The engraver’s workroom was a pleasant space. To the left walking in, a steep oak staircase led up to the second story. On the wall opposite, three large, south-facing windows looked out onto an open field, letting in great swaths of sunshine. The long table, usually pushed up to the windows to take advantage of the daylight, had been pulled out to the center and surrounded by a collection of mismatched chairs and stools.
“They’re here!” David called, jumping up from his seat at the head of the table; he moved from window to window pulling the canvas curtains closed, casting a bit of a pall on the room.
“Davy lad!” Sally skirted around the table and skipped into his arms. “I hardly kent it was you without yer uniform.”
Dressed in the plain clothes of a Quaker, David laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t get very far in this city wearing Continental blue, would I?”
Pink and Anne made a beeline to the back of the room, where Jack and Titus stood in shirtsleeves and leather aprons at a washbasin on the counter, wiping their hands dry. Tossing the towel aside, Jack met Anne with arms wide. Pulling her into a hug, his whisper tickled her ear. “I’ve been missing you so, so much…”
Anne wrapped her arms about his waist, pressed her cheek to his chest, and simply took in the smell of him—the familiar compound of ink, soap, leather a soothing calmative—a tonic that at once remedied the ills of her troubled heart. “The very best place in the world,” she murmured, “in your arms…”
“You are the darling of my heart.” Jack rested his chin on the top of her head and held her tight. “I could carry you away right now and never look back…”
Elbert held the back door open and Brian came bustling through carrying a steaming pot of coffee, with Jim right behind bearing a tray piled with cups and saucers and spoons. David called out, “Gather round, everyone!”
Hand in hand, Pink and Titus left their whispered huddle in the corner, and came to join the rest, taking seats opposite Anne and Jack. Handsome in a plain brown weskit and bright white shirt and cravat, David sat at the head of the table with paper and pencil, and Sally was at his right.
Looking very young and cavalier with his wavy hair falling about his shoulders, Quaker-style, Sally was clearly enamored with David’s choice of disguise. Leaning over she said to Anne, “Yer brother looks just like a schoolmaster, does he na?”
“Pfttt!”Anne teased. “More like a schoolboy with his pretty curls!”
“I’m supposed to be plain, not pretty!” David wadded a sheet of paper and hurled it at his sister, hitting her on the head.
Sally set out some scones and sliced her loaf of soft gingerbread. Pink whisked aside the napkin from her plate of mackeroons. The boys set the table with blue and white delftware cups and saucers, and Elbert made the rounds, pouring coffee from a matching teapot, boasting, “Not a drop of tea has flowed from this spout since ’seventy-three…”
Reveling in the company, the room was filled with the chatter of loving friends. Elbert had Brian and Jim display the recent products of their apprenticeship—hand-colored, engraved illustrations of birds, lizards, frogs, and plants—and the boys were duly praised and encouraged. They all cheered and clapped when Elbert showed off Bandit’s latest trick—balancing a bite of ship’s biscuit on his nose, before flicking it neatly into his mouth.
David told about the doings back at the encampment. “Since Congress signed the alliance with the French, there’s been regular shipments of food and clothing,” he said. “Coupled with the success of Major Steuben’s training practices, you wouldn’t recognize the troops. They actually look and move like a proper army.”
Playing the gracious host, Elbert broke out a bottle of Armagnac. “More good cheer for our good company.” Bustling around the table, he splashed a dose in every cup. Raising his own cup high, he offered a toast: “Ubi libertas, ibi patria!”
The boys groaned, obviously suffering from overexposure to Latin, and Jim said, “In English, Elbert!”
“Oh!” With a blink and a shake of his bald head, the engraver translated. “Where liberty is, there is my country!”
Arms stretched with teacups held high, they all responded with a happy, “Cheers!”
David stood, rapping his teaspoon to the table. “Time for us to set our boat aright…”
“I can tell you this about our ‘boat’…” Jack tilted his chair back, rocking it back and forth on the two hind legs. “Since the Redcoats sent Bede Seaborn to the gallows tree, we’ve all been heads down, David, lying on our oars, just trying to gauge the wind…”
“And hoping to not be hanged for it,” Titus added.
“I know. What happened to Mrs. Seaborn was a shock to us all,” David said. “Good intelligence is very valuable but, in this case, purchased at too dear a rate.”
“Are we going to shut it down, then, Cap’n?” Brian asked.
“That’s what we’re here to decide.” David sat down. “Tell me, how do the winds blow?”
“Lydia Darragh is undeterred.” Anne was the first to speak up. “She is still listening in on the British council meetings and bringing report. It seems all is at a standstill with word of Howe’s retirement—more discussion of horse races, cockfights, and theater plays than wartime strategy. I expect this will change once Clinton arrives to assume command. The good news…” Anne looked around the table, smiling. “As far as our operation, I think we can all rest easier. From what Lydia’s overheard, it is very clear Bede never divulged a word about any of us. They were certain she’d break when faced with the noose, and because she did not, the British are convinced she was working alone.”
“The butcher’s boy tolt us ’twas the chambermaid at the White Swan who pointed Bede out to the lobsterbacks,” Brian said.
Jim said, “The chambermaid spied the innkeeper’s widow goin’ through some officer’s papers, and then she went and squealed like the Tory pig she is.”
“Major Sutherland’s papers?” Sally asked.
“That’s him,” Jim said. “They say the chambermaid’s being rogered by the Major…”
Brian gave Jim a hard shove. “Will you mind your damn tongue?”
Jim shrugged. “That’s what they say…”
“Poor Bede. One day she’s in our kitchen having a chocolate and eating mackeroons, and the next…” Pink shook her head, and left her sentence to trail off.
“The lobsterbacks willna be after hanging a woman again anytime soon,” Sally said. “The talk in the market, even among the Tories, is much against it. Over harsh, they say.”
“Most Redcoats don’t like it, either,” Pink added. “At least the kind that come to our shop. Uncivilized, I heard one say. Another said hanging women makes the rabble uneasy.”
“Bastards didn’t hesitate to send a message, though, did they?” Titus shook his head.
“We all dodged a cannonball,” Jack said. “That’s for certain, and after listening to what Anne had to say, there doesn’t seem to be any value in our staying on. I say we pack it in.”
Anne turned to Jack. “Really?”
Titus folded his arms across his chest. “I’m with Jack. The gain is small, the risk—too high.”
“How do we gauge value?” David poured himself another cup of coffee. “Though Anne says it is quiet now, I think there is value in having an agent fully entrenched by the time Clinton takes over. The Cup and Book is becoming a magnet for Redcoats. When the wind does begin to blow, the sails on our mill are then ready to turn.”
Brian slid a mackeroon off the plate being passed around. “In’t there some value to General Washington in learning that there ain’t nothin’ to learn?”
Sally said, “It would be a crying shame to abandon all th’ hard work gone into opening our shop. There’s value in tha, no?”
Anne said, “And there is great value in exploiting Betsy Loring while she still holds some influence. Through her I’ve made friends with Peggy Shippen and Peggy Chew, who’ve already introduced me to a Major André and
others in the upper echelons.”
“That’s true,” Elbert said, balancing his teacup very gingerly on one knee. “When nothing is ventured, no laurels are won.”
“I’m more worried about our hides than any laurels,” Titus said.
Matching Titus’s stern posture, Jack folded his arms across his chest. “Agreed.”
“You agree? I’m absolutely baffled.” Anne shook her head. “You’re the man who once told me you were in this thing whole heart. Blood has been shed, you said, and you would not have your fellows die in vain. But now Bede’s been hanged, and you want us to pack it in?”
Jack groaned. “That was different. I was talking about men dying at Concord and Lexington…”
“Why is it different? Because Bede was a woman?” Anne gave Jack a little shove. “Bede Seaborn sacrificed her life so that we could live and continue our work here…”
“I will not have you sacrifice your life for the cause, Annie…”
“And I will not have Bede’s sacrifice be in vain.”
The room went still, and Anne could tell no one wanted to be the first to step between them. At last, Jack heaved a great sigh, and took Anne by the hand. “You’ve got the right of it…” he said. “We should carry on for Bede’s sake, and for the sake of our cause.”
David stood up. “Is everyone agreed that we continue?”
All heads were nodding, except for Titus, who sat stone-faced, big arms still crossed over his chest. “I’m not as yet feeling all smiles and cookies. If we’re t’ carry on, we all need to be more careful. I won’t be able to take seeing one of us swinging from a gallows tree. I swear t’ Christ, I won’t.”
“Titus has a point,” David said. “Minimizing risk necessitates some change. We need to tighten our operation, so I’ve devised a new system using signals and drops.”
“Like we did with Burgoyne?” Titus asked.
“In a way….” David sat down. “Elbert will become a regular borrower at the Cup and Book library.”
“That’s good.” Elbert nodded. “I’m one for enjoying a good book.”
“On the days when Sally wears a striped apron,” David continued, “Elbert will borrow the book Anne suggests from the library, containing missives written in secret ink in the margins of certain pages.”
“Striped apron,” the engraver very seriously repeated.
“Elbert is the least likely spy,” Sally said with an approving nod, “and those are th’ best kind.”
“The boys will then deliver the book to a place I’ve readied under the hearthstone at the old cabin. I will pick it up from there.”
Jack inched forward in his chair. “The boys deliver?”
David nodded. “Armed with fishing poles and creels, they are far less likely to arouse suspicion from any Redcoat outliers.”
Titus asked, “What do we do? Jack and me?”
David squared his shoulders. “You’re both going back to Valley Forge with me…”
“What!?” Jack pushed his empty cup away, sending it in a skitter across the table where Titus managed, quick as a cat, to catch it before it hit the floor.
Jack threw himself back in his chair, his mouth a snarl and brow dark. “This is about the night visits, isn’t it? Well, you can kiss my back cheeks, David. There’s no way I’m leaving here.”
“This has nothing to do with the night visits…”
“What a load of cock and bull!” Jack pounded the table with his fist. “You’re a vengeful taskmaster, Captain Peabody, but you forget, Titus and me are no regulars to be ordered about at your whim. We’re staying put, and that’s that.”
Anne tried to calm Jack with a hand on his arm, but he shrugged her off.
“Be sensible, Jack,” David said. “I’m not your taskmaster—necessity is our taskmaster. Washington needs experienced scouts…”
Titus interrupted, “We don’t go to the Cup and Book anymore—tell him, Sally.”
Sally nodded. “It’s truth, David. They’ve stayed away.”
“We all know better now,” Pink said.
David threw his arms up. “I’m telling you all, this has nothing to do with the night visits to the Cup and Book. You spoke of value, Jack—well, the General’s devised a new mission and Morgan himself recommended the two of you, as did Alan.”
Jack asked, “What mission?”
“Small, swift groups of irregular scouts and Oneidans employed in the country between the Delaware and the Schuylkill under Alan’s direction. You’re to observe enemy movements, making mischief as you can, inciting terror among the Redcoats with well-placed rifle shots, disrupting their communication—very similar to your mission up the Hudson. You won’t be far away, and once the city’s retaken in the summer, the mission is over.”
“Sounds like your cup of tea…” Anne put her hand on Jack’s knee.
Jim chimed in, “Use the proper tools for the proper task—that’s what Elbert says.”
“I don’t know, David…” Jack said with a shake of his head. “I don’t like leaving them here all on their own—a tribe of petticoats, two unlicked cubs, and Elbert—no offense, Elbert.”
“None taken.” Elbert smiled.
David added, “I can tell you Ned and Isaac have already signed on as scouts.”
Titus asked, “Tell me, who’s to take action here if aught goes amiss?”
“What’s to go wrong?” Pink piped up. “We work the Cup and Book with eyes and ears open…”
Anne said, “I go to a few card parties and plays—if we learn anything of value, we pass it to Elbert.”
“I dinna ken why yer both bein’ such pains in the arse. It’s much less risky for us here in th’ city than when we were in amongst Burgoyne’s lot,” Sally said. “Bede Seaborn—God rest her soul—was caught because she was careless. We know what we are about, ye ken?”
Anne massaged the bunch between Jack’s shoulders. “It’s only for a few weeks. We’ll be fine. Once Washington retakes the city, we’ve done our duty.”
“Nonetheless, as a precaution,” David said, “I want you to put a plan in place, if needs must, to fly the city at a moment’s notice.”
The women all nodded at the sense of David’s suggestion. Titus and Jack exchanged a look, and Jack heaved a sigh. “Alright, then.”
Titus shrugged and said, “We’ll join the General’s mission.”
David slapped hands to the tabletop. “Good!” He went over to the windows and peeked out the curtain. “Gather your gear. We’ll leave at nightfall—about an hour, I’d say.”
Sally came up behind David and wrapped her arms around his waist, her voice sad. “I guess there’s naught to do but kiss and part once again.”
“Kiss and part…” Jack puffed out a breath and scraped his chair back. “I’d better go and pack…”
Anne grabbed him by the hand and tugged him down to whisper in his ear, “I think a kinder kiss could be had up in your room…”
Jack’s grimness turned into a grin. “Why, Widow Merrick… how you talk!”
Hand in hand, they ran up the stairs.
SEVENTEEN
Some secret defect or other is interwoven in the character of all those, be they men or women, who can look with patience on the brutality, luxury and debauchery of the British court, and the violations of their army here.
THOMAS PAINE, The American Crisis
MIXING AND MINGLING
“Beg pardon, madam, but I think you dropped your fan?”
“How kind… Thank you.” Anne smiled, and accepted the fan offered by a fair-haired Redcoat captain, who seemed to be in her orbit since she’d entered the theater.
“May I?” he asked, indicating the empty seat beside her.
She nodded and opened her fan, beating the air with a very controlled tremble of the wrist. Young for a captain… He’s either very rich or very brave.
The Captain leaned in and asked, “Are you looking forward to the production, Mrs. Merrick?”
An
ne stilled her fan. “You play familiar with my name, sir, yet I don’t recall our being introduced…”
“You’ve caught me out,” he admitted with a boyish smile, genuine and quite charming. “I’ve been admiring you these days from afar, Mrs. Merrick, and I strong-armed Mrs. Loring for an invitation to her box tonight.”
“Hmmmph…” Anne resumed fanning. “You are a deceiver, sir.”
“A rascal of your devise, madam,” the handsome Redcoat acknowledged. “‘Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.’”
Impressed with the young man’s dash, Anne raised an eyebrow and murmured, “Measure for Measure…” The slightest Scottish lilt in the Captain’s voice quoting Shakespeare sent Anne straight back to Burgoyne’s lamp-lit woodland dinner under the trees, and Simon Fraser’s recitation from Henry V. Her brain hopped in a twinkling from one memory to the next, and she found tears sprung to her eyes recollecting Geoffrey Pepperell’s smile the moment before he died.
Extending his hand, the Redcoat added, “Captain William Schaw Cathcart, at your service.”
Grateful for the dimness of the light in Howe’s box at the Southwark Theater, Anne blinked away her sudden tears. She reached out to recognize the introduction with a momentary grasp of the man’s fingers, and in catching a glimpse of the number embossed on the silver buttons on his cuff, she actually winced, touched by yet another specter from her past.
17th Dragoons.
Edward Blankenship, the Redcoat she shot dead in her shop in New York, had been a captain in the very same dragoon regiment.
An ill omen…
Mrs. Loring and William Howe were the last to be seated in the theater box, and in a noisy rustle of pink taffeta, they took the chairs directly behind Anne. Tapping Anne on the shoulder, Betsy leaned forward and said quietly in her ear, “I see you have a new admirer!”
Anne leaned back and muttered, “Too young.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Betsy whispered. “Lord Cathcart is very smitten with you.”
The Turning of Anne Merrick Page 36
