The Tory Widow by Christine Blevins Page B

Hampton?”
    â€œNo need, Sally, this coffee is perfect.” Jack pushed his spoon through the muck in his cup. No amount of cream would salvage this brew, and at any rate, as he knew from past experience, any cream brought to him would be curdled, and the lump of sugar would more than likely be a lump of salt.
    â€œWell then”—Anne Merrick smiled—“enjoy!”
    Jack was subjected once again to the ridiculous tandem curtsy before they left him to stand at the back of the shop, arms akimbo, watching his every move.
    Jack eyed the scone on his plate. Sprinkled with a generous amount of brown sugar and baked to crusty golden perfection, it looked delicious. The regular customers always raved about the quality of the fare produced in the widow’s kitchen. He broke the scone in two to expose a soft, crumbly interior, loaded with plump black beetle bugs. Jack pushed the tainted scone and coffee aside. Sally and Anne scampered back to the kitchenhouse, giggling.
    Among the many dreadful things he’d been served since becoming a regular at the Liberty Coffeehouse were scones burnt to a charcoal crisp, muffins sprinkled with mouse droppings, cakes frosted with dung and puddings drenched in what smelled like horse piss. The clever women contrived to couple the friendliest, most charming service with the meanest, most rotten fare. The most insidious being the servings where the food seemed perfect and he could discern nothing amiss—steaming coffee, rich cream, sweet sugar, lovely baked goods. Suspecting the food might be laced or injected with some undetectable poison or emetic, Jack could do nothing other than pay for the wonderful fare left uneaten on his plate. Those were the days when the laughter coming from the kitchen was the loudest.
    Anne began to clear tables, and Sally began another round, pouring coffee and serving scones and muffins to the new customers. Jack flipped opened his newspaper to catch up on the latest news from Philadelphia.
    A breathless boy came in off the street. He pulled the widow to the side, and after a short but excited exchange, Mrs. Merrick slipped him a coin from her pocket and sent him on his way with a pat on the head. She ran up the stairs untying her apron strings and was soon on her way back down with a black wool shawl thrown around her shoulders and a shallow-crowned straw hat pinned to her mobcap, its black ribbons tied in a bow beneath her chin. Calling, “Mind the shop, Sally!” she sped out the door.
    Jack folded his paper, tossed a few coins on the table and slipped out as well.
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    ANNE darted up Whitehall toward Broad Way. The city’s refuse collection, which had been erratic even during the best of times, became negligible with the coming of Washington’s army. Anne gave wide berth to the pigs snuffling through piles of rubbish and puddles of stagnant water. She slowed her pace at the Bowling Green to skirt a crowd gathering around an effigy dangling from a mock gallows, and she stopped to read the label attached to the straw-stuffed figure.
    Our Royal Governor—the bloody tool of the sanguinary Despot who is using his utmost efforts to ENSLAVE you!
    Adding drama to the display, the gilded equestrian statue of King George dressed in Roman toga and laurel leaf crown loomed from beyond the iron fence surrounding the green. The Liberty Boys had truly honed their craft.
    A day did not pass without some poor Loyalist being hauled out by a mob, pelted with brickbats and run from town—often astraddle a rail. The crier had even taken to tolling the names of accused Tories along with the hour. No longer able to depend on wealth or influence for protection, many avowed Loyalists—the Royal Governor included—fled for their lives, taking sanctuary aboard one of the four British warships menacing the harbor.
    Shading her eyes, Anne took a few steps toward the waterfront and scanned the bay. She could just make out the