The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (33 page)

“Peggy.” Stansbury’s voice was low. “If Washington doesn’t appreciate your husband, there may be others who do.” The windows beside them rattled in their frames, shaking against a violent gust of wind outside.

“But Stan, Washington is the head of the army. He must be the one to say—”

“I don’t mean on this side.” Stansbury held his thin hand out, like a seductive invitation to dance. “There
is
another way.”

Peggy stared at her friend, her expression passing from confusion to understanding. And then to disbelief.

“Stan, surely you’re not suggesting—” Peggy shook her head. She threw a glance in the corner toward her maid, but Clara had buried her face in the darning work and appeared not to have overheard.

“Stan, this is highly dangerous talk. To suggest that Benedict—” Peggy’s voice remained low.

“I’m not suggesting anything, I’m merely stating a fact. Your husband is in debt and his name has been besmirched by the colonials. The . . . other . . . side might not treat him so roughly. No, they are much more genteel. They appreciate people like you. In fact, they’d likely give you both a hero’s welcome.”

Peggy cleared her throat, sitting in silence a moment before answering. “Stan, you know my husband; he’s a man of character. He loves this country, he’d never—”

“Yes, but he’s also a man who loves his wife. And with another mouth to feed soon.” The merchant looked at her belly, causing her to cover it with her hand protectively. “He’d listen to you, Peggy.”

“Stan, he would never speak to me again if I even breathed a word of this. You can’t be serious.”

“André is in charge of finding spies. It could be done. And it could be done quickly. Imagine . . . spending next winter in New York.” Stansbury paused, leaning forward. “Or even better,
London
! Can you even imagine how much fun we’d have together at Christmastime at Court?” The merchant raised his eyebrows.

“Stansbury!” Peggy looked around the room, as if afraid that they would be heard. Clara, though her heart was hammering against her rib cage, still did not look up from her corner. Peggy, satisfied that her maid either did not hear or could not understand the nature of their discussion, continued in a low voice. “Stan, are you suggesting treachery? We could be hanged just for having this conversation.”

The china merchant shrugged his shoulders. “Your husband once said there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do to make you happy, Peggy Shippen. Just . . . think about it, that’s all I’m asking.” Stansbury looked around the room, at the ragged curtains that shivered in the drafty air of the windows, at the threadbare carpet
that covered only a fraction of the cold, rough floor planks. He turned back toward Peggy, allowing his eyes to linger on the faded collar of her too-tight dress. Finally he looked into Peggy’s eyes, speaking in a suggestive, haughty tone. “That is, unless you’re happy here.”

“I
F WE’RE
to succeed,” Peggy whispered, leaning her forehead against the cold windowpane, her breath clouding the glass as she exhaled, “we can’t have him thinking that he’s betraying his country. No, his character would never abide such a thing. But rather, we must convince him that it is his
country
that has already betrayed him. If the break has already been made, he commits no wrong.”

Clara hesitated in the doorway, watching as her mistress spoke to herself, alone in the empty bedroom.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Peggy?” Clara knocked on the wooden door.

“Oh, Clara.” Peggy turned to face her maid, her large belly protruding out from under the shape of her dressing gown. “I didn’t see you there.”

“The hot water is ready. Would you still like your bath?” Clara shifted her weight, struggling against the oppressive load of the pails of water.

“Yes, come in.” Peggy opened the front of her gown and dropped it to the floor, standing before Clara in her brazen nakedness. Clara blushed at the immodesty, even after years with Peggy. “I’m so large I’ll probably float in the water,” Peggy grumbled as she stepped laboriously into the tub. “Hurry up and pour it in. I’m freezing.”

Clara tipped the first bucket, splashing her mistress with the
warm water she’d hauled from the kitchen fire. Then she poured the second bucket, and the third, and the fourth, hurrying up and down the stairs with the heavy loads that gave her an ache in her back.

“Now bring me my soaps,” Peggy ordered once the tub was full, lapping the water onto her face.

“Which flavor would you like, miss? Bayberry? Lemon?”

“Wildflower.” Peggy demanded the one bar that Clara didn’t already have in her hands. Clara found the soap in Peggy’s dresser and slid it into her mistress’s wet hands.

“Ahhhh, this is nice.” Peggy slipped down into the water, submerging her head under the surface. The room around them filled with the floral fragrance of the steamy tub—the bedroom windows fogged with condensation, and the air filled with the balminess of a Turkish bath. Clara had to admit it was a nice contrast to the rest of the drafty cottage.

She heard a stirring below, and the voice of Major Franks ordering the horses to halt. When the front door opened downstairs, Barley erupted in excited yelps.

“Hello? My Peg?” A familiar, thunderous voice rang out from below the floorboards.

“Benny’s home,” Peggy gasped, sitting upright in the bathtub. “Benny, I’ll be right down,” Peggy yelled. Then, turning to Clara, “No, I’ve got a better idea. Clara, go tell my husband that I’m in the bath and I’m waiting for him.”

“Will you dress first, my lady?” Clara assumed, fetching the muslin dressing gown off the hook.

“No. Tell my husband that I would like him to join me in the bath.”

“In the bath?” Clara did not attempt to mask her embarrassment.

“That’s what I said, Clara.”

Clara descended the stairs and entered the drawing room, where she found a red-faced, frozen Arnold poking the fire in a desperate attempt to coax some additional heat from its embers. “General Arnold, welcome home.” Clara curtsied.

“Clara! It’s good to see you.” Arnold smacked his thick hands together and blew on them. His hair, Clara noticed, appeared entirely gray. “Where is the lady of the house?”

“Mrs. Arnold has asked me to tell you that she is in the bath.” Clara cleared her throat, balling her fists by her side. “And she’d like you to join her.”

Arnold raised his eyebrows, intrigued by the invitation, only prompting Clara’s blush to turn a deeper shade of purple.

“Well, I suppose I should obey my wife.” Arnold removed his dirty, snow-covered cloak and tossed it onto the chair. He limped to the stairs and pulled his way up with uncharacteristic agility.

“Benny, you’re home.” Peggy beamed as her husband entered the steamy room.

“And what a homecoming.” He clapped his hands at the sight of his wife.

“My, you look frigid, Benny. Look at the tip of your nose, as red as a cherry,” Peggy said from the bathtub.

“Look how big you’ve got while I was gone.” Arnold stooped down, kissing his wife first, and then her belly, which protruded above the surface of the sudsy water.

“Clara?”

“Ma’am?”

“General Arnold is frozen from his travels. Fetch us some more hot water and two mugs of hot rum cider.” Peggy turned back to her husband, her voice inviting now, like the balmy tub water. “Benny, why don’t you get out of those weary travel clothes and join me? There’s room for two in here, even if I am as large as a house.”

“If you say so, my dear.” Arnold kicked his boots off, landing them on the wooden floor with unceremonious thuds.

Clara knocked at the door, shifting her weight nervously. No response but the sound of Peggy’s giggles from within. Clara knocked again. “I have the fresh bathwater, my lady.”

“Yes, Clara, come in,” Arnold answered her.

It was a staggering sight. Her mistress and Arnold, sitting opposite each other in the crowded, bubbly tub. Peggy, her breasts swollen from the pregnancy, swabbed warm, soapy water on her husband’s scruffy neck and cheeks. He looked terrible—exhausted and cold, and as if he hadn’t had a shave in weeks, but he seemed to be thawing under his wife’s tender ministrations.

“Now, my darling husband, you must tell me how the court-martial went.”

Clara poured the first bucket of steaming water over the tub, grateful for the heavy cover of the foamy, wildflower-scented bubbles.

“Oh, Peggy. My sweet Peggy. It was insufferable. The whole thing.” Arnold waved his hands in defeat, splashing the sudsy water over the surface of the tub. “My leg ached after the journey. And to see Washington’s face, Peggy. He looked at me, limping around, with such pity. It was just mortifying.”

“So, what did he say?” Peggy picked up a sponge and began scrubbing her husband’s thick arms.

“Well, first of all, Reed—for all his delaying and posturing, claiming he had damning evidence that would prove my corruption—the fool had absolutely no one to testify. And no proof,” Arnold growled, pulling on the hairs of his beard.

“As we knew would be the case.” Peggy ran her soapy fingers through the thick graying hairs on her husband’s chest. “So they cleared your name?” She spoke slowly, languidly, as if to calm her husband’s ire.

“On the contrary, my lady.” Arnold’s fist pounded the water again, this time splashing Clara’s petticoat as she stood there, refilling the tub water. “They threw out all the charges but three. That . . .
court
”—Arnold could not hide the thick contempt in his voice—“found me guilty of making a personal gain from selling private goods, using the public wagons for my personal use, and . . .” His voice trailed off.

“And?” Peggy prodded, her jaw clenched tightly.

“Favoring loyalists.”

Peggy nodded her head, absentmindedly weaving her finger through a loose curl. After a long pause, she asked, “The penalty?”

“Negligible. A light reprimand from Washington. But the indignity was enough to cause me to hate Reed and the entire Continental Congress forever; I might as well have been tarred and feathered. And by my own countrymen.”

“It’s not right.” Peggy looked fixedly toward the steamy windows. “It’s just not right. A reprimand from Washington, ha! You know how I feel about that tobacco planter.”

“I know, Peg, I know,” Arnold conceded. “But he is still our commander. And if I know Washington, he will refrain from issuing any reprimand. He will state publicly that he has, but he will not. He’s an honorable man, even if no one else is, and he knows that all I have left to me are my character and good name. He did seem to sympathize with me throughout the entirety of the trial.”

“Well, even so. You might think Washington has honor. But that damned Continental Congress. I’m guessing that they said nothing about reimbursing for you the thousands they still owe you?”

He looked down, silently shaking his head.

“How can we go on, then?”

They sat in brooding silence for several minutes. Eventually, Peggy spoke. “Benny, I know you still feel fidelity to Washington.” She cocked her head. “Because you’re a good and loyal man. But I
think Reed and the Pennsylvania Council, along with the whole Continental Congress, are a pack of lying criminals.”

“You’ll hear no argument from me on that score, Peg.”

“You know something, Benny?” Peggy took a long sip of rum. “The British have been offering peace since 1778. That’s two years of fighting that we’ve been forced to endure now, patriots being forced to kill their own brothers. And why?” Peggy leaned in, whispering now. “Because the Continental Congress
wants
to prolong this war. All they care about is making a profit off this war. That is why they are coming after you like this—to distract the public. To make
you
the enemy, so that no one notices how corrupt
they
are!”

Clara bit her tongue at the statement. Never mind the fact that the Continental Congress, far from making a profit, had been driven to near bankruptcy funding the war. But she merely wished to dump in the last pails of water and leave this scene.

“Peggy.” Arnold looked at his wife, his cheeks rosy now from the warmth of the bath. “I had no idea you were such a little conspirator.”

“Benny, those are the facts, plain and simple.” Peggy spoke with a carefully spun nonchalance, but Clara detected the intensity lurking beneath her words. Arnold sat opposite Peggy, uttering not a word as he stared at her—at her hair, which was even thicker with curls from the pregnancy, her cheeks flushed from the steam, the ripe and enchanting fullness of her face and figure. Peggy let him gawk, let the silence hang between them, heavy, like the fog of the steamy water.

After several minutes, Arnold spoke. “You know, I’m starting to believe that you may be right.” Arnold stroked his beard as he thought.

“I know I’m right. Anyhow”—Peggy sighed, sliding her body
through the water to be nearer to her husband—“enough politics. I’m exhausted—it’s tiring being this large with your baby.” She smiled invitingly, caressing her swollen belly. “I think I’ll have one more mug of rum cider and then get in bed, Benny. Will you join me? You must be fatigued from your journey.”