A hideously embarrassing silence ensued. Mr De Witt seemed to consider the best course of action to take, while the rest of us twirled the stems of our wine glasses, and coughed or cleared our throats for the sake of it. Only Clara was in the mood to break the ice.
‘I’m pursuing happiness, I am,’ she shouted happily, ‘as Mr Jefferson advised.’ She raised the nearest glass to hand – Dick’s – and toasted herself. ‘Cheers, Clara, love – you’re a fine and wonderful example of…example of…ah, fuck it…we’re all gonna be dead soon anyway…’
Jerking like a marionette, Clara accidently swiped a glass to the floor with her forearm. She peered over the table edge, stared glassily at the shattered remains, then slumped back in her chair and began to giggle between hiccups.
‘Satisfied?’ said Mr De Witt.
‘Piss off!’
‘Supposing Elzevir cuts himself on that?’
This only made her giggle more, which in turn made her list badly to Dick’s side. He shored her up with some effort.
‘All right, up to your room now. Eloise will help you.’
‘Not going,’ Clara pouted. ‘So there.’
‘Then if you stay, you must promise to keep quiet, and act with more decorum.’
‘Can’t censor me,’ Clara slurred. ‘I’ll have you up before Congress.’ Then, in a curious voice, as if mocking one of her father’s favourite phrases, ‘We are not in Europe now. I’ve got my rights and I’ve got my liberty.’
But to our collective relief she didn’t have them much longer, Nature stepping in like George III to crush all rebellion. Her head crashed onto Dick’s shoulder, and she was snoring and out, a spent firework.
Mr De Witt sighed, looked askance at Dick as his arm cradled her neck in a sort of armlock, and poured out more wine.
‘Now, gentlemen, where were we?’
Neither of us wanted to remind him, so we desperately tried to think of ways to pilot him into more interesting channels. But it was too late.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, brightening as we went into eclipse, ‘your education, or lack of it. So,’ he went on, warming to his theme, ‘you’re spies and know nothing about the Revolution. That’s a good start. Like being a bird and not knowing how to fly. I shall have to speak to Mr Woodbine about this lowering of standards. After all, the first men who came here were educated men from Oxford.’
‘Pah, they were lying,’ retorted Dick. ‘They might have been men who could read and write, and they might have been from Oxford, but I doubt very much whether they were Oxford graduates, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Lying or not, at least they had manners then,’ said Mr De Witt pointedly, glaring at Dick. ‘Nowadays the finest young men come not from England, but from Princeton, the college we have up the road.’ He sucked on his pipe reflectively. ‘In fact, one day they will say “what educated man comes from England?”‘
‘Let ‘em,’ said boorish Dick, dragging us all through the mud. I was just about to try and ameliorate this loutish image of Englishmen abroad with a philosophically meaty, multisyllabled rhetorical flourish when Mr De Witt began his lecture. In no time at all he was into his stride, pontificating like God on every drama – major, minor and utterly irrelevant – to have happened to America since the arrival of the Mayflower. All interest and opposition was crushed in a manner that reminded me of that other great pedagogue in my life, Dr Werner. So enthralling was the narrative that I flickered into sleep around the time of the Salem Witch Trials, and did not fully awake until the New Jersey legislative crisis of the present summer. However, ‘twas not the predictable political squabblings that opened my eyes wide, but the most surprising and delightful occurrence imaginable, viz. the insertion of a lady’s bare foot plumb between my thighs.
Widening my legs for greater ease of access, I looked across at Eloise with love and gratitude – this was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I was full of admiration for the discreet manner in which she was conducting herself, for no-one would guess, if they had only the demure expression on Eloise’s face to go by, what friction was being generated under the table by one tiny foot. This was a real woman at play, and if this was loving friendship, then my mouth watered at the prospect of the full works. ‘Twas bliss, and it cheered me up no end. I glanced at Dick and Clara, propping each other up, and pitied their childish need to rush their pleasure. If only they’d waited…
Eyes closed now, almost swooning with pleasure, I once more became impervious to Mr De Witt’s words, always willing to cast aside superficial knowledge when my wider education was at stake. After all, what would comfort me more when I was languishing in a rebel gaol – memories of Eloise’s foot or the knowledge that my captors were dangerously free and constitutionally encouraged to pursue their own happiness at the expense of a British soldier’s? It seemed only sensible to store up as much pleasure as I could before Mr De Witt broke the spell, which he did eventually with the heavily emphasized words: ‘So That…Gentlemen…Is America In A Nutshell.’ The heavenly foot left off its heavenly work. ‘How do you feel about your mission now?’
This was one of those vague questions that I hated at any time. I looked to Dick to answer, which made him shuffle awkwardly in his seat and disturb Clara. Awakened by the movement, she smacked her lips and screwed her eyes up at the lamplight as if it were the sun itself.
‘Much enlightened, thank you. Armed with such information we will…er…be able to…er…cope better with any awkward situation that arises.’
This was admirable waffle in the circumstances, I thought, and I nodded my head in agreement. It satisfied Mr De Witt anyway.
‘Good. Then now, gentlemen, ‘tis time for the real purpose of your visit. Girls, to bed please, while we men discuss matters in private.’
‘Yes, papa,’ said Eloise instantly, rising and giving her father a chaste kiss on the forehead. Such was her discretion that she did not look at me once as she made her way out of the room, preferring instead to communicate by an all-but-intangible Psychic Vibration which said, to those attuned: ‘I will be waiting for you upstairs, Harry. My paintings will be on display.’
Clara, of course, could not be dismissed so easily, and treated us to another tantrum, in which she drunkenly railed against the Old World, the New World, God, men, and her lack of true independence, before tottering off to her room, hands swatting away imaginary flies.
‘She’s just over-tired,’ said Mr De Witt in explanation, as a sound like a crashing chandelier shook the floor above, ‘and worried about the current vulnerability of our position.’ He plucked up some folds of skin on the back of his left hand and rolled them thoughtfully. ‘But with the grace of God we will weather the storm, and be all the stronger for having done so. But meanwhile, gentlemen, business is business. Have you got the money?’
I looked at Dick, who was our treasurer, and saw from his avid attention to the ceiling that he seemed to be taking the soundings of Clara’s progress through the house, perhaps the better to find her room later.
‘Dick!’
‘What?’
‘Mr De Witt wants the money.’
He scowled at Mr De Witt, then with ill grace began to rummage in the false lining of his jacket. He pulled out, after many thwarted attempts and much cursing, a slim flask of rum, a small round mirror, a pouch of gunpowder, an eight of clubs playing card and a cloth bag with DE WITT scrawled across it in a tasteless hand. This latter item was shoved across to Mr De Witt, who – eyes glittering – untied it and spilled out its contents onto the table. It was obvious at a glance that he’d been paid three genuine guineas for his services, but Mr De Witt was not satisfied until he’d counted the coins several times, bit them, and roasted them in a candleflame.
‘All seems in order,’ he said doubtfully, then rose to go to a cupboard, from which he fetched down a battered copy of Dolly Potter’s New Continental Cookery, so big it looked like a variorum edition. With this b
efore him on the table, he took the letter that Taylor Woodbine had enclosed with the money and stretched it carefully over the candleflame. We watched in fascination as faint letters and numbers began to develop between the lines of the hoax letter. Then he flicked a practised finger through the pages of the cookery book to decipher the code. He did this so quickly it was obvious he knew many of the combinations by heart; a similar-sized letter would have taken Dick and me the good part of an evening to unravel.
‘Yes, gentlemen,’ he said eventually, shutting the tome with a sturdy thwack, ‘everything is in order – or rather in its usual state of disorder. Sometimes I wonder if either side know what they are doing.’
‘Do you know what you are doing, Sir?’ I asked, still wishing to shake off our loutish impression. ‘It seems a dangerous game you play – playing off one side against the other.’
‘I do it solely for money, Mr Oysterman. Ignoble perhaps, but without money one can do nothing. I detest equally all sides in this dispute – and there are not just outright Patriots and British, there are many shades of opinion in between, and lots of waverers who sway with the prevailing wind – Patriot one day, Loyalist the next. It gives the war a very complex character; one cannot trust anyone.’
‘But money will not buy you security.’
‘Nothing will. But I am a little less unsafe with it. At least this way there is a chance that money may give me leverage or bargaining power. It may, for example, buy me time when the O’Sullivan gang finally comes a-calling. But anyway, gentlemen, let us get on. Sitting here philosophizing will not buy the baby a new bonnet. Now, have you pen and paper?’ He reached into his coat and pulled out a little leatherbound notebook. ‘I will give you a list of names and all the latest information I have. Then we can all go to bed, in readiness for your early departure tomorrow.’
Despite my growing empathy for Mr De Witt’s position, words like bed and baby still had me in their thrall, and were liable, as here, to dash the most serious discourse onto the rocks. Wondering what sleeping arrangements Mr De Witt had in mind – and if there was a chance of giving Eloise a baby in her bed – I retrieved a crumpled piece of paper from my pocket, smoothed it out and grabbed a stubby pencil in readiness to take down dictation. Meanwhile Dick, obviously excited by this first taste of real intelligence work, returned his gaze to the ceiling and began making clicking noises with his tongue, and drumming noises with his fingers.
‘Now, according to my latest sources,’ began Mr De Witt, putting on his half-moon spectacles, ‘Colonel Washington and his ragtag troops are presently encamped four miles from here at Bull’s Ferry.’
A thrill went through me when I heard this. To think that there was nothing but four miles of thin air between me and the great man himself. Indeed, supposing he had decided on a whim to come this way since the information was received, his troops could be surrounding the house at this very moment. Suddenly war seemed very close. My hand shook as I recorded the news, a fact that Mr De Witt seemed to notice, for I sensed him viewing critically the unfolding words. It was not my shaking hand, however, that he was interested in.
‘You will need to encode the information, Mr Oysterman.’
‘Obviously,’ I snorted, wishing he would get on with it.
‘Do it before you go to bed. One never knows who may be prowling around in the night. And once done, burn those notes immediately. You must destroy all incriminating evidence.’
‘I can’t see the point of encoding,’ said Dick, deigning to patronize us with his attention. ‘The rebels discover a treasonous letter about our person – they hang us. The rebels discover a coded letter about our person – they assume we’re spies, torture us for the code, then hang us. Call me a coward, but I know which option I prefer.’
‘A very selfish attitude, if I may say so, Mr Lickley. You would rather your country’s secrets be known than endure a little pain on its behalf. I am assuming, of course, that you would not crack under the pressure of torture?’
‘Crack, Sir? I’d bloody explode. If they so much as tickled my armpits with a feather I’d tell them everything I knew about Dolly Potter and her barmy book. Reputation is not that precious to me that I would endure agony on its behalf.’
‘Tell me, Sir,’ I said, ‘How many spies like us have you processed?’
‘Since the first ones arrived in June…Oh, let me see now…about twenty.’
‘And have you ever seen them again?’
‘Not one.’
I shivered.
‘But then they are spies, Mr Oysterman. One would not expect to see them again. Now, where were we?’
‘At Bull’s Ferry, with George Washington.’
‘Ah yes. Now, he has a force, the best estimates say, of two thousand men, most of whom are in a terrible state…’ I scribbled furiously. ‘…Some are badly shaken by their first contact with the British at Long Island and Harlem Heights, others – without even going into battle yet – are ready at any moment to drop their guns and return to their farms…’
‘Slow down!’
‘I am going as slow as I can, Mr Oysterman. Any slower and I will lose the thread of my sentences. Now – see, I have lost my place again…’
‘Re..turn…to their..farms.’
‘Only Colonel Washington’s rhetoric and the threat of punishment prevents them from doing so. There is a core of diehards of course – mainly Scots and Irish – who will always fight the British no matter how dramatic are the odds against them; indeed they seem to have been put on the earth for that very purpose.’
‘Their vocation, you mean,’ said Dick.
‘Yes, if you like, Mr Lickley, their vocation, and – you needn’t write this down, Mr Oysterman – if you ever encounter a gang of these men without a restraining officer over them, my advice is to run away as fast as you can.’
Though I was still on diehards, this warning registered, and I felt and saw my hand start to shake once more.
‘How will we recognize them?’ asked Dick.
‘By their general demeanour of wild-eyed aggression. Some of them – so I have heard anyway, I do not know if it is true – even have the scalps of British soldiers dangling from their crossbelts as trophies. A dirty trick picked up from the Indians, of course.’
An involuntary jerk of my hand sent my pencil flying across the room. It clattered onto the harpsichord and tinkled onto the floor. Fighting an urge to scream, I shook for about a minute, until heavy breathing and intense concentration on the first lines of Gray’s Elegy calmed me down. Then I was able to retrieve the pencil and continue from where I had left off. Talk of war in Brighthelmstone was all very well, but here, a mere four miles from the flame, it lost much of its allure.
‘Are we well, Mr Oysterman?’
‘Incipient epilepsy, Mr De Witt. That is all. An old complaint, nothing to worry about.’
‘Good, then I will continue.’
He went on copiously – so that I had to ask for more and yet more paper – to describe the rebel firepower, its lines of communication and its anticipated movements. Then, moving on, he gave us a list of Loyalists in the area willing to give us shelter, and a list of wobbling Patriots who might be won over to the British cause in consideration of a cascade of guineas and a guarantee of lifelong protection for themselves and their families. When it was all over my hand was aching like the devil, as though it had been up a cow’s arse for a week, and before me on the table lay five sprawled sheets of highly incriminating evidence. These I folded up and craftily passed to Dick.
‘So that’s it, gentlemen,’ said Mr De Witt, helping himself to another glass of wine as he rose from the table. ‘That is all I have at present. Still, for three guineas, not a bad bargain, I think. ‘Tis not, after all, information you can get in the New York Gazette. Now, if you’ll excuse me, ‘tis time for me to try and get some sleep. I trust you will be gone in the morning before I awake, so…’ He shook our hands, ‘…it has be
en pleasant to meet you, and I wish you luck and God’s blessings in your duties. Goodnight, gentlemen. Remember to blow out the candles.’
And off, to our great surprise, he went, leaving the door ajar behind him.
‘A bit sudden,’ said Dick.
‘Perhaps he is springing some sort of trap,’ I said, still jittery with all the talk of mad Irishmen.
‘No,’ said Dick, after some thought, ‘I think he is just embarrassed.’
‘About what?’
‘Well, door ajar, no beds down here. If I am not mistaken, he has just given us tacit approval to sleep with his daughters.’
‘No!!’
‘Yes, Harry, yes! We are in, I am sure we are.’
Dick gave me a bear hug, which I reciprocated with assumed heartiness, trying to hide the fact that I was more nervous than excited – Eloise in her perfumed bower being the amorous equivalent of a platoon of rabid kerns. The passive and grateful acceptance of a foot on my puddings was one thing, the active discharge of my manly duties quite another. Feeling the shakes coming on again, I raised my eyes dolefully to the ceiling.
‘Which rooms are they in? Did you manage to work it out?’
‘Clara’s here, I think,’ said Dick, taking a chair with him to the end of the room, stepping on it, and tentatively knocking on the ceiling. Sure enough, back came a far from tentative drum tattoo.
‘And Eloise?’
‘Next room. Clara told me.’
‘I do not want to end up in dull De Witt’s bed, you know.’
‘No? I think you would have more fun with him than that Eloise drip, personally.’
Allegations of drippiness were easily refutable since the undertable groin massage, but I did not wish to compromise Eloise’s reputation by referring to it. I was a kisser, I prided myself, not a teller.
‘But should we go up, Dick?’ I laid a restraining hand on Dick’s shoulder, as, licking his lips, he made his way to the staircase. ‘Are we not doing wrong by taking advantage of these poor girls’ vulnerability?’
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