The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (2 page)

“I need to speak with Major General Benedict Arnold.” The man, still gasping for air, careens toward the house, dust surrounding him like a shroud. “Water my horse, miss. I must speak to the General!” The man hands me the bridle and staggers toward the front door without another word.

I hear the commotion in the front of the house as this lone rider calls out the master’s name: “Where is General Benedict Arnold? Urgent message for Benedict Arnold from the south Hudson.”

I tie this man’s horse to the post out front and glide noiselessly back into the house, positioning myself out of sight at the top of the stairway. I hear my master approach the messenger in the drawing room. His telltale plodding on the wooden floor—lopsided, uneven—due to the war wound that has forever crippled him and rendered his left leg useless. Muffled sounds as the master of the house greets the messenger, his voice like gravel as he chides his subordinate.

“What is your aim, man? Barging in on us like this on the morning we are to receive His Excellency George Washington, and with the lady of the house not yet arisen and dressed?”

The messenger answers through uneven breath. “I assure you, Major General, you will pardon my abruptness when you see the message I’m delivering. I was ordered to deliver it posthaste.”

“Good heavens, from where are you coming?” My master’s voice now betrays his alarm.

“North Castle Fort, down the Hudson. A full day’s ride, sir.”

“Give it here, then.” I hear papers being ruffled as they change hands. Silence follows, with just the sound of the morning birdsong to accompany the scene unfolding inside the farmhouse.

Then the master’s gait, again lopsided, but with an urgency I haven’t heard in years. He soon reaches the stairs, causing me to flee back into my mistress’s room.

“What is it?” Her eyes widen as I dash across the threshold of her sunlit chamber.

“Master’s coming!” is all I have time to say. We hear his rapid approach; using his impressive upper body strength, he’s pulling himself up the stairs. The floorboards groan beneath his boots as he climbs. I look to my lady, and her features are horror-struck as we understand each other. No words are needed between us after all these years.

“But surely it’s not . . . it can’t be?” Mrs. Arnold fidgets with the bedcovers, deliberating whether to rise or remain abed.

“Peggy.” Arnold bounds through the door, his hulking frame atremble in the doorway. Struggling to breathe, he gasps, “They’ve found us out! All is lost, all is lost. We’re unearthed.” His face tells me that he struggles just as much as my lady does to make sense of the words, even as his lips utter them. And then, as quickly as he entered, General Arnold exits back out my lady’s doorway. And I am left alone, in this room, with nothing but my lady and her shrill wails.

“BENEDICT!” she cries after him. “BENEDICT ARNOLD!”

CHAPTER ONE

“Never Anger Miss Peggy”

May, 1778

Philadelphia, PA

C
LARA KNOCKED
on the front door once, twice. She checked the address scrolled on the worn piece of parchment again. Her grandmother’s familiar handwriting directed Clara to arrive at the Shippen mansion on the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets, deep in the district that housed the city’s wealthiest residents.

A crack of a coachman’s whip drew Clara’s attention away from the Shippens’ door, and she gazed over her shoulder toward the street—a noisy thoroughfare of horse hooves, carriage wheels, and the deafening drum of marching British soldiers. A servant leaned out of a window several houses down and emptied a series of chamber pots onto the cobblestone street before disappearing once more into the home. The closeness of the noise and stink was unlike anything Clara had ever experienced on the farm.

The Shippen mansion, like its adjacent structures, was composed of red brick and built with an orderly symmetry: the sort of architectural purposefulness she’d heard about since George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had built their homes in this style.
The tight row of brick society homes lining Fourth Street resembled one another but for the shutter shades; some houses had green shutters, some light blue, some dark blue, some white. The Shippens had elected to paint their shutters black.

The Shippen mansion sat back from the street, flanked in front by a small patch of grass and two cherry trees in the full bloom of late spring. The entryway, a wide wooden door, stood above three short steps and below a triangular pediment. A top row of arched dormer windows poked out from the sloping roof, with two rows of shuttered panes below. The windows—built not only for allowing in light, but also for their decorative appeal—testified to their owner’s wealth; a passerby on the street might be so lucky as to catch a glimpse of the famous Judge Edward Shippen studying his books, or spy one of his beautiful daughters as she flitted through the vast parlor on her way to receive a gentleman caller.

This must be the right home. Clara knocked at the imposing front entrance again. The door opened, and Clara was greeted by the lined face of a woman past her youth.

“Good afternoon.” The woman had soft features framed by a graying bun, which peeked out around the edges of a clean, white-linen mobcap. She greeted Clara with an appraising smile.

“Is it Clara Bell, come at last?” The aged woman opened the door wider to reveal a fine appearance—an indigo petticoat made of linen to accommodate the warmer weather, draped by a clean linen apron. On top she wore faded gray stays over a crisply pressed white blouse. A fichu was tied around her neck to ensure the modesty required for service in such a fine home. She rolled back her cuffed sleeves and waved Clara inside.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Clara entered through the open door, clutching her tarpaulin sack as she stepped over the threshold. The woman closed the front door behind her, shutting out the noise
and stink of the street and allowing Clara to ease into the airy interior of the home. Its soundless tranquility was a welcome relief after the hustle of Fourth Street.

“Well, Clara Bell, we’ve been awaiting your arrival all day.” The older woman smiled, taking Clara’s sack from her arms. “Was it a tiring journey from the country?”

“It was fine, ma’am,” Clara answered, even as she was certain her haggard features betrayed her fatigue.

“You took a post carriage?”

“Aye, ma’am.”

“That must have cost you a small fortune.”

“I’m grateful to have the employment, ma’am.” Clara managed a timid smile, finding words evasive in the grand hallway in which she’d suddenly found herself. She felt as though she’d awoken into this buffed and varnished grandeur without a clear recollection of the circumstances that had brought her to Philadelphia. Clara blinked, remembering. The abandoned farmhouse. Oma dying. In her last moments, her old grandmother penning a letter to a friend from years ago. Oma urging Clara to leave the Hartley farm, as the Hartleys themselves had done, fleeing the approach of the British and the Iroquois.

“I am Mrs. Quigley, housekeeper for the Shippens.”

“Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Quigley.”

“Yes, well . . .” The housekeeper’s reply faded to a sigh as she surveyed Clara’s appearance. Clara stood still, feeling her cheeks grow warm; her warm-weather petticoat of linen was creased and dusty from the trip, but it was the only one she possessed of its kind. She’d only rotate it out of her wardrobe when the weather changed and the crisp autumn air required her wool petticoat. Unlike this housekeeper, Clara’s clothes were not bought in a store, but were homespun, sewed by Oma. Clara wore her petticoat and
stays in the cotton ticking pattern, off-white fabric with blue stripes. Her apron, once white, had been laundered so many times that it now bore a yellowish tint.

“Follow me, Clara.” Mrs. Quigley turned and crossed the room in several brisk strides. Clara followed, hurrying to take in the surroundings as she kept apace. The Shippens’ front hall was well lit by a wall of broad, clean windows. The focal point at the center of the hall was the expansive staircase, which drew the eyes up in a languid arc until it reached the second floor. Removed from the entrance was a maple fireplace. A fire crackled even on this warm spring afternoon, filling the front hall with its welcoming aroma, which mingled with the distinct scents of furniture polish and ladies’ perfume.

“Quite a bit grander here than it was at the farmhouse, I imagine.” Mrs. Quigley turned just in time to catch Clara, eyes rapt, examining a feather-light shawl of creamy robin’s egg blue. It was store-bought and fine, its border embroidered with yellow silken flowers, its colors as bright as a springtime morning. It had been left, haphazardly discarded over the back of an upholstered armchair, as if its owner could be reckless with an item so fine.

“Miss Peggy’s shawl. We better put it back in her closet where it belongs or we’ll never hear the end of it.” Mrs. Quigley scooped up the expensive item. “All right, then, follow me, child.” Clara trailed the housekeeper through an open doorway into an ample drawing room. The Shippens’ furniture seemed designed to impress the eyes with ornate decoration as much as to entice the body into its plush comfort. The chairs of the drawing room were carved out of smooth mahogany, their slender curves varnished to a glossy sheen. Clara’s legs suddenly felt leaden with fatigue; how she longed to sink for just one moment into one of these chairs.

“You look like you’ve never been inside a drawing room before, girl,” Mrs. Quigley remarked, fluffing a silk pillow on a nearby settee.

“Not one like this, ma’am, I haven’t.” Clara’s eyes roved hungrily over every detail of the quiet room, the only sound issuing from an encased clock, taller than Clara herself, that occupied a far corner. Oil paintings in bronze frames adorned the walls. A soft splash of May sunlight streamed in through the windows, mingling with the dancing shadows cast by the fresh white candles in their sconces. How fine they must be, the people who frequent these spaces, Clara thought. At night, when the sunlight vanished and only candlelight remained, how easy it must be for them to slip into a corner and whisper a piece of gossip or listen to a verse of an admirer’s poetry.

“Enough of your daydreaming. What do you think, girl?”

“It’s . . . it’s lovely here,” Clara stammered, looking around with ill-disguised awe.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? Course, you’ll hear every day how the money’s gone and the furniture is growing outdated, but I think it’s just fine.” Mrs. Quigley smiled, the skin around her serious eyes creasing into a soft, worn pattern. “Well, Clara, you’ve had a long trip from the countryside; let’s have you come in and catch your breath.” Mrs. Quigley led Clara through the drawing room past a smaller, smartly decorated parlor with salmon-colored walls, shelves of books, and a silk sofa across from a card table.

“Books for the judge, cards for the ladies. That’s how they’ll spend their evenings. Course, Miss Peggy won’t be contented with either activity—she wants to be out dancing every night.” Mrs. Quigley kept a brisk pace as she crossed the room. Once through the parlor, a doorway allowed entry into a separate wing, which could be closed off from the front of the house. The two women proceeded now down this long, narrow passageway. No light shone here except
for that which pierced the small windows of the rooms on either side of the corridor, and there was no ornamentation on the clean white walls. Clara stole quick glances into the rooms as she followed the housekeeper. Some rooms appeared occupied, others abandoned. This wing, she realized, housed the Shippen family’s servants.

Clara peeked into the empty rooms she passed—most held just bedframes and unused chamber pots, but they looked comfortable and of a good size. “Mrs. Quigley, if you please, why are all of these rooms empty?”

Mrs. Quigley sighed, jingling a set of brass keys as she led Clara farther down the hall. The old woman appeared unsure how to answer the question. “Just a few years back we were at full capacity, with two servants in each of these rooms. But we’ve had to let so many folks go, most of the rooms are empty now.”

“On account of the war?” Clara asked.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you?” Mrs. Quigley glanced back over her shoulder at Clara, studying her for a moment before answering in a hushed tone. “You’ll have heard that Judge Shippen has refused to take a side—either Tory or Rebel.”

Clara nodded. The Shippens were one of the city’s most prominent families. The news had traveled as far as Hartley Farm when Doctor William Shippen, the judge’s brother, had come out strongly for the colonials. That’s when his brother, Clara’s new employer, had cut all business dealings to avoid appearing partial to either army.

Mrs. Quigley continued in a muted tone. “Without much coming in, we run a lean operation now that the war is on.”

Clara wondered why it was that they were bringing her into the household under these circumstances. Mrs. Quigley must have guessed at her thoughts.