The Traitor's Wife: A Novel (59 page)

C
AL LATER
found Clara by the river, where she sat, awash in the last few minutes of sunlight. As the golden disc slid behind the western mountains, a tattered colonial flag cut a silhouette against the sky over West Point. The fort remained in American hands.

Cal sat down beside her on the shore of the river. For several minutes they stared at the fort, but neither of them spoke. “So, Clara Bell, here we are.”

“Here we are.” Clara nodded, turning to him. “When must you go?”

“Not tonight. I’ve been given some time off. When Colonel Putnam heard that my farm was just adjacent to this home, he told me I may have a few days up here to see my family and settle some matters.”

Clara could have leapt with joy, and she was certain her face betrayed that. “How very important you are, Cal,” Clara teased. He smiled back at her.

“I suppose, Cal, if you have the night off, then you have time for another kiss?”

“I have nothing else planned.”

“Good.” She put her palm to his cheek, savoring the feel of his skin. “Then you had better kiss me.”

“If you say so, Clara Bell.” They stayed on the hillside as the sun dipped below the horizon, the last rays of light filling the yard. Clara felt as though they had years of lost time for which to atone, years in which she should have been telling Cal of her love for him. She looked forward to making it up to him, to showing him how deeply she loved him every day for the rest of her life.

Clara could have happily remained out there all night, but Cal pulled away from her before she was ready, his face suddenly serious. Tucking a loose curl behind her ear, he asked: “But what about you, Clara Bell? How will we get you away from this home? Do you think Miss Peggy will allow you to just get up and leave?”

“No,” Clara answered, looking out over the river with a determined gaze. She was certain Peggy would not let her go. “But I have a plan that will give her very little choice.”

W
HEN CLARA
returned to Peggy, having made a plan to meet Cal the next day, the bedchamber was dark and her mistress had
slipped into a fretful sleep. Clara lit the candles around the room, her heart glowing even in the shadows of this darkness. Nothing would dampen her spirits now.

“No! No! Johnny, don’t leave me!”

Clara looked upon her mistress, her expression tormented even as she slept. The beautiful woman moaned in the throes of a nightmare that had now come true. And it was only Clara who knew, fully, the nightmares that haunted Peggy.

Peggy, who had always thought of her maid as invisible. This woman who had alternately spoiled and abused Clara for years, taking her for a simple, timid extension of her own life and plans; taking her maid’s blind, stupid obedience for granted, even to the point of bringing her along to plot treason. Clara had been so invisible to this woman that Peggy had allowed her to sit by, watching plans of treachery unfold, never guessing that Clara herself could play a part. Never guessing that Clara had a mind and a heart of her own, her own desires for a life and for love.

Peggy wouldn’t let Clara go without a fight. No, she’d resist Clara’s departure; and Peggy knew how to get her own way, of that, Clara was all too certain. But hadn’t Clara been learning from her mistress all this time? Observing, obeying, taking it all in with perfectly polite silence? Wasn’t she finally prepared to stand up for herself, even if it meant going against Peggy Shippen Arnold?

As the house darkened, the Quigleys lit candles and fireplaces, and a loud commotion downstairs told Clara that Hamilton and Lafayette had returned from their ride south. She ran down the stairs to hear their news with the rest of the crowd.

“Any news?” someone asked as the door slammed.

“Where’s Arnold?” another soldier demanded. The men showered the two new arrivals with questions while Barley the dog barked, confused by the frenzy of activity as he sought out his master in the crowd.

“He slipped away,” Lafayette said, his French accent exacerbated by fatigue. “Arnold has escaped the hangman’s noose.” The muffled sounds of swears and chatter filled up the room, but Clara didn’t hear the rest. She had her hand over her heart, overcome by her relief that Arnold would not hang.

S
EVERAL MINUTES
later, someone knocked quietly outside Peggy’s bedchamber. Clara walked toward the door while her mistress stirred, sitting upright in bed.

“Who is it?” Peggy asked, rubbing her puffy eyes.

“It is I, my lady, George Washington.” He remained on the threshold, hesitant to enter.

“Come in,” Peggy answered.

Two men, Washington and Hamilton, peeked their heads into Peggy’s bedroom. They each held candles, casting a dim light across the room.

“Mrs. Arnold?” Washington refrained from pointing his eyes toward the bed. “Are you well?”

“General Washington, Colonel Hamilton.” Peggy’s face was splotchy and her hair disheveled, but she had regained composure, and she even conjured a smile when she saw the men. “Please, please come closer. You will see that I am much recovered.” She adjusted the nightdress that Clara had slid her into.

The two men approached cautiously. “Mrs. Arnold, I cannot tell you how relieved we are to see that you’ve recovered,” Washington now looked at the resting woman with paternal sympathy.

“These are for the lovely lady.” Hamilton tiptoed behind Washington. Clara had to steady herself when she saw, to her utter shock, that Hamilton carried in his arms a bouquet of flowers. “From your
garden, Mrs. Arnold.” Hamilton smiled sheepishly. “We hoped they might lift your spirits.”

So this was the punishment for orchestrating the worst treason of the war—a bedside visit from George Washington and freshly picked flowers from Alexander Hamilton?

“You are too kind, Mr. Hamilton. Clara shall put those in water for me.”

“May I?” Washington approached the bed.

“Please.” Peggy urged both men forward. “You are so good to visit me in this state. I must confess, I remember very little from yesterday morning’s events.”

“We are just happy to see you revived, my lady.” Washington pulled a chair up to the bed and sat beside Peggy. Hamilton stood behind him. “Mrs. Arnold,” Washington continued. “Hamilton and Lafayette have just returned from south of the river. The bad news, from my point of view, is that your husband has escaped us. He has slipped past the lines and is in New York City this evening. We will be unable to capture him and send him to the same fate as that of John André.”

Peggy exhaled a long, deep sigh. Taking her face in her hands, she concealed her expression and began to weep, quietly, into her palms. Whether she wept for her husband’s deliverance or André’s death sentence, Clara did not know.

“Mrs. Arnold,” Washington continued, “we would have liked to have had justice, of course. The only positive I see in the present situation, however, is that your husband will survive. And knowing that that is a comfort to you, helps me to accept the outcome more easily.”

Peggy dropped her hands, still tearful. “Oh, General Washington,” she choked out through her sobs. “You must think I’m so terrible, being happy that he survived. But he’s my husband. The father of my son. Surely you understand that this is a tremendous
relief to me?” Peggy reached for Washington’s hands, and he took hers in his and kissed them in a tender gesture. Clara looked on, marveling at the scene. So André would hang while Arnold would join the British ranks. Peggy, the woman who had arranged the whole plot, would be allowed to go, untarnished, to her husband. Who had come out of this with the worse punishment, Clara wondered, André or Arnold?

“There is but one small consolation in this whole terrible drama, Mrs. Arnold.” Washington gazed at her, his eyes sad. “And that is seeing you smile right now. It makes me happy to see you recovered.”

Peggy sighed. “How will I ever recover? When I’m abandoned by a husband such as the one I have? But relieved, yes.”

“Mrs. Arnold.” Hamilton edged closer to the bed. “May we be so bold as to make the suggestion that you go stay with family in Philadelphia rather than trying to reunite with your husband?”

Peggy shut her eyes and released a slow exhale.

“It is wrong of us to speak of a man thusly to his own wife, but such a man as Benedict Arnold has proven himself a traitor,” Washington agreed with his aide.

“Yes, you’re right,” Peggy conceded, fidgeting with the bed-sheets. “I should go to my parents.” She paused. “But eventually I must go to my husband.”

“But he has betrayed you.” Hamilton’s voice had a hard edge. “He does not deserve you in any way.”

“It’s my duty though,” Peggy sighed. “My duty as a wife and a mother to go to him. Even if it means crossing over to the British.” She sunk her face into her hands and began to cry, now with exaggerated, theatrical sobs that Clara knew to be disingenuous.

Hamilton and Washington exchanged a forlorn glance. “Well,
we will not stand in your way.” Washington looked at Peggy admiringly. “But Hamilton is right to say that Arnold does not deserve you.”

They were correct, Clara thought to herself. Arnold did not deserve her. No one deserved her.

W
ASHINGTON AND
his men were gone in the morning—gone across the river to West Point to prepare the defense plans. Knowing that Arnold had slipped into British hands, Washington ordered them all to brace for an assault. The commander had promised Peggy the night before that she, her son, and her servants would receive a full military escort to Philadelphia, the treatment an officer’s widow could expect when crossing military lines to be reunited with her parents.

Peggy did not see the men off the next morning, but rather stayed in bed. She rose in the late morning, having slept the deep, undisturbed sleep of a child. When she awoke, she summoned Clara.

“Clara, aren’t my flowers from Mr. Hamilton lovely?” Peggy said, her eyes restless as she looked around the room. “What a romantic fool that man was. I suppose I quite liked him.”

Clara did not answer, but rather swallowed hard as she slid the curtains open.

“Well, win or lose, at least we’ll get to go to England once this awful war is over,” Peggy mused, stirring milk into a cup of tea her maid had brought. “We won’t get the title,” she thought aloud. “That is a shame.”

Clara turned to her mistress now with unmasked disgust.

“But London
will
be so much more merry than this drab countryside.
And we’ll have the money, at the very least. Perhaps Benny will take Eddy and me to meet the king, how lovely that would be! I suppose things didn’t turn out so rotten for us Arnolds after all.” Peggy splayed her arms overhead, stretching into a languid movement as she yawned out her next order: “You might as well begin packing our things, Clara. We shall leave as soon as Washington has arranged our escort.”

Clara decided that this was her time. She wouldn’t wait any longer.

“I’m not going, ma’am.”

“What did you say?” Peggy’s arms dropped from overhead, landing on her breakfast tray with a hard thump.

“I said I’m not going.” Clara shook out the bedding as she did on every morning, not bothering to look at her mistress.