That still sounded like perfect nonsense to me. I’d thought her scheme foolhardy, dangerous, and disobedient. Not to mention selfish, for all the trouble it would give my parents in the midst of a war. And, if I am honest, there was also a childish part of me that despaired Angelica was to break the vow we once made to be spinsters together like the Douw sisters who lived on Court Street.
In this world on fire, her marriage was one rebellion too many for me, too. But in the end, I loved Angelica too much to deny her. Even though the elopement had put our mother into a fury and beset Papa with worry and embarrassment at the precise time he could least afford it.
“I think the earbobs will look quite fine on you, Miss Betsy,” Jenny said with a shy smile upon her dark-skinned face. Jenny always knew the right thing to say. Maybe it was because, as was the custom on plantations in the Hudson Valley, she’d been given to us when we were little children still playing together, and now we couldn’t manage without her. So I let her fasten them and powder me, even though powder always made me sneeze.
Just then, the sound of horse hooves clattered on the drive. Glancing out the window, Peggy announced, “Papa’s home with the British prisoners.” She all but dragged me down our grand staircase, with its rope-patterned balusters, past the papered walls painted with gray murals of ancient Roman ruins, and into the front hall, where our little brothers and sisters had gathered. Looping her arm in mine, Peggy gave a spiteful grin. “I’ll bet this wasn’t what Gentleman Johnny had in mind when he said he’d be eating Christmas dinner in Albany. Now he hasn’t so much as a twig for a stew pot.”
“Peggy,” I warned.
Papa appeared from the back door near to where we all gathered to greet him. I scooped my baby sister Cornelia into my arms, and stood beside our brothers, twelve-year-old John, nine-year-old Jeremiah, and four-year-old Rensselaer, who, like a charming boy soldier, saluted Papa with a chubby hand.
“I do hope Papa seized Burgoyne’s champagne,” Peggy whispered to me, undeterred. “Spirits may be the only thing to see us through this indignity.”
Papa’s stern gaze cut to Peggy, silencing her at last.
Tall and dignified even in his traveling clothes, my father was the portrait of a cultured gentleman. But he was more than a gentleman; he was a general. So it pained me to see him out of his blue-and-buff uniform with its gold braids. Even more so when he frowned and said, “I expect each of you to show the utmost hospitality to our captive British officers.”
Peggy crossed her arms in protest. “But, Papa, that man doesn’t deserve—”
“It’s not a matter of deserving,” my father admonished. “The British think we’re uncivilized people living in these wilds. If you’d seen the poor Baroness Riedesel tremble with fear of what we might do to her and her children . . .”
That image softened me because I knew the sad plight of women caught up in this war. Girls killed and scalped. Old widows robbed by marauding soldiers of every last thing they owned. Young wives abandoned and caught on the wrong side of enemy lines.
My father’s voice took on the strength of conviction. “The British think we’re children incapable of governing ourselves. It is in service to the cause of our independence to show them otherwise.” Peggy opened her mouth to argue, but Papa stopped her short. “There will be no moment, in word or deed, from any of you that should make the prisoners feel anything but honored guests. I care not what others may say or do; as for me and my house, we will serve my country.”
In saying this, he spoke as if giving law. But he was also encouraging us to see our own small contributions in this cause. So while others might rebel against him, I would not, even as I feared that the many watchful eyes around our house might see our hospitality as treason. “I’ll help Dinah bring refreshments in from the kitchen,” I said.
And in the end, everything was almost as my father wished it.
Redcoat officers filed glumly into the house, and Mama greeted them with her chin held high as befit her lineage, which she traced back to the first Dutch patroon to settle this colony when it was still called New Netherlands. She always said that a general’s wife should show no fear, and neither should his children, so I forced myself to smile sweetly at each and every Redcoat. Not that they looked twice at me. Nor did I wish them to. Especially since I could well imagine them marching into our house under far different circumstances had the battle gone the other way.
After Burgoyne was settled in the most elegant and comfortable accommodations, I took his men pots of strong tea with Mama’s short-crust biscuits and the preserves we’d been putting up for autumn made from Papa’s prize yellow plums. All the while, I wondered which of our guests might have set fire to our country house or given leave to the Mohawks to scalp our settlers.