“They send their regards. Madame Jaquett too. I’d hug you if I could because of that lovely chintz gown.” Mae smiled her thanks and passed her sister the tea.
“So you discovered my surprise.” Coralie’s wan face brightened. “Isn’t it lush? Since you’re to be my bridesmaid, I wanted something colorful.”
“’Tis vibrant as a garden in full bloom. And the skill with which Madame sews! My stitches shame me.”
“Seamstresses we are not.” Coralie sighed. “Though we do manage petticoats and aprons and caps admirably.”
Mae sat back in Father’s worn chair, wishing she had Mother’s warmest shawl to give Coralie. “Mrs. Hurst said she feels a blizzard in her bones.”
“She’s rarely wrong about the weather, but oh, what woe it brings.” Coralie stifled a cough and took another sip. “I pray my beloved is warm and dry up north.”
Coralie’s betrothed seemed far away. Last they’d heard, Eben Gibbs was serving as a British lieutenant under General Burgoyne at a remote garrison in New York.
“Eben doesn’t tell me much about his whereabouts or happenings. I suppose, being an officer, he fears anything he writes might be confiscated,” her sister lamented. “This weather will prevent any post riders from coming, anyway.”
“How long since you’ve had a letter?”
“Twenty-three days.”
So shewascounting? “Take heart—you have an amazing arrayof them to reread in the meantime.” Mae’s teasing was not far from the truth. She’d never seen a man pen so many letters. It made her wonder what officers did if they had the luxury of so much ink and pounce and paper.
“We must pray he gets leave to return this spring. After the wedding we hope to go to New York City to see his family, if they can rebuild after the terrible fire there. Then he’ll return to the fray, wherever that is.” Coralie sneezed again, jostling her tea. “Odd to think Eben might be fighting against our own brothers.”
“Whom we haven’t heard from in so long I’m beginning to wonder.”
The moment turned melancholy. All they knew was that James had joined the Continental Army following the bloody debacle in Boston, and Jon was a militia captain somewhere along New York’s Hudson River.
“Have you any fresh news from villagers?” Coralie pulled her shawl closer. “About the conflict?”
Conflict.Coralie refused to call it war, as if changing the wording would wish England’s and America’s ire away.
“There’s talk that General Washington may winter in Jersey.” Mae reached for her knitting, wanting to change the subject yet driven to keep abreast of matters as an older sister should.
“With all the Continental soldiers here lately being resupplied, I’m not surprised. Where, exactly?”
“Somewhere in the Watchung Mountains,” Mae said, eyes on her yarn. “General Washington’s troops need to recover after their recent victories at the battles of Trenton and Princeton.”
“Hollow victories, you mean.” Coralie made a face. “You’re not sympathizing with that turncoat, I hope.”
Turncoat? Mae tried to ignore her personal feelings and deal with facts. “How can I not sympathize with wounded soldiers on either side? A great many of Washington’s men have been lost with expiring enlistments. The Continental Army has been whittleddown to three thousand or less. Without fresh recruits I don’t know how they’ll continue.”
“Eben’s last letter indicated the British army’s strength at five times that, given all the Hessians and Prussians, Brunswickers and Hanoverians coming to our shore in droves. They’ve even brought over a German general, if I recall.”
“General Riedesel, yes. A fine commander, though German troops are said to be among the fastest deserters.” All she’d heard and read crossed Mae’s mind like buckshot. “I hardly blame them. Imagine being in a strange land with a different language and customs. It’s not their battle to begin with, though I hear they’re rewarded handsomely to fight—the officers, anyway.”
“Heaven help us all. ’Tis so hopelessly complex and dangerous.” Coralie dabbed her nose with her handkerchief. “How did it all go so wrong?”
“Matters have been coming to a head for years now with king and parliament. We just never thought it would amount to men taking up arms.”
What they’d once considered a minor skirmish over tea and taxes had turned into something far more frightening and enduring. New Jersey seemed to be the very crossroads of the revolution. Lately most of the war’s action seemed to play out on their very doorstep, making them wish themselves elsewhere.
“I want to be like Father and Mother, taking neither side,” Mae told her. “Father always strove to keep the peace as pastor and stay far from any divisiveness.”
Coralie breathed in the tonic’s steam. “I’m glad they didn’t live to see the conflict unfold and us in the midst of it.”
“They certainly didn’t want to leave us alone, two women rolling around this house like misplaced marbles.”
“At least Aaron and Hanna are close at the apothecary. And Mrs. Hurst is near, as well as Adam.”
