The Traitor's Wife

by Allison Pataki

  “Well, Benny, invite him to meet.”

  Arnold was studying the letter and didn’t seem to notice his wife’s odd behavior. “We can’t have him here, Peg.” Arnold shook his head. “It’s far too deep behind colonial lines. Someone will see him. It’s not safe.”

  Peggy crossed her arms and thought about this.

  Arnold continued. “I need to meet him somewhere in No Man’s Land, right on the border of the two lines.”

  “Where is that?” Peggy asked.

  “Tarrytown on this side of the river. Haverstraw on the other side.”

  Peggy answered, “How about that fellow we had luncheon with a few months ago? That Joshua Smith fellow? He fawned all over you, and he seemed thick-skulled enough to fall for the idea of hosting a meeting for you.”

  “Good idea,” Arnold answered.

  “When will it happen?”

  “André has requested a meeting on the eleventh of September. I shall write to accept, and once I get an agreement from Smith, I’ll write André back with directions. It’ll have to be the middle of the night, so that André can slip over the line undetected. He’ll most likely come by boat.”

  “Let’s hope Smith agrees.” Peggy faced her husband. “The man is clearly an admirer of yours, but will he ask too many questions?”

  Arnold mulled this over. “The man is not particularly smart, and wants nothing more than to ingratiate himself with me. But perhaps not to the extent that he’d allow me to discuss treason with a British officer in front of his nose . . .”

  “You shall have to lie,” Peggy said. “Smith can’t know that André is a British officer. Not while we still question where Smith’s loyalty rests.”

  “André shall have to come in plain clothes,” Arnold agreed.

  Clara made a note in her mind of all the details of this treasonous meeting, determined to relay this information to Cal.

  “That will work.” Peggy nodded, hopping back into bed. “When shall we go?”

  “ ‘We’?” Arnold looked at his wife.

  “I shall go with you, of course,” Peggy answered, summoning him toward the bed, “seeing as I am the liaison.”

  “My dear lady.” Arnold’s voice betrayed incredulity. “I see no good reason why you should hazard your comfort, and more importantly, your safety, to attend this meeting. It is between John André and myself.”

  Clara braced herself for what was surely coming. When Peggy spoke, her tone was biting.

  “And was it between you and André when I wrote the first letter initiating contact? And how about as you’ve negotiated the terms? And shall it be between you and André alone when the fate of our family, our child, is decided by this plot?” Peggy took her face in her hands and erupted in sobs, her eyes peeking through the spaces in between her fingers to ensure that her husband watched. “Benedict Arnold, you have hurt your dear wife deeply. Oh, Clara.” Peggy summoned her maid away from the hearth. “Clara, run and fetch me a warm cloth, my head ails me so.”

  When Clara returned to the room, Arnold was perched beside his wife on the bed, his efforts at assuaging her grief proving futile.

  “You would cut me out of these negotiations as if I were nothing more than a servant.” Peggy sobbed, taking the cloth from Clara and dabbing her forehead. “Be gone from my sight, Benedict Arnold.”

  This distressed Arnold, who stayed beside his wife’s bed. “My dear, of course you shall not be cut out—I shall return with a report, which I will share in full. I simply will not risk your safety on this excursion.”

  Peggy looked at her husband, her weepy eyes sharpening in focus. “But you overlook a key point, Benny.” Clara sensed that Peggy was recalibrating her strategy, having failed at her first attempt.

  “Smith shall be hosting this meeting, and he shall expect to be a participant. If you and Johnny, I mean, André, wish to speak in private without your host, Smith might take offense. Or worse, grow suspicious.”

  Arnold listened as his wife described this scenario, stroking the whiskers on his chin in thought. “If only there were a way to divert his attention for a few hours . . .” Peggy floated the words, without completing the suggestion. Arnold retreated into contemplative silence.

  “We need to distract Smith, do we not?” Peggy watched as her husband paced the bedroom.

  “Fine.” Arnold nodded once, his jaw clenched. “You will come, to distract Smith.”

  Peggy’s face brightened. “Indeed,” she sighed, retreating into her own imagination to conjure up the scene. “I’ll wear my finest gown and I will entertain Smith all night while you and Johnny discuss our plans in the other room.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Peg.” Arnold’s ruddy cheeks flushed. “Why do you keep calling him Johnny?”

  “JOHNNY’S FAVORITE dress.” Peggy stood in her shift, staring into her wardrobe. She exhaled slowly, wistfully, eyeing the rose-colored gown she’d worn to the lawn soiree at Lord Rawdon’s home years earlier. Clara remembered the gown and her first evening at her new job as if it had occurred just a month ago.

  “He always loved this one.” Peggy fingered the pink silk softly. “But I wonder if I can even fit into it now.” She pulled the dress off its hook, turning determinedly to Clara. “You must squeeze me into it.”

  Wrapping her arms around a poster of her bed, Peggy braced herself. “Tie my stays as tight as they will go. I must fit into that dress,” she demanded. Biting her lip, Peggy tolerated the pain as Clara stitched up the corset.

  “Goodness, that baby ruined my waist.” Peggy clutched her abdomen. “I don’t think I’ll be able to breathe.” She moved slowly, pulling her hoopskirt up to hip-height. Clara unfastened the buttons on the back of the gown and slid it over the curves of Peggy’s body.

  “Well, can I pull it off?” Peggy waited until the buttons were fastened before walking to the mirror. The gown was more snug than it had been years earlier, but it fit.

  “Oh.” She performed a twirl for herself. “It’s so tight. But it’ll do. And he’ll like this part.” She pointed to her bosom, which was fuller than it had been, causing her fleshy breasts to spill out immodestly over the top of the gown.

  “Yes, this will do just fine.” Peggy clapped and performed a second spin before the mirror, apparently returning not only to her eighteen-year-old wardrobe, but also her eighteen-year-old personality.

  She wore her hair in its highest, most vaulted pouf, and she coated her cheeks in rouge, her wrists in rose water. As Clara looked on at her fully dressed mistress, she felt that, but for the fuller breasts and the soft lines around her eyes, she could have been looking once more at the celebrated young belle Peggy Shippen.

  “Clara, go and fetch Benny, tell him I’m ready.” Peggy daubed another splash of perfume across her neckline. “Oh, yes, I’ve been ready for quite some time.”

  Clara and Little Eddy watched from the back garden as Arnold pushed them off, their small rowboat cutting silently through the glassy water at dusk, pointing south down the Hudson toward Haverstraw. Toward John André.

  CLARA RAN to meet Peggy and Benedict the next morning when she spotted them rowing ashore outside the Robinson house. They had been out all night, and it seemed that they returned in a tense, fatigued silence.

  “I want breakfast and then my feather bed.” Peggy yawned, taking Clara’s outstretched hand as she stepped out of the rowboat. She let the bottom hem of her pink dress drag carelessly across the mud, and Clara watched with resigned gloom, knowing she’d be tasked with removing those stains.

  “You seem incredibly relaxed, considering we’ve just spent the entire night rowing, risking our own necks, to attend a meeting at which our counterparty never showed!” Arnold dislodged the oars from the rowboat and threw them on the ground. “I intend to write a furiously worded letter to Major André, telling him that we withdraw our entire offer.” Arnold limped up to a stand, leaning on his cane as he wobbled out of the boat. As he thundered toward the house, he grumbled loud eno
ugh for Clara to overhear, “He disrespects me? I won’t have it! I’ll tell him so!”

  “Benny, you will do no such thing.” Peggy clutched her husband’s arm and wheeled him around to face her, as she would a petulant child.

  “Peggy,” Arnold spoke quietly, like a teakettle moments before it erupts into a boil, “I will not negotiate with men who show me disrespect.”

  “There must be some good reason why André didn’t show up at Smith’s house last night. Trust me.”

  “A yellow liver?” Arnold spat, his features taut.

  “Just give it a few days. We shall hear why,” Peggy urged, turning toward the house before her husband could answer.

  “Ale, now!” Arnold thundered into the bright dining room, where a breakfast table was set with a steaming spread of bacon, roast beef, smoked trout, eggs, fresh bread, butter and cheese, and peach cobbler.

  “Look at this breakfast!” Peggy sat down, spearing herself a piece of bacon. “Clara, get me coffee. No, actually, make it wine.”

  Inside the kitchen, Mr. Quigley was polishing silver while his wife sat with Little Eddy on her lap. All three sets of eyes fixed on Clara when she entered, with Little Eddy laughing happily at the sight of her.

  “Have they returned?” Mrs. Quigley asked.

  “Indeed, they’ve just sat down to breakfast.”

  “Did they say what in the devil’s name they have been up to, rowing down the river and staying out all night?” Mrs. Quigley continued.

  Clara sat down opposite the old woman and the baby. She dropped her head into her hands. When she didn’t answer the question, Mrs. Quigley spoke up.

  “Well? Do you know something that we don’t, child? Do you know where the mister and missus were last night?” Mrs. Quigley peppered her with questions before Clara could even figure out how to answer the old woman.

  “If you know something, Clara, then out with it!” the housekeeper pressed her.

  “Mr. Quigley, you might want to sit down for this.” Clara sighed. The old man heeded her advice and lowered himself down beside his wife.

  “I’ve heard them speaking enough to know with certainty where the Arnolds went last night . . .” Clara wavered. “General and Mrs. Arnold went south to meet Major John André.”

  The shock on their faces gave Clara some small comfort. It was a relief to know that she no longer carried this vile secret alone. That two others now shared her burden and perhaps might help her find a solution.

  Mrs. Quigley shook her head, irritated. “No, Clara. Not this tale again. I told you never to mention it.”

  “Constance, please.” Mr. Quigley overrode his wife, a rare display, which she heeded. “Clara.” The butler looked back to the maid. “You mean . . . Major André . . . the former suitor of Miss Margaret Shippen?”

  “The very same.” Clara nodded.

  “The Major André of the British Army?” Mr. Quigley asked, his facial features tight.

  Clara nodded.

  “But I don’t understand.” Mr. Quigley looked at Clara in confusion. Next he turned to his wife. “Constance, do you mean to tell me that you’ve had knowledge of this correspondence?”

  “Clara mentioned something to me months ago, but I told her to keep out of the Arnolds’ business. Besides, I was certain that she was mistaken. It can’t be true.”

  “You never told me?” Mr. Quigley asked. “But never mind that, we shall discuss that later. Clara, please explain everything to me.”

  “They have been corresponding for quite some time now, you see.” Clara felt her shoulders growing lighter as she released the news, as if she were shedding a heavy cloak.

  “They have been? But how?” the butler asked.

  “How many letters have been delivered from a John Anderson?” Clara looked back at them with an expressionless stare. “John Anderson is John André.”

  Understanding crossed both their aged faces.

  “And what sort of correspondence have they been conducting? To what purpose?” Mr. Quigley asked.

  “Perhaps they are attempting to have André switch sides to the colonies,” his wife chimed in.

  “Quite the contrary,” Clara answered, avoiding Eddy’s pudgy hands as they reached for her; his simple, childish sweetness seemed too far at odds with the conversation. “Major André is now the head of intelligence for General Clinton.” Clara paused, unsure of whether or not to reveal the full extent of what she knew. Did they need to know how deep the Arnolds’ treacherous plans extended?

  “General and Mrs. Arnold are interested in selling André top-secret information on West Point. To allow for its seizure by the British.”

  “Treason?” Mr. Quigley gasped, putting a hand to his lips.

  “Hush, John!” Mrs. Quigley scolded him, placing her palms protectively over Little Eddy’s ears. “Lower your voice. They might hear!” She leaned toward Clara. “Is it true? They really intend to turn over West Point?”

  “And they themselves would switch sides,” Clara added.

  “I don’t want to believe that.” Mrs. Quigley exhaled. As if sensing the mood of the room, Little Eddy began to wail.

  “Nor did I, Mrs. Quigley.” Clara looked at the old woman, sighing. “I know that you wish for no part in this.” After a pause, Clara admitted: “I’ve told Caleb.”

  “Caleb knows? I bet he is fit to be tied over it.” Mrs. Quigley began to bounce the crying baby on her knees.

  “We are trying to figure out what we can do to stop them,” Clara said.

  “Stop them? Good heavens, child, have you gone mad? You two cannot involve yourselves in something this dangerous! Going up against a general as powerful and well-liked as Benedict Arnold? It’ll be your word against his, and you and Caleb will both end up hanging.” Mrs. Quigley’s gaze was a stern warning, and it burned into Clara’s face, causing her to shift in her chair.

  “But we can’t just sit back,” Clara argued, stunned that the woman still advised against taking action, even after all that she had heard.

  “Course you can! And that’s precisely what you’ll do!” Mrs. Quigley insisted. “What—you think that you, a lowly maid, will be able to thwart a plot between the highest ranks of both armies? The only thing we can do is hope it doesn’t happen. Remember your place, girl. You’re a servant. You serve them tea but you don’t get involved in their dealings.” Mrs. Quigley’s harsh tone had further upset Little Eddy, who continued to cry.

  “That’s not what your nephew says.” Clara pushed back, her throat burning. “It’s a free country.”

  “Not yet it isn’t,” Mrs. Quigley said, her voice sharp. “And with talk such as this, neither one of you is likely to live to see the day.”

  “Enough.” Mr. Quigley put his arms between them. “Constance, please.” Then, turning to Clara, he said, “I don’t like it any more than you do. But she’s right, Clara.”

  “Mr. Quigley, please,” Clara pleaded with him from across the table. “There’s got to be something we can do.”

  Mr. Quigley rubbed his temples in a clockwise motion. And then, he reached for the pile of mail on the farm table. He thumbed through the papers and retrieved a small envelope. “A letter this morning in the post, from a Mr. John Anderson.” He pulled the letter out of the pile, sighing. “I of course had no idea from whom it actually came.”

  Mr. Quigley slid the letter across the table to Clara. “You can deliver this to your mistress,” he said, his face serious. “Or, you can forget you ever saw it.” His eyes traced a line directly for the hearth, where a fire burned bright. A fire that could incinerate this piece of paper, removing it from sight forever.

  This was her chance, her chance to atone for the aid she’d provided to this plot thus far. Clara picked up the treacherous letter. Her heart beat faster. The Arnolds would think that André hadn’t showed and he hadn’t written. Perhaps General Arnold would in fact withdraw his offer, as he had threatened to do. She had the chance to thwart their plan entirely, and she would ta
ke it.

  “There you are,” Peggy turned the corner and appeared in the kitchen. She saw the scene—the three servants sitting at the table, and scowled. “Sorry to interrupt your leisurely morning chat. Where’s my wine, Clara?” Peggy’s eyes glared at the maid.

  “Oh, yes, ma’am.” Clara rose, keeping the letter from André in her hand as she moved toward the wine.

  “What’s that?” Peggy asked, crossing the kitchen in two quick strides.

  “What’s what?” Clara looked at her mistress, pulling her hand and the letter behind her back.

  “That.” Peggy reached around and snatched the paper from Clara’s hand to look at the envelope. “This letter which you just attempted to conceal is intended for my husband.” She fixed an accusatory glare on her maid.

  “Yes, Miss Peggy. I was just delivering it.” Clara averted her eyes to the floor, hoping her lady wouldn’t be able to read the lies on her face.

  Peggy studied her a minute, apparently undecided as to whether she might trust Clara. “Bring me my wine.” She clutched the letter tightly, turning back toward the dining room. “And once we’ve finished breakfast, I want you to help me undress. I want this dress laundered and pressed and back in my closet. For the next meeting.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Clara nodded, grabbing the wine and ale from the counter.

  Peggy turned on her heels, Clara following behind with the carafe of wine. “Benny”—Peggy waved the letter wildly as she entered the dining room—“look what I have: a letter from John Anderson!”

  “Is that so?”

  “I told you we’d hear from him—surely there’s an excuse. Read it now.” Peggy handed the parcel to him. Arnold tore it open and read aloud to his wife.

  My Dear Sir and Lady,

  You have no doubt heard by now that my ship was fired upon just south of our meeting spot.

  My apologies for any concern or inconvenience this may have caused. Please be assured that I was thwarted not for a lack of will, but due to the unforeseen circumstances.

  May I suggest the evening of September 22, around midnight when it turns over to the 23rd, for our next meeting? Same spot.