Silently Resigned

III

"Ouch!" Peggy shrieked, clutching her foot. "Betsey!"

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said as she hopped down from the carriage. "Maybe you should try shrinking your feet."

Margaret scowled at her older sister and put her hands defiantly on her hips. "Maybe you should learn to watch where you step!"

Eliza rolled her eyes. Angelica hopped out of the carriage and smoothed the front of her chocolate-brown corset. "Quit your arguing, girls."

"Perhaps we would not argue so much if Eliza did not step on my feet and you followed daddy's orders," Peggy muttered, which earned her a sharp slap on the shoulder from Angelica.

"And quit your complaining," Angel said. "I do not want to hear another word about this 'disobeying orders' nonsense. I am simply exercising my freedom."

"Hmph," Margarita said, kicking a rock with her shod foot, but relented with a terse nod.

"Let us get all our errands done," Angelica said. "Then we can eat, and after that we will window shop for a bit."

"Where to first?" Elizabeth asked, taking out her regularly used, well-worn map of downtown Manhattan.

"Shoes," Angelica said. "Then we can go to the dress shop to look at hair ribbons."

"And I need new petticoats," Margaret chimed in. "I outgrew my winter ones."

Elizabeth nodded, scanning the map. "Here—" she said, pointing to a small building in the middle of town. "This the shoe store. It's in the square."

"Come on then," Angelica said, taking Peggy's hand. "Stay close, in case daddy was right and the violence is bad."

"So you admit it!" Margaret cried, snatching her hand from Angelica's. "Why are we even here?"

"I am not scared of a little violence," Angel said. "Father may be right, but that does not mean the people will hurt us. We come here often; the people know us. If they do not, speaking our name will drive them off."

"Nevertheless—"

"We will be fine, Peggy," Elizabeth said, beginning to walk down the road. "Angelica is right. Come on."

Margaret stomped her foot. "What has become of you? The revolution is dangerous!"

Eliza turned around angrily. "The revolution is freeing us of a monarchy! I am willing to live through a bit of violence if it means freedom from England!"

"I do not understand it!" Peggy cried. "It makes no sense! Why did we even need to leave England in the first place?"

Angelica walked over to Margaret, grabbed her by the ear, and yanked her in the direction of the square. "Perhaps if you weren't so dismissive of the idea you would understand!" Angel yelled. "We are leaving because the king is unjust. Does that make sense to you?"

Peggy fell silent, which both sisters knew was a sign of resignation, as their younger sister disliked apologizing. Angelica let go of Margaret, who tried to regain her dignity.

After a two blocks of Peggy trailing her chatting sisters by a few yards, a loud and purposeful voice caught the youngest sister's attention, and Margaret stopped and turned. A tall, large man wearing a powdered wig and the unassuming garb of a preacher was perched on top of a crate, holding a long scroll and speaking to a crowd. From her stance across the road she could hear little, but a fair portion of his words managed to reach her ears.

"...heed not the rabble who scream revolution...chaos and bloodshed...I pray the king shows you his mercy..."

This was the kind of talking Peggy wanted to hear, despite her sisters' strong stance with the revolutionaries. She and the maid Rosalind spoke often of their opposition, but this was different. Someone was speaking Margaret's ideas, and in town before a crowd of all things.

Peggy glanced back at her sisters. They were halfway up the street, while the youngest girl had stopped perhaps a quarter of the way back. Hit by a sudden surge of recklessness, something that (despite political opinion) Rosalind wouldn't have considered 'sensible' in the least, Margaret hitched up her honey-wood skirts and dashed across the street toward the gathering.