Winter twilight was falling fast as Horace crept into Morristown. Caleb left his feeble steed at the stables of O’Hara’s Tavern and paused to load and prime the pistol he carried in his saddlebag. He tucked it in the waistband of his pants, under his waistcoat. The loose drape of his old frock coat concealed the bulge.
It took him another hour to walk the four miles to Red Peggy’s groggery, on the Vealtown Road. It was Saturday night. The place was crowded with drinkers, both soldiers and civilians. Red Peggy presided at the bar, rouged and powdered as usual. If she was an accomplice of Twenty-six, she was almost certainly a halfhearted one. He had probably frightened her into cooperation.
Red Peggy greeted Caleb with a wary smile. “Why, Chaplain,” she said, “what brings you this far?”
“Just looking for a little company,” he replied. “By the way, I found this pack of playing cards outside in the snow. Does anyone here own them?”
Caleb held up the cards so everyone in the taproom could see them. Blank looks predominated. “Ah, well,” Caleb said, “I suppose no one wants to claim them because they’re so thoroughly marked, front and back.”
He flipped the top card and turned up the bearded Queen of Hearts.
“For sure,” Red Peggy said, “they look like the kind of cards that lead to killing.” She took the deck away from Caleb and put it in the pocket of her apron. “I’ll start my bedroom fire with them tonight and good riddance. What would you like to drink?”
Caleb ordered a tankard of flip. Having eaten nothing all day, he liked the way it filled his stomach. The eggs were well beaten and the rum was hot. He drank it rapidly and did not object when Peggy served him a second one.
In a corner of the taproom, the dwarfish waiter in the Continental Army uniform leaped up on a table and began singing a liberty song. Other drinkers joined him. Beneath the noise, Red Peggy murmured, “You must wait while we set the signal. It’s a special one for that card.”
“Tell him I have a message from Mrs. Kuyper, too important to be put in writing,” Caleb said.
An hour passed, during which the waiter sang more songs praising General Washington and abusing the British. Red Peggy served Caleb another tankard of flip. She made numerous trips into the rear of the house through a door behind the bar. Finally, she emerged and called to the waiter, “Ned, I’m low on rum. Get me a cask from the cellar. Who’ll help him?”
There were several volunteers. But Peggy turned to Caleb and gave him a friendly shove. “Here, Chaplain, you’re falling asleep there. You could do with a bit of exercise.”
Caleb and Ned ducked under the bar and followed Peggy through two sparsely furnished rooms to the rear of the house, where stairs descended to the cellar. Caleb kept a hand on his pistol, certain that at any moment he would be face to face with Twenty-six. But there was no trace of the master spy in the crowded cellar. Casks of rum and other liquors were stacked against the walls. Red Peggy pointed to one and Ned rolled it into the center of the room. “You must follow Ned to your rendezvous in the woods,” Peggy said. “First get the cask upstairs.”
With Caleb doing most of the lifting, he and Ned wrestled the cask up the steep stairs and down the hall to the taproom. They rolled it into position behind the bar and Red Peggy expressed her satisfaction. “For that you can both drink your fill,” she said, handing them brimming tankards of flip.
Ned downed his tankard in one startling swallow and disappeared behind the bar. Caleb drank at a more civilized pace to give Ned time to get in position outside the house. With a cheer he did not have to pretend after four strong drinks, he said good-night to Red Peggy and departed. Ned was waiting for him in the yard.
“God save the King,” Caleb said.
“Amen,” Ned replied.
Caleb clutched the butt of his pistol for reassurance. He had hoped to meet Twenty-six at Red Peggy’s, where he could have called for help if he needed it. Ned scampered ahead of him, moving through the dark woods with the sureness of a fox. At last, they came to a humplike hill, which they circled for a good quarter of a mile.
A growling voice challenged them. “Who goes there?”
“Liberty,” Ned replied.
“Advance, Liberty,” said the voice. Caleb thought it sounded familiar.
Before he could be certain, he felt the tip of a bayonet against the small of his back, “just walk straight ahead,” the voice said. Caleb obeyed. “Now turn.” He obeyed again.
Ned, just ahead of them, tugged at some shrubs growing out of the side of the hill. A door creaked open. Caleb found himself facing a small cave with a mass of glowing coals in a pit in the center of it.
Caleb cocked his pistol. As he whirled to capture agent Twenty-six the butt of a musket struck him in the side of his head. He reeled into the cave and the musket struck him again, this time in the shoulder. He hurtled against the side wall, the pistol flying out of his hand. Another blow on the head knocked him face down beside the pit of coals. Someone much larger and stronger than Ned jammed his knee in Caleb’s back and tied his hands behind him.
“All right, Chaplain,” said the voice. “What’s your message from Mrs. Kuyper?”
Caleb’s ears whined; the cave was a whirling blur. The heat from the coals was searing his face. “She’s . . . she’s being seduced by Major Beckford.”
“Stuff. Beckford couldn’t seduce the most willing whore in New York. Twenty-six has talked about the kind of lovers he favors.”
A hand grabbed Caleb by the collar and rolled him over on his back. He blinked up at a skull-faced man wearing a Continental Army uniform with the buff trim of the New Jersey Brigade. It was Case, Caesar Muzzey’s hutmate, the man who had dominated the other men in the hut when Caleb visited them. Could this be William Coleman, whom Flora had called the handsomest man she had ever seen?
Case jammed his musket into Caleb’s chest. “Where’d you get them cards? Did you find them by accident?”
“Flora - Mrs. Kuyper - gave them to me. She needs help. I’m telling you the truth.”
“I don’t think you’ve been acquainted with the truth for a long time, Chaplain. You’ve been visiting Mrs. Kuyper’s thingy the way Caesar Muzzey done. That don’t sit well with Twenty-six. I expect you’re going to end up like Caesar, Chaplain.”
“It’s Mrs. Kuyper. She must have deceived me. I’m a servant of the King, so help me God.”
“Sure. That’s why you had that pistol in your hand. I suggest you start talking to God. I’ll give you ten seconds.”
Caleb heard the click of the hammer as Case cocked the musket. Suddenly something or someone transfixed the skull-like face above the gun. The eyes bulged; the mouth gaped. Simultaneously a foot flashed into Caleb’s field of vision, kicking away the barrel of the gun. The musket crashed and a blast of hot air and gunpowder sparks scorched Caleb’s cheek. Case toppled out of sight. Caleb stared up through a swirl of gun-smoke at Major Benjamin Stallworth.
“God damn you, Chandler. What are you trying to do?” he said.
Case writhed on the ground beside the pit of coals. Stallworth had bayoneted him. The major cut Caleb loose, reiterating his demand for an explanation. Caleb told him about the bearded queen and his decision to hunt Twenty-six alone. Stallworth groaned in frustration.
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop worrying about Mrs. Kuyper’s whorish soul? With that card we might have flushed the bird if you’d given me time to work out a plan. Now you’ve driven him into deeper cover.”
“Too deep for you, Major,” gasped Case.
Stallworth glowered at him, “I assume this isn’t Twenty-six.”
Caleb shook his head. “One of Caesar Muzzey’s hutmates. Probably the man who killed him.”
Stallworth propped Case against the wall of the cave. “Who’s Twenty-six?” Stallworth demanded. “Have you ever seen him?”
“He’s a fine and generous gentleman. Which is more than I can say for any whoremaster of an officer in the American army.”<
br />
Stallworth cuffed the man in the face.
“Who is Twenty-six? Where do you meet him? Tell me and I’ll get you to a doctor.”
“Too late for that, Major. I’d rather die loyal to the man who paid me enough to keep my wife and children alive these last two winters. No fucking American paymaster, or congressman, has done that.”
“We’ll see how loyal you are,” Stallworth said. He thrust the tip of his bayonet into the coals. In a few seconds, it was white. He held the glowing metal an inch from Case’s eyes. “If you don’t want to die cursing, tell me the truth.”
“I’ll meet you in hell, Major.”
Caleb looked away as the bayonet moved forward. Case’s scream was horrendous. It leaped around the walls of the cave like a berserk animal. Then it was gone. Caleb looked back. Case was dead, his head lolling to one side, blood drooling from his right eye.
“Couldn’t you see he was already dying?” Caleb said.
“Shut up,” Stallworth muttered, “just shut your mouth and come with me.
In an hour, they were in the Ford mansion. The upstairs windows were dark. One or two lights glowed on the first floor. A black servant led them past a room where an aide was hunched over a desk to the rough log office Washington had added to the west wing of the house. The general was at his desk writing letters. He looked up, a polite smile on his face until he saw Stallworth’s scowl.
“What’s wrong, Major?” he said.
“A great deal,” Stallworth said. He told the commander in chief how one of his men had warned him that Caleb Chandler was making an unauthorized visit to Red Peggy’s groggery. He had rushed there, trailed the Reverend Chandler through the woods, and rescued him from execution, a deed that unfortunately required killing the man who might have led them to Twenty-six.
Stallworth glowered at Caleb. “Your Excellency,” he said, “I give up on this fellow. He ignores my orders. He scorns my advice, criticizes my methods, while he consistently proves himself to be the most infuriating fool I’ve ever seen. I’ve brought him here in the hope that he’ll take a direct order from you.”
“What’s the order, Major?”
“I want him to write a letter to Mrs. Kuyper, telling her that she must come to Red Peggy’s immediately. His life is at stake.”
“What do you think of that, Mr. Chandler?”
Caleb found himself confused and surprised by Washington’s mild, calm manner. From a distance the man had looked so severe. “I would hate to do it, Your Excellency. I’m afraid it would cause her considerable pain if she discovered I’m an American agent.”
“Isn’t that too damned bad,” Stallworth said. “If anyone deserves a shock to the nerves, it’s that bitch. Tell him what she did today, Your Excellency. He won’t believe me.”
“Mrs. Kuyper seems to have persuaded Congressman Hugh Stapleton to pay her a visit,” Washington said. “A British officer and several men were waiting for him. He’s now their guest . . . or their prisoner, we’re not sure which, in New York.”
Exhausted - he had not slept for twenty-four hours - battered by musket butts and muzzle blasts, Caleb looked into Washington’s eyes. He saw regret there. Understanding. He also saw necessity. It did not wear Stallworth’s Yankee snarl. But it was no less imperative. He had tried to defend Flora from its iron grip. It was no longer possible.
“I’ll write the letter,” he said.
At Great Rock Farm, Hannah Stapleton awoke to find sunshine streaming in her window for the second day in a row. Was the Great Cold ending at last? She lay there, listening to the drawled, sibilant call of a snow lark, wondering why she felt so contented. Then she remembered: Paul was returning from New York today.
At first, after Paul had told her that he was a spy, his trips to New York had been a source of new anguish for her. Although he had laughed at her fears, there was always the possibility that one of Walter Beckford’s agents might betray him. It was clear, from what he had told her, that most spies lived in a shifting, shadowy world of loyalty to the cause they served and regret for the cause they were betraying.
Hannah sensed that Paul himself was not much different in this respect. His loyalty to America was a fragile thread, consisting largely of his failed, suppressed longing for his father’s love. His midnight revelation of his spying implied another thread, equally fragile, she was sure, Paul’s love for her. Looking back over the two and a half years of their life together at Great Rock Farm, she realized that she had wanted, needed this love. It was a need that had grown more acute as the collapse of her love for Hugh and his repugnance for her became visible.
Odd how loyalty to America, to the revolution, had become so entangled in both her loves. Hugh’s increasing disgust with the war had paralleled the decline of her affection for him. Paul’s revelation of loyalty had confirmed, even exalted, her love for him. Why? It was not simply the memory of that harrowing encounter with John Nelson and Wiert Bogert in Hackensack. It was Malcolm Stapleton, something he embodied that gave meaning to the word “American.” All the brutal bloody stories he had told her about his warrior days in the north woods. His memories, which reached back through his father to the first comers, the Stapletons who had built this house and more than once fought attacking Indians from its windows and doors. The old man spoke of the long struggle to build a nation in the wilderness, the pride in that achievement, the strength it had required. In spite of all the sermons on humility she had heard in her Quaker youth, Hannah wanted that pride, that strength, for her sons.
Daughter, the old man had called her, in the style of his day. Daughter this and daughter that. At first, she had disliked it. But now the memory pleased her. She wanted to be his daughter. She had ceased to be the daughter of that meek pious Quaker in Burlington who carped at the rebels and prated about everyone’s longing for peace. Damn peace without honor, without pride!
Downstairs, Hannah repeated a morning ritual. She took Paul’s latest portrait of her and set it by the window, where it caught the morning light. He said it was going to be the best painting he had ever done. At first glance, it was a repetition of the “history” painting he had completed a year ago. She was wearing the same faded housedress; her hair was ribbonless, undressed. Again, it was winter. She stood by a window, looking out at a snowbound landscape. But Paul had transformed the winter light. He had found an inner radiance, a silvery-dark gleam that reminded her of the reflection in a running brook in December. The eyes of the woman of the portrait echoed the same subtle radiance. A ghost of a smile was on her lips. On second glance, the woman was as transformed as the winter light. She was no longer the weary fading creature he had painted in similar workaday clothes.
Was it vision or reality? Hannah was not sure. But she wanted to be the woman of the second glance.
It was Sunday. Hannah decided to go to church. Dominie Freylingheusen was preaching in Hackensack. Like the rest of New Jersey, the Dutch Reformed Church was divided between rebels and loyalists. Rebellious Dominie Freylingheusen rode a circuit, preaching to like-minded churchgoers at Hackensack, Schraalenberg, and several other towns on successive weeks. Hannah asked Pompey to get out the sleigh and horses while she had breakfast.
The dominie proved to be his usual militant self, denouncing loyalists as depraved sinners and calling on his fellow rebels to stop backsliding, to turn out for militia duty and quit selling their corn and beef to the enemy. With vivid effect he compared losing the war to going to hell and implied that if they were defeated, the Americans, like all sinners, had no one but themselves to blame.
Coming out of church, she smiled and nodded to several neighbors. Dr. James Beattie, who had gone to Kings College with Hugh, fell into step beside her. “How is the rising politician?” he asked.
“Rising to what? He never writes me a line,” Hannah said.
“He’s been appointed to a very important committee that’s in Morristown at this moment conferring with General Washington. According to the New Jersey
Journal, Hugh made a speech in Congress proposing emergency measures.”
“Thank you for the news,” she said.
“I’m going to write him a letter warning him of the dangers of neglecting a pretty wife,” Beattie said.
On the trip back to Great Rock Farm, Hannah’s spirits dwindled in spite of the brilliant sunshine on the white fields. How could her husband come so close - Morristown was little more than an hour’s ride away - and not even tell her? She began composing an angry letter to him. Perhaps she could make more of an impression by putting her grievances on paper, where he could not interrupt her. The only consolation she could find was Dr. Beattie’s report that Hugh was taking a more active part in Congress. Could her exhortations have had something to do with it?
Coming up the path to the farmhouse, Hannah noticed a strange sleigh at the front door. A soldier in uniform lounged beside it, chatting with her son Malcolm. In the house, Pompey greeted her with a worried expression. “An officer from Morristown is in the congressman’s study.”
A short young man with a leonine head and an erect martial bearing emerged from Hugh’s study. “Mrs. Stapleton?” he said. “I’m Colonel Alexander Hamilton. I’m here at General Washington’s orders. May I speak with you?”
Hannah threw her cloak on a chair in the hall and followed Colonel Hamilton into the study. “I’ll come to the point at once, madam,” he said. “Your husband has apparently been captured by the British. He’s in their hands in New York.”
“What do you mean, apparently been captured?”
“It distresses me to be the bearer of such news,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Congressman Stapleton was visiting a woman in Bergen. A woman we know to be a British agent. From what our people tell us, we have men watching her house, he seems to have gone willingly with his captors. There’s a grave possibility that he’s deserted to their side.”
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