Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  It was fast becoming a beautiful spring day, crisp enough to take the sting out of his knuckles and warm enough that he was never uncomfortable, although his right foot was nearly naked in a split shoe. What he wanted more than anything was a good pair of boots. He went over his loot in his mind: two big silver watches, ten silver thalers with Marie-Therese’s bust on the front, a silver mounted pistol and a telescope. He coveted the telescope, because it was so useful, but he had no place to stow or carry it comfortably, and knew that it would fetch too good a price to allow him to keep it.

  Deciding to sell his loot was easier than finding a place to do so. After he had visited several small shops where he was treated as a tramp or possibly a deserter, he found that he was in the middle of town near the City Tavern with no idea where he should go. He looked up the broad street, angry at being made a pariah in the capital he was fighting to protect.

  “That’s how my cat looks when he’s planning to bite me,” said a woman.

  George turned and found himself looking at the girl who had brought the milk so many months before at this very corner. Her mother was standing beside her, smiling.

  “Is that the best General Washington can do to keep you poor boys?” asked the older woman. “You didn’t look like such a scarecrow in the summer.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.” He was sorry. He was standing on a prosperous corner in the center of the city, bringing the army into disrepute by his very presence. He looked too poor to be a private, much less…

  “You’ve been promoted!” The girl actually hopped, despite her petticoats and her fur-lined Brunswick. George thought the girl’s jacket was worth more than everything he owned. It looked warm. He wanted to hang his head, but he didn’t.

  “I have, too,” he said modestly.

  “What brings you here…Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He indicated his sash. “I am a lieutenant. I’m here to buy some clothes. And to sell a few things, too. But I can’t seem to find a place to do that.” He smiled at the girl. Betsy. Not that he dared use her name.

  Her mother smiled. “I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m Mrs. Lovell. This is our daughter. We live just there, in the house with the roses.”

  “I am Lieutenant Lake, ma’am.” George wondered at the power of his new rank. The word lieutenant had visibly changed the woman’s demeanor. “Miss,” he continued, bobbing his head at Miss Lovell. “Of the light company of the Third Virginia.”

  “Our pleasure, sir.” Mrs. Lovell gave him a level stare. “I won’t pretend to hold with Congress or Mr. Washington’s war, though such views aren’t popular here. My family is Scots. But you seem a decent young man, Lieutenant. It is a sad civil war that would keep us from being civil.”

  George bowed. In a year, he had learned that answering was not always the thing. Tempted as he was to defend his patriotism, Mrs. Lovell’s steady gaze made him feel that this was not a conflict he would win.

  “As to selling things, I don’t think I’ve been to such an establishment in some time.” She didn’t sniff, as George had thought she might. Instead she gave a smile, as if she knew a secret. “But I might go to Dodd’s, on the Lancaster Road, if I wanted to sell a few things at a good price. You may say that Esther Ogilvy sent you.”

  She smiled in secret satisfaction and Miss Lovell looked at him in a way he found very pleasing. He made his bows to both of them and hoped he might renew his acquaintance on a later visit, a turn of phrase he had learned from watching the officers in his regiment. Mrs. Lovell hesitated, and then smiled.

  “Of course, Lieutenant,” she said, and they parted.

  Miss Lovell’s face remained before his eyes as he walked the muddy mile of the Lancaster Road to Dodd’s. The clerk behind the counter barely spared him a glance.

  “I was told to say that Esther Ogilvy sent me,” he said, eyeing the beautiful fabrics behind the counter and wondering if his walk had been for nothing.

  An older man with lank gray hair pushed past the clerk and came out into the store. “Did she now?” he asked, grimly. “What’s she called, lad?”

  “Mrs. Lovell.”

  “Well, that’s true enough, soldier. An’ you’ve a few things to sell?”

  George didn’t need a second invitation. He laid the watches, the pistol and the telescope on the counter. The clerk reached for the telescope and Mr. Dodd (if it was indeed he) rapped the younger man sharply on the knuckles.

  “That’s a Dollond,” Dodd said after he’d tried it. “And it works. May I ask how you came by it?”

  “The German officer who owned it gave it to me,” said George easily. “I confess that I didn’t offer him a great deal of choice, but such affairs are accepted in war.”

  “Oh, yes. She’s a beauty, though. I shouldn’t say that, but ’tis true. I’d go to ten guineas real money for the telescope.”

  George gasped. He’d expected less than that for everything.

  “Two guineas for the pistol. It’s good work, but guns are easy here. The watches? Well, they’re Dutch, not as good as English either way. I’ll let you have a guinea apiece.”

  George nodded. He suspected he should bargain, but it wasn’t in him. He’d have boots and good breeches and even a coat. He might visit Mrs. Lovell and her Loyalist house yet.

  “I’ll keep a watch for myself, then,” he said, and picked up the smaller of the two.

  Dodd shook his head. “I’d like you to try to bargain, at least, for the form of the thing. Otherwise, I’ll know I offered too much and I’ll kick myself all day.”

  George rubbed his chin, eager to get the money.

  “Throw in a watch fob, then.”

  Dodd nodded. “That will have to do. Stillwell, count out the money. I take it you want it in hard money? I’d offer more in Continental.”

  “Thanks,” said George with a broad grin. “But we get paid in paper, an’ we know just what it’s worth.”

  New York, April 12, 1777

  John Julius Stewart had learned to dance. He couldn’t dance well, or gracefully, but it scarcely mattered. He could stand up with a woman at a subscription ball or a small set in a private house, and although the act might not give her great pleasure, it was an improvement on a lifetime of mumbled apologies. He danced regularly with Miss Hammond, whom he could now look in the eye, and who tended to tell him the truth of his shortcomings as a dancer; and he could dance with her sister, Miss Poppy, who would prattle about cats and paintings and had he seen the new house being put up on Queen Street? And he could dance with whatever offered on afternoons in the black taverns. He could watch Sally smile with delight every time they completed a set together. It didn’t happen often, as there were few places he would go with her, but late at the tavern he would sometimes fight his way through an easy country dance while the musicians played on and on to please her.

  And then, as spring came, something happened to change her. She became morose and easily angered, listless in a wooden way, and was drunk nearly every time he came to her. Stewart was sufficiently taken with her to care, but he had never fancied himself her sole supporter.

  He found himself making excuses to shun her. He told himself that he shouldn’t see her anyway. He spent more time drilling the Black Guides. He was busy enough with shaping the new draft of recruits from England for his own company and seeing that every man in his company had their new equipment and all their clothes that he didn’t have time to see her every day. It was the busiest time of year for a company commander. Every spring the army issued new clothes, new equipment to bring the army back up to the mark. The work took him out to the lines north of the city and kept him from Sally anyway.

  But when business sent him back to headquarters for the day, as it did when he had to complain to the regimental agent about the quality of shoes he had received, he still preferred to come to the Moor’s Head. Many of the officers in New York did. The music was better, and louder, and the food the best on the island. Jeremy made i
t plain to him that he preferred to visit the place. It had a rare air to it, with soldiers and sailors and officers, blacks and whites and the occasional Indian all intermingled in the same rooms.

  He often tried to meet Simcoe at the Moor’s Head. Simcoe had grown to be his particular friend since the fall. They planned the future of the war together, bemoaned the defeats at Trenton and Princeton together, and wrote letters to each other. Simcoe’s company was in the Jerseys, too far for daily conversation, but they corresponded as often as practicable. Soldiers of the Black Guides, who watched over the frequent convoys, often carried their letters.

  Stewart was dancing with Mrs. Innes, the handsome sharp-faced woman whose husband was something in the commissary. He was conscious that he had a letter from Miss McLean in his pocket, and that his attention was focused on Sally, who was drunk, and Jeremy, who was attempting to restrain her. He could tell that he was not amusing Mrs. Innes, who clearly expected better of him. He was frustrated, and angry, and felt the weight of layers of his own sins in a way that seems to be the exclusive preserve of the Scots. He saw Simcoe in the doorway and sighed with something like relief, a sound that did not escape his partner.

  “Somehow, Captain, I don’t think I have your full attention.” Mrs. Innes giggled and tapped him lightly with her fan. She was unsure herself how much raillery was acceptable with a man so much older. He bowed to her.

  “Pray, madam, will you excuse me for a few moments?”

  “I cannot promise I will not have gone elsewhere for my dance, Captain,” she said. Stewart walked her over to Simcoe, who was just in the process of handing off his dripping cloak to a maid.

  “Captain Simcoe?”

  “Your servant, Captain Stewart.”

  “And yours, sir. Have you met the lovely Mrs. Innes?” Stewart said, turning to introduce his partner. Captain Simcoe bowed over her hand. She giggled again, her least engaging habit. Simcoe didn’t come in any further, as he was still wearing boots caked in mud, and spurs.

  “I have, too. She giggles. Otherwise, quite engaging. Your servant, ma’am.” Simcoe was wearing a green velvet coat and a double-breasted waistcoat, fine clothes for riding or for an evening in town. He got his gloves off and was still fumbling with his heavy riding boots when Jeremy appeared as if by magic with a bowl of water and a small boy who flung himself on the boots with gusto, pulling them off and carrying them away. Simcoe washed his hands.

  “That boy is smaller than the boots,” said Mrs. Innes.

  “Do you have a dry shirt, Captain Stewart?” Simcoe was embarrassed. “I lost my portmanteau somewhere on the road. Never saw it go. The buckle must have slipped.”

  Jeremy nodded to Stewart. Stewart smiled at his friend. “I do. I have a room upstairs, if you’d like to change.”

  “Your humble servant. Do you ever think, when you are out in the wet on a night like this, how close the comforts of New York are?”

  “I do.”

  “It’s a wonder every officer and man doesn’t desert the lines and come here, especially with such loveliness as these.” Simcoe waved at Mrs. Innes and her friend Miss Amanda Chew. Mrs. Innes giggled. Miss Chew made a face.

  Jeremy led Simcoe upstairs. Stewart talked to Miss Chew for a moment, earning a glare from Mrs. Innes for deserting her. He spoke idly, trying to find Sally in the crowd on the other side of the room. It complicated their lives, that he couldn’t cross to her side of the room any more than she could seek him on his side. He told himself that he only wanted to know how she was.

  Jeremy reappeared with Simcoe, who looked better for Jeremy’s attentions. Mrs. Innes made a motion to indicate that another dance was ready to start and she was impatient with her abandonment.

  Stewart nodded, his attention on Jeremy, who was trying to communicate something.

  “Perhaps Mrs. Innes would be kind enough to accept Captain Simcoe as a replacement while I am gone?” Stewart asked.

  “And I suppose you expect me to relinquish this paragon the instant you reappear? Be warned, Captain. I am not an easy man to displace.” Simcoe, so often grave, was in high spirits.

  Mrs. Innes giggled again, clearly delighted by his attention. Jeremy pulled lightly on Stewart’s arm.

  “I’ll return to see which of us has the better claim, then, ma’am,” Stewart said, and followed Jeremy down a passage.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “Sally is in a heap in your room. I managed to steer Captain Simcoe to another. I think she means herself a mischief.” Jeremy stopped and leaned in close to him, a hand up on the wall beside him. They were very much of a size, and their eyes were inches apart.

  “You have more power over her than the rest of us, sir. Don’t tell me she means nothing to you.”

  Stewart almost hit his head on the passage wall, he was so taken aback by the look of Jeremy, and his tone. He thought to resent it, but he couldn’t. He knew he had some sort of power over her, and he knew she liked him. The letter in his pocket made it all the worse. He suspected himself of the worst of motivations. He wondered if he had taken a black mistress because somehow that wouldn’t count so much with Mary as a white one. He hung his head a moment.

  “She’s drunk and angry, sir. None of us knows why she’s this way. Caesar says he’s never seen her like this, and Caesar’s man Virgil is beside himself.”

  Stewart suspected that his treatment of Sally would reflect in his relations with all of them. He shook his head, feeling as if he had just taken a series of blows. Then he straightened up.

  “I’ll see what can be done, Jeremy. But she’s more a force of nature than a woman.”

  Jeremy nodded. “I apologize for my tone, sir. I wanted you to see the gravity of the situation.” Stewart noted that Jeremy didn’t look particularly apologetic, and he wondered if his man had a tendresse of his own for Sally.

  “Never mind, Jeremy. If a man can’t bear a reprimand from his manservant, he’s pretty far gone, I guess.” He walked down the passage to the room that Jeremy indicated, and went in.

  It wasn’t the scene from hell he had expected. There were no visible signs of carnage, and Polly White was sitting quietly on the bed. She was reading in the firelight.

  “I came to see her.” Stewart didn’t fully open the door.

  “I’m glad, sir. If you allow, I’ll come for you when she wakes.”

  “Polly, you’re a dear thing. Why is she so bad, of a sudden?”

  Polly looked down at her book, as if it could answer his question. She took so long to answer that he thought perhaps she didn’t intend to speak.

  “I don’ think it’s so sudden, sir. I think that she’s had a hard life, and sometimes it comes home to her. And I think that sometimes she wants a different life, and she can’t see how to get to it from where she is. My father says that great beauty in a woman can be a curse. I think it was, for her.” She looked at the woman on the bed.

  Stewart thought she was going to say more, but she didn’t. He looked at the woman lying on the bed, and the woman sitting on the end of it, and shook his head.

  “There’s truth in what you say, Miss White,” he said, somewhat moved. “Please send for me instantly when she wakes.”

  “We’ll be off across New Jersey in a few weeks,” Simcoe said, rubbing his hands in front of the fire. “I expect the lights will be in the vanguard. We’re to clear the ground back down to the Delaware and reclaim some of the support we’ve lost since Washington’s victories in the winter.”

  “And then on to Philadelphia?”

  Simcoe looked around the tavern as if expecting to spot a spy. He lowered his voice.

  “I wouldn’t expect it. There is a great deal going on at headquarters that is not what we might expect, if you take my meaning.”

  Simcoe so seldom spoke in this manner that Stewart was puzzled to understand him.

  “I can’t say that I do take your meaning, John.”

  Simcoe actually pulled his chair closer.

 
“There was supposed to be a grand campaign, with Lord Howe marching north from New York and John Burgoyne, or perhaps Guy Carleton, taking an army south from Quebec, with the objective of taking Albany.”

  “Albany!” Stewart rose to his feet and looked over the map until he found it, up the Hudson. “What the devil do we want with Albany?”

  “The plan was that we would meet there, and split the northern colonies from the southern.”

  Stewart grimaced. “That’s an armchair general’s plan. Something that Gentleman’s Magazine might suggest.”

  “I believe Lord Howe is very much of your mind, John Julius. He has decided to let the northern army take Albany on their own, or perhaps with a little divertissement from General Clinton. He himself intends us for Philadelphia.”

  “Just so.”

  “By sea.”

  Stewart sat back in his chair, struck dumb. All the way south to Virginia, into the mouth of the Chesapeake, up the Chesapeake to the Delaware.

  “One pounce and we’re in his capital,” said Simcoe.

  “That would be a bold stroke.”

  “You see why the march through the Jerseys is nothing but a raid in force.”

  “And I see the necessity. A bold feint that way will pin Washington in place while we go round by sea.”

  Stewart raised his glass. “A glass of wine with you, then. Here’s to a long campaign and many promotions.”

  Simcoe raised his and drank.

  “You were supposed to have it for Christmas, but it wasn’t ready,” Polly said quietly, so as not to awake the sleeper. She handed Caesar a tiny bag of silk, tied off with a fine red ribbon.