* * *
Shortly after her grandfather’s passing, a packet of letters from England brought Farthingmill Abbey and Grosvenor Square into Maddie’s hands. The tone of various notes was quite mixed, leaving her to wonder if her departure was viewed in a positive or negative light. Only Edmund Powell withheld his opinion, choosing to write of his duties and passing along snippets of gossip about his family. Caroline Thompson and Lady Ridgeley wept over Maddie’s tragic loss of her beloved grandfather, while Lawrence and Joseph both took her to task for disobedience, foolishness, recklessness, foolhardiness and the added discomfort of the Minister Plenipotentiary’s scathing reply to the Ashford brothers’ demand for an explanation as to how their niece was allowed to leave the country in a manner befitting a kidnapping. To be lectured on duty, even in civil tones, was infuriating. If Maddie had doubts about leaving, those doubts were erased.
The Admiral’s normally voluminous letters, penned almost daily, were reduced to one composition, on a single sheet. He must have torn up the others, or perhaps in anger he had stopped writing to her, under the mistaken impression created by his brothers. Once he heard her side, Maddie was confident that he would take action on her behalf. He had promised her grandfather, after all, had signed contracts to ensure a degree of freedom that was in keeping with her mother’s wishes.
“Come home as soon as practicable,” the Admiral wrote. “Make a suitable gift to my granddaughter Sarah. Kiss her for me. You have broken my heart and healed it in one stroke.” The sentences were disjointed, the scattered thoughts of a busy man penned in haste, no doubt, with the despatch boat’s captain eager to catch a favorable wind. In closing, he instructed her to book passage on any ship that would join a convoy sailing under the protection of the Royal Navy, to make herself known to a British captain so that her safety would be secured.
It was not practicable to leave Riverside until Grandmother was established at the plantation, and some of her personal furnishings installed in a suite of rooms at the Beauchamp house on King Street. Neither could Maddie dash off before she had called on her many relations and childhood friends, who had hours of conversation to share before she could be up to date on all that had happened over the course of her sojourn. Heywood Taft was a distraction when she tried to give serious consideration to her future, and it did not help that Ethan took to pestering her about the land she owned upriver, all under cultivation but lacking any amenities that would make it appealing to a tenant. A big house, at the least, would be required, and the expenses were easily recouped given the rental income that could be generated. What better opportunity would Maddie have to use her education in the basics of architectural design than to create her ideal residence, to work with a local architect. A challenge such as Ethan presented was not one she could ignore.
Then there was her grandmother, going on and on about marrying a plantation, the way of the Low Country aristocracy for hundreds of years. Underlying the anecdotes was a sense of urgency that Maddie did not understand until a warm April afternoon, when her grandmother never woke from a nap. The pain of the final loss brought Maddie to her knees and she kept to her room, as if she could find refuge in a familiar harbor.
With all her heart, she tried to cling to the bits and pieces of her old life, but she could study the same four walls and not find one thing that would keep her afloat. In time, she knew that Ethan would need her little corner of Riverside for his own family, that she was expected to move along like all women did. Then, too, she had to meet her grandfather’s request that she honor the contracts he had made with the Admiral. All signs pointed east, to set sail and find the anchor that would tie her to one spot, where she could find enough happiness to make Riverside and her childhood a pleasant memory to be shared with her own children.
Still her feet did not move, as if she was weighed down by indecision or fear of what she would encounter around a blind corner of life. Maddie threw herself into the plans for a house, getting lost in sketches and scale drawings and site elevations. With Heywood as her sounding board, she devised floor plans and laid out formal gardens that would rival those of Riverside. No stodgy Georgian façade, but one that borrowed from the Venetians, while the interior would be elegant and simple, in the French manner. In the process, a new project emerged and Maddie sent for Jim Nipper, who arrived within days of receiving the summons. They had accomplished great things in England, and they would accomplish even greater things with a stud that spanned two continents. Her most trusted ally would be in charge of her American stable.
Not entirely confident, but ready, Maddie approached Ethan in early May. “I must and I shall,” she said. “At Grandfather’s specific request, which you heard, and a Beauchamp does not break a contract without due cause.”
“The man is a brute,” Ethan said. “You have seen but one side of him. Enough. You have done enough, as much as was required.”
“I have not completed the term,” Maddie said. “And how can you speak ill of a man you admire? Do not try to trick me with crafty words.”
“Time and education, baby girl, have altered my opinion,” he said. “You do not need to know more than that. I expect you to trust my opinions, which are not fabricated out of thin air.”
“Heed idle gossip, or whatever nonsense has skewed your vision,” she said. “Do not think I have not heard of tales of cruelty from his detractors who are jealous of his position and authority. Now, will you arrange my passage or must I stow away in a hogshead?”
“What of this massive expenditure you have undertaken? Would you have me stretched beyond human endurance to see to your affairs while you dance a year away?”
“Heywood is supervising and Nipper is assisting him. I expect he can present bills to you that will not require any further consideration. All construction is well in hand, and Heywood is taking a very active role, for which I am most grateful. As you should be. Anything further?”
“Stubborn.”
“You are a dear, dear brother who loves his sister.”
“I would love you more if you remained where you belong.”
“Knowing I defied our grandfather’s fervent wish? I should not respect myself in that case.”
“Stubborn. Thank heavens you are charming, baby girl, or even a man as homely as Heywood Taft would avoid you.”
Before boarding the merchant ship that would slip out of Charleston harbor and run the American blockade, Maddie said good-bye to Afi. Within a matter of months, the nursemaid’s husband would have the money to buy his freedom, and the couple would be forced to leave South Carolina. There were vague plans to go north to New York, or perhaps Canada, where a skilled carpenter could make a good living as a free man. As Maddie had learned, there was a limit to how free a person could be if they were female or African.
“When the time comes, you will need more than you anticipate,” Maddie said. She pressed two gold eagles into Afi’s hand, recalling the warmth of those hands holding her, stroking her head when she had bad dreams, or swatting her when she misbehaved. “Who can say what new expenses you might incur. What little events will arrive?”
“They’ll likely arrive once we’re free,” Afi said. “We swore we’d never have children born into slavery, not when they’d belong to Mr. Drayton. I’ll be free from worry and stopping them from coming.”
“It’s not possible,” Maddie said. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “If you’ve been a real wife. I don’t mean to pry. I’m sorry.”
Afi took her arm and led her from the piazza, along the carriage path towards the river road far behind the house. “There’s ways, baby girl,” she said. “Understand me, I meant to tell you all this when you were older, but now you’re hell-bent on leaving us so I have to tell you now. Don’t you dare use this for wickedness. This is for after you’re married.”
In the shade of the trees at the corner of the cow pasture, Afi spoke in matter-of-fact terms, about husbands who never asked a wife if she wanted another child bef
ore creating one, about women who could not safely give birth again but would not turn away a husband. Unspoken between them was the darkest side of slavery, in which a master could do as he pleased with his female chattel, just as he could with his own wife. “The bark of the cotton root,” Afi said. “Made into a tea, and so effective that any slave woman found with it is as good as dead. I’ll see to it that you have what you need. But you promise me here and now that you’ll not lay with a man in sin.”
“I would never do such a thing,” Maddie said.
“Until you fall in love with one who makes your blood run hot,” Afi said. “That time comes, you remember me telling you to be a good woman.”
It would be early June before the merchant master decided that he could leave Charleston Bay without being caught by the authorities who sought to enforce the American trade embargo. Even though it was close to the start of hurricane season, Maddie felt that she had done what she needed to do, and was eager to make a good start on the next phase of her life, perhaps the most important time of any woman’s life.
She left without convincing Ethan that she was justified to go. He did not understand that she owed the Admiral her loyalty after he gave her a raft of incredible experiences and happiness beyond measure. As for the difficult existence Maddie would return to, it was simply a matter to discuss with her stepfather when he came home on leave, a talk between father and daughter. She would see all matters settled to her satisfaction.
The risk of losing his crew to impressment had the merchant master hugging the coastline as the ship sailed north. Past Norfolk, Mr. Gottschalk fell in with a group of privateers making for England, trusting in luck and a British captain wise enough to understand that England needed the cargo of rice more than it needed another sailor. Even so, he grumbled when he spotted a warship approaching, rigged in the English manner.
Gottschalk spit on the deck, as if he were spitting in the face of the British captain. “No deserters in my crew,” he said. “But they’ll steal back a man they stole before and call him a deserter. Any man who escapes their slavery dare not return to the sea under his own name.”
To the northeast, the ship of the line lay to, the British colors snapping in a brisk wind. “I suppose they will examine your cargo,” Maddie said. She borrowed the master’s glass so that she could study the quarterdeck, but the captain, first lieutenant and helmsmen were unknown to her. That would not prevent her from giving every one of them a piece of her mind. As she scanned the weather deck, her eye fixed on a midshipman who seemed to be barking orders. She adjusted the focus, twisted the glass, sharpened the image, but there was no question that the young gentleman was her cousin George Ashford. “Let them come aboard. I’ll give them such a hot press of metal from my tongue that will burn their ears.”
Waiting, watching, Maddie climbed up to the poop deck with Mrs. Gottschalk while the crew let loose the sails to take advantage of a wind blowing across the beam. A sudden cheer from below made them both jump. “Look, there,” Mrs. Gottschalk said, pointing to the west where an American frigate was lumbering its way towards its British nemesis.
“The Chesapeake,” Mr. Gottschalk bellowed. “Been laid up for some time. She’s shipping a new crew if I’m a judge of our navy.”
The HMS Leopard hailed the Chesapeake, but what the opposing captains might have shouted to one another was carried away on the wind. In horror, Maddie watched the ships shorten sail, leaving the topgallants and royals to propel the vessels into position. Exactly like the drills she had observed with fascination on her stepfather’s ship, the Leopard and the Chesapeake prepared for battle. “The fools,” she said. A small frigate with a raw crew could never compete with a British ship of the line. It was suicide to try. As the merchant vessel steered clear of the impending melee, Maddie shifted position on the deck, praying that a sensible man would speak up before it was too late. She saw the puff of smoke long before she heard the report of the guns.
“He took a stand,” Mr. Gottschalk said. “God bless our captain. He took a stand.”
How well she knew the steady pace of firing from a British gun deck, with each man performing his task precisely. The rhythm of the broadside echoed off the water, while the sound of the American guns was sporadic, uncoordinated. In a short time, the American ship struck her colors and Maddie could only imagine the scene on deck, where British sailors and marines were swarming on board. Was there slaughter, or had the captain realized how outmatched he was and surrendered rather than allow his men to be torn to pieces?
“Is it war?” she asked Gottschalk. Doubts crowded out all other thoughts until Maddie’s head throbbed. She saw the American coastline shrink behind her, the distance expanding. It was too late. There was no going back.
The Second War of Rebellion Page 37