THE GATHERING STORM
BY BREAKFAST ON Thursday, I’d come to the firm conclusion that it was the Duke of Pardloe or me. If I stayed in the house, only one of us would remain alive by sundown. Denzell Hunter must have come into the city by now, I reasoned; he’d call in daily at Mrs. Woodcock’s house, where Henry Grey was convalescing. A very kind and capable doctor, he could easily manage Hal’s recovery—and perhaps his future father-in-law would be grateful for his professional attention.
The thought made me laugh out loud, despite my increasing anxiety.
To Dr. Denzell Hunter
From Dr. C. B. R. Fraser
I am called away to Kingsessing for the day. I surrender His Grace the Duke of Pardloe to your most competent care, in the happy confidence that your religious scruples will prevent your striking him in the head with an ax.
Yours most sincerely,
C.
Postscriptum: I’ll bring you back some asafoetida and ginseng root as recompense.
Post-postscriptum: Strongly suggest you don’t bring Dottie, unless you possess a pair of manacles. Preferably two.
I sanded this missive, gave it to Colenso for delivery to Mrs. Woodcock’s house, and executed a quiet sneak out the front door before Jenny or Mrs. Figg should pop up and demand to know where I was going.
It was barely seven o’clock, but the air was already warming, gradually heating up the city. By noon, the pungent mix of animals, humans, sewage, rotting vegetable matter, resinous trees, river mud, and hot brick would be stifling, but for the moment, the faint scent lent a piquant touch to the gentle air. I was tempted to walk, but even my most utilitarian shoes weren’t up to an hour’s walk on country roads—and if I waited for sundown and the cooling evening to make my way back, I’d be remarkably late.
Neither was it a good idea for a woman to be alone on the roads, on foot. Day or night.
I thought I could manage the three blocks to the livery stable without incident, but at the corner of Walnut I was hailed by a familiar voice from a carriage window.
“Mrs. Fraser? I say, Mrs. Fraser!”
I looked up, startled, to see the hawk-nosed face of Benedict Arnold smiling down at me. His normally fleshy features were gaunt and lined, and his usually ruddy complexion had faded to an indoor pallor, but there was no mistaking him.
“Oh!” I said, and made a quick bob. “How nice to see you, General!”
My heart had sped up. I’d heard from Denny Hunter that Arnold had been appointed military governor of Philadelphia but hadn’t expected to see him so soon—if at all.
I should have left it there but couldn’t help asking, “How’s the leg?” I knew he’d been badly injured at Saratoga—shot in the same leg that had been wounded a short time before, and then crushed by his horse falling with him in the storming of Breymann Redoubt—but I hadn’t seen him then. The regular army surgeons had attended him, and from what I knew of their work, I was rather surprised that he was not only alive but still had two legs.
His face clouded a bit at that, but he continued to smile.
“Still present, Mrs. Fraser. If two inches shorter than the other. Where are you going this morning?” He glanced automatically behind me, registering my lack of a maid or companion, but didn’t seem disturbed by it. He’d met me on the battlefield and knew me—and appreciated me—for what I was.
I knew what he was, too—and what he would become.
The hell of it was that I liked the man.
“Ah . . . I’m on my way out to Kingsessing.”
“On foot?” His mouth twitched.
“Actually, I had it in mind to hire a gig from the livery stable.” I nodded in the general direction of Davison’s stable. “Just round the corner there. Lovely to see you, General!”
“Wait a moment, Mrs. Fraser, if you would . . .” He turned his head toward his aide, who was leaning over his shoulder, nodding toward me, and saying something inaudible. Next thing I knew, the carriage door popped open and the aide jumped down, offering me an arm.
“Do come up, ma’am.”
“But—”
“Captain Evans here says the livery is closed, Mrs. Fraser. Allow me to put my carriage at your service.”
“But—” Before I could think of anything to complete this protest, I was handed up opposite the general and the door firmly shut, Captain Evans hopping nimbly up beside the driver.
“I gather that Mr. Davison was a Loyalist,” General Arnold said, eyeing me.
“Was?” I said, rather alarmed. “What’s happened to him?”
“Captain Evans says that Davison and his family have left the city.”
They had. The carriage had turned in to Fifth Street, and I could see the livery stable, its doors hanging open—one of them pulled entirely off and lying in the street. The stable was empty, as was the stable yard—the wagon, the gig, and the small coach gone with the horses. Sold, or stolen. From the Davisons’ house, next to the stable, the tatters of Mrs. Davison’s lace curtains fluttered limp in a broken window.
“Oh,” I said, and swallowed. I darted a quick look at General Arnold. He’d called me “Mrs. Fraser.” Obviously, he didn’t know what my current situation was—and I couldn’t make up my mind whether to tell him. On impulse, I decided not to. The less official inquiry there was into events at Number 17 Chestnut Street, the better, whether the inquiry was British or American.
“I’m told the British kept quite a clamp on Whigs in the city,” he went on, looking me over with interest. “I hope you weren’t much troubled, you and the colonel?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not really.” I took a deep breath, groping for some means of diverting the conversation. “But I have been rather short of news—er, American news, I mean. Have there been any . . . remarkable developments of late?”
He laughed at that, but wryly.
“Where shall I start, madam?”
Despite my unease at meeting Benedict Arnold again, I was glad for his courtesy in offering me a ride; the air was thick with moisture and the sky white as a muslin sheet. My shift was moist with perspiration after only a brief walk; I would have been wringing wet—and likely on the verge of heatstroke—by the time I had walked as far as Kingsessing.
The general was excited, both by his new appointment and by the impending military developments. He was not at liberty to tell me what those were, he said—but Washington was on the move. Still, I could see that his excitement was much tempered by regret; he was a natural warrior, and sitting behind a desk, no matter how important and ornate, was no substitute for the bone-deep thrill of leading men into a desperate fight.
Watching him shift in his seat, hands clenching and unclenching on his thighs as he talked, I felt my uneasiness deepen. Not just about him, but about Jamie. They were quite different kinds of men—but Jamie’s blood roused at the scent of battle, too. I could only hope he wasn’t going to be anywhere in the vicinity of whatever battle might be impending.
The general set me down at the ferry; Kingsessing was on the other side of the Schuylkill. He got out himself to hand me down from the carriage, in spite of his bad leg, and pressed my hand in parting.
“Shall I send the carriage to retrieve you, Mrs. Fraser?” he asked, glancing up at the hazy white sky. “The sky looks untrustworthy.”
“Oh, no,” I assured him. “I shouldn’t be much longer than an hour or two about my business; it won’t rain before four o’clock—it never does at this time of year. Or so my son assures me.”
“Your son? Do I know your son?” His brow wrinkled; he prided himself on his memory, Jamie had said.
“I don’t think you would. Fergus Fraser, he’s called; he’s my husband’s adopted son, really. He and his wife own the printshop on Market Street.”
“Indeed?” His face lighted with interest, and he smiled. “A newspaper called . . . The Onion? I heard it mentioned in the ordinary where I breakfasted this morning. A Patriot periodical, I gather, and somewhat given to satire?”
“L’Oignon,” I agreed, laughing. “Fergus is a Frenchman, and his wife has a sense of humor. They do print other things, though. And they sell books, of course.”
“I shall call upon them,” Arnold declared. “I’m quite without books, having left such belongings as I possess to follow after me. But really, my dear, how will you get back to Philadelphia?”
“I’m sure I can borrow some form of transportation from the Bartrams,” I assured him. “I’ve been to their gardens several times; they know me.” In fact, I intended to walk—I was in no hurry to return to the Chestnut Street house and my cantankerous prisoner (what the devil was I going to do with him? Particularly now that the British had left . . .), and it was no more than an hour on foot—but knew better than to tell him that, and we parted with mutual expressions of esteem.
It was only a quarter hour’s walk from the ferry to Bartram’s Garden, but I took my time about it, as much because my mind was still on General Arnold as because of the heat.
When? I wondered uneasily. When would it begin to happen? Not yet; I was almost sure of that. What was it, what would it be, that turned this gallant, honorable man from patriot to traitor? Who would he talk to, what would plant the deadly seed?
Lord, I thought in a moment of sudden, horrified prayer, please! Don’t let it be something I said to him!
The very idea made me shudder, in spite of the oppressive heat. The more I saw of how things worked, the less I knew. Roger worried a lot about it, I knew: the why of it. Why were a few people able to do this? What effect—conscious or unconscious—did travelers have? And what ought they to do about it if they—we—did?
Knowing what would happen to Charles Stuart and the Rising hadn’t stopped him, and it hadn’t stopped our being dragged into the tragedy, either. But it had—maybe—saved the lives of a number of men whom Jamie had led from Culloden before the battle. It had saved Frank’s life, or so I thought. Would I have told Jamie, though, if I’d known what the cost would be to him and me? And if I hadn’t told him, would we have been dragged into it anyway?
Well, there weren’t any bloody answers, no more than there had been the hundreds of other times I’d asked those bloody questions, and I heaved a sigh of relief as the gate to Bartram’s Garden came in sight. An hour in the midst of acres of cool greenery was just what I needed.