This Loving Torment

by Valerie Sherwood

  In a salty moment, Charity’s mother had once told her that the road from the kitchen to the dining room led by way of the bedroom. The bedroom. . . . From the dining room as the door swung open. Charity could hear Marie’s distinctive light tantalizing laugh. A vision in gray brocade and silver lace, Marie was looking across that candlelit table, her sparkling violet eyes smiling into Alan’s. Once again Charity was reminded that the distance between the kitchen and the dining room was the longest distance of all.

  “Twill be all right You’ll get used to it here,” Megan said placatingly as Charity left to go upstairs to bed, and Charity replied, “Yes, I’m sure I will.”

  In the attic, she paused wistfully beside the small pretty room that was directly over Marie’s bedroom, and then trudged down the hall to her own unattractive one. Taking off everything but her chemise, she crawled into bed.

  Tomorrow she would start her new duties here—whatever they might be. As she turned restlessly—for the little room was very hot and airless—she thought of Marie, casually emptying the rooms above her on the cool side of the house, consigning Charity and Megan to tiny cramped quarters. McNabb apparently slept elsewhere, perhaps in a little building Charity had glimpsed some distance away. The black house servants lived in slave “quarters” behind the house which, she was sure, were cooler than this room! With a rebellious palm, Charity gave her hard pillow a thump.

  She turned over miserably, remembering how Alan’s face had lit up at sight of Marie.

  That woman! That lovely haughty scented scornful woman whose violet eyes had raked her and dismissed her as not worth trifling with—at this very moment Alan was holding that scornful woman in his arms! And Charity could not sleep for thinking of it.

  The next day dawned hot and Charity rose early and went downstairs to find McNabb. But he had gone to check the sluices and floodgates of the rice fields with Landgrave Bellingham, she was told, so she wandered down to the river. As she approached it, she was startled to see an alligator slither into the water. She retreated to the boat landing and watched a long pirogue glide by carrying indigo.

  Remembering she needed a candle for her room, hers having guttered out in the night, she returned to the house to find one. She discovered a small stack of the clear green ones she had seen on the dining room table the night before and asked Megan if she could have one of them.

  “Indeed no,” reproved Megan. “Them’s for m’lady. Them’s made of bayberry wax—they don’t melt in summer and don’t smoke and they smell good when they’re snuffed. We make sealing wax from the bay-berries too. Here—take one of these.” She thrust a stubby candle into Charity’s hand.

  “Tallow?” wondered Charity.

  “La, no! Too many wolves for sheep to do well. Tis deer suet this be made of. Farther inland they use bear grease too.”

  As Charity took the candle, she recalled that Ben had told her some of his candles were made of moose fat. It seemed strange to a girl bred in England and used to tallow.

  In the afternoon, McNabb returned to show her the books and ledgers. She’d been right; his “office” was located in the small square building she’d glimpsed near the house and he slept in a loft above. Charity climbed onto a high wooden stool and copied off several sheets of figures with a turkey-quill pen and tallied them up. When she had finished, she began leafing idly through the ledgers. The financial condition of Magnolia Barony was not nearly so good as the luxury about her had led her to expect. Frowning, she put down the quill pen and gazed through the small-paned window at the squirrels running about the lawn. If she’d read these figures aright, Alan was deep in debt to English merchants and needed a good rice crop to get him through. No wonder he had seemed so worried.

  The next day as she passed Marie’s door, Marie called to her sharply. Her color somewhat heightened by Marie’s commanding tone, Charity walked into the bedroom. From its embroidered mauve satin coverlet on the feather bed to its gilt-framed mirrors and sheer blowing curtains, the room was the essence of luxury. It could have been Stéphanie’s bedroom in Bath, she thought.

  “I want you to hold these dolls up and turn them slowly so that I can see them at a distance,” explained Marie.

  At once Charity realized what Marie was doing. A row of little dolls, all dressed in the latest fashions, lay on the bed. It was customary for the English dressmakers to send small dolls garbed in the latest creations across the ocean to the Colonies. These clothes might then be copied or ordered. Charity was familiar with the custom, for Parisian fashions had reached England in the same manner. She picked up a doll wearing a sweeping purple velvet gown with big sleeves, held it at arm’s length and turned it slowly about.

  Fanning herself with a long-handled silk fan, Marie surveyed the doll critically. “It makes her look fat,” she complained.

  “The waist is too high,” pointed out Charity, “and the sleeves are ungainly. With a lowered waist and smaller sleeves it would be very chic.”

  “God’s life!” cried Marie. “Do not tell me you sew as well as keep accounts? You are indeed a paragon of all the virtues!”

  Before that mocking expression, Charity’s pride flared. “I do not sew,” she snapped. “But I am familiar with fine clothes, because I have worn them.”

  “And what is your opinion about this one? The green satin?”

  “It will turn your eyes a murky color if you wear it,” said Charity shortly. “That shade of green does not suit you.”

  “Nonsense,” sniffed Marie. “Green has always been my lucky color.”

  Charity was not aware that Alan had approached silently and was listening. She was amazed at the sudden change in Marie’s expression.

  “Your protégée has been giving me lessons in fashion,” Marie said lightly.

  “Beware she does not give you lessons in deportment, my love,” smiled Alan with an indulgent look at his wife. “Methinks you could use them!”

  Marie laughed, but her violet eyes narrowed. She studied Charity’s hair. “You’re right, Alan,” she murmured. “Charity does wear her hair as a lady of fashion. Alan, do you think she could do mine?” She turned her head lazily so that he could view her shining tresses.

  “I have no doubt she could—and will,” said Alan, smiling at Charity. “Wouldst do it? We seem to be lacking a lady’s maid.”

  Charity bit her lip. “Of course,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’d be happy to.”

  And fled.

  After that she found herself combing out Marie’s long lustrous ash-blonde hair every day, arranging it into graceful curls, staring bitterly at the woman’s beautiful face in the mirror as Marie criticized her every move.

  Marie’s, she admitted, was a face not easily forgotten. Her large eyes had a perpetually startled expression, and her hair was so light as to appear almost white—in the moonlight it would be silver. In the daylight, Marie was the most pastel and fragile of blondes. Like Alan her complexion was pink and white, and she had a low seductive laugh. Taller than Charity, her walk was a long-stemmed sway that was at once enticing and regal. That there was sometimes a frost in her violet eyes was not to be denied, for Marie came of the landed gentry; she had been brought up to command and considered it her God-given right. She was extravagant, and sometimes sulky and childish, but when she smiled her whole face broke into sunshine, with a surpassing sweetness.

  Her husband, the landgrave, adored her.

  Marie considered herself a member of a titled nobility. It was a Colonial nobility, but that did not matter to her at all. Her husband was a landgrave, and she was a landgrave’s lady. All must bow.

  Charity formed a violent dislike for the woman. Sometimes her hand holding the silver comb trembled and she yearned to slap Marie’s lovely face. She was afraid this dislike would show in her eyes and cause Marie to dismiss her, so she kept her eyes downcast whenever possible in Marie’s presence. Once, Marie met her gaze full on and murmured “Insolent,” almost abstractedly, as if she were speaking
of someone beneath notice.

  One afternoon when old Dr. Cavendish and several other guests arrived unexpectedly from upriver, Charity, who was caught in their midst on the lawn, overheard a woman say, “Aren’t they fabulous together, Alan and Marie? They look so alike—the same coloring and so handsome! Like a pair of Dresden figurines ... so right for each other.”

  Charity’s cheeks were stained an indignant red as she hurried back to McNabb’s hot little office. Right for each other indeed!

  And yet, although she told herself he wanted to, Alan never sought her out. Sometimes if their bodies brushed in passing through a door, he might look at her in confusion. And at those times she hoped for something, some sign. But always he turned away.

  That evening she listened to the field slaves singing as they returned home from the rice fields. Their melodious voices had a mournful note that touched Charity deeply. Like her, they were far, far from home.

  She pressed her hot face into her pillow and tried to sleep.

  CHAPTER 28

  Life at Magnolia Barony was painful for Charity, though it had two sides: dark and light. The brighter times were those days when she had some contact with Alan, when he came into McNabb’s office and made some pleasantry. On those occasions she would turn on her high stool and favor him with a brilliant smile, her eyes glowing. Once, coming out of the office after a rain, she slipped on some wet leaves and fell heavily, turning her ankle. Alan picked her up and carried her to the house. It was a memorable trip for her—being held in his arms, her soft hip pressing against his hard stomach. With a moan that was less from pain than from desire, she turned so that her left breast was thrust against his chest and clung to him, arms around his neck. Obviously very shaken when he put her down, he called hoarsely to Megan for assistance and fled.

  She loved him for his loyalty, Charity told herself staunchly. Even if that loyalty was to another woman. It meant that he would be just as loyal to her, once she had won him.

  But the days passed and winning him seemed a long way off. Marie’s grip was firm, her hand on the reins steady. Even her eyes challenged Charity. Alan is mine, they said. He will always be mine.

  Nights were the worst. In her stuffy little attic room, Charity imagined them going to bed downstairs, pictured him holding Marie in his arms, fondling her . . . she could almost hear Marie’s low seductive laugh as Alan took her.

  At other times Charity writhed upon her bed in a frenzy of grief because Alan had not noticed her, or he had passed her by with only a brusque word, or there had been no answering light in his blue eyes to some sally of hers.

  He rubbed her feelings raw and did not know it.

  The torment that she endured was bitter—but it was sweet. Sometimes on hot magnolia-scented nights with the singing of the slaves drifting up to her, she would lie on her back and imagine him above her, his big handsome body descending onto hers. Imagine she felt his gentle fingers easing her chemise down about her shoulders until her breasts were bare and palpitating under his gaze, then down around her hips until finally she lay naked and willing before him, filled with desire. Restless, she would turn in her torment and stare at the door. If only he would forget Marie and turn to her....

  By the end of a month, after studying the accounts closely, she was certain. Alan’s financial situation was indeed precarious. When McNabb handed her still another sheet of his illegible figures and she copied them off in her precise handwriting, she was certain she had found her opportunity to seek out the landgrave of Magnolia Barony.

  She found Alan giving instructions to the groom who was currying his big roan horse. Courteously he gave her his attention.

  “I am worried about the figures,” she began. “Can they possibly be right? I mean, do you really owe so much?”

  He sighed. “I do indeed,” he said. “Like most of the planters around here, I am up to my ears in debt to merchants on the other side of the water.”

  “Then why,” she ventured, “don’t you cut down on this order I just copied off? Do you really need a service for fifty? All these dishes? So many bolts of linen and lace?”

  “They’re for Marie,” he admitted. “She’s used to a better way of life than the rude shelter I can give her here. It’s to ease her circumstances that I buy them.” Charity choked back the angry words that rose up.

  Reminding herself that Marie was Alan’s wife and she was not, she said in a voice half-smothered, “You’ll need a good crop to pay for them.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. “It looks like twill be a good crop too, in spite of my being away at crucial times. But I’ll be shaking in my boots when it leaves the docks.” At her questioning look, he explained, “The buccaneers! They were once very popular here in Charles Towne. They sailed in, brought their goods, sold it, drank and departed. Twas Spanish shipping they preyed on then. But lately all that’s changed. Four times this year English ships leaving this port have been set upon by buccaneers and relieved of their cargo.”

  “And the passengers? The crew?”

  “Spirited away to Tortuga, some of them. Ransomed or sold, I suppose, in some damned pirates’ auction. They say it’s a buccaneer named Court that’s behind it. The fellow’s got the devil’s own gall; like as not he’s the one.”

  “Oh? Do you know him then?”

  Alan shook his head. “Court’s never been to Charles Towne. He’d have had a hero’s welcome after his raid on Maracaibo, but he didn’t come.”

  “Why? Why would a man like that have a hero’s welcome?”

  “Maracaibo’s a Spanish town,” Alan explained. “And here on these shores we’re in a constant undeclared war against Spain. They contest our right to sail these waters. They claim this very land we’re standing on. The Spanish and the Portuguese divided the New World between them and fought to keep us from colonizing. When they catch an English ship, they torture and kill the crew. It’s all done in the name of the Inquisition, but whether you’re burned as a heretic or hanged as an Englishman the result is the same—you’re dead. And we’re uncomfortably near them here. Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine is Spanish. It gives me an uneasy feeling, to know that the Spanish might sail up here in force any day and burn us out. They’ve done it to other settlements. And tried to colonize as far north as the Chesapeake. So anything that weakens the power of Spain in this part of the world is welcome, including the buccaneers.”

  “I see,” she said in a small voice. “You mean these men we call buccaneers are really privateers.”

  “Well, they were,” he said with a twisted smile. “Most of them sail on letters of marque, privateering commissions, against the Spanish. But now that they’ve turned their guns on us ....”

  “Four ships ships you say?”

  “Four so far. We’re all uneasy now. These fellows lie off the coast or sail the seas in fast vessels with the gunports disguised. They’re desperate men and they’ll blow a ship out of the water or board it, swinging cutlasses, if the captain doesn’t heave to when they fire a shot across the bows.”

  Charity felt a little shiver go through her as she looked out through the magnolias to the east.

  Beyond the trees, beyond her vision, a sluggish river flowed slowly toward the sea. And on that sea, lean dark ships bellied their sails and ran before the wind in pursuit of the rich merchantmen and golden galleons that warily plied these waters. Among the sapphire Caribbean’s pearl-white beaches and coral reefs and emerald islands rising from the foam lay another, a darker world: The world of the buccaneers.

  CHAPTER 29

  An itinerant candlemaker had arrived and all the house servants were busy under his supervision, melting what looked like tallow but was perhaps deer suet, in big kettles and filling the large candle-molds he carried with him. Charity, who had helped Ben make beeswax tapers by pressing bits of heated wax around a wick, had never made candles this way. She watched, fascinated, as they poured the hot tallow carefully down into the molds.

  Reminding herse
lf there was work to do, she walked back toward the house. Alan passed her, lost in thought, and did not return her greeting. Charity turned to glare after him and went off in search of the industrious Megan. In the back yard, on a long line of hemp drawn between two live oaks, Megan was hanging out the wash.

  “This stuff will mildew if it’s left overnight and those girls are slow as molasses working with the candlemaker,” Megan grumbled. “They’re all thumbs.”

  “Here, let me help you,” offered Charity. “Why didn’t you ask Lally to help? I didn’t see her making candles.”

  “What? Lally? Sure, m’lady’s new maid takes on airs. Thinks she’s too good to hang out clothes!”

  Charity smiled as she tossed a wet sheet over the line. She’d been glad to see Lally, a slender, pert French Huguenot girl, arrive. The only flaw was that Lally could not “do” hair as well as Charity, and Marie still demanded Charity’s services on a daily basis. But perhaps Lally would learn.

  Swinging a heavy coverlet over the line with a grunt, Megan turned to Charity. “D’you think all men are daft?” she asked conversationally. “Or is it just that they won’t see what’s plain before them?”

  “Both,” said Charity, still smarting at Alan’s walking past without apparently seeing her. “Why?”

  Megan waved at the bed linens, blowing in the breeze. “I was just thinking about how the mistress only lets the master into her bedroom one week a month—she tells him she ‘can’t’ the rest of the time.”

  Charity was intrigued. At the moment she felt spiteful toward Alan and was glad his insufferable wife locked him out. “Why do you think she lies to him?” she wondered.