Charleston (5 page)

At supper that evening Tom Bell said, “I want you to bring your mother to the city.” There was an unspoken understanding from the past: when circumstances were unusual, or physical hardship called for, Tom Bell looked to his younger son.

“Gladly,” Edward said.

“I may have waited too long. A man who came down the Cooper last night told me that partisans led by William Lark sacked and burned Pertwee's store two days ago.”

“William Lark?”

“A jackleg Tory. More interested in plunder than principle, I expect. I knocked heads with his father, Ladimer,
years ago, when Trott had me driving pine logs from the forest to the wharf.”

“Poorly's at Malvern,” Edward reminded him.

“Bring him back if you wish. He's yours.”

“What about the rest of the Negroes?”

“They may go or stay, as they feel necessary. If they leave, I'll buy others. They'll probably be safer remaining with the house, but I won't coerce them.” Edward admired his father for that.

“You'll have to cross the water to Hog Island,” Tom continued. “It's the only route left open. I'll have someone row you over before daylight.”

“It isn't necessary. I can handle the boat alone. I'd like to say something more about London, sir.”

“That's done with. I spoke my piece. If you feel any animosity, turn it on the damned king's men.”

Edward started forward to hug his father. This time Tom permitted a robust embrace. When they separated, Edward thought,
Strike me dead. What's that misting his eyes?

 

He armed himself with a ten-inch sheath knife with a deer antler handle and, in black leather holsters, a brace of fine London-bought blunderbuss pistols, each with a spring bayonet under the barrel. He left from Bell's Bridge while the stars still shone. He rowed hard, feeling only mildly queasy about the open water.

The direct journey up the Neck to Malvern was about eleven miles, easily accomplished on horseback. But the British works blocked that route. He rowed to Hog Island and from there followed the shore up to the Wando River and Daniel's Island, where he beached his boat, rested, and ate a hard biscuit. Then he pushed off again.

His arms burned with the pain of steady exertion, but he didn't slacken. He spent the night in his boat in a broad creek on the north side of Daniel's Island. Before dawn, badly bitten by insects while he dozed, he shipped his oars and continued on to the Cooper's western bank. There he found a waterman mending nets on a flimsy pier. He
arranged for the man to be at the same spot in twenty-four hours, with a larger boat.

He passed by a familiar crossroads; ashes and black timbers were all that remained of Pertwee's store. He passed several small plantations, then a bigger one with a fenced pasture where a dozen horses grazed. Four were big handsome Chickasaws, the rest marsh tackies, the little horses common in the sea islands and Low Country. What they lacked in beauty they more than made up for in strength and heart.

The horses belonged to Henry Wando, a neighbor but not a friend of Tom and Eliza Bell. Wando was a self-aggrandizing loyalist who lost no opportunity to boast of his affection for the king. The partisans had left his house, barn, and outbuildings untouched.

He trudged on, following a dirt track that wound through dim cloisters of old live oaks, to Malvern. Tom Bell had bought 150 acres for his summer home but took only ten for personal use. The rest he leased to a firm of Amsterdam Jews with an office in Charleston. They grew and sold indigo, a crop initially brought from the Leeward Islands in the 1740s. When Edward emerged from the trees, he walked between fields where slaves were preparing the ground; next month they would sow seeds gathered in last year's harvest.

All the windows of the two-story cypress house were open to catch whatever breeze might stir on this balmy March morning. Near some outbuildings that effectively blocked any glimpse of Malvern's slave cabins, Edward sat on the ground to remove a pebble from his boot. A sound of hammering stopped. Someone hailed him from the carpentry shed.

“Mr. Edward?”

“Poorly.” One boot still off, he jumped up, waved. The black man ran to him, tossed down a claw hammer from the shop, gripped Edward's shoulders in his big hands, grinning.

“My friend.”

“You're not surprised to see me?” Edward spoke in Gullah, the lilting black patois that allowed slaves, or friends, to talk with a degree of privacy.

“Your papa sent a message to your mother. Everybody knows you're back.”

“How are you?”

“Just now this child is lovely, splendid.” Poorly was literate, with a fine vocabulary; Eliza had taught him, at Edward's request. He was a handsome Gambian, blue-black, six feet tall and thin as a pole. Sawdust speckled his hair and the sleeves of his white drill blouse. He was the same age as Adrian, five years older than Edward.

While he lived, Poorly's father had been a master carpenter, hired out to others by his white master. He had helped floor the bell tower at St. Michael's. Tom Bell bought young Poorly from the father, to be a body servant and playmate for his two boys. He was called Daniel then. He had frequent spells of sickness; someone in the Bell household started calling him Poorly, and the name stuck.

Young Adrian had taken great pleasure in ordering Poorly about, forcing him to imitate the sounds of animals for hours, or stand on his head until he fell over. Occasionally he whipped Poorly with a willow wand. Out of disgust and sympathy Edward was kinder, and a strong friendship developed. When Adrian matured and launched out on his own, he had other slaves to order about; he didn't object to Poorly remaining with Edward. Sometimes Edward felt the black man was a better brother than his real one.

“You're lovely, and splendid, even with the redcoats knocking at the city gate?”

“Yes, I am a happy man with a beautiful wife.”

“I heard you jumped the broom. I'm eager to meet the lucky lady.”

“She's in the cookhouse.”

As they walked, Edward said, “I'm taking mother back to Charleston tomorrow. Father's orders. You're welcome to come along. Your wife too.”

“May do that,” Poorly said soberly. “There's king's men in the neighborhood. Burned Pertwee's at the crossroads.”

“I saw it. What's in the house in the way of weapons?”

“Two old muskets.”

“Give them to men you consider reliable.”

“Big Walter, the field driver. His cousin, Sam.”

“Make sure they have plenty of powder and ball.”

At the cookhouse door Poorly said, “You want to put guns in the hands of slaves? People won't like that.”

“I don't give a hang about
people,
only the people who live here.” He held the door open. “Where's the charming bride?”

In the hot and smoky interior oval cakes of sweet-potato pone were coming from the oven on broad wooden paddles. At the hearth a black child turned a crank to roast a piglet on a spit. Of the four women working, Poorly's wife was the youngest and by far the prettiest, with rich black hair, slightly tilted brown eyes, and smooth skin the color of coffee infused with milk. Poorly could hardly contain his pride as he said, “Sally, this is Mr. Edward, Miss Eliza's son. This is Sally.”

Edward shook Sally's hand, then startled the girl by planting a kiss on her cheek. The other three women and the child looked thunderstruck. “Congratulations to both of you. You're going to have handsome children.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sally said, flustered. She could be no more than eighteen, but her figure was fine and womanly under her plain cotton dress, once blue but now largely white from endless washing.

Poorly drew his wife to the door, lowered his voice so he couldn't be overheard. “Mr. Edward's taking his mother back to town. Thinks we better go with him. I said we would.”

Edward excused himself and tramped up the path that isolated the fires in the kitchen from the big house. He went through from the front piazza to a second, broader one facing the river. There he found Eliza Trott Bell sitting in an oak-and-cypress easy chair Poorly had made, reading a book of William Cowper's poems.

“Edward,” she exclaimed, in nearly the same tone of voice as everyone else he'd surprised by reappearing. “I knew you were home. I didn't know you were coming to Malvern. Oh, how good you look to these old eyes.” Which were not, in fact, all that old; Eliza was fifty-four, slim and sturdy. Her eyes were gray-green, her dark red hair laced with gray. She pressed her cheek to his and held him tightly.

He pulled up a stool and explained the reason for his visit. Eliza said, “Your father really thinks it's dangerous for us to remain here? It's ever so peaceful. I love the river, my garden, the wild deer that visit. I love all the wildlife except the alligators that sleep on our bank. I saw a huge fellow sunning himself this morning. When I was nine, one ate my favorite cat, have I ever told you?”

She had, more than once, but he said no. “There's another visitor we don't want. A Tory partisan named William Lark is marauding in the district.”

“Lark.” She made a face. “A bad lot, that family. My father knew Ladimer Lark. Called him a rogue and a cheat.”

That bolstered Edward's argument for leaving. He described the British siege line under construction in front of the defensive ditch that was already dammed and flooded. “I wouldn't say the situation's good in Charleston, but we won't be alone there. Malvern is too isolated just now.”

Eliza sighed. “Then we'll pack and go.” She hesitated a moment. “Adrian told you of his engagement?”

“A bit of a blow,” Edward admitted with a vain attempt at a smile.

“More than a bit of one, I would imagine.” She reached out to caress the back of his hand. “I'll say what I've never said before. I don't care much for Lydia Glass. In fact I wouldn't wish her on either you or Adrian. Let your heart heal, Edward. When it does, find someone better. That won't be difficult.”

“I'll try to remember the advice.” He suppressed a yawn, brushed his dusty sleeve. “I'm for a bath and a meal, in that order.”

“I'll have Chloe heat water. The empty bedroom is yours.”

She went inside to give orders to the housemaids. Edward loved his mother with unquestioning love, and he knew she loved him in return. If she was disappointed in the course of his life so far, she never revealed it or criticized.

The day remained warm, with a hint of spring in the wind. He posted Poorly and Big Walter as guards for the first part of the night, the driver watching the dirt track,
Poorly the river. “Wake me around one,” he said to Poorly. “Sam and I will watch till morning.”

In his room on the second floor, on the side of the house away from the river, he loaded his pistols and laid them next to the bed. Then he blew out the candle. Weary and aching from his trek, he was asleep by half past seven.

Not Poorly but a loud noise roused him. He snatched a pistol and ran to the window. He could see nothing of the dirt track in the darkness, but he clearly heard horsemen moving toward the house at a walk. He leaned from the window, his heart thumping. “Walter?”

“Yes, sir. I hear 'em too. They comin'.”

Sooner than expected. Edward pulled on his trousers and shirt and rushed past his mother's bedroom, pistols in hand. He prayed she'd stay asleep, safe behind her closed door.

A breeze from the river carried sweet, yeasty smells of earth and wet vegetation. A huge full moon revealed the file of horsemen. Edward stepped off the front piazza and walked barefoot to stand beside Big Walter, a bald black man round as a tub. Big Walter's thick fingers held an old smoothbore musket slanted across his chest. His thumb rested on the S-shaped hammer. Edward whispered, “My father said at least seven raided Pertwee's. I count five. I wonder where the other two—”

The roar of a gun, then another, answered his unfinished question. The echoes went rolling through the night. Behind the outbuildings two men began to shout. Edward guessed the pair had circled wide and fired their weapons to rouse and cow the slaves.

Sweat on Edward's forehead cooled in the breeze. The first horseman crossed a patch of coarse grass and reined up in front of him. His four cohorts hung back within a grove of tall water oaks. Edward couldn't see their faces because of their bicorne hats, but he saw the flash of silver and brass pistol mountings.

“Good evening, sir. You don't know me but I know you. Young Mr. Bell, I believe?”

“You have the advantage of me, sir.”

Poorly came dashing around the corner of the house. Edward warned him back with a slashing gesture. The leader of the partisans was hatless but wrapped in a cloak despite the warm night. Edward aimed both pistols at him.

“Turn around and get off this property.”

“I think not, sir.” The muzzle of a horse pistol peeped from beneath the man's cloak. Two pistols against one; for the moment, a standoff. Edward's stomach hurt.

The leader was a large man of about forty, with a pronounced paunch showing under his cloak. His nose and chin were sharp, his forehead high, his gray-streaked hair tied off behind his head. As he surveyed the situation, moonlight showed one eye wandering toward his nose, then back, a bizarre effect.

He spoke to Edward with the confidence and condescension of a hanging judge. “Malvern Plantation is owned by Mr. Thomas Bell, a man known to be an obnoxious traitor. The property is hereby confiscated.”

“On whose authority?”

“Mine, sir. William Lark, Esquire, loyal servant of His Majesty King George. Your niggers are being restrained. No harm will come to them so long as you don't offer resistance. My men and I will explore the house, take what goods we want. Some of your wenches, too, perhaps. Then the property will be burned.”

“I'll blow you out of the saddle first,” Edward promised.

From the corner of his eye Edward detected Big Walter's sudden turn to look behind them. Poorly was staring as well. Edward felt a hard cold ring of iron, a gun muzzle, touch his neck.

“I got him, Captain. 'F he twitches, he's gone.”

“One of you disarm him,” Lark called over his shoulder. A man jogged out of the shadows of the water oaks. He was passing on Lark's left when the front door opened noisily. Eliza's voice caught them by surprise.

“I heard gunfire.”

The man behind Edward jerked his musket from Edward's neck. He spun toward the house. Just as he shouted, “Mother, go back,” the partisan shot her.

The ball struck Eliza's chest. A blood flower bloomed on the short bed coat she wore over an ivory chemise. She spilled sideways onto the piazza, her mobcap tumbling off. Edward let out a cry and fired one pistol at Lark.

The ball hit Lark's thigh and left a smoking hole in his trousers. Lark's horse whinnied, rose on hind legs, and pawed the air. Edward didn't jump away in time. A hoof slashed his forehead, nearly knocking him over.

Lark reeled and swayed, trying not to fall out of his saddle. One of his men shot at Edward, missed. Suddenly light flared up; a rider spurred past Lark and hurled a pine torch over Eliza's body and through the open door. Lark shrieked, “Not yet, not yet.” He was too late; the torch ignited a wall hanging in the foyer. The man who'd thrown it yanked his mount's head around, charged toward Edward, who shot him in the forehead with his other pistol.

All that in the space of a few heartbeats. Then, chaos.

Maids who slept in the big house ran from a side door, exclaiming and sobbing. Lark's three remaining men separated to outflank the defenders. Big Walter dropped one of them with his musket. Another ducked his head and rode straight at Big Walter. He chopped down with his right hand, burying a tomahawk in Big Walter's skull. The slave went over like a felled tree.

Poorly's musket boomed. The tomahawk man flew sideways, blown off his horse. Edward meantime was running toward the house, clutching two empty pistols. He dropped them, skidded to his mother's side on his knees. The red stain on her bed coat was the size of a plate.

He slipped his arms under her, lifted her against him, heedless of the blood. He began rocking her. “Mother, don't, you can't.” He sounded like a terrified child.

Eliza's head lolled. He felt no breath from her open mouth. After a faint tremor her body relaxed and her bowels released. Blood ran off his gashed forehead to mingle with sudden tears.

One of Lark's men was unhorsed. Poorly swung his musket like a club, striking the man from behind, dropping him on his knees, then on his face. Poorly beat him till he stopped moving.

The fire in the house spread to the dining room on one side of the entrance hall, the sitting room on the other. Floors and walls caught and blazed with a roar. Lark had ridden to the periphery of the light, grasping his left thigh. Blood leaked between his fingers.

His eyes caught Edward's, promising another meeting. Edward's eyes, black holes in his wet red face, said he'd welcome it. Lark wheeled his horse and disappeared down the dirt track, his pigtail ribbon gone, his hair spreading out behind him like a peacock's tail.

Heat flayed Edward's face. The fire was consuming the wall of the house behind his mother's body. He lifted Eliza and carried her off the piazza. Her blood smeared him a second time. He put her on the ground gently.

“Poorly, find Sam.”

“Is your mama—?”

“She's dead.”

So was Sam; Poorly discovered him strangled on the lawn not two yards from where Eliza Trott Bell had sat reading Cowper. Four of Lark's partisans lay dead in the coarse grass, but the instigator was gone into the night, along with his two remaining men.

Sally appeared, disheveled and frantic. She called Poorly's name until she found him in the dancing firelight. The slaves crept from the cabins in frightened pairs and family groups, asking no questions, only staring in a stricken way. As the fire consumed the big house, many of them wept.

The roof fell in, a crashing cascade of burning timbers and flying sparks. By morning the Malvern big house no longer existed, except as a larger version of the black ruins of Pertwee's store.

 

Numb with grief, Edward nevertheless forced himself to think and act. He sent a slave to meet the waterman and tell him to wait as long as necessary. They would need a larger boat. He found an older slave to put in charge of the plantation. At two o'clock, in a tiny burying ground at the end of the lane between the slave cabins, he presided at the last rites for Big Walter and Sam. A slave funeral in daylight was unusual. Customarily they were held at midnight, so as not to rob the master of an hour's work.

Sorrowing black men and women formed a circle around Edward. He thought there were fewer than when the big house burned. With birds warbling cheerily and the sun throwing great shafts of light through the trees, he read Scripture from a Bible belonging to Sam's wife. All of them sang a Gullah hymn.
Dere's a bright side somewhere, gonna keep on till I find it.
The voices in ragged unison had a mournful beauty that stirred Edward's soul. Did heaven exist? He didn't know, but if it did, Sam and Big Walter and his mother would surely be there.

The afternoon remained beautiful and warm. Edward, Poorly, and his new wife set out on the Cooper, bound for Charleston. The boatman put up in a marsh until dark, then rowed downstream on a fast tide. A familiar clean smell of pine rose from Eliza's temporary coffin. Poorly had built it in the carpentry shop.

Edward sat on a thwart, one hand resting on the raw wood. He imagined an advancing line of redcoat infantry. Each man wore William Lark's face. He imagined himself killing them one by one.

Before the events of last night he'd been unsure of his place in the war, or even whether he had one. Now his bleak eyes gazed at the starlit river and saw a future in which he could no longer be merely a spectator.