My Theodosia

by Anya Seton

  The Indian's calm eyes surveyed her. 'I will eat, then I go.'

  'Not at once. I will give you a room. You must rest some days.'

  ' No, I cat, then I go. Back to my own people. I like it not here.'

  Theo could do nothing with him, except order the mutinous servants to provide him with food. They sidled past him warily. Cato flung the dishes of rice and roast meat at him, as though he were tending a crouching panther. They had worked up a pleasurable fear of being tomahawked, and they resented the dark-skinned visitor's acceptance at the buckra dining-table.

  A faint amusement flickered in Wabasha's face, but he said nothing at all. Theo sat down beside him and tried to draw him out. Gampy, more than ever fascinated with this interesting break in his monotonous life on the Waccamaw, hovered beside her.

  'Governor Lewis is on his way East,' said Theodosia. 'By what route is he coming?'

  'Boat down Great River to Chickasaw. Then trail.'

  'You mean he will follow the Natchez Trace?'

  Wabasha grunted.

  ' Do you think he has reached the Alleghenies yet?'

  The Indian did not answer. He speared himself half a wild duck, picked the bleeding flesh neatly off with his fingers. The rice, which he had never seen before, he did not touch.

  ' Has the Governor been ill—sick?' she asked, trying again.

  For a moment she thought there would be no answer to this either. Wabasha consumed his duck in silence. She sighed, when suddenly he raised his head and looked at her.

  'Sick in body—no. His spirit is sick. The Bird of Death has touched him.'

  ' The Bird of Death?' she repeated blankly. 'What do you mean by that?'

  Wabasha shrugged. 'Great white bird from the North. When it touches with its wings, we die. My people know. Governor know too.'

  Can it be that Merne has really let himself become infected with this heathen folly? she thought, dismayed. It is as bad as the negroes'.

  'How can this be if he is not sick?' She spoke with matter-of-fact briskness, suddenly conscious of Gampy's sharpened interest.

  'All trails lead to death,' said Wabasha. 'It matters not which one he travels. White bird comes for all. For him it will be soon.'

  Theo rose abruptly, with a gesture of impatience, but Gampy, his small serious face pillowed on his hands, stared at the Indian across the table. 'Is it ugly—the bird?' he asked. 'Does it scare you?'

  Wabasha pushed back his plate and wiped his mouth. 'Not ugly, little one. His feathers are deep—soft.'

  Gampy considered this, and nodded. 'Where does he fly to?' What morbid tarradiddles arc these? thought Theo. I must stop it. Gampy should not think of such things. And yet she waited for the Indian's answer.

  'He flics to the land beyond the cold. A good place.'

  The boy accepted this with the same unchildish quiet. 'I wouldn't be afraid,' he said.

  Theodosia saw a change in the Indian's face. A ripple that vanished at once, not pity or sympathy, but a softening. A shiver ran through her.

  'That's enough, Gampy,' she said sharply. 'Don't bother our guest with foolish questions.'

  'But I want to ask him some more about the good place where the bird goes.'

  'You don't know what you're talking about, darling. What does he know of such matters?' She was careless whether she affronted the Indian or not. It was necessary to efface that unnatural old look from the child's face. 'If you want to ask these questions, save them for the Sabbath; the rector will explain to you.'

  'But he doesn't, Mama. I can't understand what he says. He uses long words. I don't like him. I like Wabasha——'

  They both turned at a soft sound. The Sioux Chief had risen. There was quiet force in his tall figure. 'I go,' he said, with simple dignity. He raised his hands shoulder-high, palms upward. 'May the Great Spirit be ever near you'. He added strange and yet musical syllables: invocation or farewell? Theo could not tell, though she felt their message, and they had beauty.

  Gampy struggled to run forward, crying, ' Please don't go, Wabasha'. Theo put a gentle arm around the boy and held him back.

  The Indian, with quick soundless step, disappeared through the door.

  At once Eleanore, who had been hovering nervously in the hall outside, burst in on them. 'Ciel!' she cried. 'He is gone, then, le sauvage! He vanish into the forest like a shadow. What did he want with you, Madame? Is he dangerous?'

  Theo smiled faintly. 'No, he was not dangerous. He brought me a message from the West.'

  'And he told me about the Bird of Death,' added Gampy softly.

  Eleanore i tared. 'Bird of Death! Qu'est-ce que e'est que ça? Death—la Mort——' She made the sign of the cross, her voice rose: 'But then he will attack us! He has his men hidden in the forest, he goes to get them. We shall be massacred yet, Madame. You will see.'

  'That's silly, Eleanore,' cried Gampy. 'Wabasha was a good man, wasn't he, Mama?'

  'Yes'. Theodosia tightened her arm around his thin little body. 'But he said many foolish things. He is not a Christian, you know. He is very superstitious, like—well, like our blacks here. You know how they believe in conjuh?'

  Gampy shook his head stubbornly. 'It's not the same. And, anyway, conjuh does work sometimes. Old Maum Chloe can make it rain, and she can make cows sick, and——'

  ' Oh, Gampy, darling, that is just coincidence. It just happens that way. Now you know there isn't any big white bird. And no one can foretell another's death, or his own. I want you to forget all that folly.'

  She kissed the troubled face. 'We are expecting a guest,' she added, with a change of tone. 'We must make ready the blue room. Eleanore, see to the linen and have the floors polished. Gampy, you may help me pick flowers to put in the vases.'

  ' Who's coming, Mama?'

  She hesitated, startled at the uprush of joy in her throat. 'Meriwether Lewis, Governor of the North Louisiana Territory, an old friend of mine.'

  She had forgotten Eleanore, whose anxiety about the Indian was removed by this interesting disclosure. 'Ah, ça, Madame!' she gasped. 'Encore ce jeune homme!' What remarkable people, these Americans! They have une affaire, they part, and do not meet for years. They send messages by red Indians, they come to stay in the husband's home. But it will do Madame good. She has had so much trouble, so much worry with her father, and Monsieur Alston, too, avec cette sale négresse. Eleanore, of course, had come to know about Venus.

  'Madame will want some new clothes,' she suggested, with an expression which could only be described as a respectful leer. 'She has nothing pretty enough—assez'séduisant—for the reception of a—a Governor.'

  Theo frowned. 'You don't understand. It is not like that now. All that you arc thinking, c'est fini. Governor Lewis is an old acquaintance who finds it convenient to stop off here on his way to Washington. C'cst tout.'

  'Certainement, Madame'. Eleanore was unconvinced. More than ever unconvinced, as Theo, after all, sent one of the servants to Charleston by boat with the rice, with instructions to bring back five yards of embroidered India muslin, two yards of gold ribbon, and the latest fashion papers. She noted sympathetically also that Madame spent much more time than usual before the mirror.

  She came into Theo's room one morning with the cut pattern of the new dress, for trying on, and found her mistress at the dressing-table peering anxiously into the greenish glass.

  'Soyez tranquille, Madame, vous êtes toujours belle'. She took up the brush and began brushing the long curling hair with soothing strokes.

  'I found some gray hairs,' said Theo. 'I pulled them out, but more will come. And I am sallow.'

  'This terrible climate. It ages one. But he will not notice. He will still think you lovely.'

  This time her allusion went unreproved. It was true: she still wanted him to think her lovely. Each day since the receipt of his message, her longing had grown. She awoke to think—Will it be today?—and retired each night with an ever-mounting weight of disappointment.

  Everything
was ready. Flowers were renewed each day in the blue room, the fire laid on the hearth. Cupid or one of the other pickaninnies kept constant watch at the gate. They had orders to scamper to the house with warning at the first sign of a horseman on the river road. She was sure that he would come on horseback. Merne had ever disdained a lumbering coach.

  But no one came. No one but William Algernon and Polly Alston to pay a brief call. Theo was in a fever of impatience while they sat languidly sipping rum punch and making civil conversation on the porch. Suppose this should be the moment of Meme's arrival, now, with this critical brother and sister-in-law to witness their meeting! They would have to pretend again, she and Merne, as they had so often been forced to pretend, that they did not know each other well, make formal greeting, guard their eyes from each other. They must meet as strangers, or the family tongues would be yapping.

  She controlled her desire to be rid of these two, forced her tongue to civil inquiry—'How is little Eliza?' and, 'Are you indeed going to Charleston so early this season?' and, 'How is Colonel William's health now? Joseph and I were much distressed to hear that he had had a touch of ague.'

  And as she talked, her glance slid past them down the drive, her fingers pleated a fold of her skirt.

  'And when will Joseph be back from Columbia, this time?' asked William Algernon.

  She caught sight of Cupid scampering toward them, and her heart hammered. She rose abruptly, sank back again. Cupid turned off toward the quarters.

  I'm sorry,' she said to their surprised faces, 'I thought someone was coming. Why—I don't know when Joseph will be back. Perhaps next week.'

  'Joseph is becoming of great political importance,' remarked William Algernon, helping himself to more punch.

  'You must be proud of him,' added Polly amiably. 'Very like he will be Governor of the State yet.'

  'Perhaps he will,' said Theo. Would they never go? Just now, as dusk was gathering under the hanging moss and the porch was shadowed, he would be most likely to come—at the end of a day's ride.

  But when the Alstons had gone, trundling away in their chaise for the hour's drive to Rose Hill, he had not come. She lit all the tapers downstairs, so that the house might blaze with welcoming light. It was not yet too late to hope. Though most horsemen would not brave strange roads in the dark, Meme was different. How many strange dark roads he had traveled! She thought of the expedition. How little she knew of the other part of his life! She had asked him nothing of the great and successful adventure during their brief unhappy interview in Richmond. It would be different now. They would have leisure to talk. Just to talk, she thought. He is my friend: no longer lover. I don't want that, nor does he. Now that he has acknowledged his injustice—I can talk to him about Father. He will help me, tell me what to do now. The joy of speaking of Aaron to Merne! Of receiving sympathy and help, where there had once been bitter hostility. She clasped her hands hard against her chest. Oh, why doesn't he come!

  She sat down to write to Aaron, but tonight words crept slowly. She dared not write, yet, of the matter which was consuming her heart. After Meme had come, she would tell Aaron, make him understand that Merne had changed; she would at last melt bitterness from between those two. But tonight she could not write.

  She had made a map, a rough, inaccurate sketch, worked out from such maps as she could find, of his probable journey. If only she knew more details! If he had left St. Louis, then—he must be here now, or here. She made tiny marks on the paper. Wabasha had said he would follow the Natchez Trace into Tennessee, then Nashville, and down through the northeast corner of Georgia into Carolina. She could not be sure of the route, and there might be any number of hazards to cause delay. Her own journey West had taught her that.

  The hall clock struck midnight before she dragged herself reluctantly up to her room. 'Tomorrow, then,' she told herself. 'He said mid-October and this is only the twenty-third. It is folly to expect him yet.'

  She snuffed her candle. That night she dreamed of him. He was standing beside the mighty river; the sound of its rushing waters deafened her ears. As she came to him, he held out his arms, and she felt his kiss with a rapture greater than any she had ever known. 'I knew you'd come to me,' she said, laughing, and turned without surprise to see her father with them, too. He was young and smiling, as he had been in the days at Richmond Hill. 'Now I am happy,' she told them, and, though her voice was lost in the roar of the flood, she saw that they understood.

  The dream dissolved into trivialities. But a springing fountain of joy remained. She awoke with it.

  It's an omen, she thought, half-ashamed of the superstition. Today he will surely come.

  She sang that day little snatches of popular songs. She played with Gampy, delighting the little boy with her nonsense, joining him in a picnic on the lawn. He begged to take their lunch down the river 'to a new place,' but this she would not do. Nor leave the house a second.

  She appeased him with stories, and even, careless of the giggling servants, chased the squealing, ecstatic child round and round amongst the giant live-oaks in a game of hide-and-seek.

  'I didn't know old people could run so well,' observed Gampy, after she had caught him.

  'I'm not really so very old,' laughed Theo, out of breath.

  'I guess not,' agreed Gampy dubiously. 'Anyway, you don't look it now. You look awful pretty.'

  'Do I, darling? That's because I'm happy, I guess.'

  'Why are you happy?'

  ' Because—because——' She broke off and stared down the avenue of live-oaks. This time surely she would see Cupid come running with the news. There was no one, only the murmur of a little wind in the trees as it stirred the hanging gray fronds.

  Gampy had lost interest. 'It's almost night-time, Mama; maybe we better go in. It's cold.'

  'Oh, no,' she cried, ' it isn't late yet. The sun won't set for hours.'

  'It has set,' he objected, astounded at this denseness. 'Look over toward the river. It's all gone. Let's have more games in the house, Mama. It's cold.'

  She drew him to her, sheltering him with her arm. Silently they walked back to the house.

  As the days went by, she did not laugh again or play with Gampy. Though she read to him and supervised his lessons with her usual loving care, there was no more gaiety.

  On the first of November, Joseph returned from Columbia. He was glad to be home, pleased to see Theo and the boy, anxious to get out and inspect the condition of the rice fields After he had eaten, he announced that he was going to the overseer's house to confer with him. 'Here are some of the latest newspapers from Columbia,' he said, dropping a sheaf of them on the table before her, 'though I believe there is nothing of special interest'. He went out.

  Theo turned the papers over listlessly. It was thus that she came upon an item.

  GOVERNOR MERIWETHER LEWIS OF THE NORTH LOUISIANA TERRITORY MOST FOULLY ASSASSINATED

  The Governor on his way cast, near Nashville, was set upon by bandits and shot. Every effort is being made to apprehend the murderers.

  There was more, but she did not read it. She gave a small whimper like a frightened child. She uttered no other sound, but sat rigid holding the newspaper and staring out the window into the gathering dusk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  AARON spent four years in exile, years of diminishing hope and ever more stringent poverty. The first fair promises of the great in England faded into evasions, into boredom, and then into suspicion. In the end it became necessary for Lord Liverpool to write a bland note, the purport of which was that Colonel Burr's presence in England had unfortunately become embarrassing to the Government. He might have passports and free passage to any port he wished, but he must avail himself of them.

  So Aaron tried Sweden, then Germany and Paris. He ingratiated himself with many, he pursued several desultory love affairs, and he oscillated between a giddy social life and actual hunger when the sale of his watch or of some coins he had bought as a present for Gampy saved him
from starvation. But the plans for 'X' were at a standstill. Indeed, in Europe, except for the initial interest of some English noblemen, they never began.

  When Aaron reached Paris, he made many abortive efforts to gain audience with the King of Westphalia. The former Jerome Bonaparte ignored him, no less completely than did his imperial brother. Aaron kept up his spirits as best he could. He wrote Theo determinedly cheerful letters that hid his disappointment. He kept a journal which she should see some day and laugh over, when they were together once more. He was outwardly cheerful, but his health, for the first time in his life, was poor, and he longed for home. He was, moreover, worried about Theodosia.

  There had been a silence of many months in the winter of 1809, and though, when he finally received a letter, she wrote in her usual vein, telling him of her efforts to insure his reinstatement, telling him news of Gampy, telling him how desperately she missed him, yet there was a note that disturbed him. She had abandoned their carefully maintained playfulness, their fiction that all was well with him. She implored him to come home.

  Risk anything, make any sacrifice, but come home. Or, if the worst comes to the worst, I will leave everything to suffer with you. The icy hand of disappointment falls upon my heart to smother every spark. Do not frown at these complaints. Oh, my guardian angel, why were you obliged to abandon me? How much I need your counsel and tenderness...

  Aaron read these letters anxiously, puzzled by their extravagance. He knew that her health was none too good, but he felt in her a despair that went deeper than physical discomfort: a profound unhappiness for which he knew no source.

  He determined to come home. He felt his fiber deteriorat ing. He was aging—at last he knew it. And he longed for the two who were of his blood, Theodosia and the child. He spent many futile, miserable months in trying to obtain a passport, and when finally, in March of 1812., he obtained passage from London for Boston on the Aurora, war rumors were thick between the United States and England.