Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker Part 48

At Trenton I received an appointment which much amazed me. The army of our allies was marching with us. DeGra.s.se, with a great fleet, was off Chesapeake Bay; despatches were coming and going daily. His Excellency had little knowledge of the French tongue, and had suffered for it in his youth. Mr. Duponceau, of the Marquis de Lafayette's staff, was competent in both French and English, but, save one other officer, no one of his Excellency's staff spoke and wrote French well; and this aide was, as a consequence, much overworked.

Seeing this difficulty, which occasioned much confusion, the Duc de Lauzun suggested that I be asked to serve as a special aide-de-camp. I believe I owed this chance, in part, to Lafayette, and also to the fact, stated elsewhere, that I had had the fortune to be presented to the duke at our famous ball in Morristown, where he was pleased to talk with me in French.

My appointment reached me on August 29. His Excellency was then with us at Trenton, despatching couriers, urging haste, and filling all men with the great hope which his audacious action excited.

I was ordered to turn over my command, to join his Excellency's headquarters staff at Philadelphia, and there to report to Colonel Tilghman as extra aide-de-camp with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. A note from Hamilton, now with his regiment, congratulated me, and related the cause of my unlooked-for promotion.

Would you see what my lifelong friend Jack had to say?

"I thank G.o.d for the happy fortune which has again fallen to Hugh. Had it not been for his a.s.siduity in youth, and the love and respect he bore his mother, he would never have come by this promotion. Thus G.o.d rewards us for that we do without thought of profit." Alas! my dear Jack, those French lessons were sometimes but ungratefully learned.

Early on September 2, having borrowed a horse from one of the staff, I was ferried over the Delaware, and, once across the river, pushed on in haste to my own dear city. I found the French about to enter the town.

I had left home in 1777 a raw youth, and it was not without a sense of just pride that I returned a lieutenant-colonel at twenty-eight, having, as I felt, done my country honest service.

Our allies halted in the suburbs to clean off the dust, and as they began their march I fell in beside De Lauzun. They made a brilliant show in neat white uniforms, colours flying and bands playing. Front street was densely crowded, and at Vine they turned westward to camp on the common at Centre Square. As they wheeled I bowed to the French gentlemen, and kept on down Front street to Arch, soon halting before my aunt's door. The house was closed. All had gone forth to welcome the marching troops. I mounted again and rode down Second street to my own home, left my horse at the stable, and, seeing no one, pa.s.sed into the sitting-room. My father was seated at the open window, but to see him dismayed me. He rose with an uneasy look as I went toward him. He was so wasted that his large features stood out gaunt and prominent. His clothes hung about him in folds, and his vast, bony frame was like a rack from which they seemed ready to fall.

I caught him in my arms, and kissed his shrunken cheeks, utterly overcome at the sight of this splendid body in ruins. Meanwhile he stayed quite pa.s.sive, and at last pushed me off and looked at me steadily.

"It is Hugh," he said. "Thy mother will be glad to see thee."

I was shocked. This delusion of my mother's being alive greatly increased the grief I had in seeing this wreck of a strong, masterful man.

I said something, I hardly know what. He repeated, "Thy mother will be glad to see thee. She is upstairs--upstairs. She is with thy little sister. Ellin has been troublesome in the night."

After this he sat down and took no more notice of me. I stood watching him. The dead alone seemed to be alive to him: my mother, and the little sister who died thirty years back, and whose name I heard now from my father for the first time in all my life. As I stood amazed and disturbed at these resurrections, he sat speechless, either looking out of the window in a dull way, or now and then at me with no larger interest. At last, with some difficulty as to finding words, he said: "Thy mother wearies for thy letters. Thou hast been remiss not to write."

I said I had written him, as indeed I had, and with regularity, but with never an answer. After this he was long silent, and then said, "I told her it was but for a week thou wert to be away. She thinks it more." The long years of war were lost to him, and as though they had not been.

I made a vain effort to recall him to the present and the living, telling him of the army and the war, and at last asked news of my aunt.

He soon ceased to hear me, and his great head fell forward, the gray locks dropping over his forehead, as he sat breathing deeply and long.

I found it a sorry spectacle, and after giving some orders to Tom I went away.

I learned later that my father never went out, but sat at the window all day with his pipe, drawing on it as if it were lighted, and heeding neither the friends who still came to see him nor the vacant days which went by. I had lost my father, even that little of his true self he had let me see.

I went thence and reported to Colonel Tilghman at the City Tavern, where his Excellency had alighted, and after performing that duty made haste to see my aunt.

There I found the love and tender welcome for which I so much yearned, and I also had news of Darthea. She, my aunt said, was well and still in the city, but out of spirits; as to that "villain," my cousin, my Aunt Gainor knew nothing, nor indeed Mistress p.e.n.i.ston much. Letters were difficult to get through our lines, and if he or Darthea still wrote, my aunt knew no more than I. When I told her in confidence of the errand on which, at my cousin's prompting, General Arnold had sent me, she exclaimed:

"Could he have wished to get you into trouble? It seems incredible, Hugh. I hope you may never meet."

"Aunt Gainor," said I, "to meet that man is the dearest wish of my life."

"The dearest?"

"Not quite," said I, "but it will be for me a happy hour."

"Then G.o.d forbid it, Hugh; and it is most unlikely. You must go and see Darthea. I suppose you will hardly tarry here long--and get your epaulets, sir. I want to see my boy in his uniform. Bring Mr. Hamilton here, and the French gentlemen. Fetch some of them to dinner to-morrow."

Then she kissed me again, and told me how strong and well I looked, and so on, with all the kind prettiness of affectionate speech women keep for those they love.

As I knew not when we should leave, nor how busy I might be while still in the city, I thought it well to talk to my aunt of my father's sad condition, and of some other matters of moment. Of the deed so strangely come into my possession she also spoke. It seemed to be much on her mind. I still told her I cared little for the Welsh lands, and this was true. Nevertheless I discovered in myself no desire to be pleasant to Mr. Arthur Wynne, and I began to suspect with my aunt that more than Darthea, or stupid jealousy, or the memory of a blow, might be at the bottom of his disposition to injure me.

It may seem strange to those who read what a quiet old fellow writes, that I should so frankly confess my hatred of my cousin. Nowadays men lie about one another, and stab with words, and no one resents it. Is the power to hate to the death fading out? and are we the better for this? It may be so. Think of the weary months in jail, of starvation, insult, and the miseries of cold, raggedness, filth, and fever. Think, too, of my father set against me, of the Mischianza business,--but for that I blame him not,--and, last, of his involving me in the vile net of Arnold's treason. I could as soon forgive a snake that had bit me as this reptile.

"Mr. James Wilson has the deed," said my aunt; "and of that we shall learn more when Mr. Cornwallis is took, and you come home a general. And now go and see Darthea, and let me hear how many will be to dine, and send me, too, a half-dozen of good old wine from my brother's cellar--the old Wynne Madeira. Decant it with care, and don't trust that black animal Tom. Mind, sir!"

Darthea lived but a little way from my aunt's, and with my heart knocking at my ribs as it never had done at sight of levelled muskets, I found my way into Mistress p.e.n.i.ston's parlour, and waited, as it seemed to me, an age.

It was a large back room with an open fireplace and high-backed chairs, claw-toed tables bare of books or china, with the floor polished like gla.s.s. p.e.n.i.stons and De Lanceys, in hoop and hood, and liberal of neck and bosom, looked down on me. It was all stiff and formal, but to me pleasantly familiar. Would she never come?

Then I heard a slow step on the stair, and the rustle of skirts, and here was Darthea, pale and grave, but more full in bud, and, I thought, more lovely in her maturing womanhood.

She paused at the doorway, and made as it were to greet me with a formal curtsey, but then--how like her it did seem!--ran forward and gave me both her hands, saying: "You are welcome, Mr. Wynne. I am most glad to see you. You are all for the South, I hear. Is it not so?"

I said yes, and how delightful it was to be here if but for a day or two; and then, being pretty vain, must tell her of my good fortune.

"I am glad of my friend's success, but I wish it were with the other side. Oh, I am a mighty Tory yet," shaking her head. "I have seen your Mr. Washington. What a fine man! and favours Mr. Arnold a trifle."

"Fie for shame!" said I, pleased to see her merry; and then I went on to tell her the sad story of Andre, but not of what he told me concerning Arthur. The tears came to her eyes, although of course it was no new tale, and she went white again, so that I would have turned the talk aside, but she stopped me, and, hesitating a little, said:

"Did that miserable treachery begin when Mr. Arnold was in the town?"

I said it was thought to have done so. For my own part, I believed it began here, but just when I could not say. "But why do you ask?" I added, being for a reason curious.

For a little she sat still, her hands, in delicate white lace mittens, on her lap. Then she spoke, at first not looking up, "Men are strange to me, Mr. Wynne. I suppose in war they must do things which in peace would be shameful."

I said yes, and began to wonder if she had divined that Arthur had been deep in that wretched plot. I do not know to this day. She kept her counsel if she did. Women see through us at times as if we were gla.s.s, and then again are caught by a man-trap that one would think must be perfectly visible.

"And was poor Peggy Shippen in it?"

"Oh, no! no!" I replied.

"I am glad of that; but had I been she, I would never have seen him again--never! never! To think of life with one who is as black a creature as that man!"

"But, after all, he is her husband." I wanted to see what she would say.

"Her husband! Yes. But a husband without honour! No! no! I should have to respect the man I loved, or love would be dead--dead! Let us talk of something else. Poor Peggy! Must you go?" she added, as I rose. "This horrid war! We may never meet again." And then quickly, "How is Captain Blushes, and shall we see him too?"

I thought not. Already the army was making for Chester, and so toward the Head of Elk. "No; I must go." On this she rose.

"Is it the same, Darthea, and am I to go away with no more hope than the years have brought me?"

"Why," she said, colouring, "do you make it so hard for me--your friend?"

"Do I make it hard?"