Victory at Yorktown: A Novel

by Newt Gingrich

  She looked back over her shoulder, her green eyes and blonde hair, the way she looked back at him, striking a near-visceral blow. She said nothing, gesturing for him to take a seat in a high-backed chair near the kitchen fire.

  Its warmth was luxurious after the cold rain of the day before and a sigh escaped him as he settled down. He could not help but lean forward, extending his chilled hands to the fire and rubbing them.

  She stood on the far side of the fireplace, now suddenly a bit distant it seemed, hands on hips, gazing at him.

  “All right, Peter. The truth. Why are you here?”

  “Carrying dispatches.”

  “From?”

  He hesitated. Regardless of his adoration at such a distance she had, indeed, been friends with the damned Peggy Shippen and was the center of Allen’s attention now as well.

  “Might I ask first what happened here?” and he nodded back toward the empty dining room.

  She did not reply for a moment. First going through the formality of pouring some tea, no fancy china, instead an earthenware mug filled nearly to the brim, but taking a china cup for herself and sitting down in a chair she pulled up by the opposite side of the wide fireplace.

  “The war of course.”

  “I don’t understand,” Peter replied, trying to be polite but unable to hold back as he drained a quarter of the scalding mug, the warmth flooding through him.

  “Well, if you haven’t heard, I am now branded a Tory. If not for our friend Doctor Rush, who vouched for me, the house would most likely have been confiscated and though they don’t ride women out of town on rails, or tar and feather them, I would have been driven out and sent to join my father in New York, abandoning our property.”

  “But why?”

  “Remember. I was once friends with,” she hesitated but then spat the words out, “that bitch Peggy Shippen. I was bridesmaid at her wedding to you know who.”

  She sighed bitterly and leaned back in her chair, and said, “Oh, well Arnold was still the hero, any rumors about my behavior during the British occupation forgotten it seemed. Once the table was turned yet again, those damn two-faced types, who have both American and British flags in their attics and hang them out accordingly, like the Havershams and van Dykes, were screaming I should be driven out and the house auctioned off, of course to them, at one tenth its value before the war.

  “So it is live as best one can. The mahogany table fetched two pounds sterling, the Ottoman rug, which father brought back before the war and paid fifty pounds for, did fetch five and thus I get by.”

  He looked down at his half empty cup of tea, feeling a twinge of guilt as she took it from his hand and refilled it, wondering if she was offering the last of her larder to him.

  “You look like a drowned kitten who has been tossed in the gutter, Peter. Can I make you breakfast?”

  “No thank you, Miss Elizabeth, I ate on the road; I’m fine for the day.”

  “It’s Elizabeth, dear Peter,” she said with a smile, “and don’t be going telling no tales if your stomach is empty.”

  “Truly. I did eat a couple of hours ago.”

  “All right then, but I did offer.”

  “I remember a house full of servants, Elizabeth, where are they?”

  She laughed and shook her head.

  “For a while there, it was being said that a real Patriot sent their manservants off to help the war. When father fled to New York, I could not abide any slave in this house and gave them their papers. Old Ben stayed on, God bless him.”

  She lowered her head and, try as she might, a shudder ran through her.

  “He died last month of a winter fever.”

  She looked back up and there were tears in her eyes, the sight of them all but breaking his heart. Stink as she said or not, he was out of his chair, came to her side, knelt down, and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “Ben filled some of my first memories,” she sighed, fighting to hold back her tears, “I was his ‘Little Missus,’ and he would carve me little playthings and take me for long walks, always protectively by my side. Now, even he is gone.”

  She brushed away her tears, and then she looked straight at him.

  “I’m no damn Tory,” she said. “Ben helped to prove that to Doctor Rush, who tended to him as he lay dying. Yes, I stayed around that traitorous bitch Peggy, but whatever I could find out as she flittered about with Major Andre and would blather to me, I would pass on to Ben, who risked his life again and again to slip through the lines and carry that information to General Morgan, who hovered outside the city during the Valley Forge winter.”

  This was something he never knew about, or heard a word of from anyone, though without doubt General Washington knew.

  “And now even he is gone.”

  “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.”

  “So your treading into the house of a damn Tory, who when the British were here was all so accepting of their presence, it might taint your reputation, Peter Wellsley.”

  “I don’t give a damn what others say, Elizabeth. You always knew I cared.”

  Her features were suddenly fixed as she gazed into his eyes.

  “So why are you here? To spy on me. I heard rumors to that effect that you work in Jersey as a spy.”

  He could not lie to her as he could to near anyone else. Besides, the truth now was harmless and might actually help in some way.

  “I was assigned to General Greene’s command for the winter, to be a liaison to General Washington. I am carrying a report of what happened at Guilford Court House and General Greene’s thoughts.”

  “Good God, not in writing I hope.”

  He smiled and just tapped his forehead.

  “Up here.”

  “I heard the news crier just after dawn saying we had been defeated again.”

  “Damn liar,” and he hesitated, blushed slightly for using a profanity in her presence.

  “Oh stop it, Peter, I know soldier talk.”

  Now it was his turn to hesitate.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “I was asked by a mutual friend, perhaps a former mutual friend to inquire after your health and safety.”

  She blushed.

  “You mean Allen. You actually saw him?” and there was a touch of eagerness in her voice that left him crestfallen.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he safe?”

  “Last time I saw him, yes.”

  “Thank God. When did you see him?”

  He told her all, and she sadly shook her head when he asked if she had received any of his letters.

  “Only one came through, right after the battle at Monmouth.”

  “And?”

  Even as he asked he wished he had not pressed so hard.

  She lowered her head.

  “He wrote that he loved me, and begged me to wait for him, and we would wed after this horrible war was over.”

  “And will you?”

  She looked back up, her gaze holding him.

  “Oh, Peter, I suspect why you ask. You know I love you as well…” her voice trailed off.

  “But not in that way,” he sighed.

  She tried to smile, and leaning over she kissed him lightly on the forehead, not saying a word.

  “Now tell me what really happened at Guilford,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes again.

  He returned to his seat on the other side of the fireplace, heart filled with sad longing as he gazed at her, telling her all of being with Greene, the winter campaign, the lies of the report that had raced ahead of him, her interjecting that it obviously had to be part of the old Gates’s “cabal” but the truth would come out.

  He suddenly felt very weary. Was it the long days of riding, or the sad shock of looking at Elizabeth, realizing more than ever how much he loved and idealized her, but that her heart had been captured by Allen.

  He at last fell silent and then was startled by a light touch on his shoulder, a kiss to the top
of his head, the scent of her body and perfume.

  She laughed softly.

  “You dozed off in midsentence there my young hero, come with me.”

  Yawning he stood up and followed her into the living room where she motioned to the sofa.

  “You have a long day ahead. Sleep for an hour or two. Don’t worry, I’ll wake you up in plenty of time. I already took that poor exhausted mount of yours out to the barn and got the saddle off him.”

  “Elizabeth, I should have seen to that.”

  “Can’t a lady know something about horses? When Ben used to tend to father’s mount I would help him. Now get some rest.”

  He did not resist, even accepting her loving gesture of helping him take his boots off, though embarrassed that his socks were little better than rags. When he awoke two hours later, she was sitting on a chair by his side, a simple repast of yet more tea, toast, and several thin slices of bacon waiting for his attention. She had also laid out fresh socks, riding breeches, and a freshly boiled shirt.

  “The pants belonged to my father. They are a bit portly but seriously, Peter, you can’t appear before your general in those stinking leathers. Now eat and change and I’ll leave you to your privacy.”

  He did as ordered as she retreated to the kitchen. He was embarrassed to take off his shirt, for it was full of lice and fleas, the same as the breeches. After changing he picked up the filthy gray shirt, pants, and tattered socks and nervously walked into the kitchen where Elizabeth appeared to be busying herself with tending the fire.

  He did not even have time to ask before, with a wrinkling of her nose that he found all so loveable, she gestured straight to the fire.

  “Not even worth handing over to the rag man,” she announced as he tossed them into the fire, and she even managed to laugh as she shifted them deeper into the flames with an iron poker.

  “Just that one hug, I most likely caught a few of your traveling companions.”

  “I am so sorry,” he stuttered.

  “I’m not, even though Doctor Rush is convinced they carry disease.”

  “Elizabeth, I am so…”

  “Stop apologizing to me, Peter Wellsley,” she snapped. “That one time we danced together, every time you trod on my toes you kept muttering apologies.”

  Then she stepped forward and kissed him yet again on the forehead.

  “You know something, Elizabeth,” he began, unable not to stammer.

  “Don’t say it,” she whispered, even as she gave him a gentle hug then stepped back.

  “Now get you on your way, I dare say our general needs to hear the truth as to events.”

  He smiled at the way she said “our general,” a touch of reverence in her voice.

  She followed him to the back door, opening it, but before doing so, she again embraced him.

  “You will always hold a special place in my heart forever, Peter.”

  He could not contain himself any longer.

  “Elizabeth, I do love you and always will.”

  “Peter, don’t.”

  “I know about Allen. Even though now he is my enemy, out of love for you I pray that all shall be well for him and for you.”

  His voice began to choke.

  “If need be, I will help him on his path to you, once all of this madness has ended.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she was unable to reply as he left her side. He looked back as she slowly closed the door, knowing he would be forever haunted by her gaze. Saddling his poor weary mount he trotted back out on to Market Street. All was abuzz with rumors about Guilford Court House, people gathered around the office of the Gazette, snatching up copies as quickly as they came off the press.

  He felt all so weary at the sight of it all, and heartsick now that he had left Elizabeth’s side, his longing, he believed, forever to be unanswered. He felt shaken to the core, the thought of dickering with the remount officer and then the long ride across Jersey filling his soul with exhaustion. He still had a couple of shillings and a thaler in his haversack and in spite of his sense of duty and urgency, there was no harm in taking a few minutes for a cool mug of German beer to fill his stomach after the thin repast with Elizabeth. Spotting a tavern, one of many lining the waterfront, he dismounted and walked in.

  Of course all were talking loudly about the supposed news from North Carolina. Taking a frothing tankard, which would have cost him five dollars Continental but only a few pennies of hard coin, he looked about for a place to sit for a few minutes to gather his strength before moving on. A table near a fly-splattered window had but one occupant and approaching he motioned to the empty seat on the other side, the thin, somewhat bedraggled man sitting there offering a smile and a welcoming gesture for him to sit down.

  The man looked at him appraisingly.

  “Pennsylvania Rifles? First Continental?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Peter offering the usual lie.

  “Hmmm,” was the only response as his host drained the rest of his glass of dark rum, and slamming it down, slapped the table, calling for the barman to bring him another.

  The service was surprisingly prompt Peter thought, the barman taking the genuine shilling gladly and nodding his head.

  “Thank ya, Mr. Paine.”

  “Mr. Paine?”

  The hawk-faced man, features flushed obviously from too much drink, simply nodded then in the gesture that had become common and showed the egalitarian nature of a revolutionary by extending his hand.

  “Thomas Paine at your service, my young rifleman.”

  Peter could not help but contain his shocked surprise. Before him sat “the” Thomas Paine. The author of the immortal words that he had listened to, while shivering on the banks of the Delaware, waiting to cross. “These are the times that try men’s souls…”

  Yet the man who sat before him now? He would have expected Thomas Paine to have the look of a scholar, an intellectual, a young Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson. Instead his coat was seedy looking, stained, his face covered in stubble, the classic look of a man lost in drink, clouding his eyes, pinching in his cheeks.

  “Don’t look at me with such surprise, young Patriot,” Paine said with a chuckle before downing half the glass of rum. “I am mere mortal as any other.”

  “I remember your words, sir,” Peter replied, unable to hide his awe, “I crossed the Delaware with Washington, your words filled our souls with fire.”

  “That was, let’s see, that was over four years ago and still it goes on,” Paine sighed now looking into his glass. “So you were one of the gallant few, the winter soldier and not just the sunshine Patriot.”

  He laughed softly.

  “If there is a God, may He not hold against me all who died with my words in their souls.”

  Peter could not reply.

  “Now news of yet another defeat,” Paine sighed, taking another sip of his rum.

  “It was not a defeat, damn it,” Peter snapped.

  Paine looked straight at him.

  “Well pray, sir, do you carry some winged message from heaven to the contrary of what all are crying in the streets.”

  Peter hesitated.

  “I’ve become a good judge of truth versus falsehood if I dare to praise myself,” Paine said, “and you, sir, do not look like a rifleman. You don’t have that hardened steely eye and sinewy, at times, murderous look about you, and good God, sir, those breeches you wear are the pants of rich man and not a rifleman who has been the army for four years.”

  Peter looked down at the pants Elizabeth gave him and inwardly sighed. Sure enough, to a practiced eye it was a dead giveaway. They were not velvet, thank God, he would have rejected that, but they were, nevertheless, good riding breeches of rich material.

  And this was Thomas Paine.

  “I know it is the oldest question in the world, sir, but can you keep a secret, at least till I am clear of this town.”

  Paine smiled.

  “I’m a stranger, why would you t
rust me thus?”

  Peter looked down into his own mug. Thomas started to call to the barkeep to bring a fresh one, but he held out his hand in refusal. The last thing he needed at this moment was to fall drunk, shoot his mouth off, and fail in his mission.

  He hesitated, and Paine smiled.

  “I am who that barkeep said I am, and, good sir, one of the reasons I am good and properly half-drunk this hour of the day is that I am to take ship with the tide for France. I am to accompany the young son of the president of our confederation, Colonel Laurens, bearing dispatches to Mr. Franklin, God bless him, and John Adams to beg the French yet again for more help. So if you have some secret intelligence, let it sail with me on the tide rather than news of yet more disaster.”

  Peter nodded and could not help but draw a bit closer, having made his decision. Besides, in another hour he would be out of this town and on the postal road to West Point.

  “I’m bearing a dispatch from General Greene to General Washington.”

  Paine sat back and laughed out loud.

  “Go on and tell another.”

  “If you don’t believe me, sir,” Peter sighed, and he motioned as if to finish his drink and then depart.

  Paine laughed and gestured for him to stay.

  “Let us share conspiracy, and if I think you tell the truth, I will tell you truth as well.”

  For the next half hour Peter told him all of what he had witnessed in what was called the “Southern Campaign,” and his own firm belief that Greene, having lured Cornwallis to the edge of disaster while keeping the bulk of his army intact, would now swing south, abandoning Cornwallis to whatever fate he might decide upon, with the goal of winning back Charleston, Savannah, and forcefully pulling back the Southern states, which had been wavering, to the revolutionary cause.

  “You place great trust in this Greene,” Paine finally said, and though he had drained the rest of his glass and called for another, he now seemed cold sober.

  “Only one man I trust more and that is General Washington himself.”