TWELVE
If the Ashfords thought that Maddie would be placated by invitations to Alcock’s, they were incorrect. She had behaved perfectly for months, had applied herself to every lesson and displayed a pleasant face under all circumstances. The vicar had tried her patience to the limit yet she had smiled through a barrage of ignorant comments that reflected a thorough unfamiliarity with America in general and Charlestonians in particular. After enduring that, she was supposed to be pleased to receive a new gown and an invitation to a ball?
Returning from town, where she had distributed baskets of food to the needy, Maddie ruminated on the wisdom of her angelic ways. So much hard work and effort, yet she was denied the one thing that meant the most to her. It did not matter who wrote to the Admiral and requested permission for Maddie to return briefly to Charleston; whether it was Stephen or Ethan or Grandfather the answer was always no. In the eyes of the Admiral, as viewed through the prism of Lawrence Ashford, it was simply too dangerous for a civilian to travel across the Atlantic, and for something as ordinary as Ethan’s wedding, it was out of the question.
On the twelfth day of April in 1805, Maddie slipped out of her room, where she was being confined for insulting the vicar, who deserved the appellation of jabbering magpie with less intelligence than said bird. She would not pray for the King’s health if he would not pray for President Jefferson, and he had no right to lecture her on protocol when she was not a subject of that madman wearing a crown. With images of Charleston playing in her mind, she tip-toed through the passageway and stole into her mother’s room.
Little of Mama’s perfume remained in the bottle on the dressing table, but still Maddie applied a tiny drop to her handkerchief. Holding the linen to her nose, she closed her eyes and pictured Ethan standing at Emma Fox’s side while the bishop blessed their union. Would anyone think of Maddie, alone in a big country house with only servants for company?
She sat in the chair next to the hearth, letting her misery flow freely, wishing for what could not be. “Everyone will be at the house, Mama,” she said. “Everyone but me. I hate England. No one remembers me. Not even Stephen. He doesn’t write, and now Ethan has Emma. Why did you make me come?”
The heart-shaped pin that she always wore under her gown felt heavier than usual, as if her mother had replied with a little tug. Making a tour of the room that remained unaltered, Maddie saw what a fool she had been, to pay any heed to the Admiral’s promises that Riverside would never change. A bride always did up her home to suit her taste, and it would not be long before Emma left her imprint. The home that Maddie had left was no more, as much as if it had burned to the ground on the day she set sail.
Rather than attend services on Sunday, Maddie had Nipper saddle her gelding and dashed off before he could cinch the strap on his own mount. She kicked the horse into a full gallop, flying over two hedgerows before she sensed that the animal was winded. Slowing to a walk, she made for the woods and the creek where she could hide from prying eyes and the endless pressure to become someone she was not.
In her mind, she walked through Riverside, only to find that some details had grown hazy. She could picture the bed curtains in her room, but the particular stitches were lost. “Let Emma do what she will,” Maddie said to the horse. “I will be a great lady and then I shall build my own house on my own land and it will be the prettiest plantation in all of South Carolina. Just see if I don’t.”
April turned to May and still Stephen failed to write. Before long, Maddie began to dread the tray of letters that greeted her each morning before breakfast, fearing bad news. She had heard that the American attempt to rein in the Pasha had gone horribly wrong when a bomb ship exploded prematurely. When the Admiral wrote asking if she had news of her brother, Maddie became so alarmed that she was in no condition to accept a dinner party invitation from Lady Jane. She could not bear to read another word that the Admiral wrote, fearing the worst. She put all her correspondence aside, as if bad news did not exist if she ignored it.
“It does you no good to fret,” Sophie said. She rubbed at the crease in Maddie’s forehead to smooth out what she insisted would become a permanent wrinkle. The face that Maddie saw in the mirror of her dressing table was not the familiar girl of fifteen, but a girl who was aging too rapidly. Sophie pinned up another section of hair, paused, and laid gentle hands on Maddie’s shoulder. “Open the letter. Not always does the special messenger bring sorrow.”
The sealed packet had arrived in the pre-dawn darkness. The hand was unfamiliar but addressed to Maddie personally, a breech of manners for a stranger but acceptable for family. A dozen scenarios played out in her head as she stared down at the inked paper that sat unmoving at her right hand. She shifted a finger, touched the offending missive, retreated and regrouped before trying again. At last she covered it with her palm. Her hair was done, her toilette complete. The time had come to face whatever had descended on her.
The wafer split easily and the single sheet of paper fell out of its folds. “God help him,” Maddie gasped. She jumped from her stool so quickly that it toppled. “Sophie, pack a trunk at once. Send for Nipper. Inform Mrs. Finch. I must get to Portsmouth at once.”
Unwilling to wait for Sophie, who was frozen to the floor, Maddie ran down the stairs shouting at the top of her lungs, calling out for Mrs. Finch and Davies. She raced down the gallery, past the portraits of Ashfords, and arrived at the stable out of breath.
“His lordship’s come, has he?” Nipper asked.
“My brother. They’re going to hang him.” Maddie said.
The Second War of Rebellion Page 17