by Gwen Bristow
“Good-by,” said Jimmy, and then before she knew what he was doing, he had kissed her.
It was a kiss so light, so quick and yet so definite, that Celia started and caught her breath. In that same instant Jimmy put an arm around her and pulled her to him and kissed her again, and there was nothing quick or light about this one. In her amazement the bleak little hallway spun around her with the colors of paradise. She could not have told whether it was two seconds or ten minutes before she heard him say,
“Oh Celia, I know so many words—I can read Latin and I can speak French—but how does a man tell a girl in plain English that he loves her?”
Celia had wondered a thousand times what she would say in a moment like this, if she ever had one. And now that she had it, her throat closed up. Those tears that had been crowding her eyes all afternoon could be held back no longer and came tumbling down in the most idiotic fashion, but though she was crying she was laughing too, laughing softly and joyfully. She was astonished, she was speechless with the suddenness of what had happened. But it seemed that a thousand voices were singing in her heart, and what they told her was,
“This—this is what you’ve been missing!”
The thought lifted her on a warm cloud of happiness. She hid her face on Jimmy’s blue-caped shoulder while he held his arms around her and she felt him kiss her hair. But at length—again she had no idea how long it had been—she managed to look up and answer him.
“I don’t know how a man says it—I don’t know how a girl says it either—I’m so amazed I’m dizzy—but I love you too.”
And then, among all those words he knew, Jimmy found the right ones. Holding her head on his shoulder and stroking her hair, Jimmy made her understand that she was never going to be lonesome again. He had been trying for weeks to say this, he told her, but every time he tried he got scared. No, his mother didn’t know about it, nor Miles—did she think he’d tell anybody before he told her?
“But I had to tell you now,” he said, “because you’re going away. Celia, Sea Garden isn’t far—I’ll come up there, we’ll talk and make plans and do all the sensible things people have to do, but right now, I just wanted you to know.”
Celia drew back a little so she could look up at him. The hallway had grown dark, but she felt as if all the light on earth was shining out of her eyes.
Then all of a sudden she and Jimmy were reminded that they were not alone in the world.
At the far end of the hall a door opened. They jerked apart. Through the doorway came the thin beshawled figure of Miss Loring, a candle in one hand and a bell in the other. She set the candle on the hall table, and ringing the bell as she walked she came toward the front and opened the parlor door.
“Six o’clock, ladies,” she announced sharply. “Gentlemen, visiting hours are over.” She spoke over her shoulder to Jimmy. “Sunday callers leave at six, young man.”
Jimmy bowed. “Certainly, ma’am. I was just leaving.”
He opened the outside door and stepped through. Since he was so obedient Miss Loring paid him no more attention, but went into the parlor to hurry out the young men lingering there. From beyond the door Jimmy reached his long arm into the hall and drew Celia out on the top step by him, in the dark.
“Good night,” he whispered. “Darling.”
He kissed her again, a kiss that had to be hardly more than a touch because Miss Loring was about to send everybody else out upon them. Then Jimmy was down the steps and gone. With a little sobbing catch in her throat Celia ran down the steps too, and along the side street to Lamboll Street, just in time to see Jimmy passing a lantern, and then the end of his cloak swinging around the next corner.
For a moment she stood still. She felt as if a wind full of stars had swept around her. It had all happened so suddenly that she could not think. She was only feeling that right this minute she was happier than she had ever been before, and why hadn’t somebody told her it was like this to fall in love?
From high in the darkness she heard a musical whisper, the bells of St. Michael’s marking the hour. How beautiful it was, this sound of the bells. It was as if the city had a voice of its own, and was saying “God bless you.” The bells never seemed loud, yet you could hear them from end to end of town; when the wind was right you could even hear them out at sea.
And now within sound of the bells Jimmy had kissed her. Celia thought she would love the bells as long as she lived, and whenever she went away she would be homesick for them. She wished she were not going away tomorrow.
In the spire of St. Michael’s the beacon flashed on and lit up the bonny town beneath. As she turned to go indoors Celia felt gay and warm. What was it Vivian had said the other day?—“Don’t fall in love, Celia. It’s just asking for trouble.”
Now really, how stupid could an old woman get?
CHAPTER 8
THEY WENT UP TO Sea Garden on Herbert Lacy’s trim little schooner. It was a beautiful trip through the soft autumn haze, among the chains of sea islands along the coast. With Herbert and Vivian, Celia sat on deck in a folding chair, a blanket over her knees and a book in her hand, but she did not read much. She had her own delicious thoughts.
Early this morning, when they were about to step on board the schooner, Jimmy had come down to the wharf to say good-by. He shook hands with Herbert, he wished Vivian a pleasant trip; and then he snatched a moment to whisper to Celia, “What I’m really here for is to tell you again, I love you.”
Now Celia looked over the gray-blue water and the palmetto trees along the white beaches of the islands. She liked everything—the smart little boat and the salt air; the Negro crewmen, so expert that they never made a wrong turn in this tangle of water-paths; the lunch that the maids unpacked from hampers and served on deck. She had never dreamed how pleasant it could be to go from one place to another.
In the afternoon the men turned the boat into a little stream about ten miles south of the Santee River. They sailed between banks lined with moss-hung oaks and tall tupelo trees, till they came to a landing made of flat stones, from which a road led through the woods. Beside the landing, a bell hung from a crossbar between two uprights. Vivian closed her novel and Herbert his volume of Plato as one of the men scrambled ashore and pulled the bellrope. This told the folk at Sea Garden that the master and mistress were home.
Standing on deck, waiting for the carts that would take them to the big house, Celia felt as if she was about to enter an enchanted forest.
Sea Garden was so near the coast that sometimes you could smell a salt tang in the air. This was why Vivian had called it Sea Garden.
She had owned the place since she was a girl in her teens. Vivian’s family name was Pomeroy. From the earliest days of the colony the Pomeroys had been planters in the rich neighborhood of Goose Creek, where the family property still belonged to Vivian’s brother Dan. Since Dan had been heir to the plantation, Vivian’s father had provided that she should have an inheritance of her own: money, jewelry, and a building site in Charleston. Not many girls had such a dowry.
But Vivian had wanted land. Even then, before life had shown her how cruelly uncertain it could be, Vivian had sensed by some deep instinct that land was real, something you could count on. She begged her father to let her take part of her dowry and buy land.
As usual, Vivian got her way. This land was public property and she bought it cheap from the king’s administrators. She told them she had chosen it because she liked the quietness and the sharp whiffs from the sea. This was true, but the real reason was that Vivian had seen the fine tupelo trees along the river banks and she knew that tupelos grew to that size only in the richest soil. The king’s men did not know this. They were Britishers who had been given their fat jobs in America because they knew somebody at court, not because they knew anything about America.
Vivian loved Sea Garden. Whenever she married she would change her address to match her husband’s, but this was her real home. Through all the changes of her life—
while she married five men and was four times widowed, bore six children and watched two of them die, while she was sick or well, happy or heartbroken—Sea Garden had been her place of refuge. Since Herbert’s retirement from charge of his own plantation they had lived here whenever they were not in town.
Set by a tiny stream, miles from the main road, Sea Garden was remote. You were not likely to come across it unless you knew it was there. Most of the property was still covered by forest, for the Lacys raised only what they used themselves. Thus they could leave the place in care of their Negro foreman, and go to Charleston—or in peaceful days to Europe—whenever they pleased.
Vivian had set the house on a little rise, in a grove of mighty oaks that had stood there for three hundred years. Because it was so far from everywhere she had built the house like a fortress, of cypress beams on a raised brick basement that had walls four feet thick. Like the town house, this one was not elaborate, but it had charm and comfort and security. Celia loved it at once.
Vivian kept her busy. In the mornings she sewed; in the afternoons she read aloud, or wrote letters, brief and arrow-sharp, at Vivian’s dictation. “Mrs. Miles Rand, Bellwood Plantation, parish of St. Thomas. My dear Audrey, No wonder you are tired of waiting. I know these nine months seem endless. But Nature takes her own time. You cannot hurry a tree, or a baby, or a hard boiled egg.”
When she had finished writing Celia went outdoors. As she walked under the trees, while the wind sent the leaves swirling around her and the sun fell on the ground like splashes of yellow wine, she wondered if anywhere on earth there was another such perfect place for a girl to be in love.
She did not keep her secret long. On Saturday of that same week Jimmy and Amos came riding up to Sea Garden, and while Marietta entertained Amos in the kitchen with cold ham and hot crackling-bread, Jimmy told Herbert and Vivian his news.
They were not surprised. Jimmy said his mother had not been surprised either. He had not realized he was so easy to see through, he added with a chuckle as he handed Celia a note his mother had written.
Celia felt a qualm. Mrs. Rand was a dear, but you never could tell how a man’s mother was going to react to things like this. While Vivian showed Jimmy to a room—she always had rooms ready for guests—Celia slipped into the library. Sitting on the floor by the hearth she held the page to the firelight.
The note was short. “My dear Celia, Jimmy has told me the good news. I am delighted that you are going to be one of us. Affectionately, Beatrice Rand.”
As she read it Celia had a sense of warmth and comfort that had nothing to do with the fire. She remembered the room she had been in last Sunday afternoon. And now she was going to belong there too. “One of us.” It sounded so sweet, so welcoming, as if the atmosphere of that room was reaching out to enclose her.
When Jimmy came into the library they sat on the sofa by the fire and he told her about his conversation with his mother. Beatrice said she had heard good reports of Celia and she approved of the engagement, and she asked how soon he wanted to be married. But when Jimmy said right away, Beatrice burst out laughing and said getting married was not something you did at a week’s notice. Besides, Miles and Audrey were expecting their baby in February. The first offspring of the head of the house—boy or girl, this would be an important baby, to be treated with respect. Everything else must stand aside till after the christening. That would be quite an affair, with uncles and aunts and cousins to be entertained—
Celia had never had any feeling of being part of a unit, belonging to other people and sharing their lives. “Oh Jimmy,” she said softly, “it sounds so complicated—but so wonderful!”
Jimmy said it was wonderful and not complicated at all. Since the christening would be in March, if Celia approved he would like to set their wedding for April. And as she attended St. Michael’s church, they would be married there by the rector, the Reverend Mr. Moreau. Celia agreed, and Jimmy said he would speak to Mr. Moreau as soon as he went back to town.
He turned so he could look squarely at her. His face had the happy glow that she knew and liked so well.
“Now,” he said, “you’re going to write a letter for me to take back to town, telling Mrs. Thorley you’re giving up your job. You can finish whatever work you’re doing for Vivian, but after that you’re sewing for nobody. And until next April you’re staying here with the Lacys.”
Celia started. “Oh Jimmy, what makes you think they’ll want me? Have you asked them?”
“Vivian suggested it herself,” said Jimmy. “They both like you, and they like having people around. It keeps them from worrying. They’ve got plenty on their minds. Luke you know about, and Mr. Lacy has a grandson named Tom who’s fighting with the Continentals somewhere around Philadelphia. What all this is leading up to—”
He paused for a tantalizing instant, then said,
“Vivian is going to give a ball for you, New Year’s Eve.”
Celia gasped. Nobody had ever given any sort of entertainment in her honor.
“She loves to give parties,” Jimmy went on, “and she said this was a fine excuse. For your ball-gown she’s going to give you a piece of stuff Godfrey brought her, I think she said garnet-red velvet—”
Garnet-red velvet. Quite suddenly, Celia burst into tears.
Jimmy took her in his arms and laughed at her. But Celia shook her head.
“It’s too perfect,” she said in a choking voice. Reaching into her pocket she grasped the rabbit’s foot and held it tight as she insisted, “Nothing can be this perfect. Jimmy—I’m scared.”
But after that day she had no time to be scared. She had too much to do.
She helped Vivian write invitations to the New Year’s ball. She cut and stitched her dress of garnet velvet. She ran upstairs and down on Vivian’s errands. Everybody in the household was running about—everybody but Herbert and Vivian. Herbert retired to his library or went for long horseback rides, blandly ignoring the fluster. As for Vivian, she reclined on the long chair in her boudoir and gave orders, and while the others bustled around her she remained calm as a cabbage.
New Year’s Eve would come this year on a Friday. Most of the guests were expected to arrive the day before and stay over Sunday. Every bedroom in the house would be full, as well as the two guest-houses at the back, while the stables and servants’ quarters would almost bulge. Audrey wrote Celia a pretty note, saying the state of her health prevented her attending the ball, but she did want to know Jimmy’s bride-to-be. Wouldn’t Celia come to Bellwood in March, and be her guest for the week of the christening?
Celia wrote back that she would be delighted. While she sewed on her ball-dress she thought of all she would do to make Jimmy’s family like her. She would be always agreeable. She would carry on about the baby as if she had never seen one before. She would listen carefully to find out which relatives the baby was supposed to look like, so she could exclaim, “The very image of Uncle John!” All babies looked alike to her, but she would not say so, or make any other sassy remarks.
Even Roy was being amiable. Jimmy had written him about their engagement, and Roy had responded with joyful surprise. He said no more about the necklace. To Celia’s relief, he said that since he and Sophie were in mourning they would not attend the ball.
She was planning to wear the necklace that evening, and a pair of bracelets Jimmy had given her. These were two garlands of gold roses, which Jimmy’s grandfather had given his bride, mother of Jimmy’s mother. “And now,” Jimmy said to Celia, “they’re yours.”
At last it was the evening of December 31, 1779. The tall clock on the staircase landing at Sea Garden showed less than an hour before midnight. In an interval between dances Celia and Jimmy stood with a group by the punch-table in a corner of the ballroom, Celia in her dress of dark red velvet, Jimmy tall and dashing in his blue coat with silver buttons. As she looked over the assembly Celia thought she had never seen anything so magnificent.
The ballroom was two stories
high and occupied a whole wing of the house. On three sides were long windows, and mirrors on the walls between them. On the fourth side was a marble fireplace with a leaping fire. The room was lit by two hundred candles. Pale green, made of the sweet wax of myrtleberries, the candles filled the air with fragrance. The candle-flames and firelight shone back and forth from the mirrors, and the beautiful people promenading the dance-floor moved as though in the radiance of a dream.
On a platform were the chairs of the Negro musicians, empty now while the men were outside around another punch-bowl. But the ballroom had a music of its own. Celia listened to it—voices and laughter, footsteps on the floor, the swish of skirts, now and then a clink as two friends touched their glasses. Outdoors, the night was black and sloshy, with gusts of icy rain. But here everything was bright, everybody was gay; between the window-curtains Celia saw raindrops sparkling on the panes like reflections of the women’s jewels.
Her own reflection came back to her from a mirror on the wall. “I’m not really beautiful,” she said to herself, “but tonight I feel beautiful. And I look like a girl who feels beautiful.”
She had made the dark red velvet into a dress of splendid simplicity: low square neck, bodice that nipped her waistline to exquisite smallness, big skirt trailing behind her. Around her throat she wore the emerald necklace, on her arms Jimmy’s bracelets of gold roses. In the candlelight her eyes were lustrous, dark brown, and her blond hair glowed like a moonbeam. Jimmy had said her hair was too pretty to be covered with powder. So Celia had brushed it to a shimmer, and Marietta had put it up into a fashionable coiffure with a decoration of little flowers made of the same dark red velvet as her dress.
She took a step to one side so she could see Jimmy in the mirror. He was handing a glass of punch to Vivian’s daughter Madge Penfield. How debonair he looked—his blue coat, cascades of white lawn at his throat and wrists, his black hair in glistening ripples, his white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes. She glanced from the mirror to Jimmy himself; for a moment their eyes met and they exchanged a quick smile. Then Jimmy, all grace, turned to Burton Dale’s stout rosy wife Elise and asked if she would take a glass of punch.
