The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  Anne leaned back, using her fan to mask her lips. “Lord?”

  “Scottish peerage—son of the ninth Baron. The boy’s a favorite of General Clinton.”

  Anne snapped her fan shut. Letting it dangle from the silken cord on her wrist, she turned to the young Captain and said, “From your quoting Shakespeare, Mr. Cathcart, I take it you are a regular patron of the theater?”

  “A patron and a sponsor, Mrs. Merrick.”

  “Please…” Anne reached over and rested her hand on the young man’s knee for just a moment. “You must call me Anne, and I shall call you William, for I can tell already we’re going to be fast friends.”

  “Dear Anne…” Her simple touch had Lord Cathcart flushed and grinning like a cat what’d licked the cream from the milk jug.

  Betsy leaned forward and muttered, “Reel him in…”

  “William…” Laying her hand on the Captain’s forearm, Anne asked, “Would you happen to know the title of tonight’s performance?”

  “A comedy…” Lord Cathcart dug into his breast pocket. Producing a playbill, he read the title. “A Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret. I’ve seen a production in London—very humorous.”

  Another omen… Anne snapped open her fan to cover her smile.

  The theater boys came around, dimming the houselights and turning up the wicks to brighten the oil lamps at the foot of the stage. One of the violinists waved his bow, and the musicians in the pit struck up the overture. It was amusing to watch from up high the scramble for seats in the gallery. The audience at last quieted when the curtain was drawn, and two actors stepped out onto the stage, entering into a lively dialog:

  “My lord, Don Lopez.”

  “How d’ye do, Frederick?”

  “At your lordship’s service. I’m glad to see you look so well, my lord. I hope Antonio’s out of danger?”

  “Quite the contrary; his fever increases, they tell me, and the surgeons are of opinion his wound is mortal…”

  Of all British military social whirl, Anne did love going to the playhouse. She accepted all invitations to join Betsy Loring and company in the Royal Box—the best seats in the house at the Southwark Theater. It was the only guilty pleasure she derived from her assignment in Philadelphia. Just as she settled back to enjoy the play, she was jerked around in her seat by the call of her name.

  “Anne.”

  In the row behind, Betsy was leaning against the General’s shoulder, watching the play through a squat monocular opera glass. The two Peggies, sitting beside Betsy, were spellbound by the stage—not a one of them indicating the least interest in speaking with her.

  Odd. Anne turned back to the play. Something’s out of square here… Shifting in her seat, an uneasy feeling crept up her spine like a deliberate spider. It’s what Cathcart said—admiring from afar… She glanced to her right, but the young captain was completely engaged by the antics on the stage. He seems harmless enough… Anne suppressed a shudder. She was not keen on being the one who was watched unawares. The audience burst into laughter and Anne almost leapt from her skin.

  Cathcart leaned over and whispered, “My friend Delancey is an outstanding actor, is he not? An unnatural talent.”

  “Unnatural…” Anne nodded, taking in a breath to steady her racing heart. She was the one always accusing Sally of being over fearful, of always seeing an Indian behind every tree and a snake beneath every bush. I’m suffering the same affliction… Fanning her face, Anne set her eyes, ears, and mind to the diversion offered onstage. Stop making a mountain out of a mouse.

  After the play, Anne took William Cathcart’s proffered arm and they strolled along with a jovial crowd to Howe’s mansion on Sixth and Market for after-theater drinks. Betsy and the General gathered a foursome in the dining room for a game of Euchre. Anne followed a small group to the punch bowl in the upstairs drawing room, and squeezed in between the two Peggies and their polonaise puffs of pastel silk, to share the settee.

  “I tell you, my dears, I verily dread the departure of our General!” John André threw himself onto a brocaded chair, tugging at his neck stock. “Say farewell to theater plays and dancing assemblies, and anything else that makes this dreary colonial backwater tolerable.”

  “You’ve got the right of it…” Fresh from the stage, Captain Delancey plopped down into the second chair. “Lord Howe understands how to compensate for the roughs and smooths of a soldier’s life. Henry Clinton, on the other hand, is a by-the-book soldier.”

  André added, “And he’s no patron of the arts.”

  “We’ll be campaigning soon, and Sir Henry is a superb tactician and strategist—” With punch glass in hand, Cathcart struck an elegant pose near the mantel. “I, for one, am not dreading his command at all.”

  “Of course you’ve nothing to dread, Your Lordship,” André scoffed. “There’ll most undoubtedly be a colonelcy in the switch for you, but this fellow…” He waggled his fingers. “This fellow will now need to embark on yet another campaign of arse-kissing and shoe-licking.”

  The Peggies giggled, and Anne suggested, “If that’s the case, Captain André, you ought take advantage of the present clime, and have one last, grand party before General Howe returns to England…”

  “What a fantastic notion! A phenomenal idea!” André sat bolt upright in his chair. “We can hold a gala with drink and music—a ball—no! A masquerade!”

  The Peggies bounced up and down, clapping hands, and Fair Peggy exclaimed, “In fancy dress! In fancy dress!”

  “Pffft!” Delancey scoffed. “And how are we going to pay for such a thing? My pockets are dark.”

  “We’ll call it ‘A Last Farewell to our General, Lord Howe’ and take up a collection among the wealthiest officers. The sluggards will be falling all over themselves to donate to that, won’t they?” André slapped his knee. “By God! We can do it!”

  Just before opening time, Anne came to the kitchen house door, pad and pencil in hand. “Is there anything you two need from the market?”

  Hearth and oven on one side of the small room, counter and cupboards on the other, Pink and Sally prepared for the morning rush maneuvering the narrow aisle, dipping and weaving like a pair of dancers doing a gavotte.

  Sally said, “Stop by the dairyman, Annie, and have him deliver two more big jugs of milk.”

  “Dairyman.” Anne jotted the note onto her pad. “Milk. Two jugs.”

  Pink came at her wielding trays of baked goods. “More eggs,” she said, darting out to the shop.

  “Eggs…” Anne scribbled. She snatched up the cup of tea she’d fixed about an hour before and took a sip.

  Back into the kitchen for a stack of clean plates, Pink pulled to a stop and brushed the backs of her fingers to Anne’s cheek. “You’re lookin’ a little poorly, honey…”

  Anne shrugged, and took another sip of her cold tea. “I’m fine.”

  Pink bumped Sally with a hip. “In’t she looking peaked, Sal?”

  Sally looked up from sliding a batch of scones off a hot iron into a basket. “Aye… she does look a bit peelie-wally…”

  “Is it your bad time of the month?” Pink asked. “I’ll make you a cup of raspberry leaf tea…”

  “No…” Anne thought for a moment. “I’m just a little tired, I suppose—the comings and goings for the party…”

  “With all yer runnin’ about for this Redcoat Messy-anza business, I wager ye havna eaten a proper breakfast in weeks,” Sally said, offering a scone from the basket.

  Anne grimaced, and refused with a shake of her head. “I’m worried about the two of you. There’s only three days left to get the baking done. The Redcoats are paying us a pretty penny for the order…”

  “Aye, dinna fash—mackeroons and cupcakes—we can do tha’ in our sleep, na, Pink?”

  “No worries, Annie.” Pink hoisted the two big coffee urns from the grate. “At least this here Messy-anza is good for puttin’ silver in folks’ pockets.”

  “It’s ‘Meschianza,’�
�� Anne corrected, and gulped down the rest of her tea.

  “Oo-ooh! Mesh-ee-yaan-za!” Sally spread skirts with both hands and accomplished a florid deep-kneed curtsy.

  “I swan.” Pink laughed. “If that ain’t the stupidest name I ever heard for a good time…”

  “I know, I know…” Anne tucked pad and pencil into pocket. “Some Italian nonsense Captain André concocted about mixing and mingling…” She traded apron and mobcap for shawl and straw hat. “I’m off to the mantua-maker. I’ll open shop on the way out.”

  After letting in the first customers, Anne set out, French heels click-click-clicking on the cobblestones as she crossed over Market Street on her way to the dressmaker’s shop in the alleyway off Mulberry and Second.

  The Meschianza… Anne thought it ridiculous, but to her surprise, the idea of a party presented as a farewell celebration for their beloved General Howe proved so popular, André and his cohorts were able to raise more than twelve thousand pounds to fund the gala event.

  An obscene amount of money… Anne hopped over the gutter and skirted around a knife grinder who’d stopped to secure the string on his shoe.

  Intent on spending every single silver penny raised, André’s initial plan for a ball had ballooned into a full-day extravaganza that included a riverboat regatta, a stylized jousting tournament, and a lavish banquet culminating with a masquerade ball and fireworks. Engraved and hand-inscribed invitations were sent out to the elite of military and Philadelphian society, and Anne Merrick was one of four hundred invited guests.

  Both a blessing and a curse…

  Along with the two Peggies, she volunteered to help with the planning and organizing—spending every spare moment with the likes of John André, William Cathcart, and Oliver Delancey—planning menus, designing invitations and programs, and devising decorations.

  With only three days remaining to the big event, the town brewers, bakers, tailors, and dressmakers were working day and night preparing drink, food, and dress. The large, level lawn of the Wharton riverside mansion was selected as the party site, where carpenters had been toiling to build immense temporary pavilions for dining and dancing. Philadelphians were at once abuzz and aghast. Never had anyone seen so much money spent on such a frivolity.

  Hundreds of pounds wasted on swathes and festoons—as if they’d already won this war…

  It made her stomach turn to consider the privation the Continental Army endured in comparison to this latest British excess. On the bright side, the Meschianza was just the avenue she required to court and solidify the connections she would use to cull information once Sir Henry Clinton gained position.

  The doorbell rang out as she stepped into Mrs. Downey’s small shop, conveniently wedged between a milliner and a cordwainer. “Good morning! I’m here for my fitting.”

  Like her name, Thea Downey was plump and round and soft as a pillow. She hopped up from sitting on a low stool positioned to take advantage of the daylight coming in from the shop window, her ruddy face framed with a curly fringe of dark hair escaping from beneath her cap. With a tape measure for a necklace, and a pincushion tied to her wrist like a bracelet, the seamstress wore her pocket outside her skirt—seam ripper, bodkins, spools of thread, and snips always at the ready. Thea Downey set aside her work and waved Anne to the back of the shop. “Come! Let’s see how your dress suits…”

  Anne darted behind the drape hung for modesty, and stripped down to stays, chemise, and stockings. “Your shop is quiet with the ball but three days away.”

  “You’re an early bird, Mrs. Merrick.” Mrs. Downey sorted through a pile of half-finished frocks, most of them in fashionable pastel pinks, yellows, and blues. “This Meschianza has my business in an uproar. Never fear; the shop will be aflap with the tittering of discontented magpies soon enough. Here it is—” Mrs. Downey draped a dress of deep purple blue over her arm.

  Anne so disliked wearing bolsters and whalebone panniers, she challenged the dressmaker to design a gown for the masquerade that would not require any of those fashionable contrivances. Given nothing more than that direction and an allegorical theme of Night, Mrs. Downey created a costume beyond expectations.

  “It’s lovely!” Very pleased, Anne brushed her fingertips over the midnight blue lutestring silk. The formfitting bodice was sprinkled with silver sequins of graduated size, the tiniest near the square-cut neckline, graduating to the size of a penny near the pointed waistline. The lustrous silk skirt was topped by a sheer layer of matching blue silk gauze, scattered with five-pointed stars embroidered with silver thread.

  “Careful, now, there’re yet a few pins in it… Arms up…”

  Open down the back, Mrs. Downey held the garment out, and Anne slipped her arms into belled medieval sleeves that were fashioned from the sheer silk gauze, and spangled with tiny sequins. The seamstress spun her by the shoulders to face the full-length looking glass mounted on the wall.

  “Very striking!” Mrs. Downey admired as she pinned the gown closed. “This deep blue suits your coloring, and will set you off from the gaggle of shepardesses, milkmaids, and fairies,” she said, jerking a disdainful thumb to the pastel pile of work in progress. “Worn with the proper mask, in this gown you will be Night personified, floating on the dance floor.” The dressmaker murmured, “Hmmmm…” and came around, pulling at the fabric drawn tight across Anne’s chest. “You’ve gained weight since we last measured… I could add a bit to the plackets in the back…”

  Anne set her hands at her waist and studied her reflection. “Perhaps you mismeasured. If anything, I’ve lost some weight…”

  “I never mismeasure.” Mrs. Downey whipped the pins out. “You’re slim as a wafer, that’s true, but the gain’s all up top,” she said, “in the bubbies.”

  “I was rushing this morning…” Anne suggested. “Maybe my stay strings are too loose?”

  Mrs. Downey produced a stay hook from her pocket. “Let’s give ’em a good tug and try again.”

  Anne took in a deep breath and focused on keeping a firm stance to offer resistance as Mrs. Downey worked her way up from the bottom eyelets, pulling up the slack. Suddenly, her image in the mirror began to waver, and little silver lights, like sequins catching the light, blinked in the periphery of this distorted vision, sending the room into a spin.

  “Gracious!” The seamstress caught Anne before she crumpled completely and helped her the few steps to a chair. Quick as a wink, Mrs. Downey cut the stay strings with a pair of snips, and forced Anne to bend forward. “Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Head down between your knees. I’ll be right back.”

  Anne blinked and, with elbows propped to knees, clutched her head with both hands, and did as told. The dressmaker hastened back to wave a small glass of wine under her nose.

  “Drink…”

  Groaning, Anne turned to the side, gagging.

  Belying her size, with the speed of a lynx, Thea Downey swept up an armload of gowns, clearing the area just before Anne vomited, retching up bitter bile onto the floorboards.

  “Oh, dear!” The seamstress sighed and scurried off to return with a damp rag to mop up the sick. “A close call, that.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Downey.” Anne pulled the hankie from her sleeve and wiped her mouth and tearful eyes. “I woke up with a sour stomach. There must have been a bad oyster in those Captain André served last night…”

  “Oysters in May! Did your mother not tell you to never eat oysters in months without the letter R?” Mrs. Downey pressed a hand to Anne’s forehead. “You’re not fevered; that’s good. Tuck into some bread and butter when you get home, and have a nice cup of tea. That will sort you out.”

  “I’m feeling much better now that I’ve gotten rid of it.” Anne rose slowly to her feet. “I think we can finish with the fitting…”

  On the way back to the shop, Anne stopped to do the marketing, and purchased a well-fired loaf of bread from the baker. Her empty stomach was grumbling, and she looked forward
to taking Mrs. Downey’s good advice, but no sooner did she step through the door of the Cup and Book than Sally and Pink ran up. “To the kitchen,” Sally said. “There’s trouble.”

  Anne groaned, untying her hat strings. “What’s happened now?”

  “Th’ Peggy lassies have come to pay a call,” Sally said. “But th’ fair one got to skirlin’ and birlin’ like a stuck pig.”

  “What about?”

  Sally and Pink both shrugged, and Sally said, “I couldna make head nor tail of it. Somethin’ t’ do with Quakers, I think.”

  “We put ’em in the kitchen so’s not to disturb the customers,” Pink said. “Chocolate and mackeroons seems to have quieted the girl.”

  Through the kitchen house door, Anne could see Dark Peggy and Fair Peggy sitting on the raised hearth, a plate of sweets and two cups between them. She heaved a sigh and went in, with Pink and Sally on her heels.

  “Sally tells me you have some trouble…”

  “Oh, Anne!” was all Fair Peggy could manage before bursting into tears.

  “A terrible calamity!” Dark Peggy declared. “Mr. Shippen has forbid her from attending the Meschianza.”

  “Forbid?” Anne hung her hat and shawl on a hook by the door.

  Fair Peggy nodded, swiping her tears with a wadded wet handkerchief. “Damn, damn Quakers!”

  Anne dropped down to sit beside Peggy Shippen. “What have the Quakers to do with it?”

  Dark Peggy explained, “It’s the Quakers who are saying it isn’t fitting to celebrate in time of war. The Quakers say a masquerade is licentious and lewd, and now her papa has forbid her from going to the Meschianza.”

  Anne asked, “Did you try to reason with him?”

  Peggy sobbed. “I begged and pleaded, but Papa said we Shippens need to start straddling both sides of the fence. He said the British intend to soon abandon the city to the rebels.”

  “Abandon the city?” Anne gave Peggy Shippen a little shake. “He said those words?”

  “I don’t believe it, either, but that’s what he said,” Dark Peggy asserted.