The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

The next morning I awoke to the emotional toll of knowing I must, that night, dine with the woman I had always loved and do so alongside her husband, a man whose improprieties had embroiled not only his own family but perhaps the nation itself.

By the time I awoke, a servant of the Pearson house had already delivered a note to the effect that I was expected at seven of the clock. I had come, in my mind, to see this evening as an opportunity to answer many outstanding questions, so there was little for me to do that afternoon. I may have fallen, therefore, into some old habits, and I spent much of the day in a few comfortable taverns, and yet I did not arrive to the Pearson house more than half an hour late. It had warmed a little and snow had begun to melt, so I should not be ashamed to own I slipped on my journey and was damp when I arrived, but as most of the damage was upon my greatcoat, I presumed my hosts would not know of it.

This house-or mansion, I might style it-was on Fourth Street, just north of Spruce on a fashionable block. The exterior was of typical Philadelphia redbrick, remarkable only for its well-appointed bushes, shrubs, and trees, the true beauty of the gardens not being visible in the winter or after dark. Inside, however, I was treated to the finest of floor coverings in imitation of exquisite white tile, a handsome silver-blue wallpaper-cunningly textured to evoke the impression of the water of a nearly still lake-and numerous portraits, many of the illustrious house of Pearson. A lower servant of some sort, a kitchen boy perhaps, offered to clean my shoes, for, unknown to me, I had traversed through horse leavings. After my grooming was so tended and I was dusted off like a freshly sculpted block of stone, I was at last permitted to ascend the stairs to the inner sanctum of excellent company.

I was shown into a large sitting room where Mr. and Mrs. Pearson sat next to one another on a settee. The gentleman of the house held himself stiffly and formally and waved his oversized hand about as he held forth on some matter of trade. His thinning white hair was wild and unkempt, and though his tone was voluble, his eyes appeared dim and hollow. Next to him, his wife wore a dress of sea green, with a flattering cut. She looked at me as I entered, turned away, then looked up once more and rose.

“Why do you rise?” asked her good husband. “I am speaking and you rise, as though no words come out of my mouth.”

“Our guest has arrived,” she answered, her voice flat.

“Our guest? Oh, Saunders. Hide the state secrets-ha-ha. He has kept us long enough, hasn’t he?” Pearson at last rose to greet me and I shook one of his big hands. His grip was loose and absent, as though he could not remember why he took my hand or what he was meant to do with it.

Also rising was the widow Maycott, who had been sitting in a high-backed chair. She wore a much plainer dress than Mrs. Pearson, ivory in color, high-necked and remarkably charming. Upon another settee was a couple of some fifty years apiece, handsomely if uninterestingly appointed. The man was a bit on the short side, and plagued with that curious sort of fat which accumulates only in the belly, the rest of his body remaining gaunt, so that he appeared great with child. His gray-haired lady, attired in a modest black gown, had pleasing features and must have been acceptably comely some thirty years earlier; probably not so, ten years later.

“Captain Saunders, I am happy to see you once more,” said Mrs. Pearson, her face the very mask of control. I suppose she had a great deal of practice.

“See him at last, you mean,” said Pearson. “It is a dreadful thing to make a man wait for his own supper.”

I bowed. “I do apologize, sir. I was detained upon government business.” I told this lie not only to excuse myself but to excite a general curiosity.

“You must tell us of it,” said Mrs. Maycott.

“What government business could you be about?” asked Pearson. “The kind with beer and rum by the smell of it. In any case, I would think the government is by now done with you.”

Mrs. Pearson, blushing charmingly, made some sort of conversation-changing spouse-scolding noise in the back of her throat. “Mrs. Maycott tells me you already know each other and was the one who invited you here tonight, so I need not introduce you.”

“I have indeed already had that pleasure,” I said, bowing to the lady.

Did I detect a flash of jealousy upon Cynthia’s pretty face? She turned to the older couple. “May I present Mr. Anders Vanderveer and Mrs. Vanderveer, Mr. Pearson’s sister.”

After making the necessary introductory remarks to the good man and wife, in whom I had no interest, I took a chair matching Mrs. Maycott’s, separated from hers only by a small table of dark wood and oriental design. A servant arrived to present me with a glass of wine, and I accepted most gratefully. And there I sat, Mrs. Maycott smiling upon me, her red lips turned up with delightful impishness, and Mrs. Pearson, looking away.

“You work for our government, then?” asked Mr. Vanderveer, in a deep and booming voice. “Do you know the President?”

“I knew him during the war,” I said. “Currently I am engaged in a project for Hamilton at Treasury, however, and have no contact with General Washington. I am led to believe, Mr. Pearson, that you have had some contact of late with Hamilton, or perhaps his men?”

“Not at all,” he said. “Why should I?”

“I’m sure I cannot speculate. I hoped you would enlighten me.”

Mrs. Vanderveer was still, in her mind, upon the topic of Washington, and had no interest in my sparring with her brother. “Do you not long to see him again?” she asked, her voice full of the worship only Washington could inspire among those who had never met him-and probably half who had.

I bowed from my seat. “Those of us who serve are not permitted to choose the terms upon which we serve.”

“How they fuss,” said Mr. Pearson. “I dine with Washington two times a month, and I may ask him to pass the salt as well as any man. He is like me, no better and, I pray, no worse.”

“How is it that you are on such good terms with the President?” asked Mrs. Maycott. Her lips were upturned and her eyes sparkled.

“How should I not know the President?” Pearson returned.

“I do not know exactly how to respond,” she said. “I only meant that, from my understanding, his inner circle is composed of government men, men he served with, and gentlemen from Virginia. It is my understanding you are none of those.”

“I am from this city, madam,” said Mr. Pearson in a loud voice. “A man need not be from Virginia to associate in the best company, and I might say that of Washington as well as he might say it of me. As for serving in the government, it is meaningless. Anyone may do so, as I am certain this fellow will inform you.” He gestured toward me. “I dine with Washington because we are both men of consequence, so we must dine together or with inferiors.”

Pearson spun his head so quickly I thought it might fly off entirely and pointed one of the stubby fingers on his oversized hand toward his brother-in-law, jabbing back and forth like the blade of an assassin. “What is it you say?”

“I said nothing, Jack,” the gentleman answered, his voice a study of calm and reason.

“I heard you. You said Bingham, you rascal.”

“I said no such thing,” answered Vanderveer.

“May not a man say Bingham now and again?” I inquired.

Pearson was too far gone in some sort of fit to even hear me. “You suggest I dine with Washington because of my wife’s friendship with Mrs. Bingham.”

“Really, Jack,” said the man’s sister. “It hardly matters to us. We think it very grand that you know such people as the Binghams. We would never belittle such a connection.”

Mr. Pearson now turned to Mrs. Maycott and attempted something like a smile. Perhaps at some earlier time in his life, before he allowed a pretty wife and fine house to convince him he was the emperor of the universe, he might have charmed a woman or two with that smile. If the day had been foggy or the candles dim, anything was possible. Now he appeared grotesque, a mask of human skin atop something diabolical and unsavory. Yet he clearly believed himself to be the embodiment of charm and sought to shore up his position by bringing to his side the only unattached woman in the room, always the jewel of greatest value in any gathering.

“Do you hear, Mrs. Maycott?” he said, his voice now a calm, unctuous vibrato. “‘Such people as the Binghams,’ says my sister, as though she, the wife of a lawyer of but indifferent reputation, can sit in judgment of the first families of the nation.”

“I think,” answered the good lady, “that in this republic, there is no one family that may be elevated above another, as all are equal before the law.”

From another, less charming, set of lips I supposed this comment might have launched an entirely new course of outraged oratory, but not so now. He merely smiled his death’s-head smile. “A good joke, Mrs. Maycott. A very good joke.”

“I should like to hear more of Captain Saunders’s connection with Colonel Hamilton,” said the widow, in a neutral tone.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Vanderveer, a drowning woman wrapping her arms about a piece of conversational flotsam. “Such exciting times there, I should think, with the bank and such.”

Mr. Pearson would not be soothed. “Yes, yes, you must always flatter,” he said to his sister. “You flatter me, you flatter my guests. What shall it get you?”

“I believe I was merely making an inquiry,” said the lady.

“You’ve never merely done anything in your life, Flora, so let us not pretend otherwise.” He turned to me. “Shall I tell you what it means to serve Hamilton at Treasury?”

“You may attempt to do so,” I answered, “but as I’m the one who is so engaged, and as you are not, I cannot imagine you have much to say that will enlighten me.”

Mrs. Pearson laughed and then covered her mouth. Her husband grimaced, as though this mirth had caused him physical pain. He then turned back to me. “ Hamilton is a worm. Did you know that?”

“Once I cut him in twain,” I said, and then leaned forward to whisper theatrically, “and now there are two of him.”

“He is a worm, but he is a worm who does the businessmen’s bidding. His bank is a ruse to trick the nation into funding a scheme to make Hamilton and his friends richer, but you may be sure I’ve taken advantage of it. Because of the bank, there is an excess of credit, and that means a man of significant commerce, such as myself, can find the money to invest in government issues when before it might have been difficult. I do not like Hamilton, but I will use him. What do you say to that?”

I sipped my wine. “It’s all very interesting, but it does not precisely tell me what it means to serve Hamilton at Treasury.”

“My partner in business once worked for Treasury, and he informed me in no uncertain terms that Hamilton is a prig with no imagination and no spirit.”

I sat up straight. “Who is your partner?”

“William Duer. I thought all men knew that-or all men of substance, I suppose. Once you are drummed out of the army, you no longer hear the same things as the rest of us.”

“Jack,” said Cynthia.

“I say no more than the truth,” Pearson said. “If he does not like the truth, let him stop up his ears. We have no shortage of candles. Where is the footman? Nate, bring us some soft wax for this gentleman’s ears. He wants them stopped at once.”

I closed my eyes and turned away, trying to shut out the noise, though I would not resort to candle wax to effect this aim. Pearson’s words did not trouble me, not in the way he intended. If he wished to rub salt in the old wound, I could endure it. I turned not in pain but because I needed to think. He believed Duer was his partner, and yet the communication I had intercepted informed me, in no uncertain terms, that Duer was his enemy. And Duer had, most clearly, attempted to avoid being seen by Pearson at the Bingham house.

I understood then that there would be no answers to these questions without speaking to Duer, and Duer had returned to New York. I would have to follow him there. Cynthia was here, and Cynthia needed me, but I could no longer avoid the simple truth that I must go to New York to protect her.

I had turned away from Pearson and his harsh words, and then I had set my face in determination. It must have looked like pain, for I felt a hand upon mine, and when I looked up Mrs. Maycott was smiling at me with warm sympathy. Who was this good woman, I wondered, to feel so strongly for a stranger in what she thought was distress?

I cast her a glance and I smiled, hoping to show she had misunderstood my mood. Then I turned to Pearson. “What is the nature of your business with Duer?”

“What concern is that of yours?”

“I believe he is inquiring to be polite,” Mr. Vanderveer said.

“I believe you are a fool,” Pearson answered. “Well, Saunders, why do you wish to know? Did Hamilton send you to ask me? The Jew gets nothing, so he sends a drunken traitor, is that it?”

“I was invited here,” I answered. “ Hamilton did not send me, and this gentleman is correct. I merely make conversation.”

“Make it about something else,” Pearson said. “My business with Duer is private. We are engaged in a new venture, and we play it quietly. That is all you need to know.”

It was not all I needed to know, but it was something. The entire world speculated on Pearson’s declining capacity. What were the chances that William Duer would trust him with a secret venture?

Any further questions were forestalled by the arrival of a plump, buxom, and not unattractive serving girl. She informed us we might remove ourselves to the dining room. I was pleased to find myself next to Mrs. Maycott and not next to Mrs. Pearson, for I should have found that awkward. That lady did her best to avoid looking in my direction the entire evening, and though Mrs. Maycott made much polite conversation with me, we said nothing of further import-no matters of government or Washington or even accusations of malicious flattery. Mr. Pearson was the sole arbiter of conversational topics, and he chose to speak only of the excellence of his own food, the comfort of his dining chairs, and then, toward the end of the evening, the gripping narrative of his rise from son of the owner of an importation business to the exalted heights of being himself the owner of an importation business. Mrs. Maycott and Mrs. Vanderveer both gamely attempted to join the conversation, but Mr. Pearson would not have it. As for the lady of the house, she had, I could only presume, long ago abandoned all efforts at civil discourse.

I therefore endured pea soup, boiled potatoes with bacon, roasted pig, chicken in wine sauce, roasted apples in sugar, and a whipped syllabub-all of it without a single pleasant exchange. The wine, however, flowed. Mr. Pearson seemed unduly interested in his wife’s consumption, commenting rather loudly when she finished her first glass and accepted a second, which went sadly unfinished. More than once, our eyes met over the embrace of this communion. She looked away. I did not. Mr. Pearson made the occasional unkind observation, but it altered neither conversation nor behavior. When Mrs. Pearson accepted a glass of port with her baked apples, her husband began such a paroxysm of tuts and clucks he sounded like a henhouse at feeding time.

“Have you not had enough to drink already?” he asked.

She now met her husband’s eye, and her expression was dark and foreboding. Perhaps she had indeed had too much wine. “I believe I am the best judge.”

“I think, of all possible judges, you may not be the best. The wife of one of the first men of the city ought to conduct herself with more sobriety. For all the world it appears as though you and that rascal are engaged in a tavern drinking contest.” The reader may be surprised to learn that he gestured toward me when he spoke.

“Really, Jack,” began Mr. Vanderveer.

“I’d advise you not to interfere,” said Pearson. “It is a foolish thing for a man to wedge himself between another and his wife. In addition, that great belly of yours tells us you know nothing of when a person has had enough. Another baked apple, Anders?”

“There is no reason to be cruel,” said Mrs. Vanderveer quietly.

“What is this? An entire sentence empty of flattery? All the toad-eating in the world shan’t help you in the matter of my will, so be easy on it.”

Mr. Vanderveer slapped the table. “I do object. That has never been our intention.”

Pearson waved a hand in the air. “Yes, yes, don’t be tedious.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Well, it has been very good company. Now I am tired, and I must to bed. Good night to the lot of you.” With that he left the room, leaving the rest of us in stunned silence and the unfortunate Mrs. Pearson with the responsibility of determining what must come next.

I, however, was not yet ready for the festivities to end, and I rose from my chair, excused myself to the company, and hurried after my host. He had stepped only a few paces out of the room and was on the landing at the stairwell, where only a single candle illuminated the gloom, when I caught him. He contemplated the darkness and had turned to call for a servant, when he saw me instead.

“What, Saunders? What is this?”

“I wanted to speak with you in private for a moment, if you will.”

“I’ve nothing to say to you. I ought never to have had you in my home. I shall speak to Mrs. Maycott about what manner of person she claims as a friend.”

I stared at him, his face-aging and on the very cusp of becoming elderly-in the dim light, the yellow flame reflecting off the yellow teeth. He was frightened to be alone with me.

All I’d had to drink rushed about in my head, and I forced myself to focus. “I want to know about you and Duer.”

“I won’t speak of it. I am to say nothing, and I shall say nothing.”

“What of your properties in Southwark? You’ve lost them or sold them. And then there is the matter of your loan from the Bank of the United States. I understand your payments are past due, and you won’t even appear when summoned. Are you unprepared to talk about that?”

Pearson’s face twisted into a grotesquerie of hatred. All signs of the rugged man, the handsome man he had once been, were blasted away by an explosion of fury that altered, in a single flash, the landscape of his countenance.

“Do you mean to have your revenge, Saunders? All those years ago, you fled Philadelphia and I happened to marry the girl you once set your cap at. So now you must hound me?”

I could not show how bitter his words made me, and I would not dismiss my feelings for Cynthia-not for his satisfaction or my advantage. I said nothing.

Pearson seemed to grow calmer. He said, “Mrs. Maycott seems fond enough of you, and she’s an excellent widow to catch. Put your mind to that, if you dare, and leave me and my family alone. You are not welcome inside this house again-or any longer, for that matter. I go to bed, but I shall tell my servants that if you are not gone in a quarter hour you are to be removed forcibly.”

Pearson now turned from me and ascended the dark staircase. He did not pause to say good night, which was rude.

W hen I returned to the sitting room, Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveer were rising and thanking their hostess for an enjoyable evening. Perhaps it was a different, earlier evening they mentioned. They spoke as though the meal had come to a natural and pleasant conclusion. They spoke of the lateness of the hour, the goodness of the food. They thanked the hostess and departed.

Then it was Mrs. Maycott’s turn. “You are a lovely hostess, Cynthia. Thank you so much for having me.”

“Joan.” She cast her eyes downward.

Mrs. Maycott raised a finger to her lips. “It need not be said. We are friends. I shall show myself out. I hope you have no objection if I first speak to your cook. That chicken was marvelous, and I would learn how she does it.”

“Of course.”

The two ladies embraced, and Mrs. Maycott allowed me to take her hand, which was very smooth for the time of year. Then she was gone, leaving me alone with Mrs. Pearson. We were both standing, looking to where Mrs. Maycott had gone, not quite sure what to say.

“She is charming,” said Mrs. Pearson. “And they say her husband left her wealthy.”

“It is good to know that husbands may be good for something,” I said. “Such as leaving money to their wives.”

I feared I may have exceeded my limits, but Mrs. Pearson burst out into a shrill, girlish laugh such as I never thought to hear again.

“Captain Ethan Saunders, let us take a drink in the library.”

“Mrs. Cynthia Pearson, your husband has informed me that if I am not gone in a quarter hour, I shall be tossed out by the servants.”

She smiled at me. “I’ve learned a thing or two after a decade of marriage. The servants are loyal to me. And the library is well removed far from Mr. Pearson’s room. There is no better place to go in the house to avoid his notice.”

“Then, Mrs. Pearson, let us go by all means. I do love a good library.”

Her pretty plump girl led us to the library, where a fire already burned. The girl lit a number of candles and provided us with an excellent bottle of port. She was good enough to pour a glass for each of us, and equally good enough to disappear afterward.

Cynthia let out a sigh and sat in a high-backed chair across from me and, just like that, something changed. That one small gesture did it. It was as though a master carpenter presented two pieces of wood and they fit together with such preordained snugness that they clicked upon joining. So it was that Cynthia, in her good-natured and indulgent sigh, in her uncomplicated slide into a high-backed chair, put me at my ease. I was not an unwelcome intrusion from her past but something far more pleasing.

“It was wrong of Joan to invite you here tonight,” Cynthia said, studying her port. “I think she is mischievous.”

“Such old friends as we are might be in the same room without mischief.”

“It was not what I meant. I wish you had not seen Mr. Pearson in one of his moods.”

“I understand, and yet I have seen it. Mrs. Pearson, you asked for my help before. You asked me to find your husband because you believed yourself and your children in danger. I cannot believe you wished me to find him for his own sake.”

“You mustn’t say that,” she said. “We cannot be together if you speak to me so.”

“Then I won’t speak to you so. It will be all business. I never mind a deception or two if it is to cover one’s own tracks, but you must own up if discovered. Did you ask Mrs. Maycott to invite me here and to do it publicly at the party so all could see it was not of your doing?”

She blushed deeply. “How did you know?”

“Only a feeling. It was a clever maneuver.”

“Thank you. I did learn a thing or two from you during the war. I always loved to hear of your tricks and schemes, and at last I had a chance to put into place a little scheme of my own.”

“To what end?” I asked. “I would like to flatter myself that you wished no more than my company, but I cannot think it so. Can you not tell me more of what you know?”

“It began some six weeks ago,” she said. “Mr. Pearson has never been the most even-tempered of men, but he grew much more irritable than usual. And he began to have around the house a very uncouth sort of man, very western-looking, with a scar upon his face.”

“I know who he is. He works for William Duer. Have you met Duer?”

“Of course. Several times. Philadelphia society, you know. When he worked for Hamilton and lived in Philadelphia, our families came into contact often.”

“When did your husband start doing business with Duer?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“And the reason you contacted me?”

“When Mr. Pearson disappeared last week, I hardly thought anything of it. That man Lavien came around, wishing to ask questions. He’d been around before, and Mr. Pearson had refused to speak to him. Now he wished to know where my husband was and what I knew of his business. It was uncomfortable, but nothing more. Then a man calling himself Reynolds-a tall bald man with an Irish accent-came to see me. He said I must tell Lavien nothing, and if I wished to preserve the safety of my husband, my children, and myself, I would not trouble myself with things that did not concern me.”

The tall Irishman. Yet another man pretending to be Reynolds and making himself conspicuously my enemy. I had no notion of what it could mean, but it made me uneasy. “And that was when you sought me out?” I asked.

She nodded. “I would hardly have concerned myself about Mr. Pearson’s absence. It was not his first, after all. But once the matter involved my children, I did not know what to do, and yours was the only name I could think of. I am sorry to have troubled you with all this.”

“You must not say so. It is my duty to help you.”

“And,” she said, “it is good to see you after so many years.”

It was at this point that the door opened and Mr. Pearson entered the room, red in the face, red in the eyes. His vest was unbuttoned and his shirt disheveled, and his mouth was twisted into a sneer. In one hand he held a silver-handled horsewhip. In the other, he dragged along a boy-perhaps eight or nine years of age-by the collar of a dull cotton sleeping gown. The boy’s hair was mussed from sleep, but he was wide awake. And terrified.

The boy looked very much like Cynthia, with his fair hair and even features and a nose the image of hers. He looked like Pearson too, particularly in the eyes, though his were red with fear and confusion, not his father’s diabolical mania.

Mrs. Pearson stood. “Jeremy,” she said.

“Mama,” he said, very softly, seeming both tired and terrified.

“I told you to leave,” Pearson hissed at me.

I rose to my feet slowly, careful to observe everything with crisp clarity. I saw the whip in Pearson’s hand, I saw the fear in the boy’s eyes, I saw the faded burn mark on the boy’s wrist, and the matching scar on his mother’s. Someone was clearly fond of burning wrists.

“I shall leave the moment I know all is in order here.”

“The ordering of my house is not your concern. My whore of a wife has bewitched the servants. They cannot confront you, for all are injured or frightened or unable to be found. I have therefore taken the trouble to awaken the boy. I shan’t threaten to hurt you, Saunders, since I hear you are too pathetic to mind a sound beating, but the child is another matter. If you are not gone from this house in one minute, I shall whip the boy bloody.”

“He is your son,” I whispered.

“And so I may do as I like.”

Cynthia was pale and trembling, and she held out her hands ever so slightly, from stiff vertical arms. Tears fell down her cheek. She bit her lip. I thought she must be a madwoman by now, gone into some lunatic maternal world of fear for her child, but she looked at me, and when she spoke, her voice was steady and strong and rational. “You must go.” The last word came out smooth and easy, not a command, as in telling me I must leave at once, but as a qualifier. I must leave in this particular instance. The future was another matter.

“Well,” I said to Pearson, “don’t mutilate your heir on my account. I’ve things to do, you know, taverns to visit. The life of a drunkard traitor. Very busy.”

“See that you do busy yourself with your wasted life,” said Pearson. “You were far better off vomiting in alleys than troubling yourself in the affairs of gentlemen. You are too unrefined to travel in the circles you covet.”

“It is interesting you should say that,” I answered, “for when I spoke of that very topic to Miss Emily Fiddler-I mean the aunt, of course, not the niece, for there is no talking to that one, as I need not tell you. In any event, do you know what your good friend Miss Fiddler mentioned to me about the refined circles in which you yourself-”

I made it no further, for Pearson grabbed his son’s tousled hair and yanked hard and mercilessly. The boy let out a horrible cry of pain, and silent tears, to match his mother’s, poured down his face. His face then turned dark and angry, a juvenile reflection of his father’s, but there was more there too. A silent resolve to endure his suffering in silence.

“You will leave my house!” Pearson did not cry or shout or bellow. He screamed. It was the voice of lunacy, of a man who has no sense of proportion or propriety, and it terrified me, for I had no alternative but to abandon these innocents to his insanity.

Then came another voice.

“I am so sorry. I did not mean to intrude.”

We all stood, suspended in time for a moment, as though this mad tableau were something deeply private and personal that had been exposed. The voice had come from the doorway, but it was no servant’s voice. I turned to look at the figure, pretty and perfectly composed, her red lips pursed in the most wicked of smiles, as though she knew exactly what she saw, exactly what she did. No argument, no violence, no reason could have diffused Pearson’s rage. But shame was another matter. She understood the power of shame and wielded it like the whip in Pearson’s hand. It was the widow Joan Maycott.

“I am so sorry to trouble you,” said Mrs. Maycott, now acting as though she had ventured into nothing more troubling than a casual acting out of a scene from a Jacobean revenge play. “I spent rather more time with the cook than I had intended, and upon hearing voices I thought I would take my leave once more.”

Pearson muttered something that might have been “Yes, yes, very good,” or something to that effect. Then he let go of his son’s hair.

“Well, then, I go. Captain Saunders, I have a coach outside, if you require transport. It is considerably colder than it was earlier.”

I looked over at Cynthia, who offered me the slightest of nods. She knew her husband better than ever I could, and I would have to trust her as to whether my absence or presence would offer her greater security. For the moment, she seemed to believe herself best served by my departure.

I stepped forward, passed Pearson and his poor, terrified child, and stood by Mrs. Maycott. Then I turned around once more. “One of these uncooperative servants you mentioned will give me my coat and hat, I trust.”

“At the door,” Pearson hissed, a voice like air escaping a bladder.

I hardly cared about my coat and hat-but I had turned to take one last measure of Mrs. Pearson. Her husband was facing me and could not see her face, could not see her red lips as she silently mouthed her parting words: Help me.

O nce outside, I saw that it had, indeed, grown brutally cold during my time in the Pearson house. I was used to the cold, and it was not such a long walk to my rooms, but I could hardly refuse the offer from Mrs. Maycott. I thanked her once more and helped her into the coach, and we began to ride through the empty night streets, populated only by the watch and drunks and whores and, mysteriously, a man driving a small group of goats, possibly not his own. I was not entirely certain what to say, but Mrs. Maycott saved me from awkwardness.

“I do not envy you,” she said, “being caught in the storm of Mr. Pearson’s fury. I have heard more than once from Mrs. Pearson of his temper, but I never before witnessed it.”

“Nor I. I wish I never had, for I know not what I can do.”

“I have no doubt you will do what you must.”

“And what is that?”

“You cannot leave that lady and her children at the hands of that beast.”

“There is nothing I can do for her. I can offer her no refuge, and she would not take it were I capable. Imagine the damage to her reputation. No one will care what Pearson has done, only that his wife has left him.”

To this she said nothing, as though I were too foolish to engage seriously.

I thought it a good idea to raise another subject. “You mentioned the other night that you know Duer. Do you understand the nature of his business connections to Pearson?”

“No, but I do not know him well. It is, however, possible that it may have something to do with the Million Bank. That is one of Duer’s new ventures, and it takes up much of his time at present.”

“The Million Bank. Do you mean Pearson is going to invest in it?”

“Very likely,” said Mrs. Maycott.

“So he will take the money he borrowed from the Bank of the United States to help launch a rival bank?”

“It is possible,” she said. “Why do you care? You said before that you work for Hamilton, but I know that’s not true. You were merely attempting to rouse Mr. Pearson. And yet I cannot help but wonder if you are a supporter of Hamilton and his bank.”

“You sound so astonished. Would it trouble you if I were?”

“We live in astonishing times,” she said, and her tone suggested she was not answering my question at all, but one she wished I had asked. “We have witnessed the most remarkable revolution the world has ever known, and the establishment of a republican government that has the chance to be the glory of mankind. How can I not be troubled by something that threatens to undermine our national good?”

“You will forgive me if I suspect your interest runs deeper than mere admiration for the cause of the nation.”

“Then you are mistaken. I care about nothing so deeply as the nation. It is for that reason I am suspicious of Hamilton, who, I believe, does not love republican government. I believe he favors a British system, one of monarchy and corruption.”

“I have heard such things before, and while I do not doubt that Hamilton is overly fond of the British system, I have seen no evidence that this fondness represents a threat to ours.”

“This government was formed as a means of confederating the several states,” she said, “but Hamilton uses his influence to strengthen the federal seat at every turn. States must now bow before their masters in Philadelphia.”

Here was a much different conversation than that which I would have chosen. I could not yet guess what Mrs. Maycott was, nor how to measure her interest in these things. I believed she knew something, but I did not see the value of rehashing the debate from several years past on the validity of the new Constitution “Yes, this is the old anti-Federalist argument, and I know well its merits, but only time can tell which side is correct, and I am disinclined to rail against the federal government until it has tried the experiment. The anti-Federalists like to rage against the danger of centralized power, but I’ve seen no evidence of any harm coming from it.”

“What say you then to Hamilton ’s whiskey excise, which has unduly oppressed poor farmers, forcing them into debt and ruin that he might fund his speculative projects?”

The whiskey excise again. “I wish you would speak plainly. What is this to you?”

“I am a patriot. That is all you need to know. I love my country, and I know you do. I do not think Hamilton does. I only ask that you be open to that possibility.”

I though of Mr. Reynolds as she said this, and Hamilton ’s secretive dealings with him. Hamilton was not all he seemed, that much was certain, but I did not believe him to be the enemy of the nation that the Jeffersonians-and apparently Mrs. Maycott-painted him. “I am open to all possibilities,” I said at last.

“That is why I trust you. Oh, here we are at your house.”

How convenient-particularly as I had not told her where I lived.

I opened the door on my side of the coach. “I thank you for the ride, but I must say something. I can’t guess the nature of your involvement in these matters, and I do not expect you to tell me. I can only say that if you know anything of import, I hope you will let me know.”

She smiled at me, the glowing glory of her lips illuminated by the streetlight. “You must not suspect me of all people, Captain Saunders. I believe that as of this moment I am the best friend you have.”