The Turning of Anne Merrick (49 page)

“Elbert is the least likely spy,” Sally said with an approving nod, “and those are th’ best kind.”

“
The boys will then deliver the book to a place I’ve readied under the hearthstone at the old cabin. I will pick it up from there.”

Jack inched forward in his chair. “The boys deliver?”

David nodded. “Armed with fishing poles and creels, they are far less likely to arouse suspicion from any Redcoat outliers.”

Titus asked, “What do we do? Jack and me?”

David squared his shoulders. “You’re both going back to Valley Forge with me…”

“What!?” Jack pushed his empty cup away, sending it in a skitter across the table where Titus managed, quick as a cat, to catch it before it hit the floor.

Jack threw himself back in his chair, his mouth a snarl and brow dark. “This is about the night visits, isn’t it? Well, you can kiss my back cheeks, David. There’s no way I’m leaving here.”

“This has nothing to do with the night visits…”

“What a load of cock and bull!” Jack pounded the table with his fist. “You’re a vengeful taskmaster, Captain Peabody, but you forget, Titus and me are no regulars to be ordered about at your whim. We’re staying put, and that’s that.”

Anne tried to calm Jack with a hand on his arm, but he shrugged her off.

“Be sensible, Jack,” David said. “I’m not your taskmaster—necessity is
our
taskmaster. Washington needs experienced scouts…”

Titus interrupted, “We don’t go to the Cup and Book anymore—tell him, Sally.”

Sally nodded. “It’s truth, David. They’ve stayed away.”

“We all know better now,” Pink said.

David threw his arms up. “I’m telling you all, this has nothing to do with the night visits to the Cup and Book. You spoke of value, Jack—well, the General’s devised a new mission and Morgan himself recommended the two of you, as did Alan.”

Jack asked, “What mission?”

“Small, swift groups of irregular scouts and Oneidans employed in the country between the Delaware and the Schuylkill under Alan’s direction. You’re to observe enemy movements
, making mischief as you can, inciting terror among the Redcoats with well-placed rifle shots, disrupting their communication—very similar to your mission up the Hudson. You won’t be far away, and once the city’s retaken in the summer, the mission is over.”

“Sounds like your cup of tea…” Anne put her hand on Jack’s knee.

Jim chimed in, “Use the proper tools for the proper task—that’s what Elbert says.”

“I don’t know, David…” Jack said with a shake of his head. “I don’t like leaving them here all on their own—a tribe of petticoats, two unlicked cubs, and Elbert—no offense, Elbert.”

“None taken.” Elbert smiled.

David added, “I can tell you Ned and Isaac have already signed on as scouts.”

Titus asked, “Tell me, who’s to take action here if aught goes amiss?”

“What’s to go wrong?” Pink piped up. “We work the Cup and Book with eyes and ears open…”

Anne said, “I go to a few card parties and plays—if we learn anything of value, we pass it to Elbert.”

“I dinna ken why yer both bein’ such pains in the arse. It’s much less risky for us here in th’ city than when we were in amongst Burgoyne’s lot,” Sally said. “Bede Seaborn—God rest her soul—was caught because she was careless. We know what we are about, ye ken?”

Anne massaged the bunch between Jack’s shoulders. “It’s only for a few weeks. We’ll be fine. Once Washington retakes the city, we’ve done our duty.”

“Nonetheless, as a precaution,” David said, “I want you to put a plan in place, if needs must, to fly the city at a moment’s notice.”

The women all nodded at the sense of David’s suggestion. Titus and Jack exchanged a look, and Jack heaved a sigh. “Alright, then.”

Titus shrugged and said, “We’ll join the General’s mission.”

David slapped hands to the tabletop. “Good!” He went over to the windows and peeked out the curtain. “Gather your gear. We’ll leave at nightfall—about an hour, I’d say.”

Sally came up behind David and wrapped her arms around his waist, her voice sad. “I guess there’s naught to do but kiss and part once again.”

“Kiss and part…” Jack puffed out a breath and scraped his chair back. “I’d better go and pack…”

Anne grabbed him by the hand and tugged him down to whisper in his ear, “I think a kinder kiss could be had up in your room…”

Jack’s grimness turned into a grin. “Why, Widow Merrick… how you talk!”

Hand in hand, they ran up the stairs.

SEVENTEEN

Some secret defect or other is interwoven in the character of all those, be they men or women, who can look with patience on the brutality, luxury and debauchery of the British court, and the violations of their army here.

T
HOMAS
P
AINE
,
The American Crisis

M
IXING AND
M
INGLING

“Beg pardon, madam, but I think you dropped your fan?”

“How kind… Thank you.” Anne smiled, and accepted the fan offered by a fair-haired Redcoat captain, who seemed to be in her orbit since she’d entered the theater.

“May I?” he asked, indicating the empty seat beside her.

She nodded and opened her fan, beating the air with a very controlled tremble of the wrist.
Young for a captain… He’s
either very rich or very brave.

The Captain leaned in and asked, “Are you looking forward to the production, Mrs. Merrick?”

Anne stilled her fan. “You play familiar with my name, sir, yet I don’t recall our being introduced…”

“You’ve caught me out,” he admitted with a boyish smile, genuine and quite charming. “I’ve been admiring you these days from afar, Mrs. Merrick, and I strong-armed Mrs. Loring for an invitation to her box tonight.”

“Hmmmph…” Anne resumed fanning. “You are a deceiver, sir.”

“A rascal of your devise, madam,” the handsome Redcoat acknowledged. “‘Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.’”

Impressed with the young man’s dash, Anne raised an eyebrow and murmured, “
Measure for Measure
…” The slightest Scottish lilt in the Captain’s voice quoting Shakespeare sent Anne straight back to Burgoyne’s lamp-lit woodland dinner under the trees, and Simon Fraser’s recitation from
Henry V
. Her brain hopped in a twinkling from one memory to the next, and she found tears sprung to her eyes recollecting Geoffrey Pepperell’s smile the moment before he died.

Extending his hand, the Redcoat added, “Captain William Schaw Cathcart, at your service.”

Grateful for the dimness of the light in Howe’s box at the Southwark Theater, Anne blinked away her sudden tears. She reached out to recognize the introduction with a momentary grasp of the man’s fingers, and in catching a glimpse of the number embossed on the silver buttons on his cuff, she actually winced, touched by yet another specter from her past.

17th Dragoons.

Edward Blankenship, the Redcoat she shot dead in her shop in New York, had been a captain in the very same dragoon regiment.

An ill omen…

Mrs. Loring and William Howe were the last to be seated in the theater box, and in a noisy rustle of pink taffeta, they took the chairs directly behind Anne. Tapping Anne on the shoulder, Betsy leaned forward and said quietly in her ear, “I see you have a new admirer!”

Anne leaned back and muttered, “Too young.”

“Don’t be a fool,”
Betsy whispered. “Lord Cathcart is very smitten with you.”

Anne leaned back, using her fan to mask her lips.
“Lord?”

“Scottish peerage—son of the ninth Baron. The boy’s a favorite of General Clinton.”

Anne snapped her fan shut. Letting it dangle from the silken cord
on her wrist, she turned to the young Captain and said, “From your quoting Shakespeare, Mr. Cathcart, I take it you are a regular patron of the theater?”

“A patron and a sponsor, Mrs. Merrick.”

“Please…” Anne reached over and rested her hand on the young man’s knee for just a moment. “You must call me Anne, and I shall call you William, for I can tell already we’re going to be fast friends.”

“Dear Anne…” Her simple touch had Lord Cathcart flushed and grinning like a cat what’d licked the cream from the milk jug.

Betsy leaned forward and muttered, “Reel him in…”

“William…” Laying her hand on the Captain’s forearm, Anne asked, “Would you happen to know the title of tonight’s performance?”

“A comedy…” Lord Cathcart dug into his breast pocket. Producing a playbill, he read the title. “
A Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret
. I’ve seen a production in London—very humorous.”

Another omen…
Anne snapped open her fan to cover her smile.

The theater boys came around, dimming the houselights and turning up the wicks to brighten the oil lamps at the foot of the stage. One of the violinists waved his bow, and the musicians in the pit struck up the overture. It was amusing to watch from up high the scramble for seats in the gallery. The audience at last quieted when the curtain was drawn, and two actors stepped out onto the stage, entering into a lively dialog:

“My lord, Don Lopez.”

“How d’ye do, Frederick?”

“At your lordship’s service. I’m glad to see you look so well, my lord. I hope Antonio’s out of danger?”

“Quite the contrary; his fever increases, they tell me, and the surgeons are of opinion his wound is mortal…”

Of all British military social whirl, Anne did love going to the playhouse. She accepted all invitations to join Betsy Loring and company in the Royal Box—the best seats in the house at the Southwark Theater. It was the only guilty pleasure she derived from her assignment
in Philadelphia. Just as she settled back to enjoy the play, she was jerked around in her seat by the call of her name.

“Anne.”

In the row behind, Betsy was leaning against the General’s shoulder, watching the play through a squat monocular opera glass. The two Peggies, sitting beside Betsy, were spellbound by the stage—not a one of them indicating the least interest in speaking with her.

Odd.
Anne turned back to the play.
Something’s out of square here…
Shifting in her seat, an uneasy feeling crept up her spine like a deliberate spider.
It’s what Cathcart said—admiring from afar…
She glanced to her right, but the young captain was completely engaged by the antics on the stage.
He seems harmless enough…
Anne suppressed a shudder. She was not keen on being the one who was watched unawares. The audience burst into laughter and Anne almost leapt from her skin.

Cathcart leaned over and whispered, “My friend Delancey is an outstanding actor, is he not? An unnatural talent.”

“Unnatural…” Anne nodded, taking in a breath to steady her racing heart. She was the one always accusing Sally of being over fearful, of always seeing an Indian behind every tree and a snake beneath every bush.
I’m suffering the same affliction…
Fanning her face, Anne set her eyes, ears, and mind to the diversion offered onstage.
Stop making a mountain out of a mouse.

After the play, Anne took William Cathcart’s proffered arm and they strolled along with a jovial crowd to Howe’s mansion on Sixth and Market for after-theater drinks. Betsy and the General gathered a foursome in the dining room for a game of Euchre. Anne followed a small group to the punch bowl in the upstairs drawing room, and squeezed in between the two Peggies and their polonaise puffs of pastel silk, to share the settee.

“I tell you, my dears, I verily
dread
the departure of our General!” John André threw himself onto a brocaded chair, tugging at his neck stock. “Say farewell to theater plays and dancing assemblies, and anything else that makes this dreary colonial backwater tolerable.”

“You’ve got the right of it…” Fresh from the stage, Captain Delancey plopped down into the second chair. “Lord Howe understands
how to compensate for the roughs and smooths of a soldier’s life. Henry Clinton, on the other hand, is a by-the-book soldier.”

André added, “And he’s no patron of the arts.”

“We’ll be campaigning soon, and Sir Henry is a superb tactician and strategist—” With punch glass in hand, Cathcart struck an elegant pose near the mantel. “I, for one, am not dreading his command at all.”