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“I do not want her involved in this mess any further than she already is.”
“Then why did you invite her to dine with Genet?”
“I do not know. It was only that I wanted her to see that Philadelphia is civilized. I had no idea she would go on the attack.”
“What were you expecting, Daniel?”
“That Genet would be distracted enough by Nancy to ignore us.”
“He was certainly that, but you might have guessed from her performance on the docks that Nancy would not simply sit back and be an object of admiration.”
“But that was an extraordinary happening—an adventure for her. I thought that she would behave herself at an ordinary dinner.”
“I have a better reading of her character than that.”
“I had assumed she had some company manners.”
“Admit it, Daniel—you miscalculated. Consequently you ended by dragging her into a highly charged political situation.”
“Dragging her? There was no way on earth to stop her.”
“You underestimated her, Daniel,” Trueblood said, wagging a finger at him.
Daniel sighed and ceased his distracted packing to sit on the bed. “Yes, I know that now.”
“If you intend to stay in this line of work, with me assisting you, Nancy could be very helpful to us, if one of us were to marry her.”
“If you take advantage of my absence to get in her good graces—” Daniel rose to shout accusingly at his brother.
“I was going to offer to go to Pittsburgh in your stead,” Trueblood interrupted.
“No. It is my job. I should not even have let you carry that packet.”
“I was thinking of your wound.”
“A scratch. Besides, you get lost going across town. If you missed one river you would overshoot the city entirely.”
Trueblood lay back and put his hands under his head. “She reminds me a bit of the Loyalist lady. What do you think?”
“Who? Oh.” Daniel thought for a moment, his outraged expression softening to one of abstraction. “No, not at all.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_7d52851d-c92f-560e-b6dc-24225867a851)
Trueblood and Nancy came in the kitchen entrance to Mrs. Cook’s, Nancy carrying her basketful of lemons and packets from the apothecary shop, and Trueblood burdened with parcels from the butcher’s.
“I thought this was supposed to be a free country where a person could speak her mind,” Nancy argued. She plunked the basket on the table, tore at the ribbons on her bonnet and tossed the headgear carelessly aside.
“Not on the public street and not in front of a crowd sympathetic to Genet. Had I not been with you, I do not know what would have happened to you,” Trueblood returned.
Mrs. Cook held her finger to her lips, warning them that the ill maids were asleep.
“It is stupid, this worship for a man who is no better than a pirate himself. Fitting up privateers, indeed!” Nancy whispered urgently.
“I cannot like the way you speak out in public against Genet, not with this French mania that has seized the people of Philadelphia. Washington himself is not safe from them.”
“I give him a lot of credit for not fleeing the city,” Mrs. Cook said, wagging her head as she stirred a kettle on the huge iron crane overhanging the fire.
“Were he to do so the government itself might fall,” Trueblood said.
“Washington has the courage to stand his ground,” Nancy declared as she removed a kettle of steaming water from one of the hearth trivets.
“He is the president. It is his job to take abuse.”
“Should I rather lie and pretend to favor this stupid talk of war with England?”
“Nancy, dear,” Mrs. Cook interjected, trying to mediate. “Are you sure you do not feel this way because you have so lately come from England?”
“Well, of course, I still have loyalties to England. That is no small part of my abhorrence for the present insanity. But looking at it objectively, it is stupid for a country to be drawn into a conflict where no offense has been given to it and there is nothing to be gained from fighting.”
“Hold whatever views you like.” Trueblood shook his finger at her. “Simply do not speak of them in the street.”
Nancy shrugged and began to unload her basket. She neither wished to argue with Trueblood nor discomfit him, but she had a certain contempt for his powerless state where she was concerned. If Daniel had caught her taunting a mob of street rabble he would have…What? She contemplated the prospect of him tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her home, and was disturbed that the fantasy held so much appeal for her.
“Nancy, why are you so quiet?” Trueblood asked with foreboding.
“There is no point in talking to you while you are angry,” she said, measuring some herbs into the teapot and adding hot water.
“I am not angry with you. I am afraid for you.”
“I would not concern myself if I were you. If things go on as they have been, this Philadelphia rabble will succumb to a force more powerful than France, England and America combined.”
“Yes, the yellow fever is getting worse by the day,” Mrs. Cook agreed.
“Another reason you should keep to the house, since you are unwilling to take refuge outside the city,” Trueblood argued.
“Not if there is work to be done here.”
“Daniel would be extremely displeased.”
“What has Daniel to say in the matter?” she asked with a pretense of coldness as she began to slice the lemons.
“He left me with the admonition to take care of you.”
“I should not be your responsibility, either.”
“Nevertheless—”
“Stir this, Trueblood,” Mrs. Cook commanded as she went to check on the invalids.
Trueblood obeyed distractedly. “Nevertheless, Daniel asked it of me and I have never failed him.”
“Really? Never?”
Trueblood thought for a moment, then turned an irritated gaze upon her. “Nancy, do not try to distract me.”
“Where do you suppose he -is now?” Nancy asked aloud. As often as she posed the question to Mrs. Cook, the kitchen maids or even the wall, Trueblood never failed to answer if he was within hearing.
“He has been gone a month. Most likely he is on his way back by now.”
“You say he made it there and back in as little as a month?” Nancy asked, as though Daniel’s arrival put a time limit on how long she had to cure the yellow-fever epidemic.
“And never more than six weeks.”
She sat down on the kitchen stool and stared wistfully out the window. “Is it a very dangerous trip?”
“Not anymore.”
“I know I should not worry about him. How many times has he made the trip?”
“Not more than fifty. Whereas your father has never done it before. Here he has gone off with Dupree, and you have never asked after his safety.” Nancy turned and smiled at him. “What an unnatural daughter I am.”
“If we are speaking of unnatural, Riley wrests you from your home, dumps you on a foreign shore and leaves you to fend for yourself, and with precious little money, is my guess.”
“Oh, I have some of my own. Uncle gave me all the gold and silver coin he had by him. He reckoned it would be enough to buy my passage home if I should need to.”
“In other words he had your father’s measure. I hope you keep it in a safe place.”
“It is sewn into the hem of my best petticoat.”
“Good idea.”
“I got it from a soldier’s wife—the idea, not the petticoat. I have read over all your books again,” she said, pulling a volume across the table to her, “and there is nothing here to help with this yellow fever.”
“It would appear they either survive it or not.”
“Yes, and that there is precious little we can do.”
“So I have concluded.”
“If I should get the fever, Trueblood, I don’t wish to be bled. That is not the answer.”
“I will not let the leeches get you, Nancy girl. I still wish you would let me take you to Champfreys, in Maryland. My mother and sister would love to have you, and it would guarantee that Daniel would go home.”
“How could I leave Mrs. Cook in such a fix, with both her girls down with the fever?”
“Prudence is well nigh over it.”
“But not much use yet. If she overdoes it now, she may have a relapse, and Tibby is still in danger. Why in the summer, Trueblood?”
“What?”
“The fever. Why only in the summer?”
“Bad air from the swamps.”
“Why do we not all get it, then?”
“That may come.”
Nancy pushed the book shut in defeat, but the cover flopped open to the flyleaf. It was a gift from Sir Farnsbey at Oxford.
She wondered why Trueblood had been the one sent to school and not Daniel, until she recollected what had been going on then. The rift between Daniel and his father went as far back as ‘77, when the sixteen-year-old Daniel, according to Trueblood, had left home after a blazing argument with his father to join the rebel army. No doubt Trueblood had been shipped off to England to turn him into a staunch Loyalist and to remove him from Daniel’s influence. It had not worked, of course. For Trueblood had managed to get back into the country and rejoin Daniel by 1780. Now his greatest loyalty was to his brother, and that lent Daniel a great deal of credit in Nancy’s eyes. If only he valued himself as Trueblood did.
When Daniel wandered into the kitchen the next day, Nancy, Trueblood and Mrs. Cook were all so intently watching a kettle simmering upon a pile of coals on the hearth that they did not immediately perceive he was not the boy hired to cut wood until he did not deposit any in the box under the window.
“Daniel!” Nancy leaped up and ran to him. She had just enough command of herself to merely embrace him and pull him toward a chair at the table, rather than kiss him as she would have liked to do. “You look so tired. I have some soup hot over the fire. Sit down. Tell us about your journey.”
“Double, double toil and trouble,” Daniel chanted as he sat down tiredly. “Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
Nancy laughed as she carried a steaming pot to the table and got down a bowl. “I suppose we do look like a trio of witches stirring a most unpromising brew.”
“I sincerely hope that is not what you are planning on feeding me, for the reek of it reached me halfway down the street.”
“Not unless you feel yourself to be coming down with the fever, for it is a rather potent purgative.”
“I was hoping this house had been spared. Trueblood, you should have taken Miss Riley away from here.” Daniel touched the chicken broth to his lips, then sipped it gratefully, looking about for bread just as Nancy pushed a loaf toward him.
“I did suggest it, little brother.”
“How could you think I would desert Mrs. Cook?”
“Not you, too, mistress?” Daniel paused to look his landlady over thoughtfully.
“Yes, but I am better now. It was Nancy and Trueblood who pulled me through it. Prudence as well.”
“Now if we can just save Tibby,” Nancy said, going to stare at the infusion in the kettle.
“Since it appears that those who survive are those through whom it passes the quickest, your idea of purging it may make the most sense,” Trueblood said. “But why intersperse the doses of rhubarb with the Peruvian bark?”
“Only because it works for the ague. And I cannot believe the two diseases are unrelated. The symptoms vary, but the causes are the same.”
“The fetid swamps,” Mrs. Cook said, drawing the great wooden spoon out and sniffing it.
“Do you mind?” Daniel asked.
“Sorry, Daniel. Are we disgusting you?” Nancy went and got a chunk of cooked beef from the larder and sliced it for him. He laid a thick piece on his bread and ate the two with one hand while he dipped up soup with the other. It made Nancy wonder how long he had gone without eating, and if he had done so to hurry back to her. She sat down to stare at him and only realized she must be smiling vacantly when he spoke with his mouth full.
“Yes. Moreover, I think you are enjoying mucking about with your herbs.”
