The Traitor's Wife

by Allison Pataki

  “I fear . . .” Arnold paused, changing tracks. “I so much regret that I have to tell you—we shall not be able to move in before the summer. Probably not before winter either.”

  Arnold told his wife the news Clara had known for weeks. How he had had to take out an exorbitant mortgage to buy the home, and how his military salary did not allow him the monthly funds required for fixing up the home or buying the furniture necessary to move in. He needed time, a year or so, to try to set some funds aside. He begged and pleaded with his wife to understand, and to make the best of their current situation in the Shippen cottage. They had a roof over their heads, after all, did they not?

  Peggy listened quietly, the look on her face growing grimmer as her husband discussed the bitter vitriol his rival, Joseph Reed, was spewing thoughout town. Now that Reed was so publicly questioning Arnold’s finances and expenditures, hadn’t they better err on the side of discretion and avoid a very public move to Mount Pleasant? And perhaps, would Peggy be willing to put a temporary halt to the credit spending she was becoming known for throughout town?

  When Arnold had finished speaking, he seemed to collapse farther into his chair, as if the mere confession of this sobering economic report had cost him all his energy reserves. The room was quiet, filled now by just the sound of the crackling fire.

  Peggy stared into the hearth at the decomposing logs. “Well, this is something, Benedict Arnold.”

  “Please, my pet, what do you think?” Arnold eyed his wife, rubbing his hands together in a nervous gesture.

  Finally, Peggy answered him. “What do I think?” Peg met his gaze, her cheeks red. “What do I think? I think it’s a shame that my husband is siding with the gossips throughout town over his own wife.”

  “Peggy.” Arnold looked at her, his face draining of color. “Surely you know that that is not my meaning. I simply think that it might be wise if we economize a bit in the next few months. Perhaps you might not purchase quite as many new items at Coffin and Anderson? You can manage that, right, my dove?”

  “You want me to live like a pauper?” Peggy leaned forward to sip tea from her full cup just as Arnold reached forward to take her hand, so that the hot drink spilled down the front of Peggy’s new gown.

  “Look what you’ve done!” Peggy yelped, reaching for a napkin. Clara ran to the kitchen and reappeared with several rags, and she began to dab the front of the gown.

  “I do apologize.” Arnold looked on, his expression helpless.

  “Reckless!” Peggy stood up, dabbing the brown stain. “And it’s not as though I can replace this ruined gown, since you tell me I shall have nothing new.”

  “Please, Peggy, I pray you’d not upset yourself.” Arnold stared at his wife with a look of growing consternation.

  “Don’t you scold me, Benedict Arnold! Not when you’ve deliberately lied to me—lured me out of the comfort of my father’s home into this . . . this . . . shack! All under the false pretenses that we’d be moving into Mount Pleasant. And now you say we can’t afford to live there, and I should be denied all the nice things you had promised me.” Peggy’s hand flew to her heart as she collapsed backward against the chair. “Oh, what a life I’ve chosen for myself!” When Peggy cupped her face in her hands and began to sob, Clara was sure that Arnold felt more wounded than he had ever felt on the Saratoga battlefield.

  “Just . . .” Peggy struggled to speak through the cries that heaved her chest. “Look . . . at . . . this . . . HOVEL!”

  The hovel Peggy lamented was in fact a cottage behind the Shippen home, in which the Arnolds had been living since their wedding. Clara didn’t see why Peggy minded it so much—the house was small but comfortable, with large windows that opened out into the orchard and afforded plenty of light on sunny days. Arnold seemed perfectly content there, or anywhere, as long as he was near his wife. The only person who really had a right to be put out was Clara. She had given up her private bedroom in the larger Shippen home for a little straw pad on the floor of the Arnolds’ new kitchen, which she shared with Barley now that Miss Peggy had banned the dog from Arnold’s bedchamber. Though it was humbler, Clara didn’t mind her new spot—at least its proximity to the fire guaranteed that it would be warm and bright even once the weather turned cold. And since her mistress would have never dreamed of setting foot in the kitchen, it was as private as a room could be.

  Peggy had insisted that now that they were married, they would no longer take their meals with her parents. But, since the Arnolds could not afford a cook of their own, they still depended on Hannah for their meals. This meant that Clara had the task of hauling food from the Shippens’ kitchen to the Arnold’s kitchen, and then bringing the dishes back at the end of each meal. It was a lot of work, and ordinarily she would have asked Caleb for help with it. But with him gone to the army, her time spent lugging food back to the cottage was just yet another moment throughout the day in which she missed him.

  “It’s just that the Continental Congress still owes me thousands from the campaigns of ’seventy-five.” Arnold tried to quell his wife’s temper. “I paid all my men out of my own fortune up in Canada and at Ticonderoga. I’ll get reimbursed soon.”

  “Do not try to comfort me with more empty promises,” Peggy hissed at her husband, who now wore a look of alarm as he watched his wife rail. “I don’t want any more false promises, Benedict Arnold!” Peggy closed her eyes, while her husband looked to the maid, helpless.

  “I don’t understand why we can’t just go back to the Penn mansion.” Peggy spoke after a long pause, her face wet with tears.

  “I have told you a thousand times, my angel.” Arnold winced as he bent to kneel beside his wife’s chair, clutching his left leg in pain. “Reed was telling the Congress, and the newspapers, that I was living there illegally. He found out that I wasn’t paying any rent.”

  “Then just pay the rent to get Reed to shut his mouth, Benedict.” Peggy, having exhausted Clara’s supply of rags, handed the soiled cloths back to her maid and sat back in her armchair.

  “Peg, I can’t afford to rent the Penn mansion while I’m also sinking my life’s savings into Mount Pleasant. For the time being, this cottage will just have to do.”

  “I’m miserable here,” Peggy moaned. “And I despise that Joseph Reed for ruining our happiness.”

  “My dear, please.” Arnold leaned toward his wife to comfort her, but to no avail. “You must calm down; you will make yourself sick.” He took her hand in his, but she swatted him away like a bothersome fly.

  “My darling, I promise, I will do whatever I can to increase my income so that we can move into Mount Pleasant. You have my word.”

  “Your word means nothing,” Peggy snapped at him. The look on Arnold’s face showed such acute pain that even Clara felt his wound, and she excused herself, mumbling something about taking the dirty rags back to the kitchen. Neither Arnold nor Peggy replied as Clara turned to leave.

  “My darling Peg, I love you. I will do whatever it takes to make you happy,” Arnold said, pleading with her. “Will you believe me, please?”

  But Peggy did not reply. She simply buried her face in her hands, so that all that was visible as she sobbed were her curls, bobbing up and down with each gasp.

  “LOVELY DAY, isn’t it, my dove?” Arnold and Peggy sat opposite Clara in the carriage on the way back to the Shippen home after church. Arnold looked out the window, waving to the small children who ran alongside the carriage, hoping to get a glimpse of the local war hero.

  “Mmmm,” Peggy agreed absently, burying her nose in the society section of the Pennsylvania Packet. “I suppose it is.”

  It was a lovely day, Clara agreed in silence. Late April, and all of Philadelphia was in bloom. The recent rains had left the ground soft and fertile, with new buds poking their way out from the earth each morning. The days were growing longer and warmer, while all around them the trees hung heavy with cherry blossoms. The horses kicked up splotches of lumpy mud with each step, a
nd the small children who shouted alongside the carriage were splattered in brown, laughing at the mess their mothers—or maids—would have to wash.

  “Look at that mud.” Arnold watched the scene outside the carriage, erupting in his loud, jolly laughter. He looked to his wife but she ignored him.

  “It’s a wonder we can drive through it,” Clara piped up, so that Arnold would know he was not being completely ignored. Arnold’s eyes crossed the carriage to Clara, smiling at her in appreciation.

  “Anything interesting in the paper today, my doll?” Arnold tried again to get his wife’s attention.

  “Here, just take it and read it for yourself.” Peggy sighed, exasperated, as she tossed it in her husband’s lap.

  “Dearest, I didn’t mean that you should give it over,” Arnold answered.

  “No, just read it! I’m done,” Peggy snapped, looking out the other side of the window. Then, quietly, she mumbled to herself, “I can’t read when you’re jabbering away alongside me, anyway.”

  Stung, Arnold looked from his wife to the paper and unfolded it so that he might scan the front page. “Let’s see what filth they’ve dug up today,” Arnold said good-naturedly, perusing the articles. He had not been reading long when his face went ashen.

  “My good God.” Arnold’s mouth fell open.

  Clara saw his expression, and then looked down to see the headline. Right there, on the front page, was printed a long article, accompanied by a drawing. Clara knew immediately, from the cane and the broad, stocky body, whom the drawing was meant to portray.

  “What is it?” Peggy looked to her husband, acknowledging him for the first time. “Read it aloud, whatever it is.”

  “It’s that devil Reed.” Arnold’s voice was a quiet tempest.

  “Read it aloud,” Peggy ordered him.

  “Reed has convinced the Pennsylvania Council to make formal charges against me. Eight formal charges.”

  “What?” Peggy leaned over to read the paper alongside her husband.

  “Reed and his henchmen have come up with a whole laundry list of charges against me.” He listed them off quickly. “Obtaining illegal personal gain from two British ships, using public wagons to transport personal items, closing the stores in Philadelphia, enlisting my military men to do my own personal tasks, issuing passes for folks to cross enemy lines into New York.”

  “After all that you’ve done for this country, Reed is allowed to make such outrageous charges against you?” Peggy spoke, her voice eerily quiet. “It cannot be borne.”

  “It would be the end of my career if Washington believed these charges,” Arnold spoke in barely a whisper. “I’d be finished.”

  “Ludicrous,” Peggy said, her tone defiant. “You’re a hero, Benedict Arnold.”

  “Not according to Reed. According to Reed, I’m a crook and a thief.”

  “You sacrificed your leg. And thousands of your own dollars on feeding and quartering your men during the Canada and Ticonderoga campaigns—which they have never reimbursed you for.”

  “What will become of me now?” Arnold’s voice quavered.

  “What else do they say?” Peggy asked.

  “They accuse me of acting disrespectfully to the civilian leaders of Philadelphia.”

  Clara’s mind flew back to the afternoon in Arnold’s carriage, and the ghastly display when her mistress had urged Arnold to pull down his breeches to insult Reed.

  “Can they blame you?” Peggy chortled. “Anyone would act disrespectfully to that moonface, Reed. And what’s the final charge?” Peggy demanded.

  “Favoring British loyalists in my personal life.” Arnold looked squarely into his wife’s face. “They say I have chosen to consort with ‘those with well-known loyalist tendencies.’ ”

  This, at last, silenced Peggy’s indignation. “I . . . I don’t know who they could possibly be talking about,” Peggy answered, shaking her head.

  The carriage came to a halt, jerking them all forward. Clara braced herself so that she did not fly forward onto Arnold.

  “Good gracious,” Peggy shrieked as her hat fell loose off her head. “Is Franks drunk on rum?”

  “What now, Franks?” Arnold hollered out the window to his aide. Neither the horses nor the carriage moved.

  “Blasted wheels!” Franks hopped down from his perch and approached the horses.

  “What’s the problem?” Arnold scowled at his aide.

  “Stuck in the mud, sir.” Franks poked his head up to the carriage window. “We’ll need at least two able-bodied men to push us out of this mess.”

  “Able-bodied men.” Arnold gritted his teeth and spoke in a low growl, his nostrils trembling in silent rage. “I would get out and help, but I am no longer able-bodied, not since I sacrificed my leg in the service of my ungrateful country.”

  VI.

  “She’s possessed of a fury!” Hamilton scoops up my lady’s fainted, inanimate body. The Marquis de Lafayette is mumbling, the shock forcing him to slip back into his native French, while George Washington sits in stony silence, head cradled in his large hands as he stares at the words he’s just read.

  Peggy is carried up the stairs by Hamilton, and it’s not until she’s placed down on the featherbed that she revives. She sees us standing over her and resumes her hysterics, shouting about Benedict’s betrayal.

  “You’ll kill my child, I know it!” She wails, her eyes roving around the bedroom but not fixing on any one point. “You shall punish the son for the sins of the father!”

  Hamilton tries to soothe her, tries to pull her back to herself, but every time he approaches her, my lady reaches up as if she would claw at his face.

  “I won’t let you kill my son!” She screams, her features contorted with rage.

  “Please, Mrs. Arnold, you are making yourself ill.” Hamilton turns to me with a look of deep concern, but I am just as helpess as he is.

  I’ve seen scenes like this many times before, but what unnerves me this time is that I suspect her hysteria might be genuine.

  When Peggy speaks again, she’s mumbling and pointing at the ceiling.

  “Look.” She points upward at some unseen menace. “Look! My husband is gone. He’s gone there.” Her fingers direct our eyes aloft, but when I follow her pointing, all I see is the ceiling overhead.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “There Is Another Way”

  December 1779

  Philadelphia, PA

  ARNOLD LOOKED glumly out the window, avoiding his wife’s eyes. “There’s Major Franks with the carriage. Goodness, I hope he’s packed enough ale.”

  “I hate to think of you making the journey all the way to New Jersey by yourself, and with your leg bothering you as it has been recently.” Peggy wrapped a heavy wool cloak over her husband’s thick shoulders, her arms lingering around him in a loose embrace. “Oh, Benny, to think of you standing trial before that tobacco planter Washington. How dare they presume to judge you, after all that you’ve done in this war?”

  “There, there, my darling.” Arnold leaned toward his wife and stroked her cheek with his rough hand. “You are not to worry about me. My record speaks for itself, and Washington will see to it that I’m cleared.”

  “But a court-martial sounds so terrifying.”

  “I’ve faced worse.” Arnold shrugged, the bluster in his voice perhaps more for his wife’s sake than his own.

  “I hate to think of you having to defend your honor against Joseph Reed.”

  “A panel of military men will surely not side with Reed over me. No, the men will not betray me. They love me.”

  “At least they do, Benny.” Peggy sighed.

  “And you do.” Arnold took his wife’s chin in his hand. “May I rest assured of that?”

  “Of course, Benny.” Peggy jerked her chin free, all seriousness. “But do see about the money they owe you.”

  “Excuse me, General and Mrs. Arnold.” Clara edged forward, carrying the hamper her master had asked her to prepare. “T
he provisions we’ve prepared for your journey, General Arnold. Some cold ham and chicken, and some apples with bread and cheese.”

  “Thank you, Clara.” Arnold nodded at the maid. “Run that out to Franks and have him set it in the carriage. He’ll have to make room amid all the jugs of ale he’s loaded up, I’m sure,” Arnold quipped, forcing out a laugh.

  When Clara had delivered the hamper and scurried back through the front door, Arnold turned toward the maid. “Clara,” he said, as she kicked the snow loose from the bottom of her boots. “You be sure to take good care of Mrs. Arnold while I’m away, you hear?”

  “Aye, sir.” Clara nodded, lowering her eyes.

  “It’s no small solace to me, knowing that you are here with her.”

  “Clara always takes good care of me.” Peggy stepped in front of her maid and took her husband’s chin in her forefinger and thumb. “I just wish I could take care of you. I would make the journey to New Jersey with you.”

  “Not in this cold, and not in this condition.” Arnold placed his hand lovingly over Peggy’s swelling belly. “I can’t wait to meet our little one.”

  “He’s strong.” Peggy smiled. “I feel him moving every day.”

  “You think it’s a ‘he’?” Arnold arched his eyebrows, his hand resting on her belly.

  “I do. I think you’ll have a son,” Peggy said, putting her hand on top of his. They stood silently a moment, and the scene almost looked like a moment of tender familial intimacy.

  Peggy broke the silence. “You shall have a son soon. All the more reason why you must insist that Congress settles your debt and reimburses you for the small fortune they owe us.”

  Arnold exhaled a long, slow breath, and Clara noticed just how tired he looked, and he was not even on the grueling road yet.

  “It’s getting late. It’s best I depart. The sooner I’m off, the sooner I may put all of these filthy accusations behind me and get back to the service of my country.” Arnold rested heavily on his cane.

  “They don’t deserve you, Benedict Arnold.” Peggy sighed as she looked into her husband’s face. “Not after they’ve treated you like this.” They held each other for a long time, and when they separated, Peggy had tears in her eyes. Barley the dog looked equally forlorn, especially when his master ordered him to stay in the parlor and not follow him to the door.