Charleston (12 page)

He stared at the first faint stars, saying nothing.

She tried to be cheerful. “Will you ride back to Charleston with me? There's hardly a guard presence anymore. People come and go freely.”

“I'll come in a few days. I have one more task.”

 

The small farmhouse faced the Sampit River, a few miles below Georgetown. Sweet woodsmoke threaded from the chimney into blue autumn dusk. After his supper William Lark carried a lantern outside and crossed the yard. It was possible to observe him through a cracked window in the barn.

A rusty hinge squealed as Lark entered. Two horses neighed. It had been hell's own task to sneak in and keep them quiet.

Lark smelled of beer. He petted the muzzle of a big gray, murmured endearments. Edward rose in the empty stall behind Lark, laid his pistol on his left elbow to steady it.

The horses stamped and snorted. Lark turned around. All he could say was “How did you find me?”

“Many people know where you live. I tracked you here a week ago. I've been planning this moment for a long time.”

Lark's bravado deserted him; he knew what was coming when he looked into the eyes of the filthy scarecrow with the pistol. A tremor in his hand shook the lantern. Edward said, “Put it down.”

Lark obeyed.

“See here, lad. I've never borne you a grudge. We do what we must in wartime.”

“No, with you it went beyond that.”

“If this is all about your slave, what's the concern? He was just a common nigger.”

“He was an uncommonly good man. He was my friend since childhood. There is also the matter of my mother.” Edward cocked the pistol. “Do you have any other last words?”

Bloody Bill Lark was reduced to mumbling fright. A dark stain spread at the crotch of his breeches. “I appeal to your decency. I have a family.”

“So did my slave.”

“My wife, Bridgit, my new little boy, Crittenden—oh, if you saw him, you'd love him—they depend on me.”

“They'll have to find someone else,” Edward said, and shot him in the stomach.

While the horses reared and kicked the stalls, he pulled his other pistol. Lark was on his knees, weeping and clutching himself. Edward put the second ball in his chest.

He coughed in the powder smoke as he slipped out. A woman rushed from the house, calling, “Bill?
Bill?
” Edward untied Brown Eyes from a willow branch and rode away in the night.

 

He rode slowly down Meeting Street, looking every bit the ragpicker. He was twenty-three years old and felt ten times that.

A clock in a shop window showed him it was nearly three in the afternoon. At the corner of Broad he waited, gazing upward, but the hour came and went in silence.

He touched Brown Eyes with his heels and approached a knife grinder wheeling his cart beside the footpath. “Doesn't St. Michael's ring the hours anymore?”

“You must have been away, young man. Major Traille of the Royal Artillery took down the bells. Spoils of war. The British lost, but they will make us pay for winning.”

Although troops of the Crown still controlled Charleston, commanded by the noxious Balfour and Lord Cornwallis's replacement, Gen. Alexander Leslie, the rest of South Carolina belonged to the Americans. Redcoats in the city still tended to swagger, but abuse of civilians declined noticeably. The Board of Police pursued its duties with less zeal and thoroughness. The occupying forces surely would leave after negotiating with Nathaniel Greene, though no one knew when.

Tory sympathizers made themselves less visible. Edward's brother and his new wife stayed close to the white frame house they'd purchased, two and a half stories of Georgian elegance on Legare Street. Edward grudgingly sent a wedding gift, a beautiful swan made of glass on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon. He'd bought it from the master of an Italian schooner, one of the first European ships to dock at Bell's Bridge when the hurricane season ended and the December-to-March trading season began. Vessels from England called only to supply the garrison. Charleston was, realistically, an American port.

Lydia wrote a cool note of thanks for the gift, closing,
We would be glad to receive you at your convenience. I am most sorrowful over your father's death, as is my husband. We remain, we sincerely hope, objects of your deep familial affection.

A little too personal and pointed, that last line, he thought. Or was he inventing hidden meaning to flatter himself? No matter; she was out of his life. She was an old wound that Joanna's love would heal.

Christmas Eve was a blustery warm day. Edward and Esau Willing walked to the end of Bell's Bridge at the close of business. Edward's eyes ached from adding numbers and studying bills of lading. Esau carried biscuits in his pocket. He tossed pieces in the water; soon they had a great cloud of black-headed gulls wheeling and diving and squabbling over the floating morsels.

“I am thrilled that you and Joanna will marry,” Esau said.

Edward rubbed his aching left leg. “After the soldiers leave and life's normal again.” As if it could be with Lark's blood on his hands and both parents casualties of the savage war. “Meanwhile I'm trying to learn the business. One day I may want rooms on Broad Street for a legal practice, but for now my place is here.”

“I wish we had better records. Your father carried off the ledgers before the city surrendered. I have no idea where he took them.”

“They're at the house. He buried them in our garden to hide them from the British. I dug up the iron box myself.”

“Excellent, that's heartening news.” Esau's gray locks tossed in the ocean breeze. “I am sixty-four years old, Edward. I will not want to keep at this work forever.”

“Understood. When you decide to leave, we'll remove the cages. And commencing immediately, we'll receive no more black cargoes. When the slave trade resumes, plenty of wharf owners will be eager to take our place.”

Esau's face showed an initial negative reaction, but a smile smoothed away his frown. “This is my daughter's work.”

“But my decision.”

“If it's all the same, let's tear down the cages immediately. I lost that battle with Joanna long ago. She is a strong-willed woman, as you'll discover.”

“I already have. It's one of her fine characteristics, if not exactly a restful one.”

Both were able to smile at that. Arm-in-arm they walked back to the office to drink a Christmas toddy.

 

On the last day of December the gates of the Tower of London opened and Henry Laurens of Charleston walked out, free to travel to Paris to negotiate a peace treaty in company with Mr. Adams, Mr. Jay, and Dr. Franklin. Half a world away Edward wrote a deed of manumission for Sally Strong and her son, Hamnet. Sally was joyful at having a last name. Edward promised her something else:

“A place in my household, at fair wages, for as long as you want it. When you don't, you may leave. You're a free person, Sally.”

“Takes some getting used to,” Sally said as Edward dandled her gurgling beige-colored infant on his knee. “Feels mighty wonderful, though.”

 

At Epiphany, Edward's morning was spent attending worship service at St. Michael's, sans bells. The rector informed him that the British would soon ship the bells to New York. He showed Edward a memorial from the vestry, addressed to the perpetrator of the theft, and that gentleman's punctilious reply:

In the afternoon Edward presented small wooden boxes of money to all the Negroes at home and at Bell's Bridge. Captain Marburg was off duty, so Edward invited him to Tom Bell's office for a mug of bumbo, a potent punch concocted of rum, sugar, and water.

Though Marburg was a Jew, he had a liberal spirit about the Christian holidays. He described the German custom of bringing a tree into the house and decorating it for Christmas. Edward had never heard of such.

He told Marburg of his decision about the cages, and the reason for it. The Hessian said, “A principled woman, Fraulein Joanna. Where did she come by it?”

“Her mother. German, like you. In Joanna's words, the woman had a conscience of steel. Read the Bible constantly. The Old Testament prophets were her heroes. She died when I was about ten, and frankly I can't even remember the sound of her voice. She was shy with outsiders. I do recall she spoke with an accent.”

“Heavy as mine?”

“Heavier.”

“And she disliked slavery?”

“She loathed it. She told Joanna it promoted godless behavior because it gave the owner the right to take slave women to bed, no permission needed. It's still true. The masters sire bastards and then treat them as step-asides.”

“I do not know that term.”

“It means the child of a master who steps aside from responsibility. Never acknowledges his illegitimate son or daughter.”

Marburg reflected a moment. “If you and Fraulein Joanna raise children, this strong lady may give them a gift that is sometimes unwelcome and almost always vexing.”

“What's that?”

“A conscience,” Marburg said.

 

Governor John Rutledge, soon to retire, called for a special legislative assembly at Jacksonboro, thirty-six miles south of Charleston. The selection of delegates surprised no one: thirty of the sixty-three St. Augustine prisoners were chosen, including Mr. Gadsden and the governor's brother, Edward Rutledge. General Marion and General Sumter were among those representing the military.

A vindictive spirit prevailed in the Jacksonboro assembly. Under a confiscation act that it passed, 239 loyalist estates
were taken from their owners. Another forty-seven were amerced at twelve percent of assessed value; these estates belonged to those deemed lesser offenders.

Charleston's
Royal Gazette
published the list of forfeited properties, together with a fiery denunciation of the assembly.
This mock government has enacted ruinous and impolitic measures solely to disburse plunder to its members, buffoons and criminals who dare to sit in judgment of their betters.
Edward wasn't surprised to find Adrian's name on the confiscation list.

Lydia called on him at Bell's Bridge one afternoon in March. Her husband's Tory prosperity was evident in the closed coach with an ostentatious quartet of horses; before the surrender Adrian had run about in a modest chaise. The coach's enameled door panels bore a new crest incorporating golden bells and a Latin motto.

Lydia's arrival caught Edward by surprise. He'd been helping to unload a lighter from a Belgian trader anchored in the harbor, and he smelled like it.

“Edward dearest,” Lydia trilled as she swept to the office door ahead of him, a picture of petite beauty. She removed a green silk mask she wore to protect her skin from the bright sun. “You haven't called on us.”

“That's right, I have not.”

“You haven't even kissed the bride.” The sight of her still stirred him. His weakness made him angry.

In the office he nervously shifted papers and an inkhorn on the desk. “Please take my chair. I'm sorry there's only one.” He positioned it for her.

She arranged her skirts and settled gracefully. He lit a strong green cigar to cover the awkward moment; the smoke barely masked the stink of his sweat. “Really, my dear,” she said, “you must visit our new home. It's grand.”

“I've seen it from the outside and I agree.”

“Everyone knows you served with the old Swamp Fox last year. Was there great danger?”

“There was some. I survived.”

“Adrian heard you freed a slave. That won't enhance your popularity in Charleston.”

“I didn't do it for popularity. I don't mean to be rude, Lydia—”

“But you are,” she broke in, her blue eyes afire. “Rude, cold—not at all cordial as a brother-in-law should be. I've come on a most important mission.”

He guessed its nature. “Something to do with land?”

“Yes, yes, the terrible crime of the Jacksonboro men. Prosperity Hall is to be taken away from Adrian. It's damned unfair,” she exclaimed, color in her cheeks. Polite ladies didn't use such language, at least not in the presence of gentlemen.

“You may find it unfair, but it should hardly be a surprise. Adrian belongs to an exclusive club.”

“Club? What club?”

“Those who congratulated Clinton and Cornwallis. The memorials addressed to them when the city fell haven't been forgotten or forgiven.”

“But can't they be? Can't Prosperity Hall be stricken from the list? That's why I'm here, to plead with you to intervene.”

“Why didn't Adrian come personally?”

“He's afraid of you. It's true, Edward. He knows how bravely you fought, facing danger, and Colonel Hayne's fate if you were caught. You've always outshone Adrian in matters of courage.” She glided to him, trapping him in a corner. “Don't you know that's one more reason I think about you constantly?” She stood close, her yellow hair teasing his chin. “I do, dearest. I dream of you even when Adrian's in my bed and we're—”

“For God's sake, Lydia. Have you no decency?” He seized her wrist, drove her hand down. “I told you I'd never cuckold Adrian. I meant it.”

“I don't believe you.” On tiptoe she kissed him ardently. She pushed his hand against her breast. “You know I'm lively in bed, that I'll do anything you ask.”

“But now you've set a price for those favors? Removal of Adrian's name from the list?”

“Is it so much to ask? He's your brother.”

“He truckled to the enemy.”

“Please, Edward. Speak to Gadsden. Have you seen him?”

“Not yet. He traveled straight down to Jacksonboro from Georgetown. Even if I were willing to talk to him, which I'm not, it would do no good. Christopher put more names on the list than anyone else. I expect Adrian's was one of them. My brother turned his coat to save his land and, presumably, to keep you secure and happy at the end of your golden chain.”

“You vile bastard.” Her hand flew to the open inkhorn; she dashed ink on him, stinging his eyes, splattering his face, staining his shirt and waistcoat. Someone pounded on the door. One of the Negroes who worked on the wharf nervously asked if Mr. Edward was all right.

“I'm fine, Seth, nothing to worry about. Lydia, you must go.” He'd forgotten her temper, the familiar bursts of wrath. Thank God she hadn't been within reach of hot coals, or a hand ax.

Strangely, she started to laugh. “What a sight you are. You look like a filthy nigger. It's appropriate, you have the soul of one. You'd probably murder me if you could.”

Edward's face wrenched. With his thumb he wiped a spot of ink from her cheek. He smeared it on the bodice of her dress.

“Oh, you've ruined it.”

“Adrian will replace it. Next time tell him not to send a woman to do his begging.”

Lydia's rage dissolved into tears as she started for the door. “Oh, Edward, Edward. You hurt me so. How I wish to God I didn't love you.”

Sunlight flashed in his eyes as she donned her mask and went out. He watched the coach clatter away toward the pierhead. He'd wash out the ink stains easily enough. The stain left in memory by the violent scene would be less easy to erase.