The Messenger

by Siri Mitchell

  “Search her. You know. For forbidden things.” He was looking at me, a smile playing at his lips. “Maybe she’s a spy.”

  The woman looked just as aghast at the idea as I was. She turned around to face him. “You didn’t pay me for that!”

  “It’s something we’re ordered to do. Everyone visiting the prisoners is to be searched. Although, now that I think on it, I’ve just remembered that no one is supposed to be visiting the jail.”

  I tried to smile and I tried not to think about the bag of grain and the other things that I was hiding beneath my skirts. “After all this time? Surely if I were going to smuggle something in, I would have done it by now.”

  “Everyone is to be searched.”

  I couldn’t very well argue that I wouldn’t be visiting much longer. There was nothing to do but comply . . . and pray. I held out my basket.

  The woman lifted the cloth. Pushed her hand into it and felt around. When she pulled it out, her fist was closed around a roll. She smiled and then bit into it. “I searched. She isn’t taking anything in.”

  “I meant a search of her person.”

  “Here?” She plopped down onto his lap and wound an arm about his neck. He succumbed to her kisses for a moment. But then his eyes popped open and he saw me watching them. He pushed the woman from his lap again. “A real search.”

  She frowned, put a hand to his chest, and pushed away from him. Then after casting a look back at him, she walked over to me. “Take off the cloak, then.”

  I set the basket on the ground, pulled at the ribbons which bound the cloak at my throat, and offered it to her. She pointed to my pocket, so I offered it to her as well. As she felt about inside of it, I blessed Doll for her foresight in making me a secret pouch. Throwing my pocket back at me, the woman gave me a scornful glance from head to toe. “She’s one of them Quakers. Doesn’t even wear a hoop. She can’t hide anything under those skirts. There’s no room.” She gestured toward my hat, holding a hand out for it.

  I pulled the pin from it and then removed it and placed it into her hands.

  She turned it over and poked around inside, feeling beneath the brim. “Nothing there neither.”

  “Try her shoes.”

  I bent to pull them from my feet, hoping the outline of the blade of a hoe wouldn’t show through the folds of my gown. I handed them to her, waiting as the cold of the bare earth pressed through my stockings, into the soles of my feet.

  She ran a hand around inside them. She turned them over, pulling at my plain silver buckles. “Nothing there.” She tugged at the buckles once more.

  I held out a hand. “May I . . . ?”

  She gave the shoes back to me.

  The guard was looking at me, confusion crimping his brow. “There has to be something.”

  There was of course something. There were several things. There was a note beneath the folds of my polonaise and some char cloths tucked underneath my garter. There was a bag of grain. I’d pulled a pair of breeches on beneath my hose and another pair was wrapped around my waist. There was also a hoe dangling beneath the skirts she had declared too modest to hide anything at all.

  “There’s nothing.” The woman had given up the search and flounced back to the guard’s lap. He frowned as he caught her about the waist, but he gestured toward the door.

  I knocked upon it and sent up a swift prayer of thanks as it opened.

  Once I gained admittance to the cell, my heart quailed within me. More than half the men were lying prostrate on the floor.

  “Another bout of the putrid fever.” William Addison said it with no little regret coloring his voice.

  Again! And with so little time left. “The tunnel . . . ?”

  He shrugged. “We’re trying. If only we could put it off another day or two.”

  “Thee can’t. If thee cannot get out that night, then thee must not go at all. General Washington’s men would not know to expect thee at the lines.”

  “We’re trying.” He was looking around at his stricken men.

  I reached out and gripped his hand. “Thee must succeed. There will be no other chance.” I unfastened my cloak and handed it to him. He used it to shield me from sight as I divested myself of all I had smuggled in. I handed the message to him.

  He read it and then held it out to me. “Do you know what it says?”

  “I do not.”

  “Read it.”

  Once escaped, proceed directly to lines. No sick or lame.

  “He would have me leave my men here?” He’d taken a step closer as he whispered.

  “If thee take them, then thee are sure to be caught. And it will go worse for thee than if thee had stayed.”

  “But if I don’t take them, then it will go worse for them than if they had been caught. And most of those men have been working on the tunnel.”

  He had forgotten to whom he was speaking. He was talking to me, who had taken their cause as my own and sacrificed my brother to them. I understood the cruel irony and the tragedy of General Washington’s orders, but was it worth the lives of a handful of men to keep several dozen others from escaping? “General Washington has planned a disruption after midnight. He will keep the British busy as long as he can, but thee must make haste to cross the lines. Once the disruption is silenced, it may well be too late to make it through.”

  “If we make it out of the city, then what are we to do in between our lines and theirs?”

  I shrugged uncertainly. “Every measure has been taken in order to help thee, but it will up to thee to succeed.”

  “You want me to send my men through that tunnel not knowing what awaits us on the other side?”

  “Thee would rather take thy chances and stay here?”

  We could hear the guard begin his walk toward us, keys clanking against his thigh.

  William Addison looked once more at his men. Cringed as one sat up and hacked into the straw. Closed his eyes and sighed. “No. I’d rather die as one free.”

  When I was shown back into the guard’s room, it was to find the woman gone and the man staring at me, an avaricious gleam in his eye.

  “I thought we had an arrangement.”

  He shrugged. “We did. We do. But why can’t I look for a safer means of investment?”

  “Thee took the money. I expected thee to be honest in the doing of it.”

  “That’s the thing about dealing with a cheat, miss. We aren’t known for our honesty.”

  “It’s a shameful trick thee tried to play.”

  He looked abashed, but only for a moment. “Can’t blame a man for trying.”

  I threaded my arm through Doll’s as we walked away from the jail. I wanted to be able to talk to her without anyone overhearing. “They’re going to escape soon. On the night of the eighteenth.”

  “During that big party everyone talking about?”

  I nodded. “After midnight the patriots are going to create a disturbance to give the prisoners a chance to get through the city. Thee should join them. If thee can make it to the lines, thee can be free.”

  She looked at me with such disappointment that shame began to creep over me. “And what would I do then?”

  What would she do? “Anything thee wanted.”

  “And where would I go?”

  “Any place thee wanted to.”

  “And what would all those folks on the other side of the lines do with me? A Negro woman with no work to do and no master?”

  “Thee could find work.”

  “Not anywhere around here. And Mister Pennington, he’d bring me back as soon as he found me. He’d have me whipped for sure. And what’s a woman my age want with freedom? Why you want me to leave everything behind? I got my husband here and my children. They ten miles away, but at least I can see them now and then. If I go, I can’t never come back. Why you want me to give them all up?”

  “Thee are married? Thee have children?”

  She laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “You think I’m just
the person that you see?” She eyed me. “You did! That’s what you thought. You thought I just the person you needed me to be. Good ol’ Doll. Always there when I need her. Don’t give her no mind when I don’t. Well, that’s just fine. That’s what I got to be. That’s what kept me my position at Pennington House. Being the Doll that everyone want me to be. Even after Mister sold my family up to Germantown. ”

  “I just—thee don’t want to be free?”

  “Free to do what? Wander about the colony, begging food and scraps, aching for the folks I left behind? Don’t sound like no freedom to me.”

  “But God made thee just the same as me. And thee deserve freedom just the same as me.”

  “I believe that. I surely do. I am free. I free to do what you say: free to escape. And I free not to. You just as bad as all the other folks, telling me what I got to do. The only thing Doll got to do is find a way to live in this world. Just the same as you. You talk so much about making everybody free, but you don’t understand. There’s no use setting me free into a world where there is no freedom. You got to do more than help me escape. You got to make a world for me to escape to.”

  38

  Jeremiah

  “The Penningtons are having a supper tomorrow and I’ve been invited.”

  I saluted John with my bowl of punch on Monday as we sat in front of an open window in the public room, enjoying the breeze blowing up from the river.

  “And so have you.”

  “Me? I’ve been warned away from Miss Sunderland if you remember.”

  “I remember, but it seems as if Miss Pennington has forgotten. Or doesn’t care. I’m sure you’ll receive the invitation today. And really, it doesn’t matter one way or another, because if the Penningtons have invited you, then the Sunderlands have nothing to say about it.”

  I didn’t want to distress Hannah, but I did wish to see her. And I didn’t care a whit about what that priggish father of hers would allow. And besides, it would be a great pleasure to inform him about what had happened to the Pruitts after he’d dismissed Fanny from his service.

  John was watching me as I deliberated over the news. Suddenly his face split into a grin. “So you’ll go, then.”

  “I’ll go.” Though the devil might hang me for it.

  “And how is the tavern business, Mr. Jones?” Mrs. Pennington asked the question in between the first and second courses from her place at the foot of the table. She couldn’t have offered a better opportunity for me to say what was on my mind. I inclined my head. Smiled.

  “There’s no finer tavern in the city!” John raised his glass in my direction.

  I returned the favor. “Business has picked up considerably under the occupation, though I found myself short-staffed several weeks ago.”

  Mr. Pennington frowned. “Is the slave market not in operation?”

  “I don’t favor the use of the enslaved.”

  Mr. Sunderland cast a sharp glance in my direction.

  Mr. Pennington scowled. “Another do-gooder, are you?”

  “Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.” Mrs. Pennington frowned down the table at her husband.

  “I’ve always thought that a person works harder when they’re working of their own volition.”

  Mr. Sunderland was nodding strenuously. “Exactly so. There is that of God in everyone and no one should have the right to enslave any man.”

  “Or throw any woman out of service and into destitution when the cause is not her fault.”

  To my right, Hannah gasped. A cloud seemed to pass over Mr. Sunderland’s face.

  “In any case, I found myself without a cook and was happy to hire a pair—a brother and sister—who had been turned out of their home when their mother had died.”

  “Shame.” Mrs. Pennington was too good to steer me in such useful directions.

  “It was a shame. The sister had been in service elsewhere but was poorly used by a passing soldier.”

  Mrs. Pennington’s smile seemed to wither as she glanced over at Polly and at Hannah. “I’m not sure that—”

  “Her employer shoved her out the door, though her mother was dying and her brother could only find work as a messenger. A very great shame, don’t you think, Mr. Sunderland? Surely you agree with me. As a man who purports to see God in everyone. Or perhaps . . . perhaps there are people God favors a bit more than others. Perhaps He’s more like us than one would think.”

  “I don’t think—” He cleared his throat. “It’s not normal, under the circumstances, to keep a girl like that in service.”

  “If you can’t, then I can. She was pleased to find gainful employment once more. Fanny is her name. Fanny Pruitt, though I wouldn’t expect you to be acquainted with her situation. No more than her former employer had been.” I would never be invited back to Pennington House. I would never be granted permission to speak to Hannah again. But somehow that prospect did not bother me. I felt . . . free. And vindicated. And right.

  As we passed from the dining room to the parlor after supper, John drew near. “What was all that talk about? I have to tell you, conversation on topics such as yours would be considered woefully impolite back in London.”

  “Here as well.”

  “What are you—?” He broke off his inquiry as Miss Pennington came up and threaded her arm through his.

  She smiled at me. “You’re very wicked, you know.”

  I winked at her. I knew.

  “Hannah is just over there.” She nodded toward the corner. “And if you aren’t careful, she may just slip up the stair before the dancing starts.”

  John sent me a quizzical glance, then allowed himself to be led into the parlor. I thought about excusing myself from the dance that would soon follow, but then decided it would greatly increase Mr. Sunderland’s displeasure if I stayed. And especially if I kept myself close to fair Hannah’s side. So I walked over to her and offered my arm.

  “Was that necessary?”

  “Are you asking as a scandalized guest or as a woman who told me not a week ago that she was not her father?”

  She looked at me for a long moment and then placed her hand about my extended arm.

  I could not help but grin at her. “I didn’t arrange this meeting.”

  Her chin lifted. “Neither did I.”

  “Just so we’re agreed on everything.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “Good. Please don’t. I doubt that your cousin’s tricks will work after this. And I’d like to enjoy the evening without being browbeaten, berated, or otherwise scolded.”

  “I have never done any of those things to thee.”

  I raised a brow.

  “I have, perhaps, strenuously . . . encouraged thee as unto righteousness. On occasion.”

  I offered her a chair and then sat in one beside hers. As the first dance began, I leaned toward her. “How close is the tunnel to being done?”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head as her gaze swept the room.

  “None can hear us.”

  “ ’Tis not that I fear being overheard. Not anymore. ’Tis that William Addison fears the tunnel may not be completed in time.”

  “Does he not understand the urgency?”

  “Half his men linger at death’s door from the fever.” She moved to lay a hand on my arm, but then seemed to think the better of it. “He’s doing all that he can.”

  “They’ve three weeks left. We must hope that they succeed. They have no other choice.”

  She laid a hand upon my arm at last. “Thee are troubled.”

  “Of course I’m troubled! It’s one thing to have them escape the jail through a tunnel, but another thing entirely to help them escape the city. How am I going to get four dozen men through the lines unnoticed?”

  Her gaze held mine for a long moment. “How do thee plan to do it?”

  “I was going to have them pretend to be the militia. For surely the real militiamen will be called up at the first sign of the general’s
diversion.”

  She frowned.

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  “It’s just . . . they have no shoes. And most of them don’t even have breeches.”

  I raised a brow. No breeches? And she was visiting them? Weekly? “We’ll just have to . . . clothe them.”

  “With what?”

  What, indeed? How many men could we hope would escape? Three dozen? Four? Who had forty-eight pairs of breeches and forty-eight pairs of shoes to spare? The only people who suffered from abundance in this city were those with gold to spend. We sat there for some moments. She must have been contemplating the same gloomy thoughts as I, for a pallor had crept over her cheeks and her lips seemed to dip at the corners.

  Something she had said earlier began to bother me. “What was it you meant about not fearing to be overheard anymore?”

  She started at my words. “I only meant that everyone who ought to know already does.”

  “And who exactly is that?”

  “Well . . . Polly knows, of course. About my visits to the jail at least. And there’s Doll. Thee have met her already. Whenever I leave the house, she’s been told she has to go with me. So I had to tell her. And there’s Betsy. She was practically promised to Robert before he left to join the patriots. And I needed her help one day to escape my mother. I had to tell her. And there’s the guard at the jail.”

  “So you’re telling me that half the city knows what we’re about.”

  “Half the city? I did not say half the city. I said three people. Four . . . maybe five.”

  I was trying, with all that was in me, not to yell at her. I gritted my teeth. Took a deep breath in through my nostrils. I had clenched my hand so hard the one that was missing had begun to ache. “Spying is a very serious business. And the spies that are most successful are those who only reveal themselves to those who need to know. No one is actually supposed to be visiting the jail.”

  “As I told thee: They truly did need to know.”

  “Spies reveal themselves only to other spies. And I’m quite sure that Doll and Betsy and Polly are not spies.”