

“I’m not sure,” Clara answered. “I think she likes me. I hope so.”

“No, I mean, how are
you
doing?”

Clara shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I don’t really think that it matters how I’m doing.”

“Course it does. You’ve got feelings, just like everyone else. Just like Hickory here, right, Hick?”

“Well, I am doing all right.”

“Just all right?” Caleb arched his eyebrows.

“I was raised not to complain,” Clara admitted.

“Suppose it’s not complaining? Suppose you’re just answering a friend’s question?” Caleb nudged her gently.

“Well, it’s just that”—Clara wavered—“it’s hard to keep Miss Peggy happy.” She stared through the open stable door, watching as night settled over the grounds, extinguishing the last glints of golden daylight.

“I think we’d all agree with you, Clara Bell. Damned near impossible, in fact.”

“Her moods change so suddenly.”

“As we all witnessed this afternoon,” Caleb agreed.

“But I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Being in a grand house like this . . . with gardens, and stables. And I have enough food to eat, and a bedroom to myself. If my Oma saw me living like this, attending parties with British officers, she’d think I’d climbed a few stations in life.”

“Who’s Oma?”

“My gram,” Clara explained. “It was just me and her back at the Hartley farm. My mother died when I was . . . young.”

“And your father?” Caleb asked.

Clara shrugged her shoulders. “Never knew him.” She should be embarrassed to admit that she was a bastard, unwanted, but Caleb listened attentively. Offered no judgment.

“My Oma was sick for a while. Right before she passed, she got me this position. I’m grateful to have it.”

“Now is not the time to be without family and without work.”

“I’m not really sure what would have happened to me had Oma not gotten me this post. Not after the Hartleys left.” And suddenly, without realizing why she was doing it, Clara found herself opening up about a past she had never shared. “The Hartleys were supporters of the colonial cause, you see. They were tired of the British raids and didn’t want to swear a loyalty oath to the crown. They moved up north, and couldn’t take us with them. Oma and I stayed back because she was too sick to travel by that point. She died a few weeks later.”

Caleb looked at her, his eyes earnest. “That’s quite the story you have, Clara Bell.”

“Reminds me,” Clara continued. “My first day here, I mentioned the Hartley farm as well as the Shippen farm and Miss Peggy scolded me. Told me never to mention it again. What happened there to cause such a reaction?”

“Oh.” Caleb nodded. “Right when the war broke out, the judge relocated us all to the countryside, to his farm in Lancaster. To think, we were neighbors.” He paused.

“And we never met.” Clara smiled back as Caleb continued.

“The judge thought it would be safer there than in the city, on account of the fighting here. We spent just shy of a year there.”

“And why was it so terrible for Miss Peggy? What happened to her?” Clara asked.

“It was no more terrible for her than for anyone living in the countryside at the outbreak of the war,” Caleb explained. “There were raiding parties throughout the area, and you heard stories of nearby farms burning and Iroquois attacks.”

Clara nodded. She had lived that life for all seventeen of her years: the smell of smoke after dark caused panic, the sound of hoofbeats awoke terror until you could be certain that the riders did not pause outside your door.

“But as far as Miss Peggy suffering any particular tragedy?” Caleb leaned toward Clara. “All she suffered from was boredom. She complained every day about the country. Hated it.” He removed the long piece of straw from between his lips, holding it aloft like a pipe. “Said she was missing out on all the excitement in the city. She was sixteen at the time, and she missed her debut. She was convinced her life was over.”

“Ah, she said the same thing today.” Clara nodded.

“Indeed.” Caleb agreed. “Finally, the Lobsterbacks took the city and established British rule, and the judge decided that we weren’t any safer out there than we would be here. So, he refused to take the oath
to Washington and the new nation, and moved us all back here to the British-held city. As you can imagine, Peggy supported his decision.”

“I am sure.” Clara nodded. “Have you taken it, Cal?”

“What?” he asked.

“The oath to Washington.” Clara said, speaking quietly in the darkened barn.

Caleb looked over his shoulder, making certain that they were alone. “I did take it. I consider myself to be a free man,” he whispered. “But keep that between us.”

“I did too,” Clara admitted.

They stood for a moment in companionable silence, the only noise between them the steady breathing of Hickory and the distant din of carriages rattling up Fourth Street.

Clara turned to Caleb. “What about you, Caleb Little?”

“What about me?”

“What’s your story? You say the Quigleys are your aunt and uncle?”

“Mrs. Quigley is—was—my mother’s sister. They protected me when Judge Shippen let everyone go a few years back.”

“And where are your parents?” Clara asked.

“Dead.”

“Both of them?”

“The yellow fever. Summer of ’70. Swept through the city like a wildfire,” Caleb answered, sliding the piece of straw back between his teeth.

Clara thought about this, realizing she was not the only person in this house to have suffered loss. “Look at us, then, Caleb. A pair of orphans.”

“That we are.” Caleb grinned at her, a sad, honest grin. “And how are you finding the help here at the Shippen mansion, Clara Bell? Are we as difficult as the Shippens themselves?”

“Oh, even worse,” Clara quipped, and they both laughed. “No, I’m finding everyone very agreeable. Mrs. Quigley is always looking out for me. Mr. Quigley is a generous man. Hannah is always helpful when I need her. Brigitte, well, I haven’t heard Brigitte say two words together, now that I think about it.”

“Didn’t I tell you that would happen?”

“You did.” Clara nodded.

“And the footman who doubles as stableboy? You know, the mysterious one with hazel eyes who sleeps in the barn?” Caleb asked, teasingly.

“Oh, you mean the one with the horsey smell?”

“So that’s what you think!” Caleb laughed. “Hickory, this rough farm girl is hurting my feelings.”

“I didn’t take you for the type.” Clara studied his face, feeling the barriers of her shyness slacken just a little.

“What type?”

“The sensitive type,” Clara answered.

“Oh, you’d be surprised how sensitive I am.” Cal smiled, stroking Hickory’s nose. “Just like my aunt.”

“Mrs. Quigley?” Clara screwed up her nose. “That woman seems as sensitive as nails.”

Cal thought about this. “She seems that way, but just you wait. She’s got the softest heart you’ll ever see.”

Clara looked through the open stable door out toward the gardens, now veiled in velvety darkness. “It’s getting late, Caleb.”

“Cal.”

“Right, Cal.” She smiled at him. It felt nice to speak with someone other than Peggy. To have someone interested in talking about her own past and life. “Well, Cal, I’d better get back to the house, in case Miss Peggy awakes.”

“Yes, and it’s not right for you to be out in the dark with a
handsome young gentleman. Folks might say your mistress is corrupting your sound sense.” Cal ran his fingers through his shaggy dark blond hair, studying her with a look that seemed appraising.

Clara lowered her eyes, feeling her cheeks redden. “Good night, Cal.”

“Good night, Clara Bell. And good luck with your mistress.”

“Thank you.” She breathed out, her eyes momentarily locking with his.

“Any time.”

“C
LARA, YOU’RE
back. I thought you’d left me.” Peggy looked up at her maid from her seat at the windowsill, the remnants of recent tears still glistening on her cheeks. What a beautiful mourner Miss Peggy made, curled up in a puddle of cool moonlight, watching the carriages below as they passed by, bearing finely dressed ladies and gentlemen on their way to card parties and galas.

“No, ma’am.” Clara entered the room, balancing a tray of ham and cider as she shut the door. “I went to fetch you some supper, miss. Thought you might be getting hungry.”

“Clara, you’re so good to me.”

Clara brushed the comment aside, placing the dinner down on the small end table before her mistress.

“But I don’t think I shall eat. Clara.” Peggy reached for her maid’s hand, her voice suddenly heavy with urgency. “Promise me you shall not leave me tonight.” Peggy appeared so forlorn that Clara did not know how to further disappoint Miss Peggy.

“I can stay with you, Miss Peggy, if you like,” Clara answered, her shoulders drooping with fatigue. She’d have to find a way to get some sleep in one of these armchairs, or on the floor.

Peggy proffered a tenuous smile. “Thank you, Clara.” Peggy cast her eyes once more out the window, toward the street below.

“Oh, look!” Peggy pointed, and Clara’s eyes followed to the spot on the street where her mistress’s attention had been drawn. A grand carriage with an enclosed body, accompanied by a smartly dressed driver and footman, sped past. “That’s . . .” New sobs rendered Peggy’s words almost inaudible. “That’s . . . Meg . . . CHEW!” Her head collapsed onto the windowsill.

“Come away from the window, Miss Peggy.” Clara helped her mistress into bed and then chose the softest chair, filled with downy stuffing, beside the window.

I
N THE
pitch dark of night, Clara was jolted awake by an explosion outside the window, followed by a splash of light across the sky.

“Oh!” Peggy had woken too. She glided wraithlike from the bed to the window. “Fireworks!” For a moment, Peggy forgot her misery, distracted by the ecstatic bursts of color and light. But then, she remembered the cause of the fireworks. “They must be drunk on Champagne right now, watching those.” But it seemed that there were no tears left for Peggy to shed. She took Clara’s hand. “Clara,” she spoke, “we should have been there tonight.”