The Messenger Page 9

A recall was long overdue in my opinion. He’d been given time enough to quench the rebellion and hadn’t done it. “You think they will?”

  John shrugged and took a drink. Planting his forearm on the bar, he turned to look around. Then he leaned in close. “Word is, the prime minister is none too happy with him.”

  I could see why. General Washington was only a few scant miles down the road with half his troops laid low by illness. Yet Howe hadn’t managed to roust himself from his mistress’s bed for the two days it would take him to defeat the ragtag army. If I were the prime minister, I would have called for his head long before now. “Who’s to replace him?”

  John picked up his bowl and eyed the bottom of it and held it out toward me. I pulled the cork once more and filled it. “Does it matter? General Howe’s a true gentleman.”

  “When is it to happen?”

  “Before the spring campaign, I suppose.” He was tapping his fingers against the counter now, looking as if he’d rather be talking to someone else. “I just wish something could be done.”

  “You can’t very well recall the request.”

  “No. But . . . blast it all! There ought to be something that can be done to fete the finest officer in the army. Something memorable.”

  I recorked the bottle and stowed it on the shelf behind me. “Write him a play.” The army might have been a den of playactors for all the masterpieces that were being practiced and planned for production down at the theater.

  “A play.”

  “Or some sort of ode in his honor.” An idea was growing in my mind. General Washington was looking for a way for his prisoners to escape. John was looking for a way to fete his general. What if the same diversion could be used to meet both ends?

  “Everyone has written some sort of play. Or other.”

  I’d forgotten: The officer corps seemed to attract nothing but frustrated playwrights. “How about a ball?”

  “We’ve been dancing all winter.”

  All winter. It needed to be something different, then. Something novel. Something . . . that could be looked forward to all spring. “What about—”

  “There he is!” John muttered the words under his breath as he turned from the counter and held out a hand to a major, who was swiftly approaching.

  “Jonesy? Major John André. John, this is Jeremiah Jones. He was invalided out after Devil’s Hole.”

  “Oh? Tough luck, then.”

  I saved my smile.

  “Jonesy and I were talking about General Howe’s departure. How we ought to fete him.”

  The major flashed me a look. “I’ll have a brandy as well.”

  I took another bowl down from the shelf as he leaned on the counter next to John. “It’s got to be something extraordinary. Something more than another play or a ball.” The major accepted the bowl from me and took a drink. “Something different.”

  General Howe’s brother, Admiral Howe, was due to return to the city soon. “What about the boats?” I asked.

  André looked up at me. “What about them?”

  “Couldn’t you do something on the river?”

  “A regatta?” He flashed a smile that was stunning in its brilliance. “A regatta on the river! Splendid idea. And we could do everything else as well. It could be a regatta-theater-ball. A regatta-pageant-ball—even better! A whole day filled with celebrations. It would be a medley of events. A veritable Meschianza!”

  I shrugged as if it didn’t matter much to me, one way or the other. But a day filled with festivities would provide multiple opportunities for a diversion. I only hoped it would fall late in the season. The tunnel might take a while to dig. “Let me know how I can help.” I’d do whatever I had to in order to keep abreast of the event. On the night of the festivities I wanted every officer within ten miles of the city to be completely and utterly drunk. Unfit to respond to the prisoners’ escape.

  “We will.” With a clap on the back and a wink, John left with André. But they would be back. If I played them right, they would plan the whole event right here at my counter. And I would be informed of every detail.

  Once they were well gone I gave over control of the drink to my barkeeper and went upstairs to my room. Locking the door, I drew the curtain and took Common Sense down from its shelf. Then I worked for the next two hours to find just the right words.

  By the time the watchman called out eleven o’clock, I had completed my message.

  Howe expected to be recalled in spring. Officers to have a gala upon his departure. Suggest that night for escape.

  I uncoded it once just to make sure it said what was meant. Satisfied, I hid it in a finger of a glove. Now I just had to find a way to get it to General Washington.

  The next morning I braved the rain and returned to the tailor’s. Two visits within a week’s time. More times than I’d visited in the previous two years. He eyed me with no little suspicion. “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.” He shot a glance toward his apprentice. “Did you want something altered?”

  I cursed my lack of thought. I should have brought my other coat. “I thought . . . perhaps . . . it could be I’ll need another.”

  “Another?”

  “Coat?”

  He sighed and tossed a look at his apprentice. “Go and take those new shirts over to Howe’s headquarters for Colonel Hillman.” He nodded toward the corner where a package sat tied up with string.

  When the boy had sauntered off, the tailor sent me a look over the rims of his spectacles. “Another coat?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then what is it? I already told you everything I know.”

  “I have to pass a message to the general.”

  He shook his head. “To headquarters. That’s what we say. To headquarters.”

  “Fine. I have to get a message to headquarters.”

  “Then you’re going to have to do like I told you and find the egg-girl.”

  “Which one? And how will she know to trust me?”

  “She’s the one with the blue cart. And you’ll have to wear a purple-colored feather in your hat.”

  “A feather in my hat.”

  “To signal you’ve something to pass. And she’ll have a scarlet-colored ribbon on her cap if she’s something to give you. Here. Let me lend you mine.” He pulled out a drawer behind the counter. Bent down and reached an arm into it. “Just stick it right into the brim where it’s been cocked.”

  A feather in my hat. That could be a problem.

  I wasn’t one to walk around with things sticking out of my hat, though the tailor did it all the time. But he was a dandy. And he cared so much about the smallest of details that he could be expected to wander about the market looking for delicacies like quails’ eggs.

  I, on the other hand, was not.

  It was difficult enough to tie my cravat in a respectable knot, let alone match the clocks on my hose to my waistcoat and the embroidery on my coat to my gloves. Glove. What did it matter? Whose eye was I hoping to catch? I didn’t even bother with waistcoats anymore. Nor did I button my coat.

  I couldn’t.

  And now here I was, parading down High Street with a purple feather stuck into my hat in the middle of a rainy afternoon. If I didn’t hate the British so much, I would have never willingly suffered such indignities. As I approached Fifth Street, I saw John come around the corner. I sped my walk, but he caught up to me with a jog.

  “My! Aren’t you looking dapper. One might think you’ve set your eye on some fair girl.”

  I didn’t return his grin.

  “Is it the Quaker one?”

  “Is what the Quaker one?”

  “The girl. Is she the reason for that handsome feather?”

  I wanted to wrench the wretched thing from my hat and stomp it into the mud. “The reason for this silly feather is that . . .” Is that what? What reason could I give him? That wasn’t the truth?

  “No need to explain.”

  “It’s not—I mean—”
>
  “Love makes fools of us all.”

  “Why should you be so interested in my thoughts of Hannah?”

  “Hannah?” He shook some raindrops from his cloak. “So things are progressing quickly, then?”

  “Miss Sunderland.” And curse her for insisting that I use her Christian name. She wasn’t a Christian. She was a devil in disguise. “And she’s not . . . I’m not . . .”

  He punched me in my arm. The missing one. “Forgive me. I take such interest in others’ affairs because I have so little interest in my own. All that awaits me in England is a pile of lovely money. And very little charm. She’s quite delightful really. And very frank.”

  “Who? Your heiress?”

  “No. Miss Sunderland. Your beloved Hannah.”

  “She is not my Hannah.”

  As we came abreast of the market, he took himself off with a wink.

  She was not my beloved anything. A nuisance was what she was. But if she explained the presence of this ridiculous feather, then I suppose she’d made herself useful. For a change.

  I began to scan the brick-buttressed market booths at Fifth Street. If market it could be called. Last spring there had been vendors here by the dozens. Now, at this time of day, the market was nearly deserted. I could hear the echoes of my own shoes striking the cobbles. I counted only seven booths occupied. And it felt as if each one of those vendors was watching me.

  I made a point of looking over all of the wares. In truth, there was no way around it. I had to go to each booth in order to find the blue cart. One of the vendors had three meager-looking parsnips for sale. Another had a slim wedge of cheese. A third had brought a small sack of flour. And finally there was the egg-girl with her blue cart.

  She wasn’t a girl really, more of a haggard, careworn woman. But the tailor had always been rather over-romantic in his sentiments. There were four baskets of eggs sitting in her cart. Apparently those were all she had to offer, but they were quite a bit more than most Philadelphians were used to seeing these days.

  Her cap was trimmed with a scarlet ribbon. She seemed to be . . . waiting. For something. For me. “How much?”

  “Ten shillings the egg. Coin. Not paper.”

  Then it was a good thing I kept my own clutch of hens. They were down in the cellar so no one could steal them from me.

  “I’ll buy one.”

  She raised a brow as if I’d said the wrong thing.

  If I had, I didn’t know it. She expected me to buy more than one egg at that price? Is that what people with purple feathers in their hats were supposed to do? Pour out their coin as if it were water?

  “If you’re interested in something special, I have some quail eggs in my cart. I know they’re your favorites.”

  My favorites. That must mean she had a message as well. Of course she had a message for me! She was wearing a red-colored advertisement on her cap. I nodded. “I had a taste of them once at my tailor’s and I’ve never forgotten it. Thank you for keeping it.”

  She looked at me sharply.

  “Them. The eggs. Thank you for keeping them.”

  “There’s not many I’d go to this trouble for.” She reached back into the cart beneath the straw, pulled out a handful of diminutive eggs, and offered them to me.

  But . . . I didn’t have anything to put them in. Another false move. Shopping at the market without a basket. Had those guards been paying any attention, they might have arrested me as a spy right then. As it was, the other vendors had noticed. And they were smiling.

  Hopefully it was at my stupidity rather than my artlessness.

  “I suppose . . . I could put them . . .” In my coat’s pocket? I reached beneath my cloak to open it up. Leaned toward her so she could place them inside.

  She frowned, but she did it.

  As I took the money from my other pocket, I palmed my message. I tried to give it all into her hand at once, but the message fell from my palm, threatening to flutter to the ground.

  She plucked it from the air between us and then glared at me.

  I opened my mouth to apologize and then realized it would only succeed in drawing attention to ourselves. “Do . . . you come often? To market?”

  “Not as often as I’d like. Those rebels haven’t been kind in letting me through their lines.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “You’ll just have to keep an eye out. For the blue cart.”

  The blue cart.

  I walked through the streets, feeling as if the eggs were burning a hole in my pocket. When I reached the King’s Arms, I went round the back and up to my rooms. Behind closed curtains I shed my cloak. After shaking the rain from it, I let my coat slide from my shoulders. I stirred the embers in the hearth and then took the eggs out one by one, setting them on my desk. Then I felt in the pocket for the message.

  There was nothing there.

  Moving closer to the fire, I peered inside the pocket, but my fingers had not lied. It was empty. I’d been so sure . . . she was wearing a red ribbon. I thought back on our conversation. Remembered her words, her actions. She’d had a message, and she’d delivered it. I was certain of it. But how had she done it?

  I looked at the collection of eggs. Picked them up, each in turn, looking for something, anything, but there was nothing there. She’d passed me a message. She had to have. Only I couldn’t find it. God rot the tailor and his cowardice! I wasn’t meant for spy work. I didn’t mind passing information on when I heard a thing or two, but how was I to know how to pass the messages themselves? Now I’d have to go back to the tailor’s.

  Perhaps . . . was anything written on the shells? I lit a taper and then held them close to the light, one by one. Nothing. They were so small that it would be hard to find the space to write anything at all.

  I took another look at the egg I was holding. At one end was a hole so small I’d failed to notice it. Setting it on top of the desk, I crushed it with my fist. Pushed the fragments away to reveal a small splinter-sized note. It took me a try or two to unroll it. And another while to figure out how to keep it from rolling in on itself as I read it. There weren’t many words so it didn’t take long to decode the message:

  Still awaiting reply. How many guests are expected? When?

  How many guests? I didn’t have any idea. Were they hoping to empty the whole jail? When would they arrive? It would take some time to dig beneath a prison wall and tunnel under the street, wouldn’t it? But how much time? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything at all. What I needed was a report on the tunnel’s progress. I needed to send Hannah back into the jail with another message. And this time she would need to bring out a reply.

  13

  Hannah

  I did not know that hell had taken up residence on earth. I had not known there could be such a place as this, filled with filth and all manner of foul odors. I held the neck of my cloak to my nose as I waited for the guard to inspect my pass.

  It was not only the smells that made my heart quake within me and assaulted my hope. It was the moans and the hacking coughs that issued from the door bolted in front of me. And it was the way the torch on the wall seemed incapable of spreading any but shadowed light.

  “Robert Sunderland, eh?”

  “My brother.” I tried my best to remain unobtrusive, not wanting to give the guard any reason to transfer his attentions from the pass to me. I might have drawn in deep breaths to calm my racing heart, but to do so would have been to risk retching.

  The guard folded up my pass and handed it back to me. “Don’t know why the general would allow a girl to go about in all this mess.” He rose from the chair, hiked up his breeches at the back, and spit into the corner. “Let me see what you brought.” He grabbed for the basket I held, rifling through the linens, inspecting the bread, the bottle of wine, and the wedge of cheese I’d taken from the house. As he passed the basket back to me, he kept hold of the cheese.

  “ ’Tis for my brother!”

  “He won’t miss it.”
He looked me in the eyes as if he dared me to say anything else.

  I did not. For though Major Lindley had issued my pass on General Howe’s behalf, clearly neither of them held any sway down here. If I was going to be allowed to visit Robert, it would only be in payment for pleasing this man. “Please, enjoy it.”

  “Oh, I will.” He nipped off the end of the wedge as he tugged at the bolt on the door. A rodent ran out when he pulled it open.

  I gasped and clutched at my skirts.

  The guard laughed, then called through the door, “A miss here to see her brother. General’s orders.” He bowed and swung the door wide as though inviting me into one of the finest homes in the city.

  An icy draft struck me full in the face, swept past my neck and ruffled my skirts, carrying with it all kinds of rank smells. I tried my best not to gag. The door shut behind me as a candle flared to life. The face behind it leered, as if a girl who wanted to see her brother was every bit as suspect as the prisoner.

  I clutched the basket to my chest. “I’m to see Robert Sunderland. By order of General Howe.”

  “I don’t know who the prisoners are, miss. I just keep the keys to the place. Robert Sunderland, you say?”

  I nodded.

  “An officer is he?”

  “No.” At least I didn’t think he was. He hadn’t ever said.

  “I’ll ask round.” He lurched down the hall, taking that small haven of light with him, stopping to bang upon each door. “Robert Sunderland in there? Robert Sunderland?”

  Finally there came a feeble response. I didn’t wait for the guard to come back down the hall to escort me. I flew toward the taper. “He’s in there?”

  “So they say.” He jammed a key into the lock, wrestled with it, and then pulled the door open. “Robert Sunderland?”

  Looking over the guard’s shoulder, I could discern nothing beyond the reaches of the candle’s poor light. But I could hear plenty. I heard sniffs and coughs, the sounds of swatting and scratching. The patter of raindrops, high up, against the broken windowpane. And a dismal drip-dropping of water beneath as the torrents found the floor.”Robert?”