The Whiskey Rebel

by David Liss

  Here is how I went about mine: I had Leonidas request one of Mrs. Bingham’s servants to inform Mrs. Pearson that the lady was needed most urgently in the library. It would work, I thought. All would be protected by a buffer of supposed Negro ignorance, each servant claiming to believe that he or she had only passed along what was believed to be true.

  I sent the message and went to the library to await the arrival of the lady. I stood by the fire, leafing through a volume on the late war, until the doors opened and a troubled-looking Cynthia Pearson rushed inside.

  Upon seeing me, she was struck still and silent. Then she opened her mouth and would no doubt have called out her surprise, but recalled the doors were open. Instead of saying something, she closed the doors. I believe it was good that she did so. It gave her time to think, or perhaps it gave her time to cease thinking and allow her heart, and the memory of past emotions, to, if not eclipse, then at least take the stage along with other more reptilian designs.

  “My dear God,” she said.

  With the door closed, she took three or four purposeful steps toward me but stopped well short of the usual conversational distance. She folded her hands before me, as though she were about to sing an Italian aria. “I was told I was required for an urgent matter.”

  “You have been told the truth,” I said.

  Cynthia’s blue eyes flashed something meaningful, though I knew not what, and she turned away from me. She strode purposefully toward the doors. Before pulling them open, she turned back to me. “I asked you not to contact me. I begged you not to. You cannot have been invited to this house. Anne would never have asked you without informing me. You must go.”

  “What does it matter? All centered upon your husband’s unexplained absence, but he is absent no more.”

  “He returned last night and would say nothing of where he’d been-only that he had traveled on business. I tried to tell him that the government man, Lavien, was looking for him and that others had come, told me terrible things-”

  “The men who warned you not to speak with me?”

  She nodded. “I don’t know what transpires with my husband. I don’t know who it is that threatens me, but I know my duty, even when it is to those who do not deserve it. Why have you called me here like this, in so improper a manner? What is it you want of me?”

  “Cynthia, you asked for my help. That you have been threatened into retracting your request does not relieve me of my duty.”

  “Have you been asked to speak to me in these familiar terms?”

  “No,” I admitted. “That was entirely my idea.”

  She shook her head. “What is it you hope to accomplish, Captain Saunders?”

  What indeed? I hardly even knew. Did I want an apology or an explanation or a return to those days when I was young and had so much before me? I said, “I want to know why you married him.”

  She turned quite pink and her mouth formed a delicate O. I cannot say what she was expecting, but it had not been this. I watched as she took a deep breath to collect herself. She glanced about the library and her eyes fell upon a decanter of wine. She poured herself a glass and then, to my surprise, poured one for me. “It was more than ten years ago. You are not a child. Can you not put it behind you?”

  “Is it the mark of maturity that one sets love aside?” I took the glass with much gratitude.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

  She said it with such venom that I felt foolish and ashamed to have put her in so difficult a position, and I was prepared to tell her so. I knew not why I was there-in that house, in that city. I knew not why I had not been able to live my life since the close of the war, but I would not be so base as to drag this lady, this stranger, into my sadness.

  When I looked at her, prepared to offer some tepid apology, I saw that something had changed with her-softened, perhaps broken. Her chin was lowered toward her chest, a hand raised to her face. She was crying. Tears ran down her face in slow, thick globes. She wiped at one eye with a delicate hand. “You were gone, Ethan. You left, and I knew why you left. You could not bear for your shame to taint me. I don’t know if that was noble or selfish, or if those things can even be distinguished, but I was alone. You were gone and my father was dead. Jacob was kind to me, he wanted nothing from me, and he was-he was like a father to me. He was so much older that I did not even notice when his interest became something other than fatherly, and I was already so used to depending upon him that marriage, when he proposed it, seemed inevitable.”

  I ought not to have said it, but I was full of drink and had no will to control myself. “He does not seem to me paternal but cruel.”

  She turned away. “You embarrass me.”

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “No, don’t be sorry. You must never be sorry after what you’ve endured. My God, Ethan, what have you done to yourself? You did not have to let the blame attach itself to you.”

  “You know the reason. I could not bear the cost of extricating myself.”

  “I could have. You tell yourself it was the right thing, the glorious thing, to do, to sacrifice yourself for a great cause, but did you stop to think of those it would hurt? Did you think of what your nobility would cost me?”

  I took a step closer to her. “You must leave him, Cynthia, before it is too late.”

  “Leave him? How am I to leave him? Am I to take my children and flee penniless into the street? And to what? Shall I come live with you, Ethan, in your boardinghouse, and be a fallen woman?”

  “Cynthia,” I said.

  She stopped. “I am sorry. I have no business venting my rage on you, but I am trapped, and I rage like a trapped creature. I cannot go, so I must stay.”

  I had no heart to tell her that her husband, whose money alone now offered her solace, was likely ruined.

  “You cannot think I am content to abandon you to that devil,” I said at last.

  “I have been with that devil since I was a girl. You are too late to rescue me. You are impulsive, but there is nothing for you to do.”

  “I am not prepared to leave you, Cynthia.”

  “You must leave. Only…” She looked away.

  “Only what?”

  “Only, you must see me again.” She set down her empty glass and left the library.

  B ack at the gathering, I tried to make sense of our conversation. What did Cynthia want from me? Perhaps even she did not know. I hardly knew what I wanted from her. A dalliance? I could not ask her to compromise her position so. She was not some pretty housewife of an obscure gentleman farmer or merchant. She was a prominent lady, close friends with the most known and beloved woman in the city. Because of her friendship with Anne Bingham, if not on her own account, eyes were upon her, and the risk to her would be too great.

  Not so far from where I stood, Cynthia’s radiant face showed no sign that she had wept. Indeed, she now laughed most heartily in a small circle of people, including her brute of a husband. He hung upon Cynthia’s arm-no signs of cruelty now-and smiled at this comment or that, occasionally dared a rasping laugh that sounded like dry leaves rubbing against one another.

  I saw no sign of Lavien-or Hamilton, for that matter-which was just as well. I strode about the room, trying hard not to take another glass of wine. I think I would have surrendered to temptation, but I looked up and saw a familiar-looking man, plump and red-faced, and knew him at once, though I could not say how. I continued to study him, his little eyes and blunt nose-all so porcine-and perhaps would still not have known him if it had not been for the girl next to him. She was equally porcine, though younger and less plump, and with a mass of yellow hair. She was the girl in my stolen timepiece and he the owner.

  I walked over to him, bowed, and held out the watch. “Sir,” I said, “I believe I saw you drop this in the street several days ago. I attempted to run after you to return it, but my way was blocked. I have carried it upon my person ever since in the hope of finding its owner.”

  He took th
e watch from me, his fat fingers moving with surprising gentleness. “Why, I never thought to see it again. I must ask your name, sir, that I may know who to thank.”

  I bowed again. “Ethan Saunders, at your service.”

  “What? The traitor?” He must have regretted his words, for his red complexion now purpled.

  I bowed again. “I am not he. That man and I merely share the same name.”

  He wished to make more conversation, but I demurred and excused myself to wander more. There, standing by himself, looking morosely at a portrait upon the wall, was Jacob Pearson. With little to lose, I approached him, probably with more boldness than clarity.

  “Why, ’tis Jacob Pearson!” I cried. “Good heavens, man, it has been years.”

  He turned to me and smiled reflexively. In an instant his smile faded and then returned, this time quite false. “Sir, I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You look to me familiar, but I cannot place your name.”

  It was a well-executed lie, I will grant him that. “It is Ethan Saunders. We knew each other during the war.”

  Pearson glanced across the room until he found Cynthia, locked in conversation with her friend, Mrs. Bingham, and another woman, also quite striking, whom I did not know. They did a passable job, I thought, of pretending not to observe me and Pearson together.

  “Yes, of course.” He let go of my hand. “I heard you were dead. Or was it disgraced?”

  “Disgraced,” I said. “But enough of my ignominy. Tell me, Mr. Pearson, where have you been this last week?”

  “Why does everyone wish to know? Not ten minutes ago Hamilton himself was troubling me with his questions. I see not why it is the world’s concern. You do not like my saying so? It is rather bad for you, then, for it is my custom to speak as I like. For what does a man rise to consequence if he must guard his own tongue?”

  “I can think of no reason.”

  “And why are you here at all? Can it be a man like you has been invited here? I must ask Mr. Bingham what he means.”

  I saw no need to answer this implied threat. If he wished to issue a challenge, I could certainly answer it. “There’s been considerable speculation about your absence,” I said. “Some have talked about your properties in Southwark, and others of your interest in the Million Bank. Surely you can shed some light upon the subject?”

  “I suppose my wife has been talking. Let me tell you something.” He put one of his enormous hands upon my shoulder. I did not like the feel of it. “There’s more to wish for in a wife than beauty. That is my advice to you.”

  My stomach clenched at this mention of his wife. I could not let it go unanswered. “You have strangely large hands,” I said. “It’s as though they’ve been flattened by a great stone. You’ll forgive me for talking freely, but I also like to say what I feel. What is the advantage of being disgraced if a man cannot speak his mind?”

  He studied me, looking me up and down, his sharp nose bobbing like a blade. “I think this conversation has taxed me long enough. Now I must away to look for Mr. Duer.”

  Pearson wandered off, and it occurred to me that I had not seen Duer since our conversation. Could it be, I wondered, that he did not want to see Pearson? Duer appeared to have no interest in or respect for Pearson, yet Pearson spoke of seeking out the speculator the way one speaks of seeking out a friend. Those answers would have to wait, for here and now I could pass the time in gazing openly upon Cynthia.

  I watched her now speaking with Mrs. Adams, the Vice President’s wife. My brief conversation had only confirmed to me how hateful was Pearson and how unhappy Cynthia must be in her life with him. She was right, of course, that I could not simply take her away, but neither could I leave her. I would have to conceive of some alternative, and I would have to do so soon, because each day she spent with him would be a torment to me.

  “You appear lost in thought, sir.”

  I looked up, and there was the woman I had seen with Cynthia and Anne Bingham. She wore a much simpler gown than did Cynthia, looser, longer arms, higher neck. The material was of a plain pale red, but it looked marvelous well upon her. She was a brown-haired beauty with large eyes, penetrating in their gray intensity, like clouds threatening snow.

  She stood next to a man of my own age who, though not very tall or very distinguished, with his receding hair, yet held himself in an ad-mirable manner. Here was a man the ladies enjoyed, and who enjoyed the ladies. He had something of a swagger I could not help but approve.

  “Captain Ethan Saunders, at your service,” I said to them both.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Captain,” said the man. “Colonel Aaron Burr, though now I suppose I am to be addressed as senator.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said. “Senator Burr. I have read much of you in the papers. You have made quite an enemy of our Secretary Hamilton in New York.”

  He laughed. “Hamilton and I are friends from many years back, but he is every inch the Federalist, and New York is increasingly republican and anti-Federalist in its outlook. Nevertheless, I like to think that men might be opposed politically and friends socially.”

  “I do love an optimist,” I said. “And is this lady Mrs. Burr?”

  “Mrs. Burr is not here at present. I am afraid I only just met this delightful lady, yet I will take the liberty of introducing you to Mrs. Joan Maycott.”

  I bowed.

  “Now that you are in good hands,” the senator said to the lady, “I must beg your leave to speak to some of my brothers of the Senate. I hope I shall see you more, Mrs. Maycott.”

  He took his leave and left me with the woman, and I could not say I was displeased. She had that vivacious look that suggested she should be good company. There was more to her too. She had a command in her physical presence, a kind of authority that, in her own feminine way, reminded me of the most accomplished and successful of military men. Strange though it might be to say, I had never met anyone, man or woman, who so immediately put me in mind of Washington himself.

  “You did look lost in thought, you know,” she said to me.

  “I am a thoughtful man,” I said.

  “Was it something to do with Mr. Pearson? You will forgive me for asking, but I saw you in conversation with him. Is he a particular friend of yours?”

  “I know him from many years ago,” I said. “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “I am friends with his wife,” she answered.

  “Then you know he’s been missing.”

  “Oh, he told me he was in New York,” she said. “But perhaps I ought not to have said as much. I was under the impression he did not wish people to know it.”

  “Then he has been thwarted. How sad for him.”

  She laughed. “I enjoy my pettiness with a dose of wit. You do not like him?”

  “I love wit and may endure pettiness, but he strikes me as cruel, which I cannot abide,” I answered.

  “I think perhaps you know his wife from many years ago too.” From another person this might have seemed impertinent beyond endurance, but there was something so clever and endearing in how she spoke these words that it doused all impropriety.

  “She and I are old friends.” I turned to look at this beauty full on, and she met my gaze most boldly. Here, I thought, might be an agreeable consolation to my confusion with Cynthia. “Do you live in Philadelphia, Mrs. Maycott?”

  “I live here, though I travel much.”

  “You enjoy travel-with Mr. Maycott, perhaps?”

  She looked directly into my eyes once more, as though leveling an accusation. “Sir, Mr. Maycott is dead.”

  “I am sorry for that, madam.”

  “That is merely something one says.”

  “Mrs. Maycott,” I said, to my strange interlocutor, “I cannot help but feel you believe we have met before, or that you expect me to have some knowledge of your circumstances.”

  “I don’t believe you do, sir. Mr. Duer tells me, however, that you inquire into Jacob Pearson’s business, and that you do it
for Hamilton. Is that so?”

  I did not pause. I did not wait so much as an instant, for I would not show surprise that she had previously spoken of me or knew anything of my business. I would act as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “You know Mr. Duer?”

  “There are so many here,” she answered. “One may meet everyone. But I must ask you, as there is much consternation about Hamilton ’s policies: Are you an enthusiast of his?”

  “I do not work for or with Hamilton, though my interests may be intersecting with his.”

  “Tell me, Captain. Have you any thoughts on the whiskey excise?”

  “I am no friend to excise taxes,” I said, keeping all inflection from my voice. Nevertheless, I set down my glass on a nearby table and scanned the room for Lavien. Pearson’s disappearance and the whiskey tax were bound together-there could be no doubt of it, not when my inquiry into the matter had faced opposition from the hairless western giant, the man with superior whiskey as his calling card. I did not know if therein lay the link to the threat against the bank, but I hardly cared about the threat against the bank. I only cared that this woman appeared to be telling me that she had some knowledge of Pearson’s disappearance and thus a connection to Cynthia’s safety.

  “I believe we have much in common, sir,” she said. “We are both caught up in events larger than ourselves, and we must make choices that we sometimes find unsavory if we are to do what is right.”

  I attempted a smile. “What events are you involved in, madam?”

  She leaned closer. “I cannot speak of them now. Not here. It is too soon and too public.” She gazed across the room and, indeed, William Duer was looking at us most pointedly. “Would you be willing to meet with me again, sir? Have I given you sufficient reason to do so?”