The Traitor's Wife
Pataki, Allison
Howard Books (2014)
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A riveting historical novel about Peggy Shippen Arnold, the cunning wife of Benedict Arnold and mastermind behind America’s most infamous act of treason . . .
Everyone knows Benedict Arnold—the Revolutionary War general who betrayed America and fled to the British—as history’s most notorious turncoat. Many know Arnold’s co-conspirator, Major John André, who was apprehended with Arnold’s documents in his boots and hanged at the orders of General George Washington. But few know of the integral third character in the plot: a charming young woman who not only contributed to the betrayal but orchestrated it.
Socialite Peggy Shippen is half Benedict Arnold’s age when she seduces the war hero during his stint as military commander of Philadelphia. Blinded by his young bride’s beauty and wit, Arnold does not realize that she harbors a secret: loyalty to the British. Nor does he know that she hides a past romance with the handsome British spy John André. Peggy watches as her husband, crippled from battle wounds and in debt from years of service to the colonies, grows ever more disillusioned with his hero, Washington, and the American cause. Together with her former love and her disaffected husband, Peggy hatches the plot to deliver West Point to the British and, in exchange, win fame and fortune for herself and Arnold.
Told from the perspective of Peggy’s maid, whose faith in the new nation inspires her to intervene in her mistress’s affairs even when it could cost her everything, The Traitor’s Wife brings these infamous figures to life, illuminating the sordid details and the love triangle that nearly destroyed the American fight for freedom.
Praise for The Traitor’s Wife
“A well-balanced narrative . . . events offer fresh perspective, plenty of intrigue, and a host of interesting, multidimensional characters.”
—Kirkus (starred rewiew)
“Historical fiction lovers will look forward to more from this promising new novelist.”
—Publishers Weekly
“I consider this to be the debut of a major writer of historical fiction.”
—Mary Higgins Clark
“If you read one book this year, make it Allison Pataki’s The Traitor’s Wife. Few authors have taken on America’s Revolutionary War so convincingly, and this story of Benedict Arnold’s wife will appeal to lovers of historical fiction everywhere. Highly, highly recommended!”
—Michelle Moran, international bestselling author of Madame Tussaud
“Allison Pataki’s captivating debut novel examines history’s most famous tale of treachery through a woman’s eyes. Meticulously written and well-researched, this story will transport you back to the American Revolution and keep you turning pages with both its intrigue and love story. The Traitor’s Wife is a well-told tale.”
—Lee Woodruff, author, blogger, and television personality
“The Traitor’s Wife is a gripping novel steeped in compelling historical detail. Pataki writes lyrically and succeeds in bringing to life, and humanizing, notorious characters from our nation’s past. Ultimately a story about honor and heart, readers will have a hard time putting this book down.”
—Aidan Donnelly Rowley, author of Life After Yes
“Allison Pataki has given us a great gift: a powerful story of love and betrayal, drawn straight from the swiftly beating heart of the American Revolution. Replete with compelling characters, richly realized settings, a sweeping plot, and a heroine who comes to feel like a dear, familiar friend, The Traitor’s Wife is sure to delight readers of romance and lovers of history alike.”
—Karen Halvorsen Schreck, author of Sing for Me
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CONTENTS
EPIGRAPH
LETTER EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
“All Is Lost”
West Point Fort, September 25, 1780
CHAPTER ONE
“Never Anger Miss Peggy”
Philadelphia, May 1778
CHAPTER TWO
“Delicious Little Heathen”
Philadelphia, May 1778
CHAPTER THREE
“Arnold Will Always Be My Enemy”
Philadelphia, June 1778
CHAPTER FOUR
“The Most Beautiful Little Patriot in All Thirteen Colonies”
Philadelphia, July 1778
CHAPTER FIVE
“Stuck in the Mud”
Philadelphia, November 1778
CHAPTER SIX
“There Is Another Way”
Philadelphia, December 1779
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Too Far Down This Path”
West Point, June 1780
CHAPTER EIGHT
“The Biggest Fish of Them All”
West Point, August 1780
CHAPTER NINE
“In Whom Can We Trust?”
West Point, September 1780
EPILOGUE
A NOTE ON HISTORY AND SOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
READING GROUP GUIDE
Introduction
Topics and Questions for Discussion
A Conversation with Allison Pataki
Enhance Your Book Club
ABOUT ALLISON PATAKI
To my grandmothers, Peggy and Monique
“To beguile the time, look like the time;
Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue:
Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it.”
—Lady Macbeth,
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
“Love to my country actuates my present conduct, however it may appear inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of any man’s actions.”
—Excerpt of a letter from Benedict Arnold to George Washington, September 25, 1780
PROLOGUE
“All Is Lost”
September 25, 1780
West Point Fort, New York
THE TALL ONE, General George Washington, sent word that he would be late to breakfast. I wonder—is this the first fraying border of a carefully stitched plan about to unravel? Or, is it simply a straightforward message: The colonial commander is running behind schedule, have your cook and your lady plan accordingly. I thank the messenger, a dark-haired favorite of the general, a Mr. Alexander Hamilton, and return to the pantry. But this change to the schedule seems to portend a larger inevitability. My insides twist as the suspicion takes root, taunting me—my mistress is going to fail.
“What’s he up to, postponing the whole breakfast?” Mrs. Quigley sulks under a cloud of flour but keeps kneading the dough. “Now the loaf will burn, the tea will oversteep, and the peaches will attract flies.”
“He’s the commander of the Continental Army. I suspect that General Washington has faced more formidable foes than a few flies in his peaches.” Mr. Quigley, my master’s butler, fidgets with the pewter buttons of his coat as he scrutinizes his reflection in the silver teapot.
“He’ll think us a bunch of uncivilized country bumpkins!” Mrs. Quigley snaps back at her husband. The white curls that escape her bun are now even lighter as wayward wisps of baking flour settle in them, like one of Mistress’s powdered wigs.
“There, there, Constance.” The old man pats a hand on her back. “All will be well. I’ll go inform Master Arnold of the delay.” Mr. Quigley exits the smoky kitchen, and I
follow in his trail. I do not have it in me to tell the old man how wrong he is.
The disruption to the schedule does not upset my mistress, who awoke this morning in fine spirits.
“How could I be anything but cheery today?” She yawns as I draw the curtains aside, letting in the gentle sunlight of a warm September morning, ripe with the aroma of the swollen peaches that hang heavy in her orchard below. She and her husband, at last, are just days away from attaining their dreams. The prestige and wealth that have so long evaded them, dancing like a seductive mistress only to recede back behind her veil, are finally within reach. No, nothing will ruin my lady’s merry mood today.
When the second messenger arrives on horseback, Mistress hears the frenzied pace of the horse hooves, throbbing like the Native’s drumbeat, outside her open window.
“Another rider? Goodness, we must be the busiest home on the Hudson River this morning.” Mistress chuckles, tugging at the loose sleeves of her white linen nightdress. “Don’t they know we are set to receive Washington and his party for breakfast this morning? You’d think they could withhold these errands for at least one day.” She sighs, her features fresh from rest, beautiful beneath the frame of loose blond curls. “Better go see what they want.” She directs me with a nod and I leave her room, making my way down the narrow wooden staircase.
“Scoot, pup.” I edge the dog aside from the door. From my perch on the front step, I shield my eyes and stare up the shaded post road. The rider emerges from the dappled cover of the thick trees into the stark early-morning light. My heart lurches involuntarily at the memory of another morning, when another rider had trotted up this trail. How that soldier had been here to see me. But I cannot allow myself to grow hazy in daydreaming, not today.
I notice that this man is not liveried in the General’s crest, and therefore does not come from Washington’s camp. He approaches the house at alarming speed, urging his weary horse forward with the ruthless spurs of his dusty boots. He halts just feet from me, his horse breathless, the rider looming over me like one of St. John’s horsemen come to warn us of the end of the world. I straighten up to my full height as the man alights from the horse, landing in a cloud of churned-up dirt, uniform filthy, hair matted with sweat.
“Can I help you?” I stand, sentry-like, before the front door of the farmhouse.
“I need to speak with Major General Benedict Arnold.” The man, still gasping for air, careens toward the house, dust surrounding him like a shroud. “Water my horse, miss. I must speak to the General!” The man hands me the bridle and staggers toward the front door without another word.
I hear the commotion in the front of the house as this lone rider calls out the master’s name: “Where is General Benedict Arnold? Urgent message for Benedict Arnold from the south Hudson.”
I tie this man’s horse to the post out front and glide noiselessly back into the house, positioning myself out of sight at the top of the stairway. I hear my master approach the messenger in the drawing room. His telltale plodding on the wooden floor—lopsided, uneven—due to the war wound that has forever crippled him and rendered his left leg useless. Muffled sounds as the master of the house greets the messenger, his voice like gravel as he chides his subordinate.
“What is your aim, man? Barging in on us like this on the morning we are to receive His Excellency George Washington, and with the lady of the house not yet arisen and dressed?”
The messenger answers through uneven breath. “I assure you, Major General, you will pardon my abruptness when you see the message I’m delivering. I was ordered to deliver it posthaste.”
“Good heavens, from where are you coming?” My master’s voice now betrays his alarm.
“North Castle Fort, down the Hudson. A full day’s ride, sir.”
“Give it here, then.” I hear papers being ruffled as they change hands. Silence follows, with just the sound of the morning birdsong to accompany the scene unfolding inside the farmhouse.
Then the master’s gait, again lopsided, but with an urgency I haven’t heard in years. He soon reaches the stairs, causing me to flee back into my mistress’s room.
“What is it?” Her eyes widen as I dash across the threshold of her sunlit chamber.
“Master’s coming!” is all I have time to say. We hear his rapid approach; using his impressive upper body strength, he’s pulling himself up the stairs. The floorboards groan beneath his boots as he climbs. I look to my lady, and her features are horror-struck as we understand each other. No words are needed between us after all these years.
“But surely it’s not . . . it can’t be?” Mrs. Arnold fidgets with the bedcovers, deliberating whether to rise or remain abed.
“Peggy.” Arnold bounds through the door, his hulking frame atremble in the doorway. Struggling to breathe, he gasps, “They’ve found us out! All is lost, all is lost. We’re unearthed.” His face tells me that he struggles just as much as my lady does to make sense of the words, even as his lips utter them. And then, as quickly as he entered, General Arnold exits back out my lady’s doorway. And I am left alone, in this room, with nothing but my lady and her shrill wails.
“BENEDICT!” she cries after him. “BENEDICT ARNOLD!”
CHAPTER ONE
“Never Anger Miss Peggy”
May, 1778
Philadelphia, PA
CLARA KNOCKED on the front door once, twice. She checked the address scrolled on the worn piece of parchment again. Her grandmother’s familiar handwriting directed Clara to arrive at the Shippen mansion on the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets, deep in the district that housed the city’s wealthiest residents.
A crack of a coachman’s whip drew Clara’s attention away from the Shippens’ door, and she gazed over her shoulder toward the street—a noisy thoroughfare of horse hooves, carriage wheels, and the deafening drum of marching British soldiers. A servant leaned out of a window several houses down and emptied a series of chamber pots onto the cobblestone street before disappearing once more into the home. The closeness of the noise and stink was unlike anything Clara had ever experienced on the farm.
The Shippen mansion, like its adjacent structures, was composed of red brick and built with an orderly symmetry: the sort of architectural purposefulness she’d heard about since George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had built their homes in this style. The tight row of brick society homes lining Fourth Street resembled one another but for the shutter shades; some houses had green shutters, some light blue, some dark blue, some white. The Shippens had elected to paint their shutters black.
The Shippen mansion sat back from the street, flanked in front by a small patch of grass and two cherry trees in the full bloom of late spring. The entryway, a wide wooden door, stood above three short steps and below a triangular pediment. A top row of arched dormer windows poked out from the sloping roof, with two rows of shuttered panes below. The windows—built not only for allowing in light, but also for their decorative appeal—testified to their owner’s wealth; a passerby on the street might be so lucky as to catch a glimpse of the famous Judge Edward Shippen studying his books, or spy one of his beautiful daughters as she flitted through the vast parlor on her way to receive a gentleman caller.
This must be the right home. Clara knocked at the imposing front entrance again. The door opened, and Clara was greeted by the lined face of a woman past her youth.
“Good afternoon.” The woman had soft features framed by a graying bun, which peeked out around the edges of a clean, white-linen mobcap. She greeted Clara with an appraising smile.
“Is it Clara Bell, come at last?” The aged woman opened the door wider to reveal a fine appearance—an indigo petticoat made of linen to accommodate the warmer weather, draped by a clean linen apron. On top she wore faded gray stays over a crisply pressed white blouse. A fichu was tied around her neck to ensure the modesty required for service in such a fine home. She rolled back her cuffed sleeves and waved Clara inside.
“Thank you,
ma’am.” Clara entered through the open door, clutching her tarpaulin sack as she stepped over the threshold. The woman closed the front door behind her, shutting out the noise and stink of the street and allowing Clara to ease into the airy interior of the home. Its soundless tranquility was a welcome relief after the hustle of Fourth Street.
“Well, Clara Bell, we’ve been awaiting your arrival all day.” The older woman smiled, taking Clara’s sack from her arms. “Was it a tiring journey from the country?”
“It was fine, ma’am,” Clara answered, even as she was certain her haggard features betrayed her fatigue.
“You took a post carriage?”
“Aye, ma’am.”
“That must have cost you a small fortune.”
“I’m grateful to have the employment, ma’am.” Clara managed a timid smile, finding words evasive in the grand hallway in which she’d suddenly found herself. She felt as though she’d awoken into this buffed and varnished grandeur without a clear recollection of the circumstances that had brought her to Philadelphia. Clara blinked, remembering. The abandoned farmhouse. Oma dying. In her last moments, her old grandmother penning a letter to a friend from years ago. Oma urging Clara to leave the Hartley farm, as the Hartleys themselves had done, fleeing the approach of the British and the Iroquois.
“I am Mrs. Quigley, housekeeper for the Shippens.”
“Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Quigley.”
“Yes, well . . .” The housekeeper’s reply faded to a sigh as she surveyed Clara’s appearance. Clara stood still, feeling her cheeks grow warm; her warm-weather petticoat of linen was creased and dusty from the trip, but it was the only one she possessed of its kind. She’d only rotate it out of her wardrobe when the weather changed and the crisp autumn air required her wool petticoat. Unlike this housekeeper, Clara’s clothes were not bought in a store, but were homespun, sewed by Oma. Clara wore her petticoat and stays in the cotton ticking pattern, off-white fabric with blue stripes. Her apron, once white, had been laundered so many times that it now bore a yellowish tint.
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