My Theodosia

by Anya Seton

  She woke one morning shocked by a sudden realization. Not only had she heard nothing from Aaron in nearly two months, but it had been a fortnight since she had received a letter from Joseph.

  A faint unease oppressed her that day. She was restless and could not settle down. She tried to reason with herself. Letters from Aaron had been longer delayed than this. A packet might have encountered storms, or, if he had used the post, the mail might have been lost or stolen. As for Joseph's silence, there could be a dozen explanations. And yet it was surprising: he usually wrote her by every post. Perhaps he has gone to see the Sumters at Statesburgh, she thought, or unexpectedly to Charleston. That must be it.

  For the moment she was relieved, but the relief did not last. She had been calmly happy, and now quite suddenly she was apprehensive. The sun that evening went down in a red haze. Fog rolled in. The 'Castle' was shrouded in dripping dampness. Theo ordered Hector to light a fire in her bedroom. She pulled a chair close to the driftwood blaze and settled herself with the baby on her lap for the nightly ceremony of lullaby-singing. His soft weight snuggled against her and quelled the sense of foreboding. She bent her head, resting her cheek on his bright curls.

  'Sing "Robin Adair,"' he commanded, as he always did, looking up at her expectantly. She laughed, amused by the child's passion for this mournful ballad.

  What's this dull town to me?

  Robin's not here.

  She followed the familiar song without conscious thought. But as she finished, Gampy asked, 'Why did she want Robin to be there?'

  'Because she loved him, pet.'

  He digested this in silence a moment; then he asked, 'Who do you love? Is his name Robin?'

  She squeezed him, laughing. 'I love you and you're right here and your name isn't Robin.'

  He accepted this and lost interest, but she sat silent, staring into the fire. Its blue-and-green flames blurred, running together like shaken jewels. Bitter longing stabbed her, as it had not done in months. Merne, my beloved, where are you? Oh, why does it have to be this way!

  She shut her eyes. From without came the muffled boom of surf through the deadening fog. And otherwise—silence: heavy, creeping silence.

  'Your face looks queer, Mama——Sing some more.'

  She sighed, opening her eyes. 'I will if you'll go to sleep'. One by one she sang his favorites, 'The Silver Moon,' 'Au Clair de la Lune,' and 'Bye-Low, Baby Bunting,' until his lids drooped and his breathing quieted. Then she carried him to the trundle bed which was pulled out in readiness from underneath her own.

  As she turned from the sleeping child, there was a commotion outside her door, a sharp rap. She threw it open. Dido stood there panting from the exertion of climbing the kitchen stairs. Her fat face glistened with excited fear. 'Somebody comin' in boat acrost the creek, Mistiss. Hector gone see'urn. Muss be bad news, anybody come dis time night in fog. Enty?'

  Theo's mouth went dry. Bad news—yes. It could be nothing else. She went to the window. Dimly through the gray mist she could see the flare of torches down by the landing. 'Go and see that we have refreshment to offer—whoever it is,' she said hiding her disquiet. Even Dido would blow up into hysterical panic if given the slightest chance.

  Dido waddled off. Theo flung an embroidered blue shawl over her informal gown, and as she ran out on the porch, she heard a familiar voice calling, 'Theo.'

  'Here I am, Joseph,' she answered into the fog. Relief and anticlimax smote her at once. That was why she had not heard from him; he had been on his way. After all, her uneasiness had been ridiculous.

  He stamped up the steps, embracing her briefly.

  'I'm delighted to sec you,' she said, smiling. 'I had worried at not hearing from you; it never occurred to me that you might be on your way. I thought the legislature was to keep you in Columbia.'

  'It should have,' he answered glumly.

  She was puzzled by his manner, which seemed even more than normally brusque and ill at ease. His clothes were stained and wrinkled as though they had not been off him for days.

  'What is it?' she asked, with renewed fear. 'Has something happened?'

  Joseph tugged at his whiskers in the habitual gesture which indicated that he was uncertain of his course. 'There is news, yes—but it will keep until I've eaten. I'm famished. Can that damned Dido produce anything palatable?'

  'Certainly.'

  She clapped her hands, and when Cupid appeared, gave him hurried orders. 'Some corn pone, a few slices of ham, perhaps some boiled shrimp with the rice, and make some negus for your master. He's chilled through.'

  She came back to Joseph, clasping his arm urgently. 'Now tell me, please. What is the trouble?'

  Joseph moved uneasily, averting his face from her anxious scrutiny. He had made careful plans for telling her tactfully, but could remember none of them.

  'It's your father,' he blurted out, and then cursed himself as he saw the blood drain from her face, leaving it gray. Her hand dropped limp from his arm.

  'He's—he's ill,' she whispered. 'Or—or worse. For Heaven's sake, Joseph, can't you speak?'

  'I'm trying to. He's not ill. Hi is in perfect health.'

  Even through the tide of relief that left her knees shaking, she noted his contemptuous emphasis on the pronoun. She collapsed onto the sofa, lacing her hands together.

  'Then it can't be so bad, if he is well.'

  'Bad enough'. Joseph gloomily lit himself a cigar. 'He's killed Hamilton.'

  She stared at him blankly. 'I don't understand.'

  'He challenged Hamilton and they met at Weehawken July eleventh. Burr fired first and shot him in the side. He died two days later.'

  'But what about Father?' she cried, comprehending but one aspect of this astounding news. 'Are you sure he wasn't wounded? How can you be sure? Oh, Joseph, for God's sake—speak!'

  'I'm trying to tell you. He was not wounded. Hamilton's pistol was discharged into the air. I know because I have had two letters from Colonel Burr, and, besides, the papers are full of it.'

  'That's why he didn't write me,' she murmured. The numb uncomprehension passed. She began to understand what had happened. She looked up at Joseph. 'Thank God, I didn't know beforehand. I should have been mad with terror. But it is well over. Hamilton was always his enemy. He gave him, I know, unbearable provocation. I always hated the man,' she added on a lower key, remembering the Creole's cold, disdainful eyes, the covert sneer in his voice.

  Joseph impatiently flecked a cake of dry mud off his boot. 'It's not as simple as all that'. He was exasperated by her attitude, which seemed to him both callous and casual. 'There is a tremendous hullabaloo. The country has been incited by the press to consider the Colonel as a ruthless demon. And——' He hesitated. He had meant to break it gently, had spent three uncomfortable days and nights of travel worrying as to the best way of telling her. But her airy reception of the news changed that. She might as well know it all at once. 'Your father is being prosecuted for murder, Theodosia. He has fled from New York to escape hanging.'

  She caught her breath sharply, springing to her feet. 'How can that be? It was a fair and honorable duel.'

  Joseph shrugged his massive shoulders. 'I have no doubt it was, but they say not. At any rate, there has been a jury, and they have brought in a verdict of willful murder.'

  'But it's incredible!' she cried. 'Duelists are never prosecuted. Why, General Hamilton's own son, Philip, was killed by George Eaker three years ago, and no one dreamed of prosecuting Eaker.'

  'I know. The Colonel himself is amazed at the outcry against him. I confess I do not understand it, but there is no doubt of the seriousness of the matter.'

  'Where is he now?' She paused, swiftly considering. 'He must come to me, here,' she said decisively. 'He will be safe. I will write him at once, but it mustn't be trusted to the mails. We can send one of the servants to take the letter direct'. 'That won't be necessary,' said Joseph coldly. 'He is already on his way to you. A roundabout way, for he is off the coast of
Georgia. He dared not travel overland until the hue and cry dies down. Major Butler has offered him asylum on Saint Simon's Island. I have a letter to you from him which was dispatched from Philadelphia and sent in my care.'

  He rummaged in his pockets while she watched him in a fever of impatience. Aaron, persecuted and in danger, Aaron in flight——These things were incredible. She scarcely felt fear for him, so monstrous did it seem that he could find himself in any situation of which he was not the cool master. His note both reassured her and yet confirmed the facts as Joseph's bald statements had not seemed to.

  PHILADELPHIA, August 3rd, 1804

  You will have learned through Mr. Alston, of certain measures pursuing against me in New York. I absent myself from home, merely to give a little time for passions to subside, not from any apprehension of the final effects of proceedings in courts of law. They can, by no possibility, eventually affect my person. You will find the papers filled with all manner of nonsense and lies. Among other things, accounts of attempts to assassinate me. These, I assure you, are mere fables. Those who wish me dead prefer to keep at a very respectful distance. No such attempt has been made nor will be made. I walk and ride about here as usual.

  A. BURS

  She put the note in her bodice. 'As always, he makes little of his troubles,' she said softly. 'Oh, Joseph, you do think he's safe, don't you? He does not write thus only to reassure me?'

  'Oh, he's safe enough where he is in Georgia. They had no love for Hamilton down there.'

  'And he must come to us, at once. You must write, too, so that he will be assured of welcome.'

  'I suppose so,' said Joseph unenthusiastically. The visit of a debonair Vice-President had been one thing, but the harboring of a disgraced fugitive with a murder charge, however unwarranted, hanging over him was quite another: particularly in view of Joseph's own growing importance in the legislature. Moreover, he was tired and hungry and sick of the subject, which had been disturbing him for many days.

  'How can you speak so coldly?' she demanded with resentment. 'Were it one of your own family who was in trouble, you would stop at nothing to help him.'

  'My own family wouldn't get into a mess like this,' he snapped.

  Her eyes flashed. 'That's because they're a spineless, lily-livered lot without a thought in their heads except horse-racing and rice-growing.'

  His face blackened, his underlip shot out. 'Thank you, madame, for the compliments. Spineless and lily-livered they may be, as you so sweetly put it, but at least not one of them is eternally trying to squeeze money from me as does your worthy father. He's a first-class leech.'

  She gasped. Blind with anger they stared at each other.

  Joseph was sorry to have said so much. After all, the financial arrangements between himself and Aaron were no woman's concern. They had always had a tacit agreement to keep her in ignorance. He tried to make allowances for her natural upset at his news; it was in order to minimize the shock that he had come himself to tell her. But she was infuriating in her eternal concentration on her father and indifference to his own reactions. How pretty she looked, though, with her eyes sparkling instead of brooding and remote as he so often saw them.

  Hector walked in then, staggering under a loaded tray. The sight of approaching food mollified Joseph. He seated himself at the table and ladled a huge helping of shrimp and rice.

  'Let's not quarrel, Theo. Sit down and join me. I judge from the looks of the victuals that Dido is indeed a good cook,' he said, offering an olive branch.

  Theo was too angry and hurt to accept it. That he should dare to criticize her father! That he should dare to begrudge any financial help which Aaron might need, and needed, she knew, only because he was so foolishly generous at times! Joseph was rich: he could well afford to be generous too: but he wasn't. He was compounded, she thought passionately, of small niggling traits, like the rest of his family. Caution, convention, prudence, with no trace of imagination or vision or genuine sympathy.

  'I have already eaten,' she said angrily, 'and, if you will forgive me, I think I shall retire. I am tired and the news has been a shock.'

  He gulped a great tumbler of wine, wiped his mouth on his handkerchief. 'I'll come with you, Theo. I, too, am tired. We will go to bed immediately.'

  She turned to face him, and the inward shudder of repulsion seemed to diminish her body, so that she looked smaller, suddenly eclipsed.

  'Eleanore will make the bed for you in there'—she indicated one of the small bedchambers. 'The boy is sometimes restless in his sleep. You will rest better, and I—I have a headache.'

  'By God!' He banged his hand on the table so that the dishes rattled. 'I have not seen you for weeks, and this is the way you receive me! It is always the same story, is it not? Always a headache, or you are tired, or the boy may be disturbed. I will not stand for it, I tell you!'

  Even as he shouted at her, he knew that his anger and bluster were futile. In a way he admired her frigidity toward him. It was a desirable feminine trait—all pure women should feel that way—and he never approached her without a feeling of guilt. She had nearly died in childbirth. But it was damnably hard.

  'I'm sorry, Joseph,' she whispered, with one of the quick voltes-face of manner which she inherited from her father. Now her voice was gentle, and she wistfully smiled at him. 'I know I'm not a very satisfactory wife. You should have married Anna Pinckney or one of the Middleton girls. They are bred to the plantations and would have managed far better than I. They could have given you a dozen—children'. She added, with a touch of malice, 'Their fathers, I'm sure, would never have proved troublesome to you.'

  It was true, he thought, with a sensation of shock; perhaps he should have married one of the Middleton girls. But he hadn't wanted to, and, in spite of everything, he did not wish he had.

  He put his arms around her almost timidly. 'I don't want anybody but you, Theodosia, you and little Burr'—for he could never bring himself to use Aaron's nickname of Gampy. 'I—I love you,' he said, stumbling over the word which he could use on paper, but which, when spoken, made him feel like a fool.

  Her heart contracted. She touched his coarse crisp hair. He kissed her eagerly.

  'Theodosia, I will write your father. He is always more than welcome to any home of mine.'

  'Thank you, dear,' she said. Sometimes he was so like the sheep dog which Vanderlyn had long ago said he resembled: a dog that has snapped and snarled and is now trying once more to ingratiate himself.

  'Good night,' she whispered.

  Her rose perfume crept to him and stayed with him after she had gone into her room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IT WAS October before Aaron finally arrived. An early sharp frost had made possible a return to the Oaks before his coming. Frost cut the fever, though no one was entirely agreed as to the reason. Either it 'froze the poisonous miasma which exuded from the swamplands,' or it 'produced a change of electrical fluid in the air and neutralized the excess acidity which was conducive to disease.'

  At any rate, this October frost had rendered the plantations safe once more. The river road up the Neck swarmed with homecoming planters in coaches, while the house servants who had accompanied them on the summer exile were packed, along with the movable household goods, into mule-drawn spring wagons.

  Colonel William and his family returned to Clifton. John Ashe and Sally, the family augmented now by the baby, Wil liam, reopened Hagley. William Algernon took possession of Rose Hill, the plantation next but one to Clifton. His father had just given it to him in anticipation of his marriage to a charming widow who was also a cousin. Polly Young, née Allston, from the double '1' branch, was a buxom matron of twenty-eight, five years older than her prospective husband and encumbered, moreover, with a little girl, Eliza. But the staid William Algernon saw no disadvantage in that, particularly as Mrs. Young was possessed of a considerable fortune. He was all eagerness to establish himself and waited impatiently for P
olly's second year of widowhood to end, that they might marry without offending convention.

  Theodosia, drawn perforce into the whirl of family reunions, watched the delighted fuss being made over Mrs. Young's imminent entrance into the family and illogically was hurt. It was 'Polly dear' this and 'Darling Polly, what do you think of that?' No gathering was complete unless Polly were there. And they petted and made much of little Eliza, who was not even direct kin, paying her far more attention than they did Gampy.

  Theo was fair enough, however, to realize that she had never been able to muster much appreciation for the Alstons. Still, human nature being what it is, it is one thing to withdraw from a group because you find it unattractive and quite another to have it withdraw from you. Particularly now, when Aaron needed all the friends and backing that could be had. Since Joseph's visit to the island, she had been startled out of her indifference to newspaper reading and had sent Hector on constant trips to Georgetown after the latest news. Though most of it was local, there was occasional mention of Aaron, and she had been appalled at the venom displayed. Decidedly he needed friends.

  For some time the maddening difficulties in communication had made his exact arrival uncertain; their letters crossed, or hers arrived after he had left. But she at last heard definitely that he was in Savannah and would board the first packet for Georgetown. He would be at the Oaks in five days, allowing for the ship's inevitable stop-over in Charleston.

  She had acquiesced in Joseph's wish that her father's projected visit should not be mentioned to the family. The Oaks, an hour's ride from the other Alston plantations, would provide quiet asylum until Joseph could see how the land lay. His family never mentioned Aaron to Theo, but they did not disguise from Joseph their horror at the murder charge. If the papers said that the duel had been wickedly unfair, that Colonel Burr had most shamefully conspired to murder his enemy in cold blood, why, it was doubtless true. There was, at any rate, something fishy about the matter, and they preferred to ignore for the present the unfortunate relationship with which Joseph had saddled them.