The Traitor's Wife

by Allison Pataki

  “Mr. Smith,” Peggy spoke in her sweetest, most honey-smooth tone as she threaded her arm through her host’s, remembering her purpose for attending the meeting. “I am so cold from the hours on the river. And I so regretted leaving last time without having requested a tour of your beautiful home. How about we go up together and you show me and my sister the inside of Smith House?”

  “I, uh, well.” Smith looked from Peggy to Arnold.

  “Please, dear husband,” Peggy crooned. “Won’t you free Mr. Smith from your tiresome business talk and allow him to give me a tour of his lovely home?” Peggy sounded as if her entire life’s hopes hung in the balance.

  “I suppose I will allow it,” Arnold sighed, turning to Smith.

  “You’re certain, Major General?” Smith asked.

  “It’s not easy to say no to her.” Arnold elbowed his host.

  “I imagine it’s damn well impossible.” Smith smiled back, as he thought a fraternal understanding passed between himself and Arnold. “Then it’s settled. Miss Clara Shippen?” Smith offered his free arm to Clara, who took it without a sound. As they walked past the two men, Peggy leaned over to give her husband a kiss on the cheek. Was Clara imagining it, or did her lady look at André as she did so?

  Smith led the ladies up the slope to his house. Once inside, Peggy wrapped her arms around herself. “Goodness, I’ve caught such a chill. How about some wine, Mr. Smith?”

  “Of course.” Smith smiled obligingly, crossing to the corner table to retrieve a glass carafe. “And Miss Clara? Some wine for you as well?”

  “No, thank you,” Clara answered, pretending to be mesmerized by the artwork on his walls. Smith poured just the one glass for Peggy.

  “Won’t you join me, Mr. Smith?” Peggy urged him. “So that we can make a toast?”

  Again, Smith bashfully obeyed, pouring himself a generous serving of wine.

  “To you.” Peggy beamed at her host, raising her glass.

  “No, no, to you, my lady.” Smith clinked Peggy’s glass as she giggled, and they both drained their drinks.

  “Ahh, that is fine wine.” Peggy wiped her mouth. “Shall we have one more glass?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Smith refilled their glasses. A series of toasts followed, trailed shortly after by immediate refills and further toasting.

  “To General Arnold.” Smith offered a toast, his red-stained lips pulled in a relaxed smile.

  “To victory in this war,” Peggy countered at the next round.

  After the two of them had finished the carafe, Smith commenced a very giggly tour, starting in the front hall and weaving his way through each individual room. Peggy listened with what appeared to be a keen interest, asking questions after every sentence. When had the Smith family come to America? How had they picked this location to erect their mansion? Was it awfully drafty in the winter? From where did they watch the sunset? And how about the sunrise?

  Clara followed dutifully behind. Mr. Smith appeared bright-eyed and energetic, thanks to Peggy’s jokes and constant chatter. When they arrived at the drawing room, Peggy gasped at the sight of the piano. She insisted on playing a song for her host, and one song stretched into three, and then six. Smith looked on, enchanted by this boisterous beauty who seemed to so thoroughly enjoy his company.

  Clara used this distraction to slide noiselessly from the room back toward a study, where she found a piece of clean parchment and inkwell. There, heart racing, she sat in the dark and wondered how to pen her letter. She suspected that Smith might read it. And Cal hadn’t guaranteed that he’d come retrieve it; she had to be certain that it would be opaque, should it fall into anyone else’s hands.

  She wrote the name.

  Cal,

  As she weighed how to continue, Clara heard laughter in the other room, followed by Smith’s voice. “Where has your sister gone, Mrs. Arnold?”

  “Good question. She’s always up to something. Clara!” Peggy called to her, and Clara’s nerves tightened. How could she convey this message?

  Cal,

  How is your new farm? Over here, the sum has been paid. The plan is to sell the milk cow and turn over the property. It will happen in two days. Plan accordingly.

  —CB

  Now she heard the sound of heavy boots on the wooden floor of Smith’s front hall, and two new voices walking toward the drawing room. Clara folded the letter and tucked it into the folds of her dress. Rushing back into the drawing room, she arrived just a moment before Arnold and André entered. Peggy and Smith sat in the corner, engaged in what appeared to be a riveting game of cards.

  “There you are, Miss Shippen.” Smith looked at her through droopy eyes, and it took Clara a moment to remember her part.

  “I wandered off, I’m afraid. I was just so intrigued by your paintings.”

  Smith beamed at this. Behind him, André entered the drawing room, Arnold limping in a moment later.

  “Is the meeting concluded already?” Peggy rose from the card table. “And I was just about to lose to Mr. Smith in bridge. You saved me just in time, my gallant General Arnold.” Peggy crossed the room to kiss her husband, and Clara seized her brief window of time to whisper to Smith.

  “Mr. Smith, if you please.” Clara took her host by the arm and directed him toward the far corner of the room. Behind them, Peggy was exchanging merry banter with her husband and André.

  “Yes, Miss Shippen, what is it?” Smith leaned in toward Clara, his breath sour with wine.

  “One of my former servants is in the colonial army, stationed nearby. I plan to sell some land I own, so I must tell him that he no longer has employment on our farm. Here, you may read the letter.” Clara unfolded the terse note and Smith read the straightforward, innocuous words. “If you please, I’ve informed him that I was coming to his area, and that I’d leave a note for him at your home. The post is so unreliable these days. If he comes, might you deliver this note to him? His name is Caleb Little.”

  Smith nodded, ever the obliging host. “I shall be happy to be of service to you, Miss Shippen.”

  “You are so kind.” Clara flashed what she hoped was her most beguiling smile, the one most resembling her mistress’s expression, before she turned and walked back toward the center of the large room.

  “My word, it’s past five in the morning already.” Mr. Smith scrutinized the small clock that dangled from a chain attached to his vest.

  “Lose track of the time, good man?” Arnold sat down on a yellow silk settee.

  “We must have played five games of bridge.” Peggy perched on the armrest beside her husband.

  “Indeed, I was so consumed by Mrs. Arnold’s charms, I lost all track of time.” Smith chortled.

  “Not a bad way to spend the dark hours of the night, being distracted for hours by Peggy’s . . . charms . . . is it?” André cracked a crooked grin. Arnold and Smith both shot him looks of disapproval.

  “I know not what you suggest, but I assure you it was all quite aboveboard,” Smith answered back defensively, looking to Arnold.

  “I have no doubt of your honor, Smith.” Arnold looked from his host to André, his expression turning sour.

  “How did it go?” Peggy leaned over and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder, redirecting his attention.

  Arnold exhaled, wincing as he extended his left knee. “We conducted our business satisfactorily, right, Mr. Anderson?”

  “Quite,” André answered, his eyes locking on Peggy with a hungry expression. She pretended not to notice.

  “Tea, anyone? Please, Mr. Anderson,” Smith entreated his guest, “remove your cloak and make yourself comfortable. I shall bring us all a warm drink.” Smith tugged on André’s wool cloak, and before André could stop him the navy overcoat had fallen to the floor, revealing the unmistakable red of André’s uniform.

  “Oh my!” Smith gasped, clutching his hand to his mouth. “What is the meaning of this?” He looked, eyes aghast, from André to Arnold.

  “Now, n
ow, now, Mr. Smith. It is not how it appears.” Arnold raised his hands, reaching toward his host with a consoling gesture.

  “I certainly hope not, for how it appears is that I’ve just unwittingly welcomed a redcoat into my drawing room!”

  “You have not.” Arnold looked to André for help. But André did not offer an excuse.

  “Mr. Anderson is a spy, you see, for our side,” Arnold spoke awkwardly, clearing his throat repeatedly as if to earn himself more time.

  Peggy picked up the line of justification. “He has to wear the coat as part of . . . his spy charade.”

  “Be that as it may”—Smith looked back at André, still suspicious—“the cock is about to crow and the sun will rise in one hour, and I cannot have a man in a regimental uniform walking out from my house. He’d be apprehended immediately—they run patrols all through these woods. No, Mr. Anderson, you shall have to change.”

  “My boat is right there,” André spoke up, pointing out the window to the river. “Just a brief walk down to the river, and they shall spot me and row to pick me up.”

  “It is close, I grant you that, but the militia might be closer. And already on the shore. I cannot have an English uniform walking out of my front door. You must change.”

  André sighed, his tone dismissive. “No need for that. All the men aboard that vessel believe me to be loyal to the English Crown. I shall stay in the uniform.”

  Smith cut him off. “I will not be accused of hosting a British officer, or someone who dresses like one.” Smith now stared at André like he would a filthy dog. “On this matter, my good sirs, I will not yield.”

  The standoff ended with André nodding his consent. Arnold agreed that caution was prudent.

  “I will give you plain clothes.” Smith sighed, his look conveying to Arnold that this visit had become entirely inconvenient.

  “Good man.” Arnold nodded.

  As he prepared to leave the room, Smith walked over to Arnold and whispered, loudly, “I wish you would have told me he was wearing the British uniform to my house!”

  Before Arnold could answer, the sound of a thunderous explosion shook the room, causing the flowers to quiver in their vases. Peggy shrieked.

  “God!” André braced himself against the back of a chair as a second roar sounded. Clara steadied herself on the back of the couch.

  “What is happening?” Arnold looked around the room at the paintings on the walls, hanging lopsided after the blasts.

  “My heavens!” Smith ran to the large drawing room window, looking out toward the river. There, in the feeble light of the predawn morning, they watched as a series of explosions sent ripples of orange light across the sky.

  “They are attacking my ship,” André exclaimed, losing his customary indifference.

  “My heavens, they are firing on the Vulture,” Arnold concurred.

  Smith, seeing the vessel for the first time in the early light, turned from the warship to André, eyes narrowing in increased apprehension. “Why did you come on an imperial battleship? Who are you exactly?”

  Neither André nor Arnold answered Smith, but they watched in dumbfounded silence as the Vulture hoisted its anchors and caught a gust of wind to fly south. Three small colonial gunships gave frantic chase in its wake.

  André’s expression was now one of unadulterated horror. “Where is my ship going? Wait! Wait!” He pounded at the window as the Vulture’s sails billowed in the wind, speeding the warship south.

  The ship gone, a tension-fraught quiet remained in the room. Smith stared at André, while the rest of the company looked at the river, at the spot where the Vulture had bobbed just a moment earlier. Clara felt herself growing more uneasy with each minute, and she wanted nothing more than to be gone from this ill-fated meeting.

  “Well, Mr. Anderson,” Arnold spoke first. “You’ll have to cut through the lines on horseback, I’m afraid. Best not to set out until the dark descends tonight.” Arnold turned to Smith. “Smith, you are to convey Mr. Anderson safely across the lines. Row him across after sunset and take him as far as the British outpost at White Plains.” A small gurgling sound indicated Smith’s further irritation at the morning’s strange turn of events. Then, turning to his wife, Arnold said, “Are you ready?”

  “W-w-w-what? General Arnold, you’re leaving?” Smith’s mouth fell open. André, too, appeared uneasy.

  “We must be off, Mr. Smith.” Arnold patted his host on the shoulder, speaking close to him. “I trust you to convey this gentleman safely back to the line. Remember, he is a very important person, but his mission is of a most delicate and secretive nature. Only you and I are aware of it.”

  “You—you’re going to leave me with this man?” Smith resisted, a look of incredulity on his face.

  Arnold sought to sway him with bluster and flattery. “You’re up to the task, Smith. Come now, we all must play our parts.”

  “But we will never be able to cross the lines unnoticed.”

  Arnold considered their dilemma. “Here, take this.” Arnold quickly scrawled a message on a piece of paper. “If anyone stops you, or interrogates you, you just give them this pass signed by me. I am the commanding officer of these parts, and I say Mr. Anderson may have safe passage back to British lines.”

  André still stared out the window, his features taut. The river had settled back to a still calm surface, showing no sign that the Vulture had ever anchored on that spot.

  “Cheer up, we’ll have you back with them at nightfall.” Arnold crossed the room to André, rapping him on the back. “Mr. Anderson, it was a pleasure. Thank you for your . . . payment.” Arnold patted a small velvet pouch hanging from the belt around his breeches. “I will look forward to my next installment once the transaction has been completed.” Arnold turned from André back to his host. “Mr. Smith, just make sure that Mr. Anderson makes it back across the line safely.”

  Smith shook his head, preparing to answer, but Arnold cut him off, turning to his wife.

  “We best be off, my peach. We have an important visitor coming for breakfast tomorrow morning, and we must make sure that all is in order.”

  Peggy turned her face toward her husband, and Arnold thought that her broad, inviting smile was for him. What he did not realize was that his wife’s eyes actually fell on the figure standing directly over his shoulder—the dark, handsome British officer whom she would look to once she made her grand reentry into the British ballroom.

  IX.

  I dig frantically, growing short of breath under the exertion.

  The spade hits the dirt hard, slicing deeper into the soft earth with every strike. In front of me, the old oak tree still bears the scars of the switch, scars that my own skin would carry had Arnold not beaten it instead of me.

  Now the oak tree will be the shelter of these crucial objects. Treasures which my lady will soon notice missing; will I be able to enact my plan before she does?

  I glance over my shoulder to look once more at the house. It looks so calm from here. My lady is still sleeping, tossing fretfully in her troubled dreams. The men are in the house, busy with plans and impervious to the suspicion that the maid, an unnoticed little imp, could be playing such a crucial role in this battle.

  I turn back to my digging. Time is running short and I must bury these items. Right here, in this hole, I will hide the evidence that comprises my sole chance at escape. What were the words I read in Oma’s Bible? “The truth shall set you free.”

  The truth will be hidden in a hole in the ground beside the old oak tree. If revealed correctly, it will indeed set me free. And it could be the key to saving a nation.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “In Whom Can We Trust?”

  September 25, 1780

  West Point, New York

  CLARA ROSE from bed. Sleep had eluded her the entire night. The sun hadn’t yet appeared, but already the morning was warm. The predawn peace of the kitchen and the sleeping home mocked the rush of feelings Clara wrestled with as she
lifted her weary body from her straw pallet. General Washington was coming today, along with his entire party, which included the man from the West Indies who had become a favorite, Alexander Hamilton, and the French nobleman, the Marquis de Lafayette. That alone would have sufficed to fray Clara’s nerves; but then there was the Arnolds’ plot, ripe and ready to be enacted.

  Clara dressed in the faint glow of the kitchen fire’s dying embers. How did one dress on a day like this? she wondered. Vanity felt absurd at such a time, when the world threatened to crumble around her. And besides, she knew perfectly well that no one would be looking at her when they had the option of staring at Mrs. Peggy Arnold.

  Clara slid into a calico dress of white cotton with the pattern of blue and green flowers, tucking her hair under a mobcap and wrapping a fichu around her shoulders. Mrs. Quigley entered the kitchen just as Clara was coaxing a fresh fire from the hearth.

  “Clara.” The old housekeeper wore a disgruntled expression and had puffy eyes, and she too looked as if she had not enjoyed a good night’s rest.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Quigley.” Clara replaced the fire poker and grabbed her apron from the hook.

  “Not a good morning at all.” Mrs. Quigley scowled, looking into the fire. “What I wouldn’t give to have Hannah manning the kitchen on a day like this.”

  Clara fixed tea for them as the old housekeeper took out a mixing bowl and began slicing a bowl of peaches Clara had picked the previous day. “Lord, this cobbler will never be ready in time,” the housekeeper lamented.

  Clara placed a cup of tea in front of the housekeeper.

  “Did you arrange the guest rooms upstairs?” Mrs. Quigley stopped her slicing momentarily and turned to Clara.

  “Aye.” Clara nodded. “Swapped the bed linens for fresh sheets. General Washington will be in the guest room upstairs on the north side, the French gentleman on the south side.”

  “That Markee bloke?”

  “Yes, I believe he’s called the Marquis de Lafayette.”

  “We’ll just call him sir,” Mrs. Quigley decided.