Celia Garth: A Novel

by Gwen Bristow

  On Broad Street, at the corner in front of the great market, stood some fine old trees with benches under them, a favorite spot for people to rest and chat on pleasant days. Because of his stiff leg, Celia expected Darren to want to rest on the first empty bench they came to. But he did not; they roamed under the trees for several minutes before he suggested that they sit down.

  He had chosen a bench under an oak heavily hung with moss. The tree cast a deep shadow, and the ground before them was slightly damp. When they sat down Darren still had almost nothing to say. He began drawing designs on the ground with the point of his cane, as if he had purposely chosen a seat where the ground was soft enough for this.

  Celia tried to make conversation. “I wonder how Vivian’s flowers are doing. If I were at Sea Garden now, I’d be planting stock and carnations.”

  “I don’t know much about gardening,” Darren said. “Is this the time to plant those?”

  “Yes. September. You start in the week of the new moon.”

  “Why the new moon?”

  “I don’t know. Probably silly, but that’s when it’s done.”

  There was another pause. With his cane Darren made more curlicues on the ground, and then rubbed them out with his foot. Another couple on a bench near them got up and walked on. With a glance around him Darren stood up, saying, “Stay where you are, I just want to stretch my bad leg.” He walked all the way around the tree, and as she turned to watch him she observed that nobody was sitting near them now.

  Evidently this was what he had been waiting for. As he sat down again he said in a low voice, “Celia, I’ve got something to tell you.”

  She answered eagerly. “Yes, Darren?”

  Again he was scratching absently on the ground. Watching his cane, he said in a careful undertone, “Keep your voice down—just loud enough for me to hear you.”

  “Oh,” she said faintly. “All right.”

  Still watching the nonsense design he was drawing, Darren nodded. “That’s it. And don’t act surprised. Understand?”

  Celia felt excited. She had no idea what she was about to hear, but it sounded important—in fact, Darren made it sound almost creepy. “I understand,” she said.

  “I’ve got a message for you,” said Darren. He was still watching the ground.

  “A message,” she repeated breathlessly. “You mean a letter?”

  “No, no, not a letter. A message.”

  “Who sent it?”

  “Friend of yours. And please,” Darren said through his teeth, “don’t ask me who. Don’t mention any names at all.”

  “All right,” she said, just above a whisper. She added, “I’m listening.”

  With his foot, again Darren began smoothing out the curlicues on the ground. He asked, “You’ve got a Bible, haven’t you?”

  Celia caught her breath. This sounded like Luke. Darren was a dear, but he was no deep student of Scripture or anything else. No wonder he did not want her to speak Luke’s name. Luke had been a fugitive with Marion, and if the British had not captured Marion after their victory at Camden they were certainly looking for him. If they should hear that Darren had been in touch with a friend of Marion’s, they might throw him into jail and say he would stay there until he told them what he knew. Remembering that he had warned her not to show surprise, Celia smiled and said as quietly as she could, “Why yes, of course I’ve got a Bible.”

  Darren had leveled the ground in front of him till it was as smooth as a sheet of paper. “This friend of yours,” he said, “told me to tell you to read a verse in the Bible. Look here, on the ground.”

  Again he began to make marks with his cane. But this time the marks were not squiggles; they were letters, firm and clear. He wrote, “I Kings.” Celia understood. He wanted her to read something in the First Book of the Kings.

  “Got that?” asked Darren.

  “Yes,” said Celia.

  He rubbed it out. In its place he wrote, “19-18.”

  She understood that too. Nineteenth chapter, eighteenth verse. “All right,” she said.

  “Sure you won’t forget?”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “And you won’t speak of it?”

  “Not to a living soul.”

  Darren rubbed out the figures, and drew more zigzags on the ground where they had been. Celia said in her mind, First Kings 19-18. Darren stood up. “Shall we go over to Mr. Westcott’s tea-shop?” he asked.

  “I’d rather go home,” said Celia, “and—read the Bible.”

  “Anything you want,” Darren agreed smiling. They started back toward Mrs. Thorley’s.

  Again they did not talk much, but this time Celia was glad of it. At the side door she said, “Thanks, Darren, it was a nice walk,” and he answered, “I’ll see you again soon.”

  Celia ran past the parlor and upstairs. On the third floor she ran to her room, praying that Pearl and Becky would be out, and they were. She snatched up her Bible from the table where she had left it this morning.

  She had run up the stairs so fast that her chest hurt from lack of breath and her hands were shaking. Pausing a moment she breathed deeply, and tried to be calm as she turned the leaves. Here it was. First Kings. Nineteenth chapter. Eighteenth verse. Her eyes darted over the lines.

  “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”

  Celia read it twice. With a puzzled shake of her head she sat down to read it again.

  This time she told herself not to be in such a hurry. She went back to the start of the chapter, and slowly and carefully, she began.

  She read how the people of Israel had turned away from the God of their fathers, to worship the false god Baal. How the prophet Elijah had cried out to the Lord in despair. All the people, he said, had yielded to the false god.

  But an answer came to Elijah. He was wrong.

  Celia sat up straight. She remembered her own words to Darren the other day. She had talked about “everybody.” Now he had brought her an answer.

  “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal—”

  As she closed the Bible Celia felt a thrill of certainty. Everybody had not yielded. Something was going to happen.

  CHAPTER 23

  SOMETHING DID HAPPEN, AND sooner than she had dared to expect.

  Two days later, on Tuesday, Celia was summoned to Mrs. Thorley’s office. Mrs. Thorley said she had received a note from Mrs. Godfrey Bernard, asking that Miss Garth be allowed to take supper with her this evening. The girls’ evening engagements were carefully supervised, but Mrs. Thorley said Mrs. Bernard understood the rules. The note said her husband’s cousin Darren Bernard would call for Celia and escort her back to the shop by nine o’clock. So permission was granted.

  After her curt refusal of Sunday dinner, Celia was surprised that Ida should invite her again. But Darren must have softened what she had said, or maybe—the thought burst like light upon her—maybe this was no ordinary invitation to supper. She said, “Oh thank you, Mrs. Thorley.” When Darren called, she was dressed and waiting.

  The maid told her the young gentleman had said the evening was chilly and Miss Garth would please wear her cloak. Celia did not relish the idea. The evening was cool, but not that cool. Her cloak was an ash-gray cape with a hood, which Aunt Louisa had bought for her three years ago. It was the sort of thing you would expect Louisa to buy, so heavy and sensible that it was likely to last ten years more. Celia compromised by throwing it over her arm.

  When she went down she saw Darren glance at the cloak as if to make sure she had brought it, and also she noticed that he too was carrying one. As they went down the side street toward the corner he asked, in a low voice such as he had used last Sunday, “Can you hear me now?”

  So she had been right—this was no ordinary invitation. “Yes,” she said breathlessly.

  “There’s a carriage waiting for us
at the next corner,” said Darren. “Not Godfrey’s, but don’t say anything.”

  Celia nodded. She felt quivery. Something was happening and she wished she knew what it was.

  The sun had gone down and a lavender twilight was closing in. Darren led her to a carriage. It looked like a cheap coach-for-hire, the sort you could see any day on almost any street. The paint was peeling, the horse was scrubby, and the coachman was no beauty either. He was shabbily dressed and looked half asleep, his hat pulled over his eyes and his chin sunk into his collar. Darren opened the door and Celia got in.

  The inside of the coach was no prettier than the outside. The floor was covered with straw instead of a carpet; the seat-cushions were worn, and in several places she saw that the cotton stuffing was coming through. Instead of glass the windows had panes of tin pierced with little holes, such as she had seen in so many broken windows in town. When Darren got in and closed the door, the two of them sat almost in the dark.

  The horse started. Celia bumped, and caught the seat on either side of her. “Where are we going?” she whispered.

  “I can’t answer,” Darren whispered back, and added, “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” she returned hastily, thinking that if she had not trusted him she would have been scared silly. Darren said,

  “Here’s your supper.” He took up a picnic basket from a corner and put it on her lap. With a feeling that none of this could possibly be real, Celia opened the basket. Inside she found a napkin, and buttered biscuits holding slices of ham and chicken breast, and a corked bottle of water. Darren said it was all for her, he had finished his.

  Celia ate her supper. In spite of the jolting of the coach this was not hard to do, for the biscuits were crisp and flaky, the meat was good, and she was hungry. When she had dampened the napkin and washed her hands, she put bottle and napkin back into the basket. “It’s sort of a long way, isn’t it?” she ventured.

  “Celia, I can’t tell you anything at all,” Darren answered in a voice of apology. “It’s not safe to talk. Put on your cloak—pull the hood up around your face. Here, I’ll help you.”

  As she put on the cloak he told her to keep it wrapped around her when she got out of the coach, and take no chance of being recognized. Then he put on his own, and since men’s cloaks had no hoods he pulled down his hat like the driver’s.

  Celia had a spooky feeling. It was all so strange. She did not know where she was going or why she was going there. She did trust Darren, she told herself—of course she did, she had no reason at all to be scared. But she was scared all the same.

  The horse stopped. Saying, “Wait for me,” Darren left her and closed the door behind him. A minute or two later he was back. “All right,” he said softly, and held out his hand. Celia got out, hidden as well as possible inside her cloak and hoping she would not have to wear it much longer because it was far too warm.

  She had a glimpse of a dark alley between two brick walls. Nothing else, for Darren led her quickly to a door in one of the walls. The door opened at his touch, and Celia guessed that he had left her to get it opened so she would not stand waiting outside. She wondered if this was because he did not want her to be seen, or because he did not want to give her time to look around and see where she was. Maybe both.

  They went into a pitch-black entry. Celia thought of the storybooks the girls at school used to smuggle in and read secretly, with delicious shivers at the plight of the maiden lured to a ghostly castle for a fate worse than death—oh stop this, she ordered herself. Imagining things. But she had not imagined that strange ride and she was not imagining the black entry where she stood now, nor the tremor that ran over her nerves as she heard the door shut behind her. Now I’m here, she thought, and I don’t know where I am and I can’t get out.

  In front of her, about the level of her hip, she saw a slit of light. Beside it she made out the lines of a female figure. The woman carried a lantern with a panel that could be moved to change the size of the opening through which the light shone, and she had set it for a tiny beam. She was holding the lantern at her side, so that Celia could see the floor but not the woman’s face. Darren whispered that they were to follow her.

  The woman turned and they walked behind. Celia made out that she had a dumpy little figure, and that she wore a blue dress with a white kerchief and cap—details that would have fitted about a thousand women within a mile. They went down a short flight of brick steps, along a passage, around a corner, and then to a door. The woman opened the door.

  A dim diffused glow came out into the passage. In spite of its dimness, the woman kept herself in the shadow of the door so Celia still could not see what she looked like.

  Inside, across the doorway hung a sort of curtain. It looked like a sheet, or rather two sheets overlapping each other so you could push one of them aside and go between them into the room. Celia felt so tense that she simply had to say something. She asked Darren, “Do I go in there?”

  Darren said “Yes.” Without saying anything else he held back one of the curtains so she could slip between them. Celia went in. She had thought he would follow her, but he did not. She heard this door too close behind her. She was alone.

  The room was lighted by two candles on a table. Celia looked around. She saw nobody. She heard nothing. She felt goose-bumps on her legs, chasing up and down like ants. She twisted her hands together. This was creepier and creepier. She had never been in such a strange place. It was like being inside a box.

  The room was small, about twelve by fifteen feet. The floor and walls were covered with cloth. The cloth on the floor was canvas such as Vivian had used on the ballroom floor at Sea Garden; and on all four walls, hanging from just under the ceiling, were curtains of heavy unbleached homespun. Looking up, Celia saw that more sheets of homespun had been tacked across the ceiling. She fancied now that she heard a faint movement overhead.

  She thought back—the door from the alley had been at ground level, the strange woman had led them down a flight of steps—this room must be a basement. The air seemed faintly musty but not oppressive. No doubt there were gratings at ground level which could be opened to let in air. But this was all she could guess. The canvas on the floor, the cloth hiding the walls and ceiling, would not only muffle sounds but would prevent anybody’s describing the place so it could be recognized when the hangings were removed.

  In the middle of the room stood a home-made wooden table about four feet by two, and on either side of it a backless bench. There was no other furniture, and there was nothing on the table but the two candles. They were common tallow dips, in candlesticks of plain metal, the sort you could buy anywhere. Nothing, Celia thought again, that would let her give away any clue to where she had been.

  She heard a click. It came from her right. Celia turned her head sharply. She could feel her heart thumping. She heard another click. A door behind that curtain over there was being opened. Evidently that door also stood where two sections of the curtain overlapped—she saw a hand grasping the edge of one curtain to move it aside.

  She stood tensely, her heart pounding, her hands clasped tight in front of her. The curtain was pushed back, and then she heard a low merry laugh as a voice of teasing humor said, “Well, Sassyface!”

  Celia was so relieved to hear Luke’s voice that sheer easing of nerves sent a sob into her throat, and tears came pouring down her cheeks. Fumbling for her handkerchief with one hand she covered her eyes with the other, trying to press back the tears, and almost instantly he was there beside her. She felt him grip her shoulder through her cloak.

  “Stop that!” he said. His voice was thick with his effort to keep it low. “If you can’t work without bawling—if you can’t work without showing anything by your face—you’re no good and we don’t want you.”

  Maybe it was still the result of strain, but at any rate, though she did not know what he was talking about Celia found her sobs turning to laughter. Tears still on her cheeks, she
choked out, “It’s so funny, Luke—hearing you try to whisper!”

  She heard him chuckle. As she dried her eyes he answered, “Anyway—” he spoke with emphasis—“I meant what I said about the tears.”

  Celia pushed back her hood. She looked up at his tanned face and his brilliant blue eyes, and her curiosity would wait no longer. “Luke,” she demanded, “what am I here for?”

  “To help win the war,” said Luke. He turned toward the table, and she saw that he was carrying, tucked under his arm, an hourglass on a silver base—the same hourglass that had timed her conversation with Vivian the day she first called at the house on Meeting Street.

  Luke was dressed in a heavy unbleached homespun shirt and leather breeches and thick high boots, and she guessed that he had a leather coat and gloves somewhere—the costume of a swamp-dodger. In peacetime a man would wear such clothes to go hunting in that wet tangle of forest; today he would wear them to hide there, himself hunted. “How did you get into town, Luke?” she asked.

  Without answering, Luke drew out one of the benches by the table. It moved silently over the cloth-covered floor. “Sit here,” he said.

  Celia took off her cloak and obeyed. Luke sat across from her, moved the candles to the two ends of the table so he could look at her directly, and placed the hourglass by his elbow. Like a man with no time to spare, he came straight to the heart of what he had to say.

  “Celia, what will you do to get rid of the redcoats?”

  His words gave her a sense of liberty. Ever since that horrible day at Bellwood she had felt like an angry animal, but like an animal in a cage, with no way to fight back. “I’ll do anything,” she answered. She repeated, “Anything.”

  “Dear girl,” said Luke, “there’s no such thing as a job doing ‘anything.’ There’s only a job doing something.” He smiled a little. “Now tell me how much you’re willing to do.”

  Celia considered. “If you want me to kill somebody—Tarleton, for instance—I’ll be glad to.”