Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (128 page)

Savannah

May 5, 1780

From Captain M. A. Stubbs, His Majesty’s Army, Ret.

To Mr. John Cinnamon

My dear Mr. Cinnamon,

I cannot tell you with what Emotion I beheld your Portrait. Indeed, my Bosom is so animated with Feeling that I think my Heart must burst, between the Pressures of Guilt and Joy—yet I thank you from the Bottom of that squalid Heart for your gallant Action and the Courage which must lie behind it.

Let me first beg your Forgiveness, though I do not deserve it. I was badly wounded at Quebec and unable to attend to my own Affairs for some Months, by which Time I had been sent back to England. I should have made Inquiries after your Mother, and made some Provision for you both. I did not. I should prefer to think that it was solely Shock and Disability that kept me from this Duty, but the Truth is that I chose to forget, from Selfishness and Sloth. I am not a good Man. I am sorry for it.

And let me next—assuming that your Forgiveness be granted—beg that you will come to me. I am astonished by the Strength of Feeling caused me by the Sight of your Face, captured in Paint and Canvas, and even more by the Need that has grown in me to see your Face truly before me. I can but hope that you would also like to see mine.

If you will so far forgive me as to come, I have sent Instructions to Lord John Grey, who will arrange your Passage to London and provide Funds for your Travel.

I am, sir, your most Humble and Obedient Servant—

and your Father,

Malcolm Armistead Stubbs, Esq.

PostScriptum: Your name is Michel. Your mother had a Medallion, given her by her French Grandmother, with the image upon it of Michael, Archangel, and she wished you to have his Protection.

May 10, 1780

Savannah

IT WAS A STORMY
day, and cold on the quay, with a strong wind whipping up whitecaps on the river and bent on whipping off their hats, as well. The tender had almost finished loading—its last load, bound for the cargo holds of the army transport
Hermione,
waiting at anchor.

“Have you ever been on a ship?” William asked suddenly.

“No. Just canoes.” Cinnamon was twitching like a nervous horse, ready to bolt. “What’s it like?”

“Exciting, sometimes,” William said, in what he hoped was a tone of reassurance. “Mostly boring, though. Here, I brought you a going-away present.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a small jar of murky liquid and a smaller vial with a dropper.

“Just in case,” he told Cinnamon, handing these over. “Dilled cucumber pickles and ether. In case of seasickness.”

Cinnamon eyed the gifts dubiously, but nodded.

“You suck a pickle if you feel queasy,” William explained. “If that doesn’t work, take six drops of the ether. You can put it in beer if you like,” he added helpfully.

“Thank you.” The wind had restored Cinnamon’s usual ruddy glow. “Thank you,” he said again, and seized William’s hand in a grasp of crushing earnestness. “And tell your sister—how much…how much…” The tide of rising emotion choked him, and he shook his head and wrung William’s hand harder.

“You told her,” William said, easing the hand free and repressing an urge to count his fingers. “She was happy to do it. She’s happy for you. So am I,” he added, patting Cinnamon affectionately on the forearm, as much to avoid being seized again as from the very real affection he felt. “I’ll miss you, you know,” he added diffidently.

He would, and the realization struck him like a blow behind the ear. He felt suddenly hollow, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Moi, aussi,”
Cinnamon said, and looked down at his new boots, clearing his throat.

“All aboard!” The naval lieutenant captaining the tender was glaring down at them. “
Now,
gentlemen!”

William picked up the new portmanteau—a gift from Lord John—and thrust it into Cinnamon’s hand.

“Go,” he said, smiling as hard as he could. “Write to me from London!”

Cinnamon nodded, speechless, then, at another irate shout from the tender, turned and lumbered blindly aboard. The tender’s sails dropped and filled at once, and within a minute, they were in the middle of the river, flying toward the unknown future. William watched the little ship out of sight, then turned back toward Bay Street with a sigh, his sense of loss tinged by envy.

“Au revoir, Michel,”
he said, under his breath. “Now who am I going to talk to?”

Savannah

ONCE CINNAMON HAD GONE,
William moved from the small house they had shared back into Lord John’s house, at his father’s invitation. Amaranthus, Lord John said firmly, needed company.

“She doesn’t accept invitations,” he’d told William, “and only goes out now and then to the shops—”

“She
must
be in low spirits,” William said. He’d meant it jokingly, but the way in which his father glared at him made him feel ashamed. “Surely you’ve told her that no one knows?”

“Of course I have,” Lord John said impatiently. “So has Hal, with a surprising amount of delicacy. She just hangs her head and says she can’t bear to be seen. ‘On display’ was the rather odd way she put it.”

“Oh,” said William, somewhat enlightened. “Well, that does make more sense.”

“It does?”

“Well,” William said, a little awkwardly, “as a young widow, and the mother of the heir to Uncle Hal’s title…she’d attract—I mean, she
did
attract a good deal of…interest? At parties and dinners and that sort of thing, I mean.”

“And enjoyed such interest very much, so far as I could see,” his father observed cynically, giving him a sidelong look.

“Quite.” William turned aside, picking up and pretending to examine a Meissen plate from the sideboard. “But now she’s been…er…exposed, so to speak…even if only among us…” He coughed. “I think perhaps she feels she can’t act the part of a beautiful young widow, and, um…”

“She’d feel somewhat conscious, flirting with fatheaded young men, knowing that even if neither Hal nor I was present, we’d likely hear about it. Hmm.” Lord John appeared to find this dubious, but plausible. Then he made the next—inevitable, William supposed—deduction.

“After all, what would she do if one of the bright young sparks she touched caught fire and asked for her hand?” Lord John frowned, the next thing having occurred to him. He looked hastily over his shoulder, then moved closer to William and lowered his voice.

“What would she have done if that happened and we
didn’t
know the truth?”

William shrugged and spread his hands in an affectation of complete ignorance.

“God knows,” he said, with complete truth. “But it didn’t.”

Lord John looked as though he wanted to say something else, but instead merely shook his head and moved the plate two inches, back into its exact position.

“Perhaps she could go to luncheons, or tea parties, or—or quilting routs?” William hazarded. “Things with just women, I mean.”

His father laughed shortly. “There are two kinds of women in the world,” he said. “Those who enjoy the company of women and those who prefer the company of men. For one reason or another,” he added fairly, “it’s not always to do with lust or marriage.”

“And you imply that Amaranthus is not one of the first type.”

“William, it’s sufficiently obvious that even
you
will have noticed it, and I assure you the other women have. Women of the first type dislike women of the second type, particularly if the woman of the second type is young, beautiful, and possessed of either charm or money.” He ran a hand through his hair, still thick and blond, though showing traces of white near his face. “I suppose I could beg Mrs. Holmes or Lady Prévost to ask Amaranthus to a hen party of some sort, but I very much doubt that she’d go.”

“And even knowing what you do,” William said, quite gently, “you like her and worry that she’s lonely. After all, the situation’s not her fault.”

His father sighed heavily. He was looking rather disheveled, and a faint smell of spoilt milk hung about him, likely connected to the imperfectly cleaned whitish stain on his charcoal-colored sleeve. Trevor had been weaned but had not yet mastered the mysteries of drinking from a cup.

“You need a nursemaid,” William said.

“Yes, I do,” his father said promptly. “You.”

HE COULDN’T SAY
he was sorry to be back in Oglethorpe Street. Bachelor living with John Cinnamon had been pleasant enough, and it was good to have a friend always at hand, to share whatever came along. But he was happy—if a little anxious—for Cinnamon. The small house they’d shared on the edge of the marsh seemed damp and desolate, and his spirits sank when the sun went down, leaving him alone in the shadows with the smell of mud and dead fish. It was good now, to wake in the morning to sunlight and the noises of people in the house below.

And then there was the food. Whatever Moira’s intransigence with regard to grilled tomatoes, the woman was a phoenix with fish, shellfish, and roasted alligator with apricot sauce. She had even—with a little persuasion and the gift of a bottle of good brandy—allowed Lord John to teach her how to make Potatoes Dauphinoise.

And then there was Amaranthus.

He saw at once what Lord John had meant: she was subdued, picking away at her needlework with eyes downcast, only speaking when someone spoke to her. Polite, always—but always distant, as though her thoughts were elsewhere.

Probably in New Jersey,
he thought, and was surprised to feel a sort of sympathy for her. It truly wasn’t her fault.

William set himself to bring her back into cordial society and, in the process, found that some parts of his own character that he had set aside over the last year were not in fact dead. He was beginning to dream at night—about England.

They played games in the evening. Chess, draughts, backgammon, dominoes…if Hal or someone else was there for supper, they played whist or brag, and all three men smiled to see Amaranthus light up in the fire of competition; she was a cutthroat cardplayer and played chess like a cat, her changeable eyes fixed on the board as though the chessmen were mice, an imaginary tail gently waving to and fro behind her shoulder, until she pounced and showed her white teeth.

Still, the sense of merely passing time was slightly oppressive. The whole city was pervaded by a similar atmosphere, though the sense of suspended activity had a deep and urgent reason. With the French ships gone and Lincoln and the Americans retreated to Charles Town, Savannah had gone about picking up the pieces: houses broken by cannon had been repaired as quickly as possible, but with the spring had come fresh paint, and the bright pinks, yellows, and blues of the city bloomed anew.

The abatis and redoubts outside the city remained, though the winter storms and high tides had eroded the farthest defenses. The remnants of the American camp had all but disappeared by now, salvaged by slaves and apprentices.

But if the thought of Benjamin in New Jersey lay under Amaranthus’s outward composure, the thought of Charles Town was openly and constantly in the minds of the Savannah garrison.

Dispatches came frequently, with news from New York and Rhode Island, where Sir Henry Clinton was staging his troops for a voyage. Hal being who he was, and John being not only his brother but also his lieutenant colonel, the household was well aware of General Clinton’s intent to attack Charles Town as soon as the weather allowed of such an adventure.

All through April, dispatches had arrived by ship and by rider, in an increasing flurry of excitement and intensity. As the siege progressed Uncle Hal strode to and fro outside his house, unable to bear confinement but not wanting to leave lest any news arrive in his momentary absence.

“It’s highly unlikely that we’ll need to move more men to Charles Town,” Lord John had told William, who had just likened his uncle to a pregnant cat on the verge of delivering kittens. “Clinton’s got plenty of men and artillery, he’s got Cornwallis, and whatever its other faults, the British army does know how to conduct a siege. Still, if—or rather when—the city falls, we
might
be summoned, and if so, it will be in an almighty hurry. But chances are, we’ll just be left here cooling our heels,” he added warningly, seeing the eager look on William’s face. He paused thoughtfully, though, looking at his son.

“Would you think of taking up a commission, should that happen?” he asked.

William’s first impulse was to say yes, of course, and it was clear that his father saw that, for while Lord John had done his best to avoid saying anything to William regarding his future, the mention of a commission had brought a faint gleam of hope into his father’s face.

William took a deep breath, though, and shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

SAVANNAH WAS IN
bloom, the squares and gracious streets covered with magnolia petals and fallen azalea blooms, gardenias, jasmine, and wisteria perfuming the air and charming the eye. Lord John’s house, cozy and warm through the winter, seemed suddenly confined and unbearably stuffy.

William persuaded Amaranthus to come out with him for a walk, to enjoy the morning air and the cooling breeze from the sea. And she did seem to enjoy it; her head rose proudly and she went so far as to nod pleasantly to ladies that she knew—most of whom bowed or nodded graciously back. William smiled and bowed, too, though he saw the speculative looks on the faces under the broad straw hats and lacy bonnets. A couple of pursed lips and sidelong glances, too.

“They’re disappointed,” Amaranthus remarked, sounding mildly amused. “They think I have ensnared you.”

“Let them,” William replied, briefly patting the hand she’d placed in the crook of his arm. “Though if you disdain to exhibit your capture in public, we could walk down to the beach.”

They paused at the head of the stone steps that led down to the water at the end of Bay Street and took off their shoes and stockings; the stone was wet and slippery, but felt wonderful on the soles of William’s bare feet. The sand felt even better, and releasing Amaranthus’s hand, he shucked his coat and ran away, far down the beach, the unbuckled knees of his breeches flapping and seabirds calling overhead.

He came back blown and happy, to find that she had taken off her hat and cap, unpinned her hair, and was dancing on the sand, curtsying to an unseen lover, whirling away and back again, hand outstretched.

He laughed and, coming to her from behind, took the hand, turned her toward him, bowed, and kissed her knuckles. She laughed, too, and they sauntered slowly down the beach, the damp sand rising up between their toes. They hadn’t spoken since they’d reached the beach, and there seemed no need. There were a few people on the beach, fishermen, women netting shrimp in the shallows or digging for clams, and idlers like themselves. No one gave them more than a casual glance. By unspoken consent, they turned and headed away from the town, out through the grass and up the river, passing a half-buried remnant of canvas, once an army tent, now left flapping in the wind.

At last they stopped, knowing they had come far enough, and stood for some time, watching fishing boats and barges coming down the river and rowboats and dories crossing to the other side, where a few warehouses awaited the goods they bore.

Amaranthus sighed, and William thought there was something wistful in her face, as though she wished she, too, could sail free upon the water.

“You could get a divorce, you know,” he blurted.