Dreams of Glory Page 26

  Paul Stapleton looked up from his palette and paints. “I marvel at your skill with that dreadful language,” he said. “What were you talking about just now?”

  For a moment suspicion coiled in Walter Beckford’s mind. He dismissed it. Where could Paul have learned German? “We were discussing your work. The general likes it so much he’s commissioned you to do that portrait of me.”

  “Lovely,” Paul said.

  Flickering lanterns threw shadowy light across the hospital’s crowded floor. The sick men tossed on their straw mattresses; several called feebly for water. A fat orderly dozed on a chair tipped against the wall. Major Benjamin Stallworth kicked the chair out from under him. He crashed to the floor, arms and legs flailing like some species of stupid bug. “Get off your ass and give these men a drink,” Stallworth said.

  While the orderly scrambled to obey his order, Stallworth took one of the lanterns and stepped through a rear door into a room permeated by a cold dramatically different from the wind-whipped winter outside the hospital. This cold was silent, still. Around him were tiers of raw pine coffins. The hospital’s dead waited here to be buried in a common grave as soon as the ground thawed.

  Stallworth sat down on a coffin. He cocked his pistol, blew out the lantern, and waited in the frigid darkness. In spite of the cold, his eyes began to droop. He pressed the icy gun barrel against his forehead. Using one of the letters Caesar Muzzey had passed, Stallworth had spent the last forty-eight hours trying to break Walter Beckford’s code, without success. Two days ago, he had received a message from the network assigned to watch Major Beckford’s safe house on Bowrie Lane. The Reverend Caleb Chandler, looking somewhat the worse for wear after spending a week on the prison ship Jersey, had been seen entering the house with Beckford.

  By now Chandler was back in Morristown, supposedly returned from a visit to his sick father in Lebanon, Connecticut. A message had already been left at his quarters that one of the soldiers in his brigade was ill. He would come to the hospital like a dutiful chaplain, pray beside the soldier, and then meet Stallworth here in the burial shed. If anyone from Twenty-six’s network was watching him, they would conclude only that Chandler was making good use of his chaplain’s cover.

  Fifteen minutes later, the mortuary door opened, then swiftly closed. “I have a gun aimed at your middle,” Stallworth said. “What’s the password?”

  “Mercury,” Caleb Chandler said.

  Three clicks of Stallworth’s flint and the lantern glowed. He motioned and Caleb sat down on another coffin, clutching his cloak around him. He looked haggard, ill. His eyes were as blank as nailheads. For a moment Stallworth felt sorry for him. He suppressed the emotion. The would-be prophet was getting just what he deserved. “Did you stop to comfort a few of the sick?” Stallworth said.

  “Yes. I obeyed your orders, Major, down to the most minute detail.”

  “They’re designed to keep you alive, Chandler. Remember what happened to Caesar Muzzey.”

  “How well I remember.”

  “Are you carrying a message?”

  “Yes.”

  He drew a sealed letter from a pocket of his cloak. “Beckford told me to leave this at a drop in the woods within twenty-four hours of my arrival here or I would be a dead man.”

  “You’ll leave it, tomorrow morning,” Stailworth said, taking the letter. “We’ll copy it tonight and reseal it. Thanks to Muzzey, we’ve got a perfect duplicate of the seal they use.”

  “You’ll follow me into the woods and arrest the man who collects it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s only a courier, like you. Arresting him would drive the big game to cover. We’ll let him deliver it, on schedule.”

  “And use the information to arrest the whole network?”

  “Hardly. We haven’t been able to break their code.”

  Chandler sprang up, trembling. “Then what’s the point of all this? I’ve gone through hell for nothing.”

  “It’s not your job to think about the point of it all, Chandler. And you aren’t out of hell yet. What about Mrs. Kuyper? Have you mounted her ramparts?”

  “I . . . I refuse to talk of her that way. I respect and pity her. She’s politically innocent. In fact, innocent in almost every way. She . . . she has an excellent heart.”

  “An excellent cunt is more like it. Grow up, Chandler.”

  “I’ve grown up considerably. Enough to tell you I’ll quit this business right now unless you agree to protect that woman. Beckford will destroy her unless-”

  “Who else is she pleasuring that has you so upset, Congressman Stapleton?”

  “Yes. He plans to quit the country and take her with him to Holland.”

  “Oh? Now, that kind of news would earn you a commendation if we could give one to a spy. Well done, Chandler.”

  “Well done?” Chandler said. “I tell you that a beautiful woman is being forced to give herself to a man she despises, that one of our congressmen has compromised himself with the enemy and is ready to desert our cause-”

  “Think of it as a battle, Chandler,” Stallworth said. “Every item we learn is like a well-aimed bullet that brings down one of their men. Already you’re advancing in wisdom and age and grace with me, Chandler.”

  “Delightful news, Major. I wish I could say the same for you.”

  “Your opinion is a matter of utter indifference to me.”

  “Good. I won’t hesitate to express it.”

  For a moment Stallworth wanted to smash his fist into Caleb Chandler’s face, beat the last shreds of idealism our of this young fool. “Judge not, lest you be judged, Chandler,” he said.

  “Sometimes, Major, you’re almost amusing.”

  “What else did Mrs. Kuyper tell you?”

  “She told me the story of her life - which I’m sure is of no interest to you. It’s a sad story, Major. It stirs pity in the normal heart. You’d probably find it boring.”

  “Tell it to me.”

  “The whole thing? It could take half the night.”

  “I want to hear every word you can remember.”

  Chandler told the story in a voice that grew more and more leaden. Flora Kuyper’s life was sad. It would stir a normal heart to pity. But Stallworth ordered himself to listen with his head, not his heart. As the chronicle of deception and degradation wound to its close, Stallworth heard another voice in his mind. It belonged to George Washington. He was sitting in his office wearily musing: Whoever killed Caesar Muzzey wanted us, or someone else, to know about it. Even to implicate us in the crime. Stallworth heard himself saying, I can’t imagine who that someone else might be.

  That someone else, he saw now, had to be Flora Kuyper.

  “Chandler,” Stallworth said as the chaplain finished the story, “you’re a good spy in spite of yourself. You’ve just explained Caesar Muzzey’s murder. Twenty-six killed him, to prevent him from debouching to New Orleans with Mrs. Kuyper. He took the risk of killing Caesar more or less in front of our eyes to guarantee her hatred of Americans and her dependence on him and Beckford.”

  “How did Twenty-six find out about Caesar’s plans? He wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell him.”

  “Muzzey never got any closer to discovering Twenty-six’s identity than we have. But standing at the bar at Red Peggy’s or talking in his hut in jockey Hollow, he may have been face to face with him without realizing it.”

  “What can we do about all this?”

  “You can do a great deal, Chandler. You can, in fact, you must, convince Mrs. Kuyper that Twenty-six is Caesar Muzzey’s murderer and persuade her to come to Morristown to expose him.”

  “Do you believe women have souls, Stallworth?”

  “I only believe in this war. When it’s over I’ll sort out what else I believe. I advise you to do the same.”

  “I love this woman. Do you understand what that means?”

  “She’s a whore, Chandler. You’re telling me a man with a Yale education, a minister of the church
, is in love with a whore?”

  “I knew the idea would be beyond you. Loving anything or anyone is beyond you.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Stallworth grabbed Caleb Chandler by the throat and hoisted him off his feet. “I love this country! I love the men who died for it! I’m not going to let those deaths go to waste, even if Congress and most of the supposedly virtuous American people have lost interest in winning this war. We’re going to win it, Chandler. If that means the loss of Mrs. Kuyper’s soul or your own precious soul, I don’t care. Do you understand me, Chandler? I don’t care.”

  Caleb Chandler was gasping and gurgling like a fish with a hook in his throat. Stallworth realized he was close to asphyxiating his most valuable spy. He flung him into the darkness beyond the lantern’s light. “Get out of here,” he said. “You desecrate this place.”

  “I’ll talk to Mrs. Kuyper,” Chandler gasped. “I’ll do what I can.”

  He was gone. Stallworth sat alone with the dead. Was that how he was going to spend the rest of his life? he wondered. He was appalled by what he had just done. He rode numbly back to headquarters, where he found George Washington at his desk, writing the usual midnight letters. “Your Excellency,” he said, “I want to be relieved.”

  “For God’s sake, Stallworth, why?”

  “My nerves are gone, General. I can’t handle the strain of this work.”

  “Stallworth, I’d sooner lose this,” Washington said, holding up his right hand. “What’s happened?”

  Stallworth described his assault on Caleb Chandler. Washington shook his head. “Flint against flint. When two Yankees disagree, there’s bound to be sparks.”

  “It’s more than that, General. The boy exasperates me in some way that threatens my self-respect, my . . . my sanity. I can’t explain it. What else can it be but my nerves?”

  “Perhaps you don’t like tampering with souls any more than I do, Major.”

  “That may be.”

  “But we have to see the business through now,” Washington said. “When it’s over, we’ll try to repair the damage if it’s in our power.”

  “And if we can’t, I’ll have to live with it, somehow.”

  “Both us will, my friend.”

  Tears welled in Stallworth’s throat. He realized how much he had wanted to hear those words. “Your Excellency,” he said, “I’ve loved only two men in my life. One of them was Nathan Hale. I think you know the other one.”

  “Get some sleep, Stallworth,” Washington said.

  Cato’s bulk filled the doorway of the Kuyper farmhouse. For a moment he seemed to consider blocking Caleb Chandler’s entrance. It was easy to imagine this black moralist’s disgust with the Reverend Chandler’s conduct. Too bad Cato could not imagine the Reverend Chandler’s own disgust. Instead they communicated in formal terms.

  “Good morning, Cato. I’m here to see your mistress.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you used the Billings songbook I left with you?”

  Cato’s face brightened slightly. “Yes. It’s done wonderful things for the hearts of my people. That man must have written those songs under the inspiration of the Lord.”

  “Yes,” Caleb murmured. “May I come in?”

  “Of course, sir. Mrs. Kuyper is in the parlor.”

  The plangent tones of the harpsichord drifted into the hall, along with Flora’s delicate contralto, a sound between a chime and a sigh. She was singing “Plaire d celui que j’aime.” Caleb felt a thickness in his throat. He had to struggle for breath. It was almost as if Stallworth were strangling him again. He forced himself to walk briskly into the parlor.

  Smiling, Flora turned to greet him. “I was hoping it was you,” she said. She was wearing a simple country dress, a soft red, without lace or pleats. Her hair was tied with a matching red ribbon. It made her look girlish. She acted the same way, throwing herself into Caleb’s arms for a long enthusiastic kiss.

  “I haven’t slept a whole night since you went to New York,” she said. “Nelson told me Major Beckford arrested you and put you on one of the prison ships.”

  “A little test of my nerves and loyalty,” Caleb said.

  “I almost went to New York to berate him,” she said. “But I decided it might arouse his suspicion.”

  “Possibly. Anyhow, I survived the major’s auto-da-fe and his suspicion has turned to trust. He’s paying me twenty guineas for a trip to Morristown and back.”

  “I feared for you at Morristown, too,” she said. “You’re new at this business of deception.”

  “I proved myself a talented liar there, too.”

  Flora caught the pain in his voice. “It troubles you, doesn’t it?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “That’s been my worst fear,” she said, her arms still around him. “I saw your New England conscience getting the better of you, once we parted. I imagined you starting to think: Is she worth the risk of my soul, this Portuguese-Jewish baggage, this amorous quadroon, this mere woman? Has she tricked me into abandoning my country’s cause?”

  “I begin to think you are my soul,” he said.

  Was that true? Caleb wondered. It was what Flora wanted to hear. The extravagant words came so naturally to his lips he found it impossible to qualify them in his mind. This woman was so alive, so vulnerable, she blurred the boundary between truth and deception.

  “Let’s have a late supper,” she said. “I’ll tell Cato to light the fire in my bedroom.”

  “I - yes. That sounds lovely.”

  He dangled between opposing wishes, between desire and conscience. On the road he had vowed to avoid another visit to her bedroom, where the boundary between truth and deception was certain to vanish. He had hoped for a chance to resume the talk they had been having when Major Beckford’s emissaries had interrupted them two weeks ago. Caleb was still convinced that he could use her father’s death to change Flora’s loyalty.

  But Flora only wanted to talk about, think about, love. As they drank mulled Madeira, waiting for the bedroom to warm, she dismissed Caleb’s halfhearted attempts to discuss the war. She wanted to know if he had thought about her as he shivered aboard the Jersey. Had he hated her? Did he think she had betrayed him? Even now, did he feel some resentment? She wanted to analyze their love, learn its precise shape and quality. Despite his conscience, his opposing wish, Caleb began to experience the transported sensation again. Every smile, every change of mood in Flora’s green eyes, took him further away from the winter world of Morristown, where he had so recently sat surrounded by corpses and discussed betrayal with Major Benjamin Stallworth.

  Up the stairs they went, arms entwined, tongues exploring, his lungs filled with her perfume. They undressed each other before the fire. Eden, Caleb thought. She recreates Eden with her freedom from shame, with the pleasure, the joy, she invests in this sacred act. He saw that Flora wanted to consume with her kisses, her breasts, her welcoming thighs, the memory of his ordeal on the Jersey. She wanted to restore the purity of the mutual gift, the passionate trust they had exchanged on their first night together.

  When it was over, the transported experience was complete. Caleb lay in her arms, trying to think of some way to escape with this woman, to avoid returning to the real world of Stallworth and Beckford, to the guns and bayonets of New York and Morristown.

  “We have so little time together,” Flora whispered.

  “So little? I’m thinking of the rest of our lives,” Caleb said.

  “John Nelson and Wiert Bogert were here today. They told me to leave the usual signal the moment you arrived. Major Beckford is very anxious to see you.”

  “What’s the usual signal?”

  “Two candles in this window.”

  “Let’s ignore them all and think of some way-”

  Stallworth’s hands seized Caleb’s throat. He heard him roaring, I love this country. I love the men who died for it.

  “There is no way,” Flora said. She got up, lit two candles,
and put them in the window that faced the British fort on Powles Hook. “Let’s have supper.”

  Downstairs, distanced by the table, Caleb regained control of his emotions. She was right. There was no way, except the one Stallworth had already chosen for him. He had to persuade Flora to return to Morrisrown and expose Twenty-six. Caleb waited until Cato had finished serving the modest supper, beef and kidney pies, and they were having coffee. He began talking about the situation in Morristown. The army had run out of meat again. Several regiments had refused to obey their officers. The men had stayed in their huts, chanting, “No meat, no meat.” A mutiny seemed more probable every day.

  “That’s always been part of Walter Beckford’s plan,” Flora said.

  “Congress is sending a special committee to Morristown to see if they can solve some of the army’s problems. Your friend Hugh Stapleton is on it.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “I’m being ironic, my darling.”

  “Why mention him at all?”

  “I’m just wondering what Beckford plans to do with him.”

  Flora was looking confused and hurt. “I have no idea. Perhaps all he wanted was the letter Mr. Stapleton wrote to me about going to Amsterdam. Beckford can use it to blackmail him.”

  “I hope that’s all.”

  “If I must meet Congressman Stapleton again, I’ll do my best to avoid inviting him upstairs. Even if that’s necessary, can you believe he could change my feelings for you?”

  Caleb writhed. He could hear Stallworth’s rasp: She’s a whore. He found some small consolation in an answer that was the literal truth. “I can’t, I won’t, tolerate that man, or any other man, in this house, much less in your bed. Sometimes I think you’re still under William Coleman’s influence.”

  “Caleb, what’s wrong? After we just-”

  “I know what we just did. It makes me all the more determined to speak - out of love for you. I wonder why you go on working for William Coleman, knowing that if he succeeds, he may try to claim you as his wife, knowing, you must know it, that he killed Caesar Muzzey.”