The Tory Widow (9 page)

“Wait.” Jack produced a handkerchief. “You know,” he said, wiping her face dry, “Sally is nobody's fool.” He dabbed the moistened fabric at the thin line of blood beaded where her neck met her collarbone.

Anne fiddled with her neckerchief, pulling and fluffing the fabric to mask the slight cut. She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and held out her hand. “I owe you a debt, Jack Hampton, and I can't see how I'll ever be able to repay it.”

“Well, you know,” Jack said, “I could use a
good
cup of coffee now and then.”

At that Anne almost smiled. She slipped her hand free and turned the corner.

 

 

THE next morning, Jack shuffled in with the morning crowd. The Cup and Quill was doing a brisk business and Sally buzzed from table to table with her coffeepot. Anne came in from the kitchenhouse, tying an apron round her waist. She seemed to have gained some strength and ease by virtue of being within the bounds of her own domain. Scanning the crowded room, she spied Jack as he took his usual seat, and called to Sally, “I'll take care of Mr. Hampton this morning.”

“Mr. Hampton should just wait his turn, aye?” Sally snapped.

Anne bustled over to set a steaming cup, a full bowl of lump sugar and a brimming creamer on the table. She tapped a finger to the brooch she wore pinned to the neckline of her gray dress. “Good morning, Mr. Hampton.”

“Good morning Mrs. Merrick.” Up close Jack could see a golden curl of hair encased beneath a crystal and framed with a circle of seed pearls. He gave her a nod, sharing some secret he did not quite understand. “It does me good to see you so fit and happy this morning.”

“A good night's sleep works wonders sometimes.”

Jack raised a dubious brow to the fare she'd laid out. “This all looks . . . grand.”

She smiled. “I prepared everything special for you.”

Jack laughed, and dropped two lumps into his cup. “Sally appears a bit out of sorts.”

“She grows snippy when worried.” Anne let the tray rest on her hip. “While I was out yesterday, an officer came by asking for me by name.”

“And?”

“And it bodes ill. She's certain he means to arrest me as a Loyalist and commandeer our home for quartering.”

“You're no Loyalist.” Jack pointed out the doorway with his spoon. “It says ‘liberty' right there on your shingle.” His wry comment drew a rare laugh from the widow. “As for quartering, well, I think every citizen who can should be willing to provide room and board for our soldiers.”

By the set of her shoulders, and the shift in tone, his comment surely annoyed. “I'll fetch your scones from the kitchen.” Anne left him to his coffee.

Jack looked over and found Sally scowling at him from across the room. He tried his best to answer with an equally rude glower, but after a moment, he realized she was not scowling at him at all, but at the Continental officer who had just entered the shop.

Wearing a gray jacket with dark green facings, the young fellow bore the marks of rank—a silver epaulet on his left shoulder and a well-polished saber hanging from the scabbard belted across his chest. He had a friendly, open face.

Jack greeted the man, guessing, “New York regiment?”

The fellow nodded and tucked his cocked hat under his arm. “Third Yorkers.” Though an officer, he had the air of an enlisted man—he was no powdered Bob. His chestnut hair was drawn back in a short tail with a rather ragged ribbon. The stockings he wore were home-knit and in dire need of a mending.

Jack kicked at the empty chair across from his. “Here. Have a seat, Captain.”

“Thanks, but not just yet.” The officer took a few steps, craning his neck as he searched the room.

Anne stepped through the back door with a tray on her arm. She stood briefly, squinting at the man. Her face then blossomed into most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen. Dropping the tray to the counter in a clatter, she squealed and skipped across the shop, throwing herself into the handsome officer's arms.

The big man lifted the widow into the air and swung her round and round—skirts and petticoats rustling. Jack watched the two of them hug and laugh, and hug again, and with all his might, Jack wished he could take a barrel stave to the officer's head.

Hanging on to the soldier's arm, swiping happy tears from her cheeks, Anne called out, “Sally, come meet my little brother!”

CHAPTER FOUR

THOMAS PAINE,
Common Sense

 

 

 

 

 

S
ALLY gripped a fistful of fabric at the back of Anne's skirt and braced her other hand against the window frame. “All set.”

Anne sat on the sill, snapped the three telescoping brass tubes of Mr. Merrick 's spyglass to full open and leaned out the garret window as far as she dared. Squinting her right eye shut, she pressed the glass to her left eye and aimed it beyond the rooftops, eastward, at the dark plume of smoke rising up from the hilltop across the East River. Panning across the horizon, Anne fixed her sight on a lone soldier standing at the crest, waving a pair of small red and blue flags. “Smoke and flags . . .” She hopped from the sill and passed the glass to Sally. “Have a look-see.”

Sally took a turn hanging precarious from the window. “Aye, somethin' of import is afoot for sure . . . Maybe Mr. Cuddy knows a thing this time.” As part of his morning delivery, Cuddy, the tea-water peddler, passed along news of the British fleet being sighted rounding Sandy Hook.

But one never quite knew what to believe. The series of rumors careening about the town were embellished and altered by each and every person coming through the coffeehouse door.

Only last week, Mr. Cuddy was, as usual, the bearer of shocking news—Washington had been murdered, poisoned by a dish of his favorite green peas. Then just as quickly, the tale turned. The Patriot general was not murdered, but kidnapped by the Loyalists. At the end of the day, Washington was neither murdered nor kidnapped, but over twenty men, including the mayor and several members of Washington's Life Guard, were arrested for organizing an armed Loyalist rebellion. One of the perpetrators had already been tried and hanged.

It was impossible to separate fact from fiction, and lately, what Anne judged to be wild rumor proved to be utter truth. Who would have thought the British Parliament would hire thousands of brutal German mercenaries to fight against their British citizens in the colonies? But hire them they did. Who would have thought their sovereign, King George, would send forth an armada to wage war against his own subjects? But merchant ships and fishermen reported a mighty fleet was on its way.

So many rumors flying fast and furious within the span of a few days forced Anne to ponder a series of scenarios that scrambled her brains and bunched the muscles at the back of her neck. Reason dictated she flee the city and seek refuge in her father's home in Peekskill, so Anne clung desperately to the unreasonable hope that a peaceful resolution was still possible. The sight of the signalman atop Brooklyn Heights surely added another ruffle to her apprehension.

“C'mon, Sally—let's get the wash in . . . It's as hot as Hades up here.” The pulley wheels squawked as Anne tugged on the clothesline suspended between the Liberty Coffeehouse and the building across the lane.

Their laundry line resembled pennants strung from the mast of a first-rate frigate—Anne's somber achromatic apparel interspersed with the bright-colored petticoats, aprons and scarves Sally favored. Sitting side by side on the wide sill, Anne and Sally tossed the wooden clothes pegs into a small basket, and folded the dry clothing into the hamper.

Sally sighed. “I wonder if David'll come by tonight—he always knows what's doing. He'd be able to tell us straightaway what those signals mean.”

“If he does show, you can be certain it will be to give me an earful on how and why we should pack it all up and leave for Peekskill.”

“Shame on ye, Annie.” Both women hopped down from the sill, each grabbing hold of a handle on the laundry basket. “Ye ought to thank the stars in heaven for such a brother—so concerned about you, he is.”

“You know as well as I, David's visits have far more to do with your pretty make than his concern for my well-being.” Anne reached around and pinched blushing Sally on the rear.

Though very busy training his company and working on fortifications, what little free time David did have was spent at his sister's home. Anne was not surprised to see her brother smitten the moment he was introduced to Sally. He had a habit of falling in love, and a weakness for ginger-haired girls. David readily informed Anne he'd graduated from smitten to besotted the moment he found Sally in the kitchenhouse, up to her elbows in dough, reading a copy of
Common Sense
she'd propped open with a wooden spoon. And it did not take a gypsy fortune-teller to discern the feelings were mutual.

David's Third Yorkers had been part of the Patriot Army's disastrous Canadian campaign. It was lucky their mother—a well-read woman and a modern thinker—saw to it that her children were inoculated, for David did not succumb to the smallpox epidemic that decimated his regiment and wiped out half of the Continental Army in Montreal. Good health combined with his avid devotion to the cause served to propel David's army career, and in a few short months he rose in rank from enlisted man to captain. He pursued these new duties with his usual boundless energy.

Sally bustled down the stairs. “I'll go an' fix a little supper—in case your brother shows.”

Anne called, “I'm off to the hospital. I promised Dr. Treat I would do some letter writing.”

With close to a full third of Washington's soldiers ailing, the makeshift hospital was overflowing with patients. Oppressive summer heat had combined with bad food, tainted water and crowded living conditions to exact a terrible toll on the Patriot troops, so Anne and Sally took turns spending a few hours every evening volunteering.

Anne tied a new straw hat over her mobcap. “I'll be back by curfew!” She grabbed her writing box by the leather handle and was on her way.

“Can you sign?”

“I'd like to.”

The soldier hiked himself up from his straw-stuffed pallet to a sitting position. Perched on her little three-legged stool, Anne swiveled her lap desk around, and facing the sloped surface his way, she offered the man the freshly dipped quill. With a shaky hand, he scratched a sloppy “Levi” at the bottom of the page, and flopped back to lie flat.

Anne was glad Captain Levi Fullshire had survived the worst of his bout with camp fever. The young lawyer from Boston was newly wed, and as he spoke with such loving fondness of his wife, it would have been a terrible shame to write the woman an entirely different sort of letter.

Helping the soldiers write to their families was her favorite hospital duty. Anne gave the captain's letter a final dusting of sandarac to set the ink. Tapping the excess grit back into her pounce pot, she folded the sheet twice, sealed the page with one of the paste wafers from her writing kit and flipped it over to pen the address on the other side. “I'll see to it that your letter leaves with the post rider tomorrow.”

“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Merrick.” Levi offered a weak smile. The effort expended signing his name seemed to have sapped what little strength he'd lately recovered. “My poor Jenny's bound to worry. It's been a month since I last wrote and my letters were as regular as the tide up until the day I fevered.”

“This letter will be a certain relief to her, then.” Anne stoppered her inkwell and stored it along with her pounce pot, quill and paper inside the compartment of her lap desk. “Your health is much improved, Captain. The next letter home will be from your own hand.” Anne snapped her writing box shut, and bid good evening to all of the patients in the crowded ward.

The Continental Army was sickly. Since a smallpox epidemic nearly doomed the rebel cause during the Canadian campaign, General Washington maintained an overriding concern for the health of his army. Soldiers or citizens showing symptoms of smallpox were immediately quarantined on Montressor's Island. There were a good number of soldiers who suffered with the flux and the itch, but the majority housed in the hospital the army'd set up in King's College Hall were afflicted with the camp fever that was rampaging through all of the regiments. The newly formed medical corps was overwhelmed and hard-pressed to care for so many struck ill with fever. Anne and Sally were among the many New Yorkers who stepped forward to answer the desperate call for help.

Good intentions aside, Anne learned on her first day she did not possess the qualities required to be of service as a nurse. It was not for lack of compassion, or willingness to work hard and give aid. She just could not detach from the patient's discomfort, especially with cases of camp fever, when the cure proved far worse than the ailment.