The Whiskey Rebels (10 page)

Nevertheless, she had found me, and when I obeyed the summons, she sent me away. She had lied, and done so quite badly. She had wanted me to come, but, once there, she had an even more pressing reason for sending me away.

Now, as I walked along Spruce Street, I contemplated the possible reasons for her behavior. The first was that circumstances had changed. Either she had obtained intelligence of her husband or had reason to believe he and her family were safe. The second was that her disposition had changed. She had either concluded or been convinced that, whatever her concerns, they did not justify renewing an association with a man she once intended to marry but whose companionship was not now appropriate. The third, and the one that had me moving in the direction of her home, was that she had been forced somehow, against her will, to tell me that she wished me to leave: a threat against her husband, herself, or perhaps even her children.

It was that possibility, that and my desire to look upon her face in daylight, and perhaps even a desperate knowledge that I had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, which brought me once more to the Pearson house. In the light of day it seemed even more luxurious and stately, though the leafless branches and empty gardens gave it a forlorn appearance, dignified but terribly lonely.

I knocked upon the door and was addressed almost at once by the same footman with whom I had dealt the previous night. He appeared neater and better rested, but I supposed I did not look better for the time that had passed. My injuries developed into bruises, and while I might be certain that the light of day would only elevate Mrs. Pearson’s loveliness, I knew it served to make my own appearance even more dreadful—beaten, rumpled, and tattered. Given that my clothes bore the odors of my recent adventures, I must have seemed no better than a vagabond, a pitiful unfortunate, and though this footman and I had locked horns not a day earlier, he at first had no notion of who I was.

“Beggars are dealt with at the servants’ entrance,” he intoned.

“And I’m sure they are grateful,” I answered. “I, however, am Captain Ethan Saunders and would like to speak with Mrs. Pearson.”

He studied me again, attempting to contain the disgust so visible upon his face. Yet the typical sneering so common among footmen when confronted with those beneath their masters’ station was not evident. Indeed, he took a step forward and spoke in a low if sympathetic voice. “Sir, I believe the lady herself asked you to go and not return.”

“She did, but I doubt she meant it. Please tell her I am here.”

“She will not see you.”

“But you’ll tell her?”

He nodded but did not invite me in. Instead he closed the door, and I remained upon the front porch, cold in my insufficient coat. Light snow fell upon me, and I watched as gentlemen and ladies traveled along Spruce, glancing up at my vigil with dismay.

In a moment, the man returned, his expression neutral. “Mrs. Pearson will not see you.”

I could not argue this point with him. If I was refused, nothing I could say would alter his mind, and unless I was prepared to force my way inside, which I was not, that would be the end of it. “You seem like an honest man,” I said. “Is there something you would tell me?”

He opened his mouth as if to speak but then shook his head. “No. You must go.”

“Very well, but if you—”

This little speech was interrupted, for he reached out and pushed against my coat. “I said go!” he cried, rather more loudly than necessary. “Leave, and return no more!”

I turned away, slouching in a performance of shame, feeling the stares of passersby upon me. On the surface, I should have been dispirited by these events, which might now appear as one more disappointment and humiliation in a string of such since the previous night. That was on the surface. Look beneath and you may find several things that surprise you, such as a footman with more cleverness and dexterity than that for which perhaps you gave him credit. You may also find a piece of paper, cleverly secreted inside the coat of Captain Ethan Saunders, a piece of paper from the lovely and once-beloved Cynthia Pearson.

Though I may have been eager to tear open this piece of paper, I knew better than to do so. If the footman had taken the trouble to disguise the delivery of the note, it suggested he believed the house was under scrutiny. The streets were populous enough that there might have been someone following me at that very moment. I knew I had to read the note at once, but I had to find a way to do so without betraying its existence.

I crossed the street and turned to look at the house. On the second floor, a curtain was parted, and there stood the lovely Mrs. Pearson, her children by her side, looking out at me. Our eyes met, and she did not look away. We looked upon one another for half a minute, perhaps longer, and in that time I saw her as the woman I had loved, fully and entirely, and I saw in her too her father’s face, proud and wise. Then the curtain closed, eclipsing an expression unspeakably sad.

She had her father’s bearing and dignity and earnestness, and it was for his sake as well as hers that I would do what I must. He had been the most resourceful and clever man I’d ever known; I cannot say what would have become of me if it hadn’t been for Fleet. For good or ill, he’d made me what I was. I’d grown up in Westchester, New York, the son of a successful tavern keeper who died five years before the Declaration. My mother’s second husband was of a staunchly Royalist bent, and politics proved a useful means of separating me forever from my inheritance. I had graduated from the College of New Jersey at Princeton, and once the war began, my education was sufficient reason to grant me the rank of lieutenant when I enlisted in the cause. Yale and Harvard men generally became captains.

I made a poor officer, however, and often incurred the anger of my superiors for disorderly behavior—and once for slipping behind the lines to occupied New York to learn if a favorite whore had survived the famous fire that nearly destroyed the city. It was suggested to me by the captain of my regiment that it might be in everyone’s best interest if I simply ran away from the service, but I had enlisted, and no amount of regimental displeasure would make me break my word.

Then, one afternoon when we were encamped on Harlem Heights, Captain Richard Fleet came to see me. Tall and slender, white-haired, serious, yet with an unmistakable look of mischief in his eyes, he was unlike anyone I had ever known. He was one of those men whom others instantly like, and as determined as I was not to fall under his spell, it took no more than a quarter of an hour before I thought of him as a trusted friend. We sat in a tent while he poured us wine and said he had heard I found some difficulty in settling into the life of a soldier, but General Washington needed men with skills such as I possessed.

What skills were they? I wished to know. Why, I was told, my ability to lie and smoke out a liar. My ability to slip across enemy lines and then back across our own, all without detection. My ability to ingratiate myself with women, with strangers, with men who thought, only a moment before, they found me most detestable. In short, I was a man like Fleet himself, and General Washington wanted me. He wished to make me, the son of a Westchester landowner, into a
spy.

I was young and brash and proud of my honor and was not eager to adopt a way of life scorned by gentlemen as disreputable, but Fleet was persuasive. He convinced me that I could not be but who I was, so I might as well be that in the service of my country. Yes, he said, spies have long been despised by gentlemen, but was this war not proof that the world was changing, and who could not say that in its aftermath spies would not be embraced as heroes? The first step, he said, was for us to see ourselves as such.

It was all as he had said. We became heroes, up until the time we were disgraced, up until the time Hamilton had broadcast that disgrace. That man had ruined my life and essentially killed Fleet. And now here was Fleet’s daughter, afraid and desperate. I felt the note that had been slipped to me and swore an oath to myself too primal, too raw, to find form in words.

I
walked north to Walnut Street and turned west, moving through increasingly thick crowds of people: men of business, men of trade, women about their household duties and less savory business as well. Carts moved this way and that, hardly knowing how to get past one another and the pedestrians and the animals that crowded the street. In such chaos, I might perhaps have risked taking out my letter and reading it, but I did not do so. I dared not look back to demonstrate that I searched for someone upon my trail, but I felt him there.

Once I reached Fifth Street, I turned north and walked quickly up the stairs and through the front door of the Library Company building, directly across from the Statehouse. It was a new building, envisioned by an amateur architect who had won a design contest, and it was a glorious thing to behold. The massive redbrick structure boasted two stories, columns, and, above the front door, a statue of the late Benjamin Franklin, the library’s founder, in classical garb.

Inside, all was marble and winding staircase and books. Books upon books upon books lined the walls, for the Library Company, though a private organization, had become the official library of the Congress and so considered it its business to acquire virtually everything. Once through the doors I was struck by its stately appearance. In the lobby a half dozen or so men, all of whom were finely dressed, turned to look at my unpleasant intrusion upon their cerebral seclusion.

I had not long, and I hoped it was not a lengthy message or I should run out of time. I turned to the gentlemen staring and said, “Yes, I know I am too unseemly to be here. I do not wish to stay. Give me but one minute.”

So saying, I took from my pocket the note and broke the still-soft wax seal. Inside, in a hasty hand, I found the following:

Captain Saunders,

I am sorry to have sent you away last night, but I had no choice. My house and my person are watched, which is why I could not see you. It has not long been so, and I can only wish you had responded to one of my earlier notes, but there is no helping that now. The die is cast. You must not come again or attempt to contact me. I do not know who they are or what they are or what they want, but they are very dangerous. My husband is missing and I believe in danger, and that danger may extend to me and my children. I wish I could tell you more, but I know nothing other than that it has something to do with Hamilton and his bank. I beg of you to help me. Find my husband and discover the danger to which he has exposed himself and his family.

I have no right to ask this of you, but I know of no one else, and if I did, I would still want you, for I know of no one better. For the sake of the memory of my father, please help me.

Yours &c,

Cynthia Pearson

Nothing could have been more shocking. Jacob Pearson missing, and Mrs. Pearson herself in danger, her house watched? A connection to Hamilton and the Bank of the United States. Most troubling of all, however, was the fact that she had sent me notes previously. I had not received any, which meant someone had intercepted them. I could not contact her again, that much was clear, for I would not expose her to more danger, not for the world, and yet I must help her. I knew not how to do it, but I must.

I
crossed Fifth until I reached the grounds behind the Pennsylvania Statehouse, across Walnut Street from the jail and, perhaps more ominous for me, the debtor’s prison. The Statehouse offered handsome gardens, full of trees, even if they were devoid of life in the heart of winter. With no better thing to do, I brushed snow off one of the benches and sat alone in the growing gloom, the cold jabbing its sharp needles into the armor of my tattered clothes and the dimming warmth of drink. The park was near empty, but not entirely. Here there was a small group of boys playing with a lopsided leather ball that made an unappealing wet noise whenever it struck the ground. There an old man watched his trio of dogs folic. Closer to the Statehouse, only yards away from the courtyard where this nation declared its liberty, a young man attempted to obtain the liberty of a young lady’s petticoats. Behind me, on Walnut Street, a steady stream of pedestrians and carriages passed. I was tired, and despite the cold, I thought I might fall asleep.

“Captain Saunders. A moment, if you please, sir.”

I opened my eyes and saw before me a tall man with long reddish mustaches and a wide-brimmed hat that sat high enough upon his crown to reveal his apparent baldness. He spoke with the thick brogue of an Irishman, and was—I guessed from the lines upon his face—perhaps fifty years of age, but a rugged fifty. He had the look of a man used to hard labor, physically imposing but not menacing.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“We have not yet met,” answered the Irishman. “But I’ve a feeling we’re to become excellent friends. May I sit?” He gestured toward the bench.

I nodded and moved to give him more room, but I was on my guard and already thinking through my options.

He removed the rest of the snow, sat next to me, and reached into his beaver coat. “I am told that you are a man who enjoys whiskey.” From the coat came a corked bottle, which he handed to me. “It is the best produced upon the Monongahela.”

I pulled out the cork and sampled the contents. It was, indeed, quite good. It had a depth of flavors I had not known before in the drink, a kind of sweetness I found surprising and pleasing. It hit my empty gut hard, though, and a warm feeling built there to near hotness. I bent over hard, holding out the bottle so as not to spill it.

“Too strong for you, lad?” the Irishman asked.

I shook my head, once I’d sat upright again. “’Tis a mite powerful, but that’s not it. The stomach is a bit queer these days.”

“Powerful or no, I can see by your face that you enjoy it.”

“It’s good stuff, quite unlike any I’ve had before.” I took another drink, bending over only slightly this time. “Now, tell me who you are and what you know of me.”