The Traitor's Wife

by Allison Pataki

  “But you would split me from my sister?” Hannah looked as though she might cry.

  “This home has become, well, overly burdensome.” Judge Shippen apologized with his expression. “Mrs. Shippen and I no longer require all this space. And Betsy has been urging us to move in with her and Neddy for a while, but we didn’t want to leave Peggy. Not while she still lived here.”

  “But now that Benny and I have been transferred to West Point, we’re leaving Philadelphia,” Peggy finished for her father. “Oh come on, Mr. and Mrs. Quigley, Hannah, how can you look so glum? Philadelphia has become so boring.”

  “Philadelphia is our home, Miss Peggy.” Mrs. Quigley, usually so restrained, pushed back. “Has been for seventy years.”

  “Well, now your home will be West Point,” Peggy said. “Besides, my husband and I have a post once more, and money. You’ll get wages. My father cannot pay you. Right, Papa?” Peggy looked at her father, who was resting his head in his hands.

  “Believe me, Constance and John,” Judge Shippen looked up at the couple and then at the cook. “Hannah.” He paused, his voice catching on their names. “If there was another way, believe me, I would have found it. This is the only solution we could find without turning you out on the streets.”

  The three servants stood silently, like thieves sentenced to the gallows. From her post in the corner, Clara watched the scene unfold, feeling a mixture of pity for the three of them who would be severed from their home, and relief that these three familiar people, the only family she had, would be traveling north with her to New York. She would not have to go with the Arnolds alone, and that fact gave her undeniable comfort.

  “Well, I believe we’ve talked through all the messy issues. Everyone understands?” Peggy arched her eyebrows in a question.

  “Believe me, if I could afford it, I’d keep you all until the day I died.” Judge Shippen still looked pained. “But it’s just, with the war showing no sign of ending . . .”

  “Well, my husband and I will see what we can do about that,” Peggy answered, and only Clara knew just what she meant by the clipped comment.

  “Clara?” Peggy turned to her maid, acknowledging her presence in the corner for the first time in the conversation. “Prepare our things for the move to West Point.”

  Clara walked out, alone, into the dark corridor, hugging the baby in her arms. Inside, she was a swell of warring emotions. Her three friends would be coming with her, but at what cost to them? Together, the whole band was taking a step closer to fulfilling the Arnolds’ planned treachery. And yet, in spite of these horrible facts, the news was not all bad to Clara. “Hear that, Little Eddy?” Clara whispered into his soft, squishy cheek. “We’re moving to West Point.” She’d finally be close to Caleb again.

  VII.

  She refuses to see anyone. Won’t allow anyone in the room without wailing like a cornered animal. Except me. So I sit beside her on the bed, dabbing her face with a moist cloth and trying to reassure her that she’s still alive, that her son is still alive.

  “Clara, Clara, Clara. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me, Clara.”

  The day is growing warmer and the bedchamber is stifling, as she will not allow me to open any windows. Her face is flushed from the heat and the overstimulation, and the neckline of her sleeping gown is moist where it clings to her white skin.

  She sings a childhood song, her voice sounding feeble and shaky. When I look into her eyes, she returns my gaze, but her glassy blue eyes do not see me, of that much I am certain. “Oh, Bets, Mother always takes your side,” she says to me, mistaking me for her sister.

  “There, there, Miss Peggy. It’s me, Clara. Surely you remember me?” I dab her furrowed brow once more with the moist cloth.

  “Clara? No, no.” She smiles, correcting me.

  “Shhh, Miss Peggy. It’s best you get some rest.” I reach behind her head and plump up a feather pillow for her, hoping that she will agree to sleep. But when I pull my hand back, she grabs me. Her grip is strong, and her eyes suddenly shine with a fierce blue lucidity, as if a veil had been lifted.

  “They’re going to kill me, Clara,” Peggy says matter-of-factly.

  I am not sure how to answer her. I don’t know if they’ve found her husband yet. If they know that she was as involved in the plot as he was. “There, there, Miss Peggy.” I dab her forehead once more.

  “Ouch!” she screams, clutching her forehead.

  “Have I hurt you, ma’am?”

  “There is a scorching iron on my head,” she mumbles, nonsensically.

  “Pardon, my lady?”

  “There is a scorching iron on my head.” She points at her forehead, as if I might see the object she describes.

  “My lady, there is nothing on your forehead except your own perspiration.”

  “No, no, no,” she says, with the expression of someone half mad. “There is a scorching iron on my head, and only General Washington can remove it. Bring him here.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Too Far Down This Path”

  June 1780

  West Point, New York

  THEY MOVED in the full heat of summer, leaving the city of Philadelphia with its noise, its stink, and its swelling population, freshly arrived for the warm trading season. Peggy, so eager to leave, now claimed she could not bear to watch the receding images of the city she had loved. “Will I ever walk these streets again? Will I ever attend a party in the Penn mansion again?”

  In the days before their journey, Clara thought she detected the signs of fraying patience in Arnold: an avoided embrace, a comment left unanswered, an excuse offered when his wife invited him to bed. And now, as his wife uttered these lamentations, he reminded her, his jaw tight: “Peg, it was your idea to leave.”

  “But I’m so sad.” She sighed. “I shan’t be able to look out the carriage window until we are gone from this city.”

  Though Peggy could not look, Clara found it thrilling to watch as the carriages pulled them north into the quiet greenery of rural Pennsylvania, where hundreds of miles of open farmland stretched out before them. They would know they had reached New York, Clara was told, when they spotted the broad, curving outline of the Hudson River.

  Escorted by General Arnold and his assistant, Major Franks, Peggy rode up front in Arnold’s covered carriage with the baby for most of the journey, sprawling out and complaining of the heat as they pushed through the unshaded farmland. Clara followed behind in an open cart with the Quigleys, Hannah, Barley the dog, and the Arnolds’ trunks. Even though the carriage was cramped and exposed to the strong sun, Clara was happy to enjoy the clean air and the long stretches of time away from her mistress. She was far enough away that she was spared most of Peggy’s complaints about the rough road and wearying journey.

  Other than Peggy, the member of their party who seemed to have the hardest time on the trip was Hannah; the old cook spent the endless hours alternating between staring out at the landscape in terror and breaking into inconsolable, silent tears. Each step the horse took, Hannah knew, she moved one step farther from her sister and home, on a journey that she knew would never be reversed.

  The first few days of the trip, they passed an endless number of abandoned farms. Entire families had fled, leaving doors barred and fields fallow. “No one wants to bother farming anymore, as the British raiding parties just come through and steal everything anyway,” Mr. Quigley explained. “There’s no point in laboring all year only to be robbed by the so-called keepers of the king’s peace.”

  “No farming. That’s why Washington and his men are starving.” Mrs. Quigley looked out over the rolling line of unsown fields.

  “Are there loads of Indians in these parts?” Hannah eyed the distant tree line.

  “Not to worry, sweet Hannah. The Indians have all switched over to our General Washington’s side at this point; they wouldn’t attack an armed colonial officer. Besides, the Indians have always been fond of General Arnold.”

 
“That so? Well, that’s a relief to hear.” Hannah nodded at the butler, but her expression showed no less terror, and she crossed herself just the same.

  They stopped each day only for midday luncheon and at sundown. When they arrived at their nightly resting spots, Arnold, Peggy, Major Franks, and Little Eddy went into the tavern or pub to have their supper and find a warm, covered bed, while the servants slept in the carriages, amidst the neighing horses and the sounds of the country evening.

  “It’s so loud,” Mrs. Quigley lamented, wrapping her cloak around her as she tried to find a comfortable position in the open carriage. “What is all that racket?”

  “It’s just the crickets,” Clara answered, marveling at the fact that her three companions, lifelong city dwellers, found the countryside loud. She herself remembered how noisy she’d found the city at first.

  “No, that! What was that? It was not a cricket.” Mrs. Quigley pointed out into the unknown darkness beyond the carriage.

  “An owl, Mrs. Quigley.” Clara tried not to laugh at the old woman. It was the music of her childhood, the balmy evenings on the farm; with those familiar sounds as her backdrop, she’d close her eyes, thinking of Oma. And then, her thoughts would inevitably turn to Cal, her mind wondering if he was nearby as she drifted into sleep.

  Aside from her happiness at being out in the open, in a familiar landscape, Clara’s feelings on the Arnold household’s move north were dreadfully mixed. Certainly, she was excited by the fact that they were moving deep into rebel territory—and very close to Cal.

  Yet Clara was hauntingly aware of the reason for the relocation to West Point—a knowledge that she alone possessed among the Arnolds’ servants. She could have shared her news with the Quigleys or Hannah—but they, like her, would not be able to take any steps to thwart the Arnolds’ plot. Plus, Mrs. Quigley had threatened to sack her the one time Clara had tried to mention it, and she had no interest in risking unemployment this deep in the countryside.

  She felt impotent; here she sat, saddled with the knowledge of the Arnolds’ treasonous plot, but she could think of no way to stop them. How could a poor, uneducated maid hope to alter the course of events set forth by such powerful figures as Peggy and Benedict Arnold?

  “Why do you fret so, my girl?” Mrs. Quigley had noticed Clara’s bouts of troubled daydreaming as they traveled closer to their destination, and she looked at the girl now with a mixture of puzzlement and consternation.

  “Do you . . . do you think this war will be over soon?” Clara asked. An end to the fighting was her best hope—it would mean that the Arnolds would not have time to follow through on their plans to cede West Point.

  “I believe it will be,” Mr. Quigley interjected. “Don’t you trouble yourself, Miss Clara Bell. All will be well soon enough,” the old man reassured her. How wrong he was, Clara could not yet tell.

  ON THE sixth day of their journey, their pace quickened, and Clara could tell that they had almost reached their destination.

  “Hurry on now, Franks. Almost to West Point!” General Arnold, whose leg had bothered him for much of the journey, was in visibly higher spirits as they moved north up the Hudson. “We should be there in time to take our midday dinner!”

  Clara eyed the wooded land surrounding West Point with great interest. Unlike the abandoned fields of Pennsylvania, here the people were active and their farms were fertile. Clara watched as the scene outside her carriage flowed from green expanses of softly rolling hills to leafy copses filled with flowers and wild strawberries, to sunlit golden fields filled with lumpy haystacks and acres of freshly plowed earth. Being in the countryside felt freeing, like a homecoming after her years in the noisy city. As she stared out over the wide-open fields and green mountains, feeling the warm sun on her face, Clara could momentarily put aside her anxiety over the Arnolds’ plotting and enjoy the country before her. But she could never forget for long.

  Cal had written to Clara before about West Point, the location that he’d heard Washington describe as “the key to the continent.” The fort of West Point was a series of rustic, hillside woodworks built high atop the western bank of the Hudson River. It occupied a strategic bend in the river, and was only a day’s ride north of New York City. Because of this crucial position, it was an outpost frequently visited by Washington and the rest of the colonial high command. Did Caleb ride through these parts on missions from his nearby fort at Verplanck? Clara wondered. She’d have to write him immediately and find out. Perhaps he could manage a visit.

  They finally arrived at a leafy riverside plot with a welcoming farmhouse, and the carriage rolled to a halt.

  “Well, Mrs. Arnold, welcome home.” Arnold looked approvingly at the generously proportioned wooden home. The farm had been left abandoned when the prominent local Tory leader, Beverley Robinson, had fled south to safety in British-held New York City. What a shame to leave a home like this behind, Clara thought. The shuttered farmhouse sat on the east bank, tucked back from the river on a soft slope, shaded by ancient, leafy oak trees.

  “How dreadful,” Peggy scowled at the grand white structure, clutching her son in her sweaty arms as she hopped down from the carriage. She turned to her husband, who limped alongside Barley toward the front of the farmhouse. “Benny, is this the Beverley Robinson house? Why did they tell us that we would be comfortable here?” When Arnold didn’t respond, Peggy sought her maid’s agreement. “Clara, don’t you find this home to be frightful?” Clara could not have felt less in agreement with her mistress, but that was the last thing she would have said.

  “Course she doesn’t, my Peg,” Arnold interjected, revealing that in fact he had heard his wife. “Clara’s got sense enough to appreciate a comfortable home.” Arnold winked to soften the remark, but Peggy pursed her lips in a tight frown.

  The horses were tied and members of the traveling group descended on the property in a hive of activity. Arnold and Peggy conducted a tour of the interior of the home and the exterior view of the fort on the opposite riverbank. Major Franks and Mr. Quigley hopped down and began unloading trunks, carpets, paintings, and stores of food that they’d brought from the now empty Shippen mansion. Clara picked up the baby and helped Mrs. Quigley and Hannah into the home through the back entrance, where the two older women found the kitchen and the servants’ wing.

  “Well, now, Hannah, look around at this kitchen. It should lift your spirits a bit.” Mrs. Quigley eyed the large hearth, wide enough to fit four kettles over the fire. The thick wooden beams of the interior gave the home a more rustic appearance than the brick Shippen mansion, but the kitchen was clean and cozy, with a large storeroom, scullery, and larder abutting the cooking area.

  “This’ll do just fine.” Mr. Quigley deposited a sack of potatoes in the storeroom and exited the kitchen.

  The cook didn’t appear particularly interested in her environs, but rather lowered herself onto the first wooden chair she could find, nearly collapsing onto the table like yet another sack of food.

  “Hannah, are you all right?” Mrs. Quigley exchanged a concerned glance with Clara, who was transferring sacks of sugar into the storeroom.

  “A little short of breath,” the cook replied, massaging her chest in slow, labored movements.

  Clara tried to comfort the old woman. “Well, you just stay put and rest. It’s been a long journey, and it’s taken its toll on all of us.”

  “Poor Brigitte. Always left behind, always forgotten. And now I’ll never see my sister again.” Hannah put her head into her cupped hands and wept, adding fresh tears to her already stained cheeks.

  “What shall we do?” Clara whispered to Mrs. Quigley in the privacy of the cool storeroom.

  “There’s nothing we can do, dear. We must let Hannah grieve,” the old woman answered.

  “Mrs. Quigley, please don’t misunderstand me, as you know I’m happy to have you, your husband, and Hannah here with me. But why didn’t you put up a fight? Why didn’t you three try to stay back in Philad
elphia?”

  Mrs. Quigley looked at Clara with patient exasperation. “Clara, what have I always told you? Don’t forget your lot in life. We are servants. Without Peggy Shippen . . . I mean, Peggy Arnold, the likes of Hannah and me would be out on our bottoms. Without food, clothing, or a home. You think another household would hire us, at our ages? How long do you think we’d last in the city streets? Or the country? Lord knows if it wasn’t the Indians who finished us off, it’d be the British. Or the highway bandits!” She cast a stern look of warning on Clara for emphasis. “Don’t underestimate the desperation facing a servant who loses her post.”

  “I understand.” Clara nodded, but inside she fumed. How was it possible for such a person as Peggy Arnold to hold people like the Quigleys, the Breunig sisters, even herself, hostage? It seemed the height of injustice, and her cheeks burned. But she checked her temper, nodding as she answered: “I’d best go help Major Franks with the rest of the unloading.”

  “Aye, you should. There’s a good girl. Don’t you worry about Little Eddy—Hannah and I will keep him in the kitchen.”

  IT WAS a warm morning in early July, just days after their arrival. The rooster in the yard had not yet crowed, and no one in the house was stirring. Clara rose from the straw pallet, leaving Hannah snoring on her own pallet beside the fire, and wandered from the kitchen out into the north field. In the indigo predawn light, she walked past the one-room cottage the Quigleys occupied—a home originally built for the property’s groundskeeper. Only Barley the dog heard her moving, and he joined her in the yard.