The Turning of Anne Merrick (51 page)

“A huge scene,” Dark Peggy agreed.

“But Papa and Mama retire early. I can easily sneak off to attend the masquerade.” Peggy took Anne by the hand. “I need your help—a haven where I can dress, and some kind of transport to the Wharton mansion.”

Dark Peggy hedged. “It’s a terrible sacrifice, we know… asking you to miss out on all the festivities. Peggy is my dearest friend, and I would do it in a heartbeat, but we agreed it would be too cruel to Captain André to deprive him of two Ladies of the Blended Rose at this late date…”

“Say no more.” Anne smiled, and took Peggy Shippen by the hand. “Of course I’ll do what I can. I’ll wait for you here. Pink and Sally can help you dress, and we’ll go to the masquerade together.”

Both girls squealed and threw their arms about Anne, squeezing her so hard, she was like to start seeing stars again.

Anne untangled from the tearful, giggling mass and led the Peggies to the front door. “Come for chocolate tomorrow. We’ll sort out the details then.”

Church bells began ringing the hour as she stood beneath her shop sign and watched the happy girls skip up Chestnut Street and turn the corner onto Fourth. Sally and Pink came out to stand beside her.

Sally asked, “D’ye think there’s any truth t’ their stupid bletherings?”

Pink said, “I surely hope so.”

“So do I.” The church bells ceased, and the echo of the quivering brass hung in the air. Anne glanced up at the steeple of Christ Church. “Ten bells already! Elbert will be by in an hour. Best put on your striped apron, Sally. I’ll ready the book.”

EIGHTEEN

Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows thro’ them, and acquires a firmer habit than before.

T
HOMAS
P
AINE
,
The American Crisis

M
ASQUERADE

As promised, at half seven, Peggy Shippen came knocking at the coffee shop door, breathless, a bundle of striped silk clutched in her arms. She scooted inside, and Anne looked up the street to see if anyone was following.

“I climbed out the drawing room window,” Peggy said, with a giggle. “Such an adventure!”

“Dress quickly, now.” Anne bustled the girl up the stairs. “I ordered the coach for eight o’clock.”

Leaving Peggy in Pink’s patient and capable hands, Anne went to her room to dress. Sally helped to lace up the blue gown. In keeping with the simplicity of her costume, Anne decided to wear her waist-length hair in loose, natural curls, completely unadorned, and opted for a mere touch of rouge on her cheeks and a bit of lip pomade. Horse hooves echoed on the cobbles below, and Sally glanced out the window. “Th’ coach’s here.”

Anne sat to secure the silver ribbons on her new blue brocade slippers. “
Tell Peggy, then have him wait—I’ll fix my pocket and be down in a tic.”

Hopping to her feet, she checked the content of her coin purse before slipping it into her pocket. She added the door key, a clean handkerchief, and, as was her habit whenever she went out alone among the enemy, her half of the crown token from the fence at the Bowling Green. Patting her pocket, she muttered, “Money, door key, hankie, and Jack…” and ran down the stairs. “Where’s Peggy?”

Sally shrugged. “Trying Pink’s patience, no doubt.”

“Peggy!” Anne called up the stairs. “Time to go! The liveryman’s here!”

Pink was the first to come down the stairs, shaking her head, rolling her eyes. “I only did as she tolt me. That girl’s run amok.”

Swinging her mask by the ribbons with one hand, Peggy Shippen came to stand at the top of the stairs, announcing with a flourish of her shepherd’s crook, “Behold, an Arcadian Shepherdess.”

Peggy’s face and chest were sponged with a base of white face paint, making the rouge smudged on cheeks and lips especially garish. Piled up high, her blond curls were cluttered with a chaos of bows and silk flowers. She wore a frilly white blouse with ribbon-laced stays pressing her breasts up to the verge of embarrassing calamity. Blue-striped skirt and lacy petticoats were kilted up to the knee, giving a daring view of legs encased in white silk stockings drawn tight to ankle and calf, and dainty slippers made of crimson red prunellos.

“You make for a lovely shepherdess,” Anne cajoled the girl down the stairs. “Come along, now… Let’s be off.”

Peggy cried, “I forgot my lamb!” and disappeared.

“Shepherdess, mine arse!” Sally burst out laughing. “More like a bordello whore!”

“No wonder her father forbid her from going,” Anne said.

“I can’t get over how pretty your dress is, Annie,” Pink said, fussing with the drape of Anne’s skirts. “As sheer as a dragonfly’s wing, this here gauze, and the dressmaker used just the right touch of sparkle.”

Sally agreed. “Yer th’ image of a starry night. I only wish I could be there t’ see ye dancing…”

Anne huffed a sigh. “I only wish it were all over.”

Peggy came tearing down the stairs with a little stuffed sheepskin complete with black button eyes draped over one arm. “I’m ready now!”

Giving Pink and Sally a farewell hug, Anne reminded, “Leave a candle burning for me…”

They climbed up into the carriage, and with a
“Los! Los!”
their German liveryman urged the horses up Chestnut Street.

“We’re on our way! Can you believe it?” Peggy clapped her hands. “Oh, I know I’ve missed the regatta and the tournament, but the masquerade is bound to be the best part, don’t you think?” The girl chattered on like an organ grinder’s monkey. “Frivolous and lewd—Papa is so provincial. He doesn’t know what he speaks of. He simply has to be absolutely wrong about the army leaving the city. Why on earth would they leave? I’m sure Johnny André would tell me if he was leaving—he is definitely sweet on me, though Peggy Chew would not have it so…”

The giddy girl’s nonstop chatter devolved to nothing more than a buzz in Anne’s ear—a steady drone to the
clip-clop, clip-clop
of the horses’ hooves as they rode to the Wharton estate at the bend in the Delaware.

It was a fine, clear evening—warm enough to keep the canvas roof on their landau carriage pushed open. The view of the stars improved the farther they rode from the city lights. Anne leaned her head back and pressed her hand to the love token in her pocket, comforted by the view of the open night sky. A very bright star twinkled with a golden light, just above the horizon to the west, and Anne wondered if it might be Capella. She tried to remember the names of the brightest stars, and imagined Jack somewhere in the Pennsylvanian hills, stepping away from a campfire with Titus, Ned, and Isaac, to study the sky and identify the stars.

“I hear music!” Peggy exclaimed. “We must be close. Can you hear it? Do you think they’re already dancing?”

“Probably…”

Peggy leaned forward, slapping the driver’s seat back. “Hurry!
Schnell—schnell!
”

The liveryman snapped the reins, and the carriage jolted forward at a faster pace.

Anne handed her mask to Peggy. “Help me tie the ribbons on mine, and I’ll tie yours.”

In keeping with her dress, Anne’s Venetian eye mask was fashioned of lightweight papier-mâché, and covered with matching blue silk and a sprinkling of silver crystals. Peggy’s white mask was adorned with gold sequins and multicolored jewels, and had a short tuft of ostrich feathers jutting up at the center of the brow.

The carriage turned through the gates of the Wharton estate, and the robust music of a full orchestra sent Peggy bouncing in her seat. The vast lawn between the mansion and the river was taken up with the two huge pavilions erected for dining and dancing. Simply built of sailcloth fastened to a timber structure, the pavilions glowed golden from within, like immense isinglass lanterns.

“So many lights!” Peggy cooed. “Like some kind of a fairyland…”

On a rise beyond the pavilions, the manor house stood ablaze with candlelight shining from every window. A brigantine and three schooners were moored on the Delaware, their ship’s lights twinkling bright reflections on the water. Hundreds of glass-paned lanterns were hung from the tree branches, casting soft pools of light on wooded pathways leading from the lawn to the river. The carriage rode up the long drive to the mansion steps, and the German driver helped the women debark.

“Let’s go!” Peggy whined, and tugged Anne along as she kept an eye on their carriage, making certain the driver understood her direction to park and wait with the others.

The music came to an abrupt halt, followed by the applause, whoops, and whistles of the happy dancers. As the women approached the doorway of the pavilion, some breathless masqueraders spilled out to take the air between dances, and Anne and Peggy laughed at the ironic pairings.

Peggy pointed out a red-caped cardinal strolling arm in arm with a horned and tailed devil. At the doorway they bumped into a six-foot
rabbit leading a cowled nun by the hand to scamper off behind the trees. Anne pulled to a stop at the doorway.

“Oh my word! How
beautiful
!”

During their committee meetings, she’d heard the British officers bandying about the dimensions of the pavilions, and listened to their lavish plans for decorating the interiors, but the final result went far and beyond her most wild imaginings. This Meschianza was more extravagant than any ball or
fête
she’d ever attended in New York.

More than two hundred feet long and forty feet wide, the pavilion walls rose to at least twenty feet tall. Utilizing his talent at designing stage scenery, André painted the canvas ground of pale blue with
trompe l’oeil
gold moldings and faux festoons of dark blue draperies. Structural beams and columns were painted a matching pale blue and decorated with pastel-colored fabric buntings, bunches of silk flowers, and trailing green ivy.

A series of twenty brass chandeliers hung from the rafter peak, ablaze with at least thirty candles each. The fifty-six pier glass mirrors André “borrowed” from local mansions and estates were mounted along the sidewalls, reflecting the light to illuminate the dreamlike scene of masqueraders making merry.

“Johnny outdid himself setting this stage,” Peggy said, squeezing Anne’s hand.

“I see Betsy!” Anne pointed to the raised gallery at the far end of the pavilion. Masked with a sheer veil drawn over the bottom half of her face, Betsy Loring was unmistakable standing at the gallery railing, looking down upon the crowd. Dressed in bejeweled pink satin and silk gauze, the turban on her head was strung with strands of gold beads and plumed with an explosion of ostrich feathers.

The Sultana…
Anne admired how Betsy Loring managed to cock a snook at the snide nickname Howe’s officers bestowed upon her.

The orchestra was seated in the ivy-wreathed bower beneath the gallery, and the refreshed musicians began tuning up. Couples whooped and skipped out to line up for the next dance, and the plank
floor beneath their feet trembled with the rhythmic thrum of foot stomps as the musicians launched into a rousing
gigue
.

Anne could not help but bounce along to the rhythm and laugh at the sight of masqueraders crowding the dance floor in costumes ranging from the sweet and humorous to the macabre and fantastic. Anne accepted a glass of champagne offered by one of many black waiters dressed in flowing white silk shirts, trousers, and turbans.

“Oh…” Peggy issued a sad sigh. “It seems I’m not the only Shepherdess …”

There did seem to be an inordinate amount of shepherdesses and milkmaids hopping about on the dance floor. Anne noted more than several of them were very large, and one sported Hessian mustachios.

A Harlequin in a black eye mask came up and gave them each a tap on the shoulder with the slapstick he carried. After taunting them with the traditional, “I know you—do you know me?” he executed a perfect backflip.

Anne laughed and clapped. Dressed in tight trousers and a jacket made of diamond-patterned silk in bright red, green, gold, and blue, William Cathcart was perfectly suited to play the athletic Harlequin.

A masked brunette milkmaid in kilted red-striped skirts, complete with pail in hand, ran up and screamed at Peggy, “I know you! Do you know me?” Grabbing each other at the shoulders, the Peggies danced around in a squealing circle.