Celia Garth: A Novel (54 page)

The baby’s name was Vivian. But Luke did not understand what she had understood when Vivian had talked to her that day. How could he be expected to? He was a man.

B
UT VIVIAN UNDERSTOOD. WHEN
she saw Celia in the parlor later that afternoon, she said, “Thank you, dear. You make me very happy.”

They smiled at each other. But they said no more, for they had gathered to listen to Amos. He had slipped into Charleston several times recently, carrying messages for Marion.

Amos said the town was jammed. The rebels in South Carolina had been doing their job well. They were pushing into Charleston not only the king’s soldiers, but also the Tory civilians, who did not dare stay home without British guns to protect them. Rich Tories were paying fantastic sums for rooms at inns or private homes. Others were sleeping in stores, warehouses, anywhere they could. Nobody, rich or poor, could get enough to eat. The British troops had killed their horses for lack of fodder. They had a new commander, General Leslie, and he was trying to keep order, but he could not do much to ease the nightmarish state of things.

Celia thought of the Hendrix family, putting on airs as they spent other people’s money. She hoped Mr. and Mrs. Hendrix and Miss Dolly were very uncomfortable now.

Vivian spoke with concern. “But Amos, people who are not Tories—my children—can’t they get away?”

Amos said it was harder than you’d think. General Leslie wanted people to leave town, for every person who left took his mouth with him. But there were no horses, and the general himself had taken most of the boats so his troops could raid nearby plantations for food. However, Amos knew that Godfrey and Lewis Penfield were both trying to get boats. Marietta had told him this.

Herbert and Vivian began to ask about friends in town. Luke suggested to Celia that they sit on the piazza. As he drew out a chair for her he asked,

“Celia, would you mind very much doing without Marietta?”

“I’d miss her, certainly,” Celia said. “After what we went through together, she’s more like a friend of mine than a maid. What do you mean?”

“She’s still with Ida,” said Luke. “Amos has seen her whenever he’s been to town. He says they want to be married, and go away with Miles Rand.”

“Go where?”

“To the mountains. Wherever Miles goes.”

He said Miles was still resolved to dispose of Bellwood and go west, to the frontier. He would take Amos with him, and Big Buck, the other Negro who had escaped the fury of Tarleton’s Legion. Luke had bought some of Miles’ outlying land, and Miles had offered some extra acres as compensation for Marietta’s services.

Celia spoke doubtfully. “Does Marietta want to go out to the frontier?”

“Amos says she does. Why?”

“Because I shouldn’t like it,” said Celia. “Sleeping on the ground, and being scared of Indians—let me talk to Marietta. I’ll ask her how she feels about it.”

Luke said this was fair enough.

He had to leave the next day and go back to Marion’s camp. They had no more news from Charleston until August, when the landing-bell clanged violently one afternoon, and kept on clanging while Herbert and his men mounted and rode to the river-bank.

At the landing was a boat—a scrabby boat, ramshackle and creaking and patched and miserable—and on the boat were Godfrey and Ida and Darren, with Marietta and Godfrey’s servants. They were hot and tired. Their nerves were torn to pieces from their dread that their boat would not last to get here, and they were so hungry that they were nearly frantic.

Vivian and Celia hurried to call the maids, and set out a meal—“Cold rice will do,” said Godfrey, “stale bread, anything.” The kitchen boys dragged a long table out to the back porch, while Celia and the girls ran to the pantry and brought whatever they could bring fastest. They put it all on the table helterskelter, and Godfrey’s group fell upon the food like animals.

Between gulps, Godfrey told them that Madge and Lewis Pen-field and their children had joined another family going up to Goose Creek, where Lewis’ brother had a country place. Celia wondered if they were all as hungry as this. She sat down on the back steps. After a while, when Godfrey’s party had had enough to eat, with little embarrassed laughs they began to apologize for being so ravenous. Marietta came over to Celia. “You’d think we were a bunch of pigs!” she exclaimed.

“You forget,” Celia said laughing. “I know what it’s like to be hungry.” She patted the step beside her. “Sit down, Marietta.”

Marietta obeyed. “Miss Celia,” she said, “I’m so happy for you and Mr. Luke, and your little girl.”

“My little girl has big blue eyes,” said Celia. “And Marietta, I’ve heard about you and Amos. I’m happy for you too.”

“Thank you, Miss Celia,” said Marietta, and by the look of her she was happy for herself.

“You’re mighty brave,” said Celia, “not to mind going out to the mountains.”

“But why should I mind, Miss Celia? Amos—and Mr. Miles and Big Buck—they all want to go. So I want to go with Amos.”

“You’re sure you’ll like it?”

“Oh yes,” Marietta returned with conviction. “Amos wants to go.”

Celia reminded her that there would be hardships, even actual danger. Marietta was surprised that Celia should be worried about such things. She said Amos was all excited about going west. And since Amos was so happy about it, why naturally she was happy too.

Celia began to understand that Marietta was one of those rare women who could lose themselves completely in the lives of the people they loved. She was happy to go with Amos, but she would have been equally happy staying at home with him. To Amos and her children Marietta would give her life, and she would not even know that she was giving anything.

Celia smiled with a thoughtful wonder, for she knew very well she was not made like that herself.

A few days later Miles and Amos got leave to come to Sea Garden, and Mr. Warren was summoned again to marry Amos and Marietta. After the ceremony there was a supper in the quarters for the colored people. While Amos and Marietta were receiving the good wishes of their friends, Celia drew Miles aside and gave him the case holding the bracelets of gold roses that Jimmy had given her.

Miles looked at the bracelets with tender affection.

“I’ve seen my mother wear these so many times,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll keep them to remember her by. Thanks, Celia.”

Celia said, “You’re welcome, Miles.” She was thinking, You won’t keep them to remind you of your mother. You’ll give them to a girl. You don’t know it now, but you will.

As Miles closed the case, hiding the bracelets from her sight forever, she felt relieved. Miles would give them to a girl, but Celia was glad the girl would not be here in the Lowcountry. If she had to see those bracelets they would remind her of Jimmy, and she did not want to be reminded. It would hurt too much.

A month later, in September, three hundred British ships sailed into Charleston harbor. They had come to take the redcoats home.

Not only the redcoats, but as many Tories as wanted to go with them. Some Tories, who had nothing to apologize for except that they had taken the losing side, intended to stay and make up with their old friends. But there were others who knew they would never have any American friends again. Also, there were some who said frankly that they did not trust the future of the little new nation that would be made out of the Thirteen Colonies. They thought it wise to get away.

So the king’s army and the king’s friends made ready to go. It still seemed to the weary patriots that they were never going. But at last, in December, 1782, a year and two months after Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, they left.

First the king’s friends went aboard the ships: Tory families and their Negro servants, nine thousand men and women and children. They went under protection of the king’s guns, while bad boys shouted dirty words at them from trees and windows.

The next morning the king’s soldiers marched to the wharf and went aboard. That afternoon the American Continentals marched in. The bad boys, the old people, all those who had not been able to get out of town during the dragging months just past, leaned out of the windows and over the balconies, calling, “Welcome home, gentlemen! Welcome home!”

Celia, still at Sea Garden, wondered if Roy and Sophie had gone with the redcoats or had chosen to stay and make the best of Roy’s little property at Kensaw. She did not know, and when she thought about it she did not care either.

Luke came back to Sea Garden. He put his horse into the stable, changed his swamp-clothes for some gentlemanly apparel, and said now he was home for good.

However, that first evening he did not say much more than this. He walked around, sat by the fire, got up and walked around again. As they went in for supper, Vivian said softly to Celia, “Don’t try to make him talk. He needs to get used to being home.”

Celia obeyed, and asked him no questions. But the next day, while she sat alone by the fire turning her spinning-wheel, Luke came into the room. It was a dark winter day, dripping with rain. Celia looked up, her hand on the wheel, but Luke said, “Go on, I like to watch you.” She went on turning, while he walked up and down between the ruddy fireplace and the gray windows. After a while he began to talk. He told her how it had been, under the great cedars that sheltered the camp, when Marion said good-by to his men.

As he talked, Celia turned the wheel more and more slowly. At length she forgot it altogether.

“We didn’t have any formal mustering-out,” said Luke, “because we had never had any formal enlistments. I guess Marion’s men were never really soldiers at all.”

He was looking at the rain as it streamed down the window-panes. After a moment he went on.

“Well, there we stood, under those big cedar trees, and there he stood. He made a little speech.”

Luke stopped again. The pause was so long that she prompted him.

“Go on, Luke. What did he say?”

As if startled by her voice, Luke turned from the window. “Why—he thanked us for staying by him. He said for us to go home now, and get back to work. Said this was what he was going to do. Though only the Lord knows what he’s going to work with. They’ve left him nothing but a patch of weeds and cinders. He doesn’t own even a hoe to chop up the weeds.”

Luke looked down. He kicked at the corner of a rug. After a while Ceila asked,

“What else did he say, Luke?”

Again, Luke seemed to start. “Why—nothing much. He just made a little speech. He’s not much of a talker.”

The wheel was still. Celia did not remember when she had stopped turning it. Luke looked out at the rain, and back at her. He spoke with a half-embarrassed bluntness.

“I don’t know what else he said, Celia. I didn’t hear him very well. I had my head down. I was blinking, I was swallowing, trying not to let anybody see that I was about to bawl. But then I sneaked a look up, and every man I could see was blinking and swallowing like me. We stood there like that, and he told us good-by. Then when he finished, we said good-by to each other.”

Luke looked down at his shoes, and out again.

“We shook hands. We turned our backs on each other and coughed. We turned around and shook hands again.”

Celia sat very still. Luke’s mind was back at the camp under the cedars. The fire gave a snap. As if this had roused him, Luke went on.

“We tried to talk. To say what it had meant to be such friends, to fight such a fight together. We said, ‘Well, we’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?’ Or, ‘It’ll sure seem funny to live under a roof again.’ Or, ‘If you ever get up our way, drop in, glad to see you any time.’ Things like that. Stupid things. We didn’t know what to say. We had such a feeling—it was over, and we were glad it was over, and yet while it lasted it had been the grandest thing that ever happened to us. It’s hard to explain.” He paused a moment, and added, “I don’t think you’d understand anyway.”

He stood fiddling with the curtain. The fire snapped again, and a log rolled out of place. As if glad to move, Luke came hurriedly to the fireplace, put the screen aside, and knelt on the hearth to rearrange the logs. As he stood up and put the screen back into place he repeated,

“I don’t think you’d understand.”

Standing by the mantel, he watched the fire. Celia put her fist to her mouth and bit her knuckles, thoughtfully. Maybe she would not understand. Maybe, in spite of all he could ever tell her, she never would understand, not as he understood it—that comradeship of war, the strange brotherhood in killing that made men like war while women hated it so. She remembered the exhilaration she had felt when she watched the guns of Fort Moultrie shell the king’s fleet, and her joy at sharing the effort of Marion’s men. But this did not go down deep into her instinct about what she wanted to do in the world. It was behind her now, and she was glad of it.

Not long ago she had told Luke that some things were beyond him. Now he was telling her. The fellowship of women, the fellowship of men.

There was no use in pressing him to tell her more. He could not.

In January the weather cleared. Herbert told his men to get out the schooner and make it ready for the trip to Charleston. Godfrey and Darren were already there—borrowing horses from Herbert, they had ridden into town on the heels of the American army, for Godfrey wanted to get his affairs in order. But Ida and her servants had waited at Sea Garden, and they went down on the schooner. Also Luke and Celia went along. They wanted to see Charleston without redcoats.

All the way, Celia was restless. She cuddled Baby Vivian to sleep, and left her with the nurse while she herself went on deck. She walked up and down. She thought of Charleston as she used to know it—the warm sunlit city, bright with flowers and musical with church bells. How long, she wondered, would it take for Charleston to be like that again?

A long time. Battered by the guns of a siege, occupied for nearly three years by a foreign army—no town could get over that in a hurry. But the time would not be so important, if only you knew the wounds were healing. Celia wondered if the redcoats had left any wound that could not heal.