Scamp's Lady
Page 5
She rose and left before he could say anything else. She couldn’t let him see that she was more scared than ever before in her life.
On her way into the house, she asked for a tray in her room for dinner.
Shortly after 2 o’clock in the morning, Adam stole a horse.
Chapter 4
Ferguson left early. The noise of the troops breaking camp awakened Deborah well before sunrise. She threw back the comforter and lit the lamp, anxious to get started as soon as possible. The braided rug protected her feet as she rose. She admired it as she walked over to the window. Much finer in color and quality than the usual motley of scrap fabric used for them, this rug was all the same shade of green, matching the curtains and the counterpane. The floor was cold where she stepped off the rug, but she wanted to peek out the window. Troops, wagons, and horses clogged the field and the road that she and Adam had to take.
Of course! Ferguson had to follow that road for 20 miles or so before he could bear northwest toward Kings Mountain. From the looks of things, she and Adam wouldn’t be able to follow them much before dawn. With a yawn and a shiver, she crawled back in bed for awhile.
**
“Adam, Adam,” she called softly, even though the troops in this area were gone. She’d seen no one she knew on her way to the wagon and just as well. She felt she had to tell her news to someone or pop like a roasted kernel of corn. Having to talk politely to a British soldier would have been impossible to bear.
“Adam!” She was getting irritated. He knew they had to leave and why. She lifted the “tent” wall. No Adam.
Oh, my Lord, he’s left without me!
Just as he was supposed to do. She’d forgotten he was going to slip out during the night, didn’t think he’d really do it. Now...now it was her turn to get out and back to the American lines. She had a part to play in this drama, and she had to play it well. The discussion of André and Hale floated through her mind. She ruthlessly squelched it. Yes, the part had to be played perfectly to the last curtain. Her life depended on it.
Backing out from under the wagon, she looked around. Two soldiers were outside a tent some distance away, one chalking the other’s white breeches. “Excuse me, have you seen my brother? This is our wagon.”
The one having his breeches cleaned just looked at her. The other rose from his crouch and wiped a hand across his face, spreading chalk dust across his forehead. “No, m’um, we hain’t. “Appens tho ‘e may be at the latrine, down that way. Couldn’t say fer sure, tho.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. If you see him would you tell him to stay here?” He nodded, and she headed for the latrine.
Halfway there, she spied a familiar face. Mr. Thomson was coming from the latrine, hitching up his breeches and adjusting his coat as he stopped by a slatternly camp follower who was stirring a pot over an open fire. Deborah couldn’t hear what Thomson said, but the woman’s “G’on” and playful punch to his arm told its own story.
He laughed and strolled off, spotting Deborah a moment later. He hailed her. “Good morrow to ye, Mistress Morgan. Will ye be leavin’ us today, too? Ah ‘eard Mistress Kershaw went back to ‘er place in town.”
Here it begins, she thought. “Good day to you, Mr. Thomson. We’ll be leaving just as soon as I can find my brother and my horse. Have you seen Adam? He seems to have wandered off.”
“No, m’um, Ah h’aint. ‘As the wee lad wandered off? Hi’ll surely...”
“I’ll deal with this, sergeant.”
Both Deborah and Thomson startled at Marshall’s harsh voice. “Yessir!” The sergeant saluted and walked off with a small frown on his face.
“Thank you, Colonel, I wouldn’t expect you to concern yourself with something so small as my brother’s disappearance.”
Marshall stood there with his hands behind his back for a few moments. Deborah thought he looked like he was going to bite her. His clear gray eyes narrowed as he studied her. Oh, my God, he knows! What am I going to do? How did he find out? He must have Adam.
“You’re right, Mistress Morgan, normally I wouldn’t concern myself with this kind of a matter. Unfortunately, though, a horse has gone missing, and at the very same time your brother. Now, normally I wouldn’t concern myself with that, either, but this horse happens to be mine! One of my best, in fact.”
He doesn’t know. But, oh Adam, what have you done? She closed her eyes for a moment.
“That’s right, Mistress Morgan, I believe your idiot of a brother has stolen my horse.”
“Colonel, I...I’m so sorry. But you have to understand that Adam is just like a little child. It would be just like him to have taken it. He sees pretty things and he just...plays with them. He has the body of a 24 year-old and the mind of a four year old and it’s sometimes very difficult to remember that. He didn’t steal the horse; he just wanted to play with it. You can no more accuse him of stealing than you can a normal four year-old. Don’t you understand?”
Marshall stared down at her and pulled down one side of his mouth. Deborah took it as positive that he wasn’t accusing her outright of lying. “The most important thing now is to find them: to return the horse to you and to take Adam home before he can get into any more trouble. I’m going to take the wagon and go look for him. I suspect that he headed up the Lancaster road, because that’s where we came from, and he is at least somewhat familiar with it. When I find them, I will send the horse back to you and...”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said ‘no’. You are not leaving until this mess is straightened out. I have a number of questions, and they all don’t have to do with your brother.”
“But, Adam...”
“Mistress Morgan, you will remain at the main house and on the grounds of this encampment until I personally give you permission to leave. Is that clear?”
“But, Colonel...”
“Is that clear?”
“Adam is lost out there, and he can’t take care of himself.”
Marshall studied her, obviously weighing the possibility that she might be telling the truth. “I will have my troopers searching for him. In the meantime, are my orders clear?”
Deborah realized that he must have suspicions about her. To protest any more would only make him wonder more. “Yes, Colonel.” She took a few steps toward the wagon and then turned back. “But please remember that he is just a little boy, even if he looks like a man.”
He bowed his head. She could feel him watching her as she turned to walk away. Ferguson must have planted suspicions in his head.
Her knees shook as she walked to the wagon. She wished it was simply a normal fear of being trapped in the enemy camp by a suspicious officer. That should have been enough to make her knees shake all by itself.
Oh no, the state of her personal safety was not the main reason for wobbly knees and a pounding pulse.
She was honest enough to admit that it was gray eyes the color of a stormy winter’s sky and a mouth as finely chiseled as the hope chest in her bedroom. Something about just being near him sent her normally quiet, controlled emotions into a tizzy.
An irresistible impulse had her looking back. She tried to see him. He wasn’t there. Near where they had been talking, a group of soldiers were pushing against a wagon mired axle-deep in the mud. Someone yelled “Once more, lads,” and they strained together. The wagon broke free with a slurp and a pop that carried all the way to her. The men cheered and one broke away to retrieve his jacket from the safety of a tent pole. He looked up and saw her immediately. He continued to stare as he shrugged into his jacket with a colonel’s epaulets on the shoulder. He continued to stare until she whirled and fled to the wagon.
**
For the next few days, she kept out of Marshall’s way by the simple stratagem of remaining out of the public rooms when he was most likely to be there.
Cornwallis recuperated slowly. His exhaustion following her first dinner at the house convinced him to return to bed. By the end of the week, he could
get up for short periods, but tired easily. In the manner of all men since time immemorial, he was querulous and irritable with his confinement. Although she tried to avoid it, she frequently found herself dragooned by the General into a chess game. He was a formidable opponent and made her work for her few victories. He was also an excellent conversationalist. She found herself almost liking him in spite of herself.
Shortly after lunch one day, they sat in the two wing chairs in front of the fire with the chess board table between them. The pieces, mid-game, were scattered across the board, but abandoned in favor of discussion.
“Politics aside, wars are still fought by men who may or may not agree with the cause or the politics they fight for. Witness our Hessian mercenary troops. Now these...”
“It’s a horrible thing to fight and possibly die in a war where you have no interest in the outcome. It’s immoral.” Although she was aware of the mercenary troops fighting for the British, Deborah had never thought of the implication. To her and to those around her, a war meant a major personal commitment.
“I’m not disagreeing, far from it. In fact, I sometimes find the reasons we are here a long way from logical.”
“Then why fight?” She knew she was pressing him, but the question had to be asked.
He thought for a long time. “A man has to stand somewhere. That is his place. That place may be solid rock, it may be marsh, it may be sand. It may flood in winter and parch in summer, but it is his place. Its part of what he is. The place he has may not be perfect, may not even be of his own choosing, but he must make the best of it. That includes standing up for it, even when the conditions are not precisely what he would like.”
“Have you ever though about...”
Cornwallis would never have the opportunity to think about it. Col. Marshall strode in, leaving a trail of mud from the doorway, flushed, harried, and searching for something. He found it when he spotted Deborah. The gray eyes fastened on her, and she stiffened at the rage in them. What had he found out?
“Marshall?” Cornwallis demanded.
He stopped in front of them. “Sir,” he addressed Cornwallis but looked at Deborah. She held her breath. “There has been a fire in one of the tents. Several men have been burned badly. The camp’s surgeon is drunker than a Haymarket whore and totally useless, but I’ll deal with him later. I’ve come to ask Mistress Morgan to lend us her aid.”
He hadn’t come to denounce her! The relief held her immobile for several moments.
Cornwallis misinterpreted it. “Madam, some of my men are in pain. Can you disregard your...feelings and help them?”
She started at his voice. “Of course, sir, I…I was thinking where to get the supplies I need. How many were hurt?” She looked up.
“Nine, all total.”
Grimacing at the number, she said, “Fetch me what ever you think might be useful from the surgeon’s supplies, and I’ll see what medicines Mistress Kershaw has left here.” He nodded and left, and she hurried to the pantry, the usual place for those things. With the help of Rogers, she found aloes, laudanum and clean linen for bandages.
The injured men were lying or sitting on the ground near the burned tent. Thomson was shouting orders at the men milling about. “Get these men onto clean blankets,” she ordered. “Get me water and soap and clean towels.”
“H’abbot, Simons, Lawrence, move,” Thomson bellowed to the three nearest him to fulfill the orders. He grabbed a blanket out of the nearest tent and whipped it onto the ground. “’Arrison, Bailey, giv’ a ‘and ‘ere.” The men were supported or carried off the bare dirt.
One of the men, she knew, would not make it through the night and could only be made comfortable. She directed Rogers in the mixing of laudanum for him. Dropping down near the next most serious man, she began to gently pull the edges of charred fabric from the wound on his arm. Thomson crouched beside her. “What can I do, m’um?” he asked softly.
She looked up, startled at the abrupt change in tone, but replied, “Pull the burnt clothes away. Gently wash the burn and the area around it with soap and cool water. Gently.”
She felt, rather than saw Marshall come up behind her. “About all I found was some laudanum. That place is a pig sty. What can I do?”
She gave him the same directions as Thomson and added, “I’m glad you found laudanum. We’re going to need it.”
He glanced at some of the burns and grunted. Between the three of them, with Rogers mixing continual doses of the narcotic, they got the wounds cleaned, dressed, and bandaged. Two more men who had helped put out the fire came forward with minor arm burns. One was the young Lt. Harvey, who had first stopped her on the road and had tried so gallantly to dissuade Tarleton from hauling her into camp. He grimaced as she bandaged his wound, but bravely said nothing. He shyly thanked her when she finished but couldn’t quite look her in the eye.
Those who needed continual care she ordered moved to a slave cabin near the house where she could check on them. Thomson drafted a young soldier to keep watch on them. After checking one last time that they were as comfortable as possible for the moment, she walked out into the half-hearted sunshine and stretched her aching back.
“Thank you.”
She stopped mid-stretch. “Ahh!” Why couldn’t Marshall leave her alone? And why did he have to sneak up on her like that? It was one of his more despicable character traits, besides being British. He had changed his grimy clothes, and she had to admit he did look good. While she was covered in ash and blood and just plain dirt, he was again immaculate in his scarlet jacket and gleaming white breeches. They looked clean, not just chalked. The gold of his buttons and braid caught the weak sunshine and threw it back like fire. It just wasn’t fair for a man to look that magnificent.
“I said, ‘thank you’ for lending a hand today.” She began walking towards the house again and nodded a gracious acknowledgment, but... “It was good of you to put aside your rebel sympathies to help.”
She pulled up short. Rebel sympathies? Could he know? How could he? She had to brazen it through, but suddenly she remembered the tone of some of her discussions with Cornwallis. She had defended the rebel cause, not enough to be treasonous, but perhaps enough to encourage suspicion. “Rebel sympathies, you say. Well, I dare say I wouldn’t go that far, Colonel, but I must admit my...um...sympathies have undergone a reevaluation since I was...encouraged to share your ‘gracious’ hospitality.” She had to be very careful with her words. “Although I began as a loyal subject of the King, if what I have seen here is any indication, I may have to acknowledge that the rebels may have some basis for their complaints.”
“Devil a bit!”
“Think!” She raised an eyebrow and warmed to her subject. “I and my brother are peaceably going about our business, and we are forced to detour to your camp by a British soldier with obvious lechery on his mind. I am informed that it is acceptable for you to execute a countryman of mine, but woe betides when the tables are turned under the exact same circumstances. You have taken over poor Mistress Kershaw’s house. Oh yes, it’s all very legal, but we don’t even have a say in making those laws. You have...”
“Enough!” He raised his hand, the image of the imperial Englishman.
“Do you think so, Colonel? Have you ever thought of how you would feel if the conditions England has imposed on us were repeated in Sussex or Essex or Lancaster or where ever you come from?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. He had a talent for making her furious.
“Gloucester. And this is of no consequence. Besides, it would never happen. That is England, and this place is only a colony. Englishmen have rights.”
“What do you think we are?”
“Colonists.”
“Oh, you thick-headed male!” she sputtered and stalked off toward the house. After a moment he followed her.
He caught up to her as she climbed up the front steps. He opened the door and bowed her through, somewhat ostentatiously to her mind.
The partially closed door was flung open, hitting her in the elbow. A very young, very frightened soldier barreled to a stop with his nose braking on the second button of the Colonel’s uniform.
“Where’s Cornwallis?” He finally recognized the wall he’d run into, “Sir!!”
“The General is here.” Marshall gestured vaguely, his eyes narrow.
“Please, sir.”
“Come.” Marshall strode into the parlor, the most likely place for the General at this hour. Deborah followed, curious as to the turmoil. Cornwallis sat by the fire, reading some dispatches. Tarleton stood by the sideboard pouring a snifter of Mr. Kershaw’s excellent brandy.
“What the meaning of this?” he demanded taking a menacing step forward.
The young soldier quailed and gulped but turned agonized eyes toward the General. Fumbling a salute, he stuttered, “S...Sir!”
“Yes, soldier, get on with it,” the General said, not unkindly.
“Sir, sir, I jus’ come away from Kings Mountain up north,” the words tumbled out, “an’ we met t’rebels, and Major Ferguson ‘uz so brave, an’ we met ‘um brave an’ true, an’ they shot Major Ferguson full o’ oles, an’ ‘e died, an’...an’...an’ there hain’t nobody left.” The final words broke on a wail and he burst into tears.
The only sounds in the room were the young man’s sobs and the fire’s crackle and the shattering of Tarleton’s glass in the hearth.
Chapter 5
She knew dinner was going to be a painful affair when she went down the stairs and saw the camp’s senior officers gathered in the parlor. She debated for a moment whether to go back upstairs and ask for a tray in her room or head directly to the kitchen and cobble together whatever she could find. The realization that all the servants would be frantically trying to wait on the extra-large group at table made her decision easy. Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, she headed for the kitchen. She straightened her kerchief around her neck, confirmed that the spot-cleaning she’d done was dry, and shrugged. It would do for supper alone.