“For which we are most grateful, sir. Nevertheless, the criminal refusal of this garrison to submit to our authority has cost many lives. You and everyone else involved will be held responsible. We will therefore—”
A soldier interrupted him to whisper a short message.
The color drained from McNeal’s face. “Damn!” His mind raced. “All right, tell him to wait. I’ll see him as soon as I . . .” His unfinished sentence hung in the air as he stared at the stranger who strode in.
“You will see me now,” Simon Cordwyn said coldly.
There was dead silence as McNeal jumped to his feet. “I—I don’t think we’ve met, sir.”
“Then this will serve as my introduction.”
Simon handed him a letter, then turned to the prisoner. “Mr. Warren? I’m Simon Cordwyn, assistant to the governor’s deputy, Arthur Ainsley.”
“Honored, sir,” Warren replied with a nod.
“I’ll want to speak with you later. Guard, escort this gentleman out.”
Seeing the guard hesitate, McNeal hastily nodded to him. “Yes, we’ll take a recess now.” He handed Simon’s letter back with a glassy smile. “It’s a great pleasure to have you join us, sir. Indeed, we welcome your—”
“Major McNeal.” Simon cut him off. “We must talk in private.”
McNeal blinked. “Well, I’ve taken the parlor as my headquarters, so—”
“That will do.” Simon strode out, and McNeal, his fellow officers staring in amazement after him, meekly followed.
Behind the closed doors of the once-grand parlor, Simon’s simmering anger boiled over. “How dare you set yourself up as a minister of justice? You have no such authority, and you know it!”
“We suffered heavy losses here, Mr. Cordwyn! These criminals deserve to be punished!”
“They fought for what they believe in—just as you did. That doesn’t make them criminals. Now, where is the Prentice family?”
“Mr. Prentice is in our field hospital. He fell from the wall during the fighting, and he’s out of his head besides. The ladies are confined to their rooms upstairs. And lucky they are to have such comfortable quarters.”
Simon’s fierce look burned into the other man. “Major McNeal, you have inflicted wanton destruction on this house and caused needless loss of life, all in defiance of instructions sent to you in a letter from Mr. Ainsley.”
“The devil you say!” McNeal pretended outrage. “I saw no such letter!”
“Didn’t see it? Or chose to ignore it?”
“Look here, I resent your—”
“Either way, McNeal, I’m instructing you now. Your so-called court is disbanded. The Prentice ladies will be released from confinement and allowed free movement within the house. You and your men will immediately vacate.”
This was too much for McNeal. “Dammit, Cordwyn, I’m in command here, and I’ll not take orders from the likes of you!”
Simon drew a weary sigh as he thought back over his hectic career as a Continental agent. Why did the worst trouble so often come not from the British but from out-of-control fellow Americans?
“A word of advice, Major.” His low voice carried an unmistakable threat. “When Mr. Ainsley and other officials arrive here tomorrow, they’re not going to be pleased with what they find. You’re already in trouble. Don’t make it any worse for yourself. I’m going to interview Mr. Warren—and you’re going back in there to tell your men to clear out. Now!"
McNeal scowled, but he knew when to quit. “As you say,” he grumbled.
After his interview with George Warren, Simon started up the ruined stairs. On the second floor, everything was desolation—shattered glass, cracked walls, fallen plaster, overturned tables, massive roof beams jutting crazily through gaping holes in the ceiling. Stepping carefully through the rubble, he looked in at the first open doorway.
Pale and drawn, with a heavy woolen shawl over her shoulders, Clarissa looked nothing at all like the elegant lady she had once been. She sat in an armchair by the window and stared wide-eyed in disbelief when Simon stepped into the room. “Simon Cordwyn, as I live and breathe! I never expected to see you again.”
“Hello, Clarissa. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been ill, and about the terrible things that have happened here.”
“I’m getting better, thank you. But you can’t imagine what we’ve been through! First we lost Brandon—”
“I know. I’ve just come from Goose Creek. It was shocking news.”
“And now we’ve lost our Cuba, and sweet old Mrs. Morley. Poor dears, they died together.”
“Yes, Mr. Warren told me. It’s very sad. And where is Jane?”
“In Mrs. Morley’s room. It’s just down the hall, last door on the right. She’s spent most of the day in there, seems to find comfort in it. There’s no life left in her eyes, she’s in such pain. Go on, don’t let me detain you. Hurry and find her. And, Simon . . .” Her grave eyes held him a moment longer. “This time, never let her out of your sight again.”
He found Jane curled up on Mrs. Morley’s bed, fully dressed but apparently asleep. Kneeling beside the bed, he studied her face. She looked strangely peaceful. Then, as if sensing another presence, she opened her eyes and gazed at him. But her face was blank, her dull eyes, as Clarissa had said, showing no spark of life.
Simon greeted her with a smile, hoping to see a smile in return. “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said softly.
She sat up with some effort, still blank-faced, staring at him. “Simon?” she murmured. “Is it really you?”
“Don’t you know me?”
“You’ve been gone so long, I . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Yes, I have—far too long, and sick with worry about you every minute of it. But I’m back at last, and thank God I’ve found you safe!”
Her empty gaze drifted across the room. “I shouldn’t be, you know. So many have died here. Why shouldn’t I have died, too?”
“Don’t say that, Jane! We’ve both survived this war somehow, and the survivors have to carry on.”
“I don’t feel like a survivor,” she said bleakly. “But if I am one, then you are doubly so. Being banished to the far north—was it awful?”
“Only because I was so far from you. But I was lucky. Some good people took me in and helped me to get back here. I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now we need to talk about something far more important.” He sat down beside her and took her hand. “I keep thinking of our first meeting, so long ago. That day you wandered into my classroom, you remember? You were so charming, I wanted to pat you on the head. Little did I realize, you’d eventually take possession of my head—and my heart, soul, and whole being. I don’t know if you have any such feelings for me or not, but if you do . . .” He paused, waiting for some response. “Do you, Jane?”
She was slow to reply, gazing intently at him. “I’m thinking back to a long-ago day, too,” she said finally. “To that day here at Rosewall, when you told me you were leaving, going back to Pennsylvania, Not a day has gone by since then that I haven’t thought of you, wishing you were here with me. And yet . . . I’ve always felt that I hardly knew you.”
“Well, there’s a remedy for that now, and that’s exactly what I want to talk to you about. We have the rest of our lives to get to know each other—in the best possible way—as husband and wife. That is, if you’ll consent to marry me. And someday, when all this terror is over, we’ll know what it feels like to be together permanently. Happily. In peace.”
Still he waited. And looking into her eyes, he began to see a spark of will to go on living, faintly glimmering, gradually returning.
“Could it be, Simon? Could it really be?”
“It could if you say so, my dearest. And who knows?” He drew her into a sheltering embrace. “If our luck holds, maybe someday can even come soon.”
“Someday . . .” She whispered the word—a word she had hated for so long but that now suddenly sounded like the promise o
f a golden dream. For now she finally knew what it meant. It meant her future life with Simon.
At last, they were almost there.
Epilogue—1782
Tragically, the Battle of Rosewall occurred weeks after the British surrender at Yorktown had already made all further fighting poindess. The British continued to occupy Charlestown for another year, not leaving for good until December of 1782. But long before that, it had become clear to everyone that British rule in America was at an end.
Revenge against the Loyalists soon raised its ugly head in South Carolina. Nowhere else had their resistance to the rebellion been so fierce, and nowhere else were they punished so severely. Once-respected citizens became homeless, hated refugees, their homes and property confiscated.
Robert and Clarissa Prentice were among the lucky ones, taken in at Goose Creek by the Ainsleys, who stayed on there while Charlestown remained occupied. In this quiet haven, Clarissa slowly recovered and accepted their hard new reality with serenity. For Robert, recovery was more difficult. His fall during battle had left him with a limp, and his right arm remained useless from the gunshot wound. Harriet, still in her mental fog, believed that all Robert’s injuries were received in the fighting at Rosewall.
Robert’s deepest sense of defeat had come with the loss of his beloved plantation. Arthur used all his influence to try to obtain the return of Rosewall to its rightful owner. But although Robert continued to hold out hope that these efforts would eventually succeed, Arthur encountered only failure.
Meanwhile, Jane and Simon were happy just to be near each other. They began to make plans for the future, but first another separation would have to be endured. Simon traveled north to finish certain business in connection with his work for the Continental Army. Jane remained at Goose Creek, doing what she could to help, as always. They wrote to each other as often as they could and counted the days until Simon could return to South Carolina.
When he returned in the spring, wedding invitations were sent to Hugh and Lydia, and to Peter and Marianne Quincy. The Quincys sent back good wishes but could not come. Marianne was expecting again and was afraid to go far from home. Hugh and Lydia made the trip out from Charlestown, and when they arrived at Goose Creek, Robert greeted his cousin with a nervous half smile. After only a few awkward moments, they were friends again, reunited by the kind of happy event neither had seen in many years.
Jane and Hugh spent a few quiet moments together in fond reunion, during which Hugh presented her with a small package tied with a bit of yellow ribbon. “This came from the most unlikely of places, my dear,” he told her. “But I still thought you might like to have it.”
“Oh, Cousin Hugh, you know I wrote to you that people shouldn’t bring us wedding presents,” she admonished him gently.
He smiled. “I think you’ll forgive my defying your wishes just this once.”
Jane opened the package, and in it she discovered her little gold locket. Its slender chain was broken, but the tiny curl of her mother’s chestnut hair lay inside, just as it had for so many years.
“My God,” she breathed. “Where on earth . . .” The words caught in her throat as she looked up at Hugh, tears welling in her eyes.
“It was right there in our kitchen all along, lying in the dust under Lydia’s wood box. When I tore that rotted old box out to make her a new one, there it was.”
Overcome with joy and gratitude, Jane threw her arms around him. “Thank you so much, Cousin Hugh! For everything—and especially for the most wonderful present I could ever imagine.”
The next morning, while her proud family beamed with pleasure, Jane and Simon were married in a simple but beautiful ceremony at Saint James Church in Goose Creek. With heads bowed beneath the British Royal Coat of Arms—emblem of an era that had passed into history—they solemnly vowed to love, honor, and cherish, forsaking all others . . .
Jane would always think of the few days following her wedding, spent at a small inn nearby, as a time of serene bliss. Truly, she thought, love is one of the great forces of the universe.
It was like returning to earth from paradise then, when they came back to the Dudley house, to stay there one more day before leaving to spend the summer in Simon’s hometown of Lancaster, in distant Pennsylvania.
But first, a moment of quiet solemnity. In the afternoon, they walked to a remote corner of the Dudley lands and stood before a grave, the final resting place of Brandon Ainsley, Lieutenant, American Loyalist Cavalry, who had died a hero’s death at the age of twenty-three. As they had so many times before, Jane’s eyes brimmed with tears, while Simon held her hand. Neither spoke. The only sound was the chirping of birds in the forest. Words would have seemed a jarring intrusion on the deep peacefulness around them.
The next morning, they said their good-byes, climbed into the carriage given to them by the Ainsleys, and started their journey north.
The trip was long and grueling, over primitive roads, but Jane was dazzled by new vistas constantly opening up before her. Other parts of America were so different from lush South Carolina. She was charmed by the town of Lancaster, nestled in the rolling farmland of southern Pennsylvania. Hardly more than a rustic frontier village compared to the gracious Charlestown, it had a bustling vitality of its own. Best of all, Simon’s sister, Becky, and her two children—Jack Junior, aged fourteen, and Frances, twelve—embraced Jane as if they had known her all their lives. As Simon had hoped, his young wife took a liking to his family, and they to her.
One day they all paid a visit to the nearby cemetery and stood somberly at another grave, that of Becky’s husband, Jack Herndon. Released by the British after two and a half years as a prisoner, he had made his way home a broken man, his health shattered, and died a few months later.
“He was a good man,” Becky said softly. “But, perhaps, a foolish one.”
“He was a good man, and most assuredly a brave one,” Simon declared.
And these, Jane silently recalled, were just my thoughts that day at Brandon’s grave.
During that peaceful summer, Jane and Simon explored the town and walked all over the hills and fields that surrounded it, enjoying the beauty of the countryside. To Jane, it looked remarkably like England. She and Simon spent time at his sister’s store, Herndon’s Mercantile. She met many of his old friends and was impressed by their high regard for him.
But there was one serious matter that they still needed to decide. Simon had long dreamed of starting a school, and now was the time. But where? Jane could tell that he dreaded the question, fearing it might cause disagreement between them. This won’t do, she thought. She decided to clear up the matter herself.
Her opportunity came late one afternoon toward the end of summer, when they stopped on a hillside during one of their walks and looked out over the town. “I’ve seen some good sites for a school here, Simon,” Jane remarked. “What do you think?”
He stared intently at the green hills in the distance. “Yes, seems to me there are several that would be ideal. But I wouldn’t make such a decision by myself. It must be made by both of us. And I know how difficult it would be for you to—”
“Simon, my dear, listen to me.” She took his arm and turned him to look at her. “Years ago, when you left the South to come back here to live, you said it was because your sister needed you, and that was very admirable. But you had another reason, too, a far more important one. You said you couldn’t live in a society that depended on slave labor. That must mean you wouldn’t want our children brought up in that kind of society, either. Am I right?”
Simon considered his answer carefully. “Jane, I know that your kinfolk always treated their servants kindly. But it’s still an evil system, and sooner or later it will have to end. It may not happen in our lifetime. Perhaps it will be our children, or their children, who have to face that terrible struggle—and a terrible one it will be. But when it comes, I’d like to think they’ll be on the right side of it.”
“So would
I.” Jane smiled into his eyes. “It’s settled, then. Our new baby will be raised right here in Pennsylvania.”
Speechless with delight, Simon gathered her into his arms, and they stood there together until the sun disappeared in a golden blaze below the dark green hills.
With no way to be certain that a letter would ever arrive safely in South Carolina, Jane worried over how to tell everyone there about her good news, and about their decision. She wanted to make one last trip south, but as the weeks slipped by the idea seemed less and less practical. The first chill of fall would soon sharpen the air. And besides, travel could prove excessively wearing, if not downright perilous, in her condition.
She and Simon were still pondering the problem when, one blazing August afternoon, Jane received a packet of letters Arthur had sent with a trusted friend who was traveling to Pennsylvania. There was a note from Arthur himself, another from Hugh and Lydia, and a third, somewhat longer, from Robert.
Arthur wrote that he and Harriet were still living at Goose Creek, anxiously awaiting the day—expected soon—when the British would evacuate Charlestown and they might return to their home. They had heard that it was wrecked after serving for years as a British military barracks. But of course, Arthur added, it can be restored. Harriet still sometimes fretted about why Brandon never came to visit, but those lapses were growing less frequent. Arthur dared hope that eventually she would be her old self again.
Hugh and Lydia sent word that they were both well, and that Hugh’s shop was prospering as never before. They were even thinking of moving to larger quarters. Peter and Marianne, they wrote, were expecting their baby in November, and might move on to Georgia in the spring. (“Foolish notion!” Hugh added in the margin. “Young people never know when they’re well off”)
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