“I can drink to that most heartily.”
“Surely you can join us, Flora,” Beckford said.
Flora stared at the glass in her hand as if it were some loathsome object. With a choked cry she flung it into the fire and ran from the room.
“What is going on?” Congressman Stapleton asked.
Beckford sighed. “Women are such unpredictable creatures. You never know what idea will pop into their heads. Flora thinks that I, or one of my agents in Morristown, had something to do with the death of Caesar Muzzey, the slave you found in the snow near General Washington’s headquarters. She seems to have been extraordinarily fond of the fellow for some reason. I hope, for your sake, it’s not the one that comes obviously to mind. I’ve told her she’s being ridiculous. Caesar was one of our couriers. It would make no sense for me or one of my men to kill him.”
“I begin to see you’re more than the general’s aide-de-camp, sir,” Hugh Stapleton said.
“Intelligence matters have been my province for the past three years. If you wish, I can give you a verbatim copy of the excellent speech you recently made in Congress, which resulted in the appointment of the special committee to confer with General Washington on army affairs.”
“Remarkable,” Stapleton said dryly.
“We also have the letter you wrote to Mrs. Kuyper, discussing your plans for sailing to Holland with the first spring breeze. But we’re men of the world. There’s no reason why there should be the least unpleasantness between us. I would do precisely the same thing if I were in your position and with the possession of Flora’s affections. In fact, I must confess a certain envy. She has never so favored me.”
“The more I hear, the more I begin to wonder about Flora’s affections,” Stapleton said.
“Oh, they’re genuine,” Beckford said, pouring himself more sherry from the bottle Cato had left on the table beside his chair. “She’s an extremely difficult, independent creature. She doesn’t dispose of herself casually at my command, let me assure you.”
“But she informs you the moment that she does.”
“Even if she wished it, she couldn’t have kept it a secret. We have men watching this house. It’s rather important to several of our operations. But I’m not here to discuss Flora with you, Mr. Stapleton. You must know that. Charming though she is, she’s only a minor matter between two men of the world. Two men of affairs. Large affairs.”
“You may be right. It depends on what else you propose to discuss.”
“You’re disillusioned, disgusted with your rebellion, Mr. Stapleton, like a great many Americans. It has turned out to be more of a revolution” - Beckford made a flip-flop motion with his hands - “and less of a rebellion than you imagined. The wrong sort of people have revolved to power and influence. No?”
“In many ways you’re right.”
“If the war drags on, the only victor will be France. England and America will be bled white, of men and money. I can’t believe you love the French, the nation your father fought in Canada. It’s time, in short, for negotiation.”
For a moment Hugh Stapleton was back in the City Tavern in Philadelphia, hearing Samuel Chase of Maryland drunkenly declare that he was ready to negotiate with any representative of His Majesty on Maryland’s behalf and Robert R. Livingston saying the same thing for New York.
“You can be the means, Mr. Stapleton, of restoring peace and concord between England and this continent. Can you imagine what His Majesty would do to express his gratitude for such a feat? There’s no office in his power that he would deny you, no title.”
“It’s a flattering part you write for me, Major,” the congressman said. “But it seems too large for me to play. What can I do?”
“You can carry proposals from us to Congress. Proposals which will have the endorsement of General Washington.”
“Washington? Are you in correspondence with him?”
The congressman was staggered but not disbelieving. Anything was possible after five years of a stalemated war. Washington was the wealthiest man in Virginia. He might be delicately exploring the terms on which he could keep his lands and his head.
“We’ll soon be in correspondence. Such close correspondence that there’ll be no need for pen and ink. We’ll talk as you and I are talking now.”
“He’ll come here?”
Beckford shook his head. “He’ll come to New York. Tomorrow night he’ll be our prisoner. We have his guards bribed, a force ready to seize him. You’ll be in New York to greet him, Mr. Stapleton. To urge him to agree to our terms. You’ll then take these terms to Congress and urge their acceptance, with all the eloquence at your command. Meanwhile, the American army will be racked by an explosion of mutinies in every brigade. The Congress, if there are enough men of the world like you among them, will accept our terms and this rebellion will be over. Your name will be blazoned across England and America as the great peacemaker.”
“A fantastic scene, Major,” Stapleton said. “But what are the terms?”
“The immediate disbandment of Congress and the Continental Army. A return of the old royal governments in all the colonies except New England. The Yankees began this ruinous war by dumping private property into Boston Harbor and firing on His Majesty’s troops at Lexington and Concord. They must be punished accordingly. Civil government will be dismantled, from Connecticut to Boston. New England will be under military rule for the next ten years at least.”
“Their commerce, trade?”
“Banned, except for their fishing fleet, which will help feed them and us.”
“And the commerce of the other colonies?”
“Permitted, under strict regulation by Parliament.”
“What of retaliation against persons?”
“Those guilty of heinous crimes will stand trial in their respective colonies. Those who merit the King’s forgiveness, such as yourself, will receive it. Those who do not, such as Mr. Washington, must take their chances.”
“I don’t think much of those terms, Major, even assuming you can manage your coup against General Washington.”
“That’s precisely what I am assuming, Mr. Stapleton. And what you should assume as well. The terms are as generous as the situation allows. More than generous, in fact.”
“I don’t think so. Nor will General Washington even if he’s your prisoner.”
“Mr. Stapleton, what he or you actually think is irrelevant. You will go to Congress and tell them that Mr. Washington accepts the terms. You will have a letter from him attesting to this fact, with his signature forged by an expert. If you do not, your wife and the whole world will know of your plan to retreat to Holland with Mrs. Kuyper. We’ll send another emissary to Congress, someone such as the rebel chief justice of Rhode Island, who’s already in our employ, and the result will be the same, except for you. Your great opportunity will have gone glimmering. You’ll die on the gallows, your property will be confiscated, your sons condemned to lives of disgrace. People will say, ‘With a whoremaster for a father, what can you expect?’ Your absurd little fit of loyalty to America will be unknown unto eternity.”
Hugh Stapleton sat back in his chair. The impact of those words thrust him there. Not merely the words but Beckford’s confidence. Dazedly, mechanically, trying to show at least a shred of insouciance, the congressman sipped some sherry. The gesture was meaningless before Major Beckford’s mocking smile.
“Are you telling me that I’m your prisoner now? You’re unarmed, sir. What’s to stop me from walking out of this house at this moment?”
“Two men, who will cut your throat if you try it. One is a citizen of Bergen County. He’ll publish an account of how he waylaid you here, to protect the virtue of Mrs. Kuyper, whom he loved. We’ll publish your letter, attesting to your pursuit of her. She’ll confirm it and accuse you of ravishing her. It will add to the demoralization and disgust of your people with their so-called cause.”
Think, Hugh Stapleton told himself. Think. His ea
gerness to overwhelm you, to make you his accomplice, means you are far less superfluous to him than he claims. But the congressman could not get beyond that obvious point. His world was crashing in ruins around him. Hugh Stapleton - congressman, merchant, man of the world - was about to become Hugh Stapleton - prisoner, traitor, fool.
“I regret the disagreeable turn our conversation has taken,” Major Beckford continued. “I had hoped that we could go back to New York as friends, fellow peacemakers. To be blunt, you are in no position to negotiate, Mr. Stapleton. Your only choice is to help me negotiate. What possible objection can you have to our terms? You’ve damned New England to your comrades in Philadelphia a hundred times. You and others of your congressional friends have declared yourselves open to the idea of a reconciliation.”
“This isn’t reconciliation you’re suggesting, it’s surrender,” Stapleton said.
“It’s reconciliation on the parent’s terms. You Americans have been wayward, froward children and must be treated accordingly. Perhaps it’s your wild country, but there’s a certain element of the barbarian in you, like the Irish and the Scots. You must be tamed, civilized.”
“I see,” Stapleton said. He was seeing a great many things. Some of them were things he had known before but had conveniently forgotten, such as the arrogance of imperial England. He had sat at dinner tables in London and heard British aristocrats sneer at every other nation in the world. But he had been immune to their condescension thanks to his pride in his father’s military prowess and his mother’s Dutch skepticism toward British pretensions. The congressman remembered the conversation with his brother, Paul, about his father’s fear that the Americans were in danger of losing the respect they had wrung from the British in previous wars. What else explained the contempt with which Major Beckford was treating him and the repression the British government obviously planned for all of America? Wayward, froward children. A certain element of the barbarian in you. There was a century of future contempt and abuse in those words.
This realization was not so painful as another, more personal one, another insight, created by the congressman’s new, agonized perspective. “Mrs. Kuyper - she is really in your pay?”
For a moment Beckford’s lips twitched. He was about to permit his mocking smile to reappear. But he suppressed it. He did not want to humiliate Congressman Stapleton completely. “Of course,” he said. “But let me promise you, my dear sir, as a gentleman, the matter will remain utterly secret if we’re assured of your cooperation in this business. It’s even possible, when everything is settled, that you might make an arrangement with the lady, to your mutual satisfaction. Like most women of her sort, she wants security, the protection of a wealthy man, above everything. This you most assuredly will be. In fact, when the King creates an American peerage, as I am certain he will do, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you named the first baron.”
There it was, the judgment of a man of the world on Hugh Stapleton. Even if he ended his days as a baron, he would never be more than the kept fool of his conquerors. But his personal humiliation was nothing in comparison to the event that was about to transform the future of America. He was powerless to prevent it. All he could attempt to do was discourage it.
“Major Beckford,” he said, “your solicitude for my feelings, my future welfare, is touching. But I’m inclined to think that a man who would trap another man in this fashion is no gentleman, and neither his sympathy nor his word is to be trusted for ten seconds. I despise your smirking condescension, sir, and I defy you to force me to cooperate in my country’s betrayal. If you’re so fortunate as to seize General Washington, I am sure you’ll find him of the same temper.”
“We expected no less of Mr. Washington,” Major Beckford said. “I must confess I had better expectations of you. My genuine affection for your brother - no matter what your opinion of it - also led me to hope we might negotiate as friends. But now it seems as if you are giving me no choice.”
Major Beckford drummed his fingers on the table beside him. “Perhaps a day or two in the Provost Prison will change your mind.”
At one the following morning, Caleb Chandler began his journey back to Morristown. Wiert Bogert and John Nelson escorted him across the Hudson at the usual place, several miles north of New York City. Above them, for the first time in months, a few random stars glinted through broken clouds. The Great Cold was gradually retreating to the Canadian northland from which it had come.
As they reached the middle of the river an unnerving groan filled the night. It was followed by cracking and crunching that Caleb found even more demoralizing. He was tempted to run, but his escorts accepted these unearthly sounds as routine. The ice was shifting.
“Soon dis be water,” muttered Bogert.
“Aye,” growled Nelson. “Then we’ll have to worry about bloody boats again.”
Nelson began condemning Beckford for refusing to reimburse him for a boat the rebels had discovered and sunk last summer. To Nelson the war was a business. Listening to him talk about the amounts of money various British officers, particularly the commissaries, were making from the stalemate, Caleb could not blame him for his attitude.
They struggled up the New Jersey bluffs on a path made doubly treacherous by the snow that had melted during the day, then frozen with a crust of ice over it. Nelson’s humor improved once they reached the woods and put on their snowshoes. “Let’s hope that this is the last bloody time I have to make that climb, Parson,” he said. “This old soldier’s nose tells him the end of the campaign’s gettin’ closer every minute. I’ll be glad of it, let me tell you. These bones can’t take much more of this cold. There’s mornings when every joint feels like Bogert here’s been poundin’ me with both fists. I’m takin’ the lad home with me, Parson. Goin’ to show him London from Guild Hall to Vauxhall. Then we’re goin’ to take our sock and buy ourselves a farm in the West Country or maybe Ireland. We’ll-”
A blast of musketry erupted a few feet away. Bullets ripped through the branches above their heads, showering them with splinters. Wiert Bogert flung Caleb facedown in the snow and dropped beside him. Nelson joined them. “God damn me and my big mouth,” he muttered.
“Militia patrol,” Bogert grunted. “Best go get dem first.”
“You take the right flank, lad. I’ll take the left,” Nelson said. “You keep your nose close to the ground, Parson.”
Bogert crawled off to the right. Nelson vanished to the left. In about sixty seconds, they let out simultaneous yells and opened fire. They were answered by random musketry, then cries of pain and shouts of panic, then the pounding of numerous feet. A minute later Nelson clumped back to Caleb and hauled him erect.
“Not much fight in them, Parson. A good sign,” he said.
Out on the road, three elongated objects lay in the snow. It took Caleb a moment to realize they were men. One of them was still alive. “Quarter,” he whimpered. “Quarter.”
“Here’s your quarter, rebel,” Nelson said, and smashed the man’s head with the butt of his musket.
They reentered the woods and as dawn broke reached the Kuyper farm. “This is where we part company, Parson,” Nelson said. “We’ve got business up Hackensack way. Get your nag out of the barn and head for Morristown without delay. Them’s your orders, ain’t they?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “Thank you for your protection. I hope we’ll be toasting our success in New York in a few days’ time. God save the King.”
“God save your ass, Parson,” Nelson said.
In the barn, his old plow horse, Horace, welcomed Caleb with a friendly whinny. He fed the horse some oats and wondered if he could risk a visit to Flora. In their last conversation, he had seemed close to cutting the twisted shreds of sentiment that bound her to William Coleman. Caleb tiptoed to the side door of the barn, which was closer to the house. The windows were dark. For a moment he was in Flora’s bedroom, holding her in his arms. What a strange dangerous compound his love was: pity and desire and t
reachery and atonement. Above all atonement.
“Parson,” called Nelson from the front of the barn, “where the hell are you? What’s taking you so long?”
“Just giving Horace some breakfast. Those damn rebels I board him with in Morristown have been starving the poor animal.”
“Get on with it. Beckford’s promised us fifty guineas if you get to camp in time to do some good. He told us to take particular care you didn’t waste any time with Madam Kuyper.”
A half-hour later, Caleb rocked in Horace’s saddle as the old horse plodded down the winding road from the heights of Bergen to the salt marshes of Newark Bay. In his pocket was the bearded Queen of Hearts, the token that would have given Flora access to Twenty-six. Would it also give him access? This unanswerable question tormented Caleb as he rode toward Morristown. Should he report to Benjamin Stallworth at once and tell him of his discovery of Beckford’s token? He remembered Stallworth’s insistence that they were fighting a battle and each fact was a well-aimed bullet. Stallworth was his commanding officer. He was also the man who had declared himself indifferent to the fate of Flora Kuyper’s soul.
For Caleb, that declaration was decisive now. Stallworth’s mind ran to the obvious. Caleb suspected that he would dismiss the token as useless without Flora. He would reiterate his order to get Flora to Morristown, one way or another, without any concern for her feelings. In his desperation, Caleb concocted a plan that was closer to a leap into the dark. He would use the token to uncover Twenty-six on his own. By now, he reasoned, the spy must trust him. Beckford would never have sent him back to Morristown with orders to cooperate with the mutiny if the master mutineer, Twenty-six, suspected or opposed him. He would pretend to be carrying an urgent verbal message from Flora. Face to face with Twenty-six, he would put his pistol to the spy’s head and march him to Stallworth. Then, the mutiny aborted, Washington and the army safe, he could return to Flora and tell her the truth about himself.
Horace soon complicated this plan. The old horse really had been half starved by the farmer who was boarding him. Beyond Newark, Horace’s pace declined from a plod to a crawl to a stumble. Caleb tried to buy some oats from a Dutch farmer, who contemptuously turned him away when he admitted he had only Continental money. When he invoked George Washington’s name, the man seized a pitchfork and showered him with Dutch curses. The glorious cause was clearly no longer popular in this part of New Jersey.
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