Time After Time (86 page)

“I am sorry, ladies. I do not think there is anything I can do. The shock seems to have carried her beyond the brink,” he said.

Emily’s heart sank. “If we can get her to eat more, will that help?”

“Mrs. Cosgrove’s problem is not her lack of food. It is possible that if she improved physically, it may help her mind. But I do not know if there is much hope of that,” he answered. Then he looked at Emily. “It would be wise for me to examine you, too, while I am here, Mrs. Brentwood.”

Emily looked at Joanna, who smiled gently.

“I must take care of you if you will not take care of yourself,” she explained.

Emily complied and followed Dr. Anderson to her room. After examining her thoroughly, a look of concern showed in his eyes.

“You are a bit too thin, Mrs. Brentwood. If you want your baby to be healthy, you must provide him with more nourishment,” he warned.

“Yes, doctor,” Emily said meekly.

Dr. Anderson left with a promise to return the next week and check on Martha.

• • •

The days dragged for Emily. She had little motivation to do anything, and, except for tending Martha, nothing interested her. Every day she tried to think up a different scheme to get Martha to eat or drink something. Today, out of ideas, she went to the woman’s room to bring her some tea. She knocked and entered the room, but since Martha was sleeping peacefully, she turned to leave. But something stopped her, and she walked over to the bed.

Martha lay against the pillow, her pale face fixed in a gentle smile. Emily took her hand; as she suspected, it was cold. She sank to her knees beside the bed and held the woman’s hand against her face. Her tears were more for herself and her sorrow at the loss of her friend, for she knew Martha was happier now; she was with her James. Martha’s voice echoed in her head: “
Why does everyone say James is gone? He will be back soon.”

Emily wished she could do the same. Just drift away into the world where her beloved Jonathon waited for her. It would be so easy …

She heard Joanna enter and cross to the bed.

“Oh no,” she cried, kneeling beside Emily and putting her arm around her. Emily turned to her.

“Martha is where she wants to be. I wish I could do the same. We should not weep for her,” Emily said.

Joanna rose and looked down at her in anger. “How dare you say such a thing?” she cried. “Do you not care about the child you carry? Emily, you have much to live for.”

“You can stand there and say that to me?” Emily shot back at her. “You, who have your husband beside you at night? You, who have a lifetime to live with the man you love? How can you know my anguish? Or Martha’s?”

Joanna looked at Emily, the pain of her words evident on her face. “Am I supposed to apologize because I still have my husband? You have a part of Jonathon within you, yet you refuse to care about the baby, or take proper care of yourself. I cannot bring Jonathon back for you, but you can continue his legacy … if you choose to.”

“I love this child I carry.”

“Then behave so.”

The women looked at each other. Emily’s eyes brimmed with tears. She felt as if she had lost everyone she loved. Now she had even alienated Joanna.

“I am sorry, Joanna,” she whispered. She turned back to the bed and looked down at Martha. No she did not want to follow her. She had a child to live for.
Jonathon’s child.

Emily felt Joanna’s arm slip around her shoulders, and she turned to her. The women embraced and cried together, then knelt beside Martha’s body and prayed. Finally, they rose, and Joanna rang for Dulcie.

• • •

Gray clouds hung heavy in the late January sky, and the wind whipped Emily’s cape about her legs as she followed Martha’s casket out to the church graveyard. The service had been brief, attended only by Randy, Joanna, David, and herself. The prayers had been comforting, and Emily wished that somehow Jonathon might have had some prayers offered over his body.

They entered the carriage, and rode home quietly as each was caught up in their own thoughts. The carriage slowed after a time and David looked out to see what caused the delay. Another carriage pulled up beside theirs, and Emily looked out to see Deidre.

“Emily, I had heard you were back,” she said, her eyes held a strange look. “May I stop at the manor?”

“Certainly, Deidre,” Joanna answered.

Tea was served when they returned to Brentwood Manor, and Deidre arrived shortly after them. Emily felt uncomfortable about this visit, but was not sure why. Perhaps it was because when anyone called to offer condolences, it evoked the pain so vividly. At least Deidre had the grace to make this call.

“So Jonathon is dead,” Deidre blurted out as she entered the parlor. Emily recoiled at her bluntness. Joanna looked at David in concern.

“Deidre, we have just buried a friend. This has been a most trying time for us,” David said.

“And do you know why Jonathon is dead?” she went on ignoring the warning tone in David’s voice.

“Deidre!” Randy cautioned.

“Because of his blasted Tory wife!”

Emily blanched.

“Deidre, that is enough!” Randy exclaimed as he rose and moved toward her. She sidestepped him, crossing the room, and loomed over Emily who sat on the settee.

“If he had not been so concerned about getting you back to your loathsome,
beloved
England, he would still be alive,” she shouted at Emily.

Emily sat frozen, agonized. The pain caused by Deidre’s words was intolerable. The room swam in front of her, and her head filled with buzzing. Suddenly she felt flushed, and everything went white. Then black and silent.

Dr. Anderson had been summoned and came out to examine Emily. He announced that Emily and the baby were in no danger, but she needed rest for several days.

When she came to, Emily was lying on her bed; her head throbbed. Joanna was beside her.

“Are you all right, Em?” Joanna asked.

“It is my fault, is it not, Joanna?” Emily asked as tears streamed down her face. “If it were not for me, Jonathon would still be alive.”

“
Shhh
, Emily. Do not even think such a thing. What Jonathon was doing required risks; he knew that. Sailing for the committees was dangerous work. He had to go to Norfolk. He would have gone whether he was taking you back to London or not. The patriot cause needed him there. He died for that, not because of you,” she answered.

Emily felt reassured, but the pain Deidre’s words had caused lingered.

• • •

She lay in bed with Jonathon’s shirt against her face. She found comfort in it, and it helped her sleep. After the first day of being confined to bed, she became restless, and Joanna had to scold her to keep her down. She brought Emily some books from the library, which helped since reading diverted her thoughts from her intolerable grief.

The days passed uneventfully. Randy visited daily to check on Emily, and after a week, he agreed to take her downstairs for tea. It felt good to have a change of scenery, and Emily’s spirits lifted. Each day she was allowed to be up a little longer, although Joanna bribed her by increasing the time according to how well she was eating. Emily realized how much weight she had lost when she tried on some of her older gowns. They hung on her in spite of her enlarging abdomen. She began to fear that Joanna was right; she had been neglecting her baby. She complied with Joanna’s wishes and began to take better care of herself.

• • •

Life at the manor had changed since Emily had left with Jonathon the previous year. Some slaves did flee to the British side, leaving David shorthanded. Some rooms in the manor had been closed up in order to conserve fuel during the colder months. Food supplies were dwindling as Brentwood Manor began to feel the squeeze of Parliament’s decrees. Life was not as luxurious as it had been, and everyone had a new appreciation of what food and supplies they did have. Some families were not so lucky.

Because of British trading policies, colonial planters were spending up to 75 percent of their profit on trade expenses over which they had no control. It was bad enough that freight commissions to British merchants, export taxes, and custom duties in Britain had to be paid, but the real blow was that the colonists could not ship directly to the European Continent. Most of their goods were re-exported from Britain.

The Brentwoods had been able to bypass some of those costs since Jonathon sailed his own ship and had established trade at a time when relations were better. Solid friendships and smooth talk had rendered a bigger profit for him. But now Brentwood tobacco, along with that of other colonial planters, was rotting on the wharf. British creditors eagerly lent money to Virginia planters, and by 1775 the colonists owed over 2 million pounds sterling to them. It would take some colonists several generations to repay the loans.

Fortunately, Brentwood Manor had not yet found it necessary to borrow, but the change in lifestyle was obvious. Emily was beginning to understand, not just the economic hardship that necessitated living more frugally, but also the frustrating, even enraging, predicament of being held down, dependent and powerless under the thumb of a far distant and indifferent power.

David had left on a trip to Yorktown to pick up supplies and sell goods, hoping to find a ship that would carry his tobacco to London. This was becoming impossible since Dunmore was impounding colonial ships off Virginia’s coast. If he was successful, David planned to return in a week.

Will was keeping Joanna and Emily entertained as he became more mobile. He was their delight, and Emily anticipated the birth of her own child as she watched him. She wondered if her baby was a boy or girl. Would the baby look like Jonathon? She hoped so, and she placed her hands on her abdomen as if willing it to be so. Oh, how she missed him; how glad she was to have a part of him with her now.

The women were uneasy with David gone. The tense atmosphere of the cities and towns was seeping into the countryside, and hostility was building. Fear possessed the minds of each of the women. Fear for David, fear for themselves, fear for the future. What kind of world would their children grow up in? Would there be anything left for their offspring?

Sorrow also occupied their minds. Emily was just beginning to be able to sit for a while without breaking into tears over her loss of Jonathon. The worst times were at night when she climbed into their large, lonely bed and ached for his arms around her. She hugged his pillow close, laying her face against his shirt, and released her anguished tears into it until her head and sides ached. She moaned her agony to God, feeling wretched and desolate. She begged for freedom from this pain that exploded in her head and in her heart.

Mornings were unbearable, too, when she drifted on the edge of waking. For then she could feel Jonathon beside her, warm and strong. But as she snuggled closer, awareness grabbed her and roughly pulled her to consciousness. And emptiness. She cursed sleep for the wicked tricks it played on her, and she began her days as she ended them — weeping until she lay exhausted.

In the evenings as she and Joanna sat together, she tried to push these things from her mind, unwilling to allow her sister-in-law to witness her tears. The tenderness others showed at her sorrow only made it worse. And in a strange way she hoarded those tears, for they were her intimacy with Jonathon now, an exchange as private as their lovemaking had been.

So she filled her mind with thoughts of the child she carried. She sat embroidering clothing for him as she and Joanna watched Will’s antics. Suddenly, she felt a strange sensation, and she stopped. She sat very still; she felt it again. A fluttering, a tiny sensation that whispered of a presence known of but, until now, imperceptible. Emily sat and waited, eyes focused on nothing, all her senses focused within. Joanna noticed her stillness.

“Emily, what is it?”

Emily looked at her, her eyes shining.

“Joanna, I felt my baby move! He is real. Our child is real.”

Joanna knew the miracle of this moment. She rose and went to Emily and embraced her.

“Of course he is real,” she laughed. “But I understand what you mean.”

“Joanna — ” she began. Her sentence was interrupted by a distant, faint sound. They both looked toward the window, hoping to recognize the sound of David’s horse. But he was not due home until the end of the week at the earliest. Hope turned into dread as the sound grew into the pounding, terrifying rhythm of many horses.

The women looked at each other in alarm as Joanna sprang to the bell rope, summoning Dulcie, while Emily crossed to Jonathon’s study. She found the key to the gun cabinet in the top desk drawer and quickly unlocked the cabinet. She loaded a pistol and rejoined Joanna in the main hall as the pounding roar halted outside the front door. They heard a clear voice call out commands, and then the heavy brass knocker echoed in the hallway. Dulcie hurried by with William and disappeared into the back of the house.

Emily’s legs trembled so that she could barely walk to the door. She fumbled with the latch and handed Joanna her pistol. Smoothing her hair, she opened the door and gasped at the sight of a troop of British soldiers covering the drive. The officer in charge saluted smartly, catching Emily by surprise, causing her to blink and step back.

“Good evening. Do I address Mrs. Jonathon Brentwood?” The words snapped out of his mouth briskly, mirroring his salute.

“Yes, sir. May I be of some help?” Emily’s curiosity was piqued enough to somewhat diminish her fear.

“I have a warrant for the arrest of your husband, Captain Jonathon Brentwood, on charges of treason, conspiracy and assault on an officer of the king.”

Emily recoiled at his words as her mind struggled to make sense of them. Frowning at the officer, incomprehension clouded her face. The image of Jonathon’s body being hauled into the British skiff assaulted her with fresh anguish, and confusion battled anger at the cruelty of his words.

“How dare you come here and mock my sorrow,” she seethed.

The officer exchanged a meaningful look with his men. Turning back to Emily, he repeated his statement more insistently.