“Ja. Gut! To Washington,” the baron said, standing and lifting his glass as he struck an ostentatious pose. Everyone joined in the toast with enthusiasm, including my husband, proving once more my suspicions that his prior aloofness about Washington’s farewell had stemmed from missing the company of his brothers-at-arms.
“Will you have an opportunity to look into the matter of James Armistead while you’re in Virginia?” I asked when we’d all settled again.
And I was a little delighted when Lafayette’s eyes flashed with surprise at me for asking. “Oui, for it is an injustice, like so much about slavery, that cannot stand.”
Theodosia frowned. “Who is James Armistead?”
“Only the most vital American spy in the whole Virginia campaign,” the marquis replied. “An enslaved man who posed as a runaway so that the British would trust him. Without him, Cornwallis might well have reinforced Yorktown and then all would have been lost!”
The marquis recounted how Armistead, while enslaved, volunteered with his master’s permission to serve as a soldier in the war and was assigned to Lafayette, who quickly recognized that the man’s knowledge of Virginia could make him a valuable spy. Armistead gained the trust of both Arnold and Cornwallis, who allowed him to guide troops through the state, permitted him free access to British army headquarters, and even bade him to spy on Lafayette!
“I shall never forget the look on Cornwallis’s face when he came to our camp to surrender,” Lafayette continued, holding the whole company rapt with his storytelling, “and saw Armistead already there. Here Cornwallis thought the man his personal slave, never once suspecting the truth.”
“The problem,” Alexander explained, “is that Virginia’s law emancipating those slaves who served on their masters’ behalves applies only to soldiers, not spies.”
“So Armistead remains enslaved,” I told Theodosia. “It’s an outrageous injustice.”
“Saul Matthews faces similar difficulty,” the baron said, shifting in his seat with agitation as he fed scraps off his plate to the thin pet greyhound he took with him everywhere. “Many times he supplied us with the intelligence of crucial British troop movements, yet he remains enslaved. These men deserve the applause of their country.”
It was a reminder of all the different sorts of people who had taken part in our revolution. Black and white. Slaves and free. Indians and immigrants. Rich and poor.
Women, too.
But my husband’s thoughts remained on the injustice of slavery and he sat forward, exchanging a glance with Burr. “There’s talk of a manumission society forming here in New York. We intend to join.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what Papa’s position would be about a society whose ultimate end was to abolish slavery, for the institution remained popular within the Dutch areas upstate, but I was proud that my husband planned to be involved. It might be controversial, but if my husband’s associations must be controversial, then let them be morally right.
At length, Theodosia and I excused ourselves to the kitchen to prepare dessert—stewed pears in spiced wine and fresh cream—while Jenny cleared away the dishes.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked Theodosia, who had seemed pale since our encounter in the market, and unusually subdued during dinner.
She merely waved off my concern. But later, when the men had gone to the parlor to smoke, Theodosia glanced at Jenny’s retreating form and admitted, “I’m so tired all the time that I don’t know how you manage with just one slave.”
Sometimes, I didn’t know, either, but the conversation at dinner had left me even more uncomfortable to have full command of Jenny on my own. All our lives, she’d waited on me and my sisters—helping us dress, fixing our hair, tending to our room. Even assisting her mother in the kitchen. And though we’d all agreed we couldn’t have managed without her, we’d never once, any of us, given the reality of Jenny’s serving us a second thought. It was just how things were. But I remembered those black troops at Morristown and imagined Armistead and Matthews, enslaved again despite their crucial service, and it all felt . . . wrong.
“She’s only borrowed,” I said, hearing how weak the distinction was even as I uttered the words. “But she’s skilled and trustworthy and a great help.” And I still didn’t know what I’d do without her.
Theodosia turned a warm smile to me. “Well, you’re an exemplary hostess.”
As Theodosia was well known for her lavish entertainments in the form of French-style salons, I managed a smile at the compliment despite the discomfiture in my breast. “You’re kind to say so. I’d been uneasy that the guest list was unbalanced without unattached ladies to round out the company of the baron and his aide.”
At this, Theodosia sputtered with laughter. “Unbalanced, indeed. I daresay our baron and his very handsome aide are not the sort to have any special interest in unattached ladies.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It isn’t by happenstance that the baron is unmarried,” Theodosia said, her voice hushing. “Don’t you know how he came to join the revolution?”
I didn’t have the slightest idea. Foreign mercenaries of all sorts had flooded to our shores to join our cause. I assumed the baron to be one of those, albeit more noble, stouthearted, and brilliant than almost all the others. Save Lafayette, of course.
Now I leaned close to hear more.
“He was ejected from the Prussian military for unsavory habits with men,” Theodosia confided. “Nearly jailed in France for the same. On account of the fact the baron was a brilliant soldier, Ben Franklin smuggled him on a ship to America before he could be arrested as a sodomite.”
This caused me to drop the half-emptied wineglass I held, spattering the table and my new woven mats with crimson.
It seemed apt since crimson was also the color of my rage that Theodosia
