This Loving Torment

by Valerie Sherwood

  “My wife is devoted to her family,” he explained. “Her sister in Barbadoes falls ill frequently and she must needs go there and be at her side. And her brother—ah, there is a situation that causes her many sleepless nights and takes the bloom from her cheeks.” Seeing Charity’s puzzled look, he explained, “Twas on her brother’s account that I made this trip to New York—and at a time when the plantation sorely needed my attention. But she did so plead with me. . . . My wife has not seen her brother in some five years. Not since before she left England. It is known only that he ran away to sea . . . many boys perish that way and their fate is never known. But my wife has never given up hope that her brother might have reached America and, after she came here, she got the idea that we should advertise for him in several newspapers.”

  “And did you receive an answer?”

  He looked gloomy. “No less than three answers—at different times. The last was from New York and said that a man of her brother’s description had but recently arrived there, was ill and delirious and without funds, and requested us to come and get him—he owed then a large bill at an inn.” He sighed. “My wife, as I told you, is in indifferent health. Even though she desired it most ardently, she had not the strength to come with me to New York.”

  “So you went alone?”

  “Yes, to please her. And now I return empty-handed. No one had seen him; there was no bill at an inn—the earth seemed to have swallowed him up.” He sighed. “I can hardly bear to return and tell her this was yet another wild goose chase. It will break her heart. She wept piteously the last time.”

  “The ... last time?”

  “I have been to both Williamsburg and Boston at different times seeking him,” Alan admitted. “These elusive letters arrive and they give us each time a fresh scent, but always when I arrive his trail is cold—nay, everyone, with truth ringing sincere in their voices—insists that they have not seen him nor yet heard of him.”

  “Could you have enemies?” puzzled Charity. “People who would write such things to plague you?”

  He sighed. “I have thought of that. But for myself, I know of no enemies nor ever did, for I have set my hand against no man. And my wife is of such a lovable disposition that she could not have an enemy in the world.”

  Charity hoped so, if she was going to live in the woman’s household, for she had become cynical and hardly dared to hope that she could find peace of mind in another’s house.

  Beside her, Alan Bellingham mused, “Perhaps we will find him yet....”

  She smiled pensively at him. He was a generous man, she thought. Generous of his time. Open and generous in his dealings. Sad to think of him saddled with a delicate wife who was always running off to Barbadoes or pining for a lost brother. A wife who kept him chasing through the Colonies on luckless errands. He was a kind man and unfortunate. And oh, so startlingly good to look upon. When she was not with him she brooded about him.

  Long before they reached Carolina, Charity realized that she was hopelessly in love with Alan Bellingham.

  She told herself, of course, that such a love could come to nothing. Her head told her that. Her heart responded fiercely that such was not the case, that life had not given her much, but this one thing she would have—Alan’s love. His wife she might never be, but his mistress—ah, that was possible.

  CHAPTER 27

  With the little leather casket, now containing her torn “other dress,” clutched in her arms, Charity viewed the Carolina coastline with a different expression from that with which she had viewed other shores. The New England coastline she had regarded with hope, the New York coast with fear—but this Carolina coastline she considered with narrowed eyes.

  There would be a future for her here. With Alan Bellingham. She would see to that.

  She would forget all the men who had loved—and used—her. She would begin her life anew.

  When they landed, she looked around and saw before her a relatively new town, about four squares long and three squares wide. The first street fronted on a stream she was told was the Cooper River, and wharves projected from the river front. A number of vessels rode the blue water of the harbor, and there was a brisk coming and going as furs and lumber and turpentine, pitch and tar were loaded onto the incoming ships—and practically everything else unloaded for the use of the settlers. She was glad that she already had a job at Alan’s plantation, for the town was disturbingly small and she realized, with a sinking feeling, how slim would have been her chance of finding suitable employment.

  After they disembarked, Alan took charge of her small leather casket, which he piled peremptorily on his other luggage and left in the custody of a young black boy in colorful shirt and trousers, whose wide grin cut a slash across his dark face. Announcing he had “business” to attend to, Alan suggested she might “look about the town” and meet him back here on the docks in about an hour.

  Charity watched with interest a disembarking shipload of French Huguenots who had fled from the Terror following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France. Some of them were tearfully telling the people who met them that they had been “dragooned.” As she strolled about, Charity noticed that all sorts of seafood—the tiny delicious native shrimp as well as turtles and oysters and crabs—were being sold on the docks, and gulls and black skimmers and brown pelicans and other seabirds wheeled overhead and swooped low over the baskets, adding their raucous calls to the general din. Beaver skins and other furs were piled high beside kegs and barrels, dugout canoes shuttled back and forth. And on the river great logs of cedar floated by for transshipment to England.

  Charity stopped to sniff some spices and someone jostled her and apologized. She found herself wedged between piles of coconuts and oranges brought in from the isles of the Caribbees and listened, fascinated, to the conversation behind her: These damn pirates were getting bolder! At first they had preyed upon only the Spanish and the buccaneers had been right welcome in Charles Towne, they had! But things were changing. Three English merchant ships that had sailed from the harbor had been attacked and taken, and just yesterday the crew of a fourth had rowed in, in a longboat. Twas rumored the buccaneer Captain Court was behind it. Not that his ship the Sea Witch had been in the engagement, but twas well known he was an organizer of these freebooters. Called him their admiral, the rogues did! Well, he’d soon have a price on his head, he would. And those rogues had better keep to their base in Tortuga or else sally out against Spain—if twas English ships they were after, England would send her Navy, that she would, and Charles Towne would be the first to request it!

  With a pang, Charity remembered the pirate ship that had taken Tom away from her in the north. She hoped he hadn’t become a buccaneer, for such men ended their lives dangling on hemp or buried in wet and restless graves between the high water mark and the low.

  Brushing aside these dark thoughts, she moved on through the chattering throng and into a street which, like the dock, teemed with activity. As she strolled through town in the sultry late afternoon air, she was surprised to hear a great deal of French spoken as well as English. A number of black slaves brushed by her, bustling about on numerous errands, including one dressed as a coachman in a velvet coat.

  At a waterfront tavern her progress was halted by a cursing sailor who staggered out the open door, propelled by a boot, while inside a shrill voice cried, “Ye don’t pinch me without ye pay for my ale!” From within there was a ripple of bawdy laughter. Charity glanced at the dark interior, realizing grimly that but for Alan she might well have ended up there, serving tankards of ale and rum, and fending off the rough caresses of the seafaring men who frequented it. With a frown she strolled on, observing buildings of black cypress built on brick foundations, and others built of a kind of concrete called “tappy,” made from the oyster shells piled in heaps along the river from the Indians’ “kitchen middens” and mixed with lime to become as hard as stone.

  In a butcher’s shop—through whose door Charity had
retreated hastily to avoid a big cart carrying lumber and tar—she learned mutton was scarce because wolves preyed on the lambs. But she saw plenty of pork. The hogs could take care of themselves and they grew fat on the acorns that were strewed on the ground below the mighty oaks.

  At a baker’s shop she cast a wistful glance at the large fresh-baked breadloaves, but said hastily she had “forgotten to bring her money.” The proprietor, a twinkling-eyed Scot, pressed a sweet cake on her “to sample my wares, lassie, so ye’ll be coming back.” And as Charity munched it, he told her that this land was ruled by the Lords Proprietors and that there was a landed gentry here—but that titles could be bought for gold as well as inherited. Charity listened, fascinated, as he told her land might be bought for a penny an acre, and if one bought 12,000 acres, one became a baron; with 24,000 acres one became a cassique, while 48,000 acres made one a landgrave. Were there many such? she inquired.

  Oh, no, he assured her. Not many baronies, as the great estates were called. But there were a few—for instance, Landgrave Bellingham’s great estate “Magnolia Barony” was some four miles from here and could be reached by cart track or by pirogue up the Cooper River.

  Charity felt a swell of pride and noted the respect in his eyes as she told him she was to be a scribe at Magnolia Barony. Then, thanking him for the sweet cake and the information, she hurried back to the dock to find Alan waiting impatiently beside a carriage. Somewhat dazzled, as it had been some time since she had traveled in a carriage, Charity climbed in beside him. They started off, followed by a cart, driven by a large black man in a pink turban, with their luggage.

  Charity was conscious of a change in Alan, a tension, an eagerness, and a squaring of the shoulders. There was pride in his voice when he told her that they were now riding over his own land. He loves this land, she thought, and jealously tried to distract him. She leaned forward to push aside a branch from the great overarching trees that shaded the cart track, and managed to brush Alan with her shoulder. Then, turning toward him with a tantalizing smile, she settled her lissome figure so that it was more fetchingly displayed.

  But Alan was looking about him anxiously. “It was bad for me to be away,” he muttered. “McNabb has too much to attend to.”

  “McNabb?”

  “The factor who manages the plantation when I’m gone. You’ll be working with him.”

  She felt a little disappointed. She’d hoped to work directly with Alan, where she could see him, brush against him with a careless arm, remind him she was there. No matter, she’d make the best of things. And manage to ensnare Alan.

  For that first tender gloss was gone. Charity was a woman now and she knew what she wanted: Alan Bellingham. Someway, somehow, he would be hers. She settled back on the seat beside him, determined, listening to the rhythmic clipclop of hooves that were taking her to Magnolia Barony.

  On through the overarching liveoaks and hickories and magnolias they plodded. Sometimes thick palmetto clumps pressed in like green walls about them. Dogwood branches reached out to brush them and long festoons of gray beardlike Spanish moss hung down to trail over their heads. In low spots rose pond pines and tall cypresses, and everywhere there was a tangled growth of smilax and sweet bay and jessamine. Sometimes through the trees they glimpsed the river, the dark water sparkling. It was hot in the thick green forest but Charity remained alert. Once she saw a white-tailed deer, and twice rabbits scurried out of their paths—a cottontail and a darker one which Alan told her absently was a short-eared marsh rabbit. When the horses shied and reared up at a snake coiled in the road, Alan flicked at it with his whip and the snake retreated. He turned and called back a warning to the turbaned fellow who drove the luggage cart behind them.

  She did not know what to expect, but the green tangle of woods about them hardly prepared her for the beauty of the house itself. They came out into a little clearing as the sun sank low in the sky, a red ball that turned the river—now seen clearly through the big boles of the live oaks—to flame. At the end of a dusky avenue of trees stood a white-pillared house made of the same stone-like “tappy” she had seen in town, a house the setting sun turned into a pink temple against a dark background of magnolias and old moss-hung oaks.

  “It’s beautiful,” she murmured, and turned to Alan.

  But he was not looking at her. He had shaken the reins and the horses speeded their pace so that they drew up smartly before the row of rosy columns. His face was aglow as he turned to Charity, and she thought he has discovered me!

  The thought died. He was looking past her to the trees beside the house where a rider had appeared, galloping toward them on a black horse.

  The rider was Alan’s wife, Marie, and she was everything Charity had expected her not to be. Marie was tall and lithe, with a full figure. She rode sidesaddle, and her slender back was straight and arrogant. With great skirts billowing and the plumes on her hat blowing, Marie Bellingham came to a fast stop before them. Her horse reared up and she laughed exultantly, handling the reins with practiced ease.

  “Alan!” she cried, and slid off the horse into his arms. Charity winced at the warmth of his embrace.

  After a moment Marie pushed him away and took off her plumed hat with a lazy gesture. Charity saw that her ash-blonde hair—identical in color to Alan’s periwig—was swept up and fell into soft shining curls to frame a lovely face.

  “Did you learn anything . . . about my brother?” she inquired in a tremulous voice.

  “No,” said Alan sadly. “No one had heard of him there. It’s as if someone is deliberately tormenting us, leading us on with false hopes.”

  At his first words, Marie had turned away. Now she covered her face with her hands as if she could not bear it. “We must—hope,” she declared hoarsely. “We must not give up! We must not, Alan!”

  “I know, I know.” Gently he took his wife by the shoulders, turned her around. “I have brought someone with me. Will you not greet her?”

  Marie’s wide violet eyes were a deeper color than her sweeping lavender riding dress. Now those wide eyes frosted as they looked Charity over.

  “And who indeed have you brought?” she inquired coldly.

  Alan hastened to explain Charity’s position as scribe to McNabb and “helper” to Marie. Marie shrugged and, with a gesture of dismissal, turned to a stalwart gray-haired Irish woman who had come silently out of the house.

  “Give—Charity, is it—the room Flossie had,” instructed Marie. “She will eat with you and McNabb.” Alan opened his mouth—perhaps to protest—but closed it again.

  As Marie locked an arm companionably in Alan’s, Charity realized bitterly that she had made a mistake. Alan was not up for the taking. She would have to fight for him.

  Charity followed the big Irish woman, who turned congenially as they entered the wide hall and said, “My name’s Megan O’Reilly. I’m housekeeper here.”

  “Charity Woodstock,” smiled Charity, and followed Megan up the delicate, curving wainscoated stairway to the second floor and down a hall toward the rear.

  “Backstairs is there—next to m’lady’s bedroom.” Megan nodded. “You’ll be using that.” She gave Charity a conspiratorial look and opened a paneled door. Ahead lay the winding attic stairs. “You and me’ll be the only ones up here. M’lady did dismiss her maid Flossie, and it’s her room you’ll be after taking.”

  Charity balked. She’d promised to assist Alan’s wife in “other duties as might be required.” Would ladies’ maid be one of them? She hoped not.

  Ahead of her Megan missed a step on the narrow stair and swore. “May the Lord forgive me,” she said. “Tis a troubling place, as you’ll soon be learning.” Charity forbore to ask why, for they had reached the top and had just passed a cheerful little room with a big window that looked out over the grounds. She realized now that the house wasn’t all that large, but its vast pillars made it look imposing.

  “Don’t waste your time looking at that room,” advised Megan, turning
to discover Charity eyeing it. “It’s over m’lady’s head and she won’t allow no one to occupy it—won’t allow no one in the rooms on this side of the attic at all. Says they tramp about over the floor and wake her up. She’s a light sleeper and has headaches.” Megan emphasized the word and again gave Charity a jaundiced glance. “So you’ll be stuck over on t’other side same as me.” She sighed. “The rooms are smaller. Less light. You’d best keep your windows open at night. Bats or other birds may fly in, but tis better than suffocatin’!”

  As Megan showed Charity into a small mean room, about half the size of the one she had admired, Charity looked around her in some discouragement.

  “Supper’s in the kitchen, same time as the master and mistress eat theirs in the dining room. Get yourself settled. I’ll send you up some water.”

  Megan departed cheerfully and Charity, sinking down on the hard narrow bed, stared in disappointment at the tiny battered washstand with its cracked ironstone bowl and pitcher, the single wooden chair. Somehow she had expected better.

  After she had washed her face with water brought to her by a little black girl, Charity went downstairs. From the back of the hall Megan beckoned her to the kitchen. As she passed the dining room she paused for a moment. Sitting at the gleaming mahogany table were Alan and Marie, who sipped from silver goblets. The table, lit by tall straight tapers of a clean transparent green, was lavishly set. How Charity longed to join them in that elegant dining room! Over Alan’s shoulder she caught Marie’s mocking glance. Never, never, was what that glance told her. Charity stiffened and moved on toward the kitchen to sit at a plain wooden table with a preoccupied white-haired McNabb and Megan, the housekeeper. Since Megan kept jumping up to supervise the black servants who manned the big swinging pots over the fire and carried hot dishes and laden trenchers into the dining room, and McNabb never spoke as he shoveled food into his mouth, it was a silent meal. Charity kept looking at the dining room door, which opened as the servants moved through it, to reveal its glittering interior.