Diary Entry of Jenny Outerbridge, kept secret and hidden
Setauket, late 1776
It has been a warm summer so far, we are reasonably informed by the Almanack. The British troops quartered here are everywhere in their bright red coats, steaming in the heat. I much prefer the color of a blue coat on hot or cool days, and said as much at the dinnertable, only to be called down by Mama as speaking shockingly bold and out-of-turn.
It is a good thing Lieutenants Williams and Davis were not here, Father said. But I cannot see why an opinion of fashion and color should prove so desperately wicked. It is commonly known blue does far more to flatter any man's coloring and complexion than does red. Only now, of course, it is become sedition to say so.
Bess received an invitation to Whitehall this afternoon, to sit tomorrow with Mary Woodhull as she visits here in town. Bess does love nothing so much as to gossip and sew, and so she will be greatly pleased to attend. Upon receipt of the invitation, mother paused to note that Mary's little boy, Thomas, is coming on of an age that he should have a sibling, and yet no such news reaches us here. I could see in her face an indecision over whether to pray for Mrs. Woodhull's own health, or the health of her marriage - of which one often hears spurious, scarcely repeatable reports if one happens to be listening at the right doors and in the right homes.
Mr. Strong, of course, as I have written before, was sentenced to the prison ship Jersey, and has left Mrs. Strong (Anna as we her acquaintances know her) to tend both house and tavern in his absence. But she is far more sorrowful than I recall her being, and though I can imagine it is the loss of her husband, it is far more likely the increase in work and - for all Setauket - the entire lack of jolly pleasures the summers used to afford us here.
What joys we young people used to regularly know in fine summer days and warm summer evenings, walking about with our friend s - down even to the water's edge. Not a fortnight of summer used to go by without a small dance or festival in the village, and some sprucing up of a gown for each such occasion. Lanterns were hung and we danced upon the lawn and ate a late supper of oysters and clam and all sorts of delicious foods among friends at Anna and Selah's great house. The church hosted socials for us.
Even the Outerbridge family - now too timid to speak 'good day' to our suspected-patriot neighbors - entertained around our spinet, our singing going out into the pleasant night air, carried away by the breeze off the sea.
I speak of blue coats, of the way they distinguish a man's countenance, the way in candle- or sun- light they kaleidoscope his eyes into something lovelier than they ever were without it, but of course it is all a code for you, Benjamin Tallmadge, of the coat you now wear, though I've not seen you in it. And I speak of summer pleasantries that I miss, but it is only a code for courting, which I may grow to be an old maid before I join in it again.
You did not take these things away with you deliberately when you left to fight. The sun still shines, warmth still finds the cheeks of my face, threatens the freckles Caleb used to tease me about until, as a schoolgirl, I cried. The King's men clearly long to court the village girls, they are invited to social occasions, and the town is swelled with single men.
And yet it is nothing but a sea of red coats everywhere I look, and I remain a girl waiting for a blue, whether its brass buttons shine or no-whether it be decorated in ribbons of military accomplishment and rank or no. Only and always, I am waiting - longing to see - if it answers to your name, absent so long now from my lips it is a wonder I can still find the memory with which to pronounce it.