The Tory Widow
Page 27
Blankenship dismissed the messenger and turned to Anne. “General Howe!” With eyebrows raised, he proffered an elbow. “Are you ready to advance, Mrs. Merrick?”
Anne wove her hand through the crook. “Sally forth, Captain . . .”
Opportunity! Anne’s heart raced, and she used her fan to flutter the flush from her cheeks as they covered the length of the room. The man standing to General Howe’s right, wearing the uniform of the Loyalist Brigade, she knew to be Oliver De Lancey—a most wealthy and prominent New Yorker. De Lancey had once been a customer at Merrick Press. Anne whispered from behind her fan, “Who is the very tall naval officer?”
“Admiral Richard Howe, the general’s brother.”
“The fat fellow?”
“General Grant.”
“And the blonde in pink?”
“The Sultana.”
The High Command and the general’s mistress. Senses tuned and ready, Anne composed her features and folded her fan into her pocket.
Blankenship met his superior’s nod with a simple bow at the waist. “Gentlemen, Mrs. Loring—I would like to introduce Mrs. Anne Merrick, proprietress of the Royal Coffeehouse and a citizen of this city.” He plucked two glasses of chilled white wine offered from a waiter’s tray, and handed one to Anne. “Mrs. Merrick is one of a mere handful who not only suffered persecution at the hands of the Liberty Boys, but also withstood the occupation of the rebel army.”
“Widow Merrick.” Oliver De Lancey nodded. “I recall your husband—a good man—fiercely loyal to His Majesty.”
Anne adopted the sad widow visage she’d perfected years before in dealing with her creditors. “Yes . . . Mr. Merrick was a devoted subject and supporter of the Commonwealth.”
Elizabeth Loring raised her glass. “Then we have a thing in common, Mrs. Merrick . . . I, too, have a husband most willing to sacrifice to the Commonwealth.”
The brash toast drew a hearty chuckle from the brothers Howe—Mr. Loring being famous throughout the colonies for trading his conjugal rights to William Howe in exchange for the lucrative position as commissary of prisons. Anne could not resist being amused by the woman’s bold and clever dig at her awful husband.
Unprincipled as she might be, Howe’s mistress was by any standard a striking beauty. Provincial sensibilities were shocked by the arrangement the general had come to in procuring his bed and gambling companion. But wagging tongues did not stop Mrs. Loring from fully enjoying her position as consort to the most powerful man on the continent.
Muttering, “Damn gout,” General Grant pulled up a parlor chair and sat. Anne thought it a testament to its maker that the chair did not crumple under his enormous weight. “Might I ask, Mrs. Merrick,” he asked, fleshy wattles animated with every word, “with the coming of the rebel army, and loyal citizens abandoning the city in droves—among them our friend De Lancey here—why did you choose to remain?”
“To be honest, sir, after my husband’s demise, I had become accustomed to leading an independent life.” Anne decided to keep to the truth as much as she could. “The notion of leaving my where-withal and returning to that tight place beneath my father’s thumb was more fearsome to me than any threat posed by rebel marauders.”
“Bravo!” Mrs. Loring raised her glass once again.
“I bore witness to a few rebel mobs, Mrs. Merrick,” De Lancey said. “It must have been a frightening time in our fair city.”
Anne nodded. “By far the worst day was when the rebels evacuated the city. We were left with only the most desperate criminals and murderers pillaging up and down the streets . . . My maid and I forted up on the second story and kept a vigil with pistols at the ready. I would have done some damage to any scoundrels trespassing on my property.”
“Pistols at the ready.” Mrs. Loring was impressed. “And here I thought you such a delicate creature . . .”
“Oh, I freely admit to being most relieved when the Union Jack was run up the flagpole at Fort George that evening.”
“De Lancey!” General Grant shot an elbow into his friend’s ribs. “You should enlist Mrs. Merrick into your Loyalist Brigade, aye?”
“I can’t help but notice this unusual necklet . . .” Mrs. Loring touched a manicured finger to the ribbon at Anne’s neck.
“It is an oddment, I admit, but of more value to me than any gold or diamonds.” Anne laid her hand over the little half-heart. “A token from the day the rebels destroyed the statue of the King.”
“You stood witness to that perfidy?” General Grant blustered, his face as bright as a beet. Anne feared the man was about to pop like a boil.
“I did not dare to protest, sir; the mob was most wild and rabid—but I managed to salvage this broken shard. Part of a crown, you see?” She held the necklet up for inspection, and with complete sincerity said, “In my darkest hours, this scrap of iron has given me much comfort.”
The brooding admiral spoke for the first time. “You are very brave, Mrs. Merrick. A credit to all Englishwomen.”
Anne was glad of the response, and she drove to her purpose. “Do not credit me with more than stubbornness, sir. By my experience, I have learned I am most happy with the security provided by our good men at arms.” She turned to General Howe. “I hear the officers talk in my shop, and my greatest fear is that the army will once again leave the city . . .”
“Hmmph,” the admiral grunted. “There’s a turn—most are complaining that the army does not leave the city . . .”
William Howe took the bottle from the wine chiller, and refilled everyone’s glass. “Be at ease, Mrs. Merrick, my strategy to crush this rebellion includes maintaining a strong garrison force in New York.” Stuffing the bottle back into the bucket of shaved ice, he raised Mrs. Loring’s hand to his lips. “Show Mrs. Merrick to the observatory, my dear. We will join you there shortly for the feu de joie.”
Anne watched over her shoulder as Howe led Blankenship and the others into the adjoining study, closing the door. The captain will be a fountain of information . . .
“Soldier’s talk—nothing more boring.” Betsey Loring rolled her eyes as she dragged Anne up a sweeping broad stair to the second floor. Skirts in one hand, glasses in the other, the women mounted a straight staircase to the third floor, and then climbed a cast-iron spiral stair to the rooftop balcony. A sturdy whitewashed balustrade surrounded the small area, with lit glass-paned lanterns resting on posts at either end. The Kennedy Mansion sat at the very tip of Manhattan, and the observatory faced a glorious purple and pink twilight view of the fleet on the bay and twinkling islands beyond.
“Oh, Mrs. Loring! Isn’t it breathtaking?” Anne had never been so high off the ground. She leaned out over the rail, and could see the rooftop of the Cup and Quill.
“You must call me Betsey, and I shall call you Anne.” Mrs. Loring put her back to the view, and leaned against the balustrade. Pulling a handkerchief and an enameled snuff box from her pocket, she tapped her finger three times to the lid. “Do you imbibe?”
“No . . . thank you,” Anne demurred.
Betsey flipped the lid open and scooped up a pinch with a tiny silver spoon she wore on a long chain about her neck. She placed spoon to nose and after one quick intake produced the requisite sneeze into the handkerchief. “Ah! Try some—clears the head of superfluous humors.” She handed Anne the box.
Anne admired the finely wrought image of a nightingale on a blossoming branch decorating the cover of the snuff box. “What a pretty thing.”
“A naughty gift from William. Look—” Betsey took the box back, and she revealed a secret inner lid, illustrated with a very detailed and lewd pose of a man and woman copulating.
Perhaps it was the wine—for she was unused to spirits. Or perhaps it was Mrs. Loring’s frank presentation, but the image caused Anne to burst into giggling.
Betsey Loring laughed as well and snapped the snuff box shut. “You are a kindred spirit, Anne, of which I have few. Promise you will come visit me when we move to Ph
iladelphia.”
“Philadelphia?” Anne grew solemn. “When are you going to Philadelphia?”
“William tells me he and Richard will take the fleet there in July.” Howe’s mistress fluffed the flounces at each elbow.
What day? Which regiments? How many ships? How many troops? Swallowing back a hundred questions, Anne trod lightly fishing for specifics. “As soon as July? It is sad, then, that we didn’t meet earlier . . .” She sighed. “Though June is only just beginning . . .”
Betsey brightened. “That’s true. William won’t be ready to leave until mid-July, so I will probably join him after the rebel capital is secured—sometime in August, no doubt. Johnny Burgoyne will take Albany, and then Washington will be thoroughly trounced! Oh, I foresee a winter season in Philadelphia to rival that in London.” She looped her arm through Anne’s. “You must visit.”
Philadelphia and Albany. Anne’s head spun with the news.
“Oh, my dear!” Betsy cocked her head, her brow puckered. “You mustn’t fret for your handsome captain!” She put her arm around Anne’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “I know for a fact William plans for him to stay in New York as a member of Clinton’s garrison.”
Heavy boots clanging on the spiral stair heralded the men arriving to view the salute in honor of the King’s birthday. Mrs. Loring latched onto the general’s arm, and Edward Blankenship came to stand beside Anne on the crowded balcony. He smelled of strong spirits and she could see the slight residue of snuff caught on his upper lip.
Admiral Howe determined the sky suitably dark, and he waved one of the lanterns over his head. Three big warships were anchored separate from the main fleet, and moments after the admiral’s signal their guns exploded in a series of deafening salutes, and were immediately answered by a resounding cannonade from Fort George. Celebrants poured out onto the terraces below. The band struck up “God Save the King,” and proud voices rose up in chorus.
A crew set up on a barge not too distant from the shoreline ignited a firework display. Rockets zipped up into the air, careening overhead, bursting into silver and gold flowers and stars trailing showers of glimmering sparks.
Feu de joie. Fire of joy.
Anne turned her smiling face to the flashing light and in her mind composed the missive she would write in the morning.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We are endeavoring, and will steadily continue
to endeavor, to separate and dissolve a connection which
hath already filled our land with blood.
THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense
Wednesday, June 4, 1777
At Lyon’s Slip, Near the Fly Market
YELLOW fuzz sprouted along the horizon, and like a slab of wet slate, the East River rippled blue-gray, glossy in the tinge of light. Daylight crept up into the sky, reaching out to graze the city’s steeple points as Jack worked the oars—and Titus the tiller—crossing the water from Long Island to Manhattan.
They muscled into the slip, knocking the pettiauger through a crowd of market boats jostling for a place at the dock like chickens flocking to strewn grain. Standing at the edge, a barefoot boy with ill-cropped hair and a dirty face shouted, “Throw a line!”
Jack tossed him the bowline. With wiry muscles as taut as the rope he tugged on, the boy pulled them in, hitching the boat with a dexterous knot to an iron cleat.
Always eager to set his feet on something solid, and anxious to see Anne, Jack climbed out of the boat and stood the dock impatient, with hands on hips. “Quit dawdling, Titus. Let’s get her unloaded.”
The boy said, “I can fetch yiz an ox cartman.”
“Find us a good-sized cart—” Jack tossed the enterprising boy a penny. “We’ve got twenty-five barrels of cabbage here.”
“Pickled cabbage?”
“Yup—now cut mud and fetch us a cart.”
The boy was in no hurry. “Like water to a dying man, cabbage is to them Hessians.” He tucked the coin into the pocket of his grubby trousers. “For a shilling, sir, I can fetch you a Hessian who’ll buy every bit of cabbage you have.”
Very interested in a speedy discharge of their cargo, and impressed with the boy’s business acumen, Jack asked, “What’s your name, monkey?”
“Joe Birdsong.”
“I tell you what, Master Birdsong—bring me a Hessian and I’ll give you a shilling.” Jack scrubbed the boy’s head with his knuckles. “Be quick about it, and I’ll add a sixpence.”
Joe tore off, running up the earthen ramp to Maiden Lane.
Titus grabbed the sorry gray-horsehair wig Jack had left on his seat, and flipped it up onto the dock. “Keep your hair on!”
Jack made a face, but plopped the disheveled thing onto his head, stuffing his queue and stray wisps of black hair under it. “Hot and itchy . . .” he complained. “I don’t see how anyone can stand to wear one of these things.”
He and Titus were dressed in farmer’s garb—smock shirts and leather breeches with coarse, worsted-wool stockings. To avoid being recognized as bearded Jack Stapleton, errant scout to the 17th Light Dragoons, Jack kept his face so close-shaven Titus had taken to calling him “baby boy.” Besides changing into very humble attire, Titus altered his appearance by shaving his head completely bald, earning himself the name of “flap ears.”
“And wear your hat . . .” Titus scolded, as he donned a linen skullcap.
Jack set a wide-brimmed felt hat over the wig. “There! You happy, flap ears?”
“I am.”
Titus rolled the thirty-gallon barrels up the planks and onto the dock, then Jack took over, and rolled them to stand upright in two rows along the dock’s edge. They had just finished off-loading the cargo when Joe Birdsong returned with a green-coated German officer in tow, announcing, “Couldn’t find a Hessian—but this Brunswicker is just as good—worth a shilling, and I was quick.”
“He is, and you were,” Jack agreed, dropping one and six in Joe’s cupped hand.
A big, sturdy fellow—as were all members of the elite Jäger Rifle Corps—the German was ready to do business. He slapped his hand down on a barrel and proclaimed, “Sechzehn schilling.” Sweeping a hand to indicate the entire cargo, he jerked his square chin up and said, “Alles dieses—zwanzig pfund. Tventy pount.”
Twenty pounds was double the price they’d expected for this cargo, carried as a ruse to get into the city. Jack looked at Titus for a confirming nod, and to the stern-jawed Jäger’s surprise, without issuing a counteroffer, Jack said, “Sold!”
“Yer sech a jingle brain,” Joe Birdsong groaned. “I bet ye could have got eighteen a keg . . .”
Having struck such a good bargain, the happy German hurried off to hire a cart. After the barrels were loaded onto it, he tore two ten-pound banknotes from a bound booklet, and handed them to Jack in final payment.
“No.” Jack waved his hands in refusal. “No paper. I want coin.”
The German offered the notes again. “Ya. You take.”
“That’s good money, sir,” Joe Birdsong piped up. “You have to take it.”
“Ya. Ya.” The Brunswicker shagged his big head up and down, and waved the notes in Jack ’s face. “Ist gut. Ist gut. You take. Tventy pount. You take.”
“Listen, Johann—good money is made from silver or gold . . .” Jack pulled a guinea from his pocket as an example. “I want coin. No coin—no cabbage. You understand?”
The Brunswicker took a step forward and tried to put the cash into Jack ’s hand. “You must take . . .”
Jack shook the German off, and grabbed ahold of one of the barrels on the cart. “C’mon, Titus, help me unload . . .”
“Nein!” The Brunswicker tossed the money to the dock, and sent Jack flying backward with an angry two-handed shove. The German banged his hand to the wagon boards, and shouted at the drayman, “Go . . . go!”
Jack threw off the hat and wig. Eyes hooded in rage, he lunged at the German. The two men thumped against the cart in a fierce grapple.
Joe Birdsong scrambled up to the top of the cabbage barrels and together with the drayman shouted, “Fight! Fight!”
Dockworkers, farmers, porters and draymen abandoned their business and rushed to form a ring of onlookers, cheering and laying wagers.
“Tuppence on the green-jacket . . .”
“I’ll take that bet—that dark fella has a mean eye . . .”
Like a pair of rams with horns locked, Jack and the German planted their feet in a contest of strength and will, breaking apart for a moment, only to collide again with growling full force. In a shuffle of feet—each man trying to throw the other down—both men tottered off balance, falling to the deck in a great thud and grunt.
Wincing, groaning and cheering with every blow, the crowd shifted from one edge of the dock to the other as the fighters rolled in a tangle of swinging fists and elbows.
“The provost!” Joe Birdsong warned from his raised perch. “The provost is comin’!”
A shrill whistle screamed out in three sharp blasts, silencing the crowd in an instant. The fighters separated—Jack rolled onto his back, panting. The Brunswicker struggled up to his feet, hands propped to knees, and coughed up a wad of red-tinged sputum. Titus rushed in and pulled Jack upright.
Preceded by Sergeant O’Keefe and his silver whistle, the provost marshall made his way into the circle. Though his pinhead and prodigious ears were somewhat disguised by a very good-quality queued wig of brown hair, Jack was still able to recognize Cunningham as the man they’d tried to tar and feather beneath the Liberty Pole years before.
Tall and lank as the shank of a soupspoon, the provost wore an austere suit of dark worsted wool and heavy jackboots. A stiff, black leather stock was buckled tight around a neck too long for his narrow shoulders. Suspended by a red ribbon, a silver gorget engraved with the Royal Arms provided him a badge of office, a scrap of color and a little light reflected on his gaunt, pox-pitted face. He carried a cane—a rigid malacca shaft, the knob end a hissing serpent’s head wrought in chaste silver.