The Last Refuge

SIX

‘Having servants is awesome! I ring a bell and they bring me stuff!’

Gabriel Donovan, son

On my first day as mistress of Patriot House, I was awakened by a gentle tap on the door.

‘Mumppf,’ I managed as I opened my eyes, squinted into the semi-darkness and tried to figure out exactly where I was. I struggled into a half-sitting position and patted around on the bedside table looking for my watch before remembering that I didn’t have a watch. When the cast arrived at Patriot House the previous afternoon we’d gone through a sign-in procedure more thorough than a security checkpoint at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Watches, jewelry, iPods, iPhones, Droids, even Jack Donovan’s hearing aids… those technical marvels that make twenty-first century life worth living, all had to be surrendered before we were given a tour of the house and shown to our respective rooms.

Now, as Amy bustled into the room smiling cheerfully and carrying a tea tray, I felt curiously detached from reality. Had it been only two weeks since Jud had showed up on my doorstep like a lost puppy?

‘You asked to be awakened at six thirty,’ Amy chirped as she set the tea tray down on a small round table between the two front windows. The skirt of her bright blue dress swished as she stood on tiptoe and threw open the curtains, flooding the room with light.

‘Ouch,’ I said, shielding my eyes.

‘The staff is awake, madam,’ Amy said. ‘Cook said to say that breakfast will be ready to serve by eight. I’ll go wake the children, then be back to help you dress.’ She lifted a yellow silk dressing gown off a wooden peg near the door and laid it carefully on the foot of the bed, before disappearing into the hall.

My bedroom was located directly over the library at the front of the main house, its two tall windows overlooking Prince George Street. Carefully avoiding the chamber pot, I climbed out of bed, slipped the dressing gown over my shift and crossed to the windows, knotting my sash as I went. It had been a warm evening, so the windows – decorated with the same red and white French toile as the bed hangings – were still open. I stuck my head out, looked down the street to my right, wishing I could catch sight of Paul leaving the house, walking the few short blocks to his office at the Naval Academy, but it was far too early for that.

I settled into an upholstered slipper chair and picked up the teapot, carefully pouring the steaming liquid through the silver strainer Amy had balanced over my cup. I was grateful as I sipped that the two cameramen – Derek and Chad – had been assigned to cover the morning ablutions of The Great Patriot himself, Jack Donovan, who slept alone in the master suite directly across the hall.

Amy returned a short time later, materializing as if by magic through the wall just to the left of my bed. A door-sized portion of the woodwork – wallpaper, wainscoting, chair rail and all – yawned open and I nearly dropped my cup. ‘Yikes!’ I squeaked. ‘You scared the life out of me!’

Amy laughed. ‘Sorry.’ She carried a tea kettle on a flat, padded pillow, steam drifting lazily out of its spout. ‘That door leads to the service staircase. It’s a shortcut to the first floor, and to the kitchen. I thought you might want to wash up first,’ she added, heading for a washstand I had overlooked the previous evening. Carefully, she poured boiling water into a bowl in the washstand. She added cool water to it from a matching pitcher, tested the water with a fingertip, then draped a flannel cloth over the brim. ‘It’s ready whenever you are.’

‘I’d kill for a cup of coffee,’ I told Amy as I dipped the flannel into the warm water, squeezed it out and applied the refreshingly warm cloth to my face. ‘A shower, too, but I realize that’s out of the question.’

While I washed, Amy set the tea kettle down on the floor near the hidden door, just discernible as a thin crack, now that I knew where it was. She opened a leather trunk at the foot of the bed and pulled out one of my everyday gowns – an apple-green linen that I’d previously seen hanging in the wardrobe trailer with Katherine Donovan’s name on it.

‘Will this dress be suitable for today, madam?’

When I nodded, she draped the gown carefully over the arm of the chair I’d just vacated. Amy handed me a pair of stockings, a fine white silk, and knelt on the floor in front of me, ready to assist, as if I were an invalid. ‘I think I can manage,’ I said with a smile. ‘Why don’t you find my stays?’

While Amy dug the stays out of a dresser drawer, I rolled the stockings up over my knees and secured them there with a fat elastic band. ‘Why it took until the nineteen sixties to invent panty hose, I can’t imagine. I’m hoping I don’t get gangrene below the knee in this get-up.’

Amy watched while I stepped into the under-petticoat. After I’d tied it around my waist, she handed me the stays. I slipped the corset-like device over my head then turned so she could lace me up the back. ‘If you don’t have a maid, or a husband, you’d never get into this contraption,’ I said, regretting my words almost the moment they fell out of my mouth. Husband. Shit. Amy’s husband was dead.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

‘That’s OK,’ Amy said, her voice hoarse. She gave my laces a final savage tug before tying them off. ‘It’s not like I haven’t noticed that Drew is dead.’

I indicated a chair, the mate to the one I’d been sitting on. ‘I’ve upset you. I’m sorry. Here, sit down for a minute.’

Amy eased her full skirts onto the chair and sat. For a long moment, she simply stared at me. Then she said, ‘It hasn’t been easy.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

She sat quietly for a moment, hands folded, as if weighing how much to tell me. ‘Do you know what a death notification team is, Hannah?’

‘I can guess. Sounds awful.’

‘It is. An official car pulls up in front of your house and an officer, a chaplain, a medic and a JAG, all in uniform, step out of it.’ She looked up at me through a film of tears. ‘Sounds like a bad joke, doesn’t it? “An officer, a chaplain, a medic and a JAG walked into a bar…”’ Her voice trailed off.

‘I knew right away, of course. Nobody needed to tell me, but they did anyway, running through their official script, like “Are you Mrs Edward Drew Cornell? Is your husband Lieutenant Commander Edward Drew Cornell? Ma’am, we regret to inform you that your husband…”’ She swiped a tear from her cheek and sighed deeply. ‘According to the Navy, Drew is missing, presumed dead.’

I reached out and touched her sleeve. ‘Missing? Is it possible he’s still alive?’

Amy bit her lower lip and shook her head. ‘No.’

‘When did this happen, Amy?’

‘Ten months ago. Remember that helicopter crash in Swosa?’

My heart did a flip-flop. ‘After Madani Sabir Nazari was assassinated? My God! It was all over the news. Two of the casualties were Naval Academy grads, so we paid particular attention to the coverage. Drew was on that mission, too?’

She nodded miserably. ‘The Navy’s been trying to recover their bodies for months, but the rebel government in Swosa isn’t cooperating. But what difference does it make? CNN has videos of the crash. The chopper was incinerated. There can’t possibly have been any survivors.’

Outside in the hallway, a patter of bare feet and the putt-putt-putt of a race car screaming by – Gabriel making anachronistic noises. Amy looked up. ‘Guess I better finish helping you dress. You going to wear hoops?’

I shrugged. ‘Might as well go the whole hog.’

Amy helped me tie the figure-eight-shaped hoop Alisha had told me was called a farthingale around my waist, then handed me what looked like an embroidered pouch on a string. ‘What’s this?’ I asked, turning it over in my hands, admiring the handiwork.

‘It’s a pocket. You tie it on under your skirt. You can put things in it like coins, keys, lipstick…’ She laughed out loud. ‘Just kidding about the lipstick. You reach into the pocket from slits in the side seams of your dress.’

‘What made you decide to apply for Patriot House?’ I asked Amy as she helped me adjust the pocket and slip into my gown.

‘Oh, Hannah. It’s been awful. After Drew died, everything seemed to go to hell. I was teaching music in a Catholic elementary school, but the diocese closed the school in a cost-cutting measure, then sold the property.’

‘Let me guess…’

Amy nodded. ‘Pedophile priests. Compensating their victims turned out to be expensive.’

‘The price of priestly pederasty spreads far beyond the original victims. I read about some nuns in Los Angeles who were evicted from the convent they’d lived in for more than forty years so that the property could be sold.’

Amy shook her head. ‘I’m glad Mother Church is finally getting around to compensating victims of its pedophile priests, but the nuns weren’t exactly the guilty parties, were they?’

‘Where do you live?’ I asked as Amy knelt to shake the wrinkles out of my gown and arrange it more attractively over the petticoat.

‘Virginia Beach. A really nice neighborhood in Lynnhaven,’Amy continued. ‘Or so I thought. Then I started getting harassing phone calls. I can’t prove it, but I think they came from this hate group out in Topeka, Kansas that calls itself a church. “Thank God for dead soldiers” the voice would say. They told me that Drew was killed by an angry God and that whenever God saw fit to send him home in a body bag, they’d happily picket his funeral.’

I laid a hand on Amy’s shoulder. ‘I think I’m going to be ill.’

‘Tell me about it. I reported the calls to the police, of course, but they had other more pressing cases, so I had my phone changed to an unlisted number. When the son of a bitch called that, too, I simply had the landline taken out. Then someone vandalized my car. Two weeks later, my condo was broken into. Totally unrelated, I’m sure, but when my mother found out, she worried – you know mothers – called me three times a day from Nashua, New Hampshire, left messages on my cell, insisted I move back in with her, but… well, if you knew my mother, you’d understand why I preferred to run away to the eighteenth century!’ She paused, head cocked while she concentrated on hooking me into my stomacher. ‘There!’ She took several steps back, examining her work. ‘You look fabulous, but we have to do something about the hair.’

Over the summer I’d let my usual wash-and-wear, ash-brown curls grow out. By September they’d reached the length where I could, with some effort, scrape them into a short ponytail. Amy sat me at the dressing table, and by some legerdemain, swept my hair up in wings over my ears, using a hairbrush to coax the ends into a mass of mini-sausages at the back of my head. She topped off the do with a soft, lacy mob cap. Examining myself in the mirror, I had to agree with Amy’s assessment: I looked fabulous – for a grandmother of three wearing no makeup.

‘Where did you learn to do that?’ I asked.

Her reflection shrugged. ‘I have a little sister. I used to do it for her. French braids, mostly. Sue married a Mormon and moved out to St George, Utah.’

‘Whew!’ I said, patting my curls appreciatively. ‘I was afraid they’d want me to wear a wig.’

‘For the ball, yes.’

‘You think so?’

She nodded. ‘For sure. I overheard Jud talking to Derek about setting up a shoot at the wigmakers.’

‘As long as it’s not one of those mile-high creations with ribbons, feathers and live birds,’ I said.

Amy grinned. ‘They come with fleas, too. For lice, you pay extra.’

‘Euuuuw!’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Well, let’s hope the producers’ passion for historical accuracy doesn’t stretch that far.’

For a house with a dozen (or so) residents, it surprised me that only five were at breakfast that morning. Alex Mueller, the dancing master, wouldn’t be joining us until later in the day, I learned, so it was just me at one end of the table and Jack at the other, with Melody and her brother sitting on the side facing the windows opposite Michael Rainey, their tutor. And the cameraman, of course. Derek (or was it Chad?) who was standing as inconspicuously as possible next to the buffet like a black, brooding potted plant, filming us as we ate breakfast.

When I finally managed to arrange my skirts, underskirts and hoops in such a way that I could actually sit down in my chair, Jack offered a quick blessing of the ‘Oh, Lord we just…’ persuasion and I was about to open my mouth to say that we were supposed to be Anglican, thank you very much, saying graces from the Book of Common Prayer circa 1662 such as, Give us grateful hearts, O Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen, when French appeared with the scrambled eggs, hominy, fried potatoes and onions – followed by, bless her, cups of rich, dark coffee that brightened my whole day. I hoped Amy and the others were eating just as well down in the kitchen.

I was helping myself to another spoonful of eggs from a covered bowl when someone began knocking at the front door, the sound of the brass knocker echoing sharply through the house. A few minutes later, a man I hadn’t met before, dressed in a plain dark suit with gold braid, entered the dining room, carrying a silver tray. ‘No reply required, sir,’ the man said, holding the tray out in front of Jack. On the tray sat a piece of parchment-colored paper that from my vantage point, looked to be folded in fourths and sealed with a blob of red wax. Jack scooped up the message and said, ‘Thank you, Jeffrey. You may go.’

While Jeffrey was busy bowing theatrically and backing out of the room, I said, ‘Mr Donovan, may I ask why I’ve never met that individual?’

‘What did you say?’

I’d forgotten about the missing hearing aids, so I repeated the question, only a little louder.

‘He’s my valet.’ Jack picked up his table knife and used it to pry up the seal and unfold the paper.

While Jack was engrossed in reading his correspondence, I leaned in Michael’s direction and whispered, ‘Why haven’t I seen him before?’

‘That’s Jeff Wiley. From Colorado. He was in Williamsburg early on, but came back to Annapolis before the rest of us to help get the house ready. His room is on the third floor of the main house, next to French’s.’ Michael pointed at the ceiling.

‘Oh,’ I whispered back. ‘I didn’t recognize him. In the photo they gave me, Jeff had a mustache.’

‘Shaved it off.’ Michael nodded knowingly. ‘Tragic. A casualty of learning how to use a straight razor.’

I smothered a laugh with my napkin.

‘So, that’s how it’s going to work,’ Jack muttered from the opposite end of the table.

Melody looked up from her plate where she’d been rearranging her fried potatoes, constructing little mounds. ‘How’s what going to work, Father?’

‘Attention, everyone!’ Jack waited until all eyes were turned in his direction, then addressed me directly. ‘Mrs Ives, this message is signed by “Founding Father,” who informs me that the new styles from France are in at the dressmaker’s in Cornhill Street. You and Melody are to be measured for a gown at eleven o’clock this morning. You’re to take your maid with you.’

Melody’s fork clattered to her plate. ‘I’m going to have a gown made? Awesome!’

By ‘maid’ I presumed he meant Amy. I also presumed this meant the whole expedition would be recorded by Derek and/or Chad, one of whom had just sidled around to Jack’s end of the table, all the better to zoom in on my smiling face as I said, ‘I’d be delighted, sir.’

‘How about Melody’s schooling, sir?’ Michael asked. ‘She’s to be starting Greek at ten.’

Melody frowned. ‘Greek? Oh. My. Boring. God!’

Donovan scowled at his daughter, then waved a languid, lace-trimmed sleeve. ‘Get her started on her Greek then, Rainey, but missing an hour or so of lessons isn’t going to hurt her.’

Melody pressed her pudgy hands together and beamed.

And so, on the instructions of Founding Father, our first outing began. I wore my green, Amy her blue, and Melody turned up wearing a gown of softest gray. We’d tied broad-brimmed straw hats over our mob caps, of course, and pulled gloves over our hands so no neighborhood gossips could titter over their teacups that we were ‘no better than they should be.’ We strolled down the narrow sidewalk, single-file (how else?) with Chad, the cameraman trotting along behind.

The twenty-first-century people we passed were curious, but didn’t seem surprised. Tour guides in colonial garb often wandered the streets of Annapolis; we were three among many. Tourist cameras captured our cheerful little parade up East Street to State Circle – there’d be images of us all over Facebook in half an hour.

Halfway down Cornhill Street, I pulled Amy aside. ‘I probably missed this email, Amy, but what are we doing about these people, exactly? Do we pretend like it’s 1774 and they haven’t been born yet?’

‘What people?’ Amy quipped.

‘I get it,’ I said, as we continued on our way. ‘Invisible.’

Our destination was a little house near Hyde Alley. A sign hung on an iron bar by the door: Mrs Hamilton. Dressmaker. By Appointment Only. We knocked and went inside, setting a bell attached to the door frame jangling.

‘Oh!’ Melody’s gloved hands flew to her mouth.

LynxE had gone to a lot of trouble to turn someone’s narrow, colonial-era home into a proper dressmaker’s shop. A long table stood to our right, with bolts of cloth stacked up on the end nearest the fireplace. Shelves built along the opposite wall held fabric, too, and hat boxes were stacked in a colorful jumble on top. Bins on a smaller table held buttons and beads, and spools of ribbon – grosgrain and silk – were stored in a corner on upright pegs. In the opposite corner, a beautiful coromandel screen shielded the dressing area from the prying eyes of other customers.

‘Welcome, ladies!’ A woman I took to be Mrs Hamilton smiled broadly, trying to concentrate on greeting us, but her eyes kept darting nervously toward the camera. ‘The moppets are here,’ she said. ‘Just wait until you see the latest styles from Paris!’

Melody’s brow furrowed. ‘Muppets? No way. Kermit? Miss Piggy?’

‘Moppets, sweetheart. They’re fashion dolls, dressed in the most beautiful dresses you’ve ever seen.’ Mrs Hamilton unlocked the door of a glass-fronted cabinet and removed two bisque-faced dolls, one wearing a forest-green gown trimmed in gold braid, the other in a creamy vanilla silk confection with hundreds of miniature rosebuds decorating the bodice, hem and sleeves. Two other dolls, one dressed in red the other in a peach and green stripe, remained standing at attention inside the cabinet.

‘I want this one,’ Melody said, choosing the doll in the creamy gown, picking it up by the waist and dancing it gently along the tabletop. Her eyes sparkled like a ten-year-old on Christmas morning. ‘I collect dolls, Mrs Hamilton. I started out with Barbies and American Girls. I’ve got a whole lot of Madame Alexanders, too.’ She flipped up the doll’s skirt, examining its underclothing. ‘My specialty is Snow White. I’ve got her by Madame Alexander, Effanbee, Applause and Disney,’ she said, smiling, ticking them off on her fingers.

Mrs Hamilton chuckled. ‘Oh, the dolls aren’t for sale, sweetheart. They’re just models for the dresses. Samples, if you will.’ She removed the delicate figure gently from Melody’s hands. ‘But you can have a gown made exactly like this one if you like.’

Wide-eyed, Melody simply nodded.

‘Why don’t you measure Melody first,’ I suggested. ‘Is there someplace my maid and I can sit while I wait for you to finish measuring Melody?’

‘Of course,’ Mrs Hamilton said, rubbing her hands together briskly, clearly flustered by my request. ‘It’s a lovely day. Would you like to sit out in the garden?’

‘That would be splendid,’ I said.

Mrs Hamilton plucked a silver hand bell off the table and gave it a jingle. A young girl appeared from the back of the house – her daughter, I guessed – her head bowed, smiling shyly. ‘Amanda, will you show Mrs Ives and her maid to the garden, please? And see if they want some tea.’

‘That’s very kind, but we’ve only just eaten breakfast,’ I said, as Amanda led us into the (twenty-first century!) kitchen and out through a back door.

I looked nervously behind me, expecting Chad to be trotting along in our wake, but he’d made an executive decision: viewers would be much more interested in watching a sixteen-year-old strip behind a screen and get measured for a dress than a shop-worn old specimen like me. Besides, LynxE had probably dropped a bundle on decorating the shop, so not one thimble, button or pin could be wasted.

Mrs Hamilton’s backyard was enclosed by a high fence. From the back door, a winding path led to a miniature rose garden. Amy and I found a green Chippendale bench between a pink hybrid tea and an orangey floribunda and sat down on it. I removed my hat, closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun. ‘Ah, bliss. Why do I feel as if I’ve been cooped up for ages?’

Amy laughed. ‘Because you have, if you count Williamsburg.’

‘But, look on the bright side, Amy. I now know how to milk a cow.’

‘French’s job, or Karen’s, but I guess you’ll do in a pinch. Gabe asked for chocolate milk this morning, by the way, but I had to disappoint him.’

I opened one eye and looked at her. ‘Don’t we have chocolate?’

‘Karen didn’t think so.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’ll put that on the list for when I go to market. Anything else we need?’

‘Diet Coke.’

‘Ha!’ I said. We sat quietly for a while, enjoying the sun. I think I may even have dozed off, when the familiar tri-tone chime of an iPhone brought me out of my coma. ‘What was that?’

Next to me, Amy’s skirts rustled. She thrust a hand through the slit in her skirt and into her pocket. It came out holding an iPhone. Amy stared at the phone for a few seconds, then, to my astonishment, started to sob. Deep, shuddering, tearless sobs.

‘Amy! What is it?’ I asked stupidly, forgetting for the moment that we weren’t even supposed to have cell phones.

‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, her eyes still glued to the tiny screen. ‘It’s not possible! Oh, Hannah, somebody’s fucking with my mind!’

‘What?’

Amy seemed frozen. I pried the iPhone out of her hand. Written in a green text balloon was this message: Alive. Coming 4 U soon. F U tell anyone, they’ll kill me.

I wrapped my arm around the shivering girl. ‘Your husband?’

‘It can’t be. Drew’s dead. The Navy said so.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Hannah, the helo was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade. It was incinerated. I haven’t seen anything so horrible in my whole life, and CNN ran the footage over and over and over again, interviewed every top military advisor, active duty and retired, as they tried to sort out exactly what happened.’ She drew a jittery breath. ‘Drew’s dead. I’m just waiting for the official paperwork.’

‘Screw CNN, Amy. Did the Navy tell you what happened?’

She nodded miserably. ‘Nazari was supposed to be extracted, but he got shot instead. His people weren’t very happy.’

‘Oh, God. I remember.’ I stared at her screensaver for a few moments, a stock photo of the Earth taken from outer space. Swosa was on the other side of that globe, yet we were still feeling the impact of events that happened there months and months ago.

Amy nudged my arm. ‘Maybe it’s the same goddamn creeps who were harassing me in Virginia Beach.’

‘Look, here’s an idea. Why don’t you reply to the text?’ I slipped the phone back into her hand, but she hardly seemed to notice. ‘Ask whoever sent that text message a question that only Drew would know the answer to.’

Amy considered my suggestion for a moment, her lower lip caught between her teeth. ‘Like what?’

I thought about the break-in at Amy’s condo and wondered if it and the message she’d just received were related. A few seconds later, I said, ‘Nicknames, pet names, place of birth, mother’s maiden name… security questions like that aren’t any good because anybody who’s really motivated can find out that information by simply walking around your living room.’ As I leaned closer our arms touched and I felt her shiver. ‘Ask him this: where was the first place the two of you had sex?’

Amy sniggered. ‘OK.’ With a nervous glance over my shoulder in the direction of the dress shop, Amy bent her head over her iPhone and swiped it back on. I watched as she typed: OK. F U Drew, where did we first have sex? She tapped Send. Together we watched the status bar creep along the bottom of the screen as the message went on its way.

But it didn’t. According to a red exclamation point in a circle on the screen, the send had failed. ‘Shit, it didn’t go.’

‘Try it again.’

Amy tapped the screen, but once again, the send was aborted. This time, a message popped up in a gray balloon: Error Invalid Number. Please re-send using a valid ten-digit mobile number or a valid short code.

‘See, I told you. Somebody hates me and is doing this to make me crazy.’

‘If Drew is alive and on the run,’ I suggested, grasping at straws, ‘maybe he’s using a satellite phone or a throwaway cell.’

‘Ten months ago, I might have believed you, Hannah, but now? If Drew were alive, he would have contacted me long before this. Trust me, this is just some bastard’s idea of a cruel joke.’

‘Yoo-hoo! Hannah!’ It was Melody, fully dressed, bouncing on her toes, calling to us from the back door. Chad had backed out of the house and down the steps ahead of her and was filming the whole episode. ‘Wait till you see what I’ve picked out!’

Amy hastily slipped her iPhone back into her pocket.

‘Why did you keep your phone?’ I whispered as we both rose to our feet. I scooped up my hat from the lawn, then linked my arm through hers. ‘You know phones aren’t allowed.’

‘Security?’ she said as we hurried to join Melody inside. ‘A lifeline to the outside world?’

‘You can walk out of Patriot House any time you want, Amy. We’re not prisoners.’

I felt her shrug. ‘I’m one of those A-type, adult child of an alcoholic who doesn’t like to admit failure. I’m a workaholic – when I have a job, that is. When we married, Drew and I agreed I’d be a stay-at-home mom.’ She paused, tugged on my arm, holding me back. ‘We were planning on starting a family.’

Chad executed an about-face and aimed the camera in our direction. Thinking about Amy’s shattered dreams, I wanted to bawl, but I beamed at the camera instead.

‘Wanna know how I got the phone past the barbarians at the gate?’ Amy kept her voice low.

Since I’d considered trying to hold on to my iPhone myself, I felt a bit guilty giving Amy a hard time about it. ‘How?’

‘In my shoe.’

‘Clever girl.’

She leaned closer, whispered into my ear. ‘Made me limp a bit, but nobody noticed. Don’t know why I bothered, actually, because of the jamming.

‘I wish I were having a gown made, madam,’ she chirped a few seconds later, purely for the benefit of Chad and his camera.

‘When my gown is finished, Amy, you may wear my old one to the ball.’

‘Oh!’ she gushed. ‘That peachy one with the flowers on it?’

‘The very one.’

Amy flung out her arms and wrapped me in an impetuous hug. ‘Oh, madam, thank you! That will be wonderful!’

Chad zoomed in for a close-up, but I didn’t pull away. Even in 1774, hugging one’s maid couldn’t have been a sin. And if anyone needed a hug at that moment, it was Miss Amy Cornell.

That evening after supper – as was the colonial custom – the women, Amy, Melody and I, prepared to retire to the parlor leaving the men, Jack, Michael and Alex, to linger over their port in the dining room, smoking their pipes and hand-rolled cigars. Gabe had fallen asleep in his chair, clutching a pack of cards, having exhausted himself (and his audience) with fledgling feats of legerdemain.

Using a little silver bell, I summoned French to begin clearing away the dishes. Jeffrey slouched in behind her, carrying a wooden box which he opened and offered to Jack. ‘Cigar, sir?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Jack replied, leaning forward to peer into the box. He selected one of several long, cylindrical-shaped objects that looked more like mummified ape fingers than cigars. ‘Rolled ’em myself,’ he said, sliding a candlestick across the tablecloth and using the flame to light the loathsome object.

‘French, would you please take young Houdini up to bed?’ I asked.

As French left the dining room with a drowsy Gabe, Alex made a face at the acrid cloud of burning tobacco smoke wafting in his direction. ‘I didn’t think cigars were invented until sometime in the eighteenth century,’ he commented, reaching for a European-style pipe with orange and brown geometric designs incised around its belly-shaped bowl.

‘Nope.’ Jack drew smoke into his mouth, held it there for a moment, then let it escape in a thin stream from between pursed lips. ‘Cigars arrived here in 1762 with a fellow named Israel Putnam who’d been serving with the British army in Cuba when they captured Havana.’ He gazed at the glowing tip of his cigar like a proud father. ‘My tobacconist on Maryland Avenue was able to acquire some for me.’

Michael began stuffing the bowl of a plain white clay pipe with tobacco, tamping the leaves down with his thumb. ‘Thank God I don’t have to inhale,’ he said as Jeffrey touched a burning taper to the bowl and Michael fired it up.

I rose, fanning the smoke away from my face with my hand, suppressing a cough as I said, ‘Well, if you gentlemen will excuse us.’

A few minutes later, I settled down in the parlor with a book, leaning as closely as I dared to the candles without setting my hair on fire, and Melody flounced in and plopped down on the loveseat to have another go at her embroidery. After lighting all the candles in the room, Amy began to browse through the sheet music that was arranged in piles on top of the harpsichord. Slowly, dreamily, she dusted her fingers lightly along the whole length of the keyboard and said, ‘I think we should have a little music, don’t you? Would you like me to play something?’

My head jerked around so quickly I was in danger of whiplash. ‘You play?’

‘A well-kept secret, but yes, I do. What would you like? Scarlatti? Mozart? Bach? Beethoven?’

‘Beethoven wasn’t born yet,’ I said.

Amy grinned. ‘Was too. He would have been four, but I don’t think he was composing yet. He wasn’t as precocious as Mozart.’

‘Mozart would be lovely.’

Amy scooted the bench out, sat down and settled her skirts around her. She rested her fingers lightly on the keys, cocked her head, and began to play from memory. I recognized the tune: Mozart’s march from the Marriage of Figaro. When she finished the short piece we clapped madly and I said, ‘The only thing I miss is the hysterical laugh at the end.’

Melody shot me a what-are-you-crazy kind of look, so I asked her, ‘Did you see the movie, Amadeus?’

Melody shook her head.

Why was I not surprised? Amadeus came out in 1984, years before Melody was born. I felt old as Methuselah. ‘When you get home, Melody, rent it from Netflix, and you’ll get the joke about the laugh,’ I said, before turning back to Amy and urging her to play another piece.

In the middle of Bach’s little ‘Minuet in G,’ the gentlemen joined us, Alex in the lead. He laid a finger against his lips and quietly selected one of the straight-backed chairs that had been lined up in the shadows against the wall and dragged it out into the candlelight. Michael followed suit, while Jack sat down with a grunt on the loveseat next to his daughter.

When the last note died away, Alex Mueller – who was clapping louder than everyone else put together, or so it seemed to me – leapt to his feet and shouted, ‘Brava! Brava! Encore! Encore!’

Amy twisted round to face him, bowed her head slightly, smiled and apologized. ‘I’m afraid that’s all I know by heart. Why don’t you play something for us, Alex?’

In three long strides, Alex crossed the oriental rug to the harpsichord and began pawing through the sheet music. ‘Here’s something,’ he announced, waving the music in the air like a victory flag. ‘Mozart’s sonata for piano and violin in C major. I think we need a duet, don’t you?’

Piano and violin? Apparently Alex had hidden talents. I led an encouraging round of applause.

Alex handed the music to Amy, and in the time it took her to spread it open on the music rack in front of her, he’d retrieved his violin from the floor under the harpsichord and removed it from its case. ‘An A, please, Miss Cornell?’ After a bit of fussing with the tuning pegs and fiddling with the bow, he waved the bow in a dramatic arc and said, ‘Ready.’

‘Don’t you need to see the score?’ Amy wondered.

Alex clamped the violin under his chin. ‘This one’s in my repertoire.’ He raised his bow, then lowered it again, turning to address Melody. ‘Mozart wrote this piece when he was eight years old. Think about that.’ He raised his bow again, nodded to Amy, and they began to play.

Ten minutes of magic ensued.

As the last note of Alex’s violin faded away, we sat silently, still mesmerized, until Melody broke the spell by leaping to her feet, applauding like a groupie at a Stones concert.

Alex held out his hand, Amy slipped hers into his and allowed him to guide her out from behind the bench. Standing side by side, hands raised aloft, the two musicians bowed deeply. After a moment, Alex raised Amy’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Even in the candlelight, I could see her blush.

Jack, who up to this time had usually sat through family activities like a gargoyle and whose taste in music (I imagined) ran to praise songs like ‘Shout to the Lord,’ surprised me by clapping and chanting, ‘Encore! Encore!’ along with the rest of us.

Alex dropped Amy’s hand. ‘I think it’s time for some audience participation, don’t you, Amy?’

He returned to the harpsichord, shuffled around through the music, coming up with a handful of booklets composed of folded sheets of parchment, sewn through the center fold with red string. One copy contained the score, which Alex handed to Amy. For us, there was no music, only lyrics to songs popular in the 1770s, collected – according to the handwritten title page – by a soldier named Colonel George Bush from Delaware. Alex made a circuit of the room, passing out the booklets, uttering words of encouragement along the way: ‘Come on! Everybody can sing! Yes, even you, Mr Donovan,’ that charmed the socks off everyone.

‘I’ll go first,’ he said, returning to the harpsichord and indicating to Amy which song he would like her to play. Amy played a short introduction, so we could pick up on the tune, then Alex began leading us in a song of flowers and spring and unrequited love of a swain for a country maid named Katharine Ogie. Like good little do-bees, we joined in, but by the time we reached the end of the song: ‘Clouds of despair surround my love, which are both dark and fogie, Pity my case ye powers above, else I die for Katharine Ogie,’ we’d dropped out, one by one, totally mesmerized by the sound of Alex’s sweet baritone.

Once again, Melody was on her feet, applauding. ‘Your turn now, Amy!’

‘What shall I sing?’

Alex leaned over Amy’s shoulder and turned to the next page in the booklet, smoothing it down. When it wouldn’t behave, he kept a finger on the corner so it’d stay put.

‘I’m afraid my voice isn’t nearly as fine as yours, Alex,’ Amy said, placing her fingers on the keys, gazing up at him sideways through her lashes.

‘Sure it is. Go on. We’ll sing with you.’

‘I’ll be sight-reading.’ She grinned. ‘So don’t expect much.’

‘Saw you my hero, saw you my hero, saw you my hero, George?’ Amy sang, leaning forward, squinting, to better see the words and music as she played. Alex paced behind her back, conducting his motley chorus with his bow.

‘Hark, from the hills, the woodlands, and dales, (we sang)

The drums and the trumpet alarms.

Ye Gods, I give you charge of gallant hero, George

To return him unhurt to my arms.’

I was just thinking, ooooh, bad choice, when Amy’s head drooped, and her hands flew from the keyboard to her face. She rocked forward, then burst into tears and ran from the room. After a moment of stunned silence, Jack Donovan blustered, ‘What’s the matter with her?’

Alex bowed, abandoned his violin and rushed out of the room after her.