by Ted Bell
He removed his linen nightshirt (borrowed by Lucy along with other clothes from the Washingtons’ now-grown son, Jacky) and dressed quickly. The house seemed full of noise and excitement. Perhaps the General had already arrived. There was certainly a great hubbub below stairs. The merry sound of laughter and excited chatter rising up the staircase from the ground floor was contagious—he heard Lucy’s distinctive high-pitched laughter just outside his door.
He cracked his door and saw her racing up the main staircase. Reaching the landing, she went immediately to a window on the far side of the house. She flung open the sash, leaned dangerously far out, and shouted down to the crowd of house servants and field hands below, “He’s coming! General is on his way!”
A great hurrah came from unseen crowd gathered below, and Nick saw countless straw field hats hurled up into the air, watched them rise and fall hypnotically in the blue beyond the window.
“The General has arrived?” he asked Lucy, beginning to feel the thrill of the approaching moment himself.
She turned and smiled at him, her dark eyes flashing with excitement. “Not just yet. But, he’ll be here shortly, I reckon. He sent a courier ahead to tell Miz Washington how nearby he was. Why, Miz Washington’s so juned up this mawnin’, lady can’t hardly contain herself! I’m going upstairs to watch it all, if ‘n you want to come with me.”
“I surely do, Lucy. Can we see everything from up there?”
“It’s my secret lookout. Ain’t a real secret, but I call it mine just because. You can see the whole world from up there. Follow me and don’t make any noise.”
Lucy raced up the stairway on tiptoe to the topmost floor of the house. It was more like an attic with dormer windows. They arrived in a large room with bare wooden floors and four doors, two on either side of the room, guest rooms most likely. But what caught Nick’s attention was the sturdy white wooden ladder in the center of the room, bathed in light streaming down from above.
He followed Lucy up the ladder. As he’d guessed, it led up to the beautiful eight-windowed cupola on the rooftop. He’d seen it when he first approached the grand white house from a distance.
“Only room enough up there for two of us,” she said, quickly climbing the ladder. “Hurry up, you don’t want to be missin’ this!”
Nick hauled himself up and joined Lucy inside the small light-filled cupola. There were no seats as such, just wide crisscrossed beams where you could perch. The weather was brilliant, and the views, which were in every direction, were breathtaking. Small wonder. Mount Vernon sat atop one of the highest hills in Virginia, and this windowed cupola sat atop the highest part of the mansion. To the east, beyond the wide Potomac River, endless forests stretched to the horizon.
On the inland, western side of the house, where Washington would be arriving, Nick saw a green oval of grass that stood in the center of the mansion’s circular drive. Beyond were kitchen gardens, ornate flower gardens with serpentine walkways, fruit orchards of every description. In the distance, a broad, lengthy expanse of rich, fertile green, with deep borders of woods to either side, stretched out to the main thoroughfare.
The West Gate, as it was called, was the main entrance to Mount Vernon. It was set in freshly painted white fencing, and it was where Washington would first appear. Just inside the fence, to the right side of the drive, stood a small fife and drum corps made up of household servants wearing the elegant Washington livery. They were already playing a welcoming melody. Nick could hear the song only faintly, but it sounded stirring.
“What is that tune they’re playing, Lucy?”
“ ‘The Rose of Tralee.’ One of the General’s favorites. Look! There he is now. Yes! Do you see him?”
Nick strained his eyes to see, but there was no mistaking the figure leading the long line of dirty, threadbare troops marching in a slow and solemn step, regulated by drum and fife. Horses, mule-drawn fieldpieces, and ammunition wagons followed each brigade.
In the forefront rode General George Washington, a giant of a man. He sat astride an iron-grey stallion, ramrod straight in the saddle. He reined in his mount and turned to speak briefly with some of the officers riding beside him. Then he saluted them, rode through his gate, accompanied by only a few other officers, raced up the tree-lined road to where his family waited.
Beyond the gate, the troops continued on, and it seemed to Nick as if the line must be at least two miles long. At the rear were the general officers, mounted on noble steeds, with endless wagons of baggage in their wake.
As Washington drew closer on the long drive, he spurred his horse on to a full gallop. Nick found himself staring open-mouthed at the historic figure approaching his home. His uniform was simple but splendid, his jacket dark blue faced with gold, gleaming epaulets on his shoulders. He rode with the easy grace of a natural rider, his muscular legs extended on long leathers, his toes pointed down in the stirrups. He was as powerful and captivating in person as he’d been in Nick’s history books.
“What’s his horse’s name, Lucy?”
“Why, that’s Blueskin. Ain’t afraid of nothin’. One of his most favorite war horses, been riding him since war broke out—Look! Mrs. Washington is running out to greet him. Couldn’t stand to wait there in the doorway another minute, I reckon. Lawsie, how she been missing that old man of hers.”
At the sight of his dear wife, dressed in a long, blue satin gown, gathering her skirts and running out to meet him, the General quickly reined in Blueskin, dismounted, and handed the reins to another officer. Two liveried grooms approached and led the horses away to the stable.
“Come all the way from Baltimore, haven’t you, old man?” Martha cried, opening her arms to her husband. “Sixty miles in one day! You must have been in a terrible hurry! I wonder why.”
Overcome with joy at the sight of his wife, Washington raced into Martha’s open arms, lifted her easily off the ground, and whirled her about, much to the delight of everyone who’d turned out to witness the great man’s arrival. He finally set her down, kissed her lips and both cheeks, and turned to the distinguished young officer who’d accompanied him. He offered his hand, but Martha Washington stepped forward and embraced the elegant young man like a long-lost son.
Then the two new arrivals, with a beaming Mrs. Washington betwixt them, holding both their hands, approached the mansion and the thunderous applause and huzzahs of the hundreds of farmers, field hands, house servants, and neighboring friends who had gathered to welcome the General home for this brief visit en route to Yorktown.
“Who is that young officer?” Nick asked Lucy. “His son?”
“No, his son Jacky is hugging his papa right now. That other gentleman is a Frenchman fighting alongside the general. Miz Washington calls him the Marquis de Lafayette, and she says he’s one of the greatest friends America has.”
Lafayette, of course, Nick thought. It was his men who now kept Cornwallis and the English troops at bay in Yorktown. The long line of soldiers still marching along the thoroughfare in the distance had to be regiments of Continentals plus the five thousand French under command of French General Rochambeau, if he remembered his history correctly.
The Battle of Yorktown was about to commence in earnest. Nick could feel it coming in his bones.
“Lucy,” Nick said, smiling at her pretty brown face, “would you do me a small favor?”
“Course I will. You’re Miz Washington’s special guest. Told me so her own self jes this mawnin’.”
“Thank you. If you could slip out the east side of the house and go around to the kitchen house, I’d appreciate you asking Mum Bitt to make me a small plate of food? Anything will do.”
“You’re not attending the great banquet? I’m sure Miz Washington’s expecting you.”
“She won’t miss me in all that excitement. Anyway, I think it’s better if I stay in my room for now. If she asks after me, just tell her I wasn’t feeling too well and you brought some soup up to my room.”
“Tha
t’s what you want, I’ll bring it up to you. But I think you’re not thinking right. This is mos’ likely to be the grandest gala we ever had in this house!”
“You can tell me all about it this evening, Lucy.”
“Don’t you worry yourself about that none. I got a secret place in the back of the pantry closet where I can see and hear everything that goes on in the dining room.”
Nick laughed. “Lucy, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were a natural born spy.”
“A supernatural spy is more like it. A spirit. Mum Bitt calls me the Ghost of Mount Vernon. She swears on the Bible she’s seen me disappear right before her eyes. I pops up in the kitchen or in the kitchen garden or the stables or anywhere else on this whole plantation, like to scare people half to death.”
“You don’t look like a ghost, Lucy. So, how do you do it?”
“There’s hidden underground tunnels and secret passages all over this place. And another thing. An Indian taught me how to walk.”
“An Indian?”
“My mammy is a full-blooded Cherokee.”
A tapping at Nick’s door brought him fully awake. He’d fallen asleep reading one of the American history books from General Washington’s study that Mrs. Washington had thoughtfully stacked by his bed. The door cracked open a few inches, and he saw Mrs. Washington’s smiling face peek inside. She was holding a candle, and the light flickering on her face was lovely. She was still dressed in the gown she’d worn to the gala.
“Nicholas?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How are you feeling? Better?”
“Particularly better, thank you.”
“I missed you at the grand banquet.”
“I’m most sorry to have missed it.”
She came into his room and sat beside his bed. Taking his hand, she said, “I’ve told the General all about you. He’s most anxious to meet you. And so, may I add, is the general’s closest friend, the Marquis de Lafayette.”
“It would be a great honor. I’ve just been reading about the general’s exploits in the French and Indian wars. He’s the bravest of men, ma’am, the kind of hero I’d like to be one day.”
“He loves these colonies and their cause like no other man. He has a boundless vision for America’s future. He can see clear from the Potomac all the way to the Ohio Valley and to the great Pacific Ocean beyond. That’s what he is fighting for. A great, wide-open country where men and women can live and prosper in peace and freedom.”
“I predict history will place General Washington amongst the greatest of men who have ever lived, ma’am. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
“He’s in his study, now, Nicholas. Going over final battle plans for the siege at Yorktown with the Marquis. He asked me to find out if you were feeling well enough to come down-stairs, that he and Lafayette might make your acquaintance. They are both, in fact, most curious about this information you claim to possess.”
“Oh, yes. That would be wonderful. I would count it as the greatest honor of my life to meet His Excellency.”
“Well, then, Master Nicholas McIver, I shall leave you in peace while you go about your business. But don’t tarry. Very, very few guests at Mount Vernon are ever invited into his private study. He is expecting you. And he doesn’t suffer tardiness well.”
“Two minutes and not a second more, ma’am.”
“Good boy. I shall tell him to expect you at once.”
39
AN UNEASY MEETING WITH WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE
Nick descended the stairs slowly, one at a time, the leather tube containing the charts he and Katie had stolen clutched in his right hand. He could feel the Tempus Machina concealed in the leather sling beneath his left arm. His heart was thudding in his chest, and he had to will his hands to stop shaking.
He hadn’t felt this nervous since he and Gunner had stood outside Admiral Lord Nelson’s office at Saint James’s Palace, waiting to be announced. Why? What was there to be afraid of tonight of all nights! He tried to analyze this troublesome emotion and quickly recognized it as fear of General George Washington’s reaction to the inconceivable notion of time travel.
He didn’t fear disclosing the secret of Captain Blood’s planned ambush of the French fleet. No, the charts and documents he carried provided ample proof of that. Nick knew all of Washington’s hopes for victory at Yorktown depended on the timely arrival of Admiral de Grasse and his fleet. It was de Grasse who would blockade the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay and repel any attempt by the Royal Navy to rescue Cornwallis by sea.
Admiral de Grasse’s large fleet would destroy any hope the British command or Cornwallis had of escaping Washington’s siege. The trap would be secure. The noose would tighten further around Lord Cornwallis. A great American victory was so close at hand. But only de Grasse and his ships could seal Cornwallis’s fate.
Washington would immediately seize upon the importance of the naval intelligence Nick possessed. Which was all well and good, he thought, as he slowly approached the door to the General’s study.
But what about the General’s reaction to the golden orb he carried?
Yes, that was it, all right. That was the single-most troublesome thing about this entire endeavor. He’d been worried about this moment for weeks. Washington was an eminently sensible man. Would the General think him absolutely mad? Nick would have to convincingly describe the miraculous wonders of the Tempus Machina. It was entirely possible the man might erupt in furor at such an outrageous proposition.
Nick himself had scoffed at the very notion of time travel when Lord Hawke and Commander Hobbes had first explained the workings of the machine to him at Hawke Castle. He had thought they were both quite mad at the time and was angry at their attempt to convince him that the impossible was, in fact, possible.
But he’d learned, as his sister Katie frequently reminded him, that nothing is impossible.
Why should he expect less skepticism from the great General? In a few moments, he might well find himself thrown out of Mount Vernon on his ear! With good reason! And who would be blamed for allowing this rapscallion of a boy, mad as a hatter, inside the General’s beloved home? Inside his sanctuary?
Martha Washington, of course. “Don’t ever betray me,” she’d said. Was he even now about to do that very thing?
“Nelson the strong, Nelson the brave, Nelson the Lord of the Sea.” Whispering his silent prayer for courage, he raised his hand to rap upon General Washington’s study door.
Could he do this?
Yes. He could and he would. He had no choice.
Nick took a deep breath and knocked smartly on George Washington’s mahogany door. “May I enter, sir?”
“Come in, come in!” a deep voice boomed from inside.
Nick turned the handle and stepped inside the inner sanctum of the greatest man alive.
It was not a large room by any means. But it was full of many things that gave clues to the man who spent his private time here: old surveying instruments, a globe, telescope, and compass on the large desk, the famous revolving circular chair. On one wall hung the skeleton of a fish, fierce-looking, with long jaws full of razor-sharp teeth. Souvenirs brought from Barbados, Nick knew, where, at age nineteen, he’d gone with his ailing half-brother Lawrence, dying of consumption.
In the hearth, a fire was blazing against the late evening chill. General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette sat in two leather armchairs on either side of the hearth. But it was Washington’s presence that completely dominated the room. He was an imposing figure, well over six feet. His large bones, hands, feet, and thighs gave Nick the impression of great physical strength. His face, storm-beaten and tanned as leather from years of the soldier’s life, bore traces of smallpox scars. Beneath his powdered wig, his large, penetrating eyes were grey-blue set very wide apart, and gave an unexpected hint of humor.
Washington, in his dress blue
uniform coat, immediately got to his feet as Nick entered. He turned toward the boy with a smile, extending his hand. Nick shook it briefly, not wanting the General to notice his trembling. The man was a towering presence in this small room, his giant shadow flickering up the wall and stretching across the ceiling. Across the whole Earth, Nick thought.
Nick, who like his mother was very good at reading faces, saw a great deal in the man’s eyes. After five long years of the harshest circumstances, he saw patience, the ability to bounce back again and again from bitter disappointments and shattered hopes. But in the main, he saw too many defeats and too few victories. And, in the General’s warm smile, hope.
“It is a great honor to meet you, sir,” Nick managed to say without stammering. “I am Nicholas McIver, sir.”
Washington laughed. “Oh, I know very well who you are, Nicholas. My dear Patsy can’t seem to stop talking about you. You seem to have both charmed her and won her heart in the short time you’ve been under my roof. A good-looking fellow like you, hale and hearty—I should have cause to worry were you not so very young.”
Nick felt his cheeks burning, and it was all he could do not to turn away and flee the room.
Laughing at his friend’s joke and Nick’s reaction, the elegant young French General in a pristine white uniform rose and bowed in Nick’s direction. “General de Lafayette at your service, Monsieur McIver.”
Slightly built, with a long pointed nose, narrow egg-shaped head, and a receding line of reddish hair, the Marquis was anything but handsome. But the eyes sparkled brightly with intelligence and courage.
Nick said, “A great honor to meet you as well, sir.”
Washington pulled up a small side chair for Nick and everyone sat down. Nick, his hands trembling slightly, placed the leather tube across his knees.
Washington turned his smile on Lafayette. “Nicholas McIver, it seems, has forsaken king and country for our glorious cause, General. He was a drummer, Second Light Infantry, and an aide to Armstrong and Cornwallis. I understand he has some news of the enemy to share with us. I suggest we dispense with pleasantries and see what the boy has to say. Anyone who’s spent time under Lord Cornwallis’s tent shall have my full attention. I caution you, Nicholas. Should I determine you to be merely an agent provocateur, you shall find yourself in prison when the sun arises. The floor is yours, sir.”