The Whiskey Rebels (9 page)

“Are you trying to ruin me?” I demanded. My irritation caused me to forget, if only for a moment, the value of good manners. “Can this not wait until morning? Can you not look at me and see I have had the very devil of a damnable night?”

Her face settled into hard woflishness. “Do not use such language. I don’t love it. Tell me only, have you money now?” She asked the question through trembling lips.

“It is clear that there is more to this than meets the eye. What is this about? Has someone paid you to cast me out? It was Dorland, wasn’t it?”

“Have you the money now?” she repeated, but with less self-righteousness.

I had hit upon something and thought to test my theory, so I said, “Yes, I do. I shall pay you, and then I shall go to sleep.”

“Too late!” she shrieked. “It is too late! You have used me ill, and I do not want you no more. You must pay me and go.”

This was Dorland; it had to be. And yet I did not quite believe it. It was not that he was above such mean tricks, just that I did not think he had the wit to conceive of them. “If you are going to cast me out, you can hardly expect me to pay you,” I observed. “You’ll not get a penny.”

“Then you get out. You do it or I’ll call the watch.”

By itself, the watch was nothing to me, but I feared public knowledge of my eviction. Should word spread that I had lost my rooms, my creditors would descend upon me like starved lions on a wounded lamb. I could not disappear into the airless bog of debtor’s prison just when Cynthia Pearson had reappeared in my life.

It was not the first time I’d been cast out of a lodging, nor the first in the middle of the night. I had done what I could and would not humiliate myself by prolonging the argument. “Very well. I shall collect some things, and I shall quit your miserable house. Be so kind as to pack what I do not take now, and keep your fingers off what does not belong to you.”

“I keep your things as surety, and if you try to get them I’ll call the watch. The watch.” She’d seen it in my eyes, sensed my fear with her low animal cunning, and now she held forth the word like a talisman. “I call the watch and they take you away. Forever!”

Forever seemed a bit extreme, even for a flight of fancy, but I did not dash her dreams. I was too angry, and she must have seen that too in my eyes, for she took a frightened step backward. In response, I offered her a very stiff bow and set out once more into the rain.

I
t 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.

M
orning 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. Dorland 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.

S
ince 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.