The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (37 page)

Now was her chance, Clara thought, her nerves coiling inside her like a ball of twine. They were alone in the kitchen, with no one to overhear, and perhaps Mrs. Quigley might offer sage advice.

“Mrs. Quigley, things are frightful. Miss Shippen, I mean, Mrs. Arnold, has begun corresponding with John André again.”

Mrs. Quigley’s eyes rounded into two vast orbs. “André, that English fellow from a while back?”

“The very same.” Clara nodded.

“But that cannot be true. Miss Peggy is married now.”

Clara spoke in a hushed tone, fearful that someone might overhear her confession. “Indeed, ma’am, but General Arnold knows all about it. In fact, he is party to their exchanges.”

“But why on earth would the Arnolds be conferring with Major John André?”

The truth poured forth from Clara like a flood: Peggy’s disgust with her current circumstances; Arnold’s frustration with Reed and Washington; the bathtub conversation; the letters transmitted through the china merchant. Mrs. Quigley remained attentive, absorbing the news in stunned silence as their tea grew cold between them. When Clara had finished, several minutes passed before Mrs. Quigley could collect herself and form a reply.

“Well, Clara.” The old woman shook her head, speaking in barely a whisper. “This is either the wildest mistruth a girl like you could ever concoct, or you seem to have found yourself in the thick of some terrible mischief.”

“Mrs. Quigley,” Clara stammered, stung. “I tell you no lie.”

“But how could you possibly know all this?” Mrs. Quigley narrowed her eyes, and they singed with disbelief.

“They speak right in front of me, as if I were invisible.” Clara felt a stinging frustration, threatening tears; how could the housekeeper accuse her of falsehoods? “Mrs. Quigley, you may believe me, I assure you. We all live under that same very small roof; you would not fathom how much I am forced to overhear.”

“Well, you’ll take my advice and you’ll keep it at that: hearsay.” Now Mrs. Quigley cast a leery glance over her shoulder before continuing. “You’re not to repeat this, Clara, do you understand me? This sort of talk could cost you your neck.”

Clara’s frustration was mounting, spilling out in defiant words. “But Mrs. Quigley, don’t you think we ought to alert—”

“Clara Bell, enough!” Mrs. Quigley spoke with a sharpness that shocked Clara, so unexpected and out of character was the censure. “I said: you are not to repeat this. It is for your own good. We cannot allow such dangerous rumors to be swirling like this. Especially when your employer is a man as powerful as General Arnold. I will not tolerate it, do you understand me?” Mrs. Quigley’s cheeks smoldered a deep red. Her words were terse but her meaning was clear to Clara: speak about what she knew again, and she’d lose her job and her home.

“I understand, Mrs. Quigley.”

T
HE WIND
was so fierce that Clara didn’t hear the visitor leave the package. It was not until she went outside to fetch a fresh load of firewood that she saw it: a parcel waiting in the snow outside the Arnolds’ cottage.

“My lady.” Clara reentered the parlor, handing the parcel to Miss Peggy. “Something’s arrived for you and the general.”

“What is it?” Peggy summoned Clara to her perch before the fire. She was making a rare attempt at knitting. The start of a pair of baby’s booties sat in her lap.

“It’s unmarked, ma’am.” Clara studied the bulky package wrapped in brown paper. “Doesn’t appear to have come via the post.”

“Fetch my husband,” Peggy replied, taking the package and turning it over in her hands.

Clara woke Arnold from his nap and told him that his wife requested his presence in the parlor, that a package had arrived for them. Arnold, groggy from sleep, limped down the stairs toward the armchair opposite his wife.

“A package, eh?” Arnold’s breath, Clara noticed, was tinged with the sour smell of ale; he was drinking more these days.

“Shall I open it?” Peggy did not await a reply before she tore through the brown paper, easily rending it in two. “It’s come from Stansbury.” Arnold looked on in keen interest.

Clara hoped to slip from the room, having no interest in hearing any more of their plots or conspiracies. But Arnold called her back: “Clara, before you run away from us, fetch me some ale, won’t you?”

“Make that two,” Peggy added. “After all, we are celebrating, aren’t we?” She winked at her husband.

When Clara returned to the parlor, carrying two mugs of ale, Peggy was reading Stansbury’s note aloud to her husband.

I hand-delivered the letter to André myself. André was intrigued, particularly when he heard from whom the letter came. He sent me back to you with the item included herewith.

Peggy then reached back into the brown package and retrieved two items. The first was another letter on a flimsy piece of parchment.

“What does it say?”

“Nothing, it would seem,” Peggy answered her husband. “It’s a series of numbers—entirely devoid of meaning.”

“Curious.” Arnold creased his brow. “And what’s that?” Arnold pointed at the second item retrieved from the package, which had the appearance of a thick book.

“He sent us a book?” Arnold asked, taking the mug of ale from Clara.

“It seems to be a dictionary,” Peggy answered, thumbing
through the heavily bound volume. “Why would he send us a dictionary?” Peggy’s face went sour, and she shook her head at the ale Clara offered her.

“Is this André fellow insulting me?” Arnold sat upright, indignant.

“What could he possibly mean, sending us a dictionary?” Peggy still studied the book, puzzled.

“He seems to imply, Mrs. Arnold”—Arnold’s voice was forceful now, as it became when he demanded the respect he felt was so often denied him—“that we simple colonials cannot write in a manner worthy of your stylish British spy!”

P
EGGY HOWLED
and ranted so furiously that she tired herself out, and retired to her bedroom shortly after supper. The affront by André had been acute. More painful, Clara knew, than Arnold might even have guessed. She regretted ever initiating the communication, she yelled. Hadn’t she risked her honor and the respect of her husband in order to reach out to her former friend? And he’d responded by mocking them. He’d always been dismissive, aloof, behaving as if he were too important for her, a simple colonial girl. Her temper was so aroused that it served to quiet her husband, whose own ego had been so bruised that he vowed never to receive Stansbury in their home again.

“Throw that dictionary in the fire, for all I care!” Peggy railed, as she marched upstairs and shut herself into her bedchamber.

Arnold didn’t burn the volume, but he did give it to Clara to dispose of it with the remainder of the family’s rubbish. Clara decided against tossing it. It seemed wasteful. And besides, now that she was planning to write regularly to Cal, a dictionary might be a
handy book to keep nearby. She took it with her into the kitchen and began to flip through it. It was curious that a dictionary would be the weapon by which André had chosen to insult the Arnolds. Perhaps there was more to this book than the Arnolds had perceived.

It was the paper that accompanied the dictionary that struck Clara as especially odd: Why would André take the time to jot down a series of numbers if the message contained no purpose? His meaning must surely be hidden in the lines somewhere, as if there were some code that might be deciphered.

That’s when the idea struck Clara. She turned her attention back to the thick dictionary. The first pair of numbers on the paper was written in André’s long, narrow cursive:
100–36
. Clara opened the dictionary and fingered her way through the pages. When she arrived at page 100, it was as she had expected. And how about the second set of numbers? When she turned to the next number, she nearly dropped the dictionary. “Clara.” She looked up, gasping when she saw Arnold at the door of the kitchen. She hadn’t heard him enter.

“General Arnold,” Clara stammered, fidgeting with the book.

Arnold noticed the dictionary and narrowed his eyes.

“I see someone is getting use out of that vile thing. What are you doing with that book?” Arnold limped toward the table, his empty mug in his hand—surely the reason he had come to the kitchen.

“Sir, this is no ordinary dictionary.” Clara picked up the book, realizing for the first time the power held within its pages, should her suspicions prove correct. Oh how she wished now that she had burned the thing!

But it was too late—Arnold’s interest had been aroused.
“Whatever can you mean, you strange girl?” Arnold looked from Clara to the dictionary with eyes wide and probing.

“You see, this dictionary is accompanied by this.” Clara picked up the small piece of paper.

“That is just a bunch of nonsense”—Arnold scowled—“a series of numbers.”

“It’s far from nonsense. It’s a code,” Clara corrected him. “The key to reading the message is hidden within this dictionary.”

“How does it work?” Arnold asked, taking a seat at the table. “Fetch us some ale.” He gestured, urging Clara to sit beside him.

Clara poured him a mug of ale and sat beside him, finding it both strange and deeply troubling that she was suddenly abetting Arnold in the reading of his treasonous letter.

“How do you see a code in this, Clara?” Arnold asked, eyeing the letter over his full mug.

“Sir, this number refers to the page, and the second number refers to the word on that page. So, for instance”—Clara riffled through the pages, looking at the note as she scrolled—“page 100 is the letter
M
. And the thirty-sixth word on the page is
my
. So the letter begins with the word
My
.” Clara stared at Arnold, a feeling of doom filling her gut when she saw understanding dawn across his features.

“So it’s a letter, and not an insult after all?” Arnold asked, his eyebrows arcing in boyish hope. Clara nodded, stunned by how much this revered man craved respect.

“Quills and paper, Clara, now,” Arnold barked, smiling fondly at his maid and, now, coconspirator. “Clara, you are brilliant.”

Clara hated herself for blushing when her master offered this compliment.

They worked side by side at the kitchen table, muttering together and flipping from page to page. Clara was the faster of the two in locating the pages and words, so she navigated the dictionary, spelling
out the words to Arnold. It took them close to an hour to finish decoding the letter; the whole time, the feeling of regret grew heavier within Clara, until a sense of dread seeped into her very bones.

“We have it.” Arnold stared at the page, his eyes frantic after the effort. “I shall read it.” He held the paper aloft and began to relay its contents.

“My Dear Lady,

You can be assured I remember the evening of the Meshianza vividly. I think of that night, and the other nights, often.

I am very happy to hear from you, and to hear the overtures you’ve made. As you know, any correspondence between us must be carried out with the utmost secrecy. It is best to communicate via this dictionary, a copy of which I keep in my possession.

As for your offer of sharing information that we might use to our advantage: we require more precise details as to what you can offer.

We cannot discuss monetary compensation until the exact arrangements have been made and we know what we stand to gain.

Fondly,

John Anderson

Postscript: The Lady may write me as often as she’d like.”