The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (55 page)

“W
ELL,
M
RS.
Quigley, your wish has been granted.” Clara entered the kitchen. Her heart still racing from her failed attempt to warn Hamilton, she lowered herself into a chair. The housekeeper had been joined by her husband, and Mr. Quigley was rushing to load serving platters with cream, sliced peaches, sizzling bacon, and thick yellow butter. Mrs. Quigley stood beside her husband, kneading a mound of dough.

“How so, girl?” Mrs. Quigley barely looked at Clara, her cheeks smeared in flour.

“You have a couple hours longer to prepare. A gentleman from Washington’s party has just sent word that they will be a few hours late.”

“Late?” Mrs. Quigley lamented. “Now the loaf will burn, the tea will oversteep, and the peaches will start to attract the flies.” Mrs. Quigley sulked under a cloud of flour but kept kneading the dough.

“He’s the commander of the Continental Army.” Mr. Quigley fidgeted with the pewter buttons of his coat as he checked his reflection in the silver teapot. “I am sure he will have no difficulty facing down a few flies.”

“I’m sure he will!” Mrs. Quigley mumbled. “Clara, you best go and inform the missus of the delay.”

“Clara, who was that at the door?” Peggy sat up in bed when she saw her maid reenter the bedroom.

“It was a Mr. Alexander Hamilton sending word that General Washington’s party is to arrive late.” Clara crossed the room and replaced the now emptied chamber pot. “Are you ready to dress, my lady?” Clara pulled the bedroom window open, letting in a breeze of fresh morning air.

“He’s to arrive late? No bother,” Peggy answered merrily, still nibbling on the peaches in her lap.

“Mr. Alexander Hamilton and General Washington both sent you their special apologies for the tardiness,” Clara said, trying not to clench her teeth.

“Alexander Hamilton. I’ve heard of him,” Peggy answered. “He’s supposed to be quite handsome. Of course, no man looks truly dashing without the regimental redcoat of the . . .well, never mind.” Peggy turned to Clara, her eyes glimmering with girlish mischief.

Clara averted her gaze, wishing Peggy would get out of bed so that she could change the linens while there was a lull in the morning’s activities.

“Well, I suppose I shall dress,” Peggy yawned, stretching her arms overhead.

There was a loud noise from downstairs as someone slammed the front door.

“Benny, is that you?” Peggy slid out of the large bed and called out her bedroom door.

“I’m back!” Arnold hollered up the stairs.

“Where have you been?” Peggy called back to him.

“Out on the river,” he answered her through the floorboards. “West Point is ready.”

“But for what?” Peggy lifted an eyebrow and sniggered. Then, calling back to her husband, she answered: “I’m just finishing up dressing. Be right down.”

Clara was staring into the wardrobe, helping her mistress determine which dress to wear, when she detected the second set of hooves. Barley heard it too, and began a round of wild barking. The window-rattling noise started faint but grew louder, more urgent, its tempo signaling a rapid approach. Peggy and Clara turned to each other, listening to the frenzied pace of the horse hooves clamoring like a drumbeat outside the open window.

“Is Hamilton back? Did he forget something?” Peggy asked her maid. Clara crossed the room and looked through the open window. But this was not Hamilton returning.

“No, my lady,” Clara answered, studying the small, hunched figure that approached, clinging to a black steed that looked as if it were racing to outrun the Apocalypse. “This is a new rider,” Clara said.

“Another messenger? Goodness, we must be the busiest home on the Hudson this morning.” Peggy chuckled, tugging at the loose sleeves of her white linen nightdress. “Don’t they know we are set to receive Washington and his party for breakfast this morning? You’d think they could withhold these tedious errands for at least one day.” Peggy sighed, her face beautiful beneath the frame of her loose blond curls. “Better go see what they want.” Peggy gave Clara a nod, and her maid obeyed, leaving the bedroom to make her way down the narrow wooden staircase.

“Scoot, Barley dog.” Clara edged the barking dog gently aside from the front door. From her perch on the front step, she shaded her eyes and stared up the road. The rider was not liveried in the general’s crest, and therefore not from Washington’s camp. He approached the house at alarming speed, urging his weary horse forward with the spurs of his dusty boots. Halting just feet in front of
Clara, uniform filthy and hair matted with sweat, the man hopped down from the horse.

“Can I help you?” Clara stood, sentry-like, before the front door to the farmhouse.

“I need to speak with Major General Benedict Arnold.” The man, breathless, careened toward the house, the cloud of dust his horse had kicked up surrounding him like a shroud. “Take my horse, I must speak to the general!” Alarmed, Clara stepped down toward the horse, and the messenger did not wait for an invitation before he pushed his way through the door.

Clara tied the horse quickly, listening to the commotion in the front of the house as the new visitor hollered Arnold’s name. “Where is Major General Benedict Arnold? Urgent message for Benedict Arnold from the south Hudson!”

The south Hudson. Where André had been traveling. With her heart in her throat, Clara entered the home and waited at the threshold of the small parlor. She heard Arnold approaching, his telltale plodding on the wooden floor—lopsided, uneven—followed by a curt nod in her direction. “Thank you, Clara.” Then Arnold greeted the messenger, his gravelly voice courteous but stern with his subordinate.

“What is your aim, man?” Arnold demanded. “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 dusty messenger made no apologies as he answered quickly.

“I assure you, Major General, you will pardon my urgency when you see the message I’m now delivering to you. I was told to deliver it posthaste.” Arnold turned to Clara and she saw the concern rippling across his features.

“Good heavens, where are you coming from?” Arnold asked.

“North Castle Fort, down the Hudson. A day’s ride. I was dispatched two days ago by a Colonel John Jameson.”

“And what is the crisis down there?” The alarm in Arnold’s voice was noticeable, even as Clara heard him endeavoring to remain calm.

“A certain John Anderson has been apprehended while en route to New York. He had a pass signed in your name and a parcel of papers taken from under his stockings, which I think are of a very dangerous tendency.” The messenger struggled to calm his breath.

When Arnold answered, his voice had a quiver that Clara had never before heard. “Papers? Well, where are the papers?”

“The papers have been sent to General Washington,” the messenger answered.

Arnold took the smaller man by the collar, nearly lifting him from the floor as he growled into his face. “Washington?”

“Aye.” The messenger hung like a limp fish on the end of the line, dangling a few inches off the ground.

“Why did they not come to me?” Arnold demanded. “
I
am the commanding officer in these parts!”

“Colonel Jameson’s orders, sir, are that they be sent directly to General Washington. We heard that he was in the area. I . . . I . . . can’t breathe. Please, sir!”

Arnold dropped the man, allowing him to crumple into an unhappy heap on the wooden floor. But Arnold wasn’t done questioning him. “And does Washington have the papers yet?”

“I do not know, sir.” The messenger pulled himself to his feet, his face still aggrieved from the rough treatment. “Another rider departed from Colonel Jameson’s command post at the same time I set out. I was to ride directly to you to give you word of the apprehension.
The other rider was to give word to Washington and to deliver the papers to him, so that the general might find out from where the treachery originates.”

After a long pause, her master spoke. “Give it here then.”

The messenger transferred the letter to Arnold. A long, excruciating silence followed. Clara struggled to quiet her breath, her pounding heart, as Arnold read the message. Had Peggy overhead any of this? Clara wondered.

“Somehow, sir, the spy obtained a pass with your signature on it.” The messenger broke the silence. Was he implying anything?

Looking up from the paper, Arnold addressed the messenger. “This is high treason, and we will react immediately. Clara, run upstairs and fetch my quill and parchment. In fact, on second thought, I shall come with you. You, man, let me prepare my answer to your colonel. Meantime, go into the pantry for some water and bread. My servants will see to it that you are taken care of.” Arnold began limping away from the messenger before he’d completed his sentence.

Clara turned and fled back up the stairwell, certain now that Arnold was right behind her. She heard her master’s gait, with its familiar lopsidedness, but with an urgency she hadn’t heard in years. She flew up the steps as he labored behind her, pulling his thick frame up the stairwell.

Clara charged into Peggy’s bedroom, where her mistress stood before the mirror, holding up a cream-colored gown. “What is it?” Her mistress’s eyes widened when she spotted Clara hovering on the threshold of her merry, sunlit chamber.

“Master’s coming!” It was all Clara had time to say. The two ladies heard him close by now, using his impressive upper body strength to pull himself up the stairs. The floorboards groaned beneath his boots as he lurched upward. Clara looked to Peggy and
watched as her features turned horror-struck. She understood her thoughts; no words were needed between them after all these years.

“But surely it’s not . . . it can’t be?” Peggy let the cream-colored gown slip from her hands to the floor.

“Peggy.” Arnold bounded through the door, his thick, hulking frame atremble in the doorway. Breathless, he gasped, “They’ve found us out. All is lost!” And then, as quickly as he had entered, General Arnold exited back out the bedroom doorway.

Peggy was left alone with Clara, struggling to make sense of the announcement.

“What did he say?” Peggy’s face was drained of color. Clara knew what was coming: it was a scene she had seen numberless times—a tantrum, a litany of shrieks and sobs—but with a newfound hysteria beneath it.
“Benedict!”
Peggy shouted at the empty space in the doorway where her husband had just stood.
“Benedict Arnold!”
But Arnold didn’t answer, and he didn’t return her cries. Peggy turned to her maid, her face ashen. “How can this be, Clara? He says we are ruined!” Clara was silent.

“All is lost, he says.” Peggy repeated her husband’s words aloud in the abandoned bedroom, as if through repetition she would find sense. “But I don’t understand how.”

Downstairs, Clara heard Arnold once again conversing with the bewildered messenger. Arnold was peppering him with questions faster than the man could answer.

“Did they ascertain with whom this spy had had his rendezvous? Did the spy talk? Did he offer up the name of his fellow conspirator?” Arnold demanded. The messenger, bewildered, answered that he knew nothing of the matter, simply that he had been ordered to deliver this letter with haste.

“But did you hear anything more, man? Anything at all?” Arnold probed. “The letter says the spy was apprehended with secret
documents. Documents intended to give over the fort at West Point, and the body of our Commander Washington. Who gave him these documents?” Arnold’s voice boomed down at the messenger from the deep recesses of his stocky frame.

The messenger spoke quietly, apologetically. “Sorry, sir, I don’t think they know yet. At least they did not yet know at the time I set out with this message.”

This answer must have satisfied Arnold, must have convinced him that there was still time. Very little, but it might be enough.

“All right, man.” Arnold nodded. “Here is my reply.” Putting a sealed paper in the messenger’s palm, Arnold continued, “Ride back to Colonel Jameson with this at once. And do not stop on the road to speak to anyone—do you hear me? That is an order. Even if you pass General Washington’s party along the way. You ride south and do not stop or turn back here for any purpose.”

“Yes, sir.” The bewildered messenger took Arnold’s note and set out.

The dust kicked up from the rider’s horse had not yet settled when another knock rapped on the front door below. “Good heavens.” Clara looked out Peggy’s bedroom window toward the front yard and saw the familiar figure of Major David Franks. Behind her now, Peggy was wailing like a menacing banshee.

“Hello?” Franks knocked on the front door again.

“Oh, what does
he
want?” Clara muttered, trying to think amid her mistress’s bloodcurdling cries.

“Hello, General Arnold? Mrs. Arnold?” The aide let himself in through the front door, so that now he called into the interior of their home. “Hello? Are you at home?”

“What is it, Franks?” Clara paused at the top of the stairs. She was certain that the aide could now hear the wails of Peggy from the bedroom.