Windsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  ‘Too much,’ sighed Carolina. ‘I would like to see her gain some of it back. But being so slender does make her look very striking, doesn't it?’

  ‘I suppose,’ agreed Ned without enthusiasm, as the dance ended.

  Before Carolina could suitably chastise Ned for his lack of interest in her sister, Dick Smithfield had almost sprinted across the room to claim her for the next dance, and she made him talk the whole time about his young wife to punish him for leaving her at home.

  And then the Willis boys, and Mortimer Wade, and what seemed like countless others were clamouring to dance with her. Breathless, Carolina felt she might never have been gone at all as one by one they whirled her past the tall pier glasses whose mirrors reflected the candlelight, and made bright eyes brighter, and gleamed off satin, and gilded fair complexions to delicate gold.

  The evening whirled by with laughter sparkling like the wine. Carolina, dancing with this one and that one - and always again with Rye - hardly knew where the time had gone. He smiled down at her happy face as he spun her about the floor.

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes! But I think I’m starving. Shall I go and collect Virginia and whoever she’s with? Then the four of us can attack some of that food that’s piled up like a castle in the dining room!’

  He laughed. ‘Yes. I’ll have a word with Sandy while you’re gone.’

  Much to her chagrin, Carolina found Virginia in the drawing room, which was now mainly deserted as the guests were drawn towards the large dining room. She was crouched on a chair, mouselike and silent, apparently listening to the conversation of two elderly gentlemen, one of whom was resting his arm near the central finial of the mantel. Her gaze was fixed on that finial - an urn, its bowl carved in bas-relief. Both men were ranting about the price of tobacco - ‘which will break us all, mark my words!’ - and Virginia, looking wan despite her finery, seemed to be hanging on to their words.

  Carolina approached them, vexed to find her sister without an escort. She pulled Virginia away and neither of the old gentlemen noticed her going, so heated was their discussion. ‘What happened, Virgie, after I got swept away from you?’ Carolina demanded.

  ‘I danced with Rye. And with Ned Shackleford. And Dick Smithfield.’

  So Ned had taken the bait! ‘Ned and Dick,’ Carolina murmured. ‘Did they show interest?’

  ‘Only in you,’ Virginia said truthfully. ‘Ned wanted to know if I couldn’t persuade you to stay in the Tidewater, and Dick wanted to know what you had against him that you kept badgering him about his wife all the while you were dancing. He sounded quite aggrieved.’

  At the moment Carolina felt aggrieved. It hurt her to see Virginia so gorgeously got up yet looking so downcast.

  ‘Virgie,’ she said vigorously, ‘I’ve made a mistake. I had forgotten that everybody here knows us and has long ago formed an opinion about us. Just changing a hairdo or a gown won’t change their attitude. They’ll keep on thinking of us the way we were, not the way we are!'

  Virginia gave her an unhappy look. ‘They’ve certainly made up their minds about me!' she murmured.

  ‘What we need,’ insisted Carolina, ‘is to bring you out in Essex. There you’ll be a dashing wench from the Colonies and everything will change, you’ll see!’

  ‘I doubt I’ll ever see Essex.’ Virginia sighed. She seemed so pessimistic that Carolina was alarmed.

  ‘Nonsense.’ Reassuringly Carolina linked arms with her sister. ‘Rye is waiting for us. We’re going to attack all that food out there!’

  At the mention of food Virginia grimaced, but when they reached the dining room, under Carolina’s urging, she submitted to having food piled upon her plate. Lewis Burwell was known for setting a good table and Fairfield was famous for its hospitality - but tonight even Fairfield was outdoing itself. The long walnut table fairly groaned with platters of big plump oysters from the Chesapeake, dainty golden omelettes covered in rich sauces, steaming pink shrimps and scallops and crabs, fricassees and sallades, rock-hard hams cut into parchment-thin slices, tiny succulent sausages still sizzling, little buttery pancakes, Sally Lunn and tender yellow spoonbread, rich Damson plum tarts, peaches spiced in brandy, tangy persimmon pudding - indeed, such a variety of sweetmeats and nuts and pastries that one could not keep count.

  ‘Virgie,’ said Carolina sternly, setting her white teeth into a thin slice of dark fruitcake. ‘Clean your plate! Remember what Mother used to say - there are countless children starving in Boston who would love every bite!’

  Virginia restrained herself from retorting, ‘They are welcome to my portion!’ and managed a few more nibbles. She was only gradually getting used to eating more normal portions and really did feel ‘stuffed’ from very little food.

  At that point the young Pages from Shelly turned up and Virginia was able to dispose of her plate while Carolina told Rye that Shelly, the Pages’ dormered frame house where she had enjoyed so many parties, was actually named for the quantities of shells that had been found all about. It had been a feasting place for the Indians, she told him. They had piled their shells there.

  Rye smiled and quickly charmed the young Pages by taking an interest in their plantation - and showing surprising knowledge of an English gentleman. But his gaze often strayed to Carolina. She read in it a longing to get her alone, and she felt a breathless catch in her throat. Now that he had been successful in bribing one of Fairfield’s servants to provide them with a private cubbyhole, she found herself looking forward - for the first time ever - to the last dance of the ball and a tryst in the servants’ quarters! It would be a ‘first’ for her!

  The roguish Carnaby boys joined them, making Virginia blush with their sallies, the conversation became general, and Carolina drifted off with her group to the drawing room where the two elderly gentlemen, empty plates now in hand, were still snarling over taxation and the price of tobacco, as if eating their supper had not even broken their stride. Ned Shackleford came up to hover near Carolina, and Dick Smithfield brought the showy Ashby girl from Accomack as if to flaunt her before Carolina. People drifted in and out, and suddenly Carolina heard someone say, ‘I just noticed that the Bramways aren’t here tonight.’

  And someone else laughed and said, ‘I’m not surprised. I’m told that when Lewis Burwell delivered the invitation to Bramble Folly, he told Amanda Bramway he hoped she and Duncan could arrange to come in Sandy Randolph’s barge since he’d heard theirs had been unfortunately sunk and he’d just invited everyone from Tower Oaks!’

  There was a ripple of laughter and Carolina was reminded that Lewis Burwell and Sandy Randolph were close friends.

  She turned to see if Rye had heard that but he was gone from her side, and a quick glance around the room showed that he was not in evidence. The spot where he had been standing gave a good view of the moonlit river just below the landing. She wondered suddenly if a longboat from the Sea Wolf - she could not get used to the ship being called the Sea Waif - could have glided up to Fairfield’s pier, and if Rye had recognized it in the moonlight and gone down to speak to the occupants. She was well aware that sometimes in the dark a longboat had silently pulled up to the landing at Level Green. Once or twice she had looked out of one of the windows late at night or just before dawn and seen Rye slip from the house and go striding down the lawn to the river, there to have a brief hurried conference with the boatmen before returning. The longboat had vanished into the shadows as if by magic. No one had ever commented on it - or even seen the longboat arrive, she supposed. Rye himself had never mentioned it, and she had been reluctant to bring up the subject - it seemed like spying on him.

  ‘I must say I’m impressed by your English lover.’ An amused voice at her elbow interrupted her thoughts -and Carolina turned to find Sally Montrose at her side.

  ‘Say “betrothed”,’ Carolina chided. ‘It sounds better!’

  Sally laughed. ‘I prefer “lover” - and it’s probably more accurate! Oh, do
come away from that fire, Carolina it’s stifling in here.’ She was fanning herself vigorously with an ivory fan as she spoke, and she drew Carolina away from the group and out into the hall. ‘And I can tell you, your “betrothed” has a stone heart! Not even a brisk walk through the boxwoods this afternoon warmed him up! By the way, where is Rye?’ She looked about her.

  Carolina stopped dead and frowned at her friend. So that was what Sally had been up to this afternoon and why Rye had seemed to be avoiding her! ‘I don’t know where Rye is,’ she said. ‘But Sally, you have too many patches of court plaster on your face. People will think you’re hiding blemishes!’

  Sally shrugged. ‘Let them think what they will. Black patches are fashionable! And the very next ball I go to, I'm going to powder my hair. That will make me stand out in the crowd - and I hear it’s the latest thing in Paris.’

  In Paris maybe, but not along the James. Looking about her tonight, Carolina had seen wigs aplenty - full bottomed wigs, campaign wigs, high-piled ladies’ wigs - but they were all natural colours. It had come to her that maybe Virginia had been right. It would have been a mistake to be the only women present with powdered hair.

  Sally, annoyed at having her black patches criticized, struck back. ‘Well, I may not have made much impression on Rye,’ she drawled with a sideways look at Carolina.

  ‘But did you see him dancing with that Ashby girl from Accomack?’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Carolina, who had indeed noticed Rye dancing by with the dazzling brunette beauty. ‘I thought she looked very nice. And she’s certainly a better dancer than she was when I left,’ she found herself adding.

  ‘Nice?’ said Sally. ‘Indeed Glynis Ashby does look nice! She looks wonderful, more’s the pity, and she’s considered the best dancer in the Tidewater!’

  No doubt Rye had discovered that! Carolina felt a pricking of jealousy.

  ‘I wonder where she is - Glynis Ashby, I mean.’ Sally’s drawl bore a trace of malice. ‘She seems to have disappeared too . . .’

  ‘Oh, come now!’ said Carolina, nettled. ‘You surely aren’t implying that Rye and Glynis Ashby have gone off somewhere together?’

  ‘Oh, of course not, Carolina!’ Sally’s denial was a shade too hasty. ‘I just’ - she turned about to scan the dancers as they reached the ballroom - ‘wondered where they’d both got to.’

  Carolina sighed. Sally was upset; Sally wanted everybody else to be upset too. So much for friendship!

  Both girls were promptly claimed by eager dancing partners, and Glynis Ashby turned up dancing with Ned Shackleford, but that did not keep Carolina from asking in her first breath ‘Where were you?’ when Rye appeared to claim her for a dance.

  ‘Outside,’ he said briskly.

  ‘The longboat . . ?’

  ‘Yes.’ His face was grave. ‘Carolina, come outside with me. Where we can talk without being overheard.’

  She was almost afraid then of what he was going to tell her.

  She was silent as he drew her fur-trimmed velvet cloak over her shoulders, ‘I won’t need a hat,’ she told him. ‘Not for a short stroll. And I won’t bother with my mittens either.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he said restlessly, and she noted with some alarm that he was wearing his cloak.

  It was dark on the lawn when they cleared the front door for the moon had dipped behind a patch of clouds and the trees were blurred shapes, the river only a silver glimmer, half seen. Rye took her arm to steady her, but she was sure-footed in her dancing slippers.

  ‘Carolina, I’ve just had news. One of my men was drinking tonight in a Yorktown tavern. He talked too much. No one is sure how much he said but - ’ He frowned.

  ‘You want me to leave with you?’ she asked breathlessly, divining what he was going to ask her.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want you to understand.’

  She stared at him fearfully. ‘Understand what?’

  ‘That I must leave here. Now. Tonight.’

  A terrible stillness seemed to steal over Carolina. ‘But you aren’t sure,’ she protested. ‘You don’t know what he said!’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Rye’s tall figure seemed to hover over her, dark against the night sky and the old trees as he spoke. ‘But whatever he said alarmed my crew. Carolina,’ he told her bluntly, ‘I can’t wait around here forever, somebody will recognize me. There’s a price on my head, remember?’

  ‘But that’s in Spain!’ she protested unhappily.

  ‘And that price is high enough that there are those who would deliver me to Spain for such a rich reward,’ he pointed out in a grim voice.

  She subsided, realizing the truth of what he had just said. ‘What will you do, Rye? Go to Barbados and see the governor there?’

  ‘No, I’ll sail to Bermuda and seek my pardon. The governor there is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Oh, Rye, why couldn’t you wait just a little longer? You’re safe here.’

  His voice held an edge of bitterness. ‘No buccaneer is ever really “safe”. There are always those who will try him.’ He sighed. ‘My men are restless. They feel like targets, sitting here anchored in the York! If I don’t leave soon, they’ll up anchor one day and sail without me. And need I remind you that I’ve a fortune stowed aboard that ship?’

  ‘I thought you’d already sent most of your gold to London,’ she said falteringly. ‘To your London agent.’

  ‘Not all,’ he said grimly.

  ‘All right.’ She sighed, capitulating. ‘But not tonight - I can’t leave tonight. I’ll go with you tomorrow if you like.’

  ‘Carolina,’ he said gently, taking her face in his hands and looking down deep into her eyes. ‘You aren’t going. I’ve seen what a wonderful time you’re having here among all your old friends. Can’t you see it would excite attention here if the bride and groom suddenly sailed away together before the nuptials?’

  ‘But I don’t want you to leave me here!’ she protested.

  He sighed. ‘You came here to please your mother, and God knows she’s planning the wedding of the century! Do you want to run away now and cause a scandal and break her heart?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Carolina realized that she was trapped. And naturally Rye was restless - for her mother had taken to leaving her bedchamber door open and reading by candlelight, making it very hard for Carolina to slip down the hall to Rye’s room. She had protested to her mother on the two occasions that she had tried to slip by and been caught, that she had seen her mother’s light and had thought to close her door quietly against the cold draughts of the hallway, but her mother had given her a cynical look and pointed out that she was wearing a thick woollen wrapper and ‘hardly felt the cold’. Carolina had feIt her cheeks redden beneath that knowing glance. It had been on the tip of her tongue then to say, ‘Mother, we’re married!’ but she had not. After all, she had gone this far on a half-truth; she could go on a little longer, especially since knowing the truth could only make her mother unhappy. ‘I suppose you must go,’ she agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Yes. I must.’ The determination in his tone allowed no room for compromise. Silently he bent to kiss her and she clung to him. Her arms wound around his neck, willing him to return to her.

  And then he was gone, melting into the shadows beneath the trees. Carolina stood and watched the shadowy shape of the longboat pull away, and then there was only the empty stretch of silver river shining in the moonlight.

  How long she stood there she did not know, but there were tears on her cheeks, and the cold breeze that had come up made those tears feel like rivulets of ice sliding down her face.

  ‘Carolina, come away,’ said a sympathetic voice behind her, and she turned to see a blurry vision of Sandy Randolph, elegant in his amethyst brocade coat with its stiff skirt and wide cuffs.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said, and there was grief in her voice, Rye is gone.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘He told me he was going. I came out to talk to you so we would all tell the same story
. He suggested we use the excuse that he had received word of a friend’s death and was needed to help settle the estate - and that, rather than disrupt the party, he had departed quietly, leaving you to make his apologies to his host.’

  ‘A friend where?’

  ‘Barbados.’

  ‘But he’s going to Bermuda!’ she protested. ‘To seek his pardon.’

  ‘Best to say he went to Barbados,’ Sandy advised. ‘Then if there’s any problem, the authorities won’t be looking for him in the right place.’

  ‘But why should they be looking for him?’ she cried. ‘They didn’t know he was here!’ She studied Sandy fearfully for there had been an undertone of warning in what he had just said, an implied threat to Rye. As if Sandy knew something she didn’t. Sandy kept silent and she sighed. ‘All right. I’ll say he went to Barbados.’

  ‘If you’re worried about what your mother will say, I’ll tell her,’ he offered.

  Carolina nodded. That would be best. Her mother was bound to be upset and Sandy had a way with Letitia.

  She glanced back towards the big bulk of Fairfield with its gaily candlelit windows spilling light upon the lawn. Even from here she could hear the tinkle of the music drifting out towards the trees and the river. It sounded so festive when she felt so sad ... for who knew when her lover would come back to her?

  She reached down to pick up her skirts for the walk back to the house. Her grey satin dancing slippers, she thought in a detached way, would be ruined by the damp grass.

  ‘His men would have been growing restless,’ said Sandy, beside her.

  ‘Yes. He said so.’ Mechanically.

  ‘And he couldn’t risk the uncertainty of the governor’s return.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ As they neared the house the light from one of the windows revealed Sandy’s face. He was studying her keenly, with sympathy in his eyes. And suddenly she guessed what he was thinking: He may never come back.

  ‘Carolina - suppose he goes back to buccaneering?’

  ‘He won’t!’ she cried, stung.

  Sandy’s gaze grew meditative. ‘Men who live by the sword usually go back to it.’