Enemy in the House

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  She had had warning that her journey was about to begin, for a man had come in the afternoon to take her trunk to the ship. Colonel Holiday, preoccupied, busy, kind, had gallantly kissed her, wished her a good trip and hurried back to the dining room which seemed to serve as his headquarters and to which, all those six days and nights, men in uniform, men in broadcloth and neatly powdered wigs, men in fringed buckskins, had hurriedly arrived, held long conferences and gone hurriedly away again. Madam Holiday, kind, busy and preoccupied, too, had kissed her, put aside her thanks for friendly and indeed warm hospitality, and also wished her a happy journey. Simon came for her in a chaise which joggled and thumped through increasing blackness.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t get back sooner,” Simon said.

  The dawn when they had arrived, the Holidays had barely greeted them and been introduced. “My wife,” Simon had said shortly. “We were married yesterday.” Then Colonel Holiday had taken Simon’s arm and led him quickly into the dining room. Simon had emerged a few moments later, said merely that he was to be away for a few days, kissed her lightly and handed her over to Madam Holiday.

  “I know,” she replied as the chaise lurched around a corner. “Colonel Holiday told me that you might be delayed.”

  “It’s the British fleet. Our information is now that they’ve passed Charlestown so we expect them here. The captain of the privateer thinks he can make it out to sea tonight in the darkness without being sighted by the British. In fact, he’s making a run for it before they attack. There’s a good wind.”

  They talked no more until he pulled up the horse, and the smell of the river, the sweetish-salty smell of the sea, came through the night air. They seemed to have arrived at a small and rather secluded wharf. A cautious riding light and dimly outlined masts showed against the faintly light water. It was a dark night, cloudy, with a scudding north wind. “There’s a little tavern over here,” Simon said. “We have a few moments before she sails.”

  The tavern, a single room, was deserted except for the landlord who bustled forward to wipe off a bench for her with his apron. Simon ordered mulled wine, put his hat on the bench and sat opposite her; his caped greatcoat was still fastened high about his throat. His thick, crinkly red hair was tied back neatly, his face was newly shaven but he was pale, with lines of fatigue around his mouth and eyes.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  “I’ve been in the saddle most of this week. Trying to round up every man and every gun we can get. But our defense is still pitifully lacking. The British may take Savannah.”

  “But Savannah is no military stronghold for the—” she swallowed the word rebels and said, “the Continental Army. Why should the British attack?”

  “It’s a port. It is thinly—oh, God, how thinly defended. Mainly it’s an approach to Charlestown.”

  The landlord came back with the mulled wine, which sent up a spicy odor. Simon lifted his mug. “As to this trip to Jamaica—you must understand that you may have to stay there a long time. God knows how long. Until the war is over, perhaps.”

  “But the rebellion—I mean the war can’t last long!”

  “You mean the British will whip us.”

  “Oh, Simon, it’s Britain you are fighting. British ships! British-trained soldiers!”

  “Some hired Hessian soldiers, too.” He rubbed his eyes wearily and then smiled at her. “Well, we’re not whipped yet. Drink your wine.” He tasted his own and said thoughtfully, “You’ll be safe with your father. I hope—I believe that he is alive and well.”

  “How can I write to you?”

  Simon was never too tired, too discouraged to tease her. His eyebrows arched up. “I didn’t think you’d want to write to me!”

  “You’ll want to hear about—about him.”

  “Address me in care of Colonel Holiday. Keep your ears open, there may be ways to send mail—sometimes it arrives, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ll try to communicate with you. The ship you’re boarding has clearance from Savannah but you’ll find—I hope—that she has no difficulty in docking at Port Royal.”

  “Do you mean she’s a smuggler?”

  “She’s a privateer—and, yes, a smuggler. She’ll bring back sugar, molasses from Jamaica, salt from Turk Island, anything she can, if she can get through. The captain has his eye on money and he’s shrewd. In fact, I suspect, a thorough-going scoundrel but a good seaman. He has supplied himself with Dutch papers, a Dutch flag.”

  “The Southern Cross. That’s not a Dutch name.”

  Simon shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. Privateers are captured, bought, sold, traded, shuffled around like peas in a pot. So are seamen, with or without their consent. No, she’s still the Southern Cross. I think she was originally a British boat.”

  “Simon, if my father is dead you own his estate. Please try to stop confiscation. Put in your claim. You are my husband. It belongs to you legally.”

  He frowned at his wine, turning the mug in his fingers. “There may be nothing I can do, Amy. I told you that.” Suddenly he smiled. “There in the library, while we were being married, just in a flash I thought of all my lessons—and my canings, too, in that room. I thought of old LeCoeur, too, and the French lessons your father made us study. It’s odd how small things in the past can influence the future.”

  “What do you mean? What small things?”

  “What—oh, I was only thinking of—thinking of the way your father found old LeCoeur. If he hadn’t been resting, there on the step of the tavern, your father wouldn’t have stumbled over him, wouldn’t have stopped to apologize—wouldn’t have brought him home to teach us—” He paused, musing, and then said, “Well—whatever the situation in Jamaica, you’ll be out of the clutches of the Grappits.”

  “Simon! Is that why you married me?” she asked impulsively.

  His eyes held her own for a second. Then he laughed softly. “Darling, I married you because I’ve loved you since you were a child. As you grew to womanhood, my passion grew so strong, yet so hopeless, I thought, that until you admitted your own—”

  “Don’t tease me, Simon.” She had had time to think during those days and nights. “Please, listen. I want you to understand. I know I was very wrong, wickedly wrong to—to make you marry me in this way. It’s a poor excuse to say that I didn’t realize it until it was too late. But it isn’t really too late.”

  “Are you now proposing to divorce me?”

  His eyes were dancing; it disconcerted her. “Please, listen. Now it’s done I do want to go to Jamaica. But—but Simon, sometime you’ll see the woman you want to marry and—” She couldn’t meet his eyes; she moved the mug in a pattern on the table. “And I’ll not stand in your way. Ever. I promise you.”

  “I see.”

  “And meantime—meantime you said you would require promises of me and I gave them. I made vows and I intend to keep them. I’ll be a good and faithful wife.”

  There was a silence. At last she looked up and his expression told her nothing. “I’m sure you will. It’s time to board the ship. Have you any money?”

  She felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment. “I was so hurried. I didn’t think of money. But I have my mother’s miniature. It’s set in diamonds. I can sell that for the passage money.”

  His eyes danced again. “You thought of everything else. The lawyer, the marriage contract, the parson. Fie, Amy! Don’t sell your mother’s miniature. She was a dear and gracious lady. Kind to me, always kind and loving to a boy who had no real claim on her.” He mused for a moment again, his eyes dark now and faraway, seeing perhaps scenes of their childhood, peaceful and rich with living. He came to himself abruptly and gave her a flashing, teasing grin. “That’s really why I married you. You are your mother’s child. You look like her—except when you lose your temper as you are about to do now. Here—” He pulled something from under his coat. “Keep it well hidden. These are odd times.”

  He slid the heavy roll of gold into her hand. It was wrappe
d in a linen handkerchief, laced and embroidered, the handkerchief of a London dandy, one of a set her father had ordered in London and presented to Simon along with a gold watch, a sage-green velvet suit with a white waistcoat and Mechlin ruffles, and a blooded riding horse on his eighteenth birthday.

  She put the heavy roll of coins into the inner pocket of her cloak. “Thank you. I’ll use the gold for my passage money. I’ll see that you are repaid.”

  “Your passage money has been paid,” he said shortly.

  “I’m sorry, Simon, that was ungracious of me.”

  “Ours is not a gracious marriage. Still, it’s a marriage. It’s time for you to go.”

  He called for his reckoning and paid the landlord. He adjusted her hood over her black hair and gave her his arm. They left the warm little tavern and the wind blew cold on her face. She could barely see the privateer, which seemed to have the lines of a small sloop.

  The night seemed very dark, the sloop very small, everything about her strange, and the outcome of her journey sad perhaps and certainly doubtful. She heard the faint gurgle of water at her feet. A small boat, manned by one sailor, emerged at her feet, rocking in the lap of the water.

  She put her hand on Simon’s arm.

  He put his own hand over it for a moment; then unexpectedly he gathered her close in his arms and held her, warm and sheltered against his tall body. She felt the roughness of his greatcoat against her cheek. He lifted her face, kissed her full and long on the lips, said, with a little chuckle, “My good and faithful wife,” and released her.

  He handed her down into the dinghy. Immediately the boat moved, the oarlocks clicked. When she looked back Simon had already disappeared.

  Ahead of them the dim light of a shaded lantern grew stronger. A man carrying another lantern assisted her up a slippery ladder and onto the deck where he introduced himself. “Captain Boyce. Servant, madam.” She felt the very slight unsteadiness of the deck beneath her feet.

  “I’ve given you the great cabin, madam. I hope you’ll find it comfortable and roomy.”

  She followed him down the ladder of the companionway. The passage was so narrow that her cloak brushed the bulkheads. The lantern in the captain’s hand cast a glow up into his face, big and bearded with buttoned-up eyes and mouth. He nodded at a door, mumbled something to the effect that they were about to cast off and went up the ladder again, rather rapidly.

  She opened the door he had indicated. A single candle stood on a shelf. China was sitting on a bunk, in a blue silk peignoir, smiling.

  3

  “AMITY, I THOUGHT YOU’D never come. Where have you been?”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I brought Jamey, too.”

  Jamey was in the upper bunk, red hair tousled, peering out at her with wide, excited eyes. She hugged him and he wriggled away and said, “Where have you been? We’re going to Jamaica!”

  “Did Simon know you were coming?” she asked China.

  “Certainly not. I just came to Savannah and—and inquired and took passage. I’ve got a right to find out—well, find out whatever has happened, haven’t I?”

  “It was the very best thing to do!” Amity wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself. It also struck her that China had shown more enterprise in coming to Savannah and arranging passage for herself and Jamey than Amity would have expected.

  “Jamey will be seasick,” China said gloomily, veering like a pretty little weathervane clad in blue silk and lace.

  China had never lifted a hand, so far as Amity knew, to care for Jamey herself. “But surely you brought servants! Rosa or somebody!”

  “That little fool Rosa wouldn’t come. She said a fortune teller had told her she’d die by drowning.”

  “How long have you been here? Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Well, actually I’ve been here three days. We stayed at the inn until yesterday when we came on board and the captain made us stay cooped up here all day. He’s pretending to sail for some neutral port and nobody is supposed to know he’s really going to stop first at Jamaica. He told me this is the first ship to the Caribbean in several weeks so of course I expected you. Besides, the captain said you’d be aboard. I didn’t want you to know because I thought you’d send me home.”

  “I would have insisted on your coming if I’d had my wits about me! Jamey, too!”

  “The captain found me a nursemaid. She’s going to Jamaica with us.”

  This time the extent and prudence of China’s activities really astonished Amity. “How on earth did he manage to find a nursemaid?”

  “Well, you see, I’d had Jamey to care for in the coach and at the inn—lud, Amity, I’ve had enough of it. He’s a young wildcat! The captain knew of this maid, she wanted to go to Jamaica, so it was heaven sent.” A reflective look came into China’s pretty face. “She thinks herself too good for her post, I’ll be bound. Still there was nothing else for me to do.”

  “What do you know about her? Is she a redemptioner! Had she a written character?”

  “Oh, the captain assured me she has a good character. She told me who employed her, Loyalists from Georgia who went to England.” China fluffed up the lace of her peignoir. “I don’t care what she is as long as she sees to Jamey.”

  “We can see to Jamey. If you don’t like this nursemaid, we’d better send her ashore.”

  China giggled. “We can’t. We’re sailing.”

  They were sailing. The sense of motion had increased; a definite sway and motion had begun. Bulkheads began to creak. China stopped giggling. “Oh, lud, now the boy will be seasick.”

  Jamey picked up words like a parrot. “Seasick!” he declared. “Now I’m seasick.”

  “Oh, God,” said China.

  “You can’t be seasick,” Amity said firmly. “You don’t even know what that means. Now do you?”

  He considered it, his hazel eyes bright and speculative. “No,” he said finally and disappeared into the berth. China sighed. “You see? You want Hester to go along with us as much as I do.”

  “Hester? Is that all you know about her? Just her name?”

  “Oh, Amity, don’t get yourself into such a fuss. She’s a pair of hands, isn’t she?” Suddenly China’s eyes widened. She pulled her peignoir to a more decorous length, tried to assume a dignified and matronly look and succeeded in looking like a child caught at the jam jar. The cabin door behind Amity had opened and a woman came silently into the room. “This is Hester,” China said in a small voice.

  Dressed like a Quaker, Amity thought, unexpectedly, and looks like a trollop. Hester gave Amity a sliding glance and dropped the barest vestige of a curtsy.

  She wore a brown dress, with stiffly starched white collar and cuffs. The brown dress was so neat and so very trim that it managed to display a rather lush and certainly inviting figure. Her hair was chestnut brown, very thick, but sternly netted in. Her eyes were large, languorous and cast demurely down. She was extremely pretty although there was a certain thickness about her jaw and a kind of lurking smugness in the corners of her full lips. It was curiously both a weak face and a strong one.

  That is unfair, Amity thought. But there were questions somebody had to ask. “Hester, for whom did you work?”

  The maid sketched another curtsy and looked at the floor. “Squire Tooke and his madam, of Carterville.”

  “Were you an indentured servant?”

  “No, ma’am. I was the daughter of one of their workmen, a carpenter. My name is Hester Lilbourne.”

  Glib. Too glib? “Don’t you have any letters, a character, anything from your employers?”

  “I did have, ma’am. They were in a box that was lost. Captain Boyce told me that when the box reaches Savannah he will find a way to send it on to Jamaica.”

  “Why do you wish to go to Jamaica?”

  The maid’s eyes lifted for one rather disconcerting flash, for Amity felt that those languishing brown eyes hid laughter. “To better my condition, ma’a
m.”

  “Oh, Amity, leave be,” China said. “You can retire, Hester.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The maid’s brown skirts moved sedately out of the cabin and away.

  “Where is she sleeping?”

  “She’s got a little cabin! A cubbyhole really but too good for a servant.”

  “I don’t believe she’s ever been a nursemaid.”

  “Any woman can see to a child. You act as if you think she’s going to chuck Jamey out a porthole.”

  “No, I don’t think that,” Amity said slowly. In any event the woman Hester was aboard and going with them to Jamaica. She gathered her cloak around her.

  “Where are you going?” China sat upright, her eyes surprised.

  “On deck.”

  “But why? What for? Amity—”

  Amity closed the cabin door behind her.

  She didn’t really know why she wanted to go on deck. To say farewell to her homeland?

  A lantern now hung in the passage. There was a smell of tar. She made her way up the ladder and emerged on deck. White sails against a black sky now creaked and strained in the freshening wind. She avoided some boxes, some coils of rope and went to the railing. The ship was swaying now; there was a rush of water against her sides. Away off in the darkness she could see a faint string of lights which marked Savannah.

  She wondered where Simon was, amid those faraway lights. She wished that he had waited, only a moment there on the wharf, only until she was aboard the privateer. But that would be the act of a lover. And, to be fair, he was in haste, harried by chores and anxiety.

  “Amity,” a man beside her said.

  Her hand froze on the railing. Charles Carey’s hand came down upon it. “Amity, why did you marry him? You’re not in love with Simon Mallam.”

  She turned to face Charles.

  She could see him only dimly, silhouetted against the faint glow of a carefully shaded lantern. He had his hat in one hand; his trim, powdered wig set off his darkly handsome face. He wore a greatcoat and a froth of white lace escaped the wide collar. She thought that he was smiling down at her.