Forge

  Missus Greene pulled on a pair of gloves in the front hall. “Isabel, please remind the general that he is expected to join us this evening.”

  Isabel handed her a bright blue shawl. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I shall have to teach you French.” Missus Greene arranged the shawl around her tiny shoulders as I opened the front door. “You will enjoy Paris much more if you can speak to the other servants, Isabel. Au revoir!”

  “Paris?” I asked as soon as the door closed.

  “Hush!” Isabel pointed at the dining room door that separated us from General Greene’s meeting.

  I followed her back into the parlor. “What was she talking about?”

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Isabel asked.

  “I’m supposed to be helping you.”

  “Then air out the room and don’t fuss at me.” She sat heavily on a cushioned chair and rested her feet on a stool while I fought to open the first of the three windows.

  “Is she buying you?” I asked.

  “Soon as she convinces General Greene.”

  The first window opened easily. I moved to the second one, keeping my face from her. “I thought the Greenes lived in Rhode Island. Why was she talking about Paris?”

  “Missus Caty hopes her husband will be appointed the French ambassador after the war.”

  The window stuck a bit, then flew up, rattling the glass in its panes. Cold air flooded in. “You won’t find Ruth in France.”

  “You won’t find me there either.” Isabel stood and began assembling the glasses and small plates on the tray. “Gideon said it will be easier to escape from Missus Greene than Bellingham.”

  “Gideon?” I tugged at the third window sash. “Why would you listen to him?”

  She quickly crossed the room and tossed dried bits of cake and bread from the serving platter into the flames of the hearth. “He has sworn to help me find Ruth.”

  “He’s a lying conniver, Country.”

  She put her fists on her hips. “Just because you were too cowardly to help me does not make Gideon a conniver.”

  I checked the window lock. “I wasn’t cowardly. I was sensible.” I banged at the window sash with my fist. “He says what you want to hear so that you’ll trust him. He has improper ideas about you.”

  “You have an evil mind, Curse-on.” She opened the door, peered into the empty hall, then closed the door and joined me by the window. “Missus Greene has promised to remove this collar. When she leaves camp, it will be just me and her traveling alone. I’ll slip away after we leave Peekskill. Gideon will meet me there.”

  “Did you see how sick he was when he left here? He could be dead by now.”

  “He wasn’t really that sick.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “It was a ruse to return him to his master in York. He needed to attend to things there before we could flee.”

  She did not sound as if she entirely believed that. I took advantage of her doubt.

  “I have a better idea,” I said.

  She sat on the windowsill as I told her of my conversation with Ebenezer and my thoughts on our safest path out of camp. When I finished, she crossed her arms over her chest and frowned.

  “What if they change their minds? What if they notify Bellingham in hopes of a reward? Gideon’s plan is better.” She yawned and leaned her head against the wall. “That breeze feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Despite the fresh air, the room suddenly seemed hot as an oven, causing my head to swim and my brain to boil. The most ridiculous notion occurred to me: I wanted to kiss Isabel.

  No!

  I couldn’t kiss Isabel. It would be improper and disrespectful, and besides, Father had a rule about things like that. I could only kiss a girl after I told her the story behind my name. If I didn’t want to tell the story, I shouldn’t kiss her. (Even from his grave, Father could be an annoying fellow.)

  I banged on the third window as hard as I could.

  “That’s painted shut.” Isabel hopped off the windowsill and moved back to the center of the room. She took two books from a small table and placed them back on a shelf. “What will you do if your friends let you down?”

  “They won’t.”

  She picked up a cushion from the settee and beat it so violently that dust filled the air. “So you’re just counting on them to deliver you? You don’t have another plan? And you think I’m the foolish one?”

  “What of this, then?” I lowered my voice further. “Let’s go tonight, out that window. We’ll just run and run. Or steal a horse. Flee.”

  “You know better than that.” She replaced the cushion. “Running without thinking is foolish. You must be prepared, like Gideon is. You could learn a lot from him.” She picked up the tray and left the room.

  I followed her down the hall. “I have nothing to learn from that cad.”

  The parrot squawked as the two of us entered the kitchen, causing Missus Cook to awake from her nap by the fire with a start.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” Isabel said. “You think you know everything and you don’t.”

  Her sharp tone kindled an angry response in me. “And you’re still stubborn and vexatious.”

  “Being stubborn is my finest quality.” Isabel set the tray on the table with a bang.

  “You’re not merely stubborn, Isabel. You’re pigheaded.”

  “Better pigheaded than chickenhearted!” Isabel slammed the back door so hard that every plate and bowl on the shelves jumped.

  Missus Cook, King George, and I watched through the window as she stormed to the half-turned garden armed with a hoe and flailed at the dirt in the last light of day.

  “Well, then.” Missus Cook scratched behind her ear with a spoon. “Doesn’t know you’re sweet on her yet, does she? Throwing vinegar and names at her won’t help your cause, lad. Try honey.”

  CHAPTER XLIX

  Monday, April 6–Wednesday, April 29, 1778

  MELANCHOLY . . . WILL FORCE THE BLOOD INTO THE BRAIN, AND PRODUCE ALL THE SYMPTOMS OF MADNESS. IT MAY LIKEWISE PROCEED FROM THE USE OF ALIMENT THAT IS HARD OF DIGESTION, OR WHICH CANNOT BE EASILY ASSIMILATED; FROM A CALLOUS STATE OF THE INTEGUMENTS OF THE BRAIN, OR DRYNESS OF THE BRAIN ITSELF. TO ALL WHICH WE MAY ADD GLOOMY OR MISTAKEN NOTIONS OF RELIGION. –DR. BUCHAN, DOMESTIC MEDICINE, PUBLISHED 1785

  I EMBARKED ON A CAMPAIGN OF honey and kindness, which, if you’ve never tried it, is very hard to do with someone who thinks you are chickenhearted and has in the past called you a poxy sluggard. It is especially hard if every day you are plagued with fear about what might happen next.

  I had no chance to further talk with Ebenezer. A white soldier named Timothy Hubbard who hailed from General Greene’s hometown became both wagon driver and errand runner for the inhabitants of Moore Hall. Timothy also led the horses when the gentlemen inspected troops or visited headquarters. I was every bit as caged as the kitchen parrot.

  The business of the army moved at a faster pace than ever. New recruits arrived daily and needed huts, food, and weapons. A load of muskets smuggled in from France arrived, but there were not enough wagons to transport them safely from the port to camp, which made General Greene almost have an attack of the apoplexy. Late at night, after the junior clerks had been sent back to their huts and the gentlemen lit their pipes and rested their feet upon the table, talk always turned to the upcoming campaign and the different battle plans Washington had to choose from.

  When the gentlemen finally retired to their bedchambers, I opened the windows to let out the smoke and sweat of a long day and considered the possibilities for my own spring campaign. I had to come up with a proper plan, one that would suit Isabel. The fastest way to a town big enough to hide in was to cross Sullivan’s Bridge in the middle of the camp and head east. But the bridge was guarded, as was the road that led south. The road north from Moore Hall offered no place to hide and led deeper into the countryside, where strangers would be quickly noticed. I knew nothing of the land west be
yond Mount Misery so I dared not venture in that direction.

  As the month drew on and the days warmed, my humors fell out of balance and I became tetchy and sour-minded. My efforts to appear the perfect servant to Bellingham, and to be patient and kind with Isabel (whose own humors were severely out of balance), all seemed fruitless.

  Isabel laughed at a few of my jokes, but she was just as likely to tell me that I wasn’t funny at all and that I had a spot on my forehead. Bellingham snarled whenever I entered a room. I polished the boots wrong. I was clumsy. His tea was cold. I moved too fast. I moved too slow. My hair needed to be trimmed. My whiskers needed shaving.

  Once he lost his temper when Isabel and I were clearing the table and I dropped a plate that shattered on the floor. He snatched Isabel’s wrist and gave it a hard turn, causing her to cry out. The other gentlemen froze, Mister Morris with his wineglass halfway to his lips.

  “Do you remember our conversation about these things?” Bellingham asked me.

  “Humble apologies, sir.” I bowed deeply. “It shall not happen again.”

  He released Isabel. “It had better not. Repair your manners and do your job. And for God’s sake, Curzon, shave your face.”

  The rapid beard growth and the bumps on my forehead were more evidence of the imbalance of my humors. The bumps multiplied no matter how much vinegar I rubbed on them. I tried to shave myself with a razor Missus Cook found for me, but it is near impossible to shave your own face, even for men who have been doing it a score of years. I must have cut myself forty times and had to resort to slicing up a rag and sticking the bits of cloth all over my face, for the cuts would not stop bleeding. When I stepped in the kitchen to ask Missus Cook if she had a salve to take away the stinging, Isabel laughed so hard that the milk she’d been drinking came out of her nose.

  That night I ate my supper alone on the back porch. The wind brought the sound of the drums beating at camp, which made me melancholy and angry all rolled into one.

  CHAPTER L

  Thursday, April 30, 1778

  WHEN LOVE ONCE PLEADS ADMISSION TO OUR HEARTS, (IN SPITE OF ALL THE VIRTUE WE CAN BOAST,) THE WOMAN THAT DELIBERATES IS LOST. – JOSEPH ADDISON, CATO, ACT IV, SCENE I, PERFORMED AT VALLEY FORGE

  BELLINGHAM AND GENERAL GREENE and the congressmen rode off to headquarters that morning, led by Timothy Hubbard. I was left behind to clean the barn. Shoveling horse manure smelled worse than the waiting on gentlemen, to be sure, but it was worth being free of Bellingham’s sly gaze and the endless recounting of the numbers of tent poles, shot pouches, and water buckets the army required. I hung my coat from a peg, rolled up my sleeves, and surveyed the barn.

  Benny Edwards had told us the story about a fellow named Hercules who moved an entire river to clean out a stable that had one hundred years of muck in it. I did not know how to move a river, so I set to the task with a wheelbarrow and a large shovel. I shoveled horse manure, pushed the barrow to the dung heap, and returned for more over and over again.

  My progress was observed by a pair of swallows busy building a nest from bits of straw and long strands of horsehair. I tried to imitate their whistle but failed. Instead, I sang–quietly, for my voice was known to make dogs howl. By midday I felt more like myself than I had in months. Missus Cook teased me about the smell when I went in for dinner, but she gave me three helpings of dumplings and gravy.

  By dusk I was too tired to give any thought to Isabel or our plight. My hands were so sore I could barely move my fingers, and my back so stiff, I walked like an old man as I returned the barrow to the shed. But the job was done; each stall was laid with fresh straw and the center of the barn swept clean.

  “Sure hope the horses appreciate this,” I said to the nesting swallows. They did not reply.

  I hung up the broom and headed for the well. I was halfway there when I noticed Isabel talking to someone standing next to a horse in the shadows just beyond the east wall of Moore Hall, away from open windows and curious cooks.

  Gideon was back.

  I walked faster, the pains in my arms and back forgotten. He was standing much too close to her.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I approached them.

  Isabel stepped away from Gideon, startled. “I was just–”

  The import of the scene hit me. Gideon was dressed like a country boy, not a congressman’s manservant. The horse’s saddle was poorly made, and the harness was old rope, not leather. Canvas saddlebags hung heavily behind the saddle.

  He’s running.

  “Begone,” I said.

  Gideon shifted nervously from foot to foot. “I’ve come to speak with Isabel, not you.”

  Isabel had gathered the edge of her apron in her hand and was worrying it with her thumb. Her eyes darted this way and that, her entire form tense as a cat preparing to pounce.

  “Go inside, Country,” I said.

  “Would you enslave her too?” Gideon asked. “Stay if you wish, Isabel.”

  “Leave her alone, you lying frog.”

  “She’s made her decision,” Gideon said.

  “What decision?”

  “I’m leaving tonight,” Isabel whispered.

  The barn swallows swooped past, not paying any mind to the three of us huddled together.

  “Tonight?” My voice cracked. “Why tonight?”

  “A fortuitous circumstance arose,” Gideon said. “My master sent me here from York with letters for the general’s staff and a note to Congressman Morris, stating that I had recovered and was to again serve at Moore Hall. I burned it. I’ve been preparing for months, waiting for the right moment. It’s here.”

  “Come with us,” Isabel said to me.

  “He can’t,” Gideon said. “It will ruin everything.”

  Isabel frowned.

  “Don’t trust him,” I said.

  “She can and she should trust me,” Gideon said. “I have friends who will keep us safe. I know a blacksmith who will remove that collar.”

  I was sorely tempted to punch him in the nose, but if I did, Isabel could be gone forever. I needed to attack his flank. “She says you’ve agreed to find Ruth. Are you going to head for Charleston along the coast or go over the mountains?”

  Gideon hesitated. “Neither. We cannot head there right away–”

  “Because you have no intention of going there. Ever.” I tapped the side of my head with my finger. “Think, Isabel. He’s not going to take you to Charleston any more than I would, only he’s lying about it and I am telling the truth. Do you really think the folks in Carolina are going to let you walk in, grab Ruth–if she’s alive, if she’s there–and then allow you to steal her away from them?”

  Isabel lifted her chin. “Gideon knows people who will help us.”

  “Balderdash. He knows how to twist your mind.”

  “You’re a jealous boy,” Gideon said.

  “Not jealous,” I said. “Afraid. You’ll be the death of her.”

  Isabel put her hand on my elbow. The cool touch of her fingers rooted me to the ground, and I was certain that I would never be able to leave that spot of ground on the east side of Moore Hall. Even if my feet moved, my heart would be forever chained to that place, to that moment, because I looked in her eyes and knew that she was leaving with him.

  She dropped her hand.

  “Enough talk.” Gideon put on his hat, a large black felt farmer’s hat that made it hard to see his face. “The moon will set around midnight,” he said to Isabel. “Leave when it sits just above the treetops.”

  CHAPTER LI

  Thursday, April 30–Friday, May 1, 1778

  IN MEMORY OF JENNY SERVANT TO THE REV. ENOCH HUNTINGTON, AND WIFE OF MARK WINTHROP, WHO DIED APRIL 28, 1784. THE DAY OF HER DEATH SHE WAS MR. HUNTINGTON’S PROPERTY. –EPITAPH ON A GRAVESTONE IN A CEMETERY IN MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT

  ISABEL AVOIDED ME THE REST OF THE evening. She didn’t have to. I could not think of any words or deed that would change her mind.

  The hours disap
peared like a puff of smoke in a hurricane.

  Missus Cook thought certain I’d been taken ill from the stench of the dung heap. She made me drink a potion of horseradish root and mustard seeds cooked in gin. I did not taste it. She told me to wash in icy water straight from the well. I did not feel it.

  I served the supper for the gentlemen. Cleaned the dining room. Laid the fire to be lit in the morning. Blew out the candles. Checked the window latches. A mug of the horseradish potion was awaiting me, set on the kitchen table by Missus Cook. I poured it on the ground outside.

  I moved my pallet in the shed so that I could see out the small window that faced west, then sat down cross-legged and waited. The crescent moon, which had crossed the middle of the sky about the time I spoke with Gideon, fell into the west like a fast-moving comet. Clouds hurried across its path, scattering rain on the roof, then dashing away.

  The moon sat half a hand above the treetops, then a finger’s width above them, waiting for Isabel. Horses slept in the barn. Highborn and lowborn people slept in the house. The road was empty. The wind that blew earlier in the day had died. Owls called to the night and–

  A ratcheting sound; the hook being pulled from the latch of the kitchen door.

  Hinges squeaked.

  I scrambled to my feet, mouth dry, heart pounding.

  The sound of shoes on the kitchen steps. One, two, three. They stopped. I put my ear to the crack of the door and thought I could hear her breathing.

  I gripped the door handle.

  She walked to the bottom of the steps–four, five . . . six, seven–then started for the door that I stood behind. She stopped.

  I put my eye to the crack. She stood with her back to me, studying the sickle of the moon sinking below the leaves.

  The owls called again and Isabel ran into the night.