The Traitor's Wife

by Allison Pataki

  “Sit down, Margaret,” the judge spoke, his tone fortified by momentary resolve.

  “Papa.” Peggy didn’t obey, but rather glided toward him.

  “Your father told you to SIT DOWN!” Mrs. Shippen’s voice seemed to rattle the books on the shelves, and it served to sufficiently cow Peggy, who slinked back to her seat.

  “Since you see nothing wrong with the sacrilegious and indecent content of the evening’s costumes and entertainment, I shall change my line of questioning.” Judge Shippen still fiddled with his plume. “Do you believe it is appropriate to be prancing around like a harem girl of the Far East while your countrymen are spilling their blood mere miles away? When there might be a battle in Philadelphia by the end of the month? Are you so absorbed in your world of silk, and lace, and British officers, that you are not offended by this debauched evening?” Judge Shippen folded his hands in his lap, appearing bolstered by the completion of his soliloquy. “An evening in which you will not take part, Margaret.”

  From their spot in the doorway, Mrs. Quigley turned to whisper, “Never in all my years have I heard the judge speak so forcefully.” Clara nodded.

  “But I cannot cancel my appearance now, Papa.” Peggy’s voice had a shrill edge about it, as if she realized she might actually be thwarted. “Not when they’ve planned on me being there. I’ve ordered my dress. André and I have planned our costumes accordingly. It would be discourteous.”

  “And how much did that dress cost?” Mrs. Shippen leaned over her husband’s desk.

  “It did not cost you a cent, Mother. André and the Crown paid for it.”

  “Even more insupportable.”

  “Enough.” The judge raised his arm, silencing his wife and causing Clara to flinch where she stood outside the room. “Margaret,” the judge spoke in a slow, measured tone, “I am resolute on this matter. I’m afraid I must forbid you from attending.”

  “What, Papa?” Peggy looked to her sister, incredulous. “No! You can’t! You can’t listen to the counsel of some craven old Quakers! I will go, do you hear me? I will go!”

  “You will not go,” her mother replied.

  “André will not allow this! He will not allow you to embarrass General Howe and all the men who have planned on my attendance.”

  “André already knows. He’s made other plans.” Her mother’s tone stayed cool.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Peggy was in a fury, tears tracing straight, determined lines down her cheeks. “Papa! What does Mother mean?” Peggy scurried behind the desk and knelt at her father’s feet.

  “Judge.” Mr. Quigley poked his head into the study. “Judge Shippen, they have arrived.”

  “Who has arrived?” Peggy asked, looking from her father to the butler.

  A voice sounded from the front of the house, followed by the thunder of dozens of buckled boots falling on the creaky wooden floor. Clara turned where she stood; she’d been so absorbed in the argument she had not yet noticed the group entering the hall.

  “Greetings to the Honorable Judge Shippen and his family! We are here on an errand from Major André.” The Shippens hurried from the study, Clara among them, to the front hall. A dozen men in matching white wigs stood in a neat line, wearing the red jackets that usually so excited Peggy.

  “Where is Major André?” Peggy asked, passing each of the men. “Where is he? Why are you all here?”

  “Message for Miss Margaret Shippen from Major John André.” The front man in the column broke the formation only to extend his hand to Peggy with a note. Clara approached her mistress’s side. Peggy tore the letter open, looking frantically at the familiar cursive that usually caused her heart to jig so happily.

  I understand that you will be unable to attend the Meshianza Masque with me this evening, a fact which brings me great sadness. Do not let your heart be troubled that you have left me without a maiden to offer me a favor before the jousting tournament. I was desperate, you must understand, so I’ve asked Meg Chew to come with me, and she has taken pity on a jilted squire whose fair lady is otherwise occupied.

  Your wounded knight,

  J. André

  Postscript: Meg will need to borrow your costume, as she has not had time to order her own gown. My men will retrieve it.

  Then, as if on cue, Mr. Quigley descended the broad staircase, the white and scarlet gown, along with the turban and all the accoutrements, folded neatly in his arms. Without looking at Peggy, or responding to her hysterical proclamations, the butler handed the folded costume to the head of André’s livery, and the soldiers turned on their heels to depart.

  They left in their wake a frantic Peggy. Her father’s face grew distressed as he watched his daughter pounding on the door, threatening to run after them and reclaim her gown. Caleb emerged from the pantry and held the sobbing girl back as she tried to open the front door and charge out onto the street. Even as Betsy tried to soothe her, Peggy could not be consoled.

  “I will never forgive you!” Peggy hissed, looking at her mother with bitter accusation in her eyes. “You can’t stomach the idea of anything fun, can you? What’s the matter, Mother? Were you never asked to a dance when you were young?”

  “Please, my dear Margaret, remember yourself. This is your mother to whom you speak.” Judge Shippen looked as though his fortitude might give way.

  “Just let her rail, Edward.” Mrs. Shippen was unfazed, but her reaction only seemed to further infuriate Peggy.

  “You can never let me enjoy myself. And now Johnny will take that horrid Meg Chew, and she will probably seduce him!” Peggy rushed at her father, either to assault him or to collapse at his feet in desperate supplication, but Mr. Quigley stepped in between the two and held her arms.

  “Caleb, some help!” The butler struggled to contain the thrashing arms of his young mistress. All the servants poked their heads in from where they had gathered to witness the scene. Clara had been warned of her lady’s temper, but the sight was still staggering; Peggy resisted until she was carried up, with much kicking and clawing and ranting, by Caleb to her bedroom, with Clara following close behind.

  “If you don’t calm down we will lock you in your bedroom for the rest of the day and night,” Mrs. Shippen called up the stairs, while the rest of the family and household staff stood in stony silence in the front hall, aghast at the events they had just witnessed.

  “I DESPISE YOU!” Peggy screamed back, before Clara and Caleb managed to shut her bedroom door. Once in her room, with no route to escape, Peggy collapsed onto her bed, where she proceeded to vent her anger in the furious beating of her feather pillows. “I’m ruined!” Peggy wailed, over and over again. Or you are saved, Clara thought, but she dared not utter it.

  THE SHIPPEN gardens at dusk were a welcome refuge after the chaos of the house, and so Clara accepted a tray of food from Hannah and sought a solitary place to eat her supper. From the stone bench under the cool shade of the arbor, Clara glanced up and saw that Peggy’s windows were ajar, but she heard no sound issuing from the bedchamber. Miss Peggy seemed to have cried herself to sleep, at last. How a girl could sob so passionately and for as long as Peggy had, Clara did not know.

  Sunset. The hour that they were meant to depart for the Meshianza Masque. Clara had to admit to herself, even if it would have been a glorious spectacle to see the tournament, she felt undeniable relief at Peggy’s being forbidden to attend. She could not deny that she had had a heavy sense of doom about it all.

  Clara finished her stew, using the stale brown bread to sop up the remainders in the bowl, and rose from the bench. The gardens were tranquil and protected from the din of the city streets, but they were entirely different from the farm at dusk. Clara sighed, imagining the scene unfolding at this hour on the farm, as it used to be. Mr. Hartley and the boys would be back from the fields, dust-caked and weary, sitting down to a supper spread forth by Oma. She and her grandmother would wait until the family’s dinner had been cleared before themselves sitting down beside the hearth
and finishing the remaining food. Oma had always been sure to cook enough so that Clara went to bed with a full belly.

  How much a few days had done to change her life, Clara thought, as she looked out over the manicured shrubs and tightly clipped cherry blossoms—so different from the unruly apple trees and mazy paths of newly sown dirt she had always known. Though her bedroom afforded a view of these gardens, Clara had not yet been to explore these paths. Clara decided that before she returned to the dimly lit distress of her mistress’s bedroom, she’d walk a bit, and perhaps even make her way over to the stables.

  The horses at Hartley farm had always been a comfort in their reliable simplicity—their earthy aroma, their slow movements, their appreciative gazes as you stroked their noses. The smell of the stable would be familiar, even if nothing else here was. Clara followed the pebbly footpath across the lawn and meandered toward the large, rectangular building.

  Clara pushed the heavy sliding door over and peeked into the barn. “Anybody in here?”

  From somewhere distant, she heard the muffled notes of a guitar. Probably Caleb playing in some hidden spot of the orchard. Clara inhaled, breathing in the familiar scent: a mixture of horse sweat, hay, and leather saddles. A large brown head peeked out from the front stall. Clara looked at the large horse and laughed.

  “Oh, hello! I didn’t mean to disturb you.” Clara slid the door open wider, allowing the sideways rays of dusky sunlight to spill into the stables. She approached slowly, as Oma had taught her to do, and extended her hand, allowing the horse to become familiar with her scent. “Hello there, handsome fellow.” The horse was a rich chestnut color, with a white diamond above its nose, and she knew it immediately to be Miss Peggy’s. “Why, you and I work for the same lady, don’t we? Yes, we do.” The horse leaned closer to Clara, welcoming her affectionate strokes. “Yes we do, we work for the same lady.”

  “You’ve only been with her two days and you’re already talking to animals? Didn’t take her long to drive you mad.” Caleb’s voice startled Clara, and she jumped back, alarming the horse as she did so.

  “Didn’t mean to spook you.” Caleb walked toward her, his arms raised apologetically, from the back of the darkening barn.

  “Pardon me, I didn’t realize there was anyone else in here,” Clara answered, embarrassed.

  “Just taking a moment away from that crowded kitchen.” Caleb grinned. “Looks like you’re doing the same.”

  “Aye.” Clara nodded.

  “I actually stay out here during the warm months. Up there.” Caleb pointed toward the hayloft.

  “Really?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “Why do you live out here when there are all those empty bedrooms in the servants’ quarters?” Clara edged back toward the horse and resumed her petting of its coarse, short hair.

  “I like having my own space, getting away from that house at least once a day. Otherwise, I’d go wild.” Caleb paused beside her, a piece of straw dangling from his mouth. “That, and I prefer the company of the horses to the Shippens. Find ’em to be more polite.” Caleb leaned his elbows on the door of the stall, standing beside Clara as they both stroked the horse.

  “Right, Hick? This is Hickory,” Caleb said.

  “Nice to meet you, Hickory.”

  “Miss Peggy’s horse.”

  “I had guessed that.” Clara stroked the horse’s long nose, blushing when her hand accidentally brushed against Caleb’s fingers.

  “What do you say, Hickory, you think Miss Peggy goes easier on you or on Clara?”

  “Well, she has yet to use the crop on me,” Clara answered. “How about you, Hickory?”

  “Just a matter of time,” Caleb quipped, and they both laughed. After several moments of comfortable silence, Caleb continued. “How are you doing, Clara? With everything? I imagine it’s quite different here than at a farm in the countryside.”

  Clara nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing. How different it is here.”

  “So then, how are you managing?”

  “I’m not sure,” Clara answered. “I think she likes me. I hope so.”

  “No, I mean, how are you doing?”

  Clara shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I don’t really think that it matters how I’m doing.”

  “Course it does. You’ve got feelings, just like everyone else. Just like Hickory here, right, Hick?”

  “Well, I am doing all right.”

  “Just all right?” Caleb arched his eyebrows.

  “I was raised not to complain,” Clara admitted.

  “Suppose it’s not complaining? Suppose you’re just answering a friend’s question?” Caleb nudged her gently.

  “Well, it’s just that”—Clara wavered—“it’s hard to keep Miss Peggy happy.” She stared through the open stable door, watching as night settled over the grounds, extinguishing the last glints of golden daylight.

  “I think we’d all agree with you, Clara Bell. Damned near impossible, in fact.”

  “Her moods change so suddenly.”

  “As we all witnessed this afternoon,” Caleb agreed.

  “But I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Being in a grand house like this . . . with gardens, and stables. And I have enough food to eat, and a bedroom to myself. If my Oma saw me living like this, attending parties with British officers, she’d think I’d climbed a few stations in life.”

  “Who’s Oma?”

  “My gram,” Clara explained. “It was just me and her back at the Hartley farm. My mother died when I was . . . young.”

  “And your father?” Caleb asked.

  Clara shrugged her shoulders. “Never knew him.” She should be embarrassed to admit that she was a bastard, unwanted, but Caleb listened attentively. Offered no judgment.

  “My Oma was sick for a while. Right before she passed, she got me this position. I’m grateful to have it.”

  “Now is not the time to be without family and without work.”

  “I’m not really sure what would have happened to me had Oma not gotten me this post. Not after the Hartleys left.” And suddenly, without realizing why she was doing it, Clara found herself opening up about a past she had never shared. “The Hartleys were supporters of the colonial cause, you see. They were tired of the British raids and didn’t want to swear a loyalty oath to the crown. They moved up north, and couldn’t take us with them. Oma and I stayed back because she was too sick to travel by that point. She died a few weeks later.”

  Caleb looked at her, his eyes earnest. “That’s quite the story you have, Clara Bell.”

  “Reminds me,” Clara continued. “My first day here, I mentioned the Hartley farm as well as the Shippen farm and Miss Peggy scolded me. Told me never to mention it again. What happened there to cause such a reaction?”

  “Oh.” Caleb nodded. “Right when the war broke out, the judge relocated us all to the countryside, to his farm in Lancaster. To think, we were neighbors.” He paused.

  “And we never met.” Clara smiled back as Caleb continued.

  “The judge thought it would be safer there than in the city, on account of the fighting here. We spent just shy of a year there.”

  “And why was it so terrible for Miss Peggy? What happened to her?” Clara asked.

  “It was no more terrible for her than for anyone living in the countryside at the outbreak of the war,” Caleb explained. “There were raiding parties throughout the area, and you heard stories of nearby farms burning and Iroquois attacks.”

  Clara nodded. She had lived that life for all seventeen of her years: the smell of smoke after dark caused panic, the sound of hoofbeats awoke terror until you could be certain that the riders did not pause outside your door.

  “But as far as Miss Peggy suffering any particular tragedy?” Caleb leaned toward Clara. “All she suffered from was boredom. She complained every day about the country. Hated it.” He removed the long piece of straw from between his lips, holding it aloft like a pipe. “Said she was missing out
on all the excitement in the city. She was sixteen at the time, and she missed her debut. She was convinced her life was over.”

  “Ah, she said the same thing today.” Clara nodded.

  “Indeed.” Caleb agreed. “Finally, the Lobsterbacks took the city and established British rule, and the judge decided that we weren’t any safer out there than we would be here. So, he refused to take the oath to Washington and the new nation, and moved us all back here to the British-held city. As you can imagine, Peggy supported his decision.”

  “I am sure.” Clara nodded. “Have you taken it, Cal?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “The oath to Washington.” Clara said, speaking quietly in the darkened barn.

  Caleb looked over his shoulder, making certain that they were alone. “I did take it. I consider myself to be a free man,” he whispered. “But keep that between us.”

  “I did too,” Clara admitted.

  They stood for a moment in companionable silence, the only noise between them the steady breathing of Hickory and the distant din of carriages rattling up Fourth Street.

  Clara turned to Caleb. “What about you, Caleb Little?”

  “What about me?”

  “What’s your story? You say the Quigleys are your aunt and uncle?”

  “Mrs. Quigley is—was—my mother’s sister. They protected me when Judge Shippen let everyone go a few years back.”

  “And where are your parents?” Clara asked.

  “Dead.”

  “Both of them?”

  “The yellow fever. Summer of ’70. Swept through the city like a wildfire,” Caleb answered, sliding the piece of straw back between his teeth.

  Clara thought about this, realizing she was not the only person in this house to have suffered loss. “Look at us, then, Caleb. A pair of orphans.”

  “That we are.” Caleb grinned at her, a sad, honest grin. “And how are you finding the help here at the Shippen mansion, Clara Bell? Are we as difficult as the Shippens themselves?”

  “Oh, even worse,” Clara quipped, and they both laughed. “No, I’m finding everyone very agreeable. Mrs. Quigley is always looking out for me. Mr. Quigley is a generous man. Hannah is always helpful when I need her. Brigitte, well, I haven’t heard Brigitte say two words together, now that I think about it.”