by Gwen Bristow
Next morning, the ships that could still move limped out of sight. From that day to this—more than three years now—nobody in Charleston had heard a British gun. Once the British had come close on the land side, but they had thought better of it and slipped away in the middle of the night.
For some time the South Carolina Continentals had kept guard at Fort Moultrie, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Marion. But as no attack had come, Marion and his regiment had been sent out of the state to points where they were more needed.
Meanwhile, Charleston had become the gateway for the whole Revolution. The rebels held several other seaports, and tradesmen in Europe would have been glad to sell them goods. But the king’s navy patrolled the sea-lanes, and the king’s seamen were so alert that few ships could come directly from Europe to America.
Charleston, however, did not depend on ships that crossed the ocean. Close to Charleston, in the southern sea, were the West Indies. In those rich islands lived hundreds of merchants—Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Portuguese, even some Englishmen—willing to sell anything to anybody.
Ships from their own countries brought goods to these island merchants. Other ships left Charleston loaded with rice and timber and indigo. The Charleston shipmasters traded in the islands, then they scurried back home. They brought guns for the fighting men, plows and tools for the homefolks, silks and looking-glasses for people rich enough to ignore the war.
Part of their merchandise they sold to people who lived in Charleston. But most of it went at high prices to another group of daredevils, this time men who worked on land. These fellows loaded wagons and drove north. Some of them carried luxuries, which they sold to rich people in towns behind the king’s blockade; others took supplies to Washington’s army, and got nothing in return but thanks.
It was a dangerous business. The king’s navy kept a lookout for the Indies ships, and his army tried to catch the wagons. Some ships were taken, some men who started up the wagon track were never heard from again. But there were so many islands, so many crooked ways up the coast, and such bold men in the trade, that a surprising lot of stuff did get through.
One of the most enterprising of the shipowners bringing goods from the Indies was Godfrey Bernard, to whose warehouse Celia was going now. The warehouse was a brick building near the wharf where the boys were pushing off. As Celia approached, the sun caught her white kerchief and sleeve-ruffles till she fairly shone. The boys in the boats shouted at her and threw kisses over the water. Celia laughed, and as Mrs. Thorley was not here to see her, she tossed kisses back to them.
The heavy double doors of the warehouse stood open, and she went in. The entry was a small room, about fifteen feet wide and ten feet from the front door to another door at the back, which led to a storeroom. Facing the front was a counter on which stood a pair of scales, several account-books, and an inkpot with a tray of quills. Behind the counter, next to a window, a young man sat reading the Gazette. He was Darren Bernard, a cousin of Godfrey’s who worked for the great man in a miscellaneous capacity. Darren and Celia were good friends.
As he heard footsteps Darren glanced up, then recognizing Celia he sprang to his feet, letting the newspaper fall into the chair behind him. “It’s starting off to be a good day!” he greeted her. “You’re here for the gauze?” He came toward the counter.
Darren was a beautiful youth, strong and well made. His wavy brown hair was tied at the back of his neck with a ribbon bow. Always well dressed, today he wore a dark brown coat and light brown knee-breeches, with a white lawn cravat rippling down the front of his shirt. His white stockings fitted with hardly a wrinkle, and his knee-buckles and shoe-buckles were polished copper. Though Darren had nothing besides what he earned, he was such a likable fellow that he dined out nearly every day; and with all those free meals he could afford to dress like a gentleman of fashion.
Darren had been born of well-to-do parents, but his mother had died young, his father had drunk and gambled away all he owned and finally had been killed in a duel. When Darren was sixteen years old he had had to leave school and look for work. Since he wrote a good hand, his cousin Godfrey had given him a job keeping records. That was six years ago. His salary provided him with a room at an inn, a horse, and a servant who took care of his beautiful clothes. If anybody asked him what he did for a living, he replied good-naturedly, “I’m errand boy for my rich cousin.” He showed no resentment of his father’s profligate ways, and no ambition to mend his fortunes. Winsome and merry-minded, Darren enjoyed each day as it came and worried about tomorrow not at all.
He asked Celia if she had had breakfast, and she shook her head. “There’s a kettle on the fire in back,” Darren said. “Have you any scruples about drinking tea?”
“I’d love it!” she exclaimed.
Darren liked comfort. When it was his turn to mind the warehouse in the early morning he always had a hot drink on the fire. “I don’t know why anybody should mind drinking tea,” he remarked. “It’s all smuggled in these days, it’s not paying any tax to King George. Here’s the gauze—you can look at it while I’m bringing the tray.”
Dragging a chest from under the counter he took out seven rolls of gauze in different colors. Celia spread out her wrapping-cloth, and when he had laid the rolls on it Darren went into the back room, leaving her to gasp with pleasure at the lovely silk.
The gauze came in strips a yard wide and about thirty yards long, rolled on wooden rods like broomsticks. The colors were beautiful—dawn-pink and blue, green and greenish gold, red and orange and black—and the silk was so sheer that she could have read a book through it. One by one, Celia loosened the rolls and let the gauze flow through her fingers. Darren came in with a tea-tray, and as he set it on the counter she murmured, “Oh Darren, this is exquisite!”
He agreed, and asked, “What are you going to make with it?”
Celia picked up the teacup, tasted the tea, and felt a knot in her throat as she answered, “Nothing. It makes me so mad—” She broke off, looking up at his blithesome face. “I don’t think,” she added, “that you’d understand.”
“Why not?” he asked genially.
“You’re so content the way you are. Oh Darren, don’t you ever want to—to be somebody?”
Darren chuckled. “I am somebody. I’m an appreciator.”
“A what?”
“An appreciator,” said Darren. “A person who appreciates things.” He grinned. “People who do things need other people to appreciate them. Don’t they?”
In spite of her worriment Celia began to laugh. Darren went on.
“I’m fairly bright and I’ve got pretty good taste. I can appreciate books and music, and good clothes, and good food and wine—why Celia, I’m mighty important in the world.”
She agreed that he was. But Darren noticed that she was fingering the gauze again, and now there was such wistfulness in her look that he spoke to her with real concern. “Celia, what’s the trouble?”
Celia looked up. “Maybe you won’t understand, but I’m going to tell you anyhow. Talking will clear up my thoughts.”
Darren crossed his arms on the counter. “Go ahead.”
Celia told him her trial period was nearly over and she was afraid they might not give her a permanent job. “Or if they do,” she said, “they’ll keep me at buttons and bastings for years—till somebody dies or gets married or something like that. I’m the best dressmaker in town,” she exclaimed, “and nobody knows it but me. Darren, I can sew like a dream! But how, oh how can I prove it?”
Darren reflected. “Could you buy some fine cloth and make a dress, in your own time?”
“Buy it? With what? Apprentices don’t get wages, just their room and board. When I came to town last spring my uncle gave me ten dollars in paper money, for little things I might need. I’ve got four dollars left. Stuff like this—” she touched the gauze—“costs eighteen dollars a yard.”
“Wrong,” said Darren. “It costs thirty dollars a ya
rd in paper money now. So much stuff is going up the wagon track, it makes things scarce in Charleston, and expensive. Yes, I see what you mean.”
“And it takes more than cloth to make a dress, Darren. It takes tools for measuring and cutting, and I haven’t any. And it takes time. Thousands of stitches to be set, one by one, and I have just an hour or two after supper. Oh, I’ve been thinking all over my mind! I could get some money if that was all. I’ve got some keepsakes that belonged to my mother. Her silver pins and earrings, and her silver shoe-buckles, and an old family necklace my father gave her when they were married—”
“But you wouldn’t sell those!” he exclaimed. A sentimental fellow, Darren spoke with dismay.
“Oh yes I would,” Celia retorted. “I’m not going back to the country and be bored to death. I’m staying here. And I can sew.”
Behind her, from the doorway, she heard a man’s voice.
“Can you make a dress that really fits?”
Celia spun around; Darren, who had been watching her and not the door, jerked up his head; then as they recognized a friend they both relaxed. The newcomer, Captain Jimmy Rand of the state militia, stood leaning his shoulder on the side of the doorway. As Celia turned he took off his hat, and the sun glistened on his black hair. With a lazy stretch as though he had nothing on earth to do, Jimmy strolled in. He gave a casual salute to Darren—who did a shift of militia duty once a week—and resting his elbow on the counter he turned to Celia. His mouth had a quiver of mischief.
CHAPTER 2
JIMMY’S FULL NAME WAS Captain James de Courcey Rand. Tall and lean and dark, he looked leaner and darker than ever in his smart blue uniform. He had an ugly, engaging face, scooped at the temples, bony at the jaw, with a wide mouth and a look of being amused by life in general.
Jimmy lived in town with his widowed mother. His father had been a rice planter, and Jimmy was the younger of two sons. Being the younger son he had not inherited much when his father died, and he had his own way to make in the world. But unlike Darren, Jimmy was ambitious: he had studied law in England, and was now working in an office on Broad Street, where it was said he had a future bright enough to make up for his misfortune in having been born after his brother.
His brother was Miles Rand of Bellwood Plantation. Though they had shared the family fortune like the lion and the mouse, Miles and Jimmy were good friends. Miles was married and was soon to have an heir—Celia knew this because Mrs. Miles Rand had sent an order for baby-clothes to Mrs. Thorley’s. This was another reason Celia liked working there, you knew what was going on.
Darren had known Jimmy all his life; Celia had known him since one day about a month ago when Jimmy came into the shop to order some shirts, and lingered to look at samples of linen in one of the parlor cabinets. It was a rainy day and there were no other visitors, so in a little while Celia and Jimmy found themselves talking to each other. Jimmy seemed quite unaware that a sewing-girl was not usually considered the social equal of a planter’s son, and before long they were having a fine time. Since that day he had dropped in often.
Now as he leaned on the counter beside her, Jimmy did not immediately go on with the question he had asked from the doorway. Instead, with his usual lazy manner, he said,
“You look mighty pretty this morning, my brown-eyed blonde. Mighty agreeable picture for a man who’s been on guard duty all night.” Glancing at her empty cup he added, “Darren, I’ve just come from Fort Moultrie, and I dropped in because you always have something hot on the fire.”
Darren said he would brew a fresh pot of tea. He went to get it, and Jimmy turned back to Celia, his sunburnt cheeks creasing in a grin. Jimmy needed a shave, but otherwise he showed no ill effect of his vigil.
“Tell me something,” he began. “You were saying that you’d sell your mother’s necklace before you’d go home.”
He was speaking soberly now. During their brief acquaintance Jimmy and Celia had met only in the shop or in some public place such as this. They liked each other, but they had never discussed their personal affairs. Celia looked at him directly. “Did that shock you, Jimmy? It shocked Darren.”
Jimmy had a keen sense of family, she knew. But he smiled and shook his head. “No, it didn’t shock me. I figured you had a reason.”
“Of course I’ve got a reason,” she returned. She reflected that Darren was sweet and a darling, but Jimmy had sense.
There was a pause. Celia noticed Jimmy’s hand as it lay on the counter, very brown against his blue sleeve. He was not drumming his fingers nor fiddling with anything. His hand looked strong and relaxed. Jimmy said, “Do you want to tell us about it?”
“I’d like to,” said Celia.
Darren brought the tea and filled cups for them all. While they drank it, Celia told him and Jimmy about her uncle and aunt and her cousin Roy.
Celia’s uncle, William Garth, owned a rice plantation which he had inherited from his father. The plantation—called Kensaw for an Indian tribe that used to hunt there—was pleasantly situated on a little stream that ran into the Ashley River. Though not large, it was well organized and prosperous. But under William’s management it did not stay that way.
Poor William went through life in a state of gentle bewilderment. His head was full of cobwebby learning; he knew Greek and Latin, and he could tell you all about the kings of ancient history, but he did not know how to raise and market a crop. He did not know how, and he could not learn. Kensaw Plantation slackened, got out of order; William bumbled along. He married and had two children, and his life turned into a struggle to make his slipshod property give them the advantages his wife thought they ought to have.
William’s younger brother Edward, Celia’s father, was more enterprising. Since he had no land, Edward became an accountant in the office of a rice broker in Charleston. He married an orphan girl who brought him a good dowry, and when Celia was born her future looked promising.
But when Celia was a year old, about the time that George the Third was crowned king, there was an epidemic in Charleston and both her parents died. Celia’s only relative was her Uncle William, who now came to town to look after her affairs.
He did so with a good deal of dismay. William had been fond of his brother, but he expected his brother’s child to be a burden on him, and if there was one thing William did not want, it was any more burdens. But when he reached Charleston William found out what a good businessman Celia’s father had been. Not only was her mother’s dowry intact, but Edward had added to it from his earnings. William took Celia to Kensaw, and told his wife Louisa that Celia would be no expense to them. Louisa drew a breath of relief.
Celia grew up with her cousins. The elder cousin was Roy, four years older than she was and the pride of Louisa’s heart. Though Roy was both clever and handsome Celia did not like him, because he was also a spoilt brat who thought that wherever he was standing, there was the middle of the world.
But she did not have to put up with him much. When Roy was eight years old he went to live with Louisa’s brother in Georgetown so he could go to the excellent school established there by the indigo planters, and he was at home only on his vacations. Several years later Roy was sent to school in England. William could not afford this, but people expected a planter to send his son to school in England, and here as elsewhere William tried to do what was expected of him. Nobody could ever say of William that he did not try.
The other cousin was a girl, Harriet, a shy little thing who had no distinction at all. She and Celia got along well enough, for Celia felt sorry for her, and treated her gently.
Between the two girls Louisa showed no favoritism. They had the same toys, the same number of new dresses, the same holiday visits to their friends; and Louisa gave them the same training in housewifery and good manners. If she did not give them much tenderness, it was because she did not have much to give. Louisa was fond of her husband in a protective sort of way, and she adored Roy, but this used up her stock of affection. She did
her duty by the girls. Louisa always did her duty.
Since William was not practical, Louisa thought this made it important that she should be. She managed her affairs with grim competence. Her house was so neat you would hardly have thought anybody lived there. Meals were served on time. The food was wholesome and they used all leftovers. And in spite of William’s haziness in money matters, by her own stern scrimping Louisa managed to send Roy a generous allowance and put aside something every year toward a dowry for Harriet.
Louisa taught the girls to read and write, to spin and sew. Then, when Celia was ten years old and Harriet nine, Louisa sent them to school in Charleston. Here they had lessons in dancing, fine needlework, and other accomplishments expected of gentlewomen. After three years they came home. Now they had nothing to do but grow up and get married.
The war began when Celia was sixteen. Roy had finished his English school and was making a tour of France, but the outbreak of war caused a financial panic in the Colonies and Louisa could no longer keep up his allowance. Roy had to come home. Handsome, well dressed, with polished manners and expensive tastes, he arrived at Kensaw Plantation.
He was appalled at the rundown state of the place. Roy had always thought of himself as a rich young man. But unlike his father, Roy was not vague. He determined to repair his fortunes, and he decided that an important step in this direction would be to get the girls well married.
He set out to make himself agreeable to every girl in the neighborhood who had an eligible brother. He filled the house with well-to-do unmarried men. Before long Harriet was engaged to a young man named Ogden. Young Mr. Ogden had pale eyes, a hawk nose, and a receding chin, and in profile he looked like a fish, but he was the eldest son of a family who had a broad plantation farther up the Ashley River. Roy had his mother’s talent for getting things done.
