Stranger in Williamsburg Read online

  “Mr. Armstrong was up all night and will be sleeping this morning, Hester,” her aunt said without explanation. She threw Sarah a long, hard look before she swept into the dining room. Sarah felt her heart stop, then start again. Aunt Charity knew! She had seen the angry knowledge in her eyes.

  What can I do? she wondered desperately. She couldn’t sit at the breakfast table with Aunt Charity, knowing how she must feel about her. She couldn’t eat, anyway, with the huge lump in her throat. What if Uncle Ethan had been killed last night, and she had to face Aunt Charity this morning with the news that, because of Sarah’s betrayal, she had no husband? What if Sarah had to tell her three cousins that, because of her blind trust in the wrong person, they had no father?

  Sarah thought of losing her own father, and pain tightened her chest. How could she have been so stupid? If only she had never met Gabrielle! If only she had never come to Williamsburg!

  Thank God, though, Uncle Ethan wasn’t dead. He was upstairs sleeping. No thanks to her! But at least she didn’t have to live with the guilt of knowing her actions had caused his death!

  Hester was looking at her strangely. “Are you going to eat breakfast this morning, missy?” she asked sourly. “Or are you going to stand there in my way like a bump on a log?”

  Sarah stared at her blankly, knowing she had to go into that dining room, take her place at that table, and play Aunt Charity’s cool game of pretending nothing had happened until the rest of the family had eaten and they could be alone. She dreaded the moment when she knew Aunt Charity would attack her with a vengeful tongue.

  Sarah walked to the doorway and looked into the room. Tabitha, Abigail, and Megan were all passing their plates to be filled, talking quietly, as Aunt Charity required when they were allowed to talk.

  Aunt Charity sat at the end of the table, silently filling the plates. Her face was innocent of any expression at all. But when she raised her eyes to her niece standing in the doorway, Sarah saw in them such anger that, as Ma sometimes said, she felt like “a goose had walked over her grave.”

  How could she enter that room, sit at that table, and pretend nothing was wrong, while Aunt Charity’s seething hatred swirled around her? How could she sit there with Tabitha and Abigail—and especially little Megan—aware that they would soon know she had chosen to help a British spy against their own father?

  Sarah knew she simply could not do it. She turned abruptly and went back into the kitchen.

  “Where are you going, missy?” Hester growled from over by the stove, where she had set up the ironing board and was preparing to iron one of Uncle Ethan’s ruffled white shirts.

  Sarah didn’t answer. She ran down the hallway, grabbed her damp cloak, and ran out the front door and down the walk. Uncle Ethan had asked her to stay there until he returned, and she had not betrayed his trust this time. Now, she could not stay any longer.

  Sarah pushed through the gate, then stopped uncertainly. Where could she go? She could not return to the little brown house, she thought as she began to walk down Nicholson Street. But by the time she reached Waller Street, she had decided she had to see Gabrielle one more time. She had to confront her with her betrayal. She didn’t see how, but maybe, some way, Gabrielle could explain away the hurt.

  Perhaps Alistair had made her do it. She remembered his cold, pale eyes, and was sure he was capable of anything, just as Uncle Ethan said. That must be it! Sarah thought, turning down Waller Street. He had threatened Gabrielle with her life, and she had acted out of fear for her own safety.

  Sarah nearly ran up the walk to the milliner’s shop and tried the blue door. It was locked, as it had been lately. She knocked, then knocked again. “Gabrielle!” she called softly. “Are you there?” But there was no answer. She walked around the house and peered in a window. There was no sign of life.

  Sarah wished she had waited to ask Uncle Ethan what had happened last night. Had they caught Alistair? Had Gabrielle tried to escape with him and been caught? Or killed?

  She pictured the beautiful French-English woman with her grace and charm, with her gracious praise that had made Sarah feel so special. “You are like the wild cat, I think,” she had said, “and I am like the fox—wily, sly, cunning.” Had her fox-like cunning run out? Had all the excitement and gaiety that surrounded her been snuffed out like a candle? Where was Gabrielle? Surely someone could tell her!

  Sarah began to run, back up Waller and Nicholson, over to Duke of Gloucester. But the thin crowd that had braved the rain moved up and down the street, apparently unaware of Gabrielle’s plight—whatever it was—unaware of Sarah’s desperate need to know.

  In front of Chowning’s Tavern, she saw a woman wearing a pink silk dress. The hood of her cloak covered her head, but she walked with a quick, graceful step. Sarah ran, dodging people, sliding on the wet bricks. Then the woman turned, and Sarah’s hopes died. It was not Gabrielle.

  Betsy came out on the front stoop to shake out a duster. “Sarah!” she called. “I have something to tell you!”

  Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. She hurried over to the steps.

  “Seth Coler is gone!” Betsy said breathlessly. “He just up and left his apprenticeship and disappeared. But I’d wager pounds to farthings he’s gone to war! Just like I said he would!”

  “Have you heard news of the milliner whose shop is down on Waller Street?” Sarah asked, dreading the answer. But Betsy shook her head.

  “I hear they think she’s a British spy,” she said, “but I don’t know what’s happened to her. She usually spends her spare time at Christiana Campbell’s or the Raleigh. Chowning’s is too common for the likes of her!”

  “Thank you, anyway,” Sarah said dejectedly. “I…I’ll see you at church.”

  Sarah plodded back up Duke of Gloucester to John Greenhow’s store. At least I can get in out of the rain a moment, she thought wearily.

  She felt the current of excitement the moment she entered the store. People were gathered in clusters, talking excitedly. Obviously, there was some news. Sarah moved close to one group, listening to their conversation while pretending to examine the tin flutes in the wooden bin in front of her.

  “They caught him red-handed just west of the palace gardens,” one man commented.

  “I hear he had a copy of Colonel Armstrong’s map in his stocking,” another said.

  “Aye, and a list of arms stockpiles in the other,” a third added.

  “It won’t take a jury long to convict him!” the first man put in, chuckling.

  “That it won’t, and it’ll be the hangman’s noose for old Demon Devon!”

  “And that too good for him! I say they should have….”

  The men moved away toward the door, and Sarah edged next to a group of women who were over by the ribbons.

  “…knew she was no better than she ought to be, with them foreign airs and fancy clothes,” said one.

  “Well, let’s see her flounce her silks and satins now!” another added smugly.

  Sarah wondered guiltily what the women would say about her if they knew her part in it.

  “It’s a shame, though,” one said sympathetically. “She was so pretty, and so lighthearted. Now she’s locked up in that filthy place that’s not fit for a pig, much less a cultured woman like her!”

  “Well, she is a pig, or she wouldn’t be passing secrets to the British!” the first woman answered. “I say the gaol is too good for her!”

  They must be talking about Gabrielle! Sarah thought. She threw down the ribbon she was holding and pushed her way through the crowd.

  She caught a glimpse of the young clerk’s startled expression as she ran out the door.

  Chapter 16

  Sarah hurried down Nicholson Street to the public gaol. She and Tabitha and Abigail had passed the place every day as they went to Gabrielle’s for their lessons. Now Gabrielle was supposedly locked inside. But after what she had done, didn’t she deserve it?

  After the third knock, the door open
ed a crack, and the gaoler stuck his head out. Sarah had seen Peter Pelham many times, playing the organ at Bruton Parish Church, but up close he looked every one of his fifty-some years, and his blotched, red face testified to the years of heavy drinking.

  “What can I do for you, miss?” he asked, not unkindly.

  “I’d like to see Gabrielle Gordon, please, Mr. Pelham,” Sarah explained nervously. “She is here, isn’t she?”

  “Aye, I’ve got her, and that Demon Devon, too. It’s a good thing I’ve got mostly British prisoners of war in the men’s quarters now, or he’d be torn apart!” He peered at her closely. “What do you want with our lady spy?”

  Sarah paused. She hadn’t taken thought to prepare a reason for her visit. “She, uh, was our tutor, and I need to ask her a question,” she said truthfully, though her question had nothing to do with the lessons she had had at the milliner’s house.

  He studied her. “Haven’t I seen you at church with Colonel Armstrong’s family?”

  “Yes, Mr. Pelham, I’m Charity Armstrong’s niece from Kentucky,” she answered, wondering if Aunt Charity or Uncle Ethan would ever claim her again.

  The gaoler nodded, and swung the door open. “I don’t suppose it will do any harm, since she’s the only prisoner in the women’s room right now,” he said. “Follow me.”

  Sarah followed him to a closed door, which he unlocked with one of the keys on a ring that hung from the waistband of his breeches. He motioned for her to enter.

  “When you’re ready to leave, just pound on the door,” he told her.

  Sarah went through the door and stood looking around the small, dark room. The walls were brick and oozed moisture. The floor was littered with straw. The window was barred.

  She heard the door slam shut behind her and the key turn in the lock. She took a deep breath to relieve the smothery feeling she got from knowing she was shut away here inside the gaol. It didn’t help, for the air was stale and rotten-smelling.

  A slight movement in a back corner drew her attention to a figure huddled on a pile of straw, a thin blanket thrown around her shoulders.

  “Gabrielle?” she queried. In the dimness, the coppery hair looked a dull brown, and her pink silk dress was limp and bedraggled. Sarah found it hard to believe that this pitiful creature was the elegant lady she and her cousins had so admired.

  The woman turned to stare listlessly at her from dull, dark eyes. Then a small light of recognition came into them. “Sarah?” She rose stiffly, and came toward her, reaching out to embrace her.

  Instinctively, Sarah took a step back from her.

  “Ah, Cherie, you have come!” she breathed. “Can you do anything to get me out of this filthy hole? Can you plead with our uncle to help me?”

  Sarah stared at her in disbelief. Her horror at Gabrielle’s changed appearance was replaced with anger. “How do you have the nerve?” she said sharply. “After what you caused me to do to him? How can you dare to ask?”

  Gabrielle stared at her blankly, then a sad knowledge dawned in the dark eyes. She turned away. “You have a right to be angry, child,” she admitted wearily, her shoulders drooping under the dirty blanket.

  “Why, Gabrielle? Why did you use me that way? I thought you were my friend!”

  “It was the only way, cherie,” she answered, turning back to look at her, but keeping her distance. “We needed the information, and we had no other way to get it.”

  Sarah’s last hope died. “We,” she repeated. “You were a part of it all along, then? Alistair did not force you to help him? I suppose it was because of the blood you share as cousins?”

  Gabrielle seemed about to agree, then she dropped her gaze to her hands as she twisted them together in front of her. Sarah stared at the broken nails and chipped polish.

  “No, Sarah. We are no kin, Alistair and I. We have been friends since the childhood summers I spent in England with my father’s family. He lived on the next estate, and we played together whenever we got the chance. When we grew older, we fell in love. We had planned to make the marriage when this abominable war is over.”

  She held out her hands in a pleading gesture. “What has happened to him, Sarah? Have you heard? Please tell me he is not dead!”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, Mademoiselle. He is, in fact, here in this gaol, in the room where men prisoners are kept.”

  Relief flooded Gabrielle’s face. “He awaits the trial, I suppose.” Then darkness settled over her features. “They will hang him, cherie. He does not have the chance of a snowball in July!”

  For a moment, Sarah shared Gabrielle’s grief, then she hardened her heart. Alistair Devon deserved whatever the jury gave him. He was a terrible man! An enemy spy! But she had had such feelings for Gabrielle for so long, she could not help offering her some comfort. “Maybe they will send him back to England, instead,” she said.

  Gabrielle shook her head, studying her ravaged hands as though they belonged to someone else. “They will hang him,” she repeated bleakly.

  “What will they do with you?” Sarah asked, looking around the cold, damp cell with its straw pallet in the corner. She gasped as something moved in the straw, and black, beady eyes looked out at her.

  Gabrielle followed her gaze. “It is just one of the rats, cherie. They have been coming in and out all night. They come to eat the rotten food I cannot eat, I suppose, but they seem to leave me alone.”

  Sarah shuddered, fighting nausea.

  “Oh, I suppose one can get used to anything, Sarah, if one must,” she said resignedly. “It is the filth and the dampness that I find so hard to bear,” she added. “But, then, I have no choice, do I, m’amie?” She fell silent, then sighed.

  Gabrielle reached out to Sarah again, but thought better of it and dropped her hands to her sides. “I am so sorry, Sarah, for what I did to you. I cannot say that given the same circumstances I would not do it again. I will lie to you no more. But regardless, I hope that someday you will find it in your heart to forgive me. I hope you will remember only the beautiful companionship we shared, and the fondness we had for each other.”

  “Gabrielle, I could forgive you almost anything except pretending to be my friend, only to use me! I can never forgive you that, Mademoiselle, if I live to be 200 years old!”

  Sarah walked to the door and beat on it with her fists.

  “But, cherie, I was your friend. I grew so fond of you!”

  As the gaoler opened the door, Sarah glanced back to see Gabrielle slumped on the dirty straw, her hands covering her eyes. But again, she hardened her heart. Hadn’t Gabrielle used that same trick of false tears last night to persuade her to aid them in their wicked plans?

  Anger carried her into the hall behind Mr. Pelham, and out through the front door of the gaol. She didn’t even care that it had stopped raining, and a weak sun was trying to break through the pewter clouds. Her spine stiff, she walked to the street, then stopped.

  “What am I going to do?” she said aloud. She simply could not stay in the Armstrong house after her betrayal of Uncle Ethan last night. The fact that she had not meant to betray him did not cancel the awful consequences of what she had done.

  Sarah supposed she’d have to find some way to get back to Kentucky. She knew she could not travel though the wilderness alone, especially with this war going on and with the British paying the Indians for every Patriot scalp they could take. At least that’s what the clerk in John Greenhow’s had said the day he handed her Ma’s letter.

  Not wanting to pass the Armstrong house, she turned left and walked toward Waller Street. She stopped for a moment in front of the little brown house, then woodenly moved on down the street to the Capitol. She cut across the Capitol grounds, and by taking a roundabout way, came out beside Peyton Randolph’s house at the corner of Nicholson and North England, above her uncle’s property. From there, it was only a few steps to the gates of the palace gardens.

  Cold and miserable in body and spirit, Sarah made her way past the m
aze to the bank of the north end of the canal.

  Marcus was nowhere in sight, but the swans glided serenely on the smooth water below her, as though the whole world had not suddenly been turned upside down. The fat geese waddled over to see if she had brought breadcrumbs, and hissed indignantly when they found that she had not.

  Gabrielle must be hungry, she thought. And she must be cold in that damp, unheated room. I saw her shiver under the thin blanket.

  Her thoughts went back to the cozy teas she and her tutor had shared. Then she recalled her last visit to the millinery shop, when Gabrielle had given her the warm yellow robe to wear and hot chocolate to sip while her clothes dried by the fire.

  “I don’t care!” she said aloud. “She buttered me up like a piece of bread for one of her teas! And all to persuade me to believe that what I did for her and Alistair was right. Nothing is too bad for her and her fellow spy!”

  Sarah knew, though, that it wasn’t the spying that upset her so. It was the betrayal of her trust that twisted inside her like a knife. And not only had Gabrielle betrayed their friendship, she had caused Sarah to betray her own family.

  “How could I have been so stupid?” she said aloud. “How could I have let her talk me into taking Uncle Ethan’s papers?”

  Again, the knife twisted, this time wielded by guilt and shame. There was no way that she could make up for what she had done, no way to pay for her awful sin against her family. There was no way to get rid of this terrible guilt. But how could she live with it?

  Suddenly, she could bear it no longer, and she threw herself on the damp ground, clutching her stomach where the guilt seemed to lodge, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Chapter 17

  “Mercy me, Miss Sarah! What is it? Are you hurt?” Marcus cried. He threw down a basket of apples he was gathering and ran to her.

  Unable to stop sobbing, she could not answer him.

  He took her by the arms and tried to raise her from the ground. “Miss Sarah, are you hurt?” he repeated. “What happened?”