Celia Garth: A Novel (31 page)

There were still times when she dreamed of Bellwood and woke up shuddering, and other times when she lay awake wondering what was going to become of her. One night she woke to such hot stillness that she could hardly breathe. When she went to the window she could not feel a stirring of wind. Outside, the trees looked weird in the faint greenish glow of the moon. The long gray moss hung motionless. Celia could hear the croaking of frogs, and now and then the chirp of a night-bird.

The air was like a burden. Wide awake and restless, she thought it might ease her nerves if she walked around. She was not in the habit of roaming about the house at night, but it would not matter if she was very quiet. She put on her dressing-gown and slippers. They were soft quilted cloth slippers, and would make no sound. Opening the door carefully she went into the hall.

Through a front window came the glow of the moon. It did not give much light, just that greenish radiance, ghostly on the long gray moss and ghostly here as it threw the shadows of the windowpanes in rectangles on the floor.

How quiet it was, how lonesome. This was a house built for a large family and many guests, but now there was nobody on the second floor but herself. On a front corner was the master suite of rooms. Herbert and Vivian used to have these for their own, but in late years, since they had found it tiresome to climb stairs, they had changed to rooms on the first floor. The servants slept in their own wing at the back of the house. The closed doors along the hall, and the empty rooms behind them, seemed grim, unfriendly.

Celia went to the railing of the staircase and looked down. The stair-well was black. Below her, on the landing halfway down, she could hear the deep slow ticks of the great clock. She thought of how they had raised their glasses New Year’s Eve, and how Jimmy had given her that gay loving smile as he whispered “Happy New Year!”

How loud the clock sounded in the silent house. The slow tick-tocks seemed to draw her downstairs, toward the ballroom. She gathered her robe around her and felt her way down the stairs, guiding herself with a hand on the rail.

The lower hall was dark but not completely black. Over the front door were panes of heavy glass, through which the moon shone dimly. As Celia paused at the foot of the stairs to see her way, above her the clock gave a low stern whirr. It was about to strike. Remembering the ballroom, she shivered and put her hand over her eyes. The clock struck two.

Moving soundlessly, she made her way toward the ballroom. In these days the ballroom looked very little like the gorgeous place where they had danced last New Year’s Eve. With no prospect of entertaining company any time soon, Vivian had protected the floor with heavy canvas, and had moved in some pieces of furniture that she wanted out of the way for the summer. Celia stood a moment on the threshold.

The curtains were closed. At the front windows she could see a shimmer of moonlight around the edges. The furniture, shrouded in dust-covers, looked like lumps of thicker darkness in the dark.

She went inside. The place had the musty smell of a room little used. Moving along the wall, she put out her hand and found the marble mantelpiece. The hard cold feel of it was refreshing on her damp skin. She thought of the room as it had been that night, the candles glancing back and forth from the mirrors, the music and laughter, the tinkle of glasses and the swish of silk. And how happy she had been.

Over by a corner window was a black lump that might be a chair. She went toward it, and held back the window-curtain long enough to see. The window was locked top and bottom, and had a heavy oak beam across it. At night every window in the house was locked except those of the occupied bedrooms; Herbert went around to make sure of it, and the locks were of a complex design. It would do nobody any good to break a pane and reach in from outside.

Under the dust-cover was a deep cushioned chair such as Herbert liked to draw up by the fire in winter, but for which he had no use in sticky weather like this. Celia let the curtain fall, and curled up in the chair. Right over there on the wall, so near that she could almost have touched it, was the mirror where she had seen herself when she stood by the punch-table thinking, I’m not really beautiful but I feel beautiful, and I look like a girl who feels beautiful.

She did not know how long she sat there, remembering, telling herself she ought to go back to her room because the pain of remembering was so great, but staying here anyway, remembering more. Suddenly in the silence she heard a sound.

She stiffened. Her skin prickled as she thought,
Tarleton.

But maybe she had not heard anything. Or maybe Herbert and Vivian could not sleep either, and were up, moving around. She hadn’t heard anything and if she had it wasn’t important.

She heard it again.

Footsteps. Soft, careful footsteps. Somebody was in the house. It could not be Tarleton, or sneak-thieves—nobody could force a way into this house without a banging and battering that could be heard a mile. It was Herbert or Vivian, no doubt about it.

But the steps did not come from the direction of the rooms occupied by Herbert and Vivian. They came from the back of the house and they were coming this way.

It had been only a second or two since she had heard the first sound, but it seemed an hour. With no conscious direction of her own her head had turned toward the door, but otherwise she had not moved. She could not. She sat deep in the chair, tense with fright.

Somebody was standing in the doorway. A man—she could barely make out his figure in the dark. As she had done, he stood a moment on the threshold to get his eyes adjusted to what glimmer of light there was, then with the sureness of a man who knew his way around, he went to the nearest window. His footsteps were almost soundless on the covered floor.

He moved the curtains a little way apart. Through the window came a faint light. The light was so dim, and Celia so frightened, that it took her an instant to recognize Luke.

Luke wore neither hat nor coat, and the moon shone around the hard lines of his body. He turned from the window and started back toward the door. She saw that he had on heavy boots that would have clumped noisily if the floor had been bare. So it was to protect Luke, and not the dance-floor, that Vivian had laid that canvas.

Celia had nearly exclaimed when she saw him, and almost instinctively she had pressed her fist over her mouth. Luke was a fugitive, maybe even now he was being pursued. If she spoke and startled him she might betray him. She sat still, barely breathing.

Luke was at the doorway. In a low voice he said, “Come in, sir. You can see your way now.”

He stepped aside. His voice, his manner, his every movement, showed a deep deference. Celia stared through the dark. Somebody important was about to come in.

Two men came through the doorway. One of them was a Negro, and leaning on his arm was a white man, smaller in build, who walked with a bad limp.

With the colored man’s aid, the little cripple took a few halting steps toward Luke. The three men exchanged whispers. Though Celia could not make out the words, she could tell that Luke was still addressing the lame man with the greatest respect.

Luke walked toward the fireplace. Against the dark wood paneling of the wall by the mantel, Celia could barely make out his figure. He said,

“Ready, Colonel Marion.”

Marion!

Celia felt a shock. She had thought Marion would be a
personage.
Not a shriveled-up shrimp. He might improve when he could walk—that fall last March must have been a bad one, since he was still limping in midsummer—but even standing up straight he would not look as if he amounted to much.

Supported by the Negro, Marion hobbled toward the fireplace. Then, while Luke stood there, Marion and the colored man went through the wall.

Celia felt pins and needles in her hair.

There was no door next to the fireplace. On both sides there was that dark wood paneling, against which the white marble stood out in beautiful contrast. But Marion and the Negro had gone through the wall. Luke stood there alone. Now as he turned around she could see that the wall was still there—she saw a faint reflection of moonlight on the paneling.

Luke had started again toward the door. In her amazement Celia forgot her caution. She said, “Luke!”

He wheeled on one foot and stared around. She had stood up, and he saw her, a white figure in the dark. She said, “It’s me—Celia.”

“Oh,” said Luke, and coming quickly toward her he caught her hand in his. His hand was rough and hard, and felt enormously strong. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Why, nothing,” she returned. “I couldn’t sleep. Luke, where did Colonel Marion go just now?”

Luke’s hand closed on hers. She felt that he could have snapped her fingers like toothpicks. When he spoke his voice was low but it had a force like cannon.

“You never saw Colonel Marion in your life,” he said, “except once when he fell out of a window on Tradd Street.”

“Oh, all right!” Celia retorted. “What do you think I am, a Tory spy? I won’t say anything if I should run into Cornwallis, or Tarleton—Tarleton—” Her voice cracked. With her free hand she covered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Luke. But I’m so torn up. Maybe you haven’t heard—” Her throat closed and she could say no more.

“Yes I have,” said Luke. He was suddenly very gentle. His grip on her hand relaxed. He drew her to sit again in the big chair, and he sat on the chair-arm beside her. Celia spoke again.

“I didn’t mean to cry. I thought I was through with crying. I’m all right now.”

Luke stroked her hair softly. “Celia, Jimmy is in God’s hands. And so are you, and so am I. That’s all I can tell you.”

There was a pause. In the close dusty air Luke had a smell of the woods about him, redolent of earth and leaves and grass, what she had always thought of as a “green smell.” Celia turned in the chair so she could speak to him directly. “Luke,” she said, “I didn’t see anybody tonight. Not you, not anybody. I won’t tell.”

“I know you won’t,” he said.

Again there was a silence. Celia liked sitting here with him. After a while she ventured, “Luke—Colonel Marion—” She hesitated.

“What about him?”

“He’s very important, isn’t he?”

“He sure is,” said Luke. Celia could not see the expression of Luke’s face, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “I guess,” added Luke, “Colonel Marion’s about the most important man within a thousand miles.”

Celia exclaimed, “But—he’s so puny!”

Luke laughed softly in the dark. “Honeychild,” he said to her, “when that man’s leading a charge, he looks nine feet tall.”

She supposed he was right. The men who had served with Marion all seemed to think of him that way. Luke went on,

“The British are combing the country for him. As long as he’s at liberty we’re not licked and they know it. He has to slip around like a puff of smoke. Always moving.”

“Who’s the colored man?” she asked.

“That’s Buddy. His name is Oscar, but Colonel Marion calls him Buddy so the rest of us do too. They grew up together.”

Like Jimmy and Amos, thought Celia, and the memory gave her a twinge of pain. She was glad when Luke spoke again.

“Celia, how long have you been sitting here? How much have you heard?”

She told him. He ignored her mention of the wall, but when she said their footsteps had approached from the back he said,

“That’s right. Good ears. Mother always leaves me something to eat—I won’t say where—so whenever I’m in the neighborhood I can creep in and get a meal.”

“Do you want me to call Vivian?” she asked.

“No. I’ve left her a message. And I’ll be grateful if you don’t tell her you’ve seen me. It might worry her that I didn’t have sense enough to explore this room before I let Colonel Marion come in.”

“I won’t tell,” Celia said again.

But she wondered how long he could go on like this, he and Marion and their friends. Hiding, whispering, moving by night like spooks.

“Luke, tell me really,” she begged, “is there any chance for the rebels now?”

“Yes, plenty,” said Luke. He spoke with conviction. “Some things I can’t tell you. But this much I can: there’s a rumor—I don’t know if it’s a fact, we’re trying now to find out—there’s a rumor that General Washington has sent us a force from his main army. They’re supposed to be on their way.”

Celia could almost feel hear heart leap. Luke went on.

“If it’s true, of course Colonel Marion will offer his services to the officer in command. So will I. I’m tired of running.”

Celia thought what it would mean to know the British were gone, the country safe from more horrors like Bellwood. With a hopeful sigh she leaned back. Her head brushed Luke’s arm, which lay across the back of the chair, and she felt him wince. She sat forward. “Are you hurt, Luke?”

“Scratched up a little. Moncks Corner, and another scrap at Lenud’s Ferry. Almost well now. Mother has been bandaging me up.”

Celia wondered where they had been seeing each other. No doubt in that space behind the wall, whatever it was. But Luke was not going to talk about that and it was no use asking him. She thought of Marion’s lameness, and asked, “How are you getting around?—he can hardly walk.”

“Horses. Back in the woods.”

“You still have Jerry?”

“Not since Moncks Corner. I shot him myself before we ducked into the swamp. No man of Tarleton’s was going to have Jerry. The governor gave me another.”

She felt herself smiling as she asked, “And I suppose you gave him some crazy name out of the Bible?”

“Sure. His name is Bill.”

“Bill? There’s nobody in the Bible,” exclaimed Celia, “named William!”

Luke chuckled. “Bill, short for Bildad the Shuhite.”

“Who?”

“Bildad. In the Book of Job.”

Celia began to laugh. It did not occur to her until later that this was the first time she had laughed since Jimmy died. Luke stood up, saying he had to leave now.

She stood up too. “I’m glad I had a chance to talk to you, Luke,” she said. “It’s done me good.”

“If that’s so, I’m glad too. And I want to tell you one thing more.” Taking her hand in his again, he spoke with low-voiced assurance. “Celia, you haven’t lost everything. You have plenty left.”