The Loyalist Part 15

Marjorie felt the gaze of the group full upon her. She flushed a little.

"Little or no danger, nor cause alleged," she laughed.

"Captain Meagher!" recollected Anderson, "does he excel?"

"I scarce know," replied Marjorie. "I have met him not over thrice in my life."

"Once is quite sufficient," said the General. "First impressions often endure. But stay. Draw your chairs. I was only saying that I may be required to leave here shortly."

"You have been transferred?" asked Marjorie.

"No! But I have written to Washington begging for a command in the navy.

My wounds are in a fair way and less painful than usual, though there is little prospect of my being able to be in the field for a considerable time."

They sat down as requested, opposite Peggy and the General.

"But, General, have you not taken us into your consideration?" asked Anderson.

"I have, yet the criticism is becoming unendurable. Of course you have heard that matters have already become strained between the civil government and myself. Only last week my head aide-de-camp sent for a barber who was attached to a neighboring regiment, using as a messenger the orderly whom I had stationed at the door. For this trifling order there has been aroused a hornet's nest."

"Wherein lay the fault?" asked Marjorie.

"In this. It appears from a letter which I have already received from the father of the sergeant (Matlack is his name, to be exact) that the boy was hurt by the order itself and the manner of it, and as a freeman would not submit to such an indignity as to summon a barber for the aide of a commanding officer. We have a proud, stubborn people to rule, who are no more fitted for self-government than the Irish----"

He stopped short.

Marjorie bit her lip. "I wish, General, you would withdraw your comparison. It is painful to me."

"I am sorry, Mistress Allison. As a matter of fact I hardly knew what I had said. I do withdraw it."

"Thank you so much."

Then he went on.

"These Americans are not only ungrateful, but stupidly arrogant. What comparison can be drawn between this dullard, Matlack, whose feelings as a citizen were hurt by an order of an aide-de-camp, and I, when I was obliged to serve a whole campaign under the command of a gentleman who was not known as a soldier until I had been some time a brigadier. My feelings had to be sacrificed to the interest of my country. Does not the fool know that I became a soldier and bear the marks upon me, to vindicate the rights of citizens?"

He talked rapidly, yet impa.s.sionately. It was plain, however, that he was seriously annoyed over the turn of events, on which subject he conversed with his whole being. He made gestures with violence. His face became livid. His att.i.tude was menacing.

"On my arrival here, my very first act was condemned. It became my duty, because of sealed orders from the Commander-in-chief, who enclosed a resolution adopted by Congress, to close the shops. From the day, censure was directed against me. I was not the instigator of it. Yet I was all to blame."

He sat up with his hands on his knees, looking fiercely into the next room.

"I would not feel so bitter, your Excellency," volunteered Anderson.

"Military orders, however necessary, always seem oppressive to civilians and shopkeepers."

"I have labored well for the cause, and my reward has been this. I took Ticonderoga, although Allen got the credit for it. I would have taken Canada, if Congress had not blundered. I saved Lake Champlain with my flotilla,--a fleet that lived to no better purpose nor died more gloriously,--and for this I got no promotion, nor did I expect one. I won at Ridgefield and received a Major-Generalship, only to find myself outranked by five others. At Saratoga I was without a command, yet I succeeded in defeating an army. For that service I was accused of being drunk by the general in command, who, for his service, received a gold medal with a vote of thanks from Congress, while I--well, the people gave me their applause; Congress gave me a horse, but what I prize more than all,--these sword knots," he took hold of them as he spoke, "a personal offering from the Commander-in-chief. I gave my all. I received a few empty honors and the ingrat.i.tude of a jealous people."

He paused.

"General," began Marjorie, "you know the people still worship you and they do want you for their popular leader."

"I know differently," he snapped back. "I have already pet.i.tioned Congress for a grant of land in western New York, where I intend to lead the kind of life led by my friend Schuyler in Livingston, or the Van Renssalaers and other country gentlemen. My ambition now is to be a good citizen, for I intend never to draw a sword on the American side."

He again grew silent.

Whether he was sincere in his remarks, and his manner of expression seemingly revealed no other disposition of mind, or was swayed simply by some unfounded antipathy which caused the image of his aversion to become a sort of hallucination, Marjorie could not decide. She knew him to be impulsive and irrepressible, a man who, because of his deficiency in breadth, scope of intelligence, and strong moral convictions, invariably formed his opinions in public matter on his personal feelings. He was a man of moods, admirably suited withal for a command in the field where bluntness and abruptness of manner could cause him to rise to an emergency, but wholly unfitted for this reason for a diplomatic office where the utmost delicacy of tact and nicety of decision are habitually required.

She knew, moreover, that he ever bore a fierce grudge towards Congress for the slights which it had put upon him, and that this intense feeling, together with his indomitable self-will, had brought him into conflict with the established civil authority. He was Military Governor of the city and adjacent countryside, yet there existed an Executive Council of Pennsylvania for the care of the state, and the line of demarcation between the two powers never had been clearly drawn.

Accordingly there soon arose many occasions for dispute, which a more even-tempered man would have had the foresight to avoid. His point of view was narrow, not only in affairs civil and political, but it must be said, in social and religious as well. Of all commanders, he was the most unsuited for the task.

Furthermore she knew that he was becoming decidedly more unpopular each day, not only because of the extravagance in his manner of living, but also because of his too frequent a.s.sociation with the Tory element of the city. While the British had held the city many of the more aristocratic inhabitants had given them active aid and encouragement, much to the displeasure of the more loyal though less important lower cla.s.s. Consequently when the days of the evacuation had come and the city had settled down once again to its former style of living, many of the Tory element were compelled to leave town while those who had remained behind were practically proscribed. Small wonder was it that indignation ran riot when the first Military Governor openly cast his lot with the enemies of the cause and consorted with them freely and frequently.

It was entirely possible that he would abide by his decision to resign all public office and retire to private life, notwithstanding the fact that he already had at this same moment despatched a letter to General Washington requesting a command in the navy. But she read him differently and found herself surprised to learn of his intended withdrawal, for his very nature seemed to indicate that he would fight his cause to the bitter end, and that end one of personal satisfaction and revenge.

Several of the guests prepared to depart. The little group disbanded as Peggy made her way to their side.

Marjorie and John Anderson lost each other for the first time in the melee which ensued.

IV

"Perhaps I ought to return," Marjorie muttered to herself, now that she was quite alone. "I am sure that he dropped something."

And she began to retrace her steps.

She felt positive that she saw General Arnold accidentally dislodge what appeared to be a folded note from his belt when he took hold of the sword knots in the course of his conversation. Very likely it was a report of some nature, which had been hurriedly thrust into his belt during some more preoccupied moment. At any rate it might be safer in her hands than to be left to some less interested person. She would investigate at any rate and resolve her doubts.

Sure enough, there it was. Just behind the armchair in which he had been seated but a few moments before. None of the others had observed it, she thought, for she alone was in a position, a little to his left, to notice it, when it had become loosed.

She picked it up and regarded it carelessly, nervously, peering the while into the great room beyond to discover, if possible, an eye-witness to her secret. From its appearance it was no more than a friendly communication written on conventional letter paper. It was unsealed, or rather the seal had been broken and from the wrinkled condition of the paper gave evidence of not a little handling. It belonged to Peggy. There was no doubt about that, for there was her name in heavy bold script on the outside.

She balanced it in her hand, weighing, at the same time, within her mind, one or two possibilities. She might read it and then, if the matter required it, return it immediately to His Excellency with an explanation. Yet it would smack of dishonor to read the private correspondence of another without a sufficiently grave reason. It belonged to Peggy, who, in all probability, had been acquainting the General with its contents as Mr. Anderson and herself intruded upon the scene. She therefore resolved to return it unread.

Hastily folding it, she stuck it into her bodice, and made her way into the room where she became lost among the guests. There would be time enough when the formalities of the departure were over, when Peggy was less occupied, to hand it her. She would wait at any rate until later in the evening.

CHAPTER VIII

I

But she did not return the paper. For with the commotion of the guests in the several orders of their going, a serious business of felicitation and devoir was demanded alongside of which all other matters only served as distractions. Consequently, the note once placed within her bodice, all thought of it vanished for the remainder of the evening.

Only when she had returned home that night, fatigued and almost disgusted with the perfunctory performances of the evening, did she discover it, and then not until she was about to remove the garment within whose folds it lay concealed. It fell to the ground; she stooped to pick it up.

"Oh, dear! I quite forgot it. I must attend to it the first thing in the morning."