… when once the Woman has tempted us, & we have tasted the forbidden fruit, there is no such thing as checking our appetites, whatever the consequences may be.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON
YONKERS-ON-HUDSON
FEBRUARY 14, 1756
Lured by the scent of almonds, Mary’s appetite was calling her to the kitchen after the return from the dressmaker’s cottage. For the feast welcoming the hero and his Southern officers, Mary’s brother hired an army of culinarians. From confectioners to cooks to additional dairy and scullery maids, they joined an already large staff. The Clerk of the kitchen, the ever neat and well-kempt Temperance Gooch, ruled like a crowned head; not even a drop of gravy dare land on her apron. Mary found it amusing, the disdain Temperance showed for the others her brother hired, many of whom were French. Frederick never cared much for taking sides in war, or in anything else for that matter.
Down to the kitchen Mary went, where an eruption was shaking the pots.
“A gallimaufry”—Temperance pushed aside the French cook’s completed creation of crème croquante—“and nothing more!”
“Mademoiselle, to taste une crème croquante, one must pause to find la delicatese of each layer of flavor.” This was Chef François, one of those new hires, enunciating between his curled mustache and chin beard. “This is how I create.”
Mary, watching the two through the half-opened door, did not interrupt.
“Create? Imitate would be more proper a term.” Temperance, Mary knew, despised the French way of cooking. “Chef d’Anjou, I shall not fill my table with such nonsense.” A cook’s daughter, Temperance had grown up in the manor. She began working in the kitchen when she became old enough. And now, at twenty-four years of age, she demanded certain pay for her work, to which Frederick agreed. On a day like today, Temperance would not be outprepared, especially by a French cook who was in the middle of a serenade over his pot.
“Vous insulte ma creation, Mademoiselle Gooch!” The chef walked closer to Temperance and pointed to a silver tray. “You yourself make a dessert of snowballs.” His nose scrunched up, as if it had been assaulted by putrescence.
“A dish that is a creation, not an imitation,” snapped Temperance. Over the balls made of boiled rice, apples, and a touch of cinnamon, she drizzled a sauce that combined butter, white wine, and nutmeg. “It is to the liking of the lady of the house.”
“Mademoiselle, never has a snowflake fallen to the south”—he picked up the tray—“just as never has a snowball had a place at a banquet.”
“I am aware it would not be French to show praise to a good cook,” Temperance declared, storming past him. “As for your crème, it is more dull than divine.”
“I am at your pleasure, Mademoiselle.” He leaned near her. “As for my crème, I shall be sure to dulcify it for you.”
It seemed to Mary that the chef found Temperance’s superciliousness quite engaging, while Temperance nearly winced at the close proximity.
She interrupted for Temperance’s sake and looked right at the dessert in François’s hand. “Splendid! As we await snowfall outside, you have brought a touch of radiant frost inside.”
“A day for celebration, Mademoiselle Philipse!” François happily responded, still holding the tray of snowballs.
“Miss Polly, good day.” Temperance approached her with a long dish holding small sampling bowls. “Just for you, I have created an orange pudding, as well as a lemon pudding, a millet pudding, carrot pudding, quince pudding, apricot pudding, white pear and plum-apple pudding.”
“The sweetness that brings me to the kitchen every time.” Mary noticed Temperance’s nervousness around François. Naming each pudding—it wasn’t like her to do that.
“Rice pudding, custard pudding, bread pudding, chestnut pudding, prune pudding,” added Temperance. For the last, she handed Mary a specially crafted blue-and-white Canton bowl containing Mary’s favorite. “For our Miss Polly, the pretty almond pudding.”
“They’ve arrived!” The heiress examined the porcelain she suggested be ordered for the special occasion from Ching-te-chen. With the family’s influence, the East India Trading Company shipped with urgency the entire table set for the banquet. “And without breakage?”
“Not a one, Miss Polly.”
“If you please,” said François, bringing over additional samples of his own. “For you, crème au chocolat, crème de café, crème au zeste d’orange, crème de vin du Rhin, crème croquante, crème à la fleur de vanille.”
“Merci beaucoup. Je suis impatiente de tous deguster. At present, the pretty almond pudding will do my stomach just fine.”
“Then all of them we shall display. A fine table it shall be!” François returned to his pot as well as to his serenade.
Temperance walked with Mary as she enjoyed the sample of pretty almond pudding.
“Your admirer’s eyes remain on you,” whispered Mary.
“He is impossible.”
“Impossibly handsome.”
“Impossibly French.”
Temperance walked Mary through the many dishes that would be served during dinner, beginning with Mary’s special request, the salamongundy—a salad dish of edible flowers, herbs, small onions, string beans, boiled eggs, grapes, and lemon-roasted chicken with an oil dressing beaten with vinegar, salt, and pepper.
The guests would be treated to a culinary extravaganza this night. For years, Mary helped Temperance write and rewrite recipes to attain the perfect combination of flavors. Now Mary reviewed the menu, hopeful the dishes would be to Colonel Washington’s liking.
“Scotch collops, leg of lamb, rump of beef, roasted duck, and loaf of oysters,” Temperance added. “The French influence for Lord Frederick will be in the lapereaux aux truffes and the côtes de boeuf à la Sainte Menoux. Your brother has asked that catsup be served as well.”
“Catsup?” Mary could see that Temperance was pleased with her work. “A perfect choice. Papa, too, would have enjoyed that.” The offerings were more than Mary could have imagined. This was the first time in longer than she could remember that the home was so filled with activity. Since the devastating loss of Mary’s sister Margaret, her father, and, of course, her mother, the manor had never been so alive. “Everyone would have relished in this glorious feast.”
Tenderly, Temperance took hold of Mary’s hand. “Miss Polly, a proud night is before you.” Temperance knew more than most about the Philipses, their joys and their grief.
Trying to regain her composure, trying to find her calm, her eyes began to fill. “I find it difficult to rejoice when we have been through much sorrow.” Her whole being was thrust into an anxious state. She exited the kitchen. Her pace quickened as she moved into the hall. Furniture was being moved out of the foyer to make space.
Those crowds! She thought of the poking and prodding, the bumping of shoulders, the accidental and intentional brushing of a hand here, a hip there, the hollow chatter, meaningless queries, and the hall stifling from the fetor of hair powder. She knew scores of eyes would be on her on a night like tonight. The questions would be endless: Why had she not attended any recent balls or banquets? A crush of people would soon fill the room. The barrage she imagined made her feel dizzy.
Her legs grew weak. She pictured her shoes slipping through muddy ground. A chill ran through her. That night—the one when she lost her mother—plunged her spirit into a depth so deep, she had never recovered. It didn’t matter that one of the guests was the hero of the South. It didn’t matter that the dancing master’s freedom might depend on her. Her brother’s wishes were inconsequential. What occupied her thinking was the horde, her unease, and especially the disquieting presence of the man of her nightmares; just the smell of him triggered her return to the torment.
She needed to run. Hide. Get away. The same as she had done time and time again.
PALE BLUE.
She liked that color best.
Mary often lost track of the hours when she was in here, painting. She came to this room in the cellar when she needed to escape. It was a place to hide from the distress that often disturbed her countenance.
She delicately dried nature and gently glossed over death with the color on her paintbrush. This was madness; she knew that. Blossoms bereft of life she brought back to brightness with the stroke of her brush.
“Every flower must emerge from the darkness to bathe in the light,” she remembered her mother often telling her on those mornings they gathered blooms at Hudson’s Hook and tied them into a bunch with a red satin ribbon. Spring was her mother’s favorite time of year. And Mary fondly recalled her younger sister with them, vivacious and exuberant, frolicking about with her bare feet on tender grasses.
Years later, Mary cut wildflowers to be placed at Margaret’s bedside when the sickness took hold of her. Day after day, Mary held a handkerchief, careful to conceal her emotion, while sitting outside the door of the bedchamber, the one Mary was ordered not to enter. Every day, she would sing her sister a melody. She sang it now:
If to me as true thou art
As I am true to thee, sweetheart
We’ll hear one, two, three, four, five, six
From the bells of Aberdovey.
Hear one, two, three, four, five, six
Hear one, two, three, four, five and six
From the bells of Aberdovey.
Margaret would clap along—one, two, three, four, five, six—albeit feebly. Until one day there was silence. A deafening emptiness fell upon the home.
“I remember that song.” Mary hadn’t heard Frederick come into the cellar room. As he spoke, he crouched to avoid garlands of dried autumn leaves she’d placed above the entry. A few leaves fell loose. “You wouldn’t leave her door until you heard Margaret clap her hands to six with you. On a night like tonight, the little rascal would have been dancing till the sun rose. What of the time she pulled the peruke right off of Lord Livingston?”
The moment came clear in her mind.
“Robert the Elder ran from the center of the room, chasing after her for it,” she said.
“Right in the middle of the minuet.”
“On his face was dread, with not a hair upon his head.”
His rhyme about the curmudgeon always made her laugh.
Frederick placed his hands in his pockets. “You are aware, Polly, that you cannot remain hidden away forever.”
She turned back to her brushstrokes. He did not understand her. How could he? How could anyone? She felt as if her soul had been shattered, and its broken shards with their jagged edges piercing her heart. Over the years, Mary attempted to carry on by building an impenetrable wall to block her emotions. Many times her brother tried to relieve her misery. And for that she was grateful. He always told her their deaths—Elbert’s, Mother’s, Father’s, Margaret’s—were not her fault. Mary knew the truth. She could have reached for the flower from Elbert. She could have stayed away from her father and from Margaret. Mary knew she was not just the cursed one; she was the one damned to stay alive.
“I know I’m not Father. I would do more for you if I knew how.”
The woe that gripped her had remained for so long.
For too long.
She arose.
In the distance, the bells of St. John’s Church sounded. Eric Arthur pledged he would watch for the hero’s arrival. His signal to her would be one lasting chime, give it time to echo, and follow that with two more in quicker succession.
“Come, Polly, your tomorrow awaits you,” said Frederick. “First, however, we may need to remove this nature from your hair.”
“Mine? Wait until you see the mess you’ve made of yours.”
The bells sounded again.
One slow followed by two fast.
Colonel George Washington had arrived.