The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  Jack slammed his hand to the table. “That’s enough!”

  “. . . I’ll wager he gives the widow a good hard ride on his sugar stick.”

  “Good lack, have you no sense?” Mrs. Day took Patsy by the arm. “It’s time for you to go.”

  Patsy waved as she was led away. “I know I’ll see you soon, Jack!”

  Jack sat with half-hooded eyes, fists balled in his lap.

  Mr. Day broke the silence. “Everyone is forced to quarter soldiers these days.”

  “Pay no mind to Patsy,” Titus said with a flip of his hand. “I always thought she was head over heels for you, and there’s the proof. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “Handsome dragoon,” Jack repeated. “Dodd said as much—Tully, too.”

  “You know, Jack,” Mr. Day said. “You can sit here and stew in a dark cloud, iffing and wondering over the whore’s gossip, or you can go to your woman and find out the truth.”

  “How am I supposed to go to her?” Jack slumped in his chair. “The Cup and Quill is crawling with Redcoats. They live there.”

  “Write a note—arrange a meeting place—talk to her,” Mrs. Day suggested.

  Mr. Day agreed. “Titus can deliver the note. No one pays any mind to black folk . . .”

  “That’s a plan.” Titus stood and swung his gunny over his shoulder. “Write the note.”

  THE Crown and Quill did a brisk business all day, and the afternoon flew by. No one came by to purchase paper.

  Anne and Sally worked around the handful of customers still finishing their tea—sweeping and wiping down tables, making ready to close up shop for the day, when an odd little man wearing blue glass spectacles began to hover near the open doorway. Anne grabbed Sally by the arm before she could shoo him away.

  “Wait . . . that might be him . . .”

  The man seemed at a loss. He finally stepped inside, turning one way, then another, going back out to check the sign. He finally settled in a seat near the window, and commenced to drumming his fingers on the table’s edge.

  “Naw, Annie . . .” Sally said. “That one doesna seem right in the head.” The women leaned on their brooms, scrutinizing the strange customer from a distance.

  But for a fringe of brown hair running around the back of his head from ear to ear, the man’s pate was as hairless and smooth as an ostrich egg. In combination with the round-colored lenses masking his eyes, he looked like some kind of queer bug. He wore plain wool and linen, and Anne thought he might be a Quaker. She went to take his order.

  “Coffee, sir? Or perhaps a pot of black bohea?”

  He deliberated longer than most, vacillating. At last he decided on tea, adding with a guilty smile, “It’s been quite some time since I’ve had a cup, you know.”

  He drank his tea heavy with cream and sugar, chuckling and sighing aloud with every bite of Sally’s shortbread. Anne decided she must be demented for thinking this eccentric little man would have anything to do with delivering intelligence to General Washington.

  The man paid for his tea, and as Anne handed over his change, he said in a voice very loud, “I’d like to purchase a ream of writing paper, madam!”

  “You would?” Anne squeaked. “An entire ream?”

  “Yes. I—I’m going to pen my memoirs.” He puffed out his chest and almost shouted, “I’d like to purchase a ream of writing paper, madam—and a quill!”

  “Of course—just a moment.”

  Except for the mention of memoirs, the signal was exact and correct. Making a “can you believe it” face at Sally, Anne retrieved the ribbon-wrapped packet of paper and one goose-feather quill from the big cabinet where she kept her inventory of stationery supplies. She set the items on his table, and said with emphasis, “That will be three and six.”

  Fumbling with his coin purse, he held every shilling an inch from his eye before snapping it down to the tabletop, muttering the price over and over, “Three and six. Three shillings sixpence. Three and six . . .” At last, he slid the four coins her way, and tapped the lens on his spectacles. “Blue—like the petticoats you put out. You know, they say blue will improve the eyesight, but I don’t . . .”

  “We thank you for your custom, sir.” Anne put his purchase in his hands and hustled him out the door before he could blurt out anything else of import. “Please, don’t forget—writing bond sold for the very reasonable price of three and six.”

  With the quill tucked behind one ear, and the paper under one arm, he was sent down the lane. Sally came to stand beside Anne, and they watched him turn and smile and wave every few steps. Anne waved back and worried, “I don’t know . . .”

  “Dinna fash.” Sally stood waving beside Anne. “The Stitch knows what he’s about. Even a wee mouse can creep under a great corn stack. Nobody would suspect tha’ oddling for a courier, na?”

  Just as the little man disappeared around the corner onto Dock Street, Edward Blankenship turned onto the lane. Upon seeing the women in the doorway, he swung a green glass bottle over his head and called, “Anne!” Speeding down the lane in a trot, he swept her up into his arms. Spinning around twice, the captain bent her back in an exuberant kiss.

  Anne squealed and sputtered, “Oh my!” when set aright.

  “You must congratulate me! You too, Sally!” His face was shining like a boy who’d just won a foot race. “I’ve been promoted! I am General Clinton’s First Aide-de-Camp. A lieutenant colonelcy is not far behind, and perhaps soon, my own brigade!”

  Anne straightened her mobcap. “Why, congratulations, of course!”

  “Aye,” Sally muttered. “Congratulations.”

  Blankenship showed Anne the bottle. “The finest Canary money could buy! We celebrate tonight with a toast. Have you seen Wemyss?”

  “No sign of him yet, but Stuart is reading in the garden.”

  “Stuart!” The captain barreled past, shouting, “Good news . . .”

  “YOU told her to be a Tory . . . I heard you myself.” Titus and Jack marched a quickstep down Duke Street. “That Patsy—she’s nothing but a jealous and spiteful whore. Hell hath no fury—”

  “—like a woman scorned,” Jack finished. “I know. You’ve told me it at least a dozen times already.”

  Titus threw an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “You know, Mrs. Anne is a good woman—she can’t help it if the British quartered a soldier in her place. You heard Mr. Day—almost everyone is forced to quarter soldiers . . .” Breathing hard, Titus had a hard time talking and keeping pace with Jack. “Once I deliver this note, Mrs. Anne and Sally will meet us down at the slip, and we can be away from this stink.”

  Turning the corner onto the little lane between Duke and Dock streets, Jack pulled Titus to a halt.

  Anne and Sally were waiting under the sign, waving to Captain Edward Blankenship of the 17th Light Dragoons. The captain ran up, swept Anne Merrick into his arms and kissed her full on the mouth.

  Titus grabbed Jack by both arms, and dragged him away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The object, contended for, ought always to bear

  some just proportion to the expense.

  THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense

  Friday, June 6, 1777

  At the Sign of the Thimble and Shears

  JACK lay on his left side, his face squashed against something slick and slimy. His shoulder and hip bone shifted of their own accord, trying to find comfort on a hard surface. Brushing away whatever was tickling the top of his head, Jack concentrated on opening his right eye, sustaining the effort for the briefest moment—long enough to see a flash of daylight.

  “Unghh . . .” His mouth was sour and furred, as if he’d licked the inside of a musty old pickle barrel clean. Nearby, a pig snorted loud, and pixies giggled.

  Jack forced his eye open again. An arm’s length away, Titus Gilmore lay hugging a bolt of red Genoa velvet—emitting a phlegmy snore that would raise Lazarus from the dead. Jack blinked his one eye several times, but the pink ribbo
n tied in a bow around Titus’s hairless head would not disappear.

  “Unghh . . .” Jack pushed aside the drooled-upon bolt of blue satin he was using as a pillow and rolled onto his back. With the aid of index finger and thumb, he pried both eyes open and studied the ceiling rafters for clues to his whereabouts. Eyelids thus propped, Jack turned his head right, to see the pixies.

  A pair of curly-headed freckle-faces stood beside the table he was lying upon, peering at him with merry blue eyes, giggling into their fingers. Jack struggled up to a sit, and sent the girls on a shrieking run. “Dad! Dad! One’s awake, Dad! One’s awake!”

  “Unghh . . .” Jack cupped his ears.

  Bearing a tray, Hercules Mulligan shooed the two squealers from the room. “Out, out, my honeys—away to your mother . . .” Setting his tray at the foot of the long, wide cutting table where Jack and Titus had made their bed, the tailor drew open the heavy curtains on the shop front window.

  “Unnghhhh . . .” Jack ’s hands went from ears to eyes. The recollection of whiskey consumed, and the reason for consuming it in great quantity, pierced his brain like lightning sent from the heavens.

  Mulligan was the burly sort of Irishman—not very tall, but broad in girth and thick about the shoulders and neck—his build and voice more suited to a rough and ready stevedore than to a fashion-conscious tailor. “Rise and shine, lads—rise and shine! My stitchers need to get to their work.”

  “Get up . . .” Jack grunted, giving Titus a shove. “The tailor needs his table.”

  Titus curled to the bolt of velvet as if it were a six-shilling whore. “Go . . . away . . .”

  Jack scooted on his rump to sit with his stockinged feet dangling over the side of the table. His head weighed fifty pounds at least, and felt as if it were made of baked pumpkin held together with twine. He poked a finger to his brow, relieved to meet with hard skull.

  “Hot coffee will make a human being of you.” With an apple-cheeked grin, Mulligan slid a steaming mugful across the varnished oak.

  Jack took up the stoneware cup with both hands. “Thanks, Hercules.”

  Persuaded by the aroma to abandon his velvet bedmate for a cup of coffee, Titus slid down to sit beside Jack, and he burst out laughing and pointing.

  “What?” Jack patted his head—his hair had been arranged in a topknot and trussed with a blue satin ribbon. Tugging it free, Jack reached over and pulled at the ribbon tied about Titus’s head. “Your noggin’s been bedizened as well . . .”

  “Young Mulligans up to no good.” The laughing tailor shrugged. “Take your coffee, grab your gear and come to my office—my table monkeys need to be at their stitching.”

  The large cutting table was positioned at the front window to take best advantage of the natural light. Jack and Titus abdicated their bed to two lithe young men in linen caps with armfuls of fabric, and a third stitcher carrying a stack of wooden boxes filled with thread, needles, thimbles and bodkins. The tailors scrambled onto the tabletop to sit cross-legged in the good light, their work up off the dirty floor and close in their laps.

  Hercules led the way through the small shop crowded with fabrics and imported goods. Rows of clothing in various stages of completion and repair hung from pegs mounted along the back wall. Titus noted the abundance of red wool on display.

  “Doing a brisk trade among the lobsterbacks, eh?”

  “My bread and butter, in more ways than one.” Hercules opened the door to his office. “If you lads require a piss, the privy is out the back door . . .”

  Both Jack and Titus dumped their gear and hurried to make use of the facilities before joining the Irishman in his office.

  The pleasant room had a big window open to the garden, where a noisy array of ginger-headed Mulligans of assorted sex and size sat around a table eating bowls full of porridge. The tailor leaned over the table desk beneath the window and drew the muslin curtains shut. “Get the door,” he said to Titus.

  Compared to the cluttered shop, the tailor’s office was an ordered and sparsely furnished haven—a tall cabinet occupied the whitewashed wall perpendicular to the desk beneath the window. An upholstered bench sat against the wall opposite the desk, and in the corner, a fruit-bearing lemon tree grew in a large earthenware pot.

  Jack and Titus sank down on the bench, backs buttressed by the wall. Mulligan uncorked the bottle of whiskey on his desk, bringing it and a chair over to join them.

  “Hair of the dog,” Hercules said, adding a splash to their mugs. He hoisted his cup. “Here’s to women’s kisses, and to whiskey, amber clear—not as sweet as a woman’s kiss, perhaps, but a damn sight more sincere.”

  “Hear, hear!” Titus bumped his mug to the tailor’s.

  Jack stared into his cup. “I’m through with talking about her.”

  “Mmm-hmm . . . and I don’t blame you. Mrs. Anne kissing the dragoon that way—I still can’t believe it.” Bemused, Titus smoothed his hands over his head. “Still, there must be some explanation . . .”

  “I’ll explain it to you, Titus.” Mulligan settled back in his chair. “Mrs. Anne is a Loyalist whore who fucks Redcoat officers.”

  “Harsh.” Titus scowled. “Everyone takes you for a Loyalist, Hercules. Mrs. Anne might well be doing like you do—cozying up to the British to garner information.”

  “Jaysus, Titus.” The Irishman shook his head. “If she were working for the cause, I’d be the first to know it. Jack gave her my name—didn’t you, Jack?”

  Head hanging low, Jack spoke through a ratty tangle of black hair. “Don’t want to talk about her anymore.”

  Titus set his cup to the side. “Mrs. Anne could be working on her own. She is a clever and strong-willed woman, isn’t she, Jack?”

  Jack shrugged, hands wringing the coffee mug as if it were the Christmas goose.

  “Titus, Titus, Titus . . .” Mulligan clucked. “The widow serving the British bastards their tea in her shop is one thing—the widow sucking the Redcoat cock quartered up the stairs is quite another . . .”

  Jack leapt to his feet and whipped his mug across the room, hitting the potted plant in the corner. The crash silenced the chatter of children in an instant, and sent a half a dozen lemons thumping onto the floorboards. Face pinched and glaring, he growled through clenched teeth, “Not another word about that turncoat bitch—you hear? Not another word!” Reaching inside his shirt, he ripped the iron medallion from his neck and flung it to the floor.

  Mulligan held his cup in the air. “Huzzah and hallelujah! Good to see you have a pair of bollocks after all . . .”

  Titus bent to pick the half-crown from the floor, and Jack fell back into his seat, snarling, “Leave it lie!”

  Hercules kicked the token to the wall and retrieved the mug—surprisingly still in one piece. Pouring more whiskey into it, he passed it back to Jack. “It is ill-advised for a man of your stamp to encumber himself with weighty matters of the heart—especially when I need you to work a job for me, a dangerous job. Are you up to it?”

  Jack swallowed his whiskey in one gulp and met Mulligan’s eye. “Counterfeiting?”

  The tailor laughed. “You, my friend, are a rogue’s rogue, to be sure.”

  “Not too hard to puzzle it out after Patsy made mention of an engraver.” Jack jerked his head toward Titus. “Him and me often toy with the notion.”

  “Print a pile of notes and flood the market with ’em,” Titus said. “The British wrecked the value of the Continental dollar with their counterfeits; we could do the same to them.”

  “Ahh, now, Titus . . . our own Congress had a hand in that mess as well. Counterfeiting in quantities to devalue the currency is a major operation—a grand scheme, to be sure”—Mulligan tossed down his whiskey and blinked—“but I’m just looking for a little pocket money.”

  Titus snorted. “Not worth risking a neck stretching for pocket money.”

  “A figure of speech—although I plan to change a few of our notes into coin to pay informants and couriers . . .�
�� Mulligan straddled his chair, resting his forearms on the back. “We’ll be trolling for bigger fish.” The tailor shuffled forward a few inches. “Patsy has a quartermaster dangling on her line—one of His Majesty’s bad bargains—the bastard commandeers trade goods for military use, then turns ’em for a profit on the black market. With a supply of British currency, we could purchase the goods and deliver to Washington necessary accoutrements like shoes, blankets, canvas . . .”

  “I don’t know, Hercules,” Titus said. “Doesn’t smell right to me . . .”

  Jack nodded. “Won’t the quartermaster suspect the buyers of such goods for rebels?”

  “Rest assured, lads—plenty of Loyalist merchants are thriving on black market trade in this city. How do you think I stock my shop? This shit-sack will sell to anyone paying in pounds.” Hercules sat up and laced his fingers behind his head. “The lobster scoundrels are a corrupt lot—especially the type who’ve worked their way up from the ranks, like our quartermaster. According to Patsy, he is anxious to line his pockets before the war ends, which he fancies will be soon.”

  Jack put elbow to knee and chin to fist. “We’ll need to age the notes, make ’em look like they’ve been in circulation.”

  “Aye.” Mulligan nodded. “Now you’ve got your finger on it.”

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Jack.” Titus slipped into his shoes and tied the laces. “Above all, we need a good plate.”

  “A quality plate . . .” Jack sat up. “This engraver of yours—he any good?”

  “I’m counting on you to tell me.” Mulligan fished a ring of keys from his weskit pocket and unlocked the doors to the tall cabinet. “The engraver came to me unbidden—a Quaker—an odd little duck he is, too.” He drew out a flat packet wrapped in velvet, and set it and a magnifying lens on the desk.

  Jack flipped open the wrapping. Titus pulled the curtain a few inches, casting a beam of light on a bright copper plate. They both bent close.