The Messenger (26 page)

“Ah. Very clever.” He held it up, rolling it between his fingers. “Though it might help, of course, if there were some way to light it. And relight it.”

“Why, thee just—” Oh. One of the luxuries of wealth was having a fire that rarely went out and servants to relight it if it did. “I’ll bring a char cloth and a flint next week.” I scratched at an itch on my arm and then scratched at it again as I looked around the room. Just standing there in the filth and the mire made everything within me start to itch. I’d been hoping Robert would appear as we were talking, but he had not, even though William Addison had promised his presence the week before. There were several men sitting against the wall who could have taken his place in the tunnel. I didn’t understand why my brother need always be absent. “I want to see Robert.”

He nodded toward the wall.

“I thought thee were going to keep him out this once. That’s what thee told me last week.”

He looked at me again, with that same odd sadness in his eyes. It was then my heart understood what my mind had refused to comprehend. “Is he . . . has he . . . ?”

William Addison put the candle down and took up my hand. “He died.”

I sank to my knees in that filth and squalor. A slow disintegration of the earth, the sky, of everything around me. An abrupt and stifling absence of air. And then . . . nothing. A complete absence of everything. I lowered my head to my knees as the damp soaked through my stockings to my skin and the stench seeped into my skirts. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. Robert was dead. “How—?”

“He was digging. The tunnel collapsed. We couldn’t pull him out in time.”

A howl escaped my lips.

“Hush! No one’s noticed. Not anyone outside this cell. And if his death is discovered, then they’re going to start asking questions.”

He was right. Of course he was right, but I could not keep silent. A keening moan escaped my lips. “I want to see him.”

“You don’t. You don’t want to see him. It’s already been three weeks.”

I pushed from my knees to standing. “I want to see him.”

The men had been watching me; I knew it from the way they turned their heads as I glanced around the room. Robert was there, he had to be there, but I could not discern where they had hidden him.

William Addison nodded toward one of the men, who was sitting in the corner opposite the tunnel. That man moved aside, exposing a pile of straw. He swept some of it away. As I approached, I discovered it was from there that the peculiar smell had emanated. It had come from my brother.

I would not have known it was him, but for his clothes and the cowlick at the center of his forehead. It was the twin of my own. His body was bloated beyond recognition, his neck crawling with maggots, but it was plain to see how he had died: He’d been buried alive. His hands were stained with earth, his fingernails packed with dirt. But what made me weep was his mouth. It was ringed with a dirty froth.

I always woke from my dream with a soundless scream.

No wonder I’d felt such great terror.
He
had felt great terror. I was comforted knowing that it had been assuaged by such great peace. I knelt beside him and put a hand out to smooth his hair, pulling bits of straw from it. I wiped the dirt from his brow and then took the hem of my skirt to wipe the froth from his mouth. When I could do nothing more to improve his condition, I swept the straw back over his body.

The prisoner resumed his position.

William Addison cleared his throat. “We mean no disrespect, miss. We’re just trying to keep the rats away.”

“Why did thee not tell me?”

When he looked at me, I saw shame in the depths of his eyes. “I was afraid you would stop coming. We all knew you were only coming to see him. But the rest of us need you too. They say the British are leaving soon. If they evacuate the city, they’ll have to put us on ships. This jail is bad, but those ships are worse. Wouldn’t none of us survive them.”

“Thee shouldn’t have kept this from me.”

“I know it and I’m begging your pardon, but if you don’t come the guards will wonder why. They don’t know Robert died. So . . . will you do it? For us? Will you keep coming?”

Jeremiah

The tailor had finished the rest of my new suits several weeks ago. I’d hung them up on pegs and had gotten in the habit of eyeing them as I was getting dressed of a morning.

English blue.

Myrtle green.

Yellow.

I don’t know why I’d let him talk me into them, though I suspected it had to do with Hannah Sunderland. I didn’t really want to work out what, exactly. I needed her to deliver messages to the jail more than I needed . . . what I wanted. And going to her church had provided quite an education. Those people actually sat around waiting to hear from God.

As if He weren’t busy enough attending to other matters.

It was fine and good to pray and hope for some sort of answer, but some things you didn’t need someone to tell you. When the world had been turned upside down, and right was being treated as wrong, any Christian person would try to do something about it. What were those people waiting for? Were they so afraid they might do the wrong thing that they failed to do anything at all?

English blue and bright yellow.

Decidedly not for Quakers.

I grabbed the yellow coat from its peg and put it on. The tailor had been true to his word. As I descended the back stair, the coat remained fixed to my shoulder.

Dinner wasn’t as busy as normal so I had time to talk to my barkeeper about the hosting of the coming night’s ball. I had him write up an order for new cloths. Went into the kitchen and asked the cook to undertake an inventory of pewter.

“What? Today?”

I shrugged. “Or tomorrow.”

“If I had some decent help, I might be able to accomplish something around here!” She glared at her daughter as she spoke.

I left before she could turn her sights on me. As I walked back into the public room, John and his comrades came through the door. He ordered bowls of punch for them all. I called for the cook’s daughter to serve them and then pulled a chair up to their table.

John glanced up from his conversation. Cocked his head. “Love suits you, Jonesy. Haven’t seen you looking this good since we were lieutenants together.”

The line between compliment and criticism must have been a very thin one in John Lindley’s mind. I smiled anyway. “And how are your plans coming for the general’s fete?”

John shrugged, pulling a face. “We’ve talked of plays, but we’ve performed nearly a dozen already this season. If we do another, it has to be something more. Something . . . different.”

Something more. Something different. Something completely extravagant and wholly inappropriate to fete a general whose victories were dubious at best. It was ridiculous to send him sailing home as if he deserved all the adoration that his officers had lavished upon him. It was almost as if he were some medieval sovereign surrounded by chieftains who were pledged to fealty, no matter the truth of who or what he was. “You ought to have a joust.”

“A what?” John was looking at me with some interest.

“A joust.”

He scratched at his jaw. “A joust. Knights and their ladies, horses and spears. That would be a spectacle.”

Indeed it would.

“How many officers are we?” John asked the question of André, who had become his shadow of late.

“Twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one knights, so there must be twenty-one ladies.”

André’s smile matched John’s. “A tournament held in honor of General Howe’s honor. Perfect!”

Perfectly absurd. “You ought to have the jousters compete for the ladies’ honor in honor of the general’s honor.”

“How cunning—yes!” John and André toasted each other. “For the ladies’ honor. And they
have
been delightful, these Philadelphia belles.”

“Though they couldn’t hold a candle to London’s society.” There was general agreement with André’s sentiment.

But of course they couldn’t. For the most part, colonial girls were meek, kind creatures who expected truth where they encountered lies and virtue where there was only vice. They’d adopted British fashion with the enthusiasm of converts. And yet they’d been secretly scorned as provincial the entire season, though they hadn’t even noticed. They were pretty in their way. They were exotic. But they weren’t quite suitable.

“We can’t pretend they’re genuine ladies.” John was only saying what they were all thinking.

“That’s true. They’re not. Not really.”

It seemed as if they were ready to discard the whole idea. The Crusaders hadn’t been so quickly defeated. And heaven knew they’d collected nearly as many girls for their harems, leaving them all behind when they’d sailed for home. “You ought to style them as Turks.”

André’s eyes lit with a gleam others might have called inspiration. “Turks.”

Why not? It was better than styling them as savages or Orientals.

“Have you a leaf of paper you could spare?”

I went over to the counter, grabbed my daybook, and ripped a page from the back. Finding that he had followed me, I gave it to him.

“And a quill?”

I passed one to him. And then the inkwell.

He spent a few minutes sketching at something. I watched as a female form took shape. It was swathed in sashes topped with a turban and sprouting all kinds of tassels, feathers, and veils. He showed it to me and then went over to show it to the others.

“Do you think that would do?” he asked John.

“Perfectly splendid!”

And perfectly conceived to create outrage in the heart of each one of Philadelphia’s good citizens. It was perfect.

“It will be a spectacle such as the empire has never seen.” André was speaking with the enthusiasm of a zealot. “I wonder . . . perhaps I should make some accounting of the event. To send to the newspapers in London . . .”

I stepped forward to stack up the bowls. “I’m certain that you should.” Then he could be the laughingstock of England as well.

The fete—the Meschianza, they were calling it—seemed to consume the attentions of all the officers in John’s group. They were in and out of the tavern several times a day, holding conferences at the table by the fire.

I included myself in their discussions, ostensibly to help in their endeavors, but mostly to marvel at the foolishness that seemed to have prevailed over good sense.

“What do you think, Jonesy? Are flags decoration enough for the barges?”

Flags. On barges? “No. Heavens no! You don’t want to send the general off with anything so pedestrian. Those barges should be festooned with all the trimmings and bunting you can find.” Which wouldn’t be very much. Not in this occupation-weary city. It would give the citizenry one more reason to despise them. What’s more, looking for such things would provide a distraction. And keep John from dogging my steps. I couldn’t afford another encounter like the one we’d had with the egg-girl.

But I encountered him out in the city anyway. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. I touched a finger to my hat. “How are the festivities progressing?”

“We’ve nearly everything needed for the regatta and the joust. But there’s still the interior of the house to be improved upon.”

“Wharton’s house? It’s rather grand, as I recall. Or it was.”

“For a family perhaps, but not for a tournament. Changes need to be made.”

A tournament. General Howe had left them with too much time on their hands. They ought to have been gainfully employed—planning battles and scavenging the countryside for food. Any respectable army would have been readied for a move from winter quarters long before now. But the delay did have the advantage of showing Philadelphians the army’s true colors. “I would think that, given the opportunity, the citizens would be happy to contribute to such a worthy cause.”

“Do you think so?”

I winked at him. “It’s all in the asking.”

“We’d need . . .”

“Only the best of things. You ought to ask for mirrors and candelabras and crystal vases. All the luxuries these people have collected. They oughtn’t mind if you explain you’re only borrowing them. You are, after all, defending their city from rebel attack. They’ll offer them to you gladly. And even if they don’t, the army ought to be allowed such liberties.”

“That was my way of thinking as well. Only these colonials can be so . . .
provincial
about such things.”

“When they’re raised in the wilderness, dressed in buckskins and forced to eat gruel twice a day, it’s a wonder they know how to dance at all.”

“I’m sure. But did you really eat . . . ?” John shuddered. He’d already nearly convinced himself I was telling the truth. I could see it in his eyes.

“Some of us did.” No colonists that I knew, of course, but somewhere in the wilds of the Ohio Valley, someone probably had.