Celia Garth: A Novel

by Gwen Bristow

  At last, exhausted, in spite of the noise she would fall asleep on her mattress. She never knew how long she slept but it was never long enough. A shell would wake her; she and Marietta would sit up, their nostrils full of smoke, sure that this time the shell had fallen on this property, and they would run up the cellar stairs to look.

  Sometimes they would be right—there was a new hole in the garden, or a fireball had struck and they had to beat out the fire. They would do what had to be done, and scurry back to the cellar. Like rats, thought Celia.

  In the respites when the firing was mostly on the Neck, she went to the attic and looked through the spyglass. She could see ships coming in with fresh troops and supplies for Sir Henry Clinton. Darren told her these ships came from the Bahama Islands, or from Florida, where the British had a large force at St. Augustine. “Clinton must have lots more men than we have!” Celia exclaimed.

  Darren said, “Oh yes, that’s no secret.”

  But sometimes what she saw through the spyglass cheered her. She was not only cheered, she was amazed, to see how little damage had been done. In spite of weeks of bombardment and thousands of shells, Charleston was still almost intact—saved by the trees, and the gardens, and the rain.

  Charleston was not, as the king’s men had promised, being pounded into a pile of trash. But another enemy was here, more menacing than Clinton and Cornwallis and all their guns. Hunger.

  A few days after she had news of Tarleton—demoralized with fear, she did not know just how long—Celia was called again to greet soldiers at the front door.

  This time their leader was not as polite as Lieutenant Boyce had been. He did not introduce himself and he did not say “please” or “thank you.” He gave her orders and told her to hurry up. The men went through the storeroom like wind. They took the cornmeal, the molasses, the grits, the coffee; they left her nothing but one barrel part-filled with rice.

  Some days later more soldiers called. This group did not stay in the storeroom. They searched the house from cellar to attic. They made her unlock every door and they poked into every corner, lest she had hidden something to eat. They dumped the bureau drawers, emptied the linen shelves, pushed the books off the bookshelves to the floor. Marietta wept at the mess they made. They carried off a lot of Herbert’s liquor, but they found no food because there was none to find.

  After this, Celia and Marietta sparingly ate rice. When they could come up to the kitchen they would boil a pot and bring it down to the cellar with plates and spoons. They ate it whenever they were hungry enough to get it down. Cold and unsalted, it was a clammy diet.

  When she dared go out Celia searched the garden. The shells had torn up half the plants and the rest were almost lost in weeds, but creeping about on hands and knees she did here and there find carrots or a few radishes and onions, a parsley plant half blackened by a fireball, or a vine still bearing beans. She gathered whatever she could. The beans Marietta cooked with the rice, the others they gobbled raw, tops and all.

  Celia dreamed about food—ham and hot buttered biscuits, frizzling fried chicken, the honey-rich creaminess of sweet potato pone. When she looked out of the attic windows she was less aware of the men-of-war than of all the fish in those waters. She thought of sea bass and shad roe, flounder stuffed with shrimp, fried oysters and hush-puppies. When she went down to eat scanty cold rice, she found that she was crying and her tears were dripping into the plate, and even her tears were not salty any more.

  As often as they could—which was not often—Godfrey or Darren or Miles would come in to ask how she was. What little they could tell her was scary. So many reinforcements had come to Sir Henry Clinton that he had sent Cornwallis up the country with three thousand men to raid the plantations for food supplies. Had they raided Bellwood or Sea Garden? There was no way of knowing.

  Godfrey told her this across the back fence. His face, unshaven, had a drawn look, and his eyes were dull. In spite of his gold doubloons Godfrey was not getting any more to eat than she was.

  Celia walked back across her own yard. As she neared the kitchen-house she stopped short, looking down at the mangled remains of a dog. A spaniel with a glossy brown coat, he had run in here as he tried to get away from the guns. He had been a fine little fellow, well cared for, somebody’s pet. Celia thought of Rosco and wondered if the owner of this dog had been as fond of him as Jimmy was of Rosco.

  Half sick, she brought a spade and buried the poor little body in the garden. She wondered if dogs went to heaven, and rather thought they did; certainly they deserved it more than some people. And Jimmy would hardly be happy in heaven without Rosco—she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, wondering if Jimmy was still alive.

  She never remembered when she realized that the city could not hold out. It was just that one day she knew, and it seemed that she had known it for a long time.

  They were starving. The British had captured Fort Moultrie; the troops on the Neck were moving closer to town; and inside the town the patriots were being driven to desperate risks. Celia did not know how desperate until the afternoon Miles and Darren came by, hot and dusty and streaked with sweat, asking for water.

  They had almost nothing to say. They drank greedily, and hurried on.

  Later she learned that they had hurried on because they had volunteered for a dangerous job that night. They were part of a detail who moved ten thousand pounds of gunpowder out of the magazine on Cumberland Street, because the king’s troops had moved so close that they might any day hit this magazine and blow up the whole neighborhood. Working in the dark while shells crashed around them, Miles and Darren and their companions trundled the powder along Cumberland Street to State Street, and down State Street to the Exchange, where they stored it in an underground vault out of reach of the guns. Celia learned about the moving of the powder because that night Darren and Miles were both wounded.

  Darren got only a minor nip in the leg. But as they went down State Street a shell exploded near by and a splinter struck Miles’ right shoulder. When the powder was safely stored Godfrey had both Miles and Darren brought to his house, where the surgeon said Darren would be walking before long and had nothing to worry about. But Miles was not so lucky. His wound festered and sent him into a fever, and the next day he was out of his head. Godfrey sent one of the maids to ask Celia if she would help take care of him.

  While Celia sat by his bed giving him sips of wine-and-water, Miles babbled deliriously about storing the gunpowder under the Exchange. Darren, who sat in the same room, his bad leg propped on a chair and a writing-board on his good knee so he could go on with his records for the quartermaster, heard what Miles was saying. He beckoned to Celia, and told her not to repeat it.

  “If the Tories don’t know where we put the powder,” said Darren, “there’s no sense in telling them.”

  “I won’t say anything,” she answered.

  Darren shrugged. “Though as a matter of fact,” he said, “there must be dozens of people who know. Anybody who happened to look out of a window on State Street last night could have gotten a pretty good idea of what we were doing. It was dark, but not that dark.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Celia repeated.

  She spoke dully. She felt dull. She was so tired—tired of fear, of worry, of broken sleep, and the sheer breaking effect of not having enough to eat. She hoped it would not last much longer.

  It did not last much longer. Clinton sent another demand for surrender. He knew they were starving—before he offered his terms, his men fired some shells that did not explode; the shells proved to be stuffed with rice, a taunting reminder.

  There came a day and a night and a day of silence, then another night of thundering fire. Then the guns were quiet again while the couriers went back and forth.

  Sitting on the back steps, Celia tried to remember how long all this had been going on. The weather had the usual warmth of late spring. She saw that the buds were opening on the magnolias, and the dogwood trees were in fu
ll bloom. It must be, she thought, about the middle of May.

  So the siege had lasted two months. It seemed like years.

  There was nothing to do but wait. When night came Celia and Marietta went to the cellar and tried to sleep. It was not easy, for after weeks of wild racket the silence made them nervous. Even when they fell asleep they kept waking up, startled by the lack of noise.

  But at last sheer exhaustion gave them rest. When they woke up it was mid-morning. The guns were quiet. The city was waiting. It seemed to Celia that the very air ached with waiting.

  To occupy the time she heated a pot of water at the cook-fire and washed some clothes. Every garment she owned was soiled, but when she had hung out a few stockings and chemises she was so tired she gave up.

  Strange to remember the energy she used to have. She went into Vivian’s boudoir and looked at herself in the mirror. She had grown so thin that she could gather her dress into folds at the waistline. Her skin had a greenish cast, like Jimmy’s when he had lost so much blood; her hair, once such a rich bright gold, was drab as old hay. “I look just the way I feel,” she said, and turned as she heard Marietta at the door.

  Marietta too showed the ugliness of hunger. Her golden-brown skin had a moldy look, and her eyes, which used to be bright as black jewels, were lusterless. She said she would warm over some rice if Celia felt like eating it. Celia shook her head. She knew she needed food, but she was sick of unsalted rice.

  She dragged herself up the stairs to the attic. With the spyglass she looked around at Charleston. What a mess.

  Less than a hundred buildings had been destroyed and not many others showed serious damage, but the place certainly needed a good sweeping up. Charleston had always been a well-kept town: the steps scrubbed, the brick sidewalks brushed, the litter carted off. Now the streets were choked with rubbish—bricks, branches of trees, pieces of woodwork knocked off by the shells, and all sorts of garbage, for since people had had no way to dispose of trash they had simply thrown it out. The gardens had gone wild. Weeds gobbled the flowerbeds, and grass was springing in untidy clumps where it was not wanted.

  Lowering the spyglass Celia sat down on a goods-box by the window. The redcoats had taken Charleston, and she found that she did not feel much of anything. She was too tired. Later, she supposed, it would all come to her—the bravery and tragedy of it, the steeple dark as though in mourning for the men who had died in this lost fight for liberty. But right now, though she knew it with her mind, she did not feel it with her heart. All that seemed really important was that now she could find out what had happened to Jimmy, and at Bellwood they would have plenty to eat.

  That afternoon Miles sent to ask if she would come to see him. She found him sitting up in bed, his right arm in a sling. Miles said he felt pretty well, except that it was a nuisance to be crippled. A man didn’t know how much he needed his right arm until he couldn’t use it.

  He told her the American and British commanders had agreed on terms of surrender. The rebel soldiers would march out of the city tomorrow and give up their arms, the Continentals first and then the militia. The terms were fair. The Continentals would be held prisoners until they were exchanged, each American for a British prisoner of the same rank. This meant Tom Lacy and Paul de Courcey, and technically it also meant Luke—though Miles added with a chuckle that if Luke were free now they would probably have a hard time catching him.

  But the militia—which included himself and Jimmy, Darren and Godfrey, Lewis Penfield and young Bobby—would be enrolled, then allowed to go home and earn their living at any peaceful occupation. As long as they did not fight the king again they would be regarded as prisoners on parole, and their property would be let alone.

  These terms, signed by Henry Clinton and the British Admiral Arbuthnot, were being printed and would be posted around town tomorrow morning. “Now,” said Miles, “I want to talk about you.”

  He said he wanted her out of Charleston as fast as possible. The king’s troops would march in when the rebels marched out, and a town newly taken by a siege-crazy army was no place for an attractive young woman. Miles was not strong enough to manage either a boat or a horse, but Godfrey intended going to Sea Garden as soon as they would let him. Miles wanted Celia to go along.

  As for Miles, as soon as he was able to move he would go to Bellwood to see how his family had fared. “Then,” said Miles, “if Jimmy still isn’t strong enough to come for you himself, I will.”

  He spoke as if he knew Jimmy was alive and getting well. Maybe he could not bear to speak any other way. Thank heaven, thought Celia, their suspense had not much longer to last. She said, “All right, I’ll go to Sea Garden with Godfrey,” and after a moment’s pause she exclaimed, “I’m glad it’s over.”

  His eyes meeting hers, Miles smiled grimly. “Now that I can be frank,” he said—“so am I.”

  At her start of surprise he shrugged his good shoulder.

  “Luke and Jimmy and I had a lot of arguments,” he went on. “They believed in independence. I didn’t. I stayed home till the redcoats attacked Charleston. I’m no Tory and I’ll not shoot my own people. But now, if I can go home and live as I did before, I’ll be glad of it.”

  Looking at the lump of bandage on his shoulder, Celia could not decide if Miles was brave or foolish. It was bad enough to get hurt fighting for a cause you believed in, like Jimmy. But to suffer for a cause you did not even understand—that was something else she would have to figure out later. All she really knew now was that the siege was over and she was glad of it.

  CHAPTER 17

  AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THE next morning the American army began to march out of town and stack their guns by the hornwork wall. Celia watched from the roof with her spyglass.

  From roofs and attics of other houses she saw other women, with girls of all ages and here and there a small boy. There was not a male human being left at home except small boys. Clinton had announced that the words “American army” meant every male in Charleston above early childhood. Earlier this morning Celia had watched while old Simon Dale, too lame to walk across a room without his stick, was wheeled up Meeting Street in an invalid chair pushed by his twelve-year-old grandson Harry. After them came a blind man, trusting their eyes to help guide him. They were all three on their way to be listed as captured soldiers.

  With cool wisdom, Godfrey had told her the reason for this decree. It was no credit to Clinton that with three times as many men and the whole countryside to draw upon for food, he had taken so long to beat the hungry little garrison of Charleston. He was ashamed to send home so small a list of prisoners as he would have had if he had recorded only the names of the men who had actually borne arms. So he was enrolling the old, sick, blind, crippled, the boys, the Tories, even his own paid spies, as his captives. Their names and addresses would be real, and his clerks were not adding anything else about them.

  Sir Henry Clinton, continued Godfrey, was hoping to get a peerage out of this war. Clinton was the cousin of an earl. All his life he had stood in the shadow of rank and wealth, just close enough to be snubbed as a poor relation. More than anything else on earth Clinton wanted to hear himself called “my lord,” and have the prestige and income that went with a title. If he could bring home enough glory from America, surely George the Third would reward him with his heart’s desire.

  After watching a while, Celia went indoors and helped Marietta close the blinds and draw the shades. Miles had told them to lock up the house before the king’s men marched in, and keep it dark.

  Since she had to live like a mushroom, during the next few days Celia could not observe much. She learned that the men of the king’s army were quartered in the American barracks, while the principal officers had moved into the finest residences in town, requiring the owners to receive them as guests. Fortunately Vivian’s house was not splendid enough to attract attention.

  The militiamen from the country were going home as fast as they could. Some of them were depress
ed, others were glad it was over and said it never should have started. Whatever their feelings, they had given their word not to fight the king any more and now they wanted to get back to their families, to their farms and sawmills and blacksmith shops. They went on any sort of raft that could be pushed up a river, on any mule not too decrepit to be ridden, and many a man simply stowed his parole paper inside his shirt (if he still had a shirt) and started to walk home.

  Godfrey put Darren in charge of his affairs and made ready for his trip out of town. He wanted to see Vivian at Sea Garden and find out what had happened to Luke, then go on to the home of Ida’s parents and bring her back to Charleston.

  Besides Celia and Marietta, Godfrey planned to take Lewis and Bobby Penfield with him to Sea Garden, and he offered to take Miles as well. But Miles declined. His heart was at Bellwood. Now strong enough to stand and take a few shaky steps, Miles smiled at Celia and promised her she would not have long to wait.

  For a day or two it looked as if they might not get away. The British had taken possession of all the shipping in the harbor, including the private boats by which the plantation owners had expected to go home. But by dint of influence, sweet-talk, and just plain bribery, Godfrey managed to get the use of a schooner. It was not a comfortable ship nor even entirely seaworthy, but it did get them to Sea Garden.

  To their great relief they found that Sea Garden had not been visited by any of the foraging troops led by the Earl of Cornwallis. Off the main routes of travel and enclosed by miles of forest, Sea Garden had been what Vivian had meant it to be, a place of refuge. But the folk there—Herbert and Vivian, Madge and her two younger children, and the servants—had lived in a torture of suspense. When Godfrey rang the landing bell and Celia watched the reunions, she stood aside in wistful envy.

  “That’s how it would be for me,” she said to herself, “if this were Bellwood. Oh, I want to go home.” She had never seen Bellwood, but whenever she thought of it, she thought of it this way. Home.