CHAPTER XXIX
LOVE AND TREASON
When Jack and Solomon returned to headquarters, Arnold and his wife were settled in a comfortable house overlooking the river. Colonel Irons made his report. The Commander-in-Chief complimented him and invited the young man to make a tour of the camp in his company. They mounted their horses and rode away together.
"I learn that General Arnold is to be in command here," Jack remarked soon after the ride began.
"I have not yet announced my intention," said Washington. "Who told you?"
"A man of the name of Henry Thornhill."
"I do not know him but he is curiously well informed. Arnold is an able officer. We have not many like him. He is needed here for I have to go on a long trip to eastern Connecticut to confer with Rochambeau. In the event of some unforeseen crisis Arnold would know what to do."
Then Jack spoke out: "General, I ought to have reported to you the exact words of Governor Reed. They were severe, perhaps, even, unjust. I have not repeated them to any one. But now I think you should know their full content and Judge of them in your own way. The Governor insists that Arnold is bad at heart--that he would sell his master for thirty pieces of silver."
Washington made no reply, for a moment, and then his words seemed to have no necessary relation to those of Jack Irons.
"General Arnold has been badly cut up in many battles," said he. "I wish him to be relieved of all trying details. You are an able and prudent man. I shall make you his chief aide with the rank of Brigadier-General. He needs rest and will concern himself little with the daily routine. In my absence, you will be the superintendent of the camp, and subject to orders I shall leave with you. Colonel Binkus will be your helper. I hope that you may be able to keep yourself on friendly terms with the General."
Jack reported to the Commander-in-Chief the warning of Thornhill, but the former made light of it.
"The air is full of evil gossip," he said. "You may hear it of me."
When they rode up to headquarters Arnold was there. To Jack's surprise the Major-General greeted him with friendly words, saying:
"I hope to know you better for I have heard much of your courage and fighting quality."
"There are good soldiers here," said Jack. "If I am one of them it is partly because I have seen you fight. You have given all of us the inspiration of a great example."
It was a sincere and deserved tribute.
On the third of August--the precise date named by Henry Thornhill--Arnold took command of the camp and Irons assumed his new duties. The Major-General rode with Washington every day until, on the fourteenth of September, the latter set out with three aides and Colonel Binkus on his trip to Connecticut. Solomon rode with the party for two days and then returned. Thereafter Arnold left the work of his office to Jack and gave his time to the enjoyment of the company of his wife and a leisure that suffered little interruption. For him, grim visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front. Like Richard he had hung up his bruised arms. The day of Washington's departure, Mrs. Arnold invited Jack to dinner. The young man felt bound to accept this opportunity for more friendly relations.
Mrs. Arnold was a handsome, vivacious, blonde young woman of thirty. The officer speaks in a letter of her lively talk and winning smiles and splendid figure, well fitted with a costume that reminded him of the court ladies in France.
"What a contrast to the worn, patched uniforms to be seen in that camp!" he added.
Soon after the dinner began, Mrs. Arnold said to the young man, "We have heard of your romance. Colonel and Mrs. Hare and their young daughter spent a week in our home in Philadelphia on their first trip to the colonies. Later Mrs. Hare wrote to my mother of their terrible adventure in the great north bush and spoke of Margaret's attachment for the handsome boy who had helped to rescue them, so I have some right to my interest in you."
"And therefor I thank you and congratulate myself," said the young man. "It is a little world after all."
"And your story has been big enough to fill it," she went on. "The ladies in Philadelphia seem to know all its details. We knew only how it began. They have told us of the thrilling duel and how the young lovers were separated by the war and how you were sent out of England."
"You astonish me," said the officer. "I did not imagine that my humble affairs would interest any one but myself and my family. I suppose that Doctor Franklin must have been talking about them. The dear old soul is the only outsider who knows the facts."
"And if he had kept them to himself he would have been the most inhuman wretch in the world," said Mrs. Arnold. "Women have their rights. They need something better to talk about than Acts of Parliament and taxes and war campaigns. I thank God that no man can keep such a story to himself. He has to have some one to help him enjoy it. A good love-story is like murder. It will out."
"It has caused me a lot of misery and a lot of happiness," said the young man.
"I long to see the end of it," the woman went on. "I happen to know a detail in your story which may be new to you. Miss Hare is now in New York."
"In New York!"
"Oddso! In New York! We heard in Philadelphia that she and her mother had sailed with Sir Roger Waite in March. How jolly it would be if the General and I could bring you together and have a wedding at headquarters!"
"I could think of no greater happiness save that of seeing the end of the war," Jack answered.
"The war! That is a little matter. I want to see a proper end to this love-story."
She laughed and ran to the spinnet and sang Shepherds, I Have Lost My Love.
The General would seem to have been in bad spirits. He had spoken not half a dozen words. To him the talk of the others had been as spilled water. Jack has described him as a man of "unstable temperament."
The young man's visit was interrupted by Solomon who came to tell him that he was needed in the matter of a quarrel between some of the new recruits.
Jack and Solomon exercised unusual care in guarding the camp and organizing for defense in case of attack. It was soon after Washington's departure that Arnold went away on the road to the south. Solomon followed keeping out of his field of vision. The General returned two days later. Solomon came into Jack's hut about midnight of the day of Arnold's return with important news.
Jack was at his desk studying a map of the Highlands. The camp was at rest. The candle in Jack's hut was the only sign of life around headquarters when Solomon, having put out his horse, came to talk with his young friend. He stepped close to the desk, swallowed nervously and began his whispered report.
"Suthin' neevarious be goin' on," he began. "A British ship were lyin' nigh the mouth o' the Croton River. Arnold went aboard. An' officer got into his boat with him an' they pulled over to the west shore and went into the bush. Stayed thar till mos' night. If 'twere honest business, why did they go off in the bush alone fer a talk?"
Jack shook his head.
"Soon as I seen that I went to one o' our batteries an' tol' the Cap'n what were on my mind.
"'Damn the ol' British tub. We'll make 'er back up a little,' sez he. 'She's too clus anyhow.'
"Then he let go a shot that ripped the water front o' her bow. Say, Jack, they were some hoppin' eround on the deck o' the big British war sloop. They h'isted her sails an' she fell away down the river a mile 'er so. The sun were set when Arnold an' the officer come out o' the bush. I were in a boat with a fish rod an' could jes' see 'em with my spy-glass, the light were so dim. They stood thar lookin' fer the ship. They couldn't see her. They went back into the bush. It come to me what they was goin' to do. Arnold were a-goin' to take the Britisher over to the house o' that ol' Tory, Reub Smith. I got thar fust an' hid in the bushes front o' the house. Sure 'nough!--that's what were done. Arnold an' t' other feller come erlong an' went into the house. 'Twere so dark I couldn't see 'em but I knowed 'twere them."
"How?" the young man asked.
"'Cause they didn't light no candle. They sot in the dark an' they didn't talk out loud like honest men would. I come erway. I couldn't do no more."
"I think you've done well," said Jack. "Now go and get some rest. To-morrow may be a hard day."
2
Jack spent a bad night in the effort to be as great as his problem. In the morning he sent Solomon and three other able scouts to look the ground over east, west and south of the army. One of them was to take the road to Hartford and deliver a message to Washington.
After the noon mess, Arnold mounted his horse and rode away alone. The young Brigadier sent for his trusted friend, Captain Merriwether.
"Captain, the General has set out on the east road alone," said Jack. "He is not well. There's something wrong with his heart. I am a little worried about him. He ought not to be traveling alone. My horse is in front of the door. Jump on his back and keep in sight of the General, but don't let him know what you are doing."
A little later Mrs. Arnold entered the office of the new Brigadier in a most cheerful mood.
"I have good news for you," she announced.
"What is it?"
"Soon I hope to make a happy ending of your love-story."
"God prosper you," said the young man.
She went on with great animation: "A British officer has come in a ship under a flag of truce to confer with General Arnold. I sent a letter to Margaret Hare on my own responsibility with the General's official communication. I invited her to come with the party and promised her safe conduct to our house. I expect her. For the rest we look to you."
The young man wrote: "This announcement almost took my breath. My joy was extinguished by apprehension before it could show itself. I did not speak, being for a moment confused and blinded by lightning flashes of emotion."
"It is your chance to bring the story to a pretty end," she went on. "Let us have a wedding at headquarters. On the night of the twenty-eighth, General Washington will have returned. He has agreed to dine with us that evening."
"I think that she must have observed the shadow on my face for, while she spoke, a great fear had come upon me," he testified in the Court of Inquiry. "It seemed clear to me that, if there was a plot, the capture of Washington himself was to be a part of it and my sweetheart a helpful accessory."
"'Are you not pleased?' Mrs. Arnold asked.
"I shook off my fear and answered: 'Forgive me. It is all so unexpected and so astonishing and so very good of you! It has put my head in a whirl.'
"Gentlemen, I could see no sinister motive in this romantic enterprise of Mrs. Arnold," the testimony proceeds. "I have understood that her sympathies were British but, if so, she had been discreet enough in camp to keep them to herself. Whatever they may have been, I felt as sure then, as I do now, that she was a good woman. Her kindly interest in my little romance was just a bit of honest, human nature. It pleased me and when I think of her look of innocent, unguarded, womanly frankness, I can not believe that she had had the least part in the dark intrigue of her husband.
"I arose and kissed her hand and I remember well the words I spoke: 'Madame,' I said, 'let me not try now to express my thanks. I shall need time for friendly action and well chosen words. Do you think that Margaret will fall in with your plans?'
"She answered:
"'How can she help it? She is a woman. Have you not both been waiting these many years for the chance to marry? I think that I know a woman's heart.'
"'You know much that I am eager to know,' I said. 'The General has not told me that he is to meet the British. May I know all the good news?'
"'Of course he will tell you about that,' she assured me. 'He has told me only a little. It is some negotiation regarding an exchange of prisoners. I am much more interested in Margaret and the wedding. I wish you would tell me about her. I have heard that she has become very beautiful.'
"I showed Mrs. Arnold the miniature portrait which Margaret had given me the day of our little ride and talk in London and then an orderly came with a message and that gave me an excuse to put an end to this untimely babbling for which I had no heart. The message was from Solomon. He had got word that the British war-ship had come back up the river and was two miles above Stony Point with a white flag at her masthead.
"My nerves were as taut as a fiddle string. A cloud of mystery enveloped the camp and I was unable to see my way. Was the whole great issue for which so many of us had perished and fought and endured all manner of hardships, being bartered away in the absence of our beloved Commander? I have suffered much but never was my spirit so dragged and torn as when I had my trial in the thorny way of distrust. I have had my days of conceit when I felt equal to the work of Washington, but there was no conceit in me then. Face to face with the looming peril, of which warning had come to me, I felt my own weakness and the need of his masterful strength.
"I went out-of-doors. Soon I met Merriwether coming into camp. Arnold had returned. He had ridden at a walk toward the headquarters of the Second Brigade and turned about and come back without speaking to any one. Arnold was looking down as if absorbed in his own thoughts when Merriwether passed him in the road. He did not return the latter's salute. It was evident that the General had ridden away for the sole purpose of being alone.
"I went back to my hut and sat down to try to find my way when suddenly the General appeared at my door on his bay mare and asked me to take a little ride with him. I mounted my horse and we rode out on the east road together for half a mile or so.
"'I believe that my wife had some talk with you this morning,' he began.
"'Yes,' I answered.
"'A British officer has come up the river in a ship under a white flag with a proposal regarding an exchange of prisoners. In my answer to their request for a conference, some time ago, I enclosed a letter from Mrs. Arnold to Miss Margaret Hare inviting her to come to our home where she would find a hearty welcome and her lover--now an able and most valued officer of the staff. A note received yesterday says that Miss Hare is one of the party. We are glad to be able to do you this little favor.'
"I thanked him.
"'I wish that you could go with me down the river to meet her in the morning,' he said. 'But in my absence it will, of course, be necessary for you to be on duty. Mrs. Arnold will go with me and we shall, I hope, bring the young lady safely to head-quarters.'
"He was preoccupied. His face wore a serious look. There was a melancholy note in his tone--I had observed that in other talks with him--but it was a friendly tone. It tended to put my fears at rest.
"I asked the General what he thought of the prospects of our cause.
"'They are not promising,' he answered. 'The defeat of Gates in the south and the scattering of his army in utter rout is not an encouraging event.'
"'I think that we shall get along better now that the Gates bubble has burst,' I answered."
This ends the testimony of "the able and most valued officer," Jack Irons, Jr.