Krewe of Hunters 8 The Uninvited (2 page)

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“A
re you Dolley Madison? Or, like, Martha
Washington or something?” one of the boys edging toward the front of Allison
Leigh’s tour asked. He was about nine or ten, still awkward, but obviously
determined to create some havoc—no doubt to avoid embarrassing himself in front
of the few other teens and preteens on the tour.

A taller, older boy, maybe twelve, who might have been his
brother, nudged him. “You idiot, they’re both dead, and she’s alive. And she’s
hot, buddy. She’s way too hot even in that getup to be one of
those
old ladies.” The second boy tried to look
mature. He reminded Allison of a very young Adam Sandler. The boys were part of
her tour, which included a mix of ages. Summer was just drawing to a close and
families were still on vacation.

She heard someone behind her choke back laughter; it was Nathan
Pierson, longtime board member for the nonprofit organization that now owned the
Tarleton-Dandridge House. They’d had a meeting in the attic, where a small
office was located. Cherry Addison, the remaining descendent of the Dandridge
clan, had already moved on, spike heels clicking. Ethan Oxford, their eldest
member, had politely made his way through the crowd. Nathan and Sarah Vining
were the last of the four board members to leave the house.

Nathan grinned and winked at Allison as he approached. Sarah
hurried to catch up with him. She was a wisp of a woman who had given herself
frown lines worrying about the board’s every move, while Nathan was the
opposite, always certain things would work out. He was a slim and stately man in
his forties, not exactly a father figure, more like a cool-uncle figure. And he
was amused.

Ally shot him a warning glance, but he kept grinning as he
stepped past her. When he looked back and winked again, she forced a smile to
her lips and turned her attention back to the group.

“Well, thanks, I think,” she told the boy who’d spoken. There
was nothing like having a few young kids on the tour, giggling and not the least
bit interested in the history of the Tarleton-Dandridge House—or the nation, for
that matter. They didn’t want to be here and were going to be thorns in her side
if she didn’t do something quickly. Ghost tours were the answer in situations
like this.

To most kids an old house just seemed stuffy and boring. She
understood how they felt, even though she’d always been the odd kid out
herself—a history nerd, as Julian liked to call her. She was from Philadelphia;
she’d gone to Boston for her bachelor and master’s, and to New York for her
doctorate, but she loved her own city almost as if it were a friend with whom
she’d grown up. From the time she was little, she’d gaped at Independence Hall
and marveled that she could stand in the same place where some of the greatest
men in American history had stood.

She surveyed the crowd and concluded that the two boys were
indeed brothers, dragged along on a historical jaunt by their parents, the
attractive couple a few feet back.

“Actually, my name is Allison Leigh, and the person I’m dressed
to portray is Lucy Tarleton. And,” she added teasingly, “she’s supposed to haunt
the place, so I’d be careful if I were you.” She took a step closer to the
taller of the two brothers. “She wants you to know your history.”

He grinned and struck a swaggering pose. “I wouldn’t mind
meeting up with a hot ghost,” he said. “And I know all about her. Lucy Tarleton,
that is. We went on a ghost tour last night! She was a
spy
. Like a Hairy Mata.”

“Mata Hari!” his dad whispered, shaking his head in amusement
but setting a hand on the boy’s shoulders. “Sorry!” he murmured to Allison.

“It’s fine,” Allison assured him. She turned back to the boy.
“Great, then you’re in the know,” she said gravely. “You could meet up with Lucy
today. Or maybe the ghost of Lord Brian ‘Beast’ Bradley, who is said to have
murdered several patriots in cold blood, among them Lucy Tarleton.”

“Ghosts? Bring ’em on!” the boy shouted.

“Todd,” his father chastised. “Keep it down.”

“It’s all right. Everyone loves historic ghost stories,”
Allison said. She did like kids and understood that they were going to be, well,
kids. She just wished people would recognize the human toll of war and what
history could teach them.

She stepped back to welcome her entire group of fifteen. “Good
evening,” she said loudly, “and welcome to the Tarleton-Dandridge House, here in
historic Philadelphia!”

Trees swayed gently in the breeze, and the air had taken on a
sweet chill that might have been the promise of rain or merely the slow descent
from summer into fall. Dusk was coming, and with it, a soft fog. They hadn’t
shortened their hours at the mansion yet, but the last tour was usually out
while there was still a glimmer of light in the sky.

Watching the sky and feeling the breeze, Allison Leigh thought
she didn’t mind the long days at all, even if she was tired tonight. Of course,
a lot of what she did was by rote and she could do it in her sleep, but she was
fascinated by history, and adored the old historic house where she worked as a
guide when her teaching schedule allowed. Summers generally meant full-time
guiding. She liked people, too, especially children and young adults, and valued
the opportunity to show them where the fate of a nation had been decided and to
discuss both the Colonial era and the Revolution itself.

On most busy days the other three guides did their share of the
tours. Annette Fanning, a good friend as well as coworker, had left early,
scheduled for a root canal. Jason Lawrence was leading the tour group just
ahead, dressed in the manner of the British dandy, Lord Bradley, who’d resided
in the house when the patriots had fled. Julian Mitchell, the fourth guide
employed by the private nonprofit corporation that owned the house, had
disappeared around lunchtime. He was an effective guide, but he was also running
around auditioning with his band, and had a tendency to show up late or
disappear early. With the last of the school-age crowd going through at the tail
end of summer, his lack of responsibility was irritating, but this tour was it
for the night—and then she’d be ready to close up and go home. They all liked
Julian; he was just driving them crazy.

“Watch out! A ghost’s going to follow you home,” a young man in
the crowd whispered to the boys. He smiled, looking at the young woman with him,
his wife or girlfriend, as if watching the boys because he might want a few of
his own one day.

“I don’t think ghosts follow you home,” the younger of the two
brothers said bravely. “I mean, they’re supposed to haunt a
place,
right?”

“Maybe they
can
follow you home!”
his brother teased. “They can go through walls, can’t they?”

“Stop it!” the younger one said.

His brother made chicken sounds.

Allison clapped her hands to draw their attention back to the
tour. “The Tarleton-Dandridge House is open to help you understand the
Revolutionary War and the occupation of Philadelphia, not to send ghosts home
with anyone,” she announced. “So, we’ll start with a brief history, although I’m
sure you know most of this. Philadelphia was the first capital of the United
States. And the Declaration of Independence was written and signed here. But by
that time, shots had been fired in Boston—and the British navy was occupying
Staten Island. What you may not realize is that the First Continental Congress
worked here before they decided on independence. At first, they were seeking a
means to achieve…can someone tell me?”

Oddly enough, it was her swaggering young beau, the older
brother, who raised his hand. “No taxation without representation!” he said.

“Very good. So, since it looked like the royal foot was coming
down to punish the colonies for their revolt against taxes—and they’d already
risked being hanged for protesting lack of representation, the next step was to
go all the way. Make the stakes worth the consequences, in other words. But it
wasn’t the citizens of Philadelphia who were eager for war, or at least not all
of them. Remember, this area was settled by the Quaker William Penn. He granted
the city its charter. Those who believe in the Quaker creed are and have always
been antiwar and antiviolence, but by the time of the American Revolution, this
was a city of about thirty thousand, all mixed in their beliefs and
backgrounds.”

“Yeah! They were ready to fight for freedom!” the older boy
said.

She nodded. “By then the colonies had formed the Second
Continental Congress, so a fight for independence it became. But Philadelphia
would pay the price. The British wanted the capital. According to their logic,
if you took the capital, the rest of the upstarts would fall apart and
surrender. However, General George Washington had learned from his Indian wars,
and he waged a different kind of warfare. Still, we lost many battles and, as I
said, Philadelphia and her residents paid a heavy toll.”

She seemed to have won over the boys, which pleased her, and
they were looking at her intently now rather than gawking.

“Gentlemen, if you will?” she asked the two brothers.

They actually seemed nervous as she walked back to the podium
by the gate. She took out two mock Colonial muskets and gave them to the boys.
The male guides carried exceptionally accurate reproduction muskets, but to
entertain young adults before entering the house, the guides used mock-up
plastic muskets.

“Now, how would you feel if I put you twenty feet apart and
told you to shoot at each other? Do you think it would make a lot of sense?”

“You shoot enough and…I guess we could hit each other,” the
taller boy said. “Eventually.”

“Maybe,” the younger brother added.

She nodded. “Muskets of the day weren’t great on aim. For every
shot, a man had to load his powder, tamp it down and hope the enemy wasn’t upon
him before he could fire again. What are your names?” she asked the boys.

The younger brother was Jimmy, she discovered, and the older
one was Todd. She had them perform and they followed her instructions,
demonstrating a manner of fighting in which they walked toward each other, and
then another manner, in which one of them hid behind a tree.

“George Washington had learned well, don’t you think? He knew
the British could outman, outpower and outdiscipline him. So if they wanted the
city, he’d take to the countryside. Back in the 1770s, for about a hundred miles
all around Philadelphia, there was nothing but wilderness. Washington could
abandon the city, let the British move in for a while, and the Revolutionary
government could keep trying to sway the French to join us, which happened in
1778. And the British knew they could become locked in, trapped. So they in turn
had to abandon the city.”

Allison checked the little watch she wore on a chain around her
neck, and saw that she’d given Jason plenty of time to take his group
through.

“Shall we enter the house?” she said, opening the gate that led
up to the handsome brick house.

“Let’s go!” Todd blurted out.

She arched a brow at him. He grinned, and she smiled back.

As she led her group into the small but beautifully manicured
yard, Allison told them, “The house was built in 1752 of brick and stone, in
what was known as the Flemish style, with alternating longer and shorter bricks.
It was built for Lucy Tarleton’s father, an Irish immigrant who rose to success
and attained great riches as a merchant—and had no love for the British King
George.”

“Mad King George!” Jimmy said.

“Yes, so they called him.” Allison paused on the porch, waiting
for the stragglers to catch up.

“King George never set foot here, of course,” she went on. “The
days of kings leading their men into battle were long gone. But as for King
George’s war,” Allison said, “there were two English brothers in control of the
war effort here—Admiral Richard Howe on the water and General William Howe on
land. One thing they hoped, of course, was that many citizens would be loyal to
Britain and start coming out of the woodwork when they arrived.”

“And there
were
citizens loyal to
Great Britain, right?” Jimmy asked.

“Yep. There were citizens loyal to Great Britain, although many
moved to Canada—the United Empire Loyalists—when the war began. But this city
was a prize to the British, harder to obtain than they’d expected.”

“The rivers weren’t deep enough for the Royal navy!” Todd said.
“I know that because we’ve been on so many history tours already!”

“Exactly,” Allison agreed. “And there were numerous unseen
obstacles under the water. It was difficult! But eventually they made their way
here.” She continued the story she’d told so many times before. “Philadelphia
fell to the British, and was held by them from September 26, 1777, through June
18, 1778. General Washington deprived them of greater victory by seeing that the
city was abandoned and the Continental Congress moved to New York City. The
British set up a puppet government in Philadelphia for that nine-month period.
Meanwhile, the British soldiers enjoyed the warmth and comfort of some of these
splendid homes, while Washington’s men froze at Valley Forge. And so here, at
this beautiful mansion, Lucy Tarleton stayed behind, pretending to be loyal to
the Crown, throwing parties, and even feigning a romance with Lord Brian
Bradley—soon to be known as ‘Beast’ Bradley, and soon to execute—without trial
or king’s command—the lovely patriot, Lucy Tarleton. Lucy was indeed passing
British secrets to General Washington down in Valley Forge. She was passionate
about her cause and she was to die for her efforts, in a rare but tragically
vindictive incident. Follow me.”

The front door led through a tiny mudroom with cut-glass
windows and then into a grand foyer. “In the city, you’ll find that many
businesses were on the first floors of what are now historic buildings, while
the living quarters were upstairs. But here, a servant would greet guests in the
foyer, and determine where they’d go. Mr. Tarleton’s study was to your right,
while the salon was the first room to your left,” she said, gesturing in those
directions. “The kitchen is still a separate house out back, which prevented a
cooking fire from reaching the main house. Beyond the salon is the dining room,
and it gave the servants easy access to the kitchen. The left side of the house
as you face me was the entertainment area, you might say, and to your right were
the family rooms. In back of the study is the ladies’ parlor, and behind that,
the music room. You’ll see an exquisite harpsichord there that actually belonged
to the Tarleton family. Upstairs, there are five bedrooms and the attic, which
contained storage space and rooms for the servants. The Tarletons had five
household servants who lived in the main house and a number of gardeners and
grooms who lived over the carriage house, which is also preserved.”