Chapter 12

About a month later, after a leisurely exchange of correspondence through shipping interests on the icy Bay, Anne and a pair of strap-bound valises rode two stages northward over half-frozen roads since the Chesapeake was ice-covered almost to Baltimore Town, spent an sleepless night in a decrepit inn listening to men carouse and sing, took a wind-blown ferry across the wide river and then another uncomfortable stagecoach, arrived in Philadelphia about mid-day, and with the help of a hired hack, found her aunt's tall home with its ornate stonework.

Her father let her go willingly, even urged the visit on her, thinking it beneficial to get his wife and his daughter at some distance from each other. Billy's strange ideas, Anne believed, were buried and nearly forgotten. In fact, when she thought of Billy as a spy, she found it amusing if a bit scary.

She and her white-haired aunt along with some senior naval officers who had known her late husband celebrated Christmas together with toasts to the King, the Howes and to the British navy, the wassail bowl seemingly bottomless and the plum pudding and mince pies arriving from the kitchen endlessly along with plates of sweetmeats and ham-stuffed biscuits.

Then old Amelia Robertson and young Anne Conroy and more than a hundred others welcomed in the year of 1778 at a noisy ball given by Howe's young officers and led by a softly handsome man named John André who danced three times with Anne, light on his feet and full of stories and jokes, his right hand quite firmly on her corseted back. He told her that he was a Fuzileer, that he was living in Benjamin Franklin's house, that she looked like a Scottish princess who had lost her dragon, that there were fires and mischief in her eyes "and God knows what in your hair" and then invited her to a party the next weekend and bowed himself away, making a very proper leg and murmuring "Your servant."

Another woman at the ball whispered that André was a Heugenot who had joined the army after a disgraceful affair of some sort. She also said that he had been captured and entertained by the Americans and that she did not trust him.

Home well after midnight, Anne let her hair down from the ornate crown her aunt's maid had fashioned with a set of horn combs, sat before her dressing table in her undergarments, brushed out her bright auburn curls and looked at her image, still excited from having been pawed and praised by dozens of young men as she was whirled through dance after dance. Her feet and ankles ached.

On the tray in the front hall, there had been a blank card from a "Wm Fields" who suggested in pencil scrawl that he might visit the next day with just the word "tomorrow" and a question mark. Her aunt had asked, and Anne said he was a friend of her father, a loyal businessman from Annapolis who dealt in mules and horses or "some such thing." She wondered how the lie had come so easily.

Anne looked at her smooth face, her dark green eyes, her tiny dimples and patrician nose as her huge mop of multi-hued hair hung well down her back, the heavy strands varying from pale golden hue to a deep, rich scarlet and dark umber. A woman looked back, a tired and worried woman with freckles on her cheeks. She wondered where the silly girl had gone, the one she used to see, and she wondered what kind of trouble Billy was going to visit on her.

Out of her tight corset and lacy shift and into her long nightdress, she crawled up into bed, happy that the cold sheets had been warmed at her feet, pulled the quilt up to her chin and sighed. Oh Billy, Billy, Billy, you lovable cur. She tried to find an adequate curse in her vocabulary, decided on contemptuous, called Billy that in her mind and smiled as she stroked her breast as he had often done. He has that little dent in his chin. I wonder if I could learn to shave that. She felt a shiver, rather enjoyed it and wondered why.

Anne rolled to her side and pulled up her knees. So many handsome men in uniform tonight, dozens and dozens of them, army and navy and cavalry and artillery, dragoons, grenadiers, men in kilts and even a few Germans in their dark blue uniforms, lots of different colors, hundreds of shining buttons and swords and dangling cords. And all of them flocking around and pulling her onto the floor, their gloved hands on her back, on her buttocks now and then.

Her calves and arches ached. Her toes were sore and her thigh muscles spasmed now and then. She could still smell some of them, sweat, wig powder and hair oil and tobacco. Some had stared at her with what could only be called hunger, stared at her bared chest, some showed their yellowed teeth as they peered down the front of her dress. It was both frightening and exciting. She had never been to such a crowded event, never heard such throbbing music, and never seen so many fat buttocks and bulging groins, padded she was sure.

And then there was an officer called André and his dark eyes, pale skin and beautiful hair. He was almost pretty. Effeminate? No, not quite. She sought a descriptive word and decided on worldly, discarded it and tried venturesome. He seemed to be able to look right into her brain, into her heart. He was very different. She was sure he was just a flirt, but what a confident and handsome one. Still, a bit odd somehow, peculiar even, as if he really were somewhere else, always looking about, striking poses, feeling his own chin or his Adam's apple above his high, tight collar. His powdered hair coiled above his ears under his small wig with its odd tails and his soft mouth was almost girl-like as he chatted aimlessly, glancing over her shoulder, nodding to others while he flirted with her.

He had told her that he had been a prisoner in Pennsylvania earlier in the war, said a whole county in Maryland had been named for the man who captured him, and he made up silly songs to the music, tortured syntax, sly jokes she did not always understand, many rhymes for Anne such as command and fan and plan, then remand and élan, whatever they meant, not always in English either.

And he had touched her hair and pulled down a ringlet to dangle by her ear, applying spittle to keep it there. During their last dance, he said he was designing a gown for her in his head, a daring gown that only she could wear, one that would make her famous or perhaps infamous, the daring back might get them arrested, imprisoned, and, with a Spanish prayer, said he hoped she would attend his rout. His last words to her were, "Green, oh my redheaded angelicas, the darkest green, a forest to be lost in, el bosque."

Anne wiggled onto her back, stretched her long legs and then lifted her knees, her hands linked on her belly. What am I feeling, not happiness, not satisfaction? Excitement? Love? No, worry, worry about Billy. Hm? Why should I? It's silliness. Perhaps it was the wine, more than ever before in my life, even a thin bowl-shaped glass of bubbly champagne, somehow sweet and tart at the same time. André and the other young officers, triflers and braggarts each and every one, seemingly doting and fawning. Bowing, scraping and making a leg, such fancy stockings, charming obeisances, pressing me to their hard buttons. They certainly liked to wear very tight trousers and knee-high boots. But André had worn slippers, dancing shoe sand slik stockings, much like a pair of mine, black slippers, soft and supple. Ah, that's the word for him, supple.