Charleston (3 page)

One night in early November 1779, he dreamed a terrifying dream.

He saw a skiff dancing across Charleston Harbor, running before an offshore breeze that raised what mariners called white horses on the water. Lydia sat in the skiff's bow, laughing and enjoying herself; her hair flew in the wind like a yellow banner.

He couldn't see the face of the man at the tiller, only his back. But he was not the man, of that he was sure. Though he was athletic, a superb horseman, he'd never learned to swim or sail. His mother called it passing strange, since his father, a wharf owner, made his living from the commerce of the creeks and rivers and oceans.

Unseen bells began to peal—the eight church bells of St. Michael's parish, cast by Messrs. Lester and Pack, London, where he lay dreaming. The bells didn't ring the sequence of notes that called the faithful to Sunday worship. They rang another familiar call, the call to calamity: a fire, an impending hurricane. Great danger.

When he woke in his room on the third floor above Fountain Court, the meaning of the dream came clear. He'd been absent from America a year and a half. The de
sirable young woman he wanted to marry could be slipping away from him.

Edward Bell, twenty-one, was at that time studying at the Middle Temple. He had resisted his father's wish to send him there, saying, “I have no ambition to practice law in South Carolina.”

“Nor do most of the young men from Charleston who enroll at the Inns of Court, but it will be useful. It broadens you, like a grand tour. It makes you a keener student of business contracts. It prepares you to be a leader of society—to hold office if you wish.”

“Why not send Adrian? He's firstborn.”

“I don't mean to speak unkindly of your brother, but to be truthful, he hasn't the head for it. Adrian's a shrewd young man. Shrewd is not the same as smart.”

“But we're in the middle of a war with England.”

“Where do you think we learned that we have a right to rebel against the injustices of the king's ministers? From English constitutional law, taught at the Middle Temple. Who stood up to the king in Parliament and defended our right to rebel? Edmund Burke, of the Middle Temple.”

“Is this a scheme to keep me out of the militia?”

“Do you want to join the militia, Edward?”

“Not particularly. I'm not an ardent patriot like you.”

“You're more of one than your brother. Worry about the militia at such time as the British return to Carolina. It may never happen. They've left us alone three years now.” In '76, Col. William Moultrie and his brave men had repulsed an invasion attempt at the palmetto log fort on nearby Sullivan's Island, the fort now bearing Moultrie's name. After that humiliation Gen. Henry Clinton and Adm. Sir Peter Parker sailed away and Great Britain concentrated on fighting in the North.

Edward ran out of objections. Soon thereafter he departed for London and the Inns of Court.

 

On a cold but windless evening in early December, he left his apartment in Essex Court, crossed Fountain Court, and entered Middle Temple Hall. Edward was a tall and
lanky young man, not handsome, but possessed of strong features and an engaging smile. There was no fat on him. He'd inherited his height and build from his father, Tom Bell. He was dressed like a sober colonial in a double-breasted kersey greatcoat, a white stock and lace cravat, black leather top boots, and a black felt hat with a flat crown and broad brim. He owned a wig but preferred to keep his brown hair tied back with a black ribbon. He carried a stout walking stick for self-defense at night.

In the corridor he passed a broad open doorway on his right. Students and masters still sat at table in the great hall, a high cathedral of a room walled with plaques bearing the arms of the Templars from whom the Middle Temple took its name. Student friends of Edward's were deep into port and private argument, even as an old lawyer droned on from the dais. Something about torts, in which Edward had no interest. Since coming to London he'd spent most of his time at gambling clubs, cockfights, bearbaitings, and his favorite table at the Carolina Coffeehouse in Birchin Lane, where he hobnobbed with rowdy clerks from the London branch of Crokatt's, a Charleston trading firm.

No one in the Temple's great hall noticed him as he slipped by. A door at the end of the corridor brought him to the water gate. As usual, a boatman stood by, waiting to bear a young gentleman off to the night's adventures. Edward stepped down on a thwart.

“South Bank. I'll show you where.”

Half an hour later he elbowed his way to the edge of an oval cockfighting pit raised twenty inches above the floor in the center of a large, bare room. Noisy and smoky, the room opened off a narrow passage fittingly called Cocker's Alley. It was packed with roughly dressed lowlifes and young men in fancy silks and powdered wigs. The pit's carpeted floor was strewn with feathers. Dark stains showed where birds had bled. Cocks ready for their matches crowed periodically, adding to the racket.

Edward spoke to a stout man. “Anyone special here tonight?”

“Corday's here, with his black-breasted red. Won the three-day main at Clerkenwell last week.”

“Corday.” Edward frowned. He'd had run-ins with that gentleman, chiefly over the American rebellion. Mr. Clive Corday had come down from Oxford to study at Gray's Inn. He was notorious for spending even less time at it than Edward did. He was well placed; a relative sat in the House of Lords. Edward always bet against Corday's birds because he detested the man.

A shout went up as Corday appeared, his feeder right behind him carrying the bird. The black-breasted red weighed almost five pounds, Edward guessed. He was a fierce bird with cropped tail feathers, a comb cut into a half moon, and steel fighting spurs. Corday greeted his admirers boisterously. He was a fleshy young dandy with a round face perpetually red and sweaty. He always dressed with fashionable flamboyance, in this case a coat of Italian silk with vertical red and white stripes, a solid red waistcoat, and striped knee stockings that matched his coat.

Corday was contemptuous of the American colonies and all who lived there. It showed when he spied Edward and favored him with a slow nod, a scornful smile. Edward returned the nod, pulled his purse from his pocket, and pointed at the contender. Corday's face reddened all the more.

“Save my spot, if you please.” Edward tipped the stout man tuppence and went off to bet.

Corday's first opponent, a loutish fellow wearing farmer's boots, stepped up to the pit looking hangdog, as though his smaller four-pound bird had already lost. At a signal from the master of the matches, Corday and his opponent pitted their birds close to one another, then quickly retreated to the floor outside the oval. Corday's red crowed defiantly. The birds circled one another, darting their heads forward. Suddenly the red flew at the opponent and began to slash with its beak and spurs. The patrons applauded and yelled profane encouragements.

The birds fought fiercely, leaping off the carpet, slashing and pecking. The red disposed of the smaller cock in ten minutes. It lay dying, its head flopping on its neck, its side torn open and bleeding. Edward had wagered two shillings and lost. Corday glanced at him with a smug smile, then
turned to accept congratulations from a crowd of sycophants.

A second challenger carried his bird into the pit. This one lasted almost half an hour before the red disposed of it. The third opponent died in twenty minutes, and the red finished off the fourth and fifth in half that time. Corday's feeder picked up the red while, in the back of the hall, the next contenders crowed raucously. Corday's prize was ten guineas. Having steadfastly bet against him, Edward had lost ten shillings of his father's money.

Corday found Edward in the crowd. “Another bad evening, Mr. Bell?” Corday stuck his thumbs in the pockets of his fine waistcoat. Trickles of sweat had washed powder from his wig onto his temples.

Edward stared him down. “I'll get my money back one day.”

“Wagering against my big red? I doubt it. You Americans never know when you're whipped. Well, you soon will be, now that Clinton's at sea.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Letter from a cousin in New York. Serves aboard the flagship of Admiral Arbuthnot. Big armada's forming up, to sail within the month. Sir Henry Clinton, nine thousand men—a major campaign in the South. I don't doubt they'll wall up your city and starve you unwashed rabble into submission.”

This was stunning news, though perhaps Edward should have seen it coming. A month ago a letter from his father had reported that the British were disquieted because they'd been unable to win a significant victory in the North. Further, the French now stood with the Americans in the war. No doubt Clinton had smarted ever since the defeat at Fort Moultrie. It made a new attack on Charleston seem inevitable.

Tom Bell's letter had sounded a further note of melancholy. Charleston's revolutionary zeal, so hot five years earlier, was waning as the economically hurtful war dragged on.

Corday took advantage of Edward's stunned silence. “It would surely suit me if you were one of those beaten down
by General Clinton, Mr. Bell. You're nothing but an ill-bred parvenu. What's more, you dress atrociously.”

“And you're an arrogant ass, Mr. Corday. You dress like a whoremonger.”

Corday's hand flew up to deliver a stinging slap. Edward staggered back. Corday grinned and stepped in, ready to land another blow. Edward rammed his stick into Corday's middle, throwing him off-stride.

The crowd gave them room. Patrons applauded and encouraged Corday. Edward dropped the stick, swung up his right fist, and blasted Corday's chin from underneath. With his left fist he hammered Corday's soft belly. Corday slipped to his knees, gagging. Edward seized Corday's collar at the nape, pushed hard, and slammed his forehead on the floor twice.

Corday flopped on his side. His wig fell off, baring his shaved skull. Edward snatched up his stick and bashed Corday with the knobby end. Clawing at the floor, Corday struggled to rise. Edward hit him again and Corday stretched out with a sigh.

All around him Edward heard ominous grumblings from Corday's partisans. He waved his stick at those nearest—“One side, damn you”—and they fell back. He left the building at a fast walk, not eager to become a victim of a mob.

Once into the darkened ways of the South Bank, he sprinted for the water stairs. He lost his hat and didn't go back for it.

Crossing the river, he made a decision. It was time to abandon his studies. The new British campaign could mean great danger for his family, but more persuasive, perhaps, was the dream: the bells ringing the alarm, an unseen rival stealing Lydia. He wanted Lydia Glass with all his young man's blood and fire. He hadn't heard from her since arriving in London; she said she never wrote letters. It was time to go home, before he lost her.

The French brig
Petite Julianne
out of Calais brought Edward across the Atlantic. The ship fought January gales and towering green seas that kept him uneasy because he couldn't swim. When they broke through to calmer waters near the lush green coast of Carolina, lookouts spied sails of British men-o'-war to the south.

The brig crossed the Charleston Bar and sailed into the familiar harbor. Winter sunshine brightened the water and warmed the salt-tanged air. Gulls dived to find a meal. The Bell house at Oyster Point at the south end of the peninsula was just visible above earthworks where gangs of black men labored. To starboard Fort Moultrie swarmed with similar activity. Several warships rode at anchor, flying the
Don't Tread on Me
flag designed for the American navy by Tom Bell's friend Christopher Gadsden.

Edward's eyes misted at the sight of America's loveliest city: the white and pastel houses, the waterfront, the beautiful Exchange Building at the foot of Broad Street, where distinguished visitors arrived at the waterside steps and ascended to the grand portico. The spires of St. Philip's and St. Michael's ornamented the skyline. Edward wanted to hear St. Michael's bells again. He'd grown up with them.

His delight became dismay as the brig made her way up the Cooper. Nine commercial wharves jutted into the river, the longest and largest being Gadsden's. For years the wharves had shipped indigo to the textile mills of England, rice to the dining tables of Europe, Carolina pine to the shipyards of Bermuda. All of that, plus turpentine and pitch, corn and beef and peas, and the incoming slave ships,
usually made the wharf district a tumultuous place. Today Edward saw only a few small vessels tied up, none at Bell's Bridge.

Originally it was named Trott's Bridge,
bridge
being an old term for wharf. Tom Bell had gone to work there as a young man. He had proved himself to be smart, worthy, and a hard worker, and married Trott's well-educated daughter, Eliza. He took over the business when she inherited it.

Tom had no wish to join the idle planter class, but he soon acquired land anyway, unsought. It came about because he loaned money to young men who bought large tracts of land and slaves to work it. He took his debt service in a percentage of their crops, sold the rice and indigo abroad, and thereby amassed more money to lend.

But some of the overly ambitious young gentlemen had neither the brains nor the industry to operate a plantation. From one failed wastrel Tom foreclosed land that became his summer home, Malvern. From another he got a much larger parcel on the Ashley. This he deeded to his son Adrian, five years Edward's senior, on favorable terms. Adrian had done well with the land, creating a profitable plantation, Prosperity Hall, in a matter of a few years.

The Frenchman dropped anchor just off Bell's Bridge, where a man was examining the brig with a spyglass. Edward climbed down to the ship's gig; two small trunks were already stowed. Four oarsmen rowed him toward wooden steps on the wharf. The observer, whom Edward identified as the wharf manager, Esau Willing, sent a black boy racing up the pier to announce the arrival.

The gig tied up, Edward climbed the stairs and greeted the astonished Mr. Willing, a plain, sober man of middle years. Two eight-person canoes used for the busy ferry traffic to the other side of the Cooper were turned over and roped to cleats on the wharf; more commerce curtailed by war.

“Before God,” Willing said, thrusting out his hand, which Edward shook, “I wondered what that Frenchman was up to. I thought it might be some British trick. No one expected you, Mr. Edward.”

“Least of all my father, I'm sure,” Edward said. And
there he was, Tom Bell, summoned by the boy and stalking down the pier like vengeance itself. Oarsmen threw Edward's trunks on the pier and pushed off.

Tom Bell was a tall, slender man nearing sixty, with weather-browned skin and a piratical mustache white as his hair. He dressed like a mechanic, in a loose linen shirt and old breeches of blue-and-white striped ticking. He didn't own a peruke and never powdered his hair, simply left it tied, like his son's. For these and other reasons the town's elite had always dismissed Tom Bell as a half-gentleman. The eighteenth century's ideal was the landed proprietor. Someone in trade who didn't amass and hold land enthusiastically was suspect.

“Sir, look who fell out of the sea,” Willing exclaimed to his employer.

“The prodigal son.” Tom gave Edward a fierce look. “You have abandoned your studies?”

“For the moment, sir. I left London because—”

“We'll discuss your reasons in private.” He wheeled about, his tone an unspoken command to follow.

Not too loudly, Mr. Willing said, “Welcome back. I'll have a boy deliver your trunks.” Edward thanked him and hurried off, forgetting to make a polite inquiry about Willing's daughter.

In the years since the Fort Moultrie victory Charleston had remained a busy open port. Obviously the Crown's new campaign in the South was closing it down. Sheds that warehoused rice and indigo on Bell's Bridge were empty. The scale house and small kitchen building were padlocked.

Edward followed his father into a dim and cluttered office. Tom Bell sat behind his desk and began to pack his pipe with the fragrant tobacco he flavored with vanilla. He didn't offer his son a chair.

“Now, sir. Explain yourself.”

“Yes, sir. Last month I heard news of Clinton's armada. I was worried about you, and mother.”

Tom pounced on Edward's hesitation: “Is that all?”

“Lydia. I was worried about her too.”

“As well you might be,” Tom said with a curious look Edward didn't understand. “Sir Henry Clinton has marched
up the coast from Savannah with approximately nine thousand men, including mercenary companies from the German province of Hesse. Admiral Arbuthnot's fleet is anchored off Simmons Island
1

¹
Present-day Seabrook Island

“I saw them inside the bar.”

“No match for the enemy squadron. I expect Sir Henry will be on James Island, within artillery range, in a matter of days. You chose a poor time to return.”

“Well, the deed's done, so I hope we needn't wrangle about it.”

“You expect me to accept this calmly, Edward? I spent a devil of a lot of money to send you abroad. I am grossly disappointed in your behavior.”

“I'm sorry, sir. I'll try to make it up somehow. If not the money, at least the disappointment. May I ask whether you've seen Lydia?”

Again that odd look. “Not lately, no.”

“Is mother at Oyster Point?” That was the site of their house, the southern point of the peninsula, named for the middens of oyster shell that bleached white in the sun.

“No, I sent her out to Malvern as soon as we got word of the enemy landing at Savannah. I thought the countryside would be safer. Now I'm not sure. Clinton may cross the Ashley and occupy the Neck, cutting us off by land as well as by sea. Further, there are loyalist partisans operating in the parishes. They are not honorable men.”

“I'll bring mother to Charleston anytime you say.”

“Thank you. Your brother's already left Prosperity Hall in the care of his slaves. He's staying at his town house.”

“I'll go there now, if I may.”

“You're more likely to find him at William Holliday's tavern on Queen Street, idling his time away with his friends of similar disposition.”

“And Poorly, sir? What about him?”

“At the moment Daniel Poorly is working at Malvern.”

“You wrote that he's married.”

“Sally, a light-skinned kitchen girl.”

“So I own two slaves?”

“Not yet. Remember that under the code, slave marriages have no legal standing. Is that all?”

Awkwardly, Edward extended a hand, as though to touch his father. He hoped Tom might stand, let Edward embrace him. He didn't. Edward's hand fell. “Only this, sir. Whatever else happens, I'm very glad to see you.”

After a long, steady look Tom said, “My feeling as well.” He spoke gruffly, to hide any trace of sentimentality. “If you choose to walk through the city, you'll hardly recognize it. Much of the damage from the great fire of two years ago has been repaired, but the damage from this war grows more evident every day.”

Edward took his leave. Near the head of the pier he passed by three large iron cages designed to hold slaves fresh off the ships. The cages were empty, free of their usual stench. From the top bars of each cage hung pairs of chains and manacles, to restrain any man or woman feeling rebellious after the long passage from Africa. The breeze rang the metal cuffs and chains like chimes.

A few steps beyond, near the hurly-burly of Bay Street, Edward saw a young woman approaching, Mr. Willing's daughter, Joanna. She wore a workaday long-sleeved dress, brown wool, a laced-up leather bodice, a small round cap, latched shoes of cowhide. “Edward. What in heaven are you doing in Charleston?”

“Change of plans. I heard about the invasion. I thought my father might need me.”

“Indeed he may. They say Clinton's brought artillery, horses, and those dreadful Germans who fight for money.”

Edward remembered Joanna as a small, serious girl, exceptionally neat in her personal habits. That was not a trait inherited from her father. Esau Willing kept an untidy office that Joanna continually tried to clean and organize. Her mother came from the German colony up at Orangeburg. He recalled little about the woman except her face and the different spelling of her name, Johanna.

During his absence Joanna had matured into a beautifully proportioned young woman no taller than his shoul
der. She had her father's round face, a good bosom, large brown eyes, and lustrous brown hair with strong reddish lights in it. Always neatly arranged, her hair reminded him of a hunter's cap. Her forehead was high and smooth. She smiled easily, and with warmth; she had good teeth.

A constant subtle tension gave her body a slight forward tilt, as though she was anticipating a problem or searching for one that needed her attention. Even when she conversed, he felt that her mind was clicking with a hundred other concerns. Joanna Willing was a person he'd known reasonably well but had no great interest in, especially since she tended to be an annoying scold on one subject.

“Are you looking for Mr. Willing?” he asked.

“No. I'm going out in the harbor with an oyster rake. I found a bed where the oysters are big as dinner plates. Two of those will feed Papa and me nicely.”

“My father says the city's greatly changed.”

“Not in every respect.” She glanced at the cages. A hanging chain and manacle moved in the wind, throwing its shadow on her face.

“You still believe we're wrong to trade in slaves?”

“Absolutely. The British are on the right side of that issue. They're encouraging slaves to run away and join their army.”

Her air of rectitude annoyed him. “Joanna, for years part of your father's salary has come from the profits of slave trading on this wharf.”

“I am not my father.”

“Still, slavery paid for your education at that fine young ladies' academy.”

“And education taught me to hate slavery.”

“Well, there's independency, eh? I surrender.” He smiled. “I'm out of arguments.”

“I don't find the subject amusing. Slavery is an abomination before God. It paid for your glorious holiday in England, didn't it?”

“Damn, Joanna, you're—”

“The tide's running. I must hurry. Good day, Edward.”

And off she went, her broad hips swinging in a way that might have intrigued him in other circumstances. He shook
his head. Not much of a homecoming, this. He hoped he'd experienced the worst of it.