The Traitor's Wife

by Allison Pataki

  “Ha!” Apparently Peggy still believed her maid to be joking. Clara did not return the smile.

  “You can’t be serious, Clara?” But when her maid did not answer, Peggy continued. “Sorry, Clara, but you’re not marrying anyone. You’re coming with me to London. Don’t you want to be the lady’s maid to an aristocrat?”

  “You’re not going to get the title, especially now that the plot failed and your husband didn’t deliver General Washington.”

  Peggy was momentarily beaten back to silence. Clara seized this pause: “Your failed plot, Miss Peggy, cost General Clinton one of his favorite men. John André will hang for this.”

  Peggy winced. Sensing the opening in her momentum, Clara continued. “You failed. West Point will not fall. You will not be paid any additional money. You and your husband have earned yourself no prime spot in the British military.” Clara spoke with a frankness that her mistress had never witnessed in her. Never witnessed, perhaps, in anyone. The stunning outrage of such bold opposition served to fortify Peggy.

  “You listen here, Clara.” Peggy placed the teacup down on the tray. “It’s been a trying few days, and I’ll allow that you have been upset by these events, as we all have, but this sort of behavior . . .”

  “No, you listen,” Clara interrupted. “I’m not going to England. I resign my post as maid. Today shall be my last day in your employment.”

  “Well, I don’t accept your resignation,” Peggy retorted, defiant.

  “It doesn’t matter, ma’am.” Clara shrugged her shoulders.

  “You insolent little wretch, what has gotten into you?” Peggy picked up her teapot and refilled her cup, shaking her head at Clara. “Who do you think you are, telling me no?”

  “I’m no one special. Just Clara Bell. But the beauty of this country is that, no matter how insignificant I am, I’m free to plan my future how I see fit.”

  “You dare defy me?” Peggy’s face was flushed now. “Watch yourself, Clara Bell. Or have you forgotten who you are up against? I arranged a conspiracy with my former lover, John André. I convinced my husband to abandon the country he loved, and conspire with André, without ever knowing I intended to cuckold him. And, perhaps best of all, I had the chief victim of the treachery, George Washington, sitting at my bedside, comforting me and bringing me flowers. André will end on the gallows, my husband will be smeared as a traitor, and Washington carries the sadness of betrayal with him. But me? I make it out with my reputation only enhanced.” Peggy rose from her bed, walking menacingly toward her maid. “You see, Clara, I always get my way.” She pressed her pointer finger strongly into Clara’s breastbone, striking on each word for emphasis. “And so do you really think, after all that I have endured, that I intend to take orders from my maid?”

  Clara stared back at her employer, her expression blank. “Yes, my lady, I do.”

  Peggy released a round of erratic laughter, as jumpy as musket fire. “And how is it that you can have that illusion?”

  And here, Clara knew she must perform as she’d been taught by her mistress. She would play a part. Even as her heart clamored within her, she conjured a facial expression of serene calm and authority. “Because I possess all the means to undo your triumph, Peggy Arnold. To expose you for the traitor that you are.” It was a direct challenge, but if she delivered it correctly, it would work. It was Clara’s only chance to break free.

  “Ha! And how is that?”

  “By telling the truth. The truth that only you and I know.”

  “You think anyone would believe you over me?”

  “At this moment, your former servant, Caleb Little, the one who smelled like horse filth, is waiting nearby. Caleb knows where to find a few implicating items.”

  “What are you talking about?” Peggy hissed, drawing back from Clara.

  “Certain items you’ve kept over the years. Damning evidence. Check your jewelry box and you’ll note a few items missing.” Clara ticked the items off on her finger for dramatic effect. “The lock of André’s hair you kept when he fled Philadelphia, the drawing of André you still keep, and, most disastrously, the letters. Letters from André penned back in Philadelphia, reassuring you of his affection. How do you think Master Arnold might feel, finding out that these existed? And of course, more recently, André’s letter promising to make you a Lady in the British court in exchange for Washington’s head. How do you think Washington will respond to these keepsakes?”

  Clara let the damning news sink in. “You’ve slept quite a bit the past few days, Miss Peggy. Worn out from your plotting and tantrums. Lots of time for me to safely stow the evidence.” Peggy ran to her jewelry box and dug frantically in search of these treasures only she and Clara knew about. But as she realized they were gone, she turned to her maid, quivering with fury.

  “Where are my things, you vile little thief?”

  “I alone know. And my fiancé, Caleb.” She’d told Caleb where she had hidden them beneath the oak tree, the site where she had once pretended to endure a beating at the hands of Arnold.

  “So, Peggy.” Clara paused. “If, by this evening, I have not met Caleb on his farm by the banks of the Hudson, he will know where to find all of these items so that he may deliver them to the general. Do you have an escape plan ready, in case you, like your husband, must flee?”

  Peggy stared at her maid with panic in her eyes, pondering how to make a counterattack.

  Clara continued. “However, if I do go meet him, we will never breathe a word of your treachery. You see I, unlike you, feel loyalty. And even though I despise you, I love your son and I pity your husband. I do not wish to bring about your trial and murder as a traitor, Peggy Arnold. Not after you have fed and sheltered me all these years. I will let you go to your husband, your reputation unsullied. All I ask is that you let me walk out that door a free woman, and I wish to never hear from you again.”

  Clara let the offer hang in the air between them, her heart clamoring against her ribs as she awaited a reply. But Peggy seemed reluctant to take Clara’s offer.

  “As if I could believe you now.”

  Clara shrugged. “All I want, my lady, is to leave this place.”

  “And why should I believe a word of what you say, when you’ve just deceived me?” Peggy clipped toward her maid.

  “Because you know that I love your son. And I would never want him to grow up motherless, as I have.” And it was the truth; she felt no need to condemn Peggy Arnold and bring further ruin on the household in which she’d been welcomed. Her mistress, like all the rest of them, would have to atone for her own sins, but it was not before Clara that she would face her reckoning.

  But Peggy appeared even more distrusting of this offered magnanimity. “You . . . little . . . schemer! How dare you abuse me like this?” Peggy roared, incredulous, hating her maid for having defeated her.

  “I have no interest in exacting any abuse on you, Miss Peggy. Or even in ever speaking to you again after today. I hope you find happiness, and even peace. All I ask is that you let me go.”

  “Out of my sight.” Peggy spit at her. “Be gone before I get my husband’s musket and shoot you, you wretched little traitor. Turning on me like this—after I’ve fed you, and clothed you, and treated you as my very sister,” Peggy growled. “Get out!”

  It would be the last order Clara ever took from Peggy Arnold. “As you wish, my lady. Oh, and, you might notice before too long—Mr. and Mrs. Quigley have resigned as well. You have the place to yourself.” With that, Clara curtsied one last time to Mrs. Arnold, and turned on her heels. As she descended the staircase, Clara heard the screams. Filthy words and insulting names being shouted out by her mistress, who seemed as if she had gone mad with rage. This time, her hysterics were genuine. She was truly undone by the fact that she could not control Clara, could not control this situation to her own benefit. Peggy, for perhaps the first time in her life, was at the mercy of another, and it drove her mad.

  But Clara did not let the a
ccusations slow her down. She ambled out the door, out the same door through which George Washington had entered and Benedict Arnold had fled, three days before.

  The morning was sunny and bright. It would be a beautiful day on Little Farm, Clara thought, as she looked toward the river. She picked up her pace, following the same path Arnold’s frantic horse hooves had torn up on his flight to the Vulture. Soon, she could no longer hear Peggy’s shrill wailing, the sound replaced by the gentle footsteps of someone, or something, behind her. Clara turned. “Barley pup!” The dog ran toward her, his shabby tail wagging. Clara paused to stroke him. “The most loyal of the bunch.” She petted his tawny fur. “Since you’ve come all this way, I suppose I can’t very well make you turn back now. All right, Barley, might as well come along. We’ll have need for a dog on the farm.”

  With her furry companion beside her, Clara continued her walk, her heart brimming with hope, her mood as placid as the Hudson before her. The river guided her north—toward Caleb, toward her new home, toward freedom.

  Clara looked across the Hudson, toward the rugged, hilltop fort at West Point. The fort that she, an invisible spy, had helped to save. West Point would stand ready for the attack. The colonial army under George Washington would stand ready for the attack. They would not be defeated by the treason of a fallen hero and his scheming wife. The British Army would abandon its quest to suppress a people crying out for liberty, and the entire nation would be free.

  It wasn’t until she reached the border of Little Farm, her breath heavy from the rapid pace she’d maintained, that she peeled her eyes from the opposite side of the river and looked at what was right in front of her. There, in the full splendor of the afternoon sunlight, stood Cal. His familiar silhouette was framed against the backdrop of the golden field, a piece of straw poking out from the corner of his mouth. Seeing her approach, he removed his tricornered hat and doffed it before him, greeting her with a playful bow.

  “Cal!” Clara ran the final distance between them, her breath uneven, her heart brimming over with joy. How happy she felt every time she saw him. “Cal.” She ran into his arms, savoring the safety of his strong embrace; he stood right before her, the man she would love for the rest of her life.

  “Clara Bell, you made it.”

  “I made it.”

  “I suspect she was not too happy to let you go?”

  Clara shook her head, her breath still uneven. “Did the others make it?” Clara looked over the field, scanning the area near Cal’s makeshift camp for the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Quigley.

  “They did make it. But they’ve gone to fetch the preacher.” Cal handed her a bouquet of flowers, which she took in one hand, the other reaching for him. “Seems they heard that there was going to be a wedding around here today.”

  “Well, then, Cal, it seems I’m just in time.”

  Without another word, Cal reached for her and wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her toward him in an eager embrace. When he kissed her, Clara knew that all the waiting had been worth it—the present moment soared to unimaginable heights precisely because of the treacherous road she had run to get here.

  She kissed him back, savoring the knowledge that in him she had finally found her home. A home that they would build together, in a country that, like them, was just starting out. Clara was, at last, free.

  EPILOGUE

  MAJOR JOHN André was found guilty of spying by a military court convened by General George Washington. Because André had been apprehended behind military lines using an alias, and dressed in civilian clothing (as had been insisted upon by his host, Joshua Smith), his appeal that he be tried as an officer and a prisoner of war was rejected by Washington. For him, it would be the fate of the spy. André was executed by hanging in Tappan, New York, on October 2, 1780. But not, it seems, without winning a few more hearts. Several of his American captors expressed grief over André’s death, referring to him as a likable and talented man. Upon André’s death, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “Never perhaps did any man suffer death with more justice, or deserve it less.”

  Once aboard the HMS Vulture, Benedict Arnold officially declared his allegiance to the British Empire. In New York City Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army, a demotion from his colonial rank of major general. Aside from the £6,000 pounds he received for his initial meeting with André, Arnold received no further compensation for the failed plot, nor was he granted the noble title he had coveted. In the days following André’s escape, the Colonials reportedly proposed a prisoner swap to General Clinton that would have changed Arnold’s place with the doomed André. But the British denied the proposal for fear of the message it would send to other defectors.. Arnold wrote to his former friend and mentor George Washington, defending his decision to join the British and pleading that his wife be allowed to return to Philadelphia. Washington granted this request but never responded to Arnold’s letter.

  After the revolution, Arnold moved with his wife and children to London, where he struggled to find regular employment and earn a living for his family. Arnold worked for a period as a merchant in the West Indies. There he tried his hand at business, but he argued with his partners, became embroiled in a series of lawsuits, and he returned to England having gained little monetary success. Later in his life Arnold was granted a large property in a remote region in northern Canada as a reward for his service in the British ranks. Due to his failing health, Arnold never made a home there for his wife and children.

  As had been the case earlier in life, Arnold faced no shortage of critics and rivals in England; Arnold feuded with colleagues in the British Army, members of the British government, and his business partners. He struggled with debt and physical maladies for the remainder of his life. The gout infecting his earlier war injuries spread, causing Arnold lifelong pain. He also suffered from dropsy, which is a buildup of fluids in the body’s tissue, as well as asthma.

  On June 14, 1801, Benedict Arnold died in London. His wife labeled the cause of death “a perturbed mind.” Legends surrounding the war hero and traitor allege that during his last moments of life, Arnold recalled his days in the American Revolution, and asked God to forgive him for ever trading in his first uniform.

  Peggy Arnold returned to her parents’ home in Philadelphia immediately following her husband’s defection. She remained there for a time, but faced some hostility from the patriotic population in her hometown. Peggy eventually left Philadelphia and she and her son were reunited with Arnold in New York City. They had a second son in August 1781.

  After the war, Peggy sailed for England with her husband. At first, the Arnolds enjoyed substantial popularity, and Peggy even realized her dream of meeting the royal family at court. But her happiness in England was not to be long-lasting; as her family’s economic situation worsened, Peggy settled with her husband and five surviving children in a poor neighborhood in London.

  Though much younger than her husband, Peggy Shippen Arnold outlived Benedict Arnold by only three years. Her husband’s death left Peggy strapped with financial debt and anxiety over how she and her five children would provide for themselves. Peggy died from cancer in 1804 at the age of forty-four and was buried next to her husband in a London cemetery. Those who knew her in England remembered her as a loving and devoted mother. It was rumored that Peggy Shippen Arnold kept a lock of John André’s hair until the day she died.

  A NOTE ON HISTORY AND SOURCES

  THE INSPIRATION to write this novel came from a New York State Historic Marker in my hometown in the Hudson Valley. I happened upon the spot a few years ago while walking my dogs in the woods across the river from West Point. My mother and I paused to read the post, which describes “Arnold’s Flight” and the conspiracy to sell West Point.

  A few paragraphs told me what I, as a local to the area, already knew: that I walked the same trail traveled by General Benedict Arnold, centuries earlier, as he fled from George Washington to the British warship Vulture. M
any American schoolchildren grow up learning the history of this notorious traitor and his coconspirator, John André, and I had grown up knowing that I lived near where Arnold and his family had once lived.

  What I had not known, however, was whose face belonged to the portrait of the beautiful young woman beside Benedict Arnold’s. I stared at the image of the fine-featured woman, her hair piled high atop her head, a quizzical smile on her face. She was described as a devoted wife, a loving mother, and a popular socialite who, with suspected fealty to the English Crown, might have incited Benedict Arnold to his infamous treachery. As I continued my walk on that cold, clear morning, I could not stop thinking about this figure, largely obscured in history’s forward march. Who was Peggy Shippen Arnold? How must she have felt about the events that unraveled around her? And what role, if any, did she play in this mesmeric plot?

  As I began to dig deeper into the history, I uncovered a tale and a cast of characters that proved truly Shakespearean in its scope and drama. Peggy Arnold is a confounding character—charming yet dangerous, loyal yet duplicitous, cunning yet reckless.

  This novel is a work of fiction, but many of the characters and events depicted in The Traitor’s Wife are based on the historical record. How could they not be, when history had provided me with such a salacious and intriguing framework?

  Margaret “Peggy” Shippen did in fact preside over Philadelphia society during the social seasons of 1777–1778, during which time the British occupied the city and a certain Major John André caught the eye of the popular young socialite. Peggy did in fact wear dresses made at Coffin and Anderson dress shop and sip Champagne with the likes of General William Howe and Lord Rawdon. She did in fact exchange love letters and poetry with the dashing Major André; she did in fact compete with fellow socialite Margaret Chew for his attention; and she was in fact thwarted from attending the Meshianza Masque by her parents, who were becoming increasingly concerned with their daughter’s very high-profile social life and the Turkish harem theme of General Howe’s farewell party.