by Henke, Shirl
Andrew took her hand gallantly, ignoring the odor of cow that clung to it. “Your work does you proud, m'dear. I only regret that Quintin isn't here to care for his family in this time of need.”
“Has he even learned he has a son?” Serena asked oversweetly.
Madelyne felt her face heat as she nodded. “Yes. In fact, he paid a brief, unexpected visit in response to my letter, several months ago, just to see James.”
“You never mentioned that to me,” Andrew said with a wounded look.
“My, my, sending messages through rebel lines. Are you won to his cause, then?” Serena asked before Madelyne could answer his complaint.
“I'm scarcely a rebel. I only felt that Quint had the right to know about James. I didn't expect the visit, and I really don't wish to discuss it. Now if you will excuse me for a few moments,” she said, turning from Serena to Andrew, for whom she smiled.
When they were alone, Serena tapped her finger against her cheek and whispered to Andrew, “Are you perchance thinking the same as I? If Quintin came home once in response to her letter...”
Andrew stroked his chin and turned the possibilities over in his mind. “If only we had the means to get a message to him.”
“Perhaps if we're patient, it will work out. If that old devil is as sick as you say, Madelyne will soon be sending word that Quintin is the new master of Blackthorne Hill. That should bring him home again.”
“To gloat, if nothing else. He and my uncle could never abide one another. Let me confer with my backwoods informant about the matter and we'll see what can be arranged.”
“I'll volunteer to put hemlock in Robert's tea,” Serena said with a cold chuckle.
Andrew only nodded, preoccupied with his plans.
* * * *
Noble Witherspoon hated to be the bearer of bad news, especially to a beleaguered woman like Madelyne Blackthorne, who was left alone with a small baby, a large plantation, and a husband who unjustly accused her of treachery. Sighing as he climbed down from his chair, he handed the reins to a stableboy and turned to face the mistress of Blackthorne Hill. Her printed calico bodice and plain petticoats, without hen baskets or other padding, attested to her hard-working ways.
“Dr. Witherspoon, I'm so happy you're here. I'm afraid I need quite a bit of medical advice. Someone always seems to get hurt or ill when you're not available.”
Noble studied her face, lovely and flushed, but beneath the smiling facade he sensed aching sadness and great weariness. “You're becoming quite adept at treating patients, Madelyne. Keep this up and I'll have to certify you to the Governor's board as a trained physician.”
She laughed lightly at the absurd idea. “And what men in authority would ever allow a mere female to practice medicine?”
He shrugged as they began walking toward the house. “Bunch of damn fools.”
“Have you brought my supplies?” she asked. “Robert's fever hasn't abated with the cooler weather as we'd hoped.”
“I'm afraid I couldn't get the cinchona with all the disruption of the war. I was most fortunate to acquire some calomel, a tiny bit of laudanum, and some powdered foxglove.”
“The foxglove helps Robert's heart, but he suffers most cruelly from the ague, pitching and crying out in his sleep at night. I'm afraid his mind is slipping away—at least when the fever grips him.”
“No wonder you look so careworn and peaked. There are servants aplenty to sit up with that old curmudgeon. Let that prune-faced housekeeper he's always favored do it,” Noble said sourly.
Madelyne's expression grew wary at the mention of Mistress Ogilve. “You've practiced medicine here for over thirty years, Noble. What do you know about that woman?”
“Why? I thought you'd settled the matter of who's running the Hill with Robert down and Quintin away. She giving you any more sass?”
“No. I've quite put her in her place, but...well, I hate to accuse her without real evidence.”
“Accuse her of what?”
Madelyne sighed. “Embezzlement, I'm afraid. I haven't sifted through all the household accounts yet—there's so little time and so many things to be seen to with Robert ill.”
Noble smiled. “Hah! Robert up and about would be a deal more trouble for you.” He scratched his chin reflectively. “So, you have reason to believe she's been pinching from her household budget. I wouldn't doubt it. Robert and Quintin always left the running of the house to her, for all of their shrewdness in dealing with other enterprises.”
“I'd like to dismiss her, but until I can take the time to go through the records more carefully...” She let her words fade as they entered the house and came within earshot of two kitchen maids. “I'll take you up to see Robert straightaway.” Noble grimaced but followed her up the stairs.
After completing his examination, he left the sickroom and motioned for Madelyne to walk down the hall with him. “Without the cinchona to break the fever, I doubt he has long. You're right about his erratic mental state. One moment he's as lucid as Aristotle, the next he's off raving about Anne like a lovesick schoolboy.”
Madelyne's eyes grew round with amazement. “No one has so much as spoken her name in this house since I came here. Quintin forbade me to ask about her. What do you know of the lady, Noble?”
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and seemed to reminisce for a few seconds. “There was some gossip around the time Quint was born. She and Robert didn't get on. No mystery there. Nobody but a cornered wharf rat's as mean as Robert Blackthorne when he sets his mind to it. She died in a cholera epidemic when Quint was only a babe. I was newly arrived here and didn't have the exalted Blackthornes in my practice then. Don't know much other than that.”
“How extraordinary that after all these years, he's started to speak of her again.” Madelyne was preoccupied as the old physician gave her instructions about treating her father-in-law. Then they visited the employees and slaves on the Hill who were ill or injured.
When Noble had completed his rounds, he delightedly accepted Delphine's offer of a basket lunch that he could eat while riding to his next appointment upriver. Lost in thought, Madelyne bade him farewell and returned to the big house. It was time to unravel some mysteries.
Chapter Twenty-one
Madelyne sat in her room surrounded by ledgers. Although Mistress Ogilve had not destroyed the records, she had placed them in the root cellar, piled in a corner on the damp floor where mildew and mice could get at them. Over the years, no one had ever asked to see them. Delphine had been able to tell Madelyne where they were stored.
One—dated January 5, 1751—had notes written in the margins in a neat feminine hand, questioning the number of bolts of calico cloth bought for slaves' clothing. Madelyne scanned further, flipping through the months, and found more such questions, very similar to those she had been asking herself since taking over the accounts of Blackthorne Hill.
An eerie sense of premonition washed over her as she realized that January of l751 was less than a year after Anne Caruthers had wed Robert Blackthorne. Had Anne been trying to prove the same crime against Mistress Ogilve thirty years earlier?
Robert's cry interrupted her disturbing train of thought. It was well past midnight, and the house was silent but for the bitter old man in the bed down the hall, raving and crying for his dead wife, the wife he purported to hate.
Once Madelyne had realized how much Robert was revealing in his feverish rantings, she assigned only a few trusted older servants to tend him and exacted oaths from them never to reveal anything they heard in the sickroom. Quintin would never forgive her if she allowed gossip about his bastardy to spread. Of course, Quintin would never forgive her for many other things either, but this was one thing she could do for him.
With dread in every step, she walked down the hall to look in on Robert. Would he recognize her tonight or be off in the distant past, battling with ghosts? She entered the room and quietly dismissed Toby, urging the elderly man to get some rest. Then she sat by Robert
's bedside and began to place another cool compress on his sweat-soaked brow.
His skin was yellow and hung in loose folds. In the dim light of the lone bedside candle, his eyes, once blue, now looked black as the pits of hell. She had never liked Robert Blackthorne. He had treated her, as well as Quintin, abominably, yet she wished this tormented death on no man.
“Anne! Anne, damn your lying heart. My own brother—how could you? I loved you! I loved you...” His voice faded. When he resumed his raspy, disjointed speech, he was in a totally different mood. “So lovely, m'dear. The blue velvet quite matches your eyes. We'll buy out every merchant in Charles Town, see if I won't do it. Look at the cedar chest. Excellent protection against the mildew in Georgia's hot summers. You must have it for your pretties.”
After a few moments, the opaqueness lifted from his eyes and he looked at her, a snarl twisting his face. “What're you doing? Come to gloat. Well, I'm not dead yet. You and your bastard can wait until I am.”
Used to his verbal attacks, Madelyne wrung out a washcloth and placed it on his head in spite of his protest. “Small wonder your wife turned from you. You Blackthorne men have such a charming way with the ladies.”
Robert tried to rise up. “How dare you speak of her!” He coughed and fell back on the bed.
“I only do so because you have. You rave about how much you loved her, how beautiful she was, how happy you were.” She watched his expression grow wary, then furious.
“I was a fool to trust her. Any man's a fool to trust a woman.”
“What about your brother? He betrayed you, too.”
“He was bewitched by her, just as I was. Andrew's mother was prim, dull, homely. Alastair's was the arranged match, mine the love match.” He scoffed bitterly, then turned his head to the wall. “Get out. Leave me to die in peace.”
“You've never known peace in life, Robert. I doubt death will grant it either.”
It was nearing dawn when he finally fell into a deep sleep, his dreams and nightmares over for a while. Nell came in and scolded Madelyne for staying up with him and shooed her from the room. Madelyne fed James, then collapsed on her bed for several hours, troubled and puzzled by her own dreams. Later that afternoon, she went to Anne's parlor, which she had converted into her retreat.
Madelyne felt drawn to the drawer where Anne's miniature lay hidden. How well she remembered Quintin's anger when he had found her with it. He'd cracked the delicate frame when he furiously threw it back into the drawer. She took it out and examined the lovely face of this enigma.
“I wonder when it was painted.” Her eyes moved from the face to the bare ivory shoulders, framed by the low-cut bodice of a blue velvet gown. The one for which Robert had selected the fabric? “She must have had a whole wardrobe filled with gowns, riding clothes, pockets and gloves, slippers...perhaps other personal items.”
For some inexplicable reason, Madelyne wanted to learn more about the Lady Anne, a woman so shallow as to leave her son to Robert's bitter wrath, yet a wife concerned enough about Blackthorne Hill to peruse housekeeping accounts and detect petty thievery. The two traits did not fit together.
Quintin had said Robert could not bear to destroy her clothes but ordered everything packed up and hidden away.
Half an hour later, Madelyne was climbing into the cob webbed recesses of the attic. The floorboards were loose in places, and mice ran to hide from her intrusion into their domain. In spite of brilliant sun outdoors, the narrow dormer windows emitted only small shafts of light. She picked her way through a labyrinth of crates, boxes and barrels, over forty years of accumulation, now abandoned by the Blackthorne family. The enormity of searching through all the packing cases and trunks overwhelmed her as she wended her way from aisle to aisle.
Finally, just as she was about to despair, a faint essence of cedar, pungent and clean, filtered through all the musty staleness of mildew. Cedar—the chest Robert had bought Anne! Madelyne began to shove dusty blankets and rickety boxes aside until it became apparent that Anne's personal effects were indeed piled in this dormer.
One heavy trunk blocked her way to the smaller cedar chest. When she shoved it, the clasp snapped. Curious, she lifted the lid and peered inside, then carefully lifted what had once been a magnificent ball gown of rose taffeta from the chest. Beneath it were others, now moth-eaten and partially discolored. Yet in spite of the vicissitudes of nature, they were splendid, made to fit a tall, elegant blonde of slim, yet voluptuous proportions. At once she thought of Barbara and realized how much her friend must resemble the aunt she'd never met. Madelyne wondered if all the Caruthers women were fated to have tragic love affairs.
Sadly forcing aside Barbara and Devon's troubled relationship, she replaced the gowns in the chest and pushed it back, coughing on the plumes of dust that rose in the stifling attic. She squeezed between a barrel and the large trunk to reach the smaller cedar chest. It was tightly locked.
Searching the cluttered attic, she found a heavy brass key hanging from a lock on a leather trunk. Using it, she pried and jiggled at the chest until it suddenly popped open. Inside were bundles of letters, all carefully wrapped in satin ribbons, a number of miniatures, dance cards from London soirees, and other obviously very personal memorabilia. Could such items from the long-dead past reveal the essence of the Lady Anne? They were incredibly well preserved in the tight cedar confines of the chest.
Feeling as if she were trespassing or invading another woman’s privacy, she lifted out a bundle of letters and untied it. A quick perusal revealed that they were exchanges between her and Robert Blackthorne during their courtship. How young, innocent, and full of high hopes they both must have been. Once, at least, she did truly love him. What could possibly have gone wrong?
Madelyne dug deeper through the letters and trinkets, looking for she was not exactly certain what, when her hands brushed the edge of a leather volume. She carefully extracted it and examined the smooth cordovan leather with gold corner pieces and binding. It was Anne's diary! A quick perusal indicated that she had begun it on shipboard during her honeymoon.
Madelyne skimmed the entries, pausing here and there to read a passage that particularly struck a chord. How different Anne's marriage and welcome to Blackthorne Hill had been from her own. Yet in both cases, father and son had caused their wives great anguish. She understood about Quintin, but what had turned the man Anne called “my beloved Robbie” into a man who cursed her memory?
The entries during 1750 were mostly prosaic details about settling in at the Hill and opening their new city house. Then one entry caught her eye:
Mistress Ogilve is a well-favored woman of uncertain years with comely black hair, tidy and punctilious, yet I know she does not like me. She has been with Robbe's father for several years and has complete control of the household. I shall endeavor to win her over, but I fear she resents my intrusion.
Madelyne continued reading rapidly, searching for more entries regarding Mistress Ogilve, but then another passage caught her eye.
Alastair called again today while Robbie was out, although I have begged him not to do this. Again he declared his love for me in a most foolish and reckless manner. Poor, dear Alastair. My heart aches for him, but I love Robbie.
Madelyne backtracked, reading more entries. The honeymoon idyll of Robert and Anne had not lasted long before he became increasingly possessive and jealous. Winning such a prize as the Lady Anne Caruthers, toast of London, did not ensure that a colonial planter could keep her. Every social function seemed to end with a jealous quarrel. Anne bore it all, seeming to understand her husband's insecurities, although she did fear for his life when he fought several duels over her. But once his own brother was smitten with her—Madelyne could well imagine that tragedy was inevitable.
With a sense of foreboding, she continued reading, finding earlier entries detailing the growing ardor of Alastair Blackthorne for his brother's English wife. Alastair and his first wife had been bitterly mismatched. She was apparentl
y not only thin and plain, but more importantly, possessed of a mean, humorless spirit. She despised her marital duties, informing her husband immediately after the birth of Andrew that she had provided an heir and would submit to his attentions no further.
After a succession of affairs and kept women, none of whom satisfied his loneliness, Alastair met Robert's breathtakingly beautiful new bride. At first Anne felt sorry about his unhappy marriage and tried to befriend him. For his part, Alastair fought the dishonor of falling in love with his brother's wife, but finally confessed to her that he was powerless to change his feelings, even though she did not return them.
His spitefully jealous wife, Vivian, was first to notice the tension between her husband and Anne. She went to Robert with the tale, convincing him that it was Anne who had bewitched Alastair. ”A spoiled aristocrat but toying with us rude colonials,” she had said after leading Robert to a secluded spot in the Kent family garden where Alastair was professing his devotion to a reluctant Anne.
Madelyne could feel the pain from each line Anne wrote as she described the bitter confrontation between the brothers. After that, Robert took to drinking, leaving Alastair to run their trading business at the Hill. But apparently Alastair could not continue living so close to the woman he loved.
Leaving his wife and small son behind, he traveled to the Muskogee towns as Crown agent. Upon receiving word of Vivian's death, he returned to ask Robert and Anne to care for Andrew until the boy was old enough to join him in the wilderness. But Vivian's family insisted on keeping Andrew as their ward. In spite of Anne's protests, Robert agreed, cruelly castigating her because she cared more for his brother's son than she did for her “duty” to produce her husband's heir.
On the rare occasions when he came to Savannah to visit little Andrew, Alastair tried to press his suit to Anne, urging her to abandon her increasingly unhappy marriage and come away with him. But then the whole situation changed dramatically late in 1752:
