MY THEODOSIA (47 page)

At dawn of the third day Gampy, who had been mumbling incoherently, opened his eyes and smiled up at Theodosia.

' Do you remember Wabasha?' he whispered, ' and the white bird, Mama?'

Joseph thought the child still delirious, as he had been for hours, and could not understand Theodosia's sharpened terror, the anguish of her voice which she strove to steady.

'Don't think about such silly things now,' she murmured, holding the little boy closer.

His fever-brilliant eyes looked up at her with the same
unchildish earnestness. 'I sec the white bird. He's beautiful'

'No, darling,' she cried violently. 'There's nothing here. Your sickness makes you fancy things.'

Gampy shook his head. 'It is, you know,' he said softly. 'I'm not afraid, Mama. You mustn't be—cither'. He sighed once and his eyes closed.

Joseph had started forward in answer to Theo's frantic cry, but the child turned his head upon her breast and was still.

Joseph rose and paced heavily up and down the strip of shale before the house. The coarse beach grass tangled around his legs. He swore and kicked at it in a futile rage. He was sick at heart and riven with pity for Theodosia. If he could have helped her, he would have stayed. But she didn't want him or anyone, and he longed to be out of this house of painful memory. He had work to do.

The month before he had been embroiled in an unpleasant matter. The country was seething with war preparations, and he had been elected to the command of the Sixth Brigade. To his rage the officers who were to serve under him had dared to write an open letter of protest to the Charleston papers. They questioned the legality of his election, hinting that he had bought his commission, and wound up with the long-delayed thunderbolt: 'The reports in circulation against you as having knowledge of, and agency in, Burr's conspiracy would deter us from serving under you.'

He had answered hotly, denying all knowledge of the conspiracy, but the rumors had persisted. His officers were insubordinate, and matters looked none too hopeful for the gubernatorial campaign on which he was embarking.

Aaron's return to the country disquieted him. What new embarrassment might he not suffer from his father-in-law's presence? Still, for Theo's sake, he was glad. If anything on
earth could rouse her, he knew that her father could. And Aaron must be told.

Joseph, who had little imagination, nevertheless realized the bitter shock that the loss of the little grandson would be, and he wrote to Aaron as simple and human a letter as he had ever written in his life, and he held the letter until Theodosia was well enough to add a few words.

He brought her writing-desk and pen to her bedside. 'You must write your father, Theo.'

She turned on the pillow. 'I know. I've been thinking of him. But everything goes well for him now. He is happy.'

'All the same you must tell him.'

She took the pen which he put in her fingers with the same mindless obedience she had shown since the day of Gampy's burial. He watched her painfully forming words, and while she did so, her strained body again held an attitude of listening: uncanny and heart-rending. She wrote as though she scarce knew what her hand was doing. He took the letter from her, half-afraid to see wild gibberish there. But there was none.

A few miserable days past, my dear father, and your late letters would have gladdened my soul; and even now I rejoice at their contents as much as it is possible for me to rejoice at anything; but there is no more joy for me; the world is a blank. I have lost my boy. My child is gone forever. He died on the thirtieth of June. My head is not now sufficiently collected to say anything further. May Heaven by other blessings make you some amends for the noble grandson you have lost.

She handed Joseph the letter, turned her face to the wall, and relapsed into quiet.

After a few weeks she began to get up a little. She wandered around the cottage or out onto the beach. Sometimes she sat for hours looking out over the ocean. It was impossible to
walk £ar: she tired at once. Though she ate a little food when they brought it to her, she grew emaciated. The small bones jutted from beneath the skin that had been so white and now was tinged with yellow. At times she was possessed of a great thirst which nothing would quench. But when the apothecary from Georgetown forbade her to consume so much water, she obediently tried to limit herself.

'She has renal disfunction,' said the apothecary, and fed her quantities of mercury. She accepted this as she did everything else. What did it matter? Only out of the shadowy borderland there gradually crystallized one human desire: to get back to Aaron. He will not like me like this, she thought sadly. He hates disease and ugliness. And she made more decided efforts to get well. Tomorrow perhaps I can start, she thought. But it was apparent to everyone that she could not stand the journey.

The days slipped by. Beyond her little island the States resounded with war. The American Navy accomplished a series of brilliant victories. On August nineteenth the frigate
Constitution
demolished the British
Guerrière.
The country roared delight and saw hope of annexing Canada, a prize for which it yearned.

Joseph, now safe in his command, a brigadier general, unpopular with his men, but protected by unquestionable authority, caught the infection. He saw himself a military genius, assailing Quebec, as Aaron had done years before in another war with England. He alternated hopefully between Columbia and Charleston, now promoting his possible military glory, now his political aspirations. For it began to seem as though his chances of being elected Governor were brightening. He mourned for his son and worried about Theodosia, but he was caught up by the bustle of activity, and the pangs were dulled.

No bustle touched Theo now, however. Day by day she slipped farther from reality. Dreams were her companions. Sometimes she talked with Merne, sometimes with Gampy. She was not often unhappy. Sometimes, when she looked at the ocean, she thought of how delicious its cool gray waters would feel about her body. The coolness and the peace would support her like the softest bed. One could drift and cease to struggle. Father would scold me for morbid fancies, she thought. And she saw him suddenly: his brilliant, mocking eyes softened to tenderness, his voice hiding his anxiety with bantering tone, as it would be now, if he were with her:

'For shame, Miss Prissy. Sickly vapors and megrims. You must accept what comes in life, since you cannot alter it. Where is your courage?'

'Oh, Father,' she whispered, 'how am I to get to you?'

For an instant her brain worked clearly, as it had not in months. Why was she still down here separated from him—the only being who held her to life?

She had not long to wait. Aaron in New York had been delayed in sending for her by a combination of circumstances. He could not come himself; though New York had accepted him on sufferance, he dared not risk arrest elsewhere. The war, too, made arrangements difficult. Money after the first short burst of prosperity was again scarce. And Joseph, to whom he wrote increasingly peremptory letters, was not helpful, writing that Theo's health did not admit of moving her, that she could not make the journey alone, and that he himself could not leave the Carolinas as yet.

In this dilemma Aaron turned to Timothy Green, physician and his former agent, the Timothy Green who had served him well in South Carolina before the election of 1800. Aaron used all his persuasive powers, invoked old friendship and promised liberal reward—sometime—if Green would under
take the journey. Timothy Green was now an old man nearing seventy, disinclined to move from home. But he accepted the commission at last and arrived on the Waccamaw Neck on the third of December, having previously visited Joseph in Columbia and told him of Aaron's proposed arrangements.

Joseph was not pleased. 'It was unnecessary for Colonel Burr to send an emissary to bring Theo,' he told Green angrily. 'Mrs. Alston is not fit to travel, and if she were, I or one of my brothers would take her.'

Green was embarrassed by his reception and he conceived an instant dislike for this overbearing man with disagreeable manners, but he persisted politely.

'Colonel Burr is very much alarmed by reports of Mrs. Alston's health. Indeed, she has not been well enough to write to him. I have some medical knowledge and can care for your lady on her journey. Colonel Burr feels that she will do better up North with him.'

Eventually Joseph gave in. 'If she wishes to go, you may make suitable arrangements. I cannot come to the Waccamaw until after the election next week. You will scarcely find passage by then, anyhow.'

And with this grudging permission, Green proceeded to Debordieu. He was horrified by his first sight of Theodosia, whom he remembered as a gay pretty girl. When he entered the beach cottage, she was lying in a chair in the front room, gazing out through the window at the ocean. Had it not been for her beautiful hair, which was bunched on top of her head with no regard for fashion, he would scarcely have recognized her.

Theo turned at his step and gazed at him quietly without surprise. This woman is very ill, he thought, dismayed, as he advanced smiling.

'Greetings, Mrs. Alston. I am Timothy Green, do you remember? I come from your father. I am to bring you to him.'

Her eyes closed as though the effort of seeing him hurt her. then opened again.

'I'm glad,' she said slowly. 'I want to go to him. He's all I have now, you know. The others have gone: the others that I love.'

You have a husband left, madam, thought Green, but after seeing him, I'm not surprised you don't count him.

' How soon can we go?' she asked, in the same faint voice that seemed to come from far inside her, pushing past her lips with effort.

He pulled up a chair and put his fingers on her pulse. It was weak and rapid. 'As soon as we can find safe passage. But you must get stronger first. Your father will be distressed to see you so spiritless.'

The shadow of a smile curved her pale mouth. She straightened. 'Yes, I must get better quickly. He likes to see me healthy and gay. I mustn't be a drag on him, especially now that he is so successful again. He is at Richmond Hill, I suppose. It comforts me to think of him restored to all his honor, once more taking his rightful place amongst the highest in the land.'

Green stared at her astounded, then turned away in embarrassment. Incredible that she should believe that Burr might ever be restored to Richmond Hill. The poor fellow was barely kept from debtors' prison by the constant efforts of his remaining friends. The first demand for his professional services had subsided. He was living, to put it bluntly, on charity of one sort or another. He missed many a meal, unless people asked him out. Though Burr would never brook a hint of sympathy, it was sympathy or pity which he now
inspired. It was pity which had persuaded Green to set out on this increasingly uncomfortable commission.

' How does he look?' asked Theo, with a faint animation. 'Though I need not ask: he will never change. Always he is fresh and vigorous—young.'

Green shook his gray head and held his tongue. He thought of the man as he had last seen him in the dark cramped room which he called his law office, crouching over a desk in the old characteristic manner. But now the thin shoulders were stooped. He had grown shabby and more than a little wizened, and about him—plain to be seen—the impalpable aura of defeat.

Green looked at the pale little ghost opposite him. Poor thing, it will break her heart when she finds out the truth—if her heart is not already broken, and I believe it is. She can stand no further shock. In fact, I fear——He did not finish the thought, but sighed heavily.

During the next few days he did what he could for her, but her malady baffled his scanty medical knowledge. There was fever and thirst and a wasting away. She was very weak, and he dreaded the task of getting her back to her father. Still he persevered, and luck favored him, for a pilot boat that had been privateering on the high seas put in at Georgetown for repairs.

This little schooner was named the
Patriot,
and she was built for speed. She was commanded by Captain Overstocks and carried a sailing master as well. She was to make a hasty trip to New York with her booty—her guns stowed away below decks. There was every prospect that the voyage would take but five or six days. True, she was small, scarce sixty feet over all, and her accommodations were poor, but Green was relieved. The
Patriot
seemed made to order for his purpose. He engaged the cabin for Theodosia and Eleanore,
and a bunk in the fo'castle for himself, there being room, since most of the crew had been dismissed in Georgetown.

With this done, Green wrote to Aaron:

G
RORGRTOWN
, S.C.,
December 22nd,
1812

I have engaged a passage to New York for your daughter in a pilot boat that has been out privateering, but has come in here and is refitting merely to get to New York. My only fears arc that Governor Alston may think the mode of conveyance too undignified and object to it; but Mrs. Alston is fully bent on going. You must not be surprised to sec her very low, feeble and emaciated. Her complaint is an almost incessant nervous fever. We shall sail in about eight days.

T
IMOTHY
G
REEN

He debated giving the Colonel a fuller hint of Theo's condition, then decided against it.

It remained now but to await Joseph, who on the tenth of December, after a hot battle, had been duly elected Governor of South Carolina: not elected by the people, with whom he was unpopular, but by a harassed legislature.

The new Governor arrived at Debordieu on Christmas Day. The beach cottage was damp and cold and there were no festivities, though the servants had pinned a few bunches of holly to the candelabra and boiled a plum pudding. The memory of Christmases at the Oaks with an excited child to celebrate them was too poignant.