The Last Refuge (14 page)

Jack Donovan, whose own eyes bore the unmistakable traces of an intemperate evening of food, wine and song, smiled indulgently. ‘Boys will be boys. Have some patience, Melody. He's only nine years old.'

She stamped her foot. ‘Well, I'm tired of running after him. Why don't you get one of the
servants
to do it?'

‘You're seven years older than he is, don't forget.'

‘How could I? He's a total brat!'

Donovan looked up from his scrambled eggs and noticed his daughter for the first time. ‘What on earth have you done to your eyes?'

Melody blushed, tucked her chin to her chest. ‘It's charcoal. From the fire.'

‘And your lips?'

‘Beet juice. Karen gave it to me.' A single tear ran down her cheek. ‘I have to do
something
to make myself pretty for the party.'

Jack reached out and took his daughter's hand, sandwiching it between his own beefy paws. ‘Melody, you are beautiful just the way you are.'

‘No, I'm
not
!' she blubbered. ‘Nobody's going to want to dance with me.'

Alex Mueller rested his fork on his plate. ‘She's a fine dancer, Mr Donovan. You'll see that for yourself tonight.' To Melody, he said, ‘I'd be honored to partner with you, Miss Donovan.'

Melody swiped at her eyes, smearing the charcoal until she looked like a panda. ‘You're not just saying that?'

‘I am not.' The corners of Alex's eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘And I'm sure Colonel Washington will be delighted to dance with you, too.'

I put in my two-cent's worth. ‘Melody, back in the eighteenth century, fashionable women would have killed to have skin as white and pale as yours. Do you know how they got it?'

Melody shook her head. ‘No, ma'am.'

‘They poisoned themselves with lead-based white face powder and rouge.'

‘And they looked ridiculous, like clowns,' her father harrumphed.

‘They decorated their faces with little black patches shaped like half moons, stars and hearts to cover up smallpox and acne scars,' Michael, the schoolmaster, added. ‘And you know what else?'

Melody shook her head.

‘Some women even had false eyebrows made out of mouse fur.'

Melody's eyes grew wide. ‘Euuuuw!'

‘Absolutely true. As Jonathan Swift once wrote, “
Her eyebrows from a mouse's hide, Stuck on with art on either side
.”'

It was my turn to say
euuuuw
. ‘After Amy gets you dressed, Melody, come see me. There's a makeup box in my room. LynxE has stocked it with the modern lead-free equivalents of the makeup women used to use back then. I'm not sure we can do much to improve on your natural beauty, but it might be fun to experiment. Are you good with that?'

Melody's ear-to-ear smile told me all I needed to know.

Founding Father had warned us to expect Colonel George Washington, late of the Virginia Regiment, sometime after noon on Saturday. I didn't expect the great man to suddenly materialize on our doorstep with a quiet rap-rap-rap of the knocker, but I was totally unprepared for the eighteenth-century equivalent of the half-time show at the SuperBowl.

Jack Donovan had sent Dex out to the street to keep watch while the rest of us bustled around the house taking care of last-minute chores. I was in the dining room fiddling with an arrangement of chrysanthemums and heliopsis in a cut crystal vase when young Dex came tearing through the front door shouting, ‘They're coming! They're coming!'

Within minutes, our entire household converged on the landing where Jack arranged us in two lines, one on each side of the steps, fussing over the alignment as if we were cars on his showroom floor. After switching Amy and French – the pecking order had to be maintained – Jack vacillated between positioning himself at the foot of the steps or at the massive front door, finally deciding that he'd stand near the gate so that he could be the first to shake George Washington's hand.

Spectators lined Prince George Street, too, their cameras on lock-and-load. Someone had provided them with miniature flags – the fifty-star variety – but probably nobody noticed, they were flapping so briskly.

We heard the fife and drum before we saw it – playing ‘Yankee Doodle' and ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home,' which I thought was a Civil War song, but never mind. As I strained on tiptoe to see, two drummers and a fifer appeared. Dressed in red uniforms, they led the little parade straight down the street in our direction. Directly behind the musicians, mounted on a white horse, rode George Washington, accompanied by two uniformed aides, also on horseback. Sitting straight-backed and tall in the saddle, Washington looked splendid in a dark blue uniform decorated with gold braid and epaulets, as if he'd stepped right out of a portrait by Charles Wilson Peale. As he drew closer, Washington lifted his cocked hat, and the crowd went wild.

‘Who is that?' Amy whispered. ‘He looks familiar.'

‘He really
looks
like George Washington, doesn't he?' I squinted, trying to focus on the actor's face. Jutting brow, square chin, a prominent nose, the actor's imperial features fairly screamed authority. No wonder Washington had been unanimously chosen to lead our fledgling nation. ‘Wait a minute! I think that's David Morse!'

‘Who's David Morse?'

‘The actor who played Washington in the
John Adams
series on HBO.'

Amy pressed a hand to her breast. ‘No way!'

Washington's entourage halted at our gate and the actor dismounted, handing his reins to Jeffrey Wiley, Jack's valet, who had been standing on the curb.

‘Welcome to Patriot House!' Jack's voice rang out.

Again, the crowd cheered.

‘Take care of the horses, Jeffrey, and ask Cook to rustle up something to feed Colonel Washington's men.'

Standing on the steps directly across from me, ‘Cook' gave Jack the evil eye, but she waited until Colonel Washington had passed into the entrance hall, curtseying along with the rest of us, before motioning for French to follow her down the steps and around to the outside door that led to the kitchen.

‘Think Karen'll poison Jack's hot milk tonight?' Amy wondered.

‘It wouldn't surprise me,' I said as I led the rest of the household into the entrance hall.

Gabe, being the youngest, was the last to be introduced. He'd been waiting patiently by the punch bowl, hands locked behind his back, but when the moment came, he bowed slightly at the waist and said, as if he'd been practicing, ‘Welcome to Patriot House, your majesty.'

Washington snorted. ‘I'm but a humble colonel from Virginia, my lad.'

Gabe blushed, flustered. ‘Can I touch your sword, sir?' he stammered.

With an indulgent smile, Washington unbuckled his belt and handed it and the sword over to Gabe, who sagged under the weight. ‘It's heavy, isn't it, son?'

Gabe nodded.

Jack Donovan snapped his fingers and Jeffrey appeared out of nowhere to relieve Washington of his hat and Gabe of the sword. I took the moment to lean closer, look up into the actor's face and whisper, ‘You're David Morse, right?'

George Washington winked a bright blue eye and said, ‘It's been a long, hard ride, madam, and an even rougher crossing on the ferry. If that bowl contains punch, I could certainly use a cup.'

By the time dinner was served at three, we were all a bit tiddly. Jack lurched toward the head of the table while I sat down (carefully!) at the opposite end, one hand steadying my wig to keep it from slipping over my eyebrows. After I'd been seated, Colonel Washington took the chair to my right. His entourage, I learned after the food had been fulsomely blessed, had assembled on the campus of St John's College, where they'd been filmed in front of McDowell Hall, another Georgian treasure that had been built in 1742 by Thomas Bladen, the Maryland colonial governor.

Over soup, the discussion moved on, focusing on the business of the Continental Congress at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. While French bustled about the table removing the soup plates, the room fell quiet for a moment.

Melody, evidently forgetting that in this century, children remained silent unless spoken to, took advantage of the pause in conversation to comment, ‘Mr Rainey taught us about the First Continental Congress in school.'

‘It may be the
first
Continental Congress,' George Washington pointed out with a grin, ‘but we don't call it “first” because the second one hasn't happened yet.'

Below her powdered ringlets, Melody wrinkled her snow-white brow, as if trying to work that one out. Like me, she wore a thin veneer of zinc oxide on her face. We'd brightly rouged our cheeks and lips, but Melody looked surprisingly un-clown-like, while I could be applying for admission to Ringling Brothers Clown College. Up in my room that morning, giggling, Melody'd plastered a tiny half-moon to her cheek where a dimple ought to be. She'd argued for a half-moon patch over her left breast, too, but I'd put my silk slipper-clad foot firmly down. Breast patches are for harlots. Now you know.

‘Twelve colonies have sent delegates,' Washington was saying when I tuned back in. ‘I, as you know, represent Virginia.'

‘Only twelve?' Alex Mueller asked, being the dancer, not the historian among us. He'd clearly skimmed over the history tab in his orientation packet and hadn't exactly been poring over books in the library.

‘Georgia is a state full of convicts,' Washington replied, as if that explained everything.

Melody piped up again. ‘Like Australia?'

‘Exactly like Australia.'

‘What are you meeting about, then?' Melody asked.

‘We're there to discuss the taxes that have been levied against us of late by the British Parliament. You've heard of the Boston Tea Party?'

Melody and Gabe bobbed their heads.

‘That was our first act of protest. Now we're considering a boycott of all trade with Britain if King George III doesn't heed our petition and redress our specific grievances.'

‘We have a similar situation here in Annapolis,' Jack chimed in. ‘Two days ago, the brig
Peggy Stewart
arrived in Annapolis carrying at least a ton of tea, as well as fifty-three indentured servants. Stewart has paid the tax so that the human cargo can be off-loaded, but in spite of the tax being paid, customs is justly refusing to let the tea come ashore. There's to be another meeting of the committee in two days time, but until then, we have a stalemate.'

As Jack nattered on as if sucked through a time warp into 1774, I fought the almost overwhelming urge to stick the oyster fork underneath my wig and give my itchy scalp a good scratch. Fortunately, Jeffrey arrived – dressed in white gloves and full livery – bearing a platter upon which our roast pig lay in all its splendor.

Jack staggered to his feet, swayed unsteadily, and led a round of applause. Accompanied by a chorus of
ohs
and
ahs,
Jeffrey set the platter down in front of his master who admired the beast for what seemed like a full minute – holding a carving knife in one hand and a fork in the other – before bringing the knife down and whacking off its left front leg.

I averted my eyes from the massacre going on at the head of the table and motioned to Jeffrey. I needed a drink. Jeffrey made another round with the wine, and when my glass was full, I took a sip. Then another.

Jack began slicing meat off the thigh. ‘Mrs Ives?'

‘Yes, Mr Donovan?'

‘I've decided that I need to put my money where my mouth is. Kindly inform Cook that from this day forward until the British government comes to its senses, no tea will be served in this house.'

I was primarily a coffee person, but a mid-afternoon cup of tea was one of my favorite pick-me-ups. ‘I'll see to it first thing in the morning, Mr Donovan,' I lied. Then I turned to our guest, lowering my voice to a whisper. ‘Ever since
Tales of the City
, I've just
adored
Laura Linney. So, tell me. Is she just as nice in person?'

After the butter cake and the fresh berries, George Washington leaned back in his chair, folded his napkin, sighed with contentment and insisted on giving his compliments personally to the cook. Karen was sent for and when she arrived, she stood in the doorway with her head modestly bowed while Washington offered a toast in her honor.

The ladies adjourned to the parlor for coffee, so the men could get on with their port and tobacco of choice. Around six, Jack appeared at the parlor door, red-cheeked as St Nick and just as jovial. ‘Let the dancing begin!' he announced as he tottered in my direction. With each shaky step, my dread increased. I squeezed my eyes shut –
Go away, go away, go away
– to no avail. An eternity later, he paused in front of my chair, bowed, extended his hand and said, ‘Mrs Ives, will you do me the honor?'

Amy scooted out of the parlor behind him and before long, I could hear her pounding out an ‘A' on the harpsichord so Alex could tune his violin. I was trapped, but I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Washington/Morse, so I dredged up a smile, pasted it on my face, and allowed Jack to lead me into the central hallway. Behind me, Melody squealed, and a few minutes later she, too, was escorted into the hallway by the Father of our Country himself.

Paca House didn't have a proper ballroom, so the servants had cleared the hallway of furniture for the occasion. At the far end, near the porch on the garden side, Amy sat at the harpsichord. Holding his violin, Alex stood in front, his backside nestled into the natural curve of the harpsichord case. Alex tapped his bow on Amy's music stand, setting the tempo, as Jack led me onto the dance floor. George Washington followed, partnering Melody who must have been blushing furiously under the layer of zinc oxide. From opposite corners we bowed to our partners, and the minuet began.