Clara charged into Peggy’s bedroom, where her mistress stood before the mirror, holding up a cream-colored gown. “What is it?” Her mistress’s eyes widened when she spotted Clara hovering on the threshold of her merry, sunlit chamber.
“Master’s coming!” It was all Clara had time to say. The two ladies heard him close by now, using his impressive upper body strength to pull himself up the stairs. The floorboards groaned beneath his boots as he lurched upward. Clara looked to Peggy and watched as her features turned horror-struck. She understood her thoughts; no words were needed between them after all these years.
“But surely it’s not . . . it can’t be?” Peggy let the cream-colored gown slip from her hands to the floor.
“Peggy.” Arnold bounded through the door, his thick, hulking frame atremble in the doorway. Breathless, he gasped, “They’ve found us out. All is lost!” And then, as quickly as he had entered, General Arnold exited back out the bedroom doorway.
Peggy was left alone with Clara, struggling to make sense of the announcement.
“What did he say?” Peggy’s face was drained of color. Clara knew what was coming: it was a scene she had seen numberless times—a tantrum, a litany of shrieks and sobs—but with a newfound hysteria beneath it. “Benedict!” Peggy shouted at the empty space in the doorway where her husband had just stood. “Benedict Arnold!” But Arnold didn’t answer, and he didn’t return her cries. Peggy turned to her maid, her face ashen. “How can this be, Clara? He says we are ruined!” Clara was silent.
“All is lost, he says.” Peggy repeated her husband’s words aloud in the abandoned bedroom, as if through repetition she would find sense. “But I don’t understand how.”
Downstairs, Clara heard Arnold once again conversing with the bewildered messenger. Arnold was peppering him with questions faster than the man could answer.
“Did they ascertain with whom this spy had had his rendezvous? Did the spy talk? Did he offer up the name of his fellow conspirator?” Arnold demanded. The messenger, bewildered, answered that he knew nothing of the matter, simply that he had been ordered to deliver this letter with haste.
“But did you hear anything more, man? Anything at all?” Arnold probed. “The letter says the spy was apprehended with secret documents. Documents intended to give over the fort at West Point, and the body of our Commander Washington. Who gave him these documents?” Arnold’s voice boomed down at the messenger from the deep recesses of his stocky frame.
The messenger spoke quietly, apologetically. “Sorry, sir, I don’t think they know yet. At least they did not yet know at the time I set out with this message.”
This answer must have satisfied Arnold, must have convinced him that there was still time. Very little, but it might be enough.
“All right, man.” Arnold nodded. “Here is my reply.” Putting a sealed paper in the messenger’s palm, Arnold continued, “Ride back to Colonel Jameson with this at once. And do not stop on the road to speak to anyone—do you hear me? That is an order. Even if you pass General Washington’s party along the way. You ride south and do not stop or turn back here for any purpose.”
“Yes, sir.” The bewildered messenger took Arnold’s note and set out.
The dust kicked up from the rider’s horse had not yet settled when another knock rapped on the front door below. “Good heavens.” Clara looked out Peggy’s bedroom window toward the front yard and saw the familiar figure of Major David Franks. Behind her now, Peggy was wailing like a menacing banshee.
“Hello?” Franks knocked on the front door again.
“Oh, what does he want?” Clara muttered, trying to think amid her mistress’s bloodcurdling cries.
“Hello, General Arnold? Mrs. Arnold?” The aide let himself in through the front door, so that now he called into the interior of their home. “Hello? Are you at home?”
“What is it, Franks?” Clara paused at the top of the stairs. She was certain that the aide could now hear the wails of Peggy from the bedroom.
“Oh, hello, Clara. Is something amiss?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Clara answered shortly. “How may I help you?”
“I’ve come to tell the Arnolds that His Excellency General George Washington approaches. I’ve just seen his party riding south on the post road.” Franks adjusted his vest in a self-satisfied way.
“General Arnold is in the parlor. Please see yourself in,” Clara called back.
“Greetings, General Arnold.” The aide entered to find his harried boss pacing and seemingly deep in thought. “I’ve come with the news, sir, that the General George Washington, accompanied by the honorable Marquis de Lafayette, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, and the rest of his staff, shall be arriving in just a matter of minutes.”
Arnold looked to his aide, clearly laboring to keep his face from reflecting panic. Managing some quick, mumbled statement about needing to go to West Point immediately, to “prepare the welcome reception for General Washington,” Arnold tapped the aide on the shoulders in a gesture of forced camaraderie.
“A welcome reception? I was unaware of any welcome reception. I thought the entire group was to breakfast here with Mrs. Arnold?”
Arnold did not offer a reply, but quit the room and loped quickly into the dining room, from where he cut into the buttery.
Through the window in Miss Peggy’s room, Clara spotted a navy blue blur running to the stables, with a vigor uncharacteristic of Arnold’s wounded legs. Just minutes later, the figure of Arnold emerged from the stables, atop a hastily saddled Hickory. The horse galloped across the yard and down the sloped incline to the river, Arnold now just a faint speck of navy blue atop the shrub-line. It looked to Clara like her master was in flight, soaring to the river, to the ship called Vulture.
FOR HIS part, Franks remained alone in the parlor, muttering aloud as he tried to make sense of his general’s swift and inexplicable departure. “I pass a uniformed rider flying in the opposite direction and he does not stop to speak. Then Arnold sets out onto the river. Something very odd is going on, very odd indeed.”
The thundering of the lone rider’s horse hooves was nothing compared to the clamor that shook the house when Washington’s party arrived.
“They’re here!” Peggy hissed, running into bed and burrowing under her bedcovers. Barley the dog barked below as they approached, setting the horses to neighing.
“I can’t go, I can’t do it!” Peggy buried her head in her pillows.
The two women heard them arriving with all the noise one would expect from a military party. Clara could not resist looking out the window.
“Whoa!” The party halted before the farmhouse. Each man alighted from his horse and handed his reins over to Mr. Quigley. Barley circled the group, barking and wagging his tail.
“Come to me, Clara!” Peggy ordered her maid from bed. “Away from that window. Come hold my hand.”
Clara, mesmerized with the scene of their arrival, barely heard the order, and stayed perched at the window until the last of the men had entered the front door and slipped from her sight.
A rowdy chorus of sturdy boots fell on the wooden floorboards below. She heard the slamming front door, luggage being dropped, and jovial laughter of comrades-in-arms who had long ago become friends. It was clear that these men thought they had nothing more planned for this morning than a hearty breakfast with a top general and his charming young wife.
“Careful, men.” Above the chatter rose one voice—one voice that, when speaking, quieted all the others. “We are now in civilized society. Let’s behave accordingly.” Washington’s calm, deep voice was muffled yet commanding from his place in the drawing room below them. When he spoke, the others listened. When he laughed, the others laughed. Clara could sense the authority of the commander-in-chief even from the second floor; it permeated the very wooden structure of the farmhouse.
“General Washington, what an honor!” The ladies heard Franks walk into the drawing room and introduce himsel
f to Washington.
“Ma’am, hadn’t you better go down and welcome them?” Clara suggested, looking at her mistress’s stricken face.
“Must I go?” Peggy was a shadow of her former self.
“Yes, you must,” Clara answered. If not you, then who else? There is no longer a master in this home. “My lady, think of Little Eddy.”
Peggy burrowed deeper into her bed, covering her face with a wall of downy pillows. Clara watched in horror, wondering whether her mistress was trying to suffocate herself. Peggy emerged after several moments, her face as white as the pillows, but set like clay. But still, she did not speak.
“I shall go, Miss Peggy, to tell them of breakfast.” Clara’s heart raced at the thought of beholding General George Washington. “Come down when you are ready, my lady.”
Peggy sighed, and when she spoke to her maid it was barely a whisper. “Seat them at the dining room table. I shall be down.”
Peggy wanted to rail, Clara knew. To erupt as she had so many times before over problems far less grave than this. But she was a tried and tested performer, Peggy Shippen Arnold. She knew how to distract men, how to allure men, how to manipulate them so that they saw only what she wanted them to see. Hadn’t she been preparing for this moment her whole life?
“I have to do this,” Peggy said to herself. “I must do this.”
CLARA DESCENDED the stairs and found the party in the drawing room, encircling General Washington as he looked out the window toward West Point. “You see how well protected it is by its position atop that cliff?” Washington was speaking to Hamilton and a red-haired companion, pointing toward the fort. “I shall say it again: the key to the continent sits atop that granite cliff.”
“Begging your pardon, sirs.” Clara hovered in the doorway, lowering her eyes as she curtsied. The entire company of men turned their eyes suddenly to her, and she could do nothing to stop the crimson flush that tinted her face.
“Hello, miss.” General Washington bowed in her presence, even though it was a courtesy he did not need to show a poor servant girl. The others, including Franks and the man she recognized as Alexander Hamilton, followed his lead. The red-haired man in a light-colored suit, surely the Marquis de Lafayette, smiled at Clara.
“Mrs. Arnold has asked me to inform you that she will be right down.” Clara finished with a quick curtsy.
“Thank you, young lady,” Washington replied, his words strong like cannon fire after the timidity of her own announcement. He had a kind smile and an open, friendly manner about him that softened the impact made by his imposing figure and military regalia. He was dressed as they always described him in the newspapers: a uniform coat of a deep navy blue with gold buttons and cuffs. Epaulets of gold satin and fringe sat atop his broad shoulders, enhancing their already wide appearance. He seemed to take up half of the space in the drawing room.
“I hope your master and mistress will not mind that we’ve let ourselves in and, I’m afraid, made ourselves quite at home,” Washington said.
“My lady will not mind in the slightest,” Clara answered. “In the meantime, may I show Your Excellency to the dining room?”
“Please, just call me ‘General.’ ” Washington smiled gently at Clara. “What is it with this ‘Excellency’ nonsense?” Washington turned to Hamilton, erupting in amicable laughter. “I’m not a king, nor do I wish to be.”
The men rose at Washington’s direction, the floorboards creaking under the dozens of boots and heavy legs. Clara led them out of the room.
“Hello.”
They all heard the light footsteps at the same time and turned. Peggy stood at the top of the dark stairwell, the light of the second-floor windows illuminating her from behind so that she was bathed in a white glow. “General Washington, even more handsome in person.” Her voice was laced with a girlish sweetness, as if the sight of Washington filled her with delight. How many times had Clara heard Peggy Arnold rail against this man—calling him an impotent tobacco farmer, faulting him for her husband’s disappointing military career, blaming him for ruining their lives? Yet here she stood, beaming at Washington as if he were a suitor at a ball and she wanted nothing more than to dance with him.
“Mrs. Arnold!” Washington seemed to grow even taller under her admiring gaze. He walked to the bottom of the stairs and bowed, his towering frame poised to greet her. “What a delight to finally meet you.”
The men stood in rapt silence as Peggy clutched the wall and descended, dressed in a cool dress of white linen with lace detailing at the sleeves and collar. A sash of light blue with pink and yellow stitched flowers was tied tightly around her waist, showcasing her famous figure. Clara noticed how Hamilton and Lafayette exchanged a knowing glance before looking back toward Peggy. Her blond hair was not swept high above her head, but in a loose chignon on the nape of her neck. Her face had regained its color and she looked early-morning fresh, unblemished, excruciatingly beautiful. Clara alone knew that her insides coiled with anxiety and anger.
“At last, I meet the legendary Mrs. Arnold.” Washington bowed deeply before taking her tiny hand in his for a kiss.
“I must confess, my lady, my men were worried about being late this morning only because they didn’t want to keep the charming Mrs. Arnold waiting.”
Peggy laughed, and for the first time Clara noted that her gestures were labored, forced. But Washington suspected nothing; he, after all, had only heard of her radiance but had never seen it to its full effect.
“I think they are all half in love with you.” Washington winked and offered his arm to escort her into the dining room. “Shall we?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s not true.” Peggy clutched her side, and then took the offered arm to be escorted by Washington. The rest of the men followed in their wake. Washington ducked as he crossed over from the drawing room to the dining room.
“You’re too tall for our home?” Peggy glanced sideways at him.
“I’m too tall for most of the buildings I enter,” the general answered. “Probably why I prefer to sleep outdoors.”
“General Washington, Excellency, I must make apologies for my husband.” Peggy cocked her head and looked up at the white-haired commander. Washington did not correct Peggy’s choice of title for him, but rather stared down at her with fixed attention.
“You, my lady, need not apologize for anything.” Washington leaned toward her.
“You are too kind, sir. But I must tell you that my husband, General Arnold, is not here this morning because he is preparing a grand reception for you over at West Point.”
“Is that right? It’s very kind of your husband, but surely not necessary. His presence at breakfast would have been all the reception I needed,” Washington answered good-naturedly.
“Yes, well, you know how deeply my husband admires you. He said—” Peggy smiled, but did not finish her thought. Her frailty seemed glaringly obvious to Clara, and now even General Washington seemed to take note.
“My lady, are you well?” Washington’s brow furrowed in genuine concern.
“Oh.” Peggy managed a smile, cocking her head. “I am a new mother, General Washington. With little Edward consuming all of my energy . . . I’m afraid there’s very little with which to entertain. It’s nothing, simply what ails all young mothers.” Peggy smiled at him and then directed the men around the dining room table.
Peggy seated Washington in Arnold’s usual seat at the head of the table opposite her. To her left she sat Hamilton, to her right she sat Lafayette. The rest of the men filled out the remaining chairs and momentarily turned their attention from their hostess to admire the spread before them—two warm loaves of bread, slices of ham, bowls of fresh cream, sliced peaches, a pot of tea, and a pitcher of ale.
“Our spread is humble, but sufficient, we hope.” Peggy accepted Washington’s help into her chair. “We all must cut back on our portions on account of the war.” She sighed.
“It is a feast and we are not worthy to partak
e of it in your presence.” Washington smiled earnestly before crossing the table to take his place.
“Now, my guess is that if you men are anything like my husband, you’ll take your breakfast with ale?” Peggy raised her eyebrows at Washington across the table.
“That would be splendid.” Washington agreed, his men murmuring their assent.
“Clara, tea for me, and ale for the men,” Peggy spoke to her maid. “Please.”
Clara left the room, running to the kitchen to grab several more pitchers of ale. When she returned, her mistress was serving large slices of ham to the French gentleman beside her.
“Marquis, I fear that my table cannot compare to the feasts you must have enjoyed at Versailles.” Peggy leaned close to the red-haired nobleman.
“But my lady,” Lafayette answered in his thick French accent, “it is Versailles which cannot compare to your charming home.”
“Do you find yourself longing for the comforts of the court, Marquis?” As Peggy chatted with the Frenchman, she turned to her left and offered Hamilton several large slices of ham.
“Quite the contrary, madame. I feel as though, at last, I am in the country that feels like home. What an idea—a new country based on the idea that all men are equal! The fight for liberty seemed to call out to me in the very deepest place in my bones.” Lafayette broke off a small piece of bread for himself and bit into it.
“And how appreciative we are that he has answered the call,” Washington answered, offering his empty mug to Clara for filling.
“Indeed,” Peggy answered, lifting her teacup as if to toast the Marquis. “We have been reading of your military skill and your dedication to our cause, Marquis. It is an inspiration to us all.”
“The Marquis is noble enough to avoid the opportunity for complaining,” Washington said, loading his spoon with a serving of peaches and fresh cream, “but the battlefield will take its toll on a man’s morale. Being in the society of a lady is refreshing.” Washington smiled at his hostess, spooning the fruit into his mouth. “My word, Mrs. Arnold, I understand why your beauty is legendary. But why are your peaches not more famous? They also deserve much praise.”
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