The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  Catching his wind, and swiping the blood trickling from his nose with the kerchief Titus provided, Jack thought if death were a man, he would look exactly like William Cunningham.

  Cunningham tapped the cart with his cane. “What do we have here?”

  The Brunswicker began barking out a tirade. Casting many a glare Jack ’s way, he let loose with a long string of guttural syllables, alternately waving his arms, pounding a fist to his palm and pointing at Jack and the cartload of pickled cabbage.

  Jack could not understand a single word, but the tone was enough to get him shouting in defense. “He’s the one what started it—the madman attacked me! I’d rather feed it to the dogs than sell this twat-lick a shred of my cabbage!”

  “Desist!” Cunningham ordered, pounded his walking stick to the dock, the tendons on his neck corded. “Or I will have you brought to reason with the aid of nine cattails!”

  Titus pulled Jack back and handed him his hat, muttering, “Don’t be an idiot!” through gritted teeth.

  A mustachioed Hessian appeared and in clipped and precise English offered to translate for the Brunswicker. After the two Germans finished a brief, head-nodding conversation, the Hessian pointed at Jack. “This peasant refused to accept banknotes in exchange for his cabbage. The peasant has broken the law and must be punished.”

  Cunningham turned to Jack and demanded, “Your name and permit, sir.”

  Jack put his hat on, the brim low over his brow, and he dug a folded paper from his pocket. “A peaceful man, I am, sir”—he offered the page to the provost—“but I defend myself when attacked, as anyone would.”

  “Aye, the green-jacket started the fight,” the drayman concurred. “I saw the whole thing. Gave this farmer a right rough shove when he refused the banknotes.”

  Titus swept his hat off, and handed the provost the two ten-pound notes. “The German threw these to the ground, sir, afore he went mad and attacked my master.”

  Cunningham studied the permit. “Charles Hampton of Flatlands, Long Island—farmer.”

  “Aye, sir.” Jack tugged at the brim of his hat in salute, pulling it down to cast a deeper shadow over his features.

  The provost took a step forward—a slight cock to his head. “Have we ever chanced to meet before?”

  Resisting a strong urge to look away, Jack replied, “Not that I recall, sir. It has been some years since I’ve come to the city.”

  “Well, Mr. Hampton, the Germans are correct,” Cunningham announced. “It is unlawful to refuse the currency of the realm—as it is unlawful to brawl in the streets.”

  “I was not aware, sir—about the currency.” Jack shrugged. “I was taught from a lad to trade our produce for silver, rather than risk being duped by counterfeit bills.”

  “In this case your caution is unwarranted. These bills are quite genuine.” Cunningham handed back the permit and the banknotes. “Take the money, Mr. Hampton . . . Let the German have his cabbage, and put an end to this unfortunate misunderstanding—or I will act.”

  “Of course, sir—and I thank you, sir.” Jack folded the papers into his pocket, noting the Irish burr in the provost’s not-so-veiled threat. “My temper often gets the better of me. I apologize for having disturbed the peace.”

  “Good man, now be about your business . . .” Cunningham tapped the dock twice with his walking stick. “. . . All of you! About your business.”

  Sergeant O’Keefe and Cunningham went to stand on the quay and watch the crowd disperse—O’Keefe with arms folded, glaring with beady pig eyes, and Cunningham in a casual but somehow malicious stance—legs apart—both hands resting on his cane.

  The happy Germans followed the cabbage cart up the ramp to Maiden Lane. Titus tossed one gunny to Jack, and swung the other over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Joe Birdsong ran after Jack, waving the gray wig. “Hey, mister! Ye left yer wig behind!”

  Jack ’s eye darted to the ratty wig, and to Cunningham observing the entire exchange with that squint to his eye. “Not my wig, lad. You can see I wear my own.” He raised his hat, showing off his thick black hair, and in a softer voice said, “But if you fail to find the owner, the wig-maker might give you a sixpence for it . . .”

  “I got ye . . .” Joe winked, and stuffed the wig inside his shirt.

  Jack didn’t need to look back. He could feel Cunningham’s eyes sizzling holes in the back of his head as he hurried up the ramp to Maiden Lane. He and Titus both heaved a sigh when at last they turned the corner out of sight.

  Titus gave Jack a hard punch on the arm. “So you just had to have coin, eh?”

  “I know . . .” Jack rubbed his arm. “I am such an ass—but I never figured the German to lose his wits . . . He went mad, he did.”

  “Crazy for pickled cabbage, they are,” Titus agreed, shaking his head.

  They traipsed down Queen Street toward the Cup and Quill, and Titus nudged Jack. “Does everything seem off-kilter to you?”

  Jack nodded. “I don’t like it.”

  The shops were burgeoning with the wrong sorts of goods—like tea and woolen fabric—and the clotheslines were filled with the wrong sorts of laundry. The women gathered in clutches, gossiping in the wrong language, and the soldiers all wore the wrong uniforms. Jack loved his New York, but this New York made him anxious to be back on the pettiauger, rowing away.

  They turned onto Anne’s lane, and grabbing each other by the arm, Titus and Jack skittered back around the corner onto Dock Street.

  “Damn! Right in front of the Cup and Quill . . . you can spot those helmets a mile away.”

  “The Crown and Quill—” Titus corrected. Peering casually around the corner he muttered, “On guard. Three dragoons coming this way.”

  They dropped down to hunkers. Jack pulled the brim of his hat down low, and they pretended to search through a gunnysack. Rising upright after the Redcoats passed them by, Titus said, “Wait here—I’ll go on a scout.”

  Jack took a step out and watched Titus, one hand in his pocket, the other gripping the gunnysack on his shoulder in a happy-go-lucky stroll down the lane. He stopped beneath the sign of the Crown and Quill, and after tying both shoes, turned and strolled back. Taking Jack by the arm, he steered a path toward the Battery.

  “Crawling with Redcoats. And that captain—the one who signed us up in Flatbush? He’s sitting in the front window with two others from the Seventeenth.”

  “The front window?”

  “Yep. New glass.”

  “Hmmph . . . Did you see Anne?”

  “Nope . . .” Titus shook his head. “Caught a glimpse of Sally, though—serving tea!”

  “I guess we’d better come back after closing time.” Jack slapped Titus on the shoulder. “C’mon. We can get a cup of coffee at Montagne’s.”

  “I hope so,” Titus mumbled. “I don’t care much for tea.”

  “I think we’re through the worst of the morning rush.” Anne untied her apron and hung it on the peg behind the kitchenhouse door. She filled a ewer with water, lit a beeswax taper and screwed it into a candledish. “I’m going upstairs to get my book work done . . .”

  Sally put on a crafty smile. “There’s a basket of laundry in my room. Would you be a honey and hang it out on the line?”

  “I can do that!” Anne carried the water and the candle up to her room and set it on her desk. She opened the shuttered window, and a pleasant breeze blew in along with bright sunlight. She shut and bolted her door.

  A puff of violet and cerulean silk sat in the middle of the room—a perfect circle—as if the woman who’d worn the dress had melted away. Anne gathered up the fabric and tossed it onto her rumpled bed, and eyed the rouge smudges on her pillowslip.

  She and Edward had returned to the Crown and Quill just past midnight the night before. Unused to keeping such late hours, Anne did not need to feign exhaustion. All she wanted was to be up the stairs, in her room, out of her stays and into her bed.

  A gentleman sees a lady t
o her door—

  The captain insisted. She had no choice but to allow a slightly worse-for-the-drink Edward Blankenship to escort her all the way up to her garret room door. It was a relief to see Sally at the ready, peeking through a crack in her door, ready to leap out and bludgeon the man with the iron poker she’d taken to keeping at her bedside ever since the Redcoats moved in. But Blankenship made no untoward advances. He bid Anne good night with a chaste kiss on the cheek, and a courtly bow. Even Sally had to agree, the captain was a gentleman.

  Anne cleared the mess of rouge pots, pins and ribbons from her writing desk and sat down with pencil and paper to draft a simple letter listing the information she had learned from Mrs. Loring the night before—that Howe planned to take the fleet to Philadelphia sometime in mid-July, and that Burgoyne was marching his troops to Albany.

  Anne proofed her draft to make certain she’d worded the intelligence correctly, and her heart began to thump in her head. Pushing away from the desk, she stared at the words she’d just scrawled across the page. She had not foreseen becoming a conduit to the British High Command months before, when she sought out Hercules Mulligan in his tailor shop on Queen Street. These words were no mumbled rumors overheard while pouring tea and serving scones—this letter was by far the most important and valid intelligence she had ever passed along.

  These are words to swing from a gibbet for . . .

  Anne smiled, and set about making her ink. Her mother had taught her how to mix all manner of ink—writing inks, colored inks, India ink and as a lark—invisible ink.

  She kept her supplies in the desk drawer—a tin measure, a clear glass tumbler, a silver butter knife and a quart jar filled with salt of hartshorn. Anne poured a stream of water into the tumbler, up to the mark she’d scratched in the glass with a sharp awl. She scooped up a measure of hartshorn, and cut the knife across the top, carefully scraping the excess back into the jar. She dumped the coarse powder into the water. With the blade ringing bright against the glass, she stirred and stirred, holding the concoction to the light, to make sure every last grain of hartshorn was completely dissolved. Once the ink was mixed, she conducted a test, to be certain the mixture worked.

  Five reams of rose-colored foolscap wrapped in brown paper were stacked beside her desk. Anne opened one package, and peeled off a sheet. Dipping her quill into the tumbler, she thought for a moment, and wrote “Jack” across the top of the page. As the clear liquid dried, the word disappeared. Anne held the page close to the heat of the candle flame. Like magic, “Jack” appeared, as if written with thick black ink.

  Anne took a fresh sheet and copied her draft exact. It had taken some getting used to—writing with clear liquid. She had found through trial and error that the invisible ink worked best on English-made tinted paper. Once the missive was thoroughly dry, the writing was undetectable, and the page looked no different than any other blank page in the ream.

  She inserted her secret writing exactly thirty-six pages from the top of the pile, rewrapped the ream in brown paper, secured the package in a crisscross of the same blue grosgrain ribbon she used for her garters and tied it off in a pretty bow. “There!”

  Anne burned the draft copy, and stowed her ink-making supplies. Three of Sally’s blue petticoats and six plain white petticoats were sent flapping over the lane. She tucked the ribbon-wrapped package under her arm and skipped down the stairs.

  “CANVAS Town they call it.” Mrs. Day poured them each a cup of coffee, and pulled up a chair. “A desperate place—the poorest of the poor live in those crumbled ruins, on cinders under canvas stretched over charred beams. Their children roam the streets in packs, competing with dogs for the meanest scraps.”

  Mr. Day dropped a large lump of sugar into his cup. “By night Canvas Town’s a haven for thieves, whores and the most wicked and depraved—not a morning goes by but they don’t find some poor sot with his head stove in, stripped clean of valuables—”

  “—or some poor unfortunate woman ravaged with her throat slit,” Mrs. Day added with a sad shake of her head. “The Watch won’t even patrol there.”

  “I don’t blame them. Not when Canvas Towners will murder a Redcoat in a trice for his buttons alone! You mind what I say.” Mr. Day shook a knobby finger. “Stay far away from there, lads. It’s a desperate place.”

  “The reek of it’s enough to keep me away,” Titus said. “I never in my life smelt anything as awful.”

  “Like burnt hair, fly-blown corpse and pigpen all rolled into one.” Jack made a face like he’d been force-fed a spoonful of manure, and shuddered. “We only walked down Broad Way, and I still can’t get the stench to leave my nose.”

  Mrs. Day nodded. “When the wind’s wrong, the smell from Canvas Town poisons the entire city.”

  Jack and Titus had spent the morning wandering up Broad Way from the Battery, unable to believe their eyes or their noses. Montagne’s—once a home to the Liberty Boys, and one of Jack’s favorite haunts—had become the Red Lion, and was overrun with Redcoats.

  Day’s Tavern proved to be an oasis in a desert of depression and disappointment. Mrs. Day was famous for her soups and stews, and Jack used to frequent the tavern at the end of Murray Street back when he kept a room on Barclay Street. There were only a few customers left from the midday crowd—none of them British military—but because “you never know who’s who these days,” the Days led Jack and Titus to a very private table in the garden.

  Mr. Day leaned forward. “You know, there’s a handful of us stalwarts left behind, and like you lads, we do what we can for the cause—keep our eyes and ears open, we do.”

  “Sometimes I wish we hadn’t stayed.” Mrs. Day laid her hand upon her husband’s shoulder. “The city is that much changed.”

  The Liberty Pole on the Commons had been torn down, and a gallows, ironically, erected in its stead. “I knew the pole would not stand once the Redcoats marched in,” Mr. Day said. “But the very day after the fire, a man was hanged for a spy on the new gallows, and the devil Cunningham left the body to swing for three full days.”

  “A fearful, disturbing warning . . .” Mrs. Day brought a full tray to the table.

  The hospital at King’s College and the sugarhouses were converted into inhumane prisons, from where emaciated bodies were collected daily and stacked like cordwood in wagons heading up the Post Road.

  “Starved to death, they are—and not given any kind of a burial, our poor lads. Cunningham’s henchmen dump the bodies into ditches and ravines.” Mrs. Day ladled a fish stew into four bowls, and set out a basket filled with chewy brown bread and a crock of sweet butter.

  “And with Canvas Town—a full quarter of the city, mind you—reduced to misery, filth and abject squalor, the British bastards hold horse races, cricket matches and gala dancing parties with ice creams and fireworks!” Day banged his fist to the table. “Why it took us this long to revolt, I don’t know.”

  “Mr. Day! You are too loud,” his wife admonished.

  The door adjoining the tavern room to the garden opened and Patsy Quinn popped her head around. “It is you!” She came over to the table, talking very fast. “Hildie said she saw you in Day’s, and at first I said, ‘You’re a daft old purse,’ but then I ran over to see if she might be telling true. Oh, Jack!” Patsy threw her arms around him and pressed a cheek to his. “It does my heart good to see you!”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Pats.” In daylight, with her fresh-washed face framed by a straw hat, and wearing a modest dress, Patsy Quinn might be anyone’s sister out for an afternoon stroll, instead of an “unfortunate woman” employed by Mother Babcock.

  “Sit down, Patsy,” Mrs. Day urged. “Have a bite to eat—I swan, you are as thin as a rail.”

  Mr. Day brought a chair and Patsy sat beside Jack and latched onto his arm. Not able to endure Titus’s withering glare, Jack extricated his arm from Patsy’s grip. “I suppose Mother Babcock’s was spared by the flames.”

  “You should come and
see for yourself.” Patsy winked.

  “Ah, no . . . we’re only here for the day—on business—right, Titus?”

  “Yup.” Titus dug into his bowl.

  Patsy took a piece of bread, and used Jack’s knife to smooth a thick layer of butter over it. “Business with the Stitch, right?”

  Jack grabbed a spoon. “This stew looks delicious, Mrs. Day.”

  “You’re among friends here.” Patsy leaned toward Jack, dropping her voice. “We all work with the Stitch—tell ’em, Mr. Day.”

  “Eyes and ears,” Mr. Day said.

  “I know!” Patsy clapped. “You’re working with the engraver, right?”

  “Engraver?” Titus hitched his chair in closer.

  Jack took a bite from his bread. “Patsy.” He chewed. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Don’t play coy.” Patsy gave Jack a nudge. “The Stitch said he might bring you in on it.”

  “Honest, Patsy, I haven’t heard from him . . .”

  “We only came in for the day,” Titus added. “To fetch the widow.”

  Jack shot Titus a look that could cleave stone. Poor Patsy looked as if her bread had just fallen buttered side to the ground. “What widow?”

  Jack locked eyes on his bowl, stirring his stew.

  Patsy turned to Titus. “What widow?”

  Titus grinned. “The Widow Merrick, from the Cup and Quill. Jack fancies her.”

  Patsy spun around. “You fancy that Tory bitch?”

  “Keep that evil tongue within your teeth, Patsy Quinn,” Mrs. Day warned. “You know I don’t like that kind of talk in my place.”

  “She’s as much a Tory as you are.” Jack bristled. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes—I care for Anne Merrick—and I am here to get her out of the city.”

  Patsy sat back in her chair. “You’ll first have to pry her off that handsome dragoon she lives with.” She broke off a little bit of bread and popped it into her mouth. “Oh, you didn’t know about him? A big man—a full-handed man, by the look of him . . .”