The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (31 page)

Authors: Allison Pataki

“I do apologize.” Arnold looked on, his expression helpless.

“Reckless!” Peggy stood up, dabbing the brown stain. “And it’s not as though I can replace this ruined gown, since you tell me I shall have nothing new.”

“Please, Peggy, I pray you’d not upset yourself.” Arnold stared at his wife with a look of growing consternation.

“Don’t you scold me, Benedict Arnold! Not when you’ve deliberately lied to me—lured me out of the comfort of my father’s home into this . . . this . . .
shack
! All under the false pretenses that we’d be moving into Mount Pleasant. And now you say we can’t afford to live there, and I should be denied all the nice things you had promised me.” Peggy’s hand flew to her heart as she collapsed backward against the chair. “Oh, what a life I’ve chosen for myself!” When Peggy cupped her face in her hands and began to sob, Clara was sure that Arnold felt more wounded than he had ever felt on the Saratoga battlefield.

“Just . . .” Peggy struggled to speak through the cries that heaved her chest. “Look . . . at . . . this . . .
HOVEL
!”

The hovel Peggy lamented was in fact a cottage behind the Shippen home, in which the Arnolds had been living since their wedding. Clara didn’t see why Peggy minded it so much—the house was small but comfortable, with large windows that opened out into the orchard and afforded plenty of light on sunny days. Arnold seemed perfectly content there, or anywhere, as long as he was near his wife. The only person who really had a right to be put out was Clara. She had given up her private bedroom in the larger Shippen home for a little straw pad on the floor of the Arnolds’ new kitchen, which she shared with Barley now that Miss Peggy had banned the dog from Arnold’s bedchamber. Though it was humbler, Clara didn’t mind her new spot—at least its proximity to the fire guaranteed that it would
be warm and bright even once the weather turned cold. And since her mistress would have never dreamed of setting foot in the kitchen, it was as private as a room could be.

Peggy had insisted that now that they were married, they would no longer take their meals with her parents. But, since the Arnolds could not afford a cook of their own, they still depended on Hannah for their meals. This meant that Clara had the task of hauling food from the Shippens’ kitchen to the Arnold’s kitchen, and then bringing the dishes back at the end of each meal. It was a lot of work, and ordinarily she would have asked Caleb for help with it. But with him gone to the army, her time spent lugging food back to the cottage was just yet another moment throughout the day in which she missed him.

“It’s just that the Continental Congress still owes me thousands from the campaigns of ’seventy-five.” Arnold tried to quell his wife’s temper. “I paid all my men out of my own fortune up in Canada and at Ticonderoga. I’ll get reimbursed soon.”

“Do
not
try to comfort me with more empty promises,” Peggy hissed at her husband, who now wore a look of alarm as he watched his wife rail. “I don’t want any more false promises, Benedict Arnold!” Peggy closed her eyes, while her husband looked to the maid, helpless.

“I don’t understand why we can’t just go back to the Penn mansion.” Peggy spoke after a long pause, her face wet with tears.

“I have told you a thousand times, my angel.” Arnold winced as he bent to kneel beside his wife’s chair, clutching his left leg in pain. “Reed was telling the Congress, and the newspapers, that I was living there illegally. He found out that I wasn’t paying any rent.”

“Then just pay the rent to get Reed to shut his mouth, Benedict.” Peggy, having exhausted Clara’s supply of rags, handed the soiled cloths back to her maid and sat back in her armchair.

“Peg, I can’t afford to rent the Penn mansion while I’m also
sinking my life’s savings into Mount Pleasant. For the time being, this cottage will just have to do.”

“I’m miserable here,” Peggy moaned. “And I despise that Joseph Reed for ruining our happiness.”

“My dear, please.” Arnold leaned toward his wife to comfort her, but to no avail. “You must calm down; you will make yourself sick.” He took her hand in his, but she swatted him away like a bothersome fly.

“My darling, I promise, I will do whatever I can to increase my income so that we can move into Mount Pleasant. You have my word.”

“Your word means nothing,” Peggy snapped at him. The look on Arnold’s face showed such acute pain that even Clara felt his wound, and she excused herself, mumbling something about taking the dirty rags back to the kitchen. Neither Arnold nor Peggy replied as Clara turned to leave.

“My darling Peg, I love you. I will do whatever it takes to make you happy,” Arnold said, pleading with her. “Will you believe me, please?”

But Peggy did not reply. She simply buried her face in her hands, so that all that was visible as she sobbed were her curls, bobbing up and down with each gasp.

“L
OVELY DAY,
isn’t it, my dove?” Arnold and Peggy sat opposite Clara in the carriage on the way back to the Shippen home after church. Arnold looked out the window, waving to the small children who ran alongside the carriage, hoping to get a glimpse of the local war hero.

“Mmmm,” Peggy agreed absently, burying her nose in the society section of the
Pennsylvania Packet.
“I suppose it is.”

It was a lovely day, Clara agreed in silence. Late April, and all of Philadelphia was in bloom. The recent rains had left the ground soft and fertile, with new buds poking their way out from the earth each morning. The days were growing longer and warmer, while all around them the trees hung heavy with cherry blossoms. The horses kicked up splotches of lumpy mud with each step, and the small children who shouted alongside the carriage were splattered in brown, laughing at the mess their mothers—or maids—would have to wash.

“Look at that mud.” Arnold watched the scene outside the carriage, erupting in his loud, jolly laughter. He looked to his wife but she ignored him.

“It’s a wonder we can drive through it,” Clara piped up, so that Arnold would know he was not being completely ignored. Arnold’s eyes crossed the carriage to Clara, smiling at her in appreciation.

“Anything interesting in the paper today, my doll?” Arnold tried again to get his wife’s attention.

“Here, just take it and read it for yourself.” Peggy sighed, exasperated, as she tossed it in her husband’s lap.

“Dearest, I didn’t mean that you should give it over,” Arnold answered.

“No, just read it! I’m done,” Peggy snapped, looking out the other side of the window. Then, quietly, she mumbled to herself, “I can’t read when you’re jabbering away alongside me, anyway.”

Stung, Arnold looked from his wife to the paper and unfolded it so that he might scan the front page. “Let’s see what filth they’ve dug up today,” Arnold said good-naturedly, perusing the articles. He had not been reading long when his face went ashen.

“My good God.” Arnold’s mouth fell open.

Clara saw his expression, and then looked down to see the headline. Right there, on the front page, was printed a long article,
accompanied by a drawing. Clara knew immediately, from the cane and the broad, stocky body, whom the drawing was meant to portray.

“What is it?” Peggy looked to her husband, acknowledging him for the first time. “Read it aloud, whatever it is.”

“It’s that devil Reed.” Arnold’s voice was a quiet tempest.

“Read it aloud,” Peggy ordered him.

“Reed has convinced the Pennsylvania Council to make formal charges against me. Eight formal charges.”

“What?” Peggy leaned over to read the paper alongside her husband.

“Reed and his henchmen have come up with a whole laundry list of charges against me.” He listed them off quickly. “Obtaining illegal personal gain from two British ships, using public wagons to transport personal items, closing the stores in Philadelphia, enlisting my military men to do my own personal tasks, issuing passes for folks to cross enemy lines into New York.”

“After all that you’ve done for this country, Reed is allowed to make such outrageous charges against you?” Peggy spoke, her voice eerily quiet. “It cannot be borne.”

“It would be the end of my career if Washington believed these charges,” Arnold spoke in barely a whisper. “I’d be finished.”

“Ludicrous,” Peggy said, her tone defiant. “You’re a hero, Benedict Arnold.”

“Not according to Reed. According to Reed, I’m a crook and a thief.”

“You sacrificed your leg. And thousands of your own dollars on feeding and quartering your men during the Canada and Ticonderoga campaigns—which they have never reimbursed you for.”

“What will become of me now?” Arnold’s voice quavered.

“What else do they say?” Peggy asked.

“They accuse me of acting disrespectfully to the civilian leaders of Philadelphia.”

Clara’s mind flew back to the afternoon in Arnold’s carriage, and the ghastly display when her mistress had urged Arnold to pull down his breeches to insult Reed.

“Can they blame you?” Peggy chortled. “Anyone would act disrespectfully to that moonface, Reed. And what’s the final charge?” Peggy demanded.

“Favoring British loyalists in my personal life.” Arnold looked squarely into his wife’s face. “They say I have chosen to consort with ‘those with well-known loyalist tendencies.’ ”

This, at last, silenced Peggy’s indignation. “I . . . I don’t know
who
they could possibly be talking about,” Peggy answered, shaking her head.

The carriage came to a halt, jerking them all forward. Clara braced herself so that she did not fly forward onto Arnold.

“Good gracious,” Peggy shrieked as her hat fell loose off her head. “Is Franks drunk on rum?”

“What now, Franks?” Arnold hollered out the window to his aide. Neither the horses nor the carriage moved.

“Blasted wheels!” Franks hopped down from his perch and approached the horses.

“What’s the problem?” Arnold scowled at his aide.

“Stuck in the mud, sir.” Franks poked his head up to the carriage window. “We’ll need at least two able-bodied men to push us out of this mess.”

“Able-bodied men.” Arnold gritted his teeth and spoke in a low growl, his nostrils trembling in silent rage. “I
would
get out and help, but I am no longer able-bodied, not since I sacrificed my leg in the service of my ungrateful country.”

VI.

“She’s possessed of a fury!” Hamilton scoops up my lady’s fainted, inanimate body. The Marquis de Lafayette is mumbling, the shock forcing him to slip back into his native French, while George Washington sits in stony silence, head cradled in his large hands as he stares at the words he’s just read.

Peggy is carried up the stairs by Hamilton, and it’s not until she’s placed down on the featherbed that she revives. She sees us standing over her and resumes her hysterics, shouting about Benedict’s betrayal.

“You’ll kill my child, I know it!” She wails, her eyes roving around the bedroom but not fixing on any one point. “You shall punish the son for the sins of the father!”

Hamilton tries to soothe her, tries to pull her back to herself, but every time he approaches her, my lady reaches up as if she would claw at his face.

“I won’t let you kill my son!” She screams, her features contorted with rage.

“Please, Mrs. Arnold, you are making yourself ill.” Hamilton turns to me with a look of deep concern, but I am just as helpess as he is.

I’ve seen scenes like this many times before, but what unnerves me this time is that I suspect her hysteria might be genuine.

When Peggy speaks again, she’s mumbling and pointing at the ceiling.

“Look.” She points upward at some unseen menace. “Look! My husband is gone. He’s gone there.” Her fingers direct our eyes aloft, but when I follow her pointing, all I see is the ceiling overhead.

CHAPTER SIX