Mistress Firebrand

by Donna Thorland

  “I did not know we were staging The Siege of Boston,” said Jenny, surveying his costume. “Who are you playing? Sam Adams?”

  “I would go in sackcloth if I thought it would save John Street,” replied Bobby.

  Jenny would not. If she was going to be accused of grand intrigue, she was going to face such accusations as Aunt Frances or Angela Ferrers might: in silk and lace and with a feather in her hair. The latter detail gave her pause to think of Severin’s meager chicken feather “headdress,” and that bittersweet, eventful night they’d shared, an age ago, it seemed.

  The tavern was already bustling when they drew up. A servant greeted them at the door and Bobby was shown at once into a ground-floor receiving room, leaving Jenny adrift and stranded in the hall.

  She retreated to a bench beside the door. Aunt Frances would not have done so. Aunt Frances would have struck an attitude on the first riser of the grand staircase, leaning gracefully upon the newel post. Improvisation, though, was not one of Jenny’s gifts, and she realized sitting here that she had no desire to be the center of attention.

  What she wanted was to observe, and there was probably no better place for that in all of New York right now. The sheer number of people coming and going, some elated, some dejected, and some playing their cards very close to their vests, was staggering, and she realized that the city had not felt so alive in months.

  There were patterns in the chaos too. Men came and went from the door Bobby had disappeared through; some of them were trailed by families and not a few wives carrying babes, intended no doubt to incline the Committee toward mercy.

  On the landing above was a door just to the left of the stairs with two remarkably tall Continentals stationed to either side, looking smart in dark blue wool, their bayonets polished to an extraordinary shine. Only a single servant came and went through that door, ferrying silver and fine china and sparkling crystal inside.

  At last the parade of tableware stopped and the landing door opened wide. A young man in Continental blue emerged and came down the stairs, descending the risers two at a time and scanning the hall until his eyes lighted on Jenny. He was dark haired and compactly built, and he took Jenny utterly by surprise when he stopped in front of her and bowed deeply.

  “Miss Leighton,” he said, with an Irish lilt that charmed her utterly. He offered her his hand. “I am Captain Moylan, the general’s secretary. Please forgive the delay. The kitchens are overtaxed, but lunch is served at last, and His Excellency is delighted to have your company.”

  She had absolutely no idea what to say, but she accepted the hand offered, and he placed hers over his arm and led her up the stairs to the guarded portal at the top.

  The room beyond was neither large nor grand, but it was carpeted and there was a good fire. The chimney drew well and the windows were large, so it had that seasonally rare advantage of being warm and bright without being clouded with smoke.

  There were two tables: one covered with green baize and papers and inkwells and ledgers and maps, where two men sat scrutinizing a broadside; the other laid for a meal for four with white linen and china plates and silver dishes.

  The taller of the two men stood and Jenny was forced, as so often happened, to gaze up at her host. Captain Moylan conducted her into the room and said, “Miss Jennifer Leighton, may I present His Excellency, General Washington.”

  Washington himself was an imposing figure, and not entirely because of his height. He was neatly dressed in a blue uniform and his hair was carefully tied back and powdered. He had a sober air about his person, but something about his mouth suggested that he had once been quick to smile.

  The other, unnamed gentleman rose also. He was several inches shorter than the general, with a long, dour face at odds with his smiling eyes, and wore a very fine white wig with the curls pinned just behind his ears to soften his features. His suit was sober black silk, but his waistcoat was sumptuous red velvet with gold wire embroidery, and a gold watch chain peaked from one embellished pocket.

  “This,” said Captain Moylan, indicating the man in the red waistcoat, “is—”

  “A most ardent supporter of the cause,” supplied the man.

  “I am so very sorry about your theater, Miss Leighton,” said Washington, cutting off further discussion of his companion’s identity. He led Jenny, Moylan, and his nameless friend to the table laid for their meal. The general took up a seat opposite Jenny, while the Irish captain sat down beside her, and the unidentified dandy flanked His Excellency. “But I must bow to civil authority in this. Congress has decreed that the playhouses be closed.”

  “Even if Mr. Hallam promises to perform nothing but Cato three nights a week?”

  “Even so.”

  “And yet you allow your officers to stage productions in camp, I am told.”

  The Irishman beside her paused in buttering his roll.

  Washington pursed his lips. “My officers are my responsibility, and under my command. Civilians are not. That is the distinction. If I overreach in this, Congress will say, ‘He was very loath to lay his fingers off it.’”

  “You mean they will accuse you of playing Caesar.”

  “The parallels will be impossible for those learned gentlemen to resist.”

  She had not considered that, but his troubles were not hers. “Your officers are paid. If the John Street closes, I will lose my livelihood.”

  “For that, I am also very sorry, but there may be a remedy. Someone has recently pressed into my hand a most excellent composition. It purports to be a new translation of the Miles Gloriosus for American audiences, and it is anything but. Do you read Latin, Miss Leighton?”

  She did not. The title and the frontispiece of the play were a conceit. She had added them as an afterthought, before posting it via Mr. Fraunces to a false address maintained by Angela Ferrers. And now she knew where it had traveled since.

  “No.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, perhaps a little wistfully. “I was educated for a career as a surveyor, where Latin is deemed of little use, and later I went into His Majesty’s army, where French would have served me better. But in truth nothing would have served me well at all there, except had I been born someplace else. Had I stayed in royal service, I would always have been passed over, time and again, because I am a colonial. Your ‘translation’ of The Braggart Soldier leads me to believe you understand something of this.”

  “Yes.” She had been so glib with Burgoyne, and now she found herself monosyllabic in the presence of a man who had actually read her work.

  And for Jenny, like the “learned gentlemen” in Congress, certain parallels were impossible to resist. Once again she was being entertained by a general, a man she hoped might become her patron, supping off china dishes and silver plates and being offered good Madeira wine.

  In all other ways the circumstances could not be more different. This was no uncomfortable tête-à-tête: her play was not a pretext or a prelude to seduction. Washington made no effort to impress her with his person, or with the difference in their stations. He did not flatter and he did not ply her with drink—and he did not, during the meal, manufacture any excuse to touch her at all.

  And yet he was no plaster saint. He was a slaveholder, like Bobby.

  “My friend here,” and now Washington indicated the dour-faced man in red and black, presently engaged in chasing peas across his plate, “has also read your play.”

  “Witty and spirited,” said the man, spearing a last runaway sphere.

  Washington smiled. It confirmed her suspicion. This had once been a man with a wry sense of humor. She could see it now as he struggled to hide his amusement over his companion’s resolute pursuit of his vegetables.

  Then he turned to Jenny, all mirth banished again, and nodded at her plate. “You have barely eaten. If it is feminine delicacy that restrains you, abandon it. Men who a
dmire such coquetries are seldom worth sitting down with at table. If it is the meal that is at fault, though, let us ask the steward to bring you something else.”

  Jenny had no doubt the food was very good, and she was in fact partial to roast chicken, but she had been too focused on their conversation to eat any of it. “I breakfasted before coming and did not anticipate being given lunch,” she said. “I had in fact anticipated being given a trial and possibly a sentence.”

  Even now Bobby might be receiving such, at less than impartial hands. Of course, Severin never even had that privilege before his abduction and imprisonment at Simsbury.

  “I apologize for the deception, but it seemed a sensible precaution. The Committee of Seven exists precisely because there are Tory plotters in the city, some of whom would rather see New York burned to the ground than in Rebel hands. Desperate men, who are loath to surrender the privileges they have ‘earned’ from a lifetime of toadeating. The fortunes of war being as they are, better that you remain unknown and insignificant to such men.”

  When the luncheon dishes were cleared and the steward had retreated, the general’s friend produced her manuscript, a little dog-eared, and placed it on the table. The cover page with her title and name was slightly water-stained. “It will sell well in the city, on cheap paper, with no binding, to keep the price down. I suggest you publish anonymously, of course.”

  “Anonymously?” Her heart sank.

  “To avoid . . . difficulties,” said the Irishman, the way the pastor back in New Brunswick used to say “sin.”

  She ought to be flattered by their concern for her reputation, but it seemed absurd. “I am an actress, sir, not a lady. If I cared for my good name, I would have chosen another profession, one that would not cause so many gentlemen to mistake me for a whore.”

  The room was utterly silent for a moment. Ladies did not utter such words in polite company. Jenny knew it sounded coarse to this audience coming from her mouth, but she no longer wanted to trade in fantasy offstage.

  “The assumptions of such gentlemen,” said Washington, breaking the quiet, “are much like the assumptions Parliament has made about Americans: in greater part based on wishful thinking and self-interest. I aim to change them. I would have you join me, but in the event that I fail, I would not see a woman hang for it.”

  “They are but plays, sir, not a hanging matter.”

  Washington would have answered, but there was a scratch at the door. The steward entered carrying a silver tray and bringing with it the rich scent of almonds, the perfume of citron, the essence of brandy. Longing swept her. There was a small pyramid of macaroons at the center, flanked by a row of pastry hearts and an iced cake, white and glistening.

  “The power of words,” said the general, when the servant had gone and left this poignant reminder of her night with Devere upon the table, “of drama, can beggar the force of powder.”

  “Which is a fine thing,” said the young officer in his Irish lilt, “because we’re damnably short of the latter commodity.”

  “So we are,” agreed Washington, reaching for a macaroon. “And while we have men aplenty for the moment, they are summer soldiers, and their enlistments will shortly expire. An apt phrase, though, a stirring scene or a cutting satire, can fire the passions. Disseminated, it can turn and resolve a thousand minds. Words and ideas, Miss Leighton, may well decide this present conflict.”

  And, apparently, could get her hanged. She ought to be frightened by the prospect, but then again she ought to have stayed home in New Brunswick. “The theater has never been a safe occupation in America,” she said.

  “It is your background as an actress that I fear puts you at particular risk,” said Washington. “There is a writer in Boston who dared to put pen to paper in a farce mocking the blockade. The author had never trod the boards and, as a consequence, the play lacks a certain dramatic force. It was never, to my knowledge, performed, but the pamphlet came to the attention of John Burgoyne, and he vows to see this patriot hang from the Liberty Tree. The play was published anonymously, yet Howe’s spies were able to trace the author through an opportunistic printer, forcing the writer to flee. A more effective piece of satire, we must assume, could elicit an even more intemperate response.”

  “You need have no fear of discovery through me, however,” interjected the dour man in red and black. “I am discretion itself.”

  That, as far as she could tell, rang true, considering she did not even know his name. Now at least she knew he was a printer.

  He plucked a pastry heart off the top of the platter.

  “Would you like one, Miss Leighton?” asked His Excellency, observing her.

  “No, thank you.” They had not eaten the macaroons or the pastry hearts that night, she and Devere. “I would have a piece of cake,” she said.

  The general sliced. He did it very neatly, but he did not do it with a quilled knife from his pocket, and he did not offer it to her point first balanced on his blade. When the little plate was set before her, she breathed in the perfume of the almonds and the brandy and the currants and the citron, and knew she could not eat it. Not when Devere was suffering at the bottom of a mine because he had risked himself to save her.

  “Surely,” she reasoned, “a British hanging list”—and a free Severin Devere—“is only a danger if they take Manhattan, yet you hold Boston and New York both.”

  “For the moment,” said Washington, looking her in the eye.

  The intensity of his gaze unnerved her. “You have twenty thousand men,” she said quietly, feeling the measure of security that she had known since General Lee had entered the city slipping away.

  “I have twenty thousand men. Some of them are militia, well armed and disciplined. Most of them are not. Fully a quarter of them are suffering like those in the John Street Theater, from typhus and dysentery, and it will be a miracle if it isn’t smallpox too by the end of the month. Twenty thousand men, raised to answer an emergency in Boston, who have now marched to New York, leaving their farms and businesses and families to fend for themselves. When their enlistments expire at the end of this year, I may well have nothing, while Howe will still have twenty-five thousand professional soldiers with a fleet to take them wherever he chooses to strike.”

  “That,” said the printer, “is why you must publish anonymously, my dear, with a reliable printer. If you choose to publish at all.”

  “I wish,” said Washington, “that I was offering you the opportunity to be the dramatist of a nation, but the truth is that I am asking you to put your life in danger for a precarious endeavor. Anonymity may at least shield you, and those you care for, if it comes to the worst.”

  She had desired the opportunities and freedoms so often denied her sex. If she was to seize them, she must also accept the risks.

  “I will do it.”

  He nodded but did not smile, because it was no small thing she had decided. He lifted the cover page from her manuscript and passed it to the young Irish officer, who stood, walked to the hearth, and fed it with care to the fire.

  “History will remember us, Miss Leighton,” said Washington, “if we carry the day.”

  “I understand, and agree with, the need for discretion,” she said, watching her name burn away to ash. “But I would ask two things in return.”

  Washington nodded, listening.

  “There is a man being held at Simsbury. His name is Severin Devere. I want him released and returned to his people.”

  Washington looked to the Irishman, who said, “Simsbury is under the authority of the Connecticut General Assembly and the Committee of Safety. We can’t order this man’s release, but we can request it. They are unlikely to refuse.”

  “Then do so today, Captain Moylan,” said Washington. He turned to Jenny. “And your second condition?”

  “I will not write entirely anonymously. I wish to be k
nown, as a distinct voice at least, beyond the confines of this room. I will use a pen name.”

  “An excellent idea,” said the printer. “Particularly if you mean to write a number of works. They will sell better. May I suggest something patriotic, such as Columbia?”

  “No.”

  “Cincinnatus?” asked Washington.

  “No,” said Jenny, pushing aside the plate of cake. For a moment, with the scent of almonds and brandy and citron she was in Vauxhall Gardens and it was night and she was with Devere in front of the grotto, and she knew a heartsick hunger that food would never satisfy.

  “I would be known as Cornelia.”

  Sixteen

  It was a very pleasant place to die. The house was old. Devere could tell that from the small batten doors and wide yawning fireplaces, but someone had cased the beams in paneling, and painted them in gay colors, and papered the walls in the sort of cheery English florals his mother had favored. They spun when he looked too hard at them, so he gave up trying. Fever was like that.

  Someone was cutting his hair. He could hear the blades chirping like crickets on his pillow. He opened his eyes again and a face swam into focus—like his father’s, but decidedly prettier. She was wielding a pair of iron scissors with care, and it was like looking into a mirror because her features were also so like his own.

  She continued to shear him, carefully, and he tried to make sense of what was happening in his disordered mind. “Are we going to war?” he asked, the only explanation he could think of.

  “Yes. A war on lice.”

  “But what if I lose all my strength, like Samson?”

  Then she was lost to the darkness again and it occurred to him only as he was slipping into blackness that she had been speaking Mohawk.

  He woke again sometime later—hours or days he could not tell—and felt nearly lucid. He was lying in a great tester bed on a feather mattress, surrounded by wool curtains pulled closed on all sides but the one open to the window. There were flowers blooming outside the casement, and the sun was bright in the sky. May, at the very least. Possibly June.