The Heart of Liberty

by Thomas Fleming

  “Someday when this business is over, we must spend an hour or two refighting that day, with the help of some good Madeira.”

  “I’ll reserve one of my best bottles immediately, General,” Jonathan Gifford said.

  The Monongahela was a kind of code word in 1776, particularly among soldiers and their friends. It referred to the battle fought near that western river between the French and Indians and the British-American army commanded by General Edward Braddock. It had been a horrendous defeat for the British, in which the regulars behaved disgracefully. Washington, serving on Braddock’s staff as an aide, had been one of the few who distinguished himself on that gory field.

  General Washington explained that he must be in Trenton by nightfall. With a smile and nod, he put his spurs to his stallion and led his escort of aides and troopers down the road. Jonathan Gifford looked around him at the mixture of awe and admiration on nearby faces. He was embarrassed. The story would race through the district, making him a kind of hero by association, the last thing he wanted. He would spend the rest of the week explaining to curious inquirers how and where he knew Israel Putnam.

  At this point in 1776 “Old Put” was at least as well known and perhaps more admired than George Washington. Putnam had commanded the Americans at Bunker Hill the preceding June in a battle which inflicted fearful casualties on the attacking British, though in the end the Americans broke and ran. “Old Put” had been one of the leaders of the ranger battalion recruited by Lord George Howe. In the intervening years of peace, Putnam had been a slightly comic figure to the Gifford family. The occasional letters he exchanged with his old friend featured some of the most horrendous misspellings in the history of the language.

  While everyone else watched General Washington disappear in a cloud of spring dust, Jonathan Gifford turned to Kate and Kemble. “Would you like to help me move the roses outdoors?”

  Over the years this had been a family ritual, a welcome to the sunshine of New Jersey’s spring. But Kemble was not inclined to become a boy again, even for a few hours. He no longer trusted the man he called Father.

  That is what Kemble told himself. Beneath his political antagonism lurked the deeper and more serious grievance of his mother’s disgrace and death. He simply could not accept the possibility that it was Sarah Gifford’s fault. This wound - there is no other word to describe it - was combined with that natural rebellion against his father that every son experiences as he approaches manhood. Not even the respect George Washington displayed in greeting Jonathan Gifford could change Kemble’s mind.

  “I’m sorry,” Kemble said. “I have some letters to write for the Committee.”

  “Oh, the Committee,” Kate mocked. “The all-powerful, all-important Committee. I would love to plant some roses, Father.”

  Kate knew what Kemble thought about their mother and stepfather. Sometimes she half-agreed with him. At other times she was sure he was wrong. She did not have the added antagonisms of politics and biology to intensify her feelings. She was able to thrust her mother out of her mind most of the time and let her natural affection for her father control her conduct. After breakfast, she put on an old dress and joined Jonathan Gifford in the garden behind the tavern.

  The land ran downhill to the brook. Trees had been cleared away on the left and right to create a broad expanse of sunlight. The slope faced east, so that it drank the richest, warmest sun all morning. In rectangles, ovals, squares, and circles, Captain Gifford had planted a treasury of the world’s roses.

  At the top and along the sides of the garden were trellises on which climbed the early-blooming Blaze rose of New jersey. Nearby was the dark red rose of France and the sweet-scented Damask rose of Macedonia, the double yellow Sulphur rose of Persia. There were tea-scented pink and yellow roses of China which only became well known in England and this country in this century, the hundred-leaved Cabbage rose of Holland with its varied double-cupped fragrant blooms, Rosa Alba, the white rose of York, the Jacobite rose for which so many thousands of brave men died in Ireland and Scotland, American Swamp roses from the South and Chestnut roses from India.

  Among these like exotic children of a biracial marriage were hybrids created by Jonathan Gifford in his greenhouse. People came twenty or thirty miles to see the rose garden of Strangers’ Resort when it was in full bloom in June and July. Already, in this last week of May, the stems were beginning to bud, the leaves of the Sweetbriers were already wafting their apple scent on the soft air.

  With the assistance of Black Sam and Bertha, Kate and her father spent the morning and early afternoon setting several dozen shrubs in the moist earth. While they worked, Kate playfully recalled the lectures he used to give them on roses and their history.

  “The rose is the perfume of the gods, the joy of men. It adorns the graces at the blossoming of love.

  It is the favorite’ flower of Venus.”

  She sighed. “That’s Anacreon, isn’t it?” With a touch of mockery she inhaled the fragrance of a pink and cream York rose. “That’s all I ever want to be, the favorite flower of Venus.”

  “Perhaps you should imitate that rose,” said Jonathan Gifford. “In Ireland we called it ‘Great Maiden’s Blush.’”

  Kate frowned, suddenly serious. “I really do love him, Father. I wish you liked him a little more.”

  “I like him well enough,” Jonathan Gifford said. “If we were living in peaceful times, I’d wish you an early wedding and myself a grandson to welcome in the New Year. These are not peaceful times, Kate. And Anthony Skinner is not, I fear, a peaceful fellow.”

  “When were there ever peaceful times?” Kate said. “And as for peaceful fellows, would you call yourself one?”

  “I guess not,” Jonathan Gifford said, gently removing one of his newest Chinese roses from its pot. The small white flowers had only four petals at the head of tall canes with wing-like translucent thorns and lush green fern-like foliage. “Isn’t this a beauty? One of my friends in the East India Company sent it to me from Calcutta. He said it came from western China.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Kate said perfunctorily. “But you see, Father, I think love is more important than wars or politics. You can’t let those things stand in love’s way. If you do, you end up like one of the flowers in this garden. Carefully tended, admired, lovely to look at. But with no real life of your own. I’d rather be one of those Blaze roses growing wild there where the woods begin.”

  What should he say? Jonathan Gifford wondered. Should he preach her a sermon on life, with the rose for a text? Should he sententiously point out to her that the wild rose often blossoms only once, while the garden rose, cut back to the wood in season, blooms again and again? No, she would laugh in his face. It might ruin the fragile web of feeling between them. Sadly he touched the growing thorns of his China rose. He suspected that beneath Kate’s affection lurked Kemble’s angry judgment against him and in favor of her mother. They shared so few things these days, he dreaded the thought of their differences invading even the roses.

  For a moment he had a harrowing glimpse of his father retreating into the garden to escape his mother’s lamentations on Ireland’s sorrows. Amazing, at forty-seven, he still felt himself in the shadow of that stern, reticent man who had called him into his study on his sixteenth birthday and informed him that he had just bought him an ensign’s commission in the King’s Own Regiment. He had been stunned. He had wanted to be a lawyer like his older brother, but the practice was not large enough to divide. His father had had the bad judgment to marry a Catholic, which meant he would never be admitted to the inner circle of the government, where the big fees were collected. Thomas Gifford believed that he was doing the best thing for his younger son. He had talked with his schoolmasters, who assured him that Jonathan had not much interest in books, and he had watched him organize and often bully his playmates. Yon have the knack of leading others. I don’t pretend to understand it. I never had it myself, his father had said.

  “You s
eem far away, Father,” Kate said. “Are you wishing you never came to America and got mixed up with us all?”

  “No. Don’t be silly.”

  Kate knelt beside him and put her arms around him.

  “I hope you never do feel such a thing. No matter what happens, I will never stop loving you. Even if I marry Anthony and you tell me you hate him.”

  “My darling, I’m only trying to tell you - “ Jonathan Gifford began helplessly.

  “Maybe Lord Howe will turn out to be a real peace commissioner. By the end of the summer all those silly men will have to stop playing with their guns and go back to being farmers, businessmen, and husbands again. I really think men love war.”

  “I’m afraid they do.”

  Kate giggled. “They’ll be terribly disappointed but there won’t be anything they can do about it. We’ll have peace for a hundred years and you’ll end up an old soldier on two canes, hobbling around my house spoiling your great-grandchildren.”

  “I will consider that an invitation.”

  He got up and walked down the slope to examine a canker on the stem of the hybrid he had created from the American and the Tudor rose. The petals were a delicate pink, but the hooked thorns of the European rose had vanished, and instead of the orange-scarlet hips of the American rose, these were almost white.

  “But what will you do, Kate,” he said, fingering the diseased stem, “if things happen the other way? If fighting begins and Anthony sides with the King?”

  “Why - I’ll side with him, too. What difference does that make? There are plenty of people hereabouts who feel the same way.”

  “Kate. I mean with a gun in his hand. It won’t just be George Washington and his army fighting the British in Massachusetts. They’ll be fighting in New York and New Jersey. It’s going to be a civil war, Kate, brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend.”

  It was hard to tell from the expression on her face whether Kate was frightened or angry. “It won’t happen that way,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid it will, Kate.”

  Barney McGovern’s bulky form loomed over them. “Excuse me, Captain. This gentleman says he’d like to speak personally to you about quartering some horses here.”

  Barney stepped aside and Jonathan Gifford and Kate looked up at a stocky freckle-faced young man in a blue coat with dark red facing on the lapels, collar, and cuffs. A yellow feather jutted from his sharply cocked hat, which he carried under his arm. He bowed politely to Kate and said, “Good day, miss. Good day, sir. I trust I may speak freely in front of this young lady?”

  “Of course.”

  “General Washington sent back orders to set up a series of relay stations so that dispatch riders might have fresh horses on the way across New Jersey to Philadelphia and back. He fears a British attack on New York, you see.”

  This was said in a conversational tone, the voice softened by the accents of Virginia.

  “I thought it was better to speak to you personally than bring the news into the tavern. It might alarm people. I gather the Tories are pretty thick in the neighborhood, too.”

  “I understand,” Jonathan Gifford said. “How many horses do you have?”

  “Four, sir.”

  “They’ll be safe and well taken care of in our barn. You look like you’ve been on the road a good many hours this day yourself.”

  The young man nodded and smiled. “They told me New Jersey wouldn’t be as hot as Virginia. But I’m not so sure now.”

  He said this to Kate more than to Jonathan Gifford, and Kate returned his smile. “Wait until July and August,” she said.

  “By that time I hope we’ll have chased the redcoats off the continent for good and I’ll be lying on the bank of the Rappahannock with a bowl of punch beside me and a fishing rod in my hand.”

  “My name is Gifford. I wish I could shake your hand but mine is too dirty.”

  “I’m sure there is no more dirt on it than there is dust on mine, sir. John Fleming, captain in the First Virginia Regiment.”

  They shook hands. “This is my daughter, Kate Stapleton,” Jonathan Gifford said.

  Captain Fleming responded with a deep bow. “I’m more than charmed, Miss Stapleton. The friend who misinformed me about New Jersey’s weather also told me that the young ladies were not as pretty as ours in Virginia. I see he was wrong about that too.”

  “That must be Virginia flattery, when I’m standing here in my oldest dress, covered with dirt from head to toe.”

  “In Virginia we only flatter ladies when it’s necessary. It isn’t in your case.”

  “Could you join us for dinner, Captain?” Jonathan Gifford asked.

  Captain Fleming could indeed join them for dinner. Kate absolutely forbade serving it for at least an hour, to give her time to “look civilized again.” Ex-Captain Gifford and Captain Fleming adjourned to the side porch of the residence where Barney McGovern soon served them a bottle of the tavern’s best Madeira. Captain Fleming talked freely about his current assignment. He was on the staff of Brigadier General Hugh Mercer, who was about to become military commander of Perth Amboy. General Washington planned to create a flying camp of perhaps ten thousand militiamen outside the town to defend eastern New Jersey if the British appeared in force. As far as anyone knew, the British army, which had withdrawn from Boston in March, was still at Halifax, Nova Scotia, awaiting reinforcements.

  “We have word, I think, of Canada as their destination,” Captain Fleming said. “General Washington sent between five and six thousand men - some of our best regiments - north in the past month.”

  “A mistake, I think, unless he can spare them,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Howe will come to New York, depend on it, Captain. I served for a while on the headquarters staff there in the sixties. We had various plans for dealing with you rebellious Americans. They all presumed an army based in New York.”

  Captain Fleming’s interest in his host increased geometrically. “This could be information General Washington would very much like to hear.”

  “I doubt if he needs it. From what I hear, he is getting ready to defend New York with all the force he can muster. I wonder if he can do it. He would be better off, I think, if he withdrew his army onto the continent - either into Westchester or into New Jersey. He will be at a tremendous disadvantage in New York, fighting on an island against an enemy with control of the water around him.”

  “A good many of us have thought about that, I fear,” Captain Fleming said with a mournful nod. “But the Congress has given explicit orders to defend New York to the last extremity.”

  “Congress seems to me to have a bad habit of trying to do everything. A general with sixty heads is a monstrosity that could lose the war for you.”

  Captain Fleming glumly agreed. “But even if every man now in the army falls a sacrifice,” he said, “we will make General Howe pay the kind of price he paid at Bunker Hill. Great Britain will abandon the contest.”

  “I assure you that General Howe has no intention of paying such a price again. He will fight a war of maneuver, Captain, of flanking movements and siege tactics. I’ve had letters from several friends in my old regiment discussing Bunker Hill. Putnam and his men were the luckiest soldiers alive. By all the rules of warfare, they should have been annihilated.”

  An uneasy look appeared on Captain Fleming’s face. Jonathan Gifford suddenly wondered if those last words made it sound as if he wished the Americans had been annihilated at Bunker Hill. He emptied the last of the Madeira into their glasses and casually asked the Captain if he’d heard any rumors of Tory regiments being raised in New Jersey.

  “No,” said Fleming, instantly alarmed. “Have you? We have been told that there is a good deal of Tory sentiment in some sections, such as Shrewsbury - ”

  “A man in my job hears rumors all day long,” Jonathan Gifford said. “But I have heard this from a rather good source.”

  “Are yo
u prepared to identify the source?”

  “No, I am not. It was told to me in confidence.”

  “At the very least, I think you should inform the County Committee.”

  “You can do that as well as I, Captain. You can also take some steps to make it more difficult to communicate with the King’s ships in New York Harbor. As I understand it, the shoreline at present is unguarded and unpatrolled. A dozen men on horseback, a few guard boats could do a great deal. If more information comes my way, I assure you that I will pass on to you all of it that a man of honor can disclose.”

  Kate swept onto the porch in a yellow silk dress, two miniature white Chinese roses at her throat. “What are you talking about? But why should I ask? It’s the damn nonsensical war. Is there a man these days who doesn’t talk perpetually about death and destruction?”

  “If you promise to smile at me that way whenever we meet,” Captain Fleming said, “I will vow to reform my mind and exclude all such thoughts, even if it leads to my court-martial.”

  “I see there’s no hope of embarrassing you Virginians. There is nothing too extravagant you won’t say.”

  “Would you rather have us worrying all day about the state of our souls, talking through our noses about divinity like the Yankees?”

  “Oh no. The Yankees are terrible people, pinchpenny hypocrites, most of them.”

  “They’re a hard people to like, true enough,” Captain Fleming said. “But there is something to be said for standing firm for your rights. They helped the rest of us see the necessity for that.”

  “We are back to talking about the damned war. Another minute and I will insist on that court-martial, Captain.”

  “Miss Kate,” said Captain Fleming, “I haven’t heard a woman swear so beautifully since I left Virginia. Being with you is like a visit home.”

  Jonathan Gifford could almost feel romantic emotion crowding the humid air. Memories of his own conduct when he was Captain Fleming’s age filled him with uneasiness. As they sat down to dinner and Kate and Captain Fleming became more and more animated, this worry became almost superficial, compared to the satisfaction Jonathan Gifford felt. He had invited the Virginian to dinner in the hope that he might replace or at least diminish Anthony Skinner in Kate’s affections. If he had to worry about succeeding too well, he was prepared to tolerate that burden.