The Heavens Shall Fall (28 page)

Jonathan quieted on the mention of a wife he would have sooner forgotten. It did little to soothe his feelings toward Gabriel. He had known Gabriel long enough to know he latched on the coattails of General Arnold.

“I do remember your wife, Catherine, Dr. Corbett. She is missed.”

Jonathan cleared his throat.
“It was a tragedy, but my young son is a reminder of her I will have for always.”

“
Children are a blessing. Benedict and I have been blessed as well. Our little Edward sleeps upstairs. I understand you have married again. Rebekah Morse is also from Philadelphia, but I don’t seem to know the family.”

Jonathan cooled visibly.
“Her family bodes from Charles Town.”

“
Rebekah Morse,” Gabriel echoed. “Why, isn’t she the small one who followed your every footstep while you were in school? Her mother died while I was there…”

“
I cared for her mother while she was ill. Rebekah’s father was a close personal friend of my family.”

“
It is what I have heard. I have also heard you have been fortunate. She is an heiress.” Peggy took a seat by her husband.

“
Rebekah Morse. I would never have thought.” Gabriel looked directly at Jonathan. “An heiress…Rebekah.”

Peggy leaned over the table and smiled ever so daintily.
“From what I understand, quite wealthy from a former fiancé and an uncle. It seems you, dear friend, have not suffered the financial difficulties as most have during this war.”

“
I beg your pardon, Mrs. Arnold. I have paid a steep price for our cause. I would do so again. My wife may have been an heiress, but you forget the occupation of the British. They do not hold kindly toward me. I barely escaped the hangman’s noose.”

“
It is what I understand.” She tilted her head back to the side. “But it seems to have worked to your advantage.”

Jonathan sat back. The conversation stung him. He did not care for Mrs. Peggy Arnold. He recognized she was needling him for a reaction that he would not give.

Moreover, he found the whole of the lunch disturbed him. Perhaps it was the mission he had been sent upon. His nerves frayed, but he had begun to question one of the war’s most beloved generals.

Mrs. Arnold
’s words directed at him told him that she had information that most did not about his situation. She inferred she realized that Rebekah’s fortune had not been confiscated. How would she have known that information?

He hated that he could not
simply dismiss Tallmadge’s mission. His job was not done here. He had much to ascertain. He drank down the rest of his ale and listened to Mrs. Arnold discuss the comforts she had found in Beverly Robinson’s home.

* * * *

Sleep did not come easy for Jonathan. His head pounded with a million thoughts echoing in him. Private Smythe had shown him around West Point. Despite Tallmadge’s contention that Jonathan was a military man, his knowledge of the workings around a fortress was limited. But even to his untrained eye, he saw many deficiencies.

Fort Arnold, the main fortress, lay near the river
’s bend. He saw two of the brass cannons on traveling carriages had broken wheels. The gun platform in the barbette seemed to be under some type of construction.

Since he came to West Point, General Arnold had set to improve the fortress.
To Jonathan, the improvements seemed haphazard and disorganized. Arnold ordered the great chain that had been laid across the Hudson to Constitution Island to be taken up to repair a weakened link.

As he listened
to the troops, he had not heard one bad word against the general. He heard only praise, admiration, and respect. “Brave man as ever lived.” “Bloody fellow he is!”

“
General Arnold is a fighting general,” Private Smythe defended the sad state Jonathan found West Point. “He needs to be on the battlefield.”

Jonathan agreed. It was what made it all the worse
, knowing Arnold had turned down a field assignment. It seemed so strange.

He tossed and turned until he was able to shut his eyes. Sleep must have come because dreams assaulted him. He was back in Williamsburg at his home
, looking as it had before the war.

In the distance, he heard Mother Agnes calling for Hannah. He walked down the hall to his father
’s study. He stood in the doorway. Behind a large mahogany desk, his father glanced up, and motioned him to sit.

“
Come in, Jonathan. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“
Father, I have missed you.”

His father shook his head.
“I haven’t left you, Jonathan.”

“
There is so much…”

“
Sit, Jonathan,” his father commanded. “I know what you want, but it’s not mine to tell you.”

“
But I’m confused, Father. I’ve been asked to spy upon one of the most respected generals in the Continental Army. He’s a hero. There is no way he could be thinking of doing what is being suspected.”

“
Because he is a hero?” his father asked. “You expect everyone to be what they seem. It has been a problem of yours. You have made a fine physician, a brave and true soldier. But to spy, you have to look beyond the façade a person places about him. Isn’t that why you came to me now?”

“
What do you mean, Father?”

“
You know what I mean, Jonathan. You do not need me to tell you what you already know, but will not accept. Remember Catherine. Remember Gannon. Do not let it happen again…”

Catherine. Gannon
. Jonathan rolled over.
Peggy. Arnold.

Jonathan woke in a sweat. To look beyond the façade. Accept what he knew. He had been deceived before by ignoring what was right in front of him. It would be so simple to dismiss the questions that had arisen.

The man was a hero…the most beloved general, but Arnold lived extravagantly. Rumors abounded of his shady dealings. He married a woman half his age, one with Loyalist ties, one who would demand a standard of living that might be beyond his means.

Jonathan understood
what a woman could do to a man. Catherine had been a master of manipulation in her use of her most powerful weapon against him…his love.

He hated thinking that Arnold was capable of this grand deception, but he had given his word to Tallmadge he would investigate. Tallmadge told him the informant had given specific information, a highly place
d traitor that would take with him a valuable prize.

If he took away the façade around the general, everything pointed to one person—Benedict Arnold.

In the morning light, he sat down and wrote his report to Tallmadge and sent it by Private Smythe. He stayed. He had one more thing to accomplish before he withdrew.

* * * *

Jonathan rode beside Gabriel on the road that meandered over the hillside along the Hudson. In his youth, he had ridden often with Gabriel, but that was before the war…before Gabriel abandoned Hannah.

Jonathan comprehend
ed that the war had branded him. He would never be the same person he was before it began. Gabriel was another matter. The war, it seemed, hadn’t left a mark upon him.

How one could have sidestepped the consequences of this turmoil was beyond Jonathan
’s reasoning, but it seemed Gabriel had. Gabriel was the same conceited, self-centered lout he was in his youth. He had maneuvered himself in the war effort to a comfortable position, monitoring the militia patrols.

Jonathan had swallowed his abhorrence
of his former friend and let Gabriel believe that the past was behind him. He needed only one answer. If Arnold plotted treason, he needed to discover how deep the betrayal ran. Did Arnold confide in his subordinates?

If he had, Jonathan reasoned Gabriel would be high on the list. If anyone could be convinced to switch sides for the
betterment of his country
, it would be Gabriel. Jonathan could almost hear Arnold cry “What Glory would be his!” If anyone would convert if he felt he was on the losing side, Gabriel would be his man.

Jonathan had listened to Gabriel for the
last few hours. Nothing in Gabriel’s manner suggested he was anything more than the commander in charge of the militia in Westchester County.

Gabriel talked constantly of the perfection of his wife and sons. His oldest, Benedict, named for his most beloved general. He told of his family
’s accomplishments and of his lovely home in Philadelphia. He highly respected General Arnold.

“
Asked for me himself,” Gabriel bragged. “Need more enlisted officers such as Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Witherspoon. That’s what he said.”

Oh, Lord! The man never shut his mouth
. He had listened to Gabriel’s tale of advancement, being assigned to Philadelphia alongside General Arnold. Then he followed the general and took his most recent position in charge of the militia patrolling the border between British-occupied New York City and American soil.

“
It is not only the British we have to contend with in this area.” Gabriel pointed to a burnt-out homestead. “We have the Cowboys and Skinners to contend with these days.”

Jonathan nodded. He had heard of these raiders whose sympathy toward the British led to the looting and plundering with
in the vicinity. Basically, causing havoc. On the other side, the Skinners, held to the Americans, raiding mostly British sympathizers, but were no more than bandits themselves.

Jonathan looked over the deserted farm.
“The family?”

“
They were not harmed, if that is what you’re asking. Burning a homestead does not happen often, but it is a fear,” Gabriel went on. “My men. The militia. At times, Jonathan, I’m not certain if they aren’t much better than the raiders.”

“
Gabriel, you are their commander. You need to lead them in the right direction. These men are no different than the ones I have fought beside down South. They have concerns besides the war. They have families, farms, businesses…”

“
It’s a difficult order,” Gabriel admitted. He tethered back his horse and stopped. “No more so than when I had to leave Hannah in New York.”

Jonathan reined in his mount and wheeled around to face his former friend. Gabriel sat still, unmoving.

“Jonathan, I want to make it right between us. I want you to understand I had no choice. I was given orders.”

“
Dammit, Gabriel, don’t go down this road. There was no excuse. None. Not from you or from those that gave you those
orders
.”

“
No,” Gabriel confessed. “I know and have lived with it every day. It is only…Jonathan, I need to know. Hannah?”

Jonathan started to speak, but found he couldn
’t. Something within him resisted. Nothing Gabriel could do now would ever make amends, but he studied Gabriel. His fine features showed his tormented struggle. For a moment, he said nothing.

Then, he stated solemnly,
“If it eases your guilt to know she lives and is happy, then you can sleep well tonight.”

“
Thank you for that, Jonathan.”

“
It is all I will say about my sister,” Jonathan said. “Now it is I who has questions. What can you tell me about the condition I found West Point?”

Gabriel
’s smile faded. “What are you asking?”

“
I think you know well what I’m asking.”

“
I don’t think I like where this is going.” Gabriel shook his head. “Why are you here? What is the real reason? Did Congress send you to spy upon General Arnold?”

“
No,” Jonathan answered truthfully. “I have heard rumors, Gabriel. I listened to him talk. It makes me wonder. When I was sent down South, I walked into a situation that was precarious from the beginning. You know me, Gabriel. I am a loyal soldier. I want to know what I’m walking into this time.”

“
You sounded as though you felt the same,” Gabriel said defensively. “You don’t know everything that the general has been put through. He’s been treated shabbily. General Arnold has been short of both men and funds. Is it a surprise that Congress reneged on their promised support?”

Jonathan raised his hand to quiet Gabriel, who seemed quite distraught with the mere suggestion of Arnold
’s misdeeds. Jonathan could understand that. Gabriel admired the man, sat him upon a pedestal as had most in the Continental Army.

“
Calm yourself, Gabriel. I, myself, hold General Arnold in the highest regard. I’m only a physician, but even I can see the worrisome deficiencies. If there are no supplies to fix the issues, why order the improvements? If Arnold realized he could not complete them, he shouldn’t have started the repairs. Moreover, finish one at a time.

“
Everything has been done in a haphazard fashion. Do you realize the position West Point now sits? It is vulnerable. Can you deny that?”