The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (39 page)

“T
HE NERVE
of that man!” Arnold spat in fury as he clutched André’s response, freshly delivered from Stansbury to Clara. “Flat out refuses to name a sum, as if it’s an unreasonable request!” Arnold read the letter again, massaging his wounded knee absentmindedly as he did so. The longer he stared at the letter, the more visibly agitated he grew.

“They don’t want me on their side?” Arnold scoffed. “Don’t they know who I am? My defection would cause an entire counterrevolution! It would practically hand them the victory!”

“Do not let them upset you.” Peggy was the vision of calm as she sat, mountainous, in bed. Her belly looked like it weighed more than the entire rest of her frame—she was prepared to give birth
any day now. Clara had helped her undress and was preparing their evening fire when Arnold had stormed into the bedchamber with the latest response.

“Let me handle this, Benny.” Peggy waved her husband toward the bed. He handed her the letter.

“I shall reply, Benny. Sit down and rest. Have a drink.” Peggy dipped a quill in the thick black ink and worked quickly, smiling as she wrote. When she had finished, she spoke aloud: “How does this sound?”

“Dearest Anderson,

You’ve written of a night, years ago, that seems to me now to be little more than a dream. I’ve worn many lovely dresses in my life, but none can compare to the white silk dress I had made for that evening. To think that I never got a chance to dance in it, it still brings a tear to my eye. Perhaps we will be reunited someday and we can throw another Grand Masque and I can have that dance I was denied.

You know how I love fine things. Dresses and ribbon and satin and shoes. I have so many fine things already. The only way I could give them all up is if you tell me what, in exact terms, I stand to gain.

Please, my old friend, we need specifics. Perhaps I should come to New York for a shopping trip? You can tell me all about the fine things you are willing to give me, and in return, we will offer you that information which we have that you could stand to benefit from. You understand my meaning?

I await your reply.

Fondly,

Madame la Turque”

Monsieur & Madame,

I am not in a position to offer money or a rank until I’ve gained a real advantage to which I can point.

An accurate plan of the fort at West Point would be one such piece. Or numbers of boats on the Hudson, and the plans for said vessels this spring and summer.

A face-to-face meeting with the lady is not necessary at this time, as I wish her not to burden herself by making the arduous journey. But I would like to meet her husband in person when the warmer spring weather arrives.

“V
AGARIES, EVASIONS,
and more insults.” Arnold slumped over the most recent letter at the dinner table, allowing it to burn to ash in the candlelight. “And I don’t like that you offered to go to New York to meet him. And I like even less that he denied you. Who does this André character think he is? I see no way of working with him.”

“There is indeed a way.” Peggy took the platter from Clara and served her husband a slice of mutton, pouring gravy over it. Then, with what sounded like admiration in her voice, she murmured, “I had forgotten how slippery Johnny . . . André . . . can be.”

“As slippery as an eel, from the looks of his letters. Peggy, why did I let you convince me to begin these correspondences?” Arnold burned the last of the letter and ran his hands through his gray hair, ignoring his food.

“Excuse me?” Peggy stared him down, defiant, as she scooped them each potatoes.

“I don’t like this so-called friend of yours. I plan to write him back and let him know just what I think of his sly tactics.”

“Benny, you’re being hasty. Perhaps if we—”

“They don’t want me on their side, they won’t name my reward. Am I to make a fool of myself dancing before them like some unwanted harlot? If they don’t want me, damn them!” Arnold slammed his fist on the dinner table, sending the dinner plates an inch in the air before they settled back down. Clara jumped back in shock.

“Benny, you are being brutish.” Peggy glowered at her husband but remained calm.

They sat opposite each other in silence. Arnold, at last, capitulated.

“I’m sorry, Peg.” Arnold reached his hand toward hers, but she removed hers before he could touch it, lifting her wineglass to her lips.

Arnold continued. “But I am fed up. And there’s no way I will hazard it all when they will give me no set reward.”

“They will,” Peggy answered tersely, confidently. She summoned Clara to refill her husband’s empty wineglass.

“You’ve read the letters just like I have, Peggy.” Arnold took the refilled wineglass in his huge hands and drained its contents with several gulps.

“Let’s make them pursue us,” Peggy suggested.

“How?” Arnold asked after several minutes, his lips stained red with wine.

Peggy smiled, a coy, ballroom smile: the dazzling look she saved for the man she most desired. “We shall withdraw our interest. Then they’ll see what they have passed on.”

Arnold stared back at his wife, his eyes twinkling. “You’re right, my love.”

“Of course I’m right.” Peggy shrugged. Clara reached in front
of Peggy to deposit a bowl of turnips, sliding her hand forward just as Peggy reached for the carafe of wine. Their hands collided, causing Peggy to drop the red wine.

“Oh!” Peggy screamed, turning from the spilling wine to her servant, her eyes furious. “Now, Clara, look what you’ve made me do.”

“Mrs. Arnold, I do apologize, I’m so sorry.” Clara’s heart faltered as she reached for the overturned jug of wine and righted it. Peggy looked back at the table, where the wine had spread from the table linens now to her full, protruding belly, her cream-colored petticoat. Peggy lifted her hand, and before Clara knew what was happening, her mistress had landed a stinging slap across her face.

“Rags and water, now,” Peggy spoke through a clenched jaw. “Or else I may lose my patience.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Clara dropped her gaze to the floor, her hand clutching her smarting cheek, and walked from the dining room.

“My darling.” Arnold’s face was tense—“I’m not sure such immoderation was necessary.”

“Oh, honestly, Benny, it’s like disciplining a child. You must be firm or they take advantage.”

“Clara Bell is no child,” Arnold retorted. “She’s a perfectly able member of this household, and you ought to treat her with more respect.”

“Careful now, Benny.” Peggy’s tone was icy. “Surely you don’t mean to side with the maid against your own wife?”

Hearing this exchange, Clara did not return to the kitchen to fetch rags. No, Peggy could clean up her own spill. Instead, holding her face, her fingers wet from tears, she exited the kitchen and ran out into the yard. She picked up a fistful of snow and pressed it to her cheek. The tears that poured out against her will only made it sting worse.

Clara crumpled down into a humiliated mass in the snow and
cried. How dare Peggy blame Clara for her own spill, and then slap her like that? She never wanted to go back into that house—that miserable house where she was either utterly invisible or railed at for errors she didn’t make. There was a limit to how much she could endure—being called lazy, and idiotic, and dishonest.

“Clara? Is that you?” Mrs. Quigley’s figure appeared as a dark shadow in the yard. “Clara, what is the matter?” The woman hunched down over Clara, helping her up out of the snow.

“She . . . she hit me!” Clara stammered.

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Quigley’s face registered unmasked disapproval. “Now, let’s have a look, there’s a good girl.” She gently lifted Clara’s hand away to reveal the cheek, red and puffy. “Gracious.”

Clara covered her face in humiliation.

“Well, what did you do?” Mrs. Quigley looked concerned as her tender fingers pressed snow onto Clara’s cheek.

Clara broke out into fresh sobs. “She was pouring herself more wine and our hands collided on the table and she dropped the carafe.”

“Oh, there, there.” The woman pulled Clara forward into a gentle, warm hug. “Shhhh.” She ran her hands through Clara’s hair, and for a minute Clara imagined that she was a little girl again and Oma was soothing her in a strong, safe embrace.

“Well, you just try to stay away from her for a while, if you can. Give her time to collect herself. I imagine she will see the error in her ways.”

“Mrs. Quigley, I hate her!” Clara confessed, feeling guilty for the words.

“Hush, Clara, hush. We don’t want anyone hearing that kind of talk. I understand why you feel that way, of course.” The old woman patted her back. “But we must remember our lot in life, Clara. We’re servants. Without them we’d have no roof over our heads. No
food. No clothing. Would you want to have to sleep out here on a night like this? With this war going on?”

Clara bristled from the injustice of it.

“My dear Clara.” The old woman pulled away from Clara and held her eyes in an encouraging stare. “I was coming over here with something that might lift your spirits. I’ve got a letter for you from Caleb.”

F
OR DAYS
Peggy refused to rise from her bed, but stayed sunken in her feather mattress, bed curtains closed, and she complained that she could neither sleep nor eat. Clara kept trays stocked with food by her bedside, but other than that, she gave her mistress a wide berth.

Peggy’s labor pains came in the middle of the night. At first, Clara had thought she was having a nightmare, given the shrill screams that permeated her dreams on her straw mat. But when she awoke, she saw that Barley had risen from the straw, and Arnold’s panicked face was just inches from hers in the firelit room.

“Clara, run and fetch Mrs. Shippen now,” Arnold ordered. “Hurry! Mrs. Arnold has broken her water.”

Clara stood in the corner of the bedroom, staring in horror at a scene very different from what she’d imagined childbirth to be. Now she understand how her own birth had killed her mother all those years ago—it was impossible to see how any woman would survive this ordeal. What would happen to her if Peggy died in childbirth? she wondered. She wiped the thought away, praying for the life of the baby and the mother. All throughout the night, Clara kept a steady supply of clean rags and fresh pots of hot water at the ready while Mrs. Shippen and Hannah led the screaming Peggy through the birth.

The sound of Arnold’s lopsided limping reverberated on the floors below. He paced from room to room, ale mug in hand, until the sun came up. Before the doctor had time to stir from his bed and arrive at the Arnolds’ cottage, little Edward Shippen Arnold arrived, screaming less than his mother who delivered him.

“It’s a boy.” Mrs. Shippen handed the tightly bundled baby to Arnold, who entered the room only after he was assured that the labor was over.

“Good God, there’s blood everywhere.” Arnold stared at his wife on the bed, aghast.