The Whiskey Rebels Page 7

  It is a sad thing for a man to realize that once he has lost his home, he has nowhere to go. My life in Philadelphia, brief of tenure, was such that I knew many men, but had no friends I dared approach this late at night to request shelter. I could not go to any of the ladies who were generally kind to me, even the unmarried ones, for if I were to appear in my current sodden, beaten, and hatless state, I believe the spell I had once cast might dissipate. As for Leonidas, I would, this one time, violate his desire for privacy and throw myself on his mercy, if only I knew where he lived.

  As if in accompaniment to my bad humor, the rain had begun once more. With the cold numbing my fingers, my boots nearly soaked though with melted snow and mud, I trudged back to Helltown and the Lion and Bell. I asked Owen to let me have a room and to put it upon my account, which was now, ironically, in excellent order. If not precisely warm, Owen was at least agreeable, recognizing that, in what I had believed to be my dying moments, I had deceived my way into doing him a good turn. Surely this act of kindness undid my early misrepresentations.

  He would not allow me a private room but sent me to a mattress of sack and straw on a floor in a room full of drunk, farting, belching men who smelled as though they had never seen the inside of a washtub. I was one of these creatures, and I fell asleep regretting that Dorland had not killed me after all.

  Morning came, as it insists upon doing, and my head ached from drink and violence. My ribs were purple and inflamed. My ankle was swollen as well. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, but I must have given it at least a minor twist during my adventures with Dorland.

  I had no time to nurse my wounds, however, for I had money to earn. And how does a man such as myself fill his purse in a pinch? Unfortunately, the secret involves a clean and handsome appearance. Even were my face not in its current contused state, I would still need to bathe and gain access to better clothes, now held hostage by my ogre of a landlady. Were I in possession, however, I should proceed with the confidence of one pleasing to the female eye. I am told it is so. I am tall and manly in stature, and I know how to direct a tailor to shape clothes to advantage. My hair remains thick and dark brown in color, and I continue to wear it in the rugged queue style of the Revolution.

  Once I am properly appointed, it is off to a public place, perhaps a park or a walk or skating pond, where I find a group of promising women, preferably a gathering in which all or most wear wedding bands. It is far easier, and less vexing to my sense of propriety, to convince a married woman to compromise morals in which she no longer believes than an unmarried woman to abandon a purity to which she yet aspires. So I fall in with a set of ladies, conducting myself as though I already know them, so that each will presume that she has met me and ought to recollect me or—far worse—that she alone has been omitted from the frolics where the others first had the pleasure of my company.

  Once at ease with these ladies—perhaps walking arm in arm with two of them for a time to introduce them to comforts of physical proximity—talking with them, flattering them, bringing them to unseemly convulsions of laughter, I begin to drop hints of my past. I make allusions to my time as a spy (though I never use the word, because of its ungentlemanly connotations), serving General Washington, risking life and freedom behind enemy lines. There is always at least one lady who expresses a wish to hear more. And though I plead reluctance to dwell on those dark days, I can, in the end, be convinced to speak—but, pray, not in public. No, it is a hard thing to talk of here, in the daylight, in so beautiful a place. Perhaps a quiet chocolate house, just the two of us? No? Your home? Yes, that is much better; we may speak there without a spectacle being made of my pain.

  From here it is a simple thing. A story or two of danger, of friends lost, of torment in enemy camps. A bit of a choke in my voice. A sympathetic caress of the hand.

  That is what I would do were all means open to me. The thirty dollars I needed to retrieve my goods were nothing and would be mine by the end of the afternoon, should I put my mind to it. Without my good clothes, and with a bruised face, and smelling like a dead dog in an outhouse, I had no such options.

  I sat in Owen’s tavern, enjoying a breakfast of stale bread dipped in whiskey, followed by a refreshing draught from the mug. I could not mistake Owen’s gaze, nor the distance granted to me by the other morning patrons. In a state of agitation, I took a piece of thick twine I’d discovered in my pocket and rolled it over my bunched fingers, unrolled it, and proceeded again while Owen stared at me.

  “What is it?” I demanded. “Is it my twine? Do not think to take from me my twine.”

  “I don’t want your twine.”

  “A man ought not to be without his twine,” I told him.

  “Forget the twine. You look like bloody death,” he said to me.

  “I but need to clean up a bit. And to do that, I will need—oh, what is it? Ah, yes, a bit of cash. What say you, Owen, to lending me thirty dollars?”

  “Get out,” he said.

  I decided it was time to move on. I took leave of the good barkeep, retrieving from the insensible head of one of his inebriated customers a hat of indifferent quality. Even after a quick reshaping and delousing it sat poorly upon me, yet a man cannot endure to be hatless.

  Dorland would be out with his business. This being Tuesday, his wife would be hosting her weekly luncheon, a salon with ladies of her acquaintance. I had never observed the ritual myself, but she had spoken of it while we lay together, and I would pretend to find it interesting.

  On the way, I grew thirsty from the day’s cold, and I wished to make certain my credit had not been harmed by rumors of eviction, so I stopped to quench my thirst and test my luck. Three whiskeys, a mug of ale, and a less than fortuitous game of dice (my wager on credit) later, I concluded that my reputation was in good health and so resumed my mission.

  At Dorland’s house, I pulled the bell, and the servant who answered regarded me with considerable disdain. Now, I am not an unreasonable man. I knew I appeared poorly, but I firmly believe that servants ought to regard every gentleman as though he were perfectly appointed. I suppose I could be a vagabond, but I could also be a wealthy gentleman just come from a carriage mishap. It was not for him to judge.

  “I should like very much to see Mrs. Dorland,” I said. “I am Captain Ethan Saunders, though I do not have a card upon me. No matter, the lady knows me.”

  The fellow, quite old, with a face cracked like dried tar, stared at me. “Sir?”

  “What do you mean, sir? What have I said that requires clarification? There is no call for sir. Have you no manners, no respect?”

  “Sir? I am sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I cannot understand you, sir. Your words are running together somewhat.” He licked his lips thoughtfully, as though working hard to determine how best to render his thoughts into speech. “From drink, perhaps?”

  I had no time to bother with servants who cannot comprehend spoken English, so I pushed my way past him. He was old and frail, and it required no great effort, though I could not have guessed how easily he would be knocked to the floor. Many times before I had been in the house, so I made my way to the sitting room, where I believed I should find the lady. And there she was. She and seven or eight friends sat about in handsome little chairs displaying themselves to one another, dressed in a stunning array of blues and yellows and pinks, looking like a sampling of exotic birds, like French royalty. They sipped coffee, nibbled upon dainties, and discussed I know not what. I know not because they ceased discussing when I made my entrance, a bit too abruptly, I admit. I lost my footing as I pushed open the door, tripping upon the rug, stumbling forward, catching myself on the sideboard, and, finally, bouncing a bit, righting myself only by grabbing hold of a portrait upon the wall. This came off, having been hung improperly. It fell to the floor, where I believe the frame may have cracked. I, however, remained aright.

  The ladies stared at me, their coffee cups suspended in an eerie tableau of fashionable life. Finally, Mrs. Dor
land spoke. “Captain Saunders! Lord, why are you here?”

  Note she did not ask what had happened. Here I was, looking as though I’d clawed my way out of my own grave, and yet she did not come running, hug me, caress my injuries, ask me how she might be of service. Could she get me anything? Could she put me to bed? Could she call a surgeon? No. She wanted to know why I would interrupt her gathering.

  “Susan, my dear, I have been laid low by unfortunate circumstances.” I gesticulated like a stage performer and knocked over a vase, though I have excellent reflexes, and so caught it and returned it to its place. “I am afraid, Susan, I am in a bit of a difficult situation. I should be most grateful, Susan, if you might offer me some assistance.”

  She gazed upon me with disgust. I wish it were not so, but there is no other word.

  “Why do you look at me so, Susan? Have we not been friends? Has not our friendship brought me this state? Will you not help me for what has been between us?”

  Then she spoke four of the most withering words I have ever heard. “My name is Sarah.”

  I clapped a hand to my forehead. “Of course. Sarah. It is what I meant. Sarah, things have grown a bit difficult for me. A few dollars would help me smooth over my troubles. You have always been a generous woman. I have need of your generosity now.”

  I looked at her, my eyes wide and moist, masculine but also childlike in their raw, naked need, but it was all for naught. She only turned away in horror. It began to occur to me that visiting the lady while she had guests was not a sound idea. It may, in fact, have been a poor one. I had hoped to charm her and her friends. I had hoped to have many women offering up coin and sympathy, but I now saw that I had only embarrassed Mrs. Dorland, and she wanted nothing more than that I should leave her be. And not only that lady. The others looked away as well. One held her head down with her hand raised, so that I could see nothing of her face, only her mass of copper-colored hair.

  It was a distinctive color, and I began to think at once that I knew it. I took a step closer and stooped a bit to get a look upon the shaded face. “Why, it’s Louisa Chase!” I cried. “Lovely Mrs. Chase. I know I can rely upon you for a few dollars. It shall not be missed by so magnanimous a creature as yourself.”

  Louisa Chase did not raise her eyes. She and I had enjoyed some lovely afternoons together some months before. I had no notion that she and Mrs. Dorland were friends. I had the notion now, and I saw that things had turned out very, very badly.

  “I beg you, leave,” said Mrs. Dorland.

  “I want only fifty dollars,” I said. “That is all. A mere fifty. It shall not be lost to you. Come, good woman, a pittance for a patriot, a soldier of the Revolution, a man upon whose back the republic was built.”

  Her eyes had reddened considerably as I spoke, and now tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. “Get out,” she said, “I hate you!”

  Knowing when I am unwelcome, I took my exit no better than when I had arrived but surely no worse, and I chose to count that a kind of triumph.

  Since the previous night I’d given a great deal of thought to what had happened with Mrs. Pearson. She had summoned me, taking the trouble to travel to my rooms—which meant she must have made an effort to discover where I lived. I had been in Philadelphia only a few months and had never been upon the social scene. I did not believe we had acquaintance in common, unless some ladies I had known were friends of hers. Even so, I never took such companions to my own rooms.

  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 th
e 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.